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                       ON-LINE WITH SOARing STar BBS
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G. Richard Yamagata
Copyright 1994  All Rights Reserved

May-June Activities

      This is the 3rd installment of this column for STeve's AtariNOTES!  The
purpose of this column is to inform you each month of the activities of
SOARing STar BBS, the BBS owned and operated by STeve's Atari Sales.

SUPPORT AREAS ON SOARing STar BBS

      Since this newsletter is ST oriented, to repeat myself, I cover the
Atari ST/STe/Mega/TT030 area of SOARing STar BBS.  What may be of interest to
others is that there are other areas of the BBS dedicated to the support of
the:  Atari Falcon030 [B]; Atari Portfolio [C]; Atari 8-Bit [D]; Atari Jaguar
[E]; and IBM/Clone [H].  Each of these areas have active message bases with
on-going discussion and files areas for downloads and uploads.  You may wonder
what type of files exist in the Jaguar and Lynx areas.  They are mostly game
hint and game cheat listings, with some general articles giving support for
those gaming systems.  If you have any interest in these areas, we invite you
to call and access them by use of the [C], CHANGE CONFERENCE, command from the
main menu.

IMPORTANT BBS PERSONALITIES
  
      There were 163 new file uploads and 53 messages posted to the Atari
ST/STe/MEGA/TT003 section of SOARing STar BBS.  Again, the number of files
uploaded to the BBS has grown exponentially in number with another 50%
increase in the number of new files posted.  At the same time the number of
messages posted to the BBS has decreased by a factor of 3.  This can be
explained by modem troubles suffered by Eric Hays, founder of YAC, preventing
his presence on-line.  Other BBS personalities are otherwise occupied and a
lot of the regular traffic is down.  Mark Rose has made an appearance on the
BBS after mailing a tape to YAC with cyber animation and a how-to-use sequence
for FALCON owners.  The 2nd annual Mark Rose animation festival occurred, but
unfortunately was not publicized.  The June YACkity YAC was not published and
I am told will be combined with the July issue.  All subscribers will be
refunded money for the missed issue.  The Mark Rose produced software will be
placed on video tape and available to all those that wish to see this.  Just
mail an empty VHS video cassette to YAC with return postage and it can be
yours.  All 7.3 MEGs of Mark Rose's creations can be found on SOARing STar
BBS, just look for "Uploaded by Mark Rose".

MESSAGE BASES

     Sequentially summarizing the messages posted, starting from message base
1, the Political News and views base, there were only 3 posts concerning the
Davis City Council election results and Clinton's woes.  The candidate whose
campaign I worked for won, by the way.  The Movie and T.V.  reviews, base 2,
continues to be the place to visit to find out what is popular in America.
The Nielsen polls, the weekend box office statistics for the top 20 theater
releases and the weekly video sales and rental figures continue to be posted
here each Thursday.  Roseanne and Seinfeld continue to vie with each other for
the number 1 Nielsen spot, though the OJ Simpson jaunt on the LA freeways
garnered the number 1 spot from both that week.  Because of that and other
reasons, discussion of the OJ Simpson and his wife's death can be found in
this message base.  For movies the FLINTSTONES and then the LION KING took the
number 1 box office spots.

     The Yolo Atari Club message base [3] had 1 post this month.  This post
concerned club politics and the 2nd Annual Mark Rose Animation Festival.  As
an aside, there was not a quorum of the voting membership at the meeting, so
voting on the position of YAC programmer could not take place.  It was
surprising how many people turned out for the YAC meeting, yet to find out
that half of them were not due paying members.  The STAR base [4] had another
no posts this month.  The STeve's Atari Sales area [5] had 1 post this month
and that was a testimonial by Edward Biaz, cross-posted from the Atari St
echo.  Edward is one of the most enthusiastic posters on that Fido echo.  He
is also a proclaimed reader of ST Format and one of those that uses ST Format
as a source of his up-to-date information in those posts.  STeve's and ST
Format thank him for his support.  The latest on STeve's AtariNOTES! is that
the new desktop reader format is a big success.  In spite of the tripled file
size, now 150K, we had a slight increase in the number of accesses for
downloading of the newsletter.  Downloads from CIS, DELPHI, GENIE, SOARing
STar BBS, and SAC BBS totalled over 300 accesses.  This is again not counting
the number of downloads from other BBSs, like YAABBS (Yet Another Atari BBS) a
RATSOFT BBS in Hawaii run by STORMWALKER.  STORMWALKER is one of our frequent
long distance callers, checking in at least 4 times a week.  He is also one of
our best posters to SOARing STar BBS, demonstrating that high speed modems are
the way to go telecommunicating.

      The CHESS message base [area 6] has been converted to HEALTH AND SCIENCE
NEWS.  There have been no posts to the chess message base since November '93.
There were two posts concerning the latest on the lack of physical fitness
found in America's children and the latest AIDS research findings (or lack of
findings).  I hope this area really takes off in the coming months.

      The Atari News and Discussion base [7] had 7 messages.  This month the
posts were interesting and did not center on the mundane problems of Atari
users.  Instead we discussed the 3 major losses suffered by the international
Atari Community.  These are covered in detail in ST Format summary #60.  The
title was "All Good Things..." which was very fitting since ST tng ended its 7
year syndication run (coincidentally about the run of the Atari ST).  The war
of words with Vic Lennard continued this month and my reply to his rebuttal of
my initial posts on CIS are cross-posted here.  To recap Vic Lennard sent a
scalding barrage of anti-ST Format, anti-Paula Richards rhetoric in an open
letter to Paula, the then, editor of ST Format.  Since then, Vic Lennard has
said that ST Format is aimed at Atari Gamers.  Atari Gamers took his words to
heart and downloads of the ST Format summaries tripled this month on CIS.
Sales of ST Format have soared at STeve's.  Since STeve's normally only sells
6 to 9 ST Reviews this month, the increase to 20 issues sold, shows the value
of controversy to sales.  All the back issues mentioned by Vic Lennard in his
post to me, cited as examples how ST Review has the better cover disk (which I
do not believe for a minute), have all sold out.  It may be time for STeve to
post a similar list for ST Format!

      To continue with message base 4 posts, Trevor Hart expounded upon the
virtues of FANSI, the ANSI editor for the ST.  This mirrors discussion of this
program on the Atari ST echo.  FANSI can be found with other editors on
SOARing STar BBS.  Jim Rote calling SOARing STar from Mendocino asked if there
were PPP (point to point protocol) or TCP (translator control protocol)
drivers for Atari systems.  Jim is one of our best callers and any help on
this subject would be appreciated.  Other items were cross-posted threads from
the Atari ST echo concerning Glen Rubinstein's declaration on CBS THIS
MORNING, that "the JAGUAR is dead."  Lastly, there is an essay by Roger Ebert
on how he feels interactive movies are a dead software genre.

     The On-line games message area [8] had no posts this month.  Only SPACE
EMPIRE ELITE had more than one individual competing.  It must be that with
summer, people have more to do than play on-line games.  The Trek base [9] had
only 11 posts this month.  They appropriately centered  around the final Star
Trek the next generation episode.  Ted Brengle is in my opinion the finest
reviewer of Star Trek episodes.  His reviews are insightful, informative and
entertaining.  Cross-posted are 8 of his reviews covering the 7 years of ST
tng, what he calls his ST tng "BLOWOUT."  I continue to post the Trekker
Newsletters, as they are made available.  These and the final compilation
lists are posted here as attached files.  This is done to grant everyone free
access to the files without having to worry about running out of download
credit, due to lack of uploads.  Look for continuing information here on the
upcoming Trek movie and TV series like DEEP SPACE 9 and VOYAGER.

     The HEADLINE NEWS message base [10] continues to be the busiest base on
SOARing STar with 17 posts this past month.  This is lowest number of posts in
this area since its inception.  Due to other obligations I have not been able
to get access these ITN news releases.  Also, with my computing temporarily
limited to 2.5 MEGs of RAM, my on-line endeavors have been inhibited.  This
month I continued to cover over 14 hot spots around the world where fighting,
killing, or political upheaval is taking place.  These include Afghanistan,
Angola, Bosnia, Haiti, Isreal-Palestine, Korea, Rwanda, Somalia, and Yemen.  A
specific topic that got heavy coverage were the activities in France to
commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Allied landings on the beaches of
Normandy, which effectively brought to an end Hitler's domination of Europe.
Also covered in depth by request were the woes of President Clinton from his
embattled health plan, White Watergate, and Paula Jones.  Again, if there is
some news area you wished covered, all you have to do is ask and I will try to
provide coverage.  The goal of the news message base is to prevent those heavy
into using their modems from losing touch with current events in the news.

      In message base [11], RATSOFT/ST BBS Q' & A', Brian Irwin gave pointers
on how to efficiently telecommunicate.  This continues to be the place to find
out how best to access SOARing STar and other RATSOFT BBSs and to get your
Atari question on telecommunicating.  To this end 6 messages were posted here
this month.

Files Library Area

     There was a exponential increase in the number of new posts this month in
respect to previous months with  163 new files uploaded.  STeve's Subscribers
Exclusive Uploads (SSEU) continue to appear on the BBS.  If you buy your ST
magazines from STeve's Atari Sales, be sure to  take advantage of these
downloads, many of which can only be found in the US on  SOARing STar BBS.
This is a good reason to start buying your European  magazines from STeve's
Atari Sales.  This month the undisputably best SSEU was STAR TREK(TM):
KLINGON WAR.  An in depth review and description of this Trek simulation game
can be found in this month's ST Format summary, STF60.  I will not say anymore
except this is ->A MUST HAVE<-!

     What also should be mention is that all of the utility files described in
this month's PD files column can be found on SOARing STar BBS.  But, if it
costs too much for you to call long distance, you can order the YAC Freely
Distributable program disk number 302 for $1 if you are a YAC member or $2 if
you are not.  You may order the current month's disk or any of the others that
are described in the back issues of this newsletter or YACkity YAC On-line and
have them mailed to your home.

     There were only 2 new files that rapidly gained popularity and were
downloaded so frequently that they made the top 10 downloads list for their
files section in less than 30 days.  They were STARBALL and JET MAIL.
STARBALL was upload by Dave Burns and is an excellent pinball simulation.
Dave says this multi-screen, multi-level pinball game has plenty of surprises
and lots of action with multiple flippers and ever-changing table.  It runs on
all TOS computers, including the FALCON 030, in any 16-color mode.  JET MAIL
was by Todd Harrington, one of SOARing STar's finest users.  JET MAIL is
described by Todd as by far the best mail tosser for Atari systems.  It works
on all FidoNET compatible networks.  The hot file from last month's uploads is
DRIVE144.ZIP.  This text file goes into great depth on installing a 1.44 MEG,
high density drive on an Atari ST computer.  Its popularity may be due to last
month's STeve's AtariNOTES! article by Wes Newell on this subject.  Almost as
popular as DRIVE144 was TREKTNG.ZIP, another Trek combat simulator using
digitalized sound samples.  This time you battle Farengi, not Klingons, and
sail through space on the NCC-1701D with her ST tng crew.

      Other notable new files this month were PLAN.ZIP, ASTROCAL.ZIP,
AEO_JAG2.ZIP, MINDS_11.ZIP, FANSI100.ZIP and STORE114.ZIP.  I have no idea
what PLAN.ZIP contains.  This was a popular download and a good candidate for
earning upload credit through writing a description.  ASTROCAL.ZIP was
uploaded by YAC President, Eric Kaljumagi.  The program calculates the times
for user designated days of sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, and eclipses.
It also shows the locations of planets and other heavenly bodies by drawing
star charts.  AEO_JAG2.ZIP was popular because it contained Atari Explorer
On-line coverage of the resignation of Bob Brodie.  MINDS_11.ZIP contains
MindSweeper, a clone of the MS-Windows game "Minesweeper".  MindSweeper can be
configured to let you "cheat" legally and will run on all Atari TOS systems.
What makes it even more attractive fore downloading is that STeve has marked
this as a FREE DOWNLOAD.  As such, this file is not counted against your file
credits to download.  FANSI, uploaded by Trevor Hart, is a 16 color, 80 column
ANSI editor for use on Atari TOS computers.  There is also an upgrade patch
for this program posted by Trevor.  STORE114.ZIP contains STORE DOOR, an
on-line ordering module for use with BBS software that uses "doors."  Why
people are downloading this program, I have not idea.  Last but not least,
GREGCAT continues to be "King of DTP" uploads with his ESPXCVG.ZIP and other
posts.  The former is an EPS graphics to CALAMUS graphics, file converter.
When you see GREGCAT as the uploader, you know that it is worth a look.

      I cannot repeat enough that STeve Kipker has placed a great many files
on-line without file descriptions.  If you just write a description and send
it by E-mail to me and you will be compensated with file upload credit.  We
need help!  YAC, SOARing STar, and myself, would like to thank all of those
who uploaded files this month, and especially those that posted file
descriptions.

     There were 163 new files posted this month and were as follows [files
area number is in brackets] (most notable files to download are in
parenthesis):

[1]  DEMO Entertainment titles-- 1 post (FLIP-IT & MAGNOSE, platform game)
[2]  DEMO Productivity-- 1 post (MAGIC ARCADE GRAPHICS ENGINE, arcade
     game generator by Dave Munsie)
[3]  Atari Productivity-- 1 post (DIARY v2, a diary program-accessory)
[4]  Atari Utilities-- 37 posts (ASTROCALC, see above text for description)
[5]  Atari Desk Top Publishing-- 83 posts (EPSXCVG, EPS to CALAMUS
     graphics converter; most other files need descriptions!)
[6]  Atari Paint and Graphics-- 2 posts (SCAPE.ZIP, starscape picture
     generator)
[8]  Atari On-line Magazines-- 17 posts (many free, not charged to the 
     downloads/uploads ratio to access; Atari Explorer On-line, ZNET, GEnie
     Lamp, ST Format Magazine summary, STeve's AtariNOTES!)
[11] Atari Color Games-- 15 posts (STAR TREK: Klingon War, STAR TREK tng,
     and MINDS_11.ZIP -- see above text for descriptions; D-DAY,
     commemorative arcade game)
[12] Atari Education Applications-- 2 posts (It's a Small World, 
     interactive slide show)
[13] Atari Telecommunications-- 4 posts (FANSI and FANSI patch, see above
     text for description; GSZRZS47.ZIP, a X, Y, Z-modem module for use
     with telecommunication programs like CONNECT and FzDT)
[14] Atari Programming 'Examples'-- 1 post (EXTRA.ZIP, extra STOS commands)
[16] Warp 9 -additional files-- 1 posts (EXTEND C, tells how to make
     Extendo screen savers using assembly language)
[17] Software patches/updates-- 1 post (STOS FIX, play STOS games on all
     TOS computers, including STes and Falcon 030)
[19] On-line games-- 1 post (CARDSHARX, on-line gambling with cards)
[20] RATSoft/ST Additional files-- 5 posts (STore DOOR and JET MAIL, see
     above text for descriptions; RATsoft BBS support files, SOARing STar
     BBS is an official RATsoft support site)

The following area had no new posts this month.  The number of files
already  present in each section and the most downloaded file are noted in
parenthesis.

[7]  Atari Animation/Sound-- 19 posts (POLYFILM.ZIP, animation development
     application; TOILETS.ZIP, denizens of Pangea discuss the toilet;
     VIDCON.ZIP, converts Vidi ST Neo Sequence to *.DLT)
[9]  Atari MIDI Sound-- 37 posts (PAULA22A.ZIP, a MODfiles player;
     WAVE_20.ZIP, wave file player for the ST)
[10] Atari Monogames-- 2 posts (MEGAROIDS, a asteroid clone; TRIO, Tic
     Tac Toe; COYOTE POKER, play 3 computer opponents; PUZZLE PUZZLE;
     OXYDMONO, dongleware game; RUNNER'S REVENGE, a Lode Runner clone;
     TETRIS Monochrome)
[12] Atari Education Applications-- 35 posts (TRAINS.ZIP, train pictures
     for children; READER2.ZIP, have the computer read children stories!)
[15] Atari Works Support files-- 16 posts (ATARI WORKS tutorial)
[18] Hints, Cheats and Eastereggs...-- 13 post (ST_GAMES.ZIP, the most
     comprehensive collection of cheats and hints with over 200 of them!)

That is it for this month for ON-LINE WITH SOARing STar BBS, see you next
month.

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