The Guide to Computer Living Vol 03 07 1986 Nov

8/3/2019 The Guide to Computer Living Vol 03 07 1986 Nov

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Sim e, easy to use.Profess ional quality defines new

B.E .S.T. software business manage-ment systems for the Commodore

6 4 / 1 2 8 ~ Ease of use is unique.Manuals are illust rated, readable and

easy to understand . Menus are clearand concise.

B.E .S.T. software gives you moretime to focus on business. (Noneed for computer or accounting

Pricc:s ; Pay2bles & Receivables, $59 .95 each;

Invemory & u::dgc r 569 .95

e:lch; Project Pl2nner,$89

.95

.

·Tndcm:.rk ofCommodo re Uusincss Mach ines, Inc.

experience.) B.E.S.T. systems seemsimple. Yet this is very sophisticatedso ftwa re, easily capable of becominthe indispensibl e management too l

Ow- obj ective is to make your busness easier to manage.

Available at your loca l computer s

BE ST usine ss Elcc(ronics

• • • • Software & le chno)ogy,P.O . 852 I McMinnville, Oregon 97128 I (503)4 72 -9

Toll Free j ·800 / 368·BEST







TABLE OF CONTENTS

Freeze Frameby Shelly Roberts

CardCo may be gone; but Freeze Framecontinues to dump on their memory.

VIP ProfessionalMaxiPlan

by Grant Johnson

One Amiga spreadsheet that does a Lotus1 2 3 impersonation, another that talks.Now, what about one that does EdSullivan?

Turbo MIRV

by Shelly Roberts

It's getting crowded in here! MIRV stuffsdesktop utilities into the C-64/128 and thereisn't enough room to move sideways.

Quickies

by The Guide Staff

Brisk and sometimes abrasive reviews of thelatest in computer products. You read ithere first.

Potpourriby The Guide Staff

Technicolor zombies, nuclear holocaust andCommodore International. Amazing what'sgetting into the news these days.

The cover art, "Marilyn", was created by Stevewith Aegis Images on an Amiga

The Guide features high quality original artworkhe cover each month. All artists are encouraged to

computer artwork for consideration. Therestriction is that the ar t must have been created

Commodore computer. This could be your

50

53

57

61

63

68

71

NoveDlber 1986

Real Gamers . . .

by Robert Sodaro

Bob winds up a new joystick and dusts of f acouple oldies. You read it here last.

Dr. Timothy Leary:

by Timothy Leary

From cave to keyboard. Dr. Leary looksEast and describes the dawning of the com-puter age.

Amiga Monthly

by Bob Lindstrom

Vas ist DOS? Some handy AmigaDOS com-mands Commooore doesn't tell you about.Also Cinemaware preview, Mind Walkerand The Music Studio.

Beginner's Corner

by Mindy Skelton

Disk Data. How it gets there, where it goes,and what it means.

Machine Language

by David Michael McCormick

Build your own computer without wire,pliers or spare parts. McCormick does it insoftware.

More Computer Magic

by John Olson

"A State of Mind." This time the computer

knows what state you're thinking of.Incredible.

File Viewer

by Bob Richardson

"And I wish that I could look at any file onmy floppy disk." Wish granted.

chance to move that masterpiece from the screen on

your monitor to the newsstands of America!

Please submit all artwork on disk, with a coverletter describing the graphics package used to create it.It will be photographed from the screen, so screen

dump capability is not a requirement.















B.E.SI has hatchedthe new , ·ga

Business Managementsoftware to manage

inventory, receivables,payables,order processing,

general ledger ..all in one.()r 11llt a11()tl1er way:

This is Ih(' integrated business management system designed 1111 theAmigajilr the Amiga . Now 011(' software system can help you manage your

entire business. It becomes an invaluable tool in managing cash tlow. yourinventory-and provides the reports you want \I'//{'1/ and hOIl ' you need them.

Say you print an invoice. The computer automat ically updates inventory.receivables . general ledger. Look at the tlow chart. This is more than anaccounting program: it is a system that makes inlimnation available lilryou \0 make management decisions.

Our business is to make your business easier to manage .

CALL J-800-368-BEST fo r immediate information and response.

Business Ekctronics Software & Techllolo!!\. IncPO Box Wi::! McMinll\ilk. Oregon 471::!X"

:'iOY.t7::!-4:'i1::!

The Guide to Computer Living

BESf.

I HI · . 1 hU'II1\ ' , l o ' r tH ' .1 , l I L lhk· I



S e ~ ,

© 1 9 5 6 . ~ . 9 &

Hey, guys and gals. It's Friday night. The home team won the

N o ~ w h a t to do?Or maybe Mom and Dad have just tucked the kids into their

Kangaroo P 1's , cooked up a mess of popcorn and areat The Lawrence Welk Show. But Larry

on anymore.What is < BabrJ300mer to do?How .abo\lt .telling a computet your most secret sexual

O r f i n ~ ~ n g o u t w h i c h bars across t ~ e United States feature semi-

d a l 1 c e ~ s ? ....•..•.• .?i ·. ..O r ~ l l a J ' i n g a n imimate session · of typing with a telecom-

>partner wllose body and computer are hundreds of miles

SEXI

The Baby Boom Generation - the ones who grew up with Mr.

Greenjeans and Bunny Rabbit - turned onto the Love Generation -the ones who matured with Timothy Leary and Jimi Hendrix - andthen turned into the Computer Generation. And now it's our turn todo anything we want.

And what are some of us doing? We're turning technology to

our own purposes. We're getting cheap thrills with Strip Poker programs, making Love Connections with telecom networks and probingour innermost sexual recesses with computer psychology.

In the 1980's, America is obsessed with two things. And ourgeneration has brought them together.

From PacMan to permissiveness, in this special section, the staffof The Guide to Computer Living examines one of technology's mostsurprising marriages: Sex and Computers.

The Guide to Computer Living 11



Adventures With A Baudy Lady

by Peggy Herrington

and Stephen Hill

You've had a hard day, and

you're too tired to go out but yourmind refuses to settle downenough for sleep.

Or maybe your day was spentsettling squabbles between thekids, and you'd kill for some adultdiscussion. Well, a new worldawaits, just beyond your computer, a world which some maycall fantasy; but it is a completenew society, with interesting conversationalists, brawlers, braggarts and lovers. And, unless youlive in Los Angeles, New York or

Las Vegas, you won't run into aplace with more convenient hours.

This new medium is difficultto believe without experiencing it.Many of its inhabitants say thatthey no longer just see the wordscrawl across their screens, but actually feel the other person'spresence in their minds. Thismind-to-mind link is as avidlysought by some as the "runner's

high" that joggers chase. Allow usto give you a guided tour of thisnew society.

The Ins And Outs

Public value-added data networks have sprung up in the lastseveral years. Computer ownersuse their computers and theirmodems to send and receive textmessages across conventional

telephone lines . These networksprovide communication links

12 The Guide to Computer Living

throughout this country and

others and, quite unintentionally,are fostering a new society of immensely intimate proportions.

There are several types of personal communication available on

many of these systems. The mostimpersonal is like a computerizedbulletin board. You read whatothers have posted previously and

reply if the subject is of interest to

you, or start a new "thread" of

conversation.For private messages, there's

electronic mail. This lets you sendprivate communications to

another person if you know his or

her "address." Neither of theselines of communication requirethat the person with whom you are

trying to communicate be online atthe same time you are.

CD Channels

There is also an interactiveform of communication. The mostpopular is called CB (o r

"conference mode" or being "o n

open") and is patterned afterCitizens Band radio. Like originalusers of CB, most of the participants use handles, fictitiousnames that are descriptive of their

tastes and afford anonymity whilethey develop or test various onlinepersonalities. On open, everyoneon a "channel" (or "line" or

"room") can talk to everyone elsethere, simply by typing on theircomputer keyboards.





















Leather Goddesses of Phobos:

Tries to Be Naughty AND Nice

by Bob Lindstrom

'Twas the night before Mon-day and out of the gloom, a greenphosphor glowed in the Com-modore room.

The parents were huddled infront o f the screen enjoying

adventures that verged on

obscene.With Ma wearing little and

me wearing less, we sleazed up theplace with a Martian goddess.

Remember Softporn Adventure? I t was a smarmy little effort

Put on cellophane glasses and the thrills of 3-D reading are "Comin' At Ya" in

Leather Goddesses comic book.


available once upon a nasty timefrom Sierra On-line. In thoseunenlightened days, computingwas regarded as the domain ofmanly (nerdy) men. Sexist?What's that? We didn't know.

So, we didn't care that thedespicable goal of this Softporn

text adventure was to seduce threewomen before the night was over.We just got to work typing all thenaughty words that this programmiraculously knew and let guiltyperspiration drip all over the pensin our shirt pocket protectors.

There was some retribution, Isuppose. At one point, making thewrong move in Softporn meantcontracting a social disease. And,then, it was possible to lose allyour money (and therefore anychance of "getting lucky") bygambling it away in a casino. Atleast Softporn made it clear thatsexual arrogance wasn't easy.Debauchery had its price. $29.95... as I recall.

But that was back when the(computing) world was young,young and randy. Eventually,civilization came to those nerdybackrooms where grease-headedhackers slicked the steam of f theirhorn-rims and smirked over two-











nd Sexual Compatibility

by Randy Chase

Have you ever wondered howsexual behavior an d

"nor-

(as defined by statistical

Maybe you've just been

your friends together and take

of your sexual

I f you've answered "Yes" toof the above, then In

offers thought-provoking quessex-

is

sexual behavior.Whether a software product

n provide truly helpful

psychological analysis remains to

be proved. But IntraCourse claims

only to be an entertaining packageguaranteed to stimulate thought

and, on that premise, it is an intriguing, ambitious program.

IntraCourse, which publisherIntraCorp Inc. intends to retitle as








not many programs this old wouldeven warrant mention, much lesscontinued popularity.

Artworx promises an Amigaversion of Strip Poker in the nextfew weeks. The graphics of theAmiga renew interest in anteingup and trying your hand.

The next evolutionary stepwill one day be a fully animatedopponent on the Amiga. Let'sstop right now and imagine the

myriad possibilities there . . .But there is a short-cut forthose of you with little patience or

persistence, those who just can't

win at cards no matter how hardthey try, or those just in a hurry.The files for the various opponents are stored in named andnumbered files. For instance,Suzi 1 is fully clothed, Suzi5disrobed, and the files in-betweenrepresent the transitional stagesfrom bluff to buff.

I f you really can't wait, youcan use a disk utility such as DiskDoctor to exchange the names of

the first and last file in the sequence. This will result in the op-

t lX+.· · .60 ~ A G E R ? .. i , ';1

+ + + + + +

+ ..+

+ +

• ••• •

Play your hand well and Tony will move his.

ponent initially appearing in the

unfettered condition that youwould normally be rewarded with

at the end of the game. I f you get

bored with the traditional game, Iguess you could completely reversethe files and attempt to dress youropponent. It's the old "Boy

wouldn't she look great in a tightsweater" syndrome.

I caution you to be carefulwhen experimenting with a commercial disk. Altering files will, inall likelihood, void the warranty.Proceed only at your own riskand, if possible, conduct your ex-

ploratory surgery on a back-upcopy.

Kids entering the room? Hit Fl key and Strip Poker scrambles itself. They'llnever know.

As to the final question, is

this a good electronic substitute

for the real thing? Not havinganything real to compare it to, I'llhave to defer that answer toreaders with first-hand experienceHowever, if anyone is interested inconducting clinical research intothe matter, I can be reached at theoffice most days (or at least thosedays when I'm not too preoccupied with all of these "sexy"software programs).

•30 The Guide to Computer Living







Bobsterm Pro Steps Up to 128

by Bob Lindstrom

The Catch-22 of telecom

to use or make it

telecommunications, a modem

or full-featured

to handle all telecom pro

The middle-ground betweenis a tiny piece of

a n d

g to the point of hand-tying.On the other end of the line

· heir teeth"> " prompt

But we are now paper-and

o 128 can get the most confused

will follow an experiencedtor every exotic, ar

of his way.

128

BobsTerm on the C-64 hasof

programs around. BobsTerm Pro

on the 128 translates that ex-

cellence to the increased power of

that machine, giving access to the128's increased RAM, 80-columnscreen and other nifty features.

The program is designed to

support most modems commonlyin use among Commodore

owners: the Commodore 1670,

1650 and 1660 (with an appendixin the manual explaining how tofix Commodore's oversights so theruddy thing will work. Sigh.); theWest ridge modem; Master

Modem; Mitey-Mo modem; HESI and II modems; Total Telecommodem; and the Hayes Smartmodem and Hayes-compatible

modems.

CCImpaIIbItIIy oncI......., ......... ie

IaTlIUCO.IUJNlC:ATIOMI . . . . . . . . .

For theCOMMODOAE 1.










FSD-1 Disk Drive:

Cool, Compatible & A Hot Price

by Grant Johnson

Commodore's 1541 disk drive has been both

rket in 1982. Its price - half that of its nearestitor - caused a minor revolution. Its design

1541 was a "smart" drive

wasof every other

With a unique design and a killer price, the 1541

of making one day's high-tech into .the next

A variety of good third-party drives have been

on the other.

To come up with a disk drive that could do what1541 does might seem like a simple task. In fact, it

relatively easy to assemble the physical parts to do1541 does is not

Copy protection schemes, in particular, present

of the

operating system unworkable; but also they seek out

and exploit the system's most arcane and accidentalfeatures. The more indirect and bizarre the method,

the better it works as copy protection.The 1541 disk drive gets its smarts from a control

program contained in Read Only Memory (ROM).The program, about 16K, tells the microprocessor inthe drive everything: How to turn on the "busy"

light, how to move the read/write head, how to communicate on the serial buss. In the case of the C-64and 128, a large part of the computer's operatingsystem is embodied in the drive's ROM.

Smaller than th e 1541 but highly compatible, th e FSD-l isan economical alternative.










r The Amiga:

VIP Professional ·and MaxiPlan

by Grant Johnson

Two full-featured spread

of

database an d

is so much likeif you know 1 2 3

don't try the

l' 2 3 and its clones are very

is the best-designed advenof all time. From

ex-

and each time you meet

The thing is even program

to using 1 2 3. This program

Business software, hah! Thisis a kick. Even so, Lotus

ts a mature software

is a faithful, reliable, conservativeimitator.

MaxiPlan, on the other hand,is full of flash and sizzle. It is aneducation in communicationstheory to see how something asseemingly prosaic as a spreadsheetcan come alive when presented bya new-wave machine like theAmiga: You have eight colors towork with. You may rendercharacters in your choice of plain,bold, underlined, italics or any

combination thereof. Characterstyle and color can change depen-

ding on the information itrepresents.

This spreadsheet knows howto talk. I f you choose, it will verbally read your data as you enterit. Explanatory notes you may attach to a cell can be presented byan on-screen requester box, or verbally, or both. Or, again based onthe nature of the information, youmay ask MaxiPlan to report thecontents of a cell that is not evenvisible on the screen.

MaxiPlan fully uses Intuition's display capabilities. You

VIP Professional, a lotus 1 2 3 imitator, displays standard, no-frills

spreadsheet.








QUICKIES:

The NeverEnding Story- C-64/128

$29.95Datasoft

Adventurers who aren't too attached to thebrain-busting difficulty of some Infocom text adventures will enjoy the attractive graphics and modestchallenges of the NeverEnding Story.

Based on the movie, The NeverEnding Story puts

the player through three different episodes in order tosave Fantasia from The Nothing. The puzzles aretypical find-the-object adventure game fare embellished with some eye-catching graphics. As objects arepicked up, for instance, graphics windows open onscreen displaying the object while the lower half of thedisplay continues to print out the commands andplace descriptions.

Each of the three sections of the adventure contain about 35 locations and a dozen useable objects.

his is not one of those enormous, NeverEndingdventures . And the use of the objects is fairly logical


and clear-cut making the problems solvable by thosewho haven't yet developed the cock-eyed logic encouraged by computer adventures.

Experienced players will find The NeverEndingStory too easy for their finely-honed skills. For a n introductory level graphics adventure, however, TheNeverEnding Story provides a full measure of entertainment with a minimum of frustration.

I f only the rendition of the title song, which playsCONSTANTLY during the adventure, were a littleless irritating. Fortunately, it can be disabled.

Shanghai

Bob Lindstrom

- C-64/128

$34.85-Amiga

$49.95Activision

It's somewhat surprising that this ancient orientalform of solitaire hasn't been computerized earlier.Shanghai is an electronic version of the classic MahJongg.

The 64 version is quite nicely done; but theAmiga version is a knock-out. It is one of the classiestlooking games I've yet seen on the screen of myAmiga.













REAL GAMERS • • •

Space Trading Revisited

by Robert J. Sodaro

It isn't fair I tell you, it justisn't fair. It seems that every time Ithink it's safe to return to my 64these days lowe The Guide an installment on this column. How didI get talked into this? Pumping out

a reasonably coherent and interesting pile of words every couple of weeks or so is too hard agrind for this fun-loving kind of

guy.

But enough of this silliness,let's get into some serious reviewing . . . Humm, this stuff looksgood, and here's a nice product,oh, this one's a piece of trash, andthis one is ... Oh, sorry, I forgotyou all were listening. You folkswant to know what's going on,don't you? Well here's the

lowdown, so settle back and let mespin my wheels for a few minutes.

Imperium Galactica

First up is a golden oldie that

I recently rediscovered, dusted

off, and have been playing. It'sImperium Galactica by StrategicSimulations, Inc . ( $39 .95 ,

C-64/128, SSI). Long before theinvention of video games, when Iwas but knee-high to a microchip,I used to while away my time playing these non-electronic boardgames.

Unavoidable aside: even priorto that, my friends and I played agame called Battleship. This wasplayed - believe it or not - with


a pen (or pencil) and a piece of

paper We would draw out a10 x 10 square with little squaresinside it. Inside this we colored ingroups of squares to represent thevarious ships, five in all, rangingfrom one or two squares for a subto six for a carrier. Several yearslater, electronics were introducedinto the game, and it now sells intoy stores for close to 30 bucks.Progress.

But I digress. One of myfavorite board games in those halcyon days was Parker Brothers'

strategy game RiskTM. The gamewas played by 2-6 players, and theobject was to kill all opposingplayers, and rule the world. And

they claim that computer gamesare violent.

In the passing years, I have(unfortunately) left behind myboard games and now do most ofmy gaming with electronic ghostson a cathode ray tube. But I neverquite found a game that lived upto the early excitement of RiskTM.

SSI has managed to recreatethe same edge-of-your-seat excite-

aCR8LL

Race course construction screen lets players design their own Fast Tracks

courses.















MONTHLY:

S What You Don't Know

by Bob Lindstrom

Not since Agatha Christie has

re mystifying piecewriting than the Amiga owner's"In troduc t ion to

Instead of a who-dunnit,

tantalizes you with the powerthe machine without giving any

of how to get to that power.d in this mystery, AmigaDOS

is conout of sight.

But out of mind? No way. Atif you want to do

a complete di rectory of

or listing the size of files, orthat downloadis when it doesn't have an

as it is, Workbench

time for AmigaDOS and

And there's where the Into Amiga gets

What's that?

This comic book for raw beginners

almost completely neglects CLI,one of the features that gives theAmiga its uniquely versatile per-

sonality. Oh yes, 7-4 in the

manual (no lie, look it up) doeshave one paragraph that explainshow to open a eL I window but,
































11 Inputs filename into the variable f$

12 Opens disk file f$ as input (the" ,r" tells thedisk drive that you want to read the file -even if it is a program file)

13 Clears screen again and sets the variable x topoint to two lines below the upper left corner in screen memory

14 Gets a character from the disk drive anddisplays its ASCII value in the left cornerwhile displaying the screen code at the location pointed to by x. X is then up-dated tothe next screen location

15 Checks BASIC's status variable for the endof file condition. If true, then it indicatesend of file on first line of screen

16 Waits for user keypress

17 If keypress was f7 then close file, clearscreen, and exit to BASIC

18 If end of screen has been reached then clearscreen and re-set x to two lines below upperleft corner

19 Go back and read next character

o The Best (and Not-So-Best) of 1986

FileViewer is the first in a series of utilitiesdesigned to be stored in whhat I call a Programmer'sToolbox. Next month's utility, aimed at programmerswho occasionally type in programs from magazines,will "proofread" programs you type in from TheGuide. Until then, farewell, and may all your programs be free of insects.

5 prin tchr$(8) ;chr$(14);10 pokeS3280,6:poke53281,1:pr intchr$(S) ;chr$(147); :poke53281,611 pr in t "enter filename (add ,p or s) in quotes": inputf$ ,12open3,8 ,3 , f$+" , r"13 prin tchr$(147); ' ' [12 spcJf7 to end":x=110414 ge t#3 ,a$ :a=asc (a$+chr$ (0» :p r in tch r$ (19) ;" [4 spc]";chrS(19);a:pokex,a:x=x+115 i f ( s ta tu sand64) thenpr in tch r$ (19 ) - tab (25);"end of f i l e " '16 getb$:ifb$='" ' then1617 i fb$=chrS(136) thenclose3:pr in tchr$(147>;:end18 ifx>2023then1319 goto14

•

MONTH INTHE GUIDE

Diamonds and dogs; biggies and busts; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - . TheGuide salutes the heroes and slaps the has-beens. Awards, round-ups and critics'choices of the most memorable and forgettable computer products, people andevents of the past 12 months.

o Interview with Timothy Leary

One of the most controversial figures of the '60s and The Guide's newest columnist,Dr. Timothy Leary discusses his odyssey from psychedelics to software withpublisher Randy Chase.

o Coming in January

Games: What the well-rounded Commodore owner will be playing on Chnstmasmorning.




If You Read Only ONEComputer Magazine A Month It SHOULD Be

The Guide To Computer Living!

The unique combination of informative articlesand honest reviews have made The Guide theCommodore support magazine with thousandsof readers across the contry. Find out why people are saying that The Guide is the only

magazine putting the "personal" back into personal computing!

Amiga: Multi-Tasking with CLI

Each issue of The Guide is packed with infor

mative and understandable articles, hard-hittingreviews, and some of the best computer humor

you 'll find anywhere. See fo r yourself why

reader.s are saying that The Guide provides moreuseful and reliable information than all of the

other Commodore publications combined.

In the last three years The Gu ide has evolvedfrom a small regional newsletter into the fastestgrowing Commodore magazine in the country.Don 't miss this opportunity to subscribe at aspecial discounted price, saving 50% of f the

cover price.

A Monthly Publicat ion For Commodore'" Owners

"The Wave" by BobWooos

August1986

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$3.50 "'::-Vol. NO. 3Issue No. 4" .D.C.

This special subscript ion price of $15 per year is

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The Guide to Computer Living Vol 03 07 1986 Nov