01 For Amiga No.1

In This Issue Editors Doormat Optical Storage Opening the Box Buying an Amiga Crossword Monitor or Modulator Port & Preferences Review -- British Electronics Week Which Harddisk?

Review -- The Contractors Show Review - PC User Show What is the Amiga?

Boffins Backroom Motorola 68000 Assembly Language. Part 1 The Joy of C -- Part 1 The Amiga and the Small Business Man Sales & Wants Read & Write ChipChat

EDITORS' DOORMAT

WELCOME, that is what doormats have written on them, and they are found on the threshold. This page is the doormat to our magazine, as you will have to pass over it to enter.

We hope that you will find us better value for money than some of the Amiga glossies on sale in the newsagents, this is because all our contributors, except the guest contributor, are Amiga owners who want to share their knowledge with you. Glossies have to make a profit, where we are quite happy to break even.

As this is our first issue we will begin by telling you a little about ourselves.

Tony Miller, more of him later, is an Amiga enthusiast, ever since he bought one of the first MOOs released in this country. It was a case of good - bye to the old Commodore 128, hello new friend.

A little later he bought a Modem, and by using the terminal emulator he found on the Extras disk, he started to explore the world of communications.

Unfortunately, or rather fortunately for all current 01- 4 - Amiga BBs users, he found that services such as Microlink and TelecomGold all wanted cash for their use. Tony decided to start his own board for people who were obviously in the same boat, i.e. had just spent their last penny on their computer and had no more for anything fancy.

Thus 01 for Amiga was born.

It soon became one of the most popular boards for Amiga comms users

in this country, and some from abroad.

01 and Tony became synonymous and much sought after. Like all good things, the board grew and became too large to handle alone. It was decided that the small group of people involved in its running would form their own User Group to pool knowledge and skills, the Amiga Meditators were then formed.

We then decided we wanted to make all our information available to non-modem Amiga owners. How? A magazine was going to be the only way we could convey the amount of information that we had, a small newsletter was just not going to be big enough. The success of our magazine depends on you. The more subscribers we have, the more we can offer. Have a look through this inaugural edition and if you like what you see then please don't hesitate to Jam the Amiga Meditators. Don't worry because we are London based, we have already got many members who live all over the country.

And now a short bit on each of this edition's contributors.

Bill Moore: Born and educated m New Zealand, Bill has worked for a number of companies in the electronics and allied industries. He has programmed the 6800, 6809 and 8501 series of chips in both high level and assembler languages, as well as mainframes and microprocessors. When not in front of his Amiga, Bill is keen amateur Astronomer. He is currently the Chief

Scientist company.

for

a

major

electronics

Richard Hartschorn: Born in Leicester, Richard attended Birmingham University, taking a course An active amateur in electronics. programmer, he specializes in Z80 and 68000 assembler. His other hobby is Guinness. Richard works for a small company in Essex that manufactures refrigerated equipment.

Ken Wallace: Belfast bred, Ken attended the North London Polytechnic where he gained an HNC in Advanced Electronics. Further studies at University College London with the Physics and Astronomy support group led to a career in industry. He ran his own consultancy in electronics for seven years, then joined a company with a household name in domestic electronic equipment as Chief Electrical Engineer.

David Ward: A true East Londoner, David was to have followed a career in Photographic Science, but the necessary grades eluded him. After working in the quality control department for an internationally renowned photographic company, he was invited to work for the Rank Organization. This is where he was first introduced to computers and production controlled by micro processors. He now works for an optical equipment company.

Tony Miller: Born in the South of England, he soon moved to Grimsby. Took Maths and Physics at A level with intention of taking a degree in Computer Science, but was lured into joining the Police. After many exciting adventures he started his own company in Desk Top Publishing, later becoming an Amiga consultant. The 01 for Amiga bulletin board soon followed and now he is one of the most sought after Amiga personalities in Great Britain.

Pete Symes: Born in London, Pete left school at the age of sixteen to start a 5 year apprenticeship with a world renowned gunmaking company. He has since ffMaster achieved the status of Gunmaker" and has now formed his own business. His hobbies include motor - racing, computers and becoming comatose at parties, but not necessarily in that order.

Optical storage Is this the end of the floppy disk?

by David Ward Reading through the pre - production version of 01 FOR AMIGA, I noticed that optical storage devices were getting a fair amount of coverage.

Consequently, this inaugural issue is now our first special, dedicated to optical storage.

There are several reports in circulation at the moment concerning the growth and marketing of optical storage. Each one comes to its own conclusions regarding market size by 1992/3.

A report by Frost & Sullivan of New York, only $990 if you want to order your own copy, predicts a market of $1 billion by 1992. This breaks down into $630 million for the drives and $330 million for disks.

A group nearer to home, BIS Mackintosh of Luton, have looked at the present size of the market for image/document systems, currently $680 million. They estimate this to rise to $3 billion by 1992. The US accounts for half the worldwide sales of these systems at the moment, but Europe is expected to exceed this by 1992.

At the moment there is no set standard for an optical memory system, they are magneto - optical, phase change, and bump - forming media.

A magneto - optical disk uses spots whose direction of magnetization changes when heated by a laser. This magnetic alignment can then be read in the usual way with a magnetic reading head.

Phase - change disks use a medium that crystallizes or decrystallizes at a

particular temperature. A laser is used to write or erase, the heat of the beam altering the state of the medium at a spot. An optical reading head is used. It will only detect light reflected from a crystallized spot.

In the bump - forming system there are two lasers, each set at a different wavelength. The disk is made up of two materials dyed to absorb the different coloured light emitted by the lasers. To write the lower layer of the disk is heated, and, as it expands, it forms a bump. To erase, the top layer is heated and softened, the lower layer then pulls on it and so the bump disappears. Light is only reflected from flat surfaces by an optical reading head. are currently Optical disks nowhere near the versatility of existing magnetic media. They have to be erased before overwriting can take place, this is a very slow process.

They are also slow at retrieving data, and the mechanisms they use are costly to manufacture. The disks themselves are cheaper, in terms of ÂŁ per Mb, than equivalent numbers of magnetic disks.

Research into overcoming these problems is now underway, and in the next four years we can expect to see some of them solved.

Workstations and PCs used for graphic applications will be the first to utilise the optical recording systems, due to plug compatibility and easy acceptance. They will replace the large memories required for CAD/CAM

and DTP. Only later will their storage capability be used, when an accepted standard format has been set. Their low cost, high capacity, and size make them ideal replacements for tape and the larger hard disks used by main frames.

The Sony corporation have already produced a disk auto changer, with a capacity of 50 disks, giving a total storage of 164 Gb.

This is equivalent to more than 1000 magnetic tapes. The autochanger takes up eight square feet of floor space, I think 1000 tapes would take considerably more. Five of these devices can be connected to one SCSI interface.

Comparisons between 5 1/4 inch systems: Av. access time.

Floppy disk: Hard disk: Optical Disk:

lOOms

25ms.

195ms.

Data transfer rate.

Capacity.

250 Kb/s

1.5 Mb

1500 Kb/s

200 Mb

250 Kb/s

Magstore's optical disk and DAT tape systems. (see British Electronics week review)

650 Mb

NOW DELUXEPAINT.

HAS ANIMATION

Presenting AnimPaint"·

DeluxePoint III makes animation easy. With the AnimPaint feature you con create animation just by pressing one key to record your point strokes, and another key to ploy them bock. You con also use any multicel animation as a brush and point with it, even in full 3-0. l

8 New Paint Features

DeluxePaintl" also odds sophisticated features tothe number one Amigo point software: Extro-halfbrite support for 64 colours; direct overscan pointing for desktop video; wrap and tint brush modes for special effe<ls; better font support; improved compression; and many performance enhancements, including foster perspective. Product requires 1MB of RAM.

SPECIAL UPGRADE OFFER: Upgrade now and save £50. (Recommended Retail Price £79.99 inc. VAT] Send DeluxePaint II manual cover and £35 (£30 upgrade + £5 ((Jrriage) to Electronic Arts LId., 11/49 Station Rood, Langley SL3 8YN, England.

Allow 2-4 weeks delivery. DPaint I owners can upgrade for £55.

ELECTRONIC ARTS'

OPENING THE BOX by

John King

Right, you've just got home from the Commodore Show with your new Amiga.

You can breathe a sigh of relief now because you weren't mugged on the tube, but wait, did you get a box of blank discs. Tut, tut.

Here are a few tips for those of you who haven't bought the beast just yet.

Firstly buy some good quality, branded, discs, at least 20 to start with, and a box to store them in. I know this is going to be expensive but you take my advice, it's worth it. You have got the machine all set up and the manual instructs you to make copies of the discs you were supplied with, you didn't buy any and its Sunday afternoon. Buying discs that have no names on, and are only 75p each, is not a good idea. You don't want to lose a program that's taken two hours to type in just because the disc will not validate.

Make two copIes of everything, the original is best put somewhere dry, and safe from magnetic fields. The two copies become a 1st copy, which will not be touched, just available in case, and a working copy for mucking about with. That way if you need to make another copy you don't have to use the original.

Read the manual at least twice before you start anything, it will save a lot of problems and soul searching later on.

Unfortunately the manual was written in American, so some of the names they give things may be unfamiliar.

However, its not too bad as manuals go, except that if you are an advanced user they keep referring you to the ROM Kernal Manual, one of a set of three costing ÂŁ20 or more each. Don't buy them if you are a novice, some of the computing experts I know cannot understand some of the ideas that are pu t forward in them. The Amiga is a complex machine and it may take some time before you get used to it.

Let me tell you a story......the company I worked for was a bit strapped for cash, but my boss was desperate for a new, faster, and colour computer. We eventually went for the Amiga. Our old machine could do less than a Commodore 64, and originally cost close on ÂŁ5000. After the initial playing with the new machine came the serious business of programming.

Have you ever tried to program when it seems that every five minutes someone wants a demonstration of the graphics capabilities. Anyway, I think I must have popped out to the 100 when one of these persons arrived, my boss immediately set about demonstrating the clock, his favourite toy. When I came back....where was the program that I had just spent the whole morning working on...come to think of it where was half the contents of the disc. In his enthusiasm my boss had crashed the machine, thus losing the program which I had neglected to save, and, had dragged a lot of the icons over the trashcan, luckily he didn't know how to empty

the trash. Therefore, always regularly save the project you are working on and don't let other people near YOUR computer.

Try to remember to cover up your machine when you have finished using it, they attract dust like anything.

Never ever remove a disc, or reset/switch off, while the drive light is on, this is an easy way to corrupt a disc accidentally.

Use the working copies of the discs you have made for exploration, see how the directories work, and what's in them with the CLI.

A real boon for the CLI enthusiast is a public domain (PD) program called PopCLI, this allows you to call up a CLI window by just pressing the Left - Amiga and Esc keys, no clicking involved. Available on Amiga Meditation PD disc # 1. PopCLI also has a screen blanking capability, this stops burning in on your monitor or TV, a problem that affected early TV games and still dogs some modern computers.

On the hardware front an extra 512k of memory is of more use than a second drive, especially now that Workbench 1.3 has a recoverable ramdisk, but a second drive is still an i tern to get at a later date, followed by more memory, a hard disk, etc. etc.

Good luck!

BUYING AN AMIGA

HOW TO CONVINCE THE WIFE, A TRUE STORY!

by Ken Wallace There I was quite happy with my Apple lIe, built (quite literally) up lovingly over a four year period, equipped with colour card, Z80 card, Language card and two (130k) disk drives. Then it happened, Bill Moore demonstrated his newly acquired Amiga ASOO to me, and the beginning of the end set in ....

"It's got much better colour resolution Dear", I said, putting on the washing - up apron. I always wash and dry when I'm considering unplanned expenditure.

"How much?", came the terse reply, as accurately as Eric Bristow on a good night.

"Financially Dear, it represents good value for money. The memory size, for example, is 512K bytes as standard, and included in the price is a four channel sound chip of eight bit resolution, also the three and a quarter inch disk drive is built in..... " "Look!, cost?",

how

much

is

this going

to

It was no good, my cover was blown, I almost gave in under her intense 'hand on hip' pose, and the implied threat of the non - stick frying pan in the other, and mentioned money. However, as always happens in

the movies, the cavalry came over the hill in the nick of time and said .... lfDad ....... If we get a new computer. .... can I do my school computer work on it? Your Apples no good, my teacher says....not combustible or something with our BBe machines."

I resisted the compelling temptation to run over and kiss the boy firmly, but, sensing victory had been snatched from the proverbial fangs of defeat I decided to act casual, lean nonchalantly back on the breakfast bar, and say...

"Yes ....... most certainly an important

consideration to be borne III mind here .... *!?!**!"

The breakfast bar was three feet further behind me than I realised, and I ended up in a heap on the kitchen floor, festooned with Marks & Sparks, bargain Sheffield steel cutlery.

Removing a fork from between my shirt collar and nack I realised a great feat of geographical engineering had taken place, namely that Sheffield had been relocated in Taiwan.

"Well if you're going to perform death defying acrobatics in the kitchen, just to get your own way over this I suppose you'd better go ahead. Its probably going to be cheaper than a new, all black, rig out I'd need for your funeral!", s aid She - who - must - be - obeyed.

And so my life began anew with the AMIGA.

Editor's note: The Amiga is, we believe the only computer that can behave as a pc, a BBC, and now an Apple Mac. PC emulation can be achieved usmg the "Transformer" software that was

once available, this converts the Amiga into a very slow PC with no graphics capabilities. We have heard rumours of a new software emulator in the States which is supposedly better and does support some graphics. We await it with bated breath. The only other way to successfully run any IBM software is to use a bridgeboard. This piece of hardware is really a PC clone on a card. The Amiga 1000 had an add - on known as Sidecar which gave it the ability to run PC software in a window. The Amiga 2000 has a slot internally for either an XT or AT bridgeboard. The AT card runs faster than the XT card. Both these solutions are relatively expensive, a bottom of the range PC clone with monitor etc. could be had for the same price as Sidecar or the XT card. Manufacturers are now producing expansion boxes which allow your to fit a bridgeboard, and other cards, to your A500.

The BBC emulator is software, but fast, in some cases the emulator will run some BBC programs faster than a BBC computer can. This is because the Amiga was provided with its own version of BBC basic, especially written for operation by a 68000 chip.

Now we have a Mac emulator.

This consists of both hardware and software. You also need a Mac ROM chip, not supplied, and an Apple disk drive.

With all of these systems, reading disks is a major problem. PC software can be supplied on both 3 1/2 and 5 1/4 inch disks, or you can get them converted from one to the other. The BBC only uses 5 1/4 and the Mac, a special 3 1/2 which alters its rotational speed depending where the readjwrite head lS. Luckily Miles

Gordon Technology are about to launch a range of 3 1/2 and 5 1/4 inch disk drives which can be connected to different computers by just using the correct lead and altering a set of dip switches on the back of the unit. This is going to be a really useful piece of equipment for those of you with more than one computer.

If you cannot afford another disk drive then porting over files may be the answer. You need a suitable cable to connect the Amiga with the other computer, some comms software, or if you are good at programming then you can write you own, and off you go.

Simple as that, well nearly.

Computer Croosword

Across

1.

4.

5.

7.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

15.

17.

18.

21.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

I remember (6) and 23. Maths assistant (2,9) Phone library routinely (4) Location found in 1 across (7) 29, and 7 down. The Best!, we bad to get this one in somewhere (2,3,5) and 26. Big American show (3,4) Short for what the Japanese want in their next generation of computers (2) One eigth of a mouthful (3) See 14 down Friendly TV system (3) IBM PC screen format (3) Strike with the start of a note (6) Beginners language (5) Moon of Jupiter found in communications (2) See 10 across and 2 down. Unwanted number appears with yoga lesson (4,10) Funny parity (3) See 9 across

Number

1

Down 2.

3.

4.

6.

7.

8.

10.

14.

16.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

See 27 across A versatile interface (4) Old form of shell (3) Repeats instruction (4) See 9 across Commands speech (3) Operating the Amiga 1S as easy as.... (3) and 13 across. What every prisoner would like (3,3) A Ski instructors code number (5) and 21. Flashes for your attention (5,3) Compresses Star Trek faster than light (4) See 19 down Another name for a programmer (5) Found at the end of a lead (4) Transmit (4)

by Ward really is no contest between the two, a monitor will provide a better quality picture a domestic set, there are no when IS on. cost of ÂŁ200 whereas a modulator will set you back about modulator is a box about the of hvo to It holds a simple circuit the output which the monitor and stereo sockets on back your Arrliga, combines converts them a radio frequency (RF) signal that is similar to that which your television set receives from, say, The modulator three sockets, they are: an aerial output, a composite video phono output, and an audio output, also of the phono type. aerial socket IS for connection directly to a set, while the other two can used for connection to a video or even a monitor!

The monitor port, standing for three Blue has of output. most commonly analogue which will the colours available while the other is digital Digital monitors, such as those on some of their PCs, can only display colours.

No good us budding artists.

The Commodore monitors are, in fact, made Philips, so is the monitor the Archimedes. pays your money and you choice.

Do shop around, and also an Some idea of what you may monitors allow you to switch between computer and video, enabling you to watch on same set, not simultaneously, that you a Genlock below), have no built - in sound, mono when stereo would be One thing to specifications is dot this your an how sharp an you might get, for instance, a .31 dot pitch wiII give better clarity than a monitor with .41, try to compare in the but remember, the smaller the pitch, the higher the price.

Next to the RGB port is a phono socket marked this is for, surprIse surprise, a monochrome monitor. are ideal Vlewmg text and any application where a high quality black and white image is computer required, for reason why a mono (CAD). monitor has a higher resolution is due three to the fact that it set to give in a phosphor of single the whereas colour, such as gives mono, one dot is and dearer image. a much of an on a

The by the quality of that

IS smaller the set the more any text will become. recommend setting the to 60 characters per line if you are using a TV, this is done on first page Preferences.

Unfortunately some programs which use requesters are

programs which use requesters are unable to fit the text into an alert box while in 60 column mode, this can be a definite problem when the program is asking you to enter a word from the manual on Page 3, Paragraph 4, Li..... ??? The bigger the screen size the more chance of reading the output in 80 column mode.

Cheap genlocks are now available, they start at ÂŁ100. This gives you the ability to display the Amiga's output only, or that from a video recorder, or both on a monitor or via another video recorder onto a set.

There is one drawback no sound, a separate amplifier is necessary for any speech or music from either source. The Amiga's output is superimposed onto that of video, so you can still wordprocess while watching the News. Subtitles and credits can be overlaid onto a picture providing you have two video machines, one for playback and one for record. Another use is when you have connected a different computer to the Amiga so that you can port over text files, both screen displays can be seen at once, avoiding the need to swap cables or use two monitors.§

by John King Firstly I should point out that there are 1',\10 versions of Preferences in circulation.

Version 1.2 has an icon which looks equipment with a like a piece of question mark super - imposed on it, this is, in fact, a representation of the original Amiga 1000, which consisted of separate keyboard and processor.

With the release of \Vorkbench 1.3 we now have a Prefs drawer which contains the original Preferences icon and several others.

Preferences is really a machine/user interface. It allows you to alter the system. configuration file easily by means of buttons and sliders, rather than by typing in Y/N answers to a lengthy list of questions or fiddling with dip switches deep in the guts of the computer.

What is the system.configuration?

This a file which is examined just before the startup sequence, it enables your Amiga to select the screen colours and mouse speed settings previously saved, as well as informing it to look for the correct printer driver when you are about to print. big advantage that the Amiga gives you over other non multi - tasking computers is the ability to alter a Preference setting while you are running an applications program.

Previously you had to quit what you were doing, run another program to change, say, the Serial protocol, then rerun your original program from scratch.

The icons in the new Prefs drawer enable you to go directly to the particular page of Preferences that you want, rather than having to go

all the screens. In addition are two new features in are an extra screen for control and an icon for of your system.configuration to in dfO:.

1\'10 ports on the rear aren't just for they are much more that. Each is a 25

although none of the

can connected to either

use these pins.

definition of the dictionary is a issued In parts periodically, IS exactly how the Serial pIece of In the computer is stored as byte is made up of eight a bit is either a nought or a one. byte is therefore a set of O's 1's which describe a number even text is stored in this fashion.

Let's look at Serial" page In Preferences, double click on the icon, then click on the gadget. If you have 1.3, drawer and double click on for a telephone, port's often use Modem. transmitted is sent through one after peripheral receives this stores it in an area of memory known as a buffer.

Here the are regrouped back as bytes peripheral processes them. at which computer and peripheral and receive data is called the rate, it 'is measured in and can range from you are looking at the of Preferences you "Change that III addition to the

for Baud rate and are also ones for bits, Stop bits, Parity, Handshaking. can Read and Vlrite set to either 7 or 8, the latter the most common. Stop when it a correct number byte, and Parity IS to what is in the buffer what has been sent.

Handshaking is the tvJO connected start the flow usually when the to stop full it will signal finished transmitting until it processing the sent accomplished are using, through packages for such as Moderns (Comms), or electrically over addition to the a paIr transmit wires data lines. of indicate connected

Amiga lists

to the pim used

In

ParaUel port is associated with one there are a number of manufacturers whose products orJy have a immeadiately come to others do fit industrial process are fitted with an units to allow a host them remotely or and leave them to with the job, interrogating occasionally to see how

on are

doing. We are even this in the home with security systems controlled by a Sinclair Spectrum.

The Parallel port is a much simpler affair, there are no complex settings to be made, it is just a case of plugging in the two ends of a cable and away you go. it's name suggests data is sent in parallel, that is all together.

Remember how a single byte has to be broken dovm into 8 bits which are transmitted sequentially, with an extra stop bit sent as well, when transmitting serially. You can see that this will be slower than if each byte was sent in one go, that's why the Parallel port is the preferred one for a printer, it's quicker.

This ability to receive all eight bits in one go allows the Parallel port to be used for sampling. The intensity of an electrical signal measured over a period of time can divided up and each part allotted a value. This process is known as analogue to digital conversion, and the value can be stored in the computer's memory, and eventually on disc. There are many samplers available for the Amiga. Some digitize sound to near compact disc quality, allowing you to record speech or music. Vvith good software these samples can be

Don't despair there are cheaper ones now, they are usually slower and may require three scans of a still picture in order to obtain a colour image.

I have seen software advertised which allows you to turn your Amiga into a sophisticated oscilloscope, I presume that this also uses an attachment connected to the parallel port to digitize the measured signals. This is a useful tool for the electronics hobbyist who needs some of measuring and but cannot displaying waveforms, afford the real thing, the Arniga does have the advantage of being able to store the results on disc though.

Either port can be selected for output from the printer selection screen of Preferences by clicking on the appropriate gadget.

Finally a word about MIDI, it appears that both ports can be used for one of these devices, but make sure your software is compatible. Also if your are considering some sort of digitizer, I would suggest that you use your printer with the Serial port as this leaves the Parallel port free and saves a lot of swapping plugs at the back.ยง

manipulated in ways that were only rm~~~~==~~~~~~==~~~~~1 possible by cutting and splicing tape on expensive reel- to - reel tape recorders. v,ey Repeat Speed SIDI'! I (iJ Ifast Video digitizers are considerably more expensive than their audio cousins, and a lot slower too. A sound sampler works in real time, that is, as you hear I the sound, the hardware is digitizing it.

Real time video digitizers cost many Reset Coiol's hundreds of pounds, some are several thousand, this is due to the considerable amount of processing that L~===""""",=======~!-'===!..l::= has to be done before the image is in a suitable form for storage.

REVIEW

BRmSH ELECfRONICS WEEK

OLYMPIA by CLlspy.

I know, some of you are asking what this has to do with the Amiga, the answer at the moment is nothing, but you will be surprised at what work is being done, work which will affect all Amiga users.

Olympia is big, and when I say big, I mean it. By the end of the day I could have used a couple of stretcher bearers to carry me home. I feel sorry for those people who visit the NEC in Birmingham.

There were 800 + stands at this show and I think I visited most of them. The stands were divided into 12 groups, rather like small shows on their own.

The groups displaying everything necessary from design and fabrication of chips through to complete electronic systems.

Entry to this gargantuan event is by free ticket, sent to those people in the electronics and allied industries who subscribe to the vanous trade publications, and by invitation from exhibitors to their customers. Entry at the door is also possible, but costs ÂŁ5.

Only a fool would attempt this method, which is devised to keep out the riff - raff and under 16's, sorry kids this IS a show for business men, yes, another suit and tie show.

My ticket allowed me In vIa the Fibre Optics entrance, your correspondent was given a show guide and a BEW yearbook!catalogue. This hefty tome carried a cover price of

ÂŁ9.95. It reads like a directory with colour adverts.

telephone

First stop was the knobs, plugs and socket manufacturers, I only wanted to know if you could still get the old round three pin plugs. I end up with being sent free samples of their latest connector, plus a VlSIt from the salesman at a later date, so that I can order thousands of these things. I tried to argue that I only wanted one or two, but he wouldn't listen. I gave in eventually, just to get away.

I had a chat with the boss of a firm of cable and connector manufacturers, it emerged that we are being ripped off every time we buy a lead or plug, such as a 25 way D plug.

The costs of these components is really quite low, except when you buy them from a well known electronics store or even through your dealer.

A few freebies later I was passing a stand which did rather catch my attention. This was a firm of liquid crystal display manufacturers. What a colourful sight, the company is called Stanley, an unusual name for a Japanese firm. They produce many different types of LCDs, with various options of illuminating them. This can be the common torch bulb or LED, miniature cold cathode fluorescent tube, or electro luminescence (EL).

The last two methods generate very little heat. They also make touch sensitive displays and multicolour dot

matrix LCDs. If you want to build a lap - top then these are the people to see for a screen. On the same stand was a speaking Amstrad, no, not in the same sense that the Amiga can speak, this was an audio digitizer in action. A small plug - in card, a microphone, and loudspeaker, plus a wallet lightened by an amount not far short of £300, and away you go.

The software accompanying this package allows you to edit the recorded files and reuse them in your own programs, you can even control the hardware from your own software, as it supports BASIC, C, and PASCAL. I was definitely not impressed with this, the microphone and loudspeaker were worth about £10, so what do you get for the other £284. A good digitizer for the Amiga will set you back between £75 and £100, and they seem to do the same.

Wandering on past the seemingly endless cabinets of PC boards I suddenly spotted something odd. Here was a board which had most of it's chips perpendicular, like little black gravestones in a green field. Puzzled, I enquired of its purpose. In reasonably good English, the French salesman explained that here was their latest product, on show for the very first time, a 10Mb silicon hard disk, I presume he meant hard card. So what's new I thought, he then told me the price, that's different I thought £14,500 including VAT. Mind you there is more to this thing than meets the eye.

In a standard hard disk you have a lot of moving parts, several read/write heads, stepper motors, etc., thus the

drive is prone to damage from sudden shock, dirt and dust. The unit is also bulky and draws a lot of current, it therefore gets hot, some need cooling with a fan. This new concept avoids all these problems by being entirely solid state. On the board is a SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface) interface, an INMOS transputer for memory management and, in addition to the aforesaid 10Mb, two small batteries. One of these is for retaining the memory's contents when you switch the thing off, I was assured that data retention of up to ten years is guaranteed, do Duracells last that long? ( more on that point later). The other battery is the first one's back - up. The board is 120,000 times faster than the access time of any current hard disk, and can transfer data, along it's own SCSI bus, at up to 5 Mb per second. It also has 4 serial links, at up to 20Mb per sec., for interconnection with sister boards, or other computers. Not cheap but interesting. The company, DSID, were also showing plug in ram discs of 512k or 1Mb sizes, they were £1800 and 2,300 respectively makes the Commodore ASOl memory expansion look like the bargain of the century at £150 for 512k.

Every stand seemed to be kited out with an Amstrad, not a real IBM to be seen, I wonder why.

Suddenly here was a name I could relate to, Commodore. The company, Kerridge, were in the complete systems business.

The pleasant saleslady explained how they will equip a company from scratch with all that is necessary to conduct stock control, payroll, and accounts.

The demonstration machines were Commodore PC40s, instead of Amstrads, because they found them to be better machines for the pnce. All their software operates in a UNIX environment, see the article CLIspy comments.

Prize draws abounded, would I like a new car, a holiday in Scotland, or even Hawaii, how about a bottle of champagne. No I didn't win any of them in case you ask.

Another familiar name, Cherry, well known for their digitizing pad for the Amiga. Here they were showing their range of keyboards, micro - switches and LED displays, however at the back of the stand I did spot the famed graphics tablet. The salesman leapt at me, "Can I be of any assistance?", he asked. I told him of my quest for Amiga related items at the show, and wondered wether they were going to be bringing out any new products for our machine.

"Sir", he replied, "this is NEW, the mark 4 digitizer, we released it only two weeks ago.". Well, reading through the leaflet it does seem better than the Km.3, but I cannot comment on that as I have never used the Mk.3, the Editor is only person I now who has, maybe he will review the new one in another issue. What I can tell you is that the MkA is expected to retail at around ÂŁ450, and that it is a full size A3 drawing tablet with a cursor/mouse and a stylus. It has a high rate of data as well as improved transmission, shielding and resolution. There is a menu driven easy set up facility, plus the ability to configure the tablet from the computer via an RS232 connection.

Another Toshiba stand, the first was promoting uninterruptable power supplies. This one had their recently released 4 inch colour LCD pocket TV set on show, but what caught my eye was their latest 6.5 inch full colour active matrix LCD monitor. Imagine, a TV screen only half an inch thick, it won't be long before we are really going to see the fabled "hang it on the wall like a picture" TV set.

Downstairs in the mam halls were other big names in the electronics industry, like Philips, NEC, and SGS - Thomson, but where was Motorola, not at this show it seems.

Wandering about I came across Sony, here was the stand for the computer user. I know you probably think of them as only making discs and Walkmans, but Sony have new products which are set to make mass storage of data easier, quicker, cheaper, and more compact.

You have all heard of CD, the new medium which has now begun to outsell the LP as the most preferred method for replaying music. CD - ROM is another facet of this technology, it enables the computer user to read large amounts of data from a compact and robust source. Unfortunately it is not possible to write to these devices.

Sony produce several drives for CD ROM, 1 disc drive size and 4 full size with different options. These can include audio out, so that the unit can double as an ordinary CD player, SCSI controller, and Sony's own bus, through which, when used with the appropriate adaptor card, connection can be made to a Pc. One feature was a great that I thought

improvement on the CD system was Sony's CD - CADDY, this is a plastic case, similar in appearance to a 3 1/2 inch floppy disc, which holds the CD. It prevents damage being done to the disc during handling. No matter what the adverts claim, CDs are not indestructible.

WORMS is a new in - word in the computer industry. It stands for Write Once Read Many timeS. It is an optical system of mass data storage which, as its name implies, can only be written to once, and therefore provides a permanent uneraseable record. Each disc is 12 inches in diameter and can hold up to 3.2 Gb, a Gb or Gigabyte is equal to 1000Mb or 1000 unformatted Amiga discs. Sony claim the life expectancy of these discs to be at least 100 years.

Now the piece de - resistance, a rewriteable optical disc. Sony were promoting this new device for incorporation into new computer systems, rather than as an add - on.

Whereas all the Sony systems I have been talking of so far use a laser beam to read the data, in the case of the WORMS, that beam is also used to write by burning a pit in the disc, the new system uses a combination of laser and magnetic fields.

All magnetic recording systems require a magnetic field to read, write and erase, a stronger field is normally used for writing and erasing. The Sony system needs the extra power that a laser beam can provide to write and erase.

The disc is read by the laser only, this is because changes in the magnetized layer alter the polarization of the reflected laser beam. Again the system has a SCSI interface and each disc can store up to 650Mb of data. The drives are expected to cost around $5000, and

each disc may well set you back ÂŁ50, although this is quite cheap when you consider the cost of an equivalent number of floppies for the same amount of storage.

Next to the Sony stand were Citizen. They had a range of printers and disc drives on show. Their pride and joy is a one inch high 3 1/2 inch drive, ideal for portable computers.

Sony also had one of this size on display, but Citizen were claiming to have got there first. Apart from this new drive, the salesman would not let on about new products. They are on the way though.

Panasonic had a WORM system as well as many different monitors. The only problem was that all of their sales staff were indifferent, a similar fate was to happen at the British Aerospace stand later on, everyone else was only too pleased to talk.

Now you may have noticed that SCSI keeps cropping up when I talk of interfaces, this system is the preferred one for bus add ons for the Amiga.

The ST506 is a cheaper interface used by the PCs for connecting hard discs etc.. At a guess I would say that SCSI is more versatile and that is why a lot of manufacturers are now using it.

Scattered around the exhibition were several stands promoting development areas, like Wales, Wiltshire, and Cornwall. There was also a recruitment village, with numerous well known companies trying to attract staff.

Earlier I spoke about batteries.

There were quite a few companies

here, Ever Ready, Varta and Duracell, and many less well known manufacturers like SAFT and Epson, yes, Epson the printer company.

Everybody knows of Duracell's TV ads that claim their batteries last longer, well Kodak are confident that their Ultralife range will last twice as long as the best alkaline.

Another chip company, this time of more interest to Amiga owners, that I spotted, was Micron Technology, famous for their RAM upgrades. Here they were selling an extensive range of memory chips. Only one let down, the salesman was an ST owner, but I \vas in such a good mood that I forgave him for this.

These new cells are lithium based and have a shelf life of ten years, they are not cheap to buy, but are cheaper to run.

I must mention the automatic hard/floppy drive tester that I saw, this ÂŁ5000 machine was fitted with a variety of connectors and was able to test four different drives at once, then report on their possible faults.

Ideal for the busy repairman.

Hyundai, a name more associated with cars than computers, were here with their range of ROMs, RAMs and other chips. I knew that Yamaha were a big Japanese company, into ships, bikes, musical instruments, and HiFi, but it appears that Hyundai are just as big in Korea.

I had now covered all of Olympia, except for the Military test equipment section, which was by special invitation only. Oh well, maybe next year.

I must say that I enjoyed this event and found all of the staff that I met very helpful and a pleasure to talk to.

Sony's Optical disk caddy system

Which Harddisk? by

Tony Miller

There have been a few harddisks on the market for the MOO, all of which have been in the £600 - £800 price range... Suddenly, we are seeing £300­ £400 hard disks appearing all over the place. Are they as good as the more expensive ones?

We thought we would have a look at one and compare it to one of the more expensive harddisks. So lets begin the battle of two harddisks:

AmiD rive

V

SupraDrive

The Arnidrive is new and still very hard to get hold of. It should be available at the CBM show from the Micro Anvika stand.

It is an autobooting harddisk (if you have 1.3 roms in your Arniga). There is no through port, which makes any further expansions very hard to fit. And with no option for internal memory upgrades, it limits you to the 1 meg internal memory. The purpose of the drive is maximun power for minimum price. The colour matches the Arniga, but the size of it is a little large. The interface and harddisk are in the same unit with a separate power supply. Available in 30megs and 40megs, both for a price of £399.

The Supra Autobooting drive is far more expensive. It retails at £699. But you get a little few extras. For a start the interface and harddisk are in two seperate boxes. This allows for more than one harddisk· to be fitted to the same interface. In fact it allows 7 harddisks to be fitted to one interface.

There is also a through port for further expansions and the option to add 2megs of ram \vithin the interface.

The power for which, comes from the harddrive and not the Arniga. I think though that the main reason that I like the Supra Drive is that when I had problems \vith my interface, I rang Frontier in the UK and they were so helpful, \vith a replacement interface on my door by the follo\ving morning.

Ok, I had to pay for it, but still it was service that I will not forget in a hurry. For compatability, expandability, technical information, and backup service, I think you would be hard pressed to beat the Supra Drive from Frontier.

Harddisks available (with approx prices) : SupraDrive ArniDrive

30megs 30megs

,,­

£699 £399

SHO\V

by CUspy

Those of you who listen to cannot have failed to have noticed the heavy advertising for this show. Billed as for the computer professional, I thought I just had to go along.

This is one of those suit and tie events, with the majority of visitors In their late twenties and early thirties. of them earn between ÂŁ12,000 and a year, are involved In programming or sofnvare engineering.

After filling out a questionnaire, concerning who I was, what I knew, how much I currently earned etc., I was allowed to enter in among the thronging crowds.

I was immediately accosted by a pretty girl, something that was to happen practically every ten feet I moved, must be my good looks, she asked me if this was my first visit and what did I want from the show. Replying to all her questions I was informed that if I wanted to start my own company, I should visit stand so and so who were offering the best deals. Thanking her I moved on, complete with the obligatory carrier bag full of leaflets and a free pen.

H this was going to happen at every stand, I thought that better have a cover story, no, I am not going to tell you what it was, that give the game away.

There were stands at this event, offering everything from accountancy and agency services to penSIOns and training, but most stands were companies after freelance programmers/analysts etc. to work on a

contracting basis for big companies. If you have the relevant experience, then the wodge was waiting for you.

I overheard one chap being offered a job in the States at $100,000 per not bad eh!.

Sorry no programmers required! they were interested ID were people with knowledge of C If you know your stuff, and with are a Hewlett - Packard or then there's money in them thaI' hills. I did mention Amiga to one company, the girl wrote doVt'l1 Omega, so they must have heard of it don't you think.

Everything was going to plan, I now received about a dozen carrier bags of leaflets, a free book on contracting, half a dozen pens, three key - rings, a credit - card holder,several beer - mats, and a jumbo sized tee shirt when the game was nearly up. Here \vas a gentlemen who knew of the machine I was talking about. I quickly changed the subject to it's operating system, ah ha, this foxed him, he was not familiar with it, but was still interested, dratl "Please in touch, have you a business card?",he handed over one of my specially prepared fakes. Phew that was close!, he nearly offered me a job.

Apart from all these city gents and Yuppies, there also appeared to be the cast of AUo' ,no, they weren't the real ones, but the imitation Helga was of a good likeness, she was entertaining a group of jolly red - faced gentlemen at the bar. In fact the

champagne was flowing if you knew where to go.

If any of you want to go on a course, I'd better warn you that they start at £100 per day.

Getting onto this gravy train appears, at the moment, only to be possible if you were a college graduate with several years experience at a large firm.

I don't think that you would pick up enough of the sort of knowledge these people require just by studying at home or attending evening classes. Still there is always someone out there who will prove me wrong.

If any of you want to try it, then good luck, I'd rather have a steady 9 to 5 job. Contracting pays good money, but the contract may only last a few weeks, then it is a case of waltmg for the next job to come along, or rooting out that next job yourself. There were just under 3,500 people at the last Contractors Show, probably more attended this one, all competing with one another.

The next one on is in the Autumn, look out for the details in the business computer press.§

REVIEW 1989 PC USER SHOW & PC CAD by

OLYMPIA

CLIspy

This was my second visit to Olympia in two weeks, I was expecting an exhibition of the proportions of British Electronics Week, this was not to be.

The PC User Show only took up the floor of the main hall and a quarter of it's balcony space. However there was a room set aside for Lotus 1 - 2 - 3 users.

Again I did not see a single proper IBM machine, every stand had clones. I suppose this is what you would expect at a show where the major clone manufacturers are exhibiting, but you would think IBM would make the effort to attend a show dedicated to the machine with which they set the ball not having the rolling, it's like Commodore stand at the Commodore show!

Off I wandered, first stop a company called Micropolis, hard disk specialists.

What intrigued me was a poster lamenting the limitations of the ST - 506 interface, I was immediately assailed by

a salesman. Their main products are 5 1/4 inch drives up to 200Mb capacity, with a range of 3 1/2 inch systems to be released later in the year, as well as larger devices for rack mounting ­ up to 1.5Gb. All have SCSI or EDSI interfaces. EDSI, I had never heard of that one, apparently it stands for Enhanced Small Device Interface, is similar to SCSI but more standardized.

An international SCSI standard has yet to be set, this can ca @ - x2some incompa tibili ty pro blems.

The performance of their products is quite high, for instance, the 1670 series of 5 1/4 inch hard disks can transfer data at up to 4Mb/sec with an average access time of 16ms. They also claim a 40,000 hour MTBF - Minimum Time Between Failures.

Forgot to mention Gigatape, it was a small stand. Anyway these people are using DAT, Digital Audio Tape, technology to do a faster and more A

tape back up than streamers will do, more boring

about

this

stands later I came across Disk supplies, one of discount disc sellers at the which I was quite surprised to see \vith Gultronics and of Tottenham Court Road.

I was now at the back of the main hall all the small stands were, Solidisk, well known to and owners. that I didn't see at the were advertising in the guide, were Technologies. They have a dongles for the PC and devices can be used to software from unauthorised access. Just send the company they will rush you an evaluation kit. disk abounded, add on drives were Magstore Ltd. seemed to be the only company with an optical system in use. They also had a DAT tape back in operation as well.

The Magstore uses a 5 1/4 inch optical with a capacity of 200Mb. It is quite slow compared to a hard disc, 170ms access and a transfer rate of average, but does have the advantage of uneraseability archive purposes and costs around The drive will take discs and Panasonic, who claim a ten year media life, and Plasmon, who claim thirty years. The an incredible amount of storage capacity, 1.2Gb plus, in a small credit card size cassette, which can be reused, or altered, if needs be. access time is not of the essence, it can 20 seconds to find a file, then this is the

device for you, providing you a or Mac. you noticed how

croppmg up in this article,

businessman has cottoned on to

that the Apple machines have something to offer over the based Ponder this thought, the uses the same processor, similar and front ends as the Mac. are the order of the day, subscribe have a free copy, register here for your free don't forget to claim this, that, but no other! cascades from all the stands, about the prices. Simple utilities, that we take for granted on our are only available to the user for high prices. Graphics, sound, and animation packages cost the earth, usually with the need for an additional because of the hardware I can honestly say that I was not impressed with anything that I saw. All the machines quality graphics cost capable of a fortune, the "I can buy ten A500s for that price" It is true that the graphics found on the Sun workstations and the new 286 and 386 processor based are very good, Amiga, but we much better than are talking about thousands of pounds for a system and not hundreds.

Epson had the stand here, a comprehensive range of printers and PCs were on display, as well as a proud showing of their latest releases.

These include a new the G05000, two ink jet printers two dedicated colour printers. is a 300x300 dpi, 6 laser printer with new but if you want speed ink jet SQ2550 132 column, 24

is the beez neez - only 594 cps in super draft mode. It also has 9 fonts and will cost around £1350. Colour printing, using a four colour ribbon, does not come cheap with Epson. Their new LQ860, cheapest dedicated colour, weighs in at £770, I'd think seriously about a colour ink - jet, better quality for a similar price. Epson printers are very good, but very expensive.

Although most of the Epson stand was taken up with printers and PCs, they were sharing it with their special products division. this company fields a range of lap - top portables and accessories, such as mini printer and ROM - packs. They also have two types of hand - held terminals for data entry etc. They transmit to a host computer via an infra - red link, rather like these new transmitter video programmers, and have mini printers, RAM cards, and bar code reader peripherals. Apart from the usual keyboard means of entering data, the EHT - 10 terminal uses a touch sensitive LCD screen to interact with the user. Each unit is about the size of a video tape.

Printer rivals, Brother, also had a large and interesting stand. Among the numerous dot matrix machines were a range of PCs, a new desktop FAX machine for under £700, a colour photocopier for under £5000 and, two new laser printers. The HL 8E laser has seven built in fonts as well as a plotter font, this gives it the capability to produce 56 variations in its printed output styles.

A Hewlett - Packard CADjCAM emulation is also included for the £1995 it costs, it does 8 pages a minute. However, the HL 8D will print both sides of the paper at once for £2995. The Brothercolor 5500 photocopier utilises the new "cyocolor" technology recently shown on the BBe's

Tomorrows World. The process uses special paper coated with capsules of dye, these contain contain one of three colours, which are sensitive to coloured light. When exposed to different coloured light these dye capsules harden relative to the coloured image on them. The paper is then passed through a set of rollers to burst the unhardened capsules, and therefore impregnate the paper, the whole thing is then "cooked" for a crisp permanent image gas mark 7!

Please note that any prices I quote are recommended retail prices, and that you can get the items cheaper through a dealer. This brings me on to Star. Nothing really new here, the glossy leaflet tells me that the LC 10 costs £229 and the colour version £299, both printers can be bought for about £40 less in the High St. S&S Software are offering a "no fix, no fee" software recovery service for lost or corrupted data. They also have a virus toolkit for sale at £50, don't tell Steve Tibbet, of VirusX fame, or he'll want to charge a fee. Their Chairman apparently said 'This virus business has been blown up out of all proportion", but they are managing to make money out of it.

An intelligent uninterruptable power supply, don't laugh, is now available from Galatrek International.

The box is connected to the protected computer via an RS232 interface. In the event of a power failure, the UPS instructs the computer, using special software, to close and save files and shutdown the system before the batteries run down.

Neat!

The best thing that I picked up at the show was from the Seikosha company. It is a little booklet called

the "Alternative Computer Show Guide". you can probably guess this is a comical publication. It includes methods for getting into shows such as these for free, and when you are in there, a guide for spotting the hazards and freebies.

It was now time to VISit the CAD village, ??, it wasn't worth the effort of climbing the stairs. All that was on show up here was repeated down below.

Commodore were noticeable by their absence, I thought they were trying to corner the market with their cheap range. Arch rivals Atari were here though.

The transputer village was as impressive as the CAD one had been it was dull. When you demonstrate an Arniga to a PC user you always get the "Arniga effec!", you know, their jaw drops, especially when you tell them that an A500 only costs ÂŁ350. Well none of these transputer based machines had that sort of effect on me.

The Atari stand only really caught my attention because of the large video screen showing their new Folio pocket Pc. 'The new folio" I exclaimed to a salesman,"Ugh", he replied. I think he was disappointed that the expected demonstration models had not arrived for the show, even though a display cabinet, with the hopeful sign "Watch this space", was ready and waiting. This new pocket looks like a serious contender for the electronic filofax market, Psion Organiser watch out. The Folio has 63 keys, 128k RAM, and a 40x8 character LCD display. There is an expansion bus for extra RA\1, up to 640k, and peripherals. No disk drive, the Folio uses 32/128k memory cards. A built in speaker can be used to "dial" a telephone, according to the video narrator, have doubts about this

the facility being available in the beeps on the demo video sounded distinctly American.

Your correspondent has to admit a liking for the enemy's new toy.

Atari were also demonstrating their Transputer Workstation. Contrary to popular belief this is not a souped up ST, it is, in fact, a completely separate computer, housed in a very large box. The only part the ST plays is as an interface between the user and the box of tricks. An unofficial spokesman explained the role of the ST as merely a cheap, off the shelf, ready made, keyboard, mouse, and I/O subsystem, which is capable of operating independently of the host. I would suggest the same result could be achieved by connecting an A500 to the same big box and voila, a Commodore Amiga Transputer Workstation! The system has four resolution modes, from 512x480 in true colours to 128Ox960 in 16 colours (from 4096). Intermediate video modes have a palette of 16 million colours. A good monitor is therefore necessary.

I had now covered the whole show, except the Lotus village, and could find no reason to go round again.

British Electronics week was more fun, and more interesting than todays effort. Perhaps it will be better next year, as the show will incorporate European Unix user.

CLIspy comments.

WHAT IS THE AMIGA? by Tony Miller Currently there are two models of the Amiga, the lower priced ASOO, and the top of the line Amiga 2000. The first one to be marketed, the Amiga 1000, is no longer produced, but is still available if you know where to look. At the time of writing, there was about to be released a third version of the Amiga, the Amiga 2500. With a bit of luck it should be available at this show.

Two main characteristics set the Amiga apart from any other computer available on the market in this price range. One is the incredible graphics with an ability to display up to 4096 colours on the screen at the same time. The second is its ability to do multitasking - the capability of running, simultaneously - several different programs.

Other features of the Amiga are: - Four channel true stereo Output.

512K RAM on the Amiga 500 1 megabyte on the Amiga 2000.

Both models are expensively expandable.

- Built - in disk drive with a capacity of 880K. - MC68000 microprocessor, the same one used in the Apple Macintosh and the Atari ST.

Amiga ASOO The Amiga ASOO is the smallest and cheapest of all the Amigas.

The technical specification of the Commodore Amiga 500 sets new boundaries in the word processing, file management and the combination of text and graphics.

Sensational graphics facilities let you draw quickly with the mouse, enlarge, reduce and move images, change colours from a palette of 4096, overlay logos all at the touch of a button.

A dedicated four channel synthesiser chip will produce digitised sound effects in stereo. So the audio facilities match the graphics. And the Amiga 500 can interface with video and musical inputs - the creative possibilities are endless.

For the business user, a multitasking environment lets the operator do more than one Job' at once. Thus, although the Amiga 500 was primarily designed as a superlative games machine, it is ideal for creating presentation documents, 3D simulation and animation, graphic design layouts and archives.

This magazine was put together on an ASOO

Amiga 2000 The objective of the Commodore Amiga 2000 it to provide the optimum design for the business or professional user by allowing the user the flexibility to configure the system to meet current need., and to modify or expand the system as these need<; change. Flexibility is inbuilt in the areas of memory, storage,

output, and even in the area of co processing with another Operating System, and a growing range of Commodore and 3rd party board) and peripherals will be made available over the coming months.

Compatibilty with existing Amiga software, seven internal expansion slots, MS 足 DOS capability and genuine multi-tasking, make the Commodore Amiga 2000 the most flexible business micro computer ever to sit on the comer of a desk. these were taken from the official Commodore promotional literature.

I have used both machines myself, and find that out of the two, I much prefer the Amiga 500. There isn't an internal fan in the ASOO which means that I could word - process in peace and quiet. The A2000s fan was very distracting when one is trying to concentrate on that important letter/magazine article. As for the software compatibilty, again I was dissapointed to find that there is software around that refuses to run on an A2000. I believe that there is a problem with the keyboards control location in memory, which results in some games not been able to run.

And the last thing that put me off the A2000 was the size of it and the cost of it. It takes up far more room than the ASOO and costs nearly three times the amount. Although the machine is far bigger, internally, there is not that much more room. (If that makes sense??) To add a hard disk to the A2000 there are two options. Add a Hardcard that takes up the room of two expansion boards or add a hard disk that takes up the room of the second floppy drive or the drive. If you want to add a second harddisk, then get the hacksaw out!!! On the other hand, to add a harddisk to the A500, just plug the interface into the expansion port and away you go.. Of course you lose more desk space for every expansion you add.

Specifications - expandable to 9Mb 256Kb of Rom (Kickstart 1.2) - Motorola 68000, 7.14Mhz Connectable Peripherals:- up to three disk drives - up to three disk drives - Printer Harddisks - Genlock - Frame grabber - Audio digitiser - Midi Interface - Modem!!

- etc. t~.

Boffi

,

00

If you have any problems that you need the answer to, then just write to us and we will worry about it.

1

IVIOTOROLA 68000 ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE by

Richard Hartschorn

The 68000 Assembly Programmer's Model The 68000 has: 8 general purpose 32 bit accumalator registers DO to D7, called Data Registers 7 general purpose 32 bit pointer registers AO to A6, called Address registers 1 special purpose 32 bit pointer register A 7 or SP, called the Stack Pointer 1 special purpose 32 bit pointer register PC, called the Program Counter 1 special purpose 8 bit flag register CCR, called the Condition Code Register The majority of the instructions you can code in 68000 Assembly involve at least one of these registers as either the source of a number or as the destination of a calculation.

Motorola, who originally specified the 68000 microprocessor, defined a syntax for their Assembler that allows most possibilities of source to be used as a destination too.

The 68000 machine code uses 68000 chip has a 16 bit data bus.

16

bit

opcodes

and

externally the

The fundamental unit in 68000 Assembler is the 16 bit"Word". As a general rule any 68000 instruction that uses Wordsize will run smaller and faster than another size, and the only reason to use Assembly language is to have your program small and fast. Internally the 68000 has a 32 bit data bus which permits ordinary arithmetic on 32 bit numbers, called Longwords.

All of the standard Assembly language instructions are available on a 68000. Unlike other processors you must always specify whether an instruction is to work as on Byte, Word or Longword data by appending .B, .W or .L onto the end of the instruction text. The size you specify

for the instmction is forced onto the source and destination of the data.

If an instmction directly uses an Address register as a source or destination the 68000 processor forbids you to use the extension.

Motorola decided that its naughty to use the Byte size with address registers and if anyone can think of a reason for this I'm open to suggestions. The Data registers are allowed to use all three sizes and there is no technical reason why Address registers shouldn't.

EFFECfIVE In the 68000 Motorola have tried to combine all the addressing modes older 8 bit processors use in order to specify the source and destination of an instruction. The location of any number is called its Effective Address This is not necessarily an address in the memory of the 68000, although usually it is.

Once you have mastered all of the possible Effective Addresses in the 68000 you will find that most programming techniques can easily be implemeneted in 68000 Assembler.

The whole range of Effective Addresses the 68000 uses is tabulated

below, for reference.

ASSEMBLER TEXT

EA NAME

$00 $08 $10 $18 $20 $28 $30 $38 $39 $3A $3B $3C $3C $3C

DATA REGISTER DIRECT ADDRESS REGISTER DIRECT ADDRESS REG. INDIRECT ADDRESS REG.POST INCREMENT ADDRESS REG. PRE DECREMENT ADDRESS REG. WITH DISPLACEMENT ADDRESS REG. WITH INDEX ABSOLUTE SHORT ABSOLUTE LONG PC RELATIVE PC RELATIVE WITH INDEX IMMEADIATE BYTE IMMEADIATE WORD IMMEADIATE LONG

DOl D11 D2 / . . . . . · .D5, I D7 I I AO , A2, ...... AS , A7

(Ai) 1 (A2 ) , (A3 ) .......... (A 7 )

(AO)+/( )+ ............ (A7)+

(AO)/-(A') ............ (A7)

$OOOO(AO) .......... $FFFF(A7)

$00 (AO I DO. w) .... $FF (A 7 ,D7 . L)

$0000 ................. .

$00000000 .......... $FFFFFFFF

$OOOO(PC) .......... $FFFF(PC)

$OO(PC/DO.W) .... $FF(PC,D7.L)

£$00 1 £$01 ....... . £$FEI £$FF

£$0000, 0001 ......... £$FFFF

£$00000000 ........ £$FFFFFFFF

boggle at the number of variations of Effective Address, spot the conventions. $ says a hexadecim31 number follows. £ says a number ( not an address ) follows, 1234 IS different to £1234. (x) says x is the address In memory of the number that the processor is to use.

POST SCRIPT The 68000 chip is "microcoded". The processor fetches each machine code word from memory and translates it using tables stored in its microcode ROM. The Z80 is designed with hard wired logic so that each instruction fetched from memory directly controls the chip registers.

Using a high level language you may have seen the difference between interpreted and compiled code.

The 68000 interprets its machine code, the Z80 runs its machine code directly. When Motorola sees fit to release a hard wired 68000 we may see a "truly remarkable" increase in speed of our machine code.

'C' -

by Bill Moore

OK, so how does one go about wntmg a regular column about 'C'?

The answer is, "'With trepidation!", because there is a very real problem.

The problem is you lovely people out there.

Half of you drive a 'C' compiler everyday of your lives, and are far more expert than I shall ever be. Half of you don't O\\>TI a 'C' compiler, but wish you did. Half of you see nothing wrong with BASIC, and are only reading this to confirm your belief. (Arithmetic was always my weak subject.) Actually, AmigaBasic is not a bad language, but it does have limitations. Indeed, I don't think the Amiga would be your favourite computer if AmigaDOS were written entirely in BASIC! So what I shall do is this. I shall start to write this column in such a manner that each issue starts simple so anyone can read it, but gradually gets deeper as you go on to parts aimed at people with compilers. So, lovely people, with each issue, start reading this column, and when your brain begins"" @,a hurt, turn to another page. But, keep this series so that when you do get a compiler, you will be able to come back to it and hopefully it won't be so bad after all.

A simple program in 'C' Programs written in 'C' can be very long or very short. Here short one which is also quite friendly: mainO { printf( "Hello,

IS

a

Darling!");}

Yes, that is an entire program. Probably you can see what it does.

But unless you have already met 'C', you will not find it imrneadiately obvious why it is written the way it is. But before I explain in detail,

I should make it clear that, unlike most other languages, takes no notice of the ends of lines. It just carries on from one line to the the above program could be \vritten next, as if there were no break. this way: finclude < stdio.h > mainO

{ printf( "Hello, Darling!"); } This layout makes the structure of the program more visible.

The most important concept in is that of a function. function consists of a name, followed by round brackets. Here are two functions: mainO printfO The program defines one function, mainO, and uses the other function, printfO. It does not need to printfO, because is already predefined in a library of functions supplied with your compiler.

Some details about the function printfO are however useful to the compiler, so the line "拢inc1ude < stdio.h > is added to tell the compiler how to find these details.

"Hello, Darling!" is a string, which is supplied as an argument to printfO路 PrintfO("Hello, Darling!"); is a statement, complete with a semi - colon to denote the end of the statement. This statement proceeds to display the string on your monitor. This particular statement asserts a function printfO, but there are also other types of statement. So to use a function, you include it in a statement. defining a function is a bit more complicated than that. You you have to also have to define the body of the function, that define what the function is to do.

II

So

the example,

< stdio.h >

more about header files in the future!

mainO

defines the name of the function.

{

indicates the beginning of the body.

printf( "Hello, Darling!"); }

is a statement in the body. indicates the end of the body.

So all the program does is define a function called mainO. This is indeed the main function of any program, since when a 'C' program is run, AmigaDOS locates the function mainO on the appropriate file, and runs it. Mark you, it does prefer you to first compile your lovely neat program into a string of gobbledegook that only a computer, in this case the Amiga, can understand.

The above program is a modification of a famous 'C' program used by the inventors of the language, Messrs Kernighan and Ritchie, in their book 'The C Programming Language" second edition. The difference is that the word "World" has been replaced by "Darling" to make it more user friendly.

To run the program, it must first be compiled. Lattice C v5.0 and Manx C are the commonest compilers for the Amiga. Unfortunately, they don't come cheap.

To compile in Lattice, you would first use an editor such as ED (or LSE supplied with Lattice C - LSE is more user friendly) to create a file called, for example, "Darling.c", containing the code listed above.

Enter: Ie - L Darling.c and the compiler will create a file called "Darling". To run the program just enter the word "Darling" in the eLI. In future issues, I shall expand this program, so it becomes a very useful little utility which, if added 10 your startup - sequence, will remind you of any birthdays coming up! This can really save you from getting into trouble, particularly from anyone called Darling! This utility lives on my word processor disk, which is very fulL Had I wanted 10 write it in BASIC, there would have been no room for it and AmigaBasic on the disk.

However, before I treat you to "Birthdays", I shall give you the opportunity to compare how fast the Amiga runs in BASIC and in C. I shall give a listing in the next issue of the 'Sieve' benchmark in both languages. So, a race between C and BASIC] I suspect I know who will win, but I admit I don't know by what margin. Watch this space!

VROOM SPUTTER

00 ..

SPUTTER.

•

~/1

~.

I~r'

<>~<>

Lattice

3·C-4­

/:3~2-7

€

AMIGA C COMPILER AMIGA880K

C for the Amiga

Disk 1

Introducing new Lattice C for Amiga DOS, Version 5.0.

In recent hl:'nchmarks, Lattice C S,() was off to the races hefore \lanx 5.6 was even olTthe starting linl...'. In fact. statistics prme that no other language. no other compiler, gives you faster, more efficient programs.

Period. And it no\\' SUPPOl1S 68020 and 68881.

BVfE* Benchmark

Lattice C 5.0

Manx C 3.6

% Difference

dhampSl()IWS

42.4

62.7

.')2%

clhryslones/'-'ee.

1605

1017

':iH%

matrix manipulation

1'5.7

50A

6H'xJ

scbigrd

70.2

H2.H

1'5%

sono

76.4

110.9

.') 1%

sieve

Yi.4

40.'5

1')'Yil

And it's thl:' most comprehensive, exclamation point l\:othing else gi\'es you such a complete programming C'm·ironl1ll:'nl. All these tools :md utilities are included in the Lattice c: 5.0 package: .. Lattice c: COl1lpii<.:r .. Compill'f' Companion ['lilitil's .. Sourcv Ln'vl 1)1Ihllggl'r (CodvProilc) • C()de profilcr .. C;loi1al Optimizer .. jih c: FUllction Lii1r:lric'i .. Blink

OH:Tlay Linker .. Assl'mhler .. Disassembler • Lihr:trian • Sample Files 8.: Examples • Lattice Screen Editor • In­ stallation Program • Comprehensive Document:ilion.

Our new, easy-to-use, Source Level Dubugger.

CodeProhe, SUppOI1S both C and Assembly language. and multi-tasking dehugging. And our new Glo]);iI Optimizer will actually ellbClllceyourprop,mms'per­

/orllwlIce lip to 40 1]1).

So choose Lattice if you want to program on the fast track. Or choose Manx and finish at the hack of the

I

pack.

To purchase rallice C 5.0 or/or II/ore il!j(mn{{ti()ll, see yo 11 r/a U() ritc s(jiu'Clrc

Suh"idiary of SAS Institule Inc

supplier.

I~lllicc, Incorporated 2S00 S. Highland Avenue Lomhard, II. 60I·1H Phone: HOOiS.'d·))77 In Illinois: )121<)1()·I(,()(l

THE AMIGA AND THE SMALL BUSINESSMAN

by Pete Symes I run a manufacturing company in South London and it didn't take me long to realise that to run it more efficiently the purchase of some kind of computer was going to be necessary.

Initially I just wanted a Word Processor to handle my correspondence. The choice of WP was mainly due to the fact that I didn't have a secretary at the time and I was like most other males in business a two fingered typist! So off I went to my local electrical store and bought an Amstrad pew 9512. Now as a word processor it was very good, albeit a bit on the slow side, but nonetheless a very good entry machine for the novice. As time went by, and a lot of reading of the PCW magazines I realised that I could computerise a lot more of the business, hopefully to make it more efficient and my life that bit easier. So off I went and purchased some more software, accounts, database, spreadsheet, that sort of thing. For a while everything seemed to be fine, a little bit slow bu t more or less useable.

As the business became more profitable, I decided to treat myself.

Being a fan of computer games, I decided to buy the best games machine around, of course the first choice was an Amiga 500. So there I was, PCW at work and an Amiga at home. It didn't take me long to realise that the Amiga was not only a very good games computer but with its multi tasking capabilities it could also be a superior business machine.

I decided to do a bit of research and discovered that a lot of the serious

business software was now available for the Amiga. The idea seemed sound, sell the Amstrad (Good idea - Ed.) and use those funds to finance the necessary software for the Amiga.

That is what happened and the Amiga was duly installed in the office.

In order to run the recently acquired software at its full potential, more memory and a second disk drive were a must. Cheque book in hand I rushed round to the local computer store. Happiness once again ruled in the office.

Meanwhile the business had risen dramatically. I was now handling more clients, so the demands upon the various programs had risen also. The Amiga was coping more or less ok but, it was beginning to be a chore, and also very slow, swapping disks continuously.

The nature of my business means that I have to have my accounts, instant access to database information and correspondance.

Due to the increase in business (couldn't afford to do it otherwise!) off I went, now under the much appreciated guidance of the Amiga Meditators, and purchased a Supra 20 meg hard disk complete with the necessary interface. (The interface is the reason why they are initially more expensive than their IBM counterparts.)

At last I thought, the perfect setup - a 1 meg Amiga 500, two floppy drives and a 20 meg hard disk.

However for those users who don't know, no offence intended as I didn't

know either, is that when you hook up a hard disk to the Arniga and partition it the way I have, that is with four partItIOnS primarily for ease of maintenance and a bonus of greater speed, it takes up memory. So from being used to having 1 meg available I was now down to about 650k. It was ok though, I was able to do what I wanted and the hard disk was perfectly reliable so what more could I ask for?

Well, as you no doubt know, the more you use the Amiga the more you realise what it can do. As I recently read, it is only limited by your own imagination, I would like to add to that though, the size of your wallet also helps! I am very fortunate to be able to finance my now very strong interest in computers via the company.

It had come to a stage where I was now having to think of new ways of producing my product to keep one step ahead of the competition. Being a predominantly engineering based company, the possibilities of CAD/CAM (Computer Aided Desigm and Manufacture) were very appealing.

However, that old problem of the Amiga being a very memory hungry machine reared its head again. The need for more memory in the near future was very apparent.

When I purchased the Supra drive, the thing that sold it to me, apart from its reliability and user support, was the facility of adding a 2 meg ram board to the interface. Admittedly I could add the extra memory externally, but if you knew my office and the space constraints that I work under, you would understand that the internal option would be preferable.

I ordered the extra memory and four months later it arrived. This was not the fault of Supra. The need to keep

up with their competitors had caused Supra to redesign the board to accept an auto - booting ROM and that, coupled with the well known lack of DRAMs, had slowed delivery.

Installing the board was not as simple as the instructions lead me to believe.

After disconnecting the interface, power off of course, I found that the internal interface board was of a different design and didn't have the through power supply connector.

There I was, after waiting four months the proud owner of 2 megs of memory I couldn't use. So when in a panic phone 01- 4 - Arniga. They asked me to bring the unit round, possibly the first one in the country.

After stripping the interface down and carefully exannrung it, they told me that everything was there apart from the 2 pins needed to feed the power through to the new board. So they soldered the two pins, kindly donated by an old RS232 connector, onto the board. With bated breath we connected the interface up to a machine and 10 and behold the extra memory was recognised.

I did call Supra to make sure that the soldering of the pins was the correct thing to do, I know that sounds like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, but they assured me that it is what they would have reccomended. The system has now been running for a month with no problems whatsoever.

I hope that you have found this little tale not only entertaining but also useful. If you are looking for a hard disk and more memory, I would suggest that you take a serIOUS look at the Supra system. It is not only very easy to install but also very reliable.

I cannot praise Supra,

Frontier Software and the Amiga Meditators more highly for their very friendly and helpful support.

w

Editors' note: The Supra system with a 2Mb RAM board fitted works out about £150 cheaper than buying a separate hard disk and external memory expansion. In effect you are only then paying £50 more than you would for an equivalent PC hard disk. Very cost effective.

01 for Amiga (08

Sales and Wants If you would like to advertise here then please send your ad to the address in the front of the mag. Mark your envelope in the top left hand corner "Sales & Wants".

Unfortunately we cannot accept any advertisements for pirate software, disc swapping parties or anything in the least bit naughty. If you want a box number then we can arrange that.

For Sale. B2000 with Rom 1.3, 2 floppy drives, A1084 Monitor, 3 Megs of Ram and a 1 meg unpopulated ram board. 2 harddisks, a ST506 20meg and a SCSI 40meg. All inside the B2000 and working. Retail value £4779, Want £2000. Reply box 1 For Sale. A2000 with Rom 1.2, 2 floppy drives, A1084 Monitor, IBM - XT Bridge board. Retail value £2200. Want £I500 or prepared to swap for ASOO with 2 drives and harddisk. Reply box 2

Read and Write.

This is the page to air your views or

have a go at the editors.

If you would like to have your say then please write to us at the address in the front of the mag. Mark your envelope in the top left hand corner "Read and Write".

•••• a

=..-- ........

A .-. IIL..IIII i k

c:L

C'o·rn·p·u't'e·r·~ 229A TOTTENHAH CT RD LONDON &.I1.P 9AF

TEL: 91.-636 2547 (5 LINES

FAX: 91.-631. 3667

IliA

TELEX:

Amiga A2000 Single Floppy Disk £1090.00 Amiga A2000 Double Floppy Disk £1180.00 Amiga A2000 Single Floppy Disk, £1395.00 1084S Colour Stereo Monitor Amiga A2000 Single Floppy Disk, 2090 Hard Disk, 1084S Monitor £1750.00 Amiga A2000HD Single Floppy Disk 2094A 40Mb Hard Disk, 1084S £2500.00 Amiga A2000, A26020 Single Floppy Disk, 1084S Monitor £2900.00 Amiga A2000, A2058, A2094A, AGAFlicker Fixer, 14" High Resolution Colour Monitor £4053.00 Amiga A2000, A2058, A2094A, AGAFlicker Fixer, 15" FST High Resolution Colour Monitor £4166.00 Amiga A2000, A2058, A2094A, AGAFlicker Fixer, 21" FST High £6080.00 Resolution Colour Monitor Amiga A2000 A6820, A2090A, AGAFlicker Fixer, 21" FST High Resolution Colour Monitor £6556.00 Amiga A2000, A6820, A2058, A2094A, AGA-Flicker Fixer, 21" £8170.00 FST High Resolution Monitor Amiga Air Miles Pack Inc: A500, A520, Easyl Disk Wallet, Star Ray, Nebulus, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Spritz Paint 500 AIR MILES FREE £499.00 Amiga A500, TV Modulator, Spritz £375.00 Amiga A500, 1084S Colour Monitor £650.00 AmDri ve 30Mb Hard Disk (A500) £399.00 Integrator 11- 30Mb Hard Disk, Floppy Disk,l Mb RAM Expandable & SCSI Controller with Thru' port £649.00 £299.00 Amiga 1084S Monitor £535.00 NEC Multisync II 14" Monitor £851.00 Amiga 15" FST Colour Monitor £2737.00 Amiga 21" FST Colour Monitor £279.00 Philips 8833 Monitor £530.00 A2086 XT Bridgeboard £869.00 A2286 AT Bridgeboard £699.00 A2058 2Mb RAM £399.00 A2090 Hard Disk £400.00 A2092 Hard Disk 20Mb HS DOS £1175.00 A2094 Hard Disk 40Mb £799.00 GVP Hard Disk 45Mb (A2000)

GVP Hard Disk 80Mb (A2000) £1200.00 HardFrame (A2000) £219.00 Supra 30Mb Hard Disk (A500jA1000)£699.95 Amiga 1010 Disk Drive

£149.00 Ext 3.25" Disk Drive

Thru Port &Switch

£ 99.00 Standard External Disk Drive £ 90.00 8-UP! FastRAM (un-populated)

£149.00 EXP 1000-1Mb RAM (A500)

£499.00 Starboard2 2Mb RAM (A500jA1000) £699.00 Starboard2 1Mb RAM (A500jA1000) £499.00 £149.00 ProRAM A2000 (un-populated)

£149.00 A501 512K RAM

Minigen Genlock

£ 99.00 A2300 Internal Genlock (A2000) £286.00 SuperPic Genlock &Frame Grabber £599.00 £1667.00 Hagni 4005 Genlock (A2000) £1150.00 Neriki Pro Genlock (A2000) A520 TV Modulator £ 24.00 £399.00 AGA Flicker Fixer £ 12.95 Flicker Master £1600.00 A2620 68020, 68881 &68851 £179.95 CMI Accelerator Board £350.00 CMI Accelerator Board + 68881 Mouse Time (A1000) £ 22.95 BUSINESS SOFTWARE - DATABASE/SPREADSHEET Acquisition Analyse Data Retrieve Day by Day Digi Calc Home Accounts Maxiplan 500 Maxiplan Plus Micro Fiche Filer + Superbase Professional Superbase Personal 2 Superplan The Director Toolkit

£249.95 £ 79.95 £ 57.95 £ 29.95 £ 39.95 £ 29.95 £ 99.95 £149.95 £ 00 £246.00 £ 99.95 £ 99.95 £ 29.95

BUSINESS SOFTWARE - WORDPROCESSING/DTP City Desk Cygnus Editor Professional Excellence Kindwords V2

£114.95 £ 89.95 £219.00 £ 49.95

9491.641.4 ANVI G

Professional Page V1.2 Pagesetter Publishers Choice Shakespeare Text Craft Text Ed Plus TextPro The Works (Platinum Edition) Write &File Word Perfect

£246.00 £ 99.9~ £ 99.9

£149.% £ 56.00 £ 59.9 £

57.5~

£199.95 £ 99.9 £229 9

BUSINESS SOFTWARE - CAD Draw Plus Draw 2000 IntroCAD Pro-Board V2.0A Pro-Net XCAD XCAD Designer

£184.0v £224.25 £ 57.9 £139.9 £139.95 £485.0~

£ 99.9

GRAPHICS - ANIMATION £ 69.9J fl03.00 £129.0 £ 35.9 £ 35.95 £ 39.9" £ 46.9

3D Modeller Animator/Images Animate 3D Animation Effects Animation stand Animation Flipper Animation Multiplane Animation Rotoscope Deluxe Paint III Design 3D Fantavision (PAL) Forms in Flight V2 Movie Setter Page Flipper Plus FX Sculpt Animate 4D Sculpt Animate 4D Jnr The Director

£ 79.95 £ 79.9 £ 39.9 £ 69.95 £ 69.9­ £119.9' £399.95 £ 99.9'1 £ 57.9

Turbo Silver V3 Turbo Silver Terrain Videoscape 3D Zoetrope (PAL)

£139.95 £ 19.9 fl49.0 £ 99.95

GRAPHICS - PAINT

£

GRAPHICS - PAINT Comic Setter Comic Setter Clip Art @ Deluxe Paint II Descartes!

Digi Paint Express Paint V3 Photon Paint V2 Print Master Art Disk I Print Master Art Disk II PRISM Plus Professional Draw Seasons &Holidays

Sculpt 3D £ 69.95 £ 19.95 £ 69.95 £ 34.95 £ 59.00 £ 69.95 £ 79.95 £ 29.95 £ 29.95 £ 59.95 £139.95 £ 9.95

GRAPHICS - VIDEO Deluxe Video Lights, Camera, Action Photon Video Cel Animator Photon Video Trans. Controller Pro Video Plus (PAL) Pro Video Plus Fonts Set 1 Pro Video Plus Fonts Set 2 Video Effects 3D TV Show TV Text Videotitler (PAL) Video Generic Master

£ 69.95 £ 57.50 £119.95 £199.95 £249.95 £ 99.95 £ 99.95 £139.95 £ 69.95 £ 69.95 £110.00 £ 69.95

GRAPHICS - FONTS Ashas Fonts Caligrapher Fancy 3D Fonts Font Works Interfont KaraFonts Lion Fonts Masterpiece Fonts ProFonts I &II @

£ 59.95 £ 89.95 £ 49.95

Cherry Graphics Tablet A3 Digi Droid Digi View Gold (A500/A2000) Easyl Dravling Tablet (A2000) Easyl Drawing Tablet (A500) Summasketch Plus 12" x 12" Summasketch Plus 18" x 12"

Adrum Aegis Sonix Audio Master II Deluxe Music Construction Set Dr T VI.6A Dynamic Drums Dynamic Studio Hot 'n' Cool Jazz Instant Music Life Cycles Music X Opus-1 MCL Rock 'n' Roll Sound Oasis Studio Magic Synthia

£ 39.95 £ 57.95 £ 69.95 £ 69.95 £219.00 £ 54.95 £ 69.95 £ 9.95 £ 24.95 £ 29.95 £199.95 £ 99.95 £ 9.95 £139.95 £ 69.95 £ 79.95

MUSIC - HARDWARE

£

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

£ 34.95 £ 49.95 £ 34.95 £ 34.95 £ 34.95 £ 34.95

Absoft AC BASIC 3 Absoft AC Fortran Arexx VI. 3 AssemPro Aztec CProfessional BBC Emulator Benchmark Modula 2 Benchmark CLibrary Benchmark IFF Library

£ 24.95

£632.00 £ 74.95 £129.95 £379.00 £328.90 £458.00 £688.00

MUSIC PACKAGES

£

GRAPHICS - DESIGN Architechtural Design Disk Deluxe Print II Future Design Disk Human Design Disk Interiors Design Disk Microbot Design Disk

GRAPHICS - HARDWARE

Future Sound 500 Pro Sound ECE Midi Interface Eidersoft Midi Interface Eidersoft Keyboard

£ 99.95 £ 59.95 £ 59.95

£ 79.95

£ 79.95 £ 79.95 £ 54.95 £ 24.95 £ 99.95

£149.95 £295.00 £ 39.95 £ 59.95 £199.95 £ 49.95 £139.95 £ 79.95 £ 79.95

Benchmark Simplifier F-BASIC GFA BASIC Hisoft BASIC HiSoft DevPac V2 K-Seka Assembler Lattice CV5 Lattice C ++ MCC Assembler MCC Cambridge LISP MCC Pascal V2 Modula 2 (Developers) Modula 2 (Standard)

£ 79.95 £ 69.95 £ 64.95 £ 79.95 £ 59.95 £ 49.95 £219.95 £356.50 £ 69.95 £149.95 £ 89.95 £149.95 £ 99.95

UTILITIES A-Talk III BAD Butcher V2.0 CLImate Disk Master (PAL) Diskwick Disk 2 Disk DOS 2 DOS

Encore FACC II Family Tree Fine Print Flipside!

Gizmos V2 GOMF V3 GOMF Button Grabbit Interchange Interchange Modules @ Pixmate Powerwindows V2.5 Project D Quarterback V2.2 Ruby View/Comm Superback X-Copy

£ 79.95 £ 39.95 £ 29.00 £ 34.95 £ 39.95 £ 39.95 £ 39.95 £ 39.95 £ 49.95 £ 29.95 £ 39.95 £ 39.95 £ 29.95 £ 56.00 £ 29.95 £ 59.95 £ 29.95 £ 46.00 £ 19.95 £ 49.95 £ 69.95 £ 39.95 £ 49.95 £ 99.95 £ 49.95 £ 29.95

PRINTERS Hewlett Packard f745.00 £549.00 £949.00

Deskjet Plus Deskjet Paint jet

Prices correct at time of going to press. 2nd June 1989, Commodore Show. We print new price lists regularly.

For an up-to-date price list contact us at any of the addresses below: 220A Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9AF Telephone (01) 636 2547 Fascimile (01) 631 3667

251 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9AD Telephone (01) 636 2547

Showroom: 13 Chenies Strel London WClE 7ET Telephone (01) 636 2547 Telex 94016414 ANV

CHIPCHAT

Four years and $20 million have enabled Motorola to develop a new range of chips for use in microcontroller applications, the 32 bit 68300 series. The new 68332 contains 422,000 transistors, and operates at 16MHz. The architecture is based on a 68020 processor core, with 2k of on - board ram, a second RISC processor, and two serial I/O sub - systems. Brian Wilkie, manager of Motorola's Advanced MCE Operations said, tl ... the new chip will give the computing power of a Macintosh in in the size of a business card". An extensive range of support software has also been made available.

By the end of this month Toshiba will be in full production of their 4Mbit DRA1\1. This is the second time the company has lead the market with such an innovative product, the first being the 1Mb DRAM. Initial price of this chip is expected to be about ÂŁ250.

Mitsubishi are currently delivering samples of a floppy disc drive with 16Mb unformatted capacity. Rather than using a servo loop to position the read/write head, Mitsubishi have opted for a control interleaved with data. The drive has a SCSI controller, disc mechanism controller, and data controller contained in 3 ICs.

similar, in both function and looks, to a digitising tablet. However, the work area of the tablet is formed from an eleven inch LCD touch screen. This allows the user to select functions and menus using the provided stylus or a finger. high resolution screen of the will display the image of what is being drawn or digitised on the tablet, in addition to the host computer's display. The company sees many possible applications for this device.

As you read this, Atari are marketing their laptop PC. Demonstrated at the spring Comdex show in Chicago, the "Portfolio" has a reduced keyboard, 8x40 character LCD screen, and 128K of memory. This is expandable to 640k. The computer is slightly larger than a video cassette and will retail for $399. There is no disc drive, the machine will use 230K smart cards for storage. A suite of programs, including a word processor, spreadsheet, and business management system are built in. modem is also available as an extra.

The company have also developed an optical "Neurochip", our source believes it to be a 3 dimensional 32 bit processor.

British Rytrak of Liverpool have just announced an ability to mass produce colour LCD TV screens of up to 14 inches in size.

Developed in association with a large electronics firm and two universities, Rytrak hope to go public later this year in order to secure additional funding to complete the project.

have launched a interface man/machine 1000 Flat Visual a programmable device

NEe's Multisync monitor has been upgraded. The Multisync 3D is a 14 inch, digitally controlled monitor of with a maximum resolution

Mitsubishi revolutionary called the Terminal. It

IS

1024x768. It also has an increased scan frequency range and a reduced dot pitch (0.28mm).

Parrot, the UK's only fully integrated floppy disk manufacturer went into receivership in mid - May. The receiver has cut the company's workforce by 142 to and is seeking a buyer for the manufacturing facili ties in \Vales. was formed five years with help from the Government.

American National Standard's Institute (ANSI) has refused to consider ++ the task of standardizing the language, even though it is widely promoted by major companies, such as Microsoft and Zortech. Without standardization there will be incompatibility problems in the software industry, this will lead to a lack of necessary widespread acceptance required for the language to succeed. similar problem was encountered back in 1983 with C.

Alphatronix have launched "Inspire", an erasable optical disk storage system. Using standard 5.25 inch disks marketed by 3M, Sony and others, the magneto - optical drive can eXIstmg systems be plugged into without any conversion to hardware or software. This is because the unit is based on internationally accepted standards defined by ANSI, ECMA and the Japan Study Committee 23.

Each disk can hold 650Mb. Fuji Photo Film is now marketing its R5000H Hi Band still video recorder m Japan. The unit is capable of capturing still images from TVs or video cameras and saving them to disk. There are four playback modes ­ automatic, frame by review and continuous five frames per second. An optional interface allows connection to a computer. Price, about £1450.

Coming soon.....

June: European Unix User Show Alexandra Palace."

6- 8 6- 8 Computer North - G - Mex Manchester 9 -10 Northern Contractor Show - New Century Ball Manchester.

13 - 15 Software Tools 89 - Wembley Exhibition Centre. >I< 14 - 16 Electrical Products 89 - Olympia 15th. Intel Super Chip Seminar - Cambridge YIoat House.)\< 27 - 29 University of :;: September: 5- 6

EuroBus 89 -

Novote! Hotel London.:;:

October: 27 - 28

Autumn

Contractor Show -

Connaught Rooms London.

'" Entrance by ticket only.

We have a limited number of tickets for Leetronex, Electrical Products 89 and EuroBus 89. you would like one and you are over 18 then please send a S.A.E. to us at 01 for Amiga.

First come, first Sorry about the limit, these are really shows for the professional user.

I

!nf'~M

01"'

'" n

t.o JDIn Group .::rat apG1ci.m.i

'Te "':" ,- ,- -, -- ­

.. sa:

th I..

is:l'fuW t.

£.iB.

1.

&

wi I

yaLl

II

liJ_L a LA-f'10',lLhlY r1,agar,inoe tull of" r i~W!Sf, hlot.s and L PIS, worldwide news, uun.-et..it.ioOEI'

'"

nd

artlcl"", Fr",., '" to t.h .. fli-'(!­ b u 1 1 ., t i

AM",. ..

u

a

.ell; 4'

d.

l

5

5t'!"'r.ttons,

sal" t.w.sa:r~ aod h."1>' JUst, oat!

aw~y.

.s JP eo

0

i

..'ZI.

.-.1

II'

PI'!

0"- J loR"!'

",hon"-I

~

II I

E?T'

i:.h~'t

n