I want a RAM Card for my 600 XL (from 16K to 64K). Do you know a
good branch, and where I can buy one, which is not THAT expensive? Plese
E-mail me, since I do not read my mail more often that my NEWS... (I mean,
I cannot spend all afternoon catching up on my news. I don't have time)

                Thanks

                        Me
                        --

                    /----------------------\
                   !  ihnp4!dicome!ndsuvax  !
                    \----------------------/

-------

.

I'm going to be upgrading my 800XL to 256K this month, but am
undecided as to which upgrade to go with. The RamboXL from ICD
sells for $29 mail order, but does not include the RAM chips.
The Newell 256KXL from Newell Industries sells for $55
mail order. Anybody have any comments (pros/cons) about either?
Is one easier to install than the other? Is one more "XE
compatible" than the other? And, *most* importantly, which
works out to be cheaper? (ie- how much does a set of RAM
chips (I believe 8 256k 150ns DRAMS) go for these days?)
Any info greatly appreciated.

                -Ray

wilm@topaz.rutgers.edu

        <*******************[Ignore header path]*******************>

                        FEBRUARY 1987 ANTIC TOC
                        Theme: Word Processing

page    article

8       I/O BOARD
                Letters from Readers.
10      GAME OF THE MONTH: QUATRO
                A colorful computerized version of Blind Man's Morris, the
                traditional strategy game where you beat an opponent by
                lining up four pieces in any direction.  Compete against your
                Atari or a human opponent.  BASIC.
16      HOW TO WRITE BOOKS WITH YOUR ATARI
                A simple 'how to' write a novel using your Atari and a Word
                Processor by David Wade who has written 15 novels under his
                own and other names.  (He uses an Atari 130XE and PaperClip).
20      SAN FRANCISCO FOGGER
                A program that checks your letters, reports and term papers
                for readability.  It gives a Fog, Smog and Flesch Index
                output.  Both 8-bit and ST programs are provided.  BASIC.
24      WORD PROCESSORS: 7 FOR THE 8-BIT
                A review of 7 word processors available for the 8-bit Atari's.
                It includes a nice table of all important features and which
                Word Processors have what.
31      NEW PRODUCTS
                A description but not a review of several new products
                available for the Atari computers.
34      130XE DOUBLE FEATURE
                An article detailing the difficulty of using the extra
                64K of memory from within a BASIC program.
35      RAM BANKS ON THE 130XE
                An article by Bill Wilkinson (of OSS) detailing the how to
                access the full 128K of memory, especially if you want to
                use OSS's BASIC XE.
38      130XE SLIDE SHOW
                This short program demonstrates how you can use Atari BASIC
                to control RAM bank switching.  It allows you to store 8
                graphic pictures in the extra memory and flash them at a
                rate you control using Atari paddle controllers.
42      ELECTRIC CHARLIE
                A program that uses pop-up windows to explain error message
                numbers returned by main program.
44      REBOUND CONSTRUCTION KIT
                A construction kit (and contest) to allow you to produce
                extra screens to go with the game 'Flip Ogart' from last
                months ANTIC.
47      PRODUCT REVIEWS
                Software
                  Millionaire (Blue Chip Software)
                  Super ReeveKey (Reeve Software)
                  Top Gunner (MicroProse Software)
                  World Karate Championship (Epyx Inc.)
                Hardware
                  Dots-Perfect Upgrade Kit (Dresselhaus Computer Products)
                   -an upgrade for Epson FX, JX, RX, and MX printers
52      COMMUNICATIONS: ATARI'S BULLETIN BOARD
                An article on Atari's own BBS.  They are now running 5 ST's
                with hard disks and logging 12,000 calls a month.  The five
                run duplicate but separate data bases.  The five telephone
                numbers are (408)-745-5308,  -5970,  -2642,  -4758 &  -5664.
55      NEW OWNERS COLUMN
                This is lesson 11 on ATASCII, PEEK and POKE commands and what
                they do and how to use them.
60      USERS GROUP: WAACE
                The featured users group this month is the Washington Area
                Atari Computer Enthusiasts.  This isn't a users group, per
                se, but an organization that exists to coordinate the efforts
                of all the users groups in the DC area.  It also publishes
                the user group magazine 'Current Notes' that is highly
                respected thanks to Joe Waters.  If I had to choose between
                it and ANTIC, I'd drop my ANTIC subscription first!

        ***********BEGIN THE ST RESOURCE SECTION**********

69      1ST WORD PRINTER DRIVER
                A generalized article on how to create a printer driver
                for use with your printer and Atari ST.
73      PRINTSET
                A short utility routine that automatically sends control
                codes to a printer when you turn your ST on.  It is
                written in 68000embly language.
78      ST PRODUCT NEWS AND REVIEWS
                Software
                  Multi-Forth (Creative Solutions Inc.)
                  Mach2 Forth (Palo Alto Shipping Co.)
                  Little Computer People (Activision Software)
                  ST Scrunch (Cherry Software)
                  DOS Shell (MichTron Inc.)
                New Products (description only)
                  Video Digizer PRO (Print-Technik)
                  Meteostat Weather Satellite Receiving Station (Print-Technik)
                  Data Switch Box (Print-Technik)
                  General Ledger Program (Synsoft)
                  Star Fleet 1: The War Begins (Electronic Arts)
                  LabelMaster (Migraph)
                  FAST (Migraph)
                  EasyDraw Version 2.0 (Migraph)
                  PowerPlan ST (Abacus Software)
                 emPro (Abacus Software)
                  ST Peeks & Pokes (Abacus Books)
                  BMS 3500 Hard Disk (Berkeley Microsystems)
                  Metatrak (MIDIsoft Corp.)
                  Zoomracks II (Quickview Systems)
                  Plan Ahead (Advanced Financial Planning)
                  Speller Bee (First Byte)
                  KidTalk (First Byte)
                  MathTalk (First Byte)
                  First Shapes (First Byte)
                  Quikcards (Hired Hand Graphics)
                  Inagem Agenda+ (Inagem Technologies Inc.)
                  Tass Times in Tonetown (Activision Inc.)
                  Shanghai (Activision Inc.)
                  Gamestar Championship Baseball (Activision Inc.)
                  GBA Championship Basketball: Two-on-Two (Activision Inc.)
                  TRANSFORM (Beam Team)
                  Xtrack (Beam Team)
                  Xnotes (Beam Team)
                  Xsyn (Beam Team)
                  ST-Pool (Shelbourne Software Systems Inc)
                  ThoughtSpace TS-1A (ThoughtSpace Development)
                  Publishing Partner (SoftLogic Corp)
                  Trimbase (Talent Computer Systems)
                  Haba MailRoom (Haba/Arrays)
                  HabaMerge (Haba/Arrays)
                  HabaView (Haba/Arrays)
                  HabaCheck (Haba/Arrays)
                  LisPas II ST (TommySoftware)
                  Lock_It (TommySoftware)
                  Crypt_It (TommySoftware)
                  Musix 32 (TommySoftware)
                  PayDay (Crystal Software)
                  UltraCalc (Stone Age Software Inc.)
                  Lewis 123 (Stone Age Software Inc.)
                  Encrypt (Stone Age Software Inc.)

        ***********END THE ST RESOURCE SECTION************

85      SOFTWARE LIBRARY
                This section contains all the program listings for the
                articles in this issue.
114     TECH TIPS
                This section is a collection of tips and short
                programs from readers or collected from various Users
                Groups newsletters.

Coming next month: Inside Today's Atari, Wage/Hour Paymaster, Multi Autorun
                   files & Rainbow Screenmaker

Comments: Antic has reaffirmed its support of the 8-bit Atari users and
          stated that they do not believe an international monthly magazine
          can do a good job of supporting either computer if they do not
          support BOTH 8-bit and ST computers.

                                                Kit Kimes
                                                AT&T-ISL
                                                1100 E. Warrenville Rd.
                                                Naperville, IL 60566
                                                ...!ihnp4!iwvae!kimes

Due to low volume and decreased network problems, I am returning
the INFO-ATARI8 mailing list to a non-digestified, immediate
redistribution, status.  thank you for your cooperation.

BillW, Postmaster@Score, etc
-------

Happy New Year, Atarians!

The "O" key on my Atari 800 has become somewhat intermittent.  Before I
blindly start ripping things apart with the objective of cleaning the
key contacts, are there any tips or warnings I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

       Dan

----------------------------------------------------------------

Looking for a reasonable language for your 8 bit atari?  Grossed out by BASIC?
I have been using ACTION! from OSS for software development lately.  It has
been an outstanding language development environment.

My previous ATARI language experience has been BASIC, ATARIembler,
ValFORTH, Deep Blue C, and now ACTION!.  ACTION! is by far and away the best
ATARI development environment.

BASIC andembler need no words.  Avoid at all costs.

ValFORTH was an interesting system.  Although I would not use it for any real
project, it was a fascinating journey into threaded interpretive languages and
a good learning experience in the style of FORTH.  Since the interpreter,
compiler, and your program live in the same run time environment, you can
modify the behavior of the compiler as your program is compiled into the
pseudo-machine language.  However, it suffered from:
        - It really wasn't as compact as is made out by FORTH enthusiasts.  I
          was left with little space after loading alot of useful packages
        - FORTH is truly hard to read.  Western Human math just doesn't word
          in reverse polish notation.
        - It is difficult to document.  The commentary system takes up too
          much valuable area in each `screen'
        - It is totally incompatible with all other 8 bit software.  It cannot
          generate programs that can be placed on any DOS file system.  I
          acquired a DOS like package for FORTH, but it took up much more
          space then DOS 2.5 and DUP, leaving very little main memory
        - debugging facilities were terrible.  Since the compiler and run time
          environment co-existed, almost any bug caused the system to hang.
          Too bad you forgot to save some `screens' to disk :-)

Deep Blue C was an attempt to get a real compiler/linker.  It's not bad as
they go, but it turns out that the 6502 is just too primitive to compile C
for.  So this compiler actually turns out a sort of p-code anyway, hence once
again, we do not have a language that can rivalembler code.  Also, once
again, debugging facilities are non-existent.  Turn around on compiles are
very slow.  Until I got a 130XE with a ram disk to hold everything, this system
was impossible to use.  In addition, Deep Blue C did not do:
        structs
        functions returning anything but int
        strings cannot continue on the next line
        source lines must be less than 79 chars
        pointers to pointers

After all of this, and refusing to use a macroembler, I went for ACTION!
ACTION! is easy to use since it is very C and PASCAL like.  The manual is 208
pages long and is very complete.  ACTION! has an editor, compiler, monitor, and
run time library in an 8K cartridge form (not really 8K, since it bank switches
but it does only use 8K from your RAM address space).  Being in a cartridge, it
is almost (but not totally) crash resistant.  Reset almost always gets you back
to the editor.  The editor and compiler work together.  The compiler stops on
any error, but the editor/compiler loop is so fast that this is actually
more effective than a fancy compiler that continued to give error messages.

All the language constructs are there that I feel I really need.  For example:
        structs
        arrays
        pointers (to pointers ...)
        address of (including address of functions)
        full complement of arithmetic, logical operations
        full complement ofignment, including C like =+ =- =*, etc
        defines
        16 bit signed, unsigned, 8bit unsigned
        if/then/else/elseif
        do while until for and an exit (loop) construct
        functions and procs
        generates executables in DOS loadable format
                (takes a special package to allow an executable to exist
                 without the cartridge, but it is possible)
In fact, ACTION! exists TOTALLY within the standard ATARI operating environment.

I have a program that is 5 pages long (~20 commentary) that compiles in
seconds (from the editor buffer).  Of course compile time from disk will be
dominated by disk i/o speed.  Compile from ram disk is almost indistinguishable
from compile from editor buffer.

Hope some of you find this collection of personal opinion useful.

Daryl Monge
AT&T
Bell Labs

UUCP: ...!ihnp4!iheds!dlm
CIS: 72717,65
AT&T: 312-979-3606

A friend of mine let me borrow his 1030 modem for a while.  He bought an ST
and has another modem to use with it. He also let me borrow his copy of
Chameleon.  There seems to be a few bugs with the VT52 emulation.

Maybe someone out there can help me.  I have Chameleon version 4.03.
The termcap file that came with it is for a terminal similar to a VT52.  It
really does not seem to work.  For example, according to the temcap file, the
code for a clear screen is Escape H Escape J.  That does not work.  Yes, I did
set up Chameleon to emulate a VT52XL and executed the termcap file I downloaded
from the Chameleon disk just like the instructions said.

Does anyone know of this problem and possibly any soultions to what I've
mentioned?  Oh yes, something else I noticed.  When Chameleon is set up to
emulate the Glasstty and I am listing something to the screen and I fill up
one line, the next character to
print wraps around to the next line just like I would expect.  However, when
I am in either of the VT52 modes, it does not wrap.  The excess characters
just overwrite one another in the last column on the screen.  Is this a
known problem or is it perhaps a switch in the termcap file?

Thanks for any help.  If I can get this working, maybe I can use vi from
home.  Of course, any problems I am having could be due to operator error
and not bugs in the software!.  In case it matters, I am using this on
an 8000XL.  Just in case you are wondering and to prevent any flames, I am
waiting for the Atari 1200 baud modem to hit the market.  I will return the
modem *and* software to my friend.  I am not and have no intention of
pirating this software.

Someone expressed interest about having trouble with Chameleon.
I have a vt52 emulator that I wrote called vterm.  It works on all computers
and 850/smartmodem and 1030 modems.
I mentioned this a while ago, but never got around to posting it.
The reason I didn't was because I didn't know the correct procedure for
encoding and posting a binary file to the net.
If someone can send tell me how to do this (and send me the little basic
program to do it maybe) I will be glad to post it.
It works just beautifully with vi.
I have no trouble on sally with vt52 emulation.
Perhaps I can include the termcap here also.
It is similar to Chameleon in that it has a scrolling 80 columns.
The rest of it is somewhat different.

It is a VERY good vt52 terminal emulator.
j.h.

Joe -

The following messages contain descriptive text and sources for a couple
of little dogs I wrote in Atari Basic called BINHEX and HEXBIN.  They
convert public domain binaries to HEX text, for sending across the net
in text messages, to be converted back to Binary again on the Atari at
the other end.  A simple check-sum scheme is used to ensure nothing has
been dropped in transmission.  A few binaries have been circulated in
the past couple of years using BINHEX and HEXBIN.  They run pretty slow,
but mailing a floppy across the country isn't exactly free...  

Everyone else -

Message me if you don't have these files and want them.

        Dan

-----------------------------------