Info-Atari16 Digest Thu, 19 Dec 91 Volume 91 : Issue 669 Today's Topics: First Word Plus Bugs: HELP WANTED ftp and mail-server sites. HDX 5 Availability Midi Input patch/code Quick ST support Unix-Windows for ST v17INF1: Introduction to comp.binaries.atari.st v17INF3: Unpacking binaries (and retrieving old ones) wanted: recommendations for educational programs for 9-year old Why not Atari ASV Welcome to the Info-Atari16 Digest. The configuration for the automatic cross-posting to/from Usenet is getting closer, but still getting thrashed out. Please send notifications about broken digests or bogus messages to Info-Atari16-Request@NAUCSE.CSE.NAU.EDU. Please send requests for un/subscription and other administrivia to Info-Atari16-Request, *NOT* Info-Atari16. Requests that go to the list instead of the moderators are likely to be lost or ignored. If you want to unsubscribe, and you're receiving the digest indirectly from someplace (usually a BITNET host) that redistributes it, please contact the redistributor, not us. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Dec 91 10:29:47 GMT From: vjrao@rice.edu (Vinay Julapalli Rao) Subject: First Word Plus Bugs: HELP WANTED To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu In article marco@sys6626.bison.mb.ca (Marco) writes: >I have GST's First Word Plus version 3.15 and have found a couple of bugs >(one of them is very major). The major one is in the printing. I have a >Star NX-10 9-pin and have had no problems with it before. However, when I >print a WordPlus document it will occasionally (and for no apparent >reason) start underlining text. When I open up the document it's not >underlined. The Technical Support line says they no of this bug, so I >assume it's not the printer. Has anyone else come across this problem? >Does anyone know of a way to _PREVENT_ it (I can _cure_ it, just not >prevent it)? Perhaps there's a newer version that's fixed this problem? >Thanks for any help. > >Please respond by e-mail, as I don't have access to this newsgroup. > > +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ > | John Perry*Voice (204)783-0812*Internet marco@sys6626.bison.mb.ca | > +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ I use First Word Plus ver. 3.14 and have come across this problem sometimes also. The problem occurs when underlining is not turned off just after the underlined word or words. To fix this, make sure everything between the underlined word and the next word to be printed is not marked as underlined. You can do this most easily by marking a block from the space just after the underlined word to the first character of the next word to be printed. Once the block is selected, turn off underlining and then unmark the block. Doing this seems to work for me. -- ************************************************************* Vinay Julapalli Rao vjrao@flammulated.owlnet.rice.edu ************************************************************* ------------------------------ Date: 18 Dec 91 10:37:38 GMT From: mcsun!uknet!warwick!covpoly!cch.cov.ac.uk!csf195@uunet.uu.net (Mirrir) Subject: ftp and mail-server sites. To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu Hi, I'm looking for some more PD software sources available via the NET, I already use lancs.pdsoft and I'm wondering if there are other sites that surport atari ST software ? If you know of any could you mail me there addresses and details on how to access them. Thanks in advance, -- ____________________________________________________________________________ | Jason Taylor (csf195@uk.ac.cov.cch) | "That's all fine, but I only need to | | Aliases : Mirrir | know one thing." -Aliens (Vasquez) | | Stliaise (stliaise@uk.ac.cov.cck) | 'Yes?' - "Where they ARE." | ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 91 14:21:32 GMT From: noao!asuvax!cs.utexas.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!yale.edu!spool.mu.edu!munnari.oz.au! darwin.ntu.edu.au!topfm@arizona.edu Subject: HDX 5 Availability To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu In article <51867@cup.portal.com>, Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes: > Atari HDX 5.0 is available on CompuServe, and I would assume, on GEnie... > > BobR Exactly what _is_ HDX 5.0 e-mail pls My news base is only retaining one day -- +--------------------------+-------------------------------+------------------+ | 8 TOP-FM | Unless otherwise indicated | Office Phone | | 104.1 MHz | this message does not | +61-89-466-266 | |Darwin, v | reflect the views of the | | |Northern ---->_*-_|\ | station, staff or the | Studio Phone | |Territory, / \ | Northern Territory University.| +61-89-466-414 | |Australia \_.--._/ | (in other words, I said not | | | v | any-one else). | Fax | | topfm@darwin.ntu.edu.AU | | +61-89-451-788 | +--------------------------+-------------------------------+------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1991 06:39:04 PST From: sgoldthorpe.wgc-e@rx.xerox.com Subject: Midi Input patch/code To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu Does anyone have a patch/program/code extract to get around the small midi input buffer/lost bytes problem. I'm about to write a program to convert my sequencer boxes' sequence dumps into midi files (& vice versa), but can't get my ST to input the dumps correctly (they're too big/fast for the normal functions, I've tried before replacing values returned by Iorec, but that always crashed my machine (and debugging sozobon code is a pain). Any offers/hint? -Steve %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% INET:as384@cleveland.freenet.edu | Rank Xerox Ltd, sgoldthorpe.wgc-e@rx.xerox.com | Workstation Software Group, XEROX CIN: SGoldthorpe:wgc-e:rx | Systems Products Integration & TEL: +44 707 382350 | Development, Welwyn Hall, XEROX INTELNET: 8*668-2350 | Bessemer Rd, Welwyn Garden City, MESG TOOL: 15556.25220325363.0 | HERTS. AL7 1BL ENGLAND %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 91 13:54:55 GMT From: haven.umd.edu!wam.umd.edu!cmedley@ames.arpa ("Flip" Medley) Subject: Quick ST support To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu In article <51870@cup.portal.com> Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes: >Funny how the Atari market has shrunk to the point where a programmer's >"attitude" can determine whether someone will choose to accellerate their >computer's screen updates... > Actually, the size of the Atari market shows in that the programmer is the person who owns the company, so to speak. I'm sure you are concious of the way people change their purchases to reflect their own perceptions of the way a company does business. > >I'm amused... So tell me, would you buy another Atari because it is good, forgetting that the Tramiels own the company? :) (this part is really relevant to a USA user) > >BobR ------------------------------ Date: 18 Dec 91 18:58:11 GMT From: mcsun!uknet!slxsys!ibmpcug!demon!news@uunet.uu.net (Iain Laskey) Subject: Unix-Windows for ST To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu There IS an ST version of X Windows. r4 complient incuding the shapes extensio- ns for round windows etc. It is for the bionet network available in Germany. SLIP is currently being developed for it. Bionet supports TCP/IP ############################### # Iain R Laskey # # ilaskey@cix.compulink.co.uk # ############################### ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 91 19:07:08 GMT From: sun-barr!cronkite.Central.Sun.COM!exodus.Eng.Sun.COM!exodus.Eng.Sun.COM!news@am es.arpa (Steven Grimm) Subject: v17INF1: Introduction to comp.binaries.atari.st To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu Submitted-by: koreth@twitterpater.eng.sun.com (Steven Grimm) Posting-number: Volume 17, Info 1 Archive-name: intro This is the first of three introductory articles about comp.binaries.atari.st. This one describes how to submit binaries to the newsgroup. A companion article lists all previously-published binaries, and a third article explains how to retrieve and unpack binaries posted by others. I am always looking for suggestions on how to improve the usefulness of the newsgroup, and can be contacted as listed below. -- Steven Grimm koreth@twitterpater.eng.sun.com -------------------- Subject: Submitting binaries for publication Items intended for posting or queries and problem notes should be sent to atari-binaries@twitterpater.eng.sun.com. If you are on a UUCP-only site, you can send them to {backbone}!sun!twitterpater.eng!atari-binaries. Note that comp.binaries.atari.st is not the correct place to ask general questions or to ask, "Does anyone have software that does X?" Post such requests to comp.sys.atari.st or comp.sys.atari.st.tech. If you want verification of arrival, so say in a cover note, or at the beginning of your submission, if it is small. I try to verify that a program works, and if I can't get it to work, I may hold up posting it for a couple of days. Please note that, except in rare cases, software without documentation will not be published. The backlog from receipt to posting varies from one to four weeks depending mostly on the set of submissions currently in my queue. If you are submitting both sources and binaries, PLEASE send the two separately. If I have to separate your sources from your binaries by hand, your submission will most likely sit on the back burner for a while. Please include a description of your program at the top of your article. Look at old issues of comp.binaries.atari.st for examples of the sorts of descriptions I'm looking for. I don't write the descriptions at the tops of the articles; what you see is what the submitters gave me. Also, as of volume 8, I will only accept binaries packed with an archiver for which source code is widely available. For the time being, this means arc, zoo (including 2.1), and lharc. If you want to use a nifty new archiver, make the source code available to the public (posting to comp.sources.atari.st is fine.) I reserve the right to repack binaries with another archiver if the other archiver saves a significant amount of space, or has other advantages. If you're submitting a demo of a commercial program, or a shareware program, please keep the amount of advertising to an absolute minimum. The net gods become angry when people try to use the net as a free advertising medium, and I'd like to keep comp.binaries.atari.st out of trouble. If you want to solicit orders, do it in a README file or an About... dialog box, not in a message that comes up every time the user does something. In other words, treat the net like a PBS station (apologies to those outside the US.) I will not accept programs which I feel are excessively commercial. I'm aware that commercial demos and shareware are often very useful (to the users on the net,) which is why I allow them at all. -------------------- Subject: The structure of comp.binaries.atari.st articles Each posting in comp.binaries.atari.st is called an "issue"; there are roughly 100 issues to a volume. The division is arbitrary and may vary. There are two types of articles in comp.binaries.atari.st: binaries and "information postings." They can be distinguished by the subject line: Subject: v17INF2: Index and other info This first word in the title identifies this as the third info posting of volume six. Similarly, the subject line shown below: Subject: v17i081: deadwrtr -- Ouija-word processor identifies this as the 81st binary article in Volume 17. Large programs are broken up into smaller pieces, and have subject lines that look like this: Subject: v17i041: zx81 -- Timex/Sinclair emulator part04/39 Certain information about the system configuration required to use the program is given on the keywords line. Keywords: uuencode, 1meg, medium, high This means that the program requires at least one meg of RAM and runs in medium or high resolution. Following is a list of keywords; new ones may be added as needed. They are mostly self-explanatory. uuencode - program is uuencoded (UNIX uudecode required to unpack) uue - program is uuencoded (ST uud required to unpack) arc - program is archived (arc required to unpack) zoo - program is a zoo archive (zoo required to unpack) zoo-high - program is a zoo 2.1 high-compression archive (zoo21 req'd) lharc - program is an lharc archive (lharc required to unpack) high - high resolution medium - medium resolution low - low resolution 1meg - needs 1 meg of RAM The References: line, if present, points to the previous part of a multi- part program, so that newsreaders (trn, nn, etc.) which can follow threads will recognize a large program as a single thread. The first few lines of an article are auxiliary headers that look like this: Submitted-by: jackt@atari.UUCP (Jack Tramiel) Posting-number: Volume 17, Issue 80 Archive-name: rsn The "Submitted by" is the author of the program. If you have comments about the binaries published in comp.binaries.atari.st this is the person to contact. When possible, this address is in domain form, otherwise it is a UUCP bang path relative to some major (backbone) site. The "Reply-To:" header line in the article's main header points to the submitter, to make commenting about binaries easier. The second line repeats the volume/issue information for the aide of notes sites and automatic archiving programs. The Archive-name is the "official" name of this program in the archive. Large postings will have names that look like this: Archive-name: desktop/part01 Since most archive sites run UNIX, articles are given UNIX-style filenames rather than ST-style filenames. I do make an effort to keep filenames to 8 characters or smaller, however. -------------------- Subject: Reporting and tracking bugs and patches to postings Updates to programs are usually announced in comp.sys.atari.st. When large changes are made to a program, the entire thing will be reposted to comp.binaries.atari.st. To report bugs, contact the person listed in the Submitted-to header. Often there is a contact address in a README file, too. I do not maintain the programs I moderate, so don't send your bug reports to me. If the program documentation mentions some file that isn't included in the posting (for instance, a font editor's documentation might refer to some sample fonts), contact the submitter, not me. I post articles in their entirety, so if it isn't posted, I probably don't have it. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 91 19:07:30 GMT From: sun-barr!cronkite.Central.Sun.COM!exodus.Eng.Sun.COM!exodus.Eng.Sun.COM!news@am es.arpa (Steven Grimm) Subject: v17INF3: Unpacking binaries (and retrieving old ones) To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu Submitted-by: koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com (Steven Grimm) Posting-number: Volume 17, Info 3 Archive-name: unpack.cooked HOW TO USE COMP.BINARIES.ATARI.ST by Steven Grimm Last update: August 13, 1991 _1. _W_e_l_c_o_m_e _t_o _c_o_m_p._b_i_n_a_r_i_e_s._a_t_a_r_i._s_t! Here you'll find a wealth of software for your Atari ST, from games to spreadsheets to compilers -- all free and yours for the taking. This docu- ment describes exactly how comp.binaries.atari.st works, and tells you how to get started. Don't worry if some of this seems complex; it'll all become clear after a little use. The section "Getting started" at the end of this document is worth reading if you're new to all this. It gives you (reasonably) step-by-step instructions for obtaining the software you'll need to get going. _2. _W_h_a_t _a_r_e _b_i_n_a_r_i_e_s? Binaries are files that contain information other than normal text. Usually, a binary that is posted to the net will contain executable (pro- gram) files. Binaries are distinct from _s_o_u_r_c_e_s, which are the human- readable text files that are interpreted by a computer and used to produce binaries. Sources can be modified with relatively little effort, and are usually pretty easy to read. Binaries are not intended to be viewed by a human. _2._1. _U_u_e_n_c_o_d_i_n_g The programs which transfer network news messages (and electronic mail) are not always capable of handling a pure binary file. They are designed to handle textual messages, and the odd symbols and characters in a binary cause them to become confused, and often to mangle the binaries. To avoid this problem, a method called _u_u_e_n_c_o_d_i_n_g is used. Uuencoding translates a binary file into text characters, so that the news and mail transport programs won't mess up. The disadvantages are that uuencoded files are about 30% bigger than the raw binary files they represent, and that you have to go through one extra step to get the binaries to work on your computer. _2._2. _A_r_c_h_i_v_e_s _o_r "_a_r_c _f_i_l_e_s" Usually, a program will need more than one file to work properly. The extra files might be data files, help files, or maybe some instructions for the user. In order to easily package multiple files together in one binary file, a program called "arc" (short for "archiver") is used. Arc also compresses all the files as it packages them, so that the arcfile take up less disk space (and takes less time to download!) than it would if its contents were just thrown together. Using Binaries -2- To confuse matters even more, two new archive programs called "zoo" and "lharc" can also be used to achieve the same effect. Zoo is superior to arc in some respects, slightly inferior in others, as is lharc. Unfor- tunately, you can't unpack a zoo archive with arc or lharc, or vice versa (arc and lharc are similarly incompatible with each other.) _2._3. _U_S_E_N_E_T _a_r_t_i_c_l_e_s The USENET has groups designed especially for transmission of binary files. They are usually called something like "comp.binaries.x," where x is the type of machine that the programs will run on. For Atari ST owners, the group to watch is comp.binaries.atari.st. Most of the binaries groups (including the Atari binaries group) are _m_o_d_e_r_a_t_e_d, which means that you can't send a program directly to everyone on the network. Instead, you send it to someone in charge of the group (the _m_o_d_e_r_a_t_o_r), who makes sure that your program works and contains the proper documentation (or that the lack of documentation is announced), and that it's in the correct format to be sent out to the rest of the USENET. One of the restrictions of the USENET is that articles can only be a certain length. If a binary is longer than that, it must be split up into several parts, each no longer than 45000 bytes or so. This introduces yet another obstacle to people who want to transform the articles into a useful form, but it can't really be helped until the USENET starts running much more advanced news transmission software. Also, some particularly long programs may be posted over the course of several days; otherwise the net would be overloaded with lots of huge messages, and people would complain. USENET binaries are grouped into _v_o_l_u_m_e_s, each containing about 100 articles. This is to make life easier for people who are trying to keep track of which articles have been posted. When a new volume is started, the moderator will usually post introductory articles, including a list of previously published articles. _3. _H_o_w _d_o _I _g_e_t _b_i_n_a_r_i_e_s? There are two ways to get binaries: first, by reading the USENET news- group comp.binaries.atari.st; you will see new articles within a week (usu- ally much less) of the time they were sent out by the moderator. If, for some reason, your site doesn't receive comp.binaries.atari.st, or if you want to look through previously posted articles, site twitterpater.eng.sun.com has all the binaries stored in its archives. The other way to get binaries is to request them from twitterpater's archive server. The archive server is a program that intercepts incoming mail messages and looks for commands inside them. You can tell it to list the available binaries, give you help, or send whichever files you're interested in. The requested files will be mailed to you. One thing to be careful of is that multi-part postings aren't placed in the archives until all their parts have been sent out to the USENET at large. This is to prevent people from requesting all 99 parts of a program the first day it appears, thus overloading the net and defeating the purpose of piece-by- piece posting. Using Binaries -3- To find out more about the archive server, send a mail message con- taining the word "help" to archive-server@twitterpater.eng.sun.com. Talk to an administrator at your site if that mail address doesn't work. If you don't get any response from the archive server within a few days, something may be wrong; mail archive-manager@twitterpater.eng.sun.com to report the problem. There are other archive sites, too, such as atari.archive.umich.edu; they contain most of the comp.binaries.atari.st software as well as some additional programs that have not appeared on the newsgroup. Some sites, such as atari.archive, also offer something called "anonymous ftp" if you're on the Internet. Say "ftp atari.archive.umich.edu", and if you con- nect, use "anonymous" for a username, and your username for a password. See the ftp documentation at your site for more information. A recent, but possibly incorrect, list of alternate archive sites appears at the end of this article. Please send me mail if you know of any that aren't mentioned here, or if my list is incorrect. Note that twitterpater does not offer anonymous ftp, as it's on a network that's segregated from the Internet. Twitterpater also offers an "auto-index" service, for people who don't have access to the USENET groups. If you request autoindex service, you will receive copies of the archive-server's index files for the binaries and sources groups whenever new files are added. Note that if your site gets comp.binaries.atari.st, requesting autoindex is pointless and a waste of net bandwidth. Send mail to autoindex-request@twitterpater.eng.sun.com if you'd like to sign up. _4. _H_o_w _d_o _I _d_e_c_o_d_e _t_h_e _b_i_n_a_r_i_e_s? As stated above, turning binaries from USENET articles into a more useful form can be a multi-step process. At the least, you will need the uudecode program; it is standard software on most UNIX|- systems and is available in a couple of forms on the Atari. Versions for other operating systems do exist, and can certainly be written with little effort. Arc is available for UNIX and other operating systems, but is not standard software. In any case, you will want at least arc on your Atari. Usually, things are been small enough to fit in one article, but you will almost certainly want to try something larger eventually. The Atari "uud" program (whose source code, also suitable for compilation on UNIX systems, is available in the sources archive) is capable of easily decoding multi-part uuencoded files. Near the top of each part (except the first) will be a line like begin part c foobar.uac Rename each file (except part 1, which can be named "part01" or just about anything else) to the name at the end of this "begin" line, in this case "foobar.uac". Then run uud on the file containing part 1; it contains instructions to cause uud to look for the other parts. If you have a text _________________________ |- UNIX is a trademark of Bell Laboratories. Using Binaries -4- editor or a UNIX style cat program, you can just stick all the parts together in order and run uud on the resulting (big) file; it will try to go on in the first file if it can't find the next part in a separate file. Note that uud won't warn you if it's overwriting an existing file, so don't give any of the parts the same name as the file that's being extracted from them! On UNIX systems, you can also say (for instance) "cat part* | uud -" without renaming anything. If you don't have uud or would prefer to decode your binaries on your larger news computer, the procedure is somewhat more complex. Plain vanilla uudecode doesn't know about multi-part uuencoded files, so you have to fool it into thinking that everything is in one part. First, stick all the parts together (using cat on UNIX). Edit the resulting file. Now remove all the extraneous lines of text in between the parts -- this includes mail headers, any text, lines of the form "include foobar.uad," "table" lines and the lists of characters following them, and "begin" lines other than the one at the beginning of part 1. Once you have converted all the parts into a big uuencoded mass (with no blank lines!), the regular uudecode program will work. Obviously, this is something of a hassle, and the recommended pro- cedure is to try to install uud on your large computer. You'll usually want to minimize the amount of data you have to send to your Atari, since you'll most likely be downloading it at a relatively low speed, and the uudecoded .arc file is the smallest thing you can download. Zoo is available from the archives. It is simple to use; refer to the documentation included in zoobin.arc (yes, you need to use arc to extract zoo!) for more information. The uudecoding process is the same for zoo and arc files. A new version of zoo, 2.1, is in volume 15 of the binaries archive. You'll need the old version of zoo to unpack the new one. Zoo 2.1 is necessary to unpack "zoo-high" format archives (look at the Key- words: line of the article you're unpacking.) To extract lharc files, you should first try the program "lhx104" in volume 15 of the comp.binaries.atari.st archives. It's not in compressed form, so all you'll need to do is uudecode the .TTP file. It will unpack .LZH files. Most archives contain documentation; refer to the instructions in a specific program for usage information and the like. If you have problems with a particular program, send mail to the submitter (listed near the top of each part.) The moderator doesn't have time to become very familiar with all the programs that are posted, so the submitter will probably be much more helpful. _5. _G_e_t_t_i_n_g _s_t_a_r_t_e_d A version of uudecode written in ST BASIC is available in twitterpater's archives (see above). It is in volume 1 of the comp.sources.atari.st directory (note that that's _s_o_u_r_c_e_s and not binaries). To obtain it, send mail to archive- Using Binaries -5- server@twitterpater.eng.sun.com, with the following message body: send sources/volume1 basic-uud The archive server should reply quickly (the actual amount of time it takes depends on how your site is connected to the outside world) with the BASIC program. Take off all the mail headers and introductory text (every- thing above the line that says "10 ' UUDECODE PROGRAM") and bring the file to your ST using your communications program. (Refer to its documentation for specific instructions about that; every program does it in a different way.) Once you have basic-uud, you should get all six parts of the program "starter" from volume 16 of the binaries archive. The "starter" program, when run, writes out copies of the utilities you'll need to start decoding and unpacking comp.binaries.atari.st articles. Send six more mail messages to archive-server@twitterpater.eng.sun.com, each with one of the following requests: send binaries/volume16/starter part01 send binaries/volume16/starter part02 send binaries/volume16/starter part03 send binaries/volume16/starter part04 send binaries/volume16/starter part05 send binaries/volume16/starter part06 You need to send separate mail messages because some mail systems won't handle very large pieces of mail, and if you requested all six parts at once, you might never see a reply! Copy all six parts of starter, in order, into a single large file. Then go through and edit out the extra text between parts. Everything between (and including) the "include" line at the end of a part and the "begin" line at the beginning of the next part should be removed. (Blank lines are bad, too; everything from the "begin" at the top of the first part to the "end" at the end should be a solid row of 'M' characters along the left side, except a couple lines above the "end.") Use the BASIC program to uudecode the resulting file, then run starter.tos. It will write out copies of arc, zoo, lharc, uue, and uud (all described above.) You're ready to begin! _6. _L_i_s_t _o_f _a_r_c_h_i_v_e _s_i_t_e_s Note: I have not verified these, so this list may be wrong. Mail servers usually respond to the word "help" alone in a mail message. Some of the sites listed below may not contain full archives of comp.binaries.atari.st, and some may have other files. Address Type Comments D'l |1752u 0' Using Binaries -6- wuarchive.wustl.edu ftp,nfs ux.acss.umn.edu ftp TeX, GNU atari.archive.umich.edu ftp Mail server may also exist him1.cc.umich.edu ftp cd to pc7: directory dsrgsun.ces.cwru.edu ftp GNU and Minix archives also xanth.cs.odu.edu ftp slug.pws.bull.com ftp comp.sources.atari.st only archive-server@ twitterpater.eng.sun.com mail Official archives archive@softvax.radc.af.mil mail unido!archive-server mail European archives st_requests@ n6vbg.hamavnet.com mail Dialup access at (714) 989-4276 marks%mgse@rex.cs.tulane.edu uucp Ask your site administrator ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 91 16:49:06 GMT From: zephyr.ens.tek.com!tekig7!tekig1!georgew@uunet.uu.net (George Walker) Subject: wanted: recommendations for educational programs for 9-year old To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu Well, here it is Christmas again, and once again I find I've purchased another disapppointing program for the kids. I've got a bunch of games, which they enjoy, but whenever I try to get something educational, I get something that, when I actually play with it for a little bit, I realize is going to hold their attention for about 15 minutes, tops. Another $30 down the drain. Part of my problem is that my local dealer has practically no children's software, and I don't like to order something sight unseen without a recommendation. An example of something I think they *would* enjoy would be something along the lines of, say, "Mixed-up Mother Goose", but where they have to answer math or other questions to get the object to continue the search. Examples of what I think they *won't* like are what I just bought: Bentley Bear's Math Magic I, which after you've played a minute, you realize is just flash cards with animation, and it's never going to get any more interesting. Any suggestions (other than telling me to dump the ST and buy a PC)? Pointers to magazine reviews would be helpful, also. Thanks. George S. Walker {decvax,hplabs,uunet}!tektronix!tekig1.PEN.TEK.COM!georgew *OR* georgew@tekig1.PEN.TEK.COM *OR* georgew%tekig1.tek.com@relay.cs.net *OR* tekig1!georgew.tektronix@Udel-Relay Tektronix - Committed to Excellence ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 91 13:17:56 GMT From: mcsun!uknet!bcc.ac.uk!ucacmsu@uunet.uu.net (Mr Stephen R Usher) Subject: Why not Atari ASV To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu I'm sure many people will ask thins.. I hope I'm the first. :-) Is this a commercial venture (I assume it is)? If so, is there any indication of the sort of cost of such a package? Steve PS. The reason for my asking is that I far prefer BSD to AT&T Unix's (I know BSD can no-longer call itself a Unix cos it's got no AT&T code in it). -- Addresses:- JANET:- ucacmsu@uk.ac.ucl or susher@uk.ac.csm Internet:- ucacmsu@ucl.ac.uk or susher@csm.ac.uk ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ******************************