I/O Board
DUE TO OVERWHELMING DEMAND...In our last issue (Antic, I/O Board, p. 10, April 1984) we indicated that we were planning to publish some disk drive reviews in the June issue. In order to cover disk drives appropriately, we've decided to postpone publication of the survey until August, and to make disk drives the theme of that issue Many of you are anxious to see the survey, and we tank you for your patience-we're doing our best to make it worth the wait. -ANTIC ED
A GAME FOR FOUR
I'm writing to request that you publish a multiple-player game. My wife and I enjoy games that we can play with our friends, and we often play against each other. Multipleplayer games allow the whole family to play at the same time.
Mike Lewis
Salt Lake City, UT
We thank you for your suggestion, and call your attention to "Tank Battle," the four player game in this issue Have fun with it! -ANTIC ED
ATR-8000
I'd like to know if it's possible to use a hard disk with the ATR-8000 CP/M expansion system for the Atari. I'm also interested in opening a CP/M-based bulletin board; do you know of any good CP/M bulletin-board programs?
Mike Widner
Toms River, NJ
The following response was provided by David Small:
Fred Helnis, Marketing Director for SWP (the makers of the ATR-8000), tells me that there is a BBS that bas been customizedfor the ATR-8000. It is called FORUM, and is available from Matt Singer, (301) 871-6131, 2405 E. Gate, Silver Springs, MD 20906 or call Fred at (817) 469-1181. I feel that you will enjoy a CP/M-based bulletin board program because of the rapid disk-response time and large storage sizes possible with the ATR.
While SWP does not offer a bard disk for the ATR, there has been considerable interest in bringing one up. There are a few independently designed bard disks currently running on ATR'S; however whether or not they will ever be marketed is another question.
TRACE TROUBLE
I've discovered an apparent bug in the Atari Assembler Editor cartridge that I haven't seen documented anywhere. If, when performing a Trace (note: name of function) in the debugger, a CPY instruction is encountered, this causes the trace to be aborted and control to be returned to the debugger. Sometimes the system crashes when this happens. Do you know anything about this?
Paul Mattia
Sterling, WA
We confirmed Paul's finding here at Antic. If y0u have any suggestions or comments about this, please send them to I/O Board. -ANTIC ED
ROLL CALL FOR ROBOTS
In your December and January issues, you carried articles on building a robot by Evan Rosen. The January issue referred to a Forth pulse routine, similar to the BASIC routine listed, that would be published in the forthcoming February issue. Yet when I looked for it, I couldn't find it! Are you planning to publish any more of Rosen's wonderful articles? What's the scoop?
Jerry D. Lumpkins and Christye L. Robley
New Orleans, LA
A number of readers have written with the same questions. As noted last month (Antic, HELP!, p. 12, April 1984), a combination of factors prevented us from continuing Evan Rosen's robot series in the February issue. However see "Talk to Your Robot" in this issue for more on robotics from Rosen.-ANTIC ED
ANTIC'S NEW SCHEDULE
In case you hadn't noticed, Antic did not publish a May issue this year! We didn't skip an issue, however! We simply moved up our cover date to facilitate distribution of the magazine As a result, this issue is reaching you several weeks earlier than usual.
This change will not affect your subscription or the number of issues published during 1984: There will be 12 issues in this volume, and all subscriptions will be adjusted automatically to reflect this change. You can expect to receive each future issue at least two weeks before its cover date. -ANTIC ED
CREDIT DUE
We were very happy to see the positive review of MovieMaker in your April issue. We use it extensively here at the Computer Arts Forum in our computer-graphics classes because it is an excellent product. However, as a point of clarification, Antic contacted us, not Interactive Picture Systems, regarding the production of the animated Xmas card (which was directed, produced, and coordinated by our facilities). IPS did contribute the "Merry Christmas" sequence to the Xmas card, and provided inestimable support during the project's development. It is our purpose to actively encourage the use of microcomputers in graphics production, and we appreciate the fact that Antic has taken such an innovative and supportive role in this process. Susan Bickford, Director
Computer Arts Forum,
Pratt Institute
New York City
ATARI'S WAY WITH WORDS
Thank you for your fine article "Atari and Epson" by Douglas MacKay (Antic, January 1984). Though I own an Epson MX-80, 1 usually use AtariWriter with my Dynax-15 for word processing. Luckily, with the help of Mr. MacKay's article and the Dynax instruction manual, a number of heretofore unavailable print functions are now at my command. Incidentally, I constantly read that the Atari is a poor word processing machine. Well, rubbish to that! I use my machine five hours a day for correspondence and managing forty-five employees. I couldn't find a better, more reliable machine.
Lynn W. Sabin
Camp Pendleton, CA
PRODUCING VIDEO TITLES
In response to E. Benchirnol's question in the March "HELP!" column, I've used my Atari 800 as a video titler on several occasions. To do this, write a BASIC program in Graphics 1, 2, or 3 that provides the desired titles. See the listing below for an example. When you're ready to record your titles, simply hook the switch box (CA010112) to the antenna input on the video tape recorder, instead of on the television. Then set the video tape recorder to record, and run the program.
10 REM TITLE SAMPLER 20 GRAPHICS 2 +16:FOR DELAY= 1 TO 1000:NEXT DELAY 30 POSITION 6,4:PRINT #6; "TITLES BY" 40 POSITION 3,6:PRINT #6; "JOHN SKOVMAND" 50 FOR DELAY= I TO 1000: NEXT DELAY 60 GRAPHICS 2+16 70 GOTO 70I've been reading Antic ever since I bought my Atari 800, and I look forward to every issue-keep up the good work.
John Skovmand
Ventura, CA
FREAKOUT
Here is a short "mood" program for your readers. We call it "FREAKOUT"
10 DIM A(18):GRAPHICS 18: POKE 756,4:FOR I=l TO 18 :READ X:A(I)=X: NEXT I 20 L=INT( RND(O) *18)+l : F0R REG=0 TO 3:FOR VOL=1 TO 7 : S0UND REG,A(L),12,VOL NEXT VOL: POKE 1024 + REG * 2, PEEK(53770) 30 FOR I=l TO 65:NEXT I: POKE 1025+REG*2,PEEK(53770):NEXT REG:POKE 708 PEEK(53770):POKE 712,PEEK( 53770):GOTO 20 40 DATA 243,217,193,182, 162,144,128,121,108,96,9 1,81,72,63,60,52,48,45Listing: FREAKIO.BAS Download
Clark and Mahlen Morris
Orinda, CA
THE ENGLISH CONNECTION
As England's major independent producer of software for the Atari computers, we find Antic to be an invaluable source of technical information which aids us in our development of games and utility software for the best home computers! Having now produced software for nearly two years, we are keen to set up a dialogue with American programmers, with a view to the exchange of technical information and programming aids. To this end, we would welcome correspondence to the address below. Keep up the good work!
Philip Morris
English Software
Box 43
Manchester M60
England, UK
A MESSAGE-DISPLAY PROGRAM
In answer to the question by E. Benchimol in your March "HELP!" column, my MESSAGE DISPLAY PROGRAM can create video titles as well as display messages over cable TV systems. It is currently used for both purposes by many schools, colleges and small cable operators. In the Philadelphia area, for example, five school systems use it over their educational access channels. In many cases, Atari computers have been running it 24 hours a day for almost two years. A good description of the program appeared in the March 1983 issue of Educational & Industrial Television Magazine, and we'd be happy to send a reprint to anyone interested in a copy.
Dennis J. Harkins
Harkins Associates
144 S. Litnekiln Pike #4
Chalfont, PA 18914
MORE ON THE XL
I enjoyed your February 1984 issue, and found your product reviews to be very helpful and fairly complete. But I was dismayed to find very little information regarding the Atari XL series computers. You referred to Antic Mode E (Graphics 7-5). On the XL series, this mode is built into BASIC as Graphics 15. I am sure that many new owners (and readers of your magazine) do not know that these are one and the same. Overall, you do a fine job of covering the Atari computers. In fact, I typed this letter on AtariWriter, which I bought after reading your review. Keep up the good work!
Kevin Crossman
Palo Alto, CA
You'll find a closer look at Atari's new XL line in this issue.-ANTIC ED
GEMINI 10X
Thank you for spotlighting our product, the Gemini 10X printer, in your
January 1984 issue. However, I must draw your attention to some errors.
First, the table of printer comparisons on page 55 states that the
Gemini has no buffer. In fact, the Gemini has an 816-byte buffer, which
is expandable to from 4K to 8K. Also, the description of the Gemini on
page 56 states that it is ". . . significantly slower than its rated 128
characters per second." The correct figure is 120 characters per second.
Eric J. van Hall
Product Manager
Star Micronics, Inc.
Thank you for the corrections, Mr. Hall. The Gemini 10X that you so graciously donated to ANTIC is one of our most often-used printers. It has functioned flawlessly for us. -ANTIC ED
DOUBLE TROUBLE
I use both the Make a Face printer interface (ANTIC, October 1983, page 53) and GTIA Sketchpad (ANTIC, December 1983, page 137). However, I'm having trouble using them together. How can I modify either program to get a printer dump of the GTIA Sketchpad screen?
Dave Carpenter
Pitcairn, PA
GITA Sketchpad wipes out the Make a Face machine code in Page Six, so the code must be relocated. The best solution, if you have an assembler, is to type in the source code on page 56 of the October issue, and reassemble at a different address. The only changes in the resulting object code will be the addresses for the JSR instructions in lines 650 and 13 70. We suggest that you find the start of screen memory for GTIA Sketchpad (33104 with 48K), and set the new origin about two hundred bytes back from this. Once you've reassembled the Make a Face routine, you can write a small BASIC program to POKE the routine into its new location, and POKE the new address into locations 795 and 796. For instance, if you set the new origin at 32900, you'd POKE 795,132 and POKE 796,128. -ANTIC ED