______________________________________ ZMAGAZINE 81 November 27, 1987 ______________________________________ Publisher/Editor: Ron Kovacs Assistant Publishers: Ken Kirchner Susan Perry Guest Editor: Lisa Kovacs ______________________________________ Xx Editor Message ______________________________________ This issue was compiled and edited by my wife. During my absense and short illness of the past week. Since we are also preparing for the coming of child number 2 in February, we have been extra busy with LaMaz classes and editing time has been far and in between. This week in Zmag.. We went into the Zmag archives and reproduced a few article from our first issues. I hope you dont mind reading these old articles. Next week we should be back on track. We hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving. If you are interested in the older issues of Zmagazine, you can send a disk to: Zmagazine Post Office Box 74 Middlesex, NJ 08846-0074 Please specify what issues you are interested in. The Zmag BBS is online 24 hours a day at 300/1200 baud. (201) 968-8148 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * FoReM BBS Coupon Offer * *The Most Powerful BBS System for the* * Atari ST and IBM/PC * * Exclusively for Zmag and ST-Report* * * * NEW 2.0! * $59.95 * * * *Fifteen Dollars!Off With This Coupon* * * * Commnet Systems * * 50 Eaton Road * * Farmington, MA 01701 * * (617)877-0257 (Voice) * * (617)877-8756 (BBS) * * Specify ST or PC Please * * * *This Offer May Be Withdrawn Any Time* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** ______________________________________ Xx INDEX 81 ______________________________________ <*> Software Review.....Lawrence Estep <*> Vitruoso Database...Jeff Lyons <*> ZMAG BBS Update.....Ron Kovacs <*> Real Estate BBS.....B Wisniewski <*> Zmag Archives <*> CIS Atari Update ______________________________________ Xx SOFTWARE REVIEW ______________________________________ JINGLEDISK by Lawrence R. Estep Hi Tech Expressions,Inc. 2699 South Bayshore Drive Suite 1000A Coconut Grove,FL 33133 305/854-2318 1-800-848-9273 $9.95 The holiday season is once again quickly approaching,and while decorating and preparing for Christmas, why leave your computer out? Jingledisk by Hi Tech Expressions is a fantastic program for the Atari 8-bits! This program allows you to print full page graphics, or folded cards with your own personalized greeting inside. After all of the cards have been made, and the decorating is done, you can sit back and watch a wonderful graphics display full of yuletide cheer and excitement. This program is just one of the many fine budget- priced programs from Hi Tech. This program retails for around $9.95 and supports the following printers: -Atari XMM801 -Epson LX80,MX80,MX100 -Okidata 192/193 92/93 -Panasonic 1090/1091 -Star Gemini SG-10 and Gemini. There is also a Holiday Paper Pack available to print your cards on. This Pack includes 150 sheets of paper in 3 different holiday designs,and 24 stickers in 4 different designs. This piece of software can be ordered direct from Hi Tech at 1-800-848-9273 or from most mail order companies. Let's show our support for Hi Tech by purchasing this fine piece of software! Happy Holidays Lawrence Estep ______________________________________ Xx NEW AREA ON COMPUSERVE's ATARI8 ______________________________________ VIRTUOSO DESKTOP PERFORMANCE STUDIO - introduction, concepts and applications Welcome to the VIRTUOSO area of the Atari 8 bit forum. Those of you who already have Desktop Performance Studio, congratulations, please feel free to upload and download pieces to and from the Atari 8 bit sig DL 13. For those of you who have not gotten Virtuoso yet, download the VPLAY.OBJ file and the demo pieces. VPLAY.OBJ is a play only shell program that allows you to see and hear any Desktop Performance piece. You will not have any editing capability without the full Desktop Performance Studio program, this is a play only feature. To order Desktop Performance Studio, please use the Electronic Mall (GO VC) or contact Virtusonics directly. Our phone number is 212 316 6945. All of the graphic, music and text images from demos were created on an Atari 130XE using Desktop Performance Studio Software. Our graphic, music and text editors make animation easy, quick and exciting. What you are seeing is not frame by frame animation. We have developed a methodology for expressing graphic, music and text data in a -dataflow- format that allows for the real time animation of multiple objects. Graphic objects are animated by path and scale patterns (8 animated geometric objects, 3 sprite objects, 16 filled background objects). Music is animated by shift, volume, and envelope patterns (4 animated music objects). Text is animated by scrolling (4 animated text objects). Each animator (path, scale, shift, volume, scroll) has its own loop and speed variables. Speed is the concept. Virtuoso is a new perspective that controls as many parallel, independent, variable speed parameters as are required to execute ideas. Desktop Performance Studio is our first application of this kind of thinking. If you have any comments, ideas, questions or suggestions please leave me a message, I will respond. I would like to share our thinking about the design of Virtuoso Software in terms of its application to different hardware and software concepts; its relationship to a conceptual manner of thinking; its interaction with reality; and its present application in Desktop Performance Studio. We are interested in dialogue about the Virtuoso Software concepts and the Desktop Performance Studio applications. All Virtuoso Software users are encouraged to share their works with others. Please upload and download freely through DL13. Once you have downloaded and reviewed a piece from the DL, you can use the NEW command to erase the time stream and use the libraries to make your own pieces. This is one of the exciting elements of Virtuoso. We can all share each others pieces and performances, and then use each others libraries to make our own new pieces. Joseph Lyons, President of Virtusonics Corporation [70007,1565] ______________________________________ Xx ZMAG BBS UPDATE ______________________________________ Here are a few additions to the Zmag Official BBS Carrier list. Liberty Bell Express (904) 783-3675 Pirate Busters BBS (216) 545-4817 ST Underground (402) 466-5339 Orion Connection (301) 967-2207 Bread Board (201) 778-0154 InfoNet BBS (703) 665-0087 Help BBS NEW NUMBER (918) 251-5450 Vanishing Point (615) 665-1217 The Ark (703) 560-6318 Abacus BBS (415) 587-8062 Eagle BBS (415) 565-9742 ACEC BBS (614) 471-8559 Pandora BBS (614) 471-9209 ______________________________________ Xx NEW REAL ESTATE BBS ______________________________________ ANNOUNCEMENT ommercial nvestment

roperties TELEPHONE # 813-488-8131 300 (REGISTERED USERS)/1200/2400 BPS A new bulletin board has been started in Venice. This board is dedicated to Commercial Real Estate only. The board lists commercial properties for sale, exchange and or lease. There are some financial and real estate programs available for downloading. The purpose of this board is to provide any caller with commercial real estate information regarding availability, prices, contact points and more. The board will allow any caller to download property informaton. The board will only allow uploads of property data and programs by registered users, typically real estate agents and financial institutions. Steps are being taken to pass our commercial real estate information to Real Estate oriented bulletin boards and services in Iowa, Mass., Calif, New York and England. I expect that the audience for this information will continue to grow. Thanks for reading this! Sysop ,

Bill Wisniewski ______________________________________ Xx ZMAG ARCHIVES ______________________________________ The following text appeared in a few issues during our start back in 1986. A few readers have asked to read a few of our older issues and I thought I would include a few articles this week. Enjoy. _____________________________________ Atari News!!!! .......From June 18, 1986 Zmag....... _____________________________________ ATARI PLANNING SUMMER PRODUCTS Atari Corp. is holding some product announcements from the CES and scheduling them for later in the summer. Compatible with the ST product line, the new products will include a 3.5 floppy with 10MB storage capacity, a super-hi-res graphics board with 1,000 line resolution and a new sound chip. Other new products are memory and multitasking upgrades as well as a new expansion box for holding the multiple upgrades. ATARI'S 32-BIT MICRO COMING SOON Atari has a 32-bit computer in development. The company recently signed a Unix licensing agreement with AT&T and Atari chairman Jack Tramiel has indicated that the new machine will run under Unix. When the new computer is introduced, current ST owners will be offered an option to upgrade their machines to use the Unix operating system. No release date was specified for the new computer. ATARI TO QUIT TAIWAN PLANT Jack Tramiel is planning to shut down Atari's production line in Taiwan. In remarks posted on a bulletin board service after he met with Atari owners in Massachusetts, the Atari chairman said that under the right conditions computers could be constructed in the US with the same cost efficiency as in Taiwan. Tramiel set no deadline for the manufacturing changeover but he did indicate the move was not in the immediate future. _____________________________________ Xx Summer CES Rap-Up ....From June 15, 1986 Zmag.... _____________________________________ ANTIC ONLINE PUBLISHING COPYRIGHT 1986, REPRINTED BY PERMISSION By Jack Powell Associate Editor, STart 6/4/86 CHICAGO Tantalizing glimpses of the long- rumored ST 32-bit machine were offered by Atari Software President Sig Hartmann and Computer Product Marketing Manager Brian Kerr. Hartmann said,- presumably an operating system compatible with UNIX, the multi-tasking operating system developed by ATT Bell Labs. According to Kerr, the 32/32 uses the Motorola 68020 chip. The 68020 is in the same -family- as the 68000, making all 520ST and 1040ST software -downwardly- compatible- with the new machine. Atari is toying with two possible configurations: either an open architecture machine with slots, or using the ST as front end to the 32-bit as number cruncher. This all happened when the Chicagoland Atari User's Group (C.L.A.U.G.) invited Atari Corp., Antic magazine, Analog magazine, and Bill Wilkinson (representing both his company Optimized Systems Software and Compute! magazine) to participate in a Tuesday night dinner meeting at Trinity College. The Atari representatives fielded questions from over 250 members of several midwestern Atari user's groups during the informal panel session. MORE ATARI MAGAZINES: At the meeting, Bill Wilkinson announced Compute!'s new ST magazine, expected in September. Like Antic Publishing's STart, the new Compute magazine will include a 3 1/2-inch disk. Lee Pappas of Analog Computing magazine announced a special, one-time, exclusively 8-bit issue. At the same time, Pappas took the opportunity to announce that ST Log, the ST section of Analog, will become a separate magazine -by the end of the year.- SUPRA DRIVERS: Did I mention the Supra 20-meg hard disk that is about 3 1/2-inches longer than an Atari 3 1/2-inch drive, but otherwise the same size? How about the Supra 60-meg hard disk which is the size of the old Supra 10-meg? Supra scattered a few of these at select booths at CES just so we would believe they really exist. ______________________________________ Xx Special Interview .....Atari Connection BBS Part 2..... ______________________________________ The following is the transcript of an interview with the Sysop of the Atari Connection BBS that was shut down last week. This is a follow up to the article which appeared in last weeks Zmag. The sysop has asked that I keep his name private. The sysop's responses are in upper case text. (Ron:)How long have you been running your BBS? (Atari Connection Sysop) WELL, LAST SUMMER I RAN A BBS CALLED THE 800 BBS, BUT I DIDN'T HAVE MUCH SUCCESS WITH IT, I PUT THE ATARI CONNECTION UP ON JUNE 2nd OF THIS YEAR. (R)Why wasnt your old BBS a success? (ACS) I THINK BECAUSE OF LACK OF ADVERTISING. BUT I WAS SHARING A PHONE AT THE TIME, AND SO MY HOURS WOULD WERE NOT LONG. (R)When you had your BBS up, What type of features did you have, and In your opinion what do you think was the cause of your being caught with pirated software, and also, Did you have alot of software in your download section? (ACS) I DIDN'T HAVE MANY OUT-OF-THE -ORDINARY FEATURES. IT WAS A BASIC BBCS BOARD. BUT I THINK THAT SOMEONE WHO WAS BLACKLISTED ON MY BOARD, PROBABLY REPORTED ME BECAUSE OF IT. AND I DIDN'T HAVE MANY DOWNLOADS AVAILABLE. ALTHOUGH I DO HAVE TWO 1050'S, ONE WAS BEING REPAIRED WHEN I HAD THE BOARD UP. SO AS A SPARE I USED A RAMDISK. (R)Why did you blacklist callers, did they do bad things on your system? (ACS)ONE PERSON HAD THREE DIFFERENT HANDLES, AND WHEN I FOUND OUT, I BLACKLISTED ALL OF THEM. HE ALSO LEFT ME SOME NASTY MESSAGES ON OTHER BOARDS. (R)In the matter of your shutdown, can you explain what happened? (ACS)FIRST OF ALL, IT HAPPENED LAST MONDAY AT ABOUT 5:00pm, EXACTLY AN HOUR BEFORE I WAS TO LEAVE FOR A CONCERT. I GOT A PHONE CALL SAYING THAT IN A LITTLE WHILE, A DETECTIVE WOULD BE AT MY HOUSE INVESTIGATING SOME COMPLAINTS ABOUT A BBS. I IMMEDIATELY RAN DOWN AND ERASED MY USERLOG ON MY MAIN DISK, BUT I HID THE BACKUP DISK IN MY CLOSET. WHEN THE DETECTIVE ARRIVED, HE HAD SOMEONE ELSE WITH HIM. THEY ASKED ME A FEW QUESTIONS AND THEN TOOK MY MAIN DISK AND A FEW OTHERS, I GUESS FOR EVIDENCE. AND THEY TOLD ME THAT IF THEY GET COMPLAINTS AGAIN, THEY WILL REMOVE ALL OF MY HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE AND FINE ME $1000. (R)Did you get any specific details as to why they singled your BBS out? (ACS) THEY SAID THEY GOT COMPLAINTS FROM A FEW PEOPLE. BUT IT COULD HAVE BEEN ONE. BUT I DOUBT IF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT IS REALLY INTERESTED IN SHUTTING DOWN A SMALL BBS. (R)What is the current status of this matter? (ACS)RIGHT NOW I AM WAITING TO GET MY DISKS BACK. BUT I DON'T THINK I WILL HAVE TO GO TO COURT ANYMORE. (R)Did you get a court notice or any advice pertaining to a hearing before? (ACS)NO, I WAS QUESTIONED ONCE BEFORE, BUT IT WAS ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE. (R)Did the Police Department give you any other warnings? (ACS) NO, I DON'T THINK THERE IS MUCH THEY CAN DO TO ME BESIDES FINE AND TAKING MY STUFF. (R)Can you put up another BBS?? And if so, Would you?? and what would you do differently this time? (ACS)I CAN PUT UP ANOTHER BOARD, BUT, THEY SAID I CAN'T PIRATE STUFF ON IT. I AM IN FACT, PUTTING ANOTHER BOARD UP IN EARLY NOVEMBER CALLED -THE CULT OF ATARI-. IT WILL BE RUN ON BBS EXPRESS. THIS TIME I WILL BE MUCH MORE CAREFUL WITH WHO I LET ON. I WILL ASK MANY MORE QUESTIONS THEN JUST WHERE THEY LIVE. (R)How old are you? (ACS) 16, I TURN 17 IN OCTOBER. (R)What has been your parents view of this matter? (ACS)THEY DIDN'T CARE. THEY TOLD ME THAT IT IS MY PROBLEM AND I HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT MYSELF. Original date of this interview was in August 1986 ______________________________________ Xx COMPUSERVE ATARI UPDATE ______________________________________ WHAT'S NEW IN SIG*ATARI (Nov. 19) DOWNLOAD MORE FOR LESS !!! Speed up your download time on CompuServe by using CompuServe's Quick 'B' protocol! Quick 'B' is a faster version of CompuServe's B protocol for downloading files. It does this by a send ahead technique that the implementation of B protocol in FLASH 1.5 (for ST owners) supports. Use the DOW/PROTO:QB command to initiate a Quick B protocol download. If you are experiencing any problems or have any questions please leave the Sysops a message in the ATARI 16-Bit Forum. HELP & INFORMATION We have added a series of Help and Information files to the ATARI USERS NETWORK database. Type GO ATA-14 for the current selection. More to come! **The ATARI 8-Bit Forum (GO ATARI8)** CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT! The transcript for the -Future of ATARI 8-Bit BBS's and Telecommunications- Conference is now available in DL 9 under the filename BBS.CO! **The ATARI Developers & Programmers Forum (GO ATARIDEV)** NEW DATA LIBRARY DL 5 in ATARIDEV has been opened as a Programmers' TOOLBOX. Be sure to upload your favorite program development utilities to this new Data Library! NEW FILES Julius Oklamcak has uploaded MicroEMACS version 3.9 (with documentation) to DL 0. Use the BRO UE39* command to locate the related files). SYSOP*Charles McGuinness has put together a file containing a brief (one line) description of each file in ATARIDEV's Data Library 0. Use the BRO DL0DEV.SUM command to retrieve this file. The ATARI 16-Bit Forum (GO ATARI16) OSS has provided the original PPascal Manager in DL 3. Pascal users, take note. PASMGR.ARC/binary Source, resource file, etc., for the original Personal Pascal version 1 manager program. This shows you how to load and use resource files, how to pass info in the environment string, commands via CHAIN, etc., etc. Source is sparsely commented but pretty clear. ** ANTIC ONLINE ** (GO ANTIC) ANTIC ONLINE has a number of great new programs and demos in the Cyber Connection section. GO ANT-2785 for the new version of the Cyber animator. It plays Cyber Studio delta files and Cyber Paint ultra-compressed sequence files (ANIMATE3.PRG, plus animation by Gavin Doughtie). GO ANT-2787 for the SPECTRUM 512 file format and two Cyber Control example programs that teach how to easily use splines for camera and object paths. ______________________________________ Your Source for Sales and Service! Flat rate repairs on all Atari 8 bit! Quick turn-around on ST repairs! We also do flat rate repair on 8 bit Commodore equipment, and also can fix your Amiga or Apple computers! We also offer service contracts on all computers, call for rates today! Be sure to take advantage of our flat rate repair on VCR's, Video Cameras, and Camcorders---->$99 (covers all parts and labor except heads and Nuvicon) Midtown TV-----------> 27 Midway Plaza Tallmadge, Ohio 44278 (216)633-0997 ______________________________________ Zmagazine Issue #81 Volume 2 No. 48 (c) 1987 Syndicate Services/Rovac ______________________________________