_____________________________________ ZMAGAZINE Atari News and Information Issue #62 July 17, 1987 _____________________________________ Publisher/Editor: Ron Kovacs Assistant Publishers: Ken Kirchner Susan Perry _____________________________________ Xx ZMAG INDEX 62 <*> Zmag in copyright violation <*> Instructions for ARC usage <*> Zmag Newswire: * BBS Messages * <*> Zmag Atari News Update <*> Atari Fest Cancelled <*> Zmag System Review <*> Atari Fest Announcement <*> CompuServe Edit Commands <*> Disk Compacter Comparisons <*> Download Assistance _____________________________________ Xx NOTICE of COPYRIGHT VIOLATION _____________________________________ EasyPlex Date: 11-Jul-87 10:50 EDT From: Clayton Walnum (ANALOG) Subj: D.F.Scott article In your Z-Mag 59 you have an article authored by D.F.Scott. That article came from a past issue of ST-Log and is copyrighted by ANALOG Publishing. The BBS you got it from is also in violation of our copyrights. Please remove the article from the databases and anywhere else you've made it available. Though we allow our programs to be fairly freely distributed, we do not do the same with the magazine's text. We are, after all, in the business of selling magazines. Thanks for your attention to this matter. Clayton Walnum Technical Editor EasyPlex Date: 11-Jul-87 21:51 EDT From: Clayton Walnum (ANALOG) Reply to: D.F.Scott article Okay, print something about it in the next issue, and along with it, I'd appreciate it if you'd include a sort of "warning" to other BBS and newsletters that, just because we put some of the articles in the databases on Delphi, doesn't mean they should treat the material as if it were public domain. It's most definitely not. Keep up the good work. ---Clay ---==============--- Well, As you can all read we have violated a copyright of Analog Publications. The issue in violation is ZMAG59. I will re-edit that issue and remove the DF Scott article. If your system is carrying old issues of ZMAG, Please remove issue 59 from your database and look for the re-editted issue on the Zmag BBS and the information services. I must stress that if you send in any article to ZMAG, Please make sure it is not copyright any publication and it must have reprint approval. Please keep in mind part of the above message. That BBS systems carrying text from Analog Magazine are violating their copyright. _____________________________________ HOW TO USE ARC ANTIC PUBLISHING, COPYRIGHT 1987 ARC (For the 8-bit Atari) An ARC (pronounced "Ark") file contains one or more files which have been compressed into a single file. Use ARCX.COM to extract the files from the .ARC file. ARCX is a machine-language program which requires at least 48K. ARCX.COM may be downloaded from the Utilities section of the Atari 8-bit SIG (type GO ATARI8). HOW TO USE ARCX.COM Before running ARCX be sure you have removed all cartridges and BASIC is off. Now load ARCX.COM from DOS (use DOS menu choice "L"), or type ARCX if you are using Sparta or an OSS DOS. ARCX will ask you for the name of the ARC file to extract files from. (If you don't remember the filename, you can get a directory by pressing the [+] key.) After typing-in the name of the ARC file, ARCX will ask you for the drive to send the extracted files to. ARCX will extract all files from the ARC file and write them to the destination drive. Next, ARCX will ask you if you want the screen turned off. If you press 'Y', then the screen will be turned off during the extraction process. This will speed up the process about 10%-20%. ABOUT ARC The expansion algorithms used to extract ARC files are quite complex, and therefore rather slow. (About one minute for each 5K of source file.) ARCX uses all available memory and buffers the input and output so your disk drives won't be running all the time. Keep in mind that the extracted files can be more then twice the size of the original ARC file. Be sure you have enough room before you start! ARC was originally written in C by Tom Henderson of System Enhancement Associates. The source code was placed in the public domain allowing for ARC and ARCX to be ported to a wide variety of computers. For complete instructions, refer to the documentation files in the Utilities library of the Atari 8-Bit SIG. _____________________________________ Xx ZMAG NEWSWIRE _____________________________________ BBS NOTES MAY BE "CONFESSIONS"? Messages left on a computer bulletin board system may end up in court being called electronic "confessions" by police. Authorities have told The Associated Press that several Santa Clara County, Calif., teen-agers arrested on charges of using stolen credit- card numbers to order thousands of dollars of computer equipment left notes on a BBS after their apprehension. Sheriff's Deputy Curt Gomes told the wire service, "We don't need the confessions to prosecute, but they are icing on the cake. This shows an attitude that just hours after they were arrested, they seemed to think the crimes they committed are looked upon lightly by society. They are not concerned with retribution or legal punishments." San Jose police found the online messages earlier this week when a fourth teen-ager was arrested. A BBS operated in the youth's home contained messages in which, says AP, "two of the teen-agers arrested two weeks ago for theft gave their opinions of the officers who pursued them. Other users joined in the dialogue in a text police read after they seized two computers" 7/15/87. As reported earlier, two teen-agers were arrested last week after they were allegedly caught picking up stolen computer equipment at a Cupertino, Calif., house. A third teen surrendered the following day. The fourth youth, 18-year-old BBS sysop Christopher Michael Gothard of San Jose, was booked 7/15/87 on suspicion of illegally using telephone access codes and defrauding three long-distance telephone companies. --Charles Bowen CompuServe Online Today _____________________________________ Xx ZMAG ATARI NEWS UPDATE _____________________________________ The Mega ST and the SX212 modem are at the last step before arriving. We have received pre-production samples. These are the first units off the line with all the same components, packaging, and production techniques as the real thing. We get a small number of these to test and make sure there are no last-minute glitches. When we give the go-ahead, the next step is real production. The Atari PC is looking likely for later this Summer. The XEP-80 (for the 8-bits) is waiting on one part which turned out to have an incredibly long lead time on orders -- once we have the part we'll turn these around ASAP. The SLM804 Laser Printer is waiting on one final component also, as well as the final version of the software drivers that support it. New software from Atari includes the first titles in the Arrakis Advantage series of middle-school-level educational programs. There will be 17 in total, of which 4 have hit the stores already and the rest are in various stages of finalization. Shortly after the SX212 modem hits, we will release an add-on package for 8-bit owners which is to contain an SIO cable and the program SX EXPRESS by Keith Ledbetter, as well as the new handler file. Of course, SX212 owners with the 8-bits can also use it through the 850 interface using existing terminal programs set up for Hayes-compatible modems. The blitter chip is working and is in the pre-production Mega ST's mentioned above. The AMY chip is still in development, and may still see the light of day -- some day. AMY is a stubborn beast. Speaking of stubborn, Microsoft Write is also still in development. Nearly finished now, too, although a few small bugs remain to be expunged. SHOW NEWS: Atari made history by becoming the first computer manufacturer to exhibit at NAMM, the National Association of Music Merchants show in Chicago. The ST was present throughout the show in virtually every booth where there were MIDI instruments. Atari sales people at the show were beseiged by music dealers eager to sign up as Atari dealers. By the time this 4-day event was over, there were literally hundreds of dealer applications waiting to be approved. Before NAMM, Atari had 50 music stores as dealers -- it looks like there will be 250 when the new dealers are selected. In other news from NAMM, Keyboard magazine announced the results of its latest reader survey. The Atari ST computer has rocketed into the #1 slot in the vital "Intent-to-buy" category ahead of perennial leader Macintosh! The word in Atari HQ is "Today MIDI -- tomorrow, Desktop Publishing!" (C) Copyright 1987 by Atari Corporation, all rights reserved. For the exclusive use of GEnie members, no-charge bulletin boards, and Atari user groups. May be reprinted only with this notice intact. _____________________________________ Xx Atari Fest Cancelled _____________________________________ THIS IS A NOTICE THAT THE ATARIFEST, ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED FOR CHICAGO ON THE 25TH AND 26TH OF JULY, 1987, HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY CANCELLED. There were several reasons for doing this, but FIRST and FOREMOST, let me dispell three major rumors that have been spread about the 'Fest in Chicago. FIRST: The 'Fest in Chicago did NOT at ANY time have any problems with the unions. This is a rumor spread out of Michigan through a misunderstanding on their part, and has not at any time been true. SECOND: Last Spring, a Wisconsin group started rumors that the Chicago 'Fest was cancelled - at THAT time. WRONG! It may be now, but not previously. THIRD AND FOREMOST: ATARI DID NOT PULL THE PLUG ON THE CHICAGO FEST. The decision to pull the plug was made by the two Chicago area groups that did all of their work - Lake County Atari Computer Enthusiasts (LCACE), and the ChicagoLand Atari User's Group (CLAUG). It is my understanding from Neil Harris, that at least one downstate Illinois group has been spreading the 'Word' (read RUMOR) that Atari Corp. pulled the plug. Not true. Atari DID advise us that if the fest looked real shakey that it might be best to drop the show and reschedule, but it was our decision. This we chose to do. WHY THE 'FEST FAILED There are several reasons why the 'fest failed. We had planned the show to be held in a local Ramada Inn. Now, I don't know how much of a guarantee other groups in hotels had to give, but the best deal we could come up with was a 100 room per night guarantee plus a substantial fee for the 12700 sq. ft. hall. This IS high compared to other cities, but very reasonable around here. We went with this for several reasons. There were NO unions to consider. The Hotel was within a couple blocks of O'hare airport, and within a mile of several Interstate highways. Food and rooms were available on the premesis. To cover the expenses of the hall, booths, power, etc., we had to have a minimum of 30 vendors to pass the break-even point. As of 15 June, only 5 had bothered to commit with money - the rest gave a bunch of excuses about not scheduling budgets more than 30 days in advance, and the like. What these companies fail to realize is that we needed their downpayments in advance so we could cover our own expenses. What it finally came down to was that we were looking at a $6000.00 committment for the hotel alone, with only 5 vendors. Our phone calls and letters to the lagging companies failed to do any good - they wouldn't even send a downpayment. Last October when Sandi was in town, we were told that if we had trouble getting vendors to commit, that Atari would give them a push for us. In May, we went to Sandi, and were told then that she couldn't do that, and we were on our own. We found out too late from Neil Harris, that this was NOT the official Atari position. Secondly, The groups involved were spread out over too wide an area. In all, there were over 300 miles between the northernmost (Militari) and southernmost (BASE) groups with CLAUG, LCACE, SCAT, and RACC in between. Those of you who are thinking about organizing a fest, keep that in mind. It is impossible to keep in good contact over a large distance without running up extraordinarily large phone or gas bills. We also had a problem with meeting attendance. When the meetings were held after the Suburban Chicago (SCAT) meetings, almost all six groups attended (except Militari, who only attended two or three meetings through the whole course of events). When the meetings were unanimously scheduled after the CLAUG or LCACE meetings, SCAT, RACC, and Militari never showed up - even when there was no conflict with their own meetings - and these accounted for half of the committee meetings. You cannot communicate if you don't show up for the meetings. Bear in mind that all attending groups agreed on the next meeting dates and places before a time and place was definitely set. Lastly, if a group volunteers to perform a specific job, it is up to them to make sure it is done. In our case, Militari volunteered to copy and compile the packet for our second mailings. After they volunteered, we never heard from them again. The Suburban Chicago group volunteered to do the first and second mailings to vendors, and the mailing to dealers - in short, to fill the hall with exhibitors. They also volunteered to do all the printing and the ticket design to help fulfil the obligations of the Rockford group. The second vendor package mailings were eventually done by LCACE instead of Militari and SCAT,) and the printing was done by CLAUG and LCACE. To top it off, we found out on 6 June that the tickets had not even been designed yet - much less had any printed for pre-show sales (a VITAL part of our plan,) nor had they done any dealer mailings - after telling us for well over a month that it had all been taken care of. In view of the short time before we could no longer cancel, the lack of support from Sandi, absolutely NO advance ticket sales and the fact that we were hitting a stone wall with vendors (other than the 5 we had) we decided to cancel. We are currently thinking of completely re-organizing the committee with a rescheduled date next year, but nothing has been decided yet. If we do reschedule, you can bet there will be several MAJOR changes made from the first attempt. If you have any questions, comments, or (hopefully) suggestions, leave mail on GENIE to G.FEID, on CompuServe to number 74146,162, or on the 'Once In A BLUE MOON' BBS at 312-457-2219 - 24 hours a day, 300/1200 baud. _____________________________________ Xx ZMAG SYSTEM REVIEW _____________________________________    ÍÁÃÈ ÃÈÁÎÎÅÌ ¸ ÍÁÉΠÍÅÎÕ     Átascii/Ascii Îews Ârowse files Ïther BBS' Ãall Larry Ðolls Äownload Ñuickscan Åxperiments Òead E-mail Æeedback Óend E-mail Çoodbye Ôitle Page Èelp Files Õpload Éndex of Files Öentures Êust Trivia ×hat's New Ëartoons Ùour Stats Ìibrary Úmag Online Íembers List ªBoard List *_    Ìéâòáòù áîä Áòãèéöåó   _* Û±Ý RAM UPGRADES FOR XE'S Û²Ý P.C. PURSUIT SERVICE Û³Ý NEW ST IBM EMULATOR Û´Ý Call Waiting Fix!! ÛµÝ BBS Express! Ordering Info ½½½½½½½½½Í®Á®Ã®È® ÓÕ­ÂÏÁÒÄÓ½½½½½½½½½ Û±Ý Public Forum (All) Û²Ý The Sandbox (Request) Û³Ý Consumer Line (All) Û´Ý M.A.C.H. Homebase (Members) ÛµÝ Other BBS's (All) Û¶Ý *BITCH Board* (Users) Û·Ý Jokes and Riddles (Request) Û¸Ý $ For Sale $ (All) Û¹Ý Hot Downloads (All) ±°Ý Contributors (Special) ÚªÍÁÇ Ïîìéîå¡¡ Ùïõò ÍÁÃÈ Ãèáîîåì ¸ ãïîîåãôéïî ÷éôè ôèå ãïíðõôåò ÷ïòìä® _____________________________________ ZMAGAZINE Published Weekly Publisher/Editor--Ron Kovacs Assistant Publisher--Ken Kirchner Edited by Jim Lachance (MACH BBS) _____________________________________ Û±Ý Read Z*Mag Û²Ý Abort to Main Menu ZMAG INDEX 60 _1_ Zmag Newswire..Atari Update _2_ Newswire Cont..New product _3_ ICD Tour.......A visit inside _4_ CIS Watch......850 Interface Pins _5_ Zmag Review....QUBIE Modem _6_ Atari Answers..from CDAC Mag June _7_ Zmag UGOM......Ol Hackers _8_ Atari Rumors... _9_ Antic Online...June Faire Report _10_ Publishers Page Ùïõò Ãèïéãå¿[0]: _____________________________________ Xx ATARI FEST ANNOUNCEMENT _____________________________________ ANNOUNCING!!!!! The 1987 Magic-Atari Show August 28-30 at the Southfield Hilton Featuring: Seminars by: Neil Harris (Atari) Gorden Monnier (Michtron) David Small (Magic-Sac) Tim Purvis (Michtron) Frank Foster (Hybrid Arts) Also, a MIDI-Music concert, sponsored by Hybrid Arts, featuring professional musicians! PLUS!!! MIDI-MAZE, a multi-computer, multi- player maze game played on 16 Atari ST computers! First prize in this contest is a Casio keyboard, plus software (an $800 value!). TICKETS! Advanced tickets are available from local user groups, or you may order by mail. One-day pass $4 At the door $5 Three day pass $8 At the door $10 To order, send check to: The Atari Magic Show 28111 Imperial Drive Warren, MI 48093 For more information, call the HOTLINE at (313)751-8291 (recording) or call the UserGroup Coordinator (313)736-4544. _____________________________________ Xx COMPUSERVE HELP _____________________________________ QUICK REFERENCE LIST OF EDIT COMMANDS: By: Mike Shoenbach Atari SIG SysOp (note that the "$" indicates using ESCAPE instead of RETURN) /T$ will move the cursor to the Top of the file. /B$ will move the cursor to the Bottom of the file and display the bottom line. /Pn$ will Print "n" amount of lines beginning with the current line /n$ will move the cursor down through the file "n" amount of lines and will display only the "n"th line /L/unique string$ will Locate and display the line which contains the unique string /Dn$ will Delete "n" amount of lines beginning with the current line and display the first line left undeleted /R/new line$ will Change an unwanted old line to a specified new line and display the line /C/old string$ will remove the old string from the line display the line /n(GC/old string/new string/)$ will Globally Change the "n" occurances of an old string to a new string. If "n" is larger than the number of occurances, this message will be displayed: [STRING NOT FOUND] This is a normal message meaning that you've changed every occurance of the old string that was available. /W$ will tell you what your current line number is. _____________________________________ Xx Disk Compacter Comparisons _____________________________________ The following text is a comparison of a few popular disk compacting programs. This part of this weeks issue is in 80 column format. SAVINGS SAVINGS Program Sectors Bytes Time comp Time expand %sectors %bytes Object files 614 76433 00:00 00:00 - - Disk Com 2.2 586 73166 5:38 4:37 5 4 ShrinkXE 598 74714 4:39 2:26 3 2 Scrunch 3.0 583 72800 5:10 5:33 5 5 ARC 1.2 458 57165 11:50 12:37 34 34 *************************************************************************** Save Bas files 285 34912 00:00 00:00 - - Disk Comm 2.2 282 35288 3:26 2:10 1 -1 ShrinkXE 295 36807 2:55 1:10 -3 -5 Scrunch 3.0 286 35827 3:20 4:48 -0 -3 ARC 1.2 246 30719 6:47 5:51 16 14 -=====================- Text Files 662 82575 00:00 00:00 - - Disk Comm 2.2 669 83554 8:03 5:00 -1 -1 ShrinkXE 661 82537 4:58 2:39 0 0 Scrunch 3.0 655 81859 5:31 5:56 1 1 ARC 1.2 402 50189 11:23 13:08 65 65 _____________________________________ Xx Downloading Express ______________________________________Downloading 1030 EXPRESS using TSCOPE. You will need to download 2 files: XPRS21.BIN is the EXPRESS program. XPRESS.DOC is the DOC file. Warning: these are files. EXPRESS is 263 sectors! The DOC file is 170. Believe me, the connect time is well spent. I suggest you download the files late at night/early in the morning for maximum speed. Ready? OK, log on to CIS using TSCOPE. Go to DL2 and BRO XPRS21.BIN. At the (R D M) prompt, press D to download. If you've set your CIS DEFALT to VIDTEX, as noted in the TSCOPE docs, ignore the next paragraph. Otherwise.. You'll see a menu of 'transfer protocols'. Press 3 to select COMPUSERVE 'A' protocol. Next prompt asks you to type in the file name for your Atari. Make sure that you include the D: prefix! So you'll type in something like D1:EXPRESS.OBJ IMPORTANT! Make that you have enough space on your destination disk! See the file lengths above. NOTE: TSCOPE compatible with the XE RAMDISK, assuming you booted up with RAMDISK.COM Of course, IF you use D8:, you'll have to go to DOS after logging off (CONSOLE-CONTROL- ESCAPE) to copy the files from D8: to an external disk before you turn off the computer! Once you give TSCOPE the file name, the download proceeds automatically. Assuming there are no problems, it'll take around 30 minutes at 300 baud. Got it? NOW you need to also download the .DOC (instruction) file. Get back to the DL2! prompt and BRO XPRESS.DOC. Repeat the above 'D'ownload procedure (again, make SURE you have enough room on your disk.) Read the DOC file (you can do that in DOS 2 or 2.5 by using the C command to COPY the disk file to E: Make a 'hard copy' by using C to COPY the disk file to P:) and you're ready to go. As always, if you have questions or problems, ASK! >>don lebow 70717,720 _____________________________________ ZMAGAZINE July 18, 1987 Issue #62 Please contribute!! (c)1987 Ron Kovacs _____________________________________