Vol 8 No 8 August 1991 The Australian COMMODORE and AMIGA REVIEW Alter Image Educati olumn Registered by Australia Post Publication No NBG 6656 * Recommended Retail Price Hey, look! ^ We will beat any advertised price! olb X^*~" With even more great peripherals, is- now at even better prices! O Software □ Software □ Software O Hardware □ Hardware O Amiga Vision $140 Animagic $169 ARexx $ 65 An Depi Pro $299 AudioMaster III $125 Bars & Pipes $189 Bars & Pipes Pro $479 Blitz Basic $149 Broadcasi Tiller 2 $379 CrossDos $ 49 Design Works $149 DieiView $249 Director 2.0 $159 Dr T's Tiger Cub $ 99! excellence! $229 Express Painl., $ 35! Imagine $399 Imagine Companion... $ 45 Interchange $ 65 InterFont $130 Karafonts $89 Kara Animfonts $ 75 KCS 3.0 Level II $369 Masterpiece Fonts $249 MyPaint $20! PagcStrcam2.1 $299 Pen Pal $149 Perfect Sound $139 Pro Page 2.0 $399 Pro Video Post $379 Pro Textures $ 89 Quarterback $ 89 Quarterback Tools $ 89 RxTools $65 The Art Department... .$ 1 10 VistaPro $149 Sculpt 4D $599 Wordwonh $299 XCad Professional $399 Micromegs $ 89 (512k RAM + Clock for A500) Minimegs $409 (2MbforA500/AI000) Unidrive $145! (Slim, low Power & NoClick) Enhanced Unidrive $175 ! (above with Track LED & NoVirus) TwinDrive $259! (Two Unidrives in a compact case) 3.5" Disk box $ 17 ! (Holds 100x3.5" disks) And Much, Much More! Flash 2000 SCSI/RAM board * y / y y y y y Check out these great features! Up to 8 Mb RAM Fast 8 bit SCSI standard, upgradeablc Optional 16 bit SuperCharged SCSI Massive transfer rates! Hard drive mounts on the card Three SCSI connectors (2 int, I ext) AutoBoot disable switch Fully Australian designed ^ ^ f\f\ t from only Ask about our new 2Mb Chip RAM board for the A2000H ColourBurst! 24 bit Video Engine - professional graphics y 16 Million Colours in 768 x 580 HiRes y For any Amiga (PAL and NTSC) / External Genlock & IFF 24 compatible / Video Graphics chip on board / Includes 24 bit paint program / Fully Australian designed ^ -j -j f\f\ I great value at u^llyyi Lets you see how good your work really is! Memory And Storage Technology 19-21 Buckland St Broadway NSW 2007 ^ PO Box 249 ^ Tel: (02) 281-7411 Fax: (02) 281-7414 The Australian Commodore and Amiga Review The Australian COMMODORE and AMIGA REVIEW Notepad Amiga Shew Report Wordworth Alter Image Keeping Track Flash 2000 CU Tutorial Part 13 Turbotext Creating Batch Files C64 / 1 28 Ramlink The C64 Column GEOS Column Latest Amiga news, gossip and new releases Andrew Farrell Andrew Farrell George Kimpton George Kimpton Combination SCSI Andrew Leniart Tim Strachan Tim Strachan Owen James Owen James All the fun of the Sydney World of Commodore 9 This new heavy duty wordprocessor looks great 1 4 Desktop video - a new genlock 1 9 Some programs to remind you of important happenings Interface and RAM expansion card Coming to grips with the CU - for beginners A powerful new text editor Tutorial - customise your startup-sequence etc C64 Graphics &Sound Greg Perry Education Things to do with Words Things to do with Numbers Entertainment That's Entertainment CDTV Launch Game Reviews Quickshots Adventurer's Realm Anne Glover Anne Glover Multi function compatibility interface Roundup of cartridges; letters answered Laser output, Gateway desktop, letters Easy sprites and multicolour sprites Word games for young ones Playing with numbers and time News, Hints & Tips, Letters, Competition, Hall of Fame A new source of entertainment Turrican II, Big Box, Death Knights of Krynn, Spirit of Excalibur, Hill St Blues. Vector Championship Run, Jockey Wilson's Darts, Super Off Road, Ninja Rabbit, King's Bounty, Battleset II for Harpoon Help, Hints, Problems, Chit-chat, The Dungeon Advertisers Index Australian Commodore Review: Published by: Editor: Entertainment Section Editor: Advertising: Production: Layout: Subscriptions & back issues: Distribution: Printed by: Advertising: Ken Longshaw 21 Darley Road Randwkk, NSW 2031 Phone: (02) 398 5111 Saturday Magazine Pty Ltd. Andrew Farrell Phil Campbell KenLongshaw(02)398 5111 or (02)817 2509 Brc-nda Powell Andrew Dunstall Darrien Perry (02)398 5111 NETWORK Distribution Ian Liddell Pty lid (02) 398 51 1 1 26 36 44 54 56 22 50 47 60 40 42 65 69 70 78 75 VOL 8 NO. 8 AUGUST 1991 or (02) 817 2509 Computer Man formerly Regional Computers The Amiga Supermarket SPECIAL: Diskettes 3.5" DSDD S6.9P GVP 42Mb/F A500 Series II $939 GVP 5 2Mb/Q A500 Series II $999 GVP A2000 HC8/52Mb/Q $1050 GVP A2000 HC8/80Mb $1170 it Amiga 500 computer £ Amiga 2000 Amiga 3000/40 Video Digitiser A500/2000 AT bridge board Sound Sampler Stereo Sound Sampler Action Replay 2000 Action Replay 1000 Action Replay 500 Memory Expansions CALL SI 379 .00 Call $99.99 $779.99 $50.00 $99.00 ???? NEW $165 512k with switch & battery $75.00 1Mb A1000/500 extern/0 $199.00 2MbA500 Internal/0 $99.99 2MbA500 lnternal/0 $299.99 AT Once Board KC XT Board Call Modems Maestro Modems 2400 $265.00 Maestro Modems MNP $379.00 Fax Modem Maestro 9600 S379.00 Hard Drives 40 Mg Hard Drive $499.00 52 Mg Hard Drive $599.00 GVP105Mb/QA500Ser'sll $1299.00 GVP A2000 HC8/105Mb CALL GVP A2000 HC8/170Mb $1750.00 Amiga A590 20Mb $579.00 Printers Star LC10-I1 LC24-10 LC15 LC24-15 $ 325.00 $489.00 $569.00 $729.00 $449.00 $369.00 $699.00 $599.00 LC200CL NX1000CL LC24-200 CL LC24-200 Citinew GSX200 $439.00 GSX140 $680.00 GSX180D CALL Epson LX 400 ' $269.00 LQ 400 $469.00 LX 850 $379.00 LQ 550 $559.00 LQ1010 $749.00 Seilcosha SP2000 S249.00 SL90 $399.00 Free cable this month Disk Counts 3.5" DSDD $6.99 3.5" DSHD $18.00 3.5" Memorex $16.00 Lifetime Guarantee 3.5 Internal Drive $159 3.5" External Drive Amiga Mouse $39.99 1 Mb RAM exp A590 $85 1 MbSimmsexpCVPS85 Genlock New Type $289 V1DI RGB Splitter $199 ■:< GVP 80 Mb/M A500 $ 1 1 99 ■ft Public Domain Fish 1 /520 Amicus Amigan T-Bag Faug Amaz NZ Amigoz CCCC Compass Macro Cost from $ 1 .49 per disk 17Bit $2 Buy 1 - One Free Specials this month GVP 42Mb H/C A2000 $799 A500 Accelerator 68030 ? A2000 Flicker Fixer $399 CDTV now in We will try to be the best on price 018 911 011 or 09 328 9062 PO Box E265, Perth 6001 611 Beaufort Street, Mt Lawley Perth 6050 WA Editorial CDTV - The Launch When a product launch takes place there's always the chance you'll get lo see some- thing unexpected. Maybe the embarrassed face of one of the company executives as the new product fails to perform. Other times it's screams from public relations people as prying jour- nalists ask pointed questions. And occasionally it's a horse trotting up and down the aisle with a man on its back singing Rhinestone Cowboy as the animal relieves itself on the car- pet. In the case of the CDTV launch, the product performed beautifully and the journalists were impressed, but the horse was there in all its glory to kick off this splendid occasion. Apart from the horse, the only other animal at the launch was the video wall, which gave Commodore's Gary Mason a little trouble. Nevertheless, Commodore International's Spe- cial Projects Director, Gail Wellington, did a splendid job of coping with the pressures of a couple of equipment hiccups, and went on lo soothe the crowd with a good number of im- pressive demonstrations, culminating in the amazing Psyg- nosis game PlanetSide. At the end of it all I was convinced CDTV would be a big hit. There's no doubt once you see the product working under the guiding hand of an experienced user it looks very impressive. However, it is one very expensive games ma- chine. And at over $2,000 for the player plus Grolier's Ency- clopaedia disc, it doesn't quite have the same status level as a set of 21 leather-bound books. Sales might be a trickle be- fore they become a flood. For me, the really exciting thing would be the launch of the A690 external CD-Drive for the Amiga 500. According to Wellington, a similar device will be available for the A2000/3000. Future releases of reference works will support clipboard to enable text and hopefully graphics to be easily included in your own documents. The A690 might be here before December at a bit under $1000. If they can just push the price a bit lower, Commodore should be able to sell a squillion. I for one would prefer to have a CD-Drive than a player. After all, even though CDTV looks at home in your Hi-Fi system, chances are not all the family are going to agree. Some of them may want to watch Neighbours. The technolo- gy is slick, but it will take a while to educate consumers that what looks like not much more than a CD player is in fact a powerful interactive multimedia machine. So, yes CDTV is fantastic. Yes, it has the potential to bring computer technology to a much larger group of consu- mers than computers alone. But, right now we need the ex- ternal CD drive. It will create a bigger market for the soft- ware companies who might not be able to wait around for everyone to realise how useful a CDTV really is. Local ap- plications are also very important. At the moment, there are still only a few people looking into producing Australian ti- tles, but this may change as the path is made clearer. Overall, it was a very enjoyable evening. Hopefully the daily press will pick up on CDTV, along with general inter- est magazines. It deserves plenty of coverage. Congratula- tions to Commodore for having the foresight to combine the technologies of Infra-Red control, CD and Computer to create a product that may yet revolutionise home entertain- ment and education. Andrew Farrell The Ultimate All-in-One Amiga 2000 Add-on... 68030 POWER* 16MB RAM -SCSI CONTROLLER Replaces up to FOUR "normal" expansion boards! Now, a 22 or 33 Mhz 68030 accelerator board, up to 16MB of 32-bit wide RAM and a high-performance SCSI hard disk controller in a single A2000 "CPU slot" expansion board! the case with the A3000!). Provides ultimate SCSI hard disk performance! • GVP's legendary FaaastROM SCSI driver supports virtually all SCSI devices currently on the market, including hard disk drives, CD-ROM drives, Magneto-Optical drives, removable media drives and tape drives. / Switch to 68000 mode by simply clicking on our new "68000 Mode" Icon, or include our special "mode switching" utility in your startup- sequence and select required mode each time system is rebooted, by holding down mouse buttons. v" Provides the ultimate expandability of your A2000 system. Plugs into the "CPU accelerator" slot, thereby leaving ALL FIVE A2000 expansion slots free for future expansion. All A2000 Expansion Slots Free GVP All-in-One Board +SCSI Drive Installed Check out these features: v' The perfect companion for NewTek's Video Toaster.*" V 22Mhz or 33Mhz factory installed, surface mounted, 68030 CPU and 68882 FPU. v" Up to 16MB of 32-bit wide memory expansion. 4MB minimum factory installed memory on 33Mhz version, 1 MB minimum for 22Mhz. V GVP's new custom 32-bit wide, 1MB or 4MB, SIMM32™ memory modules offer flexible, easy-to-install memory expansion. 22Mhz model has 1MB factory installed memory, expandable to 13MB. 33Mhz model has 4MB factory installed memory, expandable to 16MB. v 1 On-board high-performance "Series II" auto-booting SCSI controller with factory installed FaaastROM SCSI driver and SCSI connectors for attaching both external and internal SCSI peripherals. V Direct DMA access to the full 16MB range of 32-bit wide memory expansion by the on-board SCSI controller. Due to the A2000 bus architecture, this is ONLY possible when SCSI controller is placed directly on the 68030 CPU bus (as is Internal SCSI Hard Drive (3.5" available up to 340MB!) Built-in GVP Series II DMA SCSI Controller Surface- \^ mounted 68030 CPU and 68882 FPU (22 or 33Mhz) 1MB(22Mhz)or 4MB (33Mhz) Surface-mounted 32-bit wide Memory SCSI Connector for external SCSI peripherals Up to 12MB of 32-bit wide, User-installable SIMM32 Memory Expansion COMPARE: A2000 +GVP All-in-One Commodore A250G730 Commodore A3000 68030 CPU and 68882 FPU Y Y Y Maximum CPU clock speed available & shipping TODAY 33Mh2 25Mta 25MIU Maximum 32-bil wide FAST memory on 68030 CPU board 16MB 4MB 16MB Direct DMA access lo more than 8MB ol last memory Y N Y DMA SCSI controller built-in on 68030 CPU board Y N Y Number ol open Amiga expansion slots with 68030 CPU, SCSI controller and more than 4MB fast memory installed 5 3 4 RAM upgrades through easy-to-lnstall 32-blt wide SIMM memory modules ' I N Distributed in Australia by !>ower peripherals pty.Ltd. SIMM32 and GVP ate trademarks ol Great valley Products. Inc. Amiga, A2000 and A3000 are registered trademarks ol Commodore-Amiga, Inc. Video Toaster ts a trademark ol Newtek Inc. Expansion Solutions 1st FLOOR. 257 HAWTHORN RD. CAULFIELO NORTH, VIC 3028 AUSTRALIA PHONE: 103) 532 6553 FAX: (03) 532 8556 Notepad M®pn$ Audio Engineer Junior Aussie companies RamScan Soft- ware and GSoft Pty. Ltd. have just an- nounced the release of Audio Engineer Junior, a premium quality Amiga sound sampling and editing package. Derived from their world renowned Audio Engi- neer Plus, the Junior offers uncompro- mising performance and ease of use. The software supplied with the package is a full featured version of the renowned Au- dio Engineer package (sold overseas as Audio Master III). The package features 56k sample rates, the ability to use all available fast memory, extended audio frequency response and electronic vol- ume control. The result is performance that is probably unrivaled by anything other than the Audio Engineer Plus sys- tem itself. Most budget priced samplers promise good performance but fail to deliver. With Audio Engineer Junior you will not be disappointed. Audio Engineer comes bundled with a Compact Disk player simulator program that can be used to re- play up to 20 samples. Audio Engineer Junior is available in most Amiga shops now for about $99.00. Audio Engineer Junior is distributed in Australia by GSoft Pty. Ltd (08) 254 2261. Prima Drives Amiga hardware pioneer ICD Incor- porated has launched the Prima, a low cost, high performance hard drive de- signed to fit 52 or 105 megabytes of stor- age inside an Amiga 500. Built around the new generation of low power, 11 millisecond 3 1/2 inch hard drives from Quantum, the new Prima won't take up limited desk space with bulky external boxes or cabling. Instead, Prima is specially designed to fit inside your A500 - in place of the internal floppy drive - and includes an extra internal adapter, called the Shuffle- Board, for converting your external flop- py drive for use as DF0: Along with being fully auto configur- ing, Prima's advanced performance fea- ACAR4 tures include autobooting from FastFile System partitions, high speed disk caching and complete support for AMax- II. Prima provides a complete hard drive upgrade package for any Amiga 500 sys- tem already equipped with a switching power supply, at least one megabyte of RAM and an external floppy drive. ICD has been providing state of the art mass storage solutions for microcom- puter owners since 1984, and is one of the largest hardware companies in the Amiga marketplace. In addition to a full time technical support staff, ICD offers product support and update files on their own in-house BBS, CompuServe and GEnie. For more information contact Maxdriveson018 717 506. GVP acquires Lake Forest Logic Great Valley Products has acquired the entire product line of Lake Forest Logic, Inc. of Lake Forest. They have al- so appointed Lake Forest's Erik Quaken- bush as director of software develop- ment. In making the announcement Gerard Bucas, president of GVP, called the ac- quisition "an exciting move that will al- low GVP to develop lop-notch software in-house." Long noted for its hardware, GVP recently entered the software mar- ket with the acquisition of the distribu- tion rights of Scala, a professional ti- tling/presentation software package. Now with Lake Forest on board, GVP will add The Disk Mechanic, ADA.P.T. the 680x0 Assembler and Macro Paint to its growing list of software titles. Current owners of software formerly published by Lake Forest Logic will re- ceive technical support through GVP's BBS (215-337-5815) or via the tech sup- port phone lines (215-337-8770). Stand-alone Video Toaster system At the National Association of Broadcasters show, NewTek launched a stand-alone Video Toaster system. The new $3,995 (U.S.) Video Toaster is a complete solution for broadcast quality video production at a revolutionary price. "Our original plug-in card version of the Toaster required that the user be familiar with computers", comments Continued on p6 UPDATE COLUMN Well here another month has gone by and I hope many of you took advantage of the sales I mentioned to make enor- mous savings. Well, in fact I know many of you did by the number of Warranty Cards that have been sent in. On that point, can I please ask you to only send in one Warranty Card as otherwise you are simply wasting postage and the first Warranty Card is sufficient to get you on to the Update Club and give you a life- time warranty on all your Pactronics software. Well, we have released DEMO MAKER and it was an instant success, we actually sold out completely at the Amiga Show. We are getting some more in and we are going to bundle these with a new Companion Disk which has now also been released for the DEMO MAK- ER. You may recall I told you the bad news about the Cameron Scanners. Well the good news is we have now released a GOLDEN IMAGE HAND SCANNER at only $399. This is an excellent black & white hand scanner for graphics. It is 100-400 d.p.i. and die software can con- vert into 16 grey scale. Probably the biggest news of all is the release of the AMOS COMPILER. I know that it has been promised for a long time but at last it is here. I once said that without AMOS you really haven't got an Amiga and now I must say that without the compiler you really haven't got AMOS! NEW GAMES Great new games just released for the Amiga include: NINJA RABBITS, ED THE DUCK, ZARATHRUSTA and budget games such as HYPERFORCE, AQUANAUT, STAR GOOSE, BAD COMPANY, etc. etc. from only $12.95. On C-64 we have new budget beaters @ $7.95, including such horrors as FRANKENSTEIN, WOLFMAN, JACK THE RIPPER, and many others and a whole pile of S9.95 brilliant games, in- cluding ROGUE TROOPER, NINJA RABBITS, and ARDOK THE BAR- BARIAN. Remember, insist that your retailer bring in our full range of great games ti- tles. □ Advertisemen Beauty and Functionality Redefined s SERIES U A500-HD+ Hie Next Generation in Amiga 500 Add-On Peripherals Se^, U Turn yourA500 into a Serious and More Fun Computing Tool Today! GVP's New SERIES II A500-HD+ is The Ultimate in Hard Drive, Memory and Expandability for your Amiga 500. Major features include: Leading Edge Same high-tech custom VLSI and FAMSffiOM'-features as GVP's new Series II A2000 SCSI-RAM Products. Foresight Unique new "Mini-Slot" 1 " brings out all the A500 expansion bus signals, allowing for exciting future expansion options— the only intelligent alternative to risky "Pass-Through" functionality. Reliability Includes internal fan to keep you cool and robust power supply ensuring your A500 power supply will not be overloaded. GVP will not compromise on quality and reliability! Memory Expansion Internal RAM Expansion up to 8MB using easy-to-install SIMM memory modules. Sleek Custom injection-molded styling perfectly matches your A500 for unequaled beauty and elegance, setting a new standard for A500 peripherals. State-of-ttie-Art New 1 "-high internal hard disk drive; available from 40MB through I00MB. Performance Provides no-compromise hard disk performance which until now has never been seen on the A500. Seeing is Believing Take one for a Test "Drive" at your nearest GVP Dealer today! » II for Special End-User Trade-Up Details! Take a Look under the Hood k. Game Switch: Enables RAM while- enabling full game compatibility. External SCSI Port Allows up to 7 SCSI devices to be attached. 1 ' -High Factory-installed Hard Disk Drive: 40MB through 100MB "Mini-Slot": For future expansion options. GVP's Custom VLSI Chip. GVP's FaaastROM SCSI Driver. Internal RAM Expansion: Up to 8MB Internal Fan: Keeps you running coo] > Dedicated Universal Input Power Supply: Included. Reinforced 86-PIN Card Edge Connector Notepad Paul Montgomery, NewTek's Vice President, "This new Video Toaster system in the flagship product we've been working to- wards. "It makes the complete Toaster system price less expensive and opens up many new channels of distribution." The Video Toaster system will begin shipping from NewTek to resellers in June. At the launch, over 25 software and hardware developers are announcing product for the new Video Toaster platform. "We are excited by the flood of high quality developers that are working on innovative products for the Video Toaster", says Mark Randall, Newtek's Director of Marketing. "The Video Toaster is now clearly the standard for desktop video production." The Toaster is already in use at television net- works, local affiliate stations, video production houses, and ca- ble companies. The Video Toaster is the world's first desktop television studio. It allows virtually anyone to produce videos that have the effects and graphics quality of network television. The Video Toaster's unprecedented price of $3,995 (U.S.) is made possible by new technology invented at NewTek and incorpo- rated into special custom chips that perform real-time video manipulation. Over four years in development, the Video Toaster is a complete system including easy-to-use software for video switching, digital video effects, character generation, colour processing, 3D animation, and paint graphics. Why is Computermate the market leader? Customer Service [3 Product Knowledge \^\ Availability [>q Product Support Q^ Value ST Largest Range \^\ pmpuTERmqTE products (oujtralia) ptv. ltd. Australia's Leading Distributor of Software and " M M " " " * ' Accessories for/VIM ICj^V Phone (02) 457 8388 Fax (02) 457 8739 BIG ENOUGH TO BE PROFESSIONAL - SMALL ENOUGH TO BE PERSONAL. Although demonstrated at the recent World of Commodore Show in Sydney, the toaster is still not available in PAL format and no plans appear to exist for such a device in the near future. Virtual Reality Laboratories Inc release Distant Suns 4 Distant Suns 4.0 is comprised of the program disk and two data disks. The minimum program requires one meg and two floppy drives (or a floppy and hard drive) to use. List price is S99.95 (U.S.). Distant Suns 4.0 is not copy protected, and it will automatically determine whether it is running on a PAL or NTSC machine and display correctly. VRL1 will continue to sell and support the Distant Suns 3.0 version which runs in 512K in the NTSC version (one meg PAL) at a reduced list price of S49.95 (U.S.) while supplies last. Distant Suns has undergone its most comprehensive up- grade since its initial release in 1987 as Galileo version 1.0. Here is a partial listing of some of its new features. These features include AREXX support which could be used for telescope control as well as the ability to create ANIM files. Allows you to save and restore multiple user configura- tions and has multiple resolution support (interlaced, overscan). Double buffered screens together with toned down colours for easier long session viewing, and the ability to put your eyepoint off tire earth and look back at our solar system all the way out to 400 astronomical units (40 AU = distance of Pluto's orbit). This feature allows display of orbits, hairline grid representing the plane of the ecliptic, object and orbit variations above or below the ecliptic. Features also comets and asteroids and the ability to define user objects orbiting the sum. Useful for new comets, asteroids, and deep space craft solar system trajectories (sorry, compound trajectories are not available, although the user can teal trajec- tory changes as a new object), and includes a user definable search list. More Stars! Basic program expanded from 2,200 stars to 4,200 stars. With soon to be available expansion disks you can expand your star data to 255,000 stars. Chip-RAM PLUS MAST now has a 2MB Chip RAM board for the Amiga 2000 and the Amiga 500. Chip-RAM PLUS is user installable and upgrades an Amiga 500 or A2000 to the same amount of graphics memory as the Amiga 3000.. Workbench 2.0 automatically recognises this memory, meaning that it is accessible by application software. Chip- RAM PLUS is also an ideal companion for owners of Color- burst who will benefit from the extra graphics RAM. Chip-RAM PLUS includes the new Super Fat Agnus chip that is used in the A3000, and also includes 2 megabytes of memory on board. The memory chips used are 4 megabit CMOS chips, and with only 4 chips it provides a very low power unit. This memory replaces any chip memory already in the computer. A significant power saving will be obtained if the original chip memory on the motherboard is disableed or re- moved. Suggested retail price S699. From MAST, 19-21 Buckland St .Broadway NSW 2008. Tel 02 281 7411. □ ACAR6 M VB COMPUTERS Computa Magic 506 Dorset Road, Croydon 3136 Phone (03) 725-6255 (GVP) Great Valley Products Shop 5 / 30 Hall Street, Moonee Ponds 3039 Phone (03) 326-01 33 GVP SERIES II A2000 SCSI Hard Card + 8MB RAM Controller. (HC8/xx) (Ok) Series II A2000 HC8/52Mb Quantum $999 (New 1 inch high mechanism. 1 9ms access time) Series II A2000 HC8/105Mb Quantum $1359 Series II A2000 HC8/170Mb Quantum $1750 (15ms access time) GVP SERIES II A500 HD+ (SCSI controller, 8Mb RAM Expansion, custom mini-slot, perfectly matching case) Series II A500 HD8/40Mb Fujitsu $985 Series II A500 HD8/52Mb Quantum $1119 Series II A500 HD8/105Mb Quantum $1469 One Card * Accelerator * SCSI Hard Card * 16Mb RAMexp. The GVP SERIES II Accelerator All products are in stock $10 overnight shipping (Australia wide) 12 months warranty on all items 24 months on Quantum Hard Drives Mega Special Blazing Fast SERIES II A2000 Hard DISK + 8Mb RAM Card with 42Mb Hard Disk. (0k) $880 AS00 Microbotics 68030 Accelerator $CHEAP The ULTIMATE A2000 Expansion *22Mhz or 33 Mhz models available *Single PCB design (featuring) *68030 (cpu), 68882 (fpu) *SERIES II SCSI controller with GVP FAAAST ROM *Up to 1 6Mb of 32-bit-wide RAM (60ns) "Optional mounting bracket for 3.5" SCSI hard disk. *Supports All WorkBench revisions and Amiga UNIX *The fastest ZERO wait-state design possible. E-S.QE GVP SERIES II ACCELERATOR 22Mhz, 1Mb RAM $1,699 33Mhz, 4Mb RAM $2,649 Flicker Free Video™ Wilh Flicker Free Video (FFV) and a standard VGA or multi-frequency monitor, any Amiga® 500, 1000 or 2000 computer can produced a high quality display, free of interlace flicker and visible scan lines. Installation requires no soldering or advanced technical knowledge and frees the video slot in Amiga 2000 computers for other uses. FFV is compatible with all software, works in low and high resolutions interlaced or not, and has no genlock conflicts. FFV uses a multi-layer circuit board and surface-mounted compo- nents, packing a lot of power into a very small space. Both PAL and NTSC arc automatically recognized and fully supported. Full overscan is supported, not just a limited overscan. Three megabits of random access memory are used lo ensure compatibility and overscan screens as large as the Amiga can produce. INTRODUCTORY OFFER *649-°° AdSpeed TM ICD expands its line of innovative enhancement products for the Amiga with the introduction of AdSpeed, a full featured 14.3 MHz 68000 accelerator for all 68000-bascd Amiga comput- ers. AdSpeed differs from other accelerators by using an intelligent 16K static RAM cache to allow zero wait state execution of many operations at twice the regular speed. All programs will show improvement. AdSpeed will make your Amiga run faster than any 68000 or 68020 accelerator withl on-board RAM. AdSpeed works with all 6800 based Amiga computers, including the 500, 1000, and 2000. lion is simple and requires no soldering. AdSpeed has a software selectable true 7.16 MHz 68000 mode for 100% compatibil computer will run as if the stock CPU was installed. 32K of high speed static RAM is used for 16K of data/instruction cache of cache lag memory. A full read and write-through cache provides maximum speed. Installa- ity - your andl6K *549°° BONUS $ 50 Cashback on return of old 68000 ( $ 499°°) AdSCSI™ 2080 The fastest, most versatile SCSI host adapter (hard drive interface) available for the Amiga 2000 now comes in a new configuration. AdSCSI 2080 is not DMA, but its clean design and advanced caching driver provide greater throughput than any available DMA interface. All the features you want arc included at no additional charge: autoboot from Fast File System partitions. Commodore® SCSlDircct and Rigid Disk Block conformance for no mountlisl editing and compatibility with third party SCSI devices, and the most advanced removable media support available, including automatic DiskChange and no partitioning restrictions. AdSCSI 2080 also includes sockets for adding two, four, six, or eight megabytes of RAM using 1 megabyte SIMMs. If expansion slots arc in high demand then this card could be your answer. AdSCSI 2080 OK RAM + 52MB Quantum LPS HDD BARGAIN PRICE $ 999 00 AdIDE TM AdIDE™ provides an inexpensive alternative to a full SCSI interface. Sometimes called "AT drives", IDE drives have an embedded controller and are designed for connection to an AT PC bus. Nearly all drive manufacturers arc now producing these low cost units. AdIDE uses the same advanced software supplied with our AdSCSI host adapters. It delivers incredible speed and per- formance in a very small package. Features include autobooting from FaslFileSyslcm partitions, A-Max II support, and more. AdIDE/40 is for the Amiga 2000. It fits underneath the CPU chip and uses no slot. The included 40 pin cable connects it to standard 3.5 inch hard drives. AdI D 1-744 is for mounting a 2.5 inch drive inside the Amiga 500. It includes the standard 44 pin cable and drive mounting brackets. Driro AdlDE-40 *260.°° rTICe - AdlDE-44 »290 M Fitter Free Video. FFV. AdSpeed and AdSCSI are irademarks ol ICD. Inc. Commodore is a registered tradomark or Commodore Electronics Limited, Amiga is a registered trademark ol Commodore - Amiga. Inc. A500 Internal Hard Disk The smallest hard drive/interface in the world is now available for mounting inside your Amiga 500! This little sweetheart gives 20 megabytes of high speed performance yet takes absolutely no desk space. Novia 20i includes complete instructions and all the hardware necessary for a simple, clean no-solder installation INTRODUCTORY OFFER $ 999 00 SYQUEST 44MB removable drive *899 00 Australian Distributor and Registered AMIGA Hardware Developer Maxdrive Systems Pty Ltd PO Box 56. Darling Heights. Qld 4350 Phone (008) 076 301 - Orders Only Enquiries/Dealer 018 717 506. Fax (076) 361 458 VISA - BANKCARD CHEQUE - Accepted NSW: (02) 523 3867 - Rob Self Old United Computers Group, Ipswich (07) 282 6233 - Royce Show Report 1991 World of Commodore Show Report The 12th of July saw the Amiga "come of age" here in Australia. Serious software and computer professionals converged on Darling Harbour - a "Beige-boxers" paradise! There were a number of overseas vis- itors and next year's show should see many more making their way down un- der to showcase their wares. Commodore were happy with the event, as over 30,000 people took the op- portunity to visit the show. Although Sunday was a little slow, and there was room for more exhibitors, the atmo- sphere was always busy. I managed to leave our stand and check out the stands and products, there were some real bar- gains to be enjoyed. Rumour has it that A590s were selling for less than most specialist dealers can buy them for! Australian Commodore and Amiga Review If you chanced to visit our own stand you would have met up with myself or some of our regular contributors. Both ACAR and our new magazine, Profes- The Show in a quiet period by Andrew Farrell sional Amiga User, sold well. In fact, ac- cording to Commodore's own surveys, the magazines proved to be the most common means by which people had found out about the show and seminars. On display we had one of only two Sanyo video projectors in the country, projecting Amiga graphics onto a large slide screen, including entries to our Art 'n Animation contest. Video Camera Magazine Just across the aisle. Video Camera Magazine had rounded up a few notables from the video industry, along with dis- plays of their magazine and a range of cameras from Hitachi. In one section Itek Broadcast and Ace Edit, also trading as Alpcrmann plus Vclte, displayed full editing equipment for video production. The Amiga was an integral part of the system being used for both titles and graphics. The Alpermann and Velte gear is an automatic editing machine. The system displayed would be ideal for semi- professional wedding videos, home or fully professional time coded pro- ductions. To get from the Amiga to tape several different genlocks were dis- played. The VC1 and VC2 are from G2 Systems (in the UK) and both are software controllable. There were also the home grown Neriki genlocks from around SHOO - both the desktop and professional mod- els. Top of the line, but not on dis- play, is the VideoCentre 3 or the Broadcast genlock, which is an ex- pensive unit, but it's for broadcast- ers or high end production unit places which have YUV RGB com- ponent mixers. For more informa- tion ring Itek on (02) 488 7133 and ask for Craig. Newtek Video Toaster In another comer of the stand was the amazing Newtek Video Toaster. Most amazing of all is the fact they seem content right now to stay with the NTSC version. In the covered display there was an array of five Amiga monitors, four Amigas, various and as- sorted editing gear and two projectors throwing images onto the wall. The Toaster is one impressive piece of gear - we watched in awe as the guys demon- strated a few Star Trek style "beam me up Scotty" effects, all at the press of a Newtek gadget. Application lane The next main section of the exhibit housed a number of application exam- ples of the Amiga. Emmanual Steffano and David Boddy had a demo reel run- ning with all the usual fancy Videoscape animations of Canberra's parliament house. Platypus Systems showed off an irrigation control system which uses the Amiga. Morris Information Systems were there as well with their betting soft- ware. MRVP Australasia showed a smart teleprompting system. King Security showed how they capture images for putting mug shots on security cards us- ing the Amiga and along with various alarm systems. Right next to them was Professional Users Group, Professional Amigo. They are promoting desktop publishing appli- cations of the Amiga as a complete sin- gle system solution. A smart idea which I hope takes off. User Groups The Australian Amiga Users Associ- ation was a very busy stand with lots of photos of their recent show on the wall. Next to them was the Eastern Suburbs Users Group. CHUGG ECA, which is the Tugger- ah Lakes Commodore Users Group, had an array of little gadgets and extra bits and pieces such as showpacks, badges and T-shirts. All the user groups reported plenty of interest and lots of new mem- bers. Commercial Productions of Australia This stand managed to steal a lot of attention with a blaring animation video tightly edited with plenty of music and even a couple of flashing lights. The crowds seemed to enjoy the show, al- ACAR9 Show Report Gary Mason: anxious moments with CDTV & the video wall though we're still trying to work out just how much of what we saw was actually produced on the Amiga. Nevertheless, these guys seem to be doing some really interesting stuff with 24 bit animation which we hope to sec lots more of soon. LCD. A large range of products including a Flicker Fixer for the A500 and a simple accelerator card were demonstrated on the ICD stand. However, the biggest at- traction was a smooth frame-grabbed se- quence from the movie Star Wars. Screaming along at 25 frames per sec- ond, viewers watched as the video im- ages pumped into the Amiga courtesy of ICD's AdSCSI drive controller and a very large storage device, complete with soundtrack. M.A.S.T. Optical drives, hard drives, re- movable hard drives, memory and of course Colorburst, which unfortunately was not available at the show, were all on display. M.A.S.T. seemed very busy all weekend, with lots of interest in the many 24 bit images which were being displayed. (Of course, if you wanted to actually see a 24 bit animation pro- duced using Colorburst you would have had to come to the Commodore Review stand where one of the Art 'n Anima- tion contest entries on video tape was being projected!) Browsing around Just behind MAST was the Impact Camera House who are doing interesting things with the Amiga and cameras - framegrabbing images from slide di- rectly into the Amiga. They were using the Progressive Peripherals Framegrab- ber. Behind them the Miracle piano key- board was being demonstrated at the Mindscape stand. Unfortunately only on PC - the Amiga version should be available later this year. Directly behind their stand was Desktop Utilities, with their range of publishing related products from people like ASDG and Sharp. The Animation Network was there representing amateur artists and animators. Watch for a full story on them soon. Free Spirit Software were busy clear- ing out a lot of older titles. They had sev- eral new releases, some of which ap- peared a bit saucy, including the rather amazing Sex Olympics - another Brad Stallion adventure game with a scantily clad woman on the front. At the stand was one of our old C128 columnists, Harry Waterworth, whose company, Bri- wall Australia, distributes Free Spirit Software. New Horizons demonstrated interest in the local market - keeping busy show- ing off ProWrite and their new release, DesignWorks. A new version of Flow is ex- pected soon, and they also mentioned we can look forward to Postscript support in- side a future release of ProWrite. Megatronics and DKB Software Graphics from artists throughout Australia Gail Wellington demonstrates CDTV demonstrated the McgaChip 2000, which gives you two megabytes of CHIP RAM. They also have a range of memory de- vices and drive controllers along with some neat looking Amiga carry bags for moving equipment around. Vortex Computer System were demonstrating their AT emulator. Right next door was Merit Software. They have a number of educational games and a few CDTV titles including Classic Board Games. Digital Micronics showed off a new 1280 x 1024 display adaptor which un- fortunately isn't supported by a lot of products yet but can be used to display images in 256 colours. The results looked very' impressive - some people even thought it was a 24 bit board. Gold Disk and several CAD software publish- ers are updating their software to support the board. Pactronics showed us just what a WordWonh is (see review in this issue). They also showed off a great new pack- age called Demomaker and of course their famous Vidi Amiga frame grabber. Pactronics are now shipping the new Amos Compiler also! James Cook University James Cook University demonstrated JCUMetSat, a satellite imaging system. Megadisc shared a booth with Phoenix and Left Side Software's Jonathan Pot- ter. Phoenix had a few A1000 add ons available along with the Mega Midget Racer, DynaCAD and Flicker Filter. Left Side Software's new professional ver- sion of Directory OPUS is incredibly powerful. Continued on p12 ACAR 10 Making Music is easy with the KAWAI FunLAB MUSIC SYSTEM / ■ No technical knowledge of MIDI is required to operate the software. No external amplification is needed. System operates on Amiga 500, 1000, 2000 and 2500. THE KAWAI FunLAB MUSIC SYSTEM HERE'S WHAT YOU GET . . . KEYBOARD- SOFTWARE- A 61 note keyboard with full size keys (colour colour co-ordinated with the Amiga), built in stereo speakers, 100 different studio sampled instrument sounds, 100 accompanying rhythms, programmable One Finger Ad Lib feature, and lots lots more. Steinberg FunLAB software is a 5 track sequencer (allowing overdubbing and multitrack recording) with music notation display, song lyric display, jukebox feature, optional 'quantize' or error correct and three demonstration songs. MIDI INTERFACE- Compact MIDI interface which fits directly into your Amiga serial port. MIDI CABLES - Two MIDI cables for connecting the KAWAI keyboard to the MIDI interface. music system AVAILABLE FROM: Computermart Pty Ltd, WA (09) 328 9799 Computer Discounts, NSW (02) 281 7411 Hard Disk Cafe, NSW (02) 979 5833 Chanticleer Computer Centre, NSW (067) 72 8888 United Computers, Qld (072) 82 6232 Casino Computers, NSW (066) 62 5220 •'cflr' Stephens Music Centre, NSW (047) 51 6196 ,' ' %£r Master Systems, Vic (03) 720 6722 y"%$^" Gray's Music, NSW (065) 72 1611 ''»3> • & Norsoft, Qld (077 43 4777) KAWAI. Or contact: KAWAI AUSTRALIA PTY LTD PO BOX 189 WATERLOO NSW 2017 PH (02) 663 0571 FAX (02) 662 4726 ,'>" '4? ' \* & >* J? & DEALER ENQUIRIES WELCOME SJP ¥ #" S<tf $>■ ¥> J? ^ \ c d> . V Show Report GVP You could have missed it, but tucked away in the comer of GVP's stand was one of the most amazing video enhancement boards to surface yet for the Amiga. The A3000 Professional Video Adaptor is a true 24 bit frame buffer. It offers a flicker free display in full 768 x 625 PAL. The board can frame grab, handle "Picture in Picture", special video effects, genlock and software including Macro Paint, Caligari and Scala. All the software will support the 24 bit graphics display. The Series II Impact hard drives controllers were also on display, as was the A2000 33Mhz Accelerator Board with up to 16 meg of RAM and a possible 105 meg Quantum hard drive. Scala, a very slick video presentation and titling pack- age, is now distributed by GVP. The latest version includes AREXX support and a number of new transitions. GVP promised to return next year with an even larger stand! Hard Disk Cafe Another one of those giant stands filled with lots of people. Hard Disk Cafe's multi-faceted stand included displays from GP-Software, Canon, Colour Computer Systems, among oth- ers. The new version of the Canon ION still video camera boasts an improved resolution and several additional features. A device for turning slides into still video was also displayed. Computer Man Formerly Regional Computers AMIGA SOFTWARE EDUCATIONAL Amiga Vision $140 Amos the Creator $110 Audio Engineer $189 Bars and Pipes $199 CanDo 1.5 $159 CanDo ProPack $55 CrossDos V4 $50 DiskmasterV.1.4 $55 Dase Base V $350 Dos 2 Dos $59 Dr T's Copyist App $135 DrT's Tigers Club $110 Dr T's Level II V.30 $369 Easy Ledger Ace. $310 Excellence V.2.0 $249 Mac to DOS Interface $1 75 Page Stream V.2.1 $329 QuarterBack HD Utility $79 QuarterBack Tools $89 Superbase Pro V.4.0 $599 Magic Maths Maths Mania Better Maths Better Spelling 3 Bears Interactive Story Junior Typist Fun School Series Let's Spell Where in Europe is Carmen Sim City Professional Draw Print Master Plus Kid Talk Learning the Alphabet Basic Grammar Puzzle Boot - 1 Sesame Street Series Dinosaurs are Forever Lemmings $48 $48 $48 $48 $45 $45 $60 $55 $220 $49 $35 $48 $48 $44 $44 $58 CALL Full software range at request Printer ribbons all makes Best Prices 018 911 011 or 09 328 9062 PO Box E265, Perth 6001 611 Beaufort Street, Mt Lawley Perth 6050 WA Wal's famous Prism RGB colour splitter helped get these sharp looking images into the Amiga. Bars & Pipes was being demonstrated by Robert Gunt. Just around the corner there were CDTV players, Syquest removable hard drives, Real 3D, the VidTech Scanlock gen- lock and more Syquest drives. Audio Engineer Junior, a new low-cost version of the full blown stereo original, was on dis- play from GSoft. Greg Perry showed off the latest GPTerm and AmigaNET from HydroSystcms. Greg also displayed a working copy of his Maestro fax/modem driver, which means we can all have fax facilities on the Amiga - soon! Commodore The largest stand at the show belonged to Commodore. From the front, entrants had glimpses of their marvelous video wall. On screen. Commodore showed television ads (which we had all seen a dozen times) and a very impressive demo reel of Showmaker. Unfortunately, Showmaker's local distributor / publisher (Dataflow and Gold Disk) did not seem to be at the show. The display area was divided up into a series of smaller booths representing the environment in which we could look forward to finding a typical Amiga application. CDTV dis- plays dominated most of the areas, however there were also a couple of PCs, Amiga 3000s and some 2000s and a kids' room fullofA500s. The two Phils ran Bars and Pipes Professional through its paces. The University of Sydney's Department of Computer Sciences showed the Amiga in research and handed out course information. There was one Amiga showing Unix, a Sharp QA1000 VGA LCD projector working off the A3000 - the results being just acceptable - for the money I would buy a full video pro- jector and be done with it. Don Sforcena (Color Computer Systems) was there demonstrating some smart video editing gear; YC Genlocks and ray-tracing software. Seminars One of the main attractions to help make the $9 entry fee more palatable was the free seminars. Many of them were very good, some were plain uninformative, others were very enter- taining. A worthwhile inclusion which we can expect to see more of next year. The CDTV demonstration proved very pop- ular, although not many were actually sold at the show. Overall If I have missed some people, my apologies, but there was lots to check out. Commodore were happy, and most of the exhibitors said they would be back next year. At 30,000 people, the Aus- tralian World of Commodore Show was even larger than a re- cent show in New York. We should see a lot more U.S. visitor in 1992. A very worthwhile weekend indeed. Q ACAR12 BUSINESS HOURS Mon to Friday 9AM to 4.30PM Phone: (06) 288 0131 Fax: (06) 288 0337 24 HOUR SERVICE I tj I [m^cCii] M'ilf ABYSS the exciting new arcade game from Spirit ^i Sofi Abyss is a colourful, fast paced arcade style game featuring:- Four levels of scrolling Game Save feature Super-bitmap game play High Score table ONLY $45 It's you and your Anadome versus Harry Bow and his Nasties ARE YOU UP TO THE CHALLENGE ? WHY CHOOSE BRIWALL? 4 swns'fAcrtojt PRICE MATCH Any software advertised in this magazine WE WILL MATCH ! ! ! (Except Specials) m * m%. u> Free gift voucher with every order Send now for our all new low price catalogues! Did you see the new CDTV programmes featuring BARNEY BEAR at the WORLD OF COMMODORE SHOW? Get these and other great CDTV programmes from BRIWALL AUSTRALIA First with the latest Listed below is a sampling of our great range of products at excellent prices. We currently have over 1000 Amiga products (growing daily) and a great range of 64/128 products (over 400) to cater for your every requirement. We also stock a large range of utilities and books, and we guarantee all our products. Drop us a line, or phone or fax us for our free catalogues which include latest games and educational programs! 64/1 28 UTILITIES 1750 RAM EXPANDER 1541/1571 DRIVE ALIGNMENT 1581 TOOLKIT V2 ASSEMBLER/MONITORS BASICS BASIC 8 TOOLKIT BASIC COMPILER 64 a 128 BIG BLUE READER 61 .'1 28 V3.1 CP/M KIT COBOL 128 COBOL 64 SUPER 81 UTILITIES MAVERICK COPIER V5 DIGITALKER 128 SUPER SNAPSHOT 5 W/C1 28 0IS SUPER SNAPSHOT V5 SYSRES ENHANCED 399 44 60 60 48 29 80 65 65 58 68 35 50 39 110 93 25 GEOC HART 64/128 GE0FILE 128 GEOFILE64 GEOPUBLISH 64/128 GEOS128V2 39 49 39 49 69 IMH«.H#M'MI 'ACCESSORIES APROSPAN 4 slol cartridge Mia 49 1200 MODEM 125 2400 MODEM 167 VIDEO RAM 64K CART. FULL 90 CREATIVITY ANIMATION STATION 129 HOLIDAYS I SEASONS 39 HOME DESIGNER 128 49 HOME DESIGNEFXircuil Symbol Lib. 19 NEWSMAKER 128 43 SPECTRUM 128 I PAINT 59 GEOS 64 VERSION 2 59 GEOS/PROGRAMMER 64 / 1 28 39 GEOCALC 128 49 FONTPAK INTERNATIONAL 39 POCKET FILER 2 65 POCKET PLANNER 2 65 POCKET SUPERPACK 2 145 POCKET WRITER 3 (64 OR 1 28) 89 SECURITY ANALYST 128 39 SUPERBASEI28-V3 59 SUPERBASE64 59 SUPERBASE/SpsaptBk 128 Pak) 1 30 SUPER8ASE/SpcsCTpl.8k64Pak EACH SUPERSCRIPT 128 59 SUPERSCRIPT C64 59 TECHNICAL ANALYSIS S»slaii 128 85 TECHNICAL ANALYSIS SYSTEM 64 55 BANK STREET WRITER 69 DATA MANAGER 40 SWIFT CALC 64 35 WRITE STUFF 64 40 WRITE STUFF 64 W/TALK 49 WRITE STUFF 64 C128 VERSION 49 WRITE STUFF LEGAL TEMPI 19 CMS ACCOUNTING 64 OR 1 28 260 GAMES GAMES PACKS - 2 FOR 1 ONLY $39 DRAGON BREED 4 HAMMERFIST EYE OF HORUS 4 SWORD OF KADASH PHOBIA SE-MOTI0N ALTERED BEAST S DEUVERANCE PIPEMANIAS RAINBOW ISLANDS JINXTERS CRIMSON CROWN ENTERTAINMENT: CALL FOR PRICES ALL TOP TITLES AT ROCK BOTTOM PRICES GREAT GAMES SPECIALS AMIGA DEMONS WINTER 25 THE LAST INCA 15 JACK NICKLAUS GOLF 25 MIGHT & MAGIC II 49 MEAN 18 GOLF 45 SIM CITY 55 TEENAGE MUTANT TURTLES 39 BARNEY BEAR MEETS SANTA 28 SEX VIXENS FROM SPACE 15 BRIDE OF THE ROBOT 15 C64/128 BATMAN 20 ERNIE'S BIG SPLASH 20 SIM CITY 35 TEENAGE MUTANT TURTLES 39 GALACTIC FRONTIER 15 TORCHBEARER 15 AMIGA BOOKS AMIGA C FOR BEGINNERS AMIGA GRAPHICS INS & OUT AMIGA MACHINE LANGUAGE AMIGA PRINTERS INS 5 OUT BEST OF AMIGA TIPS/TRICKS GET MOST FROM YOUR AMIGA KIDS S THE AMIGA MAKING MUSIC ON AMIGA PROG GDE TO AMIGA (SYBfcX) GENERAL BUSINESS CITY DESK V2.0 EASY LEDGERS EXCELLENCE MAXIPLAN PENPAL PH.A.S.A.RV4 SUPER BASE PERSONAL 2 S/BASEPROV4[NEW) THE ADVANTAGE WORKS PLATINUM EDUCATIONAL BIBLE READER KJV BIBLE READER NEW INT VER UNKWORD EACH MAVIS BEACON TYPING MATHS VISION WHERE IS CARMEN SO EACH YOUR FAMILY TREE V2.1 ENTERTAINMENT BACKTOTHEFUTURE3 CAR VUP DAS BOOT EUROPEAN SOCCER LEAGUE EXTERMINATOR FAMOUS 5 TREASURE ISLE FAST EDDIE'S POOL FEUDAL LORDS 30 45 40 55 45 47 30 57 45 95 369 209 59 175 93 115 579 258 175 65 85 43 65 275 65 85 65 56 75 55 65 65 45 65 GAUNTLET 3D 62 GODS 62 ISHIDO 62 KING'S OUEST TRIPLE PAK 109 LES SUIT LARRY TRIPLEPAK 109 MONOPOLY 72 PGA GOLF 62 PANZER KICK BOXING 62 PENTHOUSE JIGSAW (R RATED] 48 PREDATOR 2 62 PRO TENNIS TOUR II 62 QUEST FOR GLORY II 79 RAILROAD TYCOON 79 CREATIVITY/GRAPHICS 3D PROFESSIONAL 339 DRAW4D 329 PRINTMAST€R PLUS 55 SPECTRACOLOUR 109 TURBO SILVER 169 UTILITIES/LANGUAGES 64 EMULATOR 2 ASOO/2000 99 AMI ALIGN SYSTEM 49 AREXX 65 AZTEC C DEV PAK V5 375 ASSEMORO 143 BBC EMULATOR 109 DOS 2 DOS 69 DUNLOP UTILITIES 79 LATTICE C« 299 PELICAN PRESS 139 POWER WINDOWS 2 5 115 PROJECT DV2 75 SOUND/MUSIC BARS AND PIPES 249 DRT MIDI REC STUDIO 89 DRT COPY APPRENTICE 139 PERFECT SOUND 500/2000 169 SONIX 79 All in stock items shipped the same day. Please allow 14 working days for delivery of out of stock items. Should your product be faulty please return disk only & copy of receipt for immediate free replacement. COD also available. Prices are subject to change without notice. BK/CARD/MASTERCARD/VISA NO: EXPIRY DATE '. J J. Cheques payable lo Briwall Australia SIGNATURE: COMPUTER TYPE:: SUB-TOTAL $ POSTAGE $...4.00 GRAND TOTAL... $ NAME ADDRESS CITY DESCRIPTION STATE.... POSTCODE COUNTRY QUANTITY EACH TOTAL For complete list ol products & prices, please tick AMIGA ( C64/128| Amiga What's a Wordworth Anyway? Just when you thought you were all WYSIWYG'ed out, a new entry to the fray of heavy duty graphic interfaces has turned up. Wordworth looks great for a first release. Andrew Farrell, wordprocessing guru, examines the package. Between ProWriie, Pen Pal and Ex- cellence it looked like the WYSIWYG market had stabilised. Not so. Although offering some fine features, the big three previously available WYSIWYG word- processors still compromised on key fea- tures. Enter Wordworth. A slick new package which for a version 1.0 release stands up well to all the current choices. Inside the bookshelf box you'll find three disks, a 266 page ring-bound man- ual and quick-reference card. A function key guide on a sticker may be cut out and placed near the relevant keys. Instal- lation is a snack. There are no external assigns to worry about. Up and running On screen, Wordworth looks every bit like a true Workbench 2.0 applica- tion. System menus, including pull down functions and requestors, all sport some sort of fancy font. This help makes things more readable, however on occa- sion the menus seemed to become a little confused with some letters overlapping others. The display may be interlaced if you desire (flicker fixer recommended) and the number of colours can be changed even whilst you're in the program. There are a number of preset palettes too. Overall, I found I was able to make Wordworth look just the way I wanted - well, almost. Like all of these programs, the tough- est thing always seems to be finding a font that not only looks good and is readable on the screen but also prints correctly. As usual, I found the default fonts for correct handling of in-built printer fonts to be loo small for continu- ous on screen use. So, I reverted to using 15 point Times for entering text, and then once it was corrected, spell-checked and edited, reverting back to the propor- tionally correct font. This is a fairly sim- ple process. Incidentally, Wordworth can be ad- justed to correctly display WYSIWYG representations of both 60 and 80 DPI output. It will not properly handle laser- jet as yet, although there is some support in this area. They tell us postscript output is also on the way. I wait in earnest. New Horizons are also busy adding postscript to ProWriie 3.0. Excellence enjoys this feature now, but it is rather tricky to get working reliably. Editing and formatting Editing speed is great as are the range of editing keys and functions. Word- worth actually supports the Home, End, PgUp and PgDn keys too. There are icons to handle such things as line spac- ing, justification, font and colour selec- tion, margins and tabs. There is a very strong set of keyboard short-cuts. Many of the pull-down menus cause pop- up ra- dio button menus to appear. A very pleasing interface which you can zoom around after just a few minutes explo- ration. Extensive control over page format- ting is offered including all margins, headers and footers. There is no footnote facility. Paragraphs can be formatted in- dividually including justification, inden- tation, TABs, line spacing and space be- fore and after a paragraph. Certainly a lot more fancy than most wordprocessors and even up there with some of the belter desktop publishing programs. There is no support for multiple columns at the moment - this too is a planned addition in a coming release. Wordworth supports standard Amiga typefaces as well as colour fonts for which you'll need the ColourFonts pro- gram included with Deluxe Paint. The main menu to select a font is a pop up re- questor which shows the font name, drawer, point size and tracking (charac- ter spacing). You can enter any point size, however only Workbench 2.0 will guarantee a smooth rendition of the type- face - earlier versions are limited to those sizes available or chunky versions of scaled sizes. (Full support for outline fonts has been added to Workbench 2.0 which is now ready to ship!) Styles available include the usual bold, italic and underline. There is also support for super and subscript. Graphics When it comes to including IFF im- ages, Wordworth scores very well. The place picture option will import any stan- dard Amiga IFF graphic in any resolu- tion or size from 2 to 64 colours, HAM or Extra Half Brite. HAM images are converted to 64 colour Extra Half Brite. The current palette can be altered to re- flect the graphics palette (colours 4-16 of the current palette arc adjusted to reflect the most used colours in the graphic), or the palette of the imported graphic can be adjusted to best match the current set- tings. Wordworth handles this process quiet well, be it with a short delay whilst all the necessary calculations take place. Text can be made to flow around the graphic to the left or right. If colour is selected to be transparent you can also have contoured text flow around the im- age. You can resize the image using sim- ple drag handles. Holding the shift key as you drag will maintain the correct as- pect ratio. A double click on the image brings up a useful picture options menu much like any good desktop publishing program. Output Apart from the standard NLQ or draft mode, graphic mode provides support for the Amiga fonts and graphics. Word- worth comes with special fonts to cor- rectly represent the NLQ fonts on screen in true WYSIWYG form. There is also a special output mode known as Ultraprint. This effectively doubles or quadruples ACAR 14 Amiga ■ — i-^m^mm^ ,_l EDI TORI AJ. HELP UHDO ncniH Ttt Weil. the second issue of AM-Repcrt iMemaOonal is ready for press (ready for uplink, actually) and evwyrhrag teems to be movmgalongpfetty smoothly. Thefirst Issue was distributed far and wide and secras cc have met with success (no one openly laughed). Messages ofpraisc(two)(sr ourwdgh the messages o? scorn (none) so i 'm going to do it again. 1 did pan of what I promised lest issue: get a net address for FldoNtt (two ofthem actually) so hate mail can be sent in private. I will Inmate accounts on GEnieaadDelphithis hope to have my own accounts there icon instead of relying on Ralph of-ST-Report to das tribute AM-Report I've got an app3;aaonln to Commodore for Certified Developer status (yes. 1 da actually wntc commercial programs), and I Vhrnkthe/ea apjekage/disccunt v -- !':'' woidv/ortlivi.Gi 2 19VI Dieita Intcmaiional t t ■_ JJ HELP I ' 1 - ! ■■ 1 - UNDO H6RIH Ttt Display: 17 r«A« Rulers Suoll Bars; r Verfcol |7 Horizontal [7 Vtnicri (7 Hotaontol Screen Mode: Use Resolution: Colours: j Workbench J Medium -> 2 Custom Screen H*b J* |7 Change Workbench Colours 16 I commercial p!0£Jami), ar.d 1 ^»»— I I II iT'i ' (Quadruple) you would need Times 32 point. The result of this output mode is impres- sive, but the printing is con- siderably slower. Not a bad alternative to a similar feature provided by Kind-Words 2.0. NLQ and Amiga graphics may be mixed using a special two pass function. The output menu helps with all this by giving full control over the usual preference settings which affect printer output in- cluding the printer driver. Changes made in the pro- gram are reflected in prefer- ences normal system config- uration file. worth vl.01 © 1OT1 Uiaiia Inicrauoial -t— +- Page Size: J A' j A4 Letter j AS J US Lent: J USL»88l J Wide Tractor 4JB Cuircm w*h isnr - HcislaP Margins: Left(ff3 Right |S75 Toprn* — Bottom |1.8 Header RF73 Fooier [H75 \~ FoungPafec* |7 ShowMwghB (ycj, !do actually write commercial program*!, and I Ihink Ihcrc li a package/dljccunt :^««tfM«1 I I ill 1117 - the screen resolution which is dumped to the printer in a graphic print mode. The catch is any font used must be available in either double or quadruple si/.e to use this option. For example an 8 point Times font printed in Ultraprint High (double) would require Times 16 point to be available before the docu- ment could print. In Ultraprint Super "Smart" Features Wordworth has a number of features which overcome several long standing prob- lems with these types of wordproccssors. If this is an upgrade you're probably first concerned with converting your old format files across to Wordworth. This is han- dled elegantly by the docu- ment format menu which of- fers compatability with ASCII, ProWrite, WordPer- fect, IFF Text (such as Kind- words) and Protext. Another favourite Word- worth overcomes is the fact that some printers are only 60 DPI. This normally means you can look forward to 1/4 of the screen not print- ing correctly if at all. How- ever, Wordworth offers a choice between print resolu- tions of 60 or 80 DPI and ad- justs the screen display ac- cordingly. I wonder how they will handle 300 DPI printers correctly. Occasional system crashes can be thwarted with Wordworth' s auto-save option. You can set the amount of time between saves. The save function creates a backup before replacing the existing file enabling you to revert back to an ear- lier version of your file. The William Collins spelling checker contains 1 16.000 words including 26.000 Measure: I words from the Marriam-Webster legal and medical supplements. However, it's very easy to add words to the dictionary. When a word is queried you have the op- tion to edit it. replace it from the near- match listing of words, ignore it or add the word to the user dictionary. This dic- tionary is automatically updated and reloaded each time you run Wordworth. The spell-checker can work as you type - although this requires a hard disk or copying the dictionary to RAM. Spelling suggestions are based on both phonetic spellings and common mis-spellings. I found the dictionary was a very useful function, especially once it contained my commonly used computer terms. There is also a good thesaurus and document analysis. You can also create a glossary of commonly used terms or phrases which are then quickly accessi- ble from a pop up menu. Wordworth handles hyphenation quite well. It even has a smart speech option to read por- tions of text or read as you type. There's full control over the synthesiser. Under Workbench 2.0 it sound great! Conclusion Wordworth is a functional well thought out package that will no doubt become the standard by which others are judged. Although suffering from the usu- al confusing WYSIWYG problems of. font sizes and line spacing, once you have correctly configured your page, fonts and printer preferences all should be well. The documentation is of a very high standard. If all the promised addi- tions arrive as scheduled Wordworth will go on to stake a large claim in the high end Amiga wordprocessing market. Top points for look and feel. A very useful spell checker, combined with a number of smart features make this one a desir- able alternative to Excellence or Pen Pal. Distributed by: Pactronics (08) 748 4700 RRP $299 ACAR 15 Kto P ®M& Phone: (02) 979 5833 Fax: (02) 979 6629 AUTHORISED GAMES M I A.P.B. $49.35 1 * ACTION STATIONS CALL 1 ADVANCED TACTICAL FIGHTER II S69.95 ;5§ 1 ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN S69.95 1 AMOS GAME CREATOR S125.00 m 1 ART OF CHESS S16.95 I ASTRO MARINE CORPS S69.95 m 1 ATOMIX $49.95 pi 1 AWESOME ♦ T-SHIRT S79.95 1 BADLANDS S69.95 s;s.i{ 1 BARDS TALE III $59.95 1 BATMAN -CAPED CRUSADER $45.00 Wi 1 BATTLE COMMAND $59.95 :■;#! I BATTLE SQUADRON S59.95 I BATTLE VALLEY $49.95 :■:-■■: I BERLIN • EAST V WEST $59.95 Hg BATTLE STORM $79.95 '■■■; MAL'S NEW GAMES ■:■■: ■§■;> -Cc ARMOUR GEDDON •& ■it RAILROAD TYCOON it m •Ci TOKI it 1 BIO CHALLENGE $49.95 3|j I * BIRDS OF PREY CALL I BLITZKRIEG STRATEGY $79 95 1 BLOCKBUSTER PAK - SSI $59.95 1 BLOODWYCH $59.95 1 BLUE ANGEL 69 $49.95 1 BLUE MAX $69.95 1 BOMBER BOB $59.95 1 BORODINO $49.95 I BRAIN SCRAMBLER -JIGSAW $29.95 1 * BRAT - NEW CALL s§-< I BREACH 2 359.95 ■'55 I 8.S.S. JANE SEYMOUR $69.95 :■:• j I BUBBLE BOBBLE - 2 CAN PLAY $59.95 I CONQUESTS OF CAMELOT (SIERRA) $59.95 I CARTHAGE $69.95 ::..■ I CASTLE WARRIOR $69.95 1 CHAOS STRIKES BACK $59.95 1 CHARIOTS OF WRATH -SPECIAL $49.95 ■>§£ 1 CHESS PLAYER 2150 $69.95 1 CHRONO QUEST II $79.95 -*"- : § I CINEMAWARE COMPILATION $49.95 I (ROCKET RANGER 3 STOOGES SINBAD) :i i-% I CODENAME ICE MAN (SIERRA) $59 95 f COLONEL'S BEQUEST $59.95 1 COLORADO $69.95 | COMMANDOS PACK $59.95 8 CONTACT $59.95 m CRAZY SHOT - USES GUN/MOUSE 549.95 1 CROSSWORD CONSTRUCTION SET $59.95 1 CROSSWORD CREATOR $59.95 .. j CYBERBALL S49.95 CYBERWORLD $59.95 | DAMOCLES $49.95 DANGER FREAK $59.95 DARIUS + $49.95 DARK CENTURY $59.95 % DARK SIDE S49.95 DAS BOOT - U-BOAT SIM - GREATI $69.95 : i DAYOFTHEPHAROH $54.95 ::::? DAY OF THE VIPER $59.95 Il DEMONS TOMB $54.95 fM DEMONS WINTER $45.95 * DEUTEROS - NEW CALL 555£ DR PLUMMETS HOUSE OF FLUX $49.95 OR DOOMS REVENGE - SPECIAL $49.95 DRAGON FLIGHT $79.95 ■ DRAGON SPIRIT -SPECIAL $39.00 DRAGONSTRIKE 559.95 DREAM ZONE $39.95 § S| DUCK TALES - QUEST FOR GOLD 559.95 DUNGEON MASTER 1 MEG ONLY 559.95 il DYNASTY WARS $59.95 fj DYTER 07 $49.95 w MUDS $59.95 EMPEROR OF THE MINES 549.95 §3 '.'..' ; .. : $59.9' ■ EMPIRE $59.95 §1:11 MYSTICAL Sfc9 95 1 ESCAPE - From planet robot monsters $49.95 !§i§§| NEUROMANCER 559.95 B ESKIMO GAMES $49.95 §™§| NIGHT 8REED ACTION SS3 95 1 EUROPEAN DREAMS - COMPILATION S59.95 |§ NIGHT HUNTER h B EXTERMINATOR $69.95 .§§ NUCLEAR WAR $49.9 ■ EXTRA TIME - FOR KICKOFF S59.95 if OIL EMPORIUM $54.95 ■§! EYE OF THE BEHOLDER 559.95 i§:§|| ONSLAUGHT 55 ■§§ F-19 STEALTH FIGHTER $69.95 WM OPERATION COMBAT $79.95 B FM 8 INTERCEPTOR $45.95 II OPERATION HARRIER s: ■ FALCON MISSION DISK $49.95 Wim ORIENTAL GAMES 3. B FACES TRIS III $59.95 £.§11 OVERRUN 549.85 B FIENDISH FREDDY -SPECIAL $49.00 §ii§ PANG $59.95 ■ FIGHTER BOMBER MISSION DISK $59.95 SiSSl! PERSIAN GULF INFERNO $69.95 ■ '■ FLIPPIT.MAGNOSE $59.95 £lf| PGA TOUR GOLF $59.95 ■ 'FORGOTTEN WORLDS - SPECIAL $49.95 §111 PHANTASM $29.95 B : ' FUSION $45.00 H PHASER GUN - SPECIAL • I FUTURE BIKE (SIM) S39.95 §§t§ PICTIONARY S45.95 ■ FUTURE DREAMS -COMP $59.95 mm PIPE MANIA !.95 ■ ' * GALACTIC EMPIRE CALL m PLOTTING S59.95 ■ GLOBULOUS $59.95 m POLICE QUEST ss B GODS $69.95 ;§:§§§ POLICE QUEST 2 95 B GOLD OF THE AZTECS $59.95 §i : 8 POPULOUS $39.95 BP GOLDRUSH - SIERRA 561.95 mm POWERDROME 549.95 mm GRAND NATIONAL (Horses) $49.95 §§|I POWERDRIFT .95 b GRAND SLAM TENNIS $16.95 iWM POWfcRHONGER ;: B GREMLINS 2 $59.95 MM PRO TENNIS TOUR 2 •: B HARPOON 569.95 mm project YLE SIS 95 B HARPOON BATTLE SET 2 NTH ATLANTIC $49.95 m :-..}-•'■ SAGA 559 55 B HARPOON BAHLE SET 3 MEOrTERRANEAN $49.95 Mm PURPLE SATIN DAY 55 By HARPOON SCENARIO EDITOR $49.95 mm puzznic- addictive --■ fl HEWSONS PREMIER COLLECTION $49.95 , m quadralien 555.55 Bl§ HILLSFAR - DUNGEONS & DRAGONS $45.95 m :..;.■■; •' $49.95 B' :;:: HONDA RVF- PLAYS WELL $49.95 §:§:§§ RAILROAD TYCOON 95 B HOYLES SOLITAIRE VOL 2 $69.95 W®m RAINBOW WARRIOR 55 B HOYLES SOLITAIRE VOL 1 559.95 §§fl RED LIGHTNING $54.95 B§| HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER $44.95 -' m REALM OF THE TROLLS $61.95 B' : ' : ' : IMPERIUM $49.95 M RICK DANGEROUS 2 S5S95 B ' INDIANA JONES LAST CRUSADE $49.95 mm ROADWARS. INDY 500 $49.95 mm ROGUE TROPPER $6495 Bi INFESTATION $59.95 §!;§| RVF HONDA $49.95 BH INTERPHASE $59.95 mm SAFARI GUNS 549.95 B ISHIDO $69.95 §§•11 SCRAMBLE SPIRITS S49.95 B JACK NICKLAUS COURSE DESIGNER $79.95 mm * SECRET OF SILVER BLADES * 355 55 B JACK NICKLAUS ULTIMATE GOLF $59.95 mm sim city 55r 5 05 Bfi; JACK NICKLAUS VOL 3 $49.95 m SIM CITY TERRAIN EDITOR ■i ■ JET INSTRUMENT TRAINER 599.95 mm SIM CITY GRAPHICS 1 -ANCIENT CITIES JOKER X-WORD $19.00 li SIM CITY GRAPHICS 2 FUTURE CrTlES 95 Bill JUPITER MASTER DRIVE $69.95 mm SIMILCRA " B KEEF THE THIEF -ADVENTURE $45.95 ■mm SKYCHASE 55 Mm KELLY X $19.95 i;§S SLEEPING GODS LIE $59.95 B KHALAAN $59.95 mm SOLITAIRE - VOL 2 CALCULATION S95 55 mgi KICK OFF -EXTRA TIME $59.95 mmi SOLITAIRE - VOL 3 ACCORDION $39.9^ B KILLING GAME SHOW $69.95 §;§f| SPACE RACER $49.95 BjP KINGS BOUNTY $49.95 \Ci 5Ci;UC $ 449S 1 KINGS QUEST I $49.95 mm SPACE QUEST KINGS QUEST II 569.95 mM SPACE QUEST II 5, B KINGS QUEST III 569.95 mm SPACE QUEST III •:5 5= mm KONIX SPEEDKING JOYSTICK - GREAT $39.95 §lfl SPY V SPY - ARCTIC ANTICS - _;; ■ LEGEND OF FAERGAIL - MAL LIKES P" $69.95 H STAR BREAKER S4995 mm LEISURE SUIT LARRY S4995 mm STAR CURSOR J/S - 3 YR GUARANTEE $54.95 B- LEISURE SUIT LARRY II $49.95 mm STEEL ;</.. B LEISURE SUIT LARRY III $59.95 SSKgl SUMMER OLYMPIAD $29^95 LEMMINGS - DARE YOU TO PUT IT DOWN $89.95 mm STORM ACROSS EUROPE $49.95 LITTLE COMPUTER PEOPLE $19.95 MM STRIDER II $59.95 LOTUS ESPIRIT TURBO CHALLENGE $69.95 1 i§&H STUN RUNNER $69.95 Ml TANK PLATOON $89.95 1 llll SUPER SQWEEK 559.95 MANHUNTER - NEW YORK (Sierra) $49.95 1 \mm SUPREMACY NEIL LOVES IT 569.95 MANHUNTER 2 (San Francisco) $59.95 1 pmW * SWITCHBLADE II CALL MANNIX S59.95 1 p§|| SWIV - SILKWORM SEQUEL S69.95 MATRIX MARAUDERS $59.95 1 4 T.MN. TURTLES $69.95 MAYDAY SQUAD $49.95 1 mmm team Yankee $89.95 MEGATRAVELLER $79.95 1 p§i§g THE BIG ONE - LOFTO SYSTEMS $19.95 MICROPROSE SOCCER $59.95 1 Vmm THE COLONELS BEQUEST $59.95 MIDNIGHT RESISTANCE $59.95 1 p§§§ THE HOUND OF SHADOW $49.95 MIDWINTER $79.95 1 | :§1 THEME PARK MYSTERY $59.95 MIGHTS MAGIC II 559.95 1 \mm THRILL OF WINNING VOL II 559.95 MR. HELI - SPECIAL $49.95 1 §S§|1 THUNDERSTRIKES $59.95 I : ' ; COMMODORE Phone: (02) 979 5833 Fax: (02) 979 6629 & § 1 TIME MACHINE $59.95 1 TOTAL ECLIPSE $49.95 1 TRACKSUIT MANAGER - SOCCER $39.95 1 TV SPORTS FOOTBALL S69.95 1 *T0KI-NEW CALL 1 TOM AND THE GHOST $69.95 I TWYLYTE $16.95 1 TURRICAN II $69.95 I ULTIMA V $79.95 I ULTIMA IV $7995 § * ULTIMATE RIDE CALL 1 VAXINE $59.95 I VOYAGER $59 95 1 WAR GAME CONSTRUCTION SET $49.95 § WARLOCK -THE AVENGER $59.95 I WHITE DEATH STRATEGY S79.95 1 WICKED $59.95 § WINGS OF DEATH $49.95 I WINNERS ITALY 1990 SOCCER $49.95 I WINGS OF FURY S69.95 1 WOLF PACK $79.95 1 WONDERLAND $79.95 I WORLD TOUR GaF $45.95 1 WRATH OF THE DEMON $89.95 I XYBOTS S45.95 1 ZAK MC KRACKEN $52.95 PRODUCTIVITY I 3-D PROFESSIONAL (WITH VIDEO) $350.00 § A TALK 3 - SPECIAL $69.95 I ALL IN ONE -BY GOLD DISK -NEW $99.95 1 A-MAX - SPECIAL III $149.95 I AMIGA POST CODE $49.95 I AMIGA VISION -SPECIAL $150.00 1 AMOS $125.00 § ART DEPT PROFESSIONAL $$349.00 § ARTPARTS-FORDPAINT3 $49.95 I ASSEMPRO $149.00 I AUDIO ENGINEER S/WARE/H/WARE $CALL 1 BROADCAST TITLER V2 PAL - the besll $450.00 I CONTACT $59.95 1 CROSS DOS -V4.0 $64.95 1 CYGNUS ED PRO $129.95 I DELUXE MUSIC CONSTRUCTION SET $99.00 1 DaUXE PAINT III $99.00 1 DELUXE PHOTO LAB (POSTERS TOO) $99.00 1 DELUXE PRINT II $99.95 1 DELUXE VIDEO III $99.95 1 DESKTOP BUDGET -SPECIAL $49.95 1 DIGIPAINT3' $135.00 § DIGIVIEW GOLD 4 $269.00 1 DISTANT SUNS $99.95 1 DIRECTORY OPUS VER 2 -HOT $49.95 I D J HELPER $59.95 1 DYNACADD CALL 1 DYNACADD DEMO $15.00 1 EASY LEDGERS (WITH JOB COSTING) $499.00 1 EASY LEDGERS ACCOUNTING $375.00 1 ECLIPS - PRO DRAW/PAGE CLIP ART $139.00 1 ELECTRIC THESAURUS $69.95 1 ELECTRONICS DEBTORS SYSTEM $299.00 I FLASHBACK - HD BACKUP - NEW $79.95 1 GOLD DISK TYPE - DECORATIVE $79.95 1 GOLDSPELL2 $44.95 1 G.P. TERM - TERMINAL PROGRAM $99.00 1 HAM IT UP - WORKS WITH DPAINT $69.95 I HEADLINE FONTS 1 $99.00 1 HEADLINE FONTS 2 $99.00 1 HEADLINE FONTS SUB $99.00 I HOME BUILDERS CAD $299.00 1 HYPERBOOK $139.95 I IMAGINE - HOT -NEW - RAYTRACING $399.00 1 INTERCHANGE S/N $79.95 1 INTROCAD $99.00 I KARA AN IM FONTS $79.95 I KINDWORDS I LATTICE C V5 I LINKWORD FRENCH i LINKWORD GERMAN LINKWORD ITALIAN ! MAC TO DOS $69.00 $399.00 $59.95 $69.95 $59.95 $189.00 NEW & HOT ■it HAM E PLUS ■& it THE MIRACLE -it PIANO TEACHING SYSTEM FROM MINDSCAPE THIS WILL BE A HIT I MICROFICHE FILER $$99.95 ! MICROFICHE FILER PLUS $199.00 i OUTLINE FONTS FOR PRO PAGE $269.00 PAGESTREAM FONTS VOL 1 .1 $59.95 PAGESTREAM V2.0 $299.00 PHOTON PAINT V2 - HAM PAINT $1 99.00 PIXMATE $$89.95 PRINTMASTER ART GALLERY 1 $49.95 PRO VIDEO FONTS (SET 2) $1 49.00 PRO VIDEO POST $399.00 PROFESSIONAL DRAW V2.0" $275.00 PROFESSIONAL PAGE - SPECIAL PROF PAGE - STRUCTURED CLIPART $79.95 PROF PAGE TEMPLATES $79.95 PROFESSIONAL PAGE V 2 t VIDEO $399.00 PROMOTION $119.00 PROWRITEV3.0 $199.00 PROWRITE - GERMAN DICTIONARY $49.95 PROWRITE - PROFONTS 1 (extra lonis) $49.95 PROWRITE - PROFONTS 2 (extra lonts) $49 95 ! QUARTERBACK (HD BACKUP) $99.00 j QUARTERBACK TOOLS $99.00 j QUICKWRITE - WORD PRO • good one $99.95 REEL 3-D NEW FAST RENDERING $899.00 SCALA $699.00 ! SCENE GENERATOR $74.95 i SEASONS & HOLIDAYS CLIP ART $49.95 ! SPRITZ PAINT PROG $99.95 i SUPERBACK $99.95 SUPER DJ $34.95 ! SYSTEM 3 (ACCOUNTS) $1 29.00 j THE ART DEPARTMENT $129.00 I THE DIRECTOR $99.00 ! THE OFFICE - GOLD DISK $399.00 j TV TEXT PROFESSIONAL $259.00 i ULTRA CARD PLUS $145.00 VIDEO TOOLS $299.00 VIDI AMIGA F/GRABBER BAV LO-RES $399.00 ! WALT DISNEY ANIMAT'N STUDIO - Hot $249.00 MUSIC | AUDIO ENGINEER JUN $1 89.00 i BARS AND PIPES $299.00 j BARS AND PIPES PROFESSIONAL $450.00 BARS AND PIPES EXTRA MODULES $CALL ! DELUXE MUSIC CONSTRUCTION SET $99.95 ! OR T'S COPYIST APPRENTICE $149.00 | OR T'S COPYIST DTP $449.00 j DR T'S PHANTOM (SYMPTE SYNCH) $CALL DR T'S TIGER CUB $119.00 FUTURE SOUND - (STEREO DIGITISR) $299.00 IHARMONI $149.95 iKAWAI FUN LAB KEYBOARD $100 off $895.00 I KEYBOARD EDITORS $CALL j MIDI MAGIC $299.00 | MIDI INTERFACE $89.95 i MUSIC X - STILL THE BEST $299.00 I MUSIC X JUNIOR $CALL ! PERFECT SOUND 3.0 SONIX 2.0 • MUSIC (ChTV XMULTUMEDIA CDTV TITLES ™ A BUN FOR BARNEY BEAR • THIS ONE IS GOOD CALL j mm ADVANCED MILITARY SYSTEMS $59.95 ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN CALL BATTLESTORM CALL CD REMIX CALL | FRED FISH - CDTV - THIS IS NEAT - 480 DISKS $99.00 | GARDEN FAX - GROW AND CARE FOR OVER 400 VARIETIES CALL I LEMMINGS CALL MIND RUN CALL " MUSIC MAKER - CDTV CALL MY PAINT - FOR KIDS CALL PSYCHO KILLER CALL SIM CITY CALL THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES CALL | THE ILLUSTRATED AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIC DICTIONARY CALL | THE ILLUSTRATED WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE CALL | TIMETABLE OF BUSINESS $79.95 TIMETABLE OF SCIENCE $79.95 WOMEN IN MOTION $CALL WORLD VISTA $99.95 WRATH OF THE DEMON $99.95 " XENON II CALL | ALL TITLES ARE IN STOCK AT TIME OF DEADLINE EXCEPT FOR ONES MARKED " NOT IN STOCK YET WATCH THIS SPACE - LOTS MORE TO FOLLOW NEXT MONTH, A LIST OF MUSIC CD'S PLUS GRAPHICS - (CD+G) THANKS VD LIKE TO THANK ALL THE GUYS WHO WORKED EXTREMELY HARD ON THE H.D.C. STAND AT THE W.O.C. SHOW. I'D ALSO LIKE TO THANK EVERYONE WHO MADE A SPECIAL EFFORT TO VISIT US FROM ALL STATES IN OZ, NEW ZEALAND, FIJI AND EVEN DOWNTOWN MONA VALE. HI FRED! THANK YOU! ********** IT WAS GREAT FUN MEETING ALL THE OVERSEAS VISITORS. ********** GOOD LUCK TO GEOFF McCAULEY, EX COMPUTERMATE ALL THE BEST IN THE WEST, TO YOU & THE FAMILY, GEOFF CDTV DEALER SHOP 9 AKUNA LANE ■ P.O. BOX 879, MONA VALE 2103 HARDWARE & ACCESSORIES EDUCATION Amiga SQO Video Packs S1 499.00 Amiga 500 Video Add On Packs $699.00 Amiga 500 Music Packs CALL Amiga 500 Starter Kit with Intro VideoTutorial with Extra 18 Programs $850.00 Amiga A590 Hard Drive CALL Amiga A590 Hard Drive with 2MB Ram CALL Amiga A501 Ram Expansion & Clock $145.00 Amiga 1010 External 3.5" Drive $165.00 Amiga 2000 - Special Price $149900 Amiga 2000 Pro Pack (Heaps ol S/Ware) $1699.00 Amiga 2000HD Pro Pack (Heaps ol S/Ware) $Call Amiga 2091 + 40Mb Hard Drive (Expandable] CALL Syquesl 45Meg Removable Drive t Cartridge $1450.00 1 950 Hi-Res Monitor (For A3000 & Ver2.0) SCall Amiga 2000/22500/3000 Internal Genlock $399.00 Neriki Desktop Genlock VHS/SVHS $1199.00 Vidtek Scanlock Genlock VHS/SVHS $1699.00 Vidtek VideoMaster Genlock VHS/SVHS & Splitter $2495.00 A2000 AT Bridgeboard & 5 1/4" Drive $875.00 A2000 XT Bridgeboard & 5 1/4" Drive $475.00 A500 XT Card With 51 2k, Clock & Dos 4.1 $699.00 Ver1.3RomChps $29.95 Super Agnus Chip $59.95 Super Danise Chip $59.95 Rom Chips -68010 $39.95 Keyboard Cover Skins lor Amiga 2000 $39.95 Keyboard Cover Skins lor Amiga 500 $29.95 Joystick Extension Cable $1 0.95 * Mouse/Joystick Adaptor - back in stock $54.95 DigiView/Printer Switch Box & Cable $69.95 Harris Hitek Filter Screen (Reduces Flicker) $39.95 Prism Colour Splitter & Extra Cable $499.00 Canon ION Still Video Camera Kit $1250.00 Vidi Amiga Frame Grabber B/W $399.00 »W Video Camera (The Old Wayl) $699.00 Sharp JX-100 Colour Scanner- Ltd Stocks $1495.00 Kurta Graphics Tablet (S/Ware EXTRA) $899.00 Kawai Funlab Keyboard & Midi I/Face $895.00 * New Canon ION (SVHS) Still Video Camera $1375.00 * A2320 De-lnterlacer Card $449.00 Commodore 1 230 9 Pin Printer B/W ' $325.00 Star NX-1 000 Colour 9 Pin Printer" $375.00 Citizen 200GX Colour 9 Piin Printer 8 $475.00 Star LC24-200 Colour 24 Pin Printer • $750.00 Citizen CSX-1 40 Colour 24 Pin Printer ' $799.00 Canon Bubble Jet Printer $699.00 " = All printers come with Free printer cable. Amiga 3000'slOOmb or 40mb $Call Amiga Deluxe Kit $1099.00 * Denise Mover - Additional Video Slot $199.00 NEWS N' STUFF By now all the shows are over and everyone's had out of them what they expected. All that's left is to roll gently on towards Xmas!!! ARRGGHHH!!! ********** CDTV IS A BIG HIT!! What can I say? I'm madly in love with it!! I've not been disappointed! THE HARD DISK CAFE POSTAL ADDRESS P.O. BOX 879, MONA VALE 2103 PH: (02) 979 5833 FAX: (02) 979 6629 AUTHORISED EDUCATION DEALER PHONE FOR THE LA TEST NEWS ON SPECIALS AND NEWEST PRICES ON HARDWARE. NAME: J>HONE:( )_ ADDRESS: PCODE • PAYMENT : CHEQUE u B/CARD Q M/CARD Q VISA Q CARD #£)□□□ □□□□ □□□□ □□□□ Exp: □□ ®> □□ Signature ALL ITEMS LISTED ARE IN STOCK AT TIME OF DEADLINE AND WILL BE SENT SAME DAY. ALLOW 14 DAYS DELIVERY. ADD $3.00 SOFTWARE POSTAGE. HARDWARE CALL FOR ARRANGEMENTS. ALL PRICES SUBJECT TO CHANGE. QTY DESCRIPTION DO NOT SEND CASH!! TOTAL = PRICE i READINGS TYPING AGE 3-6 * ALGEBRA VOL I HIGH SCHOOL j * ALGEBRA VOL II HIGH SCHOOL ALPHABET PRESCHOOL ARITHMETIC HIGH SCHOOL ASSOCIATED - WORD ASSOCIATION AGE 3-8 BAM3INOS JIGSAW PUZZLE AGE 3-8 BASIC GRAMMER AGE 7 i UP BETTER SPELLING 8 TO ADULT i COMIC SETTER ART DISKS - FUNNY FIGURES - SUPER HEROES - SCIENCE FICTION DROSS OUT THE INTRUDER AGE 3-8 DECIMAL DUNGEON AGE 5 & UP DINOSAUR DISCOVERY KIT DISCOVER ALPHABET AGE 6 & UP DISCOVER CHEMISTRY AGE 12 & UP DISCOVER MATHS AGE 10 & UP DISCOVER NUMBERS AGE 6 & UP DISCOVERY GEOGRAPHY op.™,*** GRADE 9-12 DISCOVERY HISTORY expansion dsk GRADE 9-12 DISCOVERY MATHS MASTER DISK GRADE 1 -7 DISCOVERY SCIENCE expakscnoisk GRADE 9-12 DSCOVERY SOCIAL STUOIES t«.™o. GRADE 9-12 iCOVERY SPELL MASTER DISK GRADE 1-7 iCOVERY TRIVIA 1 EXPANSION DISK VARIOUS iCOVER TRIVIA 2 EXPANSION DISK VARIOUS •GRADE (TEACHERS GRADEBOOK) TEACHERS N SCHOOL 2 AGE 6-8 N SCHOOL 2 OVER 8 N SCHOOL 2 UNDER 6 M SCHOOL 3 "NEW TIES FARM IS COLLECTION AGE 3-7 ISTALK 5T012 IDERAMA PRESCHOOL-6 MCGEE LOWER PRIMARY GICMATH 4 TO 8 TCHIT TH A MAGICIAN TH BLASTER PLUS-PHNTSCEBif icaiesPRIMARY 8 T0 12 i MATH MANIA i MATH TALK i MATH WIZARD MAVIS BEACON TEACHES TYPING MEDAL WINNER MEMORISE i PLANET PROBE j PROBABILITY I PUZZLE STORY BOOK j READ A RAMA j READ N RHYME ROBOT READERS - AESOPS FABLES ROBOT READERS - THE LITTLE RED HEN AGE 4-8 ROBOT READERS - THE THREE BEARS AGE 4-8 j ROBOT READERS - the three uttue pigs AGE 4-8 i ROBOT READERS- THE UGLY DUCKLING AGE 4-8 SESAME STREET - LETTERS FOR YOU i SESAME STREET - NUMBERS COUNT j SESAME STREET - OPPOSITES ATTRACT SMOOTH TALKER i SPACE MATH SPELL BOOK SPELL BOOK SPELLBOUND SPELLER BEE SUM-IT MOUNTAIN I SUNNYSIDE UP i TALES OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS I TALKING COLOURING BOOK AGE 5-10 AWARD WINNER AGE 3-8 HIGH SCHOOL AGE 5 8. UP AGE 8 & UP AGE 4-6 AGE 7 8, UP PRIMARY AGE 8-12 PRE-SCHOOL ! THE BIRDS 8 THE BEES - sexeoucati* AGE 7-12 I THINGS TO DO WITH NUMBERS I THINGS TO DO WITH WORDS I THREE BEARS ! TRACKERS QUEST | TRIGONOMETRY i WHERE IN EUROPE IS CARMEN WHERE IN THE USA IS CARMEN PRIMARY PRIMARY 5 T0 10 AGE 4 & UP HIGH SCHOOL VARIOUS VARIOUS $39.95 $79 95 $79.95 $49.95 $69.95 $39.95 $39.95 $49.95 $59.95 $39.95 S39.95 S39.95 $39.95 $69 .95 $54.95 $39.95 $39.95 $39.95 $39.95 $29.95 $29.95 S59.95 $29.95 $29.95 S59.95 $29.95 $29.95 $89.95 $49.95 $49.95 $49.95 $49.95 $59.95 $59.95 $54.95 $69 95 $59 95 S49.95 $49.95 $69.95 $59.95 | $69.95 $69.95 S49.95 $39.95 $49.95 $69.95 $54.95 $69.95 $34.95 $34 95 S34.95 $34.95 $34.95 $49.95 $49.95 $49.95 $54.95 S39.95 $39.95 $39.95 $59.95 $49.95 $49.95 $69.95 S49.95 $39.95 $39.95 $39.95 $49.95 $54.95 $69.95 $84.95 $84.95 Amiga Getting into Desktop Video with Alter Image No longer does the video enthusiast have to dream about the wondrous mas- terpieces possible il" only you could af- ford a genlock. In the last couple of years we have seen three which have cost less than SI 000. First there was Dave Thompsons Ausgen at around $600 and more re- cently I reviewed the ROCGEN which currently retails at less than $300. Now we have the Alter Image Genlock by The Disk Company retailing at around $749. Incidentally Matrix inform me that they have fixed the problems with the Roc- Gen I found - so it should now represent a great buy. Installation Have you ever got caught up in that party game where you unwrap the parcel layer by layer and eventually find that the prize is one tenth the size of the orig- inal package. Well that is what I felt like. I was presented with this large package which conjured up visions of lots of goodies inside and instead I found lots of wasted space and packing and eventually the promised items. The actual genlock is only 120 x 56 x 38 mm with a 23 pin connector at each end. to suit your monitor, and two RCA connectors for video in and out. A three way manual toggle switch is used to se- lect the monitor viewing modes (video only, graphics only and mixed). A very compact unit indeed but I worry about its weight hanging off the monitor output connector. I would suggest some support under it to protect the motherboard con- nections. No longer does the video enthusiast have to dream about the wondrous masterpieces possible if only you could afford a genlock. In the last couple of years we have seen three which have cost less than $1000! Apart from the genlock itself there are two program disks (Afterimage and Fusion Paint), one font and one clip art disk and two manuals. A rather thin booklet tells you how to connect up the genlock system. The other is the operat- ing manual which is fairly comprehen- sive with tutorials to get you going both with the genlock and with Fusion Paint which is included in the package to help in art work. In addition, and I must congratulate the Disk Company on the excellent 15 minute instructional video on genlocking to supplement the manuals. It takes you lafRls lea ■&»itnujiiM ■1 Kl |n>ir |::|-H*IIM| x H+M-fcl<il «1 m\* 3D I | Ml n _|fe«||33 EDIT Em Boston. 36 10VR I'HI'H I ■M by George Kimpton through setting up the hardware and pro- ducing titling step by step. It's a pity more software houses don't do this to help you learn how to use some of the more complex programs on the market today. If videos like these were available for viewing before buying there may be less dissatisfied customers as they would know what they were getting. There may also be less piracy if people already knew the program would not do what they wanted. The included Alter Image program is intended for use with the genlock sup- plied but just for curiosity I tested some other titling programs with this genlock quite succesfully. The only problem I did find was an instability of the screen dis- play on my A2500 without any video in- put but this is fairly normal when work- ing with genlocks without any sync to lock onto. The Alter Image program is self booting and can be used from the floppy or be installed on a hard disk by clicking on an install icon after a normal boot and then adding two lines to the startup se- quence. I may be getting into hot water here but. while the Alter Image genlock is said to work with all versions of Ami- gas, there may be some reservations in certain configurations with software mode switching but more about this lat- er. It is a fairly basic program which is easy to use, just point and click on the tool box or control panel as it is called at the bottom of the screen and away you go. The tool icons are fairly standard and easy to recognised after a short familiari- sation run through them and the control panel is toggled with a click of the right mouse button. On opening you are told to expect some instability of the screen until the video source is started up and running. In actual fact, normal practice in video gen- locking requires you to first start up the ACAR 19 Amiga video sync source then the genlock be- fore starting the Amiga to allow the Amiga to lock on to the video sync. This is always a good routine to get into. Operation To enter your text you are given the choice of a number of fonts specially made for Alter Image. No other fonts will be accepted which is rather limiting. The fonts you select are loaded into RAM and remain there until removed. It is possible to select any one of eight ad- justable colours for the fonts but you can not play around with shadows, outlines etc. as these are fixed for the font you se- lect. Centre, left or right justification of text in each line is set by clicking on the appropriate button. If want another page or you are not happy with the old one it is just a matter of clicking a button again. As I said very easy to use every thing is just a matter of clicking on the mouse button except for typing in the text. The Graphics Box Button allows you to create many graphic elements such as boxes, rules, frames, colour backgrounds and combinations of all these. It is possible to use this facility to create a contrasting colour box as a background to your text but the box is constrained to 200 lines vertically. This constraint applies to all graphics that you draw or import. One very handy feature though is the Delete Graphics Button which allows you to remove the graphic whilst leaving the text intact if you want to change your mind. The graphics can be imported from the included Fusion Paint or any other Paint program provided the format is Hi- Res and IFF, but not HAM. Also, re- member the 200 line constraint when producing graphics. Each page can be given its own tran- sition by selecting the FX button which opens up another control panel on which are displayed the various transitions. Horizontal and vertical scrolls are pro- vided along with "Teletype" which lays the letters down, left to right, just as you would read them. Other transitions allow wipes, cross reveals, shrinking square, expanding square, closing and opening doors, blinds, checkerboard and diagonal PAINT 1.0 <S> Copyright 1989 THE DISC COMPANY changes to the screen. They are fairly basic but effective, after all this is not in- tended for use in a professional studio but for home use. The speed and dwell are adjustable for each page to suit your needs. The script which controls the pages you create can be saved to disk for later use. When you have completed your script you are advised to add a blank page at the end for control purposes. I found I needed two blanks otherwise I was suddenly confronted with my con- trol panel back on screen when there should have been nothing but video. So, you have created your tiling or credits and now you want do something with them. Well it is possible to view in- dividual pages as you did when setting them up. The current page number is dis- played in the control bar and by using the appropriate buttons you can step through the pages holding on the blank to avoid the return of the control, panel. Problems Now this could be where I get into trouble but I say it as I see it. The soft- ware provides for mouse control of the genlock on any Amiga model as to whether you see just video or Amiga graphics or the combined video and graphics by clicking on the appropriate button on the control panel. This is a very useful feature if you get it to work. There was no way I could get this to happen on my A2500, I could only switch manually on the genlock itself. I must say here that manual switching was flawless and gave no problems except for the need to keep reaching around the back of my computer to switch modes. In all fairness the problem may be with the configuration of my system. It was suggested that the software did not like my hard disk (GVP controller and Quantum Drive) but switching out the hard disk brought no changes. Each time I attempted to view only video or 886 FAST:4547 C PU: 72V. 22- Jul -91 16:18:4: mmmmmmmmmmmmm :Scpeen llnllii : Screen Heisht :Edit Width :Edit Him all' [32]: Colors Amiga graphics the control panel kept flickering on and off. The mixed display was always perfect but not the other modes. I even switched out the accelera- tor without any improvement. I am reliably informed that the sys- tem does work properly on Amiga 500s around which I suspect it was designed judging by the handbook illustrations. It is worth noting here that the manual does indicate the possibility of a problem with A590 hard drives but gives a fix to get around the problem. It is also quite pos- sible that it will work well on other Ami- gas but make sure it works on your con- figuration before buying. Generally though it is a good system for the home video enthusiast. It will give quite effective titles with or without graphics. I would like to see the ability to use fonts other than the Alter Image ones and it would be nice to be able to fade the graphics in or out. Remember too that the genlock itself can be used with other titling programs with manual switching. Fusion Paint Fusion Paint is quite a versatile pro- gram but not in the same class as DPaint or DigiPaint. However it does have some different features and it is adequate for producing simple but effective graph- ics for use in titling home videos. It cer- tainly is not as user friendly to the first time user as is DPaint. The icons in the tool panel do not al- ways indicate clearly what they are used for. In addition many functions only pop up as a secondary toolbox after you have clicked on and selected a main function tool. As an example, clicking on the ACAR 20 Amiga freehand drawing icons opens a sec- ondary toolbox which allows you to se- lect from freehand, straight line and straight line horizontal or vertical con- strained only. The boxes and circle tools have simi- lar multiple selections so the problem initially is to find where the various functions hide. I know it took me half an hour to find out how to clear the screen and then I only found it by reading the handbook. Still I suppose that is what we are supposed to do but how many of us read the manual first. All the usual tools are there, free- hand, boxes, circles, airbrush, brush (cuts), cut (for clip art), fill, effects (brush selection and manipulation), text, fonts, magnify, erase, palette and printer. As I said multiple secondary level selec- tions become available on selection of these tools. It does have some unusual features. Initial screen size is 600 x 400, probably to suit the genlock, and thus you have portions of the screen outside the view- ing area. Clicking F10 removes the tool- box but you cannot draw without it. Overscan is also supported but you can- not reach drawing tools to select them. The arrow keys are used to scroll the screen around and the return key to cen- tre the page. Another unusual feature is the ability to magnify the immediate cursor area by holding down the right mouse button. The cursor immediately slows down and a magnified picture of the working area appears below the toolbox. Using the shift key during rubber band drawing of lines, circles, ellipses or curves allows them to be dragged to selected new loca- tions once sized. The undo command is not limited to a single toggle effect as in DPaint and others, it can step back as many levels as the memory buffer will permit. Unfortu- nately it is one way only, when they are gone they are gone. A feature called Quicksave is used to bypass the usual save requesters. It updates the picture file in a similar way to the hot keys in word processing which update the active file. Another useful feature is the ability to select which background colour is transparent when saving a picture. It can be any colour and not necessarily the first colour in the palette as is usual. It is also possible to create icons and alternate icons (Icons that change on selection) and save them as such for future use. A Power Borders facility is also available which allows the creation of borders for the screen using pre-saved patterns. ColorFonts and colour cycling are supported but the program requires an ARP Library to operate successfully. Generally it is a good paint program, just different and perhaps not so user friendly as we have come to expect. For anyone still wanting that something extra special in graphics you will still need DPaint or one of the others. For the home movie buff however it may give all ihey need especially as it comes as part of the package. □ Distributed by: Commodore (02)427 4888 PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE Now available - one of Australia's largest PD collections, 1 7 BIT, FISH, AMIGAN, AMICUS, T BAG, FAUG, AMAZ, AARUG, AMIGOZ, NZAUG, and now by time of publication we will have the AMOS PD from the UK. Send now for full catalogue (3 disks) $6.00. All disks $5.00 + $2.00 P & H per order. Ask about our competitive prices on commercial software. Bankcard, Mastercard and Visa facilities available ALLEN COMPUTER SUPPLIES 432 DORSET ROAD, CROYDON VIC 3136 TEL 03 725 3379 FAX 03 723 1780 ACAR 21 C64 RAMIink Interface for the C64/128 After many months of promises, CMD have finally released RAMIink, a mulli function compatibility interface for the C64/128. So what exactly is a "multi function compatibility interface" ? First and foremost it is a device that enables those of us that have a RAM ex- pander such as GEOram, or Com- modore's 1764/1750 REU to finally make use of this extra memory. It can al- so be considered as an REU in its own right. For those of us that are fortunate enough to own a CMD hard drive it gives us the ability to use the higher speed parallel data transfer. Ever since the CMD hard drives were released there has been a "minor war" between CMD owners and Lt.Kemal hard drive owners. Both hard drives have their advantages and of course their dis- advantages, the main point in contention appears to be speed. The Lt.Kemal which uses a parallel connection as stan- dard is a lot faster than the CMD which uses a serial interface. As an example a 202 block program will load on the Lt.Kemal in just under two seconds, whereas it takes about 8 seconds to load the same program from a CMD HD with its serial interface. When using a parallel cable between the RAMIink and the CMD HD the speeds are very compara- ble. The same 202 block progRAM loads in less than two seconds. This is all very well, but quite frankly because programs load so fast anyway (compared to a 1541 drive with no fast loader) I find that the few second time difference is negligible. I could and would not recommend that a CMD HD owner buy the RAMIink purely for the parallel interface. Using Georam The next thing I will tackle is RAM- link's ability to make use of GEORAM and the 1764/1750 REITs. I have no doubt that there arc many of us that have a RAM expander of some sort, and we would all agree that for the amount of money that it has cost us to purchase the- ACAR 22 se units they get very little use. Geo- RAM owners are probably the worst af- fected since these REU's can only be used with GEOS. 1764/50 owners are slighdy better off in that for the C64 there are about four programs that sup- port their use, and C128 owners are even more better off in that there are maybe a dozen or so programs that we can use. OK so I admit that 1764/50 owners can use RAMDOS and use the REU as a ramdrive, but I am sure that most of you would have to agree this is often more trouble than it is worth, the moment you do a reset or power down all contents of RAM are lost. The solution is RAMIink. I don't wish to sound like a salesman, but if you own a GEORAM or 1764/50 REU then this unit is a must because without it you will have some rather expensive RAM just silting around doing nothing. RAM- link is a device that will allow you to use your existing REU in a fully functional manner. Power Up Upon initial power up RAMIink will check for any additional memory, either internal or external, and format itself as another disk drivc(s). Thereafter you may copy files to this "disk drive" and access them as if they were on a normal floppy disk, with of course the exception of speed. Loading from RAM is fast. Those of us that have used RAMDOS with our 1750's would be aware of its limitations, namely if the computer crashes (for any reason) and you do a reset then not only do you lose all data stored in RAM, but you have to reload RAMDOS and start again. To make matters worse RAMDOS is usually unsuitable for use with multi- part programs that load subsequent parts from drive #8, and finally those of us with a CI 28 often have the need to swap between 64+128 modes for various rea- sons, with RAMDOS the data stored un- der C64 Ramdos isn't accessible from 128 Ramdos and vice-versa. RAMLink overcomes ALL of these limitations, and more. Available RAM As a storage device the RAMIink op- erates in a very similar manner to CMD's hard drives. It allows any available RAM to be used in several ways and various partition types, as such you can use its entire memory as a nor- mal but large capacity disk drive (approx 2000 blocks free with a 512k REU). Users of Ramdos will notice a reduction in available memory when using RAM- Link as RAMIink uses some of the memory for its own operation. The RAM can also be arranged to emulate the 1541/71/81 disk drives, however due to insufficient memory I have been unable to use the 1581 emula- tion. You are not limited to a single emu- lation mode, with enough spare RAM you can mix modes by using various par- titions (up to 31 partitions arc available). With my limitation of only having 512k of RAM I am able to set up two 1541 partitions and can operate the unit with those programs that support dual drives, or I can simply have different applica- tions on each "drive". Data stored using RAMIink is what I call "semi-permanent", as long as you keep power to RAMIink the data remains intact. RAMIink has its own power sup- ply and ideally should be plugged into a socket that is permanently turned on. Its power consumption is minimal, and should you happen to lose this pow- er (either accidentally or simply to trans- port RAMIink to another loca- tion/computer, it has a battery back-up (optional) that will hold the RAM con- tents from several hours to a day or so, depending on the amount of RAM available. I have removed mains power from my unit on several occasions and have never had any problems with data becoming corrupted. RAMIink comes with its own Jiffy- Dos routines (and DOS wedge) so those of you without Jiffy Dos would be able to quite cheaply gel fast disk speeds from your 1541 drive simply by installing a new drive Kernal chip. Those of us thai already have JiffyDos must Disable it when using RAMIink because it causes some strange problems. The RAMIink Jiffydos works in exactly the same way as the normal JiffyDos, but I have no- Continued on p24 PCM COMPUTERS - for ALL your amiga needs CHEAP DISKS !!! 3.5" DSDD IN BOX OF 10 $8-00 PER BOX POWERCOPY PROFESSIONAL - THE POWER TO COPY ALL - THE ULTIMATE BACKUP UTILITY$30 POWERDEVICE - HARDWARE TO UNLEASH THE FULL POWER OF POWERCOPY $60 BOTH TOGETHER $80 PCM520 2.0 Mb A500 RAM exp. with 0.5 Mb $180 PCM501 0.5 Mb A500 RAM exp. with 0.5 Mb $85 GVP Accel 22MHz 68030/68882/ 1MB 32bit RAM/SCSI port $1585 GVP Impact 500 series II 40Mb Hard Drive $950 Amiga Computers, Monitors, Printers, Hard drives, Accelerators, Memory expansions, Repairs, Modifications, Disk drives. Diskettes, Full GVP range - CALL NOW FOR THE BEST DEAL PCM COMPUTERS - FOR ALL YOUR AMIGA NEEDS GPO BOX 2363V Melbourne Vic 3001 Phone (03) 822 5873 or 01 8 322 920 9 am - 9 pm PO BOX 70 Noble Park VIC 31 74 Phone (03) 701 0343 FAX (03) 701 0077 OTHER PCM AGENTS - some prices do not apply to agents. Prices subject to alteration. J&S Computers PO Box 1 98 Mentone VIC 31 94 Phone (03) 580 6963 Northwest Electronics 5/1 1 McDougall Rd Sunbury VIC 3429 Phone 744 4440 1084S Stereo Color Monitor 460-00 Tystar 14" Multisync Monitor 720-0O NBC 3D Multisync Monitor 950-00 3.5" External Disk Drive 165-00 5.25" External Disk Drive 240-00 A500 0.5 Mb RAM Exp/switch/clock 85-00 A500 2.0 Mb RAM Exp/switch /clock/0. 5 Mb 180-00 A500 2.0 Mb RAM Exp/switch/clock/2.0 Mb 340-00 A2000 8 Mb RAM expansion with O Mb 370-00 A2000 8 Mb RAM expansion with 2 Mb 500-00 Epson LX-400 80 Column 9 Pin 180 CPS Printer 3O0-00 Epson LX-850 80 Column 9 Pin 200 CPS Printer 405.00 Epson LQ-400 80 Column 24 Pin 180 CPS Printer 475-00 Epson LQ-550 80 Column 24 Pin 180 CPS Printer 580-00 Citizen 200GX 9 Pin Color Printer 440-00 Citizen GSX-140 24 Pin Color Printer 680-00 Boot Drive, Memory, ROM, NTSC /PAL etc. mods All Amiga Repairs Why buy a slow emulator? For not a lot more you can have the real thing - with hard drive, floppy and monitor! AT-286, 1 Mb RAM 40 Mb HD Voice Coil, 200W P/S, Monitor. 101 Key Kbd 1.2 Mb or 1.44Mb Floppy, multi I/O $1300.00 NEW - A500 INTERNAL Hard Drives CALL Up to 80 MB - Available Soon !! MICROBOTICS 25Mhz A500 68030 Accel 580-00 Qtronix Mouse (with microswitches) 50-00 GVP RANGE 40 Meg GVP A500 Series II +8 980-00 50 Meg GVP A500 Series II +8 1200-00 100 Meg GVP A500 Series II +8 1650-00 50 Meg GVP A2000 Series II HC+8 1 150-00 80 Meg GVP A2000 Series II HC+8 1230-00 100 Meg GVP A2000 Series II HC+8 1350-00 RICOH 50Mb Removable Cartridge Hard Dr 1420-00 RICOH 50Mb Cartridge 200-00 SIMM Modules for GVP HC=8 range 2Mb 200-00 22MHz 68030 / 68882 / 1Mb 32bit RAM Series II SCSI controller 1590-00 33MHz 68030 / 68882 / 4Mb 32bit RAM Series II SCSI controller 2475-CK) 50MHz 68030 / 68882 / 4Mb 32bit RAM 3950-00 1 Mb SIMMS for Accel 240-00 4 Mb SIMMS for Accel 850-00 C64 ticed that some programs that would not load using "normal" JiffyDos load okay with the RAMlink Version. Accessing different drives with the JiffyDos routines is a breeze and only requires one or two keypresses (no more messy open commands). Although RAMlink plugs into the cartridge port it does not tie the port up as it has a feedthru slot so you can still use other cartridges with it. CMD make no claims that all cartridges will work in this manner, but I have tried Swiftlink, Action Replay V and Final Cartridge 3. The only times I seemed to have prob- lems is when I attempt to use the cartridge fastload routines in conjunction with the RAMlink's JiffyDos routines, which I suppose is understandable. RAMlink is a very sturdy device (no plastic here), it has two toggle switches (badly placed in my opinion) that enable you to disable/enable RAMlink and to control how external RAM is connected (either normal for RAMlink use or direct for use with programs that support the REU in its usual way). It has three membrane type push buttons for RESET, SWAP 8, SWAP 9. The reset is obvious, the swap buttons are a very powerful feature that enables you to swap the RAMlink with either drive 8 or 9 in the same way as the CMD hard drives. As I program in my review on the hard drive this is possibly one of the most useful features available as it allows the RAMlink (HD) to be used with almost every type of application. Even if you don't have an REU then you can still use Special Prices on Amiga Peripherals Texas Instruments %%2tV printers Canon Bubble jet Modems 2400 baud to 9 6 baud from $220, many specials Mega Midget Racers Conner 2.5" IDE Drives available SCSI drives a Specialty e.g.l05MB, 9ms $777, 170MB $900, Syquest $499 Upgrades for A590, A2000, A3000 Installation available Call for best prices |Adaptel Pty. Ltd. 145 Kooyong Rd. Caulfied, Vic.,3162 Fax 03-528 4546 Mob.018 374 540 Ph 03-532 8085^ RAMlink by purchasing it with its own inbuilt memory (or you can add memory in conjunction with an REU). By adding its own memory it is possible to have up to 16 Megs (yes 16 megs) of RAM on a C64, something unheard of until RAMlink came along. I would assume that the internal RAM would work just as well as with an REU. I would suggest that if you don't already own an REU, but are thinking of getting one, then seriously consider purchasing RAMlink with internal memory instead, as it would be proba- bly give you more value per SS$, however you won't be able to use the RAM with programs written with the 1750 in mind. Compatibility The only compatibility problems that I've had are with with some copy protected programs, the RAMlink is as compatable (and functional) as CMD's hard drives. I have found I can use most of my programs without any problem - at the moment the most notable exception is GEOS. RAMlink does not support GEOS without the use of CMD's Gateway program (an alterna- tive/improved version of Desktop). At the time I got my RAM- link the Gateway program wasn't available, but I understand that it has now been released. I am unsure whether Gateway will be supplied with RAMlink as a matter of course, but with my unit I got a registration card entitling me to a copy for the cost of postage, I am currently awaiting its arrival. RAMlink comes with a single utility disk with programs to customise your preferred settings, make auto boot files etc. The manual is very comprehensive, in fact it is almost a duplicate of the hard drive manual, which is understandable since many of RAMlink's operations are identical to the HD. (This unit could be a "cheap" way for people to actually experience what the CMD HD's are like.) Summary In conclusion I would say that this unit is a definite MUST if you have an REU. It would be a worthwhile alternative for those of you contemplating buying an REU. The unit is robust, appears reliable, and truly is a "multi purpose interface" that is packed with features. Since this unit is a "one of a kind" it is impossible to com- pare it with other similar devises, but if there was something similar it would be hard to beat RAMlink. Once again congrat- ulations to CMD for delivering yet another great product for theC64. Dedicated C64/128 and GEOS support is available on the THISTLE DOME BBS (OFF-LINE from 9am-9pm Mon-Fri South Australian time) on (08) 322 276. □ Distributed by: HPD 08 349 8486 RRP $394 with 1 Meg of RAM ACAR 24 If your words are worth anything, they're worth Wordworth. Some of the features . . . • British English Proximity/Collins Linguibase Spell Checker ( 1 10,000 Words, 26,000 Merriam-Websters legal & medical supplement) • British English Proximity/Collins Thesauras (30,000 headed words, 1 40.000 cross-references) • Timed Automatic Document Save. Glossary. Speech • Import IFF, HAM & Extra Half Brite. Graphics with contoured text flow. • Colour fonts, full WYSIWYG display. HP Laserjet support. • Header, footers, margins, indents, subscripts, superscripts and variable line spacing. • Handles files from WordPerfect, ProText. KindWords, ProWrite or ASCII • Ultraprint (Quad-Density) Print Output. Mix NLQ printer fonts and Amiga Graphics. See, Feel, Touch, Hear and Use Wordworth. It's a writer's dream. GOLDEN IMAGE SCANNER Now released through Pactronics. the GOLDEN IMAGE HAND SCANNER with it's brilliant "TOUCH UP" Application software, is here. Once you get one of these, you'll wonder how you got along without one!! • High resolution upto 400dpi. • Monochrome clarity. • Adjustable contast setting for light and dark images. • Simple installation - can be ready to scan images in one minute. • TOUCH-UP software supports a variety of software formats: IFF. IMG, PCX, TIFF, MACPAINT and more. • Ideal for Desktop Publishing. ProFlight Proflight simulates a Panavia Tornado, the fastest aircraft in the world at ground level (Mach 1.2) and one of the fastest at any level (Mach 2.2 at altitude). It can climb to 30.000ft in less than two minutes from brake release, and, by using advanced wing technology, it can also fly at low speeds. It has one of the most sophisticated weapons systems in the whole world and has a true multi-role capability. ProFlight is one of the most accurate thus most playable, aircarft simulators currently available for home microcomputers. Some of the features are: • Drag due to gear, air brakes, elevators, tailerons and rudder. • Correct effect of tailerons, elevators and rudder at all angles of pitch, roll and yaw for extremely accurate flight. • Full acrobatic capability including stalling, spinning, 90' aileron turns, knife edges and more. • Auto rudder, auto wing sweep and flaps, plus bank and pitch limiters for use in training. • Wing lift for sweep and flaps, induced and profile drag for wing I Amiga Keeping Track Ever had that sinking feeling that you have forgotten something impor- tant like a business appointment or an anniversary? George Kimpton guides us through a range of programs designed to help you keep track. How often have you experienced that pregnant silence when someone near and dear says "Darling, do you know what today is?" or the boss threatens to use your head for a drum because you forgot about an important client. The sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach at the approaching disaster can be mind- numbing to say the least. Younger readers out there will proba- bly wonder what I am on about, but your turn will come soon enough. Our whole life revolves around time and remember- ing. Unfortunately when you become to- tally absorbed in whatever you are do- ing, like us computer nuts, it slips by fast and silently. The enjoyment of the mo- ment can often cloud out the memory of what you should remember to do. Well there is hope for us yet. Our Ed- itor, with a gleam in his eye, suggested that I do a comparison of Diary pro- grams. I'm still wondering whether it was a subtle hint to not be so late with my deadlines for the magazine in future. Let's see what we can find. To my knowledge there are two commercial programs available, they are Who! What! When! Where! and Day By Day. A pe- rusal of the Fish Disks also brought to light three PD programs, they are Nag, Badger and DTC. There will also be a new one from Mike (TUP) Hansel of KDV (the virus killer) fame on the market soon and it looks good so keep a eye open for it. Looking at an early version it would ap- pear to be more versatile and more of a database than Who! What! When! Where! Each approaches the problem in a different way but the basic plan is to flash up a message on the screen and find a way to remind you of important happenings. Some offer Hashing lights. others include sound effects or the voice of Amiga. Speaking of NAG, one won- ders whether the developer had a nag- ging mother -in-law as he clearly states that unlike your mother-in-law it can be silenced. Well let's look at the commer- cials first and then compare them to the cheaper Public Domain offerings. Day By Day Publisher.Digita From:Pactronics 02 748 4700 RRP $59.95 Day-by-Day comes as a single disk (VI. 2) with no special system require- ments, although I found the program is best used with a hard disk as is the case with all these diaries. You are provided with full calen- dar/diary/planner facilities. Messages can be grouped in categories such as 'Urgent'. "Overdue" or "Club Meetings' for easy access. You can select to have advance warning of a single appointment or event. You may also have repetitive reminders of regular events. Day, week and month planner facilities with a picto- rial chart summary at a glance. A search facility is also provided for those forgot- ten anniversaries or appointments. No sign of the demo program mentioned in the manual, which incidentally does cov- er program operation adequately. The program opens with a request to confirm date which will be correct with a battery backup clock. Next comes 'Ur- gent'. 'Overdue' then 'This Week' mes- sage category screens followed by the Main Menu where it is possible to set up and edit messages. Operation of this screen is by either mouse or hotkey which automatically moves to the appro- priate screen. Here you can choose a number of ways to find, categorise, modify or enter the messages already existing or new messages. You can also select various information options such as appointment duration, times and/or range (Daily/ Weekly) to make it easier to assess free time etc. The planners are good, laying out the day graphically so that everything can be seen at a glance. The monthly planner unfortunately only shows full or half days. Lesser times are blank and. mis- leadingly. apparently non-existent. An- other quirk of the monthly planner is thai on a typical calendar display the morning indicator is placed above the date with the afternoon below. It can be confusing at first glance as to which day the morn- ing's appointment applies to. The message display shows Date. Time. Afternoon or Morning and Mes- 1 * 7 8 9 14 15 " 21 22 23 i 29 38 nn i ■ flam: Address : City: s Hone: Birthdav: Croups : Notes: He. ■ - '-' ' - --■:-' -'•■II ■ r | ! 1 2 3 1 5 6 7 II 9 18 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 28 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 38 31 Who! What! When! Where! Who! What! When! Where! ACAR 26 Amiga sage. Provision is made to Update, Add, Delete, Move, Change Categories or Ex- it. Quite a useful program - no informa- tion on hard disk installation. This pro- gram does not automatically remind you of appointments, but must be deliber- ately accessed by the operator each time. For those in the know it may be possible to modify the startup sequence to auto- matically bring up the first screen on boot up. Who! What! When! Where! Publisher:Blue Ribbon Bakery From :Dataf low 02 331 6153 RRP $79.95 A very useful little program that is now residing on my hard disk. It is both a reminder, a diary and a database. In the database it contains names, addresses, phone numbers, grouping data (clubs, in- terests, etc.) and notes on the person or company. It also has an alarm clock fa- cility that uses selected sounds and/or a voice message to wake you up. On opening, the first database screen pops up with a brief listing down the side of people, clients, companies etc. A click on a name brings that data screen to the front. From here it is possible to check appointments, set an alarm clock, print out address labels or any other informa- tion, dial up the person if you have a mo- dem connected, check the calendar, ar- range appointment reminders and fre- quency etc. It is also possible to set up reminders lbr appointments or things to do not re- lated to the database. Provision is made for more than one person to share the database and reminders, with each per- son "owning" and accessing his or her database. Security is by password if you wish and you can choose to share data or not as you please with other users. Operation is by mouse. First time in- stallation is simple, click on the Ikon and answer the questions. The appropriate files are installed and the startup se- quence is modified to make startup auto- matic. Nothing could be easier. Pros and cons: It does automatically provide a visual and sound reminder of appointments or things to do on boot up but once only. However it will not re- mind you of what you should have done yesterday when you did not boot up. To find this you have to search the calendar or appointment lists. Clicking on a date on the calendar will bring up the appointments for that day for checking or modification. Old appointments are not lost unless the up- date command is used to clear them. The clock alarm can be either a spo- ken message (internal "Say" program) or one of several included sounds or a digi- tised sound of your choice. The visual prompt usually displays some pithy com- ment. The database screen could be larger allowing more readable data space. Cur- rently as you type beyond around 30 characters in a field the text scrolls off screen, making it difficult to read the ATonce V1.27 The Ultimate IBM-AT^Emulator for the Amiga 500 AT a price you can afford $549 80286 processor + Multitasking 704K + 8M Extended/Expanded memory Boot from any hard drive Support all Amiga hardware Copy from DOS to DOS with supplied utility VGA-EGA-CGA Graphics Dealers required 105M Quantum hard drive $895 Fit this into your A590 and fly Fonhof Computer Supplies 64 Cross Street, Baulkham Hills NSW 2153 Phone (02) 639 7718 Fax (02) 639 5995 AMIGA WmGm AMIGA ICD Inc. W & ^Golden lmage<vj '■£%*. Products j| Australian Distributor lor POWER COMPUTING (UK) Continued on p32 Citstoine.rSt.rmu (09>H8I0SS5 :F^'W.9) 42SJM4I 01JULY1M1 $161 $181 $134 $719 $530 ATARI External FDD (Joystick Powered) External FDD with Power Supply Internal Floppy Disk Drive Supercharger IBM Emulator Atari 3.5" Multi Drive Blitz Turbo Copier ICD AdSpeed Golden Image Optical Mouse Golden Image HandScanner Golden Image Mechanical Mouse Golden Image Trackball Power Computing Mouse 290DPI External 5.25" Floppy Disk Drive SCSI Adapters lor Hard Drives ,AT Once IBM Emulator ^NEWjontroversial Ultimate Ripper Cartridge $110 "^'Cleanup ST $52 i-NEWpMb Memory Upgrade $306 V»e J '*Mb Memory Upgrade $500 Multisync Monitor Cable/Audio Out $82 LCI Fabric Print Kit $54 20Mb Slimline Hard Drive $829 40Mb Slimline Hard Drive $874 52Mb Slimline Hard Drive $943 105Mb Slimline Hard Drive $1,159 Note: The 20Mb and 40Mb Slimline Hard Drive can be powered from the Atari ST saving appro* S10O.OO on the above prices 1 $338 $98 $178 $55 $98 $64 $234 fr$132 AMIGA AT Once IBM Emulator Amiga Ami Click Power Drive Amiga Dual Floppy Drive S54 AiEw^o^n^age Optical Mouse ..■Golden Image Mechanical Mouse Golden Image Hand Scanner Golden Image Trackball Power Mouse Blitz Amiga Copier Amkja 500 Internal FDO Amiga Anti-Click Board Amiga Midi Interlace Flicker Free Video "."' -iipiu'^OO Internal 20Mb Hard Disk W"*S00 Internal 40Mb Hard Disk A500 Internal 60Mb Hard Disk Prima 52Mb Internal Prima 105 Mb Internal Shuttle Board ICD Adspeed Amiga Amiga Slimline 45Mb Hard Disk Amiga Slimline 52Mb Hard Disk Amiga Slimline 60Mb Hard Disk Amiga Slimline 105Mb Hard Disk Amiga Slimline 120Mb Hard Disk AdRam505(0-512k)Ok iNEW^dRam 540 (0-4Mb) Ok N^vWAdHam 5600 (2Mb) add to 540 AdRam2080(0-8Mb)Ok AdSCSI2000 AdSCSI 2080 (0-8Mb) Ck Orders Only: 008 099185 $552 $181 $293 $98 $55 $478 $71 $131 $47 $54 $555 $890 $1,188 $1,603 S864 $1,210 $55 $393 $853 $980 $1,168 $1,213 $1,393 $51 $166 $326 $214 $216 $323 PAYMENT TERMS- CHEOUE: Pleas* makecneques payable lo ACL Engineering and sand Ihem lo Ihe address above. Please alio* 7 daysdelivery on mail orders. CREDIT CARD; We accept Bankcard I Visa CteA Cards. To place you order please Telephone (09) 481 0555 or 006 099135 Where possible subject lo stock bang available, all iems ordered wdl be debvetedovernght at Ihe appropriate Ireighl charges Above prices oa not include Freight andmgaJlafon 4 prces are subject lo change without notlicstai. Bondi Junction (02) 369 4355 • Brisbane (07) 229 8011 Burwood (02) 744 8809 • Chatswood (02) 419 2333 City (02) 261 4344 • Hurstville (02) 570 7333 Liverpool (02) 601 7700 • Newcastle (049) 42 1522 Parramatta (02) 891 1170 • Penrith (047) 32 3377 Computer Spot MAIL ORDER TOLL FREE (008) 252 130 FOR ORDERS ONLY PHONE (02) 638 2897 UNBEATABLE!!! AMIGA 2000 HD 500 Starter Kit Contents: • Amiga 500 ■ RF Modulator • Joystick • Kindwords ■ Fusion Paint • Indiana Jones • Kick Off • F-1 8 Interceptor Bonus 8 FREE Games Includes 40 Mb Hard Disk (Monitor not included) ROCTEC'S AMIGA 500 2 Mb RAM Card ^n $ 399 SSa ROCKNIGHT Hardware Virus Checker $99 U A , , , k i M SAVE $100 £ CITIZEN GSX140 24pin Colour Printer $699 < $ Amiga 500 42 Mb HD $999-00 Amiga 500 105MbHD $1699-00 Amiga 2000 52 Mb Hardcard $899-00 Amiga 2000 105 Mb Hardcard $1399-00 Amiga 2000 68030+1 Mb $1799-00. Commodore 64 1541 Mkll Drives $299 MPS 1230 Printer $299 1802 Colour Monitor $269 UUauM AMIGA 2000 AT Bridgeboards $869 2 Mb (8 max) RAM $499 68030 Card $1399 includes 2Mb, 25Mhz, 68030 chip AMIGA 'No Fuss" Software Exchange Policy If it doesn't work when you get home, we'll replace it - for the same title! 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arcade smash em up I 59.95 ELVIRA Advenlure game horror fun 89.95 GENGHIS KHAN Excellent oriental strategy game 89.95 HEART OF CHINA Indiana Jones style in VGA 79.95 INDIANAPOLIS 500 Best 3d car racing seen! 59.95 KINGS QUEST 5 Epic sierra adventure in VGA 99.95 LARRY TRIPLE PACK Leisure suit larry 1 .2 and 3 89.95 MECH WARRIOR It's back I Sc-Fi role playing epic 69.95 MEGATRAVELLER The no.l sc-fi role playing hill 109.95 MARIO ANDREWS RACING Betler than Indv 500! 69.95 MONTY PYTHON Classic madcap arcade madness 69.95 Microprose Compilation MIGHT 4 MAGIC 2 Gunshlp / Silenlservlce / Airbourne 59.95 Voted no. 1 adventure role playing 54.95 NIGHT BREED Excellent horror advenlure 69.95 NASCAR CHALLENGE US NASCAR racing 69.95 NOBUNGAS AMBITION Deep asian historic adventure epic 89.95 NOBUNGASAMBITION2 Great sequel strategy 99.95 PUNISHER Hot new release 89.95 QUEST FOR GLORY 2 Sierra Hit new adventure 79.95 RISE olthe DRAGON VGA 256 cult advenlure game 79.95 RANX STREET ROD Futuristic adventure 59.95 Buy it, build it up, n' race it! 54.95 1 Secret Silver Blades Search For The King More dSd role playing Elvis mystery adventure 54.95 69.95 1 Sierra Starter Pack Space Quest / Larry / Police Quest 79.95 Space Quest 5 Roger Wiico is back in VGA 79,95 Star Control Deep SC-FI adventure strategy game 69,95 | SUPER OFF ROAD Hoi new car racing fun 59.95 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Suck on the pizza dudes! 69.95 TURBO OUTRUN Arcade racing fun 69.95 TEST DRIVE 3 VGA 256 colour car driving game 69.95 ULTIMA 6 Epic role playing hit 84.95 VANG COMMANDER 256 colour space simulator SPORTS 89.95 3D POOL 3 dimensional pool game 69.95 HARDBALL 2 Great baseball hit game 59.95 ITALY 1990 Soccer mania 59.95 INTERNATIONAL SOCCER Wow more soccer madness exceflen 1169.95 Jack Nicklaus Gotl Designer Gotl simulator fantastic 69.95 LINKS GOLF VGA 256 the best goll 69.95 | LINKS COURSE DISKS Both 1 and 2 available 39.95 LAKERS VS CELTICS Basketball at the topi Fantastic golf fun! 54.95 PGA TOUR GOLF 59.95 PANZA KICK BOXING Excellent martial arts game 59.95 | TV SPORTS BASKETBALL Best selling sports hit! 79.95 | TV SPORTS FOOTBALL Best selling sports hit! 59.95 STRATEGY & SIMULATIONS A10 TANK KILLER Tank attack aircrah simulator 69.95 BATTLE CHESS 2 Oriental chess 3d animated 69.95 BLUE MAX WW2 Biplane heros 69.95 COVERT ACTION War strategy 79.95 CURSE OF AZURE BONDS Role playing advenlure 54.95 Chuck Yeagers Cmbt Slmltr Excellent new relaese! 69.95 DAS BOOT World war 2 submarine simulation 69.95 DEATH KNIGHTS OF KRYYN Yet another DSD adventure 59.95 EYE OF THE BEHOLDER Great DSD action,adventure 59.95 FI5 STRIKE EAGLE 2 Air combat mission simulator 69.95 F19 STEALTH FIGHTER Complex fighter plane simulator 109.95 1 FIGHTER BOMBER Voted * 1 combat simulator 59.95 FLIGHT OF INTRUDER Top quality fighter plane simulator 69.95 HOYLESGAMES2 JET FIGHTER 2 Ml TANK PLATOON MIG-29 NOBUNAGAS AMBITION PANZER BATTLES RED BARON RAILROAD TYCOON SIM EARTH SILENT SERVICE II SECOND FRONT TEAM YANKEE TEST DRIVE 3 THEIR FINEST HOUR More excellent card games All New vga (light simulator War simulator Soviet flight simulator Deep strategy game ancient Jap War game from SSI WWI flying simulation The ultimate business simulation Create your own planet Submarine simulator War time russlan strategy 3D high quality combat game Excellent on VGA Brilliant 3d air combat game EDUCATIONAL DUCK TALES FIRST WRITER FUNSCHOOL2-6 FUNSCHOOL 6-8 FUNSCHOOL8-UP MATH BLASTER PLUS Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing MICKEY ABC MICKEY SHAPES MICKEY MATHS PLAYROOM SIM CITY SPELL IT PLUS WHEEL OF FORTUNE 2 Where In Europe Is Carmen WHERE IN TIME CARMEN WHERE IN USA CARMEN WHERE IN WORLD CARMEN WORLD ATLAS Educational Early word processing skills Educational fun Educational fun Learning skills Quality maths package Typing tutor Early educational Early educational Early educational Early learning fun 5 games Design & control a city Quality education package Great family home game Geography game Teaches history & geography Geography game Geography game Atlas on computer, fantastic! AGn.cn MU1K ADLIB SOUND CARD COMMODORE PC286-16 CGA MONITOR EGA MONITOR VGA MONITOR IBM GAME CARD Joystk Analog Plus Joystk Analog Extra Star Cursor Joystick Sound Blaster Card Llghtscan 200J Scanner Llghlscan 400H Scanner Genius PC Mouse GM-6X Genius PC Mouse GM-F302 Genius PC Mouse GM-F303 OPTIMA 286's OPTIMA 3B6's PRINTERS :- SEE PRINTERS UNDER HARDWARE CAUSIICIII VdiUW IIIUUSB The original sound card NEW! 288/1 6UHZ VGA 4 colour PC monitor 16 colour HI-RES PC monitor + card 256 colour HI-RES PC monitor * card Required for PC joystick Quality joystick Superb PC joystick The best joystick comes to PC Magnificent PC souno add-on! Handheld scanner 200DPI Handheld 400DPI with OCR Microsoft compatible 3 button As above inc Graphic Art software As above inc CAD software Made lo measure, ring with specs Made to measure, ring with specs AMIGA HARDWARE all compatible to PC I 69.95 89.95 89.95 79.95 89.95 49.95 79.95 89.95 109.95 79.95 69.95 89.95 69.95 69.95 59.95 29.95 49.95 49,95 49.95 69.95 6935 69.95 69.95 69.95 79.95 89.95 69.95 39.95 84.95 84.95 84.95 84.95 89.95 .3.1)5 239.00 1995.00 449.00 699.00 999.00 39.95 59.95 69.95 79.95 299.00 199.00 369.00 79.95 139.00 159.00 CALL CALL C64 SOFTWARE & HARDWARE • ART & UTILITIES ACTON REPLAY MK6 Hacker utility cartridge 134.95 1 AWARD WARE Create 8 print own awards 2995 1 DATA MANAGER Quality database package 39.95 1 EXPERT CARTRIDGE Utility cartridge 149.95 1 FAST LOAD CARTRIDGE Limited stocks 49.95 1 KWIK WRITE Budget word processor 29.95 1 MINI OFFICE 2 Wordpro/dbase/spreadsheet/comms 44.95 1 NEWSROOM Desk top publishing package 39.95 1 PRINT SHOP Print signs,cards,banners 79.95 1 PAPERCLIP PUBLISHER Desktop publishing 54.95 1 SWIFTCALC Fully featured spreadsheei 39.95 1 TOP 20 SOFTWARE TOOLS Great collection ot classic utilities 39.95 1 TURBOLOAD FASTLOAD Fastloader cartridge with reset 49.95 1 WORD WRITER 5 Promising word processor 69.95 1 ARCADE & ADVENTURE ATOMIC ROBOKID Arcade smash hit 39.95 1 BACK TO FUTURE 2 Great game of the movie 3995 1 BUCK ROGERS Comic book dassic adventure 39.95 1 CASTLEVANIA Arcade adventure 39.95 I CHAMPIONS OF KRYNN Role playing hit 49.95 1 DEATH KNIGHTS OF KRYNN Latest DSD adventure 49.95 1 DAYS OF THUNDER Tom Cruise car action 4995 1 DOUBLE DRAGON 2 Arcade smash hit 39.95 1 DRAGON NINJA Kung lu action game 39.95 1 ESWAT Arcade action hit game 39.95 1 GHOULS 8 GHOSTS Quality arcade conversion Arcade smash hit 39.95 1 GOLDEN AXE 39.95 1 KINGS BOUNTY Advenlure quest 39.95 1 LOTUS TURBO CHALLENGE Two player arcade racing 39.95 1 MONTY PYTHON Arcade madness 39.95 1 MIGHTS MAGIC 2 Excellent role playing game 44.95 1 NINJA REMIX New release of Last ninja 39.95 1 ROBOCOP 2 Hit movie based arcade game 49.95 I SUPER MONACO GP Arcade racing 39.95 SHADOW WARRIOR Kung lu hit arcade 39.95 1 SHADOW DANCER STREET ROD SECRET SILVER BLADES STRIDER 2 SUPER OFF ROAD RACING Teenage Mutant Nin*a Turtles TOTAL RECALL ULTIMA 6 VIZ WHEELS OF FIRE Wonder Boy In Monster Land Shlnobi-style action Buy it, build it up. n' race it! Great new rote play.ng hit! Arcade smash hit 3D over head racing Finally it's here!!!!! Movie hit game NEWCIassic role playing Not for Kids Top collection ot racing car hits! Arcade smash hit ALL STAR TEST CRICKET BLADES OF STEEL CRICKET CAPTAIN JACK NICKLAUS GOLF JORDAN V BIRD ITALY 1990 TV SPORTS FOOTBALL WINNERS ITALY 1990 WORLD CUP 90 SOCCER ULTIMATE GOLF SPORTS New cricket game Ice hockey action Manage a cricket learn Great golf game One on one basketball Soccer mania 3D sporls game Soccer at it's best Excellent sports fun New golf release 39.95 44.95 39.95 59.95 39.95 39.95 49.95 84.95 39.95 39.95 39.95 39,95 39,95 29.95 39.95 29.95 39.95 49.95 39.95 39.95 49.95 STRATEGY & SIMULATION BATTLE CHESS CHESSMASTER2100 DESTROYER ESCORT FERRARI FORMULA 1 Fl 6 COMBAT PILOT FIB HORNET FIGHTER BOMBER PANZER BATTLES PROJECT STEALTH FIGHTER RED STORM RISING REACH FOR STARS STAR CONTROL STORM ACROSS EUROPE SUBBUTEO U N SQUADRON ULTIMA 5 VEGAS GAMBLER 3D animated chess fun Latest chess game Naval action simulator Quality racing game Combat flight simulator Nice Air combat game Voted best game, combat simulator Strategic tank battles Air -combat simulator Submarine combat simulator Classic space strategy Galactic conquest Strategic wargame Table soccer simulator .... War simulation Ultimate role playing game Gambling hits EDUCATION FAMILY FEUD FUNSCHOOL FUNSCHOOL FUNSCHOOL MATH BLASTER Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing SIM CITY SPELL IT TYPE Wheel Ol Fortune Where In Europe Is Carman Where In USA IS Carmen Where In World Carmen Famrry word game 2-6Eariy learning skte 6-8Educationalfun 8-UPLeaming is fun al hornet Early learning game Best typing tutor Build, govern.your own dlyl Early learning skills Quality typing tutor Family word game Geography game Geography game Geography game HARDWARE 1541 DISK DRIVE Action Replay MK6 C64 TEST Pilot Pack CABLE RFC64 CABLESenall.5MC64 Oalaselte I Disk Notcher Power Supply C64 Printer MPS1 230 Xetec JNR Pnnter Interface For the commodore 64 Hacker utility cartridge C64 computer, disk drive, games Connect C64 to TV Suits disk drives' printers etc Budget storage for C64 Double disk storage Replacement power supply 9 Pin, suit C64 serial ♦ PC Allows use ol parallel printer on C84 39,95 49,95 39.95 39.95 49.95 49.95 39.95 39.95 49.95 49.95 39.95 39.95 34.95 39.95 39.95 59.95 44.95 29.95 24.95 24.95 24.95 59.95 49.95 59.95 59.95 39.95 29.95 69.95 69.95 69.95 299.00 134.95 499.00 14.95 9.95 49SS 14.95 54.95 299.00 129.00 PC SOUND BLASTER Card 279 MAIL ORDER TOLL FREE (008) 252 130 FOR ORDERS ONLY PHONE (02) 638 2897 After something special? If it's not here, we can chase it for you. GAMEBOY • SEGA MEGADRIVE NINTENDO GAMEBOY HARDWARE I GAMEBOY Take /our games anywhere 149.00 1 ILLUMINATOR Pay in the dark 49.95 1 PROTECTOR Case, holds gameboy 4 7 games 3995 1 Iauto POWER Plug into car cigarette lighter 29.95 AC ADAPTOR No more batteries 29.95 SOFTWARE BASES LOADED Baseball action 59.95 Iboxxle Arcade puzzle 59.95 BUBBLE GHOST Blow bubbles past hazards 59.95 BURAI FIGHTER Space harrier type action 59.95 I CATRAP Challenging arcade lun 49.95 CASTLEVANIA Arcade adventure 49.95 1 CHESSMASTER Can you beat this? 69.95 CHASE HO Arcade car chase 69.95 DOUBLE DRAGON Arcade classic 39.93 1 DEAD HEAT SCRAMBLE 4X4 Oil road racmg 69.95 DRAGONS LAIR Dirk on the small screen 69.95 I FINAL FANTASY Adventure role play 69.95 FIST OF NORTH STAR Martial arts 4955 FLIPUL Arcade puzzle 49.95 GOLF Mario goes for par 39.95 HARMONY Brainteasing puzzle action 49.95 IN YOUR FACE Street basketball 59.95 KUNG FU MASTER Martial arts action LOCK N CHASE PacMan 59.95 LOOP2 Link pieces to lorm loops 59.95 1 Motocross Maniacs Motocross action 49.95 i Nobungas Ambition NEMESIS Japenese strategy 1MEG! 89.95 Shoot em up 59.95 NR FOOTBALL American football 49.95 1 OPERATION C Excellent arcade action 59.95 PIPE DREAM Stop the water flow 49.95 PAPERBOY Finish your paper route 69.95 POWER MISSION Remember battleships? 69.95 POWER RACER Arcade racJno action 59.95 REVENGE OF THE GATOR Pinball action 39.95 SKATE OR DIE Skateboard action 5995 [ Super Mario Land All time favourite 39.95 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NEW RELEASE!! 69.95 TENNIS Anyone lor doubles 39.95 AND TOO MANY MORE TO MENTION!!! SEGA MEGADRIVE HARDWARE SEGA MEGA DRIVE Ultimate 16 bit arcade console 339.00 POWER BASE CONVERTER Use ol sega master system games 79.95 MEGA DRIVE CONTROLLER Extra standard controller unit 2995 MEGA CONTROL STICK Arcade joystick 6995 SOFTWARE AFTER BURNER II Jelfiohter action 7995 Alex Kid The Enchanted Casiie Arcade smash hit 59.95 Battle Squadron Space shoot em up sci-fi motobike action 79.95 Burning Force 79.95 1 Budokhan Samurai action 79.95 Columns new release 59.95 CyOeroall futuristic sports hi! 6995 1 Dynamic Dux Dick Tracy arcade action hit game 79.95 Dick is on the case 89.95 E-SWAT police shoot em up 69.95 Forgotten Worlds shoot em up 69.95 Ghost Busters who ya gonna call? 69.95 1 Ghouls « Ghosts just like the arcade machine! 89.95 1 Gotten Axe best version ever seen 1 79.95 1 GoH sports fun 69.95 1 HerzogZWEI New release. Shoo! em up 6995 | John Madden Football American football 79.95 1 Last Battle Arcade aclion 69.95 1 Mickey Mouse Can you save Minnie 89.95 Mystic Defender Axe em up 6995 | Moonwalker Help Mlcheal save the kids 79.95 Pnelios Fantasy arcade adventure 79.95 POPULOUS Strategy simulation 79.95 | PHANTASY STAR II role playing adventure machine gun mania 99.95 RAMBO III 59.95 Space Harrier II 3D arcade shool the loll 79.95 Super Hang On high speed bike racing WOW 1 79.95 Super League Basebal 1 quality sports hit 69.95 Super Thunderblade helicopler arcade hit 79.95 Sword Of Vermillion new releas 99.95 1 Sword Of Sodan Fantasy arcade aclion 79.95 SUPER MONACO GP car racing super fun! 79.95 Revenge Of Shmobi martial arts hi! 69.95 Twin Hawk new release 69.95 TtiurxJerforce It shoo! em up 79.95 Truxton new release 69.95 Worrd Cup itatia 90 Soccer Soccer game run 69.95 Zoom classic arcade puzzle game 59.95 Zany Golf Classic gfft put put 7935 Hotline 0055 20511, "There's a Spot near you" BRISBANE 225 George Street Brisbane. QLD 4000 Phone (07) 229 8011 BURWOOD 185 Burwood Road Burwood, NSW 2134 Phone 744 8809 CHATSWOOD Shop G9, The Gallery Endeavour Street Chatswood, 2067 Phone 419 2333 CITY 165 Castlereagh Street Sydney, NSW 2000 Phone 261 4344 HURSTVILLE 185E Forest Road Hurstville, NSW 2200 Phone 570 7333 LIVERPOOL Shop 4, Westtield Shopping T'n Macquarie St. Liverpool, NSW 21 70 Phone 601 7700 NEWCASTLE 80 Pacific Highway Charlestown. NSW 2290 Phone (049) 42 1522 PARRAMATTA Shop 21 a, Greenway Arc, 222 Church Street Parramatta, NSW 2150 Phone 891 1170 PENRITH Shop 1 , Carvan Arcadr 389 High Street Penrith. NSW 2750 Phone (047) 32 3377 BONDI JUNCTION 110 Spring Street Bondi Junction, NSW 2022 , 3694355 MAIL ORDER FORM Send to: Micro Computer Spot. Unit 3, Metro Centre. 38-46 South St. Rydalmere. NSW 2116 PRODUCT / PROGRAM NAME COMPUTER DISK TYPE QUANTITY PRICE □ Tick here for your FREE regular issues of Chip Chat magazine. Delivery Details Name SUB-TOTAL POSTAGE TOTAL Address Telephone For software only, add S3 for post or $15 for courier. For hardware call to arrange. We will exercise all reasonable care in Ihe processing of your orders but we accept no responsibility for orders, monies or products lost or delayed In transit. Your order will normally be processed within 48 hours, but please allow 14 working days for Ihe fulfilment ol orders. Telephone orders are. of course, welcome. Whenever possible, please supply a phone number where contact can be made within normal working hours. PRICES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE. DO NOT SEND CASH. When paying by cheque please supply your home address and home telephone number together with normal working hours telephone number. Payment Details Cheque U Postal order Bankcard CJ MasterCard Ciodi: card no. □□□□ nana anna anna Valid from 00/00 to OD/OO Name on card . Signature .... Amiga Editing: Thursday October 3, 1991 A A A IT" Line ft 1 DELETE VV V C0PY_ October 3 Thursday RECALL October 3 H'luiin iVoicel Nags Per Tine = A i:m*' -;a DAY V ■HCES IMS— hour EESa |Bma Dedicated To Each 8 Every Registered Nag User. Thanks A Lot! * NAG is SHAREWARE * User=518 * Disk=5i5 Richard Lee Stockton | 21385 68th Ave. West MtLk Terr, HA 98843 (voice) 286 776-1253 Nag data later without using cursor keys. Priming out data would get around this. Auto dialing of numbers from the database could be useful too. Public Domain Programs NAG. V1.6. Fish Disk 161 An endearing Shareware program that provides both visual and audible re- minders for current items after boot up with a visual reminder only on boot up for missed events. The voice option is the internal "Say" program and speaks the message you type in. Once triggered it repeals at 30 second intervals until you acknowledge, hence the name Nag. Installation is automatic but it is nec- essary to rename the year files which will contain your messages and special reminders such as anniversaries, bankcard payments etc. The two one year files supplied are out of date bui it is just a matter of renaming them to 1991 and 1992. dumping unwanted data, and entering your own data to work them OK. If you don't update the year names it will tell you it can't find the file and sulk. It is not a database as is just a diary, organiser and reminder. It does however have more room for messages and does automatically remind you of missed re- minders on boot up and it's cheap. The main or message screen contains a calen- dar and edit, print and search facilities. It also allows you to shrink Nag to an Icon when finished for later easy access as necessary. Clicking on a calendar date and then edit brings up the edit screen and allows entry, addition or modification of mes- sages, selection of reminder times and whether to use voice or sound. Re- minders can be on time, quarter hour, hourly, daily, weekly and up to 30 days in advance. The sound file can include up to 15k of a sound sample of your own choice. A very useful program with an ade- quate text file for setting up and operat- ing. It is currently running in background mode with Who! What! When! Where! to make sure I am not late with this article. Andrew please note, I shall not be late again. Badger Fish Disk 365 One can easily understand why a de- veloper of software hopes and certainly deserves to receive some reward for his or her labours, but Mr Kerber (the devel- oper) seems paranoid about it with this shareware program. The program is good and relatively easy to use but we are con- stantly reminded to post in our contribu- tion or else the program will self destruct shortly taking all data with it. Not ex- actly guaranteed to inspire confidence. However, threats aside, the program is easily installed by Icon dragging but requires a small alteration to the startup sequence for automatic data checks on bool up. This alteration sets up the vari- ous options for Badger such as checking data every time you boot up or only once a day, colour options, help facilities and text attributes. On boot up relevant ap- pointments are displayed full screen. Text file instructions for setting up and operation are a bit vague. Operation for entry, search or edit etc. are by keyboard using either menu numbers or hotkey equivalents. Advance warnings can be up to 45 days. Repeat reminders can also be organised on a weekly or monthly basis. New events can be added, others searched for and in- formation printed out as required. One unusual application is the ability to keep track of a person's age each birthday providing a reference date is given. Reminders are visual only on boot up. DTC (DeskTop Calendar) Fish disk 335 This is pure public domain software and obviously a very early version. Still if someone is looking for a small but useful diary program that works this may suit. It does however require you to re- member the various keys that control functions as it is fully keyboard con- trolled. You must also consciously ac- cess the program to be reminded of ap- pointments. Information is sketchy on installation and a little bit of head scratching is nec- essary to get it up and running. Defi- nitely one for hackers. Once up though it only requires keying the appropriate let- ter to bring up charts of appointments for day, week or month. Reminders are visu- al only. It will find free half hours for special activities and will show a listing of your free times as distinct from busy to allow easy reorganisation of your ac- tivities. Appointments can be transferred to new limes easily and groups of appoint- ments can be moved en masse to new dates and times. The help facility presen- ts a screen of the various instmctions and the appropriate hotkeys. A useful but ba- sic program. Conclusion My pick of the programs are Who! What! When! Where!, and Nag. both arc easy to set up and use. Both have auto- matic visual and sound reminders and Who! What! When! Where! has a database with address label printout, auto phone dialling and alarm clock but Nag just won't let you forget. □ ACAR 32 Ultimate performance in peripheral technology GVP A500-HD+ The final word in Hard Drive, Memory and Expandibility of your A500 COMPUTER CENTRE PH: (03) 558 9699 FAX: 558 9522 NEW SYDNEY OFFICE Mid City Centre, Lower Level, 197 Pitt Street, Sydney 2150 Phone (02) 223 2433 42MByte unit $980 GVP A2000 RAM Card Up to 8Mbyte AUTOConfig RAM GVP RAM 8/2Mb $539 2Mb additional RAM $200 GVP A2000 SCSI+8 HARD CARD, Sll SCSI controller and 8Mbyte RAM Controller all on 1 Board GVP Series II HC8/42F $890 GVP Series II HC8/52Q $1 090 GVP Series II HC8/1 05Q $1 390 M501-S 1 /2MByte RAM Expansion, Clock and Switch for the A500 $89 ITEM FORMAT QTY Name: Address: State: P/code: Postage TOTAL PRICE Postage: surface within Vic $3.00 per item surface outside Vic $5.00 per item Card type: Card No: Expiry: Signature: POSTTO: PACIFIC MICROLAB, 277 ELIZABETH ST, MELBOURNE, VIC 3000 lilHIII |i||# THE AMIGA vim w^mri mmmwrn mailorder Bringing you the best for your AMIGA, at the best price!! ;* August* Specials ARCADE GAMES | LINE OFFIRE LOGICAL LOTUS ESPIRIT TURBO 1 54.90 66.90 SOON ALCATRAZ SOON ALTERED DESTINY 74.90 N.AR.C 64.90 ARACHNOPHOBIA SOON NIGHT HUNTER 54.90 ■ARMOUR-GEDDON 58.90 NITRO 54.90 BACK TO FUTURE III 66.90 PANZA KICK BOXING 64.90 BATTLESTORM 76.90 PENTHOUSE JIGSAW SOON BILLY THE KID SOON PREDATOR 2 66.90 CARVUP 64.90 PRINCE OF PERSIA 54.50 CHUCK ROCK 54.90 ROBOCOP II 64.90 CRIME WAVE 64.90 SILKWORM IV (SWIV) 64.90 E-SWAT 54.90 SIMULCRA 44.90 GEISHA (R-RATEDO SOON STAR CONTROL 68.90 •GODS 58.90 STELLAR 7 57.90 GREMLINS 2 44.90 STRIDER II 54.90 HARD DRIVIN II 54.90 SUPER CARS II 66.90 HORROR 20M8IES 57.90 SUPER MONACO GP 64.90 INSECTS IN SPACE 57.90 SUPER OFF ROAD 54.50 JAMES POND 54.90 SWITCHBLADE II 64.90 KILLING CLOUD 64.90 THE POWER 57.90 LAST NINJA III SOON TURRICAN II 63.90 LEMMINGS 64.90 VIZ (R-RATED) 54.90 STRATEGY I HARPOON SCENARIO EC HUNTER LIFE & DEATH 47.90 SOON 66.90 ADS 66.90 BATTLE COMMAND 64.90 LOOPZ 46.90 BETRAYAL 66.90 M1 TANK PLATOON 74.90 BIG BUSINESS 66.90 MEGA-LO-MANIA SOON BLITZKREIG MAY 1940 54.90 MIDWINTER II SOON ■BRIDGE V6.0 46.50 MONOPOLY 74.90 BRIGADE SOON MOONBASE 64.90 CENTURIAN-DEF ROME 57.90 NAM 74.90 CHAMPION OF THE RAJ 64.50 NOBUNAGA'S AMBITION II SOON COHORTS - FT ROME 76.90 PANZER 8ATTLES SOON DAS BOOT 64.90 POWERMONGER 46.90 DEUTOROS SOON POWERMONGERDATA SOON EPIC SOON •RAILROAD TYCOON 78.90 ESCAPE FROM COLDITZ 74.90 SHANGHAI II SOON GALACTIC EMPIRE 65.90 SILENT SERVICE II SOON GUNBOAT 54.90 SIM CITY DATA 1/2(8a) 54.90 HALLS OF MONTEZUMA 48.90 SUPREMACY 64.90 HARPOON 64.90 TOWER FRA 56.90 HARPOON DATA 2 45.90 UMSII 64.90 HARPOON DATA 3 45.90 WOLFPACK 74.90 SPORTS 1 J. NICK COURSE 4/5 (ea) KICK OFF II 37.90 44.90 4D SPORTS DRIVING -AUG- KICKOFF FINAL WHISTLE 36.90 AMIGA CRICKET 46.90 •MONDAY NIGHT FOOTY 76.90 BRIDGE SIMULATOR 66.90 M.U.D.S 54.90 •CRICKET CAPTAIN 54.90 PGA TOUR GOLF 56.90 EUROPE SUPERLEAGUE 56.90 PRO TENNIS 2 64.90 GAZZAII 64.90 STORMBALL 56.90 G. GOOCH CRICKET SOON STREET ROD II 56.90 INDIANAPOLIS 500 46.90 TEAM SUZIKI 66.90 J. NICKLAUS UNLTD 64.90 ULTIMATE RIDE 66.90 ADVENTURE EYE OF BEHOLDER 56.90 HERO QUEST IMMORTAL 66 90 44.90 AD SD COLLECTION 97 90 BARDS TALE III 56.90 KING'S QUEST 2/3/4 (ea) 67.90 •B.A.T 72.90 KINGS QUEST 5 CALL BUCK ROGERS 46.90 LEGEND OF FAERGHAIL 56.90 CADAVER THE PAY-OFF 44.90 LEIS SUIT LARRY K2 (ea) 54.90 CAPTIVE 54 90 LEISURE SUIT LARRY 3 64.90 CAPTIVE MISSION SOON LORD OF THE RINGS SOON CHAOS STRIKES BACK 56.90 MEGATRAVELLER 1 82.90 COLONEL'S BEQUEST 64.90 ■OBITUS 67.90 ■CORPORATION 44.90 QUEST FOR GLORY II 66.90 •CORPORATION MISS'N 34.90 RENEGADE LEGION 57 90 CRUISE FOR A CORPSE SOON SEARCH FOR THE KING 64.90 DEATH KNIGHTS KRYNN 56.90 SECRET MONKEY ISLAND 56.90 DRAGON WARS 56.90 SECRET SILVER BLADE 66.90 DUCK TALES 54.90 SPACE QUEST l/ll/lll (ea) 56.90 •DUNGEON MASTER 48.90 •WIZARDRY-BANE FORGE 76.90 ■ELVIRA 66.90 WONDERLAND 74.90 FLIGHT SIMS BLUE MAX 64.90 •F15 STRIKE EAGLE II 78,90 F19 STEALTH FIGHTER 74.90 FALCON 46 90 FALCON MISSION DISK 2 36 90 FLIGHT OF INTRUDER 64.90 HAWK (BIRDS OF PREY) SOON MEGA FORTRESS (B-52) 66 90 MIG-29 74.90 PRO FLIGHT 86 90 RED BARON SOON SECRET W.LUFTWAFFE SOON THEIR FINEST HOUR 64.90 WINGS 76.90 FREECALL 008 ORDER LINE 9am-5pm Mon-Fri (Credit Card Orders Only No Enquiries Please) 008 020 633 (For all queries about prices and availability please use our Customer Service Line) Please note that prices and availability are subject to change without notice. All prices listed are for Mail Order sales only. Any software product without a price (i.e. with "SOON") had not been released as at 1/7/91 and was not scheduled lor release in August. While we stock all released items mentioned on this page it is inevitable that stock levels will vary through the month. Those items preceded by are specials tor ACAR readers for August only or while stocks last. When ordering please quote the price listed here. MULTIMEDIA AMIGA VISION 169.00 •CAN DO 159.00 CAN DO INTRO PAK 49.90 CAN DO PRO PACK 49.90 DIRECTOR II 179.00 DIRECTOR TOOLKIT 54.50 ELAN PERFORMER II 179.00 HYPERBOOK 137 00 OVERNIGHT DELIVERY $10 per Parcel Call for details (weight and size restrictions apply) BUSINESS I PAGESTR. FONTS (ea) PAGESTREAM FORMS PEN PAL 49.50 57.90 189.00 ADVANTAGE 249.00 •CITY DESK V2.0 97.50 PERS'L FINANCE MANG 66.90 •CONTACT 47.90 PHASARV4.0 98.90 CYGNUS ED PRO 109.00 PROFESS! PAGE V2.0 399.00 DATA RETRIEVE 95.00 PROWRITEV3 1 179.00 DATA RET. PROFESS! 189.00 QUICKWRITE 85.90 DESKTOP BUDGET 89.50 SAXON PUBLISHER 399.00 DG CALC 79.50 SCRIBBLE PLATINUM 76.90 EXCELLENCE V2.0 219.00 SOFTCUPS1-4(ea) 99.60 FLOW IDEA PROCESR 119.00 SUPERBASE 74.90 FREELANCE 48.90 SUPERBASE 2 119.00 •GOLD DISK OFFICE 339.00 SUPERBASE 4 499.00 HAI CALC 75.00 SUPERPLAN 99.50 HOME ACCOUNTS 83 90 SYSTEM 3 119.00 HOME FRONT 12500 SYSTEM 3E 149.00 MAXIPLAN PLUS 89.00 TURBO TEXT 109.00 •PAGESETTER II 149.00 WORKS PLATINUM 169.00 PAGESTREAMV21 34900 YOUR FAMILY TREE v2 109.00 GRAPHICS I •INTROCAD PLUS 109.00 MODELLER 3D PAGE FLIPPER tFX 105.00 169 00 3DPROFESSIOANL 329.00 3D TEXT ANIMATOR 69.50 PELICAN PRESS 139.00 AEGIS GRAPH. ST'R 79.50 PRINTMASTER PLUS 54 90 ANIMATION STUDIO 199.00 PROFESSIONAL DRAW; 245.00 ART DEPARTMENT 109.00 PROMOTION 109 00 •ART DEPARTM'NT PRO 279.00 PRO VECTOR 395 00 CREDIT TEXT SCROLL 76.90 PRO VIDEO PLUS 339.00 DELUXE PAINT III 94.90 SCALA 599.00 DELUXE PHTOLAB 94.90 SCENE GENERATOR 68.90 DELUXE PRINT II 94.90 SPECTRACOLOR 109.00 DELUXE VIDEO III 94.90 TITLE PAGE 169.00 DESIGN 3-D 98.50 TOP FORM II 139.00 DESIGN WORKS 149.00 TURBO SILVER 3D 159.00 DIGI-MATE 3 54.50 TV TEXT PROF. 175.00 DIGI-PAINT3 109.00 ULTRA DESIGN 239.00 DIGI-VIEWGOLD4 249.00 VISTA 86 90 DIGI-WORKS 3D 169.00 VISTA DATA DISKS (ea) 96.90 DRAW 4D 319.00 VISTA PRO (Needs 3.SMB) 179.00 FLOOR PLAN CONST. II 118.50 X-CAD DESIGNER 199.00 IMAGINE 399.00 X-CAD PROFESSIONAL 399.00 UTILITIES 3D CONSTRUCTION KIT 129.00 AMIKIT (Tulorial) 56.90 AMOS 1 14.90 AMOS COMPILER 69.50 AReXX 69.50 ARGASM 169.00 ASSEMPRO 139.00 AZTEC C PROF. V5 299.00 BENCHMARK MODULA-2 259.00 BENCHMARK LIBS (ea) 139.00 CAPE 68KASSEMBLR 99.50 •CROSS DOS V4.0 48.90 DEVPACK 2.0 149.00 DIRECTORY OPUS II 48.90 DISK LABELER 59.50 DISK MECHANIC 109.00 DOCTOR AMI 59.50 DOS LAB (Tutorial) 39 50 OUNLAP UTILITIES 76.90 FAT TRACKS (Copier) 89.50 GFA BASIC 129 00 GP TERM 99.00 HI-SOFT BASIC 179.00 HI-SOFT CINTERPR SOON HI-SOFT EXTENSION 64.90 HI-SOFT PASCAL SOON HYPER HELPERS 76.90 IMAGE FINDER 96.90 KDV VIRUS KILLER 24.95 NO VIRUS 47.90 •PIXEL SCRIPT 99.50 POWERPACKER PRO 39.50 PROJECT D V2.0 69 50 QUARTERBACK V4.0 78.90 QUARTERBACK TOOLS 88.90 SAS/LATTICE V5.1 399.00 •SAS/LATTtCE C++ 289.00 STARSOFT HD BACK 69.50 SUPERBACK 99.00 SYNCRO EXPRESS III 125.00 SYNCRO EXP III A2000 149.00 VIDI 289.00 XCOPYPROF.V3 129.00 MUSIC AM AS 235.00 AUDIO ENGINEER 99 00 AUDIO ENG. JNR (mono) 189.00 ■AUDIO ENG, PLUS 339.00 BARS AND PIPES 239.00 DELUXE MUSIC CS 96.90 DR T'S TIGER CUB 109.00 MICE ALFADATA OPTICAL 99.50 AMTRAC TRACKERBALL 189.00 AGILER MOUSE 59.50 GENIUS MOUSE 59.50 GOLDEN IMAGE OPTIC! 139.00 ROCTEC MOUSE 49.50 ZYDEC MOUSE 59.50 The Ultimate AMIGA Source There's really no reason to shop anywhere else! EDUCATION BARNEY BEAR (ea) 47.90 BEGINNING GERMAN 86.90 BIBLE READER 129.00 CROSSWORD CONS. SET 68.50 DESIGNASAURUS 68.90 DISTANT SUNS 78.90 FUN SCHOOL 2 (ea) 48.90 FUN SCHOOL 3 (ea) 52.90 JUNIOR TYPIST 57.90 KATIE'S FARM 57.90 LEARN TO READ WITH .. 44.50 LET'S SPELL SERIES (ea) 48.90 LEXICROSS 67 90 LINKWORD FRENCH 48.90 MAVIS BEACON TYPING 76.90 MATH MASTER 38.90 MCGEE 57.90 MCGEE'S FUN FAIR 62.90 MIXED UP MOTHER GOOSE 48.90 PRIMARY MATHS 48.90 PUZZLEBOOK2 48.90 SPELL-A-FARI 57.90 SPELLER BEE 54.50 SPELLING DETECTIVE 67.90 TALKING STORYBOOK (ea 49.50 WHERE IN WORLD IS CS 78.90 WHERE IN TIME IS CS 78.90 POSTAGE SOFTWARE Please add $3.00 per order. HARDWARE AND BOOKS Please call for freight charges. OVERNIGHT We offer a $10 Overnight service (Express Courier), restrictions apply. Call for details. Nine reasons to buy AMIGA products from lunm liii/ fllIERUIll\ 1. Cheapest prices 2. "008" Order Line 3. Product knowledge 4. Australia's largest range 5. Large stock on hand 6. No credit card surcharge 7. AmigaLINK & Club 8. pdLINK (Public Domain) 9. Company you can trust BEST SELLING GAMES 1.(3) EYE OF THE BEHOLDER $56.90 2.(1) "RAILROAD TYCOON $78.90 3.(5) CRICKET AMIGA $46.90 4.(6) LEMMINGS $64.90 5. (-) SWIV $64.90 6.(8) SECRET OF MONKEY IS $56.90 7- (-) •EPIC -AUG- 8. (-) "F15 STRIKE EAGLE II $78.90 9. (-) CENTURIAN $57.90 10. (-) TOWER FRA $56.90 This chart is based on sales and advanced orders over the last month. * Not yet released " On special this month. pd ■ I Ik I IX i_ni i-v The most awesome collection of Public Domain available anywhere!! Fred Fish, 17 Bit, T-Bag, Amicus, heaps of others. $3.00 per disk Full Catalogue $6.00 (Posted FREE) Orders on (06) 293-2233 ONLY {not 003) Postage 1-10 Disks $3, 11-50 Disks $5 Note Minimum Credit Card purchase $10 AmigaLXiX Club Following on from the success of our AmigaLINK Disk Magazine we are now introducing the AmigaLINK Club. As a member you will get a special edition of the AmigaLmK Disk Magazine sent to you every two months - special because, starting this month, it contains specials and discounts not available to anyone else!! If you are a regular buyer of Amiga software you can't help but save heaps of money!! Only $30.00 (Full membership until 31/12/91 - Includes back issue Nos #1 and *2) AmigaLtUK Disk Magazine Now available, the third Am/gaLINK Disk Magazine, with over 1 Meg of useful information on a disk. Packed full of reviews (with screen shots!) of the latest games, articles and general snippets of interest. Plus our latest full pricelist. 'The best value Disk Magazine available ... period" Number 3 OUT NOW !! Only $3.00 (if ordered on it's own, please add $2.00 for postage) X FREECALL ORDER LINE 008 020 633 Credit Card Orders Only- No Enquiries 9am-5pm Mon-Fri (EST) CUSTOMER SERVICE LINE AIM (06) 293-2233 I Enquiries, Prices and Availability 9am-5pm Mon-Fri (EST) AFTER HOURS The Customer Service Line can be used after hours if you want to leave an order or message on our answering machine. O fax (06) 293-1438 Fill out the order form (or write on nd : any piece of paper) and send to P.O. Box 1155 Tuggeranong ACT 2901 HOURS 9am - 5pm Mon - Fri (EST) rm lywni WmMMf in i ERhini\ SOFTWARE PTY. LTD. Your Software Warehouse ! ORDER FORM - PRODUCT NAME 2^ COMPUTER PRICE QTY Ploaso add $3.00 postage per software order, for hardware please call. You can also ask tor overnight delivery. NAME ADDRESS DAYTIME PHONE NO L Cheque Q Money OrderQ Visarj Bankcard [j Mastercard rj FULL CARD NO EXPIRY DATE SIGNATURE Amiga Flash 2000 SCSI Interface & RAM Expansion In the July issue of ACAR we primed a picture on page 14 captioned GVP Hardcard. This picture was actually of the Flash 2000 from MAST. The Rash 2000 is a combination 8/16 bit SCSI interface and 8 Mb RAM expansion card. Designed for the Amiga 2000 and 2500, this board provides all of your memory and/or hard disk/SCSI requirements on a single card, at an unprecedented low price. "At last there is available an Australian designed Amiga SCSI/RAM card that combines the highest performance and the greatest flexibility with an unbelievably .low price," said MAST's Daniel Koch. We've clocked the Flash at over 900k/sec transfer rates - and that's only in 8 bit mode! Boards this powerful used to break the bank, but no longer. Who says buying Aussie costs more?" Features 8 bit SCSI interface Optional 16 bit SuperCharged SCSI interface Aidao Engineer JUNIOR' AT LAST! The breakthrough everyone has been waiting for in QUALITY AMIGA Audio. A premium quality Sampling and Editing package that won't break the bank. Comprising the World renowned AUDIO ENGINEER Software and a quality mono SAMPLER from the people who brought you the 5 STAR sampler package, Audio Engineer Plus. Proudly MADE in AUSTRALIA Contact Your dealer NOW Dealer enquiries to GSOPT Pty Ltd PO Box 59 Elizabeth SA 5114 Phone & Fax (08) 254 2261 Audio Engineer Junior and Audio Engineer Huh are 1>iultfmarkn of RamScnn Soft ware Pty Ltd Hard Card disk mounting Extra Internal and External SCSI connectors Full Rigid Disk Block compatibility Autoboot from Fast File System partitions Removable Media Support; Autoboot disable switch Uses only one slot; Australian designed RAM - The Flash 2000 has sockets for up to 8Mb of ZIP DRAMs. ZIPs are the new compact package for RAM chips (as used in the A3000), and can be re-used in the A3000 if you upgrade. 1 Mbit ZIPs may be used for 2 Mb of Fast RAM, or the new 4 Mbit ZIPs can be used, giving 2, 4 or 8 Mb. If de- sired, the RAM can be totally disabled. RAM can be factory installed or user installed, and is true contiguous Fast RAM, autoconfiguring and running with no wail states. SCSI - This card is unique in providing two SCSI chip sockets. As well as the standard 8 bit chip there is provision for the new NCR 53C94 16 bit SCSI controller. This card has a 16 bit bus interface, and can transfer at speeds of up to 5 Mb/sec. With the 53C94 the Flash 2000 can provide sustained data transfer of over 1 Mb/sec using high performance drives. The 53C94 is available from the factory or as an upgrade kit. DISK - In addition to all of this, there is space on the card to mount a 3.5" hard drive, thus freeing up your drive bays. All cabling is provided on board, including power. In addition, there is a second internal SCSI connector provided, making it a simple matter to add additional drives internally, as well as a 25 pin D-conncctor for external hard drives and other SCSI devices. Up to seven drives may be connected, giving a total possible storage well in excess of 10 Gigabytes! DRIVER - Flash uses MAST's latest SCSI driver, giving a host of features like ultra high performance, RDB compatibil- ity, Autoboot from Fast File System partitions. Automount all drives and partitions. Removable Media support, easy setup and partitioning and more. In addition, Flash sports an Auto- boot disable switch on the rear panel. This prevents the Sys- tem from configuring any hard drives, thus giving you that lit- tle extra memory and speed when you need it most, and pro- viding compatibility for badly-written software. Available early July from MAST. Prices start at under S300. □ FLASH 2000 from MAST ACAR 36 . idvancei.. 'ungeonstoragons COMPUTER PRODUCTS LIMITED EDITION COLLECTOR'S STRATEGIC SIMULATIONS, INC. Limited Edition Collectors Set - 5 Great Titles from SSI ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. DRAGONLANCE. FORGOTTEN REALMS, and theTSR logo are trademarks owned by TSR, Inc.. Lake Geneva. Wl. USA, and used under license from Strategic Simulations Inc.. Sunnyvale. CA, USA. Distributed by: Electronic Arts Pry Ltd 4/46 Smith Street Southport, Queensland Telephone 075 -91 1388 KEEP YOUR AMIGA 1 00% AMIGA WITH GENUINE AMIGA ADD ON'S FROM COMMODORE. ONLY GENUINE COMMODORE ACCESSORIES GUARANTEE FULL COMPATIBILITY FULL CONNECTIVITY AND FULL RELIABILITY 1 00% OF THE TIME! FOR - 1 00% PEACE OF MIND! - CoJLce AMIGA 1 00% AMIGA! A500 Accessories * A501 RAM expands A500 to 1Mb with battery backed up Clock and Calendar * A590 20Mb Hard Disk with room for 2Mb RAM * 1011 Slimline Disk Drive, also for A2000/3000 * Alter Image Genlock and Software for Video * Alter Audio Midi and Software for Music * MPS 1230 Printer, also for A2000/3000 * 1084S Monitor with stereo sound, video and S-VHS Input, also suits A2000/3000 (and your VCR!) A2000/3000 Accessories * Multisync Monitor * A2301 Internal Genlock * Accelerator Cards, 68030 with RAM * Pc XT/AT Emulators * Display Enhancer Card for A2000 + Multisync * SCSI Controller and Hard Disk for A2000 * Ram Cards expands up to 9Mb WE HAVE YOUR NEEDS COVERED WITH GENUINE COMMODORE ADD ON'S c* See your Commodore %!&£•££? Commodore need and all you need to know. AMIGA Education Things to do with words by Anne Glover Kids can do lots of things with words. For instance, they can fish them out of their alphabet soup before letting them slop onto the tablecloth. So proud of their discovery, they don't seem to re- alise that the resi of the family is actually eating iheir food. They mangle and muti- late the language, they play and joke with it as they become competent and lit- erate. Everyday life with its street signs, books and TV programs will get them started and there are a rapidly expanding number of computer programs trying to help them on their way. The aptly named Things To Do Willi Words is one such program. It has three games that are easy for young children to use and is designed for children aged be- tween 5 and 12 years. According to the literature, a child of 7 years or older should be able to use it on their own. This program is produced by the people who developed Puzzle Book I and 2. Things To Do Willi Words is not one of the better products on the market, it is lacking in animation and excitement. Unless this program is a child's first ex- posure to the fascinating word of com- puters it is unlikely to achieve its aims, simply because it is not very interesting. Sure, cute little Buddy Bookbug pops up every now and again but he is really pe- ripheral to the games. The three games, or rather exercises, use pretty much a text book approach to word development skills. The range of possible techniques that can be used with a computer have not been exploited. The first exercise. Anagrams, in- volves unscrambling a word so Buddy Bookbug will cheer for you. The screen is pretty drab, with a basically black background and coloured text. Students need to click on the centre of the square with the chosen letter as they spell the unscrambled word. Don't click off centre or the computer will ignore you. there is not enough margin for error in this one. The levels of difficulty to be selected from are wide, so this activity does span the age range indicated (5-12 years); but I believe it is the only activity in the pro- gram that does cover that range of ages. It's not good enough to throw in one ac- tivity that may suit some 5 year olds and then label the whole package as suitable for 5-12 year olds. This one is more suitable for 7- 1 2 year olds. The second game requires the child to unscramble sentences. They will need to be able to read, and read fairly well to be able to work on this one by them- selves. It also has a few problems: words cannot be undone if you change your mind while unscrambling and the pro- gram does not recognise other correct forms of the sentence that is presented. No predetermined level of difficulty can be be set but the manual suggests that young or less able students simply PASS the sentences they are unable to handle. This would be very disruptive and discouraging for these students. They are more likely to have a shot at any answer and then be deflated by ob- taining poor results. Conversely, if a pat- tern of skipping answers is established, they may whizz through the program skipping anything the slightest bit chal- lenging. Surely a better approach would be to group sentences of a particular level and allow the student to select their level. This is the way most programs handle the problem. Another approach could be, to provide a graded sequence of sen- tences, to allow children to work to their own level and perhaps skip a few levels along the way. The sentences themselves are not as useful as they could be, many are not using appropriate language. "Word Hunt", the third and final ex- ercise involves finding as many words as possi- ble from a single word. You select the word from the 27 words pre- sented to you. The stu- dent may be required to find 21 words using the letters in the word "GREAT" or 12 from OCEAN". This program is a pretty obvious example of plonking some fairly mundane (but useful) exercises onto a comput- er to harness the novelty value of the computer and enhance the process of learning. That concept is quite accept- able, but so much more can be done. Things To Do Willi Words may be of use in the classroom to reinforce the con- cepts covered and perhaps to inject a lit- tle bit of variety into the development of basic language skills. Teachers could use the program as an incentive when stu- dents have adequately completed their section of work or it could be used alongside more traditional methods. It does use the lower case letters only and presents the letters on the screen when necessary. Confusion with the upper case keyboard is reduced as a result. As more and more children become familiar with computers and their wide ranging capabilities, both at home and at school, the place for a program such as this one will all but die off. The comput- er will no longer be a novelty, and much more will be expected of such software. A designer with a little bit of imagi- nation in the early stages could have done a lot more with this program. Conclusion Three fairly boring word games, con- tained within fairly dated software. The program is easy to use and 7 year olds could operate it on their own. Two of the three games don't cover the age range indicated. Possible applications include reinforcing classroom activities in an al- ternative way or filling a gap in language development. Don't expect experienced computer buffs of 7 or 8 years of age to sit still with this one for long, but at least its price won't break the budget. □ Distributed by: Pactronics ph:02 748 4700 RRP $39.95 1 Anagrans Tiie El ACAR 40 TALK TO YOUR » LEVISION CDTV AVAILABLE FROM yer, Grace Bros, Norman Ross, Harvey No ling Lee and following dealers NSW: The Hard Disk Cafe, Shop 4 Computers, Free Home Demo, Casino Computers, Fairfield Computers, Leeton Audiotronics, Chanticleer Video Computer Centre. i£: High Technology, Maxwell's, Cranbourne omputers, Webbs Electronics, Jennings Discounts, omputa Magic, Roylane, Frank Day & Associates, t. Albans Home Entertainment Id: United Computers, Tropical TV Services, ity Computer Centre, Active Computers A: Harris Scarfe, Pick'n'pay Hypermarket as: Angus & Robertson, Quadrant Computer Centre, tie Floppy Shop A: Hedlam Computers, Narrogin Computers, imputer Corner, Regional Computers Education Things To Do With Numbers by Anne Glover This program, as the name suggests is produced by the same designers as Things To Do Willi Words. It also has a long way to go before it could be considered to be an indispensable program. To the producers' credit however, they have contin- ued their development and Puzzle Book I &2 have emerged as more valuable programs. Once again there are three activities - 1 wouldn't call them games. The first involves converting analogue time to digital time with the graphics of an analogue clock and a digital watch on the screen. The time is determined in 24 hour I'onnat. a useful concept, but fairly limiting in its scope. To be able to turn the clock from 24 hours to 12 hours would increase the flexibility of the program and suit a wider range of age groups. After "a.m." or "p.m." flashes on the watch for only a few seconds the child is required to input the converted time. A child with a poor concentration span or one that is simply in- terested in looking at everything will frequently miss this vital piece of information. It may help to train children to be more organized and to follow a sequence of actions. It would be more useful however, to leave the "a.m." or "p.m." on the screen while they are working. This would avoid a great deal of frustration and many discouraging results. The next activity has Buddy Bookbug searching for his mate Betty within a grid of books. A useful concept with some reasonable graphics, but once again, things are Hashing on and off too quickly, frequently before a child can collect the rele- vant clues. Finally, a number game that requires the child to recognise one number as a component of other numbers is presented. For example the child may be asked to put 21 passengers on the train using only the numbers 6 and 3. Again a very specific task and one that may be useful to reinforce this concept in the classroom. This program has some good points. It doesn't make nasty noises after an unsuccessful attempt at a question and general- ly the correct answer is presented after three tries. The pro- gram is easy to use and seven year olds could probably use it on their own. Conclusion This program represents a starling point only - it is not all there yet. The tasks covered are very specific and only three activities are included. I don't believe it adequately spans the 5-12 age group indicated. Nor does it provide the three levels of difficulty indicated on the box in each activity. There are plenty of better programs around for children in this age group. Ones that are a lot more fun, that cover a greater range of activities and include a more extensive educa- tional component. So do the kids a favour and buy them some- thing else. It may be slightly more expensive, but it will be much more economical in the long run as it will be used more frequently and will be much more likely to achieve the goals you had in mind when purchasing your computer. □ Distributed by: Pactronics 02 748 4700 RRP $39.95 ACAR 42 thanks all participants, exhibitors, user groups, staff, equipment sponsors, JVC, GB City, Falk Electrosound-NAD, 2MMM, and all attendants including AMIGA SUPPORTERS at the "World of Commodore". Your enthusiasm, dedication and friendship at the World of Commodore Exhibition in July '91, contributed to a fantastic and successful show. We've done it again! Thank you! Amiga Coming to grips with the Amiga's CLI A Tutorial for Beginners PART 13 by Andrew Lenlart In the very first instalment of this se- ries, I covered a few of the most com- monly used commands in the Cli. Those being CD to change a directory, Dir to view one, List and so on. Back then, I only went into these very briefly and promised to go over some of the less used options of these commands at a lat- er date. This issue, I plan to make good that promise. Dir Let's start with DIR. Issued on its own, it simply shows us on screen what the current directory has within it. But there is a lot more to it than that. The command, like most, has various options which are not immediately obvious (cha cha cha!) Most will have used the "Dir opt a" option to get a full geiser at what is on a whole disk. But have a try of this nifty little option.. Dir opt i What this does is start you with a list- ing of the very first item in the current directory. This can sometimes be a file or even a whole directory. This is a handy feature because while in this mode of the command, you can do various things. Let's say you had a disk full of pub- lic domain programs and you found you were only ever using a couple of them. By pulling lhat disk in DF1: and doing a Dir opt I on it, you could clean it up quite easily by using DEL one by one. This is a little hard to visualize so let's do a little bit of experimenting. Make a COPY of any disk and place it in the external drive. Then type Dir DF1: Opt I. Single drive users will first need to type Dir ? and then switch disks to their copied one when the command ar- guments come up and then enter Opt I to get the process started. You should have in front of you something similar to this ... FileName ? or DirectoryName ? The Amiga is using the question mark to ask you what it is you want to do lo that file or directory. You can Delete it if you wish by simply typing DEL, which is a shorthand way Dos will ac- cept this command when in this mode, and then pressing Return. (Note that if it is a directory, it musl be empty before the Amiga will delete it). This is a con- venient method of cleaning up a disk looking at each individual file one by one and deciding whether or not you wish to keep it. But there is more ... Let's say we have gone digging around the PD libraries and come up with a disk full of interesting script files and we wish to explore the disk and at the same lime view some of them. Using the Dir Opt I command, we can do so by simply typing a "t" at the question mark prompt. This is just the same as issuing ihe command "Type Textfilc". You can pause the display at any time by pressing a key and then continue with the return key or backspace. Sometimes when using this option, you may accidentally try to type a file which may look like a text file, but is ac- tually a program. The result will be a screen full of garbage which can look quite alarming to a beginner. But no harm done, just press Ctrl-C and the garbage will stop. Then just continue on where you left off. At any time when using ihe i option of Dir, you can move to the next file in line by pressing Return on it's own. To end the whole process, enter a q for quit and it's finished. As with most com- mands, you can also stop it with another Ctrl-C as well. So whal other little quirks are hidden in this commonly used command? With a little bit of imagination and a sense of daring, we can do other weird and won- derful things. For example, doing a Dir Opt A on a disk cram packed with files in intermingled directories is all fine and well, but you need lo do it several limes before you can start to remember what and where everything is. Why not make life easier and create a reference of the really full direc lories on that disk so that you can look back on it?!. Working through each individual di- rectory on the disk, you can create a hardcopy of ihe disk's contents via your printer by redirecting the Dir listing to it like so... Dir> prt: But shucks, with the way things are going these days with the economy and all, who can afford a printer? No prob- lem, just modify the above command a little by leaving out the colon and create text files instead. Try this to see what I mean ... Dir> Ram:Prt Bingo! One you beaut text file sitting in Ram called Prt. And the government can't tax you on it one cent. You don't even need to declare it as an asset on your tax return. Jokes aside though, you can now view this file at your convenience by TYPEing it in the Cli or belter still, use a text viewing utility such as MORE on your Workbench to view it when you want to. If you want to make a perma- nent record of it, then COPY it to floppy disk. Just remember that if you are going to do more than one directory of a disk in diis way, then don't forget to change the filename for each directory. Natural- ly, it is possible to save directly to floppy disk right away if you want to. Ie: Dir>DF1:FileName Okay, so much of Dir for one issue. Moving right along to another method of viewing files and gelling information out of a disk, we come to the LIST com- mand. Continued on p46 ACAR 44 DynaCADD Lightning fast 2D and True 3D Design and Drafting software for Electrical, Mechanical, Architectural & Civil applications. 3 Versions supplied (68000/020/030) Reads & Writes Industry standard file formats:- DXF (in / out), HPGL, DMPL, P/Script, GEM, Xerox Ventura, (out) Easy to use with graphical interface. Funtionally the same as the IBM version. Some of the features include: Agfa Compugraphic Fonts Auto dimensioning Accurate to 16 decimal places Translation of 3D coordinate planes Dynamic rotation along GCP axis of any view Automatic generation of orthographic view Full plotter and printer support Selectively hide entities Sectioning and Crosshatching in 2D and 3D Transform entities from 2D to 3D CSA Mega Midget Racers 68030 Accelerator Boards for the AMIGA 500/1000/2000 25Mhz and 33Mhz models. Base board comes with sockets for up to 2Megs of Static RAM and a socket for 68881/2 Maths Co-Processor and Crystal. Full 68000 fallback. Mega Memory Board can be purchased with the Base board or at a later date. Sockets for up to 8Megs of 32Bit Fast RAM. These boards are simply the best available. $1699 - 25Mhz/68881/2MegDRAM Sole Australian & New Zealand Distributors 4 Disk Demo Version available with manual - $20.00 refundable upon purchase of package $1270.00 Version 2 - Supports Ray Tracing Programs - In Stock Kickstart Swap Switch $49.95 3 ROM Sockets & Ribbon Cable Digitiser / Colour Splitter $439.00 Audio Digi Users $49.95 Canon BubbleJet Printers from $675.00 Parallel Port I/O Board $120.00 Amiga Chips in Stock P.O.A. Drive Swap Switch $30.00 Flicker Filter $25.00 3.5" Floppy Drives from S159.00 Phoenix Microtechnologies Pty Ltd The AMIGA Specialists Introductory Prices Base25Mhz $ 949 Base 33Mhz $1099 Mega Memory Board OK $ 499 512K Static RAM $ 199 68881 -20Mhz $ 170 8Meg Boards for AlOOO's OK $349.00 lMeg $429.00 2Meg $529.00 A3000's in stock A3000 UNIX Specialists Dealer Enquiries wellcome on all Products Phoenix Board -Replacement Motherboard for the AMIGA 1000 Complete with - Obese (lMeg) Agnus, 2Megs RAM (lMeg Chip) on motherboard, 68881 Socket, Drive Swap Switch, Sockets for up to 4 Kickstarts (1.3 in ROM supplied) with 2 way switch, SCSI Controller and Software on main board, A2000 Expansion Slot, A2000 Video Slot, Connector for 8Meg Daughterboard, Battery Backed Real Time Clock. - $945.00 Internal Hard Drive - This is a 52Meg Quantum SCSI Hard Drive (17ms) that comes complete with Mounting Brackets, Data and Power Cables, Tricolour LED and instructions for fitting inside your original AMIGA 1000 case. Other sizes are available on request. - $699.00 Options - 8Meg Daughterboard $250.00 SCSI Extension Cable $ 30.00 Install - Phoenix Board $ 50.00 Hard Drive Mounting Kit $ 45.00 Maths Co-Processors from $130.00 Install - Hard Drive $ 40.00 Phoenix Microtechnologies Pty Ltd, 1 8 Hampton Road, Keswick, South Australia 5035 Phone (08) 293 8752 Fax (08) 293 8814 Hours - Mon-Fri 8:45 - 6.00 Sat 10:00 - 1:00 Amiga List List has a bit of an advantage over Dir in thai it gives you far more info on each directory or file that's on your disk. Enter LIST at the Cli prompt and you will get exactly that. A listing of all the files and directories in the current directory. Bui along with that listing you also get the following good info ... A Dir after the name if it is a directory and not a file. If it is a file, then you get the file size in bytes instead. Next column to the right tells you the status of the protec- tion bils which are set or not set on the file or directory respec- tively. If a protection bit is set, then its letter appears, if it's not set, you gel a minus sign instead. A typical file might look like this.. Ed 19564 -p-rwed 28-Mar-89 18:09:58 :Commodore sup- plied text editor. Not very user friendly.. The eighi letters in die protection bits stand for Hidden, Script, Pure, Archived, Readable, Writable, Editable and Deletable in that order. The next entry tells us the date thai the file was installed or last altered. If ihe file has been installed or altered no more than one day before, then the date is given as Yesterday or Today. Same thing goes for the time as does for date. It gives you the exact time someone had last fiddled with the file. Now on my Ed file, I have added the comment that you see written above. Later on, I'll show you how you can put com- rt^^. Lei Leaders in the Multimedia Arena. Commercial Productions of Australia Professional Video Solutions. Leading Edge in Software Solutions Video Edit Suites. Our experienced Staff will help you make the right decision in Hardware platforms. Software, installation, training and mainte- nance . Make your own Productions - For your next Boardroom or Conference Presentation get your ideas and concepts across, live or on Video, with Titles, Stills, Graphics and Animations all synced with Music or Audio. CPA also offers the following Bureau facilities: - Logo Design - Digitizing & 24 Bil Graphics - On/of line Editing - Stop frame editing to S-VHS or 3/4" - Print Facilities - Rendering Ray traced Screens - Genlock Facilities - Corporate Video - Full Training on Graphics and Amimalion Ask about our Corporate Education Training programs Call Garry Cohen Now on 337 6255 or 018 247 133 | ments onto your own files. These little comments are excellent to jolt one's memory when it's been a while since you used a given program or file on your disks. List Options Just like we saved a file in ram with Dir by using the redi- rection > symbol, we can likewise save a listing to a file by us- ing Lists to option. For example. List to Ram:FileName to- save to a file in Ram: or similarly. List to Prt: to get a hardcopy from that printer you paid some of those hard earned taxes on. You can also suppress some of the information that List provides if you don't have a need to see it. List NoDatcs will give a listing of a file or files without the dates. There is actual- ly an option List Dates as well, but why this exists is beyond me as the command defaults to showing the dales anyway. Per- haps when originally designed and coded, it did not have thai default (?) A couple of interesting options are Since and UpTo. If you type in the command wiUi the following parameters. List Since i5-Jan-90 then you would get a listing of files and directories which had been created on or after the 1 5th of January 1990. Like- wise, if you type in, List UpTo 15-Jan-90 then ihe Amiga will only display ihe files and directories created before or on the 1 5lh of January 1990. Useful if you know a file was created on or before a certain date and you wish to quickly find it. Not to be outdone by the Dir command and in order to try and sway you to using it more often. List is also capable of dis- playing a disk in much the same way as Dir does. Simply use List Quick. Another useless option thrown into a command when an- other command does virtually exactly the same thing (?) I don't know, but I can't ihink of why anyone would prefer to type List Quick instead of Dir ... I guess life is full of little mysteries and computing has to have its fair share of them as well to compli- cate issues. Concluding I must admit to being a bit slack with this issue and leaving it to the last minute before gelling lo work on ii. A Utile light on quantity, but I have tried to make it nice and meaty in quality. In any case, I'll make up for it next month with some replies to a few of your letters thrown in for good measure. Till then, keep hammering mat keyboard ... □ Contact Andrew Leniart on his Bulletin Board System: Andy's Attic BBS 03-749-4897 ACAR 46 C64 Laser output available Last month I mentioned a laser print- ing service to cater for GEOS users. The good news is that it's now up and run- ning. Laser Mode is the name of the bu- reau, and it's run by Laurent Rinaldi. All GEOS applications are support- ed. The results obtainable from GeoPub- lish have to be seen to be believed! Laurent tells me that to get the best results you should use LaserWriter resi- dent fonts: LW California, LW Roma, LW Burrows and LW Greek. Regular GEOS fonts work fine, but you'll only get output equivalant to the screen reso- lution. You can of course use italics, bold, outline etc and fonts can be of any size at all. Prices are a very reasonable SO.SO/page for GeoWrite documents us- ing LaserWriter fonts, Sl.OO/page for a document not using Laser fonts, GeoPaint documents are $0.80, and GeoPublisli documents are Sl.OO/page. Quantity discounts are available (call for details). To get your documents printed, send your GEOS disk (single sided if you're a 128 user) to 9/4 Durham Close, North Ryde, NSW 2113. You can also send your files in using a modem providing they've been converted first. If you're af- ter more information you can contact Laurent on (02) 888 3329 or (02) 922 6355. Gateway A number of readers have sent me news clips on Gateway. Gateway is an alternative to the regular GEOS desktop, which I'm told will be more appealing to the tastes of some users. It's smaller and faster. The price is around SUS29.95 or comes bundled with RamLink and Ram- Drive. Hopefully I'll have some more in- formation on Gateway soon. Chris Brand is a talented programmer with a special liking for GEOS. One of his original programs, The Font Ma- cMne, is a full-featured font creation and editing system. The Font Machine is just what you need if you want more creative font •styles, larger fonts or just want to try your hand at designing weird and won- derful graphic symbols. When you double-click Font Ma- chine you are given the opportunity to open an existing font file from disk or create a new one from scratch. You aren't limited to opening only the fonts that have been previously created with Font Machine - you can open any font at all. This is useful if you want to create a new look to an existing font but don't want to redefine full stops, exclamation marks and other characters. The actual editing process is very similar to using GeoPaint with the pencil tool. Clicking on a blank pixel will put you in draw mode and clicking on an oc- cupied pixel will give you the eraser. I found editing of small fonts awkward when using the mouse. The screen changes slower man your mouse move- ments and often a straight line is difficult to achieve. This is easily remedied by us- ing the cursor keys, which are fully sup- ported. One great feature of The Font Ma- chine is the ability to create big 48 point fonts. Great if you're a GeoPublish user or just want to make an impact. Unfortu- nately GEOS doesn't like font definition files any larger than about 6000 bytes - limiting if you want a 48 point font. To keep the file size down you can just cre- ate the characters you need. If you don't need lower case letters then just leave them out. You do need to be careful about file sizing, since The Font Ma- chine won't warn you that a file is too large to be used. Perhaps in a future up- date? Creating fonts is a long and some- times frustrating process. The Font Ma- chine won't make the job any quicker or less tedious, but for the patient user with the skill it's the perfect program. How do you get The Font Machine? Chris has very kindly allowed me to dis- tribute it as part of the User Software Compilation disk I'm putting together. Also from Chris will be an MCS810 printer driver which gives much greater control and flexibility for your GEOS printing, some new mouse drivers (in- cluding one with a screen blanker), and some GEOS fonts that have been created with The Font Machine. Work on the disk is in its final stages and should hopefully be ready soon after you read this. Watch out for information in an up- coming column. Chris also tells me that he's open to requests for programs. Here's my list! * A GEOS -based directory utility. Something along the lines of DirUtil on the Amiga would be nice. Simple and straight forward DOS access is some- thing the C64 really lacks. * A GEOS equivalant of the Amiga's CLI. Wanting a Command Line Interface may sound like defeating the purpose of GEOS, but often it would seem quicker and easier to type "DELETE FILE1" than go through the process of dragging a ghosted icon down to the trashcan. I love the graphic environment, but I also love quick, clear access to functions. * A utility to convert regular C64 screen fonts to GEOS format. Not an easy task, but it'd sure be nice! Letters From the mail this month, Hamish Blunck of Beaudesert, QLD, writes: "Dear Owen, While using GEOS I use a Commodore MPS 1230 printer. I find using die "Comm. Compat." printer driver is usually slow and does not print a total width of a page with some appli- cations. But by experimenting with some different printer drivers and altering the set-up procedure of the printer I have been able to make the printing faster and also print a fullwidlh page. "First of all you have to change some settings in the set-up procedure: Change PRINTER EMULATOR to EPSON FX 80 Change DOUBLE STRIKE PRINTING to BIDIRECTIONAL Change ENABLE D.L.L. to YES 4K BYTE LINE BUFFER ACAR 47 C64 Change LINE FEED to LF=LF Change CARRIAGE RETURN to CR=CR Change LINE SPACING to 7/72 Change BIRECTIONAL B.I.M. to YES "Leave the rest of the settings as the Default settings, and make sure you store the changes. "Last of all change the printer driver to 'Epson FX-80'. Al- though it is a lengthy procedure it is well worth it. "Do you know of any way of being able to set up GEOS so that within an application you can change disks with only one disk drive. I find that when using applications such as geoPub- lish I have little room left on my disk (geoPublish takes up 99 KBytes). "One last thing. Have you heard of a magazine in Australia called "GEOWORLD"? I got a brochure for it when I pur- chased GeoPublish this month. It is an American magazine, but it is not published by Berkley. The subscription cost SUS50 which could get rather expensive." Thanks for the printer information. I don't use an MPS 1230 printer myself, but I'm sure many users out there that do are grateful. The reason why GEOS likes to have the application and the datafile on the one disk is because it needs access to both at fre- quent intervals. To run large applications GEOS uses 'overlays' so that only the necessary code is loaded as needed. Also, GEOS saves and retrieves parts of your documents as needed to save space. Re- member, you're working with only a 64K computer so some sacrifices have to be made. Thai's why you can't always open datafiles from disks not containing the relevant application. I have heard many good things about GeoWorld, but whether it's worth the SUS50 subscription price is a decision that's yours alone to make. Mr W. Reed of Salisbury Park writes: "Dear Owen, I'm hoping you may be able to help me. I use GEOS VI. 3 which works fine with my Epson printer (dot ma- trix) but for letter quality print I would like to use my Com- modore DPS 1101 Daisy Wheel printer. Could you please help as I don't seem to be able to find a driver for it. I've tried all of the drivers on the GEOS disk but to no avail." GEOS is a 'graphic' environment. It works with bit-mapped images for text and pictures. Because the daisy wheel printer has no facilities for printing graphics it can't handle the output from VI. 3. V2 of GEOS does give you the option of using your print- er's NLQ mode. This dumps the text to the printer and not the graphic information. I can't guarantee that it'd work, but it's quite possible you could print in GEOS V2's NLQ mode using the Commodore Compatible driver and your DPS 1101. Has anyone had success with this setup? That's it for this month. Remember that if you have an in- teresting PD GEOS program, or lips, questions or suggestions, write lo: ACAR, PO Box 288, Gladesville, NSW 2111. Q PO Box 3053, Manuka, ACT 2603 Phone: Canberra (06) 239 6658 BBS: 239 6659 Fax: 239 6619 Compact, memory resident; ARexx port. What's more practical than a traditional database? Contact 1.2 Personal Contacts Manager/Database Why? Because it fits in with what you're doing, and works with you as you do it, with the minimum of fuss. • Instant access by hotkey • Fast & easy to use • Resizable window • Selectable data files • Autosave and autosort • Audio tone dialling • Includes CalcKey, popular memory-resident calculator Available from any well-stocked dealer. PROFESSIONAL CLIPflRT Volumes 1 & 2 Structured clips for ProPagc, ProDraw & PageStream. Australian themes included. Maths for K-6! Three skill levels. Popular Australian animals featured. 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Watch out for better quality games because us- ing the cartridge medium, software hous- es can squeeze up to around 512k for each game. And no wait for loading times! Ocean Software is already heavily committed to cartridge-based releases, with Robocop 2, Shadow of the Beast and many more already available. The cartridges aren't designed exclusively for the GS either. They'll function more than happily on a standard C64. Will the C64 console be able to com- pete with Sega and Nintendo? All three are in the same price bracket, but the GS might have the leading edge because of cheaper cartridges. Perhaps we're in for a price cutting war? We'll just have to wait and see. More peripherals There certainly isn't a shortage of cartridges and other 'add-ons' for the C64. There are so many, in fact, that it's easy to become confused with what each is supposed to do. This month is a gener- al guide to peripherals for the power- hungry 64 user. Before we begin, a few terms you should be familiar with: Freeze: Suspends a program at the point the freeze is activated. From here the program may be saved, altered or restarted. ML Monitor: Used to interpret memory as machine language mnemon- ics. Useful for debugging software and otherwise making changes. Can often be used in conjunction with the freeze op- tion to make changes without corrupting memory etc. Sprite Collision Disabler: A game cheat option which, for example, ignores a collision between you and ene- my fire. Screen Snapshot: Takes a 'snap- shot' of the current screen, usually al- lowing you to make a hardcopy, save to disk, or make changes to it. Have a copy- right guidebook on hand with this one! Disk Turbo: Increases the speed of disk operations. And now for a look at cartridges: Action Replay Possibly the favourite for game users, the Action Replay provides many useful utilities for the budding hacker. Included is a freeze utility, ML monitor, disk tur- bo and many more. One of AR's nicest features is that it allows you to enter BA- SIC POKEs while the program is in a frozen state. Once your POKEs are all in, just restart the program. As I'm sure any 'POKE hunter' will tell you, the hardest part of finding cheats for a game is actually finding a restart address. The latest incarnations of Action Re- play also allow for some extended BA- SIC commands. While the list of new commands is far from exhaustive, I think the cartridge was designed more for the inquisitive game player than the dedicat- ed programmer. Because of its gaming appeal, Action Replay is one of the most popular cartridges available for the C64 Final Cartridge III Apart from the irony of there being three 'final' cartridges, FCIII wins in the cosmetic department. It uses a GUI (graphic user interface) that will have you pointing and clicking the same as you would in GEOS. When you power- on, FCIII automatically recognises if you are using a mouse or joystick and even which port you're using without you ev- er having to select the preferences op- tion. Overall, it looks and feels solid. Like the Action Replay, FCIII has a freeze utility, an ML monitor (including sprite and character editor) and, of course, a sprite collision disabler. What I don't like about FCIII is that the freeze option is often far from re- liable. On some occasions it refuses to even attempt to save, and on others you think the save was successful but on reloading you realise it wasn't. Also, it's a shame that you haven't the option of restarting the program from a frozen state after a save instead of being dumped back on the desktop. Perhaps a litde bit more thought is needed in this department. It certainly isn't strong in the disk utilities department, either. It lets you scratch and rename files, but a single file and complete disk copier would 've been nice to make this a gen- uine final cartridge. BASIC programming is where this cartridge really excels. It provides a total of almost 30 new commands for BASIC programmers. Note, however, that it is not an extended BASIC in the sense that the new commands can be made an inte- gral part of your program. Instead they are designed to be utilities to aid the pro- grammer. Final Cartridge III gives you com- mands such as RENAME, APPEND, ARRAY (dump), AUTO (line number), FIND, TRACE, RENUM, PACK, etc. The manual might leave a lot to be de- sired, but on the whole Final Cartridge III provides an excellent environment for either programming or general C64 ac- tivities. Super Snapshot 4 Super Snapshot is similar in design to Final Cartridge and Action Replay, al- though lacking some of the features such as a character editor and joystick auiofire and joystick swap. SS4 provides the usual DOS wedge and copying utilities, as well as a BASIC toolkit extension. Unfortunately the extra BASIC commands all need to be loaded from disk before being used (like the KA43/5 Open System). Not exactly what ACAR 50 C64 you would expect from a cartridge util- ity. It provides a fairly solid machine code monitor. Warp Speed Warp Speed isn't really in the league of the above three, but then again it doesn't pretend to be. WS is designed to be nothing more than a powerful DOS utility, and I might add that in the DOS handling department it beats the above three hands down. Warp Speed lets you take charge of your drive using menus. From these you can scratch, delete, view and even copy files with the utmost of ease. Warp Speed also has a complete disk copier for one or two drives, and a very fast disk turbo. Some of the more powerful features are a track and sector editor, a machine language monitor, text screen printer dumps and a native 128 mode. WS also has a reset button and an 'old' command for the return of BASIC pro- grams. Recommended if you want easy DOS access without the bells and whistles of the more expensive cartridges. Turbo Master CPU If it's speed you're after, then look no further than the Turbo Master. In- creases the speed of just about every as- pect of the C64 by a factor of four. Also includes a DOS wedge and a machine language monitor can be found on the utility disk. See the review in the Febru- ary ACAR for more information. RAMIink & RAMdrive These two are only new on the mar- ket. RAMLink is a RAM expansion unit interface designed to let you get the most out of your existing REU. RAMDrive is an actual REU with a maximum capacity of 2 megabytes. As yet I haven't seen them first hand, so I won't say too much other than the information circulating makes them sounds great. Quick Brown Box The QBB is kind of like a cross be- tween a cartridge and a disk drive. It's a storage device that uses battery-backed RAM. Like a cartridge, whatever is stored on QBB is ready and waiting as soon as you power-on. QBB comes in two versions - a 64K model, and a 32K model. Using the sup- plied software you can transfer your pro- grams to the Quick Brown Box in much the same way you would if using a disk drive. If you're hoping to put something like GEOS on the QBB then you must first get an unprotected version. I'm told this is simple enough if you use either Maverick or Vorpal Aid. Once again, I can't say much about QBB's performance because I've yet to use one first hand. They seem to be pret- ty scarce in Australia, but the good folk at Briwall say they can get you anything that Briwall U.S. carries, so if you're af- ter one of these it may be worth giving them a call on (06) 288 0131. $ 1 Service Offer Don't wait till it's too late! Protect your Commodore or Amiga computer, monitor, drive and printer now and don't pay any repair fees for a full year GAINRUN PARCOM PTY LTD PTY LTD ACN 010 992 800 ACN 010 631 660 7/27 Justin St Samuel St SMITHFIELD 2164 CAMP HILL 4152 (02)757 1055 (07)395 2211 Authorised Commodore Service Centres §g * Send $10 per unit * Abuse and misuse excepted * Next day service MODEL SERIAL NO * Spare parts extra * BC/MC/Visa/Cheque CURRENTLY IN WORKING ORDER SIGNATURE POPULAR MODULE EXCHANGE SERVICE PARCOM Pty Ltd Whites Hill Shopping Village Samuel St Camp Hill, Qld 4152 (07)395 2211 GAINRUN Pty Ltd 7/27 Justin St Smithfield NSW 2164 (02)757 1055 Send your PCB, PSU, Drive or Mouse for next day replacement. Reconditioned Modules available for most models e.g. C64, 64C.1 541 II PCB $99.00 A500PCB $129.00 AMIGA DRIVE $200.00 MOUSE $50.00 A500 PSU $75.00 ALL ITEMS MUST BE COMPLETE AND IN SERVICEABLE CONDITION THREE MONTHS WARRANTY ON ALL MODULES PLEASE CALL FOR FURTHER DETAILS ACAR 51 C64 Letters This first letter out of the mailbag this month comes from Eric Ireland of Beecroft NSW. "Dear Owen, I have a C64 and have been reading ACAR for the past couple of years. I think you have a great magazine, although it would be better if you had a few more C64 games reviews. I use my C64 mostly for playing games and typing out school projects, although I am also interested in computer pro- gramming, and have written a few programs in BASIC. "I would like to learn machine language, but I do not know which assembler I should buy, which computer shop I should buy it from, or what book I should buy to teach me. I already have Supermon, by Jim Butterfield, but it does not allow line numbering or labels or any other common features that most other assemblers have. I also have the Commodore 64 Pro- grammer's Reference Guide, but it is not very helpful to the be- ginner. If you tell me what to buy and where to buy it from it would be very helpful. "I have another question to ask. Recently I was looking through the memory maps in the C64 Programmer's Reference Guide and in location 53270, bit 5, it says "ALWAYS SET THIS BIT TO 0!". Just out of interest I set it to 1, (by poking 53270,255 which sets all bits to 1) and I got a weird character set. Do you know why?" If you're going to start machine language, you may as well start on the cheap. There are a number of public domain assem- 7ZA DONT trade in your old mouse or buy one with microswitches Fix your own at home with the MOUSEBOARD. If you're having trouble with your Amiga Mouse firing this is the board for you. A small PCB fitted with microswitches. You will now fire every time, all the time. Easy to instal and economical Only $12.95 Cheque/Money Order to: NORTECH COMPUTING PO Box 210 MOONTA SA 5558 Phone & Fax 088 252 538 Includes Post and Packaging Dealer enquiries welcome 9//////////////////////////7ZZ biers floating around. Check with Allan Crouch (649 4904). He might have just what you're looking for. One 1 can recommend is Turbo Assembler V4.1. As for books, start with something for beginners. The Beginner's Programming Handbook, pub- lished by Usbomc, is an excellent book for starting out. It may seem a little bit immature having little cartoon robots popping up on ever)' page, but when it comes to clarity and step-by-stcp guides I have yet to find a book that is better. You already have the Programmer's Reference Guide which is a great resource ir- respective of your level of programming ability. Another book which I find indispensable is the 6502 Reference Guide by Alan Tully (published by Melbourne House Publishers). It gives a complete list of 6502 instructions and their descriptions, hex and decimal equivalents, along with bytes and timing infor- mation. Just the thing for finding that forgotten instruction or debugging. Bit five of 53270 won't do anything harmful to the C64. As you've probably already guessed, it's a control register for the VIC-II chip. Bit five in particular is, or was, used to enable or disable the display. On the newer C64s this has little or no ef- fect. By poking 255 to 53270 you've turned more than just bit five on. You've probably noticed the display has shifted off centre and any characters on screen have become a multicolour mess. POKE 53270,200 will put things right, or just press RUN/STOP-RESTORE. Mr. W. Reed of Salisbury Park writes to ask what an EPROM is. An EPROM is Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory. Think of it as a storage device. Unlike a disk, howev- er, you don't have a long wait for disk-to-memory transfer. You must use an EPROM burner to store information, and ultra-violet light to erase it. EPROMs can be used in place of standard ROM chips. You could make changes to the C64's operating system, as detailed in The C64 Column over the last two months, write the revised code to EPROM, and replace the C64's internal ROMs for a truly customized system. . EPROM programmers for the C64 are not easily available in Australia. Datel Electronics advertise in many of the UK magazines and offer everything you need to start EPROM pro- gramming. Their kit costs around forty pounds. Short Program Competition A reminder about our short program competition. Aus- tralian C64 software developers Millersoft (5 Argo Way, Airds, NSW 2560) has offered three of its packages valued at approxi- mately S90.00, and I'll also be making available several compi- lation disks of the best C64 PD software around. To enter, sim- ply send in your original short and useful programs for the C64. . Here's the guidelines: 1. Programs must be short. About four or five disk blocks long is the limit. 2. It must serve some useful purpose. 3. Programs can be submitted on disk, tape, or printed list- ing, though disks are preferred. 4. Entries must be received by August 31st 1991. Those people who have sent in original programs for vari- ous reasons over the past months will be included if they're eli- gible. □ ACAR 52 AMIGA PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE • Free delivery • 1 ,000's of programs • All orders despatched next day One of the most comprehensive ranges of Amiga PD software. * FISH DISKS # AMICUS DISKS * AMIGAN DISKS * ALPHA DISKS * T-BAG DISKS * TOPIK DISKS * F.A.U.G. DISKS All $4.00 each LATENIGHTER DISKS $5.00 each Best of Public Domain Over 530 of the very best from only $2.95 per disk. INTRODUCTORY PACK comprising PUBLIC DOMAIN CATALOGUE 1 ,000S of program listings SAMPLE DISK 10 great games/programs HINTS AND TIPS DISK 1 .5 Megabytes of hints & tips TUTORIAL DISK Amiga Tutor and DOS Helper GAMES DISK 7 fantastic games UTILITY DISK 5 incredible utilities Total Value $36 Introductory Price ....$19.95 Quadrant computers, perth AMIGA ACCESSORIES 4Way Joystick Adaptor $22 ACTIO) REPLAY HARK II S170 Aolei Mouse $59 Genius Uoose S45 AWASADVMCla Sampler $210 BCOEGABAY SSCALLSS Olfil-VIEWGO.OVs.0 Or TlMOML AMOUNT FRAUEGRABBER|PALJ KCS POWER PC BOABD RADICAL MIDI INT SUPERCAROAMIII VIDEO BUNDER $249 $115 $1199 $515 $72 $139 S2250 Q For only S5 we will send our Catalogue Disk with a free game and virus checker PLUS a sample disk of 10 greai Games/Programs. □ OR try our INTRODUCTORY PACK for only S19.95. PLEASE TICK. LEEJAN ENTERPRISES PO Box 66 Happy Valley SA 5159 Tel (08) 322 3392 BANKCARD/MASTERCARD/CHEQUE/MONEY ORDER BCARD/MCARD NO EXP NAME SIGNATURE ADDRESS PCODE GVP SERIES II HARD DISK GVP A500 42MG .4MB OK $950 GVPAS00 54MG-SMBOK $1169 GVP A500 I00MG -8MB OK $1495 GVPA2000S2MG.AMQOK $1130 GVPA2000SOMG-SMaOK SUM GVP A2000l05MG.ua OK $1399 GVPA200O170MG.SMB0K $1899 DATA FLYER A2000HD 40 MG S8E5 DATA FLYER A2000HD 80 MB $1095 DATAFLYERA20O0HOIC0MB 51195 4Mb BASEBOARD IMD Pop 5310 4MbBASEeOARD2MbPop S399 4M0 BASEBOARD 3Mb Pop $489 4M D BASEBOARD 4M D Pop $585 35-EXT DISK DRIVE $135 5I2K RAM EXP CLOCK 4 S»«Oi $79 35'NASHUADISKETTES SIS AMIGA PD AMIGA PD FISH1-510AMAZ CCCC TOPK AMIGAN AMICUS FAUG NZ AMIGA AMIGOZ PHOENK S2S0 COMPASS MACRO AMUSE SNAG SUAUG IZ.00 Including Nashua diskette 17 BIT COLLECTION $3.00 2 DISK PUBLIC DOMAIN CATALOGUE S4 Include! 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FIEETSYSTEM4126 MINI OFFICE II PRHTMASTERPLUS PRIINTSHOP SUPERBASE 64 OR 128 SUPER C 64 OR 124 SUPER PASCAL 64 OR 129 SUPERSCRIPT64 0R121 SWIFTCALCInc Sideways POSTAGE CHARGES Australia Wide Courier AIRFREIGHT 3KGS FOR S6.0O CALL FOR SURFACE RATES NEW EXTENSIVE ^ PRODUCT CATALOGUE AMIGA $3.00 C64/1 28 52.00 . INCLUDES POSTAGE j PRICES AND SPECIFICATION SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE 26 Rochester Way Dianella P.O. Box 380 Morley WA 6062 Pager (016) 983 333 Facsimile (09) 375 1113 Phone (09) 375 1933 Mobile 018 918 608 Trading hours West Coast 8am- 6pm Mon-Fri 8am-9pmThm Sunopm Sat Trading hours East Coast 10sm-8pm Mon-Fri lOam-llpmThuis 10am-7nm Sat C.O.D. CASH CHEQUE MONEY ORDER Credit Cards - Call '.-■-■*? .1-^ '.'.:, *PPl MAIL ORDER WELCOME Best Products... Best Prices GVP Series II A2000 Prices Slashed! 40Mb Quantum $899 52Mb Quantum $999 105Mb Quantum $11 99 210 Mb Quantum $1899 Series II A500 42Mb Fujitsu $999 52Mb Quantum $1249 105Mb Quantum $1690 All have space for 8Mb @ $200/2Mb NEW FLICKER FIXER Commodore A2320 Image Enhancer Supports Workbench 2.0 for A2000 $449 (limited stocks) NEC 3D to suit $999 GVP ACCELERATOR $Call NEW & USED AMIGAS BOUGHT & SOLD Sig macom (02) 545 3383 (018) 257 471 TurboText Veteran text editor user Tim Strachan has been a long time propo- nent of the text editing world. There are still rumours he has never used a wordprocessor - nevertheless, here he is, exceedingly more qualified than most to write about the latest addition to the fray. I have always used text editors exclu- sively (rather than word processors) for editing Megadisc, as well as all the other writing I do. I began with Ed (Com- modore's own troglodyte of an editor, spiffed up in WB2), moved on to TxEd 1.0 to 1.2 to 2.0 etc, and along the way also bought and used PTE (Professional Text Engine) and Cygnus Ed from AS- DG. PTE is the most powerful by far of all those mentioned above, and many of its powerful features have been imitated by TurboText (TT from now on), partic- ularly the availability of a built-in pro- gramming language, which therefore al- lows the creation of emulations of other text editors right down to the duplication of the menus. This also means that you can keep adjusting your definition file, by simply using those definitions in oth- er files which suit you. It just happens that doing all this with TT is a lot more straightforward than with PTE. Packaging and manual Very neat, the typical cardboard box setup. The manual is plastic ring-bound, but the type seems to be rather fuzzy in parts. The manual is well organised and generally well-written, and there are nu- merous useful Appendices at the back, such as Error Messages (Dos, ARexx, Definition file, and Turbotext errors), a Command Reference for the built-in pro- gramming language, about TT under WB2, a Glossary and a pretty reasonable Index. Emulation One of the most powerful features of TT is its ability to emulate the com- mands and menus of other programs by simply loading in a new definition file, of which there arc numerous supplied with the program, such as for TxEd, Cygnus Ed, Wordstar, and so on, as well as definitions devised to make program- ming source code easier. It is interesting to note that while some emulations are pretty complete there are some gaps. For example, in the TxEd emulation, there is no "Strip, etc." option available, and this was quite useful for stripping line-feeds; there is no apparent equivalent in TT, it seems. Likewise there are improvements - the old "Print Clip" in TxEd brought up a requestor; now, the clip is sent straight to the printer. Icon magic TT is distinguished by a clever use of icons. Tool Types entered into the icon info screen are many, various and pow- erful. TT's icon tool types can be over- ridden by special tool types in particular project icons, meaning that you can have a bunch of different setups associated with different project icons, double-click them and you've got a new setup. Likewise, there are all sorts of com- binations which allow you to simply load it into memory to be activated by a hot- key; to unload itself from memory when all screens are closed; to start up with an automatic ARexx macro; to open with a custom or Public or Workbench screen; and more. Of course, all of these capabil- ities are available from the CLI too. One very amazing trick with icons, in VVB2 only, is that you can drag the icon for a project (text) file onto TT's open window and presto! up comes that file ready for editing. This is the first use of WB2's "AppWindow" feature that I've seen. Other features Public screen capability - you can pop TT up on its own public screen, meaning that other windows can be popped up onto it. Fonts - the full selection is available via requestors. Version - TT is supposed to be able to store and retrieve "version" informa- tion with all files produced with it, and it should be accessible by using the Ami- gaDos Version command, although I didn't find anything happening when I played with it. TTX in WBStartup drawer - this is a good way to get it going: TTX is a small version of TT which loads it into memory according to the many tool types in the icon, mentioned above. TT has a good requestor, the nearest I've seen being Cygnus Ed's rather baroque one. This one doesn't show all Assigns and Devices, but gives a large space for listings, and allows for the se- lection of pattern matching - ie, if you only want to see files ending in ".doc" you can enter "#?.doc" in the pattern matching gadget. Useful, but you have to remember it's on at times, or you'll think a particular directory doesn't hold the file you thought it did. Another neat fea- ture of the requestor is the existence of a little trashcan icon under the slider bar - means you can use the requestor for get- ting rid of unnecessary stuff. The full screen is available for edit- ing, ie, unlike some editors which re- quire you to space along to places be- yond the text on a line. The cursor changes into different little graphics while performing particular tasks. The next version will have an ARexx inter- face to AmigaTeX, the amazing typeset- ting program. Dragging with the mouse say at the bottom of the page scrolls the screen down, but an innovation is to have the scrolling sped up by moving the mouse to the left of the screen, and to slow it down increasingly by moving towards the right side. Three-button Mouses are supported, and you can set up a few ex- tra tricks with them. Anyone using ARexx often will start to be driven to distraction that there can only be one assigned REXX: directory, because it begins to get quite full... The use of ARexx with TT has obviously been well thought out. TT will still work fine as a text editor without ARexx, but you get a large number of new capabili- ties, and the chance to make up your own if you get really involved. Some of those included are: Save Block Print Block Sort Block Print Lines, etc. There are about 45 ACAR 54 of these provided, and it's very easy to make up your own, if you have any talent with ARexx. Complaints What about a command which allows you to format both left and right margins simultaneously for a paragraph between any two chosen numbers? PTE has this and it has saved me many hours of tedious work formatting files for Megadisc. I'm sure this can be done in ARexx, but by now it should be an in- built feature of an Amiga text editor. No columnar text input is possible, as far as I can see - ie, the ability to have, say three columns of text across a screen, each of which is like a separate mini-screen, in which you can hit RETURN and be on the next line under the beginning of the column. Conclusion Apart from those two complaints listed above, I would have lo recommend TT highly as a text editor, and even as a word processor for many people's purposes. Certainly if you're a programmer, this program is ideal, but it will suit anyone who needs powerful, fast and versatile text editing. 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LTD. 19 Maloney St, Blacktown, NSW 2148 Tel: (02) 671 1856 MONITOR TYPE | PLEASE DEBIT MY PAYMENT PLEASE INDICATE METHOD LU CREDIT CARD VISA - MASTERCARD - BANKCARD ■0 □ I I CHEQUE - P O MR/MS/WRS SURNAME EXPIRY DATE INITIALS SIGNATURE I II I «nniiF« POST COOE R a p i 5 o f \~\ EDUCATION PACK & ONLY $27 ^ Educate yourself and the kids with RapiSoft's new Amiga Public Domain Education Pack. Learn vital skills while hav- ing fun at the same time - All for a low cost of only $27. Ideal for teachers, parents and students alike. The Pack contains 7 disks full of great educational pro- grams with colour graphics and sound. ^ Contents of the Pack: 3? Spelling Tutor Crossword Maker Writing ability tester Typing Tutor Study Aids World Databank Scientific Calculator Elements Database Weather Forecaster Human Evolution Display Gravity Simulator Graph Plotters ... and many other great programs - Over 30 in all fef DTP PACK ONLY $27 fcf Introducing the pack for Desktop Publishers! This great low cost pack contains 7 disks full of PD software designed for use in the Amiga DTP area. Included are: • 3 disks packed with Clip Art in standard IFF format • 2 disks full of fonts to use with most DTP programs • 2 disks of utilities, including: Graphics Converter, Postscript interpreter, Shadow font generator, text printing utility for HP printers, and more! ^Ihe ZlCtimate Qames (Pacf^ 40 fantastic Public Domain Amiga games for only $27. That's only 68 cents per game! The pack includes many arcade, adventure and RPG games, including: Skiing, DriveWars, Moonbase, Sealance, Zon, Mechfight, Metro, Cheatsheet and many others! Rapisoft's P.D. Library now consists of: Amicus, Amigan and Fish Disks (up to 510), Clip-art and fonts, GIF Pictures and Demo Disks. All only S4 each! Send now for your two-disk catalogue! Please send me the following: copies of Rapisoft's Catalogue Disks @ $5 per set _copies of Rapisoft's Education Pack @ $27 each .copies of The Rapisoft DTP Pack @ $27 each .copies of The Ultimate Games Pack @ $27 each I enclose Cheque/Money Order for S OR Charge my: Q Bankcard Q Visa Q MasterCard Card No: Exp Date :_ Name: Address: _ Suburb: Signature: . Postcode: El Mail to: RapiSoft, P.O. Box 19, Forest Hill 3131 Offer valid until 30th September 1991 ACAR 55 Creating Batch Files by Tim Strachan In your normal use of DOS, you will enter a command and execute it immedi- ately. This is fine for most uses, but oc- casionally you'll find that you need to repeat a series of commands regularly, or that you'd like to customise the startup- sequence of your WorkBench disk. In fact, the startup-sequence is the most sig- nificant of CSFs, and being able to ma- nipulate and change it is one of the fun- damental abilities you should develop. In this tutorial you'll learn how to do so, and all the necessary tools are available on your Workbench disk. You will need to know the basic structure of CSFs, and how to edit them. There are some special CSF commands, such as EXECUTE, SKIP, and so forth, which are used in conjunction with normal CLI commands, and there is a TEXT EDI- TOR, called ED in your C directory which allows you to create or change such files, as well as any other text file. However, you can create a text file of any kind with any Word Processor which allows you to save a file in strict text form (as ASCII characters). Fundamentals 1. Using ED - The text editor As mentioned above, you will have to be able to create a text file with a text editor, and your Workbench disk comes with ED, a basic text editor quite capable of this and more. There is another "Line Editor" called EDIT in your C directory as well, but it is not easy to leam. In fact, it would be worthwhile buying a commercial editor such as TurboText, or finding one of the excellent editors in the public domain, which make use of the Workbench interface. In the meantime however, if you wish to create a new file, or edit an old one, using ED, simply en- ter in the CLI ED FILENAME, for ex- ample ED dfO:s/startup-sequence if you want to change your startup-sequence (do it with a COPY of your Work- bench!). Now just enter text from the keyboard to create a new file. In the case of editing an existing file, use the cursor keys, DEL and BACKSPACE and RETURN keys to change and add text. Let's say that we want to create a file called MAKERAM which will copy all the CLI commands into RAM, and run them from there in- stead of from your disk (see further be- low). Enter the following: ED S YS:S/MAKERAM ;(You'll be pre- sented with the ED screen.) MAKEDIR RAM:C (Hit return) COPY SYS :C RAM:C (Hit return) ASSIGN C: RAM:C (Hit return) You now have a 3 -line batch file. If you notice a spelling mistake, simply use the cursor keys to reach the mistake and Backspace or Delete the offending let- ters). Now you must save the file, so press ESC and you'll find the cursor drops to the bottom of the screen where further commands (called EXTENDED COM- MANDS as distinct from IMMEDIATE COMMANDS which you use when on the ED screen itself) may be entered. The command to save is simply X, fol- lowed by RETURN. This will exit ED, while saving your file under the name you first gave it in the directory you specified - in this case MAKERAM in the S directory. NB - The REFERENCE SECTION of your Amiga Manual lists all the available commands for ED, and if you decide to stay with ED, make sure you experiment with them, as they allow you many powerful possibilities for text edit- ing. Creating a command sequence file you must create a file with one or more CLI commands, with one command to a line, and with a RETURN character at the end of each line. Having created the file, it is a good idea to save it to the S directory of your disk, since AmigaDOS looks there automatically when you use the command EXECUTE. This means that you don't have to type out the full PATHNAME of the file - ie, where it is, such as: dfl:ulililies/myCSF Instead, you'll simply type EXECUTE myCSF The command EXECUTE (which is detailed below) must precede any CSF, just as it is automatically used when booting up with any Workbench disk. You can also attach comments to your CSF by simply typing in a semi-colon before any comment you make. For ex- ample: MAKEDIR RAM:C;make directory c on the Ram disk COPY SYS:C RAM:C ALL;copy all your c commands across ASSIGN C: RAM:C;re-assign your c: directory to ramx This CSF is a most useful one to have, since it allows you to copy all your CLI commands to a C directory which you've created on your Ram disk, and then, the last line tells the system to look in the Ramx directory when it wants to find a CLI command. These three lines could be typed into your startup- sequence to be executed automatically each time that you boot up; or you could simply name this file MAKERAM or some such name, and EXECUTE it whenever you want to. Such a file can be refined as you wish - it may be that you are memory- conscious, and don't want to have a lot of your precious Ram taken up by com- mands that you rarely use. So you could adapt this CSF to copy only those com- mands that you use regularly into the RAM:C directory, by replacing the sec- ond line above by the following series: COPY SYS:C/CD RAM:C COPY S YS:C/DIR RAM:C COPY S YS:CAYPE RAM:C COPY SYS:C/COPY RAM:C You could add to this series accord- ing to which commands you'd normally use. Now such a file requires the COPY command to be read from your disk each time, so we could add a further refine- ment by copying the COPY command directly to RAM:C first, and then AS- SIGNing a short alias to it (ie, you give it a shorter name for convenience), to speed up the processes of both executing the command and of typing it in, as fol- lows: MAKEDIR RAM:C COPY SYS:C/COPY RAM:C ASSIGN CP: RAM:C/COPY Continued on p58 ACAR 56 COLOUR RIBBONS Can't afford a colour printer? You can still produce text and graphics in colour using ribbons from Australia's widest range of specialty printer ribbons. \ Available in Red, Green and Blue for most printers - Brown Purple & Yellow also available for some types. SAMPLE PRICES Commodore MPS 801 $13.50 Commodore MPS 803 $14.30 Citizen 120D $16.25 Epson LX400/MX80 $16.90 Epson LX80 $12.25 Epson LQ400/500 $18.20 Oki 170/180/190 $16.80 Panasonic 1080/1090 $17.50 Panasonic 1124 $24.50 RitemanC+/F+ $20.80 Star NX 1000 $12.25 StarNX/XB24O0 $20.15 Lazarus Ribbons 70 Wolseley Rd Tel: (02) 960 2737 M os man (008) 24 9991 NSW 2088 Fax: (02) 968 1276 C64 SOFTWARE EXTENSIVE RANGE OF PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE FROM UK, USA, AUSTRALIA. EACH DISK CONTAINS MANY EXCITING PROGRAMS FOR ONLY $5 PER DISK. • SPECIAL • INTRODUCTORY OFFER 5 DISKS - $20 + FREE CATALOGUE DISK • GAMES • GRAPHICS • UTILITIES • TUTORIALS IMMEDIATE DELIVERY PLEASE SEND 5 DISK OFFER $20 CHQ/M.O. ENCLOSED Please lick your preference(s): Games Computing - Art General PLEASE SEND FREE CATALOGUE Name: Address: PoslCode: PostTo:: BRUNSWICK PUBLICATIONS PO BOX 458 BONDI JUNCTION NSW 2022 MEGADISC . . • when you're thru playing games Free Number for Contributors & ORDERS : 008 22 7418 Megadisc was designed to help you really learn how to K use your Amiga. Tutorials, articles, reviews, hints and tips, useful software, and much more are included to help both the beginner and the veteran to use the Amiga more productively. Not too serious and not too lightweight, Megadisc entertains you while you learn. Available as single issues, subscriptions of any three or six issues (past or future), or as a Trial Pack (including Mega- Dos, our Amiga Manual-on-Disk and Megadisc 21 , and our Catalogue-on-Disk). If you get a Trial Pack, you can subscribe later for the lower rate mentioned below. 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Name _Occupatlon_ Address _ Telephone _ Date Students & Pensioners: Send proof of your status (photocopied bus pass, etc.) with any order, and get 10% off the cost I CP: SYS:C/CD RAM:C CP: SYS:C/DIR RAM.C CP: SYS:C/TYPE RAM:C ASSIGN C: RAM:C A further refinement now could be to insert the line CD SYS.C after the first line above - this would make it unneces- sary to type in the "SYS:C" before each command to be copied, since you'd al- ready be in the directory that you're copying from. Removing a ram disk's contents It may be that you've got to do some memory-intensive work, such as anima- tions, and want to use all the memory you've got. You'll want to remove all those commands on the RAM disk, so you may make up a CSF like the follow- ing (and keep it in your S directory as usual): ECHO "CLEARING THE RAM DISK" CD DFO: ASSIGN C:SYS:C DELETE RAM:C ECHO "ALL DONE NOW" Here's another approach to achieving the same objective, except that this time, some more use has been made of the AS- SIGN and ECHO commands. Note that you could also use the SAY command, so lhat you're told what's happening as it happens. COPY DF0:C/ECHO TO RAM:C COPY DF0:C/COPY TO RAM:C COPY DFO:C/ASSIGN TO RAM:C ASSIGN C: RAM:C ECHO "MAKING A RAM DISC" ECHO " " ECHO "COPYING SYS/C TO RAM" COPY SYS:C RAM:C ALL QUIET ECHO "" ECHO "ASSIGNED C: TO RAM:C" ECHO "" ECHO "ALL DONE NOW" In other words, it is up to you and what you want to achieve, and the best way of getting what you want is to ex- periment. Further capabilities of batch files Although any CLI command can be used in a command file (including the command EXECUTE itself), certain commands were made especially for use in a command file: IF these allow you to test conditions occurring during execution ELSE of the sequence, and to act on the results. FAILAT - sets the level of failure at which the sequence will slop. QUIT - QUIT will force a stop with a return code you choose. SKIP - allows you to mark areas (LAB) in your sequence and then jump LAB - forward to them (SKIP). WAIT - stops sequence processing for a period of lime, or until a specified time of day. ECHO - lets you display text strings, such as prompts, from within your se- quence. ASK - lets you branch either of two ways wiih a Y(ES) or N(O) Passing instructions to batch files The EXECUTE Command itself recognises various DIRECTIVES, which allow you to pass words and substitute them in the various command lines in the CSF. Thus you can use one CSF for a variety of tasks if you design your CSF well. A "dot command" MUST be on the first line of the file. It can be any command, but is usually either a parame- ter template (.KEY) or a comment. .KEY or .K This defines the names of the parameters to be passed. This is the most important of the dot commands. If this is placed at the beginning of your CSF, then your CSF will lake what- ever file follows your CSF name and substitute it wherever it sees "filenamel" in ihe batch file. EXAMPLE: .KEY filenamel COPY <filenamel> TO :MYDOCS To use this CSF (whose name is BACKUP, say), enter EXECUTE BACKUP Letter Now the file LETTER is copied to the MYDOCS directory on the current disk. .DEF <namc> <value> defines a global default parameter value (the S de- fault is used on that line only) EXAMPLE: .DEF filenamel #?.doc If this were inserted in the above ex- ample, then if no specific filename were given, then #?.doc would be substituted for the filename, and all files of that pat- tern would be copied to the : MYDOCS directory. This gives you a failsafe option, since otherwise all files in the current di- rectory would be acted upon. .DOT <char> - redefines the com- mand indicator character (default is dot '.') EXAMPLE: .DOT @ then use @KEY from.to .BRA <char> redefines the left & right parameter indicators .KET <char> (default arc '<' and '>') This can be uselul if you want to in- clude a name which has the current de- fault bracket characters (ie, < & > ) EXAMPLE: .BRA [. This will change the left angle brack- et character (<) to the the left square bracket character. Note the period after f .DOLLAR <char> redefines the de- fault indicator character (default is dollar T) EXAMPLE: ED <fileSwork.doc> This substitutes "file", but if "file" is not given, will substitute "work.doc" . . <tcxt> - indicates that the rest of the line is a comment. EXAMPLE: . Dot, followed by space is a comment. .<rctum> - indicates a blank com- ment line. • Further examples The following sequence is used to delete a file, but make a backup first in the :T subdirectory. . Delete a file, but make a backup first .KEY from.to IF "<from>" EQ "" QUIT 20;this terminates the CSF im- mediately ENDIF IF"<lo>"EQ"" COPY <from> TO :T/<from>.01d DELETE <from> QUIT ENDIF COPY <from> TO :T/<to> DELETE <from> QUIT This would be entered as follows (if the name of the CSF is BACKUP): EX- ECUTE BACKUP filename l,filename2 Till next time ... □ ACAR 58 Great bargains for your C64/128! Australian Commodore Review Disk Mags Nos 1 to 14 Disk Magazine One $1 Foresi Raiders - shoot 'em up. Machine code paint, border, input and flash routines. Nice Lister. Recover It. Disk Magazine Two $10 Programs demonstrating 30 graphic plots. Terminal program. Tutorial on bits and bytes. Character editor. Disk Magazine Three $10 Hangman, Labynnth, Calendar, Finance, Typing Practice, Roadblock, Bird Invaders. Constructabrix - education. Disk Magazine Four $10 Graphic Workshop - complete design system/tutorials. Typing Tutor. Directrix - disk tiling. Plurals & maths. Disk Magazine Five $10 Utilities for using Newsroom on an MPS 802 plus writing signs, printing Doodle/Printshop pics. Centronics driver. Disk Magazine Six $1 2 Games: Bert the Bug, Hangman. Demos: Space Harrier, Max Headroom, etc. Home Inventory. Graphics. Utilities. Disk Magazine Seven $1 2 Anti-lsepic, Sledgehammer, Fast Format, Renumber, etc 128: Bootmaker 128/64 Utility, Convert Basics utility. Disk Magazine Eight $12 Track & Sector, Function Keys, Unscratched, Relocata- ble directory. Calendars, Chequewriler. ESCOS v 2.99. Disk Magazine Nine $1 2 C64: 14 graphics & music demos, Little Invoicer , Sprite Clock, Sprites in Border, games, utilities and graphics. Disk Magazine Ten $1 2.95 Cup challenge - sailing simulation. Define your function keys. Compiled Appointment Manager. Escos with Music. Othello Look-alike. And more. Disk Magazine Eleven $12.95 80 Characters, Graphic Converter, Batch line no. deleter. Function key def, System call locator. Fix directory. Text search, D.sk tidy, Drive aligner. Gc-os printer drivers. Disk Magazine Twelve $12.95 Appointment Manager 2.1 . Third Term - comms program. Panes - windowing system. Atlantis - undersea shoot-em- up. Circle Navigation. Education Programs. Music. Disk Magazine Thirteen $12.95 Charles & Stowaway - adventures. Blackjack. Graphic Converter. Disk Diskassy - utility. Disk Label Maker, Icon Changer Fasy DOS Cruncher Basic Disk Magazine Fourteen $12.95 Electronic CAD Package. Software Cataloguer. Character Thief. Pointer C64. Best single disk file copier. Never end- ■nfl serai. SEQ file reader!. CompuPage - game. To: Australian Commodore Review, 21 Dariey Rd, Randwick, NSW 203 1 . (02) 398 5 1 1 1 . Please send me Disk Magazine(s) No(s): I enclose Cheque/Bankcard/ MoneyOrder I Bankcard No: I Exp Date I Signature I Name (print) I Address Postcode I Please add $2 for post and packing I 1 AMIGANET Ethernet network for Amigas • Industry standard Ethernet Architecture. • Networking software included. • True peer-peer Amiga Networking - access any screen, hard or floppy drive, serial or parallel printer attached to any Amiga on the network. • A500 version - ABS injection moulded case connects to expansion port of computer. • A2000 version enhanced with 64Kbytes data buffer with 16bit datapath assisted by a DMA sequencer. (For high traffic centralised facility or a file server. AmigaNet A500 $700.00 (ex tax) AmigaNet A2000 $900.00 (ex tax) GPTerm-64 (videotex and ascii communica- tions for C64/128, rrp $59.00). GPTerm- Amiga V4 Australia's most popular Amiga telecommunications software • Mouse or keyboard driven, fully multitasking from CLI or workbench, User defined 'configurations' for different services, 1 10 page manual and more. ■ Full terminal emulations for videotex and ANSI/Amiga, IBM, VT100 ANSI terminal emulations for Viatel & Discovery 40/80, Pegasus and other text based services as well as BBSs. ■ File transfer with XModem, YModem, full ZModem, SEAlink, KERMIT, Punter and ASCII protocols. Batch transfers supported. Packaged with an extensive d>qo fili manual, not copy protected ^'•"v Also available: Amiga and C64 Modem packages, & full range of NeiComm and AVTEK modems. Available from your local dealer or direct from GP Software Specialists in Amiga Communications 21 Aloomba Rd ASHGROVE Qld 4060 Ph (07) 366 1402 Make sure of getting your copy SUBSCRIBE NOW! The Australian COMMODORE and AMIGA REVIEW Please enrol me for issues subscription to The Australian Commodore and Amiga Review, commencing with the issue. Q I enclose a cheque/money order tor $ □ Please charge my Bankcard Number Expiry date: Name: Address: : ; . . . Postcode: Please tick applicable box First Subscription □ Renewal Q Rates within Australia: 6 issues $19.00 (inc postage) 12 issues $36.00 (inc postage) Postage extra for overseas - telephone for costs Post to: 21 Dariey Road, Randwick NSW 2031 Phone (02) 398 5111 Fax: (02) 398 5322 C64 C64 sou Easy sprites Once you have ihe general idea aboul how the sprites are controlled, we can begin to use them in programs. We will look at a number of simple but interest- ing techniques which you should be able to adapt to your own programs. Example: sprites as string data. The following program displays three sprites using the same sprite data for each. The sprite pattern of the number 64 sitting under a palm tree, is set up in the data statements as string data. This pattern can be readily changed by editing the program in the normal manner. Calculation of the correct 63 numbers for the sprite pattern is done by dissect- ing the strings (check out the method used and work out how it does it, Lines 320-350) and the numbers are shown on the screen as they are calculated. An "A" in the data string is taken as a screen dot with bit value of 1 and a space is taken as bit value of 0. The sprites used are sprite numbers 0-2. Points to note: • All three sprites use the same data block. • Remember that sprite has priority over 1 and 2 and so will appear over the top of the images of the other two. • The sprite-background priority has Big news for computer owners You can obtain a tremendous variety of programs for your computer in Public Domain software. Programs of all types including Demos, Educational, Games, Graphics, Music and Utilities, etc. OUR LIBRARY HAS DIVISIONS FOR COMMODORE 64, AMIGA, IBM AND COMPATIBLES INCLUDING COLT, AND APPLE II. Just two examples: GAMES MEGAPAK - over 350 Games for C64 on 20 disk sides for only $40 posted. EDUPAK 1 - 267 Educational programs for C64 on 16 disk sides for $32 posted. Write for details to: Allan Crouch 29 Happ St. Aubum NSW 2144 Phone: 649 4904 by Greg Perry been altered for sprite 1 so that it will pass underneath the screen image. • All the sprites are programmed to randomly expand in either direction when they cross at the centre of their travels. • For simplicity, sprite X position is never greater than 255. Program! SPRITE GENERATOR XO REM (C) CREG PERRY, BRISBANE 1984 100 REM SIMPLE THREE SPRITE GENERATOR no REM SN=SPRITE NUMBER 120 REM V=START OF VIC CHIP 130 V=53248 140 REM SET EXPANDED SPRITES ISO POKE V +23,71 POKE V+29.7 IMREM CLEAR SPRITE RAM ARE- AS 170 FOR 1=832 TO 102}: POKE I,Ot NEXT 180 REM SET SPRITE POINTERS TO DATA BLOCK 190 POKE 2040,131 POKE 2041,13: POKE 2042,13 200 REM POSITION SPRITE X AND Y ON SCREEN 210 FOR SN=0 TO 2 220 POKE V+SN * 2,X00+SN * IOi REM XPOS 230 POKE V+I+SN*2,I00+SN*20i REM YPOS 240 REM ENABLE SPRITE SN 250 POKE V+2I, PEEK (V+21) OR AMIGA PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE Over 1800 disks to choose from No subscription fees No joining fees No postage charges Disks $3 - $4 - $5 each Send $3 tor catalogue disk or $9.95 for catalogue disk and 2 disk starter pack which includes: virus program, games, utilities, graphics, music, and articles. Catalogue disk upgraded free any time. AMIGA PUBLIC DOMAIN CENTRE PO Box 435, St Agnes SA 5097 Phone (08) 396 2163 Fax (08) 396 2163 WE ACCEPT BANKCARD AND MASTERCARD C2 A SN) 260 REM SET Colour OF SPRITE SN 270 POKE V+39+SN,2+SNi NEXT 280 REM READ DATA AND CALCU- LATE BYTE NUMBERS 290 FOR ROW=0 TO 20 300 READ S$: PRINT S$; 3XO FOR NO=0 TO 2:N=o 320 FOR BIT=7 TO O STEP -X 330 REM CALCULATE NUMBER 340 IF MID$CS$,X+NO*8+7- BIT,l)="A" THEN N=N+2ABIT 350 NEXT BIT 36O REM PUT NUMBER INTO IMAGE MAP 370 POKE 832+ROW*3+NO,Nt PRINT N; 380 NEXT NOi PRINT 390 NEXT ROW 400 REM DISPLAY BACKGROUND AND MOVE SPRITES 410 PRINT "[CLR,DOWN4,RVS]";« FOR 1=1 TO 40*61 PRINT " [<©.>]"$« NEXT 420 REM SET SPRITE x TO UNDER SCREEN 430 POKE V+27,2 440 REM NOT EXPAND X AND Y 450 POKE V+23,o« POKE V+29,0 460 REM MOVE SPRITES 470 S=255> FOR 1=1 TO 2SS 48O POKE V,Ii POKE V+I,I 490 POKE V+2,S-Ii POKE V+3.S-I 500 POKE V+4,I: POKE V+s,S-I SXO D? I0128 THEN 570 520 REM RANDOMLY EXPAND SPRITES IN X e/OR Y 530 IF RND Co)>.2 THEN POKE V+23, RND(o)*7+.5 540 IF RND Co)>.2 THEN POKE V+20, RND(0)*7+.S 570 NEXT i GOTO 450 690 REM SPRITE DATA 700 REM "765432x0765432x0765432x0" 710 DATA "[SPACES] AAA [SPACE3] A [SPACE3] AAA [SPACE6] " 720 DATA "[SPACE4]AAAAA [SPACE2]A[SPACE2]AAAAA [SPACES]" 730 DATA "[SPACE3]AA [SPACE4]AAAAA[SPACE4]AA [SPACE4]" 740 DATA "[SPACE2]AA[SPACE4]A [SP ACEz] A [SPACE2] A [ S P A CE.J ] AA [SPACES ]" 750 DATA "[SPACE] AA[SP ACES] A [SPACES] AA [SPACE2] " 760 DATA "AA[SPACEo]A [SPACE9lAA[SPACE]" 770 DATA "A[SPACEX0]A [SPACEXO]A[SPACE]" 780 DATA "[SPACEIX]A[SPACEX2]" 790 DATA "[SPACE2]AAAAAAA [SPACE2] A [SPACE2] AA [SPACES ] " 800 DATA "[SPACE2]AAAAAAA [SPACE2]A[SPACE2]AA[SPACE8]" 8X0 DATA " [SPACE2] AA [SP ACE3] AA [SPACE2] A [SPACEz] AA [SPACES] " 820 DATA "[SPACE2]AA[SPACE7]A [SPACE2] AA [SPACES] " 830 DATA "[SPACE2]AA[SPACE7]A [SP ACE2] AA [SPACES] " ACAR 60 C64 840 DATA " [SPACE*] AAAA AAA [SP AC Ez ] A [SPACEX] AA [SPACE] AA [SPACES]" 850 DATA " ISP ACEz] AAAAAAA [SPACEz] A [SPACE2] AA [SPACE] AA [SPACE5]" 86O DATA "[SPACEz]AA [SPACE3]AA[SPACEz]A [SPACEz] AA [SPACE] AA [SPACE SJ" 870 DATA " [SPACEz] AA [SP AC E3 ] AA [SPACEz] A [SPACEz] AAAAAAA [SPACE j]" 880 DATA "[SPACEz] AAAAAAA [SPACEZ] A [SPACEz] AAAAAAA [SPACE3]" 890 DATA "A [SPACE] AAAAAAA [SPACE] AAA [ SP ACE4 ] AA [SPACE}] A [SPACE] " 900 DATA "A (SPACES] AAAAA [SPACE3] AA [SPACE j] A [SPACE] " 910 DATA " AAAAAAA A AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA [SPACE]" Exercises 1. Design your own sprite in data statements. 2. Change sprite colours. 3. Change sprite movement routine. 4. Change movement to include full range of X 0-344. 5. Change expansion to X or Y ex- pand only. Example: Bouncing and full range- of X. To program a sprite to "bounce" around the visible screen area, like a ball on a billiard table, involves increasing or decreasing the X and Y coordinates and ensuring that, when the boundary (as de- fined above) is reached, the correspond- ing X or Y movement is reversed in di- rection. This is shown by the following subroutine. Add these Lines to the program above. 550 REM RANDOMLY BOUNCE SPRITE 560 IF RND(o)>.z THEN GOSUB $90 580 REM BOUNCE SPRITE AROUND SCREEN 590 X=XZ8iY=XZ8 592 Sl=I+Z*(RND Co)>.5)iSZ=I+Z*CRND(o)>.s) 594 SN=INTCRND(o) * j) 600 X=X+5*Sl:IFX<=24 THEN Sl=I 610 IF X>=343 THEN Sl=-I 6ZO Y=Y+IO*SZ:IF Y<=so THEN S2=I 630 IF Y>=229 THEN SZ=-I 640 POKE V+16,ZASN+ZASN*CX<ZS6) 650 POKE V+SN*2,X+256»CX>255) 660 POKE V+I+SN*2,Y 670 IF X>90 AND X<130 AND Y>90 AND Y<130 THEN RETURN 680 GOTO 600 NOTES 1 . Line 590 sets the starting coordi- nates. 2. The RND statements are used with great effect to decide how often a bounce will occur and, when one does, to ran- domly select which of the sprites 0-2 will move and in what direction. 3. S 1 and S2 are the signs of the X and Y movement respectively, i.e. when Si = 1, the X value will increase and when SI is -1 .the X value will decrease. At the boundary, the sign of the move- ment is simply reversed. Line 592 ran- domly sets these to cither 1 or -1. The expression 2*(RND(0)>.5) is zero if RND(O) is less than 0.5, otherwise it equals -2. 4. The full range of X is used, Lines 640 and 6505. Line 670 returns to the main program if the bouncing sprite is roughly near the other two. Further examples of bouncing sprites are given later. Multicolour sprites Once you understand how to create high resolution sprites, the construction of multicolour sprites is only slighdy more complicated. A number of salient features must be noted. First, the effective horizontal reso- lution of the pattern is reduced to 12 dots but, in the sprite image on the screen, each dot is now displayed as two pixels wide. Each of these pixel pairs may be in one of four colours. The sprite is still constructed on the 24 by 21 grid, but to convey the colour information each hori- zontal dot is set with a pair of bits. Each of the four combinations availa- ble in this bit pair describes the colour of the screen dot, either transparent ("off" or screen colour), the main sprite colour or one of the two sprite multicolours. Bil Pair left right Colour on screen Colour Register location transparent - screen colour 53280 1 multicolour 53285 (V+37) 1 sprite colour V+39+SN 1 1 multicolour 1 53286 (V+38) Let's assume we wish to draw a sin- gle line (12 screen dots of 24 pixels) evenly divided into the four colours. The first three dots will be in multicolour 0, the next three transparent ("off, screen colour), the next three in the selected sprite colour, and the last three in multi- colour 1. The line of 24 bits (3 bytes) will be continued onp 64 MEMORY EXPANSION PRICES at July 10th 1MB x 1 - 80ns DIP $6.35 4x256 - 100ns DIP $6.90 - 80ns DIP $6.75 41256 - 120ns DIP $6.90 -100ns DIP $2.00 1MBx4 (44C1000) 80ns A3000 ZIP $31.00 lMBx4(44C1002) 80ns col sialic ZIP $36.00 lMBx8 -100ns **** <g.vj>. mud D.ivc) $53.00 x8 -80ns simm, $60.00 1MBx9 - 100ns ,imm. $58.00 - 80ns >imms $68.00 4MBx9 - 80ns stems $272.00 AU types of DRAM & memory modules in stock Please phone lor the latest prices. Sales lax 20%. Overnight delivery, credit cards welcome. 1st floor, 100 Yarrara Rd, Pennant Hills 2120 PO Box 382, Pennant Hills 2120 AUSTRALIA'S CHEAPEST DISKS »MA DDAMD" LIFETIME WARRANTY I1U DnHHU BOXES OF TEN DISKS 1-9 10+ 50+ 100* 500+ 51/4"DS/DD$5.10 $4.90 $4.80 $4.70 $4.60 5 1&"DS/HD $10.50 $9.95 $9.50 $9.25 $8.75 31/2"DS/DD$9.75 $9.50 $9.25 $9.00 $8.50 3 1/2"DS/HD $19.50 $18.70 $18.50 $18.00 $17.95 ROD IRVING ELECTRONICS MELBOURNE: 48 A'Bcckcl! St City. 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Ph: (03) 870 1800 pelham PTY LTD Tel: (02; 980 6988 Fax: (02) 980 6991 BZICICB O^RD HOLDS BOTH YOl7R~RTC~KSTA RT> K6M5 IN ONE EASY TO FIT QUALITY BOARD WHICH IS SWITCHED EXTERNALLY TO SUIT A500/2000 KICKBOARD $39-90 TRANSBOARD USE YOUR EXTERNAL DRIVE TO BOOT OFF, SWAP INTERNAL V's EXTERNAL JUST SWITCH AND RE-BOOT [Ctrl-A'A]. eight wires- requires good soldering ability. 12 MO WARRANTY OI-J BOTH TRANSBOARD $49-90 Phone orders by Mastercard / Bankcard welcome Post & handling add $3-60 anywhere in Australia) order today-despatched today by AusD^lia post Proudly manufactured in Australia by Unitech InfftCHELECTOONICSPTY.LTD. AUSTRALIAN COMPANY NUMBER 003864042 —** ESTABLISHED 1 97X - ""™» - i^DE PENDENT REPAIRS TO COMMODORE PRODUCTS PHONE: 02 820 3555 10am- 6pm P.O. Box 137 , MINT0. N. S.W.2566 ACAR 61 Prime Artifax Public Domain Amiga-Live Issue Six $24.95 (3 disk set) FEATURE Game Drip: A full blown arcade game that's very out of the ordinary. It's up to you. as the 'Drip', to rust your way up 15 floors and get the juices flowing again. Avoid running or dripping into the acid, plasma and icecubes shooting out of pipes. You can get a little help from party balloons and bubbles that float by. Drip requires 5 1 2k of memory. Entertainment BoingDemo: Despite the name, this is not a demo as such - it's one of those try before you buy versions of a commercial game, only this one is very playable. The Boing part is a salute to the original Amiga Boing Demo! In this level and ladders game, you travel about on poles. ladders, telepoil points and at all costs avoid the Boncing Amiga Ball! RollOn: 'ITie play is a little like Boulderdash or Emerald Mine. Eight levels are included. To win you need to plan ahead and or- ganise your moves carefully - son of a joystick strategy. Includes a level editor to design your own games. SlotCars: A complete working game of SlotCars..just one of four games in the commercial package known as: 4 IN ONE - EASY BUT FUN! The game concepts are simple but addictive. A combination of strategy and dexterity is needed to beat this one. MoonBase: Adventure/Arcade - guide the shuttle ship to and from the mother ship with the valuable cargo. A multi-level lunar lander. Strategy Turn: A strategy game - the aim of which is to produce a given pattern of stones on the board. In order to complicate the game a little bit. al! stones around the selected stone will turn either from black to white or from white to black. There are 18 levels available. There's also a partem editor to design your own games. China Challenge: Similar to the well known game Shanghai or Mahjong. the target of China Challenge is. to remove all pans of the pile, tlie so called Dragon, step by step. This dragon is composed out of 120 different pieces. A challenging past time, fun for two players too! MarbleSlide: You've got to be quick to get this one. This is the fullest extent to which we've ever seen the old magic square the- me taken - and one of the best. Slide the sliders to guide the mar- ble home. Bui your time is VERY limited! AmiGo: Strategy Board game for one. two or no players! Workbench SimGen: How would you like Saturn on your Workbench? SimGen makes your screen look like it is Gcnlocked. A number of example imagaes arc included. Much better than DropGoth or any other of these Workbench background programs. Doesn't slow your Amiga down either! Flip:This screen gag will drive you nuts. Try it out! Rocket: Yet another in the great line of Workbench gags. This linle number releases a guided rocket which heads straight for your mouse pointer. If you don't move in time, on impact the whole lot explodes. Stick it on a friends Workbench for fun! Business 'Liner: Our serious program for the month. If you develop out- lines for speech, writing, essays or reports, this program will help you organise and edit your material in point form - the best way to develop an outline. A fast solid program. WO: A short and quick utility, which helps you to bring order in your addresses and codes them and saves them (password- encoded) on disk. Graphics MandAnlm: If you enjoy madlebrois. you'll love MandAnim. Using a simple tweening process, you can select multiple key ar- eas of a mandlebrot. MandAnim will generate as many steps as you specifiy between each frame creating an expanded anima- tion file whkh you can load and animate in Deluxe Paint III. Some impressive graphics can be achieved. Hennon: You can create some fabulous looking images using this program which lets you explore Hennon mapping. The pro- gram produces patterns like the one below using the formula x = x * cos (a) - (y - x * x) * sin (a) and y = x * sin (a) + (y - x * x) * cos (a). Several exmaplc images are included. Full 640 x 400 hires is supported. plus FREE $5.50 Graphics or Animation disk of your choice with Amiga Live 6. Save on Back Issues! Amiga Live #1 (2 disk set) $8.95 Amiga Live #2 (2 disk set) $1 1 .95 Amiga Live #3 (3 disk set) $1 8.95 Amiga Live #4 (3 disk set) $1 8.95 Amiga Live #5 (3 disk set) $24.95 Emulators and File Transfer Transformer v1 .22 $7.95 Gel into MS-DOS on the cheap. Much (aster than the origi- nal Transformer. 68030 compatible. Requires MS-DOS on a 720K diskette. No documentation. Also included is a demo version of IBeM, another emulator that allows use of hard drives. The demo only allows 2Mb partitions. MS-DOS Theme Disk $5.50 Install a full MS-DOS device using a simple install icon. You can then read/write 720K IBM disks and format them 100! MSII: acts Uke any other Amiga device. You can share the selected drive be- tween MS-DOS and AmigaDOS. Full documention and other useful in line- included. C64 Emulator $5.50 A very full-blown C64 emulator. Lots of utilities, more menu control and transfer options than previous commercial programs. If you like what you see you'll need to purchase the seriel inter- face direct from the U.S.A. - full details included with the disk. Full documention on disk. Educational Chemistry $5.50 Chemesthetics allows you create a atomic model of different for- maulae and visual chemical structures - a great leaching tool. New Titles Coming Soon Pagestream 2.0+ PD Fonts Balleten Flinstone Park 8enjamin HorstCap Pixie Blackforest Judas Playbt ^<*& Cartwright LeeCaps Polio ^dSr Class Manzanit * many more sv&r Faustus Muriel <*! 5)^8.9 5 New Games and Graphics! Ray-Tracing Theme Disks The best way to enter into the world of Ray-Tracing, DBK-Render allows you to create some amazing scenes. $5.50 Real 3D Demo Get a taste of the power of this incredible new program. $5.50 Lemmings Demo One of the best games for those with a taste for the unusual, an enigma in the gaming world. A playable demo that will keep you entertained! $5.50 Spectracolour Demo One of the latest programs to enter into the world of Amiga graphics - worth having a look at! $5.50 • SPECIAL OFFER • PD STARTER-KIT OVER $50 VALUE FOR JUST $34.95 Normally Super Workbench $8.95 Ready to boot with lots of utilities. Anti-Virus Pak $14.95 Protects against infection and eradicates over 45 known strains! Business 1 $8.95 Star Trek $8.95 (AGAtron, full graphics version) Newtek Demo II $8.95 ETONLY $34.95 (7 Disks Full • Free postage) NCOMM vl.22 Best Comms package available • ANSI / VT100 terminal emulation with full 16 colour text support. IBM graphics (optional). In- terlaced screen (optional). PAL and NTSC sup- port. Works with WB overscan. OS 2.0 support. • Protocols: ASCII, Xmodem. Xmodem-CRC, Ymodem, Ymodem-Batch. Ymodem-G. Fast Zmodem and Kermit protocols using external li- braries. Full support for custom XPR libraries. Batch uploads and downloads. • Script language - simple text language auto- mates sessions. Advanced Host-Mode script follows program - RUN YOUR OWN BBS! • Optional scrollback buffer - view or save text that previously has been displayed on screen. Block functions. Real-time scrolling. • Hot Keys for most program functions, includ- ing dialing of up to 10 phone numbers. • Split screen mode for conferencing. • Dialing directory, queued dial, redial until carri- er received. • 46 entry fast phonemenu. Phone requester with unlimited entries. • 20 keyboard macros using function keys. • Internal multitasking. Only $5.50 Brilliant music sequencer! MED 3.00 Imagine Soundtracker with MIDI - well that's what you have your hands on! in- cluded are some sample tunes. $5.50 Cinema Samples 1 disk full of movie samples - "Go ahead make your day!" $34.95 Remix 1 Madonna and Blackbox sing mega remixes. $5.50 Tracks No. 5 Bond, Fresh House and Wasteland. $5.50 POSTAGE IS FREE • NO HIDDEN COSTS • FULL SUPPORT "Soft ware you C AN afford II Theme Disks Anti-Virus PAK S14.95 Protect and Eradicate ARP1.3 $5.95 Faster CLI. more disk space Atari Emulator $5.50 Runs some applications, plus utils. Business 1 $8.95 Calc, Bankn, Badger, AmiGant, HPII and Loan Calc Business 2 $8.95 Mempad, IRA, DisSecretary Calendarm and StockBroker MS-DOS theme disk. Icon driven MS-DOS reader Sound Tracker Modules Four disks available. Super Workbench 1MB SID, Dmouse more Star Trek AGAtron version. Very good. Super Workbench 512 Zippy, Dmouse more Text Editors Wordprocessing TextPLUS, AmigaFox, Calendar Label Print PrintStudio Lila, GwPrint and Outliner. $5.50 $5.50ea. $8.95 $8.95 $8.95 $8.95 $8.95 HUGE 500+ FISH DISK LIBRARY See complete list of 400 - 480 in July Professional Amiga User Graphics and Animation Ace #06 $5.50 Ace #09 $5.50 Ace #14 $5.50 Ace #17 $5.50 Ace #18 $5.50 Ace #19 $5.50 Ace #20 $5.50 Amy vs Walker $5.50 Artscape $8.95 Badge Demo Set 3 Disks $12.50 Busy Bee $5.50 Batdance $5.50 Cameron Scannei $5.50 Crionics $5.50 FISH $5.50 10 or more $5.00 each CAD Compilation of the best CAD in PD Communications JRCOMM, ARC, ZOO and useful tips. Communications 2 VAXterm, Hyperdialer etc C64 Emulator Full-blown, more options. DOS Utilities 2.0 All the best utils yet! DTV Still Store Still frame playback. DTV/Graphics Abridge, Title Generator, sMOVIE, ImageLab and more. Education 1 Elements, SpaceLog, DrawMap etc. Education 2 Gravity-well, Planets, Life-cycles, Orbit.. Hacker 1 $5.95 PowerPacker, Sound Scanner plus many more. Mandlebrot Set (6 Disks) $24.95 A complete set of Madlebrot & Julia programs taken from the Public Domain. Mr Sandman $8.95 Digitised sound demo (2 disks). $8.95 $8.95 $8.95 $5.50 $14.95 $5.95 $8.95 $5.50 $5.50 Our Service Order Processing Most orders are processed within 24 hours of re- ceipt. You will not be charged if you're paying by credit card until the goods have been dispatched. Or- ders are sent by surface mail - however, we do have a range of courier services available if you need speedier delivery. Support If you have a more obscure problem, write down the error or problem and call for advice. It is best if you can also have the disk or program ready at your computer as this can help us help you quicker. Please use our Suppon number on (02) 879 7455. What if it doesn't work? If for some reason, the disk you buy is damaged - just return it for a free replacement. Plea.se include a short note explaining the problem which occurred and your correct return address, and day time phone number. CSIRO Sat-Piccies $5.50 Cycle Ball Demo $5.50 Digi-Slide Show 1 $5.50 Digi-Slide Show 2 $5.50 Dragon's Lair Demo $5.50 Epic Demo $5.50 Gymnast $5.50 Kanakas $5.50 Luxo Teenager $5.50 Music Mania #10 $5.50 Music Mania #12 $5.50 Music Mania #13 $5.50 Newtek Demo 1 $8.95 Newtek Demo 2 $8.95 Northstar Demos $8.95 PC87 Slide Show $5.50 RGB Hazzards $5.50 Soundtracker 5-Set $22.00 Space Ace Demo $5.50 Stamp Collector $5.50 Schwartz Anim Set (2 disks) $8.95 Vaux Killer (1MB) $8.95 Walker 1 (1MB) $5.50 Walker 1 (2MB) $8.95 Walker 2 (2MB) $8.95 Walking Cat $5.50 Zues Demo $5.50 How To Order Prime Artifax P.O Box 288 Gladesville 21 1 1 X NATIONAL (008) 252 879 FREE CALL Orders Only. (02) 879 7455 Sydney Metro Fish Database H D A catalogue of all the Fish from 1 to 470 (Hard drive required!) $5.50 How to Pay 1. Credit Card - Visa, Mastercard or Bankcard. 2. Send a cheque or money order. 3. Cash on delivery. Collect from your post office and pay them (extra $4.50 Australia Post charge.) ORDER FORM Name Qc Address . Day Phone Card No Exp Date Visa D B/C □ M/C D Signature Figure 5-5 BIT PAIR 012345678 9 10 11 X X X X X X X X X X X X I multicolorO i sprile color I transparent I I multicolorl l which translates into the following bit pattern Figure 5-6 BYTE BYTE 1 Bit- 765432107654 3 2 1 BYTE 2 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 010101000000 1 1 1 1 1 1 ' 1 1 Enabling Multicolour To change a sprite from high resolu- tion to multicolour involves setting the appropriate bit in the sprite mulucolour select register. Amiga Annual 1991 ESSENTIAL READING ■ft Complete up to date list of software available in Australia with description, price, availability, etc •ft User Group List -ft Fish Disk List -ft Graphics -ft Word processing •ft Databases -ft Hard Drives •ft Communications ft Music -ft Desktop Video -ft Multimedia And lots more ! On sale at newsagents and computer dealers NOW only $6.95 For Sprite SN select mulucolour POKE V+28.PEEK (V+28) OR 2 A SN ' select high resolution POKE V+28, PEEK (V+28) AND (255- 2 A SN) Some examples are: set sprite 2 to multicolour POKE V+28,4 set all sprites to multicolour POKE V+28,255 set all sprites to high resolution POKE V+28,0 Setting colours One of three colours (called the sprite colour above) is the same as for high res- olution mode and is set according to the sprite number (V+39+SN). The other two are common for all mulucolour sprites and are set by Multicolour POKE V+37,colour (0-15) Multicolour 1 POKE V+38,colour (0-15) Note: A PEEK to these locations alter a RUN/STOP and RESTORE returns the values of 244 and 240 respectively, since the left-most four bits in these locations arc always set to ones, the default colours are dierefore 4 [PUR] and [BLK]. Exercise As an example of using multicolour sprites 1. Replace the following lines in the sprite generator program. •690 REM MULTI-Colour SPRITE DATA 700 REM "7<»S432IO765432I07<»5432IO" 710 DATA"[SPACE*4]" 720 DATA"[SPACE24]" 730 DATA"[SPACE24]" 740 DATA"[SPACEfc]AA[SPACE8] AA [SPACE*]" 750 DATA"[SPACE8]AA[SPACE4]AA [SPACES]" 760 DATA"[SPACEl0]AAAA [SPACEIO]" 770 DATA" [SPACES] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE9] " 780 DATA"[SPACE6]A[SPACE]A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE 7]" 790 DATA"[SPACE4]A[SPACE]A [SP ACE*] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE]AA[SPA CE]A[SPACE5]" 800 DATA"[SPACE2]A[SPACE]A [ SP ACF.2 ] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE]A[SPAC E]A[SPACE]AA [SPACE] A [SPACE}] " 810 DATA"A[SPACE]A[SPACE]A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE ]A[SPACE]A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE]" 820 DATA"[SPACE4l A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE]A[SPACE ]A[SPACE]A [SPACE5]" 830 DATA"[SPACE6]A[SPACE]A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE ] A [SPACES]" 840 DATA" [SPACES] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE] A [SPACE7]" 850 DATA" [SPACES] AA [ SPACE 6 J AA [SPACE6] " 86O DATA"[SPACE4]AAAA [SPACEIO] AAAA [SPACEz] " 870 DATA"[SPACEZ4]" 880 DATA"[SPACE24]" 890 DATA" [SPACE24] " 900 DATA"[SPACE24]" 9XO DATA"[SPACE24]" and to select multicolour mode, add the line 135 POKE V+28,7 RUN the program and look at the pat- tern to decipher how the colours are achieved. 2. Change the default multicolours by selecting two colours then add the Lines 1 36 POKE V+37, colour 137 POKE V+38, colour 720 DATA 730 DATA 740 DATA AA AA " 750 DATA AA AA 760 DATA AAAA 770 DATA AAAA 780 DATA A A A A A A " 790 DATA A A A A A AA A 800 DATA ' A A A A A A A AA A 810 DATA 'A A A AAAAAAAAA" 820 DATA A AAAAAAA 830 DATA A A A A A A A 840 DATA A A A A A B50 DATA ' AA AA 860 DATA AAAA AAAA " 870 DATA 880 DATA ACAR 64 Entertainment All the latest news and views from the world of Entertainment New Budget Titles From Pactronics Aquanaut, by ihe producers of The Krysial, has just been released as part of the new Pactronics budget line at a re- markable RRP of S 19.95. With three disks crammed full of action it's a defi- nite bargain. Star Goose, another nice blast from the past. Prospector in the Mazes ofXor, Eye ofHorus, (a platform style arcade adventure). Bad Company, Starblaze (a 3-D space shoot-em-up), GFL Baseball, GFL Golf and Hyper force are part of the new range too - watch out for them in your local computer store. ACAR Hints Disk improved Reader Adrian Jenkin of Elizabeth North, SA, has put a lot of time and ef- fort into improving our hints and tips disk. Now the hints are arranged in al- phabetical order, and split into conve- nient subdirectories - well done, Adrian. Remember, you can get your own ACAR Hints Disk by sending a blank disk, a stamped, self addressed envelope, and a cheque for S5.00 to Phil Campbell, PO Box 23 MaClean NSW 2463. Make sure your SSAE is big enough for a disk! CD-TV released at last By now, some of our readers may even be messing round with their very own CD-TV! The entertainment machine of the decade was released at the World of Commodore show at Sydney's Dar- ling Harbour last month to crowds of drooling punters. Here at the ACAR En- tertainment section we'll certainly be keeping you posted on all the CD-TV developments. MINDSCAPE Wonderland winners This would have to rate as the most successful competition we have ever run! We had everyone running to their encyclopedias to discover that Lewis Carroll was really Charlie Dodgson, a boring old Maths lecturer, that. Alice was based on Alice Lidded, and that the hare was a March Hare. Well done, and even if you didn't win, at least you can say you learned something. Who says ACAR isn't an educational mag? So without further ado, congratulations go to: Anne McLennan of Mt. Austin NSW Andrew Foster of North Rocks NSW Robert Davidson of Greensborough VIC Francis Leeken of Milperra NSW Paul Veselovsky of Wilston QLD You'll be sure to enjoy WON- DERLAND - the classiest adventure game yet. Thanks lo Mindscapc for the prizes. MINDSCAPE AUGUST COMPETITION SPIRIT OF EXCALIBUR Here's a chance to join in some hair raising medieval action. MINDSCAPE are giving away five copies of SPIRIT OF EXCALIBUR, and one of them could be yours! Simply read the review of the game in this issue, then answer these questions on the back of an envelope. Stick MINDSCAPE COMPETITION, c/o PHIL CAMPBELL, PO BOX 23 MACLEAN NSW 2463 on the front, and YOUR name and address clearly on the back with your answers. So what are the questions? Here they come... a) Which "Sir" do you become? b) What year is it in mcrric Englande? c) Name two nasty knights. d) Name two other good knights. e) What show does the famous line "Goodnight John-boy" come from? Don't mess around - get your entry in the mail as soon as you can! This game is too good to miss. ACAR 65 Entertainment I've only received a few old lips from one reader this month, so I'll begin with some of my own. They're cartridge only, but that can't be helped with the majority of games today. If you've got tips (not pokes) on how to complete games, then send them to me and stop whinging about the cartridge pokes! Creatures This is the latest game from Thala- mus, a company with a reputation for producing only quality games, and this is no exception. Creatures is one of the few recent releases to be as polished as a yuppie's BMW! It's damn good. As well as the poke, there is also a built in cheat for those of you with no cartridges. Sim- ply (?) wait until the music dies out, now waggle the joystick in port one. The Fuzzies on the high score screen should be jumping up and down like they've got a bad case of Lemon Curry while you waggle. Keep waggling until the Fuzzies turn grey and then stop, plug the joystick into port two and play the game with in- finite lives (admittedly, you may have to get a new hand...). POKE 754, 173 : For whole legions of hung-over Clyde Radcliff's... POKE 46888, 173 : To stop that pre- cious time from tickin' away. POKE 15594, 96 : So Clyde can kill earth-ridden slime, but they can't kill him! Golden Axe Probe are a programming team that churn out quality games on the C64 like there's no tomorrow (which may be right for the Oz industry), but Golden Axe is an exception. No two player mode, only one enemy attacking, no villagers run- ning wildly aross the screen, this game has so many faults in the conversion stakes that it's not worth listing 'em all... But if you wanna see Tyris Flare's excel- lent maximum magical fx, then 'ave a squiz at these pokes! POKE 13150, 173 : To get loadsa en- ergy, just like eatin' ya weetbix! POKE 65476, X: POKE 65477, X : Where X is the number of the magic that you want, but it can't go past your se- lected character's maximum. POKE 3817, 173: POKE 3820, 173 : For infinite magical pots... Midnight Resistance VISUAL FX are to style and quality as Paul Keating was to stuffing up the economy. They are a pretty damn good programming team. Paul Keating was pretty damn good at stuffing up the economy. Nuff said... POKE 10169, 173 : For unlimited re- sistance fighters. First Strike Here's a cheat for this lurvcly After- burner clone, just load the game, reset and type: POKE 38316, 173: SYS 2051 <RETURN> and infinite lives are yours... Monty Python's Flying Circus Spam, spam, spam, spam, spamitty- spam, luverly SPAM... Wliat? Oh right, the dps. Yes, well, if you wanna have in- finite Gumbi's just type ANNE CHARLESTON on the high score screen and before you can comment about ex- ploding TV penguins, you've got a lu- verly can of ... erm ... unlimited Gumbi's Usagi Yojimbo 1 have no idea what this game is like, but if it's anything like the Turtles game, then it's a waste of time. So, if you wan- na waste your dme then POKE 20686, 15 for infinite money. Jack the Nipper II If my memory serves me right this was a pretty good arcade-adventure in it's time. But if it wasn't, blame it on my lobotomy! POKE 51 1 14, 173 : For infinite nip- pers... Retrograde That's how old these tips arc folks, this game is the one that the guys at APEX did before Creatures! But it still deserves a bit of a poke... POKE 50374, 173 : To give your spectrumesque spaceman unlimited en- ergy. GRYZORURRRGGH! This game is such crap that the AM- STRAD version was better! POKE 29187, 189 : For infinite Gry- zor's. Delta Hmmm, Stravros Fasoulas' second last game before he gave up program- ming and joind the army... One of the greatest shoot-em-ups of all time, even though a poke does help a«bit... POKE 2386, : To stop your weapons from wearing out. Parallax Not one of Sensible Software's best games, yet not one of their worst (GALAXI-BIDS, yuk!). If you want infi- nite lives so you can figure out this really un-sclf explanatory game then go into your cartridge's poke mode and enter: POKE 5796, 96 For unlimited ships. Well, that's all from Jellyfish, and that's all from me.. .So, send anything at all to me (especially a can of SPAM for my collection) at this address:- Slartibartfast, 4 O'Connor Dr., Bray Park, NSW 2484. □ ACAR 66 Entertainment Super Wonder Boy Jason Stubbings (aged 9) of Carey Bay NSW, says if you get hit by the last monster on the first level about a centimetre away from the end castle, a heart will come out. Grab it! Thanks Jason. Tell your dad those rumours are true - 1 haven't finished the Mayhem level on Lemmings, so send in the codes. Mind you, some hints for the r-e-a-1-l-y tricky levels would help, too! Shadow of the Beast II David Rich of Caringbah, NSW is hooked on Shadow of the Beast II. He's sent the following handy tips: 1. After going west and rescuing the demon held captive, he'll recite a lengthy spiel about rescuing his "companion". The only valuable information I've been able to get from him is about the "traps". He'll then tell you which lever to press on the upstairs bridge which crosses the acid pool in the "Western Passage". This activates the elevator. Hit the wrong one and you're history! 2. Rescuing this demon "companion" is necessary to get the password for entrance to the "Eastern Passage" and the sub- sequent reward of the "parchment" (I think!). In the spirit of true sportsmanship, , this password is variable, as is the lever in Hint no. 1. ie. the mongrels make sure that you can't bypass certain sequences in the game; but as in SOFTB1, you've got to play right through! 3. Go down the rope, head left, past the Giant Macemen to the "Karamoon Oasis". Get the jug upstairs and split. 4. Once the parchment is obtained, the next step is to head east, past the pygmies, kill the Monster Who Shoots Gobs Of Green Goo, and get his throwing axes. Then go back and stomp on the thin stretch of ground. This'll get you into the "Crystal Caverns". 5. Once inside the Caverns, the aim is to obtain the "ring". Waste the guards and use the throwing axes to kill the draw- bridge winder. First go up and hit both levers. Then go down and grab key no. 1 and get captured! Offer the jug in Hint no. 2 to the guard, get key no. 2 and grab the ring. You must rescue BOTH prisoners in order to escape through the Corridor of Spikes. 6. Head east, past the Serpent Sea Monster, the acid river and the bothersome bats. The Silvery Steel Swordsman can be vanquished by looking closely at the bridge. 7. The solution to Hint no. 7 will provide you access to the Whirlpool World. It's here that you'll obtain the Sea Horn. But be warned! The Giant Speaking Snail demands ALL your cash to get back! 8. Offer the Ring and the Parchment to the "Old Man". He'll then cast a "spell", and he's more helpful in providing in- formation. Q Entertainment u MAILBOX mmm PO Box 23 Maclean NSW 2463 Address your entertainment letters to Phil Campbell, PO BOX 23 Maclean NSW 2463, or fax them on 066 452060. Keep your comments or questions brief and to the point. FRA - The Riddle Answered Dear Phil, In the June Edition of ACAR, Andy Phang asks in his review of the game Tower FRA if any German readers can enlighten him as to the meaning of "FRA". I'm not Ger- man, but FRA is the IATA (International Air Transport Associ- ation) airport code for Frankfurt-Main. I hope this is of some help. Kingstey Bugarin, Guildford WA Ed: Sorry, you're not German so we can't accept your an- swer. Seriously, though, Kingsley, thanks for taking the time to enlighten us. And just think ... you're one of the few people in the world to know something that Andy Phang didn't! Back to the Future help wanted Dear Phil, I have just purchased an Amiga 500 along with Back to the Future 2. Trouble is, I haven't been, able to make it past the first level because of difficulties in trying to ride my hover board through Hill Valley. I've tried time after time, and I still can't make it. Would you please - I repeat, would you PLEASE - help me by telling me the cheat for the game, as I'm sure there would be one. I feel if I can't obtain these, then I would have wasted my money. Andrew Webb Toogoolawah, Qld Ed: Well, Andrew, you'll be glad to know our readers have a great track record in answering pleas for help. And yours, I might add, is more heart-rending than most. Keep watching these pages! More help please- Dear Phil, Can anyone help me witht the game Spherical? I'm currently stuck on Level 20, because I don't know how to kill the dragon. I have a C-64 computer, and although the C-64 content in ACAR is getting lower, I still enjoy reading the arti- cles, tutorials and reviews on the Amiga. Keep up the good work. Edmond Tatti Tullamarine, Vic Ed: Thanks for the comments on the mag, Edmond - we're trying to keep the C-64 fires burning, but the day has to come ACAR 67 Entertainment when you take the leap to Amiga-land. And when you do, you'll be well pre- pared. In the mean time, let's hope some readers can help with your Spherical dilemma. Flights of fancy for C-64 Dear Phil, Could you please advise me at to the best fighter pilot simulation game for the C-64. I've got the F-15 Strike Eagle, which is good, but what about F-16 Combat Pilot, F-18 Hornet, Fighter Bomber, and Project Stealth Fighter 1 } Any help would be gready ap- preciated. Mark Bishop Wagga Wagga, Vic Ed: Our C-64 specialist Damian Coynes says Fighter Bomber has great presentation, but is a little slow. He rec- ommends Aero-Jet from MicroProse. Contact Questor on 02 662 7944 for de- tails of availability . Pat on the back for clever contacts Dear Phil, Just a quick letter to say thanks to all the "Clever Contacts" peo- ple in your mag. They've helped me complete two of my games - top class service! It's great to know there are peo- ple like them around who are willing to help fellow games-addicts. 1 enjoy reading ACAR a lot. I re- cently converted from an English mag, which was filled with nothing but shoot 'em ups. ACAR is great, because not on- ly does it have excellent reviews on a wide variety of games, but it's got Ad- venturers Realm and your excellent col- umn. Keep up the good work! Ben Toyne Brisbane, QLD Ed: Credit has to go to Mike Spiteri and the Clever Contacts team, as well as other readers who write in with help. Long live The Giana Sisters Dear Phil, I'm a new Amiga owner, and I enjoy reading your magazine very much. Could you help me out with cheating in Giana Sisters, please? What I need are unlimited lives ... Simon Valentine Bendigo, Vic Ed: Stay tuned, Simon - and just to keep you going white you wait for some- one to write in, try pressing A,R,MJfl keys together to skip the level you're stuck in. Competition confusion Dear Phil, I've bought about 10 is- sues of ACAR, and I think they're great value for money. My only disappoint- ment is that when you have the Mind- scape competitions, I've only got a week to enter by the lime your mag ends up in my newsagent! Matthew Diggens Port Pirie, SA Ed: You're not the first to complain, Matthew, and we're doing our best. Problem is, we like to announce the win- ners two months after the competition, and to do that we've got to close entries by the end of the month. So remember, don't dilly-dally - get your entries in as quickly as you can. In the meantime, we'll do our best to stretch our dead- lines. Dealers panned and praised Dear Phil, Thanks for your competi- tions and the variety in the mag. I'm writing to tell of my experiences with some of the companies that have ads in your mag. I've had a bad run trying to order 'Powercopy' from PCM Comput- ers. After chasing wrong addresses and trying STD phone calls, I had no luck. In desperation I sent off to to PCM's P.O. Box - and after three weeks I finally got the goods! The pain is that you need two disk drives to use it. On the other hand, Mindscape have been fantastic - efficient, responsive, and polite to boot. All the best with a great magazine. David Rossi Ulver stone, Tas Ed: Well David, the fact that you need two disk drives to use Powercopy is hardly surprising - why didn't you do your homework first? And whose fault is it if PCM weren't at the address you wanted them to be? Sending mail to a PO Box is hardly a "last resort" - / mean, businesses have PO Boxes for just that very reason, don't they? A three week turn-around on your order may be a little on the long side - maybe they were out of stock when you ordered? CLASSIFIED ADVERT Please place the following classified ad in the next issue Q FOR SALE □ WANTED TO BUY □ OTHER RATES: $8.00 for 15 words & 50c for each extra word. Find enclosed a CHEQUE or please debit my Bankcard: Number: 56 1 Expires: Signature: Fax: 02 398 5322 Phone: 02 398 51 11 FOR SALE 17 BIT PB Public Domain Software $3.00 a disk or $12 a disk pack (5 disks). For our catalogue send a stamped self-addressed envelope to: 26 Owens St Wangaratta VIC 3677 Original Amiga Teenage Munant Ninja Turtles to sell for $30 or swap for other software. Phone Peter on: 042 849 754 SUPER FAT AGNUS CHIP for 1 Meg of CHIP RAM $60 Phone: 02 398 51 11 Ask for Andrew Dunstall ACAR 68 Entertainment An Entertainment Revolution Gail Wellington, Director of Special Projects, Commodore International, last month introduced Australia to a quiet revolution in home entertainment. The Darling Harbour launch of the clumsily named but neatly acronymed "Com- modore Dynamic Total Vision" opened with a singer on a real live horse. Natu- rally, the horse did what horses do best in the middle of the red carpet. Then there were some speeches. And finally, a full scale demonstration of the much touted "CD for your TV." With 650 megabytes of storage linked to the Amiga sound and video chips, and access to full audio CD capabilities as well, the CD-TV is a mind stretching machine - espe- cially if you want to play games. Wellington demon- strated a number of up- coming titles, and all of them were impressive. In every case, the huge stor- age capacity of the CD unit was put to good use, sometimes for graphics, sometimes for sound, and sometimes for a huge database of information. What, for example, do you get when you photo- graph Muirficld golf course every 30 metres or so and store the results on compact disk? You get Jack Nicklaus Unlimited Golf, the first golf simula- tion that approaches virtu- al reality. Produced by Ac- colade, the game features a beautifully animated golfer, great sound effects and breathtaking real-life views. Sched- uled for completion before Christmas, the game will retail for under $100. Xenon 2 - Megablast is already a well-known game. It's a vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up, full of high speed action for players with razor sharp reflexes. The original Amiga version was famous for its pulsating sound track. But wait 'til you play the enhanced CD-TV version. Now the synchronised audio track is lifted straight from compact disk, and the impact is dramatic. Hook it up to your home stereo and you will feel like you're at the movies. One popular game that didn't quite survive the transition from board and dice to screen and disk was Trivial Pur- suit. British software house Domark spent a fortune on obtaining conversion rights, then produced a computer game that was inferior to the original in almost every respect. That, of course, was pre CD-TV. Add hundreds of high resolution digitised pictures, full stereo sound and computerised animation to the database of 2000 questions and Trivial Pursuit comes to life. The animated quizmaster - a cartoon- ish owl - asks questions in a clipped British accent. "What percentage of chimpanzee genes are the same as a hu- man being's?" As he speaks, the screen displays a colour picture of a cheeky chimp. Give the correct answer - 99% - and an orchestra bursts into life with a full scale fanfare, accompanied by the applause of a huge audience. Very re- warding. Without a doubt, though, the star of the show was PlanetSide, an amazing game from Psygnosis. It's still far from finished - in fact, it's not scheduled for release until Christmas 1992. But boy oh boy it's hot. As the roar of jet engines pumps through the stereo speakers a steely- grey fighter swoops across the screen. A mountain landscape scrolls smoothly underneath - fractal graph- ics, regenerated from com- pressed data on the fly. The view changes. Now we're in the cockpit, and it's a life and death chase as we try to bring down a guided mis- sile. Another scene change, just like at the movies, and now we're looking at the ac- tion from above. This stuff is real - and nobody can re- sist applauding as Gail Wellington brings the demonstration to a close. These arc games to look forward to - and they're just the beginning. The CD-TV is an entertainment platform with immense potential, and from this early taste of what's on offer it looks like the potential will be re- alised. Here at the ACAR entertainment section we'll be keeping you informed - watch out for our brand new CD-TV section starting next issue. Q ACAR 69 Entertainment Maybe Paul Keating has faded from view, but his recession is still larger than life. It is at my place, anyway. You're struggling to make the house payments. You can't afford petrol for the Jag. Your Bankcard bill is burgeoning. And you re- ally, really NEED some new computer games to add a little joy to your other- wise drab existence. But what can you do? New release games are a luxury. With prices near the thick end of the hundred dollar mark, a new game can make a big hole in the av- erage weekly budget. The answer, if you're patient, is to wait for your favourite game to be released in a compilation pack. Sure, the yuppies have played it already. But who cares? You're going to get a bargain. The average compilation pack con- tains four games for about the price of a single new release. Not bad. But these days we're talking recession, and that means it's time for something more dras- tic. Something like the Big Box. The name fits. The box is twice the normal size. And inside it you'll find not four, but ten Amiga games. The titles come from the back cata- logue of quality French software house Infogrames, and granted, they're getting a bit long in the tooth. Amazing how time flies - back in 1987 I was impressed by pre-release demonstrations of Captain Blood and Tintin on the Moon. Now they're in the Big Box. But don't complain. They're still good games, and at the rec- ommended retail price of $79.95, you're pay- ing less than eight bucks each. Hostages is anoth- er game with a good pedigree. You're the leader of a crack anti- terrorist team assigned the task of liberating a group of hostages in an embassy. With smooth, large scale animation and atmospheric gameplay, this is a game with real class. Jumping Jackson is altogether differ- ent. This one is a puzzle style maze game with a healthy dash of rock-'n-roll. In a unique twist. Jumping Jackson makes you build your own sound track. The cutesy guy you guide around the screen picks up colour coded records - put a disk on the matching turntable, and the music begins. First the bass track. Then drums. Then guitar. And you've got your very own version of the Rolling Stones classic Jumping Jack Flash. Dif- ferent indeed, and very good fun. In a vaguely similar vein comes Krypton Egg, which is nothing more nor less than a very smooth version of Breakout. Remember the primordial video game where you had to bounce bricks out of a wall with a blip shaped ball? Same game, but now with much more finesse, and a host of added fea- tures like power-up bonuses and laser canons. It doesn't claim to be original - there arc plenty of Breakout clones. But this one is as good as most. Safari Guns promotes an interesting ethic. You're in the wilds of Africa, and you're carrying a camera and a gun. A parade of wild animals and khaki clad poachers passes across your screen at random - and guess which ones you have to shoot? Yep, this is another case of greenies gone crazy - shoot as many peo- ple as you like, just as long as you don't touch the animals. Still, it's a pretty en- tertaining game requiring fast reflexes on the change from camera to gun. Teenage Queen didn't have much ap- peal. Playing strip poker with a computer is not my idea of fun. Trouble is, I al- ways lose - not a good game for winter. Bubble Plus, Stir Crazy and Purple Saturn Day are the remaining titles, and I haven't really checked them out. After all. playing your way through ten games takes time. Thai's why the Big Box is big value. Plenty of variety, good quality games and a rea- sonable price tag make it a compi- lation I would happily recom- mend. □ Distributed by: Pactronics 02 748 4700 RRP $79.95 C 64 $49.95 ACAR 70 Entertainment ANDREW GORMLEY was feeling bored. But then he got hold of a life-changing game from Mindscape, and with all the zeal of a missionary, he's out to convert you. Will he succeed? Read on... Turrican II: The Final Fight About a year ago. Rainbow Arts pro- duced what is arguably one of the best shool 'em-ups of all time: Turrican. The combination of great graphics, fantastic gameplay and absolutely brilliant sound blew Turrican into the charts with after- burners ablaze. This excellent game gave Rainbow Arts a much needed boost. This time, however, they've gone one better and released the sequel - Turrican II: The Final Fight. And they have indeed gone one bet- ter. All of the factors which gave Turri- can its popularity have been included - and also enhanced - while the slight Haws have been ironed out. For example, the laser which simply turned without out any action from the little fighter in the original (shooting through your head was quite amusing! ) has been changed so thai he actually swings the gun around in a full circle. There are many other little details like that which make Turrican II a great game. The detail in the graphics is incredi- ble. The characters are superbly drawn with realistic movement. Not onlv that. but the range of colour is startling if you study the back- ground scenes closely. I reckon that there would be a spectrum of around 64 colours in just one of the waterfalls! As in the first Turrican, the scrolling is excellent and doesn't hamper gameplay at all. It's very smooth and gives the game a good all-round feel. I think thai [he music has fallen ever so slightly in its re- lation to the game. The sound- track is good, but isn't the ex- citing and victorious megablast we had all enjoyed in the origi- nal. Full marks to the com- posers of the tune - but this time [he mu- sic isn't quite appropriate for the fast- moving, quick-acting game which Turri- can II is. Finally, the complex gameplay is the factor which changes Turrican II: The Final Fight from a simple shoot 'em-up with good graphics and sound to an award-winning computer hit. Even in the first Turrican it was a little bit of the old "go from left to right and shoot anything that moves'. The sequel has changed all of lhat. Well, may- be with the exception of shoot- ing anylhing lhat moves! For example, in one level, you are blocked from getting to the extreme right of the level by a furious wind which throws out all the little dead crilters you blew apart - as well as a few live ones to keep you from getting complacent. The answer? Just jump down a wa- terfall to find yourself in an en- tire underground cave complex full of monsters - the nocturnal variety this time! After destroying the cavern community you have a choice of a number of tunnels to the surface, but only one will get you righl to the top. It's then that you have to .fight the big end-of-level guardian. And what's he like? Again the magnificent gameplay. I'll give you just one comment: AC/DC should hire him as a professional dancer for Thunderstruck. By now you should be able to realise why Turrican II: The Final Fight is such a superb game and why it is claiming rave reviews all around the globe. C64 users don't have any reason to complain either, as Rainbow Arts have released the Commodore version as well - and from what I've heard it's as near Amiga quality as that computer will go. □ Distributed by: Mindscape 02 899 2277 RRP Amiga $69.95 C 64 cassette $39.95 C 64 disk $49.95 ACAR 71 Entertainment ROSS CAYNES doesn't know whether he's coming or going. And he doesn't know whether he likes this game or not. I think he does. But read on, and decide for yourself... After three years of belting out Advanced Dun- geons and Dragons com- puter role-playing games, you would think SSI would be innovative and try something completely dif- ferent, wouldn't you? Of course you would (I know I did). But if you've been Death Knight* Inasa seneims in r,rsv.ux as si KtCOCWIZES THt CKUtSOKr KEIttUHS or Hf-K PC.ID LOVCK. S1K MUU, MCHlMHS-Bf.S . HIS SUOKD .IS HIS OEilTH DXrtOON SHOOTS tOHiWD THE SCATTtKlHtt CROHD. waiting with baited breath for something new, original, perhaps unique, now is the time to expel that breath of hope and in- hale a deep lungful of the truth. Death Knights Of Krynn is the usual AD&D stuff we've come to expect from SSI. So if you absolutely detest SSI's AD&D conversions, avert thine eyes now!! If, however, you can't get enough of the damned repetitive things, like myself, read on... Krynn The combat graphics and sound, for example, are very nice. Oh my wordy yes, very nice indeed, though nothing new (not that I'm complaining, mind you). The range of levels is much greater, rising even unto the lofty pinna- cles of 18th level, some- thing not often accom- plished in actual AD&D! The spell levels are also greatly increased, allowing mastery of up to 8 th level Wizard, 7th level Priest and 2nd level Druid, quite an impressive range of spells, to say the least. You may notice I called D.K.O.K (oo-er) a 'computer role-playing game'. Perhaps this is a bit strong when you come to think of it. You sec, enjoyable though the game is, it is little more than a first-person perspective hack-n-slash- walk through a maze-pick up the magic items and then finish the game type of thing. What I mean is, there isn't really much role-playing in the game. There arc some yes or no questions and quite a few mazey bits, but no pure role-playing. It might have been best if SSI had called it a 'Computer Combat Game' because roughly threcquarters of your time is spent doing just that. This minor gripe (I know it doesn't look minor) is one of the things that should be pointed out - it just isn't the game for hardcore role-players. There are a number of other gripes as well, un- fortunately. For example, chintzy sound. It would also seem that they've had the same problem with the non-combat graphics as they're almost the same as, in fact they may be a bit worse, than, those on Pools of Radiance! Except for the map, of course, which has fewer dis- tinguishing features than a rotten lemon. Quite a few times I found myself trying to walk into a rock, thinking it was a town, only to bump into a mountain half an hour later to discover it's really a city in fancy dress! But enough of my whinging, eh? The way I go on it seems like the game is about as much fun as Saddam Hussein in bed. There are in fact several good points to the game. LORD SOTH TURKS TO SOU BETOKC MOUH7!»« BJS HICRTWHRE. 'WITH HHflT J HOTC CflTBCRtS 70MS- ^ SHBLL Hflie ffli „. jwumcTble more. TRtasuRt sour p«tb£Tk (I1CTORS. JT HJLL MOT &£ LOHC LJtICB. There are new character classes (in- cluding my favourite, the Paladin) allow- ing even the most picky of players to create an adventuring party to their lik- ing. And to combat these- new classes what do we expect but new monsters, and there really are quite a lot of them too. If you like combat orientated adven- tures, if you just like AD&D, Drag- onlance or are simply new to the scene, try this game out by all means. I did, and I love it! □ Ratings: Role Playing: 30% Documentation: 80% Graphics: 60% Sound: 75% Gameplay: 85% Overall: 88% Distributed by: Electronic Arts 075 963 488 RRP C64 $49.95 Soon to be released for Amiga ACAR 72 Entertainment Get ready for some medieval antics as Phil Campbell sets out on the quest to become King of Merrie Englande... Being born with a silver spoon in your mouth isn't as good as it sounds. For one thing, it can be very painful for your mum. And for another, it can get you into all sorts of nasty situations. Put yourself in Sir Constantine's boots for a moment. He's a typical medieval "born-to-rule" type of guy. upper crust, educated at all the right schools. And life's not easy at all - especially since the death of King Arthur. Some people want Constan- tine to take over. And others want him dead. That's the 'meat in the sandwich' situation you'll find yourself chewing over in Spirit of Exccilibur, a chival- rous medieval tale set in the Merrie Englande of 539 AD. The first chal- lenge is to guide Constantine safely to the throne. Then you will preside over the Knights of the Round Table in an ef- fort to bring stability to your fragmented nation, while fighting off the evil ad- vances of Melehen and Morgolon. When you sort that lot out. there's more. Like a giant warrior at the walls of Camelot. Or the Enchanted Knights of the Forest Sauvage. And in the final episode. Mor- gan Le Fay's Revenge. Spirit of Exccilibur is a beautifully crafted game. Even the instruc- tion manual is a work of art - the text reflects thorough historical re- search, and the deli- cately tinted woodcuts add an authentic touch of atmosphere. The quality is just as apparent on the screen. The game is controlled from a scrolling map display, with a HyperCard style system giving access to close-up pictures of each village and castle. With a colour palette picking up the lush greens of the English countryside and a style reflecting the influence of medieval tapestry, the graphics are dazzling. Spirit of Exccilibur breaks traditional boundaries. It's a blend of fantasy role playing, adventure and combat simula- tion, with an optional dose of action in the fight sequences. Early in the game, for example. I encounter a monk. "Ah, Lord Constantine." he exclaims. "You have come just in time. The evil Knight Lupinus has challenged Sir Villars to single combat. But Sir Villars himself is recovering from wounds he received in Wales. Will you stand as champion in his place?" Always eager to impress, I accept the challenge. In a traditional Role Playing game, the outcome of the bat- tle will depend on the accumulated skill-points of your character rather than your speed with the joystick. You can certainly play it that way if you Distributed by: Mindscape 02 899 2277 RRP Amiga $69.95 Ratings: Graphics: 86% Sound: 79% Gameplay 83% Overall: 84% prefer, but if you're itching for action you can take over, controlling ev- ery thrust and parry for your- self. This time I simply choose to watch, as Constantine makes easy work of his enemy. In mo- ments Lupinus lies dead on the cobble- stones, and the grateful Sir Villars falls to his knees. "My Lord Constantine," he says, "You are a worthy successor to King Arthur. I swear my eternal fealty to you and the realm." A good start in my quest to become King. Soon I have added Sir Gahalan- tine to my list of allies. Then there's a tactful donation to the influential Ab- bot of Salisbury and some clever po- litical manoeuvring, and by the time I arrive at Camelot I'm welcomed with open arms. "Long live the King!" But that's just the beginning - and after a quick meeting of my cabinet around the famous table, we're off on our very first quest. Now role playing fans will really be in their element, with characters to select, equip and galvanise into a first-rate team. To my mind, the best thing about Spirit of Excalibitr is that it's simple to play. Sure, it's beautifully presented. And sure, there's depth - plenty of it, with hundreds of computer generated characters and cities scattered around the 16 screen scrolling map. But in this case, style, depth and simple fun are superbly blended into a thoroughly engrossing game. Q W5MAH SpeWvS TO St "TAKfilTfr- ^■■K3TT5 AWO SAXOH ■ ■ J MK$ d — i ro» _ ' -M ACAR 73 Entertainment Hill St. Blues It's Roll Call - 7:03am. Sergeant Es- terhaus is at the podium, and he's wait- ing to give out the assignments for the day. No, this isn't the TV version of Hill Street Blues we're talking about here - it's the Pactronics version for the Amiga. At first 1 must confess I was a little disappointed. I'm not sure what I was anticipating, but when I booted-up the game it was something completely unex- pected. This isn't the fast-action, shoot- "em-up I thought it might be. This game involves thought and planning. Mind you, after a few attempts. I was hooked! Your job is to keep the crime rate under control in the Hill Street precinct. At your disposal are nine officers (Coffee. Hill. Renko, etc. - all the regulars). You can dispatch them as you wish to fight crimes as they're reported to you over the radio. It takes some time to get the hang of this. When you"re sending out nine officers it becomes a little difficult to remember where they are or who they're looking for. (I'd suggest you have a pen and paper handy to make notes.) At any point in the game you can go to Captain Furillo's office. From here you deploy your officers, inspect the crimes available for investigation, check on the morale of the officers and see if you're managing to keep the crime rate under control. This, really, is the engine room of the game. The screen dis- plays an aerial view of part of the precinct. As you se- lect an officer you'll view the part of the precinct where he's investigating his crime. As soon as you spot the suspect, arrest him and take him back to the sta- tion. When you do make an arrest you'll need to make good notes about the sus- pect and the crime. Why? Because you'll have to go to court and identify the sus- pect as well as give details about the ar- rest (by the way. Joyce Davenport is there to represent the crook in court). You'll have to identify the alleged crimi- nal in a line up - if you can't he'll go free. The sound in the game is limited to a bit of city noise - cars and horns, and the siren of your patrol car. Not too exciting - bul noise isn't the point of the game. The game looks good. The graphics are sharp and the whole thing flows well. From your aerial view there are cars moving around, pedestrians, garbage in the street - ii all looks very realistic. Hill Street Blues is a great game of skill and planning. 1 liked the game a lot - it gave me the chance to fight crime along with my TV heroes. If you're looking for fast action and lots of vio- lence then forgei about the Hill. But if you're looking for a game to test your skills of organisation and strategy, then this is the one! □ Luke Tattersall Ratings: Graphics 82% Sound 58% Payability 76% Addictiveness 73% Overall 78% Distributed by: Pactronics 02 748 7400 RRP Amiga $59.95 ACAR 74 Entertainment s i=» I RI'S If you are stuck in any adventure game, or if you need a push in the right direc- tion, send your problem to: Adventurers Realm, 12 Bridle Place, Pakenham, Vic 3810. If I can help, I'll send you the answer lb your problem. If I cannot help, your problem will appear among these pages and eventually someone will write in with assistance. Hint sheets for the following adventure games are available free of any charge: Zak McKracken, Maniac Mansion, Indy, Zork I, Zork II, Zork III, Bards Tale I, Bards Tale II, Bards Tale III, Guild of Thieves, Jinxier, Pawn, Fish, Uninvited, Deja Vu, Hampstead, Hitchhikers Guide, Faery Tale, Borrowed Time, NeverEndingStory, Dracula Pt2, Hobbit, Adventureland, Pirate Adventure. Choose up to four, enclose a stamped addressed envelope, and send your request to: Free Hint Sheets, 12 Bridie Place, Pakenham, Vic 3810 The Realm also caters lor those who love role-playing-games (such as Pool of Radiance, Azure Bonds, etc). If you are stuck in a role-playing game, write to Kamikaze Andy - alias Andy Phang: Realm's RPG Dungeon P.O.Box 315, Maddington, WA 6109. Andy does not have hint sheets, and like me, will not reply to any letters that do not have a stamped addressed envelope enclosed. If you have a modem, you might like to log on to Island BBS - Realm's official bulletin board. You can leave your queries on the Realm's BBS mailbox, and even chat with other adventurers, or download hints and tips. Island BBS also offer many other interesting things for you to explore, and membership is a few dollars if you decide to join. It is available 24 hours a day - ring (03) 742 3993. Finally, The Official Adventurers Realm Hint Book is out now at a newsagent near you. It costs S9.00 for specialised hints covering over forty adventure games. Can 't find a copy? Ring (02) 398 5 1 1 1 and ask for Darrien. □ About the Realm Adventure games - they have been around in some form or another for years, and for over three decades thousands of adventure games have been played on all sorts of computers. Just when you thought the era of the adventure game had come to an end, when the likes of perplexing parsers, compelling stories, and brainteasing problems seemed to be a thing of past, and the days of solving Infocom classics are all but gone; just when you had be- gun to accept that role-playing games are the closest you would ever get to reliving that old adventure game magic, an excit- ing stream of new adventure games have rolled out - begging to be solved. Next month, Adventurer's Realm will be celebrating five years of bringing to- gether and helping adventurers from all over Australia. The fact that an article can run for five years covering just one facet of computer games is enough of an indication that adventure games are here to stay! New exciting releases from ex- Infocom author Steve Meretzky, Magnet- ic Scrolls, and Sierra are leading what ap- pears to be a strong return to the excite- ment, addictiveness and fun that made adventure games so popular in the first place. Next month, the Realm will be look- ing back at the progression of adventure games through history, and what we can expect in the future. There- will be a huge selection of hints and tips, and even a few goodies for you to win. So if you're an adventure fan, don't miss next months bumper Realm section! □ Realm's Chit Chat Clever contact Scott Logan is thinking of starting a small adventure club for Commodore 64 adventurers. Send a stamped addressed envelope to Scott (address is in clever contacts sec- tion) for more info. Kylie Daley wrote in asking for a list of adventure games the Realm stocks. Eh, I'm afraid the Realm doesn't stock ad- venture games. We do stock hint sheets, however!! Kylie would also like some help in Pool of Radiance. Mark Bishop of Wagga Wagga writes.... "I was recently given a disk with the game Sorcerer on it. Unfortunately, I was not given the instructions on how to play the game. As it looks like an interesting game, I was wondering if you could help me in obtaining a copy of the instructions." MS: Out of the ques- tion! Don't you know its illegal to pirate programs'? Does any- one have an original copy of Sorcerer they could sell Mark? Clever Contacts A couple more clever contacts who are willing to volunteer their lime and effort to help troubled adventurers. Firstly, a big thank you to all our clever contacts, and secondly, always en- close a stamped addressed envelope when writing to a clever contact. Scott Logan, 9 Colington Street, Mansfield, Brisbane, QLD 4122 can offer help in.... Pool of Radiance, Zak Mckrack- en, Temple Curse, Last Planet, Island of Spies, Adventureland, Curse of Azure Bonds, and Corruption. Allan Mills, 36 Pickworth Street, Holt, ACT 2615 can offer help in: Maniac Mansion, Ultima 1,2, Neuromancer, Space Quest 1,3,4, Leather Goddesses, Larry 3, Pool of Radiance, Curse of Azure Bonds, and starters in Kings Quest IV. □ ACAR 75 Entertainment Kamikaze Andy Congratulations must go out to Acco- lade, who did a fantastic job converting its hit text-graphics adventure Search for tfie King to the Amiga. With 32-colour graphics and superb music, Search for the King is definitely one of the best ad- ventures of the year. Amiga owners who buy the game also get a bonus hinibook thrown in, which will come in handy as you attempt some of the weirder puzzles. By the way, Accolade will release Al- tered Destiny (again, it's a magnificent Amiga conversion of an IBM-PC adven- ture) next month, and hopefully Conspir- acy: The Deadlock Files (which will fea- ture digitized photographs as graphics, and will also be released for CDTV) by the end of the year. There will be a sequel to Search for the King, and it will feature a mouse "point and click" interface instead of the type-in parser used in the first game. Look for the sequel early next year. All games will require 1 megabyte of memory and a hard disk is recommended. SSI has just brought out its long awaited Amiga conversion of Secret of the Silver Blades (the third in its Forgot- ten Realms AD&D series), which should please many RPG fans. However, there isn't much of a difference graphics or soundwise, and the gameplay is pretty much the same as previous efforts (effec- tively, lots of combat!). The fourth in- stallment of the series is already planned for release in early January, and is tenta- tively titled Pools of Darkness. The sequel to Buck Rogers has been put back to next year as well, and there has been confir- mation that a sequel to the hugely popular Eye of the Be- holder will eventuate some- time next year on Amiga. By the way. Eye of the Beholder is one of the Dun- geon's favourite games this year, and SSI has cer- tainly done a great job in the Amiga version. In what is probably one of the greatest shocks of the year. Origin has disclosed that Ultima VII will completely abandon the bird's-eye view that was used in the pre- vious six games. In fact. Ultima VII will closely resemble Wing Commander in interface, being a first person perspective game!! How die-hard Ultima fans will take to such news will depend on how Origin implements the new system. Sources in the company claim that using such a method makes the game easier to play, and more realistic. Hmm. We'll have to wait and see (and when I mean wait, I mean wait! Ultima VII is sched- uled for Amiga conversion sometime late next year!). Speaking of all things Origin, design- er Chris Roberts has started work on Road Commander (tentative title), which will use an interface similar to his ground breaking Wing Commander, but set on solid ground. Details of the game is still sketchy, but the Dungeon will bring you updates as they appear. Mind- scape UK has done a pretty good job converting Wing Commander for Amiga, using 32 colours and ray-traced graphics. Expect it out sometime in October. Finally, many of you are probably wondering whatever happened to Land of Legends, a much touted RPG that was supposed to be out in 1989, but has yet to be seen? Well, publishers Microlllu- sions seem to have gone out of business, and with it goes Land of Legends. Hope- fully some other company will pick up the title, which had colourful graphics and lots of potential. The sequel to Microlllusion's most famous title, Faery Tale Adventure, is definitely coming out on Amiga format later this year, but this time it's distribut- ed by New World Computing. Along with Faery Tale II, New World will be coming out with Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra for Amiga sometime in December. It features some of the great- est graphics ever seen on 16-bit ma- chines, and also utilises a fair amount of digitized speech! Unfortunately, New World has confirmed that since the game is so large, a hard disk is absolutely es- sential to play the game. Planet's Edge is another RPG com- ing up from New World, but it has a sci- ence fiction scenario and features over- head Ultima VI style graphics, rather than the usual Might and Magic 3D view. Expect it in January! □ Eye of the Beholder ACAR 76 Entertainment x^ on the Troubled Adventurers Alas, here are some problems that need solutions quickly. If you can help out, please write it soon! ! Chris Stratum from Victoria is stuck on Star Command, in the mission where the Princess' ship was attacked and she escaped near a black hole. How does Chris find her? (Chris would also like some help with the swamp in Legend of the Sword!) George Glover of Queanbeyan in NSW would like any help for two games- Astrodus Affair and Runaway. The Loser from Bondi Beach, NSW, desperately needs some help in Buck Rogers. He is up to the part of the game that involves the smashed spaceship (Level 2). He's not really sure what to do! Vicky Cooke from Salisbury Nth in SA is stuck in Island of Spies. She is on the mining ground, has moved the rock and truck to reveal a tunnel leading south, but she cannot seem to go south. Help needed soon, please! Battleiech has claimed yet another victim, this time in the form of Brian Je- witt of Ashgrove in Queensland. Brian is stuck in the map room and is unable to gain access to the room off it. He re- quires the password, and hopes to find the white code in there to send off the message to K. (?). Only a Battletech ex- pert can help Brian. Darren Healy of South Windsor writes to me with a Lemmings problem! (Arrgh! I had a feeling a few of these would creep through!) He is stuck on Tricky Level 26 (BKONMNFKIFQ). If anyone can help Darren, please send it to Phil Campbel'ls section! Darren is also stuck in Shadowgaie. Any hits will help him out. Finally, Christine Hill of Florey, ACT is stuck in the Jetsons. She can get George Jctson to the planet of Robotopia, but she does not know what to do next! Any takers? <# ^&%*A oi- the W Smart Adventurers Dept. If you were stuck a few months back, then there is a good chance the answer to your problem is here - below!!! Many thanks to those who kindly sent in their hints. Game: Kings Quest 4 For: Stuart George (June issue) From: Dale Priem, Oyster Bay, NSW. Help: Firstly, when you are on the pier you must jump off and swim west for three screens, avoiding the sharks. You will come to an island, and if you search all the beaches you will find a peacock feather. Secondly, the caves behind the waterfall have a number of screens. You must save the game before you go into each screen, and if the troll is there you must restore the last game (sometimes he is not there). Finally, you cannot get into the gi- ant's house until you have brought the unicorn to the evil witch. After that, the door will be unlocked. Game: The Jetsons For: Matt and Luke Walsh (June issue) From: Christine Hill, Florey, ACT. Help: Go into Judy's room, and move her computerised dancing shoes. The car keys are under them. From the living room, shute down to the garage. Use the keys to unlock the car and open the canopy. Entering the car will automati- cally take you out of the house, but you can always return. Don't forget to go in- to the living room and get the briefcase (in the lower right-hand corner of the screen). I also get the bowls and maga- zine on the coffee table, but I haven't found a use for them yet! There is a credit card in the drawer of the night- ta- ble (in the main bedroom), which is quite handy at the shopping mall. □ Stuck in an adventure game? Need help? - get your copy of the Official Adventurer's Realm Hint Book now! :Hints and tips on more than 40 games, compiled by Michael Spiteri, whose "Adventurers Realm" appears every month in this magazine. Only $9*00 from newsagents Or send cheque or Bankcard number to Commodore and Amiga Review 21 Darley Rd, Rand wick, 2031 (02) 398 5111 ACAR 77 QuickshotS - A quick look at what's new in the world of games Ratings: Graphics: 87% Sound: 80% Gameplay: 90% - mouse 40% with joystick Overall: 89% VECTOR CHAMPIONSHIP RUN If you're a Formula One freak like me, then you're the type of person who sits around till 1 .00 am to see the races live. In the end, though, we car racing freaks always end up hanging out for a slice of the action - there'd be nothing like doing a bit of racing yourself, would there? Well, now it's almost possible - thanks to Vector Championship Run by Zeppelin • Games. A snappy soundtrack introduces you to the selection screen. There's a choice of six Formula One circuits (including Monaco and Silverstone), and you can also opt for controlling your car via the joystick or the mouse. It turns out that using the mouse is the smoother way to control your temperamental and jerky Formula One car - so if you want to avoid frustration, ditch the joystick for this one. The 3-D graphics are great! From the cockpit of your car it's quite easy to get the sense of sweeping into the bends. But hit the railing or another car and you'll know all about it - the crunches help you enter into the Formula One world of buckling panels and dented egos. I managed to actually overtake a few competitors, but in the end the gameplay still had heaps of challenge left in it. Distributed by: Pactronics 02 748 4700 Yep, this one's worth your while. (MF) □ RRP Amiga $49.95 fcO TH |£Q:;S: " Nggf' : : : : A &. a .* rC .".^flR^P ' ^^^1_ A Hey - pssst! Are you into the pub scene? You know, the smokey social dens of the average working man - the place where you watch the greyhound races on the Skychannel and knock back a few beers with the boys. Where the jokes get a bit on the bawdy side, and everybody gets into a good game of darts. Especially the darts! There's no substitute for hearing the satisfying clunk of a well-aimed dart hit the board. Jockey Wilson's Darts is what you'll be using on your Amiga. The package features three separate dart games - Tournament Play, Two Player Head-to-Head, and the 'Round the Clock' game. The graphics in this package are really quite good. You're confronted with a normal matchplay dartboard, with your dart floating around in the foreground. When you want to throw the dart, hit 'fire', and you'll see your dart lob towards the board. Clunk! There's a score-board on the screen which keeps track of your progress. Sound effects are nice, with a digitised referee calling the shots. Other than that there's not too much else to it. After all, darts are darts. The good thing is that you don't end up with holes in the wall when you miss the board. And at the budget price of $19.95, it's worth snapping up. (MF) Distributed by: Pactronics 02 748 4700 RRP Amiga $19.95 Ratings: Graphics: 75% Sound: 70% Gameplay: 75 % Overall: 75% ACAR 78 Quickshots - A quick look at what's new in the world of games yfiU ■*? 3\ Super Off Road sets you in the drivers seat of a mean lookin' 4X4 - you're at the starting line, head to head with three other drivers. They can be human like yourself, or computer controlled- If you want to play with your mates, one will use a joystick in port 0. the other will use the keys, and you will use the joystick in port 1. Fair enough, unless you're the sucker stuck with the keyboard! The green light flashes, and the race is on. Point your truck where you want it to go and push forward on the joystick and you'll start thrashing round the track - it's a fair dinkum sand-pit affair, a dirt track with humps, bumps and water traps everywhere. High fences around the track keep you more or less on course, but in the early stages it's easy to find yourself going backwards in the bun-rush. There are bonus nitro tanks to intercept, as well as cash prizes - they'll appear at random on the track, ready to be picked up by the first car on the scene. Bonus cash can be used at the end of the race to upgrade your car, with a bigger engine, better tyres and more nitro for turbo boosting your performance. Graphics in Super Off Road are beautiful - the tracks are highly detailed in 3-D perspective view. The four brightly coloured cars are nicely done too. The action is fast and smooth, though joystick control takes a bit of getting used to. This is one of those "push forward for straight ahead" systems, with left and right pushes to turn your on screen vehicle left or right around the track. Fans of Super Cars and other "view from the top" style car race games are in for a real treat with Super Off Road- it's much better than its predecessors in almost every respect. Ratings: Graphics: 86% Sound: 75% Gameplay: 82% Overall: 85% Distributed by: Mindscape 02 899 2277 RRP Amiga $49.95 C 64 disk $39.95 C64 cass $29.95 NINJA RABBIT Ratings: Graphics: 79% Sound: 74% Gameplay: 74% Overall: 78% Distributed by: Pactronics 02 748 4700 RRP Amiga $19.95 It's hard to know how seriously you're meant to take a game with a name like Ninja Rabbit. And when the star of the show has fur, buck teeth and and a pair of lanky ears, it's even harder. Seriously though, doc. for a budget title Ninja Rabbit ain't bad at all. There's plenty of beat-em-up action against a number of classy looking backgrounds. Various Stoats, Newts and Weasels line up for a punishing round with the Rabbit - then it's down the burrow for some underground action. Down here there are falling rocks to contend with, flurries of furry fiends, and later, golf balls to dodge as you wander across the local driving range. The game's Ninja moves are fast and smooth, with good response to the joystick. Jump kicks make a satisfyingly rabbity "boing" - but other than that, the action really means business. Graphics are lovely - the English countryside in the background is a real treat. The main characters are large and well defined, looking remarkably realistic for such an unrealistic game. Sound effects are effective, with all the mandatory grunts, groans and slaps. Worth a look. J ACAR 79 Quickshots - A quick look at what's new in the world of games King's Bounty I think the name says it all. You are a bounty hunter for a bloke known as King Maximus. Now this king was a bit careless and left his Sceptre of Order lying around. Areth Dragonbreath's henchmen stormed the castle and stole the sceptre and plan on using it for their own evil ways. This is where you come in. You have to find the sceptre on one of four islands. You have to find villains in castles and beat them, then garrison their castle and use it for your own use. Each villain you defeat has a piece of a map. The more villains you capture the easier it gets. King's Bounty is an adventure game, strategy and action game all in one package. The graphics are in the format of the Ultima series and the music/fx are also good. To start the game you have to pick a class of player. There are four to pick from. There is a paladin, a knight, a barbarian and a sorceress. Each of them have qualities that excel others but they all have their downfalls. Then you get to pick how long you need to find the sceptre. The maximum is 900 days and the least is 150. Then it is off to the game. You start on the island Continentia and have to find seven villains and a map to go to the next island. There are castles, towns, roaming beasties that want a fight, dwellings where you can recruit soldiers for your army, and treasure chests with lots of goodies inside. I am a person hard to please and I don't really like adventure games but this one is the best I have played and it is recommended to all adventurers - it's also very addictive. (JG) Q Ratings: Graphics: 80% Sound: 70% Gameplay 84% Overall: 84% Ratings: Graphics & Sound: NA Gameplay: 85% HARPOON BATTLESET I North Atlantic Convoys The first in a series of extra scenario disks for Harpoon, Battleset II again pits the Soviets and NATO in a conflict over European territory. Set in the 1990s, Europe is under the threat of a massive Soviet invasion after the demise of Perestroika and Glasnost. Russian Hardliners have taken over the Kremlin, and their first act of government is to attack and subdue NATO forces in the continent before reinforcements can arrive from the United States (a scenario many strategists consider a real possibility, especially if Gorbachev fails in his push lor reforms). In the tradition of Harpoon, you won't be controlling the land forces of either side, rather you will take charge of the naval activities on the Atlantic after war has broken out. If you're the Soviet Commander, it is up to you to deter, damage, delay, and destroy the supply vessels that make their way across the ocean. Play the part of the NATO commander, and your task will be to safely guide such vessels into friendly European harbours, and hopefully turn the tide against the Red Machine. This and other Battlesets require the original Harpoon to run, and will also contain some details on new types of naval and air units. Like Harpoon, the Battleset series of disks is one of a growing number of products that will support any Amiga hard drive (vital in a game of this nature). (AP) Q Distributed by: Electronic Arts (075) 991 388 Requires Harpoon. RRP Amiga $45.95 ACAR 80 PROFESSIONAL EDITION Expanded Dictionary, Thesaurus with Definitions and Hyphenation, 1 MEG Required Faster Screen Display, Unlimited Graphics Per Document Version 2.0 WORD PROCESSING ACE excellence! excellence! the fastest word processor for your Amiga is the ace-in-a-hole for your writing needs. And we've stacked the deck in your favor with 250 available fonts per document; a Spell-As-You-Type 140,000 + word Dictionary (with legal, medical, technical, scientific, and geographical supplements); Grammatical/Style checker; 1.4 million Thesaurus with definitions -, Index and Table of Contents Generator-, Headers, Footers and Footnotes. You'll deal in PostScript output; True WYSIWYG; automatic Hyphenation; Math; resizable Color Graphics; flexible Mail Merge-, Columns and easy-to-use Macro-Language making complex actions a snap. With excellence! word processing is all aces. Committed to excellence since 1978 Microsystems Soltware Distributed and Supported in Australia ^ by pmpuTERmqTE product;, (ciu^trcilici) pt<p. ltd. P.O. Box C64. Mt. Kuring-Gai, N.S.W. 2080. Ph: (02) 457 8388 Fax: (02) 457 8739.