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LURK: The Invisible Amigaware Investigator
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     The rumors about me aren't true. I don't get all my
information by kibitzing in stores and never buying
anything. And another thing: I haven't seen all there is to
see in the way of Amiga wares. Send me stuff!
     Would you believe my uncle is night watchman at the
Antarctic Worldwide Amigawares Warehouse and he lets me come
in every night? Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to
it.

     The first wearable Amiga product? It may be T-shirts
and sweatshirts from T's Me, of PO Box 11746, Santa Ana CA.
Small, medium, large and extra large. The garments feature
the Amiga logo. Prices: $7.50 for a black T-shirt, $9.50 for
a multicolored one, $13 and $15 for sweatshirts in the
same categories.

     Precision Software's SUPERBASE AMIGA is being marketed
by Progressive Peripherals and Software, 464 Kalamath St.,
Denver, CO 80204 (303/825-4144).
     Great Galloping Dollar signs! I couldn't find a price
on the flyer I received.

     I've had my problems with TextCraft. This is being
written with Scribble, a $100 text processor from Micro
Systems Software Inc., 4301-18 Oak Circle, Boca Raton, FL
33431. Ask your dealer to let you test-drive it.

     PAR Software out of PO Box 1089, Vancouver WA 98666
(206/695-1368) offers two software packages.
     In the PAR Home 1 package are Checkbook Accounting,
Budget Management, Financial Evaluations, Lease vs. Buy,
Personal Financial Statements, Spendaholics Exam, and
Investment Analysis
     The PAR Real 1 package has Property Investment
Analysis, Financial Statements, Key Business Ratios, Loan
Evaluations, Property Lease vs Buy, Form Generator, and
Multi-Reporting and Graphics.
     PAR, standing for Professional Automation resources,
publishes a periodic flyer describing its products.

     Dare I admit I've grown tired of Marble Madness? It's
still the most engaging arcade program I know of.

     OK: DeluxePaint and Aegis Images are tied in my book,
"Famous Art Programs."
     GraphiCraft has a lower price going for it and,
unfortunately, my early version of that program won't
produce screens useable by DPSLIDE. I got DeluxePaint first
and was enthralled. Images obtained later, has some
features DP doesn't.

     I like Compute!'s AmigaDOS Reference Guide. You got to
admire anyone with enough chutzpah to put an exclamation
point in their name. Still, as a beginner, I found many
things not well enough explained. I'm still getting new
AmigaDos commands from friends, people who write and call.

     Haven't tried FutureSound, but someone sent a disk
with a few words on it. It costs $175 from Applied Arts, 15
Oak Ridge Road, Medford, MA 01255. Before you make up your
mind you can't live without it, find out how many seconds of
digital sound (any sound you can make) can be stored on a
disk before it fills. Then decide. And check with your
dealer.

     Write Hand from Byte by Byte, 3736 Bee Cave Rd., Suite
3., Austin, TX 78746, is a word processor that's not
difficult to use. Price is $50.

     $50. I like it when people put nice round prices on
things. You can't fool me with a $49.99 price tag.

     "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," interactive fiction
from Infocom, retains the beautiful wackiness of the
original book. I'll probably never make it to the end, since
I forget what I'm doing every time I go to the refrigerator.
But this work gives me a sense of wandering that I enjoy.
     Don't bother with it if you've tried "adventures" and
weren't impressed. You either are or you aren't the type.

     Parting words are an old joke as a new limerick.

Behold the software creatures:
Painful but excellent teachers.
These lugubrious lugs
Vends wares that have bugs
Which they simply pass off as features.

     No, I haven't found any bugs in anything mentioned in
this column. I did send off for some inexpensive software
that turned out to be so mundane, so unworthy, so primitive,
so lacking in graphics and sound, that I demanded and got
my money back. There was nothing wrong with it. It was just
dumb dumb dumb -- the kind of stuff computer magazines
published in 1978, when people were impressed by anything
that printed anything on a computer screen.
     Do the same thing if need be. The Amiga is the best
computer around. You shouldn't settle for less than exactly
what a product's makers claim it will do.

     Until then,
     LURK

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