NEWS AND VIEWS FROM READERS   ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  DODGY PD SUPPLIERS Dear Ed: I wish to compliment you on your services, unlike other pd suppliers some claim they have the titles and other software which they don't. Many people I know have obtain public domain from two PD suppliers which they are basic computer stores, and sell them at rock bottom prices, but they cannot provide the items. I have a name of one person that hasn't got his disks after six weeks and he phones them and gets the answering service. David Siebuhr Pittsworth QLD 4356  Ed: Yes, I've heard similar stories about these suppliers - all I can  say is beware, and use the best! (ie, Megadisc of course!)  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  INFORMATION ON HISOFT Dear Ed: I've squeezed some information out of HiSoft which might be worth spreading around via Feedback or similar. 1. Michtron, who were the United States distributor of HiSoft, have gone out of business. 2. HiSoft obtained distibution rights outside of the U.S. for EXTEND (from SunSmile, Buffalo), and later purchased the code itself. It looks as though future releases of HiSoft Basic will include EXTEND. 3. The latest release of HiSoft (at the time of their writing) was Version 1.05, but they promise "a major new version for release in the Autumn". 4. Their address, which took some finding, is HiSoft, The Old School, Greenfield, Bedford, MK45 5DE, UK. They have no distributor in Australasia. Personal footnote: I have survived six weeks of lectures - eleven a week in the latter three weeks. Phew! I did a 2-hour stint per week with a class of 30 or so budding language teachers in our new Language Institute. My topic:Computers and language teaching. They saw all my VAX stuff demonstrated on a large screen in a lecture theatre, but they all learned that if you want to do anything really exciting you need an Amiga. Best lecturing environment Interesting tail-end to it; Of the six hours I had with them, the final two were not so much demonstrating as general discussion. I knew in advance the points I wanted to cover, and prepared a VAX Proforma unit which gave headings, subheadings, references, etc. I screened this from a VT220 on to the big screen as I gave the lecture. (I even had a little laser gizmo in my hand to make a bright red dot on the screen for pointing at words.) It's the best lecturing environment I've ever used, and I am making noises in various directions about my wish to move some of my main language into such an arrangement. Trouble is, lecture theatres are always over-booked, with larger classes than I ever have. All the best John Collett Hamilton New Zealand  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  SUPERSPELL REVIEWED Dear Ed: I have reviewed Superspell on the accompanying disk, and also left a dictionary, referred to in the review, called words - so as not to be confused with Jon's dictionary - in the root directory. Latest version of Disearch has been modified to make dictionaries of this sort, with instuctions in the Doc file. Because Disearch does not sort the suffixes, use Amiga system's SORT program. If the file is too large, make small sections, reduce it by editing out uncommon words with, say, Kindwords, then join files together. I didn't say all that in the review. Thanks for the thought, Tim, only too happy to look at anything you think may be of interest. The review may be used or not as you think fit. I did not presume to include my address in someone else's review. If you think it prudent perhaps you would rectify that. P.S. Last week had a letter from the UK asking after Stockmarket. So I wrote back. Col Edwards Glenfell NSW 2810  Ed: See the SuperSpell program this issue, and review the next.  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## TUTORIAL HITS THE SPOT Dear Ed: For feedback purposes: Being a beginner, I was veru pleased to see the way the basic tutorial was handled in Megadisc 21. I especially liked the line-by-line explanation of the programme, which made things easy to understand and allowed me to practice and experiment with different things myself. I would have liked to have seen the explanation extend to both demo programmes instead of just the one, but maybe I am being too impatient! Keep up the excellent work. R.Stapleton East Reservoir VIC 3073  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  PICS OR TEXT? Dear Ed: Thanks for yet another great installment of Megadisc, I think that you should ditch the Artgallery drawer in favour of more info and news etc. After all, if people want pics, they can get plenty of them from your library. How about producing a two disk volume every so often, say every six months (or even once a year), to put on all the articles, "unimportant readers letters" etc. John O'Brien Pymble NSW 2073  Ed: Now an academic point, John - with two disks we can put a few pics  on as well, though the amount of other material is huge this issue.  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  PRIZE-WINNER WRITES Dear Ed: A great prize for someone who can only afford PD. It should keep me busy for some time. It's the first thing I've won that I will actually enjoy. Paul Anicic Ed: Paul won the prize of the Megadisc series at a recent Expo.  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  MORE MAG-DISKS? Dear Ed: Just received MD23 and read all the good news. Well at last all the hype heads for reality! I want my V2.0 roms!! Ah, to be in the thick of the fray. This power stuff is really addictive. The more one sees, the more one wants. Now I wanna buy a CDTV just to connect to my poor ole Phoenix muther. I think the penetration of the Amiga in Australia has now assured the market for mag-disks, and I'd like to see more attempted not to replace MD and its niche but to tap into and help develop the music, graphic, animation, video etc scenes, on the one hand, and just general non-computer specific stuff with visual and audio (ie multimedia) approach to anything at all - motor mechanics, fishing etc. The future direction for digital publishing. The economics of the operation would have to be pretty favourable for an organisation with appropriate data i.e. Kerry you-know-who. John S Olsen Rockhampton QLD 4702  Ed: Thanks for the suggestions John, but as for "assuring the market  for mag-disks", there are only two worth anything in this country, ie  Megadisc and Graphics-Palette and both are struggling a bit with the  tendency to copy/pirate which unfortunately is common here. The result  is that it becomes more a labour of love than a commercial reality, and  love can stretch only so far! I'd like to ask everyone to do what he can  to change this situation, so that useful products such as Megadisc can  carry on securely, giving a good service to the Amiga community.  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  SUGGESTIONS ON PROGRAMMING TUTORIALS Dear Ed: I'll just add some comments on the format of Megadisc, particularly the significant change of producing a 2-disk set. First, I think it's a terrific idea and if you can maintain the 2-disk format for all future issues without sacrificing the present quality, there will be nothing in the Amiga world that will come near it. Second, from my experience with our local user group (AUGWA) there are a lot of people who "dabble" in programming, for various reasons and at many different levels. Although the articles on general programming in Megadisc have been very good, I feel there is a real need for specific solutions to programming problems. This could take the form of articles, in C, AMOS, assembly, AmigaBasic etc, with ACTUAL examples, and/or a Q&A type section similar to the Readers Questions and Readers Hints portion of your disk. Although magazines, such as Amazing Computing, have attended to this area, there is nothing to beat the ability to take some source code straight from disk and modify it to suit your own purpose. It sure is better than trying to type in 5 pages of an assembly listing from a magazine, and then debugging all the typos. I have a temporary reprieve from Uni this year because of illness, so I expect to be able to produce programs on a more regular basis. I can also produce some of the programming tutorials, with example code, but won't go ahead if you don't think you will be able to use them. They certainly won't be anywhere near the size of that colour-requester example I sent you last time. Let me know what you think. Mike Fuller Kelscott WA 6111  Ed: Mike, they would be most welcome, and since we'll probably keep  going with 2 disks, size should not be a problem. Your previous stuff is  most appreciated, too.  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  AMIGA CODERS DISKS Dear Ed: Please find enclosed a copy of the Amiga Coders Club Disk, this is issue 1-4 Compressed issue, and this issue has been released as Public Domain to generate interest in the Australian division of the afore mentioned club. The Amiga Coders Club (ACC) disks are packed with Source, Tutorials, Hints & Tips by many well known programmers and coders that are on the Amiga scene today. The ACC disks are aimed at Amiga Users, beginners and seasoned alike who, would like to learn Assembly language programming. As mentioned earlier the Compressed issue ACC 1-4 is PD, and this disk can be redistributed any way you like, as from issue 5 (currently 15 available) these are not PD, and are only available from DARLING DOWNS PD. Available soon is the Amiga Coders Club Special, this is a complete Devpac/genam replacement assembler, it's not quite as fast, but it's a dam sight cheaper, ($13.00 to members of the AACC). For more information your readers can contact me at the following address. KEVAN FITZAKERLEY DARLING DOWNS PD 199 TAYLOR STREET TOOWOOMBA, QLD. 4350 PH (076) 346948 Ed: Get the Amiga Coders Disk 1-4 from our PD library - details in the PD_UPDATE drawer.  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  NEWS FROM THE U.S. Dear Ed: My dealer friend in Binghamton has had a lot of trouble with the A3000s he's sold, failure rate of about 30%, I wonder if the machines in NZ and Australia have been as unreliable? There is also a new tradeup being offered. Owners of C64s can get what would be equivalent to a Starter Pack in OZ for their manual and $399 ($100 less than the street price), $499 for the A500P. About it for the nooz, thanks for sending the disks so promptly, wish I was as prompt with your requests. Take care mate. Michael Rhodes Montrose, Pa 18801  Ed: Commodore is said to be considering the idea of the trade-up to  the A3000 as in the US, since it has been so successful there. As for  unreliable A3000s, this is the kind of information that Commodore is not  going to give out if true, but I know I've had no problems at all,  although other people I know have. Perhaps people can write or ring  about this.  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  MAILING MONEY OVERSEAS  In a recent MegaDisc the problem of how best to send money to the USA was discussed. It touched a raw nerve for me, since I have recently sent a $10 shareware supplement to the USA, did it by a Bank Draft, and had to pay $8.75 for the privilege. Add on the postage, and in the end it cost me more to send the sum than the sum itself. In the last year or so (since joining the MegaDisc fraternity) my correspondence with Australia has increased from none to a regular, almost weekly activity. Some of it involves the sending of money, and the same sort of problems arise as were described in the case of the USA. When the sums are small (and they always are!), it is silly to use banking systems which charge colossal overheads. I thought of getting some real Aussie currency from a travel agency, and sending that, which may be illegal, but it would be convenient. The travel agency I consulted didn't have any Aussie currency, but said that in any case the best thing to do was just sent NZ currency. Any bank in Australia would cash it, they said. So I tried that, and sent a $10 NZ note to someone whom I will not name, but from whom I have never received what the money was sent for. The really frustrating request is for a Self-Adressed-Stamped- Envelope, which you know you can't supply, because you can't obtain stamps of the nationality required for the return, and wouldn't know how much to put on anyway. For this sort of situation, could we not encourage the use of disks as mailing tokens (as I understand is frequently done in Europe)? Disks cost me between $1 and $1.50 each, while I pay $1 to send an aerogramme to Australia, and $1.50 for a letter. Since disk and postage costs are so similar, and since everyone (surely?) can always make good use of a disk, could we not develop and encourage the use of disks as a token payment to cover return postage costs. John Collett Hamilton NZ  Ed: I think that most Amiga users or programmers would be quite happy  to get disks instead of cash, considering the difficulties - in fact  that's how I provide incentives for people sending in contributions as  you'd know.  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  REPLY TO REPLY - P-READER Dear Ed, I was glad to see in MD23 the letter from John Knight making some constructive suggestions for improvements to P-Reader. Comments on these are: Line scrolling. Difficult and needs thought. Basic concept is of a paged, readily indexable, book-like format, and internal organisation reflects this. Dual-mode is possible but size of the Reader, already substantial, would grow a lot. Page scrolling. Done. I have enabled the named numeric pad keys Pg Dn, Pg Up, End, Home. (Owners of 1000 key-boards eat your hearts out!). Return from HELP function. Done. Press HELP a second time. Visual notification of loading. During loading the normal pointer changes to a W(ait). Did this not work? Colour cycling. This is a Task/Message Port matter. I must look for a way round for the next revision. Thanks John. There are a lot more changes in the current version of P-Reader - it handles sounds in addition to everything else, loads texts at least twice as fast, uses the much more efficient LZH compression, case- sensitivity when searching is optional, handles mid-anim colourmap changes, adapts to Laced screens when reading plain unillustrated text files, up to three pics/page and a host of minor fixes. An updated P-Suite disc (MISC 52) which also includes changes to the other members of the P-Suite family is enclosed for the library. To change the subject Tim, you asked for comments on future two-disc MDs. Short answer: two disks are better than one. Longer answer: excellent provided that there is no dilution of quality - I would prefer one really good disk to two half-filled with rubbish. Suggest one INFORMATION disk, similar to the present Megadisc, and one MAGAZINE disk with games, graphics, reader participation items. Rather than just publish pics and animations, set up competitions and publish the winning entries - best pic, best short anim, animated pointers, best icon for a named subject, best use of colour cycling - the list is nearly endless. For most of us a purely nominal prize would be enough - winning and being published would be the real prize.  Chas A. Wyndham Perth WA  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  VIRUSES OR VIRI - A PHILOLOGICAL DISCUSSION Running the risk of being regarded as pedantic I was contemplating about the plural of "Virus". Reading an article in a Computer Usergroup magazine (Kapita, NZ) the editor referred to an article in another magazine (Cursor, QLD) : An article about Viri ( or viruses). Many people, that are well educated, or well read, have come to realize that the plural ending of most latin words on -us is -i: e.g. amicus, amici. Also that most words ending on -um have a plural ending in -a: e.g. museum, musea. However that only applies to words of the second declension. Those that had a classical education i.e. learned latin (and ancient greek) know that there is another group belonging to the fourth declension that follows a different rule e.g.: (sing.) exercitus, (pl.) exercitus. As you can see the plural is the same as the singular. The question now is does "virus" belong to the second or fourth declension. Viruses, as we understand them today, were not yet discovered in ancient times, although I suspect that the old Romans must have realized that if you kept the company of someone with the flu you were most likely to get it also. Did they suspect a "virus" or a "germ"? Or was it an act of God? The word "virus" exists in the latin language and means plainly "poison", comes from the greek "ios" which also means "poison" or "poisonous arrow". Interesting! One of my dictionaries defines "virus" as "poisonous substance, the product of disease, found in the tissues and body-fluids". It therefor appears to me that the "virus" we talk about in Computer language is directly derived from the latin word virus. But the latin word "virus" belongs to the 4th declension and thus the plural of "virus" is just "virus". I can see only one other explanation for the use of the word Virus. Roughly from the first beginning of "Universities" in the middle ages Latin was the language used in all faculties and when the existence of Viruses was discovered, they had to give it a name. It was often up to the discoverer to name his discovery and give it a latin name. Now he could have invented the name "virus", for whatever reason, and in that case could have allocated it to the second declension, as most new latin words were, the second declension being the more common and popular one. Only if that were so "viri" would be correct. But I doubt that. It seems more logical that a similarity would have been found between a poison and a virus (in the biological sense) and the discoverer therefor called it that way. Not to confuse the reader or listener, I would suggest that we regard Virus as an English word and use Viruses instead of Viri, the latter (in my opinion) definitely not being correctly spelled. While on the subject of semantics, the mouse we use for our Amiga; is the plural of the word "Mouse": "Mouses" or "Mice"? I think the correct use is "Mouses". I leave it to you to find out why. Would anyone like to comment on that? Happy Computing.  Tony Drieman (Sigs' co-ordinator East Coast Amiga)  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  A TYPO TALE Blaise Pascal, 17th century French philosopher, mathematician, author, and many other things, one man who can accurately claim to have had a computer language named after him, was pondering on how tiny details can have great effects. He quoted the example of the shape of Cleopatra's nose, how it marred her otherwise flawless beauty, influenced the concentration of the participants in a decisive battle, and helped to determine that what we have come to call Western Civilisation (centred on Greece, Rome, Paris, London ...) would dominate the world for some time to come. Victor Hugo, 19th century French poet, dramatist, novelist, and egoist (his motto: Ego, Hugo), included in his novel Les Miserables an interesting account of the Battle of Waterloo. Being French, he sought an explanation for the French defeat, and traced it back to one trivial event. I have read the book, all of it, in French, and survived. (No. Seeing the musical doesn't count.) But it was so many years ago that I cannot remember exactly what the treacherous detail was - something like a bird perching on a tree, moving a branch, and momentarily distracting a lookout corporal from seeing certain crucial signals being exchanged between Wellington's troops. I quote these examples as worthy precedents for the interesting tale I have to tell, of how a tiny detail can have unexpected effects. In MegaDisc 22, Feedback, Readers' Hints, was a short and snappy contribution from Peter Thompson, advising how easy it was to save an amazing amount of disk space by installing arp.library and then making some deletions. It said, and I quote very precisely, "deleting credit". Now credit is a rare commodity, and deleting it, if you have any, sounds like a foolhardy action. In any case, I didn't know what it was, where it was, or what would happen if I deleted it. I searched. The only occurrence of the word I could find was in the EXTEND User's Guide, page 21, where there is documentation on a command "Credits". It seems to perform the same sort of job as an "About" menu selection, but can be included in a program. This was obviously not what Peter meant. The really worrying thing was that he had said his note was "included for the benefit of beginners". I felt yet again that terrible sense of inadequacy when confronted with the Amiga and all its mysteries. But this time I decided to take positive action. I wrote to Peter, asked him what he meant by it, what "credit" was, how come his "beginners" knew more than I did, and so on. Just writing the letter was mildly therapeutic. A few days later, I received enlightenment. Peter had written and sent "delete c:edit". Somewhere along the line the colon was changed into an "r", and the line emerged as "delete credit". His reply was great, full of patience, generosity, wit, and good humour. He was in the middle of his third-year exams, but he took the time to write to me, to explain everything to me, and to send me a beautifully compiled collection of everything to do with ARP 1.3, even including some of his own nice-looking icons. I will, of course, be writing to him directly to thank him, but I thought you would be interested in seeing what effects a single-letter typo can have if it's well placed. John Collett, Hamilton, N.Z.  Ed: Could it have been faulty editing by yours truly which created  this problem. Should we "delete c:ed" ...?  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  SUGGESTIONS FOR MD Dear Ed: I like the idea of double-Megadiscs, but can you maintain the quality? I noticed some editing mistakes in the Fish listing and one other place - obvious, not subtle! Not the usual Megadisc quality at all. Then there is the possible problem of frequency. I'd rather have one disc per two months, guaranteed, than two discs per 3 months! So the best solution is to issue a two-disk Megadisc only when warranted. Definitely need an upgraded Most. As viewers go, it is pre-historic - compare it with View80 by Federico Giannici. It needs to allow multiple windows (articles) for comparison/convenience, needs improved search, and the elimination of that dreadful statistics window. And it needs to handle embedded escape characters intelligently, so that the line can be filled out with text ie. if the line is bigger than 76 characters, the extra word(s) may still fit after escape characters have been removed. Finally, how about something more gentle than the current histrionics during decompression? A flashing pointer would be preferable. Finally, and as a suggestion for that undoubted programming talent we have on Amigas, how about a utility that can format text to a fixed width? It would make editing contributions to Megadisc a lot simpler, for instance. It should allow retention of style by filtering the change through the current paragraph, keeping to a specified left margin.  Dave Hooton Lake Illawarra NSW  Ed: Dave, let us know what you think of the Fullview program which  you're using right now. It seems to address most of the problems you  mention.  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## NEWS FROM PERTH: LATTICE C++ & A3000 & FLIGHTPLAN WORKSHEET Dear Ed: My "Lattice C++" finally arrived, and I have been attempting my first 'real' programming. I won't bore you with details, but it is quite some learning curve, a big jump from ARexx. The speed at which the output runs is well worth the effort, not to mention the flexibility of the (basically "C") language. Worthwhile results will be a while, though, and in fact I am taking a breather at the moment from bashing my head against what seems like a programming brick wall. Even the first trivial successes are good, though with a large amount of work for such a small practical reward. Something else that has diverted my attentions is a new A3000 in the household. With its greater speed of data retrieval and above all reliability, it has been rapidly pressed into service as the 'main' machine, attached to a Canon Bubble Jet for hard copy output. Its greater processing speed will also be utilised with "PageStream" and similar speed-hungry applications, required by increasing professional requirements (my wife has just begun research work at university, where she has also started lecturing - hence the decision to move up in the computer world). I'll pass on any significant comments/reviews as I find them; some of the software we are using is imported direct from the US, it being quite hard to find some types of fairly specialised applications here, locally written or otherwise. My main contribution this time is a conversion of my flight plan from VIP/Lotus to Superplan. After waiting for years for an upgrade to VIP that emulated at least the later non-Windows versions of Lotus, I decided to try a readily-available Amiga-ised version of a spreadsheet. Having experimented with MaxiPlan on behalf of other people, I have concluded that Superplan is definitely the way to go; it seems just as friendly, converts VIP spreadsheets better than MaxiPlan and above all is MORE RELIABLE. I may send more comments on this subject, too. Happy New Financial Year - may the taxman bother you little.  Chris Hussey Perth WA  Ed: I'm sure Chris would be happy to send out his Flight Plan  worksheet to anyone interested - contact him through us, and include a  disk and SASE.  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  INFERIOR GAMES, MANUALS AND MORE Dear Ed. and contributors: Thanks for another great edition of Megadisc. (I always find myself counting the days until the next one.) I'm waiting in anticipation for the forthcoming double issue and I think it's great to be able to have a bonus on occasion. Obviously, there are now more "readers" who are becoming "writers" and it's great to see more people contributing. It's funny how you always get the same result when you ask people to write articles. We used to have a small user group of around 25 people, and we produced a newsletter occasionally, but it was always very hard to get anyone to say anything. "Oh, I don't have anything interesting to write about", they'd say. What a load of rubbish; EVERYONE who turns on their Amiga has something to say! Anyway, as a result, the committee (containing yours truly) finally pulled the plug on the rest of the group, as we were doing everything. With the larger response that Megadisc now enjoys, I wouldn't expect this kind of thing to happen to it (unless people get too lazy). Games Instruction Manuals In M23, Brian Cartledge complained about the state of some manuals and said how we could all club together to get them to improve. I would like to take this one step further and suggest that we also write in to express our views about software that:- - won't allow you to use your external drive (or other peripherals) - cannot be loaded onto a hard disk, nor into ram - cannot be backed up due to its non-DOS format So, if you know anyone out there who is also cheesed off by this, can I suggest that they write to Megadisc to raise their complaints. To get the ball rolling, I'd like to condemn F29 Retaliator, by Ocean. Maybe we can show the software houses that they can't treat us like dirt anymore. Another thing we could do, is to just not buy the stuff anymore if it's not going to stick to OUR guidelines. Go to your local retailer and only buy a game if it WILL load onto a hard drive. The word will soon get back to the suppliers that they'll have to straighten up their act. F29 Retaliator Cannot be loaded onto a hard disk, nor ram, due to its non-DOS format. It also has poor sprite collision detection and hence you collide with things often. Once you are killed, it takes you 4 or 5 menu screens and their associated loading times to get back to the start again. The disks cannot be copied easily, either. Public Domain Disk Naming OK Tim, sorry, I've got one gripe. Is it possible to refrain from renaming public domain disks to something else, as it makes them very hard to find. As an example, UT223 is really APD36 in disguise. Can't we have it as APD36 please? I don't see the point of the renaming. Similarly all the other "brands" of public domain disks should be named as they were originally intended unless they have been altered in some fashion. How about it? John Knight Boronia VIC Ed: Point taken about naming disks John - I do it this way to indicate the type of disk it is, so that all similar disks can be grouped together (e.g. all animations together as AN disks), and to make use of the Catalogue easier. But you'll notice that the original names and codes are always kept (if known) for anyone who wants to see if they already have it, or has some reference to that different coding. NOERRORS FEEDBACK OK, you asked for it Nic. May I first say, that I appreciate all the work you put into supporting the Amiga with your excellent programs and utilities. I hope I can be of assistance in shedding my views of NOERRORS. Overall Presentation -------------------- Quite a nifty idea that amplifier thingy-whatsit. Some people may get confused by the POWER switch though. The buttons themselves are a bit confusing - when pressing the FORMAT button, it changes to CONFIRM and the red light comes on. I wouldn't let the red light come on until the CONFIRM button has been pressed. Also, this seems to make START redundant. I don't really think CONFIRM is necessary since this is a disk formatting program anyway, not a multifunction doo-dah like DirWork or something. Adding the extra checking step doesn't really achieve anything. It's not going make people stop and think, it's just adding an extra key press. START should be used to activate the process as (I suppose) was originally intended, an ABORT should also work, but doesn't appear to. In fact I had trouble with both START and ABORT - either may, or may not, do the required function. I think this needs a bit of work. When START has been pressed, the only button that should be selectable is ABORT. Disk selection is fine - a great variety of options. Operation --------- Apart from the confusion of the buttons, everything SEEMED to work. The only thing that bothered me, was that I currently use BFORMAT and I couldn't get BFORMAT and NOERRORS to agree on any result. In fact, I never managed to see that NERRORS had actually fixed a disk. This was strange. I started off with a duff disk which BFORMAT had located 44 blocks in error. NOERRORS didn't find these so I assumed it was because the disk had already been formatted to hide the errors, so I used NOERRORS to format without verify and then tried it WITH verify again. Still no errors were found. I tried BFORMAT again and it would only detect 22 blocks in error. Ran through the whole sequence again only to find that there were now no errors on the disk at all. Dirty disk or heads? I don't know, I tried some others and they gave the same result. I'm confused but this may have nothing to do with NOERRORS anyway. Near the end of the formatting process when all the lights start lighting up (PLEASE WAIT etc), I believe the light synchronisation could use a little work. I would suggest leaving the PLEASE WAIT light on until the operation has totally finished (all VALIDATING performed). With the Workbench disk removed, when the end of the formatting process took place, it asked for the Workbench disk to be reinserted. Fair enough, but when I did, NOERRORS appeared to have been quit. I tried to restart it, but it wouldn't. I had to reset the machine to get out of the problem. Future Requirements ------------------- Well, NOERRORS seems to contain everything required in a disk formatting program. I can't really see what else could be required but you might like to change the defaults to FORMAT, VERIFY, DF1. What about incorporating a diskdoctor thingy and then everything is in one place? (Allow the whole disk to be recovered, or just a file). John Knight Boronia  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  CREATING AN AMI EXPO Dear Ed: At last here is an article for Megadisc. I have often wanted to write one but I am a master procrastinator. I could make a fortune teaching others how to procrastinate. However I do not believe in the practice and I don't like to preach what I do not believe in. So I suffer in silence. But today I found myself in one of those elated moods and with a successful show behind me I like to tell other Usergroups about it. The article will give a detailed report about how East Coast Amiga did organize an Amiga Show at the NSW Central Coast. In this letter which probably finds its way into another drawer I like to tell you a little about ECA (East Coast Amiga) and how the idea grew about running a show. The main article is a "How to" article and really an historical recollection. ECA has about 160 members and is an Amiga only club. Of course it started as a Comodore 64, and then Comodore 64/128 club it was soon taken over by the Amiga and whether the committee neglected the 64/128 members or whether they all converted to Amiga I do not know. The plain fact is that we do not have 64/128 members, that we do not cater for them and that we are a 100% Amiga Club. The club runs a bi-monthly magazine OUTPUT and has a very substantial PD Library, of course 100% Amiga. The club owns two Amigas, one is used By our PD librarian and is a 500, the other is a 2000 with 3 Mbytes on board and a 52 Mbytes Harddisk. We own also a bubble jet printer and a digitiser. The 2000 is used to demonstrate software or demonstrations by retailers, the printer was bought to make good masters for our magazine "Output" that appears on a bi-monthly basis, and twice a year on a disk. Both the digitiser and the printer are available to members at club meetings, to either print good NLQ letters or pictures, both for a small charge. After all a new Ink Cartridge cost $50. Our two neighboring Clubs are CHUG (Hornsby) and TLCUG (Tuggerah Lake), both cater for 64/128 and any queries we get for 64/128 we pass on to either club. Several of our members are members of one of our neighboring club also. We have an open door policy where any member of an other club will have an unlimited access to our club, but of course without the benefits of voting, our magazine or Club specials. Last year I visited the Paramatta Comodore show run by the Australian Amiga Users Group operating from St.Clair (Penrith) NSW. I was impressed. Several month later I read that The Eastern Suburbs User Group was running an Amiga/64 show and that started me thinking. If they, why not we? And I intended to go there as an observer. Again I was impressed. So, being vice President of ECA I brought it up on the Committee meeting and it was considered. I then made contact with the respective committees of the two exhibiting clubs and invited by both to attend their meetings and discuss setting up procedures. They were very co-operative and helpful and gave me a lot of hints which I now pass on to all User Groups in Australia. After all we like to bring the Amiga to the notice of the general public (Whatever that means). In the long run it will help all Amiga owners. The more Amiga owners, the larger the market, the more software support, the more public awareness, the more Amigas sold.....etc,etc. Since then I have resigned as Vice President of ECA and they have created a new function for me: SIGs' Co-Ordinator. We have now two Sigs run ning, one for Midi-Music and one for C-Language programming. The next one will probably be Desktop Video (October). Anyone wanting to have more information on either of the above can ring me on (02) 985 9319. Best time to ring between 7 and 9 in the morning. In the mean time: Happy computing.  Tony Drieman (Sigs' Co-ordinator ECA)  Ed: Tony's article should appear in the next issue.  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  FEEDBACK FROM NEW ZEALAND Dear Ed: Thanks for your two recent communications. Comments on each: The sample of Disk Labels was great. I showed it to the University Stationery Dept, but they do not think any NZ firm makes them. An interesting gap for some entrepreneur to fill? So I will almost certainly be getting some from the Sydney address you gave me. Many thanks for that. Fish Disk 369 was gladly received, but turned out to be a major disappointment. The author of VAXterm is Finnish, and the "English" docs conceal rather than reveal. It is described as a VT220 "Emulator", but its functions do not match my understanding of that word. It is rather a "communicator" but, assuming the two machines are in the same room, I can already communicate very nicely between Amiga and VAX using Handshake. What I had been hoping "emulator" meant was a program to constrain an Amiga screen to behave like a VAX screen, within VAX limits, for example, in terms of screen output, style settings, etc. just so that I could rehearse VAX stuff at home on the Amiga before later using it on the VAX. I have actually got round most of the problems already (number of lines, placement of titles, size of boxes, etc.) but did think that a program like VAXterm might hold a neater ready-made solution. Your note said, encouragingly, "Perhaps you'll do an analysis of your Vax adventure for us some time?" I certainly will, but my life with the Vax is just one adventure after another, and I have been telling you about so many Vax-related odds and ends that I am wondering just which "adventure" you had in mind when you wrote that. For relevance to MD readers, there must be an Amiga flavour to it, so you must be referring to this season's major preoccupation - a version of Proforma running on an Amiga to produce study units which will be used on the Vax. Am I right? It's been going VERY well - 25 units on French grammar edited, polished, etc. at home already - there are over 50 units in the full set. I take the new versions to the university, copy them to the VAX using Handshake, and then run VAX Proforma. The number of subsequent adjustments needed to the VAX versions has been diminishing as I have refined the processes. But I knew that I would not be able to resist exploring the possibility of a specifically Amiga version of Proforma - and I have been spending a fair amount of time on that. All very disorganised and incomplete at the moment. Major problem is how much to include and what to leave out. Most recent work has been on including in the Proforma output images which started life, for example, as DPaint Brushes, and full-screen pictures (from full size DPaint screens) which can then be written over, drawn on, etc. I am making progress, and have now drawn this letter round towards my next and main topic. You may recall that I had sent some hopefully helpful stuff on Brushes and Basic to a Perth MD subscriber, and found that those problems were closely related to what I had just been doing in HiSoft Basic as outlined in the previous paragraph. I decided to improve on the stuff sent to Perth, and to concentrate in the first instance on producing a reliable method for converting DPaint Brushes into Basic Objects. In particular I wanted to get beyond the 4-colour limitations of my earlier work. (The examples in the Abacus books just don't work. I had great hopes with J. Potter's Image-Ed, and sent him cash for full docs. etc. He says that Image-Ed will load in and convert DPaint Brushes - the one thing I really wanted it for, and the one thing I can't actually get it to do!!!) HiSoft Basic worked very well - I can now easily convert brushes of 2, 4, 8, or 16 colours into object files usable by OBJECT.SHAPE etc. So I said to myself, it's time to fill a little gap which other MD readers who are also users of DPaint and Basic may have experienced. Having done it in HiSoft, I thought, I should be able to get it to work in AmigaBasic in a more efficient way than the old stuff I had sent to Perth. I think I have now done that, despite one or two odd problems. I won't go on. The rest of the story will be in the Docs I am about to write, which, together with the program called BrushToObject, I hereby offer for your editorial consideration. For your convenience, but not for publication, I include on this disk four sample brushes and objects. Drag one or more of the brush icons into a window which also holds AmigaBASIC and BrushToObject (such as the window this letter is in). When you run BrushToObject, you'll be prompted for a brush name - enter "two", "four", "eight", or "sixteen", depending on what you dragged across. The program should produce a new .obj file identical to one of those in the "Object Samples" drawer. Be a bit patient if you have chosen "eight" or "sixteen" - the more colours the slower the conversion. As with earlier Basic contributions, my hope is that interested readers will be able to pull out from my program any patches that interest them, and use them in theirs. In particular, within the program, I have fully marked and commented a patch which can be pulled out and used as it stands (once a few initial apostrophes have been removed) for loading and displaying object files. Again for your convenience, but not for publication, there is in the "Object Samples" drawer that very patch, ready to use. It will work where it is. No need to move anything. Feed it with the names of the "____.obj" files in that drawer. Best wishes, John Collett Hamilton NZ  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##  PLANE GRAPHICS Dear Tim, Well, having collected every issue of MD, I thought now was the time to contribute something. I hear you say why? Good Bloody Question! (please excuse the mild profanity). First a brief history of my Amiga experience: i) Friends introduced me to the "Falcon F16" being played on two 500s with null cable (that BLEW me away!!!). ii) 1 week later, purchase my first ever computer. The venerable AMIGA 500 (strange that!) iii) 1 Year later, purchase an "AMY"2000 including Quantum 52mgHD & 2k simms chip ram (wonderful!). Thanks to "Sigmacom" and Pelham. End of history to date!! My fascination has been with all things Flying. (Now also the AMIGA!!) Much to the consternation of my dear wife. She is, however, to my good fortune, exceedingly supportive of my "futzing on the computer" and developing quite a deft touch on it herself!! Hence, my contribution consists of drawings of Aircraft. (No Yawning please, each to his own. OK?) "A10 Patrol" and "2F15s" were drawn using pictures from a MASSIVE coffee table book called "THE GREAT BOOK OF MODERN WARPLANES" (you should see this book, H U G E ! ! ! ) "TOWTF" was drawn using an ad for "Lufthansa" on the back of a copy of "Time magazine". Thanks Lufthansa. (Or maybe that should be "sorry") Not having had DPaint III for all that long and my drawing skills a little basic, I am nonetheless proud of my Piccys! The screen "resos" are as follows; i) A10Patrol, Hi-Res Lace ii) 2F15s, Lo-Res Lace iii) TOWTF, Lo-Res EHB All Icons were created with DPaint, PhotoLab and MakeIcon (FD/255) I also modified the "Jets" icon from an MD "Drawer" Icon (ta!). (The Disk Icon is the Logo of my company "Lenswork Productions" T/M) Many thanks for a superb magazine (I received #23 today). MD is certainly a QUALITY product (totally unsolicited comment!! - $50.00 will be fine) and I intend to support it and all Amigans in their pursuit of COMPUTER NIRVANA!! (Who writes this stuff?) Enthusiastically, LNZ (Len Zech)!! Ed: Thanks for the contributions, Len, good-looking planes. We'll put one on this issue if space permits.  ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ## 24 ##