-------------------------------- ** ** ** ----------------------------- -------------------------------- ** ** ** ----------------------------- -------------------------------- ** ** ** ----------------------------- -------------------------------- ** ** ** ----------------------------- ------------------------------- ** ** ** ---------------------------- ----------------------------- *** ** *** -------------------------- ---------------------------- *** ** *** ------------------------- ATARI EXPLORER ONLINE MAGAZINE July 25, 1992 Volume 1, Number 9 Issue #92-09 Published and Copyright (c)1992, Atari Computer Corporation 1972-1992 (20 Years Of Service) ~ Editor In-Chief......................................Ron Kovacs ~ Contributing Editor...................................Ed Krimen ~ Contributing Writer...................................Bob Smith ~ Contributing Writer..............................Ron Berinstein ~ Contributing Writer.................................Stan Lowell ~ AtariUser Magazine Editor.............................John Nagy ~ Atari Corporation....................................Bob Brodie | | | TABLE OF CONTENTS | | | ||| The Editors Desk.............................Ron Kovacs AEO Update ||| Z*Net Newswire......................................... Atari News Update from the Z*Net News Service ||| The Blue Ridge Atarifest.....................Ron Kovacs GEnie messages reprinted about the event ||| AtariUser Reviews...................................... Reprints from the July 1992 Edition ||| Growing Up With Atari - Part 3................Bob Smith Final installment of series ||| New Supra Modems - SysOp Offer......................... Reprint from Z*Net Atari Online Magazine ||| Star Trek: Deep Space Nine...............Walter Wilbury Frequent Asked Questions answered ||| FoReM Net Nodes........................................ BBS Listing ||| Perusing GEnie................................Ed Krimen FSM, Spectrum, Macsee and more.... | | | THE EDITORS DESK | | | By Ron Kovacs | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------- Changes are taking place behind the scenes here are new editors for Atari Explorer Magazine settle into new responsibilities. You will here more about this in future issues as I am sure "they" are going to want to address our readers. So stay tuned for more details. Bob Brodie will be attending the MIST Atarifest THIS WEEKEND and will share the details next week. The Blue Ridge Atarifest took place last weekend and we have included reports from attendees from the GEnie ST RT Bulletin Board. Falcon rumors are still flying all over the place. And though there are members of the staff "in the know" on facts about the machine, we are not at liberty to share them. The Z*Net Newswire however has attempted to search out information and has included a report on the rumors and some information from the upcoming Atari Advantage exclusive article on the Falcon. And last, for Star Trek fans, we have included a column about the new series "Deep Space Nine" that answers some questions frequently asked. Don't worry though, it isn't that long and is interesting reading. (At least I think so!) Thanks for reading!! | | | Z*NET NEWSWIRE | | | Latest Atari News and Industry Update | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------- (Editors Note: The following article produced for the Z*Net Newswire was NOT discussed with Atari directly. This feature is an independent column. Comments and views presented here are those of the Z*Net News Service and does not reflect the views of Atari Corporation.) IN SEARCH OF THE ATARI FALCON 030 Even though no official word is available, even though Atari has maintained a lid on details, and even though some leaks claim that the new computer to be unveiled this fall won't bear the name FALCON, the rumor mill has provided ample pseudo-information on what is expected to be a remarkable machine. Atari held an invitation-only Falcon developer conference in London on June 27th, attended by over 120 developers. Sam Tramiel, Bill Rehbock, and John Skruch were among those attending the conference for Atari. In addition to the Atari personal, a few experts were brought along to discuss features of the Falcon and programming the Digital Signal Processor. Reactions from the intense one day affair varied from the positive to the wildly enthusiastic. A number of the developers that attended are not currently working on Atari platforms, but the demonstrations and discussions appear to have convinced all of them to either reconsider their position or to immediately add Atari to their development programs. Sam Tramiel has planned to reveal the Falcon technical details in live conferences on the GEnie and Delphi telecommunications networks in early August. This will be in preparation for the huge Dusseldorf Atari Messe ("fair") in Germany, August 21-23, where the public should see the Falcon for the first time. Commercial availability for the units is projected for later this fall. A first look almost came early, through the efforts of Atari Advantage Magazine. An exclusive Falcon story, complete with photographs of the outside and even the motherboard of the Falcon, was planned for their June issue. However, delays in production caused that issue to become the June/July issue, and then negotiations with Atari Corp regarding non-disclosure matters caused the photographs to be dropped and the printing to be further delayed until late July. The photographs will instead be featured in an upcoming issue of Atari Explorer (see related story, below). The Atari Advantage Falcon article remains generally complete, and is recommended reading, even getting "thumbs up" from Atari officials. The Falcon issue should be available at Atari dealers well into August. Speculative Specs The Falcon 030 (it may still be called something else when released, but this name is now seeming to stick) will feature a 68030 running at 16mHz, be in the 1040-style one piece cabinet, and feature "more colors than you can see, more sounds than you can hear", and use a Motorola Digital Signal Processor DSP 56001 (like in NeXT). It will have an updated TOS operating system that will include MultiTOS multitasking. That much is official. The rest is via leak and speculation, and as such, subject to change. MultiTOS was developed by ATARI Corp. in cooperation with Eric Smith of the Mathematics Department at the University of Western Ontario. Eric designed the multitasking kernel called MiNT, which forms the basis for MultiTOS, a combination of ROM code in the TOS and extensions on disk. Message pipelines exist between parallel running applications, allowing controlled interaction of simultaneous processes in different windows. Old-standard desk accessories now unnecessary due to CPX modules and the ability to run programs simultaneously, in effect, making every application work like an accessory. Under MultiTOS, if one of many parallel running applications should crash, the others remain protected and safe. A more limited version of MultiTOS for older ST computers is expected to be available as software. According to the Atari Advantage Falcon story, the Falcon case will be a dark grey, similar to the color of the Portfolio and STacy. It will feature an STe/TT compatible LAN port plus and industry standard SCSI II peripheral port, stereo microphone and headphone jacks, STe extended joystick ports, a DSP port, and a built-in speaker. This last item is important as the Falcon will be able to use standard high resolution color multisync monitors which typically have no audio. Older Atari monitors will also be usable with an adaptor. Broadcast quality TV compatible video is offered with built-in genlock and "true color" 32,768 color capacity plus a variety of other modes (including all ST modes). Sound? Yikes. Sixteen-bit digital record/playback in resolution up to 50 kHz (better than an audio CD) in up to eight channels, with direct- to-hard-disk recording, with a DSP port allowing digital audio transfer rates of up to a megabyte per second. And STe 8-bit and ST three-voice sound will be supported, making the Falcon as close to 100% backwards compatible as possible. Also in the copyrighted Advantage article are observations of on-board sockets that appear ready for addition of alternate CPU devices, such as PC or MAC emulators. With the dramatic speed and PC compatible video, emulation should be a snap. Other internal items included a fan and an internal hard disk--a 2.5" 40 meg unit in the one Advantage cracked open. A daughter board held 16 meg of RAM in a plug-in module. Price? It is rumored that the Falcon 030 will start at under $700. ATARI EXPLORER TAKES ADVANTAGE Atari Advantage has ceased publishing operations after only three issues, as the publisher and editor have been hired to take over production of Atari's in-house magazine, Atari Explorer. Mike Lindsay and Darren Meers are relocating to Sunnyvale to pilot the glossy bi- monthly Explorer after their short but well-received stint producing their own Atari magazine. According to Lindsay, many subscriptions were either not billed or charged in anticipation of the move. Paid subscribers will be given options on conversion to a subscription to Atari Explorer. Lindsay and Meers were part of ST-INFORMER for four years, and both left Informer in January 1992 over a dispute regarding ownership and control. Their own magazine, Atari Advantage, had established a respectable circulation, but Atari Corp. elected not to bring Advantage in-house as an additional magazine. The naming of editorial staff for Explorer ends months of conjecture about who would take over for John Jainschigg. John declined to move to Sunnyvale from his New York offices where he produced Explorer for the last two years. Bringing Atari Explorer to the home offices is part of an overall consolidation of executive effort and attention at Atari. Overseeing the magazine operation will be Atari's Bernie Stolar. LYNX GOES WEST As Atari gears up for the Jaguar game console to be released in 1993, the Lombard Illinois offices of Atari Entertainment are being relocated to Sunnyvale. Home of the Lynx development team, Lombard will remain open as a programming center, but sales, marketing, and support for the Lynx and soon the Jaguar will be part of the California operation under the guidance of Bernie Stolar. Leaving Atari are Larry Seigal and Dana Plotkin, who did not wish to relocate. ATARI IN FORBES The August 3, 1992 issue of Forbes Magazine recounts the Atari story in a two-page article called "Cheap Didn't Sell" by Dyan Machan. The famed business/industry reporting magazine blames Atari's troubles on the Tramiel family's penny pinching. Machan claims that second-quarter 1992 financial statements (unavailable at press time) will be far worse than the first quarter when Atari lost $14 million on $44 million in sales. Further, the article says that Jack Tramiel has personally taken over day-to-day operation of the company, moving his son Sam out of his former office. The article does mention the new line of Falcon computers and the Jaguar game console, but speculates that Atari has less than half of the cash needed to perform an appropriate roll-out of the new products. Atari officials aren't happy with the Forbes article's tone, but some observers are saying, "Any press is more press than we have had. A lot of readers will discover that Atari is not dead, at least." NEW SUPERBASE COMING Superbase database systems for the Atari have been acquired by Oxxi Inc. who now offer upgrades for the popular line of software. The charge to upgrade either version of Superbase Personal to SB Pro 3 is $85, available only through Oxxi. The upgrade includes full product, manuals and all. A new product, Superbase 4, is expected in the near future. Oxxi Inc., P.O. Box 90309, Long Beach, CA 90809-0309, USA, FAX (310) 427-0971. NEW HOST BRINGS CD, FLOPTICAL TO ATARI ICD Inc. has announced a new host adaptor that will enable standard ST computers to use industry standard SCSI devices, including hard drives, CD ROM drives, and flopticals designed for IBM, MAC, and Amiga. Pricing has not been announced, but "The Link" will be a self-powered molded cable-box affair that will connect to Atari's DMA (ACSI) port and plug directly to standard 50-pin centronics style SCSI ports, giving instant and complete access to virtually any peripheral using SCSI, with up to 8 devices at one time being supported. Better yet, MS-DOS formatted devices will read and write directly and transparently from the ST without modification, using ICD's driver software. CD-ROMs are now supported through The Link's extended SCSI commands, with a re-written MetaDOS driver to support the SCSI-2 standard for CD-ROM players. The ICD Link will be premiered at the Atari Messe in Dusseldorf, Germany in August. ICD is taking orders now with shipments expected in mid-August. For further information, contact Thomas Harker at ICD by phone (815) 968-2228 extension 120, or FAX (815) 968-6888. CD's, PHOTOS, AND ATARI Atari's been dodging the CD-ROM technology for almost three years, and now it looks like the wait might pay off. New CD technology is becoming available that makes most older disk players obsolete. The Kodak Photo CD system provides a way for consumers to have their color photographs printed to a CD in resolutions exceeding all but the most sophisticated computers and monitors. But the new format can't be read by many current CD player drives. The new system is called Mode 2, XA, multi- session capable. If you are buying a CD ROM, look for those specifications to preserve your value. New format drives might be readable using the ICD LINK (see story above) or by using ICD's revised MetaDOS on a TT or Falcon. PHOTO CD CONVERSION FOR ATARI Picking up the torch of CD photos and accessibility to quality color conversions of photographs, Randall Kopchak of It's All Relative is offering to make ST-readable STe Spectrum format files of any photograph on a Kodak CD for only fifty cents each (PC standard GIF files will be made at $1 each). The first ever published STe conversion is of a fountain in Keiner Plaza in Saint Louis, Missouri, and shows dramatic detail in the water and sky. Originally shot on standard film, it was converted to CD by Kodak, stored in 24-bit RGB at a resolution of 2048 by 3072 pixels. Kopchak says that when Atari settles on the CD driver systems, his company will offer a direct view software system for the Kodak CD's. In the meantime, the company does offer software to convert CD photographs to GIF format via "Virtual BookMaker PC", available for $25, and requiring a 386 or better PC with VGA or better, 2 meg or better memory, XA CD ROM drive, running Windows 3.1 or higher. For processing CD's to regular computer disk files, enclose the required payment plus $3 per order for postage and handling, and send your Kodak CD to Randall Kopchak, It's All Relative, 2233 Keeven Lane, Florissant, MO 63031, (314) 831-9482, GEnie address: GREG, CIS address: 70357,2312. ATARIUSER REDUCES SUBSCRIPTION RATE AtariUser Magazine, a monthly Atari publication with coverage of the entire Atari line of computer products, has announced a promotional price cut in their home subscription rates. New and renewal subscribers can take a $5 discount and pay just $15 for one year, 12 issues of the magazine with standard 3rd class delivery. A new offering of FIRST CLASS DELIVERY is now also available for only $5 more than the standard rate, or $25. "We had complaints from parts of the country where 3rd class takes three or more weeks to deliver," said AtariUser Editor John Nagy, "and since we publish our issues in real-time rather than 'newsstand time', our August issue is shipped July 30. That allows us to include news we receive as late as July 24. But it means that a few subscribers get the August magazine on August 24." Dealers and user groups are shipped their copies of AtariUser via UPS, which takes about one week to cross the USA. The FIRST CLASS HOME DELIVERY OPTION will allow home subscribers to get the magazine within three days of printing at a total yearly (12 issue) subscription rate of $25. The $15 standard and $25 First Class subscription rates will be good for orders received by October 1, 1992. For this promotional rate, payment must be included (by check, money order, or VISA/MASTERCARD number and signature) and orders may ONLY be by mail. Be sure to include your complete address and phone number. Send your order to QUILL PUBLISHING CO., 113 W. College Street, Covina, CA 91723-2008. I DON'T LIKE YOUR TONE It can happen to you: replace your toner in your Atari SLM laser printer (or others!) and suddenly you get light print with streaks. You can keep increasing the toner darkness dial inside the SLM until it's all the way on, to the point of spooning toner onto the drum, and your printouts are still light and streaky. Woe is you, you need an expensive new drum. NOT. Although it is a little known fact, all toner is not created equal--even name brands. Differences between production runs, age, storage, etc. can each affect the quality of the toner, and your new toner may be the culprit. Before you shell out for a drum, replace the toner again with a fresh box, bought somewhere or sometime other than the first box. You are likely to find, once the new toner circulates, that your printer is happy again. And you can't lose if the drum is to blame after all, just use the replaced toner later. But store it carefully--its a mess. | | | BLUE-RIDGE ATARIFEST | | | Compiled by Ron Kovacs from the GEnie ST RT | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------- Category 11, Topic 7 Message 174 Sun Jul 19, 1992 C.ALLEN17 [Cliff] at 00:39 EDT Just got back from the Banquet. For some reason, I am sitting a little further away form my computer. (Must still be full from all the food I ate, 3 helpings of everything except dessert). Thanks to all those that attended and those that wished for use a good show. One of the reasons I like these shows, is that I get a chance to meet the people behind the software I am using. For those that couldn't attend the show, I think you missed one of the best little shows in the south. A special thanks to the following; Accusoft-ST: I will be spending quite a few days looking through all the Clip-Art disks I got. ABC Solutions: Sorry I was unable to visit your booth. Every time I started over your way, I was called to do something else. Clear Thinking: Will try the Metapsychology Primer in a couple of days. I hope I don't prove to be sane, it's more fun when your slightly crazy. CodeHead Software: John, thanks for checking on my version numbers. DSA: Every time I looked, your booth was full of kids playing your software. Joppa Software Development: Sorry I didn't get a chance to visit your booth until close to closing time. From what I could see, your product does look like the one for me. Have a safe trip back. KAUG: Thanks for the assist with the registration desk. Erik White (KAUG): Good seminar. Lexicor Software: Thank you again for the door prize. Maxwell CPU: With all the IMG clip art I got at the Accusoft-ST booth, your program will get a work out. Read mountain Press: For the second year in row, you've packed the seminar. Am looking forward to reading your new book. Software Development System: As soon as I pick up my new MegaSTE tomorrow, I will install the NewDesk ICON CPX. ST Report: Another packed house in the seminar room. Step Ahead Software: Nevin, sorry to hear about the flight snafu, but glad you made it. Your southern drawl is getting better. Twilight Zone Software: Glad you make to the show this year. Applied Audio Marketing Steinberg/Jones: Thanks to developers for submitting door prizes. Once again, thanks to all for making this show winner. Cliff ------------ Category 11, Topic 7 Message 179 Sun Jul 19, 1992 HAINES at 17:37 EDT Well, after a few hours sleep, I thought I would post here for any monitoring this topic as to what was shown at the show. Starting at the front door was Accusoft, which has some really excellent and very clean monochrome img files on a very wide variety of topics. I bought a sample pak from them, consisting of 8 of their most popular disks, each with a viewer program, for $24. It also came with a nice disk holder. Next was Worldcomm, with Chris Roberts. I saw him inside at several booths, but never saw him outside. He might have decided to look more than sit. Registration desk next, with the Knoxville Atari Users Group (KAUG) table beside it. They were showing some nice demo stuff when I went by, but I don't think they were showing any product. When you went in the front door to the main hall area, all the booths were on your left. The first was Lexicor Software, which was showing the Phase 4 paint and rendering software. They were running a videotape showing previous efforts, and these could only be described as stunning. Some were done on the Matrix card, some on their 24 bit video card. These videos were incredible. You would never believe the video. If you ever saw the movie Tron, you would have a idea of the possibilities. They just started there. The video was a little worn, but running at every show would make it so, because anyone that looked at it stayed for a while. Very impressive. Next was SDS, showing the Deskjet Utilities pack, Newdesk icon editor, and a product I was very excited about, the Logitech Fotoman Camera. This is a new product, to be on the market August 15. It is a 372 by 256 pixels 256 gray-scale camera than can take and digitally hold 32 pictures. The software was very nice, and controlled the camera, though it still has a few features they want to add. The SDS fellow (can't read his name) told the guys at the Lexicor booth to smile, and snapped their picture. He placed the Fotoman in its cradle, and selected the directory function in the software. In a few seconds, a thumb-nail preview of all the pictures in the camera appeared on screen. They can be saved in TIFF, EPS, and another I don't remember (IMG?). It connects to the serial port, and runs at 9600 baud now, release version will possibly run at 14 to 19k, depending on how reliable they find these to be. At 9600 it is really fast. A seamless, quick, and impressive way to get pictures in to the ST. They hope to have a Calamus SL import module later. Priced at $700 for complete system, to $100 if you already own the hardware. Separate versions for ST or TT though, some specific functions needed for each. Next was Step Ahead Software, showing Tracker ST and Gemvelope. I think Nevin was a little late getting in, but he did make it, and showed these excellent products to many interested users. Craig Harvey of Edhak fame was next at the Clear Thinking booth, showing his fast and excellent file/memory/disk/next editor. He was also showing a Metapsychology primer program (?) which several people bought as a package along with Edhak, I think it allows you to look at (I don't know about editing) your head. Nothing really like it in the ST market, one of the buyers can explain it more easily than I. ABC Solutions was showing First Publisher 2, tbxCad, Kspread 4 and Kspread Lite, First Word Plus, and the one I really liked, Firstgraph. If you have played with he demo, you know this is an extremely powerful graphing package. It is also very fast. They showed me the current versions speed by having a 3d bar graph drawn, with a perspective view shown from off center. He then grabbed a camera view icon, and dragged it around, changing the perspective. Redraw was basically instantaneous. Very fast, very clean. You can place labels anywhere on the graph, rotate then, etc. Very powerful for the price. They were upgrading the other packages at the show. Next was DSA, showing their new product, the DP graphics engine. This is program for drawing graphics, sprites, background screens and more, for inclusion in your GFA Basic programs, somewhat similar to the utilities in STOS, but more full featured. They were showing 3 games programmed in the engine, for a total of less than 30 hours programming time. One was Ms Pacman, the other an invaders clone, the other a nice platform game, as good as anything I have seen out of Europe. Smooth graphics, detailed sprites, and nice sounds. Looks good. They are also going to mail out a shareware drawing program, they showed a version of it at the show, but it was not complete enough to let loose. It has several functions not present in any of the drawing programs I have seen, including the ability to grab any portion of a picture and create an instant border around it. It has text, and very interesting gradient fill brushes that can change gradients as they move, making very nice pictures. It looks like a good replacement for Printmaster. Next was a music booth, but I can't read what I have written. I don't know much about the music scene, but the software was very professional looking, and the sounds very nice. Someone else can cover this. Next was the Codehead double table. They needed it. From the time John got there and set up, till he left, there was a group of people around him two, and sometimes three deep, watching him put Calligrapher, Megapaint II, and Avant Vector through their paces. If he sold as much as people were interested, it should have been very successful. Across the way was Joppa Software, showing their Straight Fax software for the ST. They held a seminar, telling of the possible future features to be included in the software as newer Fax modems come to the market, and invited anyone to come over to their booth and try the fax software, using a hand scanner or a page scanner. They have Pagestream and Calamus export drivers, and the fax pages produced from these are virtually indistinguishable from the original produced on a laser printer. Beside them was Maxwell CPU, showing off Silhouette, the American, low priced alternative to the European programs, combining auto-tracing and editing of bitmap and vectors in one program. Very impressive. Mobile Ohm Software was next, they got in a little late, I only got a peek, showing some music software. Twilight Zone Software was showing Transcendence BBS, which looking very nice and full featured. Steinberg-Jones had a seminar room set up, where they showed their wares and held their seminar. Very interesting abilities with their programs. The demo they held was like something off a rock concert stage. I may have missed someone, as I jumped around some. Ralph from ST Report did have a table, and was handing out No More Real Soon Now badges. He was a very interesting person to talk to. A lot of people think he is down on Atari, but I found him to be up on Atari, kind of down on the people at Atari, or certain ones anyway. The seminars were well attended. Don Terp of Reed Mountain Press spoke some on publishing, but mainly on how to use your system to run a business, and stay in business. Joppa spoke on the features they have in their software, and future development. A KAUG member put on an interesting beginning Midi demo, as he is the leader of his church choir, and uses his ST and midi software and keyboards to make church music! Definitely a long way from the Rock and Roll we usually associate with the St and Midi. Steinberg-Jones had a very nice seminar demonstrating the abilities of their products, with very wild sounds issuing forth. Ralph of ST Reports seminar was very well attended. He is pretty upbeat about Atari this year, with the wait for the new machines, and feels that Atari can make a real comeback, but they have to push the new machine. If they wait, they will loose the advantage of the advanced technology for the price like they used to have. He more or less stated that a lot of the details everyone has been hearing from Europe about the Falcon contain a lot of the truth. He also urges everyone to write to Atari to encourage them to push now. When he asked who plans to buy one of the new machines, almost the entire room raised their hands. Mike Groh of Atari had no formal presentation, but instead had a question and answer period. He would not confirm or deny the Falcon and its release date, but stated that if others in the company had stated it might have a fall 92 release, that there might be a release then, as Atari is always in product development, he just was not able to say what. He stated the ST Stylus had been dropped because of the extreme manpower needed to get market penetration with this type of new product. He stated that the ST Book would not be sold here now, but is being sold in other parts of the world. A 4 meg version, maybe or maybe not with back-lighted screen will be available here later in the year, possibly fall 92. FSM GDOS is to be rewritten so that it can use fonts that can be obtained at any PC store, though he did not say which, Ralph thinks Bitstream. He spoke about the advertising Atari is doing, and markets they thing they can move into. A lot of questions, many of which he could not give real answers to, as the questioners knew, they were just hoping for a little slip, but Mike was on top of it. Other than the above, and a little info on Multitos, nothing new was released. Well, I probably missed as much as I saw. I thought it to be a very successful show. I don't know about how many attended, but every time I left a seminar, the hallway was packed. Computer Studio had a line at the cash register each time I went in. I know I enjoyed it, and hope it was good for the developers. ------------ Category 11, Topic 7 Message 181 Mon Jul 20, 1992 L.W.BENJAMIN [Koloth] at 06:35 EDT Well! The Blue Ridge AtariFest was a great success for me and I'll be sure to attend again next year! I got updates, I got demos, I spent money! Who could ask for anything more! It was great to actually meet Ralph Mariano, John Eidsvoog, Sheldon Winick, Craig Harvey, and all the rest of the crowd! ------------ Category 11, Topic 7 Message 182 Mon Jul 20, 1992 S.WINICK at 07:15 EDT Doug, Thanks much for the well-wishes. I'm just getting back to catching up on the past few day's messages. It has been a little 'busier than usual' around here lately. ;-] The Blue Ridge AtariFest was a fantastic success. Everything ran smoothly, the crowds were heavy and sales were brisk. The developers who exhibited at the show were kept busy all day showing off their latest products. Seminars were well-attended and interesting, and the door prizes graciously donated by our exhibitors and developers who couldn't make it as well, were a fantastic bonus. A good time was had by all. As you know, it takes an awful lot of hard work by dedicated volunteers and developers to put on a successful show and keep it running smoothly. Our thanks to everyone who helped make this year's event so memorable. And our thanks especially to all those fine Atarians who supported our efforts with their attendance and participation. Without them, it would all have been for naught. Their support of has made all of this possible. Now it's your turn, Doug. From what I've seen posted so far about the Connecticut AtariFest '92, it looks like you 'Yanks' are fixin' for a fine 'Fest yourselves. I may very well just drop in myself for the party. I know y'all are going to be very busy during the next few weeks making sure the Atari community will be treated to another fantastic event. ;-] Message 189 Wed Jul 22, 1992 John, There's nothing finer than 'wall-to-wall Atarians'!! You know the great feeling after a successful show when the feedback keeps coming back so positive. All the hard work and dedicated efforts of our show staff payed off with all aspects of the show running so smoothly. And the great attendance by loyal Atarians here in the southeast (and some from even further away ;-) made it a fantastic success. Sales were definitely brisk -- we had our best day ever at Computer STudio! Sheldon (Computer STudio - Asheville, NC) ------------ Category 11, Topic 7 Message 190 Wed Jul 22, 1992 BOB-BRODIE [Atari Corp.] at 19:22 EDT Mary, Those fellers down in Houston have be acallin' me Bubba for a couple of years now. I'm fixin' to head back down there in October. :) I'm glad to hear that the BRACE Show lived up to everyones expectations. I've already gotten a phone call from inspired southerners that are anxious to talk about trying something similar in their neck o' the woods. Hopefully, things will work out better next year so I can return to Asheville for BRACE IV. ------------ Category 11, Topic 7 Message 192 Wed Jul 22, 1992 NEVIN-S at 22:15 EDT I had a great time, even though: My first US Air flight was delayed by 1 1/2 hours, so I missed my connection; They lost my box with my TT and all the software I was going to sell, and put me in a panic until they found it; They sent me to a hotel for a free night in Charleston, but did not check to see that the hotel was sold out! So I had to switch to a SECOND hotel; My flight on Saturday morning was about 45 minutes late in leaving, and I had the thrill of seeing them working on the engine right there at the gate. Gave me lots of confidence! Sales were very slow, because there are so few new Atari users that I had already sold to all area ST enthusiasts (it was nice to see them, though it was sad to see that the market really is shrinking in a big way); On my flight back, we landed on time in NY, only to sit 50 yards from the gate for 45 minutes since all gates were full. Seriously, even with these bad points, I had a very good time. Thanks a TON to John Eidsvoog for letting me share his room on Saturday night, and thanks to Sheldon and his crew for all of their hospitality. --Nevin ------------ Category 11, Topic 7 Message 199 Fri Jul 24, 1992 K.HOUSER [Kevin MQ Def] at 02:09 EDT I'll be uploading a NEW demo of the latest DrumKitz (Alesis D4 ed/lib) and another NEW application soon. I'm sure everyone will like the quality of these applications TBA. --Kevin (Mobile Ohm Development) PS. I'd like to find out about any other Atari Fests (hint, hint) in the Southern region well in advance so I can plan ahead. Hopefully, at the next one I won't have so many hardware problems (monitor dying, computer tiring out, lack of sleep, etc.) ------------ | | | ATARIUSER REVIEWS | | | From the July 1992 Edition | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------- The following article is reprinted in Atari Explorer Online by permission of AtariUser magazine. It MAY NOT be further reprinted without specific permission of AtariUser. AtariUser is a monthly Atari magazine, available by subscription by calling (818) 332-0372. HotteST Game of the Month: EPIC (ST, STe, TT) ///////////////////////////////////////////// After months of advertising and teasing, the "Wing Commander" for the ST is finally here. But EPIC is more like a flight simulator crossed with that old TV series Battlestar Galactica. Not bad, but not what we expected. The sun of your home system is about to go super-nova, so a huge fleet of assorted spaceships is assembled, and the entire population is evacuated to a new planet in a different system 560 light years away. Problem is, to get there, the fleet must go through Rexxon territory, and the Rexxon Empire doesn't believe in the super-nova story. So you must fly a series of missions against Rexxon installations planet side and defend your fleet from enemy ships. Those of you who have played F-29 Retaliator (Ocean) will feel instantly at home, since this was also programmed by Digital Image Design, and has the same overall structure: it's mission-driven, has access codes, all the data for the missions is in the manual only, you can fly out of the game world, and your ship has a normal airplane-style compass (000 through 359 degrees). The manual devotes a lot of space to background story and information, but doesn't fully explain the mechanics of the game. So, you'll spend a lot of time just flying around and shooting things experimentally to see what makes your mission completion gauge (percentage) go up. Refueling is particularly difficult in space, as the fuel modules are rather small. I still haven't figured out how to refuel from fuel ships! But that skill must be mastered, as your Epic fighter is one heck of a gas guzzler. The graphics use nice 3-D polygons for just about everything, and gorgeous pictures for the animated game sequences. The various ships are easily recognizable, so the risk of gunning down a friendly by mistake is limited. The space battles can get pretty exhilarating as you whiz past ships of all shapes and sizes while gunning down enemy crafts. There is one little bug though: sometimes, a ship jumps around for no apparent reason when you fly fast toward it. Something wrong with the graphics system I guess. The screen update is fast, and you can adjust the amount of detail to suit. EPIC's controls are extremely sensitive, so the joystick is next to useless. You're better off using the mouse. The thrust system is weird --you seem to have to choose between "crawl" and "Warp 9". I haven't found a way to set the throttle at any point in between. Overall, EPIC is a nice game, but it's not the earth-shattering blockbuster it has been made out to be in the promotions. It works on everything from a 520STm to a TT (make sure your TT boots in low resolution though), but you need 1 meg of RAM to listen to the digitized score. Epic comes on two double-sided disks and supports two floppy drives. From Ocean UK, $54.95 -- Eric Bitton BATMAN RETURNS (Lynx) ///////////////////// Bruce Wayne's back in this superlative Lynx treatment of the 1992 summer movie with Keaton, Pfeiffer, and DeVito. While almost all other platforms will wait until Fall or even Christmas for their versions, the Lynx "Batman Returns" premiered the same week as the movie itself. In what may be the most complex and realistic game for the Lynx yet, Catwoman and the Penguin have formed an alliance, with a plan to defame Batman and place themselves in power. Now Batman must save both the town and his reputation, and bring in his opponents. Closely mirroring the movie's plot, Batman Returns makes you the defender of Gotham City, as you run, jump, and fight. Your enemies are a motley crew of thugs, police, and penguins, while you fight back with weapons and fists. Even with battle armor, Batman has a limited amount of health, and if he takes too much damage, the game ends. This is a hard game, as the deck is clearly stacked against you. While the general location of Batman's enemies is fixed, their actions and appearances are not, making pattern learning impossible. You have one life, no continues, and no passwords to defeat a seemingly endless number of opponents and their various attacks. You have four scrolling levels to complete: The Red Triangle Circus Gang; Batman Confronts Authorities; Beneath Gotham City; Batman Discovers the Artic World. Though four levels might not sound like much, each level holds dozens of screens, and the high difficulty of this game will make finishing even the first stage a major accomplishment. The graphics on Batman Returns can do no wrong. The images and actions of the characters are remarkably accurate. Gotham City on the Lynx perfectly captures the unique architecture and moody atmosphere of the movie. The enemies are distinctive and easily identified, and Batman's acrobatic flips and cape-flapping jumps are among the best effects ever on a Lynx. A repetitive theme music plays in the background, while the majority of game sounds are recognizable but not noteworthy. It's all remarkably good use of 256K of card memory. Batman Returns is a respectable action game, and the Lynx version would be equally enjoyable on any other platform. It offers basic fight action and a serious challenge in a hot package that's guaranteed to sell Lynxes. Atari Corp., $49.95. -- Robert Jung. EdScheme: Learning Language (ST, STe, TT) ///////////////////////////////////////// Scheme, developed in 1975, is a dialect of Lisp, a list processing language whose strengths lie in the evaluation of symbolic rather than numeric data, the use of highly flexible data structures, and the use of recursion. It's the basis for many artificial intelligence applications. EdScheme, from Schemers Inc., offers a complete package with an editor and a 128 page fully indexed User's Reference Manual. Two interpreters (one with full editor, turtle graphics interface and debugger) come on a single 3 1/2-inch disk and work on all ST/TT models regardless of memory. The disk also contains two game utilities and various other utility files. A comprehensive 328 page tutorial designed for novice and experienced programmers is available separately. EdScheme greets you with an arrow prompt and a blank screen on which statements and commands are typed and evaluated. Despite its DOS-like appearance, the interpreter employs an automatic indentation and bi- color code system in which EdScheme evaluates black functional expressions into red data expressions. The integrated editor features WordStar-like editing commands, automatic indentation of program lines, highlighting of expression subgroups and parenthesis matching by showing the user the code for which the closing parenthesis must match. EdScheme excels as a teaching tool. The available tutorial introduces Scheme and nurtures good programming practices. It introduces the reader to the algorithmic process by first diagraming operations in an organized manner even before tackling the code syntax--no mindless typing programs into the computer, enforcing ritual before reason. The exercises and sample answers in the tutorial are plentiful. The advantages of a list processing language like Scheme over the standard BASIC or PASCAL is in its ease. The novice can be writing powerful programs in Scheme sooner than in BASIC or PASCAL, and the expert can explore more advanced programming techniques such as recursive and curried functions, procedural abstraction, and binary trees. Scheme itself is a more user-friendly language than the widely distributed XLISP, making EdScheme an easier language to debug. EdScheme is efficient, easy-to-learn, and inexpensive. The versatility of Scheme has made it the language of choice for those just learning computer programming. Scheme is already being taught in freshman classes at Universities such as Columbia, Yale and U.C.L.A. EdScheme, $49.95; Tutorial, $29.95; from Schemers Inc., 4250 Galt Ocean Mile, Suite 7u, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308. -- Kevin Festner RAMPART (Lynx) ////////////// Longtime players remember when flashy graphics and sound didn't matter as much as a solid idea with good game play. Such is the case with Rampart, an adaptation of the Atari Games' arcade title. The player is the war-lord of an enclosed castle; cannons are placed behind the walls and used to repel enemy attacks. After each battle, holes in the wall must be patched with Tetris-like pieces before the next attack, else the game ends. One player can compete against a computer-controlled navy through eight levels, or two players can fight each other, with or without the computer. Lynx Rampart is moderately hard to win, and a near-complete copy of the original. The Lynx controls are a respectable substitute for the arcade's trackball. In a one-player game, a level ends after enduring a number of attacks, and survival is the final goal. A two-player game ends when one side loses, and all games have a limited number of continues. There is one difference that devoted fans will notice: on the Lynx, all ships can drop off ground forces, which makes defending your shoreline very important. This makes the game more difficult, but not unplayable. Rampart in the arcade used simple and uninspired graphics, which the Lynx duplicates exactly. To compensate, this version also shows a number of elegant animated and still images between breaks in the action. There are not too many sounds, but the ones present are well done, with explosions, musical themes and dirges, and digitized voices. Rampart on the Lynx is a good adaptation and a welcome change from today's recycled arcade themes. For those who have never tried this unusual game, its original blend of action and strategy can be quite addictive, and is well recommended. Atari Corp., $29.95. -- Robert Jung STRAIGHT FAX! (ST, STe, TT) ////////////////////////// STRAIGHT FAX! allows your ST/TT to send and receive FAX files using a Class 2 FAX/modem. This will enable you to send ASCII, monochrome IMG, and DEGAS (PI3 or PC3) files directly from your Atari computer to a Group 3 FAX machine (most all of them). A minimum of 2 meg of RAM in your ST is "recommended." STRAIGHT FAX! has the added feature of being able to convert Calamus, Calamus SL and PageStream documents to a FAX format that can be sent using STRAIGHT FAX! Most FAX machines operate at 9,600 bps, but you are able to use FAX speeds up to 14,400 bps if your modem and the receiving machine can both operate at that speed. STRAIGHT FAX! keeps a log of incoming and outgoing FAX's, and can send scheduled FAX events. Operation is within a somewhat standard GEM screen, with ten function keys across the bottom for easy access of standard commands. All the function key commands are also available from the drop down menus or as keyboard commands. The Phone/dialer list, FAX log, and Scheduler are easy to understand and straightforward in operation. FAX files can be created on disk for later use. You also have the ability to convert an IMG to FAX, Degas to FAX, ASCII to FAX and FAX to IMG. With the ability to convert a FAX document to an IMG, you can easily import a document into other DTP or Document Processors. You can view am IMG, DEGAS or FAX on the screen or print an IMG or FAX document using GDOS. There's support for directly scanning images into the FAX software. A great manual (but no index), handy on-line help files along with the expected set-up screens make things even easier. Dialing Preferences are similar in nature to the setup in a terminal program. These are FAX/modem settings that can also be set with AT commands as are some of the Receive FAX Preferences of Answer After and Receive path. I've been using this software for about a month now and I'm completely satisfied with its ease of use and versatility. This software is on an equal or higher par with any PC or MAC FAX software I've seen. Background operation for receive or scheduled sends would be a great feature, but are neither available in this release nor predicted for the immediate future. Joppa has a software package they can be proud of as is, but they have upgrades in the works even as you read this. $79.95, Straight FAX! is by Joppa Software (not Joppa Computer Products, a Maryland retailer), P.O. Box 214, Dallastown, PA 17313-0214, 717-428- 3231. -- John King Tarpinian Supra FAXModem (all computers) ////////////////////////////// Warning: techie language ahead. If necessary, skim along until you see parts that make sense to you. You don't need the rest--yet. The modem I used to test the STRAIGHT FAX! software is the SupraFAXModem V.32bis. This is their top-of-the-line FAX/modem. You can set this FAX/modem for speeds up to 14,400 bps with up to 57,600 bps throughput with its V.42bis capacity. It supports levels 2-5 MNP and has compatibility with the AT command set. The FAX/modem supports Group 3, CCITT V.27ter and V.29 which are the FAX machine standards in common use today, as well as the Class 1 and Class 2 FAX standards. The SupraFAXModem is the same super-compact size as their 9,600 bps modem, so desk space is not a consideration. There are a few cautions that apply to all modems above 2400 bps. You may need a new, more heavily shielded cable that safeguards data compression and error correction. And, if you have a MEGA STe with TOS below 2.06 or a TT with TOS below 3.06, you will need a patch program such as SERPATCH.PRG in your auto folder, and will have to set up flow control. The Supra FAXModem comes with a Getting Started Manual, a Reference Manual and a Reference Card, and has a five year warranty. It's virtually as simple to use as any other modem, although I initially had a problem using the SupraFAXModem with Aladdin on GEnie. The profusion of commands required to operate modern feature-rich modems make it necessary to set up the initialization with care. The simple fix is to change the ATZ command in Aladdin to AT or ATZ1. After only a week of use, my SupraFAXModem started to have intermittent problems. I called Supra's customer assistance number and explained what my FAX/modem was doing. I was told, "No problem," and was given a choice of sending the modem back for replacement, or of giving them my credit card number as a deposit they would send me a replacement FAX/ modem by UPS Red Label and include a prepaid Federal Express return mailer. I opted for the latter and had the replacement the next business day. All this at NO cost to me. I give this type of customer service an A+. The replacement unit operates flawlessly, and I can move data at breakneck speed without breakneck prices. That's a winning combination. Retail: $399 for the top of the line FAXModem, other models available at lower prices. Supra Corporation, 7101 Supra Drive SW, Albany, OR 97321, 503-967-2410. -- John King Tarpinian | | | GROWING UP WITH ATARI - PART III | | | By Bob Smith | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------- As I had previously mentioned, it had been a real pleasure to be involved with the Atari Computer and all of the outstanding people that I have met along the way. These people range in all sizes, shapes, walks of life and have all had the common interest of this fine machine, in whatever form. One of these people that I had the pleasure of meeting is Bob Brodie. As most of you know, Bob is the multi-talented high profile person of the Atari Corporation. In the several years that I was president of the Mid-Florida Atari Computer Club, I spoke to Bob by phone on a fairly regular basis and he always had time for our conversations and was most patient with me. I gained an insight into the Atari Corporation from Atari's side. Bob has been candid and straight forward in his dealings, both from a public relations standpoint and more to the point, a humanistic standpoint. As a case in point, early last year I had spoken to him about the possibility of his taking part in our booth at the Great Southern Electronics and Computer Expo. He said that because of the time at which it would take place, October, he had other commitments, but would visit our Club on regular meeting night. It was set up to take place in the early summer and the membership and a lot of other people were notified. Due to some conflicts in scheduling it was reset finally for September. Being the upstanding type of person that he is, he apologized and said that he would make it up to us at the September meeting. Well, Bob came loaded for 'Bear'. This particular meeting was nothing like we had ever seen. The equipment that Bob brought with him made everyone drool, including and especially me. He put on a show which included a tape of his visit to the Atari Fest in Germany. He had taken this tape himself and might have a career in the future as TV camera man, if it were not for the beard. (Just kidding, Bob). The demos were outstanding and his expertise in making presentations on behalf of Atari truly showed through. Too bad I wasn't successful in getting him to forget to take some of the equipment that he brought from California. The next night I was privileged to have dinner with Bob, one on one and I learned more about the man than I had hoped for. One of the fun things that a person can do with a computer is to "go online". What this means is that you can use your computer and modem and connect with a Bulletin Board. On a BBS you will usually find message bases that cover everything from Politics to Cooking, to Fashion, to computer help. I am fortunate that I live in an area that has several Atari bulletin boards, which cater to both the 8 Bit and ST computers. I use these facilities to increase my enjoyment and limited knowledge of my computers. I have also learned that there are many differing types of personalities that run these boards. These people are called SYSOPS and it took me quite awhile to figure out what that meant. (Sysops = System Operators). These people range from passionate to downright fanatical about their systems and setups. They remind me of the classic car owners, who spend all day just polishing and primping over their 65 Corvette or 37 Chevy. Sysops provide a service to the computer community which is unique in many ways. Where else can someone get the latest news and as many differing opinions on a given topic in one source. The message bases on the BBS can provide many different points of view not often available to the general populace and usually at no more cost than a local phone call. You can play many types of games, get technical help in abundance with a particular computer problem that you just cannot figure out and get a variety of programs for your computer. Sysops by and large invest a good deal of money in this passion and the only reward is the Bulletin Board user's thanks. In my education, I have been fortunate and lucky to have had the opportunity to learn how to be a backup and co-sysop. Believe me, this can be a very enlightening and happy experience. At the same time, it can be the most frustrating thing in the world, especially when you cannot find that very small error that is causing all of the problems with the board. As I have stated before, one of the advantages of growing up with a computer, such as Atari, is that you meet a very diverse group of people. It has been and will continue to be a very illuminating experience for me and I continue to marvel at the lengths that people will go to be of help with problems, ideas, and just plain being friendly. I have met by way of the computer, people from almost all over the world, in such places as England, Canada, South America, Europe, United States, etc. I still have a great deal of growing up with the computer to do and I hope I never stop but it is nice to know that I'm not alone. I can watch my children start their learning and growing with their computers and at the same time relive my own very shaky beginnings. I guess that is what "computering" is all about. We hope you have enjoyed this three part series of articles. | | | SUPRA'S NEW 9600 MODEMS | | | From Supra - Reprint from Z*Net Atari Online Magazine | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------- Supra has released 2 new 9600 modems - the 9600 Supra FaxModem v.32 and the 14400 Supra FaxModem v.32bis at a retail price of $299.95 and $399.95 respectively. Supra is offering these NEW modem at special prices for BBS SysOps. Both modems support 300-2400bps (Bell 103/212A, V.21 / 22A&B / 22bis / 23), v.32 (9600bps), MNP 2-5/10, V42bis, 9600 send/receive fax (v.27ter/ 29), class 1/2 (fax software-fax modem communication standard), caller ID and voice. (Voice and caller ID can be enabled through low-cost, user -installable firm-ware upgrades available mid-1992.) The v.32bis model adds v.32bis (14400bps) and v.17 (14400 fax). This is all packaged in Supra's famous small case (1" high x 4.5" wide x 6.5" long). The modems have 4 lights (RD/SD/OH/TR) and a LED display. The display will show the connection rate, compression protocol, error correction protocol, etc. in a rotating fashion. HOW CAN SUPRA SELL A 9600 MODEM FOR 1/2-1/3 THE PRICE OF CURRENT MODEMS? This year the price of v.32/v.32bis technology will tumble to new lows. Supra is continuing its proud tradition of being a leader in using new chip-sets to lead the modem industry to a new price point. IF SUPRA IS USING A NEW CHIP-SET, HOW CAN I BE SURE THAT THE NEW MODEMS WILL NOT HAVE SOME PROBLEMS WHEN THEY ARE RELEASED? Supra is using a new Rockwell chip-set which condenses several of their older chips into 1 chip. Rockwell is the leader in building modem chip-sets. A majority of current 9600 modems are based upon the older Rockwell v.32 technology. We do not foresee any problems, but if a problem does occur, Supra is committed to solving it as quickly as possible. Supra also offers a 30 day Money Back Guarantee for products that are purchased directly from Supra. MY LOCAL USERS USE USR HST MODEMS. WILL I BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE AT 9600 BAUD WITH THEM? The maximum baud rate you will connect at with a HST modem is 2400. Depending on the age of the HST modem, you may also get a v42bis data compression connection. If the user uses the USR Dual Standard modem, and it is setup correctly, you will connect at a baud rate of 9600 (or 14400 if using v.32bis). We expect that most owners of the HST modems will be upgrading to v.32 modems. I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF SUPRA. HOW RELIABLE ARE THEIR MODEMS? Supra Corporation has been providing personal computer users with high- quality, low-cost peripherals since 1985. In addition to manufacturing a very successful line of modems, Supra makes a variety of peripherals for Mac, IBM, Amiga and Atari computers. Supra has excelled because of its unique combination of quality products, competitive prices, and excellent customer support. Supra has a complete line of modems from a standard 2400 modem to a 2400 v.42bis, a 2400 FaxModem, a 9600 FaxModem and a 14400 FaxModem. We have internal versions of most of these modems for the IBM and Amiga. As with most of our products, every modem that we manufacture is tested and burned in on our test machines. To obtain one of the new modems under this Sysop offer, please complete the following information, include a copy of your phone bill for your BBS phone line and send them to: Supra Corporation ATTN: Sysop Order 7101 SW Supra Dr. Albany, OR 97321 or FAX the information to 503-967-2401. (Orders will take 3-4 weeks to be processed.) ATTENTION! SYSTEM OPERATORS FROM FINLAND The price for finnish SupraFaxModem v.32bis version is FMK 2.300,00 including VAT. For further information, please contact directly WestCom System OY, telephone 952-184 665. All sales to Finland will need to go through WestCom. If you have any questions, please contact either Supra's Sales Department or the Technical Support Department at: 503-967-2400 (main 8-5pst) 503-967-2401 (Fax) 503-967-2410 (Sales 7-5pst) 800-727-8772 (Sales 7-5pst) 503-967-2440 (Tech Support 9-4pst) 503-967-2444 (BBS, 2 lines, v32bis) CompuServe 76004,565 GEnie SupraTech Bix SupraCorp American Online SupraCorp2 SYSOP INFORMATION BBS Name:________________________ BBS Software:________________ BBS Phone:_______________________ Type of System:______________ No. of Phone Lines:______________ Type of Modem used:__________ No. Calls per Month:_____________ No. of Modems:_______________ How long in operation:___________ ORDER INFORMATION Date______________ BILL TO:_________________________________________________________ Address__________________________________________________________ City______________ State_____ Zip________ Phone____________ Contact Name:____________________________________________________ Circle one of the following: VISA MASTERCARD Pre-Pay Cashiers Check ($5.00 charge) Card Numbers__________________________ Expiration Date_________ SHIP TO:_________________________________________________________ Address__________________________________________________________ City______________ State_____ Zip________ Phone____________ Referred by:_____________________________________________________ PRODUCT Model: Price: Quantity: SupraFAXModem V.32 $199.95 (modem only) _____ SupraFAXModem V.32bis $249.95 (modem only) _____ SHIPPING Route: Price: Quantity: Billing: ___ Ground $ 8.00/pc _____ VISA _______________ exp___ ___ Blue Label $14.00/pc _____ M.C. _______________ exp___ ___ Red Label $30.00/pc _____ COD Cashiers Check ($5 chg) ___ CANADA Mail $16.25/pc _____ Pre-Pay ___ CANADA Express $43.25/pc _____ COMMENTS:______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ | | | STAR-TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE | | | By Walter K. Wilbury | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------- In an effort to help solve problems for those who aren't "in the know," here's something that may become a weekly feature like the Echo Rules if the response is good (and if the moderators like it as well!). STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file (information culled from Brian Hall, Joe Siegler, Robert Heyman, and sundry others) (warning - parts of this are written almost as if to cue in someone who's missed a year or two of "The Next Generation," but that's just to make sure everyone's running at the same speed while reading this) Just what is this "Deep Space Nine" we keep hearing about? "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" is a new, hour-long series produced by Paramount. The show will not be seen anywhere until January 1993, when it will premiere with a 2-hour television movie (rather like "The Next Generation" debuted with 'Encounter at Farpoint'). The show was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, both executive producers of "The Next Generation." (By all accounts so far, "Deep Space Nine" WAS examined by Gene Roddenberry, who approved it before he died in 1991.) Piller plans to spend most of his time on the new series, and the supervising producer of "The Next Generation," Jeri Taylor, will take on whatever work Piller is unable to complete on "The Next Generation." Where and when can I see "Deep Space Nine?" Currently, the series has been sold to 84 stations across the U.S. (see list below). It is likely that "Deep Space Nine" may be uplinked via satellite around the same time as "The Next Generation" on Sundays, but there is no concrete confirmation of that as yet. (One might also assume "Deep Space Nine" will be transmitted via the same satellite as "The Next Generation," but that's really academic unless you've got a satellite dish.) Television stations carrying "Deep Space Nine" include to date: Abilene - KRBC Los Angeles - KCOP Albany (New York) - WXXA Louisville - WDRB Albuquerque - KGSW Lubbock - KJTV Amarillo - KCIT Madison - WISC Atlanta - WGNX Memphis - WLMT Augusta - WRDW Miami - WCIX Baltimore - WNUV Milwaukee - WCGV Birmingham - WTTO Minneapolis - KMSP Boise - KTRV Monterey - KNTV Buffalo - WUTV Nashville - WZTV Cedar Rapids - KCRG New York City - WPIX Charleston - WVAH Norfolk - WGNT Charleston (SC) - WTAT Oklahoma City - KOKH Chicago - WGN Orlando - WCPX Cincinnati - WXIX Philadelphia - WTXF Cleveland - WUAB Phoenix - KNXV Colorado Springs - KOAA Portland (Oregon) - KPTV Columbus (SC) - WLTX Providence - WNAC Corpus Christi - KDF Raleigh - WLFL Dallas - KTXA Reno - KAME Dayton - WRGT Richmond - WRLH Denver - KWGN Roanoke - WSET Des Moines - KDSM Rochester (NY) - WUHF El Paso - KVIA Rockford - WQRF Eugene - KEZI Sacramento - KTXL Fargo - KVRR St. Louis - KDNL Fort Myers - WFTX Salt Lake City - KSTU Gainesville - WOGX San Antonio - KRRT Grand Rapids - WXMI San Diego - XETV Greensboro - WNRW San Francisco - KBHK Greenville (NC) - WFXI Savannah - WJCL Greenville (SC) - WHNS Seattle - KCPQ Harlingen - KRGV Shreveport - KMSS Harrisburg - WPMT Spokane - KXLY Hartford - WTIC Syracuse - WSYT Honolulu - KHNL Tampa - WTOG Houston - KTXH Toledo - WUPW Huntsville - WZDX Tucson - KMSB Indianapolis - WXIN Waco - KWTX Kansas City - KSHB D.C. - WDCA Las Vegas - KVVU Wichita Falls - KJTL Little Rock - KTHV Wilkes-Barre - WOLF The first season of "Deep Space Nine" will feature the premiere two-hour episode, followed by 18 or 19 regular hour-long episodes. There's no word on what kind of timetable "Deep Space Nine" will run on in relation to "The Next Generation." What will "Deep Space Nine" be about? The series will take place aboard a Cardassian-built space station, designated Deep Space Nine, which orbits the planet Bajora (Ensign Ro Laren's home world, by the way). Fed up and weakened by Bajoran terrorists, the Cardassians vacate the station, and Starfleet - in an effort to gain a foothold in the strategically important area around Bajora - assigns a crew to take over the station (characters are described below). Rumor has it that Deep Space Nine may be the seedy place seen in the "Star Trek" universe to date, complete with casinos, holo-deck brothels, and lots of low-life characters lurking about in the lower levels. As if that isn't enough for the crew of Deep Space Nine to worry about, a stable worm hole in space suddenly opens up right next to Bajora, leading to parts of the galaxy previously unreachable within any starship crew's life span. Trying to regulate the flow of traffic into the worm hole - and dealing with whatever new life and representatives of new civilizations emerge from the other side of the galaxy through the worm hole - will be the crew's main concern. Michael Piller, co-creator of the series, has stated that "Deep Space Nine" will be darker in tone than "The Next Generation," allowing the writers to tell stories that the usually stable and healthy environment of the Enterprise would not support. There are also hints that "Deep Space Nine" may have more violence than an average "Next Generation" episode. What does the space station look like? According to Paramount's press releases to date, the station will be the same Space Dock model seen in "Star Trek III" and "Next Generation" episodes such as '11001001.' If the promotional materials are any indication - keep in mind, it's very early on and the model could be changed by the time the series is broadcast - the space station model will look almost exactly the same. Who will be aboard Deep Space Nine? (This is the sketchist part - very few names are available at the time I'm writing this, so don't hinge any bets on this part...) The commanding officer of Starfleet's team on Deep Space Nine will be Captain Cisco, a seasoned commander whose wife was killed by the Borg when (as told in the "Next Generation" episodes 'The Best of Both Worlds' parts I & II) the Borg ran the Federation blockade at Wolfe 359. Cisco himself barely escaped the same attack, and he still harbors a grudge against Captain Picard for that incident, as Picard was subdued by the Borg at that time and the Borg had excised the information necessary to defeat the blockade from Picard's mind. Cisco has a young son named Jake. Another interesting character will be the science officer (although some reports have described the following as the security officer instead), who will be a "shapeshifter" whose natural form is not unlike a pool of jello. Supposedly this character will, like Data and Spock before him, examine humanity from a puzzled alien perspective. According to other reports, the rest of the crew will include a Starfleet engineer who is constantly agitated by the unending ability of the station's non-Starfleet technology to elude his attempts to make it work right. The chief medical officer is rumored to be a Trill - seen in the "Next Generation" segment 'The Host,' the race of parasites who live within voluntary human hosts. There were reports early on that the chief medical officer was going to be a woman born on a low gravity world who has to use a special low-G wheelchair for mobility in normal gravity; however, this concept has been dropped due to the concept of the wheelchair in this character's every scene being too costly to realize. (There are other faces among the main crew - but see the next question for that answer.) In the lower levels, most of Deep Space Nine's casinos, concessions and holo-brothels will be owned and operated by the Ferengi was all know and love, and two Ferengi in particular will be recurring characters. One, an adult male Ferengi who's a real stinker, is in charge of most of those facilities and quite a few of the other Ferengi on board. The other recurring Ferengi character is his son, a teenager with a nasty streak who is hellbent on getting Jack Cisco into trouble. Is anyone from "The Next Generation" moving over to "Deep Space Nine?" At the moment, one confirmed move is that of Ro Laren, who will reportedly be promoted to lieutenant early in the sixth season of "The Next Generation" and will transfer to Deep Space Nine from the Enterprise for a number of reasons - the station orbits her home world, Picard advises Cisco that Ro's knowledge of Bajorans may come in handy when dealing with the natives, and so on. (Recently there has been a rumor that Michelle Forbes, who plays Ro, may not be joining "Deep Space Nine" after all; if anything like this happens, you'll hear about it here. Numerous rumors have said that Chief O' Brien, Keiko and their baby will be moving to "Deep Space Nine," but so far this is still just a rumor. Another character who is often mentioned as moving to Deep Space Nine is Wesley Crusher, but that too is still a rumor at the moment (aside from the obvious question of "how would they justify assigning Wesley to this station?"). Will we hear about or see the Enterprise crew on "Deep Space Nine?" The answer is a resounding YES! The two-hour series opener will heavily involve the Enterprise, as she drops the Starfleet team off at Deep Space Nine. We can probably expect to hear Captain Cisco mention Picard a few times as well. There WILL be crossover stories involving both crews as well. According to TV Guide, Guinan will visit Deep Space Nine every once in a while to visit an inmate in the station's jail: her son. (Nothing concrete on that at the moment, however.) Other reports say that Lwaxana Troi will be a recurring character on "Deep Space Nine" when she develops a crush on the shapeshifting science officer - but again, watch this space, because we're all running on conjecture here. (Speaking of conjecture: when "The Next Generation" leaves TV and becomes strictly a movie venture, you can count on "Deep Space Nine" having a "lead-in" story, much like the 'Unification' two-parter on "The Next Generation" hinted at events in "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.") What will become of "The Next Generation?" "The Next Generation" is, of course, moving on to its sixth season right now. After that, we can expect one more season, and that will probably be the final year for NCC-1701-D on television. There are numerous reasons for this. Both series will be enormously expensive: "The Next Generation" costs an average of nearly $2 million PER EPISODE to produce, and "Deep Space Nine" is expected to have a budget of about $1.6 million per episode (not counting the series premiere, which will probably be twice as expensive since it will involve building many of the show's standing sets). That's nearly $4 million of "Star Trek" between the two shows, and popular as it may be, it is not practical financially for Paramount to produce two such ambitious shows simultaneously. And once it leaves television, "The Next Generation" will almost certainly work its way to the big screen. "Deep Space Nine"'s first season will begin in January '93, about halfway through the sixth season of "The Next Generation." Assuming, of course, that "Deep Space Nine" survives to see a second season, that will begin and end at roughly the same time as the final season of "The Next Generation." At that point, "Deep Space Nine" - again, if it meets with viewer approval - will be the only new "Star Trek" series on TV. "The Next Generation"'s 278 hours will be put into strip syndication (most of the first four seasons already are, with the fifth on the way this fall), plus it'll be available on videotape. "Deep Space Nine" will likely follow that path in time as well. Walter "Puck" Wilbury [self-appointed/self-inflicted keeper of the DS9 FAQ file!] | | | FOREM NET NODES | | | Created Jul 5, '92 | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please note that NOT all of these systems are operating. It is provided as a service. Any system knowingly down or temporarily out of service has been removed. NODE SysOp BBS Name Number ST BAUD ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 David Chiquelin Atari-OH! 713-480-9310 TX DS 14.4 5 Jim Goedhart Mile High 303-431-1404 CO DS 14.4 18 John Miller Turbo Board Support 416-274-1225 ON DS 14.4 19 John G. Atari Elite BBS 412-384-5609 PA DS 14.4 66 Don Liscombe The Brewery 416-683-3089 ON HST 96 74 Lamarr Kelley HAUG BBS 205-722-0900 AL V.14.4 78 Neal Baker The Stun Bolt! 801-968-3921 UT 2400 111 Len Waller Conan's Den 416-285-9328 ON HST 96 133 Dean Lodzinski Hologram Inc. 908-727-1914 NJ HST 96 168 Bob Dolson C.C.B.B.S. 609-451-7475 NJ V.14.4 181 Brett Hainley NovelConcepts BBS 713-729-7555 TX 2400 185 Bill Turner Billboard BBS 203-598-0354 CT 2400 204 Steve Rider Full Moon 408-736-0563 CA HST 96 209 Rick Kerns Ez STreet 609-724-9503 NJ 2400 213 Nate Orzoff Crooked Dragon Inn 407-382-5275 FL 4800 224 Dick Pederson Flash BBS 314-275-2040 MO HST 96 304 Bill Scull The Twilight Zone 407-831-1613 FL DS 14.4 319 Bob Brodie Atari Base 408-745-2196 CA DS 14.4 345 Jay Carter RAM Wasteland 401-295-2710 RI V.9600 350 Ralph Mariano The Bounty ST BBS 904-786-4176 FL DS 14.4 390 Joe Burke Bear's Den 803-574-6738 SC 2400 422 Ben Hamilton Virtual Reality 817-547-1734 TX DS 14.4 423 White Seeker BILINE BBS 303-791-2592 CO 2400 429 Valeriano Meneses MASATEK 213-518-9524 CA HST 96 437 Scorpion Stinger STinger BBS 805-834-9405 CA HST 96 440 Uncle Albert Realm of Chaos 602-789-9426 AZ DS 14.4 441 Don Dettmer The Boiler Room BBS 313-562-1142 MI HST 96 442 Craig Milton CMFM Blaster-Mix BBs 416-637-5001 ON 2400 448 Raymond Skibo Crash BBS 604-299-6581 BC HST14.4 478 Dennis Mcguire Spectrum Atari Group 814-833-4073 PA 2400 479 Al Cummings Cave Creek BBS 206-525-7046 WA 2400 489 Alan Kloza STeal Your Face 908-920-7981 NJ HST 96 494 Ray Baggs Top Gun BBS 407-381-5403 FL V.9600 497 Tim Mccoy Prime Time 805-987-6985 CA HST 96 500 Mike Austin Battlezone 410-969-0621 MD HST14.4 501 Obliterator STormShadow 410-437-0243 MD HST14.4 504 Quartermaster Media 2000 410-360-1356 MD HST14.4 508 Dave Best The SenTinel BBS 403-782-7835 AB V.9600 511 Steve Barnes Hammerlab 705-560-3115 ON 2400 512 Big Brother The Asylum BBS 415-362-8470 CA 2400 523 Lesley-dee Dylan Leftover Hippies BBS 416-466-8931 ON DS 14.4 555 Larry Anderson Jr The Grid BBS 510-351-1385 CA HST14.4 557 Mike Berngard Software Syndicate 708-894-9241 IL DS 14.4 564 Neil Bradley PBM GAMERS 302-791-0518 DE DS 14.4 574 Nathan Murff Asylum 505-897-4306 NM 2400 576 The Scottsman The Loch BBS 818-766-5277 CA 2400 592 Drazil Reptillian The O-Mayer V BBS 213-732-0229 CA HST 96 593 Ron Kovacs Z*Net News Service 908-968-8148 NJ DS 14.4 595 Barry Torrance Temple of Doom 403-436-0328 AB DS 14.4 596 Jay L. Jones Super 68 206-630-1261 WA DS 14.4 602 Bruce Faulkner Cartoon Haven BBS 719-574-7406 CO HST 96 610 Frank Kish The Songwriter's Den 908-859-5999 NJ HST 96 621 Tom Guelker The Garage 618-344-8466 IL HST 96 625 Philip Hanze Phil's Hangout 412-331-2795 PA 2400 632 Clueman London Smog BBS 714-546-2152 CA HST 96 633 Randy Rodrock Dark STar BBS 801-269-8780 UT DS 14.4 635 White Dragon STormbringer 307-638-7036 WY HST14.4 643 Ron Debug The Ringworld 303-699-0402 CO HST 96 645 J.d. Knight Orion Spaceport 407-830-8962 FL 2400 648 Waltzer The Mosh Bit 206-574-1531 WA HST 96 668 Michael Bacon ARGONAUT'S BBS 714-361-1112 CA DS 14.4 669 Al Petersen Dateline: Atari BBS 718-833-0828 NY DS 14.4 677 Ray Paladino Space Station One 609-426-4472 NJ DS 14.4 678 Kim Stahn A.C.O.R.N. 219-744-1396 IN DS 14.4 680 Rex Hewitt The Revolution 702-644-8857 NV DS 14.4 681 Sandman The STation 681 513-753-3001 OH DS 14.4 685 Gary Gorski JACG BBS 201-690-5224 NJ 9600 686 Jerry Bechard Sewer Rats Domain 306-522-1959 SA HST 96 690 Kerry Bowman Progressive Atari 503-686-3276 OR 2400 693 Chris Thorpe Z*Net South Pacific 644-4762-852 NZ HST 96 702 Long John Silver Mother of All BBSs 416-332-5810 ON 2400 705 Charles Riley Hacker's Haven 512-653-3056 TX V.9600 706 Bob Brodie Z*Net Golden Gate 510-373-6792 CA DS 14.4 711 Steve Scott Spider-Man's Web 607-844-3744 NY HST14.4 712 Jim Thingwold H. B. Smog 714-969-5486 CA DS 14.4 720 Ethan Rider East of The Moon 508-393-1362 MA 2400 733 Anthony Lee Gay Atari BBS 415-771-8867 CA 2400 736 Jason Alexander MIDI Clinic BBS 613-523-6434 ON 2400 745 Warren Lerner MyABBS 703-938-8125 VA 2400 | | | PERUSING GENIE | | | By Ed Krimen | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------- Some messages may have been edited for content, correct spelling, and grammar. FSMGDOS's FUTURE ---------------- -=> In the "Goldleaf" category (35) -=> from the "Wordflair II support" topic (3) Message 142 Mon Jul 20, 1992 B.GOCKLEY [Brian G.] at 09:17 EDT Hi John, Mike Groh announced at BRACE that FSM was being rewritten to utilize a new font format. It is rumored that it is Bitstream, but I am interested in how we end users will go about trading in our Lucida fonts for the new ones. I don't imagine that they will still be usable, or am I wrong? Maybe a conversion program is out there to help us? BTW, if anyone is interested, Wordflair is an ideal companion to STraight FAX from Joppa. You just use the FAX driver instead of your usual one, and ANY Wordflair page can be saved as a FAX. People have commented that the FAXes I have sent using this method are the best they've seen! Of course, the fact that WF follows the GDOS rules (unlike MANY pseudo-GDOS programs) makes this work so well. Thanks for the great product, keep on improving! Brian D Gockley ST Informer ---------- Message 150 Wed Jul 22, 1992 WORDFLAIR [Lauren] at 21:39 EDT Hello: Regarding new FSM versions: we are pleased to know that Atari has made a public statement regarding new technology going into FSM. We have been promised that the final *public* release of FSM will be able to use other font formats besides the current one based on QMS's. Brian Gockley's reference to Atari's post mentioned Bitsream. Bitstream is US company that has developed a font scaling technology called Speedo, which consists of source code for a font scaler/rasterizer, and a new file format for outline fonts. Speedo is meeting with a lot of industry interest by different hardware and software vendors. Since Bitstream already sells an extremely large catalog of outline fonts in Type 1 format, I assume that any new scaler based on Speedo will be able to use Type 1 fonts, even if only through the use of a conversion program. The fall out of all this for FSM users is still not exactly clear. Our opinion is that any technology from Atari that respects industry standards is a welcome thing. We will do all we can to make sure that Wordflair II/FSM users are "rewarded" for their patience. If this means font conversion programs, or advantageous pricing, or whatever, we will make sure that our users are cared for in whatever new direction FSM takes. As soon as we have concrete details, we'll pass it on. John Fox ====================================== LYNX HARDWARE ISSUES -------------------- -=> In the "Lynx - The Game Machine" category (36) -=> from the "General Lynx Info and Discussion" topic (5) Message 192 Mon Jul 20, 1992 E.GINNER at 03:49 EDT The maximum Lynx cartridge size is 2 megabytes. The hardware can support up to 18 players, but the comlynx software may support a maximum of 16 players. ---------- Message 193 Mon Jul 20, 1992 K.DRAKE [SirFransis] at 07:56 EDT Eric, About screen graphics, I note that even when there are a ton of sprites on the screen, the characters never flicker. How does the graphic chip manage so many sprites on 1 scan line with no flicker (or have the programmers just been very careful)? Also, what are the max number and max size of a given sprite. Thanks, Sir Fransis of the Software Seas ---------- Message 194 Mon Jul 20, 1992 J.JENKINS19 at 18:30 EDT SirFrancis, The info in the book (the Lynx instructions that come with it) says that "unlike any other portable system, the Lynx is not limited to a finite number of objects that can appear on the screen at one time, and the size of screen objects is limited only by the borders of the spacious Lynx screen" (Lynx owners Manual page 1 INTRODUCTION paragraph 2) ---------- Message 195 Mon Jul 20, 1992 E.GINNER at 23:24 EDT There is no maximum number of sprites that can be drawn, but a game will slow down at some point if you draw too many. You can easily draw hundreds of sprites and still have reasonable speed. I don't know the technical reason why there is no flickering. The Amiga program that converts Dpaint brushes to source code limits brushes to a size slightly bigger than the Lynx screen. The limit is because of ram usage on the Amiga. If you scale a sprite really big on the Lynx, it can be many times larger than the screen. The maximum width or height is 65535 pixels. ====================================== IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD DOS WORLD ----------------------------------- -=> In the "Flaming - Debating - Discussions - Rumors" category (18) -=> from the "Atari 'Falcon' Project" topic (20) Message 41 Thu Jul 16, 1992 C.HERBORTH [-Chris-] at 00:58 EDT After installing myself a '486/33 Micro Channel at work (8M, 200M hard drive) in "only" 10.5 hours, I will never, EVER buy a klone. No way hose. 30,000,000 users in the user-base, they must all be STUPID to put up with that sort of crap. At least Widoze 3.1 now runs as fast as GEM on my "toy" 8Mhz ST... DOS is still running at 4Mhz speeds... -Chris- ---------- Message 89 Mon Jul 20, 1992 C.KLIMUSHYN at 23:06 EDT Greetings All, Since it's almost been a year to the day that I smugly left the Atari World for DOS, it's fitting I write this letter. I return from the dark side battered, bruised, and broke. It's not that I couldn't handle the PC's operation. I learned to write my own CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files. I learned the difference between expanded and extended memory (when is a 1 meg of RAM not a meg of RAM ), and I even had DR. DOS's graphic interface, Viewmax (which is stripped down GEM anyway), doing a reasonable imitation of my ST. The problem was I always needed one more thing, be it a sound card or an extra meg of RAM. The last straw came when I found myself walking out of a trade show with a new motherboard to replace the one in my eight month old computer so I could run Wing Commander II "smoothly." I really don't care if another program ever comes out for the ST, I'm content with my system as it is. If Falcon comes out and looks like it will give me another 4 years of minimal needs to upgrade like my faithful ST, I will strongly consider buying one no matter if the rest of the world has gone DOS-Mad.... Best Regards, -Chuck- ---------- Message 90 Mon Jul 20, 1992 C.HERBORTH [-Chris-] at 23:14 EDT Jerry, I have a '486/33 8M RAM (Micro Channel) at work. When running Windoze, it feels as fast as my 8Mhz 1040, which has 2.5M RAM. That's pathetic. Turn off the virtual memory, it feels like a 16Mhz Atari. I've only got 3.5M of free RAM then though. Since the File Mangler is like using oven mits for brain surgery, I have to do all my file maintenance in DOS. Isn't the point of Windoze to rip off the Mac interface? When will Microsloth decide that THE WAY THE ST AND MAC HAVE ALWAYS HAD IT is the right way to do it? Never, they're Microsoft, and their way is Law. The "multitasking" under Windoze is a joke, too. Open a DOS window. You'll probably have to make DOS into a window by typing Alt-Enter (since it defaults to gross, vile, full screen). Make sure there's no floppy in A:. Type "dir a:". WHAM. DOS is full screen again. Can you say "bug"? Open a DOS window, and use zoo or lharc to make an archive with lots of files. While it's archiving the files, switch to something else. The DOS application STOPS COMPLETELY until you switch back to it. Bleh. And for this we paid at least $200? (since we had 3.0 before we had 3.1) Stick a 16Mhz '386 running Windoze beside a 16Mhz "Falcon". The "Falcon" will sell, unless the twit is there to get a Wing Commander II compatible machine. Even then the '386/16 is too slow. -Chris- ---------- Message 92 Tue Jul 21, 1992 N.WEINRESS [Norm] at 00:24 EDT I did my best to convince my doctor he should be using an ST. To the point, I _gave_ him a 520. He bought a 386 clone and multisync monitor, and I set it up as a dual system. Yesterday, I went there to install Windows 3.1 and Word for Windows. Those two programs occupy _half_ of his 40 MB hard drive, and I advised him to get a second drive. What incredible inefficiency! ====================================== GEMULATOR AND LAPTOPS --------------------- -=> In the "Emulation for the ST" category (19) -=> from the "GEMULATOR (Atari ST emulator)" topic (15) Message 175 Wed Jul 22, 1992 J.E.DONOHUE at 08:27 EDT Will the Gemulator work on any of the PC Notebooks? (room?) I've gotten tired of waiting for the ST Notebook and have been contemplating the purchase of either a NEC or Toshiba notebook. IF the Gemulator will run on one of these, are there minimum system requirements I should look for? Thanks! john ---------- Message 176 Wed Jul 22, 1992 BRASOFT [Darek] at 22:10 EDT J.E., for notebooks and laptops, the same requirements apply as for desktop machines, i.e. 4 meg of RAM minimum, a 386 or 486 processor, and a VGA display. The machine must also have an empty slot to plug the Gemulator board into. Most notebooks don't have any slots, but a lot of laptop machines do. For example, the machines I carried to Toronto and will be showing on this weekend at the MIST show is a 10 pound 486 portable that is smaller and lighter than a Stacy. So if you can tolerate a machine that's bigger than a notebook but smaller than a Stacy, just get a Computer Shopper magazine and there are plenty of such machines available. - Darek ====================================== MACSEE READS MAC FILES ---------------------- -=> In "The Software Library and Other Utilities" category (2) -=> from the "MacRead: Mac to ST Transfer Program" topic (29) Message 25 Sun Jul 19, 1992 REEVE.SOFT at 13:24 EDT No, there will not be a Demo version. I'm sorry that MacRead was released the way it was, but that was not my decision. My job was to write a program that reads Mac files and MacRead worked. The forthcoming MacSee has the GEM interface, the translation modes, and the ability to copy TO a Mac disk as well. A Demo might convince you to purchase the program immediately, but as word of mouth spreads and magazine reviews appear I'm sure that if it's the type of program that you're looking for you'll buy it. I'm not worried about making a few overnight sales. I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but there will also be a DOS and Windows version of MacSee. All three programs are in working order. MacSee, for the Atari ST, will go through final testing this week and assuming no flaws are uncovered it will start shipping next Monday. I will post with further details as the time comes. The program will be marketed through CompuSeller West as I personally don't have the time to do so with my big move coming up and all (any S. Carolinans out there?). I will say that the following bugs have been corrected: A bug involving reads on hard disks of sectors beyond 32767 (the magic number). A bug involved in reading disks with a large number of files (latter files wouldn't be shown). Inability to recognize/find all Spectre formatted partitions on a hard disk. Wouldn't handle QuikCore/Ontrack formatted hard disks. I'll post the final specs on the program and if possible send up a picture of the program when it's shipping. Alan ====================================== SPECTRUM 512 ADDITIONS TO LEXICOR'S SOFTWARE -------------------------------------------- -=> In the "Atari Corporation Online" category (14) -=> from the "Atari's new TOS 2.06" topic (8) Message 71 Tue Jul 21, 1992 J.COLE18 [John Cole] at 15:08 EDT Spectrum is a hack and is no longer supported. That being said, Lexicor is adding Spectrum animation file support to Chronos and Monalisa. While you will not be able to edit in Spectrum mode, people who have a 320x200x256 (or better) will be able to edit Spectrum pictures and animations (or transfer older 256 animations to Spectrum types) This gives all the older ST's a chance at creating some fantastic animations directly from Chronos and all the new-fangled computers to create something that can be appreciated by all the 'outdated' folks ;-) When? RSN ;-) (let's see how this holds up to the RSN test, shall we? :-) John @ Lexicor ====================================== FALCON TALK ----------- -=> In the "Flaming - Debating - Discussions - Rumors" category (18) -=> from the "Atari 'Falcon' Project" topic (20) Message 40 Thu Jul 16, 1992 J.ALLEN27 [FAST TECH] at 00:15 EDT The Falcon has the potential with some software and a simple genlock device of being a Toaster Jr for a lot less than a comparable Amiga setup would cost. Also, a 33Mhz 040 of immense speed can be slapped inside real easy ;-) ---------- Message 51 Fri Jul 17, 1992 LEXICOR [Lee] at 01:59 EDT SJ, I don't think that doing a "COMPUTER CHRONICLES" Falcon vs AMIGA show is a very good idea. Not yet anyway. There are some very good animation packages and 24Bit cards for the AMIGA. In six months or a year, after the new ATARI systems can mature that idea might be first rate. Bear in mind many users make great assumptions about a system's value based on very brief observations and reviews. If the Falcon is not well along the way, it could do more harm than good. But the idea is sound and you might consider writing to ATARI proper with a brief one-page letter outlining your idea. If you keep it brief and to the point, I am sure it will be read and considered. Don't be offended if you don't get a reply. I can assure you from personal knowledge that if you address such a letter to Bill Rehbock or Sam Tramiel it will be read. Lexicor ====================================== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To sign up for GEnie service call (with modem) (800) 638-8369. Upon connection type HHH and hit . Wait for the U#= prompt and type XTX99436,GEnie and hit . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To sign up for CompuServe service call (with phone) (800) 848-8199. Ask for operator #198. You will be promptly sent a $15.00 free membership kit. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A special limited time offer is available for subscribers to AtariUser Magazine. The regular $19.95 subscription price is now just $15.00 for a full year or $25.00 a year for first class mailing. For more information contact AtariUser at (818) 332-0372. Credit card or billing is available. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Editorial material, including article submissions, press releases, and products for evaluation, should be sent to the Z*Net News Service Post Office Box 59, Middlesex, New Jersey, 08846. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You can subscribe to the bi-monthly hard copy Atari Explorer Magazine for $14.95 for 6 issues, $39.95 for 18 issues. Canadian subscribers should add $5.00 per 6 issues,foreign subscribers should add $10.00 per 6 issues. Checks must be drawn in US funds on a US bank. Send orders to Atari Explorer, Post Office Box 6488, Duluth, MN 55806. VISA and MasterCard orders, call (218) 723-9202. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Atari Explorer Online Magazine is a weekly publication covering the Atari computer community. Material published in this edition may be reprinted in non-commercial publications unless otherwise noted at the top of the article. Opinions presented herein are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the staff. Atari Explorer Online Magazine is Copyright (c)1992, Atari Computer Corporation. Z*Net and the Z*Net Newswire are copyright(c)1992, Z*Net News Service/Ron Kovacs. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Atari Explorer Online Magazine "The Official Atari Online Journal" Copyright (c)1992, Atari Computer Corporation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~