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U!VDU PRG"U_#VIRUS TXT%U `"Q` Efv*oM` m HPHUBg?<JNA(m)m -:gS)@ -OK1PC#HNHx?<HNA@)@l/?<HNA)@h&@)@XЬl)@d)@`ARCpr Ѝ"QHNFALNHz2?< NA\pdAxr0XQ)K\NNzzzzzzJrBjNuHz?<&NN\NCAp$L Qp N|9lrBlJpNN|pMN|9@pdAr 0Q0tr N9lNupealp`NuaNJHz?<&NNBWNANC2A@p222NrҌ0<NB0,rNurA9Ar`v C9Cr`rt9@9A9BNrrҌpsNB0,Nu9@N`rDҌpsNBNuC2 @ e @}bA@p222Nr,Ҍ0<NBNu pa4|a@:>< |a6RGk0Gg`a(0GVfA1G<ap??<?<NM\Nu??< NMXNuHnP 2$4BBNuAd RdQRB BbABJk 0NuJBjBBXNu 0Nu 2$NuE`B<gJEgEjCDEDF Fe( F dF8BCHC` F0bFHC8v` HD8HDkDуdQRBNuDdBDA@kgAр[SBk0NuJlJBk&Nu0g H@rB JkЀ[` BbNuJBj prtNuHPAJgPpr$< _Nup _NtNu&8*JEgJBgJjBEB:HC҅H@:|ۆ҄ۆ<HC>H@ЃdHA@B@H@хk HAҁHAрSB BbNuNpNNuCDEJEgJBgJjBEBQ*HE?<>0rHGGdHGGdSWDуdi\?<>0rHGGdHGGdSWDуdiN?<>0rHGGdHGGdSW2 H@N?<,>CEdGH@0r`?<`JBgVB&8TTDуdQRBNuDAр&AdRAрAрDуNuprt|=|  g +g -f .g20  b 0e 9b da`RF` .f 0e 9b dajSF` Eg efX +g -f 0e 9oSH`00  b&Hz0  b E Do`HJjDDDS4</NJFkSFk&aQN`Ha"FFaQL8N6.JgtBnNupr$<NuJBk4<rpAC v JBgJjv-| Bb BkH>aaNRFBdL8?N<JBga2SF Be BgQRB`ApdR e <rRF&0xafEv+0JFjDFv-Hƌd0BFHF 0HF0ANuprt|`2:HQ A dJf`CfSHj-D@Hd0H@H 0H@0`fSC\fS , @a"C\fApNNNfHP?< NA\NuH@aa/a a Nu@0 9c^Nu| PC>$Error # ][Abort]\f.B &lX)K\)ld` lp ,BQjNup(NV"l`Yd&-KNN"l`YepN&#k"C-KN"Cփk փk2##`փk"`2`& $Y8gHRDD*D%H8#$c2g# HRDD%H`N+@j <N+@ -RNn gNx+| "N+| "+|r&+|€* <N0CNbHxNVoTHE VIRUS DESTRUCTION UTILITY|Written by Richard Karsmakers|Thanks to Frank Lemmen and| STRIKE-a-LIGHTHPNJOK|More|Cancelr"_ N+@. -.UgNbHxNJLAdditional ideas by:| Math Claessens| W.F. Kilwinger|An ST NEWS ProductionHPNJOKr"_ N+@2HxNVAYou computer should be|turned off/on before|running this utility!dHPNJOKr"_ N+@2HxNJ@When a virus is recognized,|it will be eliminated|automatically!HPNJOKr"_ N+@2HxNJ,Cases of doubt will be|recognized as well...HPNJOKr"_ N+@2HxNJpIn '100% Safe' cases, it is|possible to immunize the disk|so that it cannot be infected|by the current ST virus.HPNJOKr"_ N+@2 -.WgNtNfHxNVWhich drive to check?iHPNVA|Ber"_ N+@. -.NH <r$<L8NJNP+@6 -*NNCNbAN UnNB:N+|: -&N+@. -.mN -:N&<x*<NpJBgp/ -.XNN&< x*<NpJBgp$fNHxNJ>Jesus H. Christ!|Your computer is already|infected by a virus!HPNJShitr"_ N+@2Nf?<BgBg?<?-8B -/?<NN+@. -.JfNHxNVCAn error occured during|boot sector read....|Is the disk formatted?4HPNJOKr"_ N+@2NN -N+@>?<?BgN+|FNBF -NN&SAVE< ON THAT DISK. IF YOU DO SAVE, THEN PART OR ALL OF YOUR LOST FILE CAN BE OVERWRITTEN AND THUS CAN REALLY BE LOST. NOT EVEN THE BGS CAN GET THIS BACK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The following piece of information is intended to be read only by users who know what they are doing. After about 12 months and 5 minutes after you buy your ST, that is, five minutes after your garantee dies, your ST will die as well. This has happened to quite a few users: you are working happily along, and you ask for a directory (open a window from desktop, load a new file, etc...) and there is nothing there. Your disk is blank. You tearfully try another disk. Blank as well. All of your disks are blank. You go down to the store; they grin (!) when you tell them what has happened. The salesman says "Well, we maybe can fix it. It will take two days" (after which his grin becomes even wider.) (!!) You come back after two weeks of no ST'ing. Your ST works now. You shake the salesman's hand and gladly pay the 60 to 100 dollar repair bill (two hours of expert technical work on the machine). You walk away, waving: his grin is triumphant. (!!!) Why doeth the heathen rage? That turkey in the store has just plundered you for 12 seconds of work. Most likely he took it home and fixed it himself. If this happens to you: blank desktop, no files in any disk, O bytes used, etc, then 0) Read Point 11. Twice. Read everything once, and then once again. 1) Unplug everything. Otherwise your mother will find Kentucky Fried Chicken sitting in front of your ST. 2) Place your ST on a large, firm, flat surface. Flip your ST over. Take out all the little screws. Keep them separate; if you put the long (back) screws in the front, they will go through the cover and stick out. 3) Remove case. 4) More screws. Take out. Lift off keyboard. Be careful not to twist or break off the keyboard wires. 5) Atari does not want you in here. Undo the little metal twists and remove metal plate gently. ST's are put together by 15 year old girls in Thailand. They have nimble fingers. Ask your neighbor's daughter to get the back ones. 6) Now, you can see the chips. The insides of the machine. Using the first three fingers of your five fingered right hand, gently press all the large chips squarely down. This does the trick. What happened was that the chips eventually get loose: the girl who built your ST had The Furs (Forever Now) on her walkman. 7) Start putting everything back together again. The cat put the screws under the sofa. See point 2. 8) Plug it up again. Insert a disk, and start computer. 9) Your files are back from Limbo. Place 60$ in an envelope and send to me (address at end of text). 10) If this doesn't work, try again. If it still doesn't work, you have real problems. 11) ANY MODIFICATION, CHANGE, OPENING, JUST PEEKING INSIDE, FOOLING AROUND, THE CAT DID IT, OR WHATEVER WILL CANCEL YOUR WARRANTY. THE STORE LOVES TO CANCEL YOUR WARRANTY FOR ANY REASON. DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK. IT IS NOT MY FAULT, AND I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY, IF YOU RUIN YOUR ST OR BLOW OUT THE ELECTRICITY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Then, there is the last trick. When the going gets tough, get rough. If you are getting 0 bytes used, either as a blank screen, or getting more bombs than the Ayatollah, then: 1) Find a large, flat, solid surface. 2) Unplug everything. 3) Pick up your ST evenly about 4 inches, or 10 centimeters into the air. 4) Drop it. 5) Other users prefer to slam it down, firmly and solidly. 6) This has the effect of jarring the connections. I have seen this done several times, and it works. If you are too gentle with the machine, ask your wife to slam it down. They usually do this happily. Be prepared to grab it away from her after the fifth swing. 7) Believe it or not, this is usually the first thing a repairman does with your machine. Just like a whorehouse. Slam, bam, thankyou madame. 50$. You got screwed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If you want data and material on the disk to really disappear, only a new disk FORMATTING will garantee that. Otherwise, the local cop's 12 year old kid will happily tell in court how he got your files out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PC users provide endlessly amusing stories. The White House uses IBM PC's. That's right. Ronald Reagan, Edwin Meese III, and Oliver North all have PC's. They are all connected in one big network in Washington. When Reagan told Ollie North (who worked at the National Secruity Council, Tlf (202) 456-4974) to do the silly things he did (sell weapons to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (the guys who kidnap and kill the foreigners in Beirut) in order to pay for Contra terrorists (who were partying in Panama, and occasionally selling General Noriega's cocaine in the US by flying it on the CIA's Southern Air Transport airplanes (to call the CIA, dial (703) 351-7676) and US Air Force airplanes and landing at Florida's Homestead US Air Force base)(one of the cocaine agents got caught in New Orleans with 40 kilos; Edwin Meese III, Attorney General of the United States, the top cop, and Reagan's failed appointment to the Supreme Court, released him. And returned the suitcase to him, saying the man was on important business). (Was there to be a White House party that weekend?) (Meese III is currently in a new scandal; something about 1 billion dollars, Irak, and bribes to the entire Israeli goverment not to bomb a pipeline. Nothing is clear: they are all lying over this one.) Ollie did all of his work on his PC. No problem. Move money around in Swiss banks, send off sailing orders for Danish ships, order C-5A loads of Sidewinder missles: just punch the keys. When "the shit hit the fan" (to quote George Bush, Vice President of the United States, Head of the National Security Council, Ollie's boss, and candidate for President), Ollie just ran home and punched "DELETE FILES." Clever Ollie! The Congress wasted no time with his lie under sworn testimony ("No such files.") and simply asked for the backups. Imagine Ollie's stupid look when he said "Backups? What backups?" Too late: the White House didn't even know that there were backups automati- cally being made of all their little deals. (Ollie and Nofzinger both "lied like hell" to Congress during the Irangate hearings. Congress is pretty easy going, but they don't like liars. Nofzinger got 3 years in a Federal prison for that. Ollie's trial is coming up.) What is Nancy Reagan doing today? Just call up her social secretary and find out! Nancy's day is given on Tlf. (202) 456- 6269. Ronnie's bedtime schedual can be heard on Tlf (202) 456- 2343. To send your fan letters, write to: The White House, 1600 Pennslyvania Avenue NW, Washington DC, 20500 USA. Or just call them up at (202) 456-1414. But I doubt you can order a shipment of cocaine there. Try the CIA number instead. Just say that it's Noriega and where the hell's the check. Dial 009 and then 1 for international calls to the US. One of the best map databases in the world is maintained by the CIA: the WORLD DATA BANK II. It works with ALC (Cartographic Automatic Mapping Program). You may use these free. Contact the CIA Cartographic Office at (703) 487-4650. Remember, they are there to help you. The telephone number for the National Security Agency is secret. The work and purpose of the NSA is secret. The budget is secret. The number of persons who work there is secret. The organization is so secret that for a long time, the name itself was secret. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VERIFY ON and VERIFY OFF: Don't use these programs. VERIFY OFF will help the drive read faster by not double checking each sector/track. This saves about 50% time. This should however be done only with material which you READ only (such as games). Eventually, you will notice errors: small bits and pieces will be missing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A FILE COMPRESSOR can reduce the KB space of your file. For example, some work by substituting long identical strings for single symbols, saving up to 50 or even 80% on text files. This saves space on disks, especiallly with backup disks. This is also useful for transferring large amounts of data over a modem (it saves telephone time). We use ARC.TTP (ARChiver) as the standard on the BBS. Use this program together with ARCSHEL2.PRG. Both, with manuals and explanations, are available as PD. The same thing works as a PICTURE COMPRESSOR. Your picures take up 32KB, only ten per disk. A compressor lets you put up to thirty pictures on a disk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . COPY PROGRAMS There's a great story about an IBM user who was having problems with his programs; the distributor asked the user to send in copies of the faulty PRG so they could check it. And the user sent in two copies. Nice photocopies, front and back, of the disk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why copy? You need backups. Disks are not "stable." They can lose data easily. Laying them on top of the TV, dropping them, static electricity, pouring coffee into them, some tourist opening the safety and touching the disk, losing them, or having them stolen. If you lose a disk or data on a disk, then a backup will save you time. Practically every user at one point or another will lose a file or disk. I've lost 74KB files and even entire disks, for no clear reason. If you can't afford to lose it, make a backup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The ST makes copies pretty well; this is how you made your backup copy. Basically, you duplicate your source disk to your target or destination disk. If you have a single drive, as most of us do, then you've noticed that it takes four disk changes to copy one file. If you're copying 57 files in 17 folders, take up knitting instead. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . There are other ways of copying which make it easier. You can either use a COPY PRG or you can use a RAMdisk. There are two ways to copy: the first is actually a FILE TRANSFER. You find the active files on the directory file and then copy them onto the new disk. The second kind is called SECTOR COPYING (also called bit copying): you copy sector by sector, regardless of content. Yea, for it is written in the Book of the Lord, Blessed are those who maketh their Backups (Romans, IV.15). (see especially the the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790-1793, by William Blake.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "Protected" means that information has been written into the PRG or the disk has been formatted in a special way which makes it difficult to COPY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . It is simple to copy several non-protected files (file transfer). A RAMdisk works best here; transfer the files into a RAMdisk, insert new formatted disk, and transfer the files from that RAMdisk to the target disk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To copy whole disks, use a sector copy program (for example, FCOPY2). The program reads your entire disk into memory, and then throws it out again onto your new disk, formatting as it goes along. This is quicker. FCOPY2 is very fast (18 seconds for formatting/copying). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . As noted above, you must be certain that whatever program you use, the serial number is set correctly: each newly formatted disk must have its own serial number. If the formatting program doesn't do this, then you will notice that when you try to open a folder, often the drive will run, the screen will blink, and your folder doesn't open at all. Of course, sometimes you need a formatting/copying program to not change the serial number: if your commercial program has a protection system based on serial numbers, then a new copy will create a new serial number, which the program will then reject. By using a faulty copy/formatting program, the serial number will be copied as well. The program will then check serial numbers, find that it is the same, and thus allow the copy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To make a backup of a copy protected program (This information is only for those who want to make a backup disk). Commercial copy programs often sell specially because of their ability to copy a protected program. There are also public domain programs which can copy protected programs. Curiously, some powerful copy programs will copy some programs, but not others. It has to do with the different kinds of copy protection methods. But as soon as someone comes up with a new method, two weeks later there's someone selling a copy program which guarantees to copy it. Just collect all the copy programs you can find, and try them one after the other on difficult programs. Some will work. There are different levels of protection; low level means that the program will copy quickly, usually within one or two minutes. Medium level will take more time, Top level copying will take very long; sometimes up to fifteen minutes. Copy programs may offer the ability to specify the various protection levels and to format the destination disk in various ways. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Software piracy is beginning to have an effect. American software houses are dropping development of ST software; there is too much piracy (of course, they were never seriously into the market. And it is easy to drop a machine which has such a small share of the American market). It will take time to see if this happens in Europe. Americans mostly play games on the ST. Europeans use the machine more seriously. Signum is nearly unknown in the US. SUPERBASE was developed in the UK; it has sold 130,000 copies, earning 10 million pounds, despite it being unprotected, because it needs a manual. If you use the program for work, then pay for it. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Service and support for registered owners is however non- existent. I have registered copies of my work programs; I haven't gotten anything out of that. Support has been lousy. We rarely hear from companies, and then only to get advertising. I haven't yet gotten offers of updates or whatever else. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dealer's choice: The quickest, most versatile, and easiest to use is FCOPY_2.PRG (a PD program): user friendly surface, allows multiple copies, disk scanning (for formatting errors), sector control, verification, and directory listings. It creates Stan- dard, Fat and Extended formats, plus various exotic formats. It is very fast. It also creates fast formats (the new disks will run faster). It correctly creates a unique serial number for each disk. I use FCOPY_2 for all my PD work. Never a problem. Other copy programs: SUPERCOPY.PRG is powerful. Requires 1MB. It's PD. Other users recommend PROCOPY V.1.32UK. ST.COPY.30 (not PD) and BITTE_EIN_BIT is recommended by many users as well. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . It doesn't hurt anything if you put disks in or out of the drive while the drive's red light is on. Many users do this. Just shove one in while the red light is on. If you accidentally delete a file, then you can instantly pop the disk out of the drive; this may save your file. It takes a brief second for the head to start deleting. Of course, this hysterical leaping at your drive will not impress the surf foxes in Malibu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . About cheap disks. There are two kinds of disks. Good ones and lousy ones. All disks are double sided. That's the way they are made. They are then tested. If they are good on both sides, then it is sold as a double sided disk. If it is good on only one side, then that side becomes the top side and it is sold as a single sided disk. You can easily use double sided disks in a single sided drive; your single sided drive, having a disk head on only one side, simply can't use the other side (the bottom side, or "B" side). You can also used disks sold as singled sided in a double sided drive. Use a format checking program and see if it works. If yes, then it is okay. The disk manufacturer sets a very high standard for the disk: often we can use it anyway. It is better sense to buy double sided disks; you will one day have a double sided drive and your disks will be okay for use. There is a very small price difference. There are branded and unbranded disks. There are lots of rumors about this. The general story is that the Koreans began making cheap disks. The Japanese let every one know that good disks had serial numbers stamped on the back. The Koreans began putting serial numbers on all disks: the same number. The Japanese, who consider the Koreans the same way Israeli think of the Palesti- nians, began flooding the market with high quality disks as unlabled disks at below production costs in order to destroy the Koreans. This is probably true; I have seen large shipments marked from Maxell which contained unlabled disks. There are plenty of cheap disks. Be careful. Some are cheap in quality; you can only format perhaps 60 percent of them. Have a written garantee from a dealer you can trust that he will exchange the bad disks. We have had spoken agreements which were forgotten the week later. If you are lucky and find a safe supply of unbranded disks, then you can use them. We get unbranded disks from Maxell for our UG; of several thousand disks, none have had problems. Amiga drives are much more sensitive than ours. If a disk runs on an Amiga, then it is very good. We buy disks which are Amiga quality for our ST's. Which brand is good is a matter of discussion. Americans find Sony to be the best and BASF to be lousy. Germans put down SKC disks. Many of these criticisms were made last year: as you can well think, it is never clear if loss of data is because of the disk or because of a formatting error or bad program. (Consider especially the entire Serial Number debate above. I know quite a few programmers who still believe that all disks have the same serial number). Use FCOPY2; it scans and checks each disk for bad sectors / format errors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If you've noticed, when there's not a disk in the drive, it takes a long time for the silly drive to figure that out. The drive checks three times to make sure that the disk is missing before it tells you. Someone should write a quick simple program which shortens this "triple checking." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . READ ONLY: From the SHOW INFO menu. READ ONLY is pretty useful. To change a file so that it can only be read, that is, so that it can't accidentally be changed or deleted, first save it. Then close the file and exit 1st Word. Open the disk and ask for the file. Use the pull-down menu for FILES and ask for SHOW INFO (FREMVIS INFO). The window will ask whether the file should be READ ONLY or READ/WRITE. By marking READ ONLY, the file will be protected against accidental deleting, changes or further editing. To remove this protection, simply repeat procedure and mark READ/WRITE. This is a simple but effective method of protection for programs on your work disks. Change your favorite programs to READ ONLY and sleep better. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DISK ICONS: To change the names of your disk drive icons (see also DESKTOP.INF section above). Click once on the icon (so that it is black) and then ask for INSTALL DRIVE in menu. Press ESC (Escape) (upper left hand of your keyboard) and type in the new name, using either capital or small letters. Click INSTALL. The icon now has a new name. Place these where ever you like on the DESKTOP. Insert your boot disk; click on SAVE DESKTOP (GEM DESKTOP) and the changes will be saved to your boot disk. Now you'll have your own icons every time. Your desktop can support up to 26 or so disk icons, which is rather pointless, as you can only use a maximum of 2 real disk drives. Of course, 24 disk icons will certainly impress those Malibu girls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Harddisks: there is little to say about harddisks; the high prices of harddisks for the ST has meant that not many users have them. Harddisks are just about standard for any serious use of a computer. There is no reason for buying an Atari harddisk over a Supra. Both are just as good. The old Atari 204 should be avoided; many of them have problems. The new 205's work very well. The 205 set up program will easily configure the 204 so that it (the 204) can autoboot. Please read the section regarding the 40 folder limit. You will need to have a program allowing at least 100 folders. If you buy a used harddisk, check the drive carefully. Get a written agreement which allows you to return the harddisk in case of problems. Several members have had harddisks which crash or delete material. You will still need disks. You need to make backups. The worst thing about harddisks is the fan. It makes a hell of a lot of noise. This is fine if it is in an office, where there is background noise. But in a home, the high whining noise of the fan is nearly unbearable. The harddisk which is on the BBS is running 24 hours a day, to the great dissatifaction of the home. The harddisk which I have used is bothersome; I switch on the drive to load, and then immediately switch it off again. To save, flip it on, save, and then off again. It starts up in just under 13 seconds. If you can get harddisks without fans, such as IBMs, then it is better, even if it is not as convenient. The Atari Harddisk is tough. I heard of a person who transported his harddisk in a small rucksack. I have put my on the back of my bycycle. Some time ago, while resanding the floors, the shelf on which it was sitting collasped and the harddisk fell one meter onto a hardwood floor, landing squarely on its side. No damage to files. The Atari harddisks have a cable which is only 30 cm long (or something like that: it is very short). You are forced to have it just behind your computer. The fan is not far away. Occasionally move all harddisk files over to another drive, delete the drive, and recopy. This noticebly improves access time. It is possible to build harddisks using a cheap IBM drive and a controller. Several persons have done this. Soon, someone will began to build and sell such harddisks: the price will be around 3000 Kr for 30 MB. A 10MB harddisk is possible for under 2000 Kr. The ST can manage up to 64MB of material. When this becomes a reality, contact the UG for further information. Another possibility is 10MB disk drives. These use 5.25 disks which look like our 3.5 inch disks: each holds 10MB and has the same access time as a harddisk. Simply insert and remove. The disks could give you a large storage capacity in relation to money. Again, you can save money by buying in West Germany. An Atari 205 harddisk, which costs 6,500 Kr in Denmark (and is unavailable), costs 4,000 Kr in West Germany and they have all the harddisks you can carry. Simply pay MOMS (VAT, or Danish taxes) at the border, which means that the whole thing costs around 4,700 Kr. A bus will take you to Germany and back to Aarhus for 35 Kr; do your shopping there, buy a couple of bottles of wine and celebrate on the trip back. You can pay in Kroner at most cities near the border. Call and reserve a harddisk before you go. The 5 gigabyte (5000 megabyte) compact disk drives is a spectacu- lar piece of nonsense. A single disk which can hold 30,000 to 45,000 programs is possible. The copyright fees alone on such a disk would a fortune; if we consider that each program would cost 10 dollars, then the disk will cost a bit under half a million dollars. This could be an idea for PD collections, which are free; the IBM PC PD CD costs 200 dollars and has 45,000 programs. But PD collections are obselete within 3 to 4 months. Commercial programs are updated every few months. And CD's are read-only: you can't change the data. Therefore you can't save program preferences, setups, etc etc. End of Chapter Four: Disks, Drives, TOS. ====================== * * ====================== Chapter Five: Ram Disks What it is. RAM disks: Just what is a RAM disk? Well, first, what it is, and then what you can do with it. A RAM disk is a program which creates a virtual disk drive. 'Virtual' mean 'as if' or 'fake'. The computer thinks that there is another drive. The program takes a chunk of memory (RAM) and sets it for holding data. The good thing is that this data moves back and forth very fast. There's no bother about the drive reading the disk. You know that your disk drive can only read data at the blinding speed of 250 KBits per second. Blinding to turtles. If the data transfer occurs directly on chip, then that little bunny hops faster. RAM disks have all sorts of different names. Disk Cache, Buffer Disks, Memory Disks, Memory Cache, Electronic Disks, Virtual Disks, and then there's all the commercial products: K-RAM, to mention the best known, and MAXIDISK, ETERNAL, Mike's RAMDISK, RAMBUFFER.ACC, and PROFILRAM, to mention the best public domain versions (which are all much much better than K-RAM). The different kinds of RAM disks: First of all is the standard one: either a program or an ACC; you specify the size, set it up. You can't change the size later. Reset and it is gone. Redefineable is better. You specify the size, set it up, and then change the size (smaller or larger). "Reset proof" "Resident" or "resettable" means that the contents will survive a reset: you reset (either to start up new ACCessories, delete others, or just hop out of a program, or you bomb out); no problem; everything is still there. "Compressor" RAM disks will automatically compress the contents (and decompress to run or use); this lets you put for example nearly 500 KB of data into a 350KB ramdisk (amount of compression depends on whether your files are text, programs, etc). And "dynamic" RAM disks have no specific size: You just throw whatever you want into the drive icon and the RAM disk will grow to fit. As you delete, it reduces in size again. To make a RAM disk, first load a RAM disk program (plenty in the PD disks)(double click on it). Then use INSTALL DISKDRIVE in your menu. Some RAM disks will demand that your disk have the right name. Others don't care and will work in any drive name. Make a new disk drive Icon, the letter must be in capitals, either C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, etc etc, go all the way to Z if you like. The description can be anything you like: 3rd Disk, RAM disk, RAM disk, Ramdrive, Disk, Karen's Disk, or just blank; that line doesn't matter. Click on INSTALL. It's now active. Use it just like a second or third drive. Don't format it; you don't need to. You can then copy data from your real disk into your 'fake' disk. And from your "fake" disk to your real disk. You can open multiple windows from that RAM disk icon and move things from one to the other. Deleting is very fast. If you want to keep that icon on your desktop for next time, click SAVE DESKTOP. Why use a RAM disk? If nothing else, it is a very fast way of copying from one disk to another. Copy your data into the RAM disk, switch disks, and then copy from the RAM disk to the new disk. No changing disks. Simply drag the DRIVE ICON into the new window. If you have no ACC.essories, then you can make a large RAM disk, up to 80 or 90% of your entire memory, and copy entire disks as often as you like. This doesn't work with copy-protected programs, of course. Copying in this fashion is called a FILE TRANSFER. The best use for a RAM disk is to run your programs. Make a RAM disk just big enough to hold 1st Word plus some files. Open the RAM disk, double click on 1st Word. instead of taking ten seconds or so to load, it opens in less than two seconds. Create files and save them; it is very fast. There is no nonsense with disk access times. Pop out of 1st Word (QUIT), you go out, and then load in again. Out and back in seconds. It's great if you use big programs which require frequent changes to look at disks or use other programs in between. The problem, if any, with a RAM disk is that you have less work memory. If you start with 400KB of memory and cut up part and call it a RAM disk which you make 300KB large (or any size you want), then your available working memory (what is left over) is only 100KB. You can of course make very small RAM disks, only 20 or 50KB large, or any size you like. Remember that a .PRG often has some .RSC files (RESOURCE) along with it. Those contain graphic notes and perhaps various saved user specifications. All of these must be transferred into your RAM disk (for example, 1st Word.PRG + 1st Word.RSC, and, if you're going to print, 1st Print.PRG + 1st Print.RSC.)(Try this, you can print instantly, without switching disks or any nonsense. If you have a spooler as well, then it works great.) Note that if you SAVE onto a RAM disk, you have to transfer the data from the RAM disk to your normal disk at the end of your work session. When you turn off the power, the RAM disk and everything in it disappears. If you have a bad electrical connection and your ST loses power, then you lose data. If there are big electrical storms, the electricity may also fail. But of course, when there's a big storm, it's more fun to sit on the balcony with a bottle of whiskey and watch the lightning (set your camera for infinite focus, f5.6, a wide angle lense (28mm or so), use a manual release cable and let it catch a few good rays). If you are using a program which often crashes, then you will lose your data in the RAM disk. Just like women, RAM disks are different come in different ways. Some of them, you set up, and to get rid of them, you have to boot them out. Some you have to live with their size; others you can change at will and specify the size. The best of all are ones which can be set up and then taken down, without rebooting. Others are more clever. These are called RESIDENT RAM disks. You set it up, re-boot, it's still there. And best of all, they're faithful; it won't lose the data. These are the absolute best to have. If you have a crash, if you decide to set up a new accessory, or get rid of one, just reset. The RESIDENT RAM disk will keep all your files. RESIDENT RAM disks are somewhat difficult to get; a RESIDENT RAM disk has to be written especially to your TOS. For example, a German RESIDENT RAM disk, written for German ST's, usually will not run on a Danish TOS. MAXIDISK, a RESIDENT RAM disk with a built in file compressor, will compress files automatically (especially text files) so that you can hold over 800 Kb in a 500 Kb RAM disk. MAXIDISK works fine on Danish TOS. Although some people complain that it is a bit slow (it takes .000003 microseconds longer to open a file) than other RAM disks, it is the only one which compresses. It is also available without the compressor. Another great thing about Resident RAM disks is a trick which I discovered. Create your resident RAM disk in drive icon C. Save desktop. The desktop.inf file is saved not on the disk, but in the RAM disk. Copy that file from the RAM disk to your real disk (so that it is present in both A and C drive). NOW... place all your accessories in the RAM disk. Reset. Voila! They load not from disk, but from the RAM disk. Which is of course faster. There are no problems with RAM disks and 1st Word. It really makes it easier to use. Put 1st Word, 1st Print, and both RSC files into the RAM disk. Now, when you print something, there is no INSERT WP DISK nonsense; you can print directly from 1st Word. Try this; it will convince you about RAM disks. MMCOPY .ACC, a public domain PRG, works great to transfer files from disk to RAM disk and back. But of course, it's so easy to go in and out of a PRG with a RAM disk. Some programs will not run in a RAM disk (ST Basic, for example. But that doesn't run anywhere anyhow anytime). Others work very well, much faster. Degas, with all of its silly disk operations, works very well on a RAM disk. Flight Simulator is a pain in the neck on disk; just when it gets interesting, the screen stops so that the disk can load new scenery. Just make a 350KB RAM disk (Maxidisk can be much smaller) and copy everything over. Click on FSII.PRG. Instant startup and no silly disk loads; fly the jet in and at and over San Francisco. Smooth operations. If you've noticed then, using the ESC to switch disks in A drive and using RAM disks, there is no need for a single drive user to have a B drive icon. For those who think ST's are great, just look at the Amiga RAM disk. It is always available. It expands as large as needed, and automatically reduces when you delete material out of it. Always resident. There has appeared a new RAM disk from TOMMY software: reset proof and dynamic. If it compressed as well, I would be happy. End of Chapter Five: RAM disks. ====================== * * ====================== Chapter Six: The Monitor (fooling around with your screen) ICONS: it is curious that these little things are called "icons." The word comes from Greek and means "representation;" it mostly now means a religious pictorial representation, or an object of uncritical devotion (for example "$"). An icon is desktop image which makes it easier for you to manage data. The different icons has particular rules: a folder icon acts only as a folder. You can't make an icon do something else. This makes it easier to remember rules; instead of writing obscure command lines, you simply drag the different sorts of objects around the desktop and the various commands are carried out automatically. There are three different kinds of icons: DISK icons, which look like file drawers: click on them twice to open. FILE icons can look like stacks of papers; PROGRAM icons look like nothing in particular. FOLDER icons act like folders; they can contain both FILES and PROGRAMS; folder icons are used to manage your data. There is also a WASTEBASKET icon; anything (except a DRIVE icon) that is dragged onto the wastebasket is deleted. That is much easier and more intuitive than some bizarre set of commands such as "DEL C:/WRK/*.CFG (ENTER)", which means just delete. You can experiment and find out that you can give any file a PRG ending and its icon will change to look like a program icon. Just try to start this new "program" of yours. Nothing happens; the data is not a program, even though its icon looks like one. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DESKTOP.INF: You will notice that when you click on SAVE DESKTOP (with an unprotected disk), a little file is created which is called DESKTOP.INF. This has some very interesting abilities. Assuming that your desktop was the way you liked it (icons had your names on them, icons and windows were in the right places, etc), then by having DESKTOP.INF on your start up disk, things will always be to your liking. You can edit (change) this file even more. WORDPLUS, ridiculously enough, can't open Desktop.inf. Oh, well. Dig out your 1ST WORD (and switch to WP MODE off) or nearly any other wordprocessor or text editor. Load DESKTOP.INF. Don't try and use WP MODE. You will see the following: (Line) 1 #a020000 2 #b000000 3 #c7770007000600070055200505552220770557075055507702111103 4 #d 5 #E 83 03 6 #W 00 00 30 01 1D 17 08 C:\*.*@ 7 #W 00 00 10 01 1D 17 00 @ 8 #W 00 00 00 04 26 0E 00 @ 9 #W 00 00 0F 0A 15 0B 00 @ 10 #M 00 01 00 FF C 350 Ram Disk@ `@ 11 #M 00 00 00 FF A Disk Drive@ @ 12 #T 00 06 02 FF Waste Basket@ @ 13 #F FF 04 @ *.*@ 14 #D FF 01 @ *.*@ 15 #G 03 FF *.APP@ @ 16 #G 03 FF *.PRG@ @ 17 #F 03 04 *.TOS@ @ 18 #P 03 04 *.TTP@ @ 19 #G 03 04 WORDPLUS.PRG@ *.DOC@ (I have added a line number for reference. My keyboard and TOS don't produce a backwards slash; I have a Danish (o with a slash) instead. The "@" symbol (which usually means "price per piece") isn't supported by my printer driver, so I don't what how it will appear, if at all, on paper. This is my DESKTOP.INF, yours will certainly differ. It has also been converted to WP mode; don't try to use it.) What does all this mean? Line 1: The settings for the SET RS232 CONFIG. Line 2: Settings for the INSTALL PRINTER. Line 3: Colors and Key Repeat from CONTROL PANEL. Line 4: Not yet in use. Line 5: Saves SHOW DIRECTORY command. Line 6-9: Determines how and where windows will open (fx, line 6 has the command for a window for Drive C to open)(C:\*.*@) Line 10,11: DRIVE ICONS. The coordinates, values, identifiers, and label (name on screen). Line 12: TRASH CAN ICON. The coordinates, values, identifiers, and label (name on screen). Line 13,14: Commands for which files/folders will have icons. Line 15-18: Which files can be run as programs, and what kind of program they are: GEM, TOS, TTP. Line 19: Which programs are INSTALLED APPLICATIONS and the type of files for each (fx Line 19, "WORDPLUS.PRG@ *.DOC@" Wordplus has been set up to load when any .DOC (*.DOC) is double clicked). If there are futher INSTALL APPLICATIONS, then they will appear as extra lines. To change the name of your WASTE BASKET, simply edit line 12. First, ON A UNPROTECTED FORMATTED DISK, click SAVE DESKTOP (or GEM DESKTOP) from your menu. Your desktop configuration will be saved to your disk in a file called DESKTOP.INF . Now load 1st Word, switch off WP MODE, and open this file (open DESKTOP.INF). Half way down the middle, in line 12, you'll see the old name 'WASTE BASKET' or whatever. Carefully! delete those letters and write in your new name (AFFALD, GARBAGE, DELETE, PAPER WOLF, BLACK HOLE, GOODBYE, WC, TEMPS PERDU, 4th DIMENSION, NIEMEHR- SEHEN, SKATTEVSNET) etc. There's only enough space for 12 letters; experiment. It is not necessary to use capital letters. Click SAVE FILE. Re-boot. If you did it right, your waste basket has a new name. If you did it wrong, just delete the file and start over again. You can also rename your disk drives here (lines 10 and 11), instead of using the INSTALL DRIVE from the desktop. This method has the advantage of allowing small letters. Just delete the old name and write in your new name (maximum of 12 letters). Drive, Disk Station, My disk, Top and Bottom Drive or Left and Right, Harddisk, Ramdisk, Virtual Disk, Library, Hot Mama!, 500KB, The Big One, or just blank.) Save and reboot. You can also change line 6, by changing *.* to *.PRG, so that the window will only display any file with the ending .PRG (especially useful on a harddisk, where you keep only programs, and don't want to see all the silly .RSC and .DAT files). Furthermore, Line 19 can also be used to let your system look in another drive for an installed program. If you try to run an installed program from Drive B (C,D, etc) and the program is in Drive A, TOS will often sucessfully look "upwards" into Drive A. But if the program is in Drive B,C, etc, and you start the file in A, then TOS won't think about looking "downwards." By adding a pathfile to the program name, you can have the program in a second drive (your harddisk or ramdisk) and just double click on the text file in drive A. I place Wordplus in a folder called "WP_TOOLS". Thus I would write: C:/WP_TOOLS/WORDPLUS.PRG@ *.DOC@ (Note: the slash / should be a backwards slash.) This tells TOS, when any .DOC file is clicked anywhere, to look for WORDPLUS in Drive C, and in a folder called WP_TOOLS. And last of all. You've noticed that once you've installed a program, it stays installed. You can't "de-install" ("de-stall"? "un-stall"? "out-stall"? Whatever.) You usually need to just make a new DESKTOP.INF. No more. Just open up that doggie, find the line (19 etc) and delete it. Save. It's no longer installed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DO NOT DO ANY OF THESE EXPERIMENTS ON YOUR BOOT DISK. Use an extra disk for this experiment. If it works, fine. Copy the new DESKTOP.INF to your boot disk. If it doesn't, just turn off the machine and insert your old boot disk. Back to the laboratory, Herr Doktor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . You don't have to go through all this to make your desktop for different disks. Just copy the DESKTOP.INF onto the other disks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If your desktop gets that annoying habit of opening new windows directly on top of other ones, that is because of your DESKTOP.INF. Just place the first window where it should be. Place the second one where it should be. Same with the third. The fourth too. Now close those windows one at a time (if you want opened windows at boot time, open them now). Now click SAVE DESKTOP. Desktop.inf will now remember where you like your new windows to show up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The names of files and folders is practically up to the user. You can write anything you like, except small letters. Underlines create spaces, and ESCape deletes the whole line. Be careful not to use an underline in the directory line (the line at the top of the Select window); this crashes the ST. The three letter EXTENDER at the end of the file name (for example, .ACC, or .DOC, or .BAK) is also pretty much to the user, except a few are reserved for the computer (for example, .PRG, .ACC, .TOS). Give a file the extender .PRG and it will be given a PRG icon, regardless of it being program data or not. Many programs require that their files have specific extenders. Look at the other files in the program and use those extenders. Folders can be named anything except AUTO; the contents of AUTO folders (programs) are run automatically when the machine is booted. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What are those .RSC for? That's where info about the PRG is kept. It can be changed and then your PRG will act differently. For example, when someone in Quezon imports 1st Word, they open the .RSC file and translate all the English into Tagalog so that the user gets his local language. It's no big deal to do this. But that's why you need to keep the .RSC files along with the .PRG when it loads. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ASCII vs Wordprocessing format. To write a text file which can be opened from the DESKTOP and read like a normal file, switch off the WP MODE (Word Processing Mode) and then SAVE. Your file will be stored as an ASCII file, in standard characters (ASCII = American Standard Codes for Information Interchange) There are two kinds of formats for text files: either wordprocessing format (and each specific wordprocessor has its own special command codes for bold, underline, etc; these codes are stored along with the file), or ASCII formats, which is bare bones. Just text. No fancy stuff. No bold, nothing. Just letters. Storing files as ASCII is useful for making READ ME files or indexes to data on disk. If you are going to transfer text files to another computer which may not have the same wordprocessor as yours, then you MUST transfer it as ASCII format; otherwise they will only see nonsense on their screen (their wordprocessor can not understand your wordprocessor's special codes). However, style commands, such as underlining or BOLD will not be transfer- red. Just use that computer's WP FIND AND REPLACE option to put those back in again. You can mark such places in your text by writing a unique group of words for each command, such as *BOLD*, and then using FIND AND REPLACE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To copy or delete a whole group of files, just DRAG a box around them; this selects all. You can also use SHIFT and click on the individual icons. This lets you select a group of icons which aren't together. If you miss one, then they all revert to normal. This also works in reverse. If there are 27 icons on screen, and you want every one except the one in the middle, DRAG a box around everything so that everything is black. Then press SHIFT and click on the icon you don't want. It turns white. This is called DE-SELECTING (that is certainly not good English. Computers were obviously developed by Californians.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUTO folders are special. Any program in the a folder called AUTO will be automatically loaded when you boot. Just make a NEW FOLDER, call it AUTO. Fill it up with all the spoolers, ramdisks, utility programs, etc. This works well, except with programs which have a lot of graphics (like 1st Word). A Boot disk with twenty PRGs in the auto folder and six ACCessories will take a looooong time to open; your computer has to read, verify, and load all of them. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . There is now a program which will load a GEM program (AUTOGEM). Just copy this into your AUTO folder, and, when you boot up, your chosen GEM program will automatically start up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . By pulling down the CONTROL PANEL and moving the three color bars to the other end, the monochrome screen will invert colors (white on black). Move them back again to reverse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If you get a slight flimmering on the screen, this can usually be fixed by tightening the monitor plug into the ST. Just jam it in as tight as you can. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If you have one of the newer ST monitors, you can change the size of the screen (larger or smaller). Just fool around with the screws on the back of the monitor. You can increase the size of the screen so that there is very little black border. It is done like this to compress the screen image and thus create higher density (a better image). Increasing your image is not going to mean that you can see more lines. There will be some loss of image density. It is possible to do this with the older monitors, but you need to open the monitor casing. A German word processor, 2nd Word, cleverly is able to show an entire page on screen by the simple trick of turning the monitor sideways. By standing it on its side, you get a more normal page size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . About monitor radiation. All monitors, being cathode ray genera- tors, produce a large electromagnetic field around them. Exposure of over three hours per day can lead to health problems: mostly headaches. There is also sleeplessness, heart disturbance, and flimmering vision (sounds like being in love). Longrange effects are unknown (birth defects, cancer, genetic variation, etc.) An independant comparsion of 17 monitors by a respectable West German consumers test institute found the ST SM124 and SANYO CRT41 to have the least electromagnetic radiation and therefore be the safest on the market. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Last things are always cleaning. The best way to clean your screen is with a few drops of eyeglass cleaning fluid: you can get a little bottle of the stuff at any eyeglass store or drugstore. Eyeglass stores usually give away small sample bot- tles. Really takes off the greasy fingerprints and reduces glare. End of Chapter Six: The Screen. ====================== * * ====================== Chapter Seven: ACCESORIES ACCESSORIES: Because the ST TOS can't multitask, it allows a sort of ability to access certain other programs within a program. These are ACCessories (those files with the ending .ACC, such as CLOCK.ACC). An .ACC is a special kind of program. It loads automatically from the disk into memory at BOOT time. While using any GEM program, you can always get instant access to those accessories. You can gain access to this PRG (use it) by pointing with the mouse at the ATARI logo in the upper left corner. The menu drops down and you can select the accessory by clicking on it. It will then appear in the middle of the screen. If your main PRG is a GEM program (MENUS, WINDOWS, etc, like 1st Word), then you can always use an ACCessory within that PRG. An ACC.essory will not load if: 1) the EXTENDER is not .ACC (it could be .ACX, etc). 2) the .ACC is inside a Folder. 3) it is faulty (missing data, bad copy, etc). 4) its .RSC file is missing or faulty. If the extender is other than .ACC, just use SHOW INFO from the FILES menu to change (edit) the extender from .ACX back to .ACC. You can't load more than 6 ACC's at one time; the ST will crash (actually, it just won't start up). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Note that old CONTROL.ACC (16KB large) requires two ACC spaces (one for the CONTROL PANEL and one for INSTALL PRINTER). The new Control Panel (20KB) solves some of this problem by bringing the printer install options and the RS232 emulator into one ACC. The control panel can also be used to invert the screen colors. On monochrome systems, pulling the color bars all the way to the end will invert colors (white to black) and back again. The ROCP.ACC, the Read Only Control Panel, is great. After a few months, you never change the settings in the control panel. Yet the thing takes up 20 KB of space. The ROCP reads the control panel information from the DESKTOP.INF file and sets it up in a 4Kb file which takes up only one slot. It doesn't take up so much KB space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If you run out of memory, you can create more space by 'switching off' your accessories. Click once on your ACC file, and ask for SHOW INFO (VIS INFO). Change the directory extender (file name) from WHATEVER.ACC to WHATEVER. AC1, for example. (or .AC2 or .ACX or anything except .ACC) then reboot. Your ACCessories will not be loaded. To start them again, go to your desktop, click, and change the name back to WHATEVER.ACC. Reboot. If you have any AUTO folders, change the folder name to something else or open the folder and change the .EXTENSIONS from .PRG to .PR1 or whatever. To avoid all this opening and closing, I keep an extra disk with no ACC's or AUTO folders and boot with that (especially to make very large RAMdisks.) Another possiblility is an ACCes- sory LOADER PRG; during BOOTING, it asks you which ACCs should be loaded. It then automatically changes the extender. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Another useful utility is a FREE RAM indicator; there's several, with all sorts of names. These are small ACC's which tell you how much memory is free (availabel). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frankly, I don't think much of clocks on screen. They eat up a lot of memory (a simple digital clock in the upper corner needs 30 KB). They have to be set every time. Atari made a good choice by not putting clocks into the machines: less work, lower prices. I've not yet noticed a reason for having a clock. Many users stick little clocks (cost about 1 $) on the front of the monitor (over the ATARI logo). I have. It's always there; needs no attention. Stopwatch and date included, which is handy when using the modem or timing operations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The same with calculators. They seem great, but it's more practical to keep a small solar calculator stuck in your disk box. Always there. If you absolutely will have one as an accessory, then there are scientific calculators, normal ones with and without memory, and even a HP-41 (Hewlett Packard) available as PD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And notepads as well. It's just more practical to keep a pencil and some note paper on your desk. Write down file names, etc. It is precisely when you most need a notepad that you are in a situation in which you can't use it. The groove on top of the ST makes a great place to park pencils. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Speedmouse.ACC is very good. It lets your mouse move twice as far over the screen; a simple wrist movement moves the mouse from one corner to the other. This reduces the mouse movements and you don't need as much desk space. I have gotten addicted to the Speed Mouse; if I boot without it, then it feels like swimming in honey. End of Chapter Seven: ACCessories. ====================== * * ====================== Chapter Eight: Wordprocessing The first version of this section was easier to write: 1ST WORD was the standard (and nearly the only wordprocessor) on the ST. But now, there are dozens. 1ST WORD, that simple word cowboy, has gotten updated into a new program (Wordplus). WORDPLUS, SIGNUM (1+2), TEMPUS, WORDPERFECT, BECKERTEKST, are all standards. There are at least 15-20 more wordprocessors and text editors. You must chose your wordprocessor like you choose any other tool. An ax is no good for anything but chopping wood. You don't need a professional wordprocessor, no matter how much the girls will be impressed, if you don't need it. First there are two kinds of word tools: word processors and text editors. A text editor works just with plain text: no fancy stuff. No reformats, no bold or underline, just ASCII, the English alpha- bet. This is good for editing program codes and for writing straight text. TEMPUS is the best: unbelieveably fast, lots of options, and only 60KB (you must see it in action. NO wordproces- sor comes close). A wordprocessor is for fancy writing. Nice blocked paragraphs, underlining and other style commands, automatic pages, WYSIWYG display. (What You See Is What You Get, pronounced "wissy-wig".) There are simple wordprocessors (like 1ST WORD V1.06). There are ones with dictionaries, which check your spelling for you. Others have graphics capability, so that you can put pictures into the text. There are WPs with outliners; you are able to manipulate your text around as blocks, instantly restructuring the entire text. Some print in graphics mode, so that you get extremely good printouts, even with a cheap (okay, okay, your printer isn't cheap. How about..)... "economical" printers. Then there are DTPs, Desktop Publishers, which allow you to do magazine layout. All have limitations and weakness. If they have graphics, then they don't have outliners. They print in graphics mode, but no dictionary. Dictionaries are a pain in the neck to use with large texts. Some have only one font (one kind of alphabet)(ten fonts is not much. Macintosh and IBM DTP packages sometimes have 1,800 fonts. Any printing company works with tens of thousands) We have gotten some nice wordprocessors this Winter for the ST; none are yet truely excellent. The ST still has some time to go before it has a very good WP. But it isn't so bad. SIGNUM was written for the ST; there is nothing like it for any other machine. WORDPLUS is flexible and strong. There are rumors of a WP version of TEMPUS; that would be great news to professional writers. Habatext and Beckertext are two other popular wordprocessors. (Note: Calligrapher, which had such good reviews, was dropped this Spring; it had lots of problems.) This makes this section difficult. The previous versions assumed everyone had the same wordprocessor. Now, most don't. I can only write a few things about general wordprocessing tools which are in the PD collection. Specific tips for wordprocessors is nearly useless. See the BBS to find others who use your WP. Rules for buying a new wordprocessor: 1) Can I convert my texts from the old one to the new one? 2) Can I read other texts from other wordprocessors (either straight or with a simple conversion)? 3) Can I print out with the new program? This isn't a joke: the ST doesn't have a standard printer driver. Someone has to sit down and actually write a program (or redefine a printer program) so that your particular printer will print out a text. In the beginning, there were quite a few people who couldn't get their printers to print Danish, for example. And just because the printer will print out one text from one program doesn't mean that it will print yours. And just because a Juki printer will print, your Seikosha may not. And just because... etc. Seeing is believeing. Go to the store and print out a document with all the possible characters, functions, styles, graphics, etc. 4) Will the new program get along with all of my standard programs? Will it crash if I use my RAM disk, file transfer, accessories, etc? 5) If the salesperson is bothered by you asking all these questions, imagine how bothered he will be when it doesn't work and you come back. It will then take him at least a week to figure out how to solve the problem. If he is bothered, find a better store. Maybe you pay more, but you get service and support. 6) Will it produce ASCII files? Can I write a file and save it in non-wordprocessing mode? Sometimes, you will need to have such files. Things to look for: Graphics and multiple formats (not just Degas, for example). Footnotes (both at both of page or end of chapter). Blocks (moves either in window or to other windows). Size limits to blocks (ten pages maximum?) Styles. Multiple windows. Loads and saves ASCII text. Saves without closing window. Scrolling speed. Prints either whole text or block without closing window. Find, Replace, and with multiple strings (not just one at a time). Hyphenation (orddeling). Dictionary. Add and edit main dictionary. Outliner. Define F-keys. Redefine keyboard. Works from Ram disk or harddisk. Size. Printer drivers. Documentation. Multiple fonts/sizes. Design your own fonts. Intergrate with other programs (can your database create a file which the wordprocessor can read? Can you mix your spreadsheet and WP?) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Some general notes about wordprocessors and printers: To print a long text without tying up the computer, use a SPOOLER PRG (a PD PRG). The standard one is 30KB large (these of course can be made any size you like)(it was written by a Dane). This sets aside 32 KB or so in the memory as an extra printer buffer (BUFFER = memory space)(your printer has only about 1 or 2 KB buffer). When you send your text to the printer, the computer reads it from the disk into the spooler, which will then feed it to the printer. Up to about ten pages of full text fit into a spooler. You can exit 1st Word if you like, and work with other programs. But don't turn off the computer. Set up the spooler by creating a folder called AUTO and then placing the spooler PRG in there. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If your paper sometimes starts to roll up in the printer, as my SEIKOSHA does every once in a while, then a long flat piece of wood, about 7cm wide, will keep the outgoing paper unable to curl back into the printer. (The Seikosha is otherwise good: prints 100 pages without overheating, always nice, correct letters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . When working with various texts, I've found it works best the following way. First open each text in different windows. Place the main text (target text) full screen (covering up those useless F KEYS and FONT TABLE). Move it down just a bit so that there is space for a grey directory bar. Now open the other texts, all of them; zoom each down to long vertical strips, just wide enough so that the directory bar can tell you which text is which. Place all three up at the top, behind the target text. To call up a text, just click on it. You can see text in a strip. Create a block and CUT; that cuts also the part of the text which is beyond the window. Click back to target text and paste. If you want to see the whole text, just click on its expansion button (upper right square). It then fills the screen. Another click reduces it again. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes on particular wordprocessors: Notes on SIGNUM! Persons have actually bought the ST simply because of the program SIGNUM!. It was written for the ST and is unique; no other computer has something like it. Signum is excellent for fine printing jobs; think of the investment in the program as an upgrade for your printer. Characters, instead of being printed out in normal character printing mode, are printed in Graphics mode; it is drawn, dot by dot, with multiple passes. A character, instead of having a dozen dots or so, will have several hundred. Your 9 pin printer, even a cheap one, will thus produce characters which are better than those of a 24 pin printer; a 24 pin printer will print better than a laser printer. It is slow to print (8 minutes per page with a nine pin printer, but faster on a 24 pin printer). Signum also prints in proportional spacing. Signum allows you to place a character nearly anywhere on the screen: this is excellent for mathematical formulas and technical diagrams; its excellent font editor allows you to draw your own characters very easily, requiring no special knowledge. Have lots of memory; Signum uses 5KB per page. If you need to print a few pages with professional quality and various fonts, then Signum is the best. However, it is not very good for actually writing. Screen redraws are rather dramatic and confusing, you can't simply spring back and forth in texts. Blocks are difficult to use; reformatting also is difficult and slow; there is only one screen (no multiple windows). If you print long texts, be prepared to wait a very long time. Fifty pages on a nine pin printer can take about seven hours. There is a new version of Signum now, Signum!2. I haven't used it, so no report. Write your text on a good wordprocessor and then print out the final version with SIGNUM. Use REPLACE to turn all Danish into aa, ae, and oe in 1st Word/Wordplus. Then save as ASCII. Load into SIGNUM, and use its REPLACE function to convert those back again. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A few hints for 1st Word/Wordplus: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . There is an excellent German book to Wordplus (Tips and Tricks to Wordplus); this covers many of the options of the program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A curious thing about Wordplus. You load an ASCII text into it. You now switch WP MODE (wordprocessing mode) ON. You reformat. It won't do that. You then use SEARCH/REPLACE and replace all the spaces with spaces. It now will reformat. When you ask for REPLACE, press the space bar in the top line. In the bottom line (REPACE WITH), press the space bar again. The two are different. This is a bug in the program; however, it is a "good" bug. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . INDENT/OUTDENTS: to indent whole paragraphs (for extended quotes), hit F9 before starting the paragraph. Hit F10 to reformat the entire paragraph. The INDENT is cancelled after using the RETURN key at the end of the paragraph. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 OUTDENTS: To write a paragraph with a number (like this one), write the first line, and then, at the second line, hit F9. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . # LINES / PAGE: the program automatically assumes an American size page (8 1/2x11 in.). Change this by using LAYOUT from the FILE dropdown menu. ( DIN A4 = 8 x 11 3/4 in.) Single sheet european = 65 lines/page Fan sheet, european = 72 lines/page The RULER LINE at the top of the page is set for PICA (10 characters per inch) (1st WORD has 66 characters per line; WORDPLUS correctly has 65). There are ACCs which let you set up the printer: you can print out in elite, condensed, etc. Condensed is useful for making quick printouts which leave you room on the page for notes, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . When printing, you can have ( Side # in Danish)(Seite # in German) instead of ( Page # ) (or just plain #, or even -#-, which gives for example -7- ) at the bottom of the page. Just ask for the Page Layout function, set cursor on Page # line, punch ESC to clear, and write "page #" in your favorite language. You can also put this anywhere on the page, not just the center, but also on the left or right side, or top and bottom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If you are bothered by the default of the lines/page in the print option, then create a blank file with your usual layout, plus how ever many (or few) tabs you want. Save this as NONAME.DOC and open it everytime for a new file and then use SAVE AS to rename it. HS told me that he makes several blank files with the proper formatting information (headers, lines per page, tab marks, characters per line, etc) for different kinds of documents (one for plain text, another one for letters, messages, business letters, etc); when he opens a new file, he calls up one of these, writes to it, and then uses SAVE AS... This works pretty well. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If you use Style commands a lot, then note that when a menu is pulled down, the keyboard doesn't work. Not quite. Nothing happens on screen, but when the menu goes up, all those typed in commands are carried out. Go ahead, make a block, pull down a menu, add in several style commands by punching the F keys. Click RESTYLE, and everything is carried out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DOUBLE COLUMNS: 1ST Word can only think in in one column. To make double, or even more columns, you have to fool the printer. Basically, just run the paper through the printer again and again. Make the first column ending at tab space 27 and then print. Then make the second column, also with 27 characters per line. Use the PRINT option to define the left hand margin (LEFT MARGIN OFFSET set to 46) to the middle of the page, and then reinsert paper and reprint. An easier way is to do the same as the last paragraph, but to use radical indents, starting at tab 38. This is more visible on screen. Set both windows next to each other. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Remember that you can always reinsert the same piece of paper into the printer. You can print text onto magazine pages, to make invitations, or letters onto Playboy foldouts. Be creative. You're not Nancy Reagan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To put graphics into 1st Word. Just fool the printer. Make a drawing, print it out. Run the paper throught the printer again for the text. Okay, so it's not on screen. Pretend. Some people want everything. It's a cheap solution that works. Like beer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A little used, but very practical ability of 1st Word is the conditional page break. There are three kinds of page breaks: 1) a soft page break (which 1st Word makes itself at the end of the page, this is a --- with a number below it in the left hand window edge.) 2) hard page breaks, which you set yourself, a solid line with a number below it (press either F7 or click once in the left margin. Click twice on the number to remove.) 3) the conditional page break. This is rarely used; most don't even know what it is. And it is the best one. Make this by dragging downwards in the left side along the paragraph in the left side of the window. Remove by dragging upwards. It looks like a dotted line across and then downwards (see the side of this paragraph on screen). This function is very useful when writing long texts and you don't want certain paragraphs or tables broken up over two pages. It turns that paragraph or space into a special space which will not be separated over two pages. It maintains that option, regardless how many times you refor- mat or edit. If you read the text to a new file, then those commands are removed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . You can also print out Wordplus in Elite typeset, at NLQ, and then reduce on a photocopy machine 10-15%, with a bit of contrast. This produces an excellent page image, as good as or better than office typewriters. It's trouble to use the FONT TABLE. Get KEYEDIT.PRG to redefine your keyboard layout (very easy to do, requires no programming knowlege). KEYMACRO.ACC will let you place macros (strings of text) on a key so that pressing ALT+ the key will produce your address or whatever. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Printer Drivers. If you are having difficulties in printing with your printer (no Danish letters or no special commands such as italic) then just try other printer drivers. Our PD collection has an enormous collection; make a test document with all the letters from the font plus special commands. Try one driver after the other, usually one will fit. Otherwise, ask, maybe there is someone in the group who made a driver for that printer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Just because a character appears in your FONT table, it doesn't mean that your printer is going to like it. Make up a test text of all characters and see what comes out of the printer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To make blocks in WORDPLUS, you can start with a small one, then move the mouse to where the block should start or end: point and double click. You can also change the start/end of a block just by pointing to where it should be and double clicking. Nice touch to the program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . It is not necessary to have 1st Word on the same disk as the text file on which you are working. When you load 1st Word, a copy of this program is put into the computer's memory. You can now take out the disk. The computer doesn't need it anymore. Put in the text file and ask 1st Word to open a file. It will work on that file. You can insert and remove disks as often as you like; your text (in separate files) can be on several dozen disks, if you like. (OK, so many of you know this. But there are some people who don't.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Be careful with the DELETE function in 1st Word; it's very eager. Sometimes, if your mouse is floating over a file name, and the drive is working, for not much reason, the computer will think that it is a double click and delete whatever the mouse is pointing at, especially if you just deleted a file. Keep your mouse away from the directory window and the OK box. This seems to be a problem with the mouse and drive. If the computer is in the process of opening a folder, a futher click is intepreted as a double click. It does have a use, however, if you're quick, then you can keep the drive running and click in and out of folders to see the directories. Another way to solve this is to change the mask on the directory line. For example, you want to delete all the backup copies (those files ending with .BAK). Instead of having A:/*.*, which means that you will see everything, just change it to show A:*.BAK ;this will mean that only .BAK (Backup) files will be shown; then you can just click away and delete the whole mess without worrying. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WD+ has the annoying problem that it often can't read files which are not in its special format. I kept a copy of the old 1ST WORD simply because of this. There is a better solution. A "code remover" (such as AJAX.PRG) will remove or strip a text of special wordprocessing codes: you get straight text left, or just ASCII. Wordplus can then load this. But how about those texts which you can't reformat in WD+? Use CON_WP.PRG (Convert to Wordplus), a German PD; any text from any wordprocessor or ASCII is converted to Wordplus format. With these two small programs, you can read any text file. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Some points about BLOCKS. To create a block, just drag the mouse over the text you want. To change that block, just point to where the block should start or end and then double click. This resizes the block. To get rid of the block, so that there is no more grey area on screen, just "create" a new block in a blank area (or make a new block which only covers one or two letters). Wordplus still can't think with more than one block. It would be nice to have several blocks at the same time. End of Chapter Eight: Wordprocessing. ====================== * * ====================== Chapter Nine: Magazines for the ST There are practically no translations in computering because last month's magazine is today's outdated information; a major reason for the domination of computer magazines over books as a form of information distribution. But you will eventually realize that today's hot magazine article is actually "cold news" from about three months ago; it takes time for the magazine to find the news, write the article, get it layed out, and printed. If you want hot news, then get a modem and join the BBS's. That is where the action is. Futhermore, magazines have commercial interests; in many cases, that's the only thing they have. Not only that they review article because they get paid by the software producer, but also some magazines will not review products if they are paid money by the competitor. Magazines will tirelessly review lousy products if they happen to own the distributor. Many publishers have the moral level of earthworms; they block or destroy other magazines simply in order to dominate the market. The "competition" between Atari and Commodore seems to be a product of both manufacturers (who are interested in selling their machine and putting the other one down). (Guess who makes ST chips. Right! Guess which company would go under if it didn't have a competitor who buys so many chips. You bet.) Magazines also have an interest in maintaining this "competition." In the early part of this century, William Randolf Hearst, America's newspaper king, sent Frederick Remington, the famous frontiers painter, to Cuba, to paint scenes from the then-on-going Spanish-American War, in which the imperialist US knocked imperialist Spain out of corrupt Cuba without a fight. Remington got to sleepy Cuba, looked around, and telegraphed to Hearst "No war here". Hearst sent a telegram right back, saying "You paint the pictures, and I'll write the war." West Germany is the major country for the ST. German is a very useful language to know. West Germans have bought 80% monochrome monitors, while the US and British users are the opposite, with 80% color monitors. This means that the Germans use the ST for professional applications, while the Americans and British are playing games. This can be seen in the difference in programs: American and British games are spectacular, with whorehouse colors and loud pop music, just like Ronnie and Maggie state events. (Starglider is basically about reconquering lost terri- tory by shooting everything in sight. SDI is a starwars game; enjoy the thrills of total nuclear war.) English utilities are usually simple TOS PRGs, with little graphics, few options. West German commercial programs are very developed; SIGNUM is an excellent example; no English program can compare to its sophis- tication. Only FLIGHT SIMULATOR II or VIP are in that quality. German PD's are usually better than the similar Anglo-saxon commercial PRGs: more options, more developed, more use of the mechanics of the machine. Ordnung muss sein! Drawing PRGS better than DEGAS and DEGAS ELITE can be found as German PD's. Of French PRGs, I only know that they've written a game in which UFOs kidnap all the cats on Earth and you have to play poker to get the kittys back. About ST magazines I'll start with West Germany, the powerhouse of the ST. West Germany buys over 30% of all ST's in the world, making it a considerable market. The 260 ST, smaller brother of the 520ST, is popular there, but users moved quickly to the 1040ST and beyond. Germany has produced technical and professional programs and hardware of a high standard. This is possible in part by the support and distribution of high quality information in their magazines. The foremost publication is ST JOURNAL (from DATA BECKER, Merow- ingstrasse 30, 4000 Dusseldorf, West Germany, tlf (0211) 310010), a computer journal which is the most professional ST developers journal in the world. Typical articles are written by persons with academic computering training. There is little advertising; the layout is that of a professional journal. The DATA BECKER publishing house also puts out a whole row of ST books, all on the various technical/programming aspects of the machine. The lower end, general books, tend to be a bit wordy at times (one book uses several pages on the mouse). The West German magazine ST-COMPUTER is the best ST magazine anywhere. It is probably directly responsible for the high level of ST work in Germany. New products and products in development are announced here. Authors are technically or professionally highly qualified. Products are reviewed not only from Germany, but from worldwide sources. The reviews are critical: the good and bad is carefully described. If the program is weak, they tell you. In-depth analysis of the industry, hard hitting interviews, and the direction of the development of the ST are standard. They often make proposals for projects. Articles explain how to build your own hardward (scanners, eprommers, etc) or complete guides to advanced programming. There are regular contests, with entire systems as prizes, for better software, and the results are professional. The magazine also sells hardware at low prices. ST-COMPUTER is the major source of ST PD disks in the world. No other source has such a large, varied, advanced collection. They present original PD's, sent in by their readers. The library has to be seen to be believed. Practically every single other PD library in Europe takes their disks from this source. In June of last year, they had a handful; in September 87, they celebrated disk #50 with champagne, February 88 has over 120 disks. Scienti- fic, mathematical, and professional programs, including utilities and accessories, are the mainstay of their PD library. There are German drawing and painting programs which are superior to commercial releases. 3-DLABYRINT is an example of a ST basic program which runs quickly and without error. Astrolabium, an astronomy program, is excellent. The trend seems to be towards writing the program in English; at least the screen picture is (mostly) in English. An updated list is in every issue. Their disks cost 10DM each. Our UG has a full copy of the ST COMPUTER collection. ST COMPUTER has close ties to Atari Deutschland, but stand nevertheless editorially independant. The magazine is the best monthly ST computer magazine, not only of Germany, but for both Europe and the US. (ST COMPUTER Redaktion, Schwalbacherstr. 64, 6236 Eschborn, West Germany, about 30$ a year) Another West German magazine is ATARI MAGAZIN. It covers all Ataris, both 8 and 16 bits. There are listings, reviews, personal ads, and contacts as well. (6 Dm each, from Verlag Raetz-Eberle, Postfach 1640, Melanchthonstrasse 75/1, 7518 Bretten, West Ger- many. Tlf 07252/3058.) 68000'er, the West German magazine, was written for the Macin- tosh, Amiga, ST, and Sinclair QL. The QL died, and so it was dropped. Mac people do not read anyone else's magazines (MACUSER is the best for Macs), and so Mac rarely appeared in the magazine. In March 88, Amiga was dropped as well. The publisher annouces that he will make a new magazine for the Amiga. The point is however that the magazine will continue as an ST magazine, not an Amiga magazine. The market is appearing to settle out: the machines, which are nearly identical, are getting a profile. Amigas are either for kids (games) or video studio work (TV studios), with little in between. ST's are somewhat for games, but mostly for home and small office applications (wordprocessing, programming, business, university student, and self-taught programming). 68000'er will now be called ST MAGAZIN. It is a large format, glossy paper magazine, dedicated to 68000 chip computers. The magazine is up to date and informative. There is a personal ads and contacts section. There are listings. They have pretty much dropped everything to do with ST PD's; ST COMPUTER completely dominates that aspect. The magazine is also expensive, with an obscure pricing system. As far as I can tell, a one year airmail subscription to the US is about 133 Dm. Individual issues cost 7DM each. (68000'er or ST MAGAZIN, Redaktion Markt und Technik, Verlag Aktiengesellschaft. Hans Pinsel Strasse 2, 8013 Haar bei Muenchen. West Germany. There is an American office: M+T Publishing, 501 Galveston Drive, Redwood City, CA 940363, Tel. (415) 366-3600.) From Austria, there is XE/ST, a magazine covering both 8 and 16 bit Ataris. It resembles ST-COMPUTER. Enthusiastic workers, well thought, well written reviews and comparisons. They offer a substantial PD library as well. The appearance of the magazine is a good proof of what an ST can do: layout and printing are done with ST's and done well. There are small ads and contacts. (One year 540 shilling, XE/ST, Webgasse 21, A-1060 Vienna, Austria.) There are no Scandinavian commercial magazines for the ST or Ataris. Danish small systems computer magazines are notable in their poor quality. There are mostly repeated reviews of games. They seem to write for Commodore 64s and PC's, a curious mix. There are possible plans (...) for an ST magazine in Denmark in late Spring, 1988. The size of the ST community however makes it very difficult; it is not even certain whether there are 700 or 5000 ST's here. Compare those numbers to the Amiga: 15000 Amigas alone. Peter Pedersen, of STOP UG in Copenhagen, Denmark, edits START, the monthly UG memberships magazine (STOP is the UG, START is the magazine). Written mostly in Danish, it is the only Scandinavian effort for the ST. Peter Pedersen took over editorship only late in the Summer of 87, so the direction of the magazine has changed from mostly games to more serious discussions. Reviews, articles, letters, small ads. The editor is remarkably well informed about the ST and Atari developements. The UG also has a PD collection. Our UG and STOP have close connections: they can be contacted on the BBS; 68000 UG members are encouraged to write articles for START. We can place free small ads in the magazine. Copies of the magazine are available at meetings for 10 Kr. Subscriptions to the magazine are possible for members of our UG. Contact the magazine at: START, Peter Pedersen, Strandvaenget 44, 6710 Es- bjerg, Denmark. The titles of British magazines is a chapter in itself. There was ATARI USER, which featured both 8 bit and 16 bit machines. It then separated into ATARI USER, for 8 bit machines, and ATARI ST USER, for the ST. ATARI ST USER is remarkably bad. Nothing here that hasn't already been printed elsewhere. It dwells mostly on games, standing uncomfortably close to the distributors, doubly so if they are British. (38 Overseas. ATARI ST USER, Database Publications, Europa House, 68 Chester Road, Hazel Grove, Stock- port SK7 5NY, England). If you ever wonder why they are so nuts about MICROLINK, well, guess who owns it. A second British magazine was called ST USER. When ATARI USER changed it name, the first ST USER was forced to change its name to ST WORLD. The big sharks push around the little fish. This is further confused by the fact that it continues to be distributed from Canada as ST USER INTERNATIONAL. Not clear? Nobody was. This did not ruin the magazine however. ST WORLD is a small family company, but they put out the best English language magazine available. Sharp, critical reviews, detailed descriptions of professional ST usage. They've gotten quite a line up of writers for their magazine. Dale Hughes writes the funniest articles in computering anywhere; Richard Seel writes excellently researched articles on a wide range of topics. Atari England likes it so much that they recently bought 20% of the stocks in nonvoting shares. ST WORLD maintains its editiorial independence. If you are looking for an English language magazine, then this one is recommended. (Gollner Publications, 10 Theater Lane, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 1SR, tlf. (243) 78 39 32.) The "European" (My mother always explained to me that if a British crosses water, then it is a voyage. She is French.) price is about 30 , which includes several disks and back issues. ST WORLD has been distributed from Canada (under the name ST USER INTERNATIONAL) but poor distribution leads them to find someone else, perhaps in the US. The American price has been 37 $ a year. Soon, ST WORLD will turn into two magazines: one for programmers and applications, another for games. A special magazine is that published by Paul Glover in England. Up to now it has been called the ST CLUB NEWSLETTER, but it is about to change names, along with a total restructuring and new layout. It is a UG newsletter, written by members, and edited by Paul Glover. Since it is not a commercial magazine, it can afford to be open and critical: users will directly state what problems a program has in actual application. The first issues were small, A5 (that's half page size to Americans) roughly written, but packed with information and addresses. The January 88 issue is large format, laser printed, desktop publishing layout. The February issue is even better. Paul Glover manages to produce a very informative, packed newsletter for an amazingly low price: a year's subscription is 5 . Users write from all over Europe, not just England. There are also lots of tips and tricks on using the ST in totally different things. The ST Club also offers savings and discounts on hardware and software to subscribers. At this very low price, the magazine is definitely worth having. (The ST CLUB NEWSLETTER, Editor, Paul Glover, PO BOX 136, London, E1 1LL, United Kingdom. 5 for one year. The magazine plus 6 disks is also available for around 25 pounds (the best PD's for two month periods). Of the rest of Europe, not much to say. No one seems to know of any magazines in Italy. There are none in Spain; Atari has only recently set up offices there. France has moved away from the attitude that computers are only for accountants and scientists; this kept the home computer wave out of most homes. But to their credit, they are working on changing this situation (Last year, the major sales argument was that the ST is as good as a PC). The ST has developed very quickly, with about 60,000 machines sold up to Fall 87 in France. There are several French ST magazines, unfortunately I have not been able to get copies of them. Holland is another center for the ST. The Dutch have really gotten orga- nized. There are a great number of ST UGs there, all inter- connected. There are rumors of ST magazines in Poland, but I haven't yet been able to get an issue. Non-Atari Dedicated Magazines We can also look at other magazines which are not written specifically for the ST or ATARI. These cover general small systems. There is firstly PERSONAL COMPUTER WORLD. It could be said to the British equivilent of BYTE; professional audience, essays, excellent reviews, lots of advertising for all machines. About 250 pages. (15 year, 33 for the rest of the world, as they put it. PERSONAL COMPUTER WORLD SUBSCRIPTION DEPT, Freepost 25, 32-34 Broadwick Street, London, W1E 6EZ, England). The following reviews of American magazines are based on issues from July 1987 and several issues from November and December 1987. It is of course possible that the magazines have changed. One notices however that a good magazine is good with the very first issue; a bad magazine stays bad. As for American magazines: there is firstly ANTIC (which means in English a "frivolous" or "ridiculous" act.) And that is what it is. If the British ATARI ST USER could be worse, then it would be ANTIC. Very thin articles, with practically no expertise. Very long reviews of the latest joysticks, however. For 8 and 16 bit machines, with emphasis on the 8 bit machines. They think the ST is just a bigger game machine. ANTIC is mostly a software publishing house, with a large number of programs; the magazine exists in order to advertise their products. They sell PD's (all fourteen of them) at 12$ each. Waste your money by sending 40$ (Outside of the US) to ANTIC, 544 Second Street, San Francisco, California, 94107 USA tlf (614) 383-3141). ST USER, of England, was an 8 and 16 bit magazine which split into two magazines. This trend seems to be popular in the US. ANTIC, the awful magazine, split up the magazine and now publishes ST/ART, dedicated only to the ST. It is awful as well. Very commercial. Totally uncritical. Vague, superficial, un- trained. (4 times a year, with disk, for 50 dollars. START, 544 Second St, San Francisco, California. USA.) ANALOG also covers 8 and 16 bit machines. And it too broke up into a ST magazine: ST-LOG. Only a bit better than START. Uncritical. Lots of games. Some articles are simply dopey. (39$ for 12 issues. ST-LOG, 565 Main Street, Cherry Valley, Maine, 01611 USA.)(A member has had a great deal of trouble with ST LOG. He hasn't received an issue in since last summer; three letters to the publisher have not been answered. It is not clear whether ST-LOG has ceased to exist.) Another American magazine is ATARI EXPLORER. This is more serious than the others, which doesn't say much. It makes an effort to bring competent articles on the ST. The biting criticism and in depth reportage of ST WORLD (England) or ST COMPUTER (West Germany) is missing. Atari Corporation has also bought a large share of the magazine. Many of the top people from Atari write regularly in the magazine. Perhaps this prevents it from criti- cizing ATARI USA. They are also very poorly informed about things outside of the US; they are vaguely (uncomfortably) aware that the ST is sold in Europe, but they know nothing about it, since they can't read any other languages. (ATARI EXPLORER, 7 Hilltop Road, Mendham, New Jersey, 07945 USA) (Tlf. 201-543-6007). 18$ a year, plus 10$ more outside of the US. (But people have ordered it, at US prices, and recieved 6 or more issues, without ever paying anything. I tell them that most Americans think Denmark is somewhere in Oregon.) British shouldn't laugh. American friends of mine think that London is in New Jersey. And I was once asked if West Germany has the same political structure as the People's Republic of China.)(The magazine is having difficulties meeting its publication schedual: they tried to go from four times a year to six times a year, but don't have enough material to print or money to print it. So instead of appearing bimonthly, it is skipping occasional months.) Last American magazine. I was recently sent a copy of ST APPLICATIONS by a member; he liked it as a programming magazine. The magazine is very interested in programming, especially C and Modula 2 (at least, the issue I saw), with lots and lots of listings. Advertising, new products, etc. If you want an American magazine, this is it. (ST APPLICATIONS, Box 980, Forestville, California, 95436 USA. Tlf. (707) 887-7879. 40$ Foreign, 78$ Airmail.) The American market has the best thing: a very low dollar. Ordering from the US is easy and safe; a GIROCHECK (Postal transfer) can be made out in dollars to the American address; the post office will convert that to a check which is then sent to the US. Be sure to order things with AIR MAIL; Americans tend to think that air mail is a luxury and don't realize that ship mail takes 3-4 months. But write very clearly that you are using an ST; I got Flight Simulator first for the PC, and now for the XL. If you know of any magazines which I've not mentioned, please send me an issue, I'll photocopy it and mail it back the next day. Non-dedicated magazines Of non-specialized magazines (not specifically ST or Atari) the American magazine BYTE is the most professional, most respected, and serious magazine to all small systems computers. Truely critical and forward looking. Articles on new advances in computering, both hardware and software. If you see something anywhere, it was printed in BYTE several months before. BYTE chose the ST as computer of the year in 86 (which is why I bought mine). But since the ST has had a bad showing in the US, BYTE rarely mentions it anymore. BYTE has however dropped the ST from BIX. PERSONAL COMPUTER WORLD is the British equivilent. Lots of advertising. COMPUTE! is another general American magazine worth mentioning. Listings, good articles on trends, developments, the industry, the mechanics of the computer. The SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN has an excellent monthly column on advanced computing. (The October 1987 issue was entirely dedicated to computering. Excel- lent articles from leading professionals on the state of the art and the future of computering. Read about computer systems in the year 2000.) DR. DOBBS JOURNAL is another respected professional programmer's magazine. CT, a West German magazine, is a profes- sional hardware/programmers magazine, with advanced projects and listings. Recent articles explained how to use an IBM harddisk with an ST and how to add a 68020 processor. Most of these magazines can be found in public libraries, university libraries, or computer science departments at universities. Technical col- lege libraries and computer science libraries also have computer magazines; these tend to be serious; programmers/developers magazines and journals. End of Chapter Nine: Magazines for the ST. ====================== * * ====================== Chapter Ten: PUBLIC DOMAIN PROGRAMS PD OR NOT PD. THAT IS THE QUESTION. FOR WHETHER TIS NOBLER... FROM "COLLECTED WORKS OF PHIL BRIDGES, BARD OF THE AIRWAVES" (PENGUIN, ISBN 004-132-93465- 007) There exists a large amount of free or cheap programs for the ST and other machines. These are called PUBLIC DOMAIN programs (usually just PD's). Public Domain programs are written and distributed outside the commercial market. You can find them either from "services" which charge a small amount (about 3 to 5 dollars) or from user groups, of which there are several kinds: the ones who like to make money out of the members and charge about 5 to 6 or even 10 dollars, the ones which charge a small service fee, or the ones which share them for free. About the legal aspects of PD's: There's a great deal of confusion about the kinds of programs. Most people think that PD programs don't belong to anyone. That's not true. There are various legal terms about copyrights which should be kept straight. Copyright law comes from property law and that comes from land law. The main principle in land law is "First is Right." (The real principle is however "Money talks." But that's another issue.) So whoever got there first, or came up with it first, owns it. Basically, everything belongs to some- body. The question is: which and what kind of somebody owns it, and which and what kind of somebody can use it. All "intellectual material", books, plays, films, computer programs, databases, numbering systems, etc. has a legal nature. They all have a copyright. That copyright defines a) who owns the title to the program b) who can use it and c) who can collect a fee for its use. The original author has a natural right to his material for a specific amount of time, usually 75 years or so, depending on that country's laws. He or she may sell or rent or give away that copyright, either for a fixed amount, or for a percentage, or for nothing. If he or she still has the copyright at death, then the copyright passes along, with the house, the toaster, and the cat, to the family or whoever is in the will. After being dead seventyfive years (depending on countries), the author automati- cally loses those rights and the material becomes PUBLIC DOMAIN (this is not spelled (domainE"). The phrase "public domain" comes from land law: "domain" means "property." There's private domain, restricted domain, government domain, the King's domain, etc. That just means who owns the title to it. When a piece of land is used by everyone, like a park, then it is public domain; anybody can go there. Books are good examples of public domain. For example, Gunther Grass is still alive, and owns copyrights to his books. Anyone who performs a play by Tennessee Williams, who died in the 60's, must send part of the money to his family (and they can sell those rights). But if you use a play by Shakespeare, who is very dead, then you don't have to send money to anyone, because "all of us" own Shakespeare's plays; all of his plays are PUBLIC DOMAIN. The point is, everything, even the Moon, has a legal status. The AUTHOR of the title can be one person, a group of persons, or everyone. John wrote a PRG, and thus automatically owns it. John can sell it to Jane. John can also give the program to all French women, or to the world. If John, the author, wrote the program while he was working for someone else, then that employer owns the program. If John writes the program during company hours, his boss gets rich. But if John writes a program to help him deal with his boss's stupid computers, then the lawyers get rich. This is a very complicated area; the main complication is the huge amounts of money which can be involved. Jane, who bought the title to the program, is the OWNER. John can either sell the title entirely to her, so that he only gets money and not even a Christmas card. Or John can lease the title to her, so that after ten years or whatever conditions they put in the contract, it goes back to him. The OWNER can be one person, a corporation, whatever. Part of the rights of owners is to decide who may use the property. The OWNER may define the USER. That can be either one person (only Karen) or a large group of persons, whom Jane can define (all of her friends, but no boys. If boys use it, they are illegal users.) or even everyone in the world. Lastly, Jane can decide what USERS have to pay for that use: she can set the FEE (either money or things). The amount of the FEE can be large, small, or zero. A zero fee is just that, no charge, but it is still a fee. Jane can also decide who gets the money. That can be her or her friends or even Amnesty International. John can write the program and sell it to Jane, who has a computer magazine and then, being a nice person and to get more readers and destroy the other magazine, publishes it for her readers to use for zero fees. Jane still owns the title; we just get to use it for free. A program then is written by John, who sells the title, but not the film rights, to Jane, who then sells its use, but not the title, to companies. When Jane dies, her testament (the will) gives the fee, but not the title, to Amnesty International (they now get big checks in the mail); her testament gives the title to her cat. The cat's lawyer then leases the the title to Paul McCartney, who makes a silly song about it. Paul, being a nice guy, announces in his next record that his fans can use the program for free. John then leases the film rights to a film company owned by Silvester Stallone. See? You can use a program for free, but that doesn't mean anything about who owns it or who has the rights to it. (Those are the type of questions you get in law school. You have five minutes to answer: Can Amnesty sue the cat to force Paul to raise the fee? May Gitte, who divorced Silvester, wiggle her breasts to the song's tune in her next video? (You must settle first whether California or Danish divorce law controls Silves- ter's rights to husband/wife property, namely, if he paid for her breast "improvements," does he have a right to the money made with them? Can he argue for a copyright interest on the grounds that they are artistic (an intellectual product?). ----------------------------------------------------------------- Most PD's are the following: John writes it and keeps all titles and rights. He defines the legal users as a) all private users b) no commercial users. The user fee is either zero (freeware) or voluntarily defined by the user (shareware). John owns it, we use it. With computers, users tend to use the word "public domain" to mean "free" and "copyright" to mean "commercial." You can see that this is a confusion. Everything is copyright. Some things are cheap copyright and somethings are expensive copyright. Of the expensive copyright, there is commercial software. Then comes SHAREWARE. The person who writes shareware releases (gives out) his material to the public (he shares it) and asks for a small voluntary contribution in return. The author still owns the rights to the program. FREEWARE data is given out and the author does not ask for anything, but he still owns the rights to the program. Finally, there is HACKED data. We usually think of HACKED data as something bad. Someone has gone into the program and changed it (fx NASA's lauch rocket termination programs). Either a commercial program has the copyright messages missing, or Shareware programs suddenly get new addresses, and requests for money, to guess who. Or Freeware suddenly gets a shareware status, so that people began sending money to some guy. HACKED data can also be good. Someone went into a poor program and took out a few bugs. That's also hacked. HACKING just means opening a PRG and changing the way it works, for better or worse. Programs got their legal status in 1981. Until then, codes were these obscure things that programers did on large systems. Programers, being a bunch of cowboys, traded codes with each other (on corporate time, of course). In 1981, the large corporations went crying to Congress, saying that they were not making the billions to which they had a right. Congress, made up mostly of lawyers, agreed, and programs became "intellectual property" (this is what we call a "legal fiction"). It became outlawed to copy and distribute programs. The PD scene is not just for computers and old books. Punk musicians, to the total outrage of music corporations (especially the lawyers), released records as public domain. This act caused a shock in the industry; what is music all about, anyway? Punk made the point that music is not just pretty sounds. If someone wrote a program and gave it out as freeware/shareware, they are nice people. If you have a freeware/shareware program which becomes a regular part of your system, think about sending something to the author. Blank disks, for example, or some money. Your imagination may also come into play. Shareware and freeware exists and will continue to exist as an alternative to the commercial $$$$$ system. None of these great cheap computers would have ever happened if IBM's lawyers had control over those kids in garages in California. Many of us have sent money or disks to PD authors; we nearly always get a response: either a manual, or an improved version, or other programs. It is nice to find out that there is a human behind that program you use. Young Germans have been the major force in ST PD's. Thirty or fourty programs a month are released in West Germany; many are of very high quality, as good as or better than commercial versions. Richard Seel, who writes in ST WORLD, recently brought up a point about shareware. The person who releases the program as shareware is depending on a free distribution network made up mostly of volunteers. This is in effect an exploitation of those volunteers for commercial purposes. Selling a program to a distribution house brings in a whopping 5%. You get very little for it. But if shareware develops into a large system, then such persons could recieve much more. Do shareware authors make money? No. I have talked (written) with several shareware authors. One got around 50 pounds in response from several people. Most get an occasional letter. An American got around 120$ all in all. No one is making money on shareware. The idea is about as sucessful as Abbie Hoffman's sugesstion for "voluntary taxation." (In his case, he meant sharing the joints). The PD scene is sadly made up of the hardcore 5%: a small crew of enthusiasts do all the work; the rest enjoy. If you want to contribute: make suggestions to the authors of your favorite programs. Ideas, comments, improvements. Extra abilities. Point out bugs. This is very helpful. Send donations of money or disks, if you can. There is very little really computer "Public Domain;" programmers have only been around for twenty years or so. Just think of it! When the programmer to your favorite game dies and seventyfive years go by, that game will then become public domain. You can then sell it all you like. To Museums of Ancient History, for example. Most of my IBM friends, coming from the primitive past think that programs are either "copyright", meaning expensive, or "hacked", meaning that the copy protection has been removed. Just copying a program doesn't mean that it has been "hacked"; IBM people get so excited about anything if it works. Most of them think that all PD's are hacked programs. They also think that upgrading to 640KB at 4.77 Mhz is the future. They get confused when you point out that the new PS series is not PC compatible. Oh, by the way, the new IBM's are very creative. IBM is a company which makes the future. They just discovered something called WINDOWS. They're all hot about it. And DESKTOPS. They also have invented the 3.5 inch disk. The Indians were in the Americas 25,000 years before Columbus. Who got all the credit? The only thing positive in it for us is cheaper disks. All these third party disk manufacturers will move into the 3.5 disk market, bringing the price down. My disk box is falling in price just as fast as Nancy Reagan's book on decorating the White House. While we are talking about the legal rights of companies, we can also ask about the legal rights of users. That is simple. The legal rights of users: None. That's right. We have none. Your second lesson in law is: companies write the law. And they write it entirely only to protect their interests. They have lots of laws, with lots of penalties, to protect themselves. But protect you? Hah! You buy a program because it promises to "solve your problems. Deal with your paperwork. Do your taxes. Save your time!" It says that in the advertising; it says so on the box. But when you read the very small print, it says: "The company is not responsible in any way for errors or faults in the program: if it messes up your work, destroys your company, ruins your life, so long, sucker!" I must clearly emphasize this point. You use the program at your own risk. If you do a spreadsheet analysis of your company or house, you must be able to independantly analyse and check the results. If the program has made a mistake, tough luck. If you use a program for professional work, you must check and cross check the results. There are lawsuits in court in the US against software companies on this point. The software company association is spending a lot of money fighting this issue. Should a program be held to legal responsibility? Of course. Especially so if the producer promises ("We solve your problems! For Professional Use!"); then if his program ruins you, he must pay. Every single other product on the market is responsible to the consumer. Another legal point. Computer companies, being new to capitalism, are starting from the beginning and moving forward through the various periods. There was the tribal period (programmers sharing and cooperating). Then the feudal period (IBM and Macs being closed machines). We are now in the sea pirates period. Compa- nies, to expand their markets, attack each other and stake out territories. IBM is the biggest pirate; their corporate history reads like Black Bart and the Carribean Jolly Rodgers. Users suffer; until now, to force you to buy their machines at fixed prices in fixed territories and avoid the bother of competition, the companies had annouced that warranties were worthless if the machine had been bought somewhere else cheaper. The European Common Market Court in Strasbourg put an end to that nonsense: any product bought anywhere in the Common Market with a valid warranty in a country will have a valid warranty anywhere else in the Common Market. If a Dane saves money by buying his computer in West Germany, the Danish branch of the corporation must recognize the warranty and provide warranty service. About PD programs: PD's then is a very loose term which covers all programs distributed outside the commercial structure. PD's give you a terrific opportunity to look at a whole range of programs which you otherwise can't afford to buy which do all sorts of things which show you the possibilities and abilities of the computer. Many PD's are Demos or demonstration PRGs. Basically advertising for a commercial PRG. You get to see how the program works. Usually you are not able to save your work or such. This should be more widespread; you can see a program for yourself. But it should be stated that such a disk is advertising; it's not right to pay to see advertising. Other PD's are pre-release versions or test versions of commer- cial programs; some are even commercial programs which never made it into distribution. And many PD's are garbage PRGs; poorly written, not very creative, or not doing anything. You can't really say that they run, actually, it's more that they crash. Not much different than commercial programs. But there are worthwhile PD's. Most of these are utilities: ramdisks, spoolers, fast loaders, etc; little programs which take only a few hours to write and can't really justify 30 or 40 dollars. Since they are simple routines, they usually function correctly and make it easier to work with the machine. The best copy programs I've seen yet are PD (FCOPY2, and ALPHAFORMAT). There are PRGs which read and print the directories of a disk so that you can have a label or a page of disk directories (the best yet is DISKSORT.V2. No commercial program can compete with it). File RECOVER PRGs help you get lost files back; disk monitors as well. There are a great number of calculators which only barely use the computer's enourmous mathematical ability; this is like using a Lamborghini as a doorstop. (no, that is not a kind of spaghetti). (Commo-doorstop?) (Guess what Americans call Commo- dore users? Commies!) All sorts of little clocks put the correct time in the corner of your screen and onto your disk files. PD's can also be large, complicated programs which work very well. AIM, the ATARI Image Maker, is a six disk scientific image enhancement and manipulation system, for which there is no commercial equivilent. For modems, there are good programs which work with all the aspects of communications: modem PRGs (UNITERM is very good), encrypting (so others can't read your texts), compressors (to save telephone time)(ARC), etc. Several excellent PD drawing programs exist; these are better than 70$ commercial ones (for example, MASTERPAINTER and PUBLIC PAINTER (up to 24 screens, GEM based, animation, and much faster rota- tion/distortion routines). Wordprocessors in Arabic and Russian. Music editors as well. Small games are often PD's; 3-D labyrinths are possible only on computers. And of course there are are silly and funny programs which put little crabs into your computer which eat at the screen and so on. For a full list of our UG's PD's, either download it free from the BBS or send a blank disk (with a selfaddressed, stamped envelope). The IBM scene is impressive. Standard catalogues are on two double sided disks; there's about 500 disks in most services. On a CD disk (that's right. An IBM PC PD CD) from the California Personal Computer Special Interest Group (PC SIG) (yep. the CA PC SIG IBM PC PD CD) some 40,OOO PD's are collected. This costs about 200$. Macs have a large collection of PD's. The Amiga, with its enormously complicated screen and operating system, tends to have many text files and source codes to help programers deal with the machine. Amigas, with their excellent screen, also have lots of pictures. Fred Fish has been the major person in the Amiga collection. ST PD's are mostly organized by ST COMPUTER. Most of our ST PD's tend towards accessories and utilities, with some large applications programs in odd areas. Of course, all machines have a great number of games. Running a PD Library: In July, 1986, there were for the ST about nine PD's world wide. By February, 87, there were 30 disks. February 1988 has over 400 ST PD's, it is getting out of hand; many services offer over 300 disks. Of course, much of it is garbage (like pictures of christmas trees). But it is growing. How to get PD's: The small ads sections in magazines give address of services which send you lists and disks costing 3 to 10 dollars. ST- COMPUTER in West Germany (ST-Computer, Schwalbacherstrasse 64, 6236 Eschborn, West Germany) has supported and developed largest original collection of ST PD's. They offer them for about 3 dollars each (10 DM). An updated list appears in every issue of the magazine. Advice for buying from the small ads "commercial" services: send them a small first order, one or two disks. See how long it takes to respond. A good service already has copies made. Paying a bit more is better than waiting five or six weeks. Ask your local store. Stores are buying PD's and making them available on their harddisks for copying; if you copy yourself, it can be very cheap (one dollar or so). In Denmark; New World in Aarhus has PDs available; ECL of Flensborg, BRD, also has a complete PD collection. Join our User Group. We have a library of disks which we bought in common. Members can loan the disks and copy those for free. We have one of the largest collections available. If you want to start a user group library, we will loan the entire set to you. Be careful about "commercial" user groups: you pay 35$ for the priviledge of buying disks from them for 10$ each. User Groups with BBS's (Bulletin Board Services) put PD's on a harddisk to which you can access with your modem. Programs can be downloaded (copied), free to members. Comments and discussions of the programs can be gotten as well. Our BBS has the best of the ST PD's on line (68000 BBS in Denmark: 06/109777; 24 hours, 300/1200/2400 Baud.) Form your own group. Meet a couple of users, put your money together, buy your own disks and start your own collection. End of Chapter Ten: PUBLIC DOMAIN DISKS ====================== * * ====================== Chapter 11: The BBS (Bulletin Board System) (This file is an edited version of the BBS document which we give to new users of the 68000 BBS in Aarhus (OUR_BBS.TXT). As you work along with the computer, you will often began to hear about Bulletin Boards, or BBS's. These are often called "databases" as well. People use "modems" to send and copy programs over the telephone. There is little information about this in the magazines: for a good reason. If we all had modems, then there wouldn't be any magazines. The "large" BBS systems advertise heavily; but the action is on the smaller systems. "Giant" systems in the US rarely get more than a few percentages of the market: those are mostly first time users. They go afterwards to the small systems. Information moves very quickly on BBS's. It can take only a few days for a new tip, trick, note, or comment to move around the world. If you want contact to "professional" or "serious" users, then get a modem. Practically all of the "advanced" users have modems: they can all be contacted on the main BBS's in any country. They are the ones who can spot a problem or solve a problem; they also have a great amount of information. Information about the BBS, the software, the system: A Bulletin Board System (BBS) is a system made up of several components, both software and hardware. The HOST Computer A main computer, the HOST computer, has a program loaded on it that is the BBS program. This host computer is connected to a telephone line and has a modem so that it can answer the telephone. This host computer also has one or more disk drives (either normal drives or harddisks) connected to it. On those drives are the letters that people send to each other and the public domain (PD) programs for copying. This host computer is in a house in Aarhus. The GUEST Computer Your computer at home is called a GUEST computer. You need a modem, a cable, a terminal program, and a telephone line. (Yes, people have asked if they needed a telephone to use a modem). Modems In order for your computer to communicate with the HOST computer, you need a modem. Your computer produces a signal which is converted by the modem into a signal which can be sent over the telephone. Another modem, for example the host computer's modem, then converts that signal back into one which a computer can understand. Any computer can talk to any other computer, regard- less of name, with the proper modem and terminal software. A modem is what you use to connect your computer to the telephone line. It is a little box full of electronics that has a wire going in from the computer and a wire going out to the telephone plug. If you think that you need to put the headset of your telephone into a box, then you have been watching too many James Bond movies. That kind of modem went out with Richard Nixon. There are two kinds of modems: acoustic (the James Bond type) and direct; your computer connects directly to it with a cable, and it plugs directly into the telephone plug in the wall.) Modems come (or go) in various speeds. The speed is how fast it can convert and send your file over the line. This is measured in bits per second, or BAUD. 300 Baud is considered slow; it once was standard. 1200 is thought as the standard nowadays. 24OO Baud is considered fast, and probably the standard within a few years. Businesses use 2400 Baud. 5600 Baud is very fast. If you intend to use your modem for business or heavy use, then get 2400. It is more expensive, but very soon pays for itself in telephone bills. A 300 baud modem can be gotten for around 400 kroner. 1200 Baud cost from 1500 to 3000 and 4000 kroner. 24OO Baud cost from 3000 to 6000 Kroner. (10 Krone is roughly one pound.) Contact us in Aarhus for names and addresses of stores which have modems. You can also buy modems from users on the networks who are selling their old modems. Find someone who has a modem to leave a message on the main BBS's for you (describe your computer set-up and include your "voice" telephone number or address). Prices in other countries will be very different. But Baud numbers don't mean very much. A file is broken into packets (the size of which depends on "protocols," or defini- tion); each packet has a bit of information added to it; the quality of the telephone line is important too; if there is line noise, then packages are repeated until a correct one is sent. The actual number will depend on the protocol used, the line noise, how big (or small) you define the packets, etc. The point is: Baud give you a rough idea of what to expect. I roughly count on 5.6 KB per minute with a 1200 Baud modem using the X-modem protocol. If you use 300 Baud, then it takes four times as long. There are two telephone standards: Bell (American) and CCITT (European). Most modems can usually work in both. If you are in Bell mode, then you can only talk to other modems in Bell mode. The point is, don't buy a modem in the US just because it is cheaper. It may not work here in Europe. Most modems are Hayes compatible. Hayes is a standard; that means your modem can work with many other modems which use the same standard. You don't have to worry about this; just as long as it says "Hayes Compatible". You can get used modems easily on a BBS. Find a friend (or user group) who has a modem and place messages on the major BBS's; soon, people will call you. Do not buy a PC modem. It is "internal"; that means it is connected directly inside the computer and uses the computer's power supply. Your ST must have an "external" modem, one that sits outside of the computer, with its own power supply. Modems can auto-answer. You flip a switch or run a command; and it will then take care of the phone while you sleep. When another modem calls you, it will answer the phone. Of course, you must leave your computer on and with the terminal program running. You can do this at night and have someone send files to you; in the morning, you have lots of programs on your disk. Test any modem before you buy it. Run it in all the different modes. Just because it says so on the box, it doesn't mean.... A cable You will also need a cable to connect your modem to the computer. Those usually cost around 100 to 400 Kroner. A Terminal Program The terminal software makes your computer act like a terminal. Basically, your computer acts stupid (especially so if it is an Amstrad or Commodore). The host computer takes over, and you use your keyboard to run the host computer. Think of this as a keyboard which is connected (by a telephone wire) to a computer very far away. Therefore, when you save or read to the host's disk, you are commanding the host computer, not yours, to act. There are many terminal programs. There are ten or so commercial programs and about twenty or thirty public domain programs. We have 25 or so in our PD library. Try a PD program first; many of these can do the whole job. UNITERM V2.0 is the best PD program; it is even better than many commercial versions. We use UNITERM as a standard: please learn to use that program first. Later, when you understand it, then you can go on and use anything you like. Any BBS can work with any terminal program. You can get UNITERM from us for free. Contact the PD library. The BBS Program Although when you first log on (call up and enter) and see the confusion of a BBS program, remember that most BBS programs are very simple (ours is only 68Kb large) and structured like trees. After a few sessions, it will seem clearer. After a few weeks, you will become frustrated at the simplicity of the program. The main thing that goes on is: People write letters to each other. They leave mail and pick up mail. People send programs to the board and pick up programs from the board. The other functions are used only rarely. You can update information about yourself (address, etc), you can ask for lists of recent users, etc. A BBS has a sort of tree structure, looking like a path of decisions. These things were developed several years ago, when the IBMs were the standard PC. Hence the programs tend to look like a PC program. We are beginning to see newer, desktop based BBS programs. Therefore the word "BBS" is a very complex sort of thing, not really just the BBS program, nor the host computer, nor the guest computer, nor the modems. And all of this software and hardware put together doesn't mean anything with out the users, user group, and sysops (the systems operators, the folks who make sure that every thing works). What is a BBS for? BBS's are used mostly for sending/receiving messages and sending/recieving programs. Bulletin boards (Opslagstavler) can carry all sorts of messages, notices, alerts, discussions, or communications. These can be either public (anyone can read them), restricted (open only to those who can enter a section) or private (only open to whom the message is addressed). The board is divided into sections. Sections are either public or restricted: anyone can enter a public section; to enter a private section, the SYSOP must clear your status. Data files can also be transferred to and from the board. You can send text files (like this one) to the board (uploading) for other persons who will then copy it onto their systems (downloading). You can also send programs. All material that is uploaded into the board goes into a special section. A SYSOP will look in there and check whether the material is copywritten or not. When cleared, it will be transferred into the open board where others can find it. Since it is not possible to control that a copywritten material will not be distributed to persons who may not receive it, we generally do not allow the posting of copywritten data on the board. Public domain programs (PD's) however may be freely copied and distributed. We have placed the best programs from our libraries onto the BBS. You will also find the most recent library list on the board as a downloadable data file. The librarians for the various sections (ST, AMIGA, MACINTOSH) will leave notes about the new additions, etc. If a program is not on the board, ask for it to be uploaded. Databases There are other things to call other than just BBS's. You can call a database. Universities, research institutes, and companies have computer databases which can be accessed by modem. You can search for information there. The database system is extremely well developed worldwide; there is a major database to practically all kinds of information. Games There are also games which you can play. These are called MUGs (Multi User Games). A host computer will have a game program, into which you can enter and play. Many are role fantasy games: entire universes are built up with very special rules of magic and science fiction. There are also social games and other kinds of interactive games. These are widespread in the US: thousands of persons will be involved in a universe at one time. The Future There are about 100 databases in Denmark and several thousand in Europe. Extensive data services exist which connect not just thousands, but hundreds of thousands of users. There are about 60 to 100 BBS's in Denmark (Nov.87). This number increases constantly. Within two years, the entire telecommunica- tion network in Europe will be opened up. The present state monopolies will end. There will be a tremendous increase in the number of databases and datatransfer. A final word about modems. Most of the countries in Europe have state telephone monopolies. Those came out of very interesting and embarassing historical traditions. The state monopolies are lousy, inefficient, expensive, and slow. It is illegal in Germany to use a good modem. Denmark, the country with the most monopolies, worst efficiency, and highest prices, places ridicu- lous rules in front of companies which want to build modems. In 1992, Europe becomes one big country. Those monopolies will end. All of the silly people who "work" for them will have to look for an honest job (who the hell is going to hire someone who says "I worked for the telephone company"?) Don't worry about using a modem "illegally." There are plenty of laws which say you can't do a lot of things. The telephone company employees are more interested in getting their coffee breaks. No one knows what the situation will be in five years. But it will certainly include the widespread use of modems and computers. _______________________________ Now you have all the hardware and software. What's next? Let's call the BBS. USING THE BBS: (The following is specific to our BBS program (Michtron V2.0); however, most BBS systems work on the same general principles.) Our BBS number is 06 10 97 77 in Denmark. The BBS's modem will automatically find out what kind of modem you are using and adjust itself. (In other countries, find the telephone number of the Personal Computing Society (PCS), they are usually in the largest cities. Ask them for one BBS number. Enter it and there you will usually find an updated list of all BBS's). The BBS has four kinds of users: SYSOPS, who run the whole thing. SIGOPS, who run each particular section. Registered Users, who are members of the UG. and Unregistered Users (nonmembers). All users are generally allowed free access to the General Public and the commercial sections. Only registered users, UG members, may access the rest of the board. When you first enter the board, you are first asked several questions about yourself. You create your own password. Do not use the name of your mother, dog, or computer. Make it a nice, long, obscure word (for example, Dictionary839, King67Kong, Aristoteles30, or even random words, such as i5asdfh4q ). Write these down. You can always change your password, name, address, etc. Just log on and ask for the EDIT PROFILE section: you can change your identity here. If you forget your password, log on again as Ronald Reagan Junior. (Password = Dummy too ). Tell the SYSOP to delete you and then start all over again (you lose all the letters to you, etc.) You then enter the board. Here you start already within a section. This is your DEFAULT section. You can change this later in your profile so that you start up in your favorite section. At any time, you can press ENTER or RETURN to get a list of your options. You can always press ESCAPE to finish the section or area. Please don't exit a board by just pulling the plug out of the wall. This has two effects. It sometimes crashes a board. The board keeps track of everything that happens on it. Remember that the SYSOP can see just exactly who was the silly duck who crashed the board. People start calling at 2 am to ask why the board is not up. Guess what will happen to you. Furthermore, your telephone may not switch off. You will continue paying for the connection until you reload and exit properly. To exit correctly, press B for Bye! The board is made up of sections (SIG's = Special Interest Groups). Our current program supports up to 16 SIGS, we hope to get a program which allows a greater number. In each SIG, there are several options. Press RETURN or ENTER for a list of options. To select an option, press the first letter of the option (M, for MESSAGE BOARD, B, for GoodBye, etc). Use Alt + C, make a list of all the different options, and then make a flow chart of the board. At first it seems like a maze, but later it is easy to simply press a key and move from one section to another. Remember that private mail can be read not only by the reciever, but also the sender. If you have problems or difficulties, write a short letter in the public section. You may also write to the SYSOP. Again, your letters will be answered faster by other users than the SYSOPS. Programs and files on the BBS The best PD's from the library are on the board's harddisk. You can easily download programs for yourself from the BBS. We place newest/best programs on the board within several days; you can get them here then. It can take up to three or four weeks for the programs to be registered and entered into the PD library (the point is, if you want the progam faster, use the BBS.) There are about 200 programs on the board now, with room for maybe 1 or 2 thousand. These 200 are the best from our collection. It is simply a question of us getting time to compress and load all the programs. Nearly all programs are compressed. This means that they take up less space. You download the program and then use a decompressing program to decompress the program so that you can use it. We use ARC.TTP (it is easier to use with a shell program called ARCSHEL2.PRG) (do not use ARCSHELL.PRG; that was an early version which crashes often). You can find ARC.TTP on the board, along with instructions on how to use it. SIG's on the BBS 1 Public Access 2 68000 User Group 3 ST User 4 Amiga User 5 ST Programming 6 Amiga Programming 7 ST Games 8 Amiga Games 13 ST/OP User Group (This list changes and may therefore not be complete or correct) Most of the commands and options are listed below: Main Menu (I)nformation for SIG (N)ews file (F)ile transfer (M)essage base (S)ig change (C)hat with SYSOP (E)dit Profile (L)ast Callers (who called last) (B)ye (logoff) Message Base Menu (R)ead mail (L)eave mail (N)ew only (S)can Box (M)ain Menu (B)ye Show Mail in all Sigs (YNQ) Pause between letters (YNQ) Last letter read was # ... Letters range from 1 to 76 Start where? Show Mail in all Sigs (YNQ) Pause between letters (YNQ) (The BBS keeps track of you and remembers what letters you've read or not read.) (Press return for the default value (usually public letters and yes)). File transfer menu (D)ownload (U)pload (S)ig change (M)ain menu (B)ye (UPloading and DOWNloading. You UPload when you send data up to the host system. You download when you copy data down to your system from the host system. It doesn't matter too much which one you say, but downloading means that you take and uploading means that you give.) (Our system uses XMODEM. You'll get a message saying "Go to XMODEM;" well, you already have that set up in the UNITERM.SET. So just punch ALT+T (transfer) and answer the questions. At 1200 baud, you can transfer about 5.6 Kb per minute.) Quitting (To quit the board, press B ('Bye). You get a last chance to say hey to the SYSOPs and give him a message, comments, etc.) "Leave message to SYSOP? (Y N)" And so you are Out. __________________________ Note: Press RETURN or ENTER for a list of current functions. Press ESC or Space bar to quit an action. Vocabulary: BBS = Bulletin Board System. SYSOP = Systems Operator. Log on = To enter the system. Log off = To exit the system. Password = Do not use short words. Do not use the name of your computer, your girlfriend, or your dog. If you want extra security, change your password once a month. Upload = Send data from you to the BBS. Download = Receive data from the BBS to you. Profile = Information about you. Your name, address, tlf number. BYE = (Goodbye!) to Log off or to end the call. SIG's = Special Interest Groups. _____________________ This should be enough information to get you started on the BBS. If you have problems or don't understand something, leave a note in the message section. Say which modem and terminal program you are using. The BBS is confusing to everyone when they first start. But it requires no technical or programming knowledge to use; you just have to learn a few basic principles. End of Chapter Eleven: BBS ====================== * * ====================== End of Your Second Manual to the ST ====================== * * ====================== * * * Copyright Note * * * This is the fourth version of this manual (250KB). Version 1 was 30KB, Version 2 = 60KB, Version 3 = 105 KB. Every six months or so, more is added, errors removed, information is updated. If you would like to recieve further updates of this manual, then become a registered user. To be a registered user, either join our UG (write for further details) or send a donation of 10 US dollars, 10 pounds, 30 Dm, or the equivalent to either Amnesty Interna- tional, any group helping Nicaraugua, South African Blacks or Palestinians. Send me a photocopy of your deposit slip and a blank disk; you will recieve the next version. Copyright information: All rights are mine, where those rights do not infringe on other rights. This text may not be sold, given, exchanged, or offered as part of a commercial exchange (I went to law school. I have two brothers who are ho. Cy.. 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Sn J@fN^NuNVH0&n $KA-H nf?./ N4\=n`L nf?./ N`\=n`. nf?./ Np\=n`-KBn?.NTJ@f`H| f |o@ H-@/./.?.?<@N 9@HHg0<`0,Hn/./<?.?<@N 9@H @g0<`tRnR -@`R ned` 6.ƼЃ$@ H-@/./.?.?<@N4 9@HHg0<`0,HnBlH0.L N^NuC22222222222C"C2?22222222?@2~@2@22222CA "22222222C2222222222222222C~A "22222222C^2222222222222222CJA^ "22222222C*222?222222?22_22222CA* "22222222C"2"2 2"2"2"22"2"2"22"2x9|)l)l)l|)lt)lx9|rCJA"A"A"A$"A*"A"A "NuTop of memory is %ldFree memory is %ld bytesGEM version number is %d.%dTOS %c%c base is %ld %s(ROM)(RAM)Drive(s): %sDrive seek rate is %d ms.Write verify %c is %sonoffhighmediumlowScreen resolution is %sVideo RAM starts at %ldKey click is %sonoffKey repeat is %sonoffKeyboard repeat rate is %dKeyboard delay %c is %dBell %c is %sonoffCapsLock is %sonoffDouble-click speed is %d Private Eye Mike Yocum, 1987 - Version 2.0 Private Eye@$??CON:AUX:PRT:%d BBb`SSBpNu 9b 0d b e@Nup<9b <0d<0<b<e//~ HGBGp ހޟ@Nua6jaJfaBJׇfaJy(k09gaf|gp|g9fB9ByPNu29Lx49XBA ~Fn,BA(~An ByA~AnyA~DNuAQJgS`anBaala"jra@Rz"`nKL8-TRDS@DDH^mmT6mSCHVNu<-XmМmTSFa0-mH.܇aNuAQJgS`29Lx49VBA*~EnBA~AnyA~AntyA~CndKL8-RRDSADDSBH^m4mSBHVa`a0.}ZS@2-Vm֒mRSAk2- IA 4`ۄ#2APg Q`a 9fNuNaaX9faNuLZaBHZataBna:LZLb@AL0Nu<9FDHj0Jo0 8<9FEIj2 Ko2 :aDJ9Sf SaNuaHtaALNuHtaALNu9rNuLba~kרH Private Eye - A Nosy Desk Accessory Version 2.0 Copyright Mike Yocum, 1987 (312) 469-4490 CIS 70375, 1255 GEnie Mike.Yocum Private Eye is a desk accessory that allows you to take a look inside the ST, in a manner of speaking. Some of the information it gives you is obvious, some of it not so obvious, and some may be a surprise. When I started to write "Private Eye," I had been looking over a copy of Atari's "Hitchhiker's Guide To The BIOS." I noted that there was ALOT you could learn about the ST by calling different BIOS, XBIOS, and GEMDOS routines, and by examining certain system variables (which reside from $400 - $4FF). After experimenting for awhile, I realized that others might be as "nosy" as me, and want to know more about their ST. WHAT IT DOES One of the hardest parts of writing "Private Eye" was not deciding what to include, but rather what to leave out! Here is a list of what I did end up including. There are four basic groups of information. System: Top of memory: where the ST thinks physical memory stops Free memory: how much free "working" memory is available GEM version number TOS base: where TOS starts in RAM or ROM Disk Drive: Drive(s): what drives are in use Drive seek rate Write verify: on or off Video: Screen resolution Video RAM: where it resides Keyboard and mouse: Key click: on or off Key repeat: on or off Key repeat rate: adjustable from 1 to 21 via the Control Panel Key delay - adjustable from 1 to 46 via the Control Panel Bell - on or off CapsLock - on or off Double click speed - of mouse buttons, from 0 to 4 After booting up with "Private Eye," installed as an .ACC file, and choosing it from the "Desk" menu, a window will pop up with all the information above given in it. Consider it a "snapshot" of system statistics, that were valid at the time you called it up. As your session with the ST continues and you run different programs, RAMdisks, etcetera, these parameters can change. This program is copyrighted, but free. Feel free to give it to whoever you like. If you find any bugs, or would like to see any changes made, please let me know. That's it! Enjoy your new desk accessory and "take a peek" at what's going on inside your ST. g XX\PJ9׉g^P~a7049V@2SA69XCA8*3DRCHaV~.a#.aACr$4WfEInN `Xa"<#a"a p`RXa"aa"#a"aG a p< ggQBJg .pWa LNu!"#$%&'()* ,+  r",^j 9grЁgd$9g #g rNu9n~Clr QffJ@fa&CRG| cNug`~!C$r Qa"ggJ@fa&CRG|*cNuf`GJgg`Jg  NuaBaAg  fB!aNuHAxgRD<zb <aetshot American lawyers. I will sue. Commercial copyright infringement is big money. If you hear of someone using this text in a commercial manner (selling, printing, etc), let me know so I can send a generous reward.) Copying of this file is permitted where such copying is free and between users. Public domain services may offer this document for distribution if they do not charge more than 4 dollars, 4 pounds, ten DMarks, or the equivalent in any national currency as a service fee only. 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Ne) e Helptext for Menu-Title 'Text' -----Load Text---- open... Loads a text file into a free buffer. replace Replaces current text with it's last saved version. merge... Merges a text file starting at pointer position.-----Save Text---- ... with backup Saves current text renaming previous file to '*.DUP'. ... without backup Saves current text overwriting previous file. ... as... Saves current text after entering a file name.-----Save Block--- ... as... Saves block region after entering a file name.------------------ Quit TEMPUS Leaves TEMPUS and returns to parent process. Helptext for Menu-Title 'Marks' -----Jump Mark---- Jumps to the specified mark if existing.  Mark >A<  Mark >B<  Mark >C<  Mark >D<  Mark >E<-------Set-------- Sets the specified mark at pointer position. ... Mark >A< ... Mark >B< ... Mark >C< ... Mark >D< ... Mark >E< Helptext for Menu-Title 'Search' Search string... Opens a requester for search parameters. Repeat search Repeats search with same parameters. Search & Replace... Opens a requester for search & replace parameters.----Jump position----  Line... Opens a requester for a line number.  Page... Opens a requester for a page number.  Top of text Jumps to top of text.  Bottom of text Jumps to bottom of text.  Top of block Jumps to top of block.  Bottom of block Jumps to bottom of block.  Last position Jumps to last position. Helptext for Menu-Title 'Block' ----Mark block--- Set beginning Defines the start of block at pointer position. Set end Defines the end of block at pointer position. Invert marks Inverts block marks. Clear marks Clears block marks.-Block operations-- Move block Moves defined block and it's marks. Copy block Copies defined block and it's marks. Clear block Clears defined block and it's marks. Helptext for Menu-Title 'Print' -------Print------- ... whole text Prints whole current text. ... Block region Prints block region.---Installations--- ... Use current Takes over the installation partameters defined in the current text into the installation buffer. ... Save to disk Saves the installation buffer as 'TEMPUS.INS' to disk. Helptext for Menu-Title 'Special' --------Tabs--------- Expand text Turns all tabs into spaces. Shrink text Turns all possible spaces into tabs.-------Fonts--------- ... Load 8*16... Loads 8*16 font from disk. ... Load 8*8... Loads 8*8 font from disk. ROM-font Switches to ROM-font.--Window positions--- ... Overlay Displays windows in maximum size on top of each other. ... Side by side Displays windows in maximum height next to each other. ... Underneath Displays windows in maximum size above each other.--------------------- Cross reference list Opens a requester for creating cross references. UPN calculator Brings up the UPN calculator window. Function keys... Opens a requester for the function key definition. Helptext for Menu-Title 'Mode' Insert mode Typed-in characters are inserted in text. Replace mode Current text is replaced by typed-in characters. Auto indent Automatic insert mode for program structuring.-----Font size------- ... 8*16 matrix Selects large font size. ... 8*8 matrix Selects small font size (only in monochrome mode).--Character mode----- ... inverted Inverts the current character display mode. Line length Set new line length (20-255). Page length Set new page length (1-999). Paging Set the offset which is add while paging through text. Tab width Set new tab width (1-99). Tab width 5 Sets tab width to 5. Tab width 8 Sets tab width to 8.[3][Useless system environment!][to Desktop][3][Unforeseen case!|Please send a detailed|description of how you|provoked this case to CCD.|Thank you!][Cancel][3][Tempus does not work|in lo-res!][to Desktop][1][Search failed!|Searched string not found|in defined region.][Cancel|Repeat][2][Unknown text file!|Text file named 12345678.123|does not exist!|Create new file?][ Yes |No][3][Out of memory!!|The selected command cannot|be executed due to lack of|memory.][Cancel][3][Line too long!!|The selected command cannot|be executed since the maximum|line length would be exceeded.][Cancel][1][The selected command is not|useful in the specified way|and is therefore canceled.][Cancel][3][Clear blocks cannot|be recovered!][Cancel|Clear][3][Sorry, not able to open any|additional windows.][Cancel][3][Uninstalled demo version!][ Ok ][3][Selected command not|implemented in present|demo version!][Cancel][3][Disk full!!!|Save terminated. Please insert|other disk and retry.][Cancel][2][Search & Replace selection| |Replace text at cursor?][Yes|No|Cancel][2][Line length problem!|Text has 123456 too long|lines due to new line length|( 123 char/line).|Do what?][Cut|Wrap|Cancel][1][123456 occurences replaced.][continue][1][Sorry, can't undo!][continue][1][Line 123456 restored!][continue][3][Check printer!][Repeat|Cancel][2][Terminate print?][No| Yes ][2][Quit TEMPUS?][ Yes |No][0][Disk Z: information|Size: 123456789 KBytes|Free: 123456789 KBytes|Used: 123456789 KBytes|1234 folders &1234 files.][continue]*.FNT.DUPnot usedtempus.insSave text as...Load font...IOp: Eliminate textIOp: Save text with backupIOp: Print textIOp: Move blockIOp: Clear blockIOp: Save block as...IOp: Print blockIOp: Open text...IOp: Merge text...IOp: Reeliminate textno icon operationsIOp: Move iconLoadSaveNew page length:New line length:To page:To line:[3][Syntax error!][Cancel][3][Number > 255 ($100) !][Cancel][3][Multiple definition!][Cancel][3][Installation too big!][Cancel]PREVIOUSTEXTNEXTTEXTENDLINEBEGINNINGLINEPREVIOUSPAGENEXTPAGE:=Cross reference list for  Total: 12345678DISK DRIVEPRINTERBLOCK REGIONTRASHCANBlock startBlock endText startText end>Alt F1<>Alt F2<>Alt F3<>Alt F4<>Alt F5<>Alt F6<>Alt F7<>Alt F8<>Alt F9<>Alt F10<>Sft F1<>Sft F2<>Sft F3<>Sft F4<>Sft F5<>Sft F6<>Sft F7<>Sft F8<>Sft F9<>Sft F10<>>F1<<>>F2<<>>F3<<>>F4<<>>F5<<>>F6<<>>F7<<>>F8<<>>F9<<>>F10<< Tempus Text editor version 1.02 3-29-1987-------------------------OKText informationText name Lines Length/Byt c/lnot used -- -- 160not used -- -- 160not used -- -- 160not used -- -- 160available space: Bytes One moment please... ...reorganizing text buffer.Name conflict!!!A text file with the same namealready exists on disk.Do what?ReplaceCancelAppendRenameText lines too long!!!Loaded text contains123456 too long lines;(maximum line length: 123456 characters.)Handle lines how?WrapCancelCutAdapt line length______999999__99New tab width:___X99Paging offset:___999Function key definitionAdditional key:SHIFTALTERNATEF1F2F3F4F5F6F7F8F9F10Short:_________XXXXXXXXXText:________________________________________________XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXDoneSearch string and replaceExistenzquantor: '_'?Allquantor: '_'*_____________________________________________________XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXSearch below string:X... and replace by followingDistinction caps/no caps:YesNoSearch region:Block regionChoice regionwhole textChoice region:Ending line:______999999Beginning line:______Search start:at cursorDirection:CancelSTARTQuantity:onceselectabletotal  Text Marks Search Block Print Special Mode Help TEMPUS...--------------------------Load Text------ open... replace merge...------Save Text------ ... with backup ... without backup ... as...------Save Block----- ... as...--------------------- Quit TEMPUS------Jump mark-------  Mark >A<  Mark >B<  Mark >C<  Mark >D<  Mark >E< ---------Set---------- ... Mark >A< ... Mark >B< ... Mark >C< ... Mark >D< ... Mark >E< Search string... Repeat search Search & replace...------Jump position------  Line...  Page...  Top of text  Bottom of text  Top of block  Bottom of block  Last position -----Mark block------ Set beginning Set end Invert marks Clear marks--Block operations--- Move block Copy block Clear block---------Print--------- ... whole text ... Block region-----Installations----- ... Use current ... Save to disk---------Tabs--------- Expand text Shrink text--------Fonts--------- ... Load 8*16... ... Load 8*8... ROM-font---Window positions--- ... Overlay ... Side by side ... Underneath---------------------- Cross reference list UPN calculator Function keys... Insert mode Replace mode Auto indent------Font size------- ... 8*16 matrix ... 8*8 matrix----Character mode---- ... inverted---------------------- Line length 160 Page length 72 Paging + 0 Tab width 8 Tab width 5 Tab width 8Cross reference listOutput at the end of text...Number of entries per line:___999CancelStart__________________________________________XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXPath:A:\A:\A:\A:\A:\A:\A:\ 12345678.123 12345678.123 12345678.123 12345678.123 12345678.123 12345678.123 12345678.123 12345678.123 12345678.123 12345678.123 12345678.123FilenameTimeDateFile length *.* File selection for*.**.TXT*.PAS*.DOC*.C*.BAS*.MOD*.ASM*.S*.HCancelFilename:________.___FFFFFFFFFFF+ DECANDHEXORBINXOROCTNOTNEGCLXENTERNEXT PAGEPREV PAGE LINELINE  WORDWORD RT SEARCHCLR LINELAST POSCLR BMARK       H$mI @``@ 0 ?8HWH* 0`@ ˀȀ8???????????????????????? ? @@  9 t % % 9 % % 9t@ ???>`*`*`*`*`*`*`*`*`*`*`*`*`*`|||<||t8(\H$WcPVӛPVc >  '@=Q0Q0Q0/# . !"^."Q! Q $ i5% p5&(v 0'Q1 (Q0! %Q0"%  $  % N' Ư$ P P > ȥ Ȫ Ȱ  ȷ ȿ " )  2 8 uP #" %1>Tf{ ɇ!ɝ "ɩ ɿ 0$/  %&'())*@+W,n-}.ʌ /ʛ #ʪ <1; 2ʹ3456 78"91:K;e 0 J=I >˙?˯@˿ABCDEFG H I < QKP"L(M@NQOdP|J̎aR`)S̡T̸UVWXYZ[6\D ]W ^h _ `͖ Qͨubt2 cͻdefghi!j8lGn^ k" pr m" rΆ o" sΚq"tή a  v|8 wȪ xȿ y zȰ {ȷ | u   '0 ç      $#  . ' 5  B.- +ϼ   U U U U  U  U  U      @ A Q Q Q  Q   Q  Q)  Q8  QG QV Qe Qt Ѓ  @ б@@ @  @+!* "Q#Q$Q %Q &Q'Q(Q )Q *Q Q,-. (  !2+ "!S W + C D E!  F&  [  _  -  8 9 A! B& b f * 4 5 6! 7& j  n  /  0  1  2!  3&  r   % ! v " z `CP    !     % <$ 0&2 '8  $, @L: Co: P: Hw , .  N26  "*( @  0$   @  J ." &F( h "B   \ h"$ d >j2 L$( p    6 >$  *   6  6  D|   J@ .  4 . T|.FN| 0.B\F*2 0v*d . H $ 4 >b482>,j6  L (   2^"d   0  *$  , 0 $& .f660>0    (   b >&  * . H>P* &*B""8@$*$L4.D * >S>> To see futher search strings, click on arrows!RAM diskStart ChapterAccessor68000 User Group Your Second Manual to the ST (Y2M) Version 4.0, April 1988 by Andreas Ramos 68000 User Group Aarhus, Denmark === * * === Chapter: 0. Introduction. 1. The Beginning. Computers in General. Definitions. 2. The ST Keyboard. Notes about the keyboard. Special functions. New keyboard layout. Fixing it. 3. The Mouse: a few notes. Feeding and cleaning your mouse. 4. Disks. Disks, TOS, drives, directories. Formatting, both standard and special. Copying. Recovering. 5. RAM disks. What it is. How to set one up. How to use it. 6. The Screen. Your Desktop. How to change it. Desktop.Inf and what it is. Icons (Russian and American) and what to do about them. Fixing things. 7. Accessories. How to load them. Different kinds. 8. Wordprocessing. General notes. Different kinds. Some tips and comments to 1stWord/Wordplus and Signum. 9. Magazines and books for the ST. What there is. All the different magazines. 10. PD's: Public Domain Disks. What they are. How to get them. 11. BBS: Bulletin Board Systems. What it is. How to get onto one. How to use it. =========================== * * =========================== Notes: The text was originally written in GST Wordplus format and then converted to ASCII format. It is placed on a disk along with the PD version of TEMPUS.PRG, the text editor. I choose TEMPUS because of it terrifically fast Search function. You can read about your specific topics simply by using it and F7, REPEAT SEARCH. The PD version of TEMPUS cannot save nor print. This normally occurs very fast. TEMPUS prints by sending directly to printer, either the whole text or the block: no silly "save to disk first". You may of course load the text from any other text editor / word processor. To print out the text in 1st Word / Wordplus format, use CON_WP: this converts the text to GST format. You can then set the correct page lenght settings, etc for your printer. It should be possible to print this text simply by choosing the PRINT FILE option from the desktop. If there is space, I'll add a list of relevant TEMPUS commands. ====== * * ====== Copyright Notice The entire document (parts, chapters, pages, illustrations, tables, etc.) is copyrighted by the author. None of it may be used, copied, distributed, or used in any commercial fashion without prior agreement. I give all ST users, user groups, and PD distributors the right to copy, distribute, and pass along copies of this document as long as such distribution is done in a non- commercial manner. User Groups and PD distributors may charge a reasonable distribution fee (5 pounds (or its equivalent) or more is NOT reasonable.) Andreas Ramos 68000 User Group of Aarhus Jaegergaardsgade 142.2 8000 Aarhus C Denmark / Scandinavia Contact me on BBS 06/109777 in Denmark. 24 hours. 2400/1200/300 Baud. =========================== * * =========================== Quick notes to TEMPUS TEXT EDITOR TEMPUS is a text editor. It deals with ASCII only. Although TEMPUS doesn't have the features of a wordprocessor (bold, underline, headers, paging, etc), writers will find it it is very useful for working with large blocks of plain text. There are a large number of key commands. F1 = Next page F2 = Last Page F3 = Start line, F4 = End of Line F5 = Begin of Word F6 = End of Word, F7 = Continue Search F8 = Delete line F9 = Last position F10 = Remove Block Using CONTROL +, Q = Cross check, E = Search/Replace, R = Top of Screen U = Undo P = Print, S = Save, D = Go to page __ L = Find, X = Quit L = Search M = 25 lines per screen. 1 to 5 = Set Mark. H = Hide Block B = Start Block K = End Block. N = Insert line C = Bottom of Text W = Save Block V = Move Block , = Windows Overlapping . = Windows Side x Side / = Windows over each other. Using ALTERNATE +, Q = Invert W = Save, E = Bottom of Text, R = Load Text, O = Font, J = Print, F = Edit F-Keys, X = Load Text, V = System Inf, L = Repeat Search N = Change Tab. 1 to 5 = Go to Mark To RETURN text, press SHIFT + RETURN. Press Shift + Delete to bring a line up. By pointing and double clicking with the right mouse button on any number on screen, TEMPUS will spring to that line number. This is useful for indexes and such. Search/Replace is very well done. You can place up to twenty strings of text in each and then scroll back and forth. Under DRUCKEN (Print), Option INSTALL, you can save these strings. The FKeys can also be edited for further strings. Use INSTALL to save. Cntl+M gives a carriage return symbol, so that the cursor moves down. INSTALLATIONEN (Sichern auf Disk) saves your setup to a file. This can/will be loaded each time. This saves all of your FKeys, search/find, search/replace. You can print, without exiting, either the entire file or just a block. From the desktop, simply drag the file icon to the printer to print. Use CON_WP (Public Domain program) to convert TEMPUS files to Wordplus format. 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Sn J@fN^NuNVH0&n $KA-H nf?./ N4\=n`L nf?./ N`\=n`. nf?./ Np\=n`-KBn?.NTJ@f`H| f |o@ H-@/./.?.?<@N 9@HHg0<`0,Hn/./<?.?<@N 9@H @g0<`tRnR -@`R ned` 6.ƼЃ$@ H-@/./.?.?<@N4 9@HHg0<`0,HnBlH0.L N^NuC22222222222C"C2?22222222?@2~@2@22222CA "22222222C2222222222222222C~A "22222222C^2222222222222222CJA^ "22222222C*222?222222?22_22222CA* "22222222C"2"2 2"2"2"22"2"2"22"2x9|)l)l)l|)lt)lx9|rCJA"A"A"A$"A*"A"A "NuTop of memory is %ldFree memory is %ld bytesGEM version number is %d.%dTOS %c%c base is %ld %s(ROM)(RAM)Drive(s): %sDrive seek rate is %d ms.Write verify %c is %sonoffhighmediumlowScreen resolution is %sVideo RAM starts at %ldKey click is %sonoffKey repeat is %sonoffKeyboard repeat rate is %dKeyboard delay %c is %dBell %c is %sonoffCapsLock is %sonoffDouble-click speed is %d Private Eye Mike Yocum, 1987 - Version 2.0 Private Eye@$??CON:AUX:PRT:%d  Private Eye - A Nosy Desk Accessory Version 2.0 Copyright Mike Yocum, 1987 (312) 469-4490 CIS 70375, 1255 GEnie Mike.Yocum Private Eye is a desk accessory that allows you to take a look inside the ST, in a manner of speaking. Some of the information it gives you is obvious, some of it not so obvious, and some may be a surprise. When I started to write "Private Eye," I had been looking over a copy of Atari's "Hitchhiker's Guide To The BIOS." I noted that there was ALOT you could learn about the ST by calling different BIOS, XBIOS, and GEMDOS routines, and by examining certain system variables (which reside from $400 - $4FF). After experimenting for awhile, I realized that others might be as "nosy" as me, and want to know more about their ST. WHAT IT DOES One of the hardest parts of writing "Private Eye" was not deciding what to include, but rather what to leave out! Here is a list of what I did end up including. There are four basic groups of information. System: Top of memory: where the ST thinks physical memory stops Free memory: how much free "working" memory is available GEM version number TOS base: where TOS starts in RAM or ROM Disk Drive: Drive(s): what drives are in use Drive seek rate Write verify: on or off Video: Screen resolution Video RAM: where it resides Keyboard and mouse: Key click: on or off Key repeat: on or off Key repeat rate: adjustable from 1 to 21 via the Control Panel Key delay - adjustable from 1 to 46 via the Control Panel Bell - on or off CapsLock - on or off Double click speed - of mouse buttons, from 0 to 4 After booting up with "Private Eye," installed as an .ACC file, and choosing it from the "Desk" menu, a window will pop up with all the information above given in it. Consider it a "snapshot" of system statistics, that were valid at the time you called it up. As your session with the ST continues and you run different programs, RAMdisks, etcetera, these parameters can change. This program is copyrighted, but free. Feel free to give it to whoever you like. If you find any bugs, or would like to see any changes made, please let me know. That's it! Enjoy your new desk accessory and "take a peek" at what's going on inside your ST. `NNqNqNqI* .E OBBB!<B*H$C! .HN"ACCXModula-2/ST (c) Copyright Modula 2 Software Ltd. 1985,1986,1987. (c) Copyright TDI Software Inc. 1985,1986,1987. NV?<"NN*-EN^NuNVI89n9n 9n 9n <I* "NB3Fj=yjN^NuN NVIB BBBBIG* (G* )EG$* )EGF* )E GV* )EGb* )EN^NNVU?< Bg?<BgBgNO =_N^NuNV3$(n* #VU?<4?<?<?<BgNO =_N^NuNV3$(n* #VU?<#?<?<?<BgNO =_N^NuNV#VU?<Bg?<?<BgNO 3jN^NuH猈 / *#(yz,yc(yz,(<yEb0(yz,yc(yz,(<yEc`N(3(yNSyJyg`N (yNL1NuNNVUN3lU?9l?< Hy NP3nBy3YN#(y#*<h)EIp* /N6X y(pf`NvU?<?<'Hy.NP3 yf,U:9RE??<"HyXNP:SE3N"U?9?<(Hy|NP3`hN^Nu Mouse Speed[2][Place your bets.][ Trigger | Speed ][2][Shoot that mouse!][ 0 | 1 | 2 ][2][How fast runs that rat?][ 1 | 2 | 3 ]*(