ML}  X c0C)HCCH Mhhݩh `eCDiCD`  RyHW   * 1H0芢@) Y0.Ș`i0p#(PMR\ \b Pgi 0  % @ / ՠ`d   0DDԝL/<0by David A. Paterson CardStax is back! This new revision improves the look, adds new features, and no}w includes an editor. CardStax is the first hypertext system for the Atari 8-bit computer. It lets you make your own s}tacks, with Print Shop (tm) icons, KoalaPad pictures, Pokey Player music and more."" H}ypertext is a buzzword in the computer world today. It's all about breaking away from the limits of traditional text. A boo}k is the opposite of hypertext: it has a set beginning and end, and has little user control - you read page one, then page tw }o, and so on until the end. Hypertext presents the reader with choices. After information has been presented, the reader ca }n choose where to go next; either fom a menu of choices or by moving a pointer on the screen and clicking on their choice. } CardStax gives you up to six of these links for each screen. Many cards will use fewer than six, but CardStax handles th }at.䛛 Once you've booted your CardStax disk (with BASIC), you'll see a menu offering three choices: } C ardStax E ditor for Cards A lter configuration These options are fairly self-explanitory. CardStax will} let you peruse any existing stack. The Editor will let you make your own cards and stacks. And the configuration file lets} you adjust colors, disk drives and pointing devices. Now let's look at them in more detail. The file C}ARDSTAX.CFG contains information on your setup. You can adjust it by selecting Alter configuration. This will let you do th}ree things: (1) change the default colors for the editor. (2) change the numbers of the disk drives connected. } (3) select a pointing device, either Mouse, Joystick or Touch Tablet. Whichever pointing device you choose, be sure th}at it's plugged into port #2. This is the heart of the whole setup. Upon starting CardStax, you'll see the }selection screen. There are four main areas. The first area is the list of stacks. This will display up to 6 stacks on} the current disk drive. Each stack has an 8 character name. To see a stack, move the pointer arrow onto the name and click}. The second area is to the right of the stack list. Once you've selected a stack, a brief description of the stack wil}l appear, along with two boxes: "Go on" and "Cancel". Clicking in the "Go on" box will start the stack; clicking anywhere el}se will cancel. The third area is at the bottom right - the printer box. Clicking here will turn the printer on or off }within the program. If you have an Epson or compatible printer hooked up and you select "Online", clicking in the very top l}eft corner of any display will cause it to be printed out. Note that printer interfaces hooked up through a joystick port wo}n't work. The final area is at the bottom right of the screen. This is how to change the disk drive that the program lo}oks at for stacks. Clicking on either arrow will advance the disk drive number. Once the number displayed is the drive you }wish to see, click on "Confirm". If you decide not to change drives, just click on cancel. The editor pac}kage consists of a set of programs, three to be precise. One converts Print Shop icons into .ART files for CardStax. It's t}aken from Page Editor ver 3.3, an excellent PD page design program. The second is the compiler. This program takes card }s which you make (with the editor, see below) and copies all the data files to your stack. The final program is the edi!}tor itself. This is menu-driven, and is intended to let you design your own cards, and hence stacks. A card is a scree"}n of information, which may include music. A stack is a collection of cards which are joined together by links. The editor #}program will let you design cards. Before designing cards, though, you should work out the relationship between cards. Know$}ing what goes where makes the actual design much easier. Before you can save a card, you have to create the stack. Thi%}s is done with the option "Alter current stack". Give your stack a name, and a brief description. The editor will save it t&}o disk, and then you can carry on. The first card that will be loaded when your stack is selected must have the same na'}me as the stack. That is to say, the first card loaded by the stack SAMPLE is the card SAMPLE. The first card of a stack na(}med ADVNTURE would be the card named ADVNTURE. The card compiler is very bare-bones. It will look at th)}e card in the stack you specify, see which data files are needed, and copy them to the stack. The terms SOURCE and DESTINATI*}ON drives might be a bit confusing. SOURCE is the drive that the data file is on; DESTINATION is the drive that the stack is+} on. Files copied can't be over 8k in length. Single drive copies are supported, but if (like me) you're using an XF551 fli,}pping from single to double density doesn't work.If you have any questions or bug reports, send them to me at:David A. P-}aterson4900 Doherty Ave.Montreal, QueH4V 2B2Email: D.PATERSON2 on GEnie d.paterson2@genie.geis.com on Internet P{CardStax 2.0 Technical DataNote: This is primarily intended as a reference; you don't need to understand this in order to u/}se CardStax.DOSCardStax is designed to use only MyDos 4.50. Any MyDos variants not using a 4 character file size field w0}ill not work. Other DOSes (ie Sparta, DosXL, SuperDos) will not function with CardStax.CardStax 2.0 has revised both card1}s and stacks, making it incompatible with CardStax v1.0.StacksA stack file has the extender .STK, and is found in the ma2}in directory. Each stack file consists of 6 lines, each ended with RETURN (ATASCII 155).These lines are:Lines 1,2,3 and 3}4: Stack description. ATASCII text, each line up to 17 characters.Line 5: stack sub-directory. 8 character ID for sub-dir4}ectory stack contents are found in.Line 6: first card name. 8 character filename of first card in stack.For simplicity, 5}the editor (v2.0) uses the same name for the stack sub-directory and first card.CardsCards are data files displayed by C6}ardStax. Card files have the exteneder .CRD. Each is card is made up of 3 parts, as follows:1) Header2) Link definitions7} and3) Card-specific data.HeaderThe header for a card is 12 bytes long. This header consists of:Name Offset #by8}tes Description---- ------ ------ -----------ID 0 2 ATASCII characters "CT"VerNum 2 1 V9}ersion number of card; 20 for 2.0Spare 3 1 Spare byteColors 4 5 Values for color registers :} 708-712Mode 9 1 Graphics mode for card Valid: 8,9,10,11,15ML Rout;}ine 10 2 Address to JSR to after loading card (lo,hi byte)LinksEach card has six links. <} Each link is 16 bytes long; the link field of a file consists of 96 bytes. Each link record consists of the following:Nam=}e Offset #bytes Description---- ------ ------ -----------X lo 0 1 These four entries defineX hi >} 1 1 the screen area of the link.Y lo 2 1 X values are 1/2 Gr.8 pixelY hi 3 1 values (?}0-160); Y values are Gr.8 pixel values (0-191)ML routine 4 2 Address to JSR to before @} loading next card.Clear? 6 1 "C" to clear screen before loading next cardA}, "X" otherwiseFilename 7 8 Name of card to load for link * load previous card B} + final card in stack = do not load another cardSpare 15 1 Spare byteDataC}All data used by CardStax must be in one of six formats. These formats are:Name Exteneder Type ID---- D} --------- -------Koala Pad .PIC P62 sector picture .GR8 GPrint Shop icon .ART AMachine languaE}ge .OBJ MText files .CTX TPokey Player music .V CNotes:- Koala Pad picture files will override cF}olor data in the card header.- Any 62 sector picture file may be used, in any mode, but the extender MUST be .GR8- Print G}Shop icons must be converted to .ART format; a conversion program is included. This program is taken from Page Editor 3.3, H}a PD page layout program.- Machine language files must be single segment files. The only protected area of memory is $2000I} to $24FF. Page six IS NOT FREE. Routines are accessed via the calls in the header or in links. These calls are via a PLA,J} JSR $addr; user written routines should not remove arguments from the stack.- Text files must follow a custom format, as eK}xplained below.Data within Card files is as follows, immediately after the Link definitions.Two bytes: TypeID, TypeID toL} identify type of DataOne byte: Data Type. Valid are: (F)ile - data is in external file. (I)nternal - data follows immedM}iately inside Card file.If Data Type is (F)ile, then the filename follows, ending with RETURN. Filename is up to 8 charactN}ers long, without extender.If TypeID is "A" (Print Shop icon) then following the filename will be 2 bytes: X offset and Y oO}ffset. X offset will be 0 to 39, the number of bytes from the left edge of the screen. Y offset will be 0 to 191, number ofP} screen lines from the top of the screen.Cards created with the card editor will have their text portion as Internal Data TQ}ype. Text for CardStax is dealt with on a line by line basis. A line of text is preceeded with 2 bytes: X Pos and Y Pos. TR}hese values are 0-39 for X Pos, and 0-23 for Y Pos. These are the equivalent of Graphics 0 locations. The remainder of the S}line should be the text to be printed, ending with RETURN . Text lines should not extend past the right edge of the screen, T}as this will result in a garbled display.If you have any questions or bug reports or... whatever, please forward them to mU}e.GEnie : D.PATERSON2Internet: d.paterson2@genie.geis.comDavid A. Paterson4900 Doherty AveMontreal, QuebecH4V 2B2m|This special demonstration stack is for MACAM Nov. '93 MACAMMACAMn4900 Doherty AveMontreal, QuebecH4V 2B2mPCT( FCCARD2 CCFSCIPIOPPFMACX}AM TTI  |CLICK ANYWHERE| | TO GO ON... |  CCFSCIPIOPPFMAC^CT( FO= PCCARDSTAX QCTHISMO CCFCALLIOPETTIZ}Welcome to the November 1993 edition of the MACAM Journal, the first HyperText edition. This display is being done [}by a program called CardStax v2.0, which I wrote. It's available from GEnie and CompuServe, and now from the MACA\}M  journal.  At various points in time, this  program will ask you to make choices.  To select one of the options, m]}ove the pointing arrow onto your choice and press the fire button.  | Clic^}k here to || Click here for | | learn more ||the rest of the | | about CardStax || 8-Bit Journal &| _} learn more ||the rest of the | | about CardStax || 8-Bit Journal &| %CT( FOCS2 CCFGLADAAFXE130a} TTI CardStax permits you to mix text, Print Shop icons, Koala Art pictures, 62 sector graphics files, machineb} language programs and even Pokey Player music for your displays. Unlike v1.0, CardStax v2.0 includes an editoc}r for cards, so you can design your own displays and stacks.   | Click anywhere to go on | d} our own displays and stacks.   | Click anywhere to go on | "CT( FCCS3 AAFCALC TT f}I You can even set up your displays to load over the existing display. You canuse this effect for quizzes, games or g}other special effects. As you can see, I've done that here, adding more text tothe display and changing the graphic h} on screen.  |Click anywhere| | to go on... |  lay and changing the graphic aCT( FCMACAM CCFLONDONAAFSIEj}STA TTIDon't go to sleep! Quick! Click anywhere to go back to the title card! CCFLONDONAAFSIE]CT(F0CROBOX 8\CHEARTS dCOTHER CENDSTACK O= CCFANVILTTITHl}E MACAM 8-BIT JOURNAL NOVEMBER 1993 As you can see, the new version of CardStax is the main feature this  month. m}The flip side of this disk  includes the FULL version, with the  editor and different input options.  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