||||||||| ||||||||| ST*ZMAGAZINE ISSUE #: 33 |||||||| |||||||| --------------------------------------------- ||||||| ||||||| August 11, 1989 |||||| |||||| --------------------------------------------- ||||| ||||| Publisher/Editor: Ron Kovacs |||| |||| PD\Reviews Editor: Alice Amore ||| ||| --------------------------------------------- || || CompuServe: 71777,2140 GEnie: ZMAGAZINE | ZMAGAZINE | --------------------------------------------- || || Reprinted permission granted as long as ||| ||| ST*ZMAG and the original author is credited. |||| |||| --------------------------------------------- ||||| ||||| Copyright ½1989, Rovac Industries, Inc. |||||| |||||| Post Office Box 59 ||||||| ||||||| Middlesex, New Jersey 08846-0059 |||||||| |||||||| (201) 968-8148 ||||||||| ||||||||| --------------------------------------------- Volume 1 Number 33 ISSUE #33 CONTENTS --------------------------------------------------------------- Editors Desk ZNet Newswire Public Domain Shelf Ron Kovacs * HOT ATARI NEWS * Alice Amore --------------------------------------------------------------- Do it Yourself Calendars Monochrome Users Update Jim Chapman Mark A. Quinn --------------------------------------------------------------- The Quick Utilities Hard Drive Fundamentals Darek Mihocka WK Whitton --------------------------------------------------------------- STZMAG Update What's New!! Issue #31 Ctsy ST-Plug --------------------------------------------------------------- [Contributors: John Nagy, Sally Nagy, WK Whitton, Mark Quinn] THE EDITORS DESK ---------------- by Ron Kovacs I want to personally thank Charlie Young, Associate Editor of ST-World Magazine for the nice words and commentary appearing in the August issue. We chatted for a short time at the Dearborn World of Atari show in June, and I was surprised to read the encouraging comments. Charlie also authored an extensive report on the Dearborn show, and I encourage everyone to read it. David Small also wrote an article about his saving of the STacy and comments on the show. This is one of the "better" releases of ST-World, and also marks the debut of it's new 8 1/2 x 11 size. Speaking of ST-World, I only found... well, let's not discuss typo's, I know I have committed at least two every week. That probably adds up in a month to one issue of a monthly ST-World. Migraph's new hand scanner is making it's way to the public and John Nagy has already uploaded a few 400DPI images to GEnie. Please download and take a look at these files. Great for DTP fans!! While we are speaking of John Nagy, he is the artist of the World of Atari logo that appears on the ST-World hats, cups, and August issue. What happened to his name?? Please make a note of our NEW address. The post office box has changed from 74 to 59. The zip code also changes from 08846-0074 to 08846-0059, please write it down!! Do you subscribe to ST-Informer Magazine? This publication is a 36 page newspaper, equivalent to 72 magazine pages covering the Atari ST with news, reviews, and not afraid to tell it like it is commentary. If you do not subscribe, you can get a free sample issue by sending a post card to the address below and mentioning ST*ZMAG. Please write to: ST-INFORMER MAGAZINE 909 N.W. Starlite Place Grants Pass, Oregon 97526 Attn: Free Sample Issue from ST*ZMAG Special thanks to Stan Lowell for donating his system to ZMAG while we get our computer repaired. I have had STan's ST for close to a month while expert technicians try to figure out why the damn thing died. When the system went down just before the Dearborn World of Atari show, we had contacted Chris Roberts, then User Group Coordinator for assistance in getting the number of our local Atari repair center. With Chris's help we were able to locate a center and are still waiting for it's completion. As we reported last week, Chris Roberts was dismissed by Atari a few weeks ago. While we are speaking of Chris Roberts, in a conversation one week later with ST-World Publisher and World of Atari promoter Richard Tsukiji, Rich said, "It was the things Chris Roberts said about me that got him fired last Friday." Richard told another source, "Chris didn't realize the influence I had at Atari." Influential or not, the World of Atari Shows are cancelled after Dallas, and my machine still isn't fixed. I will update you when I get the thing back. Finally, there are TWO Bulletin Boards I have added to our growing list, one is 8-bit oriented with networked messages bases with Philadelphia, Illinois and Florida, also included in the networking is the Ask The Rat message base where you can leave messages to Matt Ratcliff. Call the Blank Page BBS at (201) 111-1111. The other system called the Ace's High BBS at (201) 111-1111, supports the ST with numerous message bases, auction area, on-line story base, hundreds of public domain ST software, and a complete library of ST*ZMAG online without download quota's. This is an exclusive AUA (Atari Users Association) member and BBS of the newly formed RACE Atari Users Group. ZNET NEWSWIRE ------------- Combined Staff Reports ~ As we previously reported in a June ZNET Newswire, Atari is going to be making a major announcement on August 25th. The news is expected to be the release of a 68030 based system which will run the Unix operating system. This system will be debuting at the Atari specific show in West Germany. The Atari TT will run both Unix and TOS, but will be released with TOS first with Unix to be added a few months later. Pending FCC approval, the system should be ready for shipment in September. The Atari Portfolio, hand held computer is already in release in Europe. ~ Jim Allen Jr. at FAST TECHNOLOGY says that he received his printed circuit boards this week and has begun assembly of the first commercial TURBO 16 accelerator boards for the ST and MEGA. The first finished products will be shipped early next week (8/14/89). Jim's design which includes cached memory seems to be the speed leader in the accelerator races, with speed increases of as much as 50% overall on some applications where other tested units may gain 10%. A $49 option will be a second board with two purposes - an interface for the PC-DITTO II hardware installation (or any other system requiring access to the 68000 CPU), and a BLITTER socket for cheap and easy upgrades to 520 and 1040 machines. Jim says that users should NOT expect his or any other ST accelerator to provide noticeable speed increases when using PC-Ditto II, since the hardware emulator will do as much as 90% of the computing. With the 68000 ST CPU attending to 10% of the computing tasks when in IBM mode, doubling its speed could, at theoretical best, provide only a 5% overall speedup. The testing of the Turbo 16 has been continuous, and ISD has reported that while the current version of CALAMUS will not operate in TURBO mode, DYNACADD will, even using the math-coprocesser and a Moniterm large screen monitor. ISD wants to take the TURBO 16 with them to Dusseldorf this month so German designers can program in ways to assure maximum effect using the board. Turbo 16 retails at $299 and includes a socket for your 68000 for easy removal if you change machines later. Fast Technology, P. O. Box 578, Andover MA 01810, (508) 475-3810. ~ Neither the PC-DITTO II IBM emulator nor the GCR Macintosh emulator with disk control are yet released. Recent word from GADGETS BY SMALL, the Spectre and GCR maker, say that an end-of-August release is expected, and that their plastics manufacturer has had personnel injuries that have delayed production. ~ SOFTLOGIC, makers of PAGESTREAM desktop publishing software for the ST and Amiga, had a BOMB SCARE two weeks ago. A device was in fact found and removed by police according to St. Louis newspapers. The report said that the bomb arrived in the mail, addressed to a SoftLogic employee who had been fired a few days earlier. It was believed that the former employee may have been involved in sending the bomb, and police had questioned him. They were also seeking a third party who was thought to have built or supplied the bomb. No one was injured and no damage was sustained as the device was removed without incident. ~ What version of PAGESTREAM do YOU have? In what just could be a problem related to the employee disagreement, at least one copy of PageStream at a Southern California Atari Dealer was found to be version 1.58... odd, considering that 1.52 is the current commercial version. SoftLogic representatives told the West coast user who reported it - a well known and respected user group president - that he must 1) be mistaken, 2) lying, 3) looking at a 1.52 that was altered using a sector editor to change the number, or 4) a pirate, as it was patently impossible that a 1.58 could be found in commercial boxes. Undaunted by the near-insults, the user conferred with another user who has an authentic version 1.52 to find that each of the files on the disk purporting to be 1.58 were substantially different and larger. Despite the chilly reception at the hard-to-get Customer support line at SoftLogic, the user has sent them copies of the files and a long letter explaining the circumstances. In his words, "All I really want is the current version. When I saw that this was 1.58, I thought there might be a problem that SoftLogic would want to know about." Version 1.58 is an internal BETA version, and is not even planned for release, as 1.59 is expected to be the next public update. It is unknown as yet whether 1.58 is even stable enough for use, or compatible with existing versions. Z*Net tried to contact SoftLogic for a comment, but found their phone lines busy continuously. You might check with your local dealers and help find how widespread the version leak might be. Be sure to report what you find! ~ ATARI in Germany announced last month that they were offering their employees an additional six vacation days each year if they are non- smokers. It is reasoned that smokers cost the company extra medical bills and sick-leave time, and that non-smokers might as well get the benefit of what the company doesn't have to spend on them. A recent public phone-in newspaper poll in the Detroit area indicated that a sizable majority of those who responed felt that this was a good idea for American companies to consider. ~ The Atari ST-Plus, a 68000 or 68020 system will probably be introduced later in 1989 and shipped this fall. Some minor problems are being addressed causing a delay in finalization. With fall around the corner, it seems Atari will be releasing or announcing yet another product in 1989. ~ Late last week, Nintendo filed a suit in Newark NJ against Blockbuster Video, the video rental chain, for alleged copyright infringement. Nintendo claimed they illegally photocopied video game instruction manuals for it's consumers that rented Nintendo's video games. On August 10th, Blockbuster Entertainment consented to the injunction placed and ceased photocopying the manuals. Nintendo still plans to attempt recovering damages already sustained by Blockbuster's actions. ~ Conner Peripherals announced last week that Atari is buying a supply of their low-profile 20 and 40 meg 3.5 inch disk drives for it's new soon to be released STacy laptop computer. If you don't know what the STacy is yet, it is a laptop ST, optional hard disk, single floppy drive, LCD screen, built-in trackball, and a price ranging between $1500 to 2000.00. The STacy is expected in late October, pending FCC approval. ~ Tymnet has been purchased by British Telecom of London England for a price of $355 million. The former owners, McDonnell Douglas made the sale late last week. ~ In Europe, if you buy a 520ST and you will receive a free package of 18 popular ST games; Outrun, Pacmania, Gauntlet, R-type, Super Hang-On, The Black Lamp, Bombuzal and more. The Euro_ST comes with 720K drive, Omnicron Basic, ST Basic, and 18 games for only $500. The software sold alone totals $750.00. PUBLIC DOMAIN SHELF ------------------- by Alice Amore ASCIIVEW ~~~~~~~~ What? Another text reader? Yes, but this one's really terrific. It is small (30K), needs no support files, and can reside on any disk, in any folder. It will hold up to 250 pages of text, making it large enough to hold almost anything except a comprehensive history of Europe. Commands are executed through mouse clicks on two rows of boxes at the top of the screen. Included are line up, line down, page up, page down, top, bottom, search, print, load, quit. The 'search' command searches for specified strings. The 'print' command will print out the entire file or let you specify a range of lines to print. Use the 'page_of_' feature to see which page/line you are currently viewing, plus the total number of pages in the file. There is also a 'help box' in case you get stuck. ASCIIVEW is shareware from David M. Seberg, and great for reading STZMAG. JAMES ~~~~~ JAMES (the desktop butler), written by Pascal Fellerich from Luxembourg, is an alternative to the CONTROL.ACC file. It belongs in the AUTO folder. Its features include: free RAM, clock/date, keyclick on/off, bell on/off, keyboard repeat on/off, set repeat speed, set repeat-delay, double-click speed. Also available are several alternate keyboards: French, French/German, German, and Hexa. MACCEL2 ~~~~~~~ This is the newest version of the "mouse accelerator" program written by Ken Badertscher at Atari Corp. Earlier mouse accelerators had a tendency to control the user. This one is a great improvement, and, once installed, uses very little memory. Included is a nifty screen saver. MACCEL2 goes into the AUTO folder, but can also be run without a reboot. Three functions are available: Set mouse speed - fast or slow Enable screen saver - blanks out your screen after about 4 minutes of non-use. Simply bump the mouse or hit any key to restore the display. Watch modem - This prevents the screen saver from enabling itself while you're online (perhaps reading a long text file). It treats all incoming data as if it were being entered from the keyboard. PINHEAD (PINHED12) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Charles F. Johnson has done it again with PINHEAD! PINHEAD is an extremely small utility which speeds up ST booting/program loading remarkably. It works with all ROM versions of TOS. (Be sure to read the documentation for proper installation instructions.) Once installed, PINHEAD can still be permanently disabled, or it can be disabled for the next program only. This is done through the use of a hotkey sequence. I tested PINHEAD on a multitude of loads, and it really does work. And quite well. And... it's freeware! SHIPACC ~~~~~~~ SHIPACC, which can function as a desk accessory or as a program, is a park program for hard drives. Most previous parking programs had to be run from a floppy, but SHIPACC will run from the hard drive itself. Remember to turn off your hard drive(s) after parking it, or evil hardware-type things may happen. SLICK ~~~~~ SLICK (the Slideshow Construction Kit) is a slideshow program with a difference: it will allow you to custom-configure .PI1 (D.E.G.A.S.) and .NEO (NeoChrome) pictures to take advantage of all sorts of special effects. The results are delightful. You can choose from 72 levels of pixel-fade for picture fade-in, and 7 different fade-out effects including blinds, sideways, curtains, hourglass, fade to black, spiral, and checker-board. Making and saving a "script file" to run the slideshow is easy. Just follow the prompts. Once your script is ready, you can specify the amount of time each picture will be displayed, the drive and path where the picture files are stored, and whether your slideshow should be "endless" or end with the last picture specified in your script. This program is sure to breathe new life into your tired, old picture files. It was written by Rupert Spencer using STOS. SCOUT2 ~~~~~~ SCOUT2 is a project of great proportions from Vic Albino. He has used a combination of VIDI-ST, REPLAY4, CyberPaint, and AVS to make a "mini-movie". You will see and hear a sequence from Star Trek III which will blast you out of your ergonomic chair! 'Nuff said. DO-IT-YOURSELF CALENDARS ------------------------ by Jim Chapman, S*P*A*C*E (from the Puget Sound Atari News) If you are a user of the Timeworks Publisher ST (or similar) desktop publishing (DTP) software and have a need or desire to create monthly calendars, then this article may be useful. As the main editor for the Puget Sound Atari News since July 1986, I've been placing a monthly calendar in each issue of this publication. My earliest efforts were easily created with The PrintShop Companion on an 8-bit computer. In July 1988 I began using an Atari ST to take advantage the increased flexibility and (laser printed) quality that the ST's DTP software provided. However, there was a price to pay for these advances... Much more time was required to create each calendar! So when it became prudent to switch from Publishing Partner to Publisher ST (to obtain faster printing speed and uniformity - the rest of PSAN was now being laid-out with Publisher ST), I delayed the calendar portion until I was certain that this change would not increase my already strained monthly work load! My DTP experiments on the ST indicated that a series of text frames (or columns) should be created - one for each day of the month. Additionally, the date numbers for each of these days must be totally separate entities to avoid precise placement problems caused by 'justification' conflicts. The solution here was to use multiple 'planes' or layers when laying out the calendar. One layer (a single text frame) for the date numbers and another layer comprised of small individual 'day' boxes. And, if this was done correctly, the necessary changes from one month to the next could actually be accomplished with very little effort! (Ahhhh, less work - Isn't that why we got into computing in the first place?) Creating A Calendar (using Publisher ST - other DTPs might be similar): 1. Decide on your calendar's general lay-out and exactly what size you want each day's 'box' to be (1" x 1" is good for starters). 2. In the 'Set Column Guides' dialog box (in the 'OPTIONS' drop down menu): a. Set the 'number of columns' to 7 (a column for each day of the week). b. Set the 'Gap Between Columns' to 0. c. Set the Left and Right margins as appropriate to allow 7 columns of each daily 'box' (e.g., you'd use 0.75" if each day 'box' was 1" wide and your paper width was 8 1/2"). d. Set top and bottom margins similarly - making allowances for titles and weekday heading text frames if desired. 3. Click on the 'Frame' tool and draw a 'day' frame (box) one column wide and approximately the desired height. a. Double click on your newly drawn frame to bring up the 'Size and Position' dialog box. Here you can make precise size adjustments as needed. Exit. b. (In the OPTIONS menu) set Text Runaround to 'Off', Frame Tint to 'clear' and Frame Border to 'All Around' using the thinnest line. 4. Using the Copy and Paste functions of the Edit menu duplicate the 'day' frame to create six weeks worth (or so) of identical frames. Yes, this is repetitive, but it goes quite fast. TIP: From time to time use CTRL C to copy the current frame (or one as close as possible to where you will be working on the page) into the memory buffer. Then simply hit the INSERT key to paste a new frame on the page, and use the mouse to drag it to the desired position. And, if the 'Snap to Guides' feature (in the OPTIONS menu) is ON, your frame will perfectly position itself! 5. Next create a large 'date' frame which completely overlays all of the 'day' frames. (It will later contain the date numbers, 1-31). Initially align the left edge of the 'date' frame with the left column guide and position the top edge so that it's slightly less than 1" above the top of the first row of 'day' frames. Adjust the width so that the frame extends about 1/4" beyond the right-hand edge of the right most 'day' frames. (This will provide a convenient 'handle' to later access the 'date' frame when making changes for any subsequent month.) Finally, for ease in future editing and to avoid undesired text repositioning, go to the OPTIONS menu and set Frame Tint to 'clear' and Text Runaround to 'Off'. While here, also be sure that Frame Borders are set to 'off'. 6. Click on the 'Paragraph' tool and create a new paragraph style (I used 'CAL_DATE' as the style name) for the date numbers in the 'date' frame as follows: a. Justification: Set to 'Table'. b. Font & Size: Your choice here (I found Dutch, 14 point, bold, outline, to be nice). c. Dimensions: Set 'Leading', measured in points (72 points = 1.00 inches), to the height of each 'day' frame (in our case we use 72 points of leading because the 'day' frame is exactly 1" high). Also, be sure that all 'Indents' and 'Space above' are set to 0.00. d. Set Tabs: Set tabs 1 through 6 as: 'left tab', 'spaces' leader character, and successively position each tab the width of the 'day' frame from the left border or preceding tab (in our case: #1 - 1.0", #2 - 2.0", #3 - 3.0", etc..). 7. Switch to the Text mode (by clicking on the 'Text' tool) and type the date numbers into 'date' frame as follows: "1 [Tab] 2 [Tab] 3 [Tab]" ...... (to the last day of the month - and no blank spaces). 8. Switch to the Paragraph mode, click on the numbers just entered (in step 7), and change the paragraph style to the CAL_DATE style (established in step 6). Now You'll see the date numbers expand out to the desired positions. Switch back to the Text mode and position the cursor just in front of the first number. Hit the TAB key a few times and watch all the numbers automatically scroll around to their correct positions. (Nice, huh!) Use the TAB and BACKSPACE keys to move the "1" into the proper day of the week column for the starting month. Exit. 9. Go back to the 'Frame' mode, click on the 'date' frame, and hit ALTERNATE 6 to send this frame to the back (behind the 'day' frames). Now you'll be able to see how the date numbers are positioned relative to the 'day' frames. Some adjustment is probably necessary. If so, double click on the 'date' frame (use the 'handle' on the right side) to bring up the 'Size and Position' dialog box. By trail and error, reposition the 'date' frame as desired. 10. Now go to the 'unused' 'day' frames and set their Frame Border to 'none' (or 'send to back'). This makes them invisible. 11. Place text and graphics as desired into the various 'day' frames. Also add other desired title, weekday heading, and graphics frames and text at this time. Well, that should pretty much complete your basic calendar. Use your imagination to add other features and embellishments. (For example, on the PSAN calendar I've combined two months together with the second month being offset by 0.10 inches and the tint of each 'day' frame set to the lightest shade of fill.) TIP: If you create your calendar on a 'Master Page', then each time you 'add' a new page (i.e., create a new month), you'll only have to make minor adjustments. With this technique it's easy to do a whole year at a single sitting! MONOCHROME USERS UPDATE ----------------------- by Mark A. Quinn Public Domain Review Filename: MONO_EMU.ARC Program Name: MONO_EMU.PRG, version 3.00 Programmed by: Mick West There really is no substitute for the crisp, black text on a white background that the SM124 liberally provides. And there could have been no substitute for the pleasant shock I got when I first saw, two years ago, the ST desktop in high resolution. And when I booted Word Writer and opened a text file that I had previously seen on a TV set, and saw it anew.... I make it sound as if it was an exciting, almost existential experience. For someone who longs to get his or her "socks knocked off" by exceptional hardware/software, it was all of that. I spent hours online gushing about "The high resolution Experience" to local users. One user threw a somewhat grungy, wet blanket on the whole affair when he wanted me to admit that his computer was "better", but I have since learned to stay out of such unproductive discussions. Until MONOWARE or MONO_EMU came along, those who would or could not shell out the cost of a "124" couldn't run any monochrome-only software. I ran MONOWARE some months ago (I will not discuss it here. Apart from healing all wounds, time also does a good job of fading memories into the background of synaptic "white noise") and I spent some hours running my favorite monochrome programs with MONO_EMU. MONO_EMU.PRG must (read: MUST) be run from an AUTO folder. I tried installing it on my Supra hard drive, with the result that the computer and its operator both bombed like crazy. (I bombed by attempting to install it on my hard drive; the computer---well, let's say that the results weren't very pretty.) I got out of the endless loop of my ST attempting to get a desktop by hitting CONTROL-C. So I created a floppy with its own AUTO folder, booted from it, and all went well. Do NOT run the program directly, or menus and dialog boxes will be "squashed". After this AUTO program boots, the user is prompted to enter a number from 10 to 80. With the lower numbers, the display is jerky, and at the higher speeds, program execution slows appreciably (the programmer states that at the highest number the ST is running at about 56 percent of its optimum speed). The emulator, though it is quite small, appropriates about 35K of RAM, so if you have 512K and attempt to run a very large program with some desk accessories, your attempt may fail. I have a one megabyte machine and didn't experience any difficulties. How do the displays look? They look understandably fuzzy. I read some text files, and can report a great deal of eyestrain. However, for those who have no choice but to use an emulator, the programs DO run. ("Da Do Ron", for you older folks.) The inherent limitations of the program are covered accurately in the program's documentation. (Which is somewhat of a rarety.) When using the default setting of 40, programs run at about seventy-five percent of their normal speed. I ran "BOLO" (a NICE PD "Arkanoid" clone) and found it easier to play because of the slow-down. The display was jerky, as stated above. Conclusion: There really IS no substitute for the crisp output of an SM124, but if you absolutely cannot justify one's purchase, this program is for you. THE QUICK UTILITIES ------------------- by Darek Mihocka Reprinted from ZNet August 1989 When I was asked by ZNET to write up something about the Quick Utilities, they simply told me to give them the 5 W's. So without further delay, let's start on the What. What are the Quick Utilities and why were they written? They are a set of programs for the Atari ST co-authored by myself and Ignac Kolenko. Each utility does something that we felt was not available on the ST and should have been. The programs are written for the benefit of other ST users, and are available on most bulletin boards and online services. The programs are all part of a $30 shareware package, and if you contribute you receive updated versions of the software that is not available on the boards. So far there are 7 Quick programs, and a few more are in the works. We don't believe in charging a lot for software (especially utilities) and certainly believe in the try-before-you-buy attitude. These programs originally started as separate entities over the last year or two, and a few months ago we decided to merge them into one package. Quick ST is a program which makes up for the fact that GEM is not written in machine language. When using Quick ST, most GEM operations, like dialog boxes and windows are sped up. Sometimes a little, and sometimes a lot, depending on the program. It also speeds up screen scrolling and text programs. It is configurable, as it can run as a desk accessory or as a normal program. Once it is installed, you just leave it and let it do its work. Although not all programs will speed up tremendously, it does help to fix the weak links in GEM, such as the slow speed of line drawing and printing of clipped text. The desktop becomes more responsive, since disk directories pop up faster. Quick ST uses less than 40K of memory, and there are also separate color and monochrome versions of Quick ST which use even less memory. Quick ST even supports the Hyperscreen and Matrix monitors. Quick Index is sort of like the Norton SI for the ST. It can be used to benchmark your ST performance, in areas such as CPU speed, disk performance, and the speed of screen operations. There are 11 categories in total. The CPU categories allow you to see how the speed of your system varies as you install more and more desk accessories, or if you have a 16Mhz accelerator board, you can see what effect it really is having. Most of the board makers have posted the Quick Index results of their accelerators, and some are much better than others. The disk categories do such things as measure the rotational speed of a selected floppy or hard disk, or the transfer speed of any disk, including a RAM disk. The screen operations categories can be used to test the performance of Quick ST, or a blitter chip, or any other GEM accelerator. Quick Index also displays the version of TOS that you are using. Quick Find was written because it is very easy to lose track of a file on a hard disk. It allows you to search for a file, or group of files, and displays their location on your hard disk. Once found, the files can also be deleted, write protected, unprotected, touched, hidden and unhidden. The output of the program can be printed out, or stored to a disk file. Quick View was written out of the need to view text files quickly. The "Show Print Cancel" feature of the desktop is not very useful for reading long text files, and word processors are usually much slower at scrolling from page to page. Quick View is small and fast, and can be installed as an application so that whenever you double-click on a text file, Quick View loads up automatically. Speaking of installing applications, Quick Inf can be used to easily change such DESKTOP.INF parameters as installed applications, icon names, window search masks, and can even load and save DESKTOP.INF files without having to reboot the ST. It can be used to install Quick View for several different file types (such as DOC, TXT, README, etc), which can't easily be done from the desktop. Quick Print changes the ST's screen dump routine so that it prints out text screens as text dumps. This is much faster than the usual graphics dump, and works in all resolutions and with most printers without requiring the control panel. Quick Label prints labels of up to 10 lines of 40 characters. Labels can be loaded from disk and then printed, from 1 to 999 times. Control codes can be used to add text effects like underlining and italics, and custom printer drivers can be created. All Quick utilities run on all STs in all resolutions. Who? Who are we? We are college students at the University of Waterloo in Canada. We are also Atari ST addicts, and have been writing public domain and shareware software for several years. Some of our other titles (some good and some we'd like to forget about) are Megablit, ST Xformer, Megaboot, the aSTronomer, and the SPX Slideshow program. We are enrolled in a Computer Engineering course, so our combined backgrounds include not only programming the ST, but also systems like UNIX, XENIX, VAX/VMS, Atari 8-bit, Apple II, Macintosh, MS-DOS, and OS/2, and we are now prototyping a new hardware product for the ST which we hope to have out in a few months, possibly also as shareware. During school breaks, I work at Microsoft, and Ignac works at Electrohome. Where does one get the Quick Utilities? All updates up to now have been posted on the Compuserve, Delphi, Genie, and BIX online services. From there they are downloaded by others and reuploaded to local bulletin boards. All 7 utilities can be found there. I strongly urge you to download them and try them out before you send in a shareware contribution. Don't just take my word for it that they're useful. But they are . When are updates released? For the last few months, updates have been posted to the networks as often as once a week. Quick ST has seen 5 releases in as many weeks, and there are about 3 or 4 releases of each of the other utilities. The reason for doing this is because we are writing the Quick Utilities for all ST users. When someone makes a good suggestion for a new feature, we put it in and release an update. This makes for useful programs and what we hope for - popular shareware. Starting next month, updates will be sent out by mail to registered users. Those users who wish so can also receive the updates by email on one of the 4 services. Some of the future updates will include a version of Quick ST that runs from the AUTO folder and is even faster, a version of Quick View that supports graphics files, a smaller version of Quick Print that saves screen dumps to disk, and new Quick utilities. Updates will be available for free by email, and for a nominal charge of $3 for updates by normal mail (snail mail). There will be a mailing of the latest versions next week for all currently registered users. For more information, to contribute, or provide suggestions, write to me at the following address: Darek Mihocka Box 2624, Station B Kitchener, Ontario N2H 6N2 By phone, call Ignac at (519)-747-9452, any time but middle of the night. By modem, contact us on Usenet, Compuserve, Delphi, Genie, and BIX, and we'll probably be giving more demos at future Atari shows this year. HARD DRIVE FUNDAMENTALS ----------------------- by WK Whitton Part 1 The hard drive you have purchased, or the mechanism you have dreamed of owning, is a wondrously ingenious device that employs some basic, and yet at the same time, some highly advanced features to offer you a device that combines substantial data storage space along with a high overall reliability factor. The next few weeks we will look into the rudiments of hard drive technology, with an eye on making the novice familiar enough to make wise purchase, use, and maintenance decisions in the future. In this first installment of our hard drive series, lets take a look at some of the terminology we will need to be familiar with. CYLINDER """""""" This is a group or set of "tracks" that share a common track number. For example: All the track "1"'s on your hard drive produce one cylinder, and all the track "2"'s form another cylinder, and the list goes on. There is ONE set of tracks on each disk surface. On a floppy disk, a cylinder happens to refer to a particular track that appears on both side 0 and side 1 of a disk. DISK CACHE """""""""" This is a common means of improving disk access performance by means of saving the most recently read disk data in the computer's memory. The very next time the computer attempts to read any data from your hard drive, the disk cache copies it from your much faster memory than from the actual hard drive. Cache programs will also work with floppy drive systems. DMA """ Stands for "Direct-Memory-Access". This is a high speed technique of transferring data between RAM and your hard drive or any other external device. This has been extensively used on the ST, and with some recent developments on the Amiga side by Supra. This special IC, the DMA chip, is basically a manager of sorts that handles requests for memory access from your CPU and other devices. ECC """ "Error Correction Code" A system devised by IBM to deal with the problem of normal surface defects of hard drives, and data integrity. Allows up to 11 contiguous bits of data, which been scrambled during the read-back process, to be interpreted properly. ESDI """" "Enhanced Small Disk Interface" Used an enhanced "ST506" method, basically uses serial data transference. This increased the total data transfer rate. FAT """ "File Allocation Table" This is a master table your ST hard drive and floppy disk. Used to manage the free space on the disk along with various other pieces of information concerning the data stored on the drive. MEDIUM """""" The material inside the hard drive that holds the magnetically stored information. Generally used coatings are Iron Oxide and various other alloys. Coatings can sometimes be determined by color, rust would be iron oxide and silver wold signify use of a metal oxide. MFM """ Modified Frequency Modulation. This is still the most common method of hard drive data encoding schemes. This allows the hard drive to store 17 sectors per track. PARTITION """"""""" This is the division of a single hard drive mechanism into 2 or more logical segments that your system sees as if they were individual drives. Partitions are formatted independently, and with your ST, can even support different disk operating systems (i.e. ST-Macintosh-IBM, and now Atari 8 bit!) all on the same drive. READ/WRITE HEAD """"""""""""""" This is a piece of magnetized iron critically positioned above the magnetic media, and its function is to read or write data to your drive. RESERVED CYLINDER """"""""""""""""" This is the innermost cylinder of a hard drive, and is reserved for parking the heads when you turn your hard drive off. RLL """ "Run-Length Limited". Allows much higher density data storage than the MFM method. Its key to success is the fact that it does limit the distance (or Run-Length) between magnetic flux reversals on the platter of your hard drive. When the hard drive head magnetizes the disk coating, it creates a small magnetic field, which has opposite poles. The head systematically reverses the direction of these fields to delineate bits. This scheme allows storage of 26 sectors per track. SCSI (Skuzzy) """"""""""""" Stands for: "Small Computer System Interface". This is a high-speed hard drive interface that is capable of transferring data in a parallel manner (8 bits at a time normally). This means it transfers data one "byte" at a time. Although one hard drive mechanism with SCSI allows over 1 meg per second to be transferred, it is much more common to see todays fast 3 1/2" SCSI drive mechanisms transfer over 550k a second on the ST. (Such as on the Seagate 157N). SECTOR """""" This is a sub-area, or a smaller piece of, a track. Each sector begins with special addressing information, and is then followed by 4096 bits of data arranged in 512 bytes. TRACK """"" This is one of the many rings on the surface of the hard drive platter that the read/write head passes over. STZMAG UPDATE ------------------------- (Editors Note: This message reprinted Ctsy of GEnie's ST RT) Category 31, Topic 12 Message 1 Mon Jul 31, 1989 GW.MILLER at 09:36 EDT The recent issue of Zmag (Issue #31) reported on the July 27th programmers conference I attended as a guest. Unfortunately, I was misquoted on several points. This is always a risk when dealing with the press, and I've been misquoted in the past, and it will happen in the future. It's a fact of life. In this case, I wish the author had checked the transcript from the CO a little closer. Item 1: When questioned on the difference between Tempus I and Tempus II, my reply was that I was not qualified to comment as I had never worked with Tempus I and did not know what the significant changes were. I later mentioned that I had not worked on the Tempus project while it was being prepared by MichTron. Item 2: "Tempus II was described as not being far from a desktop publishing program to which George agreed for he uses it with Fleet Street Publisher." Well, it wasn't me who described it as a DTP program. It's not a Desktop Publishing Program, or even close. Tempus II is an extremely powerful text editor. I use it, as a text editor to prepare text for importing into Fleet Street Publisher (and other programs). Item 3: When questioned repeatedly about an undelete program in Hard Disk Turbo Kit, I described the Hard Disk Turbo Kit as containing a cache program (M-Cache) and backup and tuneup utilities (TOOLKIT.PRG). When asked about including a file recover utility, I replied that none was planned at this time. (Or words to that effect.) Somehow, this became "no upgrades were expected at the present". This is not true. We do not plan to add new features to the program, but we are aware of an incompatibility between the Atari Hard Disks using HDX 3.01 and the TOOLKIT portion of Turbo Kit. If you are using partitions larger than 16K, serious problems exist. We have stated this in the MichTron RT and posted a warning to all users. As soon as Atari releases a final version of HDX, we intend to update the program to support large partitions. Releasing the "upgrade of the week" is counter productive, and would only cause confusion on the part of the user. Hopefully Z-Mag will correct these statements in a future issue so that users who did not attend the CO will not be mislead. Category 31, Topic 12 Message 2 Mon Jul 31, 1989 TOWNS at 18:46 EDT George, Just for your information HDX 3.01 is the release version of HDX and is available here in the File Library. It's release notes are also available in the Developer's Area. Atari has no plans to recall this release.. -- John WHAT'S NEW!! ------------ Ctsy ST-PLUS What's New is copied from a monthly Atari ST newsletter called ST-PLUG. Although some of the news may appear outdated, this is due to the fact that subscribers of ST-PLUG must receive this information before it is published electronically (One of the benefits of subscribing). Should you wish to subscribe or receive a complimentary issue of ST-PLUG, instructions on how to do so are contained at the end of this file. * From Titus Software comes Titan, an eight directional fast scrolling strategic puzzle. You can spend hours finding the unique solution to some 80 levels of Titan without a time limit. This one reminds me of an advanced form of Break-out or Arkanoid. Playable with either mouse or joystick. Price $49.95 CDN $44.95 US Titus Software, 20432 Corisco Street, Chatsworth, CA 91311 * Data East USA, Inc., has announced that Dennis Thorley has been named producer and will oversee the company's product development, design and production efforts; work with third party software developers; and secure additional product and licensing opportunities with outside vendors. While the company has successfully worked with international software developers to secure licensing rights for such popular games as Batman, The Caped Crusader and Platoon, Thorley will be responsible for expanding this tradition. Prior to joining Data East, Inc., Thorley was vice president of FACS Programming Services, Inc., a Michigan-based software development firm. - Out from Data East USA right now is Batman, The Caped Crusader as well as Robocop. While Robocop follows somewhat on the movie script, the Batman game has combined the Penguin and Joker to battle the Caped Crusader. Both hope to capture as much as the movies did at the box office. I wonder if Jack Nicholson is happier with the outcome of the video game. Price $44.95 CDN $39.95 US (each) Data East, Inc., 470 Needles Drive, San Jose, CA 95112 * June saw Taito release four new software products. - Arkanoid II, The Revenge of Doh follows hot on the heels of the original Arkanoid. Featuring 67 new and challenging energy barriers that one or two players can break down by deflecting multiple energy balls. This game is highly addictive. Price $34.95 CDN $29.95 US - Following the plot of the 1988 film, Rambo III in a unique and innovative role-playing adventure game. Sent on a desperate mission to free Colonel Trautman from a heavily guarded fortress in Afghanistan, you'll attempt to accomplish your goal by using items left by a careless enemy. Price $34.95 CDN $29.95 US - We're looking back a few years to recall Qix when it first made it's appearance in the arcades. Qix is a classic game of mental dexterity and strategy. The player enters an electrical world where he must avoid packs of roving sparks and waves of wondering energy, all while trying to conquer a series of grids. Price $34.95 CDN $29.95 US - Operation Wolf is a one player game in which you must complete 6 missions and successfully rescue innocent civilians held prisoner by armed extremists. Use your machine gun and grenade launcher to defeat a host of enemy gun boats, helicopters, armed vehicles and guerilla soldiers. This one features the actual arcade graphic files on the Atari ST. (P.S. I hear Operation Wolf II is being worked on.) Price $34.95 CDN $29.95 CDN - Not out now but coming in the 4th quarter of '89 is Rastan. This arcade epic transports the player to the ancient mythical land of Logarth. Look for magical weapons to protect and strengthen Rastan as he journeys through six different levels combating evil creatures and powerful adversaries. Price $34.95 CDN $29.95 US Taito, 267 West Esplanade, North Vancouver, BC V7M 1A5 * Due in late summer is MicroProse Games (MPG) first state-of-the-art coin-up arcade game. MPG plans to produce coin-up operated machines so sophisticated that contemporary hardware units will be unable to perform the processing required. Such a lofty goal has meant the creation of all-new hardware to provide the horsepower the software will demand. The most sophisticated arcade games using 3-D graphics generate 12,000 polygons per second. MicroProse Games plans to produce 60,000 polygons per second. In addition, the screen will generate itself at a rate of 30 frames per second, which is actually faster than the speed of motion pictures. Hardware innovation is useless without a good game. As yet untitled, the game will likely be a combat flight simulator of sorts - a genre for which MicroProse has become famous for in the personal computer industry. MicroProse, 180 Lakefront Drive, Hunt Valley, MD 21030 * Version 1.2 P of the Deep Scan Burst Nibbler is now available from Rio /Datel (formerly Datel Computers). Upgrades are available by returning your original disk along with $12.00. You may remember this program received a URS Rating of 86 in Issue 1 of ST-PLUG. The Deep Scan Burst Nibbler is probably the best disk back-up producing program available on the market today. Many of you may know this product under other names such as A-Copier or Copy ST. Price $59.99 CDN $49.99 US Rio/Datel, 3430 E. Tropicana Ave. #67, Las Vegas, NV 89121 ST-PLUG is a non-profit monthly newsletter devoted to the Atari ST. It contains reviews and information for the Atari ST. ST-PLUG is published in as short a time frame as possible and, therefore, will contain more up-to-date information then is contained in the popular news stand magazines. So far, every product received before the 20th of the previous month has been mentioned in the ST-PLUG issue sent out on the first of the following month. To subscribe to 12 monthly ST-PLUG newsletters, send cash, check or money order totalling the sum of $20.00. (Please make your check or money order payable to 'ST-PLUG'.) To receive a 'free' promotional copy of ST-PLUG, send your name and address to: ST-PLUG 1670 Heron Road, Box 22026, Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1V 0C2 You may also receive a promotional copy of ST-PLUG by leaving E-mail to Dan Panke on the following systems. CompuServe: 73257,2635 GEnie: D.PANKE ======================================================================= Copyright ½1989, Rovac Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved ST*ZMagazine ======================================================================= were expected at the present". This is not true. We do not p