*---== STReport International Online Magazine ==---* """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" "The Original 16/32bit Online Magazine" from STR Publishing """""""""""""" April 30, 1993 No.9.18 ========================================================================== STReport International Online Magazine Post Office Box 6672 Jacksonville, Florida 32205 ~ 6672 R.F. Mariano Publisher - Editor ----------------------------------------- Voice: 904-783-3319 10 AM - 4 PM EST Support BBS Network System * THE BOUNTY BBS * * TURBO BOARD BBS SYSTEM * FNET 350 ~ Fido 112:35 ~ Nest 90:21/350.0 904-786-4176 USR/HST 24hrs - 7 days 1200 - 19.2bps V.32 - 42 bis 16.8 Dual Standard FAX: 904-783-3319 12 AM - 6 AM EST ----------------------------------------- FNET.. 18 : ///Turbo Board BBS Support...1-416-274-1225 FNET. 690 : PASTE BBS....................1-206-284-8493 FNET. 460 : The Atari ST Connection......1-209-436-8156 FNET. 350 : The Bounty **...1-904-786-4176 FNET. 489 : Steal Your Face BBS..........1-908-920-7981 _____________________________________________________________________ > 04/30/93 STR 918 "The Original * Independent * Online Magazine!" """""""""""""""" - The Editor's Desk - CPU Report - PORTFOLIO NEWS - VGA Pinouts - PowerPC Intro'ed - Apple Revenues UP! - Intel sues AMD - CTFEST'93 - Compatible Formats - Blue Ridge Fest'93 - ACER in WALMART! - STR Confidential -* IAAD REPORTS ON PIRATES! *- -* ATARI EXPLORER CONFUSION CLEARED? *- -* "FALCONWAIT" The USERBASE WAITS & WAITS! *- =========================================================================== STReport International Online Magazine The Original * Independent * 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, invites BBS systems, worldwide, to participate in the Fido/NEST/Atari F-Net Mail Network. You may also phone The Bounty BBS direct @ 904-786-4176, and enjoy the wonder & excitement of exchanging information relative to computers, worldwide, through the use of excellent International Networking Systems. SysOps, worldwide, are quite welcome to join the STReport International Conferences. The Crossnet Code is #34813, and the "Lead Node" is # 350. All BBS systems are welcome and invited to participate. Support your favorite computer! Teleconference Today! =========================================================================== CIS ~ DELPHI ~ BIX ~ NVN ~ GENIE ~ FIDO ~ FNET ~ NEST EURONET ~ CIX ~ CLEVELAND FREE-NET ~ INTERNET =========================================================================== ============= * ATARI EDITION * ============= COMPUSERVE WILL PRESENT $15.00 WORTH OF COMPLIMENTARY ONLINE TIME to the Readers of; ST REPORT INTERNATIONAL ONLINE MAGAZINE """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" "The Original 16/32bit Online Magazine" NEW USERS; SIGN UP TODAY! CALL: 1-800-848-8199 .. Ask for operator 198 You will receive your complimentary time and be online in no time at all! WHAT'S NEW IN THE ATARI FORUMS (April 30) SPEED OF LIGHT GIF VIEWER! Download file SPOFLT.LZH from LIBRARY 14 of the Atari Arts Forum (GO ATARIARTS) for a new Speed-of-Light .GIF file viewer. Shows all colors, squash the picture to fit the screen or just scroll it, adjust flicker, color quality/levels, etc. NEW PRINTER DRIVER FOR DESKJET Download PrintAll Version 1.1 (file PRTALL.LZH in LIBRARY 9 of the Atari Productivity Forum -- GO ATARIPRO). A Printer driver program for the HP Deskjet 500 and 500C. Prints multiple file formats in color or black-and-white in multiple sizes and orientations. Latest version adds Prism Paint PNT support, Tiny low and medium-res .TNY and Sun Microsystems' "Rasterfile" .RAS support. Also numerous bug-fixes and speedups, ability to cancel without quitting and cancel long operations. This version supercedes PrintAll 1.0. New "CMYK" output options simulates Deskjet 550C output on 500C printers! SHAREWARE FROM DOUBLE CLICK IN ATARIVEN Double Click Software has decided to release DC Xtract Plus as SHAREWARE! Included in the LZH file are DC Xtract Plus 2.v and a doc file. Download file XTRPLS.LZH from LIBRARY 13 of the Atari Vendors Forum (GO ATARIVEN). Double Click Software has also decided to release DC SEA as SHAREWARE! Make ARC/LZH/ZIP/ZOO into a self-extracting file. Download file DCSEA.LZH from LIBRARY 13 of the Atari Vendors Forum (GO ATARIVEN). MANY NEW FILES IN ATARIPRO! Lots of new files in the Libraries of the Atari Productivity Forum (GO ATARIPRO). Type BRO LIB:ALL to check out the most recently entries!! REVISED PRINTER DRIVERS FROM SOFTLOGIK SoftLogik has made the following two files available for download from LIBRARY 11 of the Atari Vendors Forum (GO ATARIVEN): PS2299.ARC - PostScript printer driver for ImageSetters and Color PostScript printers version 2.2.99. This is a temporary driver that fixes problems with v2.2.11 printing to Linos and Color PS printers. PS2211.ARC - Newest PostScript printer driver version 2.2.11. This driver is good for users printing to PostScript lasers. For users needing to print to Color PS and high-rez imagesetters, you should use the v2.2.99 driver. THE ATARI PORTFOLIO FORUM ON COMPUSERVE HAS BEEN DESIGNATED AN OFFICIAL SUPPORT SITE BY ATARI CORPORATION "GO APORTFOLIO TO ACCESS THE ATARI PORTFOLIO FORUM" "ENJOY CIS' ATARI FORUMS WHERE CENSORSHIP IS A DIRTY WORD!" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" > From the Editor's Desk "Saying it like it is!" """""""""""""""""""""" Its the last week in April... still no Falcons for retail sales anywhere. So what else is new? All we can substantiate is less than ten accredited, full blown, ADA "signed sealed and sworn-in" Atari dealers nation-wide have received their "DEMO" falcons. One dealer, who must, for obvious reasons remain anonymous, called and mentioned; "There is an ID number on the label under the machine but it does not say its class B certified. It does say the falcon is class B certified in the manual though, he added". However, due to the continued grievous lateness of the arrival of falcons for retail sale, there is plenty of double talk, sidetracking of topics and sidestepping going on in the userbase. Maybe... it was just me but I could've sworn I was told the HAD 150 falcons on hand that were destined to be dealer demos and while they touting that fact, they jumped up hollering a "new" shipment had just hit the docks, was passing through customs and would be going through their QC checks to shipping by mid-May. Now it doesn't take a rocket scientist to deduce that they should have well over 150 falcons available. They don't and they don't expect another shipment to arrive until late May! This magical number of 150 falcons is apparently getting worn out by the masters of disinformation and doublespeak. There are STILL no Falcons available for retail sale. Only "dealer Demos". This business of "Demos Only - Not For Sale" is going to get old in a hurry. As the frustration levels increase even further, the users are getting quite testy relative to most anything mentioned that's not to their liking. What's sad about the whole affair is to find those in the userbase "playing up to" this situation and taking unfair advantage of the emotional state of the userbase. Be advised, those who are engaged in this nefarious practice will pay a terrible price to the users once all the smoke has cleared and believe me, clear it will. On to a brighter moment, it was rather surprising to find that STReport and STReport's popular online conference were used as an information source in the composition of a piracy report compiled and released by the IAAD. The report itself was very well written, highly informative and the topics covered in the report were indeed enlightening. As with any report of this nature, there are bound to be those individuals whose "handles" and BBS names are drawn into the picture who feel they don't belong there. Believe me if such is the case there is no reason to make a stink over it. After all, you know you did nothing wrong and have nothing to hide. Make loud noises and you'll sure live up to the old Shakespearean expression about "protesting too much". Again the report was very well written and gave every indication that great care was taken in its preparation. Read it and learn from it. To all our readers, thank you very much for your continued strong support in the face of the onslaught of the "beast of disinformation". You have no idea how much I appreciate your supportive Email, and great suggestions. To those who have been sending in the verifiable faxes you have been a great help! If we all stick together, maybe just maybe we can turn the beast around and help it become productive once again. Thank you for your strong support! Ralph.... """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" STReport's Staff DEDICATED TO SERVING YOU! """""""""""""""" Publisher - Editor """""""""""""""""" Ralph F. Mariano PC DIVISION AMIGA DIVISION MAC DIVISION ----------- -------------- ------------ Roger D. Stevens Robert Glover R. ALBRITTON STReport Staff Editors: """"""""""""""""""""""" Dana P. Jacobson Michael Arthur John Deegan Lucien Oppler Brad Martin Judith Hamner John Szczepanik Dan Stidham Joseph Mirando Steve Spivey Doyle C. Helms Lloyd E. Pulley, Editor Emeritus Contributing Correspondents: """""""""""""""""""""""""""" Michael Lee Richard Covert Scott Birch Brian Converse Oliver Steinmeier Tim Holt Andrew Learner Norman Boucher Harry Steele Clemens Chin Neil Bradley Eric Jerue Ron Deal Robert Dean Ed Westhusing James Nolan Vernon W. Smith Bruno Puglia IMPORTANT NOTICE """""""""""""""" Please, submit letters to the editor, articles, reviews, etc... via E-Mail to: Compuserve.................... 70007,4454 Delphi........................ RMARIANO BIX........................... RMARIANO FIDONET....................... 112/35 FNET.......................... NODE 350 NEST.......................... 90:21/350.0 GEnie......................... ST-REPORT """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" STR'S "BELIEVE IT? OR.. WHAT?" <>###############################<> "There is no comparison! The Atari Falcon is far superior to the PC platform." Sam Tramiel, 08/92 About the scathing Forbes Magazine Critique of Atari; "My new office, which has a better view than my old one, is so far quite satisfactory. And Richard Miller is in my old office. The Forbes article was a mish-mash and misconstrued article full of half truths. We are anxiously awaiting the release of the Atari Falcon to bring us back to the forefront. The article has given us some laughs, but otherwise has not affected us." Sam Tramiel, 08/92 About marketing plans and the future.... "As I said before, all marketing announcements will be made at Duesseldorf. I will not comment on future models of the Falcon. WE ARE TALKING TODAY ABOUT A MACHINE..... WHICH WILL BE SHIPPING NEXT WEEK." Sam Tramiel, 08/92 A fantastic observation, considering the date it was made... "I've just returned from Asia, where I saw the first Atari Falcon production coming off the lines. Let's hope this new offering will make it in North America. I know that the specs are great." Sam Tramiel, 08/92 Again, the dates of the statement conflict with the facts now known.... "We have not yet even given the machine to the FCC. And we are only applying for Class B approval. According to our "experts", it should pass Class B." Sam Tramiel, 08/92 "...... We are not working for Wall Street but to make money for our shareholders and only think long term." Sam Tramiel, 11/92 psssst. FYI.... The Shareholder's equity is fine.... NOT! The Stock is hovering around $0.81 CHRISTMAS '92 has COME and GONE... AS HAS... JANUARY 1993, FEBRUARY 1993... FALCONS ....anyone? By the Way.... Does the Falcon work well with any... of the SLM Laser Printers?? NOPE! NOT YET! Wanna bet there won't be any? Better yet... Which _MAJOR_ US Software Developers & Publishers are producing NEW Software for Atari's FALCON??? Besides, who _needs_ a CARTRIDGE PORT anyhow! For the record... the cart port will be removed on future revisions of the Falcon. That is, IF there is a future Falcon! """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" > CPU STATUS REPORT LATE BREAKING INDUSTRY-WIDE NEWS """"""""""""""""" Computer Products Update - CPU Report ------------------------ ---------- Weekly Happenings in the Computer World Issue #16 By: John Deegan Computer Products Update - CPU Report ------------------------ ---------- Weekly Happenings in the Computer World Issue #18 By: John Deegan MOTOROLA ROLLS OUT NEW CHIP - Motorola Inc. has introduced the first versions of its new PowerPC chip, the MPC601, which is being touted as a major challenge to Intel Corp.'s new Pentium processor. Reports are that Motorola, which is developing the PowerPC with IBM and Apple Computer Inc., will ship two versions of the 601 with speeds of 50MHz and 66MHz. Sources say the slower chip will sell for $280 each when sold in lots of 20,000, while the faster chip is priced at $374 each. Intel has not yet disclosed the price for its Pentium, which it began shipping last month, but analysts have projected that the microprocessor will carry a price tag of about $1,000 each. Both chips are roughly equ- ivalent in terms of performance and are twice as fast as Intel's top-end 486i chip. Motorola says the 601 chip has 2.8 million transistors, or about 10% fewer than the Pentium, in a space of about 11 millimeters by 11 millimeters per side. It said high-volume production will begin in the third quarter. ACER SIGNS WALMART DEAL - Acer America Corp. has signed an agreement under which the 1,400 WalMart Stores across the country will carry Acer ACROS PC desktops. Acer said WalMart began searching last year for a new PC line to complement its 1993 PC desktop offerings from IBM and Packard Bell. WalMart will carry the ACROS 486SX/25 Models 4125 and 4130 and the ACROS 486DX/33 Model 4335. APPLE SEES EARNINGS, REVENUES GROWTH - Apple Computer Inc. Chief Fin- ancial Officer Joseph Graziano believes the company should post earnings and revenue growth in the second half of the year due to strong demand. According to Graziano, revenue will accelerate from the 15% growth recorded in the 1993 fiscal second quarter ended in March. Earnings will also increase, he said, but did not give a specific estimate. Graziano also said sales will be helped by the introduction of a range of new products. ROHM, RAMTRON TO DEVELOP FRAMS - Rohm Co Ltd. and Ramtron Interna- tional Corp. have announced they will jointly manufacture and develop ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM) chips. Reports are that under the agreement, Rohm will supply complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) wafers to Ramtron. Rohm will also build a production line to produce Ramtron-designed FRAMs. A Rohm spokesman said that FRAMs have the potential to replace all existing memory chips in the future. MICROSOFT SETTLES PIRACY LAWSUITS - Microsoft Corp. has reached a settlement in its software piracy lawsuit against former Microsoft OEM licensee Z-Nix Co. Inc. Microsoft has also settled lawsuits with Z-Nix President Jimmy Chen and three Z-Nix distributors. The lawsuits were originally filed by Microsoft in June 1992 against Z-Nix for copyright and trademark infringement and breach of contract. It followed a two-month investigation, during which Microsoft alleged that it uncovered Z-Nix's massive illegal distribution of the Microsoft Windows operating system version 3.1. INTEL KEEPS HEAT ON AMD - Keeping the heat on its competitor, chip- maker Intel Corp. has filed a new suit against Advanced Micro Devices Inc. claiming AMD had infringed on Intel's copyright for the '486 microprocessor. The semiconductor giant also is asking U.S. District Judge William Ingram to reconsider his April 15 decision throwing out a jury verdict against AMD in a related Intel lawsuit. That ruling allowed AMD to begin shipping its clone of Intel's '486 microprocessor last week. ___________________________________________________________________ > ONLINE WEEKLY STReport OnLine The wires are a hummin'! """"""""""""""""""""""""""""" PEOPLE... ARE TALKING ===================== On CompuServe ------------- compiled by Joe Mirando 73637,2262 Hello again folks. Well, it looks like spring is finally here. All the signs are there: The grass is turning green, the sky is blue and clear, the air is warm, and there are all kinds of birds to be seen. Heck, there have even been a few Falcons sighted (c'mon now, you knew that was coming, didn't you?). Let's just hope that the Falcon doesn't become an endangered species. Well, enough of that. Let's get on with the news from the Atari Forums on CompuServe. From the Atari Productivity Forum ================================= Aidan Heritage asks: "Is there any way of getting an index of all the software available in this for that I can read off line? It would make finding the file I want so much easier." Sysop Keith Joins tells Aidan: "We don't have a current catalog of files in our library. You can however check for a file across all the libraries at one time by adding the parameter LIB:ALL to whatever search command you are using. Also the Atari File Finder (GO ATARIFF) can search across all the Atari Forums at one time. If there is a particular file you are looking for let me know and I can help you find it." Aidan replies to Keith: "Than you for the reply. The thing is, I don't know what I am looking for till I see it! I found the list of the files in the Portfolio area very useful as I could then see what I wanted to get - and I could set my software up to get it for me on a subsequent visit." Keith tells Aidan: "Ah, I see. I used to do catalog files of the forums but there never seemed to be too much interest in them and even doing them by library number with each library in its own file created rather large files." Well, as the pool of ST users gets smaller and smaller, we all start looking into, if not buying another computer, at least what we might have to do to transfer information from the trusty ST to another type of machine. Wayne McGuire asks: "Is there a program available which will convert disks which were formatted in Twister to MS-DOS? I've got about 300 ST disks formatted in Twister that I'd like to read on my PC. Is there a more appropriate forum or forum section in which to ask this question?" Sysop Bob Retelle tells Wayne: "This is the place for your question, all right... I just don't know if there's a good answer for it or not... There are two separate problems involved.. the first is the "normal" ST-->DOS problem of the missing bytes in the boot sector that DOS needs to see to recognize the disk. There ARE ways around that... I believe there is at least one PC program which is supposed to write the missing three bytes onto the disk so it can be read. You can also use a "sector editor" on the PC to do that manually. The second problem is the non-standard format used by Twister. DOS users are just beginning to play around with alternative floppy formats, including more sectors and tracks, so there might be some hope of getting DOS to read the Twister disks. As I recall, Twister used 10 sectors and 81 tracks to increase the storage on a floppy. I don't think the track skewing that it also used would be a problem. I didn't pay enough attention to the discussion in the PC newsgroups about the subject to remember what exactly the solution was, but I believe it required using a custom device driver for MS-DOS to read the extended format. You *might* be able to find out more about that by asking in the IBM HARDWARE Forum here on CompuServe. (I'm assuming you don't still have an ST... the simplest answer, although with 300 disks not the easiest one, would be to just recopy the disks onto MS-DOS formatted disks.) If I get a chance, I might experiment a little with this myself. I still have a lot of disks formatted in ST format, and a lot of them are "Twisted", so I still run into the problem occasionally myself... although I usually end up just copying the disks on my ST." Wayne explains to Bob: "Thanks for the reply. I gave my ST away, and I would prefer to avoid the hassle of copying the Twister formatted disks to DOS formatted disks. If you or anyone else here discovers a small program which will allow MS-DOS machines to read Twister formatted disks, please let me know. Now, of course, I wish I hadn't been so greedy for the extra bytes. There do exist one or two programs for PC's which will read disks formatted in standard ST mode." Jim Ness jumps in and tells Wayne: "The Dave Small Twister program used 80/10 for its format. After converting with DC Format, in the LIBs here, some PCs will read those disks. Others won't. It isn't because of the Twister format, so much as because of the 10 sectors. Twister simply moves the location of the beginning of a track, such that after the head moves from the previous track, it "just happens" to be in a good location to start reading the new track - without having to wait until the new track spins around a bit. DOS doesn't care about this, it's just looking for the new track." Sysop Jeff Kovach adds: "I believe a PC program called MAXI will let you read extended format disks, perhaps he should try looking for that one. It is PD or shareware." In keeping with the MS-DOS theme, Paul Seniura asks: "I've posted this question on the IBM Hardware SIG. Was hoping maybe someone here knows: How to hook up a Monochrome-VGA monitor to a ST? My Multisync monitor went out, needs to be fixed. I've heard a mono-VGA can be used in ST hi-rez mode also. But I can't find info on the pin-outs for the mono-VGA's DB-9 socket to finish wiring it to the ST. Mono-VGA's vertical sync at 72-Hz should match the ST hi-rez mode just fine. I need to finish my homework before the library books are due. So while waiting for the multisync to get fixed, I gotta try doing this. (Yeah my multisync could do *everything* .. sure do miss it." Mike Fulton replies: "Well, the monochrome-out pin of the Atari's monitor connector (pin 11) should go to all three of the red, green, and, blue inputs on the VGA monitor (I know you said it was monochrome, but it sounds like a greyscale VGA, so it should have all three color signals on the connector). Ground on the Atari (pin 13) goes to ground on the VGA. H-Sync on the Atari (pin 9) should go to H-Sync on the VGA. V-Sync on the Atari (pin 12) should go to V-Sync on the VGA. Monochrome Detect on the Atari (pin 4) should be grounded back to ground on the Atari (pin 13). This is how the ST detects the difference between a monochrome and color monitor. Some monitors may want to have some low-value resistors in between the Atari's output and the red/green/blue inputs on the monitor. Sorry I don't know the VGA connector pin numbers, but you should be able to track that down somewhere. Try this at your own risk. I will accept no responsibility for any damage or any injury to people or equipment. This is how I have hooked up my own machine and monitor in the past, I cannot make any guarantee it will work for your setup." Paul tells Mike: "The multisync color was working in all 3 ST modes but it went out. So now I have a monochrome amber VGA as a backup but don't know the pinouts for it. A dude on the IBMHW SIG here responded with the pinouts which might work but it doesn't explain what to do for a single signal source. Well I can explain it better by typing the IBMHW dude's response: Pins 1 and 2 are Ground Pins 3,4,5 are NC Pin 6 is +Intensity Pin 7 is +Video Pin 8 is +H Sync Pin 9 is -V Sync I asked him wasn't that a little weird, +HSync with -VSync (I'll see if he answers tomorrow). Plus I asked him what to do with +Intensity & +Video, isn't that really the same signal with regard to a single video source signal. I know what monochrome VGAs are, they have a grey-scale Intensity line, kinda like the CGA monitors: two levels of 8 colors, e.g. CGA has a 'yellow' (bright) and a 'brown' (low) using that Intensity line. Oh what the heck, the guy repairing my multisync sez we can't do any harm by experimenting, nothing more than +5 volts, no problem shorting something by accident, etc. I'm an old-time CoCo hacker, so if I can make this work, I'll sure post the info for y'all. If that +HSync is true, all I'll need is an Inverting Gate IC to flip the Atari's -HSync (we had to do both H & V syncs on the CoCo3 to make it viewable on the multisync -- yeah, I was using this same multisync on *everything* here!). Hey if this works, there's a glut of monochrome VGAs out there for even $30, and what I saw before I bought the amber one, it is *sharp*! Paper-white ones can be found for oh maybe $70-$80, brand-new ones for $100. They're suppose to be much more "linear" than when I saw an Atari SM124, i.e. good for DTP (I'm using CS-Tex 4.0 for my homework!)." Hal Dougherty tells Mike: "THANKS for the pinout! I've just got a color monitor for my clone and now I have a spare VGA monochrome monitor to use on an ST. It's a step up for the monitor!" Phil Jensen asks about his new Mega ST: "Folks with Mega ST's: do any of you notice a change in fan speed/sound when the floppy drive is being accessed. I do. Should I worry about this? (I've only had the Mega for a month or so, as a replacement for a dead 1040 with 2.5M.)" Bob Retelle, Sysop, tells Phil: "I don't have any experience with a Mega ST, but it sounds from your description that the computer probably uses a 12 volt fan, instead of one connected directly to 115 volts. The floppy drive uses 12 volts to run its motor, as does the hard drive. The hard drive though is always running while the computer and fan are on, so it doesn't affect anything. The floppy drive motor only runs while the drive is being accessed, and it probably tends to pull the 12 volt supply down enough to slow the fan noticeably when the motor starts. This could be normal and perfectly harmless, or it could be an indication of a weak power supply. I think I'd only worry about it if no one else has a similar experience." Our own Ralph Mariano, Editor-in-Chief of STReport, tells Phil: "Its not a serious thing.... I noticed it also on both of my MSTEs and the TT030. Also, I noticed the very same thing on the Mega 4s that are still here. To stop the problem, you might consider the "beefed up" Power Supply Best Electronics sells." Phil replies to Ralph: "Thanks, Ralph (and Bob too) for your advice. I'll note the beefed-up power supply idea for the future. Actually, after the machine has been on for a long time, the phenomenon seems to go away. "curiouser and curiouser..." Greg Wageman jumps in and asks Ralph: "Do any of your TT's "squeal"? My TT emits a very high-pitched squeal the entire time it is on. I suspect it is something in the (switching) power supply, since it start before the hard drive has even spun up, and stops the instant the power switch is shut off (before the hard drive has spun down). I'm sure it isn't indicative of a problem, but it sure is annoying. :-)" Ralph replies: "If it does, I don't hear it. I believe you're right though, it sounds like its your power supply making the noise." Greg tells Ralph: "I can probably fix it with a little "coil dope", it's probably one of the torroids. By the way this kind of problem is common in switching power supplies." Last week there was a bit of discussion of an ST clone. This week, the discussion continues with Greg Wageman's post: "...Being in Silicon Valley, I'm particularly aware of the number of shops around here that sell really, really cheap PC cards and add-ons. I read the local press and literally drool over all these cheap add-on boards that I can't use in my Atari because it lacks an AT/XT buss and a standard SCSI buss. My TT has a standard SCSI buss, but most of the add-on SCSI hardware other than disk drives is useless, because Atari failed to provide a generic application program interface (API) to the TT SCSI buss. All I'd need is a way to build a Group 0 Command Descriptor Block (CDB) for a SCSI device, and a set of flags to tell the driver whether to expect a "Data In" phase or not. Sun Micro has done this. It isn't necessary on PC's, because every hardware vendor provides software drivers as a matter of course. I'd be happy to write my own, but alas, Atari hasn't given me the tools. There's a whole universe of SCSI devices other than disks that Atari users could benefit from: 24-bit color scanners, CDROM drives, etc. Heck, even Amiga users have access to AT-bus cards. It's a shame that Atari didn't see this as an important marketing feature as well." Pattie Rayl of Atari Interface Magazine and the new CONNECT magazine, posts: "One of the biggest problems that's been in the Atari market is the fact that not many systems were produced. If that changes, ie if someone really can make lots of machines, that really will help all the Atari community." Master Sysop, Ron Luks tells Pattie: "You're absolutely right-- lots of machines would help save the Atari community because it would draw lots of independent developers back to the platform. Realistically, I don't think that's going to happen. However, I do think a profitable niche market can be supported if done properly. My expectation for the Falcon was never that it would be sold in the millions. Sure, some people talked about those kinds of numbers, but I never took them seriously. I do believe that there are more than enough current and ex-Atari owners out there, having already invested in ST/STe software, to support an improved machine like the Falcon in numbers of 25,000-100,000 units. A single model Falcon would target the lower end of this range but a more flexible Falcon-type machine (what I call an Atari compatible) with industry standard interfaces (like SCSI2, PCMCIA, etc) that could be configured by the purchaser with any amount of RAM desired, choice of CPUs, etc., could sell toward the upper range of that figure. These numbers would never seriously threaten the PC or MAC marketplace, but it could support specialty groups like musicians or even home hackers/enthusiasts. It could be quite profitable even on a limited scale. This size marketplace may not interest people intent on hitting nothing but home runs or looking for Nintendo-size numbers, but I have to believe there are others in the business who would be comfortable with this kind of a marketplace. Just my opinion." Oscar Steele of Purple Mountain Computers tells Ron: "I think that everyone knows that the ST could have succeeded extremely successfully with the proper marketing. i.e. the Spectre could've been touted as making it a Mac clone at a cheap cost. You can count on my support of such a clone, because if it's properly marketed (and has Falcon features such as a 486 emulator) then I think it can go a long way. If you have people lined up and start working on marketing aspects, get in touch." Ron replies to Oscar: "I have to agree with you that a large part of the ST's failure was due to a poor marketing approach. It may not even be reasonable to talk about the ST as a 'failure' because the machine (and its successor STe) are still performing quite admirably in a number of areas. In fact, an argument could easily be made that the ST was a success but the company was a failure because the computer never had a clear, consistent identity or path after its initial years in release. The hardware itself has many satisfied owners (myself included) who are still using it on a regular basis. I love the ease of use of most of my ST/STe software and for the majority of my work, its more than adequate. Whatever few frustrations I have with my system are related to its proprietary nature. Although I'm looking back with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I don't think it would be unreasonable to state that as far back as 1987-88, it was clear to most people in this industry that the PC and to a lesser extent, the Mac, were going to be the dominant platforms in the industry. The PC was especially favored because of its open architecture and the way you could hook up a variety of peripherals inspite of its non-GUI software. Atari could have taken a path of making their hardware much more 'standard' (using SCSI instead of holding on to ACSI, etc.) and today the atari marketplace would be in much better shape than it is. By keeping their hardware and software so proprietary, they forced 3rd party developers to work on Atari's terms or not at all. In my view, it was an issue of total control over the hardware and software sold in the Atari marketplace. Atari management wanted to exercise more control over the marketplace than they were capable of handling with sufficient expertise. The company went through years of targeting different groups in the computer marketplace but the targets kept changing too fast and the employee turnover was too quick to make a successful effort at any of them. In essence, they spun their wheels using up valuable time, money, and effort without a clear cut direction. By the time they hit upon the Falcon, the resources left at the company were stretched too thin to adequately develop, build, distribute, and market the unit and that's where we stand now." From The Atari ST Arts Forum ============================ On the subject of the Falcon030, Peter Joseph posts: "There are new rumors over here regarding the early Falcons. Someone is saying that the base Falcons will be bare-bones units with no DSP and such." Stefan Daystrom at Barefoot Software tells Peter: "From what I can figure it out, that rumor seems to have been started by someone not understanding model names. What that description might possibly be of is what has typically been referred to as the Jaguar (at least in the US), which is a model that's kinda spun off the Falcon030 but is _below_ the Falcon030. Sounds like someone didn't understand that it was a different model _below_ the Falcon030, and just heard that it was a low-end model technically related to the Falcon, and started incorrectly calling it a "base Falcon" or whatever. (Reminds of the rumor a few years back that 1040ST's had been discontinued, which was based on somebody hearing but not understanding that _1040STf's_ had been discontinued because they'd had RF modulators added on and thus had been replaced with _1040STfm's_!!!! 1040STf's being discontinued was true, but that was certainly not rephraseable as 1040's being discontinued! "A _little_ knowledge can be dangerous", as the saying goes...)" Sysop Brad Hill asks: "I thought the Jaguar was a hand-held game machine? What am I thinking of? Do I have my names confused?" Sysop Bob Retelle tells Brad: "The Lynx is the hand-held game machine, the Jaguar is to be a "console" game machine, ie: like the Super Nintendo. It's NOT a part of the Atari Computer line, and thus, NOT a model "below" the Falcon. It's easy to get non-existent products confused though..." Brad posts: "Oh, a console, OK. I _thought_ it was a game machine, and not part of the computer line." Sysop Ron Luks tells Brad: "Lynx is the hand held game machine. Jaguar is a 'tabletop' game machine currently under development. It is based on a 64-bit RISC processor." John at Missionware Software brings us back to the subject of an ST clone: "I gotta wonder how some other company *can* produce Atari compatible computers. Actually, I should clarify that by saying that it wouldn't be too difficult to create the hardware, however, TOS is a proprietary product of atari and unless they license it to this other hardware source, it's going to be difficult running Atari software on this "clone" without the proper operating system." Sysop Bob Retelle tells John: "If properly done, I think a "TOS-alike" operating system shouldn't be all that hard to create legally... IBM really scrutinized the "cloned BIOSes" that appeared on the market, but found that while they worked like the IBM BIOS, they didn't infringe on their copyrights, and there was little they could do but live with it. The REALLY difficult part would be the GEM interface. Unless it could be licensed from Novell (who seems to have no interest at all in GEM, even though they own it now), that too would have to be "reverse engineered", and that would be a far more difficult project. Possibly the easiest way would be to produce the hardware with empty ROM sockets, and depend on obtaining legal TOS ROMs from Atari, much like the Spectre emulator situation. Of course, Atari could squash that by refusing to sell ROMs. It remains to be seen whether or not they'd do that... The original ST went from idea to market in something like six months... including writing the operating system... (which still has to stand as something of a record.. quite an accomplishment..!) It's true that "reverse engineering" something might be more difficult, but it probably wouldn't be all that bad... Unfortunately, you're right though.. it's the software end of the project that's likely to be the biggest problem." John tells Bob: "Oh Boy...time to try to pull out some history here. If I recall properly, didn't atari send something like 4 or 5 software gurus to DR to do the port of GEM? I seem to remember reading that they directly rewrote the code from Intel to Motorola in that 6 months. Does that sound about right? I think that the BIOS was already written, or at least pretty much complete. Wasn't there even some early talk about porting CP/M as the ops system to the ST? Hmmmm......" Ron Luks adds: "The obvious possibility is that they could license TOS from Atari Corp. The less obvious and more difficult approach (but certainly not impossible) would be to reverse engineer TOS. Seems companies like Phoenix and AMI did that to the IBM Bios with out IBM's blessing and it held up in court. A third possibility would be to buy something like Gribnif's Neodesk." Charles F. Johnson, CodeHead el Supremo, tells Ron: "Neodesk is just a desktop program; it's a program like any other program. Neodesk _uses_ TOS to do its work, it's not a replacement for TOS. There's much more to an operating system than just the desktop -- in fact, I'd estimate that the actual desktop is no more than 10% of the code in TOS. Reverse engineering TOS is definitely possible, though. Actually, by modern GUI standards, TOS is very simple (I was going to say "primitive," but that has the wrong connotation). It would be much easier to reverse engineer TOS than Windows or the Mac OS. While it would take some hard work, it's certainly doable." Greg Wageman tells Charles: "I must respectfully disagree. The more an OS or API (Application Program Interface) is documented, the easier it is to clone, since the expected behavior is documented in the spec. As I'm sure you know very well, the behavior of TOS under various conditions is not only not-well-documented, it is also subject to change from TOS version to TOS version. Therefore, in my opinion, anyone who wished to clone TOS from published specifications would not have sufficient information available to them to do the job without actually _verifying the behavior under TOS_, which violates the "clean room" procedure under which non-infringing clones are developed. In other words, Atari's TOS documentation is not sufficient to develop a work-alike from. In many cases, it is not sufficient to _develop_ from, hence the large number of non-portable, non-compliant programs the user community has to deal with." Clive Parker of ST Format, the British ST mag that's also big news on this side of the Atlantic, tells Charles: "There is already a replacement operating system on ROM. It is called EOS (Enhanced Operating System?) and is produced by a German developer. It is available in the UK for 99 pounds as direct replacement for Atari ROMs. I'll contact the UK distributors for more info... it is also available on floppy." Well folks, I've taken far more room than I had intended to, so I won't have room for the Atari Vendors forum or the Atari Portfolio Forum. I apologize, but I thought that you might find the info on the monitors and especially the ST Clone stuff interesting. I'll have the other forums back next time right here. So tune in and listen to what they are saying when... PEOPLE ARE TALKING *********************************************************************** IMPORTANT NOTICE! ================= STReport International Online Magazine is available every week in the ST Advantage on DELPHI. STReport readers are invited to join DELPHI and become a part of the friendly community of Atari enthusiasts there. SIGNING UP WITH DELPHI ====================== Using a personal computer and modem, members worldwide access DELPHI services via a local phone call JOIN -- DELPHI -------------- Via modem, dial up DELPHI at 1-800-695-4002 then... When connected, press RETURN once or twice and... At Password: type STREPORT and press RETURN. DELPHI's Basic Plan offers access for only $6.00 per hour, for any baud rate. The $5.95 monthly fee includes your first hour online. For more information, call: DELPHI Member Services at 1-800-544-4005 DELPHI is a service of General Videotex Corporation of Cambridge, MA. Try DELPHI for $1 an hour! For a limited time, you can become a trial member of DELPHI, and receive 5 hours of evening and weekend access during this month for only $5. If you're not satisfied, simply cancel your account before the end of the calendar month with no further obligation. If you keep your account active, you will automatically be enrolled in DELPHI's 10/4 Basic Plan, where you can use up to 4 weekend and evening hours a month for a minimum $10 monthly charge, with additional hours available at $3.96. But hurry, this special trial offer will expire soon! To take advantage of this limited offer, use your modem to dial 1-800-365-4636. Press once or twice. When you get the Password: prompt, type IP26 and press again. Then, just answer the questions and within a day or two, you'll officially be a member of DELPHI! TOP TEN DOWNLOADS (4/28/93) (1) MSA V. 2.2 (2) LITTLE GREEN SELECTOR (3) STREPORT 9.17 04/23/93 (4) TOS COMPATIBILITY FIX (5) DC XTRACT PLUS 2.1 (6) AEO: VOLUME 2 - ISSUE 8 (7) Z*NET 9314 (8) REHBOCK.ARC (9) DOUBLE CLICK'S DC-SEA (10) XYZPATCH.ZIP All of the above files can be found in the RECENT ARRIVALS database for at least one week after the posting of this list. Please Note that in the case of online magazines, only the most current issue in the database at the time of this compilation is considered for the Top 10 list. Also, for all files, a submission is eligible for the Top 10 list for only four weeks after its original uploading. DELPHI- It's getting better all the time! *********************************************************************** > CT FEST'93 STR SHOW NEWS The Summertime Atari Event! """""""""""""""""""""""" THE CT ATARIFEST '93! ===================== JUNE 12 & 13, AT THE WINDSOR COURT HOTEL WINDSOR, CT. (JUST ABOVE HARTFORD) Free Parking! Low Room Rates! More Vendors! More Floor Space! CONNECTICUT SHOW TO FEATURE ATARI'S LATEST ENTRY ================================================ HARTFORD, Conn. (April 12) More than 1,000 Atari computer enthusiasts are expected to converge here June 12 and 13 at Connecticut AtariFest '93, and are certain to debate whether the star of the show -- THE LONG-AWAITED FALCON030 COMPUTER -- lives up to its advance billing. Yep, that ACT Atari Group is running another major NorthEast computer event. Last year's successful CT Fest had over 700 attendees, which merited a larger location, so we've moved a mile away (exit 42 on I-91) into bigger and better quarters. We're just as convenient to reach as ever, and only two hours from Boston or New York! The new hotel has excellent room rates ($35.00 per room), free and plentiful parking, easy access from Interstate 91, I-95, I-90, I-84, I-80, an in house Sports Bar, a bigger ballroom and is located just 1 mile from Bradley International Airport (free shuttle service for hotel guests). The Falcon030 is a perfect low cost tool for the professional artist, with 8 track, 16 bit musical capabilities, truecolor graphics and a 32 bit DSP chip. The Falcon will be bundled with several music programs, including a 4 track 'Direct to Disk' editing and recording program, a sound sampler and an all purpose productivity package called AtariWorks. The Hartford show will likely be one of the first encounters the general public has with the new machine and software leading designers have produced for it. Atari was performing quality control tests on the latest production models shipped to the Sunnyvale headquarters in mid-April. The two-day event will feature more than 40 exhibitors, including several of the top names in music software development and MIDI equipment. Tentative music exhibitors include Barefoot Software (formerly Hybrid Arts), Digital F/X, Steinberg/Jones, Pro Musica, Compo Software and others. The show, sponsored by ACT Atari Group, will be held at the Windsor Court Hotel, just off Interstate 91 at exit 42. Connecticut AtariFest'93 promises to showcase the work of several musicians and will include some live music sessions. Other vendors will demonstrate new equipment and software that will be of interest to musicians whether they're on or off the job. Among them, organizers have received tentative nods from A&D Software, ABC Solutions, Baggetaware, Barefoot Software, Compo Software, Computer Studio, Derric Electronics, East Hartford Computer Repair, Gribnif Software, ICD Inc., MegaType Software, Soft-Logik Publishing, Toad Computers, Wizztronics. Last year 14 user groups participated, and that number is expected to grow by June. A Home Business and Entertainment Expo that will focus on high-tech gadgetry designed for home use is also planned. Central activities will include a New England Lynx Tournament for the gamester in the family, a Portfolio corner for the on-the-go palmtop computer user, and other technology such as VCRs, lap/palmtops, voice messaging systems, satellite receivers, CD-ROM, fax-modems, large screen TV, printers, audio-video components, cellular phones, office supplies, video games or add-on units and accessories. We'll have our annual New England Lynx Competition, with multiple Comlynxed competitions underway at all times. Last year's winners took home prizes ranging from games to accessories to complete Lynx Systems! Bring your best player and join the fun. We'll have the Portfolio Corner, staffed with industry pundits and filled with every imaginable palmtop peripheral! Last year we had a few Portfolios disassembled at the booth, a real insight into surface mount technology! For those of you with an eye towards seminars, we'll have them in abundance, last year's question and answer session with Bob Brodie drew standing only crowds! In addition, we had John Eidsvoog's walk through the Codehead graphic tools, Jeff Naideau of Barefoot Software showing off EdiTrack Platinum, Dave Troy of (Guess[ribbet]) Computers, STReport's Dana Jacobson and Joe Mirando and many, many others. And to top things off, come out and see the Falcon 030 in all its glory. By then we expect to see some rad new programs out and some really excitement! All in all, we hope to have the best Northeast show yet, and we look forward to your participation. Make your plans now for the most exciting Atari Weekend this spring! For further information, call Brian Gockley at 203-332-1721 or Doug Finch at 203-637-1034. We can also be found on GEnie in Category 11 or on Compuserve in the Atari Forums. E-mail can be directed to B.GOCKLEY or D.FINCH7 on GEnie or to 75300,2514 or 76337,1067 on CIS. _____________________________________________________________________ > AGGRESSIVE ASSUMPTION! STR Spotlight Will it ever end? """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" TRUE ZEAL OR AGGRESSIVE ASSUMPTION? =================================== by R. F. Mariano It's truly a shameful affair when we find messages such as the following plaguing the IRREFUTABLE truth with senseless prattle emanating from those claiming to "know otherwise". As has been the case, for what seems like an eternity, STReport will once again stand tall with its accuracy and truthful reporting. Of course, we speak of the debacle that recently occurred on Delphi in its Atari area about the lay-offs at Atari. When it came to the revealing information and quotes we received relative to this event, the disinformation squads rose to the occasion with a new "modus operandi". They actually spread half truths and innuendo in hopes of deflecting attention away from the fact that two people, in particular Lindsay and Meer, were actually laid off! Absolutely incredible. So incredible that many began to call their actions a clumsy coverup. The actual report as released by STReport is presented beneath this accusatory message from Chris Millar, a very bright teenager, who seems to be innocently following the "Atari line" being put forth by the "masters of disinformation". --><-- from Delphi's Atari Area 53731 27-APR 01:33 General Information RE: What's going on here? (Re: Msg 53647) From: CMILLAR To: RMARIANO "The lay-off came when we reported it and it still is that way. The truth will come out soon enough." Now this seems to somewhat of a change. Originally, you reported that they had been fired. That was then refuted in the pages of AEO, and by Andreas Barbiero. You responded by saying something to the effect of, "But what happens at the end of the week...". That would imply that what you originally reported was false, and now you are refuting _that_. Andreas Barbiero has stated time and time again that they are still working for Atari. He has backed up this claim by stating that he spoken to him on several occasions about this. He also claimed that you never attempted to contact Atari concerning these matters. You, on the other hand, will not divulge the source of your information, and have never claimed to have tried to contact Atari. Couple this with your infamous history of misrepresentation and sensationalism, and your credibility is non-existent. "Nothings changed except the level of smoke." The only smoke in this situation is the haze which seems to perpetually cloud your judgement. - Chris Millar --><-- From STReport 9.16 - Sunnyvale, CA REVOLVING DOOR VERY BUSY! ------------- According to our sources, Mike Lindsay and Darren Meer, of Atari Explorer Magazine, Gail Bicani developer support person and Bruce Coleman have left Atari's employ. Additionally, our reporters find that Atari Explorer Magazine may also have been shut down. Subsequently, Lindsay and Meer were reportedly offered "commissioned employment" consisting of selling subscriptions to the Explorer magazine which was reported to have been refused. In the last three weeks, Atari laid off twenty two employees including Mel Stevens the man who organized most all of Atari's show efforts, a veteran employee of nineteen years. Reportedly, about half of the Atari headquarters building is relatively devoid of people and the warehouse is alleged to be shutdown. "For all intents and purposes, Atari may as well be shutdown, even though they may claim to have about one hundred and fifty Falcons on hand" said one observer who asked to remain anonymous. Amidst these events and all the Falcon shipping delays and excuses, Atari's userbase is growing quite uneasy as to the final outcome. Further developments reportedly include information stating they've recently received a shipment of Falcons (last Tuesday) destined for shipment in the USA. But it was further added they must first go through Atari's QC thus, causing a possible three to four week delay in shipping these units. --><-- Mr. Millar makes quite a few assertions as to what was stated in our release as everyone can plainly see, he is sadly mistaken. Never did STReport ever state they had been fired. To add to the comments Millar states; "Andreas Barbiero has stated time and time again that they are still working for Atari. He has backed up this claim by stating that he spoken to him on several occasions about this." I'm afraid Mr. Millar, you've fallen prey to a bad case of the "assumptions". You've apparently ASSUMED that since Mr. Barbiero spoke to Mr. Lindsay at Atari that Mr. Lindsay was still working for Atari and was still on the payroll. Fact is they were laid-off on Holy Thursday, April 08, 1993 and our original bulletin disclosed this information on April 12, 1993. The report was true and accurate then and it still is now. Millar continues to make demands; "You, on the other hand, will not divulge the source of your information, and have never claimed to have tried to contact Atari." Revealing sources to you?? Surly you jest! Not you or anyone else will know who our source are inside Atari not now, not EVER! Its incredible to find the "broad all-encompassing" accusations flowing freely as if they are a matter of fact. When, in fact, they are simply more assumptions and at that, they're based on pure fantasy. STReport diligently reports _all_ the verified happenings occurring in the Atari platform not just the rosy pablum and fluff as some do or would have us do, in our Atari edition. We did indeed attempt to contact Atari and found a "recording" with Mike Lindsay's voice telling us all about their "working on other projects" running on Lindsay's phone line a day or two after the verified layoffs. Incidently and for the record, we re-verified the layoffs again this past wednesday to make perfectly sure we were correct. They are not on the payroll and haven't been since the thursday in question. In clear concise terms; they're no longer in the employ of Atari. While Lindsay may be around to answer the phone, he is not on the payroll he is there trying to negotiate a deal to run Atari Explorer Magazine on his own, outside of Atari. The original reports were verified. STReport stands by the reports in their entirety. Once again, for the record, STReport verified the information completely before the release of the 4/12/93 bulletin. The only item in the subsequent information released on the Friday the 16th is about the "commissioned employment". This information was incorrect. Mike Lindsay and Darren Meer were not offered any type of commissioned employment by Atari. This is according to Mike himself, whom I spoke to recently. When asked about his employment, he readily admitted that both he and Darren were not on the Atari payroll. However, they were involved in negotiations with Atari concerning Atari Explorer Magazine, he added. STReport, its staff and contributors wish Mike and Darren all the success in the world if they do take over Explorer on their own. ___________________________________________________________________ > BAGGETTA WARE STR InfoFile "The Eliemouse complimentary Coloring Book" """""""""""""""""""""""""" "THE ELIEMOUSE COMPLIMENTARY COLORING BOOK" =========================================== PRESS RELEASE BAGGETTA_WARE P.O. BOX 759 AGAWAM, MA 01001-0759 VERSION 7 of "The Eliemouse Complimentary Coloring Book" (ECCB7) is now available for shipping. One year of work has gone into this upgrade of version 6. ECCB7 is MULTI-LINGUAL, allowing hours of fun in English, Spanish or French for children ages 4 and up. Here are a few more of the many features added: Music feature added -- play tunes with color Psychedelic color shifting Pattern fills New on-line games Slide show feature Add toys to pictures Instant 'string art' designs Quick change of languages Add picture labels New interface features F-key alternate commands Quick sheet and much, much more.... ECCB7 is the only electronic coloring book featuring Eliemouse, the user friendly fellow who communicates with your child during the coloring activity. He is filled with compliments and ECCB is filled with lots of educational fun for your child. ECCB7 is being offered as a package as follows: Main Program with 6 starter pictures 140 compressed pictures (Eliemouse and friends, butterflies alphabet creatures, flowers, animation pictures, doofy dinosaurs, stain glass windows, christmas pictures and special story pictures). Eliemouse Spelling Hunt Color Adventure Game Eliemouse Paper, Scissors, Rocks Game Eliemouse Count the Peanuts Game 6 Bonus Color Screens (.PI1 format) 48 Page Printed Manual Souvenir Eliemouse Pencil (Price $45.00 --A $100.00 value if purchased separately -- pictures disks may be ordered separately at $5.00 per disk) UPGRADE -- Current users of ECCB may upgrade from any version to the above package for only $25.00 -- Return original disk(s) and include $1.00 for postage) Order from Baggetta_Ware P.O. Box 759 Agawam, MA 01001-0759 *********************************************************************** :HOW TO GET YOUR OWN GENIE ACCOUNT: _________________________________ Set your communications software to Half Duplex (or Local Echo) Call: (with modem) 800-638-8369. Upon connection type HHH (RETURN after that). Wait for the U#= prompt. Type: XTX99587,CPUREPT then, hit RETURN. GEnie costs only $4.95 a month for unlimited evening and weekend access to more than 100 services including electronic mail, online encyclopedia, shopping, news, entertainment, single-player games, and bulletin boards on leisure and professional subjects. With many other services, including the biggest collection of files to download and the best online games, for only $6 per hour. MONEY BACK GUARANTEE! Any time during your first month of membership if you are not completely satisfied, just ask for your $4.95 back. Welcome to the GEnie Windows and Windows NT RoundTable! +------------------------+ Brought to you by Rick Ruhl (RICKER), | Files Messages RTC Help| Richard Dill (RDILL), |-^-----^--------^---^---| and Charlie Strom (STROM) | +-------------+ | Windows R/T SYSOPs | |_____________| | | | Windows | | With Assistant SYSOPs | | +-------------+ | Craig Austin (AUSTIN) Library | | |_____________| | Stewart Hyde (STEWART) BB | | | | | Ron McLurkin (MCLURKIN) Library | +-----| Windows NT | | Peter Ziebel (PETER.Z) Help Desk | | 3.1 | | Michele Cardone (MICHELE-C) Help Desk | | | | Wayne Lively (W.LIVELY) Help Desk | +-------------+ | Roy Green (R.GREEN13) Help Desk +------------------------+ Herman Griffith (HERM) Help Desk and BB Mike Bourdeau (IMPERIAL-WE) Help Desk Keith Elkin (K.ELKIN) Help Desk Wendy Reynolds (WENDYSUE) Help Desk Windows RT Newsletter Holly Jahangiri (JESSIEBELLE) Editor Peter Ziebel (PETER.Z) Editor Promotions and Marketing Laura Tanner (LTANNER) Windows and Windows NT are trademarks and Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. The Windows R/T is independent and is not affiliated with Microsoft Corporation. +----------------------------+ +-----------------------------+ | "Open Windows" RT Meeting | | Windows RT Help Desk | |----------------------------| |-----------------------------| | Thursday, 21:30 ET | | Mon., Tues., Wed. & Friday | | RTC Room 2 | | 21:30-00:30 ET RTC Room 2 | +----------------------------+ +-----------------------------+ Voted Best New RT on GEnie, 1993 The Windows RT is proud to Welcome Berkeley Systems, Inc. Makers of: "After Dark for Windows" and "Star Trek, the screen saver" Online Support Area Windows Bulletin Board Category 27 Pick Item 1 from the Windows Menu and type 'SET 27' in the BB GEnie Information copyright (C) 1991 by General Electric Information Services/GEnie, reprinted by permission *********************************************************************** > IAAD REPORT STR FOCUS! Piracy Kills on the Atari Platform """""""""""""""""""""" IAAD PIRACY REPORT ================== (reprint with permission by D.A. Brumleve 4/27/93) This article is the result of contributions by people from every facet of the Atari community. Many thanks to all the users, developers, sysops, and others who provided the investigators with information and assistance. [Note: Stand-alone quotations are framed on the left and right by the "~" character.] Small Developers, Big Business How Pirate BBSs Impact on the Entire Atari Community by D.A. Brumleve, President, IAAD Copyright 1993 by D.A. Brumleve The Independent Association of Atari Developers represents over sixty companies supporting the Atari ST platform with commercial software and hardware. Now and then a "pirate" BBS will come to our members' attention. We'll capture the file areas and study them. We'll cringe at the download counts and growl at the messages about our products. We'll download copies of our products and trace the original owner. Sometimes we'll even file a police report, but the pirate board stays up and callers keep calling, downloading, and uploading our programs. And every time we leave this experience further demoralized, less enthusiastic about writing for the ST, less enthusiastic about programming in _general_. Recently, the IAAD undertook a more comprehensive investigation of pirate BBSs in North America. We solicited information from the public -- and the Atari community responded. In spite of some previous experience with pirate boards, I was not at all prepared for the amount of pirate activity we found. On each pirate BBS, we found numbers for other BBSs, many of which also proved to have copyrighted files. We found concentrated pockets of heavy pirate activity in the Southwest, the East, and the Southeast, but we also found isolated pirate boards in just about every region of the continent. We found small boards with few users and fewer files; we found big boards with hundreds of users offering nearly every commercial program on the market of current interest. We found young teens actively involved in criminal activity -- and older, more experienced men showing them the ropes. On every user list, I encountered folks I know: the doting father who bought Super Kidgrid for his daughter at a show, the user group officer who contacted me for IAAD brochures, and many, many others who chat with me from time to time on the major pay services. Because of the scope and scale of this activity, I feel that it's important to share our findings with the Atari community at large. What follows is the outcome of our investigation. 1. The Damage ~ This BBS DOES NOT support the transfer of any pirated ~ ~ software. ~ -- Rats Nest BBS ~ Rats Nest always had some of the best stuff around... ~ --Zaphod Beeblebrox on Fawlty Towers BBS When people pirate programs they would otherwise buy, developers and dealers (and distributors) lose sales. Dealers respond to low sales by closing or supporting another platform. Developers respond to low sales by raising their prices or by dropping the product; either way, the market is damaged. How badly damaged? Let's take a look at just some of the commercial applications and utilities which were until recently available on the Rats Nest in Loma Alta CA. For the sake of brevity, I've limited this particular list to products of IAAD members and Atari Corporation; thus this list does not include applications and utilities by publishers who are not members of the IAAD, public domain files, or shareware programs. _ ____ __ / \ / \ / \ \ / \ | | ___ | \ / \ _____ /\ ___ | | __ _ __\ /__ /\ | \| |/ \ / /__\ /__ | / / \/ \/ \ / / | |\ | -- // // \ | \| | \ |\__ __// / | | \ | ___\\ \\__ __/ | |\ | | | | | | \ \ | | \ |\_____/ \ \ | | | | \ | / | | | \ \ | | \_/ / / | | \ / \/\__/\./ \ / / / \ / / / \ / / \ | / \ / / / \ / / / \ \./ | \./ / / \./ \/ \./ | | \/ | | | | . . | . . | . | . . *^* (#1) Applications *^* ### | Filename.Ext Size Date Brief Description 5 | Maxif_3A.Lzh 55665 01-03-92 MaxiFile v3.3a 13 | Hdsentry.Lzh 33922 01-10-92 HD Sentry... HD optimizer, fixer 18 | Xboot .Lzh 37888 01-18-92 X-Boot, like Desk Manager 19 | Steno .Lzh 28885 01-18-92 STeno, from Gribnif. Sortof Flakey 36 | Gramxprt.Lzh 84265 02-05-92 Grammer Expert 37 | Grnslamc.Lzh 56066 02-05-92 Gran Slam! 48 | Codeke13.Lzh 98427 02-05-92 CodeKeys v1.3 from Gribnif 49 | Mltdsh33.Lzh 217352 02-05-92 MultiDesk Deluxe v3.3 56 | Knife108.Lzh 87757 02-05-92 Knife ST! 71 | Lookpop .Lzh 109631 02-07-92 Look It! and Pop It! from Codeheads 72 | Imagecat.Lzh 290048 02-07-92 ImageCat 2.o 111 | Hpas_A .Lzh 247343 02-22-92 High Speed Pascal, Disk 1 of 2 112 | Hpas_B .Lzh 269757 02-22-92 High Speed Pascal, Disk 2 of 2 150 | Tos_206 .Lzh 77116 03-22-92 Tos 2.06 software vertion 151 | Hyprlink.Lzh 271744 03-28-92 HyperLink 164 | Chem1_2 .Lzh 217327 04-05-92 Chemistry - Arrakis educational 165 | Chm2Sts1.Lzh 222763 04-05-92 Chemistry 2 and Stats from Arrakis 166 | Alg11_12.Lzh 224322 04-06-92 Algebra 1 from Arrakis educational 167 | Alg12_21.Lzh 247109 04-06-92 Algebra 2 from Arrakis 168 | Al3_1Tr1.Zip 239499 04-06-92 Algebra 3 Trig 1 from Arrakis 173 | Neocli .Lzh 66076 04-19-92 NeoDesk Command Line... nice 178 | Tos1_4 .Zip 123342 04-25-92 To run those stubern 1.4 tos soft 197 | Xboot257.Zip 51420 05-06-92 Newest Version of X-Boot (v2.57) 221 | Tw13E_A .Lzh 703536 05-17-92 That's Write 1.3 - English - 1/2 222 | Tw13E_B .Lzh 703536 05-17-92 That's Write 1.3 - English - 2/2 228 | Gen106_A.Lzh 192808 05-17-92 That's Relative 106 1/2 ELITE release 229 | Gen106_B.Lzh 130361 05-17-92 That's Relative 2/2 ELITE release 243 | P_Nix15A.Lzh 427252 05-30-92 Phoenix v.1.5 - Disk 1 of 3 244 | P_Nix15B.Lzh 410836 05-30-92 Phoenix v.1.5 - Disk 2 of 3 245 | P_Nix15C.Lzh 410836 05-30-92 Phoenix v.1.5 - Disk 3 of 3 258 | Tracker .Lzh 402564 06-08-92 Rolodex/Client Tracking util 287 | Mint80A .Lzh 503661 07-20-92 MultiTos v8.0 [1/3] 288 | Mint80B .Lzh 181797 07-20-92 MultiTos v8.0 [2/3] 289 | Mint80C .Lzh 263956 07-20-92 MultiTos v8.0 [3/3] 297 | Scanlitd.Arc 33361 08-01-92 Hand Scanner software 308 | Codehed4.Lzh 191763 08-08-92 CodeHead Utilities rel.4 (1991) 317 | Clnup426.Lzh 91942 08-29-92 ICD CleanUP 4.26 Host required 334 | Edhak236.Lzh 43125 09-12-92 Edhack v2.36 (patched from v2.35) 335 | Dmd_Edge.Lzh 149439 09-13-92 Diamond Edge 1.0 ELITE release 352 | Dback250.Lzh 85508 10-03-92 Diamond Back 2.50 latest 356 | Warp9373.Lzh 338270 10-07-92 Warp 9 3.73 Complete Package 374 | L_Rad_E1.Lzh 631730 10-18-92 Redacteur 3 1/4 (eng) ELITE release 375 | L_Rad_E2.Lzh 485004 10-18-92 Redacteur 3 2/3 (eng) ELITE release 376 | L_Rad_E3.Lzh 660252 10-18-92 Redacteur 3 3/4 (eng) ELITE release 377 | L_Rad_E4.Lzh 525994 10-18-92 Redacteur 3 4/4 (eng) ELITE release 378 | Icdb604C.Lzh 12971 10-18-92 ICD Booter 6.0.4 (crack'd) by Zaphod 388 | Harleq21.Lzh 360135 11-12-92 Harlequin 201 Genesis INC release(old) 392 | Adspeed .Lzh 95744 11-20-92 ICD Adspeed Accelerator Software. 396 | Harl_206.Lzh 354749 11-26-92 Harlequin vrs. 2.06 402 | Spectre3.Zip 446203 12-02-92 Spectre 3.0 software 403 | Xboot300.Lzh 59385 12-04-92 X-Boot v3.00 408 | Cache_Cr.Lzh 33876 12-13-92 Cache 2.56 ELITE hacked/all features 410 | Mvg200 .Lzh 488069 12-13-92 Multi Vue Graphica 2.0 421 | Cardf403.Lzh 186987 01-03-93 Card File 4.03 from Gribnif lates ver 422 | St_Sutra.Lzh 657385 01-03-93 STSutra ELITE release still beta.. 453 | Uvk5_7 .Lzh 276224 02-01-93 UVK 5.7gb latest vr 460 | Falcprgs.Lzh 572035 02-03-93 The Programs included with the Falcon. 470 | Icdpro68.Lzh 528187 02-06-93 ICD Boot PRO 6.0.8! 474 | Tos206B .Zip 148016 02-07-93 TOS 2.06 as a program! 480 | Calpro_2.Lzh 332815 02-18-93 Calligrapher Professional [2/5]. 481 | Calpro_3.Lzh 305163 02-18-93 Calligrapher Professional [3/5]. 482 | Calpro_4.Lzh 406075 02-18-93 Calligrapher Professional [4/5]. 483 | Calpro_5.Lzh 328443 02-18-93 Calligrapher Professional [5/5]. 494 | Mint_81 .Lzh 407624 02-22-93 mint81 502 | Neo303_1.Lzh 354937 03-06-93 NeoDesk 3.03 "MASTER" disk [1/3] 503 | Neo303_2.Lzh 328564 03-06-93 NeoDesk 3.03 "EXTRAS" disk [2/3] 504 | Neo303_3.Lzh 24763 03-06-93 NeoDesk 3.03 Util disk [3/3] 514 | Cali3_2 .Lzh 273959 03-13-93 Calligrapher 3, 2/4 515 | Cali3_3 .Lzh 309849 03-13-93 Calligrapher 3, 3/4 516 | Cali3_4 .Lzh 504895 03-13-93 Calligrapher 3, 4/4 531 | Cali3100.Lzh 290501 03-23-93 Caligrapher 3 Pro 100% disk 1 CO/ICS 535 | Mt101 .Tos 294518 03-24-93 MultiTOS v.1.01 542 | Atariwx1.Zip 285943 03-27-93 Atari Works 1/2 543 | Atariwx2.Zip 701987 03-27-93 Atari Works 2/2 Fawlty Towers provides an example of typical desktop publishing products available on such BBSs: //////////////////////// /// ///////////// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// ///////// //////////// /// /// /////// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// ////////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\ *^* (#8) ST DTP *^* ### | Filename.Ext Size Date Brief Description | 1 | Avant .Lzh 171368 02-11-92 ADvant Vector 8 | Dp_E1 .Lzh 343016 03-17-92 Insane!!! Didot-professional DTP [1/2] 9 | Dp_E2 .Lzh 414822 03-17-92 The best! Didot-Professional DTP [2/2] 10 | Siloutte.Lzh 323802 05-11-92 Sillhoutte Vector Graphics/Ray Tracer 11 | Outline .Lzh 193536 05-13-92 Calamus Outline Art 16 | Pgs22_1 .Lzh 322001 07-25-92 Pagestream v2.2 [1/4]. 17 | Pgs22_2 .Lzh 379509 07-25-92 Pagestream v2.2 [2/4]. 18 | Pgs22_3 .Lzh 317627 07-25-92 Pagestream v2.2 [3/4]. 19 | Pgs22_4 .Lzh 428038 07-25-92 Pagestream v2.2 [4/4]. 27 | Ara213 .Lzh 329614 08-06-92 Aribesque 2.13 34 | Sl_Enga .Lzh 370940 12-17-92 Calamus 35 | Sl_Eng_B.Lzh 237849 12-17-92 Calamus 36 | Sl_Eng_C.Lzh 318914 12-17-92 Calamus 37 | Convec20.Lzh 311683 01-05-93 Convector 2.0 38 | Cranach1.Lzh 282850 01-05-93 Cool 39 | Cranach2.Lzh 153775 01-05-93 cool 40 | Skyplot1.Lzh 248536 01-05-93 SkyPlot disk 1/2 41 | Skyplot2.Lzh 205589 01-05-93 SkyPlot disk 2/2 42 | Skyplot3.Lzh 323450 01-05-93 Skyplot disk 3? or 3? 43 | Cfned22 .Lzh 17227 01-27-93 Takes Serial #'s off Calamus Fonts 44 | Slmodul2.Lzh 90489 01-27-93 Some Moduals for Calamus 45 | Genus .Lzh 80305 02-01-93 Genus v1.78 - Calamus Fonteditor. 46 | Touchup1.Lzh 362626 02-06-93 Touch Up disk 1/2 47 | Touchup2.Lzh 230762 02-06-93 Touch up disk 2/2 48 | Calpro_1.Lzh 328402 02-24-93 Caligrapher Pro [1/5] 49 | Calpro_2.Lzh 332815 02-24-93 Cal Pro [2/5] 50 | Calpro_3.Lzh 305163 02-24-93 Cal Pro [3/5] 51 | Calpro_4.Lzh 406075 02-24-93 Cal Pro [4/5] 52 | Calpro_5.Lzh 328443 02-24-93 Cal Pro [5/5] STampede offers Super Nintendo software, so it's not surprising to find a good many commercial ST games as well: ________ ________ _______ /__ __/\/ _____/\/ _____/\ _______ ______________ \_/ /\_\/ /\____\ /__/\___\/ / \/ \ ___/ / / / /_/__ \___ /\ / ____/____ ______/\ /_______/\/_______/\//______/ / / /\___\___/ /\_____\/ \_______\/\_______\/ \______\/ / / / / / / _ ___ __ _ ___ / /_/_ / / / / //_ /_/ /_// / \____ \ / / / /_/__// / / //_/ SYSOP \__/ /\ / / /_________ ______________ _____ \ PAK / / // / / __ / \/ __ / __/ __ \/ __/\ _____/ / // / / __ / / / / __/ __/ /_/ / __/\/ /_________/ //____/ /_/ /_/_/_/_/__/\/____/_____/____/\/ CO-SYSOP \_________\/ \____\/\_\ \_\_\_\_\__\/\____\_____\____\/ SCYTHE ATARI ST/STE/TT ___ ___ _____ THE THREAT/ICS CONSOLES SNES/SMD / _ \/ _ \/ ___/\ MR.FLY/ICS U. S. ROBOTICS 14,400 HST / _ / _ /__ /\/ SLASH/ICS 24 HOURS A DAY /____/____/____/ / BELGARION/ICS \____\____\____\/ JPC/ICS *^* (#1) GAMES! GAMES! GAMES! *^* #### Filename.Ext Size Date Brief Description 1 Ox_Final.Lzh 4958 1-25-93 Crack of OXYD for ALL Tos +codes printer 2 Ace_Boot.Zip 2482o5 1-28-93 Space Ace II [1/6]. 3 Make1.Prg 771554 1-28-93 Space Ace II [2/6]. 4 Make2.Prg 8o174o 1-28-93 Space Ace II [3/6]. 5 Make3.Prg 757744 1-28-93 Space Ace II [4/6]. 6 Make4.Prg 816522 1-28-93 Space Ace II [5/6]. 7 Make5.Prg 773416 1-28-93 Space Ace II [6/6]. 17 Grandad.Prg 121942 2-5-93 Grandad... code revealed ClockWork/ICS 19 Plan9_A.Lzh 446365 2-1o-93 Plan 9 From Outer Space [1/4] -=ELITE=- 2o Plan9_B.Lzh 694644 2-1o-93 Plan 9 From Outer Space [2/4] -=ELITE=- 21 Plan9_C.Lzh 559989 2-1o-93 Plan 9 From Outer Space [3/4] -=ELITE=- 22 Plan9_D.Lzh 46o123 2-1o-93 Plan 9 From Outer Space [4/4] -=ELITE=- 23 Bat2A.Lzh 494437 2-11-93 BAT II- Disk 1/5 in English 24 Bat2B.Lzh 513453 2-11-93 BAT II- Disk 2/5 25 Bat2C.Lzh 453112 2-11-93 BAT II- Disk 3/5 26 Bat2D.Lzh 533968 2-11-93 BAT II- Disk 4/5 27 Bat2E.Lzh 479446 2-11-93 BAT II- Disk 5/5 28 Ics_Bat1.Lzh 519321 2-11-93 BAT 2 Disk 1/5 *german* +-=I.C.S=-+ 29 Ics_Bat2.Lzh 53322o 2-11-93 BAT 2 Disk 2/5 3o Ics_Bat3.Lzh 46437o 2-11-93 BAT 2 Disk 3/5 31 Ics_Bat4.Lzh 542978 2-11-93 BAT 2 Disk 4/5 32 Ics_Bat5.Lzh 5o5595 2-11-93 BAT 2 Disk 5/5 36 Ics_Sp21.Lzh 487641 2-13-93 Space Crusade II 1/2 cracked by -=ICS=- 37 Ics_Sp22.Lzh 39834o 2-13-93 Space Crusade II 2/2 38 Bat_Ii.Zip 1243o 2-13-93 BAT II Complete docs 41 Ics_Dl3o.Lzh 77o5o8 2-14-93 Dragons Lair III The Curse Of Mordead 42 Ics_Dl31.Lzh 585584 2-14-93 Dragons Lair III 2/8 -=ICS=- 43 Ics_Dl32.Lzh 432o33 2-14-93 Dragons Lair III 3/8 -=ICS=- 44 Ics_Dl33.Lzh 451928 2-14-93 Dragons Lair III 4/8 -=ICS=- 45 Ics_Dl34.Lzh 517527 2-14-93 Dragons Lair III 5/8 -=ICS=- 46 Ics_Dl35.Lzh 5o9381 2-14-93 Dragons Lair III 6/8 -=ICS=- 47 Ics_Dl36.Lzh 6o3781 2-14-93 Dragons Lair III 7/8 -=ICS=- 48 Ics_Dl37.Lzh 612524 2-14-93 Dragons Lair III 8/8 -=ICS=- 51 Galaxian.Lzh 163o72 2-15-93 Galaxian 52 Cyberlzh.Lzh 6276o5 2-16-93 Cyber Assult [ZX/ICS] *READ FULL DESC* 56 Ics_Cybr.Lzh 168957 2-21-93 Cyberdome Hoverjet Simulator -=ICS=- 58 Rebelion.Zip 33119o 2-22-93 Rebellion D'Bug release 64 Ics_Nigl.Lzh 763445 2-28-93 Nigel Manesll cracked by Belgarion/ICS 65 Ics_Gob1.Lzh 537814 3-2-93 Gobliins II *THE REAL ENGLISH VERSION* 66 Ics_Gob2.Lzh 65o934 3-2-93 Gobliins II 2/3 -=ICS=- 67 Ics_Gob3.Lzh 6o82o1 3-2-93 Gobliins II 3/3 -=ICS=- 72 Grav2.Zip 247252 3-7-93 Grav II 74 Kil_Mach.Lzh 283892 3-7-93 Killing Machine 98 Ics_Civo.Lzh 322966 3-19-93 Civilization 1/4 cr. by Belgarion/ICS 99 Ics_Civa.Lzh 328o17 3-19-93 Civilization 2/4 -=ICS=- 1oo Ics_Civb.Lzh 33o664 3-19-93 Civilization 3/4 -=ICS=- 1o1 Ics_Civc.Lzh 3o3685 3-19-93 Civilization 4/4 -=ICS=- 1o2 Civiliz.Zip 51863 3-19-93 Civilization full docs 1o3 Civhints.Zip 15878 3-19-93 Civilization hints and tips 1o4 Frank.Prg 1461oo 3-2o-93 Frankenstein CyniX release 1o5 Crys_A.Lzh 23447o 3-2o-93 CRYSTAL KINGDOM DIZZY Disk 1/2 1o6 Crys_B.Lzh 532o62 3-2o-93 CRYSTAL KINGDOM DIZZY Disk 2/2 114 Sleep1.Lzh 781519 3-27-93 Sleep Walker [1/3] *-CyniX!-* 115 Sleep2.Lzh 774173 3-27-93 Sleep Walker [2/3] 116 Sleep3.Lzh 8o4o2o 3-27-93 Sleep Walker [3/3] I must stress that this is just a small sampling of the kinds of offerings we found -- and of the boards we investigated. Most boards (pirate and legitimate) have separate file areas for different kinds of products (MIDI, DTP, Applications, Utilities, Games, Docs, Graphic Utilities, etc.). A BBS which offers a wealth of Utilities, for example, is likely to have a strong database in other file categories as well. Please note that these are just partial lists from a single file category on each of these boards. A truly comprehensive listing would make this article intolerably huge. The IAAD's membership total fluctuates, but right now we are holding steady around the 60-member mark. Products owned or distributed by nearly every single member were found on one BBS or another during our investigation; some of our members were victimized by every pirate board we called. The self-confessed pirate Troed says this about piracy: ~ I NEVER buy a program without knowing if it is what I ~ ~ want .. the ShareWare principle .. but how do I check ~ ~ that with commercial software? By pirating them, using ~ ~ them .. if I like them, I want the original + manual .. ~ ~ I buy it. ~ -- Troed on the F-Net, STReport Conference but contradicts himself a paragraph later: ~ I bought my STe for $800 one year ago, if I were to ~ ~ registre/buy [sic] all the soft I use I would have to ~ ~ pay something around $10000 .. I can't afford that. ~ --Troed on the F-Net, STReport Conference On the one hand, Troed insists that he merely tries out his pirated software prior to purchase -- and buys it if he wants it. But on the other hand, he _uses_ $10,000 worth of commercial products and _cannot_ afford to pay for it. I would concede that it is possible that some software thieves do use their pirated downloads in the same way that honest people use commercial demos and shareware...some, but not many. Developers are well aware of "software collectors". These are folks who simply must have a copy of everything, whether it meets their needs or not. The majority of software collectors want the real thing, manual and all. It's our experience that, because pirate board users have to pay with an upload (or with money) for each and every download, few will bother to download programs they don't really want, need, and plan to use. Because of this, the majority of downloads from pirate boards must be viewed as lost potential sales. And those few pirates who are collectors or who find they don't need a particular file will hang onto it and later share it with others in order to earn upload credits. We found Warp 9 on nearly every pirate board we called. CodeHead had purchased the QuickST kernal used for Warp 9 from Darek Mihocka of Branch Always Software, and Charles Johnson worked very hard to refine and extend it in order to deliver to us the indispensable utility Warp 9 has become. Like many CodeHead products, Warp 9 is so easy to use that the manual is not needed for basic use. Warp 9 sells for $44.95; a purchase like this wouldn't put many STers in the poorhouse. But how many people downloading this program from a BBS would go to the trouble of ordering it after "testing it out"? A good example of the speed at which pirates can destroy the sales potential of a new release is shown by the upload date on this entry found on the Rats Nest (the notation "Off" indicates that this file has been removed, probably when a later version superseded it): 336 | Warp9370.Zip --Off-- 09-13-92 Warp 9 v. 3.70 - Glendale Release CodeHead released this version on Saturday, September 12, 1992 at the Glendale AtariFaire. By Sunday, before the second day of the show was even over, it was already in distribution by pirates. What about more expensive products? At $795, Calamus SL by DMC is one of the pricier offerings on the North American market. It's a high-end DTP package requiring or benefitting from an additional investment in sophisticated Atari hardware, accelerator boards, graphics cards, and a large-capacity hard drive. ~ It was bad enough to discover Calamus SL on just ~ ~ about every single "pirate" board that was ~ ~ investigated; it was worse to discover a program ~ ~ written specifically to strip out our serialization. ~ ~ But the real kicker was to discover our entire 600- ~ ~ page manual available for downloading in ASCII. The ~ ~ people that run these boards are criminals and deserve ~ ~ to be put in jail. Their "customers", those that ~ ~ frequent these boards, are, at best, petty thieves. ~ ~ What disgusts me the most is how many of these ~ ~ "customers" would never consider themselves thieves ~ ~ even though they are stealing from me, from my family, ~ ~ from my company, and from the Atari community at large. ~ --Nathan Potechin of DMC Since the manuals for such extensive programs are truly required in order to make good use of the product, software thieves will actually go to the trouble of typing them in or copying them with OCR software (which is also conveniently available on these BBSs). Even when a manual is indispensable, the software pirate may have no need to actually purchase the program in order to make full use of it. Expensive products get that way because of development and production costs. While the raw materials in a typical software package may cost only a few dollars, it takes much more than pieces of paper and a disk to make a commercial product. Calamus SL cost DMC hundreds of thousands of dollars for development staff alone, _not_ counting expenses related to the writing and production of the manual, packaging, marketing, duplication, overhead, etc. A share of this expense must be borne by everyone who uses the program in order to recoup costs and keep development going. When people use the program without paying for it, this simply does not happen. Many ST development firms are essentially one-man shows; the programmer is also the accountant, the publisher, the editor, the secretary. Developers like these are apt to take software theft very personally and feel the impact very intensely. One developer's reaction to his product's proliferation on pirate boards began: "I used to be against capital punishment..." ~ ...It hurts, and I don't mean that strictly in a ~ ~ financial sense, either. We've tried hard, I mean ~ ~ _really_ hard, to provide quality software at a ~ ~ reasonable price coupled with a customer support ~ ~ policy that is second to none...The pirate mentality ~ ~ couldn't care less about us and our ideals of customer ~ ~ service. And that hurts. ~ --John Hutchinson of Fair Dinkum ~ It's very discouraging to me to see illegal copies of ~ ~ Flash II appear on these so-called pirate boards. I ~ ~ wonder if the folks that steal our program understand ~ ~ the length of time it took to produce it? Flash II ~ ~ ver. 2.0 took 3 years to create and spent another year ~ ~ in beta test. Version 2.1 took close to another year ~ ~ to modify and test. We're practically giving it away ~ ~ as it is! ~ --John Trautschold of Missionware Word Perfect has been public about having dropped future development for the ST and about the reason for that decision: low sales. It can't be a coincidence that Word Perfect for the ST was on many boards we called. I doubt that STers are any less honest than owners of other computer brands, but ours is a small market, and piracy here can hurt developers much more than on more popular platforms. If a platform has 10 million users and 90% of them are pirates, the software developers still have 1 million potential buyers. On a platform like the ST, with only a few hundred thousand users at most by comparison, even if _no_one_ stole software, developers would still only have a few hundred thousand potential buyers. In reality, only the most popular products are likely to sell in quantities greater than 1000 units in North America. In the case of a coveted and respected multi-platform application like Word Perfect, if the program had not been pirated so many times over, the sales figures might well have been sufficient to justify further development for the benefit of ST owners. ~ I talked to a couple of shops...and...asked if they ~ ~ were interested in carrying any music education stuff. ~ ~ They said that they would love to carry some but could ~ ~ not sell any education, music, or game software due to ~ ~ the fact that if anyone wanted a copy they would pirate ~ ~ it...The only thing they have real success at selling ~ ~ is applications due to people wanting a printed manual + ~ ~ phone support...I didn't make a sale. ~ --Jim Collins of chro_MAGIC There's a small profit margin in selling computer hardware; dealers depend on income from software sales to sustain their businesses. In every area where large pirate boards flourish, Atari dealers have closed their doors in spite of a comparatively large installed base of users. "It got to the point where I sold only magazines," one former dealer complained. "They'd buy the magazines to find out what programs were worth downloading." Honest users in these areas are likely to grumble about the loss of the dealers; pirates grumble, too, because their link to newhardware, service, and magazines has been lost. Every dealer lost means fewer hardware sales for Atari, fewer software sales for developers, fewer new members for users groups, fewer vendors and attendees at fewer shows. With the Atari user base in serious decline, it is more important now than ever that piracy not be tolerated. Make no mistake about it: pirated software is _not_ free. ~ Wait-wait-wait... There is nothing positive piracy does ~ ~ for a computer company. Nor is it anything BUT negative. ~ ~ I look at it like this...We can always blame Atari for ~ ~ not advertising, but if there were no Atari pirates, ~ ~ more software would have been sold, making the computer ~ ~ more viable for software companies, which in turn makes ~ ~ the computer more desirable for a user. So, basically ~ ~ what I'm saying is, the people who love Atari the most, ~ ~ (us) are the same people who have been killing it for ~ ~ years. And there was a time when Atari was big ~ ~ EVERYWHERE...There was even an Atari dealer here in my ~ ~ little town of Lake Wales! That's where I bought my 400! ~ -- Fruit-WARE Man on Excalibur II BBS Ultimately, we all pay for piracy one way or another: Atari, developers, dealers, and users -- even the pirates. 2. How it Works For the uninitiated, let's define some terms. A "pirate board" is a Bulletin Board System (BBS) on which copyrighted commercial files are offered to users for downloading without compensation for the copyright holder. Some pirate boards are devoted to this activity almost exclusively, and sysops running these boards accept only fellow pirates as users. Other pirate BBSs have pd/shareware files areas in addition to hidden commercial areas; honest users of such boards may have access only to the pd/shareware sections and may be completely unaware of the pirate nature of the board. Software pirates have a unique lexicon to describe their activities. Users allowed into the commercial areas have been granted "elite access". The commercial files are referred to as "warez"; elite file areas on some BBSs include sections on such related topics as pornography, defrauding long distance carriers, and creating one's own Super Nintendo Entertainment System cartridges by burning the software into EPROMs. Callers who take without giving back (download without uploading) are called "leeches", and downloadable files may be referred to as "leechables". Defrauding the phone company by using illegal techniques to make long distance calls is a mainstay of the art of "phreaking". "Cracked" versions of programs have the copy-protection and/or registration and serial numbers removed. "0 day" is the day a commercial product is officially released. Many pirates have also adopted a manner of writing which flaunts the rules of our language, such as swapping lower and upper case, substituting "z" for "s" and "ph" for "f", etc. Successful software theft has two basic requirements: a dishonest person willing to give away a copy of a program he has purchased -- and another dishonest person willing to accept it. When this activity takes place on a Bulletin Board System, a given copy can be distributed rapidly from BBS to BBS, from user to sysop to user, all over the world. One person's willingness to give away that first copy can lead to its possession by literally thousands of others. Pirate boards succeed because there are many people willing to give or take the copies -- and because the sysop uses strategies calculated to maintain and escalate their involvement. The pirate sysop sets up his BBS, invests in a high-speed modem and phone lines, and advertises his number on other BBSs. When the calls start coming in, the sysop scrutinizes each would-be user and decides whether or not to validate the new account and what level of access to allow. ~ I've seen credit applications that made more sense. ~ -- Sandy Wilson on GEnie, describing a brief encounter with the new user questionnaire on a BBS running RATSoft ST ~ Do you believe in the free distribution of software be ~ ~ it copyrighted or not? ~ -- Fawlty Towers BBS, from the new user questionnaire The sysop has two major responsibilities: to keep the board running and to ensure security. He requires full disclosure from his callers. He wants his callers' real names, real addresses, real phones, but he is not likely to reveal his own name or location. There is usually an elaborate questionnaire. The sysop may call the new user's voice number to check its authenticity. He may do thorough background checks with other information the caller has provided. He may keep a blacklist of uncooperative or non-productive callers (leeches) and share it with other sysops. ~ NEW USERS: IF YOU DON'T DO A NEW USER UPLOAD YOU WILL NOT ~ ~ GET ACCESS. IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT A NEW USER UPLOAD IS ~ ~ YOU DON'T BELONG ON THIS BBS. ~ -- PAK on STampede BBS The callers themselves supply the warez which keep the board active. They earn credits for uploading, and apply those credits toward future downloads. Pressure to upload a file often begins immediately after a new user's account is validated. It may even be part of the new user questionnaire prior to validation. Typically, a New User Upload is required before the new user is given full access, including the ability to download. Sometimes the sysop will allow the new user to view the files area on the BBS in order to entice the caller into uploading a commercial file. On other boards, the commercial files area will stay completely hidden from the new user until after he has proved his worthiness -- and incriminated himself -- by sharing a commercial program of his own. Like a kid in a candy store, the caller wants one of everything, but to get it, he must pay the price. So he looks at his collection and chooses a program he hopes will meet with the sysop's approval. Merely uploading the program may not be enough to gain elite access; the upload may be judged on how new it is, whether the board already has a copy, or even whether the program chosen is useful or well-reviewed. ~ You Understand that you MUST keep a 'reasonable' file ~ ~ Upload/ Download ratio And "K-Byte" ratio or your ~ ~ Access WILL be Lowered and maybe Deleted!! ~ -- Gold Nugget BBS, from the new user questionnaire ~ Donate! King Arthur has a very reasonable donation ~ ~ policy that makes it easily affordable to have ~ ~ unlimited download credits...It's so much fun on the ~ ~ Atari (and soon to be Falcon) scene now that there's ~ ~ no excuse for you to miss out! ~ -- Little Flea on Excalibur II BBS ~ ...I started caring, and so the users that DID not post, ~ ~ called within 30 days, and sent new files, got kicked ~ ~ off.. YOU DON'T [sic] GET NOTHING FOR FREE!!! ~ --The Conjurer, sysop of Outer Planes BBS, on the F-Net, Elite Underground Conference The sysop uses his warez to entice callers, but he may also perfunctorily ax callers who violate his rules or confidentiality requirements. The threat of being cut off from the source keeps the callers uploading on a regular basis. The BBS software keeps track of a user's download/upload ratio; ratios that are unacceptably high on the download side may result in censure by the sysop or loss of access. If a user has no files of value to offer the sysop, he may be able to gain privileges by sending in a "donation". Some sysops forego the euphemisms and announce flatly that they charge for greater access. ~ Does anyone have Trump castle? Im [sic] starting to run ~ ~ thin on other boards for credits. I would rather save ~ ~ them for the 0 days stuff. If you have it could you ~ ~ please u/l it. ~ --Shadow Master on London Smog BBS In order to keep his account current, the user may be forced to call in every few weeks; each call results in a deduction from the user's credit total, so he's back looking for new files to upload. If the caller gets those files from another BBS, he'll get caught up in a never-ending cycle of uploads and downloads in order to keep his accounts active on all the boards he calls. Occasionally, he may have to buy a program outright in order to upload it. The caller is reminded of any deficit in his credit total every time he calls and may be denied access to certain areas until the total is in the black. ~ Well, after being away from the BBS scene for awhile, I ~ ~ have finally found an Elite BBS! (Thanks PAK! :). Anyhow, ~ ~ please send me BBS #/NUPs for boards that carry elite ~ ~ Macintosh or SNES console stuff. ~ -- Nostrildomus on STampede BBS Some pirate-only BBSs won't allow any but the most serious of callers. They may require all users to have 9600-baud modems or greater. They may limit 2400-baud callers to less desirable calling hours. Some require would-be callers to announce their first upload before being allowed access; the sysop then decides whether or not this caller will be a valuable contributor on that basis. Some require referrals from other pirate boards. A twist on this is the New User Password, spread from user to user. Boards like the Computer Connection will ask for this "NUP" in the new user questionnaire. If the caller cannot provide it, access is not granted. Most boards ask at the very least for the names and numbers of the boards the new user already calls; a new user who provides incorrect numbers or fictional board names -- or who lists only legitimate BBSs -- may be denied access. The sysop's users provide his warez, and the sysop is a direct beneficiary. Like a golden goose, a single program keeps giving and giving. One user paid for it once, but the sysop can distribute it to other users in trade for additional warez or money again and again. The current callers spread the word about the BBS's offerings to others, thus increasing the number of users frequenting the board and providing uploads. Some boards encourage this by offering download credit for user referrals. While operating a BBS is the least labor-intensive way to accumulate warez, it may not be the most efficient way to make money. After all, there's a whole market of non-modem users out there just waiting to be tapped. For a tidy fee, sysops may sell copies of their warez via mail order; through schemes like these, users can obtain pirated software without the costs of a high-speed modem and long-distance calls and the pressures of the upload/download ratio. 3. Paranoia Strikes Deep All BBS sysops, even the most responsible, put themselves at some risk of legal complications due to messages, e-mail, and files posted by users. It takes a special motivation for a sysop to actually promote and encourage an illegal activity which increases his risk and liability. For some, money or software may be sufficient motivation. Others may make up for social inadequacy in their offline lives by taking a leadership role online. And many of these seem to enjoy the power they have over their users. Like schoolyard bullies, they control and police their turf with heavy-handed threats and zero-tolerance judgments, all with the protection afforded by their anonymity. On their own BBSs, they call the shots -- and no caller can challenge them on that. ~ """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ~ ~ " Happy Hideaway BBS is protected under the " ~ ~ " FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS ACT of 1986 " ~ ~ """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ~ ~ Duplication, Re-transmission, or Distribution of any ~ ~ part(s) of this BBS is forbidden without the expressed ~ ~ written permission of the sysops. ~ --Happy Hideaway BBS ~ Re-transmission of material from this BBS is strictly ~ ~ forbidden without written permission of the Sysop(s)!!! ~ -- The Ghetto! BBS Some sysops are very protective of their warez. They want their boards to be the best, to have the most highly-prized files, to attract the greatest number of active users. The sysop may claim that his board is protected by international copyright laws; that is, he has a copyright on the _collection_ and he has a right to control the distribution of any part of it. A user may download from his BBS, but he'd better not find that user uploading the same program to a competitor. In other words, the sysop contends that he has exclusive rights to the black-market product! ~ "I agree with these conditions, and I am not a ~ ~ member/employee of ANY authority like the Police, or ~ ~ anything like that, nor am I an employee of ANY type of ~ ~ non-public domain software company, Telephone company ~ ~ security or some anti-software piracy organization. I ~ ~ hereby legally bind myself to this, by answering YES ~ ~ in [sic] at the prompt". ~ -- The Ghetto! BBS ~ This BBS is a PRIVATE SYSTEM. Only private citizens ~ ~ who are not involved in government or law enforcement ~ ~ activities are authorized to use it...access to this ~ ~ system by ANY law enforcement agency ( Federal, State, ~ ~ Local or other), software company, telephone company, ~ ~ government agency, or anyone affiliated with the above ~ ~ is not allowed. ~ --London Smog BBS ~ Are you registering on this BBS with the sole purpose ~ ~ of entrapping or aiding in the entrapment of the SysOp? ~ -- DarkWorld BBS ~ "I am not part of ANY law enforcement agency or an ~ ~ employer/employee of any NON-Public Domain software ~ ~ company, or software publisher." ~ ~ ******************************************************** ~ ~ * By typing YES at the PASSWORD prompt you LEGALLY * ~ ~ * BIND yourself to the provisions listed above. * ~ ~ ******************************************************** ~ -- Outer Region BBS Sysops are well aware of the illegal nature of their activity, and they may go to great lengths to protect themselves from legal action. Most boards post disclaimers about the sysop's responsibility for the activities which take place there. Others try to compromise the submissability of legal evidence by requiring investigators to reveal themselves. ~ You have failed to answer a security validation ~ ~ question properly. ~ --Paris BBS In the midst of such paranoia, it's not surprising that most pirate BBS callers and sysops use pseudonyms. Frequently a user goes by the same pseudonym on every board he calls so that his online friends can identify him, send him e-mail, etc. We've identified many pseudonym-users in spite of their attempts to hide their identity. Here are a few examples of the thousands of aliases used by callers on pirate boards. They know who they are. And you may be surprised to find that _you_ know who they are, too: RAHMAN Clockwork Orange Stsoft Elof Zaphod Beeblebrox Troed Hack-Hack KG mr.fly/ics Looms Hanzon Horizon Sparky Yellow Lightning PAK slash/ics The Piper The Parsec The Shamus Mouse Master Overlord RoadKill The Missing Link Nightmare Deadhead Ed Little Flea the threat/ics jpc/ics belgarion/ics Disease Factory Frosty Sledge Archiver Spy Guy Traveler The Dragon Lord Frogger Shadow Skinhead rhys/ics Sparky KRS-ONE Ice Pirate Clueman Arthur Dent DANE Goat Slayer Norstar Speed Demon Time Warp Snow Queen Mr.terry Who are the people who go by these aliases? Who calls pirate BBSs and who runs them? A 16-year-old high school junior whose supply of British games multiplied out of control when he added a high-speed modem to his system? Yes. A 32-year-old father of two who in all other ways is the very model of integrity? Yes. The good old boys who bring crates of software to swap at your users group meeting? You know it! A 50-year-old con artist who makes thousands of unreported (i.e., tax-free) dollars every year by convincing others to give him programs to sell? Absolutely. Several hundred software thieves are so active and on so many BBSs that it's hard to imagine that they have time for anything else. The thousands of more casual pirates may have access to only a few boards and call only a few times a month. And whether a specific pirate BBS has 50 regular users or 500, its phone lines are constantly busy. 4. Organized Crime As with other criminal activity, the big players in software theft have formed alliances to share files, blacklists, message networks, and other information. There are dozens of these organizations, some international in scope. For example, The Elite, with world headquarters in the Netherlands, is headquartered here by the Outer Region BBS in Colorado and Dragon's Pub in Quebec. The Syndicate (TSC) has representative BBSs on three continents and in both hemispheres; the Happy Hideaway in Florida serves as its Eastern US headquarters and Outer Region as its Western base, while the Shire BBS in Chile and the Eagles Nest and Slime City BBSs in Sweden provide an international link. Cracking organizations are devoted expressly to undermining copy-protection and registration strategies used in commercial programs. Outer Planes in Ohio is the world headquarters for the cracking ring known as CyniX. STampede, in Plant City Florida, is the International Cracking Society's (ICS) US headquarters and features its cracked warez, but these rapidly spread to other BBSs across the country and so can be found on many other boards as well. Cracking rings are often multi-platform in scope; individual crackers will work on getting around the copy-protection on the platform of their choice. They'll share cracking tips with and seek advice from ring members working on other platforms. The Pompey Pirates cracking ring, headquartered on the Paris BBS in New York City, reportedly has just one cracker, who goes by the name of Alien, working routinely on the ST, while cracking rings like ICS include many ST enthusiasts. ICS, MCA, Section 1, CyniX, and other crackers are very well-connected, using ultra-high-speed modems and multi-frequency dialers to call all over the world without long distance fees. It's not unusual to find a cracker from one ring visiting the headquarters of another and sharing warez. Cracking rings compete vigorously for the first crack of "0 day warez" (brand new releases), for the most successful crack, for the toughest, etc. Pirate boards have aligned themselves with legitimate networks as well. Many of the BBSs on which we discovered commercial files areas are linked to the F-Net -- and, of course, so are plenty of responsible BBSs. For example, according to a CrossNet Conference Node Listing, The Time Warp BBS (F-Net node 99) serves as the lead node for the "Elite Underground" F-Net conference, which also includes Starlight BBS (node 287), Darkworld BBS (node 305), Outer Region BBS (node 469), Steal Your Face (node 489), Outer Planes (node 558), Gold Nugget BBS (node 622), London Smog BBS (node 632), Million Dollar Saloon (node 639), Speedy's Raceway (node 689) and H.B. Smog (node 712). According to another CrossNet Conference Node Listing, The Gold Nugget serves as the lead node for The "Pompey Pirates Elite" (not directly associated with the Pompey Pirates cracking ring mentioned above) F-Net conference; The Prairie Chip II BBS (node 45), The Blackhole (node 612), The Temple of Doom (node 595), and Spider-man's Web (node 711) are among the 9 BBSs involved in this conference. The "Upper Echelon" F-Net conference ties US and Canadian boards by serving callers on the Gold Nugget in Ohio, Steal Your Face in New Jersey, Space Station BBS (node 248) and London Smog in California, Million Dollar Saloon in Texas, Paybax BBS (node 307) in Delaware, and Aardvarks from Mars (node 38) and Dragon's Lair (node 87) in Ontario. Conferences of this kind allow pirates from great distances to "get to know" each other, to exchange files as well as messages, to solicit calls to their favorite BBSs. Participation in these conferences establishes an online identity; a pirate recognized from his posts on one node of a conference is likely to be accepted without question when logging on as a new user on another node in the same conference. There are also smaller F-Net-related conferences for pirating discussions. For example, according to a CrossNet Conference Node Listing, a Local Area Private Elite Conference with a lead node at the Outer Region links with three other BBSs in Colorado, including RingWorld (node 643), The Grave Diggers Tomb (node 186), and BILINE BBS (node 423). Outer Planes is the lead node for the 4-node "Console" conference, a message thread devoted to topics related to pirating SNES and other game console warez. 5. Ill-Begotten Goods, Fawlty Filez... Pirating hurts the entire ST community by discouraging third-party development, closing down dealerships, and raising software prices. But is it a "good deal", at least in the short run, for the pirates themselves? Let's ask 'em: ~ Mock me not! Civilisation is great.. Except it is ~ ~ cracked poorly...Can't win with the Cynix crack... ~ --Mark Anthony on Outer Planes BBS ~ ...ok, then how do you save????? I love this game, but ~ ~ I don't know how to save it.. ahhh ~ --The Conjurer on Outer Planes BBS ~ Bad news... using UVK, just found out that the disk has ~ ~ a VIRUS on it called the 'DIRECTORY WASTER'. After ~ ~ twenty copies of it are made, it wipes out your disk. ~ ~ Use UVK to kill the virus, and be careful with swapping ~ ~ disks around this one. ~ --Sparky on Outer Planes BBS ~ Has anyone set up Speedo GDOS , I seam [sic] to run ~ ~ into probles .. [sic] ~ --The Mixer on Time Warp BBS ~ Can someone please send me a working ASCII import ~ ~ module for pagestream. I cant seem to get TEXT files ~ ~ to import correctly. Either the text doesnt [sic] ~ ~ fill the full width of the screen or I get no ~ ~ paragraphs(ALL run together) ~ --Red Dragon on Time Warp BBS ~ Has anyone got it to work? I tried to get it to run on ~ ~ a Floppy based 520ST (1meg) and on my TT030 and on both ~ ~ I got 4 bombs! ~ --The Parsec on Rats Nest BBS ~ Has anyone gotten this to load? My install disk just ~ ~ freezes. Any ideas? ~ --Bullshot Xxx on the F-Net, Upper Echelon Conference ~ ...my UTIL_2.PRG doesn't work, it was corrupt in the ~ ~ original download... ~ --Jason Elite on the F-Net, Upper Echelon Conference ~ For some reason I can't get other vers. of TOS to boot ~ ~ from the HD without sticking a disk in with the HD boot ~ ~ in the Auto folder. ANYONE know how I can get TOS 1.4 ~ ~ and 1.0 to off the HD and recognize the hard drive ~ ~ without sticking a disk in?...It's just a hastle [sic] ~ ~ to use the Hard Drive when you have to boot from disk ~ ~ first... ~ --Ice Pirate on Rats Nest BBS ~ I have the two lharc's of Epic, and after lharc, they ~ ~ come out to 900+K MSA files... Well, MSA won't format ~ ~ a disk large enough to put them on.. What kind of ~ ~ formatting program can I use to format my disks that ~ ~ large.. Or can I? ~ --Cronos on Fawlty Towers BBS ~ I was wondering if anyone else has been messing with ~ ~ the latest Cubase 3 crack. I've had some success and ~ ~ have even used the SMPTE options via my C-Lab ~ ~ Unitor-N box, but when I try to use the "edit" functions ~ ~ more than a few times (sometimes even the first try), ~ ~ I get an "Internal Error" message and the program locks. ~ --MIDIMUCK on Fawlty Towers BBS ~ I wouldn't use it if your [sic] working on a paying gig, ~ ~ Just cause It's unreliable, especially when in SMPTE lock. ~ ~ I've had this same problem recently, I ended up x-fering ~ ~ the stuff over to another sequencer. ~ --KG on Fawlty Towers BBS, replying to MIDIMUCK about the cracked version of Cubase 3 ~ Yes, there are 2 different cracks of version 3.x, none ~ ~ of them working properly. The best Cubase crack I know ~ ~ is version 2. I heard though that it gives problems ~ ~ when you use Midiex... ~ --X-tian on Fawlty Towers BBS ~ yeah, I would [sic] do any real work on it. I lost 2 ~ ~ songs with it. ~ --KG on STampede BBS, replying to a message about a cracked version of Cubase ~ Has anybody had a problem with the Cynix crack of ~ ~ Frankenstein? I haven't been able to get it to work on ~ ~ either of my computers. It bombs badly. ~ --PAK on STampede BBS ~ I've been having problems with some files I D/Led ~ ~ (Ultima 6 is flaky and Lost Vikings doesn't work at ~ ~ all). ~ --Nostrildomus on STampede BBS ~ I sure wouldn't even attempt any 'serious' work project ~ ~ with that 'crack'... ~ --Sparky on STampede BBS ~ Do you have a version of NEW ZEALAND STORY which works ~ ~ past the first city? ~ --The Shamus on STampede BBS ~ HEY!! Will someone PLEASE UPLOAD a FULLY working version ~ ~ for KOBOLD 2 I've had so many different version from ~ ~ different people and they are ALL bad !!! ~ --Sidewinder on Outer Region BBS ~ I have an elite copy of Calligrapher and it doesn't ~ ~ support ASCII text files, so you can only work with ~ ~ .CAL files (files made by Calligrapher) Also it doesn't ~ ~ have keyboard equivalents (a pain) ~ --Frogger on the F-Net, Elite Underground Conference Pirates aren't entitled to support from commercial developers and are often working without any documentation, so they are very likely to encounter problems with their warez. The real version of Calligrapher, for example, has several import and export options, including ASCII. It has configurable keyboard commands. Frogger's version might have been hacked in a way which destroyed these capabilities, or he simply might not know how to take advantage of them because he has no documentation or support. When pirates spread disinformation about the warez they use, people may think they are speaking out of knowledge of the actual commercial release. In this way, a pirate's ill-informed comments about products can discourage sales to others. The software they use -- like the sysops and other pirates with whom they associate -- cannot be trusted. Cracked software is prone to be flakey. And the same type of people who think it's acceptable to crack and steal software are also the type who write viruses and unleash them on others, so even files which haven't been cracked must be viewed with suspicion. In addition to the fear of loss of access, the pressure to upload or pay, lack of official and informed support, an online environment of suspicion and paranoia, and abandonment of ethical principles, pirates must also contend with software that is unreliable and potentially dangerous. The pirate pays a heavy price. Pirated software is _not_ free -- for anybody. 6. Phreaking, Copyright Infringement, Pornography, and the Law The users pay the sysop of a pirate board, either by sending a check for greater access or by offering up files they've purchased in exchange (or both). Heavy users must invest in expensive hardware, such as high-speed modems. And for many callers, there's a long-distance charge. ~ If any of the USA callers has MCI you can put this bbs ~ ~ on you [sic] Friends and Family list and save yourself ~ ~ about 3 cents a minute. Just say that the phone number ~ ~ is for a data line and they usually don't ask anymore ~ ~ questions. ~ -- PAK on STampede BBS ~ ...there are high speed users around, and considering ~ ~ other really good Atari boards are out of state, $.25 ~ ~ per call is as cheap as anyone could ask for. I'm ~ ~ starting to think "elite" is dead in the Tampa area, ~ ~ as far as Atari is conserned [sic]. ~ --PAK on Master Lazarus BBS, explaining the poor attendance rates by local pirates on local BBSs ~ Wanted... original suppliers ~ ~ graphic artists ~ ~ another support bbs ~ ~ calling card suppliers ~ --Quattro of the CyniX cracking ring on the F-Net, Elite Underground Conference ~ When I hit a special key, my Bluebox plays a little ~ ~ melody..... ~ -- STampede BBS ~ I call the whole world for the same price. ~ -- Troed on Rats Nest BBS Not all those living far from a BBS pay long distance charges, however. Some boards share calling card numbers (belonging to innocent victims, presumably) so that the phone company will charge the users' calls to someone else. Sometimes users as far away as Chile or Sweden manage to make calls at no cost by fooling and defrauding their long distance carriers. In the old days (defined here as the 70's), this was achieved by building a "bluebox" and installing it in one's phone line. Today, it's easily done in software. The caller's ST simulates the tones recognized by the telephone system. Calls are routed all over the world and back, typically through South America, in order to confuse the system and avoid detection. This activity is just as illegal as copyright infringement, and it's also better understood as a crime by police. Many times a pirate board is closed down not because of the illegal transfer of software, but rather because information on blueboxes was available for download. ~ Word is around town that there are feds looking for ~ ~ Pirate BBS's. I know weather to belive [sic] it but ~ ~ it could be time for another big bust like there was ~ ~ four years ago. Supposedly a Big BBS in OHIO just got ~ ~ nailed real bad!. Freaky as hell. ~ --Mind Eye on Thieves Guild BBS There are, in fact, many approaches to shutting down pirate boards. Copyright infringement is one obvious track. The Software Publishers Association is a watchdog agency which works with the FBI to shut down large-scale BBS operations. There are legal departments at major computer, game machine, and software companies devoting time and effort to this task. There's the IRS connection for unreported caller "donations". Some boards come down because of the availability of pornography. There are a variety of criminal laws related to activities common on pirate boards, and, especially in cases of copyright infringement, civil law may offer the most effective route to compensation for the victims. When a board is busted by the authorities, the related equipment and property is usually seized. Any records of callers, caller donations, etc., are seized along with that equipment. Callers could be charged with conspiracy. For this reason, it's not wise to have one's real name, address, and real phone show up in the records of a pirate board, even though the sysop adamantly insists upon it and uses verification checks to enforce it... 7. Spotting a Pirate Board ~ Many people may not realize that software pirates cause ~ ~ prices to be much higher, in part, to make up for ~ ~ publisher losses from piracy. In addition, they ruin ~ ~ the reputation of the hundreds of legitimate bulletin ~ ~ boards that serve an important function for computer ~ ~ users. ~ --Ken Wasch, Executive Director of the SPA, as quoted in STR #915 I recently logged on to the Polish Hideout BBS in Southern Illinois. What a contrast it presented to the pirate boards I've been investigating! The questionnaire asked only for my name, contact information, and type of computer. Validation was immediate and I was granted access to all message bases and file areas on that very first call! I wasn't under any obligation to upload before downloading. There was no pressure to compromise my principals nor temptation to indulge in criminal activity. The messages from the sysop were friendly and inviting. The Polish Hideout is _not_ a pirate BBS. It can be tough to differentiate a pirate board from a legitimate one if one has not been granted access to the elite areas. Sometimes non-elite discussion or file areas can provide hints, but it's not sure-fire. For example, although many pirate boards can boast of extensive pornography collections, some BBS sysops who wouldn't tolerate commercial files will nevertheless offer pornography; the existence of pornographic files does not in and of itself indicate a pirate board or clientele. Even the existence of an isolated commercial file in the downloads is not evidence of intentional piracy. From time to time, every BBS receives a commercial upload or two; sometimes the sysop overlooks the file or doesn't recognize it as commercial and leaves it in the download area. Such oversights and accidents do not even remotely correspond to the kinds of activity we have encountered on BBSs where software theft is encouraged. A typical pirate board includes a highly aggressive (and often hostile and suspicious) new user questionnaire. It is often necessary to provide referrals of some kind, and the questions are likely to assume dishonesty on the part of the new user. Pirates, as a rule, are not nice guys, and the new user is usually made to feel very uncomfortable. The new user may be required to "sign" disclaimers. The Other BBS list is likely to include some other pirate boards. If the users adopt the lexicon of piracy ("elite", "warez", "philez", etc.), If ThErE aRe LoTs Of PhRaSeS wRiTtEn LiKe ThIs, if the board associates itself with a pirate syndicate or network, if it has numerous known pirates as callers, if there is aggressive insistence on the maintenance of download/upload ratios, if deadbeats are threatened with loss of access, if phreaking files are available online, chances are very good that the caller has stumbled onto a pirate BBS. There are legitimate reasons why a BBS sysop might want accurate contact information from his callers. There are also good reasons in many cases for offering a few private file and message areas. Most BBSs, pirate and legitimate, require validation, usually by phoning the caller's number. Such features are not unusual, but if combined with heavy-handed warnings and threats, they tip the user off to the nature of the board. It should be noted that legitimate pd/shareware BBSs far outnumber the pirate boards. The confusion between the two is most unfortunate. ~ I...have callers uploading commercial software and ~ ~ giving me a hard time because I don't have an "elite" ~ ~ area, even though they see a message when they log on ~ ~ as a new caller that this board does not support ~ ~ piracy...It's a _risk_ to run a BBS, and not many ways ~ ~ to protect the investment. ~ --sysop of a legitimate BBS If a board you call has an occasional commercial file, be sure to point it out to the sysop for his own protection; a responsible sysop will avoid commercial offerings. PD/shareware BBSs perform a much-needed service in supporting our Atari community; the IAAD applauds and encourages this effort. If you suspect -- or _know_ -- that a board you call offers numerous commercial files, however, please bring it to the attention of the IAAD (online addresses are available at the end of this article). Your anonymity is assured. We are already intimately familiar with dozens of boards, but additional information is always welcome. 8. The Moral Toll: As the Twig is Bent... ~ Right and wrong now seem the same ~ -- Rats Nest As a parent, I'm concerned about the numbers of young people logged on to pirate boards. These kids put themselves in a very vulnerable position. In earning their right to download, young callers are implicated in the illegal activity. The adults who run and participate on these boards set an example which could, by extension, lead to ignoring the laws which govern other areas of their lives. Do these kids also shoplift, steal from other kids' lockers, buy termpapers to submit as their own? Children learn to run and to use pirate boards from adults whose character is questionable by definition. When a child has such a sysop as a role model, what does that spell for his future? Like the proverbial stranger who offers candy, these criminals lure teenagers and young adults with promises of free software in exchange for their services. The service, of course, is to provide more free software -- which the sysop can then use to lure more callers and to keep his current clientele calling back. The first step is to inspire fear; this is achieved right off the bat with a new user questionnaire threatening denial of access if caller doesn't provide just the right answers. And the second is to force the caller to incriminate himself with his initial upload. Once the kid begins downloading and playing commercial games he could never afford to buy, the pressure cycle of upload/download counts begins. ~ GENESIS COPIER (super magic drive) ~ ~ My son is selling his copier for the Genesis for: ~ ~ $275.00 That includes the copier, drive and power ~ ~ supply. ~ --Little Lulu on the F-Net, Pompey Pirates Elite Conference While many of the software thieves we've encountered are young, in their teens and early twenties, others are old enough to be parents (or even grandparents!). Few pirate boards have an "educational warez" category in their files areas, so my own products are rarely found, but parents do download plenty of games. I wonder about the children who use the programs that Dad or Mom has stolen. Do they know that the program could be purchased with a manual? Do they learn about hidden features from friends who have the real thing and then wonder why their parents never told them they could do that? If and when these children do learn that Dad has stolen some software they've enjoyed, do they respect and trust their father less -- or do they simply adopt his dishonest character as their own? ~ Pirating is dishonest. Honorable people don't do ~ ~ dishonest things. If you want to publicly proclaim your ~ ~ untrustworthyness [sic], go right ahead. But don't ~ ~ expect anyone to ever trust you. Or respect _your_ ~ ~ rights. ~ -- Myeck Waters, responding to a pro-piracy post on the F-Net, STReport Conference ~ BYE! (Click) ~ ~ NO CARRIER ~ -- Computer Connection _________________ The author takes no responsibility for errors in spelling, punctuation, judgment, or logic in quotations; these are reprinted as written. Copyright 1993 by D.A. Brumleve This file may be transmitted only in its entirety, with all portions unedited and intact. The author reserves _all_ rights regarding distribution and republication, with the exception that this file may be posted in its entirety and without additions on BBSs everywhere, especially on pirate boards. If you find it already posted on your local pirate board, please upload a second copy, and a third... Editors and others wishing to republish this article are advised to contact the IAAD and the author on the major online services: GEnie: PERMIT$ CIS:76004,3655 Delphi:DABRUMLEVE The IAAD welcomes tips about pirate activity. Please contact us at the online addresses listed above. ___________________________________________________________________ > PIRACY & WHAT'S BEING DONE! STR FOCUS! A Comprehensive look at the Report """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" PIRACY IN THE ATARI COMMUNITY WHAT'S BEING DONE TO COMBAT THIS ONGOING TRAVESTY? part I by Dana P. Jacobson Piracy, the illegal transmission and/or possession of copyrighted software, continues to be a major problem in today's computer marketplace. It's a subject which appears to come up rarely these days, an almost taboo subject. On occasion, one can read a message thread or two on various online services and our local bulletin boards about the subject, but the discussion soon dies out as quickly as it appears. Until fairly recently, there was little that could be done without major effort by developers and software houses. In the Atari community, with the market being so small, it's been really difficult to make an all-out effort to eradicate this disease; or to even make a dent in it. Atari people don't seem to have the resources to make such an effort. Within the past year or so, the SPA (Software Publishers Association) has made _some_ headway into this problem. Within the past few months, STReport has reported numerous BBSs and businesses charged with piracy and copyright infringement. Loss of software and hardware, along with heavy fines have been the penalty - rightfully so. But still, piracy continues. Is anything _seriously_ being done about it by people who _can_ help make a difference? The answer, finally, is yes! A few weeks ago, while perusing messages that I downloaded from STReport's support BBS, "The Bounty", I came across a few messages from an (alleged) Atari user/developer from Australia (or was it the U.K.?). He(?) made a number of comments in which he blatantly admitted to using pirated copies of software in a manner to "justify" a "Try before you buy" mentality. He also used many other rationalizations to justify his "right" to pirate software. It's been a long time since I've seen such open and blatant pro-piracy messages, that I had to respond. What I got in return was more "justification" for piracy. After a few rounds of message replies, I knew it was pointless to keep at it. Ironically, I received an E-Mail message from Dorothy Brumleve, president of the IAAD, a few days later. She happened to see the message thread via the FNET, and commented on the exchange of messages. Little did I know at the time, that she and the rest of the IAAD members were in the process of investigating the problems of piracy in our Atari community. Early on last week, Dorothy posted an article describing some of the results of the IAAD's ongoing investigation. As a long-time Atari user _and_ the SysOp of my own legitimate BBS, I was floored at the findings! Not only was the information gathered done in so little time, but so easily. I've come across occasional pirated software on a few boards I've encountered over the years, and I've experienced pirated programs being uploaded to my own board at times; but never anything to the degree in which I saw presented in that article! This was something that I had only imagined happening, and unchecked. I had always thought that it was bad enough that Atari developers and dealers were falling by the wayside due to problems with Atari supporting our community. With little new software and hardware being produced, it's difficult for our remaining developer and dealer base to keep supporting the Atari platform. But, I now also see that piracy also plays a _major_ factor in dwindling sales. We may not be able to play a major role in changing Atari's habits, but we can certainly do our share in helping our Atari developers lessen some of the damage caused by piracy! We at STReport applaud the recent efforts by the IAAD to take a stand and make a strong effort to eradicate our community of this disease. We applaud the IAAD for making us aware that the problem still exists, and that this is something that we _all_ need to realize is a problem needing support. In the next few issues, we'll bring you portions of the IAAD article by Dorothy Brumleve, along with commentary, suggestions, and support. We suggest that you _all_ read this IAAD article (called PIR_BBS.ASC) and then read it again. Piracy affects us all, in one form or another. You may not see it obviously, but it does. We'll discuss these and other factors along the way. Because of the length (read comprehensive) of Dorothy Brumleve's article, I'm only going to include excerpts throughout this series of articles appearing in these pages. Anything that you see _without_ a reference marker means I'm directly quoting from Dorothy's article. Any of my comments, etc. will be "blocked" in asterisks (***) for clarity. We'll start with Dorothy's introduction to the article: This article is the result of contributions by people from every facet of the Atari community. Many thanks to all the users, developers, sysops, and others who provided the investigators with information and assistance. [Note: Stand-alone quotations are framed on the left and right by the "~" character.] Small Developers, Big Business How Pirate BBSs Impact on the Entire Atari Community by D.A. Brumleve, President, IAAD Copyright 1993 by D.A. Brumleve The Independent Association of Atari Developers represents over sixty companies supporting the Atari ST platform with commercial software and hardware. Now and then a "pirate" BBS will come to our members' attention. We'll capture the file areas and study them. We'll cringe at the download counts and growl at the messages about our products. We'll download copies of our products and trace the original owner. Sometimes we'll even file a police report, but the pirate board stays up and callers keep calling, downloading, and uploading our programs. *** Listed in the above article is just a small portion of what Dorothy stated was a "sampling" of files found on the few BBSs she listed in her article. The investigation includes a much wider assortment of files and pirate systems. From just the above, it's obvious to everyone that the severity of this problem exists. Just these files above constitute thousands of dollars of lost revenue for all our dealers and developers!! Also, before anyone comes out and says what I know many are thinking, yes, this is just an ASCII listing of files. We all know that such lists can be created and modified to typify a download listing from any BBS. A captured list such as this, by itself, has little chance of leading to prosecution. But, the IAAD investigators followed through on these listings and _downloaded_ and _verified_ that the files exist. The IAAD is going all out to put these pirate boards out of business!! *** The IAAD's membership total fluctuates, but right now we are holding steady around the 60-member mark. Products owned or distributed by nearly every single member were found on one BBS or another during our investigation; some of our members were victimized by every pirate board we called. ~ It was bad enough to discover Calamus SL on just ~ ~ about every single "pirate" board that was ~ ~ investigated; it was worse to discover a program ~ ~ written specifically to strip out our serialization. ~ ~ But the real kicker was to discover our entire 600- ~ ~ page manual available for downloading in ASCII. The ~ ~ people that run these boards are criminals and deserve ~ ~ to be put in jail. Their "customers", those that ~ ~ frequent these boards, are, at best, petty thieves. ~ ~ What disgusts me the most is how many of these ~ ~ "customers" would never consider themselves thieves ~ ~ even though they are stealing from me, from my family, ~ ~ from my company, and from the Atari community at large. ~ --Nathan Potechin of DMC Since the manuals for such extensive programs are truly required in order to make good use of the product, software thieves will actually go to the trouble of typing them in or copying them with OCR software (which is also conveniently available on these BBSs). Even when a manual is indispensable, the software pirate may have no need to actually purchase the program in order to make full use of it. *** Truer words were never spoken. We can blame anyone we wish for the dismal status of today's Atari market, but in no way does piracy justify making things worse. People need to realize that piracy is _not_ an acceptable mode of behavior, no matter how secretive it stays in the background. Piracy needs to be fully exposed whenever and wherever it occurs, and those involved be made to make amends. *** This is the first of an ongoing series of articles. Next week we'll include more of the IAAD article and comments from the STReport staff, and hopefully, from some of our readers. STReport will do whatever it can to help support this investigation and educate the Atari community of this immense problem. _____________________________________________________________ > BLUE RIDGE ATARIFEST'93 STR SHOW NEWS "The Summertime Atari Event!" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 1993 Blue Ridge ATARIFEST """"""""""""""""""""""""" FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION """""""""""""""""""""""""" The Blue Ridge Atari Computer Enthusiasts (BRACE) and Computer Studio invite you to participate in the Fourth Annual Blue Ridge AtariFest in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina. Show dates and times are: Saturday July 24, 1993 10am - 6pm Sunday July 25, 1993 Noon - 5pm Just as in previous years, we have arranged for FREE Booth space for Atari developers!! (We're only requesting the donation of a door prize). We can promise both developers and show-goers an energetic and exciting show with as enthusiastic a crowd of Atarians as you'll find anywhere, plus the support of Computer Studio in the mall. We're once again taking over the Courtyard Shop (mall) area at Westgate Shopping Center for the show (location of Computer Studio), plus the use of vacant store spaces for seminar sessions. Seminar sessions will be 45 minutes in length, and developers are welcome to conduct a seminar on their product line or approved topic of their choice (seminar sessions are limited, so first come, first served). This year's show dates also coincide with Asheville's annual Bele Chere street festival, when downtown Asheville is closed to vehicular traffic and becomes what must be one of the largest street fairs in the country. Westgate Shopping Center is one of the primary Park-and-Ride shuttle centers for transporting people to and from downtown, and we've arranged to have the shuttle service pick up at the front entrance of the mall and drop off at the rear entrance, so everyone taking the service from Westgate WILL walk through the AtariFest exhibition area sometime during the day. This will be a great opportunity to showcase Atari and Atari related software and peripherals, and introduce them to people who aren't already Atari owners. Bringing in NEW blood is the key to the growth of this platform, and this will be our opportunity to begin that process with a captive audience. Additional discussions of the show, as well as confirmations of your participation, are welcome in GEnieMail and in the Blue Ridge AtariFest topic 13 in Category 11 here on GEnie. HOPING TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON. HAPPY ATARI COMPUTING. IT'S HAPPENING IN ASHEVILLE! Where: Westgate Shopping Center - Asheville, N.C. Take any major highway into Asheville (US 19-23, US 26 or I-40) to the I-240 loop, then take the "Westgate/Hilton Inn Drive exit" into the Westgate Shopping Center parking lot. When: 24-25, July 1993 Time: 10:am to 6:pm SAT 12 Noon 'til 5pm SUN Points of contact: Come for a day or come for the weekend, but do come and enjoy yourself. Great Smokies Hilton Resort Hilton Inn Drive (704)254-3211 Toll-free reservation phone number 1-800-733-3211 Radisson One Thomas Wolf Plaza (704)252-8211 Rate: $62.00 per room (1-4 people) ====== Additional Hotel / Motel Information =========== Days Inn I-26 and Airport Road (704)684-2281 I-40 Exit 55 (704)298-5140 Econo Lodge US 70 East, I-40 Exit 55 (704)298-5519 Holiday Inn 275 Smoky Park Hwy (704)667-4501 Toll-free reservation phone number 1-800-HOLIDAY Red Roof Inn I-40 and US 19-23 Exit 44 (704)667-9803 Toll-free reservation phone number 1-800-843-7663 Budget Motel I-40 Exit 44 (Enka-Chandler) West Asheville Exit (704)665-2100 Best Western Asheville Central 22 Woodfin St (704)253-1851 ========= Local Bed & Breakfast lodging Information ========= Aberdeen Inn 64 Linden Ave (704)254-9336 Albemarle Inn 86 Edgemont Road (704)255-0027 Applewood Manor 62 Cumberland Circle (704)254-2244 The Bridle Path Inn Lockout Road (704)252-0035 Cairn Brae B & B 217 Patton Mountain Rd (704)252-9219 Carolina B & B 177 Cumberland Ave (704)254-3608 Cedar Crest Victorian Inn 674 Biltmore Ave (704)252-1289 Corner Oak Manor 53 St. Dunstan (704)253-3525 Cornerstone Inn 230 Pearson Dr (704)253-5644 Flint Street Inn 100 & 116 Flint Street (704)253-6723 The Lion and The Rose 276 Montford Ave (704)255-7673 The Ray House B & B 83 Hillside St (704)252-0106 Reed House 119 Dodge St (704)274-1604 The Wright Inn 235 Pearson Drive (704)251-0789] (1-800-552-5724) A more complete listing of Bed & Breakfasts can be obtained through the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce. Reservations should be made immediately, as July is the height of our tourist season. =========== CAMP GROUNDS ================ (reservations are a must during this time of season): Mount Pisgah: About 20 miles southwest of Asheville on the Blue Ridge Parkway at mile post 408.6 (National Park Service). 690 acres. Elevation 5000'. One of the nicest campgrounds in Western North Carolina. 67 tent sites, 70 RV sites. For reservations: P.O.Box 749, Watnesville, N.C. 28786; phone (704) 235-9109. No showers. Groceries and restaurant. Nature program. 14 day stay limit. Lake Powhatan: 4 miles south of Asheville on State road 191, 3.5 miles west on SR 806. 30 acres. 98 tent/rv sites. Reservation available thru Mistix 1-800-283-CAMP. Disposal station. No showers. Swimming; lifeguard; fishing; nature trails; bicycles. 14-day stay limit. While in the area, you might want to consider a little sightseeing, and include a visit to the Biltmore House here in Asheville (the largest single family residence ever built in the U.S.--its a "castle"). A visit to the Biltmore can be a full-day's activity as you will want to view the house, visit the winery, and walk some of the grounds and gardens. Hours: The House 9 am to 6pm The Gardens 9am to 7pm Conservatory 9am to 5:30pm The Winery Monday-Saturday 11am to 7pm Sunday 1pm to 7pm Other areas of interest include; the Thomas Wolf home (adjacent to the Raddison), the Blue Ridge Parkway and Folk Art Center. A drive up the Blue ridge Parkway to enjoy the higher elevations and incredible views of our mountains. Perhaps a hike up to Mount Pisgah and look back down to Asheville(you can see Mt. Pisgah from most anywhere in Asheville). A short drive from Mt. Pisgah will take you to Sliding Rock (for those of you travelling with kids who are still kids at heart), the Cradle of Forestry (first forest school in the country), waterfalls, trout hatchery, etc. For the adventurous, white water rafting on the Natahala River near Bryson City (approx one and a half hours from here). There's obviously loads more to see and do around Asheville (in addition to the Blue Ridge AtariFest and a visit to Computer Studio :-). If any of y'all would like maps and additional tourist info of the area I might suggest contacting the Chamber of Commerce: Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce 151 Haywood Street P.O. Box 1010 Asheville, NC 28802 704-258-6111 FAX: (704)251-0926 ___________________________________________________________________ > NVN WANTS YOU! STR InfoFile Another Network Supports Atari! """"""""""""""""""""""""""" NVN - THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK! =============================== The Atari computer platforms has support on yet another top notch telecommunications service! National Videotex Network (NVN) maintains an area just for our favorite computers. Type GO ATARI Order an extended NVN Membership of 6 or 12 months, pay for it in advance and receive a bonus in connect time at no additional charge. Choose from two subscription plans: 6-Month Membership ================== Pay just $30 for a 6-month Membership and receive a usage credit that entitles you to $15 of connect-time in the Premium services of your choice. Your total savings using this plan would be over $20!* 12 Month Membership =================== Pay $50 for a full year's Membership and get even more free time on-line. We'll give you a $25 usage credit to use in your favorite premium services or try out new ones. You could save as much as $45.* NVN now offers Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). For a $2 per month service charge, customers may have their NVN online charges automatically debited from their personal checking accounts. Please contact Client Services for this new feature! For more information about either of these plans.. Please, give us a call at; 1-800-336-9096. *** 9600 BAUD USERS! *** *** $6/hour non-prime time - $9/hour prime time *** You can join NVN one of two ways... By voice phone 1-800-336-9096 (Client Services) or via modem phone 1-800-336-9092. NVN Highlights -------------- 1. For the newcomers.... 2. *** RECEIVE A $10 USAGE CREDIT FOR EACH NEW MEMBER YOU BRING US!! *** 3. Get your copy of DOS 6.0 Upgrade - FREE -! 4. HALF PRICE SALE for Training files for all of April. No fooling... 5. TV Buffs! Win a free hour online in the Television Forum during April! 6. The Fishing Forum needs anglers to test new fishing lures...FREE!!! 7. Check out the new Technology & Quality Management Forum... 8. Win free connect time and other prizes playing Fantasy Baseball! 9. Connect with other Teens - Wednesday nights at 9:00 pm (EDT)... 10. TAX TIME...ARGH!!! Type for immediate relief! 11. Expand your knowledge of law from the comfort of your home... 12. Refer to NVN for all of your reference needs... 13. Enjoy NVN services while saving time and money! _______________________________________________________________ > STReport CONFIDENTIAL "Rumors Tidbits Predictions Observations Tips" """"""""""""""""""""" - San Luis Obispo, CA FALCON TO SHARE STACY'S FATE? ------------------- The discontinued Atari Stacy, the Laptop portable computer that was built like a tank and weighed about the same, remember it? The Stacy was predicted to set the Atari community on it's collective ear but never went anywhere but to sleep. The Falcon is rumored to be sharing the same respect (fate) as the Stacy from the "man at the very top". This is a hot one just brought in this week. Seems the man has "lost faith" in the falcon's ability to "resurrect the seriously ailing Phoenix". "This leaves the man in charge of falcon acquisition and delivery with an empty toolbox." Remarked STR's inside contact. "The people in this place walk around like they're in shock, not knowing when they too, will have to hit the bricks." Added the informant. - New York City, NY NY DEALER GETS FALCON - NO MONITOR! ----------------- This dealer asked to remain anonymous and for good reason, he cited the amount of grief other dealers have suffered at the hands of the vendetta prone few at the top at Atari. This dealer made mention of the fact he got his Demo Falcon, but no Atari monitor to complete the display. According to our sources, we told him we had heard, Atari is interested in getting the Falcons out there and has pretty much curtailed all other contract manufacturing in favor of the Falcon. That folks, is a nice way of saying they are not making monitors any longer. At least for the moment. After a long sigh, all he said was oh well.... """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" STReport's "EDITORIAL CARTOON" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""" > A "Quotable Quote" "A sign of the times!" """"""""""""""""" "TELL 'EM ANYTHING YOU LIKE... ...AS LONG AS IT MAKES 'EM HAPPY!" ..Commander Blowhard Wheeze """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" > DEALER CLASSIFIED LIST STR InfoFile * Dealer Listings * """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" --------------- ABCO COMPUTER CONSULTANTS ========================= P.O. Box 6672 Jacksonville, Florida 32236-6672 Est. 1985 1-904-783-3319 ATARI-AMIGA-PC-CLONES-MAC HARDWARE, SOFTWARE & SUPPLIES """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" COMPUTER STUDIO =============== WESTGATE SHOPPING CENTER 40 Westgate Parkway - Suite D Asheville, NC 28806 1-800-253-0201 Orders Only 1-704-251-0201 Information Authorized Atari Dealer """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" MEGABYTE COMPUTERS ================== 907 Mebourne Hurst, TX 76053 1-817-589-2950 Authorized Atari Dealer """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" SAN JOSE COMPUTER ================= 1278 Alma Court San Jose, CA. 95112 1-408-995-5080 Authorized Atari Dealer """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" CompuSeller West ================ 220-1/2 W. Main St. St. Charles, IL., 60174 Ph. (708) 513-5220 Authorized Atari Dealer """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" (DEALERS; to be listed here, please drop us a line.) """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" STReport International Online Magazine -* [S]ilicon [T]imes [R]eport *- """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" STR Online! "YOUR INDEPENDENT NEWS SOURCE" April 23, 1993 Since 1987 copyright (c) 1987-92 All Rights Reserved No.9.17 """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Views, Opinions and Articles Presented herein are not necessarily those of the editors/staff of STReport International Online Magazine. Permission to reprint articles is hereby granted, unless otherwise noted. Reprints must, without exception, include the name of the publication, date, issue number and the author's name. STReport and/or portions therein may not be edited in any way without prior written permission. STReport, at the time of publication, is believed reasonably accurate. STReport, its staff and contributors are not and cannot be held responsible for the use or misuse of information contained herein or the results obtained therefrom. """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""