There's a slim difference between the ordinary and the

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• 1 MByte fast expansion RAM at COOOOO 2 MByte • No wait states

• 20 MByte hard disk drive

• True DMA controiler with SCSI option

• Battery backed clock/calendar

• Open Zorro expansion slot

• Low profile, Amigo-beige case

• User expandable to 9 MBytes RAM

• Entire system auto-configures

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RAM CARD • High speed

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R080CITY • .wS

COLUMNISTS John Foust

Mike Hacker Joseph P. Francesconi

Matthew Leeds David L. Paktor

CONTRIBUTORS Mitchell Lopes

Phil Burke Randy West Don Carlson

Jon D. Burgstrom Bryce Nesbitt

Gregory Le Vasseur Bob Peterson

MARKETING & ADVERTISING Mitchell Lopes

TYPE & PRODUCTION LaRae West

PHOTOGRAPHY Mitchell Lopes

PRINTING Shores Press

CIRCULATION MANAGER Rich Bremer

FIRST Things

The image on the cover is an early Amiga graphic, artist unknown. Our thanks to photographer Mitch Lopes, who specializing in computer image photography, he can be con­tacted at 408-996-0528.

If you've got an image suitable for the Robo City cover that relates to the Amiga please consider submiting it as a contibution for a future issue.

CONTENTS Why we need Amlga Evangelists by John Foust. ..................................................... 4 BookS: Programme,. Guide by Mitch Lopes .................................................... 11

HMSL: An obJect-orlented music language by Phil Burk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Beyond Basic BASIC by Gregory La Vasseur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 13-

Graphic Traffic by Randy West .................................................... 15

The Mirror Hacker Package by Matthew Leeds .................................................. 9

Home Video Recording, part 2 by Don Carlson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 16

Xebec Hard Drive by Jon D. Burgstrom ................................................ 12

Review: Slnbad ............................................ 15

MasterType ................................................. 3

ao-ToIlOS, a text adVenture ........................... 3

Hunk stripping com ...... style by Bryce Nesbitt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 14

Robo City News is published monthly in Silicon Valley, Califor­

nia. Contents ©1987 by Robo City News and contributing authors. Reprint by permission only with credit to the author and

Robo City News. Arniga is a trademark of Commodore-Arniga, Inc. Single issue price is $2.00. Subscription is $18. (inside the

US), mail to: RCN POB 9911, San Jose, CA 95117

~

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COME IN TO SEE

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THE CREATIVE

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IN TO SEE THE AMIG ' A IN ACTION

I

Mastet.ype MasterType is a typing tutorial

from Mindscape.

It includes two programs, Master­Type which is for advanced typists that wish to improve their skills and Training Ground which is for begin­ners.

MASTERTYPE

In master type you see four words at the corners of your screen. Each word has a satellite that advances towards your ship that is in the mid­dle of the screen. You need to type the word before the satellite hits your ship.

The graphics and animation are nice and the sound is OK. The thing I like about master type is that you can make your own 40 word lessons. Mastertype also keeps a hall of fame for the best typists in each lesson. Of coorse you can adjust the speed and turn the sound off.

TRAINING GROUND

Training ground consists of 4 parts. Each part will always have a keyboard with hands at the bottom of the screen. The fingering chart will just let you type in stuff and watch the keyboard on the screen. In the timed finger practiced you will type in words by the pa~e. In the word and sentence practice you will type in words and sentences as fast as you can. And finally in th~ Training Ground Skill test you will see letters going in a circl.e, when. one will turn green type It before It goes away.

Master type is a great typing. tutorial and I am living Proof, It has taught me how to type. So if you want to touchtype or improve your speed, purchase MasterType from Mindscape .•

GO-Tapas, an illustrated text

adventure

00-Topos is an illustrated text adventure by Polarware. I would rate it very highly on an Apple or a C-64 but the graphics fail to utilize Amigas capabilities.

Enough with the graphics and on with the game. As a text adventure it is great. It has a huge vocabulary and understands full sentences.

I haven't really put a lot of time in­to playing it but the plot is very in­teresting. You are trapped by Space Pirates and need to escape.

The interface is mostly text. The only thing you can use the mouse

for is to save, load, or new a game.

The game requires an amiga with Sl2K. If you have extra RAM you will face problems. The game retails for $29.99, which is a good price.

With the game you get a ships manual and some other" stuff" .

I would recommend 00-Topos only if you are a great adventure lover. If you like the 'graphicsless" infocom adventures you will pro­bably like Oo-Topos. It really makes one mad that a developer ports poor graphics from other machines to the amiga. •

II"clf 5",ill. Rock solid hardware for your Amiga.

high performance disk controller • expansion chassis 5, I, 2, 4, 6, and 8M memory boards • 18-month warranty

Boards available for the 2nd-generation Amiga.

For more information contact ASDG, Inc. • 12011 540-9670 280 River Road Suite 54-A Piscataway, NJ 08854

PAGE

Why we need Amiga evangelists

In my mind, the word evangelist brings images of bible-thumping proselytizers on street corners of big cities, chastizing passers-by with taunts of their sinfullness, their hypocrisy, and a vision of a higher philosophy.

Amiga owners have acquired a reputation as rabid evangelists for their machine. Perhaps you have en­countered this complaint about your behavior from some of your microcomputer-owning friends. When you launch into your sermon on multitasking and 4096 colors, their eyes glaze over, they fidget, and then politely ask you to stop.

Instead of asking you to stop, I'd like to ask you to start. Promote the Amiga among your friends. Promote the Amiga among existing Amiga users.

However, this editorial does not intend to run the Boing logo up the flagpole and cheer. The truth is, we may not own Amigas forever. In fact, the truth, goodness and higher pleasure we find in our Amigas can exist on other machines. It is not limited to the 68000 and the Amiga custom chips. It will exist in the future, and it might exist on other machines.

Unlike the policy of other evangelical organizations, our outright Amiga chauvanism should not blind us to other avenues of computer truth. The new IBM and Macintosh machines are exciting, especially if you own an existing IBM or Mac. These new machines could offer Amiga-like pleasure to the masses.

While these new machines have been announced and even shipped, the software needed to exploit them does not exist. They hope to have multitasking and better graphics, but that software does not exist on those

PAGE 4

By An Editorial by John Foust

machines. Meanwhile, on the Amiga we have multitasking and incredible color graphics, now. For this reason, each of us should promote the Amiga in our own way.

Why should we spread the word? Of course, the best reason for users to spread the word is, well ... We all know that Commodore doesn't. There are still many unconverted hold-outs out there.

What are the proper tasks of an Amiga envangelist?

The greatest task is education. People need to know the benefits of multitasking. Explain that it leads to a better management of computer resources, and most importantly, the available time of a computer user. Explain what you do with your Amiga. For example, running two programs at once is a very foreign concept to a Mac or MS-DOS user. Just explain how you can execute three or four programs at once, and clip text, numbers and graphics be­tween them. It will take a while to sink in, but they will soon imagine benefits for multitasking.

We need to impress computer users and manufacturers with the benefits of multi-color, multitasking, mUlti-processing, multi-resolution machines. These features should be integrated from the start, not offered as clumsy retrofits.

Luckily, many people have come to the Amiga of their own accord, after reading a dry technical descrip­tion in Byte magazine, for instance. There is a certain class of technical people who haven't lost the magic associated with microcomputers, and it is among these folk that the Amiga has the most converts.

The members of this group include university students and freelance programmers, as well as rank-and­file micro programmers who haven't

grown tired of their job, or those mainframe programmers who have, and want something exciting under their fingers when they come home. Because of this, the Amiga has a reputation as a "hacker's machine." We owe a lot to this group of hackers, for they have produced the incredible quantity and quality of public domain software for the Amiga, and fuel the commercial soft­ware market to greater heights.

This reputation is a little unjust. Remember, there are many, many Amiga users who have never used the CLI. There are many, many Amiga users who are very content with Deluxe Paint.

It is important to note that the Amiga offers a choice to so many computer users. It serves both those who want a C compiler and a wonderful operating system, and those who want creative and enter­tainment programs. So many com­puters out there do not offer a choice! You can't get color graphics on a vanilla Mac. You pay dearly for color on a Pc. The Amiga combats the dogma that you need an expen­sive computer to get work done.

We can warn of the growing danger presented by the new IBM machines. The proliferation of the MS-DOS standard helped the com­puter industry. As it did in the mainframe market, IBM intends to eliminate competition. It intends to strange the owners of these new machines by controlling the market for peripherals and add-on cards.

It is strange to hear people reject the Amiga because it is not MS-DOS compatible, while people flock to the new IBM machines, which are not MS-DOS compatible, or the new Mac machines, also not backwards­compatible. Encourage people to look at the Amiga as well as the other machines, if they are willing to

accept a non-compatible operating system.

We can encourage people to look to the future. Persuade people to ad­mit the errors of their ways. Get them to admit they like color graphics and running more than one program at once. Remind them of the slow turn towards higher and higher graphics resolutions on the IBM PC, from monochrome (MDA) graphics to color (CGA) graphics, then to enhanced (EGA) graphics, and now the professional (PGA) graphics. Remind them of AMI-GA graphics. For now, we can chant about 4096 colors. Tomorrow, we can chant about 1024 by 1024 pixel graphics chips with 32768 colors.

The Amiga conversion can take place in subtle ways. Computer stores can sell Amiga monitors for IBM machines, and the Amiga logo will slowly work its way into the minds of IBM clones. (That's "IBM clones" in the people sense, not the machine sense.)

If an Amiga hardware or software manufacturer expands their product line to the Macintosh, Atari ST or IBM, we should not regard them as turncoats. We must remember that the vast majority of computer users are content with the MS-DOS com­mand line interface and an eight­color, sixteen-shade color monitor. Manufacturers must make money. Although they might be serving another marketplace, rest assured that the Amiga has affected them in the way it has affected you. They will continue to be Amiga evangelists, even if they are selling to IBM clones.

An Amiga evangelist can follow the example of former Commodore employees, such as Dale Luck and RJ Mical, who have spoken at many Arniga user group meetings, on their own time, and often at their own ex-

pense. If you have a talent on the Amiga, get out and speak about it. Tell others about the amazing things you do on your Amiga.

Consider featuring a special Amiga speaker at a user group meeting, or organize a meeting on a special theme or product. Advertise heavily, so each and every Amiga owner in your area knows about it. Call the local newspaper, and have them cover the meeting as a news item.

It is not hard to get an Amiga en­vangelist to visit your user group. In many cases, an honorarium is not necessary. Just offer them a plane ticket, meals, somewhere to sleep, dancing music, booze and a chance for a romantic interlude. Oust a little joke, please, not libel.)

The new Amiga 500 will bring more power than ever before, it will be as revolutionary as the wave that came from the C64. Some people are calling the Amiga 500 the "Com­modore 64 of the Nineties". Well, at least the late Eighties. We can only hope that our machine will be im­proved for the Nineties, and that Amiga machines will be not only the second generation of popular com­puters, but the third generation as well.

Someday, when everyone has white-hot hi-res graphics computers, they will still regard the Amiga as the forebearer of these evolutionary things. In the future, I sincerely believe Amiga owners will be regarded as wise and far-seeing when all computers are multicolor and multitasking. On a late night in the 1990s, by the light of a glowing monitor screen, two computer owners will be talking about the computers they once owned. One will turn to the other, and quietly say "I once had an Amiga 1000," and the other will say "I did, too." Their bond of friendship and kinship

will be strengthened in that mo­ment, a recognition that they once both shared a special machine at a special time in the evolution of the personal computer.

Onward, Amiga evangelists! •

PAGE 5

HM5L • An Object Oriented Music

Language

We hunched nervously over the Amiga, scanning the code on the screen for a clue. Through the double doors to the lobby came the muffled voices of the audience waiting for the 9:00 concert to begin. It was 8:56. All of the pieces were finished except for a rather com­plicated one involving a MIDI net­work. Phil Stone had composed a piece where one musician, Larry Polansky, would continuously edit a melody on one Amiga while "publishing" it over MIDI to two other Amigas. Phil and I were to oc­caSionally "steal" Larry's melody and use it in our own. We had work­ed long days getting everything ready and were down to the wire with one routine not yet working. At 8:58 we added a SWAP command and tried again. At 8:59 we tested the modification and it worked! At 9:00 the doors were opened and the audience entered to find three pro­grammer/musicians sitting calmly in front of three Amigas. This was in August of 1986. The concert was an evening of experimental music generated entirely on three Amigas -NO synthesizers. Not even a DX7! The music was composed and per­formed using a language called HMSL, or Hierarchical Music Specification Language. This is an experimental music system designed to give composers tools for building complex intelligent musical hierar­chies. I would like to share with you the story of how HMSL came about, its current state, and the plans for its future. For several years, Larry Polansky and David Rosenboom, had been working on the conceptual basis for a music language. They developed several prototypes as faculty members at the Mills College Center for Contemporary Music. In late 1985, I was asked to help them develop a version of HMSL that could be shared outside the CCM.

PAGE 6

by Phil Burk

We decided that HMSL should cater to the" avant garde" segment of the music world. Today's commer­cial music programs make it very easy to compose music. The use of staff notation, however, imposes a certain stylistic bias toward tradi­tional music. Sometimes a composer wants to use special functions to generate melodies in real time, or ex­plore alternate tuning systems like microtonal tuning or just intonation. It usually difficult, and sometimes impossible, to realize these pieces using existing commercial programs. HMSL addresses this problem by providing a general purpose setof compositional tools. These tools that allows a composer to quickly write small programs to realize his, or her, ideas.

HMSL is built on top of another language called Forth. Forth is gain­ing popularity among experimental musicians, hardware developers, game writers, scientists, and hackers. Forth's biggest advantage over traditional languages is that a small piece of code can be edited, compiled, linked and tested in a matter of seconds. If you are ex­perimenting in unknown territory, your development rate is sometimes limited by how quickly you can cycle through those four steps. Forth is also an environment where all variables, constants, structure con­tents, and subroutines are available directly from the keyboard. The dif­ference between working in Forth versus traditional languages has been compared to making love in person versus making love by mail.:-)

There are two main Forths available for the Amiga. One is MultiForth from Creative Solutions. The other is JForth from Delta Research. The major difference is that JForth compiles directly to

68000 machine code, while MultiForth compiles to an in­termediate token form. These tokens must be interpreted at run time which is slower. The tokens, however, consume less memory than native 68000 code. JForth also provides more support than MultiForth for accessing the Amiga internals, with include files for all structures, and the ability to call library routines by name. Since real time music requires a very fast ex­ecution speed, I decided to join up with the folks at Delta Research to help develop JForth in parallel with HMSL. HMSL will be distributed in an unusual fashion. It will be sold in source code form that can be compil­ed on top of JForth. What you end up with is a development environ­ment that has a general purpose language, JForth, at its base and a customized music language, HMSL, at the top. HMSL is based on the no­tion of having intelligent musical en­tities that can be arranged in a hierarchy, or tree, and executed. We decided to implement these entities using Object Oriented programming techniques. This technique was pioneered at Xerox Pare in a language called Smalltalk. There are now object oriented dialects for most languages including 'C', Pascal, Lisp, and Forth. Object Oriented programming provides a means of describing intelligent data struc­tures. A "CLASS" of data struc­tures is defined by describing what internal data it has, and a set of "METHOD's for manipulating them. The internal data can only be accessed by using these methods. By hiding the internal structure, it is easier to make modifications without worrying about how other code is using the data. Different classes can share the same name for different methods. This allows you to use generic names like PRINT: and EX-

ECUTE:. When you tell an object to PRINT: , it "knows" how to print itself. An array object will print its indexed data, while a MIDI instru­ment object will print out a channel and program number, and other music information. One can tell a wide variety of music objects to EXECUTE: without knowing how they will do it. The alternative would be using specific words like EXEC.COLLECTION or EXEC.PLA YER for each kind of ob­ject which would be more com­plicated. These object oriented techniques have been made available as part of JForth where it is called ODE, for Object Development En­vironment. The fundamental class of object in HMSL is the Morph. This is short for morphology which im­plies a shape or form. The lowest level Morph is the Shape. A Shape an abstract set of points in space. It is implemented as a two dimen­sional array where the rows are points or "Elements" and each col­umn corresponds to a dimension of this space. A set of 10 points in 3D space could thus be contained in a 10 by 3 array. There is a set of tools, including a graphic editor, for manipulating these Shapes.

At this level, the dimensions of a Shape have no particular meaning. The dimensions are given meaning by Interpreters that work at a higher level. The default interpretation of a Shape is that one dimension con­tains note durations, the second con­tains the MIDI note value and a third contains the velocity, or loudness, of the note. Alternatively, by interpreting a Shape as a set of amplitudes it becomes an audio sam­pie. One could also consider the Shape to contain probabilities for randomly choosing certain notes, or as parameters to some function that generates melodies. Thus the same tools that are used to edit a melody can be used to edit probabilities, or

even an audio sample. These Inter­preters can be written by the com­poser to customize the musical en­vironment. Since Shapes have no in­trinsic meaning they cannot be played, or Executed, directly. They are "played" by a Shape Player that decides when the Elements of a Shape should be interpreted. The Players provide the only mechanism for scheduling events in time. They thus control the rhythm based on durations contained in the Shape. When a Player decides an Element of a Shape should be played, it sends it to an Instrument to be inter­preted. The Instruments have two major roles. First, they contain the Interpreters that are used to convert abstract Shape information to musical parameters. Secondly they provide a generic interface to music hardware. On the Amiga, the choice is between MIDI and local sound. One can call the NOTE.ON: method for one of these objects and it will "know" whether to send codes out the MIDI port or to manipulate the local sound device.

Another fundamental type of morph is the Collection. A Collec­tion can contain a number of Players. There are two type of Col­lection, serial and parallel. A serial Collection executes its Players in se­quence. A parallel Collection ex­ecutes its Players together providing polyphony. Collections can also con­tain other Collections which can, in turn, contain other Collections and Players, and so on. This allows the composer to construct a hierarchy of morphs that can be executed from any level. By combining serial and parallel Collections any pattern of execution can be achieved. Collec­tions can also contain Productions. Productions are holders for user written functions. By placing them in the music hierarchy you can have code execute at some specific time. As an example, you could build a

serial Collection that contained a Production followed by a Shape Player. Every time this Collection was executed, it would run the Pro­duction followed by the Shape Player. The Production could be pro­grammed to modify the Shape that was about to be played. It could ran­domly change one note, or add some notes, or whatever. There is another class of music object, that is derived from Serial Collections, call­ed the Structure. (In object oriented programming, when a new class is derived from an existing class, it "inherits" all of that classes data for­mat and methods. New methods and data can then be added.) A Structure differs from a Serial Col­lection in that the order of execution of its components can be determined by a user written program. They can be executed sequentially like a Serial Collection, or in random order, or in some order based on a completely arbitrary function. This allows a composer to program how a piece will "behave" in time.

We have seen how a composer can add intelligence to the execution of a piece by writing custom Interpreters, Productions and Behaviors. It is also possible to write custom tuning systems and custom gamuts, or "keys". These can be based on lookup tables or run time functions. These would allow you, for exam­ple, to slowly modify the tuning system from equal tempered to a 31 note harmonic overtone series. Another area where custom func­tions can be used is in the Stimulus/Response environment written by Larry Polansky. A Stimulus can be any function that returns true or false. It could be bas­ed on hardware input or a software decision. A Response does something if the stimulus is true. Various Stimuli and Responses can be arbitrarily paired in a Morph call­ed an Action. These Actions are run

PAGE 7

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MODEMS Avatex 1200/1200HC Prometheus 2400G

as pseudo tasks along with the Morph hierarchy. An interactive screen called Perform allows you to adjust their priority, or turn them on or off, while a piece is playing. This system can be used for anything from triggering melodies, to chang­ing Interpreters based on what notes are being played on a MIDI keyboard. For Stimuli based on MIDI input, a table driven MIDI parser is used. The composer can write a Simple word to handle a MIDI event and place a pointer to that word in a jump table. When a MIDI event is received, say a Note On event, the appropriate data is pulled from the serial MIDI stream and passed to the composers word. This can be used to remap a MIDI

PAGES

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keyboard to different notes, or even map single keys to complete melodies or hierarchies. These low level tools, MIDI, local sound, graphics, etc. can be intermixed with the use of high level functions, like executing hierarchies, at will. This product is currently in Beta test. For the final release, we plan to add an editor that allows you to edit the hierarchy of music objects. It will look similar to the outline editors in some "idea processors". We will also add an editor that modifies the tendency to transition from one Morph to another in a Structure. This would be used by complex Behaviors to control Markov Chain processing. I should reiterate that this program will not be easy to use

compared to most "canned" music programs. Taking advantage of its many functions will require some skill in Forth programming and an understanding of the use of objects. HMSL itself also has a lot of func­tions that will need to be learned. Clearly we are not aiming for a large market. HMSL is designed to serve a small number of experimental composers who are willing to spend some time learning a music language. Hopefully, HMSL will provide an environment in which some truly innovative music can be conceived.

If you would like to find out more about HMSL or JForth, you can con­tact me at: 201 D St. , Suite 15, San Rafael, CA, 94901, (415)485-6867 .

•

Review of: The Mirror Hacker

package

From: Compumed POB 6427 Salinas, CA 93912

I've never thought of myself as a hacker. I just enjoy using computers. I can't write code, don't understand electronic design, and haven't the foggest idea what the difference be­tween CAS and RAS is. Still, there are times that I find I have to dive into areas I would prefer to leave to others, just to achieve the results I'm sure should be possible. I've been using a hard disk system (PAL 20MB) for a little while now, and I've found that there is some soft­ware that does not like to be placed on a hard disk. Other software doesn't mind, but it acts like it was still on a floppy.

I'll give you an example. I've been using several DOS shells, CU-MATE and Zing!. These programs make moving files around, reading files, and doing other housekeeping easier. Zing! always defaults to DFO: when you call up the file manager module. This is time consuming and boring. Using the Mirror Hacker Package I was able to 'patch' Zing! to default to DHO: as I preferred.

The Mirror Hacker Package (from now on referred to in this article as HACK) is a disk editing tool. It gives you access to the data on a floppy disk in a variety of ways, and lets you edit that data directly on the disk. This is a powerful tool; you can repair trashed disks, remove disk copy protection that interferes

By Matthew Leeds

with hard disk installation, and edit programs to change some of their functions. You can also trash a disk beyond repair if you are not careful. I always worked on a duplicate disk just to be safe.

From my point of view, the documentation for HACK leaves a lot to be desired. It may have all the necessary information for using the program, but it lacks an index, clear tutorials, and reference section. It took me a while to get the hang of using the program.

HACK gives you access to disk data at four levels: raw data tracks, system tracks, system blocks, and file hunks. Data is read into a buffer where you can edit it, and write it back to disk. Data is displayed in HEX and ASCII, and can be edited in same. In the raw data track mode you get control down to the bit cell level. It's far too much for me to understand. I found my level mostly working at the system block level. This is the level I'll detail.

Data on an AmigaDOS disk is stored in sectors or blocks. There are 1760 of them, linked in a chain called a hash table. Starting at the root block you can trace any directory or file down this hash table. HACK lets you control the cylinder, side, and block you want to look at. You can wander up and down blocks in numeric order, or follow the hash links. Each block is read into an edit buffer where you can examine the • data, make changes, calculate a new checksum, and write the edited block back to disk. If you know the pathname for a particular file, you

can find the first block in the hash link. You also have access to a disk search utility that will check an en­tire disk for a string of data in HEX or ASCII.

To patch my copy of Zing!, I just located every reference to DFO: and changed it to DHO:. The whole pro­cess took less than an hour. HACK has other tools as well. A few of my favorite games cannot be installed on a hard disk without modification. A program called Dumb Copy will make a duplicate copy of a protected without bombing on an invalid track. With the correct information you can patch around the code that protects the disk, and install the pro­gram on a hard disk. Compumed supplies a list of patches for some of the more popular programs.

HACK is one of those useful tools that you may never need, but it sure comes in handy when you do. There are pros and cons to copy protec­tion, and this is not the place to enter in to a discussion of ethics and legalities. I found that most of my use of HACK has been to edit pro­gram's defaults to work correctly on a hard disk, or to repair damaged disks.

I haven't covered all the modules available in HACK, nor all of it's uses. If it sounds like a program you could use, and you are willing to put up with it's less than wonderful documentation, then I recommend it.

PAGE 9

Why Should Your Amiga! These days an Amiga with only 512K memory is

operating at a fraction of its' potential. Fortunately we're here to change all that. We're Expansion Technologies, and we've

developed the best RAM expansion board available for your Amiga 1000.

The Escort 2. It's a 2 megabyte, auto-configuring card that meets

all the known standards and then some. It's also a uniquely designed vertical two-slot card

cage with buss return that offers incredible flexibility. Like the ability to upgrade to a whopping 4 mega­

bytes of memory. Or if you prefer you can add a hard disk controller card, or an external power supply for the buss or ... well, you get the idea.

And it's fast.

We've utilized a no wait-state design so it keeps perfect pace with your Amiga.

All this for less than $600. We're even readying products for the new 500 and

2000 series Amigas. Among them hard drives, controller cards and memory expansion.

All of this from Expansion Technologies. A company whose people have been making Commodore products

for years, not weeks. So if your Amiga's a bit light

headed give us a call at 415/656-2890. Or write us at 46127 Landing Parkway, Fremont, CA 94538.

EXPANSION TECH~JOLOGIES

Deuil!r II/quiril!s Invited. Arniga is a tra<ivlllark of COIllJllOdOH'-Allliga, Inc.

..

programmers Guide At last, a readable technical book for my Amlaa.

Back when I purchased my A 1000 there was very little in the way of in­fl)rmation about it. So little, in fact, hat when the store from which I

bought my machine got its set of AMIGA manuals (store COPY only), I found myself camping out there, while trying to dodge other people, reading all about my new machine. Then I began to wonder "is this written in english or some other language?". I quickly realized you'd need to be a guru in C, 68000 Assembler and have arms the size of a gorilla to juggle the seven books that were in this set. I gave up, this was too much (fighting other people for ONE of the books) so I settled for some copies of the most useful pages of the DOS users manual and went off to play with the DOS.

Finally! this set of books was generally available (WELL, when the stores could keep then on the shelf,

AmlgaD05Cll Applications

and Utilities Program

I I II

I T T I I

AmlgaD05

Processes. Console

File System DeVice

1 Input DeVIce

..., Exec Tasks. Keyboard

Messages, TrackDlsk and

Interrupts, 1/0 De .... ,ce Gameport

DeVices

I : I Keyboard 68CXX) Processor I DIsk Control I

I I and Mouse

I I

I I I I I

by Mitchell lopes

that is). Driving around, I went to three stores to find a set. Then I rac­ed home, ripped open the box, only to find just five out of the seven books. There was a card that said,'ihe ROM Kernel Manual will be mailed when the ink dries, so please send in this card." So I did-two months later a box showed up, and WoW! the two missing books (and the ink was dryO.

Later that same year (with sore muscles) I was still very confused, my arms were getting longer from juggling the books but some of the pieces were still missing. What I needed was ONE book tieing all this together.

Well I think I have found it! The book is called 'Programmer's Guide TO THE AMIGA' its written by Robert A. Peck. He's a former Amiga person, so he knows his stuff.

Workbench Icons.

Drawers. Utilities

I

IntUItion

Windows, Menus,

Gadgets. Events

I "

loyers library

I r-GraphiCS Serial and

Rendering , Tex', AudiO

Parallel

Gels DeVice

DeVIces

I I T I I

GraphiCS I AudiO I l i D Porls I : I

Amigo Hardware

The book starts off with a bang! explaining the system software hiererchy by taking you through the different levels of the system organization. Next we tour through what you need to know to program the amiga. AmigaDOS, Exec, Graphics, Intuition, Devices, Anima­tion, Sound and Multitasking are the main topics covered. Each topic has good WORKING examples which are available on disk. The step-by­step programming examples are in every chapter and use Amiga C. Along with in-depth information on each topic he describes the advan­tages and disadvantages of the routines.

This all adds up to 344 pages of compact, easy to carry information that you should look into if you do any programming or want to understand and use the Amiga's unique capabilities. The book is well written and a lot easier to read and comprehend (not to mention easier to carry). 'Programmer's Guide TO THE AMIGA', published by sybex inc. and available at computer & book stores for $24.95 .•

PAGE 11

xebec Review

Xebec's entry in to the Amiga hard disk market signals the first established peripheral manufacture to embrace the Amiga. Xebec has been manufacturing and selling hard disk systems and controller cards for Apple and IBM PC's for the past several years, and therefore is no newcomer to the hard disk marketplace. The Xebec unit offered shows this experience and profes­sionalism. The fit and finish of the unit is of a high degree, from the cabling to there documentation. The drive itself is a rather large unit though, standing 7 1/2 inches tall with a length of about 16 inches, it might have some problems fitting in with some of the computer hutches. In practice there seems to be just enough cable length to place the drive out of the way.

The host adapter card is housed in a sturdy steel box, which is approx­imately the same height as the Amiga (roughly 4 and 1/4 inches). It does not pass the buss and therefore negates its simultaneous use with products like the Allegra or Ex­pander II, But works correctly with either the in Vitro Design MaxiRAM or Microbotics Starboard II. Others such as C Itd.'s aMega board might also work as well. It's just the above boards I can attest to. Setting up the drive is a simple pro­cess, just plugging in the host adapter card, connecting the cables and turning it on FIRST. The hard disk driver software and associated utilities have gone through one revi­sion that I am aware of. The revision was to have fixed bugs supposedly in 1.2 of AmigaDOS causing system crashes and/or hard disk failure when copying and duplicating icons, and getting there backup-restore utility to work with external or fast memory.

The software installation is a fairly straight forward process, and is well thought out. It will guide you through the initialization and for-

PAGE 12

By Jon D. Burgstrom

copyright 1987 by Jon D. Burgstrom

matting of the drive and copy the system files over to the hard disk with out ever touching the manual. The disk also contains software to partition the drive and the afore mentioned backup-restore utility.

For the benefit of those who are not familiar, a partition is like creating a smaller hard disk with in a hard disk. They appear as separate units (drives) to AmigaDOS and have there own icons on workbench. The all important backup-restore utility is used to do exactly what the name implies, make a backup on to floppy disks. And when the need arises, restore the hard disk to the state it was in when it was backed up.

The restore utility is used usually after a hard disk crash. These two programs can be run from either the CLI or from workbench and for the most part are more than adequate. A glance at the manual is called for to use both of these utilities and since we are on that subject. The manuals shipped with the unit are wire bound type and lay flat making it easy to have 'hands free' reading while you are following along with the installation procedures. There are two manuals, one Amiga specific the other is IBM PC specific. There is no useful information in the PC manual that I have found that per­tains to the Amiga, and I'm really not sure why its included. The infor­mation in the Amiga manual is of sufficient quality and quantity, it covers what there programs do and other pertinent information. It is not however, a hard disk users manual.

Performance

The drive performed reasonably well compared to the other units available, and in some instances such as reading a file it really seems to be faster than the C ltd. or Supra. An upcoming Amazing Computing article will compare the Xebec, C ltd., Supra, Microbotics, and of

course the PAL jr. for performance so I digress in listing my results. Suffice it to say that I believe that the Xebec hard disk is THE price/performance leader of the hard disk drives available as of this writing. The application that you have is the real criteria for choosing hardware for your Amiga.

Faults

The Xebec hard disk has few faults, one though that can not go with out mention is that the host adapter card (the box that plugs into your Amiga) is not an auto configur­ing unit, and 'sits' in the middle of expansion memory space. This is really a blemish to an other wise well thought out package. This pro­blem (?) you decide!) only effects those who go above four megabytes in expansion memory, but there is enough open space in the Amiga's memory map to where the designers of the host adapter card could have found some where else to have put it. As of this writing, I am only aware of one drive configuration that xebec is offering and that is 20 megabytes. The manual mentions daisy chaining up to seven drives total on the buss (the so called SCSI buss). A quick check at H.T. Elec­tronics in Sunnyvale reveals the price of these extra drives to be $825.00 each. A bit pricey for my blood, especially when the whole package, hard disk, host adapter and software sells for about $875.00.

Conclusion

Over all I was impressed (favorably) with the Xebec unit, it's smooth operation has been trouble free over the past month since I've owned it. The performance and storage increase over the Amiga's floppies was a welcomed addition to my system. The Xebec hard disk or hard disks in general are not for everybody. Remember, the applica­tion that you have is the real criteria for choosing hardware for your Amiga .•

". ..

• . I

V

Beyond basic BASIC

The language that most of us con­sider to be easiest to learn and use is BASIC. BASIC has grown up in the past few years and become much more sophisticated. You can now do almost anything in BASIC that you can do with more II serious" languages. This is especially true of AmigaBASIC. It supports "struc­tured programming" and can access most of the Amiga's vast system of libraries. As far as I know (which isn't too far but I'm learning), it is the most powerful implementation of the language to date.

So how does one go about learn­ing AmigaBASIC? Well, there are a few books on the market about

by Gregory LeVasseur

beginning BASIC, and for the begin­ner, I would recommend almost any of them. But what about all those hot Amiga features? What is needed is a good book on advanced Amiga­specific BASIC. COMPUTE! Publica­tions has come to the rescue with a book by Tom R. Halfhill and Charles Brannon called (of all things) "Ad­vanced Amiga BASIC", and it is a gold mine of information. This 465 page book covers all aspects of BASIC programming on the Amiga including graphics, animation, sound, speech, user interfaces, file 110, and those mysterious LIBRARY calls which are the key to unlocking the ROM Kernel. The book includes

many excellent programs to type in, including a complete user interface called "Intuits" and a drawing pro­gram called "MouseSketch". You can also order a companion disk with the programs ready to run. My personal feeling, though, is that you can learn more by typing in a pro­gram yourself. A chapter called "Overview of AmigaBASIC" has many good hints, tips, and caveats. For example, BASIC is supposed to ignore REM statements. Well it seems that AmigaBASIC does a poor job of that, as is illustrated by some rather shocking programs in a sec­tion called liThe Truth About REM" .

Shipping • Musical Instrument Synthesis • MIDI Interface • Printing • IFF Scores, Sounds, and Instruments

• $7995

DEVELOPMENT

2210 Wilshire Blvd., #277 Santa Monica, CA 90403

© 1987 Aegis Development, Inc. Aegis Sonix is a trademark of Everywarc, Inc.

PAGE 13

r

HUNK STRIPPING, COMPUTER STYLE

By Bryce Nesbitt

Running out of space on your disks? One solution is to make you programs smaller. Impossible?? WeU, it turns out that the default settings of the Lattice C compiler, which is used to create many of the programs for the Amiga, leave what are known as "SYMBOL HUNKS" in the file. These HUNKS, or file por­tions, contain all the text names us­ed by the programmer when the file was compiled. Useful for debugging, but extra baggage in a completed program. When present this extra information often consumes 2-25% of the total file size, sometimes more: by removing extra HUNKS, the program "Wack" from the developer's disks can be changed from a bloated 78996 bytes to just 40332. The "Clock" program from

PAGE 14

the V1.2 workbench shows less of a savings, going from 17448 bytes down to 16800.

The best tool for this job is "Blink" (pronounced "B link") which is available from many sources including the FAUG BBS at 415-595-2479. From the CLI the best syntax to use is:

BLINK <fromfile> TO RAM:TEST NODEBUG

Then check to see if RAM:TEST is smaller than the input file. If it is try running it just to make sure it still works, then copy the new, smaller file back to where it came from. If the RAM:TEST file is not smaller then the program does not suffer from this flaw, and cannot be helped by mere mortal intervention. •

ATTENTION AMIGA DEVELOPERS: If you are marketing an Amiga product or service, consider advertising in the Robo City News. Get direct contact with an audience of Amiga users - beginners, hackers, developers, and gurus all read and contribute to this publication.

At the same time you will help the First Amiga Users Group continue to produce one of the finest Amiga magazines around.

To reserve ad space in the next issue or for more information about advertising in ROBO CITY NEWS, please contact MITCHELL LOPES, Marketing Coordinator at 408/996-0528, or write to:

Robo City News P.O. Box 9911 San Jose, CA 95117 Attn: Marketing Coordinator

Sinbadand the

Thrown of the

Falcon

A few month ago the first Cinemaware product was released for the Amiga, Defender Of The Crown. The game was a great hit but after a few hours of playing all became boring since it had very little scenes and control over the characters.

In february a new cinema ware product was released, SINBAD And The Thrown Of The Falcon. It is bas­ed on the mythical legend of Sinbad. Sinbad is much more difficult to win it contains many more scenes and' art then Defender, And will give you days of enjoyment.

When the game starts it asks you if you want to skip or ~o throu~h the introduction. In the mtroductIon you see a beautiful arabian princes walk­ing to her dad's room. When she opens the door she discovers a Falcon(bird) instead of her dad. Your mission is to save the calif, the princesses dad before the time runs out.

Unlike Defender

The game uses menus. When you start you will be in the time screen this screen shows you how much time is left. Select World from the menu and you will be presented with a world map. Move the pointer to a desired area on the the map and press the select bottom. Now you shall see a magnifying glass, guess what will be in it.

You are able to use the menu to move from area to area. The nice thing about sinbad is that each geographical area has it's own pic­ture. You will not see the picture unless you will do something special in the area. There are a couple of dozens of areas so that's a lot of pic­tures.

GRAPHIC

TRAPPIC By R. L. West

Pet Pieve No.2: Color Desktop Publishing

Where is all the color-desktop­publishing software that every other developer and their brother was working on a year and more ago? Yes, of course "COLOR DP" is the newest nitch for Amiga. No other computer can do color like this-so it's a natural. I began hearing this kind of talk even before the Amiga was introduced. But now, over a year and a half later we don't even have MONOCHROME Desktop Publishing that is comparable to that available on the Mac and IBM.

Now, May 1987, there is final~y some Postscript support. Its amval is long overdue and welcome, but. It provides primarilly graphic imag­ing-a few fonts which match the widths of Postscript fonts-but not true scaleable fonts. Please wake me up and tell me it isn't true .. ~is limited postscript support IS httle more than a graphic dump to postscript printers. ~till no interac­tive editing, no kermng tables, no hyphenation, no grey level~, no device-independant resolution. Just moonochrome imaging at about one fourth the possible resolution of the laserwriter.

COLOR PUBLISHING IS HERE? NO IT'S THERE

Typeworld (a leading typ~setting trade publication) just carned a front page story on the first COLOR PAGE LAYOUT SYSTEM for a microcomputer. Under development by Lightspeed, of Los Angeles, who have a very good reputation built on their COLOR PUBLISHING SYSTEM which runs on the SUN MICRO SYSTEMS WORKSTATION. The bad news is that this new soft­ware, the first COLOR DESKTOP PUBLISHING tool will not run on the Amiga ... it's on the MACIN­TOSHII.

The time is now, the window is wide open and the message is clear:

IMPLEMENT THE

EXPERT SYSTEM! If you can enlighten me with any

other information about new or up­coming products in ~he areas of publishing or graphlCs please reach meat:

Robo City News Graphics Editor 15495 Los Gatos Blvd. 112 Los Gatos, CA 95030 •

PAGE 15

Home Video ReCording (part two)

In last month's article on Home Videos I talked about the attachment of your Amiga to a VCR. If you have done this, I hope you have taken the time to view the video tape you made using the Amiga. This is where you will see the difference be­tween a picture on the Amiga monitor verses a television set. Your understanding of the differences in how a picture will appear on these displays is very important. A key factor in producing a quality home video is your consideration for the final viewing device. I have tried to collect a set of rules that I follow when generating a video on the Amiga display that will end up be­ing viewed on a television set. No matter how hard you try to make adjustments for all the differences in a television set, you will find that some things always seem to be miss­ed. I have found that a solution to this problem is to have a television attached to the Amiga while you are viewing your work on the Amiga monitor. Here are four rules I follow when making my home video recordings.

Rulel (8 33) Maximum number of text lines on the screen is eight. Max­imum number of characters per text line is 33. Rule 1 has been around for a long time and is used by the television stations when they want you to read a message. The next time you watch a broad­cast TV show pay attention to how the text is presented.

Rule 2 (V 4 H2) A vertical line on a television screen must be at least 4 pels wide to be seen clearly. A horizontal line on a television screen should be at least 2 pels high to be seen clearly.

PAGE 16

By Don Carlson

Rule 2 was discovered by trial and error. You can prove it to yourself by viewing the Amiga monitor and a television set at the same time. All you need to do is use Deluxe Paint and select Hi-Res (640 x 400). Draw a vertical line that is one pel wide. Start at the top of your screen and draw a vertical line down to the bottom of the screen. Repeat this step increasing the width of the line by one pel until you have four separate vertical lines on the Amiga screen. Make sure that you have some space be­tween each of the lines so that you don't visually combine the lines. A spacing of ten pels is sufficient. The color of your background or foreground is not important. To keep things from being confusing, start with a black background and draw with a white foreground col­or. Also keep your vertical lines near the horizontal middle of the screen which will minimize distor­tion caused by curvature of some television screens. Now look at your television set and notice that it is not until you reach the vertical line that is four pels wide that the line is clearly visible. Don't forget that all television sets are not the same and you should plan your artwork for the worst condition.

Rule 3 Select your colors very carefully. Use colors of low intensity. High intensity colors drive a television set crazy!

Rule 3

is the most difficult to understand or use. I call it a rule only to re­mind myself to always check on how the colors will appear on a television set. If you still haven't looked at the video signal from the Amiga to see how it looks on a

television set, you will find the following hard to believe. When I want to draw with the color white I use light gray. If I want a light gray color then I use a medium gray color. I use Deluxe Paint and adjust the palette to low intensity colors. For instance when I want white, I select white then move the RGB sliders down 10 percent. Colors generated by the computer tend to look better on a television set if you keep to pastel colors. If you must use highly contrasting colors then you will have to take some precautions to prevent the colors from looking like they are bleeding (overlapping from one color onto the other). In this case you compensate by making a tran­sition along the edge of the foreground color to the back­ground color. The transition is made by making the foreground color change to the background color in three steps. The first step is to select a color that is close to the foreground color. Next you select a color that is close to the background color. Now select a color that is about mid-way be­tween the foreground and the background colors.

Rule 4

Select a font that has characters that are outlined in a pleasant con­trasting color when you have a varied background.

If you have to produce your text without knowing what your back­ground color will be, follow this rule. It is a compromise to rule 3 for this specific situation. I encounter this problem when adding title infor­mation over a previously recorded video tape. I use the Amiga Genlock to combine the title information with the video tape. This is not a problem with the Amiga or the Genlock, it is a problem with keeping enough con-

(continued from page 16)

trast between the foreground text and the varying background colors. In most situations the lighter colors are easier to see. Using these rules will help you to create images that are easy to view on a television set, but many different parts of a home video production have to be con­sidered for a high quality show. In addition to how the computer im­ages appear on a television set you have to consider the flow and the overall impact of your video presen­tation. The combination of colors (hues) must be done with great care. The hues you use will impart a feel­ing to the viewer of your video. Select music that fits the theme of your home video or video scene. Consider your audience. Don't con­fuse them with your technical knowledge by making meaningless transitions in the flow of a video scene. The power of the Amiga, along with the functions being pro­vided by the video software pro­grams can be addicting. The novice users become so involved with all the methods they can use to change a video scene that they forget the end user (video viewer). The result is often a jumbled mess of scene transitions that confuses a viewer. The producer of a home video is responsible for keeping the interest of the viewer and at the same time making the viewing of the video a pleasant and memorable ex­perience .•

Contribute an article to RObO CItY News

Roao WRITERS NEEDED

Share your knowledge on a subject by becoming a contributing author. We need a diverse and broad-based group of contributing authors to write about the Amiga and its use.

No experience is needed. Don't worry about writing experience ... your computer knowledge is all that matters. We will edit your story if necessary. So if you've wanted to share information on a subject here is your chance.

Send your article by the 20th of the month to be considered for the next issue. Articles may be submit­ted as hard copy, by modem or on disk to:

Robo City News POB 9911 San Jose, CA 95117

(continued from page 15)

As I mentioned before sinbad has a lot of scenes. You can save your crew from the cyclops, one eyed monsters, by using a sling. You can go through a shipwreck at the sea and pick up people without getting crushed by the rocks. You can shut a black bird with a bow. You can climb out of an earthquake hole. And best of all you can sword fight almost 10 different characters including a skeleton a panther a lion and the black prince.

One of the things I like the most about Sinbad is conducting a dialogue. You can talk to different people and get information from them. When you talk you use the menu to choose what sentences to say. When you talk you need to be careful not to get off the subject but still be polite.

While you travel around the world you will also have to defend damaran, the capital. Damaran is at­tacked by the black prince's forces continually you have to control the calif's armies and stop the black prince from conquering damaran.

After you do the neccesery things to turn the falcon into the calif, which I am obviosly not going to tell you about, The game has ended and you have won. Then you will be presented with an evaluation and rating. Obviously the game can end instantly if you die in a battle or any other scene.

The graphics of sinbad aren't as good as defender's, It's just a matter of taste. The sound is much better since you hear digitized sounds almost in every scene and there is music playing constently. The animation isn't bad either.

Sinbad retails for $49.95(about $40 at stores) it requires S12K and a joystick a second drive is recom­mended.

If you liked Defender Of The Crown you are surly to like sinbad. So don't hesitate a bit and run to your nearest store .•

PAGE 17

In my opinion, this is the best book yet about AmigaBASIC and should be in every AmigaBASIC program­mer's library.

For those who need, or would like, more speed and control than BASIC can offer, and are willing to deal with a compiled language, the logical choice is C. The C programm­ing language has become very popular in the past few years due to the good balance it strikes between the ease of a higher level language and the power of a low level language. I can think of no better book for learning C than "C PrimerPlus" by Mitchell Waite, Stephen Prata, and Donald Martin. As is typical of books from The Waite Group, it is an excellent tutorial. The language is presented in a non-scary way with touches of humor everywhere to lighten things up without insulting the reader's in­telligence. Mitchell Waite et al seem to have a special gift for this.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an Amiga-specific book on C, like the aforementioned book on BASIC, that doesn't make you want to head for the hills in terror. Most of the current crop of books seem to be written for experienced program­mers who need only reference material for the Amiga. In an inter­view in 'Amazing Computing" magazine, R.J. Mical, one of the foremost programmers for the Amiga, said "The good books aren't there yet, the one that says to you 'Come here, now look, it's nice, it's easy, it's not that scary, come here. '" Perhaps with the coming of the new Amigas, companies like The Waite Group will turn their attention in this direction. Two books that come close are 'COMPUTE!'s Amiga Programmer's Guide" which has a small (too small) section on C. and "Inside Amiga Graphics" by Sheldon Leemon, also from COM­PUTE!, which is excellent but only discusses graphics. Incidentally, I would recommend these books for BASIC and machine language pro­grammers too. There is, however, some help on disk. "Key To C" is a library of functions set up to emulate BASiC commands like WINDOW, COLOR, MID$ etc. The functions, which are in both source code and

PAGE 18

object code form, are made to be "plugged in" to your program. They are meant to run with Lattice C. I have not tried any of them with the Manx compiler since I don't have it. "Key To C" is from Data Research Processing inc.

Finally, I would like to mention a piece of software with the unlikely name of "Conversation With A Computer" (CWAC) by Gil Dodgen of JENDAY SOFTWARE. From the title you might think that this is some kind of trivial program to buy your kids; but it is far from that. Mr. Dodgen has put together a powerful learning tool and discovered an ex­citing technique. The disk is a collec­tion of games, (wait! hear me out now) which are written in BASIC and C. The newly revised and up­dated version of CWAC includes a Checkers game which is written in a combination of BASIC and C. What makes CWAC special is that all of the source code is heavily com­mented and available for study while the manual gives a detailed analysis of the algorithms used. Mr. Dodgen starts off with some very simple game programs and leads you on up to his Checkers program which has" everything the law allows" in it. There is an interesting section on 'MiniMax with Alpha Beta Cutoff", the heart of the deci­sion making process of the Checkers program. The manual explains what this all means and even includes a flowchart. Best of all, though, Mr. Dodgen has found a way to interface BASIC programs with functions written in C*, and he explains how to do it. What this means is that we can have the best of both worlds. The easy graphics, sound, speech, etc. of interpreted BASIC can be ef­fectively coupled with the power and speed of C. The artifical in­telligence routines of the Checkers program, which require many IF ... THEN statements are written in C while the graphics, menus, etc. are in BASIC. This technique really works! The program I am now writing in BASIC requires double precision transcendental math func­tions (SIN, SQRT, etc.) coupled to graphics. I have rewritten the number crunching part in C and my program now runs 50 to 60 times faster. If this technique can be used with the AbSoft BASIC Compiler

(available Real Soon Now), and I don't see why it can't, then we are talking about real power with a minimum of sweat! The interface to C requires only a few lines of BASIC code. You are going to have to buy CWAC to find out how to do it though, 'cause I ain't a gonna tell you. By the way, that Checkers pro­gram is good.

If you know of other books and/or learning tools that are worth men­tioning let's hear about them. Submit your article to Robo City News and share your information.

For information on the above men­tioned materials contact: COMPUTE! Publications, Inc. P.O. Box 5406, Greensboro, N.C. 27403 Data Research Processing Inc. 5121 Audrey Dr. Huntington Beach, CA 92649 (714)840-7186

AbSoft 4268 North Woodward Royal Oak, MI 48072 (313)549-71110

The Waite Group CIO Howard W. Sams & Co 4300 West 62nd St. Indianapolis, IN

46268

JENDAY SOFTWARE P.O. Box 4313 Garden Grove, CA 92642 (714)636-3378

* As of this writing, this only works with Lattice C, but Mr. Dodgen is working on getting it to work with the Manx compiler. •

General DelCrtplon: Model A20 Is a half-helght. 20 megabyte. fixed disk designed to connect to the Amlga's parallel port thus providng a compatible. neldbly positioned. high speed mass storage unit. Model A20 comes complete and ready for use: no additional hardware Is necessary for operation.

SPECIFICATIONS:

storage memory 1Ize: 21.236.736 KIlobytes (20.253 megabytes) formatted.

Accell T1me: Track to track: 20 milliseconds; average: 65 msec. Maximum seek time: 150 milliseconds; average. latency: 8.33 milliseconds.

Physical Descrlplon: Amiga-colored all-metal case with curved edges to match the Amlga system unit. Measures 14.5'long by 3.0' high by 6.875' wide. Weight: 6 pounds.

COll'lXJtibility: Operates as a standard device under AmlgaDos 1.2; installs during startup sequence of Workbench to appear as a drive icon. Requires AmigaDos 1.2 or later.

Power, cooling, and sound level: Forty-watt. high quality. reliable internal power supply. The vented steel case and the power supply are designed to work together to provide convectlon cooling for the drive mechanism without the necessity of a fan. making for extremely quiet operation.

Controller and Interface: Inside the drive case are an embedded SCSI controller (built into the drive by the mechanism manufacturer) and SCSI interface electronics which permit the use of the parallel port as the link to the Amiga via 25-pin shielded cable (supplied).

!torts and printer opetalon: The back wall of the chassis Is ntted with a SCSI port so that as many as six addtional A 'Systems Drives may be 'daisy­chained' to the nrst. The parallel port is brought out for simultaneous use with the drive via driver software.

0pefaII.-,g Software: Driver soflwore runs under AmlgaDos 1.2 or later. Easy to use startup utility to Install the drive as a DOS device. DIagnostIc utlHt\es Included to verify and test for correct operation of the mechanl~. Optlonal backup utility available (1 st Qtr 87).

SUggeIted Ust PrIcing: Model A20 (complete): 5995.00 Backup Utility Soflwore: 529.95 (1st Qtr 87) SCSI to SCSI cable (two drive operation): $29.95

Manufactured under license from Micro Botics. Inc.

Dealer Inquiries Invited.

A*Systems 1303 West Buckingham. # 103-330

Garland. Texas 75040 (214) 272-0142

AMIGA is a registered trademark of Commodore-Amiga

PAGE 19

-------------------- --------

Hot Mix Update FAUG HOT MIX 39:

TV*TEXT Slideshow made up of various pictures created with the TV*TEXT program by Zuma Group and distributed by Brown-Wagh Publishing. Shows examples of various forms that fonts can be print­ed in as well as background tile features, IFF compatability, colors, etc.

BLITZ One incredibly fast text viewer with many fantastic features. Once loaded, the window can be eliminated by selecting "Background" from the menu, and then brought back anytime you want by hitting it's hot key. Good at keep­ing your workbench clear. It has a very fast file requester and once the file is loaded, you can blitz through the text faster than any text viewer I've seen to date. After youv'e seen how fast it is with the arrow keys, try the shift arrow keys! Allows you to go forward or backwards as well as do nice manipulations such as remove extra carriage returns, con­vert LFs as well as open a CLI win­dow anytime you want with a Hot key. Excellent program to put in your startup file and bring about with the Hot key anytime you want to read text or Hot key a CLI window. Pro­gram is shareware and well worth it!

SPROING Program which produces a whole bunch of rotating bouncing Amiga balls on the screen. Balls bounce under normal gravitational curves. Can be stopped by closing window.

ING! One extremely wild version of the Workbench bouncing sprites. This one opens up an identical workbench screen where all the win­dows bounce off the walls and each other. Really a shocker the first time you see it! To end, pull down the fake workbench screen and close the window on the real workbench screen.

MSTUDIO-> SMUS Utility for con­verting Music Studio format songs for use by programs supporting the SMUS format such as Instant Music,

PAGE 20

Deluxe Video, or any other IFF pro­grams.

FIX HUNK This utility is for fixing older programs so that they will load into Fast Memory if you have expan­sion ram. The idea is to convert the program so that all DATA and BSS hunks are still loaded into Chip memory, but all CODE hunks are loaded into Fast memory. A must for all expansion ram owners.

FAUG Hot Mix #38:

SHANGHAI A demo version of the game ShangHai from Activision. It allows you to playa single game of ShangHai and then it ends. What a way to go! Try it before you buy it!

SLIDESHOW One of the largest sets of pictures put together yet. Most of the pictures were done using DPAINT II and it shows. Alot of them look almost digitized! Nice col­lection for use with tools such as Deluxe Video.

FAUG Hot Mix #37: 3D WORLD Two programs which have 3-dimensional rotating objects and can be controlled in each axis. One is a globe of the world. Written by Barry Walsh.

AMCAT Disk Cataloger that is ex­tremely fast and versatile. It takes less than a minute per disk and keeps track of which disks have been done and which haven't. Now whenever you want to know which disk the "XXXX" program was on, just use AMCAT to tell you everywhere it can be found. Also included on the disk is FAUGcat which is the files that AMCAT produced when I fed it FAUG disks 1 through 30. (took 15 minutes). Very useful for keeping track of these big libraries of disks! STAR CHART This is a full featured program for star gazers and astronomists alike. It was written by Ray Larson and contains an index of over 600 stars, galaxies and nebulae. It allows you to speed up time, locate constellations by name or shape, get

a wealth of information on any star, galaxy or constellation, and the list goes on and on. The graphics are stupendous complete with variable lighting and selectable colors for items of interest, etc. This is jam packed!

MacVIEW2 Enhanced version of Mac View which has the added features of a screen grabber, and the ability to convert IFF pictures to Mac format and converts to black and white with a dithering process. PICS A collection of pictures which really show off the Amiga's ability to provide a range of shades of even just one color. These very profes­sional fantasy pictures look like they could almost jump out of the screen at you!

FAUG Hot Mix #36:

MISSILE Missile Command type game written by Glen Merriman in Assembly Language. This program is extremely fast. In fact, to get anywhere on it, I have to run other progams in the background to slow it down. Very nice to see a program you can't conquer in 20 minutes! Load a music program in the back­ground and have background music along with all the digitized missile sounds and explosions!

NEWZAP Updated version of the original FileZap utility only severely modified to include the ability to Search Edit and Save, Load new files, and even display full 512 byte sectors with its own internal 106 char wide font. This version is fully "AMIGATIZED" also and features an extremely quick user interface for file editing. Program is shareware from Proprietary Products.

SLIDESHOW Slideshow program and array of Amiga pictures done by Electronic artist Brian Williams. In­cludes a wide range from commercial cover pictures to an elaborate array of space shots as in Star Wars!

FAUG Hot Mix #35:

COMM Full featured terminal pro-

gram that supports XMODEM pro­tocols with CRC or checksum, has Autochop, up to 19,200 baud, 20 Macros, 44 phone number library, alternate long distance phone number services, split screen view­ing, interlace option, etc. One par­ticularly interesting feature is the ability to show some of the control sequences being sent over the port such as Protocol bits. Written by DJ­JAMES.

IMPACT slideshow This is a slides how produced by a program called IMPACT. The major thrust of this program is jazzing up bussiness presentations by using ready for­mulated graph techniques, Icons, text styles, fades, etc. This example slideshow demonstrates many of the possibilities of IMPACT.

FAUG Hot Mix #34:

Flight Simulator: Contains over 50 Flight Simulator scenarios including wild situations such as space setups and Shuttle approach, various am­biguous locations on scenery discs, etc. Can even customize them for yourself.

CLUE: Game of Clue done extreme­ly well and executes very fast.

MouseClock: Collection of three programs that you can use either in a startup-sequence or through workbench Icons to set the system time, change your pointer into a Clock Pointer, and finally color cycle your pointer. Use any of them or all three simultaneously.

MoreRows: Add more rows or col­umns to your workbench screen so that the screen takes up the whole monitor space.

DirUtil: The most fantastic Directory Utility to date. This is version 3 and has everything in the world on it. Even set up so that Show is load­ed with it automatically if selected by Workbench Icon. Cosmo: Improved version of Cosmo which is identical to the arcade game of Asteroids.

3D-breakout: Get out your three-D glasses for this three dimensional breakout game. Uses the mouse on the pad as the location of the paddle. Very intuitive feel!

LunarLander: Just what the name implies. Try to land on the surface with as much fuel remaining as possible but not crashing. Once you've got that wired, try to land as close to the base as possible for max­imum points!

PopColours: Click this icon and you can change any screen's colors at the flick of the mouse!

HAM + more: Directory chock full of utilities for managing HAM pictures in any of the previous formats. Has an excellent readme file explaining how to use the "Dpaintx" program listed below. Great animated Icon too!

DpaintX: Having this program in your disk allows you to simply dou­ble click a picture Icon and have that picture show on the screen. Read the instructions in the HAM + more direc­tory.

Slider: Cute little game that pops up on your Workbench screen that is like the old puzzle of sliding a set of numbered disks around one at a time to get them in the proper order. Each time you get a random number of "slides" !

FAUG HOT MIX 33:

MOVIE: This is the incredible HAM juggler with sound with keyboard control over its speed! This is pro­bably the best AMIGA demo to date! This animated Hold and Modify jug­gler juggles three mirrored balls all ray traced. As these balls are juggled, their mirrored surfaces reflect ac­curately the scenery around them as computed with ray tracing. Absolute­lyamazing!

SLIDESHOW: Slideshow program and pictures of a girl, Raiders, and TripH (?!?!?!?)

FAUG HOT MIX 32:

PAGESETTER DEMO: Completely

functional demo of Pagesetter, one of the first of coming Desktop Publishing programs for the AMIGA. The only function not included is Save. Pagesetter supports many types of text input including Scribble and Textcraft as well as straight ascii. It also supports IFF graphics in its graphic input mode as well as con­tains an online graphics and/or text editor. Operation instructions are in­cluded on the disk and are fairly straight forward. For a comprehen­sive walk through the program, read the Pagesetter article in the February issue of Robo Gty News.

SLIDESHOW: Slideshow program and some pictures.

PLA YER: Aegis Animator player with two animations. Infinite loop is an animation that continues endlessly and pyramid is an interesting 3d rotating pyramid that flys apart, grows, lays flat, etc.

CLIPART: Directory full of clipart for use in programs such as Pageset­ter or any graphics program. Includes Christmas objects, flowers, critters, an AMIGA picture, etc.

FAUG HOT MIX 31:

ESCHER: An incredible collection of prints done by M. C. ESCHER and digitized by Jim McInnes. These pic­tures have been fully 1/ AMIGATIZ­ED" with color cycling enhancing the effects of these interesting pictures. Pictures included are: Fish and Birds study, Horsemen study, Reptiles study, self portrait 1/ AMIGATIZED", and the infamous Waterfall. Many more special effects pictures are in­cluded showing off the unique style of Escher's intertwining prints.

FAUG HOT MIX 30:

HACK Fully AMIGATIZED version of familiar HACK game. Even allows personal modification of character graphics. Uses mouse interactively.

ICONSBYGREG A drawer full of animated icons for drawers, trashcans, programs, etc. All exquisitely done!

PAGE 21

Hot Mix

FAUG HOT MIX 29:

Aegis Player Aegis Animator Player with animated scripts of a camera, a 3D pyramid, a world cup logo, and a juggling clown. Play any files on the disk that end in I • script' .

DVideo VICE is a short video in­troduction for MIAMI VICE.

Mandle Hyperfast mandlebrot demo brought to you by Cygnusoft. This blazing speed mandlebrot in­cludes various methods for zooming in or out and total control of all the parameters via menu driven inter­face.

3D-2 3 dimensional wire frame editor done in high res. Includes many interactive methods of visualiz­ing the frame like perspective projec­tion, real time rotation, scaling, translation, etc. Has extremely good documentation included. Can also do in Red & Blue mode for use with 3D glasses!

FAUG HOT MIX 28:

PSound Fully functional sound editing program by Perfect Sound from SunRize industries. Allows full editing, cutting, appending, etc. Has quite a collection of sounds recorded with the Perfect Sound audio digitizer. Lets you manipulate sampl­ing rates, playback rates, frequencies, and save as instruments in 3 different formats including IFF.

Time Set Excellent mouse driven system time setting window. Perfect for use in startup-sequence if you do not have a clock.

Go-Moku Graphical version of Go­Mokugame.

Slideshow Slideshow with pictures created with Deluxe Paint II's perspective mode and sphere shading, etc.

UNDELETE Useful command to add to your C: directory on

workbench for undeleting files. All it needs is the old name of the file.

Multidim Rotating cube WIth L-o dimensions that you can control with your joy stick.

COLOURDEMO Smooth shading graphics demo of moving triangle.

FAUG HOT MIX 27:

TRICLOPS: Game done by Geodesic Publications created ex­clusively with three dimensional graphic techniques utilizing fractals.

FAUG HOT MIX 26:

DVIDEO: "The Baby" video. Very original and well conceived video. Only an AMIGAN could have thought up this one!

DPSLIDE: More spectacular ray traces and other original pieces of art.

FAUG HOT MIX 25:

CHARACTER GENERATOR: Not a catchy name but an incredible pro­gram for generating text for video productions. This is professional quality. Takes alot of memory to run but well worth the results. Be sure to read help-file before-miming. Ex-­plains how to start it up.

SLIDESHOW: More slides of various ray traces along with some other original pictures.

FAUG HOT MIX 24:

ACTION!: Extremely well put together slideshow program. In­cludes use of any type of soundfile including speech, any type of picture including color cycle, and interactive user involvement. Well written code by Peter Dunlop.

ZOING: Bouncing happy and sad faces all over the Workbench screen. Faces alternate between happy and sad from bounces. Impacts have ac­curate deflection angles. If you select the window, the mouse becomes a face and you can really stir up the ac-

tion! Try to trap one of the faces with your mouse! GRAVITY: Graphical portrayal of effects of gravity with various numbers of planets and suns at dif­ferent velocities. Quite interesting to watch.

REVERSI: Game of reversi where object of the game is to _l1ave as many squares of your color on the screen as possible to win. Has options like dis­playing all possible moves, taking back previous moves, amount of time allotted for computing, etc.

SLIDESHOW: Some more pictures including two more impressionists paintings.

FAUG HOT MIX 23:

MENUED: Fantastic menu creating tool for programmers by David. Just make the menu with this program's menus and gadgets and save it as a C source file or object code for linking. Great time saver!

DVIDEO: Atari meets AMIGA video. Cute video, but make sure no Atari fanatics are around. Quality of the video is extremely good. No com­ment on subject matter!

PAWNDEMO: Demo version of PAWN interactive fiction game. The intra to this demo is one of the most impressive intros so far. Alot of digitized sounds and a long time before song loops back on itse~_ When the demo rolls in front of you, notice how powerful the parser is. Very well done game!

MSE: Mandelbrot Set Explorer. In­credibly rich set of options including a 3-D version! Extremely nice use of menus and gadgets.

FAUG HOT MIX 22:

QUICKCOPY: Version 1.0 of QuickCopy is a graphical version of the previous QuickCopy of the same author, Dave Devenport. Us.es icons for start and stop and graphIcally represents amount com~leted. Can exit with normal closeWIndow gadget.

PAGE 22

PAGE 23

converts C64/C128 Files to the Amiga!

DISK·a·DISKTM from Central Coast Software makes it easy and convenient to transfer C64/C128 files to and from the Amiga. DISK-2-DISK programs the Amiga model 1020 external 5.25" disk drive to read and write 1541/4040 and 1570/1571 disk formats including 1541 "flippies" . You can even format a 1541 or 1571 diskette on your Amiga!

DISK·a·DISK converts CommodorelPET ASCII to AmigaDOS standard ASCII and vice versa. Use DISK-2-DISK to transfer word processing text files (such as PaperClip, SpeedScript and Pocket Writer) to and from the Amiga for use with popular Amiga word processors.

DISK·a·DISK includes a utility to find and flag dialect differences between Commodore Basic and Amiga Basic files.

DISK·a·DISK includes VALIDATE BAM and CHECK DISK utilities. VALIDATE BAM verifies the directory structure of the 1541/1571 diskette. CHECK DISK reads every block of a 1541/1571 diskette to detect diskette errors.

DISK·a·DISK sells for $49.95 plus $3 shipping and handling. CA residents add 6% sales tax. Telephone orders welcome. Dealer inquires invited.

Central Coast Software ™

268 Bowie Drive, Los Osos, CA 93402 805/528-4906 • Trademarks: Amiga. AmigaDOS. Commodore-Amiga. Inc.: PaperClip. Batteries Included: Pocket Writer. Digital Solutions. Inc .. DISK-2-DISK , Central Coast So.hware.

HMI HMl

HM9 HMIO HM17 HM18 HM25 HMl6

FFI FF2 FF9 FFI0 FF17 FF18 FF25 FF26 FF33 FF34

PFl PF2 PF9 PFI0

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PF25 PF26

PF33 PF34

AMI AM2

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Aiegra fealur9S a 90 day parts and labo!" warranty against manufacturing defects

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