Antic: The Atari Resource, April 1985

Antic: The Atari Resource
Volume 3, Number 12
April 1985

Antic was primarily an Atari 8-bit magazine but at times it covered both the Atari 8-bit line and the 16-bit Atari ST. This was the case in April 1985 when the Atari ST had been recently released.

The April 1985 issue of Antic includes the following:

Features

First Look at the New Super Ataris – A look at the brand new Atari 520ST which included an 8 MHz 68000 (faster than the Macintosh at the time) and 512K of RAM. At the time, a 130ST and 260ST were also planned with lesser memory (128K for the 130ST and 256K for the 260ST) but these never materialized. There were new Atari 8-bit computer as well with the 64KB Atari 65XE and the 128KB Atari 130XE. These had been redesigned to match the aesthetics of the Atari ST.

Robot Update – Predictions of a robot meeting you at the door with the newspaper (if that’s not anachronistic I don’t know what is) and cooking dinner among other things in the next 5 to 10 years (still waiting). Current robots at the time include the RB5X and HERO-1. The RB5X could be programmed from many computers, including Atari 8-bit computers, with Tiny BASIC. The article does mention robots that could vacuum in the future and at least we do have those now.

Expert Systems – A look at the state of artificial intelligence in 1985.

The Eight Queens Problem – Solving a chess problem the brute force way with BASIC on an Atari 8-bit with at least 24K.

’84 Tax Spreadsheet Update – An updated template for SynCalc, a spreadsheet program for the Atari 8-bit, that allows you to do your taxes.

Secret Agent – A type in-program that allows you to encrypt/decrypt messages.

Dot Matrix Digitizer – How to build a cheap (obviously lo-res and mono) photo digitizer than can then be printed on various dot matrix printers.

Spash In Action! – A comparison of ACTION! (a programming language) with BASIC.

Speech Editor – A type-in program that gives you a menu driven interface to S.A.M., Atari’s speech synthesizer.

Picture Show – This is an enhancement to a previously published graphics utility.

Departments

Communications: Welcome to Antic Online – A new Atari online service available via CompuServe. Some of the things included are news, index to back issues, product review library, user group directory and more.

Starting Out: Why You Want DOS 2 – Newer disk drives shipped with DOS 3 which offered improvements but also introduced all kinds of incompatibilities so that most people stuck with DOS 2 until 2.5 came along with the Atari XEs.

Profile: Atari’s Founder Goes Robotic – Nolan Bushnell introduces an inexpensive robot (called Andy) that could be controlled with an Atari 8-bit or Commodore 64.

Toolbox: Parallel Bus, Revealed – The final part of a four-part series that provides a guide for building and programming a high-speed parallel-bus (PBI) interface.

Game of the Month: Maneuver – A type-in strategy game for two players.

Bonus Game: Crazy Eights! – A type-in card game.

I/O Board – Questions and comments from readers. Topics include Alternate Reality, Typo II, a complaint about a Superman cover and more.

Help! – Readers ask for help regarding DOS 3 errors, taxes, Bannetizer (a previous type-in program), and more.

Product Reviews – Reviews this month include Whistler’s Brother (Broderbund), Party Quic (Suncom), Serpent’s Star (Broderbund), Space Waste Race (Sunburst), ABCs of Atari Computers (Datamost), G.E. Compu-Mate Data Recorder, Conan (Datasoft) and Up and Down (Sega).

Shopper’s Guide – A classified ads style section with ads from various Atari dealers.

New Products – A brief look at new and upcoming products including the Okimate 120 printer; Morsecode Master, Reversi Master (New Horizons); R-Link (serial modem interface by Quantum Microsystems); Space Base (astronomical software by Urania Systems); 85- Cables (cables for connecting the Atari 850 interface box to various RS-232 devices); Bank Street Musicwriter; and Run For It (game from Weekly Reader Family Software); U.S. Doubler (disk drive mod from ICD).