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  • Antic (June 1986)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Antic – June 1986 

    Antic was one of the biggest Atari 8-bit magazines in North America. It also covered the Atari ST at times. The June 1986 issue includes:

    Features

    • Summer, Atari Style – It seems that by 1986, most computer camps had already died out. However, there were a number of camps still around that provided computers for learning as one of their many activities. Apparently there was even at least one that taught you skills like running your own BBS.
    • Weather Wizard – A type-in program that will predict the weather based on a few inputs.
    • Decide – A BASIC type-in program for creating a decision tree.
    • Math Art – A type-in program that generates graphical patterns based on mathematical equations and sine waves.
    • Recipe Converter – A type-in program that will automatically adjust the amount of ingredients needed based on the number of servings.
    • Micro Julius – A BASIC type-in program that will display a calendar from any month between 1900 and 2100 and calculate the number of days since an given event.

    Departments

    • Game of the Month: Bomb Squad – A type-in game consisting of ten levels in which you must avoid the mechanical guards and defuse bombs.
    • Starting Out: New Owners Column Lesson 4: Nested Loops – A BASIC tutorial on nested loops with type-in examples.
    • Education: Atari Learning Center – Making the case for why the Atari is the best educational computer.

    ST Resource

    • 68000 Exceptions & Interrupts – Part two of a three part series that details interrupts and exception handling on the Atari ST.
    • Basic Biorhythmics – A type-in program for generating biorhythms on the Atari ST. There was a (or many) version of this for every computer back in the day.
    • Zoomracks Review – A unique text-oriented database system for the Atari ST that uses a sort of card catalog or timecard metaphor.
    • DB Master One & 1st-Word Review – Review of a couple of pieces of software being included with each new Atari 520ST. 1st-Word is a word processing program and DB Master One is a database management program.
    • File I/O Intro – A guide to handling various file types on the Atari ST.
    • ST Product News – New products for the Atari ST examined this month include Holmes & Duckworth Forth, Brataccas (an animated adventure game from Psygnosis and Mindscape), Borrowed Time (an illustrated text adventure from Activision), HippoVision (a video digitizer), H & D Base (a database), The Manager (a relational database system), and lots more.

    Columns

    • I/O Board – Letters from readers with topics including Atari Lie Detector, Silent Service, the Okimate 10 printer, Lunar Lander Construction Set, DOS 2.5 vs. DOS 3, Atari modems, RAM expansion, Amdek disk drives, and a country music BBS.
    • Antic Online – What’s new with Antic on CompuServe.
    • Product Reviews – Reviews of MIDI Music System from Synthetic Software, Nam from Strategic Simulations, Inc., Soundmouse from Soundsoft, inc., Spellbreaker from Infocom, Batallion Commander from SSI, Spy vs. Spy II from First Star Software, and more.

    …and more!


    Atari 8-bit Atari ST Computer Arcana 📎and tagged

  • ST Amiga Format (November 1988)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: ST Amiga Format – Issue Number 6 – November 1988

    While both the Amiga and Atari ST would go on to have their own “Format” magazines in the U.K., they started off together with “ST Amiga Format” that covered both machines. The November 1988 issue includes:

    Departments

    • News – The 1988 Personal Computer Show; Commodore releases video editing kit for the Amiga 5t00; Sinclair Professional PC200 specs; Atari cuts price of Atari 520ST; HiSoft BASIC compiler coming soon for the Amiga; Sculpt 4D Professional ray-tracing package, Forms in Flight 2 and Fantavision animation packages coming soon; Lords of the Rising Sun (Amiga & ST), Pioneer Plague (Amiga), Damocles (ST & Amiga), Afterburner (ST & Amiga), Rocket Ranger (Amiga), Dragon Slayer (Amiga & ST), Falcon (Amiga & ST), and Pacmania (Amiga & ST) all coming soon.
    • Pixel Punchers – An overview of the hardware and software now available or coming soon to assist with creating graphics and animation.
    • ST Blitter Boost – Two ways to add blitter capabilities to the Atari ST, including soldering on a new chip.
    • Amiga MIDI Interface – A tutorial for building your own MIDI interface for the Amiga.
    • Gold Dust – Atari releases details of new TOS version; 80286 AT-bridge board for the Amiga nears release; and more.
    • Disk Extra – The cover disk this month includes two full games (Spooks for the Atari ST and Amoeboids for the Amiga), in addition to a variety of utilities and other stuff.
    • Special Offers – Special deals on a variety of software for the Amiga and Atari ST.
    • ST PD – The best in recent public domain software for the Atari ST including FSEL (a more friendly file selector), Format 11 (a disk formatting utility), Disckmech (disk analyzer, archiver and editor), Super Boot 2.0 (customize the boot-up process), and more.
    • Letters – Letters this month include topics such as benchmark scores, Patchbox 32, using Amiga disk drives with a bridgeboard, software piracy, BASIC on the Atari ST, and more.

    Games

    • Screen Play – Reviews of the latest Amiga and Atari ST games including Menace (Psygnosis), Fusion (Electronic Arts), P.O.W. (U.S. Action), Powerplay (Arcan), Luxor (Software Horizons), Stargoose (Logotron), Elite (Firebird), Veteran (Software Horizons), Operation Neptune (Infogrames), Super Hang-On (Mediagenic), and Netherworld (Hewson).
    • Game Busters – Tips and tricks for Street Fighter (Amiga), Slap Fight (Atari ST), Virus (Atari ST), Ikari Warriors (Atari ST), Warhawk (Atari ST), Backlash (Atari ST), Trailblazer (Atari ST), Wizball (Amiga), Pandora (ST and Amiga), and Giana Sisters (Amiga).

    Graphics

    • Cartoon Capers – How to draw cartoons or comics with the software of your choice. Some suggested software includes Neochrome, Spectrum 512, Art Studio, Art Director, GFA Artist, Quantum Paint, Cyber Paint, and Easy Draw 2 for the ST and Deluxe Paint II, DEluxe Photolab, Digi Paint, Photon Paint, and Express Paint for the Amiga.

    Reviews

    • Sprite Factory – A software package for designing sprites on the Atari ST.
    • Animation: Flipper – An animation program for the Amiga.
    • Robokit – Software and a hardware interface for controlling robots on the Atari ST.
    • Lights! Camera! Action! – A program for generating slide shows with special effects on the Amiga.
    • DTP Update – Reviews of Shakespeare 1.1 (Amiga) and Timeworks DTP (Atari ST) desktop publishing packages.

    Music

    • Sell Yourself! – How to make money with the MIDI music you create by making tapes, CDs, and more, including the tools you will need to accomplish this.

    Technophile

    • Amiga Tools – Reviews of CygnusEd (a program editor) and W-Shell (an enhancement to the Amiga CLI).
    • Learn BASIC – Part four of an extensive BASIC tutorial. This part covers arrays, data types, and more.
    • Desktop – Tips and tricks for the Atari ST, including booting from the B drive, using the file selector, altering the SCART connector, and more.
    • Workbench – Tips and tricks for the Amiga, including creating simple animations with Deluxe Paint, quick draft printing, a shortcut for getting a quick CLI window, creating different color prompts, and more.

    …and more!


    Amiga Atari ST Computer Arcana 📎and tagged

  • ACE (October 1991)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: ACE – Issue Number 49 – October 1991

    While ACE stood for “Advanced Computer Entertainment”, this was a magazine that covered gaming on the Amiga, Atari ST, PC (DOS), as well as the MegaDrive (Genesis), Game Boy, Atari Lynx and Super Famicom (Super Nintendo)…at least in 1991. The October 1991 issue includes:

    Reviews

    • Buster Douglas Boxing (MegaDrive) – Buster Douglas was the big heavyweight name after Mike Tyson but the game itself is not so great.
    • EA Hockey (MegaDrive) – The first of the EA hockey games on the Genesis. Sports games were something EA was very good at for a while.
    • F117A: Stealth Fighter 2 (PC) – A sequel to the 1989 original. While I love older games, the relatively low frame rate and low polygon count sims of old don’t hold up all that well.
    • Magic Pockets (Amiga) – Not a game I am really familiar with, this is a side scrolling platform type game for the Amiga.
    • Mega lo Mania (Amiga) – A strategy game reminiscent of Populous.
    • Microprose Golf (Atari ST) – An ok golf game for the Atari ST. This one tries to combine the best element of serious golf games and more simplified arcade oriented titles like Leaderboard.
    • Robin Hood (PC) – Another Populous inspired strategy game.
    • Storm Lord (MegaDrive) – A side-scrolling adventure that at least in looks reminds me of Ghost ‘N Goblins. However, from this review it doesn’t sound nearly as good.
    • The Simpsons: Bart vs. The Space Mutants (Amiga) – A port of the NES game of the same name. It gets a pretty mediocre review here that cites its lack of humor among other flaws.
    • Wing Commander II – Sequel to Origin’s original space combat flights sim. If you liked the original then you’ll like this one too.

    Features

    • Gore Blimey! – A sort of “best of” in terms of gore in computer and video games. Games mentioned include Persian Gulf Inferno, Lemmings, Oids, Barbarian, Technocop, Indianapolis 500, NARC, and Warzone.
    • Spaceship Warlock (Macintosh) – An interactive movie of sorts with a 1950s B movie theme for the Macintosh, a platform that didn’t see too many game releases at the time, relatively speaking.
    • Sensible Soccer (Preview) – One of the more popular soccer (football) games, at least in Europe.
    • Konsole Kick-Off!!! – Big Match, another popular soccer game for the Amiga and Atari ST, makes its way to various consoles, including the Super Nintendo, Nintendo, Sega Master System, Game Boy and Game Gear with a MegaDrive version in the plans as well.
    • In The Works – A brief look at some games currently still in development including Daemonsgate, Godfather, Grand Prix and Hudson Hawk.

    Regulars

    • ACE Games News – Upcoming games announcements including The Simpsons, Castlevania IV for the Super NES, Super Tetris for the PC (I remember playing that one on the ancient PC XTs at school), The Killing Cloud for the PC, Amiga and Atari ST (set in the sci-fi future of 1997), Crisis in the Kremlin (PC), Mercenary III, Planet’s Edge, Guardian Angels, Shoe People, Might and Magic III (PC), Super Space Invaders, Super Fulcrum (PC) and Double Dragon II for the Game Boy.
    • ACE Tech News – Amstrad releases an all-in-one PC with a 16MHz 286 processor, 40MB hard drive and 1MB of RAM. Also included are the games Links, F-15 Strike Eagle II and Prince of Persia. Also, game developers in Japan complain of a lack of developers, Yamaha releases the SY99 Synth and JVC releases what could be thought of as a predecessor to the GoPro, the Super VHS SC-F007.
    • Letters – Comments on Terminator 2, console game reviews, and consoles vs. computers among other topics.
    • Tricks ‘n’ Tactics – A detailed guide for The Secret of Monkey Island, plus hints for Supercars 2, Horror Zombies From The Crypt, Pang, Toki, Predator 2, Stormball, Navy Seals, Spirit of Excalibur, Operation C, and Wizards & Warriors.

    …and lots more!


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