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     ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN MICROPENDIUM
     P.O. Box 1343  Round Rock TX 78680
     Phone [phone]
     Internet [e-mail]

     MICROREVIEWS for October 1994
     by Charles Good

         In the case of the two products reviewed this month I am deviating
     from my usual practice of offering to directly send my readers public
     domain or sharware software I review.  The following two collections
     of public domain and sharware software were compiled by and are sold
     by the M.U.N.C.H. user group as a fund raiser project.  As librarian
     of the enormous Lima User Group software library I am familiar with
     lots of the public domain 99/4A software that has been around for many
     years.  Although much of what I describe below is older software, some
     dating from 1982, most of it is new to me, meaning I havn't seen it
     before.  This means that the software is probably NOT in your personal
     or user group library, and old software that hasn't been seen before
     is usually just as interesting to a user as new software.  Send your
     money for what I describe here to M.U.N.C.H. c/o James Cox, 905
     Edgebrook Dr., Boylston MA 01505.  If you want to talk to me or send
     me software to review my evening phone is 419-667-3131, my internet
     email address is [e-mail] and my post office address
     is P.O. Box 647 Venedocia OH.
     -------------------------
     THE TI EDUCATIONAL WORLD OF TONY FALCO

          Tony Falco is a high school teacher who has been with the TI
     community for a long time.  He had a couple of his extended basic
     programs published in 99er Magazine way back when and still sometimes
     attends meetings of M.U.N.C.H. user group, although these days he
     writes software for other computers in addition to the 99/4A.  For the
     benefit of his students and his children he has written lots of XB
     software, mostly of an educational nature.   His programs are full of
     color graphics  sprites  speech  and music, making full use of all the
     TI's bells and whistles.   The technical quality and interesting
     design of his XB programs are comparable to what Jim Peterson used to
     produce.  I am amazed that we TIers aren't more familiar with this
     talented individual.

            M.U.N.C.H.'s entire Tony Falco collection consists of 5 SSSD
     disks and 94 files.  They are asking $8.95 plus $3 postage for the
     complete set.  Topics include basic math, algebra, foreign language
     drill, writing music, spelling, health, basic computer, geography,
     drawing, and just for fun games.  Each disk comes with an XB LOAD that
     allows you to run everything on the disk from a menu.  It would take
     too much space to individually describe all the programs, so I will
     highlight some that I find particularly interesting.

            CRAYON-BOX.  This is a drawing program that doesn't require
     joysticks.  By moving the cursor with keyboard keys you leave behind
     blocks of color 8*8 pixels.  These color blocks can each be any of 11
     colors and any of 8 shapes (squares, rectangles, triangles, solid or
     alternating pixels, etc).  Kids can make some really colorful
     interestng designs, or you can play with the 11 pictures that come on
     the disk with Crayon-Box.  Probably the most suprising part of this
     program is its screen dump.  Press "P" and you are in for a suprise if
     you don't know what to expect.  Your printer grinds on and on and on
     as your picture is automatically printed 6 different ways before the
     printer stops.  Some are large, some are small.  Some have a white
     background and some have a black background.  Some are vertical and
     some are horizontal on the printer paper.  Each of the screen colors
     is represented by a different dot density.

          WORD-WORLD, ARMY-WORLD, POLICE-WORLD.  These are all similar
     spelling games for early elementary school kids and remind me of TI's
     Story Machine cartridge.  You type a word from the game's list and a
     sprite appears on screen.  Sometimes you can then type another word
     like LEFT or FLY and specify movement of the sprite.  If you type
     something the game doesn't recognize you are given unlimited
     additional opportunities to get things right.  Eventually the screen
     fills with all these sprites walking, driving, flying, sailing, etc.
     Sound effects used with each sprite are well done.  For example, for
     the different kinds of mobile pictures such as cars and planes you
     hear their motors rev up as they start moving, and each motor sounds
     different.  Word-World was originally published in 99er.

          USA-MAP gives you a rather blocky map of the United States and
     ask you to identify the state indicated.  If you guess the wrong state
     or type nonsense the correct answer is given.  If you guess the
     correct state, but misspell the name, the computer tells you to try
     again and spell the state's name correctly this time.  The program
     recognizes the difference between "correct" but mispelled answers and
     incorrect answers.

          HEALTHEXAM.  Based on a 1982 Blue Cross/Blue Shield
     questionnaire this program asks you a long list of multiple choice
     questions.  The usual overweight, family history, and smoking
     questions are included as well as a bunch of questions designed to
     guage your emotional health.  Do you live a stressful life?  At the
     end you are given a numerical score and short written evaluation.  I
     like this program because it says I am in "excellent health".
     Computers, being very exact machines, always tell the truth.
     --------------------------
     ADVENTURE COMPENDIUM II

         This comes archived on two DSSD disks (not DSDD as stated in the
     July 94 issue of Micropendium).  The Geneve and 99/4A archiver
     programs are included so you can unpack the disks.  Cost is $6.95 plus
     $2 postage.   Included are adventures that require the XB, Tunnels of
     Doom, and Adventure modules.  Everything is in English, but some of
     these adventures were written by German TI users and are probably new
     to most of us in the states.

          DUNE for the TOD module.   DUNE was a popular science fiction
     book.  It is now a very popular game for IBM and maybe also MAC PCs.
     As evidence of its popularity, there is a DUNE newsgroup on the
     internet.  My kids spend hours and hours playing Dune on our home PC
     and the soundblaster sound effects drive me nuts.  Now there is a
     version for the 99/4A, and at least there is no sound.  Dune is a
     planet with a desert environment that contains the most valuable
     substance in the universe, a particular kind of spice.  Two groups are
     each trying to harvest the maximum amount of this limited resource.
     You are the Atreides and the enemy are the Harkonnens, just like the
     book.  You meet all kinds of creatures and weapons including sand
     spinners, sand splitters, sand throwers, sand jumpers, sand ghosts,
     sand dragons, etc.

          GARFIELD for the TOD module.  Garfield, comic strip cat, has lost
     his toys and has to hunt through the basements in the neighborhood to
     find them.  The neighborhood pets and pests want to keep the toys for
     themselves, but Garfield has a group of friends to help get them
     back.

          NINJA for the TOD module.  A party of adventurers must enter the
     Ninja temple and retrieve gems within.  Also, they need to find the
     Ninja's golden throwing star.  Getting out of the temple alive before
     the Ninja destroys his gems is not easy.

         The following eight adventures each require the Adventure module;
     Escape from Alcatraz, Bigfoot, Escape from Cannibal Island, The
     Mystery of Cap' Kidd, The Great White North Adventure (save the world
     from contaminated beer), Moon Adventure, Nessy (Loch Ness of course),
     and Travelling (you are a passenger on a jet with no pilot).  Each of
     these adventures is new, to me.  None of them are my user group's
     software library.

          Among the adventures that run from XB is ALADDIN.  This is a very
     complex game that runs similar to an Adventure module game, with no
     graphics.  There are lots of files that load into memory at the
     appropriate time.  The story pretty much follows the fairy tale.  You
     have to rescue the beautiful princess from the Sultan's palace.  It
     helps if you find and figure out how to use the magic lamp.

          You also get Carfax Abbey, an old favorite of mine that has been
     enhanced so it loads faster.  The game hasn't changed, but it now
     takes tens of seconds rather than minutes to load Carfax.  There is
     also "Visitor From Outer Space" and "Nasty".  Nasty isn't really an
     adventue so I don't know why it is included in the package.  Nasty
     seems to take over your computer and delivers humerous on screen
     messages and altered color bar and first menu screens.  The adventure
     I guess is trying to figure out how to get out of Nasty and back into
     regular old console or extended basic without shutting down your
     system.

          Last but not least, Adventure Compendium II includes a group of
     fast Infocom game loaders.  They are all much faster than the original
     and are all generic loaders.  This means that the same loader can be
     used to load all the infocom games.  Just put your GAME1 and GAME2
     files for the particular game you want to play in DSK1.  Your game
     will start in 10-20 seconds.  The original Infocom loaders took over a
     minute to start a game.  There is an XB loader and an EA5 loader for
     40 column systems.  These both have a nice lower case character set.
     You also get two different 80 column loaders.  One will work with any
     80 column TI system and the other will run directly out of MDOS on a
     Geneve.