|||||| |||||| || || |||||| |||||| || || ||| || || || || ||| |||| |||||| || |||| Your || || || || ||| || || |||||| |||||| || || |||||| |||||| GEnie Lamp A2/A2Pro || |||||| || || |||||| RoundTable || || || ||| ||| || || || |||||| |||||||| |||||| RESOURCE! || || || || || || || ||||| || || || || || ~ A2 PROFILES: RANDY BRANDT ~ ~ PD_QUICKVIEW: EAMON, PART II ~ ~ BIG TEXT MACHINE REVIEW ~ ~ THE ART OF FLAMING ~ ~ HOT NEWS ~ HOT MESSAGES ~ HOT NEWS ~ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////////////////////////////// GEnie Lamp A2/A2Pro ~ A T/TalkNET OnLine Publication ~ Vol.1, Issue 9 """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Publisher.................................GEnie Information Services Editor-In-Chief........................................John Peters Editor.............................................Darrel Raines ~ GEnieLamp IBM ~ GEnieLamp [PR] ~ GEnieLamp TX2 ~ GEnieLamp ST ~ ~ GEnieLamp MacPRO ~ GEnieLamp A2/A2Pro ~ GEnieLamp Macintosh ~ ////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ >>> WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE APPLE II/A2Pro ROUNDTABLE? <<< """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ~ December 1, 1992 ~ FROM MY DESKTOP ......... [FRM] CPU STATUS REPORT ....... [CPU] Notes From The Editor. Late-Breaking Industry News. HEY MISTER POSTMAN ...... [HEY] HUMOR ONLINE ............ [HUM] Is That A Letter For Me? ZEN & The Art Of Flaming. A2/A2PRO_ductivity ...... [A2P] ONLINE FUN .............. [FUN] C'mon, I Dare Ya! Search-ME! PROFILES ................ [PRO] THE MIGHTY QUINN ........ [QUI] Who's Who In Apple II. Technomare. REFLECTIONS ............. [REF] SOFTVIEW ................ [SOF] Online Communications. Big Text Machine Review. COWTOONS! ............... [MOO] DIGITAL DIVERSIONS ...... [DIG] Mooooo Fun! Walking In A Minefield. THE ONLINE LIBRARY ...... [LIB] GEnieLamp ELSEWHERE ..... [ELS] Yours For The Downloading. Around GEnie: Internet! PD_QUICKVIEW............. [PDQ] APPLE II ................ [AII] Eamon, Part II. Apple II History, Part 7. LOG OFF ................. [LOG] GEnieLamp Information. [IDX]""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" READING GEnieLamp GEnieLamp has incorporated a unique indexing """"""""""""""""" system to help make reading the magazine easier. To utilize this system, load GEnieLamp into any ASCII word processor or text editor. In the index you will find the following example: HUMOR ONLINE ............ [HUM] [*]GEnie Fun & Games. To read this article, set your find or search command to [HUM]. If you want to scan all of the articles, search for [EOA]. [EOF] will take you to the last page, whereas [IDX] will bring you back to the index. MESSAGE INFO To make it easy for you to respond to messages re-printed """""""""""" here in GEnieLamp, you will find all the information you need immediately following the message. For example: (SMITH, CAT6, TOP1, MSG:58/M475) _____________| _____|__ _|___ |____ |_____________ |Name of sender CATegory TOPic Msg.# Page number| In this example, to respond to Smith's message, log on to page 475 enter the bulletin board and set CAT 6. Enter your REPly in TOPic 1. A message number that is surrounded by brackets indicates that this message is a "target" message and is referring to a "chain" of two or more messages that are following the same topic. For example: {58}. ABOUT GEnie GEnie costs only $4.95 a month for unlimited evening and """"""""""" weekend access to more than 100 services including electronic mail, online encyclopedia, shopping, news, entertainment, single-player games, multi-player chess and bulletin boards on leisure and professional subjects. With many other services, including the largest collection of files to download and the best online games, for only $6 per hour (non-prime-time/2400 baud). To sign up for GEnie service, call (with modem) 1-800-638-8369. Upon connection type HHH. Wait for the U#= prompt. Type: XTX99368,GENIE and hit RETURN. The system will then prompt you for your information. """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" //////////////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "And thanks to all for the quick response. No wonder, I spend / / so much time and $$ calling GEnie." / ////////////////////////////////////////////////// A.MASON4 //// [EOA] [FRM]////////////////////////////// FROM MY DESKTOP / ///////////////////////////////// Notes From The Editor """"""""""""""""""""" By John Peters [GENIELAMP] TOP OF THE PAGE Oops, I think I was a bit premature in announcing the """"""""""""""" GEnieLampLighter Awards in the last issue. Although we had several "professional" people respond to our questionnaire, many of them felt they weren't qualified to judge because they didn't have enough experience with shareware/PD programs. (!!!) So, does this mean that we're dropping the ball and canceling the awards? Absolutely not! Sometime in January, the GEnieLamp RoundTable and participating Computing RoundTables will be offering a GEnieLampLighter Awards survey on their main menu. This option will give _you_ the chance to vote for your favorite shareware/Pd/Freeware and commercial programs. All the details are still being ironed out so look to the January issue of GEnieLamp for complete details. Bad News, Good News If you have been following the saga of our GEnieLamp """"""""""""""""""" Elsewhere Magazine, you'll know that in spite of my continuing efforts, the magazine fell far short in the quality department when compared to our other offerings. Sad to say, the support for the magazine never developed like I had originally hoped. If you haven't noticed, GEnieLamp Elsewhere is no longer available on the RoundTable menus. That's the bad news. The good news is you'll now find a brand new magazine taking its place, GEnieLamp MacPRO. GEnieLamp MacPRO will focus on the Macintosh Developers RoundTable locate on page 480. Jim Flanagan is the managing editor, Erik Thauvin, is the supervising editor and they will be supported by GEnieLamp staff writers', Chris Innanen and Paul Collins. GEnieLamp MacPRO is available in the MacPRO and Macintosh RoundTables and of course along with all the other GEnieLamps in the GEnieLamp RoundTable on page 515. Download GEnieLamp? I have received several GE Mail messages asking me """"""""""""""""""" where can they download their issue of GEnieLamp. The answer is, in the GEnieLamp Library! The current issue, as well as back issues are available for downloading in compressed or ascii format. To get there, just type M515;3 or GENIELAMP at any prompt. Until next month... John Peters GEnieLamp E-Magazine /////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "A A A I I I I / / I I / / I E / / E / / E / / E / / E / / ! / / \ ! / / / \ ! / / / \ / / / _______SPLAAT!_______" / /////////////////////////////// R.MARTIN22 //// [EOA] [CPU]////////////////////////////// CPU STATUS REPORT / ///////////////////////////////// Late-Breaking Industry-Wide News """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Compiled By Lloyd E. Pulley, Sr. [ST-REPORT] Apple, Microsoft, Intel Bringing Video to PC's Apple Computer Inc. says """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" it is preparing to introduce software that enables the playing of video clips on most IBM-compatible PCs. Apple says its QuickTime for Windows will give machines equipped with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows the same capabilities that Apple Macintosh systems have had for the past year. Apple has licensed the new technology to a number of software developers -- including Adobe Systems, Lotus Development Corp., Software Publishing Co. and WordPerfect Corp. -- which will build applications for it. Apple's announcement came at the same time Microsoft and Intel Corp. unveiled a competing product dubbed Video for Windows, based on Intel's new Indeo video digital technology. SPA Membership Hits 1,000 The Software Publishers Association (SPA) """"""""""""""""""""""""" announced this week that the association's roster has topped 1,000 members. The SPA, which acts as the industry representative to the federal government and works to stop software piracy, was begun in 1984 with only 25 member companies. First 66 MHz 486 Computer For Under $2,000 Lightning Computer has """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" announced shipment of a computer billed as the first 66 MHz 486 PC to be priced at under $2,000. Available by mail order for $1,995, the new Lightning Omnicache 486DX comes standard with a 170 MB hard drive, 4 MB of RAM (expandable to 32 MB), 64K of cache (expandable to 256K), an SVGA monitor, a Windows accelerator, and a 1.2 or 1.44 MB floppy drive, among other features. For additional fees, the system can be customized with options ranging from drives and monitors to accelerators and memory boards. Other standard features consist of an eight-slot ISA bus motherboard with AMI BIOS, a full-sized chassis with six drive bays and a 250-watt UL power supply, a heat sink for cooling, an 101-key enhanced keyboard, and a combination card with IDE, FDD, two serial ports, one parallel port, and one game port. Apple to Sell More PCs than IBM this Year According to industry analyst """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Kimball Brown, Apple Computer is gaining on IBM and will probably sell more personal computers than the IBM, the industry's largest company, this year. Brown said that Apple shipped more pc's in the second quarter of this year than IBM did and widened the gap in the third quarter. Brown says that the reason for Apple's gain is twofold. One because Apple finally announced products based on Motorola's top-of-the-line 68040 processor. Second because IBM was late launching its new low-end product line. Brown's projections refer only to personal computers. IBM's unit ship- ments of all computers, including mainframes, minicomputers, and work- stations, still exceed Apple's. IBM, NBC Test 'News On Demand' IBM and NBC are developing a personal """""""""""""""""""""""""""""" computer-based system that will allow viewers to retrieve videotaped news reports on demand. Home personal computer users would not be able to hook up to the system. But businesses and other large subscribers would be able to call up video news, updated stock market summaries and internally produced training films or corporate announcements. The news reports will be supplied by NBC News and CNBC, the company's business-news cable TV channel, and will be updated hourly. Verbatim Introduces 5.25" Rewritable Optical Disks Verbatim Corp. has """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" introduced new 5.25-inch double-sided rewritable optical disks that store 1.1 to 1.3 gigabytes of data. A statement from the company quotes John Stevens, manager of its optical storage products marketing, as saying the disks, which meet proposed ECMA/ISO standards, now are being evaluated by a number of leading drive manufacturers. He said the disks are compatible with existing optical disk drives, adding, "Perhaps even more important is the increased data transfer rate of 750 to 1,600K/sec. This allows even faster retrieval of files, which becomes more important as the amount of archived data increases." IBM Hits 100mhz! Code naming it "Blue Lightning," IBM Corp. announced """""""""""""""" this week that it has hit the 100mhz speed barrier. IBM demonstrated the clock-tripling processor monday, calling it the world's fastest 486 microprocessor. Blue Lightning works through clock-tripling, a process that allows the chip to operate internally at three times its rate clock speed. The chip was developed by IBM under a long-standing agreement with Intel Corp. Intel Offers New '486 Chip A new '486 chip for portable computers that is """""""""""""""""""""""""" said to offer twice the performance at half the power usage of an earlier model has been introduced by Intel Corp. Intel's '486 SL microprocessor operates on 3.3 volts of electricity, down from the 5 volts required by most chips. Intel says that provides more computing time on battery-powered portable computers. The '486 SL produces twice the computing speed and performance of Intel's earlier '386 SL microprocessor, another chip designed to conserve battery power. [Ctsey. STReport Online Magazine] /////////////////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "Yeah!!, I found a compass!! (I get excited over little things)" / ////////////////////////////////////////////////// C.KLIMUSHYN //// [EOA] [HEY]////////////////////////////// HEY MISTER POSTMAN / ///////////////////////////////// Is That A Letter For Me? """""""""""""""""""""""" By Darrel Raines & Phil Shapiro [D.RAINES] [S.SHAPIRO1] o A2 HOT SPOTS o Apple II ODDS & ENDS o THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE o APPLE HEADS WANT TO KNOW o MESSAGE SPOTLIGHT >>> A2 BULLETIN BOARD HOT SPOTS <<< """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" [*] Category 5, Topic 2 ...... Rumor mill and basic Apple chit-chat [*] Category 7, Topic 7 ...... Found Classics! [*] Category 11, Topic 10 .... Recommended hard drives [*] Category 11, Topic 16 .... Optical and floptical (tm) drives [*] Category 13, Topic 16 .... JEM Software [*] Category 17, Topic 4 ..... AppleWorks general discussion [*] Category 24, Topic 3 .... ProTERM 3.0 macro questions [*] Category 42, Topic 10 .... II Alive: An Apple II magazine >>> Apple II ODDS & ENDS <<< """""""""""""""""""""""""""" Late Breaking News A new Apple IIGS users group has formed recently in """""""""""""""""" England to serve the needs of Apple IIGS users in the entire United Kingdom. This group will be publishing a "members' disk" every two months. The disk will include articles, AppleWorks macros and templates, and other goodies. This new group is looking to their fellow Apple II enthusiasts in the New World to help them assemble some lively and informative disks. If you know of any good articles or public domain/shareware files they should have, kindly send the material to: Dr. B.P. (Peter) Stark 41 High Street Great Shelford Cambridge CB2 5EH England WOW! A lot of excitement occurred earlier this month when Quality """" Computers announced their new Apple II specific bi-monthly magazine, II Alive. Shortly after this announcement, a new topic was started up on the subject in the Quality Computer category in the Apple II RoundTable. For the latest news about "II Alive," stop by and read the new messages topic 10 in category 42. Apple II Gaming Update """""""""""""""""""""" Message 67 Sat Oct 31, 1992 R.HOUSTON3 [Bobby] at 11:19 EST >If anyone has any of the Sierra games for the GS, please Email me at >R.HOUSTON3 so we can compare lists and perhaps trade. I've got quite a >few of them, but not all of them. Can't seem to find them for purchase >anywhere. Thanks! Try Big Red Computer Club (aka Big Red) at (402) 379-4680. They have: Member's $ Non-Member's $ """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Black Cauldron * $20 $25 King's Quest I thru IV * $20 $25 Gold Rush * $20 $25 Manhunter New York * $15 $20 Mixed Up Mother Goose $15 $20 Police Quest * $20 $25 Silpheed # $15 $20 Space Quest I thru II * $20 $25 Thexder # $15 $20 * = adventure games # = arcade games They also have Sierra's "Smart Money" for $35 (members - $45 for nonmembers). Membership is $19.95 and includes 12 issues of Scarlett (Big Red's newsletter), which also lists a very dynamic PD library whose disks cost only $3.50 a piece. -Mike Murley (M.MURLEY3, CAT6, TOP3, MSG:68/M645;1) OUT OF THIS WORLD Got "Out of this World" today. :) Starts off with a """"""""""""""""" very nice cinematic introduction (well, the actually the game has a lot of cinematic aspects), and then throws you into the game (course you can bypass the introduction later after you've enjoyed it a few times). Been using the keyboard (also supports a joystick), and the playability's great. As mentioned in an earlier RTC on OOTW, the game features polygon graphics which results in very nice animation (life-like movements of your character and the others he encounters), music that sets the proper atmosphere, and great sound effects. It also has customizable settings before you play that allows for the setting of full-screen play, 3 quarters screen, half screen, or even less depending on whether you have an accelerator card or not (I have a ZipGS 9/32k, and I've been playing it at full screen with very good results). Course if you have an unaccelerated GS, you'll probably want a smaller screen mode (although I'd recommend getting an accelerator instead :). OOTW also has keywords that allow you to restore at different levels so you don't always have to begin from the start (ie. preset saves). For those of you that attended the conference on OOTW, or read the transcript, you probably know all this (this is primarily for the gaming lurkers out there ;). So those of you out there that have been longing for new IIGS games, grab this great arcade/adventure game. It's available from the Big Red Computer Club (BRCC). -Thanks, Bill. :) (KMCCANN, CAT6, TOP3, MSG:90/M645;1) Thoughts on computer games, hints, and solutions... When I use a """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" walk-thru or commercial clue book, I have another person keep it. That way, I can't just read my way through the game. My wife delights in making me "die" a dozen times before giving me the clue. Some of us just need some extra help, which is why the folks who put out the games put out clue books. Otherwise, most of us would never finish anything. That's why every slash and spell game (Wizardry, BT series, Dragon Wars, Ultima series, AD&D series, etc.) winds up with a legion of hint books, solves, commercial and PD character editors, and maps. They are just plain hard. Remember just trying to get two blocks out of the Adventurers' Guild in BT I with a wimpy level 1 party without getting creamed? Some designers have never figured out that playability (i.e. you have a chance of winning...) and enjoyment are why people play games. I have never finished the last arcade sequence in Manhunter NY, nor did I ever win the last shootout in Rocket Ranger. As far as I am concerned, those are impossible and I tossed the games. For the record, my kids, with their super fast, arcade trained reflexes were unable to beat those either... OTOH, romping and blasting your way through a game with level 256 characters, maps, and a complete walk-thru defeats the purpose of the game. Somewhere in the middle lies fun. -Mike Murley (M.MURLEY3, CAT6, TOP3, MSG:136/M645;1) >>> THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE <<< """"""""""""""""""""""""""""" THE PLAYERS IN THE PLAY Have you ever wondered about the background and """"""""""""""""""""""" interests of the other Apple II enthusiasts on GEnie? Would you like to meet others with similar interests and computer set ups? The Apple II RoundTable has a special message area, "Category 2, Topic 6," set aside expressly for people to introduce themselves to one another. Stop by and find out more about your fellow Apple II enthusiasts. To give you a sample of the message postings, here are five interesting messages that were posted in the last few months. [*][*][*] PLAYER 1 Hi! My name is Steve Colton and I make my home in Minneapolis, """""""" MN... I've got an Apple IIgs with a 40 megabyte Vulcan hard drive, a 4 meg ram expansion and a TransWarp GS accelerator card... I'm just starting to work with desktop programming, the toolbox and Pascal and I'll be haunting the A2Pro RT for ideas there... I pay for my computer habit by working as an accountant and I've done a lot of work with classic Appleworks (particularly the spreadsheet) and UltraMacros. Hope to get (and give if I can) Appleworks help and ideas here... I also use ProSel and Talk Is Cheap and will be interested in conversations there... (S.COLTON1, CAT2, TOP6, MSG:42/M645) PLAYER 2 Hello! My name is Andre. I'm living in the small town called """""""" Zug in the small country called Switzerland. I joined GEnie only a few weeks ago and I like it very much! I've got an Apple IIGS at home equipped with a 40 meg Vulcan Gold, 8 meg OctoRam and a 7 Mhz TransWarp (and of course a lot of other accessories like Audio Animator, DataLink, ComputerEyes, ...). Recently I became a member of Bright Software. I like this group. We're independent and we enjoy the work with the IIGS. Assembly language is our second mother tongue; we are exclusively working with Merlin. At the end of 1991 I finished my first commercial program called ShadowDial, that's a software decoder for the IIGS allowing to use the Swiss (German) Videotex (Bildschirmtext) service. Videotex (Bildschrimtext) is something like the French Minitel or like the American Prodigy. If you have any questions about us or our products send email to me or use the RoundTable Category 13, Topic 13 (Hmm...fortunately I'm not superstitious!). -Andre (A.HORSTMANN, CAT2, TOP6, MSG:45/M645) PLAYER 3 This is Texas Red "Deb" signing on. I run an Apple ][e with an """""""" AE Vulcan 20, an AE DataLink Express, an AE RamFactor, an AE Transwarp, and an Epson FX185 powered by a Grappler +. I use my computer for Genealogy (Family Roots) and Money Management (MYM) and newsletters (out of the game for a while, nothing really good without a mouse), plus the modem. Plus I use Appleworks with all of them. Love my Apple ][e, and I do know the "other" world as I use a Zenith Lap Top 286 with Microsoft Word 5/Graph/and Spreadsheet. I also use a "Big" Zenith at my church where I spend a lot of volunteer time where we have loaded on a custom Church management program and use also Wordstar Professional. -Deb (D.KOPLEN, CAT2, TOP6, MSG:51/M645) PLAYER 4 Hi! My name is Steve DePaul. I'm from Gig Harbor, Washington """""""" and I have been lurking around here for too many months. I've learned a lot but it is time to ask some specific questions so I had better figure out how to send a message. I run a computer lab at an elementary school in Tacoma and I have a few AppleShare headaches. If this comes through, I'm heading over to the appropriate category. How did I do? -Steve (S.DEPAUL3, CAT2, TOP6, MSG:79/M645) PLAYER 5 Hello! I've been visiting the A2 Bulletin Board on GEnie for """""""" over a year. My "participation" has been downloading files and reading the messages posted. I did post a question about a problem I had getting logged on to America Online --- probably not a good first post! (By the way, I did get an answer that fixed my problem). Anyway, I thought it was time to introduce myself. I've had an Apple II since 1983; first a IIc, and now a IIgs. My kids (8 & 11) use the IIgs for entertainment and some school projects (word processing, generating graphics). I use it for a little of everything--my current project is to create some HyperStudio stacks to help me keep up with what my kids are learning in school! My day job is as a manager of an engineering group responsible for process integration/new technology development at a semiconductor manufacturer. I'm over 40 and responded to the urge to buy a sports car (mid-life crisis) with the purchase of a TransWarp accelerator card. Paint job isn't much to talk about but the mileage is great! Like to thank everyone who has posted questions and replies. The Apple II RoundTable on GEnie is the most reliable source of information about the Apple II around. Best Regards, -Don Erickson (D.ERICKSON7, CAT2, TOP6, MSG:86/M645) >>> APPLE HEADS WANT TO KNOW <<< """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Who's Running The Show? Here's an up-to-date listing of your Apple II """"""""""""""""""""""" sysops on GEnie: Name Position GE Mail """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Dean Esmay Apple II Chief Sysop A2.DEAN Bill Dooley A2 Bulletin Board Manager A2.BILL Susan MacGregor A2 Real Time Conference Manager A2.SUSAN Tim Tobin A2 Library Manager A2.TIM Tyler Weisman A2 Library Assistant A2.TYLER Lunatic E'Sex Apple II Promotions Manager A2.LUNATIC Matt Deatherage A2Pro Leader M.DEATHERAGE Steve Gunn A2Pro Assistant A2PRO.STEVE Jim Murphy A2Pro Assistant A2PRO.JIM Greg Da Costa A2Pro Assistant A2PRO.GREG Todd P. Whitsel A2Pro Assistant A2PRO.TODDPW Our Able A2 Library Assistants """""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Tom Zuchowski 8-bit games & utilities T.ZUCHOWSKI HangTime Hypermedia and Sounds A2.HANGTIME Pat Kern Clip Art & graphics C.KERN1 Steve Beville Appleworks & related S.BEVILLE Our A2 Real-Time Conference (RTC) Assistants """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Dave Ciotti Saturday Night Live - Saturday A2.BEAR Don Arrowsmith II Speak - Sunday D.ARROWSMIT1 Lynda Botez New Users - Monday L.BOTEZ Susan MacGregor Formal Guest - Tuesday A2.SUSAN HangTime Hypermedia - Wednesday A2.HANGTIME Mike Garvey TBC Forum - Thursday TBC Jim Zajkowski Telecommunications - Friday J.ZAJKOWSKI Keeping an eye out on all of us is Tom Weishaar, the Manager of the Apple II RoundTables here on GEnie! (A2.DEAN, CAT1, TOP24, MSG:1/M645;1) TIPS & TRICKS If you'd like to add your own short "bio" to Category 2, """"""""""""" Topic 6, you need not compose the message online. You can save connect time (and money) by composing your message in AppleWorks 3.0, printing the short file to disk as a text file (do make sure to add carriage returns at the end of each line, though). Then after entering the roundtable message area, type "Set 2" to set the category. You can then proceed to read the last message, and add your own. Instead of typing in the message online, use the GEnie "*UPLOAD" command when you see the first line number. Then do an "ASCII" upload from your Apple II communications program. When the cursor returns to the bottom left corner of your screen, type a . You'll then see the bottom line number of your prepared message. The final step is to type: "*SN" to save this message without having GEnie reformat it. To help the Apple II community come to know each other better, the Apple II GEnieLamp will be featuring messages from the Category 2, Topic 6 in upcoming issues of the publication. THE ONGOING APPLE II FLEA MARKET The Apple II RoundTable on GEnie is """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" known nationwide for the interesting and helpful messages that are posted each day. But technical support and advice are only one part of the roundtable message area. The roundtable serves as host of the Apple II Free Trade Zone, an ongoing international Apple II flea market. Before you buy that new computer or peripheral, you'd do well to check the messages in Category 4, the "A2 Free Trade Zone" to see if someone is selling what you want second-hand. What makes the A2 Free Trade Zone so particularly useful is that the "for sale" and "wanted" classifieds are neatly organized into topics. So if you're looking to buy or sell something, you can steer right over to the appropriate topic. A recent perusal of the A2 Free Trade Zone turned up the following two exceptional bargains. After these two messages is a listing of all the topics in the A2 Free Trade Zone. [*][*][*] LOOKING? Apple IIc System 128k, includes Panasonic color monitor, built """""""" in 5.25" disk drive, Apple Brand IIc carrying case..........$200 Half Height 5.25" drive for IIGS or IIc.............. $50 Apple 3.5" Platinum Disk Drive.......................$125 Grappler C IIc Printer Interface w/cable..............$20 Jeff Strichard: (305) 587-9590; GEnie address: J.Strichard1 (J.STRICHARD1, CAT4, TOP10, MSG:45) OR.... For Sale: Zip chip accelerator for Apple II+ or Apple IIe. """""" 8mhz.....$65.00. Send e-mail if interested. (RAM-ROD, CAT4, TOP10, MSG:71/M645) CHECK IT OUT! """"""""""""" CATEGORY 4 :The A2 Free Trade Zone (Items For Sale, Items Wanted, & Etc.) =========================================================================== Msgs Status Author 1 A2's Classifieds 3 Closed ERIC-M 2 General Discussion on Buying & Selling 53 Open ERIC-M 3 Collected Items and Full Systems 50 Open ERIC-M 4 8-bit Software 25 Open ERIC-M 5 16-bit Software 16 Open ERIC-M 6 Expansion Cards 16 Open ERIC-M 7 Floppy Drives 14 Open ERIC-M 8 Hard Drives, Tape, CD-ROM, Mass Storage 11 Open ERIC-M 9 Printers, Modems, and Accessories 21 Open ERIC-M 10 Other Hardware/Miscellaneous Equipment 71 Open ERIC-M 11 Books and Periodicals 0 Open ERIC-M 12 Computer Shows and Fairs 1 Open ERIC-M 13 2400bps modem CHEAP! 1 Open J.ZERDEN 14 GS Hardware/Software for Sale 11 Open M.CLEVELAND5 15 Standard slot (1-7) expansion cards 35 Closed ERIC-M 19 5.25 floppy drives 18 Closed ERIC-M 24 Non-SCSI Hard Drives 14 Closed ERIC-M 28 Printers & Accessories 33 Closed ERIC-M 29 Scanners/digitizers 18 Closed ERIC-M 31 Modems 37 Closed ERIC-M 36 IIe and IIe-specific hardware 41 Closed ERIC-M 37 IIc/IIc+ and IIc-specific hardware 42 Closed ERIC-M 38 IIgs and IIgs-specific hardware 55 Closed ERIC-M 39 Other hardware & misc. equipment 53 Closed ERIC-M 41 Apple II Books and Periodicals 21 Closed ERIC-M There are a few more topics shown in a complete listing of the category, but most of the rest have been closed since the category was reorganized recently. The first twelve topics are meant to handle all possible sale items >>> MESSAGE SPOTLIGHT <<< """"""""""""""""""""""""" UNBRIDLED ENTHUSIASM! While the popular computing press has been """"""""""""""""""""" declaring the Apple II "old technology" for the past 8 to 10 years, Apple II users know that their computers still have great untapped potential. You can be pretty sure that almost all the strong Apple II believers have an account on GEnie, too. For a taste of unbridled Apple II enthusiasm, listen in on the following public message posted by Jay Curtis three weeks ago. [*][*][*] Category 5, Topic 3 Message 123 Wed Nov 11, 1992 J.CURTIS8 [Jay] at 09:10 EST I'm still having fun with my IIGS. I've got years of experimentation and tinkering ahead of me. I've still got a couple of free slots begging for me to add some sort of peripheral to them. I need to add the PC Transporter card, a new accelerator card, boost the cache memory on my RamFactor memory card to 1 MEG. This spring I'm getting one of those Applied Engineering floptical drives to serve as backup to my 105 meg Quantum. Eventually, I'm going to have to have a Laser or Ink Jet printer. I've got no reason to add more memory, but, shoot, it might be fun to have nine megs in this sucker rather than just five! Besides, memory is so cheap now, and I might need the additional if I get serious about running GNO/ME. (Wish I could find out more about it here on Genie.) My IIGS boots and runs faster than the MAC Classic II at work and is just so much more interesting and versatile. I've got text display as well as graphic display, three different operating systems to play with, more programming languages than I'll ever be able to learn, and so many pieces of software to check out that I'll never get around to all of it. It's the best of many different worlds: expandability, near state-of-the-art technology with a slice of history, text and graphic display, entertainment and productivity, 8-bit and 16-bit. When I talk to other computerphiles, they're amazed at what an "Apple II" can do. Some have to come see for themselves, because they don't believe me. [*][*][*] In the following sections we present a variety of interesting posts that have appeared during the last month in the bulletin boards for A2. These messages can be identified by the footer attached to each item. (See the introductory notes on how to interpret the footer.) If you find the topic, excerpt, or just the interplay between various people to be stimulating, then please jump to that topic on a weekly basis and read about developments in the Apple II community. Our hope is that you will find something new and interesting each month in the A2 bulletin boards. If you are serious about your APPLE II, the GEnie Lamp staff strongly urge you to give the bulletin board area a try. There are literally thousands of messages posted from people like you from all over the world. /////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "Arthritas......not inflicted yet but its coming ;-)" / / / / "Arthritis......before the spelling police get me." / / / / "Boy, you just made it, Darlah, / / I was warming up the shot gun.... :-)" / //////////////////////// DARLAH / DARLAH / D.FLORY //// [EOA] [HUM]////////////////////////////// HUMOR ONLINE / ///////////////////////////////// ZEN And The Art Of Flaming """""""""""""""""""""""""" Compiled By Terry Quinn [TQUINN] >>> FLAME ON! <<< """"""""""""""""" flame: 1. vi. To post an email message intended to insult and provoke. 2. vi. To speak incessantly and/or rabidly on some relatively uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculous attitude. 3. vt. Either of senses 1 or 2, directed with hostility at a particular person or people. 4. n. An instance of flaming. When a discussion degenerates into useless controversy, one might tell the participants "Now you're just flaming" or "Stop all that flamage!" to try to get them to cool down (so to speak). USENETter Marc Ramsey, who was at WPI from 1972 to 1976, adds: "I am 99% certain that the use of `flame' originated at WPI. Those who made a nuisance of themselves insisting that they needed to use a TTY for `real work' came to be known as `flaming a**hole lusers'. Other particularly annoying people became `flaming a**hole ravers', which shortened to `flaming ravers', and ultimately `flamers'. I remember someone picking up on the Human Torch pun, but I don't think `flame on/off' was ever much used at WPI." See also {asbestos}. The term may have been independently invented at several different places; it is also reported that `flaming' was in use to mean something like `interminably drawn-out semi-serious discussions' (late-night bull sessions) at Carleton College during 1968--1971. flame bait: n. A posting intended to trigger a {flame war}, or one that invites flames in reply. flame on: vi.,interj. 1. To begin to {flame}. The punning reference to Marvel Comics's Human Torch is no longer widely recognized. 2. To continue to flame. See {rave}, {burble}. flame war: n. (var. `flamewar') An acrimonious dispute, especially when conducted on a public electronic forum such as {USENET}. flamer: n. One who habitually {flame}s. Said esp. of obnoxious {USENET} personalities. (B.MARYOTT, CAT8, TOP32, MSG:60/M245) ///////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "I see Jello has taken over my topic here. :-)" / ////////////////////////////////// S.HUGHEY1 //// [EOA] [A2P]////////////////////////////// A2/PRO_ductivity / ///////////////////////////////// C'mon I Dare Ya! """""""""""""""" By Jim Couch [J.COUCH2] HEY YOU, I DARE YA... Hello all from the A2Pro RoundTable. A lot of """"""""""""""""""""" interesting stuff has been happening in the RoundTable this month. One topic that has been seeing a fair amount of traffic is Category 16, Topic 7: the Challenges topic. This topic is a place to say "C'mon I dare you" to the A2 programers. You can post 'challenges' to the A2 programmers. A lot of neat ideas have been popping up here. If there is a program, utility, or such that YOU would like to see written for the Apple II, why don't you stop by and throw down the gauntlet? It's your chance to talk directly to the programmers! A2 University has two courses currently running. In Ultra 4 to the Max, Will Nelken is focusing in on the new Randy Brandt's Ultra 4.0 macro language for Appleworks. Ultramacros has grown well beyond a macro utility into a full blown programming language. With Ultra 4.0 the power of Ultramacros has improved even more while still maintaining it's ease of use. If you do anything with Ultramacros you will want to come by for a look. Many class participants have been posting small useful macros that are definitely worth looking at. Ultra 4.0 really is amazing and Will's class demonstrates much of the new power of this improved language. Not to be outdone 'Professor' Andy Fadden is covering data compression. If you ever wondered how one can manage to compress files and then uncompress them without scrambling all that data (I certainly do!) then this is the class for you. Although both classes are in full swing, you can still stop by and join in on the discussions. Lessons for both of the classes are in the A2Pro library and have a wealth of great information. There is a lot of other things going on in A2Pro as well. With the wide variety of stuff going on, there is something for everyone. C'mon by, I dare ya! ULTRA EXTRAS RELEASE DATE DELAYED I've had delays ranging from other """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" obligations to sickness in the family (nothing serious, just time-consuming), so Ultra Extras is running a little behind schedule. If all things all into place, we'll still be done in October, but now it won't surprise me if we don't ship until November. Mark Munz is pretty much done his stuff, and I've only got a few more bugs to track down. Coming soon... (BRANDT, CAT34, TOP8, MSG:16/M530) >>>>> Due to other events chewing up time, UE likely won't ship this """"" week as hoped. It's close, but needs more testing. If all goes well, it'll ship in three weeks or less. (BRANDT, CAT34, TOP8, MSG:17/M530) ULTRA 4.O TIP Don't record over any existing macros, since following """"""""""""" macros can get messed up. Make sure you record only macros that haven't been compiled. For example, reserve number macros for recording, or both- apple macros, or something like that. (BRANDT, CAT34, TOP4, MSG:55/M530) REVERSE ENGINEERING DEEMED FAIR PLAY BY U.S. COURT Thought I would bring """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" everyone up to date on the latest court ruling regarding reverse engineering. This information comes from the Tuesday (10/27) issue of Investors Daily. REVERSE ENGINEERING DEEMED FAIR PLAY BY U.S. COURT """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Appeals Panel Finds Disassembly of Sega Game by a Rival To Be Legal ...Reverse engineering has received a stamp of approval in a landmark ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. ...the court ruled last week that Accolade Inc. was within legal limits to disassemble Sega Enterprise Ltd.'s electronic game cartridges to figure out how to produce games compatible with Sega's Genesis game machines.... ...Technology companies have lined up on both sides of the fence on the disassembly issue. Officials at Apple Computer Inc., Intel Corp. and IBM have stated that disassembly reduces their ability to protect their investments in hardware and software. (Now if we could only get rights to the IIGS hardware and firmware! -Ed) ...But Sun Microsystems Inc. Unisys Corp. and others have sided with Accolade, arguing that disallowing reverse engineering would stifle competition (mine: there is no IIGS clone (unfortunately)). Sega says... "In our opinion, the court improperly applied the doctrine of fair use and disregarded established precedents in this area of law," Riley Russell, Sega's corporate counsel, said in a prepared statement after the ruling. "We feel thee court's ruling, is it stands, substantially reduces the ability of manufacturers to protect their intellectual property." The case came down to the legal doctrine called "fair use". The Appeals court said that under the doctrine one can dissemble a product as a means of accessing the unprotectable ideas underlying the particular expression of the product if that is the only way to get access to those ideas. The company disassembling the product cannot, however, then create a work that infringes another's copyright (mine: probably a IIGS clone!). Ideas themselves cannot be protected by a copyright; only specific expressions of the ideas can be. Another issue in a copyright cases is whether the copyright holder was actually harmed (would IIGS clone harm Apple ??). ...."The ruling says the monopoly power granted by patent laws will not apply to copyright law," said Stephen Hollman, a partner with Pettit & Martin in San Jose, Calif. "This case has ramifications for the computer hardware and semiconductor industries, as well as software." Hope you found this interesting. -Chris (CHINOOK.1, CAT13, TOP22, MSG:69/M530) HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO MAKE $200? $400? $800? Read on! :) As always, """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" we're are looking for submissions for both Softdisk and Softdisk G-S. In a moment, I'll list some ideas, but first let me address one misconception. You DO NOT HAVE TO BE A PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMMER TO SUBMIT. All too often people think that they must be professional programmers whose works rival those of Andy Nicholas. Well, if you were that good, you'd probably be working for Apple right now :) You might be surprised just how easy it is to get your programs published and to make some easy money. For example, we have a full staff of in-house artists that can redo your artwork. We have people that get paid to design interfaces for programs. We can work WITH you to make your program as good as anything Andy can do. Here are some program ideas that we are interested in. Some of these things are quick, $100 programs, others are major undertakings and thus major bucks would be paid (upwards of $1500 in some cases!) o database shell that would allow the user to create their own templates o anything related to astronomy (hot topic these days :) o statistical analysis type programs (we've had requests for those) o Zip Code/Area Code finder CDA database thingy o Text Viewer CDA, allow preset files and file selection o time billing database thingy o Car maintenance scheduler database thingy o games, games, and more games :) o family tree programs o weird things like those things that tell you are far your mouse has traveled, or eyes that follow your mouse, etc. You get the idea? -Bryan (SOFTDISK.INC, CAT31, TOP3, MSG:21/M530) >>>>> I was talking with a submitter the other day and he said to me, """"" "Bryan, why don't you let more people know how much you pay for submissions?" So, here I am. A submission can fall into one of four broad categories: feature, "filler", reuseable, article/artwork Features A feature is a submission an issue of Softdisk or Softdisk G-S """""""" will be centered around (our issues are not thematic, but the issue cover art and what-not always tend to reflect the feature). Usually, features tend to be large programs, sometimes as large as 200K on Softdisk G-S. Usually no more than 100K on Softdisk (mainly due to disk space considerations), but occasionally, Softdisk features use two 5.25-inch disk sides. We generally pay between $500 and $1200 for a feature. "Fillers" To be more accurate, this category should probably be called """"""""" "non-feature". This is the category of submissions that aren't features. On Softdisk G-S we try to publish 3-4 programs on each issue (4-5 on Softdisk 8- bit). Since only one program can be the feature, the other programs "fill" out the issue. Fillers vary greatly in size. Some are as small as just a few K, others are as much as 150K. Again, the size varies with the product. Small fillers bring around $100-$300. Larger fillers between $300-$800. Reusable This is not so much as another class as it is another aspect of """""""" the other classes. Anytime we can reuse a submission repeatedly, it's worth more money to us. For example, a program that allows the user to play crossword puzzles where the puzzles are simply documents that can be opened and played will be worth more than a crossword player that only plays a specified puzzle. Being reusable can add anything from $200 to $1500 to a submission. Article/Artwork I'm not really sure what to call this category. Maybe """"""""""""""" "Documents" would have been better. Things like product reviews, articles (yes we accept articles even though few people submit them!), artwork, MIDI Synth songs, clip, print shop stuff, appleworks and appleworks GS templates, rSounds, all this kind of stuff brings anything from $5 to $200 (or more, depending on quantity). Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you why selling your program to Softdisk is better than making it shareware: you are capable of the simple math involved. Softdisk simply pays better. -Bryan (I should include this disclaimer: these prices are NOT set in stone. I don't decide what we pay for submissions, that's done by other management people. The numbers could change at any time--but since these are the numbers we've been paying for a few years now, I doubt there will be much change.) (SOFTDISK.INC, CAT31, TOP4, MSG:1/M530) AND THIS FINAL LESSON FROM THE PROGRAMMERS """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" > Tracking down a bug caused by an errant BRA sometimes takes HOURS. I > know, just don't insert bugs into the code... My wife found the last errant BRA I forgot about. Boy did that take a lot of explaining! -Bear (A2.BEAR, CAT7, TOP7, MSG:47/M530) ///////////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "Snakes don't have arms. That's why they can't wear vests." / ////////////////////////////////////////////// R.MARTIN22 //// [EOA] [FUN]////////////////////////////// ONLINE FUN / ///////////////////////////////// Search-ME! """""""""" By Scott Garrigus [S.GARRIGUS] HEY, BOYS AND GIRLS! It's that time of the year again! Time to spend all """""""""""""""""""" your money on your family and friends! You _have_ done all your shopping already, haven't you? :-) You know the GEnie Mall will be open 24 hours, 7 days a week. (premeditated plug :-) This month I didn't visit a specific place on GEnie. So be sure to tell your kids they can write letters to Santa on GEnie. Just have them address their letters to SANTA.CLAUS and send them via GE Mail. Santa will write back to each and every one of them. He must have a terminal up there somewhere. Hmmm... I wonder what kind of computer he has? :-) Well, this month's Search-Me theme is of course, Christmas! So get yourself a nice cup of hot chocolate, curl up on the couch and have some fun finding this month's keywords! Oh, yeah, and have a Very Merry Christmas! >>> CHRISTMAS! <<< """""""""""""""""" O W C T W P E J S V T S V Z J V C O Q R A X N H B G H A T Z G D D V D L J O Q B H T P Z O F Y T C F F S V V C H C S S L V N K I S S C Q S R U P R O K M J H E P G G U S O P X Q T N C M X E Q Q K X X G L E X N R E W Y E I H N T Y Q Y L I M A F J E T Q D I E D Z R O P S E O F B G D U N L M B Q D B M K L F R E L T Q S M Q R F P B H D R M N F N S C V B E U P V L E U G E C A R E A E B Q R S Z O E H T C D G F R Y H B C E H T K R E V M G L T S U V C L O P P R O M P V I G J E D R L M J S N A T N A S L S G L E S O E W C T N S U S E J O S E M Y R L P N I C N W Y S T N E M A N R O W M L S G E O O H D E X U A M P I B G J A E R F R J E G Y I L R A D F Q D G B W S L N M V O L S D N I Z F C S Y W A H H S N O W M A N P Z A B A J J G J I C V B A A T Z Q Q L R F K H Y K N O H I D H U I Z X E V R K M C L I T W R V E Z R N H K K F Q M Z A C I N R K S X N P H X Q D V U A C G E E R T V Z B L L W I V Y D Z M T A L V H U U Z U J B >>> WORD CLUES <<< """""""""""""""""" SANTA ELVES TOYS STOCKINGS HOLIDAY SLEIGH REINDEER RUDOLPH SNOWMAN SNOWFLAKE PRESENTS TREE CAROLS JESUS ANGELS WINTER BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION ORNAMENTS DECEMBER FAMILY [*][*][*] GIVE UP? You will find the answers in the LOG OFF column at the end of """""""" the magazine. This column was created with a program called SEARCH ME, an Atari ST program by David Becker. /////////////////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "I wonder what's worse....One long post of wares to sell... :-( / / or 15 post complaining about it? ;-)" / /////////////////////////////////////////////////// J.BRENNER1 //// [EOA] [PRO]////////////////////////////// PROFILES / ///////////////////////////////// Who's Who In Apple II """"""""""""""""""""" By Phil Shapiro [P.SHAPIRO1] >>> WHO'S WHO? <<< """""""""""""""""" ~ A GEnieLamp Profile of Randy Brandt ~ GenieLamp> Randy, how did you first become involved with the Apple II? """"""""" At what point did you realize that you could make a living from your hobby? Brandt> I started playing around with an Apple II+ which had been donated """""" to the Geophysics Dept at Christian Heritage College in San Diego, where I was a sophomore at the time (1981). They set it up in the library with a sign-out card, and I filled up so many cards they finally gave me my own key to the computer desk. I played a lot of Sabotage, Pac-Man, etc., and got into Basic and then 6502 assembly. My first program was a grade keeping Basic program for my girlfriend's student teaching needs. Her name was Joanna Ellen Morrison; astute readers will see the significance of those initials. Anyway, I began selling GRADE.AID to other teachers and that got me thinking there might be some money in computers. Then I sold a little hardware as well during my first year of teaching after college. As for actually thinking I could make a living at it, I'm not sure about that yet, but I have survived over 7.5 years as a full-time computer nerd. GenieLamp> Can you tell us a bit of how you came to work at Beagle Bros? """"""""" Brandt> I quit a white collar job in 1985 and was looking for work when I """""" decided to send applications to Roger Wagner and Beagle Bros, thinking that my English major and Apple ii experience would make a good combo for documentation writing. Joanna was pregnant with Heather, so we were rather interested in becoming employed, but when she spelled the address wrong on the letter to Beagle, I told her not to redo it since we'd never hear back from them anyway. A few weeks later I started writing docs for Pro-Byter and Extra K. GenieLamp> At what point did you leave to form your own company, JEM """"""""" Software? When did you join GEnie? Brandt> I didn't leave Beagle to form JEM. I actually started JEM in """""" 1984, over a year before I started at Beagle. However, it was dormant until I wrote PathFinder. I wanted a special royalty rate and a low-cost disk since the program was so simple and there was no need for a manual, but Beagle didn't want to pay any more, and suggested I sell it myself. That propelled JEM into AppleWorks enhancements, which is basically all we've ever published, other than MiniPaint and I.O. Silver. I joined GEnie around 1988 or 1989, mostly to support Rose16, my APW editor, and my other JEM products. GenieLamp> Over the years UltraMacros has evolved through several """"""""" generations, culminating with your recently released Ultra 4.0. For the benefit of those who walked in late to the party, kindly explain a bit about the early generations of UltraMacros. Brandt> My first macro program was MacroWorks. That came about because I """""" was beta-testing Alan Bird's Program Writer, and really liked the OA- Delete command to "gobble" the character under the cursor. It really annoyed me that AppleWorks couldn't do that. Since I'd switched from AppleWriter, I also liked having a command to jump to the end or beginning of a line. After playing with Merlin's sample keyboard macros I kind of figured out the theory behind macros and went to work on AppleWorks. Beagle liked the idea, gave me an advance to pay the bills while I worked on it, and began creating ads for PatchWorks. Then it turned out there was a quilting program with that name, and they finally gave in to my request for "MacroWorks" even though they thought it sounded too techie. Then Alan came out with AutoWorks, I wrote Super MacroWorks for AppleWorks 2.0, TimeOut got going and I wrote TimeOut UltraMacros, and now finally there's Ultra 4 from JEM. Somewhere in the early, days Pinpoint came out with KeyPlayer, which copied a lot of my stuff while adding some good ideas, but had some flaky problems and finally vanished. GenieLamp> Can you briefly tell us what Ultra 4 has to offer? """"""""" Brandt> Ultra 4 is a major rewrite, primarily offering external dot """""" commands which are added through init files. This means there never needs to be a successor to Ultra 4, since I can simply create additional command files as needed. GenieLamp> The National AppleWorks Users Group (NAUG) has played a """"""""" central role in popularizing AppleWorks. What are your thoughts about the role NAUG has played in the national Apple II scene? Brandt> NAUG _is_ the AppleWorks scene. Without NAUG members ordering my """""" products, I would've had to abandon the Apple II years ago. As for the national Apple II scene, there's plenty of IIgs stuff out there, but NAUG certainly dominates the 8-bit world. While I know I've contributed to NAUG's success, they've been the indirect source of most of my income over the last few years, for which my family is very thankful! GenieLamp> Over the years many people must have sent you copies of nifty """"""""" macros they've created. Can you tell us a little about some of those most creative and zany macros you've seen? Brandt> It's tough to pick just a few macros, but the more creative ones """""" include Mark de Jong's drawing program which used text characters in a word processor file, Rod Young's Lynx Hypermedia program. There have been hangman, blackjack and shoot'em up games that were very creative, but the zaniest is likely the one that made AppleWorks screens display bottom to top so the main menu had Quit at the top, the REVIEW/ADD/CHANGE messages were at the bottom of the screen, etc. GenieLamp> The TimeOut series of AppleWorks enhancements gives great """"""""" power for using an Apple II in a small business setting. Can you share any juicy anecdotes about Apple II's you know of that are being used in a business setting? Brandt> I know of a fine watch repairman ("any watch cheaper than $500 is """""" junk!") who uses a couple of IIgs's and a couple of Laser's to run his whole business. There's a travel agent who uses II's to run a million-dollar business, an auctioneer, and a pediatrician. I'm sure there are others I haven't run into, but these are some that I've talked to who are using my add-on's to AppleWorks and running good-sized operations. The best anecdote is a Hewlett-Packard employee who had to teach a massive class on Windows to other employees. He created the entire course outline using my Outliner and AppleWorks 3.0. GenieLamp> What types of things do you like to do for fun? """"""""" Brandt> I have fun at a lot of things, including playing in two ice """""" hockey leagues. I also enjoy playing basketball and softball, and watching all the major sports on television. Playing with my kids is a joy. Before starting my computers, I load up my CD carousel from my collection of 400+ CD's, mostly Christian rock with a bit of classical thrown in for culture's sake. I also enjoying reading techno-thrillers (Tom Clancy, Dale Brown, etc), magazines (MacUser, National Review, The Hockey News, National Geographic), the daily paper (sports first, then editorials), and the Bible. GenieLamp> What work are you most proud of? """"""""" Brandt> Other than my role in producing Heather, Erika and Michael, I'm """""" most proud of Ultra 4 and TotalControl. They're both major products that add an awful lot of power to AppleWorks for any serious user. GenieLamp> What do you think are going to be some of the more exciting """"""""" technological developments that will be realized before the turn of the century? Brandt> Although I'm sure I can predict the future at least as well as """""" the tabloid psychics, I'm not too sure what we'll see. I'd LIKE to see affordable extremely high-powered notebook computers with stuff like built-in cellular phones/fax, satellite-based navigaitional maps, voice recognition, and battery technology that lets you work all day. A complete office in one package, sans water cooler. Maybe a cold fusion computer that you could dump your Big Mac wrapper into for instant recycling. The new MacEverything- it slices, it dices... Apart from computers, who knows? To be honest, I think short-term technological growth will be hampered with Al Gore as Veep, at least if he gets his buddies into the EPA and the like. Startup companies are going to have a tough time surviving all of the new regulations that'll be here soon. When massive corporations dominate, creativity stagnates, like with HP rejecting Woz's silly little ideas about building a personal computer. GenieLamp> For the benefit of those who may be unfamiliar with JEM """"""""" Software's product line, kindly tell us a little about each of your products, along with your motivation for making them. Brandt> My product line is getting shorter, but this is the active stuff: """""" PathFinder is a directory selector I wrote in a two-day period in 1986 or 1987 that lets you pick subdirectories from a list instead of having to type in the name. I built that into AppleWorks 3.0. DoubleData by Dan Verkade gives the AppleWorks 3.0 database 60 categories per record. It was created because 30 categories per database record seemed like too few. TotalControl adds spreadsheet-type formula capability to the AppleWorks 3.0 database (Dan did the formula stuff) and gives you control over your input, allowing you to set min/max lengths, values, case rules and do automatic importing and lookups from other files. DB Pix displays Print Shop graphics in the DB along with your record, so you can have a "graphic category". It also displays single and double high resolution pictures. Ultra 4 is a major rewrite of TimeOut UltraMacros, offering a more powerful compiler, easier-to-use but more powerful commands, and the ability to add new commands via disk files. OmniPrint is an ImageWriter II enhancement that lets you access all ImageWriter II capabilities from within the word processor, including font, downloading graphic patterns, color, change of pitch on one line, etc. InitCity is the next JEM disk, due out sometime before the snow melts in 1993. It offers a dozen or so AppleWorks 3.0 inits to make life easier, such as letting you tab through multiple OA-Q desktops, pick a new directory from a list during the Add files process, print titles on each page of a multi-page spreadsheet printout, etc. GenieLamp> How can people contact you? """"""""" Brandt> People may write to JEM Software at 7578 Lamar Ct, Arvada, CO, """""" 80003, fax (303) 422-4856, or contact me on GEnie. My electronic mail address is: BRANDT, and you can leave public questions or messages for me in category 34 of the A2Pro (Apple II Programmers) Roundtable on GEnie. /////////////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "Try not to make your lines too long, so that it looks neat. / / For example look at Wally's excellent ad! Lovely graphics, / / nice spacing...let's give it an Addy Award! / ////////////////////////////////////////////// MIKE.KELLER //// [EOA] [QUI]////////////////////////////// THE MIGHTY QUINN / ///////////////////////////////// Technomare """""""""" "A Whole Buncha Milliseconds with Mark" by Mark Quinn, DOA GEnie address: NEWSIE "Technomare" I suppose most of us have our own "tech nightmares". In short, equipment that just doesn't do what it's supposed to do, or what we'd like it to do, which reminds me of a story I heard about a man who was told to "take the 5.25" floppy disk out of its jacket and insert it in the disk drive" and took the instructions a wee bit too literally: he ended up ripping the black cardboard part of the disk apart and taking the media itself -- that little circle of mylar that's inside the disk -- and inserting it into the drive. Not me. I won't turn into one of those old gents who doesn't know quite what to do with the "business" end of a remote control, who literally couldn't program a VCR via an onscreen menu if his life depended on it. Why, I am part of the "hands-on" crowd, the group that solves problems with tech, and is constantly shepherding that other (shudder) group, the ones who don't know their azimuth adjustment from a hole in the ground. Well (deadlines will oft make fools of mortal men), there _was_ that time when I was trying to obtain a decent setup with my video equipment. Let me warn the squeamish among you "hands-on" folks: This just about tops the guy I mentioned (the one who tried to insert Disk A in Drive A) in the paragraph above. And it was done with video gear. It began the day I stood admiring our video equipment. I had recently purchased a Pioneer "combi" laser disc player and was in the process of merging with my Significant Other and her gaggle of VCRs. All that equipment, and a TV and a stereo system besides, sat on an industrial-strength stainless steel rack that could (literally) hold a Cessna power plant or three. My SO had been using the rack in the basement for storing heavy objects, and I was a little proud of myself for adapting it for use as a home entertainment center. I was tired from having to schlepp all that stuff to the top of Mount Videorat, and was thinking about the task that lay before me: hooking up the mess. My SO, sensing my fatigue, offered to help. "I'll hook it up," she said. "You just sit there and think manly thoughts." "I've got one now," I sneered. "How are you going to dub stereo movies from our laser discs to the SuperBeta VCR? And how are you going to dub stereo tapes from the SuperBeta to the linear stereo VHS job?" "Can't you copy tapes in stereo this way?" she asked, innocently holding a coaxial cable. "Puh-leeze. We true videophiles would never ask such a question. Then again, if I'm a true videophile, why are we holding on to such low-end equipment? Ahh, no matter. The way is being made clear to me, even as I speak." My SO sat down and struck a match to a coffin nail. "What do you have in mind, Swami, and how much is it going to cost us this time?" Sheesh. What I "had in mind" seemed perfectly reasonable to me. It would be a masterpiece of engineering: I was planning on connecting the "direct video and audio" inputs/outputs of my equipment in such a fashion that dubbing from one piece of equipment to any of the other five in the series would be possible. And using the direct inputs meant -- at least to this video slug -- that I would be getting a higher quality connection than if I had used the coax, and my stereo laser discs would be dubbed to both those stereo VCRs in stereo. The keystone of my hazy 'plan' was the RCA male-to-female (one male to two female) y-cable, which was available at the local Shadio Rack. "This shouldn't cost me more than twenty bucks," I said. Later . . . fifty bucks later, I came home with my kill: a pile of those cellophane and cardboard packages, complete with that sprayed- on odour de plastique that we have all come to love. I ripped them apart, and arranged the cables in neat rows. "I think I should start with the laser disc player. The direct VIDEO OUT goes to the VIDEO IN of all the VCRs. That should require two y-cables. Or is it three?" My plan involved "Y-ing" those RCA y- cables. I connected the first piece of video equipment in the series to the second, then the second to the third. Then the first to the third. About then, Murphy's Law paid me a visit, as I was already running out of y cables, and my grand "setup" was well on its way to breaking some kind of record in pure complexity/stupidity. It had long ago gotten dark outside, and I rushed again to SR before they closed. I came home, determined to solve my wiring dilemma. I even (gasp!) drew a diagram or two. That didn't help, either. The sheer complexity of what I was trying to do was beyond the scope of my now- seemingly feeble talents. And I was -- again -- out of y-cables. I stood, drenched in sweat, behind Mount Videorat, trying to 'picture' the setup in my mind. "It won't work," I realized. And I was right. I was trying to do the job of a $1,000 piece of video switching gear with $70 worth of wires, and had forgotten that there was a reason why such devices existed: because it was just about unfeasible to do it the "hard way". I was angry at myself, and literally felt like toppling the whole mess into a pile on the floor. I ripped out all those cables, and started again. My new plan was to wire all six units in series with coaxial cable, and come up with a much simpler way to dub between the stereo units in stereo. I was done a few minutes later. I explained everything to my SO. We had a good laugh over it. "So. It's all hooked up now? Let's watch something on cable!" I turned the TV on, and watched about five seconds of the Evening News. Apparently, lots and lots of snow and herringbone patterns were "falling" in the CBS studios. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but only one described this one: 'Mud'. "Noooooo!" I cried. I had used _so_ much coaxial cable to wire everything up that all that signal loss took its deadly toll on our already-poor cable signal. "You watch TV," I snapped. I picked up a hand full of cables and handed them to her. "I'm going to bed!" So now you've read how I shakily survived my technomare. By the way, most of the cables I bought are now in a laundry basket in the basement. Contact me at my GEnie address (NEWSIE) and I'll tell you where to send _your_ diagrams. But please don't send any cables. ///////////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "...what the problem was REALLY trying to tell me was that / / my 85MB Seagate was about to take a trip south. The erratic / / reading was the first sign the thing was dying. The funeral / / will be here in Georgia. Probably have the #@%!&* drive / / cremated!" / ///////////////////////////////////////////// D.STMARTIN //// [EOA] [REF]////////////////////////////// REFLECTIONS / ///////////////////////////////// Thinking Online Communications """""""""""""""""""""""""""""" By Phil Shapiro [P.SHAPIRO1] >>> UNDERSTANDING TELECOMMUNICATIONS <<< """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" MAGICAL COMMUNICATIONS The other day I paid a visit to the city public """""""""""""""""""""" library to dig up some books about telecommunications. I've been an active telecommunications enthusiast for the past several years and my curiosity was getting the better of me. As with most computer enthusiasts, I've got a passing acquaintance with most basic telecommunications concepts. But my understanding still remains at a superficial level. For a "FOR A LONG TIME I'VE HAD long time I've had a burning "curiosity A BURNING CURIOSITY TO FIND to find out more about these magical OUT MORE ABOUT THESE 'MAGICAL "packet switching systems" that allow PACKET SWITCHING SYSTEMS'..." people to place a local phone call to connect to a national telecommunications network. And I've always wanted to know more about how this process called "multiplexing" makes the packet switching systems work. A computerized search of the library's holdings turned up about three dozen books dealing with telecommunications. As I wrote down the call numbers of these books, I couldn't help but think of my past experience trying to find books or magazine articles to explain the fundamental concepts of modern telecommunications. About one third of all such books were written before 1982, strongly suggesting that their contents are at least ten years out-dated. Major changes in the telecommunications industry have happened in the past ten years. Whatever was written about telecommunications before 1982, therefore, ought to be taken with a large grain of silicon. Another third of all books about telecommunications are written primarily for third graders. These books cover the subject in such a simplistic manner that any child who has ever dialed a telephone is likely to be yawning before the close of the first chapter. The last third of all books about telecommunications are written for graduate electrical engineering students. Identifying such books requires no special skill. One telling characteristic is that the preface of these books contain more schematic diagrams than English language sentences. So I was especially delighted to discover the book "Understanding Telecommunications," published by TAB Books in 1989. Written neither for third graders, nor for graduate electrical engineering students, the book explains all the basics of telecommunications theory and practice at a level that any typical college graduate could understand. The book starts out with a concise yet comprehensive review of telecommunications history. Starting with Morse's telegraph, moving through Bell's phone, covering early radio and television, the transistor, and the earliest electronic computers. The author even sneaks in a few words about the reasons for establishing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1934. The second chapter of the book logically follows from the first. This second chapter, "Electricity and Electronics," gives a solid explanation of the differences between direct current and alternating current. A discussion of the development vacuum tubes is accompanied by an informative illustration. Definitions of capacitors, transistors, and other electronic doodads are presented for you to nod your head in feigned acknowledgement. The third chapter, on "Computers," gives a good general grounding in basic computer operations and theory. Most interesting is the last section of the chapter which explains how computer technology has been incorporated into so many different facets of the national phone system. If you're already familiar with basic computer concepts, this chapter can easily be skipped over. Chapter 4, "Telephone Systems," does a great job in explaining about telephone switching equipment, the phone company's central office, the amplification and transmission of phone signals, private branch exchanges (PBX's), and the movement towards digitalization of the entire phone system. What makes the author's explanations so compelling is that he places concepts in their historical perspective. So before explaining about the complexities of modern telephone switching systems, he first explains about the early manual switchboards. The end result is that you learn historical context as well as modern developments. The fifth chapter, "Communication with Computers," explains such things as modems, ASCII, protocols, and error detection techniques. Good for beginners to learn about. Eminently skippable for the rest of us. The sixth chapter, "Radio," did not hold my attention that much. Sure, the new mobile radio and cellular phone systems are interesting. But radio theory remains one of the most colossally boring subjects ever conjured up by the human mind. If radio is not your bag, it's easy enough to flip over to the next chapter of the book. The seventh chapter gives a good overview of the technical aspects of television. Compared to radio theory, television theory is almost interesting. But the real goodies can be found in chapter 8, "Long Distance Telecommunications." This chapter starts out discussing "transmission mediums," including copper wire, coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, and air. The fascinating historical treatment of the subject continues on in this chapter. So you can find out about how MCI gained permission from the FCC to build a microwave radio system between St. Louis and Chicago, thereby setting off a whole series of events leading to the breakup of AT&T. You can learn about WATS systems and INWATS systems. You can revisit multiplexing (packet switching) from a data communications viewpoint. Ronald R. Thomas, who authored Understanding Telecommunications, has a natural and breezy writing style that illuminates the most complicated of subjects. In this book he achieves the unique feat of making serious telecommunications subjects intelligible for the general reading public. Can't wait to hear about what new books Thomas may be working on. It sure would be interesting to learn more about the behind the scene action at the major national information services. A behind-the-scenes report about GEnie, America Online, and CompuServe would make for a delectable read. With the cooperation of these services, such a book would not be difficult to construct. And with hundreds of thousands of people now on the national information services, the market for such a book would be quite large. Understanding Telecommunications """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" By Ronald R. Thomas, TAB Books, 1989, 243 pages, $24.95. ISBN 0-8306-9229-0 (hardcover) ISBN 0-8306-3229-8 (paperback) Available From """""""""""""" TAB Books, Inc. Blue Ridge Summit, PA 17924-0214 [*][*][*] [The author takes a strong interest in the social dimensions of communications technology. He can be reached on GEnie at: p.shapiro1; on America Online at: pshapiro; and on Internet at: pshapiro@pro-novapple.cts.com] ///////////////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "This unterminated clock acted like an antenna and picked up on / / the now higher RF from the 030, the result...random changes in / / the color palette. Interesting effect, but QUITE disturbing to / / someone trying to get work done." / ////////////////////////////////////////////////// J.ALLEN27 //// [EOA] [SOF]////////////////////////////// SOFTVIEW / ///////////////////////////////// BIG Text Machine Review """"""""""""""""""""""" By David Hindman [D.HINDMAN2] >>> BIG TEXT MACHINE <<< """""""""""""""""""""""" Recently, InCider/A+ Magazine published a brief story about Phil Shapiro and his company Balloons Software (Sept '92). In it was mentioned one of his products called Big Text Machine. While InCider/A+ concentrated on Phil, his company and the work he did with Bernie Benson in creating Big Text Machine, they said little about the actual program. I hope to tell you more about BTM than they did (with no disrespect for the people who put it together). To put it simply, BTM is a text-file displayer that will run on virtually every Apple II, as well as Laser and Franklin clones, and the Mac LC II, with the IIe emulation card installed. The one difference in BTM from other text display utilities is that BTM uses letters that are almost 1/2 inch tall, hence the word "big" in the title. The program comes on your choice of 5.25" or 3.5" disks that contain the main program, some sample text files, and an auto-display program disk. The main program starts out with a big text menu to select any of the following functions: read a file, run a demo, online help, printer on/off, other activities, and a quit option. When BTM reads a text file on your disk, it displays it in large letters on the screen. It then awaits a keypress before showing the next page. The demo program shows how different options set in "other activities" look, to give you an idea of how you might wish to customize the program to your own tastes. Color, font style, and the "ruling" lines can be set to the user's wishes. The online help is very good, which almost makes the instruction manual unnecessary. There is also a print option that allows a hardcopy to be generated that is similar to the text display on the screen. Quit lets you exit BTM and back to your program selector or ProDOS. The manual is well written, but anybody that's read anything Phil Shapiro has written would expect that from him. The book goes to great lengths to explain not only how to work BTM, but how to prepare text files for use on BTM with AppleWorks and FrEdWriter. There are also suggestions for uses of BTM throughout the book. Explanations on how to use BTM from a minimal one-drive system up to a system with a hard disk drive are explained in plain English and with great detail. You can mix and match 3.5 drives, 5.25 drives and hard drives all with ease. As for uses, that is only limited by one's imagination. Teachers could use it in a classroom situation to display a story to students, or have it flash letters and word examples on the screen. These files don't have to be limited to just English, either. Four foreign character fonts are also available, so accented letters can be displayed as well. This could make some interesting "flashcard" screens for other language classes. Visually impaired people could use BTM to read text files with less difficulty. If you're imagination needs to be jump-started on other uses, Phil's got lots of ideas available in the manual. On one of the other disks included with BTM is the Auto Display program. This does the same thing that the "regular" BTM does, but instead of pressing a key, the screen is displayed for a moment or two, then the next screen is displayed. All you have to do to run the auto program is put in the auto disk and boot it. The auto program uses a text file named "auto.display" on the auto disk. To change the text, simply save (or "print" if using AppleWorks) a text file to the Auto disk and name it "auto.display". Just as an example of a use here would be a monitor placed in a store window could run information across the screen to help sell whatever products are being peddled (I stole that one from the manual, by the way). The third "extra" disk included in BTM is a sample file disk. This disk is crammed full of interesting, amusing, informative and well-written stories covering a wide range of subjects. There was almost as much time put into the sample files disk as there was into the code for programming the BTM program. These are also summarized briefly in an appendix in the manual. Not only do they give you a start on BTM (as well as a few files to play with), they're darn good reading as well. I don't run around looking for things to read on my computer, but they are well written and entertaining and they deserve a plug here. When I first looked at the manual for BTM, I was a bit surprised by its thickness. Being the typical user, I'd already booted the program up and played with it for awhile before checking the manual to see what I'd missed. About half the manual deals with running BTM, and making text files with AppleWorks and FrEdWriter. One section even goes into detail about different versions of AppleWorks and the subtle differences between them when it comes to text file manipulation. The other half of the manual contains appendixes that cover a wide range of topics. There's plenty of information here to help the non-technical user out if he or she gets in a jam. There are many hints listed that don't necessarily pertain to BTM's operation, but are good guidelines for getting better use out of your II. The appendixes include a ProDOS summary, "text massaging" (or getting what you want and how you want it on the screen with BTM), transferring text files from one type computer to another, and recommended monitors. There is also an appendix appealing to unpublished writers of children's stories, promising a chance at getting their stories seen as freeware. Balloons Software puts a lot of TLC into their products. Version 2.0's manual states that there is going to be improvements or add-on features in future versions of BTM, so this program won't grow stagnant from lack of customer support. Phil is available on several online services, and welcomes feedback and provides customer support as well. Although designed with even the old IIs in mind, BTM will run fine on a GS or Mac LC (with a IIe emulator card installed) just as easily. That's more than can be said for a lot of the software coming out now for computers in general. Putting emphasis on sound, flashy graphics, and mega programs to do little more than drill-and-practice children seem to be the big push now. But letting a child write his or her own story to a floppy and then have it displayed in big letters on the screen for all to see might be more incentive to be creative than having the computer talk to the kid. With the wide compatibility of the software to existing machines in our schools, and the simple, friendly interface of the program, Big Text Machine would be a good product to recommend to a parent-teacher organization or school board to purchase for use in your child's school. Big Text Machine retails for $35, and lab packs are available for $75. If you act before Feb 28, 1993, your school can get a site license for just $65, and there's no restriction on the number of computers being currently used at the school. Here's where to order: Balloons Software 5201 Chevy Chase Pkwy, NW Washington, DC 20015-1747 (202) 244-2223 GEnie mail address: P.shapiro1 America Online: pshapiroo Internet: pshapiro@pro-novapple.cts.com ////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "Topic police warning! ;-) This is getting old. ;-)" / //////////////////////////////////////// POTECHIN //// [EOA] [MOO]////////////////////////////// CowTOONS! / ///////////////////////////////// Moooooo Fun! """""""""""" (__) By Mike White (oo) [M.WHITE25] /""\+===\/===+ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ \ \| | ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ \ || || ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ \~~ || ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ \ ~~\ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ \__/ ~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~ ~` ~~ ` " Cowabunga " ~~~~~~~~~ (__) (oo) /-------\/ <\/> <\/> <\/> / | || oo oo oo * ||----|| (\/)* (\/)* (\/)* ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ " Hugh Heifer " ~~~~~~~~~~~ (and Three Bunnies) [*][*][*] ~\________/~ CowTOONS? Mike White took us up on (oo) our offer and sent in this month's /-------\/ CowTOONS selections. / | |+ * ||----|| If you have an idea for a CowTOON, we ~~ ~~ would like to see it. And, if we pick "Sister Mary Angus" your CowTOON for publishing in GEnieLamp we will credit your account with 2 hours of GEnie non-prime time! [EOA] [DIG]////////////////////////////// DIGITAL DIVERSIONS / ///////////////////////////////// Walking In A Minefield """""""""""""""""""""" By Mel Fowler [MELSOFT] ADDICTIVE? YOU BET! MineField GS was ported from the IBM Windows format """"""""""""""""""" by Aaron Taurog I have no idea what the IBM version looks like but I cannot imagine that it could look and play any better than MineField for the Apple IIGS. This game is in the addictive category and can be most challenging. The object of this logic game is to uncover all the squares in a grid that do NOT have mines in them and to FLAG all the squares that have mines in them. You start out with a blank grid of gray boxes. A number of mines, 20 in the EASY mode, 40 in NORMAL, and 90 in WELL DONE, are randomly distributed.There is also a Custom mode where you decide the grid size and number of mines. As you uncover a box you can have one of three results. (1) You may uncover a blank box which means there are no mines present in the adjacent boxes. This will reveal all the boxes around the blank box. (2) You may uncover a mine and the game ends, or, (3) you may uncover a box with a number inside. The number may be from 1 to 8 and tells you how many mines are located in the boxes adjacent to the box you just uncovered. The adjacent boxes are defined as pictured here. _________________________ I 1 I 2 I 3 I I_______I_______I_______I I 4 I I 5 I I_______I_______I_______I I 6 I 7 I 8 I I_______I_______I_______I By using the numbers in the boxes you can use a process of elimination to locate the mines. The example below shows how you can locate mines by using this process. In the third box in the second row there is a 1 indicating that there is one mine located in an adjacent box. Since there is only one box adjacent that has not been uncovered, it must have a mine in it (located in the fourth box in the first row). Change the cursor from pointer to FLAG by pressing the TAB key and leave a flag in the fourth box in the first row. The fourth box in the second row also has a 1 located in it and since we know that the fourth box in the first row is a mine and it is adjacent to the fourth box in the second row, the 1 is satisfied and there can not be any mines in the other adjacent boxes (indicated by No Mine). The first box in the second row has a 3 in it which means there are three mine in the adjacent boxes. Since there are only three box that have not been uncovered, all three must have mines in them. This also satisfies the first box in rows one and three. This means that there can not be any mines in the other boxes adjacent to those boxes. The boxes that cannot be eliminated are marked with question marks. By using this method you can identify and FLAG all the mines and win the game. Your score is determined by the time it takes you to solve the game. The lower the score the better. NONE NONE NONE ? ? ? ________________________ MINE I 2 I 1 I 2 I MINE No Mine I_______I_______I_______I________ MINE I 3 I I 1 I 1 I No Mine I_______I_______I_______I_______I MINE I 2 I I I 1 I No Mine I_______I_______I_______I_______I NONE I 1 I I I 2 I MINE I_______I_______I_______I_______I NONE I 2 I 1 I 1 I 2 I MINE I_______I_______I_______I_______I ? ? ? NONE NONE NONE You are often faced with situations where you can not determine the exact location of the next mine and then it becomes a guessing game. You can use the "Command" key to start a new game and it will uncover all the blank boxes around the one you select. Command-N will start a new game, so you can hold the Command key down while start a new game and if you fined a mine just press "N". What you want to start a new game is like the example above. You can then start out knowing the locations of some mines. If you get frustrated you can choose "Safe Corner" from the Game Menu. Two of the four corners with have an area of blank boxes. Of course you do not know which of the corners is safe. There is also a MineField NDA game. The object is a little different than MineField GS in that you try to get from the left side of the grid to the right side without hitting a mine. You use the same elimination process however. Look for "HELP" under the Game Menu for instructions. Thank you Aaron for this great game. You show a real talent for porting programs from other platforms to the IIGS. We are looking forward to your next endeavor. Users of Minefields GS are urged to show their support by sending in the very modest shareware fee. [*][*][*] MineField GS by Aaron Taurog Shareware $10.00 File name: Minefield. bxy File Number: 19444 Size: 40704 bytes Accesses: 276 /////////////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "Unless you have all 8 VBL slots full, you probably WON'T see / / a problem with 6.0.4. If you DO, and try to use the cache... / / Well, it isn't a sight for the squeemish..." / ///////////////////////////////////////////////// NTACTONE //// [EOA] [LIB]////////////////////////////// THE ONLINE LIBRARY / ///////////////////////////////// Yours For The Downloading """"""""""""""""""""""""" By Mel Fowler [MELSOFT] >>> TrueType FONTS...INTERESTED? <<< """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" SO WHERE ARE THEY? With the advent of Pointless from WestCode, Apple """""""""""""""""" IIGS users have been looking high and low for collections of TrueType fonts. Well we have a great collection of TrueType fonts right here in the Apple II Library. In fact there are some 55 individual fonts that have been uploaded into individual files. In addition, the National Appleworks User's Group (NAUG) has uploaded 20 disks of TrueType fonts. The Apple II community on GEnie would like to take this opportunity to thank NAUG for their time and effort in uploading such a vast collection. You may wonder why I entitled this article "TrueType Fonts And How To Download Them"? Well with all these TrueType fonts available within the Apple II Library, how do you ensure that you do not waste time and money getting duplicate fonts? That is what this article will attempt to answer. Fortunately NAUG included an Appleworks database listing all the files on each of their TrueType font disks. I would recommend that you download this database as a first step. Next choose menu item number 3, Search the Library. For the keyword, type in "TrueType". This will result in a library listing of all the individual TrueType font files and the NAUG disk files. (Be sure to turn on your capture buffer so you can save this list to disk.) You now have a database of the NAUG disks and a list of the individual files. Simply compare the individual TrueType listing with the NAUG database and eliminate the individual fonts that are included in the database. This will give you a single list and you will have eliminated any duplication. The fun now begins as you download the 20 NAUG disk files and those individual TrueType font files that were not included in the NAUG collection. Now that you have all the NAUG disk files and individual TrueType files downloaded and unpacked, you may want to get your collection into some kind of order. As the Apple IIGS disk librarian in my local user group, this was my next concern. If you have a hard drive it is not to much of a chore to get your collection into alphabetical order. I just opened temporary folders for each letter of the alphabet. Each TrueType font disk was then brought up on the Finder and all the "A" fonts were copied into the "A" folder, all the "B" fonts copied into the "B" folder and so on. When my hard drive was close to being full, I would change the "View" to "By Name" on each font folder and copy all the "A" fonts back to disk starting at the top of the directory. When all the "A" fonts were copied back to disk, the "A" folder was trashed thus making room for another folder. The "B" folder was then copied back to disk in the same way and then erased. You now have a well organized collection of TrueType fonts. I even took it a step further by printing out a hardcopy sample of each font for each disk. Our Special Interest Group (SIG) was very impressed with the collection and with the sample printouts they could easily select which TrueType disks they wanted. Good luck in getting your Apple IIGS TrueType Font collection and I hope this article will help. -Melsoft [*][*][*] [Melsoft is the GEnie user name of Mel Fowler, the Apple IIGS disk librarian of the Honolulu Apple Users Society. Mel writes regularly for GEnieLamp about the public domain and shareware offering in the Apple II Roundtable on GEnie.] //////////////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "And I was up a couple of hours before I realized that it's my / / 44th birthday! I think I should just IGN PER this topic while / / I'm still in a good mood. It's been so long since I've had / / anything to feel positive about, I should try to make it last / / and let the naysayers have this topic to themselves." / /////////////////////////////////////////////// J.EIDSVOOG1 //// [EOA] [ELS]////////////////////////////// GEnieLamp ELSEWHERE / ///////////////////////////////// Around GEnie: Internet! """"""""""""""""""""""" >>> GEnieLamp IBM On Internet <<< """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" These files are available via anonymous FTP from WSMR- SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (192.88.110.20) or mirror sites OAK.Oakland.Edu (141.210.10.117), wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4), ftp.uu.net (137.39.1.9), nic.funet.fi (128.214.6.100), src.doc.ic.ac.uk (146.169.3.7) nic.switch.ch (130.59.1.40) or archie.au (139.130.4.6), and by e-mail through the BITNET/EARN file servers, or by uucp from UUNET's 1-900-GOT-SRCS. See UUNET file uunet!~/info/archive-help for details. NOTE: Type B is Binary; Type A is ASCII Directory PD1: Filename Type Length Date Description ============================================== ILMP0492.ZIP B 49272 920908 GEnieLamp IBM Online Magazine (Apr 1992) ILMP0592.ZIP B 44418 920908 GEnieLamp IBM Online Magazine (May 1992) ILMP0692.ZIP B 32725 920908 GEnieLamp IBM Online Magazine (Jun 1992) ILMP0792.ZIP B 35730 920908 GEnieLamp IBM Online Magazine (Jul 1992) ILMP0892.ZIP B 52097 920908 GEnieLamp IBM Online Magazine (Aug 1992) ILMP0992.ZIP B 59842 920908 GEnieLamp IBM Online Magazine (Sep 1992) ILMP1092.ZIP B 74339 920930 GEnieLamp IBM Online Magazine (Oct 1992) ILMP1192.ZIP B 77166 921107 GEnieLamp IBM Online Magazine (Nov 1992) >>> FINDING the Files mentioned in this month's LIVEWIRE Magazine <<< """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Several files are mentioned as great starting places for information about the Internet and GEnie's part in it. As a convenience to the Unix RT participants we have made these available in 3 different forms: Text form, Unix Compress form, and ZIP form. The file names and numbers are listed below: Description Name Text ZIP Unix """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" How to find College E-Mail addresses 3625 4361 3512 Bibliography of Internet Info FYI 3 4365 4364 3529 New Internet User Questions FYI 4 4366 4367 3530 Experienced Internet Questions FYI 7 4368 4369 3533 Who's Who on the Internet FYI 9 4370 4371 3535 Gold in the Internet FYI10 4363 4362 3536 ZEN and the Art of the Internet ZEN 3624 3623 3321 (The Unix compressed version of ZEN requires a PostScript printer.) Other files about the Internet can be found by searching for "INTERNET" while in the Unix libraries on page 160. >>> IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT GEnie's INTERNET GATEWAY PRICING <<< """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" The pricing for GEnie's Internet gateway changed after GEnie LiveWire Magazine went to print. The new pricing can be found on page 207, and in the file GENIE-INTERNET.INFO #4331. In summary, there is no longer a monthly $9.95 fee but a one-time $2 fee for registration with the Internet gateway, and the per-piece price has been reduced from 40 cents to 30 cents per 5,000 characters or part thereof, and applies to messages both sent and received via the Internet gateway. CANADIAN INTERNET GATEWAY ANNOUNCED Today, GEnie announced the expansion """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" of its Public Beta Test of the GEnie to Internet Gateway for Canadian members of GEnie. The Canadian pricing is as follows: $3.00 one time registration fee $.40 cost for each 5,000 characters or portion thereof on each inbound or outbound message. The beta test for Canadian users will be opened on Tuesday, DECEMBER 8, 1992. The keyword remains INTERNET, and can be gotten to on that date by typing INTERNET or moving to page 207, or by selecting the Internet option on the Unix RT menu. For information about the Internet, select item 5 from the Unix RoundTable menu. As mentioned in this month's GEnie LiveWire Magazine these files are good starter files for learning all about the Internet. And this month's GEnie LiveWire Magazine contains a coupon good for one free hour in the Unix RT - a good chance to start learning for almost nothing. //////////////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "Ross Perot will be by shortly to point to a graph showing the / / amount of national debt divided by the number of inactive / / customers counted by online services :)" / ///////////////////////////////////////////////// P.COLLINS //// [EOA] [PDQ]////////////////////////////// PD_QUICKVIEW / ///////////////////////////////// Eamon, Part II """""""""""""" By Darrel Raines [D.RAINES] YOURS FOR THE ASKING! Eamon is a Freeware gaming system allowing a """"""""""""""""""""" single player to experience a Dungeons and Dragons (D&D)(TM) type of environment on any Apple II computer. In a previous Apple II Gaming article, I described a typical scenario that a player might encounter in the world of Eamon. This article will examine how to set up Eamon on your floppy or hard drive system. We will also run through a sample dialogue for a first-time player. You should download one of the two files listed at the end of this article to get started. Each contains a number of good scenarios and a complete set of the basic files, called the Main Hall. There are two versions of the Main Hall available: Text or Graphics. The graphics version is more enjoyable and has more options, but it is less stable. There are also a few character editing programs available that you may find useful. The Setup If you wish to play Eamon from a hard drive, the setup is """"""""" quite simple. Create a directory somewhere that you want to store all of the various Eamon files. Place each of the basic files in this directory including the Main Hall and character files. You can then store each of the scenarios as a subdirectory under this main directory. The name of the subdirectory should indicate the name that you will use to identify the scenario. Store all of the files associated with each scenario under the appropriate subdirectory. Scenario names will automatically appear when prompted for the adventure area. This setup will avoid confusion and directory listings with hundreds of entries. If you wish to play Eamon from a floppy drive, the setup is equally simple. Create a disk that will serve as a boot disk and Main Hall area. Place each of the basic files on this disk including the Main Hall and character files. Each of the scenarios should be stored on separate disks. The title of the disk should indicate the name that you will use to identify the scenario. Store all of the files associated with each scenario on the appropriate disk. Scenario names will automatically appear when you place the disk in the drive (when prompted for the adventure area). This setup will avoid confusion and each disk will contain a separate scenario. If you have followed the instructions listed above, then you are ready to start up Applesoft Basic (Basic.System). Move to the directory (or disk) with the Main Hall and run Startup. You may eventually choose to start by running the Main.Hall program. The next thing that you know, you will be playing Eamon! The Play When a person first starts up the Eamon program, he is faced """""""" with a desk and the imposing question of "What is your name". Since our typical player has never used Eamon before, he/she is free to choose any name that they want. It is unlikely that the new name will have ever been used before. Therefore, the gatekeeper will ask if you want to create a new character. The correct answer is "yes". The next few questions will help determine the traits of the new character. Dice will be rolled to assign values to each character trait. It is important to hold out for reasonable values in each category. A value of 10 for each trait would be a minimum with some traits reaching 17 or higher. You may find it difficult to survive with much less ability. The next order of business will be to equip yourself for battle. You should be able to purchase leather armor and a sword to begin with. If you can get a shield also, then do so. The first adventure that you pursue will help finance further wardrobe purchases. Be sure to arm yourself and put on the armor after it is paid for. If you decide to download and play the graphical main hall, there are other shops available. I don't recommend doing business with them until after you have tried the first adventure. A note is appropriate here concerning the various scenarios. The key to Eamon is the flexibility of the gaming system. Every person who writes a game for the Eamon system is given total freedom to create whatever type of world he/she can dream up. This can also lead to chaos. Files can get mixed up, weapons may be inappropriate for certain scenarios, directories can become unmanageable, etc. All of these problems have been solved to some extent in the modern world of Eamon. Each separate scenario is given its own subdirectory under the main Eamon directory. Any files needed by that scenario must be contained in the subdirectory. Every new character should start with the Beginner's Cave. This simple and not-to-dangerous adventure will get you started and produce reasonable gold and weapons. To choose a scenario, the new character must exit the main hall. This will bring up the prompt asking for the scenario that the character wishes to pursue. A listing of the various subdirectories can be obtained by pressing the return key when prompted. Once the new character has selected the Beginner's Cave, the scene will be set by some introductory text and the adventure will begin! A question mark (?) will bring up a list of the commands that the current scenario understands. The inventory command (I) will list the items available to the character. The new character should attempt to explore the entire cave before returning to the Main Hall. If a character is unable to finish the Beginner's Cave in one outing, then the rest of the Eamon scenarios will be much too difficult to attempt. I will leave the budding Eamon game player with one final word of advice: Read descriptions completely and look for hints in the wording of those descriptions. With this hint and the trusty question mark (?), the reader should be able to start discovering the wonderful world of Eamon on their own. No. File Name Type Address YYMMDD Bytes Access Lib """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 16728 BEST.EAMONS.BXY X T.ZUCHOWSKI 910929 348544 100 36 Desc: An incredible role-play experience! 16750 STARTER.KIT.BXY X A2.DEAN 911002 331008 160 36 Desc: Very Best role playing system! Author Darrel Raines [D.RAINES] welcomes any feedback or comments via """""" electronic mail to the listed user name. //////////////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "This is supposed to be a topic for zaniness to reign supreme! / / You know, swinging in the rafters with household appliances / / and everything. This place is almost becoming -mundane-. / / The PEZ Dispenser is not pleased." / //////////////////////////////////////////////// R.MARTIN22 //// [EOA] [AII]////////////////////////////// APPLE II / ///////////////////////////////// Apple II History, Part 7 """""""""""""""""""""""" By Steven Weyhrich [S.WEYHRICH] >>> APPLE II HISTORY <<< """""""""""""""""""""""" Compiled and written by Steven Weyhrich (C) Copyright 1991, Zonker Software (PART 7 -- THE APPLE IIE) [v1.1 :: 12 Dec 91] INTRODUCTION With the advent of the Apple IIe, a significant event """""""""""" occurred in the life of the Apple II line. Realizing that this computer was NOT going to go away, Apple finally realized that it needed to improve its four-year-old design and bring it out of the 1970's in which it was born. The IIe's keyboard was influenced by that of the Apple III, and it is appropriate to take a brief look at that computer's development and problems to see why the Apple IIe came to exist at all. [*][*][*] PRELUDE: THE APPLE III PROJECT As we continue our travels examining the """""""""""""""""""""""""""""" history of the Apple II, let's fine tune the time-machine card on our souped-up Apple II to concentrate specifically on the next version of the II, the IIe. As before, just accelerate the microprocessor speed to 88 MHz, and watch out for the digital fire-trails! Destination: 1982. Between the years 1979 and 1983, although no new versions of the Apple II were released, it enjoyed a broad popularity and annually increasing sales. The open architecture of the computer, with its fully described hardware and firmware function via the Reference Manual, made it appealing both to hardware and software hackers. Third-party companies designed cards to plug into the internal slots, and their function varied from making it possible to display and use 80-column text, to clocks and cards allowing the Apple II to control a variety of external devices. During this time there was also an explosion of new software written for this easily expandable machine, from the realm of business (VisiCalc and other spreadsheet clones), to utilities, to games of all types. Each month a host of new products would be available for those who wanted to find more things to do with their computer, and the Apple II was finding a place in the home, the classroom, and the office. At Apple Computer, Inc., however, the Apple II was not viewed with the same degree of loyalty. By September 1979 the Apple II had continued to be a sales leader. However, few at Apple believed that the II could continue to be a best seller for more than another year or two. Since Apple Computer, Inc. was a business, and not just a vehicle for selling the Apple II computer, they began to enlarge the engineering department to begin designing new products.<1> These new design efforts had begun as far back as late 1978. Their first effort was an enhanced Apple II that used some custom chips, but that project was never finished. They also began work on a different, more powerful computer that would use several identical microprocessor chips sharing tasks. The main advantage would be speed, and the ability to do high precision calculations. This computer was code-named Lisa, and because it was such a revolutionary type of design, they knew it would take many years to come to actual production. Because of the power it was to have, Apple executives felt that Lisa was the future of the company.<2>,<14> Because they knew that the Lisa project would take a long time to complete, and because the Apple II was perceived to have only a short remaining useful life as a product, they began a new computer project called the Apple III. Instead of building upon the Apple II as a basis for this new computer, they decided to start from scratch. Also, although Wozniak made most of the design decisions for the II, a committee at Apple decided what capabilities the Apple III should have. They decided that the Apple III was to be a business machine, and not have the home or arcade-game reputation that the II had. It was to have a full upper/lowercase keyboard and display, 80-column text, and a more comprehensive operating system. They also decided that since it would be a while before many application programs would be available for this new computer, it should be capable of running existing Apple II software. In some ways this handicapped the project, since it was then necessary to use the same microprocessor and disk drive hardware as was used in the Apple II.<3> Apple executives also decided that with the introduction of the Apple III they wanted a clear separation between it and the Apple II in regards to marketing. They did not want ANY overlap between the two. The III would be an 80-column business machine and was predicted to have ninety percent of the market, while the Apple II would be a 40-column home and school machine and would have ten percent of the market. Apple's executives were confident that after the release of the Apple III, the Apple II would quickly lose its appeal.<4> Because of their desire for a strong and distinct product separation, the Apple II emulation mode designed into the Apple III was very limited. The engineers actually ADDED hardware chips that prevented access to the III's more advanced features from Apple II emulation mode. Apple II emulation couldn't use 80 columns, and had access to only 48K memory and none of the better graphics modes. As a result, it wouldn't run some of the better Apple II business software, during a time when there wasn't much NEW business software for the Apple III. The Apple III engineers were given a one year target date for completion. It was ready for release in the spring of 1980, but there were problems with both design and manufacturing. (It was the first time that Apple as a company tried to come out with a new product; the Apple II had been designed and built by Wozniak when he WAS the engineering department). The first Apple III computers were plagued with nearly 100% defects and had to be recalled for fixes. Although Apple took the unprecedented step of repairing all of the defective computers at no charge, they never recovered the momentum they lost with that first misstep, and the III did not become the success Apple needed it to be.<3> Although all of the bugs and limitations of the Apple III were eventually overcome, and it became the computer of choice within Apple, it did not capture the market as they had hoped. At that point, they weren't sure exactly what to do with the II. They had purposely ignored and downplayed it for the four years since the II Plus was released, although without its continued strong sales they would not have lasted as a company. In a 1985 interview in Byte magazine, Steve Wozniak stated: "When we came out with the Apple III, the engineering staff cancelled every Apple II engineering program that was ongoing, in expectation of the Apple III's success. Every single one was cancelled. We really perceived that the Apple II would not last six months. So the company was almost all Apple III people, and we worked for years after that to try and tell the world how good the Apple III was, because we KNEW [how good it was] ... If you looked at our advertising and R&D dollars, everything we did here was done first on the III, if it was business related. Then maybe we'd consider doing a sub-version on the II. To make sure there was a good boundary between the two machines, anything done on the II had to be done at a lower level than on the III. Only now are we discovering that good solutions can be implemented on the II ... We made sure the Apple II was not allowed to have a hard disk or more than 128K of memory. At a time when outside companies had very usable schemes for adding up to a megabyte of memory, we came out with a method of adding 64K to an Apple IIe, which was more difficult to use and somewhat limited. We refused to acknowledge any of the good 80-column cards that were in the outside world--only ours, which had a lot of problems."<4> Wozniak went on in that interview to say that at one time he had written some fast disk routines for the Pascal system on the Apple II, and was criticized by the Apple III engineers. They didn't think that anything on the II should be allowed to run faster than on a III. That was the mindset of the entire company at the time. Apple has been much maligned for the attention they gave the Apple III project, while suspending all further development on the Apple II. They pegged their chances for the business market in 1980 on the Apple III. Even Steve Wozniak had stated in another interview, "We'd have sold tons of [computers in the business market] if we'd have let the II evolve ... to become a business machine called the III instead of developing a separate, incompatible computer. We could have added the accessories to make it do the business functions that the outside world is going to IBM for."<3> Part of the problem was the immaturity of the entire microcomputer industry at the time. There had NEVER been a microcomputer that had sold well for more than a couple of years before it was replaced by a more powerful model, usually from another company. The Altair 8800 and IMSAI had fallen to the more popular and easier to use Apple II and TRS-80 and Commodore PET, as well as other new machines based on the Intel 8080 and 8088 processors. It is entirely understandable that Apple's attitude between 1978 and 1980 would be of panic and fear that they wouldn't get a new computer out in time to keep their market share and survive as a company. However, during the entire time when Apple was working on the III as a computer to carry the company through until Lisa would be ready, and during the entire time that the Apple II was ignored by its own company, it continued to quietly climb in sales. It is a credit to both the ingenuity of Wozniak in his original design, and to the users of the Apple II in THEIR ingenuity at finding new uses for the II, that its value increased and stimulated yet more new sales. The Apple II "beat" the odds of survival that historically were against it. THE APPLE IIE: BEGINNINGS When Apple saw that the sales on the Apple II """"""""""""""""""""""""" were NOT going to dwindle away, they finally decided to take another look at it. The first new look at advancing the design of the II was with a project called "Diana" in 1980. Diana was intended primarily to be an Apple II that had fewer internal components, and would be less expensive to build. The project was later known as "LCA", which stood for "Low Cost Apple". Inside Apple this meant a lower cost of manufacturing, but outsiders who got wind of the project thought it meant a $350 Apple II. Because of that misconception, the final code name for the updated Apple II was "Super II", and lasted until its release.<5> THE APPLE IIE: HARDWARE Part of the IIe project grew out of the earlier """"""""""""""""""""""" work on custom integrated circuits for the Apple II. When they finally decided to go ahead and improve the design by adding new features, one of the original plans was to give the Apple II an 80-column text display and a full upper/lowercase keyboard. Walt Broedner at Apple did much of the original hardware planning, and was one of those at Apple who pushed for the upgrade in the first place. To help maintain compatibility with older 40-column software (which often addressed the screen directly for speed), he decided to make 80-columns work by mirroring the older 40 column text screen onto a 1K memory space parallel to it, with the even columns in main memory and the odd columns in this new "auxiliary" memory. To display 80-column text would require switching between the two memory banks. Broedner realized that with little extra effort he could do the same for the entire 64K memory space and get 128K of bank-switchable memory. They put this extra memory (the 1K "80-column card, or a 64K "extended 80-column card") in a special slot called the "auxiliary" slot that replaced slot 0 (the 16K Language Card was going to be a built-in feature). The 80-column firmware routines were mapped to slot 3, since that was a location commonly used by people who bought 80-column cards for their Apple II's, and was also the place where the Apple Pascal system expected to find an external terminal. The auxiliary slot also supplied some special video signals, and was used during manufacture for testing on the motherboard. The engineers that worked on the IIe tried hard to make sure that cards designed for the II and II Plus would work properly in the new computer. They even had to "tune" the timing on the IIe to be slightly OFF (to act more like the II Plus) because the Microsoft CP/M Softcard refused to function properly with the new hardware. A socket was included on the motherboard for attaching a numeric keypad, a feature that many business users had been adding (with difficulty) to the II Plus for years. The full keyboard they designed was very similar to the one found on the Apple III, including two unique keys that had first appeared with the III--one with a picture of an hollow apple ("open-apple") and the other with the same apple picture filled in ("solid-apple"). These keys were electrically connected to buttons 0 and 1 on the Apple paddles or joystick. They were available to software designers as modifier keys when pressed with another key; for example, open-apple-H could be programmed to call up a "help" screen. The newer electronics of the keyboard also made it easier to manufacture foreign language versions of the Apple IIe.<6> Overall, Broedner and Peter Quinn (the design manager for the IIe and later the IIc projects) and their team managed to decrease the number of components on the motherboard from over one hundred to thirty-one, while adding to the capabilities of the computer by the equivalent of another hundred components. THE APPLE IIE: FIRMWARE Peter Quinn had to beg for someone to help write """"""""""""""""""""""" the firmware revisions to the Monitor and Applesoft for the IIe. He finally got Rich Auricchio, who had been a hacker on the Apple II almost from the beginning. Quinn said in a later interview, "You cannot get someone to write firmware for this machine unless he's been around for three or four years. You have to know how to get through the mine field [of unofficial but commonly used entry points]. He [Rick] was extremely good. He added in all the 80-column and Escape-key stuff." Quinn also got Bryan Stearns to work on the new Monitor.<6>,<7> Changes were made in the ROMs to support the new bank-switching modes made necessary by having two parallel 64K banks of RAM memory. To have enough firmware space for these extra features, the engineers increased the size of the available ROM by making IT bank-switched. This space was taken from a location that had previously not been duplicated before--the memory locations used by cards in the slots on the motherboard. Ordinarily, if you use the Monitor to look at the slot 1 memory locations from $C100 through $C1FF, you get either random numbers (if the slot is empty), or the bytes that made up the controller program on that card. Any card could also have the space from $C800 through $CFFF available for extra ROM code if they needed it. If a card in a slot did a read or write to memory location $CFFF, the $C800-$CFFF ROM that belonged to that card would appear in that space in the Apple II memory. When another card was working, then ITS version of that space would appear. On the IIe, they made a special soft-switch that would switch OUT all the peripheral cards from the memory, and switch IN the new expanded ROM on the motherboard. The firmware in the new bank-switched ROM space was designed to avoid being needed by any card in a slot (to avoid conflicts), and much of it was dedicated to making the 80-column display (mapped to slot 3) work properly. Also added were enhancements to the ESC routines used to do screen editing. In addition to the original ESC A, B, C, and D, and the ESC I, J, K, and M added with the Apple II Plus, Auricchio added the ability to make the ESC cursor moves work with the left and right arrow keys, and the new up and down arrow keys. The new IIe ROM also included a self-test that was activated by pressing both apple keys, the control key, and RESET simultaneously.<5> THE APPLE IIE: SUCCESS The new Apple IIe turned out to be quite """""""""""""""""""""" profitable for Apple. Not only was it more functional than the II Plus for a similar price, but the cost to the dealers selling it was about three times the cost of manufacture. They had gotten their "Low Cost Apple", and by May of 1983 the Apple IIe was selling sixty to seventy thousand units a month, over twice the average sales of the II Plus. Christmas of 1983 saw the IIe continue to sell extremely well, partly resulting from the delayed availability of the new IBM PCjr. Even after the Apple IIc was released in 1984, IIe sales continued beyond those of the IIc, despite the IIc's built-in features.<8> THE APPLE IIE: MODIFICATIONS Early Apple IIe motherboard's were labelled """""""""""""""""""""""""""" as "Revision A". Engineers determined soon after its introduction that if the same use of parallel memory was applied to the hi-res graphics display as was done with the text display, they could create higher density graphics. These graphics, which they called "double hi-res", also had the capability of displaying a wider range of colors, similar to those available with the original Apple II lo-res graphics. The IIe motherboards with the necessary modifications to display these double hi-res graphics were labelled "Revision B", and a softswitch was assigned to turning on and off the new graphics mode. Later versions of the IIe motherboards were again called "Revision A" (for some reason), although they HAD been modified for double hi-res graphics. The difference between the two "Revision A" boards was that the latter had most of the chips soldered to the motherboard. An original "Revision A" board that had been changed to an Enhanced IIe was not necessarily able to handle double hi-res, since the change to the Enhanced version involved only a four-chip change to the motherboard, but not the changes to make double hi-res possible.<9> THE APPLE IIE: THE ENHANCED IIE This version of the Apple IIe was """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""" introduced in March of 1985. It involved changes to make the IIe more closely compatible with the Apple IIc and II Plus. The upgrade consisted of four chips that were swapped in the motherboard: The 65c02 processor, with more assembly language opcodes, replaced the 6502; two more chips with Applesoft and Monitor ROM changes; and the fourth a character generator ROM that included graphics characters (first introduced on the IIc) called "MouseText". The Enhanced IIe ROM changes fixed most of the known problems with the IIe 80-column firmware, and made it possible to enter Applesoft and Monitor commands in lower-case. The older 80-column routines were slower than most software developers wanted, they disabled interrupts for too long a time, and there were problems in making Applesoft work properly with the 80-column routines. These problems were solved with the newer ROMs. Monitor changes also included a return of the mini-assembler, absent since the days of Integer BASIC. It was activated by entering a "!" command in the Monitor, instead of a jump to a memory location as in the older Apple ][. Also added were an "S" command was added to make it possible to search memory for a byte sequence, and the ability to enter ASCII characters directly into memory. However, the "L" command to disassemble 6502 code still did not handle the new 65c02 opcodes as did the IIc disassembler. Interrupt handling was also improved. Applesoft was fixed to let commands such as GET, HTAB, TAB, SPC, and comma tabbing work properly in 80-column mode. The new MouseText characters caused a problem for some older programs at first, until they were upgraded; characters previously displayed as inverse upper-case would sometimes display as MouseText instead.<10>,<11> THE APPLE IIE: THE PLATINUM IIE This version of the IIe, introduced in """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""" January 1987, had a keyboard that was the same as the IIGS keyboard, but the RESET key was moved above the ESC and "1" keys (as on the IIc), and the power light was above the "/" on the included numeric keypad (the internal numeric keypad connector was left in place). The CLEAR key on the keypad generated the same character as the ESC key, but with a hardware modification it could generate a Ctrl-X as it did on the IIGS. The motherboard had 64K RAM in only two chips (instead of the previous eight), and one ROM chip instead of two. An "extended 80-column card" with 64K extra memory was included in all units sold, and was smaller than previous versions of that memory card. No ROM changes were made. The old shift-key modification was installed, making it possible for programs to determine if the shift-key was being pressed. However, if using a game controller that actually used the third push-button (where the shift-key mod was internally connected), pressing shift and the third push-button simultaneously causes a short circuit that shuts down the power supply.<12> THE APPLE IIE: EMULATION CARD ON MACINTOSH LC In early 1991, Apple """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" introduced a new version of the Apple IIe. This one was designed to be exactly like the 128K Platinum IIe, with the modification that it had a color Macintosh attached to it. This Apple IIe cost only $199, but the required Macintosh peripheral went for about $2,495, which makes the combination the most expensive Apple II ever made. Apple engineers managed to put the function of an entire IIe onto a card smaller than the old Disk II controller card. With version 2.0 of the Apple II interface software, more of the memory allocated to the Macintosh can be used by the IIe (strange way of designing an Apple II!). However, unlike all previous versions of the IIe, there are no hardware-based slots on the IIe card; instead, there are software-based slots that are allocated by moving icons that represent various peripherals into "slots" on the Mac screen. (Oh, yes; it runs some Mac software, too). To use 5.25 disks with this Apple IIe, there is a cable that attaches to the card. The cable splits into a game connector (for paddles or joystick operation) and a connector that accepts IIc and IIGS style 5.25 drives. The IIe card runs at a "normal" (1 MHz) speed and a "fast" (2 MHz) speed.<13> It has limitations, however. For a 1991 Apple II, it is limited in being unable to be accelerated beyond 2 MHz (a Zip Chip can run a standard IIe at 8 MHz), and the screen response seems slow, since it is using a software-based Mac text display instead of the hardware-based Apple II character ROM. As a Macintosh it lacks the power and speed of the newer Macintosh II models (which also run in color). But if having a Apple II and a Mac in one machine is important, this is the best way to do it. [*][*][*] NEXT INSTALLMENT The Apple IIc """""""""""""""" NOTES """"" <1> Freiberger, Paul, and Swaine, Michael. "Fire In The Valley, Part I (Book Excerpt)", A+ Magazine, Jan 1985, p. 45-48. <2> Freiberger, Paul, and Swaine, Michael. "Fire In The Valley, Part II (Book Excerpt)", A+ Magazine, Jan 1985, p. 46,51. <3> Rubin, Charles. "The Life & Death & Life Of The Apple II", Personal Computing, Feb 1985, p. 72. <4> Williams, Gregg, and Moore, Rob. "The Apple Story, Part 2: More History And The Apple III", Byte, Jan 1985, pp. 177-178. <5> Tommervik, Al. "Apple IIe: The Difference", Softalk, Feb 1983, pp. 118-127, 142. <6> Williams, Gregg. "'C' Is For Crunch", Byte, Dec 1984, pp. A75-A78, A121. <7> Little, Gary. Inside The Apple //c, 1985, pp. 1-7. <8> Rose, Frank. West Of Eden: The End Of Innocence At Apple Computer, 1989, pp. 98-99. <9> Weishaar, Tom. "Ask Uncle DOS", Open-Apple, Dec 1986, p. 2.86. <10> Weishaar, Tom. "A Song Continued", Open-Apple, Mar 1985, pp. 1.20-1.21. <11> Weishaar, Tom. "Demoralized Apple II Division Announces Enhanced IIe...", Open-Apple, Apr 1985, pp. 1.25-1.27. <12> Weishaar, Tom. "Apple Introduces An Updated IIe", Open-Apple, Jan 1987, p. 3.1. <13> Doms, Dennis. "The Apple II as Mac peripheral", Open-Apple, Jul 1991, pp. 7.43-7.44. <14> This was an early version of the Lisa project. When the 68000 microprocessor became available from Motorola, it was decided to use that as a single processor for the Lisa. Also, after Steve Jobs paid a visit to the Xerox lab and saw the Xerox Star computer with its icon interface and mouse pointing device, he pushed strongly for the Lisa to work in that way. /////////////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "This is the benefit of GEnie - access to a broad spectrum of / / computer users that can help when a person has a problem." / ////////////////////////////////////////////////// L.HINEK //// [EOA] [LOG]////////////////////////////// LOG OFF / ///////////////////////////////// GEnieLamp Information """""""""""""""""""""" o COMMENTS: Contacting GEnieLamp o GEnieLamp STAFF: Who Are We? o GET_THE_LAMP Scripts & Macros o SEARCH-ME! Answers GEnieLamp GEnieLamp is monthly online magazine published in the """"""""" GEnieLamp RoundTable on page 515. 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