Well after a very profitable officer's meeting, the BIRTHDAY meeting set for August 18th is now planned and ready to roll! Here's what is on the agenda.
RAFFLE!
A raffle will be held near the end of
the meeting, the following items will
be on the block :
ATARI 800 with 48K
Donated by John Novotny
AUTODUEL by ORIGIN SYSTEMS
Donated by Lance Ringquist.
2 ATARI XM301 modems with BOBTERM
Purchased and Donated by SPACE
SPACE DOM
Donated by SPACE
Game Tournaments!!!!!
There will be two game tournaments held during the meeting, the winner of each will recieve a free DOM of his or her choice :
>>> BALLBLAZER <<<
and
>>> ARCHON <<<
For best results, BRING YOUR OWN STICK
FOOD!!!
CAKE, ICE CREAM, POP, and POTATOE CHIPS - All donated by the officers.
Hope to see you there!
Happy Computing
Nathan Block
SPACE will be selling some hardware at the August meeting. The following will be there :
800 With 48K
1050 Disk Drive
Power Supplies for 800 and 1050
DOS Manuals
TV Switch
2 I/O Cables
Basic Cartridge with Manual
All of the above for $75.00
400 with 48K
Basic Cartridge with Manual
Power Supply
TV Switch
I/O Cable
DOS with Manual
JoyStick
All of this for $25.00
2 - XM301 Modems
Supplied with BOBTERM
These modems are direct connect, you
won't need an Interface to use these!
The modems will be $20.00 each
Faith in action : Enthusiasm!
1. The meeting was called to order by Vice-President Ken Modeen at 7:42 P.M. President Nathan Block is on vacation.
2. The next SPACE meeting will be held on August 18th. The August meeting will be the celebration of SPACE'S Birthday and J. Novonty has donated an ATARI 800 to be given away in a Raffle.
3. Last meeting it was voted to buy an ATARI 800XL and 1050 DD from Mike Schmidt, the Newsletter Editor and he has delivered it for SPACE's use A check will be forthcomming to Mike for the ATARI 800XL and 1050.
4. Vice President/Sysop Ken Modeen reported that the BBS should be in working order now; the BBS was down a couple of times, complements of the electric power company.
5. A member reported that the Witchita ATARI Enthusiasts' librarian has suggested that we exchange info. A newsletter will be sent to them, along with other information. Maybe can share programs, etc.
6. Joe Danko reported that TRANSKEY is available on the DOM(info and order form) on the DOM. It is to be used to hook-up an IBM style keyboard to the ATARI systems. You can use the IBM style keyboard for input and functions.
7. The business meeting closed at 8:05 P.M. with Joe's demo of the DOM.
End of the minutes for July 13th, 1990 SPACE meeting.
As of 7-27-90 there was a balance of $507.00 in the SPACE treasury.
I thought it would be nice if we had a SPACE T-Shirt. I checked into the cost of having them silk-screened on white 50/50(50% cotton, 50% poly). For white T-Shirts it would be about $6.75 for a minimun of 18 shirts. For color T's, add .45 cents to that. This is a one color, full front printing. I've got a SPACE design (similar to that on the membership card) I'll be bringing to the meeting. We need a minimun of 18 orders to have them printed. You will have to pay at time of ordering at the meeting. It will be brougt up for the members to discuss at the meeting.
I've included in this newsletter a full size sample of the design. If you have any suggestions (good or bad), about the design, bring them up at the meeting.
Ever read the Computer Recreations column in Scientific American? It's editor, A.K. Dewdney, has started his own newsletter called Algorithm, it's subtitled The Personal Programming Newsletter. It's very interesting and challenging, for any level programmer. One little article in the current (July/August) issue led to this: a fractal circles program for those who hate to type in long programs. (Play around with different values of A, B, and S to see some very interesting pictures.)
10 Graphics 8+16: color 1 20 A=-10: b=7: S=0.1 30 FOR I=0 TO 319 40 FOR J=0 TO 191 50 X=A+I*S 60 Y=B+J*S 70 C=INT(X*X+Y*Y) 80 IF C/2=INT(C/2) THEN PLOT I,J 90 NEXT J: NEXT I 99 GOTO 99
The program only takes up about 400 bytes of RAM. How about having the club holding periodic contests, like anything under 1K RAM programs? or any kind of a program that does something in one line of BASIC. The club I was in in Indiana had a lot of fun like that.
The following article and program was posted on the BBS for the above.
The fractal program that was posted by Carl Miller is quite interesting! I find the VARIABLE S makes quite a significant change in the generated pattern (for values less than 1).
Anyway it seems he likes attaining complex solutions from simple and direct coding. So holding to that END I submit a change that allows the patterns to be saved to disk.
10 DIM S$(1): GRAPHICS 8+16 20 POKE 710,0: COLOR 1 30 A=-10: B=7: S=0.1 40 FOR I=0 TO 319 50 FOR J=0 TO 191 60 X=A+I*S 70 Y=B+J*S 80 C=INT(X*X+Y*Y) 90 IF C/2=INT(C/2) THEN PLOT I,J 100 NEXT J: NEXT I 110 A=PEEK(134)+PEEK(135)*256 120 B=PEEK(140)+PEEK(141)*256 130 S=(PEEK(88)+PEEK(89)*256)-B 140 POKE A+3,INT(S/256) 150 POKE A+2,S-(PEEK(A+3)*256) 160 POKE A+5,30:POKE A+7,30 170 OPEN #3,8,0,"D:FILENAME" 180 PRINT #3;S$:CLOSE #3 199 GOTO 199
Because each full screen display takes so long to create, it's worth while to save the finished pattern to disk each time you make changes to A, B, and c. Be sure to change the filename if you don't want to erase the last pattern saved!
Then again, if you have a good one, it would be nice to be able to get that data off the disk and back into shape on the display.
200 GRAPHICS 8+16:POKE 710,0
210 OPEN #3,4,0,"D:FILENAME"
220 POKE 882,7
230 POKE 884,PEEK(88)
240 POKE 885,PEEK(89)
250 POKE 888,0:POKE 889,30
260 X=USR(ADR("h"0LVd"))
270 CLOSE #3
299 GOTO 299
Note: 210-270 could have been used to save the file by changing line 220 to POKE 882,11! But now you have two methods of saving your pattern!
So Carl, check it out - isn't this entire program less than 1K of program space?
Our Co-Sysop added a nice little feature to my short and simple circles (more like diffraction gratings than fractals) program. Here's another modification. Change the line where A, B, and S are defined; make them variable. Such as: A=20*RND(0)-10 Same for B. Try, also S=.1*RND(0)-.05 Each time you run it, a new design.
Obviously not many of you are using Term 80, the 80 column software only term program sold on a SPACE DOM about a year ago. You don't know what you are missing! Anyway, after moving here to Michigan I had problems with it hanging when dialing. Well, I found the problem, it wasn't with Term 80, but with the BASIC program used to create the dialing lists. Term 80 knows it has reached the end of a number when it encounters a underscore "_". The BASIC program creates a phone number string exactly 11 characters long and pads the end of the number with underscores. The problem is if you enter a number in a different area code it takes 11 characters to do so - and the number doesn't end with the underscore. I fixed the problem easily by modifing my phone number file with a text editor and added an underscore. Everything is working great again! I also sent a note to Mark Gamber, the Author.
Here's another article by Jim Johnson.
Daisy-Dot III (DD3) is a collection of programs to give near typeset quality printing capabitities to your ATARI 8-bit computer equipped with graphics capable dot-matrix printer. Two of the programs allow you to create any typface in a variety of sizes upto almost an inch tall. You can either start from scratch, convert any ATARI 9 sector screen font, or modify any existing Daisy-Dot font. Both font programs are smooth and easy to use.
The major power of DD3 is the print processor. Earlier versions of Daisy- Dot required the user to create the text with a word processor, print the file to disk, re-load the printed file add Daisy-Dot commands, and finally process the file with the print processor. Although it was still a terific program, it might take several rounds to get the hard copy just how you wanted it. DD3 completely replaces the printing routines of your favorite word processor. It works with nearly any ATARI word processor. Simply type in your text with embedded DD3 commands, save the file, and process it with DD3's print processor. It will come out right the first time. DD3 takes care of all margins, headers, footers, multiple sized fonts, in fact everything! On top of this, quality of your hard copy will be near typeset quality. To be honest, it puts the type quality you see in this very newsletter to shame.
DD3 is not restricted to the Epson printers like its predecessor. It will work with most graphics capable dot- matrix printers, including ATARI's own XMM801. There's also special versions of the program available for SpartaDOS X users. Setting up a batch file with parameter passing allows SDX users to by-pass start-up menus and get right to work.
If you currently use Daisy-Dot II, there is one notable feature that has been dropped in DD3. The "include file verbatim" command is gone. This means you cannot use Billboard to insert pictures into your output. Since the new print processor has to keep track of page breaks, and it has no idea how large inserted files are, it cannot handle them.
I recently updated my wife's resume. Last time I used an IBM word processor and a $15,000 laser printer. TextPro, DD3 and my dot-matrix printer did every bit as good a job this time.
One of the extras of the 64/128K XL/XE computers is having RAM shadowed by the Operating System and BASIC ROM's. Although its use isn't always straight forward, it has provided us with such features as the TRANSLATOR (use old versions of OS) and small RAM disks. URI is still another attempt to get more bang out of our stock XL/XE's; namely putting the RAM shadowed by the BASIC ROM to use. There is a fairly easy and well documented way to switch BASIC on/off; however as you hackers can easily imagine, turning BASIC off while running a BASIC program can be big trouble. It can be done safely from a USR routine, as long as BASIC is turned back on before returning. Well, this is what URI is; a USR routine that switches BASIC off/on. But wait ROM face, there is more - URI is a front-end to other USR routines to give them access to RAM shadowed by BASIC ROM. In fact URI even allows the USR routines to reside in shadowed RAM (howecer, URI must itself remain in BASIC visible RAM).
So, if you now have a USR routine like u = USR(MOV,from,to,count), the call using URI would be U = USR(URI,MOV,from,to,count). Either call would be valid, except with URI, MOV could reside in shadowed RAM, and it could move data between BASIC visible RAM and Shadowed RAM. Some other benifits of using URI are: 1) you now have a large block of known addresses ($A000-BFFF) to put a non-relocatable USR routine, or a set of routines that can share subroutines; 2) U5R routines or data can remain resident in shadowed RAM, available if program is restarted or available to more than one program; 3) by putting USR routines and other data in shadowed RAM, you leave more BASIC visable RAM for bigger (can do more) BASIC programs.
Just to pass on a bit of USR trivia encountered while working on URI, check out this example. Assume a USR routine at address NOP that does the very minimum; i.e. PLA (get parameter count off stack) and RTS (return). Then the BASIC call U = USR(NOP) will return U = NOP. This is because BASIC sets up the USR routine address in the addresses assigned to pass back the value to the BASIC call parameter ($D4,D5). it also means the starting adress of a USR routine is available to that routine, URI is relocatable (it does not need a certian starting address), so URI uses its own starting address to calculate a return address into URI turn-on BASIC code. So doing U = USR(URI,NOP), will (a) U = NOP, or (b) U = URI? The correct answer is (a) Bart (don't have a cow!), because URI moves the address of the USR indirect routine to $D4,D5 before passing control to the USR indirect routine. This emphasizes how URI attempts to be transparent as it front-ends USR routines, in the spirit of glasnost, URI is being made available to SPACE brethern - watch for it on this months DOM.
The library will be offering software for sale as usual, at the meeting or via the US mail. All disks are $3 ea. If you can't makethe meeting, call Joe Danko at 777-9500 after 6 PM 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.
Side 1
SPACE DOM 000 TRANSKEYDOC 195 JUL_90side1 000 UNDRSCORTXT 012 DOS SYS 037 BASICMODCOM 003 DUP SYS 042 BASICMODHLP 002 ARS 001 AUTORUN SYS 003 HELLO 026 FINCAL1FCOM 159 STELLAR BAS 058 SLOGRO BAS 026 SUPRSORTCOM 015 SLOGRO DOC 021 SUPRSORTDOC 028 SLOGRO SRC 032 FINCAL DOC 022
STELLAR.BAS - A BASIC game that needs a joystick. This game was supplied by our president.
SUPRSORT.BAS and SUPRSORT.COM - SPARTDOS directory sorting utility.
FINCAL.DOC and FINCAL1F.COM - Menu driven multi-function financial calculation program.
TRANSKEY.DOC - All the lastest info concerning an adapter that allows the connection of an IBM style keyboard to ATARI 8-bit systems.
UNDRSCOR.TXT - How to modify some types of DOS to allow the use of special characters in file names.
SLOGRO files - Run SLOGRO.BAS. ATARI adaptation of a Scientific American mathematics article. (Editors note: see article by Carl Miller elsewere)
BASICMOD files - Use it as an autorun file with your BASIC. In the XL/XE it patches BASIC rev B to rev C, speeds up the cursor and automatically loads a BASIC program after a haltload if it is named 'hello'.
Side 2
SPACE DOM 000 WHIRLY COM 173 JULY 90B 000 GREMLINSCOM 200 DOS SYS 037 DUP COM 042 AUTORUN SYS 007 DUP SYS 007
WHIRLY.COM - The machine-language game WHIRLY-NERD. We got this from our own president and he swears it is public domain.
GREMLINS.COM - A game where you had better look out for the GREMLINS. This one is also from the president.
Other disks offered this month
ALTERNITY CITY - This is a interesting and addictive game. It is a lot like QIX or LIVEWIRE but with a more interesting and playable structure. If you have a 400 or 800 just boot side 1 and play. If you are using an XL/XE, you will need to boot side 2 first to load the translator, then flip disk and insert side 1, press select and play when ALTERNITY loads.
Side 1
SPACE DOM 000 URI M65 011 AUG90SIDE1 000 URI OBJ 001 *********** 000 URI BAS 006 DOS SYS 037 BOWLING BAS 064 DUP SYS 042 BOXIN BAS 030 AUTORUN SYS 003 WIZARD BAS 189 HELLO 026 CASINO BAS 065 URI DOC 023 GRIDRACEBAS 123 URI LST 016 HELP DOC ***
URI.* files - Submitted by J. Novonty, SPACE MEMBER and Assembly code afficianado, this is a unique BASIC tool to use with hard-to-handle USR routines. URI can allow large assembly code routine to be stored and accessed in the shadow RAM under the BASIC ROM in the XL/XE systems. There is a DOC file, binary object file, a MAC-65 assembly listing, MAC-65 SAVED file and a BASIC program I wrote that has the URI code converted to DATA statements for easy use with any BASIC program. The URI code can also be loaded by naming URI.OBJ to AUTORUN sys file. It will automatically load into PAGE 6 when the disk is booted with BASIC on. Read the DOC file for more details.
BOWLING.BAS, BOXIN.BAS, CASINO.BAS, GRIDRACE.BAS - A bunch of BASIC games from the SPACE BBS that I haven't seen before.
WIZARD.BAS - A text adventure game. If you have never played one of these before, you key in one or two word commands or abbreviations. E,W,N,S for directions to move. Enter commands such as I for inventory of objects carried, GET <object> to pick up what ever it is that is lying around, LOOK to see your surroundings. Other commands may exist and they will have to be guessed.
SIDE 2
SPACE DOM 000 DUP SYS 089 AUG90SIDE2 000 SLOTMACHAUT 178 *********** 000 HELLO 005 DOS SYS 042
SLOTMACH.AUT - ***** BOOT with option or NO BASIC ***** A one-armed bandit simulater game by Larry Serflatten, SPACE MEMBER and ATARI coding Wizard. The SLOT MACHINE has 4 reels. Push the joystick FIRE button to input your bet Pull the stick to start. A flashing button will appear below the left-most reel. Push fire to stop that reel and push the stick right to move to next reel. If you don't touch the stick the machine will eventually stop by itself P.S. The DOS on SIDE 2 is TOPDOS 1.5. It has some very interesting functions
Other Disks offered this month.
GGRAPH by Henry Conor, SPACE MEMBER. Henry has brought together a group of ATARI graphics software and built an interface to make it all user-friendly He has combined "G:", "V-GRAPH" and "VISIPLOT". Be sure to read the DOC's. SIDE 1 is the main, side 2 is a DEMO.
FONT FACTORY by Greg Howell
FONT FACTORY is a commercial quality
shareware font editor complete with a
group of prepared font files.
From the EDITOR:
Earlier in the newsletter I mentioned
I would includ a full size design for
a T-Shirt. I ran out of room, so below
is a very small version of it.
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.