The meeting on friday the 13th went very well!!! Although the turnout was a bit small, four new members joined and many new things were brought up for discussion. I really enjoyed the April meeting and hope the May meeting will be the sane.
Items of interest this month are as follows: the newsletter savings are finally kicking in, our treasury is operating quite comfortably for the moment. However, the MI0 costs are still hanging over us and when ICD does finally decide to ship it back to us, there will be more bills. What YOU can do to help is buy a DOM or renew your membership. SPACE does mail order DOMs for the usual $3 fee plus $1 to cover the shipping charges. the last couple of game DOMs, most notably ZYBEX and PHOBOS have been very good and are worth getting. The bottom line is this: SPACE needs DOM sales to meet budget, please help us out by buying a DOM!!
As the weather is telling us, summer is not far off and when summer turns on, computers tend to turn off. In the summer months, many avid computer fans I know don brilliant Hawaiian shirts with swimming trunks and head for the beach. This will mean smaller meetings and as a result smaller income for the club for the summer months. What would be nice is to have is to have a great big meeting before the summer so that we can take care of some club business And beef up the treasury a bit before the summer hits us. So, my proposal to you is to BE SURE AND MAKE THE MAY MEETING!! To add motivation, there will be a raffle with software as prizes. There will be some special DOM disks, some extra software demos, and if everything goes well, free gifts for all who come. Also, my offer still stands firm, if you bring another ATARI owner to the meeting and he/she joins, I mill award that person with magnetic media. Anyway, the May meet will be well worth your while, so plan on being there! A really big meeting just before summer would really be good for the club! Please plan to be there for the May meeting!
I guess that about wraps it up for this month! SPACE is here to serve the ATARI user, we can't function without you. Please give us a little of your and money so we can make your life with an ATARI a litter happier!
See you at the May Meeting!
by Nathan Block
1. The meeting was called to order by President Nathan Block at 7:30 pm.
2. The Membership Chair was replaced due to previous oversight. the new Membership Chair is Glenn Kirschenmann who can be reached at 786-4790.
3. The newsletter was out on time and many comments were voiced at the club meeting. Mike Schmidt (editor) asked for any input the members had about newsletter.
4. The Seattle Puget Sound Atari Computer Enthusiasts (wow, another SPACE!) Newsletter was shown at the meeting. Their ATARI newsletter is professionally done and is the work of several user groups banding together. It is said to be among the best ATARI publications in the US.
5. Ken(VP) mentioned the importance of joining the club so that it can continue to offer full support to the ATARI user.
6. Larry Serflaten is a programmer who is offering his games for sale on disk The price is $3 for an entire disk. Those interested can contact him at the meetings. Larry is a very good programmer, this was voiced by several people, including the president and vice-president.
7. The question of table selling was brought up again at the meetings and on the BBS. Nathan and Ken will be going over the by-laws and there will be a formal vote at the next meeting regarding this issue.
8. A member is looking for the poke location to cold-start his ATARI from DOS.
9. In the conference room, an 810 was successfuly fixed by our technician Rich Mier. If you have faulty ATARI equipment, he would be happy to look at it and give you advice at the meetings.
10. Another boot game was featured on DOM, PHOBOS is a shoot-em up similiar to CAVERNS OF MARS, but much more interesting.
11. The meeting closed with the demo of Larry's programs and the Disk of the Month.
May 1990 SPACE Disk of the Month
The library will be offering software for sale as usual, at the meeting or via the US Mail. All disks are $3 each If you can't make the meeting call Joe at 777-9500 after 6pm or mail your request to:
Joe Danko
2766 Chisholm Av. N.
N. St. Paul, Mn 55109
Mailed software will cost an extra $1 for each multiple of 3 disks or so.
Blank disks will be for sale at 30 cents ($0.30) each.
Disk of the Month - MAY
Side 1
SPACE DOM 000 MAY_1990__1 0 LOTT0HISENT 001 LOTTOHISDAT 001 LOTTINIT 004 LOTTPATT 009 LOTTCALC 020 LOTTHILODAT 001 BJAUTO BAS 134 VITALSINBAS 105 ACEDUCE BAS 024 BZ9 TXT 277
LOTTO Prediction Aid:
All files that start with "LOTT". Put
all of these files on a disk with DOS.
Rename LOTTORUN.ARS as AUTORUN.SYS.
Boot with BASIC, BASBOOTR will run and
get things started. This system was
designed for the Arizona lottery so
you mill have to adapt it for your own
use.
BJAUTO.BAS
A blackjack simulation that will let
you play or will run automatically.
VITALSIN.BAS
Simulation of human blood pressure,
respiration and blood oxygen level.
You get to choose exercise level and
air quality.
ACEDUCE.BAS
Simulation of the classic two-player
card game with user playing against
the computer.
BZ29.TXT
ATARI news in an electronic newsletter
BETAZINE #9.
Side 2
SPACE DOM 000 MAY_1990__2 000 DOS SYS 035 AUT0RUN SYS 027 PZMSLIDETXT 013 PRZMPIC1PZM 123 PRZMPIC2PZM 123 PRZMPIC3PZM 123 PRZMPIC4PZM 123
PRYZM SLIDE SHOW
The AUTORUN.SYS is the PZMSLIDE.COM
renamed. It uses a hybred mode 9 and
mode 11 technique to display up to 256
colors. The package includes five
picture files for demonstration of the
program. Once a picture is displayed,
press any key to get the next one.
Boot this side with no BASIC.
Other Software Newly Released:
1. SURF'S UP
A BOOT-DISK game. Boot with no basic.
You gussed it! This game is about
surfing.
2. DAISY-DOT III
The long awaited upgrade to DAISY-DOT
II. This set of programs will allow
printing text files using selectable
custom fonts, also BOLD and UNDERLINE
and many other nice features. DD III
prints raw saved text files. DD III
appears to be pure machine language
instead of Turbobasic which means it
can run with SPARTADOS.
The following Library news is for the prior two months. They were excluded from past newsletters due to the tranition of newsletter printing and editing, also the busy schedule of the Disk librarian.
It would seem the DISK LIBRARY is still at the mercy of your librarians personal and professional life. I just barely made it to the January meeting hot off the plane after yet another UNISYS school. Time this month has been short and the software has been complicated. If that is not enough, Carl Towberman, my loyal assistant, has decided to defect to the ranks of The FASCIST IBM CLONE WORSHIPERS with his new mini-tower 386SX/80 MB hard disk/VGA system. Once again I am on my own and dire need of someone not to far from North St. Paul to do disk copying. Label printing would be nice also. The best hardware/software to have is a 256k/312k upgraded XL/XE with US Doubler/1050 running SPARTADOS for high-speed copying.
Software remains a bit scarce right now but we are in luck that what has become available is of highest quality If anyone has public domain software that is not in the library we will trade disk-for-disk.
SPACE DISK of the MONTH
Feburary 1990
SIDE 1
SPACE DOM 000 SOFTBOOTCOM 008 02_90_____1 000 SNAPSHOTDOC 059 DOS SYS 037 ATLAM OBJ 073 DUP SYS 042 ATLAM DOC 063 AUTORUN SYS 001 PR SRC 013 MENU 035 BIGCHAR BAS 011 TETRIX COM 132 SPACTRISBAS 064 TETRIX DOC 035 LQUEST2 BAS 062 SNAPSHOTCOM 014 WORDHUNTBAS 023
TETRIX.COM, TETRIX.DOC
That's right, its a clone of TETRIS,
the popular game that is said to have
originated in Russia. This one is in
machine language and uses a joystick.
SNAPSHOT.COM,SOFTBOOT.COM,SNAPSHOT.DOC
Here is a really oddball utility for
you SCHIZOID types. These programs
allow an XL or XE with at least 256K
of memory to run two indenpendent
environments and switch between one in
and the other one out at any time with
a keypress. you can run a combination
of DOS's or self-booting programs.
ATLAM.OBJ,ATLAM.DOC,PR.SCR
Here is a complete 6502 machine
language assembler system that uses
labels and includes monitor/debugger.
BIGCHAR.BAS
A simple basic program by SPACE member
Glen Kirschenmann that displays each
keypress as a very large character on
the display along with a sound effect.
SPACTRIS.BAS
This tetris clone is so new that it
doesn't have a name, so i made one up.
It was written by Larry Serflarten in
response to my challange on the BBS.
It is written in BASIC and uses a
joystick.
LQUEST2.BAS
This is an upgrade to the BASIC phrase
guessing game, LQUEST, from an earlier
DOM. Glen Kirschenmann cleaned it up
and enhanced it.
WORDHUNT.BAS
This BASIC game solicits words from
the player and builds a word maze and
then fills the space left with random
letters. The player has to find all
the original words.
SIDE TWO is the ultimate version of TEXTPRO, A very powerful and unique text processing system.
TEXTPRO+ v4.54
This version configures itself for the
DOS in use so it is the only version
required now. The library will be
purged of all of the old versions.
TEXTPR0+ v4.54 will also support all
SPARTADOS X functions. This release is
the program, HELP system macros and
screens and basic information. First
time users and old TEXTPRO hands both
should be able to use it right away.
The disk side had built-in info files.
Also included is a powerful spelling
checker called Personal Spelling
Checker. This is a big improvement
over the unsatisfactory example on
previous disks. PSC is a single
integrated program instead of the
three seperate programs required by
the old one. For those users who
require more power and information for
TEXTPRO+ v4.54 the library has more
disks with full documantation and
collections of macros and support
files.
SPACE DISK of the MONTH
MARCH 1990
SIDE 1
FORTRESS.COM, FORTRESS.DOC
Another TETRIS-type falling shape game
but with a twist. This one has the
choice of three songs that you can
select while playing.
ADIR.com,ADIR.DOC
Displays DOS 2.X or PSHOP directories
from SPARTADOS X or disk SPARTADOS.
ALOGGAME.SWL,ALOGEDUC.SML,ALOGGRAF.SWL
ALOGPROG.SWL,ALOGDISK.SWL,AL0GMISC.SWL
Index of programs from ANALOG magazine
SIDE 2
TP454XJS.COM
TEXTPRO v 4.54 that uses expanded RAM
for two extra 15K-byte text buffers
that are keyboard selectable. There
can be three different files loaded at
the same time and text can be cut and
pasted between them. This disk has
MYDOS 4.50 configured for an 800XL
with 256K-bytes of memory. The extra
192K is setup as a 128K-byte RAMDISK
and the other 64K for the use of
TEXTPRO.
TP454XJS.COM
TEXTPRO v 4.54 that allows the BASIC
to be enabled with TEXTPRO loaded.
TEXTPRO DOCUMENTATION DISK
To go with the new version of TEXTPRO
The library is also offering a disk
with complete new DOCs. The disk is
completely full of TEXTPRO formatted
text files on both sides.
SPACE DISK of the MONTH
APRIL 1990
SIDE 1
SPACE DOM 000 DSKLIB31BAS 126 APR 90 2 000 PROGINDXM87 106 DOS SYS 037 PROGINDXM89 089 DUP SYS 042 PR0GINDXX01 012 AUTORUN SYS 001 PROGINDXM90 024 MENU 035 SPACEIDXXT1 059 HELP DOC 006
All of side 2 is devoted to the SPACE disk library index, when you BOOT with BASIC DSKLIB31.BAS will automatically run. I have fixed numerous bugs in the printing routines and it will print with the proper registration on 8.5 X 11 paper in two columns. The only bug known at this time occurs when a text file is written to disk during SEARCH function.
ADDITIONAL MISC. NEW RELEASES
SPACE LIB 000 AUTORUN SYS 147 TIRESIZE 000 TIRESIZECOM 147 BOOT NO BAS 000 LIB 099 DOS SYS 037 READ ME 062 DUP SYS 042
TIRESIZE is written in PASCAL and is started two ways. If it is BOOTED as it comes it runs under DOS 2.5 and must be the AUTORUN.SYS file provided and be included with the LIB file. If you can use SPARTADOS, execute the TIRESIZE.COM file with the LIB also.
We are also releasing a game provided by our PREZ, NATHAN. PHOBOS is a disk that BOOTS with no BASIC and requires a joystick.
Do you play with computer-generated art? If you'd like to enable your 8-bit machine to create some, I would recommend you get a copy of the Sept 1988 SPACE Disk of the Month (DOM). You'll find a great little program on this disk called PATTERNS.BAS. Brief details of how to use it are contained in a text file named PATTERNS.DOC. Frankly, the Circle and Hopalong options are not very spectacular, but the Mandelbrot option more than makes up for them. Please run this option using Turbo BASIC. Even at that, be prepared for plotting times in excess of four hours. If you use Atari BASIC, you'll have really long waits to see anything. (You don't have Turbo?? If you've got an XL or XE, get a copy from your friendly SPACE librarian. Those with a 400 or 800 machines will have to develop stoic patience because Turbo BASIC does not run on them). I reorganized the program a bit, and was able to chop an additional 12% off the Mandelbrot plotting time.
Besides the parameter values given in the doc file, try the following values for interesting patterns:
CORNER CORNER SIDE MAX (REAL) (IMAGINARY) LENGTH ITERATIONS -2.0 -2.0 4.0 20 -0.205 -1.105 0.002 24 -0.905 -0.276 0.01 36 -1.18 -0.27 0.03 60 -1.18 -0.27 0.01 60 -1.18 -0.27 0.003 60
I've only heard from one person about last(FEB?) month's article on HOPPER. Does anybody else have it or know where it came from? Would anyone like to swap interesting parameter values for HOPPER or PATTERNS? If you do, or would like to share modifications like my Mandlebrot speed-up, please write. (I can't always get to SPACE meetings)
Carl Miller
1444 w. Willow St.
Chippewa Falls, WI 54729
(From the EDITOR: the above article was sent to the P.O. BOX, but was not included in MARCH NEWSLETTER)
Published by the Saint Paul Atari Computer Enthusiasts (SPACE), an independent organization with no business affiliation with ATARI Corporation. Permission is granted to any similar organization with which SPACE exchanges newsletters to reprint material from this newsletter. We do however ask that credit be given to the authors and to SPACE. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of SPACE, the club officers, club members or ATARI Corporation.