scott@max.u.washington.edu (12/05/89)
Here is an article extracted from the november 1989 issue of a local
monthly computer newspaper, Computer User, giving a review about the
recently held World of Commodore Show but this time placing its
focusing on the C64 and the C128....enjoy.
Sincerely,
Scott K. Stephen
Valley Forge, PA. (NB) -- The Second Annual Northeast World of
Commodore Show has been viewed as a success by most concerned. Some
8,000 people attended the show that was sponsored by Commodore
Business Machines and produced by The Hunter Group. While mostly
Amiga-related, several new and interesting developments were unveiled
for C-64 and the C-128 owners.
Genie Information Services displayed a beta version front-end
terminal program for the C-128. Using icons and point-and-click menus,
the software is designed to ease navigation for Genie's Commodore
users. Written by Bill Coleman, release of a C128 version is scheduled
for sometimes around the holidays while a C64 will follow, Newsbyte
was told.
Among the most exciting new hardware items were two new products
from Creative Micro Design (the maker of JiffyDOS chip upgrade for
fast disk access), a hard drive, and a power-backed RAM Expansion Unit
Interface. The RAMLINK interface, with a built-in operating system,
supports all of Commodore's REUs, and provides a pass-through
connector for a second cartrige port peripheral. The most unique
feature is the ability to eliminate REU memory loss on power-down.
When attached to the new HD Series Hard Drive, increased data transfer
rates are maximized. A 20 meg HD Hard Drive was built as a low-cost by
fast serial or parallel drive. Other features include 20 or 40
megabyte capacity, auto-park, and 3 1/2-inch SCSI technology that can
be chained to other SCSI drives. It is CP/M and GEOS compatible with
full partitions and subdirectories. (And also the hard drive itself
can used with an Amiga, if you decide to upgrade since they are SCSI
drives). A pre-holiday release is expected.
Quick Brown Boxes has announced a new 64 kilobyte battery-backed
cartridge called the QBB-B. This cartridge works in tandem with a
first QBB giveing a Commodore 128K of battery-backed RAM. A special
driver is included to access the extra 4 banks of memory, with a
RAMDOS program in development. The C-64 version is now ready for
shipping, while the 128 version will be released in about 45 days.
In the software arena, a beta version of Rich Kane's Basic 8
program I-Paint was demonstrated. This mouse driven 64K video RAM
paint program has 640x400 (8x8) interlace pictures with many different
modes including hold and recover, draw, file, print, zoom, mono, clip
and paste. 4,096 colors onn a C-128D stunned the crowd. Release for
this graphics program is expected around mid-winter.
DADS.INC announced their release of Bellterm (C-64). Written by Ed
Bell, this terminal program sports Y-Modem batch up- and downloading
at 2400 baud.
Among new games were Paragon Software's Dr. Doom's Revenge!
Featuring Spider-Man and Captain America, the object is to invade Dr.
Doom's fortress to save New York from Armageddon.
Among other news at the show was word that Briwall has launched a
monthly 8-bit newsletter and starts operations in Australia (called
Briwall-Australia).
TC-128 released their latest issue (#26) which has an interesting
article for 1581 users. "Hacking The 1581" (by Miklos Garamszeghy)
describes how to modify the 1581 for use with 80-track 5 1/4 drives in
either native or CP/M mode.
Despite the recent rumors of the C-64 and C-128's demise, this
Commodore show was certainly fast paced, with many exciting advances
for this product line.
Reported by Bill Juliani, Newsbytes News Service.