::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||| ZMAGAZINE #178 October 15, 1989 ||||||| |||||||---------------------------------------------------------||||||| ||||||| Volume 3, Number 41 Ron Kovacs, Editor ||||||| |||||||---------------------------------------------------------||||||| |||||||(c) 1989, Rovac Ind., PO Box 59, Middlesex, NJ 08846-0059||||||| |||||||=========================================================||||||| ||||||| News Headlines.... ||||||| ||||||| * Sig Hartmann Announces November Retirement ||||||| ||||||| * ComputerFest '89 Report ||||||| |||||||=========================================================||||||| |||||||CompuServe: 71777,2140 GEnie: ZMAGAZINE||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: CONTENTS ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The Editors Desk........Ron Kovacs Sig Hartmann Retires.....J.Nagy The X-Com Wedge.........Ed Bachman ComputerFest '89........J Ullom The Bookkeeper...........Don Lucia Ramdisk AutoLoad......J. Picken 130XE Changes.........Mark Elliott Hardware Pricewatch..WK Whitton THE EDITORS DESK ----------------------------------------------------------------------- by Ron Kovacs As announced in between issues, we are now releasing ZMAG bi-weekly, the news and reviews have been dwindling and causing a negative effect on what we cover each week. In place of suspending publication, we offer the new release of every other week. I have been reading the negative responses to our change to 80 columns and ask your indulgence until we select our new editor. I will try to return to atascii 40 column format at that time. Our next regular edition will be released October 29, 1989. SIG RETIRES ----------------------------------------------------------------------- by John Nagy After five years with ATARI Corp, Sig Hartmann announced this week that he will resign/retire effective November 1st. Although currently assigned at Vice President level in charge of OEM sales, Industrial sales, and Institutional sales, Sig has spent much of his time away from his primary responsibilities in order to be the primary public speaker for Atari. Sig has regularly charmed audiences at Atarifests and shows with his views and information about Atari, and generally has been able to thaw the chilliest of listeners into feeling good about the company. As the only effective public speaker offered by Atari since the variable but very public Neil Harris, Sig has been in high demand. Fortunately for Atari and audiences alike, Bob Brodie (new User Group/ Show Coordinator) has proven to be a thoroughly enjoyable and effective speaker at several recent events. He spoke to an assembly of 200 users from 5 groups last month in New Jersey, and shared the -Official- Atari seminar duties at the WAACE Atarifest with Sig. Bob seems to be the heir apparent for the -image- jobs to come. Sig has hinted widely about retiring for some time. At the April 1989 World Of Atari show at Disneyland, Sig spoke of introducing the -new blood- who would be shaping Atari's future. He shared the podium then with Mike Dendo (VP Sales) and Joe Mendolia (VP Marketing), both of whom have since resigned from Atari. -Sam [Tramiel, Atari Corp CEO] and Jack [Tramiel, Atari owner and Chairman of the Board) don't think I have suffered enough yet-, Sig joked then, -so I have to work a while longer.- Private comments indicated that the retirement would come within a year at that time. Although it may well have been the lack of an appropriate replacement for Sig on the speaking circuit that kept Sig from setting a date until now, November 1 is the fifth anniversary of Sig's employment at Atari, and his stock and benefits fully vest at that time. Sig worked with the Tramiels at Commodore before they bought Atari, and before that was instrumental in a total overhaul and turnaround at TRW. Sig Hartmann's plans for the future are not settled, but may include some additional service to Atari. It is expected that he will attend COMDEX in November (Las Vegas) for fun and to see both new products and old friends. Not one to sit for long, Sig has mentioned moving to Germany (either to work or just to relax) as a serious option. For the present, Sig hopes to finally be able to spend some time at his suburban Los Angeles home without having to constantly commute to Sunnyvale, some 300+ miles up the Pacific coast. Thanks, Sig, you have been appreciated, and you will be missed! THE X-COM WEDGE v2.0 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- by Ed Bachman An extended command set utility for SpartaDOS 3.2d and xl/xe's with at least 128k of ram. The Wedge is a utilty, or actually a whole gaggle of utilities in one package. It performs a range of operations, from viewing arc files, moving files, peeks and pokes, a file reader, a file locator, to various Sparta-specific functions. The -icing on the cake- so to speak, is the fact that once installed all these functions become -resident- or internal commands to the Sparta command processor. Better still, the majority of these commands are NOT destructive to memory, unlike most stand alone utilities. The 1.x series of the Wedge was an attempt at consolidating varying utilities, but at an enormous memory cost (hey, you have to put the code somewhere!). Hence version 2.x of the Wedge, which bumps memlo by less than 200 bytes. This is accomplished by placing the bulk of the code out in extended ram. This requires a system of 128k or more, however, this extra space also allows the wedge to be much more powerful than a stand alone utility. All of the work performed by the Wedge is done in extended ram, effectively preserving memory in the main bank. This allows for a variety of normally memory destructive tasks to be done, without harming any programs or data in the main bank of memory. Some Wedge features.. The Wedge will add 17 -extended- commands to the command processor in sparta 3.2d. It will add an additional three commands if it finds a Multi I/O on line as well. Here are some of the features the Wedge makes available. * A -paged- file reader * An arc/alf file viewer * hex and decimal conversions * Peeks and pokes * Identify files * Find files * Protected copy, not mem destructive * count files * double column directories * Move files * Rename sub dirs * Erase files w/query and more. Mio users will also have a resident DSWAP, lock mio drive function, and direct access to the mio menu which does not coldstart the computer should you have a cart installed. The Wedge works well under a variety of applications and programming environments, and although it is a resident utility, it can be removed at any time, for programs that require the extended ram for its own uses. If I sound enthusiastic about the Wedge it's because I am! I believe you'll find this to be a very useful utility, and after a time, somewhat habit forming. The Wedge is shareware, and can be found on BBSes across the country. The most current revision is always available on my support board, The Atari Computer Users Technical Exchange, The ACUTE bbs 215-261-0620. Happy Computing! COMPUTERFEST 1989 (Not WAACE) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- by Jim Ullom, MVACE Computerfest 1989 was held August 26th & 27th, at Hara Arena, in Dayton, Ohio. The festivities began promptly at 10:00 am, and consisted of about 20,000 vendors and users groups from all over the United States and Canada. Dave Small of Gadgets by Small, Charles F. Johnson & John Eidsvoog of CodeHead Software, Bill Teal of PC-ditto, and nearly all of the famous programmers that you always read about and always wanted to meet were there, available to answer your questions, or just chat. As usual, Atari Corporation went all out to assist the local users groups in their endeavors, donating displays and providing financial assistance to the faithful. Atari also sent media representatives to assist in marketing their new hardware, as they had a large display in the main arena that dwarfed the competition. Yes, Jack and the rest of the crew from Atari Corp were there, and gave a private demonstration of the new Stacy laptop and Portfolio computers. As a matter of fact, Atari presented each of the users group members that worked the show with their very own laptop & Portfolio computers, free of charge, just for being loyal to the company for all these years. Jack came around and personally thanked each and every one of us for -keeping the faith- with Atari. I immediately sat down and began working with the complementary ST laptop, but suddenly heard a loud buzzing noise. Things started to spin and fade out, and suddenly, I awakened to............. the sound of my alarm clock. I woke up, and then realized..... Computerfest '89 was at hand. MVACE, the Miami Valley Atari Computer Enthusiasts, in conjunction with two other Atari users groups, Troy ACE (TRACE) and Northmont Systems of Atari Computers (NASAc), had an impressive display that consisted of twenty (count 'em, 20) tables. Demonstrations were going on at least 15 computers, with the Spectre and PC-ditto drawing a large share of attention. Bruce Hansford, ramrod of the ACES, and partner in 1st STOP Computers, brought along his new Vidi-ST (video image digital interface) package and new MiGraph Hand Scanner to demonstrate, and put on quite a show. Games, desktop publishing, and a really dynamite MIDI demonstration kept the crowds buzzing around the booths nearly all of the two days of the festival. Both ST and 8-bit systems were well represented. With a few dollars burning a hole in my pocket, I ventured forth onto the sales floor, and found myself surrounded by a cornucopia of computer goodies. Software, hardware, paper, labels, disk carriers, cables, and just about anything that a dedicated hacker could possibly wish for, was present. Mendelson Electronics of Dayton had their usual spread of hardware, both new and used, at very attractive prices. And speak of software... several vendors had some real bargains, all you had to do was look to find something that you could use, many of which were real deals in the $2.00 to $10.00 range. Ah yes, so many deals.... so little money. Of particular note, was the spectacular graphics shown by the MS-DOS crowd, on their VGA equipped IBM's and clones. Displays that looked all the world like a photograph, with absolutely stunning colors and detailing. It seems only yesterday that we were the envy of the computer world with our Atari graphics. What happened, to our graphics capabilities guys? All in all, Computerfest was a great experience, well worth the time and effort to attend. Too bad that it only comes around once a year. One consolation however, there is a strong rumor of an Atarifest in the Dayton area, and Hamfest is just around the corner, so all hope for a computer-active fall and winter season is not lost. MVACE will have a booth at the Hamfest if possible, the Atarifest, if there is one, and also at the Computerfest next year, so.... come see us, we'll be looking for you! [Computerfest has been presented every year for the past 14 years by the Dayton Microcomputer Association (DMA Inc.), a non-profit corporation.] THE BOOKKEEPER ----------------------------------------------------------------------- by Don Lucia To those of you who have been around awhile you're already saying, -that's an old program-, and you're right. But it was not a well accepted program due to it's original cost. I paid $150.00 plus for the program and $50.00 plus for the accompanying numeric key pad. That price coupled with the fact that it is not a simple single entry accounting program made it a difficult program to learn at a time when the new computer user was having difficulty just learning about his/her computer. So what's changed? Well, for starters you can now purchase this program for as little as $10.00 or $25.00 with the keypad. That's a terrific price for this well designed program. That along with the following tips on the pitfalls awaiting the user will make this program an attractive tool for the small business or dedicated budgeter using the 800/XL/XE machine. The manual that comes with the program recommends that anyone having difficulty should contact a CPA for the initial setup to ensure the usefulness of the program and the proper selection of General Ledger (GL) account codes. The General Ledger (everyone), Customer/Vendor Lists (business only) and initial General Journal (GJ) entries (everyone), are the most important steps in starting up this program. Well, now that I've scared off all the faint-hearted, let's get on with the review. First of all it's very important to read the MANUAL at least once completely through and read the tutorial through three times even if your going to use this program for personal purposes the tutorial will assist you in getting use to double entry accounting methods. Then make backup copies of your disks and follow the tutorial executing the program using the sample data disk. Even though this is a small business data base it will provide useful information to those who will use the program for a personal bookkeeping program. For those of you who say 'I know bookkeeping and don't need the practice', you'll eventually come back to the tutorial and complete it, save yourself sometime and do it first. You'll notice that from the Main Menu there are four choices: 1. Start Up Menu 2. Data Entry Menu 3. Maintenance Menu 4. Reporting Menu Each of these items carries it's numerical series of sub-menus with it into the next Menu, i.e., -1. Start Up Menu-, has four sub-menus numbered 11, 12, 13, and 14. -2. Data Entry Menu-, has four sub-menus numbered 21, 22, 23, and 24. Etc, etc.. Only when you start printing does this sequence change as you'll see in a moment. FIRST PITFALL --- Each time you initiate the program you MUST use the start up procedure (selection #1. on the Data Entry Menu). This allows you to select the data base disk that you wish to use for this session. It's conceivable that one household might have a data disk for each member of the household as well as a small business. Luckily the program for a single data base disk does support multiple checking/ saving/money market accounts. It just requires some forethought and reading of Appendix 'B' during the start up procedure. SECOND PITFALL --- You need only do Submenu Items 13. and 14. on the Start Up Menu when initializing your data base disk for the very first time. THIRD PITFALL --- As I stated before, go through the tutorial to insure you understand data entry, printing reports and understand what those reports mean before attempting to establish your own system disk. The Data Entry Menu includes: 21. Checks Written (CW) 22. Cash Received (CR) 23. Invoices Written (IW) 24. General Journal (GJ) entries The Maintenance Menu Includes: 31. Add/Change/Delete GL accounts 32. Add/Change Control Information 33. Add/Change/Delete Customers 34. Add/Change/Delete Vendors 35. Add/Change Invoice Prompts The Reporting Menu Includes: 41. List Journals 42. Recording/Periodic Processing 43. Print Lists 44. Data Entry (Ret to D E Disk) FOURTH PITFALL --- It is important to remember that you must follow the prompts at all times when changing disks, or information/closing of a report etc. may be lost and ruin all of your work up to that point. Take heart - most mistakes can be corrected via the General Journal, by nullifying mistakes with the appropriate debit (+) or credit (-) entry. FIFTH PITFALL --- After every long data input, when you find yourself back at the DATA ENTRY or REPORTING MENUS with one of the master disks installed: Turn off your computer, boot DOS and make a backup copy of your data disk! One night after I'd finished making all of my initial entries, GL accounts, Customer/Vendor lists, Control Information, and initial GJ entries; I was tired, so I shut off my computer, made a backup copy of my data disk, and quit for awhile. But, wouldn't you know it... When I started up again (I wasn't 30 minutes into my first month's entries), I made the classic mistake of removing my data disk before hitting the Esc key and saving my data. Fortunately, I only lost the 30 minutes worth of input and all the table placement, since I had backed up my disk before. I ran a printout and found things so fouled up that I trashed those files, copied the files from the backed up disk, and started over. Without that backup disk I would have been about six hours behind instead of just 30 minutes! I now take the extra time and backup my data disk whenever I'm going to stop for a period of time and at the end of every session. BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP SIXTH PITFALL --- Remember as I said earlier, when you start up your data base disk, enter your GL accounts, Customer/Vendor lists, Control Information and initial balances via the GJ for Assets and Liabilities. Some simple formulas to remember are: a. Assets - Liabilities = Capital b. Profit = Income - Expenses Table I shows the relationship between the Major Elements of Double Entry Accounting systems. It will assist you when you are making GJ entries since that transaction always requires at least two entries and must result in a zero (0) balance. TABLE I debit (+) Account credit (-) increase assets decrease decrease liabilities increase decrease capital increase decrease income increase increase expense decrease After you have completed the initial entries, go to the Reporting Menu and print all of your lists; General Ledger accounts, and Customer/ Vendor lists. These will assist you when you are making data entries. This is especially true with the GL account numbers, because during CW and CR you are asked for the GL account number. Now go to the data entry area via the screen prompts. SEVENTH PITFALL --- Submenu Item #32. on the Maintenance Menu allows you to establish the proper control information necessary for the automatic portions of the program to work properly. DO THIS STEP AFTER YOU INPUT THE GL ACCOUNTS BUT BEFORE, REPEAT BEFORE, YOU INPUT THE GENERAL JOURNAL STARTING BALANCES. This is a very important step and, if accomplished properly, will prevent a lot of screaming and frustration. This step can only be accomplished before GJ entries or after month-end close out, since that step closes out the GJ entries. EIGHTH PITFALL --- Should you find yourself in the middle of data entry and suddenly realize that you do not have an appropriate GL account for a particular asset/liability, etc., all is not lost. Close out the batch, press Esc and go via the prompts to the Maintenance Menu, select 31. and add your GL account that you require for that data entry. NOTE NOTE Because of the disk swap, the wait to load the disks, etc., is very time consuming. Carefully consider your initial inputs and GL accts before starting data entry. Remember, it is better to have to many accounts then be forever adding new ones. The list in the book gives you a lot of ideas for the accounts you may want in your GL. Think of all your Assets, then your Liabilities, and always include catch-all miscellaneous accounts. TIP - account numbers like '1010 cash-on-hand' should always be followed by '1011 pers checking', '1012 money market', etc. See your CPA to assist you in the Start Up portion, especially in establishing GL accounts required for tax documentation purposes. I found that looking at my previous year's tax return helped in this respect. It established those necessary accounts required to prepare my tax return when the reports were printed at year end. NINTH PITFALL --- When initially entering GJ information, startup balances, etc., follow the procedure on page 84 of the manual. And remember.. for every debit there must be an appropriate credit. Follow the prompts in the manual. TENTH PITFALL --- Read ALL, repeat ALL, of the Appendices. These contain important information that you'll need (but, I'll not discuss here because it would take up too much space in this column). ELEVENTH PITFALL --- When making CW (checks written) inputs, the memory buffer set up for this will usually hold only ten or eleven checks before prompting that the buffer is full. Close the batch which clears the buffer and go on inputting. It's only a minor annoyance when you know what to expect, so don't panic. The first time it happens just delete the 'check to info', hit return; and... If you wish to go back thru the checks inputted, type n for no and then delete back to the check #. Change the # to the number of the first check written in that batch or the # of the check specifically that you wish to verify. When you are through verifying and have come to the last check in the batch, type y for yes at the prompt, and close the batch. Once the batch has been closed the only way to modify the information is through a duplicate entry or entries in the GJ. When this happens to me I write down the info on a stick-up note and accumulate these errors until I've finished the session. Then I make the GJ entries. When I close out the month I print all of the reports, but DO NOT closet he books until I've read all the reports and haven't found any other errors. Then I backup my data disk before I execute command '81. end of month closeout'. After I closeout I backup my data disk again keeping the disks separate and marking them so that if I have to go back to the previous month I haven't lost all of my GJ entries. TIP: The program is at times a little tedious, especially when you're printing out the reports. Go make a sandwich while everything is being printed, then come back. Time will fly a little faster that way. I keep all of my monthly printouts in an accordion folder with the check statements, stubs, receipts, etc. by month so that year-end information is all nice and neat for my CPA. I wish someone would update this program to use two disk drives and allow for some data entry maintenance directly on the tables. Ah well, it's still the best program I've found to provide the kind of reports I need. ENJOY A RAMDISK AUTOLOADER FOR MYDOS 4.5 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- by John Picken, GCACE (From XIO3, May 1989, Garden City ACE, Victoria B.C.) MyDos 4.5 is a very nice piece of software. I use it with Turbo BASIC, and a RAMdisk. This combination is a convenient and powerful programming environment. What's more, it's all Public Domain. One thing I don't like about MyDos is that its RAMdisk autoloader is very slow. The short program presented here will create a much faster and more convenient, RAMdisk initializer for MyDos 4.5. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS LOADER WILL ONLY WORK WITH MYDOS 4.5. To use it, run MyDos 4.5 and set up your RAMdisk using the O command. Don't number your RAMdisk drive 1. Write this reconfigured MyDos to a new disk, using the H command. Load the following BASIC program. Place your new MyDos disk in Drive 1 and RUN the program. The program will write an AUTORUN.SYS file to your disk. This is your RAMdisk loader. When you boot MyDos the loader will set up the RAMdisk as you had originally configured it. The loader also makes the RAMdisk the default drive and copies DUP.SYS into it. However, the loader doesn't set up a MEM.SAV file. MEM.SAV is useful with Atari BASIC, but with Turbo BASIC it's not only useless, it causes lockups. The loader is small and smart. It only formats an unformatted RAMdisk. So if you can reboot using a warm start, you will not lose any of your RAMdisk contents. If DUP.SYS is already in the RAMdisk, the loader quits then and there. If DUP.SYS is not found, the loader copies DUP.SYS and all protected (-locked- if you must) files from D1: to the RAMdisk. This means you could use the loader to copy a second disk full of protected files. Simply erase DUP.SYS in the RAMdisk and rerun the loader, (just make sure your second source disk also holds DUP.SYS). The loader does not copy DOS.SYS. I use the loader with both a 256XL and a 320XE. It works well. The loader should work equally well with a 130XE. If you get a RAMdisk that you did not specify, check out the RAM sequence options provided by MyDos. Your extra RAM may require some custom configuration. 5 REM Ramdisk Autoloader 10 DIM SEC$(125) 12 FOR SEC=1 TO 4 14 READ SEC$,CKSAV 16 PRINT 18 PRINT -Checking -;SEC$ 20 CK=0 22 TRAP 76 24 FOR B=1 TO 125 26 READ A 28 CK=CK+A*B 30 IF CK>65535 THEN CK=CK-65535 32 NEXT B 34 IF CK<>CKSAV THEN PRINT -Error in -;SEC$:GOTO 90:REM 2 spaces 36 NEXT SEC 38 REM -------------------------- 40 RESTORE 42 PRINT -Ready to write file- 44 PRINT 46 PRINT -Place disk in D1: and press RETURN- 48 INPUT #16,SEC$ 50 OPEN #1,8,0,-D1:AUTORUN.SYS- 52 FOR SEC=1 TO 4 54 READ SEC$,CKSAV 56 PRINT 58 PRINT -Writing -;SEC$ 60 TRAP 82 62 FOR B=1 TO 125 64 READ A 66 SEC$(B)=CHR$(A) 68 NEXT B 70 PRINT #1;SEC$; 72 NEXT SEC 74 REM -------------------------- 76 POP :REM Trap part 1 78 GOTO 34 80 REM -------------------------- 82 POP :REM Trap part 2 84 PRINT #1;SEC$; 86 PRINT 88 PRINT -Done!- 90 END 92 REM -------------------------- 100 DATA Sector 1,31304 110 DATA 255,255,0,48,197,49,173,10,7,201,2,176,5,169,9,141 120 DATA 10,7,201,10,176,247,9,48,141,171,49,169,0,141,91,3 130 DATA 141,107,3,141,89,3,133,242,162,170,160,49,32,148,49,169 140 DATA 128,157,68,3,133,243,169,5,157,69,3,133,244,32,142,49 150 DATA 173,130,5,201,68,208,15,173,171,49,141,178,27,141,165,27 160 DATA 41,15,141,11,7,96,32,0,216,32,210,217,165,213,201,8 170 DATA 144,23,162,170,160,49,32,148,49,32,138,49,169,254,32,142 180 DATA 49,16,6,32,138,49,76,135,49,169,188,141,68 190 REM -------------------------- 200 DATA Sector 2,54907 210 DATA 3,169,49,141,69,3,169,9,141,73,3,141,66,3,162,0 220 DATA 32,86,228,169,128,141,68,3,169,5,141,69,3,162,10,189 230 DATA 177,27,157,128,5,202,16,247,32,46,49,48,201,32,65,48 240 DATA 162,181,160,49,32,148,49,48,189,169,131,157,68,3,169,5 250 DATA 157,69,3,157,66,3,162,16,32,86,228,48,169,173,131,5 260 DATA 201,32,240,242,201,42,208,158,162,0,160,8,189,133,5,201 270 DATA 32,240,7,157,131,5,232,136,208,242,173,141,5,201,32,240 280 DATA 24,169,46,157,131,5,232,160,0,185,141,5,201 290 REM -------------------------- 300 DATA Sector 3,62032 310 DATA 32,240,9,157,131,5,232,200,192,3,208,240,169,155,157,131 320 DATA 5,224,7,208,28,189,131,5,221,173,49,208,5,202,208,245 330 DATA 240,167,224,2,208,11,201,83,208,7,173,132,5,201,79,240 340 DATA 152,32,46,49,192,128,240,150,208,143,169,49,141,129,5,141 350 DATA 73,3,162,0,32,86,228,169,4,32,87,49,192,136,208,11 360 DATA 173,171,49,141,129,5,169,8,32,87,49,132,203,32,135,49 370 DATA 164,203,96,141,106,3,72,32,135,49,169,128,157,68,3,169 380 DATA 5,157,69,3,169,3,32,142,49,48,224,169,198 390 REM -------------------------- 400 DATA Sector 4,64503 410 DATA 157,68,3,169,49,157,69,3,104,201,4,208,5,160,255,140 420 DATA 105,3,105,2,208,7,162,32,44,162,16,169,12,157,66,3 430 DATA 76,86,228,142,84,3,140,85,3,32,138,49,169,19,157,72 440 DATA 3,169,6,157,74,3,74,208,228,68,52,58,68,85,80,46 450 DATA 83,89,83,155,68,49,58,42,46,42,155,160,195,239,240,249 460 DATA 233,238,231,160,155,224,2,225,2,0,48 470 REM -------------------------- 130XE CHANGES ----------------------------------------------------------------------- by Mark Elliott, Innovative Concepts, Ctsy CIS The -NEW- batch of 130XEs, that were produced this year, (yes!) have the following changes made: 1) RAMs used (4), are the 41464 (4464) types. (compared to 16 - 4164, on old) 2) The O.S. has minor changes like; A) The MEMORY TEST (from SELF TESTS) tests the extra 64K now! (in 4 squares) B) Also, the MEMORY TEST checks the first 48K over TWICE as fast as before! C) The KEYBOARD TEST has the F1-F4 keys missing on top. (function keys), although the code that interprets them is prob. there. (like XEGS) D) Also, it types out -COPYRIGHT 1985 ATARI- at the keyboard test, when all tests are done. (compared to COPYRIGHT 1983 ATARI, before) E) And, the O.S. chip itself, is on a 27256 EPROM, but only have of it is used! (compared to the original, which was on a 16K x 8 ROM, 27128 comp. 3) Finally, the PIA is a completely different chip! Being a 68B21. (compared to the 6520/6520A on all other Atari 8-bits.) 4) Last, but not least, the Owner's Manual (Rev. D), is now paper-bound, compared to spiral-bound on the original. Hmmm, at least Atari went to the bother of updating the new machine. (prob. will save them money, being more reliable with less chips.) HARDWARE PRICEWATCH ----------------------------------------------------------------------- by WK Whitton If you are looking for some inexpensive hardware to upgrade your current ST or 8-bit system, here is a list of some of the better prices I have been able to locate through many hours of research: 720K 3.5- DS Drive Teac $63 Falcon 213-390-3955 720K 3.5- DS Drive Teac $69 Mighty Micro 800-277-8585 720K 3.5- DS Drive Sony $62 Essence Group 714-546-3110 720K 3.5- DS Drive Mitsumi $56 Colorado Memory 1-800-245-3040 720K 3.5- DS Drive Model #1035 $59 408-434-0168 3.5- DS disks .49 in lots of 25 MEI/MicroCenter 800-634-3478 3.5- DS disks .66 cents in lots of 100 1-800-288-8025 ST-157N 50 meg $317 Colorado Memory 800-245-3040 ST-277-1 65 meg $315 CTI 1-800-223-4492 ST-177N 60 meg $419 USA Flex 1-800-872-3539 ST-250R (RLL) 40 216 bare $259 kit Colorado Mem 800-245-3040 ST-251 40 meg $290 Micro Informata 800-752-0842 ST-251-1 $305 Data Dynamics 1-800-999-1172 ST-251 XT kit $372 Express MicroMart ST-251 XT kit $355 FD Microsys 800-548-2660 M8450 Miniscribe 40 meg kit Express MicroMart $297 1-800-533-0177 - - $282 Computer Products 1-800-338-4273 ST-238 w/controller $229.95 Colorado Memory Systems 800-245-3040 HP Deskjet Plus $699 Arlington 1-800-548-5105 - - $675 Micro-Technology 1-800-283-0505 - - $655 American Multitech Systems 800-888-6615 - - $659 Value Plus 800-843-1181 HP Deskjet Carts $16.95 USA Flex 800-872-3539 ======================================================================= ZMAGAZINE ISSUE #178 October 15, 1989 Copyright 1989, Rovac Industries Inc.. =======================================================================