READERS' LETTERS   ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  VIRUS-CHECKER Dear Ed: On this disk you will find Viruschecker v5.32. I have found this to be the best virus programme so far. (Far more up to date than VirusX.) It is written by a guy in New Zealand and updated every couple of weeks. It might be a good idea to have the latest version on each Megadisc. One last thing. I am running the latest release Kickstart (37.175) and Workbench (37.67) and am very happy with it a stability. The only problem being that my favourite programme (next to DPaint) which is MEDv3.10 now crashes under the lastest version 2.0 when it didn't crash under 37.34. Aargh! Thanking you for your great support of the Amiga in Australia. Steve Colley Oxley QLD 4075 Ed: Check out the latest version of VirusChecker in the VIRUS drawer of this disk, Steve, it's excellent as you say, and has been updated quite a bit.  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  FULLVIEW IS PANARAMIC Dear Tim Fullview is definitely better than Most. What did I ask for? 0. compare it with View80 by Federico Giannici; They are so similar - was Jon Potter's the chicken or the egg? Jon's scrolling is not quite as silky smooth. 1. multiple windows (articles) for comparison/convenience; Not quite! FullView uses a screen, and screens may be easier to click around than many windows on the WB screen! 2. improved search; Yes! But I'd like a switch for case sensitivity. 3. the elimination of that dreadful statistics window; OK! 4. handle embedded escape characters intelligently; Does this very well. Resetting the style at the start of each line can be used to advantage! 5. something more gentle than the current histrionics during decompression (a flashing pointer would be preferable); Exactly! Thanks. However, the doc for FullView illustrates exactly the final point of my letter, that you need a utility that can format text to a fixed width! And that it should allow retention of style by filtering the change through the current paragraph, keeping to a specified left margin. One consequence is that now I will use ANSI escapes to good effect in formatting future articles. I would assume that column 75 is no longer the right margin now that FullView is good for 80 columns. Dave Hooton Queensland  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  CHEAP IS BEAUTIFUL Dear Editor: A while back a contributor remarked, with perhaps a shade of irony, "cheap is nasty." Well, I suppose "cheap and nasty" is often enough a fair descrip- tion. But then, so is "dear and dreadful", as more than one buyer of costly software can testify. Actually "cheap" is a good old English word: plain, simple, positive and direct. Unhappily the Americans, as is their way, have managed to corrupt its meaning so far that they now invariably use clumsy substit- utes like "inexpensive" or "low-cost". But we don't have to follow their example. Good, cheap hardware and good, cheap software are what we all need. Not long ago an old computerman showed me a souvenir - a circuit board with a pitifully-small complement of magnetic-core memory. "Would have cost a year's worth of my wages", he said. Nowadays memory is cheap: is it any the worse for it? Not likely! So, more power to the clever chip designers and the developers and distributors of shareware and freeware, all of whom help make computing cheap as well as interesting.  Alan Jones Western Australia  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  LETTER FROM NZ Dear Ed: I was delighted to recieve MegaDisc 24 in the mail. Thanks very much. Two disks are certainly better than one in this case. It's good to see you can maintain the same high standard of your single disk issues. Jon Potter's FullView is a great program and works well with Workbench 2.0. You will notice that we're also using it in this issue of Amsmag. The gadgets and menus make it easier to use than similar programs such as ppmore. I was also pleased to see updated to Nic Wilson's programs SysInfo and Addmenu on Megadisc. However I feel that while Nic has done a great job programming Addmenu, he has gone overboard with it. The previous version I was using was 1.31. This was 3k long, whereas the latest version is 33k. I don't know about other users but I never use the new feature of being able to add/remove/etc menu items from the Workbench. I suspect this feature accounts for all the extra code. I use Addmenu to provide an easy way of accessing commonly used applications. Therefore I hardly ever need to change the menu and when I do it is very easy just to edit the script file and run Addmenu again. What I would like is for Nic to produce a stripped down version that doesn't have any of the Workbbench update features. I would continue to use v1.31 but I like the way the latest version allows you to have several script command per menu item and hangs around waiting for the workbench to load. One possible improvement that you could make to Megadisc concerns the programs drawer. This is the only part of the magazine that seems a little disorganised. It's a often hard to see at a glance what files go together. I suggest putting each program in its own drawer if it has two or more files. Another thing that would be useful is a contents file for the programs drawer. This would simply give a short description of each of the programs in this drawer, similar to the contents files on each Fred Fish disk. This month's AMSMAG is slightly different from previous issues as it's been put together by Karl Mottram. I have been busy with exams, so Karl kindly offered to take over for a month. I think you will agree it is of a similar standard to previous issues. I plan to go all out for next month's Amsmag, which will be a two disk Christmas special. Expect to see a much brighter, more lighthearted issue, with heaps of graphics, sound and music, all with a subtle Christmas theme. Mark Gladding Murrays Bay New Zealand P.S. Could you tell me where I can purchase MaxiDisk....? (Just kidding!) Ed: Mark is the editor of AMSMAG, the disk-magazine of the NZAUG, and it's built around his program MAGNETIC PAGES, a terrific text/graphics displayer/editor. See both in our listings of PD disks (MISC disks).  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  ERRORS WITH NOERRORS? Hi Ed: just a small comment about Noerrors. A very frustrating and potentialy dangerous thing about this program that I found is that it is very easy to format a disc by accident. I have pushed the wrong button and started to format my Hard Drive. I were discussing this with someone else and they stated that they had done the same thing. What Nic could possibly do is to get the program to verify that you want to format that particular drive/disc. Once you start to format it is too late and there is no second chance with this program. Laurie Mckay Morwell  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  MISCELLANEOUS FEEDBACK Hi Ed.: Just a few bits of feedback on various articles on Megadisc 24, and may I say how great the double issue was. So thanks to you, all your helpers and of course, all the contributors. Great news about the drop in Megadisc prices (find my renewal enclosed) but it's a pity that some people still will not pay for something as useful as Megadisc. I get more value from one issue of Megadisc than all the magazines I buy for a month, and at a fraction of the price. One suggestion though, I'd still like to see ads on Megadisc and if you were to continue with 2 disks, could the ads help pay for the second one? Also, there would be plenty of space to include such. Think about it - it may help - and I'm sure that there are plenty of other readers who would also like to see ads. These could also be reader's ads for hardware of software that they wish to sell or purchase. Megadisc could still retain its freedom from being influenced by adding a little editorial comment on such. On Fullview Thank you Jonathan Potter. I like it! It has nice smooth variable-speed mouse scrolling so I can sit back with my feet on my desk using my little remote control, alias the mouse. There is no longer any need to format text to column 75, or bits and pieces missing (or forming funny line formats) when using Fullview to display articles other than those on Megadisc. Fullview will display the full 80 characters. It will also display IFF files and has a requestor function so that you don't necessarily have to remember the file names you wish to display. File statistics, displayed at the bottom, are great and the documentation is functional and easy to read. This program should become the standard for all your text viewing requirements. Thanks again Jonathan, for your continued support to the Amiga community. On AMOS and the Compiler Peter Billing suggested that there are no bugs in AMOS v1.3. Well, I found an "inconsistency" with putting titles in home-made windows. As a result, I had to disable this. Also, I can't get the compiler to handle decimal values under some circumstances when using (you guessed it) INPUT, although AMOS itself does. (More about that in a forthcoming article). I'd like to thank Peter for his INPUT HANDLER routines, but what a lot of work! Comments on Mike Fuller's BioRhythm Program, BIO II This is the best biorhythm that I've seen. I love the ability to save as IFF format. This enables you to plot all your biorhythms for a year or more and save them as pictures. Then all you need to do is "SHOW" (via Chris Hames' DirWork, or equivalent) and you have it without replotting. You can also import all the charts into a DTP program (or the like) and have 3 or 4 charts on one page. These can then be printed, but that leads to the only shortfall. Hands up how many people have colour printers? Now I dare say that Mike only intended to make this displayable, and not printable, but a couple of people at work asked if I could produce biorhythm charts for them (unlucky non-Amiga owners). This, of course, requires printing, and my printer is an el-cheapo dot matrix. Result? All lines are black, and I have to redisplay in colour so that I can mark them. As a solution to this, Mike, could you produce charts that have dotted or dashed lines, or add an I, E or P at various stages? Would be a great boon to an already great program. That Reminds Me Speaking of the above, with 15% of the male population being red-green colour deficient to some extent (myself included) it is amazing how many pieces of software exist with small areas of red and green in usage. In my case, if the area is reasonably large, I can tell them apart with no trouble, but for a fine line (or dots), I haven't a hope. Yes Mike, you did the same and so my wife has to sort them out for me. I'm not victimising you Mike - everyone else does this too! So, PLEASE programmers try to make our life a bit easier by NOT picking red and green as colours that we HAVE to distinguish in order to make a decision. Paul Archer's Electronics Series This was an excellent overview and I hope other readers will also provide positive feedback so that Paul continues. I learnt a lot from that - thanks Paul! F-15 Strike Eagle II Hey, this is the bee's knees. After my last complaint about F29 Retaliator (by Ocean) concerning the copy protection and lack of hard disk support, etc, etc, comes a complete contrast in Microprose's F-15 Strike Eagle II. Copy protection is via the manual, and a hard disk install procedure is supplied. Well done Microprose - you got it right! On Optimizers Thank you to Steve Bolton for his excellent comparison of optimizers. Steve, if you are willing (seeing as you know exactly what your test conditions are), would it be possible to also include a comparison with just doing a straight "COPY" from the "slow" disk to a freshly formatted disk? Even this could be split into a couple of trials such as doing a straight COPY of ALL files, and trying to COPY large files first, followed by small ones. One would suspect an optimizer to do a better job, but does it? OK, thems the miscellaneous whatsits for the month. If any people are out there reading Megadisc without legally buying it, would you like to reconsider now that Tim has dropped the prices? You don't want to see a good thing die, do you? John Knight Boronia.  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  SOME MORE FEEDBACK Dear Ed: Dear Tim, This is just a general letter in response to various articles/comments in MD24. 1) First of all I'd like to to say thanks for the excellent prices for PD Disks at $2.50 (for subscribers) I hope your sales volumes increase (My order for some is enclosed). You mentioned a Hints&Tips disk in your editorial and I for one think it would be a great idea, especially at a price around $9.95. 2) The comments about about your "opposition", Maxidisk, I feel I mostly agree with. I found Maxidisk interesting but not as polished or refreshing as Megadisc. I hope it can get better for its own sake and hopefully when more people become enlightened with the abilities of the Amiga there may be room for two excellent Disk based magazines. I hope comments about rival products such as Maxidisk don't become another slanging match as to who is the 'greatest' or 'best' because I quickly grew sick of it from a few UK based magazines I used to read. Constructive criticism never hurt anybody especially in a service industry. Enough said I think. 3) I would like to thank Dave Freeman for his Beginners' Comms series. It has started off very well I feel because it must be hard for an expert to know how to explain things they take for granted to people like me who have just started Telecommunicating and haven't got a clue initially. I suppose I should read the manual but it gets bewildering to a novice with so many options that modeming creates. I use GPTerm and it is easy to set and save configurations but getting the right configuration in the first place ain't so easy. I don't know when to use Amiga, IBM1, IBM2 or VT100 mode or whether it really matters! Anyway I'm looking forward to the series by Dave and can't wait for the next installment.  Ross Davis ---{ > North Ryde NSW Ed: Thanks for the comments, Ross, much apreciated. Re MaxiDisk - I printed that because it was sent in and sincerely felt by the reviewer. But I'd be quite happy to print anything else, a reply for example if anyone felt moved to send one in.  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  "BACK TO BASICS" Dear Ed: I refer to "Back to Basics" on MD24A by Paul D. Archer. I was most impressed with the way the article was written and whilst I did not learn very much which was new in this first installment I am sure I will as the series progresses. One of the greatest problems facing anyone trying to teach themselves to use the Amiga is the amount of Computer Jargon contained in magazines and text books and the lack of PLAIN ENGLISH which is many instances could be used, but isn't. Maybe someody, such as Paul, could write an up-to-date glossary for the terms and abbreviations commonly used. I have read definitions of abbreviations from time to time but finding them again is at times tedious and difficult. The lack of Plain English also applies to some software manuals. I look forward to receiving each issue of Megadisc and whilst I have learnt much from them I do find that some of the items are beyond my comprehension. Nevertheless I appreciate that you must cater for a variety of interests including the unitiated, dabblers like myself and those who already have a thorough knowledge of the Amiga's capabilities. With the price of both hardware and software continuing to fall more and more people should be attracted to the Amiga. E.J. Dicker Forestville NSW 2087  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  LETTER # 2 Dear Ed: I don't know if you are going to put any of this letter in your MD25 or whatever but I'll fill you in on some problems I've been having recently. I actually rang you about a week ago about Maxdrive Systems based in Qld. Up until recently I think they were the only importers of ICD equipment (AdIdes, AdRam, Flicker Free Video etc.). I've got an A500 with A590 20MB 0K ram and a CA880 as DF1:. I purchased an AdRAM 540 fully populated to 4MB along with a Prima AT105 internal hard drive at the World of Commodore & Amiga Show in July at the ICD stand. They both worked brilliantly except for the Amiga initially not recognising the AdRAM540's clock. Setclock soon fixed that. The Prima HD however developed a fault about two weeks after installation (by myself - it is easy with the instructions). The drive light didn't come on and it wouldn't boot so I booted with my A590 and it still didn't acknowledge the Prima HD. I tried to reformat/reinstall the Prima using ICD's supplied utility disk but it wouldn't reognise it either. The purchase docket had Maxdrive Systems name on it even though the receipt was on ICD (Rockford Il. USA) letterhead so I rang Maxdrive to enquire about service points in Sydney and they told me I would have to send the drive to them in Qld. I didn't like the idea of sending hardware through the post or by courier but it appeared that I had no choice. I sent the Prima HD, along with the AdIDE44, Shuffleboard and cables via security post to Maxdrive on the 5th August 1991. I rang Maxdrive a few times during the following fortnight and was told that they still hadn't received the HD. I got the post office to check on the 14th August the whereabouts of my parcel and they promptly advised that it had not been collected from the Qld post office where Maxdrive had their PO Box. Not a good start. Sometime in the middle of September after I had rung them I was advised a shipment from USA was due in a week and after processing through customs my new/repaired drive would be sent to me. After a few more phone calls a delivery arrived around the 8th October at which I thought better late than never. Famous last words! The parcel did not contain my equipment but that which appears to belong to an Amiga2000. It looks like I've received a SCSI/RAM board, a black covered hard drive of unknown MB capacity and a AdIDE40 without any cables whatsoever (I still have it - until I get my own equipment back). Totally useless to me. I rang the number on the delivery docket (different to Maxdrive's advertised one) and found that the owner/director of Maxdrive was having some personal and financial problems and had gone back to Fiji. The parcel I had received was one that had been sent as a favour to the guy in Fiji. Apparently a few requests had been left behind with his friends to finalise. Looking bad! After reading the latest ACAR I noticed that Sigmacom in Sydney was advertising ICD products including my Prima HD. I rang Mark Harwood to find out some background info on who was now importing ICD products. He informed me that Maxdrive had been unreliable and that they now deal direct with ICD. I explained my problem and was advised to try and get my old Prima HD back and they (Sigmacom) would have a look at it. At this stage I don't know if it will be covered by warranty through Sigmacom but that is still academic as I haven't got my old Prima HD back yet. I will update you further as things progress. **UPDATE** 8.45PM 22/10/91 I just received a phone call from Qld to say that my old Prima HD has not yet been sent to me because they can't find a shuffleboard or a suitable ribbon cable.  Ross Davis ---{ > North Ryde NSW  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  PAINTING TRICKS Dear Ed: I recently picked up Deluxe Paint III from Computer Spot for $49 - what a bargain! if only top software sold at this price imagine how many more Programs they would sell? Anyhow here's a pic I did on Deluxe Paint III. It might be a little gruesome but was done using a pic of Amigoz 10 which was among the clip art disks I got from Megadisc recently. I thought maybe other people out there might have trouble drawing, like me. Well here's a way of producing good pics without the problems of having to get the right proportions and perspective. Import some clip art pictures. It's a bit like painting by numbers - all you need is an idea of the colors of the subject and there's no limit to what you can do, with the use of taking brush clips and rearranging the pics. My picture might not be as good as some but it's a start and what counts is getting some use from this great program. How many have Dpaint but produce little because of not having a good starting point? I had a peek at some of the MegaDisc iff pictures to get an idea of color use to create liveness where it seems the main thing is to create color flows from light to dark cool to warm. That's about it if you find this usefull then great the iff file is rather large I know, if not just return the disk I won't be disappointed. THANKS FOR MEGADISC - I have had some very entertaining hours through the years. Yours faithfully  Geoff Charleston. Rosedale VIC Ed: Geoff sent us in a terrific picture, but unfortunately it was about 120Kbytes, just too big for this issue.  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  SHAREWARE AS A BUSINESS The notion, raised some time ago, of MD operating as a clearing house for sending money to overseas shareware developers seems to me a good one. I assume that you would look for a commission from the vendors, or perhaps from the buyers - preferably the former! I see many snags in sending bank drafts or money orders: apart from the cost, if for any reason they don't reach the addressee the only winner is the bank/PO, which gets the cash as well as its fee! Say I pick up a two-year-old program from a Fish disk: is the bloke still alive/ maintaining his program/ at the same address? (U.S. citizens are notorious for frequent changes of domicile.) Such risks deter me from using what may be very good applications. A clearing house, in touch with developers through BBS or email, could engender confidence by publishing lists of those to whom payment could confidently be made. In passing, I happen to believe that when a developer designates his product as shareware, he must reckon that his prospects of reward are better this way than by attempting commercial distribution. At the same time the user benefits by previewing the product and paying less. So far, so good; but so soon as the vendor accepts payment he enters into a contract to supply, without delay, whatever he has promised: the fully-operational version/ complete manual/ forthcoming upgrade. He is in business, and it's no use saying, as did one of your correspondents, "he has a job, family, hobbies, etc. just like you and I": so has any other businessman, but that doesn't diminish his obligations. (The programmer who says "here is my work; use it as you wish, and if you like it, I'd appreciate a donation" is in a quite different category: no promises, no contract, and the best of luck to him.) Users seem to get most of the flack for letting down the shareware concept; but what of the fellow who says (as did the author of a bug-ridden effort on a Fish disk) "This is my very first effort at programming and it's shareware. Please send $10 and bug reports"! An extreme case, of course, but the system is abused by any shareware offering that hasn't been developed to a reasonably commercial standard. So much for all that. Please keep up the good work. Sincerely,  Alan Jones Western Australia  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  BETTER THAN POWERPACKER Dear Ed: So Megadisc now uses PowerPacker! Although a great improvement over MOST's compression, PowerPacker is still, by LZH standards, inefficient, I was also interested in seeing the slowness of the version you (or Jonathan Potter) are using and did a comparison by decompressing a couple of files and recompressing with P-Compress: Decompress & display UranianLandscape Readers-Letters FullView/PowerPacker 8secs 8secs P-Reader/Compress 3secs 3secs Compressed size PowerPacker 49680 25324 P-Compress 47382 22700 FullView is an excellent reader, although for uncompressed text MuchMore is preferable. Try to persuade Jonathan to allow it to conform to a user's Laced screen (like MuchMore or P-reader) in his next revision. The automatic cancellation of escape codes at the end of each line allows the writer to omit terminations BUT in this form a text saved from Megadisc cannot be read satisfactorily on any other reader. This is not really acceptabble - such texts as program instructions must be capable of being read by anything, including the cli command'type'. Chas Wyndham Roleystone WA 6111 Ed: Chas is the author of P-Suite, a suite of programs designed to be a whole environment for a disk-publication, with text reading, graphics showing, animation playing, compression, etc.  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  ACCOLADES FROM NZ Dear Ed: Hi there, my name is Austin and this is the first time that I have written to MegaDisc. I've some limitations in my life with reading and writing, but as you can see this is slowly disappearing with the help of the Amiga. I'm a member of Amiga Christchurch, the bigest South Island user group in New Zealand. Our total records show 422 members but we've lost some recently due to the state of the present ecomomic unrest and unemployment. I've been a member of this club for over two years now and have learned a lot about the Amiga within this time. Up to the time of joining the club I never knew much about what existed in the Public Domain, Fish Disks etc. I have all the MegaDiscs back to number seven. Even though getting MegaDisc, I still did not get any PD until I joined the club. What I am getting to is that if there is anyone out there that is reading this and has never had any PD disks, you're missing out on a great amount of knowledge and helpful information. The cost is not great and if you're in a club you nay get copies for free. I usually take my computer along on our once a month club nights and perform some program to help others. I have been doing this now since the second club night that I went to, and writing articles for our newsletter. The way that it seems to work is,  the more you help others the more you learn yourself. I have thought in the past, what will I do next club night but someone always comes up with a question on the never ending subject of the Amiga. I would just like to say MegaDisc is the most helpful Disk Magazine I have ever seen and never fails to whet the appetite for more. Any time I require info on any subject Amiga-related, I usually just grab for MegaDisc and am sure to find an answer.  Austin Garnett New Zealand  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  DEATH STAR Dear Ed: On the 23rd of July this year I bought my Star LC24-200 colour printer for which I was informed by my dealer that a dedicated printer driver would soon be available. At the same time I ordered a RAM cartridge, a paper roll holder and an automatic sheet feeder. On the 9th of Aug I picked up the RAM cartridge and you guessed, it, nothing else. After about a month of waiting I wrote a letter to Star Micronics in Japan and after two weeks in which I received no reply I decided to give Star in Sydney a ring - you amy well ask why I didn't do this in the first place, the answer as I suspected at the time is what occurred next. On ringing Star in Sydney I was put through to a guy in sales who must have been either very overweight or was suffering from a breathing disorder judging by the strange grunting, whistling and heavy breathing noises coming down the line whilst he handles a console with less dexterity than my nine year old daughter in order to answer my query. He eventually told me that the parts I was after could arrive in about six weeks and that the reason they were not available was because the American market was so much bigger than here. With this sort of thinking is it any wonder we are in a recession? I feel a bit of exercise and the will to succeed may increase our market share. He also told me that Star Australia had no influence with Star Japan because they, Star Australia, was sort of a franchise and that my writing to Japan was pretty useless as they probably couldn't read English - he had no answer when I asked him in what language they sent their faxes. Do us all a favour, Star, track this guy down and sack him, there are plenty of people out there to choose from, including me. A couple of days later I rang Star again trying to find out this guy's name which I should have done in the first place - my excuse is anger frustration and disappointment and I spoke to a guy called Mark Churchill who although he couldn't help me was at least sympathetic. So here I sit more than three months later still waiting and waiting and waiting with no parts and no printer driver although there is one for the IBM, my dealer was told there would be one for the Amiga but that Star has welshed. I would not have bought the machine if I had known what I do now. I wonder what Consumer Affairs would think of this. Ray Bell Coopernock NSW 2426  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  AMIGA HELP OFFERED Dear Ed: For some time now I've been providing a help service for entry level Amiga users on a hobby basis. What started as helping a few friends has expanded by word of mouth adn I find that the rate of enquiries is increasing. I now charge a minimal fee for my time and I visit people mainly in the North and West of Sydney. Should any of your subscribers require any assistance or training on the Amiga or are just plain stuck on something, I would be happy to provide help. I find that I can learn more by assisting others and while it is time consuming, helping beginners really discover the worth of their machines is a really good pastime. My address for enquiries is: P O Box 92 Telopea, NSW 2117. Regards Mark Schroeder  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  PROGRAMMING FOR WORKBENCH 2 Dear Ed: I am just starting to work my way around WB2 - many people have asked that VC (Virus-Checker, John's virus-killer program to be found in the VIRUS directory) run as a commodity under 2.0 and use the asl.library to get the filenames (Ed: John has put this in in this version). I would love to see articles on how to program WB2 and as I learn I may write a few myself, written as I go along. Regards John Veldthuis Taranaki New Zealand ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  NTSC V. PAL About programs at $89.95 each still being programmed in NTSC - I would like to quote an extract from Amiga Format (23) on page 34 re an interview with one of MicorProse UK game-design team Martin Moth. "MicroProse UK do all of the programming work on Amiga versions of sims like F-19 and the new F-15 Strike Eagle, as well as producing original games like the forthcoming Air Duel...." If this is so then I contend that as there are probably more PAL Amigas in existence worldwide than NTSC then the PAL market should be catered for especially when the programming is done in a PAL country (UK). Another gripe is that no mention is made in Amiga magazines in their previews of programs these days as to whether they run in NTSC or PAL - just too bad if you don't get what you expect. There are patches available such as "Hacktrick 60HZ" on one of the cover disks of the same AF 23 magazine mentioned above but it requires the latest chip set which most of us don't have so I don't know if it really works or not. R.P Mills Rosslyn Park SA 5072  Ed: Does anyone know if HatTrick does work?  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  BASIC AUTHOR'S DATABASE Dear Ed; Please find enclosed "BasicTutorial6". As promised this is a full fledged DataBase which is an integral part of the Tutorial. The object of this Tutorial is to show how MENUS are constructed, how to construct and use Mouse operated buttons on the screen. How to construct a Number of RANDOM files of different sizes and number of fields and access them from a DataBase. This Tutorial should prove to be not only a teaching aid but an extremely useful Tool. The DataBase is the basis of many of the Commercial programs I supply to Small companies. It is constructed in such a way that it can be adapted to suit any purpose required. Many Small Companies cannot afford the huge commercial programs which are available and just require a straight forward program which will keep a list of Debtor, Creditors. Products, Names and addresses, Daily and Monthly figures. Most of all they need to do this as they write up the Invoice. I have a Demo Version of this program available which allows you to have just 10 records in each category. Apart from that it is fully operational. If you think it is worth while I could send you a copy for the PD department. Frank Wilkinson. Alberton SA 5014  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  PLEA FOR WORKING PROGRAM DEMOS Dear Ed: I read of Megadisc in ACAR, and also the ads placed there. I prefer utilities, programmes, tutorials and reviews rather than games and pictures. Full working demos with just the "save" deleted of expensive commercial software are also very useful as living in the country doesn't allow easy access to computer stores for trials and demonstrations. Most software must be bought mail-order, and mistakes can be expensive (and tend to alienate the wife even further!) Dr. Stephen Eckersley Cooroy QLD 4563  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  LOCAL PROGRAMMER Dear Ed: Many thanks for the discs, your note asked about my programming. Thanks for the interest. My theme is educational programs for putting on video tape, for the Auto Repair Industry, they show interest but that's all. I have made about six, some being the first of a seties, some in AmigaBasic others in Director and now I'm learning Amos. The largest being about 180K 16 IFF pictures and most having some movement, with very little user input, and lasts for about half an hour. This is in AmigaBasic, and in Director. The object of this program, is to show the status of the refrigerant in a motor vehicle airconditoner flow cycle. The user moves the cursor on the blue and red areas to obtain the information, the left moust is not pressed. There is no limit to the number of locations or sequence of choices. I have almost finished an Amos program, on a similar subject - if you are interested I'll send you a copy. Regards A.J. Layland Wellington NSW 2820  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  FULLVIEW PROBLEM Dear Ed; I daresay I'm not the first to mention that FullView wouldn't display either text or pix on MD24A or B in WorkBench (perhaps it works for WB2.0 users?) In shell it will do text but not graphics. Anyway, to save trouble I'm using PPShow for the pix and PPMore for text (or most of it; some files give the old "not an ASCII file" message, and for these I fall back on MuchMorePoPa, although it doesn't like some of the fancy coloured stuff). In my haste to read MD24 I replaced FullView with PPMore on both disks, neglecting to copy FV elsewhere so I could further experiment with it later in case there's something about my setup that it doesn't care for. I have tried the earlier version from MD20 but of course it doesn't suit MD24 well. Actually, my favourite text reader is MuchMorePoPa, for its beautifully-smooth scroll (just the thing for tired old eyes) and flexible print function. I realise, though, that it lacks the search function you need. You asked about my system. Overleaf is a Sysinfo print. Apart from that, if the fault (with FV3.02) had to do with my setup, I can only suppose that it might be due to something in the SUS I usually use, which includes NoClick3.6, FSDirs, AutoCLI 1.991. and GoWB. The last-named (from FF346) replaces EndCLI and LoadWB at the end of the SUS, to save a bbit of space and time; conceivably it could bbe the culprit, but I can't try FV 3.02 now with a different WB, because I discarded it when it wouldn't work. In any case, GoWB has never given me trouble with anything else, including several text-readers. Good luck this time around! L.A. Jones City Beach, WA 6015 Ed: See this issue's Editorial for more on the problem FullView had with a couple of systems.  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##  PROGRAM SENT IN Dear Ed; I am writing to you as I would like you to consider to include a program I have written in your library. There is only one program on the disk I have given you, but in the future I hope to write more like it. I am 18 years of age and like programming very much. I'd like to have penpals all over the world who are all C programmers. As you can see with the documentation and information with the program that I want my name and address to be spread around. By doing this I hope to make myself known and hear from C programmers all over the globe. I have just recently wrote to Anders Bjerin and joined his club. I know you must be a very busy and gets lots of mail like this everyday. But I was wondering if you could write back to me and tell me what you think of this and whether or not you decided to put it in your libbrary. Anyway I hope to hear from you soon. Jason Lowe Chittaway Bay NSW 2255 Ed: See a program by Jason on the next issue.  ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ## 25 ##