READER COMMENT...

Dear Sir:

I am writing to let you know how much I appreciate your fine publication. As an Atari owner of only a few months, I find it very useful. It is especially good to be able to read evaluations of software on the market. But everything is great so keep up the good work.

I do have a couple of questions that perhaps you could answer. First of all, do you happen to know of any user groups in the area around Minneapolis or St. Paul?

The second question concerns the program "Download Terminal" which appeared in issue #2. 1 just cannot get it to run. The program seems to be exactly what I want and so it is very disappointing not to be able to run it.

Perhaps one of the authors could give me some ideas on the problems I am encountering. First let me say that I have checked the listing several times. It is correct. I always get the error, "850 INTERFACE NOT BOOTED". Upon examining the program, I discovered the error was in line 30 of the second part, "D:TERMINAL". Whenever #2 port was opened to "R" an error would appear, (error 130 - nonexistent device). I discovered this by removing the trap 180. There was no way to get around this problem, so I called Atari. They said the reason that I could not access the 850 interface was that I needed DOS.2.OS. I have DOS.2.S. So after a week, I received the new DOS.

Guess what? It still doesn't work. Maybe you could tell me if I am doing something wrong. My system seems to work fine with TELELINK when I log onto Source. Any comments would be greatly appreciated. One question that was never answered in the instructions was at what point do you put the telephone on the modem? I never got to do that since I thought the program had to be run first. Maybe that is the problem. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Roger L. Felton
West St. Paul, MN

Download Terminal works fine and is bug-free - the problem you are encountering still appears to be the booting process. You may have DOS 11, but do you have the AUTORUN.SYS file on the disk that contains the "booter" for the RS-232 handler? That handler checks to see if the interface module is present and powered on. Without the Autorun file you won't be able to use the interface module. -LP

 

Dear ANALOG,

Do you know if there is a way to change that ominous "READY" prompt? I'm sort of sick of my computer saying the same thing over and over again. There has to be a way to PEEK and POKE a "WHAT'S UP?' or a "COME ON, DO SOMETHING!" into my machine. I'm sure a lot of people out there would love to get some variation in their ready prompts once in a while.

Good luck & thanks,
David Gaertner

It would be a simple matter to change the "Ready" prompt in Basic, provided that Basic were resident in RAM. But since Basic is stored on ROM chips, you can Peek the memory locations of Basic, but it is impossible to Poke to Basic. You will just have to wait for Microsoft Basic to come out for the Atari. Since this Basic will be shipped on disk and RAM resident, you will be able to Poke to it all you want, changing the Ready prompt or even the spelling of the commands! -CB

 

Dear A.N.A.L.O.G.,

Here in Oklahoma City we are very fortunate to have several computer stores. Some have been kind enough to offer their establishments for computer users' groups. High Technology is just one computer store who does just that. They have offered their help in several different areas with businesses of this nature who help individual groups in organizing and providing a place to hold meetings and help strengthen the groups and the community where they are located.

That is why I am taking this time to write to you to inform others of the cooperation and support we have received in establishing a computer users' group. And to say thank you for providing your magazine, with all the information, and interesting articles, not to mention the fantastic programs you've been so kind in sharing with us.

I would like to ask you at this time to please mention our users' group in your magazine, as we are very new and need the support. We are very interested in contacting other users' groups and learning more about them. We would like to hear from anyone interested in contacting us.

Sincerely,
Ric Wails

 

Dear Editor,

Please inform your readers about a free COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARD in Jacksonville, Florida. The name of it is the SEB BBS and is supported by SEB COMPUTER. The hours are: Sun-Wed, 6 p.m. - 8 a.m. and Thu-Sat, 9 p.m. - 8 a.m.

The access number is 904-743-7050 and the sysop is Sam Bateh.
Sam Betah
SEB COMPUTERS
1705 University Blvd. North Jacksonville, FL 32211

 

Dear Mike,

I have a question concerning a problem with my Atari to address to your "Bugs & Bytes" column. I know of at least one other Atari owner in my area whose machine suffers from a similar problem, so perhaps there are others who could benefit from an answer to this question.

It deals with what I believe to be a hardware problem - but I could be wrong. Since I know next to nothing about the innards of computer-kind, all I can do is describe what happens when the problems occurs. Hopefully, you might be able to get some diagnostic insight through a description of the symptoms.

First of all, I have an Atari 800 with 32K of RAM. The problem seems to occur while running a program, but does not happen every time, except as described later. There seems to be no way to predict when it will happen, nor what makes it go away (which it always does eventually - so far). What happens is this: in the middle of a game, a band of what seems to be electrical interference about 1/4' wide appears at the bottom of the screen and extends all the way across it. It then travels rapidly to the top of the screen, accompanied by a loud, buzzing noise from the TV, and disappears, to be followed immediately by another, identical band. One cycle takes about 3 seconds to traverse the screen. This continues unabated for as long as the computer is on.

The program is not affected by this disturbance, but the buzzing is so loud that it becomes necessary to turn the sound off in order to continue playing the game or whatever. This, of course, distracts from the enjoyment of many of the Atari games. If you happen to be using a one-text game, such as an Adventure, there is no buzzing while the computer is waiting for a user input (although the interference cycle continues, but as soon as the computer begins placing words or graphics on the screen, the buzzing recommences). This interference is most obvious when the screen is colored something other than the standard blue, although once it starts, it is always present.

Turning the computer off and then back on will not eliminate the problem, and the condition normally continues for a number of days. Then one day, for some reason, when the computer is turned on, the interference is gone and doesn't return for some weeks usually. Now, that's a real bug!

Also, it seems to happen regardless of the type of cartridge that is in the machine - even no cartridge at all - as with Adams' Adventures.

On the suggestion of my local Atari dealer, I have tried pulling out the memory modules and reseating them, but to no avail.

A friend of mine has the same problem (or a close approximation thereof) and has tried replacing the chips inside the machine, as well as talking to Atari "experts" over the phone, but none of those things worked either.

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks,
Bob deWitt

What you describe is not a bug, but a hardware problem in your computer. From your description it sounds like a fault in your ATARI 800 power supply. If you haven't already done so, the computer (and power supply in specific) should be checked out by an authorized ATARI repair center. -LP

 

To the Readers,

Two months is too long to wait for your publication. I know it won't be long before you're forced to go monthly! I forsee Atari Computers and owners increasing in such numbers that your subscription department will have to double in no time. After all Atari has hit on a winning combination with a computer that's fun and can keep up with all the competition in number crunching at the same time, and can save you enough money so you can invest in a printer or disc drive or a box full of software.

On page 14 of the Basic Reference Manual you find that you can depress Control key and #2 key and you'll hear the buzzer; allright next time you are loading a program from cassette and everybody is complaining about listening to the data loading into the computer just depress CTRL 2 and turn down the volume on the TV. When your program is finished loading the internal buzzer will sound like a little alarm clock and you'll know that everything is ready to go. How simple can you get!!! I suppose you can use this method anytime the computer is busy working out equations or running some time consuming basic programs. You can use the WSC/CTRL/2 within a print statement in your programs if you want a little buzz every now and then, make several in a row and you'll get a lot of buzz!

Well, enough on that. Someone more learned than me should write in and give us beginners some really fancy uses of this little buzzer, after all Atari must have put it there to be used often. I'm just glad they didn't make it buzz every time an ERROR is made.

Sincerely yours,
Douglas H. Arnold Hanceville, AL

 

Dear Editor:

I just got a note from someone with a copy of a recent issue in which it stated that we are no longer producing Conversational Italian. Not true! We're cranking them out.

Hope you have a good New Year.

J. Peter Nelson
Public Relations Manager
Computer Division, ATARI