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!