News - Undated - IV
From: Len Stys (aa399)
Date: 01/24/90-07:50:20 PM Z
From: aa399 (Len Stys)
Subject: News - Undated - IV
Date: Wed Jan 24 19:50:20 1990
Undated Time Capsule
--------------------
News from Practical Solutions
About the Archives
SPECS: BobTerm 1.1
Word Perfect continues ST support
Atari announces 1st qtr earnings
New Express Cart
Migraph DPI hand scanner
News from Practical Solutions
-----------------------------
-Article #64 (154 is last):
-From: aa399
-Subject: _News Release_ from Practical Solutions
-Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 12:52:18 GMT
-From: LEN STYS (aa399)
-Indx: 036 Size: 2036 bytes
___________________News Release from Practical Solutions_________________
NEW SUPPORT CLUB FOR ST USER GROUPS!
Tucson, AZ. Practical Solutions has initiated a new program, the
Atari Computer Enthusiasts (ACE) Support Club, for all Atari ST User
Groups. The ACE Support Club allows User Groups to obtain one free copy
of each Practical Solutions' product for a one-time membership fee.
Here's how it works: A group wishing to join sends a Letter of
Application, signed by an Officer of the User Group, along with a check
or money order for $25 and a request for their first product (only one
at a time can be requested). The product of their choice is sent FREE
and becomes the property of the User Group. The User Group then presents
the item at a regular group meeting and subsequently reviews it in their
newsletter.
When the group is ready to receive their next product, they simply
send in a copy of their newsletter where the review appeared with their
next choice. Their Practical Solutions' product selection is then sent,
again free of charge! ACE Support Club membership limits a User Group
to one free copy of each product.
Practical Solutions has always received support from User Groups
and we feel that this is a way to show our appreciation for their
enthusiasm. The ACE Support Club gives us a chance to become more
involved with User Groups who existance is vital to the Atari ST
community. Their members direct feedback is also immensely valuable
in aiding the direction of all of our products and services.
Letters of application and inquires can be sent to:
Practical Solutions, Inc.
Attn: ACE Support Club Coordinator
1135 N. Jones Blvd.
Tuscon, AZ 85716
Phone: (602) 322-6110
Len Stys (aa399)
Atari SIG-Operator
About the Archives
------------------
-Article #70 (154 is last):
-From: aa384
-Subject: About the ARCHIVES
-Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 12:53:44 GMT
-From: (Atari SysOps)
-Indx: 042 Size: 890 bytes
About the ARCHIVES...
The ARCHIVES is a section of NEWS
items that have been grouped together
under a heading.
This has been done to:
1.) Make it easier to find a
particular file or piece of information
2.) Allow us to keep files that
would otherwise be deleted
3.) Be a placeholder for a possible
addition the Atari SIG in Free-Net II.
ARCHIVES files are stored in the
NEWS section under the heading
ARCHIVES: followed by the subject.
When Free-Net II comes online, we
should get a new section of the SIG
where these files will be moved for
reference.
We are now attempting to do the
same with the Q/A area of the SIG also.
Atari SigOps - Len Stys
Doug Wokoun
Mark Leair
Phillip Chow
SPECS: BobTerm 1.1
------------------
-Article #71 (154 is last):
-From: aa384
-Subject: SPECS: BobTerm 1.1
-Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 12:53:57 GMT
-From: DOUG WOKOUN (aa384)
-Indx: 044 Size: 1036 bytes
BobTerm v1.1
by Robert Puff
BobTerm is a relatively new,
powerful term program for the 8-bit
computers. Among its features.
o Transfer protocols:
Xmodem (Cksum or CRC)
Xmodem 1K / Ymodem Batch
Fmodem Batch (4K blocks)
CIS Fast-Xmodem (custom prot.
for CompuServe)
o 24 item dial menu
o 8 - 32char macros
8 - 16char macros
pause/return inside macros
o 13K buffer space
o VidTex/VT-52 emulation mode
o Echo-Plex, your term echos the
characters from remote term
o supports 300-19,200 baud
o SpartaDOS Command Prompt
o Word wrap
o Built-in Real-time/Online clock
o Chat buffer with recall from last
3 typed chat-buffers
o Compatable with 850, P:R:, SX,
XM301, MPP modems
o Can use R2: port for null modeming
This program is available as ShareWare
at several local BBSes.
Word Perfect continues ST support
---------------------------------
-Article #75 (156 is last):
-From: aa400
-Subject: WordPerfect continues ST support
-Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 12:54:31 GMT
-From: PHILLIP CHOW (aa400)
-Indx: 045 Size: 1498 bytes
WordPerfect Continues ST support
despite less than expected sales
_______________________________________
WordPerfect Corp. has announced that
they now have a full-time programmer
devoted to Atari ST development. This
comes after rumors of their intent to
drop all ST projects recently began
resurfacing.
According to Reed Hainsworth of
WordPerfect, the current ST version of
the popular wordprocessor will undergo
improvements, although no specific items
were mentioned. Hainsworth said that
while it won't be, "an official 4.2 ver-
sion," the new version should contain
some of 4.2's features.
WordPerfect entered the ST and Amiga
markets 2 years ago, and while sales
to both markets are growing, neither have
met corporate expectations.
WordPerfect sees the new aggressive
posture Atari has taken as a positive
development, and took that under
consideration when deciding to devote
more resources to ST work. Atari support
at WordPerfect had fallen to the point
where there was only one part-time
programmer employed only to work on ST
bug fixes.
WordPerfect will announce the
availability of new updates or upgrades.
For more information, contact:
WordPerfect Corp.
1555 N. Technology Way
Orem, UT 84057
(801) 225-5000
Phillip M. Chow_aa400_Atari Co-SIGOp
Atari announces 1st qtr earnings
--------------------------------
-Article #76 (156 is last):
-From: aa400
-Subject: Atari announces 1st qtr earnings
-Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 12:54:41 GMT
-From: PHILLIP CHOW (aa400)
-Indx: 046 Size: 1598 bytes
Atari announces 1st qtr earnings
_____________________________________
On May 12, 1989, Atari announced
the results of its first quater
earnings which ended April 1, 1989.
There was no impact from the Federated
group in the first quarter results as
it had been treated as a discountinued
operation since the last quarter of '88.
Sam Tramiel stated that "We are
pleased to report an increase in sales of
our ST and PC lines of computers in 1989
compared to the first quarter of 1988,
however video games sales declined
significantly as a result of the unfair
monopolistic practices of an
international competitor, which are now
the subject of litigation. Since
overseas sales account for nearly 75% of
our total worldwide market, our sales
growth in U.S. dollar terms were
significantly offset by the
strengthening of the U.S. dollar in
relation to most European Currencies
during the first quarter of 1989
compared to 1988. The exchange rate
effect, combined with changes in sales
product mix, was largely responsible for
the reduction in net income compared to
the first quarter of 1988."
IF Atari holds to its announced
shipment dates for its new products AND
starts advertising more, the results bode
will for a strong third quarter.
1988 Income : $98.3 Million
15% Net Oper Income
6% Net Income
1989 Income : $88.8 Million
7% Net Oper Income
4% Net Income
Phillip M. Chow_aa400_Atari Co-SIGOp
New Express Cart
----------------
-Article #67 (197 is last):
-Newsgroups: freenet.sci.comp.atari.news
-From: aa338
-Subject: New Express cart!
-Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 12:52:53 GMT
-From: MARK LEAIR (aa338)
-Indx: 039 Size: 12709 bytes
Its official! The shipment of the first
Express terminal emulator carts have
been shipped and should be received by
the first bunch of buyers June 6th.
The cartridge is real exciting.
There's already upgrades for the
Pro! BBS program that supports the
power of the Express cart...
Below is an old press release on the
cartridge then the latest report
on some of its power as released to
the Pro! SysOps with the Pro! upgrades.
One thing I have seen so far is a very
fast screen handler that was put
in Pro! as well as the cartridge! Truly
amazing!
-Mark
Atari
Cosysop
aa338
Date: Feb. 6, 1989
* * * * * * New Product Announcement * * * * * *
Express! (The Cartridge)
Orion Micro Systems of Midlothian, Va. is pleased to announce the
latest addition to its product line: the new Express! terminal program
in a 64K cartridge.
The Express! cartridge is a brand new terminal program written by
Keith Ledbetter, the author of the popular Express! series of communication
programs. The new Express! cartridge sports 64K of banked memory and is
written in 100% assembler language, allowing Keith to pack in features that
are not available in any other terminal program for the Atari 8-bit. Even
though the program has been totally rewritten, you can still sense the
user-friendly and bullet-proof environment that has always been a favorite
feature of the Express! series of programs.
The cartridge will work with any modem that has a corresponding "R:"
handler available for it. This list includes (a) any Hayes-compatible
modem used with an 850, P:R: Connection, or MIO, (b) Atari 1030 modem,
(c) Atari XM301 modem, (d) Atari SX212 modem, and (e) Supra MPP modem.
The Express! cartridge is built around a drop-down menu system
identical to those that are popular on many other machines like the IBM
PC and the Atari ST. The XEP-80 80-column cartridge is also fully
supported. If you are using an XEP-80, the drop-down menuing system is
replaced with a text-based, 80-column menu. This means you will no
longer need two monitors (ie: one for terminal mode, one for the menus).
Express! also has a full-screen, Action-type text editor built in.
This is a great feature to have, allowing you to edit the capture buffer
or compose messages for uploading to Bulletin Boards. Supported features
include cut and paste, line tagging, find, and search/replace.
The Express! cartridge also allows you to piggyback another cartridge on
top of it. Then, at your command, you can turn off the Express! cartridge
and run the cartridge plugged into the top of it! Or, you can turn off the
Express! cartridge AND the cartridge above it, making the OS think there
are NO cartridges in your machine. You may never have to pull the cartridge
out of your machine!
Express! has a planned release date of June 1, 1989 and will retail for
$69.95. Orion will start taking pre-orders for Express! on February 6, 1989
and will give a $10.00 discount off of the retail price for pre-orders placed
directly with them prior to the June 1, 1989 release date. (Virginia residents
should add 4.5% sales tax).
Listed below are some of the many highlights of the Express! cartridge,
along with a pre-order form that you may use. If you would like to order
by telephone, or if you have any questions about specific features of any
of our products, you can call Chris at (804) 794-9437 between the hours of
6 pm - 10 pm Eastern time. Thanks for your support!
* * * * * * Express! Features * * * * * *
o Supports any available DOS, including the SpartaDOS X cartridge.
o Intelligent and intuitive drop-down menu system, modeled after those
that are so popular on IBM PC's. Those of you who have used Turbo
Pascal or Turbo C on an IBM will feel right at home!
o Supports extra memory in either the 130XE or upgraded 800XL's,
allowing you to have a 90K capture buffer. Now you no longer
have to be content with wimpy, 5K capture buffers!
o Internal SpartaDOS-type DOS shell allows quick access to the most
commonly used DOS commands such as erase, rename, dir, type, and
wildcard copy. Fully supports all subdirectory commands when used
with SpartaDOS.
o Full screen (Action-like) text editor allows you to edit captured
text or compose a message without having to run an external text
processor.
o Supports ANY modem which has a corresponding 'R:' handler.
o Works on the Atari 800, 800XL, 130XE, and the XE game machine.
o Fully supports the XEP-80 80 column card when using SpartaDOS X.
By FULLY we mean FULLY! There is a seperate, 80-column menu invoked
when you are using the XEP-80. You no longer need to have two
monitors hooked up. NOTE: XEP-80 support REQUIRES SpartaDOS X.
o Supports 300/1200/2400/4800/9600 baud rates.
o Express's new high-speed screen handler makes capturing text at
the higher baud rates (4800 and 9600) a breeze. No more lost
characters while capturing text!
o Supports R1: thru R4: communication ports (great for null modeming).
o Supports Xmodem, Xmodem-CRC, Xmodem-1k (Ymodem), Ymodem Batch, Ascii
and external windowed transfer protocals.
o Allows running of external, disk-based programs. This means users
can write utilities, such as additional transfer protocols, to run
with the cartridge (just like the Express Professional BBS system).
o Supports exiting to DOS without loss of carrier. This allows you to
exit the cartridge and run any program, such as ARC, while remaining
online.
o Supports the Hayes extended modem command set (ie: "BUSY") allowing
for quick re-dial of busy numbers.
o Supports 50 phone list entries. Each entry has settings for baud
rate, parity, duplex, wait time, translation, and 3 macros. These
macros can contain control characters, making it possible to log
on with just one keypress! For example, "John Doe^M^Ppassword^M"
would output "John Doe" <return>, pause 3 seconds, then output
"password" <return>.
o There are 7 "generic" macros that are always active, regardless of
the current dialing entry that is active.
+==========================================================================+
| |
| Orion Micro Systems Order Form |
| |
+==========================================================================+
| |
| Mail Order To: Orion Micro Systems |
| Attn: Express! Cartridge |
| 2211 Planters Row Drive |
| Midlothian, Virginia 23113 |
| |
+==========================================================================+
| |
| _____ Express! (The Cartridge). . . . . . . . . . . $69.95 |
| |
| ( If Ordered Before June 1, 1989 ) . . . . . - $10.00 |
| -------- |
| |
| Sub-Total -------- |
| |
| 4.5% Sales Tax (Va. Residents Only) ________ |
| |
| Add Shipping/Handling $ 4.00 |
| |
| Total ________ |
| |
| (Check, Money Order, MasterCard or Visa Accepted) |
| |
+==========================================================================+
| |
| Payment By: __ Check __ Money Order __ MasterCard __ Visa |
| |
| Name As It Appears On Card: ____________________________________ |
| |
| Card Number: _______________________________ Exp Date: ________ |
| |
| |
| |
| Rush My Order As Soon As Released To: |
| |
| Name: ______________________________________________________ |
| |
| Address: ___________________________________________________ |
| |
| City: _______________________ State: _______ Zip: ________ |
| |
| Country: ____________________ Date Ordered: ______________ |
| |
+==========================================================================+
Well, that file was a bit old, but
still rather up to date....you can
still use the order form to purchase
the cartridge for $69.95. I currently
have no plans to purchase the cartridge
but that may change especially after I
saw the READ.ME file in the Pro!
BBS update file!!!
Here's some of the descriptions in
the READ.ME file to Pro! SysOps:
Since the new Express! cartridge has some strange and wonderful new
transfer protocols in it, we also had
to also add them to the BBS. This ARC
file includes everything you need to get your BBS "up to snuff". You should go ahead and put this up as soon as possible, since people should have the new
Express! cart in their hands by the
end of this week (July 6th. or so)...
The new protocols include:
"Auto-Lmodem downloads"
"A new, super fast Xmodem send routine"
"A new, super fast Ymodem send routine"
"Windowed protocols, so popular on the
IBM, now come to the 8 bit Atari!!!!
The BBS supports windowed Xmodem and
windowed Lmodem, and SEAlink!!!
The most exciting of these is Lmodem.
If a user calls your BBS with the new
Express! cartridge, and they have their
parameters on a BBS like Pro! set to
"Auto-Lmodem", then when they hit "D"
to download a file, the BBS and the term
program handshake, and the term program
starts receiving the file immediately.
The user doesn't have to hit ANY KEYS
after telling the BBS to "d"ownload
a file! The users will eat this one
up!
Lmodem is also better than Ymodem because
(a) its a windowed protocol (windowed,
by the way, means that the "receive
light" on the modem never goes off
unless the program is loading the buffer),
and (b) it doesn't have the overhead of having to resend an entire 1024-byte
block if an error should occur.
Keith also mentions that he hasn't
had time to do Sealink and Lmodem
batch protocols for Pro! yet, but
will be doing those real soon!
He'll also be doing super-fast receive
routines for Pro!, which will mostly
benefit 96oo baud modems.
He also still has many more big
plans for the BBS and will finally
have some time to work on them now...
(after a Florida vacation later this
month....) :)
Some future plans for Orion Microsystems
is an IBM version of Pro! BBS...
should be real interesting...
-Mark
aa338
Atari Co-SysOp
Migraph DPI hand scanner
------------------------
-Article #77 (156 is last):
-From: aa400
-Subject: Migraph DPI hand scanner
-Date: Tue, 15 Aug 89 12:54:51 GMT
-From: PHILLIP CHOW (aa400)
-Indx: 047 Size: 1735 bytes
Migraph announces 400 DPI hand scanner
________________________________________
Migraph, Inc. has announced a hand
scanner, designed specifically for the
Atari ST, that will allow photographs,
drawings, logos, and other graphics to
be scanned into computer documents.
Able to scan over a four inch wide
strip, the hand scanner has four
adjustable scanning resolutions and
provides true 300 and 400 dots per inch
resolution. Initially, it will be
bundled with Touch-Up, Migraph's image
editor.
Touch-Up will allow scanned images
to be edited and saved in a variety of
formats. The bundle also includes
scanning software and an ST interface,
which plugs into the cartridge port.
The anticipated release date for the
hand scanner is the end of June.
An additional bundle will be
released in August which consists of
the hand scanner, interface, scanning
software, and a "lite" version of
Touch-Up, which has about half of the
features of the full version. This
bundle is expected to cost about $100
less than the bundle with the full
featured Touch-Up program.
The hand scanner bundled with
Touch-Up will retail for $499. Migraph
is currently offering a special
introductory price of $429 on the hand
scanner bundled with Touch-Up.
Registered Touch-Up owners can
purchase the hand scanner direct from
Migrpah for $299. Orders with the
special pricing will be accepted through
July 31, 1989.
For more information contact:
Migraph, Inc.
200 S. 333rd Street
Suite 220
Federal Way, WA 98003
(206) 838-4677
Phillip M. Chow_aa400_Atari Co-SIGOp
____-______-______-______-______-______
This Time Capsule file was produced by
Len Stys. It may only be reposted with
the following information included:
REPOSTED FROM: The Cleveland Free-Net
Atari-SIG
(216)/368-3888
type 'Go Atari' at
any menu
(C.A.I.N.)
____-______-______-______-______-______
--
-----------------------------------------
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