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                      AMY REPORT WEEKLY ONLINE MAGAZINE                              July 13, 1988                              Vol I  No. 3                              ============            APEInc., P.O.  BOX 74,  Middlesex, N.J.  08846-0074  PUBLISHER                                              MANAGING EDITOR  Ron Kovacs                                               R.F.Mariano          ============================================================                    AMY REPORT EDITOR: Henry T. Colonna                    CIS:74726,3216          GEnie:HTCOLONNA                        Headquarters Bulletin Boards     			   Amiga Headquarters           	                NEXUS 			     804-547-1065 ST Report North             ST Report Central           ST Report South  201-968-8148                 216-784-0574               904-786-4176                   ------------------------------------                                CONTENTS                                ========* Editor's Corner....................* Electronic Arts News............* Aztech Source Level Debugger.......* Fujitsu 24 Pin Color Dot Matrix.* Macintosh Emulator for Amiga?......* UEdit News......................* Using WordPerfect with LaserJet....* Phoenix PFD135 Disk Drive.......* Ports of Call Review...............* WordPerfect Library Review......* Amic-Term 1.0 Preview................................................========================================================================= Serving you on:        CompuServe  -   GEnie=========================================================================Editor's Corner:There's been little feedback here and there but I have gotten some valuableadvice from a few people who've spoken up.  Most of the criticism hasn'tcentered around content but around some errors in the text itself.  For instance, CompuServe isn't hyphenated.  I fixed it, look up a few lines above.  There are typos - I can't run a spelling checker in 512K.  By next issue I hope to have one meg. Let me add some of my own criticism - I'm extremely weak in the areas ofgraphics (including video), sound, desktop publishing and programming. I hope that some contributors out there are going to volunteer to help me fill those wholes in.  This issue, for instance, has an excellent review from Drew Lucy on Manx's Source Level Debugger.One of the best things about Amy Report will be the speed at which I can getcinformation out.  This issue's "hot" items include an advance preview ofcAmic-Term 1.0, and a dissection of WordPerfect's Library.  Speaking of reviews, I'd like to talk a bit about what my reviews strive for.  I don't believe in perfection, and I will point out flaws in programs that I review, even if I have to dig a little.  I have a reaction with several magazines - when one bad thing is said about a program I infer that it's three times as bad as what's said.  I hope that with Amy Report,  but the content of the reviews will be good, as well quick.  Let me know if I'm succeeding or failing.The SYSOP of Nexus, Amy Report's official BBS, is still on vacation, sodon't bother calling yet.Enough patting myself on the back!  On with issue number three.==========================================================================			    Electronic Arts News			    ====================Whither Deluxe Print II?According to an Electronic Arts representative, the Deluxe Print II upgradehas been delayed until late September (1988 I presume.)  This product is reaching classic VaporWare status.Interceptor's Shadow SubLate-breaking news on CompuServe's AmigaForum - much to the surprise of many, it appears that the Shadow Sub in the final mission is sinkable.  I haven't tried it myself, but fire missiles into the control tower.  Even if it does sink, it still doesn't excuse the very poor design of thismission.Bard's Tale IIBard's Tale II has shipped for the Amiga and is not copy-protected at all.No codewheel, no disk-drive grinding disk protection.  I wonder if this is a sign of things to come.  I liked the codewheel idea in Interceptor, but it's asked for too often, and this method of protection (none at all) is far superior.Calling Electronic ArtsCalling Electronic Arts' long distance number can be a frustrating experience, depending on which department is trying to be reached.  There's a tangled series of steps to take before talking to a human being, and depending on what department a customer needs to reach, quite a few minutes can be spent.  It's probably more economical to hop on one of the networks to ask questions on availability, hints, or problems.==========================================================================                               Aztec C68K                       Source Level Debugger (SDB)                                 for the                                  Amiga--By Drew LucyOVERVIEW========You've seen it advertised since the middle of last year. You saw it demoedat the New York AmiExpo in October of 1987.  You wondered when the heck arethey going to ship the darn thing.  Well, in February, I received a copy ofthe long awaited Manx Source Level Debugger.  I have been generally pleasedwith the program but somewhat confused by it ever since.  Despite a few bugs and other shortcomings, the initial release of SDB is a good product that I expect will become even better in future releases.  At its best, SDBis a powerful and reasonably intuitive software developement tool that goesa long way toward taking C language program debugging out of the Dark Ages.When operating at its worst, it is virtually useless.  The initial version of the manual should be a source of embarassment to the people responsible for producing it.  It's barely better than having no manual at all.What does a source level debugger do for you?  The SDB manual introductionstates that the program allows the user to: 1) debug at C source and assembly language levels 2) control text and background colors in the windows 3) reference memory locations using full C expressions 4) name, modify, and display variables, structures and arrays using    C source names 5) set breakpoints 6) trace and backtrace 7) define reusable macros In other words, you can kiss debugging printf's goodbye, drastically reducing the amount of time spent iterating through seemingly endless recompile and test cycles.  However, SDB isn't just a timesaving convenience.  If you are so inclined, SDB allows you, via command macros and command history files, to set up exactly defined repeatable experimentson your faulty program.  On the other hand, SDB gives you the freedom to poke around in the nooks and crannies of your program, immediately follow up on hunches and, when all else fails, browse through a progam until you stumble across an error.  In a sense, a source level debugger is to programdevelopement what a spreadsheet program is to accounting, since it allows the programmer to easily play "what-if" games with his code and data.SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS===================A program must be compiled and linked with Version 3.6a of Manx Aztec Cin order to be debugged with SDB.  Manx recommends a minimum of 256K bytesof available RAM to run SDB.  Obviously, this number is highly dependent onthe size of the program you're working on.  Your actual milage may vary.  The debugger itself actually consumes only 180K of memory and about 89K of disk space.  Not surprisingly, on my 1 Meg two floppy A1000, disk space turned out to be more of a problem than memory.  Finally, Manx claims that SDB can be used with any member of the Motorola 68000 CPU family.THE DISPLAY===========SDB's display is generated on the WorkBench screen in a single Intuitionwindow, broken up horizontally into three psudo windows.  The top "window" displays the source code of the current file, while the bottom windowdisplays the output of the debugger commands.  Between these windows is a single line Command Window for entering, you guessed it, SDB commands.  Each of these windows is independently scrollable, using either rodent or keyboard commands.  Strangely, SDB doesn't use any menus at all.  The size of the Source and Output Windows may be adjusted by sliding the Command Window up and down the screen.The most notable thing about the display is the handling of the command buffer.  Although the Command Window is only about 75 characters wide, individual commands may be up to 128 characters long.  SDB buffers 500 characters worth of commands as a reuseable command history, similar to the operation of "ConMan".  The big difference is that SDB doesn't save duplicate commands in the buffer; it reuses them!  Thus entering 50 single step commands (intermixed with other commands) results in just one 's' command being saved in the command history.  This feature makes the 500 byte command buffer seem much larger.  The Output Window provides the record of what you've done, not the command history.  Instead, the command history is provides a pool of editable reusable commands.  The Command Window also supports an extensive set of line editing commands that makes SDB a joy to use compared to Microsoft's CodeView.  CodeView has no editing support and no command history.COMMANDS BY CATEGORY====================SDB commands consist of one, two or three letters followed by a somewhatbewildering set of arguments.  For two letter commands, the first letterdefines the category of the command and the second letter defines thespecific command.  For example, the 'd' category of commands display things.  The "df" command displays a specified section of a source file, while "db" displays a series of memory locations as hexidecimal bytes.  Just about all commands can be prefixed with a repeat count.Amiga Specific Commands-----------------------Commands beginning with 'a' provide Amiga specific functions, which rangefrom the purely cosmetic (changing the display colors) to the occasionallyuseful (automatically displaying some of the System Lists).Breakpoint Commands-------------------Commands beginning with 'b' are used to manage two types of breakpoints anda couple of other program execution control facilities.  Address Breakpoints halt the program when a specified source line is about to be executed.  Address Breakpoints are usually set at a source line number but,they can also be set at symbols, like function names or labels.  For all practical purposes, you can set an unlimited number of Address Breakpoints,which are stored in a viewable breakpoint table.  Including a skip count inan Address Breakpoint command, allows the source line to be executed one ormore times before the breakpoint is taken.  Finally, Address Breakpoints also allow you to specify a sequence of SDB commands that will automatically be executed when a particular breakpoint is hit.  There is also a single Expression Breakpoint that will halt execution whena specified C expression ("loop_count == 0", for example) becomes TRUE(non-zero).  As far as I can tell, only one Expression Breakpoint may be set at a time, but the documentation on the Expression Breakpoint is very weak and badly organized, so this may not actually be the case.  The operation of Expression Breakpoints varies, depending on how program execution was started.  If the progam was started with the 'g' (go) command, the expression is only evaluated upon entry to and return from function calls.  Thus, it is only possible for the program to be halted at these points.  However, if the program is being single stepped, the expression is evaluated after each line is executed.  In this case, execution will stop after the source line that caused the expression to become TRUE.  Fortunately, the command "0s" (single step command with a zero repeat count) causes the debugger to single step continuously until the Expression Breakpoint or any other breakpoint is hit or the program terminates.  Thus, Expression Breakpoints can be used within functions as well across multiple functions.  This is a far cry from CodeView's arsenal of Watch Points and Trace Points but, it's definately better than nothing.Two other 'b' commands are used to toggle the two Trace Modes on and off. Call Trace Mode (bt) will print the names and arguments of each function inthe program as it is called.  When the function returns its return value isprinted.  In Source Line Trace Mode (bT), each source line is displayedbefore it is executed.  I have never found a use for this second trace mode, since the source lines wiz by very fast.Finally, there are also 'b' commands for resetting the breakpoint skipcounters, clearing all breakpoints and viewing the breakpoint table.Display Commands----------------Commands beginning with 'd' display the contents of a memory location orrange of memory locations as bytes, 16-bit words or 32-bit words.  There are other display commands that display ALL of a program's code symbols, data symbols or global symbols.  These commands are best used with SDB's output redirected to a printer or a disk file, since they can generate a huge amount of output.  They can be very useful for taking a snapshot of the state of the program.  Two "Stack Backtrace" (ds and dS) commands produce a formatted dump of all of the active function calls and the arguments that were passed to those functions and the functions' automaticvariables.  Finally, the "df" command is used for displaying different sections of the source file(s).Frame Commands--------------The two 'f' commands allow you examine the automatic variables offunctions that are in the chain of called functions but are not currentlybeing executed. Normally, SDB only allows you to examine C variables thatare visable according to the C scope rules in effect when execution halted.The Frame commands allow you to move up and down the chain of calledfunctions to view variables that would otherwise be unknown within thecurrent scope. In addition, SDB displays the source code for the currentlyselected function at the point where it made the call to the next functionin the chain.Go Command----------The two versions of the Go command begin execution of the program. Exexution proceeds until a breakpoint is hit or the program terminates. TheGo command allows a temporary breakpoint that remains active only during the life of that Go command.  Thus "g .57" would allow the program to execute until line 57 of the current source file is reached or until one of the permanent breakpoints is hit.  Saying "G .57" would cause the program to ignore the permanent breakpoints and stop only when line 57 was reached or the program terminated.  Finally, the go command recognizes '@' as a special argument, which tells it to execute the program until the current function returns.Print command-------------The 'p' command is the simplest, most complex, most powerful, mostunfathomable and most error prone feature of SDB.  Fifteen percent of themanual is consumed trying to explain the operation and options of this onecommand.  Basically, the 'p' command will display the value of any variablein your program according to its data type, including entire structures.The command allows overriding the data type of the variable, displaying, for example, UBYTEs as char's or vice versa.  The print command is also very flexible in its manipulation of pointers.  For example, it's possibleto print the first 5 elements of an array, using a pointer to a pointer to the array as the argument to the 'p' command.  I was amazed to discover that the following print command worked just fine, dumping out the entire Task structure.	p *(struct Task *)0x2bd0a0I don't recall the manual mentioning doing neat casts like that.Unfortunately, in the initial release, this command seems to have a numberof bugs.  Even if there weren't any bugs the flexibility of this commandmeans that you have to be VERY careful how you use it.  The 'p' command will usually display what is requested, but it is easy to request for something other than what is wanted. Evaluation command------------------The 'e' command allow evaluate complex C expressions, including ones thatinclude function calls.  The only limitation on the use of function calls is that they must have been linked into the program being debugged. Macro command-------------The 'x' command allows you to define and use SDB command macros, which arealot like Amiga DOS execute/batch files.  These macros simply save time andeffort and reduce input errors by allowing you to enter a sequences of SDBcommands once and then execute them by invoking the macro name.  Macrosdefined during a debug session may be saved on disk and reused insubsequent sessions.Other commands--------------The Memory Modification ('m') Commands allow modification, comparison, filling, moving and searching regions of memory.The Single Step commands ('s' and 't') allows the execution of a programone source line or one function call at time.  The 's' commands stepsinto function calls.  The 't' commands step over function calls - executing them as a single source line.SDB supports a couple of kinds of I/O redirection.  The '<' can read andexecute a file of SDB commands.  The '>>' command creates a log file of thecommands entered.  These log files can be used either for reference or they can be feed back into SDB as redirected input.  The '>' command logsall input (commands) and outputs (responses) to a file, providing acomplete record of a debugging session.THE MANUAL==========The 60 page small format manual is often clear and concise.  "Often" is notgood enough!  The more I try to use the SDB manual, the more annoyed I getat it.  It falls far short of the high standards of documentation set by the Aztec C Compiler manual.  The SDB manual was VERY badly proof read andcontains a large number of typos and outright errors.  At worst, theseerrors totally destroy the information that the manual is trying to convey.Like almost all manuals, the SDB manual could use many more examples.  Italso needs a "Technical Info" section that describes how running inconjunction with SDB effects the program being debugged.  There isn't oneword in the manual about how SDB does what it does and the possibleconsequences.  The SDB disk comes with a couple of tutorial/demos that,unfortunately, do little to clear up the confusion caused by the errors andomissions in the manual.  When I last talked to Manx Technical Support inApril, they said that the manual was being rewritten for the next release. Better late than never.BUGS====Considering that this is the initial release of a fairly sophisticatedproduct, SDB is surprisingly bug free.  Most of the bugs that I've runacross are in the Print (p) command.  First of all, the command does notwork correctly with multidimentional arrays.  For example, in twodimentional arrays, SDB always considers the row index to be zero.  Thus, "p array[0][5]" and "p array[1][5]" produce the same result, namely thecontents of array[0][5].  The 'p' command also seems to ocationally kickthe command line editor from insert mode into typeover mode for no apparentreason.  This is only a minor annoyance since the ESC key will toggle itback.  I have had other difficulties with some of the more complexvariations of the print command.  These may be bugs but, I'm not sure.  Atthe risk of repeating myself, I'll warn you again:  "BE VERY CAREFUL WHENUSING THE VER 3.6a SDB PRINT COMMAND".  If it gives you a screwy lookingresult, the problem may be SDB's and not your program's.I haven't experienced this problem but, Manx says that SDB can not displaynumbers that are in the Motorola Fast Floating Point format.I suspect that there are other bugs lurking in SDB.  For example, on oneocation, a simple 'db' (display bytes) command resulted in the screengoing blank, forcing a reboot of the Amiga.  I have no idea what happened.OTHER COMPLAINTS================The following two problems aren't really bugs but, they have seriouslyreduced the usefullness of SDB in a couple of real world situations.  Oneof my pet programs requires a quoted string as a command line argument, asin:	1> prog_name "This is a single argument."The standard Manx startup code handles this situation just fine.  Theprogram's main() routine receives an argc of 2. argv[1] points to a bufferthat contains the entire string minus the double quotes.  This is NOT thecase when using SDB.  The CLI line:	1> sdb prog_name "This is a single argument."results in main() receiving an argc equal to 6 and each word of the stringis stored in a separate buffer with its own argv pointer.  Oddly enough,MicroSoft C and CodeView exibit the same inconsistancy.Finally, I suspect that there is a class of SDB problems involvinginteractions at the system level between SDB and the program beingdebugged.  These problems will probably only be encountered by programs that are super sensitive to their environment.  For example, I'm working on a program that needs all of its task's application signal bits.  It turns out that SDB and the target program are run as a single task/process and thus have to share task resources.  Unfortunately, SDB allocates one signal for its own use.  After all, SDB has got to have a "UserPort" IDCMP,right?  This isn't unreasonable, I guess, but it is totally undocumented and, in this case, kills my program.  Ideally SDB would run as a separate task.  I haven't even begun to think through the implications of a separatetask approach.  However, a guy at Manx told me that he thought that SDB wasdesigned to be part of the same task as the test progam "for performance reasons".  There is at least one advantage to the current design - I was initially surprised to discover that breakpoints worked when multitasking is disabled by a Forbid() function call.  If SDB and the test program were running as separate tasks, this might well present a problem.In general, there is no documentation on how SDB does what it does.  Thereis no discussion of how SDB alters your program's operating environment orwhat resources it consumes.SUMMARY=======The burning question that I have been trying to answer for myself thesepast few months is: "Is Manx's SDB as good as MicroSoft's CodeView SourceLevel Debugger?"  In my personal opinion, the answer is no.  I find SDBeasier to use than CodeView.  SDB provides most of the debugging featuresthat CodeView does but, the ones SDB doesn't provide are significant.  Forexample, the Watch, WatchPoint and TracePoint commands of CodeView are farsuperior to anything SDB currently offers.At the time of this writting, the Manx Source Level Debugger lists for$75.00.  It requires that programs be compiled and linked with version 3.6aof the Aztec C compiler, which can be bought in one of two packages.  TheProfessional System lists for $199.00 and the Developer System lists for$299.00.  The Commercial System is no longer offered.  As a Version 3.4aCommercial System owner, I was able to upgrade my compiler and buy thedebugger for a about $80.00 plus another $20.00 because I couldn't bebothered to mail the upgrade distribution disks back to Manx after I copiedthem.In the final analysis, I am satisifed with the initial release of SDB and,recommend it to anyone doing even casual C language programming with AztecC.  The first release of SDB has several bugs, bad documentation and someother limitations but, after using SDB successfully with at least someprograms, I cringe when the situation forces me to debug without it.==========================================================================Fujitsu DL3400 24 pin color Dot Matrix PrinterFujitsu America, Inc.3055 Orchard DriveSan Jose, CA  95134 - Telephone:  (408) 946-8777Retail $500 color upgrade $80By Mark D. ManesThe DL3400 is probably one of the best quality 24 pin printers currentlyon the market.  Its best features are its very sturdy construction that willassure durability, and provisions for many printer emulations, and colorprinting with an optional upgrade.  The Fujitsu DL3400 has not been given a lot of attention, even though I think itis one of the nicest printers that has come to market.  Its speed is rated at 240 CPS at 10 CPI in high-speed draft quality mode, 180 CPS at 10 CPI inDraft quality mode, and 60 CPS at 10 CPI in LETTER quality.  Note the term LETTER quality, as opposed to nine pin printers with "near letter quality."  The printer features a 24k download area for either fonts or print buffer.  Fujitsu makes optional font cards, that sell for about $40 apiece.  The printer has fivebuilt in fonts, Courier 10, Prestige Elite 12, Draft, High Speed Draft, andCompression.  The printer allows for tractor or cut sheet feed paper.  It is not necesaryto pull the tractor paper off when you want to put single sheets in.  Both can be loaded at the same time!  The printer also knows when it hasn't printed on a sheet of paper, and if so desired will automatically back upand reload the paper.  It's also very easy to line the top line of thepaper up with the printhead, something I've had difficulties with on otherprinters.The printer has no dip switches!  All functions can be controlledand placed in non-volilitable memory from the control panel.  The printerremembers two complete setups so changing form letter quality to color, or color to draft is just a push of a button away!  Fujitsu feels that this is a very durable product, so durable that they publish the Mean Time Between Failure.  The DL3400 is rated at 5,000 hours at 40% load.  Rather impressive!  It _is_ built solidly - so solidly, infact, that it's quieter than most dot matrixes.  The number of printer emulations is very very impressive.  The list includes:	Diablo 630	FUJITSU/DL2400/COLOR (with color option installed)	FUJITSU/DL2400	FUJITSU/DL24C (with color option installed)	FUJITSU/DotMax 24C (with color option installed)	FUJITSU/DPL241	FUJITSU/DotMax 241	IBM Proprinter XL	IBM Graphics	EPSON JX-80 (with color option installed)	EPSON FX-80The color upgrade is worth every penny.  It is user installable, and works with a four color ribbon.  The graphics of this printer are most impressive when they are hooked to a IBM PC clone (more on that in a second).  The colors are vivid and not washed out.Ribbons must be Fujitsu ribbons, though they are pretty easy to find whereI live, but could be a drawback out in the country.  Black and white ribbons sell for about $10, and color ribbons are about $18.  Color ribbonsare good for about fifteen pictures before they fade noticeably.The printer is flexible - it alleviates my need for daisy wheel printbecause of the very high print quality of text in letter quality mode.  Thespeed is there when I just want program listings or long reports.  The fact that I do not have to pull the tractor feed paper out when I want to load an envelope or a cut sheet paper just makes me scream.  The control panel, though complex at first, is very simple to navigate.  There is a fairly serious drawback with this printer, however.  Commodoreonly supports it as a nine-pin printer in graphics modes (both black andwhite and color.)  The Epson JX-80 is a 9 pin printer, the one that theFujitsu does emulate and must be selected under WorkBench.  UnfortunatelyCommodore-Amiga has chosen not to include the DPL24C emulation in 1.3.  When the Fujitsu does graphics using the 9 pin drivers the graphics have very tiny lines rolling through them.  This is very displeasing to the eye.  The epson emulation has the same problem in black and white.  This makes the graphics dumps from the Amiga look less than wonderful when printed on the DL3400.  This problem has been stomped on the PC clones, most graphics programs for the PC now include the DPL24 emulation.  All in all, I love the printer, it is well engineered, works as expected, the documentation is great, and the color upgrade is simple to install.  As soon as the world finds out about this printer, there should be a driver.  If you want a nice high quality long lasting printer, and dont mind a delay in getting full graphics support from Commodore-Amiga, then the Fujitsu DL3400 is your printer!==========================================================================Macintosh Emulator for Amiga?--Henry ColonnaDavid Small, the originator of the Magic Sac Apple Macintosh emulator for the Atari ST reports that a hole in the memory map of the Amiga has prevented the Magic Sac from emulating anything more than a 256K Macintosh.  There isn't much software that runs in that environment, so the Magic Sac Amiga is not a viable product at this time.However, things could change when chip RAM is boosted to one meg.  Whenever this happens, Mr. Small would like to return to the Amiga Magic  

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ddition to other changes.  Here's a list of what ARexx does for UEdit:    "Ed out buffer"  Edit ARexx output buffer (buffer 36).    "Ed in buffer"   Edit ARexx input buffer (buffer 35).    "Out-)Rexx"      Send output buffer to ARexx.    "In(-Rexx"       Fetch ARexx input into input buffer.    "Hilite-)Rexx"   Send hilite region to ARexx.    "Cursor(-Rexx"   Fetch ARexx input at cursor in current buffer.    "Reply OKAY-)"   Send OKAY reply to last message.    "Reply text-)"   Send OKAY reply plus hilited text to last msg (if incoming                     message asked for a text result).    "Auto-traffic"   Toggle auto-traffic mode.  If auto-traffic mode is ON, the                     idle command handles all ARexx traffic.    "Make x.rexx"    Create an ARexx program to send inputs to Uedit.A spelling checker is also available for registered users.  Rick has made strong efforts to keep UEdit current and provide users with one of the besttext editors available for the Amiga.  I don't mean for this to be an advertisement, but shareware has been a marginally successful method of marketing software.  If you're using UEdit, this is one author who deserves support for his efforts.==========================================================================Using WordPerfect with HP LaserJet[This message comes to us courtesy of CompuServe's AmigaForum and Roger Becker.]Sb: #131409-HP Laserjet FontsFm: Roger F. Becker 71426,1053To: Bill Leach 71330,2621bill:Well, first of all, WP gave you a bum steer.  You should create a new driver (select Create from the drop down menu) based on one of the HP Soft drivers.  The font selection string in the Cartridge-based drivers is different than the ones used in the soft font-based drivers.  Choose one ofthe drivers that are set up for the 8 fonts you'd like to use.  Then, replace the font tables in that driver with your MakeWP tables.  Be sure to match the fonts already in the driver with the C Font equivelants (i.e., replace Helvetica 10pt with HVP10).  The reason for this is that instead of selecting fonts by their ID Number (which WP doesn't know or want to know about), the font selection strings in these drivers select fonts by their attributes.  So, the string will say, in effect, 'Gimme something nice in a 10 point helvetica, eh?'.  The font file header contains info to that effect and the printer picks the closest match (oruses one of the internals as a last ditch).Let me know if this is any help.Roger==========================================================================The Phoenix PFD-135 External Disk Drive--Henry ColonnaI jumped on the opportunity to buy a used Amiga 1000 several months ago, and when I did everyone I knew who owned an Amiga was telling me to buy a second disk drive along with the computer.  I kept thinking "nah, Commodore sells them with one drive, it'll be OK."  Within two hours of actually using the computer, I was desparate for a second drive.  However, I had spent just about all the money I had, and simply could not afford a second Commodore disk drive.  I did some shopping around, and noticed that a company named Phoenix was selling a less-expensive alternative to Commodore's external disk drive.  When the drive arrived, I was disappointed to find a ribbon cable on the back instead of a regular cable.  Everyone in the store was snickering behind my back that this drived used "older ribbon cable" technology, whichsupposedly produces more RFI interference than normal cables.  However, in real-life use I have had no problems with the disk drive, and the next shipment of drives had normal cables, and every shipment since then.The drive is smaller than the Commodore drive, though it is a bit longer.  It is very thin and short, making it physically attractive.After several months of use I have found that it runs admirable under allconditions, with one potentially serious drawback that I will describe in asecond.  During multitasking, the drive gets noiser and seems to rattle, but is usually alot quieter even after heavy use than the Commodore drives.  It was a bit disconcerting during my first multitask to hear the drive rattle louder, however, it is performing normally besides the sound.The potentially serious drawback of this disk drive is the way that the "busy" light on the drive works.  It does not stay on steadily, for some reason it blinks during disk accesses.  The blinking does not become a problem except during DOS operations or during ARC operations.  Often the drive light will shut off for a good second or two and then come back on again.  Removing the disk during that period when the drive light is off will result in a trashed disk.  I trashed many disks at first before I realized what was happening with the drive light.  Fortunately they were all recoverable in every way with the shareware program "PiskSalv", but the operation of the drive light may be a serious drawback.I have noticed that the Commodore drives behave occasionally in this fashion, but the Phoenix does it much more often.When I was pondering this review I was considering giving it a "damning" review because of the problem I mentioned above.  However, upon careful thought I reconsidered.  Many people trash many disks with the Commodore disk drive at first and if anything would learn their lesson quicker.  Yes,I know, that's bordering on warped logic, but what can I say.Overall, because of the $20 to $40 savings and the 1 year warranty (compared to Commodore's 90 day warranty) and flawless, quiet performance I would give the drive a cautious nod.  If saving that amount of money is of little consequence, get the real thing.==========================================================================                               Ports of Call                           A Maritime Simulation                      (Review c. 1988 Bill Eastburn)     Amid all  the Dungeons  & Dragons,  flight simulators, arcades, mazes,etc., there appears from time to time a game that can capture  the interestof  those  of  us  not  really  interested in the mundane world of computergaming as it currently exists.  Such a game is Aegis' Ports of Call.     Ports of Call tries to allow the player  to enter  the world  of trampsteamer  captains  and  shipping  magnates.    In  a large measure, it doessucceed in its goal.  It is by no means perfect, but is good enough to hold your interest for hours at a time.     The  game  is  played  on  an Amiga with over 512K of memory, no doubt because the graphics, which set a standard  to be emulated in future games,just  flat take  up so much room.  As long as you have the required memory, your Amiga system  and the boxed game provide you with all the tools needed to play.     The game  starts out  by providing  you a $5 million stake, from whichyou must buy a ship, pay tug fees,  normal operating  overhead, and  try tomake a  few bucks  on the  side.   Depending on your luck or skill, you canparley the initial stake into a fleet of hundreds of  ships, worth billionsof dollars, or lose the whole mess to your creditors.                               Starting Out     Inserting the  game disk into the drive on your Amiga, you get all thenormal whirs, grinds, crunches, and other  noise associated  with loading aworkbench  disk.    (It  is  a  workbench  disk,  and  if you need to run akickstart disk first, presumably it  will  give  you  the  familiar "InsertKickstart...." message on older machines.)  You run into two title screens,one proclaiming the authors and artists, the other a regular  title.  Then,you  are  asked  to  enter  your  registration  number.    Take  it off theregistration card (which  you  should  mail  to  Aegis  when  you  get donerecording the  number) and  enter it from the keyboard.  The program writesthe number to the disk, and it is forever personalized  with your  name andlicense number.  Subsequent games skip over the registration part.       Copy protection is done by asking questions from the manual that comeswith the game.  It always asks questions, and gives  you two  tries to comeup with the right answer.  Keep the manual handy!     Now, we  finally get around to the game setup.  You are asked how manyplayers you are going to have (maximum 4), the duration of play and for youto  choose  the  name  of  a  shipping  company and captain's name for eachplayer.  It doesn't matter what duration you select, as  the game  will askif you  want to  extend the  time frame  when it  is exceeded  and the gamedoesn't change any to compensate  for  a  shorter  than  "To  end  of game"selection.   Then you are asked to pick a home port.  There are a number ofchoices, and the game  will then  show you  on the  map which  one you haveselected.   Clicking on  the OK selector box here finally gets you into theplaying area.     The playing area is a screen  with a  map, a  clock, a  big box marked"Start" and  a line  of other  boxes along the right hand side for going toyour office, buying ships, checking on ships locations,  etc.   Look aroundat all  the options before clicking on the "Start" box.  You probably won'twant to begin the game without a ship  or seeing  what kinds  of things areoffered at the office.  My suggestion is to look around the office, then goto the ship brokers and buy a ship before clicking "Start."                                     Boats     Since this is a maritime simulation, it deals with boats.   (Ships areboats that  can hold  other boats.)  I guess you could run the game withoutbuying a boat, but it wouldn't be too much fun.  So you need  to go  to theship broker (click on the appropriate gadget.)     A masterful  screen showing a building facade and an elevator appears.The elevator doors open, and you  are provided  with a  directory to selectwhich floor you want to go to.     Forget the  first floor.  That's the "consultant" floor, and nobody isever there.  Presumably, it is either there to make  you ask  questions, orit was designed for a purpose and never implemented.     The second  floor is  the "seller's market."  Until you have a ship ortwo that you want to sell, it doesn't do you much good either.     The remaining three floors  contain ships  for sail,  from rusty scowsthrough large, modern vessels.  With your initial stake, you can afford onesmall modern  vessel (on  mortgage), one  previously owned  medium ship (onmortgage),  one  medium  junker  (outright  purchase)  or two small junkers(outright purchase.)  Your choice here sets the tone of the game.   (I picka used medium ship, complete with mortgage.)     Your selection  is, of  course, your  own choice.   Consider, however,that a small ship, either brand new, used, or a  piece of  rust, just won'thaul much  cargo.   It is really difficult to make money by picking a smallship.  Having decided on a medium sized ship, selecting a used,  low milageship (driven  only be  aged school teachers to church on Sundays) will holdup a lot better than a junk ship.  The low cost ships come just about readyto sink,  and deteriorate  from there.   One  used medium  ship is the bestchoice to even try to make a go of the game.   (You will  have enough moneyto buy  2 used  mediums ships, but that will cost every penny of your stakeand you won't be able to buy fuel,  tug charges  or pay  your crew.   Don'tfall into the trap of going for two of them.)     Exit the shipbrokers, and go to your office.  You will notice that thebanner at the office now proclaims you have a ship, some cash  and a statuspoint.   Exit the office and return to the playing field.  We are now readyto click the "Start" box!                             Sailing, Sailing     Well, not quite yet.    The  simulation  will  now  eat  up  two days,obviously simulating  the time  it takes lawyers to get rich off licensing,registration, taxes, etc.     Now we can finally do something about making money.  That is the wholepurpose of  the game,  isn't it?   We get a requester asking us to charter,refuel, repair, lay up, or load.  Hmmmmm.  Well, the whole idea of shippingis  to  take  something  from  one  place  to another for a fee, so I guessCharter is a pretty good choice.     You are now presented with a list of  destinations and  charter rates.Pick the  one you  are most  interested in (likely the one on which you canmake the most money.)  If you need  fuel, get  it before  clicking the LOADgadget.   (You can also choose to repair your ship (for a fee), or sit idle(lay up) at this point.)     It will take several days (simulated)  to load  your cargo.   Rememberthis fact,  because it will figure into your calculations as to whether youcan profitably assume a timed charter.   At  the end  of the  loading time,take the ship to sea by hand.  If you choose going by hand,  you are placedin an  arcade situation  where you  must get  the ship out of the harbor byclicking the mouse on  speed and  rudder controls  - and  possibly crashinginto piers.  Either way, once you get out of the harbor, you have to selecta  speed  (another slider gadget).  Your choice  of  speed will affect fuel consumption  and  overhead  cost  of  the  ship  - obviously  affecting the profitability of the trip.     Now  all  that  remains  is  to  wait  for  the  ship  to steam to itsdestination, where the process is reversed,  and collect  your charter fee.Well -- almost all that remains.                                  Hazards     Hazards are  arcade situations, where you must navigate past icebergs,shoals, reefs, rescue people from life  rafts or  weather storms.   Not alljourneys meet  hazards, but most of them do.  Most hazards only affect yourstatus points, though storms affect sailing  time,  and  you  can  run intoicebergs, reefs  or shoals  and damage  your ship.   The  other hazard is aradar warning of approaching ships.  You can  run into  the other  ship anddamage your own.                         Honesty - the best policy     From time  to time,  you will  be asked  to smuggle  boxes for variousamounts of cash.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you get  caught with fingersin the  till.   If you  get caught, sometimes you can bribe your way out ofit, sometimes you get impounded.  It's best not to indulge (especially withonly one ship) since you can't make money while you are impounded.                                Continuing     Basically,  the  game  continues  as  already described.  You can stopalmost any time to buy more  ships, pay  off mortgages,  raise credit, etc.The game continues until you go broke, if you do.                               Strong Points     Now that  we have described the game play, we can begin describing thegood and the bad.     The big strength of this game is it's graphics.  Most of  the graphicsare outstanding.   Some  of the  gadgets aren't all that realistic, but thegraphics are very strong.     As a relatively off beat subject, the game will hold your interest forsome time.   Really  - when  was the last time you saw any other game abouttramp steamers?                 Bugs, Features and other crawly critters     Mostly, the game is good.  There were a few things that drove me  up awall, particularly after playing for a while.     -    You have  to buy  each ship  individually, going  through up to a     half dozen requesters for each, whether you have the money  and desire     to buy a fleet or not.     -    You  must  dispose  of  everthing  in  one port at one time.  For     example, if you have six ships enter a port at the same time, you have     to offload,  refuel and  recharter all six before doing anything else,     including saving the game or getting more credit to pay tug fees, fuel     costs, etc.     -    Sometimes, the  game goes into a loop while you are impounded for     smuggling where you are unable to move, yet you get  radar hazards and     get   to pay bribes over and over and over.     -    The game  forces you  to sail  the ship  manually into  or out of     ports at its discretion.  Can you imaging  Aristotle Onasis  having to     fly to  every port  in which  he has a ship to drive it into or out of     the harbor manually?  (This could be a hint that the game authors want     to cut down on the number  of shipping magnates worldwide!)     -    It is  irritiating to  have six  or seven  ships in a harbor, get     half of them out with tugs and find that the tug crews  went on strike     for  one  ship,  but  are  back  on  duty  for  the next one.  Totally     inconsistent!  The game should be locked to strike or no-strike for an     entire day in the individual port.     -    Radar  warning  hazards  are  obviously  based on a random number     generator, and come whether  you are  laying up  in port,  on the high     seas, impounded or wherever.     -    The manual  does not  deal with  saving liferafts,  the fact that     your office crew is dishonest and  you have  to keep  tabs on  them as     well as  your ships,  etc.   You are  in limbo  on lots of things that     happen in the game if you are just starting out  and depending  on the     manual.     -    By and  large, ship  movements are  consistent with momentum, BUT     clicking either full on  or full  off causes  steerage to  run at that     speed, whether  the ship is up to speed or not.  (Handy for getting in     and  out  of  tight  spots,  but  not  really  consistent  with  ships     movement.)     -    The steering/speed gadgets can and do slip from steering to speed     without notice.  You should have to release  the button,  at least, to     switch  from  one  to  the  other.    I crash ships more by having the     steering changed by slipping off the speed control than all other ways     put together.                                  Overall     Fault lists  might make  you think I didn't really like the game.  Thecontrary is true.  Ports of Call is well worth  the $49.95  that Aegis asksfor it.   I wish it had a few more features, like a "Onasis mode", and thatit introduced different situations from  time  to  time  instead  of simplyrepeating the  same few  over an  over, but  overall it  is a good game forgamers and other folks as well.==========================================================================*******************************************************************************           - Slight Advertisement and Pat on the Back Department - When you read about WordPerfect Library and the commercial release of Amic inpaper magazines toward the end of 1988, remember that you first read about it inAmy Report in July*******************************************************************************==========================================================================WORDPERFECT LIBRARY===================by Henry Colonna	WordPerfect Library is a collection of five very different and flexible utilities with varying value.  The programs included in the colection are a calculator with programmer's, scientific, and financial functions, a calendar with alarm program for making appointments and organizing the day, a notebook that functions as a simple database with phone dialer, PEdit, a text editor that is a faster,smaller, and stripped WordPerfect with some unique features of its own, and File Manager, a file manipulation utility along the lines of CLI-mate and many public domain offerings.  I will treat each program as a separate entity in this review and offer what I feel would be a reasonable value for the program if sold by itself.  All the bigger products (NoteBook, Calendar, and Program Editor) offer WordPerfect Corporation's excellent help facility, which includes alphabetical listing and explanation of commands and more detailed descriptions of the function of each keystroke.  Of course, Library is in no way or form copy-protected, and comes with WordPerfect Corporation's excellent toll-free customer support.  Towards the end we'll see what the total is and therefore what kind of value the $129 Library package really is.Calculator----------	Library's calculator fills about 35 to 40 percent of a normal non-interlaced screen.  Buttons when pressed visually move when depressed as a normal calculator's would.  The numbers on the calculator's display are very large - roughly twice the size of the standard topaz font.  There are three modes, that are toggled by clicking on the large letters next to the numeric display.  The letters read "Programmer", "Scientific", and "Financial."  The calculator functions in either algebraic or RPN (Reverse Polish Notation), and the manual clearly expains the differences in the two methods for data entry.  Scientific and Engineering modes are also available, along with options to fix the decimal point, up to 100 memory registers with a window to view them all.  The stack can also be displayed, with pushing, popping, rolling, swapping, storing and recalling.  Financial registers are used in the calculations of financial formulas.  All registers can be saved to floppy.  Up to 14 decimal place precision is available.  I'll list the features of the three different modes part by part.  Calculator allows the separation of digits with punctuations (commas or periods) depending on whether US or European modes are set.  Scientific     Hours - converts format of the number from hours-minutes-seconds-decimal       seconds to decimal hours.     Percent change calculates the percent of change between two numbers.     Percent - computes the specified percentage.     Pi     Square root     Inverse - computes the reciprocal.     Common Antilogarithm     Absolute Value     Cosine     Inverse cosine     Degrees - set degrees mode for trigonometric calculations.     Engineering mode (all numbers are displayed with an exponent that is a         multiple of 3.     Natural Antilogarithm     Exponents     Fix decimal point.     Replaces a number with its fractional portion.     Gradians - set gradians mode for trigonometric caclulations.     Hyperbolic - computes hyperbolic trigonometric functions.     Integer Portion - Replaces a number with its integer portion.     Natural Logarithm     Logarithm     Polar to Rectangular - converts rectangular coordinates to polar       ones.     Rectangular to Polar - converts polar coordinates to rectangular ones.     Radians - sets radians mode for trigonometric calculations.     Round - rounds number to specified number of decimal places.     Scientific - sets display mode to scientific notation.     Sine     Inverse Sine     Tangent     Inverse Tangent     Factorial     Square     Power     Inverse power     Degrees-minutes-seconds - converts format of number from decimal hours       to hours-degrees-minutes-seconds. Programmer     High Order Word     Low Order Word     One's Complement     Two's Complement     Logical AND     Arithmetic Shift Right - shifts number one bit right.     BIN - changes display to binary mode.     Clear bit - sets specified bit to zero.     DEC - changes display to decimal mode.     HEX - changes display to hexadecimal mode.     Left Justify - left justifies number and tells number of bit-shifts 	      necessary.     MOD - calculates integer remainder.     NOT      OCT - changes display to octal mode.     OR - calculates bit-wise inclusive OR.     Rotate Left n Bits - rotates the number specified number of bits.     Rotate Right - rotates the number right one bit.     Rotate Right n Bits - rotates number specified number of bits.     Set bit - sets specified bit to one.     Shift left - shifts number left one bit.     Shift right - shifts number right one bit.     Unsign - switches between signed and unsigned modes.     XOR - calculates the bit-wise exclusive or. Financial     Financial registers - Number of Periods, Interest Rate, Present Value        or Principal Amount, Future Value, Payment Amount, Cost, Selling        Price, and Profit Margin are used in financial calculations.     Percent change - calculates the percent change between 2 numbers.     Percent     Interest Rate     Percent of Total     Square Root     Inverse Number     Per Month - divides number by twelve for "monthly" amount.     Per Year - multiplies number by twelve     Amortize - calculates amount being applied to principal and interest,        and tells remaining balance of loan.     Annuities - calculates the series of regular payments made with        compound	or simple interest.     Begin/End - sets whether payments are made at beginning or end of a        period.     Clear Financial Registers - sets them to zero.     Compound Interest - toggle for computing either simple or compound        interest during a period.     Cost - stores number in financial register for Cost.     Depreciation Value - Straight-Line, Sum-of-the-Years-Digits,        Declining Balance     Exponent support     Fix decimal point     Fractional portion     Future Value     Simple Interest     Integer Portion     Profit Margin Calculations     Rounding     Factorial     Squaring     Inverse Power     PowerCalculator Summary------------------	Calculator in its current version will guru the 512K owner under the scientific notation and engineering modes - a nasty and serious drawback.	Calculator offers alot to the user who needs a complex calculator.There are dozens of important and complex mathmatical features, and Calculator fullfills the need for a complex calculator for the serious user.  I conducted a very informal survey with two mathematicians who use calculators extensively by listing the features and describing the program, without giving the name of the product or who made it.  They each estimated that Calculator was worth $50 to them.  However, 512K users beware.File Manager============	File Manager is WordPerfect Corporation's entry into the disk-utility, WorkBench/CLI hybrids most exemplified by Progressive Peripheral's CLI-Mate and dozens of free public domain utilities.  File Manager has strong competition that has been around for awhile, and is competing with free, public domain software.  For these reasons, to be a good value File Manager should offer all of what the public domain programs offer and then provide some new and innovative features itself.	File Manager does not, and is easily the weakest part of the Library package.  It does provide all of the standard DOS functions like delete, rename, print (using the famous WordPerfect PRINT program), look at ASCII files, copy, and some flexible mark routines for multiple operations (like copy and delete.)  Status lines at the bottom display the total number of bytes in a directory, the number of files, the amount of free bytes remaining, and and number of bytes taken by the marked files.  	File Manager does have some unique twists to its credit.  The directory can be sorted by name, size, or date, and supports WordPerfect's traditionally excellent "word search" and date search routines.  File Manager will go through files looking for a specified word and highlight those files that contain it, and find files with the specified time/date stamp.  This could be especially valuable to hard drive owners, and toartists with directories full of fonts and/or brushes.  It also displays both physical and logical buttons to access directories.  The look function will go backwards, a wonderful function that I've found very useful.  File Manager is also very solid and takes up little memory since it's written in assembly.  I also love WordPerfect Corporation's zoom gadget that appears in all of their products - it makes it very easy tocall up File Manager and then make it sit in the background again.	File Manager also handles some things better than the public-domain or shareware utilities do.  There are repeating arrows on the scroll bars, and after marking files and performing an operation, the highlights do not disappear.  By holding the left mouse button and moving the mouse, the highlight will spread to adjoining files without the need toclick each file.	The scroll bar is absolutely bizarre.  The arrows repeat, and it'squick, but when a window is full of file names and there are no more, thescroll bar is half-empty.  This causes problems when actually clicking on the empty part of the container to move the scroll bar as it's unpredictable and illogical where the highlight will land.  	The problem, though, is that File Manager should do much more.  It doesn't support user-definable buttons for arc, zoo, or viewing IFF pictures or listening to digitized sounds.  It won't keep the time/date stamp the same (it should have an option to do so.)  File Manager only shows one directory on the window, while most of the public domain utilities will display two.  It does not have a "move" feature either.	File Manager is worth, at best (considering the support that WordPerfect Corp. gives with all their products) $10.  To most it's probably worth $0.Program Editor==============	Library's Program Editor (called PEdit from here on out) at first appears to be a stripped version of WordPerfect itself.  However, upon closer examination it has its own unique features for source-code editing and quick dirty text editing.  These include hex edit, literal entry of decimal values, more flexible cut and past routines (including a new "clone" option), quick and easy auto-indenting and un-indenting, and quick copying of line numbers.	Other improvements include a very quick and easy way to set tabs, and the ability to turn off the scroll bar updating for quicker scrolling.  The improvement in the rate of the scroll is noticeable.  Speaking of scroll bars, this one almost works the way it should work, but still doesn't quite make it.  The arrows repeat on the top and bottom of the bar, but the size and location of the slider does still jump erratically in position during movement.  Because of that, PEdit overall feels more "Amiga-like" WordPerfect does, but I wish someone would give these guys a lesson on how an Amiga slider is _supposed_ to work.  	The block function in PEdit can be used to mark non-continuous blocks of text (or source code) referred to as "multiple blocks" upon which the operations (cutting, pasting, moving, and cloning) are effected.  	PEdit also retains the powerful WordPerfect features of inserting date into the text, using an extremely flexible format of inserting the date using any combination of words or numbers in any order.  PEdit retains the powerful macro abilities of WordPerfect for automating repetitive tasks.  	A discussion recently arose on one of the networks over the real value of a text editor.  If a user owns a powerful wordprocessor, why should he need a stripped-down text editor?  Two very clear reasons came across in the discussion.  First of all, most of us as Amiga owners (with the current prices of RAM at least) don't have 8 megs yet, and a text editor is much smaller in size than a real wordprocessor.  This makes a text editor much easier to multitask, lurking in the background for whatever editing job is necessary.  With the proper public domain program, like SNIPIT, text can be easily copied and pasted in between windows for editing.  Secondly, text editors generally store their text in a much purer ASCII form than wordprocessors, so editing text that doesn't really need to go to a wordprocessor is generally much easier.  Examples include startup sequences, configuration files for other programs, messages for telecommunications, source code, and even phone directories.  I am aware that most if not all wordprocessors allow save as ascii, but it generally involves a few more keystrokes.  It's generally easier to call up a text editor.  Also text editors are nifty for looking at binary files, whichwill often crash a wordprocessor, or at least be transformed into bizarrecontrol codes and formatting codes.	There are several strong criticisms I have to give to PEdit.  It still doesn't scroll as fast as it should, compared to other products currently available, though it is fast (considerably faster than WordPerfect.)  I already mentioned the scroll bar itself.  PEdit does not offer wordwrap, which would make it far more useful to those of us who use PEdit as a text editor and not for source code.  PEdit (and in fact all WordPerfect Corp. products) currently do not support AREXX, the powerful new macro language that lets users customize programs, and allows for the easy transfer of data between programs that support AREXX.  Finally, there is a nasty way to guru PEdit currently - be careful of holding down the tab key for long periods of time.  PEdit will zip on out to position twelve million or so if allowed, at which point the computer will guru.	PEdit overall competes favorably with the competition.  I see it mostly going up against UEdit (shareware at $45 and alot more powerful, but quite difficult to use) and TxEd Plus.  Users of those already entrenched programs would probably find little reason to make the switch to PEdit, unless it was the keystroke similarity with WordPerfect.  This "feature" of keystroke compatibility with WordPerfect could actually be a disadvantage to non-WordPerfect users, as commands are tied heavily to function keys instead of mnemonics.  With ARexx, wordwrap, and the guru problem fixed, PEdit could retail by itself for $80.  But with those problems, I'd say in its current garb PEdit is worth $60.NoteBook========	Notebook is a curious little program that upon first examination appears to be a miniature rolodex-type program on the surface.  However, upon closer examination, it seems to fall into the "beauty of simplicity" cliche.  Notebook is a flexible mini-database that makes no pretense to be full-blown.  	The first step in setting up a database is the "record template" screen.  This area is used for designing the visual appearance of each record in the database and the labels for the fields.  For instance, most of my database records have a perimeter of asterisks with a title at the top and a line of dashes just below the title.  Think of this screen as the actual card inside the rolodex file.  A "field" is a piece of information inside a record, such as a name field, or an address field.  The fields themselves appear as blank spaces into which the address or name is typed, and it's within the "record template" screen that the labels are made next to the field.	Here's an example:Record Template*******************************************************************************                         Address and Phone Number                           **                            Database and Dialer                             **----------------------------------------------------------------------------**                                                                            **                                                                            **(1) Name: (2)                            Department:                        ** Address:                                Home Phone:                        **    City:                                 2nd Phone:                        **   State:     Zip:                       Business:    Mailing List:         **                                            (y/n)            (y/n)          **                                                                            **                     Description or Information                             **                                                                            *******************************************************************************(1) is the label for the actual field itself, (2).  The fields are added and moved around to proper position in what is known as "record display".  The fields in the above record are Name, Department, Address, Home Phone, City, 2nd Phone, State, Zip, Business, Mailing List, and Description or Information.  (Remember though the text up there is a label for the actual field.)  	The flexibility of the labelling allows prompting such as the "(y/n)" prompts above.  Another example would be a list of artists and whatthey do.  Some text could be written in the "record template" to prompt for painting, sculpture, drawing, writing, etc.  Note that the program doesnot actually check to make sure the text in the field matches the prompts, but that's not especially necessary.	Note that the list above is actually scrunched less than normal size, the "Description or Information" field is actually about five or six lines long.  Also text can have various attributes, my title is boldfaced and the "Description or Information" is underlined.	One annoyance with the program is the actual entry during the Record Template field.  There are really no editing commands available - no centering, no even insertion or deletion of spaces to move things around.  If a mistake is made, it's time to retype the entire label.  This part of the program really needs to be beefed up a tad.	Here's an example of the List Display with a few records entered.List DisplayName			Address			Home Phone	2nd Phone-------------------------------------------------------------------------------John Doe		12 Pleasant Road	854-0124	835-3909Sally Rodgers		45 Red Street		769-0392	784-8549    (*Note: above persons are purely fictitious.  Any similarity to actualpersons, either living or dead or in cryonic suspension, is purely a figment of your overactive imagination.*)	Not all fields will fit on the List Display, but it's easy to choose which fields to display.  Searches, sorting, and deleting are easy from this list by moving the cursor around with the up and down arrows, and marking records is done with the * key for multiple operations.  It's also possible to "search and mark", a very powerful feature for data selection.  For instance, we could search and mark only those people livingin Chesapeake, Virginia, then print only those records, delete only those records, or save those records to a separate file.  Searching allows wildcards.Records are added by hitting F9, which switches to the Record Display.Record Display looks exactly like Record Template shown above, but actual data is entered into the fields next to the labels.  Notebook uses WordPerfect's standard keystrokes for editing text, to keep consistency for WordPerfect users.  It also continues WordPerfect's excellent date-entry and format features.  Notebook also allows the use of macros to simplify and quicken repetitive tasks.	There is another important advantage that Notebook offers to WordPerfect users.  The data file itself is WordPerfect merge-file compatible, so that a form letter can be typed in WordPerfect and mailed to the people in the above list very easily.  Marked records can be sent out in a "scrap file" to be used within WordPerfect (to send letters only to people in Virginia, for instance), or to be loaded and merged into other Notebook files.  Let's not forget that Notebook can be multitasked alongside WordPerfect for enhanced flexibility also.  WordPerfect's flexible backup options (timed and original) are also available.	Notebook will dial phone numbers through a Hayes-compatible Smartmodem.  	Overall, Notebook is a very powerful and flexible tool.  Weighing in at around 80K, it should multitask nicely and be available for filing information and ideas frequently.  There are two problems with Notebook that WordPerfect needs to fix - the program opens the serial port exclusively for its own uses, which is a no-no in a multitasking environment, especially for the simple dialing of telephone numbers.  This eliminates the ability of Notebook to multitask with a terminal program - one of the uses of Notebook that could be very valuable - jotting down a user's GEnie address and CIS account numbers, for instance, or making a list of things to check when logging off.  There's also a way to crash and burn the whole computer - don't dare exit NoteBook with the write-protect on.  The computer says "software error-task held" but it isn't held, it's locked.	Notebook would also be far more useful with the enhancement of simple math.  Multiplication, addition, subtraction, and division would enhance the value and usefulness of Notebook.  I'm not going to try to turn Notebook into Superbase or DBase, but this addition would be worthy and not overcomplicate things.  Notebook is quick and easy, yet extremely powerful for manipulating the simpler data.  I consider it to be one of the more important parts of the Library package.  I'll give it a $50 retail value (to be increased significantly with the addition of math should it be added.) Calendar========	Calendar has four windows that show a diagram of a calendar on the screen, an appointment list, a memo window, and a "to-do" list.  Each window is separate and controllable with their own slider bars, front and back gadgets, and resizing capability.  The main calendar window that shows the diagram of the calendar is the window that has the Library calendar "zoom" gadget.  	Here's a diagram of the window format in Calendar, minus front/back gadgets, scroll bars and arrows, and the shrink/expand gadget in the calendar diagram:===============================================================================| |Calendar 1.0                        |Calendar Appointment                  |---------------------------------------|--------------------------------------|            Month Year                 | Day, Month, Date, Year               |              <-   ->                  |--------------------------------------|Sun  Mon  Tue  Wed  Thu  Fri  Sat  Sun | times | appointment                  | 				       |       |                              |				       |       |       			      |	calendar in here	       |       |			      |   (no I'm not going to attempt to     |       |			      |	  draw one!)    	       |       |                              |				       |       |			      |				       |       |			      |				       |       |			      |				       |======================================|				       |Calendar To-Do			      |				       |--------------------------------------|				       | Day, Month, Date, Year               |=======================================|--------------------------------------|Calendar Memo			       | Priority | Item                      |---------------------------------------|--------------------------------------|Day, Month, Date, Year                 |          |                           |---------------------------------------|          |                           |                                       | 	  |			      |				       |	  |			      |				       |	  |			      |				       |	  |			      |				       |	  |			      |===============================================================================	Remember these are three separate windows with flexibility of positioning and sizing, including the optional elimination of windows that aren't in use, go along way toward giving Calendar a realistic Amiga-like feel.  Plus, the slider bars in Calendar (unlike many of WordPerfect Corp's slider bars) are real Amiga sliders that have repeat arrows, and show the proportions correctly with the slider and container.  One problemwith this multi-windowed environment though, is that when multitasking with calendar, the three separate windows have to be separately pulled to the front.  There should be a way of pulling all the windows togetherto the front.	The main calendar diagram is used for reference and for moving between dates with arrow combinations.  As the arrows are used to move between dates, the date display that's just below the title bar in the other windows changes to show the date displayed in the calendar diagram.  Appointments, memos, and the "to-do" list are automatically updated to reflect what's been scheduled for the date highlighted in the calendar diagram.  The user can configure the format of the date as it appears in each window, in addition to the sizing and location on the screen.  The calendar diagram is also configurable for which day begins the week.  Little "A"s appear in the window on days with appointments, "T"s appear on days with a "to-do" list, and "M"s appear on days with a memo attached to them.Appointments------------	The appointment list is probably the most important part of Calendar, as it has the power and flexibility of a professional scheduling program.  Appointments are entered either individually with an assigned time (once the proper day has been chosen in the calendar diagram) or duplicated across days.  The duplication command is very flexible - starting and ending dates for the appointment are given (for instance, for the next six months) and the time of the appointment is typed.  Then, the and the days of the week on which the appointment is to be set.  Calendar will duplicate this appointment (such as a regular meeting) across the date range, and warn of any conflicts with previously entered appointments.	When a conflict does appear, Calendar allows the user to stop the duplication process, or to keep one or both of the appointments.	A user can make an "appointment outline" listing the starting time of the day for appointments to appear, ending time, and time interval between appointments.  This allows for a business person to begin scheduling appointments from 8am to 5pm for instance, with 30 minute intervals.  Once the times appear in the appointment window, the text for the appointment is entered. 	If both beginning and ending times are entered for an appointment,Calendar is supposed to warn of any conflicts in schedule.  This part of the program isn't working at all currently.  Not only should it work, but it should be a bit more flexible - it's impossible to drive across town in five minutes, for instance, so there should be a way to extend the possibility for conflicts, instead of actual time overlaps.Alarm-----	Alarming appointments is accomplished through a small and separate program called (appropriately enough) alarm that can be run from within Calendar or from outside Calendar.  When an appointment approaches, alarm will alarm the user a user-defined number of minutes before the entered time of the appointment.  Other configurations include the ability of the user to define the seconds between the rings until Alarm is shut off, and the use of the built-in Amiga speech synthesizer to say the appointment if so desired.  Even the alarm sound itself can be a digitized IFF sound file!	Appointments entered can be defaulted automatically to alarm (a little musical note appears next to the time) or defaulted not to alarm unless manually marked.  	Alarm goes off by popping a requestor on the screen with the text of the appointment, optionally ringing the digitized sound, and optionally speaking the text of the appointment.  There is an "off" button and a "snooze" button, just as on an alarm clock.  One small criticism - "snoozing" should  have a value of its own duration.  Currently "snooze" stops the alarm for one cycle only.To-Do-----	The text entered in the "To-Do" window is helpful for organizing each day.  A list is made of items with integer priorities, and as things are actually done during the day, they can be marked with a checkmark, at which point they drop to the bottom of the list.	User options consist of forcing a unique priority for every item on the list (one couldn't have two items at "Priority 1" for instance), and whether non-completed items should be automatically carried over to the next day.	Once entered, to-do items can be renumbered, priorities changed, or the text of the item edited with the standard WordPerfect command set.Memo----	Memo is a simple text window used for general comments about the entire day, for instance "Mother's Birthday" or "Pay mortgage next week".  Calendar Summary----------------	There are other options that a user has with Calendar.  An auto-archive or delete feature will automatically delete old items from the calendar file to prevent it from growing too large, or will archive older items to a separate file.  The "date difference" mode calculates the number of days between two dates, and displays the results in days, weeks, months, and years if the two dates are far enough apart.  The "day count" feature will calculate any combination of days of the week between two dates - for instance how many Tuesdays and Thursdays exist between June first and August first.	The editing commands are very powerful, and include global deletions of entire lists, the WordPerfect editing set, and undo features.	Searching is also available - there is search for a date and bring it to the display, the ability to immediately return to the current date, and forward, reverse, and "search from start" searching for text.  The textsearches support normal wildcarding - for instance searching for "J* Birthday" would display John's, Janet's, and Jorge's birthdays (with subsequent searches) as long as the birthdays are entered in the file.  Searching searches the to-do list, the appointment list, and the memo window.	There is also a "merge calendar" feature that merges two peoples'calendars into one file and displays any conflicts.  For instance, mergingJohn's and Ralph's calendars together displays any conflicts in schedulesof appointments.  If there is a conflict, an appointment can be discarded,kept, or the conflict ignored.	Printing is very flexible, as users can print only appointments, memos, or to-do lists, or any combination of the three for either today, the day on which the cursor is resting in the calendar diagram, the current month or the entire current year.  There are options to print blank days or not, to keep every day on a separate page, and to save in WordPerfect format.  	Calendar is easily the most powerful and best done utility in Library.  It has no competition whatsoever.  Everything else that's similar for the Amiga, such as Gizmos, quickly fades into the oblivion of "cuteness" or "gimmickery" next to Calendar.  I've found that Calendar has actually made my days more efficient as I've organized them more, and I'm not a businessman.  I'm a college student who's currently in summer break.  When school does start again, I know that Calendar is going to save my neck many times from forgetting things that I'm supposed to do, and helping to plan and schedule my time well in advance.  For those reasons, Calendar is valuable probably to alot of people who don't realize it.  	Calendar's interface is very good even though it's tied to the function keys alot.  Whoever did the scroll bars for this part of Library should sit all the other WordPerfect programmers down and show them what an Amiga scroll bar is - they work exactly as they should work.  The menus are tied to the function keys, but everything is available from the keyboard, and displayed very nicely and efficiently on the windows.  One annoying defect in the user interface is that for some reason there is no keyboard overlay for Calendar.  The initial learning curve is higher than it should be because of this.  I can't understand why they didn't include a template with Library's best product.  	For alot of people Calendar is going to be worth the entire value of Library by itself.  But that's because it currently has no competition -I'll assign it a retail value of $90.  It's one of the best programs I've seen in a long time.  The highest compliment I can pay it is that it's helped improve the quality of my life by helping me to organize my time more efficiently.Library Summary and Wrapup--------------------------	One annoyance is that Library uses "font one" from the Print disk whenever any of the programs print on the printer, and there's no way tochange it, without saving as WordPerfect and loading into WordPerfect toprint.  All Library programs should allow the selection of which font touse.  Though the Amiga printer in Print would also work, it's a fewextra steps and toggling to change the printer to the Amiga printer.		I'm also uncertain about the continued heavy reliance on the function keys.  WordPerfect Corp. has stated many times that they wish to maintain keystroke compatibility with IBM products, and that's fine.  But those of us who don't use IBMs shouldn't be punished with non-mnemonic commands tied to the function keys.  There's a control, and alternate, and two Amiga keys (or one Commodore key and one Amiga key) to use to give Amiga users and alternate, mnemonic user interface.  Use them!  And I also say to WordPerfect Corp. (I know I've said it many times already) please learn what an Amiga scroll bar is!	There's good news and bad news as far as bugs go.  The good news isthat this first release is light years ahead of WordPerfect itself, and *appears* to be things that could be cleared up with one update, rather than five or six.  I emphasize *appears* - that's a pure guess from me based on the nature of the bugs and the way this company has worked in the past.  The bad news is that there's one way to guru Notebook, two ways to guru Calculator, and a way to crash PEdit.  That's still too much even for a first release.  	I can only hope as a user that WordPerfect Corp. will give Librarythe same attention it has given to WordPerfect, and correct things soon.  Ialso hope that whatever this company's third product is, whenever it isreleased, is as much of an improvement over this product in bugs as this isover WordPerfect itself.  I will report updates and improvements to bothWordPerfect and WordPerfect Library in Amy Report, so stay tuned.	WordPerfect Library is a very powerful set of utilities that, based on my estimations, is worth $250 the way I calculate it.  That doesn't include File Manager, to which I assigned a value of $10, but which many people will have no or limited use.  Few people are going to use all of the programs in Library.  Those used to TxEd Plus won't have any use for PEdit, and some people (myself included) have no real use for a calculator.  I do think that  alot of people will have a use for both Calendar and Notebook.  To see if Library is for you, total up the values I've assigned to the individual programs and compare that to the $129 retail.===========================================================================AMIC-Term PreviewAmic Term is written by Dave Salas & Albert KirkBy Mark D. Manes and Henry Colonna*DISCLAIMER*  This preview is meant to show what lies ahead for Amigatelecommunicators with the forthcoming Amic-Term 1.0.  However, the releasedate is at least several months away - there is NO official release dateat this time.  Specifications and lists of features in this preview aresubject to change - radical change, but the time the product hits themarket.  Amy Report, and the Amic-Term authors, are not responsible forcomplying to the specification list in this preview, as it is notan advertisement, for for information purposes only.Well in the next few months, Amic-Term in professional garb will be released.  A Amic-term has undergone many improvements since last December.  Here is a list of the new features you will find inAmic-Term 1.0.- File Transfer Protocols - The most important feature in most peoples minds is the number ofprotocols available, especially with more and more users using PCPursuit.  Amic is the leader in this regard.  Amic-term supportsthe following protocols:  Xmodem, WXmodem, Xmodem 1k, YmodemBatch, Zmodem, Kermit and a special "double-talk" like protocolknown as Amic-talk.  Amic-talk will allow you to send files fromone amiga to another while chatting with your remote user.  - Terminal Emulations - Probably one of the secondary concerns for most folks has to dowith terminal emulations, Amic is standing tall in thatdepartment as well.  Amic offers TTY, ANSI, ANSI/IBM, ANSI/AMIC,VT100, and VT52.  The VT100 will be fully compatible with a realVT100 including 132 column mode, and double-height, double-widthcharacters!- The Phone Book -The phone book has some of the best features that were previouslyonly found in the likes of Procom Plus or Qmodem for the IBM PC. The feature list is quite impressive.  The phone book module willallow you to keep multiple phone books.  In each phone book youcan keep track of the following:  terminal emulation of choice,your favorite file transfer protocol, color pallet, the macrokeys, the fast menu (more on that later), the initializationscript (more on that too!), the total time spent on a givensystem showing current month, last month, total minutes, and thenumber of calls.  Concerned about your bill?  Amic provides bill tracking!  Amic keeps track of the amount of money spent oneach system on a monthly basis!  There is further support for PCPursuit users as well.  Amic also will keep track of downloads and uploads for each entry on the phone book.When dialing, a window appears while waiting for a connect, with detailed information on last time/date connected, dialing status, and a description of the BBS.The phone book has a nifty new interface with some custom gadgets,including some "on-off" toggles that look like light switches.- Fast Windows -Fast Windows is a nifty feature that is entirely Amiga.  This feature allows you to create a iconic interface to any BBS or commercial service.  That's right, point and click and you are in the Starship Amiga on GEnie, or in the AmigaForum on Compuserve.  - Simply Amiga Only Features -You don't like the standard topaz font in the Amiga?  You want touse that font you have created?  No problem, Amic loads standardAmiga fonts.  You want 50 lines of text on your screen?  Amicsupports Interlace, Custom Screen or will live on a  WorkbenchScreen. The ability to send remote commands to another Amiga is noproblem either.  You can get a directory of a disk in a friendsdrive, or execute most CLI commands.  These commands can also bedone locally, with the results sent only to the local screen orout the modem port as well.- Review Buffer - The review buffer in Amic can be up to 62k in size.  You can cut& paste from this buffer.  You can send your review buffer toTxed or the Notepad (or any other program that supportsclipboards)- The Script Language -Amic comes with a programming language of its very own.  Thesescript commands number well over one hundred and ten commands.  Also, all the hooks are there to deal with and support AREXX!  (AREXX is not included).- The User Interface -Some of the complaints in the past had to do with the userinterface in Amic-term.  Amic-term's menu's have all be re-organized in a more "intuitive" like manner.  The screens areclean and professional.  The special FUN-COLORS flag is nice, thecopper list is modified and you have multicolored (or multi-shaded) text.  Suggested Retail Price is $99, and will be available through Haitex.-mark=HenryAmic Beta Testers------------------------------------------------------------------------- AMY REPORT Issue #3    July 13, 1988   (c)'88 Henry Colonna and APEInc. All Rights Reserved.  Reprint permission granted except where noted in the article. Any reprint must include AMY Report and the author in the credits. Views Presented here are not necessarily those of AMY Report or of the Staff. -------------------------------------------------------------------------   


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