Silicon Times Report "The Original Independent OnLine Magazine" (Since 1987) February 14, 1997 No.1307 Silicon Times Report International OnLine Magazine Post Office Box 6672 Jacksonville, Florida 32221-6155 R.F. Mariano, Editor STR Publishing, Inc. Voice: 1-904-292-9222 10am-5pm EST FAX: 904-268-2237 24hrs STReport WebSite http://www.streport.com STR Publishing's FTP Support Server 10gb - Back Issues - Patches - Support Files (Continually Under Construction) ftp.streport.com Anonymous Login ok - Use your Email Address as a Password STReport published with MS Office 97 & Adobe Acrobat Pro v3 Featuring a Full Service Web Site http://www.streport.com Voted TOP TEN Ultimate WebSite Join STReport's Subscriber List receive STR through Internet Toad Hall BBS 1-617-567-8642 02/14/97 STR 1307 The Original Independent OnLine Magazine! - CPU Industry Report - Counterfeit Wares! - Net Job Scams - Epson 4 Color Ships - Hayes OFFERS - ITC FINED $250k - Xfree86 Project - CompuServe Rated #1 - Informix SUES Oracle - UnAbashed Atariophile - People Talking - Classics & Gaming DIGITAL CAMERA MARKET BOOMS Ohio Lottery Admits Piracy UUNet, BOON or BOONDOGLE? STReport International OnLine Magazine Featuring Weekly "Accurate UP-TO-DATE News and Information" Current Events, Original Articles, Tips, Rumors, and Information Hardware - Software - Corporate - R & D - Imports STReport's BBS - The Bounty International BBS, invites all BBS systems, worldwide, to participate in the provision and distribution of STReport for their members. Please obtain the latest issue from either our Web Site or FTP Site. Enjoy the wonder and excitement of exchanging all types of useful information relative to all computer types, worldwide, through the use of the Internet. All computer enthusiasts, hobbyist or commercial, on all platforms and BBS systems are invited to participate. IMPORTANT NOTICE STReport, with its policy of not accepting any input relative to content from paid advertisers, has over the years developed the reputation of "saying it like it really is". When it comes to our editorials, product evaluations, reviews and over-views, we shall always keep our readers interests first and foremost. With the user in mind, STReport further pledges to maintain the reader confidence that has been developed over the years and to continue "living up to such". All we ask is that our readers make certain the manufacturers, publishers etc., know exactly where the information about their products appeared. In closing, we shall arduously endeavor to meet and further develop the high standards of straight forwardness our readers have come to expect in each and every issue. The Publisher, Staff & Editors STReport Tenth Anniversary 1987-1997 Florida Lotto - LottoMan v1.35 Results: 02/08/97: 3 of 6 numbers, no matches From the Editor's Desk... For the past year or so, I've been witness to a series of computer shows put on by what I can only call "A Bunch of Yahoos". Either someone's BLIND. or, the words "BUNDLED SOFTWARE, NOT FOR RESALE".. or, software with a price that's too good to be true.. applies only to the outer reaches of Southern Mongolia. What is going here? How are the "hemorrhoids of society" getting their hands Corel Office Perfect 7, Windows 95-OEMSR2, Adobe Photoshop 4, Adobe Pagemaker 6.5 and on and on.. Most, if not all of this stuff is counterfeit! The OemSR2 package we saw was an outdated, early version of OEM having file dates well before the RC candidate's true dates. Don't buy this stuff folks. it'll victimize you, your computer and the legitimate operators and support organizations all across the country. I would imagine that computerists who buy this stuff are just as much to blame, but one must stop and look at the temptation levels and then the obvious legit look to the software from the package to the CD itself have been faithfully copied. Its really up to all of us to make certain this sort of thing does not continue. If you find that a Computer Show, Flea Market etc. local to you, is allowing Boguus or, Bundled Software to be sold, please call the local FBI office. It is Piracy! Piracy at it's very worst. The FBI is highly interested in these nefarious practices. In reality, its putting the software outlets out of business and in the long run, its one of the major causes of the cost of software continually rising. One of my questions is how are these sleeze bags getting their greedy grips on the software to begin with? Obviously, someone, somewhere is licensed to receive the Bundles and bootlegging them out the back door or, a huge and very profitable counterfeiting group is happily rolling along. Bundled Software is provided to computer manufacturers, assemblers etc., to be installed on NEW computers and the software and documentation to be shipped with each machine its installed on. Obviously, its not. Please, if you see this sort of thing going on. Call the FBI. Must we watch many more than just Egghead being forced into Re-organization and perhaps extinction because of this type of Criminal Activity? Of Special Note: http://www.streport.com ftp.streport.com STReport is now ready to offer much more in the way of serving the Networks, Online Services and Internet's vast, fast growing site list and userbase. We now have our very own WEB/NewsGroup/FTP Site and although it is in its early stages of construction, do stop by and have a look see. Since We've received numerous requests to receive STReport from a wide variety of Internet addressees, we were compelled to put together an Internet distribution/mailing list for those who wished to receive STReport on a regular basis, the file is ZIPPED, then UUENCODED. Unfortunately, we've also received a number of opinions that the UUENCODING was a real pain to deal with. So, as of October 01, 1995, you'll be able to download STReport directly from our very own SERVER & WEB Site. While there, be sure to join our STR AutoMailer list. STReport's managing editors DEDICATED TO SERVING YOU! Ralph F. Mariano, Publisher - Editor Dana P. Jacobson, Editor, Current Affairs Section Editors PC Section Mac Section Shareware Listings R.F. Mariano Help Wanted Lloyd E. Pulley Classics & Gaming Kid's Computing Corner Dana P. Jacobson Frank Sereno STReport Staff Editors Michael R. Burkley Joseph Mirando Victor Mariano Allen Harkleroad Vincent P. O'Hara Glenwood Drake Contributing Correspondents Jason Sereno Jeremy Sereno Daniel Stidham David H. Mann Angelo Marasco Donna Lines Brian Boucher Ron Satchwill Leonard Worzala Please submit ALL letters, rebuttals, articles, reviews, etc., via E-Mail w/attachment to: Internet rmariano@streport.com STR FTP ftp.streport.com WebSite http://www.streport.com STReport Headline News LATE BREAKING INDUSTRY-WIDE NEWS Weekly Happenings in the Computer World Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson Sex Site May Have Hosted Scam From Montreal comes word the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are conducting a fraud investigation because of complaints of excessive phone charges that appeared after some computerists accessed a World Wide Web site run by a Dallas, Texas, firm. Millions of dollars may have been bilked from people who visited the Web site -- http://sexygirls.com -- and downloaded what was characterized online as "viewer" software need to see "adult" images. The Newsbytes computer news service quotes Cpl. Marc Gosselin of the Montreal RCMP Commercial Crime Section as alleging the site took money from Web surfers without their knowledge by redirecting online visitors' modems to a phone number to the southeastern European country of Moldova. "To look at the pictures at the site, they had to download what the content at the site called a 'viewer," says Newsbytes. "After the program was downloaded and installed, it secretly disconnected the user from their Internet service provider and dialed the phone number in Moldova -- all while de-activating the modem's speaker. From Moldova, the user's data link was rerouted to a company in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. The link then ended up at server at an unnamed company in Dallas, Texas." Gosselin said the result was phone charges for the unlucky user that ranged from $600 to $900 (Canadian). "In addition," says Newsbytes, "the Web surfer would not know about the charges until their phone bill was delivered, up to a month later.... Part of the reason the phone bills were so high is that the modem stayed connected to the server, even if the Web surfer thought they completely disconnected from the Internet. ... The only way to terminate the link was to either reboot or completely shut down the computer (meaning) if a computer user kept their computer on all night or all day long, the charges would keep mounting." Gosselin told the wire service that in Quebec alone, Bell Canada received more than 1,200 complaints about the site. Canadian authorities also sa the site kept itself a "secret" from the Net user. Gosselin said that while a disclaimer appeared on one page of the site much of the time, a person who went directly to the page where the viewer could be downloaded completely missed the disclaimer. And the fact that "the modem's speaker was turned off" shows an intent to deceive, he added. Gosselin told Newsbytes he would not reveal the name of the company because it has not yet been officially charged with any crime, but added the firm appears to know authorities are "onto them," because the disclaimer at the site changed several times. More recently, he said, the business seems to be spelling out online exactly what happened when the "viewer" was downloaded. More information on the RCMP's Commercial Crime Section can be found on the Web (http://www.durham.net/rcmpbow/commcrm.html). FTC Warns of Net Job Scams The Federal Trade Commission is warning all of us -- especially college graduates and out-of-work professionals -- to avoid Internet-promoted business opportunities that look too good to be true. Probably, they are. In a report called, "Fighting Consumer Fraud: The Challenge and the Campaign," the FTC says, "Thanks to personal computers, desktop publishing software and affordable video equipment, bogus sales pitches have the look of legitimacy and lure millions of consumers to take the bait." FTC officials told David Lawsky of the Reuter News Service business schemes are a big part of consumer fraud that costs Americans a reported $250 million a year. "And far more fraud likely goes unreported," says Lawsky. "Shady promoters aim at recent college graduates or out-of-work professionals, frequently promising job placement with Fortune 500 companies, the federal government or travel carriers such as cruise ships and airlines. ... Con artists retain processing or finder's fees they charge, it said. Or they use personal financial information to debit client bank accounts or use credit cards." The FTC, working with the FBI and postal inspectors, has brought seven actions against nine companies and 16 people who promised, falsely, to obtain jobs for consumers. "By the end of 1996 these efforts had produced more than $1 million in refunds for tens of thousands of consumers," said the agency, which has responsibility for consumer protection. The FTC warned those seeking jobs to: O Be suspicious of any promises to find them a job, especially if the company charges fees in advance or guarantees refunds. O Check with the corporate offices of any company listed in an advertisement to find out if the company is really hiring. O Watch out for firms promoting supposedly "undisclosed" federal government jobs, noting that all federal positions are announced to the public. CompuServe Vows Continued Fight On news that a commercial mass e-mailer will appeal a federal court-order ban, CompuServe has vowed to continue its fight against what it terms "junk e-mailing" and "spamming." As reported, a federal judge in Columbus, Ohio, has barred Cyber Promotions from sending unsolicited e-mail advertisements to CompuServe's 5 million subscribers. CompuServe sued Cyber Promotions last year, saying its host computers were bogged down with junk e-mail, and that subscribers were complaining about having to sift through their electronic mailboxes while the meter was running on their accounts. Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge James L. Graham wrote in a 32-page order, "CompuServe is entitled to restrict access to its private property," adding the order will remain in effect until the case is decided at trial or settled. Now Cyber Promotions indicates it intended to appeal that decision. On this issue, CompuServe general counsel Steve Heaton says in a statement from Columbus, "The court's decision has a broad impact as the first decision of its kind that says unauthorized mass junk e-mailing is illegal. This precedent is likely to be used by other (Internet service providers) to protect against intrusive and unwanted junk e-mail. CompuServe's goal was to see this through to a binding court decision to prevent not only this defendants spamming efforts, but those of others who would seek to exploit CompuServe and its subscribers." This week's ruling can be read on the Internet's World Wide Web (http://wsgrgate.wsgr.com/resour ces/intprop/briefs/compu.htm). Net Provider Fined $250,000 In a settlement with state states, Internet service provider IDT Corp. has agreed to supply refunds to consumers, pay a $250,000 fine and change its advertising pitch. Reporting from Lansing, Michigan, United Press International says the settlement follows charges of false advertising over dial-up charges and tech support leveled against IDT by attorneys general in Michigan, New York, Iowa, New Jersey, Tennessee and Texas. Michigan Attorney General Frank Kelley said in announcing the settlement, "Consumers must be vigilant to avoid rip-offs in cyberspace as well as service providers who don't deliver what the promise to business and consumers alike." New Jersey-based IDT was accused by the states of advertising "total" Internet access for $15 a month, but then charging $29 a month for a complete link with graphics. "Another come-on," says UPI, "was that access meant 'almost always a local call' even though many dial-ups were toll calls. And the attorneys General said IDT's 'free' technical support required a long-distance phone call." The agreement calls for IDT to refund customers who paid unexpected long distance charges for access or for long distance charges for phone calls to technical support, customer service or billing departments and those who were charged after canceling accounts. UPI says refund claims including payment proof and other documents must be mailed in 30 days to IDT Corp., 294 State St., Hackensack, New Jersey, 07601. Net Chain Letter Blasted as Hoax An Internet chain letter that talks of a 7-year-old girl dying of cancer is said to be a fraud. The American Cancer Society in Ohio has condemned the letter, which says corporate sponsors will donate money for each new person who receives the message. In Dublin, Harvey Schwartz, the state group's vice president of communications, told United Press the message apparently started on America Online and has spread beyond that online service. "The letter talks about Jessica Mydek, who is described as dying from an acute and very rare case of cerebral carcinoma," says UPI. "The letter says that as part of her dying wish, she wanted to start a chain letter to send the message to live life to the fullest and enjoy every moment." Schwartz told the wire service the letter also states the American Cancer Society and several other corporate sponsors have agreed to donate three cents toward continuing cancer research for every new person that gets forwarded the chain letter. However, as far as Schwartz's organization can determine, the story is completely unsubstantiated and no fundraising efforts are being made by the American Cancer Society in er name or by the use of chain letters. "We don't even know if she exists," he added. Meanwhile, Renee Deger of PC Week Online reports the e-mail claims to have begun as the sickbed wish of the Mydek child, adding the cancer society first learned of the electronic chain letter about two weeks ago when would-be donors began calling their local chapters. Add Deger, "The glaring clue that the rumor was most likely a hoax is the response-driven 3 cents donation, said Pamela Donovan, a lecturer at the City University of New York, who researches urban legends. Corporations and charitable organizations generally don't dole out donations in such a fashion, she said." Donovan said that what helps perpetuate such rumors is that sometimes they are true, in the case of localized collections to pay for an operation for a poor person, often a child, or someone with inadequate insurance benefits, said Donovan. She said the rumors spread so quickly because it's easy for people to participate. Ohio Lottery Admits Piracy Admitting its offices used computer programs without paying for them, Ohio's state lottery commission has confirmed it will pay the Software Publishing Association $187,000. Reporting from Columbus, Ohio, United Press International says that in September, a lottery employee informed the SPA about computer programs that had been copied and used without paying for them. Kathy Weiss, chief legal counsel for the lottery, says employees had been copying and using Borland, Corel and Software Publishing Co. programs, including word processing programs. Assistant Lottery Director David Griffin told the wire service the lottery commission has instituted several policies, including periodic audits, to make sure the problem doesn't recur. Also, the commission has hired a deputy director in charge of computer security and a software librarian, to ensure software is not copied. Boston Wants Bans on the Net Boston's City Council is being urged to add parental control on the Internet to keep kids from peeking at porn on city library computers when they are supposed to be surfing for homework help. A council meeting this week heard parents complain the students were looking at naked people they found on Internet sites. United Press International quotes City Councilor Maureen E. Feeney as saying she is asking the council to schedule a hearing to determine how students' access to sexually graphic materials can be limited. The wire service says police and councilors have received numerous complaints from concerned parents. One father told the meeting he is upset to learn his 11-year-old daughter and a group of other boys and girls were gathered around a terminal "to look at pictures of naked people." A spokesman for the Boston Public Library and its 26 branches, which have been equipped with Internet access for the past 18 years, said it's "nearly impossible" to use software to block out any particular information, adding that for every address blocked out, children "will find a half-dozn others." Library officials told the city the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia has ruled the government could not force libraries to censor materials on the Internet, because that would violate the First Amendment rights of children. Portable PC Users Zap Batteries Forty-one percent of portable PC users surveyed by Sherwood Research indicated dissatisfaction with present battery life, ranking it 1 or 2 on a scale ranging from 1 to 5, with 1 meaning "not at all satisfied." Seventy percent of those surveyed felt that their portable system's manufacturer exaggerated the projected life of the battery. "With current users most frequently reporting a battery life of 1.5 hours, it is not hard to understand the rationale behind their disappointment," says Nathan Nuttall, computer research director for the Wellesley, Massachusetts, market research firm. "Granted, features, power, and performance have dramatically improved, but the high cost of these improvements on the battery life of portable PCs is driving users to take note and complain." Battery life has become an important purchase criterion for users planning to acquire a new portable PC. Sherwood's research finds that 55 percent of those who are planning to buy a new portable PC within the next 12 months rank battery life a 4 or 5 on their list of purchase criteria, with 5 meaning "extremely important." In fact, 64 percent of these users are willing to pay a premium and accept a half-pound weight gain for a larger and heavier battery with an extra 30 minutes of life. But Nuttall advises portable PC manufacturers not to waste their time tossing in a spare battery to compensate for poor battery life. Over half of the users surveyed by Sherwood stated they have no desire or intention of carrying a spare battery around with them. "Battery life for the majority of the current crop of portables PCs is just plain poor," states Nuttall. "Users are sick of lugging around a spare battery to keep their portable PC alive through a presentation or plane fligh, especially when it is only a couple of hours long. Portable PC manufacturers and component suppliers need to start focusing on what fundamentally makes a portable PC system portable -- the battery. According to Nuttall, the problem will only intensify for portable PC manufacturers as the incorporation of power-hungry features, such as faster processors, larger displays and CD-ROM drives, continue to eat into battery life. And there is little prospect of a revolutionary battery technology appearing in the portable computing arena during 1997. Portable PC manufacturers need to begin demanding components, options, and applications from suppliers that draw less power and offer better power management abilities, concludes Nuttall. Vendors should be actively devoting resources toward the development of future battery technologies such as lithium-polymer1 and zinc-air, as well as toward the enhancement of lithium-ion technology, he notes. 'Phenomenal' Growth for DSP Market The market for digital signal processor (DSP) chips is booming, finds a Mountain View, California, market research firm. Frost & Sullivan says the DSP market grew a "phenomenal" 72.7 percent in 1995 to $1.73 billion. DSPs are high-speed chips that use complex algorithms to transform analog data into compressed digital data. The technology enables large amounts of data to be transferred between two points in real time. The wireless market continues to provide the largest opportunities in the DSP market, notes Frost & Sullivan. Cellular telephones, base stations, pagers, multimedia devices, and mobile modems all use DSPs in their designs. Three of the most significant challenges currently facing the DSP industry, according to Frost & Sullivan, are finding ways to integrate DSPs with other processors on a single chip, increasing processing efficiency by developing finer processing geometries and facilitating easier programming and debugging. Frost & Sullivan semiconductors analyst David Johnson says, "Companies like Texas Instruments, Lucent Technologies and Analog Devices have dedicated themselves to developing technologies for the digital revolution as primary business strategies. It can be expected that a number of companies will seek to integrate DSP cores, computational units or instruction sets in their devices in the near future." Digital Camera Market Booms New studies by the InfoTrends Research Group indicate that the worldwide digital camera market will more than double in 1997, spurred by new applications for digital cameras and lower prices. In 1997, the market for low-end digital cameras -- priced below $1,000 -- will reach close to a million units in North America, finds the Kansas City-based market researcher. The market in Japan will rival North America's and is expected to maintain an even higher growth rate during the next five years. InfoTrends' five-year outlook for North America shows digital cameras growig at almost 50 percent annually through the year 2001, reaching over 6 million units installed. Revenues resulting from sales of digital cameras and related products will top a billion dollars in 2001 alone. "The growth could even be higher," according to Kristy Holch, an InfoTrends principal. "There are many factors that could escalate sales beyond the forecast, such as the growing popularity of sharing pictures over the Internet. However, there are also significant barriers that should not be underestimated. Areas like user-friendliness, storage media standardization, affordable photo-quality color output and price/performance still need work." Business users will remain the primary market until 1998 or later, when consumer computer users will become the major force, finds InfoTrends. The mass consumer market, consisting of the 60 percent of households without a personal computer, will be much slower to develop, according to the researcher. Epson Ships Four-Color Printer Epson America says its new four-color ink-jet printer provides a better output quality than competing three-color models. The Torrance, California, company reports that its $229 Stylus Color 400 printer delivers 720 dot per inch (dpi) photo quality images and laser-quality black text output. The unit provides a maximum 4 pages per minute monochrome and 3 pages per minute color print speed. The product is bundled with Sierra Print Artist and Adobe PhotoDeluxe software. "Epson's customers are very savvy when it comes to image quality and they know that three-color printing simply isn't good enough any more," says David Flowers, Epson's entry- level ink jet product manager. RealVideo Prepares for Launch Progressive Networks -- the company that has given the Internet ears through its RealAudio software -- now wants to do something for the eye with RealVideo as well. The firm this week is announcing Time Warner, ABC, C-SPAN and others have agreed to use its new RealVideo software to send news clips, music videos and live sports event across the Internet, a deal business writer David E. Kalish of The Associated Press says "helps bring cyberspace closer to a full-fledged entertainment and information medium." Kalish says the software is billed as improving the image quality of the Internet's moving images, which after traveling through phone lines normally appear as jerky as turn-of-the-century silent movies. To view the video, people first download the free RealVideo software from the company's site on the Internet's World Wide Web (http://www.real.com), then choose from a menu of Web sites and point and click to the programming they want. "While many offerings, such as music videos, are free, others are not. ESPN, for example, charges $5 a month for access to its live sports events," Kalish says. "About 50 Web sites initially will use the video technology, with that number expected to double by the end of the month." With standard dial-up modem, RealVideo images still are choppy "though a bit smoother than other Internet fare," says AP, "but more powerful modems such as those used by many businesses deliver "full motion" or broadcast-quality images. The company also says its technology compresses digital information into a way that enables people to download images faster." Analyst Ron Rappaport of Zona Research in San Francisco told the wire service Progressive Network's success as the dominant supplier of software for listening to audio on the Internet may help its foothold in the video arena. PN estimates between 150,000 and 180,000 people a day listen to music and other sounds through its Internet technology. Breakthrough May Speed Computers Scientists say they have found a way to quadruple performance of today's microprocessor chips, which could speed up many computer functions. Though still in the test stage, the improvement, announced by Plasma & Materials Technologies Inc., "tackles a growing challenge faced by chip makers as they cram more and more transistors onto each microprocessor," says business writer David E. Kalish of The Associated Press, namely, "Keeping its signals from getting crossed." Of course, a chip's ability to carry signals four times more efficiently would enable computers to perform calculations in one-fourth the time it now takes and could allow manufacturers to fit more transistors onto each chip, a growing hurdle to building more and more powerful computers. The Chatsworth, California-based Plasma & Materials Technologies, which sells manufactring equipment to chip makers, said several customers are testing the new method and, if found to be reliable, will use it for mass production in 1998. "It would be used for producing microprocessors as well as memory chips with improved capacity for storing computer information," Kalish added. Specifically, the company says it has developed a better way to apply insulation material between the millions of tiny wires that connect a chip's transistors, dramatically reducing interference between the signals they carry. "Chip makers typically use gases containing silicon dioxide to create the insulation. The gas later hardens on the chip during a heating process," says AP. "But the method developed by Plasma & Materials Technologies over the past four years, dubbed 'Flowfill,' applies the insulation in a liquid state and adds a tiny amount of carbon to the mix -- giving properties to the insulation that reduce interference between wires." The insulation's "dielectric constant" -- a measure of its effectiveness - is below 2.0, the company says, noting that is considered far less than constants of about 3.5 for today's most efficient insulation. Apple Completes NeXT Inc. Buyout The $400 million acquisition of NeXT Software Inc. by Apple Computer Inc. has been completed. As reported earlier, NeXT Chairman/CEO Steve Jobs now will serve as an advisor to Apple Chairman Gilbert Amelio. Apple has announced NeXT technology will be incorporated in Apple's plans to update its operating system. The Reuter News Service notes the Mac operating system will continue to be upgraded in regular biannual releases, while NeXT technology will form the basis for Apple's next-generation operating system, Rhapsody. Apple officials told the wire service they believe the advanced technical underpinnings and rapid development environment of Rhapsody will allow developers to create new applications that leapfrog those of other "modern" operating systems, such as Windows NT. Reuters expects the first release of Rhapsody to be launhed to developers in mid to late 1997 and to customers within 12 months, adding, "A unified Rhapsody release is expected to be in the hands of customers by mid-1998. This will include compatibility with existing Mac operating system applications, as well as provide a platform for next-generation computing." Online Access Sold, Folds CMP Media Inc.'s NetGuide Magazine has acquired Online Access, the computer industry's first Internet publication. NetGuide will incorporate Online Access' paid subscriber base into its own starting with its April issue. Launched in 1986, Online Access had a total circulation of 110,000 and was published by Chicago-based Red Flash Internet Inc. The deal's term's weren't disclosed. "Online Access was the industry pioneer," says Beth Haggerty, publishing director for CMP's Internet media division, which includes NetGuide Live and NetGuide Magazine. "We're sure this venerable reader base is going to enjoy the depth and breadth of NetGuide. We look forward to sending them their first issue. The acquisition of Online Access represents another in a series of circulation boosts for NetGuide Magazine, which debuted in December 1994 with a circulation of 200,000. The magazine has since increased its circulation by 63 percent, including a 32.2 percent hike in 1996. Informix Sues Rival Oracle Claiming theft of trade secrets, Informix Software Inc. has sued its arch-rival Oracle Corp. and 11 software engineers who left Informix, alleging the engineers enriched themselves by misusing proprietary Informix information. For its part, Oracle claims the employees quit the Portland, Oregon, office of Informix because they were disenchanted with top management and the direction the company was headed, adding the researchers not only approached Oracle for jobs but had spoken with Microsoft and several Portland-area companies. The Associated Press says the suit, filed in Multnomah County, Oregon, Circuit Court, seeks to prevent the 11 researchers from keeping their jobs at Oracle's Portland office and asks that searches be performed on all their computers, and those owned by their relatives, to ensure they have not taken competitive information. If the developers are allowed to stay at Oracle, Informix wants safeguards that they will not share trade secrets, AP says. Informix and Oracle compete in the market for corporate database software and, says AP, "by losing key developers from its Portland office, Informix contends it loses potential revenue and expertise." The wire service says Informix has offered to give 10 of the employees their jobs back, the exception being former vice president of research Gary Kelley, who Informix contends recruited the other 10 employees on Oracle's behalf while h still worked for Informix. "Together," says AP, "the 11 employees represented 22 percent of the core team and 50 percent of the managers who worked on Informix's extended parallel servers, a technology used for storing massive amounts of data. They also were working on a database technology that can store graphics and sounds as well as text." Meanwhile, Oracle contends it advised the departing Informix employees not to bring or disclose any trade secrets. As a matter of policy, Oracle asks all employees to promise in writing that they bring no trade secrets from former employers. CompuServe Rated #1 for Business NetGuide magazine has named CompuServe the best online service provider for business. In its Editors' Choice awards, the magazine gave CSi a grade of A- compared with C+ for the next-best online business information service. "The vast range and excellent quality of CSi business services put it miles ahead of any other ... in this area," the magazine reports in its March issue. Strengths cited by NetGuide include strong reference materials, well-focused online discussion groups and general depth and breadth of information. The publication put CSi significantly higher than its competitors and said CompuServe is easier to use than "the Web's infinitely confused endless resources." Besides its resources geared toward big business, NetGuide also recognized CompuServe's information available for entrepreneurs in the Small Office/Home Office market. Specifically, NetGuide cited CompuServe's Standard & Poor's 500 for stock updates, the Reuters news wire, Magazine Database Plus and TrademarkScan as examples of the diversity of system's reference materials. Net Service Providers Grow 9,475% The number of Internet service providers has grown from about 24 at the start of 1996 to 2,298 by the end of the year. And before you get out your calculator, that's a growth rate of 9,475 percent. So says the Omaha, Nebraska, American Business Information Inc., which calls Internet service companies the fastet growing businesses of last year, based on information derived from its database. Meanwhile, says the Reuter News Service in a report on the ABI numbers, health and fitness program consultants represented the largest decline in numbers for the year to 2,662 at the end of the year from 3,317. "Other firms that are growing in numbers," says Reuters, "range from the high-tech, such as computer networking, pager services and cellular telephone services, to bagel shops and tattoo parlors. ... Businesses that are declining in number include retail typewriter sales and services, comic book stores, baseball sports cards and memorabilia stores, coffee and tea shops and antenna systems." ABI's database is compiled from 4,800 Yellow Page directories, business white pages and other public information and is verified with additional telephone calls. E-Mail Vendors Ranked by New Users A handful of top software vendors dominated the market for new corporate e-mail users in 1996, finds preliminary research from International Data Corp. The Framingham, Massachusetts, market researcher reports that IBM/Lotus held the number one position in 1996 with 8.4 million new users of its Notes, cc:Mail, and OfficeVision products, representing a 26 percent share. Netscape, a new entry in the e-mail market in 1996, captured the second spot and a 17 percent share with 5.5 million new users of the Netscape Mail component of its Navigator browser. Microsoft took the third spot with 4.4 million new users of its Exchange and Mail products. Overall, the corporate e-mail market added 32 million new users worldwide in 1996, finds IDC. IDC's Web site (www.idcresearch.com) contains additional research and recent news releases. Consumers Defy Tech Marketers A new survey from NFO Interactive finds that significant marketing challenges confront high-tech vendors in converting non-computing consumers, upgrading current computer users and marketing emerging technologies. "The industry is in a rut; the current benefit/price ratio is too low to support rapid, across the board growth," says Charlie Hamlin, executive vice president of interactive business development for the Greenwich, Connecticut, market research firm. For non-computing households, less than 8 percent indicated they plan to buy a computer in the next six months. The major reason cited was the lack of a compelling reason to buy. Only 2 percent expressed interest in Internet appliances; 1 percent would "probably" buy a PDA and 2 percent indicated they would buy a digital camera. Computing households that are reluctant to upgrade their systems indicate they are waiting for PC prices to drop or for a must-have reason to buy. Survey results also indicatethe Internet could be the factor that drives a decision to upgrade. Additional factors include support and training for Internet technology. The one area of strong growth is the Internet and online services, with survey results indicating that between five and 15 million households are likely to connect to the Internet over the next six months. Other NFO surveys have shown that three to four million households connected to the Internet over the past nine months. "These survey results show that continued market growth will require marketing strategies that target the distinct segments of the current consumer technology market with appropriate product and service characteristics, pricing models, distribution channels and communication strategies," says Hamlin. A T T E N T I O N-A T T E N T I O N-A T T E N T I O N LEXMARK OPTRA C COLOR LASER PRINTER For a limited time only; If you wish to have a FREE sample printout sent to you that demonstrates LEXMARK Optra C SUPERIOR QUALITY 600 dpi Laser Color Output, please send a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope [SASE] (business sized envelope please) to: STReport's LEXMARK Printout Offer P.O. Box 6672 Jacksonville, Florida 32205-6155 Folks, the LEXMARK Optra C has to be the very best yet in its price range. It is far superior to anything we've seen or used as of yet. It is said that ONE Picture is worth a thousand words. The out put from the Lexmark Optra C is worth ten thousand words! Send for the free sample now. (For a sample that's suitable for framing, see below) Guaranteed. you will be amazed at the superb quality. (Please.. allow at least a two week turn- around). If you would like a sample printout that's suitable for framing. Yes that's right! Suitable for Framing. Order this package. It'll be on special stock and be of superb quality. We obtained a mint copy of a 1927 COLOR ENGRAVER'S YEAR BOOK. Our Scanner is doing "double duty"! The results will absolutely blow you away. If you want this high quality sample package please include a check or money order in the amount of $6.95 (Costs only) Please, make checks or money orders payable to; Ralph Mariano. Be sure to include your full return address and telephone number . The sample will be sent to you protected, not folded in a 9x12 envelope. Don't hesitate.. you will not be disappointed. This "stuff" is gorgeous! A T T E N T I O N-A T T E N T I O N-A T T E N T I O N IS UUNet at Fault? STR Spotlight UUNET, BOON OR BOONDOGGLE? By Ralph F. Mariano Why is it UUNet seems to have the most problems in maintaining reliable Internet Networking? What is the reason for the . like clockwork- like failures of UUNET feeds at least once a month for a approximately three to six hours for the last four months? After experiencing another in the annoying procession of failures and usual local excuses, we decided to take the matter to the source of the problem itself, UUNet. A call was placed to UUNet's headquarters (1-800-900-0241) at approximately 02:33pm on Feb. 11, 1997. After being shuffled around between three different (top echelon people, VP marketing, sect'y. to VP Network Admin, sect'y to VP PR) we were told the party actually able to either explain and/or correct the problems and possible misunderstandings would return my call. When one considers the amounts of money being PAID TO UUNet for Internet feeds, ($5000.00 &up per month), it becomes rather difficult to understand the rather nonchalant attitude we experienced at the hands of their top people. Here we find an entire region, the Southeastern USA, is down. and they simply didn't have a time explanation. The local ISP's are actually.. no, literally "up in arms" over the outages. We've been told they are in the process of organizing for the purpose of financing legal counsel to deal the regular and predictable outages. At 03:35pm we called UUNet again and were eventually connected with Kevin Coyne allegedly "the man with the answers". Unfortunately, we were unprepared for the vague, indirect pablum answers we were about to be fed. I now know what it is like to be a cultivated mushroom. A number of questions we posed to UUNet's Kevin Coyne, ext:5628, also were deftly avoided or, went un-answered. "Are you aware the ISP services of AT&T and Southern Bell are operating quite reliably? Are you aware the subscribers of the Independents served by UUNet are cancelling their ISP accounts and going to the "Big Boys" in pursuit of reliability? It is sad to see the little ISP being squeezed out because of UUNet "equipment failures". An alleged "relay switch failure" - Can you say CLOUD? Of course, a full explanation of the situation from Coyne was NOT forthcoming. Doesn't it seem rather odd that the companies you lease your lines from is not only a direct competitor of yours but also in direct competition with those you service?? Why is it AT&T and Southern Bell are not experiencing the regular, annoying and inconvenient outages you are?" we asked of Kevin Coyne. Could it possibly be that somewhere, somehow, there may actually be unfair competitive business activities taking place? Each and every question was either avoided, sidestepped or answered with vague non informative noise. Ie., "a switch failure in Jacksonville". "RIIIIGHT" ..in my very best Bill Cosby, doing the Moses skit, voice. Since when. does it take six or more hours to change out a switching device? After all, they are simply connected to the system with plugs and jacks. Some one's clouded aamong the Clouds alright and as usual, it's the consumer taking on the chin. In this case, the consumer is the ISPs and their subs. About three months ago, STReport reported that it seemed rather odd that AT&T and Southern Bell, along with the other Baby Bells, were both "feeding at the trough and OWNED the very same trough". We were under the impression that this sort business tactic and practice was frowned upon. Its these types of practices that seemingly have the consumer holding the * ragged, short end of the stick * unless of course they "subscribe to either AT&T or one of the Baby (Oy Ve! What Babies!) Bells for their Internet Access." By that I mean if one uses an independent ISP its either outages and poor connections or, if one is using either AT&T etc., its manna from heaven time. Something is definitely wrong with this picture. It is time we began a letter writing campaign to each of our Congress Critters. The abuses from the monolithic, Telecommunications Monster seemingly, is already beginning. I'm willing to bet the big Bells and their "Bell Headed" leadership are already blaming the Internet itself for the outage problems. This is hogwash.. It is a lack of reliable Bandwidth being made affordably available to independents like local ISP's and UUNet. Odd though, AT&T and the Baby Bells seemingly have plenty of Bandwidth. Something is definitely rotten in Denmark. Perhaps a formal investigation of ALL the "Bells" is appropriately in order. Hopefully, as a result of doing so, a very sad chapter in the history of the Internet and the Bell Monsters will never be written. The way it looks right now, its going to be a devil of a horror story. EDUPAGE STR Focus Keeping the users informed Edupage Contents Lehman Calls For Global Patent Protection Toll-Free Calling Goes Global Next-Generation Memory Chips From NEC MCI Ties Voice, Data Transmissions Together First Technology Literacy Grants Released Microsoft Drops Windows NT For PowerPC Chips Hayes Has A Deal For You America Online Adds 50,000 Modems Repetitive Strain In Academia Not Limited To Coursework Intel Offers Stock Option Plan To All Of Its Employees Texas Sizes Up Anti-Trust Charges Against Microsoft Cell Phones & Car Accidents The One Mailbox Ameritech Long-Distance Plans Taken Up Short Microsoft To Offer Russian Spy Photos College Club Online Service Links Academics Companies Overlook Ex-Employee Access Problems Software Piracy Revisited Imelda-Dot-History-Dot-Revision LEHMAN CALLS FOR GLOBAL PATENT PROTECTION U.S. Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks Bruce Lehman has recommended the establishment of a global patent office, noting that the current system requires inventors to file patent applications in every country in the world. "We need a global system that takes advantage of technical advances," says Lehman, who plans to propose automating the Patent Cooperation Treaty -- which provides for multiple filing of patent applications -- to the World Intellectual Property Organization in the next few weeks. Domestically, Lehman says the Clinton Administration could very well back off on its attempt to redefine the distribution right under the Copyright Act to explicitly include a "transmission" right. (BNA Daily Report for Executives 4 Feb 97) TOLL-FREE CALLING GOES GLOBAL Toll-free calling via "800" numbers is going international, with a new service sponsored by long-distance carriers such as AT&T, MCI, Sprint, WorldCom, USA Global Link and the International Telecommunication Union, which is administering the system. The numbers will sport the usual "800" prefix, followed by eight, rather than the usual seven, digits. Experts predict the new numbers will have a profound effect on international business and marketing efforts. More than 15,000 U.S. companies have already applied for the new numbers. (Tampa Tribune 8 Feb 97) NEXT-GENERATION MEMORY CHIPS FROM NEC Calling its new 4-gigabit dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip the largest yet developed, NEC says the new chip can store more than 4 billion bits of information -- enough to hold 47 minutes of full-motion video, or 256 times the capacity of the 16-megabit DRAM chip now commonly used. NEC says it will begin selling the 4-billion bit chips around 2000. (New York Times 7 Feb 97) MCI TIES VOICE, DATA TRANSMISSIONS TOGETHER MCI is developing a new network architecture called Vault that will link the computers that govern MCI's voice network to the company's Internet backbone. The new arrangement will allow companies to combine the intelligence of the voice network with the flexibility of the Internet, says MCI's president and COO. "It's like a single command-and-control center for all network capabilities," says the director of Perot Systems. "That's the answer to a telecom manager's prayers." Vault's technology will allow Web surfers to click on a "call agent" button to launch a phone call to a company's sales department, and also will allow customers to use one line to access an application running simultaneously on the voice and data network. MCI plans to have Vault-based services ready for market by year's end. (Information Week 3 Feb 97) FIRST TECHNOLOGY LITERACY GRANTS RELEASED President Clinton released yesterday the first installment of a $200- million grant program to put computers and Internet connections in schools, and to provide teachers Internet training. The initial $14.3- million went to Illinois, Mississippi and New Mexico. In Clinton's weekly radio address, he cited statistics showing that 65% of schools were connected to the Internet as of last fall, compared with 35% in 1994. "That's how we must prepare our children for the 21st century -- with the full promise of the Information Age at their fingertips," he said. (St. Petersburg Times 9 Feb 97) MICROSOFT DROPS WINDOWS NT FOR POWERPC CHIPS Microsoft will phase out its Windows NT support for computers running on PowerPC processors, which include many of the Apple Macintosh machines in operation today. "There's a limited demand from both customers and OEMs," says a Microsoft product manager. "We've just seen very limited demand for PowerPC systems and decided to phase it out." The company will continue to support customers who have PowerPCs with NT 4.0 and 3.51. The announcement comes two months after IBM, Motorola and Groupe Bull decided to scrap production of PowerPC-based machines running Windows NT. (InfoWorld Electric 7 Feb 97) HAYES HAS A DEAL FOR YOU Hayes Microcomputer Products is offering current modem users a trade-in on a new 56-Kbps device for just $99. To take advantage of the offer, users must register on Hayes' Web site, < http://www.hayes.com >, and they will be contacted when the 56-Kbps models are ready. Users who mail their old modems to Hayes along with $114 (which includes $15 for shipping and handling), will receive a K56Flex-based modem, normally a $200 value. (MacWeek 10 Feb 97) AMERICA ONLINE ADDS 50,000 MODEMS America Online is leasing 50,000 modems from other companies in order to speed up its plans to increase access capacity by 60%. AOL chief executive Steve Case says the added capacity should "significantly cut down" on the problems recently experienced by customers who got only when busy signals when they attempted to log onto the service. (New York Times 7 Feb 97) REPETITIVE STRAIN IN ACADEMIA NOT LIMITED TO COURSEWORK Although there is little evidence that computer-related repetitive strain injury has become as much a problem for colleges and universities as it has for the American workplace, the condition is getting more and more attention from academic administrators. Dr. David Diamond, a staff doctor at MIT, says: "It's not a crisis, in the sense that we're not having a meltdown here. It's a chronic low-level risk, which for those who are most affected can be hugely significant. The bulk of students are in a situation where the day after typing for eight hours, there's some burning. Touch your elbow, and it's tender. They're on the verge." (New York Times 9 Feb 97) INTEL OFFERS STOCK OPTION PLAN TO ALL OF ITS EMPLOYEES Intel is offering stock options to all of its 50,000 employees, the only condition being that they must have received satisfactory performance evaluations. If Intel stock rises, employees will be able to buy shares at the option-price and, if they choose, sell them immediately to lock in profits. A company executive says: "This is a compensation element that only means something if the company becomes more successful, so let's figure out how to get our profitability up ... and our stock price up." (San Jose Mercury News Center 12 Feb 97) TEXAS SIZES UP ANTITRUST CHARGES AGAINST MICROSOFT Texas is the first state to begin a formal inquiry of charges that Microsoft has used business tactics that violate antitrust laws. Microsoft says it received a request for documents related to competition over Internet software marketing. Netscape received a similar request from Texas in December. Netscape has accused Microsoft of giving PC manufacturers a discount on its Windows95 operating system if they agreed not to install NetScape's Navigator software for browsing the World Wide Web. The Netscape charges also prompted a separate investigation of the issues begun by the U.S. Department of Justice last summer. (AP 12 Feb 97) CELL PHONES & CAR ACCIDENTS Researchers at the University of Toronto say that drivers whose attention is distracted while talking on a cellular phone are four times more likely to be involved in an accident. However, insurance companies do not plan to raise insurance premiums, because accident rates have not increased overall. The researchers also found little difference between the use of a receiver or hands-free model of phone, indicating that the problem is one of mental, rather than physical preoccupation. (Toronto Globe & Mail 13 Feb 97 A1) THE ONE MAILBOX Octel Communications, the world's largest provider of voice-messaging systems, has a new product called Unified Messenger that consolidates all voice-mail, e-mail and fax messages in a single mailbox accessible by phone or computer. The system, which works in concert with Microsoft's Exchange e-mail system, enables workers to call up a list of voice and e- mail messages on a computer screen, and play the voice messages back through the PC's speakers. Mobile workers can dial into the voice-message system and retrieve e-mail messages that are read aloud in a computer- generated voice. "There are definitely people who are e-mail-centric and people who are voice-mail-centric," says Octel's CEO. "Usually, sales and marketing runs on voice mail, while the rest of the company uses e-mail. Every single company I've come across has those constituencies. People need that gap bridged." (Wall Street Journal 13 Feb 97) AMERITECH LONG-DISTANCE PLANS TAKEN UP SHORT Ameritech's hopes of becoming the first regional telephone company to get Federal Communications Commission approval to offer long-distance as well as local service in Michigan encountered an obstacle this week when the FCC said that it had not supplied sufficient evidence that it faces real competition for local service in that state -- a condition which must be met before a local service provider can enter the long- distance phone service market. Following the FCC ruling, Ameritech suspended its efforts to win for approval to offer long-distance service in Michigan, but is expected to resubmit a new application as soon as possible. (New York Times 12 Feb 97) MICROSOFT TO OFFER RUSSIAN SPY PHOTOS Microsoft has contracted with North Carolina-based Aerial Images to publish very high resolution (to one meter) photographs snapped by Russian spy satellites. The photos, which were all taken during the 1990s, are the first Russian-satellite-origin pictures to appear on the Internet, says Aerial's VP. The initial photos to appear on Microsoft's Web site will show Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Rome and London. The photos may be downloaded for a charge of $30 per square kilometer, with the proceeds to be split between Aerial and the Russian space agency. The images are likely to be used by mapping services, construction companies and developers, forestry workers and government agencies, says Aerial. (Wall Street Journal 13 Feb 97) COLLEGE CLUB ONLINE SERVICE LINKS ACADEMICS College Club, developed by students at the University of San Diego, offers students and faculty members a nationwide e-mail system with services geared toward the U.S. academic community. Users receive a free e- mail account, and may participate in chat rooms, discussion groups, and take advantage of tools to design resumes, find jobs and build their own Web pages. (Chronicle of Higher Education 14 Feb 97) < http://www.collegeclub.com/ > COMPANIES OVERLOOK EX-EMPLOYEE ACCESS PROBLEMS A majority of U.S. companies neglect to monitor all of the e-mail, voice and information systems that their employees can access, and as a result, often forget to shut them off when the employees leave, says a program manager at Computer Science Corp.: "No matter what anyone says, there is no way for a large organization with distributed systems to track all employees' passwords from a central place. Today, companies have faith in their employees' good nature and presume they'll do the right thing." One ex- employee of a Big Six accounting firm continued to use the company's e- mail and voice-mail systems a year after he left, and even accessed the company's internal network occasionally, although by that time he was employed by a competitor. Outsourcing network functions just exacerbates the problem: "It's hard enough to know when your own employees leave the firm, much less other firms' employees," says the chief technology officer for Vanstar Corp. To maintain some degree of control, experts recommend giving employees one centrally controlled password for all systems, from e- mail to file servers, contradicting the common assumption that one password creates a system that's especially vulnerable to hackers. (Investor's Business Daily 12 Feb 97) SOFTWARE PIRACY REVISITED The playwright George S. Kaufmann once defined satire as something that closes on Saturday night, but in the newspaper business it's something that gets taken seriously. A recent software piracy story in the Petersburg Times (and subsequently in Edupage 11 Feb 97) failed to include an introduction that indicated that the piece was satirical and included a fictitious quotation. (St. Petersburg Times 10 Feb 97) IMELDA-DOT-HISTORY-DOT-REVISION Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines, plans to set up her own Web site to argue her case that she and her deceased husband Ferdinand have been unjustly accused of pilfering billions from the country's treasury. (Toronto Globe & Mail 13 Feb 97 B12) Edupage is written by John Gehl (gehl@educom.edu) & Suzanne Douglas (douglas@educom.edu). Voice: 404-371-1853, Fax: 404-371-8057. Technical support is provided by the Office of Information Technology, University of North Carolina. EDUPAGE is what you've just finished reading. To subscribe to Edupage: send a message to: listproc@educom.unc.edu and in the body of the message type: subscribe edupage Marvin Minsky (assuming that your name is Marvin Minsky; if it's not, substitute your own name). ... To cancel, send a message to: listproc@educom.unc.edu and in the body of the message type: unsubscribe edupage... Subscription problems: educom@educom.unc.edu. EDUCOM REVIEW is our bimonthly print magazine on learning, communications, and information technology. Subscriptions are $18 a year in the U.S.; send mail to offer@educom.edu. When you do, we'll ring a little bell, because we'll be so happy! Choice of bell is yours: a small dome with a button, like the one on the counter at the dry cleaners with the sign "Ring bell for service"; or a small hand bell; or a cathedral bell; or a door bell; or a chime; or a glockenspiel. Your choice. But ring it! EDUCOM UPDATE is our twice-a-month electronic summary of organizational news and events. To subscribe to the Update: send a message to: listproc@educom.unc.edu and in the body of the message type: subscribe update John McCarthy (assuming that your name is John McCarthy; if it's not, substitute your own name). INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE The CAUSE organization's annual conference on information technology in higher education is scheduled for the end of this month in New Orleans. The conference will bring together administrators, academicians and other managers of information resources. For full conference information check out or send e-mail to conf@cause.colorado.edu. ARCHIVES & TRANSLATIONS. For archive copies of Edupage or Update, ftp or gopher to educom.edu or see URL: < http://www.educom.edu/>. For the French edition of Edupage, send mail to edupage-fr@ijs.com with the subject "subscribe"; or see < http://www.ijs.com >. For the Hebrew edition, send mail to listserv@kinetica.co.il containing : SUBSCRIBE Leketnet-Word6 or see < http://www.kinetica.co.il/ newsletters/leketnet/ >. For the Hungarian edition, send mail to: send mail to subs.edupage@hungary.com. An Italian edition is available on Agora' Telematica; connection and/or free subscription via BT-Tymnet and Sprint (login: Nybogatan 21, S-212 32 Malmoe, Sweden Phone: +46-40+494411 URL http://home1.swipnet.se/~w-11396 STR Feature The Unabashed Atariophile by Michael R. Burkley February 14, 1997 I'm sorry to say that it's been awhile since my last "Unabashed Atariophile" article, but you already know that. The reason for my delay has been the continuing saga of the failure of my PC to boot. It's been over a month now that I've had this piece of sorry equipment sitting on my desktop not doing much of anything at all. It's sitting there because my local dealer doesn't have any idea why it's not working either. That's rather frustrating because it worked just fine before he upgraded it! Oh well, someday... Until then I'm carting my TT with Cattamaran back and forth between the church building and my home. All of my work is being done with it, and actually, I'm very glad about that! I said above that my PC was "sitting on my desktop not doing much of anything...." The something that it is doing is providing power to the hard drive it contains. I'm using HD Driver and BIGDOS08 to access that PC formatted drive with my TT. Doing that I can get all the information and archives off of it, and use it to write descriptions for you! If you are a programmer I have a request for you. Please don't put any "-" or "'" or any other special characters in your program or file names. I'm working on another CD of Public Domain/Shareware/Demo software, and when those characters are included in the filename the filename cannot be properly written to the standard CD format. Other standard characters are automatically substituted for the offending character by the CD-making software. That means your program often won't run, which isn't good for you or me! There are a number of very useful programs which fall into this category (ST-GUIDE.ACC by Holger Weets is one that comes to mind). My listing of files today is a mixture of the old and new (to be honest, I guess mostly old). I'm finally beginning to catch up on my descriptions. Now I'm just working my way through my hard drives describing as I go. Some of the belo files are from Delphi, my favorite online place, while others are from the Internet. Some of the Internet sites you will probably recognize, others you won't. Unfortunately, I can't tell you how to find them other than doing a search for "Atari" or "Hensa" or "UNIKL" with an Internet search engine such as Yahoo. I've just stored them away in their respective site folders and not recorded the "URL" addresses. I'm sure if you find something interesting you'll be able to search it out. If not, give me a shout, and I'll see what I can do. On to the descriptions... I found the following on the AURA Homepage: AURA_LIB is the PMOD-library used by the AURA crew for many of their demos. The PMOD format is a PC-relative format including some project informations in the assembled modules and header files for easy use. That means you can include pre-assembled files in your source (faster assembling times and shorter source codes), by accessing the different module-routines with normal labels (with the headerfiles). A tool to manage the complete lib is included. The PMOD-Lib is about 500 KBytes, including modules and sources for routines like polygon-drawing, gouraud-routines, DSP-transformations, 030-transformations, relocating programms, mouse, colour-handling (including the complete POV-table of colours defined with names), DSP and 030 macros and so on... C3D2_POV is the Cyberscuplt to POV converter v.1.41 coded by BDCannibal of AURA. This program converts 3D2 objects to POV, and, if desired, it generates "smooth_triangles" for (pseudo) round edges. The archive includes the (highly portable) C source which can be compiled using Pure-C or GCC. The TOS Exec is in the archive. FALC_DOC is a comprehensive documentation of the video system (and more) of the Atari Falcon by Chris of AURA (dated 1993). Unfortunately (for me), it's all in German (Tat / Digital Chaos has written an English translation, but I don't know how to ask him for it, as the file ID tells me to do so!). Chris considers this his "masterpiece". Ther is a lot of English documentation though. There is information on the Falcon Audio system, its Multi-Function Peripheral (68901), the DSP, and lots of other stuff (meaning: I don't know what it is!) for the ST/STE/TT and Falcon. Chris was one of the authors of the Screenblaster 3.0 video upgrade for the Falcon, so he knows his stuff. FEV_WEEK by AURA is a conversion of the TCB 24 hours screen (the "Syntax Terror") to the Falcon. BDCannibal wrote this in two weeks while he was ill (hence the title, Fever Week). The demo is only runs on a TV or Atari color monitor (RGB) as the author didn't have a VGA monitor at the time of writing. GULLE_AM is a Falcon only "Gulle am Bach" demo by AURA that won first prize at the Fried Bits 2 (1994) shorttro-competition. It features colorful 3D dots and morphing wireframe objects (everything calculated on the DSP). The first "dot" screen feature more than 1400 pixels, which are transformed, moved, projected and shaded in realtime. The second screen features 400 points connected with 200 lines. The demo uses the normal STE-trackreplay (by Innovator) for its sound as the two animated screens use 100% of the DSP all by themselves. According to the internal docs this demo works on RGB/TV or a VGA type of monitor with at least 2 MBytes of free RAM. The file description which I read before I downloaded it said it only works with an RGB monitor. The truth? You'll need to find out on your own! HIFIDREA is "High Fidelity Dreams," a sounddisk containing the best modules by Tip and Mantronix of AURA. It features a fast ST and STE tracker replay and fancy volumemeters (also running on ST). The code and design and graphics of this demo are by Aeon and the music is by several people. This is an .MSA file and requires a program such as MSA_2_32 to make into a runnable form. ILLUSION is a Falcon only demo EX-Illusion by AURA. It's a demo with a different and attractive style. It was made as a contrast to all the flashing techno-demos that you can find everywhere. Slow pictures, slow music, different 3D animations (all 3D calcs uses the DSP), all make for a 8.5 minute show which will help you to relax a bit. Coded and designed by BDCannibal; poems by Heinrich Heine; pictures by Herm and JMS and music by Domm. See ILLU_SRC for the source code of this demo. ILLU_SRC is the (nearly) complete sourcecode for the Falcon "EX-Illusion" Demo (dated June, 1995). See ILLUSION above for the complete package. By AURA. INDYINT2 is the Indymagintro X from AURA, a small intro for the Indymag. Some Blitter-filled-EOR-fields. Looks nice, sound by C. Huelsbeck (from Turrican). According to the author the text is the truth and nothing but the truth! KRANK is "the worst module ever!" by BDCannibal of AURA. I haven't listened to it yet, but I think it might have something to do with a sneeze, as "Gesundheit" is in the description twice! Anyone know how to play a MOD file while running GEMulator? LAMEMINE is Lamemine, a minesweeper clone running on your Falcon in Hires (640*480), coded by BDCannible of AURA (dated 1993). It is fast, lame (according to the author!, but since it has lots of levels and options, why is it lame?) and has NO hiscore list. On RGB you get it interlaced. Docs included. MATHEMAT is "Mathematica", a dentro from AURA showing mathematical effects, like Keftales, SPlines, IFS-Fractals (including a small editor for your pleasure) and a solid 3D-graphics screen. Several people took part in this project: The coding and design was by Christ, the 3D Screen by BDCannibal, graphics by Dan (one font by Carnera), and the chiptunes by Dark Angel. Dated 1992 and runs on a color STE (at least), but doesn't run on my TT. MONEYROU is "Money Makes the World Go Round," a little comic (2 screens i low res Degas format) by JMS and BDCannibal of AURA. According to the author "it should be funny, but of course, nobody understands it (BBCs plots are allways played in high-logic...)." Actually, I thought it was rather amusing, involving a wishing well, an optimistic coin tosser, and an opportunistic well-dwelling dragon. OYSTERS is The World is my Oyster," a funny little party demo coded by Chris, BDCannibal and Cody of AURA and released on a Friday the 13th in 1992 (I can't remember what month though). According to the authors is includes unspectacular graphics and music with some laugh-making scrolltexts. I think they are being a bit self-deprecating here! I especially liked the little frog that jumped across the intro screen as each portion of the demo uncompresses in memory. Overall I thought it was pretty good. It runs on a color STE (it doesn't work on my TT, I don't know about anything else). This comes as an MSA file and requires a program such as MSA_2_32 to make into a runable form. STSOUND is the Yamaha YM2149 Chip Emulator v3.10 (dated Nov. 1996) for MS DOS and Windows based machines by Arnaud Carre (Leonard/ OXYGENE). YM is a software YM2149 chip emulator. This chip is a FM synthethic sound processor. It is inclued in the AMSTRAD CPC and in the ATARI-ST. So you can play music from these both machine with YM !! For emulation, you need a SoundBlaster(TM) card for the DOS version, or any card for the WINDOWS version. Detailed English docs and numerous tunes to play (by Jochen Hippel) included. Cardware (send the author a nice illustrated postcard). Found on the AURA homepage. The next set of two files were found on an Internet site in Berlin, Germany: KAYFOUR is KayFour v.2.9 by Ralf Gesellensetter (dated Feb. 8, 1996). This program is a multifunctional bankloader for the Kawai K4 synthesizer and the Atari ST. With this program and your Kawai K4 you can automatically recognize and load the following bank data types: .K4, .BNK, .SND Complet Dump, and .HEX. You may also print out all the ound names on your Epson printer, save a table of your Bank's contents as a 32k doodle format picture, print-out a list of effects, crossreference, unused effect patches, export the sound's names and check sums in order to use them in a data base, send single sounds to any memory cell, and save comments on your bank data. The program comes with both English and German resource files, and while all the dialogs are in German (even in the English version), the English docs include a dictionary of German/English words that will make this easy to use. The author is always willing for you to send some cash his way! SOX6PL9 is the SOund eXchange program, SOX-6 Patchlevel 9 compiled for the ST-TT (perhaps Falcon?) by Uwe and orginally written by Lance Norskog, et. al. This .TTP (i.e.: command line operated) "Universal" Sound Sample Translator translates sound samples between different file formats, and performs various sound effects. SOX is intended as the Swiss Army knife of sound processing tools. It doesn't do anything very well, but sooner or later it comes in very handy. This release understands "raw" files in various binary formats, Sound Blaster .VOC files, IRCAM SoundFile files, SUN Sparcstation .au files, mutant DEC .au files, Amiga/SGI AIFF files, Macintosh HCOM files, Sounder files, RIFF/.WAV, Turtle Beach .SMP files, Apple/SGI AIFF and 8SVX, Atari .SND files and Soundtool (DOS) files. The sound effects include changing the sample rate, adding echo delay lines, applying low- and band-pass filtering, and the infamous Fender Vibro effect. I don't know when this was compiled, but the file dates are all Nov. 13, 1996. I found the next file on the CyberStrider site: IPRN201D is iPRN II v. 2.01 demo by Petee Missel (dated May 1996). This shareware program is a printout accelerator that can yield almost 40 times the printing speed TOS can bring you. It will speed anything going out the printer port. More than that, it fixes that annoying 40 sec. delay when you've forgotten to turn your printer on but your computer hasn't figured that out. Now with IPRN you get the error message immediately. This demo only fully accelerates the first printout, doesn't support the registered control panel CPX that allows you to configure it, and one or two other minor limitations. The faster your computer is the faster your printouts will be. Unfortunately for me this doesn't accelerate Calamus output (but with my Cattamaran TT and SLM605 I guess I really don't need any acceleration!). This won't work with Atari emulators like GEMulator or the Janus board, but everything else is fine. Detailed docs. Now for a LONG list of files from Delphi: BIGLIFE is BigLife v.3.00 by Owen Rees (dated Dec. 1993). This GEM based program is the most interesting and full-featured adaptation of "Life" that I have seen (just get it and I think you will agree with me!). It's not the Milton Bradley game of LIFE which I'm writing about here, but the computer program which tracks "generations" of "cells" as they live and die on your computer screen as based on a simple set of rules. This version allows you to set the size and rules of your "universe,"create, save, and load your own patterns, load patterns from a sampling included with the program, and even load XLife format files from X-Windows. The patterns included with this are beautiful and fantastic! Rocketships, shooting guns, gliders, and more are all included! The patterns are so much more complicated and beautiful than I thought possible. The docs make for fascinating reading, too. I recommend this program to you! ST-Falcon compatible in ST resolutions (you can even make the cells display in any two colors). As an aside, David Brin's book, "Glory Season" has an interesting sub-theme of how this type of game can spread and influence a society. "Glory Season" was a very interesting book. I didn't like it much as I started it, but as I read further and further into it I liked it more and more. I recommend that to you as well! GEO_PI is Gio_Pi,two excellent programs by Gio Ciamp designed for calculating the number "Pi" (you know, 3.1415926...). Output goes simultaneously to screen and file. Stuart Lyster of Canada and Gio have been in a partnership over the years in writing "Pi" calculating programs. This one (dated Jan., 1996), for all ST/TT/Falcon computers, is one of the best. Stuart wrote the documentation. His Web site address is included so you may contact him for more information about calculating "Pi". HUECKEL a program by Uwe Schneider (dated July 1992) which will allow all of you physical chemists out there to calculate the MO vectors and eigen values (MO levels) of organic Pi-systems according to the Hueckel approximation. The heart if this program is a diagonalization of the Hueckel matrix as proposed by Givens and Householder. Completely keyboard based, this program is easy to run and should work on any ST-Falcon in any res. (best in mono). It is compatible with Geneva as well. The program is in English and has both English and German online helps. More detailed docs are in German. You really need to be a chemist to make sense of this program (maybe a working chemist would be a better qualification, since I'm still a chemist!). LP104USA is Laborant Professional v.1.04 (the English Version) by Jens Schulz (dated June 18th, 1995). Laborant Professional is an astounding GEM-based chemistry program for the "curious chemistry user." This program does _everything_ a chemistry student or professional might want. Obviously, such a statement is a bit exagerated, but consider: the Table of Contents listing the functions available in LP is 270 lines long! Just as another example he has included a very capable Units conversion option right in the program. Not only is LP useful in Chemistry, it finds application in biology, physics, pharmaceutical sciences and mechanical engineering (thermodynamics)! Nevertheless, its main application is as a universal chemistry program for the daily work in laboratories and in the teaching of chemistry. Compatible with any ST(TOS 1.2 or higher)-Falcon computer, color or mono, in ST med. or higher with 1 meg or more of RAM. Geneva, MultiTOS, MultiGEM, and MagiC all work just fine. If you are working as a chemist, or studying to do so (or did do that but now are working at another job...say as a pastor!) then Laborant Professional is for you! Laborant Professional is divided in several scientific divisions : - Stoechiometry with powerful formula-/equation analysis - Data processing (Error determination, interpolation, approximation) - Statistical tests - Linear equation systems and matrix operations - Thermochemistry (incl. databases) - Reaction kinetics - Chemical solutions and conversions - Chemical calculation methods of a wide variety - Tables and exercising programs - Import/export of experimental data (to a WIDE variety of platforms and program types) - Integration of external programs - TeX support The program is now fully translated into English in both ASCII and TeX documents. Here are two other of my favorite programs of Jen's. He is one creative guy! PMJ_ENG2 is Premium Mah Jongg II (the English version) by Jens Schulz & Thomas Grube (dated Oct. 10, 1993). Mah Jongg is an old chinese board game in which you seek to remove pairs of tiles from a set of 144 tiles stacked in a five level pyramid. The game itself might be old, but Premium Mah Jongg II is anything but old. It is full of features, has excellent game play and graphics, and is unfortunately quite addictive! It will run in all ST and TT res, and up to 256 colors on Falcons and graphic cards. I can't begin to list all the features (but I'll try anyway): First of all, there are excellent English Docs which explain all the rules of Mah Jongg II and all the features of the game. Next, the program will tell you all the free tiles available if you wish (only in the solitaire, non-tournament mode). It will even check, in real-time if you have reached a dead end in your play (if it doesn't tell you you're finihed then there is a matching tile SOMEWHERE!). It will repeat your game for you and allow you to replay your game from any point. If you don't like the color of the tiles or background you can change them! This game has a solitaire practice mode, a tournament mode, and a "happening" mode. The happening mode is where the game produces multiple copies of the exact same set of games for as many players as desired. These players then each play the games and the times are compared. The fastest player wins (and as a prize gets taken out to dinner by the other players!). This game is shareware, but you only need to pay if you get so good that you can beat the highest tourney level (or participate in a "happening"). Recommended. Floppy or hard drive installable. On a personal note I was surprised to see my name listed in the docs! Joseph M. Turner (ATARIPOWER7 on Delphi) and I were thanked for the help we've give Jens (Joseph has done much more than me!). Also mentioned was the fact that Mah Jongg II cannot be distributed by any Commercial PD company except Suzy B's Software (hmmm...I've heard that name from somewhere before ) VALENCY is Only! Valency by Jens Schulz (dated Dec. 24, 1994). I especially like Only! Valency (O!V) because it reminds me of my chemistry background. But as the opening screen of this game says, "You will love and curse this game at the same time." It sure is a challenge! You don't have to be a chemist to play O!V, all you need is quick reflexes, both mental and physical. O!V is a boardgame which presents you with 300 levels of molecules which you need to build using the atoms at hand. Unfortunately, molecules aren't nice 2 dimensional beings. They are 3D and so are the O!V molecules. As you build your molecules to match the pattern goal you need to rotate your molecule to bring the next link into view. This gets complicated...and fun! Of course, the above would just be too easy, so Jens has added all sorts of traps and dropouts to slow you down. There are solitaire (without time limits) and several Tournament modes (with decreasing time limits) options. This excellent game will play on any ST-Falcon from ST Low res through VGA 640*480 16/256 colors (including CrazyDots and Matrix graphic cards). Keyboard or mouse controlled. Shareware. English and German versions included (and their respective docs). As with anything by Jens I recommend this. PHUNIT is the Probe House Unit Converter v.1.0 prg/acc by William Wong (a good teacher,and you can tell!). For the ST-Falcon and Geneva compatible, this GEM based program will allow you to convert practically any unit into another. It's amazing all of the features it has! Here is a list of the units it can handle: Length : feet, inches, yards, centimeters, meters, kilometers, statute miles, nautical miles, par-secs, light-years, mils, microns, millimicrons, angstroms, x-units, rods, fathoms, furlongs. Mass : pounds, grams, kilograms, tons, amus, ounces, stones. Speed : m/sec, ft/sec, km/hr, cm/sec, knots, miles/hr. Volume : cubic meters, cubic cms, liters, gallons, cubic feet, cubic inches, barrels, hogsheads, boardfeet, cords. Area : square meters, square cms, square feet, square inches, circular mills, acres. Density : kg/m3, slug/ft3, gm/cm3, lb/ft3, lb/in3. Time : days, years, hours, minutes, seconds, decades, score, centuries, millenia, fortnights. Force : newtons, dynes, pounds, gram-force, kilogram-force. Energy : btus, ergs, ft-lbs, hp-hr, joules, calories, kilowatt-hours, electron volts, MeV. Pressure: atmospheres, dynes/cm2, inches of water, cms Hg, torr, mms Hg, inches Hg, lbs/in2, lbs/ft2, newtons/m2, bars, pascals. Plane Angle : degrees, minutes, seconds, radians, revolutions. Power : btus/hour, ft-lbs/min, ft-lbs/sec, horsepower, kilowatts, watts, calories/sec. Area : square meters, square cms, square feet, square inches, circular mills, acres. Density : kg/m3, slug/ft3, gm/cm3, lb/ft3, lb/in3. Time : days, years, hours, minutes, seconds, decades, score, centuries, millenia, fortnights. Force : newtons, dynes, pounds, gram-force, kilogram-force. Energy : btus, ergs, ft-lbs, hp-hr, joules, calories, kilowatt-hours, electron volts, MeV. Pressure: atmospheres, dynes/cm2, inches of water, cms Hg, torr, mms Hg, inches Hg, lbs/in2, lbs/ft2, newtons/m2, bars, pascals. Electric Charge : coulombs, bcoulombs, amp-hrs, faradays, statcoulombs, electron charges. Magnetic Induction: gauss, kilolines/in2, webers/m2, tesla, gamma. Light : Footlamberts, Nit, Millilamberts, Candelas/in2, Candelas/ft2, Candelas/m2, Stilb. Temperature : Fahrenheit, Celsius, Rankine, Kelvin. There are others too! Wow! Color or mono. Docs included. AMYJOGS is an FLC animation for the Falcon. It has been converted from an ERic Schwartz AMIGA animation by Barry Summer, the animation expert on Delphi. Watch Amy the squirrel jogging along. This was converted with Apex on the Falcon and the Apex FLC falcon player program is included This FLC can be viewed on a "PC" as well. DUEL is the Duel .FLM animation by, I think, Barry Summer using both new and old materials. It is a true color FLH animation, put together with Apex media. It shows a view of a robot warrior turning and firing (this was taken from a Cyber .SEQ animation thought to have been done by Timothy Wilson) with a true color space background, which shows the galactic beings which are being fired upon. Use the Apex .FLH viewer to view. I guess that means you need a Falcon (or a graphics card?) to view this animation. INSHAPE is the InShape 3D Modeler & Shader Demo v.1.02. InShape is for all TT's and Falcon's (with an FPU Chip) and 16 or 256 color display. I've used this demo on my TT and found it to be fast in display and in the animation of the provided samples. It seems relatively simple to use, and with the detailed docs and tutorials included in the demo, you will certainly be able to learn how to use this capable program. There are some limitations in the size of your renderings/raytracings, but that's it!. You can even save your creations! The docs mention an InShape Intro program, but that is not included in this archive. InShape is distributed by Cybercube. LIGHTING by Robert W. Stiles (dated 1994) is a very nice screensaving program which you must run rather than have automatically appear after a set time. Actually, Lighting is not so much a screensaver as an animation of a lightning storm. Just run it and sit back and watch! It's pretty neat to see the flashes of lightning on your screen and not have to worry about it zapping your system! About the only thing that's missing is the "Boom" and "Crash!" and the patter of fat rain drops on the window. Robert developed this storm on a palette-based color display system. It was developed on a Falcon and VGA color monitor, but it works on my TT and STE, and should work on any ST. Docs and Pure "C" source code included. AIRBAG is Airbag v.1.1 by Apache of tnb. This will work with any ST-Falcon computer. Airbag is a small boot manager expecially useful for games, as it works in 40 character mode. It doesn't use the mouse, but rather the keyboard and has built-in help. It allows 10 Preset bootups, each with up to 28 AUTO programs and 28 .ACCs. The program and docs are in German, but it's very easy to use anyway (of course, it's even easier to use if you read German!). LAUNCHER is Launcher v.2. by Frank Vuotto of F10 Software (dated 1994). This is an excellent and well-thought out utility. I've installed it on my NeoDesk Desktop and in Geneva and that's where it's going to stay! Launcher allows you to install a list of programs into it and then easily run them with just some mouse clicks. This works very well from the standard desktop (you can run your programs without searching through mounds of folders), but it is also very valuable for NeoDesk and other Desktop replacement users. Most desktop replacements only allow a certain number of programs to be placed on the desktop. You can use Launcher to increase that number tremendously and free up a lot of space on your desktop at the same time!. Place Launcher once on the desktop and you get another 32 programs just two clicks away. Rename it to indicate what type programs are listed in it and install it multiple times on the desktop (a Utility Launcher, a Sound Launcher, a Games Launcher...)! You can also pass documents to a parent program and sometimes launch accessories (tose that also run as programs). This version now allows you to automatically return to Launcher when you exit a program so you can launch another. Launcher only uses 42K of system memory! Color or mono. ST-Falcon and Geneva compatible. SHAREWARE (I've registered). Hensa. NBCBS is NBCBSnnn, v.1.0 by Oliver Scheel (dated June, 1991). This is a disk cache program based on the original CACHEnnn program by Atari. This one however, gets rid of some buglets. This will help speed up your hard drive accesses. Of course, if you use ICD's boot up software you don't need to use this at all. They have an excellent cache already onboard. OHNO is the "Oh No!" sound sample v.1.1 by David Oakley (dated 1992). Place this in your AUTO folder and you will hear a really cute "Oh No!" when you press the reset button on your computer (requires the DMA sound of the STE-Falcon computer). SCHONER2 is the Schoner Screensaver v.0.9 by Stefan Becker (dated Jan. 24, 1993). This is an excellent .ACC screensaver that allows you to choose between a sliding puzzle, a StarTrek "Warp" effect, and a third-party saver (see below). You can configure how long it takes to start, and which saver will automatically be active. It also has "corners" which allow you to prevent it from activating or cause it to activate immediately. Thorsten Pohlmann wrote an additional module for Schoner which causes the screen to drip down in globs (this one doesn't work on my TT with the high res. monitor installed - the author says that it is especially good in color, though). Works with TOS, MultiTOS, Geneva, and Magic operating systems. German and a RufTrade English translation included. Works with Graphic cards, too. Source code (C) is included, and the author invites you to write more modules for Schoner! SPEEDI2 is Speedi v.2.0a for the Mega STE by Philip Hough (of VR CREW). This program will allow you to configure the speed and cache status of your Mega STE either at bootup or from the desktop. It's simple to use seems very nice (as recognized from the well-writen docs since I don't have a Mega STE to try it on). The author asks you to register (either snailmail or Internet), but no money need be involved. S_ART_10 is Screen Artist v.1.0 by Massimo Farina (dated January, 1997). Screen Artist is a GEM-based Color Screen Saver .ACC for all TT/Falcon/68030 board upgrades with the FPU chip. This is a newer version of the author's shareware TT ARTIST program. This file is an awesome PD screen saver (I've heard that it beats out any Mac, PC, or Unix screensaver around, and I as far as I've seen it's true). It comes with over 45 animated modules which can either be chosen directly or set randomly each time it starts. It takes advantage of all available colors (color and greater than 640x400 res. required). It's hard to tell you which is my favorite module. There is an awesome line drawing animation, a great clock display (actually a bouncing watch!), excellent fireworks, several fractal generators, a message you can post, and much, much more. It even can include sound with it's modules if you so choose. Multi-tasking friendly. Docs in ASCII and Papyrus format, and GIF screenshots showing the screensaver options included. Compatible with the Magic operating system as well. TCACHE64 is TCache v.6.4 by Ralf Biedermann (dated Nov. 1995). TCache is a very fast Harddisk-Cache for the Atari range of computers (ST/STE/TT/Falcon). A cache program stores sectors from disk/harddisk in RAM and increases the speed of repeated disk accesses quite dramatically. The author states that you can increase the speed of those multiple accesses by six times or more. You may select the amount of memory you wish to dedicate to the cache, set passwords, re-direct requests for access from one drive to another (this is a very nice feature if you need it), and much more. Even if you have a hard disk driver like ICD's with its own cache, this cache program has many more options. Docs included. Shareware (either send something to an animal-related charity or something to him). TWILIGHT is the TwiLight screensaver Demo v.1.30 from Delirium Arts (dated May, 1995). This is an awesome screensaver for ST-Falcon computers with color or mono monitors (automatically checking your resolution and displaying the number of colors available). This demo comes with 18 sample screensavers and the commercial version has even more (along with helps for making your own). I especially like the "Balloon" module which shows many different kids of balloons (one even being rowed!) floating across a scrolling landscape). The animations are awesome. For you Falcon owners out there there is a module which will speed up your Falcon by shutting the CPU out from all screen activities when activated. This will free up the CPU to work on your project, speeding it up considerably! You can even have TwiLight pass output from your main application (so you know when something finishes up without checking yourself). You may configure TwiLight to play a sound sample when coming out of screensaver mode. TwiLight also upports the MOD-file player Paula. This demo works for 1.5 minutes of screensaving activity. LOTS of features and options. Docs included. I recommend this commercial program to you. Check with your local dealer or call up your non-local dealer for information about getting this. DACA122A is Da Capo v.1.22 (.PRG/.ACC) by Dr. Francisco Mendez of the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (dated Sept. 6, 1995). This is an excellent GEM-based address database and more (company names, favorite forms of address, phone numbers, comments, and more). It allows you to keep a record of birthdays (and reminds you of them when they are near). Multiple sorts are allowed, and you can display your information in several different ways. It uses GDOS (SpeedoGDOS?) to print out your files. It was written TOS-clean, so it needs only a TOS-compatible platform and at least 512 KB RAM (in fact, it was tested successfully from the Atari 520 ST with a monochrome SM124 and original TOS up to MagiCMac running on Apple's PowerPC with a 17" and 32K colours monitor)! As I expected, it is also fully compatible with Geneva from Gribnif. Here are just a few more of Da Capo's features: O GEM standards (Clipboard, non-modal windows dialogues, UNDO, Context sensitive help, Cut/Copy/Paste, GDOS and 3D Dialogues) O Display as a table or mask with colour icons O AV support, 1st Base Pipeline, Selectric and ST-Guide support with online help. O Flexible import/export options (including import of ASCII text O This formerly commercial program is now released as Shareware (limited only to 40 records at a time). Now all in English. Docs included. 3DANIM is a Falcon only program by Nemrod, CU and Flatliner. It will allow you t display Cyber format 3D2 files (that are the same as the screen size or smaller) and rotate them on screen. The program uses the DSP and is quite smooth in its animation. It includes several sample files. Docs included. BRAIN_VW is the ImageViewer JPEG and Targa (JPG & TGA) picture viewer v.0.9 from Brainstorm. The uploaded file ( *FAST* JPG/TGA DSP VIEWER on Delphi) says it uses the DSP and only works with the Falcon, but that's not correct. It works on my TT in TT high res., too (it reduces the true color images to mono fast and well. Dated 1992. No docs. Just run it and select the image using your item selector and mouse. BREAKOUT is a Falcon-only Breakout clone by Thomas Haines (dated June 22, 1994). This colorful game (running on a TV, RGB, VGA, or Multisync monitor that can do ST res and 4 meg of RAM) is keyboard controlled, has good MOD music (taken from the Plastikk demo, though you can substitute your own MOD file), has some good outdoor picture scenes (and some other less than the best graphics, too), and a built-in level editor. Some interesting docs, especially the really weird story and the joke at the end! DSPBIND is a set of bindings for Lattice C V.5.5 on the Falcon030 by Dave Malham (dated March 29, 1993). He wrote these because of "the failure of Atari to provide bindings with a sensible int = 32 bits rather than 16." As he says, these bindings use "#pragma inline code to get round Atari's inconsistant use of short int's and other silly things. Int = 16 is not mentioned in the Falcon documentation, and so he is putting these bindings into the Public Domain to save others the problem. It's too bad that I really don't have any idea of what the above means! Oh well, I don't have time to become a programmer, too! I'm just glad that there are a lot of Atari Programmers out there! DUNEBUG is a Falcon only True Color .FLH animation with the Apex media player program included. This animation shows a flying saucer hovering over a planet and encountering one of its inhabitants. It is about 600 frams in length. BURNING is a small Falcon demo entitled "Burning Waters FB3-1995" by The Chaos Engine. This was created for the Fried Bits III coding convention back in 1995. It is a "graphics and Sound Effects demo according to the uploader (since I don't have a Falcon...). It's one of four "96ktros" I've found from Fried Bits III (the others are Doomino , FZWERM, and HIRNTOD). They get their name from the fact that they are all under 96K in size (though they've been compressed with Pack Ice or some other program packer to get them that size). DOOMINO is Doomino v.0.8, a small Falcon demo of a 3D graphics engine designed to ultimately produce a "Doom" like clone. I've seen it uploaded in other places as 96K_STAX (which is the name of the file within the archive). This was created for the Fried Bits III Eastern Coding Convention back in 1995. It's one of four "96ktros" I've found from Fried Bits III (the others are BURNING, FZWERM, and HIRNTOD). They get their name from the fact that they are all under 96K in size (though they've been compressed with Pack Ice or some other program packer to get them that size). FZWERM is a small Falcon demo showing a series of Pixel Effects and music. I can't tell you any more as I don't own a Falcon. This was created for the Fried Bits III Eastern Coding Convention back in 1995. It's one of four "96ktros" I've found from Fried Bits III (the others are BURNING, DOOMINO, and HIRNTOD). They get their name from the fact that they are all under 96K in size (though they've been compressed with Pack Ice or some other program packer to get them that size). HIRNTOD is a small Falcon demo showing a series of Scrolling Text Effects. It also uses the SP-Protracker 3.0 player by bITmASTER of BSW (I found that by using a text editor to scroll through the uncompressed program.) I can't tell you any more as I don't own a Falcon. This was created for the Fried Bits III Eastern Coding Convention back in 1995. It's one of four "96ktros" I've found fom Fried Bits III (the others are BURNING, DOOMINO, and FZWERM). They get their name from the fact that they are all under 96K in size (though they've been compressed with Pack Ice or some other program packer to get them that size). FALCEXTN is Falcon STOS Extension v. 1.2 by Anthony Jacques (dated 1995). This is an extension that has been written to allow STOS to take advantage of the new capabilities of the Falcon. There is both graphic and audio fixes here. The docs are in HTLM format, but you can still read them easily enough (or get an HTLM reader such as CAB15 or WB_140E!). The docs cover how to use this. If you are a STOS programmer and want to write Falcon compatible programs get this! Shareware. FLICTC47 is FLICTC v.4.7 by Sven Bruns. This is a Full-speed, _fast_ FLI/FLC format animation player for the Falcon. It runs in all HiColor-resolutions (Atari calls them True Color...), with 320x200 pixels or bigger on a Falcon. FLIs may be played directly from the disk if necessary, so you can play some pretty big animations! Whether you have a standard Falcon or an accelerated version, this player will take full advantage of your hardware. You can run it from a command line or instal it as a desktop icon. It can run at 608 frames per second (on an accelerated Falcon) and runs as fast as a 486 based machine on a standard Falcon. It was compatible with every FLI/FLC animation tested and it also works with Screenblaster and NVDI. It has a lot of other features too (like optional double buffering which eliminates flicker!). The program comes in English and German variations with their respective docs. Not MultiTOS compatible. KALEIDO is Kaleido V1.0 by David M. Levi and Matthew D. Bednall (dated 1994). Kaleido is a color icon editor for the Atari Falcon computer and works in RGB (TV) or VGA with 256 colors with a resolution of 320*200 or 320*240. Kaleido has 16 color drawing tools, the ability to grab pictures from uncompressed Degas picture formats, Iff pictures and MS-Windows BMP format pictures. It allows you to create 16, 4, and two color (mono) icons and all the little features that go along with making your icons "just right." The program and docs are in English. There's even online help! LOSTBLUB is the Falcon only "Lost Blubb - A Lazer demo" by Martina, Photon, Energizer, Dan and Stax (dated May 18, 195). This is one HUGE demo! It comes compressed as four .ZIP files totalling (compressed!) 4.56 MEG! So you can see, you need a lot of hard disk space (about 7 meg free). You also need a lot of RAM, about 3.6 Meg of RAM free. Just what is this demo about? Well, this demo contains about 450 True color pictures, lots of excellent 8-channel Octalyzer MODs (all created and performed by the authors and/or their friends), digitalized animations, and much more. This demo runs using a multitasking system. So while you are watching an effect, the next part is being loaded, depacked, relocated and set up in the background. The demo won the Fried Bits 3 Coding Convention in Bremen, and the music won the 3rd place at the same party. It does not work on VGA, because this would mean to do the demotiming twice. VGA-screens still use up more bus-time, even when forced to 50 Hz, and as this demo constantly runs at the maximum limit, it proved to be impossible. Sorry all VGA users...The uploader comments that, according to the reports on the Atari newsgroup, you need to run this off your internal IDE drive rather than a external SCSI. The docs seem to disagree with this, so you'll need to find out for yourself! MOONSPEE is the Falcon-only demo of the French game MoonSpeeder (this is the demo, but I am almost sure that I've downloaded the full game (which has been released by the authors), which is supposed to be excellent--I just can't find it!). There was a demo release of an earlier demo of this game, but this demo is now a complete mirror of the commercial game, with training missions and more. I don't know the limitations of this demo, since they aren't mentioned in the docs. You have full control over your MoonSpeeder, choosing from a variety of options. The game also has lots of sounds and music as well. Joystick, keyboard, mouse, Jaguar Joypad, or analogic joystick controlled. VGA monitor is mentioned in the docs, but there's a small hint in the docs that it might work with other monitor/TV types as well. I don't know. _ANALYZ is the Music Analyzer, 1995 by Roel van de Kraats. This is a simple program for your Falcon which graphically shows the incoming sound as 2 stereo vu-meters, 2 14-band spectrum analyzers and 2 scopes. It has the source code included. PLWAV100 is the Falcon-only Playwave v.1 (Build 1) by Mark Himsley (dated April 2, 1995). This is a simple WAV playing program. Just drop your WAV file onto this TTP program and it will be played. Playwave picks the closest Falcon sample rate to play the .WAV file at, then sample repeats to get the sample frequency correct. Well it's close enough for most purposes. Due to the conversion from one sample rate to another playwave.ttp can be quite processor intensive. If you use verbose mode on a 16Mh Falcon in >4 colours you may get hickups in the audio. Docs included. POUSPOUS is Pous-Pous v.1.3 by Denis Miquel (dated January, 1995). This PRG/ACC is a Shareware True Color sliding puzzle game for the Falcon. You may load a Targa image (two samples included) and select the number of rows and columns you wish to use. The program will then break up the image into "row times column minus one pieces" and scramble them. Your job, should you agree to accept it, is to unscramble the pieces. You may also choose to use numbers instead of a Targa file, which is a little easier if you're not good at jigsaw puzzles. Greg Evans at Delphi translated the resource file from the original French into English. Thanks Greg! The complete docs are in French. RUNNING is the Running Preview of a "Doom"-like 3D engine for the Falcon by STAX (dated April 8th and 23rd, 1996). You may have seen an early version of this as 96K_STAX or DOOMINO, but this is much more advanced. Move around an area with texture-mapped walls, impressive sky, and excellent sounds. Aim your gun at the monsters (I gather that you can't shoot them yet). You can increase or decrease the screen size, thus increasing or decreasing the details in the scene. Open the doors (according to the updated docs there are doors in this version though there's a bit of a conflict in reports of whether they really are there or not. I can't tell as I don't have a Falcon. Anyone want to donate one?). Lots of docs detailing how to use the program. Maybe this will show up someday as a full game. Contact the author to find out (his internet address is included). 2.9 meg uncompressed. SCRDUMP is v.1.0 of a screen dump program by Th. Morus Walter (dated April 20, 1994). It will allow you to either dump the whole screen, or a specified portion by rubber banding, to and xImage file. Falcon only. The program and docs are in German. Note: there is a newer version of STOOP recently uploaded on Delphi, but I haven't cataloged it yet. If the below sounds interesting then just get the newer version! STOOP104 is STOOP v.1.04 by Sven Bornemark (dated 1994). STOOP is a Shareware Falcon-only Boot Manager. 4 Meg of RAM and a VGA or RGA monitor in any resolution. Stoop has its own graphical interface and uses the mouse for most operations though it does make some use of the keyboard. The list of Stoop's features take up two pages, so I won't bother. Suffice to say that if you want to configure your boot up in almost any number of specific ways, and choose among them for a specific use, you can do it with Stoop. It also allows you to re-order the contents of your AUTO folder, copy, delete, rename, and move files and folders using its own file selector, control the volume of your internal speaker (!), and much more. I know how much time my boot manager helps me, so I recommend that if you own a Falcon you check this one out. Not crippled shareware, but don't let that stop you from supporting the author! TBLASTER is the Tank Blaster Demo, v.1.0Beta by Fabrice Vende (dated Sept. 24, 1995). This Falcon only game is a multiplayer (up to six on one Falcon), shoot-your-friend tank battle game. I like all of the options the author has come up with. You can play on teams (one person driving and the other person running the turrent) and/or more than one tank on a team (colors distinguish teams and tanks), you can use a "hunt" mode where you have to search for a specific tank and ignore the others (unless they are hunting for you!), or you can just be out to get everyone! Control is by normal joysticks, Joysticks using the STE enhanced joystick ports, the Jaguar Joypad, and/or the keyboard. This uses either an RGB or VGA monitor in True Color mode. It requires at lease one meg of free RAM. Nice graphics and sound. The demo version has only two soundtracks. There are five in the registered version. The demo doesn't allow you to save your configuration, nly contains 1/4 of the graphics, and only has 16 levels instead of the 1000 editable ones in the registered version. And registration is only $10. That sounds like "a honey of a deal" to me! English and French docs included. WD2D_PRO is the Wax Direct To Disk Player, Professional Edition prg/acc by WAX (dated November 13th 1994). This English language Falcon only GEM based program (with multi-Tasking possibilities) will allow you to play or record any sample which is 16 bits (mono or stereo) at any conventional frequency. Even with external sync if you can connect one on your DSP port! Here are some of its features: " Loop option on single track selection " Selectric multiple selection compatible " Allows text files with list of tracks to replay (.LT) " Handles multiple formats list of tracks " Handles/saves DVS compatible file format " Mathematical analysis and distortion calculation " Optional Pseudo stereo replay for mono tracks MONEY_10 is Easy Money, The Address Book and Financial Manager v.1.0 by Anthony Watson of Mountain Software. Easy Money is a fully relational database with facilities for accounts, invoices, and transactions. Various search features are available to quickly analyze your records. While Easy Money is designed for business uses, it could easily be used to handle your personal accounts and expenses, or even as a basic address book. Originally written to supply their own needs, Mountain Software is now releasing this program as fully functioning shareware. It will run on any ST-Falcon with at least one meg of RAM. Color or mono (higher res. supported). A hard drive is recommended and GDOS or SpeedoGDOS installed if you are using its print functions. Docs included. ADR_RIP is the Adrenaline ripper v.1.06 by "Dr. Computer." This program will allow you to search through your programs and pull out (rip) the music and pictures it contains. Some music and picture formats are automatically recognized while others you will need to manually search through the progrm (with big help from this program). Ethically, I'm not so sure of this program. The author asks people to use it wisely and not to rip off other programmers code (good for him), but it seems to me that something like this can be abused. Stealing code on our platform is like cutting off your nose to spite your face! Don't! ST-Falcon compatible. Color monitor required (512K RAM for ST, but 1 meg recommended for everyone). Docs included. I found this on Hensa. BLITTER is the STOS STE Blitter Extension by L.J.Greenhalgh. This is an extension of the STOS programming language (the upload says that it will work with any ST-Falcon) which allows you to access the blitter, if available. Seventeen different commands are included. You can quickly clear the screen, check for blitter availability, even use the CPU to do something else while the blitter is doing its calculations (getting double-time work out of your computer!). Docs included. CDBIND01 is the CDROMIO interface by Julian F. Reschke (dated May 16, 1994). This is a series of three source code listings (.C and .H) designed to provides a *nix type interface to the CD-ROM specific functions. May be used either with a MiNT specific CD-ROM device driver or with the new MetaDOS lowlevel drivers. CONTROL3 is the Stos Control Extension v.3.0 by L.J.Greenhalgh (dated 1994). STOS may be powerful and easy to learn but it is very unstructured when compared to languages like C and GFA basic. This extension adds a switch construct to STOS which makes program listings shorter and more readable as well as _many_ other useful commands. BAS source, fonts, pictures, and other utilities included on this disk, but if you register you get lots more graphics and other helpful tools). Docs included. CYBER is the STOS Cyber extension v.1.00 by Andy Cato and Martin Cubitt. This extension (which includes the compiler extension) will allow you to view a cyber animation sequence (.SEQ) and depending on the way you set the flag will either loop or just go through the sequence once. In ay case you can press the spacebar to exit the sequence once going. Numerous .BAS examples, six .SEQ files, and docs included. EXTNSEL2 is the STOS Extension Selector v.2.0 by L.J.Greenhalgh (dated July 1994). This program allows you to select which specific STOS extensions you wish to load at boot up. You may selectively activate/deactivate you selections, view which ones are active, and restore your standard configuration with a button click. You can even print out a list of the currently selected extension's commands to the printer. GBP_EXT is the GBP STOS Extension v.4.7 by Neil Halliday of GBP Software (dated 1994). This extension allows you to do things with STOS that you aren't supposed to be able to do without machine language modules tying up your machine. The docs list a slew of commands for you to use. This archive only contains the run time version of this extension. If you want the compiler version you much register (inexpensive). GFAPE107 is the GFA-BASIC Interpreter/Compiler-Patcher v.1.07 by Christoph Conrad and Gregor Duchalski (dated Oct. 22, 1994). This program provides a convenient method of making useful patches to the GFA-BASIC 3.x interpreter and compiler. The patches are included and you can select which ones you wish to use. Two patches are available for the compiler. They are the insertion of an improved INIT section and a bugfix for the crash under Mag!X. There are ten patches to the Interpreter, all of which improve capabilities or fix errors with various machines. This looks like an excellent program for all of you GFA Basic programmers out there! Docs included. Freeware. ICBIS is the "I Can't Believe It's STOS" extension v.1 by Richard Hunt, (dates from April, 1994 through Sept. 20, 1994). ICBIS is a STOS extension which corrects the only 15 sprite on screen and slow sprites at that limitation of STOS and brings many additional facilities easing some, quite complex, programming tasks considerably. This advance is all under your direct control and so also requires a bit more thought before tapping at the keyboard. The docs help guide you though this, of course (it's always nice when people write useful documentation!). This file includes the compiler extension in source code format (.S), the ICBIS executible program, and several example files. ICBIS provides you with a sprite toolkit which allows you to have... " Up to 65535 sprites - not a measly 15. " More than one sprite bank can be used in the program directly - no more copying banks to bank 1! Saves on memory too. " Faster than the existing sprite system when lots doing and ... " Autoback can (and should) be turned off - 50 to 100% increase in speed! " Allows for easy parallax scrolling as sprites blanked with a specified (hence current) screen, not the last background. " Global offset for sprites - ideal for large screen/scrolling games. " Comprehensive and pixel perfect collision detection. " Background collision detection as well (what pixels under sprite!) " Invisible sprites (!) make for even faster collision detection. " Sprite movements can by precisely synchronised. " Animation position can be determined by a simple command. " Sprites can be copied to any screen at any point, unlike put sprite! " Control is easier as updating of animation and movement only done at redraw. " Numbers of sprites/moves/anims/areas required set by yourself, up to 255 each for the latter. Thus keeping memory requirements to a minimum. " Very fast screen copy type command for full screens. " Existing STOS sprites can be used in your programs as well (65550 sprites!) or if you don't use the STOS system ... " No sprite buffer needed on compilation thus freeing more memory! " Fast plotting of backgrounds using sprites (uses optimised plotting on even boundaries of 16) Wow! This looks like it does a lot! STOS required (obviously!). I found this on UKI in three different archives. It's on Delphi in one piece. MISSLNK is the Top Notch Stuff, release 1.0 by Billy Allan and Colin Watt (dated Feb. 1993). In it you will find two STOS extensions - Misty and The Missing Link. There is also a large doc/source file giving details on how to write your own STOS extensions, use Assembly in your STOS programs, and much more! It gives an easy "how-to" guide to writing extensions, including 11 commands from the Misty and Missng Link extensions. There are also several utilities such as: ú COLDBOOT Does a cold boot of your machine ú FIGGY A program which will allow you to configure your computer memory to 1/2, 1, or 2 meg for those difficult programs. ú HERTZ Switches back and forth between 50/60Hz with color monitors. ú PAL_REST Restores default palette with keypress, by B. Allan. ú RAZREZ An excellent .ACC to play a wide variety of chip music files ú ZAK, or Muzak Application v.1.0 which allows for easy playback and recognition of music files. This program recognises a wide variety of formats (the docs just say that and not which kinds) and will also depack all of the common packers. Shareware. MNLU_TRQ is Mnilu Tranquil v.2.10.1, a GFA basic compiler for GFA v.2 with added support for GFA Basic 3.5E from Spectre Software. This is not the official GFA compiler (the authors of this program have nothing to do with GFA) nor can it replace the official compiler, but it will enable everyone without a compiler to turn their .BAS or .GFA files into stand-alone program files. Postcardware from Spectre. Docs included. Works in ST medium resolution and above (including graphic cards). NAUDIEMO is two programs that show what can be done with the NAUDIO sample replay library by Nat. The first is NaTracker, a prg/acc ProTracker MOD player for all ST-Falcon computers. It's a simple interface, but it works and sounds fine! I could get it to crash by accessing the .acc menu while the program was playing (don't do that!). The next sample is N-Quiz and QizMake. These two form a set which allows you to make and play sound quizzes (with questions like "What is the name of this song?" or "What is the name of this group?" when a sound file is played. Best in Low res, but it works just fine in mono or med. res, too. Not Geneva compatible. Just what is the NAUDIO library? It allows you to program digital audio programs for all Atari hardware platforms by allowing you to load, save, and play samples an modules on the PSG, the StarSampler+ (I have no idea what these two are!) or the STE and Falcon DMA (but the program has a "slow" or "fast" ST mode, so it seems to work on those, too. (hmmm...the original docs say "all atari's". NINJA is the STOS Ninja Tracker Extension v.1.05 for 1meg STE/TT/Falcon machines by L.J.Greenhalgh (dated 1995). This extension allows you to play mods at up to 21khz in your STOS programs in the background on any STE/TT/Falcon. It shoud be able to play any four channel protracker mods and the vast majority of chip music formats avaliable. This extension has been fully tested on the Falcon030 and works perfectly. You don't need to convert any MOD files, just load them and play them! Docs included. BACH11 is the Brutal Algorithmic Canon Harmonist, v.1.1 by Thierry Rochebois (though when running the program through a text editor it says v.1.0 inside the program). This program works with a MIDI synthesizer connected to the ST. It generates a complex canon: 2, 3 or 4 instruments (MIDI channels) plays the same melody with time delays and pitch translations and the program manages that it is harmonically nearly correct. I love canons, so this sounds like a very interesting program! ST-Falcon compatible, or so the uploader said. It doesn't work on my TT, though I don't have a MIDI keyboard hooked up. No docs. LPS124 is LPS (Play Long Samples) by Uwe Reder (dated Dec. 23, 1993). This program will allow you to pPlay sound files with unlimited length by loading parts of it while continiously playing the sample. It can handle files with a sampling precision of 8 or 16-bit on 1 or 2 channels. Due to the sound hardware of the Atari ST replaying is always 8-bit on 1 channel. LPS has the ability to recognize unsigned linear, signed linear or logarithmic coded samples. For replaying a sound file you need a fast device (for example a harddisk or a ramdisk) 'cause floppy-disks are just to slow! The program supports a wide variety of sound formats: 1. Interchange File Format 8SVX by Electronic Arts (*.iff/*.svx) 2. Audio format by NeXT and Sun (*.snd/*.au) 3. Audio format by Audio-Visual-Research (*.avr) 4. Resource Interchange File Format by Microsoft (*.wav) 5. Creative Voice file format by Creative Lbs (*.voc) 6. HSND-format introduced by Maxon's CrazySounds (*.hsn) 7. Audio format used by Sound Machine (*.sam) 8. raw data or unknown formats (you have to help the program here). 9. ST-Falcon and Multi-TOS compatible. 10. Docs included. 7UP_2_3 is 7UP v.2.3 by Michael Th„nitz (dated Feb. 25, 1995). 7UP is an excellent GEM-based text editor. The docs are in German, but there is an English RSC file for you to use. 7UP uses all the advantages of GEM and more. It is mouse and/or keyboard controlled, allows up to seven windows open at one time, uses GDOS if available (with various size fonts even without GDOS!), includes programmable function keys, imports its own desktop with icons, allows you to format your text and preview the printout (printing may be done as a background task!), has a comprehensive set of column calculation and statistical functions (in a text editor even!), and much, much more. SHAREWARE. ST--Falcon compatible with any amount of RAM. Color or mono. This is an excellent program! I have included Mike Valent's excellent translation of the documentation for an older version of 7UP (vs. 2.09d), which I think you will find valuable. Support Shareware authors! Uncompresses to 1.06 meg, so you will either need a hard drive or uncompress the parts you need bit by bit (It will run from a floppy. The reason the archive is so large is because of the German and English versions and all the docs). LEXICON is Lexicon v.1.0 by Ian Clarke (dated 1995). Lexicon permits the use of the mouse to simulate keyboard commands, such as ordinary characters like: "AM7+=$ etc, non standard keys such as HELP and UNDO and combinations of Control, Alternate, and shift keys with ordinary characters. How can a MOUSE do that? By doing what mouses (or mice?) do best - drawing shapes! With Lex (Lexicon) installed you can simulate any key or combination of keys by holding down the right mouse button while you 'draw' a shape on the screen, Lexicon will use a clever system to match this symbol with one in its library (hey do not even have to be exactly the same), and simulate the appropriate key being pressed, your computer will not know the difference! This is a different idea, but it sounds really neat. With a quick flick of your mouse you can make any complex key combination! Docs included. ST-Falcon compatible. Color or mono (color better). 1STG0197 is 1st Guide, the Shareware Prg/ACC by Guido Vollbeding which will allow you to view/play a large variety of picture and animation files on all Atari machines, all system configurations, and in all screen resolutions and color depths (from 1 bit mono to 32 Bit TrueColor). This release, dated January 16, 1997, is the basic release of 1st Guide. It doesn't contain all of the "extras" you get when you register (just about everything else you could imagine to make this even more useful). Here are the file formats you can access using 1stGuide... .IMG GEM-(X/T)-Image picture files, Level-1/2/3 (1 Bit Monochrome up to 12 Bit RGB XIMG Colormap, RGB-TrueColor/Gray/Alpha TIMG direct pixel) .IFF Interchange File Format: ILBM - Interleaved Bitmaps (1 Bit Monochrome up to 12 Bit RGB Colormap) .GEM GEM-Metafiles (including bezier curves under appropriate VDI, e.g. NVDI >= 2.12) .RSC GEM-Resource files (simple up to 64 K and extended > 64 K) .PNG Portable Network Graphics, all 'flavors' according to the current specification .JPG - .JPE - .JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group - pictures: JPEG/JFIF-Standard (24 Bit TrueColor, 8 Bit Gray), Baseline/Multiscan/Progressive Support .MPG - .MPE - .MPEG Moving Picture Experts Group - movies: MPEG-1-Video-Standard (24 Bit TrueColor), MPEG-1-System (Video+Audio interleaved) .SAM - .SND - .AVR Sound-Sample files (8 Bit Mono only at the moment) .DOC - .OUT - * Textfiles (including attributes) You can even define hypertext-like links between files in a simple manner, which provides the possibility to create large information systems to be used interactively with 1stGuide. This archive contains excellent English and German docs. If you use this remember to register it! AMADEUS is Amadeus the great (command line) composer v.1.0 by Paul Cartwright and Paul Hamer (dated, July 26, 1994). Are you tired of always having to type in a tortuous command line in order to carry out a seemingly simple task? i.e. cc myprog.c -lgem -mc68030 -o myprog.prg If so, then AMADEUS.TTP is the answer! It can improve your productivity in those command line programs immensely! All you have to do is edit one (or maybe two to be flash) files and true speed can be at your fingertips! What Amadeus allows you to do is to set up beforehand what you generally wish to do with each file type you experience. When you double-click on that file type Amadeus creates the correct commands and feeds them to the correct program. You set it up once and that's it! If you program, uncompress files (though using a program like ZTZIP26 of LHA_310 is better, in my mind), or any other TTP program then this file is for you! Directions are included. Best when used with Geneva, NeoDesk, Magic, MultiTOS, etc. as some of the older TOS (1.0 and 1.02, I think) have a bug in "passing parameters." These alternate desktops and operating systems fix that even on the older TOS. C source code included. Freeware. BKITE161 is BoxKite v.1.61 by Harald Becker. This is an alternative file selector. Very nice, with 3D look on a Falcon. Directories, files, and executables are shown in different colours on a Falcon. All of the docs are in German, but the program is still easy to use (especially if you speak German!). This looks very much like Selectric, but with a few other features. Works under MiNT/MultiTOS, and can handle long filenames. It also allows you to designate a right mouse click as a double left click (which I like). Also the size of the file selector box can be altered to how big/small you want it, just by dragging the mouse. When I used this on my STe mono monitor BoxKite filled the whole sceen and some items overlapped. It almost seems like it was written for a higher res... I suspect that it is some conflict with my system as I've not heard of this problem from anyone else. You can use any item selector calling .acc to call this file selector. ST-Falcon. Shareware. BREAK is a program which will allow you to interrupt any program (apart from the desktop), when installed in the auto folder, or started by clicking on it. Breaking into programs is then done by the CONTROL-DELETE keypress. EGALE is gale v.2.7i by David Reitter and Christof Schardt (dated Aug. 25, 1995). What's gale for? Here's a few examples: Two identical filenames on different disks, same filesize, same datestamp but are they really exactly the same? When gale loads two identical files a dialog is displayed confirming they are identical, and you can either select other files, exit or continue and display the files. Or... You update a program or document, then decide some of the changes you've made are a backward step, and would like to review all the changes made since you last saved a back-up. Load the current and back-up files into gale and the differences between the two files will be highlighted. You can save the differences as a file and review these as desired. Or... You discover a minor but nasty bug in a program you've already released! Load the original and updated executable files into gale and after following a simple procedure gale will generate a compact patch program which you can release to your users. So...In principle these tasks could be performed using a text editor or other application but gale is designed to manage these tasks easily for you, which it does with the minimum of fuss via an enhanced GEM interface. Save your brain, let gale take the strain! The program and docs are in English. ST-Falcon Geneva, MultiTOS, and MagiC compatible. Shareware. FIGGY is a small program which will allow you to configure your computer memory to 1/2, 1, or 2 meg for those difficult programs that require a specificmemory configuration. Just choose the option, click on a button and reboot. It's too bad that it can't turn a 1/2 memory ST into a 2 meg machine! MEDSPEED is a simple program by Jurgen Stessun which will test the maximum transfer rate of any drive in your system. One nice feature of this program is that it uses actual data on your drives to run the tests. It also works for Floppy disk access which will allow you to see in real terms how much better the various "Fast" disk formats are over the standard formats. GEM based, STE compatible (at least) though when I try to run it on my full system (Geneva and a slew of other stuff included) the program works but locks up after its first test. English program with German docs included. I don't know where the file name MEDSPEED comes from as the program name is LESETEST.PRG. METADS26 is Atari's MetaDOS v.2.60. With this file you can get any SCSI CD ROM drive going on an Atari TT or to use an `Atari CDAR 504' CD ROM on an Atari with ACSI port. It does NOT support SCSI drives connected to an ACSI port. It does NOT support the Atari Falcon030 at all (in these cases, you'll need third-party drivers). This release fixes only some small problems present in previous versions. According to the docs you shouldn't expect any further development of this. I personally use Roger Burrows "ExtenDOS" software which works just fine, and I recommend that to you. PALREST4 is a small program by Billy Allan (one of the authors of the Misty and Missing Link STOS extensions). When you click on this you store away a little program in memory which allows you to restore default palette with keypress. This is great when you run a program which messes up your screen colors! ANTIDOTE is Antidote v.3.7 by Kai Trygve Holst, dated Sept. 28, 1994 and released in the complete and unrestricted form on March 12, 1996. Antidote is a virus killer for all Atari TOS computers. With a smooth and quick GEM interface, Antidote is extremely easy to use. Antidote is fully multi-tasking and very fast in its virs checking (over 250 files/sec in checking for Link viruses!). Antidote has been successfully run under TOS, MiNT, Geneva and Magic. It should also be 100% compatible with future releases of any of these, or other, environments. Antidote recognizes a 211 harmess bootsectors (Demos, commercial games etc), 155 resident (TSR) programs, 64 different cookie jar entries, 6 bootsector anti-viruses, 21 known file packers and archivers, all 5 known link-viruses, and 64 known bootsector viruses. Detailed docs are included, and best of all, it's free! I personally am using the Ultimate Virus Killer, as it is still being supported (Antidote might still come out in an upgraded version, but not yet). This seems like an excellent program, nevertheless. Detailed docs included. INVITER is a set of two PageStream 2 documents by Craig Baltzer. They are two birthday invitations he made for his boy (Craig) and one of his girls (Charly). One invitation has a Spiderman theme while the other is a 101 Dalmations theme. The Crackling Fire font is included (the other two fonts come with PageStream). The printout looks best in color, but it will work with a mono printer, too. Found on Delphi. HP_PING is the HomePage-Penguin v.1.6 .ACC/.PRG by Matthias Jaap (dated ). With the HP-Penguin you can create your own HTML-page without knowing any HTML-commands. You create it by answering a few questions. You can choose a background, make a two-column-text, insert a picture and many more. It looks pretty simple to do, and from what I hear, works pretty well. According to the author, Webspace v.1.4b doesn't display HP_PING files correctly and so he recommends the use of CAB (or Netscape 2.0 - gasp!). This program will run in English, German, and French, and includes English and German docs (both text and ST-Guide format). Shareware (he's continuing development, too!). It will run on any ST/TT/Falcon with TOS 1.4 - 4.4, MultiTOS, Geneva, or Magic OS and ST Medium or better. Great! PRHELL99 is the pre-release version 0.99 of Hell's BBS by L. Anliker (Teddy of TMC). This is a new ANSI compatible BBS designed to be the fastest around, and just about the most capable one, too. As I haven't run this, I can't vouch for the author's statements, but he certainly has made it attractive for you to try it (other than the name, that is, IMHO). It's the complete version, and it's free (though he encourages you to register it). Set up your message and file areas, and the modemers will come! This archive includes docs and .RSC files for English, French, and German. A powerful scripting language is included. The author says the docs are sparse intentionally. He doesn't like to write docs (he's a coder!), and he wrote the BBS for peple who don't need a lot of docs! He also recommends that you get a copy of Everest as the BBS benefits from a text editor and a copy of GSZRZ for Z-Modem transfers. ST-Falcon, Multitasking, MagicMac/MagicPC compatible. ATIMES_7 is The Atari Times issue 7 (dated Nov., 1996). This HTML newsletter (use CAB15 or WS_140_E to view -- you can use a standard text editor to read the .HTM files, but you miss out on the fancy text and the pictures) is full of excellent reviews of ST-Falcon software (shareware and commercial), interviews with Atari programmers, and, of course, reviews of Jag games. Based in Britian, Croft Soft Software is a PD, Shareware, and Licenseware software company which has put together seven of these newsletters since May, 1996. I recommend it to you. MAGG22ST is Maggie 22, the ST(e) version (and more--see below), dated January 18, 1997). Maggie is a wonderful disk magazine that covers not only computer news (obviously focusing on the Atari line), but also touches on movies, music, politics, and more. I enjoyed the scores of articles: the game reviews, the looks forward to new Jag games, the detailed reviews of ST and Falcon demos, the secret (or not so secret now) formula for Coca Cola (Really! Now you can make your own!), and much more. There is even a quote from me hidden away inton article (I knew these guys were smart!). Maggie 22 is designed to run off any ST/STE, (color or mono), but it is best run in ST medium. Actually though, it will run on a Falcon, TT, MagicMac, and maybe more. There is a Falcon only version available, too, that takes specific advantage of the Falcon's capabilities (see MAGG22F1 and MAGG22F2). I recommend this, and all of the previous Maggie issues to you. Requires an 810K floppy or hard drive to use. V22DISK and V22MAN is the Spiritware Bible Concordance v.2.2 and Disk Manual by Don Clifton of the Fifteen Ave. Bible Church. This is an EXCELLENT Bible concordance for the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments. It's what I use all the time (though I actually use .3.107--see following description). This concordance allows you to search for any word or phrase throughout the entire Bible or through any selected portion of it. You may also look up specific verses. The program presents you with three windows, the first being the line you enter your search criteria. The second window presents you with the results of your search. You may scroll through the list of verses which contain your required word or phrase, selecting which ones to examine in detail. The final window shows the selected verse in its larger context. Lots of options! This archive does not contain any scripture. You must get them separately (see files KJVDISK1-3). You may only select one version of the Bible at a time. This version requires at least one meg of RAM, a Double-sided disk drive or a hard drive (with only the DS Drive you can only access selected portions of the Bible at any one time), and an ST-TT computer. While this version works on the TT it only can use ST med. or high. This used to be shareware, but is now freeware. I'd still urge you to support the author and his church, as all the money goes towards mission projects. For a new version, but one which requires a hard drive and two meg of RAM, see V31DISK. V31DISK and V31MAN the Spiritware Bible Concordance v.3.107 and Disk Manual by Don Clifton of the Fifteen Ave. Bible Church. This is an EXCELLENT Bible concordance for the entire Beble, both Old and New Testaments. I use this version all the time. This concordance allows you to search through multiple translations of the Bible [the King James version, the New International Version (NIV), the New American Standard Bible (NASB), and the Greek New Testament and Dictionary from CCAT (available online as files GNTDISK1-3) are currently available, though I think you'll have to search through the used commercial software market for the NIV and NASB versions as they are no longer available through Spiritware]. As with any concordance you may look up specific words and find where they are mentione in the Bible. With the Spiritware Concordance you may also look up phrases and specific verses. Two translations may be displayed at once. Even the Greek will be displayed in Greek letters (as long as GDOS or one of it's newer varieties is installed). See the description of V22DISK for more details of how the program works. This version will work on any ST-TT in ST med through TT high (great!). It requires a DS drive (for installing the software), a hard drive, at least two meg of RAM, and one or more of the biblical texts. This used to be shareware, but is now freeware. I'd still urge you to support the author and his church, as all the money goes towards mission projects. This is also available directly from the Fifteen Avenue Bible Church's Website. The next set of files have come from the Hensa Internet site: 525_V211 is Five to Five, v. 2.11 by Harald Sch”nfeld and Bernd Spellenberg (dated July, 1995). 'Five to Five' is a program to interconvert various sound file types, as used on different computer systems. Some packing algorithms and the following file types are currently supported by 525 are: DVSM (ATARI Falcon 'WinRec'); AVR (ATARI); HSN (ATARI 'CrazySounds'); FORTUNE (ATARI Falcon 'Fortune'); SND, AU (Sun, Mac, NeXT); WAV (PC); AIFF (Mac, ATARI (Cubase), and Raw data. With this version you may now convert the sample frequency of the sound data and use an adjustable low pass filter. Five to Five runs on all ATARI computers of the 680x0 series, no matter if MultiTOS, Geneva, or Magic is installed or not (and is fully multi-tasking itself), and on Macintosh computers running MagicMac. 525 needs about 250 KB free RAM. English and German program and docs included. SHAREWARE. ACEDEMO is a demo advertising the meetings and activities of the Atari Computer Enthusiasts of Columbus (ACE_C). It uses GFA Basic and a sound playing program entitled "Playback" by Tristan Hunting to show scrolling text messages, a message board, and a bouncing (and bonking) Atari Logo on a blue ball. Works and any ST-Falcon. ARGVSPEC is a text file by Ken Badertscher detailing the GEMDOS Extended Argument (ARGV) specification. For all of you programmers out there... The Pexec() function of GEMDOS allows a program to pass to a child process a command line up to 125 characters long, with arguments separated by spaces. No provision is made in GEMDOS for the child to know its own name. This makes it difficult for C programs to correctly fill in argv[0], the standard place where a C program finds the command which invoked it. Because the command line arguments are separated by spaces, it is difficult to pass an argument with an embedded space. This document will specify a method of passing arguments which allows arbitrary argument length, embedded spaces, and support for argv[0] ASCDRAW is ASCII-Draw v.1.6 by Eero Tamminen of Finland (dated March 1, 1994). This is a 'drawing' program for *characters*. This program will provide you with the means to do those little boxes and line-drawings which you sometimes see on a "PC." It provides you with 6 different box-styles, the ability to pick and use whatever ASCII character you wish, and Block functions (copy, move, mirror, flip, slant, delete, invert). When saved as an ASCII file (see example below!) you can import it into your modeming messages and have them appear in all their ANSI compatible glory (what you see in ASCII below is not as neat as if you were using an ANSI compatible program). Keyboard and/or joystick controlled. Program and online help (and doc file) in English. Color or mono. ST-Falcon compatible. example! Suzy B's Software!!!!!!!!! AVFM11 is Al's Virtual File Manager v.1.1 by Alan Richardson (dated May 25, 1995). AVFM is a program launcher with a difference. With this program you can do away with your desktop (almost). You can set it up to run all of your programs with a double-click from one location (AVFM's). You do this by setting up "virtual files" which have a link to the actual program file but may have up to 30 characters in it's name (so you can really describe what the program is!). Selecting that virtual file tells AVFM to run the program. Docs included. Color or Mono. ST-Falcon and Geneva compatible. COSTA134 is CoSTa v.1.34 by Gary A. Priest (dated Jan. 3, 1996). CoSTa is a program is a program which will help you to cut your online expenses by keeping you aware of how much online time you are putting in each day, week, month, whatever. Each time you connect to your serer using the supported programs (Atari NOS, MiNTnet, and Connect) a log file is created/appended with the current start date and time, plus an awful lot of other information. CoSTa runs over this log file and extracts all the information it requires about each call made, it then calculates the length of the call and the cost. Each call can easily be seen in the main window, along with a current phone bill total. ST-Falcon compatible. Docs and online help included. ESCPAINT is ESCape paint v.0.4 by Norman Feske (dated May 5, 1996). This is a True Color paint program that will allow you to create wonderful pictures (only if you have artistic talent, though!). It runs in any Falcon color resolution. It has a beautiful interface with non-modal tool boxes. Just a few of its features are... -a lot of block functions (32 paste modes..) -drawing effects -fast realtime zoom -degas zoom -loads ice-packed xga-pictures (screenformat) -reads xga,trp,tru,tru-block,tga,pi9,epp-palette,indy-palette,gem-palette -saves xga,epp-palette -different help screens and online help in menuscreen. The docs seem to both say that this is a Falcon only program and that the program works best when used with a Falcon "if possible." Well, it doesn't work with my TT, so I do suspect that it is Falcon only. It also says that it will not work with MagiC. No real docs included, but the program is in English. FIGLT211 is Figlet v.2.1.1 by Eero Tamminen (Atari version) and Glenn Chappell and Ian Chai (original programmers). Figlet is a program that creates original characters and signatures out of ordinary screen characters. Do you want to write your signature to show it online? While not the same as what you might do with a pen Figlet can take one of the included "fonts" and allow you to create a signature file that is uniquely yours. It even allows you to print from right to left for all of you Hebrew and Arabic writers out there! This archive also includes a folder named FIGFONTS which contains 10 additional figfonts (in addition to the 17 alrady in this archive). Docs included. See the friendly example below... FRDM115E is the Freedom File Selector v.1.15e Demo (English) by Christian Kruger & Kolja Koischwitz. This is a *non modal* file selector. What that means is that when you call up this file selector it doesn't completely take over your screen and shut everything else out. You can have it visible and still use whatever else is currently on screen. Freedom allows you to have at least 8 non modal file selectors or alerts at them same time under Mag!C, MiNT and single TOS! Selectric compatible, XAcc2, AV and MultTOS Drag&drop, (ICFS)Iconify, Unix masks, Clipboard export, file delete. Copy/move via AV server or Kobold_2. ST-Falcon, MagicMac and Gemulator compatible. Fully configurable, fonts, icons, etc. English docs included. A number of bug fixes and enhancements are found in this version. More of its features are: - Freedom alert boxes can optionally be placed in windows - Any program which understands the VA_START protocol is no longer blocked! - Long filename support - User definable font and size - Drag&drop font protocol support - Keyboard layout 99% Selectric compatible - Multiple file selection (naturally Selectric compatible) - Up to 40 user definable filenames, paths and extensions - History Popup to select from last 20 selected files - The ultimate in intuitive interface design using Enhanced GEM featuring Short paths, minimal clicks, shortcuts and Popups - Left handed mode! - Unix masks (*,?,[]) and extension lists (*.TOS,*.PRG) - Icons representing files/folders - Drag&drop support (paths and files and be dragged to the file - selector (AV, MultiTOS, Drag&drop) and vice versa - Messages concerning directory changes evaluated using SH_WDRAW, AV_PATH_UPDAE, SC_CHANGED - Fuzzy file location! Freedom tries everything possible to ascertain a reasonable application name even under single TOS. Freedom looks for XAcc, AV and even Menutitle0 if the string looks promising (not the Atari symbol or Desk). - File delete, new file/folder creation and file/folder info - Search using mask to select or deselect files - Export paths or selected files as ASCII listing to the Clipboard - Full communication with available AV Server (eg Thing/Gemini) - File delete, copy, move via Drag&drop, using an AV Server or - Kobold 2 running in parallel using the KOBOLD_PATH environmental variable The following restrictions apply to the demo version: - Only the first four characters in editable fields can be changed. - The filesize in the file selector and 'Object Info' dialog is replaced with the string '' MIDIHANC is The MIDI Enhancer v.1.2 by Harald Wolfgang Rieder. The MIDI Enhancer allows you to play microtonal music on a conventional synthesizer supporting the MIDI poly mode (multi mode). It also allows you to play microtonal music in a band of MIDI instrument players with one "harmonizing" player. In the 18th century the equal tuning of musical instruments won through against the meantone tuning and against natural scales. Those sounded better but had a major disadvantage: they only allowed making music in a subset of the 12 keys. If you wanted to make music for example in F#, and your piano was tuned in C, you had to retune each single key before playing. The MIDI enhancer allows you to tune your instrument while you play it ! Or another musician can tune while you play. The tuning is done by a single key press. MIDI instrument required. Docs included. Shareware. SBJ is Johann's Blackjack Table, by Johann Ruegg (dated 1990). This ST-Falcon Blackjack card game simulates a Las Vegas blackjack table with 1-6 players (1-3 players in ST low resolution). It allows you to split, double down, and buy insurance. A sngle player may play multiple hands at once. If asked, the program will give advice (at your own risk!). The game may be customized by specifying the rules you wish to follow (number of decks, shuffle point, double down after split). There can also be computer generated players. Keyboard controlled. The next set of files is from the UMich Atari site: AGRABT_2 is Agraboot 2 by Michael James (dated March 10, 1993). This program is an antivirus bootsector protector designed to keep your computer virus free. Viruses are small computer programs that are often hidden on the boot sectors of your floppy disks. They are designed to comy themselves to new floppies as you use them, and eventually to do something nasty to them (just what depends on the virus). This program will warn you of a suspicious boot sector on a disk by flashing the screen. If it detects a known virus it flashes the screen red. Some viruses are reset resistant, meaning that if you just press the re-set button the virus will still survive. This program provides you with an option to clear your memory of re-set proof viruses. Bam!@ They're gone! Explanatory docs included. Color only. ST-TT and perhaps Falcon compatible (the author didn't know). This is a good program, and it's free. For a commercial program I would suggest that you check out the Ultimate Virus Killer. That's an even more comprehensive virus killing program (by far). GEMORY is Gemory (GEM Memory) v.1.0 by Uwe Holtkamp and Jurgen Holtkamp. It is a pleasing "Concentration" type game using the mouse and a large number of hidden "cards" which, when turned over, show a variety of drawings. The object is to try to match up the pictures before the computer does. The only problem is that the computer doesn't seem to forget once it sees a card--so you had better not! This works in all color or mono and with TOS, Geneva, MultiTOS and MagiC. It even runs as an accessory if you rename it. The program and docs are in German, but you can figure out the play easy enough. The entire program is ademonstration of what can be done through the PDial Pure Pascal Library available through the authors. I found this on the Atari UMich archive and on Delphi. GEM_MIND is Gem Mastermind v.1.0 by Uwe Holtkamp and Jurgen Holtkamp. It is a well-done implementation of MasterMind. This works in all color or mono and with TOS, Geneva, MultiTOS and MagiC. It even runs as an accessory if you rename it. The program and docs are in German, but you can figure out the play easy enough (though I suspect only if you know how to play MasterMind in the first place). The entire program is a demonstration of what can be done through the PDial Pure Pascal Library available through the authors. I found this on the Atari UMich archive and on Delphi. OUTMUSIC is an .SPL sound file entitled OUT:RUN.SPL. Another program in the archive will display (in mono or color) a convertible sports car racing away from you on a Palm tree lined road. The picture is from some game (Outrun?) as there is a scorebar at the top. The sound is OK but nothing to write home about. This works on my ST and STE, but not on my TT. PUNSSI is PUNSSi by Eero Tamminen (dated March 9, 1995). Punssi is a small arcade game for two players on a mono system. You are in the role of the new information fetching 'agents' (ie. software filters) that roam the InterNet. Your mission is to guide the found information (represented as a ball) to your host computer and to avoid the (Intel/Micro$oft sales) droids which try to confuse you with mis-information. Getting contaminated by mis-information kills you and reverts you to where you started. The goal is to score points by pushing (bouncing) the ball to your home area on the opposite side of the "Intel Outside" screen and to avoid the droids that tail you and your opponent. When you'll chrash into a droid, you'll lose one of your nine lives and start again from your original location; the droid that crashed into you disappears and the other droid splits into two new droids. The ball returns to its starting place after it has been pushed into the 'goal'. English docs and program. Joystick controlled. C source included. TOS, MiNT, MultiTOS compatible. I found this on Atari UMICH and Delphi. TSCH603 is tcsh v.6.03.00 PL3 for MiNT (and MultiTOS) ported y Michael Hohmuth (dated May 5, 1993). Tcsh is a version of the Berkeley C-Shell, with the addition of: a command line editor, command and file name completion, listing, etc. and a bunch of small additions to the shell itself. 865K uncompressed. WHIST is WhiST by Andrew S R MacCormack of Scotland (dated 1992). It is the card game Whist and run in color only. To play a card just click on it with your mouse. It was written and compiled with GFA Basic v.3.5 and the program sprites were drawn with Animaster. Shareware. I found this on the Atari UMich archive and on Delphi. The next set of files is from the UNIKL Internet site: COVERMUS is Covermus by Matthias Bohmer (dated August 1992). This program allows you to create Calamus 1.09 documents which may then be printed out through Calamus (either 1.09 or SL) for Audio Cassette Labels. If you're like many people you copy your favorite CD based music to cassettes so you can just listen to your favorite songs. But once you get those songs on the cassette you can't remember what's on them! Try to pencil in all that information on the label that comes with the cassette! With Covermus you can take care of that problem! Run the program and you will see an on-screen label. Click on a track (line) and you can enter the song title and play time. Click on the menu entry "Speichern Calamus" and the program will write a Calamus file. Print it out; slip it into the CD case, and you're set! You may also load and/or print out an ASCII text file with the information you desire, but since the entire program and docs are in German I haven't bothered to figure this out. This runs on my GEMulator so it should run on everything. Postcardware. FCOUNTER is Folder-Counter v.1.02 by Lucky LooK, dated 1993. Just run this simple TOS program and it will look through the drive it is on and return to you the number of folders on that drive. SILENCE is Silence v.1.1 by Christian Fuchs (dated 1995). Silence is an AUTO folder and Accessory which will turn off your hard drive after a specifiedtime (ah, the blessed silence!). Beginning to use your computer again will cause the drive to spin up. This program comes in an STE and TT version and a version which will work on all ST line computers with an XHDI-compliant hard disk driver. The program and docs are in German, though there is some basic help in setting it up in an English text file written by the author (sufficient for your needs). Shareware. Finally, the next set of files are for the Falcon and are from....hmmm...where are they from? ACEL_CPU by Peter Green is a detailed and lucid set of text, IMG pictures and Calamus files which detail how you may accelerate the CPU and Math co-processor in your Falcon computer. You can take your 68030 from its rated 16 MHz to 18 MHz or even up to 36 MHz! The Math co-processor can be accelerated from 16 MHz to 50 MHz (after sending in your shareware fee)! The highest acceleration requires the Power Up2 to be fitted in the machine. Zoom you Falcon to faster than TT speeds! The cost? About $10 for parts! ALT_HELP is a Falcon screen capture utility by Wax (dated Nov. 19, 1995 as per the author's file description - though the programmer has said "1996" in the program file this is incorrect. I know as I first downloaded it in 1995!). By pressing the Alternate and Help keys you may save your screen as a raw data and palette file. It works in all screen modes. Docs and Visual Assembler v.4.0 source code provided. Great for programmers. This also runs on my TT in TT High, but I can't get it to save any files, so I guess that doesn't count! AM_DEMO is a Falcon-only demo of SoundPool's Audio Master v.1.7 (dated Nov. 23, 1995). This is a two track recording and editing program that will allow you to load mono or stereo sounds, edit them, and export them in .AIF, .AVR, or .RAW formats. No docs, but I imagine you can still figure out the program. A_TRACK is a Falcon-only demo of AudioTracker v.1.40 from SoundPool (dated late 1995 or early 1996). This program will allow you to do one pass recording of 8 track of digital audio on your falcon when using an ADAT interface (one is available from SoundPool, just by chance!). This demo is limited to two minutes of 48KHz recording time. The full version requires a dongle in the Cartridge port. The program is in English while the docs are (mostly) in German. BUGABOO is a German disassember for the Falcon entitled BugaBoo F0.2b (Oct. 24, 1993) as based on BugaBoo v.1.7.14 (dated Aug. 1, 1993). Written by -Soft's (Markus Fritze und S”ren Hellwig) this program was adapted to the Falcon by Chris of Aura and The Innovator of NEWline (no mention of authorization to do so though). The authors have also written an ST version which is very popular (so I've been told). Shareware. DB_BCON by Dr. Bob is a bcon_out replacement for Falcons with TOS 4.01 (dated Feb. 14, 1994). By using this you will restore cursor save, color changes and line-wrap escape codes of VT52. DB_BCON can be installed either from the desktop or placed in the AUTO folder and run automatically at powerup. The author does not know if this will work for other Falcon TOS versions (he hopes that it's not needed in those versions, but...). He also includes some files for a "before and after" study of these bugs. Run them first, then run DB_BCON and then run them again! As usual, Dr. Bob has included some excellent and interesting docs. This archive also includes Dr. Bob's TXTHUES. This simple utility for all ST/STE/TT's allows you to set the TOS foreground and background colors. TXTHUES reads the current TOS colors and presents a dialog box allowing you to select separate choices for both backgroung and foreground colors. It also allows you to set LineWrap ON/OFF/IGNORE. Whew! That's a lot of files! I just checked and it's about 33 meg of ZIP compressed files! I have about another 600 meg of compressed files already downloaded and not yet described, so I guess I won't run out anytime soon! I guess that means I'll be back again, Lord willing. Take care, and drop me a line to say hello. I'm always glad to get mail! May God Bless, --Michael R. Burkley The Unabashed Atariophile Suzy B's Software p.s.: You may contact me at MRBURKLEY@DELPHI.COM, MICHAEL-R-BURKLEY@WORLDNET.ATT.NET, o at M.BURKLEY@GENIE.COM - Michael is a former Polyurethane - Research Chemist and currently - the Pastor of the Niagara - Presbyterian Church Gaming Section Telegames! 'Crash' Breaks A Million! GameDay '97 Tops! TV Genie! Virtuality Goes Bust! And Much More! From the Editor's Controller - Playin' it like it is! Who said persistence never pays off? For months now I've been hoping that we'd have reviews for the current crop of Jaguar releases from Telegames, Towers II and Breakout 2000. However, there's usually a "catch" when those reviews don't appear, week after week after week. No, I can't blame the reviewers. We can't review a game that we can't test! I've been after the folks at Telegames to send us review copies of the games since they announced release dates, and likely even before that! Well, this past week I received a package in the mail with the Telegames name on the return address label. Lo and behold... Towers II is going out in the mail this weekend and we should see a review in the next couple of weeks. Being an old fan of Breakout and its tons of clones for the Atari computers, I'm going to take a look at Breakout 2000. I hope to get that review out as soon as possible also. And, we hope to see more from Telegames this month for even more reviews. Included in the Telegames package was a variety of literature which I hope to reproduce in next week's issue. More info on the upcoming games will be the primary focus of that report. So stay tuned! Lots of other industry news this week, also. Virtuality, the company that was working on the VR unit for the Jaguar, is running into some hard times at the moment. It appears that they were pinning a lot of hopes on the success of the Jaguar. As did a lot of other people... The major console systems are reaping some rewards for some of their best sellers. We've included that info in this issue. And to round tings out, some new product announcements from a variety of sources. So, sit back and relax, and enjoy this week's issue! Until next time... Industry News STR Game Console NewsFile - The Latest Gaming News! Virtuality Shares Suspended In London LONDON, ENGLAND, 1997 FEB 7 (Newsbytes) -- By Sylvia Dennis. Virtuality, the virtual reality (VR) company, has asked for its shares to be suspended on the London Stock Exchange. According to the company, which came to market in a blaze of publicity back in 1993, the share suspension is to allow "clarification of the group's financial position." Virtuality came to the public's notice in March of '95 when it announced plans to develop two VR games for the Atari Jaguar games console. The contract with the London VR software house, came after a late '94 deal between the two companies for the development of a head-mounted VR display unit for the Jaguar. Terms of the '94 contract called for Virtuality to develop VR game systems for the consumer marketplace, using a VR headset like a motorcycle helmet. While the Atari Jaguar has all but faded away, Newsbytes notes that Virtuality has done rather well by pioneering the installation of its own VR coin-op technology in so-called virtual reality games arcades around the UK. Things may not be so rosy for the company however. Today's financial media in London reports that, unless the company can negotiate a cash injection or a takeover by a larger company, then administration or receivership "is thought to be just weeks away." Ironically, today's glum news comes just four months after Denis Ohryn, the company's chairman, said that things are better today than at any time since the flotation of a few years ago. According to the Daily Telegraph, Philips in the Netherlands is tipped as a possible buyer for Virtuality. However, officials with both companies have refused to comment. The Telegraph also suggested that a low-cost VT headset deal -- possibly along the same lines as the Jaguar deal -- is in the offing. Virtuality's problems appear to stem from a slump in profits from the group's arcade division. While video arcade goers were happy a few years ago to pay around UKP 2 ($3.20) for a "ride" on the company's VR machines, today's machines from the likes of Sega and others appear to be more popular, Newsbytes notes. When Virtuality was floated back in 1993, the shares were priced at 170 pence. After rising to a high of 360 pence last year, the group's shares have now been suspended at 68.5 pence. "MDK" Demo Spreads Like Wildfire Across Internet COSTA MESA, CALIF. (Feb. 7) BUSINESS WIRE -Feb. 7, 1997-- Gamers, consumers, other gaming sites scramble to download first look at Playmates Interactive Entertainment's upcoming title via exclusve interactive demo Thousands of gamers and consumers this week stampeded through the Internet to get the first look at Playmates Interactive Entertainment Inc.'s genre-busting title, "MDK." The exclusive interactive demo of the game first appeared on the Happy Puppy games site on Feb. 2, and has already garnered more than 4,000 downloads and 1,000 entries into the "MDK: Dying to Win" sweepstakes. In a manic migration, the demo has flown from Happy Puppy to numerous unofficial Internet gaming and consumer sites, such as GameSpot, c/net and eXscape -- proving that "MDK" is unquestionably one of the most highly anticipated titles of the year. Featuring jaw-dropping graphics and engrossing gameplay, "MDK" is the first PC CD-ROM title to be developed by Shiny Entertainment, the developers responsible for the smash hits "Earthworm Jim" and "Earthworm Jim 2." "MDK" is scheduled to be released in May, with a Sony PlayStation version available the same month. "The response to the 'MDK' demo is truly amazing," said David Localio, Playmates Interactive's vice president of sales & marketing. "We're thrilled that gamers and consumers have so totally embraced 'MDK' and we feel that this gives us a glimpse of how huge a response this game will receive in May." Tapped as the official "MDK" site from Feb. 1 to Feb. 14, gamers can go to Happy Puppy happypuppy.com) for the demo and also enter in the "MDK: Dying to Win" sweepstakes. Dozens of prizes will be awarded, such as signed, limited-edition "MDK" posters and copies of the forthcoming title. The grand prize is a trip for two to Los Angeles to have lunch with Shiny Entertainment game developers and participate in paint-ball war games at Close Encounters. Prizes will be awarded randomly. The "MDK" demo delivers three "arenas" from one of six levels of the action title, set in the future when aliens have conspired to turn the Earth into one giant strip mine. The player assumes the identity of Kurt Hectic, whose mission is to destroy the leaders of the mobie mining cities. To effect a successful mission, the crew at Shiny has given Kurt some awesome and creative firepower. Possibly the coolest -- and deadliest -- hardware available to Kurt is a helmet-mounted sniper rifle and vision goggles that can zero in on an enemy up to two miles away. More deadly equalizers that players can preview on the demo include "Thumper" (a giant hammer) and the "world's smallest nuclear bomb." Other elements of the final version that can be previewed on the demo include a unique parachute device, multiple camera angle mode and screen shots from other levels. Playmates Interactive Entertainment publishes PC CD-ROM titles and video games for Sony and Sega console systems, including the worldwide hit "Earthworm Jim." It is a subsidiary of Playmates Toys Holding Limited, whose stock is listed on the Hong Kong Exchange. The company's Web address is www.playmatestoys.com. Crash Bandicoot Experiences Tremendous Worldwide Sales FOSTER CITY, CALIF. (Feb. 13) BUSINESS WIRE -Feb. 13, 1997--Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. today announced that the PlayStation game, Crash Bandicoot, has sold well over one million units worldwide. Released in September 1996 in North America, November 1996 in Europe, and December 1996 in Japan, Crash Bandicoot has captured gamers' attention all over the world. Produced by Universal Interactive Studios, Inc. (UIS), created and developed by Naughty Dog, Inc. exclusively for the PlayStation game console, Crash Bandicoot redefines classic action platform gaming and takes the genre to new heights, delivering a truly captivating gaming experience. A number of factors enhance the gameplay experience and make Crash Bandicoot a standout title across the globe: a humorous storyline; amazingly detailed and colorful environments; multiple camera perspectives; fully-modeled and texture-mapped cartoon-style characters; music and sound effects created by professional movie effects editors; and controls that feel as solid as the best action games around. "PlayStation's leading character-based platform game, Crash Bandicoot, joins the ranks of an elite list of phenomenally successful PlayStation game titles with worldwide sales surpassing the one million unit mark," said Kaz Hirai, chief operating officer, Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. "Games like Resident Evil and Tekken 2 -- and now Crash Bandicoot - are what makes Sony Computer Entertainment the global leader and PlayStation the number one video game platform for developers, retailers and consumers." "We are extremely pleased to see our efforts rewarded by the success of Crash Bandicoot," said Mark Cerny, president, Universal Interactive Studios, Inc. "Tremendous graphics and gameplay, coupled with the cutting-edge, creative marketing campaigns developed by Sony Computer Entertainment in North America, Japan and Europe proved to be a winning combination." Yippee-ki-yay! Sega to Bring Arcade Smash Home (Feb. 10) BUSINESS WIRE - WHAT: "Die Hard Arcade" PLATFORM: Only on Sega Saturn, of course WHEN AVAILABLE: Mid-March WHERE: Everywhere WHY: Because everyone deserves to kick some terrorist butt! Lovers of fast action and swift, pinful justice will definitely get their fix with Sega's new action/arcade title, "Die Hard Arcade." Modeled after the first "Die Hard" movie from Fox, players must assume the role of hard-hittin' N.Y. detective John McClane or his partner as they fight, kick and shoot their way through five stages of confrontations with insane terrorists in the Nakatomi building -- all to save the President's daughter. "Die Hard Arcade" is one of the leading arcade translation games for the Saturn with these key features: - Five pulse-pounding levels of immersive 3-D rendered environments. - Two-player cooperative action, which allows gamers full interactivity with each other and the environments. - More than 12 weapons and motions to choose from, so players can get into the assault-style action using jump combinations, guns, pepper spray, brooms -- even ignite a fireball with hairspray and a lighter -- just to name a few. - Motion-captured character movement, more than 1,000 motions. - Full 360-degree movement, so you can attack from every angle. - Use everything! No gun available? Use that grandfather clock or TV in the room ... everything is a weapon! - Blast from the past -- retro arcade fun from the Sega vault! You can play "Deep Scan" and squire extra lives before starting gameplay. - Get ready for "Die Hard Arcade" on Sega Saturn. NFL GameDay '97 Sacks the Competition FOSTER CITY, CALIF. (Feb. 11) BUSINESS WIRE -Feb. 11, 1996--Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. reported today that NFL GameDay '97 for the PlayStation game console was one of the standout hits of the holiday season. After only six weeks, NFL GameDay '97 has already shipped more than 350,000 units, with additional retailer reorders continuing. "The original NFL GameDay was, up until last month, our best-selling PlayStation title to date," said Jack Tretton, vice president, sales, Sony Computer Entertainment America. "Seeing the great initial sales figures, as well as consumer and retail praise, NFL Gameay '97 is already another blockbuster hit." NFL GameDay '97, which shipped on December 5, has received critical acclaim from enthusiast press, consumers and even professional football players. Edgar Bennett, running back for the world champion Green Bay Packers and serious PlayStation video gamer, beat Terry Glenn, wide-receiver for the New England Patriots, 22-6, in the Second Annual Game Before the Game in New Orleans. Afterwards Bennett commented that he thought that NFL GameDay '97 is "the greatest football game that's out on the market right now. I really think they did their homework as far as studying the players and studying the game of football, so you have to tip your hat to them." ULTRA Game Players proclaimed that NFL GameDay '97 "... is by far the best football game ever made."Virtually every publication that covers the video game industry agreed with that statement, including Next Generation which described it as a "hard-hitting, fast-paced football game with more moves, options, and playability than anything out there." "In only its second year of release, the NFL GameDay series has converted hundreds of thousands of sports gamers to a new brand," said Peter Dille, senior director, product marketing. "Once sports gamers experienced the superior gameplay and smoother animation's of NFL GameDay '97, there was no turning back." NFL GameDay '97 is the most realistic football video game available. Features include: more than 1,500 NFL players; the most sophisticated artificial intelligence in a video game; actual NFL uniform designs -- both home and away; actual player numbers on the uniforms; and, all 30 NFL teams. NFL GameDay '97 features the motion-capture animation of the Oakland Raiders' All-Pro wide receiver, Tim Brown, for the most accurate movement in a video football game. Sony, Namco, Polygon Create New Computer Graphics Company TOKYO, JAPAN, 1997 FEB 13 (Newsbytes) -- By Martyn Williams. Three leading companies in the computer graphics and gaming field - Namco Ltd., Sony Computer Entertainment (Japan) Ltd. (SCE), and Polygon Pictures Inc. - have formed a new computer imaging company. Dream Pictures Studio will create computer graphics for use in computer games. The new company, capitalized at 200 million yen (US$1.61 million), will have SCE and Namco as the major shareholders. Each company will take a 45 percent stake, with the remaining 10 percent to be held by Polygon. The company teams the current leader in home gaming equipment, SCE produces the PlayStation console, and a major producer of both home gaming and arcade gaming software, Namco. Polygon is a producer of computer graphics for video games. The new company will recruit 200 computer graphics designers to produce a movie, for release in 1999, with an American movie studio, said Japan's Kyodo News. TVGenie Uses Multimedia Magic to Turn a PC Into a TV FREMONT, CALIF. (Feb. 11) BUSINESS WIRE -Feb. 11, 1997-- Watch TV, A Video, or Play Video Games with New External TV Tuner. With TVGenie a computer doesn't have to be all work and no play. This external TV Tuner box quickly and easily turns a standard PC monitr into a fully-functional television set, without the need for complicated set up procedures or special drivers. In fact, TV Genie doesn't even require the host computer turned on! TVGenie connects directly to the monitor, by-passing the computer system completely, in order to eliminate any possible compatibility hassles that might be caused by internal tuner boards. There is no need to open the computer in order to install a board. In minutes, people can watch their favorite television show or video, or pit themselves against any enemy in their favorite Sega, Nintendo or Sony Play Station video games. In addition, the unit supports full-screen viewing and costs significantly less than any comparable internal TV tuner. Other features include support for TV; stereo input and output; coax, Composite/S video input; and auto-scan tuning, which automatically tunes in any receivable broadcast or TV channels. The included remote control allows users to control all working functions (including channel and volume control, as well as more advanced functions such as Alarm, Sleep and Timer) through a combination of the control buttons and an on-screen display. TVGenie, which works with any VGA or Macintosh Multisync monitor, costs only $149 retail. GT Interactive Reports Record Revenues Up 56 Percent NEW YORK (Feb. 10) BUSINESS WIRE -Feb. 10, 1997--GT Interactive Software Corp. (NASDAQ: GTIS) today reported record revenues for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1996 of $365 million, a 56 percent increase over the previous year. Operating income in 1996 before merger and other one-time costs and goodwill amortization rose 35 percent to $46 million. Net income for the full year was $25 million or $.38 per share. (Because GT Interactive was a sub-chapter S corporation for part of 1995 and not a public company for the full year, net income and per share full year comparisons are unavailable.) "We are very pleased with our achievements during our first full year as a public company," said Ron Chaimowitz, presient and chief executive officer of GT Interactive. "Unlike most of our competitors, we were profitable in all four calendar quarters. We also accomplished what we set out to do at our initial public offering by achieving strong revenue growth, in particular a 63 percent increase in overall publishing revenues; market share leadership in interactive games; four strategic acquisitions; entry into the video games market; and a fast-emerging international business." Revenues for the fourth quarter of 1996 were $135 million, a 30 percent increase over the comparable 1995 quarter. Net income for the quarter was $8.5 million, a 16.8 percent decrease from the fourth quarter of 1995. Earnings per share for the quarter were $.13 versus $.16 in the prior year. The decline in net income for the quarter was primarily the result of video game product delays which reduced the company's higher-margin publishing revenue relative to its lower-margin mass merchant distribution sales, which exhibited significant growth. The strong growth in mass merchant sales during the fourth quarter was a reflection of seasonal trends as well as the continuing shift of sales to this channel. GT Interactive's higher-margin publishing sales were 48 percent of net revenue during the fourth quarter compared with 60 percent in the 1995 quarter, and 54 percent for 1996 as a whole. In 1996 GT Interactive had the number two market share in front-line games and the number one share in value-priced software, according to PC Data. Two GT Interactive games - - Duke Nukem 3D and Quake -- performed among the year's top 10 best-sellers. Publishing revenue rose from $121 million in 1995 to $197 million in 1996. Front-line publishing revenues grew approximately 95 percent, and revenues of value-priced software rose approximately 20 percent. At $40 million, international revenues increased in excess of 275 percent, comprising the fastest-growing segment of GT Interactive's business. "Looking to the balance of 1997, we believe GT Interactive has the industry's strongest games lineup for PC as well as N64, Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn," Chaimowitz added. "We expect international sales to continue to be the fastest growing component of our business, augmented by our acquisitions of Time Warner Interactive and One Stop in Europe, as well as our agreement with Midway Games. In addition, we intend to continue to acquire, invest in and form alliances with the most creative and innovative independent design groups in the industry." GT Interactive's 1997 lineup includes Unreal, from Epic Megagames; OddWorld: Abe's Oddysee, from OddWorld Inhabitants, (of which GT Interactive owns 50 percent); Total Annihilation(TM), the first title from GT Interactive's recently announced internal studio, Cavedog Entertainment; Shadow Warrior, from Apogee/3D Realms, creators of Duke Nukem 3D; as well as a host of titles from its children's subsidiary, Humongous Entertainment. GT Interactive will also offer one of the largest console lineups overseas as a result of its agreement with Midway Games. During 1996, GT Interactive: O Released 47 new titles globally for PC, Macintosh, Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn including industry best-sellers Duke Nukem 3D, Quake and Final Doom; O Acquired The WizardWorks Group, a top-ten value-priced software developer and publisher; O Acquired FormGen Corporation, publishers of the number one PC hit, Duke Nukem 3D; O Acquired Humongous Entertainment, premier developer and publisher of award-winning children's software featuring original characters Pajama Sam, Freddi Fish and Putt-Putt; O Acquired 50 percent of OffWorld Entertainment, Inc. (known as Oddworld Inhabitants), obtaining exclusive global publishing rights to Oddworld software titles for all media, including PC, console, print, merchandising and online vehicles; O Acquired Warner Interactive Entertainment, a European subsidiary of Warner Music Group, in a cash transaction; O Acquired 10 percent of UK-based software developer Mirage; O Entered into an agreement with Target Stores whereby GT Interactive became Target's primary national supplier of entertainment software; O Obtained an exclusive option from WMS Industries to publish Atari titles for PC worldwide and next-generation video game systems in Europe and other foreign territories; O Entered into an exclusive broad-based publishing agreement with children's author Mercer Mayer for rights to publish Mayer's catalog, including Little Critter, L.C. and the Critter Kids, Little Monster and Critters of the Night across all interactive media; O Launched full version of id Software's Quake globally; O Struck exclusive global publishing agreement with Epic Megagames Inc. whereby GT Interactive obtained exclusive rights to publish Unreal and a sequel for PC, and an option for Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64 systems on a worldwide basis. In addition, GT Interactive obtained rights to Epics' UnrealEd, a proprietary 3D authoring tool for publishing associated game "level sets." Fox Interactive Inks With Top Developer LOS ANGELES, Feb. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Riding the wave of a very successful fourth quarter, Fox Interactive, in continuing its mission to create compelling and popular interactive entertainment, has signed three new product development deals in January with many of the top multimedia developers in the industry. "Every title we create is unique, therefore we seek out development teams with the individual skills and creative talents best suited for each particular property," explains Jon Richmond, president, Fox Interactive. "This approach gives us the freedom and flexibility to work with innovative and cutting-edge developers from all over the world and bring the best possible products to the marketplace." Adding to its current slate of projects already in various stages of production, Fox Interactive has begun development of three new titles: Title: ALIEN RESURRECTION Platform: PlayStation, Saturn and Windows(R)95 CD-ROM Developer: ARGONAUT SOFTWARE Based in London, Argonaut Software Ltd. has gained a reputation as one of Europe's leading developers and a pioneer in state-of-the-art hardware technology. Argonaut is responsible for developing leading-edge entertainment software for next generation video gaming platforms. Title: X-FILES DATA FILES Platform: Windows and Macintosh CD-ROM Developer: BYRON PREISS MULTIMEDIA Founded in New York in 1992 Byron Preiss Multimedia Company, Inc. (Nasdaq: CDRM), develops and Publishes award winning multimedia software, online services, broadcast content and books for the consumer education market. Simon & Schuster, the publishing operation of Viacom, acquired 20 percent equity interest in Byron Preiss Multimedia Company, Inc., in March 1995. Title: ANASTASIA Platform: Windows and Macintosh CD-ROM Developer: MOTION WORKS GROUP LTD. Headquartered in Vancouver, B.C., Motion Works is an international digital technology company that designs, creates and produces digital Multimedia on CD-ROM, we sites, TV, film, DVD print and audio media as well as special effects and post production for film and television. Nintendo Announces New Games, Accessories REDMOND, WASHINGTON, U.S.A., 1997 FEB 10 (Newsbytes) -- By Jim Mallory. Nintendo of America has announced more than a dozen new Nintendo 64, Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES), and Game Boy games and accessories for release in the first half of 1997. Many of the new games are designed for Nintendo 64, the company's new 64-bit game system that came to market in late 1996. Beginning today Nintendo 64 users can buy Mario Kart 64, a three-dimensional (3-D) racing game for up to four players that has a suggested retail price of $69.95. Mario Kart 64 offers more than 16 race courses, a battle arena mode and eight characters from the world of Mario. Nintendo spokesperson Eileen Tanner said more than 1.4 million copies of Mario Kart 64 were sold in Japan following the game's release there in mid-December. Also available for Nintendo 64 are Blast Corps, a destruction adventure game for a single player. The objective of the $69.95 game is to stop a runaway nuclear missile carrier before it blows up the world. After clearing a path for the carrier, the player has to find six scientists who can prepare a safe detonation site for the bombs. Blast Corps 64 is set for release in late March Star Fox 64 is a 3-D space shoot-'em-up game for up to four players. The game's objective is to protect the planet Corneria from intergalactic enemies. The game has a $69.95 suggested retail price and is supposed to ship in late June. Also planned for the first half of the year is Force Pak, a Nintendo 64 accessory that fits into the Nintendo 64 four-port controller and vibrates when it receives signals through the two-way controller ports. For example, when a player scores a hit with a missile the pack will vibrate the whole controller. Nintendo said the Force Pak will ship in late June. No pricing has been set yet. Third-party suppliers have set several Nintendo 64 releases, including NBA Hangtime, a basketball game for up to our players that is already on retail shelves; Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, a single-player game that will ship in early March; and DOOM 64, a Nintendo 64 game based on the classic game of the same name. Nintendo said DOOM 64 will have new weapons and enemies and more than 30 new and larger levels when it ships in March. Other Nintendo 64 offerings scheduled release before mid-year include Mission Impossible and Hexen, while Super NES players will can now play The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, a $34.95 offering from Player's Choice Series that is available this week. Eileen Tanner told Newsbytes more than 1.7 million Nintendo 64 systems have been sold since its launch 12 weeks ago. Asked about pricing of the games being developed by third-party developers Tanner said those prices will be set by the developer companies and aren't available yet. Nintendo hasn't forgotten Game Boy aficionados. The company will release Game Boy pocket Colors, a hardware casing that will come on black, yellow, green, red, transparent, and silver. Colors will have a $54.95 price tag when it ships in April, said Nintendo. New Game Boy games include The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and Mole Mania, both for $19.95 and shipping now. King of Fighters '95 is also shipping with a $29.95 price tag. Kirby's Star Stacker, a puzzle for up to two players, and Game & Watch Gallery, a one-player game collection, will ship in mid-May. ONLINE WEEKLY STReport OnLine The wires are a hummin'! PEOPLE... ARE TALKING On CompuServe Compiled by Joe Mirando jmirando@streport.com Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Before we get into all the cool stuff that people are talking about this week, I want to let you in on a little secret. Most computer users are idiots. No, I don't mean that they are actually mentally sub-standard. What I mean is that most of them still equate processor speed with power (of course, those darn "Intel Inside" commercials don't help). Let's get one thing straight... processor speed has very little to do with what you can or cannot do with your computer, only with how fast you can do it. With an 8 MHz Atari ST, I have been able to view QuickTime Movie files, cruise the web, and communicate around the world at the speed of light (actually, at the speed of electrons through copper wire and several dozen repeater stations ). It's not that I'm a computer-whiz either. Sure, I know lots of stuff about them, but almost none of it is technical. I am not a programmer, nor an electronics engineer. The sum-total of my computer experience has been to wait for someone to tell me that something couldn't be done and then find some sneaky way to do it. Sometimes, it's a matter of looking at the problem from a different direction. Sometimes it requires "almost" solving the problem and having others say "Oh, now all you have to do is...". And sometimes (like with internet access) it's only a matter of finding a little-known program or accessory that will turn the tide. So, "why does that make most computer users idiots?", you're now asking. It's because they don't usually actually learn about what their computer, modem, or online service is doing. They don't have to. If you are a computer user on a "popular" platform, you most likely have only had to insert a disk or CDRom and hit the install button to get the latest and greatest applications running. That's why companies that do system integration and troubleshooting are making money hand-over-fist. A little knowledge goes a long way in the Information Age. Several days ago, I was attending a non-computer related online conference when I happened to mention that I had just gotten a web browser, news reader, and internet mail system working on my computer. "Oh, incompatible version?", asked one of the other conference members. "No," I replied, "just trouble finding one that worked". "Well," she said, "Both Navigator and Explorer work well for me. I found that you need at least 16 meg or memory to make it work well though". "I've only got four meg", I said. She replied, "Oh, Windows 3.1, huh? Well, how fast is your processor? If you're running a Pentium, maybe you can get away with it." "Nope," I proudly typed, "No WinDOZE here! My processor is running at a whopping 16 MHz. It's not a PC, it's an Atari ST. The OS is built in so it doesn't take up 12 meg of memory, so I don't need that 16 meg." The poor woman didn't know what an ST was, how something as slow as 16 MHz could even be called a computer, or why someone wouldn't want to use Windows. She continued on about how anything slower than a 100 MHz Pentium was useless, that you simply couldn't get on the web with anything as slow as 16 MHz, and you certainly couldn't do it with a computer that was eight or ten years old. "Why?", I asked. "The internet doesn't care how fast your computer is. It simply sends information until your modem says 'stop for a minute, I've got to compute all this stuff... okay continue'. It doesn't care if you've got a whiz-bang MMX Pentium or a Commodore VIC-20. You see, computers, unlike people don't make judgements". Many of the folks I have dealings with tend to think I'm "throwing shots" about easy access to all this new technology. Not so. I simply feel that you can miss a lot when all you have to do is install an application to get what you want. As far as the easy access goes, I think that's great. But there is also a price. You usually don't get to see the 'guts' of what's going on, so you can end up taking it for granted. That's not always the case, but it is an ever-present danger. Remember: Processor speed isn't power, knowledge is. New machines and mult-megabyte software is okay, but hacking around with an "antique" and an "alternative approach" is a feeling that most of the computing world will quickly come to take for granted as they load up the latest game or operating system. I'm not trying to say that my trusty MegaSTE can do anything that one of those new machines can do, just that it can do what I need it to do. It doesn't do it as fast as those new models, but it _does_ it. And sure, I've got to dig and scratch to get it to do some of the things I want it to, but that's how I learn about what's going on. Ask any of the PC users what TCP/IP, PPP, SLIP, or DMA are, or what http or URL stand for and they'll probably say "I dunno". The internet and especially the World Wide Web are wonderful things. The knowledge I've gained by having to "dig" to be a part of it have only increased my sense of wonder... how 'bout you? Well, this has gone on much longer than I had intended and you're probably quite sick of it by now. So let's get to all the news, hints, tips, and info available on CompuServe. From the Atari Forums on CompuServe Our friend Myles Cohen ponders: "I wonder if I am the only one who wants to throw furniture around after downloading a huge arc'd file that promises the world...in flawless English in the file description... Only to find out that the blankety- blank program is completely in German without any translation at all... Gosh and golly...if it is in German only...why not have the program description in German only... Or...at the very least...a warning (GERMAN ONLY) in the program description that these libraries list for downloads... Or does anyone feel that this is just an unimportant gripe?" Dana Jacobson agrees with Myles: "One of the biggest complaints that I've had over the years are programs that are completely non-English, and not stated as so. And I've probably posted a few of them myself over the years without realizing it! I agree with you that a file descriptions should include that fact. I also know that many SysOps (not here!!) just check to see if the archive is okay, but don't check the program to see if it works. To be fair (a little bit) to non-English programs - many are easy to figure out how to run. It's the long read-me files of alert boxes that I can't understand that drive me crazy when I run into a problem. What's the solution? A better attempt at international courtesy by the uploaders? I know, that still doesn't help you with that huge download! BTW, which file was it (so we can avoid it!!)." Myles tells Dana: "CONNECT.TOS...and the latest PAPYRUS demos... Grrrr...." I've got to tell you folks that Myles is one of the nicest guys in the world and normally quite easy-going, so when he _growls_, you can bet that there's a good reason for it. Anyway. Dana tells Myles: "Hmmm, I downloaded them both but haven't had a chance to look at them yet. I'm not surprised that Connect is in German, but I thought that Papyrus was in English. Shouldn't assume, I guess." Sysop Bob Retelle tells Myles: "I just added a note to the Connect file to indicate that it's in German... Carsten just said that the new version of the Papyrus demo he's uploading will be in English..." Jondahl Davis tells us: "I'm thinking about getting on the net with my Falcon. I got an old version of STik and CAB from a CD- ROM. That version requires a SLIP connection. I downloaded something called Oasis here, but I can't get it to unpack. Isn't a .TOS file an executable? What are you running? Who would you recommend as a service provider? Two people at Netcom told me it's impossible to connect an Atari with the net, you have to use a Mac or PC. I'm using a CompuServe PPP connection at work, but that's a company account. Compuserve doesn't look like the way to go for my home use. Any guidance would be appreciated." Having recently done it, I tell Jondahl: "In general, any provider that does not require the use of a special browser for access should be do-able. The trick is to get the Atari to recognize and use a PPP connection. There is a file in the library here called PPPKIT14.ZIP which, if you follow the directions carefully (and have some luck), will allow you to do just that. I am using CAB 1.5, CAB.OVL (version 1.21), and PPPKIT to access the Web via CIS. If it can be done here, it should be do-able just about anywhere. You do however have to stay away from "cookies" (for instance, I cannot access my other online service provider via CIS because the other service utilizes a cookie to determine membership, so it doesn't recoginze me) and JAVA scripts. There are also two commercial browsers that will be available soon. WebMaster from Oxo Concept will cost about $60.00 U$D. The offering from Oregon Research Associates is the other... I don't know much about it other than the fact that, if it's from ORA, it's probably going to be damned good." Jondahl replies: "Thanks for the info. I was very discouraged by my last call to Toad. The person on the phone claimed they were trying to stay in the Atari business,but they didn't have anything I asked for in stock. Even the stuff in their last catalog was no longer available. They were not very helpful relative to Web browsers,either. I may have OR's number on a flyer somewhere;I'll give them a call. I'm looking for a BlowupFX for my Falcon. Toad didn't seem optimistic about getting one. Are there any other dealers left?" I tell Jondahl: "I had the same feeling right after _my_ last call to them [Toad]. I guess we really can't blame them though. If you're in business, you've got to sell what moves. While it might not hurt to keep some Atari Stuff in stock, it takes up money and space that could be used for "hot" items (read PC wares). And to boot, you might _never_ sell a good portion of the Atari merchandise in stock. I'm not happy about it by any means, but I do understand it. Yes there are a few dealers left... but I can't think of any right off the top of my head. I'm sure that folks here can make recommendations. Well guys?? C'mon, don't make me look bad! " Michel Vanhamme replies: "I think a member of this forum recommended B&C Computervisions. There you are " Dana Jacobson, who has gotten the WWW bug too, asks: "Can an Atari user publish a Web page here on CompuServe? I was curious and ventured over to the Internet area but it seems that you need a specific (PC) program to do a page and publish it. Are there other ways? I have a few pages I'd like to submit but not sure how to go about doing so here. Any tips?" Sysop Jim Ness tells Dana: "The program used to upload a finished Web page is a proprietary Windows program, unfortunately. You'd need a Windows machine or a trusted friend who would use your account to upload via his/her machine." Joe Villarreal asks Dana: "Have you been able to access the internet here on CompuServe using Stik and CAB (Crystal Atari Browser)?" Dana tells Joe: "I can't access the Internet via CompuServe using STiK/CAB because CIS requires PPP access which isn't supported [yet] by STiK/CAB. Rumor has it that the next upgrade will provide PPP access." I tell Joe: "Sorry to butt in, and maybe this isn't what you wanted to know, but I have been able to log into CIS using CAB and MiNTnet... it's a fairly painless installation and you get to keep your original TOS version in the process. After MiNT runs, it runs a program called OLDGEM that brings back TOS/GEM from the roms (I guess). The only difference is that you now have access to drive "U" which 'contains' all of the devices attached to your computer from ports to drives to keyboard and monitor. This is not a bad alternative. The PPPKIT14 archive here includes everything you need except for the CAB archive. You don't use STik at all. There are scripts included to allow you to connect, disconnect, and exit (like you have to do in WIN95). I've had no luck tracking down the 2 problems I've seen: Transfer errors (results in garbled pics) and, Occasionally trashing the FAT of the partition I'm running both CAB and MiNTnet from. I believe that the latter is caused by in-complete file saves, but I'm not sure. The former is very odd because PPP provides error checking and should therefore be more solid than SLIP (which gives me _no_ problems at all). Once I get these 2 problems sorted out, I'll archive the entire thing up and upload it here." Joe tells me: "You're not butting in Joe and I appreciate the info. I saw the PPPKIT14 file here. I haven't tried to run Mint so I didn't bother downloading it. Maybe one of these days. Does the PPPKIT14 file contain Mint? I would not think it does but I could be wrong." I reply: "Yes, the PPPKIT contains everything you need except for the main CAB archive. Get the latest version of that and PPPKIT, and you're set. Ummm, I should have said "You're set to start configuring the thing". Truthfully though, it's not that hard to set up. Heck, _I_ did it, so how hard can it be?? The only catch is that you need 2 meg to run both MiNTnet and CAB. Other than that, just about anything goes (computer- wise). I've got a minimum setup going now (no other AUTO programs or ACCessories except for HSMODEM7, XCONTROL, and NOHOG.. which is necessary for some reason), and hope to be able to start adding all my little bell- and-whistle things bit by bit once I get a few problems sorted out. If you're the least bit interested in trying this out, don't hesitate... you learn quite a bit just by reading the docs included." Keith Mountjoy asks for help for a friend: "I have a friend with an STe who would like to get on to compuserve and the WWW. Does anyone know if CIS software is still available, or of any other software that will do the job?" I tell Keith: "There is no CIM-type software available from CompuServe for the ST series of computers, but a generic terminal program will allow your friend to access most of CIS (this forum, for instance). There is a program called QuickCIS which was written by our own Jim Ness, but it is no longer being upgraded and needs several work-arounds to function well... Probably not for the beginner, but there are a few experienced users here who still use it. There are several shareware terminal programs here in the Telecommunications Library which are quite good. Freeze-Dried Terminal, STorm, and one or two others come to mind (well, actually only Freeze- Dried and STorm come to mind... that's why I didn't name the others ). There are also two commercial terminal packages that come to mind: FLASH II from Missionware Software, and STalker from Gribnif software are both great packages which provide just about everything you could need online (accept intenet access). Surfing the 'Net is a bit of a problem right now. It can be done (I'm doing it) but it's not a project that you want to "get your feet wet" with. Two commercial Internet packages are due out shortly: Webspace from Oxo Concept, and TermiteTCP from Oregon Research. Since neither is available yet (except for a _demo_ version of Webspace) there isn't really a lot to say about them yet." Well folks, that's about all for this week. I'm still trying to iron out the problems with PPP access and, as soon as I do, I'll find a way to make it easy for you to do it too. So tune in again next week, same time, same station, and be ready to listen to what they are saying when... PEOPLE ARE TALKING STReport International OnLine Magazine [S]ilicon [T]imes [R]eport HTTP://WWW.STREPORT.COM AVAILABLE through the Internet and OVER 250,000 BBS SYSTEMS WORLDWIDE All Items quoted, in whole or in part, are done so under the provisions of The Fair Use Law of The Copyright Laws of the U.S.A. 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