========================================================================= INFO-ATARI16 Digest Fri, 8 Dec 89 Volume 89 : Issue 779 Today's Topics: Current Notes Magazine Day One with my new KXP4450 laser printer INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 #735 Let's bash something else now (not me, though) Mono Games?????? ST version of Mac Flow?? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Dec 89 02:30:43 GMT From: matthews@umd5.umd.edu (Mike Matthews) Subject: Current Notes Magazine Message-ID: <5758@umd5.umd.edu> [pre-note: I am not the author of the following message; I'm just passing it on... I'm also not sure how to post an original message on the net, so I'm just posting a follow-up with a new subject. -Mike Matthews] Note to Internet Users: This information is derived from that posted on the General Electric Information Exchange (GENie) Atari ST Roundtable. For further information contact the magazine at the address given below. Category 15 of the GENie ST Roundtable is devoted to things by and about Current Notes. Current Notes Magazine Your Monitor on the World of Atari In 1981 several Atari User groups in the Washington DC Metropolitan area banded together to produce a joint newsletter in the hope of realizing economies of scale in postage and production. Software reviews and other news of the Atari community soon became such an attractive feature of the magazine that it outgrew this original purpose. Readers all over the nation asked for copies and Atari dealers began to stock it in their stores. Today over 60 user groups in 29 states and Canada offer Current Notes to their members at special subscription rates and approximately 120 retail outlets from Alaska to Florida offer it to their Atari customers. The feature of the magazine that has made it so widely accepted is its orientation toward the consumer. Current Notes has a reputation for telling it like it is in software reviews. CN's reporters ferret out solid news to help Atari computer users understand events at home and around the world. Current Notes' regular stable of columnists like Dave Small and Andrzej Wrotniak bring readers the human side as well as the technical side of Atari computing. There are also special features for beginning users. Current Notes' disk library is one of the most comprehensive sources available for basic and advanced software titles. Special effort is put into making these programs usable by everyone. For the Current Notes contributor the magazine is a labor of love. It is our way of sharing the joy and the agony of Atari computing with everyone. GENie and Current Notes have now joined together to provide this Category in the ST Roundtable as a forum for letting others in the community contribute to our work. Letters to the editor are especially welcome. Give us your thoughts for issues that need to be addressed. Use GEMail to submit articles that you think might be worth publishing. Ask us questions. If you like what you see here and you want to see more of it you can become a subscriber. Check this message thread for the latest subscription information. Current Notes has always provided special support for user groups, particularly by providing discount subscription rates. Check with your user group to see if a discount is available for you. User group leaders whose clubs are not already registered with Current Notes may wish to explore this option. All correspondence regarding individual subscriptions, dealerships, or club registrations can be sent to our GEMail address, "JOE.WATERS" or through the US Postal Service to Current Notes Magazine 122 N. Johnson Rd Sterling, VA 22170. 703-450-4761 Upcoming features in our message threads and libraries will include lists of registered clubs, cumulative annual indexes, lists of Atari dealers, and other special publications. Look for announcements. Current Notes Subscription Rates as of 12 December 1989 1 yr 2 yr WAACE Club Member - Check with your club treasurer CN Registered Club Member $20 $38 Individual Subscriber $24 $42 Canada, 2nd Class Post. add $8 per year to above Foreign Surface Mail $39 Air Mail Canada/Mexico $42 Cent Am, Carib. $51 S. Am, N. Africa, Europe $61 Mid East, Africa, Australia $71 All orders prepaid, foreign orders by bank draft in $US payable on US bank. Current Notes Registered Clubs Atari User groups can become CN registered clubs by submitting subscription requests for six members or 10 percent of their membership whichever is less. Additional members subscribing can do so at the discounted rate given above. Submitting articles for Publication in Current Notes Magazine. Current Notes Magazine is published using Word Perfect text imported into Timeworks' Publisher ST. We use preselected style sheets for a uniform appearance throughout the magazine. Artwork can be accepted as .NEO, P??, IMG, or GEM files. If you wish to submit something that you have laid out yourself you must also submit the individual components. ARC your .WP files, the .DTP file, and any auxiliary files together into one module and use the XMODEM send option in GEMail to transmit the material. (InterNet users may be able to make other arrangements). Any decision regarding acceptance or rejection of such unsolicited material rests solely with the editors and publisher of the magazine. You will be notified when we receive your material and again when we make a final decision on acceptance or rejection. Note that no author in Current Notes receives payment for material that is published. There are occasional publication delays due to a backlog of material or because there are unresolved technical issues. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 89 17:48:00 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!mcdphx!hrc!force!covertr@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Richard E. Covert) Subject: Day One with my new KXP4450 laser printer Message-ID: <474e7b5f.14a1f@force.UUCP> TO GREG LINDAHL: PRESS 'n' NOW AND SAVE YOURSELF SOME GRIEF AS I AM GOING TO TALK MORE ABOUT MY NEW PANASONIC KXP445 LASER PRINTER, AND I KNOW THAT YOU DON'T WANT TO READ THIS MESSAGE. REC. Before Day One Or the Day of the Panasonic KX-P4450 I checked around and found a mail order company in San Jose CA that had both the Panasonic KX-P4450 laser printer and the 1 meg memory board for it in stock at a lower price than I could buy locally in Phoenix. So, on Monday Before Day One I ordered the KXP4450. I ordered it COD and had it routed to a friendly local Mail Boxes Etc USA store. I than eagerly awaited my new laser printer. Thursday, Day One Imagine my excitement when at 11:15 am on Thursday I got a call from Mail Boexes Etc. that my KXP4450 ad arrived. I rush over to pick it up during lunch. It came in two boxes, with the printer in one big box, and the paper trays and supplies in a smaller box. I open the small box and retrieve the Operating Instructions Manual, which I took back to work. Day One 5 P.M. I get off work and go home to play with the laser printer. The manual indicates that I have to install the Developer Drum, the Optical Drum ,and some toner. The manual is very clear, and the internal mechnical layout of the XKP4450 leaves no doubt as how to install the two drums. They simply slide in; very nice. The toner is poured from a bottle, with a nice little spout, into a reservoir on the top of the printer. The memory board is installed inside the top of the printer and requires a Phillips type screwdriver. The memory board uses the 256K SIMM DRAM chips. After fifteen minutes, I have the KXP4450 buttoned up and powered on. Before attaching the KXP4450 to my Mega I do a Status SelfCheck, which confirms that everything is operational. I than attach the printer thru a parallel port cable to the Mega ST. I set the printer to Epson emulation, and do a screen dump. Imagine my shock when nothing prints out. I wonder, is the parallel cable bad, is the parallel interface in the printer bad? So, I locate a text file, and PRINT it from the Desktop. I notice activity on the printer indicator, so I know that the printer is getting data. After about 30 seconds the mouse is active again and I start getting paper printed. And was it FAST. I printed 20 pages amost as quick as they could be layed down. Now, when I printed text with my SLM804, I could count between pages. With this printer, once the data reaches the printer and starts printing the pages are dumped noticably quicker than the SLM804. Other things I noticed once I got the KXP4450 is that it is slightly larger than my SLM804 so I need to rearrange my computer room. I may buy a different printer stand for it. But as the KXP4450 interfaces to my STs via a parallel port, I can use a Centronics A-B Switch box to allow both of my STs to print to the 4450. That is something that I couldn't do with my SLM. So, I shop for a new printer stand this weekend. Word Perfect is supposed to have a printer driver for the KXP4450, and has downloadable soft fonts for it. I am still investigating this. I may switch from MS WRITE to WP now that I have a printer that is supported by WP. The downloadable soft fonts would allow me to make text printouts from the desktop in various fonts as well. That is something I could only do with GDOS with the SLM804 laser printer. Hey, you can't download fonts to a laser printer which doesn't have a cpu and memory, right? So, what elese is there for me to learn about the 4450? Well, I used a program called FRONT&BACK to print out double sided text, and the 4450's builtin font isn't 66 line per page. Or soemthing, because we I tried to use F&B to print out a text file, the page breaks didn't agree with the printer. I need to check this. I also need to see about a good GDOS printer driver for the 4450. I need either a Panasonic KXP4450 driver or a LaserjetPlus driver. A 4450 driver that knows about the dual paper trays would be nice. Anyway, once I get a LJ+ GDOS printer driver I can use Manual Maker (by Craig Daymon on GEnie) and IMG CAT again. I need to reinstall Calamus and PageStream because would I last installed them I deleted all of the unnecessary (such as LJ+) printer drivers, and left only the SLM804 drivers on my hard disk. So, time to reinstall and then try them out. I also want to try out the 4450 in my Mac Spectre. I need to buy a LJ+ printer driver for my Spectre. Once I do that I can print at 300 dpi under Spectre. I am looking for a place to buy a program called Mac Flow. Mac Flow is a flow charting program which my friends tell me is great. With my new printer I can finally use some of these mac programs and still get great printouts. I am very excited about Spectre 128/Spectre GCR now that I can finally get decent printouts. And finally I need to see if pc ditto II ever comes out. I know that most MSDOS programs support the LJ+ printer, so I am in business with my 4450! All in all, my first evening, with all of the hints of the power and flexibility of my new printer, was very exciting. The fact that I can emulate both macs and pcs, and that now I can finally print in full laser quality, on both systems is very exciting. makes me want to keep my ST around for awhile longer! Now, if the TT were to come out, and Dave Small could emulate the Mac IIci on it with the new Mac IIci QuickDraw ROMs and the new Mac System 7 operating system and MultiFinder, maybe the TT could have a slight future. Imagine, the TT as a Mac IIci clone!! WOW! And if Jim Allen were to provide an accelerator for the TT, maybe bumping it up to 32 MHZ, we could have a killer Mac clone!! -- Richard E. Covert, Lead Engineer of Software Tools Group AG Communications Systems, Phoenix AZ (602) - 581-4652 TCP/IP: covertr@gtephx UUCP: ?ncar!noao!asuvax | uunet!zardoz!hrc | att?!gtephx!covertr ------------------------------ Date: 6 Dec 89 08:59:46 PST (Wednesday) From: "chaz_heritage.WGC1RX"@Xerox.COM Subject: INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 #735 Message-ID: <891208-195210-8734@Xerox> In his 01 Dec 89 04:38 PST Ralf Werner writes: >No disclaimer or cookie (they're often bigger than the message itself)< And he's right (I'm not sure what a cookie means in this context, though). I say this in the nicest way possible - could certain people please reconsider the relevance of their signature lines? Is it really necessary to post a Smart Ass One Liner followed by about 1K of signature, disclaimers, little drawings in ASCII, quotations from the unspeakable Douglas Adams (spit), and readings from the Articles of War? Ploughing through it all - particularly the same one several times in one INFO-ATARI16 Digest - can become a distinct pain in the exhaust port, besides the waste of bandwidth; in some cases the actual message (all hundred or so characters of it) is very hard to spot in amongst the embroidery, chromework and go-faster stripes. Younger Members will probably consider me somewhat old-fashioned in that I still (even after ten years of Thatcher) consider content to be more important than presentation. They are right. I am. It is. Thank you all. Regards, Chaz ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 89 15:18:26 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!mcdphx!hrc!force!covertr@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Richard E. Covert) Subject: Let's bash something else now (not me, though) Message-ID: <474df5a7.14a1f@force.UUCP> In article <1441@blackbird.afit.af.mil>, news@blackbird.afit.af.mil (News System Account) writes: > Let's lighten up on Rich Covert. It seems we seem to spend a lot of BW on > bashing him. I'm sure he has gotten whatever messages we have tried to send. > And even if you still think he deserves it, it's getting old. > > So, let's pick another target ... let's see we've done Atari, Rich, an > occasional Amiga user, IBM (let's keep up this one up), Ken B. (poor taste > on this one; bitting the hand that feeds you and all that, you know), > can't do Commies right now ... gee, I'm dry right now. > > Hey! Why don't we do something constructive. > > Naaaaah! > > :-) > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Bill Hodges | Me? People who speak for the Air Force get > bhodges@blackbird.afit.af.mil | paid a lot more than I do! I just work here. > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks Bill, but I have been trying to change things. First, since I was so unhappy with my SLM804 I sold it and bought a laser printer that I am happy with. This eliminates a lot of aggrevations in my life, with Spectre 128 (which I have ALWAYS loved, I just hated not having a printer for it!), and other stuff. I have also been elected Prez of the Phoenix Atari ST club, in which I hope to encourage other STers in Phoenix to join. A good friend is now Vice President. We are planning to have an Atari Rep visit soon, either this month or in January. We are planning to move (well I am anyway :-) ), and than start a membership drive. We are planning to incorporate as a non-profit organization in January. I will be having more fun using Spectre 128 now, and may even buy pc ditto II when it comes out. Jim Allen is waiting to see if pc ditto II works with his Turbo16 accelerator. I hope that pc ditto II works with the T16. I am returning my WERCs disk + $5 to Michtron for an update. WERCS is an excellent Resource Editor, but I bought an old version last year, which has since been updated by HiSoft (and distributed by Michtron). Thanks Michtron. I am returning my Calamus for the update to version 1.10, which should be out soon. I am still waiting for my PageStream 1.8, and need to write Softlogik a letter about that. My update check cleared my bank over a month ago, but I still haven't received my PgS 1.8. And I am writing a couple of new programs, one of which I hope to sell commerically. It is a utility similar to a Mac program that I saw. So, while I am still not happy with the specs of the TT, I am much more satisfied with my ST now that I changed laser printers. so, have fun out there and have a good holiday. -- Richard E. Covert, Lead Engineer of Software Tools Group AG Communications Systems, Phoenix AZ (602) - 581-4652 TCP/IP: covertr@gtephx UUCP: ?ncar!noao!asuvax | uunet!zardoz!hrc | att?!gtephx!covertr ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 89 01:51:11 GMT From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!xanth!xanth.cs.odu.edu!scott@ tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Scott Yelich) Subject: Mono Games?????? Message-ID: > Can anyone out there in net land give me a list of good PD games >that can run in monochrome? Oh, BTW, tell me where I can get them. Yes! and I am looking for a REAL old game... it is called ``Omega Race'' I really loved that game and I was wondering if there was anything like it for the Atari ST (mono preferred!) -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott D. Yelich scott@cs.odu.edu [128.82.8.1] After he pushed me off the cliff, he asked me, as I fell, ``Why'd you jump?'' ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 89 20:32:40 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!mcdphx!hrc!force!covertr@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Richard E. Covert) Subject: ST version of Mac Flow?? Message-ID: <474f0e9f.14a1f@force.UUCP> One program that I haven't seen for the ST that is available for the Mac is a good software flowcharting program. I have talked to a Mac friend who described Mac Flow to me. It is a true flowchart drawing program. You can bundle objects together, such as a decision diamond and its input and answer arrows, so that if you move the decision diamond, all of its arrows move with it. It would be nice if the flowcharting program could draw flowcharts from my C code as well. I know that there are MSDOS programs to do this. So, does anyone in Europe (Germany) know of a good ST flowcharting program? -- Richard E. Covert, Lead Engineer of Software Tools Group AG Communications Systems, Phoenix AZ (602) - 581-4652 TCP/IP: covertr@gtephx UUCP: ?ncar!noao!asuvax | uunet!zardoz!hrc | att?!gtephx!covertr ------------------------------ End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 Issue #779 *****************************************