I/O Board
XL/XE-ONLY CARTRIDGES
The June 1988 Antic review of Atari's 12 New Entertainment Cartridges erred in claiming that all new cartridges work on any Atari 8-bit computer. Some current releases require XL/XE models––or a previous Atari upgraded to at least 64K memory.So far, the new generation of Atari game cartridges that need a minimum of 64K memory are: Flight Simulator II, Lode Runner, Hardball, One on One, Fight Night, David's Midnight Magic and the upcoming Food Fight.
WORDPERFECT HANGS IN
Despite any recent rumors, WordPerfect Corp. has not announced that we are withdrawing from the Atari market and have no current plans to do so. We do have some concerns about piracy, but they are not limited exclusively to the Atari market.
We have long held the philosophy that copy protection is an unacceptable solution to piracy problems. We believe that most people are honest and we feel that it is inappropriate to penalize them for the actions of the smaller group of dishonest people. I too have felt the frustration of having a copy-protected disk become "unreadable," not to mention the inconvenience to hard disk owners. The decision to make this a corporate policy was made several years ago when we were contemplating what to do about the IBM PC market.
Dan Lunt
Vice President, Marketing
WordPerfect Corporation
XMM801 V-GRAPH FIX
I recently subscribed to your magazine and just received your Best of Antic disk as a bonus–and I found a program I could use right away. V-Graph was just what I needed to complete a report.
The program isn't compatible with the Atari XMM80l printer, but the fix is easy. Change line 690 to:
690 FOR U=0 TO 39:? #3;CHR$(27);"V";CHR$(128);CHR$(l);
David Schoch
Scotia, NY
WRITE-IN WORKED
Thanks to Antic's "Write a letter to Springboard" campaign, I now own the Newsroom program and have made my first newsletter with it. Newsroom works fine with my Atari 130XE and the documentation is great. The program is very easy to use.
I certainly hope that Atari XL/XE owners will support this fine product. The entire package with the three Clip Art disks costs only $74.99 including shipping. It's well worth the money and will work with almost any dot-matrix printer.
Thanks to Antic, another fine software product is now available for the Atari 8-bit computer. Keep up the good work.
Frank Carey
Troy, MI
64K NEEDED
In the May 1988 Antic, the review of Guild of Thieves says that it requires 48K and a disk drive. This isn't true––it requires not only 64K, but an Atari 1050 disk drive or equivalent. Many titles from Mindscape and Datasoft also require 64K memory.
David Patnychuk
Greencastle, PA
AUTOTYPO UPGRADE
When typing in Antic programs, I use AutoTYPO (Antic, November 1986) so I don't have to look back and forth at the monitor to see if the TYPO codes match. It significantly reduces typing time. However, there is one minor flaw.
If, after entering the TYPO code, you type in a program line but forget the line number, no warning occurs, and you might finish typing in the program without ever realizing your mistake. This can be corrected if you add the following line:
32115 IF LINE$(1,l) < CHR$(49) OR LINE$(l,l) > CHR$(57) THEN SOUND 0,95,10,8: FOR X=1 TO 75:NEXT X:SOUND 0,0,0,0:B=0The TYPO code for that line is WV. Now, when you forget the line number, a pleasant tone alerts you to re-enter the line properly.
Gary Coppola
Budd Lake, NJ
PADDLE PRAISE
Recently I became acquainted with Baudville's Blazing Paddles (reviewed in Antic, January 1987) and Shapes and Fonts. They're truly amazing. With the help of Baudville employee Faye Vanden Berge, I've discovered so many things Blazing Paddles can do. I can't begin to give Blazing Paddles all the praise it deserves.
Faye Hanners
Linden, MI
RIBBON REVIVAL
Computer users sometimes find that their printers are no longer supported or the ribbons are either hard to find or too expensive to replace. Here's a quick and easy fix:
You can find inexpensive ink rollers at stores that sell calculators and typewriters. Purchase one that's the approximate width of your printer ribbon. Apply a little glue to the side of the ribbon cartridge where the ribbon passes through after passing the print head. Position the ink roller so that it just touches the ribbon as it returns to the cartridge. As the printer works, the ribbon runs over the ink roller and enters the cartridge where the ink soaks into it. By the time the ribbon leaves the other end of the cartridge, it has a fresh new covering of ink that continues to renew itself as long as the ink roller remains inked. On overused, dried-out ribbons this works better if you run the printer's self-test for one or two pages.
William Culver
Shickshinny, PA
RAM ON
When I bought AtariWriter Plus over a year ago, I was dismayed that I couldn't run it from a RAMdisk because the program always wanted the Mail Merge and Proofreader programs on drive 1. However, I booted MYDOS, and though my disk was already configured for a D8: RAMdisk, I set the RAMdisk to drive 1 with the Omniview 256K "Install 1" RAMdisk handler.
To my surprise, my physical Dl: and D2: were kicked up to D2: and D3:––I still don't know if this was done by Omniview or MYDOS. Then I copied all the AtariWriter Plus files (except DOS.SYS and DUPSYS) onto the RAMdisk and placed the AtariWriter Plus disk into my physical drive 1––now D2:. Then I ran AUTORUN.SYS from the RAMdisk. The program booted at lightning speed and made a quick check of the physical drive to verily the copy protection. Then it was ready to use.
Even more suprisingly, I found that while under the control of AtariWriter Plus, the two physical drives were treated as Dl: and D2:. but when I selected Proofreader or Mail Merge, they loaded instantly from the RAMdisk, and returned instantly when I selected the return option. The Proofreader needs to have the dictionary disk in the physical drive, so I would appreciate it if anyone could tell me how to use MYDOS (or any other DOS) to partition my Newell 256K XL into two RAMdisks so I can run the dictionary disk from RAM too.
John Kolak
Fort Polk, LA
BIO A+
I used MegAnimator (Antic, February 1988), Mr. Smoothy and Big Letters! (March 1988) and UlfraFont (August 1986) to create a project for my biology class. Using the VCR hookup instructions in Big Letters!, I brought in a videotaped show and got an A +, for which I think Antic deserves some credit.
Tim Kirby
Pittsburgh, PA
SOLAR ATARI
Our home is in a secluded National Wildlife Refuge area and we electrify it––including our 8-hit Atari system––with solar panels on a freon tracker. Two cannisters hold freon that travels from one to the other through a small tube. The sun's heat converts the freon from liquid to gas which rises to the higher cannister. Thus the tracker follows the sun across the sky, giving us the maximum power from our panels.
Our Heart Interface 1200X Inverter converts our 12 VDC to 110 VAC. This allows us to use our computer system as well as other 110VAC appliances. As long as the wattage of the appliance does not exceed the limit of the inverter and it is not something that must run for long periods of time, like a freezer, you can use anything you'd usually use in the home.
The big problem of this system is that we have to be very careful about what we use after sunset. Our battery bank holds about 840 amp hours of power. The less you drain them, the longer the batteries last, so we try to be careful and not use many 110VAC things in the evening, including our 130XE, Indus disk drive and Panasonic printer.
The meter box on one of our doors is our control center for all our power. It controls the changing of our batteries so they don't get overcharged (which can ruin them real fast!). It also serves as our fuse box, just like the one in an average house. Every line that runs to different parts of our house is fused as it goes to the box. The batteries are connected to the box also as our "power line." We can shut the whole system down or just shut off the house power, or the solar panels, or whatever.
Ron and Mary Kearns
Arizona
WEFAX OVERSEAS
I live in West Germany. Regarding Weather Maps from Space (Antic, September 1986), is it possible for me to receive WEFAX signals overseas?
Brandon Zanone
APO NY
Yes! Here are some books to help you find the signals. The New Weather Satellite Handbook by Dr. Ralph Taggart is the definitive text on WEFAX. It's available from the author for $12.50 (add $2 for orders outside the US.) Write: Dr. Ralph Taggart, 602 S. Jefferson, Mason, MI 48854. The Shortwave Facsimile Frequency Guide is available for $14.95 from: University Electronics Inc., 4555 Groves Road, Suite 13, Columbus, OH 43232.
The Weather Fax Guide is a free catalog from: Atlantic Surplus Sales, 3730 Nautilus Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11224. But a free leaflet called the Weather Satellite Fact Sheet is a "must-have": Radio Nederlands, P0. Box 222, Hilversum, The Netherlands–ANTIC ED
PRAISE I.C.
I recently installed a 128K upgrade from Innovative Concepts for my 65XE. I read about it in an ad in Antic, December 1987. I'm totally satisfied with the upgrade and IC's customer service. For the nominal price of $29.95 I received all the parts I needed as well as easy-to-follow instructions. My thanks to a company which backs up Atari products with quality upgrades.
Alex Tatistcheff
AFO NY
JUNGLE RULES!
My personal net worth at forced retirement from Entrepreneur Jungle (Antic, March 1988) was $110,322,048,793. I made my first $1 billion at year 32, my first $10 billion at year 34 and my first $50 billion at year 39. Only twice was I convicted of racketeering––all other times, I was acquitted. Maybe I'll try the real stock exchange. Imagine the Wall Street Journal headline, "Kid Stock Whiz Sweeps Market––Credits it all to Antic Magazine!"
Fred Beondo
STICK WRITER
We have two people here who are almost completely paralyzed after accidents, with minimal head and arm movement and no speech. Do you know of any Atari products that will help them communicate with other people? What we have in mind is a keyboard accessed by the joystick, allowing them to build sentences and activate a voice synthesizer or printer.
J.E. Lawton
Invercargill
Southland, New Zealand
Stick Writer (Antic, March 1986) is a joystick-driven word processor for the handicapped. It works with S.A.M. Handler (Antic, February 1985) to activate the S.A.M software speech synthesizer which was widely sold several years ago. In order to save time in this emergency situation, we have sent a disk with the two Antic programs to you in New Zealand.–ANTIC ED
QUICK B
Is there a way to use Compuserve "Quick B" protocol when downloading from ANTIC ONLINE?
Bob Loconto
CompuServe ID
73147,613
Not yet, we're still working on it–ANTIC ED
Antic welcomes your feedback, but we regret that the large volume of mail makes it impossible for the Editors to reply to everyone. Although we do respond to as much reader correspondence as time permits, our highest priority must be to publish I/O answers to questions that are meaningful to a substantial number of readers.
Send letters to: Antic I/O Board, 544 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107.