RNeal@his-phoenix-multics.arpa@sri-unix.UUCP (07/19/84)
>The ADAM may make it after all< Well, the software is finally starting to show up for the Coleco ADAM (much to my relief, since I have one). There are several by Spinaker (education stuff mostly) and Epyx (Pole Position and Gateway to Apshi). Best of all, there is SmartLogo, by Logo Computer Systems, Inc. (the same company who did Apple Logo). I couldn't resist, so I bought it. Here is a review- The documentation-excellent! much much better than the documentation Coleco put out (even the latest revision). It comes in a three ring binder with dust cover-looks very professional. Tutorials- It has tutorials on the cassette which are a great intro to the turtle graphics and are suitable for my second grader and are also very colorful demos. Turtle Graphics- You get 30 turtles. They can all be different colors (16 available), different shapes (60 available which can be edited, ala TI Logo), and all going different speeds in different directions at the same time without program intervention! (it is interesting to type in a procedure while dogs, cats, missiles, etc. rush about on the screen.) You can fill areas, shade areas (with the turtle's current shape), pick up the shape the turtle is currently over and write to the shape table, and do all the other turtle graphics stuff which is usually available. There are 10 on.touch demons which can be set, and program control branches to the indicated instructions when the specified colision occurs (then back when done). You can also have demons check time, the joysticks, and the joystick buttons. Other Stuff- There are two primatives for music- Toot and Noise. There is absolutely no room to describe all the programming features, but the list processing is great, you can write Z80A machine language routines to use, and it supports Properties (for database-type applications) The only problem I have encountered is that the fill and shade routines do not have very large stacks, and get a To Complex to Fill error if your shape is irregular. Also, you can load/save variables, pictures, procedures, or all of the above at the same time. You can list from tape without loading. You can access the printer. You can clear just the graphics or just the text from the screen. And on, and on, and on...... With this product, I think Coleco may just hang on in the market >RUSTY< elmay-> RNeal%pco -at cisl (could you tell I was impressed???)