peters@pulman.dec.com (Don Peters, APO-1/F8, 289-1242) (09/18/86)
(I sent this to the net about a week ago, but never saw it come back, so
it may have fallen into the bit bucket. In case it has, I'm resending it.
Sorry if it DID go out and you've already seen it.)
I posted this on our internal Atari ST notes file. Since a lot of the info
may be of general interest, I thought I'd include it here. Hope I haven't
omitted anything of real significance.
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Last nite I attended the meeting of the ST group of the Boston Computer
Society (JBUG). There were about 40 in attendance, less than usual probably
because some may not have realized the location is now MIT rather than BU.
The following is a summary of my notes, so info may be lacking where I
was distracted by literature being passed around, couldn't hear something
clear, got bored, etc.
Allan Glick, the president(?), said the club would be putting on an
Atarifest next sprint. He also wants reviews for the club JBUG newsletter.
VIP is going to $250. It is going to GEM on Sep 20, and those already
owning it can get the upgrade for free.
TWIN, Atari's "Lotus" spreadsheet for the ST, will cost $99.
The final version of Joust is out (I saw it demoed - looks great!).
During the first part of the meeting, a TINYVIEW graphics demo was running,
showing a bouncing ball reflected in several glass objects - the effect
was startling.
A nice chess demo was shown - the product will be out Nov 1.
Degas Elite should be out in a few weeks.
No one had any info to offer on the release or availability of GDOS.
Tom Louzon(sp?) from Apex demoed a few of their products:
Deep Space (from maker of Bratacus) appeared similar to the forthcoming
version of Star Raiders from Atari. The graphics were really nice. You
play with the mouse, keyboard, and joystick. It will be available in
about 2 weeks for about $45.
ST Karate was also shown, and looked arcade quality. Tom appeared to
have a hard time manipulating his character and was quickly wiped out.
Space Station, a game where you collect space crystals while navigating
about a space station, also appeared to have excellent graphics with
nice panning scenery.
Next he showed a word processor that ran as a desk accessory. It
appeared to be similar to 1stWord in function. Its main advantage was
that it could be run while you were running another application which
just happened to need some file edits.
First Mail also was briefly was shown. Its a mail merge program intended
to be used with 1stWord.
Finally, he demoed Star Fleet 1 from Cygnus, another Star Trek like
program (don't people ever get tired of blasting aliens?). The game
featured an interesting twist on copy protection. It isn't copy protected,
but in order to run it, you need to answer questions whose answers are
scattered throughout the manual. Two BIG manuals come with it, so it
would be quite a job to copy them. This may set a trend, but I wonder
about the nuisance factor to the legal user.
Al Rizzo, the regional Atari rep, next got up and gave us some information
he gathered from a phone call to Neil Harris at Atari:
- A CPM emulator is to go on the Atari BBS tomorrow or so
- We are about two months away from the new Atari 1200 baud modem
- The CPM hardware emulator will be demoed at the upcoming San Jose
computer fair, Sep 20-21.
- Microsoft Write will be in beta test in October, and shipping in
late Fall, for $130, from Atari.
- The "blitter" chip will be out in January. It needs a new set of
ROM chips, and the package will be sold for $120
- ST versions of Millipede, Battlezone, and NeoChrome are still being
developed (version 0.9 of NeoChrome was demoed during the meeting).
- ST Star Raiders is shipping this week
Erik Bryan demoed his TRUTIME clock module. It plugs into a ROM socket and
the ROM plugs into it. Its lithium battery keeps the time for 10 years, and
it comes with a program to set the ST clock upon bootup. This is the one
Neil Harris of Atari likes and has commented on in USENET. It costs about
$45 and comes with a 30 day guarantee. You can reach No Solder Required
at (617) 547-2408. Its at 351 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139.
Syntronics then spoke about the ST EZ Track MIDI software from Hybrid Arts.
Its like a tape recorder that holds 20 tracks, and holds 40,000 on-off
events. You enter your music via the MIDI keyboard. It has a GEM interface
and looked pretty good.
After the formal part of the meeting ended, I saw Joust demoed and picked
up 7 new disks for our ABUG library.
/Don Peters, Digital, 617-689-1242/
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