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  • Antic: The Atari Resource (April 1987)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Antic: The Atari Resource – Volume 5, Number 12 – April 1987

    Antic was primarily an Atari 8-bit magazine though it did also cover the Atari ST. In 1987 it was nearing the end of its life. The April 1987 issue includes:

    Features

    • Designer Labels – A type-in program that lets you combine Print Shop graphics with your text to create custom labels.
    • Page 6 Grab-Bag, Part 2 – Two short and useful type-in programs. The first gives you the ability to pause or slow down program listings with the press of a button and the second makes it easy to insert sounds into your own programs.
    • All About [Break] Disabling – Pressing the break key normally interrupts whatever program you are running. If you do it accidentally, it can be a real time waster as well as cause you to lose data. This type-in program provides a way to disable this functionality.
    • ICD Boosts 8-Bit Atari Power – ICD is a company that produced high powered upgrades for the Atari 8-bit. Some of these include the 1MB Multi I/O Board, 256K RAMBO XL memory upgrade, R-Time 8 Cartridge (real-time clock/calendar), SpartaDOS 3.2, hard drive interface and more.
    • BTL Hard Disk System – Connect up to two hard drives to your Atari 800XL or Atari 130Xe for up to a total of 128MB of storage.
    • ’86 Federal Income Tax Spreadsheet – A template for SynCalc to make completing your 1986 tax return easy.

    Departments

    • Starting Out: New Owners Column – Part 13 of a BASIC programming tutorial. This part goes over the various ways to use color.
    • Game of the Month: Taxman – Keeping with the April income tax theme, this type-in game is a maze game in which you must collect interest from your accounts while evading the IRS agents. If they catch you, you must declare the interest. If they catch you 10 times, you get audited and the game is over.
    • I/O Board – Letters from readers about Son of Infobits database, the Star NX-10 printer, Bumblebee high scores, modems and the hearing impaired, the Atari 800 attract mode, databases that work with the 10MB SupraDrive, and more.
    • Product Reviews – Reviews of video Vegas from Baudville, Mercenary from Datasoft, Wizard’s Crown (an RPG from SSI), Fight Night from Accolade, and Gettysburg from SSI.
    • New Products – New products this month include News Station desktop publishing software, Rambo: First Blood part II from Mindscape, Hollywood Hijinx from Infocom, the Tac5 joystick and Print N Stack paper tray/stand from Suncom, Mail Order Monsters from Electronic Arts, the Midwest Computer Camp, and InSyst! Version 3.0 business software.
    • Tech Tips – Short BASIC program routines to return 18 possible values from the joystick port, generate the famous Atari Rainbow effect, and a software driver for the Hardware Key project from the August 1986 issue.

    ST Resource

    • Pathways Uncovered – File handling on the Atari ST, including creating folders or sub-directories.
    • ST Reviews – Reviews of The Pinball Factory from Michtron, Silent Service from MicroProse, Black Cauldron from Sierra On-Line, and Universe II from Omnitrend Software.
    • ST Product News – New products this month include Trivia Challenge, Backup!, and Pinball Factory from Michtron; HiSoft BASIC Compiler, DevPacST macroassembler and Saved! file utility/desk accessory from HiSoft; Accounts, Invoice/Order Processing, and Inventory Control System from Execon; and more.
    • Typesetter Elite – Software that enables you to create and print high resolution pages.

    …and more!


    Atari 8-bit Atari ST Computer Arcana 📎and tagged

  • 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