¢ NEWSLETTER BITS¢ BY¢ ALAN SHARKIS¢¢¢I have a complaint. Seems like I'm¢not the only one writing this kind of¢column in a club newsletter. Shucks,¢I don't even know if the idea¢originated with Ol' Hackers. But,¢that's not why I'm complaining.¢¢The complaint centers around the idea¢that clubs exchange newsletters, and¢usually have a pile of them at¢meetings, so that members can look up¢articles of interest to them. It used¢to be a lot of fun watching some guy¢look for an article that MIGHT be in¢the pile, only he didn't know what¢club published it, or what date it¢might have had. He only knew that he¢just HAD to find a review of some¢piece of hardware or other, or some¢program that would solve a problem he¢was having, or some tutorial to get¢him over his difficulties. It waS fun¢to watch the guy get frustrated and¢give up.¢¢It was also fun to watch the club¢member who was responsible for lugging¢those newsleters to and from meetings¢build biceps in the process. He'd¢hope his bundle was lighter going home¢than it was coming in, and, wouldn't¢you know it, the same number of¢newsletters went home with him! I¢could visualize, in my twisted¢imagination, the poor guy building up¢a Collier-Brothers-Mansion-like¢collection of the things in his own¢basement, wondering if anyone else¢really cared about the stuff printed¢on that paper!¢¢Well, the fun is about to vanish, and¢that's my complaint. Atari user¢groups aren't supposed to be about¢helping members get the best out of¢their membership now, are they?¢They're supposed to be about bemoaning¢the fate of a dwindling machine.¢Heck, everyone outside says that Atari¢machines are old hat; that anything¢you can do with them has already been¢overdone. We members aren't even¢supposed to be interested in getting¢more out of the machines. So, what¢kind of fun can a warped mind like¢mine have when I see people in my club¢and others actually reading the stuff¢in club newsletters? Ours, sure; we¢read our own. But OTHER CLUBS?¢Unheard of! And to think I and my¢counterparts might be making it easier¢for other people to do that with our¢reviews! Shocking!¢¢I'm a teacher in real life, who also¢writes curriculum occasionally. For¢that purpose I use an MS-DOS clone, to¢make file-sharing easy. My school¢system is heavily into Apple, so I use¢them, too. But the Atari 8-bit is my¢real love, my most comfortable¢machine. I use it for just about¢everything else I do. I haven't¢exhausted its capabilities yet, and¢I've been at it since 1982. . .¢¢Well, will you look at that! My face¢is getting less hairy, my ears less¢pointy, and I'm not howling at the¢moon any more. Maybe I don't really¢have a complaint. Maybe I should just¢go on and review the newsletters I was¢handed. Sorry about that little¢diversion. (Uh, can I crawl into a¢corner? Not now, you say? OK, I'll¢just write the reviews.)¢¢We start with something from POKEY¢(WNYAUG), September, 1988: Luis E.¢Rodriguez has a fix for the TIME$¢command in Turbo Basic, Dave Arlington¢reviews Sublogic Flight Simulator¢Scenery Disk #11, and Kevin D. Packard¢gives a fairly complete list of the¢peripherals you can attach to your¢Atari once you have a P: R: Connection¢or an 850 to supply an RS-232 Serial¢Port. I often tell people that my¢MS-DOS clone is a peripheral to my¢Atari (through a null-modem cable, of¢course)! Plotters can join the¢family, as can speech boards,¢digitizers, home power controllers,¢text readers, and a whole slew of¢input and output devices.¢¢¢In the LIAUG Lighthouse of July, 1990,¢there is are two articles by Horst¢Dewitz. One is his usual good job of¢describing the German Bit Byter Disk¢(in this case, #20), and the other is¢a review of the Backgammon clone,¢Double Six, from October, 1989 Analog¢Magazine. David Brzezinski reviews a¢classic 8-bit game, M.U.L.E., which is¢one of the best economics simulations¢I've been fortunate to find.¢¢From STATUS of July/August 1990, there¢are reminders gathered from many¢sources of new hardware and software¢for our 8-bits, including TextPro 4.5¢and Transkey.¢¢From B. A. C. E. Line of August, 1990,¢there is an article about Darek¢Mihocka's by now familiar line of¢8-bit emulators for the ST. Seems as¢if many ST owners actually gave up¢their 8-bits when they bought the STs¢and are sorry they did! Now they want¢to run all that good software again.¢The ST Xformer emulators let them do¢that with some non-protected software.¢ Their editor describes the¢limitations, and then states that the¢solution to the problem is to buy an¢8-bit!¢¢H. A. C. E.'s Update Atari of August,¢1990 has no exclusively 8-bit¢articles, but it has not forgotten us,¢either. In a colum called HardWire,¢George Iken talks about sharing¢peripherals for both 8-bits and STs.¢¢ ¢
