mckay@pur-ee.UUCP (Dwight D McKay) (12/04/85)
[This article appears in the December, 1985 issue of CURRENT NOTES (Vol. 5, No.10). Permission to reprint is granted provided that CURRENT NOTES and the author are cited.] ST World ======== by Joe Waters COMDEX '85 A lot of potential ST owners have chosen to sit on the sidelines waiting for the appearance of appropriate software before actually jumping on the ST bandwagon. Well, friends, it looks like you can now jump safely. Atari devoted its floor space at the massive, seventh annual COMDEX (COMputer Dealer EXpo) almost entirely to dispelling the notion that there is no software available for the new 520ST computer. I counted about three dozen different companies proudly displaying their newly released (or soon to be released) ST products. When Santa Clause brings that new ST for Christmas, your biggest problem is not going to be finding programs, it's going to be deciding which software to buy! I am writing this column while COMDEX is still in progress (CURRENT NOTES is already late in getting to the printer) so the whole story of this year's show isn't complete yet. In addition, I simply don't have the space to cover in any detail all the companies and programs that were on display. So let me just pass on some general observations and a quick overview of some of the products I was particularly impressed with. The thrust of ST development work is centering on the ST as a personal productivity machine. Although there were some delightful new entertainment programs being shown, these were in the minority. Programmers will find an abundance of computer languages and programming aids. Business users will find many variants of their standard tools (word processors, spreadsheets, and databases). Other professional users, such as accounts, engineers, architects, etc, will be delighted to see software coming out with their specific needs in mind. The ST is simply too powerful to be used only for entertainment. Not all ST products are being released by bright young programmers seeking to make their fortune. A very large number of programs are being introduced by mature software companies that are porting their programs over to the ST or developing whole new programs to take advantage of the ST's unique features. You still won't see some of the higher-priced companies from the IBM world (Lotus, Ashton-Tate, Microsoft, etc.) rushing to put their programs on the ST -- the lower prices required to sell in the ST market would have a detrimental impact on the pricing structure employed in the profitable MS-DOS market. But you can expect the firms that have pioneered low prices in the IBM world, such as Borland International and DAC Software, to release ST versions of their products and do quite well. So much for generalities. Just what was there? Here are some highlights. SPREADSHEETS. The long awaited VIP Professional had finally shipped the week before COMDEX and was proudly on display with finished packages ready to go. Dan Nelson, the product manager for VIP, tried to show me the great manual provided with this LOTUS look-a-like, but I wasn't particularly interested. The manual may, indeed, be better than the one provided by Lotus but the fact that VIP was code-compatible with 1-2-3 meant that I, like many other users, simply won't need a manual. Just boot up the program, and once in the familiar 1-2-3 setting, simply start working. IBM users may find an additional bonus. It was the speed of execution which helped propel 1-2-3 ahead of the competition in the IBM world. Dan claimed that VIP on the ST was not only compatible with Lotus, but faster! VIP wasn't the only spreadsheet available. Kuma Computers Limited was demonstrating A-CALC which will be marketed by Antic. The Kuma rep claimed that only a final round of quality assurance testing, was needed before the program was officially released. Integrated Packages. Two other spreadsheet programs were announced as part of integrated packages. Rising Star announced seven modules for the ST: RSI Spreadsheet, RSI Graphs (business graphics), RSI Draw (computer-aided design), RSI Paint, RSI Scheduler, and RSI Music (single track MIDI sequence recorder). The music program provided attendees with audio entertainment as they surveyed RSI's products. RSI has been a major developer of software for the Epson line of computers. The other integrated package, called SoftPac, was introduced by Softronics Computer Systems, a major producer and marketer of vertical market software for the IBM PC and other computers. Besides the spreadsheet program (SoftCalc), SoftPac includes a word processor (SoftWrite), database management (SoftBase), communications (SoftComm), and computer aided design (SoftDraw). Steve Hansen, the president of Softronics, told me that, the day before the show opened, a distributor purchased 60,000 copies of the package. At least somebody expects a lot of STs to showup in the marketplace! DATABASE PROGRAMS. AtariSoft and Stoneware jointly introduced a new (as yet unnamed) filing system for the ST. Some readers may recognize Stoneware as the company that produces DB Master, a high-performance database management system in the MS-DOS market. Stanley Crane, the author of DB Master, gave me a quick demo of the Atari filer. He had a sample mailing list database of 1,000 names indexed on the last name. Gee, that was getting close to the size of the database CURRENT NOTES has to contend with. I asked him to sort the database on the zip code field -- a task that would take SynFile on the 800 about an hour (I'm guessing here since I long ago gave up trying to maintain our mailing list in SynFile). On a COMPAQ with a hard disk using dBASE III, the sort takes a little over two and a half minutes. On the ST? I had to ask Stan to sort it twice since I wasn't paying enough attention the first time -- it only took 2.5 seconds! Obviously, everything was done in RAM and so there is a limit to the size of database the program can handle, but I was impressed nonetheless. Interested in a more powerful, but still user-friendly database package? Paul Heckel, author of The Elements of Friendly Software Design, and president of QuickView Systems was demonstrating a new "software metaphor" called ZOOMRACKS. This product is really a database management system in disguise. Picture a rack of cards, such as at a time-clock when workers have to punch in and out. You can only see the first line of each card, but if you pull the card out, you will see much more information. That is the concept upon which Zoomracks is built. Move your cursor down to a name and click. Now you see the entire card. To give Paul a little test, I asked him to reindex a sample mailing list database, where cards were listed by last name, to a list based on the state code. The state code was on the fourth line of the card mixed in an alphanumeric filed with a city, i.e. "Las Vegas, NV". Guess what. Paul was able to build a macro on the fly that split off the state abbreviation from the city, moved it to a separate, newly created field, repeated this process on the entire database, and then sorted on that field. Wow! This simple rack concept has much more power in the product than a first glance would reveal. You say you have already spent two years becoming familiar with dBASE II and aren't interested in learning another database program. Lucky you. You have several options on the ST. Holmes & Duckworth were showing the current version of H & D Base (to be released in mid-December). H & D Base is command file compatible with dBASE II. If you know dBASE, just boot up this program and start working; all your dBASE commands will work just as they did on your CP/M or MS-DOS system. (If your are a developer, you have an added bonus. Since H & D Base is merely an extension of the H & D Forth language system under which it was developed, the full range of unique Atari 520ST capabilities, including windows, menus, dialog boxes, etc. is available. Your dBASE programs can tap into the GEM environment! Owners of the ATR-8000 will love another option. You may already have dBASE II running under CP/M on your ATR8000. No problem. Just boot up the CP/M Emulator Program on your ST and now you can run your entire CP/M library! (Of course you'll have to transfer the programs to the ST's 3.5 inch disk format.) Not only can you use the commands you are familiar with, you can use the same program. The CP/M Emulator was not officially demonstrated at COMDEX, but Frank Nagle, head of the Bay Area Atari Users Group, managed to get a sneak preview from one of the Atari reps. Frank said the program had no trouble booting up WordStar and running it, in fact, running it faster than on his own native CP/M system! Besides the above programs, and the ones announced in the integrated packages, Hippo had already shipped Hippo Simple, a "powerful, flexible and easy-to-use database," BMB CompuScience was demonstrating The Manager, "a full-featured database manager with on-screen forms and report writer", Regent Software announced Regent Base, "a full function relational database program" available by February, and OXXI Inc announced dbONE, another database program claimed to be 100 percent compatible with dBASE II files. WORD PROCESSORS. Several word processors were already out for the ST before COMDEX. STWriter (no where visible at COMDEX) had been released "free" by Atari and HabaWriter, by Haba, and Final Word, by Mark of the Unicorn, were already on store shelves. I was able to see HabaWriter for the first time at COMDEX and also saw a demonstration of the new Regent Word as well as Regent Spell programs. For those of you who like the what-you-see-is-what-you-get word processors, this one's for you. In previewing text, not only are boldface and underline shown in the preview, but elongated text is actually shown on the screen in double width and both super- and subscript are displayed just as they would appear on your paper. Regent Word, written by the developers of Atariwriter and Atariwriter Plus, also supports elongated, underlined etc. in their print preview. Poor spellers in the audience will certainly appreciate Regent Spell. Not only does it find the errant spelling (and show it to you in context), but it will give you 10 suggested correct spellings. It comes with a dictionary of 30,000 words which you can expand to 60,000 words. Both Regent Word and Spell are available now. And, finally, if you can't type as well as you'd like, you can always pick up Typing Tutor (including Word Invaders) by Academy Software to get your typing speed up to snuff. Other word processors announced (although not necessarily demonstrated) were PaperClip and HomePak by Batteries Included, Hippo Word, Hippo Concept, and Hippo Spell by Hippopotamus, Word Whiz by Oxxi Inc., SoftWrite by Softronics, First Word by GST, and Word Processor by Spinnaker. For those interested in typesetting, Typesetter ST was demonstrated by Xlent and Andra/ST, a document processor for laser printers and FX80 compatibles, was announced by TDI Software. LANGUAGES. If you have an inclination to do some programming, there will be more than enough langugages to choose from. Right now, you can use Atari's development package (C and assembler), ST BASIC (only recently released), or ST LOGO. Haba has released Hippo C and the Dragon Group has 4xForth. At COMDEX, TDI was selling their Modula-2/ST package, H & D were showing their Forth package, ANTIC had the META Macro Assembler and was also demonstrating A-SEKA, a 68000 ram-resident assembler from KUMA, and Philon was showing their basic interpreter, Henry, with a compiled version on the way. Further C compilers are coming from GST and Lattice. Prolog will be available from OSS and Fortran from Philon while Pascal programmers will be able to choose among products from META, OSS, Philon, Prospero, and TDI. PROGRAMMING AIDS, such as ram disks and disk utilities were in abundance from a variety of producers. MichTron in particular now has a full scope of programming utilities including M-Disk (a ram disk), Soft Spool (a printer spooler), Michtron Utilities (examine & repair disk files), MI-Dupe (backup disks), and M-Copy (speed up disk duplication). If you really like to examine, in detail, your disk files, you're certainly in luck; you can now choose from the Disk Doctor from Antic, Toolbox (Vol. One) from H & D, Disk Utilities from Hippo, and Personal Diskit from OSS. OTHER SOFTWARE. I wish I could go on about the rich variety of new entertainment and speciality software introduced at COMDEX, but I fear that if I tried, this issue of CURRENT NOTES would never get finished. In the months ahead, we will have ample opportunity to acquaint you with the best of each category. HARDWARE. This was primarily a software show. Atari announced no new hardware products. However, there were several companies using Atari hard disk drives in their demonstrations. I was told that these 20-megabyte hard disks were being shipped to developers who had them on order. Indeed, the backlog of orders was just about filled. Retail channels will see these 20-meg drives by the end of the year. There will be no 10-meg drives, but a 30-meg drive may also be available. Atari has decided not to produce a color printer for the ST. Why? Because Okidata had a color printer on display made specifically for the ST. And the quality of the color pictures? Certainly among the best I've seen produced anywhere! I was sorry I had to leave before getting to the Okidata booth to ask some more about this marvelous printer. How about TOS in ROM? Neil Harris, publisher of Atari Explorer, told me the operating system was set and that the program was going out on Monday (November 25) for mass production. Developers would get the ROMs very soon and retail channels would begin seeing the ROMs appear before the end of the year. Early user group purchasers were promised free upgrades to the operating system. Dave Duberman, Atari User Group Coordinator, confirmed this and said he would be sending the ROMs out when they became available. There was a hot rumor just before the show that Atari would introduce a laser-type printer (i.e. laser-quality output but using a different technology), at a price less than $1,000. It was a nice rumor, but there was no such printer there nor would anyone confirm (or deny) the rumor. And, as you'll notice in the Antic report, there were no CD-ROM players available from Atari -- so far Atari has not found a supplier willing to sell the drive at the price Atari wants. AI on the ST. Before I close, I must mention a delightful little program from Hippo that I received shortly before going to COMDEX. It's called COMPUTER ALMANAC and if you want to impress your friends with just how clever your ST is, you'll have to get this program. While they watch in amazement, you sit at the keyboard and ask your ST questions. Here is what a typical session might look like (my questions are shown in italics to help distinguish them from the Almanac's answers): What time is it in Moscow? It is Sunday, 5:01 AM in Moscow, Soviet Union when it is Saturday, 9:01 PM in Washington, District of Columbia. Who won the 1980 Superbowl? I didn't understand that. Who won the 1980 Super Bowl? The Oakland Raiders won against the Philadelphia Eagles in the 1980 Super Bowl (Jan. 1981), with a score of 27 to 10. How many calories in an Apple? There are 325 calories in 1 cup of apple or brown betty.There are 33 calories in 1 tbsp of apple butter.There are 410 calories in 1 piece of apple pie.There are 96 calories in 1 med raw apple.There are 234 calories in 1 cup of dried apple.There are 117 calories in 1 cup unsweetened apple juice. What picture won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1971? The French Connection won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1971. How far is it to Las Vegas? Las Vegas, Nevada is 2084 miles from Washington, District of Columbia. How do you say "Hello" in Swahili? "Hello" in English is "hujambo" in Swahili. What is the area code for Reno? The area code for Reno, Nevada is 702. Who won the Nobel prize for Chemistry in 1982? The 1982 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was won by Aaron Klug of U.K. Well, I think you get the idea. Use free form English questions and the Almanac uses its own intelligence to interpret your question and give you an answer. The Almanac has over 35,000 useful facts. You could go on for quite some time asking a wide variety of questions and getting appropriate answers. But beware! Don't give the keyboard to your friends. It isn't that hard to stump the Almanac. It can only answer questions about things it knows and the first question coming from the peanut gallery is likely to be about something it doesn't know! But it certainly does know a lot and you can have loads of fun amazing your friends with Computer Almanac.