"By the time he is 18 or 19 you have по chance of curing his addiction"

* Computer junkie: The computer is the most important thing in his life

Leading child psychologists are warning that young people who use computers excessively are putting their health at risk.

The doctors in the UK and America have pinpointed a socially crippling

disease ^ called — Technostress. Computer whizzkids who spend their lives with computers are

distancing themselves from the real world with devastating results

Symptoms include fatigue, short attention span, impatience, irritability and ап insistence on yes/no answers. The doctors claim that some 3 million children in the US alone suffer from Technostress. No figures are available for the UK which boasts more computers per household than any other country in the world.

The victims are often gifted youngsters who are shy and clumsy in early youth. As they grow older the kids remove themselves from peers to play with their computers. The computer soon replaces the childs' friends and it has the extra bonus of letting him always be in control.

The youngsters who miss out on a normal adolescence grow up to be completely reliant on the computer living a lonely life of keyboard tapping. Even micro shows are out of the question for the computer junkie who is afraid of contact with other people.

Harley Street child psychiatrist Dr Joan Freeman explained: "Boys are

* Lotus 1-2-wait for it: No version 3 yet, but an upgrade to version 2

An upgraded version of the standard spreadsheet Lotus 1-2-3 will soon be launched - but it's not the long awaited Version 3.0.

Lotus has announced a middle man spreadsheet, Version 2.2, which will cater for low end PC users. The firm feels that 1-2-3 Version 3 is far too powerful for 8086/88 PCs and suited more to the 286, 386 and even 486 sector.

Version 2.2 will cost £395 and boasts faster calculations, higher quality graphics and charts and

improved printer functions. However, low end PC owners will miss out on the much delayed 3D Version 3 which will be available late in the summer,

“The PC user base is so broad now that it's difficult to bring out a package to cover everything,” explained а Lotus spokesman to Express. “We had to make a choice between cutting back on version 3's capabilities or leaving out the low end sector. The solution is to bring in an extra version.”

more at risk than girls. They are more likely to be uneasy and shy with other people.” She added “This predisposes them to letting a computer take the place of usual childhood activities and friendships.

“The computer, they soon learn, lets them be in control. It doesn't argue back and it does what you want to. People aren't like that."

Dr Freeman also told of cases of young men who had reached their mid twenties and had never taken a girl out. She warned: “Parents should keep a look out for the symptoms while the child is still young enough to be lured away from the computer, By the time he is 18 or 19 you have no hope of curing him of his addiction.”

She told of one typical cyber-junkie who first started playing with computers in his first year at secondary school. He used the computer to steer clear of the other kids during break times but within a matter of months he couldn't bear to be away from the machine.

Today he is 18 and will not speak to anyone, not even his bewildered parents. He has completely withdrawn from any social contact

Easter

+ Muscling in: Easter compilation

Easter is always a jolly good time to go out and treat yourself to a compilation. As such US Gold has launched Arcade Muscle.

With prices starting at £13, it's only available for the big three 8-bit machines.

Arcades Muscle contains the likes of Roadblasters, Bionic Commando, 1943, Sidearms and Street Fighter.

2 NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS % 1 APRIL 1989

NEWS

Fury over

“сор killing

game

Furious anti-violence campaig ners in the US have erupted in anger over a new game for the Nintendo called City Connection.

The

involves a police through on and Paris. The 2 isturbed

st d

at one aspect of the ga

involves pushing police cars off t

roads

International Entertainmer

It is currently the support of ential groups in the US such as the American Police Association

Je're very concerned about this

game," said ICAVE's Dr Vince Hammon It's bad enough portraying violence but this makes the criminal out to be a hero. In a real life scenario cops would get

ts on pute to games more

our te They cont Playing these iren and adults violence

condition and

crime.

Nintendo not to this matter er, the firm

long taken а si

preferred on

stand at

* Don't push me: Fury is erupting over Nintendo's new game

sensationalist cl 36 page doc t by this year sought to

and video

games harmful and

contribute to the learning process

Coalition |

to voluntarily

RACKDOW

Playground pirates pitched

in new campaign

AXT

* Sinking the pirate ship: Co-ordinator of FAST Bob Hay

Software pirates, watch out. In an effort to combat the problem of computer piracy, the entire games industry has joined forces for an all-out awareness campaign.

Software houses, the Federation Against Software Theft and a number of leading computer magazines will all be pitching in to stem the tide of software piracy which threatens to submerge the industry.

Already Ocean has pledged feature warning flashes on games stating that copying is illegal activity. Other publishers expected to follow suit, such as Activision - a hardened anti-piracy campaigner.

Magazines from publishers such as Future, EMAP, Newsfield, Database and Gollner will be offering colour advertising space carrying the message

And plans are afoot to include a two-minute warning video on the in Store promotional films similar to those at the start of normal video cassettes

The idea is to increase awareness amongst youngsters that copying software is illegal and that culprits can be prosecuted. Whilst it is accepted that professional crooks will simply ignore the campaign, it is hoped that the "playground pirates

to its an

are

tiv

will heed the warning

Leading industry figures have been very receptive to this idea, said FAST co-ordinator Bob Hay

I'm delighted that this has fallen on fertile ground.

He told Express: "We will be sitting down to decide which is the proper way to conduct the campaign. It's no good old fogies like me preaching to kids, we want the talented youngsters which users admire to pledge their support

Cynics have suggested that the problem is so widespread that punters will never change. Hay

commented: "We wouldn't do it if we thought it wouldn't work." FAST hopes that people who think piracy is a normal pattern of behaviour will realise that it is indeed illegal and damaging.

OUT OF SOUTH AFRICA

US giant Hewlett-Packard is to pull out of South Africa because "there appears to be no significant progress in bringing about an

end to apartheid" Hewlett-Packard South Africa contributes about one per cent to the firm's turnover

($62 million) It is being sold off to South

African company Siltek.

Youngsters in selected primary schools have spent the past few months grappling with the Amiga 500 - and they've taken to it like child's play.

Commodore gave away a number of the machines to 20 primary schools around the country "for evaluation". Eight and nine year olds in Berkshire, Northumberland, Norfolk and Cheshire have been using them to learn about colour,

oung at

symmetry and writing.

eart

The schools used such packages as Deluxe Paint and KindWords. A Commodore spokesman sait talk about it before in case the project was a disaster, but it's

been a great success."

"We didn't want to

ET game

Around the world, more than one million new computers are installed every month, according to the Daily Mirror. And, more than £360 billion is spent on software very year.

CONTENTS

COMMS 15 Get the best out of computer communications - without big phone bills SILVA LINING

The man behind DeLuxe Paint Ill reveals his secrets HISTORY OF THE ST 23 The machine that's brought in a new age of computing SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT 27 Jam packed with incredible. || news, features, tips and | reviews!

EXPRESS COMMENT 4 CHARTS 5 LETTERS 11 JOBS 42 TECH TIPS 43 CLASSIFIEDS 45 GAMES 47 | Prison, Roadblasters, | Blasteroids, Hollywood | Poker, Roy of the Rovers, Journey to the Centre of the Earth | GAME PREVIEWS 50 Ghosts'n'Goblins, Paperboy, Starblaze, Ramrod, Forgotten World, Mike Read's Computer Pop Quiz VOUCHERS 51 BACK PAGE 54|

[YOUR MACHINE |

ST 33 PC 34

Amiga 35 Spectrum 36 | Commodore 64 37 |

COMMENT What a load of junkie

At last, surprise surprise, the announcement has come that young computer users can become addicted to their machines, and suffer genuine physical symptoms normally associated with addiction to, and withdrawal from, alcohol or proscribed drugs.

Fair enough, but if we're not careful we'll have the rent-a-quote brigade in when the story gets taken up by the tabloids; they'll be demanding health warnings be put on all computers, pointing out the health hazards already associated with prolonged periods of VDU use, and probably pressing for legislation to make а! computers automatically switch off after an hours continuous use after displaying the message ‘Now go out and get some fresh air’.

So if and when the Sensible Older Generation start demanding Something Should Be Done about young people using computers too much, the following points should be made. The dangers present in computing are less than those in alcohol, soft drugs, cigarettes, coke or even Mars bars (people have actually died from ODs of coke and Mars bars). Sure, using your computer, whether it be to play games, word process or whatever, can be completely absorbing and addictive іп the non- physiological sense; but 99% of us who have grown up with computers treat them for what they are - useful and enjoyable machines, like walkmans or videos or cars (except that computers don't contribute to the greenhouse effect). The 1% junkie mentality is present in all sections of the population, and computing is just as liable to bring it out as anything else.

Ocean wave?

It looks like Ocean, which always dominates the top ten full-price games charts, will be releasing its first £2.99 budget game shortly. Does this signal a new wave of high-quality budget games from the top software houses - perhaps even for the 16-bit machines

before too long? Lets hope Ocean has opened the floodgates.

EDITOR. Rob Ainsley

NEWS EDITOR Colin Campbell

REVIEWS EDITOR: Andy Storer

TECHNICAL EDITOR Jerry Glenwright

STAFF WRITER Rik Haynes

ART EDITOR Julia O'Shea

ART ASSISTANT Harriet Athay

PRODUCTION EDITOR Rod Lawton

ADVERTISEMENT MANAGER Mark Salmon

AD EXECUTIVES: ..Jennie Evans, Sarah King Terry Turner Greg Ingham

AD TYPESETTING PUBLISHER.

Printed by Redwood Web Offset. Trow

4° NEWCI

contestors

The future of copying the ‘look апа feel о! software still hangs in the balance as the | software industry waits on the verdict of the

Apple versus Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard case.

The latter two firms both claim that they have taken a step toward beating down Apple's claim that the user friendly operating system of its machines was ripped off Both companies produced PC

a licensing agreement in 1985. However, Microsoft lawyers want to prove that elements in that licensing agreement were used in later versions of Windows, thus nullifying any rip off claims.

Both Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard are confident they will prove that Apple copyrights have not been infringed The court will decide whether а broad-based idea such as Apple's can or cannot be emulated.

The outcome will not

programs emulating the Apple Mac's graphical user interface.

As reported in last judge

week's Express, a federal

* MacLawsuit: Interface rip off contested

has dismissed

CEAN HITS FOR POCKET PRICES

After months of speculation it is almost certain that Ocean will be launching a budget label called Hit Squad.

Although at the time of going to press details had not been finalised, it would appear that the label will be in operation within the next six weeks.

Initially, Ocean will launch three games, one of which is almost certain to be Rambo.

Hit Squad games will cost £2.99 Ocean insiders say there are still two schools of thought within the

company about a budget label. Some feel that the full-price games are doing so well that energies need not be spent on cheap games

However, games players will welcome such a move, given Ocean's impressive back catalogue of hits. Also, the Manchester firm cannot help but notice the success of US Gold’s budget label Kixx

Whilst Rambo cannot feasibly be described as Ocean's best effort to date the firm still boasts a healthy line-up of hits which could be re released at budget prices

Career opportunities

Skilled computer professionals in the North тау soon be able to work in their chosen profession without having to move South. The National Economic Development Council has set up a scheme “to bridge the

These will all be linked by computer to a

central office in London. Data will then be sent on to contracting companies around the country.

The objective is to bring training and jobs to areas of high unemployment whilst also helping companies in the South which are finding it difficult recruiting skilled computer operators. The NEDC hopes to raise £500,000 for the Frontline scheme.

Microsofts claim that it but could use Windows after

only cover all future software developments probably innovative achievements of all kinds.

test your next game - on video

A home video cassette i: launched this month showing off action snippets of the latest in games entertainment.

Gamesters will be able to buy the tape for £6.49 from normal

to be

software shops. It will feature animation from some 25 games and will last around three quarters of an hour

Hot Shot Entertainments Action Screenplay will be updated every two months. Hot Shot feels that regular games players want to be in touch with what's available and want to see the games as they are rather than as ads depict them.

When you're spending £10 for an 8-bit game and £20 for a 16-bit game you want to see what it's all about. The video will show you the game as it is," said boss Jon Beales.

Beales added: “Software houses are spending a lot of money on licenses and they want the games to be good. They want to be able | to show how good they are

* Making movies: Beales brings games onto video

NEWS

TOP 20 Full Price GAMES

El Robocop cn { Spectum, C64, CPC, ST Алқа BH» Operation Wolf ox 6

CPC. ST Amga

H Dragon Ninja cca 2 Spectrum. 064, CPC Middle Earth esses 16

‘Spee, 064, CPC, ST Amiga, PC Afterburner коз 1 Spectrum, (84 CPC, ST Amiga МЕС Le Mans were 1

растит, C64, CPC, ST Amga

H^ 7 Emiyn MHughes ос 4

In Crowd oew 5 ‘Spec, 064, CPC

Thunder Blade sc 13

NINTENDO IS COMING

The Nintendo games console last week got its biggest boost yet as far as the UK is concerned - potential buyers will now be able to pick the machine up in Dixons.

Nintendo must be eyeing UK gamesters with a view to cleaning up. The console already completely dominates America. Nintendo has been here in some form for three years, although its efforts thus far have been somewhat lacklustre.

A deal with Dixons represents a chance to push the machine into am. Computer manufacturers cannot ask for a better chance to get a machine firmly into the public eye (and from there into their homes)

At the moment there are 36 Nintendo games available in the UK. Plans are afoot to ship more over with Gradius top of the list. "It's true that this is the biggest thing to happen for the Nintendo here although it is already in Boots," said UK boss George Lucardie. “Dixons have taken it on because of the quality of the hardware. We have a less than half per

cent default rate for instance. Spectum, C64, СРС ST Алқа Dixons, always pragmatic, said it took the console 5 Denar «s 12

because "we think it will sell' * Ahead in the game: Dixons boost for Nintendo console

^ : : Double Dragon олсо 10 . | | | Falcon vos % ST Amiga, PC If you're an Amiga owner, Commodore want you to Commodore feels that the Amiga's uses need to be think up the most innovative use of your machine. exploited as much as possible. The firm has long shied Football Manager 2с RE

OPC, ST. It's asking for as many people as possible to send in away from suggestions that the machine is all too often Spectr OH, CPC, ST Ag, PC

their ideas, with prizes to be given out at being used solely for gaming purposes Fun School 2 ошко» 7

the forthcoming Commodore Show. ы. It was done before on the Beeb апа there was а жтт, C64, CPC. BBC

This is the first time such а fantastic response to that,” said a Commodore 1,

competition has been held for spokesman. "I know the Amiga is ІҢ Giants к: 15 being used for all sorts of Spec. би CPC

applications. We Lombard RAC аслас RE want to ST Amiga, PC hear about Pacland сым 9

ГА them Зол, C64, CPC, ST Amiga The nature

Eureka! ; t 5 Batman o 10 the first Archie of the prizes Sede

games creator < | as emend Ш “іе. Е

the multi-faceted Amiga. A <, similar a “Ce, scheme

, СС

d likel laa

goodies are likely :

Games creators are all the rage at the The judges will EJ Galdregon's Domain ». RE ST Amiga

moment, so it's hardly surprising that include editors of

one has popped up for the burgeoning * 1001 uses for an Amiga: Commodore рее еы ыы ТОР TEN Budget GAMES

Archimedes. wants to hear new ideas

The first games creator comes from я ST/Amiga Format апа , талқан саны ға was held forthe Commodore Computing International as well as Treasure Island x куар BBC some years Express. All will be revealed at the Commodore Show жег

adventure/maze дате саПей Гиіх те aco with at the London Novotel from June 2nd to ће 4th Gun Boat usos NE Viking. It should arrive within the considerable If you have any bright ideas you want submitted. Soc ОМ CPC 3 month at somewhere around £20. success send them into Express at the usual address. Minerva has a line up of some I _ NE | Joe Blade 2 5

seven games for the Archie. More on 0392 37756.

3 < k Specun, 064, CPC. BBC, Becton, C16 maj This is the motor whici B inoui. be transported. to Ghostbusters uses 9

Spectun, би, CPC, Aan be your computer over the next ve

few months. World Games «x 3 Artronic has licensed the Spectum, бы OPC, MSX

саг racing team Spice [1e NE

Food for thought

Engineering for a new Spectun, ОМ CPC driving simulation. The Ever wondered what to do with all the Spice team are pretty hot H Super Cycle d RE leftovers in the larder? PC owners can lick stuff when it comes to their lips at the promise of a solution. lightweight C2 racing, Who Dares Wins 2 „с RE Software Circus is offering a program having dominated the scene Sawa, C CPC. BBC, CI At б which can receive a list of foods and ingens md итп tem into a meru of KC уш п теа Re delectable dishes. It adjusts quantities to a the number of guests and gives cooking entering itself in the more Commando да 1 instructions. All уои һауе to do is key in mainstream С1 division ‘Spectum, OH, CPC. BBC. Becton, C16 the ingredients asd coo e p RE Ше = 9 рел RE re-entry > NE new entry > Last weeks positions Y а! lon Appetit , out and Porsche. ST ant іда Compiled by Gallup. recipes, tips and shopping lists. The versions should be palling The charts shown are based on the Open Market, that domestic wonder costs £39.95, is retailers who stock a broad range of products. All

up by the end of May. charts shown are copyright of Gallup.

THIS

NEWS aS ONES

DISASTER STRIKES F

FINAN Qs

Thorn EMI to E «owe If you're one of

tnose people you subscribe to the theory that computers always decide to crash at the worst possible moment, spare a thought for the poor journalists on the Financial Times.

Just as news was pouring in of Nigel Lawson's recent budget the FTs super expensive computer system decided to blackout. The assembled hacks and hackettes could only stare at blank screens for nearly two hours.

FT supremos were left pondering the fact that they couldn't get the most important issue of the UK financial year onto the streets.

They decided to draft in a small team of specialists situated a mere 6,000 miles away in Sacramento. Caiifornia. The team, called SII, tapped into the FT network and were appalled to find 300 articles jamming up the Tandem system - all

America: p

of which should have been saved

surgery" team leader Eric Gottfredson is reported to have

onto disks. warned. The danger was that all the The FT | day's work would be lost. pleaded with Fortunately Gottfredson’s сше

> SH to save the day even though the team had never come across such a problem. “This is like carrying out radical brain

War games up from down under

worked perfectly restoring all the data within minutes. However, the cause of the FT crash has still not been discovered.

War games are big news down under. g [ow SS Now you can have a taste of the latest in N т" - \ battle strategy from Australia. s = ттт

Mindscape in the UK is to start , From the wizards of = Australian strategy

shipping over titles from the acclaimed game to hit UK Canberra based publisher Panther. The Amiga, РС and Mac later this month firm has done some work for the starting at £29.99.

Australian military and initial reviews of its stuff have been complimentary.

First up will be a World War II title based on the Eastern front called Fire Brigade. That should arrive on the ST,

However, Mindscape reckons it will only be doing about three titles a year. “That crowd like to take their time over games," said the firm's Geoffrey Heath.

A SELECTION OF TITLES FROM PRENTICE HALL

MASTERING FORTH Revised & Expanded Second Edition MARTIN TRACY

& ADVANCED MICROMOTION

The most complete beginner"s tutorial on the Forth programming language available. The book covers the commands required in FORTH-83 Standard, the programming dialect popular in the Forth Interest Group Hacker Community, and MasterForth, an advanced dialect developed by the author and used by professionals and scholars.

1989 300 pages 13-559957-1 £17.95 Paperback

THINKING FORTH

LEO BRODIE

This instructive guide illustrates the ‘elegant logic’ behind FORTH and shows you how to apply specific problem-solving tools to software, regardless of your programming situation.

1986 224 pages 13-917568-7 414.75 Paperback

Prices are correct at the time of going to press but may be subject to change.

occam 2 Reference Manual INMOS Limited

A definitive document on the occom 2 programming language. Written by experienced occam programmers at INMOS Ltd, where the language was developed, the manual provides full coverage of how the language may be applied.

1988 144 pages 13-629312-3 £15.95 Paperback

THE BIBLE . . . STARTING FORTH

Second Edition

LEO BRODIE

A revision of the bestselling introduction to the Forth programming language. An engaging volume which provides a thorough beginner's tutorial on the Forth programming language and operating system. The Second Edition conforms to the Forth-83 Standard.

1987 304 pages 13-843079-9 £20.95 Paperback

occam Programming Manual INMOS Limited

“clearly written, informative and well produced

outstanding as a programming тапша!."

MICROPROCESSORS & MICROSYSTEMS 1985 100 pages 13-629296-8 £15.95 Paperback

occam and occam? are registered trademarks of the INMOS group of companies.

FORTH:

A Text and Reference

MAHLON KELLY & NICHOLAS SPIES Turning readers into accomplished Forth programmers, this book provides a compendium of tools and techniques as well as complete coverage of the words and functions of the language.

1986 224 pages 13-326331-2 £20.85 Paperback

Programming in occam 2

Geraint Jones & Michael Goldsmith

A complete introduction to the language and to paralle! programming. Jones and Goldsmith introduce occam-2, illustrating the way the language can be used and use a large number of examples which demonstrate the application of parallel programming strategies to real problems.

1988 318 pages 13-730334-3 £15.95 Paperback

Programming in occam

Geraint Jones & Michael Goldsmith

a readable and sound treatise on how to think and program concurrently."

THE TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT

These titles are all in the Prentice Hall International Series in Computer Science, edited by C.A.R. Hoore. For more information on these or other titles in the series, please write to Jeon Walmsley, at the address below, for our latest catalogue.

1987 192 pages 13-729773-4 £15.95 Paperback

PRENTICE HALL

66 Wood Lane End, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, НР2 4RG, England. SIMON & SCHUSTER INTERNATIONAL GROUP

6 * NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 1 APRIL 1989

° © ° x [o] Es] Š š 10) Ф 2 5 Q ° a & N © © ray = ы o e 9 © с be] 9 5 © zi Ë 2 = 6 s 5 [o 5 ш ae 6) 5 > 5 ш = Ф z Š & О o wy x Š [e] a ш = E E

UK HOME COMPUTERS

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DAISYWHEEL PRINTER/TYPEWRITER THOMSON COLOUR/MONO MONITORS

MONO Manufactured by JUKI, this} | 12" Amber/Green Composite typewriter doubles as a 10 cps. el T aisy Wheel Printer. It has a standard Centronics Interface, and a varying printing pitch of 10, 12 & 15. It сап handle| |15" Paper White TTL paper up to 12" wide and has a| inc. Tilt & Swivel Base ...... keyboard buffer of 12 charac- ters. The correction memory, in| | COLOUR - (RGB/RGBI/COMPOSITE) typewriter mode, is 20 characters. In either mode it can print a| | 12" IBM Compat. 640 x 240 master and 3 copies. As a printer it has a 2k memory, and| |.31 QOL ыз. £169.95 weighs in at only 6.8kg. Its overall size is 408 x 343 x 120.5 12" IBM/Commodore etc. mm. You would expect over £129.00 for just a Daisywheel siad Printer of this сав, and P РМ Сотра!. over £90.00 for a Daisywhee ЖЕТЕ omni Д Printer Our Special Price is 14" IBM/Commodore e! BELOW HALF PRICE just £89.95 plus £6.05 эй Postage & Packing 14" 40 col. text for IBM/ATARI Texas etc......£149.95 HURRY! Please include postage at £7.05 per Monitor Stocks are very limited = Send your order or for further details TODAY !

ALL GOODS SOLD SUBJECT TO OUR STANDARD TERMS AND CONDITIONS. AVAILABLE ON REQUEST Lewisham

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TARI ST & AMIGA OWNERS WHY PAY TOP PRICES ALL GAMES SOFTWARE AT 30% DISCOUNT

EXANPLE PRICES ST ЕО » 21.00 DOUBLE SIDED DISKS Discount Chart The Games............. .14.00 1/2 DOUBLE DENSITY OÜRIPRICE

Lombard Rally ee 17.50 Barbarian II Speedball Pacmania Hostage Spaceracer Falcon .. LED Storm

possem "d puli DRAGON'S LAIR £31 .50 OPEN BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY Atari 1040 Professional Pack...............479.00

Atari Super Pack .......................... 349.00 Atari Mouse Extender .. Amiga 500 + Modulator........................369.00 | ма! То Beart Lead Star LC10 Colour Printer......................245.00 | Amiga Cuma Citizen 1200 Printer Parallel Interface...........138.00 | Amiga 1 meg Upgrade. Citizen 180E Printer Parallel Interface........159.00 | Jo cce Disk Box.

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MOBILE PHONES and FAX MACHINES

Distributed by Virgin Mastertronic, 2-4 Vernon Yard, Portobello Road,

You and your buddy are ready for a little action tonight ‘cause you just happen to be in the mood to tear up the town. You'll demolish buildings, grab and chomp horrified spectactors and other yummy morsels, and flatten puny helicopters and other antagonists who try to stop you!

Addictive gameplay, marvellous 'ombined with originality and a great C--VG, March 1989

graphic onse of

hum

They came from a Dimensional plane clear across the galaxy, wreaking havoc and chaos from star system to star system. With an evil that smothers all resistance with fear and terror, the horrid creatures of the Bydo Empire are now knocking on, Earth's front door.

Is by far the best blast available on the Sega,

goes without saying that no shoot ет up d be withoutit! C+VG, March 1989

The year, 2242 you are Paladin, the toughest bounty hunter in the galaxy. Monstrous Cybags are threatening to take control of the. Universe under the direction of their evil leader, Vipron. Your mission is to gain access to Vipron’s chambers and destroy him. Sound easy enough? It isn't

Horizontally scrolling arcade adve action packed! C+VG, March 1989

ROBERTI whe tw thy misht

You are Aron Christian, a swordsman washed ashore by the might and fury of a hurricane. You were found half dead by a kind and humble fisherman and he restored you to health. The fishing village sat at the edge of the great plain. Rising in the distance was a small mountain range with an ominous tower atits peak. ‘That is the Tower of the Doomed the fisherman told you as they made the sign of the evil eye. ‘Itis the place where the troubles of our land began: As you watched the tower, you knew that your destiny waited there. The w een on the Sega. Y

playability and will keep you engrossed for t h 1989

thing looks incredible - the best ffers depth and.

MATARI ST and С: Amica

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* Organiser Business Software including the Amiga with a normal TV.

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REMEMBER! Many ST's do not come with BASIC-ours come with ST BASIC REV D by Metacomco. Also available with only one free game and no joystick or Organiser

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———

| PROGRAMMED RESPONSE

5 that you are the first serious,

entated, multiformat how about a pr nming for ? C would be a

be BASIC, as its

good choice, or may

variants are not too bad

William Hadden, Co. Down, N Ireland

Ф | must admit to being very

dubious about programming series There's the problem of language differences between machines, and one or two pages a week is a bit limiting - you can quickly get bogged down in pages of detail. | rather think programming is something better tackled in books, of which there are millions about, and plenty specific to your language and machine.

ІМ PRAISE OF AMSTRAD

Some sections of the press dealing with computers, including yourselves, seem to refer disparagingly to Amstrad, its boss and its computers at every

opportunity

| think you are doing a grave disservice to prospective PC buyers by intimating that Amstrads are not a good buy. Just give the facts and leave them to make up their own minds

Amstrad is a very successful British company who bri М a new dimension to home computing and made work for a lot of extra journalists. It doesn't help to knock them all the time. In your o columns last week you report that Amstrad have by far the largest share of the market in the UK, forcing IBM to brit prices down. 'Nuff said; I'm sure that Amstrad have a trick or two up their sleeves yet

Soon | hope to buy a PC to complement my PCW and it will probably be an Amstrad PC1640. | was rather taken with the Fred Nerk Turbo Special, but | don't think Fred will be around as long as Amstrad. And by the way, tell Neil to stop knocking in nails with his computer keyboard, or the Tandons won't last longer either. Ron King, Bedford

€ Соте on, it's not as simple as that. When someone asks you the

19, a letter from Neil Barnes Amstrad PCs are rubbish sing, break down a lot and You apparently agreed with

In Express that have bits m

rrupt data

tated

this, saying that "Many people feel that they are clanky, and built down to a price rather than up to a specification"

| am a design engineer of forty years experience and for some time was a plastics mould designer in a major plastics company. | am fairly new to

computing and just over two years ago | bought a PCW8256 which | bought as a word processor, but use mainly now for programming as a hobby

| have found the machine to be very sound mechanically, with good quality mouldings, and it has been reliable. When l upgraded the memory | had a good look inside (another of my hobbies is electronics) and found good design and workmanship throughout

On reading the comments noted above | made a visit to my local Dixons to compare the Amstrad PCs with IBM Olivetti, Atari and several good quality typewriters. Quite frankly | could see no difference in quality in the mouldings or keyboards, nor in ‘feel’

* Amstrads cheap and nasty? Not at all, says Ron King (In praise of Amstrad)

points for and against various PCs, reliability and workmanship have to come into it. It is a relevant and important fact to mention that many people are not over-enthusiastic about, for example, Amstrad PC keyboards.

This is not to say that Amstrads are unreliable or badly put together or anything - іп fact, if you look again at the letter and my reply, | actually disassociated myself with the correspondent's experiences with his Amstrads, not just because 1 don't want to be sued, but also because the Amstrad PC and PCW I've bought have given me по trouble whatever.

Maybe this particular reader had just been unlucky, but again, different people are bound to have different views on a machine that is built to a price.

I think it would be a bit of an exaggeration to say that Amstrad has caused IBM to lower its prices; the PC market generally has seen prices falling and specifications rising.

Dear Reader

More pages packed with another selection from our postbag and Rob Ainsley's replies. Have you got something to say? Make your voice heard іп computing's liveliest letters page!

Send your contributions to:

Express Mail, 4 Queen Street, Bath, Avon BA1 1EJ

PS. Sorry, we just don't have the time to give personal replies, whether you include an SAE or not. We're too busy putting

Express together!

FALCON соор

Could you tell me if there is a new version of Falcon out for my ST? It's just that some other (and much inferior) computer mags which have reviewed the game show via their screen shots that their version has a different title page to my version 1.0

Also, do you know anything about the ST+? Rumours have been flying for ages about this have said nothing anyway.

Finally, how do you subscrib brill mag? Keep up the good Chris Howell, Coventry, West Midlands

around

machine but Atari ell, not to

e to your

Ф Тһе ST Plus, we reckon, will be launched in September. People have been talking about it having a 68030 chip, being five times faster than the current ST, TOS-compatible, one

drive, having 2Mb RAM and will be about £999. We were told by Atari it would be for "the real guy who's buying power". See this week's Club ST for some up-to-the-minute info.

As for Falcon, there are no new versions out (unless you count newer bug-fixed Falcons as ‘new versions’) and the difference in screens is probably down to the fact that the versions reviewed were рге- production and hadn't had all the graphics fully finished.

Subscription to Express costs £24.95 for 56 issues, £12.50 for 26, from Express Subscriptions, The Old Barn, Somerton, Somerset TA11 7PY.

POKES IN THE EYE

Could you please answer a few questions for me, about these laws they are trying

BY THE BOOK

A tip to anyone going to The Alternative Micro Show, which is being held on April 1st at the New Horticultural Hall Whilst in London, they should consider a trip to Charing Cross Road, to visit Foyle's Book Shop. There are plenty of books there in the Computer Department for our information-starved owners of the less popular micros.

| have seen books on the Dragon, the Lynx, the Einstein, Electron, the Oric, Texas TR90/4a, QL, Atari 8 bit, MSX, and

would you believe, | even managed to

procure a book for my poor old Aquarius – do you remember them? | didn't manage to spot any books on the Jupiter Ace, Enterprise or Memotech, but they may well be there amongst the hundreds of books Owners may be interested to know that Interface Publications аге selling off their books on the obscure micros very cheaply (from 50p to £1), so they may well be worth writing to. | actually own an Amiga amongst my computers, but there's nothing like trying to obtain

575 ўнг

NN?

information and software for the obscure computers. It's a challenge, which is enjoyable and usually far cheaper than maintaining the mainst of my hobby, the Amiga. Anyway, | hope that this information is of some help to fellow owners of ‘odd and old' micros. See you all at the show! TA Blay, Romford,

@ Thanks for the info -

and no, all you 16-bit owners, the Alternative Micro Show isn't an April fool! We'll be reporting on it in Express for those of you that can't go.

And just to show that we do recognise there are people out there in the world who enjoy using machines other than the PC, ST, Amiga et alia, we're sending you the mystery prize for this week's best letter.

Sorry, we don't have any software for the Aquarius - will you settle for an Amiga program instead?

NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 1 APRIL 1989 • 11

YOUR LETTERS waww

DISTRUST OF COMMIES

Why is it that Commodore (in the UK at least) always manages to come across as hopeless at selling its Amigas? The announcement (Express 19) of its new bundled package looks extremely weak as against Atari's (News, Express 18).

1 cannot imagine many people wanting to pay £100 over the odds just to get £160 of air miles vouchers when there are several suppliers offering Amiga 500s with 9 or 10 games (or more), plus a paint package, modulator, etc, for the normal price of £399, or less.

Also, if Commodore wants to sell to ‘yuppies’, most of these will want a dedicated monitor, and not a TV modulator. Just doesn't make any sense (and not for the first time). Now if Commodore put together a bundle including word processor, music and paint package, spreadsheet and database, a half meg memory upgrade, and at least 5 good games - all for £500 or less - maybe then people would take it seriously.

It is about time Commodore got its act together otherwise Atari is going to run it into the ground, which would be a shame seeing that Amigas appear to be better machines (although with Super STs (TTs) and ATWs coming, etc, for how long one wonders?)

Why does the Amiga have such a dodgy reputation for crashing? Is it due to a hardware fault, or is it badly implemented software?

Vee Van Dam, Glastonbury, Somerset

| finally got my Amiga and have now found out why people moaned at Workbench 1.2. It's awful. It would be awfully nice of Commodore if they offered freeish upgrades to 1.3 (Id gladly send my disk back and pay for postage and packing). | think this idea would sell more Amigas than adding £100 to the price and offering ‘free’ plane tickets with it! If they are going to give vouchers away why not software

to bring in to stop hacking and cracking 1Will it cover people who break protections to find pokes for infinite lives etc. Including companies like Romantic Robot?

2Will magazines be able to still print pokes?

My point of view on this is that it will force more people to learn how to hack, for like myself they are happy to wait for pokes to be printed,

Іме got а CPC6128 and want it for games at the moment, but will soon branch out into serious software, like word processors and printers (| know printers are hardware, but they go together). | don't want to spend years learning how to hack and hours hacking a

game. Kf pokes are stopped from being printed, games sales wil suffer

eventually, forcing price rises forcing games sale to suffer even more.

| think software houses should issue games already poked on the reverse (and let's face it - wasted) side of disks and tapes. That way their protection systems can stop most copying, games sales will grow and new computer users would have no real need to learn to hack

| know it will never stop hacking and cracking but it must surely reduce their numbers to the few dangerous idiots the law needs to cover. Сап E Surry, Barnet, Herts

vouchers — surely even yuppies would find that more useful. Adding £100 is a bad move especialy as the ST is coming down. | have now used both machines and can say that a price increase is not warranted; Atari will Clean up.

Beware all you Amiga owners with 2.5 volt power packs. Your time is limited. My mate had his Amiga for two hours before it packed in, he took it back and went through four power packs before finding one that worked (a 5 volt one). At this point a free flight to AIDS-riddled Amsterdam would not have cheered him ир!

Give the Amiga а free MIDI interface and improved OPERATING SYSTEM then Commodore could be in with a chance.

Му favourite games so far are Hybris and Tetris but Hybris costs £25, and sometimes all your smart bombs go off at the same time, which is mildly annoying. (I had messed about with the options).

Sorry about the anagram of New Computer Express 1 sent you that didn't work. It should have been 'super wops excrement’. | hope you're not offended! Neil Barnes, Birmingham, West Midlands

€ We've had a lot of letters commenting on the various bundles offered by Commodore and Atari, and everyone comes to roughly the same conclusion as the correspondents above.

The Amiga's reputation for crashing rather a lot probably comes from the fact that it crashes rather a lot. This is down to the operating system - the software - rather than the hardware. Quite a surprise to anyone coming from a machine run on MS-DOS or CP/M - systems which are admittedly much simpler, but which hardly, if ever, fall down.

€ Тһе legalities of software copying are very, very involved and there's no simple answer to the points you raise. The good news is that pokes are here to stay; whatever technical points might be made about the alteration of copyright material (i.e. the game's code) software houses are not going to get after magazines for printing pokes, or games players for discovering them and telling people about them - provided of course it's all harmless fun to spice up a game, and not a way of deprotecting a game to copy it.

As for the deprotecting devices you mention, this is dodgier ground. We may well be seeing legislation introduced in the future which makes manufacture and possession of these grounds for legal action, and the current attitude of the computer industry is certainly hardening against piracy.

You pic

You may be interested to hear of a recent archaeological find. During a dig, a scroll was found, which when translated was entitled ‘New Abacus Express. This covered many aspects of abacus ownership, and was a very good read. It was particularly memorable for its letters

section. Letters poured in over such subjects as why the Amigacus was better than the Ataracus, why the Ataracus was better than the Amigacus. Why was there no section devoted to other, much less popular abaci, eg the Psiocus, and letters about letters about why one abacus was/was not better than another. Fortunately, being civilised peoples, we have left such things behind in the past Matthew Wood, Croydon, Surrey

€ Hmm. Funny, | always thought Amiga, Atari, Psion and so on were Latin and Greek anyway. (Amiga, Amigam, Amigae, Amigae, Amiga - first declension feminine; Atari, Ataros, Atarorum, Ataris, Ataris - second declension masculine plural; Psion, Psion, Psiou, Psio - neuter).

RAMM BAM

May | inform your readers that ‘Ramm’, the independent user group for the Ram Music Machine, is now being run by myself

The club is expanding its scope to cover other hardware such as the Spectrum, XR1, Cheetah interfaces for the Spectrum and so on, as well as continuing support for the Music Machine. We will be publishing articles on all aspects of music on the Spectrum - MIDI, MIDI programming, sampling etc

The club particularly aims to encourage people taking their first steps into music as well as catering for the more knowledgeable. Information about the club can be had from 05242 62258 in the evenings. I'll also be at the Northern Sinclair Show at Leyland. Sean Sanderson, Lancaster

CLASSIFIED INFORMATION

Have you ever thought of starting up a classified section like most magazines such as ACE? Then people can sell their computers and things like that and so on

Dean Barrett, Bargoed, Wales

@ Aha! A timely question. Turn to the inside back page and, for free, you can advertise your computers, things like that, and so on.

BLOT ON THE COPYBOOK

1 have been reading Express now for the past eight weeks or 50 and will continue to do so providing the standard is kept high. (That wasn't a threat!)

| don't have a computer at present (I got rid of my Speccy a few years ago) but | intend to buy an Amiga as soon as | find some cash. I'm going to be rich and famous once | get my paws on the Steinberg PRO 24 - just you watch me!

Seriously though, | have a query. In issue 18 under the 'Cut to the Quick..." article the enclosed picture caught my eye. It seems to be identical to the cover of an LP by the German group Software (they make some great music with computers). | would be obliged if you could enlighten me.

Steven Porter, Craigavon, N Ireland

€ its quite possible that they used the Mandelbrot demo from "QuickBasic' on the cover, and they certainly look very similar.

Rorschach devised a system to gauge people's personality from the Shapes they 'saw' in patterns like this. Most people used to just say “пк blots’. Now they just say ‘Mandelbrot sets’.

SOMETHING WONDERFUL

Bless you gentlemen for your very timely article which appeared in Express 19

Until yesterday | had never experienced the horror of these viruses as | had, quite wrongly, assumed that such things were not man made but were something that had crept into systems by some computing fluke

1 am a young chap of nearly seventy summers and winters with a history of a major bypass behind me. Otherwise [m fit. But when | saw on my recently acquired Amiga the message 'Something wonderful has happened’ etc. it nearly caused me to have a second heart attack. | immediately thought that my seven hundred quid's worth of computer and monitor were disease-ridden and that | would be better off with my poor old Amstrad and Commodore which have been relegated to dusty suitcases

| contacted a friend who reassured me that all was not lost and explained what could be done. Also, today | read your article on the subject and the sun started to shine again

This opportunity must be taken to thank you very fervently for your excellent article which has saved my sanity and has prevented my shuffling off this mortal coil before | am ready to go

In conclusion | must say that when it is time to shuffle off, | would dearly like to take with me all the scumbags who have

* Amazing likeness: (Left) Album cover for German group ‘Software’, (Right) Mandelbrot set in

QuickBasic (Blot on the copybook)

12% NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 1 APRIL 1989

MACHINE SPECIFIC

| can understand why people argue about the different machines. Naturally, the machine you've got is the best (even if you know it isn't) because it's yours – and it would be silly if you had a machine that you didn't like or were not satisfied with P Harrison, Leicester, Leics

CoFFIN FIT

The final пай in the coffin of the Amiga for me as an engineer is the amount of Amigas that seem to breaking under the slightest strain

Andy James, Plymouth

SODAN DEATH

| was surprised to see the Sword of Sodan cheat in Amiga Blit (Express 18) which was credited to me - first

perpetrated such a lousy, filthy and malignant trick on innocent people. Robert Lamb, Cottingham, East

Yorkshire

Ф Thanks very much, gosh it was nothing, all in a day's work etc Incidentally, erudite and precise research shows that the chances of a working computer virus being generated by chance (through

BUSINESS, UTILITY

EDUCATIONAL GAMES

& PERIPHERALS

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SNIPPETS

because | didn't write it, and second because it doesn' Basil Pigg, Devon

york!

FINAL DEMAND

My advice to people who are frustrated with waiting awful lengths of time for games is to phone up and demand your money back. Then you should receive your games within a few days.

G Jones, Boldmere, Birmingham

STRIKE AGAINST

REDUNDANCY

My glowing praise of Express has to be qualified, however, by mentioning that many of the 'debates' featured on the Mail pages attempt to perpetuate redundant arguments Jim ВІ Muckamore, Republic of Ireland

Antrim

faulty copying of a disk, for example) are so small you would only expect one to occur every 10283 years - that's a one followed by 283 zeroes.

Two things | find very encouraging about your letter. First is that, despite the reputation computing has of being a young people's thing, you're buying and happily using up- to-the-minute technology (I always

think it's a cop-out to say ‘oh, I'm too old to start anything new now’). Second is the fact that you still place Cottingham firmly in East Yorkshire (as ! do, being Hull born and bred) despite this “North Humberside' nonsense that they tried to foist on us in 1974, exactly fifteen years ago, on April Fool's Day. I'm all for new technology and progress, but some things remain sacrosanct!

ENGINE ROM

Please tell me where | will be able to obtain more information on the PC Engine because | haven't seen it advertised much, and this shame because they

Lnd YOUR LETTERS

are losing out on sales.

| think this will be a hit machine, bigger than the ST, Sega, Amiga etc. The PC Engine is reliable, fast and has brilliant graphics. | also hope they will make this machine compatible with joysticks games are ruined without

because the them

Sutton Coldfield

@ Though widely available in Japan (for well under £100) few PC Engines have been imported into the UK. Micro Media on 0584 75604 will sell you one for £200 (£225 to use with a TV set, or £400 with a monitor). As far as we know the PC Engine is not planned to work with a joystick.

* You can pick up NECS 77 PC Engine for well under half the UK price in Japan. Unfortunately the plane fare is £580 return (Engine ROM)

MAIL ORDER

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COMPUTER EXPRESS • 1 APRIL 1989 • 13

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IONS

нн COVER FEATURE

9 you visit the theatre? Use airlines, buy flowers, play computer games? With your computer and a modem, you can reserve your theatre seats in advance and pay for the tickets using an electronic transfer of

funds from your bank account to the theatre

Likewise, airline tickets. If you want to send

flowers to someone, contact with one of the larger

florists will allow you to do this from your terminal screen Games? On-line, interactive games are the latest

(and possibly the most enjoyable) form of

computer 'play'. You can battle your way through

jungles, caves, houses - anything - in conflict with other on-line users who are far more responsive than anything computer generated.

If you're a wholesaler about to supply a large

* Both comms users, both accessing the same service. But guess which one one ends up with a phone bill over ten times the other's. The World of Communications offers a wealth of services and facilities - but you have to know how to make the best of it all...

quantity of products to a company which is new to you, and you are unsure of their ‘credentials’ you can request a thorough report of the company's status. This will include а list of registered assets and share-holders, and a summary of their financial standing.

Lonely heart? Just type your details into one of the many on-line dating services, sit back, and wait for the flood of electronic sweethearts aching

to meet you! The latest news, share prices and stock Movements are all available and updated

constantly. You can send a telex or fax, contact ships at sea, download software, cross-question prominent figures or simply make contact with other computer users to discuss life, the Universe and everything

The urge to communicate is a basic human instinct. Telephone users, Radio Hams, CBers, chat liners - someone, somewhere is trying to contact others to exchange information, or just for fun. And with a micro, you can communicate with any other computer in the world through the phone lines. A huge range of services, information and leisure awaits you

But how much does it cost? How can you avoid those legendary huge phone bills that comms users always seem to have?

Jerry Glenwright tells you what it's all about - and shows you how to bea Smart Comms User..

So what is comms? How can two computers of quite different architecture and operating systems be joined together to allow the transfer of data between them? What do you need to effect this connection, and will it all be possible using your machine?

‘Comms’ is the term used to describe the joining together of two or more computers, (irrespective of type or model — micro, mainframe or whatever) to allow them to communicate information to each other. This is via some medium such as the PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network - the phone lines to you and me

NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 1 APRIL 1989 15

fog

COMMUNICATIONS

COVER FEATURE

* Two of the services on offer on Місгопе(5 pages. PC Base is ап on- line PC ‘magazine’ with literally up- to-the-minute news and reviews ; Shades is a multi-user game, or MUG, a sort of computer-controlled D&D game

In an ideal world, it would be possible to plug your computer straight into the BT wall socket and begin transmission to the service of your choice (although you appear to be doing just that with machines such as the PPC640, you are in fact transmitting via a built-in modem).

Unfortunately, when telephone transmissions began, no-one envisaged the use of the lines for anything other than voice-grade communications. Consequently, the telephone lines cannot handle digital transmissions directly from the computer. This is where the modem comes in. If you are going to attempt communication using your computer, then the modem is an indispensable piece of equipment

‘Modem’ is an acronym for modulator/ demodulator and is an electronic device which transmits a continuous tone into the telephone line. This tone is known as the carrier. By varying the tone an ‘intelligent’ signal can be sent down the telephone line. The process is known as modulation. At the receiving end, the modem interprets the signal by separating the information from the carrier tone - demodulation.

Comms software on your computer translates the information to be sent into a digital signal which is then transferred from the computer to the modem via a serial cable. The serial cable is one in which data is transmitted one bit after another (imagine a queue, with each person in the | queue progressing in single file) until all the data has been sent. |

As data is received by the modem from the | computer, so it is sent down the telephone line to. the receiving modem, there to be translated and passed to the host computer This is why computers of entirely different architecture can ‘talk’ to each other

The signals transmitted and received by the modems are common to all machines, and it is the communications software which translates these common signals into information specific to that | computer.

Play SHADES multi-user game

| The signal

| the manual | communications could begin you had to select, via

МІСЕ!

ades

The UK's leading key # now

Морем Love

Modems come in all shapes, sizes and configurations. They can be automatic or manual, acoustic or direct-connect, and before choosing a modem, you must decide what you want it to do.

The first modems available to the home market were the acoustic couplers. These had a solid oblong body, with a rubber cup at each end. The handset of the telephone was plugged into the rubber cups, and the modem generated an audible ‘whistle’, which was heard by the telephone and transmitted down the line Unfortunately, the telephone could also hear any other noises that happened to be in range of the handset, and transmissions were frequently corrupted.

Nowadays, with the introduction of the BT wall socket, acoustic modems have been superseded by widely available direct-connect machines. This type of modem has a cable with a plug at one end, which can be inserted straight into the wall socket. If your modem has an automatic dialling facility, you don't even need to have a telephone. is transmitted directly into the telephone line, cutting out the possibility of extraneous noise being overheard by a telephone and corrupting the transmission.

Some of the first direct-connect modems were of variety. This meant that before

a controlling knob on the front panel, the speed and configuration of the modem. If you wanted to communicate with an information service at 1200 Baud, then you had to ‘dial’ 1200 originate, dial the telephone number, replace the telephone handset once the modem had made contact and then start your communication - there was obviously room for improvement!

The more modern automatic direct-connect modems can offer facilities such as auto-answer and auto-dial. An auto-dial modem means that you can type the number of the service you wish to contact into the communications software that you are running and the modem will automatically dial the number for you. No messing around with telephones! Using an auto-dial modem, the process of contact can be speeded up, thereby saving you time. In computer communications, time really does mean money. Phone calls are not cheap, so the quicker the procedure is, the less money you are going to spend.

An auto-answer modem is one which will pick up (or 'answer') the telephone line when another machine is calling yours. With an auto-answer modem, and the correct type of software, you can start your own information service (bulletin board). The computer can be left unattended, and

will happily answer all calls to your service.

Такімс sPEED

Another area in which greater speed can reduce transmission times is the actual speed of the information across the telephone lines. The data can be transmitted using a range of speeds, and

Quintet

> MBC-16LT Laptop

Some of the best...

Software

Mirror Il: A fully featured. comms package which is bundled with the Amstrad portables but which can be bought separately for other PC compatibles. Contains interesting features such as the ability to reside in the ‘background’ whilst you run a DOS application, it can then be switched back into the foreground to allow you to continue with your communication. Contact: SoftKlone/Management Data Processing Ltd on 0225 604901. Prices around £83

Dial-Up Personal: Comms package aimed squarely at the home user but which is still a very usable piece of software. Contact: PMS on 021 643 7688. Around £90

GEM Comm: Not surprisingly (given the name) a GEMbased communications program which runs only on the Amstrad machines. Incorporates many of the advantages of GEM applications — and also lots of the disadvantages! If you like using GEM then maybe this is for you, otherwise don't bother. Contact: Digital Research on 0635 35304. £70 or so.

Modems Pace Linnet Budget priced modem with partial Hayes compatibility and a serial cable incorporated in the price. Contact 0274 488211; prices c. £163. WS4000: A budget modem from Miracom which markets quite a range of modems and has been doing. 50 for several years. Hayes compatible with speeds of V21 and V22. Auto-dial and auto-answer as standard. Contact 0473 233888; price c. £92

Dataphone Designer: Cheap modem with a large range of features available from the front panel as well as under software control. Reset, speaker on/off etc. Contact 0733 230240; price c. £115

these are indicated by a Baud rate value. The baud rate is measured in terms of signals per second (each variation in the carrier tone), and not bits/second as some sources would have you

believe. At the slower speeds these two equations are identical, but at the higher speeds, the baud rate is slower than the equivalent bits per second rate.

The most commonly used speeds for communications across the telephone system are 300, 1200, 1200/75 and 2400. As with every aspect of computing, each speed has been assigned (jargonised) names, and these are V21, V22, V23 and V22bis respectively.

V21 is the speed employed by most acoustic modems, as greater speeds lead to an unacceptable error rate in the transmitted data. Due to its popularity in early modems, V21 is still widely available on information services.

V22 and the newer V22bis appear to be the current favourite for computer communications, and are used on almost all services. Using these speeds, data transfer is fast and reliable (although V22bis can cause problems on 'noisy' lines).

V23 (known as a 'split baud rate') is peculiar to the UK, and is used almost exclusively for Viewdata (ака. VideoTex) services such as Prestel. You receive the host computer at 1200

16 * NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 1 APRIL 1989

COMMUNICATIONS

COVER FEATURE

[Prestel and Home Banking subs and charges

You're interested in having a rummage through one of the large public information services or you'd like to slobber over the enormous amounts of cash in your bank account (you'll need the latter to execute the former) – how much is it going to cost you? Before you rush out and buy a modem, peruse the charges Prestel: Quarterly subscription rates vary with the type of user you are (i.e. business, private etc.) - £8 for private users and £18 for businesses. Online charges are 7p per minute during peak times and 1p per minute between the hours of 6pm and 8am. You've got telephone bills on top of that, of course. You can contact Prestel on 01 822 1122.

Home Banking: This is being offered by a number of banks and building societies via several viewdata services. Effectively you can access the bank's computer and set up standing orders, do transfers etc. Nottingham Building Society (the first to offer home banking) charges £2 per month for the homelink subscription or free for users who keep a balance of £1,200 or more. Homelink is executed ма Prestel, so you have to cope with the charges mentioned above and the telephone charges. Nottingham Building Society can be contacted on 0602 481444. Prestel (on the number quoted above) will be able to tell you of other banks offering similar services

80030010e

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* XTRA is an interactive magazine on Micronet - you can add your contributions on-line

Eric Smart and Wally Burke are both keen comms fans. Each day they are to be found logging-on to their favourite boards and downloading files. Both Eric and Wally

have seen a usefuHooking PD utility on their favourite bulletin board that they'd like to quarter.

Time Cost Time Cost

09.00 £0.00 Wally turns on his modem to go omine — if only he could have waited | | 21.00 £0.00 Eric turns on his modem ready for a session on- until the cheap rate starts in the evening! line after a nice dinner, during cheap rate phone

09.01 £0.10 Wally manually dials the board, (during the most expensive charge-band charge band. time) makes connection (at 300 baud), replaces his handset, and taps | | 21.01 £0.10 Eric's modem dials the number of the board, frantically at the Enter key of his machine until he is invited to enter his selects 2400 baud and waits to be connected password. then begins the automatic log-on procedure by

09.04.21 £0.30 Wally has finally managed to get the host to accept his password at the transferring his password to the board. third attempt (his typing isn't all that it could be) and is now logged-on. 21.01.30 £0.10 Eric is logged-on and changes to the directory Now, if he can just find out where that utility is kept. where he knows the utility to be, using a single

09.15 £0.95 Мају, having rummaged through 5 wrong directories and reading keypress. (He'd downloaded the help-files from several text files, (at 300 baud) has managed to locate the utility. the board during his first contact, and now

09.19 £1.05 Wally has accepted the default XMODEM to transfer the utility (he knows he way around). knows nothing of protocols), is unaware of compression utilities and is | | 21.02 £0.10 Eric is in the directory containing the utility, and 2k into a 31k file transfer is about to start his download.

09.50 £2.75 Poor old Wally. He's downloaded the file, but can't remember the | | 21.04 £0.15 Eric has selected the ZMODEM protocol for file command to exit the board. In desperation, he switches off his transfer (he knows how fast it is), used a file computer. This ensures his departure from the BBS but also leaves it compression utility and is 2/3 through the ‘hanging’ — the SysOp ain't going to be very happy about that, as it download. means no-one else can use the board! Also guess who didn't dump the | | 21.05.30 £0.20 Eric, having downloaded the utility, leaves a captured file to disk before switching off the computer? At the end of thank-you message for the SysOp and exits the the session, he has no file, no status on the board, and a 'phone board. Total cost: 20 pence.

charge of £2.75!

| enjoyment of your computer by allowing it to talk

| five

download - and why not? After all, it's only going to cost them price of a phone call Read on to find out why BT is going to be a dirty word to Wally at the end of the

ee |

baud, and communicate back to it at 75 (!) baud — 1.6. incredibly slowly. In spite of this, a relatively large proportion of private bulletin boards are adopting the 1200/75 V23 standard

OMMS САМ BE FUN, HONESTLY

Learning comms jargon is one thing, but what can you really do with it? Perhaps the answer is another question: what do you do with your computer? Play games, home accounts, bit of word processing, maybe keep a database

Computer communications isn't going to revolutionise the average home user's hobby, but there are a lot of ways you can increase the

to the outside world. Several major public information services exist, some with large quantities of software for you to download, all with news, travel information, facilities for fax and telex and home shopping, and the ability to make contact with others with the same interests as yourself.

Micronet is one such service. It was launched on the Prestel network in March 1983 and now consists of 35,000 pages of diverse information and interactive services. The system supports most home computers and all you need to hook up is a modem operating at 1200/75 baud (V23), some viewdata communications software and a subscription. Once on-line, you are presented with a huge multi-faceted database which can be navigated with single key-presses — just hit a number and youre somewhere Is Unfortunately, the 40 column graphics are a bit simplistic too — screen updates are slow - but the range of interesting material more than makes up for this.

The on-line services can be broken down into areas: Communications, entertainment, Information, Telesoftware/shopping and Busine and Personal finance. You can send electronic mail to users of Prestel and Telecom Gold as well as to those of Micronet and link your mailbox to a radio-pager for instant access. Combine this with telex and faxing facilities for an extra fee of £1 a month, and you have world-wide communications for a fraction of the usual cost. Also useful is the teleconferencing facility — Dialtalk — which allows up to 64 users to talk to each other real-time. Chatlines, classified ads and technical helplines

NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 1 APRIL 1989 • 17

гв”

COVER FEATURES wawawa

complete the person to person communication services

All this and an on-line, multi-user adventure game, Shades. Featuring a D&D world of 1,000 locations, Shades allows up to 64 players to interact simultaneously in a bid to gain points, treasure and become wizards. It's been on-line for a couple of years now and Micronet reckons it attracts at least 4,000 hours of access per week; a popularity it wishes to exploit further by introducing a new game in the next couple of months. Also available is Starnet, a multi-user, interactive strategy game set in the 21st century, a selection of competitions and puzzles, and a gallery area for posting your own art and literature.

Contact with a service such as Micronet will really expand your computer horizons — and if you tire of Micronet, there are lots of others

If you don't want to pay a monthly subscription fee, then you can make contact with one of the many BBSs (Bulletin Board Services), which are invariably free, and at their best сап rival many of the public services. (The BBS is a piece of software running on a single machine, usually from someone's home and, as its name implies, is a kind of electronic notice board, allowing you to post and receive messages to and from other users of the board.) They will also have areas ntaining public domain software which will be available for you to download to your own machine. Help with computing problems, general advice and friendly communication are all part of the bulletin board's appeal.

Top OF THE BILL

OK, you're convinced of the benefits and advantages to be had by connecting your computer to a modem and getting on-line. You can't wait to download all the free software - but

€

Technobabble «ais

Baud: Measure of transmission speeds given in signals per second e.g. 300, 1200, 2400 etc.

BBS: Bulletin Board Service. A piece of software usually running on a single machine, and which acts as a kind of electronic notice board. Callers can leave and receive messages, download and upload files.

Download: The act of transferring a file across the telephone network from someone else's computer to yours.

Upload: Opposite of download.

Modem: Device used to connect a computer to a telephone line, thereby allowing it to communicate with other computers.

is it free? What is it all going to cost? Will you be the next candidate for a tabloid shock-horror story about enormous 'phone bills?

Apart from the initial outlay for a modem and comms software, the major cost of connecting your machine to the outside world will be the actual charges for your telephone calls. These, unfortunately, are dictated by BT, but there are ways of reducing your charges to a minimum. The first thing to do is to restrict your on-line periods to cheap-rate times (between 18.00 and 08.00 and all day Saturday and Sunday)

Next, always choose the fastest communication speed offered by the board that can be handled by your modem - although if you're downloading files, higher speeds are accompanied by a higher error and re-transmission rate which can defeat the object.

During your first call to a new board, download any available help-fles and study these thoroughly. Speed up your access times to a board by being able to find your way around quickly and

Comms

SysOp: SYStem OPerator. Person in charge of and responsible for a bulletin board.

Auto-answer: Feature allowing modems to answer the telephone to incoming calls (usually from other machines).

Auto-dial: Feature allowing modems to dial the number of the service you require automatically, thereby ending the need for a telephone. Full-duplex: Communication between two computers in both ways at the same time. The host computer communicates using one band range, the replying uses another.

Half-duplex: Communication computers in one direction at a time.

between two

easily, and you will make a significant reduction in your telephone bills.

If you want to leave a message to other users of a board, compose the message before going on-line. Don't sit with a blank screen and a blank mind whilst the phone bill is running up.

Use one of the many file compression utilities before up-loading or down-loading files from a board. These are small programs which compact text and program files by 50% or more. The compression utilities themselves are usually available from bulletin boards and will greatly reduce file transfer times.

If your comms software allows you to set up a RAM disk, then do so. Capture text files in the RAM disk and read them off-line. Try reading a 10- 15K text file scrolling up your monitor screen at 300 baud - it takes forever and costs megabucks!

Used sensibly, comms can open up a whole new world for your micro at modest cost. Remember, you pay £14.99 or so for 8-bit disks and more for 16-bit software. By comparison, comms is cheap! @

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18» NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 1 APRIL 1989

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нн INTERVIEW.

Тһе latest Amiga paint

package - DeluxePaint III -

has taken the state of the

art to new frontiers. Rik

Haynes discovers

DeluxePaint III's inner

secrets by talking to its

creator, Dan Silva.

| @ What do you think is the

€ When did you start writing DeluxePaint IIT?

I think it was about a year and a half ago.

@ What where the most difficult parts to write? Without a doubt the most difficult part to write was the animation code - particularly compressing animation on the fly so you could edit the picture but immediately give the difference between that, the following picture and the previous picture and store them all in memory and have that working fast.

When I first implemented that, it took about 5 seconds to make any change to the picture.

@ How fast is the animation compression routine now?

It's so fast now you don't notice it.

@ Was the animation portion of the program the largest section to write?

Yes, it takes up 50% of the program and took over half the development time

@ What software and hardware did you use to develop DeluxePaint Ш?

We use Electronic Arts' own custom-designed development system which we call the Artist's Work Station using IBM 286s and 386s, and our own cross-debugging set-up — which is a very good interactive debugger, allowing you to single step thru the code on the PC and simultaneously see the results displayed on the Amiga. The code itself was mainly written in Aztec C, with all the time-critical parts — such as the perspective fill

language. © You've included extra-halfbrite mode іп DeluxePaint III, so why didn't you include HAM mode?

HAM is a real pain - I just want individual pixels Every time I look at including HAM, the impact on the program architecture is just too major for me,

Dan Silva Bio

€ Born in Van Nuys, Southern California on 12th December, 1942

@ Studied Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University — he eventually got a BSM and MSM in M/E. Stanford saw his interest in computer technology awaken when he used a computer to synthesise kinernatic linkages.

© He then worked for four years at Informatics, a contractor to the NASA Ames laboratory, reinforcing his interest in computing by writing an interactive language for displaying mathematical equations.

@ By 1978, he joined Xerox where he worked on user interface design for the Xerox Star System.

| worst feature in DeluxePaint

and colorcycling code — written in Assembler |

Silva tongued

and it would make portability to other micros even more difficult. Up till now I've managed to find better uses of the other graphics modes without resorting to HAM. * @ Why didn't you изе the ARP file requester?

That's another area 1 could improve. Гуе seen the ARP and it's really neat – but Гуе already built my own shell over the top of Intuition, so I can generate requesters using only a limited amount of memory. Га rather spend time developing new animation routines than rewriting some- thing that already works OK.

I should wait for users to find that out - but I think the most annoying feature of DeluxePaint III is that I didn't get to include all the elements of animation that I wanted to incorporate. However, I can't think of anything that I'd call a bad feature.

Id say the three dimensional move capability which lets the nonartist | produce quite complex animations in a simple, quick and fun to use way.

€ Why should people buy DeluxePaint III - what makes it stand out from the competition?

First of all, it's a big improvement in the paint

program's capabilities alone. Almost every part of

the program has been retouched in some way -

either speeded up or the interfaces cleaned up,

things like that. Secondly, it opens up a whole

world of art where the difference between static

art and animation is blurred. I'm very excited by

the possibilities of this combination.

@ Is this how you foresee DPaint developing in

the future?

I think you'll see from the animation stuff I do

now with DeluxePaint III that I've already started | in that direction — with you able to create free

form animation and save out standard moves and

effects, and make it more of a push button tool for

anybody to use.

€ What do you think is the worst feature of the

Amiga?

© Then followed a year at Lucasfilm designing a video editor for its computer graphics division setup by George Lucas to integrate computer graphics, video. editing and computer audio into mainstream moviemaking.

@ After that, he went back to Xerox to work on a next generation bitmap editor with Bill Bowman. This project developed into the black and white paint program, Doodle, running on the Xerox Dandelion computer.

€ їп 1983 he joined Electronic Arts and started work оп an in-house paint program called Prism. With the release of the Amiga in 1985, Prism became DeluxePaint and the rest (as they say) is history...

I do have problems with the system software — it's complicated to use, hard to work with and multi- tasks when it doesn't need to.

The custom-designed graphics and sound chips

@ If you could change three things about the Amiga, what would you alter?

The operating system, I'd make the hi-res not flicker, and I'd make the Amiga have 256 colors

à sort of extra extra-halfbrite mode.

This is embarrassing, I don't really use the Amiga except for Dpaint. I don't play games, although I recently got hooked for weeks on a Public Domain game called Grav Attack. I'd like to have time to keep up with Amiga hardware and software developments like the Video Toaster and Sculpt 4-D.

@ Where would you like to see the Amiga in five years time?

I'd like to see it become "The Standard" for low- cost video production — and to see desktop video. production become reality, with people able to produce their own MTV videos - with the Amiga at the centre of it all.

€ Did you enjoy working at Lucasfilm?

It was a very interesting and educational exper ience — but I think the film industry's expectations for how long computer graphics in the movies would take to become a

reality were totally unrealistic. That's why 1 got out of it.

€ If you weren't a

programmer, what do you / | suppose you'd do?

I think I'd be a musician perhaps

€ What's your favourite food and drink?

To be real specific it's the red and green enchilada: at Pancho's Mexican restaurant in Fairfax, and margaritas

€ What other EA projects have you worked on in the past?

Гуе worked on Cut and Paste and I ported One

Enchiladas are a Latin American food dish made up of a Tortilla (thin flat maize cake) filed with meat, peppers and chilli sauce.

Technobabble

on One and Pinball Construction Set to the IBM - things like that.

€ What project are you currently working on? I'm beta testing an EA MIDI sequencing product on the Mac.

ө What's going to be your next project?

I can't say exactly, but it will be in the graphics and animation area.

ө Will DeluxePaint III be converted over to any other micro formats?

I don't know the precise details at present. Our IBM programmer Steve Shaw is currently working on a PC version which will incorporate aspects from Amiga DeluxePaint Ш, but it's oriented а little differently because of the different PC and Amiga markets. I believe there are plans for an ST version in Europe, but I'm not totally sure on that. 9 Are there plans for DeluxePaint IV?

Ive a growing list of things to include in DeluxePaint IV — tweaking what's already in DeluxePaint III, that sort of thing. I can't think of anything major to include right now. Though while I take a rest from DeluxePaint I may think of something new to include... @

NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 1 APRIL 1989 • 21

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——————— JANE AT AR! ST

You'd be forgiven for thinking the ST a newcomer. Only this last year has the machine become the darling of the press; barely a week goes by without it making the headlines.

Yet the ST has been lurking around for almost four years. Richard Monteiro tells its tale...

he ST story starts back in January 1983 - Friday 13th of all days - when Jack Tramiel abruptly left Commodore. If Commodore's chairman, Irving Gould, hadn't disproved of Jack's idea of placing the Tramiel sons in senior executive positions at Commodore, the ST might not be here today. At the time of Jack's departure, the once-thriving Atari was a billion dollar headache for owner Warner Communications. After hitting $2 billion sales in 1982, Atari's sales flopped. Instead of making money, it lost hundreds of millions - around $538 million in ‘83. That's when Warner approached Jack. The final deal, which has amazed securities analysts for years, involved Warner selling Atari to Jack and Jack borrowing the money from Wamer to buy Atari. Warner got the bum side of the deal, if you haven't worked it out yet

Sex crime

1984 was the year that Atari slung a $100 million lawsuit at Commodore. It transpires that Atari had bankrolled Amiga Inc - this was before Jack appeared on the scene - to the tune of $500,000. Apparently Amiga gave back the money to Atari and sold the developments to Commodore for over $20 million. Those developments, of course, appeared later as the Amiga A2000 and then the A500

NT tech spec

16-bit in computerspeak is the equivalent of 16-valve in fastcarspeak. Both conjure images of speed and power. The ST - with its high powered initials — could almost be a fast car. In fact, ST stands for Sixteen Thirtytwo (not Sam Tramiel, son of Atari's president Jack Tramiel, as many romantics would have you believe). Unless you're a programmer sixteen thirtytwo is meaningless

At the core of all STs lies Motorola's 68000 micro processor running at 8Mhz; this chip talks to the rest of the circuitry using 16-bits (hence 16-bit machine) while it talks to itself in 32-bits. Generally, the more bits flying about the faster program execution takes place.

Amongst its armoury the ST has a minimum of 512K memory (expandable to 4Mbytes); 128K ROM which contains GEM and TOS; the graphics chip Shifter which is capable of a 320 by 200 16-colour resolution, 640 by 200 4-colour resolution and 640 by 400 monochrome resolution (colours are chosen from a palette of 512); YM-2149 sound generator that produces three-channel square sound waves. The Megas also have a blitter chip which speeds up graphics operations.

Connections include cartridge port (which can accept 128K of ROM), monitor socket, second drive slot, DMA port, MIDI sockets, parallel (or printer) port and serial interface.

Not to be outdone, Jack ordered his engineers to get to work on a 68000-based machine. This wasn't such an impossible task as it sounds because much of Commodore's top talent joined Jack at Atari. With them, they brought the numerous ideas that had been floating around during Jack's time at Commodore

It was at the January 1985 CES show in the States that the ST was first shown. An extraordinary turn around. Something that wouldn't have been possible if many off-the-shelf items weren't packed into the machine. The most obvious time saver was the inclusion of the GEM operating system. Europeans saw the ST for the first time at the Hanover show in March of the same year. Five months later the machine was displayed at the PCW show in the UK

Atari baby

Shortly after the PCW, it was actually possible to buy the ST in Britain. At that time a 512K machine plus monochrome monitor cost £749.99. Bad news for the bank balance. The first STs came in several bits — processing unit, disk drive, power supply and operating system on disk. The machine was

Amazing facts 1

Nolan Bushnell, who created the first fragrantly titled video game Pong, was also responsible for naming his company ‘Watch out or I'm going to get you on your next move’ – the translation for Atari which appears in the Japanese game called Go. Digital Research commissioned Bristokbased Metacomco to write a version of BASIC for the PC - Personal BASIC. It was converted for and supplied with earlier Amigas until Microsoft, who had originally been drafted in to write Amiga BASIC, finished their version. Commodore Switched to Microsofts BASIC when it was completed and Atari adopted the castoff, now known as ST BASIC.

It's not generally known that during a freezing night in September 1980 Jack Tramiel was almost killed when the jet he was flying in caught fire at 20,000 feet. Along with several executives, Jack was in a burning plane for around 45 minutes before the pilot managed to land. It's a miracle the fire didn't reach the fuel tanks.

NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS © 1 APRIL 1989 • 23

s the Atari 520ST are at that stage was in short supply — and ul, the otable exception being egaroids

of '86 the STM appeared » original model being the or (hence the M) which he ST with a television last there was a way of getting at the ST's colour modes. The STFM appeared later the same year The floppy disk and power supply were combined with the proce: ig hardware and keyboard to provide the now familiar ST uni:

mos;

During the first ha the only difference to t inclusion of a modula

ners could u:

Amazing facts 2

@ Several models of the ST have been proposed - some have even reached prototype stage - but have never been publically available. For instance, the 260ST with 256K of memory (they say it's big in Canada), the 780ST which was said to have 750K and the 4Mbyte 4160ST. The 4160ST is available, in a different box; it's called a Mega ST4

€ TOS - the operating system (not Tramiel operating system as many would have you believe) - is continuously being updated. The latest, 14. should be complete in a few months time. The OS is kept in ROM; with the help of a good memory editor you can discover messages left by the programmers

€ Bob Gleadow, Atari UK's MD, was once а Commodorian; with many top Commodore people Bob moved to Atari when Jack left Commodore.

@ STs are put together by Taiwanese whose average age is 12, and who are cheaper than STs.

Four years of the Atari ST...

1985

January First sightings of the ST rat the CES show

September UK is shown the machine at the PCW show. shortly afterwards it becomes publically available. The first ST comprises a disk drive, keyboard and processing unit, and power supply.

1986

February The ST gets a modulator and an M tagged

to its title. It's now possible to hook the

computer to a television. TOS now in ROM.

March All the bits and pieces of the ST are brought together into one box. An F has also been added to the name. The machine is now called the 520STFM

April The 1040STF appears. A 1Mbyte machine with a £799 plus VAT price. Also, Sam Tramiel announces that an enhanced ST will be available in late "86 or early '87 Shome mishtake shurley?

September The Atari village at the PCW had some Surprises on show: the blitter chip, and Mega 2 and Mega 4 machines.

1987

January Megas are due in the shops in the second

come supplied

Quarter of the year and

Future shocks

From '86 onwards things become blurred because of Atari's habit of announcing hardware months before it's available. It's a good policy because if something is announced and it gets a luke warm reception, there's little point in marketing the product. So far this has worked well — can you think of anything Atari has officially launched in recent times that has flopped?

with a blitter.

Atari drops ST prices; 520STFM costs

£399. The 5С1224 colour monitor is

introduced at the same price.

May Megas are at last available. without blitter.

September Megas still shipping with no blitter.

1988

June Laptop ST rumours.

July The 1040 now has a modulator built in. Its title changes to 1040STFM.

September 520 reduced to £299. A special bundling deal which consists of 21 games and Organiser is put together for the 520. The price for the bundle is £399.

December Stacey laptop not shown at Comdex

1989

January

February

but shipping

More news on the Super ST. It's going to have a 030 processor and lots of colours. But then again it might have a 16MHz-rated 68000 with no graphics.

A new 1Mbyte ST is announced. This one will look like standard Mega STs, but will only have 1Mbyte

Stacey is seen at Hanover. Shipment is expected any day.

February

March

The ST is certainly the most sought after micro currently. Something to do with price and there being a machine for every application. At the moment there are four machines: 520, 1040, Mega 2 and Mega 4. But the end of the year there could well be another four: laptop (Stacey), Mega 1, EST (enhanced ST) and console. I Atari keeps launching more powerful versions of the machine the ST's success is guaranteed well into the 90s.

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8.90 1170 1770 1390 1390

1290

COMMODORE AMIGA 500 COMES COMPLETE WITH KICKSTART 1.3 TUTORIAL DISK, BASIC, MOUSE AND WORKBENCH 1.2 PLUS FREE TV. MODULATOR AND ART PACKAGE ONLY £358.00 OFFER ONLY WHILE STOCKS LAST OFFICIAL PRICE INCREASE AS OF 31/3/88

AMIGA 500 Pack 6 Philips СМ8833 Med Res Monitor Games Starter Pack with Modulator

ONLY £585.00

AMIGA 500 Pack 7 Commodore 1084s Med Res Monitor Games Starter Pack with Modulator

ONLY £615.00

ATARI 1040 sTFM

16 BITSOFTWARE Crack 1 (Dugger) Dragonscape

Hybris

1 Ladicrus.

lnc. Shrinking Sphere Populous (EA) Scorpion

Trained Assassin WEC Le Mans Maobatun Dealers Menace (Draconis) Mini Golf Microprose Soccer Millenium 2.2

Motor Massacre

AMIGA. 1170 1170 17.70 1430 ило 1680 14.70 14.70 1470 1470 11.70 1390 1470 11.70 1390

1470 1470 11.70 14.70 1170 1390 1470 ило 1390

ALL GOODS DESPATCHED WITHIN 12 HOURS. ВЈЕСТ TO AVAILABILITY = -— E “2

SERVICE SOFTWARE BARGAINS THE FOLLOWING SOFTWARE AT: £4.99 EACH

BETTER DEAD THAN ALIEN BACKLASH

Denaris

TV Sports Football

Competition Pro extra Joystick Competition Pro 5000 (Black) Joystick Cheetah 125+ Joystick

Cheetah Starfighter Joystick Quickshot I+ Joystick

Quickshot П Turbo Joystick

Konix Speedking Joystick

Konix Speedking Joystick + Autofire Konix Navigator Joystick

3.5" DS/DD Disks per Ten

3.5" DS/DD Disks per Fifty

35" DS/DD Disks per Ten in case

100 Capacity 3.5" Disk Box

50 Capacity 3.5" Disk Box

200 Capacity Posso Dleuxe 3.5" Box 100 Capacity 5.25" Disk Box (While Stocks Last) 3.5" Head Cleaner Kit (Deluxe)

Twin Joystick Extension Lead

Quality Mouse Mats

Mouse Bracket

Amiga Clear Perspex Dust Cover

Four Player Joystick Adapter

Abacus Learn Computing Books (S.A.E. for Details)

ST CLOCK CARD (Internal) £24.90

ATARI SM 124 HI RES MONITOR

512009 ST CLOCK ROM АТАН! SC 1224 || (External) £24.90 MED. RES MONITOR

ез

70.00

ОРЕМ MON-FRI 9AM-8PM SAT 9AM-4PM. CALLERS WELCOME

COMMODORE А501 1mb EXPANSION CARTRIDGE

£130.00

WORKBENCH V1.3 £14.99

COMMODORE C64 HOLLYWOOD PACK

£135.99

COMMODORE A520 T.V. MODULATOR

£19.99

1352 AMIGA MOUSE £31.50

COMMODORE C64 ENTERTAINMENT PK

£178.99

SPECIAL OFFERS

AMIGA £17.50 £14.70 £14.70 £15.90 £17.50 £13.20

ST £14.50 £11.70 £14.70 £12.90

HELLBENT ATAX FINAL ASSAULT SPITTING IMAGE WIZARD WARZ LEADERBOARD - BIRDIE WINTER OLYMPIAD INTERNATIONAL SOCCER QUADRALIEN STAR GOOSE OUTRUN SIDE ARMS

AMIGA А500 ONLY

FOR NEW RELEASES AND ITEMS NOT LISTED PLEASE PHONE US TODAY. NEW TITLES WILL BE DESPATCHED ON CONFIRMED DATE OF RELEASE.

11.70 1390 1470 130 1170 1170 1470 1270 13%

Galactic Conqueror Games - Summer Ed. Ghosts t' Goblins Helter Skelter HKM

Hostages International Karate + Iron Lord Westem Europe Scenery Japan Scenery Disk Worldclass Leaderboard Jet Who Framed R. Rabbit Joan of Arc Zany Golf

Zoom

Zak McKracken

LED Storm

Lombard RAC Rally Advanced Ski Simulator Advanced Rugby Sim. Black Tiger

Cosmic Pirate

Turbo Cup Ultimate Golf UMS.

Virus Vindicators Victory Road Weird Dreams

£14.50 £12.50 £29.50 £14.50 £17.50 £11.60 £14.70 £17.70 £13.90 £16.60 £15.90

Speedball

California Games Dragon's Lair F16 Combat Pilot Rocket Ranger

£14.50

£11.60 £11.70 £17.70 Games Winter Edition £13.20 - Interceptor (EA) 6 1630 Heroes of the Lance 115.90 Kennedy Approach Kenny Dalglish Soccer Knsal

Land of Legends.

Las Duel.

Lancelot

1680 1390 1430 1170 11.70 1390 11.70

All prices include VAT and Postage. Hardware included. Europe Add £2.00 per item

xpress Next Day Munsters Courier service Available Nebulus

UNIT 13 CENTURION WAY IND. ESTATE LEYLAND, PRESTON LANCASHIRE. PR5 2GU TEL: 0772 - 452414 - Sales

- 455685 - Advertising

GOODS SUBJECT TO AVAILABILITY AND CHANGE WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE. OFFER ENDS 31st JULY 1989. HOMESOFT (UK) CARES FOR ITS CUSTOMERS.

Save £££ оп any purchase - don't buy it - page 27

Win

Express reveal te facts г - and fearlessly names the best buys! -page 15

Obituary columns for YOUR machine ' Jupiter ae k upi š oos hA NS (ШІН II Lynx SPREADSHEETS < ыыт so Four 544200 ` EXCLUSIVE! c5 programs mme. , 7% Stunning realtime ra compara © traced Ф graphics. E

Waffle 4 * Listings 7 • Nonsense 10 е More listings 16 • Нуре 22 e Yet more listings 30 е Comms 32-54 e More listings 59

Following a string of amazing 16-

must be their most impressive deal

yet. In a shock move the two manufacturers have decided to

reveal that hardware n now take home the two machines for the price of one.

the two manufacturers bids to win the 16-bit pound have bordered on the overly generous this must be their most impressive offer to date.

Amiga will come in the same box along with one top selling game, 33,798 awful games, 14 bug ridden DTP packages, 26 paint packages, an Archimedes emulator, a free holiday

one of the firms in a court case of your choice. The notional value of this package is $74 million.

A Sommodore spokesman spouted: “This really is a value

Thatcher hits the roof

In a surprise move this week, UK Silver announced a tie-in licence deal with Madame Tussauds involving the unlikeliest of characters - Mrs Thatcher. The game will place you in the role of the Iron Lady herself, and the aim is to sack all the members of the cabinet before the next general election. Along the way you will be able to pick up various useful items, like Murdochs, Parkinsons and disposable Channons. Blue Ninja is due for release this Christmas on all major formats, plus MSX.

bit offers this year Commodore and | Atari have come up with what |

Whilst some have commented that |

| know the It is understood that the ST and | computers. The bundle is expected

in Bolivia and a chance to represent |

added offer which will attract the upwardly mobile buyer. You know the ST is really the perfect add on for the Amiga. I always did think it was a marvellous machine.

In contrast Atari’ | declined to comment s

spokesman ying only: "I

bundle the ST and Amiga – together. | don't know anything about it and if I

did I wouldn't tell you lot. Go away." It has been suggested that Atari feels this bundle is the only way to offer the ST with stereo sound. This is being entirely refuted by the firm Both companies are hoping to attract first time buyers who don't first thing about

to last until about 3pm on Sunday afternoon.

Cray laptop!

he manufacturers of the fastest Eee in the world announced

plans to launch a laptop version

Provisionally called the Cray Fiche, it can address 34Gb of RAM with a 32-

bit main processor running at 51Mhz.

A company spokesman said "the Cray Laptop will cater for all the

needs of the modern power user"

Expected to retail for £6,999,999.95, the new machine should be available

as you read this.

Cousteau coup

Hawaiian manafacturer Coral has just previewed a prototype of its new underwater computer, the Oceania. Designed to operate at depths of upto 300ft, the A4 sized hand held is taking divers by storm. Featuring a liquid crystal display, the machine is PC-compatible and file transfer is possible with the waterproof leads supplied. Built-in software includes an integrated diary and calendar suite, on-line comms facility and a fish identification database.

Ever hot on exclusives, Express brings you the first screenshot of Swan Systems’ new micro, Тһе Purse PC. Although the miniature super- twist screen supports a full 80 column display with characters barely discernable to the naked eye, Swan is bundling The Purse with glasses able to magnify on-screen images to a size claimed to emulate a 14” monitor. Critics of the

| Swan lights up PC world

* The new Swan Purse shown next to а matchbox

small keyboard were silenced when Swan announced the inclusion of an ingenious pair of

gloves featuring needle point finger tips. The Purse PC is expected to sell for less than £50.

TOP 20 Full Price GAME

“чо

1ER

Psycho Ninja „сае ‘Spectum, C64, CPC

MG Club Speed Trials е

Spectun, 064, CPC, ST Amiga

ú Clough Ninja асте ‘Spectrum, C54 More Games «ses ‘Spec, бы CPC

Operation Frog ueso«s

кл, 054 CPC, ST Amga

Borstal Tutor мтс Spectun, 064, CPC, BBC

Cessna usse

ST Amiga, PC Pratmania crem sewa ‘Spectrum, C64, CPC, ST Amiga

Vat Man scars eresense sexe Spectun, C64, CPC, ST Amiga

Afterthought «cows

Spectrum, 064 CPC, ST Amiga Dunarius sonso

УШ Thunder Blag мельс

Spectum, C& CPC, ST Amiga

Double Dross erosa ‘Spectrum, 064, ST Amiga, РС.

T: Midgets жесе

‘Spee, C64, CPC. War In Macclesfield плех ‘Spec, 064, CPC Barbarian 268 ss

Spectum, C64, ST

ІШ Penultimate Ninja 43 он

кт, 064, CPC Bollixik ко»

‘ST Amiga, PC

EJ TV Crap Licences xs Amiga

TOP TEN Budget GAMES

SBS Coracle Sim cowsrss

Spectrum, CPC

Tedious Island sa sowe ‘Spec, CPC

Weed Games ores

Spectun, ОМ CPC, MSK

Bum Jab wsus ‘Spectrum, C&4, CPC, ST. C16

Joe Bloat 2 ах» ‘Spectrum, C64, CPC, BBC, C16, Electron

Mitten нанос ‘Spectrum, C64, CPC, Atari 8-bi, MSX

ET Gameplay Simulator es Spectrum, CPC Н Large Dog In Cheam жоо:

желіп, C54, CPC

Potboilers rsono ‘Spectum, C64, CPC, Atari bt

Format 11 uc: ‘Spectum, 064, CPC

RE reentry + NE new entry +

Compiled by Excess

Last week s positions \

28 • NEW COMPUTER EXCESS * 1 APRIL 1989

SE C O D SW ALLOP

INTERNATIONAL ASSASSIN SIMULATOR

ARNAGE EPICS

Amiga • £29.99dk Also on ST, PC, C64

Featuring the very latest in realtime digital effects, Assassin sets out to seek the success scored by the legendary Communist Execution Simulator and Advanced Genocide Simulator.

% GAMEPLAY

Assassin comprises three levels in which you play a nameless killer with a brief to murder five of the world's leaders as quickly as possible

% GRAPHICS AND SOUND

Although the resolution, colour and smoothness of the moving video sequences is excellent, the attention to detail displayed in the way blood seems to hit the inside of your monitor is truly awesome. Similarly, the treatment of gaping wounds and dismemberment is

* Blow off de Gaulle's hooter before the feds pile in

fabulous. As you might expect, sound is confined to the prolonged screams of deaththroe agony and is in stereo.

@ OTHER VERSIONS

Just as you'd imagine on every other load of old tosh

that isn't an Amiga.

@ EXCESS VERDICT

If you like this sort of game, it's the sort of game for you. If not, don't buy it

o0600

Frederick Foresight

CYBER CHESS

CHIBA CITY CIRCUITS

Archimedes + £39.95dk Also on ST, Amiga, MSX

Chiba's recent releases achieved wide spread notoriety with reported deaths now amounting to over 200. Will Cyber Chess deliver the same kind of impact we've come to expect?

2. * Piling through the ICE оп the way to flatlining King's Pawn 3

2 fractal landscape on a fallback is, for the onstruct distribution gh sub-cyber minimal and

most part, indi: worki levels is relati accelerations tilt to the max @ GRAPHICS AND SOUND Vision field: nd beyond normal stereoscopic range to open up а The effect I res def is total and graded kickin fully re receptor levels are, again, very upstream - spine-trodes positively reverberate as neural overload fades up to the op.

@ OTHER VERSIONS

Cyber Chess looks but nowhere

d on both the A500 and the ST ip as on the Meiga. Not so good

on the Spectrum. Ф ЕХ

55 VERDICT

Billy Gibson

DEATHMASHIV

BLUDSOKE SOFTWARE

ST £19.99dk Also on BBC, MSX, Atari 8-bit, C16, Dragon 32, Oric Atmos, ZX81

You take the role of Luke Scytheslasher, Intergalactic Genocide Officer in this vertically- scrolling shoot-'em-up from Bludsoke.

@ GAMEPLAY

It's your job to rid the universe of the evil alien Zgmmmrrgnbgngobos as they swarm into your solar system from outer space spreading death and destruction in your path only you can stop them with your transformable land«ruising jet fighter spaceship with collectible weapons such as phasers slashers invincibility shield five pound claw hammers and nuclear

* Level Three, and the first wave of Centauran Battledroids

disembowellers only you can stop them or have | already said that and then destroy the епфоНеуе! guardians in this unique outing on the ST.

Sprites are pretty well you would expect given the limitations of the machine. The scrolling backdrops are fortunately kept in the background, where they scroll either upwards or downwards, one or the other. Sound is confined to the explosion of the aliens’ entrails as their slimy green bodies are exposed to the vacuum of deep space when your phaser rips its hull to shreds. Limited realism.

% OTHER VERSIONS

Already available on lots of other machines. The versions vary according to how good they are.

€ EXCESS VERDICT

It's been a long time since we've seen anything this original on the ST. It was so refreshing to be able to pick up the phasers before the invincibility shields, which is so rare in a game of this type.

Bluto McThud

A constant problem with the PCW is its lack of a proper sound chip. It can only emit a single “beep” - this can get rather annoying after a while. However, this simple addition to the machine will give you full stereo sound. First, hire a major orchestra for an evening, such as the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra or the LSO. Then, write out the tunes you want to play in orchestral parts, remembering to transpose for instruments such as the horn and the clarinet, and give them to the members of the orchestra. Finally, write a simple BASIC program to flash the screen on and off in time with the music thus using the PCW as a conductor beating time for the orchestra. This can be achieved using СНЕ$(27)+"р" and CHR$(27)+"q". In this way you can handle even complex musical applications and write quite impressive sound tracks to games! Simeon Twaddle, Godalming, Surrey * The CBSO offers this word of warning: if talking to Simon Rattle, avoid mention of guinea pigs or Shostakovich, especially the later string quartets.

1 һауе an MSX. Can you help me? Ron Slugg, Newbury, Berks * No.

If you're an 8-bit owner like me and are jealous of your friends who have Amigas and STs, why not break into their house and steal their machine? Not only does this wipe the smile off their smug little faces, but it gives you 16-bit power for free! Damien Flint, Northallerton, Yorkshire

| have a Dragon 32 and would like to use some good word processing packages - it uses 5.25 inch disks. | have several at work on 5.25 inch disks but they are MS-DOS packages for use on a РС. 15 there апу way | can use them?

Eric McNulty, Birmingham

* Yes - quite easily, as it turns out! First check the serial number on the bottom of the case. If it ends in 566787" or "566788, remove the case and loosen the two screws holding the drive mechanism to the body of the

machine, leaving enough space to solder a 560рҒ capacitor between the two exposed contacts; otherwise locate the dip switch behind the drive mechanism and simply select the ‘80 track’ setting. Then put your Dragon in the bin, go and buy a PC, and run the word processing packages on that instead

Гуе been playing Dungeon Lair on Troll Planet Blood on the ST solidly for months now and haven't got past the eighth dungeon. What should I do? Do you know any good pokes or tips? Please tell me what to do!

Neil Weatherall, London

* Try this tip. Quit the game, and click on the game files, selecting all. Then drag them into the waste basket Turn off your machine and exit the bedroom. Walk down to the living room, and start talking to the members your family. (It's tricky at first, but you'll soon get the hang of it!)

I've noticed a very interesting thing on the ВВС Master 128. If you hold down the leftmost RAM chips with a tyre lever while you've got the back off, you can unsolder two of the fourteen pins on

[zi

NEW COMPUTER EXCESS • 1 APRIL 1989 • 29

СОНВВІКН5 a ES qaqapasqa:

The prospective mouse mat buyer is faced with а bewildering array of choice. Now МаїТесһ reckon they've produced the ultimate. Peter Boredom, Editor of Mouse Mat World, tests it out...

SuperMat @ MatTech (0225 446034) @ £99.95

ats have come a long way since the days of two inch plastic models. SuperMat boasts the latest in surfacing technology and has that characteristic ‘silk on wood’ feeling of top end mats. It is light, weighing in at just four ounces, comes with a protective leatherette carrying case and a detailed 300 page user manual. Registration entitles you to membership of the British Supportive Surfaces User Club and gives you subscription to the magazine MatUser It will be a boon to desktop publisher and graphics users. The mat contains metal mesh to conduct away friction heat caused by intensive mouse movement when drawing - a welcome

Welcome mat

s which left the user with

change from early warm finger ends

Caught by the blocks

SuperMat works spendidly with any leading package. WordStar can be a little smooth in the blocks menu, and dBase users should beware of long applications as the mat can get rather ‘sticky moving around long lines. Otherwise though the performance is smooth, judder-free, and every bit as good as we've come to expect from MatTech And just look at the spec: heat-sealed epoxy resin-based carbon fibre base, ability to with stand movement on the desktop in gusts of up to 300 mph, compatibility with mice frequency up to per milliradian, and an incredible drag coeffi cient at room tempera ture of 0.975. Only a few years ago with mats of this price you lucky if you coefficient of 0.8! The Mat comes in ST, PC, Mac and Amiga versions, with left-hand

5MHz | on

were had a

Shoot from the Lip.

of roll scan | "Its a bit cold outside. Better put a coat

Sir Clive Sinclair on the recent cold spell

Ron Deranged, inmate of The Bluebell Home for the Mentally Ill, Berks

* MatTech's new baby clearly stands out from the rest of the crowd

ed options and a variety of colours available. The £69.95 upgrade adds a miniature chip inside the mat which ‘learns’ the shape of the desktops it is placed on and adjusts the surface shape for total smoothness. All in all a product that breaks new ground in mat technology. The mat for the '90s. @

the week's most quotable sayings

BBC for over five years

Eric Drudge of Nondescript Software on the release of British Weather Patterns and Rainfall Distribution 1964-68

the best

T'm afraid he's right

Stan Crumb, Editor of BBC Micro Monthly

If I see another bloody story es, ll - aargh

The last words of Dave Nobblington, Express reader

about

MeeaSoft Wor

ZURICH - NEW YORK · PARIS • TOKYO - GRIMSBY

Holdings International

Lester Piggot Accounts £19.95 Ken Dodd Tax Planner £19.95 Alex Higgins Boxing £14.95 John Cage Music Studio £29.95 Harvey Proctor Games Compilation. £9.95 lvan Boesky Stocks'n'shares £12.95 Nigel Mansell Racing (Slight seconds) £995

Judge Pickles’ Decision Maker.£29.95, or maybe £9.95

Gypsy Lee's Fortune Teller а Pamella Bordes Spreadsheet £19.95 Dan Quayle Intelligence Simulator £29.95 Boeing 737 Flight sim £19.95 Nigel Lawson Economics Manager £19.95

no make that £22.95 ег no better make it £24.95 um no £25.95 (seasonally adjusted only £14.95 in real terms)

Тот Keating Art Studio (not copy protected £19.95 Princess 0/5 Erly Lerning Packidge £4.95 The Guardian’ Spell Checker £49.95 The Sun’ Thesaurus (needs at least 1K RAM) ....£4.95 Moammar баданї Balance of Power £14.95

Steve Davis Test Card Simulator £29.95

30» NEW COMPUTER EXCESS • 1 APRIL 1989

Flat 4, Behind the garage, 15b Scunthorpe Grove, Brickyard Lane, Grimsby, South Humberside GR36 8UK

HARDWARE

Cray ЗХР £4,500,000 (plus £5,000 p&p) Notched stick £0.95

(twig upgrades available)

COMPUTER MAGAZINES

Guide to Recursive Fi

tack Bound Paramet 0 of Unassigned Point Variables іп C or something £9.95 How to write very long and tedious routines in 8086 assembler that

nobody gives a toss about anyway £8.95 Some boring nonsense about Pascal £4.95 Modula. Do you actual tuft for pleasure? £4.95

Forth. Look, there's more to Йе than this, you know. Lets face bit ofa boring nonentity, aren't you? neet people?

ub, go to eveifing classes, anything

Why don

t you get out a

OBS • COMPUTER JOBS • COM

EROTICA GAMES require a

PROGRAMMER

The producers of classic games like Pamella Bordes Reveals Her Assets, Five and a Quarter Inches, The Girls Who Like Hardware and Strip Jack Naked need a talented programmer to join their active team.

The ideal candidate will be competent in 280 and 68000 assembler and demonstrate a sound knowledge of graphics design and manipulation. He/ she will probably be an adolescent male who says ‘Cor, she's got tremendous assets, narmean, assets, geddit, Іпат a lot, and can demonstrate a sound interested in the pile of magazines they hide under their bed. For further details on Erotica call 0898 657 2382 (calls charged at 25p per min off peak, 38p peak)

Zap Systems

require a Games Writer

«rite VIOLENT GRATUITOUS v GORE and PLENTY

DEATH. MAIMING. BLOOD, GUTS,

RACIAL minoritie TT in BOLD.

All prices include VAT and Delivery

e 520STFM SUPER PACK Includes STFM with 1MEG drive, 21 games with business software (worth over £450) & Joystick.

ЖАТАР! Only £339.00...

520 STFM latest version with 1MEG drive fitted 1040 STFM latest model, including TV modulator £399.00 1040 STFM machine as above, with ‘Microsoft Write’ & ‘VIP Professional’ . £419.00 1040 STFM machine as above, including 21 games, business software & joystick extras as supplied with above '520 STFM Super Pack £419.00 1040 STFM as above with super pack extras, 'MS-Write' & "МІР Pro. £459.00 Buy a monochrome monitor with any 1040 from above for £110.00 extra Mega ST2 with mono monitor, 'MS-Write' and ‘VIP Pro." Mega ST4 with mono monitor, 'MS-Write' and "МІР Pro.’ . 51.М804 laser printer, great value at . SM124/5 mono monito! Mega ST2 package - includes Mega ST2, mono monitor, external 1Mb 5" drive, SLM804 laser printer, ‘Microsoft Write’, ‘VIP Professional’, leet St. Publisher’ software and 90 days on site maintenance . Atari DTP system - includes Mega ST4, mono monitor, ‘SLM804 laser printer, 30Mb hard disk, ‘Fleet Street Publisher’ software and 90 days on site maintenance 5.25" External drive 40/80 track 360/720K formatted capacity Pace Linnet Modem Pack inc.cable & software Pye 1185 15" FST teletext remote et TV/Monitor c/w ST or Amiga cable Philips CM8833 colour monitor c/w ST or Amiga cable . Philips CM8852 as above, higher resolution .. Cameron Handy Mouse, high quality replacem:

commodore hardware SPECIAL OFFER AMIGA PACK

A new Amiga 500 package including the following: (extras worth over £270)

X Amiga 500 computer Photon Paint ж Demolition * TV Modulator ж Karate КАП Atax all for only

X Mouse & Mouse mat Ж Goldrunner — X plus 5 disks of Las Vegas | Тұт” Ce £399.00

* Joystick ж XR 35 Oceanic ОС-118 64/128 disk drive for 64/128 with free GEOS software ... Oceanic OC-118 as above with Freeze Machine . £ Freeze Machine complete backup cartr 3ge, with

LC-10 commodore 64/128 ready printer inc. 2 extra black ribbons fre

LC-10 7-colour version of above printer inc. 2 extra black ribbons

Amiga & ST 3.5" Drives

Very Quiet Slimline Styling Fully Compatible

Fully compatible, high quality 3.5" external drives for the ST and Amiga Top quality Citizen

Urve mechanism Amiga version only £79.95 огон эмнеп (от атс. Atari ST version only £82.95

точопроп ined capacity Prices include VAT & delivery

жы жы

Western Digital Filecards

Upgrading your PC to hard disk? Look no further, we offer the best prices on top quality hardcards. Thorough documentation supplied, low power imption, with free XTree file management software and Speedread. For Amstrad PC1512/1640 users we supply hardcards tested and formatted, with our simple software installation procedure. The best packages available!

20 MEG...£219.00 32 MEG...£239.00

SECTOR for all Atari ST models Ен š i nl 24.

i ` V va ЕШ £24.95 Version 4 disk utilities for the ST, features include: protected software backup, featuring the new turbo nibbler, a faster and more powerful copier, which uses all available drives & memory and includes 56 parameter options for handling a greater range of software; drive B boot to allow many programs to startup from drive B; organiser accessory providing many

major disk management commands; extra format giving over 15% extra user storage area per floppy disk; fast backup; ramdisk accessory; undelete file; PLUS many more!

3.5" disks 5.25" disks in plastic case £13.95 È 25 „305 іп 50 сар box £22.95 in 40 cap case £34.95 & а іп 100 сар box £24.95 Fully guaranteed double sided media || Fully guaranteed double sided media

Amstrad PC1512/1640/2086

We offer a wide choice of Amstrad PCs with many upgrade options, including the very latest PC2086 range. For the hard disk option, check our ‘Evesham

Upgraded Models’. Only the best will do - so we normally upgrade by means of a Western Digital Filecard, which includes XTree and SpeedRead software; however on single drive 1512/1640 models we can offer internal installations at the same price (leaving more expansion room ‘but no upgrade opportunity for a 2nd floppy drive). On-site service contracts are available on any PC1512/1640 model for only £44.00 inc.VAT. Prices in lighter type exclude VAT.

Free with 1512 models... Ability and 4 US Gold Games

H.D. EVESHAM UPGRADED MODELS

38435 | 47739 МА 574.78 Mi 667.83 M 592.17 66522

442.00 | 5: мА | 661.00 оо є: 788. COLOUR МА 68522 746.09 1512 А | 788.00 | 858.00

581.74 82522 669.00 949.00

[EGA (есо/ 67729 | 72826 | 028.26

1840 779.00 1079.

578.26 M 686.96 5179 E 665.00 @ 790.00 1055. 1009.00 71739 1056.52 101585 1033.04 825.00 1215. 1168.00 1188.00 808.70 | 92000 112783 30.00 10 1297.00

101217 |Ң 124174 120261 1164.00) [1428.00 .00 [1383.00

РС1512 special offer ..... Buy ап Amstrad DMP3160 10" carriage Әріп printer with апу PC1512 model for only £120.00 extra |

оріопаі extras

1512 memory upgrade to 640K ...... £39.95 3.5 inch drive (720K) for Maths Co-processor 8087-2 129.00 _ any single drive models £24.95 РС2000 series compatible 731900 5.25" (360K) external drive . ard У21/23 £99.00 Joystick 8 Controller Card Amstrad MC2400 Modem Card.......£199.00 зей centering analog type

Amstrad PPCs

Low prices on all portable PCs - especially twin drive models prices in brackets are excluding VAT PPC512S . (£373.04) £429.00 PPC640S . (£477.39) £549.00 PPC512D .. (£433.91) £499.00 PPC640D . (£546.96) £629.00

New low price External 3.5" floppy drive (720K) to suit ANY Amstrad 1512/1640 inc. DD and HD models! Uses no expansion slots ..... £99.95

Central Point Software

For all your PC disk management requirements

PC Tools Deluxe Version 5...other utiliities may claim to ‘do it all’ but only PC Tools Deluxe jis the complete disk utility drap. a fast hard disk backup, the best undelete available, | 100% safe formatting of біру and hard disks, unformat, reliable disk caching, compress facility, in tact everything required to manage & protect your data at a sensible price... $49.95)

Copy II PC Version 5........The most effective floppy disk backup utility of it's type. We always ship the latest version. Can also transfer many programs to hard disk and then run them without| reference to floppy. Supports both 5.25" and 3.5" disk format. Don't be without it..... £24.95

Copy ІІ Deluxe Option Board.....The ultimate solution to backing up copy-protected| software using the hardware option. Ай the original features of the Option Board, including (һе

ful backup copier product on the market, and can even transform any PC equipped] with a 3.57 drive into a dual purpose IBM/Macintosh drive. Allows your PC to read and write to} MAC data disks easily through DOS. Comes as an easy-to-fit short card.

PRINTERS

All prices include VAT, delivery and cable

We use and recommend Star printers since they do offer an unbeatable combination of features, print quality, reliability and value. Make the sensible decision - get it right with a Star printer at our special. all in, prices.

Star LC10 best-selling 144/36cps printer, 4 NLQ fonts, inc.2 extra ribbons free .. £199.00 Star LC10 7-colour version of above printer, inc.2 extra black ribbons : £249.00 Star 1624-10 feature-packed multifont 24 pin printer E ‚ £339.00 Star NB24-10 great value 24pin inc. cut sheet feeder + 2 extra ribbon: ` £499.00 Star NX-15 budget wide carriage printer Ade . £329.00 Star NB24-15 wide carr.version of NB24-10 inc. cut sheet feeder .. £649.00

cps . Panasonic KXP1180 super new 9pin with over 3400 typestyles, Panasonic KXP1124 great new sturdy 11" multifont 24pin printer Epson LX800 popular 10" 180/25 cps

Epson LQ500 24pin printer 150/

Citizen 120D good value 10* 120 cps

Citizen НОР-45 wide carriage 24

How to order

All prices VAT/delivery inclusive Express courier delivery £5.00 extra Evesham Micros Ltd Send cheque, P.O. or ACCESS/VISA details JX E = ETE TEES TS: Phone with ACCESS/VISA details Evesham

Govt., educ. & PLC official orders welcome ді бел реді to availabilty 205. ШЕЛЛ RV ЖАСЫ nto callers 6 days, 9.0.5. Telex: 333294 5 Fax: 0386 765354 Tel: 0386 765500

Also at: 1762 Pershore Rd., Cotteridge, Birmingham, B30 3BH Tel: 021 458 4564

SPECIAL

Lu Evesham Micros у 27775

ITT CP3228 COMBINES THE FEATURES OF A TV &

TV/MONITOR MONITOR ; EXCELLENT DISPLAY — 22 QUALITY WHEN USED WITH AN ATARI ST

OR CBM AMIGA AND A SCART CABLE

О 41cm (16'/,") FST tube

О Multi feature infra-red remote control О Full SCART monitor input socket a 8 watts peak music power

О 40 station tuner presets

Q Supplied with ST or Amiga SCART cable О Full TWO YEAR guarantee

OQ Superb value for money П Use EXPRESS voucher to save £4.00!

How to order from Evesham Micros Lid n Send ch Postal Orde vesham Micri Evesham Micros 63 BRIDGE STREET

EVESHAI Phone us with your | Govt, educ. & PLC orders welcome WORCS WR11 45Ғ ACCESS or VISA Same day dupakh Ф 0386-765500

card details оп т 0386-765500 | a: 1762 reo к irmingham 850 3BH Tel: 021 458 4564

PC PORTABLE PRICE BLITZ

80C88-2, 7.37mhz 2x5.25 F/disk Backlit Super

R E PC7 Twist LCD640X200 Pixels 320K Onboard (Exp) S H A 000 PC7000 £349.00 + VAT

80188 PRC/SS (7.16Mz) 1x3.5 FDD (45001)

2x3.5 FDD (4502) illuminated Super Twist LCD 1 SHAR P PC4501 x Serial, 1 x Parallel Port 1 x Ext 5.25 FDD Port

lead bat PSU.and AC Adpt үзе РС4501 £399.00 + УАТ

EXPRESS VOUCHERS COMING SOON HARD DISK KITS

20 MEGABYTE HARD CARDS FROM £175.00 +VAT FOR THE PC4501 CHEAP HARD DISKS FOR APPLE MAC - CALL US FOR DETAILS

UPGRADES PC7000 UPGRADES PC4501/2 РЕТТЕЙТІН! Expansion Unit ..£400.00 Соіогтоп Adaptor 26 28 BOWESFIELD Carry Case. TOE: 3-Мед рот EAI, ieee LANE, STOCKTON

; pots E i | CLEVELAND. 7518 3ER. Apasa ano: TEL: 0642 604768

3 B/card Access CWO ALL PRICES + VAT AND . E Don't delay limited quantities CARRIAGE AT £7.00 (PC4501) + vat and carriage £7.00

ШЕШЕН MACHINE-SPECIFIC COLUMNS

Atari on top

You might wonder why Atari is constantly in the headlines; it's all part of their great philosophy on announcing products before there's anything concrete to show. The press love it; the prospect of glossy hardware just drives 'em wild. Atari feeds hacks with information and waits for the publics reaction. If it's enthusiastic then it's possible the product will appear. If it's lukewarm then there's no way you'll see it. Atari plays safe There's little chance of it producing an Einstein or an Enterprise.

The Abaq - or ATW - has certainly taken а long time coming. According to Les Player, Atari's technical manager, the machine is in full production now so it shouldn't be long before you .can get your hands on a transputer-based machine. The price for the tower system has been set at £4,500. А cut- down version which doesn't have facilities for taking on extra transputer cards might eventually be brought out. The thinking behind the more modest model is that it can be used as a terminal and linked to the full-priced system. At one stage it was suggested that the transputer would appear in a form that meant it could be bolted onto the Mega ST - this idea has been dropped.

You don't want to know about the ATW though, do you? The EST, as Les called it, is much пое interesting. This is the machine that will offer better graphic modes; a 4,096-colour palate has been suggested, but not decided upon. The E, incidentally, stands for ‘Enhanced’. Suggestions for beefing up the processing speed have also been suggested - again nothing definite. If a faster processor is added, then it's likely to be a 16MHz- rated 68000 - and not an 020 or ‘030. The ‘030 is definitely out as that is being reserved for the Super ST. More on that in a moment. The EST will offer full ST compatibility - programmers can check which machine they're using and provide extra software facilities for the more powerful computer. Sound theory, but you know the problems encountered with different versions of TOS. Checking for a different graphics chip might be asking a bit too much. Let's hope not.

Atari's other ace is the Super ST - now dubbed the TT for Thirtytwo Thirtytwo - which won't really be an ST at all. Instead it will be an '030-based Unix-running super computer’. The fact that it runs well-behaved GEM/TOS programs really isn't an incentive for ST owners to rush out and buy it. When it appears

£300 hard drive

Here's something that will interest fans of mass storage. Tempest Computers is offering to make up hard disks to order for the ST.

Tempest expects to be able to supply disks of any capacity and reckons on a starting price of under £300. 20Mbytes for under £300 sounds like a fairy story - but it would be excellent news. I's also an impressive target, considering the cheapest hard disk on the market is Third Coast's 20Meg ST drive - even that costs £399

Gary Drake, Tempests technical sales manager, said: “There is no reason for ST hard disks to cost so much. I can supply PC: compatible 10 or 20Mbyte for under a third of the price of ST drives. Manufacturers know users will pay inflated prices; Tempest hopes to put an end to that and release drives at sensible prices.” Tempest is at EOS House, 145 Staple Hill Rd, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 БАС (0272) 574569.

Briefs

© Ап improved version of Sprite Master for the ST has been released by Soft Bits (01-836 2533). It rotates objects faster and has improved circle routines. Existing users can upgrade to version 1.3 by returning their original disk with a stamp to cover postage.

€ Flair Paint has been taken over by Database Software. This comes as little surprise as AMS/Logitech is moving into the PC/Apple Mac. The price remains the same. Details on 0625 878888.

Ultima V tips

To destroy the Shadowlords you must first know their names. These can be learned by going to one of the three castles that represents the Principle opposes. Once there, ask the owner of the castle (normally the king) about the Shadowlords. Usually you will be told where to go and who to ask for further information.

Without giving too much away, the next stage involves getting a shard of the gem of Manadrin. This can be found in the Underworld. From there you must go to the castle that the Shadowlord opposes. For instance, if you are trying to dispose of the Shadowlord of Hatred, you would go to the Flame of Love. That's more than enough to be getting on

that each Shadowlord

© Intelligent Music's Realtime sequencer for the ST is now available from MCMXCIX (01. 724 4104). It can handle 256 tracks and editing is possible in real time - hence the name. It costs £199. Also for the ST from MCM is Dr T Orchestrater, a sound database which allows you to sort through thousands of sounds. @ Language specialist HiSoft (0525 718181) is importing Data Pacific's Spectre 128 Apple Mac emulator. The advantage this emulator has over others is that Mac disks can be read and written by the ST. @A collection of fancy borders for graphics and DTP applications is on sale from Electric Distribution (0480 496666). Border Packs contains 43 patterns in GEM Metafile format on ST-format disk for £29.95. @Database’s latest piece of educational software, Fun School 2, is now available on the ST and Amiga. The program has three different versions for under sixes, six to eight- year-olds and over eights. Database is on 0625 878888.

Adrion McHerriot

MAIN MEDIA

'FREEPOST, ANDOVER, HANTS.SP10 4BR Tel: 0264 333830 (24 hrs)

BRANDED DISKS - PRICE PER BOX OF 10

514" 05/00 48 51/4" 05/00 96 31/2" 05/00 135 3M £9.75 £16.75 1 VERBATIM 975 £16.75 SONY

DYSAN

51/4" DS/HD 1.6 £18.75 £18.75

31/2" DS/HD 2.0 £45.75

£45.75

£12.75 £18.75 £20.75

UNBRANDED LIFETIME GUARANTEE

QUANTITY 10 20 30 40 50 100 135TPI £7.95 £1550 £2275 £29.50 £35.75 £69.95 135TPI £8.50 £1650 £23.95 £31.25 £37.95 £74.95

31/2" SS/DD 31/2" DS/DD

QUANTITY 25 50 100 250 500 48TPI £7.25 £13.95 £26.95 £64.95 £124.95 96TPI £7.95 £15.50 £29.95 £77.50 £139.95

51/4" DS/DD 51/4" DS/QD

All 31/2" Disks come complete with labels. All 51/4" Disks supplied with Write Protect Tabs, labels and envelopes and come with our No Quibble Money Back or Replacement Guarantee.

Main Media,1 Weatherby Gardens, Chariton, Hants.

DISKETTE STORAGE BOXES Price Each

50x 51/4 £5.50 100 x 51/4" 140 x 51/4" 50 x 31/2" 100 x 31/2"

Hinged Lid Lockable Hinged Lid Lockable Hinged Lid Lockable Hinged Lid Lockable Hinged Lid Lockable

DISK BOXES WITH DISKS

Hinged Lid Lockable with 25 05/00 £11.95 Hinged Lid Lockable with £12.75 Hinged Lid Lockable with £20.95 Hinged Lid Lockable with £22.50 Hinged Lid Lockable with 100 05/00 £35.95 Hinged Lid Lockable with 100 DS/QD £38.95 Hinged Lid Lockable with 20 DS/DD 135ТР! £21.50 Hinged Lid Lockable with 50 DS/DD 135TPI £44.95

50 x 51/4" 50 x 51/4" 100 x 51/4" 100 x 51/4" 140 x 51/4" 140 х 51/4" 50 х 31/2" 100 x 31/2"

All prices include VAT and carios All Goods despatched within 24 hours subject to availability. Cheques/P.O.'s to: MAIN MEDIA Г

олет FREEPOST EXPRESS ANDOVER, HANTS. VOUCHERS] 5р104ВН Tel: 0264 333830 (24 hrs)

wi VOUCHERS

LOOK NO FURTHER

You have found Britain’s one and only supplier of high quality learning software

Subjects now available include.....

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Kosmos are specialist producers of Educational Software designed to help you and your children enjoy learning from your computer. Our programs even allow you to add your own lesson material.

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a FREE 20-page CATALOGUE of our Educational and Leisure software and details of how to claim your Kosmos T-Shirt.

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NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 1 APRIL 1989 • 33

SEVENTEEN BIT SOFTWARE "That bit better than the rest!"

Following the incredible success of the 17 Bit PD starter pack, we are proud to present the best value-for-money PD Pack yet available for the Amiga and Atari ST...

QUICKSTART 3

This amazing PD pack is designed to give the new user or first time PD buyer the very best possible start. There's simply no better way of finding out about Public Domain Programs and

Seventeen Bit Software!

AMIGA

Disc 1 - Our very own disc-magazine that's gained a huge following, it has programs, demos, music, art etc and of course plenty of news and articles.

Disc 2 - A disc contain- ing a selection of the very best Utility pro- grams that are available including CLI Wizard & Directory Master. Also included are 2 brilliant arcade games and a strategy patience game.

Disc 3 - Contains some amazing music and some demos that will entertain & amuse you, just shows what the Amiga is capable of when asked nicely!

ALL THIS PLUS

Disc 1 - An issue of our ST Discmag. It contains much of interest to the ardent ST follower including some amazing 512 colour graphics.

Disc 2 - Contains a great Database, a Pacman game and some great PD utilities and demo- programs.

Disc 3 - Contains some great games such as the classic Megaroids and Time Bandit. Also includes a version of Neochrome for all the budding ST Artists.

Plus Much More!

MEMBERSHIP

TO 17 BIT FOR ONLY £5 !! (P&P INC)

This offer should NOT be missed, take your opportunity NOW, if you are only going to try PD once - make sure its from 17 Bit!

This offer is backed with a money-back guar- antee if you are not entirely satisfied with the pack - we aim to please!

The discs included in these packs have been

exclusively compiled

by us for this offer.

SEVENTEEN BIT SOFTWARE

Tel: 0924

34 • NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS e 1 APRIL 1989

PO BOX 97 WAKEFIELD WF1 1XX

366982

MPT

Hard Disk Interleave

ands up all those whose hard disks have the or. Are you sure? Do you about? The inte s the number of n

ve installed Microcache by telling s you want to cache and how jou can spare, the program

speed improvements, but will be much speeded by b RAM

as the cache

power drop-outs ially lose any files in th

between each two ееп saved back to disk. As the final rather easier to explain t acts as a fast trol to you almost imme diately when you 13 7 seta 7 4 document 1 1 12 5 Micro 6 12 Сасће 77 9 ptograms " 6 can make use of Hard disk platter with interleave Hard disk platter with interleave EMS or factor of 3 factor of 6 extended

mory

In the first of these two disks, the interleave is in the second it's 6. If you count n the sector marked 1 to the sector marked 2 and so on, you'll see that there are 3 tively. Given tional speed of any hard disk is 3,600 rpm, the data will obviously be read faster from the disk with an interleave of 3 than that with an interleave of 6 And if the interleave factor is too low for each sector to be read in progression, the disk will have to make а complete revolution between each

This can have a devastating effect on the apparent speed of the hard disk drive. For example, a correctly interleaved drive with an interleave factor of 3 can read an entire track (about 9K of data) in three revolutions of the disk, or 50ms. If it misses each sequential sector and has to go for a complete revolution to reach the next, itl take 17 revolutions, or 283ms - nearly six