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  • ANALOG Computing (September 1983)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: ANALOG Computing – September 1983

    ANALOG Computing was probably the most popular and longest running magazine for Atari 8-bit computers in the U.S. The September 1983 issue includes:

    Features/Articles

    • The New ATARI Peripherals – The 1983 Summer CES was a pretty big event for Atari. New products announced or show there include the 600XL, 800XL, 1400XL, and 1450XLD computers. In addition, there were numerous new peripherals including three different printers, the 1050 Disk Drive, 1030 Direct Connect Modem (300 baud), CX77 Touch Tablet, CX80 Trackball, Atari CP/M Module, and lots more.
    • ATARI Graph – A cryptographic puzzle.
    • Fine Scrolling – Part one of a tutorial on scrolling on the Atari 8-bit including programming examples and a discussion of what various games do, including Defender, Caverns of Mars and Eastern Front.

    Reviews/Profiles

    • Family Cash Flow – Software for keeping track of your money.
    • Electronic Arts/Games Review – Reviews of several Electronic Arts games including Archon, M.U.L.E., Pinball Construction Set, and Worms?
    • Donkey Kong – A conversion of the arcade classic on cartridge.
    • Pole Position – Another arcade conversion on cartridge. I got really good at this game on the Commodore 64.
    • Dark Crystal – A graphics adventure game based on the movie of the same name.
    • BASIC Utilities Compared – A look at three different programming utility packages including BAIC Commander, BASIC Debugger, and Monkey Wrench II.
    • Alpha Shield – An action game in which you must defeat the alien base.
    • Starbowl Football – A pretty good though difficult football game.

    Program Listings

    • Observational Astronomy – A type-in program that allows you to enter your latitude and longitude as well as the date and it will tell you what objects are in the night sky.
    • Livewire Paddle Default – A modification to a previous type-in game that sets the paddle controllers as the default instead of the joystick.
    • Roundup – A type-in game in which you must herd and lasso cattle.
    • CIO Utilities – Utilities to speed up disk and cassette input and output.
    • Space Assault – A type-in game in which you must protect your colony from invading aliens. It sounds like a cross between space invaders and missile command.

    Columns

    • Editorial – Alan Alda’s endorsement deal with Atari and crediting programmers for their work.
    • Reader Comment – Letters from readers regarding hardware add-ons, the San Diego Computer Society Computer Fair, software piracy, and more.
    • New Products – A look at new products including Blue Max, Zaxxon, Dimension X, Drelbs, Shadow World, Rainbow Walker, Wavy Navy, The Dark Crystal, Mr. Cool, Moon Shuttle, Pooyan, Satan’s Hollow, Lord of the Rings, Operation Whirlwind, Silicon Warrior, Gateway to Apshai, Jumpman Jr., River Raid, and lots more.
    • Our Game – A column on game design in which reader ideas are explored.
    • Boot Camp – An introduction to assembly language.
    • Ask Sally Forth – Comparing the speed of FORTH with BASIC.

    …and more!


    Atari 8-bit Computer Arcana 📎and tagged

  • ANALOG Computing (June 1989)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: ANALOG Computing – Issue Number 73 – June 1989

    ANALOG Computing was the longest running and most popular Atari 8-bit magazine in the U.S. In 1989 it was getting close to the end of its days. The June 1989 issue includes:

    Features

    • The Adventure Game Showdown – How adding pictures to text adventure style games changed adventure gaming.
    • Secret Agent: Mission 1 – A type-in text adventure game with a secret agent theme.
    • Sector to Printer – A type-in program that creates map print outs of adventure games by extracting map related data stored on disk. This is a demo program tailored for Ultima III.
    • Disk Directory Alphabetizer – A type-in program that will reorganize your disk directories to be in alphabetical order.
    • Super Command Processor, Part 2 – Creating external commands for BBKCP.
    • Accessing Atari XL Hidden Memory – The Atari 800XL contains 64K of RAM but since that is the maximum amount addressable by the 6502 processor, parts are disabled when BASIC ROM or the OS is being used. This article shows how to access that memory.
    • Marble Magic – A type-in game that recreates a board game called Peg Board, Peg Checkers or Hi-Q on the Atari 8-bit.

    Reviews

    • Mario Bros. – Mario Bros. was a 1983 arcade game so this was a pretty late conversion fort he Atari 8-bit. But if there was one thing Atari was good at, it was releasing and re-releasing old games.
    • Desert Falcon – This Zaxxon-like game was one of the last major Atari releases for 8-bit computers. It was really an Atari XEGS game but would also work on the XL and XE computers.

    Columns

    • Database DELPHI – An introduction to the DELPHI online service, the Atari SIG (Special Interest Group) in particular.
    • Boot Camp – A look at the 6502 instruction set and how it addresses memory.
    • The End User – Info about user groups and a look at SpartDOS X.
    • BASIC Training – A tutorial on BASIC INPUT and PRINT statements.

    Departments

    • Editorial – A sort of intro to the “Adventure Game Showdown” article above. There seems to be a concern that adding graphics to text adventures was a bad thing. Ironically, text adventures (with or without graphics) were already pretty much a dead genre by this time.
    • Reader Comment – Letters from readers about reviews, previous type-in programs, internal troubles at Atari and the Atari 850 interface.

    …and more!


    Atari 8-bit Computer Arcana 📎and tagged

  • Compute! (May 1981)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Compute! – Issue Number 12 – May 1981

    Compute! was one of the earliest and longest running multi-format computer magazines published in the U.S. In the early days, it covered the Atari 400/800, Apple II and Commodore PET as well as various kit computers. The May 1981 issue includes:

    • The Editor’s Notes – A look at some of the things seen at the West Coast Computer Faire, including the Votrax Type-‘N-Talk text to speech synthesizer, the Commodore Super-PET, A 256K memory expansion from Axlon for the Atari 800, and more.
    • The Readers’ Feedback – Praise for the magazine, small business programs for the Atari, improving magazine distribution, and more.
    • Computers and Society – Addressing computer phobia.
    • Computer Aided Instruction, Boon or Bust? – Analyzing the effects of computers in the classroom. Still a novel idea at the time.
    • They Mysterious and Unpredictable RND – The last part in a series on random numbers. This part presents solutions for finding maximum and minimum numbers in a sample of random numbers, simulating dice rolls and a number of other exercises.
    • Land of the Lost – A Program For a Cassette Filing System – A type-in menu-driven program to create labels for cassettes (the dominant home computer storage medium of the time).
    • Using The 6522 to Drive a Printer – How to construct an interface for a parallel printer and create a machine language program to drive it using a Comprint 912P printer and OSI computer.
    • Using the Aim 64 as a Remote Terminal for an Apple – Using a 6551 ACIA (Asynchronous Communications Interface Adapter) and RS-232C interface, NOVATION CAT modem, and AIM 65 single board computer to create a terminal for an Apple II.
    • EPIDEMIC – A Simulation of an Epidemic – A type-in BASIC program for the PET that simulates the spread of an epidemic based on your inputs.
    • A Floating Point Multiplication Routine – A type-in machine language program that converts two signed numbers to floating-point binary numbers and performs multiplication with 9 digit accuracy.
    • Naming Compounds – A type-in program for the PET designed for high school chemistry students that can test students on naming compounds and creating formulas from the names.

    The Apple Gazette

    • Using Named GOSUB and GOTO Statements in Applesoft BASIC – A simple way to create named subroutines vs. just using line numbers.
    • Commas, Colons, and Quote Marks Too – Writing BASIC programs that can accept commas, colons and quotation marks as part of their input.
    • Generating Lower Case Text on the Apple II Plus Using the Paymar Chip – By default the Apple II Plus could only display uppercase letters. However, it could be modified with a PAYMAR (LC-1) so that lower case letters could be used. The type-in program can then convert strings in your BASIC programs to lowercase.

    The Atari Gazette

    • A Cure for Atari BASIC or, Make Your Atari a Bit Wiser – An assembly language program that adds the ability to do bitwise operations in Atari BASIC.
    • Copy Your Atari Screen to Your Printer – A short BASIC program that will dump the contents of the screen to a printer.
    • Hardware Information at Last! – Three new Atari technical manuals, including Atari 400/800 Technical User Notes, Atari 400/800 Operating System, and Atari 400/800 Disk Operating System.
    • Using Strings for Graphics Storage – A method for using BASIC strings to create graphics on the Atari.
    • Atari Machine I/O – Three machine language routines for processing input.
    • Disk Directory Printer – A couple of BASIC programs for creating directory listings of your disks.
    • Condensing Data Statements on the Atari – Using characters instead of numbers in DATA statements used as input for machine language programs to save space (one character equates to one to three digits).
    • Real-Time Clock on the Atari – A BASIC program that can set, configure, and use the real-time clock included in Atari computers.
    • Review: Stud Poker – A simple poker game designed to run on Atari computers with 16K.

    The OSI Gazette

    • Through the Fill-The-Buffer Routine with Gun and Camera – Some technical info on how the “Fill-the-Buffer” routine (FTB) of OS BASIC works.
    • FOOTU: FOO Revisited – Converting FOO (a racing game for the OSI) to run on OSI systems with BASIC-in-ROM.

    The PET Gazette

    • A Fast Visible Memory Dump – A program for creating a graphical memory dump to a printer.
    • Machine Language: Getting to the Machine Language Program – Methods for combining BASIC programs with machine language routines.
    • A Thirteen Line BASIC Delete – A short BASIC program that allows you to delete any group of lines form an existing program.
    • Calculated Bar-graph Routines on the Pet – How to calculate the length of bars in a bar graph so that they can be properly printed.
    • The Revised Pet/CBM Personal Computer Guide – A look at the changes in the newest revision of the Osborne/McGraw-Hill Pet/CBM Personal Computer Guide.
    • Un-Compactor – A BASIC program that reverses the process of the Compactor program published in a previous issue. It would “compact” programs by doing thing like combining multiple programming lines onto one line and separating them by colons, etc.
    • Using the Hardware Interrupt Vector on the Pet – Making the PET execute your machine language program every 60th of a second using the hardware interrupt vector while BASIC programs run normally.
    • Pet as an IEEE-488 Logic Analyzer – Using another PET and a IEEE interface cable to see what is going on on the GPIB.
    • Running 40 Column Programs on a CBM 8032 – A way to make 80-Column PETs work like 40-Column PETs.

    The SBC Gazette

    • Nuts and Volts – Information about building your own microcontrollers.
    • A Kim-1 Music File in Microsoft Basic: Part 1
    • New Products – Atari sponsors contest for new software; the BYTEWRITER-1 dot matrix printer from Microtek; Hayes releases the Smartmodem, a 300 baud modem that set the standard for years to come for $279; and more.

    …and more!


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