*---== STReport International Online Magazine ==---* """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" "The Original 16/32bit Online Magazine" from STR Publishing """""""""""""" May 14, 1993 No.9.20 ========================================================================= 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 _____________________________________________________________________ > 05/14/93 STR 920 "The Original * Independent * Online Magazine!" """""""""""""""" - The Editor's Desk - CPU Report - PORTFOLIO NEWS - Instigation! - Phase-4 Ready! - Lexicor Utility Disk - EXPLORER & AIM - Cyber-CUBE News - ASHEVILLE NEWS - MIDISPY UPDATE!! - BBS MALARKEY - STR Confidential -* 600 FALCONS FOR N.A. TOTAL?? *- -* NOVA VIDEO CARD ANNOUNCED! *- -* "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 (May 14) 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 supersedes 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 2.1v 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 recent 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!" MICROSOFT WINDOWS FORUMS REORGANIZE Microsoft has announced the reorganization of its Windows support forums on CompuServe. The Windows Advanced Users Forum (GO WINADV) and Windows New Users Forum (GO WINNEW) will be replaced by three new forums. The Windows Fun Forum (GO WINFUN) is designed to allow Windows users to discuss and obtain entertaining Windows programs such as games, screen savers and graphics. The Windows Shareware Forum (GO WINSHARE) lets Windows users talk about and download Windows applications, utilities and tools. No technical support will be provided by Microsoft support technicians within the Windows Fun and Windows Shareware Forums. Technical support is available in the new Microsoft Windows Forum (GO MSWIN). Power users and novices alike can communicate with each other and with Microsoft support technicians to solve problems and share experiences. Beginning Wednesday, 19-May, members using the quick reference words WINADV and WINNEW will be directed to the Windows Support Forum (MSWIN). Please be certain to make the appropriate changes in any scripts or automated access programs you may use in accessing these forums. Also remember to change the Favorite Places listing in your CompuServe Information Manager (CIM) software to include the three new Microsoft Windows forums. The Microsoft Windows forums are a part of CompuServe's extended services. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" > From the Editor's Desk "Saying it like it is!" """""""""""""""""""""" This is the third week in May... and what do we see? Renewed "hate" campaigns by the Minister of Disinformation at Atari. He's really very busy trying to "win friends and influence people" by deftly spreading sheer nonsense. The interesting aspect is he's apparently doing his "thing" with the blessings of the ST RT contract holder on Genie. We all know Darlah is a "stand up, fair, even-handed RT moderator/sysop, Right? Sure! The over 300k captures we have of the last three weeks "prove" that. :^( The "Nathan & Darlah Show is quite the Show. Just ask anybody who's been "on stage" with those people. The minister's behavior is odd since the word from the backyard fence was "truce - let's give the Falcon a chance". STReport is still quite capable of going to a wait and watch mode and give the Falcon its due. Evidently, the good minister hasn't a clue about how to help Atari's situation. To drag up three year old muck in an attempt to discredit this magazine or those who are readers of ours is a disgraceful sham. Facts are facts; Atari fell on its face with the Falcon, is falling on its face with the Falcon and has now come to the point where the Falcon is such a late bloomer it can easily be called a faint thought from memory lane. With this happening, what do we see? Lies, innuendo, outrageous schemes of misrepresentation and slander. For example; We all see Dan McNamee saying he's "been told" by more than one source that I have been revealing him as my "confidential source" within Atari. This is absurd! I happen to know for a fact exactly who (more than one person) planned and initiated this vicious rumor. It was the laugh of the late summer shows of two years ago. Any regular reader of STReport _knows_ we don't reveal our sources at all unless given permission to do so by the source. Especially those within Atari itself. For the record, Dan McNamee has NEVER given STReport any information confidential or otherwise. Its an outrage to see the scheme of two years ago rear its ugly head again as it may cost Dan his job at Atari. It is only correct that the conspirators of this dastardly deed come forward and quell this foolishness, if not their Ids will be made known along with the whole story of how the conspiracy was supposed to occur. It never ceases to amaze me as to how others can blather about gloom and doom being predominate on one service (The CIS Atari Fora) and not another (Genies's STRT) when in reality its only truth the folks on CIS, Delphi, Bix, NVN, AOL, Fido, Internet and FNET are factually talking about. Only in the STRT on Genie is the course of the conversations so typically controlled and directed in such a manner as to reflect the "sing the praises only" by Nathan, Darlah and their crew. The sad part is those who are "foaming" away are, in fact, "showing their hand" by sitting 'over there' busily bad mouthing other network's and service's Atari areas and the people that are part of it. Jealousy rears its ugly head in many ways. Fact is it only reflects the "Aunt Agony" mentality. Apparently the revenues are down appreciably in the STRT for the "Nathan & Darlah Show". The most ingratiating form is of course, the "smug, self righteous" kind. Its sad indeed to see the Minister of Disinformation, Bob Brodie, Jim Allen, Nathan and Darlah engaged in "instigating" the chorus onward in creating a wider, more difficult to correct, segregation within the anemic and dwindling Atari userbase. Well done people, its you who are really, in serving your own selfish, ego gratifying interests, doing Atari the most harm. What is truly fascinating is to see precisely who is orchestrating the bleating, blathering and foaming at the mouth type behavior. The self righteous, self appointed, "authorities" in the Atari arena. Truth is they're just like the rest of us but they insist on wearing two faces, one for Atari and one for the userbase. One day they'll discover the plastic face will reappear continuously to torment them. And torment them it will. Especially on other, more mature and highly successful platforms where they will try to market their wares. One can only wonder if they will attempt to play the same shabby, ill-advised politics. 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! """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" > 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 #20 By: John Deegan TIDBITS FROM ATARI - According to Atari spokesperson Bob Brodie, Atari Works, SpeedoGDOS and MultiTOS are currently only being shipped installed on the Falcon030's from the Sunnyvale offices of Atari. All three should be ready to ship as stand-alone programs in 6-8 weeks, as soon as the manuals and disks arrive from Taiwan. Atari Works will re- tail for $129 US, and will include SpeedoGDOS and 14 BitStream fonts. SpeedoGDOS without Atari Works will be $69 US and will include 14 Bit- Stream fonts. MultiTOS should be priced at $59 US. Dealers will be able to place orders on all three products in approximately 4 weeks. Mr. Brodie states that the next Falcon030 shipment has been shipped by boat and should arrive in the U.S. in about 10 days (from 5/8/93). He anticipates the shipment will be large enough to fill all backorders that Atari had as of that time. A 4-meg Falcon030 without hard drive or monitor is expected to retail for $999.00. ORDERS FOR CHIPS FALL IN APRIL - The Semiconductor Industry Associa- tion says U.S. orders for semiconductors slipped 0.6% in April, an indi- cation, SIA says, that the PC boom may be slowing down. TOSHIBA CUTS MORE PRICES - Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. has cut the prices on many of its PC accessories by between 5 and 32%, after recent notebook and portable computer price cuts. MITSUBISHI TO SELL SUN MICROS - In information attributed to a Mitsubishi spokesman, Mitsubishi Corp. will sell in Japan workstation computers made by U.S. computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc. IBM UNVEILING NEW PS/1 VERSIONS - IBM is unveiling new versions of its PS/1 PCs that can upgrade to use Intel Corp.'s new Pentium micro- processors. Some 27 new machines are reported to be unveiled, including several with a mini-tower design that provides greater expandability for disk or CD-ROM drives. The new computers are expected to range in price from about $1,200 to $3,000. VLSI OFFERS NEW CHIP SET - VLSI Technology Inc. is introducing a PC chip set that manages power usage, helping make the machines more energy efficient. According to VLSI, the new EcoChip VL82C483 system controller "fits around a 486 microprocessor and puts an idle computer into a sleep mode that conserves energy. The computer returns to full function when a key is pressed." The firm expects volume production to begin in the fourth quarter and the system will cost PC makers about $22 each in quantities of 10,000. APPLE TO SHIP RISC-BASED MACS IN 1994 - Apple Computer Inc. expects to ship its first RISC-based Macintoshes in the first half of 1994. The new systems are said to be based on the PowerPC, a new line of RISC (reduced instruction set computing) chips jointly designed by Apple, IBM and Motorola. DIGITAL UNVEILING NEW '486 UNITS - Digital Equipment Corp. is unveil- ing two new desktop PCs it says are the highest-performance '486-chip based computers. Reports say that Digital's MTE system family "combines industry-standard 32-bit EISA and VESA VL-buses, upgradability to Intel's next generation of Pentium processors and offers a PCMCIA peripheral card option which allows data sharing with any portable." MICROSOFT STUDYING INFOWORLD'S CLAIM OF A BUG IN MS-DOS 6 - Microsoft Corp. says it is taking steps to respond to InfoWorld magazine's reports of finding a bug in the new MS-DOS 6 operating system. More than 3 mil- lion copies of the software have been sold since the system was unveiled March 30. InfoWorld reported it found several glitches. Among them are alleged problems in a feature that compresses data to free disk space. InfoWorld since has cleared all but six of the problems it says it found on 53 PCs in its testing. Reporting from Seattle, Brad Chase, Microsoft's general manager of MS-DOS 6, says the publisher pledges to do whatever it takes to track down and purge any serious flaws, although it has found none. IBM, BLOCKBUSTER FORM MULTIMEDIA ALLIANCE - IBM and Blockbuster En- tertainment Corp. have formed a multimedia alliance to deliver music, films and games electronically to retailers. The companies said consumers will want on-demand retailing in stores as they become more familiar with digitally based multimedia technology. Music or video would be digitized, compressed and sent on high-speed phone lines to a massive computer storage center linked with stores. Such a capability would essentially allow music stores to make compact discs and videos on the premises and eliminate the need for large inventories. Stores typically carry about 12,000 titles, but the Blockbuster-IBM system could mean a stock of 100,000 titles would be available. VALLEY PAPER GOES ONLINE - The newspaper in the heart of Silicon Valley -- The San Jose Mercury News -- has launched a new online news service, Mercury Center. The modem-delivered service includes news from each morning's edition of the newspaper along with updated information from the afternoon edi- tion. Entertainment and consumer information also is available, as well as bulletin board discussions and news dating back to 1985 from the paper's library. The feature, delivered in cooperation with Vienna, Va., America On- line, is charged at $9.95 per month, which includes five hours of online use, plus $3.50 per hour for additional time. __________________________________________________________ > ONLINE WEEKLY STReport OnLine The wires are a hummin'! """"""""""""""""""""""""""""" PEOPLE... ARE TALKING ===================== On CompuServe ------------- compiled by Joe Mirando 73637,2262 Hidi-Ho good neighbors! Ah, springtime. Flowers bloom, grass grows, the days get longer, and a young man's thoughts turn to... computers. Okay, okay, so I don't get out much. Anyway, its that time again. Time to listen in on the conversations, hints, and tips that get posted in the Atari Forums on CompuServe. So, what the heck, let's get to it. From the Atari Productivity Forum ================================= Manfred Bottei from Germany asks for help with his ST-Book: "Hello everybody, concerning the ST-Book I need urgently help! The problems are the following: 1) to expand the internal RAM 2) the LCD-screen MUST be backlit 3) at least I need the technical manual with detailed descriptions (like for the 'normal' ST's) For about SIX months I've made a lot of efforts in trying to find somebody to solve these problems, but everything I did was in vain! The result of all this is that seemingly NOBODY here in Germany is able and/or willing to modify the machine. Of course, I did consult the technical service of ATARI Germany, but they told me [that they don't have] technical information at all!!! Even a call to ATARI Sunnyvale was not successful (but expensive). So I've made up my mind to post this message around here hoping it will be read by competent people who at least give me some advice or tips...?" Gee, an ST-Book. I'd love to get my hands on one of those babies. Anyway, Ron Luks, the Sysop's Sysop, tells Manfred: "I'm afraid you may not like my answers, but here they are: You cannot modify the unit (in any reasonable manner) to add backlighting to the screen. You cannot (in any way that I'm aware of) increase the RAM past 4Mb. Since Atari has dropped the STBook (they never sold them in the USA) I don't know where you could possibly get any manuals for it. The backlighting issue was a major criticism of the prototypes we saw and that's probably why they never attempted to sell the STBook in this country. Redesigning the unit for a backlit screen was said to be too expensive to be practical, considering that the unit is basically old technology (based on the ST which originally debuted in 1985)." David Hagood asks: "Does anyone know if MultiTOS has been released to the general public yet? If so, how much?" Albert Dayes of Atari Explorer Magazine answers succinctly: "Not yet." Alan Moore adds a bit more info: "Multitos will be released in the UK on 22.5.93 by Hisoft Tel: +44 (0)525-718181 I'm not sure about anywhere else though." Tim Myers jumps in and posts: "Not yet although version 1.0 is widely available on the Atari underground I believe. 1.0 will not be the official release AFAIK. However, it is VERY slow on an 8mhz ST. You need an accelerated ST to use it effectively and a Falcon to use the memory protection features to stop badly behaved apps from trampling each other. Falcons are currently sold her in the UK without any of the software Atari promised !" On the subject of the software that Double Click that has been placed on CompuServe as Shareware, Bill asks the Double Clickers: "Did you realize that nowhere in the documentation for DCXtract or DCSEA did you include the address to send donations, or the amount to send? Admittedly, the info is there if you go to the (C) screen from the config screen, but a lot of folks might not realize that... anyway, I had a person ask me about it, since he didn't see it in the doc..." Sysop Bob Retelle asks: "Does anyone remember the discussion of there being a Motorola datasheet which essentially details the design of a typical 68030 based microcomputer..? I'd like to get as much info about the sheet.. it's title or their catalog number for it, as possible." Our own sweet, lovable Publisher, Ralph Mariano, tells Bob: "Call Motorola and direct your request for Motorola's Application Notes for the 68000 series and in particular for the 68030 & 040. It comes is a very nice binder and its chock full of information and designs. In fact it shows some very surprising and familiar design specs. You'd definitely be elated at your find. :-)" Bob explains: "I just had an interesting discussion with some of the other hardware types where I work, and we want to take a look at those Application Notes..." With the Falcon030 due out "Real Soon Now", people are starting to wonder about what type of monitor will do the best job for their application. Robby Cooke posts: "I am wondering if you can use the PTC1426 monitor on a Falcon030 in the true color mode and VGA mode? I heard that you can't although I wouldn't know why." Brian Gockley of ST Informer and the Connecticut AtariFest, tells Robby: "I have seen the PTC1426 on a Falcon several times, I believe you can do all the resolutions _except_ true color. I wish I had either to try for sure!" Robby replies: "That's weird.I don't know much about computers but I wonder why a VGA monitor won't do true color.Thinks for you info." On the subject of True Color on the Falcon, Tom Mynar posts: "Let's also remember that the TRUE COLOR mode of the Falcon is not "BUILT IN" It requires a special card be plugged into the cartridge port (or so I have heard) before you can truly get all those colors (that everyone seems to agree we won't see anyway)." Stefan Daystrom of Barefoot Software replies to Tom: ">>..plugged into the cartridge port.. What cartridge port ? Seriously, on a stock Falcon you _can_ select True Color mode, but _not_ if you have a VGA monitor hooked up -- only ST monitor or TV. Don't ask me why -- I'm just going by the notes in the Falcon030 developer kit breakdown of the bitmapped register used to set up all the video modes..." Sysop Ron Luks posts: "You cant use TRUE COLOR on a Falcon if you are using a VGA monitor???? That's depressing, if true." Alex Kiernan tells Ron: " >You cant use TRUE COLOR on a Falcon if you are using a VGA >monitor??? That's depressing, if true. Nonsense, you can have 320x240 or 320x480 VGA true color, what you can't have is 640x... true color. The reason is because with a 31.5kHz line rate (twice broadcast rate) it needs too much bandwidth." Jim Ness posts: "This isn't a monitor restriction, since I know most of today's VGA monitors have more than enough bandwidth for lots of rez and lots of color. So, it's a limitation on whatever video chip the Falcon has, right?" Alex continues: "Of course its a Falcon limitation; the fact that you can do 640x... true color on a broadcast monitor is testament to that." Charles Johnson, CodeHead extraordinary, jumps in and posts: "With a VGA monitor, the Falcon does have two "true-color" (more properly described, IMO, as "16-bit color") modes -- 320x200 and 320x480. But these are 40-column modes, which means they're fairly useless for serious design work or DTP. This is unfortunate, since these types of tasks could really benefit from the fairly accurate color representation that's possible with 16-bit color, but require better resolution and proper aspect ratios. The VGA true-color modes could be used for animation/presentation purposes, I suppose, but even for those jobs it's preferable to have at least an 80-column screen width." Tony Barker of Moving Pixels posts: "You can get the "true color" mode on a VGA monitor, but only at low horizontal res, ie: 320. In RGB (TV or other RGB monitor) you can do 640 horizontal in true color and more 768 etc with overscan." Dick Paddock asks: "By "RGB monitor" for higher-resolution "true color" for the Falcon030, do you mean a multi-sync like the NEC 4FG? And would a TV be a good monitor at such high resolutions because of the many colors?" Tony tells Dick: "By RGB I mean TV or the Atari color monitors or the Amiga monitors (Phillips, Thompson etc.), certainly no need for a 4FG. In fact a 4FG will not sync down to the 15.75Khz (?) horizontal rate necessary to do the high res true color modes. And no, the TV is not a good monitor to use at "high" res's like 640x400 true color except for the display of graphics in which case it is just like looking at a broadcast television picture. I wouldn't word process on it though." Tim Rule adds his voice to the discussion: "When you actually compare the two modes this discussion becomes irrelevant. Take the example seen with the apple Mac, for a few hundred quid you can get a 32K color upgrade board for desktop publishing. However, if you are really doing it seriously, and want to see exactly how the photo will look on the page (so you can optimize it), you need a proper 24-bit display. This is surely proved by the fact that people spend a couple of thousand on a 24-bit board with the necessary accelerators and DSP chips, rather than a 32K board which is much cheaper. Beware also, when you see a PC change from 32K to 24-bit mode, the resolution usually also goes down. That is why the picture may seem no better." Steve Rose asks: "Does anyone know of an Atari ST emulator for a Mac? I am a former ST user now using a Mac, and I know of some others who are looking for such a product. Does one exist?" Tim Myers tells Steve: "Nope never heard of one. I would say that it would be harder to write an Atari emulator for the Mac than the other way round. IMO the Mac OS is much more logical and controlled than TOS and so easier to emulate. It could also be that there is very little demand for one. With STFMs going out in the UK again at 160 UK pounds new (approx 220 to 230 US dollars) it might be cheaper to buy an ST !" Ken Joy is a member of a very exclusive group: He's a NEW ST user! He tells us: "I was just given an Atari ST with a 60MByte hardrive by a friend, and I have no idea what kind of animal this is. Is it DOS compatible? Will DOS programs run on it? Since I don't have a communications program for it, I can't download files to it. Can I download files on my IBM and then run them on the Atari? Help!! Is there software here for word processing, DTP, communications? etc. Thanks for all you help... I'm really in the dark here coming from the IBM world...." Sysop Bob Retelle welcomes Ken into _our_ club: "welcome to the Atari computing world..! The Atari ST is not directly software compatible with IBM programs. The computer uses a Motorola 68000 CPU chip, like the Apple Macintosh and Commodore Amiga. There ARE however, some hardware emulators that will run MS-DOS software with varying levels of compatibility. Luckily, the floppy disk formats are almost identical between the ST and the PC. To avoid any incompatibilities, the best way to go about transferring files between the two platforms is to format a 3.5" 720K disk on the PC. That will insure that both computers will be able to read and write the disk. Then just download into your PC and transfer the files to the ST on the floppies." From the Atari ST Arts Forum ============================ Greg Kopchak tells us all: "I'm now sitting here typing on a "real" US version Atari Falcon. The wait may be over. This is a real fun machine. The sound capabilities are awesome and true-color is great. The higher res graphics look best on a VGA or color monitor rather than a SC1224. The machine will also have a super selection of startup software on the hard drive. Enough to get you going and more. The SAM sound program is great." Ron Luks asks Greg: "Are you typing on a developer or demo Falcon, or one that you can purchase over the counter in a dealership? Glad you like the new machine." Bob Retelle tells Ron: "Ron, there was a note on UseNet the night before last about a music store which got in (and quickly sold out) a shipment of consumer Falcons. The details were rather sketchy, and I'm trying to find out more..." Ron posts: "If Falcons are shipping, that truly IS good news. I'll keep a close note of all the verifiable reports we get from around the world and especially the USA. The more Falcons that go out (and get sold) the bigger our potential audience will become. This will be good news for all software developers, too." Greg Kopchak gives us some more info on his new machine: "I have a 14 meg US machine, rather rare. It is a developer model with the actual product due shortly. Having a great time with it. Most dealers should be getting demo computers shortly. I had a few call this week saying they arrived." Jim Ness asks Greg: "What TOS version does it have? I understand the dealer demo units had 4.02, while the units now being built for users have 4.04." Greg replies: "The current version is 4.04." Sysop Don LeBow kids around with Greg: "Neat! We'll expect a 10000 word report by Monday " Greg gives his opinions on monitors for the Falcon030: "I would rank monitors in the following order. Multiscan VGA with a small dot pitch first for all uses. SM124 for text editing and character based work. Large screen monitor for graphic viewing. SC1224 color monitor as a last resort. Output is dark and doesn't show the full effect of the color capabilities of the Falcon." Jaime Sacadura tells us: "I am having trouble connecting several devices to the Falcon SCSI II port. Neither a 44Mb Syquest or an Optical Drive seem to work. The Falcon detects the drive(s) but the light stays on and when i try to access the optical disk, i get a "Your output device is not receiving data". I can't find SCSI II cables specific from Atari, so i've tried two "standard" ones, one from a SUN Workstation. Do you (or somebody) know if the Falcon SCSI II port accepts a "standard" SCSI II cable or do i need a "special" cable from ATARI ? (Assuming the problem i have is from the cable) If its a "software" problem, could it be solved with another driver, maybe ICD Pro ?" Greg Wageman tells Jaime: "First thing to check is that the last drive on your SCSI daisy-chain, and ONLY the last drive, is properly terminated. Also make sure that power for the terminators is available from either the buss or from the device (if buss term. power isn't present). Easiest way to check this is to use an external terminator with an indicator light, but you can also check with a voltmeter. Term. power is pin 26 on the 50-pin IDC connector. Unpowered terminators are actually worse than no termination at all." Jaime tells Greg: "I know that with some computers (namely some Mac models) you MUST use a terminator. With my "humble" ST and THE LINK, my optical drive works perfectly without the terminator. With the Falcon030, even with the terminator, it just doesn't work (cable problem?) But you say that - "Also make sure that power for the terminators is available from either the buss or from the device" If the device has power, shouldn't the terminator have it, also? And you also stated that - "Unpowered terminators are actually worse than no termination at all" Could you elaborate on that, please?" Greg explains: "Power to the terminator is provided on SCSI pin 26. Whether a particular device applies power to this pin usually depends on the setting of a jumper on the device. The reason for this is so that you can be sure only one device is applying power to pin 26. Unfortunately I do not know if the Falcon provides termination power on this pin. If it does not, you will have to arrange for one of your SCSI devices to do this. While one device on the buss may work fine without termination, you will definitely find that as you add more devices (and more cables and connectors) this will cease to be true. The more cables, connectors and devices you have on the buss, the more important termination becomes. The reason is that the SCSI buss is a "transmission line". The signals are of high enough frequency that, if they reach the end of an unterminated wire, they are reflected back towards the source. Each connector/cable change can generate such reflections. If the reflections are of high enough amplitude, or sum together in just the right way, they can produce false signals of their own, which cause errors (hung devices, etc.). Termination cures this by providing a balanced load which "soaks up" the signals when they reach the end of the line. Terminating resistors without power pull the lines to ground without the corresponding pullup to +5 volts. This tends to force all of the voltages on the line to be too low, again resulting in errors. If the host adaptor can't overcome this load, the entire buss may fail to work at all. I'm a systems administrator for a network of Sun workstations; I deal with SCSI devices all the time. Even in the world of $10,000+ workstations, we have problems with SCSI devices, termination and SCSI buss errors. It is not a simple problem and there are no simple answers." Mike Fulton of Atari tells Jaime: "The Falcon030 does not require any special kind of SCSI-2 cable. I think the one I've got was labeled as being for NeXT, but I've also used ones that were not labeled in any specific way. My Syquest is just plugged right in and I'm using the Atari HD driver version 6.02. What version of what software are you using? I would not expect ICD software to work at all unless they've released a new Falcon030 version I've not heard about." Jaime tells Mike: "I am using Atari HD Driver version 6.03 - 18 Set 1992. I suspect the cables, but your answer puzzles me. Are you sure that all SCSI-2 cables (with 50-25 connectors) available in the market have the same connections? It was very difficult to me, to find one here in Portugal, seems that almost every dealer has the cable with 50-50 connectors, and i am not sure its a "standard" one. Are you using a "production" Falcon030, with TOS 4.01 or TOS 4.02, like the ones we have here? If not, is it possible that these units have SCSI-2 port problems? The optical drive works perfectly with THE LINK, on my ST." Mike Fulton tells Jaime: "Yes, I'm using a production Falcon030, although the SCSI connector has never changed since the original prototypes. I really can't say what the cables in Portugal might have as far as connections go, but the ones we've got have a Centronics-style 50 pin connector on one end, and the 50-pin SCSI-2 connector (about the same size as a DB-25) on the other. From what you say, I would suspect you have a cable problem." From the Atari Vendors Forum ============================ Beth Jane Freeman posts: "As a shareholder, I can see the stupid things they did. They lent money to members of their board to buy homes. What's wrong with Banks? My God, Sunnyvale is a sleepy little town, but I've been there, and they do have a shopping mall with a Sears. Surely they have banks. I come from a small town and we've got several. And if the local banks aren't good enough, there's San Jose as short ride away, and of course San Francisco. They were also incredibly stupid regarding advertising. They did a nice ad for the Lynx, but they didn't do much for the computer which is a much bigger item. They also didn't support their dealers properly. You don't need a lot of money to do that. If I could get control of the company, I'd show them a thing or two Well, maybe I can get notice of this year's stock holder's meeting and attend. I WILL speak my mind." Sysop Bob Retelle tells Beth: "Maybe what we need to do is to organize a "March on Sunnyvale"... Beth tells Bob: "Not a bad idea. It should be done on the day of the stockholders' meeting, though. That would attract the most attention." Bob continues the wishful thinking: "We could all hold hands around the Atari building and sing while you're inside trying to wake them up..." Boris Molodyi joins the conversation: "March on Sunnyvale? Make it a torch march :-) I'd join..." John Zangrando talks to the CodeHeads: "Here is a foolish question. I am a new (non)user of Codekeys. When I set up and run my Macros I watch the mouse pointer move around the desktop but files and buttons are not showing up on the desktop, and therefore, nothing happens. I have read the manual three times but alas I'm a saxophone - midi guy and I'm missing something very fundamental. P.S. I love Warp 9, Multidesk Deluxe, and Midimax and Hotwire plus is on the way." Charles imposes the old tried and true axiom: "RTM" "What exactly are you trying to do with this macro? Be sure to read the 'Tricks and Tips' section of the manual..." By the way folks, RTM stands for 'Read the Manual". From the Atari Portfolio Forum ============================== Bob Lewis asks: "Can anybody help me out in isolating a problem I'm having with my new serial interface module? I've built and tested a cable to interface to my PC as directed in the manual. I copy stuff to the PC output port, and it seems to get there (according to my serial tester), but all the corresponding "copy aux wherever" on the Portfolio does is stop with a "Not ready" error. No bytes get put into "wherever". Connecting the serial tester to the 25-pin connector at the end of the cable lights "RD", but nothing else (i.e., no response from "TD", "RTS", "DSR", "CD", "CTS", or "DTR"). Can anyone with a working serial interface confirm if this is what I should expect? Has anyone else seen this problem? Flakey interface module? Flaky Portfolio?" Don Thomas, the Portfolio Guru, tells Bob: "There is an error in the Serial Interface manual if you are trying to follow the instructions for a null modem cable. This may or not be the problem you are experiencing. On page 17, the book shows signal lines correctly, but the signal descriptions is not right. The second column should have RD and TD switched just as the reference lines indicate." Bob tells Don: "Thanks for pointing this out, but I don't think that's where the problem lies. I actually did try swapping RD and TD and all it did was change the corresponding light on my serial tester. I really love RS-232. 8-)" John Dobson asks: "Is there a way that I can use some of the disk space in my portfolio for other programs that I want to load. Instead of say the work processor(I never use)." Don Thomas tells John: "The built-in applications are all in ROM and never transferred to RAM until they are "run". ROM in the Portfolio is fixed @256K. RAM in the Portfolio is fixed at @128K although you can use the "FDISK" command to specify the ratio of working RAM against the size of your C: drive. In summary, the built-in apps take up no "disk space" unless you run them." Well, that's about it for this week, folks. 'Hope you've found something of use in this weeks column. Tune in again next week, same time, same channel, and listen in 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 (5/5/93) # # # # (1) LITTLE GREEN SELECTOR # # (2) STREPORT #9.19 # # (3) AEO: VOLUME 2, ISSUE 9 # # (4) GEM-VIEW VERSION 2.23 # # (5) XYZPATCH.ZIP # # (6) DC XTRACT PLUS 2.2 # # (7) M-DISK 6.94 # # (8) MASTERBROWSE 1.0 # # (9) PIR_BBS.LZH # # (10) HANGMAN ACCESSORY # # # # 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! *********************************************************************** > GRANDSTANDING AT ITS BEST! STR FOCUS! Open Mouth...... Insert Foot! """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" GRANDSTANDING AT ITS BEST! ========================== by R. F. Mariano Every so often, a well respected member of the Atari community allows his good judgment to fall by the wayside. In this case, not only did this person cast aside his good judgment, he allowed emotion to become involved in his "onslaught" to nowhere. In raising a number of "questions" an attempt was made by Nathan Potechin (Darlah's other half) relative to the Explorer vs AIM situation. It can only be termed another in the long line of diversions Nathan is famous for. As such the following posts and comments are supplied to provide the reader with a clear picture relative to the head games being attempted. From Delphi's Atari Area in reply to Nathan's totally erroneous commentary that attempted to "smear" AIM Magazine and it proprietors. 54472 7-MAY 21:46 News & Reviews RE: What's going on here? (Re: Msg 54367) From: UNICORNPUB To: ISDMARKETING (NR) Nathan...just a note to point out a couple of errors of fact in your post concerning AIM. First, the March/April issue was not 8 pages, as you state, but it was 32 pages. While that is 1/2 the size AIM was before the reorganization, 32 pages is a far cry from 8. As for "not notifying subscribers", again you are in error. A letter was send to all direct subscribers and participating clubs in late January early February informing everyone of the changes taking place and spelling out their options. So, it is simply not true that 5 months went by without anyone receiving any word from us. We sent out the letter about 3.5 months after the WAACE show. It's true that we were taking subscriptions at WAACE last October, but why do you see that as some kind of shady thing for us to do? Atari was supposed to ship the new Falcon before the end of October. There was still a somewhat viable market at that time with ST users still holding on. We believed Atari, too. In late November, we stopped taking new subscriptions because the market went off a cliff when Atari missed that deadline and people gave up. We just weren't willing to continue taking people's money when we weren't sure Atari was going to be around long enough for us to fulfill those subscriptions. Frankly, Nathan, I don't really expect you to believe anything I say. You want to believe that we're not reputable or trustworthy, for whatever reason. It really doesn't matter to us what you think. We're going to continue to produce AIM and fulfill our current subscriptions. If Atari starts shipping Falcons, developers can afford to advertise, and there are enough users out there to support Atari magazines, AIM will grow again and we'll start taking subscriptions again. If not, AIM will cease when we no longer have outstanding subscriptions. If you think that is somehow less reputable than those people who produced Atari magazines in the past and stiffed everyone when they folded, that's your opinion and you're welcome to it. Just get the facts straight so no one has to waste their time correcting you. (You know how to reach us if you ever want any info from us.) Bill Rayl At which point Nathan posted back to Bill acknowledging his (Bill Rayle's) being correct. Unfortunately, the use of so few words by Nathan makes it appear more like a blow-off. Nathan should've been as elaborate as he was in his indictments of the Rayles and AIM Magazine. From Delphi's Atari area; Our own editor, Dana P. Jacobson replied to Nathan's outrageous accusations and insinuations; 54321 4-MAY 22:40 News & Reviews RE: What's going on here? (Re: Msg 54288) From: DPJ To: ISDMARKETING (NR) I'll tell you why _I_ didn;t jump down AIM's throat because of late issues, Nathan. First of all, I did get my year's subscription from AIM, and I subscribed to them much later than AE. Also, the Rayles kept their subscribers up-to-date with regard to the problems that they were having; it also hasn't been 6 months in-between issues, but I can check to verify that for you. Unicorn Publications is also just a two-person operation with hardly as near the resources to put out a magazine than Atari is capable of doing. This is not to belittle the Rayles - they did a fine job with what they had to work with. They were also more regular over the years (since the MAM days) than AE ever was. ALso, had rumors come out about AIM, I'm sure that we would have discussed them online and in STReport. I also believe that we carried an item about AIM's problems, a number of weeks back. Why is it that that "rumor" didn't cause nearly the reaction that the AE issue has caused? You know why. Also, why is AIM going through rough times? Mismanagement? Hardly. Could it be just one more in a long line of Atari support problems? The independent folks can't survive without the company doing something to help the market. Losing AE won't hurt me (personally) as much as losing AIM or of all of the others we lost over the years (nothing personal to the AE staff, past or present/future). But, I can't find fault with those who have done just about everything that they could to survive in today's Atari marketplace, and find it extremely difficult, if at all possible any longer. Dana @ STReport International Online Magazine Now Nathan in his infinite wisdom and obvious fairness, devotes a scant six or eight words directed to Dana indicating he (Nathan) had been "soundly thrashed". One can only wonder if he meant to begin this nonsense with an equal sense of frivolity. It simply put, appears to be another of the cute sidesteps he's ever so famous for. Fact is, Nathan was caught in a stream of fabrications and exaggerations that had no solid basis in fact. Dana then followed up with; 54369 5-MAY 19:56 News & Reviews RE: What's going on here? (Re: Msg 54367) From: DPJ To: ISDMARKETING I received word from AIM, and so did my user group which has a group/member discount, that AIM was going through some changes. I recently went through a lot of my old Atari-related mail and threw it out, so I cannot tell you when I received that info. I'm sure that Pattie or Bill can elaborate on when that mailing went out. I'm also pretty sure that there were issues since WAACE '92 other than this latest one. And, I was referring to my AE subscription that I took out at WAACE _'91_, not '92. BTW, there was nothing in STReport about subscriptions (AE) in our original announcement. That came _after_ all of the messages here (yes, I believe that _I_ mentioned it first, as a subscriber and not an STReport staffer). Dana @ STReport International Online Magazine --><-- It would seem Nathan would've thought his interrogatory through a little bit more thoroughly. But no, it was "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead." This guy jumped up on Delphi and decided to take STReport to task for having spotlighted the recent EXPLORER LAY-OFF COVERUP. Too bad the guy didn't do his homework. You see, Nathan Potechin of ISD/DMC decided to ask (paraphrased); "Why did you jump on Atari Explorer only days after the news about Mike Lindsay and Darren Meer being let go, but NEVER talked about AIM even though they said nothing for 3.5 months? That's a double-standard" In reply to Nathan's interrogatory, STReport's position is quite clear and in fact, we _never_ "jumped" on anything as Nathan describes. First, its obvious you have a real sloppy grasp of the numbers, you said in your first missive they hadn't said anything for six months. Then, after your correction by Dana and myself, you state five months and now after hearing from Bill Rayle you're enlightened to the letter that was sent to existing subscribers so now... you say three and a half months. How very convenient. Your "AGENDA" is showing already. Like I said last week, nice try but no cigar! The real truth is; STReport SHOULD'VE spotlighted the arrogance of Atari in relation to Atari Explorer Magazine a long, long time ago. Like the first incident of censorship and dictatorial prejudice that was exhibited by Atari when the magazine was jerked out from under the folks in New Jersey, David Ahl and Betsy Staples, because of their independent editorial stance relative to the Portfolio and, as a result, Explorer was placed in the hands of John Jainschigg. Now then Jainschigg brought the magazine to new heights in quality, content and professionalism. What happens? The magazine is pulled out from under Jainschigg because of alleged cost "overruns". Truth is Atari and Jainschigg were not seeing eye to eye about a number of things including long distance calls into Europe, France to be exact. Once again because Atari suffers from a severe case of the "cheaps", the users must watch and wait for Explorer. Now, with Explorer "back in house", under the guidance of Mike Lindsay, formally of Atari Advantage, it has another chance at life or, does it really? Of course, nobody makes mention of the fact that Lindsay had "scooped" all the hard copy magazines with internal photographs of the ever elusive Falcon well before its release. (This event is reported to have sent Leonard ballistic) Could this have been a course of action taken to eventually silence Advantage? Which by the way, was taking away paying subscribers and advertisers from Explorer and then.. with the falcon scoop proved itself to be a real "reporting" magazine that perhaps, Atari and Explorer didn't care to contend with? Of course, NO MENTION is made of the unfulfilled subscriptions Advantage left dangling by Nathan. Alas, I digress... Let's get back to Nathan's agenda. We've now seen how many issues of Explorer have been released under Lindsay before it once again, fell under the heavy hand of the Tramiel master planners? TWO ISSUES! That's in almost a year! One very serious point many of the users may not be aware of; Atari Explorer is the LAST of the hard copy magazines that enjoyed National News Stand distribution and circulation. You see, in order for a magazine to be made available on magazine racks and news stands across the nation, they must be the glossy type. With the hobbling of Explorer, it spells the end of Atari's national magazine exposure too. The saga continues. In a short time, as we've all been witness to, the userbase is told of the layoffs and then, in what can only be termed a "face saving" maneuver by Atari, its stated by the Atari online reps that one can call Atari and "talk to Mike". No doubt, one sure can... if they want to listen to a tape recording. And then.. to add to the coverup its stated they (Atari) is negotiating with Lindsay about Explorer since they now wish to take Explorer "out of house" to save money. Incredible!! Isn't this the very opposite of the reason they gave a year or so ago as to why they took Explorer back "in house"?? Also, during all these "heavy duty negotiations" was Lindsay ON or OFF the payroll. Truth is he was OFF and IS OFF the payroll since April 08, 1993. Nathan nobody "jumped" any one or thing. In fact, STReport was not going to bring any accounts of the rather "sad and erratic course of events surrounding the squirrely evolution of Explorer until _you_ decided to make an issue of a totally non-issue on Delphi. The fact remains, Lindsay is history, so far Explorer is history and the subscribers and advertisers who've paid for either their subscriptions or ads are left in a bleak holding pattern. Then Nathan 'protests' in so many words; "Nathan takes exception with the way STReport takes comments from anyone and responds to them in the magazine instead of in the message area where the topic was being discussed." It truly is sad to see this sort of sly comment as it clearly shows that a number of very familiar agendas are being amplified. After all, the magazine and its content is what this is all about. It stands to reason the matter should be covered in STReport. Let's look at the agendas that are so familiar to STR's experiences in the STRT run by Darlah. First being the indirect attempt to arrange that only a limited number of people be allowed to see or partake in such exchanges and second, an obvious attempt is being made to control the media by any means possible. This is further demonstrated by his "claim" to not have his posts re-printed by STReport. Perhaps he's apprehensive, lest he be held responsible for his words at a later date. Third, the statement is nothing more than another slick diversion to distract and confuse the original matter, THE EXPLORER COVERUP AND ITS ULTIMATE EXPOSURE. He also states in so many words....; "I do not give STReport permission to reprint anything that I write on Delphi...." So what! Paraphrasing is all that's needed to present the overall picture and give the reader an indication of what's being said. Besides with the support of other third party posts, there can be no mistaking any intent or of course, Nathan's now exposed agenda. ____________________________________________________________ > LEXICOR SUPPORT! STR InfoFile LEXICOR'S PHASE-4 TO INCLUDE GEMVIEW!! """"""""""""""""""""""""""""" LEXICOR SOFTWARE PRESENTS: The NOVA Graphics Card ====================== Hi It's me again Yat Siu from Lexicor Software Europe. I have a happy announcement to make! Lexicor Software is glad to announce that they have acquired distribution rights to the NOVA Card. The Nova Card comes in essentially 5 different versions. Lexicor Software Products that run on the NOVA Card are: XENOMORPH-3D (works 100%) all functions Cyber Color (works 100%) all functions Prism Paint (works 100%) v.1.1, 1.5 and the soon to be released 2.0 CHRONOS-3D Newest Version (works 100%) You can even RENDER in any rez at 8bit GENESIS (works 100%) Render 24 (works 100%) Utility Disk I haven't checked all the utilities but nearly ALL appear to work. And since it has an own VDI Driver, most Atari Applications that are written cleanly should work just fine. Now to the availability and the prices, Lexicor users get a special price as I understand and for those who buy our Software bundled, they too will get a special price. I have listed them into Lexicor and Non Lexicor and listed the price respectively below. I hope the formatting works now! :) Type of NOVA Card Prices:LEXICOR User Prices:NON-LEXICOR Description of CARD: NOVA Mega 32K 300 U$D 360 U$D 32,768 Colors for any Mega ST BUS Nova Mega 16M 400 U$D 490 U$D 16,7 Million Colors for your Mega ST BUS Nova VME 32K 429 U$D 560 U$D 32,768 Colors for any Mega STE or TT VME Nova VME 16M 529 U$D 699 U$D 16,7 Million Colors for any Mega STE or TT VME Super NOVA 999 U$D 1199 U$D Excellence and brilliance! Requires a VME Bus Mega STE or TT If you own an ST or a regular STE (eg.1040, 520) then with a special adaptor you can connect the Mega BUS versions on your ST, STE. Price of the adaptor however is to date not known. Transport (shipping) is not included, please add another 30-40 dollars depending on how quick you wish to have a delivery. Prices are Subject to possible change but unlikely. To the specs of the Card now: All the NOVA Cards, 16M, 32k VME or Mega BUS have this in common: 1.Max Pixeltakt: 90 Mhz 2.Video RAM 1 Megabyte 3.Ramtype DRAM 4.Have Virtual Resolutions 5.Automatic Rez Switch 6.Upgrade Possibility 7.VDI for its Colors (16M have 24bit VDI, 32k have 32K VDI) 8.All have a Videomode Generator 9.All go up to 1024*768 in 72Hz in 2/16/256 Colors The Max rez in 16,7 Million colors for the 16M VME is 640*480 and the MegaBUS is 640*400. The Max rez for BUS version is 1024*768 and for VME version is 1088*832 at 70 Hz. The Max rez at 32k colors for BUS version is 768*512 and VME version is 800*600. The SUPERNOVA is a dream Card for a dream Price!!! Max Mhz is 135 MHZ with 16,7 Million colors at 800*600, 32k colors at 1024* 768, Absolute Max at 256 Colors max is 1280 * 1024. Ram type is VRAM unlike the NOVA standard DRAM and has 2 Megabytes of VRAM. It has everything that regular NOVA's have AND has a hardware speedup, making it even quicker! Naturally, Virtual Resolutions possible! This is a very, very fine card and is to my knowledge the cheapest available Graphics Card for your Atari. The Crazy Dots which we so promoted before is still a fine card, but proved to be less compatible than the NOVA. Thus making for Lexicor Software the NOVA Card to be the preferred choice. Please, as this is a service of Lexicor Europe which needs to import and may run out of stock, consider a maximum delivery time of 6 weeks, depending on your preferred choice of delivery (Ground, Air, UPS or FEDEX?!). We will have stock, and it should not take so long....I am only being careful! :-) Yat Siu From CIS Atari Forums #: 39629 S11/LEXICOR Software 13-May-93 03:14:03 Sb: #39608-#Lexicors New NOVA card. Fm: LEXICOR Software 75300,763 To: Greg Wageman 74016,352 Greg, Sorry I missed answering your question on Gemview. Yes Gemview does work and Lexicor is adding Gemview to it's "Free" shareware software with permission of the author Dieter...We offer as many of you know some very nice Freeware and shareware software with our full Phase-4 commercial package. Of course any one wanting just the disk must call in and pay for the disk and copying, as the case with any other shareware service does. For more info just send E-Mail. We will be posting extensive upgrade list in our Lib in the coming days, with many new products and information from all over the World. This will include both Hardware and software. The best thing about NOVA is starting at the least expensive around the $300 range to get TT graphics from 1040/STE Megas etc. All our software is 100% compatible, and fully supported by us. Then the at the $400.00 level we are talking Falcon colors but much higher res...like 800X600 from 16Mil...I like this one a lot. and finally to go all out at a reasonable price for 24 bit...try $500 + a few. that sure beats $1,500 for 24 bit! and if you really need super high res, add 2Megs of VRAM for $400. and you are still $500 below any thing else with the same graphical horsepower. There is of course a catch in all this and that is the speed of the base machine. more colors and more res means slower graphics, but we will be teaching solutions and professional approaches that will help a lot. The fact is that for most of us blinding speed which no one really has anyway is not the real point. It is you can have the whole nine yards with out the pain of over paying. There will be plenty of sales information in the libraries soon. We hope this brief announcement has been of some use! Just one thing more. we caution all Atari users who are considering investing in Graphics Cards from any source to check with Lexicor or look up our compatibility list. There are some Card makers who claim compatibility which does not exist. We have had several reports from lexicor product owners who were assured by such manufactures that the product was compatible, and it was not. In one case the claim came from a manufacture who was selling a card we have never seen, that no Lexicor author had ever had or ever tested his software on let alone done any compatibility programming. So please be careful when you are shopping, one of these complaints came from a user who was unable to get a refund. And now has a very expensive Graphics Card that is of no use in doing the animations he had dreamed of doing. Thanks again for the question. Lee ____________________________________________________ > A LONE BBS! STR Feature ZEALOTS, ZEALOTS ARE SO ALONE! """"""""""""""""""""""" DON'T CALL US. WE'LL CALL YOU ============================= by Tim Holt A funny thing happened on the way to my local bbs... This morning, I called up El Paso's ONLY Atari BBS. (Let me put it another way: In our little town of 600,000+, with over 90 BBS's, there is ONE Atari BBS, and it is the discarded trash from the local former Atari dealer. It has about 10 regular callers, and most are online to play the silly games. Of the ten regular callers, there are about three that actually call for the Atari information. So, in our little town of 600,000+, there are approximately THREE loyal Atari BBS users, not counting the Sysop.) So anyway, I called the local BBS. For some reason, my password wouldn't work. Couldn't log on. So, I called back, and re-applied, thinking that the log file had crashed or something. Well, when I started reading back through the messages, I found out that I had been permanently deleted. My crime? I had left a message that said that Atari stock was down to about 75 cents a share last Wednesday. I said that anybody that had bought the stock when it was at it's peak of $15 a share had better drop the shares now, before the stock was completely worthless. This statement apparently caused a rip in the fabric of the known time-space continuum. The SYSOP of this BBS, let it be known to everyone (all 9 of them) that this "type of negative messages" would not be tolerated, and essentially, if we didn't have anything nice to say about Atari, it's marketing, it's computers, it's management, it's stock prices,or anything related to Atari, then I had best not say anything at all. Besides, it was his BBS, and we had better play by his rules, or we couldn't play at all, ad nauseam. Hence, I was deleted. I was made an example of. Now, on the BATES MOTEL BBS in El Paso, Texas, only happy thoughts of Atari will be allowed. Only warm fuzzies will be allowed. Only "I Love Atari" bumper-stickers will be allowed. Any thought other than those of the Atari staff and management will not be tolerated. Now there are TWO Atari BBS users in El Paso, Texas. One third less than there were 24 hours ago. Of course, don't SAY that. We'll say that there are a majority of Atari BBS users in El Paso that are presently happy with the services offered in the area. There. That sounds happy, doesn't it? I had a feeling that this type of policy was happening when the Sysop stopped uploading the weekly issue of STReport. Only AEO was allowed. Only the happy thoughts of Atari and it's puppet magazine. Atari is good. End of story. Actually, I don't mind being thrown off BBS's. I have had a history in El Paso of actually making people think about things, and therefore I have a history of being thrown off BBS's. One BBS in town would print out some FCC regulation of how they were going to call the cops if I ever called again. I log on to them every once in a while just to see that message. "Kinda makes me proud". I guess the real problem to me is that this seems to be becoming part of a new trend in the Atari land. Users from around the country are saying that if you don't have anything nice to say about Atari, don't say anything. Can't write a positive upbeat article, don't write. A new political correctness is moving in on the Atari front. ONLY NICE THOUGHTS. EVERYTHING IS ALRIGHT. DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SETS. DO NOT BELIEVE YOUR EYES. WE HAVE EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL. I was told to do this when I called the Atari BBS in Albuquerque, NM. Gently, because Albuquerque is a gentle town, I was informed that my uploads of articles that appear in STReport were not welcomed. Only positive game/software reviews. Please don't beat the dying horse. We want only happy thoughts in Albuquerque. My previous article "Atari is Dead", was considered high heresy, and if I wanted to upload another text file like that, please don't. Is this the new policy of Atari users? All is well? If we don't say anything, then everything will take care of itself? Atari is a vital and vibrant computer company? Have I been out of the loop so long that the Atari community in this country has become a bunch of wimpy pansies? Roll over, we'll take it. Here, let me grab my socks, and you can do what you wish. I guess I missed that meeting at our user group. Okay. I see. And since I still have an Atari, because I can't afford a new Macintosh, I will follow along with this new guideline. 75 cents a share is good. $15 a share was bad. Promising the Falcon in a timely fashion and delivering 18 or 19 months late is good. Market share so minute that any future history of the personal computer books will have Atari as a footnote is good. Atari users leaving in droves for other markets is good, because they always say "My Atari was easier to use." Claiming "major developers are working on our product, when in fact, there is NO ONE in this country working for a major software house working on Atari, is good. Remember, if it isn't good news, then you shouldn't say it. So everything about Atari is good. I feel better knowing that we are in capable hands. The SYSOP who threw me off his BBS said that if we didn't like Atari, we should buy other computers. That is like saying if your car breaks down in the middle of the desert, don't get mad at the car, you should be mad at yourself, because you didn't buy a different car. (I didn't have the nerve to tell him that that IS exactly what has been happening. Everyone IS buying new computers. Ooops, I shouldn't have said that. That is BAD news. Remember, only happy thoughts.) So, remember boys and girls, next time you call your local Atari BBS, if you have one, only say happy thoughts, only ask happy upbeat questions, and remember, those that are better than you will ever be, are right at this minute doing good things for you. Because they care. That computer in front of you will easily get you what you paid for it, if you ever want to sell it. But of course, you would never do that, would you? Remember, that old WordPerfect 4.1 is JUST AS GOOD as any version for any other computer. Remember, there are lot's of software titles available for the Atari. Over 5000! I read that somewhere. Hmm. And remember what P.T. Barnum said: There's a sucker born every minute. ____________________________________________________________ > 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. *********************************************************************** :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! 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GEnie Information copyright (C) 1991 by General Electric Information Services/GEnie, reprinted by permission *********************************************************************** > GOOD IDEAS! STR FOCUS! Concerned Developer speaks up! """""""""""""""""""""" GREAT IDEAS WHOSE TIME HAS COME! ================================ by Robert Dytmire Well, after being around the Atari world since late 1985 and a serious shareware programmer for about 1 1/2 years now I thought I'd write your online magazine and express a few opinions. From what information I can gleam Atari Corp is in serious trouble. The company's shares have hit the penny-stock range, this means investors have little or no faith in the company's future performance. I share this pessimism yet I also think that Atari could still, at this late stage in the game, turn things around. Here's my recipe for a company fix and some suggestions for all loyal Atari users if the company fails to pull through. Well, here goes, take all this with a grain of salt and remember, this is just MY opinion: Step 1: Fire the Tramiels. Quit making useless middle management changes which don't fix the basic problem. The company CEO should resign and if I had a large portion of Atari stock I would be making loud noises in this direction long age. Step 2:Draw up a new business plan for purposes of issuing new stock to gain the necessary cash to implement the plan (I estimate 100 million dollars MINIMUM will be necessary to re-vitalize Atari). The Plan: * Introduce massive support for the TT line. Upgrade the CPU and MHZ speed, get rid of ST compatibility and PUSH this awesome machine! Train a sales force to use the things (I've met many a sales person who could not demonstrate Calamus on a TT, thus losing some sweet sales). C'mon, the machine could almost sell itself if shown by a competent salesman. The darn machine out-preforms a Mac Quadra in desktop publishing (I've SEEN it folks!) and costs about 300% less. Atari needs to designate this machine as their official high-end platform/business machine and SUPPORT IT (see below). * Re-Design (with third party developers?) the Falcon. It is obviously under-powered and too closed a system for today's applications. It shouldn't take too long to get one into a standard IBM case (that's right, IBM cases would add compatibility AND do away with having to manufacture their own cases, a great money/time saver). The Falcon should stay a 68030 but should be processor upgradable to a 68040 and maybe even the 68050, look at newer 486 designs with pentium slots. Now take the bus system and make it 64 bit with 16 direct bus I/O slots. Put video, sound, DSP etc, in these slots. Yes, this would basically make the Falcon a Motorola 486, but in my opinion Atari needs this type of platform to succeed. It would be VERY flexible and could be outfitted with lots of STANDARD STANDARD STANDARD features including power supplies, fans, etc in order to cut production costs. RAM should be SIMM with a max of 4 gigabytes (1 GB chips are due out in about 3 years, prototypes are already working!). I know that this calls for a complete re-design of the machine but it's the only way to go. Oh yes, as a last note the Falcon should run no slower than 50Mhz and SHOULD have a co-processed video system (and an IMPROVED blitter, maybe even a scaler/vector chipset as an add-on). Base machines (4/80 meg) WITH a VGA monitor should retail no higher than $900 (this is what as similar 386-50 machine sells for now). * This next one is a BIG one, Atari MUST pay microsoft, Word Perfect, Borland, Lotus, Sierra on Line, etc whatever it takes to get their products on the new machines. Atari would do well to pay microsoft a cool million or two for Word, works, and a CD interface for the Falcon. With Microsoft's support, the Falcon is guaranteed 100% more sales. With all the above companies supporting it the Falcon (Falcon II?) would have about 500% more sales. Third party developers MUST be supported with FREE development systems (Other big companies do this, Microsoft recently gave away their complete windows NT development system for the $125 cover fee to one of their computer shows...which included lots of lectures, etc). Atari should be completely open about development, including a annual meeting between the OS developers/engineers and third party developers. * Atari should develop a better relationship with it's dealers. The infamous LYNX rip-off (which got Atari thrown out and blackballed from several major chains including:Toys are Us and Kay-Bee toys...I checked these facts out with the store managers...Atari screwed themselves with poor business practices). Atari should NEVER NEVER NEVER undersell it's distributors. Most business people learn this very quickly in the business world, somehow the Tramiels have forgotten it. Atari needs to purge the CEO/top level people and then sign Iron clad deals with some major chains to carry the Falcon II. If this is not possible, Atari should aggressively pursue VAR dealers, even offering free set-up hardware to small time dealers to get them started. Remember folks at Atari, you are going to have to SELL your products because right now because nobody really wants much to do with your company. * Change the company name. Yep, that's right, get rid of the ATARI name. Why? Just ask a typical home user about Atari and you get "Didn't they make that 2600 game machine?". Atari has an image problem and this step would go a long way towards fixing it. Name it something simple and get on with business. * Sell the 520STE's for $100 a pop and MARKET these suckers. Make it the nintendo beater. Only a full-blown STE home computer is going to compete with today's game machines and they've GOT to be priced at Sega/Nintendo's level. Parents will buy the STE just for the word-processing/education features if they know their kids will love the games AND it's only $10-20 more for the computer. Even if it's only a break-even deal Atari will generate millions in software sales. Why STE? Because only the STE has the graphics/Sound to compete on a store shelf with the game machines. Atari should FORGET the bad idea of competing with the SEGA/Nintendo console market (at least for a couple of years) because Atari does NOT have the ability to penetrate the market with it's own, new, console system (and will busy enough with their computer systems). * Clearly define the roll of each Atari machine. Here's my suggestions: TT: Powerhouse Business machine. Continued high-end product add-ons upgrades. Lots of networking software/hardware. MINT/MultiTOS standard (in ROM). Well trained sales force, great technical support, and a Mac-beating price. Don't try to compete with the IBM machines with this one, just make it attractive for businesses. FALCON II: Upper end home user/studio computer. Should have standard BUS/ Expansion card layout. Portable version should be produced. MINT/MultiTos should be optional but it SHOULD be ROM installable. This machine should compete with the 486/586 market by offering a widely expandable machine at VERY low prices. Should include a 386 emulator standard. 520/1040STE: Keep as is. Compete in the Console market with these systems. They are not powerful/expandable enough to compete with the IBM series computers anymore but they ARE awesome competition to the game machines if they are bundled with LOTS of GOOD software at Console prices. This should start out as a break-even deal with Atari, letting increased software sales and users upgrading to the other systems make up for any lost profits. All other machines: Get rid of them NOW. DO NOT support the mega platforms (they will be replaced by Falcon II's), the Stacy was a flop, and Atari does not have the marketing power for either a hand-held or notebook computer system. Plan for a MUCH better color hand-held console system later. * Future plans: Atari should penetrate the markets hard and fast with the Falcon II (This is the name for the re-designed Falcon) and $99.95 520STE. There could be all kinds of Falcon upgrades (if the system were more open) such as a multiprocessor add-on or Virtual Reality OS systems. Atari should keep in mind that there are 80 million (approx) IBM users and 100000 (Approx) Atari users. Make all machines as IBM compatible as price structure allows. The Falcon II should have at least a 386-50 or better hard-wired into the machine. These are only SOME suggestions I have. Atari cannot continue it's present course and survive. Atari can once again become a power in the computer industry if they ACT. The IBM clone companies are at each other's throats right now and won't have the resources to crush Atari for the next 3-4 years. Big Blue is suffering HUGE losses and all computer manufacturing companies are behind on orders/production in a time when demand is not the best its been. A hot, compatible, CHEAP computer system could set the industry on it's ears again. IBM's suck wind for all the loud cries of applause. They are popular because the general public knows no better. DOS is a drag, Windows is the WORST OS I've ever had the mis-fortune to use..that INCLUDES DOS. I don't know how many hours were lost in productivity across the nation because of that shabby software but you can rest assured it was a LOT. Atari needs a great mid-range powerhouse and the Falcon COULD be it. What if Atari does the big Belly-Up, as I predict it will? Is that the end? NO! Not if we loyal Atari users band together RIGHT NOW and pool our resources to buy the company outright. That's right! I propose that we get together and prepare to take-over the ruins of Atari Corp if the possibility opens itself. If you agree with the above policies and think you'd like to invest contact me at the address at the end of this article. We could make computer industry history by being the 1st users to buy the parent company out. It would only take a few dollars per user to do it (If the company goes into bankruptcy you might be able to buy it out for pennies on the dollar and that adds up to about $10-$20 per active user in the U.S, a shareware donation that hurts no-one and could protect that $400-$3000 dollar investment sitting on your desk!). I myself would love to see Atari succeed, but I won't turn a blind eye to what's going on over there and you shouldn't either. Atari corp has ruined it's creditability and credit with bad management, not bad hardware. To any Atari Corp people out there reading this: Make sure your management reads this. If you feel like talking, Bill Rehbock knows my number even if he doesn't seem to remember it. I'd like you to know that I don't approve of everything STReport does. Why continue this stupid feud guys? Quit it with the old quotes designed to make Atari look bad, we all know they lie quite a bit. The stock report is nice, but don't ride it into the ground. Also, selling IBM hardware in your "Atari" newsletter seems to destroy a lot of your creditability. How can someone not think that a lot of this bad news has been exaggerated or even manufactured when your pushing the IBM stuff (or at least reporting on it in an environment that does not rate it). I get ST report for the ST parts, not IBM or Amiga stuff. If I wanted that I'd download the relative newsletters. Of course, to be fair ST Report does an good overall job of reporting. They get some juicy inside stuff, great first-hand reports (the piracy article blew my socks off!), and tend tell their stories no-holds barred. If it weren't for the IBM/Amiga stuff in this newsletter then I'd rate it the best in the Atari World. These guys work hard to provide a great product and hope they continue for years to come. Oh yes, Hello LLoyd (Remember the PHAST days?) and Ralph (Hope to see you again at Asheville this year!). Well, feel free to contact me and I'll be happy to reply to any inquiries to my comments in this article. Contact point: Robert Dytmire 633 Pony Farm Rd. Jacksonville, NC 28540 Volunteers/suggestions for this proposal would be very much appreciated. ________________________________________________________ > MIDI SPY ANNOUNCED! STR InfoFile MIDI SPY & Roland Sound Canvas """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" For immediate release CodeHeadQuarters Friday, May 14, 1993 -------------------- ................................................. : : : CodeHead Software announces MIDI Spy... : : : : ...FOR THE LAST TIME! : : : : Multitasking MIDI Playback & Recording : : System for Atari Computers : : : : PLUS.... : : : : Special offers on Roland Sound Canvas : : MIDI sound generators : : : :...............................................: A Recording Engineer on a Disk!! Years in the Making!! MIDI Spy is finally a reality!! It is a pleasure to announce that MIDI Spy is now shipping. Those of you who've read our previous announcements may wish to skip to the section below on new features. You'll never lose another valuable musical idea because your sequencer wasn't ready to record -- MIDI Spy is always listening. Call it background operation or call it MIDI multi-tasking -- what you've got is freedom and power! MIDI Spy is the recording system you've been waiting for. It's not easy to remember to push that button before you start recording. And there's a stigma attached to the "red light" that tends to inhibit creativity. But with MIDI Spy, you can forget about these things. You don't have to be a recording engineer. You don't have to anticipate your moments of inspiration. And you won't feel the pressure of the red light. In fact, you'll forget MIDI Spy is installed, until you're ready to replay your creations. When you're not recording, you can tell MIDI Spy to play songs in the background while you use your computer for other tasks like word processing, desktop publishing, telecommunications, or file maintenance. Now you don't need to waste time while waiting for an upload or download through your modem...you can be working (playing) with your MIDI equipment! Feature List -------------- o Record or play back MIDI data at any time, whether the MIDI Spy dialog box is open or not. o Load and save songs, sets of songs, or multitrack recordings in all three standard MIDI formats or in MIDI Spy's own format. o Definable "record gap" automatically divides your recordings into individual songs for easy retrieval. o Overdub to create layered recordings, without even touching your computer! o Background operation is not affected by the current foreground task -- MIDI Spy is rock-solid! o Hot keys are always active, so you can control MIDI Spy at any time, whether it's on-screen or not. o MIDI Spy functions can be assigned to MIDI commands to control operations directly from your MIDI keyboard -- without even touching your computer. o Autoload songs and even have MIDI Spy start playing automatically when you boot up. o Song information, including copyright notice, can be entered and saved with your songs. o Timing resolution is equivalent to 100 ticks per quarter note at 120 beats per minute. o Record or load up to 999 songs. o Chain mode provides continuous "juke box" type of playback while you do other computer activities. o Thermometer bar display of memory usage shows memory available and memory used, by the current song as well as the whole set of songs. o Songs can be selected or started by clicking in the memory display. o Tempo can be adjusted from 10% to 300% of the original tempo. o Fine tuned for non-interference with your other programs. o Software selectable THRU option. o Customize your MIDI Spy configuration by saving it directly into MIDI Spy. o Special MIDIMAX mode allows you to actually record your MIDIMAX output. (MIDIMAX is CodeHead's real-time MIDI performance tool featuring chord maps and MIDI macros). o Runs as a program or a desk accessory in all resolutions on all Atari ST, STe, TT, and Falcon machines. o Install MIDI Spy as an application and you can double-click on songs to play them. o 100% assembly language, with the quality you've come to expect from CodeHead Technologies. ------------------------------------ New Features since MIDI Spy 1.1 Demo ------------------------------------ o Record and Playback System Exclusive information -- save your sounds right along with each song! o Auto-merge option automatically combines tracks from a multitrack MIDI file so you can immediately play the entire composition. o MIDI Channelizing allows you to record incoming MIDI data on any channel, or change the channel of existing songs and tracks. Change channels from the dialog box, hot keys, or MIDI commands. o Manually send a General MIDI reset command. o Panic button sends notes off and controller resets to all channels. o Send and receive MIDI Start, Stop, and Continue commands. MIDI Spy comes with an 87-page reference manual in a 3-ring binder. The manual is written for all levels of MIDI expertise, even those who are just starting in MIDI. There are sections describing what MIDI is all about, standard MIDI files, and tutorials on using various aspects of MIDI Spy. Also included are a glossary and an index. -------------------------- Roland Sound Canvas Offers -------------------------- The Roland Sound Canvas is a small, multi-timbral, General MIDI sound module capable of playing entire musical MIDI performances. It includes several drum sets, hundreds of standard MIDI sounds, reverb, chorus, and stereo panning, all in a compact little box. Now you can order MIDI Spy and get a Roland Sound Canvas AND MIDIMAX thrown in as well, all for the price of the Sound Canvas, or even less. Here's what you get: Item Value Item Value ------------------------- --------- ------------------------- -------- Roland Sound Canvas SC-7 $399.00 Roland Sound Canvas SC-55 $825.00 MIDI Spy 79.95 MIDI Spy 79.95 MIDIMAX 49.95 MIDIMAX 49.95 --------- -------- Total $528.90 Total $954.90 ** Your Price ** ** $399.00 ** Your Price ** ** $695.00 Savings!! $129.90 Savings!! $259.90 Shipping is not including in these prices. Other Sound Canvas models including the SC-155 will be available soon. Details will be announced when available. ------------ Availability ------------ MIDI Spy is available now. Suggested retail price is $79.95. For more information, contact your local dealer, or: CodeHead Software PO Box 74090 Los Angeles, CA 90004 Tel (213) 386-5735 Fax (213) 386-5789 BBS (213) 461-2095 Try the free MIDI Spy 1.1 demo for yourself to get a taste of this amazing new concept. Don't let your computer tell YOU when to be creative...with MIDI Spy you're always ready. ___________________________________________________________________ > IAAD UPDATE STR FOCUS! Update and Corrections """""""""""""""""""""" Update and Corrections to The IAAD Report on Software Piracy entitled Small Developers, Big Business How Pirate BBSs Impact on the Entire Atari Community by D.A. Brumleve, President Independent Association of Atari Developers We want to thank the many people who have taken the time to write or call with their support for the IAAD. It is most gratifying to know that so many folks have appreciated our efforts. We have received numerous additional tips and have passed these on to the appropriate agencies. Others have contacted us about errors in our report, and we'd like to address some of those matters in this update. A good starting point would be this statement in the report regarding the Grave Diggers Tomb BBS: 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). As indicated, this information was derived from the following CrossNet Conference Node Listing posted on the lead node: * * * CrossNet Conference Node Listing - as of 10/23/92 at 10:25 PM * * * Conference: "Local Area Private Net" (11469) Generated From "Lead" Node: 469 - > The Outer Region's # 469 < No previous Node List generated by this "lead". 186 - Grave Diggers Tomb 423 - BILINE BBS 469 - > The Outer Region's # 469 < 643 - The Ringworld The sysop of the Grave Diggers Tomb has contacted us concerning an error in this listing. He reports that his BBS is not a participant and that he has asked the sysop of the lead node to remove his BBS from the Node List. The IAAD regrets having perpetuated this error. In his eleventh blue-boxed call to my number in the days following the release of our report, Zaphod Beeblebrox, sysop of the Eagles Nest BBS in Sweden, objected to the inclusion of the following quotation: ~ Rats Nest always had some of the best stuff around... ~ --Zaphod Beeblebrox on Fawlty Towers BBS Zaphod felt that the presentation of his quotation out of context was misleading, and I apologize if anyone was misled. This item was taken from a thread about the Rats Nest entitled: "Rats Nest -- Anyone knows why it's down???" We had contacted the Rats Nest sysop about our findings on his board some time ago, and the BBS was down for over a week following our discussion with him. Rats Nest and Fawlty Towers had many callers in common, so it's not surprising that activities on one board might be discussed on another. Zaphod told me that, when he'd referred to the "best stuff" in that thread, he didn't _mean_ commercial products. I admit I can't read minds any better than the next guy. _I_ thought he was referring to the elite files on the Rats Nest, and so _did_ the next guy in the thread. The Parsec had responded to Zaphod's remark by saying: Message: = ST Elite = #98 of 100 [3 Lines] ||>> // Sent On: April 20, 1993 at 2:21am ||\\ \\ Sent By: The Parsec - Buy a TT! \\// Sent To: Zaphod Beeblebrox - The Last Blueboxer!!! ST Replies: None Subject: Rats Nest - Anyone knows why it's down??? Yeah i called yesterday night and just now....no warez.... I wonder what the sitch is! --The Parsec on Fawlty Towers BBS We didn't print The Parsec's reply in our report. We also didn't print the post by Zaphod which began the thread: Message: = ST Elite = #89 of 100 [11 Lines] ||>> // Sent On: April 18, 1993 at 12:32am ||\\ \\ Sent By: Zaphod Beeblebrox - The Last Blueboxer!!! \\// Sent To: The Piper - SysOp of Fawlty Towers! ST Replies: 1 Subject: Rats Nest - Anyone knows why it's down??? Hey Piper, have you got any idea why Rats Nest is down??? I heard some story about that somebody tried to nail [sysop's name] for having pirated files on the board, but that is all I got to hear, the next day Rats Nest didn't answer anymore. If you do know anything about this, please let me know, as I am getting a bit worried about what is happening to [sysop's name]. And if they have busted his board, then we should all be a great deal more carefull [sic]...... I do hope that he is not busted, but rather took the board down for a while just to be on the safe side... Greetz, Zaphod Beeblebrox of ICS and Control Team. Eagles Nest BBS +46-18-XXXXXX - 285 Mb/14400 HST Dual - 24 Hours. --Zaphod Beeblebrox on Fawlty Towers BBS And we didn't print a suggestion for the Rats Nest offered by The Wonderer: Message: = ST Elite = #94 of 100 [12 Lines] ||>> // Sent On: April 19, 1993 at 11:10am ||\\ \\ Sent By: The Wonderer - who else did you expect \\// Sent To: The Parsec - Buy a TT! ST Replies: None Subject: Rats Nest - Anyone knows why it's down??? ...[reprint of previous post omitted for brevity] He could take down all the files instead of going down if that were the problem. I think it may be a little more serious than that maybe. --The Wonderer on Fawlty Towers BBS Given the context of the thread in which Zaphod's "best stuff" remark occurred, I hope Zaphod will understand why we interpreted the comment as we did. For the record, Zaphod would like it to be known that he most definitely did not mean commercial software. It's only fair that we present his side more comprehensively here. I hope his intent is clear to everyone now. It's not quite a correction, as our report does not say otherwise, but Zaphod would like it to be known that he uses a genuine hardware bluebox. He has authored a piece of software which allows users to simulate phone tones with their computers, but he doesn't use this software himself. It was from the documentation for Zaphod's Multi-Frequency Dialer, in fact, that we got the misguided impression that The Shire BBS was in Chile. Zaphod had given a Chilean exchange for that board. We found a citation on a BBS for the Shire with a location in NY, so we called it. When an elderly woman answered, we assumed that Zaphod had known what he was talking about when he'd given the Chilean exchange. PAK, sysop of STampede, has told us that the Shire _was_ in NY but has been down for a year. I hope this clears that one up. The following sentence in our report brought considerable criticism: 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. PAK objected that the Pompey Pirates cracking ring dropped the ST six months ago and that it is/was not headquartered on the Paris BBS in NYC. We stand corrected: The Paris BBS is headquarters of the SNEAKERS "spy" ring. A mixup occurred here, and we had to do some back-tracking to discover the source of our error. Please bear with me as I retrace these steps below: The Pompey Pirates cracking ring was advertised as headquarted on the Anti-Gravity II BBS on December 11 1992, as follows: 1 ~~~ CALL TODAY!! MENTION THIS AD FOR QUICK VALIDATION!! ~~~ 3 2 ________ _ __ _______ _____ 0 2 / ____ /\/ \ / /\/__ __/\/_ _/\ 0 2 / /___/ / / \ / / /\_/ /\_\/\/ /\\/ ____ 0 2 / ____ / / /\ \/ / / / / / _/ /_/ /___/\ 0 2 /_/\__/_/ /__/ /\ _/ / /_/ / /____/\ \___\/ 0 2 \_\/ \_\/\__\/ \_\/ \_\/ \____\/ 0 1 + ANTI-GRAVITY II BBS + 3 408-XXX-XXXX 2 + ATARI ST- PC ELITE + 0 408-XXX-XXXX 2 ______ ______ _____ __ __ 0 2 / ____/\______ / __ /\__ __/\_ _\ _______/\ \/ /\ 0 2 / /___ \/\ __ \ / /_/ / /\ \ /\_\//\ \/ /__ __/\ \ \/ / 0 2 / /_/ /\ \ \ \/ / / __ / /\ \ \/ / / \_\ \_\_/ /\_\/\_\ / 0 2 /_____/ / \ \ \_/_/\/_/ / \ \/ / / /\____\/ / / /_/ / 0 2 \_____\/ \ \_\__\_\/\_\/ \__/ / \/____/_/ / \_\/ 0 2 \/_/__/ \_\/ \_\/ 0 Pompey 1 380 MEGS ONLINE - 14,400 BAUD HST! 3 Pompey Pirates 2 SysOp: GRAVITAR Co-SysOp: SPARKY 0 Pirates The West Coast Connection 2 If you never call, you'll never know what you're missing.... 0 --Sparky on F-Net, The Tavern Elite Conference According to the following post, our report associated the cracker Alien correctly with the Pompey Pirates cracking ring, but wrongly with the Paris BBS: Conf : Pompay [sic] Pirates Msg# : 27/37 Lines: 7 Read: 9 Sent : Jan 17, 1993 at 6:39 PM To : All From : Genie Pompey Pirates at Fnet Node 622, The GOLD NUGGET BBS Subj : What's new As of the end of January the Pompey Pirates should be cracking games on the ST again. We had a short break (forced on to [sic] us), but can now continue - original suppies [sic] permitting. I am sure you all are aware that the Alien has been keeping the St scene going single handedly for quite some time now, but you may see someone elses [sic] name on the Pompey St cracks from now on. Well that about covers it, if you have any questions etc. you can always get hold of me or Sparky on this board. --Genie Pompey Pirates on the F-Net, Pompey Pirates Conference Dogs, the self-described sysop of the Paris BBS, has taken issue with several items in our report: Conf : ST Report Msg# : 11526/11526 Lines: Extended Read: 2 Sent : May 02, 1993 at 1:24 AM To : Thomas Kolakowski From : Dogs at Fnet Node 669, Dateline: Atari Subj : Re: <11515> IAAD PIRACY REPORT ...[reprint of previous post omitted for brevity] Very true..there is only ONE PaRiS BBS...it went up just two months ago...and it is certainly NOT pirate. They accuse us (I am the SysOp) of being a Pompey Pirates United States support bulletin board. I researched this. The Pompey pirates were a minor cracking group that went out of business in 1989. Hmmm....there's one discrepency. No. 2: Nobody from the IAAD ever logged onto the board. That's odd. No 3: There is a quote of our board saying "You have answered a security validation question incorrectly". Even if you omit every question on the new user questionare, never does it say the quote accused by the IAAD. No 4: They list a listing of known pirate users. Well, they accuse PaRiS of being pirate. Why the hell didn't they include my handle on the list of know [sic] pirates then huh? THis is quite odd. I don't buy it for a second. --Dogs on the F-Net, ST Report Conference Dogs certainly has a lot of questions, and I'll do what I can to address them here: (1) The first item, our report's erroneous association of his board with the Pompey Pirates cracking ring, has already been discussed above and will be discussed further below. (2) Dogs is mistaken when he asserts that no one from the IAAD has visited his BBS. (3) The quotation from his BBS in our report was not taken from his new user questionnaire. (4) Our listing of aliases used on pirate boards is not intended to be comprehensive, but merely representative. The mixup regarding the affiliation of the Paris BBS with the wrong ring occurred when Dogs happened to post the following announcement in the Pompey Pirates F-Net Conference; in our notes, the conference and the cracking ring by the same name became confused. Since Dogs asserts that there is only one Paris BBS in his post above, it would appear that he is referring to that very same BBS in the message below. We'll present it here in its entirety: Conf : Pompay [sic] Pirates Msg# : 34/37 Lines: Extended Read: 8 Sent : Mar 13, 1993 at 11:47 PM To : All From : Dogs at Fnet Node 489, STeal Your Face BBS 1:107/489 Subj : New ST/PC/Sneakers/Lynx BBS! Not yer avg board!!! A brand new BBS just opened on March 1st 1993...it's called the PARIS BBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 Conveniently located in the heart of NYC, Paris really promises to be something special, not your average BBS! And guess what!? It supports ATARI!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, a new BBS in NYC that supports ATARI and IBM! All models from ST to Falcon! Call today! It really is going to be great. That's what all the Beta testers say. PARIS......The city of the rich, the city of the elegant, the beautiful, and the ELITE........and YOU! Call Today! PARIS BBS! Atari support! 212-XXX-XXXX!!!! 212-XXX-XXXX!!! (Strictly PD/Shareware) (yeah right...ELITENESS!) Great msg bases too! Paris is also the official HQ and distributor of SNEAKERS and their products. Call for details! Tell them you saw this ad on STeal Your Face for extra access! >By the way...PARIS supports Lynx too! Download the file in the ST and PC Text file areas entitled "PaRiS_Ad.TXT" for further info!! BTW - For those that don't know, SNEAKERS is a nationally acclaimed organization that does all kinds of break ins [sic] and spy operations and distributes various materials like Magic Dollars and other phreaking materials. PaRiS is the official HQ and exclusive distributor of their products! Call for details. (PS The movie was named after the group, not vice versa) BTW 2 - As of this writing, PaRiS is just starting to work out plans to join Phi-Net, a network of elite boardz all across the country! --Dogs on the F-Net, Pompey Pirates Conference The IAAD regrets the error. The Canadian Clockwork Orange has objected that I spelled his name with a small "w". Please note the spelling of his name in the header of the message which lodges this complaint: Message: = ELITE TALK = #385 of 4oo [51 Lines] ||>> // Sent On: April 26, 1993 at 4:44am ||\\ \\ Sent By: Clockwork Orange \\// Sent To: All ST Replies: 1 Subject: Pirates ...[main text of post omitted for brevity] ClockWork Orange/ICS <- the 'W' is capitalised!!! --Clockwork Orange on STampede BBS Many folks have asked about the fate of the BBSs featured in our report. Some of these boards no longer answer. Two are reported to have gone strictly public domain. Some elite conferences are now local-only. Some sysops feel confident that they've eliminated the "snitch", while others don't trust any of their callers. Some BBSs are changing their names and numbers. Some have adopted strategies which limit their callers to the most trusted or most prolific uploaders. For many, the full impact of the report and the investigation has yet to be realized. One result is clear: These BBSs are no longer constantly busy. Individual reactions from pirates have varied just as much. Our mail has ranged from true confessions to macho threats to elaborate excuses to flat denials. Some have curtailed or ceased their piracy activity. Others have changed their aliases or passwords. Some callers have asked sysops to delete their accounts. Some have announced plans to move on to other platforms. There is an encouraging rumor of a boycott of IAAD members' warez. Our list of aliases which are used by callers on pirate boards has raised the most hackles. It is certainly true that there are some duplicate or near-duplicate aliases out there. We know, for example, that there are at least two Zaphod Beeblebroxes in the ST modeming world. While we found Zaphod Beeblebrox of Sweden on nearly every board we called, we never found the Zaphod Beeblebrox of the United States on any pirate board's user list. Our example aliases were drawn from user lists on pirate-only BBSs and from elite message bases. Please note that the same alias isn't used twice on the same board; BBS software won't allow a new user to sign on with an existing caller's alias. An example of a complaint of this kind is provided by NorStar, sysop of PayBax BBS: Conf : Atari 16/32 bit Conference Msg# : 18963/18963 Lines: 13 Read: 2 Sent : Apr 29, 1993 at 8:44 PM To : Roadkill From : NorStar at Fnet Node 307, PayBax BBS node 307 Subj : Re: <18959> Piracy/Dorothy [sic] Brumleve ...[reprint of previous post omitted for brevity] She also mentioned "Norstar" in her pirate list. I've gone by the handle "NorStar" for over five years, and if she's accusing ME of being a pirate I'd certainly like a word with her!! And she listed my BBS because I have an X-rated file area (that she calls "pornography"!). My two year old has always found her programs to be mundane and lacking in depth, and so that is how I take her accusations. --NorStar on the F-Net, Atari 16/32 bit Conference NorStar's BBS was indeed listed in our report, but _not_ because of its X-rated file area. As the report clearly indicates, PayBax was listed solely because of its participation in the Upper Echelon F-Net Conference. In fact, it was from posts in this conference, like the one below, that we lifted NorStar's handle for our alias list: Conf : Upper Echelon Msg# : 315/315 Lines: 8 Read: 6 Sent : Apr 14, 1993 at 5:06 PM To : Strike Eagle From : NorStar at Fnet Node 307, PayBax BBS node 307 Subj : Re: <313> falcon ya-right In reply to: > I have seen the Atari Works program working on the > Falcon and I had some time with it ..... I would like > to have more thime to check it out.... > It look [sic] fairily decent. Why don't you try it out? It's here for D/L at PayBax BBS, as well as many other FINE BBS's! --NorStar on the F-Net, Upper Echelon Conference Not all pirate BBS users found our report mundane and lacking in depth. The Shamus praised our report on STampede, saying: "Well ... the guy who wrote this is very familiar and intimate with the ST scene!" In fact, the very severity of the reaction from the pirates' side is strong testimony to the accuracy of our report. Zaphod Beeblebrox (the one in Sweden) has said that he and his pirate friends are preparing a textphile to counter the misinformation in the IAAD's report. That would be a refreshing change from the retaliatory tactics attempted so far. Some pirates have been discussing harrassment strategies openly in their message threads. Shortly after the release of our report, a young man impersonating a telephone operator attempted to convince me to give him my calling card number! When this failed, he called back and warned me not to mess with pirates. One particularly clumsy form of harrassment has had pirates logging on to BBSs as _me_ and attempting to impersonate me in their posts. Zaphod posted our entire report in a series of messages on the Elite Underground F-Net Conference. He followed it with this message: Conf : Elite Underground Msg# : 1823/1843 Lines: 7 Read: 15 Sent : Apr 26, 1993 at 9:13 AM To : ALL From : Zaphod Beeblebrox at Fnet Node 469, >>The Outer Region # 469<< Subj : Nuke the IAAD!!! If you've read the last seven letters from me I guess you'd came [sic] to the same conclusion as I have: We must do something about the IAAD before they do something about us. So, what about it dudes, it's our favourite boards they're out to get...... Greetz, Zaphod Beeblebrox of ICS and Control Team. Eagles Nest BBS +46-18-XXXXXX - 285 Mb/14400 HST Dual - 24 Hours. --Zaphod Beeblebrox on the F-Net, Elite Underground Conference Believing that their aliases provide them anonymity, some have posted self-incriminating messages in an attempt to harrass us. I think Belgarion's post is one of the few which can be reproduced here: ___ / /| / / | /_ < | WHY USE A AK 47 ? [sic] | | \ | TOO EXPENSIVE ! | | \| | | | I PREFER A GUILLOTINE !! | | //| | |/O/| COME ON GUYS,I'LL CUT YOUR HEAR ! [sic] |_|// |___________________________ /| | / /| / | | / // <__| |/___________________________// |__| |___________________________|/I I = I I I I I I I I I I I --Belgarion on STampede Our report was not intended to perpetuate falsehoods nor to cast innocent parties in an unfavorable light. It was and is intended to demonstrate to the Atari community the devastating impact of pirate activity. I hope this sets the record straight. I sincerely would not want to give anyone the wrong impression about these people. D.A. Brumleve President, IAAD --------------------- Copyright 1993 by D.A. Brumleve The author reserves all rights regarding this document, with the following exceptions: The distribution of this document is understandably tied to the distribution of the original file which it updates and corrects. The author hereby grants permission to place this file on any BBS where the original report can be found. Likewise, online magazines and other media have the same permission regarding the reprinting of this file as was granted in their use of the original report. ________________________________________________________________ > 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 ___________________________________________________________________ > GemView NEWS STR InfoFile North American Distributor Announced """"""""""""""""""""""""" PRESS RELEASE N E W D I S T R I B U T O R F O R .______. ._____. .__ __. ._. __.._. ._____. ._. __ / ._____! | .___! | \ / | | | / / | | | .___! | | ._. / / | | .__. | !__. | . \/ . | ._. | | / / | | | !__. | | / | / / | | !_ | | .__! | |\ /| | !_! | | / / | | | .__! | | / ! | / / | !___! | | !___. | | \/ | | | |/ / | ! | !___. | |/ /| |/ / \.___/!_! !_____! !_! !_! !___/ !_! !_____! !___/ !___/ Cybercube Research Limited, Canada has acquired the exclusive rights to distribute Dieter Fiebelkorn's GEM-View in North America. Effective immediately, Cybercube Research Ltd. will solely handle all customer support, registration, upgrade and marketing related issues. The existing versions of GEM-View will remain SHAREWARE while the new versions will only be available as a COMMERCIAL product. For more information about our extensive upgrade policy, a full list of the new and extended features, the next release or pricing simply refer to our upcoming GEM-View press releases. If you have any additional questions, please send your e-mail to CYBERCUBE or contact us at: Cybercube Research Limited 126 Grenadier Crescent Thornhill, Ontario, Canada, L4J 7V7 Tel. (416) 882 0294 Fax (416) 886 3261 BBS (416) 882 5895 We would like to thank all GEM-View users for their continued support and look forward to a exciting and new co-operation. __________________________________________________________ > STReport CONFIDENTIAL "Rumors Tidbits Predictions Observations Tips" """"""""""""""""""""" - Sunnyvale, CA TOTAL FALCONS 1ST USA ORDER 600? ------------- For all intents and purposes, one can consider this order as a "testing of the water" type order. This was stated to our roving reporter after he asked about the quantities of Falcons ordered for sale in North America. Apparently, the first 150 pieces came in already via Air Freight and the remaining 450 are coming via Seatainer on a boat. Also, its been stated the boat has already left the Orient. This is true it just left. - Fresno, CA THE BIG FISH EATING THE BIG FISH! ---------- Our "Super Snooper"... has come across a rather interesting story. It seems a pair of prominent developers in North America are legally squaring away toward each other over who has the "right of way". Only there's a real big catch to this one... It appears there are a couple of "flies in the ointment". Enter third parties "taking sides etc.. deleting posts promoting the products of one developer whilst leaving those of the other, developer.. This one's going all the way to the top of the "heap". Here's hoping there's a "clear view" on the horizon for all. And an end to the secretive, games playing duo. - Chicago, Il. DEVELOPERS ADOPT MULTI-DIRECTION! ----------- According to our roving reporters, many developers have adopted an attitude of; "whichever happens we'll support our customers and new users with full downwardly compatible software". When asked what does this mean? Our reporter was told that software is being developed so that present users may enjoy the benefits derived from the new programming. Additionally, our reporter was told "there are far more older STs in use than the Falcon and TT and as long as there are users out there... we'll support them. When asked about the Falcon and its possible successors, the reply was simple, we're ready for it too, if it ever happens big. ______________________________________________________________ > STR Mail Call "...a place for the readers to be heard" """"""""""""" STReport's MailBag """""""""""""""""" Messages * NOT EDITED * for content ----------------------------------- From CIS Atari areas.. #: 85699 S17/Community Square 12-May-93 04:30:54 Sb: #85576-More RAM 4 Mega? Fm: LEXICOR Software 75300,763 To: Boris Molodyi 70322,624 Boris, One interesting point I haven't seen mentioned about extending the life of Atari...supposing it failed last week, it that most systems will run for years before they die. I still have a running sinclair?? I would expect that most users would be sadden by the news and many might just go get something new, no doubt as a reaction to their trounced hopes of a new ATARI. In the main I would expect there to be a substantial "ADAM" effect. the ADAM syndrome could extend ATARI related sales for several years. With this in mind we are just now finishing a gear up to begin selling many new and useful Atari related things to speed em' up, add colors and resolution for many times the cost of even an inexpensive priced TT or minimal Falcon. This at first will be for those who can not afford a new machine and later for the more expensive system users who want to really increase their system graphics horsepower. Lee from Delphi's Atari Areas.. 54752 12-MAY 09:52 News & Reviews RE: Unbelievable.... (Re: Msg 54739) From: OCS To: CMILLAR > Of course, if STR plays clean, and > reports with integrity then there is no use for anyone to be > watching... You mean: if STR prints what _you_ want to read there is no use for _you_ to be watching. Others would then complain, of course, about the new style of reporting. Let's face it: every publication (be it STR or the NY Times) addresses a certain group of customers, and it is completely impossible to make a publication that pleases everyone. It is your opinion that STR's way of reporting is not acceptable, and it is your right to state so here. I am sure there are several others who don't agree with you. But neither you nor them have the ultimate right to decide which way is the best to report. Like someone said: Don't download it (like you probably wouldn't waste your money on The NY Times if you didn't like their style) and understand that the vast majority of Atarians in old enough to understand what they are reading and to make their own decisions. Oliver 4760 12-MAY 20:53 General Information Duesseldorf Show From: OCS To: BOBBRO (NR) Bob, I just read a transcript of your weekly conference on May 7, 1993 over on GEnie. The following is a portion of it: "<[Yat@Lexicor] Y.SIU> Thanks, 1st. After CeBIT there has been the rumour that Atari will cancel the annual Duesseldorf Show...if that is true, why considering that this is one of the most important Atari shows in Europe and will cause great resentment. I understand that the Duesseldorf Show has been cancelled. The rationale was that rather than do an Atari only show, the management was looking to participate in a much larger multi platform show in Berlin." What "much larger multi platform show in Berlin" were you talking about? Oliver From the FNET Conf : Lexicor Msg# : 1423/1423 Lines: 11 Read: 1 Sent : May 12, 1993 at 10:48 PM To : Jon Brenda From : Gene Mosher at Fnet Node 690, ///---PASTE BBS---/// Subj : Re: <1409> Bad news dept. Previously Jon Brenda wrote: > Previously Barry wrote: > > Believe it or not, I brought my Chronos software to test on the > Falcon, along with my hardware key. Unfortunately, nobody brought a 9 p > to 25 pin serial adaptor so that we could try it out on the Falcon. Ooo > I may get a second shot at it shortly however. The Falcon's serial port is screwed up anyway. You'll need a fix for it before it will work right. Atari has this fix, but it isn't included in the dealer Falcons. from the FNET Conf : Idle Chatter Msg# : 180/180 Lines: Extended Read: 1 Sent : May 13, 1993 at 2:29 PM To : RALPH From : NorStar at Fnet Node 307, PayBax BBS node 307 Subj : Changing platforms I wonder if it's about time to start to listen to the seductive voices of alternative platforms? With Atari in what seems to be the December of its life, with the going prices of used ST equipment falling daily, and with D.A. Brumleve resurrecting McCarthyism within the already meager and ever-so-fragile userbase, the move to an alternate platform seems more and more to but a step rather than a leap. In the years to come - perhaps even the months - there may be much talk of the reasons for the demise of Atari. Unfortunately, there will be those who equate the death knell with "piracy" - the rampant exchange of copyrighted Atari software with no monetary recompense to the authors. Let us now look at the environment within which we find ourselves... Atari is alienating its dealers and its users by practices which portray a total disregard for them. That a recent furor has appeared dealing with piracy within the Atari community should serve to future speculation as nothing but a coincidence. I will not accept the reasoning that the disregard for copyright on Atari software brought about the downfall of the platform as a whole. The Atari machines were ahead of their times. Those times, however, caught up to them and now are passing them by. To many it seems so close, so simple for Atari to reclaim what once was, to establish itself once more as a viable "third alternative" in the computer marketplace (and I can remember when we once deluded ourselves with the belief that we might one day be a SECONDARY force just behind IBM... laughable now at best). So the winds of change seem to be calling to the many once exclusive Atari users. Many are held merely because of their financial investment in their machines, a reason that becomes more and more diluted as the price of other platforms plummet. Soon that threshold of future cost vs. past investment will not be a chasm but a mere stretch, then perhaps a small step. I will not give up my ST, even when I progress beyond it. I have not given up my 8-bit - the 800XL and 130XE that sits defiantly on an unused desk in an unused room. So, too, might my ST find its place among these relics. Useful - yes. But used? No. From the FNET Conf : Atari Technical Msg# : 12029/12029 Lines: 20 Read: 1 Sent : May 13, 1993 at 7:31 AM To : All From : Gene Mosher at Fnet Node 690, ///---PASTE BBS---/// Subj : Ho Boy.. According to Bob Brodie, Atari is gearing up to make TT's again. Well, the first time around Atari also made TT monitors. Now, I doubt that Atari will be making TT monitors again, so until somebody can confirm that my assumption is wrong, here goes.. You must buy your own monitor for a TT, and you need to be SURE that you have outstanding controls on the front of the monitor for both horizontal centering and horizontal sizing, especially sizing. And, if you are planning on using your TT monitor on a Falcon, well, DON'T. The TT monitor has special circuitry to deal with the TT's video out, which is not a standard VGA or SVGA out. The Falcon's VGA out follows the standard properly. The TT Monitor is an oddball, and so is the TT's video signal. The two cancel each other's oddities out, and neither works properly without the other. If you get one of the new TT's, be SURE that you test the monitor you intend to go with it before you buy, to determine that you have the extraordinary horizontal and vertical sizing controls to compensate for the TT's VGA signal. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" STReport's "EDITORIAL CARTOON" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""" > A "Quotable Quote" "ANOTHER CANDIDATE FOR THE RUBBER ROOM!" """"""""""""""""" "TIS TRULY AN UGLY SIGHT TO SEE..... THE MISERABLE LITTLE TROLL STANDING UPWIND... DELIBERATELY NOT IN THE WIND'S LEE.... STIRRING THE CESSPOOL TO BREAK THE CRUST... THUS SENDING THE AROMA TO THOSE FOR WHOM BREATHING IS A MUST!" ... Napoleon Blowhard """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" > 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" May 20, 1993 Since 1987 copyright (c) 1987-92 All Rights Reserved No.9.20 """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 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. STR, STReport and/or portions therein may not be edited in any way without prior written permission. STR, STReport, at the time of publication, is believed reasonably accurate. 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