Amiga Collections: MegaDisc/MegaDisc 08 (1988)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)[WB].zip/MegaDisc 08 (1988)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)[WB].adf/FEEDBACK/readers_letters

Text File | 1988-05-28 | 23KB | 457 lines

  MUSICAL HINTS & TIPS

  Dear Ed,
                  Please find enclosed my review of New Wave Software's
  midi sequencer plus drum machine program "Dynamic Studio". I'd like you to
  concider it for inclusion on a future Megadisc issue and you're very
  welcome to use it.
         I'm using my Amiga as a composition tool, a musical instrument
  (i.e. using it in recording demo tapes) and to score and publish my
  compositions. At the moment it only has 512k ram and one drive (but
  that's doing it hard for music creation). I'm using Deluxe Music
  Construction Set, Dynamic Studio, a Yamaha DX 100, a borrowed Casio
  CZ 1000, a four channel mixing desk and a four channel tape recorder.
  I'm buying a Roland MT 32 sound module (I'll send you the review as soon
  as I get it out of lay-by) and intend buying sampling software and a
  sampler interface.
         I'm currently writing  hints and tips articles for Deluxe Music
  Construction Set and Dynamic Studio and will send them in as soon as
  they're completed.

                                                        PAUL C. NASH
                                                        Sydney

  Ed: Your review on this issue Paul, many thanks. We also look forward to
  your next article on DMCS hints and tips, and maybe an eventual Theme
  Disk on music...? If anyone wants the benefit of Paul's experience,
  contact him through us.
 _________________________________________________________________________

  GAME & GRAPHIC & DRIVER CONTRIBUTED

  Dear Megadisc,
                My compliments on your excellent productions, which I
  came into contact with through a friend.
      Although I'm too short of cash at the moment to take out a
  subscription, I would like to make a contribution to your next issue,
  and if accepted get a free M.D. !
  There are three items on this disc which I hope you'll find useful :-

  1. A game (in Basic) "EMPIRE-MISSION"
     see the file "empire-mission.doc"
  2. Some computer "art" created with Dpaint;
     see the file "pinup"
  3. A printer driver for the Seikosha GP700A colour printer.
     (I read somewhere that you're collecting printer drivers)

     Some comments about items on M.D.6:-
  The program PrinText is really useful! But I found that you can't use it
  to look at a picture or print out a file unless you display a text file
  first! Am I doing something wrong or is this a fixable problem?
     Great artwork by Graaf !! He's inspired me to do some of my own.
     A question:-
     Do you know the address of ASDG, the American company that produces
  FACCII, which I would like to buy? I have only found one local seller
  whose prices are exorbitant.

     Sarv.Engelhardt,
     Hilton, W.A., 6163

  Ed: Thanks for the comments and contributions, Sarv, very good stuff, but
  too big for MD! Anybody who'd like to see Sarv's game can contact him
  through us, or get it direct from us as a Theme Disk. Pinup Graphic was
  great too, but this is a family mag! Opher Kahane tells us he is going to
  make some improvements to PRINTEXT when he finishes his stint in the
  Israeli army, so we'll hope it's soon. ASDG's address:
  925 Stewart St, Madison, Wisconsin  53713 USA. TEL: [phone].
  FaccII is a great program for speeding up disk access, and does it with
  buffers as big as you like, depending on memory. About A$50 I think, and
  well worth it. ASDG makes a lot of other high-quality products for the
  Amiga, too, and currently markets CYGNUS-ED Professional, an excellent
  text editor.
  ________________________________________________________________________

  ABOUT JET AND USING SIDECAR

  It is a pity that one does not have all the time of the world,
  there is so much to learn and to explore.I just bought a program
  from SubLOGIC named JET. I normally do not indulge in games but I
  could not resist the special that was available at Grace Bros Broadway.
  The program normally sells from $99 to $109 and the day I looked
  in at Grace Bros they had some for sale at a reduced price of $69.95.
  I must say that I am not yet a fighter pilot but it fascinating to
  try to fly around and attempt some landings. I am afraid that I
  am not yet very good at it but the program did behave very well and
  that is more than I can say about my language I used each time
  I crash landed.
  I did not have any problems copying the program on a backup disk
  nor did I have problems loading it in VD0: (recoverable RAM disk)
  or on the Amiga partition of my harddisk installed in the Sidecar.
  It also ran perfectly from any of these media. All I have to do
  now is to find the time to fly !
  Some of your contributors confessed of having bought the Sidecar
  and found this addition to be a doubtful purchase.
  I don't know if you remember but some time ago I wrote to you
  and told you what sort of setup I am using and that included the
  Sidecar.

  I can understand that if you were not used to using say for instance
  Wordstar, dBaseII (or dBaseIII), Multiplan etc. that you could do
  with having the Amiga as the only computer, but as is the
  case with me, I developed a complete Accounting program written in
  dBaseII by using Wordstar. When I purchased the Amiga for no other
  reason then that I thought that this machine was the ultimate
  computer I still was using my old computer equipped with the programs
  mentioned above. However it is quite cumbersome having two machines
  plus a printer and other equipment sitting on a desk somewhere
  in a corner of a room that also has to be shared with members of
  my family. With the availabilty of the Sidecar and the fact that
  my old computer was not keeping up with the demands placed upon it
  there was no choice. As I wrote you before, my Sidecar has 640K +
  2M of memory, 30M harddisk (10M for AmigaDos and 20M for MsDos)
  and a Clock/Par+Ser+Game Port.

  The Accounting program has been re-written by using Wordstar and
  compiled using CLIPPER and by utilising the 2M of Ram and the
  harddisk, seeing is believing what this combination can do.
  And if you really want to impress anyone you can change to the
  Amiga partition at the touch of a key(s), start a Score in Sonix,
  go back to MsDos and whilst the Score is playing (preferrable
  using a stereo amplifier !) use any of the programs you have
  available under MsDos. What a wonderful machine the Amiga is !

  NB.
  Someday I will have finished the documentation for the
  use with my Accounting program. If anyone has MsDos and is
  interested, I will make this program available. Compiled,
  the size of the program is about under 260K and the only
  restrictions are the size of diskspace and available RAM.

  Chris Sengers
  Richmond NSW

  Ed: Thanks for the generous offer, Chris, and anyone interested can get
  in touch with us to find Chris. There's no doubt about the Amiga's
  multi-tasking, it's spoilt us all for other computers. (See the article
  this issue on Multi-Tasking, if you understand the concept fully.)
  ______________________________________________________________________

  GRAPHICS OFFER FOR PROGRAMMERS

  Rob Englander writes from Adelaide with an offer to do the graphics for
  any programming project anyone might have. He's sent in some great
  animations and graphics (get them from us or through him - address from
  MD) which were just too big for a Megadisc. So programmers get in touch!
  About your question about making flash icons, Rob - we use ZAPICON to
  make a DPaint brush into a TOOL icon, then ICONTYPE to change it to any
  other kind of icon (though project to drawer doesn't seem to happen), and
  ICONMERGE to make "animated icons". There is also a program called
  BRUSH2ICON which does similar things. Find them all on the MD Icon Theme
  disk. And fonts - they're everywhere! Including a whole diskfull of TeX
  fonts on a recent Fish disk which can be converted into Amiga fonts, not
  to mention our Fonts Theme disk.
  ________________________________________________________________________

  MORE PRINTER DRIVERS

         Henry Gilkes sent in a disk full of printer drivers from West
  Lakes SA, and there are a few new ones there, thanks a lot Henry. If
  anyone wants any of these, feel free. There is also another disk full of
  drivers, mainly thanks to Chris Hussey and Eric Holroyd, along with Colin
  Day and a couple of other generous souls.

  NECp5.8            Qume_LetterPro_20  CBM_MPS1000
  Okidata_293I       EpsonQ             diablo_630
  NECp6.1            ImagewriterII      NECp6.2
  diablo_c-150       NECp6.3            brother_hr-15xl
  Xerox_4020         HP_PaintJet        NECcol.24         Diablo630.1
  Diablo630.2        HP_LaserJet        Okidata_292       okimate_20
  LQ2500V1.2         Diablo_Advantage_D25
  diablo_adv_d25     epson_jx-80        LQ2500V1.2a
  DiabloC150.2       DiabloD25.1        hp_laserjet_plus
  DiabloD25.2        NECp5.XL           DiabloC150.1
  __________________________________________________________________________

                  D O N'T   P I R A T E  M E G A D I S C

                      by Nic Wilson & Andy Clay

  [Ed: Nic insisted that I put this letter on the disk, and as he and Andy
  are responsible for some of the best content of Megadisc, I just had to
  do so. What's more, I greatly appreciate the sentiments expressed, and
  have to agree with them. How much pirating of Megadisc occurs? I have no
  idea, but however much there is, I'd be happier if there were less.]

  I would like to state my opinion on the piracy of MegaDisc.

  Andy and I are programmers, we program now for the Amiga alone.
  The programs we write are either requests from other users or to help
  ourselves in our day to day programming.  Quite often these programs
  (like the ones on this disk) are very useful to others.  As we do not
  personally know every Amiga user in Australia and the world, we have
  two choices in getting our programs to you.  We could sell them via a
  software house  which we do not want to do as we program for the sheer
  enjoyment.  Our other option is to distribute them via Magazines such as
  MegaDisc.

  If users constantly pirate MegaDisc, MegaDisc will disappear from the
  market and make it very hard for ourselves and other programmers to
  distribute our programs.  MegaDisc, in my opinion is the best value for
  money out of all of the Amiga Disk Magazines.  It is a locally produced
  product and we owe it to ourselves to support MegaDisc.

  I urge all User Group Presidents to ban the piracy of MegaDisc in their
  clubs.  In our user group, anyone caught with a pirate copy of MegaDisc
  is given one chance to destroy it and then buy an original or be removed
  from the club.

  If anyone would like to respond to my opinion, please respond to MegaDisc
  so all users may read your reponse.

  Nic Wilson            Technician, Programmer, Club President
  ________________________________________________________________________

  Dear Megadisc,

  Can you supply any information on setting up a Midi system?  Having
  bought Gary Rayner's Interface and the Deluxe Music Construction Set
  at the same time as the Amiga, also a Yamaha SHS10 keyboard
  with a Midi built in, every effort to link up has been fruitless.
  I am a Yamaha organ enthusiast.

  The President of the Brisbane Users Group, Dr. Greg Perry, recently
  installed a NetComm Modem for me.  Greg spent a considerable time
  at my home instructing me in how to use the Modem.  I would give
  every recommendation to Greg for his backup service, rare in this
  day and age.  By the way I am a member of the Brisbane Users Group.
  Please find enclosed cheque for Games 6 Pack and other items.

  DAVID BEERE
  Beachmere. Qld.

  Ed: Info on MIDI can be found on MD7, and there is a book called "Music
  Through MIDI" locally available. The DOS Disk_Manual will be priced just
  like Megadisc, but current subscribers/purchasers of MD can get it for
  $13.95, when it's released (about end of October, I'd say). Anyone
  interested can tell us to contact them when it's released. And I'm glad
  you got good service from Greg - he's got an offer going of NetComm
  Pocket Modem plus GPTERM (Viatel and general comms package) for $360 for
  anyone who can show proof of purchase of MD.
  _________________________________________________________________________

  Dear Megadisc,

  I'm looking forward to Megadisc 8 and appreciate the M.I.D.I.
  articles in No. 7.  Please include the revised MIDI circuit in a
  future Megadisc.  My main interest is computer music and I have
  one of the latest Yamaha H.S.8's.  This is Midi compatible and I
  have managed to get a reasonable system working with my Amiga 1000
  and Deluxe Music Construction Set, but it is a bit slow when you
  input music from the Yamaha keyboard - the dreaded GURU appears
  too often when you try to go too fast or if you try to input from
  both keyboards at once/or the pedals with a keyboard - have you
  any suggestions, or information about future programs that will
  get round this?

  Keep up the good work.
  BILL BLUNDEN
  Elizabeth Park, S.A.

  Ed: Doug Myers will be glad to hear that, Bill - why don't you contact
  him (call us)? I'm sure he can point you in the right direction. Also
  read the "Dynamic_Studio" article this issue by Paul Nash, who seems to
  have a lot of information about music - get in touch with him too.
  _________________________________________________________________________

  Dear Megadisc,

  Once again, sincere thanks for the excellent service your
  publication is providing.  Such efficient access to the PD
  catalogue, as well as the quality of your articles, has and is
  continuing to increase my understanding and application to the
  enormous creative potential of the Amiga.

  DAVID YOUNG
  Stanwell Park, NSW.

  Ed: David is using the Amiga as a professional tool for graphics and
  animation. He's sent us an excellent article on all this, which will be
  in this issue if we can squeeze it in (it came late) - if not, see it on
  the next issue.
  __________________________________________________________________________

  Dear MD,

  Got your letter the other day, promoting MD, and asking for submissions
  etc. etc.  Here is my contribution.  Hope you can use it!  I know ARP has
  been covered briefly in a couple of places, but this is a COMPREHENSIVE
  review.  Besides, it's the only software I currently have that I feel
  strongly enough about to review.  ARP is great!!!

  If it's a bit long, short, whatever, feel free to play around with it.  I'm
  not a journo or anything, so I don't care what people do to my ramblings.
  Do whatever you like to it, only USE it!

  Speaking of M.D., congratulations on the good work, etc. etc.  Only one
  problem - living in the country makes it impossible to get M.D.!  All the
  local stores have stopped stocking Amiga software - obviously they can't
  get a big profit margin on Amy programs!  Maybe it's time to subscribe?!
  All I have to do now is work out where to get the money from! (a poor
  College student who hasn't worked for 6 months isn't very flush, believe
  me!)

  Anyway, best finish up here and let you get back to the task of compiling
  the next issue!  Drop me a line or something if you can't include my
  article (we all like to improve on our faults and I can't do that if I
  don't know what they are!)

  Regards,

  Jason Pearse.
  Bathurst

  Ed: Thanks, Jason, see your ARP review on this disk. It is a pity that
  there's a lack of supply of good software to far-flung dealers - usually
  it's not their fault, but rather the tendency of most software houses not
  to send software on consignment, so that it can be returned if not sold.
  Dealers don't like to be stuck with unsold stock, so tend to err on the
  very cautious side. If software houses got their act together and
  released software simultaneously here and overseas, as well as taking
  back unsold copies, I think we'd all benefit, and there would certainly
  be less piracy - people will buy software in quantity if it's good
  quality and available.
 __________________________________________________________________________

  Dear Megadisc,

  I would like to tell you of something that happened that other
  "new to computer" users may be experiencing.  I recently purchased
  an Expansion Module for my Amiga 1000, as I found there were
  occasions when I needed more memory - or so the dreaded "Guru"
  kept telling me.  He has been telling me this since I purchased
  it in 1986.

  We plugged the Expansion Module in - nothing happened.  We turned
  the Amiga off - checked that the Module was pressed in correctly -
  turned it on again.  I put the "kind words" disc in, opened it,
  typed a letter, tried to print it, only to be told by the *!!*!!*
  Guru that I was out of memory.

  I contacted the firm we had purchased the Module from.  We were
  asked to bring the Module and Computer in.  We did.  They checked
  it out and their technician told us he suspected a faulty Pal chip.
  He said that when Amiga first came out that some chips had been
  purchased from Texas and that these had turned out to be faulty.
  Because Amiga did not know which computers had the faulty chips,
  they could not re-call them.

  The outcome is that it cost me $100 to have a CPU replaced.
  I  have written to Commodore but do not hold out much hope.

  Keep up the good work - the Megadisc is TERRIFIC.

  MARGARET BALDWIN
  Sadliers Crossing, Qld.

  Ed: Yes, the old demon A1000 PAL chip problem. There are various people
  around who can fix this problem, including Nic Wilson in Qld, and Chris
  Ralph in Sydney (see Oz_Products). Thanks for kind comments, Margaret.
  _________________________________________________________________________

  Dear Megadisc,

  I have just received a copy of Megadisc 7 and proceeded to make
  an AmigaBasic disk from the tutorial.  Some points that you may or
  may not be aware of are: Copying to RAM:- Copy c/Format RAM:C
  failed to work with w/bench 1-2 but substituting System for c
  worked.  Also during Copy RAM:libs to AB the line reads, Devs
  All instead of Libs All.

  However I would like to express my appreciation for an article
  that caters for the first time users like myself.  New users
  who have difficulty in getting any programs to work from Manual
  instructions most of which seem to favour experienced computer
  operators.  I hope the series and some future articles will
  continue in the same vein.

  CLIFF HICKMAN
  Tingira Heights. NSW.

  Ed: Jonathan Potter continues his series on AmigaBasic this issue, seems
  to be much appreciated by various people. Jonathan keeps his FORMAT
  command in his C: directory, but it's true that it starts out in the
  SYSTEM drawer on the Workbench. I guess anyone who got that far searched
  around for it till they found where it was. Colin Tringham provides a
  good article on how to set up for writing programs this issue, and Gary
  O'Connor tells me that next issue will have a bunch of practical hints
  from him (he's made up a Theme disk which is indispensable for Basic
  programmers - get it from our PD collection).
  _________________________________________________________________________

  Dear Megadisc,

  Thank you for the two disks that I received on the airdrop on 17th
  August.  Both arrived intact despite some fairly bad weather.
  You can rest assured that a subscription will be forthcoming upon
  my return to Australia sometime in December.  I have found the
  information on all of your disks to be very useful.  Most of the
  questions that I wrote to you about have been answered, however I
  could find no information about running a program written in BASIC
  from  the CLI.  The tutorial on BASIC tells how to run AMIGABASIC
  from the CLI but not the actual BASIC program.  This is fairly
  important to the program as I wish to save the memory involved in
  loading the Workbench to free up as much memory as possible for
  the BASIC program.  Another question that I have come up with
  since our conversation relates to American software.  My parents
  are currently residents in Washington and have offered to get some
  software for me.  Is software for the U.S. market compatible with
  the Australian Amiga monitors etc., or are there modifications to
  the software brought out here?

  Further to our radio-telephone conversation, you asked me to give
  you a bit of information about where I am, what I am doing and
  what my Amiga is used for.

  I am living on an island in the southern ocean (about 55 deg.south
  in latitude).  I work for the Bureau of Meteorology as an observer
  and my job here involves doing a series of surface and upper
  atmosphere observations as part of the world-wide meteorological
  network.  Part of these observations is a 12 hourly balloon flight
  where we release a hydrogen filled balloon with an instrument
  package under it used to measure pressure, temperature and humidity
  through the atmosphere to a height of about 26km.  I am writing
  a program to deal with the raw data from this package.  This
  involves the input of pressure, temperature, relative humidity and
  elapsed time into the program to get a radiation correction to the
  temperature and also to extrapolate between the pressures that have
  been input, to get information at standard pressure levels through
  the atmosphere.  The program regularly deals with arrays of the
  order 100 by 10 and so is fairly memory intensive, hence my wish
  to save memory through avoiding loading of the Workbench.  As a
  part of the programming I have had to come up with some nice
  routines to control input of information and also to control the
  editing of data.  If you are interested I will send these into you
  on a disk when I get back to Australia.

  Aside from this programming my Amiga also sees use as a Word Processor
  for typing up of letters which are all sent out via telex.  The
  main program that I use for this is Text Craft which I find very good
  for its ease of use.  As you might expect, the computer also sees
  a fair bit of usage for playing games, Shanghai being the one that
  seems to get the most use.

  DAVID FREEMAN
  Macquarie Island, Antactica (!)

  Ed: Greetings to our coldest user! Apart from the fact that US-written
  programs (except where expressly designed) address NTSC screens (ie, 400
  pixels vertically is maximum) and so leave a black space at the bottom
  of our PAL screens, they work fine. US programmers are wising up to the
  (bigger) PAL market and most programs seem to come out in 2 versions
  these days, or even better, recognise which of the 2 systems they're
  running on.

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