THIS WEEK

NEWS

Remarkable optical technology arrives

* Seeing is believing: Inspiring opticals

The first commercially available rewritable optical disk has been launched into the UK.

Alphatronix’ Inspire has been available in the US for six months now but was launched at the 015 Show last week at the Hammersmith Novotel.

The remarkable device is available for PC compatibles and shortly for the Apple Macintosh. The 5.25 optical disk is capable of storing 650 megabytes - the equivalent of 16 40Mg hard drives. It will cost 56,000.

Whilst out of most people's price range this is not incredibly expensive given the amount of research and development money ploughed into rewritable optical disks - the one time "holy grail” of storage technology. When volume sales come in to the equation we can expect to see prices fluttering downward.

The system can address seven drives at the same time offering 4.5 Gigabytes Capacity with an average "seek" time of 83 milliseconds. The technology of erasable optical disks is one which several major firms are working on to capture a Portion of a potential multi billion dollar market.

It is widely believed that optical storage will replace magnetic storage entirely since it offers staggering capabilities magnetic media cannot reach. One disk can store 80 different versions of The Bible...

| domain of sci-fi | Sullivan, whose reports are used by

Report claims neurocomputers will take over

Computers with human-like brains will affect nearly every aspect of our lives in the next century, according to an astonishing report published last week.

The 324 page study Neurocomputing: Technology Impact Report by US Marketing Survey Company Frost and Sullivan claims that machines which can learn, see, hear and above all, make decisions, will be a part of every day life in the 21st century.

Neurocomputing - the use of multiple neuron-like processors to form а brain-like ^ computer architecture — has been floated as a theory for many years. Indeed, millions of pounds is being spent by the likes of Texas Instruments researching this area.

Many view it as being in the But Frost and

US companies for product planning, believes enough breakthroughs will be made over the next few years to take computing into a new era.

The new generation of computers will be able to ‘learn’ and interpret what they experience in the same way as children. Information is not stored in a neural computer but exists as patterns of connections amongst the processing elements.

Speaking from Austin, Texas leading TI technician Andy Penz told Express: "We are working on

applications | which require interfacing with cameras, microphones and sensors but

there's a flood of data to be taken into account. It's kind of like trying to drink water from a fire hose."

He expressed reservations about

* it may not look much like a brain - but this is the state of the art in artificial intelligence

the report. "I dont think ГЇ see ‘human computers’ in my life time but we can make machines which will work in parallel with us. That's more difficult than it sounds. Throwing computers at a problem doesn't solve it."

Low level work has been going on at Brunel University in Uxbridge for more than ten years. Director of neural network research John

Stonham commented: "We need to make some real breakthroughs before this can become reality.. But it is a growth area.

"The trouble is we have to understand our own processes before we can start programming computers to emulate us."

Either way it will be a several years before this appears in your local computer store.

Post naste

Some time next month that nice Postman Pat (and his black and white cat) could be dropping by, courtesy of Alternative Software.

Pat is appearing in "the first licensed budget game" for £1.99 on 8-bit formats, Young fans of the TV show can take on his postal round and meet the villagers of Greendale. Alternative has stuck in sophisticated gameplay for more ‘mature’ lovers of the character. 16-bit versions should arrive later this year.

* Post impressionism: Pat and Jess are Coming to your micro

2% NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 27 MAY 1989

THIS WEEK

ELITE P ТО ТАКЕ OFF

The long awaited follow up to space trading game Elite is on the way.

However, fans of the game will have to wait until autumn next year before they can see Elite II The game had been іп development for four years but was restarted last October to fit in with advances in home computing technology.

The original Elite has sold some 600,000 copies and is widely

ALAN SUG LATEST RACKET ©

Mr Amstrad’s charity pledge

Amstrad boss Alan Sugar has personally organised a charity tennis night out likely to raise £150,000.

For the first time in its 21 year history Amstrad has tied up a spe cial sponsorship deal. The Amstrad Pro-Celebrity Tennis Tournament at Albert Hall on 23rd June will fea ture TV stars, sports personalities, captains of industry as well as professional tennis players. All will be playing to raise money to com bat the crippling disease Muscular Dystrophy.

Amstrad has taken over the seven year old tournament from Harrods Lenny Henry, Frank Bruno, Kevin Keegan, Sir Richard Attenborough, Nigel Dumpster, Melvyn Bragg. Terry Wogan, Bruce Forsyth, Bobby Moore, Michael Aspel and Richard Branson wil be amongst the celebrities taking part

They will be paired up with tennis players such as Amritraj, Fleming, Gottfried, Lloyd, McNamee, Kriek and Shiras. The whole event, per haps predictably, will be compered

| The curious pain killing keyboard goes Amstrad

The Maltron keyboard, designed to reduce strain on computer

| users hands, wrists and forearms, is to be made compatible with all Amstrad PCs.

recently altered its gadget to work with IBM PCs. Interest has been growing in the curious keyboard from manufacturers and users alike as concern grows over the painful ailment RSI. Soon, any worried Amstrad users will be able to plug the keyboard in.

* Sugaring the pill: Pro-celeb tennis tournament.

by Jimmy Tarbuck.

Even the host Alan Sugar will be climbing into his shorts for a game of tennis. Apparently he's “a very fit man

A spokesperson told Express "We've always had a policy of giv. ing money to charity but we've never expected to be patted on the back for it. But money is desperately needed for Muscular Dystrophy and Alan felt we should get involved

regarded as one of the most addictive games ever devised Programmer David Braben warned gamesters to hold on. He said that the game involves a great deal of programming and is "far from complete"

However, we can expect to see something quite different from the original, he said

* Elitist dynasty: Son of Elite on the way

In true Amstrad style the event has been touted as "a bloody good night out". Anyone who fancies | joining them raise much needed money should call 01 589 8212

Tickets cost between £7.50 to £16.

Saucy pranksters bug IBM chiefs

Internal bulletin board abuse within IBM is causing something of a rumpus among company management.

One employee in the US has already been suspended from using the electronic service and new rules have been drafted in to. combat the problem. Notoriously sober company chiefs are hopping mad because some employees are are running saucy messages through the service. Confidential information concerning staff movements and the like are also turning up on the networks.

Electronic conferencing is an everyday occurence at the huge corporation with some 300 systems up and -unning. IBM is keeping | a close eye on its boards in case its rules are | breached.

Repetitive Strain Injury affects those people who frequently use keyboards. The computer age has brought this strange disability on because there is no natural break from tapping (such as changing paper or hitting carriage return).

The "ergonomically designed" keyboard puts keys whichare | most frequently used near the | front with others spaced out | according to frequency of use. It costs £295. More on 01 461 0621.

VOUCHERS 51 Open here and save £10! BACK PAGE 54 ST 33 PC 34 Amiga 35 Spectrum 36 Commodore 64 37 PCW, QL 38 || | BBC, MSX 39 СРС 41

CONTENTS

ARCHIMEDES PRINCIPLE 15 The new low-cost Archie: a dream come true?

DTP 19

Are these the books to get you publishing from home?

A-Z PART 6 25 Parts G and H of your definitive guide to computing

C-LIGHT 28 The best animation package yet for the Amiga?

OPTICAL ILLUSION 31 A glimpse of the future: the disk that can store 80 million pages of text

EXPRESS COMMENT 4

CHARTS 5

LETTERS 11

BUSINESS CLASSIFIED 34

EXPRESS SALES 40,41 Pick up bargains here

JOBS 42 The best in computer vacancies

TECH TIPS 43

READERS' CLASSIFIED 46

GAMES 47, 48, 49 Weird Dreams, Lords of the Rising Sun, Steel Thunder, Gilbert, Stormlord, The GAmes (Summer Edition), Shogun, Hate

GAME PREVIEWS 50 Total Eclipse, Postman Pat, International Athletics

GAME UPDATES 50

Robocop, Archipelagos, Test Drive Il

NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 27 MAY 1989» 3

а) —

Future shocks? Not

really The Frost and Sullivan report assures us that ‘thinking’ computers will be with us in the next century. Looking into the future is a dodgy business, as you can see from those old fifties sci-fi movies which had us all in the 1990s walking round in silver suits, holidaying on the moon and only eating one | protein pill per day. The reality is different: jackets in Top Man now look remarkably like those of the fifties, we holiday in Marbella and eat far too much of everything. | The ‘revolution’ promised will come quietly and largely unnoticed. After all, in the last thirty years the transistor and microchip have revolutionised the way everyone works and lives, but we still lead largely the same lives, wear the same sorts of clothes, do the same sorts of thing in the evening and eat | the same sorts of food - just do it more often. Someone stuck in a lift since 1959 would have no difficulty adjusting to life now; Cliff Richard's still around.

For most of us the dream machine is not ап expert system advising us on pension planning, it's one that will do the washing up, hoover the carpet and clean the bathroom.

The reality may be less interesting. Most | neural network research will no doubt be for Defence. Thinking computers would be sitting on our doctors’, dentists’ and accountants’ desks, giving them an instant and informed second opinions, and there'll be increasing use of decision-making smart robots in production line work and

dangerous jobs. |. Our work lives will be far easier, and we will have more leisure time; but thinking computers aren't going to change our personal lives for a while yet. And sci-fi visions of a robot indistinguishable from humans that learns, feels, and loves are just romantic fiction, After all, we can produce learning, thinking and feeling beings now by the traditional process. And it's а good way to spend all that extra leisure time.

DEPUTY AD MANAGER. Jennie Evans AD EXECUTIVES. Sarah King, Julie Hodgkins AD TYPESETTING Terry Turner PUBLISHER. Greg Ingham Future Publishing Lid +

34 e FAX: 02 id Web Offset, Tro

EDITOR. Rob Ainsley NEWS EDITOR Colin Campbel FEATURES EDITOR Andy Storer | REVIEWS EDITOR. Rik Haynes TECHNICAL EDITOR Jerry Glenwright ART EDITOR Angela Neal

| ART ASSISTANT Harriet Athay PRODUCTION EDITOR Rod Lawton ADVERTISEMENT MANAGER ....Mark Salmon

(COMMENT

VIRGIN'S RETURN

Virgin Games is planning to launch an armada of coin-op conversions and sports simulations this year.

The label had withdrawn some what from the software melee, con. centrating its work on sister divi sions Melbourne House and Leisure Genius. They concentrate on RPGs and board games respectively

Virgin has now decided to let loose all its big name coin-ops including Double Dragon II, Shinobi Continental Circus, Gemini Wing and Ninja Warriors.

Ssssshhh: It's the super quiet printer

There's а new peaceful dot matrix printer for office workers who can't stand the horrid sound its louder counterparts make.

The Trend 7080 operates at a noise level of less than 48 decibels in “hush” mode and is claimed to retain all the capabilities of noisier printing. However, you'll have to fork out £835 for the privilege of a quiet life.

* Trend towards quietness: So quiet you can't hear the pins drop

In addition gamers can expect to see a line up of sports simulations based on American Football, Soccer, Ice Hockey, Baseball and Basketball Virgin Games is back with a vengeance and we've got some of the hottest arcade licences of the year," said Virgin Mastertronic boss Nick Alexander. "We are committed to taking this label right to the top of the charts and keeping it there."

* Virgin let loose: Alexander is confident new titles will score

Electronic tagging

If you've ever used one of those plastic label makers to personalise your belongings, or to make name tags for persons attending a meeting or conference, you've probably noticed how long it takes and how messy the plastic strips are.

Channelmark UK has designed a software package for the PC and its compatibles which allows you to print hundreds of labels quickly and easily from a list of names held on disk.

Name Tag Kit lets you type names and

does offer one advantage though, its price. Name Tag Kit weighs in at a hefty £74.95. Channelmark UK can be contacted on 0276 685 761.

Sample Minds

ST musicians have a new

version of the popular ST sound sampling package, Replay. Stil under development, the upgrade should be completed in a couple of months,

and will feature 8-/12-bit analogue/digital

addresses or any other information directly into conversion, писе capability, drum and

the program or to import text files from another program such as a database or word processor. Names can be sorted into any order, then printed on the sticky labels provided.

Included with the software is 100 peel-off labels, 100 cardboard name tags and 100 plastic holders. The mechanical label-maker

Who’s making all the lolly?

16-bit protagonists Atari and Commodore have released financial figures for the first few months of this year.

Commodore upped its earnings by an impressive 38 per cent with worldwide sales of $210.2 million. The firm pocketed profits of $12.4 million.

Іп contrast Atari's performance was less convincing. The Sunnyvale, California based company reported profits of $3.28 million compared to $5.67 million for the same period last year.

Both companies are heavily involved in Europe. Commodore reckons some 70 per cent of its income comes from this side of the Atlantic. And whilst there are no figures for Atari it is understood its Euro split is considerably more than 50 per cent.

synthesiser software and a new editor. Tony Racine 94284 Systems commented “Theoretically. you'll have up to eight voices - without loss of sound quality’. The price will probably be £120-£130; details from Microdeal оп 0726 68020 or 2-Bit Systems on

0582 457348.

Watching the

Confident Cahners — organiser of the Which Computer? Show reckons some 90,000 people will be visiting the huge business event next year. The already enormous show is being held in April instead of February and Cahners reckons it will increase attendance by 36 per cent. This year's show attracted 66,678 visitors and 500 exhibitors.

* Its the size that counts: Which '89 will be bigger and better

wildlife

Computers are helping the the Royal Society for Nature Conservation to sort out its bugs, beetles, birds and bats.

Biological sites and species specific software programs are being developed which will allow various wildlife trusts to monitor the distribution of wildlife around the country.

The RSNC does all its work on PCs and has just taken delivery of a new 386 Opus PC to deal with the “incredibly complex” work.

4» NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 27 MAY 1989

NEWS

US finds Apple

American purchasers bought

more Apple computers last PCs for Mac technology. year than IBM machines. Many IBM customers were According to leading market put off by the complexities of survey firm Dataquest, US the PS/2 launch and the computer users bought 1.27 deletion of IBM's PC/AT.

million Macs and Apple lls as opposed to 1.23 million IBM | PCs

This is the first time throbby IBM has been overtaken by Apple. Dataquest puts it down to а "bad year" for IBM rather than any special desire by

American punters to ignore

Punters are also being given a huge choice of cheap PCs from the Far East.

Although IBM is quietly nursing its hurt pride itis widely expected that "Big Blue" will regain its lead next year.

tastier than IBM

* Apple pips: Mac is giving IBM the big blues

You WIN:

8-bit Atari owners get their way

Hitherto disgruntled Atari 8-bit owners are to receive a machine specific column of their own in New Computer Express

Vociferous users of the machine have been lobbying Express

through letters and telephone calls since the magazine was launched last October, Now, the publishers have decided to give way and run a column alongside those of minor machines such as the MSX, QL and all major machines every week

Earlier this month Express challenged owners to write in requesting their own spot. Within three days of the issue hitting the news stands we had received more then 40 letters

It's fantastic to be able to offer people exactly what they want," enthused Express publisher Greg Ingham. "Who could ignore the wishes of so many computer users?

We found that although many owners of the four Atari machines have upgraded to the ST they are still using their old machines. And that the machine attracts and

extraordinary number of user groups dotted around the country.

А spokesman for Atari commented: "We're delighted that the upsurge in interest for the 8-bit machines is being reflected in the pages of Express.” The first column will appear next week

Meanwhile, long established Atari 8-bit mag Page Six is to be renamed New Atari User. That mag was merged with Atari User at the beginning of this year

* 2, 4, 6, 8: Atari owners celebrate

Japs bop to coin-op soundtracks

Japanese tastes have soundtracks, Sega is subject the British public to raised Western eyebrows selling "loads" of this although the Town and before - but they seem to recordings of the likes of Country Club in London get stranger and stranger. Thunderblade to punters holds “Dreamscape”

The latest fad to send who go home and relax to | evenings every now and Japanese youngsters wild the electronic new sound again based on games is recorded albums and "music". technology and music. compact disks of coin-op There are no plans to

Prof's dual Boffin Professor Heinz Wolff will be chairing a seminar on raising software quality with the double aim of raising cash for charity. The cost of errors in software in the UK is estimated to be £500 million per year. The seminar - to be held at Cambridge University on 29th June - will include speakers from Acorn and GST Professional services. It is hoped that £12,000 will be

raised for the Cambridge Hospice for East Anglia.

ASHTON-TATE'S CHINESE MOVE

Business software developer Ashton- Tate is to become the first Western publisher to produce Chinese language versions of its packages.

The American firm has signed an agreement with China's Ministry of Machinery and Electronics Research to produce database management pack dBase IV and integrated software compendium Framework IIl.

China is fast ‘emerging as an enormous ‘opportunity for PC marketeers. English versions of Ashton- Tate products are already used by the Chinese. A Chinese version of dBase IV should be ready by the summer.

"It has always been our policy to translate software into foreign languages. Were already offering products in 13 different languages,” said UK boss Paul Sloane.

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Hardball x ‘Spectrum, 064, CPC, Atan bat IRE re-entry - NE new entry · Last week's positions \ Compiled by Саир! [The charts shown are based on the Open Market, that. lis retailers who stock a broad range of products. All| charts shown are copyright of Gallup.

RESS «27 MAY 1989 o 5

NEWS aT

| Company origins are always | fascinating. For instance, Tandy

| wasn't always a giant electronics | |

retail outlet and РС company was started 70 years | ago it was a Fort Worth based | tannery. | Ee PARET

Hybrid Hybris

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Famed portable manufacturer Other From June 1st Amiga owners will be able to | Toshiba is still top of the laptop buy a "special edition” of Discovery's game pops according to market Cambridge Hybris - it includes a free copy of Arkanoid. researcher Context. Computers Distributor Inter-Mediates has just picked Last year it managed to lap up up the rights to all Discovery games in the | more than 40 per cent > UK Tandy UK. They were hitherto handled by Gainstar. > market. Amstrad is just Gamesters hoping to get hold of Discovery nd with it low cost PPC range games including Sword of Sodan should call

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15 per cent competitive and handy Z88 Husky Its worth noting that as | leader Toshiba does not Amstrad | manufacture any desktop PCs. It domi the higher end of the market with its 1200 and 1600 Zenith models. More than one in nine Toshiba bought last year were portat effect, the portable market is now 0 10 20 30 40 50 longer a speciality niche but a most mportant sector Sompaq SLT 286. That neck and neck with the Toshiba | And according to market research ugh is very much in the 1200 at 17.2 per cent with the PPC | * Hybridisation: Special edition to include

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YOU'LL HAVE A JOB

1 thought | would put pen to paper regarding the small news item (Express 26) concerning the shortage of staff in the computing industry.

Іт 20 years old, have 10 'O' levels, 2 "А levels, Maths and Economics, and next month I'll be sitting my final exams on the second year of an HND in Computer Studies

For the past two months I've searched high and low for a computing job, generally if around ‘trainee programmer level, but have met with no success — most companies consider me too inexperienced, even for a junior post.

From my recent experiences, or should | say inexperiences, | can see the shortage of staff increasing unless firms are prepared to lower entry standards — OK, so firms want to ensure that they get good calibre candidates for a job but unless they lower their requirements they'll have no candidates at all!

Timothy Smith, Bagillt, Clwyd

Ф — Hmm; it seems from your letter that employers have only themselves to blame for the shortage. Perhaps we could have an employer's perspective on this?

TOSSED ASIDE

Last week | wrote to Atari at their HQ in Slough asking for info on their new TOS ROMs for the ST computers. | asked for

BEST FORM OF DEFENCE IS A HACK

The public is being led to believe that Hackers are as bad a problem as the ozone hole or football hooligans. They are a problem but not that serious a

one

Now it turns out that a conservative MP is leading a private members bill to have hackers imprisoned for up to 10 years. ‘We must succeed!’ cries Mrs Nicholson, members bill in one hand, modem in the other!

She gives the impression that she is on a holy crusade against the infidel!

If you want to deter them, impose hefty fines instead of hefty prison terms or better still confiscate their equipment as well

If, however, a breach of National Security is proved and that it was done

hackers deserve

everything they gets. | think Тт right in believing that Fleet

Street has blown the story out of all

proportion as it usually does.

Simon Howard, Peace Haven, East

Sussex

Ф — Well, according to the Act, it would be up to judges whether or not they fine or imprison convicted hackers, or confiscate their tools - all these are mentioned as options in section 2 of the Act. | think the main problem would be getting a judge who really understood what was going on; while I'm sure most Justices would be able to take the case on its merits and be able to tell the criminal from the harmless enthusiast, | have a horrible premonition that the first.

deliberately, then the * Does Emma Nicholson's Bill to beat the hackers go too far, or not far enough?

prices, availability and if they would fit in my 1040.

This week | actually got a reply from them! | opened the letter and found an Atari compliment slip and..... three photo: copied pages from ST World magazine, which had a preview of the TOS 1.4 ROMS last February. No prices and no other info at all.

C Parker, Pill, Bristol

Ф You got a polite reply though! Obviously you didn't go through their PR department.

PROTECT AND SURVIVE

On the subject of games copy-protection, the best | have yet come across in terms of user-convenience is my Amiga version of Carrier Command.

On booting the original disk with the left mouse button down, you can then make a backup at extremely fast speed (if only Amiga-DOS went this fast), then the actual copy protection is the familiar “enter word number so-and-so from Novella" - a pain yes, but much faster than the “enter master disk” method.

This could still be improved by printing the Novella in black letters on top of very dark grey paper, thus defeating certain hundreds of those using the office photo- copier to make copies for their pals or whatever, whilst still being easy to read in good light

hacker to be convicted will be a mere peeper who has the misfortune to be caught and ‘made an example’ by some 150 year old judge to whom all computer users are evil.

| applaud Emma Nicholson's every move. But | wonder if she is aware of the item shown on TV News a few weeks ago, where a hacker is parked in a van outside a Bank or other secret building and, with the aid of a TV set, 27MHz aerial (CB) and synchro box, is able to { \ visually display оп а TV set exactly what 3 is on screen at the buildings premises. No number crunching or password finding needed: all the information is displayed for them courtesy of the building being scanned The mind boggles ^ at the very idea of the information that could be gleaned in this way, and |

would think it to be virtually undetectable in the ‘hacking’ sense of the word. C C Whitley Jennings, Milton Keynes, Bucks

@ This sort of hacking has been around for a few years and it seems to be covered by section 1.3 of the Act ('A person who... receives... by means of electromagnetic waves... any writing, signals, signs, pictures or sound... shall be guilty of an offence’). It is also rather easier hacking to spot than the armchair and modem variety - if a large black van with all the windows blanked out parks in front of your offices for an hour you can be sure it'll be noticed. Personally | don't think it poses as great a threat as the more usual type.

Dear Reader

More pages packed with another selection from our

postbag and Rob Ainsley's replies.

Have you got

something to say? Make your voice heard in computing's liveliest letters page! Send your contributions to: Express Mail, 4 Queen Street, Bath, Avon BA1 1EJ

PS. Sorry, we just don't have the time to give personal replies, whether you include an SAE or not. We're too busy

putting Express together!

None of these methods would stop the oh-so-clever hack who would patch-out the copy-protection code anyway, but if all related magazines would stop allowing software-swap contacts through the classifieds then the hack would have no new contacts to show off to by circulating

* Are novellas the best form of copy protection?

his cracked disks. Too many of these swappers are posing as legitimate users by calling themselves "demo-swappers" etc, - if they really wanted to do this they would join, say, ICPUG and get all the official demos and PD stuff for free provided they send blank disks and return post.

Finally, these novellas should not add any more to the price of a game if the manufacturers would stop bundling unwanted audio-tapes and childish posters and stickers. What do you think? Alex, Berwickshire

Ф i think you have a good point. Novellas cost, we reckon, a couple of grand or so to produce, which shouldn't add more than 10p or so to the final cost of the game.

As well as being a more civilised way of copy protecting games, novellas are jolly good interesting things too, so long as you get good writers to do them. Any software. houses interested in getting one written should get in contact with us here at Express.

FAVOURABLE WIND

D Hughes (Express 26) is right in saying that the majority of computer games for the sixteen bit machines are too long and hence expensive.

An example of what short games should

be like is Sidewinder - a classic shoot 'em up for £6.95 if purchased from a mail order company (£19.95 is its recommended retail price. This also says how cheap and efficient mail order is)

It has excellent graphics and ear

rumbling sound effects. In one of my other computer magazine it says “guaranteed to overwhelm the senses’ Matthew Findlay, Uppingham, Leics

Ф | think it was launched at a tenner, wasn't it? We like Sidewinder (‘best budget release on the Amiga’ says our games man Rik Haynes) but the only thing we would ever describe as ‘overwhelming the senses' would be ten pints of Royal Oak.

ІТ ALL ADDS UP

Please could you inform me as to whether there is a similar scheme for teachers to buy computers, as there is for students to buy them? If none of these options is open to me, could you give me details of the cheapest place to buy a new Amiga 500 and modulator and please (again!) could you tell me what the best printer in the sub-£250 price range is (I'm very illinformed y'know)

John Hunter, Middlesbrough, Cleveland

Ф There's no scheme for teachers as far as we know - you'll have to try a bank loan or something. As for the cheapest place to buy an Amiga - read the ads in Express! That's what they're there for.

Printers: my personal favourites in the budget 9-pin dot matrix stakes are the Panasonic KXP1081 (£110 or so, nice and fast); the Citizen 120D (£120); and the Star LC-10 (£170, lots of fonts and wacky letter sizes, and probably the option to take if you can afford it. Or there's the colour Star LC 10 for £220.

Is EXPRESS PROSTITUTING

ITSELF?

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! | refer to yo ments (Letters Express 27) calling for stories like

i Story time

Once upon a time there was an

| advertisement for a

I Spelling Checker and Thesaurus from Database Software. A foolish young man ordered the software from the advert.

Time passed; spring turned into summer. One day, lo! A plop on the doormat. It was a | letter from Database Software. ‘Dear Customer, Good |! news! it said. ‘The

release date for the | spelling checker Thesaurus is confirmed as |! Thursday 4th of May. im Sorry about delay. | Expect software in a few days... Have a £5 voucher’

Days passed; another despatch: ‘Dear Customer. Programming delays,

PCW disk’

5 £

handbook.

* Mini Office Professional, available - er - in three

weeks (this is an Artist's impression)

The foolish young man thought to himself, if Database

49TE

& “nw

had used Mini Office Professional they could have personalised the letter. Or perhaps they couldn't understand the

This is of course a fairy tale. The Spelling Checker and Thesaurus are a

but programming now finished... Expect delivery well within next 21 days: Have a

imagination and | am not a young man.

The retail value of the freebies: £8. Retail cost of software: £24.95, so there's no rush lads, just keep sending the freebies. At this rate the software could end up being free B Smith, Plymouth, Devon

@ Perhaps the PCW software we're sending you as the sender of this week's prize letter will help too. Poor old Database has had a lot of trouble with Mini Office Professional. Wonder what they'd have done if they'd been sub-contracted by God during the Creation?

‘Dear Customer, We apologise for the delay in getting the Oceans

LI out to you. These

should be here by Wednesday week. We have now debugged Day and Night and these are being duplicated as we write this. We are currently producing the documentation to the beasts and fishes and fowl that may fly and these will be with you in 21 days. Meanwhile please accept the enclosed pound of Golden Delicious apples.’

all their naked

nly increase the

are groundless,

e has

n the scrap

© — Dont worry. We plan to make Express even more highbrow. Some planned features. * Algorithms in Occam for processing orthogonal expansions in Hilbert Space with special reference to the Jordan Canonical Form, introduced by Samantha Fox;

* A comparative computer analysis of polytonality in the later string quartets of Beethoven and Shostakovich, with a free

poster of Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue; * Aspects of post-modernist cubism in the surrealist works of neo-classical computer graphic artists, plus an interview with the Saint and Greavsie.

WE CAN WRITE TOO

hank у publishing my letter

take your point but | think Mr Parker's gestion and the my letter. | seriously think that

jers would willingly

Express

their experien without demandin my impression) If, 'm also in favour of in this case your editorial team) but | also believe that humans can articulate themselves very well whether they have failed CSE English or are f Literature (you'd probably ut of the former). | le learn to use computers without the need for taking examinations or holding formal qualifications, like myself, can communicate and even read ks and magazine: 1 don't think you will have anything to lose aging genuine and positive submissions for publication from writers. We would all benefit including our egos and your sales might

g money

merit

ense

ateur

1 hope you can hance to prove you wrong (| to accuse you of professional snobbery).

A Davis, Reading, Berks

us “amateur

Ф — I'm nothing if not open-minded. Readers, whether failed CSEers or Professors of Literature, are welcome to submit articles on the understanding that no fee will be payable if it gets published. (Please enclose a sae for reply). And if | publish any of it, my name'll be mud down at our NUJ chapel...

PLAY THE GAME (BUT NOT ON A PC)

Over the past months | have noticed many magazines trying to persuade us about the games potential of the PC Express however, being the most sensible, doesn't. | am totally opp shing PCs into the entertainment area, but 1 do not mind the idea of there being о that the businessperson сап relaxation, but | loath the idea them for mainly home use (in Му anyway)

If you stuck Mac Il graphics on а Spectrum, would you then go spouting about saying you have the most awesome micro yet? | think not. Tobin

Fifteen requests for an Atari 8b штп, | said, and

Lakeman, Li

Watson, Fareh Walton-on-Thames s; C A Preece, St

(Letters, Express 26) was mislead, as just because he has a PC with VGA graphics doesn't mean that it can

o as good as ће 16-bit

s. Due to the inferiority of йу compared to uld need a really 286 to equal an ST, and | doubt if a equal the

be good

entertainment, as they for far as entertainment concen s can be as good at games as the 16 bitters, better even, but at what price? VGA graphics, a Roland MT-32 sound board (the one that Rob Hubbard likes) and a 386 (486 would be great though) processor would cost an enormous amount of money and is easily beyond the home buyers cas this country. This is evident in the fact that the Archimedes doesn't sell in the home even with all its power, it doesn’t matter; if no one can afford it

The only affordable PCs are patheti Just imagine if STs and Amig: and people were trapped i tting PCs. instead; yo have to buy PC 200s (the PC with a similar price to the 16 bits) Four colour gam and sound limited to beeps is worse than the 8 bit home computers. I'd stick to the C64 | used to The fact is that the Amiga & ST are newer, more powerful designs than PCs and given the software, would out perform them in the business area as well

lam

reserved in

s vanished

have

that offended some people. but they will be the ones that can't face the fact that the "toy" computers аге better than the "real thing

Richard Dunn, Hedon, East Yorkshire

@ — interesting that everything now is being touted as the ultimate games machine from an ST to ап Amiga to and Archie to a PC with VGA, and yet the vast majority of games being sold (85%) is still for those state-of-the- art beauties, the Spectrum, CPC and C64. (source: Computer Trade Weekly, May 1 1989).

VIRUS KILLERS | needs must reply to your comments on my letter in issue 27. You seem to be

under a few misapprehensions. A boot block virus killer on a commercial disc (or disk if you really prefer) would not be ood place for a hacker to put a virus unless he was able to break into the factory and access the disks! Copying disks has nothing to do with the case

Lincolr Surrey; Mr S Phea: Manchester, Greater Manchester; A P Mills,

ckbridge. Hants; Mrs Lynda A Craney, Southend- on-Sea, Essex; Robert Kent, Halifax,

ire; Simon Bodger.

Derek Garforth, Great Norfolk; B F

w. Nottingham,

Notts; S J

5, Reading Berks; Norm Tierney * London; lan Far

rly there aren't just one. Atari bit owners out there - there are dozens.

journe, > Your rts next.

ннен YOUR LETTERS

After ай, if you could only get a virus from copying disks, there wouldn't be any problem, would there?

Let me tell you what happens. A machine is infected from some source letin board or a commercial disk is machine (without the machine being hed off first — bad practice, but we all do it some time). The virus now contaminates the commercial disk as Soon as it has been inserted. If the contaminated disk is booted from at some future date, it infects the machine

(say

Snippets

WELL DONE SIMON

1 buy and read Expr every k and | have found two of Simon Williams’ little progran you've published in “PC Update” absolutely invaluable in m namely WARM REPLY. Thank Simon Alan Fraser, Macclesfield, Cheshire

shop, | noti film

ту much,

Scotland

Carrot.

AMAZING RESEMBLANCE

While in the local video

sort of tie in or just а coincidence?

Gary Campbell, Roxburghshire.

I think artists are just running out of

and spreads onto other disks and so on However, if the co

ial disk is one

block in conn routine, oni

happened to one of m; The beauty of that when

and sounds a wa be affected. Thi

suggesting should be done It can be transparent to the user, so PR

inspiration. ARCHIE BACK

On the ST/Am debate

better than ›, and a £500

than the Amiga or ST put together

W W Haddock, Birmingham,

West Midi

[ yes, and | can't help thinking that at £650 the А3000 is a missed opportunity.

Dou oor

BE MATCHED !!!!

We Accept EXPRESS VOUCHERS

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since |

€ — Well, OK, you could have a virus killer in the boot block, and it would work, but what's in it for the company publishing the software? Surely people can buy their own virus Killers and just use them before they insert their games disks? If you don't want the game to be infected, why not just write- protect it, etc.?

SINKING FAST

After many visits to m

al comput

shop | often came ee that the

were copying sol 'e. first it seemed as if it was public domain, but eventually | realised th rated games that had been 'cracke vat had been

copied straight off the shelf.

1 then later realised that some kids often visited the store to buy this pirated software at a discounted price (i.e. £5), and would leave the staff with a personal profit. My friends and I were disgusted with the matter and immediately ceased visiting the shop as we were to be offered this pirated software. Therefore we decided to phone FAST. | think

personally talked to a Mr actually said “We've had a lot of kids phone us up who give the because they

Bob Hay who

ame story just

an't change their game:

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Commodore Range Stocked

NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 27 MAY 1989 • 13

get a refund. ей Mr Hay you're meant to be piracy and not letting it r fingers. If the

aren't stoppe on р any pro criminals? ose facts in mind Mr at all to s

Ф It's unfortunately very difficult for anyone to proceed on the basis of a phone call, however genuine it is. If you can put your observations down in writing and send them to us or to FAST it would be a more solid basis to proceed оп

XE LENT

Thanks for the XE that I won in your Christmas competition, it's great, but | can't find any software for it. I've tried Atari, but they won't listen, or reply! Could you please help, or | will have to sell it Your magazine is great, and | like the articles that you do on viruses, MIDI, etc they are very informative. | enjoy reaching the Great Computer Debate Vijay Mahrra, Wolverhampton, West Midlands

Ф — Well, Vijay, | think the best thing to do is to read our Atari 8-bit column starting next. week. It'll Бе full of news, views and software reviews, and will tell you where to get the best and cheapest 8-bit software.

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ARCHIMEDES A3000

HARDWARE REVIEW

ACORN ARCHIMEDES £650 (+£300 for monitor)

@ ACORN COMPUTERS, FULBOURN ROAD, CHERRY HINTON, CAMBRIDGE CB1 4JN. TEL. 0223 245200

corn always aimed its

The BBC, with its ex BASIC and

keyboard, user ports and add-ons was — in terms of specification - one of the leading 8-bit micros of the day. It sold well in the educational market, moderately well in the home market and still holds its price and has a loyal following amongst home users. The one criticism of the | machine was its price — all the Acorn machines from the Atom onwards had large price tags attached.

After floundering in the mid '80s and being bought by Italian computer giant Olivetti, the general consensus was that the company would gradually fade into obscurity. But, in 1987, Acorn bounced back with a vengeance when it launched the Archimedes computer, an up-to-the. minute, 32-bit machine with raw computing

micros upmarket

power superior to anything available in its price range At the heart of this new machine was a central

processing chip employing RISC technology - the acronym for Reduced Instruction Set Computer This technology uses a reduced instruction set to control the central processor. Rather than using lots of separate instructions to perform each

@ In the time it took you to read this review the A3000 could have plotted the complete Mandlebrot fractal equation. It would take the BBC micro six days of uninterrupted processing to plot the same equation!

@ Back in 1974 when the first

Porsche.

Is this the entry-level Archie that everyone’s been puts the Archimedes A3000 through its paces...

central processor became available it could shift around four bits of data flat out. The Archie uses a 32-bit processor offering raw processing power 8 times that of the original devices. It's like the difference between a Fiat 500 and a

@ Everyone's aware of the fantastic graphics capabilities of 16-bit machines such as the Amiga, ST and PCs running in VGA mode. The Archie has 20 different graphic modes

nds are used о nificantly speeds

action, a and over a operations

The Archimedes received much critical acclaim, but remain ure outside media write-ups due to its inflated price of over £800. Who was going to buy it? With the

eption of a

few educational establishments, the computer remair n dealers' shelves Software writers and the general public.

although interested, kept the coffers closed and awaited an Archie they could afford.

At last, around the end of March this year, the press broke the news of a new, affordable Archie to be released in the summer. Costing between an estimated £500 and £600, it would be aimed directly at the existing BBC micro user market. hopefully increasing Acorn's sales and profit margins

The Archimedes A3000 is visibly different from its Archie predecessors. Out goes the three-box monitor, system case, keyboard layout, and in comes a machine about the size of a Commodore Amiga with almost the same layout

The A3000 the standard ST/ Amiga arrangement of a keyboard with a cursor cluster and numeric key pad to the right, and a built-in disk drive at the right hand side, which accepts the now universal 3.5 inch disk format. Above the keyboard is a row of red function keys à la BBC.

The rear of the Archie has various interfaces including monitor and serial port sockets, stereo amplifier/headphones outlet and a parallel printer

ranging from basic text-only plays, to mega hi-res plays providing 1152 x 896 pixels on screen at once! € Games? Whilst the ST is struggling to animate one Seeder, your hoverplane and the landscape in Virus, in the Archie version, you'd be attacked by a mutant and two pests whilst trying to shoot down a seeder - all above a colourful landscape scrolling incredible fast and smoothly beneath you.

waiting for? Jerry Glenwright

port. The fi connection is for an Econet (Econet is a local area network for BBC micros) network if you've installed the necessary

hardware. The mouse port is on the underside of the machine.

All ports are as standard and will work with your existing peripherals such as modem and printer (although the serial requires the purchase of a further two chip into the motherboard before it will properly)

The A3000 employs the 32-bit RISC CPU of its predecessors offering a computing rate of 4 MIPS

that's four million instructions per second. With the available power, multi-tasking is no problem and fingers crossed, software houses will take up the challenge and produce applications that actually make use of all this power

Two speakers built into the machine provide an outlet for eight channel stereo sound

The machine has a megabyte of RAM as standard and can be upgraded to a maximum 2Mb in the case. Although that sounds sufficient for all possible applications, some of the graphics modes take up several hundred Kbytes, minimum 1Mb is necessary.

monitor, port to fit work

so a

Switching the machine on, you're presented with a full WIMP environment desktop with icons for various tasks such as font setting, printer

definition, desktop colours and an interactive help feature which allows you to extricate yourself from tricky situations without

rummaging through manuals

The desktop is colourful and the icons are well designed and drawn. The Archie offers screen resolutions ranging from a text-only mode of 160 x 256 pixels, to an extremely high resolution graphics mode offering a massive 1152 x 896 pixels!

All operations are achieved by moving the mouse pointer and clicking on the desired ‘command’ and the machine does the rest

veral hefty manuals are provided covering all aspects of the operation and programming (in BASIC) of the Archimedes

There's a ‘Welcome to Archie’ guide which helps you get the machine from its packaging and introduces you to some of the features

Sections dealing with set-up, using icons, fitting the mouse and what to do if it all goes wrong, help you to get started right away. At the back is a useful appendix showing the user ports and their pin-outs.

16 » NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 27 MAY 1989

ARCHIMEDES A3000

HARDWARE REVIEW

The inch-thick user guide deals with all the topics mentioned above in greater detail and iots more. And th a hefty tome detailing the use of BBC BASIC, with all the more arcane commands explained in full detail and examples of how to use them

All the manuals are written in a clear and accessible style which is at once informative and entertaining. The latter two volumes are ring bound, making it very easy to use them whilst at the machine

Verdict A fine machine. It's fast and powerful and the use of leading-edge technology in a machine aimed at the home and educational market can only be commended. With its excellent graphics and sound, double-sided disk drive and megabyte of memory it has to be the first choice for the user looking for power computing

OK, but just what is power computing? IBM and its many compatibles has the business market covered, the Amiga is the first choice for graphics and the ST is an excellent general purpose 16-bit machine for home or small business use. All these machines are significantly cheaper than the Archie

Unfortunately, the machine is just too expensive for its intended market. Acorn regrets the pricing of the Archimedes, but says that it is at the lowest possible level. If you consider current DRAM costs and contrast the Archie with another megabyte machine such as the Atari 1040ST then it comes up looking a little better, but at £659 for the computer without a monitor, it's going to have more would-be users with their faces pressed against dealers shop windows than actual owners. The result is a potential five. star machine, just edged out by its price

TECH SPEC

How does the Archie measure up? Touted as the most powerful micro available for the person in the street, just what does Acorn's new baby have on offer?

€ CPU: 32-bit RISC chip, offering processing power rated at 4 MIPS.

@ RAM: One megabyte of fast CMOS RAM on board, up-gradable by a further one meg inside the case.

€ Display: Various graphic display modes ranging from a text-only display of 160 x 256 pixels to a hi-res graphic mode of 1152 x 896. € Disk Drives: One built in 1-megabyte 3.5 inch drive.

€ Operating System: RISC-based, multi- tasking operating system featuring a WIMP environment.

Worth the Rise?

With the Archie's impressive raw processing power and high grade audio-visual quality, it could be THE micro for playing games, right? You couldn't be more

wrong, Rik Haynes explains why...

Most micro users are a tad envious of the Archimedes’ impressive array of specifications, from the 32-bit ARM microprocessor - through the 256 colour display - to the eight stereo sound channels, which gives even the mighty Amiga a run for its money. Unfortunately, this power comes at a price

too prohibitive for the average home user, let alone

the hardened games fan.

This coupled with a lack of

competent ARM programmers,

makes the Archie a less than inspiring micro choice for the average software company. Still there have been notable exceptions to prove this rule, namely David Braben's superlative Zarch, which probably did more to sell the Archie to the general public than all its specifications put. together. There was even a rumour, no doubt originated

from Acorn's PR department, that Zarch was written using BASIC!

The only hope for Archie gamesters is that other software companies take all the associated problems in their stride and follow the lead taken by Superior Software (Zarch, Conqueror) and Grandslam (Pacmania)... three games which have shown just what the Archie is capable of...

* The advanced features of the Archie. meets classic gameplay with Grandslam's Pacmania - proving the Archie has a place in mainstream computer gaming

* When first released, Zarch for the Archimedes prompted several sources to suggest that you should buy the machine just to play the game. Maybe that's overstating it, but it sure is a good game and although converted to many formats, the Archie version is still the fastest most colourful and best

The Archimedes boasts twenty graphic modes with a maximui display resolution of 1152 x 896. If software houses decide to make use of the Archie's abilities, you can expect to see some incredible applications With one megabyte of RAM as standard and eight stereo sound channels, the Archie is the ultimate games machine

NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 27 MAY 1989 » 17

G.T.S. GEORGE THOMPSON SERVICES

SOFTWARE EXCELLENCE

"The Commodore Show Selection" On June 2,3 and 4 we will be showing off our new software products for the Amiga. Here by way of a preview is a small selection of what you will see on Stand 26

ж JUMPDISK * JUMPDISK + JUMPDISK * JUMPDISK * ture packed May issue are the programs - Sound Machine: A tool for generating the Data necessary for programming sound on the Amiga. Simulates electronic poker machines found in Las Vegas Casinos. Glasnotes: Self contained text and ке sketch pad that will also ҮР апа DU d a screen graphically. LUS the logic puzzle game of Stepping Stones, Latest News Features from the USA, Tutorials, Reviews and MUCH, MUCH

MORE! All for only £8. inc. 4 £14.95 * NEW...NEW...NEW... "DOSLAB" + £14.99 Yes at last it's available! The new interactive way of learning how to use the CLI and AMIGADOS. This program takes into account the many hundreds of questions our customers have asked us over the years about the Amiga Operating System. We are sure that this two disk set will help you understand and master the Amiga the ке JUMPDISK Publication. £19.99 :: NEW...NEW...NEW "THE MEGA GAMES PACK VOL II" + £19.99 This seven disk set contains a selection of the best games we have found on the latest Public Domain releases in America and Europe. Many have never been seen in the U.K. before! Full program details will be included in our Show Catalogue - The first 100 sold (mail order included) will be packaged in a stylish quality plastic storage box at no extra charge! £19.99 :к NEW...NEW...NEW... "PUBLIC DOMAIN PACKS OF EIGHT" £19.99 A few days prior to the Show, International Couriers will deliver to our duplicating rooms the very latest PD releases in Europe and the U.S.A. Available in the U.K. for the first time and sold in packs of eight for only £19.99 £19.99 * HOME BUSINESS РАСК * £19.99 Our best selling 7 disk pack includes a "System's Exerciser" disk FREE! Other programs featured include a Word Processor, Spell Checker, Database, Spreadsheet. Appointment Scheduler, Home and Business Accounts and much, much more. Once again the first 100 sold will include a FREE storage box. £19.99 + W...NEW...NEW “INTRODUCING PUBLIC DOMAIN PART I" + £19.99 This nine disk pack serves as the perfect introduction to Anga PD. We have carefully selected one of the most popular disks from the Fish, Amicus, SACC, FAUG, TBAG, AMUSE, and TBYB Libraries and added the latest version of our two disk PD Library Pack, complete with a pair of 3D glasses! There are many hundreds of quality PD disks in our collection and this new pack will give you the opportunity to see why everyone is talking about PD on the Amiga. N p already own the Library Pack we will substitute two other disks) ж STILL AVAILABLE - THE PD BEST SELLERS + “STAR TREK" - The 1 Blockbuster that has put PD games on the map! 3 Disks packed full of arcade and adventure action for £8.99. "CHET SOLACE SHAREWARE EXTRAVAGANZA" - 26 programs on a single disk! A marvellous selection of PD material downloaded from the U.S. Bulletin Boards, Compressed and beautifully presented with music, titles and fancy icons. Only £4.99! "MEGA GAMES PACK VOL. I" - 24 games on 7 disks for all ages for just £19.99. Includes Arcade, Strategy, Boardgames and much more.

STOP PRESS: With well over 500 quality Public Domain disks in stock it is not possible for us to make them all available at the Commodore Show. If you would like to place an order for payment and collection at our Stand (26) just telephone the details through before May 27th, and we will do the rest. We look forward to meeting all our customers there.

GEORGE THOMPSON SERVICES -

umber is (077082) 234. Please send a cheque (with your bank Ac or Visa card details to us before 1 d

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DESK TOP PUBLISHING

BOOK REVIEWS

world of DTP

Handbook of Desk Top Publishing € Wordware 6 £18.45

As you might expect, the 170 pages of this handbook are well laid out — providing a clear insight into all the aspects of desk top publishing.

Although — as with many other books on the subject - the emphasis is placed on PC and Мас DTP, the general material can be applied to any micro DTP package that supports some or all of the features covered.

Illustrated throughout with practical examples, the handbook begins with a survey of associated hardware - monitors, mice, scanners, printers etc. There's also a section on networking

After looking at word and graphics processing tools, the book moves into full swing with 32 paragraphs on the main features of page layout While these are a little short, they assume no previous knowledge of the subject and can only therefore be treated as an introduction to DTP. But Handbook of Desktop Publishing is a clear and easy read and will familiarise you sufficiently with the factors you'd need to determine in deciding what kind of package to purchase.

ооо

Worth the lay-out?

Andy Storer leafs through two books on the mysterious

The Complete Desktop Publisher € Compute! Ө £19.95

At a meaty 294 pages, complete is an appropriate adjective for a substantial work dealing with all aspects of DTP and beyond. It'll take you from DTP techniques through typography to dealing with printers, design studios and binding. And all this after an intensive journey through graphics, scanning and copy preparation.

But that isn't all. From then its on to telecommunications and media conversions — obviously this book is intended for the first time user who's planning to be involved in DTP in a big way.

As such, the work fairly rattles along with in. depth descriptions and illustrations coming thick and fast page after page. Value for money is the name of the game here because attention to detail is substantial. Again the manual is biased toward PC and Mac DTP but manages to move away from package-specific analysis. And for that matter, DTP packages themselves - for instance there's a chapter devoted to the design and layout of databases. The chapter on layout and page design is especially useful, since artistic style is an imponderable many people would say

Copies of these books can be obtained from Computer Bookshops, tel: 021 706 1250 — or from 'any good bookshop' ISBN numbers are 0-915381-95-8 and 0-87455-065-3

you've either got or you ain't. For at the end of

the day anyone can lay out a page - DTP pack ages are usualy simple to drive and well documented with massive manuals — but whe:

ther it'll look any good is down to a good know: ledge of design principles. Complete Desktop Publisher will furnish you with these and more.

09000

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NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 27 MAY 1989 • 19

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* David Braben: Coming next - Elite 2

lite and Virus are two of the nic in the biz. They've kept hard bitten and fussy gamesters slobbering over their micros for an eternity in man hours. They've made even the most basic computers look very impressive. And they've made David Braben a lot of money.

This methodical 25 year old has spent the past six years submerged in crafting computer games. His fastidiousness is renowned. It's not a disaster that he decided to start all over again on Elite 2 after four years work. He just didn't think the original ideas were very good any more.

Both Elite and Virus are two of those games which people actually argue about in pubs. The former has sold something like 600,000 copies around the world. At one point Braben was waking up to find cheques of thousands of pounds waiting on the doormat.

Somewhat shyly, he mumbles that he is worth £300,000. Infuriatingly he is not prepared to boast about all that lovely lolly. "It's a ridiculous thing to judge people by how much they earn. People get stitched up on contracts so often that it can't be a test of quality. lite was written by Braben and his Cambridge University pal Ian Bell some six years ago for the Beeb. At the time space trading shoot-'em-ups were a new idea

st games

What made you do it?

I had an abortive attempt at doing a 3D space shoot 'em up whilst at University. To add trading to that seemed like an enormous job to be done at the time. Everything just grew from there

The trading aspect of it was almost a justification for the fighting. It was something to do in between combat

When it hit the streets Elite was a smash hit. People are still crouched over their micros attempting to become one of the Elite.

To be honest the rating of Elite was a joke. We thought it would simply take too long to get there. It was just something to aspire to."

"It's terribly hard to put a lot of new things іп а game which will keep people interested for years and years. So we put the Elite rating really high. We knew people would try and get it and that they'd spend a lot of time trying. But we didn't expect anyone to do it. Now there are loads of them.

It took two years to write and we genuinely

DRABEN'S BABIES

David Braben

is responsible for two of computer

gaming's best titles - Elite and Virus. They alone have earned him some £300,000 over the past few years. Colin Campbell visits Cambridge and asks how he did it...

thought someone would beat us to it. We were surprised that nobody did.

Were you pleased with it?

There were some aspects which were a bit boring but it sold out within a week of launch We were delighted.

Over the past year Elite has made its way on to the 16-bit formats. Some expressed disappointment that it didn't offer more than the game which first appeared all those years ago. What do you think?

I didn't do the conversions. Mr Micro did them. I felt there were a lot of disappointing aspects. A little bit more effort could have gone into it. I felt they rushed it out which was unfortunate.

* Hundreds of thousands joined the Elite: "Some boring aspects” but still a winner

How much autonomy did you have? “A little bit, but not as much as I would have wanted

Alright then. What about Elite 2?

That's taking all of my time now. I work about four or five hours a day but I can't do stretches longer than that. You just can't do any more than that. I couldn't work through the night like some people. I'd end up going mad.

The danger with Elite 2 is that if I start talking about it now certain aspects will turn up elsewhere. That would really take the polish off. I haven't found anything from Elite 2 in any other games yet

I'll show it when there's enough to see to get excited about. At the moment it's all bits and

* The Virus which everybody wants: Some trouble with the 16- bit conversions

NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS 27 MAY 1989 «21

UM TEP W SELES DNASE, aS aS E

computer junkies hunched over in back rooms

bs. But the ideas are

ber 199 kee over? That stil n. Programmers are prone to

| What are these ideas? rk hard and they

It's a lot more tł o ens less so now. is a sequel ойо because th kids coming

It won't be called riting games. People working title d to be paid much

pport themselves

Can we expect to see any other versions of Zarch/ Virus? т!

puts all their

If flight

simulatior

tI there

it. There

re was a

OK. So what happens after Elite 2 or whatever

it's going to be called?

ned up which will involve a that is a really long term

etchy

рессу ver

l come out on any other formats. That

inly down to a guy called Stephen Dunn лапу games г I rt it’. He did a | coun good job considering he had had his for him. The € isn't the perfect Given that so many people have bought your to program for work don't you sometimes feel you could have Ате you going to stick around writing games?

1 don't think it's the sort of game which | been really wealthy? ГЇЇ be here for a few years yet although there аге converts very well but if someone offered to do a | “Perhaps. It's h ay. Certainly there's а lot | things I'd like to move on to. 64 version Га look at it of piracy goi

com

When Zarch appeared on the Archie it Тһе шош» impressed a lot of people. Did you have many (0004 stu! problems writing it? It only took a few mo i the Arc s but What about writing games. Are the days of the real problems were on the ST and Amiga. It was hard to get the speed right. With the Archie version I had to have it ready for the launch of b 5 the machine so the ume was already dictated. abe 0 4

takes a really long time polishing things ир.

rote a letter saying ‘са

Nowadays it's are crucii ant good

aly

ff, no doubt Braben switched ronic armoury back on and dived into secret project. It's a long way from But the cheque might as well be on

is people v

п suffers

ne most

Would you ever consider working nine to five ОТТІ ЕГТГСАГ ТІЛЕГІ for a software house? up something chronic - ideas and | think that's sad. was an opportunity to do that

No. I like to с I t when I Federation of Free Traders. There's no reason for someone There's nothing wrong w working for a singhi The Gremlin space trading to put so much effort into a a few extra bits. software house. I've done it for short periods and game appeared earlier this game which aims straight at It's not very polished and a there's vays nice ial nosphere. But I year and was met with “a Elite. It doesn't try and do lot of people have said it's wouldn't want to be a regular nine to fiver. mixed reception” from punters anything different. flawed. People don't want and reviewers alike. “Jez San's Starglider 2 is а umpteen versions of the same What do you do when you're not programming? “It shows a certain lack of space trader game but it's got game.”

I like to go sailing and I play a lot of ball games.

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Part 6 of the definitive Express guide to computing

GEM effectively negates the need for users to remember obscure command sequences. See also Kildall, CP/M, WIMP.

Crystalline substance used to make very high quality semiconductors. Although superior to silicon, its use is limited due to its high cost.

Used to describe junk text emanating from an application running on a computer. Gave rise to the acronym GIGO — Garbage In Garbage Out

One node or terminal on a computer network which allows access to an entirely separate | network. Users log on to the network, | access the gateway node connected o a second network and thereby gain entry to the second network

| * The Atari ST uses Digital Research's GEM | operating system - designed especially for 16-bit machines

Cult coin-op allowing one to four players the chance to adventure simultaneously in ап eight-way scrolling maze: infested arcade adventure.

A crystalline semiconductor material which is the second most popular material for use in the construction of semiconductor | circuits (silicon being the first). | West German language products company, offering replacement BASIC for the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga.

Until Out Run, this game was the biggest selling game of all time. Programmed by Activision, it's one of the best examples of film tie-in software. The game is now available in a £1.99 budget version

Operating system designed and marketed for 16-bit computers by Digital Research, the company responsible for the CP/M operating system. GEM is an acronym for Graphics Environment Manager.

Programs and files are represented on screen as pictures or ‘icons’. The user has a device known as a mouse’ at their disposal (a plastic box which fits the hand, it contains a wheel which is moved around on a desk top) and by moving the mouse a pointer on screen it can be used to select the icon representing the operation the user wishes to perform

Classic CapCom coin-op conversion featuring the player as a knight in shining armour in a horizontal scrolling game that has Venus Flytraps and graveyard-walking zombies

One billion bytes, one million Kbytes or one thousand megabytes — the amount of space on a disk sufficient to store 120 Bibles. The gigabyte is usually used in the descriptions of devices such as CD- ROM storage devices.

When using high level languages such as Pascal and Modula, the global variable is one whose value is valid across the whole program rather than within specific routines. Contrast with local variable.

Steve Bak shot to fame with this vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up featuring the fastest scrolling techniques ever seen on the Atari ST. Unfortunately, the game has minimal depth of play.

Generic word used to describe the pictures displayed on computer screens — anything from simple mono bar

computer display

* Hacker: individual who illegally breaks into computer networks and data banks

Generic word originally used to describe people who spent a lot of time working and

NEN EXPRESS A-Z

graphs and pie charts to fully animated colour screens in arcade games or advanced flight simulators

Label under the US Gold umbrella, set up in the early 805 by lan Stewart. The company is responsible for the game FOFT which received mixed reviews when released. See also FOFT.

The definitive helicopter simulation from Microprose. The game received rave reviews for its superb graphics and depth of gameplay. Available for a range machines including Spectrum. Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and the Atari ST, with an Amiga version promised this year.

* Gunship: classic gung-ho helicopter sim from Microprose

playing with computers

Nowadays, the word is applied to computer users who gain illegal access via a modem attached to their computer and the telephone lines to the computer data of various organisations.

Computer ‘breaking and entering’ — the illegal entry into someone else's computer system Usually this is done from the hacker's home by dialling up the target computer over the phone lines using a modem (although the simple act of using someone else's computer with intent to look through their files would also count). The target could be an individual, a business, a financial institution, Government or military establishments — anything that uses a computer.

Once contact is made a password or series of passwords mustbe >

NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS 27 МАУ 1989» 25

EXPRESS A-Z ШЕН

entered to proceed further; there are special programs which will repeatedly try different passwords for the hacker, either from a preselected list ог even from a dictionary.

If the passwords can be guessed (and this is notoriously easy) the hacker can then roam around the data banks viewing, altering or deleting information — military secrets, salary lists, personal employee records. credit histories, names and addresses, anything that is stored there. The consequences of this can clearly be disastrous and cases of hackers spying have already been uncovered

Catching hackers, or even knowing they have been at work, can be difficult as they leave no physical traces or clues. Hackers who don't actually destroy data do not break the law as it stands currently, but a new Private Members Bill introduced into the Commons by Tory MP Emma Nicholson aims to make hacking an offence punishable by up to ten years in jail

HAL (С): Featured in the movie 2001 - A Space Odyssey, HAL was the honey-tongued monster in silicon which ruined the space mission, killing some of the characters. It spawned a plethora of computer killers.

HALF DUPLEX (T): Computer communications in which each computer can either transmit or receive, but not both at the same time as in full duplex. Contrast with full duplex

HAM MODE (GR.): High resolution graphics mode offered by the Commodore Amiga (acronym tor Hold And Modify). HAM graphics offer significantly superior displays over other home computers.

HAND HELD (C): Generic term describing very small computers which can be used whilst held in the hand and carried in the pocket. Some notable hand helds are the Psion Organiser, Sharp IQ7000 and Casio range

* Sub-miniature micros like the Psion Organiser can be carried in the pocket

Key: C-computer Co-company DB-database DTP- desktop publishing G-game GG-game genre Gr- graphics

26 * NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS

MAY 1989

Part 6 of the definitive Express guide to computing

HANDLE (HACKING TERM): Pseudonym used by person interested in hacking computer installations and ‘cracking’ the copy protection on commercially produced games programs. See also hacker.

HANDSHAKING (T): Method of communication in which the receiving machine transmits a signal in order that the transmitting computer machine knows that the file was correctly transmitted.

HARD COPY (Т): Paper printouts of text or data held within a computer.

HARD DISK (T): Computer backing storage consisting of an inflexible disk of aluminium housed in an air-tight sealed case and connected to the computer via a high speed interface. The read/write head of the disk rides above the surface of the disk on a cushion of air a few microns thick.

The hard disk can store enormous amounts of data — from 5Mb when first generally available in the early and mid 70s to 300Mb in today's fast PCs.

HARDWARE (T): Computer machinery, specifically anything which has a physical presence and can be touched, picked up etc. (Occasionally defined as ‘the parts of a computer you can kick’). Contrast with software.

HEWLETT PACKARD (CO.): American computer manufacturer which produces a range of machines including moderately cheap PC compatibles.

* Hewson's Cybernoid Il

HEWSON (CO.) Pitching themselves as the oldest software house, the company is responsible for such well-known titles as Cybernoid and its sequel Cybernoid II, Eliminator and Exolon. The company suffered a setback in 1987 when one of its top programmers — Andrew Gribbley's Day Ouf Brabrook — left to join Telecomsoft

HEX (T): The hexadecimal number System - a number system with a radix of 16. Numbers after 9 are represented by letters i.e. 8, 9, a, b, с, d, e, f, 10, meaning nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen and Sixteen. 11 is 17, i.e. one sixteen and one unit: 17. See also binary, octal.

HIGH-LEVEL LANGUAGE (L): Computer language which has command statements similar to English, mathematical equations or anything readily understood by humans, used to write computer programs. (VAT=COST"0.15 and

PRINT VAT might be instructions in a high level language; low-level equivalents would be several lines of numbers or meaningless letters). Pascal, Cobol and Fortran are all high-level languages. Contrast with low-level language.

HINT SHEETS (GG): Also known as cheat sheets, these are clues provided by software houses for games players stuck on a particular arcade game level or adventure game problem.

HI-RES (GR.): High RESolution, i.e high quality graphical displays generated by a computer. To offer hi- res as a display mode, a computer has to be able to plot at least 640 x 400 points (‘pixels’) on the monitor. Computers such as the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST offer the ability to produce hi-res displays. See also pixel.

HUNCHBACK (G): The first ever official coin-op conversion to home computer, which helped to put the software house Ocean firmly on the map. The game is one of a very few to be advertised on television.

HOME COMPUTERS (C): Generic term describing small, affordable computers intended for purchase and use by the ordinary person in the street. Prior to the advent of the home computer around 1978, computers were very expensive, restricted to businesses.and large academic institutions.

The first home computers came with tiny RAM memories, poor quality graphics and little or no sound such as the Sinclair 2X81, and yet sold millions, making the UK the first country in the world to have an active home computer industry,

Other notables from the early days are the Spectrum (still going strong).

* The 16-bit Atari ST and Commodore Amiga offer Hi-Res graphics modes

HISOFT (CO.): Software house based in Bedford which is responsible for a large range of computer language products such as compilers, interpreters and program editors available for almost all home and small business computers

HOBBIT (G): The first of the interactive adventure games in which the player was able to ‘speak’ to the inhabitants of the adventure world, thereby altering their behaviour. The hobbit enjoyed a long run of popularity on almost all home computers and led to one or two computer journos forging lengthy careers answering hobbitish problems under guises such as ‘your man with the golden lamp’ etc.

HOLOGRAM (Т): 3-D image produced by lasers. Though speculation suggests that this could lead to 3-D computer displays, the technology to enable it is many decades away.

Int integrated software L-languages Р- personalities SS- spreadsheets T-tech spec WP- word processor

* Sinclair Spectrum: one of the first of the home micros - and still going strong

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BEEBULATOR LEAD 2 £7.99 a 5 А NI рс: COLOUR £559.99 AL11 AMIGA TO MULTISYNC. 23 pin көріп. 4999 ЕО у НАЬАА

We make 100s of leads for the Amiga/Atari etc. SRC kt rna зузіст & МогкЬсасћ 1.3. АМ OND DRIVI 199.99

i ivealli PCI EXPANDER £119.99 Please ring for details orsend for our catalogue full of |А Rabel ee Рс 1 0 MONO single drive 162999

ТЕШОСІС goodies AMAZING VALUE £399.99 PC10 MONO dual drive £679.99 AMIGA В200 PC10 MONO si e drive + MPSI230 printer + THE WORKS. £669.99 9 14" COLOUR MONITORS КОИ AMIGA БАЮЫ s £1249.99 = > PC20 CGA 20 meg HD £1009.99 AMIGA B2000 + 10845/8833 MONITOR ..... £1469.99 | VISION 4200 14" Colour. Med Res 600x200. Mono Sound £209.99 | Full Commdore Pc range available. AMIGA B2000 + MONITOR + XT BRIDGE BOARD | PHILIPS 8833 Stereo, Colour, Med Res 600x825 £239.99 | pius Amstrad & SBC computers & + 20Mb HARD DSK + Pc 51/4" DRVE £1729.99 | PHILIPS 8852 Colour. HI Res 700x285. inc Swivel Base ....£269.99 | printers. * PRICES INC VAT* SAMSUNG MULTISYN Colour. НІ Res 800х600 £469.99 |Р CUMANA CAI354 INTERNAL 3.5" DRIVE... £89.95 | АП monitors are Amiga compatible, lead included-statecomp | Special Offers on Amstrads phone

AMIGA B2000 HAS IMB RAM, 3.5" DS/DD 880K DISK DRIVE, KICKSTART, WORKBENCH & NEW TRILOGIC PRODUCTS SOFTWARE EXTRA DISK: ING ONY NOD IT MSAK TEE KIND WORDS (wordprocessor) £44.99

РА” КЕЗ TU еу Туру өлү (UN Ж ЖУ ME PUBLISHERS С £89.99 AMIGA ADD-ONS : PAGE ; 179.99

e TRILOGIC digitisers offer very good perfor- ESETT Е 3] /21/23 AMIGA ACCOUN’ PAYABLE £51.75 MODEM V2173 Demon II £91.94 mance ata sensible price & are British made. AMIGA ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE 55175

DIGIVIEW GOLD Video Digitiser £129.99 ШУТУР СТИ AMIGA GENERAL LEDGER £51.75

MIDBO CAMERA BN £219.99 |. fee See ee ЕГІ AMIGA INVOICING SALES LEDGER... £51.75 DIGIPIC FRAME GRABBER £249.95 5 5 қ UN 0.44 1109.99 speakers. Mains powered. ACCOUNTS, о “ £27.99 MINIAMP 5STEREOAMP+SPKSs........ £54.99 15995 £37.99 This has SW per channel amp+large 33 ker 1 1 [219.95 Public Domain Disk for above EE ends йе арды шашса cose

MANY MORE Please Phone All miniamps are made by TRILOGIC &come PROJECT D (ultimate copie а £39.99 ` complete ready to изе. DEVPAC v2.0, 68000 assemble £54.95

4 AMIGA BOOKS MIDI INTERFACE 1. £29.99 MET 2 RTH У 3 24325

AMIGA DOS MANUAL (Bantam) л 53499 , £42.99 AMIGA MACHINE LANGUAGE(Abacus) The MIDI 1 one midi out/thru sockets 5 £53.95 AMIGA TRICKS & TIPS (Abacus) The MIDI2 o ne midi thru, one midi -UXE 5 - ns £64.99 AMIGA DOS INSIDE & OUT (Abacus) out, plus2 switchable midi out/thru sockets. 5, Keyboard se Ч £179.99 AMIGA HARDWARE REF MAN(A/W) AMIGA INTUITION REF MAN(A/W) HOW ТО ORDER:- HOTLINE FOR ACCESS & VISA ORDERS. OR SEND CHEQUE/P.O. AMIGA ROM KER REF MAN ЕХ(АЛУ)....... Please add 75р postage to orders under £15,00. Optional EXPRESS DELIVERY £1.99(smail AMIGA ROM KER REF MAN LIB(A\W) .... items up to 750g). Optional next day DELIVERY for computers, printers, disk drives & monitors AMIGA ASSEMBLEY LANG PROG(Willey) £6.99. Books add £2.00 postage per order.

AMIGA MAC LANG GUIDE(Compute) . AMIGA MACHINE LANGUAGE Abacus)

EXPORT ORDERS:-Add £1.99 for surface mail, or £3.99 for insured air mail. Export Express Delivery add £7.99 to any order up to 500g. ALL PAYMENTS MUST BE IN POUNDS STIRLING:

EA TRILOGIC, Dep nc,UNIT 1, 253b NEW WORKS ROAD, BRADFORD, BD12 OQP. Tel 0274 691115

Light is a combined ray-tracing animation package allowing the user to draw and animate both simple and complex 3D objects, while still being aimed at the novice to intermediate u:

Coming on two disks, C-Light is split between C-Lightl Scene Editor (for creating the scene's objects), C-LightlI Ray Tracer (that calculates and draws the scenes described by C-Lightl and MakeAnim and PlayAnim programs (for creating and viewing animations of the scenes you have produced).

C-Light incorporates most of the standard Ray Tracing facilities, and it supports both interlaced and overscanned Amiga graphics modes, but its multitas stakes

Once you've setup C-Light to your system's requirements, you shouldn't have too much difficulty in using it. Every function is self explanatory and easily accessible. The only major problem we encountered was its marked lack of speed with both the C-Lightl and C-LightlI program modules.

The 50-page manual is an easy-to-read tutorial on the functions and procedures of C-Light, which shows you through the package in step by step manner. It also includes many pieces of useful information, such as hints and tips and a selection of recommended books to read. The only thing it lacks is an index, but with its small size this is not too serious an omission.

C-Light is a great introduction into the world of Ray Traced rendering of objects and scenes, offering good value for money. However, it's slow speed and lightweight array of features may be too prohibitive to more advanced and experienced users.

TECHNOBABBLE

Ray Tracing

A computer graphical term where one or more light sources are assigned to a specific point or object, and the computer then calculates and draws “traces” each beam “ray” of light to their natural conclusion.

ing could do with a tweak in the speed

(ШІ the ligh

Already established as THE micro for graphics work, the Amiga has a constant stream of graphics packages released for it. Rik Haynes raytraces his steps through the latest offering, C-Light.

HIGHLIGHTS * One, if not the, cheapest Amiga Ray Tracing/ Animation packages.

* Good introduction for beginners.

DRAWBACKS * Rather slow speed of operation

SCULPT 3-0 € £85 INC VAT

@ PUBLISHED BY BYTE BY BYTE, USA @ AVAILABLE IN UK FROM AMIGA CENTRE SCOTLAND ON 031 5574242 Sculpt 3-D is C-Light's main competitor, offering greater complexity and more features - albeit for an extra £35.

SCULPT 4-D @ £320 EX VAT

Including numerous enhancements to Sculpt- 3D, but requiring at least 1Mb of RAM and two disk drives, Sculpt 4-D is strictly for power Amiga artists with plenty of the readies. Although Amiga Centre Scotland has just got hold of a Byte by Byte's scaled down version, Sculpt-Animate 4D Jr. Look out for our comments on it in the near future.

28 • NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS 27 MAY 1989

SUPER PACK

ARCADE GAMES

Arkanoid It Imagine £19.95 Beyond The Ice Palace Elite £19.95 Black Lamp Firebird £19.95 Buggy Boy Elite £19.95 Chopper X Mastertronic £9.99

ут 207M Ikari Warriors Elite £14.95 wmi ove rasa wonm or Marble Madness Electronic Arts £24.95 Quadralien Logotron £19.95 Ranarama Hewson Consultants £19.95 Retum To Genesis Firebird £19.95 Roadwars Melbourne House £19.95

5208Т-ҒМ

ST COMPUTERS

The range of Atari ST computers offers something for everyone, From the games enthusiast who wants the challenge of ne very best in arcade action, tothe businessman who wants to make financial forecasts ог faultless presentations. The ST offers high qually graphics, > Sound and speed for the gamer, whist providing а fast, user friendly and affordable solution (— Elect ane #1995 с business. The ST is now firmly established in the home environment and boasts a wealth

‚95 Ё ot users in education, local government, television, and а variety of different businesses Thrust Firebird £9.95 ‘Software for the range stretches to cover applications as diverse as ENTERTAINMENT, Thundercats Elite £19.95 ACCOUNTS. ART, COMMUNICATIONS, COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN, DATABASES, Wizball Ocean £19.95 Б DESKTOP PUBLISHING, EDUCATION, MUSIC, PROGRAMMING, SPREADSHEETS, WORD Xenon Melbourne House £19.95 PROCESSING and more. For a full list of the software available, as well as details of the ST Zynaps Hewson Consultants £19.99 @ range, complete and return the coupon below. AN prices correct at the бте of going і press E&OE

eee 2 ia f| 520ST-FM EXPLORER PACK

The Atari Super Pack is idea or you if you want to get off to a tying зал Eddie Edwards Super Ski Elite £19.95 WITH BUILT-IN 1Mb DISK DRIVE

win 1o baat in enrisnen sare The Pack cides а S281-FM Seconds Out Tynesoft £19.95

Wih мы RAM, а builtin TMD дик de, over £480 of lop games and a

Joystick. Н you buy the Super Pack a Sica Shop. we wil agd our own ST Summer Olympiad '88 тү ЕҢ

Sartor Kt (worth over £200), Free Ot Charge etum he coupon or бима PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE

Organiser Triangle Publishing £49.95 JOYSTICK

Atari CX40 Joystick ‘Atari Corp £499

FREE ATARI BUNDLE VALUE:£458.97 _ With SM124 mono monitor: 549825 With SC1224 colour monitor: 869825

NOW WITH TV MODULATOR

For the serious home user and the small business, we а

leased to announce a new package based around the The value for money offered by the Atari ST range is reflected in the Explorer Pack р! x 5

1040ST-FM. The 1040ST-FM has 1Mbyte RAM and а featuring the 520ST-FM computer with 512K RAM. The 520ST-FM computer now

in ек inve un addition me 10406 ТЫҒЫ, в ML comes with a built-in 1 Mb double sided disk drive as well as a free mouse controller

чус к-г Wee арай tor une VAG A AOE and a built-in TV modulator. The new 520ST-FM Explorer Pack includes the 520ST-

Фа noL come Wan à modulator) This талоо FM computer, the arcade game Ranarama, a tutorial program and some useful

allows the 1040ST-F to be plugged directly into any - desktop accessories. In addition, if you buy the Explorer Pack from Silica, we will

domestic TV set, and comes complete with give you the Silica ST Starter Kit worth over £200, FREE OF CHARGE. Return the

Пом you to do so. The new ‘Professional Coupon for details of our Starter Kit and of the full ST range. Silica includes the new 10405T-FM with modi je 9

four high quality sofware packages inciuding mis Professional Pack software wil enabie you > 7 gef siralgnt down to business win your new compute In - #дашоп to the software (worth £394 84). you бшу і Professional Pack from Sica Shop, you wil aiso rece er Kit (worth over £200), Froo OF CI Charge. Return ihe coupon for further information. *VAT- ATARI 1040ST-FM (Computer) £499.99. VIP PROFESSIONAL (Spreadsheet) £149.95 £ 299 MICROSOFT WRITE (Word Processor) £149.95

Errare pev берек 55995 [| * 5М124 mono monitor: £398 ss + SC1224 colour monitor: £598 Vi

JNCLUDING VAT NORMAL RRP: £884.82 With SM124 mono monitor: ЕЧ LESS DISCOUNT: - £385.82

With SC1224 colour monitor: en М PROFESSIONAL PACK PRICE: £499.00 you a computer, a few peripherals and the op ten seiling | with 104057-ҒМ and MEGA ST's bought Irom Sinca

tiles. There are FEWER companies who can offer a wide | DEDICATED SERVICING: 7 Iul-time Atari trained

The MEGA ST computers are styled as as lightweight keyboard with a separate CPU. range of products for your computer and expert advice aene psc 2 pda

Connected by a coiled telephone style cable. There are two versions of the MEGA ST. tnd hei when you need iL There в ONLY ONE | Mele Yer of experience on At servicing

опе with 2Mbytes of RAM and the other with 4Mbytes. Each version has a 1Mbyie company who can prove he largest range ot Atan ST | THE FULL STOCK RANGE: All of your Auri

double sided disk drive built-in to the CPU unit. The MEGA ST's do not come with related products in the UK, a full ime Atan ST specialist | "eauifements from one place.

‘modulator built-in and must therefore be used with a monitor. With every MEGA ST technical helpline and in-depth aher sales support, inc- | AFTER SALES SUPPORT: The stati a Silica are

Purchased, we will add the 'Prolessional Pack software (worth £384.83) detailed e eta ad oar Sales ыра С. | dedicated to heip you get he best rom your ST

above, plus the Sil- door for as long as you requie after you purchase your | FREE CATALOGUES: Mailed direct to your home

ica ST Starter Kit Computer Tha оле company ia Sika Shop. We have | s soon as we print them, lesturing offers as wel

(worth over £200) been established in the home computer field for ten years | 25 Al! of the new releases.

both Free Of Charge. Win an annual lumover in exces of 18 milion and can | FREE OVERNIGHT DELIVERY: On al hardware.

Return the coupon *mono monitor-£998 | «mono monitor -£1298 Tow claim lo meet our customers requirements wih an | orders shipped within the UK mainiand.

for further details. | *colour monitor=£1198 | +colour monitor-£1498 accuracy and understanding which is second 10 none. | PRICE MATCH PROMISE: We will match comp- But дот! just take our word for it. Complete and return | «йог on a same product same price

the coupon below for our latest literature and begin 10 | FREE TECHNICAL HELPLINE: Ful i

DIP PageStream £149:.| EREE SILICA STARTER КІ

Desktop Publishing (DTP) is one of the fastest growing applications for personal | * TEXT-FLOW AROUND GRAPHICS ‘computers. We are pleased to announce a powerful low cost package for the Atari ST

Called PageSiream. PageStream costs only £149 (-УАТ-Е17126) and, because i works with ап Atari 104067 and a Seikosha SP-l80AI printer, you can be up and Tunning with a complete system for less than £1000. Some of the features of PageStream are listed to the right If you would like further information on this program, complete and return the coupon below, ticking the ОТР box in the comer,

Belore you decide when to buy your new Atari ST | SILICA STARTER KIT: Worth over £200, FREE computer, we suggest you consider very carefully WHERE | with every Atari ST computer bought from Silica, you buy it. There are MANY companies who can offer | PROFESSIONAL PACK: Free business software

team ot

WITH EVERY ST - RETURN COUPON FOR DETAILS ALL PRICES QUOTED INCLUDE FREE UK DELIVERY.

To: Silica Shop Ltd, Оер. МСЕ 0589 1-4 The Mews, Hatherley Road, Sidcup, Kent, DA14 4DX

PLEASE SEND FREE LITERATURE ON THE ATARI ST

Mr/Mrs/Ms: Initials Surname:

If you already own an Atari ST computer and would like to be registered on our mailing list as an ST user, let us know. We will be pleased to send you copies of our price lists and newsletters FREE OF CHARGE as they become available. Complete the coupon and return it to our Sidcup branch and begin experiencing a specialist ST service that is second to none.

Address

SIDCUP (& Mail Order) 01-309 1111 1-4 The Mews, Hatherley Road, Sidcup, Kent, DA14 4DX OPEN: MON-SAT Зат -5.30pm___LATE NIGHT: FRIDAY Зат - 7pm.

LONDON 01-580 4000 52 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P OBA OPEN: MON-SAT 9.30am -600pm ^ LATE NIGHT: NONE ЕРУ

LONDON 01-629 1234 ext 3914

Selfridges (1st floor), Oxford Street, London, W1A ТАВ Do you already own a computer DTP O OPEN: MON-SAT 9am -6.00pm LATE NIGHT: THURSDAY 9am - 8pm 11 so, which опе do you own’

Dept NCE 05 89

Л ATARI ^

ACCESS/VISA CARD. HOTLINE (0772) 452414

AMIG.

TEN TOP GAMES KICKSTART 1.3 WORKBENCH 1.3

ONLY £379.00

ATARI MEGA STI ONLY £520.00 WITHOUT MONITOR

ONLY £620.00 WITH MONITOR

We Recent EXPRESS. уооонгаз

AMIGA 500

АТАК

LAST FEW WEEKS

50 CAP DISK BOX MOUSE MAT 10 DD/DS DISKS JOYSTICK ONLY £385.00

ONLY £340.00

FRE] FRE FREE MODULATOR || MODULATOR || мори АТОВ MOUSE MOUS AR PACKAGE MOUSE ART PACKAG PLUS ART PACKAG PLUS MOUSE BRACKET} | ** WITH

CD QUALITY STEREO SOUN

ONL

ATARI 5208ТЕМ PLORA PACK

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£355.00

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pou

AMIGA 500 | JOYSTICKS & BLANK DISKS

HOMESOFT (UK)

Software and Hardware

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£130.00

WORKBENCH V1.3 £14.99

16 BIT SOFTWARE 1943 BATTLE OF MIDWAY 3D POOI

ALIEN LEGION.

ALPHA MAX ONE AMIGA GOLD HITS ARCADE FORCE FOUR ACTION SERVICE ACTION ST BATTLECHESS BARBARIAN II BATMAN

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EMPIRE STRIKES BACK FIVE STAR COMPILATION, FANTAVISION

FORT

FLIGHT SIMULATOR II FLYING SHARK

FRIGHT NIGHT GALDREGON'S DOMAIN GALACTIC CONQUEROR GAMES - SUMMER EDITION. GHOSTS № GOBLINS GOLDRUSH

GOODS DESPATCHED. WITHIN 12 HOURS SUBJECT TO AVAILABILITY

COMMODORE A520

T.V. MODULATOR

135

13, ПЕ 14.70

1680 1170

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29.00 18.70 23.90 14.70 11.70 11.70 14.70 13.90 13.90 14.70

£19.99

AMIGA MOUS £31.50

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AMIG.

ALL BAS!

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AUTOFIRE 920 >BULK 3.5" DISKS.

KAO HIGH DENSITY DISKS - 10. 950 KAO HIGH DENSITY DISKS - 50.........4500 KAO HIGH DENSITY DISKS - 100...... 0.00 MOUSE MAT 399 100 CAP 35° LOCKABLE BOX 6% SO CAP 35° LOCKABLE ВОХ 450 200 CAP 3.5" POSSO BOX 14.90 FOUR PLAYER ADAPTOR (AMIGA)......3.50 TWIN JOYSTICK EXTENSION LEAD ....4.50 Ж HEAD CLEANER 290

A PERSPEX DUST COVER

A500's COME COMPLETE WITH IC AND TUTORIAL DISKS. ADD

£10.00 FOR NEXT DAY DELIVERY 16 BIT SOFTWARE AMIGA HELTER SKELTER 970 нкм 109 HOSTAGES 14.70 INTERNATIONAL KARATE+ 14.70 IRON LORD. 16.80 JAPAN SCENERY DISK 12.70 JET 23.90 JOAN OF ARC 12.70 KENNEDY APPROACH 14.70 KENNY DALGLISH SOCCER 11.70 KRISTAL 1770 LAND of LEGENDS 1770 LAST DUEL 10% LANCELOT 11.70 LED STORM 13.90 LOMBARD RAC RALLY 14.70 MANHUNTER NEW YORK 17.70 MAYDAY SQUAD. 11.70 MANHATTAN DEALERS 14.70 MENACE (DRACONIA) 11.70 MINI GOLF 1390 MICROPROSE SOCCER 1470 MILLENIUM 2.2 14.70 NEBULUS 1390 NEATHERWORLD. 1390 NINETEEN PART ONE 11.70 ORBITER 14.70 OUTRUN EUROPA 10.99 OVERLANDER 1470 PACMANIA 11.50 PIONEER PLAGUE 14.70 POOLS of RADIANCE 15.90 POLICE QUEST 11.70 POLICE QUEST II 11.70.

PRESIDENT

PREMIER COLLECTION

PRISON PROSPECTC PROJECT D.

POLICE QUEST IIL 1 is MISSING 14.70 1170 ж 1470 BACKUP TOOL 2950 14.70.

PURPLE SATURN DAY

FOR NEW RELEASES AND ITEMS NOT LISTED PLEASE PHONE US TODAY. NEW TITLES WILL BE DESPATCHED ON CONFIRMED DATE OF RELEASE GOODS SUBJECT TO AVAILABILITY AND CHANGE WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE. OFFER ENDS 31st JULY 1989. HOMESOFT (UK) CARES FOR ITS CUSTOMERS.

FARINGTON, L

TITLE

AMIG.

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9.70 10.99 14.70 11,70 16.80 12.70 23.90, 12.70 14.70 11.70 17.70 17.70 10.99 1170 13,90 1470

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TV SPORTS FOOTBALL 17.20, SUPER HANG ON я 15.10, SPACE HARRIER 4 11.50, R-TYPE....... 15.10. ROCKET RANGER 17.20, TEST DRIVE II the duel 17.20, SWORD of SODAN 15.10, BALLISTIX .......... 11.50 ROADBLASTER: 12.50, AIRBORNE RANGER ы PRECIOUS METAL 14.30 BALANCE of POWER 1990 14.30 GAUNTLET ІІ...... 15.10, DENARIS 12.95 CALIFORNIA GAMES 12.50. BAAL 11.50

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16 BIT SOFTWARE RAMBO III RETURN OF THE JEDI RENEGADE III ROBOCOP.

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AMIGA 14.70 117 14.70 15.70 14.30

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1170 16.80

OPTICAL DISKS

EXHIBITION REPORT

ERASERHEAD BABY

The annual OIS exhibition at London's Novotel is Europe's largest focal point for all things optical - and a glimpse of what the home user will be buying in the 1990s. Andy Storer went along to scan the sights and returned inspired by the world's first rewritable optical disk drive

mage and text retrieval technology is rapidly

gaining favour in paperintensive markets

such as insurance, medicine, banking and government. The likes of 3M, Sony, Nippon Maxell, Philips and TDK have all recognised the immense potential of erasable optical storage and are racing to capture a sizable portion of this lucrative multi-billion dollar industry before the end of the 1990s.

The advantages over microfilm and magnetic tape are immense - optical systems deliver high archival storage capacity with rapid data retrieval and compact handling ease. But the optical market is beset with a bewildering multitude of different systems - WORM, erasable optical, CD- ROM, compact disc-video, interactive videodis compact disc-interactive, interactive compact videodis Digital Video Interactive, optical memory cards, Digital Paper and floppy WORMS Wild, eh?

The sixth annual Optical Information Systems and Image Management Conference saw the number of exhibitors up by some 30%, all 110 purveyors no doubt struggling to reach a standard in the read-only, write and erasable optical information fields

The ultimate prize will go to to the manufacturer who provides the world's first multi-functional drive able to read all optical formats. In the meantime, Alphatronix's Sony based erasable optical disk drive is the first contender for the title of supreme storage medium

Write on... and on... and on

Alphatronixs Inspire series drives provide standard 5.25 inch plug in and play rewritable disks offering upto 1,300 Mbytes of storage in a dual drive unit. As such, Inspire can accommodate up to half a million ASCII coded pages on a single disk

The laser beam at the heart of the drive read, writes and erases without touching the surface of the disk — beta-tests have shown that a single disk can be rewritten as many as 30 million times with an error rate of only 1 in 1012. What's more, the unit is PC-compatible, though for the asking price of £6,000 for the single drive unit you'd have to have a good reason for buying it. But then at a storage cost of 110K for £1 it's comparable to hard-disk storage in terms of cost effectiveness, and with an average seek time of 83 milliseconds across the full 1,300 Mbytes, you won't be waiting around long enough to worry about your investment.

Jukebox fury

However, 1,300 Mbytes is nothing compared to some of the other storage systems on show at OIS. Next Technology launched its 150 Gigabyte Voyager series of CD-ROM and Optical Disk Jukeboxes

A Jukebox is exactly like you might imagine - a library of discs which are accessed via the host computer using a jukebox mechanism. The difference being that the data, text, drawings, pictures, graphics, video and sound contained on up to 270 CD-ROM discs can be accessed in 300 milliseconds. Thus, a single 150 Gigabyte Voyager unit is advertised by Next as offering the

once

* The Inspire erasable disk drive comes in single or dual for- mats and is compatible with existing backup utilities. Just as well - 1,300 Mbytes would fill a pile of floppies 17 feet high

* The Voyager CD-ROM jukebox in diagrammatic form. Able to hold up to 8 half-height CD-ROM units and 270 individual discs - enough to play 12 days of continuous video and sound

* Мапе Freestyle - a new innovation іп user-friendly

interfacing - ingenoius in its inclusion of voice annotation of PC applications...

user access to up to 80 million pages of A4 text and pictures or 12 days of continuous video and sound. Fancy hooking one of these up your PC? you can: it's got MS DOS drivers built in!

Showing out

Also on show were quite a few of those natty vertical’ monitors the ratio of an A4 page with a paper-white 200 dot per inch display. Although these were overshadowed by the presence of a handful of photo-quality 400 d.p.i. resolution Screens, companies like REGMA market image processors which reside in monitors to bump up screen updates to less than 300 milliseconds. The effect is astounding - a full page of dense copy refreshes in a flash of the eye.

As fast as you scan

Even more impressive was the range of scanners on show. The current state of the art is in scanners that include Optical Character Recog nition. Here you can expect to pay anything from £2,000 to over £30,000, but for those prices you can even get basic units that are able to read text 30 times faster than a typist could transcribe. However, the ability to scan images puts the utility into a different league entirely even Formscan's low-level Alphaword IV can scan 120 pages hourly, whilst the more upmarket Philips Megadoc system operates at 26 pages per minute. However, Formscan's PageReader, at £36,000 a throw, is able to recognise over 10,000 typefaces — more or less anything except hand writing. Once ported into your word processor or database you're away - with all the normal search and replace facilities at your fingertips

Freestytle trials

Although handwriting recognition is still some way off, Wang's icon-based Freestyle does go some way to providing the ultimate revolution in the way we interface with machines.

Freestyle is a PC-compatible system allowing voice and hand-written annotation of text and images. It captures a snapshot of the current screen - be it in WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3 or even scanned images and treats that screen as electronic paper which can be annotated by writing, typing or speaking into a handset.

As such you could scan in forms for signatures, or spreadsheets for comments on sales initiatives across a number of networked employees. Handwritten notes are input using a full page tablet, whilst voice notes spoken into the handset can be synchronised to hand-written notes, thus allowing for accurate emphasis on relevant points in a document. On hearing a cue for a voice-note, the reader simply picks up the handset and listens to the annotation. Freestyle also features fax communication facilities, thus pushing its potential further than the local area network

Future features

Whilst the product on show at OIS is undoubtedly far removed from the needs and budgets of the ordinary user, its showcasing of fledgling technology provides a window on a world which by the mid-1990s should be available at cut-down specs and accompanying costs for us all. @

NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS % 27 MAY 1989 • 31

Sixteen Bit Superdeals from the Sixteen Bit Specialists ! CUSTOMERS PLEASE NOTE! When comparing prices remember ours include fast delivery by courier.

520 STFM Power Pack £359.00 Inc. VAT and Next Day Delivery

Power Pack includes: 520 STFM 512K Keyboard with Built-in 1 Megabyte disk drive and TV Modulator Over £550 worth of games software, including OutRun, Gauntlet 2, R-Type, Space Harrier, Super HangOn and 16 more Top Games Organiser Business Software including WORDPROCESSOR, SPREADSHEET and DATABASE First BASIC and First Music Utility Software FREE JOYSTICK All leads, manuals PLUS MOUSE and free mains plug!

REMEMBER! Many ST's do not come with BASIC - ours come with ST BASIC REV D by Metacomco. Also available with only one free game and no joystick or Organiser

£269.00 inc.

1040STFM Super Pack £439.00

Includes everything in the Atari 520 STFM Super Pack but with the 1 megabyte memory 1040 STFM Keyboard

1040STFM Business Pack £439.00

Business Pack includes:

* Atari 1040STFM Keyboard with 1 meg memory and 1 meg built- in disk drive plus TV modulator.

* £385 worth of Business Software including MICROSOFT WRITE word processor (£150), SUPERBASE PERSONAL Database (£60) and VIP PROFESSIONAL Lotus 123 Spreadsheet clone (£150)

* Allleads, manuals and mouse.

MEGA 1 BUSINESS PACK £529.00

. Features: * Separate Keyboard and System Unit * All the Software included with 1040 STFM Business Pack. * Blitter chip installed for faster graphics

Inc SM124 Mono Monitor........... £628.00

ACCESSORIES

Quickshot I! Turbo Joystick............£9.95 Competition Pro 5000 Joystick ....£13.95 Competition Pro with Autofire ......£14.95 Konix Speedking Joystick ............£11.95 Red Mouse Mat with Amiga logo ...£6.95 Plain blue Mouse Mat z

Branded Memorex 3.5" DS DD Disks Box of 10. £13.95 Memorex Disk Box

For 40 3.5" Disks £8.95 Amiga A501 1 Meg Expansion ..£139.99 Amiga A501 + Dragon's Lair......£169.99

PRINTERS

Star LC10 including interface lead for ST/Amiga.

Star LC10 colour including interface lead for ST/Amiga

Citizen 120D including interface lead for ST/Amiga ... 159.00 SEIKOSHA 80 COLUMN PRINTERS - AMAZING PRICES

Seikosha 9 pin NLQ including interface lead for ST/Amiga..

Seikosha 24 pin LQ including interface lead for ST/Amiga

...£199.00

Amiga A500 System 1 £365.00

Inc VAT and Next Day Delivery

Workbench 1.3 £9.95

System 1 includes:

* Amiga A500 512K Keyboard with Built-in 1 Megabyte disk drive.

* Free TV modulator worth £24.99 allowing you to use the Amiga with а normal TV.

* Amiga BASIC, Amiga EXTRAS, Workbench PLUS the Amiga Step by Step Tutorial.

ж All leads, manuals PLUS MOUSE and mains plug!

Amiga A500 System 2 £385.00

* Amiga A500 System 1 PLUS over £280.00 worth of software comprising 10 games, PLUS either SPRITZ or PHOTON PAINT GRAPHICS PACKAGE.

Amiga A500 System 4 WITH 500 FREE AIR MILES!

£449.00

includes everything in our Amiga System 1 package PLUS SPRITZ Graphics Package, disk storage wallet for 25 disks, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Nebulus, Starray. PLUS 10 other FREE games worth £230.00 PLUS 500 FREE AIR MILES, enough for a return trip to PARIS, AMSTER: DAM OR BRUSSELS!

AMIGA 1 MEG! £499.00

Announcing the new Amiga 1 meg-an A500 system 1 with fitted 1 megabyte memory expansion and clock card PLUS TV Modulator AND DRAGON'S LAIR a six disk 1 meg megagame!

AMIGA 1 MEG + £519.00

Our Amiga 1 meg + also includes the £230 worth of games software normally given with our А500 System 2 Games Pack.

EXTERNAL DISK DRIVES

Atari SF314 1 Megabyte..... Amiga А1010 1 Megabyte .... Cumana 1 Megabyte Atari or Amig:

«£139.00 £139.00 99.95

MONITORS

Commodore Amiga 41084 Stereo colour Monitor inc lead . Atari SC1224 Colour Monitor inc lead...

Atari SM124 Mono Monitor including lead Я Philips CM8833 stereo colour monitor inc. lead for ST or Amiga...

£269.00 £259.00 £104.00 £249.00

MACHINE-SPECIFIC COLUMNS LUBCLUBCLUB With S t's 2 LUBCLUBCLUB s

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BC BC

DELIVERY SERVICE We're programmed to help, so ring us now.

Direct, 53 Rugby Ri BN11 5NB

GUARANTEED RETURN OF POST Delivery on ALL Stock Items!

HARDWARE

ATARI 520 STFM EXPLORER PACK FREE: Rana Rama game + Utilities + Mouse Mat + WIZ Card

ATARI 520 STFM POWER PACK including: 20 Arcade С: Or

ATARI 1040 STFM BUSINESS PACK FREE: VIP Professional, Microsoft Write, Superbase Personal

AMIGA А500 (Kickstart 1.3) + FREE: WORKBENCH 1.3

А500 AIR MILES PACK (Kickstart 1.3) + FREE: WORKBENCH 1.3. PLUS: 500 Air Miles, 3 Paint Р:

VORTEX Syst "2 Disks, 10MB sections, KickstartWorkbench 1.3 Back up park Separate 15 cable

Double Sided Disks « Labels in a lockable 50 Disk Box 20 Double Sided Disks « Labels in a lockable 100 Disk Box

ACTION SCREEN - The Review magazine on VIDEO! ST & AMIGA

% Rock

| е г 'agon Ninja. (АМ:16.90) n r geon Master Editor

Emmanuelle

Garfield

Karate Plus anhunter New York.

Populous Prison Sorceror Lord Super Hang On Wand

sampling

wated

| IS

vay | Айпоп McHerriot | |

Sticking to keys

Ever been stuck for a word? You know what letters of the word if you're unsure how to

you want to say, but can't quite think of the spell it - and Keyword searches its

right way to express it. Swift reckons dictionary for all words starting with the

Keyword is the answer. The program lets letters you entered. The results are then

you search displayed. After that

through a ШЕШЕНИН can click on the

database of ч spelling of the word

meaning, thus “ Д Keyword does а

enabling you to т second search to

find exactly what ^ _ > find all the words

you're looking meaning the same

for. as the word you Keyword 5 selected. You can |

operates as а continue selecting |

GEM desk words and finding |

accessory so it's : other meanings until |

on hand шағы you're happy. Over |

X-COPY (NEW 1.3) PROJECT 'D' (NEW 1.2)

re Phantom Fighter Spaceball Falcon

geddon Мап

Ore

This is just a small selection of our VAST range of 68000 Software! Phone/Write for full catalogue - stating: Atari ST or AMIGA

ВҮТЕВАСК eme nors nan

whenever you * And the word із... ег. 10,000 synonyms need it. It can be and antonyms are used from floppy, hard or RAM disk. Keyword — present - I counted them!

is of the same ilk as K-Roget - just less Details from Swift Software, 347 London PAY BY CHEQUE, ex sophisticated and cheaper. Rd, Hazel Grove, Stockport, Cheshire, SK7 POSTAL ORDER OR USE All you do is enter a word - or the first few АА. YOUR CREDIT CARD

0636-79097 SERVICE

NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 27 MAY 1989 • 33

PC TO TV AND VIDEO IN

CGA AND EGA

VINE MICROS can supply a variety of high-quality adaptors that

enable PC users to connect to standard televisions and video recorders, giving a full colour display.

The CGA version (for CGA cards or EGA cards in CGA mode) supports up to 16 colours in 640x200 pixel display where possible. The EGA version enables 350 ine text/graphic modes to be displayed, although only 280 lines of this screen is visible at any one time. A scrolling facility is included to allow you to flick between the top, middle and bottom of the screen. Extra features include a full 64 colour palette. A must for video presentation/titling

Our UHF adaptors connect to a TV via its aerial socket and also has the ability to go to a video recorder. The SCART version has proved to be extremely popular thanks mainly to its high-quality display and very competitive pricing, though only 16 colours in EGA are possible.

PC-TV UHF CGA £44.95 PC-TV UHF EGA £59.95 PC-TV SCART CGA £34.95 PC-TV SCART EGA. £39.95

Other adaptors include a MCV version to connect to a monochrome composite video monitor, or in black and white to a video. £29.95 OR a Digital adaptor to connect to colour digital monitors eg. BBC Micro or Amstrad CPC £34.95.

A separate 12v mains adaptor is needed to power the adaptors £4.35. All prices ex VAT - carriage free in UK.

Ring 0304 812276 (during office hours)

Vine Micros Ltd, \ \ | Marshborough | 1 Sandwich, Kent CT13 OPG —!

A MEDUSA mex, 01- 803 0893 55 Harrow Drive, Edmonton, London N9 9EQ Computers

ATARI ST "EXPANSION PACK "EXPLORER PACK" "POWER PACK"

"SOFTWARE PACK"

Workbench 1.3 FREE Modulator 1 meg disk drive. £550 Software Free Modulator 1/2 meg RAM mouse inc Afterburner £230 worth Software Dragons Lair Ranarama game R-Type. Pacmania £369 £479 £265 £339

PHILIPS СМ8833 | Samplers. Dovsers £218 iscount prices

£ PHONE

103 1200/05 Disks £8.99

503 12" DD/DS Disks £37.99

Cruiser Joystick £6.99

Pro 5000 Joystick £10.99

Speedking (auto) joystick £9.50 or Joystick

ALL PRICES INCLUDE VAT and P&P. CHEQUES/PO's PAYABLE :- MEDUSA COMPUTERS

PURCHASE A COMPLETE AMSTRAD PC SYSTEM FOR UNDER £7 PER WEEK.

Pack,

е includes Amstrad PC 2086 System plus EPSON LX800 Printer plus maintenance plus Integrated Accounting software. All makes of computer printer and software are available for sale, lease| purchase or lease rental Our trained staff are available for free consulation on all products and guidance to gain maximum tax advantages on leasing

In real terms leasing saves over 25% over an outright purchase and offers complete flexibility

PC2086 £1259 + VAT, PC1640 HDECD £939 + VAT. Includes one years on site maintenance.

RING 0279-726488/726406 NOW

пано ауса HARDSOFT INTERNATIONAL ———T 1A THE SQUARE, SAWBRIDGEWORTH KN —. HERTS CM21 9AE

34 • NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS » 27 MAY 1989

М3 оаа

gle com Robot

virtually any

timer or prog

come across а con

Telecom Gold. A clever

guess at the price. Є:

No, Robot costs £395 plus

for a series o

Prokey. И у

contact ISG o

Synonyms under

the skin

A large banner on the Opus stand at the PC User Show proclaimed ‘Computing Labour’, together with the familiar little red rose. At first sight it appeared that Opus had taken its company named too literally and joined forces with the Kinnock fraternity. On examination though, the Opus - sorry Labour - Party is simply one of the many organisations which has invested in Opus equipment to help in its strive for new efficiency.

Simon Williams

7 Towering above the | competition

аана

[

| Sound Processing With the Amig:

Message Port If you have any views on any issues raised within AmigaBLIT, or in fact the Amiga scene in general, then I'd love to hear from you. Similarly, if you have any red hot hints, tips or tricks that you feel will be of interest to your fellow Amiga owners, then why not send them into me. The address to write to is: AMIGABLIT, NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS, 4 QUEEN STREET, BATH BAI 1EJ.

Super Hang On Meets

Rambo

Jason Holborn

* Faster than any competitor

THIRD COAST ATARI HARD DRIVES

ALL DRIVES GUARANTEED AT LEAST 35-40% FASTER THAN THE COMPETITION

155 M-byte tape drive, compatible with Supra drive, Cumana, Third Coast, Atari, SH204/205 and megafile range. Features 155 megs backed up in under 20 minutes. Battery back clock. DMA in + out, full utilities, external enclosure £799.00

* Will support second drive

* DMA in and out

* Support full auto boot

* 65 watt PSU

* Superb software including data checker, backup utilities * 35 inch DMA cable

* Robust design slides under monitor

* Six month free phone support

* Full one year guarantee on drive mechanism Atari ST Compatible На es

22 M-Byte (Formatted) 32 M-Byte (Formatted) 65 M-Byte (Formatted) 65 M-Byte (Mechanical head auto parking)

100 M-Byte 899.00 130 M-Byte 3.00 230 M-Byte i 00 Coast DIY Kits (Everything to build your own Amiga Drive) DMA/SCSI Host Boards (fully cased with power supply + full utilities

Allows you to interface directly to embedded SCSI hard drive) ...£140.00 (Everything to build your own ST Drive)

DMA/SCSI Host Boards £89.00 Twin Drive RLL Adaptec 4070 or Omti 3527 controllers (giving 50% more out of any drive + twice the speed) Astec 65 watt PSU's

Everything as above including fan, Astec everything bar drive ...£299.00 | Meg floppy upgrade for ST £69.00

RAM Expansion Boards for AMIGA

1 M-Byte populated £525.00 2 M-Byte populated £850.00 Unpopulated boards 512k with clock £39.00 8 meg unpopulated £129.00

65 M-Byte (Mechanical head pack) complete

Full one year warranty. ALL PRICES INCLUDE VAT! Trade and University enquiries welcome.

THIRD COAST TECHNOLOGIES Unit 8, Bradley Hall Trading Estate

Standish, Wigan, WN6 0XQ Tel: 0257 426464 Fax: 0257 426577

NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS • 27 MAY 1989 • 35