INFO-ATARI16 Digest         Sat,  9 Dec 89       Volume 89 : Issue 784
 
Today's Topics:
                        A LEGAL Mac emulator!
                           BBS Announcement
                     Blitz copy cable and utility
                  Mr. Covert (PageStream and Calmus)
                    Prodigy run under Spectre GCR?
                Still searching for a TIMECLOCK cart!
                    SYQUEST REMOVABLE DRIVES10643
                      THE MAC LAPTOP and STacey
                     WordWriter Paragraph format
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Date: 10 Dec 89 00:27:12 GMT
From: well!dsmall@apple.com  (David Small)
Subject: A LEGAL Mac emulator!
Message-ID: <14888@well.UUCP>
 
The note-thread discusses the legality of purchasing Mac ROMS, System, and
Finder.
 
        I have no comment. See next paragraph.
 
        People, please, please be careful about giving legal judgements as
anything but your own personal opinion ("..in my personal opinion .."). Even
that may not be enough. I was told in no uncertain terms that only attorneys
can render legal opinions, and if someone gets upset about what you write,
they can use it against you.
 
        I am not giving you this advice to advocate restraint of free speech,
which I very much favor, nor to mindlessly irritate you. As many people know,
Gadgets is currently involved in a "replevin" action against Data Pacific, and
a "libel" action against Happy Computers, plus their respective presidents.
Many of the comments I have made online are included as exhibits in those
suits and are the actual subjects of those suits. (Curious? Look at the GEnie
conference, May '88, in which I discussed whether or not to do the 128K
Mac emulator.) I am just giving you this advice from some rather bad
personal experience; while expressing your opinion online, *be careful*. I
would recommend spending the bucks to get a legal opinion from a computer
literate attorney (they're broken out by category in the yellow pages)
on how you should word your comments.
 
        I have no comment on ROM procurement / System-Finder procurement.
It is my personal opinion that I made very sure, to the tune of large lawyer
fees, that the ROMs could be had -- call up Pre-Owned Electronics and see.
Still, if you see a license and are bound by it, I think you should stick
to it.
 
        Personally, the thought of someone telling me what I may or may not
do with chips I paid big dollars for is ... you can imagine. I can just see
Radio Shack:"What is your intended use for this 74LS04? An assault weapon?".
 
        Please be careful. While it is one of the first cases, you can *bet*
that more libel actions will be brought by manufacturers whose products are
criticized online, as manufacturers realize the power of the medium. USENET
may be the biggest of them all.
 
        -- thanks, Dave / Gadgets by Small
 
Suggestions for what toputin a witty address line are welcome. I'm senile.
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Sat, 09 Dec 89 18:29:39 MST
From: Timothy Roeder <ROEDERT%ARIZVM1.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: BBS Announcement
 
Having finally received an update to the BBS program that I wish to use,
I am once again going to bring up my ST Binaries BBS.
 
For those who don't recall my posting a couple of months ago, this BBS
will carry the programs from the comp.binaries.atari.st group.  The
purpose of this is to make the contents of the binaries available to those
who do not have access to the Net.  As such, please pass this announcement
on to any local ST BBS's so that the existence of this service can be
widely advertised.
 
The BBS will operate from 10PM to 6AM, Mountain Standard Time, 7 Days
a week.  The number for the BBS is:
 
602-578-9115
 
The first day of operation will be Monday, 11 December 1989.
 
Currently, files from Volumes 1-5 are available.  The other volumes will
be added until it is as up to date as possible.
 
Thank you for your time.
 
Timothy Roeder - SYSOP
 
Internet: troeder@mis.arizona.edu
Bitnet:   roedert@arizvm1.bitnet
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 10 Dec 89 01:22:19 GMT
From: well!dsmall@apple.com  (David Small)
Subject: Blitz copy cable and utility
Message-ID: <14889@well.UUCP>
 
The basenote contains info about the BLITZ disk copier cable.
 
        This is essentially an analog copier. The "read-data" wire coming
from drive "A" is connected directly to the "write-data" wire coming from
drive B -- hence, whatever magnetic flux shows up on the track gets plopped
onto the destination drive. This makes for a powerful copier indeed.
 
        I used to *sell* a copier extremely like this, called the L.E. Systems
FDC system, back in '82 or so, for the Atari 8-bit. With 8 drives (1 master,
7 slaves) it would produce 7 exact copies of a very copy protected disk in
around 17 seconds. I will attest that thousands of 8-bit disks from Synapse,
Broderbund, Origin Systems, Paradise Software,  Epyx, and others I can't
recall 7 years later were produced on this system, and were very reliable.
It finally went away during the big slump of the 8 bits.
 
        Now, I'm supposed to be anti-pirate, right? Why do I like this
system? Bit-shift. See, when you write disks, if I've had it explained to
me correctly, you're writing a bunch of small bar magnets on the disk.
If the bits are   north south  south north,   those two bits repel each
other, and physically move away. Similarly, north south  north south attract,
and move closer. This makes them move away from the "window" that the data
seperator uses to determine if a bit is there or not.
 
        As I understand it, "write precompensation" is the science of
moving repelling bits closer together at write-time so they end up, after
repelling, where they should be, and more or less the same for attracting
bits.
 
 
        Now, when you analog copy, the bits start drifting, since there
is no write precomp. My personal experience with both single and double
density disks (heh! and even Commodore 64) is that you have no problems on
first generation clones. Second generation, the innermost tracks, where
things are the hairiest, start to glitch, and third generation is hopeless.
 
        Hence, this is a backup device that works best when you put a
master disk in the "from" drive. It doesn't work at all well when copying a
copy, in my experience. That tends to step on the copy-of-copy-of-copy
piracy. (Sure, it doesn't affect BBS's, but that's another issue).
 
        The other nice thing about BLITZ is its simplicity. I have looked
over the docs and it looks like 20 minutes with a soldering iron, nothing
hard. Parts are a DB-25 connector from Radio Shack and a disk cable from
your local Atari dealer (or Best Electronics). There does not seem to be a
copyright on the supplied software.
 
        Thus, your major cost is the download. Even ST-World is offering
the documentation on its monthly shareware disk.
 
        BLITZ copied, with no problems, literally every copy protected
disk I own. I know people who use it for a formatter! (I don't recommend
that, as it's a second-generation copy w/o verify). It is extremely fast.
 
        Technically, the big problem is syncing up index pulses. On both
drives, they have to occur at the same time. If you just copy, you'll likely
have a sector end up straddling the index pulse, and the 1772 automatically
generates a CRC error if it sees an IP in the sector (bug in the chip, WD
says). Thus the BLITZ has to get the drives spinning together, which is
a matter of toggling the MOTORON line on and off at high speed to slow one
drive until they sync. Doubtlessly the DB-25 printer port is used to supply
both the index inputs and output motoron, drive select, step, and so on.
 
        It is also probably helpful if drive B runs slightly more slowly than
A:, so A:'s track "finishes" at index pulse before drive B, just a little.
That was the case for the L.E. copier.
 
        I understand an outfit in Las Vegas is already advertising and selling
BLITZ cables and software, pre-made, ready to run. I know several people in
Denver who have built them and they work, plus those on GEnie.
 
        Now, if we could just make pirate BBS copies of programs degenerate
each time they're copied ... <wistful sigh>.
 
        I hope this information about BLITZ is of interest.
 
        -- thanks, Dave / Gadgets
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 9 Dec 89 23:01:11 GMT
From:
 zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!2fhdbeak@tut.cis.ohio-st
 ate.edu
Subject: Mr. Covert (PageStream and Calmus)
Message-ID: <19555@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
 
Mr. Covert:
 
You mentioned briefly in your last message that you own both Calmus and
PageStream.
 
Why?
 
I have the old (OLD) version of Publishing Partner.  I now have the money
to blow on an upgrade, and was wondering what someone who owned both of
the leading desktop publishing packages thought of them.
 
--Jim Sisul
The University of Kansas
(Our basketball team could beat the @#$% out of <your favorite team here>)
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 10 Dec 89 00:15:13 GMT
From: well!dsmall@apple.com  (David Small)
Subject: Prodigy run under Spectre GCR?
Message-ID: <14886@well.UUCP>
 
The base question asks if Mac Prodigy online software runs on Spectre.
[I hope no one minds me quickly summarizing the question like this,
rather than quoting 15 lines with indenting. If I'm breaking a custom,
let me know, okay? I'm no USENET whiz].
 
        Right now, at this second, at present, not in the future,
Prodigy doesn't work on the Spectre. The reason is that it is closely tied
to the Mac hardware architecture, and breaks numerous Mac programming rules.
For instance, it "lives" at IPL=7 (the eyebrows of everyone at Atari just
went up) and thus ignores keyboard interrupts. We've spent quite some time
chasing it with the Zax incircuit emulator, since nothing else can
penetrate it.
 
        That's the bad news. The good news is that it DOES work on the AMAX
if you hack a memory location. If memory serves, you need to change _SCSIflag
to $80. (Memory may not serve -- I would call ReadySoft). This means it
has to be very close to working on Spectre.
 
        So please don't take this to mean it will never work. For all I know,
it may come up tomorrow. In fact, I think it's time for me to give Simon
Douglas at AMAX a call, and see if he can tell me what's wrong....
 
        We will announce it when it starts working.
 
        -- thanks, Dave / Gadgets by Small
 
p.s. I've wondered if the numerous replies I write are getting obnoxious to
other Net users, many of which could care less about Mac emulation. Those
I can answer by mail, I do, but many are of public interest and need
posting here. Would you prefer if I "batched them up" and answered several
questions at once? Of course, that would break the subject thread that "rn"
uses ...  any other solutions / suggestions / comments are more than welcome!
 
        Send to the above address ...
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 10 Dec 89 01:33:47 GMT
From: rochester!kodak!elmgate!jdg@rutgers.edu  (Jeff Gortatowsky CUST)
Subject: Still searching for a TIMECLOCK cart!
Message-ID: <1166@elmgate.UUCP>
 
In article <1576@bnlux0.bnl.gov> atc@max.UUCP writes:
>Hello ATARI,
>
>       Do you know of any vendors that make a timeclock cartridge
>for the 1040ST?
>
>Thanks,
>
Deskcart! from QMI has a clock on board. In addition, it is a package
of desk accessories that do all sortsa nifty things. It does, however
require some 80K bytes of RAM for everything to be "nominal". ie: it
has a resident spooler/ramdisk that requires ram, if you use them.
Included are a calculator acc, a card file, address book, disk utils,
ramdisk,spooler,notepad,macro keys (including the ability to launch
the DA's by hot keys),typewriter,vt52 emulator,appointment scheduler
w/ alarms, control panel, Degas (tm) compatible printer driver auto loader
and a few other tidbits. It is really one of the better kept secrets
for the ST (I should know, I helped code it). And did not get rich doing so.
It has been deemed by certain magazine reviews in Start & computer shopper
and a few others as the best add-on product for the ST... <blush>
 
 
 
 
--
Jeff Gortatowsky-Eastman Kodak Company  .....rochester!kodak!elmgate!jdg
(use uuhosts or such to find path to rochester)
Eastman Kodak makes film not comments.  Therefore these comments are mine
not theirs.
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 9 Dec 89 22:51:00 GMT
From:
 zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!2fhdbeak@tut.cis.ohio-st
 ate.edu
Subject: SYQUEST REMOVABLE DRIVES10643
Message-ID: <19554@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
 
In article <8912080824.AA01365@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, MAXG@SUVM.BITNET ("Gerry
 Greenberg: 315-443-5378") writes:
> Does anybody out there have a Syquest removable drive hooked up to their
> machine? or know the address/phone
> of Syquest?  This might be the way to go for a hard drive
> system...Maybe putting off getting a hard drive for so long might
> actually pay off?!
> Thanks,
> Gerry
> ggreenbe@rodan.acs.syr.edu   (internet)
 
Atari makes a Syquest drive, the MegaFile 44.  I've never used one, but
I know a few dealers supposedly have them .
 
--Jimbo
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 9 Dec 89 23:59:34 GMT
From: well!dsmall@apple.com  (David Small)
Subject: THE MAC LAPTOP and STacey
Message-ID: <14885@well.UUCP>
 
I'm writing this on a Stacy - 4 (4 mb RAM / 40 meg hard disk) in Mac
mode, using a Spectre GCR.
 
        Good News! FCC has approved Stacy, Atari announced Wednesday night
online. While I am under nondisclosure and must limit what I say, I think
it's safe to say that Atari has really pushed hard to get Stacy out the door
and in a good, usable form. Atari has also done things to help us here
at Gadgets ensure that all is well with the GCR on Stacy, up to & including
the Tramiels.
 
        THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL PRICE, AND DON'T SAY I SAID SO, but I was
told the pricing on a 4/40 unit, like this one, might be $2500. You can do
the math yourself to figure how many Stacys you can buy for one Mac portable.
 
        I also have to say that as cynical as I am, after years of Atari-
watching, that there have been good things happening there that I wouldn't
have dreamed of happening even six months ago. Yes, there are problems and
weak points. However, there are good things happening as well, which to me
show signs of maturity and acknowledgement that US software developers are
essential to Atari's future. We could be witnessing the end of Atari's
troubled adolescence.
 
        On the Stacy: I find the screen very nice to work with. The much
overhyped "mouse movement" stuff is no big deal; it just takes getting used
to, just like getting used to a mouse in the first place. The Conner hard
disk is very fast indeed, and the machine seems 100% compatible with
everything.
Obviously, this is a musician's dream for MIDI applications.
 
        I found it *highly* entertaining that Apple put up very bright
tracklights above their Mac Portable display at Comdex. Anyone who's tried
it in normal to dim light knows why. Atari made the right move offering
backlighting; as a Toshiba 1200 HB owner, I'm hooked.
 
        Apple went for a meg of static RAM(!) (!!!!!!!), whereas Atari
uses the more power-hungry dynamic RAMs, which cost a heck of a lot less.
The down side, of course, is reduced battery life. After testing, I do not
recommend batteries for a 4 meg / hard disk unit *at all*; those d-rams
pull some kinda amps. (Maybe a Gates lead-acid battery would be up to it?)
I'd expect the 1-meg floppy units to do pretty well.  But look, I almost
always use this thing where AC is available, just like one of the higher
powered Toshiba units; the advantage is portability. No monitor to lug, no
drives to lug, cables, etc. If you want a battery-portable, go 1 meg /floppy;
if you want what I've got, go 4 meg/hard disk. The price is *really* right.
 
        Atari has also announced that developers get a 50% discount.
 
        This is beginning to look like one of the great deals in computerdom.
I expect that *very shortly* we'll get the T-16 accelerator on this, so
we can get around true 12 mhz throughput; we'll get pc-Ditto or PC-Speed;
and then we have a killer laptop.
 
        Good job, Atari. Keep it up!
 
        -- thanks, Dave / Gadgets
 
p.s. I want to publicly deny the rumour that Ken Badertscher is planning on
asking out Cindy Claveran (now back with Atari for a bit (!!) ). (hi ken!)
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 9 Dec 89 17:52:48 GMT
From:
 zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!aplcen!jhunix!esp_05@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
 (Stdnt 05)
Subject: WordWriter Paragraph format
Message-ID: <3590@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>
 
Regarding the good spelling checker in Word Writer and lacking in
First Word Plus:  I don't know if it's still available, but Thunder
from Batteries Included is THE BEST spelling checker I've seen on any
computer.  And I've seen a few, since I was involved in evaluating
packages for use with Stedman's Medical Dictionary for Stedman's
owners.  It didn't use that much memory, and it was fantastic at
finding the correct spelling of misspelled words.  It ran in the
background so it could check spelling while you type, and it would
work with just about any GEM program (eg NOT ST Writer).
 
I think BI is out of business, however, and I don't know if ayone is
still marketing it.  You may be able to find an old copy left over.
If it's not being produced anymore that's a shame.
 
Eric
 
------------------------------
 
End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 Issue #784
*****************************************
