Byte Magazine Volume 08 Number 12 - Easy Software

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Adotmatrix printer

that willimprove your

image. i

Meet the Apple* Image-writer, the newest dot matrixprinter for your Apple PersonalComputer.

And with all that it hasgoing for it, just maybe thebest dot matrix printer onthe market.

Take legibility, forinstance.

The Imagewriter crams140 x 160 dots into eachsquare inch. So you get textthat's highly readable and highresolution graphics, besides.

And is it fast.

The Imagewriter cruisesat an unbelievable120 characters persecond. And that'sjust in the text mode.It's even fasterprinting graphics. 180characters per second,to be exact.

What's more, thegraphics dump is up to60% faster than othercomparably priced dot matrixprinters. And that makes theImagewriter fast enough tohandle the Lisa™

Yet it's just as at home with anApple III or Apple He. Thanks to Applesoftware experts who designed thecontrol electronics to give the Image-writer perfect compatibility. Not tomention some special capabilities

APPLE PRESENTS TH

EIMA GE"WRITER APPLE PR

ESENTS THE IMAGEWRITER APPLE PRESEN1S THE MAGEURITER APPLE PRESENTS THE MAGEURITER APPLI

like superscript and subscript, toname just two.

Now, with all this high-speedperformance,you'd expect theImagewriter to make the Devil'sOwn Noise. It doesn't. In fact,the Imagewriter is speciallyconstructed — with overlaidseams and special sound-deadening materials — to achievea remarkable 53 dB. How loud is aremarkable 53 dB? You'd makemore noise if you read this aloud.

The Imagewriter even has quietgood looks, since we designed it tolook like the rest of the Apple Family.Yet even with allits improvements,the Imagewriter is abetter deal than anyother dot matrix print-er with comparableperformance. And you can print that.

Charge!

Go out there and get the ApplePersonal. Computer System youreally want. Now. Without laying outyour extra cash. Without tying upyour other lines of credit. With theApple Card. The only consumer creditcard reserved exclusively for thepurchase of Apple Computers, peri-pherals and software.

Like all our products, it workssimply:

Fill out an application (short tothe point and annotated in English)at an authorized Apple dealerhonoring the Caret. Your salespersonwill call in the application and inmost cases get an approval for youright on the spot.

You can then take your Applesystem home. You don't even have towait for the Card; we'll mail it outto you. And by the time you get it,you'll probably be well into doingwhatever you bought your Applesystem to do.

There is no annual fee for theCard, although a couple of restric-tions do apply. The first purchasemust include an Apple PersonalComputer and you nave to put 10%down. And subsequent purchasesneed to be at least $100 if made withthe Card. Oh, yes — you'll also havea credit limit.

When you use the Apple Card tomake additional purchases, all youhave to do is show the Card and signthe invoice. As long as it's withinyour credit limit, or course. Ourdealers get a little nervous whensomeone signs for half their inven-tory. You understand.

You'll also receive monthlystatements that include the latestpurchases, credit available, and theminimum payment due. You'11 alsobe happy to know Apple Card creditterms are affordable and the pay-ments can be spread out. It's all

spelled out for youat the time your Cardis approved.

So stop by a participatingauthorized Apple dealer and getan Apple Card. Just think of it ascredit where credit is due.

GrveyDur floppydisks the boot.

We call it the "floppy diskshuffle." It happens when you havetwo or more software programs onfloppies and you need to work withboth. What do you do? You put onedisk in, boot it, do your work, take itout, put the other disk in, boot it,do your work — you get the idea.

Well, you can stop shuffling anytime now.

Thanks to a unique new soft-ware program called Catalyst™ fromQuark, Inc. Specially designed foryour Apple III and ProFile™ hard disk.

Catalyst allows you to take awide variety of software programsand store them on your ProFile. Oncethey're on your ProFile, you justselect the program you want from theCatalyst menu that appears on yourmonitor — then Catalyst does therest. You'll never have to boot thoseprograms again.

What kinds of programs willwork with ProFile and Catalyst?

Almost anything written for theApple III including copy-protectedprograms like VisiCalc* Quick File™andApple Writer III. Or languages likePascal, BASIC, or COBOL.

And once you've loaded theseprograms into your ProFile, the onlydiskette you may ever need is theCatalyst.

So if you have an Apple III and aProFile and more floppies than youcare to flip through, get yourself aCatalyst. And boot those disks for good.

Apple Com/Mr lnc.20525UarimiL*v.Xuperlim,a95()N. for tlxtMimizalfypktk^

YisiCalc is a trademark of VisiCorp, Inc. Catahst is a trademark of Quark, Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Quick File and lYoFile are trademarks of Apple Computer Inc.

Circle 27 on inquiry card.

In The Queue

BIT!

Volume 8, Number 12

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Columns

36 Keep Power-Line Pollution Out of Your Computer by Steve Garcia / Whenlightning struck his home and did S3000 worth of damage, Garcia decided to strike backwith this month's Circuit Cellar project.

48 BYTE West Coast: Microsoft Windows by Phil Lemmons / Microsoft Windowslets you test the effectiveness of the desktop metaphor and the mouse.

59 User's Column: Buddy, Can You Spare a Door Latch? by Jerry Pournelle / Whatto do when your disk-drive door is on the fritz and other comedies of errors at ChaosManor

Themes

100 Easy Software by Phil Lemmons / Making software easy to use is simpler to saythan to do. This month's theme articles explore a variety of approaches to user-interfacetechnology and sample programmers' attempts at making software do more with less effort.

103 An Introduction to Integrated Software by Dash Chang / Concurrency, sharedtechnology, and functional integration are three ways of integrating software.

113 Presentation and Form in User-Interface Architecture by John M. Carroll /

With the help of a test group, the author and his colleagues developed an interface thatfacilitates ease of use and ease of learning.

127 Why Is Software So Hard to Use? by Sam Edwards / Chances are it's the soft-ware's fault and not yours.

143 Walt Disney and User-Oriented Software by Paul Heckel / Software designerscan learn a few things from Mickey Mouse about communicating ideas.

155 Making Life Easier for Professional and Novice Programmers by Andy Pope,Geoff Kates, and Dan Fineberg / A debugger that "animates" the program's source codeon the screen and lets the programmer engage in what-if analysis to find logic errorscan drastically reduce debugging time.

161 Simplify, Simplify, Simplify by Martin Dean / In an attempt to design a truly easy-to-use database manager, the author disregarded nifty features and clever, complex func-tions in favor of starting fresh.

177 Integrating Voice in the Office World by Robert T. Nicholson / The ability torecord a spoken message and store it digitally on a computer system makes possible awhole new range of applications.

189 The Starburst User Interface by Steven Vandor / This software package helps

you build efficient, powerful menus.

199 The Complete Information-Management System by Michael J. Brown / The

ideal information-management package maximizes hardware attributes and minimizes userinteraction.

210 The Allegory of Software by Tom Houston / Tired of the same old desktopmetaphor? Maybe the digital kitchen is more up your alley

218 The New Interface Technology by Robert W Warfield and George M. White / A

close-up look at mice, windows, and other software and hardware developments thatmake computer systems easier to use.

234 Trackball Interfacing Techniques for Microprocessors by Edward W Andrews /This simple hardware/software interface device is easy to adapt to your interactive per-sonal computer applications.

247 The User Interface: Two Approaches by Martin Herbach, Richard Katz, andJoseph Landau / The philosophical vs. the pragmatic approach to the construction ofan efficient user interface.

263 The Future of Metaphor in Man-Computer Systems by Chuck Clanton / Learn-

ability is the single most important concern in user-interface design.

Page 199

BYTE is published monthly by McGraw-Hill Inc.. with offices at 70 Main St.. Peterborough. NH 03458. phone(603| 924-9281. Office hours: Mon—Thur 8:30 AM — 4:30 PM. Friday 8:30 AM — Noon, Eastern Time. Addresssubscriptions to BYTE Subscriptions, POB 590, Martinsville, NJ 08836. Address changes of address. USPS Form3579, and fulfillment questions to BYTE Subscriptions. POB 596. Martinsville, NJ 08836. Second-class postagepaid at Peterborough, NH 03458 and additional mailing offices. USPS Publication No. 528890 (ISBN 0360-5280)Postage paid at Winnipeg, Manitoba. Registration number 9321. Subscriptions are S21 for one year. S38 for twoyears, and S55 for three years in the USA and its possessions. In Canada and Mexico. S23 for one year, S42

December 1983

Reviews

282 Reviewer's Notebook by Rich Malloy / BYTE's product-review editor commentson products slated for review.

286 The Texas Instruments Professional Computer by Mark Haas / Based on In-tel's 8088 16-bit chip. Tl's Professional Computer is the Data Systems Group's entry intothe personal computer arena.

329 The ATR8000 by Dave Small and Sandy Small / With SWP's Z80 computer, Atariusers can run CP/M-based programs.

343 The Hercules Graphics Card by Tom Wadlow / If you want crisp, attractive textas well as graphics on the IBM PC, the Hercules Graphics Card is for you.

360 The Wang Professional Computer by Elaine Long / This 16-bit microcomputerprovides an easy-to-use word-processing program with sophisticated features.

372 In Search of the Most Amazing Thing by Elaine Holden / This adventure gamefor the IBM PC. Apple, Atari, and Commodore 64 offers you an entire world to explorein your quest for a hidden object.

Features

380 Color Graphics from Any Computer by Frederick B. Essig / How to make high-quality full-color graphics from your black-and-white monitor.

400 Mainframe to Micro: Adapting a Financial-Modeling Language by Greg

Dunn / As the microcomputer moves into the office, software developers face newchallenges in translating existing mainframe software to the microcomputer environment.

417 POKEing Around in the IBM PC, Part 2: Subroutines for the BIOS Interfaceand Screen-Display Disk Storage by Hugh R. Howson / In this final article, the authordevelops a general-purpose BIOS-interface subroutine that can transfer parameters froma BASIC program to the BIOS and can store BIOS results in memory.

443 The CMOS 6502 by Steven Hendrix / Rockwell's CMOS version of the 6502microprocessor fills a number of gaps in the standard 6502's instruction set and offerslow power-consumption advantages.

457 A Tiger Meets a Dragon by Dan Rollins / A look at dragon-curve designs andhow to print them on an IDS Paper Tiger printer.

481 A Computer-Algebra-Based Calculating System by Stuart Edwards / By per-forming automatic unit conversion, this super-calculator saves time and effort and preventscommon errors.

519 The User Looks at Books by Jerry Pournelle / Jerry takes time out to round upthe best and worst books on CP/M, Pascal, C, and Ada.

Event QueueWhat's New?

598 Book Reviews: Electroni-cally Speaking: ComputerSpeech Generation: MasteringCP/M

Unclassified AdsBYTE's Ongoing Monitor Box,BOMB ResultsReader Service

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Editorial: Christmas in Chapter XI

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594 BYTE's Bits: IBMAnnounces the PCjr: Two NewOffice Products from IBM

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nil

the small systems journal

Editor In Chief: Lawrence J. CurranManaging Editor: Pamela A. ClarkSenior Technical Editors: Gregg Williams,Richard Malloy, G. Michael VoseTechnical Editors: Richard S. Shuford, Arthur A.Little, Stanley Wszola, Bruce Roberts, GeneSmarte; Anthony J. Lockwood, New ProductsEditor: Steve Ciarcia, Consulting Editor: MarkWelch, Staff Writer; Alan Easton, Drafting Editor.West Coast Editors: Philip Lemmons, BureauChief; Donna Osgood, Assistant Editor. McGraw-Hill, 425 Battery Street, 4th Floor, San Francisco,CA 94111 [415) 362-4600Copy Editors: Nancy Hayes, Chief; WarrenWilliamson, Elizabeth Kepner, Joan V. Roy,Dennis E. Barker, Anne L. Fischer, Bud Sadler,Margaret Cook

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Editorial and Business Office: 70 Main Street,Peterborough, New Hampshire 03458|603) 924-9281

Officers of McGraw-Hill Publications Company:President: John G. Wrede; Executive Vice Presidents:Paul F. McPherson, Operations; Walter D. Serwatka,Finance & Services. Senior Vice President-Editorial:Ralph R. Schulz. Senior Vice President Publishers:Harry L Brown, David J. McGrath, James R. Pierce,Gene W. Simpson, John E. Slater. Vice PresidentPublishers: Charlton H. Calhoun III, Richard H. Larsen,John W. Patten. Vice Presidents: Kemp Anderson,Business Systems Development; Shel F. Asen,Manufacturing; Michael K. Hehir, Controller; Eric B.Herr, Planning and Development; H. John Sweger,Jr., Marketing.

Editorial

Christmas in Chapter XI

Personal computers are priced within the reach of many potential buyerslooking to reward themselves or their companies with some special indul-gence at this time of year. If you've been thinking about buying a machine,you've probably been weighing the performance specifications of several ven-dor offerings. But have you included in your list of questions about hard-ware and software one that could prevent you from making a selection you'lllater regret: Will the hardware manufacturer still be in business a year fromnow?

You know that software availability usually lags behind hardware introduc-tion, sometimes by months, so you'll want to know that a new machine canrun most of your existing software. And you'll certainly want assurance aboutwho will repair a new computer and how quickly. But in the midst of mut-terings about a pending shakeout in the personal computer business andhard evidence of company failures, how can you assure yourself about thevery viability of a vendor?

One attribute of a "survivor" company is solid financing, especially if thecompany is a young one. The dollar drain triggered by graduation from thestart-up phase to volume production has ruined many a fast-growing newcompany that found itself unable to deliver finished goods because of a cashshortage that resulted in an inability to pay for parts.

Innovative start-ups sometimes get distracted by an infatuation with tech-nology, regardless of the technology's market appeal. Such a situation oftenleads to the development of a computer that has esoteric appeal but thatwill not attract enough software development to assure market acceptancefor the product and company.

The breadth of its product line is another characteristic of a successful com-puter vendor, whether the company is a start-up or a proven survivor. Firmsthat hitch their fortunes to narrow niches—those that serve only the port-able computer market, for example—face more risks than those whose prod-uct lines have entries in several niches at several price points.

Buyers should consider other important attributes of successful computercompanies as well, including the company's approach to mass distribution,which often assures quick delivery and repair, when needed. But perhapsthe most important question that should be answered is whether the com-pany whose product you're considering is truly a computer company. If no-body in top management in the company has sound computer hardwareor software credentials, the company may be a conglomerate or a semicon-ductor manufacturer whose long-term commitment to the computer businessis questionable.

Several years ago, the then Philco-Ford Corporation and GTE Sylvania,both broadly recognized as reputable manufacturers of consumer and militaryelectronic products, were also in the merchant semiconductor market. Theyaren't today, probably because when their commercial semiconductor opera-tions ran into financial difficulties, as any business will, nobody in top man-agement came from semiconductor roots; there wasn't any senior "sponsor"to sustain a commitment to that business.

So read all you can about the companies whose products are on your list,and ask a lot of questions. Otherwise, you could end up with a computerfrom a supplier who spends this or next Christmas in Chapter XI bankrupt-cy proceedings. —Lawrence J. Curran, Editor in Chief

4 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

How Cromemco plugs

you into thestate of the art.

Cromemco offers you the mostcomplete line of S-100 boards andperipherals in the business. Theseboards use the new IEEE-696 state-of-the-art standard. One-stop shoppingcan satisfy your design needs the easyway.

You can build one system, or ahundred, exactly the way you want,and upgrade existing systems with asimple board swap or addition. Andsince we design our own boards forour own systems, we always takeadvantage of the latest developmentsin IC technology.

68000 microprocessor performance.Cromemco's Dual Processor Unitgives you the best of both worlds: the

68000 and the Z-80A microproc-essors on the same board. It's theeasiest way to move into 68000 per-formance and still use your existing8-bit software. Or use Cromemco'sZ-80A CPU board or our Z-80A-basedsingle board computer.

For selection, Cromemco can't bematched. From the well-known SDIHigh Resolution Color Graphics boardto the new 512MSU, 512K byte RAMboard. From our highly reliable LocalArea Network interface (C-NET) to ourwide variety of general purpose inter-face boards. And you can put them inone of our 8-, 12-, or 21-slot cardcages with our 12 amp PS-8 powersupply to get your system into opera-tion fast.

We have over 30 S-100 boards tofill your needs. And all are supportedby a broad line of software. Our BoardProducts Catalog has the latest in-formation. Call today for your copy, orto get the name of our nearest dealeror distributor. Or, write Cromemco,Inc., 280 Bernardo Avenue, P.O. Box7400, Mountain View, CA 94039.Tel: (415) 964-7400. In Europe:Cromemco A/S, Vesterbrogade IC,1620 Copenhagen, Denmark.

In the U.S., contact your localHall-Mark or Kierulff distributor.

Cromemco

Circle 127 on inquiry card.

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128K bytes RAM are standard,internally expandable to 256K.And 320K formatted disk stor-age is included.

SOFTWARE INCLUDED

Your computer is deliveredwith SEEQUAs MS-DOS,compatible with the IBM

standard 16 bit PC-DOS oper-ating system. It includes Per-fect Writer for word processingand Perfect Calc for financialanalysis. And it has MBasic tolet you write your own routines.Chameleon comes standardwith 640x200 resolution blackand white graphics and 320 x200 resolution color graphics.

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Circle 382 on Inquiry card.

MICROBYTES

Staff-written highlights of late developments in the microcomputer industry.

IBM SHOWS TWO VERSIONS OF THE PCjr, PROMISES DELIVERY IN '84

IBM announced the PCjr, its long-awaited home computer that was code-named "Peanut." This newmachine features an 8088 microprocessor, 64K bytes of RAM, and a detached keyboard linked via in-frared light. The new machine also features two cartridge slots for game cartridges, a joystick, a lightpen, and serial connectors. Two configurations will be offered. The "Entry" system, which has no diskdrive, will sell for $669. The "Enhanced" system, which features a 5%-inch half-height floppy-disk drive(360K bytes) and 128K bytes of RAM, will cost $1269. The Enhanced system will run many, but not all,IBM PC programs. Deliveries of these machines should begin in the first quarter of 1984. For moredetails, see page 358.

IBM ALSO ANNOUNCES A COLOR PRINTER

In what seemed to be a flurry of new product announcements, IBM added yet one more: the IBM Per-sonal Computer Color Printer. This new printer features three printing modes: data-processing quality(200 characters per second), text quality (110-150 char/sec), and near-letter-quality (30-40 char/sec).With a "Process" ribbon, which has four bands of color (black, magenta, cyan, and yellow), the printercan print eight colors. The printer also supports proportional spacing and bit-mapped graphics and iscompatible with the IBM Graphics Printer.

TWO CHIP MAKERS ANNOUNCE NEW VERSIONS OF MICROPROCESSORS

National Semiconductor, Santa Clara, CA, is shipping samples of its 32032 microprocessor, with fullproduction of the CMOS chip scheduled for April 1984. The NS32032 shares the same 32-bit internalarchitecture as the NS08032 and NS16032 (the 8- and 16-bit data-bus versions), but its 32-bit databus allows it to execute more than 1 million instructions per second. While the NS32032 now sells for$220 in quantity, National Semiconductor expects the price to drop to between $20 and $60 by 1985.

The Western Design Center, Mesa, AZ, is preparing to begin test production of the 65816, a 16-bitCMOS version of the popular 6502 microprocessor used in Apple, Commodore, and Atari computers.The processor, which uses an 8-bit data bus and allows 24-bit addressing (to address up to 16megabytes of RAM), will come in two versions, one of which will be pin-compatible with the existing6502 so that it can be used in the same equipment, according to the designer. The Western DesignCenter plans to begin full production in the first half of 1984, with a price of about $20 per chip. Oncethat chip is in production, WDC also hopes to prepare a 32-bit version with a 16-bit data bus.

Hayden Software, Lowell, MA, is preparing an assembler and a Pascal compiler for the 65816, to beavailable in early 1984.

WANG INTRODUCES DIGITIZING IMAGE SCANNER FOR THE PROFESSIONAL COMPUTER

Wang Laboratories, Lowell, MA, has given its Professional Computer "eyes" in the form of a desktopscanner that digitizes images at a resolution of 200 dots per inch (1728 by 2200 pixels for themaximum 11- by 14-inch image). Images can be enlarged, reduced, or rotated 90 degrees and mergedwith word-processing text. The complete Professional Image Computer, with a 10-megabyte hard disk(to store about 100 images), monitor, thermal printer, and image scanner, sells for $14,965.

CALIFORNIA COMPANY DEVELOPING GALLIUM ARSENIDE COMPUTER CIRCUITS

Gigabit Logic Inc., Newbury Park, CA, expects to have GaAs semiconductor devices ready for customersampling by February or March. Gallium arsenide is superior to silicon for high-speed logic and memorycomponents because it permits greater mobility for electrons moving through the semiconductor.

Gigabit Logic says GaAs RAM devices could have access times of 1 nanosecond, compared to 5 to 7nanoseconds for the fastest silicon RAMs. Logic circuits made with GaAs are expected to operate 3 to10 times faster than today's fastest silicon logic. Gigabit's first products will include various small- andmedium-scale ICs; the first 1-nanosecond RAMs could be available for sampling in the first quarter of1985. GaAs circuits will be priced substantially higher than similarly sized silicon logic and memorydevices, but computer manufacturers may be willing to pay an initial premium to get the higher speedoffered. One of the first applications of GaAs devices in small computers may be as display generators,offering high-speed, high-resolution graphics.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 7

MICROBYTES.

SHUGART UNVEILS A $6000 OPTICAL-DISK DRIVE WITH 1 GIGABYTE OF STORAGE

Shugart Corp., Sunnyvale, CA, has announced a 1-gigabyte (1-billion character) laser-based optical-diskdrive with a volume price of $6000 each (plus $1500 for an SCSI controller). The drive usesnonerasable 12-inch optical disks, which cost between $100 and $150 each. Shugart suggests that thefirst use of optical storage might be as a file server for networked personal computers. Shugart sellsZV*-, 5%-, and 8-inch disks to computer manufacturers and will target the optical drive to the samemarket.

NEW SOFTWARE INTRODUCED FOR IBM PERSONAL COMPUTER

Mosaic Software, Cambridge, MA, has announced Integrated Six, a $495 integrated-software packageincluding spreadsheet, database-management, word-processing, graphics, communications, and terminal-emulation capabilities. . . .Symmetric Software, Newport Beach, CA, is offering Blue, a multiple-windowcolor word processor for $150. . . .Quicksort, Seattle, WA, sells PC-Write, a word-processing package,for $10. Quicksoft encourages users to copy the program but charges $75 to register the program.Registered users receive updates and bound documentation. . . .Scientia Inc., Wellesley, MA, introducedConcept VP, a window-oriented operating environment for the IBM PC. The $350 program will enableusers to switch between application programs using a mouse or cursor keys. . . .Excalibur TechnologiesCorp., Albuquerque, NM, is now selling IBM PC versions of Savvy, its natural-language database-management system previously available only for the Apple II Plus and Me. Three versions are available,ranging from $349 to $950. . . .Concentric Data Systems, Westborough, MA, plans to offer an easy-to-use database-management program for the IBM PC. The Concentric Information Processor will sell for$395.

NAN0BYTES

IBM has announced two new versions of the Personal Computer: the XT/370 and the 3270 PC. Seepage 594 for details. . . .Apple Computer, Cupertino, CA, has announced a $325 database-managementprogram for the Apple III. Apple has also developed a programmer's toolkit for the Lisa computer. LisaPort provides the complicated software needed to manage the mouse- and window-based environment,thus enabling most software developers to run their applications on the Lisa. . . .CompuServe, Columbus,OH, will test the effects of advertisements and direct-marketing offers on its information servicebeginning in January. One- or two-line spot ads will be used on menu pages, and catalog and productinformation will also be available during the four-month pilot program. . . . Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, hasdeveloped an 8-inch floppy-disk drive using a special disk with an unformatted capacity of 9.6megabytes. Samples of the drive will be available next month for about $1075. . . . Microcom Inc.,Norwood, MA, has introduced ERA-2, a communications system for the IBM PC and the Apple lie.Including software and a 1200-bps modem, ERA-2 will sell for $429. . . .Intel Corp., Santa Clara, CA,has announced a nonvolatile 4K-byte RAM chip made by backing up 4K bytes of RAM (with an accesstime of 200 nanoseconds) with a 4K-byte EEPROM. The 2004 nonvolatile RAM will be available in early1984 at a price of $25.10 each in 100-unit quantities. . . .Texas Instruments, Lubbock, TX, cancelledplans to introduce the 99/8 home computer this fall. . . .Compaq Computer Corp., Houston, TX, isshipping the Compaq Plus, a hard-disk version of its IBM PC-compatible portable computer. The $4995machine includes a 3y2-inch hard disk mounted with a shock-isolation system. . . .Seagate Technology,Scotts Valley, CA, is shipping samples of a 12-megabyte half-height 5%-inch hard-disk drive. The ST212is designed for portable computer applications and will sell for $690 in 1000-unit quantities. . . .EnterComputer, San Diego, CA, has introduced a six-pen plotter, the Sweet Pea Model 600, for$1075. . . .Bridge Communications, Cupertino, CA, has announced Communications Server/100, whichconnects 10 RS-232C devices to Ethernet for as little as $3900. . . .Micro Office Systems Technology,Fairfield, CT, has introduced the Road Runner, a 5-pound notebook-size portable computer withcartridge-based software and memory and an 8-line by 80-character LCD built into its flip-up cover. TheZ80-based system with 64K bytes of RAM, bundled software, a serial port, and a built-in 300-bpsmodem sells for $1895. . . .Compugraphic Corp., Wilmington, MA, has introduced the PersonalComposition System, which links the Apple Lisa to a Compugraphic typesetter. The system, which ispriced from $26,895 including the Lisa and typesetter, was designed for office users who wanttypeset-quality computer output.

8 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983

With all the clamor about personal computers,

a fundamental fact is often overlooked:

some simply work better than others.

Consider the COMR\Q Portable.

A computer will make you moreproductive. A computer willmake you more efficient. You hear iteverywhere. But you don't hear aboutwhich computer actually works best.

A computer isn't magic. It's a tool.And just like other tools, some com-puters work better than others.

The COMPAQ™ Portable is a combi-nation of 20th-century electronics and19th-century pragmatism. It simply doespersonal computing better. Here's why.

Works in more places

You don't do all your thinking in oneplace. Why have a computer that staysin one place?

The COMPAQ Portable has all thecapabilities of a large desktop com-puter. But now those capabilities cango where you go.

You can move it from office to officeto share its resources. You can moveit into the conference room to answerquestions when and where they come up.

With the COMPAQ Portable, youcan be as productive in your hotelroom or your lake house as in your ownoffice. It's a reliable companion on abusiness trip. It's a powerful sales aid inyour customer's office.

What's more productive than a com-puter? A computer that works for youin more places.

Works with thegreatest numberof programs

The most importantconsideration whenyou choose a computeris "what programs willit run?" And that's onemore reason for choosinthe COMPAQ PortableThe COMPAQ Portable runs more programs

The COMPAQ Portable wasdesigned to fit under a stand-ard airline seat so you can takeit on business trips.

^P^^^- The unique alu-

minum frame of theCOMPAQ Portable has cross-members tluit strengthen it front-to-back, side-to-side, and top-to-bottom. It's adesign practice commonly used in race cars.

than any other portable. In fact, it runsmore than most non-portables. That'sbecause it runs all the popular pro-grams written for the IBM® PersonalComputer. There are hundreds ofthem. They are available in computerstores all over the country, and theyrun without any modification, right offthe shelf.

Imagine the power of a portable wordprocessor. There are dozens of differentword processing programs available forthe COMPAQ Portable.

Planning, problem-solving, and"what-ifs" are a cinch with a variety ofpopular electronic spreadsheet pro-grams. The COMPAQ Portable runsthem all.There are accounting programs foranything from computerizing yourfamily budget to full-scaleprofessional management« of payables, receivables,Bi inventory, and

payroll for yourcompany.

There are pro-grams for makingcharts and programs forcommunicating withother computers. Or ifyou want somethingreally specialized, thereare even program lan-guages for writing yourown programs.

So, you get portabil-ity and you don't give

up problem-solving power. The combi-nation adds up to the most useful per-sonal computer on the market today.

Works better becauseit's easy to read

The display screen of the COMPAQPortable measures nine inches diago-nally. It shows a full "page width" of 80characters on a line so tasks like wordprocessing are easier. And those char-acters are big enough to read even ifyou're leaning back in your chair.The display shows both high-resolutiongraphics andeasy-to-read,upper- andlowercasecharacters.One screen

There are hundreds

oj useful programs for

COMPAQ Portable because it runs

all the popular programs written for the IBM.

for all the information. With somepersonal computers, including theIBM, you can have either the graphicsor the legible characters, but you can'thave both unless you buy two differentdisplays.

Incidentally, computer prices areoften quoted without a display. The dis-play of the COMPAQ Portable is builtin, of course.

Add-on options make it workthe way you work

Inside the COMPAQ Portable are threeopen slots. Electronic devices called ex-pansion boards fit those slots and givethe COMPAQ Portable new powers.

Just like the programs, expansionboards designed for the IBM work withthe COMPAQ Portable, so there aredozens available right now. With them,you can make your personal computermore personal.

Want to check a stock price? Or lookup something in The New York TimesInformation Service? One expansionboard enables the COMPAQ Portableto handle those communications overordinary phone lines.

Want to use your company's centralcomputer files while you're on atrip? There are boards that allow theCOMPAQ Portable to communicatewith a variety of large mainframecomputers.

Other boards let you hook up con-trollers for computer games or increasememory capacity. Still others let youconnect personal computers in a net-work so several people in your officecan share the same information.

Inside theCOMPAQ Por-table are three slotsfor optional electronicsthat can add new capabili-■ ties. Most portables have none.

Works better becauseit's tough enough for the road

Portable doesn't just mean smaller. Por-table means tough, too.

The COMPAQ Portable was built towithstand the hard knocks of constanttravel. An aluminum frame within thecase completely surrounds the com-puter's working components. Each diskdrive is mounted in rubber shock ab-sorbers instead of being bolted directlyto the frame.

To test internal components, theCOMPAQ Portable was subjected toimpacts of 40 G's while running a pro-gram. After impacts on each side, therewas no internal damage and the pro-gram was still running. Without error.

Computers are for getting rid of wor-ries, not giving you new ones.

Designed to help youwork better, too

The COMPAQ Portable was designedto feel good.

Specifications

Software

D Runs all the popular programs

written for the IBM PCMemory

□ 128K bytes RAM

□ Expandable to 640K bytesStorage

□ One 320K-byte minifloppy diskdrive, second drive optional

Display

D 9-inch (diagonal) monochromescreen

□ 25 lines by 80 characters

□ Upper- and lowercase, high-resolution text characters

□ High-resolution graphicsExpansion board slots

□ Three IBM PC-compatible slotsInterfaces

□ Parallel printer interface

□ RGB color monitor interface

□ Composite video monitor interfaceD TV RF modulator interface

D Communications interface

optionalPhysical specifications

□ Totally self-contained andportable

□ 20"W x 8'/2"H x 16"D

The keyboard is detached so it can fitinto your most comfortable workingposition.

The keyboard cable remains con-nected at all times. So you don't haveto unpack it and hook it up every timeyou use your computer.

Because the display is built in, theCOMPAQ Portable makes a neat,

small package on your desk, instead ofa big obstacle you have to talk around.The built-in display also avoids the usualcable clutter because there's no needfor separate cables for the display.

The COMPAQ Portable even has anelectronically synthesized sound to cre-ate the familiar keyclick of a typewriter.With a simple keyboard command youcan adjust the volume to suit the levelof background noise in your office.

The added usefulnessis free

The COMPAQ Portable can do whatdesktop computers do and do it in moreplaces. But it doesn't cost any morethan an ordinary desktop.

In fact, it costs hundreds less than acomparably equipped IBM or Apple®III. The COMPAQ Portable comesstandard with one disk drive and 128Kbytes of memory, both of which areusually extra-cost options. A seconddisk drive and additional memory areavailable to make your COMPAQPortable even more powerful.

The bottom line is this—you justcan't buy a more practical, useful, pro-ductive computer. Before you decideon a computer, you owe it to yourselfto compare the COMPAQ Portable.

For the location of the AuthorizedDealer nearest you, call 1-800-231-9966.

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BTA's MODEL 524 MULTIPORTCONTROLLER is a code activated oneto four serial port expander — but that'snot all since it has separate and indepen-dent UARTS, buffers and handshakingeach port can operate with a differentconfiguration, i.e. different baud rates,stop bits, etc. These features also permittwo or more devices to communicatewith the 524 simultaneously.

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MODEL 524A $279.00

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same as model 524, plus continuous poll-ing of each peripheral device for datatransfer requests. The device is auto-matically connected when its 'turn comesup . ON, BUSY and OFF messages aresent to the peripheral device.

'Other models available — Contact us oryour dealer for additional information.

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Letters

Subtle Features of the HP-75

While I liked Rowland Archer's reviewof the HP-75 (September, page 178), Ifound that it hardly scratched the surfaceof this remarkable machine and did notaddress many of its strongest, albeitsubtle, features.

Perhaps this machine's most attractivefeature is its ability to enable a RAM-based BASIC program to interact withother RAM-based files and its ability totransform a text file to BASIC and viceversa. This may not sound like much, butit opens the door to many advanced ap-plications. For example:

• A BASIC program can be written totake a FORTRAN source in a text file and"edit" it into BASIC under program con-trol.

• A program generator for numerical-equation solving can be written in lessthan 3.5K bytes. Allowing unlimitedlength variables, it enables the user tospecify only equations, rewriting them tothe required BASIC syntax, determiningI/O (input/output) variables, and auto-matically supplying all I/O and controlstatements.

•A friendly relational database allowingmulticharacter field names and permit-ting complex Boolean inquiry expressionstakes but 2.5K bytes.•Artificial intelligence types take note:an HP-75 program can be made to edititself (shades of LISP). A few BASICstatements are all it takes.

Tine multiple-file structure allows otherseemingly impossible feats. A user canmanually interrupt a running program,call another from the keyboard, then con-tinue the first from where he or she leftoff—no loss of data, pending returns, etc.

The HP-75 operating system is beauti-fully integrated with the BASIC, and allcatalog information is accessible, permit-ting BASIC to perform as a job controllanguage. I wrote a full menu-drivenoperating system in 931 bytes.

The editor is very nice. The Fetch keyperforms a "find" function, a sorelymissed feature on most other machines.Additionally, the keyboard is totally re-definable. Keys can be redefined as otherletters, strings, commands, whatever.

The one-line display is not as bad assome would think, and an 80-column,25-line video adapter is now available

from Mountain Computer Corporation.

Lastly, the HP-75 is extremely fast forfloating-point number crunching. Whileit is slow using an empty FOR/NEXT loopor prime-number program as a measure,it will easily outdistance an Apple,TRS-80, or TRS 80/M-100. The IBM isfaster, but the IBM Personal Computer'stranscendental functions are accurate toonly 6.5 digits compared to the HP's 15digits. The recently released Math ROMadds matrix operations, complex variabletypes, and root solvers (to name a few)to the language, giving the HP-75 themost convenient BASIC available fornumerical work.

I am admittedly biased toward myHP-75 but I feel it has been overlooked bymany, probably because of its form fac-tor. It is not just another hand-held com-puter but a unique and powerful com-puter system, and it warrants greater at-tention from the technical press. The ar-ticle in the September BYTE was a firststep.

James A. Walters4171 Antler TrailSmyrna, GA 30080

I am a proud owner of an HP-75 por-table computer and I think I know almosteverything there is to know about this in-credible machine.

Rowland Archer's review (September,page 178) describes the machine fairlywell. But I think he should have donemore research before attempting to re-view this product.

Archer says in his conclusion: "How-ever, it does tie you to HP's devices,rather than letting you use devices thatinterface to standard serial or parallelports such as modems."

This is false. I use my HP-75 with anEpson FX-80 printer with a parallel inter-face, and with a Muraphone 300-bps (bitsper second) modem. This little machinecan be used with almost any interface(serial, parallel, or HPIB bus). There areHP-IL interface converters on the marketthat enable you to use this computer withany other interface.

Walter YadegarPOB 687Skokie, IL 60076

Rowland Archer Jr. replies:I am glad to hear that these interfaces are

12 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Get The Computer

That Blew Their SocksOff At Comdex.

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The name is HeadStartT the microcomputer that wowedthe crowd at Las Vegas.

We're accepting orders now for the smallest, smartest,fastest, most powerful business computer you can buy.

For the Intertec dealer nearest you, call or write: Intertec,2300 Broad River Road, Columbia, SC 29210.

Phone:803-798-9100. • * *

intertec.

* Scheduled availabilityJanuary, 1984.

Circle 236 on inquiry card.

Letters.

available. None of the literature accompany-ing the review machine mentioned this capa-bility, and I have never seen it advertised. In-terested HP-75 owners should contact Mr.Yadegar or their HP dealer for details on avail-ability and prices.

Poor Support from EpsonRiles User

David Ramsey was much too lenient inhis comments on Epson's poor supportof the HX-20 ("Epson's HX-20 and TexasInstruments' CC-40," September, page

193.) Sure, the people at Epson hurtthemselves by not taking advantage oftheir early lead in this market of thefuture, but they also hurt their earlycustomers. (I am one of them, and notvery happy about it!)

Consider the HX-20 from a customer'spoint of view—mine. In October 1982 Icalled Epson and asked if the HX-20would support machine language. Sure,they said, so I bought a shiny new HX-20(without the cassette drive or Skiwriter).The only documentation that came withthe HX-20 was a skinny little "Operations

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Guide" that didn't help much. Twomonths later the BASIC manuals and acouple of Mickey Mouse (apologies toWalt Disney) software cassettes showedup, together with the extra-cost microcas-sette drive. The BASIC manuals describethe BASIC adequately, but for informa-tion on the machine language the man-uals refer you to the HX-20 Technical Ref-erence Manual. I promptly (in February1983) ordered the manual. The dealer saidhe didn't have it yet, but promised it byApril 15. That date came and went andstill no manual. Ditto May 15, June 15,July 15, and August 15.

During this time, I sent numerous let-ters to Epson yielding prompt replies thatsaid nothing about the HX-20 TechnicalReference Manual, the promised displaycontroller, disk drive, software, usergroup, or anything else that would havebeen useful.

Of course, the display controller willonly be a 32-column, 16-line TV toy any-way, so I might as well write the wholething off as a loss and start over. But letit be known that this buyer is more warynow. Next time the support comes first,then I put out the cash.

B. H. Geyer

108 Sun Harbor Dr.

Liverpool, NY 13088

Starting FORTH as aTextbook

I have several disagreements withThomas Clune's review (September,page 494) of Starting FORTH by LeoBrodie.

I used Starting FORTH when teachinga course in 1982. We found many of thepictures quite helpful. In particular, mak-ing people out of INTERPRET, WORD,EXECUTE, and the compiler providedstudents with memory "hooks" thatmade explanations easier.

It's true that Brodie covers all the built-in features of FORTH including the hard,subtle things. But it's these features thataccount for much of FORTH's power.Virtually all tutorials avoid serious discus-sion of things like CREATE DOES > leav-ing a misleading impression of the lan-guage. Starting FORTH worked well inmy class; it needed little extra explana-tion compared to most texts I use. (I mustadmit that the students were alreadygood programmers; Clune may be rightabout the effect of the latter part of thebook on less experienced readers.)

INTRODUCING

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With UltraTerm, the revolutionary new cardfrom Videx, you'll enjoy sweeping panoramasof spreadsheets that you've never seenbefore: 128 columns by 32 lines, 132 columnsby 24 lines and even 160 columns by 24 lines.You'll revel in the scenics of a whole year ofrecords stretching out across your screen.

You'U also delight in the new horizon of 80columns by 48 lines—double the linesyou normally have. So your word processingwill reveal a "depth of character" neverpossible before!

Another breath-taking view of UltraTerm—itdelivers absolutely flicker-free, state of the artdisplay with 8x12 character matrix givingyou preposterously clear, readable charac-ters. Not only will you see more characterson your screen (a whopping 4096 possible),but they'll also be larger and more readablethan the characters you read every day inCircle 445 on inquiry card.

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SuperCalc is the world's most

useable spreadsheet.

At first, all spreadsheets seemto give you about the same things.Until you put them to work.Thenyou'll find out if they do everythingyou expected. Or make you doeverything the hard way.

You know what makes the differ-ence? It's not just having the new-est, whizziest features, but whatthose features actually do for youin the real world. And that's thewhole idea behind SuperCalc andSuperCalc2. Because they'vebeen designed to work with you ina natural, intuitive way.

What we're really talking abouthere is useability. When you getright down to it, it's not any one bigthing, but a combination of littlethings. Like the number of key-strokes it takes to get a job done.Or the effort it takes to switch fromone function to another. Maybe afew keystrokes here and theredoesn't seem like much of a differ-ence. Or having to change disksto plot a graph. But when you multi-ply those little things by the thou-sands of times you do them, theymake all the difference in the world.

Even the size of the spreadsheetis important. Some programspromise you a huge area to workwith. Unfortunately, they can useso much of the computer's avail-able memory just keeping trackof all the blank cells that you're leftwith only a handful. But we'vedesigned SuperCalc to give youthe largest useable spreadsheet.

If you look at the printout below,you'll see a lot more examples ofwhat we mean. And we think you'llrealize why this is the most use-able spreadsheet in the world.

Text can

"spill over" into

next column

Calendar/Datecalculations

Dictionary sortorder (not ASCII)

Two keysort

User-set decimalplaces

Data managementcapability

Negatives shownin()

cwF/ce auffMAKY gran.

St+ff CcxtyaJjmant A Avjr«gm- Rstwmt

fi*rtnmr 2 *9?. 300

Hmn*gmr- JT JH4.6&7

Smmor J *31. OOO

St*/* 2 S4X.OOO

Nowyoucandrawyourown conclusions.

SuperCalc?

Now we're introducing our new-est version, SuperCalc3, whichcomes complete with the kind ofgraphics you'd expect to find in aprogram that does everything elseso well. We give you full color. Andpresentation quality. Plus eightdifferent type styles to choosefrom. And new financial featureslike internal rate of return. We'veeven integrated all these functionsonto one single disk. Which meansyou don't have to change disksall the time. Or settle for a weakspreadsheet and low-resolutiongraphics just for the sake of getting

both in the same package.

As you might expect, we'vemade SuperCalc3 100% com-patible with SuperCalc andSuperCalc2. So you can moveup to it whenever you're ready.You can even convert your VisiCalcfiles.The SuperCalc family isavailable for CP/M, CP/M-86, Con-currentCP/M-86, MP/M, MS-DOSand PC-DOS operating systems.Right now, SuperCalc3 is availableforthe IBM PC, PCXTand IBM PCcompatibles. It's only $395. Andsoon it'll beavailableforalotmorepersonal computers.

SuperCalc3. When you're reallyserious about spreadsheets, thisis the one you'll wind up using. Butdon't take our word for it. Go trySuperCalc3 at your computer storetoday. And draw your ownconclusions.

CP/M.*CP/M-86? Concurrent CP/M-86.andMP/M* are trademarks ofDigital Research. MS*-DOS is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.IBM* is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.VisiCalc" is a trademark of Visicorp. s 1983 Sorcim Corporation.

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Letters —^—^———

Before teaching the course, I had con-sidered writing my own book onFORTH, one that would explain thereally subtle and powerful features of thebasic system. After studying Brodie's textand teaching from it, I decided that thatparticular publishing niche is well filledalready.

I do agree with Tom Clune on acouple of points: "...[Starting FORTH]desperately needs a real index. Nonethe-less, if you want to learn FORTH, youwill need this book."

Vernor VingeAssociate ProfessorDepartment of Math SciencesSan Diego State UniversitySan Diego, CA 92182

Wrong Aliases

Having an interest in the use of Unixin the commercial marketplace, I read"The Unix Tutorial Part 2: Unix as an Ap-plications-Programs Base" (September,page 257) with anticipation. Since DavidFiedler's intended audience was ap-

parently the Unix novice, I thought I hadbetter point out a problem with his ex-amples of renaming the "terse" com-mand names.

While all of Mr. Fiedler's exampleswould work in most cases, he unfor-tunately decided to rename the "mv"and "cp" command. I use the term"command" rather than "commands"because they are one and the same pro-gram as in the "In" command. This pro-gram knows which function it is to per-form by the name used. If a name otherthan "cp," "mv," or "In" is used, theprogram will default to the "cp" (copy)function. In this particular case, the userwould not achieve the desired resulteither by renaming the command or bylinking the desired name.

The alternative solutions of using the"alias" function for the UCB C-Shell orcreating a shell program for the BourneShell are not only desirable in this case,but also necessary.

Ron Spizzirri, Technical ManagerAnalysts International Corporation650 Woodfield Dr.Schaumburg, IL 60195

C Source-Code Formatting

I was overjoyed to see my preferredstyle of C source-code formatting inHouston, Brodrick, and Kent's article onCP/M-86 C compilers (page 82) in theAugust issue. I have always instinctive-ly used that format, despite pressure toconform to convention, because it feelsbetter to me.

I feel strongly that the matching-braces-in-the-same-column formatting style ispreferable and hope that it will find wideacceptance, or at least tolerance, par-ticularly by anyone who imposes format-ting standards on programmers.

Peter CannAtari Incorporated5 Cambridge CenterCambridge, MA 02142

Unix Wasn't the First

"The History of Unix" (August, page188) is interesting, but there is a majorproblem with the statement: "Until Unix,operating systems were written exclu-sively in assembly language."

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Letters ——

Wrong!

The Burroughs B-5000 computer re-leased in 1963 and later rereleased as theB-5500 used a multiprogramming/multi-processing operating system written in asuperset of ALGOL-60 called ESPOL.There has never been an assembly lan-guage and assembler for any of the Bur-roughs large computers including theB5700, B6500, B5900, B6700, B6800,B6900, B7700, B7800, B7900.

Harlan S. Barney, Jr.Chief, EDP Technical ServicesNYS Department of TransportationAlbany, NY 12232

What About MP/M-86?

In your Unix series, several authorspointed to 8-bit CP/M's deficiencies whencompared to Unix. This is like accusingthe IBM PC of serious deficiencies innumeric-processing ability when com-pared to the Cray X-MP.

None of the articles mentionedMP/M-86, Digital Research's 16-bitmultiuser/multitasking operating system.Was MP/M-86 ignored because theauthors' livelihoods are somehow tied tothe success of Unix?

The switch to MP/M-86 is easy for themillions of CP/M users. The commands,with few exceptions or additions, are thesame. Increasing numbers of CP/M pack-ages are available for CP/M-86; most ofthese will run under MP/M-86 withoutmodification. The result is a greater vari-ety of familiar software.

Digital Research's operating systemswould not win any prizes for userfriendliness. However, their prompts andcommands are generally more logicalthan those of Unix.

Despite all the recent Unix hype, I amnonplussed by the implied propensity fordisk contention and its belated supportof record locking.

BYTE should review MP/M-86.

Larry KoervFortrex CorporationPOB 3610Wichita, KS 67201

Speed Not the Issue

If Mr. Harp and Mr. Stone (Letters, Oc-tober, page 20) of Oklahoma State Univer-sity bought Radio Shack Model 16s to winBASIC-language benchmark contests

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Letters *

then they indeed bought the wrong iron.The TRS-80 Model 12 and Model 16 areCOBOL-oriented business data-process-ing machines. For a single workstation,the Model 12 is the more practical choice.For multiple users, the Model 16 is theonly game in town. I agree that the twooperating systems offered are not speeddemons. But if the user sees apparentlyinstantaneous response when he calls upa screen format or randomly updates arecord, then that is fast enough for thepurpose for which these machines weredesigned. Their forte is the ability to han-dle large files efficiently—commercialdata-processing.

This is not intended to let Radio Shackoff the hook for failure to provide a reallygood operating system. TRSDOS is user-friendly but slow. Xenix is the usual in-comprehensible mess of gobbledygookthat we have come to expect from Unixand its derivatives. We have the engineer-ing profession to thank for designing itand the academic community to thank forpraising it to the skies.

Despite these defects, if Mr. Harp andMr. Stone want to unload a Model 16 atan attractive price, please ask them to getin touch. I know how to use the machine

very effectively in a business-oriented en-vironment, and my customers seldom dotrigonometry in the middle of payroll.

John R. Culleton Jr.President, Culleton Group Inc.2401 Haight Ave.Sykesville, MD 21784

Change of Address

I wish to point out an incorrect companyaddress that ran in Dave Fiedler's "A UnixTutorial" (October, page 134). The correctaddress for Unisoft Systems is 2405 FourthSt., Berkeley, CA 94710. The company'sphone number is (415) 644-1230.

Trudi L. JacksonMarketing ManagerUnisoft Systems2405 Fourth St.Berkeley, CA 94710

Praise for the HP-75C

As a salesman contentedly using anHP-75C for a year now, I read with in-

terest the September articles on the newentries in the lap/portable computer mar-ket. It seems to me logical but unfair togive a computer only to an author fortesting: the HP machine (deemed a cal-culator by Hewlett-Packard), with itsmultiple internal-file structure, quick con-version between text and BASIC, auto-matic pausing during entry of BASIClines, convenient renumbering facility,password-protection features, and built-in mass storage (even if only in the formof a card-reader) is a uniquely useful on-the-go computational tool.

True, it hasn't a full-size typewriterkeyboard and its keys are not full-stroke.But it is easy for anyone without an ar-ticle deadline in mind to touch-type onthe unit. Corrections are easy with its In-sert/Replace mode toggle. And 26 ouncesis certainly easier to carry than 4 pounds!

Visicalc on ROM is a marvel despite the1-line display, and now there is an 80-column monitor adapter available as well,useful for viewing both spreadsheets andtext files to be formatted by the Text For-matter ROM.

I think this machine has features tocover just about all the niggling com-plaints mentioned with the TRS-80

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Letters ——————

Model 100 and other similar computers.And with the recently introducedRS-232C and IEEE-488 interfaces, theHP-75C becomes compatible with justabout anything one may want to tie it to.The unit is powerful beyond its specifica-tion and deserves better press than it isgetting.

W. Howard Cornelsen Jr.2100 Tanglewilde #227Houston, TX 77063

The Carnegie FoundationReport

The Carnegie Foundation for the Ad-vancement of Teaching recently issued areport on secondary education inAmerica. Its conclusions should deeplytrouble everyone who is working todevelop educational software and hard-ware.

The report states that "Computer com-panies are failing to prepare first-ratematerial linked to school curricula or ob-jectives." It refers to a "moral obligation"and recommends that "every computerfirm selling hardware to the schools also

establish a special instructional materialsfund." The fund would be used to helpteachers develop curricula-related pro-grams.

The report conveniently overlooks afew things. Many computer manufac-turers have been giving equipment toschools. IBM has been doing this for over30 years. Apple has given almost 10,000systems to schools in California. Educa-tional discounts have often approached30 percent of the purchase price forequipment. Possibly the Carnegie Foun-dation feels this is not enough.

The foundation's report goes on to sug-gest that a national commission benamed to review the quality of currenteducational software. It also calls for thecreation of a number of university-basedcenters which will be used to test anddemonstrate educational hardware andsoftware. These are the sort of sugges-tions that give me the creeps. It doesn'ttake much imagination to see an "ap-proved list" coming out of a review com-mittee. The "approved list" can then beused to control purchases of software inall cases where federal funds are in-volved. The really fun projects in educa-

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The author of the report, Ernest L.Boyer, is a former U.S. commissioner ofeducation. The Carnegie Foundation'sopinions carry weight in educational andpublic policy circles. It is tragic that thefoundation's report makes computermanufacturers the whipping boys forproblems that occur in introducing com-puters in a classroom setting. Manufac-turers of hardware and software do notdevelop educational products from com-pletely altruistic motives. But their recordof providing goods and services to theeducational community deserve muchbetter than the kick in the teeth receivedfrom the Carnegie Foundation.

John Boddie

Specialized Computer Software213 Aronimink Dr.Newark, DE 19711

Coping with Radiation

Having spent a number of years infront of a CRT monitor, I thought that Ihad experienced all of the evils that couldbefall a computerist. I felt that I musthave a natural immunity to all of thosevagaries described by workstation oper-ators and CRT watchers. I had con-sidered that these persons might be suf-fering from galloping hypochondria. Italso had crossed my mind that they weretrying to build a case for a massive class-action lawsuit against the inventors of theCRT (look out, heirs of J. J. Thomson,Dumont, et al). Maybe they were look-ing for lifelong employment-disabilitybenefits.

Last week, during a massive data-re-search effort, I had occasion to spend twodays in front of a microfiche reader. Theresults during the first day were interest-ing and possibly worth consideration byall who use CRT terminals or worksta-tions:

After finishing seven hours, I hadburning eyes, a tenseness in the shouldermuscles, a mild headache, an uneasinessin the lumbar region of the back, a dry-ness in the throat, a feeling of uneasinessas I left the parking lot, severe stress,fatigue, and irritability during the free-way commute to home. After dinner athome, I experienced definite eyestrainwhile reading the evening paper, a dis-

26 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 56 on inquiry card.

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Rana's new drive needs only 10 floppies togive you all the capacity of five 5-megabytehard disks. And that's not the limit. In fact, thereis no limit. Like any floppy with its removablemedia, you can use diskette after diskette toincrease your storage. Our expanded capacitydisk drive not only acts like a hard disk, it alsoserves as an ideal back-up for one.

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Letters .

tinct backache, indigestion, and a head-ache which got worse when I went to bed.

The next day I took a pitcher of water,drinking glass, and pocket calculator withtimer-alarm into the microfilm and ficheroom and took a break every 15 minutesfor a swallow of water. I made a point ofcorrecting my posture and taking severaldeep breaths every time I changed a fiche.A little isometric game also helped toreposition the muscles on my frame. Iused a pair of dime-store reading glasseswhich moved my point of focus out to 24inches instead of the 16 inches I use forreading and desk work. These placed meat a better position in relation to thescreen. Using these tricks, I was free ofthe symptoms of the previous day.

Is there anyone who knows how muchlow-level radiation is emitted by a 150-watt, incandescent projection lamp?Paul M. Hine

Engineer, Q.E.D. Systems Inc.1525 Standlake St.San Diego, CA 92154

Formatting Rainbow 100Disks

I recently bought a DEC Rainbow 100Personal Computer, but I was disap-pointed by the lack of a program to for-mat disks. After a little search, I suc-ceeded in writing one myself.

Last month I read some complaintsabout this problem, so I am offering myFormat program to other Rainbow 100users for the nominal charge of $50(media, copying, and postage included).

Paolo PrandiniViale Europa, 72/G25100 BresciaItaly

In Praise of the TRS-80Model 100

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Letters.

Letter Shows MathematicalNaivete'

G. M. Harding's letter (September,page 10) labeled "Bug-Free But Meaning-less" is itself meaningless. Harding at-tacks the notion of the utility of themethods of calculus to analyze economicdata "in the same way as a continuousfunction in mathematics." Hardingseems to believe that because, on a verysmall scale, the events from whicheconomic indices are derived are not dis-crete, the methods of differential and in-tegral calculus are therefore invalid andcannot be applied.

This is mathematically naive, as anyonewho has studied the science of statisticswill be aware. To give a simple example,suppose one takes a coin and tosses it agiven number of times. The probabilitythat the coin will come up heads can beexactly determined by calculating the co-efficients of the binomial expansion of thesame order as the number of tosses.When the number of tosses in a run be-comes large, however, this calculationcan become tedious, and in this case the

Gaussian approximation (the familiarbell-shaped curve) is generally used. It iseasily shown that the larger the numberof tosses in a run, the more closely theprobability distribution is modeled by thecontinuous Gaussian function.

On a more complex level, there is thetreatment of the problem of a quantum-mechanical gas in a periodic lattice (aproblem of some interest to computerscience, for it is the understanding of thisthat led to the development of semicon-ductor electronics). The physical systemis constrained to have discrete energiesand momenta, which are thought of aspoints in a multiple-dimensioned "phasespace." The calculation of certain impor-tant quantities, such as the number ofavailable states the system may occupy,is simplified by assuming for purposes ofcalculation that the available states forma continuum whose volume can be cal-culated geometrically. Again, a largenumber of available states will entail thatthe difference between the true numberand the number calculated by this meansis insignificantly small.

Statistical mechanics may seem a far

cry from econometrics, but the math-ematics that goes into them both is thesame mathematics. Harding may chooseto believe that the math is invalid, but thesilicon chips in computers will continueto function as predicted by quantumstatistics, and this is not a reasonable criti-que of modern economics.

Another remark Harding makes is that"even if" this sort of reasoning is accept-able, identifying the effects of certainevents in time series of economic data isnot reasonable. Although not entirelywrong, Harding is far from correct. It ispossible to see structures not inherent inthe data, structures that appear, perhaps,as an artifact of the analysis technique ap-plied. However, there are methods of in-ferring the significance of statisticalresults. A savvy user of these methods iscapable of discerning whether the resultsof a study are meaningful or not. Judg-ing from the level of statistical literacy inthe letter, Harding is not capable of mak-ing such discernments.Alan L. Bostick6400 Latona Ave. NESeattle, WA 98115 ■

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32 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Photo 1: Your computers and other electronic equipment are vulnerable to disturbances transmitted through the power line. Most of thecomponents necessary for transient and noise suppression can be purchased from Radio Shack. Shoivn here are a commercial EMI/RFI linefilter made by Corcom and two General Electric metal-oxide varistors.

Keep Power-Line PollutionOut of Your Computer

A visitor once called the CircuitCellar my mountaintop wildernessretreat. Since he lived in the centerof Manhattan, the few oak and birchtrees around my house seemed tohim like a forest, and because hecould view scenery further away thana block or two he must have felt likehe was on Mount Whitney. Well, myarea is one of the higher points inConnecticut, but that isn't very high.It's barely a prairie-dog mound tosomeone from Montana.

Life in a rural location has itsspecial pleasures. I get to plow the

by Steve Ciarcia

snow from my own driveway, trimback the ever-encroaching foliage andrake the leaves, pile four cords ofwood for the stove each winter (seereference 1), fight off the local animalpopulation, and spend large sums ofmoney repairing damage done to myelectronic equipment by electrical dis-turbances.

This last item is the only one thatreally annoys me. Every year I cancount on experiencing some equip-ment failure attributable to an exter-nal electrical impulse, usually com-ing in through the power line. For

three years, just like clockwork, thefirst thunderstorm in June wiped outa DECwriter II terminal connected toone of my computers. After the firsttwo times of spending a few hours re-placing blown chips, I got smart andinstalled sockets. (Now I even knowin advance which chips will beblown.) Last summer I kept theprinter unconnected when I wasn'tusing it.

But the elements were not to bedenied. During an August thunder-storm, lightning struck my house. Ican't say for sure where the bolt ac-

36 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

An expensive lesson produces the cheapest Circuit Cellar project yet

tually hit (there were no burn marksor other visible clues), but I suspectthe point of entry was the power line.I remember seeing an indistinct flashof light, hearing a tremendous crash,and then standing in darkness. Myassistant Jeanette saw a bright blueglow behind one of the computers.

Such a tremendous power surge isnot kind to semiconductor-basedequipment. The casualties includedone computer, one video camera,two video monitors, a microwavereceiver, and probably several otherassorted items I haven't found yet.The damage did not include theDECwriter (safely unplugged sinceMay), but it was over $3000.

In December, thunderstorms arenot an immediate threat, but as Iwrite this in early September thememory is still fresh and I still havea month of potentially violentweather to contend with. I am forcedto consider some defensive mea-sures. Perhaps by relating my ex-periences I can save you from asimilar fate.

Of course, lightning isn't the solecause of electrical disturbances; youdon't have to wait for a thunderstormto be a victim. Many kinds of troublecan be ducted into your computerthrough the power line.

In the January 1981 Circuit Cellararticle (reference 2), I wrote aboutelectromagnetic interference (EMI)and radio-frequency interference(RFI). This month I'd like to pick upthe saga by describing other forms ofelectrical pollution that occur onpower lines. Afterward, I'll describea few simple, inexpensive means ofdealing with them.

The Power Line:

A Hostile Environment

The lines leaving your local utilitycompany's generating plant carryelectrical power that in most respectsis pure, smooth, and constant. How-ever, as the power is routed throughthe distribution network, it comes

Copyright © 1983 Steven A. Garcia.All rights reserved.

under the increasing aberrant in-fluence of external forces and theconnection or shedding of electricalloads.

Your susceptibility to these aberra-tions depends on your location in thedistribution system. If you are closeto the power plant, you should haverelatively few, with the low source-impedance of the generator and shortdistance of the transmission linelimiting the influence of externalforces. But rural customers at the endof the line usually experience the fulleffect. While the utilities try todistribute power evenly, the presenceof a large-scale user of electricalpower along the line between thegenerator and you can greatly affectthe quality and quantity of the poweryou get.

If you own a personal computer,you should be concerned about thequality of the power you feed it.Power-line irregularities cause prob-lems for computers and other digitalequipment because certain kinds ofextraneous electrical pulses can be in-terpreted as data or instructions,causing errors in operation. You facehazards every time you plug in apiece of electronic equipment, butthere are certain precautionarymeasures that can protect yourcomputer.

The degree of sensitivity dependssomewhat on the type of equipmentand the type of disturbances. As theoperating speed of digital equipmentincreases, its tolerance to power-linepollution lessens. High-speed pro-cessors and memory components aresusceptible to fast transients.(Dynamic memories, which must beperiodically refreshed, are particular-ly susceptible.) Disk drives and dis-plays, on the other hand, are more af-fected by lasting surges and sags inoperating voltage.

Common Sources of Woe

Electrical power-line disturbancescan come from either natural or man-made sources. Of the many ways thepower line can be disturbed, theseveral varieties of voltage fluctuation

most often cause problems with com-puter equipment. These fluctuationscan be categorized by source andseverity, as follows:

Blackouts. A blackout is a totalpower outage—the voltage goes tozero. Obviously if no alternate sourceof power is available as a backup,computer equipment will be severe-ly affected, and data will be lost.Blackouts generally affect only asmall number of utility customers(fewer than 5 percent) during a yearand generally last less than 10seconds.

Brownouts. A brownout is typical-ly a corrective action taken by theutility when power demand exceedsgenerating capacity. The utilityreduces the output voltage from anominal 120 V (volts) by 5 to 15 per-cent. When the voltage is thus re-duced, the resistive load presented tothe generators by the distributionnetwork consumes less power.

Generally speaking, most con-sumer and industrial equipmentdesigned for use in North Americafunctions properly when suppliedwith current within the range from105 to 130 V. But when operating ateither extreme, the equipment ismore vulnerable to disruption fromsome other power-line anomaly. For-tunately, power companies rarelyreduce the voltage by more than 7percent.

Voltage transients. The phenom-ena of voltage transients includesurges of voltage above the specifiednormal, voltage sags below, and in-stantaneous voltage spikes that leapfar above the nominal levels.

Surges and sags are long-durationevents occurring at some point in thedistribution network when electricalequipment is routinely turned on oroff nearby. The magnitude of thesurge or sag depends upon the sizeof the load being removed from orplaced on the network.

Sags are often produced by theturning on of electric motors, whichhave high starting currents. (You'veprobably noticed lights dimming

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

37

The important element in lightning protection is the lightning rod, a pointed shaft of cop-per to which a half-inch copper cable is fastened. The cable in run down the side of thebuilding, where it is clamped to an SVi-foot copper-plated steel rod driven into the earth.The rod system pictured here costs $150.

How LightningStrikes

A lightning flash is characterized by oneor more strokes with typical peak currentsof 20 kA (kiloamperes) or higher. In theimmediate vicinity of the stroke's impacton the earth, hazardous voltage gradientsexist. It is difficult to establish a definite

grounding-conductance value necessary toprotect equipment and personnel. The cur-rent in a lightning strike is so high thateven 1 ohm of resistance can theoreticallyproduce hazardous potentials.

When lightning strikes a building un-protected by a lightning rod, the strokeseeks out the lowest-impedance path toearth (most likely through the electric wir-ing or water pipes).

How It Starts

As the electric charge builds up in acloud, the electric field in the vicinity ofthe charge center increases to the pointwhere the air starts to ionize. A columnof ionized air, called a pilot streamer,begins to extend toward the earth at avelocity of about 100 miles per hour. Afterthe pilot streamer has moved perhaps 100feet to 150 feet, a more intense dischargecalled the stepped leader occurs. Thisdischarge inserts additional negative chargeinto the region around the pilot streamerand allows the pilot streamer to advancefor another 100 to 150 feet, after which thecycle repeats. As its name indicates, thestepped leader progresses toward the earthin a series of steps, with a time intervalbetween steps on the order of 50 microsec-onds.

In a cloud-to-ground flash, the pilotsteamer does not move in a direct linetoward the earth but instead follows thepath through the atmosphere where the airionizes most readily. Although the generaldirection is toward the earth, the specificangle of departure taken by each succeedingpilot streamer from the tip of the previousstreamer is unpredictable. Therefore, each100- to 150-foot segment of the stroke willlikely approach the earth at a differentangle. This changing angle of approachgives the overall flash its characteristic zig-zag appearance.

As a highly ionized column, the steppedleader is at essentially the same potentialas the charged area from which it origi-nates. Thus, as the stepped leader ap-proaches the earth, the voltage gradientbetween the earth and the tip of the leaderincreases. The increasing voltage furtherencourages the air dielectric between thetwo regions to break down.

Attracting Lightning

Objects extending above their surround-ings are likely to be struck by lightning.Thin metallic structures, such as flag poles,lighting towers, antennas, and overheadwires, offer a very small cross-sectional arearelative to the surrounding terrain, butample evidence exists to show that such ob-jects apparently attract lightning.

The ability of tall structures or objectsto attract lightning serves to protect shorterobjects and structures nearby. In effect, atall object establishes a protected zonearound it; within this zone, other struc-tures and objects are protected against directlightning strikes. As the height differen-

38 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Hal between the shorter surrounding ob-jects and the tall one decreases, the pro-tection provided to the shorter objectsdecreases. Likewise, as the horizontaldistance between the tall and short struc-tures increases, the protection afforded bythe tall structure decreases.

Lightning Rods

A protective device that makes use of thisphenomenon is the lightning rod, shownin photo. Generally just a sharp copperspike, the lightning rod is attached to thehighest point on the structure to be pro-tected. When lightning strikes, the currentis shunted directly through a heavy cop-per wire from the rod to a grounding elec-trode buried in the earth.

Although the duration of a strike istypically less than 2 microseconds, thevoltage generated is high enough to causeflashover strikes to conducting objectslocated as much as 14 inches away fromthe conducting path. For this reason,metallic objects in close proximity to downconductors should be electrically bonded tothe conductors.

But circuits not in direct contact withthe lightning discharge path can experiencedamage, even in the absence of overt cou-pling by flashover. Because the high cur-rent associated with a discharge builds upso fast, large inductively produced voltagesare formed on nearby conductors. Experi-mental and analytical evidence shows thatthe surges thus induced can easily exceedthe tolerance level of many components,particularly solid-state devices. Inductivesurges can be induced by lightning currentflowing in a down conductor or structuralmember, by a stroke to earth in the vicini-ty of buried cables, or by cloud-to-clouddischarges occurring parallel to long cableruns, either above ground or buried.

The Moral

The objective of all lightning-protectionsystems is to direct the high currents awayfrom susceptible elements or limit thevoltage gradients developed by the highcurrent to safe levels. In a given area, cer-tain structures or objects are more likelyto be struck by lightning than others;however, no object, whether man-made ornatural, should be assumed to be immunefrom lightning. The voltages that could beinduced by such discharges present adefinite threat to signal and control equip-ment, particularly equipment employingsemiconductor components.

Power-Line Conditioner Sources

Cuesta Systems Inc.3440 Roberto CourtSan Luis Obispo, CA 93401(805) 541-4160

Dymarc Industries Inc.21 Governor's CourtBaltimore, MD 21207(800) 638-9098(301) 298-2629

Electronic Protection DevicesDivision CNS Electronics Corp.5-9 Central Ave.Waltham, MA 02154(800) 343-1813

Electronic Specialists Inc.171 South Main St.Natick, MA 07160(800) 225-4876 (orders)(617) 655-1532

Isoreg Corporation410 Great Rd.Littleton, MA 01460(617) 486-9483

RKS Industries4865 Scotts Valley Dr.Scotts Valley, CA 95066(800) 892-1342(408) 438-5760

Sun Research Inc.

POB 210

Old Bay Rd.

New Durham, NH 03855

(603) 859-7110

Power-Line Filter Sources

Comell-Dubilier ElectronicsBox B-967

New Bedford, MA 02741(617) 996-8561

Corcom Inc.1600 Winchester Rd.Libertyville, IL 60048(312) 680J400

Curtis Industries Inc.8300 North Tower Ave.Milwaukee, WI 53223(414) 354-1500

Genisco Technology Corporation18435 Susana Rd.Rancho Dominguez, CA 90221(213) 537-4750

Hopkins Engineering Company12900 Foothill Blvd.San Fernando, CA 91342(213) 361-8691

The Potter CompanyDivision of VarianPOB 337Wesson, MI 39191

(601) 643-2215

Siemens Corporation8700 East Thomas Rd.Scottsdale, AZ 85252

(602) 941-6366

Sprague Electric Company87 Marshall St.North Adams, MA 01247(413) 664-4411

Stanford Applied Engineering3520 De La Cruz Blvd.Santa Clara, CA 95050-1997(408) 988-0700

when an air conditioner comes on.)Surges are generally the result of net-work switching by the utility or of asudden reduction in demand forpower in the network; during theperiod necessary for the utility's elec-tromechanical compensation systemto function, an overvoltage transientcondition can exist.

The most damaging power-line dis-turbance is the high-speed, high-energy voltage spike. People speaking

loosely about "power-line transients"are probably talking about this typeof event. Lasting usually less than 100microseconds, spikes can be up to6000 volts. Such high-energy tran-sients are produced by the switchingoff of inductive loads by the openingof switch contacts, short circuits, orblown fuses; severe network loadchanges; or lightning. Inductive-loadswitching accounts for the majorityof spikes.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

39

Photo 2: You can save approximately $40 on the price of a transient-protected power stripby adding the protection yourself, as demonstrated on the Radio Shack Archer 61-2620 unit.First, unscrew the end plates.

Photo 3: Open the strip case, exposing the four receptacles and the white circuit-breaker block.The three wires conducting power run the length of the strip: black is the hot side, whiteis the neutral return, and the green wire is earth ground.

Photo 4: Using an X-acto knife or similar tool, strip insulation from the wires between thereceptacles (which I number 1 through 4, from left to right) according to the following system:between 1 and 2, strip the green and black; between 2 and 3, strip the green and white; be-tween 3 and 4, strip the black and white.

When the coil of an inductive loadsuch as a transformer or motor issuddenly deenergized, the collapsingmagnetic field must dissipate itsenergy, and it does this by placing alarge voltage back into the circuit thatenergized it. Let's examine the pro-cess in detail.

As the circuit through the inductoris broken, current in the inductorcontinues to flow, charging thedistributed capacitance in the wind-ings. At some point, the chargevoltage becomes sufficient to leapacross the switch gap as a spark. Thissudden shorting action dischargesthe winding's capacitive charge backinto the circuit until the spark ceases.This process repeats in a cycle untilthere is too little energy left in the coilto create an arc across the contacts.The waveform of inductance-gener-ated transients is oscillatory. For ex-ample, a contact opening while con-ducting 100 mA (milliamperes) in a1-H (henry) inductance will producea 3000-V spike, assuming about aO.OOT/iF (microfarad) stray windingcapacitance.

Whenever you plug in a vacuumcleaner, hair drier, or other appliance(even your computer), you could becreating some potentially serioustransient disruptions for other equip-ment on the same power line. Theequipment need not even be on thesame wiring circuit. The capacitanceof household wiring is often suffi-cient to couple a transient from onewire to another (differential mode) orfrom the wire to the ground (com-mon mode).

Lightning is the most violent andmost destructive source of transientenergy. A direct lightning hit iscatastrophic, but direct hits seldomoccur. A more frequent danger is thata lightning strike on a power linemiles away may result in a thousand-volt spike rushing throughout yourhome. Such hits happen frequentlyenough to cause much grief.(Because lightning is such a signifi-cant source of transients, I've ex-plained it in detail in the text box"How Lightning Strikes." A secon-dary, and more widespread, effect ofa lightning hit on a power line is avoltage sag over a large part of the

40 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

network as the power company'ssafety circuits compensate for thespike.)

Electrical noise. Miscellaneouselectrical noise is the final source ofpower-line disturbances. It is bestunderstood as high-voltage high-frequency interference. Noise in therange from 10 kHz (kilohertz) to 50MHz (megahertz) is the most com-mon cause of computer failures.Because of its frequency, noise can beeither broadcast through free spacefrom its source or conducted direct-ly through the power lines. Digitalelectronic equipment is a primesource of high-frequency noise.

Power-Line Protection

I'm not trying to make you afraidto plug your computer into the walloutlet. There are remedies for virtual-ly all the problems I've mentioned,although some are more practical forsome computer users than others.

If surges or sags are a constantproblem for you, you can try havingthe power company change the tapon your local step-down transformeror installing a constant-voltage trans-former on your premises. These mea-sures, although expensive, are effec-tive. If you are plagued by blackoutsor have equipment that should neverbe shut down, I suggest that you con-sider obtaining an uninterruptiblepower supply, abbreviated UPS. Usinga UPS gives you confidence in thequality of your power and effective-ly isolates your computer fromdamaging perturbations. However, aUPS is also quite costly.

In the case of electrical noise andEMI, there are filters and construc-tion techniques that can be employedto reduce interference, but a betteranswer is to find the pollution at thesource and eliminate it. My article inthe January 1981 BYTE outlined mostmethods of filtration and preventivedesign. While I'll try not to belaborthe point, a power-line filter is an im-portant noise- and transient-suppres-sion device.

The best answer to transients is tosuppress their voltages to a harmlesslevel, either with filters or a specialcategory of components called tran-sient suppressors.

Photo 5: You can now solder a varistor between each of the stripped wire pairs, mountingit flat against the back face of the receptacle so that the case will fit together again.

Photo 6: The outlet strip with three MOVs installed provides both common-mode anddifferential-mode transient suppression. After you have finished soldering, carefully reassem-ble the power strip's enclosure and screiv it back together.

Power-Line Filters

A power-line interference filter isan electronic circuit used to controlRFI and EMI conducted into and outof equipment. The filter is intendedto provide unwanted interferencesignals with a high series impedance(into the vulnerable equipment) andlow shunt impedance (to ground). Itgenerally consists of a set of passivecomponents that act as a mismatch-ing network for high-frequencysignals—a low-pass filter. The net-work attenuates RF energy above 10kHz, while passing the 60-Hz power.

The simplest possible filter is asingle capacitor wired in parallel or

a single coil wired in series with thepower line. More typically, severalcapacitors and/or coils are usedtogether, connected into differentconfigurations variously called L, -k,and T filters.

Though containing only a few com-ponents, such passive bilateral net-works have complex transfer charac-teristics that are extremely dependentupon the impedances of the sourceand load. Because you can't predictthese impedances for all applications,it is not possible to unequivocallystate that a specific filter configura-tion will work the same way in twodifferent environments. But to allow

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

41

Photo 7: For quicker and easier, though incomplete, protection, you can plug your computerinto a simple voltage-spike protector such as the Radio Shack 61-2790. As you can see fromthe disassembled unit, the metal-oxide varistor (wrapped in fiberglass tape) is connected be-tween only the hot and neutral lines (black and white). It has no varistor connection to theground lead and therefore does not protect against common-mode transients.

electrical specifications to be mini-mally compared, however, resistivesource and load impedances of 50ohms each are generally used.

Two similar power-line filters, evenbuilt with the same circuit topologyand component values, may not per-form identically; the mounting andwiring of the filter can be critical in-fluences on its performance. Apower-line filter is best installed atthe point in your equipment wherethe power line comes inside the caserather than at the far end of a longcord. The filter's purpose is to at-tenuate high-frequency signals: thispurpose is defeated if these parasiticsignals can gain access to the equip-ment by capacitively coupling to thepower cord at a point behind thefilter.

It's not always possible to disas-semble your computer to add a linefilter, but the best location for apower-line filter is bolted to thechassis of the electronic equipment itprotects, or at least in the immediatevicinity, such as at the power re-ceptacle.

While you could construct a linefilter using the formulas and designsfrom a magazine article, I heartilyrecommend that you buy a packaged

unit instead. The selection is easierand much more controlled usingcommercial line filters (see the textbox on page 39). So much dependsupon component selection and lay-out that the only way to make surepower-line interference has beeneliminated is to actually test the filterin your equipment. A circuit de-

signed according to theory using a50-ohm assumed impedance prob-ably won't work as well as one em-pirically derived using the actualequipment and power line.

Transient Suppressors

Protection from the various kindsof line transients is obtained by sup-pressing or diverting them. The threetypes of circuits most often used forthis are filters, crowbars, and voltage-clampers.

As I previously alluded, filters com-prising inductances and capacitancesare widely used for interference pro-tection, including transients. Sincemost transient signals are high fre-quency, the suppression by a filter isoften effective, provided it can with-stand the associated high voltages.

Crowbar circuits use a switching ac-tion, such as turning on a thyristoror arcing across a spark gap, to diverttransients. But crowbars that incor-porate SCRs (silicon-controlled rec-tifiers) and triacs are much too slowto effectively suppress 100-/is (micro-second) transients. Most often theyare incorporated in low-voltage DCpower-supply output circuits whereovervoltage conditions occur at moremanageable speeds (milliseconds).Spark-gap devices, which includecarbon blocks and gas tubes, are fast

Photo 8: Some line filters are made to work in specific circumstances. This Radio Shack power-line-filter strip (stock number 26-1451) was devised to cure interference problems with the TRS-80Model I computer; it contains two separate LC (inductance/capacitance) interference filtersbut no varistors. If you have this strip, I suggest you install some MOVs.

42 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

and effective, but they trigger at re-latively high voltages, making themunsuitable as the sole protection forsemiconductor circuitry.

Voltage-clamping devices, on theother hand, have impedances thatvary as a function of either thevoltage across or the current throughthem. The circuit being protected isunaffected by the presence of theclamping device unless the incomingsupply voltage exceeds the clampinglevel, as would be the case when atransient hits. The various kinds ofhigh-speed voltage-clamping devicesinclude selenium cells, zener diodes,silicon-carbide varistors, and metal-oxide varistors. Of these, the metal-oxide varistors, or MOVs, hold asignificant price/performance advan-tage and are highly applicable in per-sonal computing applications.

MOVs to the Rescue

Metal-oxide varistors are voltage-dependent nonlinear devices thatbehave somewhat like a back-biasedzener diode. When a voltage lowerthan its conduction threshold is ap-plied across it, the MOV appears asa nonconducting open circuit. But ifthe applied voltage becomes greaterthan this set point (when a transienthits), the MOV begins to conduct,clamping the input voltage to a safelevel. In effect, the MOV absorbs thetransient and dissipates the energy asheat.

An MOV is made of zinc oxidecombined with small amounts ofbismuth, cobalt, and manganese.The individual zinc-oxide grains formmany pin (positive-doped/negative-doped) junctions that combine in amultitude of series and parallel ar-rangements. This diversity of micro-structure causes its nonlinear semi-conducting characteristics. An MOVis inherently more rugged than asingle-junction semiconductor device(a zener diode, for example) becauseenergy is uniformly absorbedthroughout the bulk of thecomponent.

The physical dimensions of theMOV determine its characteristics, itsconduction-threshold voltage varyingas a function of thickness, and itsenergy-dissipating capacity varying

(la)

TRANSIENT SUPPRESSOR

LINE IN

\Z> o^\^

RECEPTACLES

Figure la: The Radio Shack four-outlet power strip can be easily modified to protect equip-ment from high-energy power-line transients. Three General Electric V130LA10A metal-oxidevaristors (MOVs—Radio Shack number 276-570) are connected between the hot, neutral, andground wires of the power line.

(lb)

EMI/RFI AND TRANSIENT SUPPRESSORLINE FILTER

CORCOM 5VK1

RADIO SHACK 273-100

ALL MOVs ARE GE V130LA10A VARISTORSRADIO SHACK 276-570

Figure lb: For added protection against low-energy electromagnetic and radio-frequency in-terference, the Corcom 5VK1 line filter (Radio Shack 273-100) can be installed in the circuit.

according to volume. MOVs are avail-able in operating voltages from 6 to2800 V, with peak current capacitiesof up to 50,000 A (amperes). MOVsrespond to transients in only a fewnanoseconds and are relatively inex-pensive. The chief producer of MOVsis the General Electric Company.

Protect Your Computer

Large companies sometimes solvepower-line problems by producingtheir own power. In the home orsmall office, it's more practical to pro-tect your computer and peripheralsthrough comprehensive applicationof filtering and transient suppres-sion.

Most of the commercially availablefiltered power strips contain MOVs astheir primary suppression device.Even those costing $50 or $75 rarelycontain more than $5 worth of tran-sient protection. By purchasing thesuppression components separatelyand installing them yourself, you cansave a lot of money.

The majority of the projects I'vepresented in Circuit Cellar articlescan be built for $50 to $2000, but theproject this month wins hands downfor economy. For the most part, linefilters and MOVs are available off theshelf, and adequate transient sup-pression for your computer mightcost as little as $1.59!

You can take two approaches in in-stalling suppression. If you are in-terested in protecting only a fewitems of equipment, MOVs can bewired across the AC line where itenters the enclosures. You can findthe General Electric VB0LA10A MOVcomponent at Radio Shack for $1.59(stock number 276-570). This deviceis ideally suited to 120-VAC applica-tions. It has an energy rating of 38joules (watt-seconds) and will clampto 340 V at 50 A within 35 ns (nano-seconds). Its peak-current rating is4500 A. (For heavier duties, you'llneed to use V130LA20A orV130PA20A MOVs.)

(As a rule, if you are going to be

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

43

Circle 239 on inquiry card.

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PACKAGES: CREATE YOUR OWNCONFIGURATION. CALL

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working inside the equipment youshould also install line filters. You canbuy Corcom type-5VKl 5-A RFIpower-line filters at Radio Shack for$11.95 (stock number 273-100). Theseunits, like the one shown in photo 1,are adequate for most consumer ap-plications and fit in very nicely withexisting equipment.)

The easier alternative is to modifya regular power strip to include tran-sient suppression. Radio Shack's 4-outlet strip (number 61-2620, costing$15.95) is perfect for this application.Merely open it up and install threeMOVs, as demonstrated in the seriesof photos 2 through 6, connected asshown in figure 1. One MOV is in-stalled directly between the black(hot) and white (neutral) leads, thesecond MOV is connected from theblack lead to the green (ground) wire,and the third from the white to thegreen. While you might squeakthrough by installing one MOVacross the line, complete common-mode and differential-mode suppres-sion requires three MOVs. (Photo 7shows a commercial adaptation of thesimplified scheme.) The price for allthe parts of the protected power stripis $20.72. If you were to buy a largerpower strip or build your own distri-bution box, you could also add apower-line filter. And if you have afilter strip already on your computer,you might want to check its degreeof transient protection (see photo 8).

An Ounce of Prevention . . .

This project may not seem veryexciting. I didn't find the idea veryexciting, either, until the flash andsubsequent smoke coming out of myfavorite article-writing computer pro-vided all the excitement I'll need formonths. Most of the $3000 worth ofdamage I had was for equipmentplugged into a single circuit, some ofit on the same power strip. I hadalways known the protective value ofMOVs, but I thought it wouldn't hap-pen to me. A few dollars' worth ofparts could have saved a lot of ag-gravation.

Voltage spikes and power-line dis-turbances aren't always the result ofstorm activity. Transient-causedequipment failures can happen any-

time. The events I've described justserved as a catalyst for presenting thesubject. And even if lightning neverhits you, you should know that manyof the new computers I have beenevaluating this year have shown anincreased sensitivity to external in-terference, including power-lineglitches. You wouldn't want to findyour new computer rebooting sud-denly at a critical point or discoverthe memory to be scrambled afteryou plug in a printer on the sameoutlet. Transient suppression con-stitutes an ounce of prevention. Youcan spend thousands for the cure.

Next Month:

A new integrated circuit from NationalSemiconductor permits an intelligentvideo-display terminal to be built fromonly 22 chips.m

To receive a complete list or Ciarcia'sCircuit Cellar project kits available rromthe Micromint, circle 100 on the readerservice inquiry card at the back or themagazine.

Steve Garcia (pronounced "see-ARE-see-ah") is an electronics engineer and computerconsultant with experience in process control,digital design, nuclear instrumentation, prod-uct development, and marketing. In additionto writing for BYTE, he has published severalbooks. He can be contacted at POB 582,Glastonbury, CT 06033.

References

1. Ciarcia, Steve. "A Computer-ControlledWood Stove." February 1980 BYTE,page 32.

2. Ciarcia, Steve. "Electromagnetic Inter-ference." January 1981 BYTE, page 48.

3. Roberts, Steven K. Industrial Design withMicrocomputers. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall, 1982.

Editor's Note: Steve often refers to previous Cir-cuit Cellar articles as reference material for eachmonth's current article. Most of these past articlesare available in reprint books from BYTE Books,McGraw-Hill Book Company, POB 400, Hights-toum, N] 08250.

Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar, Volume I covers articlestliat appeared in BYTE from September 1977 through'November 1978. Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar, VolumeII contains articles from December 1978 throughfune 1980. Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar, Volume IIIcontains articles from July 1980 through December1981. Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar, Volume IV, soonto appear, will contain articles from January 1982through June 1983.

44 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Out of the West con

Just in the nick of time!A six-pen graphics plotterthat's more compatible...uses more software...and costs only $1095.The Sweet-P Six-Shooter.

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Mounted on a revolver-likecylinder, they change automati-cally in a fraction of a second.No duds, either. The Good Guyssupply the pens, too.

The Six-Shooter is desk-top size,but the plotting area expandsfrom 8W x 11" to 11" x 17" (engi-neers, take note!). The namemay sound tough, but theSix-Shooter is reallyquite compatible.With IBM andApple.

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The Six-Shooter is supportedby one of the largest graphicslibraries available to any plotter.IBM and Apple plotters included.

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You have a choice offibertip pens in 12 colors.They can draw on paper or acetate(for overhead transparencies).Color-switching is automatic andlightning-fast. So is pen-capping.

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Support your local Six-Shooter.

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If your Six-Shooter ever needsservicing, just take it to any XeroxService Center. There are over80 of them throughout

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Microsoft Windows

A mouse with modest requirements

The desktop metaphor and themouse present attractive concepts,but Apple's Lisa or IBM's PC XT run-ning Visi On exceeds the budget ofthe average personal computer user.Both of these systems require a harddisk and great quantities of RAM(random-access read/write memory).Although the mouse itself is a smallpart of the expense, it is a symbol ofthis approach to software, and somecomputer users have been heard tomutter, "What price mice?"

Another factor keeping down themouse population has been theshortage of things for them to pointat (or the shortage of applicationssoftware). Until there is a large in-stalled base of Lisa and Visi On sys-tems, many software authors willforgo the expense of developing ap-plications programs for these sys-tems. Prospective buyers of personal

by Phil Lemmons

computers, on the other hand, areunlikely to buy a Lisa or Visi On un-til more software is available. Apple'sown software for Lisa is magnificent,but other applications programs areonly now emerging. Visicorp is mak-ing a major effort to induce program-mers to write more for Visi On, butthe requirement of a Unix develop-ment system is an obstacle to thesmaller software houses and in-dependent designers. The expenseunderlying the Unix developmentsystem is the hardware required torun it—once again, lots of memoryand a hard disk.

This keeps most of us staring at theMS-DOS or CP/M command line andhoping that a sudden fall in theprices of RAM and hard disks willopen the way to metaphors and mice.With the introduction of MicrosoftWindows, however, the company

that brought us MS-DOS promises amouse-and-window show runningoff two 320K-byte floppy disks and192K bytes of RAM. (More RAM isrequired, of course, with each addi-tional application.) To make Micro-soft Windows even more attractive topersonal computer users, Microsoftpromises to price Windows "as anoperating-system component"—thatis, inexpensively.

The economics of Microsoft Win-dows will also appeal to program-mers. Programmers don't need tobuy special hardware or to learn Unixin order to develop software that runsunder Microsoft Windows —they canuse their own IBM Personal Com-puters. Moreover, programmers cantake advantage of the ability tocustomize windows so that each soft-ware house retains its own distinctlook within the Microsoft environ-

NtWHJ Com Pel etc Goto Help Kane Opti«elect sption or tsps comanj tetter

Session Control

Photo 1

48 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Microsoft BASIC Version 5.28

[NS-WS Version]

Copyright 1977-1983 (0 by KicMSOft

Created; 24-Hay-83

62259 Bytes free

Ok

CMHWtt: Cow Mete Goto Help Kane Options Quit Run

Hi MODSelect option or type comtanJ letter

Session Control

Photo 2

Device-Independent Graphics Output for Microsoft Windows

by John Butler

What makes it possible for MicrosoftWindows to output graphics to differentdevices—printer/plotter devices as well asbit-mapped screens—without changing thegraphics code?

Microsoft Windows works with a device-independent graphics system called Graph-ics Device Interface, or GDI. GDI consistsof graphics routines that provide the in-terface between programs that want todraw images and different output devices.The graphics calls from these programs arenot specific to any device. GDI mediatesbetween the graphics calls and the actualdevices. The calling program may be anoperating-system extension like MicrosoftWindows or an application program writ-ten in a high-level language.

The design of a device-independentgraphics system like GDI begins with thedefinition of an abstract device. The abstractdevice is the collection of all the functionsthat ultimately will be performed by theactual graphics devices. (For example,"draw a circle" or "change hatch style"would be functions for devices to perform.)

When a function is called, GDI takes thefunction parameters, in abstract-deviceterms, and passes them to a logical-devicedriver. A logical-device driver is the soft-ware that translates abstract-device func-tions into a sequence of device-specific ac-tions. These actions (communicatedthrough a physical-device driver) result inthe appearance of graphics on the device.

The GDI Abstract Device

The design of the abstract device ulti-mately determines the types of devices thesystem can talk to and to what degree thesystem will be device independent. Todefine the abstract device for GDI, Micro-soft included graphics commands from thecurrent ANS1-VDI (American NationalStandards Institute-Video Display Inter-face) standard for drawing on plottingdevices. The raster frame-buffer class ofdevice was included by adding the graphicsfunctionality from IBM Personal ComputerBASIC. A screen-dump facility and addi-tional raster support provide hard copy andanimation capability. GDI's abstract devicecan support any of the usual graphics sub-routine libraries (for example, SIG-GRAPH/ACM CORE, ISO GKS, Plot-10)as applications.

The Graphics Primitives

The language of the abstract device ismade up of "primitives." The primitivesare the calls to the graphics functions avail-able at the lowest level of GDI—the levelof the logical-device driver. They are de-scribed functionally as follows:

•Control Primitives. These primitives ini-tialize, terminate, and clear the device.•Output Primitives. These primitivesresult in the appearance of an actual im-age on a graphics device. Included aremove, mark, polymark, line, polyline,polygon, rectangle, circle, arc, text, and

put/get/move bit maps.•Attribute Primitives. These primitivesdescribe something about the appearanceof the output primitives. Each outputprimitive has a set of appearance com-mands, including size, color, and style. Thefilled-output primitives (those definingclosed areas, such as polygon and circle)take on additional attributes for the colorand style of the interior. Attributeprimitives are also provided for using colortranslation tables and doing high-qualitytext.

•Viewing Primitives. These primitivescontrol clipping, relative or absolute coor-dinates, and absolute sizing of images (toinches or meters). They define the borderto which output primitives will be clipped.The viewing primitives also map coor-dinates from the logical device driver to thephysical device driver and from one coor-dinate space to another, and they set upthe resolution of the logical coordinatespace.

•Inquiry Primitives. These primitivesreturn information to the application pro-gram about the current attributes, view-ing pipeline, and control flags from thelogical-device driver.

GDI provides a language that applica-tion programs can use to create images.An application program can create imageswithout knoiving about the characteristicsof the output device.

merit. The same enlightened attitudeenabled Microsoft to resist the temp-tation to reserve Windows as an en-vironment for its own applicationsprograms. Microsoft is making Win-dows available to a number of appli-cations software houses, includingsome major competitors.

Microsoft Windows is an installabledevice driver under MS-DOS 2.0using ordinary MS-DOS files. Com-plete compatibility with MS-DOSmeans that Windows will at least letyou run any application that runsunder MS-DOS. In the worst case,Windows will turn the full displayover to an MS-DOS application andreturn you to your place in Windows."Language bindings" will enable pro-grammers to write software for

Microsoft Windows in any Microsoftprogramming language.

Running Microsoft Windows

Photos 1-13 show a sequence ofoperations in Microsoft Windows.The photos on pages 52-53 show avariety of machines whose manufac-turers have adopted Microsoft Win-dows as an applications environment.

During normal use, Microsoft Win-dows displays one or more windows,each with a different application. Youcan move the cursor from one win-dow to another. You can move win-dows, change their size, scroll, gethelp appropriate to the context inwhich you are working, and transferdata among windows. Windowsdetermines the highest level of data

transfer mutually acceptable to thetwo applications, with plain ASCII(American National Standard Codefor Information Interchange) as thelast resort.

The "session-control layer" be-comes the equivalent of the emptydesktop where you can manipulatefiles. The available commands appearnear the bottom of the screen. Nor-mally, Microsoft Windows will restorethe desktop to the state at the timeof its last use. In photo 1, we startfrom scratch.

To see the available applicationsprograms, you either use the mouseto position the cursor on the com-mand "Run" or type the letter "R."Windows lists all the applicationsprograms as commands, and you

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

49

Photo 3

Photo 4

point at the desired program andclick the mouse to run it. You couldalso type the appropriate letterinstead.

In photo 2, BASIC 86 is running ina large window extending the fullwidth of the desktop. Because BASIC86 does all its input/output throughMS-DOS, it can run in a Window.Microsoft calls such software "co-operative." The bottom of the screenshows the commands available in thesession-control layer. You can use thesession-control layer to run anotherprogram in parallel with BASIC 86.

The first step toward running a pro-gram is shown in photo 3, where thecursor points at "Run." MicrosoftWindows will now display a list ofthe programs available.

Photo 4 shows the next applicationselected. In this case, the programthat's run is "uncooperative'—that is,

it doesn't do everything through MS-DOS system calls, sometimes goingbeyond the operating system to writedirectly to hardware addresses suchas those of screen memory. MicrosoftWindows can't run such a program ina window and must give it the entirescreen. That is why photo 4 does not

Certain programs can'tuse the multiple-window feature.

show the session-control layerbeneath the display of "Piano."

Photo 5 shows the transition fromthe uncooperative program to a"smart" one that can live happily ina smaller window and share thescreen with other programs that takefull advantage of Microsoft Windows.

The smart program is MicrosoftWord. Photo 6 shows two applica-tions—Word in the upper windowand Multiplan in the lower; boththese programs were written to takeadvantage of Microsoft Windows.Because the cursor is pointing at oneof the cells in the Multiplan spread-sheet, the command bar at the bot-tom of the screen shows Multiplan'scommands. You can move either win-dow by grabbing its title bar with themouse. You could "grow" either win-dow by grabbing the "grow box." Al-though these photos show the titlebar at the top of the window and thegrow box at the lower right, softwaredevelopers can put them elsewhereif desired.

(In fact, Microsoft's own standardwindow has changed since thesephotos were taken. The latest versionprovides a question mark on the right

Photo 7

50 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Photo 8

i; reasoning is peaswiss not regarded as final and strict butrovi-iona! and plausible only, those purpose is to discover the solutiono: the present problen. we are cften obliged to use heuristic Masoning.I* shall attain complete certainty when we shall have obtained the cou-plets solution, but before obtaining certainty we nust often be satisfiednth a wre or less plausible guess He nag need the provisional beforewe attain the final. i

COWMND; Alpha Copy delete Extend FOHttt Gallery Help Insert

Quit Layout Options Print window Replace- Search Transfer

<> im Free Word:

3 wm

Heuristic reasoning is reasoning not regarded as final and strict but as

provisional and plausible only, whose purpose is to discover the solution

of the present proble*. He are often obliged to use heuristic reasoning.

Me shall attain complete certainty when we shall have obtained the com-plete solution, but before obtaining certainty we mist often be satisfied

with a *ore or less plausible guess, He nay need the provisional before

we attain the final.

2 3

January February

SalesCost

528682.62

Material

528208.88 $29482.8

54832.88 $4864.26 54896.??

COWttND: Alpha Blank Copy Delete Edit Fornat Goto Sort

Quit Insert Lock Hove Nane Options Print

Help Xternal value Window IransferRKi 188/Free Hultiplan,

Photo 5

Photo 6

part of the title bar. Selecting thequestion mark brings help informa-tion. If you put the cursor on the titleitself, it is replaced by little picturesthat represent what you can do withthe window. The new version also in-cludes a status line at the top of thescreen and an area for icons at thebottom.)

In photo 7, Multiplan's window hasbeen enlarged to show more cells andmore data, and Microsoft Word'swindow has been reduced as neces-sary.

Photo 8 shows both the Multiplanwindow and the Microsoft Wordwindow reduced. (Since photo 8 wastaken, Microsoft Windows has beenadapted to use an automatic resizingprocess called "tiling." Rather thanletting windows overlap or leavingpart of the desktop empty, MicrosoftWindows always gives all the space

on the screen to the applications thatare running.)

Photo 9 shows a charting programoccupying a large window at theright-hand side of the screen. Withthe cursor in that large window, thecommand bar at the bottom of thescreen lists charting commands. Note

Microsoft Windows

can rescale graphics if

desired.

that when the window containingthe charting program is expanded bymoving the title bar and grabbing thegrow box, the line graph has beenautomatically rescaled (see photo 10).Microsoft Windows can rescalegraphics if desired.Photo 11 shows a sample "pop up"

menu for the charting program.Pointing at the PEN command on thecommand bar at the bottom of thescreen has brought the display of themenu of pen sizes and patterns. Youselect sizes and patterns by using themouse to point at one of the boxesshown in each list, then pointing atthe "OK" box (see photo 12). As withother aspects of the Microsoft Win-dows displays, programmers can re-design menus to their own taste.

Photo 13 shows the graph dis-played in accordance with the in-structions entered—with a 4 by 4pixel-pen size and a gray shading.The graphics capabilities of MicrosoftWindows owe much to the device-in-dependent graphics system de-scribed by John Butler in the text box"Device-Independent Graphics Out-put for Microsoft Windows" on page49.

UORJD

aH

Heuristic reasoning is reason-ing not regarded as final andstrict but as provisional andplausible only, whose purposeis to discover the solutionof the present proble*. He areoften obligedjo use^heuristic *j

a/\

PLAN

11 1 2

1 January

3 Sales 528898.884

5 Cost

6 Material 54888,88^

%

COMMAND: Alpha Delete Entry Fomat Gallery Help Insert ListQuit Print List Iransfer Pen

Chart:l designed for: Screen 188/ Free Chart:

Photo 9

Photo 10

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

51

Some machines that run Microsoft Windows

Eagle PC

Burroughs B20

52 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Compaq Portable

Zenith Z-100

Texas

Instruments

Professional

Computer

Wang

Professional

Computer

Hi HH

HI

Hi _^_—-^HM

Honeywell Microsystem

6/10

Hr *"""^""""flHH^Hl ^B

IISHil

I / I 1 1 1 » » • « 1 « ¥ * ■

H / T *: f T t » T T t t » t V

■ / J 1 1 t I 1 1 1 1 1 \ 1

\v\\\l

A package fromRadio Shack, not tobe opened beforeDecember 1

Computer

Devices

Dot

ColumbiaData ProductsMPC Portable

'

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 53

Pen Size

Pen Pattern

■ 1*1

■ Black

U 4*4

□ Gray

U 8*8

□ LtGray

OK

CANCEL

COtfttND: Alpha Delete Entry Format Gallery Help Insert ListQuit Print List Transfer Pen

Chartll designed for: Screen' 1867 Free

Chart;

Photo 11

If

CANCE

COMMAND: Alpha Delete Entry Foraat Gallery Kelp Insert ListQuit Print List Transfer Pen

Chart:l

designed for: Screen 108*/ Free

Chart:

Photo 12

COMMAND: Alpha Delete Entry Format Gallery Help Insert ListQuit Print List Transfer Pen

Chart:l

designed for; Screen 1807 Free

Chart:

Photo 13

54 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Conclusions

Microsoft Windows seems to offerremarkable openness, reconfigurabil-ity, and transportability as well asmodest hardware requirements andpricing. As a result, the desktopmetaphor and mouse, intended tobring computing power to nontech-nical people, are finally going toreach the hands of many such peo-ple. Barring a surprise product in-troduction from another company,Microsoft Windows will be the firstlarge-scale test of the desktop meta-phor in the hands of its intendedusers.

It is natural to wonder whetherMicrosoft Windows' ability to run inlimited memory and off floppy diskswill result in noticeable delays dur-ing execution. Even Lisa with itsmegabyte of memory and 68000microprocessor frequently asks theuser to wait. Is the ease of use worththe waiting? Will Microsoft Windowssomehow ingeniously avoid theproblem of delays? The answers tothese questions will shape the futureof mass-market software.

The open approach and the pre-sentation of Microsoft Windows as anextension of MS-DOS 2.0 will help at-tract the horde of programmers nec-essary to assure acceptable executionspeeds on the IBM PC. Just asenough programmers working longenough on enough different ap-proaches have made the Apple II per-form feats that once seemed incredi-ble, enough programmers workinglong enough on different approacheswill make applications run fast underMicrosoft Windows on ordinaryhardware. Even if this judgmentproves mistaken, Microsoft's policy ofopenness and low pricing will havemade possible a major experiment inmass-market software. For many soft-ware authors as well as users, thiswill be the first chance to test an ap-proach to the user interface that hashovered just beyond reach for severalyears. ■

Phil Lemmons, BYTE's West Coast Bureau Chief,can be reached at McGraiv-Hill, 425 Battery St.,San Francisco, CA 94111.

Teletek'sNew ComboCould MakeYou A Hero!

TheSBC-ll could be just theright ingredient for your latestconcoction. The newest memberof Teletek's family of multi-user,multi-processing S-100 products,the SBC-ll essentially combines,or "sandwiches" two TeletekSBC-I's into one board. The SBC-ll provides the capability to sup-port two users from one standardsize IEEE-696/S-100 stave board.

The SBC-ll maintains fullperformance for each user withan independent CPU (Z80A orZ80B), 64K RAM, Serial I/O, andFIFO communications port tothe system master. The systemintegrator benefits by gettingcomplete support for two usersfor the price of one board.

TurboDOS and MDZoperating systems will supportcombinations of SBC-I's andSBC-ll's offering system designefficiency and flexibility neverbefore possible.

If you're hungry for valueand efficiency, order an SBC-llfrom Teletek. You'll love everybyte.

4600 Pell DriveSacramento, CA 95838(916) 920-4600Telex 4991834 TELETEKDealer inquiries invited.

© Teletek 1983

Circle 420 on inquiry card

NEW PRINT FORMATTER

'from CompuViewi

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Centered Text and Underlining

Variable Line Spacing1 Define Independent, Odd or Even

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Set Variable Page Width and Length

• Set Top and Bottom Page Margins

• Variable Tab Settings

~> Automatic or Manual Pagination

Output Can Be Sent to a Disk

File, or Directly to a Printer

Vll\ll\ 1 is the perfect companionof VEDIT or your favorite text editor toprovide formatted output to either a printer ordisk file. Combined with VEDIT you can nowhave an ideally matched set of wordprocessing tools.

VPRINT is easy to use, requires noinstallation, and operates with virtually everymicrocomputer and printer made. And, it isupwards compatible with the UNK for-matting utility TROFF.

DiskandManual $75

Purchased with VEDIT $50

fall or write for a complete descriptivebrochure of CompuView's software products:

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Finally, you can solve most of your diskproduction and transfer problems withoutbuying thousands of dollars of expensivehardware. VDISK is a unique software packagethat allows you to produce (Format, Read andWrite) or transfer virtually all 5 1/4" softsectored, double density diskettes on anunmodified IBM Personal Computer.

You may have already have tried VDISK.Chances are that the diskettes you have receivedfrom many of the well known softwarecompanies or distributors were made with VDISK.It is a proven and well received product.

VDISK is menu driven and easy to use. It alsosimplifies diskette production by allowing alldiskettes to be produced on the same machine, inthe same manner and with the same simplecommands.

VDISK requires no hardware modificationsand comes with our advanced CP/M-86operating system - no other software is needed.PCDOS disks can also be read and written. Plussupport for popular hard disks is available.

We can now help save you from the expenseand headaches of one of the biggest problems inthe microcomputer industry. VDISK is priced at$1150 plus a $60 fee per desired format. (Dealerdiscounts are also available). As new formats aredeveloped, they may be purchased for only $60each.

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MODEM-86

CP/M-86 and MSDOS Communicator

MODEM-86 is the first truly universal telecommunication programfor the IBM PC, Displaywriter, other popular 8086 computers and manyS-100 systems. A user may access a dial-up mainframe computer,capture and store the data on disk, or transfer files back and forth (usingX-ON/X-OFF). Single and multiple files (both ASCII and Binary) mayalso be transferred reliably with error checking / correction between anytwo microcomputers running MODEM-86 or the popular CP/MMODEM4 and MODEM7 programs. The help command, commandmenu (expert mode turns menu off), and directory display simplifyoperation.

MODEM-86 may be run in batch mode or interactively. Thissoftware is available for both CP/M-86 AND MSDOS operating systems,and will operate, without hardware or software modification, on morecomputers than any communication package ever before.

Version for CP/M-86 or MSDOS $89

Versions for CP/M-86 plus MSDOS $120

SYSTRAN'cP/M-SfyMS-DOS File Transfer Utility

SYSTRAN is a set of utility programs that run on CP/M-86 systems.These programs perform basic file operations on MS-DOS disks, transferfiles between MSDOS disks and CP/M-86 disks, and several other usefulfunctions. SYSTRAN is distributed as eight command files on one 8"single sided, single density, standard CP/M floppy disk or on 5 1/4"floppy disks compatible with most CP/M-86 mini floppy systems.

The minimum hardware requirement is the same as the minimumrequirement for CP/M-86. You must have at least two disk drives. TheSYSTRAN utilities go through CP/M to access a MS-DOS disk so thatthere are no special requirements for the system's disk controller.

DiskandManual $120

UNIX & TROFF are registered trademarks of Bell Laboratories, Inc.

CompuView

56 BYTE December 1983

PRODUCTS, INC.

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Orders: P.O. Box 1349, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106

Circle 116 on Inquiry card.

The Professional's Editor for Program Development, Word Processing, Source Code Translations

EXPECT A LOT/^YEDIT

Newest Features:

• Horizontal Scrolling

• Single Key and Conditional Search andReplace with Pattern Matching

• Easier to Use than Ever

Widely acclaimed as an editor, VEDIT has evolved tobe much more. VEDIT is not only a versatile full screeneditor, its command mode has become a powerfultext-oriented programming language based on TECO.For the first time you'll be able to perform complex textmanipulations that are impossible forany word processor. Just a fewexamples of VEDIT'S commandmacro power are:

• Hundreds of tedious search/replaceoperations, once performed by hand,can now be made automatically ondozens of files without yourintervention.

• VEDIT macros are indispensiblewith source code translations. (Ex-ample ZILOG to/from INTEL trans-lator macros are included). A com-plete line of translators will be avail-able soon.

• An on-line tutorial and mail mergeprogram, completely written withVEDIT macros, (source included) isavailable as an inexpensive option-imagine what you can write for yourown applications.

Word processing is a snap withparagraph formatting, word wrap,print functions, and VEDIT's un-matched 'cut and paste' capability.

VEDIT cuts programming time inhalf - with multiple file handling andspecial features for Pascal, PL/1, 'C,Assembler and other languages.

VEDIT is completely customizable- you configure your own keyboardlayout. Use any function or cursorkey you wish. Plus our total com-mitment to hardware support ensuresthat VEDIT will be perfectly matchedto any microcomputer you are everlikely to own.

Reviewers' Comments

'The performance of this product is nothingshort of outstanding!''VEDIT is a 'virtual' text editor. The amountof memory in your computer does not limitthe size of the file you can edit.'

Tim Daneliuk, InfoWorld - May '83

'At present there are three major entrants intothe screen editor category for the PC...VEDITis the front-runner for the definitive qualityscreen editor.'Todd Kate, PC Magazine - October, '83

'VEDIT's 'visual' mode, where you will spendmost of your time, has a multiplicity ofvaluable one-or-two-keystroke commandswhich make it very easy to enter and modifytext- Frederick Zimmerman, Sextant- Fall, '83

'VEDIT's by all odds the most flexibleprogramming editor I've ever seen.''One of its best features is multiple buffers;that is, you can store chunks of programs invarious places and pull them out into yourmain file when needed.'

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True Full Screen EditingEdit Files One Disk in LengthAutomatic Disk BufferingCompact (Only 16K) and FastDisplay of Line and ColumnSet/Goto Text Markers'Undo' Key to Restore LineAutomatic Indent/UndentAdjustable Tab PositionsRepeat Function Key

Text Move and Copy10 Scratchpad BuffersLoad/Save Buffers on DiskPowerful Command MacrosDirectory DisplayEdit Additional (small)Files SimultaneouslyInsert Another Disk FileUnlimited File HandlingRecovery from 'Full Disk'

Change Disks While EditingWord Wrap. Format ParagraphSimple Printing150 Page Indexed ManualStartup Command FileMenu Driven InstallationProgram CRT Function KeysSupport Newest CRT terminalsFlexible Memory Map SupportCustomizable Keyboard Layout

VEDIT is available for virtually every 8080, Z80 or8086 microcomputer made. To order please specifyyour computer, operating system and disk format.

VEDIT - Disk and Manual

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CI'.'M is i registered trademark 9l Dfctal Restart* lit USOOS is a iraiiuiurfc -A Microsoft IBM is a iradtmark ofliittrnaiwiiulBusiiiiaaMidlines. Qu^fnmi tafcWorM review Coyprtghi 1983b) PoputafCmpuUn&IncawteWiafy'olOT Comii in notions, Ine, Fttmlrgfram, ma Reprinted from infoWortd Quote from Byte review Copyrigfo luH.i by Byie

I'ubliaiioiB. tnc Quota from Stauir aw* uipyn^ht I'W.-l rr> Smtui; hibbhim: Ln i.iui>itf fnisit I'C sta£uinc rwitwCopyright l*ii by K Magazine

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Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103 (313) 996-1299 Telex - 701821Orders: P.O. Box 1349, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106

BYTE December 1983

* to

■

■

I

■v

■

■

■

Reach out and byte someone!

Your desk-top computer system is only abeginning — plug a low-cost UDS modeminto the RS-232 port and a whole new worldof communications opens up!

UDS modems add a new dimension topersonal computers. For professional use, amodem permits two-way, hard-copy communi-cation between home office and branches oramong the branches themselves. Electronic mail becomesa reality. Sales, cost and Inventory updates can be sentover ordinary telephone lines at economical, after-hoursrates.

When you use your computer for personal applica-tions, the modem allows you to access up-to-date marketinformation, receive news and weather summaries, checkairline schedules or even electronically scan out-of-townnewspapers. Long-distance game playing and computer-age personal correspondence become instant realities.

The wide range of UDS modems includes one that fitsyour requirement perfectly. Top of the line is the micro-processor-based 212 A/D which communicates at 0-300 or1200 bps, stores and automatically dials up to five 30-digitnumbers and includes a complete prompting menu and full

automatic test capabilities. Yet, with

all these features, it costs only $645.

At the other extreme is the $145

103 LP, offering simultaneous two-way

communications at 0-300bps without an

AC power cord. This unit siphons operating

energy directly from the telephone line!

In between is a large variety of units—many of them

in the LP no-power-supply design and all fully FCC certified

for direct connection to the telephone system.

Don't be a computer hermit — treat your system to aUDS modem; then you can reach out and byte someone! Fordetails, contact your favorite computer dealer or UniversalData Systems, 5000 Bradford Drive, Huntsville, AL 35805.Telephone 205/837-8100.

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User's Column

Buddy, Can You Sparea Door Latch?

A lack of spare parts almost causes a crisis at Chaos Manor

by Jerry Pournelle

My summer has been devoured bylocusts. It's gone, and I don't knowwhere it went. Actually, I do: it wasn'tlocusts, but our new novel Footfall(Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle,Ballantine Books, January 1985) thatate my summer; so now I sit herewriting this column while everyoneelse in the world is in San Franciscofor the first IBM PC Faire.

I suppose it doesn't matter: al-though we ordered it two monthsago, our IBM PC hasn't arrived. Sincethere's a ton of unreviewed PC soft-ware glaring balefully at me from thefar corner of the office, it would bebeyond reason to collect more untilthe machine arrives.

I confess we're looking forward tothe machine. I already have a numberof ideas for upgrading it, and I hopeto test a bunch of expansion boardsfor it.

Then, too, Mrs. Roberta Pournellehas written a book on using com-puters to teach young and/or educa-tionally handicapped children toread, and we plan to do the first im-plementation on the IBM PC, sowe're eager to get started. Once we

have it for the PC, we'd like to get itrunning on the TI-99 (because it's acheaper machine, and has a voicesynthesizer already integrated to it,so more schools would be able tomake use of her teaching system at

Logitech's Modula-2

compiler works on

nearly any machine

running CP/M-86.

lower costs), but, alas, our efforts tofind reasonable programming lan-guages for the TI have failed.Anyway, that's for the future.

Flash

The American Society for Com-puters in Medicine and Dentistry willhold a meeting at Honolulu's Shera-ton Waikiki Hotel from January 4-8,1984. Speakers will include myself,Dr. Larry Weed, whose "diagnosticprograms" have impressed me tre-mendously, and Marvin Minsky ofthe MIT Artificial IntelligenceLaboratory.

Anyone interested should write Dr.John S. McDonald, President,ASCMD, POB 21483, Upper Arling-ton, OH 43221, (614) 421-8487. TheASCMD is a nonprofit professionalsociety.

Hot Tip

I've heard from three sources nowthat Digital Research is no longersupporting CP/NET. It claims it willhave something to replace it RealSoon Now. The company has alsoabandoned several previously an-nounced modules of GSX, its graph-ics support package that was an-nounced with such fanfare at Com-dex last spring. This has not amusedseveral equipment manufacturerswho'd invested considerable time inCP/NET and/or GSX.

Modula-2!

We're running Logitech's Modula-2compiler. It works on the Eagle, theIBM PC, and nearly any other ma-chine that runs CP/M-86. It comeswith System and Terminal modules(including source code) that allow itto adapt to whatever you're running;

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

59

the latest version I have is for theCompupro 8085/8088.

Because of the pressure of ournovel, I've done little more than playwith the compiler. That changes assoon as this book is done. I intend towrite some serious code in Modula-2.

The Logitech Modula-2 compilerworks. On the other hand, you'd bet-ter be a Modula-2 enthusiast. This isstill a language implementation un-der development, and it lacks a lot ofconveniences. The documents needwork, too. No matter, if you're bent

on getting Modula-2 now, as I am;but fair warning if you're a casualuser.

Understand, the compiler works.There are some significant limita-tions. No type REAL numbers yet,and no overflow and range checkingcode. Priorities in modules are notyet implemented—you can programthem in, but they're ignored. Theseare not severe limits for the first ver-sion of a compiler, and they'll be cor-rected soon anyway, mostly beforeyou read this. (Type REAL, based on

SEATTLE GIVES YOUAN EDGE IN S100SYSTEM DESIGNS

You can unlock new system capabilities with high-per-formance S-100 boards from Seattle Computer. All areIEEE-696 compatible. But, for innovative systems thatdemand performance beyond the limits of conventionaS-100 boards, you'll want to know more about theseSeattle Computer products. For example, with our8 MHz 8086 CPU, you'll be able to build systemsthat run faster and consume less power than before.Take a closer look:

8086 CPU Set: 8 MHz 8086 CPU • CPU Supportboard includes a console serial port, a second serialport, Centronics parallel port, vectored interruptcontroller, four 16-bit timers and EPROM monitorfor 8086 • MS-DOS 2.0 plus development utilities

• 8087 numeric coprocessor is optional

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Dealer and OEM inquires are invited.

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the 8087 chip for terrific speed, willbe available as a test version inDecember and for general sale inFebruary.)

The documents are very rough.There's no index, and no tutorial onhow to use Modula-2. You have torely on Wirth's book, Programming inModula-2, and that's nearly unread-able. I'd like to do a good book onModula-2 myself; I'd rather have oneto read than have to write it, but I'mbeginning to despair. However, Logi-tech's documents are good enough ifyou know something of what you'redoing—for example, if you're some-what used to C or Pascal on micro-computers.

Modula-2 is still

a language

implementation under

development, and it

lacks a lot of

conveniences. The

documents need

work, too.

There is, for instance, a simplewalk-through for getting "MyPro-gram" written, saved, compiled, andoperating. Given that example, youcan build up to more elaborate levels.

I say the Logitech package is a bitrough, but it's a little hard to givespecific problems, because as fast asthey're found, Logitech fixes them.The company has been really respon-sive to user reports. Moreover, manyproblems aren't all that severe. For ex-ample, the documents say that if youcompile a source file, the compilerlooks for a default of type .MOD (thatis, if you don't specify a filename ex-tent, the compiler assumes one of.MOD); in fact, though, it doesn'tassume any such thing, and youmust type in FILENAME.MOD,which is annoying although hardlyfatal.

The compiler is pretty slow, too; ittakes four passes at the code, andthere's no precompiler to find trivialerrors (such as undeclared variablesand missing semicolons). However,

60 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 380 on inquiry card.

Circle 414 on inquiry card.

In the Hard Disk Jungle

^m nr_ii_,rass Qears

a Path

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TallgrassTechnologies

corporation

Pierluigi Zappacosta, president ofLogitech, tells me that in the pastweek (August 22-26) it has improvedthe speed of the CP/M-86 compiler by20 percent.

Logitech has also identified a num-ber of small but important improve-ments that ought to be made to thelanguage itself. Logitech, VolitionSystems, and Diser Inc., the threeU.S. publishers of Modula-2, haveagreed on a set of changes and hopeto persuade Niklaus Wirth, Modula-2's inventor, to approve them. They'renot major, but they will make life alot easier for programmers. Onechange is type LONG INTEGER, sothat you can handle really big num-bers. Another is the ability to builda string by concatenating charactersone at a time; at the moment, stringhandling is a bit awkward.

Late addition: Wirth's comment isthat industry needs standards morethan academia, and he won't opposethe proposed extensions.

Logitech is also working on a texteditor that will be integrated with thecompiler, much as the editor is in-

tegrated into the compiler in DigitalResearch's Speed Programming Pack-age addition to its Pascal MT +.Modula-2 badly needs that feature.It also badly needs a precompiler.That is: Modula-2 is case sensitive.All the reserved words (such as DOand WHILE and END) must be inuppercase letters. In addition, vari-able and function names are casesensitive. The new-line function isWriteLn and it must be written thatway; Writeln or WRITELN won't do.That's not a bug, it's a feature. It's nota feature whose value is self-evident,although I'm beginning to under-stand its purpose. In any event, I'mwriting a kind of precompiler, a sortof very primitive cousin of the C lan-guage's lint, which will look for sillyerrors such as missing semicolons,and also check for reserved words inthe wrong case, and WriteLn andWriteString not spelled funny, andsuch like. Writing it is instructive: it'sreally a simple thing to do, and add-ing features to the program turns outto be very easy. Obviously I'm writ-ing the program in Modula-2.

There's a whole lot to like about theLogitech implementation of Modula-2.For example, the company gives thesource code for the Terminal and Sys-tem modules, as well as a wholebunch of others. The library is quiteextensive.

Despite my enthusiasm, I don't ad-vise beginning programmers to buyLogitech Modula-2 for their CP/M-86or IBM PC-DOS systems just yet.Wait a couple of months until it getsthe bugs out.

You should also give Logitech achance to polish up its documents.It's worth half your sanity to try tofigure out how to open, close, readfrom, and write to CP/M files. The in-formation is all there, in comments inthe source code for the Librarymodule FileSystem; but, alas, thereare no examples, which almost droveme nuts when I tried actually to usethe code.

Again, Logitech assures me it'sdancing as fast as it can, and it takesmy suggestions seriously; it recentlyhired document consultants to helpimprove documentation. Still, begin-

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62 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 275 on inquiry card.

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ners should be wary.

On the other hand, there's noreason for experienced programmersto wait. If you're used to writing Pas-cal programs and you're interested inModula-2,1 recommend the Logitechimplementation. If you like PascalMT + , you'll love Modula-2.

More Modula-2

The Logitech Modula-2 systemgenerates native code (makes .CMDcommand programs) for machinesrunning CP/M-86 and IBM PC-DOS,and is the only Modula-2 implemen-tation I know of for machines withthose operating systems.

There's another Modula-2. VolitionSystems publishes Modula-2 for ma-chines using the UCSD Pascal oper-ating system. The two I know aboutare for Apple UCSD Pascal and theSage, but I have a press release an-nouncing it for the IBM PC, completewith operating system, editor, tuto-rial programs, and lots of utility pro-grams. I should have the PC versionabout the time I get my PC.

Unlike Logitech Modula-2, VolitionSystems Modula-2 generates an in-termediate p-code (as does UCSDPascal). Volition is currently workingon a Modula-2 compiler to producenative code for the 68000 chip tooperate under CP/M-68K. Volitionpromises to have that Real SoonNow. It ought to be significantlyfaster than its p-code implementa-tion.

I haven't yet run competitive testsof Volition vs. Logitech Modula-2, al-though I know beforehand that Logi-tech's will be considerably faster(because it's native code). On theother hand, the current Volitiondocuments are incomparably betterthan Logitech's. You can use the Voli-tion documents to learn a lot aboutModula-2. Oddly enough, though,the Volition documents are missingone vital ingredient: there's no walk-through for writing, saving, andcompiling a simple program, and itturns out to be darned hard topuzzle out how that's done.

Indeed, I learned most of what Iknow about Modula-2, and caughtmy enthusiasm for the language,from the Volition Systems people.

64 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 497 on inquiry card.

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MS-DOS is a trademark of Microsoft Inc.CP/M-86 is a trademark of Digital Research.UCSD-P system is a trademarkof the Regent of the University of California.

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BYTE December 1983

65

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66 BYTE December 1983

Circle 391 on inquiry card.

Circle 234 on inquiry card.

The documents can be improved, butthey're pretty good.

Me, I'm glad to have Modula-2 ontwo of my advanced machines, andI can hardly wait for the CP/M-68Kversion. I expect it's pretty obviousthat 1 really like the language.

Zipping Up Your Z-100

Zorro the Z-100 has become a per-manent fixture here. We like his col-or graphics a lot. For those few whodon't know, the Zenith Z-100 is adual-processor machine, with both8085 (8-bit) and 8088 (16-bit) centralprocessing unit chips. On the 16-bitside, it runs Z-DOS which is virtual-ly indistinguishable from IBM PC-DOS; the 8-bit side runs standardCP/M 2.2x. We have WRITE, ourfavorite text editor (see below), run-ning on the Z-100.

There is also the H-100, which is theHeathkit version of the Zenith DataSystems Z-100. A number of readershave written in to recommend gettinga Z-100 that way. I don't myself havefirsthand experience with the kit, butJames Ransom, an L-5 Society associ-ate and friend, recently put one to-gether. He'd never built a large kit ofany kind before.

Jim got his machine on Friday after-noon and had it running by Saturdaynight; and as I said, he's not at all ex-perienced in kit building. So far aswe can tell, the machine runs fine,and he saved a real bundle by build-ing it.

In fact, there's not a lot to build.You do have to solder the disk-con-troller card. The Z-100 is an S-100-busmachine although the computer andits video driver are on a single non-bus card; the disk controller is aseparate card, and thus easy to workon. The computer and video com-ponents are already assembled andtested.

Except for soldering the disk con-troller, building the kit consists large-ly of assembling the prewired partsand in general bolting things to-gether.

Jim Ransom reports that not onlydid he save money, but he's got a bet-ter understanding of how his ma-chine works. If that weren't enough,the two volumes of technical manu-

als for the Z-100, which normally sellfor $55, come free with the kit.

More Brain Cells

Heath/Zenith sells the Z-100 with astandard 128K bytes of memory.There are slots on board the machinefor adding an additional 64K bytes.The Heath memory upgrade kit listsfor $165, and consists of the memorychips and instructions on how to dis-assemble the machine and install thechips.

If you buy the kit version, you canget the memory expansion kit for halfprice, or $82.50, but that's not reallya very good deal, because in factthere's no earthly reason why you'dwant to pay that much. You can buythe chips for less, and certainly thekit builder knows how to take themachine apart.

In fact, any moderately intelligentuser can upgrade a Z-100. Under-stand, I assume no responsibility foryour success. I only report that I wasable to do mine—and indeed I had anavoidable problem, which I'll detailbelow. If you decide to do your own,thus saving about $100, you do it atyour own risk, and don't blame meif it doesn't work well.

The only tool needed is a hex-nutdriver, available in most hardwarestores for a dollar or so. It takes a bitof thought to determine exactly howto take the machine apart, but in factthe relentless application of logic willdo the job.

You'll also need the memory chips,of course. They're 4164 64K-bitdynamic-memory chips. I got minefrom California Digital for $6.95 each.I didn't have the instructions when Ifirst conceived this scheme, andbought only eight of the chips, whichseemed reasonable—we were adding64K bytes of 8-bit memory, so eight64K-bit chips ought to do it, right?Wrong, of course, because the Z-100,like most other 16-bit machines, doesparity checking on the memory, andthus needs an additional 64K bytes(by 1 bit) of memory. Thus you neednine of the 4164 chips. If you're aworrier, get 10 so you'll have a sparein case you do something awful.

Incidentally, I recommend Califor-nia Digital as a good source of chips,

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• Cut your program code by as much as 50%.

- ReportWiz Tester to print $49report samples

Available lor CP/M-80 and IBM DOS operating systems.ScreenWiz and ReportWiz can be called from mosi popularBasic. Cobol. Pascal. Fortran. Assembler and C programsAll prices are in U.S. dollars and include a comprehensiveReference Manual, extensive examples and tutorialdemonstration programs Call tot CP/M-86 availabilityShipping costs per program (air parcel)U.S. and Canada $ 6 OverseasS18

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fans, disks, small parts, and generalcomputer hardware parts. The com-pany is courteous, very efficient,ships the same day you order (if yougive a credit card number), and iswilling to answer fairly stupid ques-tions. (My stupid question cameabout because I got eight chips, thenhad to order another; the new onedidn't look like the other eight. Itwasn't made by the same outfit anddidn't have the same numbers. Cali-fornia Digital's people assured methey were the same, as indeed theyturned out to be.)

Once you have the chips, you needto take the Z-100 apart. This involvesremoving the cover, then removingsix hex nuts, two of which are toppedby the posts that help lock the coveron. Once that's done, the two diskdrives and their mounting bracket liftout as a unit. You have to disconnectthe cables; make a note of how theywere oriented before you disconnectthem. There are two cables to eachdisk drive: a flat data cable and apower cable. Each comes off by sim-ple pulling, but don't yank. Be gen-

tle; data cables aren't especiallydelicate, but you can pull them apartif you're too rough.

Take the disk drives completely outand lay them down carefully. Thiswill expose some more screws thathold on the rest of the machine'scase; you also take out the other twolocking pins that held the upper partof the case on. Lift off the case. Thatexposes the keyboard, which simplylifts off—it's not even screwed down.Be careful of the keyboard cables.Don't disconnect them, just set thekeyboard, still attached, on the tablein front of the machine. The cablesare long enough.

Now remove three screws that holdthe video board on and tilt it back.You need not—and should not—dis-connect anything here either; thecables are long enough.

You'll see nine empty chip sockets,eight right together and a ninth justbelow and slightly off to one side.They're marked U-137 through U-145,and you can't miss them.

If you bought your chips from Cali-fornia Digital, they arrived in a black

sticky foam thing that protects themfrom static damage. Before takingthem out of that, ground yourself andtake a lot of precautions about staticelectricity. Everyone I know warnsme about how easy it is to destroythese chips.

Once the chip is removed from theprotective foam, do not lay the ICdown or let go of it until it is installedin its socket. If you need to bend theIC pins (you probably will), hold thechip in one hand, use a metallic worksurface (such as the bottom of theZ-100 case), and touch the metal sur-face with the other hand beforetouching the chip to the surface.

IC leads are often splayed, andneed to be bent perpendicular to thechip before the chip can be inserted.The ones I got from California Digitaldidn't need that, but it's best to an-ticipate.

Be sure to put the chips in the rightway, which is to say with the littlenotch in the same direction as the lit-tle notches are on all the other chipson the board. If you get one in back-ward, that chip is gone. Get the chipsText continued on page 72

MRS/OS Source Code

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68 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 322 on inquiry card.

Circle 16 on inquiry card.

NEVADA

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Now, high quality text editing for micros. Nevada EDIT isgreat for program editing, as it was designed specificallyto create COBOL, BASIC, and FORTRAN programs. It's acharacter-oriented full-screen video.display text editor.

Simple to configure. You can customize tab stops, defaultfile type, keyboard control key layout, and CRT by menuselection.

CP'M is a registered trademark of Digital Research, Inc. TRS-80 is a registered trade-mark of Tandy Corp Apple II is a trademark of Apple Compuler. Inc Osborne is a reg-istered trademark of Osborne Computer Corp Xerox 820 is a trademark of Xerox CorpKaypro is a trademark of Non-linear Sys. Heath/Zenith is a trademark of Heath CorpIBM is a trademark of International Business Machines, Corp Nevada COBOL. NevadaFORTRAN, Nevada PILOT, Nevata EDIT and Ellis Computing are trademarks ol EllisComputing, Inc 8 1983 Ellis Computing. Inc

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(415)753-0186The CP/M® Operating System, a 8080/8085/ Z80 microprocessor,and 32K RAM are required.Software Packages:

□ COBOL D FORTRAN D PILOT □ EDIT Q BASICDiskette Format: 8" D SSSD (Standard IBM 3740 format)

5V4" □ AppleCP/M DXerox820SD QOsborneSDO Televideo D Micropolis Mod II

□ North Star DD D North Star SD

D TRS-80 Mod I with CP/M @ 4200 hex D TRS-80 Mod I/MapperO Heath Hard (Z-89) □ Heath Soft (Z-90)

□ Superbrain DD DOS 3.X (512 Byte sectors)DKayproDD CDECVT-180 D EpsonQX-10ON EC PC 8001 □ Sanyo D Access

Shlpping/Handting Fees: Add $4.00 for the first package and $2.00 each additionalpackage. OVERSEAS add $15.00 for first package and $5.00 each additional package.Checks must be in U.S. funds and drawn on a U.S. bank!Send my order for.

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BYTE December 1983

69

Epson.For those who need it,simplicity

One computer.

Two points of view

The Epson QX-10 personal computer

To many, the Epson represents theultimate in simplicity.

Just press a single key for the func-tion you require: word processing,scheduling, business graphics, addressbook or file management. One key-stroke produces your program. Thereare no rigamaroles to remember. Nodisks to change.

The result: you start to workimmediately. And you start being pro-ductive, immediately. With step-by-step prompts. In plain English, notcomputerese.

Simplicity itself.

Or is it ?

The plain fact is that the ease ofoperation the Epson offers today isaccomplished with a degree of tech-nological sophistication most othercomputers can only promise for tomor-row—specifically, fully integratedsoftware, operating in an interactiveenvironment.

The few other computers offeringsuch "simplicity" cost $5,000 to $15,000more. And most other computers can'toffer it at any price. Which makesone wonder exactly what they do offer,in terms of either simplicity, orperformance.

HOW MUCH CAN YOU DO

ON THE EPSON? HOW MUCH

ARE YOU READY TO DO?

The Epson's ease of operationmay spoil you, but it certainly won'tlimit you.

Case in point: every Epson comescomplete with an integrated soft-ware system — Valdocs® — to effortlesslyprovide the basic functions for whichmost people buy computers. But itis important to note that the Epson alsocomes with CP/M®-80 2.2. So youcan choose from hundreds of programs:dBase II® Wordstar;® Personal Pearl®Supercalc® Microplan® MBA GeneralLedger,® Mnltiplan® Peachtext®Spellwriter® and Datavieuf just toname a few.

Or, you can write your own,utilizing a variety of programminglanguages such as COBOL 80,FORTRAN 80; or Microsoft® BASIC,which is included, free.

Best of all, you will run thesoftware of your choice on thecomputer of choice. The high-performance Epson. With 256krandom access memory. 128k dedi-cated video memory. Thebreathtakingly sensibleHASCI® keyboard.Dual 380k doubledensity diskdrives.

2+2=

Graphics

capabilities unequalled inits price range. A high resolution monitor,640 by 400 pixels, for clarity few com-puters in any price range can offer. Plus,an RS-232C interface, a parallel printerinterface, and internal space for up tolive peripheral cards so you can expandyour Epson as your needs require.

One further point: all these features,and quite a few more, are includedin the Epson's $2,995 price. Some com-

70 BYTE December 1983

Epson.For those who can handle it,performance.

puter companies ask you to pay extrafor features like these. Most can not offerthem at any price.

That, too, is performance. The kindof performance that can make choosing apersonal computer very simple, indeed.

EPSON QUALITY OR, WHY

WONDER WHAT TERRIBLE

KLUDGES LURK IN WHICH

SLEEK BOXES.

know computers, youknow Epson.Epsonprinters setthe industrystandardfor quality,reliabilityand value.Rest assured,the samecan be saidfor the Epsonpersonalcomputer.The satisfy-ing silence ofthe slim, Epson-designed disk-drives is one wayfor you to judge or,for an inside-outperspective, here is anexcerpt from a reviewby Jim Hanson in theApril, 1983 issue ofMicrocomputing*

"The Epson QX-10 is soundly designedand executed. I looked hard and foundno evidence of kludging or shorting outanything in the name of economy. Allthe connectors have gold on them and areof quality manufacture. The printedcircuit boards are heavy, with soldermarkson both sides of double-sided boards.The circuit boards are completely silk-screened with component labels, and thelayout is as professional and clean asyou will find anywhere."

Isn't this what you expect? After all,it's an Epson.

A WORD TO THE WISE:

GET YOUR HANDS ON

THE EPSON.

Is the Epson a simple, easy-to-usecomputer for beginners? Or a sophisticatedhigh-performance computer for theexperienced? The answer is "yes." Andwhen you think about it, aren't those twocomputers the one you need now.

For technical specifications, andthe complete, 3-part Microcomputingreview, along with the name ofyour nearby Epson dealer, call toll-free (800) 421-5426. California resi-dents, call (213) 539-9140.

*F..\cerpt reprinted by permission of Microcomputing Magazine.

All right-s reserved

CP/M is a trademark of Digital Research, Inc.

Valdocs and 1IASC1 arc trademarks of Rising Star Industries.

dBase II is a trademark of AshtonTate.Wordstar is a trademark of Micropro.Personal Pearl is a trademark of Pcarlsoli.Spcllwriter and SupercaJc are trademarks of Sorcim.Microplan is a trademark of Chang Libs.

MBA Genera! Ledger is a trademark of Micro BusinessApplications.

COBOL 80, FORTRAN 80, Microsoft, and Multiplanare trademarks of Microsoft.Peachtext is a trademark of Peachtree Software.

EPSON

STATE-OF-THE-ART... SIMPLICITY.

BYTE December 1983 71

Text continued from page 68:in properly, making sure that everypin is in a socket. Inspect it with astrong flashlight.

Then put the machine back to-gether, fire up Z-DOS, and run theMEMTST. If you get memory errors,it's likely a chip was improperly in-stalled. We did, and it was easily fix-able. The result is a 192K-byte system.

Megabyte, Anyone?

Of course if you're a real memoryfanatic, you can install a Macrotechl-megabyte memory board. Alas,there's not much software to makeuse of that much memory for theZ-100 because it doesn't (yet) runCP/M-86. It's also nontrivial to figureout how to get your Macrotech mega-byte board running in a Z-100 fromjust the Macrotech documents.

You can install the Macrotechmegabyte board in most S-100 sys-tems. If you're running CP/M 2.2,only the first 64K bytes of that mem-ory is available as work space, but therest can be configured as a "virtualdisk," i.e., the machine can be fooledinto thinking that's a very fast diskdrive. If you've read previous col-umns, you'll know I'm a believer invirtual disks.

To the best of my calculations,Macrotech's huge boards provide thelowest cost per kilobyte of memory.In the old days we all insisted onstatic rather than dynamic memory,because dynamic memory wasn't re-liable. Really conservative designers

still think that way, but dynamic isgetting more and more converts, andit sure costs a lot less.

Do We Care?

While we were taking the Z-100apart, we managed to break one ofthe disk-drive door latches. I'm notsure how it happened. On the otherhand, once it was broken and we'dtaken the drive apart to examine it,I couldn't understand why it neverbroke before. That's a very poordesign.

In any event, my $300 drive wasdisabled for want of about a dime'sworth of plastic. To make the disasterworse, Mrs. Pournelle's book was onZ-100 disks, and there was no way toaccess it until we got Zorro fixed.Needless to say, she was not pleasedwith me.

My first thought was glue, but I'venever had much luck with thosesuper glues, and didn't this time; allI managed to do was waste an houror so. However, the drive latch is asimple mechanism, obviously easilyreplaced (I'd taken it off to try to glueit), so all I needed was a new plasticpart.

First call was to the local Heathstore. No spare parts for disk drives.No idea of where to get them. In-deed, they didn't even know thesewere Tandon drives. (See photo 1.)

Second call to California Digital.No spare parts. Priority One, ditto.Both referred me to Tandon.

Photo 1: On the same day jerry's manuscript arrived at BYTE, the door pins broke onof our Tandon floppy-disk drives.

Next day came. Roberta was gettingicily polite. Time to Do Something, soI called Tandon and asked for theDirector of Marketing.

Tandon is a big outfit, and it tookabout four levels of switchboards andsecretaries before I got someone. Hewas very polite. I explained that I hadtwo problems. One was acute, name-ly getting a vital but trivially cheapspare part; the other was more to thepoint, namely that I was acquiring anIBM PC, and it might be interestingto discuss how one might use Tandondrives to expand the PC's capabilities.

It turned out that I had the wrongman. My very polite contact told mehe'd find the proper person fromProduct Support who'd call me.Moreover, he recognized my despera-tion, and would have someone callsoon. I expect he could hear my sighof relief all the way from Hollywoodto the Tandon factory out in thenorthwest San Fernando Valley.

The call did come soon. This timethe caller sounded as if he were at thebottom of a well; I presume he wasusing a telephone amplifier. I'm part-ly deaf, and I never did get the nameproperly. In any event, I had an en-lightening conversation. First he gavehis name. He already knew mine,and knew what I wanted.

Next he asked if I understood thecomputer industry. When I professednot to understand the question, heasked it again. "Do you understandthe computer industry?"

"I really don't know what the ques-tion means."

"Do you understand the computerindustry?"

By now it was obvious that I wasin an endless loop, and I needed aControl-C, so I said, "I think so."

"I don't think you do."

This didn't seem a very good wayto begin a relationship, but I wasn'tsure what to do about it.

He proceeded to explain that Tan-don is an OEM supplier. "We ship200,000 drives a month. Your sourcewas Zenith. You should ask Zenith."

I remembered when we put thelate Ezekial I together. Zeke usediCOM disk drives, and when I hadproblems I called the company; anengineer explained precisely what I

72 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983

73

should do. That, however, was yearsago. Evidently the industry has out-grown that kind of relationship withits customers.

Anyway, I didn't tell him that. In-stead, I explained that Zenith was inIllinois, while both Tandon and Iwere in Southern California. "I havea $5000 computer disabled for wantof a 10-cent door latch," I said. "Andwe've got book deadlines, and text wecan't access without that machine.We've got some real problems, and I'dreally appreciate some help. All Ineed is a spare part, and I can't findanyone who'll sell it to me."

"We have 2000 employees, we ship200,000 drives a month, and we can'tbe bothered with trivia like that. Wecan't handle spare parts. You don't ex-pect General Motors to do that—"

But of course I do expect GeneralMotors to have spare parts. I pointedout that I could go to any one of 50auto parts stores to buy parts for mycar.

"I wonder if that was the case in1927?"

I allowed that it probably wasn't,although I recall from reading thebiographies of Albert Sloan andHenry Ford that both were fanaticsabout making their dealers stockspare parts.

"I don't think you should be talk-ing to Tandon," he continued. "How-ever, I'll mail you the part."

Once again I breathed a huge sighof relief, and practically spoutedthanks. Then I asked if I could senda messenger for the part, since ourneed was desperate.

This got me another lecture. "Weestablish guidelines, we establishvery definitive procedures, andyou're not following them," he said.

I pointed out that if he were goingto mail the part, it couldn't be thathard to have whoever would mail itsimply take it to the receptionist'sdesk where we'd pick it up. Afteranother lecture it was allowed thatthis wouldn't be any worse break inthe procedure than sending me thepart would be.

I sent Alex out to get it. Since bynow I wasn't sure of the receptionhe'd get, I told him to go also toPriority One and buy a spare drive.

74 December 1983 © BYTE Publicaeions Inc.

Circle 336 on inquiry card.

SuperSof t BASIC Compiler

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for CP/M-86, MS DOS, and PC DOS

Compatible with Microsoft BASIC

The SuperSoft BASIC compiler, available underCP/M-86 and MS DOS, is compatible withMicrosoft* BASIC and follows the ANSI I standard.If you want to compile BASIC programs underCP/M-86, PC DOS, and MS DOS, SuperSoffsBASIC compiler is the answer.

Greater accuracy with BCD math routines

If you have used other languages without BCDmath, you know how disconcerting decimal roundoff errors can be. For example:

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As you can see, SuperSoft BASIC with BCDprovides greater assurance in applications whereaccuracy is critical.

SuperSoffs BASIC is a true native code compiler,not an intermediate code interpreter. It is asuperset of standard BASIC, supporting numerousextensions to the language. Important featuresinclude:

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• Supports random and sequential disk files with acomplete set of file manipulation statements

• IEEE floating point available soon as an option

In addition, SuperSoft BASIC has no run timelicense fee. SuperSoffs line of fine languagecompilers includes FORTRAN, BASIC, C, andAda.

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*SuperSoft BASIC is compatible with MicrosoftBASIC interpreter and IBM PC BASIC. Due toversion differences and inherent differences incompilers and interpreters some minor variationsmay be found. Machine dependent commandsmay not be supported. The vast majority of pro-grams will run with no changes.

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Microsoft is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

IBM PC is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.

CP/M is a registered trademark of Digital Research.

BYTE December 1983

75

We could always use it, and thatseemed to me good insurance. Iwasn't at all sure what the gentlemanat Tandon wanted. Product supportat Tandon apparently consists of tell-ing users that it doesn't provide anyproduct support.

When Alex arrived, the chap cameout to see him, and as Alex put it, hewas trying to be polite, but there wasthis streak in him that insisted thathe impress us with just how big afavor he was doing us.

In addition to the door latch, he

gave Alex some manuals for thedrives. "We usually charge $25 forthese," he said. Alex didn't ask whousually paid the $25, since he hadmade it very clear Tandon didn't dealwith end users and didn't want to.However, we're grateful for themanuals, which do tell us a lot aboutthe care and feeding of Tandondrives. They're not very thick, and Ican't think it would cost very muchto print them. Surely in quantities of200,000 they'd be less than a dollar,and they'd sure be useful to anyone

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owning Tandon disks; they're reallyquite well done. Oh, well.

I'm not sure what the moral to thisstory is. I don't want to be unfair toTandon. I'm trying to fight the con-clusion that its attitude is, "We ship200,000 drives a month. We're Tan-don. We don't care. We don't have to."After all, at only the price of a lecture,he did do me the favor I needed, andI had after all asked for something Iwasn't entitled to. I really am grateful.(I also bought a spare drive from Pri-ority One, because I don't ever wantanother iteration of that.)

Additions: first, I have a veryfriendly letter from my first brief con-tact, saying Tandon does, too, care.I do want to emphasize that the com-pany was very nice to me.

Second, the new drive we boughtcame without manuals, and is a newmodel, and as of now Priority Onedoesn't know how to set the jumpers;but it expects to hear from TandonReal Soon Now.

Spare Parts

The bottom line of my quest wasthat Barry Workman and my son Alexhave decided to offer Tandon spareparts kits at Workman and Associ-ates. They don't expect to make muchmoney on them. As far as I'm con-cerned, they're public benefactors,they are, they are. If you own an IBMPC, Zenith Z400, or any other ma-chine with Tandon 5V4-inch drives,you'd do well to get one of these kits.You may never need it, but if you do,you'll want it bad.

Editorial Conversion

Due largely to sloth, we've neverconverted from Wordmaster as theprogramming editor used here atChaos Manor. At one time, Word-master was about the best program-ming editor available; however, ithasn't been maintained or supportedat Micropro, and it has fallen behindprogress. Still I continued to use itfrom habit, despite having bettereditors.

But of course I can't use Word-master, an 8080 editor, for myModula-2 programs on the 8088.There were two choices: Superwriterfrom Sorcim, and Vedit from Com-

76 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 135 on inquiry card.

SuperSof t FORTRAN

Now for CP/M-86, MS DOS, and IBM PC DOS

SuperSoft FORTRAN is the answer tothe growing need for a high quality FORTRANcompiler running under CP/M-86 and IBMPC DOS. It has major advantages over otherFORTRAN compilers for the 8086. Forexample, consider the benchmark programused to test the IBM FORTRAN in InfoWorld.p. 44, Oct. 25, 1982. (While the differentiallisted will not be the same for all benchmarkprograms, we feel it is a good indication of thequality of our compiler.) Results are as follows:IBM FORTRAN: 38.0 Seconds

SuperSoft FORTRAN: 2.8 SecondsIn its first release SuperSoft FORTRANoffers the following outstanding features:

1. Full ANSI 66 standard FORTRAN withimportant extensions

2. Standard data types, double precision,varying string length, complex numbers

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4. Compact object code and run time support

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7. Full IEEE floating point

8. Full 8087 support—available as option($50.00).

Program developers:

SuperSoft's family of FORTRAN compilersmeans you can write your programs once andthey will run under CP/M-80, CP/M-86, andMS DOS. This lets you get your applicationsrunning fast no matter what the environment.

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puview. Both have lots of nice fea-tures. I'm not entirely sure why Ichose Vedit, but I did, and that'swhat we use for programming now.

I'm also changing over on the 8-bitsystems, too.

Meanwhile, Compuview is send-ing me yet another update of Vedit,with its brand-new, completely re-written documentation; Compuviewclaims the rewrite was due to myneedling, and perhaps it was. Cer-tainly its people have been more thancooperative on the phone.

If you need a programming editor,Vedit's a very good bet.

WRITE Now!

After much needling, wheedling,and plain threats, Tony Pietsch hasgot WRITE available and ready forpublication. All the known bugs arefixed, the documents have been re-written (from the crash text I did inone marathon session before the 1983West Coast Computer Faire), and anInstall program that knows a dozenprinters and twice that many con-soles has been done.

WRITE, for those who tuned inlate, is the text editor that Larry Nivenand I use to write our books. It begansome years ago when we requestedTony to fix the bugs in Electric Pen-cil. That wasn't feasible, and Tonywrote a new editor from scratch. It in-corporated the Pencil features we'dliked and added many others.

Over the years Larry and I keptnotes of features we wanted and bugswe hated, and Tony produced newversions of WRITE. One of them in-corporated the best Search/Replacefunction (called the macro vieweditor) I've ever seen. Alas, it wascomplicated to use, and AshtonTatetalked Tony into removing it for amuch more simpleminded Search/Replace. This was back when it ap-peared that AshtonTate would be thepublisher.

The macro view editor isn't in thenew release of WRITE, althoughTony promises it as an upgrade RealSoon Now. That's a bit sad, becauseit means I don't have it either; I'vealways used the latest versions asthey came out. The Search/Replace

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we do have is more than adequate,indeed is as good as that in any text-oriented editor I know of; it doesn'tapproach the power available inVedit, though.

However, WRITE is quite simplythe best text-creation editor I knowof. This conclusion is shared by everyprofessional writer who has taken thetrouble to learn WRITE. (Naturally Imean all those I know of who've triedWRITE; there may be some who triedit and didn't like it and haven't toldme.) In addition to professionalwriters, a number of beginningwriters, such as Dr. Trimpi, who's col-laborating on a survival book withme, and Roberta, who just finishedher book, are also WRITE enthusi-asts. As I've said elsewhere, it's wellto get confirmation of one's prej-udices.

What we all like about WRITE is itstransparency. WRITE doesn't get be-tween you and what you're thinkingabout. It doesn't natter at you. Thereare no distracting flickers to give yourow and column number each timeyou press a key (or each time youpause for thought). When you wantWRITE to do something, it does itnow, generally with a single key-stroke. It's also very nearly bullet-proof. You can lose text with WRITE,but you have to work pretty hard—and even then there's a way torecover it from memory. You have toknow a fair amount about CP/M todo that; we've been after Tony towrite a Save-It program. The problemis that WRITE so seldom loses text—Ican recall every instance over the pastfive years—and Tony prefers to fix thebug rather than provide the crutch.

It does lack one feature many want:there's no UNDO command. In prac-tice I don't miss it; if you try to deletemore than a single line of text,WRITE asks if you really mean it. Ihave sometimes hit the "Delete ToEnd Of Line" key when I wanted the"Delete Next Word" key (they're righttogether on my Archive keyboard)and thus lost a line of text, but that'sthe worst that happens.

The WRITE philosophy is to keepit simple and clean. If you want to getcomplicated, you can go to a com-mand mode and get complicated; butText continued on page 82

78 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 125 on inquiry card.

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Text continued from page 78:while you're writing and editing text,I at least want things to happen fast,with simple commands I can remem-ber, and WRITE has been designedthat way.

The bottom line is that I can write10,000 words, editing as I go; go backand edit again; check spelling (withWayne Holder's The Word Plus);print the text; and get it out the doorin one night. I can't imagine doingthat with any other editor.

The text formatting is quite goodenough for me, and there's a "printto screen" feature that lets you seeprecisely what you'll get, includingwhere the paper ends, before youprint.

WRITE is no good for mass mail-ings and computer-generated letters.Peachtext (Magic Wand) is about thebest I've seen for that. WRITE isn'tuseful as a programming editor. It isplenty good enough for letters, nowthat Tony has added a "letterhead"feature that causes it to skip down tobelow the letterhead before it beginsto print (for first page only unless youtell it different). Larry and I have writ-ten movie scripts with WRITE, butthere are editors that know the com-plex indentation scheme scriptwritersuse; with WRITE you have to figureout most of that for yourself. 1wouldn't recommend WRITE forscriptwriters or programmers; othercreative writers may find it the bestthing since microcomputers.

WRITE is available for a variety ofmachines, including Kaypro, Otrona(I expect the keyboard-configurationprogram I use will be included if youget an Otrona version), Televideo ter-minals, Lear Siegler terminals, and awhole bunch of others. It knows howto use most standard printers.

WRITE is marketed by Workmanand Associates. It will also be avail-able when you purchase new Com-pupro machines; those with olderCompupro equipment will have tobuy WRITE from Workman. I ob-viously recommend it.

Siemens Drives

When Tony built Ezekial way backin the dark ages of 1976, we usediCOM disk drives. Single-sidedsingle-density, 241K bytes per drive,

82 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 258 on inquiry card.

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BYTE December 1983

83

they cost over $2000 for the pair.

Things sure change. A recent BYTEhas a number of ads for two Siemens8-inch single-sided double-densitydrives, with power supply andcabinet, for less than $700.

I have no personal experience withthese Siemens drives, but BarryWorkman used them for Ralph, hisLobo Max-80, and has had no prob-lems after six months of hard use.

I previously mentioned thesedrives, and we've had a number ofletters asking how to configure thedrives properly. I asked Barry to writeup how he does it. The following isa paraphrase of his reply.

First, the Siemens FDD 100-8 driveshave to be configured. Drive A is 0,and drive B is 1. This is done with"U" jumpers on the PC board on thedrive. Put the jumper on the selectedpin, and be sure it's securely fastenedto both pins. These things aren't toostrong, and can easily be bent. If youhave a wire-wrapping tool, use that.If you get "Select Error," your jumpermay not be making proper contact.

Check the PC board carefully.There is another jumper on some ofthese drives that designates them ashard-sector drives. This will not be onall drives, only some of them. If theselector is hard-wired, it will be hard-wired for soft-sectored disks. If it hasthe jumper, it will probably be set forhard sector. Make certain the sector-ing is what you want. If you don'tknow what this means, you probablywant soft sectoring; almost everyonedoes.

There is a terminating resistor on theboard. It looks like a blue integrated-circuit chip (the only blue one on thewhole board). Remove the terminat-ing resistor from one of the boards;leave it in place on the other. It'susual to leave the resistor in place ondrive 1 (B), or the last one in the lineif you have more than two.

Now mount the drives in thecabinet and plug in the power cables.Turn on the power. Both drivemotors and the cooling fan shouldcome on. If not, check the power-supply fuses, then your connections.Do not -work on any component when thepower is on.

The FDD 100-8 uses a 50-pin edge-

card connector. The #1 pin is closestto the slot cut into the connectorboard. The ribbon cable's #1 pin isclosest to the stripe on the cable, ifyou have a standard cable.

Use the data cable to connect thedrives to the computer, and turn onthe drives, but do not turn on thecomputer. Take a blank disk and in-sert it into drive A, and close thedoor. The red LED should not go on.Do the same thing with the B drive.

If the red LED on the disk drive ison, it means the data cable is con-nected upside down. This is a loteasier to do than you'd think. Con-necting the cable upside down can befatal to disks if the computer is try-ing to read.

Now that you have the cable con-nected properly, turn on the com-puter, insert the system disk, andmake a copy of your system master.

Troubles

Barry Workman goes on to say, "Ifyou have been running for sometime, and you begin to get bad sec-tor error messages, open up thecabinet and see if the stepper motoris catching on anything. I had onedrive that started to do this withgreater regularity than Ex-Lax. Whatwas happening was that the stop washanging the head at about track 1 or2, and the computer was trying tofind track 0 information there."If the drives are still under warran-ty, don't muck with them, take 'emback. If you have to work on themyourself, look for burrs on the wormgear. Also look to see if the lubricanthas got sticky.

"The FDD 100-8s are sound drives,and I'm not afraid to recommendthem to anyone trying to get a systemrunning at low cost. Because of theirlow cost, don't buy two drives, buythree. If you have problems with one,you can swap out while you haverepairs made. Anyone who canrepair Shugart drives ought to be ableto work on Siemens."

Barry has put together a two-pagetattle sheet about Siemens drives, in-cluding tips on maintenance. He alsoincludes a diagram showing the loca-tion of the critical jumpers. This isavailable for $1, and he'd appreciate

a stamped, self-addressed envelopesince it costs more than a dollar inemployee time to put these out. Theabove was cribbed from his tip sheet.

And Again the Epson

After my evaluation of the EpsonQX-10 with Rising Star's Valdocs soft-ware appeared in the August BYTE,I received a letter from Steve Irving,Software Development Manager forEpson America. After some conver-sation, he sent out the standard Ep-son keyboard and CP/M softwarepackage.

That works a lot better, but, alas,my beta-test QX-10 had trouble withthe B: drive. It seems to be an inter-mittent hardware problem. Diagnosiswas complicated by CP +, which Ep-son puts onto the standard CP/Mmaster it furnishes. When you bootup, you get CP+ whether you like itor not.

CP+ is a shell around CP/M. It'ssupposed to protect you from thehorrors of having to learn PIP A: = B:and the like. Steve Irving says it's in-tended to allow naive users to havean instantly rewarding experience;they can turn on the machine and dosomething useful. To quote Steve,"Whatever phobia can be ascribed toturning on your first computer andstaring "A>" in the face, I experi-enced several years ago. Consequent-ly I wanted to find a way for Epson'sfirst-time users to avoid this shock."

CP+ is menu-driven, and certain-ly is easier to use than CP/M if you'venever had much to do with com-puters, but it's really slow, about asslow as Valdocs. In fact, CP+ is guar-anteed to drive experienced CP/Musers crazy. It's especially troublingwhen you first get it, because it mustbe "unlocked" through a fairly com-plicated series of moves I wasn'tprepared to make. This is to preventusers from accidentally erasing oraltering files. It also prevented mefrom copying the system disk.

Given the intermittent hardwareproblem, I almost went nuts trying tomake a copy of the master disk. PIP* • *lr] (lrl causes PIP to copy "hid-den" system files as well as visibledirectory files) worked just fine, butEpson hadn't provided SYSGEN, so

84 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

GenTech

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I couldn't make a new master thatway. (It turns out SYSGEN is buriedin the Epson Copydisk utilityprogram.)

You can, with work, get past CP +to regular CP/M. I'm also told that inthe "demo" or "locked" mode "thenew user is led through a completetutorial of CP + , which includes arather painless introduction to theoperating system." After that CP+ isunlocked.

I haven't tried that yet, because Idon't have Using CP/M-80 with theQX-10. This is normally supplied, butsomehow got left out of the packagesent to me. Once I have that, andstable hardware, I'll have John Can-ny the CP+ tutorial.

Irving says, "I hope you will agreethat among the options of requiringthe novice user to install the autoboot feature to get to CP+ or requir-ing the experienced user to disable it,the latter is preferred."

I do agree with that; but I'd like iteven better if Epson included an ad-ditional disk, plainly marked "Stan-dard CP/M; not for the novice user."

That disk could have standard COPY,and PIP, and SYSGEN, andMOVCPM and DDT and ED andSTAT and all the other stuff CP/Musers have come to expect. It couldalso have the source code to the Ep-son BIOS (basic input/output sys-tem). It wouldn't cost much to pro-vide, and it sure would make it easierfor people who know CP/M.

I think Epson got so involved withmaking the QX-10 user-friendly to in-experienced people that it compro-mised the machine's ultimate useful-ness. This is a pity, because it's sucha nice machine. There are some ex-cellent features to Epson CP/M. Theoperating system catches manyBDOS (basic disk operating system)errors and deals with them. For ex-ample, my hardware problem mani-fests itself with a "Select Error,"meaning that the hardware some-times signals that the disk-drive doorisn't closed when in fact it is. Epsonsends the message "Drive NotReady," and gives the opportunity toretry. A couple of retries fixes theproblem. This sure beats heck out of

some systems that can't recover fromany error. (Epson is taking care of myhardware problem, too. 1 had a veryearly beta-test machine; it's swappingfor a later production model.)

In any event, the little machine isas fast as any 5Vi-inch-drive machineI've seen. It also has a type-aheadbuffer; if you get angry and hitControl-C 10 times, be prepared tosee it execute 10 warm boots! This isa feature that takes getting used to.(It can also be disabled.)

Some impressions: first, the Epsonstandard keyboard isn't laid out theway I like keyboards. The ":" islowercase, quotation marks arecapital numbers, and in fact it's aTeletype keyboard. This seems odd,since the people who like this as op-posed to a Selectric layout tend to behackers—but the QX-10 is most as-suredly not intended for hackers, elseEpson would hardly have put theCP+ shell around CP/M!

The QX-10 has a completely recon-

figurable keyboard, though, and 1

suppose the key tops are standard so

that you could, with some effort, set

Text continued on paae 91

polish V

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86 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983

UndoWindows*

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Text continued from page 86:the keyboard up the way you'd likeit. It might even be worth the trou-ble. The Epson is really a nice littlemachine, and with that wonderfulmemory-mapped video screen youcan get really great graphics, half-tones, and such like. I really like theEpson's display and character set,and it's all very readable (if you likea green screen). Incidentally, thestandard CP/M (without Valdocs) Ep-son emulates a Televideo 920 ter-minal. However, the company in-tends in the future to have an EpsonQX-10 terminal type, "which will takefull advantage of all the available keysand display attributes."

Meanwhile, all the applicationssoftware I've seen for the Epsontends to be Peachtree, and therein liesa problem. The Peachtext editor Ihave presumes that you're going touse the HASCI keyboard that usual-ly comes with the Valdocs option;there's even a little paper templateyou can put over the HASCI functionkeys to show what their functions arein Peachtext.

HASCI is the name Rising Star'sChris Rutkowski has given to hisspecial-design keyboard. The HASCIkeyboard looks a lot like a Selectric,and it's really well designed, but itlacks some significant keys. NoEscape key, for example. Also, theControl key is set down below thespace bar; good enough for wordprocessing since the Valdocs softwareintended to be used with the HASCIkeyboard seldom uses control char-acters, but horrible if you intend todo any programming on your EpsonQX-Kl

Peachtext, incidentally, is the wordprocessor once known as MagicWand. It's a perfectly adequate texteditor, although for reasons I've givenin other columns it will never be myfavorite.

While in Peachtext you can type asfast as you like, and you won't getahead of the computer's ability to putthe letters you typed onto the screen.Under Valdocs you can get from acouple of words to a whole sentenceahead of the screen display! This con-clusively proves that the delay is inthe Valdocs software, not in the QX-10hardware.

My impression of the QX-10 is thatit's a fine little machine. It would bea lot more useful, though, if insteadof being so concerned for user friend-liness when you first get it, Epsonwould worry more about utility afteryou've got it. A disk with standardCP/M would help. Adding a few gen-eral utilities, like a sorted directorywith file sizes and the like, wouldhelp even more. (Barry Workman hasalready put his various utilities intoEpson disk format, so these featuresare available if you want them.)

Agreed, there's a lot to be said fora shell around CP/M to help peopleget past the first few days. You paya pretty hefty price in operationspeed, but perhaps it's worth it—atfirst. However, most users will soonprefer to learn how to do thingsfaster; there's nothing more boringthan sitting at a computer whosescreen say "Please Wait" for half aminute.

Meanwhile: I've just received a newrevision of the Valdocs software. Ris-ing Star swears it fixes most of the

Wki

(#***

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Circle 218 on inquiry card.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

91

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bugs, and speeds things up some-thing wonderful. I'll try it as soon asI'm sure the hardware is working.

I also got a new, and excellent,manual for the FX-81 printer.

My bottom-line advice on the Ep-son is that if you're planning on get-ting a computer in its price range, dolook at the Epson. You might like ita lot.

However, insist on a thoroughdemonstration. Make them copydisks, copy files, format stuff, run thetext editor, and in general do all thethings you're buying a computer for.Then look at something else, and seehow long it takes. It's awful easy tosay you'd rather have ease of use thanspeed, but most people find they'renot willing to make that trade forever.

Kazango!

Everyone is coming up with power-ful new machines. Bill Godbout hasprototype S-100 computers based onthe iAPX286 chip, 68000-based sys-tems multiply, and everywhere youlook the speed and capability ofmicrocomputers soar almost withoutlimit. I'm getting afraid to makepredictions: sometimes things Ipredict for two years hence happenbefore my words get into print!

Example: this afternoon I had a callfrom Richard Mateosian, author ofthe excellent Sybex book Inside BasicGames (reviewed in the April 1983 col-umn). Mateosian has access to an ex-perimental microcomputer based onthe 16032 chip. He reports using mymatrix filler and multiplier bench-mark: for the 20 by 20 case the timewas well under a second, so fast thatit's not really possible to measure it.I asked him to try the 100 by 100 andtime that. Meanwhile, that's fast.

Shirley and SomePrognostications

I've known for more than a yearabout Bill Godbout's new multiuserall-in-one computer. It had a codename of "Shirley," and Compupro ishaving trouble finding a real namefor it; all the ones come up with sofar sound hokey. Doubtless it willend up being something official andstuffy, and I'll prefer Shirley.

Flash: the announcement is out;

MVP-FORTH

Stable - Transportable - Public Domain - Tools

You need two primary features in a software development package astable operating system and the ability to move programs easily andquickly to a variety of computers. MVP-FORTH gives you both thesefeatures and many extras. This public domain product includes an editor,FORTH assembler, tools, utilities and the vocabulary for the best sellingbook "Starting FORTH". The Programmer's Kit provides a completeFORTH for a number of computers. Other MVP-FORTH products willsimplify the development ol your applications.

MVP Books - A Series

D Volume 1, All about FORTH by Haydon. MVP-FORTH

glossary with cross references to fig-FORTH, Starting FORTH

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D Volume 2, MVP-FORTH Assembly Source Code. Includes

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,£t* □ Volume 3, Floating Point Glossary by Springer $10

£*> Q Volume 4, Expert System with source code by Park $25

£jt D Volume 5, File Management System with interrupt security byMoreron $25

MVP-FORTH Software - A Transportable FORTH

□ MVP-FORTH Programmer's Kit including disk, documen-tation, Volumes 1 & 2 of MVP-FORTH Series (All AboutFORTH, 2na Ed. & Assembly Source Code), and StartingFORTH. Specify □ CP/M, □ CP/M 86, □ CP/M + , D APPLE,

□ IBM PC, □ MS-DOS, D Osborne, □ Kaypro, □ H89/Z89,

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THE FORTH SOURCE

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CPU $300

□ MVP-FORTH Meta Compiler for CP/M Programmer's kit. Usefor applicatons on CP/M based computer. Includes publicdomain source $150

□ MVP-FORTH Fast Floating Point Includes 9511 math chip onboard with disks, documentation and enhanced virtualMVP-FORTH for Apple II and lie. $450

□ MVP-FORTH Programming Aids for CP/M, IBM or APPLEProgrammer's Kit. Extremely useful tool for decompiling,callfinding, and translating. $150

□ MVP-FORTH by ECS for IBM-PC or ATARI® . Standalone withscreen editor. License required. $100

□ MVP-FORTH by ECS for IBM-PC or ATARI. With coloranimation, multitasking sound, utilities, and license. $175

□ MVP-FORTH Professional Application Development System(PADS) for IBM-PC, or APPLE. A three level integrated systemwith complete documentation. Complete system $400

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D APPLE by MM□ APPLE by KuntzeD ATARI® valFORTHD CP/M® by MMD HP-85 by Lange£»l □ HP-75 by Cassady

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□ Extensions for LM SpecifyIBM, Z80, or 8086

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□ Data BaseManagement $200

Requires LM FORTH disk.

<$ D Victor 9000 by DE.G.X $150

D fig-FORTH Programming Aids for decompiling, callfinding,

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CROSS COMPILERS Allow extending, modifying and compiling forspeed and memory savings, can also produce ROMable code. 'RequiresFORTH disk.

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II by McCabe $13 □Beginning FORTH byChirlian $17 □FORTH EncyclopediaPocket Guide $7And So FORTH by Huang. Acollege level text. $25 .^FORTH Programming byScanlon $17FORTH on the ATARI by E.Floegel $8Starting FORTH by BrodieBest instructional manualavailable, (soft cover) $18Starting FORTH (hardcover) $23

68000 fig-Forth withassembler

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*D 1983 Rochester FORTHProc. $25

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□ FORTH-83 Standard $15

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Conversion $10

□ Tiny Pascal fig-FORTH $10

□ NOVA fig-FORTH by CCISource Listing $15

□ NOVA by CCI User's Manualincludes editor assembler,and utilities $25Jupiter ACE Manual byVickers $15

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Ordering Information: Check. Money Order (payable to MOUNTAIN VIEW PRESS,INC.). VISA. MasterCard, American Express. COD's $5 extra. Minimum order $15.No billing or unpaid PO's. California residents add sales tax. Shipping costs in USincluded in price. Foreign orders, pay in US funds on US bank, include for handling

Source Listings of fig-FORTH, for specific CPU's and computers. TheInstallation Manual is required for implementation. Each $15

□ 1802 □ 6502 D 6800 □ AlphaMicro

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and shipping by Air: $5 for each item under $25, $10 for each item between $25 and$99 and $20 for each item over $100. All prices and products subject to change orwithdrawal without notice. Single system and/or single user license agreementrequired on some products. DEALER & AUTHOR INQUIRIES INVITED

MOUNTAIN VIEW PRESS, INC.

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Circle 305 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

93

Now,

a professional

CAD

ForApple JL

and lie

system

for

$1,095!

GRAPHICS

CHESSELL-ROBOCOM CORPORATION125 Pheasant Run, Suite 2BNewtown, PA 18940 (215) 968-4422

Finally, there is a breakthrough in com-puter aided drafting and design thatmakes this work-saving technology af-fordable for every school, architect, en-gineer, designer and draftsperson.The new Robographics CAD-1 systemworks with a standard off-the-shelfApple* TJ+ or lie computer. A completeCAD-1 hardware and software packagesells for $1,095,and you can add adrafting plotter foras little as $1,495!

Yet, this is a seri-ous drafting anddesign systememulating otherCAD installationscosting over$15,000.

CAD-1 utilizes a

unique handheld controller which

serves as both drawing instrument and

function selector... «

there are no key-

stroke commands to interrupt the work-flow. And, when the drawing is complet-ed, line work of reproduction quality canbe plotted on paper,vellum or drafting film.

The easy-to-learn CAD-1 drafting pro-cess is fast, efficient and highlyproductive.

f

%

I i

n

94 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

To preview this gjremarkable sys-tem, send for afree CAD-1 bro-chure, or send$17-for your ad-vance copy of theCAD-1 User Man-ual. Credit will begiven when you order a system.

Major credit cards accepted.

See your Apple dealer today for a dem-onstration or contact us directly.

*A registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.

Circle 66 on inquiry card.

Shirley is officially named the MP-10.I see no reason to change the aboveparagraph. . . .

Anyway we've now seen the pro-totype. Shirley will be in a metal box.Dr. Godbout prefers metal; it cutsdown on extraneous electrical noisein the system. It's intended as a four-user system, and will have both hardand floppy disks, and will be the firstall-up machine Compupro has putout; up to now it has stayed ex-clusively with the S-100 bus.

The Shirley operating system willbe MP/M; when reporters asked God-bout about PC-DOS, he sort ofchuckled, which is reasonable. Thereare persistent rumors that DigitalResearch will soon come out with amultiuser version of ConcurrentCP/M that runs PC-DOS programsdirectly (not as an emulation). Isuspect Shirley will have that feature.

Dr. Godbout sees a few more yearsfor the S-100 bus. The iAPX286 and16032 machines will work with it.The 8086 with the 8087 math chip willchallenge the 68000, and they can beupgraded to the iAPX286. The 16032with its highly advanced architecturewaits like a dark horse in the wings.

The problem with the 68000, ac-cording to Bill Godbout, is thatthere's no clear upward migration forit. Of course 68000 enthusiasts—myson is one of them—say there's noneed for upward migration for the68000.

In any event, S-100-bus machinesthat are truly IEEE-696 standard willgive the user a lot of flexibility, sinceyou can convert from Z80 to 8088 to8086/8087 to iAPX286, and thenchange the whole farshimelt mess toa 68000 if that's what's needed. Ofcourse, eventually technology is go-ing to run past all buses, because thedistances between the slots in the boxare just too long; but that won't hap-pen for a while. Meanwhile, youfavdCompupro S-100 machines in thestrangest places: all the special com-puter displays in the model "WarRoom" for the movie WarGames werecontrolled by a Compupro, as anexample.

When Bill Godbout called meyesterday, he had a complaint: it cer-tainly used to be true that Compupro

Score anotherfirst forAGE

A lot of people who've neverheard of ACE's impressive recordof firsts in multiprocessing are aboutto sit up and take notice. Why?

It's our latest wonder: Multipro-cessor CP/M Plus*

ACE has developed a linkup be-tween its powerful multiuser micro-computer, the Discovery, and thefastest and most powerful versionof CP/M* ever marketed.

The result is a multiprocessor thatdoes more than just emulate CP/Mor rely on a lesser operating systemthat's "CP/M compatible." Itactually delivers pure CP/M (eitherCP/M-86* or CP/M Plus) to any ofDiscovery's up to 16 on-line users.

With easy command line editing,quick file accessing through user-defined automatic search paths andcomprehensive "help menus," CP/MPlus is as friendly as they come —and with big performance extras.

Like large files, directory hashing,data buffering, time and datestamping, and an extensive utilityset that can accept English words.

All of which means that ACE'slinkup with CP/M Plus willcontinue to give Discovery ownersaccess to the largest selection ofapplications software in the worldfor years to come.

That's something to think about.Because who wants a multiusersystem that's friendly and powerfultoday but unfriendly tomorrowwhen new software using CP/M

MultiprocessorCP/M Plus:

Plus features hits the scene?

Our latest triumph is just one of aline of firsts.

ACE pioneered multiprocessingfor microcomputers back in 1979when we introduced a Discoveryfeaturing what was then therevolutionary concept of dedicatinga CPU to each on-line user.

Two years later, we movedfurther ahead of the pack with ournext singular feat: the first user-processor on a single board, thedpc-180* Everything was there:memory, CPU, serial I/O.

Nice.

Which made our 1982breakthrough — the amazing 16-bitdpc-186* mated with CP/M-86 —seem like business-as-usual to useven though it caught thecompetition flat-footed.

With room to grow from 128K to1MB of expansion memory, anddesigned for systems also using our8-bit board, this breakthrough letindividual users tap into either 8- or16-bit computing power with one

central Discovery unit.

And because each Discoverysystem is controlled by our owndpc-os* tried and proven in morethan 10,000 Discovery and OEMinstallations around the world, anyuser on line can take advantage ofinterprocessor communication, fileand record locking, fully managedmultiple printers, private direc-tories, plus many other features.

So what little wonder does ACEhave up its sleeve now? Stay tuned.Because soon you'll hear the newsabout our Concurrent CP/M-86*which will give the owners of ourDiscovery all the benefits of 16-bitcomputing power, CP/M's compre-hensive software selection, andefficient multi-tasking capabilities.So each user can get several projectsunderway with a few quick taps onthe keyboard.

Meanwhile, it'll be business asusual for ACE, keeping ahead of thecrowd while turning out the bestmultiuser multiprocessor micro onthe market, backed by one of thebest nationwide service networksyou could hope for.

So if you're a computer dealer,distributor, or systems house whowants to join the group that scoreshigh with a multitude of users, justgive us a call at (800) 821-6596.(In California, it's (213)351-5451.)And do us a smallfavor. Tell us you'veheard of us.

See us at Comdex booth #1884.

ACTIQNCDMPIfTER

The Multiprocessing Company.

Action Computer Enterprise, Inc. (Corporate Headquarters): 430 No. Halstead St., Pasadena, CA 91107. TWX 910-588-1201 ACTION PSD / ACE/Europe: Boschdijk 189, Box 1275 5602 BG,Eindhoven, Netherlands, Tel. 040-452658, Telex 51767 ACE E NL / ACE/ Asia, G/Floor l.ee Wah Mansion, 171-177 Hollywood Rd, Hong Kong, Tel. 5-441692 or 5-442310, Telex 75332 PACIC HX /Canada: Future Electronics, Inc., 237 Hymus Blvd., Pt. Claire, Quebec H9R5C7, Canada, Tel. (514) 694-7710, Telex 05-823-554.

'CP/M Plus, CP/M. CP/M-86, and Concurrenl CP/M-86 are either trademarks or registered trademarks ol Digital Research, Inc. / 'dpc-180 and dpc-os are registered trademarks ol Action Computer Enterprise, Inc.Circle 9 on inquiry card. BYTE December 1983 95

Items Reviewed

Disk Spare Parts KitStar TrekWRITE

Workman and Associates112 Marion Ave., Suite 7 APasadena, CA 91106(213) 796-4401

products $32.50postpaid $19.50in U.S. $239

Epson QX-10

Epson America3415 Kashiwa St.Torrance, CA 90505(213) 539-9140

with 64K-byte RAM $2495with 128K-byte RAM $2995

General Computer Supplies

California DigitalPOB 3097BTorrance, CA 90503(800) 421-5041

Megabyte Memory Board

Macrotech International Corporation20630 Lassen St.Chatsworth, CA 91311(213) 700-1501

$2449

Modula-2

Logitech

165 University Ave.Palo Alto, CA 94301(415) 326-3885

$495

Modula-2

Volition SystemsPOB 1236Del Mar, CA 92014(619) 481-2286

Apple $495IBM and Sage $595

Vedit

Compuview Products Inc.1955 Pauline Blvd., Suite 200Ann Arbor, MI 48103(313) 996-1299

$150

Zenith Z-100 Computer

Zenith Data Systems1000 Milwaukee Ave.Glenview, IL 60025(312) 391-8865

$2899

machines were largely intended forhackers and system developers, andthe company doesn't intend to let goof its dominance in that end of themicro field; but largely due to myneedling him, both privately and inthe column, about its lack of supportfor naive users, Compupro went outand hired the Xerox field serviceorganization to provide servicing

agreements for Compupro equip-ment; every one of the CompuproSystems Centers was required tosend at least one key employeethrough an intensive sales trainingcourse designed to show what'swrong with the customer service inthe computer industry, and how tocorrect it; and Compupro has beendoing more intensive training of its

systems service people. Finally, itrewrote many of its documents.

"So I did everything you wanted.When are you going to admit it?"

I'll reserve my opinion on just howfar he had his tongue rammed up hischeek when he told me of my vast in-fluence, but in fairness I do have toreport that it's all true. I wish all thecomputer manufacturers would insistthat their salespeople know some-thing about the product—includingits limitations.

Time Waster

A few issues ago I mentioned I'dwritten the world's most complexStar Trek game. I may have exag-gerated. In any event, we've hadseveral inquiries about the game, soI've turned it over to Barry Workman.It's probably overpriced, but therealities of the software mail-orderbusiness prevent him from shippingdisks postpaid for less.

My Trek game is written in CB-80and runs really fast. I've stuck in allkinds of silly features, including ex-ploration, enemy bases, enemy at-tacks on Federation merchant ships,enemy attacks on your star bases,Tholian Webs, Romulan invisibility,and such like. My kids like it, and Iconfess that I've wasted a bit of timewith it myself. I'm too ashamed torecommend it; I'll merely say it'savailable.

By next time I surely will have myIBM PC. I hope to have a report onthe PC vs. the Eagle, and also toreduce that stack of unreviewed PCsoftware.

However, I know better than tomake promises. . . .■

Jerry Pournelle welcomes readers' com-ments and opinions. Send a self-addressed,stamped envelope to Jerry Pournelle, doBYTE Publications, POB 372, Hancock,NH 03449. Please put your address on theletter as well as on the envelope. Due tothe high volume of letters, Jerry cannotguarantee a personal reply.

Jerry Pournelle is a former aerospace engineer andcurrent science-fiction writer who loves to play withcomputers.

96 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEYON AWORKSTATIONDATA ACQUISITION SYSTEM.

As you conduct your search for the ideal dataacquisition system, we think you'll find a number ofcapable systems, all from fine makers.

But we also think you'll find this: there is reallyonly one system likely to meet, and perhaps exceed,your own personal standards for accuracy, flexibility,performance and power. And do so for a bottom lineinvestment that is truly easy to justify.

That system is the Keithley DAS Series 500 for theIBM PC and Apple II families of microcomputers.

To begin with, even a basic Series 500 configura-tion, like the one shown in the chart, comes out of itscarton with enough power and capacity for most laband test bench applications. So you needn't trade upto more expensive options to get basic capabilities.

And because the Series 500 is completely modular,you can start out with just the capacity you need.Then choose from our comprehensive library of plug-in function cards to instantly reconfigure your systemfor the most demanding applications-with up to272 channels of discrete analog input, 50 channels ofanalog output, 160 channels of digital I/O, and AC/DCdevice control. With direct transducer connectionand signal conditioning for each individual channel.

It's also the only system equipped with Soft500,the integrated measurement and control softwarethat proves once and for all that easy doesn't have tomean simple.

Soft500 gives first time users the accessibility andfriendliness they need to get excellent results the firsttime out. Yet it also provides experienced users withthe depth and extended facilities needed for complexapplications. Including unique features such asforeground/background architecture, powerful screengraphics and statistical analyses. Plus, automatic con-version of binary data to familiar engineering units.

In all, you'll find the features you need to make theSeries 500 increasingly productive through years ofnew and more demanding applications.

KcitMey

ISAAC91A

$3950

ISAAC2000

MACSYM

200

HP

3497A

System Base

$4300(1)

$4100

S3660

$2990

16 Channels

Yes

Yes

+ $850

+ $362(-'>

+ $2104(3)

Instrumentation Amplifier

Yes

+ $700

+ $700

Yes

Yes

±0.035%AbsoluteSystem Accuracy

Yes

+ $1100(4)

+ $1100(4)

No

Ycsffl

30 kHz Sampling

Ycst«

No

Yes(7)

Yes

No

High SpeedProgramablc Ranges

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

512-Bit Voltage Outputs

Yes

+ $187(8)

■1 $937i"

+ $937(9)

+ $2500(10)

16 Digital Inputs

Yes

Yes

+ $175(11)

+ $330

+ $530

16 Digital Outputs

Yes

Yes

+ $175(11)

+ $350

+ $710

4120V AC Outputs

Yes

No

No

+ $638(12)

+ $265(13)

Programable Timers

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

+ $555

Realtime Clock

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Power Supply

Yes

+ $350

Yes

Yes

Yes

Data Acquisition BASIC

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Foreground/Background

Yes

No

Yes(14)

Yesd4)

No

Data Analysis

Yes

No

No

No

No

Realtime Graphing

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Engineering Units

Yes

{4300

No\J6287

No$8037

No$6277

No$9654

1. System520. 2. I6channelsof$725 32 channel card. 3. $1640 A/Dcard plus 16channelsof $58020 channelcard. 4. ±0.003%accuracy(« 200 Hz. 5. ±0.006%accuracy{« 40 Hz. 6. Apple system 27 kHz, IBMsystem 31.4 kHz. 7. 200 kHz option available +$3825. 8. 1 channel from $7504channcl card. 9.5 channelsirom$7504channclcard. 10. 5channelsfrom$10002channelcard. 11. 16channelsof$35032channelcard. 12. Price based on 16 channel rack (a $550 plus 4 ACoutput relays ((' $22.13. Four channels of $5258channelcard. 14. Or other multi-tasking structure.

Naturally, we'd like to suggest the Series 500 as thewisest choice in workstation data acquisition. But wealso believe that as you compare and examine thefacts, the Series 500 will eventually suggest itself.

For complete information on the Keithley DASSeries 500 workstation data acquisition system, callus toll-free at 1-800-552-1115. In Massachusetts call(617) 423-7691. Or write to us at Keithley DAS,349 Congress Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02210.

SERIES 500

KEI HLEY

A |OINT VENTURE IN WORKSTATION DATA ACQUISITION

Information contained in the comparison chart is correct to the best of our knowledge as of October 1,1983; however, Keithley DAS assumes no liability for its accuracy. IBM PC is a registeredtrademark of International Business Machines Corporation. Apple II is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. ISAAC is a registered trademark of Cyborg Corporation. MACSYM is aregistered trademark of Analog Devices, Inc. HP is a registered trademark of Hewlett-Packard, Inc. © 1983 by Keithley DAS, Boston, Massachusetts

Circle 131 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

99

100 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Easy Software

It isn't easy to make software that's easy for people to use. People thinkintuitively and symbolically, but computers don't think at all—they justmanipulate voltage levels that people can most accurately represent as waveforms or strings of ones and zeros. Creative programmers and engineersare trying different ways of translating long strings of ones and zeros intosymbols, expressions, and structures that people can manipulate easily.

This month BYTE offers a sampling of the efforts that programmers areundertaking to make software easy. Integration of software comes underdiscussion as well because it is inseparable from ease of use; giving separateprograms a common user interface is a major step toward integrating them.

The theme articles in this issue provide several different views of whatis now the most praised approach to user interface technology—the desktopmetaphor that lets users choose actions by pointing at pictorial symbolson an imaginary desktop. In addition to an introduction to desktop-metaphorsoftware, we compare different kinds of pointing devices, discuss the con-cept of metaphor in software, look at the future of metaphors, and previewMicrosoft Windows, a new desktop-metaphor system that seems to be thefirst one capable of running without a hard disk and a lot of memory.

An implicitly skeptical view of the desktop metaphor emerges in TomHouston's suggestions of new metaphors that appeal to human instinctsfar deeper than those associated with desks, file folders, and wastebaskets.

But the desktop metaphor is not the only approach to the user interfacethat this issue addresses. Jack Carroll of IBM takes a broader look at theevolution of the user interface in software. Bob Nicholson of Sydis considersthe role of voice in the user interface. Sam Edwards of Software Publishing,publisher of PFS: File and other programs often praised for ease of use,reveals some of the thought behind them. Martin Dean of Select Informa-tion Systems looks beyond the easy-to-learn Select word processor to otherissues in the user interface, including aspects that relate to databases.

Different disciplines often borrow important ideas from one another. PaulHeckel of Quickview Systems ventures into the world of Walt Disney car-toons to bring back some lessons for applications programmers. Steve Van-dor of Micropro explains an approach to the user interface that is basedon the concept of division of labor, as old as the industrial revolution.

Martin Herbach of Sorcim, Richard Katz of Osborne/McGraw-Hill, and JoeLandau of Applied Software Technology join in a forum on the user inter-face that ranges from the role of hardware advances to on-screen help in-formation and the structuring of software in layers that hide everything fromthe users except what they need. Michael Brown of Innovative Softwareargues persuasively that the foundation of integrated software should bea database.

Programming languages, too, need improvements in the user interface,and Andy Pope, Dan Fineberg, and Geoff Kates of Microfocus describe oneway of making debugging a more visual process.

Perhaps the best assessment of the state of user-interface technologytoday comes from Apple's Bill Atkinson, author of the unrivaled Quickdrawgraphics software that runs on Lisa. "What we know about the user inter-face today," he says, "is 10 percent of what we will know in 1990." Thisissue lets you examine some portion of that 10 percent and invites you tospeculate about the 90 percent still to be learned. —Phil Lemmons

103 An Introduction to Integrated Soft-ware by Dash Chang

113 Presentation and Form in User-Interface Architecture by John M.Carroll

1 27 Why Is Software So Hard to Use? by

Sam Edwards

143 Walt Disney and User-Oriented Soft-ware by Paul Heckel

1 55 Making Life Easier for Professionaland Novice Programmers by AndyPope, Geoff Kates, and Dan Fineberg

161 Simplify, Simplify, Simplify by Mar-tin Dean

177 Integrating Voice in the Office World

by Robert T. Nicholson

189 The Starburst User Interface by

Steven Vandor

199 The Complete Information-Management System by Michael J.Brown

210 The Allegory of Software by Tom

Houston

218 The New Interface Technology by

Robert W. Warfield and George M.White

234 Trackball-Interfacing Techniques forMicroprocessors by Edward W.Andrews

247 The User Interface: Two Approaches

by Martin Herbach, Richard Katz,and Joseph Landau

263 The Future of Metaphor in Man-Computer Systems by ChuckClanton

Painting by Robert Tinney, photographscourtesy of Microsoft

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

101

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An Introduction toIntegrated Software

Concurrency, shared technology, and functional integration arethree ways of integrating software

You may remember 1983 as the yearof integrated software for microcom-puters. We saw announcements ofthe Lisa workstation from Apple,1-2-3 from Lotus, Visi On from Visi-corp, and Concurrent CP/M fromDigital Research. While the micro-computer audience experiences someconfusion over what it all means, thepromise of these new products isnothing short of exciting.

Before "integrated" becomes asoverused a label as "user-friendly,"we should define our terms. Inte-grated software means software thathas a high level of functionality andis easy to use. Simply, integrated soft-ware lets you accomplish complicatedtasks over a short period of time witha minimum of interaction with thecomputer.

Many computer users pose tasksthat defy easy computerization. Thefollowing wish list is a case in point."I want to store all my inventory onthe computer so that I can look at mystocking items on request. In addi-tion, it would be useful if I could ex-periment with the data and see thebottom-line effect if I change mystocking policy. I'd also like to see theresults graphically. If I had all of mydata on the computer, I could alsoproduce computerized quota-tions. . . ."

Software integration promises amethod of making dreams such as

by Dash Chang

these come true with a minimum ofeffort.

Software Technologies

Over the past few years, some soft-ware packages have emerged thatenable customers to solve complexproblems with relative ease. Visicalc,Visicorp's electronic spreadsheet,started the revolution; with it, youcan ask "what if" questions andcalculate the results. Wordstar, aword processor from Micropro Cor-poration, works with computers to

Integrated software is

only the next step

toward making

microcomputers more

useful.

help generate letters and lengthydocuments.

Since then, new packages likeChang Laboratories' Microplan,Microsoft's Multiplan, and Visicorp'sAdvanced Visicalc make thoseoriginals appear rudimentary. Ex-panded functions let you solve morecomplicated problems with less ef-fort, in both initial learning and con-tinued use. As new packages offermore enhancements, the number ofproblems that you can successfullytackle increases. Yet a total integratedsolution continues to evade software

designers. Word processors, finan-cial-planning spreadsheets, datamanagers, and graphics packageswill represent single solutions tospecific problems.

Integration

Software developers propose to in-tegrate databases with worksheets,graphics, and word processing, pro-ducing a single set of products thataddresses a larger set of user needs.Integrated software is the next steptoward making microcomputersmore useful.

Similar product names, such as theLisa (Apple Computer Inc.), Visi(Visicorp), Plan (Chang Laborator-ies), and Super (Sorcim Corporation)families are only the beginning.While a complete family of productsis a necessary step toward integra-tion, it doesn't result in the totalpackage that software developers areaiming at.

Another approach focuses on thecommand interface. Products in thiscategory require similar keystrokes inresponse to similar display screens.Again, this is an important part of in-tegrated software, but it is still farfrom a complete implementation.

Generally, you can classify currentintegration technology as includingone or all of the following: concurren-cy, shared technology, and functionalintegration.

i Circle 195 on inquiry card.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

103

Concurrency

Concurrency lets different productsreside in the computer's memory atthe same time. You can load word-processor and spreadsheet programsinto memory and switch instan-taneously from one to the other witha single keystroke. This spares youthe time-consuming process of sav-ing the results from one product,leaving the package, starting upanother package, and continuingwith the next step in the problem.(Although, technically, concurrencyprovides more benefits than just con-current residence of programs inmemory, for now I'll discuss only thememory aspect of concurrency.)

Lisa's Desktop Manager providesone example of concurrency. The pro-grams that handle documents andworksheets are automatically loadedin memory. When you need one ofthe programs, you use a mouse tomove the screen cursor to the pro-gram's symbol, and the software isinstantly available for use. Visi Onand Concurrent CP/M providesimilar options but differ from the

Lisa software in that they can be im-plemented on different computers.This makes it possible for you toenhance the capabilities of a com-puter you already own.

[Editor's note: Depending on theamount of memory available, the Lisacomputer may have some or all of every

Concurrency meansthat different products

reside in the

computer's memory at

the same time.

current task in memory. All Lisa pro-grams are segmented so that portions canbe stored to disk or called into memory asneeded. A similar situation exists withVisi On, which always has some code inmemory that relates to each task. Giventhe above amplifications, we can say thatboth Lisa and Visi On software are con-current. . . . G. W.]

Another important distinction isthat these products are not applica-

tion programs but enhancements tothe computer's operating system;they manage the hardware and pro-vide a more friendly and responsivecomputer environment for users. Insome ways, you can view these pro-grams as part of the computer ratherthan applications that addressspecific user problems. As applica-tion programs begin to fully use thecapabilities of concurrent operatingsystems, you will find integratedpackages that are even easier to usethan existing products.

Shared Technology

The second class of integrated solu-tions includes the shared-technologyproducts. A single such product han-dles not only numbers but words andpictures, all at the same time.

For example, Graphplan fromChang Laboratories, 1-2-3 from Lotus,and MBA from Context all combinetraditional spreadsheet technologywith graphics capabilities and somedatabase features such as sorting andsearching. These products let youtake a set of numbers and produce

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graphic results as well as printedtables.

The shared technology conceptisn't new. For example, most dedi-cated word-processing computershave always had the ability to handlemathematics, very much like an elec-tronic worksheet.

Expect more shared technologyproducts for microcomputers. Just ascombining mechanical and electronicengineering produces breakthroughsin robotics, combining technologiesin the processing of words, numbers,voice, and graphics promises in-novative software products.

Functional Integration

Finally, the third type of integrationprovides functional results; the re-sults of one product can be fed toanother product for further manipu-lation.

Examples include spelling check-

Shared technology

means that a single

product handles not

only numbers but

words and pictures, all

at the same time.

ers, form-letter generators, and in-tegrated accounting packages. Thepurpose of a spelling checker is ob-vious. In form-letter generation, youmight generate a mailing list using adata-management package, thencreate a skeleton letter using a wordprocessor, and, finally, produce astack of custom letters using a prod-uct that merges the two parts.

In integrated accounting packages,the orders module may change yourinventory and accounts-receivablefiles. Then the accounts-receivableand accounts-payable packages willautomatically create entries for thegeneral ledger.

Functional integration offers thegreatest challenge for application de-signers—not only to provide a gen-eralized interaction between databasemanagement and electronic-work-sheet technology, but also to handlethe interface between the world of

106 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 103 on inquiry card.

Introducing the Most PowerfulBusiness Software Ever!

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VERSA PAYABLES- is designed to keep track of current and aged payables, keeping youin touch with all information regarding how much money your company owes, and towhom. VERSA PAYABLES™ maintains a complete record on each vendor, prints checks,check registers, vouchers, transaction reports, aged payables reports, vendor reports,and more. With Versa Payables™, you can even let your computer automatically selectwhich vouchers are to be paid.

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VERSA Payroll" is a powerful and sophisticated, out easy to use payroll system thatkeeps track of all government-required payroll information. Complete employee recordsare maintained, and all necessary payroll calculations are performed automatically, withtotals displayed on screen for operator approval, A payroll can be run totally, automati-cally, or the operator can intervene to prevent a check from being printed, or to alterinformation on it. If desired, totals may be posted to the VERSALEDGER IP" system.

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VERSA Inventory™ is a complete inventory control system that gives you instant accessto data on any item. VERSAlNVENTORY™ keeps track of all information related to whatitems are in stock, out of stock, on backorder, etc., stores sales and pricing data, alertsyou when an item falls below a preset reorder point, and allows you to enter and printinvoices directly or to link with the VERSA RECEIVABLES™ system. VERSAlNVENTORY™ printsall needed inventory listings, reports of items below reorder point, inventory value re-ports, period and year-to-date sales reports, price lists, inventory checklists, etc.

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• TRS-80 is a trademark of the Radio Shack Division of Tandy Corp. ■ *APPLE is a trademark of Apple Corp. • "IBM is a trademark of IBM Corp. - 'OSBORNE is a trademark of Osborne Corp.

•CP/M is a trademark of Digital Research - 'XEROX is a trademark of Xerox Corp.

data on mainframes and microcom-puter application programs.

Although developers suggest thatshared-technology products willmake functionally integrated stand-alone products obsolete, this result isunlikely. The range of problemsneeding computerization exceeds thecapabilities of any one system orpackage. For example, you wouldn'tuse 1-2-3 to write a book, MBA tostore your inventory records, oreither one to produce an integratedslide show.

Choosing Hardware

Given the amount of integratedsoftware under development, howshould you choose hardware to takeadvantage of its features? First, youmust determine your requirements.Not every problem nor every com-puter user needs integrated software.If your problems do require a com-plex solution, then prepare to pur-chase a more expensive system be-cause integrated software generallyrequires more computer memory,which quickly translates into more

dollars. For example, Lisa supplies 1megabyte of memory storage, whileVisi On and Concurrent CP/M canuse up to 512K bytes of data. There-fore, you should consider 16-bit com-puters like the IBM PC, the DECRainbow, the TI Professional, or theVictor 9000. Eight-bit computers likethe Apple II and the Osborne 1 sim-ply don't have the memory capacityto handle the new integrated soft-ware products.

Graphics are an important consid-eration, too, because they displaysymbols that make the computereasier to use. Graphics also let youuse different character fonts thatmake presentations more attractiveand bar and pie charts that give newmeaning to a collection of data.

If your system supports graphics,you need a printer or a plotter thatcan print the symbols displayed onyour screen. Most printers offergraphics support as an added option,and many include it as standard.

Finally, a pointing device like amouse may be useful. Some com-puters let you execute commands by

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Plans for an Integrated ProductLine

Chang Laboratories has been working ona line of integrated business software thatis available on both 8- and 16-bit systems.The products are functionally integrated;that is, data can be shared among prod-ucts. In addition, under operating systemslike Digital Research's Concurrent CP/M,these programs can share data via a smallsatellite program used to facilitate com-munication. Three products, Profitplan,Microplan, and Graphplan, allow variouslevels of spreadsheet and graphing capa-bilities. A consolidation module allows datato be combined from various sources.Memoplan is a word processor, Docuplanis a sophisticated document formatter, andFileplan is a data entry and managementsystem. In particular, data from severalsources can be printed in a single report,and information from a database can betransferred to a spreadsheet.

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pointing to the items on the displaywith your finger (touchscreen) or alight pen. All these pointing devicesare similar in that they attempt tomake the software easier to use.

Because of their limitations, 8-bitmachines offer functionally inte-grated programs only. Although soft-ware for 8-bit computers may notprovide concurrency or shared tech-nology, software developers continueto increase the amount of functionalintegration in their packages. Youmay have to insert and remove disksmore often, but you will still getproducts to "talk" to each other.

Further Integration

Software development producesinteresting products, but the work inintegration continually uncovers aneed for greater integration thanexisting products supply. The new,more powerful 16-bit microcomputersopen a Pandora's box of promises andproblems, but at least they move usone step closer to solving thosedream computer tasks. ■

Dash Chang is president of Chang Laboratories(5300 Stevens Creek Blvd., Suite 200, San Jose, CA95129-1088). He has a B.S. in electrical engineer-ing from MIT and an M.B.A. from StanfordUniversity.

108 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 498 on inquiry card.

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Presentation and Form inUser-Interface Architecture

Architectural form and the interrelationship of software functionssuggest guidelines for developing user interfaces

Among the many trends in end-user applications software, two seemto contradict one another. On onehand, software is getting more com-plex: word processors a few years agowere seen as a thrilling glimpse of thefuture. But now they're being super-seded by office workstations withmore powerful and diverse capabili-ties such as the availability of alter-nate fonts for text, voice annotation,and high-quality graphics.

On the other hand, momentum isgathering toward increased softwareusability. Emphasis on ease of learn-ing and use is directed at that recent-ly discovered software component,the user interface. Unfortunately,these two trends can often be atodds. If system capabilities were con-stant, the quality of user interfaceswould certainly progress. For evenwithout a deeply principled under-standing of human-computer interac-tion, the problem of software com-plexity versus ease of use could be at-tacked on a case-by-case basis. But asfunctional complexity increases, thiskind of approach is less feasible.

by John M. Carroll

The upshot of the conflict is thatpeople using end-user systems fre-quently lose track of where they areand what they are trying to do. Theycan produce tangles of errors and adhoc recovery behaviors that no man-ual (on-line or off) can anticipate oranalyze (see reference 5). This is not

As software becomes

more complex, people

frequently lose track of

where they are and

what they are trying

to do.

just an issue for novices, as more ex-perienced users, perhaps over-whelmed by available functions,often have trouble exceeding amediocre performance level (see ref-erence 10).

Presentation vs. Form

We will discuss here two directionswe can pursue to achieve quality in

the user interface. At the level of ar-chitectural presentation we are con-cerned with the specific nature of in-terface elements—the objects and ac-tions that make up the interface andits concepts—often called "meta-phors," which organize these primi-tive elements. The presentation of thefunction through interface elements(icons, menus) can be addressed, Ibelieve, only on a case-by-case basis.

An example of a specific architec-tural-presentation case is the contrastbetween graphically conveyed inter-face metaphors, as in the use of dis-play icons for actions and objects,and nongraphically conveyed inter-face metaphors, as in the use of meta-phoric vocabulary for these actionsand objects (e.g., mail, print, docu-ment, file). Other examples includethe availability and nature of com-mand-driven dialogue, of promptedspecifications and/or selections viamenus, and of status and error feed-back.

A second direction we can pursueconcerns architectural form. Thefocus here is on how system func-

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

113

tions are interrelated in typical userscenarios, but not specifically on howeach is represented to the user in theinterface. This formal organization inthe interface (or architectural form, aswe call it) can be addressed as a gen-eral-level issue, unlike presentation.

One general-level issue of architec-tural form, for example, is the contex-tual dependence of various func-tions. In an interface with high con-textual dependence, the range ofavailable functions is fixed strictly bythe mode the user is in. The hierar-chical access of functions, typical ofmenu interfaces, is a common exam-ple of contextual dependence (for ex-ample, property sheets in the Star-type interface; see reference 11). In aninterface with low contextual de-pendence, any function can be ac-cessed from any mode, in the samemanner and with the same effects.

The distinction between architec-tural form and architectural presen-tation has important implications forthe organization of research efforts onuser-interface issues and in particularfor the development of user-interfaceguidelines. For example, I have foundthat there are principles of architec-tural form that can be broken downinto guidelines, but there are no suchprinciples of architectural presenta-tion. I recognize that this claim willbe controversial and that my argu-ments for it will be incomplete. Mypurpose here, however, is to initiateand focus controversy, not to settle it.

Consider the examples mentionedearlier. It seems that the issue of con-textual dependence can be simplyand generally resolved by followingthis guideline: maximize contextualdependence in a user interface tofacilitate interaction in typical userscenarios. As far as I know, this op-timally eases system learning anduse. The only trade-off is that atypicaluser scenarios would require circum-venting contextual dependence. (Thebest we can ever do is the greatestgood for the greatest number.)

But now consider the question ofwhether an interface metaphorshould be couched as a display iconor as a labeled softkey. I don't thinkthere is or will be a general principleto cover this case. In the balance of

this article, I will examine cases of ar-chitectural form and presentation.

Architectural Form

Our research examined techniquesfor "staging" the presentation of sys-tem functions to new users. A stageduser-interface architecture makes itpossible to turn off functional layersso that the basic applications soft-ware can be run by the user with nofrills, but the advanced functions caneasily be engaged when requested. Auser interface designed this way, withstaged access, i.e., accessible in layersof complexity, can always be conve-niently made simpler or more com-plex by merely turning functionallayers off or on.

There are two reasons why stagingaccess to sophisticated functionsmight be a good idea: first, it deals

The Training System

users were able to

begin concrete work in

less than half the time

of the group using the

Full System.

with the impact that increasing func-tional complexity can have on inter-face quality. The remedy is to blockoff enough of the function to makethe system seem simple. Indeed, thepitfall of prematurely and inappropri-ately accessing advanced functions isa common new-user error and maylay the groundwork for timidity onthe part of more experienced userswhen it comes to exploring advancedcapabilities.

Second, by having the advancedfunctions available, this scheme pro-vides a bridge for the user betweenunderstanding the basic functionsand mastering the complete applica-tions package.

To experiment with this idea, wedesigned a series of modifications inthe user interface of a commercialword-processing system. David Boorand I managed to define a simplerlevel of functionality, which includedonly document creation, revision,and printing functions and which

specifically blocked the seven or eightmost devastating new-user errors thatwe had observed in a study of peo-ple trying to learn the full system.Essentially, we imposed an alternatearchitectural form on the system bybrute force. This is the basis of theTraining System.

Physically, the Training Systemlooked exactly like the Full System,the one with the advanced functions.All the menus and other displayswere exactly the same. However,when a user selected one of the error-provocative choices, options, or func-tions we had isolated, the TrainingSystem displayed the message "X isnot available on the Training System."(X was the name of the selection.)The error consequences had beenblocked, and the user was immedi-ately free to make another selection.The user could see the advancedfunction and even try it—only to betold it was not yet available, but theuser would not suffer the penaltysuch self-initiative often carries. Inthe Full System in the same situation,the user's selection would have trig-gered an actual function and in mostcases would have led to troublequickly.

Subsequently, I experimented withthe Training System in collaborationwith Caroline Carrithers, Jim Ford,Georgia Gibson, and Penny Smith-Kerker, in a series of studies reportedand to-be-reported elsewhere (seereference 3). Part of what we foundis good but not altogether surprisingnews: novices can learn basic word-processing skills several times fasterif they don't have to spend time re-covering from the errors of prema-turely and inappropriately accessingadvanced system functions. In par-ticular, the Training System userswere able to reliably get to the typ-ing display and begin concrete workin less than half the time of the best-performing group of learners usingthe Full System.

There was evidence that this ad-vantage is more than merely a matterof reducing error time. The TrainingSystem users, at the end of our ex-periment, could type and print outa simple letter more than twice as fastas the Full System users could. The

114 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Training System users reduced theproportion of their time spent onerrors almost 50 percent compared tothe Full System users over the courseof the experiment. And more than 90percent of this improvement resultedfrom their spending less time on theerrors that were not blocked in theTraining System itself. Hence, the ad-vantage of the Training System is notmerely a matter of blocking errors,then observing that people spendless time on them.

At the end of the experiment, weadministered a system-concepts testand a work-attitude test to our exper-imental subjects. The Training Sys-tem people did better on both tests,indicating that they had learned moreabout the system and that they feltbetter about work in general after theexperience.

We have learned some fairlyspecific lessons with regard to the de-sign of training systems, in general,for computer users. The novices us-ing our Training System were givenopportunities to see where the ad-vanced functions were and to makeerrors, but they were protected fromthe direct consequences and side ef-fects of making the errors. Neverthe-less, they learned to discern errorsmore successfully than their FullSystem counterparts. The Full Sys-tem learners were punished more formaking errors, but their learning wasimpaired rather than facilitatedrelative to the Training System group.The simple implication is thatnegative reinforcement has no usefulrole in the user interface.

The second lesson we learned fromthis work pertains more to the issueof architectural form. The system westudied was derived from a commer-cial system by ad hoc surgery—longafter the original design had been setin silicon. We can imagine, however,that when the original architecture ofa machine is developed, provisionscan be made for the sort of functionsubsetting we had to graft on bybrute force. This amounts to a user-interface guideline that dictates thatthe core of an applications packagebe a coherent package—and, in turn,perhaps that the secondary function,along with the core, constitute a

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coherent application, and so on. Thisconclusion has two properties: first,empirical evidence supports it; sec-ond, the recommendation it makes issimple and general.

A question that remains is howusers will progress from the corefunctions all the way to the full-function system. In the real world,experienced users sometimes limitthemselves to subsets and never be-come experts on systems they useroutinely (see reference 10). Our sim-ple case study had only two levels ofsystem complexity, and in the case inwhich we examined users switchingfrom one level to the next, they weretold explicitly to switch. However, theintent in the Training System is tomotivate the user to see increasingbut manageable functional complex-ity as a challenge.

Architectural Presentation

Architectural presentation is a de-sign domain par excellence; as such,it is not amenable to deductive anal-ysis (see reference 6). Rather, it is fun-damentally a matter of iteratively re-

fining and developing a set of idio-syncracies.

Unfortunately, there can be nodemonstrable arguments either wayfor such a claim. But that does notdiminish the importance of the ques-tion, because even a tentative deter-mination could help organize and al-locate effort in user-interface develop-ment. I will illustrate the argument by

User-interface

metaphors build upon

what a user already

knows.

discussing some recent interfacemetaphors for office systems.

Most simply, the motivation for de-veloping user-interface metaphors isto build on what the user alreadyknows and reducing what would behard to understand. For example, alarge proportion of intended usersare professional typists, who know alot about typewriting but not neces-sarily about computers. Analogous

points can be made for potentialusers of electronic spreadsheets andvarious other applications. Such ob-servations suggest a simple designidea that has been very successfullyexploited: help people learn and useunique systems by inviting them—via the interface—to engage theirprior noncomputer knowledge (seereference 7). The current popularityof interfaces that are deliberate meta-phors of typewriters, spreadsheets,and desktops is good evidence thatthis approach is on the right track.However, I question whether theissue of metaphors is a simple one.There are two reasons for my con-cern. First, metaphors are inevitablein human thought, and, while theycan be a source of insight and sav-ings, they can as often be a source ofinterference and confusion. Whenwe focus on success stories that con-tend, for example, that a word pro-cessor is a typewriter, we overlookthe many classic examples of meta-phor-induced troubles. Psychologistseven have a special term to refer tothe interference of prior knowledge

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119

on problem-solving activity: func-tional fixedness.

An experiment in which peoplewere asked to mount candles on avertical screen provides an example(see reference 1). The subjects wereeach given a small cardboard boxcontaining candles, thumbtacks, andmatches. A correct solution is tomount the candles on the boxes (bymelting a little wax) and then tomount the boxes on the screen (withthe thumbtacks). Because boxes aretypically containers, not platforms,most of the participants did not use

them to support the candles. Theirpreconceived notions interfered withthe required insight. When thematerials for the problem were pre-sented to the subjects in the boxes(reinforcing the container interpreta-tion), only 10 percent of the partici-pants could solve the problem. Whenthe materials were provided withempty boxes, however, almost 90 per-cent solved the problem.

Even the typewriter metaphor hasits problematic side. Users we havestudied were often quite confused bythe fact that such keys as the Space-

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bar, Backspace, and Carriage Returninsert blank spaces and line breaksinstead of merely moving the typingpoint (as on a real typewriter). Peo-ple often balk at instructions such as"backspace to erase" or "type to in-sert." And this can cost them failureand frustration. Users often try tochange margins and tabs when do-ing so is needless because of systemdefaults and dangerous because ofthe risk of getting tangled in ad-vanced functions (see reference 8).But the point is not to avoid meta-phors, for this is not possible. Engag-ing prior knowledge in the service ofpresent behavior and thought is afundamental cognitive process.

The second reason interface meta-phors may never become a matter ofsimple and general principles is thatthey often act as conceptual aids,both mismatching as well as match-ing their targets. A computer, forinstance, is not literally a typewriter.Pressing a computer's keys elicitsglowing dots on a TV screen ratherthan lines of ink on a paper—reallyvery different effects. And typingover characters on a computer screenreplaces those characters or insertsnew ones, although both outcomesare unpredictable on the basis ofliteral metaphor projection. Indeed,given a simple view of the use ofmetaphors, it is remarkable thatneither of these metaphor mis-matches has a very troubling conse-quence for learners. Encounteringthese inequalities can, in fact, be anopportunity for developing an en-hanced understanding of the elec-tronic medium, e.g., the concept ofdynamic storage (see reference 4).

These two properties of metaphorsraise a host of questions. When is themetaphor trade-off favorable? Whenwill metaphor mismatches be cogni-tively stimulating? We cannot resolvethese questions in a general way, norcan we dismiss them, for aspects ofmetaphors pervade virtually allthought and certainly any user inter-face. The very notion of a user interJface implies that what the user is see-ing and conceptualizing is somethingat least one step removed from whatthe system is really doing. Addingiconic objects and actions may make

120 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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the desktop metaphor more explicit,but interface icons are not necessaryto suggest the metaphor in the firstplace. Merely describing a system asan "office-application system" bringsto mind rich and diverse physical of-fice metaphors.

Having recognized that user-inter-face metaphors are complex and un-avoidable design trade-offs, we can-not say much more than "try someout, test them, and try some more."For example, suppose that a docu-ment removed from a folder (direc-tory) to be edited is not returned tothe folder after editing. The officemetaphor suggests that the docu-ment should then be "left out" (e.g.,on a metaphorical desktop), to be re-turned to the folder only when theuser explicitly moves it there. Butwhat about printing the document?Suppose that a document removedfrom a folder for printing is not re-turned to the folder afterwards.Should it remain on the metaphoricalprinter's metaphorical paper table?Or should the printed document beautomatically refiled?

I think both choices are unaccept-able. If the document is automatical-ly refiled, the consistency betweenediting and printing is compromised.If it is not automatically refiled, how-ever, it will likely be forgotten and leftin the printer. After all, when a docu-ment is sent to be printed, the user'sattention ultimately shifts to theprinter (not an icon or object label,but the actual equipment). Whathappens when the next document isleft in the printer? We can find solu-tions to such architectural-presenta-tion issues if we wish; however, thesewell-reasoned solutions will notalways be appropriate. The trade-offsand interrelations are too rich andsubtle; too often the key factors arecompletely idiosyncratic to a par-ticular system or application. Whenone problem is solved, another,whose very existence depends on theprior solution, appears.

Architectural form, it seems to me,is very much a matter of general prin-ciples and could provide the user-interface guidelines for which everydesigner longs. For this reason, itmay make sense to direct research on

matters of architectural form atgeneral-level principles. Architecturalpresentation, however, seems lessamenable to such a treatment. Pre-sentation issues, I think, will remaincase-by-case problems to be resolvedby prototyping and user testing. Ifthis world view is correct, then thedistinction between architecturalform and presentation could be animportant guide in planning researchon the quality of user interfaces.■

References

1. Adamson, R. E. "Functional Fixedness as Re-lated to Problem Solving." Journal of Experi-mental Psychology, 44, 1952, pages 288-291.

2. Carroll, J. M. 'The Adventure of Getting toKnow a Computer." Computer, pages 49-58,November 1982.

3. Carroll, J. M. and C. Carrithers. "BlockingUser Error States in a Training System." Sub-mitted to ACM Communications.

4. Carroll, J ,M, and R. L. Mack. "Metaphor,Computing Systems, and Active Learning."IBM Research Report, RC 9636, 1982.

5. Carroll, J. M. and R. L. Mack. "Learning toUse a Word Processor: By Doing, by Think-ing, and by Knowing." In J. Thomas and M.Schneider (Eds.) Human Factors in ComputerSystems. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1983.

6. Carroll, J. M. and M. B. Rosson. "UsabilitySpecifications as a Tool in Iterative Develop-ment." In H. R. Hartson (Ed.) Advances inHuman-Computer Interaction. Norwood, NJ:Ablex, forthcoming.

7. Carroll, J. M. and J. C. Thomas. Metaphorand the Cognitive Representation of Comput-ing Systems." IEEE Transactions on Systems,Man, and Cybernetics, SMC-12, pages 107-116, 1982.

8. Mack, R. L, C H. Lewis, and J. M. Carroll."Learning to Use Word Processors: Problemsand Prospects." ACM Transactions on OfficeInformation Systems, 1, pages 254-271,1983.

9. Malone, T W. 'Toward a Theory of IntrinsicallyMotivating Instruction," Cognitive Science, 4,pages 333-369, 1981.

10. Rosson, M. B. "Patterns of Experience in TextEditing." Proceedings of CHI '83 Conferenceon Human Factors in Computer Systems.Boston, MA: December 12-15, 1983.

11. Smith, D, C Irby, R. Kimball, B. Verplank, andE. Harslem. "Designing the Star Interface,"April 1982 BYTE, pages 242-282.

John Carroll is a research staff member at IBM'sThomas ]. Watson Research Center (POB 218, York-town Heights, NY 10598).

122 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Why Is Software SoHard to Use?

So far, the "ease of use" idea has generated more advertising

copy than easy-to-use software

I divide microcomputer ownersinto two groups: those who use com-puters as tools to get a job done andthose who see them as neat toys tobe played with for their own sake. Icall the first group users and the sec-ond hackers. I also have a confessionto make: even though I am a com-puter programmer, both my feet arefirmly planted in the users' camp. Idon't enjoy complexity for its ownsake. I dip into the innards of my per-sonal computer by necessity notcuriosity. I use computers becausethey get my job done, but I don'treally like them very much.

If you want to find out if you area user or a hacker, compare figuresla and lb, screen displays you wouldsee upon signing off from two im-aginary computer systems. If youfind yourself enchanted by the latter,read no further. You are a hacker, andthis article is not written for you.

Software Is Not Easy to Use

Now that we've gotten rid of the

by Sam Edwards

hackers, let's first agree, fellow users,that most software products are noteasy to use. Even if you numberyourself among the fortunate fewwho have experienced no problemsinstalling, learning, and using yoursoftware, I am sure you know offriends with horror stories. They

complain about programs that re-quire an electrical engineering degreeto configure to your computer;manuals that explain nothing, or fartoo much; error messages that ap-pear when you've done nothing to beashamed of and that aren't docu-mented ("So I pressed the Tab key,

(la)

(lb)

END OF SESSION

END

OF

SESSION

CONNECT TIME: 00:12.

34

# DISK ACCESSES

456

SESSION TIME: 00:11.

2 y

# DISK UPDATES

98

CF'U TIME : 00:01.

54

# DISK RETRIES

0

MAXIMUM PATH

4. 7

# KEYSTROKES

: 315

MINIMUM PATH

1. 1

# COMMANDS

14

AVERAGE PATH

2. 6

# CHARS DISPLAYED

: 847

STD. DEVIATION

0.7

AVE. DISPLAY RATE

43/SEC

LOAD POINT

OOCE

ACTIVE MEMORY

256K

ENTRY POINT

6A77

"/. UTILIZATION

14

VERSION A.09 REVISION

33383-57-0005###(XLA)22

Figure 1: If you prefer la to lb, I'd call you a user. Read on. If you prefer lb to la, you'reprobably a hacker.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 127

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and the screen displayed INTERNALERROR 315, and my computer startedto beep at me, and it just kept beep-ing and beeping..."); and applicationsthat lead you down a decision tree in-to a cul-de-sac where your only exitis the power switch. The point is thatnot only is most software difficult touse, but it's the software's fault andnot yours. Many users unfairly blamethemselves for the deficiencies oftheir software. I want you to stand upnow and say out loud, "My softwareis not easy to use, and I am not adummy." There, I bet you feel a lotbetter.

Admittedly, the "ease of use" ideahas caught the software industry's at-tention, but so far it has generatedmainly advertising copy. Rare indeedis the advertisement that doesn't pro-claim its program Easy to Use or UserFriendly. Investigate these claims and

Creating easy-to-usesoftware requires agood model, lots ofattention to detail,and a constanteffort to simplify.

you will usually discover just anotherhard-to-use product with a bunch oflessons and help screens tacked on.In fact, some popular software is sohard to use that an entire subindustryhas sprung up to help the user figureout how to use it. A recent microcom-puter magazine had 11 advertise-ments for seminars, keyboardtemplates, on-line tutorials, programinterfaces, and so on, all designed tomake money off of people whobought name-brand software andthen found it too difficult to use.

Easy Is Difficult

One reason why so little easy-to-use software exists is that it is verydifficult to create. Creating easy-to-use software requires a good model,lots of attention to detail, and a con-stant effort to simplify. (It also re-quires a lot of code. John Page, thecreator of PFS:FILE, estimates thatfully half of FILE'S code is devoted to

the user interface.) It is easy to add"just one more" feature but difficultto integrate it smoothly with existingfeatures. It is easy to provide an ap-plication with lots of options but dif-ficult to avoid presenting those op-tions to the user in formidable listsof menu choices, cursor-control keys,embedded printer commands, andso on. It is easy to expose the inter-nal structure of a program as a modelthe user must understand but muchmore difficult to present a modelwith which the user is familiar.

Another reason software is noteasy to use is that some potential cus-tomers won't buy it if it is. Some ofthese potential customers suffer fromthe Big System Syndrome, a carry-over from the days when computerswere big and complicated and main-tained by a priesthood of white-coated computer operators in specialair-conditioned rooms. Today's BigSystem Syndrome sufferers derivepleasure in direct proportion to theirsoftware's complexity and obtuse-ness. There are others who feelsomehow cheated if the programsthey buy don't fill their screens, beeptheir speakers, and whir their disksto the maximum. They want theirmoney's worth. Finally, some usersequate difficulty with sophistication.These are the people who waiteduntil IBM legitimized the microcom-puter industry before they boughttheir personal computers; their imageas professionals is at stake, and theycan't risk "easy" software destroyingthat image.

The Feature Chase

Software is not easy to use mainlybecause the people who write it,market it, review it, and sell it aren'treally interested in how easy it is touse. What programmers care about ishow much it can do. In the inexorabledrive toward more and more fea-tures, the players have lost sight ofthe software's only purpose: to getthe job done with as little fuss aspossible.

A programmer is a programmer be-cause he is good at handling detailsand complexity. His world is madeup of bits and bytes and hexadecimalnumbers and balanced B-trees and

128 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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shell sorts, things he understandsand loves. When fellow programmersask him about his current project, hetells them about his neat data-compaction scheme and how he gotit to fit in only 2K bytes. When theyask for a demo, hell show them someexotic feature that no competitor'sproduct offers ("Watch this: just pressControl-V,X and the Escape key, andbingo! Your subscript is now under-lined.")

Immersed in technical details andsurrounded by like-minded people,the programmer quite naturally ex-pects the end user to share his en-thusiasm for the technical and thecomplicated. And so, little by little,technical details surface for the user'sadmiration. The programmer's spell-ing checker now tells what percent-age of the words in the checkeddocument appear exactly once. Hisdatabase program now reports theaverage number of disk seeks perrecord accessed (it's the lowestaverage in the industry!). A chapteris added to his spreadsheet program'smanual explaining in complete detail

the format for the storage of realnumbers (an elegant scheme; itshould be shared with all mankind).

But the programmer shouldn't bearall the blame for his program's creep-ing elegance. The marketing depart-ment of his company steadily feedshim advice during the product's de-velopment, and the advice is alwaysMore Features. Any feature the pro-grammer hasn't included that thecompetitor's program includes ispointed out, and it is easier for theprogrammer to add it than argue toeliminate it. After all, that's what he'spaid for, right? There is also theunstated challenge to his ego ("Well,if it's too difficult..."). Of course, anyfeatures the programmer includesthat the competition has neglectedare looked upon by the marketingdepartment as just so much gravy.

After investing all that time and ef-fort in adding features that the com-petition doesn't have, it would besilly not to point out their uniquenessin product advertisements. So amatrix is worked up with featuresalong one axis and the product ver-

sus its competition along the otheraxis. (The features listed are mainlythose that the competition lacks.) Un-fortunately, the ad does not addressthe only question that really matters:will the product do the job for youwithout any fuss?

When the software reviewer entersthe picture, his assignment often isto compare the programmer's crea-tion with similar packages from com-petitors. If he doesn't have enoughtime to actually use all of the prod-ucts he is reviewing (which is veryoften the case), he makes his ownmatrix of features versus programs,just like in the ads. I've got a wholefile of these reviews. They are alwaysentitled "< magazine name>Reviews < however many> of theMost Popular < spreadsheet/word-processing/ home-accounting > Pro-grams for the < computer name >."Reviews like this are generally quiteuseless. After reading across the rowsand down the columns, can you real-ly say which product is best for you?

Finally, we have the dealer. He cancarry only two or three programs in

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each category for each computer hesells. How can he choose whichones? He reads the ads, dealer pro-mos, and software reviews. Sinceevery product claims to be easy touse, he concentrates on what eachproduct can do, assuming that, allother things being equal, the more aproduct can do, the better it is. Hencehe stocks those products that havethe most features, confirming theprogrammer's wisdom in puttingthose extra features in and encourag-ing him to include even more infuture versions.

The unfortunate result of this fea-ture chase is that the user ends upwith a program that does everythingin the world except (you guessed it)get the job done with no fuss.

What Makes SoftwareEasy to Use?

Easy-to-use software gets the jobdone with no fuss. That's because itstays out of your way by not drawingattention to itself and by offering youonly what you need to know. It letsyou concentrate on your work andnot on using the program. Ratherthan try to be all things to all people,it contents itself with meeting the es-sential needs of most people.

Easy-to-use software does whatyou expect it to do. Its responses toyour commands are natural and un-exceptional. As you work with it, itmay elicit from you an occasionalmurmur of contentment but never acry of amazement, grief, or profan-ity. It satisfies what people in mycompany call the Principle of LeastAstonishment.

Easy-to-use software offers youless. The thinner the manual, the lessyou'll have to read to learn the pro-gram. The fewer the choices on themenus and prompt lines, the lessyou'll have to think about beforemaking your choices. The less a pro-gram does, the fewer things can gowrong with it (and, most probably,the less it costs). For me, less denotessimple, clean, uncluttered, and un-complicated.

A Good Model

A good software product usesmodels of things you are already

familiar with. If you glance at figure2a, a screen from an imaginaryhome-budgeting program, you mightnot be sure what it is for. If, however,I rearrange the prompts and add aborder, its purpose becomes self-evident (see figure 2b).

I've seen many examples lately ofdatabases that use a screen display ofa filing cabinet as their model. Thismodel can be extended to have thechosen drawer open up and thefolders inside pop up for your inspec-tion and choice. By using such afamiliar object as a model, this pro-gram does away with any need to ex-plain "master" and "detail" datafields or whatever the internalequivalents are for the drawers andthe folders. Apple's Lisa computercomes with a program that uses ahand calculator as a model. You"press" its "keys" by selecting themwith the mouse. This program's vir-tue does not lie in its efficiency (anactual hand calculator is faster to use)but in its familiarity; you don't needto read a manual or a help screen tofind out how it works.

One danger with models is that intheir effort to imitate the familiar ob-ject, they may imitate the object'slimitations as well. A word processor

(2a)

NumberiDatesTo:

Amount!Memos

patterned after a typewriter soslavishly that you see a graphical im-age of the type ball swing up eachtime you type a character may becomfortably familiar but may even-tually drive you crazy.

One of the most familiar objects ofhome and office is also one of themost difficult to model successfully:a piece of paper. Programs seldomshow one of paper's most obviouscharacteristics: its edges. Nor do pro-grams simulate the freedom of usinga pencil or typewriter to write any-where on the paper. Cut-and-pasteoperations rarely bear any resem-blance to the cutting and pasting ofreal paper.

The sheet-of-paper model is idealfor a database program in which eachscreen represents a form to fill out.With care, the same model can alsobe used to represent menus andother command screens, thus elimi-nating the need for the user to learndifferent procedures for data entryand command entry. A popular alter-native to the sheet-of-paper model forcommand entry is the sequentialmodel; you select one item from alist, which in turn offers you a secon-dary list, and so on, until you havereached the list containing the item

(2b)

Number

Pay To The Order Q-f

Date

Dollars

Memo

Figure 2: An unclear screen from an imaginary home-budgeting program (a). With promptsand a border, the purpose of the screen becomes self-evident (b).

132 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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you want to change.

With the sheet-of-paper model asemployed by PFS:WRITE, you selectthe Define Page option of the mainmenu by typing 2, which brings upthe Define Page Menu. You thenmove the cursor to the Left Marginitem and type the new value over theold one.

The advantages of the sequentialmodel are that it often requires fewerkeystrokes to select an option and itneed occupy only one line of thescreen. The advantages of the sheet-of-paper model are that it enablesyou to examine and change manyitems at the same time; it has fewerlevels of nesting, thus reducing theneed for additional commands to"back up" the command tree; itemnames need not be artificiallyshortened to squeeze onto a singleline; and item names and evengraphical elements can be more free-ly used on the screen for greater com-prehension.

Consistency

Consistency may be the singlemost important factor in determininga program's ease of use. Unless a pro-gram is totally consistent in its menudisplays, error detection, warnings,keystroke assignments, help mes-sages, option lists, and so on, itsusers will never be able to totally trustit or relax while they're using it.

Imagine that you have just ac-quired a program to help you withyour home budgeting. Every timeyou press the F3 function key, theprogram moves the cursor to thecommand line. That's great—an easyrule to remember, and it doesn't getyou into trouble. Then one day youtry to edit an existing budget item.You enter the Edit subsystem, pressF3 to get to the command line, and—whoops!—all of your item valueshave just been converted to Frenchfrancs, just as the manual (which younever read) said would happen. Notonly have you messed up yourbudget, you have also lost all con-fidence in the F3 key, even when youaren't in the Edit subsystem. Fromnow on, every time you use yourbudgeting program, you will worryabout it and wonder when it will foul

< Circle 114 on inquiry card.

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- _

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you up again.

I occasionally use an operatingsystem that requires a Q to quit themain menu, an E to move from themain menu to the editor, and, de-pending on what I have done in theeditor, either a Q, E, or the Escapekey to return to the main menu. Thenet result is that I must pause andworry a bit before typing Q, E, or theEscape key at any menu. A minor in-consistency has planted a seed ofmistrust in the decision-making partof my brain. My peace of mind hasbeen subtly disturbed.

Let me offer another example.Many word processors have acursor-movement mode for movingthe cursor anywhere in the docu-ment, an insert mode for typing newtext, and a replace mode for typingover existing text. In the cursor-movement mode, you can use thecursor-movement keys, but you can'ttype text. In the insert mode, you cantype text, but you can't use thecursor-movement keys. In the replacemode, you can type text, but onlywhere there was text before, and youcan't use the cursor-movement keys.In other words, you are never surewhich keys are functional and whichare not. Inconsistent keystroke defini-tions force you to devote more timeto worrying about the software, leav-ing you with less time for your work.

PFS:WRITE's main menu expectsyou to enter a digit from 1 to 6, fol-lowed by pressing the F10 functionkey on the IBM PC to signify "I'vefilled out the menu; let's continue."I could have made the main menueven faster to fill out by having theprogram branch immediately afterdetecting a digit from 1 to 6, withoutwaiting for the F10 key to be pressed.But that would be inconsistent withthe way the other menus are han-dled. In the Define Page menu, forexample, the F10 key is required be-cause the program can't know whenthe user has finished filling out themenu. I chose consistency over effi-ciency here; the one keystroke I couldhave saved is not enough to compen-sate for the inconsistency of requir-ing the F10 key on all but the mainmenu.

Can consistency be carried too far?

136 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 357 on inquiry card.

Circle 385 on inquiry card.

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138 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Perhaps. PFS:WRITE moves the cur-sor to the beginning of the next lineeach time you press the Enter key,whether you are filling out a form ora menu. But as we just saw, WRITE'smain menu requires you to type inonly a one-digit number. Should theEnter key move the cursor to the be-ginning of the next line? That wouldbe consistent, but it certainly doesn'thelp you fill out the main menu.Maybe it shouldn't do anything, ormaybe it should mean "continue,"just like the F10 key. These "trivialdetails" are the sorts of issues pro-grammers must worry about if theydecide to take ease of use seriously.Consistency among several pro-grams is perhaps more importantthan consistency within each sepa-rate program. If pressing the Escapekey makes your word processorreturn to its main menu, yourspreadsheet program undo the lastcommand you entered, and your fil-ing program remove the displayedform from your file, you are going tobe awfully hesitant about ever press-ing that key. Until independent soft-ware developers sit down togetherand agree on program conventions(which will never happen), you canminimize this problem by either buy-ing integrated products that do thework of several individual productsor buying the individual productsfrom a single vendor who cares aboutconsistency.

Product Integration

The integrated software you canbuy off the shelves today looks likeit was designed to cram the greatestnumber of features onto the fewestnumber of floppy disks and into theleast amount of memory. This sort ofpackaging has imposed a certainamount of consistency within eachintegrated product (for example, ittakes less code to make all promptlines work the same way), but theproducts really aren't much easier touse than those they replaced. Whatthey offer primarily are gains inspeed and convenience. The diskshuffle you had to go through to geta graph printed with data from yourspreadsheet program was so cumber-some and time-consuming that it was

hardly worth the effort. Now, withgraphing and spreadsheet functionsin the same application, the processhas become quite feasible.

This space restriction will disap-pear as computer memories becomelarger, disk capacities increase, andhard-disk prices fall. The next restric-tion programmers of integrated soft-ware will face is the limitations oftheir models. Any application thattries to do too many different thingsis going to have problems keeping itsmodel from becoming distorted. Themore reasonable alternative to oneprogram that does all is a small num-ber of programs, each of which doesas much as it can within the confinesof its own model. For example, oneprogram modeled after a spreadsheetmight provide row and columncalculations, graphs, and reports, andanother program modeled after apiece of paper might provide datastorage, word processing, and spell-ing checking.

Summary

The new operating systems willmake these integrated programsmuch nicer to use by imposing stan-dards of data interchange, by permit-ting the simultaneous display ofmultiple applications on the samescreen, and by permitting the rapidswitching from one application toanother. But ease of use is not an in-evitable result of these developments.Multiple windows, high-resolutiongraphics, rapid task switching, andall the other wonderful technicalwizardry coming our way can stillleave us with messy screens, compli-cated decision trees, ambiguousprompts, inconsistent keystroke con-ventions, bad manuals, and all theother faults that have made today'ssoftware so difficult to use. Until pro-grammers, advertisers, reviewers,dealers, and users decide they won'tsettle for anything less than easy-to-use software, it's not likely to appearon the shelves. ■

Sam Edwards (2777 Pradera Way, Carmel, CA93923) practices what he preaches as coauthor ofthe PFS:WRITE software package and in his posi-tion as software engineer at Software PublishingCorporation.

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Micromodem lie. Think of it as yourApple's telephone. It allows your com-puter to communicate with any Bell-103type modem over ordinary telephonelines, at 110 or 300 bits per second.Micromodem He installs easily in anexpansion slot, and requires no outsidepower source. It connects directly toeither a single or multiline modularphone jack, to perform both Touch-Tone'"'and pulse dialing.

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Circle 212 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

139

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Octagon 8/16 and CPU Board 8/16 are trademarks of Octagon Corp. t CP/M 80, CP/M 86.Concurrent CP/M 86. and MP/M 86 are trademarks of Digital Research. Inc.Z80 is a trademark of Zilog Corp. MS-DOS is a trademark of Microsoft Corp.UNIX is a trademark of Bell Labs.

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Walt Disney and User-Oriented Software

Mickey Mouse teaches software designers a lesson

When the outstanding violinist IsaacStern was asked the difference betweenthe great and the truly great, he replied,"The ability to communicate." It is the keyingredient in every art form and certainlythe great strength of Walt Disney'sgenius.

—Frank Thomas and Ollie JohnsonDisney Animation,the Illusion of Life

Today we can look back on whatWalt Disney did 50 years ago andlearn a great deal about how todesign friendly software. Disneycreated Donald Duck, MickeyMouse, Goofy, and Pluto. He alsocreated Pinocchio, Bambi, and Fantasia.Forty-five years after it was made,Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs wasa box-office success this past summer.The Disney movies were a delight ofour childhood; they still have thepower to enchant us as adults.

Walt Disney used a new mediumto develop a new art form (feature-

This article is taken from thebook The Elements of Friendly Soft-ware Design by Paul Heckel, whichis scheduled to be published byWarner Books in February 1984.

by Paul Heckel

length animated movies) and in theprocess rediscovered the principles ofeffective communication. Twentyyears earlier, D. W Griffith helpedmake film an art form with Birth ofa Nation. Both Disney and Griffithseized a new technology; in so doing,each rediscovered, or at least reap-plied, fundamentals of communica-tion.

"What," I am sure you are asking,"does that have to do with com-puters and writing friendlysoftware?"

Computer software is a newmedium, and writing easy-to-usesoftware consists of treating it as acommunications task. Software de-signers can learn from professionalcommunicators such as writers, film-makers, advertisers, and salesmen byexamining the techniques they useand applying these techniques tosoftware development. Visicalc usesmany of these principles, as doesWordstar, the Xerox Star, and Apple'sLisa.

My main objective in the book fromwhich this article is taken is to iden-tify these principles and offer ex-amples from prose, film, advertising,and successful software such as Visi-calc and Wordstar. Software writerscan learn by studying the formativestages of a communication art form

as well as the principles used in itsmature stages. After all, we are in theformative stages of developing user-oriented software.

As I was finishing the manuscriptfor my book, I read Disney Animation,the Illusion of Life by Frank Thomasand Ollie Johnson (Abbeville Press,1981). The authors, Disney studioanimators from 1935 until they retiredin 1978, wrote this book to record howthe great Disney films were made.They describe the thought processesthat go into creating an animatedfilm, the atmosphere in which thosegreat films (Snow White, Fantasia,Bambi, and others) were created, andmuch more.

For anyone seriously interested indesigning user-oriented software,this book is must reading because ittells you how to think about commu-nications. So much of what theauthors say about creating animatedcartoons is directly applicable towriting user-oriented software; areview of some of its high pointsserves to provide insights into whatmakes communication effective.

Disney Animation tells the story ofthe invention of an art form and therediscovery of the principles of com-munication and theater. It is a con-stant iteration of those principles. Itsauthors, who are artists rather than

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

143

writers, show by the interest and ex-citement they arouse in the readerthat they have mastered the princi-ples of communication and that theseprinciples are universal. It is worthreviewing here some of the funda-mentals they discuss.

Make It Interesting

First and foremost, every scene andevery sequence of a Disney film hadto be interesting. A dull sequencewould always be revised or elimi-nated and was never left in becauseit was needed for continuity. If in de-signing software we exerted one-tenth the effort that Disney did justto make his films interesting, oursoftware would improve tenfold. (Inan effort to avoid using repeatedlythe awkward construction "WaltDisney and his artists," I use the wordDisney throughout this article. Whenreferring to Walt Disney specifically,I will use his first name.)

Disney storymen and animatorsconstantly looked for "a piece of busi-ness" that would bring a character tolife and make it interesting. A char-acter never simply walked from oneplace to another: too dull. He mightbe angry and show it in the way hewalks; he might drag somethingalong; he might scratch his head. Buthe would do some piece of businessthat was in character, advanced thestory, and was interesting.

The concept of a piece of businesswas new to me. Yet having softwarelet you know that something is hap-pening by displaying a piece of busi-ness is a good technique. It is far bet-ter than having the user stare at ablinking cursor and wonder whetherhis program is working or not. WithQuickview Systems software you geta piece of business when a long mes-sage is displayed. Characters on theleft side of the screen are deleted asnew characters are brought in fromthe right side. This display techniqueis unusual and gives a certain per-sonality to the software.

Exaggerate Reality

Early animators discovered thattwo related keys to making a charac-ter interesting are exaggeration andcaricature. Reality must be the start-

ing point: it is necessary to identifythe essence of an animal or a person,and at Disney this was researched ingreat detail. Once the essence of acharacter was identified, it was cari-catured and its movements were ex-aggerated. This made the charactermore interesting than the real one itwas based on. Thomas and Johnsonpoint out that this is true of all art.Michelangelo's David is not propor-tioned like a real human being, noris Disney's Bambi proportioned likea real deer. Bambi may be deceptive-ly similar to the deer we know, butit is designed so that the animatorcan exaggerate its actions and thusmake it fascinating. (The most dif-ficult characters to animate arehuman ones such as Snow White.The animators' dilemma is that an ac-curately drawn human character isdifficult to make interesting, but theaudience won't identify with a char-acter that is a caricature.)

Software is a visual

medium; we should

resort to words as a

last resort.

This, too, was a useful insight. Itsuggests that the software designer'sobjective should not be to accuratelymodel something the user is familiarwith. For example, Visicalc providesan exaggerated spreadsheet, 254 rowsof 64 columns, while a normal spread-sheet is approximately 15 by 50. Simi-larly, automatic calculation is an ex-aggeration of something that is doneon a real spreadsheet. In both theseVisicalc examples, the spreadsheet isused as a starting point, and a basicaspect of it is exaggerated. This com-bination of familiarity and showman-ship gives the product its value.

Think in Visual Terms

From the earliest stages of a Disneyfilm, the story was presented visuallythrough sketches. "Walt usually leftout the dialogue until a sequence hadbeen developed to the point wherehe could see just how little was reallyneeded. If the idea could be commu-nicated with an expression, an actionor a sound effect, or with music, he

would not use dialogue. The story-man had to think in visual terms first,and when he did write dialogue ithad to tell something about the char-acter and not be merely exposition,"say Thomas and Johnson. Theauthors quote director Alfred Hitch-cock with approval: "When we tella story in cinema, we should resortto dialogue only when it is impossi-ble to do otherwise."

Software also is a visual medium;authors should resort to words as alast resort. In designing user-orientedsoftware, you start out with a blankscreen to fill, just like a filmmaker. Ithink of filling it the same way—withpictures. Commands come later andthen only to support the pictures.

Prepare the Audience

Walt Disney used several tech-niques to focus the audience's atten-tion where he wanted it. These tech-niques seem particularly appropriateto friendly software design.

First, staging is considered care-fully. How should a particular scenebe shown? Should it be indoors oroutdoors? What is in the back-ground? Which characters should bein it? How should they be arranged?Should it be a frontal shot, a sideshot, a down shot, or a moving shot?Should it be a long shot or a closeup?The major consideration in any partof a film is always what is the mosteffective way to communicate thedesired image to an audience.

Software is staged, too. Howshould information be structured onthe screen? I think it would be usefulto think of software as consisting ofa series of scenes, each of whichneeds to be staged appropriately.Much software staging is ill con-sidered; the rest is unconsidered.

Walt Disney used an old theatricalprinciple—anticipation. Before an ac-tor does something, he first tele-graphs what he is about to do. Beforea Disney character would jump, forexample, he would first bend hisknees in preparation. This readiesthe audience for what will happen soit is not taken completely by surprise.A related technique, slow in and slowout, is used when going from onepose (or extreme) to another. The

144 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983 145

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character moves slowly at first, thenspeeds up, then slows down beforesettling into the next pose.

Any time a software designerwants to move the user's focus of at-tention from one place to another, a"slow out" can get the user to an-ticipate the general direction of thenew focus. A "slow in" draws theuser's eyes to the new focus of atten-tion. For example, with Wordstar Isometimes use a FIND command tolocate a particular text string and losesight of the cursor on the screen. Aninexperienced user would have moretrouble. The slow-out/slow-in tech-nique might reduce that problem.

Don't Crowd the Screen

Whenever more than one thing ison the movie screen, the audienceusually gets confused. Walt Disneyand his animators were always con-cerned about identifying the essenceof what should be communicated ina scene and determining the mini-mum needed to say it. Every scenehad to be communicated clearly. Back-grounds, for example, were designedso they didn't distract the audiencefrom the action. Secondary actions ina scene always reinforced the primaryaction. Thus, for example, if the mainaction was a character picking aflower, other characters in the scenelooked or pointed in the direction ofthe flower, focusing the audience's at-tention on the flower. Action wasalways staged so it was easy to seeand not obscured by some otheraspect of the scene.

A major problem with many com-puter screen displays is that theyshow too much. This indicates lazi-ness on the program designer's part.Instead of finding what is importantto the user and showing only that, heshows everything and expects theuser to find what he needs. The useris often overwhelmed; what he needsis often not clear to him. This can beparticularly serious for the new userand an annoying problem for the ex-perienced user. Software must besimple, clear, and easy to under-stand.

Involve the Audience

Audience rapport was important to

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inr

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SUPER STAR is the ideal systemfor business, professional, and educa-tional applications. Its CP/M*operating system (standard) givesyou access to a vast library of readilyavailable software programs. The six-slot motherboard allows plenty ofroom for expansion.

And as your business grows,SUPER STAR can grow with you. Ifyou need more memory, just plug itin. SUPER STAR is based on theS-100 IEEE standard. To add moreusers, simply add Advanced Digital'sSUPER SLAVE™ processor boards

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SUPER STAR is the perfect sys-tem for applications requiring largedata storage capacity, speed, per-formance, reliability, and dependable,convenient back-up capability. Andat a suggested retail price of $5,000,SUPER STAR is a SUPER VALUE.

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Disney animators, Thomas andJohnson write. "We involve the au-diences in our films. . . . We startwith something they know and like.This can be either an idea or a char-acter, as long as it is familiar and ap-pealing. It can be a situation everyonehas experienced. . . . But there mustbe something that is known andunderstood if the film is to achieveaudience involvement."

Dave Hand, a Disney animationdirector, described his craft this way:"Our entire medium is transference

of thought. The thought is createdfirst in the mind of the storyman. . . then transferred to the director,who attempts to transfer it to theanimator. . . . The animator then at-tempts to transfer it pictorially. Hetakes out the intangible and places itin tangible form, in picture, fortransference back to the mind of theaudience . . . and picture presenta-tion is clearer than any other meansof transferring thought from one per-son to another."Software designers should use the

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same approach as Disney animators:involve the audience, start withsomething they know and like, andkeep it familiar and appealing.

A Case in Point: Visicalc

Using an application program alsoinvolves the transference of thought.The software designer starts out withan idea of what a program must do.But for the program to be effective,the designer must transfer to the userthe concept of what the applicationprogram can do. Visicalc serves as anexcellent example. The designers,Bob Frankston and Dan Bricklin, hadan idea for a new type of electronicspreadsheet. But to be successful ithad to make sense to the program'spotential users. Several techniqueswere employed to accomplish thistask. First, the authors used a win-dow to display only part of thespreadsheet on the screen. Second,the user can examine different partsof the spreadsheet by moving thecursor, much the same as a moviecamera pans a scene too large to betaken in one static shot. Third, thedesigners selected formulas (e.g.,SUM) and user commands (e.g.,REPLICATE) that implemented oper-ations similar to those done on paperspreadsheets. These techniques rein-force in the user's mind the image ofa large spreadsheet.

The Animation DevelopmentProcess

Disney's early animated shorts tookonly a few months to make. It wasonly after Walt improved his tech-niques of animated filmmaking andtackled full-length feature moviesthat the importance of planning andresearch became apparent. A typicalDisney feature film took three and ahalf years to make: six months ofresearch; one year of work on thestory, styling, and experimenting;one and a half years of animation;and six months of follow-up to addcolor and music and photograph the460,000 drawings that made afinished film. The making of a Disneymovie was a constant process of pro-totyping, revising, and rewriting. Theorganization and the development

148 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 181 on inquiry card.

PIECE

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More Dependable.

With ten years of pioneeringsuccesses built into it, theSystem 816 is backed by theindustry's longest warrantycoverage. Depending on yourneeds, our warranties range from12 to 36 months. Most othercomputer manufacturers expectyou to be satisfied with 90 days,which typically covers parts only.

You can also depend oncomplete hardware and softwaresupport, flexible configurations and upgrades, andsystem training.

More Powerful.

The System 816 squeezes more performance out of theIEEE-696/S-100 bus than any other system you can buy.A choice of CPUs—and up to 4 Mbytes of our exclusiveM-Drive/H™ RAM disk—give multiple work stations allthe speed and power they can ask for. Standard RAMmemory is expandable to one megabyte or more.

Disk storage capacity ranges up to 4.8 Mbytes onfloppy drives and as much as 320 Mbytes per controlleron hard disk. ^^^^

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All family members share a commonmodular architecture. So it's asimple matter to upgrade or

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And the S-100 bus allows youthe flexibility to plug in anycompatible board to add graphicscapabilities or boards for yourown unique applications.

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System Centers only. ©1983 COMPUPRO

BYTE December 1983

149

process were designed to facilitatethis operation.

Throughout the development stage,everyone got to see a more and morecomplete version of the final film;they could relate what they had doneto the whole and better see whatneeded revision. They could seewhat worked and what didn't work.Woolie Reitherman, a Disneyanimator, explained, "Many ideasthat sounded great in those storymeetings become sodden and lifelesswhen seen on the screen in relationto the rest of the business, and thesooner these elements can be dis-covered the sooner they can be cor-rected. Many other story ideas thatwere only 'touches' will come to lifein animation with so much entertain-ment that it is foolish not to get thefull value from them, even if it meansadding considerable footage."

This is not an entirely smooth pro-cess; it is not supposed to be. Its pur-pose is to bring out what works andwhat doesn't work, the problems andthe pleasant surprises, and to do itas early as possible. For example, ifa particular animation sequence runslonger than the music scored for it,the composer might add anotherhalf-measure. If a particular sequencedoes not work as expected, it has tobe redone or abandoned.

The Software DevelopmentProcess

Program designers, like Disneyanimators, have had to improve theirtechnique for producing personal-computer software. When microcom-puters first became popular, the early

applications programs were relative-ly simple and required only a fewmonths to write. But contemporarysoftware such as Wordstar or Visicalcrequired more than a year's effort toproduce. This trend has continued;Visi On and the newest software forthe Lisa computer required a dozenor more programmers working fortwo to three years. With softwarebecoming more sophisticated andusers becoming more demanding,the development process will con-tinue to take more time and effort.

Much of the best software has de-veloped as a result of evolution.Many programs originate as a pro-totype to test the practicality of anidea. Visicalc was first prototyped ina BASIC program before it was devel-oped into a consumer product. Somesoftware is an improved version of anearlier product. Wordstar, for exam-ple, is based on the earlier Wordproword-processing package.

In developing software at Quick-view Systems, we start out with aprimitive version of the product,similar to story sketches for a Disneyfilm. We repeatedly test and modifythe program to see how it "plays" inboth formal and informal testing. Wesee what works and what doesn'tand change the software to bestreflect what we think it should do.This procedure allows our rough pro-totype to change into a final polishedproduct.

Make the Best Guess

Disney created a set of tools thathelped make films, just as softwarecompanies have developed a great

many tools to help make software.Some of Disney's tools were designedto ensure a quality product; studiomanagement tools were designed tokeep track of progress and ensurethat all the details merged togethercorrectly. But the main purpose ofthese tools was to enable studioworkers to make a "best guess" ofwhat the audience's experiencewould be. Everyone could quicklyadjust his work to the reality and seethe results of the adjustment. Todevelop quality software, designersneed a similar environment that willgive them the best guess of what theaudience's experience will be.

Try Again

The final lesson that Walt Disneycan teach us may be the most impor-tant. Hemingway, Frank LloydWright, Beethoven, and Picassocouldn't get things right the first time.Walt Disney couldn't, either. And nosoftware designer can get the user in-terface right the first time. But bycarefully analyzing what the userneeds and following the precepts thatWalt Disney rediscovered, you canraise your software designing to acommercial art.H

Paul Meckel is the founder and president ofQuickview Systems (146 Main St., Suite 404,Los Altos, CA 94022), which develops soft-ware products for notebook and other small-screen computers. He has designed severaluser-oriented products, including the CraigM-100 Language Translator. He has 20 years'experience in developing software and holdsa B.S. degree in electrical engineering fromMIT and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

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150 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 58 on inquiry card.

Why buy an IBM XT when you can buy

an IBM PC or compatible,

our Pegasus XT Conversion Kit,

and save yourself almost $1,600?

For $1,295 you can buy our internal 10 megabyte

hard disk system installed in an IBM PC

or compatible of your choice.

Think about it. When you considerbuying an IBM XT or XT look-alike,you're after large storage, the con-venience of IBM compatible software,and the peace of mind associated witha quality product. But one thing you'renot looking for is paying more thanyou have to.

The Savings

If you buy an IBM XT, it's going tocost you $4,995 for the XT system unit.You'll get 10 megabytes of hard diskstorage, one 320 Kbytes floppy diskdrive, 8 slots, a $120 asynchronouscommunication adaptor, 128K ofRAM and the three IBM intials.

We recommend instead, that youbuy the IBM PC for $2,104. You'll getone 320 Kbyte floppy disk drive, 5slots, 64K of RAM, the same threeIBM initials, a space for your dealer toput the Pegasus XT Conversion Kit,and an extra $2,891 to buy it with. Butsince the Pegasus XT Conversion Kitcosts only $1,295 installed, you'll havean extra $1,596 — almost $1,600 —left over. With many compatiblesyou'll have even more.

But if you already own an IBM PCand were thinking you'd just get the

XT expansion chassis, we have a sur-prise for you. If you add the $ 1,295cost of the Pegasus XT Conversion Kitto the $2,104 price of an IBM PC, youcan have a second computer — in-stead of a dumb box — for less thanthe price of the XT expansion chassis.

Hard Disk Quality

Now, before you start thinking thatIBM's hard disk is better than ours,remember that IBM doesn't maketheir own hard disk forthe IBM XT.They go into the marketplace, just likewe do, and strike the best price theycan. If you were to buy an IBM XT,your hard disk might come from one

IBM is a registered trademark ofInternational Business Machines. Inc.XT Conversion Kit is a trademarkof Great Lakes Computer Peripherals, Inc.

of four manufacturers. It's possible, infact, that the IBM XT might have thesame hard disk that you'd get in ourPegasus XT Conversion Kit.

The Role of the Controller

But the hard disk is not the wholestory. It takes a controller card to getyour files from the hard disk to yourcomputer so you can use them.

The IBM XT has a good controllercard. Unfortunately, it is not designedto take advantage of some of the ad-

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Larger Disks

Pegasus offers an entire line of harddisks. You can expand your IBM PCfar beyond the storage of the IBM XT.You can add our 23 megabyte harddisk for only $ 1,995, or our 40 mega-byte for only $500 more. And if youreally need storage, we offer a 65 and140 megabyte hard disk that slidesright into the same space that IBM andthe compatible manufacturers put their10 megabytes.

So, before you decide to spend moremoney than you have to, consider thePegasus XT Conversion Kit. You'll getdealer support, the same 90 day war-ranty IBM gives, and have enoughmoney left over to buy one of ourlarger hard disks. And isn't largerstorage why you were looking at thehard disk in the first place? Contactyour computer dealer today.

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800-323-6836Dealer Inquiries Invited

Circle 202 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983 151

WE UNLEASH IKPOWERFUL GRAP

E WOMB'S MOSThi KS TECHNOLOGY.

You'll never see Infocom's graphicson any computer screen. Becausethere's never been a computer builtby man that could handle the imageswe produce. And, there never will be.We draw our graphics from thelimitless imagery of your imagi-nation—a technology so power-ful, it makes any picturethat's ever come out of ascreen look like graffitiby comparison. Andnobody knows howto unleash yourimagination likeInfocom.

Through ourprose, yourimaginationi makes you partof our stories,in control ofwhat you doand where yougo—yet unableto predict or con-trol the course ofevents. You're con-fronted with situa-tions and logical puz-zles the like of which you won'tfind elsewhere. And you're immersedin rich environments alive with per-sonalities as real as any you'll meetin the flesh—yet all the more vividbecause they're perceived directly byyour mind's eye, not through yourexternal senses. The method to thismagic? We've found the way to plugour prose right into your psyche, andcatapult you into a whole newdimension.

Take some tough critics' wordsabout our words. SOFTALK, forexample, called ZORK® Ill's prose"far more graphic than any depictionyet achieved by an adventure withgraphics." And the NEW YORK

TIMES saw fit to print that ourDEADLINE™ is "an amazing featof programming." Even a journal asvideo-oriented as ELECTRONICGAMES found Infocom prose to besuch an eye-opener, they named oneof our games their Best Adventureof 1983.

Better still, bring an Infocom gamehome with you. Discover firsthandwhy thousands upon thousands ofdiscriminating game players keepturning everything we write intoinstantaneous bestsellers.

Step up to Infocom. All words. Nograffiti. The secret reaches of yourmind are beckoning. A whole newdimension is in there waiting for you.

(For more information on Infocomgames contact: Infocom, Inc., RO.Box 855, Garden City, NY 11530.)

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Making Life Easier for

Professional and Novice

Programmers

A visual programming technique simplifies program development

by Andy Pope, Geoff Kates, and Dan Fineberg

When the first microcomputers ap-peared on the market, most program-mers coded their applications in as-sembly language because of limitedmemory (less than 64K bytes) andthe need to optimize code for speedof execution. The first debugging pro-grams, designed for assembly-lan-guage programs, came from semi-conductor and operating-system ven-dors. These products let program-mers single-step through a program,set software breakpoints, display andalter central-processor registers andsystem memory, and regain control ofa system after an error caused by aprogram.

The next level of debugging in-cluded the ability to symbolically de-bug a program. Programmers nolonger had to set breakpoints at ma-chine addresses; breakpoints couldbe set at either a particular line in theprogram or at a particular name inthe program. In addition, conditionalbreakpoints became more wide-spread, meaning that a programcould be stopped when a conditionwas met, such as when a variableequaled a certain value.

Writing programs in assembly lan-guage was fine in the 8-bit worldwhen only a limited number ofmicroprocessors (e.g., the 6502 andthe Z80) and operating systems (e.g.,Apple DOS and CP/M) were pre-valent. But the arrival of 16-bit micro-

computers made the use of existinghigh-level languages more attractivefor several reasons. First, 16-bit micro-computers run faster and have lesssevere memory constraints. Second,a greater variety of microprocessors(the 8086, Z8000, 68000, and 16032)and operating systems (CP/M-86,MS-DOS, Unix, Oasis, etc.) make thetransfer of software among differentmachines virtually impossible in as-sembly language but relatively sim-

As computer users and

programmers rely more

on screen icons, menus,

and color graphics,

they will be using

their minds in a

different way.

pie in high-level languages. The latesttrend shows C to be the language ofchoice for systems software (becauseit is closest to assembly language); Cand Pascal for word processors,spreadsheets, and database-manage-ment systems; and COBOL for thevast majority of business applications(see "Why COBOL for Business Ap-plication Development?" on page158).

The next logical step moved the de-buggers from operating at the assem-

bly-level language source level to de-bugging at the high-level languagesource level. The first such productssimply took the various assembly-level capabilities and transferredthem to the high-level languages. Al-though a great improvement, theseproducts did not provide the neces-sary user interface for a truly produc-tive program-development environ-ment.

Visual Programming Tools toImprove Productivity

We studied the features needed tomake debugging tools moreuser-friendly and productive. Withthe previous debuggers, only twoways existed to trace the flow of aprogram. The single-step methodproves to be laborious with a largeprogram. The second method setsbreakpoints, creating a problem be-cause a programmer knows only thatthe program has reached a definedpoint from a previously definedpoint; the interim remains a mystery.

Another important debuggingissue was developing a "what-if"capability to enable programmers tosimulate various scenarios. Othercritical areas were the screen-han-dling capability and more flexiblebreakpoint handling.

Visual Programming

So far, the quest for more effective

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 155

Micro Focus Programming Tools

To help increase programmer productiv-ity and reduce the toil involved in writingand debugging a COBOL program, MicroFocus has developed a variety of visual pro-gramming utilities. The Animator pro-gram solves COBOL debugging problemsin a flexible manner. Animator lets a useractually watch a program execute on thescreen. As each statement executes, thecursor moves to the next statement. A usercan watch the flow of the program as it isexecuted or "animated." Nine different ex-ecution speeds are available, and the speedcan be set before the program is animatedor altered during the animation. Thisanimation is stopped either by a commandor when a breakpoint is reached. Normalfull-speed execution is allowed. In addition,another command allows execution untilan IF statement is reached, allowing theuser to do what-if experiments when theprogram branches.

Another desirable feature for program de-bugging is flexible screen-handling. Toomany debuggers let the user scroll up anddown the screen only one line at a time.Animator is very flexible in this area.Screens can be scrolled up or down foreither a partial or complete screen at a time.In addition, the user can jump to the startor end of a file with a single command.

One of the nicest features supported issplit-screen operation. Two independentareas of the program can be worked on atthe same time. Only the area where thecursor is positioned is "active." In addition,either window can be enlarged at the ex-pense of the other.

It is sometimes necessary in debugginga program to find a variable in the sourcecode and then monitor it as a program isrunning. Rather than search through thecode line by line trying to locate the par-ticular variable, Animator lets the pro-grammer use a FIND command to locatethe variable. Once the variable has beenfound, it can be monitored during anima-

tion, so after each line has been executedthe new value of the variable is displayed.Once the problem has been found, codenormally has to be changed. In most otherenvironments, the user has to go back tothe original source code, alter it, and re-compile it in order to try out the patch.To save this effort, Animator allows theuser to instantly compile and execute oneor more lines of text. The programmer cancheck out his patch before altering thesource code.

Other Visual Programming Tools

Advances in interactive, screen-orientedprogramming tools have been concentratedin the world of mini- and microcomputer-based COBOL development. One reasonfor this is that COBOL is popular in boththe data-processing world and the micro-computer world, and these two segmentsare converging because of the FORTUNE1000 sales success of microcomputermanufacturers such as IBM, Apple, DEC,and others. COBOL is popular for largeand small business-application develop-ment because of its strengths for applica-tions that are I/O (input/output) intensiveand require heavy data manipulation.

With COBOL, a great deal of time canbe spent defining screen input and output.This is a laborious task that can be auto-mated with a forms generator. A formsgenerator enables programmers to enter theinput and output screens they want direct-ly onto the screen. It will produce theCOBOL source code required to make theinteractive screens functional.

Micro Focus's FORMS-2 is one exam-ple of an advanced forms generator. It ismenu driven and easy to use. Experiencehas shown that even nonprogrammers canproduce screens after only a few minuteswith it. Once FORMS-2 has created aCOBOL source file, the file can be incor-porated into an application program byusing the COBOL COPY command.

and friendly user interfaces has con-centrated on developing new waysfor the computer user and the pro-grammer to interact with the systemvia the screen. The desktop meta-phor, mouse, windows, and icons inApple's Lisa computer provide an ex-cellent example of this emphasis oninteractive visual devices.

As computer users and program-mers rely more on screen icons,menus, and color graphics, they willbe using their minds in a differentway. Previously, programmingemphasized calculation, codes, andmathematical or verbal symbols. Ac-cording to current medical theory,computers require people to use the

left side of their brains more thanthey normally do in everyday situa-tions. The left hemisphere is, it isthought, the brain's center of lan-guage, calculation, and analyticalthinking. It works with logic, reason,and the methodologies of computerscience.

The right hemisphere is thought tobe the visual side of the brain. It isactive in visual comprehension,spatial construction, and nonverbalideas. It works with intuitive thoughtand artistic creativity.

Recent advances in human inter-faces to computers have worked tobalance the use of both hemispheres.As a result, we can more intuitivelyunderstand and use a computer sys-tem and creatively apply artistic con-cepts through computers.

Interactive use of computers viavisual devices not only makes com-puters more accessible to users butcan make programming more pro-ductive as well. We'll define produc-tivity as a function of effectiveness,efficiency, and quality. In turn, effec-tiveness is the ability to meet objec-tives, efficiency is how much outputresults from how much input, andquality is the level of satisfactiongained from the product by thecustomer.

Software tools to make program-ming more visual can increase a pro-grammer's effectiveness by enablinghim to meet more programming ob-jectives. For example, a programmermay use a source-code generator thatlets him "paint" interactive screenformats directly onto the screen withthe keyboard (see "Micro Focus Pro-gramming Tools" on this page). Hecan automatically create interactivescreen-handling programs and devel-op a more interactive applicationpackage. For example, a payroll ap-plication can include more interactiveinput screens and menus for dataentry because the displays take lesstime to create.

Visual programming tools increasea programmer's efficiency by en-abling him to get more done in lesstime or at a lower cost. A debuggerthat "animates" the program's sourcecode on the screen and lets the pro-grammer engage in what-if analysis

156 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

1

FD-PC81 SINGLE DRIVE UNITFD-PC82 TWO DRIVE UNIT

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Why COBOL for Business Application Development?

In May 1959, a group of computer usersand manufacturers met at the Pentagon.They expressed the aim to design a "com-mon business-oriented language (COBOL)independent of any make or model of com-puter, open-ended and stated both in anEnglish and a narrative form."

This group grew into the Committee onData Systems Languages (CODASYL),the guiding force behind the evolution ofthe COBOL language. The first version ofCOBOL appeared seven months later inJanuary 1960. Now, almost 24 years later,there is more than $100 billion invested inCOBOL applications worldwide.

COBOL, the Business-OrientedLanguage

For a typical business application suchas a general ledger, a programming lan-guage is needed that offers the ability toorganize and handle large amounts of dataand the facility to manipulate this data.For example, a business application devel-oper needs to be able to add, subtract,multiply, and divide, and he also needs thefacility to produce reports and printouts inan easy, efficient manner. He does not needthe facility to handle matrices and complexmathematical functions as in a scientificapplication.

These needs have been addressed by

COBOL in several ways. First, approx-imately half of the language is dedicatedto methods of file-handling. For example,a data-file can be accessed as a sequentialfile (one record following on from the pre-vious one); an indexed sequential file (datacan be accessed according to a key field thatis contained in each record); or a relativefile (a data record can be referenced accord-ing to its position in the file). Second, asort module permits the reorganization ofdata files according to complex user-definedparameters. Third, COBOL provided sim-ple commands such as ADD, SUBTRACT,MULTIPLY, and DIVIDE.

In addition to these basic features,COBOL offers an easy self-documentingformat. A COBOL program looks likeEnglish composition, with paragraphs,sentences, verbs, and the ability to useeasy-to-understand data names such asTAX REBATE, ACCOUNTINGPERIOD, NET PROFIT, and so on.Superimposed upon this is a "dictionary"called the DATA DIVISION that relatesthe data names to memory locations withinthe computer.

These features mean COBOL applicationdevelopers benefit by being able to createprograms that are easily understood andcan be read by nonscientific computerusers, and the applications can provide aneasier-to-use human interface.

COBOL Is Standard and Portable

COBOL evolved from the first meetingof the CODASYL committee. The commit-tee still meets six times a year for four daysat a time. The CODASYL committee cur-rently has 23 members, which comprises12 implementors (compiler writers and ma-jor mainframe manufacturers) and 11users. The CODASYL committee producesthe COBOL Journal of Development(fOD), which is regularly updated and re-published every two to three years.

Periodically, the American NationalStandards Institute (ANSI), through theCOBOL committee (XJ34), produces a newstandard version of the language. Thisstandard was first published in 1968(ANSI '68 COBOL) and then updated in1974 (ANSI 74 COBOL). The ANSI stan-dard is derived by examining the currentstandard and the latest CODASYL ]ODand then including new features andremoving some old features. The ANSICommittee itself cannot propose features.

ANSI COBOL consists of 12 modules.They are: NUCLEUS, TABLE-HAN-DLING, SEQUENTIAL I/O, RELATIVEI/O, INDEXED I/O, SORT-MERGE,REPORT-WRITER, SEGMENTATION,LIBRARY, DEBUG, INTER-PROGRAMCOMMUNICATION, and COMMUNI-CATIONS.

Each of these modules, except for

to find logic errors can drastically re-duce debugging time. More pro-grams can then be written and stabil-ized in a given period, and that inturn reduces the cost of programmaintenance, the most expensiveaspect of large business-applicationprograms.

In addition, programmer satisfac-tion increases because visual pro-gramming removes the laborious ele-ments of application developmentand enables the programmer tospend more time developing creativesolutions to application problems.

Programmers can also operatemore intuitively. For example, thewhat-if analysis that is allowed by theanimation technique lets program-mers test alternatives freely withoutthe risk of having to rewrite entireblocks of code.

Greater use of intuition and crea-

tive problem-solving means pro-gramming can be more fun and lessalienating. With the current shortageof programmers, visual programmingcan increase program production byimproving individual programmerproductivity and by attracting morepeople to programming.

The Animation Technique

The animation technique, devel-oped by Micro Focus for in-houseprogramming, is now available inproduct form for programmers whouse Micro Focus COBOL compilers.It makes prograiruriing easier the waya stethoscope makes medical diag-nosis easier. The doctor's tool enableshim to listen to the heart of a patientand, in turn, use his medical train-ing and expertise to trace symptomsto find the cause of an illness. Theanimation technique lets the ex-

perienced programmer trace the ef-fects of an error through a new or oldCOBOL program's logic and datastructure.

A typical example is the 10-year-oldpayroll package that has been work-ing fine week after week but sudden-ly pays an employee a negativeamount. The programmer who wrotethe program has long since left thecompany, and the data-processingstaff has to find the very subtleanomaly in the program logic thatcaused the negative payment. With-out a debugging tool such asAnimator, the process would be donein one of two ways: the data-process-ing department would obtain asource-code listing and trace throughit, trying to reproduce the error; ora DISPLAY statement and some de-bugging logic (e.g., IF < error condi-tion > STOP RUN) would be inserted

158 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

REPORT WRITER, has been split intotwo subsets, the LEVEL I specification andthe full LEVEL II specification. The mini-mum ANSI standard COBOL compilerconsists of a LEVEL I specification for theNUCLEUS, TABLE-HANDLING, andSEQUENTIAL I/O.

Superimposed upon ANSI standardCOBOL is a further standard that has beendeveloped to meet the needs of the U.S.Government. It is called Federal StandardCOBOL. The Federal Standard designatesfour ANSI COBOL levels of implementa-tion: Low, Low-Intermediate, High-Intermediate, and High.

Furthermore, the Federal Computer Test-ing Center (FCTC), which is part of theU.S. Government General Services Ad-ministration (GSA), tests each COBOLcompiler for compliance with the FederalCOBOL standard. It does this by using asuite of programs comprising 225,000 linesand 5500 individual tests to check (andbreak, if possible) COBOL compilers. Acompiler is tested at the implementor'sclaimed level and then placed on the Cer-tified Compiler List either "with errors"or "with zero errors." For example, MicroFocus's LEVEL II COBOL compilers areGSA certified at the High Level with zeroerrors. The certification is valid for oneyear, then the compiler must be retested.

The result of these standards is that

COBOL source code is portable across dif-ferent machines, operating systems, andeven different implementations of aCOBOL compiler.

A New ANSI Standard forCOBOL

The ANSI COBOL Committee (X3J4)has prepared amendments to the COBOLlanguage that are to be incorporated in anew ANSI standard. The new standard,while it clarifies many ambiguities andmakes the language more structured, doesnot address interactive screen-handling orrecord-locking facilities.

The addition of nonstandard interactivescreen-handling facilities, such as thoseused by Animator, is vital in microcom-puter-based COBOL compilers becausemicros are more personal and interactivein nature than the larger, number-crunch-ing mainframe machines.

Nonstandard record-locking facilitieshave also been developed to protect usersfrom simultaneous record updates in multi-user microcomputer environments. An ex-ample of such a record-locking facility isMicro Focus's FILESHARE for MP/M-family and TurboDOS-based systems.

Until the ANSI standard addresses thesefacilities, implementors will have to con-tinue developing nonstandard screen-han-dling and record-locking additions to

COBOL or agree on de facto standards tomeet the needs of the emerging corporatemicrocomputer marketplace.

The current ANSI approach is to includein COBOL new program constructs andstatements as well as rules governingnested programs.

Nezv constructs include conditionalstatement terminators such as END-IF, anull statement called CONTINUE, a case-type multibranch statement calledEVALUATE, an in-line looping constructcalled PERFORM that noiv includesEND-PERFORM, and a "test after loop-ing" construct.

Another significant change is a new IN-ITIALIZE statement that is used to in-itialize an entire record or any type of dataitem to specified values. In addition, thenezv standard lets programmers MOVEdata from an edited data item to an un-edited one. Finally, the standard permitsa new way of specifying the length of vari-able records. Each such record length canbe stored in the name of the WORKINGSTORAGE data-item that is specified inthe FILE DESCRIPTION ENTRY. Pro-grammers will be able to read a record andrewrite it with a different length for indexedor relative files as well as SORT andMERGE variable-length records.

in the source code and the programthen recompiled and run. The sec-ond method results in the computerdisplaying "snapshots" of the data atthe points where DISPLAY state-ments were inserted. The program-mer can then look through "win-dows" in the program to gain a bet-ter understanding (still using theprinted listing) of what the programis doing.

With Animator, the situation iscompletely different. Programmerscan not only set breakpoints to zeroin on error conditions but can stepthrough any portion of the sourcecode, look at the data, modify thedata, and go through the code again,thus engaging in "what-if" analysisas they go back and forth betweenthe logic and the data.

Programmers can "zoom" throughpart of the program at near-normal

execution speed, then step throughthe source code line by line at anyposition in the program that theychoose. This is done at any speed re-quired to allow programmers to fol-low and understand the programlogic.

Animator lets programmers inter-act with a COBOL program in a waythat is not otherwise possible. Itenables them to select the parts of aprogram to look at, choose how oftenthey will look at them, choose whatdata to use to demonstrate the codebeing looked at, and control thespeed at which the code will run.

A programmer using Animator canexamine different blocks of the pro-gram to diagnose an error. He canchase the symptoms through the dif-ferent areas of the program until helocates the error, without having torun the program over and over again.

Making Programming More Fun

The animation technique takes theroutine debugging burden off pro-grammers so they can devote theirtime to more creative tasks such asnew-program development. And bycutting their backlog, programmershave more time to write better,higher-quality programs.

The animation technique elimi-nates the drudgery of debugging bymaking the computer do the comput-ing tasks that programmers had pre-viously done. Before the animationtechnique, programmers who weredebugging programs had to simulatethe operation of a computer in theirminds.

Learning Someone Else's Program

Animator lets programmers learnsomeone else's program by showing

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 159

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how blocks of code are related. Thus,programmers can understand theoverall flow of the program. They canfind out what the blocks are, whatthey do, and how they are linkedtogether simply by tracing the pro-gram execution through the sourcecode. By seeing the structure of a pro-gram, programmers can find wherean error will show up once they haveseen the symptoms.

To learn a COBOL program inmore detail, programmers can usethe Animator trace functions and en-gage in "what-if" analysis within theprogram blocks. This means pro-grammers can, if need be, gain an ex-pert understanding of the preciseconsequences of any data valuechange and its implications in eachmodule of the program. They canwatch the logic flow step by step andswitch back and forth between thecode and the data to see the preciserelationship between individualsource-code statements and incre-mental changes in the data structure.

A Concrete ProgrammingEnvironment

The animation technique turnsanalysis of programs into a concreteprocess. Without animation, analysisis an abstract process because theprogrammer has to assume how thelogic should operate. Using theabstract process, the novice mayoverlook a subtle yet catastrophic de-tail in the logic.

Animator makes program analysisconcrete by enabling programmers tosee the occurrence of the catastropheright before their eyes, on the screen.Animation shows what the programsays and does, not what program-mers hope or think the program says.With concrete information on whattheir programs are doing, program-mers can test various alternatives andchoose the best logic routines fortheir applications, with zero errors. ■

Andy Pope, technical specialist, Geoff Kates, prod-uct marketing manager, and Dan Fineberg, market-ing communications manager, are part of MicroFocus Inc. (2465 East Bayshore Rd., Suite 400, PaloAlto, CA 94303), an international supplier of micro-computer software for business-application develop-ment.

160 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

A logical program design, not fancy technology,makes software more useful

by Martin Dean

processed or organized. For example,if you want to calculate the distancefrom A to B, you ask: "What is therate of speed?" and "What is the timeit took to travel the distance?" Thenyou would put the values into vari-ables named R and T. The BASICprogrammer simply needs to say"D = R*T" and "PRINT D", and theanswer appears on the screen.

Enter the more advanced program-mer, conversant with machine lan-guage, C, FORTRAN, 8080 assemblylanguage, cross-assembly language,and DIBOL. Now the distance pro-gram becomes more sophisticated."Enter here the rate of speed traveledin the interval, as an average, in milesper hour," and "Enter here the periodexpressed in minutes and secondsthat it took to travel the distance asdescribed in the distance D." Andthen things became complicated.And, of course, when things becamecomplicated, the programmers hadan answer for those less fortunate: aninnovation called "extensivedocumentation." They gave us elo-quent definitions such as "a list is aset of values assigned to positional

I have never yet seen an article ina computer magazine that could tellme how to design software. As a mat-ter of fact, I have never seen an arti-cle anywhere that details the mys-teries of software design. I've evenwondered if it was a plot to denyusers the inside information abouthow the software that we used wascreated. Surely there ought to be anarticle where the author says, "I hadthis problem, and I used this designphilosophy to make a piece of soft-ware to solve the problem in the sim-plest, most direct way."

This is that kind of article.

Background

When I first discovered software, Iwas amazed that so many peopleknew BASIC. Four or five years ago,only two kinds of software design ex-isted. The first (the kind that most ofus learn first) is called basic BASIC.Because of BASIC'S simple input andprint statements, the design structureof a program can be rather simpleand uncomplicated: input the infor-mation into the program, and printthe information out when it has been

element numbers." Oh! Often 400pages of documentation describedwhat the rest of American industrycould explain in 8.

When it became clear that pro-grammers couldn't solve their ownproblems, hardware manufacturersgot into the act. Now we have miceand windows to make our computerlives easier and more user-friendly.

Let me state my opinion of this asclearly as possible: it's all nonsense.

First, computer software design gotthe wrong start when we, in our aweof programmers, let them get awaywith murder: murder of the Englishlanguage, murder of common sense,and surely murder of the concept"easy to use."

Then we let the programmers de-sign the software. This may soundobvious, but it isn't. Sure, program-mers write the code that makes thecomputer work, but that doesn't givethem the right to design how infor-mation goes in and how it comes out.

Imagine for a moment that we letexperts in instructional technology orpeople with a sense of discipline andcommon sense design what is called

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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"the front end," that portion of thesoftware that bridges the gap be-tween the computer program itselfand our eyes, brains, and fingers.Imagine what software would be like ifwe didn't ever have to read messageslike "Do you want the seventh bit tobe a stop bit . . . yes or no?" Imaginemessages in real English, organizedin a fashion that has real meaning forthose of us who use them.

An Alternative

I was several months into the de-sign of a database manager for mycompany before I realized what astrange turn the direction of softwaredesign had taken. There was noliterature that described the fun-damentals of microcomputer soft-ware design, and theorists were stillpostulating the discoveries of Piagetand Vygotsky as reliable beginningpoints for software design. What hadbecome the established norm forgood software design was not goodsoftware but simply software thatsold. As recently as the fall of 1982,microcomputer software entering themarketplace was distinguished byfatter manuals, more commands, anda complexity approaching unusabil-ity.

Thus, I concluded that even beforeI could attack the particular problemthat I had been given, I had to goback and look at the history of soft-ware screen design and then take awhole new approach to it. The resultwas amazing. Three words were thekey to my design—simplify, simplify,simplify.

To do that, radical emotional sur-gery is required. You have to throwout your admiration for other soft-ware programs, clear your mind ofbrilliantly executed screens, disregardnifty features, and excise all thoughtsof clever though complex functions.Pledge yourself instead to startingfresh. Think only of the first-timeuser, the scared, irritable novice whofor the first time must not only workwith a computer but do somethinguseful with it.

Today's user is so different fromyesterday's pioneer that the designcriteria once applied are now totallyinappropriate. Today's user is no

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longer the engineering-oriented hob-byist. Nor is he the adventurous,chance-taking, first-one-on-the-blockuser. All of these pioneers havealready bought their computers andprograms; now the field is left tothose of us who waited for $200 cal-culators to cost $20.

Command-driven vs.Menu-driven Software

The first design idea I had to throwout was the way that choices are pre-sented to the user, so I focused on thedifference between command-drivenand menu-driven software. Tradi-tionally, command-driven software isidentified by the appearance of a dotor a prompt on the screen and littleelse. This type of software is rich withhundreds of commands that areusually invoked by pressing the Con-trol key and a series of additionalalphabetic or numeric characters.Software of this family is advertisedas being "complete, full of features,and very powerful."

But there's a problem with thismethod. Imagine walking into your

favorite gourmet restaurant one eve-ning and having the chef come to yourtable and say, "Good news, we havechanged the way that you order food.Now you can have anything that youwant. Just tell me what you want andI'll make it for you." And there yousit, trying to remember what sort ofsauce the veal came with last timeand whether it was pepper or pep-percorns that you liked in your greenbeans. Imagine a command-drivenrestaurant. Then mourn for it whenit fails because no one knows whatto order. The same is true with soft-ware. Users don't want to be able toorder anything that they can imagine.They don't, in the main, even wantto imagine. They only want to get ajob done. Open-ended, command-driven software is dead.

On the other hand, menu-drivensoftware is just what it says. Thescreen offers a choice of things thatyou can do and asks you to enter anumber or a letter corresponding toyour choice.

So I decided to have menus. Whereshould I go from there?

I then looked at what I had to makeand how it had been made in thepast. In this case, I had to create arelational database that could be usedby first-time businesspeople to pro-duce something useful, a programthat was obviously worth the moneythey paid the first time that they usedit. To do this, I knew I would have tochange entirely the way that data isperceived, stored, and retrieved, sothat it would more closely resemblethe way that you and I store and re-trieve information in our offices.

The Traditional Database

This is how it used to work: first,the program starts with a totallyblank screen onto which you are al-lowed to design the form that wouldbe filled in to create a record. Now,of course, to be able to design thisform, you must designate the fieldsyou want, what length those fieldswill be, what type of data will be inthose fields, and so on. It leaves thebeginner paralyzed because, likecommand-driven software, it offerstoo many open-ended choices. Once

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164 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Col-Row

I

AFirst NameText = 20

BLast NameText = 15

C

Area Code

Number

DTelephoneText = 20

1234

AlbertBobby SueTomJeannette

FinneyJonesWilsonDonner

212211312313

345-9754556-9088678-9073567-9234

Table 1: An on-screen chart for data entry. If the contents of a field are greater thanthe chosen column width, the entry wraps around to display the entire contents.

Column-Compare

I

First Name

Last Name

Area Code

Telephone

not =LTE < =GTE > =LT <GT >

W*

312

Table 2: A "test chart" that replaces Boolean logic in selecting records from a database.Given the convention that * matches any string of characters, this chart asks for all recordswith an area code of 312 and with a last name that doesn't begin with W.

you have designed your form, youmust enter the information into it,just as you would for a job applica-tion or an insurance policy.

But you're not done yet. Now thatyou've got the information, how doyou get it organized and out? The or-ganization of data is what differenti-ates the computer from a card file.Computers are best at sorting out allyour friends who have the same tele-phone prefix you do or birthdays inMay. Unfortunately, when the pro-grammers designed the way you askthe computer for information, theychose to stick with the same Booleanlogic they used to write their pro-grams. Now for those of us who tooksymbolic logic in college, Booleanalgebra is just a replay of old head-aches. For those who didn't, forgetit—truth tables, logical separators,and exclusive ORs are not what youwant to spend your time figuring out.

An Alternative Database

Four and a half months later, itdawned on me that there was abso-lutely no reason to retain any sem-blance of the rules that had been de-

signed by database creators. Withthat in mind, I stood for many daysat a large blackboard, trying to get tothe root of what a database is, howit is perceived, and how it can beused. I finally derived from those ses-sions an intuitive breakdown of thebasic database functions. First, Ineeded a new way to set up the for-mat for storing information. Thismeant that I had to eliminate the re-quirement that the user understandthe concepts of fields, records, and(of course) delimiters.

Before becoming involved withcomputers, I reasoned, I had storedinformation and had shown it toothers without even knowing whata database was. Ever since I was asophomore in high school and com-pared the economic, political, reli-gious, and agricultural aspects ofcommunism, socialism, anddemocracy, I had used charts. Whynot use them now?

At the same time, why not makethe definition of a data field as auto-matic as selecting choices from amenu?

The design I came up with is

shown in table 1. Across the top arethree rows of information. The toprow simply labels the columns A, B,C, and D. The next row is thedescription of the columns, whichprogrammers call the field descrip-tors. The third row tells the programwhat type of information it should beexpecting. Rather than adopt thestandards once again, I chose to usemore meaningful descriptors such asDate, $, Number, Text, and Math(which is computed automaticallywhen you enter a formula).

From there on the design of thechart was just plain puzzle-solvingfun. How wide should the columnsof the chart be? Should they be vari-able in width? Well, let's look at thecharts I had made before I discoveredcomputers. When there was toomuch text, what did I do? I startedover with a new chart. Unfortunate-ly, that wouldn't work here.

The main problem I had with mychart idea involved entering text. Iwanted to make each field a "memopad" area that could containmessages of widely varying lengths,and I wanted to display the wholefield. Well, if I did that I could endup with a chart that was much widerthan the screen. From word process-ing, I borrowed the idea of wrappingtext onto multiple lines. From that,I conceived the notion that the usershould be able to define both thenumber of characters that go into afield and the field's display width onthe screen. If a given field is widerthan its display area, its text "wrapsaround" and takes as many lines asis needed to display the entire field.

I decided that money, numbers,dates (in six different formats), times(in two different formats), and textwould make up the choices of datastyles. Then my mind hung up onthe word "data." I had overheardthis marvelous phrase: "data youstore, information you use." I madea conscious decision then that Iwould never again refer to what wasbeing stored as data but would usethe term information instead.

Dealing with Logic

Now I had to solve the problem ofhow to sort information without re-

166 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Column-Compare

I

AFirst Name

BLast Name

CArea Code

DTelephone

1

not =LTE < =GTE > =LT <GT >

W*

312

II

not =LTE < =GTE > =LT <GT >

W*

415

Table 3: A more complicated test chart. The six lines of a test chart (called a section)are duplicated for each logical OR operation in the record-selection criteria. This test chartfinds all records that have an area code of either 312 or 415 and a last name that doesn'tbegin with W.

Col. letter to sort by :BAscending = ADescending = D

A

Table 4: Sorting selected records. Records selected by a test chart can be sorted by as manyas five keys (the keys are listed in order of decreasing importance). Here, the selected recordsare to be sorted in ascending order by Last Name (the name of a field in table 1).

sorting to complex formulas andBoolean logic. Traditionally, you hadto use rigid algebraic equations todescribe which pieces of data were tobe extracted and the conditions forthat extraction. Common requestssuch as the following requiredBoolean expressions more complexthan simple and/or/not statements:

Invite to the awards banquet allthose salespeople who sold atleast 25,000 auto parts in Augustor September, or who exceededtheir quotas in either of thosemonths.

Imagine drafting a Boolean statementthat describes this ordinary officerequest:

Give me the names of customerswho live in California and whohave made purchases in the lastsix months. I want the list orderedfrom the greatest number of pur-chases to the least with the cus-tomers' names alphabetizedwithin the list.

As background, you should knowthat many years ago I had the Her-culean task of teaching symbolic logicto college students. I was a total fail-ure. Symbolic logic is easy for someand impossible for others, and myteaching could not change that.How, then, could I formulate a sys-tem to allow the average officeworker to make these kinds ofchoices?

Task analysis was the answer. Letme explain. When we do something,it's usually done in measurablesteps. The analysis of those steps—what is to be done, and in whatorder—is task analysis. Using thatapproach, it was easy for me to getrid of Boolean formulas. I just had tolook at what I needed to do—breakit down into discrete, definablesteps, and look at it as if it were aninstruction book for assembling afood blender.

Let's use a typical mailing list withnames, addresses, and telephonenumbers for our analysis. The firstthing we have to do is to decide whatis important: what criteria we want

to establish for the information wewill extract from our list.

The best graphic example I can giveis the test that I take every couple ofyears at the California Department ofMotor Vehicles. (You've probablytaken a similar test.) I bring the testto the counter, and the clerk lays atemplate over it to see what answersappear in the little windows of thetemplate. This is the same way thatI can test for certain information inmy mailing list. When I say that Iwant only people with 312 area codeswhose last names don't begin withW, I'm actually creating an electronictemplate. I imagined the telephoneinformation in the form of a chartthat looks like table 1. I figured thatif I created an electronic template thatwould allow certain information onmy chart to "show through" whileother information would be con-cealed, I would have sidestepped thewhole formula-writing process.

But the template would have to bedifferent from a paper with squarescut out of it. It would have to specifywhich columns of the chart wewanted to test and what we want totest for. Look at the test chart in table2, which selects only customerswhose area codes are 312 and whoselast names start with any letter exceptW (the asterisk is used to match anyadditional letters in that field).

Now, if you will excuse the fancytalk, what we've got here is a two-dimensional decision matrix (whichwe will call a test chart). It is two-dimensional in that we read from thetop down and from left to right to fillin the information—just like findinglocation F-4 on a city map. Look atwhat we did. Under the area codecolumn, we read from the left andfound an equal sign. On the "equalsign" row, we entered 312. We readthat as meaning "Pick out area codesthat equal 312." Similarly, the nextrow reads "Choose any last namethat does not equal a group of lettersbeginning with W"

A More Sophisticated Test Chart

If I thought of the test chart as afilter, everything made sense. But,you ask, "That takes care of theANDs, but what about OR? How do

168 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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(5a)

Col-

Row

1

ASalesperText = 20

BQuotaNumber

C#PartsNumber

D

Month

Number

E

% Quota

Math

1

Miller,Alan

20,000

21,000

9

1.05

2

Alberts,Karen

30,000

28,000

8

0.93

3

45

Martin,T.W.

1500

1800

7

1.20

(5b)

Use formulas with (+Column E will be eq

-,*,/) for example (A + B)*5, A-B/Clal to:

A + B + C

Table 5: The Math data type. When a data column is given the type Math (as shownin table 5a), the database prompts for a formula by which to calculate that column's valuefor a given row (table 5b).

Column-Compare

1

ASalesper

BQuota

C#Parts

DMonth

E% Quota

I

not =LTE < =GTE > =

LT <GT >

25,000

98

II

not =LTE < =GTE > =LT <GT >

98

1

Table 6: A test chart to select the employees who sold at least 25,000 parts in either Augustor September or who met their quota in either of those two months.

you select out area codes 312 OR415?" Well, suppose I make anothersection of the test chart and add therule "If you can pass one section ofthe test, you'll pass the whole test."Then the test looks like table 3. Noticethat we have created two sectionslabeled with roman numerals. Theline that divides them is the OR line.All area codes beginning with 312 OR415 will pass the test, and last namesbeginning with "W" will be excludedin both cases. Simple enough.

Information Please, the productcreated out of this exercise, allowsfive different OR sections. The ANDswithin the section are limited only bythe number of columns in the chart-up to 255.

It took me more than four monthsto create this reduction of algebraicequations. I experimented with deci-sion trees, sifting concepts, and re-ductions of choice , pathways.Ultimately, I found that, as usual,common kitchen and schoolroommetaphors turned out to be the best:the filter and the test.

Sorting Results

With my test chart designed, it waseasy to see how the program coulddo sorting. Because I alphabetizedthe columns across the top of my testchart, I could use the letters of the col-umns for sorting. First, the programgives me the option of sorting direct-ly from the test-chart screen. When

I indicate that I want to sort, I thentell the program which column orcolumns I want to sort by, and inwhat order. If I want to alphabetizemy mailing list, I should enter mycriterion as shown in table 4.

Because I had specified whether acolumn was text or numeric when Icreated my information entry chart,the program now knows whether tosort alphabetically or numerically.

Solving Complicated Queries

Now let's go back to the office ex-amples I gave earlier and see howthey are handled with this chartingmethod of entering and testinginformation.

The first problem asks us to findthe salespeople who sold at least25,000 auto parts in August or Sep-tember or who exceeded their quotasin at least one of those months. Let'sassume that we have some informa-tion entered into this chart (see table5a).

On this information chart we speci-fied that the Salesperson columnwould be text by pressing T, that thewidth of the column would be 10 bytyping "10," and that the number ofcharacters in the column could be upto 20 by typing "20." This allows fornarrow columns (so more can beviewed at once on the screen) butalso permits entry of an extensiveamount of information. The nextthree columns were called Numbercolumns by pressing N after each col-umn name was entered.

Now the last column is interesting.It's a Math column. I wanted thischart to be able to calculate just likea spreadsheet, and that's how itworks. After you press M for Math,the message of table 5b appears.

Then we enter the formula. To getthe percent of quota each salespersonmet, we enter the formula in termsof column letters: "C/B" (the numberof parts sold divided by the quota).This formula is calculated instantlyeach time the cursor moves to a rowin the % Quota column.

After all the information is entered(maybe we have figures for severalmonths), we want to find out whosold over 25,000 parts or at least mettheir quotas in August or September.

170 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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I'/m are trademarks

ii'.iii'h Gup.

li-iii.uk el ZilogCorp

(7a)

Col-

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

Row

Customer

Street

City

State

Zip

Month

Purchase

I

Text = 30

Text = 30

Text = 20

Text = 20

Number

Number

$

(7b)

Column-*

A

B

C

D

Compare

1

Customer

State

Month

Purchase

=

CA

not =

LTE < =

11

GTE > =

6

0

LT <

GT >

Table 7: Another test chart. Given the information chart of table 7a, the test chart of

table 7b selects the records of all California clients who have made a purchase between

June and November.

We find this out once we create thetest chart of table 6. When we givethe test, the results are displayed im-mediately. Only Miller and Albertspass.

The second problem, which I citedearlier (on page 168), is solved in thesame way but also involves the extrastep of sorting. We not only need toselect the California customers who

made purchases in the last sixmonths (let's assume it's December,and we'll be searching June throughNovember), but we must arrange thepurchase amounts numerically fromlargest purchase to smallest and thenorder the customers' names alpha-betically from A to Z within the list.Assume that our information charthas the headings given in table 7a;

then our test chart will look like table7b. Once the test information isentered, we simply state that wewant to sort the Purchase column indescending order and the Customercolumn in ascending order. Ourproblem is solved.

Notice that the graphics are simpleyet clear. You don't need windows ormice to make charts or to analyze theinformation in them. The last thingthat office workers with messy deskswant is to have a messy computerscreen. Fancy fonts, graphics, andanything that does not immediatelyenhance the user's understanding ofthe task are simply other learningbarriers. Good software will lowerbarriers, not raise them, and willsimplify work, not make it morecomplex. ■

Martin Dean, chairman of the board of Selecthi formation Systems (919 Sir Francis Drake Blvd.,Kentficld, CA 94904), was a lawyer for 15 yearsbefore beginning Select Information Systems, a com-pany he started out of his dissatisfaction with ex-isting microcomputer sofhvare. Among his interestsare photography and furniture building.

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172 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 165 on Inquiry card.

It's Fast In Any Language.

When it comes to softwaredevelopment, the difference betweena Sage IV computer and other microsis like day and night.

With the Sage Computer it'll takeyou fewer days and nights to finishyour program.

Speed is the reason. Speed resultingfrom the fast MC68000 microprocessor,fast architecture, fast operatingsystems, and blinding transfer rates.

The fact is, even we are surprised bythe amount of software that's developedon Sage Computers.

So if you're a programmer,maybe you shouldspend some timelearning howmuch time youcould save using aSage IV.

The Hottest LanguagesAnd Operating Systems.

Programs in nearly all of the importantlanguages can be written on the Sagecomputer.

Included in the price is the p-SYSTEMoperating system which supports Pascal,BASIC, and FORTRAN.

Other operating systems are optional.For UNIX fans there's IDRIS, whichruns up to twice as fast (even withouta Sage computer). IDRIS conforms to/USR/Group Standards Committee

standards and programs written underit are highly portable to other micros.CP/M advocates please note thatDigital Research has developed CP/M-68K for Sage hardware, providing atruly complete software developmentenvironment. Versions of Pascal,BASIC, C-BASIC, C, and FORTRAN77, as well as a very fast APL, maybe used under this operating system.The Sage IV is also blindingly fast when

running hyperFORTH with its extendedprogrammer and user interfaces.

Besides IDRIS, other Multi-Useroperating systems that run on the SageComputer are PDOS, A/IBOS, andMIRAGE.

A log of excitement hasbeen brewing in the PascalWorld over NiklausWirth'snewMODULA2—andit's available for Sagecomputers. So is ADA,for the record.

If you found your language here,you just found your computer. The16-bit, 2-million operation/sec Sage IVmicro with up to one MByte RAM and18-MByte internal hard disk.

For more information and the nameof your nearest SAGE dealer, call ustoday. And be sure to ask about ournew soft ware catalog describing over200 application programs for Sagecomputers.

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© 1983 Sage Computer all rights reservedSage & Sage IV are trademarks ofSage Computer

mwzr

Circle 378 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

173

COMPLETE

DATA COMMUNICATIONS

SYSTEM NOW AVAILABLE

AT YOUR NEAREST

OUTLET

Introducing

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all accessories.

Access 1-2-3 is a simple idea.

It means you can now walkinto your nearest computeroutlet, buy one package offthe shelf and walk out withthe best fully integrated communicationssystem for your personal computer.

What we've done is taken the best 1200 Baud modem7our PC1200B—plus Crosstalk XVI, the best availablesoftware—added instructions and whatever else isneeded for your particular computer—and put them allin one box.

The advantages:

First, you get a total system. No missing parts. Nowrong parts, either. You can be sure you have all youneed and all you need to know.

Second, it's the best system you can put together.Absolutely no compromises. You simply take it home, openthe box, hook it up, and start up. Your only surprise willbe how really easy it all works.

The best modem.

It's our PC1200B modem in a format to fit your par-ticular computer.

The Large Scale Integrated circuitry is our own 3rdand 4th generation design. It's the most advanced tech-nology, eliminating all kinds of parts and running betterand cooler.

The right software.

The Crosstalk XVI programmers havepulled off a little magic. Without com-promising a bit on all the things you wantand need to do, they've made them alleasier to do on our PC1200B modem.

No wonder Crosstalk XVI is recog-nized as the best in its field.

Easy 1-2-3 instructions.

The new instructions that gowith the Access 1-2-3 serieshelp make your lifeeasier, too. You don'thave to know a bytefrom a baud to getgoing. High-tech talkis out. Plain English is in.

Cables and connectors.

If your particular computer needsa cable and connector, they'll be in the package. No bigdeal, of course—unless you've gone through the frustra-tion of piecing together a system with something lessthan expert help. Well, no need to worry here. WithAccess 1-2-3 it doesn't matter who's minding the store.

The expertise is built in.

Available now.

IBM PC, IBM PC XT,Columbia Multi-Personal,Compaq Portable, CoronaPortable PC.

The first models in our Access 1-2-3 seriesare at your dealers right now.

More models are being added and we'llsoon cover all of the important personalcomputers. See your dealer for the latest list.

And the price.

Packaging up a sensible system has let us do some-thing sensible for the price, too. Entire system—only $595.

Included: CompuServe

Your Access 1-2-3 system now carries an extrabonus—two hours of free demonstration time on one ofthe most extensive and best data banks, CompuServe. Anice way for your computer to meet the data world.

Talk to your dealer today.

All of the features you want and need.

• LSI smart modem, 300 or 1200 baud, full duplex, uses just oneslot on all models.

• Crosstalk XVI software.

• Directory for single stroke log-on to 40 separate entries.

• Auto dial (TouchTone or rotary), auto log-on, auto answer.

• Telephone line status, busy detect and automatic redial.

• Auto monitoring through computer speaker.

• Captured data to printer, disk or buffer transfer.

• Disk to disk transfer.

• Extensive error-checking and automatic retransmission.

• Display of transmission time for each file with baud rate andavailable disk space.

• Complete on-line control of stop bits, parity, baud rates, duplex.

• Modem self-test.

• Full 2 year warranty.

ACCESS 1-2-3 by

Circle 320 on inquiry card.

Novation

Novation, Inc., 20409 Prairie St., Box 2875Chatsworth, CA 91311 • (800) 423-5419In California: (213) 996-5060

Access 1-2-3 and PO200Bare trademarks of Novation, Inc.Crosstalk XVI is a trademark of Microstuf Inc.

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176 BYTE December 1983

We're Driving theDrive Market.

Circle 53 on inquiry card.

Integrating Voice in theOffice World

How "voice recognition" and "voice as data"simplify the user interface in the business world

If industry predictions are correct,by the end of the decade 80 percentof the work force in the United Stateswill be engaged in office work and in-formation handling. As the numberof office workers increases, so doesthe competition for the growingoffice computer market. Establishedworkstation manufacturers, newstart-up companies, and traditionalword-processor and communicationsmanufacturers are already rushing tointroduce office systems.

Most of these systems performsome combination of these functions:word processing, electronic spread-sheet, electronic mail, and calendarappointments. Some systems alsoprovide decision support and busi-ness-graphics capabilities. Typically,the purchase of such a system isjustified by the need for a particularapplication; the user is willing to livewith a poor user interface or an in-complete system to meet that im-mediate need.

However, as the number and diver-sity of users increases, office systemsmust offer more integrated sets of ap-plications with far better interfaces toaccommodate the needs of a broadrange of users and to eliminate ex-pensive and time-consuming train-ing.

Office System Interfaces

Current systems attempt to do thisby starting with a familiar model.

by Robert T. Nicholson

Some use the workstation screen torepresent a desktop, with small icons(graphic symbols) used to depict ob-jects that might be found in the office(such as file folders or memos). Win-dows on the screen contain the user'scurrent work, and the user may free-ly interrupt one task to work on an-other simply by moving to anotherwindow (see photo 1).

To begin a new task, the user"opens" one of the objects on thedesktop. The user selects the desiredobject by pointing to an icon on thescreen using a mouse or cursor keys,and then opens the object by press-ing a button or key. When the objectis opened a new window is createdto display its contents.

Other activities, such as deleting,mailing, or printing, can be chosenby pressing a softkey. As shown inphoto 1, softkeys are function keyswhose tasks are labeled on the work-station screen. Whenever the userselects a function by pressing a key,the labels change to show the newoptions or functions that becomeavailable.

These interfaces are a big improve-ment over older systems, but theystill limit the user to communicationvia the screen and the keyboard. Oneway to overcome this limitation is tointegrate voice communication intothe computer system.

Voice is the most natural form ofhuman communication. It is faster

than typing, can be done from any-where in the office, and does not re-quire a keyboard (a fact that willplease many managers who haveresisted the idea of typing). In addi-tion, psychologists and learning spe-cialists believe that listening to infor-mation, instead of reading it, mayspeed learning and improve reten-tion.

Voice Applications

The ability to record a spoken mes-sage and store it digitally on a com-puter system makes possible a wholenew range of applications.

Combined with electronic mail, thedigital recordings can be used as voicemessages. Office users can quicklycreate short, impromptu messagesand dispatch them to other users ofthe system without ever using a key-board. It is also possible to provide"mailbox" files for voice messagesand to allow users to call in over astandard telephone to record andplay back their voice mail. Thisvoice-messaging process is especial-ly important in large corporationswhere managers and professionalsmay spend 65 to 95 percent of theirtime in communication.

Integrating telephone functions in-to the desktop workstation has otheradvantages: the system can maintaina telephone directory for automaticdialing and can allow the user toleave a typed or recorded message

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

177

Photo 1: The workstation screen can be divided into several windows,each dedicated to a particular task. In the background window arethe icons that represent various objects in the user's office. The twowindows nearer the front are being used to work on a spreadsheetand a document. The labels on the softkeys at the bottom of the screenallow the user to select functions to be performed.

Photo 2: The small window in the foreground contains a visual rep-resentation of a recording made by the user. Solid lines show con-tinuous speech, while breaks indicate pauses. The numbers mark ref-erence points selected by the user. By moving the cursor around thisdisplay and using INSERT and DELETE keys on the keyboard, theuser can edit the recording.

when someone doesn't answer.

Another important office functionis dictation and voice editing. A voiceeditor allows the user to see and edita visual representation of what is be-ing recorded, just as a word pro-cessor allows the user to edit text. Asshown in photo 2, a line is drawnwhile the user speaks, with breaks inthe line to show pauses. (This feed-back provides a reassuring indicationthat the system is working.) Thenumbers shown are points that theuser has marked for future referenceusing a Mark key. The visual repre-sentation is important, because itallows the user to go back over thecompleted recording and insert ordelete recorded material using edit-ing keys. The user can also find partsof the recording to edit by using theRewind, Fast Forward, Play, and Stopsoftkeys. Only when the recordingsays exactly what the user wants tosay is it mailed to a secretary fortyping.

Similarly, voice input can be usedto "enter" data in a form, for later typ-ing by a clerk or secretary. For exam-ple, an executive could be promptedfor each of the fields on an expense-report form and could verballyrecord the expenses. The finished"form" could then be sent to the ac-counting department, where a clerkcould play back the responses and

type them into the accounting sys-tem.

Voice recordings can also be usedfor document annotation. Frequent-ly, paper documents are passedaround an office for review and com-ments. These comments are usuallyscribbled in the margin or passed onverbally when the document isreturned. To a large extent, this abili-ty is lost when documents are circu-lated in electronic form using mailsystems. With a voice annotationscheme, however, users can recordverbal comments and then mail the"marked" document back to itscreator. The location of each voice an-notation is shown by a speaker sym-bol in the margin of the document,as shown in photo 3.

System output can also be en-hanced via voice. To aid the user inlearning to use sophisticated features,most systems today offer help func-tions that provide on-line informa-tion. The problem with these systemsis that there is no way to try an opera-tion while reading the help instruc-tions. This problem can be overcomeby providing an audio help facility (inaddition to the standard help text).The user can then try out an opera-tion while listening to a recordedhelp tutorial. Using prerecorded in-structional material, full on-line train-ing systems could be developed to

verbally correct the user as mistakesare made.

Other uses for voice output couldinclude notification of events ("Youhave an urgent message waiting")and elaboration or emphasis ("Notethat earning are 60 percent overprojections").

These applications share one im-portant attribute: the system treatsthe recorded information as data andhas no knowledge of its content ormeaning. Applications of this typeare called voice or voice-as-data func-tions, to distinguish them from voice-recognition applications, which in-volve processing and recognition ofthe audio input.

To date, speech input has beenused mostly in applications where"hands-free" data entry was requiredand where the necessary vocabularywas limited. For example, workersunloading trucks for private postalservices can read destination codesinto a clip-on microphone beforeplacing a parcel on the conveyor belt;the system can then automaticallyroute the parcel to the correct outgo-ing truck.

Hands-free operation could alsohave some applications in the office.It might be useful for a typist to ver-bally give system commands whiletyping or for a graphic designer togive the machine verbal instructions

178 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 133 on inquiry card.

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Photo 3: Speaker icons in the margin of this document show points where a reviewer hasrecorded voice comments that can be played back by the original author of the document.

while drawing with a mouse.

With improved speech recognitiontechniques, however, other kinds ofapplications are appearing. One newapplication combines speech inputwith a pseudo-natural-language in-terpreter to allow verbal databasequeries.

Farther out on the horizon aredirect-speech-transcription systems.The idea of such a system is to pro-duce ASCII (American NationalStandard Code for Information Inter-change) text from spoken input, thusallowing users to produce and printfinished documents without using akeyboard.

As attractive as these applicationsare, they also present serious chal-lenges to the interface designer.

Voice Interface Challenges

The major obstacle to overcome isthe intimidation that some peoplefeel when presented with a micro-phone. A first step in this directionis integrating the telephone into theworkstation. The telephone is afamiliar device that we all use; bymaking it a part of the workstation,the interface designer gives the user

a chance to gradually become com-fortable with the idea of talking to themachine.

Another way to ease the user overthe microphone fear is to eliminateany system demands on the userand to maintain a strong feeling ofuser control. Many people, for exam-ple, freeze up when a telephoneanswering machine begins its famil-iar litany, "At the sound of the tone,you have 60 seconds to leave yourmessage." With an integrated voiceand data workstation, on the otherhand, the user can be left in controlof the situation: "When you are readyto leave your message, press theRecord key and begin speaking."Also, visual feedback like that pro-vided by the voice editor can be avaluable confidence-builder for newusers.

Another factor in maintaining theuser's sense of control is good re-sponse time. When the user pressesa control key such as Record, Play, orStop, the system must respond with-in about .1 second. When the userpicks up the telephone receiver, thedial tone must begin within 2 to 3seconds. Or, when voice is used in

Digital Voice Encoding

Digital voice encoding is a process thatconverts an analog waveform into a digital-ly coded representation that can later be re-converted to analog form. Once in digitalform, the voice data can be transmitted,stored, and processed by a computer—animportant attribute as voice and data in-tegration become more common.

The standard form of encoding used inthe telephone industry is referred to aspulse-code modulation (PCM). InPCM, an analog waveform is sampled atregular intervals, and the amplitude ofeach sample is represented as a binarynumber. With 8-bit PCM, for example, 1byte is used to represent the amplitude;thus, the representable values range from-128 to 127, in 255 equal steps. This rep-resentation is called a linear encoding.

Better sound reproduction can beachieved, however, if the steps are fine atlow amplitudes and coarse at highamplitudes where the human ear is not asdiscerning. Therefore, a U.S. standard hasevolved that uses one bit for a sign, fourbits for a mantissa, and three bits for anexponent. The resulting nonlinear code iscalled mu-law (or mu-255) encoding.

Mu-law encoding is capable of good tele-phone quality sound reproduction. In fact,it is the basis for most digital telephone sys-tems within the United States (a similarsystem called A-law is used in Europe).Unfortunately, mu-law requires a greatdeal of data. Because the sampling rateused is 8000 Hz, 1 second of sound re-quires 8000 bytes of data, and 5 minutesrequires over 2 megabytes!

Efforts to reduce the volume of data haveresulted in a technique called differentialpulse-code modulation, (DPCM), inwhich the data value stored represents theamplitude difference between samples, in-stead of the amplitude of the sample itself.This technique can be further improved bystoring an adaptive differential pulse-code modulation (ADPCM). In thistechnique, the scale of the differential value

a conversational activity such asprompting, response time should beclose to .5 second. This simulates thenatural pace of human conversationsand avoids the stress of rapid-firequestions from the system.

In any voice application the quali-ty of voice reproduction is important.Voice prompts from the system needto be clear and understandable. Voice

180 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

is varied based on previous differentials.Thus, if several successive samples containlarge differentials, each will be considereda multiple of the preceding data value, sothat a steep slope can be approximated withfew bits. In fact, ADPCM produces goodsound with 2-, 3-, or 4-bit data values, in-stead of the 8-bit values used in standardPCM. (The ADPCM algorithm is avail-able in IC form from Oki SemiconductorCorporation and is described in detail inthe June 1983 BYTE.)

An alternate technique for encodingvoice is called delta modulation. In deltamodulation, each segment of the wave isapproximated by a line segment with aslope ofl or -1. The direction of the slopecan be represented with a single bit, ratherthan the 4 or 8 bits used in PCM algo-rithms. Of course, simple delta modula-tion isn't good enough for most applicationsbecause restricting the slope to 1 or -1makes it difficult to model steeply climb-ing or falling waves.

A somewhat better algorithm is calledcontinuously-variable-slope deltamodulation (CVSD). In CVSD, if the slopevalue of the data bit is the same for threeor four samples, the slope is doubled. Thisprevents the approximation from falling toofar behind when the slope of the wave be-comes steep. Still, to get a close approxima-tion with CVSD, many samples are re-quired. Tor good-quality voice reproduc-tion, as many as 32,000 samples (or 4000bytes) per second may be required.

For applications where voice quality isless important, linear predictive coding(LPC) can store voice with very little data(200 to 300 bytes per second). LPC is basedon a mathematical model of the humanvocal tract. The data values stored at eachsample point are actually coefficients of aformula for reproducing the desired sound.One of the most familiar products usingLPC is Texas Instruments' "Speak &Spell."

messages must be reproduced withenough fidelity to allow the speakerto be recognized and to allownuances of tone to be detected. Inother words, the quality of soundmust be at least as good as a goodtelephone connection. To providethis quality, the system must digitizeand then regenerate the voice of thespeaker via waveform encoding, in-

Photo 4: The Voicestation 1 provides the integration needed for office applications by combin-ing a bit-mapped display and a telephone in a single compact unit. The workstation is con-nected to a central system over standard office telephone wiring.

stead of using artificial speech-synthesis chips.

Applications that process speechhave an additional problem becauseavailable speech-input devices eitherhave a limited vocabulary or must betrained to understand specific users.Device training is often viewed as aone-time process, but it really isn't;voices may change because of colds,temporary help may be hired, or peo-ple might use one another's worksta-tions. Therefore, when designing aspeech-input system, considerableeffort should be spent to make thetraining process as simple as possi-ble.

Virtual PersonalComputer Architecture

Meeting the various user-interfacerequirements places some heavydemands on the office computer sys-tem. Chief among these is the abili-ty to transfer and store large quanti-ties of data. Storing 1 second of high-quality digitized-voice data can re-quire 2000 to 8000 bytes of data, de-pending on what sort of compressionis used (see the text box "Digital-VoiceEncoding" for more information). Re-

cording just a few minutes of dicta-tion can require that more than amegabyte of data be processed, com-pressed, and stored, all in real time.Moreover, the hardware to do thismust not add too much to the cost ofthe system, or it will not be com-petitive in the office-systems market.

To meet these goals we need a "vir-tual personal computer," an architec-ture that allows expensive voice, stor-age, and communications resourcesto be shared, while delivering perfor-mance comparable to a dedicatedpersonal computer. An example ofsuch a system is the Sydis Informa-tion Manager (SIM) from Sydis Inc.(see figure 1). Its architecture,described later, is a direct product ofthe requirements for an integratedvoice and data interface.

The SIM is a centralized facilitycontaining all of the expensiveresources required in the office. Pro-cessing power is provided by multi-ple 68000 microprocessors includinga system master and multiple appli-cation servers, voice servers, and fileservers. The system master, whichcan be made redundant for increasedreliability, allocates and coordinates

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

181

System

master

processor

TC

Application-serverprocessor

Diskcontroller

Voice-serverprocessor

File-serverprocessors

Voicecompressor

r-Q

l

Diskcontroller

LUC~^

.

PBXinterfacemodule

To PBX orcentral office

SYNETgatewaymodule

To otherSIMs

Workstationinterfacemodule

ToVoiceStations

Figure 1: The Sydis Information Manager (SIM) architecture combines shared resources for many users in a central location. In additionto multiple 68000 processors used for application programs, voice processing, and file-systems I/O, the SIM includes interfaces to the officePBX and to local networks or other SIMs.

the other resources of the SIM. Theapplication-server processors per-form the general work of the system,running office application programsfor users. One or more voice serversare used as "digital tape recorders" tohandle the voice-to-disk and disk-to-voice transfers as well as voiceediting. Finally, one or more fileservers handle all mass-storage oper-ations.

Mass storage within the SIM is pro-vided by one or more 160-megabyteWinchester disks and a 160-megabytestreaming-tape drive for backup.Other shared resources include inter-faces to the office Private Branch Ex-change (PBX), which handles tele-phone functions such as forwardingand transferring calls, gateways toother SIMs, and interfaces for thedesktop workstations.

The desktop workstations, calledVoicestations, are connected to theSIM in a star configuration. Connec-tions are made over standard two-wire telephone lines, eliminating theexpense of rewiring the office. Eachconnection supports four 64K-bps(bits-per-second) communicationchannels, providing the high band-width required to match the perfor-mance of a desktop computer. Oneof the four channels is used by the

system for command and status in-formation, another is reserved forvoice, and the remaining two areavailable for data.

The Voicestation itself, shown inphoto 4, features an integrated tele-phone, a speakerphone, and a high-resolution (832 by 608) bit-mappeddisplay. A local 68008 processor and128,000 bytes of RAM allow the work-station to perform the windowingfunctions required by the interface.Additional devices can be attached tothe Voicestation, including a mouse,a foot pedal for use in transcribingdictation, and a local printer.

In summary, the architectural fea-tures needed to integrate voice capa-bilities into an office system include:

• a central facility to allow sharing ofexpensive resources such as massstorage and voice processors•large mass-storage capacity to allowstorage of voice data

•a low-cost, high-speed link to desk-top workstations

• workstations with enough localpower to support graphics, window-ing, and useful local I/O (input/out-put) devices

Software Requirements

Integration of voice and data also

places demands on the system soft-ware. The Sydis system is based onMicrosoft's Xenix operating system,which is fully compatible with BellLaboratories' Unix System III. To pro-vide the performance necessary forvoice applications, Sydis has madeseveral enhancements to the operat-ing system.

One major addition is a networkinterprocess-communication facility(NIPC), which allows reliable andfast communication between pro-cesses even though they may be run-ning on different processors. Thisfacility has many uses, includingresource requests and allocationsamong processors and communica-tion within the file system.

To allow uses on different applica-tion servers to share mass storage,the file system has been networked.File-system calls on an applicationserver are now converted to NIPCmessages, which are transmitted tothe appropriate file server over a 128-million bps system bus. In addition,the system has been enhanced sothat multiple disks on multiple fileservers can be made to appear to theapplication programs as a single filehierarchy, so that the physical loca-tion of any particular file is trans-parent to the program.

182 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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The file system has also been op-timized for the large files and largedata transfers required for voice ap-plications. Disk space is now al-located in blocks of 4096 or 8192bytes, rather than the 512-byte blockstraditionally used on Unix systems.In addition, the linked list that Unixfile systems use to keep track of freespace has been replaced by a bit mapshowing the state of each cylinderand sector on the disk. In this way,blocks can be allocated in an opti-mum way, taking into account disk

latency, to ensure high-speed trans-fers for large streams of voice data.The software requirements for thesystem master and voice server weresomewhat different. These proces-sors perform no direct disk I/O butmust respond rapidly to interrupts tohandle voice data in real-time. Tomeet this need, these processors runa stripped-down version of the oper-ating-system kernel. All requiredsoftware has been written as inter-rupt routines or as system processors,to minimize context switching times.

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Two New Computer Books . . . available now at leading bookstores andcomputer retailers.

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© 1983 Tl Printed in U.S.A.

TexasInstruments

Creating useful productsand services for you.

*

These and other enhancementsprovide an operating system capableof concurrently transferring multiplestreams of voice data to and fromdisk, while still handling the require-ments of more traditional office ap-plications such as word processingand electronic mail.

At the user-interface level, the stan-dard Unix shell or command inter-preter has been replaced by a newshell that models the user's office en-vironment and provides the objectand softkey selection facilities seen inphotos 1-3.

Conclusions

Integrated voice and data systemswill be widely used in office automa-tion because they enhance commu-nications, the most time-consumingoffice activity. As always, some pur-chasers will accept a poor interface tohave these features as soon as theycan. But for these systems to be wide-ly accepted, comfortable, responsiveinterfaces must be designed.

Supporting high-quality voice in-terfaces requires the ability to rapid-ly move and store large volumes ofdata and to effectively share limitedor expensive system resources. Thearchitectures needed to provide thesecapabilities may have as big an im-pact as the voice systems them-selves. ■

References

1. Bair, James H. "Communication in the Officeof the Future: Where the Real Payoff May Be,"Business Communications Review, January-February 1979.

2. Ciarcia, Steve. "Use ADPCM for Highly In-telligible Speech Synthesis," June 1983 BYTE,page 35.

3. Lea, Wayne A. "Selecting the Best SpeechRecognizer for the Job," Speech Technology,Volume 1, number 4, January 1983.

4. Loftus, Elizabeth F. Memory. Reading, MA:Addison-Wesley, 1980.

5. Miller, Robert B. "Response Time in Man-Computer Conversational Transactions," Pro-ceedings of the Fall Joint Computer Con-ference, AFIPS, 1968.

6. Milne, Steve and William R. Stensrud. "Voice:Soon a Requirement for Office Workstations?"1983 Office Automation Conference Digest,AFIPS, 1983.

Robert T. Nicholson is a member of the technicalstaff at Sydis Inc. (410 East Plumeria Dr., San Jose,CA 95134).

184 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 424 on Inquiry card.

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By adding the optional PICS card to your $599 Transtar 315color printer, you've opened up a whole new world of easy colorprinting. For the first time ever, our PICS parallel interface cardenables you to screendump virtually any program -- graphics,charts, games -- even copy-protected software! Specially design-ed only for the Apple II, II+, lie, and Franklin computers, theTranstar 315 PICS card does the work of a parallel card and alot more and costs only $119.95.

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BYTE December 1983

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188 BYTE December 1983

Circle 267 on inquiry card.

The Starburst User Interface

Linking multiple programs via custom-menu software

Micropro's Starburst, a softwarepackage that facilitates efficient menudesign, can ease construction andmodification of applications softwareby creating a new, more appropriateinterface between the terminal screenand the system operator.

Starburst makes the interface be-tween programs such as Wordstarand Calcstar more obvious, providinga link for Micropro's integrated soft-ware packages. More important, youcan use the program to build an in-tegrated system using almost anytype of software. It works withMicropro software as well as withother programs, and it requires nospecial or experimental hardware.

Starburst streamlines and smoothsthe interface between programs,making it unnecessary for the user ofa set of applications programs toknow the commands needed to geteach program running. It does not,however, address the deficiencies inthe user interface of a particularprogram.

Uses for Starburst

A business that requires many dif-ferent applications programs canbenefit from Starburst. For example,a company might use Datastar (partof Micropro's database-managementsystem, Infostar) to collect data andenter it into a database. A report onthe entered data (created with a pro-gram such as Reportstar, also part of

by Steven Vandor

Infostar) could then be produced andcollated into a daily report writtenwith Wordstar. This process—dataentry through report distribution-requires the use of several programsand several files.

Indeed, such a task consists of aseries of smaller ones. First, the datamust be entered into a file, then pro-cessed (or reported), then insertedinto a larger file so the report can bedistributed. And along the way, back-up copies of data and report filesmust be made. Starburst makes it ap-pear to the user that these smallertasks have been combined into oneoperation. This capability—taking thenumerous steps involved in a largetask and reducing them to one step-permits design of applications pro-grams that suit operation by inexpe-rienced users.

Starburst provides an interface thatshields the user from the smallersteps a project often requires. And byprotecting the user, it adds a measureof protection to the system. By usingStarburst to set up a task in advance,you can ensure that a series of re-quired tasks will be executed correct-ly. Steps such as backup, for instance,can be set up to occur at the appro-priate time.

The System Interface

Micropro designed Starburst to becompatible with as many machinesas possible. The program is designed

to work on virtually any businessmicrocomputer. Starburst can use asystem with a simple terminal and anaddressable cursor. Screen updatingis speeded by memory mapping onthose computers that provide it. Star-burst can also utilize graphics char-acters.

At a basic level, any user interfaceis under the control of system hard-ware. This is a curse to designers try-ing to provide hardware-indepen-dent software. Use of icons (symbolsrather than words), windows, mice,and other advanced software featuresis impossible without substantialhardware dedicated to them.

Recent hardware innovations, how-ever, such as oversized bit-mappeddisplays and the mouse, have ap-peared in advance of functionallycomplementary software. Althoughthis hardware has captured the im-agination of the marketplace, highprices have prevented its widespreadpurchase.

Other problems have slowed themass marketing of this new hard-ware. Execution speed, for instance,has been a crucial factor. If a pro-gram's interface is interesting to lookat, simple to learn, but slow asmolasses, that software has severelylimited potential.

Starburst does not require or sup-port use of a mouse because only alimited number of applications pro-grams take full advantage of the

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

189

Photo 1: A typical user-designed Starburst menu. The graphics at the top of the screen werecreated using the IBM PC's graphics set.

Me a CHOICE from theprevious menu, thenpress RETURN.

Uhen you make a choiceone of two things millhappen: either a task' i performed or aneiu menu will appearfrom which you can makeanother choice.

IWEIOTpage AR

ERASING CHflRftCTERS*.

To erase a character: *€!

To erase an entry: A¥l

BUILDING the HENU TREE:From the menu screen,press AB.

AZ scroll

To QUIT this menu treepress AKX

v

page AC

***** To go back to the menu and make a choice, press SPACE *****

Photo 2: You could supplement this general Help screen with detailed Help screens that suitthe system's specific menus and functions.

mouse's capabilities at this time. Inaddition, the mechanics of using amouse can prove time-consumingand may not provide a productivityreturn proportionate to the effort ofusing one. Starburst will not be amouse-oriented product until mouse-driven applications software becomesmore standard.

Once the hardware problems aresolved, software developers are re-sponsible for providing most of thescreen interfaces for microcomputers.(Companies such as Micropro andVisicorp provide many of those inter-faces with their widely distributedsoftware.) Even for firms that distri-bute software internationally, hard-

ware is a major concern. The trade-off is obvious: a software vendor cansupport just a few computers, takinga customized approach to the user in-terface, or (as in the case of Starburst)attempt a more general approach toafford products wider distribution.

Creating Menus

For the software designer/integra-tor, Starburst is a productivity tool.In a customized data-processing sys-tem, for example, it can handle all theexternal functions such as user inputand output. You, the system designer(referred to as the "builder" in Star-burst documentation), use the soft-ware to create menus for the user in-terface. You decide whether themenus are to be similar or dissimilar,and, depending on the hardware,you can use both text and graphicscharacters in the design. Starburstwill then display the menu and ex-ecute the selections the operatormakes. Using Starburst to stringtogether individual programs thatcomprise a larger application can savea lot of programming time. It alsogives the screen a polished ap-pearance.

The menus in a system using Star-burst all have the same general ap-pearance, but you determine theircontents. General information forfunctions such as cursor movementand menu choices is provided direct-ly to the operator through a functionor control key. In addition, you canwrite Help screens into the user in-terface to reduce your dependenceon the documentation. Perhaps moresignificant, a menu system that in-cludes help screens tied directly tothe menus can reduce the amount oftime required to learn to use thesystem.

Starburst also can provide otherbenefits for the system integrator.Beyond fast menu design, it canspecify the tasks that a particular sys-tem will perform. It recognizes 24commands to handle most systemfunctions. Besides running applica-tions programs, these commandsallow the task design to include filecopying and renaming, conditionallogic, looping, variable assignment,and file locating. And you can write

190 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

programs in BASIC, Pascal, or anyother language to accomplish com-plicated, nonstandard operationssuch as extractions. (A description ofthese task commands appears later inthis article.)

Starburst offers a quick way tomake every system look and behavesimilarly. Using Starburst, a parti-tioned accounting system (one thatincludes components such as pro-grams that serve as a general ledger,a record of accounts receivable andpayable, a payroll, and an inventory)can exhibit a high degree of visualand functional similarity. It may, ofcourse, be advantageous to differen-tiate among this system's modules,and for that reason, Starburst permitsinstant visual identification becauseit can take advantage of the graphicscapabilities of many computers.

A simple but effective way to usegraphics is demonstrated in the train-ing files included with Starburst. Oneach menu in the training system, agraphics figure that represents thesystem (starting at one menu andproceeding to other levels of menus)is displayed in the upper right-handcorner of the screen. The menu cur-rently in use is highlighted in thefigure (see photo 1). This designhelps keep the user from getting lost.

Starburst's Screen Interface

The Starburst program uses anenhanced menu-driven interface andincludes the basic Wordstar screeneditor as one of its functional parts.Other commands for system buildinguse mnemonics and graphics exten-sively. For example, when a menuhas been laid out and you want tospecify that its choice A should per-form a particular series of actions,you merely place the cursor on theA character and press Control-L tolink the choice to a set of task actionstatements. You can specify andname the actions then, or you canspecify the actions at a later time.

When you are using Starburst tobuild a system, a brief summary ofcommands is displayed at the top ofthe screen. These commands serve asmemory joggers for system-buildingcommands, such as Control-L. Toprovide more working space on the

Photo 3: On this screen, the programmer specifies which actions will occur when an operatormakes a menu selection. Although the final statement on the screen says to run Datastar,it could indicate any program.

screen, the list of commands can beremoved and later replaced at anytime. The commands displayed atany one time are limited to those rep-resenting options you would logical-ly select, thus resulting in an unclut-tered screen.

The more mundane commands,such as those for moving the cursoraround the screen, are not given suchprominence. Instead, if the user for-gets how to perform a routine func-tion, a Help key (either a Controlcommand or a function key) invokesa full-screen display of helpful infor-mation. Starburst ensures that thescreen display does not overwhelmthe user with a list of too many com-mands from which to choose. Photo2 shows a typical Starburst Helpscreen.

Starburst also addresses anothercommonly ignored area of the screeninterface: placement of informationon the screen. A video display isgenerally thought of as a page thatusers read from left to right, top tobottom. Depending on what is beingsought, however, their eyes jumparound the screen in different pat-terns, and Starburst is designed withthose patterns in mind. Its Help com-mands, for instance, are listed in the

ASK for variable with textCHECK for fileCLEAR screenCOPY source to destinationDELETE fileDISPLAY text

EXIT (to terminate processing)LIST (to display each statement beforeexecution)

MOUNT disk name on drive name (to besure the proper disks are in the properdrives)

NOLIST (to turn off the LIST function)PAUSEPROMPT text

REMARK (to document the code beingwritten)

RENAME old file as new fileRESET (for CP/M disk resets)RUN (to begin execution of programother than Starburst)SET default drive to nameSETSBCODE integer (to directly changethe system variable)

IF condition then (to execute some com-mands only when the condition is true)ELSE (to specify an alternative set ofcommands to be executed when the con-dition in the IF statement is not true)ENDIF (to mark the end of the IF...ELSEconstruction)

REPEAT (to begin a repeated loop)STOPREPEAT (to skip to the end of theloop)ENDREPEAT (marks the end of the loop)

Table 1: These 24 action statements canbe strung together to perform almost allsystem functions.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

191

Circle 377 on inquiry card.

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bottom right-hand corner of thescreen, where research suggests ausers' eyes will travel when they arein trouble. Building (creative) com-mands are positioned in the center ofthe top portion of the screen. Thisscheme is supported throughout theprogram. i

A Natural Language

As mentioned earlier, you use 24Starburst task statements to controlthe execution of a system operation.Stringing these statements togetheractually constitutes high-level pro-gram coding. Starburst also includesmany features to aid the inexperi-enced programmer and to help theseasoned coder to stay out of refer-ence manuals, concentrating insteadon building the system.

The screen interface for specifyingthese statements is designed forspeed and ease of use. Photo 3 pro-vides an example. The keyword, orfirst word, of each statement is dis-played in the command list at the topof the screen. If you have trouble re-membering the use for a particularstatement, you can type the keyword,press a function key, and a detailedmessage appears at the top of thescreen. If you only need to know thesyntax of a statement, you can pressanother function key and a templateis written on the line where the cur-sor is positioned. From that point, allyou have to do is fill in the state-ment's blanks.

The syntax of the statements is themost elemental part of this interface.See table 1 for a list of the statementsand an explanation of what each onedoes.

The conditional logic (IF...ELSE...ENDIF) is driven by the system vari-able, which can be altered in any ofthree ways. First, a SETSBCODEstatement can assign a new value tothe system variable directly. Second,the CHECK statement, which looksfor a specific file on a specific drive,can return a new value for the sys-tem variable, depending on the resultof the file search. This feature allowselegant recovery from an improper-ly configured system—the applica-tions program will never be executedif Starburst detects a file out of place.

192 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 87 on inquiry card.

lagaa!

IqDBBl

POINT ... The

Houston Instrument DMP-41plotter meets the needs of theserious or professional user,yet it's easy to operate.

POINT . . . C/D sizeformat, comprehensive front-panel controls and sophisti-cated firmware are all taKlored to the needs ofthe surveyor, drafter,oceanographer, geophysicistand land developer... toname but a few. You can gen-erate superior architecturalelevations, contour maps,circuit-board layouts andassembly drawings quicklyand accurately on bond,vellum or synthetic media.

POINT ... The DMP-41is configured to work withmicros and minis, and hasthe capacity to take advantageof a mainframe's increasedcapability. RS-232-Cinterfacing is standard,with alternate protocols avail-able. The DMP-41 is easy tolive with, adhering to FCCClass B requirements. (JL list-ing pending.

POINT . . . Minutelydefined step size and high-resolution logic—combinedwith robust drives and opti-mized pen ballistics enableyou to create plots of high pre-cision and surpassing quality.

POINT ... The

Houston InstrumentDMP-41 is one of yourmost cost effectiveconsiderations.*

For the name, ad-dress and phonenumber of your near-est distributor, writeHouston Instrument,8500 CameronRoad, Austin, Texas78753. Phone512-835-0900, or800-531-5205 if outsideTexas. In Europe contactBausch & Lomb Belgium MV,Rochesterlaan 6, 8240 Gistel,Belgium. Tel 059-27-74-45,tlx 846-81339.

BAUSCH & LOMB

houston instrument division

* suggested US retail $2,995Circle 216 on inquiry card.

4P009

Third, because the address in RAMwhere the system variable is storedis supplied in the documentation,you can write a program to be exe-cuted by Starburst (via a RUN state-ment) that will assign a new value aswell.

Other variables, which have valuesassigned by direct operator responseto ASK statements, are used, as aremerge-print variables in a word-pro-cessing environment. A prompt dis-played to the system operator asks fora value for one variable. The oper-ator's response can then be pluggedinto other places in the list of state-ments. Here is a simple example:

The task begins with this state-ment:

ASK for &MEMONAME& withprompt "To whom is this memoaddressed?"

As a result of the preceding state-ment, the following text is displayedon the screen:

"To whom is this memo ad-dressed?"

The operator responds:

"MARY"

Then, in all statements in the list that

include a reference to the variable&MEMONAME&, the character string"MARY" is substituted. For example,the statement "RENAME TEMPLATE.MEM as &NAME&.MEM" would berewritten automatically as "RENAMETEMPLATE.MEM as MARYMEM."

The compiler for these statementsis also a friendly programming aid.When you complete a set of com-mands, the compiler is automatical-ly invoked to check the syntax andcontent of each. If it detects an error,the cursor is positioned at the offen-sive character. Correction can beaided through the Help functions de-scribed previously.

The Architecture of Starburst

The core of Starburst is the resident,a small section of code (about 12Kbytes long) written in assembly lan-guage. It loads just above the oper-ating system in RAM (random-accessread/write memory) and monitorsthe progress of the applicationsystem.

The remainder of Starburst is writ-ten in the C language. The othersignificant module, the transient, is incontrol whenever a menu is dis-played or when a system is being de-signed. The transient controls the ex-ecution of the task statements (e.g.,variable assignment). When an appli-cations program is run, the transient"goes away" and leaves only the resi-

dent in RAM, above which the appli-cations program is loaded. When theapplications program completes ex-ecution, the resident reloads the tran-sient.

Starburst's architecture maximizesthe limited RAM available on many8-bit computers, while it allows theadded RAM of the new generation of16-bit machines to be fully used bythe application. The transient func-tions like a super-overlay file. Whena series of statements is about to beexecuted, a special action file is writ-ten on the disk, so that even in theabsence of the transient, the residenthas a reference for execution. Thismeans that, effectively, Starburst oc-cupies only 12K bytes of RAM.

Starburst helps eliminate some ofthe mystique of programming, theconvoluted structures that confuse somany users. The idea behind Star-burst is to soften the interface bet-ween the user and the system,especially for new users. To design aStarburst system effectively, you mustbe able to think logically or at leastlinearly. Most people in the businessworld are frightened or intimidatedby computers and programming, andfor them, Starburst helps clarify theelements of system programming. ■

Steve Vandor is product manager of MicroproInternational Corporation (33 San Pablo Ave., SanRafael, CA 94903).

NOT ONLY ANOTHER TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGH

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Modems are the most important deviceused to link two products togetherthrough ordinary telephone lines atmiles apart.The INCOMM STARCOM. a300/1200 bps Auto Dial. Auto Answer.Auto Log On modem was introduced to

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194 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 225 on inquiry card.

WHEN YOU'RE READYOUR PC PLUS™ KITWILL BE WAITING

10mb Internal Upgrade

When you're ready to boost yourstorage capacity from 640K to lOmbwithout boosting power and withouteating up desk-top space, our internalPC PLUS™ will be just a phone callaway.

Waiting to give you all the capacity ofthe *XT at a price that saves youhundreds of dollars compared to thecost of trading up.

The DSS™ PC PLUS™ kit uses a half-height lOmb Winchester disk drive thatgives you all the benefits of Winchestertechnology — increased data integrity,

)COfflDCH/MI '83

November 28-December 2,1983

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faster access — without taxing thepower supply. The **DataMark™HFC controller is a single boardsolution. It is inserted over thehalf-height Winchester disk drive.And it is totally IBM formatted.The DSS™ PC PLUS™ kit presents thestorage solution you need now. Whatare your data storage needs? At DSS™,we do much more than sellcomponents. We create solutions.The DSS™ PC PLUS™ kit includes:

—lOmb half-height disk drive

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Features and Benefits

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— One board controller solution

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Data Storage Solutions, Inc.

♦XT is a registered IBM trademark"Data Mark is a registered trademark of Memorex.

Circle 132 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

195

DisketteUsers...

When you'veheard fromall theanimals inthe diskettezoo, but youneed fastdelivery andhigh qualitydiskettes...

Call Communications Electronics

Diskette order desk

800-521-4414

In Canada 800-265-4828

Choose your brandChoose your price

Product Description

8" SSSD IBM Compatible 128B/S, 26 Sector

8" SSSD Shugart Compatible, 32 Hard Sector

8" SSDD IBM Compatible^ 28 B/S, 26 Sectors)

8" DSDD Soft Sector (Unformated)

8" DSDD Soft Sector (256 B/S, 26 Sectors)

8" DSDD Soft Sector (512 B/S, 15 Sectors)

8" DSDD Soft Sector (1024 B/S, 8 Sectors)

5'A" SSSD Soft Sector w/Hub Ring

5'A" SSSD Same as above but bulk product

5'A" SSSD 10 Hard Sector w/Hub Ring

5'A" SSSD 16 Hard Sector w/Hub Ring

5W' SSDD Soft Sector w/Hub Ring

5'A" SSDD Same as above, but bulk product

51A" SSDD Soft Sector Flippy (use both sides)

5'A" SSDD 10 Hard Sector w/Hub Ring

51A" SSDD 16 Hard Sector w/Hub Ring

5'A" DSDD Soft Sector w/Hub Ring

5'A" DSDD Same as above, but bulk product

5'A" DSDD 10 Hard Sector w/Hub Ring

5'A" DSDD 16 Hard Sector w/Hub Ring

5'A" SSDD Soft Sector w/Hub Ring (96 TPI)

5'A" DSDD Soft Sector w/Hub Ring (96 TPI)

5'A" Fileware Diskettefor Apple* Lisa Computer

For more informationabout this brand call:

Wabashdiskettes$1.29 each

for aslow as

Wabash

Part*

F111F31AF131F14AF144F145F147M11A

M11ABM41AM51AM13A

M13ABM18AM43AM53AM14A

M14ABM44AM54AM15AM16A

CE quant.100 priceper disk ($)

1.891.892.392.992.992.992.991.491.291.491.491.791.592.691.791.792.692.492.692.692.593.69

0 year warranty

For more Info on Wabash call

800-323-9868

In Illinois 312-593-6363

Ultradiskettes$1.39 each

for aslow as

UltraPart*

81726

8170182701

82708500010015350010500165140100096

5141051416524010014052410524165180152801

CE quant.100 priceper disk ($)

1.99

2.493.19

3.191.791.391.791.791.891.59

1.891.892.792.492.792.792.593.69

Lifetime warranty except bulkFor more Info on Ultra call

408-728-7777

Monday-Friday 9 am-4 pm PT

196 BYTE December 1983

CE...your best source for diskettes

For you the diskette buyer, it's a jungle out there. There are somany different brands to choose from, you need to go on a safari tofind a good brand at a reasonable cost. Fortunately, CE has alreadyhunted for the best diskettes and offers you an excellent choice ata CE price. To save you even more, CE also offers bulk productwhere 100 diskettes are packed in the same box without envelopesor labels. Since we save packaging costs, these savings arepassed on to you. Diskette envelopes are also available from CE.

Other Useful Computer Accessories

When the read/write heads on your computer are dirty, that can cause you a lot of grief.Nbw...wlth CE Head Cleaning Diskettes, you can clean the read/write heads on thediskette drives yourself In |ust 30 seconds. Each kit contains two head cleaning diskettes,and enough solution for 30 cleanings. Order # 5-CLE for 5W drives and order # 8-CLE isfor 8" drives. Only $25.00 each. Also available from CE are 3M data cartridges. TheDC100A data cartridge is a small version of the DC300A data cartridge. The DC100Acontains 140 feet of 0.150" tape in a package measuring 2.4 x 3.2 x 0.5 Inches. Cost Is$14.00 each. The DC300A is a pre-loaded tape cartridge containing 300 feet of one milthick by W computer tape. The DC300A costs $18.00 each. The DC300XL Is an extralength data cartridge with 450 feet of tape. It is the same size and interchangeable with theDC300A. The DC300XL provides a total storage capacity of 34.5 million bits at 1600 BPI.The cost of the DC300XL is $22.00 each. If you need extra mini-diskette envelopes, CEsells super strong and tear resistant Tyvek* envelopes for$12.00 per 100 pack Use order# TE-5 for a 100 pack of 5V>" diskette envelopes. Smith-Corona TP-1 letter qualityprinters are available in serial or parallel versions for only $529.00 each.

Quantity Discounts Available

Our diskettes are packed 10 disks to a carton and 5 or 10 cartons to a case. Theeconomy bulk pack is packaged 100 disks to a case without envelopes or labels.Please order only in Increments of 100 units for quantity 100 pricing. With theexception of bulk pack, we are also willing to accommodate your smaller orders.Quantities less than 100 units are available In Increments of 10 units at a 20% sur-charge above our 100 unit price. Quantity discounts are also available. Order 300or more disks at the same time and deduct 1 %; 500 or more saves you 2%; 1,000 ormore saves 3%; 2,000 or more saves 4%; 5,000 or more saves 5%; 10,000 or moresaves 6%; 50,000 or more saves 7%, 100,000 or more saves 8%, 500,000 or moresaves 9% and 1,000,000 or more disks earns you a 10% discount off our super lowquantity 100 price. Almost all our diskettes are Immediately available from CE Ourefficient warehouse facilities are equipped to help us get you the quality product youneed, when you need It. If you need further assistance to find the flexible diskettethafs right for you, call the appropriate manufacturers compatibility hotlinetelephone number listed at the bottom of this ad. Dealer Inquiries Invited.

Buy your diskettes from CE with confidence

Toget the fastest delivery from CE of yourcomputerproducts, we recommendyou phone your order directly to our Computer Products Division and chargeit to your credit card. Be sure to calculate your price using the CE prices in thisad. Written purchase orders are accepted from approved government agen-cies and most well rated firms at a 30% surcharge for net 30 billing. Formaximum savings, your order should be prepaid. All sales are subject toavailability, acceptance and verification. All sales are final. All prices are inU.S. dollars. Prices, terms and specifications are subject to change withoutnotice. Out of stock items will be be placed on backorder automaticallyunless CE is instructed differently. Minimum prepaid order is $50.00. Mini-mum purchase order $200.00. All shipments are F.O.B. CE warehouse. NoCOD's. Non-certified and foreign checks require bank clearance.

For shipping charges add $8.00 per 100 diskettes and/or any fraction of100 8-inch diskettes, or $6.00 per 100'diskettes and/or any fraction of 1005'/4-inch mini-diskettes. For cleaning kits, add $3.00 per kit. For tape datacartridges, add $1.00 per cartridge. For envelopes, add $3.00 per pack of100 envelopes. For printers add $20.00 each for U.P.S. ground shipping andhandling in the continental U.S. For Canada, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Alaska, orAPO/FPO delivery, shipping charges are three times continental U.S. rates.

Mail orders to: Communications Electronics, Box 1002,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 U.S. A If you have a Visa or MasterCard, you may call and place a credit card order. Ordertoll-freein the U.S. Dial 800-521-4414. In Canada, ordertoll-free bycalling 800-265-4828. If you are outside the U.S. or in Michigandial313-973-8888. Telex anytime810-223-2422. Ordertoday.

Copyright c1983 Communications Electronics" Ad #102783

COMMUNICATIONSELECTRONICS™Computer Products Division

818 Phoenix D Box 1002 D Ann Arbor. Michigan 48106 USA

Call TOLL-FREE 800-521-4414 or outald* U.S.A. 313 973 8888

€f

3Mdiskettes$1.94 each $1.94 each

for as

low as

Memorexdiskettes

for aslow as

3M

Part #

8SSSD

8SSSD-328SSDD8DSDD

CE quant.100 priceper disk ($)

1.941.942.493.14

8DSDD-1024

3.14

5SSDD-RH

1.94

5SSDD-10RH 1.94

5SSDD-16RH 1.94

5DSDD-RH 2.69

5DSDD-10RH 2.69

5DSDD-16RH 2.69

5SSDD-96RH 2.79

5DSDD-96RH 3.74

5APPLE-FW 4.34

Lifetime wmrrmntyFor more info on 3M call

800-328-9438

In Minnesota 612-736-9524

Memorex

Part#

3062301530903102

3104

3481

3491

3501

CE quant.100 priceper disk ($)

1.941.942.493.14

3.14

1.94

2.69

3.74

5 ymar warranty

For more Info on Memorex call

800-538-8080

In California 800-672-3525

Burroughsdiskettes EwY.$2.09 each

BurroughsPart*

CE quant.

100 price

per disk ($)

FD-101

2.09

FD-105

2.09

FD-108

2.64

FD-109

3.29

FD-110

3.29

FD-111

3.29

FD-112

3.29

MFD-11

2.09

MFD-12

2.09

MFD-13

2.09

MFD-14

2.84

MFD-15

2.84

MFD-16

2.84

MFD-20

2.94

MFD-23

3.89

1 ymmr wmrrmnty

For mora Info on Burroughs call

800-448-1422

Monday-Friday 9am-4pm ET

Dysandiskettes^?.$2.99 each

CE quant.

DysanPart#

800501800618800605800803

100 priceper disk ($)

2.992.993.894.59

800839801184

4.592.99

801186801185801187

2.992.993.19

801014801188802060

3.193.193.89

802062802061800439802067

3.893.893.894.49

1 yaar warranty

For more Info on Dysan call

800-552-2211

In California 408-970-6096

Circle 80 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983 197

Now also for IBM PC.

"I just eliminated eyefatigue by replacingthe CRT Display Tubeon my computer"

Now you can eliminate thestrobe, flicker and fatiguefrom your computerterminal with a newSoft-View™

replacement CRT fromLangley-St. Clair.

• Available in slow decay green or medium decay"European Amber" (the standard in Europe).

• Made with Lead/Strontium impregnated glass thatstops X-ray emission.

• High-contrast face glass that also cuts U.V. radiation.

• Frosted glass with extra Anti-Glare benefits.

• Easily installed... comes with pre-mounted hardware.

• Warranted for one full year against manufacturingdefects or tube failure.

• Ideal for word processing and programming, yet fastenough for games and graphics.

Phil DeLaney,KAYPRO user.

-^^z^

I

Now you can upgrade yourmonitor with a new Europeanamber phosphor tube.

Available for the TRS-80,*TeleVideo, Kaypro, Heath,DEC, Zenith and a widevariety of other monitors,these new replacement dis-play tubes use amber or greenphosphors which exceed theEuropean standards for persistenceand color.

And the "decay" or fade-out rateof the phosphor is the same asthe "refresh" or scanning rate ofthe computer screen, so the dis-play glows gently, rather thanflickering like a strobe light - anannoying problem with black &white or inexpensive greenphosphor tubes.

Now, you can upgrade yourterminal or computer to world-class performance with theinstallation of a Langley-St. ClairSoft-View™ CRT!

Call our toll-free number to determine whichtube will fit your computer or monitor.

LSIS Soft View™ CRT'S

D #DK34G Amber Phosphorw/Anti-Glare $9995D #HZ34G Amber Phosphor w/Anti-Glare $9995D #KP3<1G Amber Phosphor w/Anti-Glare S9995□ #GN31G Green Phosphor w/Anti-Glare S8995D #GN42 Green Phosphor $79.95

a #GN42G Green Phosphor w/Anti-Glare $89.95a #OR34 Amber Phosphor S8995

D #OR34G Amber Phosphorw/Anti-Glare S9995

Also available:D #R22G Red Phosphorw/Anti-Glare $139.95D #B22G Blue Phosphorw/Anti-Glare $139,95Plus: $7.00 for packing and UPS shipping

$1700 for Overseas. Parcel Post or UPS Blue Label

Add Sales Tax where applicable.Inquire about the Cl?rs we have available for many othercomputer models.

'Soft-View" Is a Trademark of Langley-St. Clair Instrumentation Systems. Inc.TRS-80. TeleVideo. Kaypro, Heath, DEC and Zenith are Registered Trademarks

_ -

■ ■ :. :\''\y--;;:;•=''

■■;-3SS£

:■'.'■'''• ***'

To order or for more information, call:

800 221-7070

In New York call 212 989-6876

Langley-StClair

Instrumentation Systems, Inc.

139 W. S4th St. New York, NY 10011

of Tandy Corp, TeleVideo Corp., Non Linear Systems. Inc., Heath Co.. Digital Equipment Co Corp and Zenith.

The Complete Information-Management System

Integrated software must satisfy human and machine requirements

While it is doubtful that a univer-sally accepted definition has beenpenned, microcomputer users andsoftware writers continue to searchfor the ideal, or total, information-management system. This integratedsoftware package will utilize anyspecial hardware features and mini-mize user interaction. It will be easyfor the novice to use yet will have allthe features and capabilities experi-enced users expect.

Information will pass effortlesslyfrom one application program to thenext, and user information will bestored, shared, and retrieved effi-ciently. Most important, though, isthat integration will extend to providecomplete project-processing capabil-ities; once a format is established, noother operator intervention will benecessary.

This article provides a brief historyof software integration and lists thegoals and requirements of one ap-proach for a total information-man-agement system. Also included aretext boxes that discuss the data inter-change dilemma and an actual inte-grated-system implementation.

Early Attempts at Integration

The earliest attempts at software in-tegration made during the advent ofthe microcomputer industry simply

by Michael J. Brown

explained the file structures ofvarious application programs so pro-grammers could write code thatcould access this data for custom ap-plications. Examples of this includecustom report writers, better knownas form generators.

The second level of integration in-volved the so-called families of in-tegrated products, such as theSupers, Perfects, Visis, and Stars. Un-fortunately, integration seemed to bean afterthought and usually con-sisted of an intermediate file output

Total integration

provides for complete

project-processing

capabilities.

and input capability. One program,a mailing-list record keeper, for exam-ple, could output its data (or a subsetthereof) into an easy-to-use file struc-ture. One of the more common con-figurations, though, was a standardASCII (American National StandardCode for Information Interchange)file in which fields were delimited bycommas and each record was ter-minated by a carriage return and line-feed character combination. Once afile was output in this fashion, an-other program—for example, a word

processor—could read this ASCII fileand use the contents to generate formletters, memos, and the like.

Another example of this secondlevel of integration was the DIF (DataInterchange Format) standard in-cluded in Visicalc. This was infinitelymore useful to nontechnical com-puter users because programmingwas not required. Even so, thismethod was often cumbersome andrequired a significant understandingof files, fields, records, field de-limiters, filenames, and extensions.Most important, this level of integra-tion usually required user interactionon an operating system level. Thus,this second level was still too complexfor neophytes and too constrained fortechnocrats.

The third level of integration wasintroduced and made famous by1-2-3 from Lotus Development Cor-poration. No longer did you have toworry about ASCII or DIF filesbecause spreadsheet capabilities andgraphics shared the same file struc-ture; no intermediary file interfacingwas required. There can be somedrawbacks when your information-management system requires data-base management in addition tospreadsheet and/or graphics pro-grams.

Database management is a unique

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

199

lFwtet:

lines 1-4

Line II

4 Stvtuf ti»jl

5 Eriiaf tine: ■:( tows: ___

7 ¥iaish»rCTTs:

HUSK'. .

11 FUiskTETs:

Line 13

12 StartiM tint:

13 &W*

I Line 14

1( Starting tiw: ■:»■17 Ending tine: WKHIIt burs: _____1 19 nffiy aits:

Photo 1: Production-run information that is input and stored in a database record.

and very important piece of the in-formation-management system. Adatabase manager should give youtotal control of your data from startto finish. Data validation should bedone upon entry, and full selectionand retrieval of specific subgroups ofinformation are musts. Form andreport generators should be full-fea-tured to make output of stored andmanipulated data simple. Large filesas well as multiple-file interactionshould be accommodated.

The Complete System

The complete information-manage-ment system consists of four parts:database management, electronicspreadsheet, graphics, and word pro-cessing. Most business and officeinformation-management systems in-clude all of these to some degree.

The database-management pro-gram becomes the starting point. Allcurrent information is entered intothe user's database. This informationmight include sales or invoicing in-formation as it occurs, and each timea transaction (such as a sale) occurs,the new information is entered andaccumulated. A business managerthen uses this information to gener-ate sales and commission reports.Selected information can be sum-marized by salesmen and then usedby the spreadsheet program to pro-ject future period sales. Past, present,

and future information is compiled,summarized, and used for decisions.Graphics can be generated on screenor paper to make past, present, andfuture comparisons easier. Sum-marized information, graphs, andprojections can then be included inend-of-period reports provided bythe word-processing program. Theword processor inserts these figures

The completeinformation-management systemconsists of a database

manager, aspreadsheet, graphics,and a word processor.

and graphs into a template reportand surrounds them with text. Fromproject start to finish, user interven-tion is not required. And because thisproject is done at regular intervals,the information-management systemjust repeats the report's last pro-cedure to generate the next one. Thisis a good overview of a completeinformation-management system.The problem is coming up with adata structure that maximizes hard-ware and software efficiencies. Ashort discussion is provided in "TheData-Interchange Dilemma" text boxon page 203.

System Components

We can divide our complete infor-mation-management system into fourareas: ease of use, full-featured pro-grams, integration and project-pro-cessing capabilities, and technicalfeature strength. "Ease of use" and"user-friendly" are perhaps the mostoverused and nebulous terms in theindustry. Their importance as con-cepts cannot be underrated, however,because more and more computerneophytes are operating microcom-puters. First, then, to be easy to use,software must offer help optionsthroughout. No matter what is on thescreen, a designated key will provideuseful information. This might be ac-complished by using two levels ofhelp—the first an abbreviated ex-planation, and the second level amore in-depth explanation.

Second, both help and system fea-tures should be divided into con-fidence levels. When you are juststarting to work with a system, com-plicated features should not even ap-pear on the menu. As your familiari-ty and confidence increase, more fea-tures can be accessed, and you movefrom foundation commands and fea-tures to the program's intricacies astep at a time.

Third, users should be able tocreate custom menus for their ownapplications. This is particularly im-portant because it coincides with theintegration and project-processingcapabilities explained later. Custommenus allow you to define and nameprojects and tasks. This way, novicecomputer operators are able tochoose between "End of period pro-cessing" and "Select and send past-due letters" without ever having toknow what a spreadsheet or databasemanager really is. Whole projectsmay be predefined and executedusing custom menus.

The second area of the complete in-formation-management system isthat of full-featured programs. Eachof the four main programs (databasemanager, spreadsheet, graphics, andword processor) should be able tostand alone as a competitive state-of-the-art program. When integratedwith another or with the remainingthree, the result is an even more

200 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 247 on inquiry card.

THE BEST

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WHICH PROJECT P

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Figure 1: Process sequence and reports generated by "End-of-run full project" described in text.

powerful combination of features, thewhole being a better system than justthe sum of its parts. It is importantto note that using only one or two ofthe four programs does not limit thatprogram's capabilities. This alsoallows you to grow with the systemas your needs and finances permit.

The third area is the key—the levelof program integration and project-processing capabilities. Project pro-cessing is to all present information-management systems as a robotwelding system is to a butane torch.Both get the job done, but both thebutane torch and current integratedinformation-management systems re-quire repetitive user intervention.Project processing is like the robotwelding system. It may do a numberof intricate tasks, in the order inwhich it was instructed, quickly andwithout outside intervention.

For instance, let's say your com-pany manufactures six models of

diesel generators. Each time youfinish with a production run, a pro-ductivity report is required. As eachday of the production run is com-pleted, the hours and amount ofmaterials are entered into the data-base as shown in photo 1. You canthen begin the productivity report.You have defined custom menus likethe one that follows:

Babcock Diesel Generators

Production Department

Project Menu

L = Production report line only

P = Production report by product

onlyE = End-of-run full projectG = Go home and sack out

so that inexperienced personnel cancomplete the project.

For this project, you choose the"End-of-run full project." The datamanager is loaded and you are

The Data-Interchange Dilemma

by Mark Callegari and Brian O'Connor

The Problem

One man's heaven is another man's hell.This phrase correctly describes the problemof data interchange among various applica-tion programs. The crux of the problem isthat each type of application requires aunique type of data structure to operate atmaximum efficiency. Unfortunately, themore unique the data structures, theharder it is to exchange data. This isanalogous to the problems of people withdifferent abilities who must work together.For example, let's say you have program-mers, engineers, accountants, and productmanagers who specialize in each of theirrespective areas. The problem occurs whena project requires the interaction of two ormore of these groups. Although each per-son is competent in a given field, some pro-ficiency in the other fields is needed for asuccessful project. If we substitute thoseworkers' unique abilities for our program'sunique data structures, we can see that theproblem of information flow exists in bothareas.

In a totally integrated system at least fourdifferent types of structures exist.

Database Structure

The data in a database can be brokendown into fields, records, and files, andeach component has its associated attri-butes. Fields have field length and fieldtype associated with them. Records haverecord length, and files have variousheader information stored with them.These attributes are used to describe thedata, and without them the raw data onthe disk would be useless. Various otherfiles are associated with a database that in-cludes those used for key fields or sub-groups of the database. As you can see,many interrelated components make up theactual data in a database.

Spreadsheet Structure

A spreadsheet's structure is quite a bitdifferent than that of a database. Here, eachindividual cell has one or more associatedattributes. These describe whether the cellis calculated or contains data, whether itis alphanumeric or numeric, how manydigits of precision to use, whether a dollarsign or percent sign is to be used, and soon. The database, on the other hand, hasattributes associated only with an entiregroup of cells, which are fields.

Word Processor Structure

A word processor's structure is morecomplex than either a database or a spread-sheet. Here, we no longer have repeatinggroups like records in a database or rowsand columns in a spreadsheet. A documentcreated by a word processor is divided intothree basic components: the character, theparagraph, and the document itself. On thenew generation of word processors, eachcharacter has an associated font, size, andposition (subscript or superscript). Eachparagraph has associated margins, spacingand justification. And, finally, the entiredocument has associated page controls,header and footer information, and page-size information.

A word processor also must be able tointegrate two foreign types of data. Theseinclude graphic files for embedding imagesin a document and ASCII (American Na-tional Standard Code for Information In-terchange) files for merging data from otherprograms for form-letter and other similarapplications. The more difficult of thesetwo is the graphic file. Because a graphicimage can be any size and appear anywherein the document, the program must per-form certain transformations to ensure thatthe image is legible. Printing the graph isnot necessarily difficult since the wholedocument must be printed as a graphicimage anyway. This is the only way tochange the font and size of the characters.

Graphics Structure

There are several ways to exchangegraphic information, including using a bitmap of the image and using a graphics lan-guage to recreate the image. The simplerof these two is the bit-map representation.Using this technique, a series of bits makesup the image, with each pixel (picture ele-ment) consisting of one or more bits. If onebit is used for every pixel, then you canmake that pixel either on or off. If you usetwo or more bits for each pixel, then youcan either associate a color or a gray scalewith each pixel. A typical graphic imageconsists of 640 pixels per line by 200 pix-els per row. This method is the easiestto reproduce, but it takes up great amountsof storage space; the preceding example re-quires 16K bytes of storage. If we increaseresolution to 1024 by 1024, our storage re-quirements will be almost 132K bytes.

An alternative to bit mapping is a graph-

ics language. Here, you use a series of com-mands to recreate the graphic images asthey are translated. This shrinks file sizesfor high-density images but increases pro-cessing time and code requirements.

Diverse Data-Structure Problems

As we have seen, a wide range of datastructures need to somehow be communi-cated if we are to have an integratedsystem. One way is to try to use one struc-ture for several applications. Lotus chosethis method when designing 1-2-3. Thecompany designed a spreadsheet and addeda database manager that uses the spread-sheet's structure. This simplifies writingthe program but limits the database's speci-fications to those of the spreadsheet. Us-ing our original analogy, this might becompared to giving an engineer's job to anaccountant. Although the accountantcould interact easily with the accountingdepartment, his engineering skills wouldbe limited.

Innovative Software has chosen to han-dle integration by enabling each applica-tion to use a structure that is most naturalto it. Specialization of resources is as im-portant in software as in manufacturing.If you are striving for maximum efficien-cy, each piece of the integrated system mustbe able to use data structures that suit theintended functions. This has several majoradvantages. First, it maximizes the speedof each application. Second, it maximizesthe storage efficiency of each application.Lastly, it isolates each application fromanother.

But there are some drawbacks to thistype of integration. It increases the com-plexity of program design, and there is apossibility that the program will be morecomplicated to use. Both of these objectionsare up to the program designer to solve.If they can be solved, the user gets the bestprogram available.m

Mark Callegari is vice-president of InnovativeSoftware Inc. (9300 West 110 St., Suite 380,Overland Park, KS 66210). He holds degrees inmanagement and computer science from Rock-hurst College, and his interests include radio-controlled helicopters, karate, and computers.

Brian O'Connor is director of programmingat Innovative Software. He has a B.S. degree incomputer science from Rockhurst College and isinterested in playing Softball, the guitar, andgourmet chef.

December 1983 © BYTE Publicadons Inc.

203

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Photo 2: Summarized production information extracted from the database and used by thespreadsheet for comparisons and projections.

Photo 3: An example of merge-print word processing; a portion of the production spreadsheethas been inserted within the text of this production report.

prompted for which run number youwish to get the reports on. The datamanager automatically selects the in-formation you request from an entiredatabase of daily product/runrecords. This information generatesa tabular production report by day.When finished, the run informationis summarized by production lineand another report is generated. Thisinformation is held temporarily ondisk, and the spreadsheet automati-cally reads the temporary spread-

sheet form. The spreadsheet beginsyour productivity analysis by line andoutputs a control report. Thesefigures are compared with the lastrun's productivity figures, and pro-jections are made based on the dif-ferential. These figures are printed ina control report. Project flow is illus-trated in photo 1. A portion of thisspreadsheet is shown in photo 2.

The spreadsheet now calls thegraphic function, and productivitycharts are generated (photo 3).

204 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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An Integrated System Implementation

Innovative Software believes that thesystem should take advantage of currenttechnology, so it provides for use of an op-tional 8087 arithmetic processor, a mouse,and large amounts of RAM. Additional-ly, it employs multiple windowing and fullproject-execution capability. The 8087 chipis extremely handy in the spreadsheet anddatabase where large amounts of numericalprocessing take place. The mouse speedsediting of both the word processor andspreadsheet. As only a small number ofprograms presently take advantage of thelarge RAM-addressing capabilities of the8086/8088, Innovative's system uses thelarge amounts of RAM that are being soldin current systems. Windowing allowsseveral files to be seen and edited on thescreen at the same time, or one file can beviewed from several different perspectives.

Project execution is the ability of one pro-gram to execute a series of tasks and thentransfer control to another program to con-tinue executing more tasks. As each taskis completed, the project executor deter-mines whether any errors have occurred,provides error messages if required, andcontinues with the next task. The projectexecutor can transfer control amongvarious sections of one application or to acompletely different application program.

The language we used is C; portabilityand code efficiency dictated this choice.Where even higher efficiency and speed areneeded, we used assembly language.Because of these choices, the system is veryfast and is easily ported to other machines.

The total system consists of four basicparts: a database, spreadsheet graphics,word processing, and system utilities.These will be explored individually.

The Database

The database is the key component of the

entire system. It must be very powerful tohandle the full complement of businessneeds. Our database includes the follow-ing specifications:

1) 255 fields per record

2) 12 field types with range checkingand validation

3) Multiple screen layouts for each file

4) Over 100,000 records per file

5) Compaction of data on the disk

6) B-tree organization of key fields

7) Multilevel password protection

8) Complex equations, including IFTHEN-ELSE structures

9) Windows allowing multiple files onthe screen

10) Project-execution capability

11) Custom programming language

12) User-definable menus

We feel that these specifications make oursystem more than adequate to handle mostbusiness applications. The underlying datastructure consists of a file containing vari-able-length records with an index file point-ing to each record. When records are added,the program checks to see if there is anyopen space in the file. If not, records areconcatenated to the end of the file. If arecord is updated, the program first checksto see if there is room to write the updatedrecord in the old space. If not, the updatedrecord is placed at the end of the file andthe empty space is made available for lateruse.

B-trees are used for key-field organiza-tion, although a sort/merge utility is avail-able for temporary organizations. B-treesenable the program to insert new or up-dated data or find old data very quickly.

The calculated fields use the same basicparser that is in the spreadsheet. This givesthe program the ability to do conditionallookups (IF-THEN-ELSE, CASE,

SELECT, etc.), transcendental functions(sine, cosine, etc.), business junctions suchus NPV (net present value) and IRR (in-ternal rate of return), as well as many otherstandard functions such as ROUND, IN-TEGER, etc. Selection of records forreports, lists, or forms can use the samebasic parser using the AND, OR, andNOT operators combined with parentheses.

The program output can be directed tothe form generator, the report generator,or the list generator. The form generatorenables you to place fields anywhere on thescreen, optionally include titles, read frommultiple files, do conditional page breaks,calculate new fields, and put text anywhereon the page. You can create custom formsor print on existing forms such as invoices.The Report and List commands are reallypreprocessors to the form generator, elim-inating much of the overhead associatedwith designing standard layouts.

The database accepts many types of filesinto its internal data structure. As a result,you can transfer data from other programswithout having to rekey large amounts ofdata.

The Spreadsheet

Designing a spreadsheet becomes moreart than science. A spreadsheet must han-dle large amounts of data in many differentformats while performing many differentcommands. In addition to the standard fea-tures found in most packages, our spread-sheet contains the following features:multiple windows, built-in command lan-guage, interrelation of multiple spread-sheets, project-execution capability, context-sensitive help, and an efficient "sparse-matrix" data structure.

Perhaps the most interesting feature ofthe spreadsheet is the sparse-matrix datastructure. In most spreadsheets, data space

The figures and the associatedchart are saved for integration withthe word processor. The word pro-cessor is automatically loaded, andthe tables of figures and productivi-ty graph are neatly inserted into theproper pieces of the boiler-plate pro-duction report and printed on a high-quality printer.

This is what project processing isall about. Starting with accumulatedinformation in the database manager,information is summarized, printed,

projected, graphed, and included inword-processing documents withoutany additional intermediary userinterplay.

The last area in the total informa-tion-management system incorpo-rates technical features such as power-ful arithmetic capabilities for spread-sheet number crunching, summari-zations in the database, and graphgeneration. The system should alsotake advantage of large amounts ofinexpensive RAM (random-access

read/write memory). Additionally, in-dividual systems' screen and tech-nical specialties should be exploited.The most efficient and quick datastructures should be used for each in-dividual program. Examples includeB-trees for the database and sparse-matrix structures for the spreadsheet.Lastly, the entire system should beoperating-system transportable.

The Innovative Software System

Innovative Software's complete

206 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 101 on inquiry card.

is allocated for each cell even if it is empty.Therefore, if you put a number in row 50,column 10, the program allocates 500 cellsworth of memory. This is a waste if youconsider that on a large model many cellsare left blank to make things more readable.The sparse-matrix type of data structureeliminates this problem by using only asmuch space as needed—at the expense ofprogram design complexity. In the sparse-matrix technique, swapping two rows ina work sheet is no longer a matter of swap-ping two blocks of memory. On large worksheets the memory savings is especiallyworth the effort. You can typically havework sheets two to five times larger thanprograms that simply allocate blocks ofmemory.

The graphics capability is built into thespreadsheet program. It also can be calledduring project execution. Some of the fea-tures included are three-dimensional barand pie charts, multiple fonts, histograms,and a slide-show capability.

The Word Processor

The word processor is the most uniqueprogram of the system. It contains manyfeatures found only in dedicated word pro-cessors. Some of the features include:

•Attributes shown on screen (underline,

bold, etc.)'Multiple windows•Multiple fonts and sizes•Flying reform•On-screen math capabilities•Ability to include graphics in a

document

•Project-execution capability•Context-sensitive help

Each character is stored as a 2-byte in-teger. The lower 7 bits of the integer areused to store the character. The upper 9 bits

are used to store the character's attribute,font, size, and other pertinent information.When you move a character, the font andsize follow it to its new location. If you donot have graphics capabilities, you may op-tionally display the fonts using specialcharacter attributes such as color orintensity.

A graph from the graphics program canalso be included in the document. A win-dow in the text is defined in the documentwhere the graph will appear at print time.During printing, the word processor readsa plot file saved from the graphics programand recreates the picture to fit the size ofthe window. This plot file contains all theinformation to recreate the picture, includ-ing different fonts, colors, and shapes.

Flying reform is the process of keepinga document always formatted the way youhave defined it. Many word processors havea manual Reform key to clean up a para-graph after you have made insertions anddeletions. The flying reform does this jobfor you. Every time you insert or delete aletter, the paragraph stays formatted.

System Utilities

The system utilities contain many usefulcommands. For example, a calculator utili-ty handles either standard or RPN (reversePolish notation) data entry. It handlesequations with embedded parentheses upto 255 characters long with full cursorediting. It also contains three memory loca-tions and can output answers in binary,hexadecimal, and octal as well as decimal.

Other system utilities include file-directory, file-copy, file-rename, file-delete,and other operating-system commands.

information-management systemconsists of the three previously men-tioned products: a database manager,a spreadsheet/graphics product, anda word processor. All three have abuilt-in command or task processorthat will allow a series of tasks to bedone in series without user interven-tion. If two or more parts of the sys-tem are used, these command pro-cessors can initiate sequences of com-mands from the other command pro-cessors) allowing truly integrated

project processing. For details, see"An Integrated System Implementa-tion" text box on page 206. ■

Author's Note:

Research in the areas of data structures, integra-tion, and project processing was done by RogerSchroff, University of Southern Maine.

Michael J. Brown is president of Innovative Soft-ware (9300 West 110 St., Suite 380, Overland Park,KS 66210).

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(The Computer For People WhoLove Money)

We made a deal with the manufacturer. Hesells us thousands of new computers,without the nationally advertised label. Wecall them a much better name, and sell themfor a fraction of the retail price to you.

The "TCFPWLM" computer is guaranteed tobe exactly the same complete computersystem you can buy in any leading retailstore right now for $2195 to $2495. Thesearen't seconds, rejects or last year's models.But they are overpriced because of all thosemark-ups. People Who Love Money can buythe same computer from us for $1777. Asavings of $418 to $718. But that's not theonly reason to buy one.

THE IDEAL COMPUTER FOR THEONE MAN BAND. (OR THECONSULTANT. THE WRITER. THESMALL BUSINESS. AND THEHOME.)

Everything you need is included for $1777:A Computer, Printer, Display screen. Adevice that lets the machine communicatewith other computers by telephone. Acomplete software library. Detachablekeyboard. Dual floppy disk drives. Allexquisitely built in one compacttransportable unit.

For the first time, one ingenious system letsyou conveniently and effortlessly workwithout a desk full of bulky equipment.Because it weighs only 33 lbs, you can take

it anywhere. It's ideal for the small business.

MADE FOR PEOPLE WHO HATECOMPUTER STORES

Ever tried shopping for a computer? It's acolossal waste of time and can take weeks, ifnot months to wade through the myriad ofproducts, ambiguous sales pitches andunfamiliar jargon. But let's say you shoppedyour brains out at a store. Here are the bestprices you could possibly get for the sameequipment that comes standard in"TCFPWLM":

Correspondence quality Dot Matrix Printer: $400Accoustical Coupler and Telephone Modem: 300Two Double Density Disk Drives: 500

Complete 64K CP/M computer: 550

Detachable keyboard: 200

PLUS, a library of top rated business andhome management software programs: 2,800

TOTAL SYSTEMS PRICE $ 4,750

And that's if you shopped like a maniac. Youstill have to put it all together. And youhave a mess of components instead of aprofessionally integrated system. And anyprofessionally integrated system starts at$3,500 and goes up and up and up. (Don'tyou value your time?)

THE BIG NAME BRANDS HAVEBEEN MAKING A HUGE PROFITFROM SELLING EVEN BIGGERNAMES. PEOPLE WHO LOVEMONEY KNOW WHICH NAMES TOBUY.

IBM, Apple, Radio Shack, TexasInstruments, Kaypro, and every micro-computer made today is a collection of partsmade by much bigger names.

For example: Zilog makes themicroprocessor inside Kaypro, Eagle, Altosand DEC. It's the same one we use.

The power supply inside the famous AppleComputer is made by the samemanufacturer that makes ours.

The keyboard is made by Stackpole, thefirm that makes Texas Instruments' andHewlett-Packard's. Ditto for ours.

Even many of IBM's electronic componentsand integrated circuits are identical to oursbecause we both buy from the same bigname manufacturer.

Same with our Display Monitor. It's the

same one used by Compaq and Texas

Instruments.

The printer is an Epson. The world leader.

Of course you see the point: Not only will

you be buying a computer at a better price,you'll be assured that all the quality com-ponents inside 'TCFPWLM" come from theworld's leading big-name manufacturers.

(And you thought those other computercompanies made it all. They're just moreexpensive boxes, with far less features).

The Computer For People Who Love Moneyis for you.

WHAT GOOD IS A COMPUTERUNLESS IT WILL DO THINGSFASTER AND EASIER WITHOUT ALOT OF TECHNICAL MUMBOJUMBO?

Why have a wonderful computer system likethis, and not be totally enthralled with it?

It would be a waste. And we're not inbusiness to waste anyone's time. . . least ofall ours. So we're including a comprehensivelibrary of #1 Rated, extremely easy-to-usesoftware programs— Free! (The same stuffcosts $2,800 if you buy it at a store). Take alook at what you can do:

IN YOUR OFFICE, IT WILL DOMORE FOR YOU THAN MUCHLARGER, COSTLIER COMPUTERS.

Now writing, editing, formating andprinting of any document can be simpleand quick. And its "spelling checker" with adictionary of more than 50,000 words,conveniently points out typing errors.

You can draft letters, long documents,contracts or tables, all for rapid editing.Organize mass mailings, create invoices,print labels too.

Build computerized records on clients andcustomers for immediate access. Enter dataonly once, eliminating file drawers and,once and for all, the search for missingpapers. When you create invoices,statements, form letters — whatever — thecomputer recalls the information instantlywith a pressof a button.

You can have several spreadsheets inmemory at the same time, working togetherand sharing data for business projections.Two spreadsheets can be on the screen at thesame time so you can compare "what is" to"what if?"

You'll be able to immediately use any of the16 built-in business and financial programs,such as: Cashflow Assessment, AccountsReceivable and Payable; Income Statements;Net Worth; Stock Portfolio Evaluation andmany more.

/ERSATILITY AT HOME.

Take it home, where its ease of use makes iti wonderful educational tool for the family.\r\ aid to home budgeting, checkbook>alancing, and record keeping. It's like\aving a private secretary handle everythingrom writing out checks to answering the)hone if you want. The Computer For?eople Who Love Money will do it all!We admit this may sound too fantastic to)e true. But it really does everything we say,md much more. That's why it makes sonuch sense to own one).

rHERE'S NO OTHER COMPUTERJO WELL SUITED FOR THEEXECUTIVE ON THE MOVE.

(bu can work more productively wherever'ou are, phoning results back to the office>ver the built-in telephone modem. Sincehe entire system weighs only 33 lbs, itsompletely transportable and very durable,"ake it anywhere, anytime and have thevorld at your fingertips. You can get up-to-he minute stock reports, news updateslirect from the wire services and tap intohe largest collection of information data inhe world via The Source, America'snformation Utility. A one-year'subscription is included as our gift.

:HE BEGINNER HAS NOTHING TOEAR. AND THE EXPERT WILLtEVEL IN ITS VERSATILITY.

)on't worry about learning how to use youromputer. We thought of everything.

Vhen you receive your new computer, allou have to do is take it out of the factory-?aled box, plug it in, and follow the step-y-step instructions written in plain English, f\ any time, if you get stuck while workingn any of our software programs, typerielp" and the answers will appear on the:reen. Or you can call our 800 Toll Freelot Line and get an expert to walk youirough any problem you might encounter.

du'11 also get a training guide andissette tape.

irst-time users who have never had theirands on a computer before can be typingway with confidence in about an hour. Youin go back at any time for a quickfresher or train a new person in yourfice without spending your valuable time,s simple, fun, and thoroughly thoughtJt.

/HAT'S THE CATCH?

here is no catch. It's competition. . . hardid true. We're out to cut the cost ofimputers. It's that simple. And you can bee beneficiary.

are. The Computer For People Who Love!oney won't do color graphics. But you'rebusiness, not art school. And no, it's not■M compatible. But its CP/M operatingstem is from Digital Research Inc., theost widely used computer operatingstem in the world, with more than 3,000fferent software programs in use inindreds of thousands of computers world-ide.

won't iron shirts, improve your golf game■ mix a dry martini. But it will give youspendable hardware and software toindie virutally ever personal or business'.ed for years.

nd there is no risk to you.

WE INSIST ON YOUR COMPLETESATISFACTION.

$1777 is an incredibly low price. But weknow we must make a believer out of you.First, you'll get a 15 dayUNCONDITIONAL MONEY-BACKGUARANTEE. Return everything in itsoriginal shipping box unharmed and youwill receive a full refund.

Second, if anything goes wrong during thefirst 90 days we'll fix it free, as long as ithasn't been misused. Send it back to ourservice center. We pay postage both ways.We promise to correct the problem within48 hours of receipt, or call you if wehave a question.

Third, a nationwide service contract is beingoffered to protect your computer for oneyear or longer. Details will be clearly spelledout for your review when you receive yourcomputer. You don't have to decide if youwant it now. Very few of these computersever need repairs, but if you want extraprotection, it's available.

Finally, our toll-free 800 Hot Line expertsare standing by to help. They speak plainEnglish, too.

A FINAL NOTE

We are totally convinced this is the bestproduct on the market today. Clearly, thereis no other computer so capable, sopractical, so very affordable. . . and soportable.

$

1777

includes all this:

• Z-80A Main Processor

• 64K User RAM

• 5 Microprocessor;

• CP/M 2.2 operatingsystem

• 7" Amber adjustableDisplay, 80 charactersX 25 lines

• Detachable Keyboardwith 3-foot coiled cord

• 15 function keys withnumeric keypad

• Also functions asElectronic typewriter

« 80 Characters persecond bi-directionalimpact dot matrixprinter with Graphicscapability

•Two 5V»" doubledensity Disk Drives

• 360K bytes diskmemory

• Acoustical Coupler andDirect-Connect Modem

• Two RS232C Ports

• Real Time Clock

ORDENOW

Application Softwareincluded:

• Perfect Writer:Powerful, easy to useword processor

• Perfect Speller:Automatic spellingchecker program with50,000 word dictionary

• Perfect Calc: advancedspreadsheet andfinancial modeler

• Perfect Filer: High-performance datamanagement system

• Fancy Font: A variety oftype styles and sizes

• Money Maestro: Homeaccounting andfinancial record-keeping

• Personal Pearl: Database informationmanager

• M Basic and C Basic:Programminglanguages

• The Source: America'sinformation utility

• Built-in diskette Storage

• Modular Servicing

• Size: 16-1/8" wide X10" high X 10-13/16"deep

• Weight: 33 lbs

• Instruction manuals &training cassette tapes

• 15 day money-backguarantee

• 90 day service warranty

• 1-year optional servicecontract

• Toll Free 800 ServiceHot Line

Call Toll Free 24 Hours800-824-7888, ext. 356

800-824-7919, ext. 356Alaska and Hawaii Only

TRY THIS COMPLETE COMPUTERSYSTEM RISK FREE

To order The Computer For People WhoLove Money risk free with your credit card,call toll free or send your check or moneyorder for $1777. Postage and handling isincluded. NV residents add 5Vt% sales tax.(If you're in a big hurry, add $49 and we'llship airfreight immediately). All otherorders allow ten days to two weeks.

M*P*S Distributors, Inc. 1105 TerminalWay, Suite 202, Reno, NV 89502

Perfect Writer, Perfect Speller. Perfect Filer, Perfect Calc. and Perfect Software are registered trademarks of Perfect Software, Inc. CP/M and C Basic are registeredtrademarks of Digital Research, Inc. Fancy Font is a registered trademark of Softcraft, Inc. M Basic is a registered trademark of Microsoft, Inc. Money Maestro is aregistered trademark of InnoSys, Inc. Personal Pearl is a registered trademark of PEARLSOFT. THE SOURCE is a service mark of Source Telecomputing Corporation,a subsidiary of The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. Apple is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. IBM is a registered trademark of International BusinessMachines Corporation. DEC is a registered trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation. Altos is a registered trademark of Altos Computer Systems. Epson is aregistered trademark of Epson America, Inc. Compaq is a registered trademark of COMPAQ Computer Corporation. Kaypro is a registered trademark of Non-LinearSystems, Inc. Eagle is a registered trademark of Eagle Computer, Inc. Zilog is a trade name of Zilog, Inc. Radio Shack is a registered trademark, a division of TandyCorporation. Texas Instruments is a registered trademark of Texas Instruments, Inc. Hewlett-Packard is a registered trademark of Hewlett-Packard Company. TheComputer For People Who Love Money and TCFPWLM are service marks of M'P'S Distributors, Inc.

The Allegory of Software

Beyond, behind, and beneath the electronic desk

by Tom Houston

People, like computers, process informa-tion, using languages to encode and com-municate the meanings of things. In ourspeech and in our ideas about the world,we are the inheritors of cultural traditionswhose continuity can be traced backwardto prehistory. For a few human endeavors,such as hunting or food preparation, theantiquity of our ideas and symbols is nohandicap, because we do some things inpretty much the same way as ourancestors.

We do other things that they neverdreamed of, but in our habits of thoughtand language we prefer to reuse old terms,coining new words only as a last resort.A diesel vehicle might be "driven" by a"teamster," though no nosebag of oatsawaits his horsepower. He is directed intraffic by left- and right-pointing "ar-rows," though today only aborigines andanthropologists make stone projectilepoints. Most English words have morethan one meaning because there are morethings than words. Recycling old symbolsto denote new things reduces the need tolearn new words, enabling people to getby with small active vocabularies. Mostnew meanings are acquired throughanalogy: some similarity is asserted be-tween an established meaning of a wordand a new notion that needs to be givena name.

In the very broadest sense, computersdo the same thing that other tools likearrows and diesel engines do: theyamplify the power of our fingers. Butcomputers do things in ways so differentthat analogies with older technologies are

often not at all obvious. Proof of this isthat the first few decades of the age ofcomputers produced far moreneologisms—previously nonexistentwords such as "byte," "software," and"multiuser'—than other arts like arrowmaking or truck driving had required intheir longer histories.

This concerned no one when a com-puter cost many times the price of a truck.In those days the few people who had tointeract with computers tended to be anintellectual elite, people with big vocab-ularies who were comfortable with whatlaymen rightly regarded as esotericterminology.

Suddenly, in the late 1970s, everythingbegan to change, so that today the situa-tion is reversed: the average truck costsmany times the price of the average com-puter. Truck drivers, their spouses,children, and other people take smallervocabularies to the computer console. Theword "friendly" has a new, bitterly anti-technical meaning, and manufacturersand software publishers who hope to leadin the computerization of the home andworkplace hasten to translate the specialvocabulary of data processing into thevernacular.

This is an admirable, democratic, andperhaps profitable undertaking, but aswith other matters that affect our life andculture, anything worth doing is worthdoing right. One natural alternative tothe engineering jargon and acronyms ofthe past is the use of metaphor; the un-familiar procedures and tools of informa-tion processing are mapped onto an ac-

tivity that is already familiar to the user.Are some systems of metaphor or analogysuperior to others? Certainly yes, if by"superior" we mean a choice of symbolismthat speeds learning and makes it easierfor the novice or scatterbrained user toremember how to use a computer in a waythat increases his or her productivity.Consider the "electronic desk" metaphorof Apple's Lisa: most people with Lisasknow what a desk is and what people doat desks.

Are some systems of metaphor lesssuitable? Yes, and most are much worse.Infinities of mathematical isomorphismscan be used to map anything ontoanything else. Computer operations, forexample, closely parallel certain metabolicprocesses of the giant squid, but this isan unhelpful metaphor for people un-familiar with giant squids (see figure 1).In contrast, the legend on a light switch("ON," "OFF") describes the two statesof a circuit breaker in terms of a spatialmetaphor that Beowulf could have quick-ly grasped, had he been able to read.

Yet there is something disquieting aboutLisa's desk metaphor. If the computer isgoing to revolutionize the white-collarworkstation, then the primitive deskdescribed by the Lisa screen icons maysoon be unrecognizable to business users.Fortunately, other metaphors are availablethat the poets and marketing typesresponsible for maintaining computersymbolism might find more useful, sym-bols drawn from fixed and unchangingaspects of our lives and culture. Severalof these are proposed below.

210 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

CONPUTERASSISTEDDESIGN

GRAPHICS

CRITICALPATH

ANALYSIS

TYPINGPOOL

ACCOUNTSRECEIVABLE

INVENTORY CONTROL

Figure 1: The inappropriate giant-squid metaphor.

Everyone who eats will appreciatethe universal symbolism of theDigital Kitchen, based upon thestriking similarities between informa-tion processing and food processing.Here the Refrigerator icon accessesremovable disk storage, and theFreezer sends files to and from thehard disk. Selecting the Recipe Bookicon provides Help files, and each ofthe six Burner symbols on the Stoveoffers a different delicious way ofcooking one's data—word processing,spreadsheet, inventory control, data-base management, statistical pack-age, and report generator, each codedwith a different on-screen color andby the olfactory signals of an AromaSynthesizer.

The little Telephone icon providesmodem communications, and theOpen Window activates the networkcontroller for access to neighboringsystems. Graphics work is accom-plished through the Cake DecoratingKit icon, and various system utilitiesare accessed through the Spice Rack.

Floppy disks are formatted by select-ing the Dish Washer, and the littleGarbage Disposal symbol gives theerase command. The Flyswatterloads a debugging tool, and the Ovensymbolizes compiler and interpre-ters—what language is indicatedmnemonically by the type of cuisineselected (American for BASIC,

The Digital Kitchen

analogizes information

processing and food

processing.

Chinese for COBOL, French forFORTRAN, Italian for InterpretedBASIC, etc.).

For dual processor systems, the"COLD" and "HOT" faucets of theKitchen Sink icon choose between8-bit and 16-bit CPUs. A Potholder isused to direct the cursor to any of theabove symbols. Note that this icono-graphy avoids nontraditional kitchenitems such as trash compactors,

smoke detectors, bacon flatteners,and electric can openers, whichmight become obsolete or may notyet be familiar to some users outsidethe United States.

Some may regard the system ofmetaphors given above as excessive-ly domestic and inconsistent with theprestige and power of an executiveconsole. In recognition of the fact thatmany hard-hitting businesspersonsrarely go home, we propose as analternative the Electronic CocktailLounge. Rather than clutter thescreen with gadgets whose real-world functions top-level executivesleave to their staff, this system ofsymbols depicts a bar in which eachsoftware function is personified byicons of a Waitress (the Help menu),a Bartender (operating-system com-mands), and various Patrons.

The Patrons represent the applica-tions programs available to the user:a Bookkeeper, with a distinctivegreen eyeshade, represents account-

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 211

ing software; a Bookmaker, with aloud tie, signifies spreadsheets; an ef-ficient Secretary selects word pro-cessing; an exotic foreign Linguiststands for programming languages;an Artist, in beret and smock, doesgraphics work; a Security Officer, infull uniform, puts passwords on filesand devices; a burly Warehousemanhandles mass storage; a prim Lib-rarian performs archival functions; aMiddle Manager, in a three-piecesuit, stands ready to provide data-base management; and a friendlyBouncer will 86 unwanted files. Thecursor is directed with a SwizzleStick. Less expensive systems wouldoffer more sparsely populatedLounges, typically with a seedierclientele and no happy hour.

One difference between Lisa's elec-tronic desk and an ordinary desk isthat you can only hide a bottle insidea real drawer, but this CocktailLounge symbolism is likely to offendusers who agree that alcohol poison-ing is among the dominant factors inWestern history. Less controversial isa different metaphor, which depictsmore realistically how work getsdone in a real office. Called the Elec-tronic Secretary, it provides a numberof unique capabilities, such as pur-chasing thoughtful gifts for the user'sloved ones on anniversaries andbirthdays and using its voice syn-thesizer to provide convincing misin-formation on the user's whereabouts,via modem, to incoming calls frompersons listed in the IMNOTIN file.Its screen is not illustrated herebecause, apart from the cursor, ituses icons very similar to those of theLisa. ("Why reinvent the desk?" aspokesman asked rhetorically at theLisa Imitation, Simulation, andEmulation (LISE) trade show inKowloon last year.)

For vertical markets, the ElectronicElevator is an almost ideal image interms of its familiarity to officeworkers, its established design, andthe ease of drawing the array of cir-cular icons. Here each Floorrepresents an applications program,so the user only needs to knowwhere to get off. The Buttons repre-

senting each floor are selected bymoving a cursor, which is im-aginatively shaped like a finger.

Before desktop computers, CRTswere primarily instruments ofescapist entertainment, and thistraditional association can be ex-ploited by software imagery todramatize the Adventure of Data Pro-cessing (ADP). The icons create anElectronic Jungle, symbolizing thesalient features of a typical businessenvironment. The configurable cur-sor can be in the form of an Explorer,Adventuress, Apeman, Tribesman,or Field Representative, selectable bythe user. The dense Foliage (paper-work) can be cleared away by theMachete (word processor), by Fire(the erase command), or by the othermembers of the Safari (electronicmail). Behind some of the busheslurk dangerous Beasts (data files andcreditors), who can be subdued byspecialized software tools such asCages (mass storage), Nets (spread-sheets), and Firearms (database-management software). To "bring 'emback alive," your Backpack (directory)has Cameras (graphics packages) andTranquilizing Darts (reportgenerators). A Witch Doctor versionis available for medical applications.

A few readers may object that someof the metaphors proposed here arenot worth implementing because theactual resemblance between the iconsand the software functions that theysymbolize is farfetched, arbitrary,obscure, ludicrous, or counterin-tuitive. Opinions of this sort reveal aliteral-mindedness that shoulddelight in the Electronic ElectronicComputer (or EEC, as these arecalled in Europe). The on-screen im-age depicts a little Computer, com-plete with Keyboard, Screen, DiskDrives, Software, and TechnicalManuals. The Cursor, controlled bya "bug," is in the form of a cursor. Byusing this to press the keys on the lit-tle Keyboard, programs can be in-voked and systems commands given,just as on a real computer. Engineers,programmers, and other computerindustry professionals who are al-ready comfortable with pre-Lisa com-

puters are more likely than neo-phytes to prefer this iconography.Systems capable of concurrency canhave several EECs on the physicalscreen at once, each running a pro-gram as a virtual console. Pressingthe Help key on the Keyboard of thelittle Computer icon will cause aneven smaller Computer to appear onthe screen of the Computer icon,with helpful messages on the Screenof the Screen within a Screen.Systems with finite RAM are typical-ly incapable of infinite regress.

Although most readers of thismagazine tend to view the prolifera-tion of computers with equanimity orapproval and accept the computeriza-tion of the office as beneficial, othersfear or mistrust the new technologyand imagine that things were betterin the good old days. Traditionalistsmay prefer iconography based on themetaphor of the Low-Tech ElectronicStone Age (LESA), in which the cur-sor (called the Rock) is directed attargets representing different applica-tions software functions. The GiantParrot is a word processor; the Saber-tooth Cat invokes accounting soft-ware; the Woolly Mammoth is a bigspreadsheet; and the Cave providesboth mass storage and walls onwhich graphics work can be per-formed. Figure 2 exhibits theNeanderthal version, set in aPleistocene landscape. An Australo-pithecine version is designed fortechnological conservatives who ab-solutely dislike computers. The sameicons appear as in the illustration, butinstead of actually loading programs,their effect is to send gutteral com-mands to coworkers who rank lowerin the primate horde. While all thismay seem like a clumsy metaphor, itprovides more reassurance than amere desk to those who long for thebygone days when typewriters ruledthe earth.

All of these metaphors comparethe computer to things from the pre-sent or past. Because computersseem to have more of a future thanwe do, shouldn't we compare themto things to come? In a few years,when today's adolescents take their

212 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

CAVE

Figure 2: The low-tech electronic stone-age icons.

place in the office (or wherever theywill work, if any of them ever getjobs), surely their arcade training willhave prepared them not for thedrawers and papers of our quaintdesks, but for the joystick and firebutton of a Business Battlestation, il-lustrated in Figure 3. The cursor is thecrosshairs, and work tasks are shownas elements of the Enemy Fleet. After

all, who would want to process datawhen it's more fun to blast it? Thissymbolism offers users a chance touse strategy, tactics, and advancedweapons against files and deadlines.This metaphor of combat may at firstglance seem unbusinesslike, but ithas long motivated lawyers, coaches,soldiers, cinema heroes, and otherrugged individuals respected in our

ON®

o

OFF

DEBT RAY

culture. With a high-performancespacecraft and an arsenal of PhraserBeams (word processors), Debt Rays(accounting modules), Time Warp(scheduling utilities), and the like,these futuristic systems will quicklyrecover their development coststhrough the quarters inserted by theirusers.Naturally, rather sophisticated soft-

l9)@

(

SEAT BELTS

)

""▼ )

••••F I

\FU\EL

[Neut

Neutrino Torpedoes

^

FIRE

Figure 3: The business battlestation icons.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 213

ware will be required that can useful-ly process information by "blasting"it, but this is not the place to go intothe tedious coding details of next-generation "smart" programs thatcan be used by operators who haveno idea of what they are doing. Suf-fice it to say that these advancedroutines will identify the user's prob-lems and destroy them. Powerfulicon-driven software that combinesboth operating systems and applica-tions program functions may requiregreat effort to develop, even if theiconography is borrowed from exist-ing video games.

Conclusion

In this postindustrial age, computerliteracy is already linked to economic sur-vival. Our society may have no choice butto reallocate the resources that are nowdevoted to outmoded institutions like oureducational system and instead to developsoftware that will minimize the skillsnecessary to operate a computer. Like thesmall mammals that ultimately displacedthe dinosaurs, Lisa's mouse and visualimagery may be the first step toward of-

fice systems whose keyboard will devolveinto something more simplified, like alight-switch, and whose screen icon willinvoke a single program so versatile andso omniscient that it will not matterwhether the user can remember anything.

A "friendly" computer is easier to im-agine than to describe, but friendlinessclearly has something to do with sub-stituting symbols drawn from naturallanguage and ordinary life in place oftechnical terms in the dialogue betweenuser and computer. One celebrated at-tempt to make an advanced computerfriendly is found in the icon-driven in-tegrated software of Apple's Lisa, basedupon the metaphor of a desk. Becausedesks as we currently know them willsoon exist only in antique shops and Lisamanuals, this article has proposed anumber of alternative metaphors thatseem less subject to obsolescence. Theseseem more suitable for incorporating in-to school curricula or imitating in HongKong because they are based upon un-changing and eternal things: the kitchen,the tavern, the cave, the computer, andthe flying saucer.

Readers who currently have or who

will soon have a Lisa can take advantageof any or all of these suggestions, at leastregarding the names of the icons, becausethe Lisa software allows the user toreplace the standard icon names withuser-defined names, using the Lisa text-editing utility. If the metaphors recom-mended here or customized terms sup-plied by the user are substituted for the"electronic-desk" nomenclature, however,the printed manual provided by Applemay become less helpful. Readers who arecurrently developing integrated softwarepackages for commercial distribution areinvited to incorporate any or all of thesesuggestions into their iconography anddocumentation; we will regard as amplereward the satisfaction of advancing thestate of the art, and a royalty fee that ourlawyers can describe. ■

Tom Houston, Ph.D. (Gifford Computer Systems,POB 1917, San beandro, CA 94577) is an educa-tional psychologist and writer who has worked withsmall computers since 1976. Coauthor of the Gif-ford MP/M 8-16 User's Manual and of the Com-pupro Systems 816/A and 816/B User Guide, heedits the Gifford Observer, a multiuser CP/M andS-100 newsletter.

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Avocet Cross Assemblers areavailable to handle 8748, 8751,Z8, 6502, 680X, etc.Available for CP/M andMSDOS computers. Order byprocessor type and specifykind of computer.

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214 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 206 on inquiry card.

Prices subject to change without notice.

Circle 293 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983 215

SeeSoftware

Dick is a programmer. Dick is bored.Harried. Overworked. Dick struggleswith tedioustracechoresand

debuggingroutines. Non-existent documen-tation. Hidden bugs. Dickis four months behind scheduleas a result. And customers areangry when bugs slip through. Theyyell and make Dick upset. Theymake Dick's boss upset.Nobody is very happy.

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216 BYTE December 1983

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BYTE December 1983 217

The New Interface Technology

An Introduction to Windows and Mice

The new computer systems will be easier to use and moreproductive than their predecessors

A new breed of personal computerhardware and software is beginningto enter the marketplace. These sys-tems will be both easier to use andmore productive than their predeces-sors. People who are not computerexperts will feel comfortable usingthese personal computers in theirday-to-day work, and experiencedusers will make fewer errors.

This "new interface technology"encompasses developments in hard-ware and software that essentiallyreduce the number of things a usermust remember in order to use a sys-tem effectively. On the hardwareside, pointing devices such as mice,touchscreens, and high-resolutiongraphics displays simplify communi-cation between the user and the sys-tem. The software offers integration,multiple windows, and commandsissued by selection from menus usingthe pointing devices. The combina-tion of these features ensures that theusers can concentrate on how peoplework instead of on how computerswork.

Examples of the new technologycurrently or soon to be on the marketinclude hardware/software combina-tions such as Apple's Lisa andHewlett-Packard's 150 and softwaresuch as Visicorp's Visi On and Micro-soft's Windows.

History

How did all of this new technologycome about? Much of the work canbe attributed to Xerox PARC (PaloAlto Research Center) and its Learn-ing Research Group (LRG). But the

by Robert W. Warfield

seeds of the technology can be tracedfarther back to Douglas Englebart'swork on using computers to augmenthuman intelligence (reference 2). Itwas Englebart's group that first in-vented the now-familiar mouse andincorporated multiple windows intothe design of text editors. Englebart'swork is discussed in Ted Nelson's ex-cellent book, Computer Lib/Dream Ma-chines (Nelson is another visionarywho has been discussing the new in-

terface technology since long beforeit was a reality on any computer).

The work at Xerox PARC began in1971, when Alan Kay founded theLearning Research Group and ini-tiated a project called Dynabook(reference 3). Dynabook was to havebeen a notebook-sized personal com-puter that anyone, even children,could use in day-to-day work andthat everyone would want to use. TheXerox Alto personal computer (refer-

Video PointingDevices: Enterthe Touch Tablet

Popular video pointing devices includemice, touch tablets, joysticks, trackballs,touchscreens, light pens, and digitizingtablets. Of these, the mouse and the touchtablet are far superior for most video point-ing needs. The mouse, virtually unknowna year ago, by now needs no explanation.The touch tablet as a pointing device is justbeginning to be noticed.

Touch Tablets

Touch tablets are just emerging as viablepointing devices. The Koalapad touch tabletis one example. (Editor's note: Another ex-ample is the Powerpad from Chalk Board,Atlanta, Georgia.) The Koalapad is a hand-held touch tablet with a drawing surfacethat allows the movement of a finger tocreate pictures on video displays. Locationstouched on the tablet's surface are con-verted into X,Y coordinates that are sentto a computer through a game port or a

digital interface. Game-port Koalapadtouch tablets are analog devices and arecomparatively inexpensive. The digitaltouchpad is more expensive and is compat-ible with any computer that will acceptRS-232C inputs. The drawing area ispressure-sensitive; any blunt pointing de-vice such as a finger or a retracted ball-point pen can be used.

Touch Tablets vs. DigitizingTablets

A digitizing tablet is a flat panel thattypically rests on a table top and producesaccurate coordinate values for the locationof a hand-held electrical stylus pressedagainst its surface. This has advantagesand disadvantages in relation to touch tab-lets, which are actuated by touch ratherthan by special pens or styli. Touch sens-ing is an advantage in text editing, for ex-ample, when the typist must move a handfrom the keyboard to manipulate a point-ing device; the added step of picking up astylus is a nuisance.

On the other hand, the digitizing tabletis superior to the touch tablet for thespecialized application of digitizing draw-ings. Laying an arm or hand on the tablet

218 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

ence 14) was used to build a pro-totype Dynabook system.

Although hardware limitations pre-vented commercial production ofDynabook, many of the features ofthe new interface technology can betraced directly to the prototyping ef-forts behind it. One of the most im-portant products to come out of theDynabook project was the Smalltalklanguage (reference 5). From these ef-forts followed many others that ex-panded the basic concepts to makethem usable in a general computingenvironment, including newer ver-sions of Smalltalk that introducedoverlapping windows, the Xerox Starworkstation (reference 12), which in-troduced icons, and a number ofsimilar projects conducted by theLISP community using personalcomputers that execute LISP as theirmachine language.

Hardware for the New InterfaceTechnology

These systems are unique in theirattempt to coordinate the design ofhardware and software. Many of the

hardware features are predicated bythe need to run more complex soft-ware while retaining an adequatelevel of system responsiveness. Thesystems use 16-bit processors (so fareither the Intel 8088, found in theIBM PC and the HP 150, or theMotorola 68000, found in the Lisa).The integrated software requires atleast 512K bytes of RAM and a half-megabyte of disk storage (often aWinchester hard disk).

Referring to these machines asmicrocomputers is misleading. Sys-tems equipped with this much mem-ory a hard disk, and a 16-bit pro-cessor can approach the processingspeed of modern minicomputers,since the personal computer needsupport only a single user.

The remaining hardware features,high-resolution bit-mapped graphicsdisplay and a pointing device, serveto increase the I/O (input/output)bandwidth. The high-resolutiongraphics display is important becauseit enables the computer to commu-nicate information to the user farmore efficiently than is possible with

text-only and low-resolution displays.The old adage about a picture beingworth a thousand words is, if any-thing, too conservative an estimate ofthe value of these displays. When-ever possible, the new systems takeadvantage of graphics to enhancecommunication with the user. Theyprovide constant visual feedback tohelp guide the user and enhance theoverall quality of the system. It ispossible to display text in differentfonts and to space text proportional-ly just as it will appear when printed,a technique called "what you see iswhat you get." This means that theuser will have to go through feweredit-print iterations to produce adocument that looks right.

The pointing device is the inputcounterpart of the graphics display.Without a pointing device, menuscan become an endless series ofdelays for the user who alreadyknows what he wants to do and howto do it. Of pointing devices that arewidely available—among them mice,touchscreens, trackballs, joysticks,light pens, and graphics tablets—the

to steady the drawing finger would be finefor a digitizer but would activate a touchtablet at the wrong location.

Touch tablet linearity (guaranteed up toapproximately 7 bits) is also inferior to thatof digitizing tablets (typically guaranteedup to 11 bits). However, touch tablets canallow a single pixel to be selected by point-ing on a video display with 10 bits (10,024points) of resolution in each dimension.This is achieved with visual feedback, rock-ing the finger around the tablet surface. Inother words, even though the absolutepositional accuracy of touch-tablet sensingis only 99.0 percent (1 percent error) of thescreen, the relative positional accuracy canbe better than 99.9 percent (0.1 percent er-ror). In the final analysis, touch sensingis adequate for most applications, includingCAD/CAM (computer-aided design andmanufacturing), where the visual feedbackis sufficient to allow accurate pointing. Fordigitizing operations such as map tracingor graph tracing, the digitizing tablet is thebetter choice.

Touch Tablets vs. Mice

The mouse is a hand-held video point-ing device with a sensor in the bottom to

detect motion over a flat surface. It has beenadequately described in the many articleson the Apple Lisa computer (February 1983BYTE). The mouse is the preferred point-ing device for text-editing applicationsbecause it is the most comfortable to useand, with the exception of tablets, is alsothe fastest. (For a detailed analysis of themouse's performance compared to other in-put 7tiethods, see reference 1.)

On the other side of the coin, the mouseis inferior to a tablet stylus or finger fordrawing. Furthermore, the touch tablet isless expensive than the mouse and requiresless desktop space. While most office-auto-mation productivity tools in the near futureprobably will feature the mouse, I believethat the touch tablet will be the favoriteon home computers and eventually will be-come an integral part of business systems.

Touch Tablets vs. Touchscreens

A touchscreen is essentially a touch tab-let made of transparent material mountedin front of a video display. (Editor's note:The HP 150 uses an optical touchscreen.See October 1983 BYTE.) Touchscreens areprimarily valuable for information retrievalfrom computers in public places where any

one particular user does not enter frequentqueries. A user's pointing arm will tirewith prolonged use of touchscreens. Fur-thermore, a finger obscures small detail(such as text) when pointing. Being tooclose to video displays for prolonged periodsmay create problems in terms of eyestrainand screen radiation.

Touch Tablets vs. Joysticks,Light Pens, Etc.

Joysticks and trackballs have been inves-tigated as alternatives to the mouse and thetouch tablet. Their speed of locating a ran-domly placed target on a video display isinferior to the mouse's (reference 1). Al-though joysticks are the least expensive ofall video pointing devices, they are inade-quate for drawing and rapid pointing.

Light pens are potentially as inexpensiveas touch tablets, but they have the samedrawbacks as touchscreens: user fatigueand proximity to video display, and obscur-ing detail when in use.

In summary, I believe that touch tabletshave some real advantages, in performanceand cost, over other video pointing devicesfor many applications.

—George M. White

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 219

mouse is the preferred one. (See"Video Pointing Devices: Enter theTouch Tablet" on page 218.)

Mice have been compared withseveral other types of pointingdevices (reference 1) and have provensuperior to other methods with oneexception: a skilled touch-typistcould do slightly better with controlsequences. Mice are cheaper tomanufacture than most of the otherdevices as well. Mice are high-reso-lution devices; it is possible to pointto a single pixel on a high-resolutionscreen. I've done it often on a 1024-by 800-pixel screen—try that with ajoystick or trackball! Also, a mousestays put if you take your hand off it,an important property when you'reconstantly alternating between apointing device and the keyboard.

Software for the New InterfaceTechnology

The most important and revolu-tionary aspect of the new interface

technology is the software. It is possi-ble to produce many types of systemswith the hardware just mentionedthat do not qualify as the new tech-nology. There are three obvious com-ponents of this special software fromthe user's point of view: multipleoverlapping windows, commandsissued by selection from menus usingthe pointing device, and applicationsprograms that can communicate in-formation to other programs simplyand consistently. Subsets of thesefeatures have been available in olderproducts, but the whole package ismore effective than any of the parts.The use of windows and pointingdevices is central to all of the new sys-tems and is the most obvious im-provement over older systems. Whenthe system is in operation, the screenrepresents a workspace, often viewedas a desktop, and may be filled withseveral rectangular regions or "win-dows." (See "The Desktop Meta-phor.") Usually, a single program is

associated with each window, and itis through its window that a programcommunicates with the user.

The Lisa system represents systemobjects, such as files, in picture sym-bols or "icons." The idea behind iconsis similar to the idea behind pictorialroad signs: to convey maximum in-formation in minimum time. Iconsare one reason high-resolutiongraphics capabilities are important.Systems with screen resolutions in-adequate to display icons make dowith small boxes containing text.

Located somewhere on the screenat all times is a cursor that is linkedto the pointing device. When the usermoves the mouse, for example, thecursor moves proportionately. Thiscursor represents the focus of atten-tion for the user. It may be in theform of an arrow that can point to aprecise point of the screen. All inputto the system takes place near the tipof the arrow, which is the cursor's"hot-spot."

The DesktopMetaphor

A revolution is occurring in computing.It is based on techniques for controllingcomputers by pointing to video symbols in-stead of typing commands on keyboards.It has given rise to the "desktop metaphor,"which will characterize user interactionwith business computers in the future.

The desktop metaphor refers to symbolson computer displays that represent officeequipment. These symbols are not passivepictures but are typically used to controlcomputer simulations of activities per-formed at a desk. The desk is presumed tobe equipped with a telephone, file folders,paper pads, wastebaskets, and so on. Thevideo symbols of these desktop accessoriesare called "icons." Icons are computational-ly empowered to simulate the real objectsthey represent. They are activated whenthe user points to them with nonkeyboardvideo pointing devices. An activated iconperforms a computational task. For example,pointing to a picture of a sheet of paper andthen to a picture of a wastebasket indicatesthat you want the sheet of paper thrownaway (or removed from the screen by thecomputer).

In general, you can create, send, file,

and/or discard messages, graphs, charts,electronic mail, and other documents onthe computer by simply pointing to icons.The computer user no longer needs to bean expert to accomplish these tasks. Indeed,the user can rely on the shape and spacialarrangement of icons to provide clear andintuitive hints on their functions.

The intuitive nature of icons is no acci-dent; it is the central point of the desktopmetaphor. The user's knoivledge of real-world desk equipment is designed to createanalogies that carry over into the symbolicworld of computer icons.

The desktop metaphor is actually a spe-cial case of a more general principle, the"physical metaphor" of computing, whichwas the brainchild of Alan Kay. Dr. Kayin this regard is the intellectual father ofXerox Star and Apple Lisa, which makeextensive use of icons. His idea was thatcomputers would be easier to learn to useif computer programs acted more likephysical objects than like mathematicalabstractions. People have good intuitionsregarding physical objects. This intuitionwould help them to understand computersif computers were to exhibit similarproperties.

In these systems the user might findoverlapping sheets of paper symbolicallydisplayed and might properly deduce that

he can see obscured pages by moving theuppermost pages. This certainly makes thestorage and retrieval of text files more com-prehensible than an admonition to typesomething like "LOAD FILENAME. EXT".The degree to which the "physical meta-phor" signals a fundamental advance forman-machine communication may not beobvious. To fully appreciate the metaphor,consider that controlling a computer bytyping text on a keyboard involves differentmental skills and different parts of the brainthan are required for drawing pictures orpointing to icons. Visual thinking takesplace in the right hemisphere of the brain,while verbal thinking takes place in the lefthemisphere of the brain (assuming normaldominance). When the average westernthinker communicates with phonetic lan-guage, he uses primarily his left cerebralcortex. This is also the part of the brainthat dominates during keyboard text com-munication with computers. The righthemisphere of the brain, on the other hand,is involved more with visual thinking andis believed to be the source of artistic andcreative thought. Perhaps even more im-portant is the fact that spatial and visualinformation is easier to memorize than ver-bal/textual information.

—George M. White

220 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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The cursor facilitates selection andinsertion. The chosen object, be it acommand from the menu, an icon,a fragment of text, or a graphic image,is easy to reach quickly. It can thenbe set apart (highlighted) and manip-ulated. Highlighting the selected ob-ject provides important visual feed-back, a feature often overlooked inconventional interface design. With-out feedback, it is impossible to tellwhether the system has responded tothe user's request, so the user mayrepeat the command in an effort tobe sure the machine understands.This is undesirable, particularly insystems that have type-ahead buffers.

The mouse can conveniently ac-complish a couple of other opera-tions. For example, it can drag textualand graphical objects about thescreen to achieve a desired arrange-ment. Some systems provide"knobs" and "levers" with which tocontrol the objects on the screen. InLisa, windows scroll when the cur-sor drags small "elevators" along theedges of the window.

Another mouse application iscalled "rubber-band graphics." An ex-ample is the rubber-band window,where one corner of the window re-mains fixed and the diagonally op-posite corner is tied to the mouse cur-sor. The window remains rec-tangular, but the lengths of its sidesare varied by dragging the corneraround on the screen, which stretch-es the window (hence the namerubber-band). The visual effect asso-ciated with this operation is quite im-pressive and one of the more pleas-ing aspects of the system. The sametechnique may be used in graphicaldrawing programs where lines,curves, and other graphical objectscan be stretched or moved in rubber-band fashion.

Menus in these systems typicallypresent only the options that areuseful for the job at hand and avoidconfusing the user with massive,largely irrelevant lists of possibilities.Because of this, menus are usuallykept short and invalid selections can-not be made.

A valuable software capabilityfound in the new systems is the abili-ty to transfer data easily between two

222 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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applications programs. This enablesthe user to view the programs as a setof tools with which to manipulatedata. It doesn't make sense to haveto use one sort of "cut" commandwith a text editor and another witha graphics package.

To make these applications pro-grams compatible with one another,it is necessary to adopt a uniformmeans of transferring data betweenthem. One may view the exchange ofdata as occurring between two win-dows, each window containing a pro-gram. Any information that passesbeyond the confines of a window iscontrolled by the desktop-managerprogram (whose "window" is thegray desktop area under the win-dows), which sees to it that thetransfer between two windows isalways accomplished in the sameway.

Providing the ability to exchangeinformation among different pro-grams in this way is one of the mostdifficult aspects of designing thesesystems. To underscore this difficul-ty, consider that in both Lisa and Visi

On, the initial offering does not sup-port the complete transfer of informa-tion between any two programs.However, both companies claim thattheir products will eventually be ableto support this kind of operation.

Psychology and Philosophy ofthe New Software

A great number of design decisionsin the development of the new soft-ware were made on the basis of a fewphilosophical tenets. Many of thesetenets were first analyzed in thedesign of the Smalltalk system (see"The Smalltalk Environment" byLarry Tesler, August 1981 BYTE, page90, for a good description of these)and were later refined in the XeroxStar project.

Every effort to build one of thesesystems has been preceded by a longperiod in which a user-interfacedefinition was hammered out. Thisdefinition specifies the allowablebehavior of the system. All programsthat run on the system are expectedto conform to these guidelines. Atleast four reasons exist for proceeding

in this way.

First, by limiting the number ofways in which a program can interactwith the user and forcing all pro-grams to obey these rules, the userhas less to remember when learningand using the system.

Second, a good deal of effort canbe spent in choosing the best formsof interaction and in insisting that allprograms use them. This is wheremost of the philosophical tenetscome into play.

Third, the programs necessary todo the graphical manipulations andmanage the mouse are very complex.Often, they have to be written inassembly language to achieve ade-quate performance (this was the casewith both Lisa and Visi On). Byadopting the guidelines, it is possi-ble for the manufacturer of theoriginal software to provide thesefacilities so that developers of ap-plications won't have to. Consideringthe size of Lisa's desktop manager—10megabytes of source code—this is aworthwhile savings to the softwaredeveloper.

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The fourth reason is that a precisespecification for all interaction makesit easier to control the transfer of dataamong applications programs, whichis one of the most difficult problemsin designing such a system.

The philosophical tenets of thesesystems are very similar and revolvearound the concept of consistency.The idea is that data objects that aremanipulated by computers can bethought of in the same way we thinkof real physical objects. There are twocomponents when describing anyoperation on an object: the subject,which is the object itself or somereference to it, and the verb, whichis the action to be performed on theobject. Just as in the real world,where the same verb may be appliedto many different subjects, so too canthe same action be applied to dif-ferent data objects in the system.

Moving an object to a differentwindow can be accomplished in thesame way for a sentence, a graphicimage, or a block of numbers from aspreadsheet. First the object isselected, then the verb "cut" is sentto the object, cutting it out of the win-dow it currently lives in. Next, a newlocation for the object is selected withthe mouse, and the verb "paste" issent. At no time does the user haveto worry about whether the object be-ing moved is text, graphics, orspreadsheet numbers. Of course, theprogram underneath this user inter-

face has to be much more complexthan a program with a separate kindof command for each type of object-it deals with many kinds of objectsthat can be "cut" and "pasted."Object-oriented languages like Small-talk work particularly well for thiskind of programming.

Simplicity is a component relatedto consistency. By using "point andclick syntax," in which the user pointsto an object with the cursor and"clicks" (pushes a button on the

The new technologymakes it possible to

specify complex

behavior in a simple

consistent fashion.

mouse or lifts a finger from a touch-screen) to select it, it is possible tospecify very complex types ofbehavior in a simple, consistentfashion. A system should be de-signed so that it is intuitive; when auser needs to do something he hasnever done before, he should be ableto tell how to get started.

What Is to Be Gained from Allof This New Technology?

So far, there has been a lot of talkabout pretty graphics and philoso-phy, but what is to be gained fromusing one of these systems? The

answer to that question is simple:these systems will be easier to use,and the users of such a system willbe more productive. Many peoplewriting about this technology havethe idea that these systems areprimarily of use to novices. This ismost emphatically wrong!

The Smalltalk system is in fact un-available to this class of users (so far)and is used primarily by experts inpreference to other systems. Thesame is true for similar systems de-veloped by the LISP community. Allof these systems are designed with agreat deal of testing to determinewhat types of interaction are best forthe user. While the emphasis is ontesting with naive users, a great dealof testing with experts is also con-ducted. Arguments against their utili-ty for experts center around twotopics: it is inconvenient to switchback and forth between mouse andkeyboard, and the new software isslower than the old-style software.

The argument against mice iswrong for three reasons. First, testinghas shown that only a good touch-typist using control sequences can dobetter than a mouse (and most com-puter users aren't that good). Second,the systems incorporate keyboardcontrol sequences as alternatives.Third, many people who have usedsuch a system long enough to be-come proficient at it find they use themouse far more than the keyboard.

We have developed an 8" diskette system that can beused to exchange source, data, and text files between theIBM PC and hundreds of other systems.

Our utilities work with all IBM models including the 3741,5110, 8100, Series/1, System/34-36-38, 36XX, 43XX, etc.We also support the IBM DATAMASTER and the IBMDISPLAYWRITER using TEXTPACK or REPORTPACK.Other systems supported include CP/M, DEC, NCR,Univac, Radio-Shack, Xerox, Data General, Burroughs,and Honeywell.

Our system uses DOS 2.0 and can be used with eitherthe PC or XT. Using our supplied device drivers, the 8"diskette can be used as a 1.2 MBYTE DOS drive for largedata files or for backing-up the hard disk drive. The pro-grams can read-write diskettes that are 1 or 2 sided, singleor double density, and with sector sizes of 128, 256, 512,or 1024. EBCDIC-ASCII conversion is provided.

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226 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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The speed argument is true in part.The new programs can be slowerthan the old, but this does not haveto be true if they are carefully writ-ten and optimized. Furthermore,many of the operations that are slowon the new systems are not evenpossible on the old systems. Certain-ly the delays I have encountered onthe Lisa should not be irritating to theuser of a CP/M system with floppydisks or, for that matter, a user of aVax 750 Unix system with 10 or moreusers.

After having used several types ofcomputer systems to do large pro-gramming projects, I have formulatedmy own theory about the usefulnessof the new interface technology.When you become proficient at anysystem, you begin to think less andless about what command to use fora particular situation. A sort of sub-conscious level of thought processeshandles this task. You simply thinkto yourself, "I need to go compile thisprogram," and your fingers type thenecessary commands with little con-scious effort. Meanwhile, your mindis busy considering what the resultsof the compile will be. Unfortunate-ly, my fingers are prone to making er-rors on most systems. When thishappens, my stream of consciousthought is rudely interrupted by therealization that the system is not do-ing what I wanted it to, and I haveto stop and figure out what wentwrong.

Often this unpleasant sequence ofevents occurs not because of anytypographical error; my fingers hadtyped a perfectly valid command. It'sjust that the particular mode I was indid not understand how to deal withthe command. One system I use, forexample, offers six different ways toaccomplish an exit, depending on themode. It's not surprising that I oftentype some exit sequence and find I'min the wrong mode for it to work or,worse yet, that the sequence doessomething totally unexpected.

The new interface technologymakes "exit" a generic verb that canbe executed in the same way for everyprogram. This is analogous to thebehavior of the physical universe,which is governed by a small set of

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December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 227

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laws that apply to objects no matterwhat they are.

Furthermore, the state of the sys-tem is always made readily apparentthrough visual feedback. Anothernice feature of the new systems is thatit is harder to make a typo using amouse.

Simple, consistent computer sys-tems make it easier for the sub-conscious lower level to do its workwithout interrupting the user's con-scious stream of thought. This is thebehavior that is expected from a goodtool; a carpenter uses a hammerwithout pausing to remember how itworks. Computer users who arecompetent technicians in this senseare rare, even among the experts thatuse a system every day. This need notbe the case. The new interface tech-nology can let most people becomecompetent technicians for the appli-cations they use on a day-to-daybasis.

Disadvantages of the NewTechnology

The new interface technology is notwithout its drawbacks. Programs thatuse this technology are much morecomplex than older programs that ac-complish similar tasks. As a result,software will be more expensive toproduce. But such software will havea much broader market appeal, sothe expense will be justified. The in-creased complexity of the new soft-ware will help to spur the introduc-tion of more powerful personal com-puting languages such as Logo andSmalltalk. BASIC is no longer a suit-able language for these machines. Itdoesn't have the power of expressi-bility needed to make full use of thegraphics capabilities of the new ma-chines.

There is a tradeoff in speed associ-ated with these machines as well. Ifthe old-style software were run withthe resources of the new machines,it certainly would be faster. The newsoftware runs as fast as the better8-bit software of today. But the in-crease in usability of the new soft-ware justifies a slight decrease in per-formance. All the performance in theworld is useless unless it can beharnessed and put to good use.

228 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 139 on inquiry card.

step into the future...

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Now you can have the multi-user, multitaskingprogramming capability of a mainframe ona microcomputer. The UNIX-like environment ofCOHERENT lets you take C code developed usingUNIX V7 system utilities and compile and run it onthe IBM PC. Through COHERENT'S highly-optimized kernel you can access over 145 differentcommands including a C-compiler, a text-formatter and LEX and YACC.

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COHERENT is a trade mark of Mark Williams Co. UNIX is a trade mark of Bell Laboratories. IBM PC and IBM XT are trade marks of International Business Machines Corporation.Circle 315 on inquiry card. byte December 1983 229

Conclusion

The new interface technology rep-resents the next era in user-interfacedesign. The potential advances inproductivity are at least comparableto the advances made in going frompunched cards to full-screen editors.It will also finally be possible for theaverage person to use a computer inhis day-to-day work. The advent oflocal-area networks will be anotherfeature of this style of computing.Apple is committed to providingcommunications and database-man-

agement applications for Lisa in thenear future. This provides some in-dication of the important role infor-mation processing and communica-tion will play in the new systems. Agreat deal of work is also being doneon voice recognition by computer,which would eliminate the finalstumbling block to man-machinecommunication—the keyboard.

It is interesting to speculate onwhat the next step will be after thenew interface technology has beenassimilated. The new technology is

WHY THE

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Logo is a simple, powerful programming languagedesigned for natural and interactive learning. It's a fast,simple, fun way for you and your family to learn aboutyour computer, while you use your computer.But what makes Terrapin™ Logo better than theofficial Apple® Logo?

Terrapin Logo is true to the original Logo.Apple Logo isn't.

Terrapin Logo was extensively field-tested in schools. Apple Logo wasn't.The Terrapin Logo tutorial is written forboth novice and advanced programmers.The Apple Logo tutorial is just for the novice.Terrapin Logo comes with a utility disk that contains sample programs and educa-tional games. Apple Logo doesn't.

For classroom users, Terrapin Logo is available for network environments. AppleLogo isn't.And best of all, the list price of Terrapin Logo is $25 less than Apple Logo.When all is said and done, it's easy to seewhy Terrapin Logo, the Unofficial Logo, isbetter than the official one.Ask your dealer for it. Or call us directly.

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related to work on artificial intelli-gence. It represents an attempt to usethe best capabilities of man andmachine in synthesis. Once this hasbeen accomplished, it will be easierto begin shifting more and morehuman capabilities to the computer.The eventual result would be an ar-tificially intelligent computer. ■

References

1. Card, Stuart K., William K. English, and BettyJ. Burr. "Evaluation of Mouse, Data-ControlledIsometric Joystick, Step Keys, and Text Keysfor Text Selection on a CRT." Ergonomics,Volume 21, No. 8, 1978, pages 601-613.

2. Englebart, Douglas C, Richard W. Watson,and James C. Norton. 'The AugmentedKnowledge Workshop." Proc NCC 1973,pages 9-21.

3. Goldberg, Adele. "Introducing the Small-talk-80 System." BYTE, August 1981, page 14.

4. Goldberg, Adele and David Robson. Small-talk-80: The Language and Its Implementa-tion. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1983.

5. Ingalls, Daniel H. "Design Principles BehindSmalltalk." BYTE, August 1981, page 286.

6. Ingalls, Daniel H. 'The Smalltalk GraphicsKernel." BYTE, August 1981, page 168.

7. Kay, Alan and Adele Goldberg. "PersonalDynamic Media." Computer, March 1977,pages 31-41.

8. Lemmons, Phil. "A Guided Tour of Visi On."BYTE, June 1983, pages 256-278.

9. Nelson, Theodore H. Computer Lib/DreamMachines. South Bend, IN: The Distributors,1974.

10. Reenskaug, Trygve M.H. "User-OrientedDescriptions of Smalltalk Systems." BYTE,August 1981, page 147.

11. Robson, David. "Object-Oriented SoftwareSystems." BYTE, August 1981, page 74.

12. Smith, David C, Charles Irby, Ralph Kimball,Bill Verplank, and Eric Harslem. "Designingthe Star User Interface." BYTE, April 1982,pages 242-282.

13. Tesler, Larry. 'The Smalltalk Environment."BYTE, August 1981, page 90.

14. Wadlow, Thomas A. 'The Xerox Alto Com-puter." BYTE, September 1981, pages 58-68.

15. Xerox Learning Research Group. 'The Small-talk-80 System." BYTE, August 1981, page 36.

Robert W. Warfield (8429 Hearth 031, Houston,TX 77054) is a graduate student in computer scienceat Rice University.

George M. White received a B.S. from MichiganState University in math, chemistry, and physics;a Ph.D. in chemical physics from the Universityof Oregon; and was a postgraduate felloiu at Stan-ford University. He worked for seven years with theXerox Palo Alto Research Center and is currentlychairman of the board of Koala Technologies (3100Patrick Henry Dr., Santa Clara, CA 95050).

230 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 422 on inquiry card.

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Trackball-Interfacing

Techniquesfor Microprocessors

This interfacing approach lets you adapt trackball devices to yourinteractive personal computer applications

The age of interactive computing isupon us, and a variety of I/O (input/output) devices have been developedto supplement the keyboard in pro-viding convenient human-to-ma-chine interfacing. Unfortunately, inthe past only simple joysticks andpushbuttons have been priced lowenough to suit home computer appli-cations. The LT200, a recent productfrom Disc Instruments of CostaMesa, California, has brought thetrackball within reach of the homecomputer market. This product pro-vides accurate positioning of the cur-sor displayed on a CRT (cathode-raytube), and it provides TTL-com-patible outputs that can be readily in-terfaced with a microcomputer with-out elaborate and costly circuitry.Moreover, the LT200 costs less than$100, representing a major savingscompared to the trackballs designedfor commercial and military marketsthat cost more than $1000.

This article describes general track-ball-interfacing techniques and a sim-ple hardware/software interface ap-proach that can be adapted easily toany home system.

Trackball Concepts

A trackball is an interactive control

by Edward W. Andrews

that consists of a solid ball, IV2 to 3inches in diameter, mounted in abase such that part of the ball's sur-face is exposed, allowing the ball tobe rolled with the palm or fingertips.The ball's rolling motion is coupledto optical encoders that generatepulses to indicate the direction andrate of ball rotation. These pulses canbe coupled to a microprocessor,

A simple hardware/

software-based

trackball-interfacing

approach can be

adapted to any

personal computer

system.

which can then create proportional X-Y motion of a CRT-displayed cursor.The precision with which a track-ball can be moved suits it to detailedinteractive graphics applications.Commercially it has seen wide use incomputer-aided-design (CAD) sys-tems. Other applications include in-teractive analysis of medical X-ray,nuclear, and ultrasound images.Some video-arcade games have also

featured trackball controls.

Figure 1 shows the internal con-struction of the LT200 trackball. Twooptical interrupter disks (the slottedwheels) form the basis of an opticalencoder for each trackball axis. Theball rests on two perpendicular rodson which the interrupter disks aremounted. Any movement of the ballcauses at least one of the rods torotate, in turn causing disk rotationand, thus, pulse-train generation.The frequency of these pulse-trainsignals is proportional to the ball-rotation speed along each axis. Mosttrackballs generate 200 to 500 pulsesper revolution. The LT200, for exam-ple, generates 480 pulses per revolu-tion.

Because the two rods are perpen-dicular, one encoder's output repre-sents X-axis movement while theother encoder's output represents Y-axis movement. Each encoder in-cludes sensing logic that determinesforward or reverse (or left or right)movement along the correspondingaxis; a trackball device therefore fur-nishes four signals indicating move-ment in + X, -X, +Y, and — Y direc-tions. When used to control cursorpositioning on a CRT, the trackballmust be properly oriented with

234 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

respect to the CRT to obtain the prop-er correlation between ball movementand cursor movement.

Basic Interfacing Concepts

Note that a trackball is essentiallyan incremental or relative inputdevice. By rolling the trackball, anoperator signals his intent for the dis-played cursor symbol to move in agiven direction and at a given rate,away from the current cursor posi-tion. In response to trackball rotation,the cursor moves to a new positionbased on its current position.

A review of some fundamentalCRT display-addressing concepts il-lustrates how the incremental track-ball signals can be interfaced to acomputer. Consider a CRT displayhaving an X-Y matrix of 256 by 256pixels (picture elements). Withinsuch a matrix, the displayed cursorlocation on the CRT can be specifiedby an X, Y number pair. One 8-bitnumber can uniquely define allpossible horizontal X pixel locations,or addresses, on the CRT display,starting with 0 on the left edge andextending to 255 at the right edge ofthe display. Similarly, a second 8-bit

value uniquely defines all possiblevertical Y pixel locations of the CRT,starting with 0 at the bottom andending at 255 at the top edge of thedisplay. If the X and Y values defin-ing the absolute cursor location canbe varied in response to the trackball,an interactive control results.

Implementation Approaches

As figure 2 shows, a trackball inter-face can be built using two simplehardware up-down counter circuits.

A trackball is

essentially an

incremental or relative

input device.

Here the X-axis uses one counter andthe Y-axis uses a second. With thetrackball +X output connected to theup-count clock, and the -X track-ball output connected to the down-count clock, the counter incrementsand decrements appropriately in re-sponse to trackball X-axis movement.The Y-axis trackball outputs are con-nected similarly to a second counter,which in turn responds to Y-axis

OPTICALINTERRUPTERDISKS

ROTATE DUETO ACTION OFBALL ROTATION

DIRECTION SENSINGLOGIC ANDTTL DRIVERS

+ X

DIRECTION SENSINGLOGIC ANDTTL DRIVERS

Figure 1: An internal look at Disc Instruments' LT200 trackball.

trackball movement. These countercircuits can then be interfaced to amicroprocessor's data bus through aninput port, allowing the processor toread or periodically poll the inputport to determine the current ab-solute X, Y trackball coordinate. Us-ing this data, the microprocessor canposition the cursor on the CRT. If thisinput port is read and the displayedcursor position is updated at a highrate (more than 25 times per second),an interactive control results.

As shown, upper- and lower-limitdetection logic must be included inthe counter design to prevent counterroll-over, which could occur if thetrackball is unceasingly rolled in onedirection. The X-axis counter, for ex-ample, must be inhibited from fur-ther up-counting when the right-most pixel coordinate, 255, isreached. Should such limiting beomitted, further +X pulses from thetrackball would cause the counter tooverflow from 255 to 0. If this over-flow were to occur, you would see thecursor jump abruptly from the farright side of the display screen (Xaddress=255) to the far left side ofthe display screen (X address = 0).With boundary limiting properly im-plemented, the trackball appears toslip whenever a display screen edgeis encountered. Such boundary limit-ing must also be included for the left,top, and bottom cursor boundaries.

An Interrupt-Based Interface

We have seen the basic trackball in-terfacing concepts demonstrated witha hardware-intensive approach.While counters can be readily con-figured to directly implement a track-ball interface, other less hardware-intensive approaches are also possi-ble. One such method uses interruptconcepts and software-based up-down counters to respond to thetrackball output pulses. In otherwords, the counters just detailed arefunctionally implemented in soft-ware, and the trackball output pulsesare connected as vectored interrupts+ Y to a microprocessor system.

With an interrupt-based approach,you must think of the current track-ball X- and Y-cursor coordinates asresiding in two locations in the micro-

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 235

"255" DETECT

i—^ TO MICROPROCESSORI * DATA BUS

rO

TO MICROPROCESSORADDRESS BUS

Figure 2: A block diagram of a fundamental hardware-based trackball interface.

processor's RAM (random-accessread/write memory). Rather thandrive a hardware-counter circuit, thetrackball signals are now connectedas vectored interrupts to the pro-cessor system. An interrupt con-troller, such as an Intel 8259, can beused to add vectored-interrupt capa-bility to a computer system. Alter-nately, the trackball can be interfacedto an existing interrupt structure. Inany event, with an interrupt-basedapproach, the software interrupt-handler routines operate as up-down, software-based counters.

With the trackball signals con-nected as interrupts, for example, asa +X trackball pulse is received, themicroprocessor is vectored to aninterrupt-service routine whose job isto increment the data contained inthe X-cursor-coordinate memorylocation. Similarly, the -X interrupt-service routine decrements the datacontained in the X-cursor-coordinatememory location in response to a - Xtrackball pulse.

Figure 3 shows simple flowcharts ofthe four interrupt-service routines re-quired for a fully interrupt-based im-plementation. Notice that upper/lower boundary detection and limit-

ing is also included in these interruptroutines.

With the interrupt routines main-taining and updating the absolutecursor X, Y coordinates, the operatingcomputer program would be respon-sible for monitoring and acting on thechanging cursor-coordinate data.That is, the operating program(which the trackball signals interrupt)would continually read the twomemory locations designated as the

An interrupt-driven

approach to trackball

interfacing minimizes

hardware but places

extra demands on

software.

X- and Y-cursor coordinates and re-spond to changes in these values.Figure 4 illustrates this activity. In thissimple example, the sole purpose ofthe operating program is to move thecursor interactively in response totrackball motion. An actual applica-tion would expand on this basic ac-tivity, enabling the trackball coor-dinates to interactively vary or con-trol higher-level functions.

The TIP Approach

Although an interrupt-driven ap-proach to trackball interfacing canminimize the interface hardware, itdoes place extra demands on thesoftware. In addition, many homeand personal computers and theiroperating systems are not interrupt-based. An effective yet simple inter-facing approach, which I'll call TIP,for trackball input polled, is shownin schematic form in figure 5. Thismethod offers a polled approach toaccepting trackball data and is readilyadapted to almost any microproces-sor-based system.

The TIP interface consists of two4-bit up-down counters driven direct-ly from the trackball output signals.One counter is connected to the + Xand - X signals and in turn registerstrackball rotations in the X-axis.Similarly, the other counter is con-nected to the +Y and -Y signals,registering Y-axis trackball move-ment. These two signals are thenconnected to a single 8-bit input portthat can be read by the micropro-cessor.

Each of the counters is configuredto generate a two's complement, 4-bitsigned number. As the TIP input port

236 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

/+X TRACKBALL^V INTERRUPT J

(-Y. TRACKBALL^V^ INTERRUPT J

SAVE ALLREGISTERS

A-Y TRACKBALL^V INTERRUPT J

SAVE ALLREGISTERS

X=X + 1

X =

UPPER LIMIT

X =

LOWER LIMIT

RESTORE

ALL

REGISTERS

RESTORE

ALL

REGISTERS

/'RETURN FROM^i^ INTERRUPT J

/"return FROM^NV^ INTERRUPT J

(-Y TRACKBALL^V INTERRUPT J

SAVE ALLREGISTERS

NO / Y >TOP \

YES

\BOUNDARY

Y =

UPPER LIMIT

RESTORE

ALL

REGISTERS

SAVE ALLREGISTERS

/returnfromNv interrupt j

NO

/Y<BOTTOM\

YES

XBOUNDARY

Y =

LOWER LIMIT

RESTORE

ALL

REGISTERS

/return from~\^ interrupt j

Figure 3: Flowcharts for the four interrupt-handler routines required for a vectored-interrupt trackball-interface approach. Note that boun-dary checking is included in these routines.

is read by the microprocessor, thetwo numbers retrieved represent anaccumulation of the operator's mostrecent trackball actuation. In effect,the data read is an X, Y vector, indi-cating the direction and magnitude(speed) of trackball rotation. The soft-ware then alters the current cursor-location values based on this movevector. This method differs from theapproach suggested by figure 2, inwhich the interface-counter hardwareactually holds the absolute cursorlocation, rather than a relative movecount. Figure 6 shows the data for-mat as it is read from the TIP inputport.

TIP Circuit Details

The four trackball signals, +X, -X,+Y, and -Y, are received and gatedby the Schmitt-trigger device IC1 infigure 5. We chose a Schmitt deviceto increase the noise immunity of theinput circuitry, therefore reducing thechance of random electrical noisefrom adversely affecting the counteroperation. IC4 (X-axis) and IC5 (Y-axis) are TTL-type 74LS192 up-down,4-bit binary counters. These countersare structured to count symmetrical-

ly from zero, each able to countwithin the two's complement numberrange from -7 to +7 NAND gatesIC2b (X-axis) and IC3b (Y-axis) detectthe uppermost count boundary + 7,and work in conjunction with IC1 toprevent an ongoing stream of up-count clocks ( + X and +Y trackballsignals) from causing an undesiredcounter overflow. Similarly, NANDgates IC2a (X-axis) and IC3a (Y-axis),detect the lowermost count boun-dary, -7, and, with IC1, prevent anongoing stream of down-count clocks(- X and - Y trackball signals) fromcausing an undesired counter under-flow.

IC7 is an 8-bit clocked register withthree output states and is used as acombination data-latch and data-busdriver. A latch here ensures that astable, unchanging data byte wouldbe presented during the processor'sREAD operation. In addition, justafter the data latch is clocked to holdthe current trackball X, Y data pair,both X and Y counters are reset tozero. Thus, after every TIP register isread, the counters start over in ac-cumulating operator input.

The LED (light-emitting diode) in-dicators are optional and not required

for circuit operation; however, Ifound them invaluable in debuggingmy wire-wrapped prototype.

Address and Data-Bus Interface

Comparators IC8 and IC9 form theaddress-bus decoder. These two

( START "\^MAINLINEy

ERASESCREEN

INITIALIZECURSORLOCATIONTBX =0TBY =0

ENABLEINTERRUPTS

,'

1

DISPLAYCURSOR AT(TBX, TBY)

Figure 4: The flowchart of a simple main pro-gram designed to work with the figure 3 in-terrupt routines. The trackball-coordinatevalues TBX and TBY are the variables thatthe interrupt handlers update.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 237

X-BOUHDARY LIMIT

LT200TRACKBALL

CPU DATA BUS(SEE NOTE 3 )DOUSB!_TJ£>

Figure 5: The TIP (trackball input polled) interface schematic. Connector pinouts are shown for a TRS-80 Model I computer.

chips are configured as an 8-bit com-parator. As shown, the lower 8 bitsof the microprocessor address busare compared with a data value, setby an 8-station switch. The com-parators are gated further by anIOREAD signal. In this way, the TIP

D7 D6(MSB)

D5

01

D3

D2

Dl

DO(LSB)

X3 X2

XI

XO

Y3

Y2

Yl

YO

-DX-

Figure 6: The TIP input-port data format.The lower 4 bits represent a delta Y (DY)value, and the upper 4 bits represent a deltaX (DX) value. This pair of two's complementvalues, each having a number range from -7to +7, represents the most recent operator ac-tuation of the trackball.

input register is mapped into themicroprocessor I/O space. The actualport assignment is determined by theswitch settings of SO (LSB) throughS7 (MSB). When a given switch posi-tion is open (off), a logic 1 is set; clos-ing the switch (on) results in a logic0 state.

Although a TRS-80 computer wasused to demonstrate concept feasibil-ity, the corresponding address bus,data bus, and IOREAD signals of anymicrocomputer can be connected tothe TIP interface. If desired, the TIPdata port can even be memory-mapped. For this memory-mappedapproach, the address-decoding cir-cuitry has to be expanded to compare16 bits (or more). Additional 74LS85comparator chips can be cascaded, orother combinational logic techniquescan be used. Any high-true, address-

decoding signal can be used to drivethe point called "TB-REG-RD" offigure 5; however, TB-REG-RD mustoccur at least one gate delay beforeTB-REG-RD.

As shown, the microprocessor databus is connected to the output of IC7.Data bit D7 is the most significant bit(MSB), and DO is the least significantbit (LSB).

A TRS-80 Demonstration

The address and data bus pinoutsshown in figure 5 correspond to theexpansion-interface pin assignmentsfor the TRS-80 Model I computer,which I used to evaluate and test thecircuit concepts. This expansion in-terface connector makes available allthe key Z80 processor signals neededto connect the TIP circuitry.

Listings 1 and 2 show simple

238 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

ADDRESS DECODE

CPU ADDRESS BUS(SEE NOTE 3

AO (LSBI

0

TB-REG-RD

NOTES:

1. ALL RESISTORS ARE 2.2 Kfl,, 0.25W, UNLESS NOTED

2. DECOUPLE ALL CHIPS WITH O.l^F, 50V MONOLITHIC ORCERAMIC (DISK) CAPACITOR.

PIN-OUT ASSIGNMENTS SHOWN FOR ADDRESS AND DATABUSES ARE FOR CONNECTION TO A TRS-80 MODEL IEXPANSION CONNECTOR CABLE.

INTERFACE CABLE BETWEEN TIP CIRCUIT AND DISKINSTRUMENTS LT200 SHOULD BE 14-CONDUCTORRIBBON CABLE, LENGTH AS REQUIRED, TERMINATED ONBOTH ENDS WITH A MALE, 14-PIN DIP PLUG.ALL LED INDICATORS SHOULD 8E PC-MOUNTABLE-, WITHINTEGRAL CURRENT LIMIT RESISTORS (DIALIGHT 547-2003 OR EQUIVALENT).

SWITCH SO-6 SETS I/O PORT ASSIGNMENT. SEE TEXTFOR DETAILS.

Listing 1: A TRS-80 Model I (Level II BASIC) main program that controls cursor movement in response to trackball actuation.

■ KKIIilllllMIIIlllIlllllltKItlllllll

10 REM

15 REM

20 REM

30 REM

10 REM

50 REM

60 REM

70 REM

80 REM

90 REM

100 REM

110 REM

120 REM

130 REM

mo REM

150 REM

160 CLS

170 REM SET INITIAL X,Y VALUES

180 Y=20:X=50

190 REM ASK OPERATOR IF HE WANTS TO TRACE

200 PRINT "ENTER 1 FOR TRACE MODE, 0 FOR NO TRACE"

210 INPUT A

215 CLS

220 REM MAIN LOOP STARTS HERE

230 REM TURN CURSOR BLOCK "ON"

250 SET(X,Y)

TIP DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM

This program will move a block cursorabout the CRT screen in response tothe movement of the trackball. Amode can be selected which will resultin "Etch-A-Sketch" like operation.This program was written and tested ona TRS-80, Model I, computer, withLevel II BASIC. Note, the TRS-80,Model I computer has a CRT screenresolution of only 128 X 18 PIXELS.

260270280290300310320330310350360370380390400410420430440450460470480490500

REM READ TIP I/O PORT AND GET DX, DY

GOSUB 800

REM TURN CURSOR BLOCK "OFF"

REM THIS ON-OFF SEQUENCE CAUSES

REM CURSOR TO FLICKER SLIGHTLY WHICH

REM DIFFERENTIATES IT FROM OTHER

REM ON-SCREEN GRAPHICS BLOCKS

RESET(X.Y)

REM WAS TRACKBALL ROLLED? IF NO, LOOP BACK

IF DX=0 AND DY=0 GOTO 250

REM YES, TB WAS ROLLED; CHECK IF TRACE SELECTED

IF A=0 GOTO 410

REM IF TRACE SELECTED, TURN CURRENT BLOCK ON

SET(X.Y)

REM NOW UPDATE CURSOR COORDINATES

X=X+DX

REM NOTE: SUBTRACT DY BECAUSE "+Y"

REM DIRECTION IS "DOWN" ON TRS-80 SCREEN

Y=Y-DY

REM PERFORM BOUNDARY CHECKING AND LIMITING

IF X>127 X=127IF X<0 X=0IF Y>47 Y=47IF Y<0 Y=0GOTO 250

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 239

Listing 2: A subroutine that reads the TIP port and separates the DX and DY elements.

700

710

720

730

710

750

760

770

780

790

800

810

850

860

870

880

890

900

910

920

930

910

950

960

970

980

990

1000

1010

1020

1030

This subroutine will read the TIP I/O port,»separate the X and 1 values, and convertthem into a pair of BASIC signed numberswhich the mainline can use to update thecursor position. Here, the TIP 1/0 portwas 0 (All address switches closed).This routine was written and tested on aTRS-80, Model I computer, level II BASIC

REM »«

REM •

REM •

REM •

REM •

REM ■

REM •

REM •

REM •

REM •

REM • •

REM ••••lf»lt»tti»««tit»lt«fl««l«»l«ti««»«i»«t»»»»

REM

REM READ THE I/O PORT

TIP=INP(0)

REM SEPARATE X AND Y FROM THE SINGLE DATA BYTE

REM AND PLACE EACH IN THE LOWER 1-BITS OF A NEW

REM VARIABLE PAIR, DX AND DY

DX=(TIP AND 210) • .0625DY=(TIP AND 15)

REM NOW CONVERT THESE NUMBERS INTO SIGNED VALUES

REM WHICH TRS-80 BASIC WILL UNDERSTAND! 1ST, X

REM IF THE 2'S COMP NUMBER IS

IF DX < 8 GOTO 1000

IF THE 2'S COMP NO. IS

REMDX =

REM

IF DY <DY = DY

REM

RETURN

WE'RE DONE

THERE'S MORE WORK

DX - 16

NOW DO THE Y VALUES

8 GOTO 1030

- 16

ALL DONE

TRS-80 Level II BASIC main and sub-programs that read the TIP input portand move a graphics block aroundthe screen in response to the trackballmovement. The TIP port is easily ac-cessed using the TRS-80 INP com-mand. In my tests, I used input portaddress 0 (all address-compareswitches closed).

You may notice that I turn a graph-ics block on using the SET command,read the input port, and then turnthe graphics block off using theRESET command. With the cursorstationary (no trackball motion), thistechnique causes the cursor block toflicker slightly. This flicker is a greathelp in differentiating the cursorblock from other graphics charactersthat may also be on the screen.

Another feature of the test programis a deposit mode. In this mode, thecomputer operates much like theEtch-A-Sketch toy, leaving a trail ofdots (pixels) behind the moving

cursor.

Design Variations

Since the LT200 produces 480

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240 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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VIKJ\

A Burroughs Company

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X-LO-LIMIT

+ X

FROMTRACKBALL\

-of a

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ici

74LS132

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xo

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X2

-iDi

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ADR.DECODE < TB-REG-RDLOGI

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ICIO7404

CO CU

74LS192

LDCLR

TCD

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N/C N/C

A

A

XI

X3

TO DATALATCHa BUSDRIVER

-N/C-N/C-N/C

N/C=NO CONNECTION

Figure 7: A design variation that allows the TIP trackball counters to prescale the trackballpulses.

pulses per revolution, just over halfa rotation of the LT200 trackball ele-ment moves a displayed cursor fromone screen edge to the other screenedge when operating within a 256- by256-pixel matrix. For detailed cursorplacement, at which a trackballdevice intrinsically excels, you mayfind the trackball excessively sensitivewith the LT200/TEP interface schemeas shown. There are two ways toreduce the trackball sensitivity: asimple hardware change or a soft-ware approach.

To reduce the trackball sensitivity,it is necessary to prescale the incom-ing trackball pulses. Figure 7 showshow an additional 74LS192 counter

circuit can be connected to each axisof the TIP interface. This approachextends the effective range of thecounter from 4 bits to 8 bits. The TIPinterface port and the upper/lowerboundary checking, however, are stillconnected to only 4 bits. As shown,the 4 bits selected ignore the LSB ofthe first counter chip, effectivelydividing by two the trackball pulsesseen by the TIP I/O port, resulting ina trackball that produces only 240pulses per revolution. If desired, thetwo lowest order bits of the firstcounter can be ignored, resulting ina trackball that is prescaled by 4, ef-fectively producing only 120 pulsesper revolution.

These hardware variations can bemade to the design as shown by theTIP schematic of figure 5. To maintainsymmetry, both the X and Y axesshould be treated in the samefashion.

The scaling operations performedby the hardware changes of figure 7can also be performed in softwareafter the TIP data port is read. A sim-ple divide-by-two operation can beapplied to the X and Y data values.However, the effective number rangethat the TIP X and Y trackball valuescan represent is reduced from the -7to +7 range to a -3 to +3 range. Thisreduced range adversely affects theability of the trackball interface torepresent a vector-like value in-dicating the direction and magnitudeof the desired cursor move. The hard-ware approach as discussed, how-ever, prescales the trackball pulseswhile completely retaining thisvector-like characteristic.

Summary

A trackball can be interfaced easi-ly to a personal computer. The TIPapproach is both simple and inex-pensive. A TRS-80 demonstrationvalidated the design approach. Whilethe TRS-80 did prove effective forevaluating the concept, I feel that atrackball device is better suited tohigher resolution graphics systemshaving a minimum of a 150- by 150-pixel matrix.

Overall, the Disc InstrumentsLT200 trackball is well constructed.The design is mechanically simple,having few moving parts. Whileperhaps a bit lightweight to survivethe demands of a video arcade, it iswell suited to the home and office en-vironment.

With the advent of the low-costLT200 and similar products that nodoubt will soon be offered by othervendors, the time has come to addthe power and convenience of thetrackball to the home computer. ■

Edward W. Andrews (18640 Arden Ave., Brook-field, WI 53005) holds a B. S. degree in computerscience and works at General Electric's MedicalSystems Operation. In his spare time, he enjoysvolleyball, racauetball, and home computing withemphasis on computer-graphics applications.

242 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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The User Interface: TwoApproaches

Both philosophy and pragmatism are viable courses

by Martin Herbach, Richard Katz, and Joseph Landau

In this article we present two approaches to the construction of an efficient user interface. The first,by Martin Herbach, provides his philosophical point of view that too often software developers are sowrapped up in the video-display aspects that the functionality of the program suffers. A text box byRichard Katz provides some basic guidelines that can help in user-interface development. Joseph Landaufollows by giving us an example of a philosophy that evolved from direct user feedback as his companybegan the process of increasing the capability of one of its products without complicating its use. Whilethe user interface continues to be a topic of heated discussion, you will see from these two points ofview that we are still far from any universal agreement about how to blueprint man-machine interaction.

How Is a Computer Like an Elephant?

by Martin Herbach

Perhaps no piece of computerjargon is more shrouded in mystiquethan "user interface." Like the blindmen's elephant, the term meansmany things to many people. Ratherthan concentrate on the tasks thatpeople are trying to perform, toomany of us software people have got-ten hung up in the mechanics of howusers physically communicate thevarious elements of these tasks.We've transformed a willing servantinto a wall of icons and windows, asnake of display management, a treeof gold to the minds of some market-ing managers, and rope for a Gordianknot.

When you clear away the jargon-induced fog, a user interface ismerely that part of a program thatsimulates a more appropriate com-puter to run the rest of the program.In other words, it's really the solutionto a hardware problem. We're askinga vast segment of our population touse computers for all kinds of tasks,but we're stuck with a "standard"setup, a box with a processor and a

couple of floppy-disk drives, a200-line-resolution monitor, and akeyboard without a key markedReturn.

The most significant thing aboutthis computer is the user, a techno-logically naive but competent busi-ness worker with limited time. Usersinclude managers, secretaries, execu-

A user interface

simulates a more

appropriate computer

to run the rest of the

program.

fives, real-estate agents, dentists, fin-ancial analysts, and myriad otherswith a need to operate with more in-formation more efficiently. Their tasksinclude creating and modifying docu-ments, filing and retrieving docu-ments and records, preparing presen-tations, free-form drawing, planningschedules, and manipulating spread-sheets as well as such vaguely definedobjectives as analysis.

Software should be designedaround the uses to which it will beapplied; those applications of thesoftware must come to the user easi-ly and intuitively. Some ways tomake a program easy to use are hav-ing fewer and simpler options, anda consistent structure, and hiding so-phisticated options where unsophis-ticated users won't be intimidated bythem. Having natural-language feed-back to confirm command and op-tion choices as well as friendly error-diagnosis messages that enable errorcorrection in as few keystrokes aspossible are other important ele-ments. But many seemingly straight-forward techniques are surprisinglyoverlooked in some of the most re-cent designs.

Only after "intuitive functionality"has been displayed should we lookat how the user will physically oper-ate the program. And this is wherewe tend to redesign the hardware.

One practical problem with spend-ing many aggregate years on the de-velopment of such low-level phe-

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 247

nomena as multiple-window mana-gers and wastebasket icons is that wemight shortly find our code incor-porated in the next generation ofvideo-controller chips—assumingthat our approach is as successfulwith the user as we hoped it wouldbe. If it is, I feel that it will be muchbetter implemented by hardware.

I have nothing personal againstprototyping the next generation ofprofessional computers, but I wonderhow many man-years of software de-velopment will have to be amortizedover how short a period. In any case,it's reassuring that there are pres-sures that will coax software vendorsto return to solving higher-level prob-lems. Heaven knows the user hasthem.

The specific use for office-auto-mation computers is increased infor-mation-management efficiency. Onemetaphor that is in vogue to conveythis capability is the top of a"cluttered" desk. Many capableminds expended tremendous effortsto produce a detailed simulation offile folders, in-baskets, clocks, padsof paper, and a ubiquitous movingarrow. Get the arrow squarely on theproper file folder and eventually youwind up with some of your desktopsimulating a cumbersome word pro-cessor. Clearly the word processor isthe afterthought, while the windowmanager, icon manipulator, rodentpriority interrupt handler, and waste-basket janitorial routines got the bulkof the development resources. Somereasons for this state of affairs are

1. We computer types know moreabout video management thancalendar management.

2. Redesigning hardware is fun.

3. There's hardly any fun in design-ing another word processor.

4. There's hardly any fun in sellinganother word processor.

To illustrate the varying approachesthat can be taken in designing pro-ductivity software, let's examine arepresentative feature, multiple win-dows. At the lowest level (technol-ogy), multiple windows imply themanagement of screen regions, sothat one region can be modified with-

out disturbing the rest and so thatthe original contents of the region canbe restored later. If we start with thatdefinition, we start asking questionslike these:

1. How much resolution do we haveor need?

2. What about color?

3. How do we scroll a portion, orregion, of a screen?

4.What about nongraphics con-figurations of the target computer?Do we support them? Do we op-timize for them?

Note that these are all really hard-ware questions. The danger is thatwe spend so much time investigatingthese topics that we forget to askquestions like the following:

Multiple-task

windowing is the most

natural way to express

task concurrency.

1. What function will I put my win-dows to?

2. For word processing, can I havewindows on separate documentssimultaneously?

3. Can I have multiple windows onthe same document? (This may ac-tually be harder than 2! Considerrejustifying the contents of a win-dow on page 100 because of achange in the window on page 1.)

4. For spreadsheet applications, canI view my data one way (say, asformulas in 20-character-wide col-umns) in window one and another(say, current values in 5-charactercolumns) in window two? This issomething that very few of thestand-alone spreadsheets (wherewindowing was pioneered) gotright.

These functional capabilities ofwindows are what must be looked atfirst. They may not be as sexy asrubber-band borders and scrollingpanels, but a proper user interface isone that defines the maximum func-

tionality in the most intuitive fashion.(For some all-purpose software-de-velopment guidelines, see the "Inter-facing Users and Software" text boxon page 250.)

The Xerox/Lisa/Visi On approach ispredicated on the simultaneousviewing of multiple tasks (as opposedto multiple views of the same task).For some people, this may not pro-vide an easy-to-use, productive en-vironment. When my desktop con-tains four tasks, such as memos toread or write, correspondence to re-view, and a couple of designs inprogress, my tendency is to pushthree aside and pick one to work on.The clutter that I referred to earlier issomething that computers shouldeliminate, not reproduce. An addi-tional problem is that the currentgeneration of microcomputer systemshasn't sufficient video resolution toallow the display of adequateamounts of multiple tasks. This prob-lem is not permanent, however.

Now that I have played the devil'sadvocate, let me state that many ofthe concepts introduced with thewindow-management style of userinterface are very valuable. Object-oriented data flow could be the mostimportant. The ability to communi-cate information among tasks visu-ally is very natural. The only betterway is to integrate the tasks so thatthe communication is not required.

Multiple-task windowing is themost natural way to express task con-currency. It's so natural, in fact, thatmany sophisticated observers areconvinced of Visi On's ability to domore than one thing at a time. Ofcourse, without some sort of taskmanager to schedule resources, con-currency is impossible, and this hasnot been provided for the microcom-puter environment—yet. When itdoes happen, the window-managerscheme will get a real workout. Un-til then, I hope that software de-signers concentrate on improvingwhat the user gets to do inside a win-dow rather than getting to it.B

Martin Herbach is a founder of and programdesigner at Sorcim Corporation (2310 LundyAve.,San Jose, CA 95231}.

248 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Interfacing Users and Software

by Richard Katz

As software developers trying to accom-plish today what AI (artificial intelligence)may someday be able to assist with, youmust apply your intelligence instead. Col-lect what you know about the program andexpress it as well as you can to clarify howto use it. Included here are several guide-lines that you might think of as a sort ofsoftware extension for Strunk and White'sThe Elements of Style, for, indeed, theguidelines begin in that very place.

1. Practice clear writing techniques.Study books like The Elements of Styleand Clear Technical Writing by ]ohnBrogan. Hire and work closely with an ex-perienced technical writer during the de-velopment stage. A course on technicalwriting may also be a worthwhile invest-ment.

2. Focus on the application. Considerwhat the application program needs to do.Imagine yourself as the user trying to getthrough the program for the first time. Bet-ter yet, find someone to be a first-time user.Write down what you expect the programto do and what it must do. For example,if you are using a word-processing pro-gram, you ought to be able to type in a let-ter, save it on disk, print it, retrieve it andlook at it again, make changes, and saveit again.

3. Include on-screen help capability.

A tutorial demonstrates what software cando, but it cannot provide immediate assis-tance. A good tutorial illustrates a mean-ingful use of a program and demonstrateshow to use the program to make it do thatone thing. Along the way, it shows thecommands that must be entered and whatthey do within the framework of the ex-ample. However, the tutorial is of necessi-ty separate from the program itself. It can-not give you information about programcontrols while you actually operate the pro-gram. On-screen help can do so.

Numerous approaches have been triedfor on-screen help capabilities. While feware truly successful, the help capabilitynonetheless offers great potential for mak-ing program controls obvious.

Make it clear how to access the helpcapability by including a message such as"Press Fl for help" at the beginning or, ifpossible, continuously while the programis running. Also, clearly identify how toleave the program to return to the operat-ing system. Feio programs do this well. Inmany programs, either the exiting infor-mation is very obscure or it is difficult toget to the help screen that contains the ex-iting information. Thus, the trusting usercan get trapped.

I recommend starting the design with atwo-level approach that first presents the

user with an overview help menu. Fromthis menu the user selects topics, thus pro-viding individual control over the learn-ing process.

For instance, a project-planning andmanagement-control program informs theuser at the beginning to press the questionmark (?) key to get help. Then the over-view help menu shown below appears onthe screen.

What kind of help do you want?

1. Where am I, anyway?

2. How do I enter data in this field?

3. How can I make changes?

4. I'm done here. What do I do now?Press 1, 2, 3, or 4:

4. Orient users to program controls.Orientation is what happens your first dayin high school or college. You learn wherethe library is, when to register for classes,how to get an adviser, where the laundriesand restaurants are, and so on. In a helpscreen, use the orientation form to iden-tify program controls. On the left side ofthe screen, describe in everyday languagethe things that the user will need to do.On the right side, show the keys to pressor commands to enter. For example, sup-

How Is a Computer Like an Onion?

by Joseph Landau

Versaform is a forms-oriented data-base product for nontechnical endusers. You can use it to design orcopy a form on the computer, per-form computations, produce outputon preprinted forms, and create re-ports and analyses. Because of Ver-saform's orientation to existing busi-ness forms, you can continue tofollow familiar procedures and usefamiliar data formats. Essentially, Ver-saform provides a way to construct adatabase from a business's existingpaper-form records.

While implementing a new Versa-form feature, we confronted theproblem of making an inherentlycomplex task seem as simple aspossible. We realized that each newfeature brings the burden of learningit, but how can we continue to pro-vide more functions without makingour product more complex andharder to learn?

The Need

The new feature, called File Look-up, adds a multifile access capability

to Versaform. It enables the system tosearch for data on a secondary fileand automatically enter this data onthe current form the user is filling in.For example, suppose an invoice(the primary form) is being filled in(see figure 1). Versaform is able tocheck entries against an internal tableof valid part numbers, find descrip-tions and prices, and compute ex-tended totals and column totals, allautomatically. Internal tables, how-ever, are limited to 99 entries, whichis adequate for professional offices

250 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

pose the user selects item 4 from the helpmenu. The next screen the user sees lookslike this:

What to do next:

• To save your work, enter /S

• To print a report, enter /O

• To leave the program, enter /Q

• To clear the work area, enter /Z

• To retrieve an old plan, enter /L

• You can also work on the project planfrom a different view

• To select another view, enter N

The screen above could be enhanced fur-ther by listing the page number in the userguide that explains each of the subjects ingreater detail.

5. Eliminate extraneous informationon the screen. Brevity engenders clari-ty, provided you strengthen the verbs, usethe active voice, and eliminate the dead-wood. By being succinct and includingonly what is important, you will be ableto clarify program use. Users won't haveto dig through a lot of information that'snot pertinent to their situation.

In the help screen above, each instruc-tion begins with "To do this" on the leftside. Descriptive verbs such as save, print,and retrieve provide more clarity than a

broad verb like use. The definite nounsyour work, a report, etc., add to clearunderstanding. The verb enter on theright side explicitly directs the user'saction.

6. Use help to document programerror messages. Another aid for the userexplains how to resolve situations thatcreate error messages. Although this capa-bility logically belongs in on-screen help,it rarely occurs. Possible reasons are thatit requires extra programming or that ittakes up additional disk space.

To provide this assistance requires thatyou give each error a separate number,write a detailed explanation of the errormessage, and describe some action to cir-cumvent the error. Then create a datastructure and triggering mechanism to pre-sent them at the proper times. For instance,suppose the user of a spreadsheet programmakes an error while entering a formula.The user enters the formula "+A1+3*"and forgets to include an additionaloperand following the "*. " Spreadsheetprograms generally respond to this byprinting a short message such as "FOR-MULA ERROR" or by producing an an-noying beep. Now, the user is stuck; theonly solution requires erasing the formulafrom the entry line. The beep or nebuloustwo-word message is more irritating than

helpful.

In most spreadsheet programs that haveon-screen help, when the user requests helpa full page of information appears. But itis the same descriptive page that is avail-able even if the user had not made the errorto begin with. A program that has true on-screen error help should print a messagelike the one shown below.

You have made an error in the formulayou are trying to enter.

To continue, you must first correct theerror or press (whatever) to clear theentry.

Note that no attempt is made in the mes-sage to diagnose the formula error; adiagnosis is not essential. The vital infor-mation tells the user how to continue. In-cluding error message analyses such as theones above further reduces the apparentand actual dangers in using a computerprogram.

Richard Katz (412 Green St., San Francisco,CA 94133) is a technical editor for Osborne/McGraw-Hill Book Company.

but not large enough for inventory in-formation in many retail andwholesale businesses. Our solutionwas to allow the needed data to beaccessed directly from a separate in-ventory file—either on a hard disk oron another floppy disk.

In addition to locating the valuesfor description and price on the in-ventory (secondary form) and fillingthem in on the invoice, File Lookupalso finds out from the inventorywhether there is a large enough sup-ply to fill the order and subtracts thequantity ordered from the quantityon hand. Or, if the quantity on handis not sufficient to fill the order, back-

order information is automaticallyentered on the inventory. To handlethese tasks, the new feature com-bines multifile access with user-defined procedures necessary for theconditional updates.

The Mechanics

We began the process of designingthe user interface for the File Lookupfeature with an outline of the func-tions involved:

1. Exactly when will the desired ac-tion be executed?

2. Where will the lookup data befound (which record, on which

file, on which disk)?

3. Where will the system look for theinformation it needs to find the re-quired record—that is, where is thekey?

4. The system must be told what todo with the data it finds:

a. Instructions for moving data inboth directions between the twoforms (records).

b. What calculations to perform.

c. Under what conditions certainoperations are to be performed.

5. If the lookup form has a columnararea (a repeating group), as in theQuantity Price-Break Table in theinventory in figure 1, which line

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 251

Primary Form

.1 I

INVOICE I I

I I

DATE 5/23/83 INV# GRE6 I I

NAME Joe Green I I

ADDRESS 2310 Grant St I I

CITY Middle City ST IL ZIP 60202 I I

___ I I

L# QTO QTS .PART. DESCRIPTION PRICE .COST. II

I I

01 30. ... ABC111 Widget 17.00 II

02 25. ... DEF123 Gizmo 13.50 II

I I

Inventory Key Item SUBTOTAL II

TAX M

TOTAL II

I

Secondary Form

INVENTORY

Key ItemPARTNO ABC111PARTNAME WidgetONHAND ...136BACKORDERED ....STDPRICE 20.00

Quantity Price-Break TableL# .QTY. .UNITPRICE.

01 ...10 20.00

02 ...25 18.50

03 ..100 17.00

03 .9999 16.00

Figure 1: Primary- and secondary-form interaction. While you are entering data on the invoice, the File Lookup feature discussed in thetext finds information in the inventory on another file and automatically enters it on the invoice.

will contain the data? The desiredline can be located in a number ofways:

a. Look for an exact match with thevalues in one of the columns.

b. Look for the first entry ex-ceeding a certain value (as in atax table).

c . Find a figure in a range betweentwo columns.

First Design

Consistent with its forms-relatedenvironment, Versaform providesthroughout its programs a variety ofon-screen forms you fill in with in-structions for the system.

For the File Lookup feature, ourfirst on-screen form appeared as illus-trated in figure 2. It has been filledin as it would be to perform the func-tions described in the invoice/inven-tory example. In brief, it providesthese instructions to the system:

Lookup Trigger Item—This is the itemon the primary form that triggersthe lookup. That is, the search willactually begin when the user fillsin the item called Part on the in-voice. This field is filled in auto-matically by the system when theform appears on the screen.

Secondary-File Disk, SecondaryFile—The form to be looked up will

be found in the inventory file onMydisk.

Key-Froml,2—Each Versaform file isidentified by its unique key item,which may be a single field or aconcatenation of two fields. Tolocate the secondary form, the sys-tem must know where it will findthat form's key item among thedata entered into the primary form(the current form in which infor-mation is being entered). In the ex-ample, that data will be found inthe Part item on the invoice. Thedata from Part (the part number) isused as the key to find the properrecord on the inventory file (whosekey is the field called Partno).

Column Key-From—If the lookup op-eration is to extract values from acolumn line on the secondary form(i.e., from the Quantity Price-BreakTable), the system must know theitem on the primary form that willsupply the value to be searched for.This is Qto (quantity ordered) onthe invoice.

Lookup-Columnl,2, Interval Search—This is an either/or set of fields,by which the user identifies whichof the three available column-search options the system is to per-form (match, first line exceedingvalue, or range between two col-umns). In the invoice/inventory ex-

ample, the system searches theitem called Qty on the secondaryform (the inventory) for a valueequal to or greater than the valueof Qto.

In the Transfer List, at the bottomof the form, the system finds theseinstructions:

Lines 1 and 2 transfer data to theprimary form. The second column(headed "@") specifies the direc-tion of transfer.

Line 3 checks to see if Qto is less thanor equal to that Onhand. If true,the next three lines are skipped;the quantity Onhand in the inven-tory is reduced by the Qto (Line 7),and the value in Qto is moved toQts (quantity shipped) on the sameform (Line 8).

Lines 4 and 5 apply if Qto is greaterthan the quantity Onhand. Theyinstruct the system to add the Qtoto Backordered on the inventory(Line 4), enter 0 in Qts on the in-voice (Line 5), and skip the nexttwo instructions (Line 6).

Line 9 saves the new information onthe lookup form (inventory).

Testing the Design

As an aid to understanding how

252 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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FILE TRANSFER INSTRUCTIONS

Lookup trigger item PART

Select the file to look up, the key-from items, the columnsearch items, and the items to transfer.

SECONDARY-FILE DISK Mydisk SECONDARY FILE Inventory.

KEY-FR0M1 Part KEY-FR0M2

COLUMN KEY-FROM Qto (Item on primary form)

LOOKUP-COLUMN1 Qty (low value)

L00KUP-C0LUMN2 (high value)

-or-INTERVAL SEARCH (Y/N) y (on LOOKUP-COLUMN1 item only)

Transfer List

L# PRIMARY-ITEM @ CALC LOOKUP ITEM COMMAND

01 DESCRIPTION < .... PARTNAME ,

02 PRICE < UNITPRICE

03 QTO LE.. ONHAND /skip 3

04 QTO > +... BACKORDERED

05 QTS < .... 0

06 /skip 2

07 QTO > -... ONHAND

08 QTS < .... *QTO

09 /save..

Figure 2: The first attempt at design of an on-screen form for the invoice/inventory example shows user-entered instructions in tinted areas.This arrangement proved to be too complicated for easy user acceptance.

the new feature would appear tousers at this stage, a first draft of user-directed documentation was writtenfrom the specifications and circulatedto reviewers. It served to inform thosefamiliar with Versaform about thepurpose of the new feature. The in-voice/inventory illustration offered asimple example of how and why itwould be of value to them.

In addition to the descriptions offields on the File Transfer instructionsin figure 2 similar to those just given,the documentation contained an ex-planation of the columnar area of theTransfer List form. We expected thereviewers to absorb these concepts:

The @ symbol, indicating the to-or-from direction of the transfer, hasthree legal options, or it can be left

blank to signal either no data trans-fer or to defer to a Command in-struction.

The Calc column is used to specifycalculations to be performed whentransferring data, introducing theterms Target and Source to dif-ferentiate between the two formsinvolved.

The Command column is a catchallused for either commands, values,instructions, comparisons, or con-ditionals.

What we found, however, at thisstage of development was that theFile Lookup feature was a big lumpfor the reviewers to swallow andmight, in fact, be indigestible. Beforeeven the most basic of File Transferoperations could be managed, users

were required to understand the dif-ferentiation between the two files in-volved, the trigger concept, two ap-plications of key, and the variationsin the column lookup operation in-volving one column or two, whetherinclusive or not. In addition, a smallglossary of programming terms wasintroduced.

Two Conceptual Steps

Our documentation and product-support staff identified two areas ofconfusion for nontechnical users.

First, the variations in the column-line lookup operation could not beclearly defined in the limited spaceavailable at the top of the form. Moreimportant, however, the variationswere specialized; in simple applica-tions where they were not necessary

254 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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FILE TRANSFER INSTRUCTIONS

Lookup trigger item PART

Fill in the secondary disk and file name, the primary item(s) thatwill supply the values needed for lookup, and Procedure.

SECONDARY -FILE DISK Mydisk SECONDARY FILE Inventory. . ..

KEY-FROM1 Part KEY-FROM2

COLUMN KEY-FROM Qto (Item on primary form)

LOOKUP-COLUMN1 Qty (low value)

LOOKUP-COLUMN2 (high value)

-or-

INTERVAL SEARCH (Y/NO) y (on LOOKUP-COLUMN1 item only)

PROCEDUREL#

01 DESCRIPTION := PARTNAME;

02 PRICE := UNITPRICE

03 if QTO < ON_HAND then begin {ship it}

04 ONHAND := ONHAND-QTO; QTS := QTO;

05 end else BACKORDER := BACKORDER + QTO;

06 /save (b)

Figure 3: This revised form for the invoice/inventory example substituted procedural instructions in place of the Transfer List. This arrange-ment was a definite improvement over figure 2 but still required entry of seldom-used data.

(e.g., where there is only one pricefor a part), they seemed to get in theway.

Second, the columnar area at thebottom of figure 2, the Transfer List,was versatile and flexible but de-cidedly unfriendly.

Our first revision attacked theproblem of the Transfer List. Insteadof a syntax made up of columnar en-tries, instructions to the system werenow to be handled by proceduralstatements entered in more familiarsyntax. The statements would resem-ble those of a programming languagesuch as BASIC or Pascal. The revisedform is illustrated in figure 3. It isfilled in with the same system in-structions that were given by theTransfer List method in figure 2. Inthis example, Description and Price(Lines 1 and 2) are to be assignedvalues.

The letters "a" and "b" designatewhich form the item is on; "a" is theprimary form and "b" the secondary.These qualifications are necessaryonly in cases that would otherwise be

ambiguous, as in the /save command(Line 6) or when items with the samename are on both the primary andsecondary forms.

The if/else statements determinewhether to ship or back order theproduct.

The Onion Approach

After we had the solution to oneproblem area, we were able to solvethe second. The column lookup in-formation (in figure 3, the fields Col-umn Key-From, Lookup-Columns 1and 2, and Interval Search) was stillconfusing and always had to be filledin, even though useful only in aminority of cases, such as in theQuantity Price-Break Table.

We decided that the informationheretofore entered in these itemscould be handled as procedural state-ments. In this form, they would beavailable when required but wouldn'thave to be understood by those whowere not using the feature.

The four fields were summarily re-moved, and the resulting form was

much easier to understand and use(figure 4). This opened the way to anew operational concept of the fea-ture, which took the name the onionapproach.

The outer skin of the onion com-prises the basics. This might includethe simple transfer of iniormation,such as Partname and Stdprice infigure 1. This is the operation illus-trated in figure 4. As users becomemore sophisticated in their use of thefeature, layer after layer is peeledaway, exposing some of the system'smore complex capabilities.

Using this approach, the complex-ity of the operation does not intrudeupon Versaform's basic nontechnicalorientation. Users don't have to dealwith or understand terminology orconcepts beyond those needed at thetime.

The procedure in figure 4 is filledin with the instructions that the userwould give the system in the invoice/inventory example for two simpleoperations: the transfer of Partnameand Stdprice information from the in-

256 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 328 on inquiry card.

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FILE LOOKUP INSTRUCTIONS I

ILookup trigger item PART I

ISelect the file to look up, the key-from items, the column Isearch items, and the items to transfer. I

I

SECONDARY-FILE DISK Mydisk SECONDARY FILE Inventory.... I

I

KEY-FR0M1 Part KEY-FR0M2 I

IPROCEDURE I

IL# I

01 DESCRIPTION := PARTNAME I

02 PRICE : = STDPRICE I

03 I

Figure 4: The final form design removed the column lookup operation and substituted a built-in procedure that doesn't intrude unless accessedfor special operations.

ventory to the Description and Pricefields on the invoice.

When Unitprice is needed, a built-in procedure (Find Line) would be

used to set the line number to findthe appropriate line in the QuantityPrice-Break Table for quantityordered.

An Evaluation

The Transfer List method fit innicely with Versaform's column-itemstructure and field-editing capabili-ties. However, the instructions tookon an assembly-language appearancewhen burdened with the need forbranching and error handling. Therewas no easy way to key in a mean-ingful error message in the space pro-vided or to handle functions withmore than one argument. We weresure that eventually the schemewould break down in a real-worldapplication.

On the other hand, the proceduremethod required us to produce a lan-guage specification and define a setof built-in functions to take care of thelookup and column area search.

In effect, we created a "minilan-guage" with a syntax similar to Pascalbut with the simplicity of BASIC.This combination simplifies the han-dling of conditional execution and in-cludes the flexibility to add morefunctions later.

The final design follows the onionapproach, as does the documenta-tion, presenting successive layers ofcomplexity, starting with a FileTransfer Instructions form and end-ing with the full syntax and functionsavailable. Users can become thor-oughly familiar with the elementarycapabilities of the feature withouthaving to understand the more ad-

User perspectives are

critical to the

successful revision of

product design.

vanced operations. Later, when re-quirements become more complex,the facilities needed are available inthe form of built-in functions.

The simplicity of the language is aresult of those things taken care ofautomatically by Versaform. No datastructures or data types need to bedeclared; the data structures for theprimary and secondary forms are im-plicit declarations. File I/O (input/out-put) and storage management arebuilt in. Data conversion is handledautomatically, and exceptions aredealt with by ignoring missing or in-valid data in computations and flag-ging the error to the operator.

File Lookup is now a part of theVersaform system. Although it was adifficult feature to design, it is com-patible with the other programs insimplicity of operation and docu-mentation.

Concepts in Development

The evolution of the new featuremade us aware of two especially use-ful concepts in the design of new en-hancements.

Much can be said for the draftingof documentation before the designis frozen, to test user perspectivesand to work out revisions that willenhance the product from the user'spoint of view. At this point, the docu-mentation will often drive the design.Put another way, if you can't docu-ment it simply, don't code it!

In addition, the onion approachhas proven to be one of the bestdevices for making advanced func-tions accessible. A feature that seemsoverwhelming in its entirety becomesmanageable when its complexitiesare hidden beneath layers of simpleand familiar operations. These layers,peeled away as needed, build on auser's comfortable and gradually in-creased understanding. ■

Joseph Landau is president of Applied SoftwareTechnology (170 Knowles Dr., Los Gatos, CA95030).

258 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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713

RM/Cobol Runtime Only ..

250

188

Utility/Comm/Graph

cs

Alpha Software

LIST

SALE

Apple-IBM Connection

195

129

Byrom Software

BSTAM

200

149

BSTMS

200

149

Central Point

Copy II PC

40

35

Hayes

Smartcom 2

119

79

Innovative Software

Fast Graphs

295

159

Insoft

Data Design

225

169

ISM

Graphmagic

90

85

Graphmagic Combo

150

119

Mlcmstuf

Crosstalk/

Smartmodem

195

119

Peter Norton

Utilities

80

59

Vlslcorp

Visitrend/Plot

300

195

WOOll

150

rAR]

IBM PC HARDV

E

Corvus

PC Interlace. Cable,

Man

300

239

Hayes Microcomputer Products

Smartmodem 1200B (5|

599

439

Hercules

Graphics Card

499

359

Microsoft ■

195

Programming International

35

29

QCS

Big Blue

595

449

Quadrum

256K QUADB0AR0

595

435

64K Quadboard

395

269

TG Products

Joystick.

65

49

Tendon

TM100-2 Drive

(5'A" OS) [5]

650

249

PC SOFTWARE CP/M-81

Ashton-Tale

LIST

SALE

dBASE II |51

700

3RD

fiw & (Seller

Quickcode

295

175

dGRAPH

295

189

dUTIL

99

59

Digital Research

CBASIC 86

200

150

CP/M-86

60

45

Pascal MT+86

WilhSPP-86

600

450

Concurrent CP/M 86

350

249

mall

Move II

150

99

APPLE

APPLE II/II- DOS

Business

Artsct LIST SALE

Magic Mailer 70 49

Magic Window II 150 99

Magic Words 70 49

BPl

AP 395 295

AR 395 295

Inv 395 295

Broderbund

General Ledger w/AP 495 305

Bank St. Writer 70 45

Continental

CPA #1,2,3.4 (ALL 4) ..|5) 1000 609

CPA #1-GL 250 159

CPA #2-AR 250 159

CPA *3-AP 250 159

CPA 04-PAYROLL 250 159

FCM (First Class Mail) .... 100 68Home Accountant 75 52

Decision SupportAccountant With

DBCALC 149 112

Accountant 129 97

HaydenPiewriter/Multi 80 Column 150 99

Kensington

Format II 150 113

UK

Letter Perfect

W/Mail Merge 150 112

Microsoft *

Multiplan™ 275 169

Multitool Budget 150 109

Multitool Financial 100 69

Time Manafler 150 115

MuseSupertext Home Office ... 125 79Supertext Professional 99 65

PBLPersonal Investor 145 99

Program Design

New Step by Step 80 50

Sensible

Sensible Speller 125 85

Sierra On Line

Dictionary 100 69

Screenwriter II 130 85

Screenwriter

Professional 200 149

Silicon valleyWord Handler 199 139

Sof/Sys.Executive Speller 75 56

Software DimensionsAccounting + II GL. 395 289

Accounting + II AR . ... 395 289

Accounting + II AP 395 289

Accounting + II

Inventory 395 289

Accounting + II

Payroll 395 289

SynergisticGlobal ProgramLine Editor 65 49

VlslcorpBusiness Forecasting

Model 100 78

Visicalc 250 159

Visiplol 200 156

Visischedule 300 195

Database

AST UST SALE

Versaform 389 245

Micro Lab

Data Factory 300 216

Muse

Address Book 50 36

Silicon Valley

List Handler 90 68

Software Publishers

PFS: File 125 85

PFS: Graph 125 85

PFS: Report 125 79

Stoneware

DBMaster 350 260

OBMaster/Hard Disk 499 359

Stalpak 99 71

Utility Pak 1 129 96

Utility Pak 2 129 96

Synergistic

Modifiable Database 80 59

Vlslcorp

Visifile 250 159

Home/Education/Games

Beagle Brothers LIST SALE

Alpha Plot 40 28

IUS

Telstar Level 1 40 30

Telstar Level II 80 58

Lightning Software

Master Type 40 30

Micro Lab

English SAT #1 30 22

Learning System 150 108

US Constitution Tutor .... 30 22Microsoft *

Typing Tutor i\" 25 19

Duality Software

Bag of Tricks 40 30

Sensible

BEST 40 30

Synergistic

Stargazer's Guide 30 23

Language

Mlcmsoft •

Applesoft Compiler

(TASC)" 175 119

Mumath/Musimp

(ADIOS)™ 250 194

/*Lisp/^Star 200 156

TerrapinLogo 150 119

Utility/Comm/Graphics

Avant Garde LIST SALE

Ultra Plot/DIF/Datagraph . 99 71HiRes Secrets 125 94

Beagle Brothers

Apple Mechanic 30 22

Beagle Bag 30 23

DOS Boss 24 17

Double Take 35 27

Pronto DOS 30 23

Utility City 30 22

Central PointCopy II+ 40 35

CraneMenu Generator. 40 29

DataSoftMicro Painter 35 25

HayesTerminal Program 100 75

Insoft

Electric Duet 30 23

Graforlh II 75 56

Link Systems

Link Index 195 149

Link Video 55 42

LotusExecutive BriefingSystem 199 149

Muse

Dataptol 60 43

Omega Microwave

Inspector 60 49

PenguinComp Graphics/

Apple Tablet 120 86

Complete Graphics

System 70 50

Graphics Magician 60 39

Special Effects 40 30

Special Effects

Apple Tablet 70 50

260 BYTE December 1983

whatyfon want.

Phoenix

Zoom Graphics 50 38

Sensible

Disk Organizer 30 23

Disk Recovery 30 23

Image Printer Epson 40 30

NEC Dot Matrix 40 30

Multi Disk Catalog 25 19

Super Disk Copy 35 26

Sirlus

Pascal Graphics Editor ... 100 75Southeastern

Data Capture Videx 90 65

Southwestern Data

ASCII Express

Professional 130 89

Printographer 50 38

Zterm Prof 150 109

Videx

Videoterm Utilities Disk .. 37 28Vislcorp

80 Col prebooWApple .... 29 21

80 Col prebook/Visicalc .. 49 27

Soft Video Switch 35 25

Visiterm 100 79

Visitrend/Plot 300 195

APPLE III™

Vislcorp LIST SALEBusiness Forecasting

Model 100 78

Vislschedule 300 195

link Systems

Data Fax 249 187

Software Publishers

PFS: File 175 129

PFS: Report 125 79

APPLE lie"

Most Apple II products also run on the lie(call for details) Products below arespecially designed tor the Me.

Sierra On Line LIST SALE

Screenwriter II 130 85

Software Publishers

PFS: File 125 85

PFS: Graph 125 85

PFS: Report 125 79

Vislcorp

Visicalc 250 159

APPLE HARDWARE™

Hardware

Eastslde LIST SALE

Wildcard (II/II+) 130 99

Wildcard (tor lie only).... 130 109

Hayes

Micromodem II 379 259

w/Term Pgm 409 289

Kensington

System Saver Fan 90 69

Kratt

JoySSck 45

UK

Lower Case Char Gen ... 25 19

Microsoft •

16K RAM Card" 100 69

Premium System" ... [5] 695 489

Sottcard" 345 219

New Premium Card" 495 369

Personal Computer

Applicard (6MHz) 375 305

7G

Jcystick 60 45

met

Enhancer II 149 99

Ultraterm 379 279

Videoterm with

Softswitch 375 239

CP/M

CP/M-80

(8" Standard SSSD)

Other formats are available as special ordersthru Software to go.

Business

ATI LIST SALE

Power for CP/M 75 54

Ashton-Tate

Bottom Line Strategist.... 400 269

Aspen

Grammatik 75 56

Proofreader (32K or 80K). 50 38

Designer Software

Palantir 425 299

DictronlesRandom House

Thesaurus 150 102

Digital Research

Display Manager 400 295

Epic

Supervyz 150 94

Mark of the Unicorn

The Final Word 300 199

Mince 175 127

Metasoft

Benchmark Mail List 250 182

Word Processor 500 299

Micro Pro

Calcstar 145 96

Mailmerge 250 129

Spellstar 250 128

Starindex 195 150

Word/Mail [5| 695 347

Word/Spell [5] 695 347

Wordstar Prof.

(Word/Spell/Mail) [5] 845 395

Wordstar [5] 495 248

Microsoft *

Multiplan- 275 169

Multitool Financial 100 69

Multitool Budget 150 109

Northwest Analytical

Starpak 495 369

Oasis

The Word Plus 150 105

Punctuation & Style 129 99

Organic

Milestone 295 229

Select

Select Word Processor .. 595 329Sorclm

Supercalc 195 115

Supercalc 2 285 159

Database

Anderson-Bell LIST SALE

Abstat 395 339

Ashton-Tate

dBASE II 700 389

dBASE II

w/user"s guide 729 409

Friday 295 198

Caxton

Cardbox 245 177

Condor

Condor 3 650 395

DJR

FMS 80 395 275

Digital Research

Access Manager 300 219

FY!

SuperTile 195 112

Fox & Geller

Quickcode 295 175

Quickscreen/dBASE II .... 149 119

dGRAPH 295 190

dUTIL 99 58

Human Soft

DBPIUS 125 95

Micro Pro

Infostar 495 327

Microsoft *

Sorting Facility

(MSORT)'" 195 151

Pearl Soft

Personal Pearl 295 221

T/Maker Co.

T/Maker III 275 215

Home/Education/Games

Intocom LIST SALE

Deadline 60 43

Starcross 50 38

Zork I 50 38

Zork II 50 38

Zork 111 50 38

Suspended 50 38

Supersoft

Dungeon Master 40 30

Nemesis 45 34

Language

Digital Research LIST SALE

CB80 500 369

CBASIC 150 94

PL/1 80 500 375

Pascal MT+ 350 262

Pascal MT+ with SPP .... 500 395

RMAC 200 150

SID 75 63

ZSID 100 88

Microsoft •

Basic 80 Interpreter 350 249

Basic Compiler 395 285

Cobol 80 750 562

Fortran 80 500 345

MACRO 80 200 150

pLisp/pStar 200 156

Supersoft

ADA Compiler 300 225

C Compiler 250 188

Utility/Comm/Graphics

Byrom LIST SALE

BSTAM 200 149

Digital Research

Despool 50 38

Mlcrostuf

Crosstalk/Smartmodem... 195 117Supersoft

Disk Doctor 100 75

moit

Move It.

HARDWARE, NOTMACHINE SPECIFIC

Amdek LIST SALE

Color II (RGB) 899 645

Hayes Microcomputer Products

Chronograph 249 199

Smartmodem 1200 699 499

Smartmodem 300 279 209

NEC

Monitor 12" Green

Hi-Res 285 167

Novation

J Cat 149 119

Smart Cat 103 259 207

Smart Cat 103/212 595 476

" = Manufacturer's trademark

11 = Indicates a manufacturer's

registered trademark

• We ship within 24 hours on mostitems.

• Both East coast & West coast ship-ping points.

Orders must be PAIDby December 31

to qualify for thesespecial prices.

Programming International

505 Hamilton Ave. • Suite 301 • Palo Alto, CA 94301

TELEPHONE ORDERS

Outside CA: (800)222-8811

Inside CA: (800)631-4400

Local: (415) 324-3730

Technical SupportOrder StatusSales Manager

(415)324-0311(415)324-0306(415)324-0305

Order lines are manned 6:30-6 Monday thru Friday and 9-5 Saturday.Other lines are open 9-5 Monday thru Friday.

More CPM® , APPLE® ,IBM PC", UCSD p-System-software, hardware, etc.:

call for quote.

TERMS: All prices subject to changewithout notice and availability. Cashier'scheck/MO/bank transfer. Allow time torcompany or personal checks to clear.Prices reflect cash prepaid discount.VISA/MASTGRCAHD/COD/PO's + 3%.CA residents add sales tax. All sales final.

SHIPPING: $3 per item for UPS surface($6 for BLue Label) within ContinentalUSA, except where shipping cost isspecified in square brackets. UPS does notgotoCanada, Alaska, APO's, FPO's;callfor ship charge or add 15%—we willrefund/credit difference.

RETURNS: All returns subject tomanagers approval, must have authoriza-tion number, obtained at 415-324-0305.Unauthorized returns will be refused;damaged goods will be refused. All returnssubject to 15% restocking fee. No returnafter 30 days.

WHY PAY MORE?

BYTE December 1983 261

PRINTERS

Prowriter

1 20 cps, 4 fonts (includesproportional), 8 sizes, 160 x 1 44dpi, friction & tractor feed. Aworthy rival of Epson.

Prowriter $300.88

Prowriter 2 S719.B8

Starwriter

Letter-quality, 40 cps, 136columns 10 & 12 pitch, usesDiablo wheels & ribbons (Qumecode). The Printmast.r is the 55cps version. The A10 Starwriter(18 cps) is the new, low-speedversion with the same specs.

A10 Starwriter $800.88

Starwriter 1210.88

Printmaster 1589.08

Tractor Feed $280.88

Sheet Feed 800.88

DIABLO

620 $000.88

630 1070.88

Series 32 1040.88

EPSON

RX/FX Epsons CALL

IDS

Micro 480 $320.88

P-Series

80 1070.86

w/4-color. 14*0.88

132 1239.88

w/4-color 1SS9.SS

IHFORUHHER

Riteman

A compact printer with 120 cps,10/17 cpi, 160 x 144 dpi graphics,optional tractor (pin/friction std).Parallel $340.88

MAHNK8MANN TALLY

MT-160 L

The MT-160 L (160 cps) features8 fonts (including a correspon-dence font), parallel & RS-232Cinterfaces, friction/tractor feed.The MT-180 L is a 136 columnversion. The Spirit (80 cps)features 4 fonts, italics, dotgraphics & friction/tractor feed.

MT-160 L 1840.88

MT-180L 649.86

Spirit 320.88

NIC

2010/2030 $879.68

2050 999.68

3510 1649.66

3530 1830.88

3550 1899.66

7710/7730 2150.88

Silver Reed EXP-550 & EXP-500

Silver Reed's printers are excep-tional. Both the EXP-550 (17 cps) andthe EXP-500 (1 2 cps) feature sub andsuperscript, underlining, backspace,proportional printing capabilities,multiple pitch (10, 12 or 15 cpi) andDiablo 1610/1620 code emulation,which makes them compatible withnearly every word processing programavailable. The EXP-550 features apage-inject system.

EXP-550 (Parallel) $669.88

EXP-550 (RS-232C) $689.88

EXP500 (Parallel) $439.88

EXP-500 (RS-232C) $469.88

EXP-550 Tractor Feed $139.88

EXP-500 Tractor Feed $129.88

Microline Series

The 02/03 printers (1 60 cps),the 84 (200 cps) are exceptional.Tough, reliable, they producesuperior draft quality, correspon-dence quality & graphics. The PCPlug-n-Play ROMs turn the 02/93/64 into 100% IBM-PCcompatible printers. Our very bestselling printer line.

Microline 80 $310.88

Microline 82A 380.88

ML82A-ML92 Adjustable

Tractor Feed 50.88

82A/83A Okigraph I

(graphics ROM) 40.88

82A/83A Hi-speed RS-232C

Interface 120.88

Microline 83A 759.88

Microline 92 450.88

W/RS-232C 969.88

Microline 93 750.88

W/RS-232C 870.88

IBM PC Plug-n-Play Graphics

ROM (92/93) 40.88

92/93A Hi-apeed RS-232C

Interface 00.88

Microline 84 1024.88

W/RS-232C 1139.88

SMITH CORONA

Messenger

The Memory Correct 111

Messenger (1 2 cps) features 10,

12 & 15 cpi, variable line spacing,

backspace, auto-correction and a

dual parailel/RS-232C interface.

True daisy wheel printing makes it

an exceptional typewriter &

printer, idea, for the home or small

office.

Memory Correct III

Messenger 619.88

STAR MICRONICS

Gemini 10X/15

Gemini 10X $300.88

W/RS-232C 309.88

Gemini 15 ...450.88

W/RS-232C 560.88

Delta 10 529.88

W/RS-232C 619.88

TOSHIBA

P1350 $1759.88

CABLES

IBM-PC $30.88

Osborne-1 39.88

TRS-80

Model l/lll/IV 39.88

Model 11/16 39.88

Centronics

Male/Male 39.88

Male/Female 39.88

VIC-20/Commodore 64

Parallel Card/Cable 59.88

Apple ll/ll+/lle

Parallel Card/Cable 89.88

QUADHAU

Microfazer

A print buffer with pause, copy &reset controls. It comes with a 9Vpower supply and cable to printer.There are so many buffer sizes(from 8K to 51 2K), & so manyconfigurations (Parallel/Parallel,Parallel/RS-232C, RS-232C/Par-allel & RS-232C/RS-232C) thatyou should call /BOO) 343-0736for prices.

MONITORS

NEC

JB 1205M (amber) $179.88

JB 1201M (green) 159.88

AMDBK

300A (12" amber) $164.88

300G (1 2" green) 140.88

310A (amber) CALL

USI

Pi-3 (12" amber) $180.88

Pi-4 (9" amber) 159.88

QuadChrome

690 x 240 resolution, 80 columnsx 24 lines, 1 6 colors & exceptionalperformance. Cable included.QuadChrome(RGB) $500.88

PRINCETON GRAPHICS

HX-12

Same spec's & performance asthe QuadChrome.PGS HX-1 2 (RGB) $480.88

MODEMS

US ROBOTICS

Password

M

0-300/12OO baud direct-connect

modem with auto-dial/answer, full/half duplex, voice/data. Uses LSItechnology. Cables & powersupply included (specify type ofcomputer).

Password $370.88

"Courier 470.88

*Uses Osborne-1 modem port &includes Telepac communica-tions software for the Osborne.

DC HAYES

Smartmodem

0-300 or 0-300/1 200 baud direct-connect modems with auto dial/answer, full/half duplex, powersupply & modular cable (RS-232Ccable optional). 120OB is an in-board modem for the IBM-PC &includes Smartcom II.

300 $219.88

1200 930.88

1200B w/Smartcom li

(IBM PC) 450.88

PERIPHERALSFor the IBM-PC...

We carry a variety of peripheralsfor the IBM-PC, including: Quad-ramQuadboards, Quad 912+,Quadlink. QuadDisk & single-function boards; AST products;Tandon's TM-100-2 double-sideddrives; QCS's Big Blue & HardDisk; a Hard Disk/Tap*subsystem; Tecmar's GraphicsMaster the Paradise Multi-Display Card; & the Eagle PCand Columbia 1800-1 personalcomputers.

Call (900) 343-0728 forprices & orders.

For the Apple II...

We also carry numerous Apple ll/ll+/lle peripherals, including:Pkaso Printer Cards; Micro-soft's Z80 Cards. RamCards &Premium Packs; Videx's Video-Term, UltraTerm A EnhancerII; Rana Elite Disk Drives; AMFsMlcroDrive; Saturn SystemsAccelerator II & MemoryBoards; Quadrant's eRAM 80Column Card; & Kensington'sSystem Saver & the NovationApple Cat II. We also carry the

Frankhn Ac* 10O0 & Ace 1200personal computers.Call fSOOJ 343-0728 for prices &orders.

Accessories

We also carry cables, diskettes,diskette boxes, switch boxes,surge protectors & printer paper.

Call (BOO) 343-072B for prices &orders.

Information/Orders:(603)881-9855

Orders Only:(800) 343-0726

No Hidden Charges:

e You get FREE shipping on allorders within the 48 states.

e Most orders delivered within10 days or less. UPS 2nd Dayand Overnight available formost areas.

e Easy payment terms: Weaccept all major credit cards,certified checks, money orders,company checks or personalchecks (allow 21 days forpersonal checks).

e We never charge extra forcredit cards.

e Credit cards are not chargeduntil order is shipped.

e We accept CODs up to $1000(add $10 handling fee perorder) payable with certifiedcheck or money order.

e We have a $50 minimum order.

Comp my Purchase Orders areaccepted on a limited basis &upon approval only. Sorry, no APOor foreign orders accepted.

All our equipment is shippedwith lull manufacturer's warranty.We are an muthorlzmd domlor forall products we sell *o insure fullwarranty support, & we're autho-rized for warranty work on anumber of printers. We also offerextended warranty plans for manyprinters.

We prepared this ad in October,& prices do change, so call toverify them.

Our Computer Showroom isnow open in Amherst. NewHampshire, five miles west ofNashua (one hour from Boston).

Circle 51 on inquiry card.

HIGH TECHNOLOGY AT AFFORDABLE PRICES

THE BOTTOM LIKE

IMILFORD, NH 03055-0423 □ TELEPHONE (603) 881-98551

The Future of Metaphor inMan-Computer Systems

User interfaces from digital watches to digital computers

In the last few years, I have owneda succession of digital wristwatches.From the first moment I saw one, Iknew it was functionally the same asmy old Swiss 14-jewel analog watch,but somehow quite different. Inter-estingly while the two are recogniz-ably similar, they share almostnothing in visual appearance, thenumber and type of the controls, andthe mechanism inside. They shareonly a single function, telling thetime. Even the way they tell the timeis quite different. My Swiss watchdid so with a picture; a quick glancewould give me a sense of what timeit was. My new digital watch usesnumeric language, which must beread—a process that is slower butmuch more accurate.

Why is this new object immediate-ly recognizable as a watch? A micro-wave oven does not resemble a cook-ing fire, nor does an automobile re-call a horse. A computerized account-ing package is radically different froma set of bookkeeping ledgers andjournals. The digital watch may notbe an exact functional replica of itsmechanical predecessor, but I im-mediately knew that this new device

by Chuck Clanton

was a watch and that I could expectit to perform certain tasks. Evokingthis sort of inference from any prod-uct of a new technology is critical toits acceptance. The next step, ofcourse, is to find a device that is easyto learn and use.

Documentation: Explicit andImplicit

Though my first digital watch hadfour buttons, it had more than fourfunctions. Unfortunately, I nevercould discern any logic to the use ofthese buttons in controlling thewatch's functions. For example, theway the alarm was set and the waythe time was set were completely dif-ferent. At the end of several monthsof ownership, I still had not learnedhow to use all of the features withoutgoing back to the owner's manual.One day I could no longer find themanual, so I threw the watch awayand bought another. Admittedly, Iam an unusual consumer. I actuallydo read instruction manuals andeven have a file folder where I keepthem. Of course, that folder containsmany manuals for gadgets I no

longer own, and the folder occasion-ally refuses to disgorge the manualfor the device that is bedeviling meat the moment.

When you are designing the inter-face for any device, you just cannotassume that your user has access tothe manual. Even if the manual canbe found, it probably will not beread. Training programs are no cure:if they're not completely misguided,they may help the original users, butwhat about all the other people whofollow? The solution lies in the designof the device itself and how it inter-faces to its user. The interfacedesigner must take responsibility forthe "learnability" of the interface.Paradoxically, the better the interface(i.e., the more the system fits whatthe user expects), the less documen-tation is needed, so nuances de-scribed in the manual tend to beoverlooked.

My next digital watch had a fewmore functions and no more buttons.I was somewhat smarter, however,and found a watch interface that waseasier to understand. The buttonsperform functions in a more logicalfashion, and the currently selected

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 263

function is indicated on the face. Onebutton selects from among a smallnumber of functions, and anotherchooses among various options forthat function. Hence, the total num-ber of functions is rather large, butthey're easy to remember becausethey are logically categorized.

Mechanical watches use a rotatingstem to set the time. In my digitalwatch, two buttons accomplish thesame task, one to increase and theother to decrease the setting. Thesesame two buttons are always used forsetting times, whether for the currenttime, the 24-hour alarm, the secondtime zone, the count-up timer, or thecount-down timer. I never finishedreading the user's manual, so it prob-ably is still stowed in my instructionsfolder.

Inherent "Watchness"

How is it that the digital watchgained the immediate benefit ofrecognition? Why did I assume thatI knew its fundamental capabilities,even in the face of the first, terribleinterface. And what critical featuresmade the second interface so muchbetter? Somehow, this new deviceseemed familiar. It impressed mewith its similarity to my prior ex-perience with watches, and thissimilarity made it possible for me toinfer the existence of functions andcontrols from that experience. For-tunately, those inferences proved cor-rect, so that I quickly gained con-fidence in my mastery of the newtechnology.

If I were to write a manual for adigital watch, I might well try to easethe reader into this new technologyby pointing out how the digital watchresembles the mechanical watches ofthe past. An explicit comparison orsimile in my digital-watch manualwould not limit the new device to bejust like the old but would create ex-pectations from the reader's ex-perience with the old. On the otherhand, a metaphor, which makes acomparison without the use of "like,"produces a stronger inference ofsimilarity, even though the readerknows the two objects of the meta-phor are not truly identical. In a usermanual, prudence dictates the use of

simile to avoid overemphasizing thesimilarity.

However, I am not writing amanual for a digital watch, and in factI'm not interested in writing manualsat all, because most people do notread them until hopelessly confused.The device should document itself. Itshould create the metaphor thatdirects its use, then give feedbackthat allows the user to learn more.Just as with the digital watch, themetaphor can be vague and inexact,so long as it helps the user unders-tand what the device is and how itmay be used.

The watch metaphor for the digitaltimepiece was instructive enough soeven the bad control interface did notmake the watch unusable. I was con-fident that I knew what it was and

The total number of

functions is rather

large, but they're easy

to remember because

they are logically

categorized.

what it could do. Of course, this con-fidence meant that I blamed the firstwatch for my lack of understanding.Interestingly, when you know toblame a new device for its faultsrather than yourself, the overalldesign is strong. I have no doubt thatit is my toaster's fault when I burnmyself often on its overly hot handle.I know how a good toaster shouldwork. Most users blame themselveswhen a computer system does some-thing nasty and unexpected becausethey do not have enough experiencewith systems that work well forthem—not enough computer systemsare designed well enough for themto know.

Computing Machines

By now, you may be wonderingwhy an article on future metaphorsfor computer systems has spent somuch time discussing digitalwatches. If you think of a computeras a means rather than an end, thanthe relationship may be clearer. Thevast majority of all computers

manufactured in the future will notbe enthroned in homes and com-puter centers with programmers inattendance. Most computers will bededicated to specific tasks deemedimportant to those outside the com-puter priesthood. To prove my point,look at the distribution of computerstoday. Sure, I have several microcom-puters in the computer system in mystudy (one in my video-display ter-minal, one in my printer, one in thetape-drive controller, and of course inthe central processor). I also havemicrocomputers in my washing ma-chine, my microwave oven, my fur-nace thermostat, my fire alarm, mytwo calculators, my digital watch, andprobably a few other places I have notyet discovered.

Most people will never be pro-grammers, but they will want the ser-vices of all the devices spawned bythis new technology. These peoplewill not be interested in learning howto get at these services through theoperating system of a general-pur-pose computer, and indeed they willnot really care that the computermakes these services possible. Allthat will be hidden away, just as it isin the microwave oven and digitalwatch. This is not a change or newdirection for computers. Throughoutthe history of computers, their great-est strength has been the program'sability to create an abstract machineto fit the user's model of the com-puter's task.

The computer was aptly named be-cause its original conception was asa mechanism for computation. Giventhis view of the machine as a "com-puter," FORTRAN was one of themost significant early transforma-tions of the machine to match theuser's task. It did so by providing an"abstract machine" for algebraic for-mula translation. Using FORTRAN,you could write algebraic expressionsin a much more natural and conve-nient way than you could in assem-bly language. The machine becamean algebraic-expression processor, anabstract machine that understoodalgebraic expressions the way itsusers did. Unfortunately, algebradoes not include a model for control,since people evaluate each set of con-

264 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Introducing the powerful, multi-processingHORIZON 8/16 from North Star.

The turbo-charged

system with outstanding

performance.

The new North Star HORIZON8/16 microcomputer can handleup to eight individual users,supporting both 8-bit and 16-bitapplications simultaneously.

Its advanced, multi-processorarchitecture makes this powerfulperformance possible. Unlikeother multi-user systems, theHORIZON 8/16 doesn't load upits users on a single processor;instead, it provides a dedicatedprocessor for each individualuser —at a cost no greater thanthat of conventional multi-usersystems.

The result? No degradationin processing performance, evenwhen there are eight users onthe system.

And North Star's industrystandard S-100 bus gives you theflexibility to choose your optionsand tailor the system to meetyour specific requirements.

Whaf s more, the new NorthStarTurboDOS" is many timesfaster than standard, multi-user operating systems —and iscompatible with CP/M-80,"CP/M-86" and MP/M.™

As for reliability, over 30,000first generation HORIZONS arestill in use. And each of thesecan be easily upgraded to thenew 8/16 architecture.

The HORIZON 8/16 out-performs everything in its class.Costs no more. And is the onlymulti-user micro designed to

meet your needs for today, andtomorrow —simply by pluggingin the options you select.

You can discover North Star'sHORIZON 8/16 at more than1,000 computer stores and systemhouses nationwide. Call 800-722-STAR for the locationnearest you. Or write North StarComputers, Inc., 14440 CatalinaStreet, San Leandro, CA 94577.

NorthSlar^

Simply powerful solutions.

TurboDOS is o registered trademark of Software

2000, Inc. CP/M-80, CP/M-86, MP/M and CP/M are

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The logo, togline and HORIZON are either trodemarks

or registered trademarks of North Star Computers, Inc. 0 1983

Systems serviced nationwide by M/A/I/Sorbus Service Division

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ditions and decide the next step. To-day, FORTRAN is justly criticized forits lack of good control mechanisms.Yet its algebraic model for computa-tion has been propagated into mostlanguages since that time because ofits success in matching our expecta-tions about computation.

Our inferences based on our ex-perience with algebra are not entire-ly correct—the difference between"real" arithmetic and "floating-point"arithmetic has bitten many of usmore than once, and most newlearners have at least some problemswith the "assignment" statement.Nonetheless, the introduction ofFORTRAN was a significant step inmaking the machine match the needsof its users. Since that time, the au-dience for a "computing machine"has become far outnumbered bythose desiring services that are notcomputational.

The Linguistics of Use

Programming languages have be-come the tools for implementingthese services and have proliferatedto best support development of dif-ferent applications with differentcharacteristics. As a result, program-ming languages have also become in-creasingly removed from the mostcommon users. Today, the most com-mon computers are dedicated tospecific functions: buried insidemicrowave ovens for control, insidecalculators for complex calculation,inside telephones for rememberingphone numbers, and inside digitalwatches for side effects of very sim-ple arithmetic and memory.

In many ways, the digital watchseems the archetype of the future forcomputers—replacing devices andprocedures that have serviced ourneeds less well and creating newneeds by extending our capabilities.Who knows or cares what languagewas used to program the computerin the microwave, the calculator, orthe watch? Certainly not the audiencefor whom these products are in-tended.

The proliferation of the personalcomputer has created the expectationthat many existing tasks can be sup-ported more efficiently and more ex-

266 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 504 on inquiry card.

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BYTE December 1983

267

uberantly by this new generation ofcomputers. What has been called thepersonal computer "revolution" willappear, historically, to be only the ini-tial call to arms. This movementreflects the dramatically changingeconomics of digital electronics andpromises a new era of products thatbetter support our information-pro-cessing activities.

Microcomputers

When single-chip microprocessorsfirst appeared, the potential power

and economy of this emerging com-puter hardware was soon recognized.Home-built computers with 256 bytesof memory and no nonvolatile stor-age began appearing in surprisingnumbers. The computer itself costvery little, though in this form youcould do little with it. Despite rumorsto the contrary, we have not comevery far since that time—not whenyou consider the potential penetra-tion of this technology into our lives.Certainly, the small, general-pur-pose computer has come of age.

The MICROWRITERDaisy Wheel Printer.

" :

Price $480

Features:

• Microwriter parallel interface mounted internally in the Olivetti Praxis machine • Built in self test

• Portable...comes with deluxe carry case • Low noise level • Slim modern styling • Print qualityis identical to the finest office typewriters on the market • Can tab • Rule single lines both verticallyand horizontally • Underline • Print at 10, 12, or 15 characters per inch (switch selectable) • Tencharacter memory automatic error correction, with lift-off carbon film correction ribbon (fortypewriter use) • Automatic or programmable page formats • Handles letter, legal size sheet andfanfold paper in widths up to 12 inches wide • 165 character/12 inch print width • Wide selection of21 interchangeable daisy print wheels available • Ribbon cassettes just drop in* Switch selectableEuropean keyboard • Centronics compatible parallel cables are currently available from stockWith the Microwriter you will never again have to send an important letter or a simple conespondencethat doesn't look impressive. Why settle for just any printer when you can have aMICROWRITER... a fine letter quality typewriter for you and your computer. For more information,see your local computer dealer or contact Ammicro directly.

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There is now software to supportmost of the obvious uses of such asystem in the home and business.And those of us in the computerfraternity feel satisfied that much hasbeen accomplished and that much ofwhat we wanted is now available.The rest of the world will just haveto learn some of what we know sopeople can pick the right software,find the best hardware to run it, andfigure out the obscure incantationsnecessary to make it all work. Youoften hear us make comments like"Ignore that bug; it doesn't mattermost of the time" and "Yes, that'sconfusing, but I can tell you what itmeans."

We are deceiving ourselves. Peopledo not really care about the computerrevolution any more than they careabout any other item on the frontpage of their newspaper. Interested?Yes. Involved? No. Nor do they wantto learn what is needed to use thesemiracle machines. They just want themiracle itself.

For now, we can force them to jointhe fringes of our fraternity becauseit's the only game in town. However,when a product appears that doeswhat people want without all thatelitist computerism about it, the mar-ket will prove that the users will buywhat most directly satisfies theirneeds. An electronic accountant needbe no more tainted by the presenceof a microcomputer chip than theelectronic typewriter or calculator hasbeen.

People are already doing most ofthe tasks that they want and need todo. New products must solve thesame problems but with better ser-vice and in a better way. My digitalwatch tells time, but not in the sameway as its predecessor. It also re-minds me of the passing of time withan hourly chime, like the old grand-father clock in my hall. It times park-ing meters for me so I do not have totry to calculate how much time I haveleft. When I travel, it tells me both thelocal time and the time back home soI no longer call the office at 6 a.m.This digital timepiece is only meta-phorically the watch of my past ex-perience. That is just the startingpoint for my understanding of it.

268 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 26 on inquiry card.

ORCA/M IS THE

WORLDS BEST

6502 ASSEMBLER.

You'll agree when you read what Peelings II andSoftalk said:

"The amazing thing about ORCA/M" is that in additionto being clearly superior to its competition, it alsowas written with future improvements in mind. Thecombination of power and potential is what warrantsthe AAA rating." Peelings II, Volume 4, Number 5

ORCA/M is only the second product to ever re-ceive the top AAA rating in the history of Peelings II.

AAA, incidentally, stands for "absolutely astounding"software.

Softalk magazine had this to say: "ORCA's truedestiny is to assemble creations of the greatest sort:programs so big we don't even tend to think of themas programs but rather as part of the soul of themachine. ORCA would be a good assembler to get youstarted on the great American Arcade Game..."

Softalk, May 1983

Now. The kind of high-levelsupport you'd only expect tofind on a mainframe.ORCA/M (Hayden's Object

Relocatable' Code AsseitiblerforMicros) lets you develop sophis-ticated applications with thespeed and ease of a high-levellanguage, yet retain the controland efficiency that only assem-bly language can give.

Here's what ORCA/M gives you:

The Assembler

Macro language features:

o Conditional assembly of source

and macro fileso Separate source and macro fileso Nestable macros

Parameter mid-string and string

search functionsc Symbolic parameter assignment□ Numeric, string, and boolean

type parametersc Parameter subscriptingo Global communication between

macros

Macro expansion loop controla Count, length and type

parameter-attribute functions

Extensive Macro Libraries

Memory Constant Declarations:

o Integer

Charactero Four-byte Integer

Hexadecimal. i Floatingpoint

Relocatable object modulegeneration

Fast assembly directly to disk

Program segmentation:

• Selectively assemble individualsubroutines

Global and local scope ofsymbols

The Linker

Produce executable binary

files from relocatable object

modules

Link routines from library files

Link subroutine re-assemblies

Define a new origin forpreviously assembled code

Invoke at assembly time or bycommand

Subroutine libraries:

o Floating point anddouble-precision routinesTranscendental functions

o Hi- and lores graphicsMultiple-precision integer math

o Input and output

The Editor

Co-resident screen editor:

o Global search and replace

o Block move

o Entry of non-keyboardcharacters

Supports lower case adaptersand shift-key modification

80-column: horizontal scrollingwith 40-column displays

The System

Monitor: transparent controlof system from one commandlevel

Extended Disk Commands:

o File copyo File undeleteo Catalog sortWildcard filenames

Disk ZAP: Built-in disk sectoreditor

Optimized DOS 3.3 compatibleoperating system

Operating system interface:

Supports a variety ofconfigurations

User-modifiable to allow linkageof custom drivers for peripherals

64k RAM supported,48k required

This unique array of featuresand functions speaks foritself: the power of ORCA isunsurpassed.

All features are documentedclearly and extensively. Sourcelistings for the subroutine andmacro libraries, as well as theoperating system, are included.

ORCA. If you're serious aboutdeveloping 6502 software,it's the one to have.

Available from your local dealer,

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ORCA/M: 21609

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ORCA/M is now also the best 65C02 assembler, sup-porting all 27 new opcodes. New hardware supportincludes the He 80 column board and disk emulatorsfor the Legend" 128K card and He extendedmemory card.

HARDEN SOFTWARE

Circle 211 on Inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

269

Circle 300 on Inquiry card.

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From there, I have learned many newfunctions of time that I now relate tothe concept of "watch." A study ofthe U.S. population of watch buyerswould probably reveal an almostuniversal shift in the concept of"watch" due to this new product. Theshift in expectations is little noticedbecause the metaphor provides con-tinuity with our past experience. Ascontrol interfaces improve, it be-comes easier to learn the new ser-vices these new machines provide,and the change in the sophisticationof their users accelerates.

Metaphors

By now it should be apparent thatthe ability to infer from prior ex-perience is critical to the human in-terface of these new "miracle prod-ucts." To understand these metaphorsand how they will evolve in thefuture, let's view them from the per-spective of the type of service theymust introduce.

A metaphor can make the functionof a machine be more compatiblewith its user's view of the task, whatis here called a functional metaphor.Our example, the digital watch, isbuilt to look and act similar in manyways to its mechanical predecessor,so that we immediately assume cer-tain operations will be available.Metaphors can also be used to unifysets of operations {operational meta-phors), so that we have expectationsabout what is available and how touse those operations. Possibly theoldest of these is the computerizedworkstation, which implies that thecomputer has all of the operationspresent in the physical workstationthat preceded it.

Unlike the operational metaphorthat emphasizes functions, the organ-izational metaphor focuses on howpeople use the location and distribu-tion of the information at their dis-posal to identify priority and catego-rization. (The In box and Out box onmy desk are simple examples of howlocation can categorize information.)Finally, the integrating metaphor allowsseparate products to share a singleconceptual model, much like the fil-ing cabinet and the typewriterassume the same physical dimen-

270 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

sions of the piece of paper.

Functional Metaphors

I have created estimates for con-struction projects that used a spread-sheet with a series of interrelatedtables for each subcontractor andclass of material with amounts, unitpricing, and extended pricing. In-evitably, some amount or unit pricemust be changed, and changes mustthen be propagated through anumber of other tables, which re-quires lots of erasure and is difficultto remember if the spreadsheet wasnot recently created. In frustration, Ihave often just thrown up my handsand fudged the final amount by aguess.

Then, Visicalc and its progeny werereleased. Without ever being con-scious of it, I discovered that it wasa product that I needed for years.Other tools were available to helpwith the spreadsheet problem, suchas calculators for the computationsand special paper to keep the col-umns neater, but here was the realthing: an electronic spreadsheet. Thisproduct "knew" what I was doingand helped me do it quite naturally.As soon as I used my first electronicspreadsheet, my world changed in away that was perhaps more spec-tacular but no less fundamental thanwith my digital watch. No electronicspreadsheet that I have used seemsjust right, but the difference betweenhaving one and not is like the dif-ference between a campsite withwater and one without. I could nevergo back to pencil and paper again.For appropriate tasks, this productprovides a very strong metaphor thatclosely matches my view of the task.

The match is not perfect. If it were,the electronic spreadsheet would beof little value. No paper spreadsheetallows you to instruct it in how theentries are related. Nor does it auto-matically refigure the values at yourrequest. These and many other use-ful features of the electronic spread-sheet are new, but they are exactlywhat I had been waiting for.

In the future, people will no longersee their financial planning, estimat-ing, and other spreadsheet tasksthrough eyes limited to a paperbased

Circle 304 on inquiry card. *

ROW

There's a certain kind of personwho buys a Morrow business computer.

The kind of person who doesn't follow the crowd. In business. Or away from it.You've succeeded by making your own decisions.

And when it comes to a decision on computers, you know that you don't have to paya lot of money to get a lot of computer. Morrow knows that too.

That's why we make a complete line of systems, including software, from $1599 to$2745. Plus letter-quality printers starling at $595. All, with performance so reliable you'llprobably never need the nationwide service we offer from Xerox.

But maybe you don't know this: We've just introduced a hard-disk system with moreperformance at a lower price than anything else on the market. Anything.

The new MD11 includes an 11MB hard disk; 400K of floppy memory; 128K RAM;8K ROM; 2 serial, 1 parallel and a main frame communications port. Add the legendary speedof the Morrow controller, a complete package of software, plusa full-size terminal, and you may not be ready for the price: .^—-

$2745, complete.

Morrow has never built computers to please everybody.We build (hem for people who demand value.

It's simple. Those who know buy Morrow.

The computer for independent people. %

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lor the Morrow Dealer nearesl yon, calk IHOO) 52Ik3493(4J5) 430-1970 In California

New 11MB MDI1 for $2745

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^32" ~*.

Grapple! +

1 I Printer Interface

The Original Apple® graphics printer interface.Since its introduction three years ago, theGrappler has been imitated by many, but nevermatched. Now with exclusive features for theApple Me and full support of newEpson® graphics,the Grappler +remains the mostintelligent interfaceavailable. Overtwenty-seven com-mands give Apple users full control over anygraphics or text on the Apple screen, includinga new 80 column text dump. Performance, relia-bility and support have made the Grappler +the #1 selling intelligent Apple interface.

iifeSitel

For Apples and Printers

The innovator in "dock-on" printer buffering. TheBufferboard easily adds memory to your currentApple interface system, freeing your computer foradditional input. Easily upgradable from 16K, theBufferboard can store up to 20 pages of text. Itfits neatly inside your Apple, "docking" onto yourexisting printer interface* No clumsy boxes orcables, no external power supplies...just conve-nience andeconomy. Withthe Bufferboard,you might neverwait for yourprinter again.

"Versions for standard Grappler + , Epson APL and AppleParallel Interfaces.

mtfitv

272 BYTE December 1983

135,000 Apple Owners

And Excellence.

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The most sophisticated buffered Apple printerinterface available. The New Buffered Grappler +combines the industry leading features of theGrappler + with the time saving economies of theBufferboard.**

With this much interface power, you'll never needanything else. And the price will surprise you, too.

* "Not available for IDS printers.

Apple is a registered trademark of Apple Computers, Inc.Epson is a registered trademark of Epson America Inc.See us at Comdex Booth #2581.

Circle 330 on Inquiry card.

Over 135,000 Apple® computers are using OrangeMicro products. Innovation and excellence havemade us the #1 manufacturer of intelligent printerinterfaces. The top selling Grappler + hasbecome an industry standard, recommended bymore software houses and Apple dealers.To meet your growing needs, Orange Micro willcontinue to introduce new products. Recent inno-vations include the Grappler + for IDS colorprinters and the new Orange Interface, with textscreen dumps and formatting at a low price.There is an Orange Micro product designed foryour application.

For a complete demonstration, see your Appledealer today.

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bd inc.

1400 N. Lakeview Ave., Anaheim, CA 92807 U.S.A.(714) 779-2772 TELEX: 183511 CSMA

cciOrange Micro. Inc.. 1983

International Distributor Inquiries Invited.

BYTE December 1983 273

HOLD EVERYTHING

MICROUNK If

MAKES IT EASY.

In this age of information, not knowing the answers is simply out of the

question.

With MicroLink II you can knowjust about anything in the world.

The cost? Just $99.

It's a small price to pay for sucha powerful telecommunications soft-ware program.

The MicroLink II links yourcomputer to information bases, time-sharing mainframes, and other micros.

It lets you send and receiveelectronic mail by modem anywherein the world. Quickly Inexpensively

And you can forget about filetransfer errors because MicroLink IIuses the Christiansen Protocol to findand correct them. Automatically

Need more information? Goright ahead and get it.

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experience, but rather through eyesaccustomed to the added functionali-ty of the electronic spreadsheet. Theperceptions and expectations of thepeople that make up this marketplacehave been irrevocably changedbecause of the success of the elec-tronic spreadsheet.

Operational Metaphors

The Xerox Star was a signal productthat demonstrated the power ofmetaphor in the interface of an officeworkstation. This product and itsprogeny, including the Apple Lisa,use a desktop metaphor to provide aconsistent interface to a system withoffice-automation functions. Becausemany of the concepts are new, eachsystem has serious flaws, but it ismuch easier to see flaws when thewhole has a consistency and integritythat highlights the problems ratherthan drawing one's attention awayfrom them.

An interesting aspect of the user in-terface in these systems is the use ofthe mouse pointing device. This isobviously metaphorical, because youdo not actually point with the mouse.The movements you make with themouse are translated to movementsof a cursor on the screen. The tightphysiological hand-eye feedback loopreinforces the metaphor so well thatit quickly becomes as natural as usingyour finger to point.

These systems package together anumber of applications with a con-sistent style of interaction, using themouse, overlapping screen windows,menus, and a location-operation syn-tax. This consistency has the advan-tage that it need be learned only oncebut the disadvantage that it forces allfunctions to share the same inputand output concepts and mechanics.The functions themselves are dis-tinct, and the desktop metaphorserves to suggest the presence andnature of the individual functionsavailable in the workstation.

The sense of consistency in the in-terface of the various individual func-tions is gained because general-pur-pose operations are common to eachof them. The number of operationsis reduced because of their generality.Though "learnability" itself has not

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BYTE December 1983 275

been as well addressed as consis-tency, it is certainly enhanced by thesmall number of consistently appliedoperations.

This electronic desktop is certainlynot like my old oak desktop—it offersits user both more and less. Manynew services are provided that wereeither not available or not as simplewithout the computer. On the otherhand, the actual physical piles ofpaper on a desk organize and adver-tise work in a way that is difficult todo on these systems.

Organizational Metaphors

The desktop metaphor has provenvery appropriate for integrating acohesive set of functions but less suc-cessful for modeling organization ofwork. There is more to organize thanthe long-term storage of file cabinetsand software operators. Recentstudies have just begun to give us in-sight into how people actuallyorganize their work and use the files,drawers, and horizontal surfaces intheir offices to create an entireorganizational ecology. Each stack ofpapers on my desk has a differentsignificance, and the visibility of theitems in the stack serves to remindme of what I need to do.

As yet, I have not been able to re-place these well-worn conventions bythe facilities of any computer system,at least not with anything approach-ing the same immediacy and evoca-tive power. Future computer systemswill undoubtedly focus more atten-tion on metaphors that include visualcues to assist my short-term andintermediate-term memory in the or-

ganization of my work.

Integrating Metaphors

A small but growing number ofcurrent software packages attempt tointegrate several functions into acommon framework. A database,word processor, and spreadsheetseem to be a common selection. Al-though most of these are integratedonly in the sense that there is someaccess to each from the others andsome uniformity of display and inputmechanism, they share the same in-terface hardware. This visible integra-tion in a single machine is primitiveand transient. As the cost of digitalelectronics continues to drop, it willno longer be necessary to share oneset of hardware across these manyproducts. After all, each is com-promised somewhat by the demandsof the others on the interface and bythe extra burden of learning how theyrelate and share the same hardware.As hardware gets cheaper, the userdoes not need to suffer these com-promises or learn the level of com-mon control that integrates theseproducts.

To the extent that a single product,such as a word processor, needs ac-cess to spreadsheet and databasefunctions, they should be included inthe word processor itself. To the ex-tent that it need share only informa-tion with other products, that shar-ing should occur magically withoutintervention from the user. Once thismagic becomes commonplace, it willgain acceptance, and only its absencewill be noteworthy. The productsthemselves do not need to appear to

be shared. Each can have its own box,with its own input and displaymechanism optimized for the tasks itperforms.

After a short time, it will not besurprising that the results from thespreadsheet tablet can be displayedon the word-processor screen whenneeded, nor that the entries from theelectronic sales order entry pad areavailable to the spreadsheet tabletand the inventory display instantly.This level of metaphor assumes thecommunication needed to share in-formation—whether within or acrossproducts. The great burden of trans-porting data that mankind has car-ried since the first scribes, merchants,and bookkeepers will finally be lifted.

This distributed set of independentfunctional metaphors incurs lessoverhead than a single operationalmetaphor because functions have thesupport of implicit metaphors fromprior experience with each of theseparate devices replaced by its elec-tronic counterpart. When your elec-tronic phone and electronic tele-phone book can confer without direc-tion from you, new forms of commu-nication service become available.Once available, these services willrapidly become necessities.

The Future of User Interfaces

We are now seeing the emergenceof hardware that is suitable for spe-cialized machines dedicated to speci-fic functions. This hardware includeshand-held computers and systemsthat replace mechanical devices inthe home and business environmentbut that do more than their pre-

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276 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983 277

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decessors. Telephones, clocks, ap-pliance controllers, burglar alarms,checkbook calculators, notepads, andphone books are all potential can-didates. We can expect these devicesto continue to proliferate.

Network technology that allowsmachines to communicate is comingof age. Various types of local-area net-works and communication softwareare available, and the rich potentialfor interconnected groups of smallcomputers is just beginning to berealized.

Input and output devices for in-creasing the bandwidth of communi-cation between the man and themachine are evolving rapidly as well.These include pointing and drawingdevices for input and bit-mapped dis-plays for output. Much has been ac-complished with voice input and out-put as well. Used appropriately, ver-bal communication can be very valu-able: an electronic typewriter couldbenefit from voice recognition ofcommands to keep typists from hav-ing to move their fingers from thehome row of keys.

Some people advocate full recogni-tion of spoken language as the bestinput technology. Even when wehave this capability, this would not bethe ideal way to interface to manyproducts. To assume otherwise is tooverlook some critical properties ofthe man-machine interface. The com-plexity of the interface should ideal-ly mirror the complexity of the taskto be specified or controlled. So-called natural language is a complexand cumbersome communicationtool. It is so difficult and time-consuming for us to say what wewant that we often point to some-thing rather than describe it. Pointingis faster, simpler, and less am-biguous. When people discuss evensimple topics, much repetition andrestatement is often needed beforeeveryone believes an understandinghas been reached. Even then, peopleare often wrong.

If you wish to control a light, a sim-ple on-off switch is fast and efficient.The task is well matched to the con-trol. Even sound-activated lights, theform of natural language without thesubstance, prove surprisingly subject

to misinterpretation. Quiet con-templation of a new book is inter-rupted regularly by darkness, whileinconsequential street noises wasteelectricity. Manual light switches aremore certain.

Similarly, if I want to indicate a par-ticular spot in my text in a word pro-cessor, I would rather point than talk.So-called natural language is moreuseful for those few occasions wherethe task itself is complex—for exam-ple, in database inquiry when thenumber of possible queries is verylarge.

Interface hardware is improving,and better hardware makes it easierand more natural to accomplish abroader range of tasks. Any productsucceeds only if users can learn howto use it and decide it provides anecessary service. Better tools forcommunicating between the userand the product can do much toassure success. However, the designof the interface for these productsmust be firmly rooted in appropriate-ly selected metaphors to promotelearnability as well.

As interface designers, we some-times defend our design with thepremise that our system is designedto be powerful for the experienceduser like ourselves and that obviouslyno system can be ideal for both naiveand experienced users. Some pre-liminary experimental data in severalareas suggest that this well-knowntrade-off is a myth. Several differenttypes of studies have now shown thateven experienced users prefer sys-tems that are easy to use and power-ful. We can build systems that areeasy for the naive user, easy to learnand become an expert on, andpowerful for the expert. Functionalgenerality provides power that can belearned easily.

Learnability involves the ability ofthe user to quickly gain a conceptualmastery over the product that allowsprogress from simple initial explora-tion to more complex later uses.Learnability is the single most impor-tant concern in the interface design.This will be even more true in thefuture as products penetrate furtherinto the market and further awayfrom the computer fraternity. Meta-

278 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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phor provides the mechanism forgaining learnability by building up auser's prior experience. Consistencyand generality are only necessarywhen they support the metaphor. IfI have already learned an inconsistentway to undertake some task, learn-ing a different, but consistent, way isharder than continuing with what Ihave already learned.

The methods and devices that helpthe user learn the product are still be-ing explored—input devices thatsimplify giving information and com-mands to the machine, metaphorsthat increase the familiarity and in-ferability of the interface, and outputdevices that maximize the bandwidthof communication from the machine.

No one knows how to ensurelearnability. Most current systems donot even use what little is known, buta select few have been carefully de-signed from a solid, if metaphorical,footing and have extended ourknowledge considerably. Currentresearch in the human factors ofman-machine interfaces is uncover-ing basic information that is some-times immediately useful and atother times is so simplistic that it'suseful only as a basis for furtherresearch.

Good interface design is a dynamicconcept because the exposure of ourculture to computerized products isever increasing. Just as the digitalwatch and electronic spreadsheethave changed our conception of thenature of watches and spreadsheets,other products have the capability toredefine the expectations of the users.To know your market, you mustknow an audience that is learningand changing all the time. As com-mon experience accumulates, themetaphors to best serve a new prod-uct will change dramatically. ■

Dr. Clanton (#4 China Basin Bldg., 185 Bern/St., Suite 4821, San Francisco, CA 94107) holds anundergraduate degree in experimental psychologyfrom Harvard University, a medical degree from theUniversity of California Medical School in SanFrancisco, and pursued interdisciplinary doctoral-level studies in computer science and psychology atStanford University. He has consulted in the areasof practical applications of the Unix OperatingSystem, man-machine interfaces, and xvord-ltext-processing applications.

Circle 428 on inquiry card. *

Now from Timex...a powerful new computer.

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© Timex Computer Corporation, 1983

Reviewer's Notebook

by Rich Malloy

Ms / look upon the pile of cardboard boxes and three-ring binders where my desk used to be, one inescapable conclusion comes to mind:an awful lot of good products are out there. Of course, a few real turkeys lurk here and there, but most of the products that come to BYTEare close to being works of genius. The only thing that keeps them out of the computer Hall of Fame is the tremendous volume of similarlyinspired products.

Every month, the question of how we should cover this deluge arises. We can do detailed product reviews of only a few products each month.But which ones do we choose? We have to briefly examine each product that comes in and then pick what look like the most significant ormost interesting ones for reviews. Fortunately, some readers help us out by sending in reviews of good products that they have bought. Theresult is that most of the really significant products do get reviewed in BYTE—eventually. But, for some reason or another, a number ofexcellent products are passed over and never reviewed.

Even if a product does get picked for a product review, quite a bit of time may pass before the review appears in the magazine. This ispartly because of the way reviews are written. Our reviewers are not full-time writers. Product reviews are usually done in the reviewer'sspare time, a commodity that seems to be in short supply. And a BYTE review requires a tremendous amount of time. Reviewers have toexamine all aspects of a product, not just those features that coincide with their personal interests. Reviewers then have to make a coherent,orderly, and interesting report of their findings. And that's only the start. Each review has to be checked for accuracy. It has to be editedso that it is even more coherent, orderly, and interesting. It has to be typeset, proofread, and assembled into an article, checked once more,transferred to a huge printing plate, and checked yet again. All this checking takes time, but as a result BYTE articles contain few mistakes.

For all those good products that may never get reviewed and for those readers who may not have time to wait for a product review andfor that occasional dog of a product that should be duly noted, I've decided to initiate this semi-irregular page. It won't help lessen the pileof products that are on top of my desk, but who needs a desk, anyway? As long as I have my TRS-80 Model 100, a few batteries, and areasonably comfortable chair, I'm in business.]

The DEC Rainbow 100

The best thing I've seen in the pastfew days is the DEC Rainbow 100from Digital Equipment Corporation.You'd think that since BYTE is soclose to DEC's headquarters, thecompany would be very quick insending machines to us. No way.DEC moves very precisely, but veryslowly, it seems. The Rainbow, how-ever, seems worth the wait.

The Rainbow looks like a very slickpackage. It has two microprocessorchips (an 8088 and a Z80), a smooth-scrolling display, excellent documen-tation, and some nice touches suchas thumbscrews on serial (DB-25)connectors.

But the Rainbow is no substitutefor the proverbial pot of gold. Al-though CP/M and CP/M-86 wereoriginally provided, MS-DOS was along time coming. And—get this—until very recently you couldn't for-mat your own floppy disks. You hadto buy your floppy disks prefor-matted from DEC because "ordinarydisks can't handle the high data den-sity that DEC uses." Come on, guys,390K bytes on a disk is not what I call

super-high density. But fear not.Given enough time, sanity reigns. Adisk-formatting program has justbeen released, but I haven't seen ityet. Remember that DEC moves veryslowly. . . . Look for a review of thismachine in a month or two.

Seequa's Chameleon

Another interesting product to final-ly come our way is the Chameleonfrom Seequa, a new company locatedin Baltimore, Maryland. This newportable boasts compatibility with theIBM PC, CP/M compatibility, graph-ics, and an incredibly low price ofonly $1995. That's just a bit more thanhalf the price of an equivalent IBMPC.

Of course, when you buy a com-puter at a price like this you may haveto forgo some incidental details. Forexample, our machine was lacking auser manual, and the printer port didnot seem 100 percent reliable.

But rest assured that people atSeequa are very busy trying to ironout the kinks in their machine.They've promised to send us a newer,better version of it, and I'm sure they

will. As soon as I see an improve-ment, I'll let you know.

Microsoft's Flight Simulator

The Microsoft Flight Simulator forthe IBM PC arrived here a few weeksago, and the entire BYTE editorialstaff has been talking about Im-melmans and inversions ever since.This amazing package does an in-credible job of making you thinkyou're actually flying a small plane.You can even crash into a simulationof Chicago's Sears Tower (great fun atparties) or land at O'Hare Airport.The package, by the way, also runson the above-mentioned Chameleonand on the Corona when it isequipped with an IBM Color Graph-ics Adapter.

Good as it is, the Microsoft FlightSimulator would be even better if youcould use it with an RGB (red-green-blue) monitor and a joystick, but for$49.95 you can't have everything. Gofor a test flight at your local computerstore. It's the cheapest (and safest)airplane you'll ever fly. ■

Rich Malloy is BYTE's product-review editor.

282 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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284 BYTE December 1983

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BYTE December 1983 285

Hardware Review

The Texas Instruments Professional

Computer

Daring to be somewhat different

by Mark Haas

With everyone in the 16-bit world jumping on the IBMbandwagon—boasting compatibility, portability and ex-tended utility—it's a brave company that decides to strikeout on its own and blaze a new trail. The Texas Instru-ments (TI) Data Systems Group reckoned that althoughit would have to contend with IBM's impact on themarket, it could design a better machine. The engineersalso decided that while compatibility was a desirabletrait, it shouldn't get in the way of designing a bettercomputer. Their efforts resulted in the TI ProfessionalComputer.

Originally dubbed "Pegasus," the Professional Com-puter marks the Data Systems Group's entry into the per-sonal-computer arena. This is not the same division thatproduced the 99/4A, now headed toward oblivion, but,rather, the group that has produced TI's moresophisticated minicomputers and terminals, includingthe ubiquitous Silent 700.

The TI Professional Computer is made up of threemajor components: the system unit, the display, and thekeyboard (see photo 1). The system unit measures ap-proximately 19 inches wide, 5% inches high, and 17inches deep, and houses the main system circuit board,disk drives, and power supply. The standard display isa monochrome monitor; a color monitor is optional. Thekeyboard is, well, wonderful.

The System Unit

Out of the box, the Professional Computer is equippedwith 64K bytes of main memory, one 320K-byte 5 V\ -inchfloppy-disk drive, and a CRT (cathode-ray tube) con-troller card. The system unit provides space for anotherdisk drive or a Winchester hard disk without adding an

expansion chassis. Four expansion slots are provided foradditional functions; the CRT controller board occupiesa fifth slot; and a sixth, dedicated slot holds a memorycard containing up to 192K bytes of additional memory,for a total of 256K bytes of main memory.

The system unit main board is the heart of the ma-chine. It contains the 8088 microprocessor, a socket foran 8087 coprocessor, 64K bytes of 9-bit-parity dynamicRAM (random-access read/write memory), memory con-trol logic for addressing and refreshing the memory, 8Kbytes of ROM (read-only memory), a socket for addi-tional ROM, a Centronics-type parallel printer port, anI/O (input/output) port for the keyboard, a floppy-diskdrive controller, five expansion connectors for the CRTcontroller and other options, one slot for memory ex-pansion, timer chips, and a speaker. Photo 2 shows thesystem unit with its cover removed. Unfortunately, thedisk drives obscure a total view, but the expansion slotsand power supply are clearly visible. A block diagramof the system board is shown in figure 1.

Like IBM, TI abandoned its own proprietary micropro-cessors and based this computer on Intel's 8088 16-bitchip instead. In the Professional Computer, the chip runsat a clock speed of 5 MHz, compared to 4.77 MHz in theIBM Personal Computer (PC). TI makes no secret of thefact that its system will support an 8087 coprocessor. Infact, TI states throughout its technical documentationthat the term "CPU" refers to both processors. The 8087chip is still a bit pricy, but that probably will change withtime, and TI is already providing Microsoft's FORTRAN,Pascal, and COBOL compilers that support this chip'sextended commands.

In the "bottom-of-the-line" version, the 64K bytes of

286 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Photo 1: The TI Professional Computer is made up of the system unit, the display, and the keyboard. This computer also has a 5-megabyteWinchester-disk drive installed to the right of the 320K-byte floppy-disk drive.

9-bit RAM become nine chips of the 4164 type (64K by1 bit), soldered directly to the system board. The optionalmemory-expansion board supplies 64K bytes of 9-bitRAM, and sockets can handle another 128K bytes of 9-bitRAM, bringing the total system RAM to 256K bytes. Atfirst glance, 256K bytes seems to be the system limit, buta look at the technical manual shows the memory spacefrom (hexadecimal) 40000 to BFFFF to be reserved for"expansion-bus memory." (Note: all addresses andmachine-language instructions are in hexadecimal unlessotherwise specified.) An additional 512K bytes can beinstalled through one of the remaining expansion slots,and TI is preparing such a board now.

The 8K-byte system ROM contains what are called"device service routines" for controlling the principal I/O

devices in the system unit. The liberal use of hardwareand software interrupts and software vectors, or pointers,enables a knowledgeable programmer to truly customizethe use of the machine. These vectors reside in the bot-tom IK byte of system RAM and can be changed to pointto custom service routines. Through the use of these vec-tors, you could, for example, create any keyboard layoutdesired (Dvorak, anyone?).

The device service routines contained in the systemROM are directly accessible for system programming.They include routines for complete floppy-disk andWinchester-disk control (read a sector, write a sector,etc.), keyboard translation and buffering, speaker con-trol, display and graphics control, and many more func-tions. Generally, these functions are implemented by

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 287

At a Glance

Name

Texas Instruments Professional Computer

Manufacturer

Texas Instruments Inc.Data Systems GroupPOB 402430Dallas. TX 75240(800) 527-3500

Components (base system)System Unit

19 by 17 by 5% inches; Intel 8088, 16-bit internal, 8-bit external,5-MHz clock; 64K bytes of RAM, expandable to 768K bytes;one 320K-byte, S'A-inch floppy-disk drive standard; five expan-sion bus connectors for peripherals, one for memory only [sixslots total)Keyboard

Low-profile enclosure, 20'A inches wide, 8 inches deep, Vhinches high, full-width tilt elevator; 97 keys, Selectric-stylekeyboard, diamond-pattern cursor pad, numeric keypad, 12 pro-grammable function keys; Intel 8048 microcontroller,2400/300-bps data link to system unitDisplay

Monochrome CRT, 18-MHz bandwidth; 80-column by 25-linedisplay of 7- by 9-dot characters in a 9- by 12-dot cell;eight color characters (with optional color monitor), reverse-video, blinking, underlining, blank, and eight color attributes ona character-by-character basis

Software

System diagnostics

OptionsHardware

Color monitor, 19.2-MHz bandwidth S695

300-bps internal modem, auto-dial, auto-answer S295

300/1200-bps internal modem, auto-dial, auto-answer S750

320K-byte floppy-disk drive S47510-megabyte Winchester hard-disk drive S2295

One-plane graphics board [two colors) SI90

Three-plane graphics board |eight colors) S325Synchronous/asynchronous communications card, one

serial port S225Memory-expansion card with 64K or 192K bytes S300, S600Memory expansion for additional 512K bytes—768Ktotal [available 12/83)8087 coprocessor (available 12/83)Software

MS-DOS operating system with MS-BASIC S100MS-DOS 2.0 with MS-BASIC (available 1/84)

CP/M-86 operating system with CBASIC S240

Concurrent CP/M operating system S350

UCSD p-System operating system S350

MS-Macro Assembler (available 12/83) $100

MS-FORTRAN (with 8087 support) S500

MS-Pascal (with 8087 support) S300

MS-COBOL (with 8087 support) S750Ryan-McFarland COBOL S950 (S238 for run-time package only)

Multiplan S250

Easywriter II S350

TTY Communications S60

3780 Communications S150

Documentation

Operating Instructions manual

Price

Base system, $2195; full system (two disk drives, I28K RAM,monochrome monitor, MS-DOS, MS-BASIC), $3070; hard-disksystem (monochrome monitor, 10-megabyte Winchester, 256KRAM), $5090

* price to be announced

Photo 2: Inside the system unit (the front is at the bottom) you cansee part of the system unit board that contains the 8088microprocessor, 64K bytes of RAM, a disk controller, a parallel printerport, and expansion slots. The memory-expansion board is locatedon the left side of the unit toward the front. From left to right: theexpansion cards installed in this unit are the synchronous/asyn-chronous communications card, the CRT controller card with thevideo graphics card mounted piggyback on it, the 300/1200-bps auto-dial/auto-answer modem, and the Winchester controller card. Thedisk drives obscure a large portion of the system board. The powersupply is located at the right rear corner of the unit.

loading certain values into the 8088's registers and thenperforming a software interrupt. The interrupt causesthe current program to cease execution, and control istransferred to a device service routine pointed to by oneof the vectors located in the bottom IK byte of memory.For example, if a value of 0 is placed in the 8088's AHregister, and a value of 40 is loaded into the AL register,then the speaker will sound for 1 second when an INT48 instruction is executed. By changing the vector inmemory associated with the INT 48 instruction, you cancause control to be transferred to a custom routine.

Table 1 shows the various interrupt vectors. Note thatthe actual address of a vector can be determined bymultiplying the vector number by 4. For example, thekeyboard print-screen vector (called by interrupt 5E)would be a double word at 0:0178 (5E x 4 = 178).

The memory map (table 2) also shows reserved spacefor "smart" peripherals or option boards that containROM and are installed in the expansion slots. The reviewunit contained one of these boards, the Winchester-diskcontroller. This board contains its own 8K bytes of ROMthat controls the operation of the hard-disk drive.

Unlike the IBM PC, the Professional Computer doesnot have to use a slot for a disk controller; TI placed iton the system board. Notice that TI's expansion bus isnot compatible with the IBM PC's. Though at first glanceall the address, data, and power lines are in the sameplaces, a closer look reveals that the various control andinterrupt lines are not. A full description of the TI ex-pansion bus pin-out is provided in table 3.

The floppy-disk controller held a couple of surprises.The basic controller subsystem is the now-standard

288 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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The optional CE-150 Color GraphicPrinter/ CassetteInterface not onlygives the systemportable printing but also4-color graphic capabilities. And as acassette interface, it can be connected with up totwo cassette tape recorders—one for storage and one for recall.The CE-158's RS-232C Interface allows communication linksto a wide variety of peripherals such as modems,bar-code readers, data bases, as well as othermicro, mini or mainframe computers.

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BYTE December 1983

289

SYSTEM ADDRESS BUS

P

8086CPU

b=r\M

PP^

SOCKET

RESERVED

FOR

NUMERIC

PROCESSOR

h

c

8284

CLOCK

GENERATOR

i£

AMZ964

ORAM

MULTIPLEXOR

RAM

.PARtTYGEN/CHECK

EXPANSION BUS CONNECTORS

(CARD EDGE CONNECTORS FOR OPTIONS)

77

.MEMORY ADDRESS BUS

-^

4164 DRAM«

64 K

SYSTEM MEMORY

E-.

o

<~>

SOCKETRESERVEDFOR EPROM

"3 R ( /MEMORY DATA BUS

SYSTEM DATA BUS

KEYBOARDCONNECTOR

Figure 1: The Professional Computer's system unit board contains circuitry for controlling up to four floppy-disk drives, a parallel printerport, five expansion slots, sockets for an 8087 numeric coprocessor, and an additional 8K bytes of ROM. An additional expansion slot isprovided for memory expansion.

Western Digital chip set comprising the FD1793-02 con-troller, WD1691 support logic, and WD2143 pulse delay.One surprise was the provision for 80-track drives (96tracks per inch). Merely changing one jumper on the sys-tem board makes the system support 640K-byte drives.All the disk primitives for reading and writing sectors,locating, reading, or modifying the disk parametertables, and turning motors on and off are contained inthe system ROM, including support for the 80-trackdrives. The software in the system ROM reads the systemconfiguration from the jumper and then calls the ap-propriate built-in routines. An undocumented option inthe operating-system configuration program, CON-FIG.COM, tells MS-DOS about these high-capacitydrives; entering the command CONFIG d: = 2,80 at theMS-DOS prompt, in which d: is the drive letter, will doit.A second surprise was an additional connector for two

external drives. TI recommends running a cable from the40-pin connector on the system board to a 37-pin D-typeconnector on the back panel (see photo 3), but by usinghalf-height drives, you can mount all four in the systemunit. The power supply can handle it. And you can mixany combination of single-/double-sided, double-/quad-density drives if at least one (drive A) is an "MS-DOSstandard" double-sided, double-density, 320K-bytedrive.

The efficient, switching-type power supply is rated at160 watts with three output voltage levels. TI claims thissupply can handle a system with any combination of op-tions, including two floppy disks and a Winchester diskor four floppy disks.

The Keyboard

The keyboard on the Professional Computer is one ofthe machine's nicest features; unlike the IBM keyboard,

290 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 96 on inquiry card.

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Vector

Description

Vector

Description

00

divide-by-zero trap

57*

CRT mapping

vector

01

single-step trap

58*

system timing,

25 ms (time slicing)

02*

non-maskable interrupt

59*

common interrupt exit vector (ROM)

03

break (single-byte) software interrupt

5A*

system timing,

100 ms (timing

service)

04

overflow trap

5B*

keyboard mapping vector

05-1F

reserved by Intel

5C*

keyboard program pause key

vector

20-3F

reserved by Microsoft for MS-DOS

5D*

keyboard program break key vector

40

8259 interrupt 0

5E*

keyboard print

screen vector

41

8259 interrupt 1

5F*

keyboard queueing vector

42

8259 interrupt 2

60

system ROM

DS pointer

(180H)

43*

8259 interrupt 3 (timer 1)

(F400:A000)

DS size

(182H)

44

8259 interrupt 4

61

factory ROM

DS pointer

(184H)

45

8259 interrupt 5

(F400:0000)

DS size

(186H)

46*

8259 interrupt 6 (disk controller)

62

option ROM

DS pointer

(188H)

47*

8259 interrupt 7 (keyboard USART)

(F400:2000)

DS size

(18AH)

48*

speaker DSR interface

63

option ROM

DS pointer

(18CH)

49*

CRT DSR interface

(F400:4000)

DS size

(18EH)

4A*

keyboard DSR interface

64

option ROM

DS pointer

(190H)

4B*

parallel port DSR interface

(F400:6000)

DS size

(192H)

4C

clock and analog interface board

65

option ROM

DS pointer

(194H)

4D*

disk DSR interface

(F400:8000)

DS size

(196H)

4E*

time-of-day clock DSR interface

66

memory size

in paragraphs)

4F*

system configuration call

outstanding interrupt count

50*

fatal software error trap **

(in paragraphs)

51*

restart timing event **

installed drive

types (byte)

52*

cancel timing event **

67

extra system configuration

53*

SVC interface subroutine **

(config. word 1)

54*

activate task subroutine **

extra system configuration*

55-56

reserved for future use **

(config. word 2)

E0-E3

reserved by Digital Research for CP/M

* Vector actually used by ROM** Texas Instruments use only

Table 1: Hardware and software interrupts play an important role in the operation of the Professional Computer. The interrupt vectorslisted here can be changed by system and application programs to provide a variety of custom functions, including keyboard redesign.

it uses a familiar, efficient layout. This keyboard remainsquiet while still providing the necessary tactile feedback.The main keyboard uses the familiar Selectric-style lay-out, as shown in figure 2. The left-hand Shift key iswhere most people expect to find it, and a handy red

Unlike the IBM keyboard, Tl's uses

a familiar efficient layout that's

quiet, too.

LED (light-emitting diode) on the Caps Lock key remindsyou when it's in use. The Control key's position provideseasy use with word processors like Wordstar, and theubiquitous Alt key sits directly under it, enabling a two-fingered system reset (by simultaneously pressing theControl, Alt, and Delete keys). Indentations on the F andJ keys let you find the proper position on the home roweasily.

292 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

A diamond-pattern cursor pad, with a Home key inthe middle, sits to the right of the main keyboard. Al-though a T-configuration may work better, a diamondpattern beats a straight line any day.

To the right of the cursor diamond sits a numeric key-pad. The little bump on the 5 key is for homing pur-poses; the keypad also contains comma, tab, and spacekeys.

Above the main keyboard, a row of 12 programmablefunction keys is arranged in three groups of four keyseach. These keys send different codes in combinationwith the Shift, Control, and Alt keys for a total of 48codes. The debate over the usefulness of function keyscontinues; if you like function keys, this will be heaven.These keys are easily accessible from BASIC with theKEY command. Unfortunately, the 25th display line onlyshows 10 key labels at a time. If you want to use thesekeys from outside of BASIC, you must provide a ma-chine-language routine as discussed in the last para-graph of this section.

Text continued on page 298

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If you've ever lost data due to afaulty disk, you know how impor-tant reliability can be.

That's why Accutrack disks arecritically certified at 2-3 times theerror threshold of your system.Why they're precision fabricated forhigher signal quality, longer life andless head wear. And why we takesuch extra steps as testing single-density mini disks at double-densitylevels. So you don't have to worryabout the reliability of your media.

Accutrack disks. OEMs havespecified them for years. You cantrust them for your data. Call toll-free (800 225-8715) for your nearestdealer.

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Dealers: Give your customers achoice—Accutrack's OEM perform-ance as well as your heavily adver-tised brand. We have the industry'sonly complete line of disks, cas-settes and mag cards, includingvirtually all special formats.If you want a quality line, smallminimums, the ability to mixand match, private labeling,fast delivery and great price, calltoday. Find out how responsive amedia supplier can be.

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294 BYTE December 1983

Circle 117 for dealer inquiries. Circle 118 for end user inquiries.

Address

Devices

Dynamic RAM:

00000-OFFFF

64K-byte motherboard RAM

10000- FFFF

64K-byte expansion RAM board bank 1

20000-2FFFF

64K-byte expansion RAM board bank 2

30000-3FFFF

64K-byte expansion RAM board bank 3

40000-BFFFF

expansion bus memory

CRT controller:

C0O0O-C7FFF

graphics RAM bank A

C8000-CFFFF

graphics RAM bank B

D0000-D7FFF

graphics RAM bank C

D8000-DDFFF

reserved

DE000-DE7FF

active character memory

DE800-DEFFF

phantom character memory

DFOOO

Bit 0—miscellaneous input buffer, BLUE

feedback, read only

Bit 1—miscellaneous input buffer, RED

feedback, read only

Bit 2—miscellaneous input buffer, GREEN

feedback, read only

Bit 3—miscellaneous input buffer, interrupt

pending, read only

DF001-DFOOF

miscellaneous input buffer

DF010-DF01F

graphics RED palette latch, write only

DF020-DF02F

graphics GRN palette latch, write only

DF030-DF03F

graphics BLU palette latch, write only

DF040-DF7FF

reserved

DF800-DF80F

attribute latch

DF810

CRT controller address register, write only

DF811

CRT controller status register, read only

DF812

CRT controller address register, write only

DF813

CRT controller address register, write only

DF814-DF81F

reserved

DF820

Bit 7—miscellaneous output latch, inter-

rupt enable

Bit 6—miscellaneous output latch,

Othf>r nf>rinh&rals-

alphanumerics screen enable

DF821-DFFFF reserved

E0000-E7FFF reserved for speech storage RAM

E8000-F3FFF reservedROM usage:

F4000-F5FFF 8K ROM space (clock/analog interface)

F6000-F7FFF 8K ROM space (local-area net option

board)

F8000-F9FFF 8K ROM space (Winchester controller)

FA000-FBFFF 8K ROM space (reserved)

FC000-FDFFF 8K ROM space, 1 wait state (XU62)

FE000-FFFFF 8K system ROM, 1 wait state (U63)

Table 2: The memory space of the system's 8088 microprocessorhas been partitioned for use by the cathode-ray tube, graphics con-trollers, and other peripherals, and allowance has been made forthe addition of "smart" peripherals by reserving ROM space.

Users L vePRINTEK

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Dual density graphics—144x144 dots per inchfor detail, 72x72 for speed—in raster formatwith true data compression. Dot addressable.Versatile paper handling—up to 6 copies on2y2"-16" paper. For everything from labels toreally big spread sheets (227 cols.)User lover—quiet (less than 60 dBA),easy-change cartridge ribbon, front panelcontrols and status indicators, self-diagnostics,easy interfacing, and ready-anywheremulti-voltage power supply.You, too, can become a PRINTER lover. Call for thename of your nearest sales representative.Printek, Inc., Benton Harbor, Ml 49022616/925-3200 TWX 810-270-3112

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I—I h

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Circle 348 on inquiry card.

With the no-compromisemonitor, the Princeton HX-12,PGS set the industry standardfor price/performance in a highresolution RGB color monitor.

Now, we've done it againwith the SR-12: our new super-resolution RGB monitor thatmeets the most demanding ex-pectations at a price that willsurprise you.

And PGS has set newstandards in monochromemonitors, too, with the newMAX-12 amber monitor that'sas easy on the eyes as it is onyour budget.

And

The monitor to meet yourneeds

All three PGS monitors areengineered for no-compromiseperformance: to provide youwith a cleaner, sharper imagethan any other monitor in thesame price class. The HX-12 andthe SR-12 both feature uncom-promising color convergencefor crisp whites without colorbleed. The MAX-12 offersimpressive clarity in a mono-chrome monitor with easy-on-the-eyes amber phosphor.

And all three monitors comewith a shielded cable that p/ugsdirectly into the IBM PC or XT.

And a

Check the specifications

The HX-12 has the highestresolution (690x240) and thefinest dot pitch (.31 mm) in itsclass. And yet it's suggestedretail price is comparable tomany medium resolution monitors. The HX-12 brings no-compromise color to the PCnow, with the PGS RGB-80board, to the Apple lie as well

>am.

rhe new SR-12 also features a

31 mm dot pitch supporting 690torizontal resolution. However,)y increasing the horizontalcan rate to 31.5 KHZ, the SR-12:an support 480 vertical resolu-ion in non-interlaced mode."his results in a very highluality, flickerless image withhe ability to generate text thats truly of monochrome quality,naking it equally suitable forvord processing and for colorjraphics. Suggested retail price,i remarkable S 799.

(am

he new MAX-12 offers youin amber monitor with 720x350esolution at a suggested retailirice (S249) that is actuallyDwer than the leading green->n-black competitor. And theMX-12, unlike many otherimber monitors, runs off theBM PC monochrome card—io special card is required.:iarityoftheMAX-12is•nhanced by dynamic focusingIrcultry which ensures sharp-less not only in the center butilso in the edges and corners.

!■

A non-glare screen is standardon all PGS monitors, color ormonochrome—a feature youreyes will really appreciate in along work session.

Whatever your needs, fromword processing to superresolution graphics, there'snow a no-compromise PGSmonitor that sets the standard.Ask your dealer for a demon-stration and let your eyesdecide. Or call for mqre infor-mation and the name of yournearest dealer.

You can look to PGSfor the Imageyour eyes deserve.

800-221-1490

Circle 347 on Inquiry card.

PrincetonGraphic systems

II01-I State RoadPrinceton New Jersey 08540609 683-1660TLX 6857009 PGS Prin

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$485.00

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$199.00

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$229.00

(Replaces Micromodem II for Apple, Apple II,Apple II Plus and Apple Me.)

TH€ COAAPUT€R-UN€

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Customer Service(213) 716-1824

Text continued from page 292:

Four keys, Insert, Delete, Break/Pause, and Print, arelocated above the numeric keypad. The Print key doesn'tdo anything on its own, but when used in conjunctionwith the Shift key, it generates a special interrupt thatcan be used by systems or applications software to sendthe contents of the display screen to the printer. The In-sert and Delete keys do just that: insert or delete char-acters on the display. Normally, the unshiftedBreak/Pause key stops display scrolling and in BASICcauses a break to occur when shifted.

The keyboard's attractive, low-profile plastic enclosure(see photo 4) meets the European standard for the heightof the home row, and the rows form a slight concave arcfrom top to bottom. The keyboard unit can be tilted bydepressing two tabs at the upper corners of the keyboardhousing, which causes a spring-loaded flap to drop frombeneath the enclosure. The flap runs across the entire

Pin

Signal

Pin

Signal

A01

NMI

B01

Ground

A02

Data 7

B02

Reset

A03

Data 6

B03

+ 5 V

A04

Data 5

B04

IR0 (interrupt 0)

A05

Data 4

B05

no connection (bused)

A06

Data 3

B06

no connection (bused)

A07

Data 2

B07

-12 V

A08

Data 1

B08

DMA (CPU enable)

A09

Data 0

B09

+ 12 V

A10

Wait

B10

Ground

A11

Logic ground

B11

AMWC (memory write)

A12

Address 19 (MSB)

B12

MRDC (memory read)

A13

Address 18

B13

AIOWC (I/O write)

A14

Address 17

B14

IORC (I/O read)

A15

Address 16

B15

no connection (bused)

A16

Address 15

B16

no connection (bused)

A17

Address 14

B17

no connection (bused)

A18

Address 13

B18

no connection (bused)

A19

Address 12

B19

no connection (bused)

A20

Address 11

B20

PCLK (5-MHz clock)

A21

Address 10

B21

IR6 (interrupt 6)

A22

Address 9

B22

IR5 (interrupt 5)

A23

Address 8

B23

IR4 (interrupt 4)

A24

Address 7

B24

IR2 (interrupt 2)

A25

Address 6

B25

IR1 (interrupt 1)

A26

Address 5

B26

no connection (bused)

A27

Address 4

B27

RFSH (refreshing)

A28

Address 3

B28

ALE (address latch)

A29

Address 2

B29

+ 5 V

A30

Address 1

B30

OSC (15-MHz clock)

A31

Address 0 (LSB)

B31

Ground

Table 3: Although many of the pins on the expansion bus con-nectors have the same function on both the 77 Professional Com-puter and the IBM PC, the two buses are not compatible. Themajor differences occur in the control bus, including the signallines for memory read and write, I/O read and write, and inter-rupt request lines.

298 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 113 on inquiry card.

Circle 236 on inquiry card.

•

THE SMART CABLE IS THE PERFECTRS-232 MATCHMAKER FORCOMPUTERS AND PERIPHERALS.^

The Smart Cable's uniqueon-board logic "looks"at the RS-232 interfaceon each end of yourconnection, then cor-rectly links your printer,modem or any otherperipheral to yourcomputer. Completesdata lines, handshakes,everything. ^

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Now you can avoid ^

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GET MORE r

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Best of all, the Smart Cable is pricedcompetitively with conventional cables andcustom cables.

To be a success these days you've just got tohave the right connections. Call us today at800-227-6703 (in California 800-632-7979, in Canada800-663-9767) to make yours a whole lot easier.

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Photo 3: The rear panel of the computer holds (from left to right)the power cord connectors for the system unit and display, the fan,the keyboard DIN plug connector, the parallel printer port connec-tor, a cutout for a DB-37 connector for expansion disk drives, twomodular phone jacks on the modem card, an RCA jack for compositevideo output for a monochrome display (just below the RGB outputsfor a color display), and the DB-25 connector on the syn-chronous/asynchronous communications adapter card. The two screwsin the upper left- and right-hand corners are all that need to be un-done to remove the system unit cover. The design is remarkably similarto that of the IBM PC, right down to the metal flaps that cover theunused expansion-slot openings.

width of the enclosure and lets the keyboard be elevatedeven when it's on your lap. The keyboard is attached tothe system unit by a sturdy coiled cord that, when fullyextended, can reach about 5 feet from the front of thesystem unit.

The keyboard unit contains an Intel 8048 controller thatscans the keyboard and not only transmits character in-formation to the system unit but also receives commandsfrom it. The keyboard sends information over a serialcommunications link at approximately 2400 bits per sec-ond (bps) and receives commands at 300 bps.

Upon power-up or system reset, the system unit sendsa command to the keyboard, telling it to perform a self-test. Depending on the results of this test, the keyboardresponds with one of three codes: self-test OK, ROMerror, or RAM error. The system unit can also tell thekeyboard to turn the repeat function on and off, lock andunlock the keyboard, and return a version number. The

provision for turning a key click on and off is not sup-ported and requires a hardware modification.

When you press a key, the keyboard transmits the codeto an 8251USART (universal synchronous/asynchronousreceiver/transmitter) on the system board, which, inturn, generates a hardware interrupt. Then, 1 or 2 bytesare placed into the 8088's AX register (the first byte isgenerated only when the Shift, Caps Lock, Alt, or Con-trol key changes states). Several things then happen,depending on which key was pressed; essentially, soft-ware interrupts pass control through the vectors residingin low memory, and the key code usually winds up ina small (15-character) buffer.

One of the keyboard interrupts can have a special pur-pose. Right after a key code is received from the key-board, a keyboard-mapping interrupt is generated (INT5B). Normally, the interrupt vector (located at 5B x 4 =16C) points to an IRET instruction, essentially accom-plishing nothing. But by changing the interrupt vector,you can give control to a custom routine to remap allor part of the keyboard or to filter out certain key codes.This technique can also be used to program the func-tion keys.

The Display

When you turn on the TI Professional Computer, thequality of the display becomes immediately obvious. Thecharacters exhibit sharpness not found on other com-puters (with the exception, perhaps, of the Victor 9000).Like that of the IBM PC, the Professional Computer'sdisplay system consists of two units: a controller boardlocated in the system unit, and a CRT monitor. Unlikethe IBM, however, TI's controller board can drive bothan analog monochrome display and a TTL (transistor-transistor logic) color display (red-green-blue input).With a monochrome display, the "colors" are interpretedas eight levels of gray. With a color display, each charactercan be displayed in one of eight colors. An optionalraster-graphics board can mount onto the CRT controllerboard piggyback style, thus preserving precious expan-

[m '] [h ) [w ] [w j [fJ [koJ [fu] [™j

DB000Q000000@0000000000000G0

h3! r?7! r^i f?1]

= + SPAC TA8

0 000(30@00000000000S0 000 0000

Q |..„ol 0

00000000

O

3

000

000

Figure 2: The keyboard layout of the TI Professional Computer reveals a more conventional approach to keyboard design: separate alphabetic,numeric, and cursor keypads, and 12 programmable function keys grouped at the top. The numbers in the upper right-hand corner of eachkey are the scan codes that are transmitted to the system unit for further processing.

300 December 3983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 150 on inquiry card.

In the fast moving, hightechnology world ofmicrocomputers, the needfor high performanceaccessories often getsoverlooked.

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Photo 4: The low-profile keyboard unit has a more familiar layout than IBM's. Indentations on the J and F keys help you find the homerow. The tabs on each side of the unit near the top control a flap on the back that elevates the keyboard.

sion slots. In addition, you can mix any combination oftext and graphics on the display.

The basic CRT controller displays characters with a 7-by 9-dot matrix in a 9- by 12-dot cell. Twenty-five linesof 80 characters are displayed, thus requiring a resolu-tion of 720 pixels horizontally (9 by 80) and 300 pixelsvertically (12 by 25), which this system produces withexcellent clarity, even on a color display. A full screenof text is shown in photo 5, and photo 6 is a close-upof the character formation.

Each character of the display uses 2 bytes of memory.The first byte is the actual character code. The secondbyte contains attribute information as follows:

Bit 0—Intensity level 1 (blue)

Bit 1—Intensity level 2 (red)

Bit 2—Intensity level 3 (green)

Bit 3—Character enable

Bit 4—Reverse

Bit 5—Underscore

Bit 6—Blink

Bit 7—Alternate character setAs mentioned earlier, the three intensity levels produceeight colors or levels of gray.

System software enters attributes for each characterthrough an attribute latch. All characters to be displayedthereafter will then exhibit those attributes until new at-tribute values are entered. Characters can be read fromthe screen, too, and when this occurs the character's at-tribute is loaded into the attribute latch, facilitating blockmoves of characters and their attributes.

The attributes have a hierarchical order to resolvepossible conflicts. Color attributes have the highestpriority, followed by reverse video, character enable,blink, and lastly, underscore. For example, when you dis-able a character, its color attributes remain while blinkand underscore are ignored. The result is an entire celldisplayed in the color attribute(s) without visible blink-ing or underscore.

Although you get scrolling in four directions, it re-quires a fair amount of software support. Because thedisplay "wraps," the software must clear either the topor bottom line of the screen before scrolling up or down,respectively. If a 25th "status" line is implemented, soft-ware must keep it in its place; otherwise it, too, wouldscroll with the rest of the screen.

The controller logic lets the 8088 have good access toscreen memory. The screen memory's refresh logicenables two complete memory cycles to occur betweencharacter display refreshes. One fetches the character fordisplay, and the other is then available to the 8088 forreading or writing. There is some slight synchronizationoverhead that brings the actual time to no more than 1microsecond; the usual access time is 600 nanoseconds.

The characters themselves are produced by a 4K-bytecharacter generator ROM in a fairly standard way, withrow data loading into a shift register and dots shiftedout at the dot rate. In effect, characters are painted acrossthe screen, one row of dots at a time. The ROM con-tains 256 characters, but provision has been made forswitching in an additional character ROM or EPROM

302 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Begin with Condor I, the advanced file manager.Upgrade later as your business and your data grows, toCondor 3, the fully relational data management system. It'sthe same system that hardware manufacturers like DEC,Sony, Zenith, and Hewlett-Packard have selected to marketwith their personal computers.

To find out how Condor Data Management software~| can make your business take off, see yourpersonal computer dealer, or call 1-800-854-7100xl65 (in California, 1-800-422-4241 xl65) forthe dealer nearest you.

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ltd Used this computer on Intel's 8883 suteen-bit chip instead. The 8860 inthe Te«os Instruments Professional Computer runs at I clock speed of 5 rHi,compared to the IB1 PC's 4.7? MHz. II takes no secret of the fact that it'ssystem uiil support an 868? coprocessor. In fact, TI states throughout itstechnical documentation that the tern CPU refers to both procesaors. The 808?is still a hit prices, hot that uill change ui'.h titae, and TI is alreadyproviding; Microsoft's FORTRftfi, Pascal, and COBOL compilers that support thischip's extended commands.?///

The 'bottom of the line" Professional Coiputer is supplied with MK of 3-bitRATI. Hine chips of the 4164 type (64K by 1 bit) are used, and tbey are soldertdirectly to the system board, RAN can be added to the system through the use cItoru expansion board that fits into the dedicated memory erpans;c..,:ansion board is supplied uith 64K of 9-bit RAH installed'coldered, tool, and sockets are provided to allow another 128X of 9-bit f' '(ringing the total system Rfln to 256K. Though at fust glance tan„ the system limit, a look at the technical manual shows the wioryspace from 40O98H to BFFFFH to be reserved for "expansion bus acMry." The

' i that an additional 512K could be installed through the HI,.»,iing expansion slots, and they are preparing such a boardnow. Adding this much extra memory would mean a total of 788K of main memcry.'

..-byte system ROM contains what are called 'device service routines' forcontrolling the principle I/O devices in the system unit. The liberal use ofI software interrupts and software vectors or pointers allow]

Photo 5: The display on the Professional Computer is one of its mostoutstanding features. The resolution is 710 dots horizontally and 300dots vertically. A user can mix text and graphics in any way.

We ■ V V

V Viy • /

ontrol, display and graphitse functions are implementsters and then performing a

present program to cease ijgrvice routine pointed to ITiemory. For example, if a

40H is loaded into the &

Photo 6: A close-up look at how the screen characters are formed.

(erasable programmable ROM). Bit 7 of the attribute bytecontrols this switching, and the controller board includesa socket for the extra ROM. The addition of another char-acter ROM makes it possible to display 512 characters.

The Professional Computer supports block, or char-acter, graphics, but in an unusual way. In order to drawa solid horizontal line, there must be a way to fill theentire width of a character cell. But a character cell is 9bits wide and the character generator can only put out8 bits per character. This problem is solved in an inter-esting way. If the dots for any row of a character comingout of the character generator has bit 7 set, the leftmostand rightmost dots of that row are copied into the left-most and rightmost dot positions of the character cell,thus enabling the entire character cell to be filled andconsecutive characters to be contiguous.

As previously mentioned, the optional graphics boardmounts directly onto the CRT controller board. It hasthe same resolution as the CRT controller board, 720pixels horizontally and 300 pixels vertically. The graphicsboard is available in two configurations: one-plane (twocolors: black and a choice of any one of eight colors) and

306 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Photo 7: An example of the graphics capabilities of the Professional Computer.

three-plane (all eight colors). I had the eight-color option,in which each pixel is individually addressable and cancontain up to three attribute bits that provide up to eight(23) colors. Some of the graphics capabilities are shownin photo 7.

Before you choose between the two- or eight-colorgraphics options, keep this in mind: the two-color ver-sion is not designed to be upgradable. If you think you'llwant eight-color capability someday, get the three-planeboard.

As implied above, the graphics boards containcolor-mapping logic. The color information for each"palette" is held in one of three latches—one for red,green, and blue—on the graphics board. By changingthe values in the palette latches, the code for cyan (101)could be converted to the code for, say, blue (001). Thus,all eight colors can be changed by loading new valuesinto the palette latches.

Other Hardware Options

The synchronous-asynchronous communicationsboard is capable of driving one RS-232C link in eitherasynchronous mode or one of several synchronousmodes, including synchronous data-link control (SDLC)

and high-level data-link control (HDLC). The heart ofthis board is, interestingly, a Zilog Z8530 serial commu-nications controller chip. Most of the remaining circuitryon board handles the interface of this chip to the sys-tem bus. The on-board data-rate generator is softwareprogrammable and is capable of generating 17 rates from50 to 19,200 bps. One DB-25 connector is mounted onthe board edge facing the rear of the system unit.

If you purchase the optional Winchester-disk drive,you receive a 5- or 10-megabyte drive, a controller card,and the connecting cable. The drive may be manufac-tured by TI or Seagate. The version installed in thereview unit was built by TI and had a 5-megabyte capaci-ty (formatted). The 8088 views the controller as a blockof four consecutive I/O ports. The controller generatesinterrupts when data is ready to be read from or writ-ten to the controller and when an operation is completeand the controller requests a status read. An on-board4K-byte ROM contains the driver routines for the con-troller and can cause the controller to perform a self-test.

The internal 300/1200-bps modem supports auto-dial-ing and auto-answer as well as originate and answermodes. It can detect dial tones and busy signals andcommunicate asynchronously at 300 or 1200 bps; at 1200

308 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Today, you're doing

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The Genesis telesystem remem-bers all your important numbers,including emergency numbers. Andit dials with just a touch. It timesyour calls and even has abuilt-in speaker.

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See it at your AT&T Phone Center, now at thousands of leading retail stores.

BYTE December 1983 309

bps, it can also communicate synchronously.

Software

The price of the basic Professional Computer doesn'tbuy any software—not even the operating system. MS-DOS cannot be called the standard operating system,but you can't help but notice that almost all Tl-labeledsoftware operates under MS-DOS.

I imagine most people buying this computer will buythe MS-DOS operating system. Currently TI only offersversion 1.1 of this operating system, but version 2.0

should be available in December. Along with MS-DOSyou get MS-BASIC, version 1.1. You can opt to purchaseCP/M-86, which comes with CBASIC, but you'll paymore than twice as much. Concurrent CP/M is available,and the UCSD p-System is sold at three and a half timesthe cost of MS-DOS.

The MS-BASIC interpreter is similar to that suppliedwith the IBM PC (before its version 2.0) with the excep-tion of some hardware-dependent commands and func-tions. I downloaded a fairly generic BASIC program fromThe Source that was originally intended for the IBM PC,

Text continued on page 314

TI's Improved BASIC

I actually tested two versions of BASIC, and therein lies a story.The first version I tested is the one currently being shipped, ver-sion 1.1. It contains several bugs.

The LOCATE command didn't always turn the cursor off.LOCATE ,,1 turns the cursor on and LOCATE „0 is supposedto turn it off. If you've previously turned the cursor on (usinganother program or in the immediate mode) and then run a pro-gram that's supposed to turn the cursor off, it won't. If you runthe program a second time, the cursor will go off. I tried usingtwo LOCATE commands in a program, but even that didn't turnthe cursor off the first run-through.

As with IBM's BASIC, TI's BASIC version 1.1 contains a com-mand to control a cassette-recorder's motor. It's the MOTOR com-mand. The problem is, the TI computer doesn't support a cassetterecorder. So what happens if you enter a MOTOR command? Youmay very well have to turn the computer off and on again torecover. It's not always that bad, but it's completely unpredictable.

The MOTOR command is not documented in the manual thatcomes with BASIC 1.1 except in one very obscure place. After thediscussion of the KEY command, there's a brief description of whatis called a "command super shift." This enables single-keystrokeentry of 22 keywords by depressing the Alt key and one of the alpha-betic keys. For instance, holding down the Alt key and at the sametime pressing the I key produces the INPUT keyword. Pretty neat.But what in blazes is this information doing in the discussion ofthe KEY command? The MOTOR command, which is producedusing the M key, is included in the list of keywords that eachalphabetic key produces. So I pressed the Alt-M combination and,sure enough, up popped the word MOTOR on the screen. Hit-ting the Return key caused a complete system failure, and it wasnecessary to turn the machine off and then on again. Yes, eventhe Control-Alt-Delete combination didn't do anything.

While I'm on the subject of documentation, let me say that themanual for BASIC 1.1 is terrible. Besides the screwy placementof the command super shift summary, there is absolutely no in-formation on the various switches you can control when you firstinvoke BASIC. (For the benefit of those seeking this information,these switches include IM:, which sets the maximum workspaceused by BASIC to provide room for assembly-language subroutines;IS:, which sets the buffer size for random-access files; IF:, whichsets the maximum number of files that may be open at any onetime; and IC:, which controls the size of the communications inputbuffer when using the synchronous/asynchronous card.) Oh yes,these switches exist. In fact, they are referred to in several placesin the manual (except for IF:), always as part of the discussionof something else. But nowhere are you told what they are or howthey work.

One feature not explained in the user documentation but foundin the technical manual is the special use of the Alt key. By holdingdown the Alt key and entering the three-digit number on thenumeric keypad, you can generate any character code, decimal 0to 255. For example, by holding down the Alt key while entering155 on the numeric keypad, the character code 155 (i.e., t) isgenerated (CHR$(155) in BASIC). It's a mystery to me why thisis not included in the user documentation.

Then there is the case of the missing commands and statements.There are some very common commands and statements that arepart of BASIC 1.1 but are not documented. For example, littlethings like the SYSTEM command to get you back to MS-DOS.Then there is the matter of the DATE$ and TIME$ statements(and variables). These work just fine if you know how to use them,but don't try to find them in the manual. Although the FILEScommand is in the documentation, you'd be hard pressed to findit. Here are some other undocumented commands: BEEP,COM(n), KEY(n), ONCOM(n) GOSUB, ONKEY(n) GOSUB,ON PEN GOSUB, ON STRIG(n) GOSUB, STRIG, andSTRIG(n). Lastly, the RESET command is in the index butnowhere else.

I think I've covered the really serious omissions. As far as I cantell, TI didn't put any extra effort into the BASIC 1.1 manual theway IBM did. IBM's is not that good, but at least Big Blue triedto give some examples to clarify the more complicated commands,and the company has organized its manual better than TI has.It appears that TI simply copied the Microsoft documentation ver-batim and left parts out.

While discussing the preceding problems with the people at TI,I was informed that the company is about to release a new versionof BASIC, version 1.2, that has fixed all these bugs and othersthat I hadn't uncovered, and that it comes with an improvedmanual that documents all the commands and features. TI packedup a copy of the new BASIC floppy disk and the final draft of themanual that afternoon and shipped them air express, through ahurricane, so I could review them before completing this article.I'm happy to report that, indeed, the previously mentioned bugsare gone. The MOTOR command is still there, but trying to ex-ecute it gives you a simple "Device Unavailable" message insteadof a system failure. Also, the new manual will be beautiful; com-paring it to the version 1.1 manual is like comparing night to day.Besides being complete, the manual has plenty of examples andillustrations to explain the more difficult commands. The materialis organized in a more rational way, and it is evident that a lotof effort went into this revision. This manual will be better thanIBM's.

310 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Time

(minutes: seconds)

Professional Computer

IBM PC XT (DOS 2.0)

0:05.5

0:06.9

0:16.9

0:24.7

0:09.7

0:12.8

0:19.9

0:23.8

2:38.2

3:12.0

0:29.80:30.4

0:29.50:29.90:07.1

0:19.40:20.0

0:19.30:19.70:05.1

0:29.0

0:08.0

0:23.0

0:08.0

Table 4: A comparison of the BYTE benchmarks (see listing 1on page 316) run on the Professional Computer and the IBM PCXT. Both versions of TVs BASIC ran the tests in the same time.

Text continued from page 310:

and it ran without modification on the TI. You'll en-counter problems, however, if the program involvesgraphics or other hardware-dependent routines. Thecommands may look the same, but they don't alwayshave the same range of parameters. See the text boxon page 310 for software bugs and documentation defi-ciencies that have been repaired in version 1.2.

TI's BASIC contains some interesting enhancements.For example, when you first invoke IBM's BASIC, youare constrained by 128-byte random disk-file buffers anda maximum of three open files unless you specifyswitches IS: and IV:, respectively. TTs BASIC handles thisdynamically, accepting file records of any size, and asmany as 255 files open simultaneously without the needto specify this when invoking the language.

TI's version of MS-BASIC contains an editor similarto that in IBM's BASIC. Microsoft has produced one ofthe nicest BASIC editors I've seen. You don't even haveto go into an edit mode to use it. For example, you'velisted 10 lines of code you just wrote and notice that onone line you entered "THE" instead of "THEN." Justplace the cursor after the E in "THE," tap the Insert key,type an N, and press Return. You've just corrected theline.

The editing features don't end there. Suppose, for in-

314 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

stance, that you have to enter 15 lines of code, and eachline is almost but not quite identical. (Let's say it's a seriesof LINE statements and only one variable is different ineach line.) No problem. Simply enter the first line as younormally would. Then, to enter each succeeding line,you merely place the cursor on the first line you entered,change the old line number to the new line number, andthen change the variable (from A to B, for example) andpress Return. You won't see the original line of code any-more because you've written over it, but if you entereda LIST command, you'd see both lines. You can continueto do this for each succeeding line until you're finished.In essence, you can build the remaining 14 lines of codefrom the first line by entering only what is different fromone line to the next. The process is quite a time-saver.

I ran the standard BYTE BASIC benchmarks for com-parison with other machines and the results are outlinedin table 4. Because the floppy-disk drive in the reviewmachine used a head-load solenoid, I ran the disk writeand read benchmarks (6 and 7) both with the head ini-tially loaded and unloaded. As the results show,head-loading takes approximately 0.5 second. I also ranthese benchmarks using both single- and double-sideddisks. As I expected, the times for a single-sided diskare slightly longer due to the extra head seeks involved,whereas a double-sided disk allows two tracks, one oneach side of the disk, to be written or read without thehead assembly moving. The timings for benchmarks 6and 7 using the Winchester-disk drive are included justfor fun. As you can see, the times for the Winchesterare about one-quarter of those for the floppy-disk drive.By the way, all the benchmark times for the two versionsof TI's BASIC were exactly the same. The benchmarksused are shown in listing 1.

The graphics in TTs BASIC are somewhat simpler thanin IBM's BASIC, primarily because the TI has only onemode. You always work with high-resolution graphics:720 pixels horizontally, 300 vertically, and any pixel canbe one of eight colors. No distinction exists between textand graphics modes; you can mix the two freely. Youcan plot individual points, lines, boxes (filled or outline),circles, and ellipses. A PAINT command fills any oddshape with a color, and GET and PUT commands movewhole shapes around on the screen. The PALETTE andPALETTE USING commands enable rapid changing ofall eight colors simultaneously. And a DRAW command,as on the IBM PC, uses its own macro language thatenables it to perform the functions of most of the othergraphics commands. The macro language lets you moveany distance in eight directions, plot points and lines,and set color and scale. By combining several macrocommands into a single string variable, a simple com-mand like DRAW A$ can perform a complex series ofmovements. In addition, one command executes a sub-string, like a sort of subroutine, so that repeating pat-terns can be defined individually and then strungtogether by a series of commands that executes sub-strings.

Two commands control the speaker: SOUND and

Text continued on page 318

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Put a Japanese leader to work for you.Fujitsu's Micro 16s. For more information or thename of your nearest dealer call toll free 1-800-MICRO16. Or write Fujitsu Microelectronics, Inc.,Professional Microsystems ■■■■■^flDivision, 3320 Scott Blvd., FUJITSUSanta Clara, CA 95051.

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SuperCalc^™ is a trademark ol Sorcim Corp WordStar' is a trademark ol MicroPro International CP/M-86" and Concurrent CP/M-86" are trademarks ol Digital Research, Inc. MS™ is a trademark ol Microsoft" Z80"' is a trademark ol Zilog. Inc.

Circle 196 on inquiry card. BYTE December 1983 315

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Listing 1: The standard BYTE benchmarks used in this review.

LISTING 1A

60 A=2. 71828

80 B=3.14159

100 FOR 1=1 TO 5000

320 NEXT I

LISTING IB

60 A=2.71828

80 B=3. 14159

100 FOR 1=1 TO 5000

120 C=A/B

320 NEXT I

LISTING 1C

60 A=2.71828

80 B=3.14159

100 FOR 1=1 TO 5000

120 G0SUB 1000

320 NEXT I

340 END

1000 RETURN

LISTING ID

80 A$="abcdefghijklm"100 FOR 1=1 TO 5000120 B$=MID$(A$,6,6)320 NEXT I

LISTING IE

10 SIZE=7000

20 DIM FLAGS(7001)

30 PRINT"only 1 iteration"

40 C0UNT=0

50 FOR 1=1 TO SIZE

60 FLAGS(I)=1

70 NEXT I

80 FOR 1=0 TO SIZE

90 IF FLAGS(I)=0 THEN 170

100 PRIME=I+I+3

110 K=I+PRIME

120 IF KSIZE THEN 160

130 FLAGS(K)=0

140 K=K+PRIME

150 GOTO 120

160 C0UNT=C0UNT+1

170 NEXT I

180 PRINT COUNT,"

primes

LISTING IF

CLEAR 1000

A$="12345678123456781234567812345678"

B$=A$+A$+A$+A$

"TEST"AS Z$

10

40

60

80 NR=500

100 OPEN "R", #1 ,

120 FIELD #1, 128

140 FOR 1=1 TO NR

160 LSET Z$=B$

180 PUT #1, I

200 NEXT I

220 CLOSE #1

240 PRINT "DONE"

Listiyig 1 continued on page 318

316 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 121 on inquiry card.

For people who want power.

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Call 1-800-343-5414 (In Massachusetts call617-492-7870) and find out more about 1-2-3from Lotus.

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1-2-3 and Lotus are trademarks of Lotus Development Corporaiion. Al! rights reserved.

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Listing 1 continued:LISTING 1G

10 CLEAR 1000

80 NR=500

100 OPEN "R", #1,

120 FIELD #1, 128

140 FOR I=NR TO 1

160 GET #1, I

200 NEXT I

220 CLOSE #1

240 PRINT "DONE"

Text continued from page 314:

PLAY. SOUND takes a pitch and duration for its argu-ments and produces a single note. PLAY is to soundwhat DRAW is to graphics. With the PLAY commandyou can create a string of macro commands and thenexecute it. Notes can be normal (% of the note time), stac-cato (% of the note time), or legato (the whole note time),so that one note blends into the next. Octave and tempocan be changed, and pauses can be inserted. As withthe DRAW command, a macro command is providedthat will execute a substring. Here the notion of a sub-string is more apropos, being analogous to a repeatingmusical phrase.

The PLAY command provides another interestingmacro command. The notes produced by the othermacro commands can play in either foreground or back-ground mode. When notes play in foreground mode,program execution pauses until all notes have beenplayed. In background mode, however, the contents ofthe PLAY command are placed in a buffer and the notesplay while the rest of the program continues. This com-mand also affects the SOUND command. With a com-mand like SOUND 1000,10 in a program, all activityceases until that long note stops if you are in foregroundmode. But background mode lets the program continuewhile the note plays at the same time. Combininggraphics with background-mode music produces someremarkable results. Alas, it's still impossible to reproducethat total effect in a magazine.

TI's BASIC versus IBM's

Compatibility always looms as an issue with BASIC,especially when you have two versions of the sameBASIC. TI's BASIC was, in fact, adapted from IBM's.How compatible are the two BASICS? In a word, very.

The new BASIC 1.2 manual contains one section thatpoints out the differences between TI's BASIC and IBM's(and, of course, how TI's is better). Using this informa-tion, it would not be too difficult a task to convert anyIBM BASIC program to TI BASIC and vice versa.

The major differences occur in commands affecting thedisplay; differences in the hardware of the two machinesbecome evident after looking at the commands. The IBMPC has a text mode and two graphics modes (mediumand high), and the TI Professional Computer has amixed text and high-resolution graphics mode only. Andso TI's BASIC has no need for the SCREEN statement(the SCREEN command is the same). The structure ofthe COLOR command differs for the same reason; the

318 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 316 on inquiry card.

With the p-System ™ from

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less than the cost to add similar utilitiesto any other OS. It includes a powerfulscreen editor, a multi-function filemanager and RAMdisk support for fastaccess to files. Dynamic memorv

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This operating svstem is stable, friendlyand easy to use. Command options arepresented on a menu requiring only asingle keystroke. The 8087 NumericCoprocessor Support allows extremely fastfloating point calculations and theasynchronous I/O lets you use serialprinter and communications routines.

With the p-System you can choose eitherUCSD Pascal, Fortran 77 or Basic as yourprogramming language. NCI also offershard disk support for the IBM XT,Corona, Columbia, Corvus, Tallgrass,Davong, Genie 5+5, QCS, Datamac,

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TI has only one mode and only eight colors. The IBMand the TI PSET and PRESET statements are identicalexcept that the higher resolution on the TI requires theparameter range to differ. TI BASIC also has a PSET STEPvariation that defines the coordinates as an offset fromthe previous PSET statement instead of in absoluteterms. TI's CLS (clear screen) function allows you to cleartext only, graphics only, or both. IBM's and TI's POINT,LINE, CIRCLE, GET, PUT, PAINT, and DRAW functionsare all identical except, again, for the parameter ranges.TI's BASIC also includes PALETTE and PALETTE USINGstatements but not the STICK function.

TI's BASIC version 1.2 and the new manual should beavailable by the time you read this article.

Communications

Along with the internal 300/1200-bps modem, thereview unit came with a software package called TTYCommunications. This sophisticated package featuresprogrammable function keys, lets you send and receivedata at speeds up to 9600 bps manually or remotely, at-tended or unattended, and provides automatic dialingand answering of the modem. The package works withthe internal modem, an external modem connected tothe synchronous/asynchronous board, or a direct com-puter-to-computer link through the synchronous/asyn-chronous board. I found it fairly easy to use once I gotpast the documentation.

You begin by setting up the communications param-eters for a particular communications link. These param-eters are stored in a file to be called in as needed. Usually,you maintain a separate parameter file for each type ofcommunications link. For instance, I created one param-eter file for calls to The Source, another for remote send-ing and receiving of files from my office computer, andanother that enabled me to automatically upload this textfrom the Model 100 into the Professional Computer.

The first of five parameter menus lets you set the portassignment, data rate, stop bits, parity, tone or pulse dial-ing, automatic or manual dialing, and a phone number.

The second menu enables you to define an answerbackmessage (ABM). An answerback message is a string ofcharacters sent to a remote computer to help identifywho you are. You can designate that this message (if any)be sent either when answering a call or originating a callor both. You can even secure the ABM so that it won'tbe displayed on the local console.

Next, you can define what the TI computer will sendas a new-line character (or characters) and what it willinterpret as a new-line character in the incoming datastream. This can get confusing until you realize that, in-ternally, the Professional Computer uses a carriagereturn/linefeed pair as a new-line sequence. If you definethe incoming new-line sequence as a carriage return/line-feed, you'll wind up with double-spaced text on screenbecause the TI computer executes the incoming new-linesequence before its own. Instead, you need to define theincoming new-line sequence as only a carriage returnand filter out all incoming linefeeds. It took me a while

to figure out why everything was double-spaced whenconnected to The Source.

You can specify whether the computer responds toremote commands and performs handshaking, such asXON/XOFF. And you can disable the keyboard so thata cat's march across the unattended keyboard will nothave serious effects. Finally, for this menu at least, youcan designate two batch files: one is executed upon anormal disconnect, the other is executed upon an ab-normal disconnect.

The third menu lets you define the method of hand-shaking (XON/XOFF, reverse channel, or none), a max-imum inactivity time before hanging up, an error limit,the method of disconnection (an EOT (end of transmis-sion) character or an EOT-DLE (data-link enable) char-acter pair), and whether transmitted data, received data,or both should be displayed on the local console.

The fourth menu defines the 12 programmable func-tion keys. Each key may contain up to 32 characters, in-cluding control characters. A carriage return, for exam-ple, is depicted as < CR > and counts as four characters.

The fifth and final menu enables automatic replace-ment of any character transmitted or received with an-other character or no character. Only single characterscan be searched for and only a single character can beused as a replacement. This is the menu I used to filterout the code for linefeeds (i.e., replace them withnothing).

All of the menus are extremely easy to use. Good usehas been made of color and highlighting, and most pa-rameters can be changed by using only the cursor keys.Once you understand the parameters, it shouldn't takemore than a couple of minutes to configure a new pa-rameter file. Table 5 summarizes all the parameters, theirrange of values, and their default values.

After the parameters have been established, the opera-tion of the program is straightforward. When I want tocall The Source, I enter the command COMTTYSOURCE.PRM from the MS-DOS prompt. This loadsthe communications software and the parameter file,which then waits for a dial tone, dials the phone accord-ing to the number in the file, waits for a carrier, connects,and drops me into terminal mode. While this is goingon, the program keeps me informed of its activities ona status screen that disappears as soon as a valid carrieris detected. I can then log in and enter my password bypressing Shift-Fl, Shift-F2, as these two function keyswere programmed into the parameter file.

Auto-dialing can be used with both TI's own internalmodem and with the Hayes Smartmodem.

While in terminal mode, a key label line displays youroptions. Function keys control everything in this pro-gram, and in this case I must admit that they make lifeeasy. In terminal mode you can also perform a numberof file-related activities. Of course, you can upload anddownload files and view the directory (interestingly, thiscommand asks "which directory?"), view the contentsof files, rename files, delete files, print files, and createan empty file. At every point along the way, pressing

320 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Look, Ma, no hands!

If you don't type, you've prob-ably longed for the day whenyou could simply talk to yourcomputer. It's here.Your voice can set you free.With the Voice Input Modulefrom VMC, you can "train" yourApple II, lie® or Franklin® to per-form as many as 80 differentspoken commands, in unlim-ited subsets, with near-perfectrecognition.

So where you used to type"/P return —"A CO return N39return" you can just say "print."Command performance.The Voice Input Module worksparallel to the keyboard with allexisting applications software.So you can type if you need to,or do anything from electronicspread sheets to word pro-cessing to games with voicecontrol alone. Either way, you'll

increase your productivity andhave fun doing it.

Demand a demonstration.

You won't believe it until yousee it. So see the Voice InputModule at your nearby com-puter store today

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1000 South Grand Avenue ■ Santa Ana, California 92705 ■ Telephone (714) 541-0454 for the dealer nearest you.Circle 448 on inquiry card. byte December 1983 321

Parameters

Range

Default

Port

1,2,3

1

Speed

110, 300, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, auto

300

Stop bits

1,2

1

Parity

odd, even, mark, space, None

even

Check parity

on, off

off

Display of transmitted data

on, off

off

Display of received data

on, off

on

Busy handling

DC1-DC3* reverse channel, None

None

Busy sense

0,1

0

ABM**

0-32 character string

none

Call answer ABM

on, off

off

Call origination ABM

on, off

off

Secured ABM

on, off

off

Keyboard

on, off

on

Dialing mode

pulse, tone

tone

Dialing procedure

manual, automatic

automatic

Error limit

0-999 errors

0

Programmable keys

0-32 character string

none

Mapped characters

characters mapped

none

Transmit new line

0-10 character string

return, linefeed

Receive new line

0-2 character string

return, linefeed

Phone number

0-32 digits and separators

none

Normal disconnect batch file

(filename)

none

Abnormal disconnect batch file

(filename)

none

Inactivity time-out

0-999

0

Failsafe disconnects

on, off

on

DLE-EOT disconnect***

on, off

off

EOT disconnect

on, off

off

Print completions

on, off

off

Remote commands

on, off

on

Remote device control

on, off

on

* DC1 is the Control-Q or

XOFF character; DC3

is the Control-S or XON character.

** ABM is the answer-back

message.

*** DLE is the ASCII "data-link escape"

character;

EOT is the ASCII "end-of-transmission" character.

Table 5: TI's TTY Communications package allows the user to control a broad range of communications parameters.

Note that the Busy-

handling parameter's default is

"None,"

while those parameters with no default are indicated

by "none."

Fl brings up a Help screen.

The remote-command capability deserves some men-tion. By enabling the remote-commands parameter, aremote computer can control the sending and receivingof files, as well as creating, renaming, and deleting files.The remote computer simply sends an escape characterfollowed immediately by a 0 and a series of commands.For example, the following command line from a remotecomputer sets up the TI Professional Computer to re-ceive a file named TEST.DOC:

<ESC>

0REC FIL=TEST. DOC <NL>

in which <NL> is the recognized received new-linecharacter sequence. Although only the first three lettersof a command are necessary, you must specify the fullfilename.

From a personal-computer user's point of view, the TIProfessional still lacks a few things. When you upload

files from this computer, your only protocol option isXON/XOFF. No provision exists for character echo orline-at-a-time transmission. Also, the system doesn't pro-vide for any kind of block transmission with error check-ing and retransmission upon detection (a la Ward Chris-tiansen). This wouldn't be so bad if you could exit fromthis program and call up MODEM7, but an exit causesthe modem to disconnect.

The remote access of the TI computer is somewhat dis-concerting because the operation is performed totallyblind. There is no echo of the commands you enter, and,believe it or not, you cannot call up the ProfessionalComputer's directory from a remote computer. There-fore, you must know the exact name of the file you wishto download.

One major question—how can a company producesuch a beautiful piece of communications software andthen render it practically useless with such an awfulmanual? I worked extensively with this program, includ-

322 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Do You Run Your Businessor Does It Run You?

The biggest headache you may be facingthese days is getting better control ofyour business. Tracking unpaid bills,sending out second billings, monitoringwhich salesman sold how much and towhom, keeping track of inventories,and on and on.

There's a remedy. It'scalled VersaForm... thebusiness database.

VersaForm is a powerfuldatabase designedspecifically for busi-ness, but based on thesimplicity andconvenience of yourfamiliar businessforms.

If you can fill outa business form,you can createa database.

VersaForm starts withyour existing formsand procedures. Asyou copy your formsonto the screen, Versa-Form automatically

creates a database for you. It records andsaves information from Purchase Orders,Invoices, Job Estimates, DisbursementLedgers... maybe even a few thingsyou're not recording that you should be.

VersaForm is an electronic file cabinetthat will store all this information,yethave it at your fingertips when you needit! It's designed with a non-technicaluser in mind, so you can concentrate onstreamlining your business with noneof the usual database headaches.

Adapts to your business.. .your way.

With VersaForm you don't have tocompletely re-orient your staff. It fitsright into the way you're doing businessnow. Only now your operations will becompleted more efficiently and withelectronic speed.

• A doctor in Moulton, Texas, postshis patient billing and completes hismedical insurance forms withVersaForm.

' A small college in Wheaton, Mary-land, uses VersaForm to create tuitioninvoices, class lists, accounts

receivable, and accounts payable.' A computer supplies company inMountain View, California, writespayables checks and does expensedistribution withVersaForm.

■ A roofing company in Green Bay,Wisconsin, computes job estimates,contracts, invoicing, and tracks actualcosts with VersaForm.

1 A manufacturer in Beaver Falls,Pennsylvania, uses VersaForm to buildhis company's parts records, andgenerates "where-used"lists.

VersaForm has the power to do thesejobs and more because it's designedespecially for business. It can alsocalculate taxes and prices, and canlook up discounts, so you don'thave to. VersaForm will evenprint on your own pre-printedforms.

Pull informationtogether fast.

Pulling informationtogether from paperfiles can be time-consuming andfrustrating. Why makeit tough? VersaFormputs vital reports likesales analyses, over-due payables, openpurchase orders, andalphabetical employeelists at your finger-tips. Minimum effort,maximum results.

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VersaForm provides a screenformatter, a data entry program, a data-base, a report generator and a formsprinter. And you can purchase prede-signed Templates for standard jobs likePurchasing, Invoicing, and ExpenseJournals. VersaForm is the all-in-onebusiness productivity tool. Ask for ademonstration at your computer dealer.Or contact us directly.

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Name

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Mail to: Applied Software Technology170 Knowles DriveLos Gatos. California 95030(408) 370-2662

For use with the Apple II, He and III, and the IBM PC and compatibles.

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BYTE December 1983

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ing several remote operations, and I'm still not sure howto use it to its fullest capacity. The section on remote com-mands is practically useless. Essentially it merely pre-sents the commands; you must figure out how they'reused. And the descriptions of some of the communica-tions parameters are sparse, too.

Conclusions

After using the TI Professional Computer extensivelyfor about five weeks, I have little doubt that it is superiorto the IBM PC, both physically and electronically. Thecase is made of a heavier-gauge metal, the cover of thesystem unit detaches much more easily, the keyboardis of better quality and design, the display has a higherresolution, and thought has been given to preservingexpansion slots for real peripherals. The systemupgrades from a single floppy-disk drive to a 10-mega-byte Winchester, and support is provided for high-density (96 tracks per inch) drives. You can increasememory from 64 to 748K bytes. The capability to pro-duce color text is standard; with the optional graphicsboard, you can mix text and graphics on the same dis-play. The interrupt structure is flexible, and the manu-facturer supports the 8087 coprocessor option. Most ofthe major software packages have been adapted to runon this machine, including Lotus Development Corpo-ration's 1-2-3 (which performs superbly on the Tl becauseof its higher resolution and combined text and graphics).

But this machine is not for a novice; most of themanuals don't contain hand-holding tutorials. In some,you'll be lucky to find what you need. A helpful dealerwho gets you started with this machine is vital. Andremember, third-party hardware support is not nearlyas robust as it is for the IBM PC. Tecmar Inc. (23600 Mer-cantile Rd., Cleveland, OH 44122), however, claims thatit will offer Tl-compatible versions of its IBM PC boards.

So what does this mean for the purchaser of a TI Pro-fessional Computer? For now, you'll get most of yourperipherals from TI, and you're limited to what theyoffer. However, TI plans to introduce the much-discussedvoice system, a combination speech-digitizing, store, andforward system capable of serving as a kind of high-classphone-answering machine that will also be capable ofspeech recognition. A 512K-byte memory board that willincrease the total system RAM to 768K bytes is due byyear end. An analog/clock card has been designed anddocumented in the technical manual, but no release dateis available. This card will support two joysticks, fourpaddles, switches, and a light pen, in addition to aclock/calendar.

With a lot of hard work and a little luck, TI has achance to capture a significant portion of the high-endpersonal-computer market. Although its computer mayappear to be just another IBM clone, a closer look revealsa machine that is superior in many ways. It definitelyinvites a closer look.H

Mark Haas is technical director at Osborne/McGraw-Hill (2600Tenth St., Berkeley, CA 94710).

324 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Micro Modem 100

Micro Modem II

Smartmodem 300

Smartmodem 1200

Smartmodem 1200B

NOVATION

D Cat

269239199498Call

.. 149

J-Cat

.. 105

Apple Cut II

.. 259

103 Smart Cat

103/212 Smart Cat

212 Auto Cat

SIGNALMAN

Mkl $79 MkVII..

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MkV 89 MkVI...

NEW! Volksmodam

U.S. ROBODICS

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79

Call

Call

339339

Advertised prices reflect a cash discount onprepaid orders only Most items are in stockfor immediate delivery in factory sealed cartons with full factory warrantees.

-SYSTEMS-ALTOS

ACS 8000 10 $5889

ACS 8000-12 6995

ACS 8000 14 8789

Series 5-5D 3990

Series 5-15D 2199

580 10 3995

586 10 5995

586-40 8795

MTU-4 2396

Altos II Terminal 849

COLUMBIA

VP Portable Call

MPC Call

MPC w/Hard Disk Call

CROMEMCO

C 10 Super Pak ... 1429

C10MP vWMicroPro software 1819

CS-1 3195

CS-2 3755

CS-3 5595

64 FDC 475

TUART 255

EAGLE (Eagle cannot be shipped UPS)

HE Series

II E 1 II E 2

II E-3 II E-4

PCSeriMPCE PCI

PC2 PCXL

1600 Series

1620 1630

—Call us today for the best prices—

INTERTEC

Superbrain II JR 1869

Superbrain II QD 2309

Superbrain USD 2609

Compustar Call

MORROW

Micro Decision

MD-2 w/2 drives & software... 929

MD 3 w/DS drives t> software 1199MD 11 w/HD & software 1949

NEC

PC 8801A Computer Call

PC 8831A Dual 5%"disk drive.. CallNORTHSTAR

Advantage 2Q Call

Advantage 1QHD6 Call

Horizon 2Q 64K 2399

HD 18 Mb. hard disk 3879

SANYO Call

TELEVIDEO

TS-803 1989

Portable Call

ZENITH

ZF 100-21 2319

ZF 120-22 2869

ZF 120-32 4479

-PRINTERS-

ANADEX

DP 9501 $1099

DP 9620 1199

DP 9625 1299

DP 6500 2399

WP6000 2159

CENTRONICS

730 1 Parallel 200

739 3 Serial 469

COEX

80 FT parallel 259

C.ITOH

Prowriter 8510A Par 369

Prowriter 8510A Ser 569

Prowriter II Par 669

Prowriter II Ser 739

DIABLO

620RO25CPS 919

630 RO 40 CPS 1769

EPSON

RX 80 Call

RX-80FT Call

FX 80 Call

FX-100 Call

GEMINI

10X

15X

295

435

MANNESMAN TALLEY

MT 160 I 529

MT 160 L 599

MT 180 L 859

NEC

3510 $1445 3530 $1490

3550 1845 7710 1949

7715 1949 8023 399

NEW NEC 2000 Call

OKIDATA

ML-82A 379

ML83A 579

ML-92 Par 449

ML-92 Ser 529

ML 93Par. 749

Pacemark 2350 Call

Pacemark 2410 Call

QUME

Sprint 11/40 1299

Sprint 11/55 1499

SILVER REED

EXP 500 Par 459

EXP 550 Par 659

EXP 550 Ser 689

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS

Tl 810 Basic 1199

Tl 810 Package 1549

Tl 810 LQ 1919

Tl 820 Basic 1549

NEW Tl 850 Call

-MONITORS-

AMDEK

Color I $275

Color I + 319

Color II IRGBI 399

Color III (RGB) 349

300 G (12"green) 135

300 A (12"amber) 145

310 A (IBM PC) 169

BMC

15 MHZ (12"green) 79

NEC

JB 1260 (12" amber) 109

JB-1201 (12" green) 135

JC-1212 (12"color) 339

JC-1203(12"RGBI 549

ZENITH

Z-122(12"green) 109

Z-123(12"amber) 139

Z-131 (13"color + gr.) 299

Z-135IRGB) 519

-HARD DISKS-

CORVUS

Model 6 1869

Model 11 2549

Model 20 3399

Omninet 6 1695

Omninet 11 2375

Omninet 20 3225

Miror Back-up 670

KONAN

SPECIAL! 5Mb. for S 100 1429

3M/ Scotch51/4". ..$21.95

(Single Sided. Double Density)

5V*"... $30.95

(Double Sided, Double Density)

Call us for the lowest

prices on other

popular diskettes!

If you can't find what youneed listed here, just call forthe best prices on the itemsyou require.

N.Y. residents, add appropriate sales tax.We accept VISA and Master Card. Personaland company checks, allow2weeks to clear.C.O.D.'s require a 25% deposit. All pricesand offers may be withdrawn without notice .

We think you're calculating enough to

And we've devised a little test to prove it. All youhave to do is compare our PC-8200's specs with thespecs for Radio Shack's Model 100 or the HP-75.For someone who's savvy enough about computersto read this magazine, you shouldn't have any troublepicking the best one. So here goes:

NEC

RadioShack

Hewlett-Packard

Price

$799*

$799

$995

RAM/ROM

16K/32K

8K/32K

16K/48K

RAM Expandability To 96K To 32K To 24K(Internal/External) (64K/32K) (32K/none) (24K/none)

Free bundledsoftware

Yes

No

No

Function keys

10

8

0

RAM cartridges

Yes

No

No

Bar CodeReader, RS232,Parallel Port,Cassette Port

Yes

Yes

NotStandard

Floppy Disk andSIO Port,Cursor Cluster

Yes

No

NotStandard

•Includes perpetual clock calendar. NiCad battery pack, AC adapter charger optional.The PC-8200 is a battery-operated CMOS-based system.

It all boils down to more power and better featuresfor the same price. And, of course, more software—14 FREE programs to start, including linearforecasting and word processing.

The PC-8200 portable from NEC. We thinkyou should be impressed. If you're not, maybeyou picked up the wrong magazine.

Productivity at your fingertips

NEC

NEC Home Electronics (U.S.A), Inc.Personal Computer Division

1401 Estes Avenue

Elk Grove Village, IL 60007

NEC Corporation, Tokyo, Japan

Circle 310 on inquiry card.

get more computer for your money.

u

4

<FJ?jf *

5St Synetix Inc.

&£jk

Revolutionary

Sprite Graphics

for Apple™ Computers

3 exciting ways to enter a new galaxy of actionand adventure

SPRITE I™

Fast action animation. Smooth and flicker-free. Software included easilylets you create and move sprites and lets you paint colorful backgrounds.Enjoy unique multi-plane action where sprites move freely under andover each other. Sprite I plugs easily into any slot of your Apple computerto give you the excitement and quality of arcade graphics. $149.

SPRITE II™

Add the dramatic dimension of realistic sound effects to all the action inSprite I. Sound you can easily program yourself. Sound synchronized tothe action on the screen. The Sprite II includes a sound generator thatlets you create almost any imaginable effect—gunshots, explosions,music, the roar of an engine. $249.

SUPERSPRITE

The ultimate sprite package. Actual speech, thanks to the amazingECHO II™ speech synthesizer. The ability to simultaneously join spritegraphics and Apple programs together on the screen. The STARSPRITE I™diskette featuring the new Ampersprite language for creating and movingsprites, painting background scenes and programming sound effects.Yes, SuperSprite has it all. Sprites, sound, speech, software. $395.

Call 800-426-7412 for your nearest dealer.

Circle 412 on inquiry card.

10635 N.E. 38th PlaceKirkland, WA 98033(206) 828-4884

1M Apple is a registered trademark ol Apple Computer, Inc'^SuperSprite is a registered trademark of Synetix. Inc., 1983

; '-'Si.'irsprue I is a registered trademark of Avant-Garde Creations, Inc.'^Echo II is a registered trademark ol Street Electronics Corp.

Hardware Review

The ATR8000

This Z80 computer/peripheral enables Atari users to run

CP/M-based programs

by Dave Small and Sandy Small

Capable of serving as an intelligent peripheral or as

a stand-alone computer, the ATR8000 should prove tobe of interest to Atari users because it enables them toaccess CP/M-based applications programs. It should alsoprove of interest to anyone looking for a machine thatcan run CP/M-80, CP/M-86, or MS-DOS.

The ATR8000, manufactured by SWP (formerly Soft-ware Publishers Inc.), owes its potentially wide appealto its availability in four configurations. The lowest-priced version ($350) employs 16K bytes of RAM (ran-dom-access read/write memory), 4K bytes of ROM (read-only memory), and a Z80 processor. Intended to serveas an Atari peripheral, this model can readily interfaceAtari computers with a host of additional peripherals,including standard-bus disk drives and devices withCentronics parallel or RS-232C serial ports. When usedto interface a printer to an Atari, the ATR8000 allocatesa 12K-byte buffer for printer-spooling operation,(la)

The intermediate and two top-of-the-line configura-tions can serve as stand-alone computers. The stand-alone versions can interface with standard terminalssuch as those offered by Televideo Inc. or use an Ataricomputer as a terminal.

The intermediate configuration ($550) includes a Z80processor and 64K bytes of RAM, which makes it capableof running the CP/M 2.2 operating system configuredfor 60K bytes of RAM. When used as an Atari peripheral,this configuration's 64K-byte RAM can be used as an ad-ditional printer-spooler buffer area.

Each of the two top-of-the-line models ($800 or $1050added to the $550 price of the intermediate version) in-corporates an 8088 16-bit processor and either 128K or256K bytes of RAM in addition to the Z80 and 64K bytesof RAM; these configurations can run the MS-DOS andCP/M-86 operating systems, enabling the ATR8000 tohandle software available for the IBM Personal Com-(lb)

Photo 1: Front (a) and rear (b) views of the ATR8000. The rear connections shoivn in photo lb are, from left to right, an RS-232C serialI/O port, a 34-pin floppy-disk connector, a 34-pin parallel printer port, and Atari serial I/O daisy-chain-out and -in connectors. A Resetbutton is located to the right of the daisy-chain connectors; the power connector is located directly below them.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

329

puter. In these 8088-based configurations, the 128K or256K bytes of RAM associated with the 8088 processorcan serve as a disk emulator that can be accessed by theZ80 processor, resulting in extremely fast disk-type I/O(input/output).

The Atari Peripheral Configuration

As an Atari peripheral, the ATR8000 plugs into theserial bus that the Atari uses to communicate with I/Odevices. The ATR8000 is thus daisy-chained onto thisserial bus, as are all Atari peripherals. This Atari serialbus uses a nonstandard 19.2K-bits per second commu-nications protocol. All Atari devices that use this serialbus require some sort of processor to decode or encodedata out of or into this data format. For instance, Atariuses a 6507 microprocessor to perform this task in itsdisk drives and Model 850 interface.

Unfortunately, this added encoding/decoding-hard-ware requirement increases the cost of Atari peripherals.Elirninating this requirement, the ATR8000 interfaces theAtari serial bus to a number of standard peripherals. (Theterm "standard" here means the de facto pin-out stan-dards that the peripheral industry has more or lessadopted in the interest of compatibility.) Among the bet-ter known "standards" are the 25-pin RS-232C serial bus,the 36-pin Centronics-type parallel bus, and the 34-pin(5V4-inch) or 50-pin (8-inch) disk bus.

The first, most important peripheral is a disk drive.Up to four single- or double-sided, 8- or 5V4-inch, single-or double-density drives can be plugged into theATR8000. Moreover, the ATR8000 permits several trackformats. The range of possibilities is nearly endless,given today's drive market; the ATR8000 can use almostany drive that has the standard 34-pin bus connectionused by Tandon, Shugart, MPI, and others. An adapter,available from SWP for $19.95, interfaces the ATR8000 tounits employing the 50-pin standard 8-inch drive con-nector used by Shugart, Siemens, and Qume.

The disk-interfacing capability alone makes theATR8000 a good buy from the Atari owner's point ofview; until now, standard disk drives, lacking thecapability to decode the signals on the Atari serial bus,could not be connected to the Atari. Until recently, theonly Atari-compatible drives available have been theAtari 810, a single-density unit, and a few similar drives.Because of the hardware needed for the Atari's bus, the810 lists for $599, which is quite steep for a 5V4-inchsingle-sided single-density drive.

The 810 also suffers from design and reliability prob-lems. The first problem involves use of a serial bus totransfer data. Although the bus runs at 19,200 bits persecond, the handshaking slows the effective data-transferrate considerably. The serial bus is extremely quiet ac-cording to radio-frequency interference standards, butthe data-transfer rate is four to eight times slower thanthat of other systems. There are also rpm-regulation anddata-separation problems that reduce the 810's capabili-ty to read disks accurately.

Finally, the 810 is a single-density disk drive. As Atariand Osborne owners have discovered, the 90K-bytecapacity of such drives doesn't allow much data storage,especially when compared to other double-densitydouble-sided, 80-track drives that offer 160K to 500Kbytes of storage.

A few manufacturers are marketing replacements forthe 810. Other manufacturers offer disk-drivemechanisms and cases with much better reliability thanthe 810's mechanism. A 5V4-inch Tandon TM-100 drivewith case and power supply sells for $200 to $250. Ourexperience indicates this is a very reliable drive; for in-stance, speed is regulated within 1 percent, a far cry fromthe 10 percent drift found in many Atari drives. But these"raw" drive mechanisms lack the circuitry to connect tothe Atari serial bus. With the ATR8000, however, thesestandard drives can be driven from the Atari.

The ATR8000 offers many features in addition to disk-drive interfacing. First, it provides a Centronics paralleland an RS-232C serial port. Until now, Atari ownersneeding to interface to a parallel or serial device requiredan Atari 850 interface, which connects the Atari serialbus to these devices. The 850 retails for $219.

Second, the ATR8000 printer port is buffered, whichenables the Atari to dump data as fast as it can and goon to other things while the ATR8000 handles the print-ing operations. A typical 16K-byte buffer retails for $149.

Third, the ATR8000 handles double-density diskstorage of 180K bytes (assuming a single-sided 40-trackdrive), a significant increase over the 810's 90K bytes. Per-com's dual-density disk drive for the Atari retails for $699(single-drive unit), or $100 more than the Atari drive.Thus, for $575 ($350 for the ATR8000 and $225 for aTM-100 disk drive with case) you're getting performancethat would otherwise cost $1067—$699 for a Percom dual-density drive, $149 for a 16K-byte buffer, and $219 for aModel 850 interface.

The ATR8000 readily accommodates increases in disk-storage capacity. To upgrade to a two-drive system, forexample, only a $225 drive mechanism need be addedto the ATR8000. For an Atari drive, a whole new driveplus a controller board must be added—a $699 cost.

A New Operating System

One problem that arises when using the ATR8000 asan Atari peripheral is that the Atari's disk operatingsystem (DOS) is not configured to handle more than 720sectors per disk, although it can handle single- ordouble-density sectors (128/256-byte sector sizes). Con-sequently, a new operating system is needed to handle8-inch or other high-capacity disks. SWP offers MYDOS,an operating system capable of handling these large-capacity drives. It should be noted that copy-protectedAtari software and any software with a custom DOS willnot take advantage of the added space of higher-capacitydrives that the ATR8000 can use. But for applications thatuse a new DOS, the ATR8000 and MYDOS offer a help-ful tool.

330 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

NEVADA

BASIC

each!

A POWERFUL INTERPRETER FOR CP/M!

Use Nevada BASIC in business, engineering,science and education. Now with the NewNevada BASIC, you can easily develop andtailor programs on your micro for business,science and education. What's more, youcan do it for about one-tenth the cost ofcomparable BASIC interpreters.

The one you've been waiting for! It has a

beautiful built-in full-screen text editor(Professor Starkweather's) where the cursormoves freely about the screen to makeadditions, deletions and corrections. And itautomatically generates new line numberssaving you valuable time. Whether you're abeginner or a pro, you will love this feature.But there's more than screen beauty, muchmore.

What you'll love most about Nevada BASIC

is its friendly personality. For example,user-defined functions can be single-line ormulti-line. And there are full matrixoperations: matrix copy, matrix add, matrixsubtract, matrix multiply, scalar operationson matrices, matrix transpose and matrixinvert. For business there is a completeFormatted PRINT, IF ... THEN ... ELSEconstructs, BCD Math (no round off errors),and much more.

Take Advantage of our money-backguarantee. If you are not completelysatisfied—just return the package in goodcondition, with the sealed disketteunopened—within 30 days, and we willrefund your money.

Get yours today! The diskette comes with a210 page instructional manual.

o

ELLIS COMPUTING

Also available:

NEVADA FORTRAN _ $29.95

NEVADA PILOT™ $29.95

NEVADA EDIT: $29.95

NEVADA COBOL™ $29.95

COBOL APPLICATIONS

PACKAGE

BOOK1 $ 9.95

MAIL TODAY! TO: Ellis Computing, Inc.

3917 Noriega Street

San Francisco, CA 94122

(415)753-0186The CP/M® Operating System, a 8080/8085/ Z80 microprocessor,and 32K RAM are required.Software Packages:

□ COBOL D FORTRAN □ PILOT D EDIT □ BASICDiskette Format: 8" □ SSSD (Standard IBM 3740 format)51/4"D Apple CP/M DXerox820SD DOsborneSD

□ Televideo □ Micropolis Mod IID North Star DD □ North Star SD

□ TRS-80 Mod I with CP/M @ 4200 hex □ TRS-80 Mod I/Mapper

□ Heath Hard (Z-89) D Heath Soft (Z-90)

□ Superbrain DD DOS 3.X (512 Byte sectors)

□ KayproDD □ DECVT-180 D Epson QX-10

□ NEC PC8001 □ Sanyo D Access

Shipping/Handling Fees: Add $4.00 for the first package and $2.00 each additionalpackage. OVERSEAS add $15,00 for first package and $5.00 each additional package.Checks must be In U.S. funds and drawn on a U.S. bank!

Send my order for _

. packages @ $29.95 each Total.

COBOL Applications package @ $9.95 each Total.

InCAadd sales tax.D Check enclosed Shipping/handling.

D MasterCard □ Visa Total .

# Exp. Date

Signature

Ship to:Name

Street

City/State/Zip

CP/M is a registered trademark of Digital Research. Inc TRS-80 is a registered trademark ot Tandy Corp Apple II is a trademark ol Apple Computer, Inc Osborne is a registered trademarkof Osborne Computer Corp Xerox 820 is a trademark of Xerox Corp Kaypro is a trademark of Non-linear Sys Heath/Zenith isatrademarkot Heath Corp IBM is a trademark ol InternationalBusiness Machines, Corp Nevada COBOL, Nevada FORTRAN. Nevada PILOT Nevata EDIT and Ellis Computing are trademarks ol Ellis Computing, Inc © 1983 Ellis Computing. Inc

Circle 174 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

331

How a

In vi n an

and a

broken

leg

made

software

simple.

^W^ hat does a fireman knowabout designing software?Nothing. Usually.

Meet Dennis Jarvis, a firefighter fromSouthern California. About five years ago hebroke his leg in a fire-related accident and wasconfined to the house for about six months. Tokeep him occupied, Dennis' wife bought him acomputer.

Dennis had never used a computer before.But he proved to be a natural.

Dennis was soon writing his own programs.And Basic Accounting from Firefighter wasborn.

It was brilliant.

And so simple, you don't have to knowanything about accounting theory to use it.

But don't get the wrong idea. Just because it'ssimple, doesn't mean it's not smart, too.

Basic Accounting from Firefighter has so manymore features and capabilities than the best sell-ing accounting package, there's no room to listthem in this ad. You'll just have to ask yourdealer to show you.

Dennis? He returned to the Fire Departmentsoon after his leg healed, but remains thespearhead of Firefighter Software.

In fact, in his never-enciing efforts to makeFirefighter the most personal, most supportedsoftware, Dennis has set up a telephone hotlineto answer your questions and provide consulta-tion. That's just Dennis' way of insuringFirefighter remains superior, always simpler yetsmarter.Hotline: (213) 991-8200

FIREFIGHTER.

SIMPLER, SMARTER SOFTWARE.

mmPRACTICALSPERIPHERALS

31245 La Baya Drive, Westlake Village, CA 91362

At a Glance

Name

ATR8000

Manufacturer

SWP (formerly Software Publishers Inc.)2500 E. Randol Mill Rd„ Suite 125Arlington, TX 26011(817) 469-1181

Size

ll'/2 by 12'/2 by 2Vi inches; 8 pounds

Features

As an Atari peripheral, the ATR8000 interfaces the Atari serial busto devices with RS-232C serial or Centronics parallel ports as wellas to disk drives with standard bus interfaces; this version includes16K bytes of RAM. As a stand-alone computer, the ATR8000comes in versions with 64K to 256K bytes of RAM; a Z80-basedversion runs CP/M-80; and an 8088-based add-on (Co-Power-88)enables the ATR8000 to run CP/M-86 and MS-DOS

Hardware required

Interface cabling and connectors, available from SWP or otherdistributors

Software required

Atari DOS to use the ATR8000 as a peripheral; CP/M-80, MS-DOS,or CP/M-86 are provided with ATR8000 configurations that sup-port those operating systems

Documentation

73 pages

Options

l6K-byte Z80-based version, $349; 64K-byte Z80-based version,$550; !28K-byte 8088-based add-on, $799.95; 256K-byte8088-based add-on, $1049.95; both add-ons require the 64K-byteZ80-based version

Interfaces

The ATR8000 supplies Centronics and RS-232C inter-faces for the Atari. Both are edge connections and ac-cept the usual clamp-on ribbon connectors. The parallelconnection runs via a flat ribbon cable to a standard36-pin Centronics parallel-interface connector. TheRS-232C connector comes out to a 26-pin edge connec-tor that hooks via a flat ribbon cable to the popular DB-25connector. The pin connections that have become stan-dard for RS-232C data transmission are used: 2 and 3for data, 4 and 5 for handshake, and so forth. If you needto swap the two pairs of lines, the ATR8000 provides aninternal jumper header that allows you to change themeasily.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that the ATR8000worked the first time when connected directly to anOkidata Microline 84 (a parallel printer) and a HayesSmartmodem (a serial device). The total interfacing tookonly 10 minutes, which were spent clamping connectorsonto ribbon cable.

In its smallest configuration, the ATR8000 ranks as a"best buy" for Atari owners who want to expand theirsystems with disk drives, parallel printers, and serialRS-232C devices.

332 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 500 on Inquiry card.

AN*

y

iiwtsi

•W»5l

&"

"IrVHVP/WMOflE"COMPARE THESE PRICES

\^®l'.*&%

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VersaForm .$389 $252

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Financial Planner 700 452

BPI ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS

GL/AP/AR (Each) 395 285

FOX & GELER Quick Code.. 295 187HOWARD SOFT

Real Estate Analyzer II 195 135

LATTICE C Compiler 700 435

LIFETREE Volkswriter 195 129

METASOFT Benchmark 499 375

MICROSTUFF Crosstalk .... 195 129

MICROPRO

Word Star w/Applicard 495 349

MICROSOFT

Flight Simulator (IBM) 50 35

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PBL CORPORATION

Personal Investor 145 98

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Peach Pack (AR. AP, GL).. 595 300

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Word Perfect 495 325

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Pfs: File

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Multimate 495 315

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Visicalc 250 175

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VisaWord w/free VisiSpelL 375 285— TOLL FREE -ORDER DESK ONLY

LOTUS 1-2-3$32900

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AMDEK COLOR II

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AST MEGA PLUS 64K$29500

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Hayes Stack Chronograph(RS-232) $249 185

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Smart Modem 1200(RS-232) 699 511

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Printer Mate (Parallel) 99 55

CP/M Card (W/CP/M 3.0) 399 315

MICROSOFT

Softcard (Apple) 345 259

Ram Card (Apple). 100 75

64K Ram Card (IBM) 350 249

MPC PERIPHERALS (Apple)Parallel Interface Card(w/Cable) 90 68

NOVATIONApple - Cat II 389 275

212 Auto Cat 695 595

Smart-Cat 103/121 595 445

Smart-Cat 103 . 249 187

PERSONAL COMPUTER PRODUCTSApplicard 6 Mhz . 375 280

KRAFT & TG Joystick

IBM 70 49

Apple 65 45

CDC DISK DRIVE 265

VERBATIM DISCS/S D/D 10 Pk. 49 28

AMDEK MAI BOARD 599 495

ELECTRONICS PROTECTION DEVICES

Lime 90 63

Peach 98 69

QUADRAMQuadboard 64K 395 295

Quadlink 680 525

MEMORY CHIP SET

(64K/9 chips) 95 55

PRINTERSMennesman Tally MT 160L 798 669NEC 7730 RO Parallel 2595 2295

MONITORSAmdek 12" 310A 230 189

Quadchrome 17" 695 525

Princeton Graphics 795 495

CALL FOR OTHER SOFTWARE & HARDWARE PRICES

"International Dealer Enquiries Welcomed"

MC-P APPLICATIONS

111 W. St. John St., Suite 307

San Jose, CA 95113 Phone.(408) 293-3360

Telex: 294207 MCPA UR

HOURS: 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. — Mon. - Sat.

(Phone Orders Only on Sal.)

TERMS: All prices subject to change. Cashier's check/MO/Bank Transfer. Allow time for company or personal checks toclear. Prices reflect cash prepaid discount. VISA/MASTERCARD/COD/PO's =3%. California residents add sales tax.SHIPPING: $4 per item for UPS surface (SB for Blue Label);Monitors $20, Printers $25, within continental USA.

UNIX

SPOKEN

HERE

andMS-DOS, andVMS too!

UniPress, your UNIX source.

We have a line of software for a range of hardware,including VAX, MC68000 and IBM PC.Source code, as well as binary.Quantity and OEM terms.Maintenance available.

PACKAGING: VAX/VMS and UNIX,MC68OO0/UNIX on Sun, Masscomp, Apollo,Tandy 16, Apple Lisa, Sritek Board for IBM PC,Dual, Plexus, Callan, and Cyb.Perq and Perkin Elmer, too.Inquire regarding other hardware.

UniPress Software

PricedfromUNIX SOFTWARE

■ Full UniPlus + UNIX for Apple LISA $ 495

■ EMACS—Multi-window text editor

(Gosling version) 395

■ LEX—Powerful word processor 500

■ PHACT—Isam file manager 250

■ /RDB—Relational database tools 250

■ MENU SYSTEM—Menu generation 495

■ UniCalc—Powerful spreadsheet 350

■ MIMIX—CP/M emulator 495

■ C cross compiler—to 8086 and 68000

(includes assembler, linker, etc.) 5000

MS-DOS SOFTWARE

■ Software tools—Unix-like facilities add power to

MS-DOS: includes ed,grep, sort, diff, uniq, etc... .200

■ PHACT—Isam file manager 250

■ C compiler—Full C language 395

VMS SOFTWARE

■ EMACS—Multi-window text editor

(Gosling version) 2500

Call or write for more information.

UniPress Software, Inc.

Dept. B10

1164 Raritan Avenue, Highland Park, NJ 08904

201-985-8000 Toll Free: 800-222-0550 (outside NJ)

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The CP/M Configuration

The ATR8000 configured as a stand-alone computeruses the Atari as a terminal. If you do not own an Atari,any RS-232C device capable of running at 9600 bits persecond will suffice. We used a Lear Siegler Inc. ADM3A terminal for some time. You must move three jumpersin the ATR8000 depending on whether an Atari or anRS-232C terminal is used.

This configuration of the ATR8000 comes equippedwith 64K bytes of RAM, 60K bytes of which are availableas system RAM. A 4K-byte section is mapped into a 2732EPROM (erasable programmable read-only memory)containing the Atari disk-emulation code and a monitor,used to boot up CP/M. CP/M 2.2 from Digital Researchis supplied on either a 5V4- or an 8-inch disk.

The hardware difference between this ATR8000, a fullCP/M machine, and the 16K-byte version, which is anAtari-only peripheral device, is in the memory upgrade(larger dynamic RAMs) and internal jumpers. The costof this upgrade to an end user is $200. Now, to aknowledgeable computer user, paying $200 for upgrad-ing 4116 RAM chips to 4164s (x 8) seems a bit out of line.However, for that price, SWP is supplying not only thenew RAM chips but also a licensed copy of CP/M, allthe CP/M utilities, CP/M manuals (a thick stack), and,most of all, support.

Of course, if you still want to use your ATR8000 as anAtari interface, it will work as such in its 64K-byte con-figuration. The only difference is that 58K bytes, insteadof 12K bytes, are available for print spooling. Unless theATR8000 is specifically booted into CP/M, it remains anAtari peripheral.

In CP/M mode, the Atari serial bus direction is re-versed, and the ATR8000 becomes a stand-alone com-puter; the Atari becomes a terminal instead of servingas the primary computer.

There is, however, a disadvantage to using the Atarias a terminal. The Atari's video-generator chip has a texf-window resolution of 40 characters across by 24 charac-ters high. (This format is consistent with 160 color clockson an average TV screen; TVs do not have the bandwidthneeded to run 80 characters across.) Hence, when theAtari is used as the I/O device for the ATR8000's CP/M,a 40-column screen is supported.

The system comes with software to make the Atariemulate an 80-column ADM 3A terminal with a scroll-ing window. With this technique, 80 characters acrossare maintained internally, and 40 of the 80 are shownon the text screen. The user can manipulate the windowwith keys and has the option of having the windowfollow the cursor across the screen, a rather dizzyingeffect.

If the Atari 800 is equipped with an 80-column videocard, such as the Bit-3 Full-View 80, then true 80-columnCP/M can be used. Interfacing is straightforward. Oursystem, for instance, has the Bit-3 board and a PI 3monitor and functions very well. The Bit-3 board for theAtari 800 retails for $349.95. A typical monitor capableof 80-column display costs $150. (For details on the

334 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 442 on inquiry card.

80-column board, contact Bit-3 Computer Corp., 8120Penn Ave. South, Suite 548, Minneapolis, MN 55431.)The CP/M system is booted in a two-step process. Thebooting process illustrates the operation of the ATR8000system, so let's go into it in detail.

First, turn the ATR8000 on. Any disk drives connectedto the ATR8000 are restored to track 00, then stepped outfive tracks. (We wondered why this was done until wefound out that some disk drives can get the disk headcaught behind the track 00 sensor. The five outwardsteps prevent this problem (an impressive "user helpful"feature). The drive's index pulses, from the index holeon the disk, are sensed and timed; if the index pulsesindicate an rpm of 300, the drive is logged as a 5 V* -inchdrive. If the rpm is 360, the drive is logged as an 8-inchdrive. Internal tables are set accordingly (for example,the single-density format command is told to place 18sectors on a 5V4-inch track and to put 26 sectors on an8-inch track; this boot-timing process determines whichformat is used).

The step rate of the drives is determined automatical-ly at boot time, and the drives are run at the fastest rateat which they can be stepped. Because this rate varieswidely between drives, automatic stepping timing is areal convenience; it makes the ATR8000 capable of usinga wide range of drives without the user having to worryabout step rates, settling times, and so forth, which varyso widely across the industry. If you have a drive onlyintermittently capable of running at high speed, how-ever, you can force a slower default stepping speed ona particular drive by using the DDSYSGEN editor. (Wehad a problem with one of our 8-inch drives that hasbeen around a long time; it could not always step at highspeed, so we slowed down the stepping to the next avail-able rate.)

Next, the ATR8000 settles down into Atari-emulationmode, in which it accepts normal Atari commands fromthe serial bus and executes them. For example, disk I/Orequests are sent to the proper drive, printer requestsare sent to the printer, and so on.

At this point, the ATR8000 is usable as an Atari diskdrive. Next, let's boot CP/M.

Let's assume you have put the Autoterm-ADM 3A Em-ulator disk in the ATR8000's drive 1 and started up theAtari. Acting as an Atari disk drive, the ATR8000 readsin the emulator and sends the program to the Atari. TheAtari then starts acting as a terminal, "watching" theserial bus for communications. At this point, the serialbus is turned around; the ATR8000 is the primary com-puter and the Atari is the terminal.

The ATR8000 is reset by the user via the back-panelReset button, which sends it out of Atari disk-emulationmode. The ATR8000 displays the message ATRMON,which indicates that the system is running a smallmonitor, in ROM, in the ATR8000.

-At this point, you're just about ready to run CP/M;remove the Autoterm-ADM 3A Emulator disk and insertany disk with the CP/M operating system into drive 1(A). Next, type in B. This command initiates the boot

process from drive 1. In 2 or 3 seconds the familiar 60KCP/M 2.2 and A> messages appear on the Atari'sscreen.

If you are running with a terminal other than the Atari,the CP/M boot process is a single step; you put the CP/Msystem disk into drive 1, switch on the ATR8000, typein B, and boot directly. The difference is in using theATR8000 to load the Atari's terminal program.

What is so impressive is the ease of this whole pro-cess. The ATR8000 determines drive size, density, sec-tor size, and so forth, by itself, with no user interven-tion. You do not need to keep the system on a 5Vt- oran 8-inch disk, nor do you need to permanently keepone kind of drive as A. Furthermore, programmers atSWP have allowed the use of 1024-byte sectors, whichare internally deblocked to eight 128-byte sectors. Theuse of 1024-byte sectors is extremely efficient; in a1024-byte disk format, most of the track is taken up withthe data, not a number of sector headers and other non-data overhead. This format, by minimizing disk accesses,

The ATR8000 determines drive size,

density, sector size, and so forth,

by itself, with no user intervention.

speeds everything up. In a typical input or output opera-tion, another disk access is not needed until all 1024 bytesare processed. This compares with eight disk accesseson a single-density 128-byte-sector (standard CP/M)system.

Because of the lowered amount of sector header in-formation, the 1024-byte-sector format is recommended.This format fits 180K bytes of data on a 5V4-inch disk and674K bytes on an 8-inch disk, assuming double density.If you use double-sided drives, the capacity increasesto 360K bytes on a 5V4-inch drive and 1.3 megabytes onan 8-inch drive.

From CP/M, many disk-track-layout formats are avail-able, in either 5V4- or 8-inch disks:

•128 bytes/sector, single density (the standard 8-inchdisk format)

•256 bytes/sector, double density (a common double-density format)

•512 bytes/sector, double density (suitable for readingTRS-80 Model II 8-inch disks)

• 1024 bytes/sector, double density (the usual SWP for-mat, allowing 674K bytes of storage on a single-sided8-inch disk)

SWP's DDINIT program initializes a disk to any of theseconfigurations, and the software automatically adjustsfor the new sector sizes.The ATR8000 can read disk formats of several manufac-

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 335

turers, including those of IBM, Kaypro, Osborne, andthe Xerox 820. Configuration programs are available toread disks with nonstandard interleaving or sector size.We found these programs extremely useful; we had alibrary of Osborne disks, with their 90K-byte limit, anddata spread across those disks that we wanted in oneplace. We copied about 30 Osborne disks down to threedouble-density 8-inch disks and had room to spare.

If you change disk density or sector size with a diskswap, a simple Control-C command will reset theATR8000's internal tables, and upon the next disk accessto the drive involved, the ATR8000 will reconfigure itselfand the CP/M blocking/deblocking tables for the properdensity and sector size.

We ran one rather unfair test of the ATR8000 just tosee how far the software would go. We formatted a diskwith half double-density and half single-density trackson it and then started copying programs onto it. The sys-tem reached the track with the changed density; oncethe system "found" the new density areas on the disk,it reset the internal tables and continued writing. At thispoint, we gave up trying to find ways to beat theATR8000.

Our ATR8000 system has two 8-inch Shugart 800 drivesand one 5V4-inch Tandon TM-100-1 drive. Operationunder CP/M and Atari DOS has been flawless. Anynumber of copy operations from 5V*- to 8-inch and viceversa, density changes, and strange disk formats have

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operated with no problems. In other words, the ATR8000disk firmware has been thoroughly debugged.

The CP/M software we've used with the ATR8000 in-cludes Wordstar, Microsoft BASIC, Supercalc, andSMODEM37. All have performed without any problems.There is probably no CP/M system on the market thatis easier to use. For instance, take the automatic driveconfiguration. When the ATR8000 is booted, it deter-mines drive and sector size, density, and step rateautomatically.

For most CP/M users, these things do not happenautomatically. Most of them must be done by (usually)modifying the CP/M BIOS (basic input/output system),which involves editing and reassembling source code-no small task for a novice user. Generally, the user mustconfigure the floppy controller-board software for drivestep rate, size, number of tracks, and so on. The usermust also configure CP/M for sector and disk size, set-ting up a number of tables for each new drive. Frankly,this is a miserable process and tedious even when youhave been through it before; for a beginner, just under-standing the CP/M parameter tables is nearly impossible.

But the ATR8000 does all of this automatically. We havechanged drive configurations and densities many timesand never once touched the BIOS. Because you can hookup almost any disk drive and use the drive without prob-lems, the ATR8000 may be an ultimate CP/M system.

If you need a low-level disk analyzer, SWP offers Disk-mon and supplies it to every CP/M customer. This sector-level disk editor is helpful for recovering data from baddisks and for fixing directories. SWP also suppliesSMODEM37, a user-friendly telecommunications pro-gram configured for the Hayes Smartmodem and theATR8000. (SMODEM37 is a public-domain program de-veloped by the prolific Ward Christiansen and the CP/MUser's Group.) We have used it for some time with Com-puServe, The Source, and many bulletin boards andfound it to be an excellent and friendly modem program.Such features as checksummed object-code transmissionand reception, printer on/off, and a variety of data-transmission rates make it a powerful and useful tool.

The vendor documents all of these utilities in a well-written 70-page manual that also covers the parametersneeded for the context editor and how to hook thesystem up to various disk drives. SWP also sends up-dates to its customers, and some errors in the manualshave been corrected. In general, the documentation isabove average.

The 8088 Configuration

Internally, the ATR8000 is a standard 4-MHz Z80 sys-tem. A Mostek Z80 is the central processor, and 64K-bitor 16K-bit dynamic RAMs are used for memory. Theother major chips include the standard Z80 CTC and theWestern Digital 1797.

With the advent of the IBM Personal Computer (PC),the 8088 suddenly became a very popular processor.Because IBM is selling so many PCs, there is a great de-mand for 8088 software, and already many of the

336 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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337

Photo 2: The Co-Power-iATR8000's bottom tray.

main processor board, mounted on the

Photo 3: The Co-Power-88 main processor board and Z80 adapterboard.

popular applications programs for CP/M-80 have beentranslated for the 8088 (Wordstar-86, Supercalc, andothers). With this potentially large software market inmind, SWP developed the Co-Power-88 (photo 2), astand-alone 8088 processor with either 128K or 256Kbytes of memory, accessible through the ATR8000's ownZ80. The 8088 is clocked at 5 MHz and runs under eitherMS-DOS from Microsoft or CP/M-86 from DigitalResearch.

The Co-Power-88, designed to provide Z80A-basedCP/M 2.2 systems with the power of the 8088, plugs in-to the Z80's socket via a piggyback scheme. The Z80 isfirst removed, then an adapter (photo 3) is plugged intothe Z80's socket and the Z80 is plugged into the adapter.The adapter gives the Z80 two new I/O ports, locatedat FE and FF hexadecimal, although the port locationsare reconfigurable if those locations are already in useon your system. These two ports are then led via a shortcable to the 8088 board; all communications between the8088 and the outside world are through this cable.

This generic method of interfacing an 8088 to a Z80can be applied not only to the ATR8000 but to manyother Z80 systems. Given the number of users who willwant to upgrade their Z80 systems to the 8088, this tech-nique seems like an excellent way to go. SWP is plan-ning on releasing the Co-Power-88 for a variety of Z80A-based CP/M machines in the near future and will prob-ably sell a generic version for users wanting to installan 8088 themselves.

The CP/M-80 system runs normally with the Co-Power-88 installed. However, 120K or 250K bytes of Co-Power-88 RAM can emulate a disk drive, a very usefulcapability for spreadsheet manipulation, database sort-ing, and skimming through documents with Wordstar.This M-drive, as SWP refers to it, removes disk accessdelay time and greatly speeds up the CP/M system.

The Co-Power system is easy to boot. When "Z88(return)" is typed, the 8088 seizes control of the user'sCP/M system and boots off the main disk. The user's Z80

BIOS, and the Z80 as a controller, are used for input andoutput to the 8088. Hence the Co-Power-88 system ismachine-independent because it uses the CP/M BIOSalready written and containing the machine-dependentroutines for all of its I/O functions.

CP/M-86 is available with the Co-Power-88 throughSWP. Programs that run on the IBM PC should workwith the Co-Power-88 if they don't rely on IBM-dependent features (direct ROM calls and so forth).

The Co-Power-88 is an excellent upgrade to CP/M-80systems using a Z80 processor. It installs easily becauseit uses the CP/M routines already written. For usersneeding the large address space of the 8088 and whoalready have a CP/M-80 based system, the Co-Power-88is well worth looking into.

Conclusion

The ATR8000 offers three levels of expansion. For theAtari, it provides a clean interface to disk drives, printers,and serial devices; for an Atari user or for any user witha terminal, it provides access to the CP/M marketplace'svast software supply and it offers the capability to ac-cess the growing 8088 software market.

The ATR8000 offers another form of expansion: futurecompatibility. The Atari's 6502 is an 8-bit processor inan increasingly 16-bit world. With the ATR8000, an Atariowner can begin to use CP/M-86, MS-DOS, and 16-bit8088 software now.

A fine CP/M machine with extremely user-friendlydisk interfacing, the ATR8000 is ideal for CP/M users whowant to get their systems running without problems. Itis a true turnkey system—one of the very few we haveencountered. The ATR8000 closes the gap that hasseparated Atari owners from the rest of the softwaremarket. ■

Dave and Sandy Small (11314 Yucca Dr., Austin, TX 78759) are computerconsultants. Both have degrees in computer science from Colorado StateUniversity.

338 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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342 BYTE December 1983

Circle 219 on inquiry card.

Hardware Review

The Hercules Graphics Card

This card connects directly to the display and -provides high-resolution graphics for the IBM PC

by Tom Wadlow

When I bought an IBM Personal Computer (PC), Ispent quite a bit of time comparing the merits of themonochrome display with those of the color display.One side of the debate asked: How can you have a homecomputer without some sort of graphics display? Lookat all the flexibility you'd have, writing color-coded soft-ware and making graphs and charts. And what aboutgames? The other side of the debate was, unfortunate-ly, much more pragmatic: Are you going to be able tostare at color characters on the display all day?

Pragmatism won.

But now there's a product for people who want crisp,attractive text as well as graphics. Hercules ComputerTechnology's Graphics Card (see photo 1) directlyreplaces the IBM monochrome card; it plugs into a slot

in the IBM backplane and connects to the PC display(i.e., the green-phosphor video monitor). The card pro-duces a display that is indistinguishable from that of thestandard monochrome board. Twiddle a few bits, how-ever, and the card provides a 720- by 348-point graphicsdisplay as well. In addition, the Hercules card has twodisplayable graphics pages. Because you can write intoone page while displaying the other, some types ofanimation are possible.

The Hercules board looks and feels well constructed.It's a full-sized PC board that comes with an extra cardguide. The board's connectors duplicate those of the IBMmonochrome card—one for connection to the IBM moni-tor and one for the parallel printer interface. To use thisboard with a standard video monitor, you would prob-

Photo 1: The Hercules Graphics Card plugs into a slot on the IBM PC's backplane, replacing IBM's monochrome card.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 343

Command

Operation

GMODE

Enters graphics mode

TMODE

Enters text mode

CLRSCR

Clears the current graphics page

GPAGE

Sets the current graphics page for writing (either 0or 1) but doesn't affect the display

LEVEL

Sets the intensity level for subsequent writing; 0writes black (off), 1 writes white (on), 2 applies theexclusive-OR function to what is on the screen

DISP

Sets the currently displayed graphics page

PLOT

Writes one pixel to the screen

GETPT

Gets one pixel from the screen

MOVE

Sets an endpoint to be used for line drawing

DLINE

Draws a line from the point set by the last MOVEto the current point

BLKFIL

Fills a rectangle according to the currently setintensity

TEXT

Puts a character or characters on the screen

ARC

Draws a quarter circle

CIRCLE

Draws a complete circle

FILL

Fills in an irregular polygon

Table 1: The

graphics primitives supplied with the Hercules card.

At a Glance

Name

Hercules Graphics Card

Use

Replaces the IBM monochrome display card; has both 80- by25-character display and 720- by 348-point graphics display

Manufacturer

Hercules Computer Technology, 3200 Adeline St., Berkeley, CA94703, [415] 799-9354

Size

Uses one slot on the IBM PC backplane

Features

Text display is indistinguishable from that of the IBM monochromedisplay; includes a printer port to allow replacement of themonochrome card

Hardware required

IBM monochrome video display; cannot be used in conjunctionwith a color display

Software

BASICA, in order to run HBASIC; can be used with high-levellanguages as well, although none is provided

Documentation

General description of hardware, low-level graphics interfaceroutines, and BASIC

Price

S499, includes Graph X and HBASIC software

ably need an adapter cable.

Replacing my monochrome board with the Herculespresented no problem because the operations manualcontained explicit instructions. The Hercules cardworked the first time, pretending to be the standard 80-by 25-character text display. With daily use, however, Ihave noticed an occasional failure to properly initializeon power-up; specifically, the cursor does not appear asit should, and the system does not boot. Each time thisproblem occurred, I solved it by turning off the systempower switch, waiting a few seconds, and then turningthe system back on.

I made working copies of the two Hercules disks soI could try out the graphics functions. A message on thedisk envelope warns the user that only one backup copyis permitted, although this rule is not enforced by thesoftware. It seems ridiculous to place such an unenforce-able restriction on a software package, especially con-sidering that the graphics functions are likely to be usedin several ways on the same system. I'm sure that fewpeople will endure the shuffling of floppy disks that'snecessary to comply with this rule.

Graphics

The Hercules card provides a set of 15 graphicsprimitives, which can be called from BASIC, from assem-bly language, or from other high-level languages. Using

344 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

these primitives as a starting point, you can write sophis-ticated programs to manipulate a screen image. Thefunctions supplied are listed in table 1.

The Graph X software manual, which describes thegraphics operations, contains excellent examples of theassembly-language interfaces needed to call these func-tions from an assembler program. An object file can beused with the IBM linker to enable compiled languagesto use Graph X. Graph X functions can be called fromBASIC-both IBM's BASICA (the Advanced BASIC in-terpreter provided by IBM for the PC) and compiledBASIC—through a series of steps.

HBASIC

Probably the easiest way to start producing graphicswith the Hercules card is using Hercules BASIC(HBASIC). When I first heard about HBASIC, I had vi-sions of trying to keep track of which .BAS files werewritten for BASICA and which were written for HBASIC.My fears, however, were unfounded. The program calledHBASIC is not a new BASIC. It loads BASICA and modi-fies it in memory (not on disk) to do graphics, but it issomewhat different. Because it is slightly slower thanBASICA, timing loops must be recalculated. BASICAassumes an individual character size of 8 by 8 pixels, yetHBASIC assumes a matrix of 9 by 14 pixels. Many graph-ics commands intended for the IBM color/graphics

Text continued on page 352

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Circle 421 on inquiry card.

Listing 1: This IBM Macro Assembler program contains all the code needed to call any Graph X function. The program was used to generatea series of screens, from which some of the photos in this article were generated.

Exerciser for the Hercules Graphics Card

Do BDOE Screen output function func

TITLE Hercules

-- Exerciser

COMMENT

*

Wri t ten

by Tom Wadlcw

*

video

macro

func

mov

ah,func

int

lOh

endm

gmode

macro

v i deo

40h

endm

tmode

ma cro

v i deo

41h

endm

clrscr

macro

video

42h

endm

gpage

macro

bufpage

mov

a 1 , bufpage

v ideo

43h

endm

level

macro

i

mov

al , i

v ideo

44h

endm

disp

macro

bufpage

mov

a 1,bufpage

v ideo

45h

endm

Plot

macro

x , y

mov

di ,x

mov

bp . y

video

46h

endm

getpt

macro

x , y

mov

d i , x

mov

bp , y

video

47h

endm

move

ma cro

x , y

mov

di . x

mov

bp , y

v i deo

48h

endm

d 1 ine

macro

x , y

mov

di , x

mov

bp , y

v i deo

49h

endm

Enter graphics mode

Enter text mode

Clear the screen

Change page to be written into(0 or 1) Doesn't affect display

Set in tens i ty level

0 - black, 1 - whits, 2 - XOR

Set current display page(0 or 1)

sets, clears or xors a pixel

reads a pixel

set new endpoint

draws from last endpoint to x,ysets new endpoint at x,y

Listing 1 continued on page 350

346 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983 349

Listing 1 continued:

blkfi J

ma cro

x,y,w,h

mov

di , x

mov

bp , y

mov

ex ,w

mov

bx,h

video

4ah

en dm

put chr

macro

x , y , c

mov

di , x

mov

bp, y

mov

a ] , c

v i deo

4bh

en dm

arc

ma cro

x , y , r , q

mov

d i , x

mov

bp , y

mov

bx , r

mov

a J , q

video

4ch

endm

c ire

macro

x , y , r

mov

d i , x

mov

bp , y

mov

bx. , r

v i deo

4dh

endm

fill

macro

x , y

mov

di , x

mov

bp , y

v i deo

4eh

endm

wa i t

ma cro

mov

ah . 0

int

16h

endm

SSEG

SEGMENT

STACK

DW

3 2 DUP(?l

SSEG

ENDS

CSEG

SEGMENT

A55UME

CS:CSEG

MAIN

PROC

FAR

PUSH

DS

SUB

AX, AX

PUSH

AX

; Setup

gmode

gpa ge

0

d i sp

0

c 1 rscr

fills a rectangle w,h whose lower leftcorner is at x,y

puts a character at x,y

Draws a quarter circle centered at x,yradius r, in quadrant q 2 1

3 4

Circle at x,y radius r

Fill irregular shape where x,y is inside

Wait for any key tc be struck

Save PC-DOS return information

Enter graphics mode

Select the graphics page to write intoSelect the graphics page to be displayedClear the page

Fill entire screen to determine usable areafill 359.173

wait ; Pause for measurement

c 1 r s c r

Listing 1 continued on page 352

350 December 1983 © BYTE Publications tnc.

VISUAL presents economic elegance andhigh performance in a low-cost terminal.

FEATl

RE CO

MPARISC

IN CHART

FEATURE

VISUAL50/55

HazeltineEsprit

ADDS

Viewpoint

LearSieglerADM-5

TeleVideo'910

Tilt and Swivel

YES

NO

NO

NO

NO

Detached Keyboard

YES

NO

YES

NO

NO

N-Key Rollover

YES

NO

YES

NO

NO

Audible Key Click

YES

YES

NO

NO

NO

Menu Set-Up Mode

YES

NO

NO

NO

NO

Status Line

YES

NO

NO

NO

NO

Full 5 Attribute Selection

YES

NO

NO

NO

YES

Smooth Scroll

YES

NO

NO

NO

NO

Line Drawing Character Set

YES

NO

NO

NO

NO

Block Mode

YES

YES

NO

NO

YES

Insert/Delete Line

YES

YES

NO

NO

YES

Bi-Directional Aux Port

YES

YES

NO

YES

NO

Columnar Tabbing

YES

YES

NO

NO

YES

Independent RCV/TX Rates

YES

NO

NO

NO

NO

Answerback UserProgrammable

YES

NO

NO

OPT.

NO

VISUAL 50 and VISUAL 55represent a new approach inlow-cost terminals. Although theycost drastically less, they offer featuresyou expect only from the high priced units.For example, the enclosure is ergonomically designedin lightweight plastic and can easily be swiveled and tilted formaximum operator comfort. A detached keyboard, smooth scroll,large 7x9 dot matrix characters and non-glare screen are a fewof the many human engineering features normally offered onlyon much higher priced terminals.

Another distinctive feature ot the VISUAL 50 and VISUAL 55is their emulation capability. Both terminals are code-for-codecompatible with the Hazeltine EspriC ADDS Viewpoint^ LearSiegler ADM-3A" and DEC VT-52! In addition, the VISUAL 55offers emulations of the Hazeltine 1500 and VISUAL 210. Menu-driven set-up modes in non-volatile memory allow easy selectionof terminal parameters.

And you're not limited to mere emulation. As the chart shows,the VISUAL 50 and 55 have features and versatility the older, lesspowerful low-cost terminals simply cannot match.

The VISUAL 55 extends the VISUAL 50 performance by adding12 user-programmable function keys, extended editing featuresand selectable scrolling regions.

Both terminals are UL listed and exceed FCC Class A require-ments and U.S. Government standards for X-ray emissions.Call or write for full details.

fi ^ II fk

See for yourself

Service available in principal citiesDivision of Management Assistance,

Circle 447 on inquiry card.

through Sorbus Service,Inc.

Visual Technology Incorporated540 Main Street, Tewksbury, MA 01876Telephone (617) 851-5000. Telex 951-539

BYTE December 1983 351

Listing I continued:

Draw a circle

circ 359, 173,100wait

; Pause for a photo

Fill it

fillwa i t

359,173

; Fill the inside of the circle; Pause for a photo

; Clear the screen and try something harderc1rscrcirc 359.173,100 ; Draw a circle like before

c i r cwa i tfillwa i t

359,173,50270,J 73

; Draw a square around the circle

move 254,68 ;

dl ine 464.68 ;

dl ine 464 , 278 ;

dline 254.278

dline 254 , 68

wait ;

and then a smaller, concentric one

Pause for a photc

Pick point inside and try to fill the donut

Pause for a photo

Set the starting point

Draw a square 210 pixels on a side

centered around the center of the circle

Pause for a pho t o

iet to XOR mode and fill the circle

levelhlkfilwa i t

254,278,210,210

Set the level to XOR-mcdeFill the squarePause for a photo

Clear the screen and return to text modec1rscrtmode

RETMAIN ENDPCSEG ENDS

Return to PC-DOS

END

Text continued from page 344:

adapter work under HBASIC, though, and the HBASICdocumentation provides a "cookbook" method of con-verting color BASICA programs to run under HBASIC.

Many of the Hercules card's features cannot be usedfrom interpretive HBASIC, however. Linkages enable aprogram written in compiled BASIC to use the full setof Graph X routines, and there are easy ways to useGraph X from assembly-language programs and othercompiled languages such as Pascal.

I found Graph X remarkably easy to use with the IBMassembler. Listing 1 is an IBM macro assembler programI wrote to generate some of the photographs in this ar-ticle. The Graph X manual describes in detail the syn-tax for calling each function from assembly language,Pascal, and BASIC. My only complaint is that some ofthe examples are inconsistent. On page 13 of the GraphX manual is an example of drawing a circle (the com-ments on the right are mine).

MOV

Dl, X

MOV

BP, Y

MOV

BX, RADIUS

INT

10H

Set the x-location of the centerSet the y-location of the centerSet the radius of the circleCall Graph X to draw thecircle

Every example of individual functions uses a similarform, and the calling sequence is always the same: first,set the function code; second, initialize the registers; andfinally, call Graph X.

However, when the time comes to give an example ofan entire assembly-language program, the circle-drawingportion of that program is written as follows (the com-ments on the right are mine):

MOV AH, 4DH

Set the function to CIRCLE(hexadecimal 4D)

MOV

BX, 120

Set the radius

MOV

Dl, 359

Set the x-location

MOV

BP, 173

Set the y-location

MOV

AH, 4DH

Select the CIRCLE function

INT

10H

Call Graph X to draw thecircle

352 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

•

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BYTE December 1983 353

Photo 2: The concentric circles in 2a were produced with the CIRCLE function. Then, in lb, FILL (the convex-polygon fill function) wasapplied. Next, in 2c, the card's line-drawing function produced the rectangle framing the figure. In 2d, the rectangle was colored in withBLKFIL, set at an intensity level of 2 (the XOR function).

Worse yet, the manual's only comment on those fivelines of code was in the first line, simply "draw a circle."Consistency is very important in computer documenta-tion, and I wish there were more in this set of manuals.

Despite the vagueness of the manuals, I experiencedno difficulty producing a set of assembly-language andHBASIC programs to exercise the capabilities of the Her-cules card. In the process, I found many usable featuresand three fairly important flaws. Most of the good fea-tures as well as the flaws are in the Graph X softwareand not in the Hercules board, so they can be corrected.

The manufacturer has provided two features, FILL andBLKFIL, that are indispensable in a graphics package.The first of these two features, an irregular-polygon fill(called a convex-polygon fill by the vendor), enables aprogrammer to select a point inside "an object with nointerior holes and no peninsulas protruding into it." Theinterior of the polygon is filled by applying this func-tion to the selected point, turning a hollow object intoa solid one. Using FILL on an empty screen turns theentire screen green; using FILL on an object alreadyfilled erases the object entirely. Graph X performs thisfunction with blinding speed. Photos 2a through 2d il-lustrate some of the capabilities of this software. Thegraphics were produced using the program in listing 1.

My only complaint about this feature concerns thedefinition of a convex polygon. There are plenty ofalgorithms to fill polygons with holes and peninsulas,and it's a shame that Hercules chose not to implementthem. The vendor's convex-polygon fill can indeed beused to fill objects with holes, but those holes cast"shadows" that require more filling to repair them.

The other feature I especially like, BLKFIL, is used tofill rectangles in one of three ways. If the intensity value(set with the LEVEL primitive) is set at 0, the specifiedrectangle is erased. If intensity is set at 1, the rectangleis entirely filled in. If intensity is set at 2, the exclusive-OR (XOR) function alters the rectangle, as shown inphoto 2d. I heartily approve of this feature. XOR is a use-ful graphics tool for preserving information; for exam-

ple, it enables you to move a cursor nondestructivelyover a display.

However, BLKFIL is as slow as molasses. I am will-ing, though unhappy, to accept this slow speed whenusing the XOR function but not when using BLKFIL ON(1) and BLKFILL OFF (0). No significant computationshould be going on during those functions.

Another slight annoyance involves the aspect ratio, theratio between the usable number of vertical and horizon-tal dots per inch. This ratio is important when you aretrying to produce circles, for instance. The Hercules cardprovides an aspect ratio of 61/88, a rather unusual num-ber that I expect resulted from trying to squeeze as manylines as possible onto the screen image. As the user'smanual points out, this number can be approximatedby 2/3, but a circle produced with an aspect ratio of 61/88is measurably different from one produced with a ratioof 2/3. Nevertheless, most computers multiply by 61/88as well as they do by 2/3 or 3/4. If you are working ina language such as FORTH, which is inherently integer-based, you may find this discrepancy frustrating. List-ing 2, an HBASIC program that generates circles ofvarious aspect ratios, was used to produce photo 3.

Hardware

I can offer very little criticism of the actual Herculesboard because, with the exception of the occasional prob-lem on power-up, it performs exactly as advertised. Dur-ing switches between text and graphics modes, thescreen gives a very distressing vertical bounce, which isharmless but potentially surprising the first time you seeit. The switch between the two graphics pages, however,is as clean and glitch-free as you could possibly want.

A look at the documentation provided on the hard-ware reveals that an ambitious programmer could domany interesting things with the Hercules card. MouseSystems has written a version of RasterOp that uses theHercules; except for a brief demonstration at the 1983West Coast Computer Faire, I haven't looked at it indetail. What I saw was very impressive, however.

354 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

&p

* j*,J *\0 jlv

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Why pay more for a 1200 baud, auto-dial,212A Modem for your IBM PC?

Flip the pages. You see PC modem cards withfewer features advertised for as much as $599.Up until now that's how much it cost to make amodem capable of transmitting at 120 charac-ters per second (1200 baud). It doesn't take acomputer to figure out the savings in phone linecharges when you communicate four timesfaster than the 30 character per second modems(300 baud). Now you can have the solution toyour communication needs at an unheard ofprice.

NOW COME THE SMART GUYS

You can imagine how precise the componentshad to be to convert tones over a phone line intocharacters. Precision equates to cost. With theadvent of the mass market in personal computersthe economics of scale drove the costs ofmanufacture down but did not effect the pre-cision required. The technology used is called"analog filtering". It is the process of sending(modulating) and receiving (demodulating) toneswith perfect pitch. A lot of adjusting, noisesuppression, and a little magic is required. Realexpensive. Some use lots of chips and filters(known as discrete components). The latestrage is LSI (Large Scale Integration) technology.Which is the same old analog stuff condensedonto fewer chips.

A NEW IDEA

We took a different approach. With the Qubie'PC modem card you can say goodbye to thefellow who delivers your ice because refriger-ation has been invented. Through the use offour microprocessors (see picture) the tones arechopped up digitally and measured millions oftimes per second, eliminating the need foranalog circuitry. Two microprocessors do themodulating, two the demodulating. The chipsare programmed to emulate the 103 (30 charac-ters per second) or 212 (210 characters persecond) standards and determine the correctspeed automatically. It's a proven technologythat provides outstanding performance. Best ofall, it's inexpensive and reliable.

NO CORNERS CUT

We included every feature you would want in amodem card. It plugs into your IBM PC or XT andoccupies any one slot since it is just 6/10 of aninch thick. This card comes with its own asyn-chronous port. If you would like to use the asyncport for another peripheral when your modem isnot in use, we will add a connector for just $20.It's FCC registered for direct connection to yourmodular phone jack with the cable which is

included. There is a separate jack for yourtelephone or you can listen through the board'sspeaker. It operates in full or half duplex modeon Rotary dial lines (pulse dialing) or on tonelines (DTMF), or a combination of both. It willwork in originate or auto-answer modes. Aseparate microprocessor, a Z8, controls all thefunctions.

LET'S TALK SOFTWARE

Our modem is 100% compatible with the Hayessoftware commands so you can use any of thepopular communications packages like Cross-Talk, Transend, or PC Modem. We go one betterthan the competition. We include one of thesepopular programs with your modem, PC-TALKIII. PC WORLD magazine referred to it as "thebenchmark that other PC communications pack-ages are measured against." It stores phonenumbers, log-on information, handles settingthe modems characteristics, saves to disk files,transmits from disk files, even binary files. Andto make sure data is sent and received accur-ately, there is the XMODEM protocol whichdetects errors caused by poor line quality andretransmits the data.

WHY BUY FROM US

Because besides having the most advancedproduct on the market, we stand behind it andyou. If at any time during the one year warrantyperiod your modem should require service, wewill fix or replace it within 48 hours. Notice alsothere are no hidden charges in our price.Nothing extra for credit cards or COD charges.We even pay UPS to deliver to you. If you still are

not convinced, and are ready to buy anotherbrand of modem, ask them if their product cantake our acid test.

THE ACID TEST

Qubie' gives you a 30 day satisfaction guaranteeon your modem. If you are not completelysatisfied we will refund the entire amount ofyour purchase including the postage to returnit. If you can, get any of our competitors to giveyou the same guarantee. Buy any modem youlike and return the one you don't like. We knowwhich one you will keep.

WHY PAY MORE?

We don't have a clue. It's all here. A highquality, full featured, communications packageat a price that used to be reserved for 300 baudmodems. But if you decide to spend an extru$200 or $300, we would sure like to hear why.We have spent lots of time thinking about it, andfrankly, we just can't come up with a reason.

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External async port connector $20

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Photo 3: A comparison of aspect ratios generated with the program in listing 1.

Listing 2: This HBASIC program generates circles of various aspect ratios. It was used to produce photo 3.

10

15

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

110

120

130

140

REM ASPECT.BAS

REM Writ ten by

CLS

CIRCLE(150,173 )

CIRCLEf 360,173)

CIRCLE(570, 173 )

-- DemonstratesTom Wadlow

how an aspect ratio can affect a circle

100

100,

100

3/4.61/86

LOCATELOCATELOCATELOCATE

351540

62

PRINTPRINTPRINTPRINT

"Aspect

"1/1" :"3/4";"61/88"

Ra t i 05'

LOCATE 21, 15:PRINT "SeeLOCATE 22,15:PRINT "TheREM Pause for a photoLOCATE 1,1INPUT " ",AS

the difference that 5/88 can make in a circle"circle on the left (61/88) is correctly round"

The printer port on the graphics card has worked flaw-lessly with my Microprism 480. Hercules includes soft-ware that provides a graphics screen dump to the printer,but it works only with Epson printers equipped withGraftrax chips. Because I don't have an Epson, I couldn'ttest that feature. The screen dump works by replacingthe built-in printer handler with a custom Herculeshandler. You can do so by placing the commands INT10and INT5E (for graphics and print handling, respective-ly) in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to be executed on re-booting. Some packages, and specifically HBASIC, seemto replace the print handler themselves and thus areoblivious to preloading interrupt handlers.

Conclusion

Despite the flaws in its documentation and software,the Hercules Graphics Card is a fine product. The hard-

ware is well built and the architecture allows for muchflexibility in constructing software. The Graph X packagecan provide users all the power they could want in termsof graphics primitives, and for those users whose tastesrun in different directions, other companies are nowcoming out with more sophisticated software. In addi-tion, some firms are modifying applications packages touse Hercules graphics. The Lotus 1-2-3 Information Man-ager is one such package. HBASIC is a good introduc-tion to graphics, but people with sophisticated applica-tions will probably want to work toward a compiledlanguage in order to take full advantage of the HerculesGraphics Card.H

Thomas A. Wadlow (FOB 2755, Livermore, CA 94550) received a B.S.E.E.degree from Carnegie-Mellon University. He works as an engineer at theLawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

356 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 264 on inquiry card.

Let the ANGELdo the waiting

It has been said that 30% of micro-computer users will eventually purchasea buffer. For business users, a bufferpays for itself in the time and money itsaves the user nol waiting for the print-out. The more you use your printer themore you need a buffer.

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ANGEL HAS ALL INTERFACES

ANGEL. The Intelligent Buffer is theperfect mate for your system. It has bothRS232 Serial and Centronics Parallelinterface, and can convert from serial toparallel and parallel to serial. It is truly auniversal buffer that is compatible withmost microcomputer systems. This ver-satility means when you upgrade yoursystem you can use the same ANGEL.

I

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ANGEL passes data to the printerexactly as received from the computerand is independent of software — includ-ing graphics. The ANGEL also featuresan innovative page mode which carefullymonitors the page break data duringprinting. Under the page mode you canreprint the last page, jammed pages, dopage skip as well as page pause forsingle-sheet feeding.

ANGEL is an intelligent buffer with 12additional functions that may be activatedwhen you need them; pause, hold, copy,clear, self-test, page reprint, page skip,page pause, multi-copy, continuous copy,space compression, hex dump, etc.

ANGEL comes with 64K bytes ofmemory, ample for most applications.Additionally, you may activate the spacecompression mode which in may casesextends the buffer capacity to more than128K.

EASILY ACCESSIBLE SWITCHES

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With such a good product availablenow, why wait for your printer to catchup? You can orderthe ANGELfrom yourdealer or call direcl to 1 -800-323-3304,TODAY!

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BYTE's Bits

IBM Announces the PCjr

After months of speculation andseemingly random rumors, the EntrySystems Division of IBM announcedits most basic entry system, a homecomputer called the PCjr. The long-awaited "Peanut" features an 8088microprocessor, a "detached" key-board (linked via infrared light), twogame cartridge slots, and compatibil-ity with the IBM PC.

Two configurations will be offered.The basic or entry configuration has64K bytes of RAM (expandable to128K bytes), color graphics capabil-ity, internal slots for a single-diskdrive and modem, and external con-nections for several peripherals, in-cluding a joystick, a light pen, serialdevices, a parallel printer adapter,and an RGB (red, green, blue)display. The price of the base systemis $669.

In addition to the above, anenhanced system features 128K bytesof RAM (random-access read/writememory), a 5V4-inch, 360K-bytedouble-sided floppy-disk drive,enhanced graphics capability, andthe ability to run many IBM PC pro-grams. This configuration will cost$1269.

Demonstrator units should be ondisplay at authorized dealers duringDecember, but deliveries are notscheduled to begin until sometime inthe first quarter of 1984.

Perhaps the PCjr's most importantfeature is its compatibility with itsbigger brother, the PC. The enhancedversion of the PCjr uses a new ver-sion of PC-DOS, called version 2.1,which is available for $65. This newversion of PC-DOS is compatiblewith previous versions of PC-DOS,and thus many programs for thelarger PC can run on the PCjr.However, this new version of PC-DOS apparently occupies a sizableamount of memory and thus limitsthe amount available to application

by Rich Malloy

programs. Many IBM PC programswill not have enough memoryavailable to run. Among the pro-grams that do run are Easywriter(version 1.15), pfs:File (1.05),Multiplan (1.1), Visicalc (1.2), andIBM Logo. Peachtext runs but is notrecommended.

The main circuit board of the PCjrhas 72 chips, including an 8088 withthe same clock speed (4.77 MHz) asthat of the PC. Circuitry for the colorgraphics display, the serial interface,and the joystick ports is all on themain board, along with ROM chipsand 64K bytes of RAM. Three expan-sion slots are available: one for a sec-ond bank of 64K bytes of RAM ($140),one for a half-height disk drive($480), and one for a 300-bps (bits persecond) internal modem ($199). Theslots are not interchangeable. An ex-pansion bus connector is located onthe right side of the machine. This isused to connect to a parallel printeradapter ($99), which attaches to theside of the machine. The powersupply is housed in a separateenclosure. There is no socket, by theway, for an 8087 arithmetic processor.

The detached keyboard has 62 keysas opposed to the IBM PC's 83 keys.A diamond-shaped cursor-key ar-rangement is present, but nonumeric keypad or function keys areincluded. Instead, a function Shiftkey is available that transforms thenumeric keys into function keys. Theleft Shift key and the Return key arein their normal, pre-PC places. Thespacing of the keys seems somewhatdifferent than that of a standardSelectric typewriter, however. Atouch-typist's fingers will have atendency to fall off the keys into thelarge spaces between them.

The most interesting thing aboutthe keyboard is its infrared connec-tion. The keyboard has its own powersupply (four AA batteries) and can

communicate with the system unit aslong as it is within 20 feet of it andin a direct line of sight of the com-puter's infrared detector. An optionalkeyboard cable is available for situa-tions in which more than one systemis in a given room.

The entry system features the samegraphics capability as that of the IBMPC Color Graphics Adapter. Theenhanced system, however, has extramemory that enables it to displaymore colors—for example, four colorsin high-resolution mode (640 by 200pixels). In addition, these four colorscan be chosen from a palette of 16.

A number of peripherals and soft-ware packages were announced forthe PCjr. These included joysticks($40) and a thermal printer ($175).New software includes a cartridge-based version of BASIC that can ac-cess disk files and can use theenhanced graphics and soundcapabilities of the PCjr. Other car-tridge programs include severalgames (such as Crossfire) and educa-tional programs. The game cartridgeswill sell for approximately $35.

It is also interesting to note thesimilarity of the PCjr to the initial in-troduction of the PC. The first PChad a relatively limited memory(256K bytes maximum), limitedstorage capability (160K bytes perdisk), and, of course, that controver-sial keyboard. In fact, rumors evencirculated that these limitations weredesigned to limit competition withIBM's more expensive Display Writerand Data Master. Similarly, the PCjrhas comparatively limited memory(128K bytes), limited storage (onedisk drive), and yet another newkeyboard. The PCjr will probably bea very strong contender in the homecomputer market. But these limita-tions will surely limit its competitionwith the PC—for the time being,anyway. ■

358 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Hardware Review

The Wang

Professional

Computer

Providing an easy-to-useword-processing program withsophisticated features,this 16-bit microcomputer runsMS-DOS 2.0

by Elaine Long

A year ago, Wang Laboratories entered the rapidlygrowing microcomputer arena with the Wang Profes-sional Computer. The physical features of this 16-bit sys-tem are, to use a current industry buzzword, ergo-nomic—flexibly designed to suit limited space, neutralin color, and pleasant and easy to use.

The basic system, based on the Intel 8086 processor,provides an 8-MHz cycle speed, 128K bytes of memory(expandable to 640K bytes), a Centronics parallel-printerinterface port, an RS-232C asynchronous serial interface,five expansion slots, a BASIC interpreter, built-indiagnostics, and 4-channel DMA (direct memory access)capability.

The Display

The separate monitor (see photo 1) has a pedestal basethat allows you to vary the angle of the 12-inch, green-on-black, 25-line by 80-character (800 by 300 pixel) videodisplay. An optional arm and desk clamp for the monitorprovide even greater flexibility, allowing you to swingthe monitor away from your working area when youdon't need it. Characters are formed on an 8- by 10-pixelmatrix, using the 96-character ASCII (American NationalStandard Code for Information Interchange) characterset plus 128 additional foreign and graphics characters.

Character display attributes include boldface, inversevideo, blinking, boldface underscore, reverse boldfaceunderscore, subscript, and superscript.

The System's Keyboard

The detached keyboard pictured in photo 2 consistsof 101 sculptured keys arranged in groupings with similar

fC3

7V

[_iJJ:1-].1!!1''

mm™

Photo 2: The Wang's sculptured keyboard contains 101 sculpturedkeys, including 16 programmable function keys. Note the indicatorlights, which can signal problems even when the display is notworking.

functions. These groupings include a standard type-writer keypad, a 15-key numeric keypad, function keysfor advanced operation and editing, 16 programmablespecial-function keys (used by Wang-supplied applica-tion programs and third-party and user-developed pro-grams), 5 cursor-control keys, and a Help key. Knobs onthe front of the monitor control display brightness. TheWang PC's display, which has an 800- by 300-pixel resolu-

360 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Photo 1: In this configuration, the Wang Professional Computer rests on an optional stand (the PC Arm, $150). A daisy-iuheel printer (ModelPC-PM010, approximately $600) is on the left. Interestingly, the system unit, which houses two floppy-disk drives, can be placed eitherhorizontally or vertically on a desk or it can be clamped to the side of a desk with the PC Clamp (which comes with the PC Arm).

tion, seems somewhat sharper than that of the IBM PC'smonochrome monitor, which has a 720- by 350-pixel res-olution. A bit-mapping scheme handles graphics. Fiveprogrammable LED (light-emitting diode) indicators onthe keyboard are programmed to operate during power-on diagnostics, which takes about 30 seconds, indicatingthe beginning, end, and results of diagnostic tests at thestart of each operation. All keyboard data is buffered;the 8086 processor is interrupted less than once every10 milliseconds (ms). The keyboard also houses a 2-inchspeaker for sound generation and thus provides audioand tactile feedback.

Two types of reaction are common to the audio-feed-back feature of the Wang PC: some users love it, andothers can't stand it. I found its very loud sound annoy-ing. The feature is programmable, though, so you canreprogram the speaker to modify its volume and tone.

Disk Drives

A basic system comes with a 5V4-inch double-sided

double-density floppy-disk drive, which records 48tracks per inch and can store 360K bytes of data. Al-though a great deal of software is written in a single-sided double-density format, it can still be used on theWang PC because the computer's operating system,Microsoft's MS-DOS 2.0, enables it to also read single-sided double-density disks. You can also add a seconddisk drive or a 5 V* -inch, 10-megabyte Winchester diskand controller. A system-diagnostics software disk comesas standard equipment.

Operating-System Features

Microsoft's MS-DOS has received much attentionrecently, not only because IBM chose it for its PersonalComputer, but also because the test of time is revealingthat this operating system stands up to the developmentneeds of 16-bit applications. It is therefore safe to say thatMS-DOS is emerging as a standard operating system.Wang enhanced MS-DOS for use on its computer.

Examples of utilities that Wang added to the operat-

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 36Y

At a Glance

Name

Wang Professional Computer

Manufacturer

Wang Laboratories Inc.1 Industrial Ave.Lowell, MA 01851(617) 459-5000

Dimensions

Processor unit: 23.1 by 14.9 by 6.5 inches; 27.8 pounds

Video display: 11.8 by 13 by 10.8 inches; 14 pounds; angle of tilt

with pedestal base: 15° back and 5° forward

Keyboard: 11.8 by 13 by 10.8 inches; 14 pounds; connected to the

rear of the electronics unit by a telephone-cord-like coil

Computer

Intel 8086 16-bit microprocessor [8087 coprocessor is optional),8-MHz system clock, 128K bytes of memory minimum and 640Kbytes maximum; five expansion slots support memoryenhancements and options; interfaces for disk control and videoterminal control board are available; Centronics parallel port andRS-232C serial port come standard

Keyboard and Monitor

101-key detached keyboard with numeric keypad and 16 program-mable special-function keys, including Help, Cancel, and Deletekeys; 12-inch phosphor green-on-black display with 800- by300-pixel resolution and 80-character by 24-line display format; 8-by 10-pixel/cell character display, 224-character set; tilt-and-swivelmount

Disk Storage

Provisions for removable- and fixed-disk storage housed in system;5!/4-inch double-sided double-density floppy disk: 360K bytes ofstorage, 48 tracks per inch, 250K-byte/sec data-transfer rate; single-sided double-density disks also read; additional 10-megabyte harddisk or floppy disk accommodated by expansion cabinet

Operating System

MS-DOS 2.0 permits dynamic file-space allocation, random and se-guential file access, and automatic start-up; Wang-enhanced userinterface enables menu mode or MS-DOS command mode ofoperation and provides user prompts; features include menu inter-face for systems utilities for file management, conversion aids,screen-formatting utilities, file-to-document conversion utilities, andprogram-development tools with menu-driven editor and on-linedebugger

Software

MS BASIC interpreter included; BASIC compiler: $295, MS Pascal:$295, MS FORTRAN: $354, MS COBOL: $695, AsynchronousCommunications: $55, PC Word Processing: $500, BusinessGraphics: $300, Data Base: $650, 2780/3780: $200, Software Pro-ductivity Package (including Multiplan, Wang Word Processing,and Asynchronous Communications): $650; remote Wangnet forVS Communications, VS Workstation Emulation, OIS WorkstationEmulation, and Alliance Workstation Emulation: price notavailable; PC Notebook: S200

Prices

Single floppy-disk system without monitor: S2595Single floppy-disk system with monitor: S3265Double floppy-disk system with monitor: $379010-megabyte hard-disk, single floppy-disk system: $5650

ing system include one for modification of communica-tion parameters of the RS-232C serial port and utilitiesfor text-to-document and document-to-text conversion.Others are Compare Data and Modify System Menu util-ities. The operating system also supports four printerdrivers: for the Wang PC-PM010 matrix printer, the NECSpinwriter 3530, a general parallel printer, and a generalserial printer.

In keeping with the goal of ease of use, the Wang PC,unlike the IBM PC, does not require users to learn theMS-DOS command structure. Instead, a user can per-form all file functions on the Wang machine using stan-dard English menu prompts. Photo 3 illustrates the oper-ating-system utilities menu, and photo 4 shows an ap-plications menu. The MS-DOS command-languagemode is available, however, so that users familiar withthat mode of operation can utilize it. Help screens areavailable to assist with nearly all selections within theoperating system.

Word Processing

Wang Laboratories has set many standards for wordprocessing, and the word-processing system designedfor this computer approaches the same levels of sophis-tication and ease offered by the company's dedicatedword processors. The Wang PC, however, is designedfor use by people who have had no formal training inthe use of data- or word-processing systems.

"It is our feeling," said a representative of WangLaboratories, "that if the professional cannot learn to usethe word-processing package within 30 minutes, he willnever learn to use it." Through the extensive use of word-processing function keys and a hierarchical menu struc-ture, Wang word-processing software has, to a largedegree, achieved the company's goal and made the sys-tem simple to learn.

The word-processing screen is headed by a primary-status (or format) line that indicates the name of thedocument the operator is using as well as its pagenumber and the line and location in the line where heis working (see photo 5). [Editor's Note: Photos 5 and 6show menus of version 1.0 of Wang's word-processing package.Version 2.0, discussed in this review, provides enhancedfeatures.] The format line controls the vertical linespacing, tab settings, and line length of all text follow-ing it. Along with standard single-, double-, and triple-spacing, you can format one-and-one-half-, half-, andquarter-spacing. Although the system can display only80 characters across the screen, a horizontal-scroll featurelets you view and create documents with widths to 158characters.

You can change the default format line fairly easily. Youmerely move the cursor to the home position, press theFormat function key, make the necessary changes in theformat mode, and then press the Execute key. The for-mat line can be revised anywhere within a document,for such purposes as creating tables. The primary for-mat, or any alternate format you have established, canthen be recalled when needed.

362 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Version 2.0 permits handling pagination either as youenter text by highlighting a suggested page break or atthe end of the document's entry. For example, when textentry reaches line 55, enough text to fill a standard 8V2-by 11-inch sheet of paper leaving adequate margins, thesystem sounds a tone and highlights the status line. Youcan then either enter a page break with the Page func-tion key or continue text entry and set pagination whenyou're finished typing the document.

Using the function keys marked Previous and Next,you can scroll through a document screen by screen.When you move from one screen to the next, three linesof the previous screen's text appear at the top of thescreen. A paging symbol signifies page separation. Thislogical method makes you aware of page breaks, al-though you are actually scrolling through screens ratherthan pages, and thus simulates the way you would pagethrough a manuscript.

Global search and replace, a function incorporatingboth the search and the replace functions, requires thatyou position the cursor under the first character of thestring you want to replace, hold down the Shift key, andpress the Replace function key. While you move the cur-sor through the string you want replaced, its charactersaxe highlighted. The screen then prompts, "Replace it?"and you have the option of performing an automaticglobal replace throughout the document or a selectivereplace.

I tested the speed of the automatic-replace functionby entering a 200-word English-language document andcopying it onto 10 screen pages, creating a 2000-worddocument. The last word on each page, the Germanword "Geschwindigkeit," I replaced with its Englishtranslation: speed. From the initial point of pushing theShift and Replace keys to the replacement of the lastoccurrence of the word Geschwindigkeit, the proceduretook 51 seconds. I then tested to see how quickly I could"page" through this same document. It took 32 secondsto scroll from page 1 to page 10.

The insert function is a bit unusual. When you pressthe Insert function key, all characters except the 29 im-mediately following the cursor disappear from thescreen. Those 29 characters appear in the left-hand bot-tom of the screen while text is inserted. This movementmay startle some first-time users, causing them to thinkthat they've lost part of their text.

You can recall menus during text entry to select all thecommand functions and character attributes, includingboldface, underscore, double underscore, subscript, andsuperscript. Photo 6 shows a menu displayed on a WangPC monitor. You can use command functions and char-acter-attribute automodes, however, without accessingthose menus. The commands and automodes work welland are easy to use. Character attributes are displayedaccurately on the screen, with boldface characters shownin reverse video.

The Wang word-processing program does not displayright-hand justification, however, which might causeproblems for some users. Instead, justification is handled

Hang Professional CoapoterS V 8 T E H UTILITIES MENU

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. Path - Select Alternates

- RentM a File

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SPACE BAR - ItsEXECUTE - ProCAKCEL - Pre

Photo 3: The menu of utility programs included in Wang's versionof the MS-DOS operating system.

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»Hnst of us.inventing in wwll business computer* do not want to haspend day*, andsoe^tinnsevwunnkt, teaching,ourselves how operate thee.The point, after all, of purchasing.a computer with word processingcapabilities is to Bake our working Uvw men nore productive, to achiwith the least amount of effort, toe amt utount of work. And at ton v-ttee to leprov* the quality of the work M do produce. The word precetsii .software produced by Hang Laboratories, for Uniting PC It designed.with theend denanding end user in nind. , All software features art easily I"Ue first session. 5on*,u*er» nay find, they do not. even Bend, to idDawnUtion before.putting, nany of. the HP features. to. work.. Ittny featuresneed only single key, stroke. cotuntfs.....

Photo 5: An example of text produced by Wang's word-processingprogram. The summary line and format line are at the top. Spacesare indicated with half-intensity periods.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 363

Photo 6: A menu of commands for Wang's word-processing program.

during printing.

Another feature of the word-processing package, theglossary function, will be used extensively in offices byprofessionals who have much correspondence or pre-pare many documents. This function permits you torecall and insert, at any point in a document, an un-limited amount of standard text and editing formats. Itis useful, for example, for often-used tables and forms.Learning how to use the glossary feature might takemore time for a novice than learning any of the system'sother word-processing features, but anyone who takesadvantage of it will discover that preparing and usinga glossary will help save time by eliminating muchrepetitive typing. The glossary is easily recalled with twokeystrokes.

For copying and moving a string or block of text, fourseparate operations are available: copy, move, supercopy, and super move. The copy and move functions af-fect text within one document and are handled withCopy and Move function keys. The super copy and supermove functions, however, involve transfers betweendocuments, which may be on the same disk or on dif-ferent ones.

When you are finished with text entry or editing, youpush Cancel, to which the screen responds "End ofEdit?" If it is, you push Execute. Then a "rearranging"statement briefly appears on the screen, followed by themain word-processing menu. Executing the Print Docu-ment option brings you to the printing menu. Afteryou've selected various printing options (number oforiginals, page length, margin setting, character set,pitch, justification, form type, and lines/inch) andpressed Execute, printing starts instantaneously.

Version 2.0 has a menu for document handling: copydoc, delete doc, and prepare new disk (format a disk).This menu is convenient to use and saves time, especiallywhen the system is using only floppy disks. You do nothave to go out of the word-processing program and backinto the operating system to perform these operations.

Another feature of version 2.0 is a spelling checkerwith a 30,000-word dictionary that you can customize.

The software also performs an alphanumeric sort fora maximum of eight pages of 4000 characters each, sort-ing as many as four fields in one pass. Also availableis a math function that performs multiplication, division,addition, and subtraction in columns and rows, pro-viding totals, subtotals, grand totals, and verification ofpreviously computed data. Because version 2.0 requires128K bytes of memory, Wang Laboratories suggests thatyou start with 256K bytes of system memory.

Applications Software

Options include FORTRAN, Pascal, and COBOL com-pilers and a macroassembler. In addition, Multiplan, afinancial planning and modeling package, has beenlicensed from Microsoft for use on the Wang PC. Also,Wang has recently released PC Notebook, a highly flex-ible database using an unstructured data format.

One of the first programs Wang Laboratories devel-oped for the PC is communications software for asyn-chronous and synchronous communications, openingthe way for Wang workstation emulations and remoteWangnet applications.

With the 3276 SNA/SDLC and 3270 BSC (Bisync) soft-ware packages, the Wang PC can function as a remoteterminal, communicating with host mainframe com-puters and the IBM 3287 and 3284 printers. The pack-ages permit the Wang PC to actively interact with manyIBM mainframe systems, accessing host application pro-grams or timesharing options, without changing the hostapplication programs. Both of these emulation packagesalso support the IBM 3278 terminal keyboard.

Much third-party software is also available for theWang PC. Peachrree Software Inc. has released a numberof business packages. Among them are Inventory Man-agement, Accounts Payable, Job Costing, Sales Invoic-ing, and Payroll programs. Available, too, is 1-2-3, a com-bination database, business graphics, and spreadsheetpackage from Lotus Development Corporation, as wellas TK Solver, a mathematical-calculation package de-signed for financial planners, designers, and engineers.In the Software Connections program, Wang Laborator-ies has released an industry/applications-software cross-reference to aid in matching users' needs with availablesoftware.

This brings us to that big question of IBM PC/WangPC software compatibility. Both systems use the sameoperating system, disk media, and microprocessor (theWang PC uses the 8086; the IBM PC, the 8088). The con-tents, therefore, of any disks written by the IBM PC canbe read by the Wang PC. And as long as an applicationprogram written for the IBM PC does not circumvent theI/O (input/output) facilities of the operating system, theWang PC is fully compatible with the IBM PC.

But very rigorous market conditions have compelledsome independent software companies to target applica-tions software for use on a specific computer. Examplesare those programs that were developed specifically for

364 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983 365

use on the IBM PC, taking advantage of machine-depen-dent capabilities. Techniques used in developing a ma-chine-dependent software package include bypassingthe operating system's I/O capabilities, the use ofkeyboard-specific function keys and display-specific at-tributes, and the use of machine-specific subroutines inthe BIOS (basic input/output system), ROM (read-onlymemory), or PC-DOS. Therefore, not all applicationpackages developed for the IBM PC will operate on theWang PC without modification. But because the WangPC and the IBM PC use the same type of operating sys-tem, microprocessor, and disk media, machine-depen-dent packages can be easily modified through the soft-ware source code. For those programs that do not

The documentation supplied with

the Wang PC does not talk down

to readers to the point of

insulting them.

operate on the Wang PC, Wang Laboratories suggeststhat you request the software's vendor to modify them,because source code is generally not available tocustomers. And since Wang released the technicalreference manual for the Wang PC, it has become a sim-ple matter for a software developer to make such modi-fications.

System Expansion

The basic unit has five expansion slots. RAM (random-access read/write memory) is expandable to 640K bytes.If you install a CP/M emulation card, which has a Z80microprocessor, the system can use applications softwarewritten for the CP/M-80 operating system. Two types ofvideo cards can be used: the Wang monitor card (forWang's monochrome monitor) or an industry-standardgraphics card that supports any RGB (red-green-blue)monitor or NTSC (National Television System Commit-tee) black-and-white or color television. The unit canhouse a 5 Va -inch, 10-megabyte Winchester disk drivewith controller card. The basic system also includes anindustry-standard parallel port for connecting a printerand an RS-232C asynchronous serial port for terminalemulation and remote or internal communications.

When you use the Wang PC with the 3276 SNA/SDLCand 3270 BSC emulation software, you will need a multi-port communications card, a modem cable, and anRS-232C/CCITT V.24 modem.

The system software sends the eighth bit of each byteto the printer to take advantage of the internationalcharacter set and dot-addressable printers for graphicscapabilities. Because it sends the eighth bit, however, itis not fully operable with all printers on the market. Thefour printer drivers within the operating system solvethat problem to a large degree. The two general printerdrivers, however, do not support all possible printer{unctions. I have been using the Epson FX-80 matrixprinter, which, with the one exception of the

double-underscore function, fully supports the system'sword-processing software. I would think, though, thatmanufacturers are rushing to make their printers com-patible with as many systems as possible. Therefore,many other compatible printers are probably availablenow.

Documentation

The documentation supplied with the Wang PC doesnot suffer from the problems that much of the documen-tation written over the past few years experienced. It isnot weighed down by an overabundance of user-friend-liness, nor does it talk down to readers to the point ofinsulting them. Instead, The Introductory Guide isthorough and logically organized. It may, in fact, provetoo thorough for some users. The manual is, however,written for everyone, covering the spectrum of requiredinformation from such basic material as how to inserta floppy disk to batch processing in the DOS commandprocessor. As in all the documentation provided, illustra-tions, a table of contents, appendixes, and an index aresupplied.

The BASIC Language Guide, provided with the system,is a straightforward manual designed for use by pro-grammers familiar with standard BASIC programming.For the user who has the time, The Word Processing Train-ing Guide covers all of the word-processing package's fea-tures. I found that an efficient way to quickly learn touse the package is to instead go through the WP ReferenceGuide. All of the system documentation comes in loose-leaf binders, making the insertion of updates and usernotes convenient.

Prices

The basic Wang Professional Computer, Model PC 001,provides 128K bytes of memory, a 5V4-inch floppy-diskdrive with 360K bytes of storage, the MS-DOS operatingsystem, Interpretive BASIC, and a keyboard. It costs$2595.

The Wang PC 002 includes those features plus a mono-chrome monitor and controller for $3265. Adding a sec-ond drive to the PC 002 configuration produces the PC003. This costs $3790, comparing favorably with a similar-ly equipped IBM PC, which sells for $3800.

These prices include diagnostics software and docu-mentation but not applications software. For $650, Wangsells a Software Productivity Package, which includesMultiplan, Wang Word Processing, and asynchronous-communications software. Wang also sells program-ming-language interpreters and compilers as well asmany applications-software packages. A CP/M card costs$600, and a 10-megabyte Winchester disk drive with acontroller sells for $2385.

Summary and Conclusions

The Wang PC system, based on 128K bytes of RAM,the 16-bit 8086 microprocessor, and MS-DOS 2.0, a 16-bitoperating system, was designed to meet the rapidlygrowing hardware demands of a new generation of soft-

366 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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ware. For example, some users may think that a mini-mum requirement of 128K bytes for a word-processingapplication is excessive. Trends in software development,which provide new features (many approaching high-end dedicated word processors and typesetting systems)to less sophisticated users, however, will require at leastthis amount.

The system processor is powerful and fast. To test itsspeed, I ran the BASIC version of the Sieve ofEratosthenes prime-number program (see the January1983 BYTE, page 286, listing 5) as a benchmark test. For10 iterations of the Sieve program, the results were 940seconds—less than half the time required for the IBMPC running Integer BASIC with an 8-bit bus at 4.77 MHz,according to the results published in the BYTE article.Speed is, of course, only one of many criteria to usewhen evaluating the performance of small systems.When considering soon-to-come hardware and user-friendly software developments, however, this factortakes on greater importance.

The Wang-developed word-processing program issuperb. You would be hard-pressed to find a PC word-processing program that so successfully combines suchease of use with such sophisticated features.

Wang Laboratories designed the PC to adapt to allbusiness and technical environments. The use of anonstandard (read non-IBM) expansion-card formatmight prove a shortcoming, though. The availability of

the technical reference manual, however, should rectifythat problem.

Moreover, the Professional Computer is designed tobe incorporated into Wang systems. As more PC systemsare used in large-business environments, interconnect-ing with mainframes will be a growing demand. Wanghas addressed that requirement already.

In the first half of 1984, Wang plans to release a localinterconnection option, a combination of hardware andsoftware that will permit Wang PCs to run in a sharedmode. Each repeater card will support as many as eightPCs, and repeaters will be able to interconnect viaRG-62A coaxial cable. This option will thus allow a totalof 24 PCs to be interconnected.

Wang Laboratories has also produced some high-quality applications software, and the company is ac-tively encouraging development of third-party software,much of which is already on the market. Thus, theamount of software available for the Wang PC shouldgrow steadily. ■

Photos 2 through 6 in this article are courtesy of Elphotec Computer Systems(Schiessgarten Str. 7, 6500, Mainz, West Germany).

Elaine Long (Fichteplatz 4, 6500, Mainz, West Germany) has a B.A. in Com-munications from the University of Delaware. She is an assistant editor atInternational Publications GmbH.

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DONKEY KONG, Mario and NINTENDO are trademarks and ©Nintendo 1981.1983. PAC-MAN and characters are trademarksof Bally Midway Mfg. Co. sublicensed to Atari, Inc. by Namco-America. Inc. DEFENDER is a trademark of Williams Electronics.Inc., manufactured under license from Williams Electronics, Inc.ROBOTHON: 2084 is a trademark and O of Williams 1982. manu-factured under license from Williams Electronics. Inc. STARGATEis a trademark and © of Williams 1981. manufactured under licensefrom Williams Electronics. Inc. DIG DUG is created and designedbyNamcoLtd. manufactured under license by Atari, Inc. Trade-marks and© Namco 1982. PROTECTOR II is a trademark of Syn-apse Software Corporation, manufactured under license by Atari.Inc. SHAMUS is a trademark of Synapse Software Corporation,manufactured under license by Atari, Inc. PICNIC PARANOIA is atrademark of Synapse Software Corporation, manufactured byAtari, Inc. SUPER STORM is engineered and designed by SynapseSoftware Corporation, manufactured under license by Atari, Inc.ATARISOFT™ products are manufactured by Atari, Inc. for use onthe above referenced machines and are not made, licensed orapproved by the manufacturers of these machines. COMMODORE64. VIC 2D. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS 99/4A, IBM, APPLE. COLE-COVISION and INTELLIVISION are respectively trademarks ofCommodore Electronics Limited. Texas Instruments. InternationalBusiness Machines Corp., Apple Computer Inc.. Coleco Industries.Inc. and Mattel, Inc A Q Warner Communications Company.© 1983 Atari, Inc. All rights reserved.

Complete this coupon and we'll keep youup to date on the newest hits fromATARISOFT™

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Software Review

In Search ofthe Most Amazing Thing

An adventure game proves that the IBM PC isn't all business(the game also runs on Apple, Atari, and Commodore 64 machines)

by Elaine Holden

The advertisement reads: "Finally, aliens kids canreason with instead of destroy." Fulfilling that promisefor children and adults accustomed to shoot-'em-upspace games is a tall order. Intrigued but somewhatskeptical, I took the program home, plugged it into myIBM PC, and went on an adventure. And what anadventure!

In Search of the Most Amazing Thing was created byTom Snyder Productions and is sold by Spinnaker Soft-ware. This educational adventure game encompasses anentire world called Porquatz. Half the world is very dull,but the other half, called the Darksome Mire, is covered

Photo 1: Uncle Smoke's apartment. The chest next to Uncle con-tains treasures that can be auctioned off to the Metallicans.

by a "near mist," filled with deadly mire crabs,fascinating tribes, unusual and varied terrain, and er-ratic winds.

The game offers you this world to explore in yourquest for a hidden object, and its consideration to detailsis extensive. The graphics are delightful and beautifullydone. Along with them are comments and hints givenby various citizens of Porquatz. Some clues are merelyhelpful, others are lighthearted as well. I delight in thistype of adventure after being subjected to grimly deter-mined games with a do-or-die, blast-them-out-of-the-sky attitude. If you don't want to be fighting star warsfor the rest of your life, this adventure is right on themoney.

The Journey Begins

The game involves a nonviolent search for an objectcalled the Most Amazing Thing, lost by Uncle SmokeBailey many years ago. Uncle Smoke, wishing you tobring this Most Amazing Thing back to his home inMetallica (a city in the Darksome Mire), provides youwith a B-liner, a combination hot-air balloon and dunebuggy. You must fly through storms, drive over landcovered with bogs, deal with aliens, and create musicbefore finding the Most Amazing Thing. Uncle Smokealso gives you plenty of advice as well as a jet pack forshort trips outside the B-liner.

Every player begins the game atop a cement islandin the middle of the Darksome Mire, standing next tothe B-liner and a trap door. I entered the door and took

372 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Photo 2: The Metallican auction. The slippery folks pictured here can barter you out of treasures given to you by Uncle Smoke.

a nearby elevator to the underground city of Metallica.The elevator allowed three stopping points: UncleSmoke's apartment, the Galactic store, and the greatMetallica auction. My first stop was the usual courtesycall to relatives in the neighborhood (see photo 1).Politeness paid off. Uncle Smoke gave me a clue to thewhereabouts of the Most Amazing Thing and a petrifiedclam shell from Trellis Bog. Uncle suggested I sell thelatter and keep notes of the clue. Bringing my relic tothe auction (see photo 2), I proceeded to dicker with theMetallicans for the best price. (It took me a number ofgames to learn how to adjust my prices to realistic levels,and in the meantime those cagey fellows made off withseveral of my best treasures. The moral? Greed does notpay. Here's a hint: the auctioneer takes a single numberfrom one to nine only.)

Eventually I accumulated sufficient chips for a trip tothe Galactic Store. (All items and prices are listed in theinstruction booklet as well as on the screen.) It isnecessary to read the descriptions of items carefully.Some, such as the software packages Musix and Dicto,are necessary to communicate with the various culturesyou will encounter and should be purchased. Others,such as the ultrasonic robot dog groomer, are luxuryitems only.

Inside the B-liner

Your first goal is to fully equip the B-liner (see photo3) prior to takeoff. In order to maneuver, the machineneeds navigation equipment, which must be purchasedat the Galactic Store. You (the pilot) decide which metersto buy for outfitting the control panel (photo 4), thencount your chips and begin purchasing software for theB-liner's on-board computer. And don't forget suchpackages as Musix and Dicto; surprisingly enough,several adults I know got into the game with a fullyequipped flight-control panel and found themselves suc-cessfully flying over the Mire, but when they encoun-tered aliens, they had no way to ask them clues or direc-tions. (Conclusion: decision-making skills can be learnedat all ages.)

After the B-liner is equipped, you are ready for take-off. While flying over the Darksome Mire, you mustcarefully consider wind direction. The winds come fromdifferent directions at various heights, necessitatingmoving the B-liner up or down until the proper direc-tion is found.

Interspaced with huts and mire crabs are night rocksand popberry trees for fuel and food, respectively. Tofuel the ship, I had to land the B-liner on one of theserocks, get out, jockey my jet pack to the drill platform,

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 373

Photo 3: The interior of the B-liner. Once in this compartment youcan give various commands to operate the liner, leave, or communicatewith different cultures.

and fuel up. Much the same procedure is required toeat (see photo 5), except that once I took the popberryoff the tree, it often sank into the bog before I couldnavigate the jet pack down to it. Bitterly I watched a12-year-old execute the maneuver perfectly and wellwithin the time limit. Through perseverance, I managedto feed myself and then returned to the ship.

A Computer within a Computer

The software for the B-liner's computer is one of themost exciting parts of the game. The Map-H software,for example, locates every hut in the Mire. The Cultssoftware contains facts about the people of each Mireculture, and Dicto translates important words andphrases used by all 25 cultures in the Darksome Mire.Musix is the software that shows you how to createsongs, which are used for trading with the Mire cultures.

All cultures speak with their antennae. Dicto softwareshows the different shapes made to form words whilealso providing the corresponding tones. Six basicphrases are common to all cultures, but the symbols ofeach vary, according to the culture. Thus, the phrase"What is your quest?" can be expected from any cul-ture, but the antenna patterns and tones vary.

Because each culture trades in Musix, you can makea song to trade with a culture in return for information.To do so, you draw any shape you want using the ar-row keys, and when you finish, the picture and corre-sponding tones are played back, ready for trade. Cultssoftware informs you as to the type of Musix the cultureprefers.

World without End

Most adults experienced at playing computer gamescan complete this adventure in 10 to 12 hours. Two ormore 10-year-olds (up to an entire class) workingtogether can get through it in 20 to 30 hours. Lest youthink the game can be shelved once you've found the

Photo 4: The flight-control panel of the B-liner.

Most Amazing Thing, tricky ol' Tom Snyder, creator ofthis highly enjoyable fantasy, has designed the programto change the location of the Most Amazing Thing everytime the game is played. You can, of course, stop thegame any time you wish and save your position so asto return later and carry on where you left off.

The adventures and experiences are richly entertain-ing and vary tremendously each time you play. Thegame convinces me that in an adventure violence is un-necessary to keep the imagination and intellectenthralled.

Adventure in the Classroom

In Search of the Most Amazing Thing should not beconsidered just an adventure game, however. The edu-cational applications are numerous and, to a teacher,just as exciting.

One of the battles teachers fight every day is gettingstudents to understand the value of note taking. To beable to instantly produce a historic date or obscure factis not reason enough for most students to perform theexhaustive task of putting pen to paper.

Since this fact dawned on educators, they have beenfrantically trying to find relevant and interesting infor-mation that students will wish to retain. This programshould provide the important motivation necessary forteaching note taking. Adventurers must recall, for ex-ample, all the advice from Uncle Smoke as well as in-formation about the various cultures. Careful recordsmust be kept on music preferences and antenna pat-terns. Organization of these notes for quick referenceis critical.

Records of the amount of chips in your possession alsoprove very handy. Basic math is required when deal-ing with chips both during the auction and when tradingwith the cultures in the Mire. Players must further ex-ercise their computational skills when evaluating meterreadings and interpreting map coordinates.

374 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Photo 5: An adventurer (in jet pack) leaves the liner and flies to a popberry tree to eat. (Navigation takes talent; find a 12-year-old to showyou how.)

Map-making and map-reading skills, essential to thestudy of any culture, are also an important part of thisgame. Often children do not recognize the value of mapsbecause many school systems today do not have ade-quate geography programs. The world of In Search ofthe Most Amazing Thing may be one of the few placesa child can painlessly learn the basic skills as well as thevalue of map reading.

Cultures are always associated with maps and travel.The game's 25 cultures prefer different types of music,speak different languages, and impart various pieces ofadvice. They also teach a valuable lesson. Underneaththe dissimilar culture trappings, such as music andlanguage, the cultures are in many ways the same.

Young people often don't get to see beyond the super-ficial differences between societies and seldom recognizethe tremendous similarities of all people. Social-studiesprograms try to go beyond those differences; this gameis another tool to help them succeed.

Throughout the adventure, decisions must be made.Good decision making is a learned skill; it isn't just ran-domly acquired. A simulation game, setting up decision-making situations, enables students to evaluate alterna-tives and make judgments. In real life, poor decisionscan be costly or dangerous; in simulation games, stu-dents can get experience without undue punishment forerrors.

In Search of the Most Amazing Thing also encouragesreading by including a storybook. Players do not haveto read the book to go on the adventure. Once you startadventuring, though, this book, written at about the

fifth-grade level, is a delightful addition to the program.The computer simulates the planet's environment, andthe book complements it with details and backgroundinformation.

Name Your System

The program runs on a 64K-byte IBM PC, a 48K-byteApple, and a 48K-byte Atari. I have found that most fea-tures of the game are identical for all three microcom-puters, but although the Atari has excellent soundqualities, it runs the slowest of the three. The Apple issecond in speed, and the IBM PC is by far the fastest.

Map-making and map-reading

skills are also an important part

of this game.

It also has the capacity for a much wider variation insounds. I would certainly recommend the game for useon any of these systems, but if you own an IBM PC andhave been dutifully handling bookkeeping transactions,be advised: the IBM isn't just for business any more.The PC and the Most Amazing Thing seem to be madefor each other. (Although a translation is now availablefor the Commodore 64, an overview of its performanceis not included in this discussion.)

Summary

In Search of the Most Amazing Thing is an excitingadventure filled with interaction among cultures, har-rowing balloon flights, and opportunities for creating

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 375

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At a Glance

Name

In Search of the Most Amazing Thing

Type

A learning/adventure game

Manufacturer

Spinnaker Software Corporation215 First St.Cambridge, MA 02142(617) 868-4700

Price

S39.95

Format

5 'A -inch floppy disk

Documentation

14-page instruction booklet, 76-page storybook, and a quick-reference card for your specific computer

Language

BASIC

Computer Needed

Apple II, II Plus, or He; Atari 800 or 1200, Commodore 64, orIBM Personal Computer

Audience

Adventurers, ages 10 to adult; teachers, especially in social studiesand world cultures or those dealing with gifted and talentedstudents

music, making judgments, and traveling over an entireworld.

The graphics in the program are well designed andexecuted.

In addition to providing a colorful adventure, thegame is a valuable educational tool. Successful playerstake notes, employ mathematical skills, and initiatesocial interactions.

An accompanying storybook rounds out the educa-tional aspects of the program; it is nonthreatening,however, simply because its use is optional.

The program has wide appeal for ages 10 throughadult. Educators can benefit from this program by in-volving an entire class in the adventure.

In Search of the Most Amazing Thing also clearlypoints out the versatility of the IBM PC as an educationaltool, a recreational computer, and a business machine.

I highly recommend this game for the educational op-portunities it provides as well as the exciting yet non-violent adventures. A player can be taught valuableskills through this program and have a terrific time aswell.B

Elaine Holden (22 Elm St., Peterborough, NH 03458) is supervisor ofreading and language arts at the Merrimack School District, Merrimack, NewHampshire.

376 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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When's the last time you saw "digging a well" or "installingbio-gas digesters"on someone's resume? Working in thePeace Corps is not your average everyday job. But it sure hastrained volunteers to cope with the unexpected—includingany company's everyday problems, once the volunteers havecome home.

Whatever it takes to be Peace Corps volunteers, it's away of working that develops a resourcefulness and a degreeof self-reliance that volunteers use jyfe^jftM*;fHp**"""'^'"**""' Vlong after they've come home. Any- Af-^EsL w JSfc. 1place they work. On any job they'regiven. And they all have a unique.understanding of different cultures ]in developing countries. am^^MAM'^k^-L, l^

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w;

hen many of us think aboutcolor graphics, we often think interms of one of the popular com-puters that has built-in color graphicscapabilities. Connected to a color TVor monitor, these machines indeedput on a dazzling color display. Fromgames to computer-assisted design,color is a great enhancement for near-ly all interactive or real-time com-puter applications.

Another use of color graphics,however, is the creation and subse-quent transfer of graphic images tophotographic film. Here we are moreapt to be concerned with resolutionand color quality (see photos 1, 2,and 3) than we are with interactiveconsiderations. Specific applicationsof computer-to-film recording includepreparation of transparencies foreducational or business presenta-tions (see photos 4 and 5), creationof serious works of art, and, if youhave a great deal of patience, themaking of animated films.

The process described here is notparticularly easy to employ, at leastnot at first. The drawing and editingprocesses are tricky and can betedious, and you must be preparedto spend some time fiddling with thecamera, tripod, filters, and otherequipment. But the quality of thefinal product is unquestionablysuperior to simple display photog-raphy; compared with other, non-computer means of preparing de-tailed graphics, the time involved isminimal. For owners of black-and-white computers, this is also a meansof getting into color graphics with asmall investment. All of the photosin this article were produced usingthis process.

Photographing a color TV screen ormonitor has some serious limitations.You can, of course, simply set acamera in front of the display andsnap the shutter. But pictures tend tobe grainy, colors tend to bleed, and,

Photo 1: A simulated three-dimensional col-or triangle showing gradations of color andshading between red, green, and blue wascreated by a color-separation process on theblack-and-white screen of an Osborne 1 por-table computer.

380 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

with many microcomputers, you arerestricted to a relatively few colors onthe screen at one time. Subtle huesand realistic shading are not avail-able. Of course, the more money youinvest in equipment, the better yourpictures can be because larger sys-tems enable use of more colors andexpensive RGB (red-green-blue)monitors minimize graininess andbleeding. The method I use, however,lets you create color pictures with thesharpness inherent in a good black-and-white monitor, with as many col-ors as you want in every picture. Themethod can be employed with vir-tually any personal computer on themarket, using a black-and-whitemonitor or TV. All of the photos ac-companying this article were madewith an Osborne 1 computer andphotographed from its built-inmonitor.

The key to this process is colorseparation. Any color picture can bebroken down into three monochromeimages that later can be recombinedto form the original color picture. Inthe early days of color photography,three black-and-white negatives wereexposed simultaneously through red,green, and blue filters; these nega-tives were then used to make super-imposed images on paper with cyan,magenta, and yellow dyes (the com-plementary colors of red, green, andblue). Modern color films consist ofa sandwich of cyan, magenta, andyellow monochrome images. Televi-sions and monitors use a variation ofthis process: red, green, and blue im-ages are received by the TV and causered, green, and blue dots to light upon the screen. By varying the inten-sities of each of the three primary col-ors, a full range of colors is created.

Color-separation techniques arenot new in computers. Sophisticated(and expensive) systems have beenused for several years to produce veryhigh-resolution pictures and filmssuch as Disney's Tron. The computerseparates a color image into three

Photo 2: "Fish and Coral" is an example ofthe artistic capabilities of the author and hisprocess. This image was created without usingthe subtle shading shown in photo 1.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 381

black-and-white images, each ofwhich is then displayed separately ona very high-resolution black-and-white monitor and then combinedphotographically onto color film.Recently, Polaroid has introducedspecial photographic hardware thatsimilarly makes high-resolution hardcopy of color computer graphics.

The technique outlined here is aninexpensive, do-it-yourself applica-tion of color-separation photographyfor microcomputers. The only extra"hardware" you need, besides acamera, is a set of color-separationfilters: Kodak wratten #29 (red), #61(green), and #47B (blue). A genuineblack-and-white display is needed;green or amber screens create seriousproblems with color balance. Listing1 and this article should help youdevelop a program in BASIC that willrun on your computer and let youcreate a picture containing up to 1000different colors. The text box at leftguides you through the actual dis-play and photography processes.

A program to employ this tech-nique consists of two parts. The firstpart is a drawing program thatcreates a color picture in the memoryof the computer while simultaneous-ly drawing a black-and-white approx-imation of that picture on the screen.The picture in memory will be savedas an x,y dimensioned array that con-tains a color code and character code(in low-resolution mode) for each pix-el. The second part of the program(or a separate program) thenText continued on page 392

Listing 1: The Supercolor program in MBAS1C for the Osborne 1. A few items are machine-dependent; see the text for details.

Using the Supercolor Program

1. Insert the MBASIC disk in drive A; insert the disk with the Supercolor program indrive B; if you're creating a new picture, be sure the disk in drive B has enough space(you can use as much as 24K bytes).

2. First menu: Choose whether you are creating a new picture, modifying an existingpicture (disk or memory), or doing photography (disk or memory).

3. Provide a standard filename for a new or stored picture when prompted.

4. Choose the screen mode when prompted: mode one is screen one with only a rectangularsymbol available; mode two is screen two only, full-character operation, black backgroundonly; mode three uses two screens, block character in screen one for background colors,full-character operation in screen two; mode four is full-character operation in both screens-use this for putting two characters in one pixel.

5. Enter a three-digit color code for background (000 in modes one and two) when asked.

6. Choose which screen to edit when asked; begin usually with screen two, which is themain picture screen.

7. Editing commands: # enters into lettering mode from graphics mode; esc returns tographics mode; tab brings up the "color" prompt; enter a three-digit color code for charactersto be drawn and then key Return. Press any letter key to choose a graphics symbol, accord-ing to the keyboard scheme in the Osborne users manual; use arrow keys to enter thatcharacter in the previously chosen color as many times as desired. I saves characters onscreen one instead of screen two; key % to return to screen two. Use the ( key to see whatis on screen one; use the ) key to return to screen two. Push the space bar to move thecursor across the screen and to read colors recorded for each location; return to drawingmode by selecting a new character. The hyphen key enters delete mode; choose anothercharacter to return. + saves the picture to disk and returns to editing. Key esc to saveand quit.

Note: Keep an eye on the "bytes =" prompt. If the number of free bytes approaches zero,save the picture to disk, restart the program, and reload from disk.

8. Photographing a picture: Use the "focus-grid" prompt to standardize the brightnessof the screen with an exposure meter (e.g., adjust brightness so that the needles matchat l/15th second at f 3.5 for ISO 64 film); use the "preview" prompt to center the picturewith the camera. When the "ready to photograph (red first-push return)" prompt appears,put a red filter over the camera lens, check the settings (try fll for ISO 64 film), turnoff the lights, key Return. At the end of six beeps, lock open the shutter.

When the last of the red picture disappears from the screen, put a green filter over thecamera lens (the camera shutter is still open), key 0. When the green picture disappears,put a blue filter on the lens. After the blue picture, close the shutter and key Return.Cross your fingers and develop the film.

10

20

25

30

40

70

80

90

100

110

120

130

140

150

160

170

GOT

Y = I

IF

IF

BK%

DIM

HOM

PRI

PR

PR

PR

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PR

IN

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W=

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NT((A-HOME)/12SCREEN=2 THENT=32 THEN C$(X(X,Y)=T:RETURNC$ (52,23) ,K$(E=61568!:REMNT CHR$(26):PR

8):X=A-HOME-Y*128

K$(X,Y)=KL$:L%(X,Y)=T:RETURN

,Y)=CB$ ELSE C$(X,Y)=KL$

52,23),L%(52,23),BK%(52,23)

UPPER LEFT CORNER OF PICTURE AREA*

INT "MENU"INT "1. CREATE PICTURE"

INT "2. PHOTOGRAPH PICTURE FROM DISK"INT "3. MODIFY EXISTING PICTURE FROM DISK"INT "4. PHOTOGRAPH PICTURE FROM MEMORY"INT "5. MODIFY EXISTING PICTURE IN MEMORY"PUT "TYPE NUMBER OF SELECTION";N

0,2100,630,2120

"NAME OF NEW PICTURE";PICT$

"TYPE NUMBN GOTO 170,461:PRINT:INPUT

382 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Listing 1 continued on page 384Circle 284 on inquiry card. >

I

I

I

11

•TO

I

I

Introducing the capability the world hasbeen waiting for. A single personal com-puter able to handle Apple'1 IBM,l!TRS-80," UNIX™ andCP/M" basedsoftware.

The Dimension 68000 ProfessionalPersonal Computer does it all. It actuallycontains the microprocessors found in allof today's popular personal computers.And a dramatic innovation creates theenvironment that these systems functionmerely by plugging in the software.

Add to this the incredible power of a32 bit MC68(XX) microprocessor with upto 16 megabytes of random access

memory.

Dimension. At about the same priceas the IBMB PC. it's obviously the bestvalue you can find. For more informa-tion ask your dealer or call us at (214)630-2562 for the name of your nearestdealer.

dimension

A product of Micro Craft Corporation4747 Irving Blvd.. Suite 241Dallas. Texas 75247. ' 1983

I

I

I

I

i

I

0/

W'*

■

l]

1

rrrrrrrrrr*

-—

iJSlJ5l3c5

Sr Jhi ^»J*Ti

TCK

\

; IBM is a registered tradem company: UNIX is a tn

oi' International Business Machines Corporation: TRS-80 is airk pf Hell Laboratories, Inc.: Cl'/M is a registered trademark <

Listing 1 continued:

180 PRINT "MODE MENU"

190 PRINT "1. BACKGROUND/PATTERN"

200 PRINT "2. FOREGROUND ONLY"

210 PRINT "3. FOREGROUND AND BACKGROUND"

220 PRINT "4. DOUBLE MODE"

230 INPUT "TYPE NUMBER OF CHOICE";MODE

240 PRINT CHR$ (26) :INPUT "SET BACKGROUND COLOR";CB$

245 PRINT"WAIT - INITIALIZING"

250 FOR Y=0 TO 22

260 FOR X=0 TO 51

270 IF MODE=l THEN C$(X,Y)=CB$

272 IF MODE=2 THEN K$(X,Y)=CB$:L%(X,Y)=32

274 IF MODE=3 THEN C$(X,Y)=CB$:K$(X,Y)="":L%(X,Y)=32

276 IF MODE=4 THEN C$(X,Y)="000":K$(X,Y)="000":L%(X,Y)=32:BK%(X,Y)=32

290 NEXT X

300 NEXT Y

310 GOTO 2120

320 GOSUB 340

330 GOTO 90

340 OPEN "0",1,PICT$

350 PRINT #1, MODE;","; CB$

360 FOR Y= 0 TO 22

370 FOR X=0 TO 51

380 IF MODE=l THEN PRINT #1, C$(X,Y)

390 IF MODE=2 THEN PRINT #1, K$(X,Y);",";L%(X,Y)

400 IF MODE=3 THEN PRINT #1, C$(X,Y);",";K$(X,Y);",";L%(X,Y)

410 IF MODE=4 THEN PRINT #1, C$(X,Y);",";K$(X,Y);",";L%(X,Y);",";BK%(X,Y)

420 NEXT X

430 NEXT Y

440 CLOSE

450 RETURN

460 PRINT CHR$ (26)

470 INPUT "NAME OF PICTURE TO PHOTOGRAPH";PICT$

480 GOSUB 500

490 GOTO 630

500 OPEN "I",1,PICT$

510 INPUT #1, MODE,CB$

515 PRINT CHR$(26); "LOADING LINE #"

520 FOR Y=0 TO 22

530 FOR X=0 TO 51

540 IF MODE=l THEN INPUT #1, C$(X,Y)

550 IF MODE = 2 THEN INPUT #1, K$ (X,Y) ,L%(X,Y)

560 IF MODE = 3 THEN INPUT #1,C$ (X,Y) ,K$ (X,Y) ,L%(X,Y)

570 IF MODE = 4 THEN INPUT #1, C$ (X,Y) ,K$ (X,Y) ,L%(X,Y) ,BK%(X,Y)

590 NEXT X

595 PRINT Y;CHR$ (30)

600 NEXT Y

610 CLOSE

620 RETURN

630 PRINT CHR$(26)

640 REM *FOCUS SCREEN*

650 INPUT " DO YOU WANT THE FOCUS GRID";GRD$

660 IF GRD$="Y" THEN 680 ELSE 770

680 FOR Y=0 TO 23

690 FOR X=0 TO 51

700 POKE HOME+X+Y*128,22

710 NEXT X

720 NEXT Y

730 X=25:Y=ll:POKE HOME+X+128*Y,0

740 X=0:Y=0: POKE HOME+X+128*Y,0

750 X=51:Y=0:POKE HOME+X+128*Y,0

Listing 1 continued on page 386

384 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

lastnight we exchanged letters with

momjhen had a party for

eleven people in nine different states

and Onlyhadto wash One Glass...

That's CompuServe, ThePersonal CommunicationsNetwork For Every ComputerOwner

And it doesn't matter what kindof computer you own. You'll useCompuServe's Electronic Mail system(we call it Email™) to compose, edit andsend letters to friends or businessassociates. The system delivers anynumber of messages to other usersanywhere in North America.

Circle 94 on inquiry card.

CompuServe's multi-channel CBsimulator brings distant friends togetherand gets new friendships started. Youcan even use a scrambler if you have asecret you don't want to share. Specialinterest groups meet regularly to tradeinformation on hardware, software andhobbies from photography to cookingand you can sell, swap and post personalnotices on the bulletin board.

There's all this and much moreon the CompuServe Information Service.All you need is a computer, a modem,

and CompuServe. CompuServe connectswith almost any type or brand ofpersonal computer or terminal andmany communicating word processors.To receive an illustrated guide toCompuServe and learn how you cansubscribe, contact or call:

CompuServe

Consumer Information Service, P. O. Box 202125000 Arlington Centre Blvd., Columbus. OH 43220

800-848-8199

In Ohio call 614-457-0802.An H&R Block Company

BYTE December 1983 385

Listing 1 continued:

760

770

780

800

810

820

830

840

850

860

870

880

890

895

900

910

930

940

950

960

965

970

975

980

990

995

1000

1010

1030

1035

1040

1045

1050

1060

1070

1075

1080

1090

1100

1110

1130

1135

1140

1145

1150

1160

1165

1170

1180

1200

1205

1210

1215

1220

1230

1250

1260

1270

1280

1290

1295

INPUT Q$

INPUT "DO YOU WANT TO PREVIEW PICTURE";PRV$

IF PRV$="Y" THEN GOSUB 2140 ELSE GOTO 810

INPUT "ANY CORRECTIONS";CORR$:IF CORR$="Y" THEN GOTO 2290

PRINT CHR$(26):INPUT "READY TO PHOTOGRAPH (RED FIRST-PUSH RETURN)";ANS$

PRINT CHR$ (26)

FOR N=0 TO 5

PRINT CHR$ (7)

FOR T=l TO 1000:NEXT T

NEXT N

HOME,32

PRINT CHR$(26):POKE

IF MODE=2 THEN 1080

IF MODE<4 THEN S=22

N=HOME

FOR Y=0 TO 22

FOR X=0 TO 51

IF MODE=4 THEN S=BK%(X,Y)

R=VAL(LEFT$(C$ (X,Y) ,1))

IF R=0 THEN 965

POKE N,S

N=N+1

NEXT X

N=N+76

NEXT Y

FOR T=l TO 9

N=HOME

FOR Y=0 TO 22

FOR X=0 TO 51

IF T>=VAL(LEFT$ (C$ (X,Y) ,1) )

N=N+1

NEXT X

N=N+76

NEXT Y

NEXT T

IF MODE=l THEN 1250

N=HOME

FOR Y=0 TO 22

FOR X=0 TO 51

IF L%(X,Y)=32 THEN 1135

IF VAL(LEFT$ (K$(X,Y) ,1))=0

POKE N,L%(X,Y)

N=N+1

NEXT X

N=N+76

NEXT Y

FOR T=l TO 9

N=HOME

FOR Y=0 TO 22

FOR X=0 TO 51

IF T>=VAL(LEFT$(K$(X,Y),1))

N=N+1

NEXT X

N=N+76

NEXT Y

NEXT T

I$=INKEY$

IF I$="0"

GOTO 1250

IF MODE=2

IF MODE<4

N=HOME

THEN POKE N,32

THEN 1135

THEN POKE

N,32

THEN GOTO 1280

THENTHEN

1480S = 22

Listing 1 continued on page 388

386 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Extend your rea

...make the/knowledge connection

■■>•■■......■■

Use your personal computer to reach KnowledgeIndex and, in minutes, you can locate informationleading to answers on money management, medicalresearch, electronics, child behavior, current affairs,and more.

It's a service from Dialog, the world's leading onlineinformation retrieval service, used for over a decade bycorporations, libraries and professionals. Now, the sameinformation is available to you nights and weekends atspecial low rates.

More than 5 million references and abstracts fromthousands of journals, books and reports. Plus sourcesof reviews of software, books, films, and consumerproducts. And unique databases like MicrocomputerIndex and International Software Database.

A one-time initiation fee of only $35 gets you apassword, self-instructional user manual and two freehours of Knowledge Index—a value of over $50! Onelow cost—40<f/minute—covers it all. There is no monthlyminimum —you pay only for the time you actually use.

So, use Knowledge Index to extend your reach. Tosign up or receive more information, return the coupon.

Sign me up for Knowledge Index for a one-time initiation fee of$35, and bill connect-time charges at the rate of 40<f/minute tothe credit card listed below*

Charge my

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Name (please print):Address:

City:

Telephone: (_

Zip:

'Send my user manual immediately and activate my password as soon as youreceive and accept my signed contract.

3460 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304.

800/528-6050 x 415. B-12/83

A Service of Lockheed DialogCircle 502 on inquiry card.

Circle 172 on inquiry card.

SAVE AT ELEK-TEK

Texas Instruments

BA-Z 33 . TI-BB 52

BA-35 22 P-^Z PC-200 52

TI-35-SP 17 Jgip/ TI-5040-Z 49

TI-MBA 30 ~j TI-5130 60

BA-55 43 ' TI-5142-3 75

TI-55-2 33 BA c5 TI-5218 130

TI-57 29 °MO;> TI-LCD-Prog 50

HEWLETT-PACKARDHP-75C 16K PORTABLE COMPUTER

s719 Mfr9scP

The battery powered portable computer which includesa built-in HP-IL interface, card reader, and time and ap-pointment modes. Typewriter keyboard.

B2164A HPIL/RS-232C Interface 235

82168AHPIL Acoustic Modem 395

82169A HPIL/HP1B Interface 315

82700A 8K Mem. Module 150

HP-41CX*245

The great features of the 41CV

PLUS Built-in:

• Time Module Functions

• Extended Functions Module

• Enhanced Text [ASCII]FILE EDITOR

HP-41C .HP-41CV

S145. 200

Optical Wand 95

Card Reader 145

Printer 283

Quad R.A.M.ffor HP41C]. .60Ext. Memory Module .... 60Ext. Function Module. . . .60Time Module 60

Mfr Sugg

Elek-Tek

HP-IL Loop Module

125

95

Digital Cassette Drive

450

335

Printer/PlotterfHP-IL)

450

335

SLIMLINE Shirtpocket Styled

Power Packed Programmable

LCD PROBLEM SOLVERS

HP-10C Scientific (New) .... $54

HP-11C Scientific 70

HP-15C Scientific (New) 90

HP-12C Financial 90

HP-16C Programmer (New)... 90

HP-97 Desktop Scientific . . 560

50%-60% off orig. mfr. suggested prices

HP-32E Scientific 32.50

HP-34C Scientific 50.00

HP-37E Financial 32.50

fcvi

PERSONALCOMPUTATION

I :::";""

DEALER

CALL TOLL FREE 800-621-1269

EXCEPT Illinois, Alaska. Hawaii

Corp. Accts. Invited. Min. Ord. S15.00 Mastercard ur Visaby mail or phone. Mail Cashiers Check, Man. Ord Pers Check(Swks to dr.] Add SA 00 1st item. [AK, HI, P.R., Canada add810.00 first item] £1.00 ea. add'lshpg &handl. Shipments toIL address add 6% tax Prices sub|. to change WRITE for freecatalog. 30 day return policy for defective replacementsonly. ALL ELEK-TEK MERCHANDISE IS BRAND NEW,FIRST QUALITY AND COMPLETE.

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Listing 1 continued:

1300131013301340135013601365137013751380139013951400141014301435144014451450146014701475148014901510153015351540154515501560156515701580160016051610161516201630165016601670168016901695170017101730174017501760177017751780179017951800181018301835

FOR Y=0 TO 22

FOR X=0 TO 51

IF M0DE=4 THEN S=BK%(X,Y)

G=VAL(MID$(C$ (X,Y) ,2,1))

IF G=0 THEN GOTO 1365

POKE N,S

N=N+1

NEXT X

N=N+76

NEXT Y

FOR T=l TO 9

N=H0ME

FOR Y=0 TO 22

FOR X=0 TO 51

IF T>=VAL(MID$(C$(X,Y)

N=N+1

NEXT X

N=N+76

NEXT Y

NEXT T

IF M0DE=1 THEN 1650

N=HOME

FOR Y=0 TO 22

FOR X=0 TO 51

IF VAL(MID$(K$(X,Y),2,

POKE N,L%(X,Y)

N=N + 1

NEXT X

N=N+76

NEXT Y

FOR T=l TO 9

N=HOME

FOR Y=0 TO 22

FOR X=0 TO 51

,2,1)) THEN POKE N,32

1))=0 THEN 1535

IF T=>VAL(MID$ (K$ (X,Y) ,2,1))

N=N+1

NEXT X

N=N+76

NEXT Y

NEXT T

I$=INKEY$

IF I$="0" THEN GOTO 1680

GOTO 1650

IF M0DE=2 THEN 1880

IF M0DE<4 THEN S=22

N=H0ME

FOR Y=0 TO 22

FOR X=0 TO 51

IF M0DE=4 THEN S=BK%(X,Y)

B=VAL(RIGHT$(C$(X,Y),1))

IF B=0 THEN 1770

POKE N,S

N=N+1: NEXT X

N=N+76

NEXT Y

FOR T=l TO 9

N=HOME

FOR Y=0

FOR X=0

THEN POKE N,32

TO 22

TO 51

IF T=VAL(RIGHT$(C$(X,Y),1))N=N+1

THEN POKE N,32Listing 1 continued on page 390

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 256 on inquiry card.

KEY TRONIC

POLISHES THE

APPLE IT KEYBOARD

Eleven Function KeysStreamline Multiple

Key Operations

Keys in FamiliarTypewriter Locations

Full Shifting Capability

Numeric Pad

Knhance your APPLE IP Computer System with a Key Tronic keyboard peripheral.

This detached, low-profile keyboard is plug-compatible with the existing keyboard socket

of the Apple II. It also features reliable microprocessor electronics, solid-state

capacitance switches, and positive tactile feedback.

Special keyboard available (0

Apple II Is a rei'isli

irk dl Apple Compute

key tronic

Suggested Retail Price: $298,00

To order Model Kll-200 call Toll Free l'8OO-262»80O6for the retailer closest to you. (7am-3pm Pacific Time)Warranty information may be obtained, free ofcharge, by writing to the address below.

THE RESPONSIVE KEYBOARD COMPANY

DEPT.E1 • P.O. BOX 14687 • SPOKANE, WASHINGTON 99214 USA

RETAILERS: For the Distributor in your area, call Toll Free 1-800-262-6006 Dept. D (7am-3pm Pacific Time)

COME SEE US AT COMDEX, BOOTH #2979.

Listing 1 continued:

1840

1845

1850

1860

1870

1875

1880

1890

1900

1910

1930

1940

1945

1950

1960

1965

1970

1980

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020

2030

2040

2090

2100

2110

2120

2130

2140

2150

2160

2170

2180

2190

2200

2210

2220

2230

2240

2250

2260

2270

2280

2290

2300

2305

2307

2310

2320

2330

2340

2350

2360

2365

2370

2380

2390

TAB (1

2400

THEN 1940

NEXT X

N=N+76

NEXT Y

NEXT T

IF M0DE=1 THEN 2040

N=HOME

FOR Y=0 TO 22

FOR X=0 TO 51

IF L%(X,Y)=32 THEN 1940

IF VAL(RIGHT$(K$(X,Y),1))=0

POKE N,L%(X,Y)

N=N+1:NEXT X

N=N+76

NEXT Y

FOR T=l TO 9

N=HOME

FOR Y=0 TO 22

FOR X=0 TO 51

IF T=VAL(RIGHT$(K$(X,Y),1)) THEN POKE N,32

N=N+1

NEXT X

N=N+76

NEXT Y

NEXT T

G$=INKEY$:IF INKEY$="" THEN 2040

GOTO 90

INPUT "NAME OF PICTURE TO MODIFY";PICT$

GOSUB 500

GOSUB 2140

GOTO 2290

INPUT"SHOW BACKGROUND(1) OR FOREGROUND(2)";SCREEN

PRINT CHR$(26)

FOR X=0 TO 51

POKE HOME+X+128,42:

FOR Y=l TO 21

POKE HOME+Y*128,42:

IF W=l THEN 2280

FOR Y=2 TO 21

FOR X=l TO 50

N=HOME+X+128*Y

IF SCREEN=1 THEN D=BK%(X,Y)

POKE N,D

NEXT X

NEXT Y

W=0: RETURN

A=HOME+258

POKE A,0

PRINT "COLOR=";KL$;TAB(12) "BYTES=";FRE (0);

PRINT TAB(30) "SYMBOLS"; TAB(44) "SCREEN=";SCREEN;CHR$(30)

A$=INKEY$:IF LEN(A$)=0 THEN 2310

IF A$=CHR$(12) THEN POKE A,T:GOSUB 20:A=A+1A$=CHR$(8) THEN POKE A,T:GOSUB 20:A=A-1A$=CHR$(11) THEN POKE A,T:GOSUB 20:A=A-128

A,T:GOSUB 20:A=A+128

POKE HOME+X+2816,42:NEXT X

POKE

HOME+Y*128 + 51 ,42

NEXT Y

ELSE D=L%(X,Y)

IF

IF

IF

IF

IF

IF

IF

IF

2)

IF

A$=CHR$(10)A$=" " THENA$="-" THENA$="+" THENA$=CHR$(9)

POKE2640

THENGOTOT=32

GOSUB 340THEN GOSUB

2490

A$="!n THEN SCREEN=1:PRINT "COLOR=";KL$;"PRINTING ALTERNATE SCREEN";CHR$ (30)A$="%" THEN SCREEN=2:GOTO 2305

Listing 1 continued on page 392

390 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

LOW-COST RS-232 NETWORKING.

THE ANY-PORT-TO-ANY-PORTSIMRT SWITCHJ895.

PRINTER

MODEM

^Blil llBil

CPU

CPU

Here's an affordable way toswitch up to eight RS-232 portsin any interconnection. Any portcan select any other port, with upto four pairs of ports communi-cating at the same time. Push-buttons define each port as eitherDTE or DCE, for quick andeasy installation.

The Smart Switch is controlledby simple user-friendly com-mands. A2-charactersequence letsyou select a

port, determine status, and log-off.If the selected port is busy it'ssmart enough to let you knowwhen that port is available.What's more, it can optionally time-out connected ports not in use.Use the Smart Switch to cre-ate your own low-cost networklinking a number of terminals,printers or computers. Use itto give asmany asseven users

rum

access to a single I/O port on yourcomputer, or six users access totwo different computer systems.Or use it with any distributedcomputer environment.

lb learn more about the SS-8Smart Switch, call David Shum-way toll-free at (800) 854-7226.In California call (714) 979-0363.Or write Western Telematic,Inc., 2435 South Anne Street,Santa Ana, California 92704.Or telex 467741.

□ western

D telematic inc.

See us at Comdex Booth #2112.

Circle 455 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

391

Listing 1 continued:

2410 IF A$="?IF

IFIFIFIF

2420

2430

2440

2460

2470

2480

2490

PRINT

2500

2510

2520

2530

2540

2550

2560

2570

2580

2590

2600

2610

2620

2630

2640

2650

2660

II

THENTHENTHENTHEN

A$="("

A$=")n

A$="#n

A$=CHR$ (27)

ASC(A$)>=64GOTO 2300

PRINT CHR$ (27) + ")";CHR$ (30)CHR$ (27) + "(";CHR$ (30)

T=127

SCREEN=l:GOSUB

SCREEN=2:GOSUB

GOSUB 2510

THEN GOTO 320:REM

THEN T=ASC(A$)-64

21502150

*PUSH ESC TO SAVE,QUIT*

:INPUT "COLOR=";KL$

267026802700271027202730273527362740

LETTERING MODE";CHR$(30)2520

RETURN

PRINT" color=";KL$;"

B$=INKEY$:IF LEN(B$)=0 THEN

IF B$=CHR$(27) THEN RETURN

IF B$=CHR$(8) THEN A=A-l:POKE A,0:POKE A+l,32:GOTO 2520

IF B$=CHR$(12) THEN A=A+l:POKE A,0:POKE A-l,32:GOTO 2520

IF B$=CHR$(11) THEN A=A-128:POKE A,0:POKE A+128,32:GOTO 2520

IF B$=CHR$(10) THEN A=A+128:POKE A,0:POKE A-128,32:GOTO 2520

IF B$=CHR$(9) THEN GOSUB 2490

T=ASC(B$)

POKE A,T

GOSUB 20

A=A+l:POKE A,0

GOTO 2520

PRINT " COLOR SCAN";CHR$(30)

Y=INT((A-HOME)/128):X=A-HOME-Y*128

PRINT "C0L0R=";K$(X,Y);TAB(15) "BACKGROUND = ";C$(X,Y);

";CHR$ (30)TEMP=L%(X,Y)

J$=INKEY$:IF J$=n" THEN 2680

IF J$=CHR$(12) THEN A=A+l:POKE A,0:POKE A-l,TEMP:GOTO 2650J$=CHR$(8) THEN A=A-l:POKE A,0:POKE A+l,TEMP:GOTO 2650J$=CHR$(11) THEN A=A-128:POKE A,0:POKE A+128,TEMP:GOTO 2650

THEN A=A+128:POKE A,0:POKE A-128,TEMP:GOTO 2650

THEN T=ASC(J$)-64:GOTO 2305

T=32:GOTO 2305

IF

IFIFIFIF

J$=CHR$(10)ASC(J$)>=64J$="-" THEN

GOTO 2680

Text continued from page 382:

separates the picture into three black-and-white images, which representthe three primary colors, anddisplays them one at a time for thecamera.

The critical element of the programis the color code, which consists ofthree digits, representing red, green,and blue color values. Each digit canvary from 0 to 9 and determines howlong a pixel or character will bebrightened on the screen. Thiscoding gives 10 intensities for each ofthe primary colors, which can becombined to create a broad range ofsubtle hues and shading. For exam-ple, pure, brilliant red is representedby the code 900, and a dull, dark redis 100. The code 550 mixes equalquantities of red and green to createyellow, 640 and 730 results in twoorange values, and so on.

The first part of the programcreates the color picture. Actually,practically any picture-drawing orplotting program can be adapted forcolor. You need only a pair ofsubroutines to define a color for eachpixel as you draw it. My drawing pro-gram sets up a number of drawingstatements within an INKEY$ loop.You choose a color, and all parts ofthe picture drawn subsequently willhave that color until a different coloris chosen. The three-digit color codein effect remains displayed at the topof the screen.

10

203040

50

1

A$ = INKEY$:if LEN(A$) = 0THEN 10

(drawing commands)

IF A$ = CHR$(9) THEN

100

GOSUB 100:*REM CHR$(9)is the TAB key*INPUT "COLOR";KL$:PRINTCHR$(30):RETURN

The second subroutine saves tomemory both the color code and thecharacter code for each point as it isentered:

20 Y = INT(A-HOME)/128):X =

A-HOME-Y*T2830 K$(X,Y) = KL$:L%(X,Y)=T:REM

T IS THE CHARACTER

CODE*40 RETURN

(Note: HOME is the memory addressof the upper left-hand corner of thevideo display. When adapting thisprogram for computers other thanOsborne, be sure to change the

392 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 405 on inquiry card.

IT'S EASY TO LEARN ... EASY TO USE ...AND DURING OUR SUNDOWN PROMOTION

INCREDIBLY EASY TO BUY!!And, now pre-wrapped for you in SPECIAL

HOLIDAY GIFT PACKAGES.

Sundex may be the only software you can confi-dently give as a gift. Not only do special promo-tional prices make it an EXCEPTIONAL VALUE, but"on screen instructions, a 'HELP' key, and manualwritten in 'plain English,' make these programsEASY-TO-USE BY ANYONE INSTANTLY.

Sundex programs can work alone or together to helpyou organize and manage your money:

CERTIFIED PERSONAL ACCOUNTANT —You're incontrol of your finances with the program that putsyour financial status at your fingertips. Easily or-ganize, analyze and manage your finances effec-tively. It even pays bills automatically!

CERTIFIED PERSONAL INVESTOR —Enjoy the easeand security of managing your investment port-folio on this program. It's designed for personalportfolio management, analysis, and tax formpreparation.

PERSONAL PAYABLES -Have fun with the Sundexprogram that automatically pays all your bills fromup to 10 different checking accounts and printsout your checks.

All these programs are now available for Apple II,Apple He, Tl Professional, IBM P.C., Compaq,Eagle, Columbia and Franklin Computers.

^°'-S>fsora

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The Sundex special prices last until February 5th.But, don't wait to buy. The prices go up every two

weeks, so THE SOONER YOU BUY THE LESS YOU PAY.Ask your dealer to let you try this remarkablesoftware. Then look for the colorful "SundexSundown" display to get this week's price on theprograms you want for your family and friends ...all holiday wrapped for you!

But hurry... you can still SAVE UP TO 50%if you act now.

Call 1-800-835-3243 today for the name of the

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THERE S NOTHING EASIER UNDER THE SUN

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Photo 3: Low-resolution graphics are not a serious limitation for fine-art applications becauseof the double-screen mode and shading capabilities. These simulated three-dimensional struc-tures are nothing more than juxtaposed parallelograms and other shapes with varying shades,drawn on alternate screens. Diagonal edges are formed where complementary right triangleson alternate screens share a diagonal series of pixels.

HOME value in line 80, viewablescreen size in line 70, and maximumscreen width, 128 on the Osborne,wherever mentioned.)

Once the picture has been createdas a dimensioned array, you can saveit in a disk file or display it forphotographing. To photograph eachof the three monochrome screens,first clear the screen and eliminatethe cursor.

5 PRINT CHR$(26):POKEHOME,32

Then use the following routine todisplay the monochrome image forall red values in the picture (the left-most digit of color code).

5 N=HOME

10 FOR Y = 0TO22: FOR X = 0TO 51

20 IF VAL(LEFT$(K$(X,Y),1)) = 0THEN 40

30 POKE N, L%(X,Y)

40 N = N+1

50 NEXT X

55 N = N + 76: REM *ON THEOSBORNE 52-COLUMNSCREEN THERE ARE 76SPACES FROM THE ENDOF ONE LINE TO THEBEGINNING OF THE NEXT

(52+76 = 128)*60 NEXT Y70 FORT = lTO985 N = HOME80 FOR Y = 0 TO 22:

FORX=0TO5190 IF T > = VAL(LEFT$(K$(X,Y),1))

THEN POKE N,32100 N = N + 1:NEXTX110 N = N + 76:NEXTY120 NEXTT

This routine is then repeated forthe green and blue screens. Begin-ning with line 70, you go through thescreen nine times. With the first pass,you delete all characters with redvalues of 1. On the second pass, youdelete all characters with red valuesof 2, and so on, until the picture iscompletely blanked out. With thismechanism, you can mix 10 differentintensity values within the samescreen. Displaying and photo-graphing all three screens in thismanner takes 6-7 minutes inMBASIC.

Using Two Screens

When using low-resolutiongraphics characters, it is sometimesdesirable to put two differentcharacters of different colors in thesame rectangular pixel. The diagonaledges of the blocks in photos 1 and3 were done this way, filling each rec-tangle along the edge with two com-plementary right triangles of differentcolors. You must use two separatescreens for each color, defining halfof each block on one screen and theother half of the block on the otherscreen, switching back and forth be-tween the screens while drawing thepicture. Lettering must be white or alighter version of the background col-or because it is "burned in" over the

394 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

DISKSCOME

THE HARD PART IS MAKING SURETHEYSTAYTHATWAY.

A disk is built with certain safeguards. That's why most disk makersoffer guarantees that the product you receive comes to you error free.We at Memtek Products are concerned that the minidisk remainserror free. Every time you use it. After exposure to dust, cigarettesmoke, fingerprints, even wear caused by your computer. And so, wehave built safeguards around the disk, as well.

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The hub ring. Designed to prevent our minidisks from jam-ming in your machine. Rigid. Durable. Reinforced.The coating. A critically-controlled coating of high-energymagnetic oxide particles that covers the disk's surface, which is thenmicro-polished to improve head to disk contact, preventingdropouts, lowering head abrasion.The lubrication system. A constant lubricant protects both thedisk surface and the drive head from wear.The sleeve. Comes with a soft liner that protects the disk whilegently cleaning the surface.

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Photo 4: Snappy color slides for business or educational presentations can be made easilywith "black-and-white" business systems and a set of color filters.

Photo 5: The popular white-on-blue graphics format usually produced with special film isdone easily with a simple double exposure. First, a white screen is photographed through ablue filter, then white graphics on a black background are "burned in" with a second exposure.Any background color can be used with white or lightly colored lettering.

background (photo 5). Any color oflettering can be used on a blackbackground.

Color Separation withColor Systems

You also can use this separationtechnique with a standard color com-puter and color monitor. The editingprocess is easier because you can see

on the monitor the colors you'reusing. However, the picture you savein memory can contain more color in-formation than the picture you see onyour monitor. You have to have twoparallel color-selection mechanismsin your program. For example, anarea that you color solid red on themonitor might include shading fromdark red to light red in the picture be-

ing created in memory. You will seethe latter only after you've photo-graphed the picture. Be sure toswitch to a black-and-white monitorfor the photography.

Using High-Resolution Modes

The approach described in this ar-ticle works fine with the Osborne'slow-resolution graphics charactersbecause of the relatively smallnumber of memory locations re-quired. The 52-by-22 display resultsin 1144 pixels that must be addressedon each screen, and each pixel re-quires 12 bytes to fully define threecolors and character code in the two-screen mode, or about 13K bytes ofRAM (random-access read/writememory). Typical high-resolutionmodes provide for about 320 by 200,or 64,000 pixels. There's no need forcharacter codes or a two-screen modewith high-resolution systems, but1000-color capability requires 3 bytesper pixel, or about 180K bytes ofmemory. With a 64K-byte machinelike the Osborne, you would have totransfer the picture piecemeal to andfrom the disk.

The sheer number of pixels thatmust be selectively turned on and offfor each of the three screens wouldmean a prolonged exposure time (Iestimate at least 6-7 hours inMBASIC). Faster 16-bit or 32-bit pro-cessors and compiled programminghelp to reduce this problem. Com-puters that display a range of graytones are ideal for this application, aseach screen can be displayed andphotographed in a few seconds,eliminating the need to scan the pic-ture nine times for different intensi-ty values. For everyone with "old-fashioned" 8-bit, 64K-byte-or-lesscomputers, I suggest starting withlow-resolution graphics. Perhaps youmight want to take up the challengeof color separation with high-resolution graphics as your proficien-cy grows. ■

Frederick B. Essig holds a Ph.D. in botany.He is an associate professor in the Departmentof Biology at the University of South Florida,Tampa, FL 33620.

396 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Mainframe to Micro:Adapting a Financial-Modeling

Language

A mainframe software company moving intothe microcomputer world must change more than its software

The era of the microcomputer ischanging the character of computing.Images of Big Brother and the Penta-gon have given way to MatthewBroderick innocently bringing theworld to the brink using his homecomputer in the movie WarGames.Gone are the stories of huge pro-grams created by highly trainedteams of computer scientists in thinktanks, replaced by reports of 20-year-old college dropouts making it big invideo games (see the text box "WhenWorlds Collide: Social Aspects of theMove to Micros" on page 402).

The success of microcomputersguarantees the attention of big

Issues Affecting the User

Directly and the Designer Indirectly

•greatly enhanced visual display capabilities

of the microcomputer

•increased "housekeeping" associated with

the microcomputer

•limitations of job size

•greatly increased difficulty in obtaining direct

product support from the software developer

•data security

Issues Affecting the

Designer and Publisher Directly

• product distribution channels•product support demands•organizational role, training, and personali-ty profile for the typical user•piracy

Table 1: Some issues that distinguishmicrocomputer software from mainframesoftware and the groups affected.

by Greg Dunn

business. Workers having microcom-puters at home find it saves themlabor in bookkeeping and word pro-cessing, provides games for fun andrelaxation, and offers educational op-portunities in self-paced tutorials onalmost every subject. These peoplesoon fit microcomputers into their of-fice budgets. The compelling logic ofdistributed processing is making themicrocomputer an integral part of thecomputing resource in companies allover the world. And, as the micro-computer moves into the office, soft-ware developers face new challengesin translating existing mainframesoftware to the microcomputer en-vironment.

From the Developer's Viewpoint

A number of issues distinguishmicrocomputer software from main-frame software. Some primarily con-cern the software designer and pub-lisher, while others also concern theuser (see table 1). The designer mustexploit the special opportunities pro-vided by the microcomputer andminimize any negative consequencesof its limitations.

Enhanced Display Capabilities

The mainframe computer's strengthlies in its ability to do computationsrapidly, to handle large quantities ofdata, to secure data by means of pass-word protection schemes, and to letmany users access a common datalibrary simultaneously. A main-

frame's central processor can accesslarge amounts of both directly ad-dressable and peripheral memoryrapidly, and it has a data-word sizethat permits high precision even afterrepetitive recomputation.

The mainframe's resources permitnumber crunching on a large scale.However, handling input and outputto users becomes a necessary evil,because any resource directed towardthat activity steals from the resourcesused for computations or file access.While this also holds true for a micro-computer, one important differencechanges the job of the softwaredeveloper. The mainframe communi-cates with a remote CRT (cathode-raytube) through a transmission line,limited, practically speaking, to a rateof 9600 bps (bits per second). Amicrocomputer talks to the screen ata memory-write rate of about 4.7megabytes per second. Whenever themainframe's central processor is oc-cupied with I/O (input/output) to theuser's terminal through this 9600-bpsbottleneck, a lot of RAM (random-access read/write memory) as well ashard disks with rapid-access periph-eral memory must wait. When thecentral processor paints menus orpictures on the user's video display,several megabytes stand idle—a highcost for user interface.

Compare this to a microcomputer,where the central processor can writeto the screen as fast as it writes tomemory and more rapidly than it can

400 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

communicate with peripheral mem-ory. Software developers can easilyafford to use system resources to sup-port elaborate user interfaces. Andthose interfaces make a world of dif-ference in who uses the computer,and for what.

Mainframe software typically putsa high premium on abstract, sym-bolic thought. A user must not onlyknow what he wants but also thecommand to execute the desired ac-tion. Mainframe tools are complexand typically require a substantialtime investment for a user to acquirethe skills necessary to do seriouscomputation.

On a microcomputer, the program-mer makes things easier for the user.Instead of terse symbolic word com-mands, the user gets "ring" menusor pictures. At any point in the pro-gram, users have options displayedon the screen. Even if you use a sys-tem only once every six months, youstill can do useful work.

The 9600-bps Blues

The microcomputer has enabled usto do things that, while technically

Standard color graphics with the IFPS/Personal package.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 401

feasible on a mainframe, have notbeen practical because of resourceconstraints. For example, ExecucomInc. has adapted its mainframe fin-ancial-modeling package, InteractiveFinancial Planning System, or IFPS,to run on microcomputers. Van VanCleve, a programmer for the IFPS/Personal project, says, "On a main-frame, there is a great disparity in therelative capacities for I/O and com-putation—and even more betweendisk-type I/O and user [CRT screen]I/O. On the mainframe you're run-ning to the disk a lot faster than thedata rate. As for computations, ifyou're doing 32 bits instead of 16 bits,you have a great improvement: morethan 2-to-l. Bigger words are betterfor doing crunching operations, butnot necessarily for things like stringsand characters.

"The best I can get at my video dis-play from a mainframe is a set ofcodes at 9600 bps. When you startgetting more than 9600 bps, the reli-ability of the transmission line startsto go down. People do 19,200 bpsnow, but that's pretty special purposeand expensive. It's expensive to runhigh speed across distance. And youstill can't even get close to the speedof communication between the cen-tral processor and memory.

"On the microcomputer you havea slow disk and a fast screen: a total-ly different environment. If we wantto talk about [computational-bound]operations and normal I/O, you'vegot a much slower machine. Butwhen you step into the I/O-intensiveworld of user interface, you have allthe I/O capacity you need. It's not aburden the way it is on the main-frame."

The mainframe is at its best inoperations in which the central pro-cessor communicates with memoryor with the disk, rather than with theCRT. The microcomputer can talk tothe screen as rapidly as it talks tomemory. The screen is directly mem-ory-mapped. With that method,complete information describing thecurrent state of the screen remainspresent in memory. Could you de-sign a mainframe that way?

"Yes, you could," says Van Cleve."The problem is that, if you want to

write a mainframe program, youhave to know the characteristics ofevery terminal that will be used totalk to it."

Because it never made sense todesign a mainframe to optimize itsscreen I/O capabilities, the practicallimitations of designing complex,screen-intensive user interfaces loomeven larger than the theoreticallimitations (those resulting directlyfrom the transmission-speed limita-tions). Appropriate data structuresfor storing images are not automati-cally provided in the same way theyare in a microcomputer, so they haveto be created by the programmers.Says Van Cleve:

"Suppose I want to window ascreen in the two systems. If I step in-to the IBM PC world, I can make adirect call to BIOS [basic input/out-put system] to scroll. I can scrollquickly to any designated area in thescreen I want. If I want to simulatethat in the mainframe, yes, I can doit. I can keep a screen image in an ar-ray, and I can manipulate it and thenflash the results out the data-rate line.But I'm doing a lot of computation,I'm doing a lot of itty-bitty move-ment, and generating a number ofdifferent I/O calls. I can't do this allin one I/O call—fill a buffer full of alot of things with carriage returns. Ina mainframe environment I have todo it in a sequence of I/O calls. I can'tcontrol the screen directly. The bestI can do is send it a bunch of ASCII[American National Standard Codefor Information Interchange] charac-ters that the mainframe then has tointerpret in some kind of code to pro-duce something: lines, charts, text,menus, whatever.

"On a microcomputer, on the otherhand, you have the memory-mapcapability—you can write directly tothe screen and produce an image atmemory-loading speed, which isseveral orders of magnitude greaterthan 9600 bps. On a mainframe, Ican't read back from my terminal interms of user I/O. I write somethingto the screen: I have to rememberwhat was there. On a microcomputeryou can use the screen as a work-space. You can read back what you'vewritten."

When Worlds

Collide:

Social Aspects of

the Move to Micros

Mainframes and microcomputers havelong inhabited separate spheres. Whenthese worlds meet, the people involved inthem must make some adjustments. SaysExecucom's president, jerry Wagner,"Mainframe people have a certain style,they have a certain mentality relative tothoroughness of documentation, specifica-tions, all the things that go along withlarge-systems development. That kind ofworkstyle doesn't work well in the microworld. At least, it hasn't historically."

Many microcomputer owners take com-fort in the thought that their entire systemsits on a desk in front of them. For some,it removes feelings of intimidation they'vehad toward computers; for others, the joyis in the sense of having complete controlof the resource. Wade Shaw of Execucom,who comes from a mainframe background,views microcomputers differently:

"I find it uncomfortable to think that thewhole thing is sitting right there becauseI'm used to being on the other end of anorganization. In a mainframe environmentyou have a group of people on the otherend that are providing your service, andthey buffer some aspects of the computer.To have to go in and put a cable on drivesme bananas.

"I don't like to get my hands in the hard-ware. That's not my job. I've spent my timespecializing in software design, and to askme to actually go in there and change acard—that just blows me away. I feel it'sa waste of my training."

Mark Wood at Execucom presents a viewthat may reconcile some of the differencesbetween microcomputer enthusiasts wholove to swap chips and solder connectionsand mainframe software specialists likeShaw: "It satisfies a basic human need tounderstand something completely, to forma gestalt of it.

"Look at this terminal that I work onhere (which communicates with a remotePrime minicomputer). It has a wire thatgoes through the wall and when I'm sit-ting at the terminal I'm working with atool, part of which is behind that wall. Asa casual user, if I don't know about com-puters, hard disks, communications de-vices, front ends, packet networks, andwhatever else, then there is no way I can

402 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

have a complete picture of the tool I'musing. All I know is, here's part of it, andthere's something else behind that wall."The difference between this kind of userand somebody like Wade Shaw is: healready knows what's on the other end ofthat wire. He's got a master's degree incomputer science. In his mind he has a pic-ture of the complete tool. But for the casualuser, it's different. He's using somethinghe doesn't completely understand, and heknoivs somebody else has control of part ofit."

Micro Myths

Developer Shaw talks about some of themyths surrounding microcomputers:

"There are a couple of curious notionssurrounding microcomputers. One of themis that microcomputers are going to savethe world from the big, bad, expensivemainframes and minicomputers. There's abit of holiness in there, somehow—that itshouldn't cost that much to do computing,that it's everybody's intrinsic right.

"The other myth is that everybody's go-ing to get rich off of their microcomputer—that every person is a budding computerentrepreneur just waiting to put his or herfingers on the keys and produce a master-piece that's going to revolutionize the worldand make him a millionaire overnight.

"Even though I think there's a lot ofbunk in these notions, I enjoy them: at thevery least, they're changing the image ofprogrammers. For a long time, program-mers have been regarded as clerks, becausethe first jobs that computers did were toreplace clerical jobs. Now, with more peo-ple getting involved [in computing], thelevel of appreciation for what programmersdo has been raised."

Microcomputer users' prejudices get intothe act, though. Says Shaw, "There's akind of disgust on the part of some of theyounger programmers regarding comput-ing in the mainframe and minicomputermarketplace. Some of the younger program-mers make it clear that they really don'twant to be involved with mainframes andminicomputers—they're not even curious.It's as though large computers are the past,and mainframe people and corporationsaren't going to have any impact on thefuture. They just don't want to have any-thing to do with the mainframe world orthe past. It's kind of unsettling, becauseit means they won't benefit from lessonsalready learned."

Will microcomputers bring computing tothe executive's desk? Wagner doesn't think

so. "If, say, 5 percent of IFPS [Interac-tive Financial Planning System] users noware executives, that might increase to 10percent with the IBM PC, but the numberwill never be significant. It's not a matterof ease of use, knowing computers, or ofMBAs moving into management ranks. It'sstrictly a matter of time and culture. Whenyou become an executive, it's not a part ofthe culture to use these kinds of tools.

"The time element closely associates withthe cultural factor. To sit down at a ter-minal and write models, interrogate mod-els, etc., is time-consuming. An executivecan use his time much more effectively byworking with a staff assistant who will dothe model building, the interrogations, andso forth, for him.

"The key here is that the executive mustbe able to understand the work his assis-tant does for him on the computer."

Piracy

One software issue that is a muchgreater problem in the microcomputer mar-ket than in the mainframe market is thetheft of goods. Software companies com-monly estimate that from 25 to 50 percentof their potential revenue slips away topirates. Why is the problem so much big-ger in the microcomputer marketplace? Iasked Sam Guckenheimer, Execucom'sProduct Manager for IFPS/Personal:

"It's harder to track," he said. "Themainframe world is very centralized. Yourcustomer base is made up of a small num-ber of installations and is, by contrast, quiteeasy to audit. Take a hot-selling machinelike the VAX [minicomputer]. There maybe 8000 VAXs installed now, somethinglike that. Well, that's a fifth as many pro-cessors as IBM PCs are added into the workplace every month. It's the difference inmagnitude between ships in a harbor andpeople passing through a subway turnstile.You're talking about much greater disper-sion. It's much more difficult to audit andcontrol."

One possible solution Execucom has con-sidered is a combination hardware/softwareprotection scheme, using an encryption al-gorithm embedded within the software,and the same algorithm burned on aPROM (programmable read-only memory)installed in a device affixed to the keyboard.Other protection alternatives include tyingthe software to a particular processor bymeans of a serialized PROM (as Apple hasdone with its Lisa software) and themethod most widely used for lower-pricedsoftware in the home market: scrambling

the information on the disk.

Of scrambling information, SamGuckenheimer says: "Well, first, thatmeans you can't copy it for backup. Second,you can't copy it over to a hard disk, andhard disks are starting to get used a lot.And third, it generally means that it takesmuch longer to boot and it tends to createdifficulties in areas like operating-systemcompatibility. Look at all the software thatwas released for the IBM PC that doesn'twork with MS-DOS 2.0 because protec-tion games were played using memoryareas subsequently required by the newoperating system."

The protection scheme employing theserialized PROM involves the installationinside the computer of a PROM contain-ing a unique serial number. Software pub-lishers wishing to be protected by that serialnumber include it in their software, whereit is checked against the hardware-residentnumber before the program will run. Thusa given piece of software is usable on onlyone machine. Guckenheimer's evaluation:"If you have a multiple-personal computerenvironment where machines get swappedfor service, this solution dies instantly.Also, if people change offices and don'tcarry their machines with them, this sys-tem won't work."

No protection system will please every-one. "Users don't like software protection,"Guckenheimer says. "It has, in fact, beenrecommended by a number of users that wego to multiuser licensing without protec-tion. But then how do we really know howmany copies are out there? How do the DP[data processing] departments we deal withknow that, for the 100 they've distributed,there haven't been another 500 copiesmade? Copying a disk is generally a loteasier than getting budget approval."

Changing User Profile

As the character of the computer under-goes a dramatic change with the penetra-tion of micros into the computer resourcecommonwealth, so does the profile of thetypical user.

The new user is maybe someone whopreviously stayed away from the computer,feeling either that he "wasn't technicalenough" to use it or that the investmentof time in learning to use it would not berepaid by the benefits of using it. Some ofthese people have felt, probably correctly,that their need for the machine would betoo intermittent to permit them to keeptheir skills current. The powerful and flex-ible user interface permitted by the micro-

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 403

computer is changing that picture. SaysGuckenheimer, "It used to be that the peo-ple who worked with computers werealways very analytical in their orientation.They would go through long descriptionsof problems, meticulously laid out in ad-vance on paper, and then enter them intothe computer and solve them.

"Over the past few years software writershave directed more and more attention tomaking user interfaces flexible. The adventof microcomputers represents a tremendousleap forward in this process, so that nowusers are developing a different way of be-having with the computer. Instead of lay-ing out their whole problem in advance,they'll sit down and start entering thingsalmost from stream of consciousness. Theydon't necessarily have a clear definition oftheir problem when they start; they workit out as they describe it. It does awaywith, or makes much more cursory, thepencil and paper notes made beforehand.One of the reasons spreadsheets havecaught on so well is that they lend them-selves to putting in a few random numbersand then experimenting with their rela-

tionships until you get something thatmakes sense.

"I think that because of the microcom-puter, there's a general shift in the way jobsare defined. The whole concept of the per-sonal computer as a professional worksta-tion implies that you break down some ofthe barriers of work specialization and thata given user may employ his computer for

Mainframe software

writers have aimed at

making user interfaces

flexible.

a little bit of financial modeling, a little bitof word processing, some graphics, a data-base, communications, and project man-agement. Before microcomputers, a com-pany had, in the case of financial analysis,a person whose job was financial analysisand nothing else. Now, the capability ofdoing fairly sophisticated financial analysisis within reach of managers who don't haveas much training and don't do financial

analysis as extensively. It means that morepeople will get involved in the process."

Customer Support

This is another area in which a majortransformation must take place in shiftingfrom mainframe to microcomputer. Intro-ductory training delivered at the customersite and telephone hotline support are oftenincluded in the price of a mainframe soft-ware package, and training on advancedtopics is available for a fee. Clearly, thissort of service is not feasible in the micro-computer market, where software is soldin large quantities, through distributors orcomputer stores, at comparatively lowprices. Much of the training delivered inperson to clients by mainframe softwarecompanies will have to be deliveredthrough the computer for microcomputersoftware.

Product documentation must bethorough and understandable if a micro-computer product distributed through ex-tremely high-volume channels is to standon its own. If documentation is to becomemore helpful to the user, it will have to do

BusinessScientificDataPlotting

~v

Softkit # 2

Data Plotting Software for Micros- This 232 pg book/disk package contains

18 programs in BASIC for processing and plotting data: Histograms, pie charts,

log plots, regression, statistical analysis, curve fitting, barcharts, stock market

charts, 3D views of surfaces, data management, applications to science,

engineering and business.

Special features include writing text over graphics, automatic scaling and

axis labeling, automatic replotting when data is changed.

Book contains program listing in Applesoft BASIC with theory, equations and

full documentation. Disks contain same programs in Applesoft BASIC or IRMpc

BASICA. Use the programs as-is or modify and combine for your own special

applications.

Please send Book-S30.50

DApplasoft Disk- $19.95DIBMpc BASICA Disk- $19.95

Name

Address

City/State/Zip

D check encloied

D vlu/maitercard

_expiration date_

call (617)934-0445 for faster deliveryKERN PUBLICATIONS • P.O. Box 1029BN • Duxbury, MA 02332

AppliedStatistics^ Micros

Softkit # 7

Applied Statistics for Micros- This is a package of professional levelstatistics programs for use in business, science and engineering. Book containsprogram listings in BASIC alongside theory and documentation. Optional diskcontains same programs in BASIC.

Book gives clear, easy-to-read tutorial on errors, statistical distributions,hypothesis tests, variance, covariance, regression, response surfaces andtime series. 22 programs calculate normal, chi-square, t and F distributions;variance with randomized blocks, Latin squares, factorials, response sur-faces. Hi-accuracy multi-linear regression program has data handling and transfor-mation. Also programs for hypothesis testing, sorting and smoothing. Numerouspractical applications.

Assumes no prior knowledge of statistics. Used as a text for years at a leadinguniversity.

Please send: DBook- $38DIBMpc BASICA Disk-$26 □ Applesoft Disk- $26 DCP/M86 Disk-$26

Name

Address

City/State/Zip

□ check enclosed

□ vlsa/mastercsrd expiration date_

call (617)934-0445 for faster deliveryA KERN PUBLICATIONS • P.O. Box 1029BN • Duxbury, MA 02332

404 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

so by being integrated as directly as pos-sible within the product. As Guckenheimersays, "The concept of printed documenta-tion is limiting. Documentation includesuser prompts, help messages, interactivetutorials, and what-have-you. All of thosetie together.

"Documentation is important, but it'soften misunderstood. The most effectivedocumentation is that which has to be readleast. People often think of documentationas being effective when one can get a fulldescription of what the software does fromit. It's much better if the software explainsitself."

What You Learn from aMainframe Background

Kirk fones explains why he thinks a com-pany like Execucom, with a background inmainframe software development for largecorporations, has an advantage in the bigbusiness market, even over companies withmore experience in microcomputer soft-ware.

"We've learned from 10 years of ex-perience how people solve corporate prob-

lems and what the information systems re-quirements are for solving corporate prob-lems. We've learned how people integratesystems and models together, and whatkind of support they have to have to solvecorporate problems.

"What Visicorp knows how to do ex-tremely well is solve the individual'sbusiness problems. But one of the problems

Maintainability is

extremely important

from a corporate point

of view.

with a Visicalc-like product is the dif-ficulty of maintaining the model. It is rela-tively tough to write a Visicalc model thismonth, not use it for six months, and thentake that same application and run it againsuccessfully, with new numbers, and stillknoio what the numbers mean. Many Visi-calc users find it easier to rewrite theirspreadsheet after six months than to tryto update the old one. One of the things

we've learned with IFPS is that maintain-ability is extremely important from a cor-porate point of view. The corporation can'tafford to pay for that rebuilding."

Gary Greenfield, head of development forIFPS/Personal, concludes, "I think we'regoing to see a merging of what the main-frame software marketplace and the micro-computer marketplace have meant to theirusers. From the micro software market-place, I think we will take lessons concern-ing the supportive user interface and thetype of documentation and outline tutorialsthat users want. With microcomputer soft-ware relatively inexpensive compared towhat we've been used to in the past, we'vegot to take a look at more cost-effectivemeans of distributing ourproduct: not justthe software package, but the servicesassociated with it, too.

"On the other hand, I think we canteach the microcomputer industry some-thing about the type of professional train-ing, consulting, and hotline service thatcorporate customers want from softwarevendors. We're going to see these market-places coming together."

Graphics

for the

IBMpcApple II

Softkits #5,6

This is a spectacular collection of graphics programs for the IBMpc and theApple II or lie. It contains more than 60 programs in BASICA. They're listedbeside theory and equations in a 280 page self-teaching guide. An optionalprogram disk is available.

These programs will show you how to write your own 2D and 3D graphicssoftware and they will give you many useful, ready-to-run graphics routinesto incorporate in your own software.

Programs are menu driven and modular. They show how to use elementarygraphics commands and do 2D and 3D translation, rotation, scaling, clipp-ing, windowing, hidden line removal, shading, perspective, hi-speed anima-tion, with applications to science, business, engineering and games.Adopted as a text in many leading universities. We know you will be pleased.

Please send:

IBMpc Book- $30.50 DIBMpc BASICA Disk- $21.50Apple Book- $30.50 _ Applesoft Disk- $21.50

Name

Address

City/State/Zip

D check enclosed

D visa/mastercard expiration date_

I

call 1617)934-0445 for faster deliveryKERN PUBLICATIONS • P.O. Box 1029BN • Duxbury, MA 02332

Designer

Softkit # 8

This is a professional 3 dimensional graphics design program. With Designeryou can interactively create 3D drawings on the screen, rotate in 3 dimen-sions, enlarge, view in perspective, store on disk, recall and update.Run Designer3"- a cursor appears on the screen with a set of 3 dimensionalcoordinate axes. Move the cursor around in 3 dimensions identifying nodepoints, lines and points defining curves. Curves fit through points using acubic spline algorithm. See your 3D picture being created on the screen.X,y,z coordinates are displayed as the cursor moves. Then enlarge, rotate,store your 3D picture on disk, recall and modify.

The picture stored on disk is a text file of node x,y,z coordinates and thelines and curves comprising the 3D object. Interface Designer to other pro-grams through this disk file. Use Designer as a graphics pre-processor foryour own applications software.

Designer30 is supplied on disk in machine language with a user's manual.Perfect for CAD/CAM applications.

Please send D Apple Deslgner3°-$85DIBMpc Designer3"- $85

Name

Address

City/State/Zip

D check encloied

D vlia/mastorcarci expiration date_

call (617)934-0445 for faster deliveryJ^ KERN PUBLICATIONS • P.O. Box1029BN • Duxbury, MA 02332 )

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Housekeeping Problems

Kirk Jones worked only on main-frames before his assignment to Ex-ecucom's IFPS/Personal project. Hemakes this observation about micro-computers: "Personal computers arevery unfriendly in the demands theymake on the users for file backup andmaintenance (source management, intraditional data-processing terms).They've put many of the problemsthat the mainframe world solved 20years ago back in the user's lap. Heis now responsible for backing up hisfloppy disks and for figuring outwhat to do when one of them goesbad. It's the user's problem whenthe disk can't be read, whereas in themainframe world that is taken careof for you. There are people who donothing but insulate the user fromthe hardware environment and theoperating-system environment."

The same sort of phenomenon af-fects the software developer in a dif-ferent way. Wade Shaw, a computer-language designer for Execucom, hadthese comments:

"One of the biggest problems thatwe've encountered with microcom-puters has been control of the soft-ware source. You've written a pro-gram, you've fixed it up and think it'scorrect, and now you want to put itsomewhere. So you put it on a flop-py disk. Floppy disks tend to besomewhat unreliable, so you back itup on another floppy disk. Later, youmake some changes in your masterfloppy disk. When somebody wantsthe program, you may hand him thewrong floppy disk.

"Or maybe you put the floppy diskonto the central system, the archivalsource system. Somebody takes thatcopy off, works on it, makes somechanges to it, and doesn't tell you.Now you come back in, make somechanges, and you overwrite his copyon the master. Pretty soon peoplestart finding bugs they've alreadyfixed, or they have to reenter en-hancements they've already com-pleted.

"Of course, this is always a problemwhen you have a lot of people work-ing together, and it can be alleviatedto a certain extent by careful planningand control of the source. But the

problem is aggravated by having adistributed computing facility as op-posed to a centralized one."

Choices for Software Vendors

What microcomputer limitationshave to be sidestepped or overcometo adapt software originally designedfor a mainframe? Three importantones are utilization of memory, accesstime to the disk/ and the speed of ex-ecution of floating-point arithmetic.

The first two limitations are almostinseparable, given the close func-tional resemblance of direct-access(RAM) and peripheral memory (flop-py disk, RAM disk, or hard disk). Anoverlay structure, wherein sections ofa program are swapped in and out ofdirect-access memory from disk asneeded, allows the successful execu-tion of a program too large to fit inRAM. Using this scheme, the pro-grammer frees himself to write a pro-gram as large as he thinks his userhas peripheral memory to accommo-date. He is, however, subject to theconstraint that no legal commandgiven by the user ever requires alarger portion of the total programthan will fit in the available RAM. Hemust also incorporate in his designthe logic that decides what sectionsof the total code should be in RAMfollowing a given user command.

What makes the overlay solutionless than glorious are the delays theuser must endure while waiting forcode to be read in from the disk.How much time does he spendwaiting? It depends on how fast newinformation can be obtained from thedisk, how many distinct overlayshave been built into the program(and therefore how often disk readsare required), and when the overlaysmust be swapped out during userinteraction.

In practice, the second factor de-pends on the first, since the program-mer must take it into account in de-signing his system.

The amount of time a user spendswaiting depends mainly upon thetechnology available. Floppy-diskstorage is slower but cheaper thanhard-disk storage; hard-disk storageis slower but cheaper on a per-bytebasis than RAM disk or direct-access

406 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

THE BUFFER DID IT.

Who Stole The 1500 LettersFrom The Computer?

Let's just say you've got tosend a letter to 1500 differentpeople. Would you like tospend 22.5 hours* or60 seconds of

computer ^^

time? v^°XV\ftv^

With **- ef^ \*PV

a garden- 9&' ^p-°

variety ^° x>v

buffer, the ^

computer hasto mix, mergeand send 1500

addresses and 1500 letters to thebuffer. Trouble is, most buffersonly store about 32 letters. So after32 letters, the computer's downuntil the printer's done. Altogether,

you're talking 22.5 hours.

In the case of our new (not tomention amazing)ShuffleBuffer,

But'hat

t"ere«fa

^"Woonut, computer time

flings fria7u"uti - ^ 60

oe/jei/ ' nuscWs, repon seconds

*»*,*, L You,cllo^myw flat.

■'c o.._ just give

ShuffleBuffer one form letter andyour address list, and it takes careof the mixing, the merging, and theprinting. But that's not allShuffleBuffer's stolen from thecomputer. Oh, no.

Who Changed andRearranged The Facts?

Again, ShuffleBuffer'sthe culprit. You wantto move para-graph #1downwhere#3 is?Wantto add achart orpicture? No

problem. No mystery, either. Anybuffer can give you FIFO, basicfirst-in, first-out printing. And some

buffers offer By-Pass; the ability tointerrupt long jobs for short ones.But only ShuffleBuffer has what wecall Random Access Printing — thebrains to move stored informationaround on its way to the printer.Something only a computer coulddo before. Comes in especiallyhandy if you do lots of printing.Or lengthy manuscriptsOr voluminous greenand white spread jve *sheets. And by theway, ShuffleBuffer ^does store up to128K of informationand gives you aBy-Pass mode, too.

And Who Spilled TheBeans 239 Times?

Who Wants You To CatchA ShuffleBuffer In Action?

You guessed it. We do. Just go toyour local computer dealer and askhim to show you a ShuffleBuffer atwork. Or, you can call us■0- at (215) 667-1713, andwe'll clue you in-onall the facts directly.

y>

&

&>

v\i*

o&

*?

* Basedon an average4000 character letter& I28K buffer.

Most buffers can'ttell the printer toduplicate. If they can,they only offer astart/stop switch,which means you'rethe one who has tocount to 239. Turnyour back on yourbuffer, and yourprinter might shoot outa room full of copies.ShuffleBuffer, however,does control quantity.Tell it the amount, andit counts the copies.By itself.

So, What's The Catch?

There isn't anySleutharound.You won'tfind anotherbuffer that's as slick acharacter as this one.You also won't find one that'sfriendly with any parallel or serialcomputer/printer combination.This is the world's only universalbuffer.With a brain.

BH»

f\ShuffleBuffer

The Buffer with a Brain

• MM Interactive Structures Inc.(^^S 146 Montqomery Avenue^t^ Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004

Circle 232 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983 407

memory mounted directly on thecomputer's motherboard. Therefore,like any other designer, the program-mer must make some decisionsabout what equipment he thinks theuser will be able and willing toobtain.

Shaw thinks that, above a certainreasonable minimum, the amount ofmemory available to the user is notnecessarily the key factor in deter-mining his ability to get the assis-tance he needs from the computer."The problem with models is thatthey can always get bigger than yourmemory no matter how much youhave. Even if you could buy anunlimited amount of memory, you'dstill have a problem, because at somepoint your model is going to reach asize and complexity you can't workwith effectively. I think that eventual-ly the business analysts who domodeling will have to learn some ofthe same lessons programmers have,about structured design and modu-larization of models, the cost of main-taining code, and the importance ofdocumenting it well."

The IFPS Example

As mentioned previously, Execu-com markets a simulation-modelinglanguage known as IFPS designed torun on a mainframe.

The company recently releasedIFPS/Personal, a smaller version ofthe mainframe package for the IBMPC and related microcomputers.Available initially only to corporatecustomers owning the mainframepackage (with which IFPS/Personalcommunicates), the stand-alonemicrocomputer system will be re-leased for the mass-distributionmarket early in 1984.

The Mainframe System

IFPS is an ultra-high-level simula-tion-modeling language. It runs oncomputers from the Wang VS seriesto the largest IBM and Cyber ma-chines and on more than 25 differentoperating systems.

The modeling language itself isnonprocedural and English-like. Theterm "ultra-high-level" distinguishesit from high-level languages such as

COBOL, FORTRAN, and Pascal be-cause IFPS is as far beyond these lan-guages on the machine-language-to-spoken-word continuum as they arefrom assembly language. Users mayorder model statements almost ar-bitrarily, without regard to requiredcomputational sequence, as shown inlisting 1. Internally, IFPS reordersstatements so that no variable is com-puted before others on which itdepends. The exception occurs whenmodel statements describe a simulta-neous equation. When this occurs,IFPS automatically employs an itera-tive numerical method to obtain thecorrect solution.

Interrogation facilities of the lan-guage include What If, Goal Seeking,Analyze, Sensitivity, and Impact.Most readers have some concept ofa What If capability because someform of it is a feature of nearly everyelectronic spreadsheet on the market.In IFPS, What If is literally "what if"(see listing 2). In contrast to What Ifsin most spreadsheet packages, aWhat If in IFPS leaves the base caseunaltered, so a user can do any num-

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408 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Listing 1: A model written for mainframe IFPS. The model statements may be ordered almostarbitrarily.

MODEL PR100 C0LU110 * QU120 *130 *140 UNIT150 BEGI160 DESI170180 *190 UNIT200210 *220 ENDI230240 *250 *260 COST270 COST280 COST290 *300 T0TA310 T0TA320 T0TA330340 T0TATOT350 <360 i370 T0TA380 LAB0390 AVG400 *410 DIRE

0DBUD VERSION OF 07/14/83 15:43

MNS 1-8

ARTERLY PRODUCTION BUDGET

INVENTORY REQUIREMENTS

SALES = 200,350,350,500,500,400,450,400N INV FINISHED GOODS = 200, PREVIOUS ENDING INV FINISHED GOODSRED END INV FINISHED GOODS = 30% * FUTURE UNIT SALES FOR 7, 'PREVIOUS

PRODUCTION = UNIT SALES + DESIRED END INV FINISHED GOODS - 'BEGIN INV FINISHED GOODS

NG INV FINISHED GOODS = BEGIN INV FINISHED GOODS + 'UNIT PRODUCTION - UNIT SALES

MATERIAL REQUIREMENTS

OF MICRO CHIP BOARD = 200

OF CHASSIS PARTS = 60 FOR 4, 65

OF TERMINAL CHASSIS = 220

L COST MICRO CHIP BOARDS = COST OF MICRO CHIP BOARD * UNIT PRODUCTION

L COST CHASSIS PARTS " COST OF CHASSIS PARTS * UNIT PRODUCTION

L COST TERMINAL CHASSIS = COST OF TERMINAL CHASSIS * UNIT PRODUCTION

L COST MINICOMPUTER = SUM(T0TAL COST MICRO CHIP BOARDS THRUAL COST TERMINAL CHASSIS)

LABOR REQUIREMENTSL LABOR HOURS = LABOR HOURS PER UNIT * UNIT PRODUCTIONR HOURS PER UNIT = 100LABOR RATE = 9.50 FOR 2, 10.80 FOR 3, 11.00

CT LABOR

TOTAL LABOR HOURS * AVG LABOR RATE

Listing 2: The IFPS What If and Goal Seeking interrogation facilities.

INPUT: MODEL PRODBUD

READY FOR EDIT, LAST LINE IS 410

INPUT: SOLVE

ENTER SOLVE OPTIONS

INPUT: L340

***** WHAT IF CASE 1 *****

1 WHAT IF STATEMENT PROCESSED

12 3 4 5 6 7 8

TOTAL COST MINIC 50400 168000 189600 240000 227950 201275 210975 194000

ENTER SOLVE OPTIONS

INPUT: GOAL SEEKING

GOAL SEEKING CASE 1

ENTER NAME OF VARIABLE(S) TO BE ADJUSTED TO ACHIEVE PERFORMANCE

INPUT: COST OF MICRO CHIP BOARDd)

ENTER 1 COMPUTATIONAL STATEMENT(S) FOR PERFORMANCE

INPUT: TOTAL COST MINI COMPUTER(1)=54000

***** WHAT IF CASE 3 *****

1 WHAT IF STATEMENT PROCESSED

***** GOAL SEEKING CASE 1 *****

1 2COST OF MICRO CH 234.3 250

3250

4250

5250

6

250

7250

250

ber of tentative explorations withoutgetting lost.

Goal Seeking allows the user todescribe a goal—a specified value ina specified model column (usuallyrepresenting a time period) for aspecified model variable. The pro-gram then meets this goal, if it's feasi-ble, by adjusting the value of someother specified model variable. For

example, a manufacturer running amodel that describes the productionof a new product might feel that theper-unit production cost of that prod-uct is too high. Using the Goal Seek-ing facility, the manufacturer can tellIFPS what the product should cost,and then let the program figure outthe necessary raw-material cost orper-unit overhead. With this informa-

410 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Reps wanted

tion it may be clear that a higher pro-duction volume is needed, so theuser can begin exploring the ramifica-tions of the new production volume,using What If.

Analyze provides a stepwise traceback through model logic to help theuser determine dependency relation-ships among model variables. Sen-sitivity determines the relative sen-sitivity in a given variable's values tochanges in the values of other modelvariables. Impact performs the in-verse process of clarifying what effectchanging a given variable's valueswill have on any other model vari-ables specified by the user.

IFPS incorporates a command lan-guage enabling users to constructturnkey systems that can processmillions of bits of data through aseries of complex operations uponthe receipt of a single command. AUniversal Consolidation subsystemallows the consolidated solution ofmodels representing any number ofindividual entities (e.g., profitcenters) at any number of organiza-tional levels.

Mainframe IFPS offers sophisti-cated reporting facilities and provi-sion for the two- and three-dimen-sional data files. It supports thestorage of models and data files incompiled (binary) form and allowsdata encryption for security.

For special-purpose applications,mainframe IFPS is extensible, permit-ting users to link into the packagetheir own FORTRAN functions andsubroutines. Once linked, these rou-tines may be called to operate uponmodel data as if they were intrinsicfacilities of the language.

The maximum size of models inIFPS generally depends only uponthe amount of memory a user has onhis machine. Models as large as 8000variables have been run. A typicalIBM site running IFPS under theTSO time-sharing administratorreserves a full megabyte of virtualmemory per normal user. Users run-ning exceptionally large models areallocated more space.

Internally, mainframe IFPS is acombination FORTRAN/assembly-language program tens of thousandsof lines long. To accommodate the

variations in local FORTRAN amongits many different environments,IFPS's master source contains abouttwice as many FORTRAN lines as ac-tually get shipped as the system forany given machine. It also containsroutines in 12 different varieties of as-sembly language. To create a systemfor a given machine, Execucom's in-stallation crew runs a code-selectorprogram against that massive source,which throws out everything but thecode directly relevant to the machinebeing addressed.

Over the years, falling prices formemory and the concomitant rise inits availability at a given customer sitehave allowed IFPS to evolve in twoimportant directions. First, it has■become more powerful through theaddition of new features and the ex-tension of existing ones. Second, ithas become easier to use through theconcentration of greater resources in-to the user interface.

Companion packages extend IFPS'scapabilities in many directions. IFPS/Graphics provides full-color high-res-olution graphics generation capabil-ities, including three-dimensionalgraphics, stackable bar charts, ex-ploded pie charts, and all traditionalforms of business graphics. IFPS/Dataspan provides for the conversionof reports produced by non-IFPS sys-tems (such as databases and statisti-cal-analysis packages) into datafilessuitable for use with IFPS. IFPS/Sen-try provides for the creation of on-line "interviewers" who guide data-entry sessions by conversationallyprompting the user for needed data.Entered data is checked against pre-defined specifications to minimizeerrors. IFPS/Optimum permits thesolution of optimization problemsformulated in the standard IFPSmodeling language. The solution ofinteger, linear, and nonlinear prob-lems is supported.

Several more interfaces are underdevelopment.

IFPS/Personal

The microcomputer version of IFPS,called IFPS/Personal, represents botha subset and a superset of the main-frame package. While it cannot han-dle models as large or computations

as complex as its mainframe counter-part, it retains the nonprocedural,English-like syntax. Like the main-frame system, it is a general-purposesimulation language not restricted tofinancial applications. IFPS/Personalruns on the IBM PC and compatibles,the Compaq, the TI Professional, andthe Computer Device Dot. Execucomplans to extend its availability to allmajor microcomputers running MS-DOS.

For the microcomputer user inter-ested in IFPS/Personal, an importantquestion is: how much of this main-frame power can be packed into a$4000 desktop computer?

In one sense, the answer is: all ofit. Through a LINK command, usersof IFPS/Personal can send modelsand other entities created on the PCto their mainframe for processing bymainframe IFPS or any of its com-panion products. Users can also haveresults shipped in the reverse direc-tion. To perform operations availableonly on the mainframe, they can turntheir PC into a remote terminal withthe command HOST. This direct linkbetween the microcomputer andmainframe versions of IFPS providesthe user with the choice of a tech-nology appropriate for his task. Hecan, for example, create and edit allof his models on his PC. Editing mayaccount for fully half of the computertime logged by financial planners.This computer time will now cost es-sentially nothing beyond the rela-tively small cost of the microcom-puter itself.

The IFPS/Personal user will be ableto solve all but very large modelsdirectly on his personal computer,and he will be able to do most or allof his reporting and graphics. Onlythe tasks that require the power ofthe mainframe (such as the con-solidation of giant, integrated model-ing systems involving very largeamounts of data) need be performedon a mainframe.

Although IFPS/Personal lacks someof the facilities of the mainframe ver-sion, it has some significant featuresits mainframe counterpart does not.In most cases these enhancementsare suggested by and depend uponthe unique hardware/operating sys-

412 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Circle 233 on inquiry card.

Photo 1: Ring-menu choices are displayed at the bottom of the screen.

rem facilities of the microcomputerenvironment.

Enhancements in IFPS/Personal

Ring-menu choices (see photo 1)replace typed commands throughoutIFPS/Personal. Thus the user alwayshas in view all or almost all of the cur-rently available options. He need notsearch his memory or manual for theappropriate command word. Tappingthe keyboard's space bar moves theuser between choices: he uses theEnter key to select one. Single-strokekeyboard commands are also sup-ported so that, as the user becomesfamiliar with the system throughrepeated use, the system can keep upwith him.

A View mode gives Personal thecapabilities of a spreadsheet package,including multiple windows and in-dividually formattable columns. Inaddition, IFPS/Personal is a completesimulation-modeling language, pro-viding model logic on the samescreen with the spreadsheet-likesolution matrix.

A full-screen editor supplants theline-oriented editor of the mainframeversion. Facilities include blockmoves of text and several forms of anUNDO command. Color graphics arestandard (see photos on page 401), asare user-definable function keys.

Like the mainframe version, IFPS/Personal supports many forms ofmodel interrogation, nonproceduralmodeling, use of datafiles, automaticsolution of simultaneous equations,sophisticated reporting, commandfiles, and recording of terminal ses-sions. It is even possible to create acommand file automatically, simplyby giving a command to record inputand stepping through the desiredoperations.

What Got Left Out?

As a stand-alone package, IFPS/Personal lacks the following capabil-ities of mainframe IFPS:

•It cannot perform the complex,multimodel consolidation supportedby the Universal Consolidation facil-ity of mainframe IFPS that common-ly supports applications involvingmore data than can be readily pro-cessed within the resources of amicrocomputer.

• It has no capability for interfacinguser-defined routines.

•It has links to the extension prod-ucts Sentry, Dataspan, and Optimumand to external packages onlythrough mainframe IFPS.

• Its command-file facilities are lesspowerful than those in the main-frame system.

•Binary storage of datafiles and

models and data encryption are not

supported.

•It cannot process models as large as

those that mainframe IFPS can

handle.

•It is computationally slower.

As memory and fast peripheral stor-age for microcomputers continue tobecome cheaper, many of thesemainframe capabilities will be in-cluded in the microcomputer pack-age.

So Who Needs Mainframes,Anyway?

According to Kirk Jones, who wrotethe specifications for IFPS/Personal,a mainframe's strength "lies in itsspeed of computation, power in datamanagement, and in the data securi-ty it can provide."

The mainframe computer is ideal-ly suited as a central repository forlarge amounts of data. Because every-thing is in one place, security is easierto provide, at least from the point ofview of the person with the masterpassword to the machine. And, asExecucom's Competitive AnalystMark Wood points out, "Even withthe most powerful of today's micros,the 32-bit machines, it is still pos-sible to formulate models and pro-grams that only a mainframe cansolve in a reasonable amount oftime."

I asked Sam Guckenheimer, theIFPS/Personal Product Manager,what people who have IFPS in bothversions would continue to do on themainframe.

"They'll keep their corporate data-bases and model libraries there. Also,they'll do their big consolidation solu-tions there. Where you have geo-graphic dispersion—in other words,where you have several offices ac-cessing the same database—themainframe is where you put all thecomponents together. It is becominga data library." ■

Gregory T. Dunn is a User Documentation Con-sultant at Execucom Systems Corp. He can bereached at 2513 Mountain View Dr., Austin, TX78704.

414 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 144 on inquiry card.

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POKEing Around in the

IBM PC

Part 2: Developing subroutines for BIOSinterface and screen-display disk storage

Part 1 of this two-part series intro-duced the concept of accessing theIBM Personal Computer's (PC's)BIOS (basic input/output system)from a BASIC program and sum-marized the PC's BIOS functions andcentral processor registers. Buildingon this background, this concludingpart develops a general-purposeBIOS-interface subroutine that cantransfer parameters from a BASICprogram to the BIOS and can storeBIOS results in memory. Then a sub-routine is presented that can movedata from one memory location toanother using a machine-languageMOV instruction. Finally, this articledescribes a subroutine that can storescreen data on a disk. This secondsubroutine provides the file-handlingfacilities of DOS while avoiding thestandard BASIC commands that canbe cumbersome for operations in-volving large quantities of data.

A BIOS Interface Subroutine

We'll use the same approach in de-veloping the general-purpose BIOS-interface subroutine that we used todevelop the screen-scroll subroutinein Part 1. That is, at the sacrifice of

by Hugh R. Howson

some programming elegance, I usethe simplest conceptual approach toget a working program, relying asbefore on direct moves from the pro-gram to the registers. In addition, thisgeneral-purpose subroutine must beable to store results from registers in-to memory.

The first action of the subroutine isto store the current contents of thesegment registers on a stack so thatthey can be restored at the end of theprogram. This step ensures thatwhen control is returned to theBASIC program, that program cancontinue from the state it was in priorto the subroutine call. We did notneed this step in the Part 1 programbecause that specific subroutinewould not affect these register values.This general-purpose program, how-ever, requires such a safeguard.

The operation codes that storethese register values are each 1 byte,as listed below:

55 (BP register)

IE (DS register)

16 (SS register)

06 (ES register)

(Note that unless otherwise speci-

fied, all addresses and numerical in-structions are given in hexadecimal.)

The effect of each of these instruc-tions is to decrease the value of thestack pointer (SP) and then store theregister value in the memory locationpointed at by the SP. The SP normal-ly points to the last item pushed ontothe stack, which is referred to as thetop of the stack.

Next, we provide for storing a seg-ment address in the extra segmentregister (ES) by first loading 2 bytesinto the AX register and then trans-ferring them from AX to ES. The nec-essary instructions are

BB,00,00 (move to AX the

values 00,00)8E,C0 (move to ES from AX)

The 2-byte values 00 representvalues that must be put into the pro-gram by the POKE command, priorto execution if the ES register addressis required by the interrupt that callsthe BIOS subroutine. The ES registeris used only when defining a bufferaddress for a block of bytes to beeither read in from or written out toa device such as a disk or a cassette.

The four accumulator registers, AX,

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

417

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BX, CX, and DX, can now be loadedwith the following instructions,which are the same as those intro-duced in Part 1:

B8,00,00 (AX register)

BB,00,00 (BX register)

B9,00,00 (CX register)

BA700,00 (DX register)

Now we can call the BIOS interruptwith the data statement

CD,00

Prior to executing the subroutine, wemust replace the interrupt number,00 here, with the interrupt numberidentifying the BIOS function wewish to perform, as identified in table2 of Part 1 (November, pages 123-124).

After the subroutine is over, wewant to examine the contents of someof the registers, which may containeither status information or data asdescribed in table 2 of Part 1. The reg-isters of possible interest are AX, BX,CX, and DX. To retain these valueswe use for each register a 3-byte in-struction consisting of an operationcode, a low-address byte, and a high-address byte.

The operation code identifies theregister whose value is to be moved,and the two address bytes specify theoffset address in memory where theregister value is to be stored. To keepour program self-contained, we storethese values in the bytes immediatelyfollowing the end of the program.Normally, the instruction we use as-sumes that the segment address iscontained in the DS register. How-ever, to prevent complications we usethe CS register, which already con-tains the segment address of the startof the program. This override of thesegment address is accomplished bypreceding each instruction with

2E (use CS register for the nextinstruction)

The required instructions are:

2E,89,06,30,00 (move AX tomemory offset0030)

2E,89,1E,32,00 (move BX to

418 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

memory offset

0032)2E,89,0E,34,00 (move CX to

memory offset

0034)2E,89,16,36,00 (move DX to

memory offset

0036)

We determined these memory ad-dresses by looking ahead to the endof the subroutine. The subroutine oc-cupies offset positions decimal 0 to47, so the register values can be storedstarting at offset address decimal 48or hexadecimal 30. Finally, we restorethe register values from the stackwith the instructions

07 (ES register value)

17 (SS register)

IF (DS register)

5D (BP register)

and issue the return statement topass control back to the BASIC pro-gram, with the instruction

CB

The BASIC statements to load thissubroutine into memory are providedin listing la. In listing lb variables areassigned values equal to their offsetpositions in the program, thus pro-viding self-documentation of the pro-gram and making it easier to usewithout having to recall any of thetechnical details. The PEEK andPOKE statements that are imple-mented to retrieve or insert valuescan then use these variable names, asthe following illustrates.

Disk Functions

To illustrate use of this subroutine,we will apply it to disk operationsavailable in the BIOS. Typical actionswe might want to perform include re-setting the disk, reading the contentsof one or more sectors of a track intomemory at a specific buffer address,writing contents of a memory bufferonto one or more sectors of a track,and verifying data that has been writ-ten onto the disk.

Assuming that we will be usingdisk operations frequently in a pro-gram, we should now take the time

Text continued on page 422

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initialize BIOS subroutine

Listing 1: The BIOS interface subroutine (a) and its position constants (b).

(la)

io mmmmtmtmmutmmnmnmnmtmtnnmmmmtmtt

20 '

30 '

40 ' demonstration proqran to create BIOS interface

50 '

60 '

70 'tmtmmmtmmmtmmmmtmmmmmttmmtmnmtm

80 '

90 '

100 CLEAR , &H8000

1!0 DEFINT fl-Z

120 SUBROUTINESEG=fcHFOO

130 GOSUB 1000

140 STOP

150 '

160 '

170 nnmmmttmmmmtmmmnmmmnmnmnnmmtttt

180 '

190 '

1000 '

1010 '

1020 '

1030 DEF SEG = SUBROUTINESEG

1040 FOR 1=0 TO 47

1050 READ ■]

1060 POKE I,J

1070 NEXT I

1080 '

1090 DATA fch55,&hle,&hl6,Mi06

1100 '

1110 DATA &Hb8,&hOQ,&hO0

1120 '

1130 DATA fcHBe^hdB

1140 '

1150 DATA fchbB,&h0O,&h00

1160 '

1170 DATA &hbb,&h00,!th00

1180 '

1190 DATA fchb9,&h00,&h00

1200 '

1210 DATA Jshfaa,&HOO,JiHO0

1220 '

1230 DATA McrUHOO

1240 '

1250 DATA Wi2e,&hB9,Mi06,&h30,ih00

1260 ' BX

1270 DATA ih2e,ihB9,ihle,&h32,&hOO

1280 ' CX

1290 DATA &H2e,ihB9,fch0e,fch34,fch00

1300 ' DX

1310 DATA &h2e,Mi89,ihl6,&h36,ih00

1320 ' restore ES, SS, DS, BP

1330 DATA W)07,Mil7,MiH,&h5d

• 340 ' return Listing la continued on page 422

push BP, DS, SS, ES onto stack(tove 00,00 to AX

and transfer to ESHove 00,00 to AX

BX

CX

DXcall interrupt 00uove AX to fleiorv

420 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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422 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Listing la continued:

1350 DATA kheb1360 :1370 '

1380 'timtmttmmtmmttmtmmmmtmmtmmummmmm

(lb)

13901400

1410

1420

1430

1440

1450

1460

1470

1480

1490

1500

1510

1520

1530

1540

1550

1560

1570

1580

1590

1600

1610

1620

1630

1640

1650

1660

1670

1680

1690

1700

,'smttmmmmmmmmtmmmmtmmmmmtmmtm

BIDSSUB = 0

ESHI = 6

ESL0 = 5

AXHI =11

AXLD =10

BXHI =14

BXLD =13

CXHI =17

CXLD =16

DXHI =20

DXLO =19INTERRUPT=22

RTNAXHI =49

RTNAXL0 =48

RTNBXHI =51

RTNBXL0 =50

RTNCXHI =53

RTNCXL0 =52

RTNDXHI =55

RTNDXL0 =54

define position constants

RETURN

'ttmmttmmmmmtnmnmmmmmmmmmmtmm

Text continued from page 418:

to redefine the position variables interms of the disk function, as follows:

ACTION

DRIVE

HEAD

TRACK

SECTOR

NUMBEROFSECTORS

BUFFERSEGMENTHI

BUFFERSEGMENTLO

BUFFEROFFSETHI

BUFFEROFFSETLO

STATUS

STATUSSECTORS

AXHIDXLODXHICXHICXLOAXLOESHIESLOBXHIBXLORTN-AXHIRTN-AXLO

We can then define the actioncodes, using the values given in table2 of Part 1 for the disk function asfollows:

RESETDISKREADDISKWRITEDISKVERIFYDISK

= 0

= 2

= 3

= 4

With these preliminary definitionscompleted, we can use the subrou-tines at any point in our program byusing POKE to input the appropriatevalues, calling the subroutine, and byusing PEEK on the status bytes to de-termine the status of the operation.

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Assume that we want to read datafrom a disk and store it in memory.First we must decide where in thememory space to place the data buf-fer. For a 128K-byte machine wemight start the buffer at segment1000, offset 0000. These values areentered into the subroutine with

DEF SEG = &H0F00

POKE BUFFERSEGMENTHI,

&H1000POKE BUFFERSEGMENTLO,

&H0000POKE BUFFEROFFSETHI,&H0000POKE BUFFEROFFSETIA&H0000

Let us say that the data is to be readfrom disk drive 0, head 0, track 38,starting at sector 1 and reading threecontiguous sectors. This sequence isspecified with

POKE ACTION,

READDISK

POKE DRIVE,

0

POKE HEAD,

0

POKE TRACK,

38

(or &H26)

POKE SECTOR,

1

POKE NUMBEROFSECTORS, 3

Finally, we need to specify the in-terrupt number, 13, for the disk func-tion, call the subroutine, and retrievethe status results with

POKE INTERRUPT, &H13CALL BIOSSUBDISKSTATUS = PEEK(STATUS)SECTORSTATUS = PEEK(STATUSSECTORS)

These statements will initiate thereading of the disk, and the contentswill be transferred to memory.

The BASIC program should firstcheck that the disk status is zero, in-dicating a successful operation. If un-successful, the standard procedure isto reset the disk and reread, repeat-ing this attempt up to three times.Once the data is in memory, it can bemanipulated by the program usingstandard BASIC statements, startingwith PEEK and POKE statements toexamine individual bytes.

There are two limitations to note inthe above procedure. First, it is notpossible to read or write to a disk di-

rectly from a buffer defined in thescreen-memory space. The screen-memory buffer-access timing is coor-dinated with the screen character-generator, which inhibits its usedirectly as a buffer for disk I/O (in-put/output). This limitation can beovercome easily by moving data be-tween screen memory and regularmemory, as we will illustrate later.Also, in the BIOS I use, the statusreport of the number of sectors ac-tually written or read, which shouldbe returned in the AL register, doesnot function, and the register has thevalue of zero whether or not the ac-tion was successful. This conditionshould not be a serious problem formost operations.

This subroutine can be used, un-changed, for any of the BIOS func-tions. Only use of the POKE state-ment to input the necessaryparameter values to define the actiondesired is necessary. This subroutineis an efficient way to control the I/Odevices from a BASIC program, andit may be a useful way for you to ex-plore the BIOS routines yourself.

I originally developed this subrou-tine for a disk-utility program thatcan list the directory and the file-allo-cation table and examine or changeany sector of a disk without beingconstrained by using DOS. This pro-gram was not difficult to develop, asit was possible to work entirely inBASIC once the preceding sub-routine was developed.

In the previous subroutines wehave used POKE to enter parametervalues into the machine-languagesubroutine. It is also possible to passvalues between the BASIC programand the subroutine as arguments ofthe CALL statement. This proceduremakes the machine-language pro-gram slightly more complicated todevelop but provides a more flexibleinterface between the main programand the subroutine. The use of argu-ments will be illustrated in the finalprogram.

Moving Data within Memory

One use of a program to move datawithin memory is in screen applica-tions. For example, for text or graph-ics applications you may wish to cre-

ate a working memory area that islarger than the screen memory. Thescreen then becomes a window thatcan be moved around to examine thevarious portions of the larger repre-sentation stored in memory. Whilethis can be done within BASIC, usingPEEK and POKE commands, thespeed of the resulting program is tooslow for most practical applications.

There is a machine-language in-struction that directs the central pro-cessing unit to move data from asource address in memory to a desti-nation address. The operation codeis A4 if 1 byte is to be moved and A5if a 2-byte word is to be moved. Thesource-offset address is specified bythe contents of the source-index (SI)register in conjunction with the seg-ment address contained in thedata-segment (DS) register. Thedestination-offset address is takenfrom the destination-index (DI)register together with the segmentaddress contained in the extra-segment (ES) register. As part of theMOV instruction, SI and DI areautomatically incremented ordecremented to point to the nextmemory locations. The direction ofthese automatic address changes iscontrolled by one of the status-register flags, appropriately namedthe direction flag. If this flag is set tothe value 0, SI and DI will be in-cremented; if set to the value 1, thoseregisters will be decremented.

This MOV instruction is particu-larly attractive because it may be pre-ceded by a single-byte prefix thatspecifies that the MOV instruction isto be repeated continuously until theCX register has the value zero. Thisis referred to as the REP prefix, ma-chine code F3. The REP instructionlogic automatically decrements theCX register with each MOV instruc-tion. Therefore, it provides a com-plete looping facility, and we needonly load the number of bytes orwords to be moved into the CX regis-ter, prior to the command, and themove will continue automaticallyuntil the specified amount of data ismoved. We can now proceed to de-velop the subroutine.

The first step of our subroutine willbe to store the current segment reg-

424 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Circle 505 on inquiry card.

ister values on the stack so that they Listing 2: A subroutine that moves data within memory (a) and its position constants (b).may be restored prior to returning tothe calling program. Because we will (2a)use only the DS and ES segment reg-isters, we need to save only these. 680 mmimmmmmmmmmtmmmmmmmmmmmmuThis is done with the following two 690instructions: 700

710 ' "sovesub" - machine language subroutine

IE for the DS register 720 '

06 for the ES register 730 '

740 DEF SEG=SUBR0UTINESEG

Let's assume we want to store the 750 FOR 1=0 TO 26

current contents of the screen, which 760 READ J

begins at the source address 770 POKE I,J

B000:0000. The destination address of 780 NEXT I

where we want to store the contents 790 ' push DS, ES onto stack

will be 1000:0000. The full screen con- BOO DATA Mile, thOfc

tains 1920 words (24 rows by 80 col- B10 ' load source seg address into A!!

umns, with 2 bytes for each charac- B20 DATA khbB.fchOO^hbO

ter), or 780 words in hexadecimal. 830 ' and transfer to ES

The addresses should be increment- B40 DATA ?<hBe.?<hdB

ed because we will be storing the 350 ' load source offset into SI

screen characters from top to bottom. 860 DATA fchbe.fchOO.&hOO

First we will move the addresses 870 ' load destination seq address into AX

into the appropriate registers. Recall 880 DATA thB8,&h00,&hl0

that it is necessary, when loading 890 ' and transfer to DS

data into the segment registers, to W0 DATA JrhBe.fchcO

load the value first into the AX regis- '« ' load destination offset into DI

ter and then transfer it from the AX ?20 DATA khbi, Ui.86, UlOO

register to the desired segment reg- ?3Q ' load word count into CX

ister. MO DATA lctlfa9,icbS0,&h07

Therefore, the required instructions 950' set direction flag

are as follows: ?60 DATA ihfc

970 ' move instruction

B8,00,B0 (load the source seg- ?B0 DATA Hrf3,itha5

ment into AX) "0 ! "pop" (recover! register values froa stack

8E,8D (transfer AX to DS) 1000 DATA mi.mf

BE,00,00 (load the source offset 1010' return to calling program

into SI) 1020 DATA khcb

B8,00,10 (load the destination 1030'

segment into AX) 1040 '

8E,co (transfer ax to ES) 1050 ' tmtmMmmtMMtmtmtmMMmmMnmmmmmnm

BF,00,00 (load the destination

offset into DI)

B9,80,07 (load CX with the word ( '

count) 1050 'tmmtmmmmmmmmmtmtUimmmmtmmmmmn

FD (clear the direction flag) i 060 '

1070 '

We are now ready to issue the move 1080 ' define position values for subroutine

instruction 1090 '

1300 '

F3,A5 1110 NQVESUB = 0

1120 S0URCESE6H1 = 4

Then we restore the registers and 1130 SOURCESEBLQ = 3

return to the calling program with 1140 SDURCEOFFSETHI = 9

1150 S0URCE0FFSETL0 = 8

07,17,CB 1160 DESTINATI0NSEBH1 =12

1170 DESTINATI0NSEGL0 =11

The actual BASIC statements are il- 1130 DESTINATI0N0FFSETHI=17 Listing 2b continued on page 428

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 427

Listing 2b continued:

1190 DESTINATION0FFSETL0=161200 WORDCBUNTH! =20

1210 H0RDC0UNTL0 =19

1220 RETURN1230 '1240 '

1250 'mmtmmmttmmmmmmmmmmmmtmmstmtmm

lustrated in listing 2a. If we give thesubroutine the name Movesub, thenit can be executed at any time fromthe BASIC program with the state-ment

CALL MOVESUB

For ease of use, we have definedthe position values as illustrated inlisting 2b. Now if we want to changethe parameters so that a second callto the subroutine will store newscreen data in memory, adjacent tothe first block of data, that is, start-ing at offset address 780, we wouldrequire the following BASIC state-ments:

DEF SEG = SUBROUTINESEGPOKE DESTINATIONOFFSET-

HI,07POKE DESTINATIONOFFSET-

LO,80POKE WORDCOUNTHI,07POKE WORDCOUNTLO,80CALL MOVESUB

and the move will be executed veryquickly.

Interfacing with DOS

Earlier, we discussed the use of theBIOS disk functions to read or writedata records directly onto disks. Thisapproach can be useful for some ap-plications, but it leaves the user withconsiderable responsibility for keep-ing track of what information islocated where on the disk, checkingthat data is read and written correct-ly, taking corrective action if there arefaulty sectors on the disk, and so on.These support facilities are all pro-vided by DOS, so the final sub-routine will demonstrate how to in-terface with DOS. This program is

not new but rather is an applicationof the Move subroutine developedearlier. One instance in which thisprogram might be used is when wewant to store the contents of the cur-rent screen display on a disk, or, con-versely, retrieve a particular screendisplay that is stored on a disk.

To develop this application pro-gram, it is necessary to review thestructure and role of the file-controlblock (FCB) used by a BASIC pro-gram to communicate with DOS. Foreach file that is opened in a BASICprogram, an FCB is created in themain memory space to serve as theinterface between the BASIC pro-gram and the DOS. The layout of thisFCB is described in the IBM BASICmanual, chapter 4, as part of the dis-cussion of the VARPTR (variablepointer) command. The BASIC state-ment

y = VARPTR(#file number)

assigns to the variable y the offset ad-dress of the first byte of the FCB fora file opened as the specified filenumber. This offset address can beused in conjunction with the seg-ment address of the BASIC programto establish the absolute memory ad-dress of the start of the FCB.

It is not necessary to examine thedetailed layout of the FCB as it isclearly described in the BASICmanual. The section that is of interestfor our purpose is the data-bufferportion of the block. This bufferbegins at byte-offset position 188. Thelength of this buffer's data field is de-fined when you first initiate theBASIC program with the /S: (buffersize) command. (The proper form ofthis command for the programspresented here is /S:512, yielding a

decimal 512-byte data-buffer size.) Innormal BASIC operations on randomfiles, the FIELD statement is used topoint to this data buffer. Our objec-tive in this subroutine is to bypass theFIELD statement, which can be toorestrictive when we want to moverelatively large amounts of data intoand out of the buffer and across seg-ment boundaries.

Given the accessibility of the FCB'sdata buffer, we can move data be-tween the screen and the disk byusing the Move subroutine devel-oped above and assigning to it theaddress of the data buffer as eitherthe source or destination address,depending on the direction in whichwe want to move data. The GET orPUT statements can be used to in-itiate the transfer of data between thebuffer and the disk.

The VARPTR statement returns theaddress of the start of the FCB, andan increment of 188 gives the offsetaddress of the first byte of the databuffer. However, we also require thesegment address of the start of theBASIC workspace. This address isstored in reserved-memory locations510-511 (Technical Reference manual,pages 3-22). Therefore, it will be nec-essary to extract this segment addressusing two PEEK statements.

This completes the technical infor-mation necessary for the DOS inter-face. The application will be illus-trated in the last program.

Arguments of CALL

It will often be more practical topass values to the machine-languagesubroutine as arguments of theCALL statement than to use POKE toinput such values to the program aswe have done in previous examples.To illustrate how this can be donewell develop a program that transfersdata between the screen and diskthrough DOS.

This complete program enablesyou to create an image on the screenand then save it on a disk or to havean image previously stored on a disktransferred to the screen. Functionkeys are used to control the actionsof the program, which include clear-ing the screen, getting a screen im-age from a disk, transferring a screen

428 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Number of FilesSimultaneously Accessible

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Number of Screens Per Program

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Circle 321 on inquiry card. BYTE December 1983 429

LOAD"MOVE'UJB"

MAIN

P

ROBRAM

t

DFSUBf

IVER;OUT I ME

♦

"MOVE.

SUB "

Figure 1: The structure of a program that moves data between a disk and the screen.

(la)

(lb)

1st argument SOURCE SEGMENT

1st argument

2nd argument SOURCE OFFSET

2nd argument

3rd argument DESTINATION

3rd argument

SEGMENT

4th argument

4th argument DESTINATION

5th argument

OFFSET

CS register

5th argument WORDCOUNT

PC register

CS register RETURN

DS register

SP- PC register ADDRESS

ES register

Sp-

BP register

Table 1: The stack at the time of a subroutine call (a) and

an illustration of the effect of

pushing register contents onto the stack (b).

image to a disk, and stopping theprogram. The structure of the com-plete program is illustrated in figure1.

The program starts by calling a sub-routine to load the machine-languagesubroutine, a revised version ofMovesub, into memory. The mainprogram then executes the actionsyou have chosen. Whenever youwish to transfer data between a diskand the screen, the main programcalls a driver subroutine to effect thetransfer. The driver subroutine willuse the Movesub routine as required.A listing of the main program is illus-trated in listing 3a, and two of thesupporting subroutines are illus-trated in listing 3b.

The drive subroutines (listing 4) areresponsible for transferring one com-plete screen image to, or from, thedisk. As noted previously, the screencontains a total of 1920 words, or 3840bytes. Because a sector of disk canstore only 512 bytes of data, eight sec-tors will be required for each screenimage. The driver subroutines are re-sponsible for controlling this data

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430 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983

431

flow and allocation of disk space.Note that the calls to Movesub havefive arguments that represent sourcesegment, source offset, destinationsegment, destination offset, andnumber of words to move.

The machine-language subroutineclosely follows the method describedin Appendix C of the IBM BASICmanual. When control is transferredto the machine-language program bythe CALL statement, the memory ad-dresses of the argument values areavailable in the stack pointed at bythe SP. The stack also contains thecode-segment address and program-counter address at the time of thecall, to be used when control is re-turned to the calling program. Thestructure of the stack at this point isillustrated in table la.

The subroutine begins by storingregister values DS, ES, and BP ontothe stack with the resulting changesas illustrated in table lb. The SP iscopied into the base pointer (BP). Wecan then use the machine instruction

36,8B,5E,xx

which will copy into BX the 2 bytesstored at the memory location point-ed at by BP plus the offset xx con-tained in the last byte of the instruc-tion. By assigning the appropriatevalue to this offset, we can selectwhichever argument address wewant from the stack, as illustrated bythe repetitive use of this instructionin listing 5. Once the address of theargument is loaded into BX, the ac-tual value can be transferred directlyinto the desired register as illustratedin the program.

The balance of the program is arepetition of the previous subroutinewith the exception of the final state-ment, the return to the calling pro-gram. When arguments have beenpassed by the CALL statement, it isnecessary to adjust the SP to bypassthese arguments, effectively remov-ing them from the stack. The adjust-ment to the pointer is two times thenumber of arguments, in this case 2times 5 (or 10). This adjustment ismade by using a different version ofthe return instruction, CA, followedby the adjustment, resulting in theText continued on page 438

432 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Listing 3: The main program that transfers data between disk and screen (a) and its sup-porting subroutines (b).

(3a)

io 'mmmmmtmmmmmmmmmmmtmtmmmmmmm

30 '

program to move data between screen & diskette

40 '

-illustration of call statement with arguments

40 '

call movesub (source segment, source offset.

70 '

dest. segment, dest. offset, WDrdcount)

80 '

?o tmmmmmuttmmmmmmmmmummtmtmmmmm

100 '

11 n '

120 DEFINT A-Z

130 CLEAR ,&HBQO0

140 SUBRBUTINESEBMHF00

150 OPEN "BiSCREEN" AS 11

LEN=

=512

ul J.

160 BQSUB 720

'initialize "siovesub"

170 '

180 '

190 '200 '

main program

210 '220 CIS

'clear screen and initialize function keys

230 KEY OFF

240 KEY (1) ON

250 KEY !2) ON

260 KEY 19) ON

270 KEY (10) ON

280 ON KEY (1) B0SUB 490

'stop

290 ON KEY 12! BDSUB 620

'clear screen

300 ON KEY (9) B0SUB 1500

'disk to screen

310 ON KEYi10) BDSUB 1250320 '

'screen to disk

330 '

340 LOCATE 25,1

'action control loop

350 BEEP

360

390400

410420

PRINT "Write on screen, or ENTER for nest action

INPUT; "", ZZZt

LOCATE 25,1

BEEP

PRINT "Fl-stop F2-clear screen F9-disk to screen FlO-screen to disk";

SPACE*! 15);B0TD 410 'wait for function key

STOP

440 '

450 'ttmmmmttmmmmmmmtmmmmnnmmmmmmm

(3b)

460 'mmimmmmmmtmmmmtmmmmmtmmtmmmm

470 '

4B0 ' "stop" subroutine

490 CLOSE #1

500 KEY (1) OFF

510 KEY (2) OFF

520 KEY !9! OFF

530 KEY !10! OFF Listing 3b continued on page 434

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Listing 3b continued:

540 KEY ON550 RETURN 420560 '570 '

580 'nmmmnmnmmtttmmtmtttmmmmnmtmmmtmm

590 '

500 ' clear screen subroutine

610 '

620 '

630 CIS

640 RETURN 340

650 '

660 '

670 'tnttmmtmmtnmmmtmmnttnmttmmmnmtwnm

Listing 4: Driver subroutines for disk-screen data transfers.

1220123012401250126012701280129013001310132013301340135013601370

13801390140014101420

143014401450146014701480149015001510152015301540155015601570

tmmmmtmtmmmummmmmmmmmmmmtmmt

"aove screen to disk" - driver subroutine

LOCATE 25,1:PRINT SPACE* !79);

LOCATE 25,1

BEEP

DEF SEG:PDKE 106,0

INPUT; "F-10 screen to disk; enter screen iaage #:\SCREENIr1A6E7.

SCREEN0FFSET7.=0

H0RBC0UNT7.=256

DEF SEG=SUBR0UTINESEG7.

FOR REC0RDN02=SCREENIf1AGEXt8 TO SCREENIHA6E7.I8+6

CALL HOVESUB7.(SCREENSEB7.,SCREENOFFSETX,FCBSE67.,FCB1DATAOFFSETX,WORDCOUNT?)

PUT #1,REC0RDNDX

SCREENQFFSEn=SCREEN0FFSET7.+512NEXT REC0RDN07.W0RDC0UNTX=!24t80-7»256)

CALL M0VESUB7.(SCREENSEG7.,SCREEN0FFSET7.,FCBSE67.,FCB1DATADFFSET7.,W0RDC0UNT7.)PUT 11, SCREENIMAGEItB+7RETURN 340

'mmttmmmmttmmttmtmmmmmtmmmmtnnmm

"iove disk to screen" - driver subroutine

LOCATE 25,1:PRINT SPACE*!79);

LOCATE 25,1

BEEP

DEF SEG:P0KE 106,0

INPUT; "F-9 disk to screen: enter screen inage #:",SCREENIMAGE*

Listing 4 continued on page 436

434 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Circle 23 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 19&3 435

Listing 4 continued:

158015901600161016201630

1640

16501660167016801690170017101720

SCREENOFFSETX=0

H0RBC0UNTX=256

DEF SE6=SUBR00TINESE6X

FOR REC0RDN0=SCREEN IMA6EX * B TO SCREENIr1A6EXt8+6

BET il.RECORDNO

CALL MOVESUBZ(FCBSE62,FCB1DATAOFFSETX,SCREENSEBX,SCREENOFFSET%,WORDCOUNTX)

SCREEN0FFSEn=SCREEN0FFSET7.+512NEXT RECORDNOW0RDCQUNT7.= !24tB0-7l256)BET II, SCREENIMA6EX18+7

CALL M0VESUB3 (FCBSE6Z, FCB1 DATAOFFSETX, SCREENSEBX, SCREENOFFSETX, HORDCOUNTX)RETURN 340

'tnmtmmtmttnmmtmmmmnmmtntmnmmtmnn

"siovesub" - machine language subroutine- call statenent with argutents

Listing 5: A subroutine with CALL arguments.

6bo 'mtmmmmtmmmmmtmttmmmtmmmtmmmmm

690 '

700 '

710 '

720 '

730 '

740 DEF SE6=SUBR0UTINESEBX

750 RESTORE BIO

760 FOR 1=0 TO 48

770 READ J

7B0 POKE I,J

790 NEXT I

800 ' push DS, ES, BP onto stack; move SP to BP

BIO DATA Mile.J^&hSS^hBb.&hec

820 ' load 1st arguaent address into BX

830 DATA &h36,?!h8b,&h5e,fchl2

840 ' and get value into DS

850 DATA fth36,fchBB,&hH

860 ' load 2nd argument address into BX

870 DATA &h36,JthBb,&h5e,&H10

380 ' and get value into SI

890 DATA Uf3&-9Ul8b,Ut37

900 '

910 DATA &h36,&hBb,&h5e,&h0e

920 '

930 DATA Mi36,&hBe,&h07

940 '

950 DATA &h36,&hSb,&h5e,yi0c

960 '

970 DATA &h36,fchBb,&h3f

980 '

990 DATA fch36,fch8b,&h5e,ith0a

1000 '

1010 DATA &h36,&h8b,&h0f

1020 '

1030 DATA fchfc

1040 '

load 3rd argument address into BX

and get value into ESload 4th argument address into BX

and get value into BIload 5th argument address into BX

and get yalue into CXset direction flag

move instruction

Listing 5 continued on page 438

436 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983 437

Circle 431 on inquiry card.

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"pop" (recover) register values from stackreturn with displacement yalue ft(=2t5 arguments)

define constants

Listing 5 continued:

1050 DATA Ithf3,itha5

1060 '

1070 DATA &h5d,&h07,&hH

1080 '

1090 DATA ihca,&h0a,&h00

1100 '

1110 '

1120 '

1130 H0VESUB7X)

1140 SCREENSEBZ=fcHB000

1150 SCREENOFFSETMHQ

1160 DEF BEG=I(H0

1170 FCBSEBX=PEEK(fcH511)»256+PEEKfItHSlO) 'BASIC segment address

HBO FCBlDATA0FFSET7.= (VARPTR(tl)+18B)

1190 RETURN

1200 '

1210 '

1220 'nmmmmwtmmmtmmmmMtttmmmttwmmmmt

Text continued from page 432:

complete instruction

CA,0A,00

There is one important cautionarycomment to note in transferringmemory addresses as arguments ofa CALL statement, as we have donein this case. Here we wanted to trans-fer addresses for the source, destina-tion, and word counts, as values forthis subroutine. These addressesmust be transferred as 2-byte integerrepresentations. IBM BASIC has apeculiarity concerning the rep-resentation of integers. When integervariables are declared using the DE-FINT statement at the start of a pro-gram, the variables represent integervalues externally but, in fact, arestored in memory in 4, rather than 2,bytes. This representation cannot beused for these machine programs.Only when each integer variable isdeclared to be an integer by havingthe suffix "%" added will the rep-resentation in memory be in true2-byte integer form. For this reasonall of the variables, such as Source-seg%, include the necessary suffix.

Conclusion

The objective of this discussion ofthe use of POKEing in the IBM PChas been to illustrate several short,powerful machine-language subrou-

tines that can be incorporated into aBASIC program. These subroutinesprovided access to the facilities of theBIOS for peripheral device controland methods for moving data fromone location to another in memory,particularly interfacing with DOSand disk storage. The advantages ofthis approach are to combine thespeed and efficiency of machine-levelsubroutines for performing routineand high-volume operations with thesimplicity of using BASIC for devel-oping the logic for a specific applica-tion.

For those readers who have nothad extensive contact with machine-language programs, I hope that theseexamples enable you to investigatethe PC and its inner workings andprovide a useful tool for the develop-ment of your own applications. ■

For Futher Information

For further information on themachine and assembly languageof the 8086 of the IBM PC, refer toThe 8086 Book by Russell Rectorand George Alexy (Berkeley, CA:Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1980).

Hugh R. Hoiuson, Ph.D., C.A., is on the facul-ty of Management at McCill University (1001 Sher-brooke St. W, Montreal, PQ, Canada H3A 1G5).

438 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Become a dBASE IIexpert without cracking abook.

dBASE II is, quitesimply, the best-sellingdatabase managementsystem (DBMS) madefor any computer, ever. And with over150,000 users so far, it's become thestandard for managing data with amicrocomputer.

Jump into dBASE II, disk-first.

The best way to learn to usedBASE II is to use dBASE II. Our on-disk tutorial is a hands-on interactivelearning system that will get you up tospeed on dBASE II, quickly and easily.Then you can use yournew-found knowledgeto create a full businessinformation system thatdoes exactly what youneed done. Asystem that willhandle today'sproblems, yetgrow with you.

dBEST deal in town.

When you buy dBASE II, you'll begetting the most advanced informationmanagement tool available for yourmicro for only $700 (suggested retailprice). At the same time, you'll be gettingthe most advanced teaching tool (thedBASE II On-Disk Tutorial) for free.

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Circle 35 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

439

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Our standard features like the floppydisk controller and printer supportare built-in so they don't take up thevaluable expansion slots you'll needfor adding optional features likecommunications and up to tenmegabytes of hard-disk storage.Which leads to one of our mostexciting advantages...

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Get the business computer thatputs these benefits to your advan-tage. Visit your TI authorized dealeror write: Texas Instruments DataSystems Group CA, Dept. 062BY,P. O. Box 402430, Dallas,TX 75240. Or call toll-free:1-800-527-3500.

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261477 -Rl

BYTE December 1983

441

i Gifford gives you more.

When you go with Gifford, youget more than you ever thoughtpossible from a multiuser computersystem. Or a computer company.More productivity. More flexibility.More expandability. More speed. Andmore support.

It means total performance forevery Gifford customer.

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In addition, our systems can runpopular single user programs, whilegiving you multiuser benefits such asthe ability to share resources likeprinters and hard disks, plusadvanced security features to protectsensitive information. And you canrun true multiuser programs withfeatures like file lockout, record lock-out and shared data bases.

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Circle 199 on inquiry card.

The CMOS 6502

A new version of the 6502 microprocessor does more than savepower—it includes powerful new instructions

Rockwell has introduced a CMOS(complementary metal-oxide semi-conductor) version of the 6502 micro-processor that fills a number of gapsin the standard 6502's instruction setwhile offering the low power-con-sumption advantages of CMOS tech-nology. Pin and software compatiblewith the standard 6502 chip, theCMOS version (designated theR65C02) promises to extend the rangeof applications that 6502-based pack-ages can serve.

A mainstay of the personal-com-puter industry since the first Applecomputer was produced, the stan-dard 6502 microprocessor has a sim-ple, straightforward instruction setand simple interfacing requirements.The instruction set at first appears tobe restricted in comparison to other8-bit processors such as the Z80, but,in practice, the simplicity of the in-struction set often yields a shorter,faster program for common micro-processor applications. The instruc-tion set does have restrictions on theuse of certain addressing modes withsome instructions and has severalminor anomalies that are poorlydocumented.

by Steven Hendrix

In this article I will discuss some ofthe 6502's lesser-known deficienciesand the changes in the CMOS ver-sion that correct some of these prob-lems. I will also review the CMOSversion's instructions and added ad-

Several 6502

instructions don't

behave as you might

expect them to.

dressing modes, and finally I willdescribe some hardware interfacingconsiderations.

Quirks of the 6502

Several instructions on the 6502 donot behave as the documentationwould have you believe. These irreg-ularities rarely affect programs,which makes them more difficult todebug when they do enter into a pro-gram. The quirks discussed here per-tain to the return-from-interrupt in-struction, the branch-instruction tim-ing, the absolute indirect-addressingmode, and bus cycles on certainindex-addressing modes. The CMOS

version's design has not altered thereturn-from-interrupt and branch-instruction timing; therefore, the in-formation presented on these topicspertains to both the standard andCMOS versions of the 6502. TheCMOS version's design, however,has corrected the absolute indirect-addressing mode and bus-cycleanomalies.

RTI versus RTS

The RTI (return-from-interrupt) in-struction appears functionally equiv-alent to the sequence PLP (pull statusregister from stack), RTS (return fromsubroutine). An interrupt is acknowl-edged at the end of an instruction, atwhich time the processor pushes thecontents of the program counter onthe stack, high byte followed by lowbyte, and then pushes the processor-status byte on the stack before jump-ing through the interrupt vector tothe interrupt-handling routine.

The difference between the RTI in-struction and the PLP, RTS sequencelies in the sequence in which the pro-gram counter is incremented. Duringa JSR (jump to subroutine), the valuepushed on the stack is the address of

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

443

the third byte of the JSR instruction.Thus, the program counter is re-loaded during an RTS instruction andthen incremented before the attemptto fetch the next instruction. An in-terrupt pushes the address of the firstbyte of the next instruction to be ex-ecuted, so the RTI instruction reloadsthe program counter and fetches thenext instruction without first in-crementing the program counter.This difference becomes especiallyimportant in writing software fortracing or single-stepping functions.

Branch-Instruction Timing

The branch-instruction timingproblem lies not with the 6502, butrather with its documentation. Theoriginal data sheets specify the tim-ing correctly, but several independenttutorials have incorrectly stated howlong a branch instruction takes.

Unlike most other 6502 instruc-tions, a branch instruction requires avariable number of clock cycles—from two to four, depending on thecircumstances surrounding the

branch.

During the first clock cycle (bus cy-cle), the processor fetches the branchop code. The second cycle fetches thesecond byte of the instruction, whichis the offset to be used if the branchis taken.

Several independenttutorials have confused6502 branch-instruction timingconsiderations.

If the branch condition (flag set orcleared) is not met, the fetch for thenext instruction occurs during thenext clock cycle. If the branch istaken, the next cycle is used to addthe offset to the low-order byte of theprogram counter. If there is a carry orborrow from this operation (consider-ing the offset to be a signed value),a fourth clock cycle is used to updatethe high-order byte of the programcounter.

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The net result is that a branch thatis not taken requires two clock cycles.A branch to a location within thesame page requires three clock cycles,and only in the case of a branch thatcrosses a page boundary does the in-struction require the full four cycles.Typical timing loops, especially forintervals under a millisecond or so,require close attention to these detailsof the branch-instruction timing.

Absolute IndirectMode Wraparound

The absolute indirect-addressingmode works only with the JMP(jump) instruction. In normal use, itis a 3-byte instruction: the first bytecontains the op code (6C)(all instruc-tions and addresses are specified inhexadecimal); the second byte con-tains the low-order part of a memoryaddress; and the third byte containsthe high-order part of that address.The processor loads the byte at thereferenced address into the low halfof the program counter, and it loadsthe byte in the next higher memorylocation into the high half of the pro-gram counter. Thus, the instruction'seffect is to jump to the locationspecified by the two bytes stored atthe address given in the instruction.

A problem arises, however, whenthe jump destination is stored withthe two bytes split between twomemory pages (that is, if the secondbyte of the instruction is FF). The pro-cessor loads the referenced byte intothe low half of the program counterand attempts to increment the ad-dress given in the instruction to loadthe high byte. However, it disregardsthe carry from the increment opera-tion on the low byte of the address,with the result that the high byte ofthe program counter is loaded fromthe memory location 255 bytes priorto the referenced location.

In table 1 the JMP instructions il-lustrate this problem. The left-hand-column code operates correctly, load-ing the value A345 into the programcounter. The right-hand-columncode, however, does not correctlyload the value A345 into the pro-gram. It does load the value 45,stored at location 02FF, into the pro-gram counter's low-order byte, but

444 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 281 on inquiry card.

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Circle 39 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983 445

Brief Form

High LevelLanguage

To Run OnMicro OrMinicomputer

Submit a one-page programdescription to:

ECG

21738 So. AvaionBlvd.P.O. Box 145Carson, CA 90746

All replies will be acknowledged.

A345 J MP (0200)

0200 45

0201 A3

Result: A345 - PC

A345 JMP (02FF)

0200 59

02FF 45

0300 A3

Result: 5945 - PC

Table 1: Two sets of memory contents il-lustrating operation of the 6502 ]MP in-struction. The left-hand column of codeoperates as expected, but due to an instruc-tion-set anomaly, the right-hand column'scode yields an unexpected result becausethe program counter's desired high-orderbyte resides in a different page of memorythan does the low-order byte.

rather than transferring to the nextpage of memory to obtain the high-order program-counter byte fromlocation 0300, it incorrectly loads thevalue stored at location 0200 (59 inthis case) into the program counter'shigh-order byte.

This anomaly can cause majorproblems when you attempt to devel-op general-purpose table-driven soft-ware. If the application program doesnot contain special code to insure thatan indirect jump never references anaddress at the end of a page, unpre-dictable behavior that is difficult totrace can result. The R65C02 report-edly handles the absolute indirect-addressing mode correctly for allcases.

Spurious Bus-Read Cycles

A rare problem with I/O (input/output) devices can occur because ofthe nature of the 6502 bus. Two spe-cific factors combine to cause thisproblem: all I/O is memory-mapped,and there is no such thing as an in-active bus cycle. In some cases, in-dexed instructions can lead to inad-vertent accesses to I/O devices be-cause of these two facts.

The 6502 treats memory and I/Oports alike, viewing both as memory.As a result, a system's decoding hard-ware causes I/O ports to appear atspecific locations that look like partof the memory-address space to the6502. A "read" bus cycle addressinga port acts as an "input" operation,and a "write" cycle acts as an

"output" operation.

The 6502 does not have separatepins for a "read" and a "write" signal,as do other processors such as the8080 or the Z80. Instead, the R/W(read/write) signal is used todesignate a "read" cycle if it is in ahigh state or a "write" cycle if it is ina low state. Timing is coordinated bythe Phase 2 clock. If the read/writeline is high when the Phase 2 clockis high, the device whose address ap-pears on the address bus places dataon the data bus. If the read/write lineis low while the Phase 2 clock is high,the addressed device accepts datafrom the bus.

To show how indexed instructionscan interfere with I/O devices, let'sexamine the bus cycles carried out toload the accumulator from an abso-lute address indexed by the X regis-ter. In standard 6502 mnemonics, thisload instruction is LDA ADDR,X.This instruction takes four cycles un-less the indexing crosses pageboundaries, in which case it takesfive. The latter is the troublemaker.

During the first cycle, the 6502fetches the op code. The second andthird cycles are used to fetch the lowand high bytes of ADDR, respective-ly. If the indexing operation does notcross a page boundary, the sum ofADDR and X is placed on the ad-dress bus during the next cycle, andthe A register is loaded from the databus, finishing the instruction. If apage boundary is crossed, however,a partially formed address is placedon the bus during cycle four and theactual load happens in a fifth cycle.For normal memory access, the fifthcycle does no harm because it is aread cycle, resulting in memory plac-ing data on the bus but no registersor memory being changed by it.(Even if the instruction is a store in-struction, the cycle involving this par-tially formed address is a read cycle.)

Certain I/O devices, however, areaffected by read operations. For in-stance, a spurious read from a 6850ACIA (Asychronous Communica-tions Interface Adapter) could resetthe "receive data register full" flag, sothat a later operation would find thatdata was not available. Various otherI/O devices such as parallel ports and

446 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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©1983 Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc.

BYTE December 1983

447

counter/timers can also be affected byspurious reads. If the indexed ad-dress crosses a page boundary fromthe page in which the I/O device re-sides, the partially formed addressplaced on the bus during the fourthbus cycle can trip the I/O device. TheR65C02 reportedly corrects this prob-lem.

New Instructions

The R65C02 includes a number ofnew instructions, making it morepowerful than the 6502. (The text box"An Assembler for the R65C02" onpage 452 describes an assembler thatsupports the R65C02's extended in-struction set.) Conditional branchingbased on the state of any bit in page0, an unconditional short relativebranch, stack operations for the Xand Y registers, the ability to set orclear any individual bit in page 0,zeroing any byte in memory, and a"test and reset" or "test and set"memory bit instruction have beenadded.

The BBRx (branch on bit reset) in-

structions permit any bit in page 0 tobe used as a flag. These are 3-byte in-structions, with the op code in thefirst byte, the page-0 address of thebyte containing the flag in the secondbyte, and the relative jump displace-ment in the third byte. Bits 6 through

The R65C02 includes anumber of new

instructions, making itmore powerful thanthe standard 6502.

4 of the op code give (in binary) thenumber of the bit within the page-0byte to be tested. The processor readsthe byte from page 0, checks the bitdesignated by the op code, and con-tinues normal program flow if thedesignated bit is a 1. If it is a 0, a nor-mal signed relative short branch is ex-ecuted, using the third byte of the in-struction for the offset. The BBSx(branch on bit set) instructions do the

same thing except that they take thebranch only if the referenced bit is setto 1.

Unconditional Short Branch

The unconditional short-branch in-struction (BRA) eases writing of po-sition-independent code and in somecases allows shorter code. With the6502, a sequence such as SEC (setcarry), BCS (branch if carry set) issometimes necessary to cause an un-conditional position-independentjump. Even that sequence requires 3bytes, as does a normal absolutejump (JMP). The BRA instructionpermits an unconditional, posi-tion-independent branch requiringonly 2 bytes.

Four new stack-manipulation in-structions have been added to act onthe X and Y registers. In 6502 pro-grams, the X and Y registers could bepushed only by transferring themfirst to the A register. Thus, the nor-mal sequence for saving the registersfor an interrupt routine went some-thing like this: PHA (push the A

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register on the stack), TXA (transferX to A), PHA, TYA (transfer Y to A),PHA. This sequence required extratime and memory and also made itdifficult for a routine to save andrestore all the registers and make useof a value passed to it in the Aregister. The four new instructionspermit direct pushing and pulling ofboth the X and Y registers.

Set and Clear Page-0 Bits

Companions to the BBRx and BBSxinstructions, the RMBx (reset-mem-ory bit) and SMBx (set-memory bit)instructions permit setting and clear-ing single-bit flags in page 0 withoutaffecting any internal processor reg-isters accessible to the programmer.As before, bits 6 through 4 of the opcode specify which bit is affected,and the second byte of the instruc-tion specifies the page-0 locationaffected.

The new STZ (store zero) instruc-tion permits zeroing an entire byteanywhere in memory without affect-ing processor registers. Four availableaddressing modes allow a 2-byteform for page-0 operations and a3-byte form for general addresses,either of which may be indexed bythe X register.

The TRB (test and reset bits) in-struction is a composite of the 6502BIT (bit test) and AND (logical and)instructions. The N (negative) flag isset to the value of bit 7 of the refer-enced memory location, and the V(overflow) flag is set to the value ofbit 6. A logical AND is then per-formed between the referencedmemory location and the A register,with the result stored into the mem-ory location (A is unaffected), andthe Z (zero) flag is changed to in-dicate the result of this operation (setif the result is 0, reset if it is nonzero).Note that, just as on the 6502, the Nand V flags pertain to the value inmemory before the AND operationtakes place. The TSB (test and setbits) instruction is similar except thata logical OR is substituted for thelogical AND operation.

Addressing Modes

In addition to totally new instruc-tions, the R65C02 enables some exist-

ing addressing modes to be usedwith instructions that did not acceptthose modes on the original 6502. Italso adds an entirely new addressingmode usable with a number of pres-ent instructions that should proveuseful in making better use of theprocessor registers.

The 6502 has no simple indirect-addressing mode other than the JMPinstruction. With no 16-bit registers tohold addresses, 6502 programs fre-quently keep addresses in page 0, es-pecially when passing addresses toand from subroutines. However, theonly way to use those addresses to

The R65C02 includes a

simple indirect-addressing mode usinga 2-byte address.

access the data to which they pointis through the pre- or post-indexedindirect-addressing modes. Thus, acommon sequence in programs con-sists of loading the Y register with 0,followed by an operation using the"indirect, indexed by Y" addressingmode. Not only does this sequenceresult in extra code requiring addi-tional memory space and executiontime, but it ties up the Y register,which might be better used in otherways.

The R65C02 corrects this deficien-cy by adding a simple indirect-ad-dressing mode, which uses a 2-byteaddress stored in page 0. This ad-dressing mode can be used with allthe major accumulator instructions:ADC (add with carry), AND (logicaland), CMP (compare memory withaccumulator), EOR (logical exclusive-or), LDA (load accumulator frommemory), ORA (logical inclusive-or),SBC (subtract with borrow), and STA(store accumulator to memory).

New Modes for BIT

The BIT (bit test) instruction of the6502 is severely limited in addressingmodes. This instruction accepts onlytwo modes: absolute (direct) and 0page. Because this instruction func-

tions as a logical AND except that theresult is discarded, it is normallyused to test flags. Most such testswould be most conveniently donewith an immediate addressing mode,which is not permitted. Instead, 6502programs must use a backward formof logic, loading the test mask usingthe immediate mode and then doingthe test on the data directly frommemory.

The R65C02 BIT instruction permitsadditional addressing modes—im-mediate, 0-page indexed, and abso-lute indexed. These added modescover the vast majority of the situa-tions in which this instruction wouldbe used.

Increment andDecrement Accumulator

Arithmetic on the X and Y registersis not permitted by the 6502; neitheris incrementing or decrementing theaccumulator. Though such a need israre, it does arise, and the lack of anaccumulator-addressing mode for theincrement and decrement instructionresults in various kludges to get thedesired result. Three alternate waysare commonly used. The most ob-vious is to use the ADC (add withcarry) instruction to add an im-mediate value of 1. Because the 6502does not provide a simple "add" in-struction (without carry), this alter-nate method also requires a preced-ing CLC (clear carry) instruction, un-less the state of the carry bit fromprior operations is known. Alterna-tively, setting the carry bit followedby adding an immediate value of 0accomplishes the same thing.

If the X or Y registers are not in useat the particular point in the pro-gram, it is possible to transfer thevalue from the A register to one ofthose registers and take advantage ofthe increment or decrement instruc-tions for X and Y A third method,most commonly used when the nextstep is to store the accumulator valuein memory, is to store the A registervalue first and then increment it inmemory, because the INC (incre-ment) and DEC (decrement) instruc-tions accept several different address-ing modes for operations directly ondata in memory.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 451

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The R65C02 eliminates all of thisfoolishness by allowing the accumu-lator-addressing mode to be usedwith the increment and decrementinstructions, enabling them to oper-ate on all three of the general-pur-pose registers.

Hardware Factors

The R65C02 has the electrical char-acteristics you would expect from thecurrent generation of CMOS inte-grated circuits. Versions for speeds to6 MHz will probably be available.Power consumption is low and varieswith speed, as is normal for CMOStechnology. With the clock stopped,10 /*W power consumption is listed asmaximum. Maximum power con-sumption in normal operation islisted as 4 mA (20 mW) per MHz,making battery-powered operationfeasible when this chip is combinedwith the new CMOS memory chips.

Rockwell claims that the basicR65C02 version is pin and softwarecompatible with the 6502. Anotherversion, the R65C102, can generate allclock signals on-chip; it needs onlyan external TTL (transistor-transistorlogic) level single-phase clock input(as does the 6502) or an external RCnetwork or crystal. It also has a quad-rature clock output, which is not pro-vided by the 6502. This clock goeshigh in the middle of the phase-1clock and returns low in the middleof the phase-2 clock.

The 6502 has not been commonlyused in applications requiring multi-ple processors or direct-memory ac-cess, largely because it cannot float itsaddress bus. Both the R65C102 andanother version, the R65C112, havesignals to permit bus sharing. Thebus-enable (BE) signal permits an ex-ternal device to cause the processorto float the address and data busesand the R/W signal, permittingaccess to the system buses. To pre-vent bus arbitration from interferingwith read-modify-write instructionssuch as shifts and increments, amemory-lock (ML) output signal isprovided to notify external devicesthat the processor cannot relinquishthe bus until completion of theinstruction. The R65C112 is designedto be used as a slave processor, re-

quiring a two-phase clock input thatwould be generated by the systemmaster processor.

Summary

The CMOS version of the 6502 chipfills in a number of gaps in the 6502instruction set in addition to addingthe obvious advantages of CMOStechnology. The characteristics of thenew chip permit the 6502 to expandin both directions into areas that werepreviously impractical. Completelybattery-powered systems are nowfeasible for small, dedicated applica-tions. Additionally, the added buscontrol permits multiple-processorsystems and sophisticated direct-memory-access schemes to be usedwith this processor.

Perhaps the most impressive fea-ture of the CMOS version is completecompatibility with the 6502 specifica-tions, permitting the enormous baseof 6502-based hardware and softwareto be used with the newer processor.The R65C02 processor represents astep above the 6502 similar to the stepfrom the 6800 to the 6502, withoutthe accompanying compatibilityproblems. The current popularity of6502-based personal computers pro-vides a large market for new applica-tions of this processor. ■

An Assembler for the R65C02

HEXASM is a full-feature residentassembler that supports the R65C02 mi-croprocessor's extended instruction set. Inaddition to including such features asmacros, conditional-assembly, and source-file-chaining functions, it can optionallybe configured to either accept or reject con-structs that are unique to the R65C02.HEXASM runs under HEXDOS on OhioScientific's OSI C1P and is available for$38.50 from Hx Computer Products, Route8, Box 81E, New Braunfels, TX 78130 orThe 6502 Program Exchange, 2920 WestMoana, Reno, NV 89509.

Steve Hendrix, an instructor pilot for the U.S.Air Force, has a B.S. in computer science and mathe-matics from the USAF Academy. He can be reachedat Route 8, Box 81E, New Braunfels, TX 78130. Hishobbies include computers and astronomy.

452 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983 455

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A Tiger Meets a Dragon

An examination of the mathematical properties of dragon curvesand a program to print them on an IDS Paper Tiger printer

Martin Gardner's "MathematicalGames" column in Scientific American(now Douglas Hofstadter's "Meta-magical Themas" column) was a trea-sure chest of ideas for computer hob-byists. A few years ago Gardnerdescribed a computer-plotted exam-ple of a design he called a dragoncurve (see figure 1). If you use yourimagination you can see the resem-blance to the classic oriental dragon—hence its name. Donald Knuth,mathematician and computer scien-tist, has done a great deal of workdocumenting the significance of thedragon-curve design and its relation-ship to number theory. Knuth was soimpressed with the design that he re-produced it in ceramic tiles for theentryway of his home.

Fascinated by the beauty of dragoncurves and intrigued by their binarynature, I wanted to create such de-signs to adorn my own walls. I wrotetwo programs for my TRS-80 ModelI to output the design to my IDSPaper Tiger printer: a curve generatorand a plotter emulator. In this articleI will describe the theory of thedragon curve, methods of its con-struction, and its relationship to thebroader generalized dragon design.I will also describe how to use TRS-80disk memory to enhance the graphicspotential of the IDS Paper Tiger,

by Dan Rollins

enabling it to work like a plotter to fillan 8V2- by 11-inch printer page withhigh-resolution figures.

Constructing the Dragon Curve

Dragons are designated by size, ororder, of the dragon curve. There areseveral ways to construct these de-signs. The first two methods I de-scribe will help you visualize the pro-

Folding the paper

using any arbitrary

sequence of directions

will generate a line

with the properties of

a classical dragon

curve.

cedure. The latter two are algorithmssuitable for computer programming.A way to define a dragon designgeometrically is shown in figure 2.Start with a large right angle. This isan order-1 design. Erase part of thetwo line segments and replace eachwith smaller "folds" that intersect atright angles to create an order-2 de-sign. To build larger dragon curves,follow the same procedure using thepreviously defined design. At each

step, replace n straight lines with nright angles to create an order-H + 1dragon.

Another way to generate simple,low-order dragons is to fold and re-fold a narrow band of paper. Thisidea was the basis for physicist JohnE. Heighway's discovery of thedragon curve. Visualize a flat strip ofcash-register tape—an order-0 dragoncurve. Fold it once in the center, andyou have an order-1 dragon. Bisectingthe tape by folding it n times, alwaysin the same direction, will create anorder-n dragon curve (see figure 3).Because this operation will divide thepaper into In areas, an unfoldedorder- n tape will have 2" —1 right-angle creases. (An old saw says thatregardless of its thickness and length,no strip of paper can be folded morethan seven times, but for this discus-sion, we will ignore this physicalrestriction.)

Now unfold the tape so that thecreases form 90-degree angles. Theunfolded tape will have a pattern ofleft and right turns that wind aroundin seemingly random directions. Thedragon sequence is easier to describewhen we designate a left turn as L,a right turn as R, and give the nameS to the typographical string (the L,Rsequence). If we choose L as thedirection the tape bends on its first

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 457

Figure 1: An order-12 classical dragon curve.This dragon curve was constructed on aTRS-80 Model I using the Gendragn program.It was printed on an IDS Paper Tiger, usedwith the Diskplot print routines as a plottingdevice.

ORDER 1

_^

/ ORDER 2

ORDER 3

ORDER 4

Figure 2: The geometric method of construct-ing dragon curves. Note that the side of dragoncurve order-n becomes the hypotenuse oforder-n+L

ORDER 0

ORDER 1

ORDER 2

ORDER 3

UNFOLDED ORDER 3

Figure 3: The paper-tape method of construction.

ORDER-4 DRAGON -

DESCRIBED WITH ARCS

( AS SEEN IN HARD COPY FIGS.)

Figure 4: An order-4 dragon "roundedoff" using (quadrant) arcs at every90-degree angle. Compare to figure 1. Theoutput of Diskplot uses this procedure.

.1 J i. .1

Figure 6: Folding the paper tape alternatelyleft, then right, forms this isosceles dragon.

Figure 5: Four order-7 dragons placed "tailto tail."

458 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

fold, the lowest-order strings aredescribed as follows:

S(l) = L

S(2) = LLR

S(3) = LLRLLRR

S(4) = LLRLLRRLLLRRLRR

Building dragon sequences with acomputer is a matter of manipulatingthe L,R strings. Notice that S(n+1) isa superset of sequence S(«). Theemerging pattern can be extrapolatedby either of the following recursivetechniques:

Algorithm 1: To S(rc), add an L.Then add the string obtained by in-verting the center character of S(rc);that is, if the center character is an R,make it an L and vice versa. Thus, be-cause S(2) is LLR, S(3) is made up ofLLR + L + LRR.

Algorithm 2: Add an L to S(«),then add the inverted and reversedsequence S(n). For example, becauseS(3) = LLRLLRR, its inverted form isRRLRRLL. Rearranging these charac-ters so that the last is first and thenext to last is second, etc., creates thestring LLRRLRR. So S(4) is S(3) + L+S(3) or LLRLLRR + L + LLRRLRR.The result is akin to placing twoorder-n dragons snout to snout, pro-ducing the order-M+1 dragon. Sym-bolically, this algorithm most closelyresembles the folding of the cash-reg-ister tape and is the method used inlisting 1, the BASIC dragon-generat-ing program (Gendragn).

The dragon generated by either ofthese algorithms will have some in-teresting properties: the line repre-senting any order dragon will nevercross itself; any point along the trac-ing grid will be touched by at mosttwo bends of the line, and no linesegment will ever be traced twice.This is easiest to see when the cor-ners of the bends are rounded (seefigure 4).

Figure 5 illustrates a significanttopographical property of dragoncurves. That is, that an order- oodesign will cover exactly one-quarterof the infinite plane (OK, one-quarterof oo is oo, but never mind that); foursuch dragons joined at their tails (seethe center of figure 5) will fill the in-finite plane without crossing oneanother.

j4

CCkj

'Sod; xxxxxj«oc„ 3Sooc„ *xxx 'Soot* .»>:<

w

xxxxx^.«»s. "»>:. "Wt.

^cc* ;cc? »>:< >»:<ST TS ST

at 5v x

Figure 7: An illustration of the recursive nature of the isosceles dragon. Each triangle is madeup of combinations of smaller triangles.

The Generalized Dragon Curve

Until now we've discussed only the"classical dragon curve," the figuredrawn when the cash-register tape isalways folded over to the left. It iseasy to see that folding always to theright produces a mirror-image of theclassical dragon (the "head" is the"tail" and vice versa). An alternatingsequence of directions can also beused in the folding process. Figure 6is a drawing of an order-12 "general-ized dragon" when the first fold is tothe left, the second to the right, thenext to the left, etc. After the ap-parent randomness of the classicaldragon, this one may come as a sur-prise. However, note the standarddragon features: the design will fillone-quarter of the plane, and it nevercrosses over itself. Figure 7 is anorder-5 dragon with this LRLRLdirection-reversal sequence. Therecursive nature of this beast was il-lustrated by changing the dot patternat each step of the inversion process.

Going one step further, it can be

proven that folding the paper usingany arbitrary sequence of directions willgenerate a line with the samedraconic properties. (See reference 2for the elegant proof formulated byDavis and Knuth.) There are, ofcourse, an infinite number of suchcombinations, some of them quiteintriguing.

Given a direction-reversal se-quence:

DRS = d, d2 d3 dA . . . d„

the generalized dragon is constructedby the formula:

S(n) = S(l) +_dL + S(l) + S(2) +d2 + S(2) + . . . + S(n-l)+ d„ + S(n-l)

Figures 8 and 9 are dragon curvesgenerated using the randomlyselected direction-reversal sequencesprinted beneath each. These gener-alized dragon curves piqued mycuriosity enough that I wrote aBASIC program to generate and draw

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

459

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460 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

' It would take years

at work to master the

techniques we learn at

the Wang Institute

in three semesters."

The Wang Institute is an indepen-dent, non-profit graduate school whichoffers software professionals a uniqueopportunity to earn a Master's degreein software engineering."Whatmakes the M.S.E.program so exciting? Many ofthe courses have never beenpresented before anywhere."

By combining formal academicmethods with real-world industrialpractices, the Wang Institute enablesstudents to master software toolsand techniques that can be applied

immediately in the workplace."The environment here isn't justconducive to learning, it makesnot learning almost impossible."

Find out why some of the best soft-ware engineers in America are study-ing at the Wang Institute.Applications from part-time candidates arebeing accepted forJanuary, 1984.Part-time studentsmay take one courseper semester.

For application information,write or call: Janis Ackerman,Wang Institute of GraduateStudies, School of InformationTechnology, Tyng Road, Tyngsboro,MA 01879, (617)649-9731.

NameAddress

Company

Tel.

Address

City State Zip

Yrs. of Software Development Exp.

BYTE December 1983 461

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/ '. > '». >' >. > > t \ > \ > O > j O '■_> O ) -*' "'■ * "'■ -* 30 >,-'^_0_>'_0^0*- - r-C OwOu CO'IC COX OX *_ CX-CV. OOl *•- GCC\. CvJ- CCX^ IV. QwC ^- •*- SXX <-0^.v-

, -. , . , -, ■. ;, yj f ; i ) -j f i > > ■, , > > > _, ;, j > _,_> > > ^ > > i />>>/> >_^^V^-'^-,^V'^

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Figure 8: A nonclassical order-12 dragon, using the arbitrary sequence LRRRRLRRLR en-titled "Four-Alarm Fire."

peatedly adding the x and y offsetsfound in the direction table to thecurrent value of the x,y pointer andplotting the dot at the new location.The program doesn't actually draw acurve at each fold. Instead, a cornerof the fold is simply chopped off bymoving simultaneously in both theold and new directions.

To prevent the dragon from mov-ing off the page, the program willautomatically center the designbefore drawing it. This is done bymaking a "dry run" through the de-sign, accumulating the high and lowvalues of the x and y coordinates gen-erated. When the dragon won't fithorizontally, it is rotated by initializ-ing the starting direction differentlyand recalculating the starting x andy. This centering function is devicedependent in that the page size(length and width) are those valuesused by the Diskplot plotteremulator.

TRS-80 Model I video resolution isonly fine enough to display dragoncurves of order 5 and below. After ex-perimenting with the algorithm for awhile, I began craving the 5000 +dots-per-square-inch resolution avail-able on my Paper Tiger printer.

them. The program that builds thedragon sequence is relatively simple.

Computer Dragons

Listing 1 generates the dragon se-quence and then interprets it asmovement of an x,y pointer. Thecoordinate pairs generated may beused to draw on a video screen ormove a pen around a plotter surface.I used this program in conjunctionwith the Diskplot routines (listing 2,described later) to produce the ex-amples included with this article.Only a few minor modifications areneeded to have the output sent to theTRS-80 Color Computer screen oranother high-resolution device.

First the program asks for the orderof the dragon to be drawn. You arethen asked to input the direction-reversal sequence—the string of Lsand Rs mentioned earlier. Answering<G> generates random dragonssuch as those in figures 8 and 9.

Answering <ENTER> or <L> or<R> will generate a classical dragoncurve. The SCALE? prompt deter-mines the length of the line segmentsbetween the folds.

The dragon sequence is held in aninteger array as a series of positiveand negative ls. Once this series hasbeen generated, the program addseach successive value to a directionpointer that references a table hold-ing the x,y offsets needed to move the"pen" in the desired direction. Figure10 shows how this is accomplished.When the current direction is 1(north) and the fold is to the left(counterclockwise), the directionpointer is adjusted to point to thewest, the number-4 direction. Add-ing -1 to the current direction in thiscase will yield an underflow value of0. Whenever underflow or overflowis indicated, the algorithm cycles thepointer to the correct value.

The line segments are drawn by re-

Tiger Graphics

The IDS Paper Tiger graphics op-tion gives the user complete controlover the placement of dots on aprinted page. High-resolution graph-ics patterns are displayed by selec-tively energizing the print-needlepins as the print head moves acrossthe page.

The printer enters graphics modethe first time it receives the ASCII(American National Standard Codefor Information Interchange) controlcharacter ETX (hexadecimal 03).Thereafter it interprets characters asbinary-dot patterns. The bits of theprinted byte indicate the fire/'don't firedecision for each of the seven pins ofthe print head. Bits 0-6, set in the out-put byte, energize the pins from topto bottom, respectively. Thus, aCHR$(127) is printed as a vertical lineof seven dots. To print the top andfourth dots, for example, sendCHR$(9)-setting bits 0 and 3.

To change modes or print a carriage

462 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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mk

aaS

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<j%BC%z&

c<

¥

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<<&£

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Figure 9: Nonclassical order-12 dragon (RRLLRRRRRRRL) entitled "Squadron Formation."

return, the ETX code is used as anescape character. Once you enter thegraphics mode, you must send a se-quence of two codes for control ac-tions. The first tells the printer to in-terpret the second as a control action.CHR$(3); CHR$(11), for example,forces a vertical tab (graphics linefeedand carriage return). The sequenceCHR$(3); CHR$(2) exits graphicsmode, forcing resumption of normalmode. To print the graphics character3—firing the top and second pins-print the ETX twice: CHR$(3);. CHR$(3).

While all seven dots may beprinted, the vertical tab used in con-

tinuous scanning will move the printhead down only six dots—resultingin the seventh dot being overwrittenon the next pass. For all practical pur-poses, then, only six dots (ASCIIcharacters 0 through 63) can beprinted per line. Also, bit 7 is ignoredby the printer in any mode.

Interfacing the Paper Tiger with aTRS-80 can be a trifle confusing. Cer-tain codes that have had LPRINT per-formed on them while in graphicsmode produce bizarre results. Theproblem lies in Radio Shack'sLPRINT driver. The Level 2 BASICfirmware filters out some codes; itsimply will not print them. Other

NORTH1RIGHT 1 + )-^

WEST 4

LEFT (-) y

3SOUTH

| 2 EAST

DIRECTIONS

X-OFFSET

Y-OFFSET

NORTH

EAST

SOUTH

0

+ 1

0

-1

0

+ 1

WEST

-1

0

Figure ID: The "pen" is moved by adding off-sets to an x,y pointer. The directions pointeris cycled according to the L,R sequence of thedragon.

characters are interpreted unde-sirably. The graphics data byteCHR$(12), for example, is printed asa series of CHR$(13) carriage returns,a "soft" formfeed. Any graphicsLPRINT string that contains aCHR$(12) will print a series of char-acters with the first, third, and fourthbits set—not quite what you had inmind.

My solution to this problem is toperform an OR on a value of 128 (80hexadecimal) to each byte sent to theprinter. This setting of bit 7 does notalter the way the graphics codes areprinted and the LPRINT driver won'tintercept or change such characters.Another method of solving this prob-lem is to write your own printerdriver.

My Paper Tiger, Model 440-G, lackssome of the options of the newermodels: printing is unidirectionaland there is no proportional spacing.The graphics feature, however, iscompatible with all models that havegraphics capabilities. Only three ofthe dot-spacing fonts (8.3, 10, and 12characters per inch in normal mode)may be used for graphics output. Themanual suggests that the 16.5-cpifont be avoided due to excessiveprint-head heat buildup. Also, graph-ics characters sent in this characterdensity tend to not line up evenly.

The 12-characters-per-inch (cpi)

464 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

HowtheTtSS-IImakesshort worikof long problems*

Whenever you can solvecomplex problems quickly andaccurately, you're ahead of thegame. And that's exactly whatthe TI-55-II does for you. Bygiving you 112 pre-programmedfunctions (like definite integrals),it allows you to take short cutswithout losing accuracy. You'llaccomplish a lot more in lesstime which means increasedefficiency.

With our TI-55-II you cantackle problems you thoughtcould only be solved with higher-priced programmables. You're notonly getting the standard sliderule functions but also statistical

Copyright © 1983 Texas Instruments

capabilities. This way you canwork out linear regressions, per-mutations and combinations, justto name a few.

The TI-55-II also gives youenough programmability toeliminate a lot of repetitive keypunching. Our Constant Mem-ory™ keeps programs and dataon tap, even when the calculatoris turned off. So once you'veentered a formula, you can simplyput in the variables to get yoursolution. The Liquid Crystal Dis-play shows your answers in stan-dard, scientific or engineeringnotations — clearly and precisely.

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mode yields the best horizontal-to-vertical dot-spacing ratio. In thismode, 496 bytes can be printed acrossthe page. A box 496 by 496 covers anarea 7.7 inches wide by 6.9 incheshigh. The printer can print 120 lineson an 8V2-by-ll sheet of paper. Witha V2-inch border on each side, the ef-fective resolution is 496 by 720.

A Plotter Emulator

Many printer manufacturers de-scribe their product as having"graphics capability," but gettingrecognizable graphics from a dot-matrix printer is tricky. Programswritten for generating video or plot-ter graphics invariably employ a two-dimensional coordinate system. Thatis, given a horizontal x ordinate anda vertical y ordinate, a video programwill perform a SET on that position,making it visible. A plotter will per-form a MOVE on a pen to the givencoordinate from its last position,drawing a line as it goes. Neither ac-tion corresponds to what goes on indot-matrix printing.

The graphics potential of your dot-matrix printer can be realized whena control program is used to emulatethe actions of a plotter. Because theprinter can't physically move thepaper up and down under the printhead, this action must be simulatedby a program that writes to memory.

A simple version of such a programwould create a two-dimensional in-

teger array, set each element to 0,then move an x,y "pointer" aroundthe matrix setting the indicatedelements to 1 as it goes. After this"plotting" is finished, a separate rou-tine is needed to examine the arraysix lines at a time, to build the char-acters expected by the printer.

While this method may be the eas-iest to work with, it is enormouslywasteful in terms of memory—an in-teger array of only 125 by 125 wouldoccupy all of the approximately 32Kbytes of available memory. And theprint routine would be laborious. Amore sophisticated program, oneusing all 16 bits of each array element,could store 256K dots (an array of,say, 500 by 500) again at the expenseof processing time for both the plot-ting and printing routines. Also,when most of the computer's mem-ory is preempted by a printer array,the application program may be hardpressed for its own storage needs.

The Paper Tiger can place over350K dots on a page. I needed almostevery one of these points to print theorder-12 dragon seen in figure 1. Tobe able to access every potential doton the page, I wrote Diskplot, a setof multipurpose plotting and printingroutines that use disk storage interac-tively with memory—a virtual-mem-ory plotting system.

The idea of virtual memory hasbeen around about as long as diskdrives have been interfaced with

computers. The concept is simple.While memory tends to be severelylimited, there may be plenty of stor-age available on disk. A virtual-mem-ory management system allocates tothe user a block of RAM (random-access read/write memory) and alarger block of disk memory. Whenthe user's program or data won't allfit into the RAM area, it is broken intosegments or "pages." The page cur-rently being accessed by the com-puter processor unit is held in RAM.When a different page is needed, thesystem saves the old page (invisiblyto the user) and brings in the newone from the disk. The user may ac-cess memory as if the entire blockwas always in memory.

A virtual-memory operating sys-tem requires a translating or "map-ping" algorithm to keep track ofwhich page is in memory and to ad-just the virtual addresses to reflectthe actual RAM addresses. Whenonly one page is in memory, this al-gorithm can be simple. However, thesystem becomes more complex (andmore useful) when several pages areheld in memory at the same time. Inthis case, the mapping algorithmshould also have some sort of plan-ahead feature to anticipate whichpages the user will need in futureaddressing.

The efficiency of the system islargely determined by the amount oftime spent accessing the disk. The

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466 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 55 on inquiry card.

Computer'sChoice.

Primage I

Sooner or later, you'll probably want to use yourbusiness computer for word processing or datacommunications applications. And if you let yourcomputer choose the best printer to provide letterquality printing at high production speeds, itsfirst choice would be Primage I.

That's because when all the facts are entered, it'sclear that the new Primage I gives you more for yourmoney than any other daisy printer on the market—45 cps, heavy duty, letter quality printing, with anautomatic sheet feeder, for under $2,000.

The lower cost and higher performance are allmade possible by a totally new control technologythat allows simple, inherently more reliable steppingmotors to run at much higher speeds. The designeliminates lots of parts that you find in other serial

printers. Parts you don't have to pay for and, justas important, parts you don't have to maintain.Primage I features simplified controls, easy paperfeeding and a wide choice of fonts. It also comeswith a unique 100-spoke daisy wheel that providesswitch selectable multiple languages, and an easyaccess, easy set-up interface that connects topopular PC's without special cable fittings.

When you compare Primage I with top qualitydaisy printers and sheet feeders that cost upto 50% more, we're confident you'll make the samechoice your computer would. So come into yourcomputer dealer today for a first hand demonstra-tion. Or contact us for detailed product literature.Primages Inc., 620 Johnson Ave.,Bohemia, NY 11716 (516) 567-8200.

PRIMAGESINC.

BYTE December 1983 4<J7

BEFORE PAGING[I RECORD 1

Hi

Li'1

RECORD

| 191| 106

l_-

RECORD I7I

I

RECORD 181

I

RECORD 19lI

RAMWINDOW <

BUFFER 2

BUFFER 3

BUFFER 5

V

211

._J221

._J23 I

._J -

r-

RECORD 25l

20

AFTER PAGING

RECORD Tl

1

RECORD 2|

RECORD 17

1

RECORD 181

RECORD 19

RECORD 20

COPIED

I

h-II—

RECORD 26

RECORD 27

POINT TO--PLOT

READFROMDISK

RECORD 28l

RECORD 2TI

I

RECORD 221

■A

BUFFER 2

SUFFER 3

BUFFER 4

BUFFER 5

=1=1

_ I27~l

RECORD 29|

I

f—

I

l_.

J

RECORD 281I

RECORD 29

1 DISK

[SECTOR 1

DISKSECTOR 2 I

GRAPHICSBITS 0-5 —

BIT 6

UNUSED-

-1 BYTE

255BYTES

242BYTES

-BIT 7 ALWAYS ■ 1

Figure 11: The virtual-memory mapping algorithm used in Diskplot. Records are moved inand out of RAM buffers. When the "pen" is directed off the page (point to plot in record 25,at left), part of a new page is scrolled into memory.

number of disk accesses may belimited by reading and writing a largenumber of pages, while the amountof time per access can be shortenedby using a small number of pages.An optimum virtual-memory sizewill lie somewhere between all ofmain memory and a single diskbuffer.

Radio Shack's (Microsoft) DiskBASIC includes all the tools neces-sary to implement these concepts onthe TRS-80. Instead of packing bitsinto an integer array for later interpre-tation, I chose to build a random-access file to store the data on diskand use BASIC strings to hold thein-memory data. Standard GET andPUT commands scroll data in and outof memory, and no special VARPTRor POKE tricks are needed.

All data is stored as characters for-matted for direct output to theprinter. This method has both advan-tages and limitations. The main ad-vantage is the speed of the printout.The disk sectors hold data that maybe directly (with one exception) out-put to the printer. The printout rou-tine is simple—read and perform anLPRINT on two sectors per outputline. A pageful of graphics is outputwithout waiting for BASIC to do atime-consuming conversion. Theonly exception occurs when an ETXdata byte is encountered in the file.That byte must be printed twice.Typically the print head never haltsits motion across the page. Thegraphics examples included with thisarticle were each printed in less thantwo minutes.

As with many computer programs,the speed advantage is gained onlyat the expense of storage efficiency.Preformatting the data for printeroutput is inefficient in at least twoways. First, only 6 bits of any byte areseen by the printer, so 25 percent ofeach byte goes unused. Second, tostay compatible with TRSDOS, diskbuffers must have an LRL (logicalrecord length) of 255 bytes. (Theoret-ically, all 256 bytes are usable, butbecause the records are manipulatedas strings and BASIC strings are only255 characters long, the task becomeseasier when the 256th byte is ig-nored.) Because a horizontal printline is 496 bytes wide, I use two255-byte buffers for each. This meansthat 14 bytes at the end of the seconddisk buffer remain empty—another 3percent loss of storage efficiency. Ifyou use the NEWDOS80 or LDOSvariable-length records, you caneliminate some of the waste.

Mapping Memory

Figure 11 illustrates the virtual-memory mapping algorithm I de-vised for Diskplot. Two random-access disk sectors contain the datafor one printed line—six vertical (y)rows of 496 horizontal (x) columns.This 510-byte area is a buffer when itis in memory. The same two sectorsare a record when they are on disk.For maximum flexibility, Diskplotallows a variable number of buffers.

The buffers are a "window" to therecords stored on disk. This windowis moved up and down within thefile, according to the current positionof the x,y pointer—the simulatedplotter "pen."

The strategy for paging records inand out of the buffer area is as fol-lows. Before any dot is plotted, they ordinate is compared to the mini-mum and maximum y rows current-ly being held in buffers (the xordinate need not be tested as all col-umns for a given y will be in mem-ory). At some point the pen will bedirected to move off the page-beyond the edge of the current view-ing window. To accommodate theroving pen, the window is scrolled toa new position in the file, a positionthat places the pen at the center of

468 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983

469

the new page.

In figure 11, the user has chosen touse five buffers. The paging examplebegins with buffers 1 to 5 holdingrecords 20 to 24. The calling programhas directed the pen to write torecord 25, which is not currently inmemory. The window is moveddown by first saving buffers 1, 2, and3 to disk records 20, 21, and 22—scrolling these records out of thewindow. Then buffers 4 and 5 arecopied to buffers 1 and 2. This actionis the same as moving the highernumbered records to the lower num-bered buffers; i.e., records 23 and 24are placed into buffers 1 and 2. Final-ly, new records 25, 26, and 27 are readinto buffers 3, 4, and 5—scrollingthem into the window.

The top of the new page has beenformed from the lower part of the oldpage. The bottom of the new pageholds the data read from disk. Thepen is then pointed to record 25 heldin buffer 3, the center of the new

page-When widely separated y ordinatesare sent consecutively to the subrou-

tine and there is no page overlap, allthe buffers are saved, and newrecords are read into them.

In this manner, every disk access isto contiguous records, minimizingdisk I/O (input/output) time. Further-more, after paging, the pen is leftpointing to the center of the window;its meandering course is likely to re-main on the page for a maximumlength of time.

This strategy is ideal for drawingdragon curves and other designs thatseldom lift the pen from the paper.It becomes less efficient when theplotting program lifts the pen oftento move to widely separated points.Knowing how the records and buf-fers are accessed will speed up thedrawing of many designs; i.e., pointsalong the same y-axis may havewidely separated x ordinates withoutslowing the plotting. Even thoughDiskplot eliminates spurious diskwrites (it doesn't resave a buffer thathasn't been altered while in mem-ory), erratic motion along the y-axisis bound to increase disk I/O, slow-ing the "plotter" considerably.

Garbage Collection

Because Diskplot uses character-string buffers for dot storage, itspends time manipulating strings.Microsoft string-manipulation com-mands are flexible and extensive, butthe BASIC garbage-collection processis, at times, irritating. A program thatuses a lot of string space will even-tually invoke this function, whichlocks up the keyboard and halts therunning program while reorganizingthe string-storage area. String sortsthat create a TEMP$ for each ex-change are prime examples. The gar-bage collector is one reason such rou-tines seem to take so long.

This problem has a little-knownsolution built into Disk BASIC. The"MID$=" assignment function isused to replace a portion of a destina-tion string with a portion of a sourcestring. MID$(DEST$,5,2) = SRC$places the first two characters ofSRC$ into positions 5 and 6 ofDEST$. The last argument is optionalwith a default of moving the entiresource string (or as much of it as willfit) into the specified positions of the

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470 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 446 on Inquiry card.

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Circle 97 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

471

Figure 12: A 19-vertex n-gon overlayed by concentric ellipses. Drawn with Diskplot.

destination string. When DEST$ andSRC$ are the same length, invokingthe function via

MID$(DES1$,1) = SRC$

replaces all characters of DEST$ withthe characters of SRC$.

The effect is equivalent to the as-signment: DEST$ = SRC$, with theexception that no new string memoryhas been used. Consequently, gar-bage-collection time is minimized.For sorting strings of the samelength, in place of the line

T$=A$ :A$=B$ :B$=T$

use

MID$(T$,1)=A$ :MID$(A$,1) = B$:MID$(B$,1)=T$

where T$ has already been assignedwith a length the same as A$ and B$.The time savings is dramatic! Thevirtual-memory system controllingDiskplot uses this method for mov-ing data from the FIELDed disk buf-fer to the virtual-memory buffers, incopying buffers when the window isscrolled, and when turning on a bitin a string buffer. Therefore, eventhough much of 32K bytes of stringmemory is constantly being manip-ulated, garbage collection is never in-volved.

Using Diskplot

Diskplot was written to be used ina variety of plotting applications. The

subroutine package is a flexible alter-native to expensive plotter hardware.Many plotter and high-resolutionscreen graphics programs can beeasily converted for use with this pro-gram. Figure 12 was created by over-laying the output from Mike Higgins'plotter program (August 1981 BYTE,pages 414-416) with some ellipticalcircles that I devised. Only minorchanges were needed for routing theoutput, via Diskplot, to my PaperTiger.

Screen commands like PSET areimplemented by assigning variablesx and y with the desired coordinatesand issuing a GOSUB to line 1500.LINE (or DRAW TO) commands areemulated with a GOSUB to 1000, pre-ceded by assigning xl,yl and x2,y2with the start and end points of theline to be drawn.

Before running the application pro-gram, the string-storage area must beCLEARed and the initialization rou-tine at line 3000 must be called. Aseries of inputs inquires about pagelength (the expected maximum y or-dinate), the number of buffers de-sired, and the filename for the disk-plotter image file.

The calling program should per-form a CLEAR on string space in pro-portion to the expected number ofbuffers. Each buffer requires 510 bytesof string memory. The dragon-curvegeneration program (listing 1)CLEARs enough memory for a 41-buffer window into the 120-record (48gran) disk file. The number of buffersdesired will depend on the applica-

tion program. It is usually best toCLEAR and buffer the maximumamount of available memory.

The initialization routine requestsa filename for the plotter image. Youare warned if the file already exists.If so, you may clear the file, select adifferent file, or use the file as a basefor overlaying a new design. Theoverlay option is especially useful forgraphing charts. You can generate agrid file by calling the LINE routinean appropriate number of times andthen copying it to another file. There-after, overlay this file with new datapoints, lines, or curves. Consider thevalue of having, for instance, a cleanscore available for a program that setsnotes onto sheet music.

The default filename is PLOT/RAF,which I use for the short-term file.After the design is finished, I save thefile by copying with a different file-name. My 40-track double-densitydrives can keep four files on onedisk. I leave it to you to write afile-compression program. (Hints:most of the file remains filled withbytes of 80 (hexadecimal), and bytes242 to 256 of the second sector ofevery record are unused.)

The routine starting at line 1000draws a line from point (xl,yl) topoint (x2,y2). Upon exit, xl and ylhave been adjusted to x2 and y2.Subsequent calls need only redefinex2 and y2 to simulate a plotter DRAWTO command. This routine isadapted from Mike Higgins' algo-rithm (see reference 4). It is fast andefficient, requiring only integer vari-ables. This routine determines thepoints between the two input coor-dinates and calls line 1500 to set each.

Lines 1500-1590 set the individualdot at the specified coordinates at xand y. This routine rejects any coor-dinates that would move the pen out-side of the defined limits. It alsohandles the paging function of thevirtual-operating system. Lines 1510and 1520 constitute the "priminglogic." These lines are executed onlyon the first call to the subroutine.They position the buffered "window"over the correct part of the file. Whenthe Overwrite option is specified dur-ing initialization, the indicatedrecords are read in for modification.

472 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983 473

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476 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983 477

Listing 2 continued:

10260

'**

PB$<n»l)

BUFFER storag

10270

'**

PC$

255 gr3phic3l

10280

'**

PE«

grsphics esca

10290

'**

PF*

disk filename

10300

'**

PCt$

priming flag

10310

'**

PR*

FIELBed sir in

10320

'**

PU*

PRINT USING i

10330

'**

10340

'**

LI

Distance of 1

10350

'**

L2

Distance of s

10360

'**

L3»4»5f6

horizontal an

10370

'**

L7

duty master (

10380

'**

L8

temporary val

10390

'**

**

**************************

e strings (255 char, length)

blanks ( CHR*(128) )pe CHR«(131)

for plotter image(="0" for Overlay option)g (funnels all disk data)mage for plotting data

ong-a>:is

hort-a>;is

d verticsl steps (l»-l»or 0)

for determining ratio)

ue» long-axis counter

If, upon entry, the specified x or-dinate is out of range of the windowbuffers, line 1540 calls the subroutinefor the required action, i.e., movingthe window up or down with overlapor placing the window at an entirelydifferent part of the file.

Line 1570 makes the actual modifi-cation to the indicated buffer, turn-ing on the dot at the x,y coordinate.The correct buffer is selected, then anOR is performed on the current valueof the xth byte of the buffer with avalue that will fire the correct print-head pin upon output. Then, usingthe "MID$ = " assignment function,this combined value is placed backinto the buffer. A flag is then set, in-dicating that the selected buffer hasbeen altered.

Just as the initialization routinemust be called before any plottingtakes place, the CLOSE routine atline 4000 must be called when the de-sign is finished. All the altered buf-fers at the ending window positionare flushed out to the disk, and thefile is properly closed.

Lines 5000 to 5240 constitute astand-alone routine for printing agraphics file. An input prompts fora filename, indicating a default stringof the last-used filename. The printeris set to 12 cpi (characters-per-inch)in graphics mode and the 2K-bytebuffer is emptied. Then the file isread and two disk sectors are printedper physical printer line. The routineat 5200 does a scan of the print lineto check for an ETX control characterembedded in the file. When none ex-ists, the entire line is printed un-changed. Otherwise the string is

printed up to the ETX, an ETX isprinted twice, and the line is scannedagain until the entire string has beenoutput.

The top three lines of the video arereserved for Diskplot data display.The system keeps you informed ofwhat's happening at all times. Everycall to Diskplot prints the current xand y, the currently accessed bufferand record, and the bit being set inthe current byte. Every time the diskis accessed, the buffer and recordnumbers are displayed. While dis-playing this data slows execution, itis a handy debugging device and letsyou know that everything is runningsmoothly.

The final lines of listing 2 documentthe variables used by the Diskplotprogram. Notice that each variable inthe dot-plotting routine begins withthe letter P. All variables in the line-drawing routine begin with L. Thismakes it easier to interface the rou-tines with a variety of applicationprograms. Loops are indented andremarks indicate the logical subrou-tines and their functions.

The program may be speeded upby eliminating spaces and remarksand combining lines where feasible.You might also consider placing theoften-called routines early in the pro-gram. All the variables are defined asintegers and those most often usedhave been defined early to shortenthe amount of time BASIC needs tolook them up. Most of the durationof each call to Diskplot is in thecalculations to determine the buffernumber and the position within thebuffer to be altered. So even though

the routines are disk-intensive, speci-fying a large number of buffers usual-ly ensures that the program is not"I/O bound."

When no paging action is required,each dot takes about 0.24 seconds toplot. The duration of each call can belowered to about 0.17 seconds byremoving the PRINT USING com-mand at line 1580. The order-12 exam-ple dragons each call the SET routineover 25,000 times. These designs takeabout 90 minutes for the plotting andprinting phases. Because Diskplotuses standard BASIC commands, theroutines could be compiled for a sub-stantial time savings.

Summary

Just as the classical dragon curve isa special case of the generalizeddragon curve, the generalized dragoncurve might be considered the two-dimensional aspect of an evenbroader class of three-dimensionalcurves. Some interesting possibilitiespresent themselves when the folds ofthe curve are at angles of other than90 degrees.

The virtual-memory algorithms I'vedescribed work well with the dragon-curve program, but they can be inef-ficient in other applications. The line-drawing module could be improvedby doing some preliminary paging,preparing the window in advance.

The Diskplot package has becomea valuable addition to my subroutinelibrary. The dragon curves that couldonly be drawn with this packagemake an impressive display. ■

References

1. Dameron, David. "Some Example Plots,"February 1980 BYTE, page 140.

2. Davis, Chandler and Donald E. Knuth."Number Representations and DragonCurves," Journal of Recreational Mathe-matics, April 1970, page 66 and July 1970,page 133.

3. Gardner, Martin. "Mathematical Games,"Scientific American, March 1967, page 124and April 1967, page 118.

4. Higgins, Mike. "Fast Line-Drawing Technique,"August 1981 BYTE, page 414.

Dan Rollins (134 Olive St., Glendale, CA 91206)is a freelance programmer and technical writer. Heis currently writing a book entitled IBM-PC 8088Macro Assembler Programming, soon to be pub-lished by Macmillan.

478 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983

479

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A Computer-Algebra-BasedCalculating System

By performing automatic unit conversion, this super-calculatorsaves time and effort and prevents common errors

Quick! What's the volume of theEarth in teaspoons? If you said2.1931217 x 1026 teaspoons, you'reright (assuming Earth is a spherewith a 3956-mile radius).

It's more likely, though, that youcouldn't conveniently calculate thatfigure even with a microcomputer orcalculator. Indeed, you would prob-ably find any practical calculations in-volving extensive conversions ofunits similarly tedious.

To perform such calculations asthose involved in determining thevolume of the Earth in teaspoons, Iuse a system that employs a micro-computer and is based on themuSIMP/ muMATH package (fromThe Soft Warehouse). I call my con-figuration a super-calculator becauseit performs standard calculator func-tions (addition, subtraction, multipli-cation, division, and so on) and alsocarries units along algebraically in thecalculation and expresses results inwhatever units I want. I can pose aproblem for the calculator giving atonce all relevant information, in-cluding measured data values, theunits in which the measurements aretaken, the form of the mathematicalexpression to be used in the calcula-tion, and the units in which theresult is to be expressed. The system

by Stuart Edwards

then takes care of all details, includ-ing applying appropriate conversionfactors and, more important, check-ing algebraically that the requiredunits make sense in terms of the for-mula used and the units in which thequantities are entered.

The text box on page 484 shows in-put statements and answers for threesample problems.

How the Super-Calculator Works

Any computer algebra system, in-cluding the one I use, can work withundefined terms; that is, addition,subtraction, multiplication, division,and even exponentiation can be per-formed using variables that have noassigned numerical values. Consider,for example, the following super-cal-culator input and output statements:

? 3 (X + 2 X * 2) Y;

@:3XY + 6X*2Y

The ? in the first line is a prompt.The rest of the line is the question"What is 3(X + 2X2)Y?," terminated bya semicolon. The second line con-tains the result (3XY + 6X2Y) deter-mined by the system after applyingthe normal rules of algebra (in thiscase, distribution of the 3 and the Yover the sum within the paren-

theses); the @: combination signifies"the answer is."

Together, the two lines (one inputand one output) constitute what I calla transaction—an element of interac-tion with the computer. This interac-tion consists of posing an algebraicproblem and receiving the evaluatedresult. The time required for the sys-tem to respond depends on the com-plexity of the problem posed and onthe speed of the computer. For sim-ple transactions such as most of theones presented in this article, a 3- or4-second response for a Z80 runningat 4 MHz is typical.

After completion of a transaction,the @ may be used to represent thattransaction's result in a subsequenttransaction. Thus, after completion ofthe above transaction, the next trans-action might appear as follows:

? @ / X;

@: 3 Y + 6 X Y

Here, @ / X means "the previousresult divided by X"; @ representsthe result of the last transaction, theX factor is divided into each term,and the new answer (or new @) is3Y + 6XY.

Although it is not necessary toassign numerical values to variables,

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

481

such assignments can certainly bemade, as the next four lines (twotransactions) illustrate:

? X: 3;@: 3

? 5 X" 2;@: 45

The first transaction assigns thevalue 3 to X, and the second trans-action shows the result of a numericalcalculation with this new value sub-stituted for X.

We may also assign non-numeric"values" to variables; values may beother undefined variables or even ex-pressions involving undefined vari-ables:

? X: THIS EXPRESSION;@: THIS EXPRESSION

? (5 X) * 2;@: 25 THIS'

2 EXPRESSION * 2

Here, the first transaction assignsthe expression THIS EXPRESSIONto X. (This expression must be readas THIS times EXPRESSION, be-cause whenever two factors appearside by side with no interveningoperator, multiplication is assumed,as in standard algebra.) The secondtransaction shows how the new valueof X is substituted into an expression,followed by the distribution of the ex-ponent 2 over the individual factors5, THIS, and EXPRESSION. Because5 is a number, 5 * 2 may be im-mediately evaluated as 25; the otherfactors, being undefined, cannot besquared and thus are left as THIS * 2and EXPRESSION'2.

This capability to assign to vari-ables values that are expressions interms of other variables is the key tothe super-calculator. In my super-cal-culator configuration, for example, Iallow the variable "second" to be anundefined unit of time, but a "min-ute" is defined in terms of the "sec-ond," as:

? minute: 60 second;@: 60 second

An "hour" may be defined in termsof the second:

? hour: 3600 second;@: 3600 second

or, because we have already definedminute:

? hour: 60 minute;@: 3600 second

The system has substituted thevalue of minute into the expression.The value of hour is now 3600 se-cond, not 60 minute: when I make anassignment, it is the evaluated result("3600 second") that is assigned, notthe "raw" input expression ("60minute").

Now when I use the word "min-ute" in my calculations, it is inter-preted as "60 second," and "hour" isinterpreted as "3600 second." Hereare some other units of time:

? day: 24 hour;@: 86400 second

? week: 7 day;@: 604800 second

? year: 365.2422 day;

@: 3.1556926 10 " 7 second

? decade: 10 year;

@: 3.1556926 10 " 8 second

? century: 100 year;

@: 3.1556926 10*9 second

In each case, the assigned value isthe evaluated result in seconds,which is now my default standardunit of time. (Note that the numericalpart of each answer, if it is very large,is expressed in scientific notation;this is what a regular scientificcalculator would do. The same is truein the case of very small numbers.)

Similar considerations apply tounits of length. I choose a standardunit in terms of which all lengths aredefined, leaving this default standardunit as an undefined variable. If thestandard is the meter, I enter theunits of length as follows:

? centimeter: 1/100 meter;@: 0.01 meter

? millimeter: 1/1000 meter;@: 0.001 meter

? micrometer: 10 * -6 meter;@: 10* -6 meter

? nanometer: 10 "@: 10* -9 meter

9 merer;

? kilometer: 1000 meter;@: 1000 meter

? inch: 2.54 centimeter;@: 0.0254 meter

? foot: 12 inch;@: 0.3048 meter

? yard: 3 foot;@: 0.9144 meter

? mile: 5280 foot;@: 1609.344 meter

Areas are handled as squared unitsof length because the usual rules ofalgebra apply. That is, when I multi-ply two lengths, I expect the result tobe an area:

? (5 foot) (3 meter);@: 4.572 meter * 2

To be consistent with the units oflength, I use the square meter as mystandard default unit of area. I alsoadd a few more areas:

? are: 100 meter * 2;@: 100 meter* 2;

? hectare: 100 are;@: 10000 meter" 2

? acre: 1/640 mile "2;

@: 4046.8564224 meter * 2

Similarly, volumes are by defaultexpressed in cubic meters. Someextra units of volume are:

? USgallon: 3785.32 centimeter "3;@: 0.0037853 meter* 3

? IMPgallon: 4545.96 centimeter * 3;@: 0.0045459 meter* 3

? quart: 1/4 USgallon;

@: 9.4633 10* -4 meter*3

? pint: 1/2 quart;

@: 4.73165 10 * -4 meter * 3

? cup: 1/2 pint;

@: 2.365825 10 ' -4 meter" 3

? fluidounce: 1/2 cup;

@: 2.9572812 10 * -5 meter* 3

? tablespoon: 1/2 fluidounce;@: 1.4786406 10 * -5 meter* 3

? teaspoon: 1/3 tablespoon;@: 4.9288020 10 " -6 meter * 3

482 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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The Super-Calculator in Action

The following sample problems and solutions illustrate operation of the super-calculator system.

Assuming the Earth is a sphere with a radius of 3956 miles, what is its volume inteaspoons?

Solution:

? 4 pi / 3 (3956 mile)" 3 in teaspoon;@: 2.1931217 10 *26 teaspoon

If you purchase 5 liters of gasoline and use it to drive 53 kilometers, what is your mileagein miles per gallon?

Solution:

? 53 kilometer / (5 liter) in mile / gallon;@: 24.9321412 mile / gallon

According to Einstein's mass-energy relation, E=mc1. What energy is released, in kilowattyears, by the complete conversion of 1 kilogram of mass?

Solution:

? 1 kg c * 2 in kilo watt year;

@: 2848035.4213258 kilo watt year

Derived Units

By now I have an array of units andderived units that is quite extensive.By "derived units" I mean things likeunits of velocity (such as inches persecond or kilometers per hour) orunits of acceleration (such as feet persecond squared). For instance, con-sider the number of ways to entervelocities. A velocity is nothing morethan a distance divided by a time in-terval; because I have introduced 9units of length and 8 units of time,there are 9 x 8, or 72, derived units ofvelocity at my disposal. These in-clude ordinary things like miles perhour:

? 55 mile / hour;

@: 24.5872 meter / second

and exotic things like yards per week:

? 1001 yard / week;

@: 0.0015134 meter / second

Any expression with a unit oflength in the numerator and a unitof time in the denominator is an ac-ceptable velocity and is convertedautomatically to meters per second.

I avoid plural forms such as "miles"or "seconds." Using only singularforms, I can enter new units withouthaving to enter their plural forms.This method is a personal preference;other users may be happier definingall possible forms of a unit (i.e.,pound, pounds, lb, lbs) so the termscan be used interchangeably.

Each time I add a new unit oflength or time, my inventory of de-rived units expands; the size of theexpansion depends on how manyother units are already assigned. Toget a sense of how far this conceptcan be taken, consider that I haveavailable in my system 9 units of time(from seconds to centuries) and 17units of length (from angstroms toparsecs); thus, there are 9 x 17, or 153,ways of entering velocities. And thereis nothing to prevent the addition ofeven more units of time or length.

Many derived units are formed bycombining lengths and times, as inthe case of units of acceleration.Again, any valid expression with onelength unit in the numerator and theproduct of two time units in thedenominator is a valid acceleration.This is the salient feature of the

super-calculator: as long as the unitsmake sense in terms of the quantitybeing entered, the expression is ac-cepted and automatically convertedto standard units.

Unit Prefixes

To add to the repertoire of timesand distances, I introduced prefixes.I had initially intended to put in suchthings as microseconds, nanometers,and kilometers, but that would havebeen cumbersome. I decided insteadto make the prefixes separate quan-tities to which I assigned appropriatenumerical values (1000 for "kilo,"1/1000000 for "micro," and so on.Now, to express a time in microsec-onds, I have:

? 1.23 micro second;@: 1.23 10 '-6 second

The prefix "micro" has been splitfrom the root "second," and the im-plicit multiplication takes care of theconversion. The advantage of thismethod is that the prefixes are nowavailable for all units in the system;I can work in nanoyards ("nanoyard"), megaweeks ("mega week"), orany other such units. All 14 standardunit prefixes, from atto (10~'s) to tera(1012), are entered, which yields avariety of length and time units andderived units for velocities oraccelerations.

The "in" Operator

After defining all these units, I canenter expressions in whatever unitsare appropriate for the problem athand. The manner in which the unitsare defined assures that times areconverted to seconds, distances tometers, areas to square meters,volumes to cubic meters, and soforth. This is fine if I am content tohave all results displayed in theseunits and want to perform complexcalculations in a standard set of unitssuch as the S.I. system or thecentimeter-gram-second system.

Requiring such a standard puts usin a straitjacket—in the real world,not everything is standardized, anda calculator, to be useful, should becapable of expressing its results in theunits I want.

484 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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The "in" operator was created forflexibility. The "in" operator is an in-fix operator: a function named "in"receives one argument each on theleft and on the right, much as do thearithmetic operators +, -, /. Theargument on the left is the expressionto be evaluated, and the one on theright is the set of units in which theresult is to be expressed:

? 55 mile / hour in foot / second;@: 80.6666666 foot / second

The "operator precedence" of "in" islower than that of the arithmeticoperators; in the example, "55 mile /hour" is the left argument, "foot /second" is the right argument.

The "in" operator does four things:

1. It evaluates the expression on theleft, getting a result in standardunits. "55 mile / hour" becomes"24.5872 meter / second" becausemeter and second are my standardunits of length and time. Thisresult is not displayed but is heldinternally in a temporary workarea.

2. It evaluates the expression on theright, the required set of units,again obtaining its standard equiv-alent, "foot / second" becomes"0.3048 meter / second."

3. It algebraically divides the resultfrom step 1 by the result from step2. The common factors, meter andsecond, cancel out of the numer-ator and the denominator, leavingthe dimensionless quantity80.6666666 (i.e., 24.5872 / 0.3048).

4. It constructs a new expression con-sisting of the numeric result fromstep 3 multiplied by the uneval-uated right argument, which gives"80.6666666 foot / second," thedisplayed result.

The definition of "in" is verygeneral, enabling the use of complexexpressions on the left and the right;physical constants can be used asunits, as when I use "g":

? g: 32.174 foot / second * 2;@: 9.8066352 meter / second ~2

to represent the standard accelerationdue to gravity, as in the followingtransaction, which I'll call A:

? g 1/2 (5.32 second) * 2 in yard;@: 151.7669029 yard

or as a unit of acceleration in thetransaction that I'll call B:

? 60 mile / hour / (7 second) in g;@: 0.3907325 g

In transaction A, I use g as aphysical constant to compute thedistance in yards an object would fallin 5.32 seconds (ignoring air resis-tance). In transaction B, I use thissame g as a unit of acceleration, ex-pressing the average acceleration ofan automobile going from 0 to 60miles per hour in 7 seconds.

The "in" operator

never produces an

algebraically incorrect

result.

The "in" operator also protectsagainst getting the wrong dimen-sions. Because the division in step 3is done algebraically, the units wouldnot cancel unless they are the samein the numerator and the de-nominator. In other words, thedimensions of the required unitsmust be the same as those of theresult. If this is not true—for exam-ple, if the required units are feet, butthe expression yields a time intervalin seconds—the units would notcancel out, and unexpected unitswould be introduced to force an alge-braically correct answer. For example,

? 2500 mile / (450 mile / hour) in foot;@: (65616.7979002 second / meter) foot

By introducing the extra "meter" inthe denominator, the system is indi-cating there is a mismatch in dimen-sions. The answer returned in thiscase is a time, not a length, which isapparent because the result is not inthe units requested.

By similar reasoning, if the resultdoes appear in the required units, Ican be reasonably sure the dimen-sions are being correctly manipu-lated. This does not always preventme from using the wrong formula;however, it does provide an excellentcheck, especially when the algebrabecomes too complex for the dimen-sions to be known intuitively. Some-thing is wrong if I expect an accelera-tion for an answer but get a frequen-cy instead; these algebraic techniquesenable me to detect such errors im-mediately, regardless of the complex-ity of the computation.

If I realize I've made an error andwant that result expressed in hours,

? @ in hour;

@: 5.5555555 hour

puts the expression right. The "in"operator never produces an alge-braically incorrect result; even if I getthe dimensions wrong, I can stillrecover easily, now that I know theresult is a time and not a length.

Other Dimensions

Units of time and length are onlythe beginning. I also need mass(standard unit "gram"), electriccharge ("coulomb"), magnetic flux("weber"), and money ("USdollar").For each dimension, I can add othernonstandard units. Mass can be ex-pressed in pounds, slugs, tons,atomic mass units, carats, andounces; electric charge can be ex-pressed in units of the charge on anelectron; magnetic flux can be ex-pressed in maxwells; money can beexpressed in cents, megabucks, or inother currencies such as yen orpounds sterling (provided I keep theexchange rates current).

Derived units can include a varie-ty of energies (ergs, Btus, joules,kilowatt-hours, electron volts, horse-power-hours, foot-pounds); pres-sures (atmospheres, millimeters ofmercury, pounds per square inch);forces (dynes, newtons); and so on.The total amount of memory avail-able in the computer is the limitingfactor; each new definition uses asmuch as 40 or 50 bytes of storage, de-pending on the length of its name

486 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Having established data base through use of theASD feature, you may use the Relational DataBase Management feature to manipulate andretrieve these data. You can load up to eight (8)data files at a time and use up to eight selectioncriteria to retrieve information. This featureprovides 12 commands and uti.lity programs tosupport activities like select, index, join,reformat, multi-key sort, and much, much more.

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BYTE December 1983

487

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and the complexity of the expressiondescribing it. For example, the unit

? newton: kilo gram meter / second 2;@: 1000 gram meter / second*2

takes 44 bytes to store.

To clarify the descriptions in this ar-ticle, I have spelled out all units. Ina practical system, abbreviationswould be handy:

? kg: kilo gram;@: 1000 gram

or

? ft: foot;

@: 0.3048 meter

Abbreviations can easily be defined,subject to the storage limitation.Synonyms can also be used:

? gallon: USgallon;@: 0.0037853 meter "3

? kilogram: kilo gram;@: 1000 gram

Function Definitions

For formulas I want to use repeat-edly, I can define functions, as in aprogramming language. For example,the expression representing thegravitational force acting betweentwo masses, m, and m2, separated bya distance d, and acted upon by theuniversal gravitational constant G, is:

Gm1m2/d2

To use this formula, I first need theconstant G:

? G: 6.6732 10*-11 meter "3 /

kilogram / second*2;@: 6.6732 10 *-14 meter "3 /

(gram second"2)

and then a function definition:

? gravity (ml, m2, d): G ml m2 /d*2;@: gravity

The function "gravity" has threeparameters—ml, m2, and d—that arereplaced by corresponding argument

values when the function is invoked.For instance,

? gravity (5.3 kilogram, 20 pound,

5 meter) in newton;@: 1.2834098 10*-10 newton

expresses in newtons the gravita-tional attraction of two masses of 5.3kilograms and 20 pounds at adistance of 5 meters. The arguments"5.3 kilogram," "20 pound," and "5meter" are substituted in the functiondefinition in place of the parameters"ml," "m2," and "d," respectively. Theexpression G ml m2 / d* 2 is thenevaluated, and the result is returnedto the point of invocation, where the"in" operator picks it up and convertsit to newtons. Use of function defini-tions helps organize difficult prob-lems and saves keystrokes.

Because most computer algebrasystems use the LISP language or avariant, it is always possible to definemore complicated functions involv-ing loops, conditional tests, andsimilar operations; details, however,would vary from system to system. Iadded the one-line function defini-tion described earlier to the muSIMPprogramming language specificallyfor this calculating system. A com-plete language itself, muSIMP em-bodies elegant modular and block-structured control constructs suffi-cient for many programming prob-lems.

Temperature Scales

Temperature can be considered aphysical dimension such as time orlength. The standard unit I use is theKelvin (K) degree. The other unitsare:

? Co: kelvin;@: kelvin

? Fo: 5/9 kelvin;@: 0.5555555 kelvin

These are units of temperaturechange, or relative temperature, andare not meant to be interpreted astemperatures on the Celsius (C) orFahrenheit (F) scales. Relativetemperature units are suitable forcalculations involving specific heats.

Given the specific heat of water atconstant pressure,

? specificheatFEO: 1 calorie / gram /

Co;@: 4186 meter * 2 / (second * 2 gram

kelvin)

I can ask how much energy, in Btus,is required to raise 6 pounds of waterby 30 F°, assuming the water doesnot change state:

? specificheatH20 6 pound 30 Fo

in Btu;@: 179.9749869 Btu

Bear in mind that the Fo in the firstline does not refer to the F scale—Iam referring to a temperature change,not a specific temperature. (Note: inthese temperature transactions, thelowercase o represents the degreesymbol.)

To work with actual temperaturesin the various scales, I introduce twopostfix operators, oF and oC. Apostfix operator takes its argumenton the left; if I enter

? waterboils: 212 oF;@: 373:16 kelvin

the function named oF receives 212as its argument, interprets it as an Ftemperature and converts it to K. Thefunctions oF and oC are defined as:

? t oF: (5/9 (t - 32) + 273.16) kelvin;@: oF

? t oC: (t + 273.16) kelvin;@: oC

with t as the single parameter in eachcase.

That takes care of entering temper-atures on C and F scales. To enter Ktemperature, I use "kelvin" becausethe K scale is an absolute scale thatoriginates from a temperature of ab-solute zero and needs no conversion:

? nitrogenmelts: 77 kelvin;@: 77 kelvin

Displaying K temperatures pre-sents no problems. If I want todisplay temperatures on an F or a C

490 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Regression: Linear, non-linear,stepwise, and multiple regressions;residual analysis and statisticalmatrices.

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Time Series: Moving averages,multi-stage least squares, fittedpolynomials and trig functions,additive and multiply forecasting.Multivariate: Principal components,factor, orthogonal factor, obliquefactor, pair-weighted cluster, dis-criminant function, multiple con-tingency, and canonical correlationanalysis.

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BYTE December 1983

491

scale, however, things get a bittrickier. I add logic to the "in"operator that handles the units oFand oC separately. For example:

? nitrogenmelts in oF;@: -321.07 oF

? waterboils in oC;@: 100 oC

The oF and oC units on the right ofan "in" cannot be mixed with anyother units; they must stand alone asin the above transactions. This restric-tion does not hold for the units ofrelative temperature, Fo or Co, whichmay be combined with other units,as in:

? specificheatH20 in joule /

kilogram / Co;@: 4186 joule / kilogram / Co

Combining temperature units en-ables me to ask, for example, what isthe final F temperature of a ton ofwater, initially at 20° C, to which 10million joules of heat energy are in-troduced:

? 20 oC + 10 * 7 joule / (1 ton) /

specificheatH20 in oF;@: 72.7399951 oF

Plane and Solid Angles

I handle plane angles by introduc-ing pi and using the radian as thestandard unit:

? pi: 3.1415926;@: 3.1415926

? degree: pi/180 radian;@: 0.0174532 radian

? revolution: 360 degree;@: 6.2831852 radian

I want the normal trigonometricfunctions, which can be provided byprogramming them from the relevantTaylor series expansions. After thefunctions are properly defined, Ihave:

? sin (30 degree);@: 0.5

? cos (1/8 revolution);@: 0.7071067

The other functions are defined interms of sin and cos:

? tan (angle): sin (angle) / cos

(angle);@: tan

? sec (angle): 1 / cos (angle);@: sec

? esc (angle): 1 / sin (angle);@: esc

? cot (angle): 1 / tan (angle);@: cot

In these trigonometric functions,the argument must be a plane anglein radians, degrees, revolutions, orsimilar units. In some mathematicalsystems, angles are dimensionlessquantities with no units. The defini-tion of angle as the ratio of arc lengthto radius, which is the ratio of twolengths, suggests a simple dimen-sionless number. But for this system,I require that angles be entered in ap-propriate units, not as dimensionlessquantities; however, trigonometricfunctions return results that aredimensionless numbers.

Having units of time and planeangle, I can use angular velocities.The moon's orbital period is 29.53days, so its average angular velocity is

? omega: 1 revolution / (29.53 day);@: 2.4626499 10 * -6 radian / second

Taking the angular velocity as a con-stant (which it is, approximately),what fraction of the moon's face is il-luminated, as viewed from Earth, 5days after the new moon?

? (1 - cos (omega 5 day)) / 2;@: 0.2572515

I deal with solid angles in units ofsteradians or spheres. The standardis steradian, and sphere is defined as

? sphere: 4 pi steradian;@: 12.5663706 steradian

Mixing solid and plane angles en-ables me to define a function

? cone (theta): (1steradian;

cos (theta)) 2 pi

@: cone

that computes the solid angle in acone of half-angle theta. The argu-ment must be in units of plane angle(because I am taking its cosine), andthe returned value would be a solidangle in steradians. Then,

? cone (90 degree) in sphere;@: 0.5 sphere

? cone (1 radian);

@: 2.8883658 steradian

Sexagesimal Notation

I find it convenient, especiallywhen dealing with angles or times,to use base-60 (sexagesimal) notation.To enter a quantity such as 4 hoursand 36 minutes, I might use the ex-pression

? 4 hour + 36 minute;@: 16560 second

However, it would be simpler toenter this as

? 4:36 hour;

@: 16560 second

The system recognizes that the colon,when between two numbers, is notan assignment or function definitionbut is a sexagesimal "radix point."The number on the right (in this case,36) is divided by 60 and added to thenumber on the left (in this case, 4).The result is 4.6, which in the exam-ple is then multiplied by hour,resulting in 16560 seconds. I can takethis one step further,

? 4:36:30 hour@: 16590 second

in which case I have entered hours,minutes, and seconds. I can do thesame with angles.

? 15:22:09 degree;@: 0.2682426 radian

? sin (33:57:20 degree);@: 0.5585496

By appending the appropriate units,I can enter any quantity in sexa-gesimal notation.

492 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Summary

A computer algebra system canspeed scientific and engineering cal-culations by carrying units alongalgebraically and converting them asnecessary. For each dimension underconsideration, the user introduces astandard unit (seconds for time,meters for length, and so forth) andgives all conversion factors at theoutset. At any time during the com-putation, you can introduce newunits or physical constants in termsof the ones already defined. You canalso introduce function definitionsappropriate to the problem at hand,using them to save time and to helporganize the work. The result of anycomputation can be expressed instandard units (the default) or in anyunits you want as long as the conver-sion factors have been introducedand the required units are appropri-ate in terms of the dimensions of theresult. Although the super-calcu-lator might be built around anycomputer algebra system, it isespecially gratifying to have thiscapability in a personal computerfor two reasons.

First, large computer algebra sys-tems require large computers, whichare not readily available to in-dividuals or to small groups. Nowthat computer algebra is available formost popular microcomputers, thecosts are low (total hardware and

software expenditures could be as lit-tle as $2000), meaning that the kindof system I have described would befeasible for almost any engineering orscientific working group, indeed foralmost any individual scientist orengineer. The capability to work inany units, without adding time or in-creasing difficulty, is a convincingargument for the use of such a sys-tem. If you consider the algebrasystem's capability to detect dimen-sional errors, the conventional scien-tific calculator begins to look clumsyby comparison.

Second, the hardware used—a Z80system with 56K bytes of RAM(random-access read/write mem-ory)—is not unusual; in the currenttechnological environment, it's possi-ble to imagine such a system reducedto the size of an 8V2- by 11-inch note-book. Portable computers with type-writer keyboards, one- or two-linealphanumeric displays, and sufficientRAM can handle algebraic manipula-tions. Thus, we can look forward inthe next few years to the availabilityof portable scientific calculators withthe kind of algebraic capability I nowhave in my personal computer. Theapplications for such a device includecomputing miles per gallon, figuringcurrent densities in amperes persquare centimeter, and calculatingthe price of peanuts in dollars perkilogram. Each application has its

own characteristic units, constantsand formulas, and each system couldbe configured by a user for specificproblems.

In the past, computer algebra sys-tems have been used for abstrusemathematical problems with for-mulas too cumbersome to be dealtwith manually. (This is one reasonmost computer algebra is done onlarge machines.) Affordable com-puter algebra systems using personalcomputers and the techniques de-scribed in this article can improve thespeed and certainty of calculationsand will perhaps make the conven-tional scientific calculator obsolete ina few years. ■

Stuart Edwards is a software designer, consult-ant, and lecturer. He holds a Master's degree in com-puter science from the University of Hawaii.

Since submitting this article to BYTE severalmonths ago, I have developed an advanced versionof this system that includes a completely new algebrasubsystem designed specifically for physical calcula-tions. Write to me at 2993-B Koali Rd., Honolulu,HI 96826 if you are interested in obtaining a copyof the software.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Dave Stoutemyer and Al Rich of TheSoft Warehouse (POB 11174, Honolulu, HI 96828)for giving me a lot of help and encouragement onthis project. Also thanks to Natalie Jung for her in-fectious enthusiasm.

a message to our subscribers

From time to time we make the BYTE subscriber list available to other companies who wish to send our sub-scribers material about their products. We take great care to screen these companies, choosing only thosewho are reputable, and whose products, services, or information we feel would be of interest to you. Directmail is an efficient medium for presenting the latest personal computer goods and services to our subscribers.

Many BYTE subscribers appreciate this controlled use of our mailing list, and look forward to finding informa-tion of interest to them in the mail. Used are our subscribers' names and addresses only (no other informa-tion we may have is ever given).

While we believe the distribution of this information is of benefit to our subscribers, we firmly respect thewishes of any subscriber who does not want to receive such promotional literature. Should you wish torestrict the use of your name, simply send your request to the following address.

BYTE Publications Inc

Attn: Circulation Department

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494 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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User to User

Conducted by Jerry Pournelle

From Pascal to Modula-2

Dear Jerry,

In "The Debate Goes On ..." (Aug-ust, page 312), you refer to a Modula-2program that can translate programsfrom Pascal into Modula-2.1 am very in-terested in a program such as this as weare switching the language used at ourinstallation from Pascal to Modula-2.

Could you tell me how I could get acopy of this program? Thank you.Dan Stanger

Howard Brandston Lighting Design Inc.141 West 24th St.New York, NY 10011

Alas, I was premature in believing thePascal-to-Modula program was available. Itwouldn't be hard to write, and I'm certain onewill be done Real Soon Now.

My apologies for raising your hopes. I'llreport on the program as soon as I have onethat works. . . . Jerry

Dear Jerry,

You have mentioned several timesNiklaus Wirth's new book Programmingin Modula-2. I have tried to find it in thelocal bookstores (big bookstores, ofcourse), but each of them said theyneeded the ISBN number. I checked yourarticles and also the article, "Modula-2,"(April, page 385) for the number. Unfor-tunately, it was never mentioned. I sup-pose you have that book. Could youplease send me the ISBN number? I thinkyou are about my last hope for findingthe book within this year.Danny BackxGrootreesdijk 124B 2460 KasterleeBelgium

There is a second, corrected edition: theISBN number is 0-387-12206-0. . . . Jerry

Dear Jerry,

I have been fascinated by your com-ments on Modula-2 and the Sage. Ibought Niklaus Wirth's book and havegiven it a fast first reading. I have visiteda Sage dealer in Manhattan and seen his1-megabyte RAM, 20-megabyte diskmodel running three terminals. I havewritten letters to both Sage and Volition(no replies as yet). Now I am hoping thatyou might put me in contact with some

serious users of the Sage/Modula-2system.

I am trying to evaluate the system forcustom accounting and engineering sys-tems that might be constructed frommodules that I (and others) would firsthave to develop. I have been doing thisusing Osbornes and Victors with dBASEII for local customers. The Osborne'ssmall disk-storage space (even with dou-ble density) has always required me tostop the system short of what it might be.The Victor has not been the same prob-lem; however, dBASE II has provided itsown rack of difficulties that must be con-tinually dealt with. Although, as adver-tised, dBASE II has cut application-development time to less than 25 percentwhen compared to Microsoft BASIC andless than 60 percent when compared toPascal/M, it is miserable as a languageand littered with bugs that Ashton-Tatehas demonstrated no interest in fixing.Full-blown COBOL seems too unwieldyfor me. The concept of Modula-2 is veryappealing, even though I realize that Imust develop my own DBMS languagebefore I can use it. That is, unless youhave heard of one that will run the Sageand would be better than developing myown.

When I was in Champaign/Urbana, Isaw the documentation on a microcom-puter-based DBMS called KnowledgeMan. It was a DBMS language moreelegant than dBASE II and without theconstraints. The University of Illinois In-formation Services had it. No one had yetrun it seriously (it is designed for the IBMPC with 256K bytes). Have you heard ofor seen it?Ben SmithPOB 80582Fairbanks, AK 99708

J first saw dBASE II, then yclept Vulcan,in about 1979. It had the most miserable docu-mentation I've ever seen. One of the users atCal Tech's Jet Propulsion Laboratories volun-teered to write a tutorial introduction to it onher own time. Ashton-Tate bought the pro-gram, changed the documents somewhat, andmarketed it skillfully. For several years dBASEII was about the best database programavailable for microcomputer users.

Alas, the program hasn't really kept up.Modern microcomputers are capable of muchmore than they were when Vulcan was writ-

ten, but dBASE II has improved hardly at all.I'm not familiar with Knowledge Man.Within a year I expect to see some really gooddatabase programs written in Modula-2 for thenew generation microcomputers.. . . Jerry

Vector Review Requested

Dear Jerry,

I would like to address a couple ofissues mentioned in "Interstellar Drives,Osborne Accessories, DEDICATE/32, andDeath Valley" fluly page 323).

As for an appropriate nomer for yourCompupro mainframe, why not try"Mann/' on for size? I realize it may notbe elaborate, but it works.

Something I would like to see would bea review of Vector Graphic equipmentand software. In the first column of yoursthat I read, you mentioned that you hadheard of Vector's program editor, Scope.I use it quite a bit since I own an olderVector system and do some programmingin dBASE II (which has a lousy editor).For someone that does some program-ming but does not need macros and fea-tures found on EMACS and other largesystems, if s a good package. Besides that,it's free with the system. The Vector-designed software, especially ExecuplanII, its spreadsheet package, is pretty goodcompared to some others I've seen. I'vesold a number of different hardware-software combinations, and the Vectorsystems have been the easiest to sell, eventhough they are somewhat moreexpensive.Randy GoldenPOB 2397Kilgore, TX 75662

J tried "Manny" but the machine didn't likeit. We try to cater to his whims . . .

Some years ago I strongly recommended Vec-tor Graphic equipment, but that was two gen-erations of microcomputers ago; I'm no longerfamiliar with Vector's hardware or software,and indeed seldom hear much about it. It's myimpression that Scope was excellent in its day,but better editors are available now. I don'tknow whether they'd work with your equip-ment; my friend Owen Davies, a senior editorat Omni magazine, had a Vector system witha nonstandard operating system and couldn'tuse foreign programs with it. He finally re-placed it. . . . Jerry

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 499

User to User.

From an Ex Ex-Mon User

Dear Jerry,

I note with interest your description ofthe Ex-Mon monitor adapter for theOsborne 1 in "Interstellar Drives,Osborne Accessories, DEDICATE/32, andDeath Valley" (July page 323). I feelstrongly this device should not berecommended.

I purchased the Ex-Mon in November,when I bought my Osborne 1. Within twoweeks (of very delicate handling), thedevice failed. My monitor screen wentblank, the 5-inch screen continued tofunction (indicating that the computerhad not failed), and I trundled mymachine back to the computer store.

The setup was under warranty. Thestore replaced my Ex-Mon device, andtold me it had had problems with thesein the past, particularly when owners hadmanipulated the Ex-Mon while the com-puter was turned on. Apparently this candestroy the device.

I used my next Ex-Mon with completesatisfaction, adding an extra length ofcable between monitor and computer soI could plug in the monitor without

touching the Ex-Mon adapter. My newone caused no problems, but in retrospectthis may be because I hooked up the ex-ternal monitor only once or twice in thelast six months.

The end of the dream came a week ago.I set up a computer station in my homeoffice and plugged in the monitor. Thecomputer and monitor worked well. I re-arranged the wiring, unplugging themonitor in mid-cable to do so. When Iplugged it back in, the monitor died; thatis, the adapter died. Apparently it is morefragile than I thought.

I went back to the store. "Yes," themanager said, "we've had five or six ofthose that have self-destructed." Thatseems a lot for a small town such asNapa. I have no information regardingthe failure rate of the Ex-Mon, but itseems to be high.

My computer store says another com-pany makes such a device. If I can findout who it is, I will write you that infor-mation. If you find out who it is, pleaseput a note in your column.Dan McMahon4590 Dry Creek Rd.Napa, CA 94558

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Alas, I have had several other letters withsimilar complaints. Our unit has worked forabout a year with no trouble, but I confess wedon't use it continuously because we have aregular Osborne large screen as well.

I'd be glad to try a similar product fromanother company, but at the moment I don'tknow who makes them. Perhaps the OsborneUser Group would know. . . . Jerry

99/4A Notes

Dear Jerry,

Thanks for kicking TI in "InterstellarDrives, Osborne Accessories, DEDI-CATE/32, and Death Valley" (July, page323). Like you, I owned one of theircalculators—the SR-56—with 100-step pro-gramming and always thought highly ofit and TI.

The difference between the calculatorsand the 99/4A turns on the observationthat we could make the calculators doeverything they could. Not so with the99/4A, yet it seems not surprising fromthe perhaps mistaken viewpoint that the99 is really a ROMed-up version of theTI 990 computer system.

If the 99/4A is really just part of thatseries with a clumsy BASIC-GROM sys-tem, it seems imperative that these third-party software people get hacking on achip-replacement set for the operatingsystem. There are three reasons:

First, it looks like an inexpensive con-current computer is right on the shelves(the 99/4A is $70 at local stores). Second,it seems to be the most direct approachto both the third-party licensing andhobbyist problems with GROM/GPL. Byreplacing GROM and the OS with a re-locatable OS monitor, TI might just haveto back down. (A software-interruptdriven 9900 is very attractive and it's rightthere to be taken.) And, more personally,as a newcomer to owning a computer, Iresent being sold a system with a residentGROM.

Anyway, here are some books thatpoint to better things:

For an explanation about why the 99/4Ais really a 990 and, interestingly, a floppy-disk control program, use Microprocessors/Microcomputers/System Design publishedby McGraw-Hill.

For a glimpse of a concurrent 990 (andtherefore, 99/4A) as well as what mightbe a description of where GROM camefrom, read chapter 5: "Component Soft-ware" from Software Development (TI#MPA29).

500 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 339 on Inquiry card.

For a tutorial with software and hard-ware theory and explanation, read Fun-damentals of Microcomputer Design (TI#MPB30A) and 16-Bit Microprocessor Sys-tems, published by McGraw-Hill.

I bought these books to augment TI'sEditor/Assembler manual. For learningassembly language they've been a greathelp. However, it'll take real expertise todo anything about the 99/4A. I hope thatthe right people will get working. It'll bea while before my 99/4A deserves a name;I'm jealous.Frederick Hawkins1020 North 6th St.Allentown, PA 18102

We've yet to get a TI 99/4A, although I in-tend to buy one so that I can include at leasta few words about it in upcoming books andcolumns. You obviously know a great dealmore about the TI machines than I do; Iwouldn't have the faintest idea of how to re-place the operating system, and I don't adviseanyone to try it.

However, if there's anyone out there who'sboth mad enough and expert enough to accom-plish this, I'd love to hear from him.

Thanks for the tip on books. (See Jerry'sarticle, "The User Looks at Books," onpage 519.) I haven't seen those yet; given theexplosion in computer books, it's nearly im-possible to keep up. . . . Jerry

Simplifying Structure

Dear Jerry,

Structure, structure, and more struc-ture. There is no such thing as a struc-tured programming language, just struc-tured programmers.

I see no use in a language that won'tlet you do something that needs to bedone, just for some arbitrary rule of struc-ture. I'd rather see a language thatcooperates with the programmer in thesolution of a problem and leaves structureand organization to the programmer in-stead of a language that fights the pro-grammer if he or she tries to use the lan-guage any way other than the way it waswritten.

Example: I specialize in taking applica-tions programs that run nicely on a bigexpensive mainframe and trimming themdown to run on a small mini. I want a lan-guage that will cooperate, not give memore of a problem.

Oi course, the programmer must devel-op certain techniques to self-structure hiscode, or, as you point out, the program

cannot be maintained. My point is, itshould be the programmer who struc-tures his or her code and the language toexecute it, not the other way around. Aprogrammer's style evolves, as do his orher skills.M. W. Cocke246 West Upsal St.Philadelphia, PA 19119

Certainly programming style evolves; I wasjust working on my old Star Trek game andI discovered a number of horrors I'd put init.

The question of language limitations is im-portant. Marvin Minsky of MIT decries Pascalbecause it is, as he says, a voluntarily wornstraitjacket. It prevents you from doing cer-tain things in the most convenient way. Thepayoff is that later you will have a much bet-ter chance of remembering exactly how you didwhat. More to the point, someone else willhave a fighting chance of understanding whatyou did.

I once saw Minsky write a Turing Machinesimulator in APL. It was a single line of about80 characters of code. In APL, a single char-acter can stand for "Invert this matrix" orsomething equally complex. There was no

chance that Minsky or anyone else would everbe able to modify that program.

If all your programs are for your own useand will never be maintained or modified bysomeone else; if you can guarantee that youwill not abandon the programming languagefor a new one, but will stay familiar with it;and if you'll never want to incorporateelements of old programs into new ones you'rewriting, then you should probably use themost flexible language possible.

I'm not overly pleased with many of Pascal'slimits myself, and I admit that I do most ofmy programming in CB-80 because Pascal'speculiarities tend to infuriate me. However,since we're switching to Modula-2 here atChaos Manor, a lot of the Pascal debate hasbecome moot.

Do recall that my columns are largelyoriented toward the user. I'm always pleasedwhen a professional programmer finds some-thing to like. . . . Jerry

A New Warranty

Dear Jerry,

This letter involves the dreaded soft-ware licensing agreement. You have had

What's more than just an electronic

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December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 501

User to User.

occasion to get upset about the nonsensethat is usually contained in these things,and so have I. This led me to have a littlefun with them, as seen in the "View-point" column that I wrote for theFebruary 28, 1983, issue of lnfoworld. Myhope was that people would start enclos-ing copies of this warranty with theirpayments to software companies. It didn'thappen, but life goes on.Dave Wilson635 Wellsbury WayPalo Alto, CA 94306

For those who didn't see it, Mr. Wilson'shilarious "warranty" of the check accompany-ing payment for software included such termsas "This check is valid for 30 days. Shouldthe paper it is printed on disintegrate, you besure to let me know" and "This check is pro-vided 'As Is' without warranty, either expressor implied, including, but not limited to, theimplied warranties of financial value or liquid-ity. The entire risk that this check can becashed, or even that it is drawn on a bank thatactually exists on the planet Earth is assumedby you. Should the check prove defective,you—not I—assume the entire cost of all nec-essary, but fruitless, efforts at reimbursement."

I too regret that the micro community didn'tadopt his "implied warranty" which, natural-ly, became effective when the check wascashed. . . . Jerry

Two for Public-Domain Pascal

Dear Jerry,

You asked for information in "EpsonQX-10, Zenith Z-29, CP/M-68K, and More"(August, page 434) on how to get thepublic-domain version of UCSD Pascalrunning on a system using a CompuproDisk 1 controller. Unfortunately, I havebeen having problems getting Version rV.OUCSD p-System from Softech Microsys-tems running using the Disk 1. If the twoversions are similar enough I may be ableto use information about the public ver-sion to get the commercial version run-ning. Let me define my problem.

The computer I have been working onhas a Z80 processor, 64K RAM, a Com-pupro Disk 1 single-density/double-density disk controller, and two 8-inchdisk drives. The operating system is CP/M2.2, which uses the Compupro-suppliedGBBIOS with changes only in the con-

Available on the IBM Personal Computer™ and compatibles, plus the Epson QX-10,™ theVictor wnn™ and soon the NCR DECISION MATE V™

sole and printer routines.

First I tried to use the PASBOOT pro-gram to boot up the CP/M-adaptablesystem. Since the p-System disks weresingle density, it was necessary to re-calibrate the drives before trying to readthe secondary booter, which refused to beread anyway.

Next I obtained a working p-Systemdisk from another computer. I changedthe PASBOOT program to include diskroutines from the Compupro-suppliedGBBOOT program. I also modified theGBBIOS to do only single-density readsand to run below CP/M at B800 hexadec-imal. The attempt to boot was partiallysuccessful and the secondary booter wasread in, but an error, "Can't find SYS-TEM. PASCAL," occurred. Since thesame disk will boot up on its own withother computers, I assume that this fileis present. The interleave and skew valuesI used are correct for this disk. There werealso no errors occurring during the BIOSdisk routines.

I wrote both Compupro and SoftechMicrosystems and was told that the prob-lem is a nonstandard BIOS and that I willhave to use the full-adaptable system.

If you receive or already have informa-tion on getting either version of Pascalrunning, I would appreciate it greatly ifyou would send it to me. I would espe-cially like to receive a working SBIOS foruse with the Disk 1.Dwight IrvingChemistry DepartmentUniversity of IdahoMoscow, ID 83843

Alas, your problems are typical of othersreported to me. All I can say is that there isa version of public-domain UCSD Pascal run-ning at Cornell University; but so far, no onehas shown me how to get it operating on mymachine. I keep hoping. . . . Jerry

Dear Jerry

If you successfully get the public-domain UCSD p-System up on yourCompupro, will other users like me beable to do so? In other words, will some-body please document the installation sothe rest of us can install it also?

I am the service manager of a smallcomputer dealership (Apple, DEC,Osborne, Victor, and add-ons). I havegrown accustomed to the Apple versionof UCSD/p and recognize the value of itstransportability. I have seen the Sage inaction and would like our store to carryit (no floor plan for it yet, or we would

502 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 341 on Inquiry card.

have it now), which would mean moreexposure to UCSD/p. Both Victor andOsborne have versions of the p-Systemup and running. This means that my jobwill soon involve answering questionsabout the p-System, and I would like togive customers the right answers from myexperience. I am also rather fond ofPascal.

It was my intention to buy the generalversion of the UCSD p-System from avendor in San Diego, try to hook onto theCBIOS of C/PM-816, and see what hap-pened. If there is an easily installed,public-domain version of the p-System,I am very interested, even to the point ofgetting it, installing it, and making the in-stalled version for Compupro 816 public.I had not even heard of a public versionuntil your mention in the August User'sColumn.Ed Karns

Execution Systems628 East Washington St.Petaluma, CA 94952

J really know no more than that a CornellUniversity professor told me there was anS-100-bus version of UCSD Pascal and thatit was legally available.

A number of people 1 respect are fond ofUCSD Pascal and its operating system. As I'vementioned before, Carl Helmers, formereditorial director of BYTE, has five Apple com-puters running UCSD Pascal; he's so fond ofthem that his personalized automobile licenseplate reads "P CODE."

If I learn anything more, I promise I'll fea-ture it in the column. . . . Jerry

What's the Next Bus?

Dear Jerry,

The S-100 bus has served long and well,but as you well know the day will soonbe upon us when 32-bit microprocessorsare relatively inexpensive and multimega-byte RAMs are within the reach of home-brews without having to sell the furni-ture. It is useless to pooh-pooh the ideawith comments like, "What will one dowith all that power and memory," as theideas and applications will rise to thechallenge. (You only have to think backa few years when 16K became availablefor a micro.) Given the limitations of theS-100, where are the hackers going tomigrate?

I am not asking for a specific answer butthought that this subject would be ap-propriate for discussion reviewing the

merits and disadvantages of the Multibus,Versabus, VME, IEEE-896, "Futurebus," etal.

I am already thinking about the VME,and from what I have read, I think thatthis may be the best. Obviously, mythinking is irrelevant, as I would have tofollow the manufacturer's offerings.Justin Farnsworth65, rue Chauveau92200 NeuillyFrance

I agree that the question is more than in-teresting. I don't have an answer. My friendand associate Tony Pietsch developed a proj-ect known as the PI Buss, which he claimshas advantages over all the others, but I don'tknow who would develop and market it.

Perhaps some other readers will have moreinformation. . . . Jerry

Three Busy Bees

Dear Jerry,

You have said several times that youhope the computer market is never fullysewn up by large companies. I wonder if

I might trouble you for an opinion for a"garage company"? I daresay that oursituation is, if not unique, then far fromordinary. We keep getting kicked out ofthe garage by our parents. If that seemslike a rather unusual company, allow meto explain.

The company is B, B & B Electronics (1Jill Dr., Carnegie, PA 15106), named forthe three of us foolish enough to proposea company. We do not legally exist as acompany and two of us are still minors.This didn't stop us from pursuing com-puter design over the last three and a halfyears. Before we graduated from highschool last spring, we succeeded in get-ting our first micro running without anyformal training and without assistancebeyond the kindly loan by U.S. Steel ofa ROM-burner. In recent months we haveredesigned our machine, and it is now aself-contained, if jury-rigged, affair thatno longer requires an external terminal.We are sufficiently happy with what wenow have to refer to it as our "prototype,"even though we have no way of produc-ing or marketing it.

While we iron out a few minor bugs,we are casting about for ideas to add a

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December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

503

User to User.

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special touch to our machine that mightinterest somebody in the design. Mean-while, we've had a great deal of fun andlearned quite a bit in the process. Peo-ple who congratulate us are never turnedaway, and advice offered is accepted withopen minds (even if we do promptly dis-card it). With this in mind, do you haveany suggestions or criticisms to offer us?

In the optimistic days, before it wasdemonstrated to us that building a com-puter was impossible, Bob Barker (not theone on TV, but the first B in our company)and I agreed to send you one of our firstproduction models (see figure 1).

The system we have now is a Z80-based microcomputer with 64K or 128Kof dynamic RAM, 16K of ROM, and 2Kof video RAM. We have a 90-key key-board (see figure 2) on the drawing boardshown with the proposed key layout,meaning it's what we want, but can wefind keycap manufacturers who have theproper legends? You may recognize thelayout as being drawn almost directlyfrom the H-19, of which the three of usare fond. We can actually use any key lay-out by reprogramming the keyboard en-coder; at present we have a stock Jamecokeyboard on the prototype.

The video screen is currently 25 linesof 64 characters, which will change to 80characters if we ever get around to buy-ing a faster crystal. The display is gen-erated by the MC6845 video-display chipfound in the TRS-80 Model 11/12/16. (Bythe way, did you know it's possible to pro-

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504 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

gram a Model 11/12/16 to burn out its ownmonitor?) The 128-character set is pro-duced by an 8 by 8 matrix copied largelyfrom the character set of the Ohio Scien-tific Superboard II of days gone by, plustheir reverse video complements. Theways in which we revise the video sec-tion depend on whether the machinewill be intended for use on TV sets or not.

Something else not yet worked out isdisk storage, but Bob is working on it. Healso modified the memory decoding andbank switching to allow CP/M Plus; heand Roger Brockenbrough (the third B)have agreed that implementing such asystem and developing a CBIOS will bemy job. (They make me do all the soft-ware; I wrote a BASIC interpreter, ma-chine monitor, and a cassette-operatingsystem.)

The software is in ROM at present: atiny BASIC I'm almost afraid to admithaving written, a monitor hardly abovethe OSI C1P stage, and the I/O supportroutines. On initialization, these pro-grams all bank-switch themselves nicelyinto RAM so the user never sees theROM. This transfer, with the Z80 block-move instructions, is too fast to evennotice on reset.

Since the summer has gone while weworked and we are out of high school,things are starting to wind down for ourgrand and glorious ideas. By the time weget out of college, however, our knowl-edge will no doubt be out of date. We pre-dict our current design to be laughablyoutdated within a year or two at the most.

Please do not criticize our lack of Micro-soft BASIC. Last December we wrote arespectful letter to Microsoft asking if wecould possibly license any existing BASICat all, to which they never responded. Ithen wrote my own, which I hope I neverhave to do again: it's murder! Also, myend product is only marginally more de-veloped than the tiny BASIC found builtinto some processor chips (such as theZ8671). Rest assured that we would nevereven think of marketing any product withmy current BASIC 1.3 in it.Mark Bereit343 Rockfield Rd.Pittsburgh, PA 15243

I'm impressed. I doubt you chaps will haveany problems finding suitable positions in thecomputer world.

The days of fortunes made through new full-blown computer designs built in a garage fora few hundred dollars are, alas, just about over.Wozniak and Jobs (Apple) and David Jackson

(Altos) obviously had the right ideas—but theywere also supremely lucky in their timing.There are still openings for after-marketequipment for popular machines like the Com-modore 64, Atari, IBM PC, and such, and avery good market exists for IEE-696 (S-100)boards that do new and different things. Mostsuccessful garage companies, though, willprobably involve software. . . . Jerry

Languages of Choice

Dear Jerry,

I am an engineer and not a computerscientist. As an engineer, I am interestedin using and writing programs that solveproblems, not programs that are works ofart. These tend to be much larger thanyour typical one-run on a microcomputer,generally running from 1000 to 20,000lines of code. In addition, they may han-dle amounts of data up to 100,000 num-bers or more in an iterative fashion. I haveto be concerned with cost to my client,so speed and the charges are important,especially since computer charges may be10 to 50 percent of some of the studiesthat my company does. As computers be-

come more powerful, we will find moreproblems to use that extra power. Cur-rently, certain studies that we would liketo do are not economical and would re-quire a 10-fold drop in computer chargesbefore we can consider them.

Now, engineers use FORTRAN (thatlanguage hated by you and computerscientists) not to spite anyone and not be-cause of tradition, but because it has twomajor advantages besides speed of execu-tion. The first is portability. When pro-grams are written to closely adhere to theANSI 66 (or 77) standards for FORTRAN,it is easy to move programs from com-puter to computer. For example, a teamof two engineers moved a 50,000-plus-lines civil-engineering program from aHoneywell (36-bit word) to a Harris 500(24-bit word) in about four hours of edit-ing and compiling. I have worked withprograms written by research organiza-tions for computers other than the one Iuse, yet I only have to change 4 to 10 lines(clearly identified in documentation) outof 10 to 20,000 lines of code—and thenhave it compile and run correctly the firsttime. We have had a 3000-line program(written by our company's engineers) on

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505

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five different computers and compilers inthe last year and a half—and it cantypically be brought up in less than 2hours. How many of your favorite lan-guages are available on as broad a rangeof computers and capable of this degreeof portability?

The second major reason is dynamic di-mensioning of arrays. First, subroutines canreceive arrays of any size and shape.

SUBROUTINE (ARRAY, M,N)DIMENSION ARRAY (M,N)

Granted, this can lead to errors in thehands of the careless, but it also allowsa powerful library of standard subrou-tines to be built up (for example, the IBMScientific Subroutines Package in thepublic domain), compiled, and then keptin a library. These subroutines are source-compatible with any ANSI standard FOR-TRAN compiler, thus reducing theamount of work that the user must do.

Also, multiple arrays can be allocatedout of a large pool vector after a fewparameters are entered for the problem.Since these parameters can change fromrun to run (thus changing the size of thearrays), the use of a pool means that wedo not have to edit and recompile the pro-gram every time certain parameterschange—as they constantly do in engi-neering. Before I implemented this fea-ture to a program, we had to recompileone program once a month (a 4- to 6-hourjob)—now it is once a year, when we adda new feature to the program.

I know that subscript checking is non-existent in standard FORTRAN and itsstring-handling capabilities are abysmal,but I can live with this more so than Icould with the array limitations and non-portability that you are finding in Pascal.Currently, the only language that mightpossibly replace FORTRAN is C, and onlyif enough companies accept the de factoBell-standard version.

I also know of your dislike of MicrosoftBASIC on microcomputers, but itsdynamic arrays and flexible Chain (whichlets a program modify itself) allow it tobe used in ways simply not possible withCBASIC or any other BASIC. I do notknow of any other version of BASIC orany other language on 8-bit microcom-puters that will allow me to do what I cando in my POL/PS. (See Mark Finger'sthree-part article, "Problem Oriented Lan-guage," in BYTE, December 1982, Januaryand February 1983.) I noted the problemsof unreadable code and line numbers per

line, but instead of abandoning the lan-guage, I wrote a series of utilities thatallows me to have relatively readable codewith comments yet do development moreeasily than with a compiled language.These programs have been released to thepublic domain (under the typical public-domain copyright limitations—that is, notfor resale for more than a small copyingcharge). I will still furnish them for the$30 indicated.

I envy those versions of BASIC thathave local variables in their subroutines,but CBASIC is best used in business-typeapplications where the general data struc-ture and size are known beforehand. Intechnical areas, the dynamic arrays andself-modifying features (to incorporate auser-defined equation, for example) aremore important.Mark Finger2439 Overlook CircleLawrence, KS 66044

I don't hate FORTRAN. When I was agraduate student, we had to program the IBM650 in machine language, and we would havesold our chances for graduation forFORTRAN.

However, I still don't recommend FOR-TRAN as a language microcomputer usersought to learn. Its portability is commendablebut applies largely to mini and mainframecomputers; microcomputers have the usualproblems of disk-format compatibility and diskfile structures to add to the confusion. Andthe array problem in Pascal is certainly severe;I've cursed it often enough myself.

However, most computer users will beginwith interpreted BASIC. When they growweary of that, they look for a compiled lan-guage. I simply would not recommend thattheir first choice be FORTRAN.

Those who already know FORTRAN fromlarger machines are often disappointed whenthey discover the limits of most microcomputerimplementations but are usually able to ad-just. That's fine for them. FORTRAN is likelyto be the language of choice for many specialapplications, too.

Your impression of compiled CBASIC(CB-80) is incorrect. CB-80 permits dynamicarrays, has an excellent library manager forprecompiled code segments, and has chainingat least as good as Microsoft's MBASIC.

I remain unrepentant: FORTRAN is notwhat I'd recommend microcomputer userslearn when they tire of BASIC. Go out andlearn Modula-2. That's the wave of the microfuture.

Where in the world did you learn to lumpme in with the computer scientists?. . . Jerry

Software Before Hardware

Dear Jerry,

In regard to your statement in "Zenith-100, Epson QX-10, Software Licensing,and the Software Piracy Problem" (June,page 411): "The one thing you won't per-suade me of is that you've much chanceof handling the records of 100,000 policyholders on any kind of microcomputerI'm going to see in the next few years."

Sorry, Jerry, but Advanced Manage-ment Systems Limited (a New Zealandcompany) has developed a completepackage of software for the DEC LSI-11/23 microcomputer, including operatingsystem, compilers, editor, database sys-tem, etc., that will support up to 40 ter-minals on a 256K-byte DEC LSI-U/23.

We call this package AMPS (AdvancedManagement Programming System) andbelieve it has more advanced featuresthan most mini and mainframe systems.The first application for this software wasfor Royal Insurance, which has over100,000 policy covers on its New Zealandhead-office computer. Royal has oneLSI-11/23 computer in each of its six mainbranches.

In case you consider the LSI-11/23 to bea minicomputer rather than a micro (al-though DEC calls it a micro), it is worthmentioning that we intend making a ver-sion of the software for the 68000, and Iam confident it will be able to support ahundred terminals.

It is my contention that virtually allmanufacturer-supplied software is gross-ly inefficient and wastes 90 percent ormore of the computer's power. This hasbeen demonstrated by developing an on-line system on an IBM 370/135 that runsover two hundred terminals, as well asby the AMPS software on the LSI-11/23.In each case, the manufacturer's softwarewill support only about one-tenth thisnumber of terminals.

The days of the big mainframe com-puters are numbered, as Intel, Motorola,and National Semiconductor bring outchips with more and more power. Exist-ing software available on 16- and 32-bitmicrocomputers is generally inefficientalso. With good software, machines likethe 68000, the DEC 11-J, the 80286, and theNS-32 series will totally collapse the com-puter market, as they can economicallycover the whole range of products fromsingle-user micros to superminis andmedium-sized mainframes. For larger sys-tems, the most economical solution willbe to use multiprocessor versions of the

506 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983 507

User to User.

same machines.

The real changes will only occur, how-ever, when computer users learn tochoose their software and then get somehardware that works with it, rather thanthe other way around. The prime-num-ber benchmarks published by BYTEamply demonstrate that the variation inapplication-execution speed using dif-ferent compilers for a given machinevaries by a factor of 1 to 1000, which farexceeds any hardware price/performancevariations. Programmer productivity alsovaries by a factor of more than 1 to 10 ondifferent software, again indicating thatthe software should be chosen before thehardware.R. Tomes

Advanced Management Systems Limited11 Huron St., POB 33426Takapuna, New Zealand

Of course I consider the LSI-11/23 a mini-computer, and so would just about anyoneelse.

However, 1 agree that I was rash in mystatement; the Sage IV with hard disk canalready manage 100,000 policy records, andI'm rewriting my "Minimum Data Base" to

allow it to do much the same thing (althoughI've no need for that many records!),

I can't recall why I ever said a silly thinglike that. I wrote it in December 1982 (thepipeline was much longer then; it's down toa couple of months now), but alas, I knew bet-ter then. Perhaps I can plead too much Christ-mas cheer? Stay well. . . . Jerry

For Your Information

Dear Jerry,

In addition to the deficiencies of Super-file, which you have already mentionedin 'Terminal Solutions, Manual Madness,BASIC Bits, and Info Helpers" (April,page 324), there is one more I have neverseen reference to in print: the programdoes not prevent one giving a file an il-legal name.

Some months ago I was called to therescue of a friend who was having prob-lems: "I used the Superfile utilities pro-gram to rename a file, and I can see thenew name in the directory, but when I tryto do anything with the file, the computercan't find it." It took only a moment to seewhat had happened: my friend had spec-

ified the new name as "MAIL LIST" (in-cluding the space), and Superfile had ac-cepted this, although the final "T" hadthen been dropped, producing a filenamed "MAIL LIS" (still with a space).Any subsequent attempt to read, print,rename, or even erase the file then simplyresulted in the message "MAIL?" or "NOFILE," since CP/M saw the space as mark-ing the end of the filename and was look-ing for a file called "MAIL." Since we didnot have DU (disk utility) or any similarprogram on a disk of the right format, theonly thing I could think of was to makesure all the other files on the disk had afile type in their names, do "ERA *" toget rid of this otherwise inaccessible file(fortunately it was the index file ratherthan one of the input files), then runSuperfile again on the original files.

You might like to make your readers(and FYI Inc., if it doesn't already know)aware of this additional problem.Alan Beagley322 Birdwood TerraceToowong, Queensland4066, Australia

I wonder how many other programs there

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User to User.

are that allow illegal filenames? MicrosoftBASIC will allow you to give a lowercase file-name; that can't be accessed, renamed, orerased from within CP/M, but at least BASICcan get at it. It's simple enough to write afunction that will check to see if a filenameis legal, but alas, many programmers don't dothat. It's especially important to check thiswhen your program has utilities that allowrenaming a file.

DU, Spat, and other such programs willallow recovery from such errors. They're avail-able from Workman and Associates of Pasa-dena, California, or the CP/M user group.. . . Jerry

Software Disasters

Dear Jerry,

I am writing this to give you a little am-munition, I hope, to try to get somethingdone about the terrible situation regard-ing software for microcomputers that hasdeveloped just in the past year, as far asI know. I am referring to the several li-censing absurdities you have writtenabout recently, and other concerns. First,the usual absence of clear statementsregarding exactly what other software andperipherals a given program will workwith. Second, the (illegal) disavowal ordisclaimer of responsibility to correctbugs, even if they render the programtotally unrunnable. And third, the refusalto publish or otherwise release sourcecode that is required for other companiesto create or update their own productsthat were designed to run with the first-mentioned software.

Since March I have paid $450 or morefor software, all of which was advertised inBYTE, none of which I can use. I have toblame myself somewhat for lacking thepatience in all cases to ascertain what agiven program will do and run with. Butthen, I don't have the time to do verymuch of this, and waiting for gaudy andoptimistically worded advertisingbrochures to be sent on my request is veryoften an exercise in futility.

I suggest several solutions. First, thelegal solution would require that everypiece of software sold commercially haveexplicit statements about what environ-ment it will run under and also state theknown environments that it will not rununder, given the context under which itwas bought. Second, the computerizedbulletin-board systems that are now com-mon throughout the country could beused to spread information about specific

products to point out those programswith bugs or those that will not run withwhatever. Third, BYTE could maintain afile of comments on commercial softwareproducts that it could sell, for a nominalprofit, without necessarily claiming accu-racy for the specific comments.Mark A. Melton5329 Rex Ave.San Diego, CA 92105

The problem is important, and it won't justgo away. However, I don't believe that whatwe need is additional regulations or laws; theresult of that would be to stifle the computerindustry. In particular, regulations keep thesmall entrepreneur from entering the marketat all, since he can't afford the lawyers andcontract-compliance officers to deal with ahighly regulatory environment. We could usesome common sense all around: buyers, dis-tributors, publishers, and advertisers.

Alas, the fact that a product is advertisedin BYTE, or any other magazine, is noguarantee that it works—or indeed that it willbe delivered on time. Magazines operate undersevere restraints; they can't refuse adver-tisements without being prepared to do someheavy legal slugging. As long as the adver-tiser pays the bills, and isn't under some kindof court judgment, it's very hard for amagazine to turn down an ad. I know for afact that the BYTE editorial people wouldprefer that certain advertisers would get madand go away, so we wouldn't have to answerall the angry mail we get about the products.

Incidentally, I have never, in the years Ihave written for BYTE, had any interferencefrom the editorial staff regarding the opinionsI express, regardless of whether I'm discuss-ing a heavy advertiser or three lads and lassiesworking in a garage. The only suggestions I'veever been given have been "I think the readersmight like to see more about" certain ma-chines.

Let me drive it home: "Advertised in BYTE"does not imply the approval of BYTE's editors,staff, or columnists.

Some principles: first, if something soundstoo good to be true, it probably is. If it's not,independent reviewers will tell you soonenough. If you can't wait for the reviews, youmay be lucky, but you may also be stung.

Second, there are distributors—certainstores, selected mail-order software houses,some systems consultants—with a reputationfor honest dealing, including full refunds ifthe customer isn't satisfied. Those outfitssimply cannot operate on the same markup asthe heavy discounters do. If you plan to buyan unfamiliar product, or a product that's notknown to work on your system, then you'd

probably do better to pay a higher price anddeal with someone you know. If you don'tknow who the good guys are, it's not too hardto find out; the word gets around.

I agree there's a problem; indeed, it's onereason I write this column. I like these littlemachines, and I don't like to see anyone getstung. . . . Jerry

Abnormal Warranty

Dear Jerry,

Those absurd software disclaimers thatyou detest can now be found on hard-ware: last week, I purchased a joystick fora video game. One model had "2-yearwarranty" in bold letters on the box. Ichose that one. After I arrived home, Iread the warranty and encountered oneof the silliest and most meaningless dis-claimers yet: "This warranty applies onlyif your joystick is used in a normalfashion, prescribed by the instructions foryour video-game console. It is void if thejoystick is abused, tampered with, usedunreasonably, or fails as a result of nor-mal wear."

If it doesn't cover failure "as a result ofnormal wear," what does it cover? Firstthey say that the warranty applies onlyif the product is used in a "normalfashion," and then they disclaim thatstatement. I am beginning to appreciateDigital Research's disclaimers. At leastthey are unambiguous.Robert Swirsky412 Arbuckle Ave.Cedarhurst, NY 11516

Alas, the age of chivalry is dead. We haveentered the age of sophisters, calculators,economists, and lawyers, and the glory ofAmerica is extinguished. . . (with some apol-ogies to Edmund Burke). . . . Jerry

No Insults Intended

Dear Jerry,

I have been reading your column forseveral years. I was extremely insulted bya comment in "Zenith Z-100, Epson QX-10,Software Licensing, and the SoftwarePiracy Problem" (June, page 411): Snap-shot's "easy to install: a 16-year-old didours. . . ." I'm 16 years old and know myway through electronics and my Apple.There are many BYTE readers in my agegroup, and many of my friends are alsocomputer nuts. Something is very wrong

510 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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User to User,

if the standard for ease of installation iswhether a 16-year-old can do it. I built adigital music synthesizer and interfacedit to my Apple. You may say in yourreport of the West Coast Computer Faire(June, page 306) about the Hero robot thatyour kit-building days are long gone, butmine aren't.Adam Dershowitz2 Tudor CityNew York, NY 10017

Without intending insult, may I suggestyou're not an entirely representative 16-year-old? One must have a few milestones in mak-ing comparisons, lest we all flounder in a seaof relative concepts. In another place I men-tioned that Osborne Starter-Pack could be usedby Boy Scouts; surely no one believes I in-tended to insult the BSA? . . . Jerry

Dear Jerry,

I am embarassed for both you and Voli-tion systems. Please do not refer to com-petent software engineers as "hackers" inprint again. Had you not made it clear inthe first paragraph of your article("Ulterior Motives, Lobo, Buying YourFirst Computer, JRT Update," May, page298) that you were using an unusualmeaning for the word "hacker," I mighthave concluded that Volition solduntested, undocumented products.

There is a subtlety in the meaning ofthe term "hacker" that has not been prop-erly communicated to you (for the defini-tive explanation of what a hacker is, I referyou to Psychology of Computer Programmingby G. M. Weinberg). A hacker is not onlytalented; he is also undisciplined. He isaddicted, not to the field of softwaredevelopment as a serious profession, butto the implementation of code (and cod-ing is a surprisingly small part of profes-sional software development).

The hacker makes programs that work;this does not mean he writes programsthat are good. Two examples of the dif-ference between working and good pro-grams are: a good program is well docu-mented (hackers don't document) and agood program has been tested andproved to work with all kinds of er-roneous entries (hacker programs tend tofail catastrophically if you give them baddata).

To put it another way: if you want apretty painting or a fast-paced videogame, get an artist or a hacker. But if youwant a solid bridge or a powerfulModula-2 compiler, get a mechanical

engineer or a software engineer.

I've made my point, but let me give youan analogy in the realm of science fiction:suppose you were a not-yet-famousauthor, and a distinguished reviewerreferred to you in a distinguished publica-tion as an "amusing writer of sci-fi." Thisis roughly comparable to Volition beingreviewed by Jerry Pournelle in BYTE asa "nice bunch of hackers."Marc Stiegler132 Laurel Way #2BHerndon, VA 22070

Alas, despite your embarrassment, there isno universal agreement on what is meant bya computer "hacker." I assure you that veryhighly professional programmers often refer tothemselves as hackers and do so with somepride. Weinberg's is but one of a number of at-tempts to define this elusive word.

Moreover, there may be times when whatone wants is a hacker even in your sense ofthe word. A well-known and wealthy writer,having become enamored of my first computer(Ezekial, RIP), decided that he could do muchbetter. He went off to get a contract for a bookabout using computers. With the advance, heengaged a firm of consulting engineers to buildhim a system. He gave them few-to-no finan-cial restrictions, and at last count he not onlydidn't have a working computer, he was forcedto use his typewriter to write his computerbook. (Sometimes it may be better to have itWednesday than perfect.) In any event, let meassure you that the troops at Volition arethoroughly professional, and I intended no in-sult to them.

Your final paragraph refers to HarlanEllison's well-known campaign to extirpate theterm "sci-fi." It's true that use of the phrasemarks one as unfamiliar with the customs oforganized science-fiction fandom, and indeedsome writers do resent it; but most of us takeit in stride. As for my tales, I hope they'refound entertaining, although not all are in-tended to be amusing. . . . Jerry

CP/M vs. TRSDOS

Dear Jerry,

Some general thoughts on CP/M: I usethe TRSDOS operating system that camewith my Model II about two years ago.The first thing I noticed was the 'DIR'command—TRSDOS is much better. An-other difference is its printer interface.CP/M could learn from the TRSDOS'FORMS' command. You can still use theprinter, but not as conveniently. If youforget to turn on the printer, CP/M hangs

up. TRSDOS gives you the 'Printer NotReady' prompt. For disk files, TRSDOScould find a file no matter what disk driveit was on; CP/M requires that you specifythe drive in your command. Also, if youaccidentally call out a disk drive with nodisk in it, CP/M hangs up, requiring areboot. TRSDOS simply tells you 'DiskDrive Not Ready.'

I have more to learn about CP/M, butfrom here, it does not stack up toTRSDOS. If there is any significant speeddifference, if hasn't affected me yet. Idon't see why Radio Shack doesn'tcapitalize on its excellent operating systemand expand its available software.Bruce M. Beatty1218-B Tom Hunter Rd.Charlotte, NC 28213

The fault, alas, is not in your CP/M butin your CBIOS. (Customized Basic Input/Output System is the software that tells CP/Mwhat kind of computer it's working with.)We've had recovery from "Drive Not Ready"since we began using CP/M 1.4. For thosewith Z80 systems, there's also ZCPR, areplacement for the Command Processor inCP/M; this has the "search all disks for file"feature you like, plus a number of others.(ZCPR is public domain; there's a lot ofdocumentation. It's available from Workmanand Associates, or through one or another ofthe CP/M user clubs.) Finally, there's CP/MPlus, which is just gaining popularity; it hasmany features the older CP/M didn't.

The TRSDOS you see is greatly changedfrom the early versions which so exasperatedTRS-80 Model I users. Even with fixes, therewas never a version of TRSDOS that I pre-ferred to CP/M, if for no other reason thanthat, for better or worse, CP/M became the defacto standard for the micro world and madefor widespread distribution of programs—andthus heavy investment in program construc-tion and documentation.

I'll even hazard the prediction that one oranother form of CP/M (probably ConcurrentCP/M-86) will continue to be the de facto stan-dard as the micro world grows up. . . . Jerry

IBM's Keyboard Best

Dear Jerry,

There is one bit of critisism that I mustshare. I own an IBM Personal Computer,with the IBM keyboard. I like the IBMkeyboard. It has great feel and is apleasure to use. I realize that it is not astandard keyboard (what is a standardkeyboard?), but the time necessary to use

512 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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User to User.

it is well worth the effort. I have yet towork with a keyboard that did not requiresome adaptation by the user (Televideoand DEC keyboards require a tremen-dous amount of user flexibility).Scott Wentzka9875 Northwest 16th St.Coral Springs, FL 33065

You are not alone in defending the IBM PCkeyboard. It's obvious that my dislike of thekeyboard hasn't precisely ruined IBM's sales:I'm still waiting for the PC I ordered monthsago!

I remain unrepentant, though: the IBMSelectric Typewriter was the standard key-board for most of the potential computer usersin the world. True, those who never learnedtouch-typing can adjust to most anything, butwhy did IBM have to make things complicatedfor those of us who'd already learned the Selec-tric? Fortunately, it's now possible to repro-gram the whole keyboard, so that one needsonly a source ofkeytops to customize properly;the issue is rapidly becoming moot. . . . Jerry

Bootstrap Solution

Dear Jerry,

This is in response to comments in yourJuly User's Column about moving pro-grams from one computer to another.

I am writing this on an Epson QX-10,which we have had for about threemonths. One reason we decided on theQX-10 was that, even if Valdocs did notwork out, we would still have access tothe great body of CP/M programs. Unfor-tunately, we found out that we werewrong because no other programs wereavailable on Epson-format disks.

It is very little help to be able to transferprograms from machine to machinebecause I have no other CP/M machine,nor do I have CP/M programs. In fact, itis the CP/M programs I wish to obtain.

Of course, it is likely that I could findsomeone locally who also has a CP/Mmachine. If that person also has the stan-dard 8-inch CP/M disks, I could sendaway for the CPMUG disks, then copythose programs to the Epson. If, however,the other person does not have the stan-dard 8-inch CP/M disks, we are both backto where I started.

What is really needed is a way for a newCP/M user to access the various com-puterized bulletin-board systems (CBBS)that have CP/M software. Naturally, if theuser had the MODEM7 program, accessby modem would be fairly easy. Unfor-

tunately, MODEM7 is itself a CP/M pro-gram, which the new CP/M user will nothave.

Therefore, what is really needed is: a"bootstrap" program, a tiny program thatis easily implemented on a bare-bonesmachine, which will download a full-blown CP/M loader program from a CBBSthat uses the bootstrap protocol. Thebootstrap itself should be made extremelysimple for easiest implementation (it maybe used once per system, then never usedagain). It should be described in multi-ple languages; BASIC would probably beeasiest, although some CP/M systemsmay not have BASIC, so the bootstrapshould also be available as an assembly-language listing. The bootstrap formatcould be quite slow, since it should allowBASIC implementation and it would onlybe used once.

The existence of such a program wouldnot, of course, solve all of the problemsinvolved in getting access to CP/M public-domain software. First-time users mayhave to be inducted into the mysteries ofassembly language, but achieving a work-ing program can be done without under-standing, if the program has been fullydeveloped and the process of entering theprogram is described explicitly. In addi-tion, the various concepts of ports,modems, and RS-232C connections andcables would have to be addressed. Also,there would be the little matter of phonenumbers for the appropriate CBBS. Butthis information can be transferred onpaper, in a book or an article, and wouldallow new CP/M users access to public-domain software.

This approach could be more help tothe new CP/M user than The Transporter.Terry Ritter2609 Choctaw TrailAustin, TX 78745

The Transporter (reviewed in fuly, page323) was designed to solve the problem of get-ting the first program—such as MODEM7—across to neiv machines.

A second problem involves ethics and goodsense. A number of people have been kindenough to write some excellent CP/M pro-grams and put them in the public domain—which is to say, to give them away. Havingdone that, they naturally feel little obligationto support the programs or transfer them tonew machines and formats.

On the other hand, when someone doestake the trouble to improve program documen-tation and transfer public-domain programsto new formats, that person is sometimes at-

tacked as a pirate or thief for charging for thisservice. Usually the attack comes from someoutsider, but once in a while it will come fromthe original program author. This leaves lit-tle incentive for anyone to collect public-domain software, test it, and distribute it onnew formats.

Incidentally, much of what you describealready exists on one or another public com-puter bulletin-board system. Finding outwhich ones have what takes a fair amount ofwork, of course, and the connect time fortransferring long files can be lengthy. As anexample, ZCPR, the improved Z80 CommandProcessor for CP/M, takes up about 15 disksand many hours to transfer by telephone.

If anyone has—or wants to write—the pro-grams you described, I'll be pleased to reviewthem. In the meantime, I talked BarryWorkman into putting up a number of hisCP/M utilities into Epson QX-10 format so 1could use them; he sells them at reasonableprices. Many, but not all, are publicdomain. . . . JerryH

ferry Poumelle welcomes readers' com-ments and opinions. Send a self-addressedenvelope to ferry Pournelle, c/o BYTEPublications, POB 372, Hancock, NH03449. Please put your address on the let-ter as well as on the envelope. Due to thehigh volume of letters, ferry cannotguarantee a personal reply.

BYTEs Bugs

Line Change

Dean Brown of Alderwood Manor,Washington, spotted a bug in JamesFolts's "Cross-Reference Utility for IBMPC BASIC Programs" (August, page 378).The program will work properly withprograms having 5-digit line numbers ifline 6050 is changed from

LABEL$(LABEL.NUMBER) = SPACE$(5)

to

LABEL$(LABEL. NUMBER) = SPACE$(6)

Brown explains, "This change is neces-sary because the STR$(val) function usedin line 6060 prefixes positive numberswith a blank, thus requiring the fieldlength to be one greater than the lengthof the line number to be displayed ."■

514 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983

515

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516 BYTE December 1983

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BYTE December 1983 517

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The User Looks at Books

The best and the worst books on CP/M, Pascal, C, and Ada

When I first got started usingmicrocomputers, back in the darkages of the 70s, there was a simplesolution to the computer-book prob-lem: you bought every book onmicrocomputers as soon as it waspublished. You wouldn't go bank-rupt, even though the books wereoverpriced, because there weren'tvery many.

I used to include book reviews inthe User's Column. Now there's noroom, but we get a lot of letters ask-ing for more book reviews. Mean-while, four cubic feet of unreviewedbooks lie scattered on shelvesthroughout Chaos Manor. I've there-fore struck a deal with BYTE: I'll doan occasional special roundup onbooks.

CP/M Books

The CP/M manuals put out byDigital Research are notoriously poor.This particularly upset my late madfriend. "First they translated theminto Swahili," he said. "But whatmade me really mad was when theyencrypted the translation." Digitalhas since made great strides towardreforming its document foundry;however, for many years the com-pany simply couldn't produce a read-able document. The result was aspate of books to teach you how touse CP/M.

One of the earliest of these was TheCP/M Handbook with MP/M by Rod-nay Zaks. It's still readable, and muchbetter than the Digital manuals;Zaks's book can serve quite well as anintroduction for beginners just learn-ing to use the CP/M operating sys-

by Jerry Pournelle

tern. It spends rather too much timeon ED, the nearly unusable texteditor that comes free with CP/M,and rather too little time discussingthe difference between logical andphysical devices, but all in all it getsthe basic job done.

Another good introduction thatbegins at a very low level is ThornHogan's Osborne CP/M User Guide.Like the Zaks book, Hogan assumesthe reader begins with no knowledgebeyond the ability to turn the com-puter on. Both explain what disks areand the difference between disk stor-age and memory. I find that I preferHogan's organization and style toZaks's, but I'm not sure which is bestfor beginners.

Alas, both of these books sufferfrom the same defect: they becomemore obscure just as they get inter-esting. For example, it's possibleunder CP/M to have your computerrun a series of programs on startup.Zeke II, the machine I'm writing thison, goes through memory checks,displays disk directories, and formatsthe "memory disk," after which itcalls in the text editor; all this hap-pens automatically on reset. BothZaks and Hogan tell you how tomake your machines do that, but itsure would be difficult without an-other source of information. You canpuzzle out how from their text, butyou'll curse the author before you'redone.

The Hogan book is more complete,and if you're willing to learn some-thing about CP/M it will teach youmore; the Zaks book is a better "cook-book" for just getting the job done.

If you're really interested in learn-ing about CP/M, Jack D. Dennon'sCP/M Revealed is your best bet afteryou've done the introductory work.Dennon's organization is rather poor.He begins with baby talk but quick-ly gives advanced material. For allthat, his book is unique and invalu-able for those willing to invest thetime in understanding it. You'd dowell to buy Hogan's book at the sametime you get Dennon's, though;you'll need both.

CP/M Revealed assumes you want toknow something about assembly-lan-guage programming, at least enoughto be able to write and assemble sim-ple programs. It thus starts you withsimple programs, such as Hello, andquickly goes on from there. Beforethe book is done, you've been shownhow to merge files, assemble them,do random-access file management,make BDOS (basic disk operatingsystem) calls, and even recover erasedfiles. These are all valuable exercises.However, you have to do the work;there's not much point in gettingDennon's book just to read. I surewish someone would put out a diskwith Dennon's programs alreadytyped in, so that you merely need toassemble them.

Finally, there's Mark Dahmke'sMicrocomputer Operating Systems. Thisis an advanced book about smallcomputers in general, rather than abook about CP/M. If you're interestedin what's going on in your machineand why programmers tend to dothings in certain ways, this book isenlightening. Like the Dennon bookthough, it's not required reading.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

519

Whatever you get, though, get acopy of the CP/M Diskguide by CurtisIngraham. This is one of a series ofsmall-format handbooks put out byOsborne/McGraw-Hill, and it's an ex-cellent ready reference. It won't teachyou anything you didn't know, butthat's not its purpose. What it doesdo is list just about every useful com-mand CP/M recognizes. Along withthe commands, the book gives a tersebut accurate description of what eachcommand does. I find I use it all thetime, since I tend to forget the preciseformat for the various options youcan give STAT and PIP, and I suredon't remember the memory map formy system. All that and more is inthis useful little book.

Another very useful tool is TheUser's Guide to CP/M Systems and Soft-ware, and no, I didn't write it. Giventhe way people trademark things, Iwouldn't be surprised to find some-one trying to trademark "User"; fairwarning, I got here first.

The User's Guide is somewhere be-tween a magazine and a book. Itlooks like a magazine and is sold inissues, both in stores and by sub-scriptions, but the contents are morebook-like. A great deal of the User'sGuide is written by Tony Bove andCheryl Rhodes; they have the knackof explaining CP/M programs verywell indeed.

The User's Guide seems to havegrown out of Datacast, which was aJim Warren publication edited byBove and Rhodes; it, too, had a lotof easy-to-understand instructionsand shared their propensity for clas-sical artwork on the covers.

A typical User's Guide contains ar-ticles on how to use Wordstar andSupercalc, overviews of particular im-plementations and installations ofWordstar, and a general article onCP/M. Naturally, each issue is dif-ferent. So far I haven't found one thatwasn't worth more than what it costs.Recommended.

Pascal Books

There are about a zillion books onPascal. I can't possibly review themall, and I'm sure to leave out some-one's favorite. Apologies in advance.

One book I do not recommend is

David Heiserman's Pascal, publishedby Tab Books. If you have a TRS-80with cassette and no disks, andthrough some misguided chanceyou've acquired Supersoft TinyPascal, the book may be useful; butif you don't, it isn't. I really cannotrecommend that you spend muchtime with Tiny Pascal anyway, andsystems without disk drives belongin the dark ages. Trying to learn alanguage using a cassette is a sure-fire way to get discouraged and giveit up as a bad job.

Heiserman's book suffers from thegeneric problems of all Tab books:sloppy editing, tiny margins, un-aesthetic print and layout, and all-around carelessness. As an example,he states:

WRITE('HELLO', 'THERE','.HOW ARE YOU?');

with the expectation that it will print"HELLO THERE. HOW ARE YOU?"but of course it won't, for there is nospace between HELLO and THERE.Trivial but infuriating slop like thisseems characteristic of just aboutevery Tab book I've seen.

Slightly better is Ronald Ander-son's From BASIC to Pascal, but it, too,suffers from the Tab syndrome, andthe examples are reproduced from adot-matrix printer; they're very hardto read. The book purports to tellBASIC programmers how to switchover to Pascal, but I'd hate to have torely on it as my guide.

Another book I don't recommendis Kenneth Bowles's MicrocomputingProblem Solving Using Pascal, which isthe standard textbook at UCSD—possibly because the professor whoteaches Pascal is named KennethBowles. I've attempted to read thisbook, and it's impossibly opaque. It'salso done in typewriter script, mak-ing it physically as well as intellec-tually difficult to read.

Two more I can't say I care muchfor: Rodnay Zaks's Introduction toPascal and A Primer on Pascal byRichard Conway, David Gries, and E.Carl Zimmerman. Zaks's book isn'tall that bad, and it does go into somepretty complicated concepts beforeit's done; it is certainly more pleasant

to read than the book by Conway etal. You could live with Zaks, and ifthere's nothing better conveniently athand, you could learn the languagefrom it; certainly I'd prefer it to thePrimer or either of the Tab books.There are, however, better introduc-tory texts.

The book I learned with is PeterGrogono's Programming in Pascal. Itbegins at elementary levels and goesinto progressively more complex sub-jects. I very much like his Pascal styleand program layout, and his discus-sion of records and event rings is thebest I've seen in any book. It's notreally a beginning text, but if you'refamiliar with programming in gen-eral, Grogono's book is very good forthose who want to learn Pascal as anadditional language. However, there'sno mention of CP/M or microcom-puters. Grogono can teach genericPascal, but you'll still need a guide toyour particular implementation.

Our current favorite beginner's textis A First Course in Computer Program-ming Using Pascal by Andrew M.Keller. This book isn't complete inthat there's not an adequate discus-sion of records and pointers, but thisbook and Grogono's combined canteach you to write practical programswithout too many tears. (On pricealone, the Zaks book may be the wayto go: one book instead of two. How-ever, I don't think Zaks's is as goodan introduction as Keller's, and isn'tas complete on complex issues asGrogono.)

For Apple users there's Elliot B.Koffman's Pascal—A Problem SolvingApproach, which is intended as a col-legiate-level text and goes up to rela-tively complicated programs. Not asgeneral as the Keller/Grogono com-bination, it is adequate for learninga lot about UCSD Pascal, and somemay prefer Koffman's style. There area lot of examples and problems, withanswers in the back of the book. Forreasons I don't understand, thisbook, like many Pascal textbooks,gives program examples all in upper-case. This encourages what is, in myjudgment, bad programming style. Ithink programs are much more read-able if uppercase is used for reservedwords, such as BEGIN and END, and

520 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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most of the program is written inlowercase letters.

One book I've liked a lot was DoingBusiness with Pascal by Richard andDouglas Hergert. It's not a beginner'sbook, but it would do as a follow-upafter Keller, and it offers a great num-ber of practical business programs.Any small business owner faced withwriting programs, or trying to under-stand programs written for the busi-ness, would do well to read thisbook. It's mostly for UCSD Pascal,but the authors admit there are otherimplementations. At least it's micro-oriented.

Another, perhaps even better, isPascal Programs for Business by TomSwan. This book has chapters onword processing as well as businesssubjects. There are a lot of interestingprograms; I can't testify that they'llwork, but they look good to me, andthey're well structured. Kernighanand Plauger have repeatedly statedthat one of the best ways to learn pro-gramming is to read well-designedprograms; Swan offers that opportu-nity. Some are so interesting that I in-tend to key them in Real Soon Now.

The Osborne/McGraw-Hill peoplehave translated their two books, Prac-tical BASIC Programs and Some Com-mon BASIC Programs, into Pascal andput them out as, unsurprisingly, Prac-tical Pascal Programs and Some Com-mon Pascal Programs. You cannot use

them as simple cookbooks because,alas, Pascal implementations differ alot on how they do input/output andfile management. Different machinesand implementations require non-trivial modifications of the programsgiven in the books, and if you don'tknow something about the Pascal im-plementation you're using, you'llnever get these programs to run onyour machine.

On the other hand, provided youknow something of Pascal, there aresome really practical programs inthese books. When I needed a matrixinverter, I found it in Common, andI've used the Bayesian decision-anal-ysis program from Practical. I warnyou again, you need to know whatyou're doing; these books make lit-tle concession to readers not familiarwith their subject matter; there's noexplanation of what matrix inversionmeans, and darned little aboutBayes's theory of inductive reasoning.However, if you do know what you'redoing, having these programs asmodels can sure save you a lot oftime.

Finally, there's Softivare Tools inPascal by Brian W. Kernighan and P. J.Plauger. Their original Software Tools(FORTRAN and RATFOR) used to berequired reading for anyone seriouslystudying software engineering. Thisis a translation of their classic workinto Pascal.

Kernighan and Plauger present anamazing variety of programs, manyof which "cascade," in that later pro-grams call in earlier ones as sub-programs. Their "software tools"have thus become famous. It isn't somuch the programs themselves;there are now better programs to dothe jobs, such as text editing, thatthose programs were supposed to ac-complish. The value of the books andprograms is in teaching, by example,just what structured programming isall about.

Alas, Software Tools in Pascal waswritten for Pascal implementationsrunning on machines a good bitlarger than any BYTE readers arelikely to have at home. It takes a lotof translation to get the "tools" run-ning on a microcomputer. Unless youactually experiment with the pro-grams, though, a good bit of thevalue of the book is lost.

I found that out some time ago andset my son Alex to doing somethingabout it. The result was his own bookand program disk. Using Pascal/Mfrom Sorcim and Pascal MT+ fromDigital Research as the two imple-mentations of choice, he translatedthe introductory building blocks ofSoftware Tools so that they will nowrun on most microcomputers. Thedisk comes with considerable docu-mentation, including the best exposi-tion of what Pascal error messages

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mean and what is likely to havecaused the error, that I have seen yetin any of these texts.

If you want to learn Pascal, youcould do worse than make a packagedeal: MT+ Compiler; three books:Keller, Grogono, and the Kernighanand Plauger; and AlexanderPournelle's A Primer on Pascal forCP/M Systems.

C Language Books

There aren't so many books on theC language yet, but given time I'msure there will be. A good way to findout if you will like C is to read theAugust 1983 issue of BYTE.

Not long ago, the only way to learnC was from Brian W. Kernighan andDennis M. Ritchie, The C Program-ming Language. Now there are betterintroductory books, but Kernighanand Ritchie is still the standard, andsince Kernighan was the principalauthor of the C language, he canspeak with some authority when hewrites about it.

The book is a bit terse. It definitelyassumes you know something about

computers and programming. It wasalso written under the assumptionthat you're working with a systemusing the Unix operating system. Onthe other hand, there's a good tutorialguide that is invaluable provided youcan make the proper changes so thatthe tutorial programs can run underyour particular implementation.

You can learn the C language with-out getting Kernighan and Ritchie,but that's doing it the hard way.You're also working too hard if youmake it the only book on C that youbuy.

Two better introductory books areThomas Plum's Learning to Program inC and Jack Purdum's C ProgrammingGuide. I'd rate Plum's book slightlybetter for beginners, but if you al-ready know something about pro-gramming, Purdum's is more com-plete and often gives comparisons ofhow BASIC and C would handle thesame problem. You don't need both.

Ada Books

Despite some disagreement from afew readers, I continue in my belief

that learning Ada is the best long-term job insurance a programmer canhave. Ada is, of course, the new lan-guage to be supported by the Depart-ment of Defense (DOD). It's full ofbells and whistles and special fea-tures; its major strength is that, likeModula II, it is designed to allow co-processing, which is to say, to letcomputers do more than one part ofa task at the same time.

There's a very good history of Adain Software Engineering with Ada byGrady Booch. This is, at first, an in-furiating book; it addresses impor-tant questions, such as the crisis insoftware, in terms that I had a nega-tive response to. If that happens toyou, ignore it, and read on. Boochhas a lot to say, and it's important. In-deed, as his book title indicates, thebook is as much about software engi-neering, and a philosophy of soft-ware design, as it is about the Adalanguage. Part of the book is reallyheavy slogging; I found myself read-ing some pages more than once. Likeme, Booch has strong opinions, andI guarantee he'll irritate some readers.

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The whitesmiths field-proven Pascal and CCompiler (with cross support option) is portable,compatible and reliable. The compilers are notonly portable, but also compatible with most ofthe popular operating systems and machinearchitectures. The C Compiler is a FULL IM-PLEMENTATION OF KERNIGHAN & RITCHIE'S

C LANGUAGE STANDARD. Pascal conforms tothe ISO Standard Level 0. Portability is achievedas a result of an identical preprocessor, parser,and C Portable Library for each compiler. (TheC Portable Library contains string manipulationfunctions and extensive I O formatting support.)The reliability of the compilers is a product ofthe portability.

Software application developers achieve easeof development through simply havingthe ability to recompile and relink tonumerous machine architectures. Theability to develop on numerous hard-ware configurations also providesINCREASED REVENUE AND PROFIT!

The C Compilers are $550. Each Cross Supportis an additional $550. Pascal and C Compilersare $700; Cross Support is an additional $700.The Authorization Seal provides ease of licens-ing. By simply affixing the Authorization Seal tothe exterior of your box you have licensed yoursoftware with Whitesmiths, Ltd. No license tosign!

To find out how you can make our compilerswork for you, write for the PROFITBUILDER'S CHECKLIST at:Whitesmiths, Ltd.97 Lowell Road, Concord,MA 01742 (617) 369-8499Telex: 951708 software cncm

Whitesmiths, Ltd.

UNIX i?> ;i trademark of Bell Laboratories; PDP-11 and VAX are trademarks tit Digital Equipment CtHporaiian; MC6H000 is a trademark of Motorola inc.Ptafffeffi^.AittttaHa.Fa^

Circle 456 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983 525

Books Reviewed

Anderson, Ronald W. From BASIC to Pascal (Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Tab Books,1982).

Booch, Grady. Software Engineering with Ada (Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cum-mings Publishing Co., 1983).

Bove, Tony and Cheryl Rhodes, eds. User's Guide to CP/M Systems and Software (Stan-ford, CA: TUG Inc.(POB 3050)).

Bowles, Kenneth L. Microcomputing Problem Solving Using Pascal (New York:Springer-Verlag, 1977).

Conway, Richard, David Gries, and E. Carl Zimmerman. A Primer on Pascal, 3rded. (Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Publishers, 1976).

Dahmke, Mark. Microcomputer Operating Systems (Peterborough, NH: BYTE Books,1982).

Davidson, Greg. Practical Pascal Programs (Berkeley, CA: Osborne/McGraw-Hill,1982).

Dennon, Jack D. CP/M Revealed (Rochelle Park, NJ: Hayden Publishing Corp., 1982).

Gehani, Narain. Ada: An Advanced Introduction (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983).

Grogono, Peter. Programming in Pascal, revised ed. (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley,1980).

Heiserman, David L. Pascal (Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Tab Books, 1980).

Hergert, Richard and Douglas Hergert. Doing Business with Pascal (Berkeley, CA:Sybex, 1983).

Hogan, Thorn. Osborne CP/M User Guide, 2nd ed. (Berkeley, CA: Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1982).

Ingraham, Curtis A. CP/M Diskguide (Berkeley, CA: Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1983).

Keller, Arthur M. A First Course in Computer Programming Using Pascal (New York:McGraw-Hill, 1983).

Kernighan, Brian W. and P. J. Plauger. Software Tools (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley,1976).

Kernighan, Brian W. and P. J. Plauger. Software Tools in Pascal (Reading, MA:Addison-Wesley, 1981).

Kernighan, Brian W. and Dennis M. Ritchie. The C Programming Language(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978).

Koffman, Elliot B. Pascal—A Problem Solving Approach (Reading, MA: Addison-WesleyMicrobooks Popular Series, 1982).

Plum, Thomas. Learning to Program in C (Cardiff, NJ: Plum Hall Inc., 1983).

Poole, Lon, Mary Borchers, and Greg Davidson. Some Common Pascal Programs(Berkeley, CA: Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1982).

Pournelle, Alexander. A Primer on Pascal for CP/M Systems (Pasadena, CA: Workmanand Associates (112 Marion Ave.), 1982).

Purdum, Jack. C Programming Guide (Indianapolis, IN: Que Corporation, 1983).

Pyle, I. C. The Ada Programming Language (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1981).

Zaks, Rodnay. The CP/M Handbook with MP/M (Berkeley, CA: Sybex, 1982).

Zaks, Rodnay. Introduction to Pascal (Including UCSD Pascal) (Berkeley, CA: Sybex,1981).

No matter: it's worth the effort.

I have no opinion on the worth ofthe book as an Ada handbook,because I don't know enough aboutthe language. Booch is an Ada enthu-siast and presents an awful lot aboutthe language; I think I could write anAda program using Booch as my onlyreference, although I'm glad I don'thave to. The real value, though, is inexplaining why Ada does things inthe way it does. I have no hesitationin recommending this book to any-one seriously interested in under-standing Ada.

If you know how to program andjust want to learn Ada, I can recom-mend Ada—An Advanced Introductionby Narain Gehani. This is a muchmore traditional book than Booch's.It doesn't go into the Ada "philoso-phy" much, but it has many more ex-amples of Ada programs and how towrite them. If I were required to writean Ada program quickly, I'd far preferGehani to Booch. On the other hand,if I were serious about learning Ada,I'd get both. Recommended.

The Ada Programming Language, byI.C. Pyle, used to be the only Adabook; alas, that was about all it hadgoing for it. The book is dense, con-voluted in style, and printed in a less-than-pleasing typeface. It also con-tains erroneous examples. In Pyle'sdefense, at the time he wrote thebook there was no Ada compiler forhim to work with, and the DOD pub-lications he had to use as sourceswere only slightly more comprehen-sible than Linear B. In any event, itis a book whose time has passed.

The Tidal Wave

There's no shortage of computerbooks now. My publishing friendstell me computer books are the mostpopular nonfiction line in the in-dustry. They also say the real tidalwave will arrive in 1984.

At best, there's ample information;the challenge will be to sort the goldfrom the dross. I'll try to do that infuture reviews. ■

jern/ Pou rnelle is a former aerospace engineer andcurrent science-fiction writer who loves to play withcomputers.

526 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

MERRY CHRISTMAS,DARLING!

He asked for a new shirt and tie he'd seen atBloomingdale's. What he really wanted was moreprofile in the office.

She asked for a new executive organizer—andpromised that this time shed use it. What she reallywanted was a way to succeed.

They gave each other ARIS, the Action ResourceInformation System. And they each got what theyreally wanted.

Now Ted's performance is really getting noticed.ARIS organizes his needs, manages his priorities,keeps track of his busy schedule. ARIS eases his workload by placing his calls, outlining his reports, andupdating his client records-automatically And, thebuilt-in word processor has all the features he wants.Ted's getting more work done, faster, more effectively.With ARIS, Ted achieves the real managementresults he needs.

Susan threw out her old organizer. ARIS printsher action lists, confirms her meetings, even updatesher pocket diary. She loves the simplicity of a singleprogram managing her work and her computer.ARIS reveals the true value of total software inte-gration. Now when Susan changes her database, theright information appears instantly in her clientfiles, in her correspondence—everywhere she needsit. ARIS deals with the big issues and the little details,so Susan can focus on her goals.

His performance excels. She's on her way tosuccess. And, with increased effectiveness, they havemore time for each other. Thanks to ARIS.

Now. What do you want for Christmas?

esc

♦

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Ask your Dealer to demonstrate the entire EXCEL SYSTEMS line for you.

Circle 182 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983 527

Sooner or later, an Eagle has to leave

its nest.

IBM Btld Seleccric arc registered TM's of IBM Corp.

528 BYTE December 1983

Introducing the Eagle Spirif XL.The easy-to-use, professional portable.

Power? The Eagle Soirfi

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It's highly IBMK-compatible,so you can choose from hundredsof software and hardware productsdesigned for the IBM-PC—evengraphics and games.

And you can store several of yourfavorite programs right on a singledisk, thanks to Eagle Spirit's 10 Mega-byte hard disk memory. Making yourbusiness as portable as your computer.

Power? The Eagle Spirit XL is aspowerful as a lot of desktops, includ-ing the IBM-XT There's memoryto 640K, letting you run even the larg-est spreadsheets with memory tospare. Plus three ports (two serial andone parallel) that connect youto the world of printers, plotters,mice and modems.

Best of all, you can add ease-of-use features unique to Eagle: like ourFlexMenu* that calls up a programwith just two keystrokes. Or FlexKey,"designed to simplify popular softwarepackages such as WordStar,"' VisiCalci'SuperCalc III" and Lotus 1-2-3?

With extras like built-in graphics,a familiar Selectric"-type keyboard,even a non-glare screen. And it comesas a complete package for one easy-to-take price. Backed by a warrantysecond to none.

The Eagle Spirit XL. From thepeople who make the broadest rangeof IBM-compatible computers.

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JgiStered TM of MicroPro.

I 1983 EaBlc Computer.BYTE December 1983

529

Software Received

Apple

Apple Cider Spider, an ar-cade-type game. As a spider,you must get back to yourweb in the rafters of the ap-ple cider factory. Avoid roll-ing apples, slicers, crushers,bottlers, and cappers. Withluck and timing, you can racethe clock to make it home.For II, II Plus, and He; flop-py disk, $34.95. Sierra On-Line Inc., Sierra On-LineBuilding, Coarsegold, CA93614.

The Apple Family Sing-along Christmas Disk, a diskof Christmas carols. Thismultivoice, four-part har-mony of 16 Christmas carolsis complete with words andlasts one-half hour. Handyfor Christmas parties, officeparties, or family gatherings.For II, II Plus, and III; floppydisk, $24.50. Solutions Soft-works, PO Drawer 72289,Roselle, IL 60172.

Bermuda Race, a sailing sim-ulation of the blue-water racefrom Newport, Rhode Is-land, to Bermuda. One ortwo players can chart pro-gress as you sail 635 miles ofthe open Atlantic. Raceagainst those who set theBermuda Race record withthe help of nautical interac-tive tutorials. For the II; flop-py disk, $29.95. Howard W.Sams & Co., 4300 West 62ndSt., Indianapolis, IN 46268.

Compiled Customer/ClientProcessor, a tailored databaseprogram designed to providestorage and manipulation ofessential information con-cerning firms and individualsyou do business with. Five ofthe 14 information fields areuser defined. This programcan search for records usingfive user-specified criteria,and it can print records andmailing labels. For the II Plus;

floppy disk, $59.95. ProfloSoftware, POB 7115, Murray,UT 84107.

The DT Hunting Trainer/Simulator, a hunting-simula-tion program designed to ac-curately depict field condi-tions and bullet trajectories.Sharpen your hunting skillsand judgment by taking intoaccount wind, slope, range,target, and your own ability.For II Plus and He; floppydisk, $29.50. Datatech Soft-ware Systems Inc., 19312 EastEldorado Dr., Aurora, CO80013.

The Einstein Compiler, a

BASIC compiler that auto-matically translates ApplesoftBASIC programs into Applemachine language. Compiledprograms execute severaltimes faster than uncompiledcode and the compiler en-ables the integrated compila-tion and execution of multi-module programs. It pro-vides debugging tools and of-fers mechanisms for programsecurity. For II Plus and lie;floppy disk, $129. The Ein-stein Corp., 11340 WestOlympic Blvd., Los Angeles,CA 90064.

Gruds In Space, an illus-trated adventure game inwhich you must deliver arare fuel to a ship strandedon Pluto. You will be teleport-ing to other planets to solvemany puzzles. If you candeliver the fuel on time, youwin one million dollars fromPresident Fred. For II, II Plus,and He; floppy disk, $39.95.Sirius Software Inc., 10364Rockingham Dr., Sacramen-to, CA 95827.

Homework Helper, Elemen-tary Mathematics, an educa-tional program that showsyou the answers to math-ematics problems and dis-plays the extras you need to'show your work.' Addition

shows carries; subtractionshows borrows; multiplica-tion shows intermediateproducts; and division showslong-division results up tothe first three digits. For IIPlus and He; floppy disk,$24.95. Colorado Cypher-netics Inc., 3550 Arapahoe#4, Boulder, CO 80302.

The Last Diary, a personalscheduling program. Thisrecord-keeping system issimilar to the book form witha page for every day. Eachday contains three commentlines. You can manipulatedata for taxes or sales; printa day, week, month, or year;or search to find any string orcharacter. For II Plus and He;floppy disk, $49.95. ProfloSoftware (see addressabove).

Memory Jogger, a perpetu-al-reminder program. Neverforget another birthday, bill,engagement, or project dead-line. This program serves asa flexible appointment-and-event calendar and time-management system. Fea-tures include one-time entryfor recurring events, rapidsearch over all fields, andevents listed chronologicallyor alphabetically. For II Plusand He; floppy disk, $29.95.Craftsbury Software Inc.,1623 Montague St. NW,Washington, DC 20011.

Monte Carlo Simulations, a

general-purpose statisticalsimulation and analysis toolthat contains two processes:a statistical-analysis processto match a set of raw data toa standard probability dis-tribution, and the simulationprocess that generates ran-dom numbers based on anassumed probability distribu-tion. For the II; floppy disk,$60. Actuarial Micro Soft-ware, 3915 A Valley Court,Winston-Salem, NC 27106.

Natural Family PlanningPersonal Charting Program,

a fertility-charting program.Daily charts display eachcycle with temperature andpH signs plotted in graphs aswell as text. A statisticalanalysis of charted cycles dis-plays cycle length, peak day,and the post-ovulatoryphase. For the II; floppy disk,$39.50. Family Life Software,1401 South 11th Ave., St.Cloud, MN 56301.

Pen-Pal, a word-processingprogram that uses your com-puter's full capabilities totype, edit, store, and printlarge amounts of informa-tion. You can write a letterwith a few commands or pro-duce a thesis complete withtables. For II and He; floppydisk, $59.95. Howard W.Sams & Co. (see addressabove).

The Quest, an adventuregame. As King Gait's newestadvisor, you must accom-pany his champion fighter,Gorn, on a quest to rid thekingdom of a vengefuldragon. Refresh your watersupply and refer to your mapof more than 200 locations inhigh-resolution graphics. Forthe II; floppy disk, $19.95.Penguin Software, 830 4thAve., Geneva, IL 60134.

Ramdisk He, a utility pro-gram for Apple He com-puters with extended 80-column cards. It has 25screens of menu-drivendocumentation and supportsdouble high-resolutiongraphics. Ramdisk He can bemodified and copied. For theHe; floppy disk, $19.95. Preci-sion Software, 6514 NorthFresno St., Milwaukee, WI53224.

Sammy Lightfoot, an arcade-type game. This little acrobatwith a fancy hairdo cravesthe spotlight under the Big

530 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

/MicroAge

"THEIR ENTHUSIASM ABOUT OUR GROWTH

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started MicroAge during the pioneering days of microcomputing isnow a matter of company policy.""Plus, MicroAge helped us get key product lines for Alaskal""We're believers in MicroAge. Their industry knowledge andinsight into recent product developments has given us the flexibilityto think and react before our competition does. We started with 4people in a single store in 1981.. .now we have 4 stores and 26people.""At MicroAge, they speak our language.. .successl"

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To build your own professional computer sales organ-ization with MicroAge, write to:

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1457 West Alameda • Tempe, Arizona 85282

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Circle 283 on inquiry card.

Software Received.

Top. He now faces the tough-est challenge of his career: anaudition that requires perfecttiming on the trampolinesand courage to swing acrossthe trapeze with fire at hisfeet. Grinning pumpkins andpounding hammers are outto smash Sammy's dream.For II, II Plus, and He; flop-py disk, $37.79. Sierra On-Line Inc. (see address above).

Speedstat 2, a statistical-analysis program that pro-vides an easy means for get-ting edited or raw data in andout of the system in the formof printed statistical reportsor reusable data. For the II;floppy disk, $299. SoftcorpInternational, 229 HuberVillage Blvd., Westerville,OH 43081.

Stellar 7, a strategy arcade-type game in which you arein command of the AgravUnit, Raven. You must reach

the Arcturan star system anddestroy the Supreme Over-lord of the Empire, the in-famous Gir Draxon. If yousurvive the onslaught of Arc-turan forces on seven starsystems, a Warplink will ap-pear and transport you to thenext star system. For II, IIPlus, and He; floppy disk,$34.95. Software Entertain-ment Co., 537 Willamette St.,Eugene, OR 97401.

Wine Connoisseur, a cellar-inventory program that alsofiles your tasting notes onflavors, aromas, vintages,and regions. This programenables you to pick the ap-propriate wines for mealsusing screen prompts andmultifield search. For II Plusand lie; floppy disk, $39.95.Craftsbury Software Inc. (seeaddress above).

Wings Out of Shadow, an

arcade-type game based on a

science-fiction story by FredSaberhagen. You command aspaceship that must fightfour levels of a fleet of Ber-serkers: Bridge Game, MazeGame, Flight Deck, and LastBattle in which you musteliminate all Berserkers ordistract them until the Hopeescapes. For the II Plus; flop-py disk, $34.95. Jim BaenInc., 8 West 36th St., NewYork, NY 10018.

The Witness, an interactive-whodunit game. As a chiefpolice detective during the1930s, you must solve yourtoughest case to date: a sor-did family affair that couldput everyone from the heir-ess to the butler in jail. Seeif you can untangle the knotof motives and alibis andsolve the case in less than 12hours. For the II; floppy disk,$49.95. Infocom Inc., 55Wheeler St., Cambridge, MA02138.

Zaxxon, an air-battle simula-tion game. As the pilot of afighter spacecraft, you mustdestroy a deadly armoredrobot by skillfully maneuver-ing to attack enemy installa-tions and fuel tanks. Avoidthe enemy's barrage of mis-siles and gunfire as you scalewalls and navigate throughforce fields in the three-dimensional battlefield. ForII, II Plus, and He; floppydisk, $39.95. Datasoft Inc.,9421 Winnetka Ave., Chats-worth, CA 91311-9969.

Atari

Astro Chase, an arcade-typegame. As an ace spacesoldier you must save Earthfrom destruction by eliminat-ing mines that threatenhumanity. Avoid attacks horna variety of enemy fighterstrying to distract you. For400/800 and 1200; cartridge,

c

ProgrammingGuidelines

Thomas Plum

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C Programming Guidelines 70 pp., m* x io», price $25,00A compilation of standards for consistant style and usage of Clanguage. Arranged in manual page format for easy reference, itpresents time-tested rules for program readability and portability.

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532 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 486 on inquiry card.

programmers

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WHO TO SELL YOUR PROGRAMS

THOUSANDS OF COMPANY NAMES AND ADDRESSES,

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BYTE December 1983

533

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PROGRAMMING IN %-* ?

BE SURE YOU GET ALL THE PHACT's

base your C programming onPHACT-dbrm

a m ul ti- keye d [I S AM)Data Base Record Manager.

PHACT-dbrm

is an easy to use library of C callable

functions for manipulation of records in

a database, plus high level database

manipulation tools.

PHACT-dbrm

supports: data dictionary; 5 datatypes; variable

length records; full database security; database

locking, data portability; ".h" file creation and

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PHACT-dbrm

runs on: all UNIX systems • IDRIS and UNIX look-alikes • MSDOS •CP/M

PHACT-rql i Relational Query Language I PHACT-rg

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Software Received,

$40. Parker Brothers, 50Dunham Rd., Beverly, MA01915.

Beneath Apple Manor, a fan-tasy game simulation. Youplay the role of an adven-turer, exploring a multilevelunderground maze of cor-ridors, rooms, and secretpassages to kill monsters andfind treasures. Increase yourskills in each level with color-ful high-resolution graphics.For the 800; floppy disk,$29.95. Quality Software,Suite 105, 6660 Reseda Blvd.,Reseda, CA 91335.

DOS-MOD, a modificationand enhancement program.Atari DOS 2.0S now includesfull use of the screen, one-line commands, command-file capability, options to con-trol wild-card file operations,and a reliable memory/diskswapping facility. For the400/800; floppy disk, $35.Eclipse, 1058 Marigold Court,Sunnyvale, CA 94086.

Excalibur, a medieval simula-tion game. Based on thelegend of King Arthur, youmust govern a nation wiselyusing economics, diplomacy,magic, military strategy, eventhe loyalties of friends andenemies. An Atari joystickcontroller is required. For the400/800; floppy disk, $29.95.Atari Program Exchange,1265 Borregas Ave., POB 427,Sunnyvale, CA 94086.

Fathom, a subterranean res-cue-mission game. You mustlocate three pieces of Nep-tune's trident to free his mer-maid daughter from her un-derwater prison. You canswitch from a dolphin formto a seagull to search both seaand sky for the missingpieces. Learn to make magi-cal stars and starfish to helpyou in your mission. For the2600; cartridge, $29.95.Imagic, 981 University Ave.,Los Gatos, CA 95030.

Kaboom, an arcade-typegame. You are after the MadBomber, a scowling convictwho roams the rooftopsdropping bombs with lightedfuses. As you maneuverwater buckets to try to catchthe falling bombs, you are ac-companied by the music ofthe 1812 Overture. For 400/800 and 1200; cartridge,$34.95. Activision Inc., 2350Bayshore Frontage Rd.,Mountain View, CA 94043.

Moon Shuttle, an arcade-type game. As the pilot of aMoon Shuttle flight, you re-peatedly encounter unex-pected dangers as you blastyour way through asteroidsand bomb launchers whilethe enemy skillfully dodgesyour sights. For 400/800 and1200; floppy disk and cas-sette, $29.95. Datasoft Inc.,9421 Winnetka Ave., Chats-worth, CA 91311-9969.

Moonsweeper, an arcade-type adventure. You mustreach and rescue minersstranded on hostile moons inan outerspace quadrant.Avoid a deadly photon torch,space bullet showers, andAurora flare activity at lethallevels. Land on as manymoons as you can while yourescue the miners. For the2600; cartridge, $30. Imagic(see address above).

Murder on the Zinderneuf,

an adventure mystery gamein which you pick one ofeight detectives and try tosolve the mystery of the Zin-derneuf blimp before itlands. If you fail, someonewill get away with murder.The mystery changes witheach different detective. For400/800 and 1200; floppydisk, $40. Electronic Arts,2755 Campus Dr., SanMateo, CA 94403.

The Official Frogger, an

arcade-game adaptation. Youare a frog with seven liveswho must get home safely.

534 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 485 on inquiry card.

CompuShack

PRICES AND AVAILABILITY SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICEALL RETURNED MERCHANDISE SUBJECT TO A 20% RESTOCKING FEE.

ADD 10% FOR NET TERMS

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AST RESEARCH

IO Plus-Parallel & Serial Port. ClockCalendar W/Bat. back-up. Superdrive.Superspool $ 199.00

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Superspool $499.00

Mega Plus—5J2K, Parallel & Serial Port, Clock

Calendar W/Bat. back-up $999.00

QUAORAM

Quad Board - 256K, Parallel Port, Serial

I/O Clock Calendar with battery backup

$599.00

512K Ram with Serial I/O $799.00

HERCULES GRAPHICS CARDThis card gives you 720x350

graphics $499.00

BIG BLUE $479.00

MAYNARD SANDSTAR SERIESMultifunction Card $95.00

Floppy Disk Controller $225.00

Memory Card $189.00

MONITORS

AMDEK

300A . $199.00

300G $169.00

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$769.00$869.00$599.00$135.00

2 "^ Spec.i5 ■-. oi

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IBM PC "'COMPLETE LINE

IBM PC

64K, Two 320KB Disk Drives, Floppy DiskController, Video Card and High ResMonitor $2599.00

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TAVA PC

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LOTUS 1-2-3 SOFTWARE $459

HARD DISK SYSTEMS FOR IBM

HARD DISK SYSTEM FOR IBM PC

256K IBM PC, 360KB Disk Drive, FDC,10 MB Hard Disk w/controller, Cabinet controller& software, Color Card, Monitor $3999.00

PRINTERS

OKIDATA

82A

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83A

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84AP parallel . .

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84AS serial ....

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92A

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93A

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SILVER REED

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DAISY WHEEL PRINTERS BY DIABLOModel 620

132 Column/20CPS

Model 630

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Model 630

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Epson FX-80 CALL

Epson FX-100 ._ CALL

NECSPINWRITER

NEC

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7715-1 $2295 3515 ....

7730-1 $2095 3530 . . .

7720-1 $2695 3550 . . .

7725-1 $2695 PC8023A .

$1495$1495$1695$1995$ 595

APPLE lie CIPPIG

Computer System Controller, Two Disk Drives,Monitor $1699

OTHER PRODUCTS

FOR APPLE

Special of the Month!0 $199

TAVA CORP.DATA DRIVE

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HAYES MICROCOMPUTERPRODUCTS

Micromodem 300 baud

Smartmodem 1200 baud

$299.95$529.95

CompuShack

THE UNIQUE FRANCHISINGCONCEPT WITH THEFOLLOWING FEATURES:

PRIVATE LABEL PRODUCTSWITH NO ROYALTIES,DISCOUNT PRICES, FULLSERVICE & SUPPORT,COURTESY AND MORE.Circle 95 on inquiry card.

(7141 261-1000

FRANCHISE INQUIRIES WELCOME

T6S61 ARMSTRONG. IRVINE. CA 9271*

HEADQUARTERS/TELEX: 1DT667-ANSWER BACK: COMPPSHACK IRIN

•IBM is a registered trademark of IBM Corporation

•APPLE is a registered trademark of Apple Computers. Inc

•CP/M and CP/M86 are registered trademarks of Digital Research. Inc

PRODUCTS AND PRICES NOT AVAILABLEAT ALL STORES

ALL FLOPPIES REPAIRED QUICKLY AT LOW COST

CALL FOR STORELOCATION

Software Received

You must cross the freewaywhile cars, trucks, and bull-dozers are traveling at vari-ous speeds. After you try tojump across the freeway tothe safety barrier, you mustnavigate the river by leapingon logs and jumping on tur-tles' backs. For the 2600; cas-sette, $18. Starpath Corp.,2005 De la Cruz Blvd., SantaClara, CA 95050.

Operation Whirlwind, a

WWII strategy game. Youcommand a reinforced infan-try battalion. Your job is to in-filtrate enemy lines, destroy-ing any resistance you en-counter. The computer'sforces harass you as you tryto seize the city and hold itagainst counterattack in alimited amount of time. For400/800 and 1200; floppydisk, $39.95. BroderbundSoftware Inc., 1938 FourthSt., San Rafael, CA 94901.

Ore Attack, a medieval-battlegame. Save the castle from anOre attack by hurling rocksand boiling oil from the para-pet. Watch out for the sor-cerer that is lurking in thebackground waiting to castevil spells. For 400/800 and1200; cartridge, $39.95. ThornEmi Home Video, 1370 Ave-nue of the Americas, NewYork, NY 10019.

O'Riley's Mine, an under-ground adventure game. AsTimothy O'Riley, you musttravel down through yourmine to capture buried trea-sures and return home safe-ly to the top of the mineshaft. Avoid hungry rivermonsters and drowning inthe rushing water. Use yourdynamite carefully to destroythe monsters without de-stroying yourself. For 400/800and 1200; floppy disk andcassette, $29.95. Datasoft Inc.(see address above).

Q Bert, an arcade-type gamein which you hop Q Bertdown a pyramid of cubes

that change color with eachsuccessful landing. All thecubes must be changed to thesame color before the playercan move on to the next,more hectic round of play.For 400/800 and 1200; car-tridge, $40. Parker Brothers(see address above).

Rabbit Transit, a fast-actionarcade-type game. As a rab-bit, you must get through themysterious meadow and theland of ledges before you canstart a family. Avoid meadowmeanies who try to preventyou from reaching the turtlethat will carry you down theriver. For the 2600; cassette,$18. Starpath Corp. (see ad-dress above).

Super Cobra, a high-altitudearcade-type game whererealistic missiles explodearound you. The enemy basecan be reached only by heli-copter and the pilot mustexecute hairpin aerial maneu-vers through a constantlychanging terrain of mazes,caves, and cities with tallbuildings, while under attackby missiles, meteors, tanks,and flying saucers. For the400/800; cartridge, $40. ParkerBrothers (see address above).

Wavy Navy, an arcade-typegame. You pilot a FT boat be-ing tossed by 30-foot waveswhile surrounded by enemybombers and kamikazefighters that appear on thehorizon backed up by heli-copters with blazing machineguns. For 400/800 and 1200;floppy disk, $34.95. SiriusSoftware Inc., 10364 Rocking-ham Dr., Sacramento, CA95827.

The Witness, an interactive-whodunit game (see descrip-tion under Apple). InfocomInc., 55 Wheeler St., Cam-bridge, MA 02138.

Worms, a two-dimensionalgrid game. You are in controlof electronic-light lines that

geometrically resembleworms. They capture terri-tories by laying trails fromdot to dot. You can choosefrom five worms with vary-ing capacities. For the 400/800and 1200; floppy disk, $35.Electronic Arts (see addressabove).

XBASIC, a machine-lan-guage program to expand thepower of Atari BASIC byadding 30 new functions thatinclude string arrays, multi-color characters, player-mis-sile graphics, and more. Forthe 400/800; floppy disk,$29.95. Superware, 2028Kingshouse Rd., SilverSpring, MD 20904.

CP/M

ACPs, a series of Access Con-trol Programs that interfaceswith CP/M 2.2, reserving sys-tem-access for authorizedusers. Access to a system'sresources (data and programfiles, peripheral equipment)is also user-specific. Handleslog-on/off from multipledirect-cabled and dial-up ter-minals and includes a man-ual. Floppy disk, $150.Grover Software, POB 34216,Bethesda, MD 20817.

The Champion, a completeCP/M 2.2 accounting packagewritten in dBASE II that in-cludes general ledger andfinancial statements, ac-counts payable and purchaseorder, inventory, payroll, andaccounts receivable withorder entry and point of sale.This program eliminates theneed for batching or sortingdata and features a helpfunction and automatic re-covery in the event of a crash.Floppy disk, $195. Data BaseResearch Corp., Suite 155, 66South Van Gordon St., Lake-wood, CO 80228.

Grafprn, a utility programthat lets you print high-res-

olution graphics files on dot-matrix printers. It calculatesall the dots on the line be-tween the endpoints andpasses this information to theprinter (rasterization). Thisprogram is limited to Tek-tronix Plot 10 graphics infor-mation. Floppy disk, $29.95.Micromaster Computer Con-sultants, 20877 SouthwestWinema Dr., Tualatin, OR97062.

Home Word Processing Ser-vice, a start-up kit. This pro-gram shows you how to startup a small word-processingservice. It includes samplemarketing, operating, andstart-up plans, a manual, anda collection of pamphlets onsuch topics as legalities. Flop-py disk, $29.95. South BayWord Processing, Suite 290,1558 Oro Vista Rd., SanDiego, CA 92154.

Starburst, a systems-buildingand database managementtool for the nonprogrammerthat unites Micropro pro-grams or links other softwareprograms to perform or-dinary office tasks. This pro-gram lets you build andcreate the menus you need.Floppy disk, $195. MicroproInternational Corp., 33 SanPablo Ave., San Rafael, CA94903.

Commodore

Arcadia Mania, a fast-actionarcade-type game in whichyou shoot nineteen waves ofmenacing aliens that are allout to get you. Try to kill asmany as possible with yourlimited supply of ammuni-tion. The more you hit, thehigher your score. For the 64;floppy disk, $24.95. PerseusProgramming, 9311 AveryRd., Broadview Heights, OH44147.

David's Midnight Magic, a

fast-action electronic-pinballgame. See how high your

536 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

NETWORK

Buy Hardware/Software at Wholesale.

And Save On Software Rentals,

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Save hundreds of dollars when youbuy DIRECT from America's Num-ber 1 Computer Buying Serviceat just 8% above DEALER WHOLE-SALE PRICES, plus shipping.

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RENT BEFORE YOU BUY —Mem-bers are eligible to join The NET-WORK'S Business and GameSoftware Rental Libraries for amuch smaller fee than other soft-ware rental services. And TheNETWORK'S rental charges arefar less — just 20%-25% of theMember WHOLESALE PRICE!

Join The NETWORK today for aslow as $8 for one year (or $15 fortwo years) and receive all theseexclusive, money-saving benefits:

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GUARANTEE — If you are not satisfied withany hardware, return it within 15 days for a 100%money-back refund.

Ail items subject to availability, prices subject to change without noticeCopyright ©1983. PC NETWORK INC

rSAVE ON UPGRADES!

Disk Drive

Two TandonTM 50-2 HalfHeight DS/DD

Retail

$574/pair

Retail

$11 each

NETWORKSPECIAL

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64K Chips

"NETWORK Members pay just 8% over thewholesale price, plus shipping.

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Available at $15 per year or $25 for two years.V.I.P. Members receive additional benefits:

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■ FOR $35 in addition to the V.I.P. membership fee.

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r Choose hardware and software 1

from hundreds of manufacturers,

including:

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THE NETWORK- MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION

YES! Please enroll me as a member in TheNETWORK" and rush my catalog featuring thousands ofcomputer hardware and software products, all at just 8%above DEALER WHOLESALE PRICES. I will also receiveall (he other exclusive, money-saving services availableto Members.

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Circle 503 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983 537

Circle 18 on inquiry card.

QUALITY PARTS AT DISCOUNT PRICES!

SUB-MINIATUREDTYPE CONNECTOR

SOLDER TYPE SUB-MINIATURECONNECTORS USED FORCOMPUTER HOOK UPS

DB-1 5 PLUGDB-15S0CKETDB-15 HOODDB-25PLUGDB-25 SOCKETDB-25HOOD

$2.75$4.00$1.50$2.75$3.50$1.25

WIRE 15 CONDUCTOR

COLOR CODED 24 GASTRANDED GRAY JACKET

25 FEET $12.00 100 FEET $37.50

KEY ASSEMBLY

5 KEY

7$100 EACH

CONTAINS 5 SINGLE-POLENORMALLY OPEN SWITCHES.MEASURES 3V LONG.

6 KEY

$1.25EACH

CONTAINS 6 SINGLE-POLENORMALLY OPEN SWITCHES.MEASURES W LONG.

BCD DIP SWITCH

10 POSITION ROTARY ,J—4

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FITS 6 PIN DIP. @s3"|/

$1.85 EACH

SOLID STATERELAYS

2 AMP

=n-l

if

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MOTOROLA"MP 120D2RATED:C0NTROL-3 6-6VDCLOAD-120VAC2AMPSr.T.L COMPATIBLE.SIZE: 1"/,. - »ix THIGH$3.50 EACH 10 FOR $32.00

10 AMP

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$9.50 EACH

-48 PAGE CATALOG

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PUT "THE TOUCH"ON YOUR APPLE"

'SOFT-TOUCH'

Now get high resolutiontouch screen capabilities foryour Apple'*lle or Apple®ll +with CTA's Soft-Touch™ bezeland interface, it attaches eas-ily to any Apple® Monitor illand comes with all the hard-ware and software you needto install and operate it.

Use CTA's Soft-Touch™ as atraining device or to replacejoysticks or keyboard gamecommands. Use it for spread-sheet programs, too.

Ask your Apple8 dealer forCTA's soft-Touch™ — and putthe touch on your Apple"!

Dealer Inquiries Welcome

Computer TechnologyAssociates

New Products Division

1704 Moon, N.E.

Albuquerque, New Mexico

87112

(505) 298-0942

TWX 910 989 1157

Apple- is a registeredtrademark of Apple-Computer, Inc. Soft-Touch isa trademark of computerTechnology Associates.

Software Received,

score goes using dual-flippercontrols, bumper action, roll-overs, and multiple-ball play,accompanied by all thesounds and lights of theclassic arcade-pinball ma-chine. Jostle the machine toomuch, though, and the gamewill tilt. For the 64; floppydisk, $34.95. BroderbuhdSoftware Inc., 1938 FourthSt., San Rafael, CA 94901.

Disk Duplicator, a machine-language program that pro-vides a fast and convenientway to back up disks in asfew as four exchanges. Thissystem copies all programs,sequential files, user files,relative files, and more. Forthe 64; floppy disk, $14.95.H & H Enterprises, 5056North 41st St., Milwaukee,WI 53209.

Disk Retriever, a machine-language program that pro-vides a method to recover ac-cidentally scratched pro-grams and data files. Thissystem can restore all pro-grams, sequential files, userfiles, and relative files to theiroriginal status, provided thatno prior information hasbeen saved on that disk. Forthe 64; floppy disk, $9.95.H & H Enterprises (see ad-dress above).

Fourth Encounter, an arcade-type game. Hostile aliens aredetermined to overrun yourplanet and enslave the in-habitants. As waves of aliensswoop from the sky attackingyou, you shoot lethal laserbolts to eliminate them. Forthe VIC-20; cartridge, $39.95.Thorn Emi Home Video, 1370Avenue of the Americas,New York, NY 10019.

Jumpman, a multilevel ar-cade-type game. You aretrained as the government'stop-secret bomb defuser.With seven lives, you maneu-ver your way around ob-stacles to save Jupiter, whichhas been sabotaged with

bombs throughout its thirtylevels. You must defuse thebombs and restore the com-munications systems. For the64; floppy disk, $39.95. Epyx/Automated Simulations, 1043Kiel Court, Sunnyvale, CA94086.

Typetest, a typing-speed test-ing program. Select howmany words you'd like inyour test and the programrandomly selects thatamount of words, lets youtype them, and tells you howfast you typed them. For the64; cassette, $11.95. ScottLeDoux, 67 Bridle Rd., POB383, Billerica, MA 01821.

IBM

Personal Computer

Beneath Apple Manor, a fan-tasy game simulation (seedescription under Atari).Floppy disk, $29.95. QualitySoftware, Suite 105, 6660Reseda Blvd., Reseda, CA91335.

The Bottom Line Strategist,

an econometric forecastingtool that uses graphics totrack and analyze financialand marketing strategies.With little programmingknowledge, you can see theviability of a project in atabular or graphical display.You set parameters with am-ple help via keys. Floppydisk, $400. Ashton-Tate, 10150West Jefferson Blvd., CulverCity, CA 90230.

Cache/Q, a software-acceler-ator package. This sophisti-cated RAM-caching tech-nique lets you buffer datafrom mass storage into mainmemory. Changes in the buf-fered material are auto-matically written through tomass storage, thereby afford-ing complete protection forthe data. The result is faster-running application pro-grams that are easy to use.Floppy disk, $225. Techne

538 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 111 on inquiry card.

COHERENT™ IS SUPERIOR TO UNIX*

AND IT'S AVAILABLE TODAY

ON THE IBM PC.

Mark Williams Company hasn't just taken a mini-computeroperating system, like UNIX, and ported it to the PC. Wewrote COHERENT ourselves. We were able to bring UNIXcapability to the PC with the PC in mind, making it the mostefficient personal computer work station available at anunbelievable price.

For the first time you get a multi-user, multitasking operatingsystem on your IBM PC. Because COHERENT is UNIX-compatible, UNIX software will run on the PC underCOHERENT.

The software system includes a C-compiler and over 100 utili-ties, all for $500. Similar environments cost thousands more.

COHERENT on the IBM PC requires a hard disk and 256Kmemory. It's available on the IBM XT, and Tecmar, Davongand Corvus hard disks.

Available now. For additional information, call or write,

Mark Williams Company

1430 West Wrightwood, Chicago, Illinois 60614

312/472-6659

Mark

Williams

Company

COHERENT is a trademark of Mark Williams Company.

♦UNIX is as trademark of Bell Laboratories. Circle 457 on inquiry card.

Software Received

Software Corp., Suite 210,3685 Mt. Diablo Blvd.,Lafayette, CA 94549.

Chip Wars, an interactivebarnyard game for all ages.The chickens have flown thecoop and are laying eggs allover the cow pasture. FarmerDave must race against timeto get all those chickens andeggs back to the henhousewhile avoiding a prize-win-ning bull. Floppy disk,$29.95. Accupipe Corp., 222West Lancaster Ave., Paoli,PA 19301.

Happy Alligator, an alpha-bet-teaching program de-signed for 3- to 6-year-oldchildren. When the childenters the correct letter onthe keyboard, the programdraws a fun picture on thecolor monitor. Adult supervi-sion needed only to changedisks. Floppy disk, $29.95.Happy Alligator Co., 274

Cabot Court, Fishkill, NY12524.

Instat, a general-purposeinstant-statistics program.Features include complexcontingency tables, histo-grams, means and standarddeviations, and regressionand comparison of means.Because P-values are com-puted automatically, lookingup in tables is not required.Produces output on anyprinter. Floppy disk, $85.Statistical Consulting Ser-vices, 517 East Lodge Dr.,Tempe, AZ 85283.

J-Bird, an arcade-type game.You are the J-Bird who mustchange the color of yourworld composed of a three-dimensional pyramid of col-ored cubes. You changecubes' colors by hoppingonto a cube and marking it asyour territory. Avoid the car-toon critters, a sly snake, a

crafty cat, and Hob and Nob,two pesty characters whochange your cubes back tothe original color. Floppydisk, $36.95. Orion Software,POB 2488, Auburn, AL36831.

Know Your Client, a utilityprogram that lets you keeptrack of information aboutyour clients. You can enterand instantly recall informa-tion such as employees in acompany that you plan tovisit, when to follow up calls,find clients who have com-mon factors, print labels, andmore. Floppy disk, $92.95.Execuware, Suite 300, 7415Pineville-Matthews Rd., Box10, Charlotte, NC 28226.

Meteor Math II, an educa-tional math-adventure game.The pilot must destroymeteors to prevent Earth'sdestruction by solving mathproblems. Select the math

mode (addition, subtraction,multiplication, division) andother options on a preflightchecklist. Floppy disk,$44.95. Brauer ComputerSupport, Education Division,POB 86634, San Diego, CA92138.

Oil Barons, a strategy gamefor one to eight players. Youbecome a Texas Wildcatterand must amass more wealththan other players. A color-ful game board helps playersmap and analyze land hold-ings. The computer keepsscore and handles the bank-ing, freeing players for opti-mal strategies. Floppy disk,$53.33. Epyx/Automated Sim-ulations, 1043 Kiel Court,Sunnyvale, CA 94086.

Realfast 1, a utility programthat links compiled IBMFORTRAN code to the high-speed mathematics of the8087 Numerical Data Pro-

CompuPro

8 and/or 16 Bits.

At CompuPro, we know it isn't enough to make the best computer system around — expert planning, customconfiguration, tailored software and swift service are just as vital to our customers. That's why we carefullyselect and train each of our Full Service CompuPro System Centers to provide a complete solutions package foryour high-performance computing needs. So for your business, scientific and industrial applications, turn tothe professionals listed below. Think of them as your computer consultants—not just retailers.

ALABAMA

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Mentzer Computer Systems

ACC

Cost Plus Computers

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(805) 251-9877

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Scottsdale

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System Interface Consultants

(800)528-3138

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Best Computers Hayward

Omni Unlimited

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Best Computers Stoneridge

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Giftord Computer Systems

(213)477-3921

©1983 CompuPro

540 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

cessor. It accelerates for-matted input/outputs andmathematical operations.Floppy disk, $120. GeostatSystems International Inc.,POB 1193, Golden, CO80402.

Styx, an arcade-type game.The bewitching Styx is hold-ing a vast expanse of yourplaying field. You must ven-ture into its territory to stakeyour claim. Your strongholdgrows as you force the re-treating Styx into the corner.Floppy disk, $39.95. Wind-mill Software Inc., 2209Leominster Dr., Burlington,Ontario L7P 3W8, Canada.

Venture, a financial-planningand analysis system. Finan-cial analysts, strategic plan-ners, capital budget analysts,and others in business canuse this program to model,analyze, evaluate, and reporton a business from an opera-

tional point of view. Floppydisk, $495. Weiss AssociatesInc., 127 Michael Dr., RedBank, NJ 07701.

TRS-80

Multiple Access Program(MAP), a utility program.You can search large data ortext files in seconds. Enter in-formation in any format youchoose: words, phrases, sen-tences, paragraphs, or fixedfields and MAP will indexevery item three or morecharacters long. For Models IIand III; floppy disk, $195.Softshell, POB 18522, Balti-more, MD 21237.

Psiconn, a strategy and con-centration game. Try to takeover the 600 positions of theboard while skipping a bar-rier that will appear afterevery 10 positions. When youtake one of seven bonuses, a

barrier disappears. For theColor Computer; cassette,$23.95. The Software Factory,7014 Southwest 46th St.,Miami, FL 33155.

Rainbow's Corner, a collec-tion of five learning gamesand two math utilities. En-liven a child's imaginationand expand creativity by let-ting them hunt for a pot ofgold in a deserted castle, de-code messages at the controlpanel of an alien space ship,or pilot a Blue Mite. For theColor Computer; cassette,$19.95. John Boeschen & Co.,2901 Mirante, Richmond, CA94803.

Texas Instruments

Cosmic Cruise, an arcade-type game. Travel throughspace while avoiding planets,asteroids, and attackingaliens. Capture rebel out-

posts to refuel and rearm.Your saucer's console warnsyou of impending danger.For the 99/4A; cassette,$11.95. JW Software, 814 WestMain, Urbana, IL 61801.

The Dow-4 Gazelle Instru-ment Flight Simulator, a fly-ing simulation of a private,four-seater, single-engine, in-strument-equipped airplane.Beginners learn to take off,land, and use the radio; sea-soned pilots refresh skillssuch as stall recovery andsteep turns. In this game, ifyou crash you are rescued.For the 99/4A; cassette, $30.John Dow, 6360 Caton, Pitts-burgh, PA 15217.

Run the Rapids, an arcade-type game. Navigate yourraft through winding, white-water river. Avoid protrudingrocks, dangerous fish, anddrifting logs. Pick up floatingtreasures to score points. For

Spoken Here...

Sacramento

Logic Systems

(916)971-3133

San Francisco

Gifford Computer Systems

(415) 391-4570

San Leandro

Gifford Computer Systems

(415)895-0798

San Rafael

Computer House

(415)453-0865

Santa Barbara

Data Bank

(805) 962-8489

Santa Maria

Data Bank

(805)922-1333

Santa Rosa

Matrix Computers

(707) 542-0571

Sunnyvale

Pragmatic Designs Inc.

(408) 736-8670

COLORADO

Rocky Mountain Microsystems, Inc.(303) 232-4545

FLORIDA

Brandon/Tampa

Micro Computer Technology

(813)685-7659

Ft. Walton Beach

Softech, Inc.

(904) 244-0445

Satellite Beach

Binary Magic, Inc.

(305) 777-7080

HAWAII

Kahuiui Maui

Capacity Plus Computers(808) 877-3496

ILLINOISAthens

Computers Plus

(217)636-8491

La Grange Park

Small Business Systems Inc.

(312)579-3311

Skokie

Lillipute Computer Mart Inc.

(312)674-1383

INDIANA

Terre Haute

General Software Inc.

(812)234-9421

MARYLAND

Bethesda

JR Systems(301)657-3598

MASSACHUSETTSBoston

New England Electronic Exch.

(617)491-3000

Chestnut Hill

Key Micro Systems

(617) 738-7306

(Please turn the page)

(ompuPro

A GODBOUTCOMPANY

3506 Breakwater Court, Hayward, CA 94545

©1983CompuPro

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

541

Software Received.

the 99/4A; cassette, $11.95.JW Software (see addressabove).

ZX81/T/S 1000

Lab-rat, a maze game. Findyour way through a mind-boggling maze with only acompass and radar to guideyou. As you proceed throughthe maze in as few moves aspossible, your current posi-tion will be displayed inthree-dimensional perspec-tive. Cassette, $7.50. EventHorizon Software, 2345Northfield, Trenton, MI48183.

Master-Minds, a scientific-deduction game. You mustbreak a 4-digit secret code inless than 15 attempts in orderto win. Your computer re-sponds with a few cryptic

clues. Cassette, $7.50. EventHorizon Software (see ad-dress above).

Stor-a-lot, an address-fileand mailing-list system. Thisprogram, which stores 90 ad-dresses, has full editing,search, and alphabetizingfeatures. Data may be outputto the screen or printer. Cas-sette, $7.50. Event HorizonSoftware (see addressabove).

Other Computers

Airport, an air-traffic simula-tion. This action game testsyour skill as an air-traffic con-troller. Hight plans, landings,take-offs, or transits are allradioed to you. Guide 26 air-craft safely and you win. Butviolate FAA rules with a"near miss" and you're fired.

For the Heath/Zenith operat-ing systems and the Osborne1; floppy disk, $19.95. TheSoftware Toolworks, Suite1118, 15233 Ventura Blvd.,Sherman Oaks, CA 91403.

Pen-Pal, a word-processingprogram (see descriptionunder Apple). For the Frank-lin Ace; floppy disk, $59.95.Howard W. Sams & Co., 4300West 62nd St., Indianapolis,IN 46268. ■

This is a list of software packages that have been received byBYTE Publications during the past month. The list is correct tothe best of our knowledge, but it is not meant to be a full de-scription of the product or the forms in which the product isavailable. In particular, some packages may be sold for severalmachines or in both cassette and floppy-disk format; the prod-uct listed here is the version received by BYTE Publications.This is an all-inclusive list that makes no comment on thequality or usefulness of the software listed. \X/e regret that wecannot review every software package we receive. Instead,this list is meant to be a monthly acknowledgment of thesepackages and the companies that sent them. All software re-ceived is considered to be on loan to BYTE and is returned tothe manufacturer after a set period of time. Companies send-ing software packages should be sure to include the list priceof the packages and |where appropriate) the alternate formsin which they are available.

...And Here.

NEW YORKAmherst

Gifford Computer Systems

(716) 833-4758

Deer Park

Datapro Systems Inc.

(516) 595-1311

Staten Island

John D. Owens Assoc.

(212)448-6283

NORTH CAROLINA

Greensboro

General Semantics Computers

(919) 378-1500

OREGON

Portland

Microwest Computer Products

(503) 238-6274

PENNSYLVANIA

Philadelphia

Information Network Systems(215)364-8220

RHODE ISLAND

Coventry

Key Micro Systems(401)828-7270

TEXAS

Austin

CPA Systems Inc.

(512)458-9281

Dallas

Dator Systems

(214)521-0915

Houston

Gifford Computer Systems

(713)877-1212

Seguin

CPA Systems, Inc.

(512) 379-0660

VIRGINIA

WoodbridgeONETCO

(703) 590-5464

WISCONSIN

Greenfield

Byte Shop of Milwaukee

(414)281-7004

Madison

Beam International

(608) 255-2325

CANADAVancouver, B.C.

Dynacomp Business Computers Ltd.

(604) 872-7737

Coquitlam, B.C.

CSC System Center Ltd.

(604)941-0622

THE PHILIPPINES

Quezon City

Corona International Inc.78-34-71

UNITED KINGDOM

Swansea

Comcen Technology Ltd.

(0792) 796000

(omp

uPro.

AGODBOUTCOMPANY

3506 Breakwater Court, Hayward, CA 94545

©1983 CompuPro

542 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

It's TVue - We Did It!

We have met or have beaten most advertised prices.

Don't be foolish. Buy Direct!

EAGLE

OUR PC FLYS

IBM Compatible

Simply a better PC. All models

available for immediate delivery

Call Lowest S

Mannesmann Tally

• Standard — 7 x 9 160 CPS

• NLQ — 40 x 18 40 CPS

• 2K Buffer and Tractor Standard

160 L 80 col. Call Best Seller

180 L 132 col. Call Best Seller

IDS

• Proportional Spacing

• 8 Character Styles

• 200 CPS Bi Directional

• Color Optional

• Sheet Feed • Graphics. 3.4K Buffer

Prism 80

Prism 132 and Micro Prism

S Call

Red HotSpecial I

NovationJ-CAT

• 300 BPS Modem

• Originate/Auto AnswerSizzling S849S

ALTOSZENITH

TELEVIDEO

SANYO

USI

TRANSTAR

FRANKLIN

HAYES

NOVATION

VDS

EAGLE

RITEMAN

OMNITECVENTELAMDEK

BMC

MICOM

DATASOUTH

TAXANDIABLO

NEC

EPSON

U.S. ROBOTICS

PRINTEK

OKIDATA

OSBORNE

COMREX

DAISYWRITER

JUKI

STAR

For Price Quotes and Ordering Call:

1-800-328-8905

For Technical Information and

Arizona Orders, Call:

602-949-8218

For Shipping and Order Status Information,Call: 602-990-7556

LIBERTY

GROUR INCORPORATED

4221 Winfield Scon Plaza • Scottsdale, Az 85251

GTC

ADDS

DEC

C ITOH

SILVER-REED

MANY OTHERS

Everything incomputer relatedproducts:

• Computers

• Modems

• Printers

• Software

• Monitors

• Terminals

• Accessories

• Paper

• Ribbons

• Diskettes

• Office Furniture

Prices listed reflect a cash discount and are subject to change without notice We welcome Certified and Cashiers Checks. Bank Wires and Money Orders C.O.D.s are shipped with a minimum CODcharge Allow 3-7 days for personal checks to clear Product is subject to availability Equipment is in factory sealed boxes with manufacturer's warranty There will be a re-stocking charge for returnedmerchandise Call first for an RMA number Software not warranteed for suitability No return of Software which has been opened Add 2% for shipping & handling charges |minlmum S2 50) All equipmentshipped FOB Scottsdale, Az 85251

Circle 263 on inquiry card.

I

fe»

i

MODEMS

HAYES

S m a rt

Smart 1200 (1 200 Baud}Chronograph

Micfomodem 100

Micromodem II

Micromodem II (with term) .

Smart Com II

Smart 1 200B

NOVATION

J Cat

Cat

O-Cal

103 Smart Cat

Apple Cat II

103/21 2 Smart Cat

212 Apple Cat II

ApplcCatll212Upgrade-.ANCHOR

Mark I (RS-232)

Mark II (Atari)

Mark III (T.l 99)

Mark IV (CBM-PET)

Mark V (Osborne)

Mark VI (IBM-PC)

Mark VII (Auto Ans/Auto Dial)

Mark VIII

TRS-80 Color Computer9 Volt Power Supply

$219.00$509.00$199.00$309.00$279.00$299.00$99.005469.00

$1 19.00$144.00$159.00$189 00$279.00$439.00$609.00$309.00

..$79 00..$79.00$ 109 00$125.00

$95 00$179.00

$119.00$269 00

$99 00$9 00

ZENITHZT1 Terminal $369 00

HEWLETTPACKARD

HP 75 $749.00

HP41C $149.00

HP41CV $209.00

HP41CX $259.00

HP 10C S52.00

HP 11C $69.00

HP 12C $92.00

HP 15C $92.OO

HP 16C $92.00

For HP41/41CV

HPIL Module S99.O0

HPIL Cassette or Printer S359.00

Card Reader S144.00

Extended Functions Module.. .564.00Time Module S64.00

IIE-1 S1369.00

IIE-2 S1649.00

HE 3 $2399.00

IIE-4 $3199.00

PCE 51579.00

PC-1 $2399.00

PC 2 $2799.00

PC-XL $3599.00

1 620 $3599.00

1630 $5499.00

1640 $6499.00

Cyma Software CALL

MONITORS

AMDEK

3O0G $149.00

300A $159.00

310A $169.00

Color I S279.00

Color II $399.00

Color III $349.00

Color IV $999.00

USI

Pi 1. 9 G $99.00

Pi 2, 12" G $1 19.00

Pi 3. 12 A $149.00

Pi 4. 9' A $139.00

1400 Color $299.00

ZENITH

ZVM 122A $109.00

ZVM 123G $99.00

BMC

12'" Green $85.00

9191 AU 13" Color $249.00

TAXAN

12 N Green $129.00

12 A Amber $139.00

12 RGB I S299.00

JB 1260 $119.00

JB 1201 $149.00

JB 1205 $169.00

JC 1 21 5 $299.00

JC 1216 $429.00

JC 1203 $469.00

GORILLA

12" Amber $95.00

12 Green $89.00

PC-1 500AS169SHARP PC-1 250A■■■■■ SB9

POCKET COMPUTERS

CE-125 Pnnter/Cass. Int.... $1 29.00CE-1 50Color Pnnt./Cass. Int.... 51 72.00

CE-155 8K RAM $94.00

CE-161 16KRAM 5135.00

CE-500 ROM Library . .. each $39.00

Texas InstrumentsTl-aO SS09

CALL FOR PRICIMG ONTIIVIEX SINCLAIR 1 OOO

16K Memory $44.95

2040 Printer 599.95

-Calc 517.95

Mmdware Printer 599.00

NEC 3550 Printer- S17SS

PERCOM/TANDONORIVES

SV«" 320K Floppy $249.00

5 Meg Hard w/Controller. ..$1399.0010 Meg Hard w/Controller... S1699.001 5 Meg Hard w/Controller... S2095.0020 Meg Hard w/Controller... 52399.00AMOEK

310A Amber Monitor $169.00

DXY 100 Plotter 5599.00

Color II $399.00

AST RESEARCH, INC.

Six Pak Plus...from $279.00

Combo Plus II...from...$279.00

Mega Plus...from $309.00

I/O Plus 11...from $139.00

QUADBAM

Quadlink $549.00

Quadboard...aslow as.. .$309.00Quad 51 2 Plus...as low as...$259.00Quadcolor...aslowas ...$219.00

Chronograph $89.00

Parallel Interface Board .. .$89.0064K RAM Chips Kit $69.00

MICRO PRO

Word Star Mail Merge $369.00

InloStar $299 00

Spell Star 5159 00

CallStai $15900

MICROSTUFCrosstalk $129.00

MICROSOFTMultiplan $179.00

ASHTON-TATE

D Base II $419.00

IUS

EasyWriter II $219.00

EasySpeller $1 19.00

EasyFiler $239.00

CONTINENTAL SOFTWARE

1stClassMail/Form Letter .. $79.00

The Home Accountant Plus . $99.00

SYNAPSE

File Manager $8g.00

LOTUS

123 $329.00

PFSAPPLE IBM

File $79.00 $89.00

Report $79.00 $79.00

Graph $79.00 $89.00

Write n/a $89.00

KRAFT

IBM Joystick $55.00

IBM Paddles 539 00

PROFESSIONAL SOFTWARE

PC PlusWord Processing ... $299.00

KOALA

Koala Pad

Apple $85.00

IBM $95.00

Atari $75.00

CBM 64 $75.00

PAPER SUPPLIES

l or2 Address Ubels(Tract.Feed)..$9 9515 Report PaperfTract Feed). . 524 958' : BlnkWhtPapenTract.Feed)..$ 19.95

MBC-550PC 77777.-.. CALL

MBC-555PC CALL

MBC 1 100 51599.00

MBC1150 52099.00

MBC 1200 51999 00

MBC1250 52399 00

FDD 3200 320K Drive . .539900FDD 6400-64K Drive. .$499 00PR 5500 Printer $699.00

PRINTERS

EPSON

MX80 FT. MX100. RX80.

FX80. FX100 CALL

OKIDATA

82. 83. 84. 92. 93 CALL

STAR

Delta 10 $559.00

Gemini 10X $299.00

Gemini P15 5449.00

Serial Board $75.00

SMITH CORONA

TP-2 $469.00

Tractor Feed $1 19.00

C.ITOH

Gorilla $209.00

Prownter 851 OP $379.00

Prownter 1 550P $68900

Starwriter F10-40P $1 149 00

Pnntmaster F10-55P $1549.00

Tractor Feed 5199.00

OAISYWRITER

2000 Letter Quality $1049.00

2500...NEW CALL

Tractor Feed 5109 00

DIABLO

620 5949.00

630 $1749.00

IOS

Call lor ALL Configurations on

IDS PRISM PRINTERS.

NEC

8023 AN $399.00

8025 $729.00

3510 $1449.00

3530 51 499 00

3550 51799.00

7710/7730 S1949.00

BMC

401 Letter Quality 5699.00

BX-80 Dot Matrix 5259.00

COMREX

Com writer II Parallel Printer... $549.00

MANNSEMAN TALLY

Spirit 80 S319 00

MT-1 60L 5589.00

MT-180L 5829.00

TRANSTAR CALL

TOSH IBA CALL

CABLES & CONNECTIONS

Atari to Parallel 529.00

Atari to Serial 529.00

Apple to Parallel $69.00

Apple to Parallel/Graphics. ..599.00

Apple to Serial 589 00

IBM to Parallel 535.00

IBM to Serial 529 00

Parallel to Parallel 529.00

Serial to Serial 529 00

Grappler Plus 5129.00

PKASO 5139.00

Atari to Modem Cable $29.00

CBM 64 to IEEE Board 579 00

Apple 80-Column Card 515900

CBM Pet to Parallel 599.00

CBM Pet to Serial 589.00

f.300.6^8.33f1 1-800-268 • *559 1-800-233-8950

In PA call (717)327-9575, Oept. 1201477 E. Third St. Williamsport, PA 17701Order Status #: 327-9576

In NV call (702)588-5654, Dept. 1201 In Toronto call (416)828-0866, Oept. 1201 In PA call (717)327-9575, Oept. 1201

I P.O. Box 6689, Stateline, NV 89449 2505 Dunwin Ct.,Unlt 1 B, 477 E. Third St. Williamsport, PA 17701

Order Status #: 588-5654 Mississauga, Ontario, Canada LSLITI Order Status #: 327-9576

Order Status #: 828-0866

No risk, no deposit on C.O.D. orders. Pre-paid orders receive free shipping within the UPS Continental United States with no waiting period for certifiedchecks or money orders. Add 3% (minimum $5.00) shipping and handling on all C.O.D. and credit card orders. Larger shipments may require additionalcharges. NVand PA residents add sales tax. All items subject to availability and price change. We stock manufacturer's and third party software for most allcomputers on the market. Call today for our new catalog.

COLOR COMPUTERS

ACE 1 000. ACE 1 200. ACE 1 200OMS.ACE1 tOO PRO PACK: ACE 1000. ACE10 Onve & Controller. 80 Column Card.

ACECalc & ACEWriter CALL

APPLE He STARTER PACK64K Apple He. Disk Drive and Controller.80 Column Card & Monitor III..,COMPLETE $1599.00

MICRO-SCIApple & Franklin

A2 $219.00

A4° $299.00

A7° $319.00

C2 Controller $79.00

C47 Controller $89 00

RAMA

Elite I (Apple/Franklin) $279.00

Elite II (Apple/Franklin) ., $319.00

Elite III (Apple/Franklin) .. $569.00

VISICORP

FOR APPLE. IBM & FRANKLIN

Visidex $189.00

Visihle $189.00

V'Siplot $159.00

Visiterm $89.00

Visit rend/Plot $229.00

VisiSchedule $229.00

OesktoD Plan $1 89.00

Visicalc4 (IBM) $169.00

Visicalc Advanced lie S309.00

Stretch Calc $89.00

Visicorp prices for IBM may vary slightlyLJK

Letter Perfect Apple $109.00

Data Perfect Apple $75.00

AXLONApple/Franklin 128K Ram .., $299.00Apple/Franklin Ram Disk ... $729 00

rvipc

Bubdisk [128K Non Volilare)... $649.00WICO

Joystick $21.95

Famous Red Ball $23.95

Power Grip $21.95

Three-Way Deluxe $22.95

Atan/VIC Trackball $34.95

Apple Trackball $59.95

KRAFT

Atari Single Fire $1 3.00

Atari Switch Hitter $16.00

Apple Joystick $44.00

Apple Paddles $39.00

PUTER MAIL ORDER

_K commodore

CBM8032

CBIVIG-4 ...821 SVIC SO $89

CALL ONExecutive 64 Portable1 520 Color Printer/Plotter $1 69 001525 80 Column Printer $219 00

1530 Datasette $69 00

1541 Single Disk Drive $24900

1600 VIC Modem $59 00

1650 AD/AA Modem $89 00

1702 14 Color Monitor $24900

pet 64 j56g 00

Pet 4032 ssgg 00

CBM 8032 $599 OO

Super Pet $999 00

B128-80 $769 00

2031 $299 00

8050 $949 00

8250 SI 199 00

908° $1999 00

9090 $2199 00

4023 $379 00

6400 $1399 00

64K Upgrade $269.00

Spell Master $149 00

Z-Ram $549.00

Silicon Office $749 00

The Manager $209 00

Soft Rom $1 29 00

Jinsam CALL

CalcResult 64 5139.00

CodeWnter 64 $75.00

VisiCalc $169.00

PROFESSIONALSOFTWARE

Word Pro 2 Plus $159.00

Word Pro 3 Plus $189.00

Word Pro 4 Plus $279.00

Word Pro 5 Plus $279.00

InfoPro $1 79.00

Administrator $399.00

Power $79.00

Word Pro 64 Plus $65.00

CAROCO

for VIC aD/64

Light Pen $32.00

Cassette Interface $29.00

Parallel Printer Interface ... .$69.003SlotExpans. Interface (20).. .$32.006SlotExpans. Interface(20).. $79.00

A

ATARI

HOME COMPUTERS

ATARI BOOXI

ATARI BOOXI

ATARI1SOOXL

ATARI 4QO

ATARI BOO

.$149.$269.CALL. CALL.CALL

1010 Program Recorder $74 00

102040COI Printer/Plotter $249 00

1025 80Col Printer $449.00

102 7 Letter Quality Printer $299 00

1050 Disk Drive $379 00

1030 Direct Connect Modem . .CALL

CX30 Paddles $1 2.00

CX40 Joystick $8.00

CX42 Remote Joystick CALL

CX77 Touch Tablet $69.00

CX80 Trak Ball $49 00

CX85 Keypad $10500

CX418 Home Manager $69.00

CX488 Communicator II $229 00

KX 7098 Atari Accountant , $209.00KX7101 Entertainer $69 00

KX7 102 Arcade Champ $75 00

ALIEN

Atari Voice Box $11900

Apple Voice Box $149.00

MEMORY BOAROS

Ax Ion 32 K Ram $59.00

Axlon 48K Ram $99.00

Axlon 1 28K Ram $299.00

Intec 32K Board $5900

Intec 48K Board $85.00

Intec 64K Board (400 only)... $99.00

Intec Real Time Clock $39.00

DISK & CART HOLOERS

Flip-n-File 10 $4.00

Fhp-nFile 50 $1 9.00

Fhp-nFile 400/800 Cart $19,00

PEFGCM

CM.O. TOP so

APPLE/FRANKLIN

1. Choplifter $27.00

2. Bank Street Writer $55.00

3. PFS: File $89.00

4. Vistcalc $1 79.00

5. Home Accountant $55.00

6. Zaxxon $29.00

7. Most Amazing Thing $28.00

8 Visifile $189.00

9. Fathoms 40 $19.00

10. Deadline $35.00

1 1 PFS: Report $89.00

12. Zork III $29.00

13. Frogger $24.00

14. Pacemaker $24.00

1 5. Snooper Troops si $32.00

16. Delta Drawing $35.00

1 7 Castle Wolfenstine $24.00

18. Wayout $29.00

19 Canyon Climber $1 9.00

20. Bandits $26.00

CBM 64

1. Word Pro 64 $65.00

2. Jumpman $29.00

3. Gorf (20/64) $14.95

4. Microspec Data Base 64 ... $69.00

5. Logo 64 $39.00

6. Microspec Gen. Ledger 64.. .$79.00

7. Zork III $29.00

8. Frogger (64) $23.00

9. Quick Brown Fox (20/64) ...$49.00

10. Shamus $29.00

11. Deadline $29.00

12. Assembler 64 $14.95

13. Zork II $29.00

14. 3-D Man $14.00

15. Protector $32.00

16. Starcross $29.00

17. Easy Mail 64 $14.95

18. Grave Robber $1 1 .00

19. Wall Street $19.00

20. Trash Man $32.OO

1. Donkey Kong $39

2. Zaxxon $29

3. E.T. Phone Home $39

4. Miner 2049er $35

5. Dig Dug $33

6. Choplifter $29

7. Donkey Kong. Jr $39

8. Canyon Climber $25

9. Snooper Troops #2 $34

10. Word Wizard $59

11 . Picnic Paranoia $34

12. Jumpman $29

13. Shamus $34

14. Letter Perfect $109

15. File Manager 800 $69

16. Preppie $24

17. Astro Chase $25

18. Blade/Black Hole $27,

19. Pac Man $33.00

20. Baja Buggies $25,00

ATARI

.00

21

.00

22

00

23

00

24

.00

2S

.00

26

.00

27

.00

28

00

29

00

30

.00

31

00

32

00

33

.00

34

.00

35

.00

36

AT88-S1 $329,001

AT88-A2 $269.00

AT88-S2 $569.00

AT8B-S1 PD $469.00

AT88-D0A $145.00

RFD40-S1 $449.00

RFD40-A1 $279.00

RFD40-S2 $729.00

RFD44-S1 $539.00

RF044-S2 $869,001

TX 99-S1 (Texas Insl.) S279 001

RAIMA1000 Atari Disk Drive . $319 00

TRAXAT-D2 CALL

FLOPPY DISKS

MAXELL

MD-1 $29.00

MD-2 $39.OO

FD-I(B-) $40.00

F0-2I8 OS DD|..-. $50.00

ELEPHANT

SW'SS SD $18.50

5V. SS OD $24.95

SVV DS DD $29.95

VERBATUM

5V. SS DD $26.00

5V«" DS DD $36.00

HEADDisk Head Cleaner $14.95

Crush. Crumbles Chomp. $24.00

Wayout $27.00

Zork II $29.00

Visicalc $159.00

Atari Writer $49.00

Three Little Pigs $25.00

Upper ReachesolApshai ,. .$16.00

Starbowl Football $24.95

Drelbs $26.00

Protector $34.00

Frogger $25.00

Lunar Leeper $24.00

Wizard of Wor $34.00

Kindercomp $21.00

Moon Shuttle $22.00

Home Accountant $55.00

Temple ot Apshai $29.00

Spell Wizard $39 00

Nautilus $26.00

40. 0 Riley s M

ne $22.00

f-300.643.55ff 1-SOO-268-4559 f-800-235-8950

In NV call r7l»ISBB.lUMU n-n. ,™« ._-,- _ • w ^^ ^^ fc •* * \* ^ * ^**

In NVcall (702)588-5654, Dept. 1201P.O. Box 6689, Stateline, NV 89449Order Status #: 588-5654

In Toronto call (416)828-0866, Dept. 12012505 Dunwin Ct.,Unit 1 B,Mississauga, Ontario, Canada LSLITIOrder Status #: 828-0866

In PA call (717)327-9575, Dep». 1201

477 E. Third St. Williamsport, PA 17701

Order Status #: 327-9576

APO & FPO: Add 3% (minimum S5.00) shipping and handling

Wim

wwmmm

ualified Educational Institutions.Circle 104 on inquiry card.

(minimum $5.00)

Clubs and Newsletters

Update forHuman Services

People who work in thehealth and human servicescan subscribe to a newsletter,Healthcare MicrocomputingNetwork, that intends to intro-duce improvements in micro-computer usage to healthcarefacilities. Subscribers arelinked with other health-re-lated corporations throughboth the publication and Net-ivork's on-line database ser-vice with emphasis on cur-rent specialized news aboutthe microcomputer industry.The Network is publishedmonthly by Cronin and As-sociates of Minneapolis, Min-nesota. For further details,contact Healthcare Microcom-puting Network, Suite 520,6600 France Ave. S, Minnea-polis, MN 55435, (612)926-5827.

And Logo Goes On

The National Logo Exchange(NLX) is a monthly newslet-ter that provides practicalideas and tips for teacherswho use the Logo languagein their classrooms. Thenewsletter provides a forumfor sharing Logo ideas, tech-niques, and philosophies.Articles are written by class-room teachers and profes-sional educators to provideup-to-date reviews of recentLogo versions and resources.Subscriptions are $25 a yearin the U.S., Canada, andMexico, and $30 elsewhere.Contact the National Logo Ex-change, POB 5341, Charlottes-ville, VA 22905.

BimonthlyExplorations

Owners of the Explorer-85computer and S-100 bus canjoin a users group that pro-duces a newsletter every two

months called Explorations.New issues as well as backissues are available for $1each. For details, contactLeroy W. Marshall, 808 Vas-sar Lane, Schaumburg, IL60193, (312) 980-8980.

Pascal forAdvanced Placement

A free newsletter is de-signed to share beneficialideas for those who teachAdvanced Placement Com-puter Science (APCS), whichuses only Pascal. The APCSNewsletter will be producedmonthly and will raise suchissues as software in theclassroom, teaching ideas,and materials for teaching in-troductory Pascal. Those in-terested are encouraged tosend their name, address,and hardware description toTim Corica, APCS Neiosletter,The Peddie School, Hights-town, NJ 08520.

Computer GroupHas Good News

The Christian ComputerUsers Association (CCUA)serves as a clearinghouse forinformation on software andsystems of interest to Chris-tian churches. It producesthe quarterly CCUA News,operates a software ex-change, and runs the com-puter-based Good News In-formation Service. A one-year membership costs $15.For more information, con-tact Douglas Vos, ChristianComputer Users Association,1145 Alexander St. SE, GrandRapids, MI 49507, (616)241-0368.

Tlmex/SlnclalrIn the Finger Lakes

A group for users of Timex/Sinclair computers is forming

in the Finger Lakes region ofNew York state betweenRochester and Syracuse.Anyone interested can sendinquiries to Mark Tepper, 67North Main St., Geneva, NY14456.

Schools UseMicrocomputers

The Center for Social Orga-nization of Schools of theJohns Hopkins University ofBaltimore, Maryland, pre-pares and distributes a news-letter entitled School Uses ofMicrocomputers. These reportsfrom a national survey in-clude charts on the percen-tage of teachers who are com-puterists, how many schoolshave computers, and theamount of use they receiveduring the day. It includestables on the uses of drillsand applications of micro-computers in elementary andsecondary schools. For fur-ther information, contact Dr.Henry Jay Becker, Center forSocial Organization ofSchools, Johns HopkinsUniversity, 3505 NorthCharles St., Baltimore, MD21218.

Participants Welcome

People who are interestedin joining a 68000-softwareusers group that is forming insouthern California are en-couraged to contact CarlCagan, 211 North El CaminoReal, Suite 101C, Encinitas,CA 92024, (619) 942-0744.

Connect WithMicro Decision Users

The Connecticut MicroDecision Users Group(CMDUG) of Orange, Con-necticut, meets on the sec-ond Wednesday of everymonth for anyone interested

in the Micro Decision com-puter. A subscription to thegroup's quarterly CMDUGNewsletter is included withmembership. The fee is $12per year. For details such aslocations and times of meet-ings, contact Dave Mintie,CMDUG, 226 Boston PostRd., Orange, CT 06477.

Color ComputersIn Philadelphia

A section of the Philadel-phia Area Computer Society(PACS) is called the ColorComputer Users Group. Itmeets on the third Saturdayof the month at 10 a.m. in theScience Building of LaSalleCollege. Further informationis available from ArnoldWeiss, Apt. 1626, KennedyHouse, 1901 J. F. KennedyBlvd., Philadelphia, PA 19103.

Louisiana IBM PCUsers Group

The NW Louisiana IBMPersonal Computer UsersGroup meets on the thirdTuesday of each month at 7p.m. For further informationon the club's activities, con-tact Harry Friedman, NWLouisiana IBM PersonalComputer Users Group, 945Dudley Dr., Shreveport, LA71104.

For Friendly Folks

Follklore is a quarterly pub-lication circulated to all sub-scribers and members ofFOLLK. Designed for Friendsof LISP/Logo Kids (FOLLK),it contains articles, columns,and code that relate to the ex-panding field of artificial in-telligence. The group has ahotline and a bulletin-boardsystem. Membership is $15 ayear for students and seniorcitizens,, $25 for a regular

546 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 148 on inquiry card.

membership, and $100 forcompanies or institutions. Asubscription to Follklore aloneis $7.50. For details, contactFOLLK, Friends of LISP/Logo Kids, 254 LagunaHonda Blvd., San Francisco,CA 94116.

Group for theTl 99/4A

The International 99/4AUsers Group (IUG) is seek-ing members and people in-terested in the TI 99/4A. Thegroup produces a bimonthlynewsletter called 4A Forum.Submissions to the newslet-ter are welcome. The annualmembership fee is $5. Fordetails, contact Jim Robinson,International Users Group(IUG), 1778 Hays Dr., Louis-ville, CO 80027.

Osborne Groupin Chicago

Chicago's First OsborneGroup (CFOG) meets regu-larly and produces a monthlynewsletter entitled PIP (Pe-ripheral Interchange Pro-gram) that includes inter-views, an events calendar,software reviews, and ar-ticles. Contributions to thenewsletter are welcome. Theclub provides a bulletin-board service to members,and membership is open toanyone for $20 annually.Contact CFOG, Rob Troxel,POB 943, Libertyville, IL60048, (312) 356-6889.

Meet with Antelope

The Antelope Valley Com-modore User Group meets

on the first Saturday of everymonth. For further details,contact Jim Haner, AntelopeValley Commodore UserGroup, POB 4436, Lancaster,CA 93539, (805) 942-2626.

HBO in Canadafor the Atari

The Hamilton, Burlington,Oakville (HBO) Atari UserGroup meets on the thirdWednesday of each month atthe Port Nelson UnitedChurch Hall, 3132 SouthDrive, Burlington, Ontario. Anewsletter is produced thatcontains details about meet-ings, book reviews, and clubbusiness. Membership feesare $25 annually for in-dividuals and $35 for afamily. If you wish to attenda meeting a $4 fee will becharged. For information,contact William Morris, 67Moxley Dr., Hamilton, On-tario L8T 3Y8, Canada, (416)388-3552.

New DelhiEnthusiasts

A home computer usersclub, the ZX Club, meetstwice a month in New Delhi,India, to exchange the newsand solve problems encoun-tered by users of the ZX81.Owners and users of anyhome computer are wel-come, however. The mem-bers of the club have devel-oped a music program for theZX81. For further details,contact ZX Club, h-35 dSaket, New Delhi 110 017,India. ■

If you would like BYTE readers to know about your club ornewsletter send the details accompanied by no more than onenewsletter to Clubs and Newsletters, BYTE Publications, POB372, Hancock, NH 03449. Overseas groups are encouraged toparticipate. Please allow at least three months for yourannouncement to appear.

Give Persona! BASIC™a tryAnd win Hawaii!

Enter the Personal BASICHawaiian Holiday Contest today!Because you might become the winner of a trip to Hawaii fortwo—featuring airfare, hotel accommodations, a rental car and$500 spending money.

Other prizes include a $500 shopping spree and five $100shopping sprees—to be spent in those stores where the winnerspurchased Personal BASIC, the world's easiest-to-learnBASIC language.

Call toll free for the participating dealer nearest you: (800)227-1617, ext. 420. In California rpri l"*\|/"~ IT A I

call: (800) 772-3545, ext. 420. ^ LMvjI I/\L

But hurry, contest ends January 31,1984. RESEARCH "

The Digital Research logo and products are either trademarks or registeredtrademarks of Digital Research Inc. ©1983 Digital Research Inc.

SOFTWARE

r 1

Software FashionP.O. Box986l,Wethersfield,CT 06109—0861, or call Lindato order 1 (800) 223-1796. NY

residents call 1 (212) 371-1900.

Hey Linda, I know a good thing when I see it. Send me

computer shirts as indicated below. I'm enclosing $ at $9.00

plus $2.25 postage and handling for each shirt. (CT residents add7'/2% sales tax). Allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Please print clearly.

□ MC DVisa □Check/M.O. card #. exp. date_

Name

Address

City, State, Zip.

Qty.

Color (Black/White)

Size (S,M,L,XL)

Style (a,b,c,d)

Circle 397 on inquiry card.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

547

WHY YOU SHOULD

RECOMMEND

AKAYPROEVEN

IF YOU DIDN'T

BUYONEYOURSELE

If you're happy with thecomputer you now own, we rehappy for you. Because we bothknow what you went throughto buy it.

More than likely, it was along year's education that sentyou into a complex maze of trialand error. You spent a lot oftime asking questions in com-puter stores. More time hunt-ing for answers in computerbooks. Even more time inves-tigating all the hardware, letalone software options youhad to consider.

It was a hard way to getwhat you needed. A year thatearned you an honorary degreein computer engineering and thestatus of a computer buff.

But just between us buffs,would you recommend a yearlike that to a friend?

FOR THE FIRST-TIME

BUYER, KAYPRO IS A

GODSEND.

We think the 'hard way' is thewrong way to have to buy a com-puter. After all, a business personshouldn't be required to make de-

Registered Trademarks: Apple - Apple Computer. Inc., IBM - IBMCorp., CP/M - Digical Research. Inc., Z-80 - Zilog. M-Basic - Microsoft,Inc., Tandy,TRS-80 -Tandy Corporation, Osborne — Osborne ComputerCorporation, Xerox - Xerox Corporation. Prices based on publishedinformaiion as of July 15, 1981. © 1981 Kaypro Corporation

cisions better left to an engineer.

Trying to find compatibleinterfaces and software packagesalone would drive most peopleup the wall (remember?).

So, we've taken a different

approach to making and sellingour Kaypro II. Rather than astarter system, with options youbuy piece for piece, it's designedwith all the integrated hardwareand software it needs to be fullyfunctional.

Off the shelf, Kaypro II iscompletely ready for business. Wethink that's what the first-timebuyer really needs.

IT'S A COMPLETELYINTEGRATED SYSTEM.

Since we don't consider amonitor, disk drives, interfaces or

other hardware as optional extras,all Kaypro's hardware comescomplete in an integrated system.Except, of course, for a printer.As you know, some people don'tneed one. And those wno domust decide whether they need

dot matrix or letter qualityprinting.

What's complete on a

rKaypro II?

64K RAM, Z-80 micro-processor. A 9" green screen

monitor. Dual disk drives, the

same used by IBM. A detach-able keyboard that's more com-plete than you'll find on the latestApple. Built-in interfaces for botha printer and communications.

In other words, all the hard-ware you'd recommend to a first-time buyer. In one completepackage.

IT COMES COMPLETEWITH SOFTWARE.

While businesses can bevery different, the fact is that 95%of all business needs can be ful-filled by a series of three businessapplications programs. WordProcessing/Spelling, Data BaseManagement and FinancialSpreadsheeting.

It's the software that'soptional with other computers.

But it too comes complete witha Kaypro.

And with its CP/M operat-ing system, Kaypro II is capableof running thousands of otherbusiness programs, to fill morespecialized needs.

IT SELLS FOR $1595,COMPLETE.

People are bound to ask youhow much they should spend ona computer. There is, of course,an obvious answer: as little aspossible and still get a seriousbusiness system, complete with allthe functions they need.

At $1595, Kaypro II isthe least expensive serious busi-ness system we know of on themarket today.

There are basic starter sys-tems advertised for less. But theiroptional hardware and softwarecan double or triple their basicprice. So they can end up cost-ing $2000-$3000 more thana Kaypro.

A good example is an AppleHe. With a hardware configurationcomparable to Kaypro lis, com-plete with comparable software, itlists for an average price of $4400.$2805 more than a Kaypro.

IT OFFERS

MORE MEMORY FOR

THE MONEY

Since disk drive memorycapacity is always a concern, onceagain the idea is to get the mostfor the money. With two diskdrives, Kaypro II gives you 400Kfor $1595. With equivalent hard-ware, an IBM gives you 320K forabout $2800. And Apple liegives you 286K for about $2400.

So once again, Kaypro IIdelivers.

IT HAS POWER

TO SPARE FOR WHAT

MOST BUSINESSES

NEED.

The more you love compu-ters, the more tempting it is torecommend a 16-bit vs. 8-bit

machine. You know that 16-bitsystems are a little faster andhave more power to run longerprograms.

However, 16-bitters are farmore expensive than the 8-bitvariety. And, unfortunately, haveonly a handful of business appli-cations software packages thatreally take advantage of them.

SPECIFICATIONS

Microprocessor

Perfect Filer

Z-80

Perfect Calc

Operating

spreadsheet

System

Wordstar word

CP/M 2.2

processing

User Memory

The Word Plus

64K

Profit Plan

Disk Drives:

spreadsheet

2 drives, 400K,

M-Basic

unformatted

12 Games

Interfaces

Uniform —allows

1 Serial

computer to

1 Parallel

'read' and 'write'

Keyboard

TRS-80, Osborne,

Detached, 63-key

Xerox disks

with numeric

Dimensions

keypad

Height: 8 inches

Software included:

Width: 18 inches

Perfect Writer

Depth: 15M inches

word processing

Weight: 26 lbs.

Perfect Speller

(portable)

Considering the real needsand budget limitations of mostsmall businesses, why suggest acompany limo when a goodcompany car will do?

Since 75% of all microssold today are 8-bit systems, it'sindicative of their capacity to takecare of business. We'd stick witha Kaypro II.

IT CAN PAY FORITSELF FASTER THANMORE EXPENSIVECOMPUTERS.

Every business personwants a computer to pay foritself in increased productivity.

And the faster the better. Perhapson this count alone, Kaypro II isworth recommending.

As a fully functional busi-ness system for $1595, Kaypro canwin the payout race hands down.

IT'S BECOME ALEADING SELLER

THANKS TO

COMPUTER BUFFS,

LIKE YOU.

In fact, Kaypro II is one ofthe best sellers in the $1000-$5000 price range. And it gotthere largely because of theenthusiastic word of mouth, andword of press, of computerenthusiasts. Many of whom, afterbuilding their own systems,bought a Kaypro II as theirsecond computer.

So you certainly won't bealone if you recommend KayproII to anyone shopping for a firstcomputer.

Or look at it this way. Onceyou tell people about the com-plete business computer for $1595,they'll probably stop bugging youwith a lot of questions.

They may even forget to askwhy you didn't buy a Kaypro IIfor yourself.

Just between us buffs, wecan't recommend a good answerfor that.

CALL 800-447-4700 FORTHE DEALER NEAREST YOU.

Circle 249 on inquiry card.

The Complete Business Computer.

Books Received

The ABZ's of Word Processingfor Executives and Professionals,Robert M. Segal and SusanB. Kelley. New York: StravonEducational Press, 1983; 64pages, 21.5 by 28 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-87396-097-1,$10.95.

Applesoft Language, 2nd ed.Brian D. Blackwood andGeorge H. Blackwood. In-dianapolis, IN: Howard W.Sams & Co., 1983; 280 pages,15 by 23 cm, softcover, ISBN0-672-22073-3, $13.95.

Astrology: A Look into theFuture, Sam D. Roberts.Holzkirchen, West Germany:Ing. W. Hofacker GmbH,1982; 140 pages, 13 by 20.5cm, softcover, ISBN 3-88963-171-1, $9.95.

BASIC By Design, AndrewKitchen. Englewood Cliffs,NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983; 514pages, 17.5 by 23.5 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-13-060269-8,$18.95.

BASICally Speaking-AYoung Person's Introduction toComputing, Frances Lieber-man Cohen. EnglewoodCliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,1983; 144 pages, 21.5 by 27.8cm, softcover, ISBN 0-8359-0333-9, $12.95.

The Blue Book for the AppleComputer, 3rd ed. Chicago,IL: WIDL Video Publications,1983; 850 pages, 21 by 27.5cm, softcover, ISBN 684-17927-X, $24.95.

Byting Back, Rick Geary.Solana Beach, CA: Valley-ware Publishing, 1983; 104pages, 21.5 by 13.5 cm, soft-cover, ISBN none, $3.95.

Computers and Data Process-ing: Introduction with Basic,3rd ed. Keith Carver. NewYork: John Wiley & Sons,1983; 544 pages, 17.5 by 25.3cm, softcover, ISBN 0-471-09834-5, $19.95.

The Computer Careers Hand-book, Connie Winkler. NewYork: Arco Publishing Inc.,1983; 160 pages, 20 by 26 cm,softcover, ISBN 0-668-05530-8, $7.95.

Computers for Small Busi-ness, Gary Bencar. Santa Bar-bara, CA: La Cumbre Pub-lishing Co., 1983; 158 pages,13.5 by 21.5 cm, softcover,ISBN 0-935222-05-7, $9.95.

Computer Graphics andReporting Financial Data,Irwin M. Jarett. New York:John Wiley & Sons, 1983; 376pages, 22 by 29 cm, hard-cover, ISBN 0-471-86761-6,$49.95.

Computer Programs for Elec-tronic Analysis and Design,Dimitri S. Bugnolo. Reston,VA: Reston Publishing Co.,1983; 272 pages, 17.5 by 23.3cm, softcover, ISBN 0-8359-0874-7, $16.95.

Computer Programs forMachine Design, Robert J.Wenzel. Indianapolis, IN:Howard W. Sams & Co.,

1982; 276 pages, 21 by 27.5cm, softcover, ISBN 0-672-21960-3, $21.95.

The Data Factory, EdwardG. Roeske. New York: Your-don Press, 1983; 104 pages,15.5 by 22.5 cm, softcover,ISBN 0-917072-34-0, $17.

The Directory of Office Infor-mation Systems, 2nd ed. Asso-ciation of Information Sys-tems Professionals. NewYork: Information ClearingHouse, 1983; 310 pages, 21.5by 28 cm, softcover, ISBN931634-02-4, $34.95.

The Easy Guide to Your AppleII, Joseph Kascmer. Berkeley,CA: Sybex, 1983; 160 pages,14 by 21 cm, softcover, ISBN0-89588-122-5, $9.95.

8088 Assembler LanguageProgramming: The IBM PC,David C. Willen and Jeffrey I.Krantz. Indianapolis, IN:Howard W. Sams & Co.,1983; 240 pages, 20.5 by 23.5cm, softcover, ISBN 0-672-22024-5, $15.95.

Encyclopedia of ComputerTerms, Douglas Downing.Woodbury, NY: Barron's Edu-cational Series Inc., 1983; 160pages, 13.5 by 20.5 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-8120-2519-9,$6.95.

Fancy Programming inApplesoft, Gabriel Cuellar.Reston, VA: Reston Publish-ing Co., 1983; 272 pages, 15by 23 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-8359-1856-4, $14.95.

The Foolproof Guide toSCRIPSIT Wordprocessing, JeffBerner. Berkeley, CA: Sybex,1983; 208 pages, 18 by 23 cm,softcover, ISBN 0-89588-098-9, $11.95.

How to Buy a Business Com-puter and Get It Right the FirstTime, Edward M. Cross.Reston, VA: Reston Publish-ing Co., 1983; 224 pages, 17.5by 23.5 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-8359-2922-1, $14.95.

The Illustrated CP/M-Word-star Dictionary, Russell A.Stultz. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall, 1983; 272pages, 15 by 22.5 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-13-450528-X,$14.95.

Learning Simulation Tech-niques on a Microcomputer, PatMacaluso. Blue Ridge Sum-mit, PA: Tab Books, 1983; 154pages, 13 by 21 cm, softcover,ISBN 0-8306-1535-0, $10.95.

Microcomputer ControlledToys & Games & How TheyWork, Van Waterford. BlueRidge Summit, PA: TabBooks, 1983; 240 pages, 13 by21 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-8306-1407-9, $9.95.

Microcomputer Graphics,Donald Hearn and M.Pauline Baker. EnglewoodCliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,1983; 320 pages, 18.5 by 24.5cm, hardcover, ISBN 0-13-580670-4, $24.95.

Microcomputers in LargeOrganizations, Thomas

Through the Trap Door

March 1979—$35

Breaking the Sound Barrier

September 1977—$35

BYTE COVERS

The prints shown at left are beautiful Collector Edition Byte Covers,strictly limited to 750 prints each, and signed and numbered by theartist, Robert Tinney. Each print is 18 in. x 22 in., and is accompaniedby its own Certificate of Authenticity. To order, use the coupon below.Visa and MasterCard orders may call 1-504-272-7266.

Please send.

Trap Door prints ($35),.

Through the □ VisaCard No. _

Breaking the Sound Barrier Expires: _

prints ($35), or sets of both prints Name:

($55)-I have included $3 per order shipping Address:

and handling ($8 overseas). rjity: _

□ I have enclosed check or money order State:

□ MasterCard

_Zip:

Robert Tinney Graphics • 1864 N. Pamela Dr. • Baton Rouge, LA 70815

550 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

William Madron. EnglewoodCliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,1983; 192 pages, 17.3 by 23.3cm, softcover, ISBN 0-13-580787-5, $12.95.

Microcomputers on the Farm,Jack O. Beasley. Indianapolis,IN: Howard W. Sams & Co.,1983; 208 pages, 13.5 by 21.5cm, softcover, ISBN 0-672-22011-3, $14.95.

Minute Manual for AppleWriter II, Jim Pirisino, Colum-bia, MD: Minuteware, 1983;100 pages, 14 by 21 cm, soft-cover, ISBN none, $7.95.

The Official Silicon ValleyGuy Handbook, Patty Bell andDoug Myrland. New York:Avon Books, 1983; 128 pages,13.5 by 20.5 cm, softcover,ISBN 0-380-84392-7, $3.95.

Powers of Ten, Philip Morri-son and Phylis Morrison andthe Office of Charles and RayEames. New York: ScientificAmerican Books Inc., 1983;176 pages, 22 by 24 cm, hard-cover, ISBN 0-7167-1409-4,$29.95.

The Pre-computer Book, F.A.Wilson. London, England:Bernard Babani Ltd., 1983; 96pages, 17.8 by 11 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-85934-090-2,£1.95.

Science and Engineering Pro-grams for the Timex/Sinclair1000, Cass Lewart. New York:Micro Text/McGraw-Hill,1983; 120 pages, 15 by 23 cm,softcover, ISBN 0-07-037444-9,$13.95.

Simplified Guide to SmallComputers for Business, DanielR. McGlynn. New York: JohnWiley & Sons, 1983; 256pages, 17.5 by 25 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-471-86853-1,$14.95.

6502 Systems Programming,Thomas G. Windeknecht.Boston, MA: Little, Brownand Company 1983; 256pages, 17.8 by 23.5 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-316-94563-3,$14.50.

Skarbek Software Directory,3rd ed. Anna and Joe Skar-bek. St. Louis, MO: Skarbek

Corp. Inc., 1982; 448 pages,13.5 by 21 cm, softcover, ISBNnone, $14.95.

Soul of CP/M, MitchellWaite and Robert Lafore. In-dianapolis, IN: Howard W.Sams & Co., 1983; 400 pages,18.5 by 23 cm, softcover, ISBN0-672-22030-X, $18.95.

TRS-80 Color Computer In-terfacing With Experiments,Andrew C. Staugaard Jr. In-dianapolis, IN: Howard W.Sams & Co., 1983; 206 pages,13.5 by 21.5 cm, softcover,ISBN 0-672-21893-3, $14.95.

Using & Programming theTI-99/4A, Frederick Holtz.Blue Ridge Summit, PA: TabBooks, 1983; 224 pages, 19.5by 23.5 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-

8306-0620-3, $9.95.

Using COBOL in an MP/MSystem, Neil C. Gelb, CDPIndianapolis, IN: Howard W.Sams & Co., 1983; 112 pages,13.5 by 21.5 cm, softcover,ISBN 0-672-21936-0, $12.95.

VAX-U Assembly LanguageProgramming, Sara Baase.Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall, 1983; 416pages, 18.5 by 24.5 cm, hard-cover, ISBN 0-13-940957-2,$26.95.

Z80 Assembly Language Sub-routines, Lance A. Leventhaland Winthrop Saville. Berke-ley, CA: Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1983; 497 pages, 18.5 by23.5 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-931988-91-8, $15.95. ■

This is a list of books received at BYTE Publications during thispast month. Although the list is not meant to be exhaustive,its purpose is to acquaint BYTE readers with recently publishedtitles in computer science and related fields. We regret that wecannot review or comment on all the books we receive; in-stead, this list is meant to be a monthly acknowledgment ofthese books and the publishers who sent them.

COMPLETE DIRECTORY ASSISTANCEFOR YOUR COMPUTER.

THE

V Mfe.

INDISPENSABLE

Hb|V

GUIDE TO

^^r jflHHHk

PERSONAL

BfijC^M

COMPUTER |NETWORKING '

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is> cj&jM

*tS

.G&^ddL

vYr%t*

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*»%fV?>^

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A COMPLETE. "*M

wz^

ANNOTATED LISTING '

w

Of NAMES AND

NUMBERS SO YOU

CANGOONIINE

WITH OVER 400

SYSTEMS ACROSS

THE COUNTRY:UKTROtti MAU

W BtCAI DMA©-" MIKFCMtf.

^ :.-.■: . -S

Think of The Computer Phone Book as

the Yellow Pages to keep by your modem.It's the only annotated directory of all on-line data bases that tells personal compu-ter users all about computer networking.

You can connect with over 400 systemsnationwide. Call a business consultant inL.A., buy a suit in Chicago or check WallStreet's latest stock report.

To get all the listed numbers, (even theunlisted) look for The Computer PhoneBook in stores everywhere, or fill out thecoupon. And get a great connection any-where, anytime.

New American Library, P.O. Box 999,Bergenfield, N.J. 07621

Please send me copies of (Z5446)

The Computer Phone Book'"at $9.95 each($12.50 in Canada), plus $1.50postage andhandling per order. I enclose fjj check

S money order (no COD's or cash), orarge [j Visa Q MasterCard.

Card#

Exp. Date

Signature

Name

City

State

Zip

Allow a minimum of four weeks for delivery. Thisoffer, prices and numbers, are subject to changewithout notice. Offer expires June 30,1984.

Circle 484 on inquiry card.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 551

ORYXSKSTEMS

QUALITY DISCOUNTS

APPLE/FRANKLIN

ASHTON-TATE

dBase II

.5 399

ASPEN SOFTWARE

Grammat;k

Proofreader

S 60

42

BEAGLE BROS.

Apple Mechanic S 22

DOS Boss 17

Utility City 22

BRODERBUND

Bank Street Water ... S 55

General Ledger w/AP . 305

Payroll 275

CDEX

"Visicalc Training S 45

CHARLES MANN

Class Scheduling 299

CONTINENTAL SOFTWARE

Home Accountant . . .. S 55

DOW JONES

Market Analyzer $ 245

Market Manager 219

Microscope 569

Series 40G/L, A/R, A/P eu.

Inventory

Series 9

Peachcalc

Telecommunications

PENGUIN SOFTWARE

Complete Graphics ... SGraphics Magician . . .Complete Graphics/

Apple Tablet

Special Effects

SOFTECH

Basic Compilers

Runtime $

Softeach

UCSD psysleni set ...Xeno file

SOFTWARE PUBLISHING

PFS; File $

PFS: Graph

PFS: Report

SUPERSOFT

Basic Tutor

Fortran

SYSTEMS PLUS (Z80 req.|Landlord S

VISICORP

Visicalc (II or HE) .Visischedule

195225

279279

5345

16994

46939

949494

S79299

179225

LOGO CORNER

Krell Logo

Abelson Book

Terrapin Logo w/lull documentation

7515

115

HAYDEN

Piewnter !

HOWARD SOFTWARE

Tax Preparer !

LINK SYSTEMS

Datofox S

Dalalink

108

Call

Call79

CP/MSOFTWARE

MICROPRO

Wordstar |Special) . .

[w/CP/M Card.

|7 col. 64K)Infostor [Includes

CP/M, 70 col.. 64K) .Pro Pak

iWS/MM/SS'lndex] .

MICROSOFT

Cobol-80

Fortran-80

TASC Compiler

A.L.D.S

Multiplan(DOS)

OMEGA

Locksmith

Inspector

Watson

S 375

375499

499

14512599169

COMPUVIEW

•V-Edit 8080 Z80,

IBM/PC S 130

•V-Edit CP/M 86.

MS DOS 160

DIGITAL RESEARCH

•Pascal MT < W'SPP .

MAC

SID (8080 Debugger!ZSID (Z801 Debugger

CP/M 2.2

C Basic 2

PL/1-80

69

47

PEACHTREE (CP/M)

Peochpak 40 G'L'A'R♦ A/P [Special] S

389856890140110375

49394939

49

LEXISOFT

•Spellb.nde, S 275

MARK OF THE UNICORN

•Final Word S 229

INFOCOM

•Deadline

'Stareross

'Suspended

•Zork. I, II, III (each|

Planet Fall

d-BASE II CORNER

Ashton-Tate

d-Base II

$

Call269475225

99

19960

1520

349199

Bottom Line Strategist

FPL

Human Soft

dBase Plus

S

Fox & Geller

Quick Code

s

D Util

Software Banc

d-Base II User s Guide:

$

Anderson-Bell

s

Tylog Systems

s

'All above available on PC-DOS

MICROPRO

•WordStar ..

$ Call

•InloStai 275

■Pro-Pack (WS/MM/SS

Index) S Call

All others S Call

MICROSOFT

Basic 80 S 249

Basic Compiler 289

Fortran 80 330

Cobol 80 499

Macro 80 150

MuMalh/MuSimp 194

MuLisp/MuStar 156

•Multiplan 175

MICROSTUF

•Crosstalk S 1 35

ORGANIC SOFTWARE

•Dalebook J

'Milestone

PICKLES & TROUT

CP/M lor TRS-II S

PRO/TEM SOFTWARE

•Footnote S

REVASCO

Z80 Disassembler S

SORCIM

'Supercalc II $

Superwriter(w/Speller 8. Mailer) . 1

SELECT

Select WordProcessor S

229229

105

85

179179

PEACHTREE CORNER

► PeachPak 4 (GL, AP, AR| $ 237

► General Ledger / Accounts Payable / AccountsReceivable I Sales Invoicing / Inventory Control /PeachPay Payroll Each 399

► PeochTexi 160

► PeochTexi w/ Random House Thesaurus 195

► Spelling Proofreader 95

► PeachCalc 90

► Job Cost System 399

► Client Posting & Accounting 399

► Graphics Language 275

► Business Graphic System 199

NORTHWEST ANALYTICAL

STAR SOFTWARE SYSTEM

•Stalpak S 365

G/L, A/R, A/P or Pay . S 349

OASIS

'Legal Time, Billing. ... 845

The Word Plus S 120

Properly Mgmt 845

Punctualion and Style 99

Formats

All prices below are lor 8" standard. Other formats ore

available. Some formats sublet to Download lee and

>

\

require minimum 2 weeks for delivery. Please inquire.

j

SUPERSOFT

•Diagnostic II S 89

Disk Doctor 75

•Fortran 4 299

Basic 8086 225

C Cross Assembler ... 400

'Scratchpad 219

T MAKER III 220

IBM/PC

Please see CP/Mlisting. All productswith a * in front arealso made forPC/DOS and arepriced the sameunless otherwisespecified.

ALPHA SOFTWARE

Data Base Mgr. II .... S 195

Mailing List 72

Executive Pkg 105

Type Faces 99

Question 35

Apple-IBM

Connection 130

CENTRAL POINT

Copy II PC S 34

CONDOR III

w/Training S 445

CONTINENTAL

Home Accountant . . . . S 99

DIGITAL RESEARCH

Concurrent CP'M 86. S 225

CP'M-86 50

Cobol 86 499

Pascal MT + 86

(MS DOSl 375

SPP 86 I 30

SID 86 113

C Basic 86 135

DOW JONES

Market Analyzer S 245

Market Manogei 219

ECO-SOFT

Microstal S 230

FINANCIER

Tax Series 105

Personal S 119

GRAPHIC SOFTWARE

Super Chartmon II.... $ 299

Super Chartnian IV ... 199

Both (abovel 350

LEXISOFT

SpellBinder S 259

LIFETREE

Volkswnter S 135

LOTUS 123 S Cull

MICROPRO . [All] S Call

PEACHTREE

Please see listingunder CP'M

552 BYTE December 1983

SUPERSOFT

C Compile. 8086 S

StorEdil

Disk Edii

Basic Compilei

Fortran IV PC/DOS

8087 Support

Diagnostics II

Optimizer

Personal Data Base.Investment Tax Puc .Scratch Pad

SYSTEMS PLUS

Landlord (prop nicjmtj SRuntime BasicIreq d for abovel ....

T-Maker III S

350

180

75

225

2994089

149

99160219

45220

and

many more!

APPLE/

FRANKLIN

BOARDS

ALS CP/M Card S

299

ALS Smarterm

249

ALS I Card II

1-f

ABT Keyboard

99

Axlon Ramdisk 128K ..

299

Bit 3 Dua

209

CCS 7710

Asynch Serial

119

Central Point Alaska .

105

East Side Wild Curd ..

110

Microsoft I6K Ramcard

72

Microsoft Softcore!....

245

Microsoft Softcurd ' ..

4 29

Microsoft Premium

Softcard (IIEl

197

Microtek Primer l/f . ..

75

Microtek Dumpling-16

195

Microtek Dumpling GX

119

Mountain AD/DA .

279

Mountain Music

System w/Softwore . .

299

PCP 4 MHZ Appli-

Card + 88 Card

599

PCP 88 Cord 16 Bit

+ 64K

475

Prometheus Versacard

159

Prometheus Grciphi tti

Card

99

SSM AISO SomoI l/F

w/cable

129

SSM AIO-2 Serial/

Parallel

179

Street Echo II Speech

Synthesizer l/F

129

Tymac Parallel l/F

w/cable

79

Videx Display

109

Videx Display

Enhancer II

129

Videx Func Strip

69

Videx Videoterm

VT-600 235

Videx Ullraterm 299

Wesper 16K Ram Card 69

IBM/PCBOARDS

AST RESEARCH

ComboPlus 64K Clock/Calendar, Serial 8.Parallel, l/F, Expand-able to 256K S 287

MegaPlus64K, Clock'Calendar, Serial Port,Expandable to 512Kw/Megapak 269

Extra ports availablefor Megaplus and I/OPlus II includes Game,Parallel & Serial 40

Megapak 256K upgradefor Megaplus S Call

I/O Plus II Clock/Calen-dar and Serial Port ... 115

BYAD DS-II S 599

MAYNARD ELECTRONICS

Floppy Drive

Controller $ 165

Floppy Drive Control-

ler w/Parallel Port ... 229

w/Serial Port 249

Sandstar Mem. Cord

— 3 modules cap. .. 194Sandstar MultifunctionCard - 6 modules cap. 93

Sandstar Modules . . . . S Call

QUADRAM

Quadboard 64K, Clock-Calendar, Serial &Parallel Ports,

Software S 296

Microfazer Stack PrinterBuffer (expandable to 512K)

► Parallel/Parallel 8K , . 145

► Parallel/Parallel 64K 188

► Serial/Parallel 8K . .. 170

► Serial/Serial 8K 170

Quadlink 64K Memory,

Game Port allowsApple Software toto on IBM/PC i Call

TECMAR Products . .. S Call

XEDEX/MICROLOG

Baby Blue

$

475

TALL TREE

512K JRAM Mem.

Board

$

699

\

MONITORS

Amdek Video 300A

Amber

S

18C

Amdek RGB .

495

NEC 12" Hi-Res Green

187

Sanyo 12" Hi-Res

191

USI Hi-Res 12 Amber

169

MEC JB 1260 Green .

119

PGS RGB Coloi

$

Call

NEC jC 1203 RGB. ..

560

Quadram

Quadchronie

$

Call

Taxan 12" Amber . . .

149

Taxan 12" Green . . .

136

Taxan 12 Med RGB

323

Taxan 12 High RGB

512

Taxan RGB

Cable for PC

17

US Robotics AuloDial (lull autoanswer 300/1200).

US Robotics AutoLink (auto onswei300/1200)

US Robotics Password

DISK DRIVES

Tandon TM 55-2

Tandon TM 100 2

Davong DSI 501 HardDavong DSI 512 HardDavong DSI 519 HardCorona 5MB Hard ...Corona 10 MB Hard . .

CDC 1800

Corvus

Tall Grass

Vista Solo 143K. .. .Vista Solo & ControlWant Slim L ne

& Controller

Wont Dual Slim

Line & Controller . .

S 275

240

t Call

S Call

t Call

1,395

. 1,795

270

. S Coll

, S Call

. $ 259

329

299

. 529

TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORNER• ** SPECIAL ***

Hayes Smartmodem 12000/Hayes Smartcom II Software

AST I O Plus II Clock Calendcn and Serial PAbove w Smartmodem 300

Hayes Smartmodem 1200 £

.S 695415Smartcom II Software .. 579

MODEMS

PRINTERS

Novation

Apple Cat II S 269

Hayes Micromodem II . 299

Anchor Mark I 84

Anchor Mark VII 129

Hayes

Smartmodem 300 .... S 205Hayes

Smartmodem 1200 ... 499

Hayes Chronograph .. 189Novation 212

Auto Cat 585

DISPLAY CARD CORNER

Hercules Graphics Board

Orchid Monochrome Graphic Adaptei ....

Plantronics Colorplus

USI Display Card (color/monochrome)

Amdek MAI Card

Tecmar Graphic Master

399432389CollCallCall

C. Itoh Sturtwriter F10 .51,250

C. Itoh Prowntei 8510 . 425

C. Itoh Prowi.le, 1550 . 725

NEC 3550 S Cull

NEC 8023A 475

Okidata Microline 82A 389

OkidataMiciolme 83A 599

Okidata Microline 92 . 499IDS Prism 80

|w, 4 options) 1,399

IDS Prism 132

(w/4 options) 1,547

IDS MicioPnsm 565

Silver-Reed

Daisy Wheel $ Call

Star Micronics

Gemini 10X 325

Star Micronics

Gemini 15 489

GE Printers S Coll

Epson FX-80 599

Transfer T 130 P 725

Transfer I 315P Coloi 519

Transfer T 120P 499

Mannesman Tally

MT160I 475

MT160L 585

.. and much more.

Please:

► Wisconsin residents add 5% for sales tax.

► Add $3.50 for shipping per software and lightitems. For multiple and other items, call.

► Foreign — add 15% handling & shipping forprepayment. (Int'l money order.)

► Prices are subject to change without notice.

► All items subject to availability.Store prices are strictly retail.

ORYX SYSTEMS, INC.

425 First St. • P.O. Box 1961Wausau, Wl 54401

/

•N

DISKETTES

^

3M 5" DS, DD, Box . . . S

40

BASF 5" DS, DD, Box ,

37

Maxell 5" DS. DD,

MD2, Box

40

Verbatim 5

DS DD, Box

Ti

Jltra Magnetics 5

DS, DD, Bonus Box

(12 Diskettes)

35

PLOTTERS

Enter P100 Sweel P

Apple/Franklin,

IBM/PC

Strobe MI00 Plotlei

w/ l/F Apple/FrankStrobe M100 Plolli-i

(RS 232)

Panasonic Digital

Plotter S Co

. S 599

499

539

MISC.

Chalk Board

. S Call

Koala Technologies

Graphic Tablet

S 99

Symtec Light Pen

I3M/PC

140

Symtec Light Pen

Apple/Franklin

200

TG Joystick IBM/PC ..

49

TG Joystick

Apple/Franklin

46

Versa VersaWnter

Tablet IBM-PC.

Apple/Fianklin

235

Wico Analog Joystick.

59

Wico Apple Adaptei .

18

Wico IBM/PC

l/F Card

52

Keytronic Keyboard

IBM/PC

219

Keytronic Keyboard

Apple/Franklin

249

Curtis PC Products ...

S Call

Electronic Protection

Series

. S Coll

CP/M is a registeredtrademark of DigitalResearch. IBM and theIBM logo are registeredtrademarks ofInternational BusinessMachines. Apple and theApple logo are registeredtrademarks of the AppleComputer Company.Franklin and the Franklinlogo are trademarks ofthe Franklin ComputerCompany.

We welcome:

► COD (Add $2.00 per shipment. Cash or certified check required.

► Visa, MasterCharge & American Express. (Add 4%.)

► Checks. (Allow 1-2 weeks for clearing.

Working Hours:

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affi

V52

W£km

For technical information andin Wisconsin: 715-848-1374

Int'l Telex: 260181

ORYX SYS WAU

c#SS

v&k

^El

Circle 332 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

553

Ask BYTE

(la)

Conducted by Steve Garcia

ji

RS-232C

+ 5V

220ilW(—

J2

20mA LOOP

:22> LB|AS 1

220&

-w* <^2a| Lout +

{i8> Lqut

fT^> GND

Figure 1: Figure la shows the computer serial output to 20-mA loop conversion. Figure lb shows the active connections for use withinternal current sources. Figure 1c shows the passive connections for use with external current sources.

(lb)

ACTIVE CONNECTIONS

USING INTERNAL CURRENT SOURCES

CURRENTLOOP OUT

CURRENT ,LOOP IN \

fGND

loutLout + <m}-Lbias i [22>-LBIAS 2 [H>-LlN + <HJ"LlN " Ll£>-I^GND <3~

-<f^~) CUSTOMER EQUIPMENT-fP> 20mA LOOP INPUT

■T+*> CUSTOMER CONTACT-<3D CLOSURE LOOP OUTPUT

(lc)

PASSIVE CONNECTIONS

USING EXTERNAL CURRENT SOURCES

INPUTLOOP

LlN

lin - rj!>-

OUTPUT fLOUT + <HhL00P UoUT - BT

—<^T] CUSTOMER 20mA OUTPUT

—<T] CUSTOMER SUPPLIES-f-^> 20mA FOR INPUT LOOP

Apple-TeletypeConnections

Dear Steve,

Can you direct me to an ar-ticle that shows how to con-nect an Apple II Plus to aTeletype Model 33ASR ter-minal? Because I alreadyhave an 8251A USART (uni-versal synchronous/asyn-chronous receiver/trans-mitter), I'd prefer to use oneif possible.

Specifically, I need toknow details about address-ing and how to print out pro-gram listings and results. Myapplication involves punchtapes for machine tools.Thanks for your help.Dave MadalozzoTarboro, NC

The simple schematicdiagram and connectiondrawings shown in figure 1

convert the serial output of acomputer to a 20-mA loopsuitable for driving Teletypemachines. The circuit fea-tures optoisolators to avoidany chance of an electricalfailure in the Model 33ASRdamaging the computer. 1assume that you have theserial port because severalcards for the Apple that pro-vide this feature are avail-able. A printed-circuit boardwith the components offigure 1 is available from TheMicromint (561 Willow Ave.,Cedarhurst, NY 11516, (800)645-3479; in New York, (516)374-6793). For a more de-tailed analysis of RS-232Cand current-loop interfacing,see "The Current-Loop Inter-face" portion (page 170) of"Welcome to the StandardsJungle" by Ian H. Witten(BYTE, February 1983, page146). . . .Steve

554 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Introducing the new RX-80.

A printer this goodcould only come from one company

Take a look at the new Epson RX-80 with a critical eyeand you'll know what we mean. Epson printers areput together with manufacturing tolerances in themicron range. And meticulously checked for quality —one at a time.

Our reliability rate is approaching perfection.Which means you'll probably never — ever — have aproblem with your RX-80.A real Epson for only $299.

For a limited time, you can get the RX-80 for only$299. But just because we made it affordable doesn'tmean we've left off the goodies. You get 128 differ-ent typestyles with a resolution so sharp you have tolook twice to make sure it's dot matrix. You getbidirectional printing, logic seeking, and a speed of

100 characters per second. And you even get program-mable forms control, graphics, and a special QuietMode to keep the noise down.This is your printer.

No matter what computer you own — or will own — doyourself a favor and make sure your printer is anEpson RX-80.

We build them to be the finest printers on earth.

No matter how small the price.

EPSON

Number one.And built like it. epson America, inc.

3415 Kashiwa Street, Torrance, CA 90505

Please call (800) 421-5426 for the dealer nearest you. In California (213) 539-9140

Circle 179 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

555

Ask BYTE.

Real-Time Solution

Dear Steve,

I attempted to interface theMM58167A real-time-clockchip to my Ferguson BigBoard computer as describedin your article "Everyone CanKnow The Real Time"(BYTE, May 1982, page 34).The circuit worked the firsttime on power-up. Satisfied,I put the interface aside andwent on to other things.

After several months, Idecided to reconnect the in-terface; that's when I beganexperiencing the same prob-lem that Mr. Edward Beighe(Ask BYTE, April 1983, page465) was having. The secondscounter was stuck on hexa-decimal FF while the othercounters seemed to be work-ing correctly. Thinking I had

blown the chip, I purchasedanother one—with datasheets. The second chip pro-duced the same erroneousresults.

Over the period of timethat I had not used the real-time clock, I had made sev-eral changes to my Big Board,one of which was increasingthe clock rate from 2.5 MHzto 3.5 MHz. The data sheetsfor the MM58167A state thatthe maximum time fromready strobe inactive to datavalid is 800 ns, which I inter-preted to mean that it couldtake 800 ns before data isready. I changed my boardback to 2.5 MHz and bothclock chips worked! After re-peatedly verifying that theclock would work at 2.5MHz but not 3.5 MHz, Imade an addition to the Orig-

fsJ407

Figure 2: A remedy for real-time clock-timing problems onhigher-speed systems.

inal clock circuit (see figure2). The circuit has workedperfectly at 3.5 MHz eversince.

I hope this helps Mr.Beighe and others with timingproblems.

Ronnie KellyChicago, IL

Thank you very much foryour solution to Mr. Beighe'sproblem. He did not mentionhow he was driving the chip,but 800 ns is a relatively longaccess time, and wait statesshould be employed withfaster clock rates. Your solu-tion is simple andcorrect. . . .Steve

CMOSMicroprocessor

Dear Steve,

Last month I bought an Ep-son HX-20 notebook-sizedcomputer. Epson advertisesthat the HX-20 has twoCMOS 6301 microproces-sors. I've never heard of a6301 and no one I askedseems to know either. Canyou give me the facts?Thanks.Brad KulpLandover Hills, MD

The 6301 microprocessorused in the Epson HX-20 is aCMOS version of the Moto-rola 6801 microprocessor.CMOS {complementarymetal-oxide semiconductor)chips are used throughout thecomputer to keep the powerconsumption at a low level.

A product description ofthe Epson HX-20, by GreggWilliams, appeared in theApril 1982 BYTE on page104. It was an introductoryreview but it describes manyof the features of theunit. . . .Steve

IMSAI Manuals

Dear Steve,

I recently bought an IM-SAI system with serial I/O,revision 3, circa 1976, withtwin Intel 8251 USARTs (uni-versal synchronous/asyn-chronous receiver/trans-mitter). The manual is miss-ing, and IMSAI, alas, is nolonger among us. With a littlehelp from my friends, therewas no problem tracing themodem signals on the PCB.The "old-timer" is nowplugged in and working, but Istill would like a copy of themanual.

Is there some place where Ican buy manuals for vintageproducts?Gisle HannemyrTromso, Norway

Microsystems magazinefeatures advertisements by acompany that has taken overthe line of IMSAI computers.It should be able to furnishthe documentation that yourequire. Write or call IMSAIComputer Division, Fischer-Freitas Corporation, 910 81st

Ave., Bldg. 14, Oakland, CA94621, (415) 635-7615.. . .Steve

Modem Musings

Dear Steve,

As a computer technician,I know how much time andenergy go into your projects.I appreciate the work you aredoing very much.

I am writing to you on twosubjects. The first is theECM-103 modem (BYTE,March 1983, page 26):

1. The RS-232C interface init has no control signals suchas RTS (request to send) andCTS (clear to send). Howdoes communication takeplace?

2. How do I add ring detec-tion?

3. Where can I get a DAA(data-access arrangement),and what should I expect topay?

4. Can I just connect thetelephone interface to thebase of a regular telephone?

5. I would like to be able toauto-dial by sending ASCII(American National StandardCode for Information Inter-change) strings to themodem. I thought aboutusing an 8085 processorbecause of its built-in serialport. Do you have any sug-gestions?

I have an H-89 with theserial port on a wire-wrapboard and will put this circuiton the same board, so I havea lot of flexibility in what I do.

The second subject con-cerns future projects. I wouldlike to see a 68000-based system with DMA(direct memory access), mathprocessor, priority interrupt,hard- and soft-disk con-trollers, and everything elseone could want. It would alsobe able to use a 32-bit data-bus version of the 68000when they become cost-effec-tive. I also would like to see ituse the Motorola Versabusand Unix. Maybe it couldhave an 8-bit processor tohandle the I/O. In fact, Iwould like to have seen this

556 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

There's a sideto the Wang PCthat IBM would

ignore.

•^ #t| ^ Maybe what puts the Wang

1^1 ^•^'■^ ^ A^"W-tfl ^ ^F".^^ Professional Computer ahead of

I WCl** %/■ ■■ ! !■ ■ the IBM PC is what's behind it.

1 1 ■ IV f V/H ^^F Because at the back of the

^ ^^ Wang PC is a series of system

^ interfaces that can tie you into total office

automation now. Integral links that let youaccess notonlyotherWang equipment, buteven most popular databases and main-frames, including IBM.

Trie Wang Professional Computer alsooffers a variety of telecommunications optionsthat can access everything from the DowJones News/Retrieval® service to electronicmail.And by simply addingword processingsoftware, the Wang PC turns into the easiest-to-useword processor on the market.

Face to face, the ^jWang PC is superior I]tothelBMPCinspeed, compatibilityandease-of-use.

Backto back, there'sno comparison.

For a demonstration of the Wang Professional Computer, call1-800-225-9264. Or send this coupon to: Wang Laboratories,Inc., Business Executive Center, One Industrial Avenue, Lowell,MA0L851.

Name

Company

Address

City

State

Zip

.Telephone BY3 i

WANG

The Office AutomationComputer People.

\> 1983 Wang Laboratories, Inc.

Ask BYTE.

instead of the MPX-16. Ithink we have enough IBMPC clones.

Again, thank you for yourefforts.Bob IaculloDoylestown, PA

The ECM-103 and othermodems use two sets of tonesand operate in a full-duplexmode. Because this methodallows the simultaneoustransmission and reception ofdata, no handshaking signals(RTS and CTS) are needed.

The circuit shown in figure3 provides a simple means ofring detection. The article

from which this circuit wastaken appeared in the Feb-ruary 20, 1975 issue of Elec-tronics. It is titled "Opticallycoupled ringer doesn't loadphone line." In it, William D.Kraengel Jr. illustrates a sim-ple way to capture a high-voltage signal and safely con-vert it to TTL or CMOSlevels. While this circuitdrives an oscillator, it couldjust as easily toggle a counterand trip on a preset numberof rings.

A DAA can be obtainedfrom your local telephonecompany or any of severalmanufacturers. They must be

FCC-certified and vary inprice. I have seen some as lowas $50 in quantities of 10,000.Single quantities must bequoted. One source for aDAA is Cermetek Microelec-tronics Inc., 1308 BorregasAve., Sunnyvale, CA 94086.The telephone interface canbe connected to the base of aregular telephone.

Many articles have beenpublished on auto-dialing. Ifyours is a Touch Tone sys-. tern, see my article on page 42of the December 1981 BYTE."Build a Touch ToneDecoder for Remote Control"gives information on an en-

coder circuit. Such a circuitcan be driven from a parallelport (or serial port, through aUART). If it is a pulse-dialing(rotary) telephone system,the pulses can easily begenerated in software.

At the time that I designedthe MPX-16, there was con-siderably more hardware andsoftware information avail-able for the 8088 processor.With the introduction of theIBM PC, a plethora of acces-sory boards was flooding themarket and it seemed un-necessary to "reinvent thewheel". . .Steve

TELEPHONE LINE

RING SIGNAL=100VAC. 20Hz

(2 SECONDS ON, 4 SECONDS OFF)

20 Hz

l^F200V

^h

,^Iaaa

I 40Hz

•10K

MONSANTOMCT-2

•6.8K

40 Hz

•680J1

TELEPHONESET

+ 12VA

•IK

>,250K

Y FREQUENCY

* CONTROL

. O.OlfiF

ll

440 Hz GATED AT 40 Hz

JUL Jl nn.

8 SECONDS , SECONDS

RESET V+

DISCHARGE

OUTPUT

THRESHOLDTRIGGER

CONTROLVOLTAGE GND

T

555ASTABLE

Figure 3: The ring-detection circuit is useful for detection of high-voltage signals and conversion to common logic levels.

High-SpeedCommunications

Dear Steve,

I read your June 1983 BYTEarticle (page 35) "UseADPCM for Highly Intelligi-ble Speech Synthesis" withgreat interest. I'm particular-ly interested in the possibili-ty of developing a method of

transmitting not only high-quality voice signals througha 32-kbps (thousand bits persecond) digital channel, butalso high-speed (9600-bps)modem traffic.

"The Return of TELPAK,"printed in the March 1983issue of Telecommunicationsmagazine (authored by IvanRiley of Aydin Monitor Sys-

tems), claims that although32-kbps ADPCM is capableof handling 4800-bpsmodems, it cannot pass 9600-bps traffic (CCITT V.29). Thesame article claims that atechnique referred to as VQL(variable quantization level)encoding is capable of 9600-bps transmission.I would appreciate any in-

formation you may have or towhich you can refer me thatdeals with VQL or the gen-eral topic of systems de-signed to pass analog voiceand modems through 32-kbps communications links.Christopher PaulBayport, NY

The August 1983 issue of Sys-

558 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

THERE'S NO OTHER COPIERON EARTH LIKE IT.

The Minolta Beta 450Z has features no copier ever had before.

Like auto magnification. Which allows the 450Z, with its automaticdocument feeder, to take a stack of different size originals and automat-ically reduce or enlarge them to uniform size copies.

If you simply want to make copies of that stack of originals, the 450Zwill automatically select the correct paper size for each one.

The 450Z has a unique variable magnification zooming lens that givesyou a virtually limitless range of copy sizes. Fromalmost 50% larger than the original to 50% smaller.

If you don't need reduction, enlargementor auto magnification, ask your dealer aboutthe Beta 450 (without the Z).

Both make copies that are out of this world.

Call your Minolta dealer for a demonstration.Look in the Yellow Pages under the Minoltatrademark. Or call toll free 800-526-5256.In New Jersey call 201-342-6707.

□ Please have my dealer contact me fora demonstration of the new MinoltaBeta 450Z.

□ Please send me more information.

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MINOLTA

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Mail to Minolta CorporationBusiness Equipment Division101 Williams DriveRamsey. N.1.07446.

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€^

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Circle 303 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

559

Ask BYTE.

terns and Software, devoted tocombining voice and data com-munications, features a specialreport on that subject. In addi-tion, many advertisements fea-ture devices that handle bothvoice and data transmissions.

The magazine can be obtainedfrom Hayden Publishing Com-pany Inc., 50 Essex St., RochellePark, N] 07662. Subscriptionsare offered free of charge toqualified subscribers, and singleissues can be obtained at $4each. . . .Steve

Ukrainian WordProcessing

Dear Steve,

In addition to doing wordprocessing in English, I amlooking for a computer withwhich I could do word pro-cessing in Ukrainian as well.I wrote to you since my prob-lem with foreign-languagecharacter generation mightbest be solved through hard-ware. While there are soft-ware programs for variouscharacter generators, I stillhaven't found one withwhich it is possible to doword processing. C. KennethFan, for example, had an ar-ticle, "An IBM CharacterGenerator," in the January1983 Creative Computing. Hisprogram requires at least 96Kbytes of ROM for workspace—whereas this space isalso used by some of themore powerful word-pro-cessing programs.

I plan to get a microcom-puter in the near future, andI want to know if there is acomputer on the market thatsupports foreign-languagecharacter sets. Ukrainianuses the Cyrillic alphabet, soI need a complete characterset and not just accents anda few special characters. Doyou know of any monitorwith a user-definable charac-ter set? The Epson QX-10changes its character set fromnormal to bold or italic; I sup-

pose that this is donethrough an alternate charac-ter generator. Wouldn't it bepossible to do the same thingwith another alphabet?

I already have an OlympiaES105 KRO electronic type-writer with a general-pur-pose interface that can be setfor either serial or paralleloperation. I also have a Rus-sian print wheel that I am go-ing to convert to Ukrainian.

Please let me know whichcomputer you think wouldbe easiest to work with. Ifyou have any suggestions orideas, I would appreciateyour advice.

Thank you.(Rev.) Maxim M. KobasukGlen Cove, NY

The Victor 9000 computer hasa software-generated characterset that is loaded when the sys-tem is first initialized. Utilitiesare available for creating char-acters interactively and for in-stalling them in an operatingsystem. This feature will allowyou to create whatever charac-ter set you desire. Since it is aone-for-one substitution, itshould not affect the word-pro-cessing program.

Apple II, Atari, and othercomputers with graphics capa-bility can create alternate char-acter sets in software but mustbe patched into your existingword-processing program inorder to be effective for screendisplay.

Additional information on theVictor 9000 can be obtained fromVictor Business Products, 3900North Rockwell St., Chicago, IL60618. . . .Steve

Macro Micro Display

Dear Steve,

I am looking for a means ofeither projecting a black-and-white video-display imageusing rear-screen projectionor implementing a light-dis-

play system similar to thoseused in stadium scoreboards.I would like to interface myIBM PC to the system to pro-vide real-time display infor-mation at conferences andconventions.

Requirements for the sys-tem include character heightsof not less than 6 inches, amaximum cost of $500, andhigh visibility in a well-lighted environment. Anysuggestions? Thank you.Bert WhittierMelrose, MA

Electrohome Electronics man-ufactures a projection TVmonitor that can be driven byany microcomputer. This wouldseem to be the simplest solutionto your problem; however, Iprefer not to quote its cost. Callor write them for additional in-formation at Electrohome(U.S.A.) Limited, 182 WalesAve., Tonawanda, NY 14150,(716) 694-3332. . . .Steve

Atari ParallelInterface

Dear Steve,

I've heard rumors that aprinter interface can be builtfor Atari personal computersby using the number 3 and4 controller jacks, and that acompany is producing sucha product. So far, however,I have been unable to locateany such company.

Do you have a schematicor know of anyone who isfamiliar with such an inter-face? I assume the interfaceis serial, but is a parallel in-terface possible using thecontroller ports? Thanks.Ron M. YoakemBainbridge, OH

Macrotronics makes a productthat will enable the Atari 400 or800 to drive a parallel printerthrough the front controller con-nector, without the need for theAtari 850 or a similar interface.

A short driver program directsall LPRINT commands to theparallel-printer interface. It iscompatible with BASIC, DOS,and ASSEMBLER/DEBUG. Theaddress is Macrotronics Inc.,1125 North Golden State Blvd.,Turlock, CA 95380, (209)667-2888. . . .Steve

Math Language

Dear Steve,

I am having trouble find-ing a microcomputer lan-guage that handles complexarithmetic. As I am current-ly changing systems, theavailable languages will havesome effect on what I pur-chase. I'd appreciate anyhelp you can provide.Stuart SandsBerkeley, CA

FORTRAN IV has a COM-PLEX function, but it is not im-plemented on microcomputerversions. I have been told by aprofessional programmer thatthe mainframe implementationis so slow that he writes his ownroutines; it is not very difficult.All that is necessary is to com-pute the real and imaginaryparts separately, and then addthem. This may be the easiestsolution to your search.. . .Steve

Scope Your Data

Dear Steve,

How can I determine thedata rate, parity, and stop-bitcharacteristics being trans-mitted by a computer overan RS-232C port by examin-ing these signals on an oscil-loscope?Chuck GollnickPullman, WA

Determining the data rate ofa data signal by using an oscil-loscope is very easy. Send aseries of characters with lots of"ones" in its binary code. Thequestion mark (?) is hexadecimal

560 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983

561

Ask BYTE,

ASCII code 7F (01111111) andmakes a good choice. Set thesweep rate on the scope so thatthese "one" pulses are stableand note the number of time-base divisions between any twoadjacent pulses on the scopescreen. The result should be inthe "1 bit in so many millisec-onds" range for typical trans-mission rates. The inverse ofthis value is the data rate.

Determining the parity andstop-bit characteristics is moredifficult since the waveform isnot steady. A storage scopewould be necessary for such ameasurement.

A hardware latch to hold onedata word for inspection and asoftware routine are othermethods of determining parityand stop bits. . . .Steve

Big Board Speaks

Dear Steve,

I am assembling a customZ80 system for use by my

wife who suffers from aparalyzed palate and can nolonger speak. She will beable to communicate withme by typing and, by usinga modem, will be able to con-tact me at my office, whereI have a microcomputer andmodem available. In order tobecome thoroughly familiarwith the hardware (and tosave a little money), I plan toassemble a kit. I have chosenthe Ferguson Big Board forthe main board. I need ad-vice about which disk drivesto use, as all my experiencehas been on large, main-frame timesharing systems.The Big Board kit has anon-board Western Digital1771 disk controller, and thedocumentation calls for a"Shugart Series 800 compati-ble" drive. The recordingformat is single-density IBM3740.1 do not have ready ac-cess to literature coveringthese specifications. I would

be very grateful if you couldtell me where I can find thenecessary information toguide me in purchasing asuitable pair of drives at areasonable price. Are dou-ble-sided drives practical inthis application?

I read with great personalinterest your two articles inBYTE (September and Oc-tober 1982) on the voicesimulator and plan to makethis my first project once thebasic system is running.Walter BrouilletteJamesville, NY

The Shugart 801 disk drive isa perfect companion for theFerguson Big Board or virtual-ly any system that uses theWestern Digital 1771 controller.It is an extremely popular driveand is sold by nearly all mail-order computer stores. They areavailable as a bare drive or in acabinet with power supply andcables. See the back pages of

BYTE for advertisements.

For your application, I thinka single-sided drive is adequate(and cheaper). The amount ofdata that can be stored on an8-inch disk in IBM 3740 formatis a quarter megabyte. . . . Steve

Scratch-built 68000

Dear Steve,

I am trying to build a68000-based computer fromscrap parts, but I need to finda board that I can stuff. Theonly boards that I havefound have either too littlememory (I would like at least128K bytes) or a cassette in-terface (I want a floppy-diskinterface). Is there a kit avail-able from you or anyone elsethat would fit my needs?Also, could you tell mewhether anyone makes a68000 board for the S-100bus? Thank you.Philip LawrenceAustin, TX

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Educational MicrocomputerSystems manufactures a 68000-based single-board computerthat may be of interest to you.While it contains only 20K bytesof on-board RAM, it does havetwo memory-expansion busesthat allow up to 256K bytes. Ithas two serial ports, a 16-bitparallel port, and is software-compatible with the MotorolaMEX68KDM board. A bareboard and documentation areavailable for $99.95 from Educa-tional Microcomputer Systems,POB 16115, Irvine, CA 92713-6115, (714) 553-0133. In addi-tion, a recent ad in ComputerShopper disclosed a 68000-based processor bare board,Multibus-compatible, withdocumentation, for $69.99. It isavailable from Unicom Elec-tronics, 10010 Canoga Ave.,Unit B-8, Chatsworth, CA91311, (213) 341-8833. Also,Digicomp Research Corporationsells a dual-processor system forthe S-100 bus. It is based on the

16-bit MC68000 and the 8-bitZ80 central processing units andfeatures software switching be-tween them. Further informa-tion can be obtained fromDigicomp Research Corpora-tion, Terrace Hill, Ithaca, NY14850. . . .Steve

Biblical WordProcessing

Dear Steve,

I have an IBM PC and willbe purchasing mass-storageequipment as soon as I knowwhat I want to purchase. Myneed at this point is a pro-gram that will permit me toenter thousands of pages oftext and then search that textfor occurrences of a givenword or phrase.

I have approximately 1200sermons that average 30pages of text each. Eventual-ly, I want to put all of thesein storage. I realize I willneed approximately 100

megabytes to accomplishthis. Each of these sermonswill be named and dated. Iwould like to be able to putthem into the computer inrandom order but be able toretrieve them in chrono-logical order. After some (orall) of the sermons are instorage, I want to be able toask the computer to searchall (or a designated portion)of the sermons for every oc-currence of a certain word orphrase. When an occurrenceof the word or phrase islocated, I want to be able topreview the context of thatword or phrase (with scroll-ing capability) and then per-mit either a printout of achosen portion of the text oran advance to the next occur-rence. I would also want tobe able to call up any givensermon by name and be ableto preview it (again with theprintout option). Can yougive me any help? Thank

you very much.Donald DerksenKeystone, SD

Your need to search and re-trieve multipage sermons is en-tirely feasible with your IBMPC. A hard-disk system will beneeded, and the software can beas simple as a word processorwith find and replace" capabil-ity. Your sermons can be enteredas text in pages as they wouldnormally be typed, so that titles,phrases, or any word can befound. The program would haveto be compatible with the harddisk.

Unfortunately, I am not awareof such a program. Similar pro-grams do exist and may be adap-table for your use. For example,The Word Processor has the en-tire King fames version of thebible on floppy disks loith theability to search on any word,character, or phrase, with dis-play and print capability. Per-haps the disks can be replaced

the keyboard of your personal computer.

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Ask BYTE.

with your sermons. The addressis Bible Research Systems, 8804Wildridge Dr., Austin, TX78759, (512) 346-2181. Otherword-processing programs mayhave the capabilities that you re-quire. One worth checking isReadiware, POB 680-A, WestRedding, CT 06896, (203)431-3521.

I think the biggest obstacle tocompleting your project is theentering of 36,000 pages of textinto your computer system. At5 minutes per page, there is morethan 3000 hours of typing re-quired. That's seventy-five40-hour weeks! . . .Steve

More on Modems

Dear Steve,

In regard to your article"Build the ECM-103, anOriginate/Answer Modem"(BYTE, March 1983, page 26),the information on modemsis invaluable to me. I wouldlike to know if you couldreference other publicationsconcerning modems. Thankyou.

Christopher J. RizzoStaten Island, NY

An excellent article onmodems appeared in the Novem-ber and December 1982 issues ofPopular Computing. TheNovember article, "Modems:Hooking Your Computer to theWorld" by Stan Miastkowski(page 88), provides a completedescription of the terms com-monly used with modems andexplains the differences betweenmodems. The December article(page 111) describes varioussoftware packages that are avail-able. All of your questionsshould be answered with this in-formation. . . .Steve

Synthesizing Sounds

Dear Steve,

I recently built the sound-generating circuit youdescribed in the July 1982

BYTE, "Add ProgrammableSound Effects to Your Com-puter," page 60. I've had agood time with the programsyou presented and evenwrote a program to producea siren sound.

Now I'm interested inknowing more about soundsynthesis and things I can dowith the SN76489A circuit.Can you recommend anybooks or other sources of in-formation on sound syn-thesis or electronic soundeffects?

John W. MacraeMaysville, KY

A two-part article in theDecember 1980 and January1981 issues of Microcom-puting entitled "ComputerMusic the Easy Way" by SteveMarum describes an S-100 in-terface to a Texas InstrumentsSN76489A ProgrammableSound Generator chip and soft-ware to create a sophisticatedmusic editor. This editor willtranslate music into the digitaldata necessary for theSN76489A. Back issues can beobtained from Microcom-puting, 80 Pine St., Peter-borough, NH 03458.

An excellent book on soundsynthesis is Musical Applica-tions of Microprocessors byHal Chamberlain, published byHay den Book Company Inc.,Rochelle Park, N]. It coversdigital microprocessor soundand music synthesis and in-cludes a lot of background infor-mation. Some parts get rathertechnical, but it will serve as anexcellent reference for this sub-ject. . . .Steve

Light-PenConnections

Dear Steve,

It's easy to build an inex-pensive light pen ($1.50) forAtari, VIC-20, or Commo-dore 64 computers by using

a resistor and a photo-transistor. The hard part isfinding a DE9 connector tohook it up to the computer—unless you cannibalize abroken joystick. Where can Ifind a source of new DE9s?Thank you.Matt BlaisWesttown, PA

A search through the backpages of a recent issue of BYTErevealed at least two sources forthe DE9 connectors that areused on the Commodore 64 andVIC-20 computers. They areJameco Electronics, 1355 Shore-way Rd., Belmont, CA 94002,(415) 592-8097 and CaliforniaDigital, POB 3097B, Torrance,CA 90503, (800) 421-5041.

They are listed along with theRS-232C connectors. The DE9is simply a 9-pin version of themore popular 25-pin "stan-dard" RS-232C connectors.. . .Steve

Data-Bank Catalog

Dear Steve,

I would like to know aboutall the data banks available,and I understand that thereis a book published that hascompiled this information.Thanks for your help.Michael G. McElroyNorman, OK

An excellent list of data banksappears in The Creative Ap-ple, edited by Pelczarski andTate and published by CreativeComputing Press, Morristown,NJ 07960. . . .Steve

Too Many Queens

Dear Steve,

My computer teacherposed an interesting problemto me. He said that there are12 setups on a chessboardwhere eight queens could be

placed in such a way thatnone of the queens threat-ened each other. The prob-lem is to try to find these set-ups by representing a chess-board by an 8 by 8 matrix.While the algorithm is fairlysimple, using eight nestedloops to put all eight queensthrough every permutation,I find it difficult to implementin Commodore BASIC for myhome computer. (The com-puter in school is a PDP-11with a Pascal compiler.) I aminterested in trying it on mycomputer and seeing howmany hours it takes to findthe solutions. (I assume itwould take hours, because ittook several minutes on thePDP-11.) Any help would beappreciated.David AlexanderEast Meadow, NY

An article that appeared in theOctober 1978 BYTE, "Solvingthe Eight Queens Problem" byTerry Smith (page 122),describes another approach tothis problem. The program pre-sented should run in Commo-dore BASIC, but I do not knowhow long it will "crunch" beforeall solutions are printed. Hementions that "there are 92solutions of which 23 are dis-crete." . . .SteveB

In "Ask BYTE,'' SteveGarcia answers questionson any area of microcom-puting. The most represen-tative questions receivedeach month will be an-swered and published. Doyou have a nagging prob-lem? Send your inquiry to:

Ask BYTE

c/o Steve Ciarcia

POB 582

Glastonbury, CT

06033If you are a subscriber toThe Source, chat withSteve (TCE317) directly.Due to the high volume ofinquiries, personal repliescannot be given. Be sureto include "Ask BYTE'' inthe address.

564 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE December 1983 567

Event Queue

December 1983

December

Courses in Continuing Engi-neering Education, Washing-ton, DC, and San Diego, CA.Two of the five availablecourses are 'Intelligent Ro-bots: The Integration of Mi-crocomputer and RoboticTechnology" and 'Program-ming in the C and Unix Envi-ronment." Course fees rangefrom $695 to $875. For infor-mation on dates, locations,and fees, contact GeorgeHarrison, George Washing-ton University, ContinuingEngineering Education,Washington, DC 20052, (800)424-9773; in the District ofColumbia, (202) 676-6106.

December

Seminars for Professional De-velopment, various sitesthroughout the U.S. DataproResearch Corporation offersmore than 35 professional de-velopment seminars in suchareas as personal computers,data communications, sys-tems and software, and officeautomation. Complete out-lines and schedules are avail-able from Datapro ResearchCorp., 1805 UnderwoodBlvd., Delran, NJ 08075,(800) 257-9406; in NewJersey, (609) 764-0100.

December-January 1984

Courses from Q. E. D. Infor-mation Sciences, various sitesthroughout the U.S. Sched-uled courses include "SystemsAnalysis Workshop," "DataSecurity and Design," "Cost-Benefit Analysis," and 'Proj-ect Management and Con-trol." Address inquiries toQ. E. D. Information Sci-ences Inc., Q. E. D. Plaza,POB 181, Wellesley, MA02181, (800) 343-4848; in Mas-sachusetts, (617) 237-5656.

December-January 1984

Intensive Seminars for Pro-fessionals, various sites

throughout the U.S. Elec-tronics magazine, a McGraw-Hill publication, offers semi-nars in management and thehigh technology of speechrecognition and synthesis,controlling electromagneticinterference, fundamentals ofcomputer graphics, and mi-croprocessor interfacing. In-house presentations can bearranged. For a catalog out-lining seminars, locations,and fees, contact IreneParker, McGraw-Hill Semi-nar Center, Suite 603, 331Madison Ave., New York,NY 10017, (212) 687-0243.

December-March 1984

Courses from IntegratedComputer Systems, varioussites throughout the U.S. Afew of the course titles are"Hands-on Unix Workshop,""Designing with 16-bitMicros," 'Programming inC—A Hands-on Workshop,"and "Hands-on Microproces-sor Troubleshooting." The feefor most of the courses is$895. For information, con-tact Ruth Dordick, IntegratedComputer Systems, 6305Arizona Place, Los Angeles,CA 90045, (213) 450-2060.

December-August 1984

Conferences and Expositionsfrom the Society of Manufac-turing Engineers, varioussites throughout the U.S. andaround the world. More than25 conferences and exposi-tions are scheduled. For acalendar, contact the PublicRelations Department, Soci-ety of Manufacturing En-gineers, One SME Dr., POB930, Dearborn, MI 48121,(313) 271-0777.

December 10-12

Computerized Writing Work-shops, Gainesville, FL. Thisworkshop is limited to eightwriters who are interested inbreaking into the word-pro-cessing field. For details,

write the Press Association,5305 Northwest 57th Lane,Gainesville, FL 32606.

December 12

The IBM System/36 Sem-inar, Orlando, FL. This semi-nar provides a discussion onthe capabilities and perfor-mance of the IBM System/36.For registration and details,contact DGC Inc., 1450 Pres-ton Forest Square, Dallas, TX75230, (214) 991-4044.

December 12

Software Workshops inMMSFORTH, Boston metro-politan area. This workshop,"Metaforth and Other Ad-vanced Topics," is a publicversion of the professionaltraining Miller Microcom-puter Services (MMS) offersto client companies in sup-port of the MMSFORTHproduct line. Details areavailable from Miller Micro-computer Services, 61 LakeShore Rd., Natick, MA01760, (617) 653-6136.

December 12-14

An Introduction to SmallComputers for Business Ap-plications, Hamilton Hotel,Schaumburg, IL. This confer-ence and hardware demon-stration will provide an intro-duction and review of smallcomputers and microproces-sors with an emphasis onwhat they are, what their ter-minology is, and what oper-ating systems and softwarepackages are available. Pro-gram materials are includedin the $350 fee. For details,contact Bob Mattis, Informa-tion Systems Division, EECIInc., POB 241, Glen Ellyn, IL60137, (312) 790-0010.

December 12-15

Conference on Human Fac-tors in Computing Systems —CHI '83, Boston, MA. Pa-pers, sessions, and tutorialswill focus on system usabil-

ity. The sponsor of this eventis the special interest groupon Computers and HumanInteraction (CHI) of the As-sociation for Computing Ma-chinery (ACM). Further in-formation is available fromRaoul N. Smith, GTE Labor-atories, 40 Sylvan Rd., Wal-tham, MA 02254, (617)466-4044 or 890-8460.

December 13-15

Automatic Testing and TestInstrumentation '83, Metro-pole Hotel, Brighton, Eng-land. This exhibition andconference covers all aspectsof test systems. For details,contact Network Events Ltd.,Printers Mews, Market Hill,Buckingham, MK18 1JX,England; tel: (028 0) 815226;Telex: 83111.

December 14-15

Hi Tech Update '83, Delta Ot-tawa Hotel, Ottawa, On-tario, Canada. An annual up-date on state-of-the-art hightechnologies. Contact MargColl, 1138 Sherman Dr., Ot-tawa, Ontario K2C 2M4,Canada, (613) 225-4229.

December 15-16

Personal Computer LocalNetworks, San Francisco,CA. This is the final programin the four-part ArchitectureTechnology Corporation1983 Forum Series. This pro-gram will bring togethermanufacturers and users oflocal-network schemes to ex-change information in an in-formal setting. The format in-cludes presentations, paneldiscussions, and a techno-logical summary. The fee is$395. For further informa-tion, contact the ArchitectureTechnology Corp., POB24344, Minneapolis, MN55424, (612) 935-2035.

December 27-30

Modern Language Associa-tion Convention, SheratonCentre, New York, NY.

568 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

The MicromintCollection

Micromint. Supporting the varied projects that appear in Steve Ciarcia's monthlyarticle in BYTE magazine, "Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar." Offering a wide range ofcomputers and peripherals supporting the needs of the hobbyist as well asworldwide corporate clients.

MPX-16 MICROCOMPUTERIBM PC COMPATIBLE

The MPX-16 is Steve Ciarcia's most ambitious projectto date. The computer runs all application softwarewritten for the IBM PC and is IBM PC bus compatible.Can be used with video monitor & IBM keyboard withoptional adapter.

Buy the MPX-16 in the form that best meets yourbudget As a bare board, as a wave-soldered boardthat contains all components less the IC's, as anassembled and tested circuit board or as a completesystem.

As featured on the cover ol "BYTE" magazine. Alsofeatured in "Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar" November,December 1982 & January 1983.

• Runs all application programs written lorthe IBMPC (simply boot up the system and slip in a diskformatted tor the IBM PC).

• IBM PC bus compatible + 9 expansion slots.

• Intel 808816-bit microprocessor.

• Optional Intel 8087 math coprocessor.

• 256K bytes on-board memory.

• Up to one megabyte of system memory.

• Up to 64K bytes of system ROM/EPROM.

• Two RS-232C serial I/O ports.

• Three parallel I/O ports.

• Disk controller for 5W or 8" drives.

• Sixteen levels of vectored interrupts.

MPX-16 Microcomputer circuit board assembled

W/64K RAM, CP/M-66 or PC-DOS BIOS $1,200.

MPX-16 as above with 256K RAM 1,395.

MPX-16 Semi-Kit (wave soldered circuit

board w/all components) less IC's 595.

Complete kit ol IC's W/256K RAM 595.

MPX-16 Unpopulated (bare) pc board 300.

CP/M-86 Operating System 80.

MPX-16 Switching Power Supply including

cable harness lor 2 disk drives 300.

MPX-16 Technical Reference Manual 50.

MPX-16 Metal Enclosure with cutouts for

two 5U" full height drives 300.

Tandon TM 100-2 double density drive 300.

IBM PC Keyboard Interlace Adapter 100.

Serial terminal cable 35.

Parallel printer cable 35.

Shipping and handling additional on MPX-16 orders.

Z8 BASIC SYSTEMCONTROLLER NEW!!!

Replaces IB Basic Computer Controller

As featured in Ciarcta s Circuit Cellar,BYTE magazine, July & August 1981.

• Uses Zilog Z8671 single chip microcomputer.

• On board tiny BASIC interpreter.

• 2 parallel ports plus serial I/O port.

• Just connect a CRT terminal and write control pro-grams in BASIC.

• 2K bytes of RAM, up to 4K bytes of ROM.

• Baud rates 110-9600 BPS.

• Data and address buses available for 124K memoryand I/O expansion.

• Consumes only 1.5 watts at +5, +12 & -12.

• Cross Assemblers for various computers.

BCCT1 Assembled & Tested $149.

New Low Price

IBM PC is a trademark of International Business Machines, IncCP/M86 is a trademark of Digital Research Inc.MS-DOS is a trademark of Microsoft Inc28 Is a trademark of Zilog Inc.

Z8 MEMORY, I/O EXPANSION, Z8 CROSS ASSEMBLERSCASSETTE INTERFACE

From Allen Ashley

TRS-80 Model lorlll $75.

CP/M 2.2 8" or Northstar 5V(" 150.

From Micro Resources

CP/M 2.2 8" or APPLE 5V4" 75.

• Add up to 8K of memory plus 3 parallel ports.

• Cassette Interface—300 baud K.C. Standard.BCC03w/4K Assembled & Tested $149.

Z8 ANALOG TO DIGITALCONVERTER NEW!!!

• Uses Analog Devices 7581 8 channel 8 bit IC.

• Adds Process Control capability to the Z8.

• 1000 samples per second.

BCC13 Assembled & Tested $140.

Z8 EPROM PROGRAMMER

• Transfer BASIC or Assembly Language applicationprograms from RAM to 2716 or 2732 EPROM.

• Reguires Z8 Expansion Board for operation.BCC07 Assembled & Tested $145.

Z8 SERIAL EXPANSION BOARD

• Adds additional RS 232C and opto-isolated 20 macurrent loop serial port to the Z8.

• Runs at 75 to 19,200 baud in all protocols.BCC08 Assembled & Tested $160.

Z816K MEMORY EXPANSIONBOARD NEW!!!

• Add 16K of additional memory, RAM or EPROM, toyour Z8 System Controller in any multiple.

• Uses 2016, 6116, 2716 or 2732 memory types.BCC14 W.8K Assembled & Tested $120.

Z8 FIVE SLOT MOTHER BOARD

MB02 Assembled & Tested $69.

SPEECH SYNTHESIZERS

MICROVOX TEXT-TO-SPEECHSYNTHESIZER

As featured in Ciarcia 's Circuit CellarBYTE Magazine September, October 1982.

Microvox is a second generation professional voicequality text-to-speech synthesizer that is easily inter-faced to any computer, modem, RS-232C serialor parallel output device and provides speech ofunbelievable clarity.

• Unlimited vocabulary.

• 64 programmable inflection levels.

• 6K text-to-speech algorithm.

• Full ASCII character set recognition and echo.

• RS232C and parallel output.

• 1000 character buffer, 3000 optional.

• Adjustable baud rates (75-9600).

• Spelling output mode.

• 7 octave music and sound effects.

• On board audio amplifier & power supply.

• X-On/X-Off handshaking.

MV01 Assembled with 1K buffer $299.

MVB2 Complete Kit with 1K buffer 219.

Add $15.00 for 3K buffer option.

SWEET-TALKER VOICESYNTHESIZER

As featured in Ciarcia's Circuit CellarBYTE Magazine, September 1981

The Sweet-Talker Voice Synthesizer allows you to addspeech of unlimited vocabulary to your Apple II or anycomputer with a parallel printer port at very low cost.

• Utilizes Votrax SC-01A speech synthesizer.

• Unlimited vocabulary.

• Text-to-Speech Algorithm on disk for Apple II.

• Contains 64 phonemes accessed by 6-bit code.

• Four levels of programmable inflection.

• On board audio amplifier & volume control.ST02 Apple II plug-in, Assembled & Tested

with Text-to-Speech Algorithm on 3.3 disk . $99.NEW LOW PRICE!!!

ST01 Parallel Port Version, Assembled 99.

New Low Price

VOTRAX SC-01A PHONETICSPEECH SYNTHESIZER

The SC-01A Speech Synthesizer is a completely self-contained solid state device that phonetically synthes-izes continuous speech of unlimited vocabulary. Usedin Microvox and Sweet-Talker.

SC01A Quantity1-99 $44. ea.

100 + 32. ea.

1000 + 24. ea.

E-Z COLOR GRAPHICSINTERFACE

As featured in Ciarcia s Circuit CellarBYTE Magazine, August 1982

Add color graphics, animation & 3-D effects to yourS-100, TRS-80 Model I and III 8, Apple II at low cost.The Super Editor software package includes a patterneditor, sprite editor, slide show, and demo scenes allin BASIC. Can be used with Color Monitor or TV setand rf modulator.

• Resolution—256 X192 Pixels.

• 16 colors including Black & Transparent.

• 16K Bytes on board I/O mapped video memory.

• Advanced Tl TMS9918A Color Video Processor.

• 32 SPRITES facilitates 3-D effect.

• Composite Video output.

• Krell & Terrapin have LOGO software packages tosupport the E-Z Color Boards.

Apple II E-Z Color plug-in boardwith Super Editor on 3.3 disk.

EZ01 Assembled & Tested $119.

EZ02 Complete Kit 105.

NEW!! S-100 E-Z Color Graphics board with soundgenerator. Atari type joy stick interface, plus M BasicCP/M Super Editor Software on 8" disk.

EZ04 Assembled & Tested $289.

TRS-80 Model I or Model III E-Z Color w/ Super Edi-tor software, power supply and enclosure.

Assembled & Tested $249.

Complete Kit 219.

300 BAUD ANSWER/ ORIGINATEMODEM KIT NEW!!!

As featured in Ciarcia's Circuit CellarBYTE Magazine. March 1983

The newest item to Micromint's growing list ofproducts is this 300 Baud Modem. It is crystalcontrolled, uses the Tl TMS 99532 IC, contains just25 parts and can be used with an acoustic coupler orin a direct connect mode.

MD04 Complete Kit $60.

MD05 Transformer for Direct Connect Mode 9.

AC01 Acoustic Coopler Kit $20.

TRIPLE VOLTAGEPOWER SUPPLIES

+ 5v(6 300 ma. +/- 12v@25ma.

UPS01 Assembled & Tested $35.

UPS02 Complete Kit 27.

+ 5v (a 1 Amp. + 12v (8 .5 Amp. - 12v (a 50 ma.

UPS03 Assembled & Tested 60.

UPS04 Complete Kit 50.

MICROMINT INC. 561 Willow Avenue.Cedarhurst, NY 11516To Order: Call Toll Free 1-800-645-3479Far Information Call: 1-516-374-6793Call: Monday-Friday, 9-5 PM

Circle 289 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

569

Event Queue.

Among the highlights of thisconvention is a large technol-ogy exhibit. Full details areavailable from the ModernLanguage Association ofAmerica, 62 Fifth Ave., NewYork, NY 10011, (212)741-5587.

January 1984

January-February

Fundamentals of Finance andAccounting Using a Micro-computer, various sitesthroughout the U.S. Thisthree-day seminar is spon-sored by the Data ProcessingInstitute of the New YorkUniversity School of Con-tinuing Education. It willcover microcomputer appli-cations for effective decisionmaking and controlling busi-ness requirements. Previouscomputer knowledge is notrequired. The fee for thecourse is $695. For specificdates and locations, contactthe NYU School of Continu-ing Education Seminar Cen-ter, 575 Madison Ave., NewYork, NY 10022, (212)748-5094.

January 2-6

Microcomputer Applicationsfor Executives and Profes-sionals: An IntroductoryHands-on Approach, Lime-tree Beach Hotel, St. Thom-as, Virgin Islands. Applica-tions, word processing,spreadsheets, data manage-ment, and integrated soft-ware packages are a few ofthe topics to be presented atthis seminar. Depending onenrollment, one or two peo-ple will share IBM PersonalComputers using Lotus's1-2-3 spreadsheet and otherselected software. For furtherdetails, contact Dave Olson,Computer Workshops andSeminars Inc., 6th floor, 1701Arch St., Philadelphia, PA19103, (215) 496-0323.

January 4-6

Seventeenth Hawaii Interna-tional Conference on SystemSciences, Honolulu, HI. Thisconference is devoted to ad-vances in information andsystem sciences with empha-sis on medical-informationprocessing, decision-supportsystems, and office automa-tion. For information, con-tact Emily Yano Jorgensen,Center for Executive Devel-opment, College of BusinessAdministration, Universityof Hawaii, 2404 Maile WayC-202, Honolulu, HI 96822,(808) 948-7396.

January 4-8

The Third American Societyof Computers in Medicineand Dentistry Conference,

Sheraton Waikiki Hotel,Waikiki, HI. The intention ofthis forum is to promote theclinical uses of microcomput-ers in medical, dental, andveterinary practices. The co-sponsor of this event is theOhio State University De-partment of Anesthesia. Forfurther details, contactArlene Rogers, American So-ciety of Computers in Medi-cine and Dentistry, POB21483, Upper Arlington, OH43221, (614) 421-8487.

January 8-11

Retail Directions '84, NewYork Hilton and SheratonCentre Hotels, New York,NY. The 73rd annual conven-tion and exposition spon-sored by the National RetailMerchants Association(NRMA) will feature new de-velopments in retail storetechnology, business sys-tems, marketing techniques,and sales-promotion tools.Admission is free to bona fidemembers of the retail indus-try. For details, contacfDanSoskin, NRMA Enterprises,100 West 31st St., New York,NY 10001, (212) 244-8780.

January 8-14

CADRE '84 Conference andTeachers Institute, San Jose,

CA. Computers in Art andDesign, Research and Educa-tion (CADRE) is a forum thatbrings together leaders,thinkers, and computeristsfrom all walks of life to ex-plore the impact of compu-ters on the arts. The TeachersInstitute begins on January11. Its fee is $100. Registra-tion for the conference is $200or $250 on site. For details,contact CADRE '84 Confer-ence, Department of Art, SanJose State University, Wash-ington Square, San Jose, CA95192, (408) 277-2555.

January 9-13

Technology OpportunityConference, Houston, TX.This conference focuses onthe convergence of optical-storage, videodisk, and com-puter technologies. For fulldetails, contact TechnologyOpportunity Conference,POB 14817, San Francisco,CA 94114, (415) 626-1133.

January 14-15

The Fourth Annual Comput-er Fair, Northland Mall, Ster-ling, IL. This event is spon-sored by the Sauk ValleyComputer Club. For details,contact Vinus Williams, Rt.1, Milledgeville, IL 61051,(815) 625-8585 days.

January 16-17

MOS Analog/Digital Inter-face Circuit Design for VLSISystems, San Francisco Air-port Hilton Hotel, San Fran-cisco, CA. This short coursewill emphasize applicable de-sign techniques for verylarge-scale integration sys-tems. Course notes are in-cluded in the $450 fee. For abrochure, contact Continu-ing Education in Engineering,University of California Ex-tension, 2223 Fulton St.,Berkeley, CA 94720, (415)642-4151.

January 17-19

Mini/Micro-Southeast andSouthcon/84 High Technol-ogy Electronics Exhibition and

Convention, Orange CountyConvention/Civic Center,Orlando, FL. Mini/Mcro, de-signed for the original equip-ment manufacturing commu-nity, explores peripherals,processors, data communica-tions, and software. A few ofthe topics to be addressed atSouthcon/84 are artificial in-telligence, computer-aided de-sign, and factory automation.For details on these concurrentevents, contact ElectronicConventions Inc., 8110 Air-port Blvd., Los Angeles, CA90045, (213) 772-2965.

January 17-20

Uniforum, Washington Hil-ton, Washington, DC. Thisconference and exposition isdesigned for and by users ofUnix-based systems. For de-tails, contact Mark Weber,Professional Exposition Man-agement Co. Inc., Suite 205,2400 East Devon Ave., DesPlaines, IL 60018, (800)323-5155; in Illinois, (312)299-3131.

January 18-23

Commtex International andNAVA/ICIA '84 Convention,Dallas Convention Center,Dallas, TX. This communi-cations and information tech-nologies exposition highlightsthe latest developments inaudio-visual, video, and mi-crocomputer products formany communication needs.The concurrent convention issponsored by the NationalAudio Visual Association/International Communica-tions Industries Association(NAVA/ICIA). For informa-tion, contact Robert Milko,NAVA, 3150 Spring St., Fair-fax, VA 22031, (703)273-7200.

January 23-25

Teaching Math with Micro-computers, Hacienda ResortHotel, Las Vegas, NV. Thisseminar, sponsored by theNational Council of Teachersof Mathematics (NCTM), isdesigned to inform educators

570 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

AVIS RAPID RETURN.

IT'S FAST. ITS EASY.AND NO ONE HAS ANYTHING UKE IT!

IT GIVES YOU A RECORD OFYOURCHARGES IN WELL UNDER A MINUTE.

You'll never have togo to the rentalcounter again toreturn your car andget a recordof your rentalexpense. Be-

.See how fast you can

return your car. CaUSe We

give you something no oneelse can. Avis RapidReturn" The first-anclonly-fully automated, self-service car return system

\P 30 S>#

© 1983 Avis Rent A Car System, Inc. Avis*

in car rental history!

And Rapid Return is as easy

to use as your pocket calculator.

Just punch in your car number,

mileage and gas gauge reading.

In well under a minute it not onlycompletes your carreturn; it also givesyou a copy of yourrental charges.

And since you getyour charges so quicklyyou'll be able to com-plete your expenseaccount quickly, too.

"I get a copy of my expenses withoutwaiting at the rental counter!"

AVIS

NO LINES. NO WAITING.NO COMPETITION.

The simple fact is that the compe-tition just isn't fast enough tobeat Rapid Return. And it's beenproving itself at some of the busi-est airports and downtown loca-tions for the past several months.

As a result, whenever yourun to use new Rapid Return, youwon't run into aline to slow youdown. And allyou need to useRapid Return isan Avis or an-other majorcredit card.

So if you wantto return your carand get a copy ofyour rentalcharges the fastestway possible, there's just one placeto go, Avis. Because only Avisoffers the technological leadershipthat delivers state of the artservices like Rapid Return.It's designed to make car rentingfaster and easier than ever for you.

It's easy to use as yourpocket calculator!

Avis features GM cars. Chevrolet Caprice Classic.

TRYING HARDER MAKES AVIS SECOND TO NONE.

For reservations and information, call 1-800-331-1212. Or your travel consultant.

Rapid Return available at many major airports and downtown locations for charge customers who require no modification of their charges.

Circle 38 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

571

Event Queue.

in elementary, intermediate,and secondary schools aboutusing microcomputers effec-tively in mathematics educa-tion. For details, contactNCTM Seminar Series, 1906Association Dr., Reston, VA22091, (703) 620-9840.

January 24-26

Advanced SemiconductorEquipment Exposition (ASEE)and Technical Conference,Convention Center, San Jose,CA. Five sessions designed asa broad-based program focuson the manufacturing aspectof the semiconductor indus-try. For details, contact JoyceEstill, Cartlidge & AssociatesInc., Suite 205, 4030 Moor-park Ave., San Jose, CA95117, (408) 554-6644.

January 25-27

The Business Telecommuni-cations Exposition, StadiumClub, Giants Stadium, EastRutherford, NJ. This exposi-tion is designed for managersin the fields of telecommuni-cations, facsimile communi-cations, and communicationsin voice, video, and data.Other topics to be coveredare office automation, wordprocessing, and purchasing.Registration is required foradmittance to the exposition.Contact Michael Houston,The Exposition Group Inc.,9128 Columbia Ave., NorthBergen, NJ 07047, (201)662-1318.

January 27-29

Resource '84, ShamrockHilton Hotel, Houston, TX.This computer exposition isdedicated to users in themedical, dental, legal, andaccounting professions whoneed to buy a new system orwant to upgrade existingsystems. Telecommunica-tions information and soft-ware applicable to home andoffice uses will be displayed.Admission is free for physi-cians, dentists, attorneys,and accountants; all otherspay $2.50. Entrance to any or

all of the seminars is $10. Fordetails, contact Joyce Fadem,Professional Resources Inc.,POB 740433, Houston, TX77274.

January 31-February 3

The Sixth Annual Communi-cation Networks 1984 Confer-ence and Exposition, Wash-ington Convention Center,Washington, DC. Voice andtelecommunications, elec-tronic mail, data processing,and communications are a fewof the products and services tobe displayed at this event.Registration information isavailable from LouiseMyerow, POB 880, Framing-ham, MA 01701, (800) 225-4698; in Massachusetts, (617)879-0700.

February 1984

February 2-4

The Third Annual SCSMulticonference, BahiaHotel, Mission Bay, SanDiego, CA. This conference,sponsored by the Society forComputer Simulation (SCS),is composed of four confer-ences: Modeling and Simula-tion on Microcomputers,Simulation in Health CareDelivery Systems, AerospaceSimulation, and Simulationin Strongly Typed Lan-guages, Ada, Pascal, Simula.For details, contact GloriaRico, SCS, POB 2228, LaJolla, CA 92038, (619)459-3888.

February 7-9

Florida Agribusiness Com-puter Conference and TradeShow, Civic Center, Lake-land, FL. This conference willdemonstrate how computerscan be used as decision-making tools for managers inagribusiness. The sponsor ofthis second annual farm com-puter conference is the Uni-versity of Florida's Institute

of Food and AgriculturalSciences (IFAS). For details,contact IFAS Director ofConferences, 1041 McCartyHall, University of Horida,Gainesville, FL 32611, (904)392-5930.

February 13-16

Kuwait Info '84, InternationalExhibition Center, KuwaitCity, Kuwait. Exhibits in thisthird annual event will en-compass a broad range of in-formation businesses, includ-ing data processing, wordprocessing, communications,office automation, micro-graphics, security systems,and environmental controlsystems. Information is avail-able from Carol Purdey, In-termarket Network Corp.,Suite 203, 1110 VermontAve. NW, Washington, DC20005, (202) 822-0127.

February 13-16

ACM Computer ScienceConference, Franklin PlazaHotel, Philadelphia, PA. Thisconference is sponsored bythe Association for Com-puting Machinery (ACM)and the computer sciencedepartments of many univer-sities. For details about theTwelfth Annual EmploymentRegister, which is a highlightof the conference, contact theACM Computer Science Em-ployment Register, Depart-ment of Computer Science,University of Pittsburgh,Pittsburgh, PA 15260. For de-tails about the ACM Com-puter Science Conference,contact the Association forComputing Machinery, 1133Avenue of the Americas,New York, NY 10036, (212)265-6300.

February 20-22

1984 Office AutomationConference (OAC '84), LosAngeles Convention Center,Los Angeles, CA. The fifthannual OAC, sponsored bythe American Federation ofInformation Processing Soci-

eties (AFIPS), will featurefive tracks oriented towardthe interests of managers andadministrators; technologymanagers and planners;analysts, consultants, andimplementors; product de-signers and developers; andusers of the automated office.For information, contactAFIPS Inc., 1815 North LynnSt., Arlington, VA 22209,(703) 558-3617.

February 20-23

APAC '84, Inter-ContinentalHotel, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.Arabian Productivity Ad-vancement Using Comput-ers/Graphics (APAC) is thefirst international conferenceand exposition on computergraphics to be held in SaudiArabia. Industry and govern-ment representatives fromMiddle Eastern and Westernnations will attend. For infor-mation, contact APAC '84Conference Director, WorldComputer Graphics Associa-tion Inc., Suite 399, 2033 MSt. NW, Washington, DC20036, (202) 775-9556.

February 21-23

Softcon, Superdome, NewOrleans, LA. This internation-al software conference andtrade fair is designed forretailers, independent salesorganizations, consultants,government agencies, educa-tional institutions, and profes-sional software developers.Registration is $15. For furtherinformation, contact North-east Expositions, 822 BoylstonSt., Chestnut Hill, MA 02167,(800) 841-7000; in Massachu-setts, (617) 739-2000.

February 22-28

Imprinta 84, Fairgrounds,Dusseldorf, West Germany.This international congressand exhibition will featuretechniques and services inprint communication and itsalternatives. For details, con-tact Dusseldorf Trade Shows,500 Fifth Ave., New York,NY 10110, (212) 840-7744. ■

572 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Rulishciu/ef

The Feeder Worldof Quality

Portrait and landscape forms - Models for mostletter quality printers - With or without interfaces -Electronically or mechanically controlled - Nooperator adjustments required - No reverse ▲platen motion required - High precisionregistration - UL-recognitions - Multi-part ^forms - No paper cassettes - Fieldproven - Envelope attachment -Any paper size up to 12" x 15" - AClip-on mounting - Completecontrol of paper and its path-way to print-mechanism!- ^Lightweight - The SingleBin Cut Sheet Feeder

RT200

. Bi-directional. Forms-Tractor.k For precise

continuous form. feeding.

RS700

Mechanical Sheet Feeder.Automatic feeder with mechanical controlmechanism. No electronics required.Driven forward by printer platen.

RS800

, Demand Sheet Feeder.

Feeds sheets on command from an externalinterface. Compatible'with RS950.

most in use -

Swiss-made

quality

RS900

L Single Bin Sheet Feeder.

Self-controlled automatic feeder with internal

electronics for universal application,k. The most widely used single bin feeder in. the world.

Rutishauser Products are availablefor a wide variety of popular typesof Letter Quality Printers.

AES • Anadex ■ Binder •3rother-Centronics ■Daisy Systems ■

RS 950/RS 1950 Double Bin Sheet Feeder-. Feeds sheets from either of two supply^. bins upon command from an external'. interface. Direct control by printer^- electronics. OEM supplied'. interface or custom inter-face available for. selected printers.

Maybe Ayou didn't knowwe offer such a largeFamily of Devices!

[MffliTTTTTl

Rutishauser Data AG, Rhynerstrasse9, 8712 Stafa, Switzerland

Tel. (01) 926 43 00, Tx. 875171 ruti ch

Rutishauser of America, Inc., 9677 Wendell Road, Dallas, TX 75243, U.S.A.,

Tel. (214) 3439154, Tx. 730609 ruti dal - a subsidiary of Rutishauser Data AG

Circle 496 on Inquiry card.

Diablo ■Data-Royal ■Dataproducts •Facit • Fujitsu ■HPI ■ IBM-System 6 •Mannesmann Tally ■ NECOlympia ■ Qume • Ricoh • T.A.Santec • SCM ■ TEC/C. Itoh • ToshibaWalther ■ Wang • Xerox

RS 1000/RS 1100

. Programmable Double Bin Sheet Feeder. Inde-

pendent self-controlled feeding from two' . supply bins, with or without external elec-tronic commands. Several modes of. operation including user programmablesheet selection and programmed' . platen motion sheet selection.• Feeds sheets up to 12" wide.

RF 400 Front Feed Device.Programmed insertionof single or multipartL forms for preciselyregistered appli-L cations - pre-printedforms,ledgercards,' etc.

What's New?

HOLIDAY COMPUTING

* ,**•

Collector Plate Shows Santa Computing

A limited edition collec-tor plate called Santa'sComputer is availablefrom American Artists. Theplate, executed in afashion similar to the lateNorman Rockwell, depictsSanta at a computer con-sole entering requests fromgood children as his faith-ful elves scurry about sort-ing letters and preparinglists for his calculations.

This 8'/2-inch fine chinaplate was created by Scott

Gustafson, a Chicago-based illustrator. Gustafsonhas illustrated a number ofpublications and children'sbooks and has worked asan artist for the SaturdayEvening Post. The issueprice for this collectible isS29.50. For more informa-tion, contact American Ar-tists, Fourth Floor, 225West Hubbard, Chicago, IL60610, (312)828-0555.Circle 603 on inquiry card.

Tab-feed Greeting Cards

Seasonal greeting cardswith continuous tab feedand clean-edge perfora-tions have been introducedby Compucards. The insideof the card is blank so thatyou can print your per-sonal holiday greetings.Complementary envelopesare provided.

Presently, Compucardsoffers a choice ofChristmas cards. The first

features Mrs. Claus ad-justing her husband'sscarf; the second depictsfour jolly revelers arrivingin their horse-drawnsleigh. Both cards arerendered in red and blackinks. A package of 20cards with envelopes isS9.95. For details, contactCompucards, POB 894,Stone Mountain, GA30086.

Computer BoardGame for Children

Computer Caper is acomputer-literacy boardgame for children ages 4 to8. It comes with stickersand a computer riddlebook. To win, you must bethe first player to moveyour computer chip fromInput Island to PrintoutPass. Two to four playerscan participate. ComputerCaper is available for S10,postage paid, from HolidayGames Inc., 5501 WestNorth Ave., Milwaukee,Wl 53208, (414) 444-1060.Circle 607 on inquiry card.

Home Learning

Entertainment

System

Chalk Board's Power-pad, a touch-sensitive in-put device, and Leonardo'sLibrary of software pack-ages form an integratedlearning/entertainment sys-tem. The Powerpad is a 17-by 20-inch hard plasticcase housing a 12- by 12-inch touch-sensitive tabletthat effectively replacesyour computer keyboard.Powerpad uses a form ofmembrane-switch technol-ogy that has thousands ofdigital switches that registermultiple points of contactsimultaneously.

A Mylar overlay that fitsthe Powerpad work area issupplied with each pack-age in Leonardo's Library.The overlay, when usedwith its accompanying car-tridge or disk software,works with the Powerpadto provide a range of inter-active applications, such asan artist's canvas or apiano keyboard. Six subject

areas make up Leonardo'sLibrary: language arts,mathematics, music,science, social studies, andvisual arts. A Logo pack-age and a programming kitare among the programsoffered.

The Powerpad and Leo-nardo's Library run onsuch home computers asthe Apple II, II Plus, and lie.Atari 400/800, Commo-dore VIC-20 and 64, andthe IBM PC and PC/XT.Powerpad costs S99.95.Software packages rangefrom S24.95 to 549.95. Forfurther information, con-tact Chalk Board Inc., 3772Pleasantdale Rd„ Atlanta,GA 30340, (800) 241-3989; in Georgia, (404)496-0101.Circle 604 on inquiry card.

Computer WidowT-Shlrts

Purple-on-lavenderT-shirts and nightshirtsbearing the lament "Com-puter Widow" are avail-able from JMK ComputerServices. T-shirts costS7.95, plus S1.25 shipping.The nightshirts are S12.95,with S1.50 postage. Con-tact JMK Computer Ser-vices, POB 1672, WestCaldwell, NJ 07007, (201)227-3348.Circle 602 on inquiry card.

Low-cost Robot

Beeps and Barrels

Along

Rhino Robots' Scorpionis a compact, software-pro-grammable robot thatmakes noises as it trundlesalong your floor.

574 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

What's New?

Scorpion's base measures 9by 12 inches and resem-bles NASA's Lunar Land-ing Module. With it, youcan devise your own arti-ficial-intelligence ex-periments while spendingless than S700.

Scorpion is equippedwith a 6502 microproces-sor, an 8K-byte EPROM, 2Kbytes of RAM, and two6522 interface chips thatprovide 32 I/O lines andfour programmable timers,two of which can be eventcounters. Its eight micro-switches discern obstaclesin its path and provide themeans for avoiding thoseobstacles when retracing apreset path. A two-axis op-tical scanner with a resolu-tion of 1.5 degrees of scanper step recognizes pat-

terns over a 300-degreespan in both vertical andhorizontal planes. Visualpatterns can be displayedon your computer's videomonitor. Additional hard-ware includes sensingbumpers, a speaker, twoground tracks, two "eyes,"and four motors, two ofwhich are drive wheels.

Scorpion works with anycomputer with an RS-232Cinterface. It operates from a12-V DC power supply.Shipped in kit form withcomplete assembly andprogramming instructions,Scorpion costs $660. Formore information, contactRhino Robots Inc., POB4010, Champaign, IL61820, (217) 352-8485.Circle 601 on inquiry card.

Bumper Sticker for Hackers

Surprise the computerhacker in your life with the"I Love My Computer"bumper sticker from Inter-national Computer Prod-ucts. Printed on a durablewhite plastic base, thisbumper sticker features thecustomary red heart to ex-press affection. As an

added attraction, a pair ofred lips replaces the "o" in"Computer." For each copy,send SI.50, plus S0.20shipping, to InternationalComputer Products, 346North Western Ave., LosAngeles, CA 90004.Circle 600 on inquiry card.

Computer Tie

Tie-One-On is marketinga holiday gift for thosehard-to-buy-for males: thecomputer tie. Woven intothis navy blue tie are thewords bit, byte, floppy,hard, RAM, ROM, micro,and mini. The tie is made ofa silk/polyester blend and isavailable for SI5.95, post-age paid, from Tie-One-OnInc., POB 40225, Philadel-phia, PA 19106, (215)625-2855.Circle 605 on inquiry card.

SYSTEMS

IMS16032-based Megamicro Runs Unity

The Megamicro LMC-16032, a 32-bit, virtual-memory microcomputerbased on National Semi-conductor's NS16032microprocessor and run-ning under Human Com-puting Resources' TorontoUnity operating system,has been introduced by theLogical MicrocomputerCompany. The LMC-16032, which operates onthe IEEE-796 (Multibus)standard, provides de-mand-paged address anddata space of up to 16megabytes for each of its32 possible users. It canperform 161,000 double-precision, 64-bit floating-point multiplications persecond. The LMC-16032can handle 16 hard-diskdrives for a total memorycapacity of more than1600 megabytes.

In its basic configuration,the LMC-16032 comeswith virtual memory,floating-point hardware,512K bytes of parity check-

ing RAM, eight serial RS-232C ports, an intelligentdisk controller, and a20-megabyte Winchesterhard-disk drive. TorontoUnity, an implementationof Berkeley's 4.1 enhance-ment of Bell Laboratories'Unix operating system,serves as the DOS, and Cand FORTRAN compilersare supplied. Fully assem-bled and tested, the basicsystem costs S 15,000. Anenclosure and all manuals,cables, and power suppliesare provided.

Such optional hardwareas error-correcting RAM,additional serial and parailelports, and 16-, 20-, and40-megabyte hard-diskdrives can be ordered. Op-tional languages includePascal, PL/I, COBOL, Ada,and LISP. For further infor-mation, contact the LogicalMicrocomputer Co., 140South Dearborn St., Chica-go, IL 60603, (312) 580-0250.Circle 617 on inquiry card.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 575

What's New?

Computer-aided Drafting Systemfor Architects

Bausch & Lomb has in-troduced a computer-aided drafting system forarchitects. Called Prodraft,this system has a 15-inchhigh-resolution (1024 by800) raster-graphics dis-play and an MC68000processor. A menu tabletlets the operator quicklyselect repetitive figures andfunctions, and the 6.7-megabyte Winchesterhard-disk drive is accom-panied by a single-sheet, A-to-D size plotter. Specialmenus include residential,commercial, light com-

mercial, and renovationpackages.

An Architectural Draft-ing Library composed ofmore than 100 predrawnfigures and symbols isavailable. Prior computerexperience is not requiredbecause Prodraft comeswith a training manualand videotaped instruc-tions. Prodraft sells for529,995. Contact Bausch& Lomb, InteractiveGraphics, POB 14547,Austin, TX 78761, (512)837-8952.Circle 609 on inquiry card.

Single-board Computer

The single-board EQ-4from Insight Enterprises iscompatible with CP/M 2.2and 3.0. It has virtualmemory-mapping circuitrythat lets the Z80A centralprocessor and the DMAcontroller directly access128K bytes of RAM, 2Kbytes of EPROM, and 4Kbytes of video memory in8K-byte blocks.

Interfaces incorporatedinto the EQ-4 include SASI,four serial RS-232C chan-

ts CP/M-compatible

nels with independentlyprogrammable data ratesranging from 110 to76,800 bps, a Centronicsparallel printer, and floppy-disk ports. The floppy-diskcontrollers can handlesingle- and double-density5/4- and 8-inch drives si-multaneously. CTC, DART,and PIO peripheral con-trollers are standard. Theparallel keyboard input ac-commodates 7- or 8-bitASCII-encoded boards with

jumper-selectable activehigh and low strobes.Horizontal and verticalsync signals and compositevideo output composeEQ-4's video features.Standard Microsystems'8002 video-display attri-butes controller providesthe EQ-4 with an on-chipcharacter generator, 128characters in a 7- by 11 -dotmatrix, and character-oriented, wide- and thin-line graphics. Attributessupported for each charac-ter are reverse video, char-acter blank, blink, under-line, and strike-through.

The single-unit price forthe EQ-4 is S750, which in-cludes CBIOS, utilities, andsource codes. Completespecifications are availablefrom Insight EnterprisesCorp., Suite 12, 373 NorthWestern Ave., LosAngeles, CA 90004, (213)461-3262.Circle 613 on inquiry card.

Line of Micros

Marketed at

Compushack Stores

A line of IBM PC-com-patible computers fromTava Corporation is sold atCompushack stores.

The Tava PC features64K bytes of RAM, five PC-compatible expansionslots, a parallel printer inter-face, two serial ports, and akeyboard. The RAM is ex-pandable to 256K bytes,and up to nine expansionslots are possible. It costsS995.

The portable Tava PC 1is an enhanced version ofthe Tava PC, offering iden-tical memory, expansion,

and interface capabilities.Enhancements includedual slim-line 320K-byte5/4-inch floppy-disk drivesand a 9-inch display. ThePC 1 retails for SI995.

The Tava Executive PC(base price, $2995) hasbuilt-in network capabilitiesthat can accommodate 16terminals. Standard hard-ware includes 256K bytesof RAM, 640K bytes of dualfloppy-disk storage, aparallel printer port, and aserial interface. RAM is ex-pandable to 512K bytes.

For complete details,contact your local Compu-shack outlet or Compu-shack, Tava Corp., 16861Armstrong, Irvine, CA92714, (714) 261-1000.Circle 616 on inquiry card.

Color ComputerUses 6809E

The Bestcom GTX-1000color computer, based onthe 6809E microprocessor,can be attached to a homecolor television. The basicGTX-1000 comes with 16Kbytes of RAM, 16K bytes ofROM, a built-in modemconnector, one cassetteand two joystick interfaceports, and an RS-232Cport. An optional expan-sion unit has provisions fora parallel printer, additionalmemory, and floppy- orWinchester-disk drive con-trollers. The standardoperating system is Micro-soft Extended BASIC. Con-tact Graphtek Corp., 2959West Fairmount Ave.,Phoenix, AZ 85017, (602)277-7434.Circle 612 on inquiry card.

576 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

What's New?

Portable Computer Has Built-inState Analyzers

Omnilogic has unveiledOmni II, a portable CP/M-compatible computer withbuilt-in timing and statelogic analyzer capabilities.The 27-pound, software-intensive Omni II can col-lect 1000 data samples oneach of its 16 channels or,as an option, 330 samplesper channel on up to 48channels. For softwareanalysis, up to 16 chan-nels of data recognitionare available. All testparameters and data canbe stored on a CP/M-based floppy-disk formatfor additional off-lineanalysis. Any display canbe dumped to a printer.

Omni It's hardwarespecifications include aZ80 microprocessor, 64Kbytes of memory, twodouble-density 5/4-inchfloppy-disk drives, a 9-inchgreen-phosphor monitor,and RS-232C and Cen-tronics-type parallel ports.It's supplied with suchgeneral-purpose softwareas CP/M-80, PerfectWriter, Perfect Speller, Per-fect Filer, Perfect Calc,

Profitplan, and S-BASIC.

The Omni II is priced atS3950. Contact OmnilogicInc., POB87, Renton, WA98057, (800) 228-6664; inWashington state, (206)271-2000.Circle 610 on inquiry card.

Low-cost Computer

Offers High-price

Features

Memotech Corporationis marketing a low-costZ80-based computer calledthe MTX-512. Standardhardware includes 64Kbytes of RAM, 16K bytes ofdedicated video RAM, real-time clock, 256- by 192-pixel high-resolution graph-ics, 40-column text, 16 col-ors, and user-definablegraphics abilities. I/O portsfor a Centronics-type paral-lel printer and two game-controllers are providedalong with separate tele-vision and video monitorports, a game cartridgeport, an uncommitted port,and a 2400-bps cassette in-terface. Three voices, high-

fidelity output, and awhite-noise generatormake up the MTX-512'ssound capabilities. Its79-key keyboard has sepa-rate numeric and cursor-control pads as well asfunction keys. OxfordBASIC and an assem-bler/disassembler areembedded in 16K bytes ofROM.

Network interfacing, upto 512K bytes of RAM, an

80-column video board,dual RS-232C ports, and5/4- and 8-inch floppy-diskdrives with CP/M are of-fered as options. Pascaland FORTH are availableas add-on ROM packs. Thesuggested retail price forthe MTX-512 is S595. Forfurther information, con-tact Memotech Corp.,7550 West Yale Ave.,Denver, CO 80227, (303)986-1516.

Fiber Optics Link Multiusers in UnixEnvironment

The Cadmus 9000 fami-ly of microcomputers usesa 50-megabit-per-secondfiber-optic link to support64 graphics workstationsor more than 100 ter-minals in a distributed Unixenvironment. Features of

the Cadmus 9790 Ad-vanced Function Work-station include a 10-MHzMC68000 microprocessor,one-half megabyte ofmain memory (expand-able to 4 megabytes), anda bit-mapped graphics

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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What's New?

controller with a 1024- by800-pixel display area. Anadjustable 17-inch mono-chrome video monitor, amouse interface, detach-able keyboard, a 65-mega-byte Winchester hard-diskdrive, a streaming tapecartridge for storage back-up, and an optional local-area-network interfacemake this multiuser Unix-based system unique.

For complete technicalspecifications, purchasingdetails, and shipping infor-mation, contact CadmusComputer Systems, 600Suffolk St., Lowell, MA01852, (617) 453-2899.Circle 608 on inquiry card.

High-speed Board forSTD Bus

Techno has announceda high-speed 6502-basedsingle-board computer forSTD-bus applications. TheCPU-lOOhasa built-in RS-232C serial interface fordirect terminal/printer con-nection and room for upto 8K bytes of memory.Two user-defined I/Oports, two interval timers,serial-to-parallel andparallel-to-serial shiftregisters, and two bidirec-tional 8-bit data ports withcontrol lines are included.The CPU-100 can functionas the central processingunit of a multiboard sys-tem with memory expan-sion to 65K bytes.

A 2K-byte monitor andmathematics package areavailable. Contact TechnoInc., 14 Crandall Ave.,Pompton Lakes, NJ07442, (201) 839-0740.Circle 6) 1 on inquiry card.

16-bit Computer forBusiness or Personal Use

A 16-bit business/per-sonal computer has beenannounced by SumicomInc. The basic System 330has an 8088 microproces-sor, 128K bytes of RAM,three on-board expansionslots, and a full-function93-key ASCII keyboard.The low-profile keyboardoffers a standard alphanu-meric typewriter formatthat's augmented with 10numeric keys, 14 editingkeys, and eight double-function keys. The System330 supports CP/M-86, MS-DOS, Pascal, FORTRAN,COBOL, and BASIC. Itcosts SI795.

A choice of mass-storageoptions is offered: single ordual 160K-byte 5'A-inchfloppy-disk drives, 8-inchdrives, dual 720K-byte flop-py disks, and 8- or16-megabyte hard disks.Color and monochromedisplay screens are avail-able. An expansion boxproviding six additionalslots can be obtained. Alsoavailable is a linked soft-ware package that inter-connects five subsystems:word processing, database

management, financialplanning, communica-tions, and accounting. Atthe heart of this software isa system manager that per-mits data from one applica-tion to be extracted and in-serted in another.

The System 330A, out-fitted with a single160K-byte floppy-diskdrive, MS-DOS, and aneight-color monitor, costs$2695. With dual diskdrives and color monitor,the 330B is $3195. A pairof 720K-byte floppy-diskdrives comes with the$3625 System 330E. Theproprietary linked softwareis $540. The expansionunit ranges from $510 to$3495, depending on op-tional capabilities. For fur-ther information, contactSumicom Inc., 17862 East17th St., Tustin, CA 92680,(714) 730-6061.Circle 614 on inquiry card.

Dual Floppy Drivesin Single Case

Digital Equipment Cor-poration asserts that its

Rainbow 100+ is the firstmachine from a major ven-dor to offer 256k-bit mem-ory technology. The 100 +is also said to be the firstcomputer to carry a Win-chester hard-disk and twinfloppy-disk drives in asingle enclosure.

Employing both the 8-bitZ80A and the 16-bit 8088microprocessors, the Rain-bow 100 + comes with 10megabytes of Winchesterstorage, 800K bytes of dualfloppy-disk storage, serialsynchronous and asyn-chronous communica-tions, memory-mappedvideo, full internationalcharacter support, built-interminal emulator, and aserial RS-232C/RS-423printer port. Its 128K bytesof RAM is expandable upto 896K bytes. Diagnosticsand a computer-based in-struction course are sup-plied. The basic Rainbow100+ costs $5475, in-cluding documentation.An operating-system kitthat includes CP/M-86/80version 2.0 and MS-DOSversion 2.05 can be pur-chased for $250.

Digital offers a choice ofwhite, green, or ambermonochrome displaymonitors. Each 12-inchmonitor offers 80- or 120-column displays, bit-mapped graphics, andhigh-definition characters.The monitors cost $325.

For entering data, Digitalmarkets a low-profile key-board for $245. Featuringa sculptured key array, the105-key keyboard is di-vided into four areas: tradi-tional typing, editing, nu-meric, and special function.

Options include RAM

578 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

What's New?

memory extensions, high-resolution graphics, com-plete technical documenta-tion, and a line of printers.Digital Equipment Corpor-ation maintains its cor-porate headquarters inMaynard, MA 01754.Circle 619 on inquiry card.

Tabletop Computer

Creative Micro Systems'9687 computer is availablein a variety of setups. Thistabletop machine offers 14internal card slots, Win-chester hard-disk capacitiesranging as high as 50megabytes, and up to 1megabyte of floppy-diskstorage. It can be orderedwith 10 serial ports and asmuch as 1 megabyte ofRAM.

The basic 9687 featuresa 2-MHz M6809 micropro-cessor, 64K bytes of staticRAM, two serial ports, twoparallel ports, one double-density double-sided650K-byte floppy-diskdrive, a 20-megabyte Win-chester hard-disk drive, andthe OS-9 operating system.It costs $5995; quantity dis-counts are offered. For fulldetails, contact CreativeMicro Systems, 3822 Cer-ritos Ave., Los Alamitos,CA 90720, (213) 493-2484.Circle 618 on inquiry card.

Tax Managerfor Accountants

Samuel Klein and Com-pany, certified public ac-countants, has configuredan integrated tax-manage-

ment system designed tohelp accountants managetheir tax practices. The TaxManager comprises a port-able computer with a self-contained 10-megabytehard-disk drive, a dot-matrix printer, and a hostof accounting software.When equipped with amodem, it can communi-cate with on-line services.The base price is S4995.

System software repre-sents the foundation of theTax Manager. A key pro-gram, called Tenforty,gives you a single-screenmodel of IRS Form 1040 sothat you can plan taxes forthe years 1981 through1987 in a matter of sec-onds. For review, you canprint out the tax plan. Aword processor and spell-ing checker help you gen-erate IRS and everyday cor-respondence, instructionletters for tax returns, andmailing labels. An elec-tronic spreadsheet providesthe means for creatingcomplex financial models,budgets, and projections.Tax Manager's relationaldatabase gives you controlover filing requirements,staffing, and status reports.Financial-analysis ratios,Bardahl test computations,and interest schedules canbe computed. Other capa-bilities include general led-ger, accounts payable/re-ceivable, and payroll.

Additional softwarepackages are offered. Moreinformation is availablefrom Samuel Klein and Co.,MAS Software ServicesDivision, 1 180 RaymondBlvd., Newark, NJ 07102,(201J 624-6100.Circle 615 on inquiry card.

SOFTWARE

Business Package Includes Spreadsheet,Graphics Module, Word Processor

Open Access from Soft-ware Products Interna-tional serves as an all-in-one "super program"that's capable of handlingthe prime tasks of a busi-ness manager. Included inthis package are an elec-tronic spreadsheet, a three-dimensional color graphicsmodule, a word processor,an appointment scheduler,and a communicationsmodule, all of which arecentered around a data-base manager that ac-cesses all input data. OpenAccess also offers pop-upwindows that let you viewdifferent forms of informa-tion simultaneously with-out going through menusor command sequences.

Open Access is designedfor the IBM Personal Com-puter, its compatibles, theDEC Rainbow, and desk-top computers from TexasInstruments, NCR, andWang. It costs $595. Formore information, contactSoftware Products Interna-tional, 10343 Roselle St.,

San Diego, CA 92121

(619) 450-1526.

Circle 636 on inquiry card.

Business Tool Can BeRun by Novices

Novices and experts canuse Sofstar's Business Plan-ning Tool to create bud-gets, forecasts, and busi-ness plans in familiarincome-statement and bal-ance-sheet formats. Ac-counts are defined by posi-tioning the IBM PersonalComputer's cursor at thedesired location and enter-ing an account name. Ac-counts must fall within oneof the following categories:income, expense, assets, orliabilities and equity.

The Business PlanningTool features a 12-monthwindow that presents arange of possibilities basedon assumptions containedin account descriptions. Agraph screen is used to dis-play a horizontal bar graphof an account. All data or

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 579

What's New?

individual components ofan account can bedisplayed or edited. Editingof constants and seasonalvariations is provided. TheBusiness Planning Tooldoes not require program-ming commands or specialsymbols. All formatting iscompletely automatic.Another feature is theability to write complex,Preformatted spreadsheetsthat can be used withVisicorp's Visicalc.

The Business PlanningTool runs on 128K-byteIBM Personal Computerswith one disk drive. It costsS ] 95 and is manufacturedby Sofstar Inc., 13935 U.S.Highway #1, Juno Beach,FL 33408, (305) 627-551 1.Circle 620 on inquiry card.

Utility Programs withthe Inside Track

The Inside Track is a col-lection of utility programsfor the IBM Personal Com-puter from Data Base Deci-sions. This package com-prises 61 programs thatprovide you with assem-bly-language-assistedspeed by means of subrou-tines that can be calledfrom interpretive BASIC orfrom a compiled language.These subroutines performsuch functions as read andwrite files as fast as DOS,display data on screen fourto 10 times faster than theBASIC PRINT statement,copy memory from onelocation to another, andcopy-protect disks. Certainprograms let you reverse ablock of memory for use asa program scratchpad orlimit the memory used by

compiled BASIC programsto eliminate reloading ofCOMMAND.COM and toallow concurrent programloading. Other programshandle such chores as dy-namically scheduling up tofour programs from withina program.

The Inside Track requiresa 64K-byte IBM PC withPC-DOS, a disk drive, andan 80-column monitor.

Most of the programs runwith any version of PC-DOS; however, a few pro-grams require DOS 2.0, inwhich case 128K bytes ofmemory is necessary. Thispackage is available fac-tory-direct for S45, plusS2.50 shipping, from DataBase Decisions, 14 BonnieLn„ Atlanta, GA 30328,(404) 256-3860.Circle 635 on inquiry card.

Cash and Time-ManagementPrograms Aid Professionals

American Software Ap-plication Programs has an-nounced five cash-controland time-managementprograms designed for pro-fessionals: Due Process forattorneys, Net Worth forCPAs, the Blue Print for ar-chitects, the Spec Sheet forengineers, and the GuideLine for consultants. Eachprogram provides com-plete client accountingwith 18 different statementformats, comprehensivemanagement reports, ap-pointment scheduling, and

letter writing with nameand address merge capabil-ities. Also provided is a utili-ty program that repairs filesand indexes, splits files ontoseveral disks, merges fileswhen upgrading to a hard-disk drive, and backs upfiles for historical records.

These programs run onCP/M and CP/M-86 sys-tems. They come with doc-umentation designed forfirst-time users. Free dealerand end-user support isprovided over toll-free tele-phone lines. Each program

retails for S995; demonstra-tion kits are available forS 70. For more information,contact American SoftwareApplication Programs, Suite270, 100 East ThousandOaks Blvd., ThousandOaks, CA 91360, (800)252-2727; in California,(805) 496-5329.Circle 626 on inquiry card.

Machine-IndependentOperating System

SI is a general-purpose,machine- and processor-in-dependent operating sys-tem from Multi Solutions.Distinctive characteristicsinclude building-block con-struction, machine-lan-guage implementation,system facilities for applica-tions, networking facilities,real-time operation, file-sys-tem compatibility, and win-dow management. Up to256 processors can besimultaneously supportedwith any task running onthe central processor. It of-fers conventional com-mand processors, menus,and prompts; extensivegraphic support; window-ing and bit-mapping; andbit-mapped printer/plotterand terminal support.

S1 is portable to a varietyof systems, including 32-bitmachines. It can read andwrite files to and fromCP/M, MP/M II, MS-DOS,Unix, Xenix, p-System, Flex,and other operating sys-tems. It presently is runningon Z80, 68000, and8080/8085 computers.Languages available in-clude C, FORTRAN, andPascal.

Prices for a precon-

580 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

What's New?

figured SI package beginat $200. OEM and systemhouses inquiries are wel-come. For a brochure out-lining this product, contactMulti Solutions Inc., 660Whitehead Rd., Lawrence-ville, NJ 08648, (609)695-1337.Circle 623 on inquiry card.

Write Your OwnPrograms at Home

Dynatech Microsoft-ware's Home File Writerenables Commodore 64and Atari 800 and XL seriesusers to write a variety ofapplications programs foreveryday use. Possible ap-plications include house-hold inventory, recipe files,medical and health rec-ords, mailing lists, and taxinformation. This self-prompting program letsyou enter the screen for-mat and calculations ontoyour monitor in plainEnglish. It then translatesyour information into aform that will work on thecomputer. Home FileWriter rejects improper or il-legal input and gives youanother opportunity toenter your data correctly.Once your application pro-gram is written. Home FileWriter can be removed,which minimizes hardwareoverhead. Its operation istotally transparent.

Home File Writer is sup-plied with documentation.It costs $69.95. For moredetails, contact DynatechMicrosoftware Inc., 7847North Caldwell Ave., Niles,IL 60648, (800) 621-4109;in Illinois, (312) 470-0700.Circle 625 on inquiry card.

By a Factor of Two

Two encryption systemsbased on the NationalBureau of Standards DataEncryption Standard havebeen developed by PrimeFactors.

U-Psypher is a file-ori-ented, interactive programfor full-file encryption oncomputers that run CP/M,MP/M, and MS-DOS. Des-crypt/MS is a DES assem-bler source code for 8080,8085, Zilog Z80, 8086.and 8088 microproces-sors. Both encryptors canbe integrated into real-timesystems. Implementations,module sizes, and through-put requirements are user-specifiable. U-Psyphercosts $99; Descrypt/MSwith source code DES is$ 1500. Contact Prime Fac-tors, 6529 Telegraph Ave.,Oakland, CA 94609, (415)654-5090.Circle 624 on inquiry card.

Lobo Chats to theMax

Compu-Talk, an assem-bly-language program,turns the Lobo Max-80computer into a talkingcomputer. With Compu-Talk, the Lobo can interac-tively communicate withVotrax's Type'NTalk orPersonal Speech System.This program providesspelled speech, identifica-tion of uppercase andlowercase characters, key-stroke echo, and audiblefeed of program controlkeys. The voice can beswitched on or off at anytime, and it can be set tospell out acronyms. Itspeaks and reads the line

and column number onwhich the cursor is located,provides page and line re-view, and vocalizes specialcharacters.

Compu-Talk requiresone 5/4-inch disk drive,Type'NTalk, a connectorcable, and the LDOS oper-ating system. A version isavailable for Radio ShackTRS-80 Models I, II, III, IV,12, and 16. Compu-Talkcosts $129.95. A completepackage containing theprogram, interface cable,and Type'NTalk is avail-able for $429.85. The doc-umentation alone is $20.Contact Compu-Talk Sys-tems, POB 28355, Colum-bus, OH 43228, (614)279-8271.Circle 632 on inquiry card.

Drafting TrainingProgram

A computer-aided draft-ing program for traininghigh school and collegestudents, GRID can pro-duce, store, retrieve, andedit two- and three-dimen-sional drawings. Entirelymenu-driven, GRID(Graphics Instruction De-vice) runs on Hewlett-Packard HP-85, -86. and-87 desktop computers.

Features of the programinclude single-keystrokecommands, English-lan-guage instructions, and theability to plot drawings onthe video display andthree-dimensional data ineither orthographic, iso-metric, or cabinet views. Agraphics editor lets studentssee results of an editingcommand as it's entered,and GRID'S single-step

mode lets you watch adrawing develop one lineat a time. It has the abilityto step backward throughyour drawing command,erasing lines as it goes.Drawing commands in-clude points, arc, circle,polygon, and step/repeat.With a digitizer module,GRID costs $495, includingmanual. It's available in3'/2- and 514-inch floppy-disk formats. Contact Re-sponsive Logic, 156Donald St., Oregon City,OR 97045, (503) 655-4980.Circle 622 on inquiry card.

Burroughs Emulation

for Personal

Computers

Intercomputer Commu-nications Corporation'sIntercom 100 softwareallows such personal com-puters as Corona, Colum-bia, Eagle, Compaq, andIBM to emulate a Bur-roughs MT983/TD830 on-line terminal. It simul-taneously supports up tofive addresses: four for con-current operator dialoguesand bidirectional file trans-fers and one for back-ground printing. This pro-gram offers a plain-Englishconfiguration and menusthat are clear enough fornontechnical users.

Intercom 100 comes ona 5/4-inch floppy disk.Each copy costs $99. Forfurther information, con-tact Intercomputer Com-munications Corp., Suite2A, 3195 Linwood Ave.,Cincinnati, OH 45208,(513) 321-3199.Circle 634 on inquiry card.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 581

What's New?

Visicalc IV Features Graphics, DataManagement, and User-Defined Commands

Visicorp has announcedthe availability of VisicalcIV for the IBM PC and XT.This program integrates allthe features of standardVisicalc and extends themwith graphics, sorting,spreadsheet management,and a capability for user-defined commands,known as Keysaver. Visi-calc IV's new graphicscommands let you convertspreadsheet data into agraphical format instantly."What-if" analyses can becreated with a single key-stroke that calls up one ormore of the eight integralgraphics options. Complexor special graphs can bestored on disk and laterquickly retrieved with asingle keystroke. Graphscan be printed in standardor large size, normal orreverse image, and normalor sideways. Availablegraphs include area, bar,dot, pie, scatter, line, andsuch sophisticated graphsas high, low, closed, andstacked and comparativebar. Both monochromeand color graphics are sup-ported.

Visicalc IV's high-speedsorting and rearrangingcapabilities treat yourspreadsheets as if theywere a database. Thisallows you to generate adhoc reports as well as stan-dard financial models. Sort-ing can be performed onrows or subsets of rows;columns can be rearrangedwith a few keystrokes.

The Keysaver feature letsyou store a series of Visi-calc commands and opera-tions under any key, in-cluding function keys. A

single file can accom-modate as many as 66 usercommands. Defining akeystroke sequence is saidto be a simple operationbecause the software con-tinually tracks the last 75characters typed. At anytime, you can recall thesekeystrokes, define them asa command, and assignthem to a function key, oryou can modify the se-quence if desired.

Visicalc IV is availablefrom Visicorp dealers na-tionwide. The suggestedretail price is S250. Visicorpis headquartered at 2895Zanker Rd., San Jose, CA95134, (408) 946-9000.Circle 638 on inquiry card.

Technical Analysis

Tools Bundled in

Single Program

A number of analysistools are packed into theTechnical Investor from Sa-vant Corporation. This pro-gram contains three typesof moving averages, fivedifferent volume indicators,regressions, point andfigure charts, speed resis-tance lines, relativestrength plots, and oscilla-tor functions. Automaticroutines let you define thecharts you want. Up tofour chart windows can bedisplayed simultaneously,and each window is inde-pendently controllable. Ifyour IBM PC or Compaqcomputer is equipped witha smart modem, communi-cations with either theDow Jones News/Retrievalor the Warner Computer

Systems database can beachieved with a press of abutton. You can also mixthe types and amounts ofdata in disk storage.

The Technical Investorrequires 128K bytes ofmemory, dual double-sideddouble-density disk drives,and a color graphics card.A dot-graphics printer anda modem are strongly re-commended. The list priceis $395, which includes amanual with instructionsfor novices and details forexperienced users. Com-plete information is avail-able from Savant Corp.,POB 440278, Houston, TX77244, (800) 231-9900; inTexas, (713) 556-8363.Circle 627 on inquiry card.

Teacher AuthoringSystem Is Easy to Use

TAS, Teacher AuthoringSystem, is a menu-drivenprogram that's designed toadapt to any classroomcurriculum. Running on theRadio Shack TRS-80 ModelsIII and IV, TAS combines anauthoring program withpresentation, student rec-ords, and file-maintenanceprograms so that eventeachers without program-ming experience can use itto create computerized les-sons. With this program,teachers can write up to 10pages of text and designgraphics to highlight ma-terial, store pages tempor-arily for later recall, add upto 50 questions to refer-ence any one of five re-view pages, print masterlists of questions and ans-wers, and adjust a lesson'sformat for each student.

This two-module system

comes with an instructordisk (with backup) for thedevelopment and main-tenance of lessons and stu-dent records and a studentdisk with the presentationprogram and a samplelesson. The user manualcontains a tutorial sectionthat describes the lessondevelopment process anda reference section. It re-quires 48K bytes ofmemory and a disk drive.The retail price is S 149.95.Complete information isavailable from Teach Your-self By Computer Software,2128 West Jefferson Rd.,Pittsford, NY 14534, (716)424-5453.Circle 630 on inquiry card.

Maglcblnd UpgradesWord Processors

Magicbind is a file-merg-ing program with ad-vanced features for users ofWordstar, Magic Wand,and other CP/M-based texteditors that generate ASCIIfiles. At any time withMagicbind, you can insertdata items into the mainbody of a document,merge two or more files in-to a single document,select records based onspecial classification codes,verify data-file accuracy byexamining the number offields in each record andthe number of digits in afield, print mailing labels,and automatically numberchapters, paragraphs, ar-ticles, and listed items.Magicbind maintains sepa-rate page- and record-number counters, whichfacilitates selective printingof multipage documents. Inaddition, it provides more

582 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

What's New?

than 60 print-formattingcapabilities, including bold-face, underline, superscript,subscript, accenting, auto-matic footnoting, and pro-portional, nonproportional,justified, and nonjustifiedprinting.

Magicbind requires 48Kbytes of RAM and a Diablo63071650-compatibleprinter or a NEC Spinwriter.It costs S250. The print-formatting program, calledMagicprint, can be pur-chased separately forSI95. For full details, con-tact Computer Editype Sys-tems, 509 Cathedral Park-way 10A, New York, NY10025, (212) 222-8148.Circle 670 on inquiry card.

Business Package forModel 100

Businesspak +, a set ofsix cassette-based businessprograms for the RadioShack Model 100, hasbeen introduced by thePortable Computer SupportGroup. The complete pack-age, including manual,costs 589.95.

For word processing,Write + lets you set mar-gins, right-justify type, andprint multiple copies. It hasmore than 36 features, andit supports both serial andparallel printers. A planningtool and minispreadsheet,Expns+ provides 18 col-umns with up to 18 entrieseach. This spreadsheet cangive you totals for eachday and category. Namesof rows and columns canbe changed, and replica-tion across columns,cumulative totals, andautomatic growth or

decline rate projection areoffered. All its mathematicsfunctions are built in.

For printing out bar, line,and pie graphs of anyExpns-i- report, there'sGraph +. This programshows the percents on piecharts and the values onother charts, and it workswith the DMP-100 andother dot-matrix printers.Put + lets you list informa-tion in an organized man-ner. It features prompts and

the ability to rapidly createaddresses or scheduleitems. Sort+ lets youalphabetically or numerical-ly sort any list compiledwith Put+ . Telex + allowsyou to send mailgram mes-sages over telephone lines.For full details, contactPortable Computer SupportGroup, 1 1035 Harry HinesBlvd., #207, Dallas, TX75229, (212) 351-0564.Circle 631 on inquiry card.

Word Processor for Eagles

Muse Word Processingfrom Marc Software Inter-national, which offers anadvanced scientific typingfeature with 13 levels ofsuper/subscripts, is avail-able for the Eagle PC and1600 Series computers.Special character sets aresupported on the Eagle sothat Greek and mathe-

matics characters can bedisplayed on the videoscreen. This package pro-vides the processing re-quired to coordinate thekey that is struck on thekeyboard with the on-screen character and withthe character that isprinted. Standard featuresinclude a spelling checker.

mailing-list processor, ab-breviation glossary, columnfunctions, automatic hy-phenation, and advanceddocument-selection capa-bility. Muse offers arecovery system that savesa document when yourcomputer crashes and anencryption feature that pro-vides password security.

The Muse Word Proces-sor runs on 256K-byteEagles supporting a harddisk and DOS 1.1 or 2.0.The single-copy price is$595; multiple discountsare offered. The manufac-turer provides full technicalsupport and general infor-mation by means of a hot-line service. Contact MarcSoftware International Inc.,Suite 200, 260 SheridanAve., Palo Alto, CA 94306,(415) 326-1971.Circle 629 on inquiry card.

Music LearningSystem

Simply Music is a productfor learning music on theAlphasyntauri ComputerMusic System. This soft-ware is designed to en-hance the way music isheard, played, andlearned. It offers three dis-plays that show live key-board playing and prere-corded pieces in action:Grand Staff, Keyboard Pic-ture, and Color Bar/Oc-tave. Grand Staff displaysbass and treble notes on-screen and, as you play thekeyboard, notes andchords are shown on thestaff. With Keyboard Pic-ture, the keyboard is de-picted in a top-down viewon your monitor with each

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 583

What's New?

key labeled with its lettername. Individual notes areassigned a color and aposition on your screenand each octave has itsown row with the ColorBar/Octave display. Asnotes are played, the colorbars light up, showing theirrelative position within theoctave. Song parts can beswitched off, lowered involume, or revoiced for dif-ferent instruments. Otherfeatures include key trans-position and speed control.Simply Music is availablefor both four- and five-octave AlphasyntauriMusic Systems. It costsSI 99. Complementarycourseware packages areoffered. A complete SimplyMusic courseware pack-age, including a four-octave synthesizer, costsS i 495. For more details,contact Syntauri Corp.,Suite 1 12, 4962 El CaminoReal, Los Altos, CA 94022,(415) 966-1273.Circle 637 on inquiry card.

PERIPHERALS

Device Enlarges

Displays for Visually

Impaired

The Model DP-10 fromVisualtek is a plug-in devicethat aids the visually im-paired by automatically en-larging the characters dis-played on Apple monitors.This device magnifies char-acters from 2 to 16 timestheir original size withoutoperator intervention orspecial programming. Sincethe DP-10 enlarges charac-ters up to 5 inches high,only a portion of the ori-ginal display can be seen atone time. To fix this, a user

control panel, operatingmuch like a joystick, pro-vides control over the im-age. With the controlpanel, users can accessmaterial at speeds of up to600 words per minute.

The Model DP-10 workswith the Apple II, II Plus,and He. The base price is

S2495. A similar unit forthe IBM PC will be an-nounced during the firstquarter of 1984. Full detailsare available from VisualtekInc., 1610 26th St., SantaMonica, CA 90404, (213)829-6841.Circle 651 on inquiry card.

APPLE II LOGIC ANALYZER SYSTEM

System Converts Apple

Total Logic Corporationhas announced the availa-bility of a hardware andsoftware system that con-verts the Apple II into asophisticated logic ana-lyzer. The LA-100 offerssuch capabilities as a 16-bit-wide data path, 1024-word memory, qualifiedclock inputs, a 16-bit triggerword that allows data col-lection to begin or end onthe trigger with or withouta programmable delay,and the ability to displaydata either as bits or as atiming-like graphics display.The LA-100 also lets youuse your Apple's disk sub-system for both storing and

II into Logic Analyzer

recalling data and instru-ment setups.

The LA-100 system ismade up of a plug-in card,connector cable, and soft-ware. It costs S795, includ-ing a comprehensive usersmanual. It can be orderedfactory-direct from TotalLogic Corp., Suite 1 10, 343West Drake, Fort Collins,CO 80526, (303)226-5980.Circle 649 on inquiry card.

Triple AppleExecution Speed

Titan Technologies' Ac-celerator II is said to more

than triple the executionspeed of virtually all AppleII and II Plus programs.When attached to any Ap-ple slot, this 6502-basedcard creates parallel opera-tions: the Apple's mainboard handles video out-put while the Accelerator IIduplicates the Apple's 48Kbytes of memory. In addi-tion, this card supplies theApple with a built-in lan-guage card.

The Accelerator II ishardware compatible withmost standard Apple pe-ripherals. All peripherals,however, are not able torun at faster speeds (e.g.,disk drives and modems).To compensate for this,switches are provided todecrease the speed for indi-vidual devices. The Ac-celerator II has a suggestedretail price of S599. Formore information, contactTitan Technologies, 310West Ann St., Ann Arbor,Ml 48104, (313)662-8542.Circle 640 on inquiry card.

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36 Seconds of

Preprogrammed

Speech

Voice-Alive can be pre-programmed for up to 36seconds of speech. Thisspeech-synthesizer board issaid to provide tape-record-er-quality speech, completewith inflections and emo-tions. A self-contained unit,Voice-Alive comes with a

584 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

What's New?

1 -watt audio amplifier andup to 12 ROMs for vocabu-lary. Standard features in-clude programmed timedelays of up to one hour, a56-pin edge connector,and eight inputs for initiat-ing separate messages orwords. Inputs can be ac-tivated by TTL signals or byshorting them throughground contacts. Lookuptables for each input ac-tivate single or multiplemessages, repeat a singlemessage, or activate multi-ple messages interspersedwith pauses. Voice-Alivecan be activated by micro-processor signals or by sim-ple switch closures. It mea-sures 4'/2 by 6'/2 inches.

A single Voice-Alivecosts between $350 and$750, depending on mem-ory requirements. Fororders of one to five units, avocabulary set-up chargeof $250 is applied. Customvocabularies, such as a for-eign language, are avail-able. For particulars, con-tact Datavoice Corp., Suite1900, 2 North LaSalle St.,Chicago, IL 60602, (312)327-8488.Circle 643 on inquiry card.

Module Accepts 32Kof Static Memory

The processor-indepen-dent 5006A STD bus mem-ory module can accom-modate up to 32K bytes ofstatic memory. Thismodule will accept61 16-type RAMs, type2716 EPROMs. MOSROMs, and 5-volt pin-com-patible EEPROMs. Differenttypes of static memoriescan be intermixed without

module reconfiguration,and unused sockets areautomatically disabled.With 6116 series RAMs, ac-cess times of 100, 120, and150 ns are possible. Asingle 5-volt power supplyis required.The 5006A memory

module is available inpopulated and depopu-lated versions for $250 and$99, respectively. ContactSTD Microsystems, 399Sherman Ave., Palo Alto,CA 94306, (415) 327-6800.Circle 650 on inquiry card.

Analog I/O Board CommodoreCompatible

The Model 24/8 AnalogI/O board expands Com-modore VIC-20s and 64swith eight channels of A/Dand eight channels of D/A.The A/D converter is 12bits wide, and its fast ac-quisition time (100 /xs)makes it suitable for dataacquisition. The Model24/8's on-board RAM per-mits high sample rates andblock moves of data to thehost computer. The 8-bitD/A channels are suitablefor most control applica-tions.

The Model 24/8 canserve as a stand-alone con-troller or its control loopcan be closed with theCommodore for usersupervision and interac-tion. Its sample rate, chan-

nel selection, and oper-ating modes are underyour control through sup-plied software.

The Model 24/8 costsapproximately $295. Kitsmay be available duringthe first quarter of 1984.For full specifications, writeto Applied Electronics Con-sultants, POB 349, Clem-son, SC 29633.Circle 648 on inquiry card.

Finger PrintYour Printers

Finger Print lets users ofIBM PC and Epson printersselect a variety of printfunctions by merely tap-ping the printer's panel

buttons, eliminating theneed for special controlcharacters. Among its 10special print functions areperforation skip-over, leftmargin indent, buffer clear,and compressed, double-wide, and emphasizedcharacters. No soldering isrequired.

Finger Print is suppliedwith operating instructionsand control panel refer-ence labels. It costs $59.95.Contact Dresselhaus Com-puter Products, 837 EastAlosta Ave., Glendora, CA91740, (213) 914-5831.Circle 644 on inquiry card.

Communications

Manager Is

Z80 Computer

Babytalk is an intelligentcommunications-manage-ment interface for the IBMPC and Texas InstrumentsProfessional Computer.Babytalk, produced byMicrolog, is a self-con-tained Z80-based miCrO-

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

585

What's New?

computer that provides aterminal emulator, a smartmodem, a print spooler,64K bytes of dynamicRAM, CP/M-80 compatibili-ty, and automatic time/date. It emulates such pro-tocols as 3270 bisync and3270 SNA, and 3780batch/bisync as well as avariety of asynchronousterminals, including DECVT-100 and IBM 3101. Itson-board modem offers300-, 600-, and 1200-bpsoperation and auto-dialand auto-answer. Thisdirect-connect modem sup-ports Bell 103/202 andCCITT V.21/V.23 pro-tocols. For print spooling,Babytalk has both serialand parallel ports. Otherfeatures include a utilitythat lets you define func-tion keys with multistrokesequences up to 80 char-acters long.

Babytalk costs $895. Formore information, contactMicrolog Inc., 222 Route59, Suffern, NY 10901,(914) 368-0353.Circle 642 on inquiry card.

Colorful SpeechIntroduced

Spectrum Projects has in-troduced a low-cost voice-synthesizer for the RadioShack TRS-80 Color Com-puter. Built around theVotrax SC01 phonemesynthesizer, the Voice Pak

has an unlimited vocabu-lary, automatic inflection,four programmable pitchlevels, and the ability toproduce a full sentencefrom a single line of BASIC.It's equipped with a voiceeditor that can create anunlimited number of wordsand sound effects.

The Voice Pak ROMpakis supplied with a usersmanual and a softwarecassette. Fully assembledand tested, it costs $69.95,plus $3 per order for ship-ping and handling. VoicePak is available directlyfrom Spectrum Projects,93-15 86th Dr., Wood-haven, NY 11421, (212)441-2807.Circle 641 on inquiry card.

PUBLICATIONS

Round Table'sGathering

Computer Business is amonthly publication con-taining abstracts of articlespublished in business, fi-nancial, and computingmagazines. Produced byRound Table Associates,the contents explorewhat's new and signifi-cant in computer andcommunications publica-tions. Topics are arrangedunder the categories ofmainframes, mini- andmicrocomputers, soft-ware, peripherals, datacommunications, officeautomation, consumers,electronics, and more.Back issues are $15. Con-tact Round Table Associ-ates, POB 45923. Los An-geles, CA 90045, (213)649-2846.Circle 659 on inquiry card.

Directory Focuses on Distributors ofMicrocomputer Software

A directory that focuseson the microcomputer-software middleman,Micro Software Distribu-tors: A Sourcebook forPublishers Seeking NewMarkets, contains profilesof more than 150 compa-nies that purchase or li-cense software for quan-tity resale. Each companyis described in terms of thesoftware it seeks, what itpays, the marketing rightsit obtains, to whom it sells,and the support it pro-vides. Explanations aboutsubmitting proposals areincluded. The directory,which costs $95, covershardware and softwaremanufacturers, book pub-lishers, retailers, and otherorganizations seeking pro-grams for resale. Contact

Software Research Co.,POB 9524, Drawer C,Washington, DC 20016,(202) 364-8700.Circle 654 on inquiry card.

By and for Lisa Users

Signal is a free newslet-ter produced by the Sema-phore Corporation forusers of Apple's Lisa. Itsentire format is createdusing only the Lisa.Subscriptions are free tousers who submit theserial numbers of theirLisas. Other readers cansubscribe to Signal for $ 10for 10 issues; $20 outsideof North America. ContactSignal, 207 Granada Dr.,Aptos, CA 95003.Circle 656 on inquiry card.

586 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

What's New?

Japan's Newsfrom Satellite

Satellite Systems Engi-neering of Bethesda,Maryland, produces a bi-weekly newsletter that is asource of news and infor-mation about telecommu-nications in Japan. It cov-ers such subjects as tech-nological advances, newproducts, joint ventures,computers, legislative andadministrative actions, andpeople. The Japan Tele-communications Newscosts S325 annually. Ifyou subscribe before1984, you'll receive a dis-count. Contact SatelliteSystems Engineering Inc.,Japan Telecommunica-tions News, Suite 520E,7315 Wisconsin Ave.,Bethesda, MD 20814.Circle 655 on inquiry card.

Vector ElectronicOffers Catalog

Almost 1000 electronicpackaging, breadboard-ing, and prototyping itemsare described in VectorElectronic Company's 68-page catalog. One-third ofthe catalog covers micro-computer prototypingboards for the VME,S-l 00, Multi-, andSTD-bussystems. Other systems in-clude the IBM PC, Exorci-sor, Apple II, DEC, andTl 980. Another section ofthe catalog covers a largevariety of card racks andcases with a cross-indexbetween card size andcase-model number. Con-tact Vector Electronic Co.,12460 Gladstone Ave.,Sylmar, CA 91342, (213)365-9661.Circle 658 on inquiry card.

For Apple SoftwareIn Education

A directory about cur-rent educational softwareprograms produced for theApple II is organized bysubject, contains a masterindex, and provides a pub-lisher-information section.The 1983-84 Swift's Edu-cational Software Direc-tory—Apple II Editionreflects this year's increasein software listings with anenhanced format for en-tries. The price is SI8.95.Contact Sterling SwiftPublishing Co., 7901South IH-35, Austin, TX78744, (512) 282-6840.Circle 662 on inquiry card.

Free Telex Book

Telex Communicationsfrom Your Personal Com-puter, Word Processor, orTerminal, a 20-page freebooklet from RCA Com-munications Inc., describeshow to register for theTelex service, the tele-phone interface and sig-naling protocol reguired,how to send a Telexmessage in real time orstore and forward, and

how to receive incomingTelex messages throughreal time or an RCA Data-bank. It includes sampleformats as well. For de-

tails, contact RCA Com-munications Inc., 60 BroadSt., New York, NY 10004,(212) 806-7736.Circle 663 on inquiry card.

Netcom

Products lor TafeCQMi&itnkittti&m

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Products for Telecommunications

A free 12-page catalogis available from Netcom,manufacturers of telecom-munications eguipmentand accessories. The cata-log includes informationon cable assemblies, data-communications switches,sharing devices, modemsand interfaces, powerconditioners, patching sys-tems, and other toolsneeded in telecommunica-tions. The company'sproduct line includes a fullrange of AC power-lineconditioning eguipment.

filters, and voltage regu-lators, and services such assystem design, installation,and testing. For a catalog,contact Netcom, 79 HazelSt., Glen Cove, NY 1 1542,(516) 671-8811.Circle 653 on inquiry card.

For Your 64

What's? for the 64 is a

resource guide of newproducts for the Commo-dore 64 computer. Over

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

587

What's New?

100 pages include infor-mation about programs,software, peripherals, in-terfaces, book titles, maga-zines, and user groups thatcater to the Commodore64. It includes a directoryof sources that focus onoperating needs encoun-tered by owners. The

book includes a magazine-article bibliography ofliterature and written pro-grams. The guide sells forS15. Contact What's? forthe 64, 3494 ChickasawCircle, Lake Worth. FL33463.Circle 661 on inquiry card.

CHIPS

COUNTER A

COUNTER B

Block diagram ol the RCA DualTimer/Counter MOTEL Interface, CDP6848.

Chip Counts

A CMOS dual counter/timer chip is compatiblewith general-purpose andmultiplexed address anddata buses of popularmicroprocessors. TheCDP6848 is a CMOS pe-ripheral device capable ofoperating on the Moto-rola-Intel (MOTEL) micro-processor bus in fivemodes. The chip acceptsseparate read and writesignals or a common read/write signal with a datastrobe. Counters and reg-isters can be addressed inmemory directly by suchmicroprocessors as RCACMOS CDP6805. 8048,8049, 8051, and NSC 800.Contact RCA/Solid StateDivision, POB 3200,

and Times

Somerville, NJ 08876,(800) 526-2177; in NewJersey, (201) 685-6423.Circle 667 on inquiry card.

4-blt Smart LCDDriver/Controller

A CMOS 4-bit, single-chip LCD controller/drivercalled the /*PD7514 candrive either three or fourbackplanes in triplexed orquadruplexed modes ortwo backplanes in bi-plexed mode. It offers lowpower consumption andoperates from a single+ 5-V power supply.Other features includefour vectored interrupts(two internal and two ex-

ternal) and two standbymodes. Its instruction setconsists of 97 instructions.The /iPD7514 is availablein an 80-pin flat-pack con-figuration. It costs $8.95for large-quantity ordersand is available from NECElectronics USA Inc., OneNatick Executive Park,Natick, MA 01760, (617)655-8833.Circle 668 on inquiry card.

Low-PowerQuad Comparator

The LP339 consists offour independent voltagecomparators in a singlechip designed to drawonly 60 microamperes oftotal current. Each com-parator operates over acommon-mode voltagerange. The LP339 is de-signed to interface withthe CMOS logic family. Itincludes sensing at groundpotential, a pin-out iden-tical to the LM339, andhigh-output sink-currentcapability. It is protectedagainst reverse voltagesand will operate from sin-gle- or split-power sup-plies. Characteristics in-clude a low-input biasingcurrent and a low-inputoffset voltage. The costper unit is 72 cents inquantities of 100 or more.Contact National Semi-conductor Corp., 2900Semiconductor Dr., M/S

1925, Santa Clara, CA95051, (408) 721-5856.Circle 666 on inquiry card.

RMS-to-DC Converter

The AD637 is a root-mean-square to DC con-verter that offers accuracyand wide bandwidth with0.02 percent nonlinearity.Operating from DC to8MHz with a maximum of+ 0.5mV fixed offset and+ 0.2 percent of readingtotal unadjusted error, asingle external capacitorsets low-comer frequencyand determines low-fre-quency accuracy, ripplelevel, response speed, andsettling time. The AD637computes the true root-mean-square value ofcomplex AC waveformsand operates with + 3-Vto ± 18-V supplies. An on-chip buffer amplifier pro-vides typical 5-V/^s slewrate, maximum ± 2mV in-put offset, and maximum5nA bias current. It is pack-aged in a 14-pin ceramicpackage. In quantities of100 or more, the AD63 7 ispriced from $13. ContactAnalog Devices, Rt. 1,POB 280, Norwood, MA02062.Circle 664 on inquiry card.

Write Controller/Head Driver

A tunnel-erase floppy-disk controller with erasedelays, the MC3471P fromMotorola is a write con-troller/head driver inte-grated circuit designed toprovide the entire interfacebetween the write-dataand head-control signals

588 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

What's New?

BLOCK DIAGRAM

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and the heads (write anderase) for either tunnel- orstraddle-erase floppy-disksystems. It combines allwrite functions formerlyaccomplished using sep-arate building blocks ordiscrete transistors.

Means for selecting arange of write currentsand for head selection dur-ing both read and writeoperations are provided.

Provision is also made foradjusting degauss period,inner-outer track compen-sation, and the delay fromwrite gate to erase turn-onand turn-off. In quantitiesof 100 or more, theMC347IP is S4.25. Con-tact Motorola Semicon-ductor Products Inc., POB20912, Phoenix, AZ85036, (602) 897-3826.Circle 665 on inquiry card.

FOREIGN

80 Columns

An intelligent terminalemulator with an 80-column printout capabil-ity, ITE+ has been devel-oped by Transam for in-stallation into the mainbody of the HX-20 or theexpansion unit. The ma-chine-code program inROM allows the HX-20 tobe linked to a larger com-puter and to act as a de-vice for entering and re-ceiving data. This commu-nications link may bemade via cable or tele-phone line.

ITE+ can be used for

for the HX-20

editing text to be trans-mitted or for reviewingmessages already re-ceived. Text, onceprepared, can be saved toa file, transmitted, orprinted. The editor usesthe HX-20's virtual screenand scrolls left and right fora full line length. For view-ing and correcting data,you can display a singleline of text by using 4 linesof 20 columns for a total of80 lines of displayed text.ITE+ has the ability toprint a full 80-column line.It does this by printing the

text out sideways in blocksof 18 lines.

Optionally, Transam of-fers a parallel interface anda battery-powered acous-tic coupler for the HX-20.The interface lets you con-nect the HX-20 to an ex-ternal parallel printer andprint data when the serialport is taken up with anacoustic coupler or cable.

ITE+ costs $50, plusVAT (value-added tax). Theparallel interface is $85, plusVAT. Contact TransamMicrosystems Ltd., 59/61Theobald's Rd., LondonWC1X 8SF, England; tel:01-405 5240/21 13; Telex:24224 (Ref. 1422).

Circle 675 on inquiry card.

Three New Cards

Three add-on cardsfrom Rade Systems Ltd.plug into the company'sZ80-based single-boardcomputers. The first card,featuring a 10-MHz 8086processor card, has 128Kbytes of on-board mem-ory, expandable to 1megabyte, which can beadded to an optional 8087coprocessor. The secondcard is a 512 by 512graphics card with a high-speed plot rate to a max-imum of 1.5 million pixelsper second, in either 8 col-ors plus cursor or a 16-gray scale. The third card,soon to be available, is a10-MHz 16032 processorcard with 128K bytes of

on-board expandablememory in 256K-byte in-crements. Both the 16082memory-managementchip and the 16081 float-ing-point processor areavailable on-board as op-tional devices. ContactRade Systems Ltd., 290aHigh Rd., Willesden,NW10 2EU England; tel:01-451 4414/5/6.Circle 674 on inquiry card.

Five Versionsof the Big Buffer

The Big Buffer hardwarespooler for parallel printersincreases system speed. ItsI/O ports are Centronics-

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

589

What's New?

r~-~»i-

%

compatible. Five versionswith memory capacitiesranging from 8K to 120Kbytes are available. Thespooler features a reset keythat clears the buffer con-tents and a monitor modein which each charactersent from the computer isprinted in hexadecimaland ASCII codes, making itpossible ro inspect allcodes that are sent fromthe computer to the

printer. An optional 110-VAC, 60-Hz power supplycosts $30. Prices range inU.S. funds from $170 forthe 8K-byte version to$363 for the 120K-byteversion. Dealer inquiriesare welcome. ContactMikrocomputertechnik,Winchenbachstr. 3a, POB201 605, D-5600 Wupper-tal 2, West Germany; tel:0202/510444.Circle 673 on inquiry card.

Apples for All

Technical Aids & Sys-tems for the Handicapped|TASH) has developed aMod Keyboard Systemthat allows disabled per-

sons to operate an Apple IIPlus with standard soft-ware. Words, phrases,and standard charactersare displayed on the key-

board. Up to 14 displaysof time-saving words,phrases, and commandsare displayed by the key-board; additional displays,words, and phrases canbe customized. Users cancreate and edit text or mes-sages up to 500 characterslong. Color and audio areavailable together; black-and-white disables audiofeedback. The Mod Key-board System includes aCommodore VIC-20, adirect-scan cartridge, mon-itor, ability switch, anduser manual. Although itcontains a VIC, the sys-tem can be used with anApple II Plus and multiplexcircuit board and a con-necting cable or compati-ble printer. Pi ices varydepending on features.For details, contact TASHInc., do SunnybrookMedical Centre, 2075 Bay-view Ave., Toronto, On-tario M4N 3M5, Canada,(416) 486-3569.Circle 669 on inquiry card.

Magnum Portable

Features Pop-up

Display

The Dulmont Magnumportable computer featuresa pop-up, eight-line by 80-character LCD. Standardhardware includes the16-bit Intel 80186 micro-processor, 128K bytes ofROM, two serial ports, oneparallel port, a real-timeclock, and a bus expansionsocket. The Magnum canbe equipped with up to256K bytes of battery-backed CMOS RAM and anadditional 128K bytes ofROM. It has a full-size

QWERTY keyboard withuser-definable functionkeys and a power-save cir-cuit that shuts down thecentral processor when it'sbeen idle. A word proces-sor, a spreadsheet, a plan-ner/diary, and BASIC-86are supplied in ROM. Theoperating system is MS-DOS. Its approximate size is12 by 11 by 2 inches (305by 280 by 51 mm). Itweighs about 8 pounds(3.5 kg).

The Dulmont Magnumcosts less than $2500(Australian dollars). For fullinformation, contact Dul-mont Electronic Systems,POB 1668, Hornsby North-gate, New South Wales2077, Australia; tel: \02)477 6444; Telex: AA74936DULMON.Circle 672 on inquiry card.

Bubble Memories

Have Password

Security

Ecosea Technologieshas unveiled a line of mag-netic bubble-memory cardsfor the IBM PC and PC XT.Two versions are available:the PDIB128, which pro-vides 128K bytes of non-volatile storage, and thePDIB384, a 384K-bytecard. Either card resides ina single IBM slot, using onlytwo I/O lines. Hardware-based password security isa key feature of these non-volatile memories. Onceyou create a password,you can use it to lock upthe computer, the bubblememory, or both. Nomethod of bypassing or il-legally reading the pass-word is said to exist.

590 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

What's New?

Ecosea's bubble mem-ories operate as a standardDOS 2.0-type device. Theyare compatible with allDOS software and do notrequire any patching ofsystem files. DMA and in-terrupts are supported butnot required. Comprehen-sive diagnostic software,utilities, and installationand operator manuals are

provided. The PDIB128and the PDIB384 costS995 and $1995 [Cana-dian funds], respectively.For more information, con-tact Ecosea TechnologiesCorp., Unit 13, 465 King St.E, Toronto, Ontario M5A1L5, Canada, (416) 366-1000.Circle 671 on inquiry card.

GAMES

Trio of Games

Fun & Games Softwaremarkets a three-pack ofgames for Televideo 803and Teletote computerusers. The three high-reso-lution graphics games areNature's Revenge, CannonShoot, and Lunar Module.Each features animated dis-plays depicting the actions

for Televideos

and movements for allphases of the game.

The 803 Games-Pakcosts S46.50. It can beordered directly from Fun &Games Software, 3333East Redlands, Fresno, CA93726, (209) 226-1918.Circle 683 on inquiry card.

Here's One for

Bombs Over Manhattanis a strategic defense gamefrom Tamalpais Software.The object of the game isto defend your city fromenemy attack and accrueenough points to allowpeace talks to begin. Whenpeace is achieved, you canreconstruct damaged por-

Woody Allen

tions of your city and moveon to the next level of play.Points are scored by inter-cepting bombs and mis-siles. If you lose, your city isconsumed to the refrain of"We'll Meet Again." Yourcity can be one of nine ma-jor American cities or oneof your own design. Three

levels of difficulty are of-fered: Neophyte, Moder-ate, and Idiot Savant. Aunique feature of BombsOver Manhattan is itsSomeone's Coming mode,which is a tiny word pro-cessor that can be accessedduring any point in thegame. The word processorlets you write, edit, print,and store documents up to66 lines long.

Bombs Over Manhattanruns on 64K-byte IBM Per-sonal Computers with PC-DOS, a color graphics card,and a double-sided double-density 320K-byte floppy-disk drive. A joystick is op-tional. The suggested retailprice is $29.95. Dealer in-quiries are welcome. Formore information, contactTamalpais Software, POB02338, Portland, OR97202, (503) 232-0021.Circle 689 on inquiry card.

Devilish Game forTI-99/4A

Diablo, designed for theTI-99/4A computer, con-sists of two tracks on eachof 116 movable panels fora total of 232 tracks.Players must arrange thetwisted tracks to keep amoving ball on a contin-uous path. Each section oftrack is removed from playafter it has been negoti-ated. Diablo becomes in-creasingly difficult as lessand less track is available tosupport the advancing ball.This graphics game can beoperated by joysticks orthrough keyboard control.Sound effects add to thefun.

Diablo requires 16K

bytes of memory and theExtended BASIC module.It's available on cassette orfloppy disk for $ 19.95 fromthe Extended SoftwareCo., 11987 CedarcreekDr., Cincinnati, OH 45240,(513) 825-6645.Circle 688 on inquiry card.

Three-dimensionalGame for Apple

Cubit, an arcade-typegame for Apple computers,uses a three-dimensionalpyramid made up of cubesas its playing field. The ob-ject is to change the colorof all the cubes by hoppingfrom one to another. Youmust avoid bouncing balls,snakes, and gremlins. Yoursafety rests upon a set oftransport disks and a magicstar.

Cubit features four levelsof difficulty, each of whichis divided into four roundsof play. It's playable witheither a joystick or key-board on 48K-byte Applesrunning DOS 3.3. The sug-gested retail price is $39.95.Dealer and distributor in-quiries are invited. Cubit isproduced by MicromaxSystems Inc., 6868 NancyRidge Dr., San Diego, CA92121, (619) 457-3131.Circle 682 on inquiry card.

Computerized

Coloring Book Has 25

Hl-Res Pictures

Versa Computing's Col-or Me is a computerizedcoloring book suitable forchildren ages 3 to 12. It'scomposed of 25 high-reso-lution pictures of varyingdegrees of difficulty. Each

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 591

What's New?

Color Me picture is sprin-kled with objects and an-imals familiar to childrenand has a large, uppercasetitle to help reinforce wordand subject recognition.Children use paddles orjoysticks to choose colorsfrom the more than 30available and to select pro-gram options. Color Mepictures can be used overand over again.

Color Me comes on flop-py disk for Apple II Plus/lieand IBM Personal Comput-ers and on cassette for theRadio Shack TRS-80 ColorComputer. The retail priceis S 29.95. Contact VersaComputing Inc., Suite 104,3541 Old Conejo Rd„Newbury Park, CA 91320,(805)498-1956. .Circle 684 on inquiry card.

MISCELLANEOUS

Adjustable Arm Lifts

Monitors Up and

Away

Lintek's Monitor Moveris an adjustable mechanicalarm that holds most com-puter displays up and offyour desk. This system ismade of a heavy-duty deskclamp, a 360-degree swivelbase, a 15-inch verticallyadjustable arm, and a CRTmounting tray. The trayswivels and can be tiltedup to 15 degrees. EachMonitor Mover features

steel construction and anoff-white urethane finish.

Optional extended moni-tor cables and two addi-tional styles of desk mountsare available. The list priceis SI 29.95. For details, con-tact Lintek inc., POB 8056,Grand Rapids, Ml 49508.Circle 694 on inquiry card.

Coin Vending

Control System for

Libraries

XCP's fully automatedvending control systemsallow library patrons to usemicrocomputers withoutstaff supervision to controltime and usage. Two ver-sions of the MicrovendComputer Usage ControlSystem are available: the3300T and the 5500T. TheModel 3300T accepts quar-ters and tokens; it does notmake change. The 5500Taccepts nickels, dimes, andquarters. It also accumu-lates coins until the correctamount is deposited andmakes change.

Both systems can be ad-justed to provide 1 to 25minutes of equipmentusage. A cumulative timecapability allows unlimitedequipment time; each timethe correct vend price is de-posited, another time unitis added. An override keyallows free computerusage by staff members.Other features include anaccounting meter, a shut-off warning signal, lightedcoin-deposit indicator, andmultivending capabilities.Installation is simple; plugthe computer's CRT powercord into the Microvendcontrol box, close and lockthe door, and plug the

computer and Microvendinto a wall socket.

An annual rental with-out a purchase option or a36-month lease term witha 20 percent purchase op-

tion are available. For fullcontractual information,contact XCP Inc., 8 WestMain St., Dryden, NY13053, (607) 844-9143.Circle 695 on inquiry card.

State Analyzer Can

The Micro Tracer stateanalyzer offers a IK-bytetrace buffer, pattern-recog-nition logic, and formattedserial output in a boxweighing less than 5pounds. Plug-in personalitymodules interpret proces-sor codes, and an 18-inchribbon cable with a 40-pinclip to place over the micro-processor sets up the MicroTracer. Data is captured byeither a 16-bit trap addressentered by the front-panelkeyboard or by a separatetrigger probe that connectsto any logic-level signal inthe system. Data can bedisplayed or printed in se-quential processor cycles ordisassembled and pre-sented in assembly mne-monics. Micro Tracer candisplay data one cycle at atime on a front panel LED.

Micro Tracer's base priceis S995. Personality mod-ules are available for Z80/Z80A and 8085/8085Amicroprocessors; other

Be Carried into Field

modules are under devel-opment. Additional mod-ules cost $200 each. Forfull details, contact Spy-wood Systems, POB 794,Holliston, MA 01 746.Circle 691 on inquiry card.

Vfslcalc Wall ChartGuides Users

A two-color, 18- by25-inch wall chart graph-ically depicting all Visicalccommands is availablefrom Crest Software. Key-stroke combinations withexplanations, editing keycombinations, operators,and math functions are allcovered. A Superscripsitwall chart for the RadioShack TRS-80 Model III isalso available.

Each wall chart costs $4,plus $2 shipping. They canbe ordered from Crest Soft-ware, 2132 Crestview Dr.,Durango, CO 8 i 301, (303)247-9518.Circle 690 on inquiry card.

Where Do New Products Items Come From?The information printed in the new products pages of BYTE isobtained from "new product" or "press release" copy sent bythe promoters of new products. If in our judgment the infor-mation might be of interest to the personal computing experi-menters and homebrewers who read BYTE, we print it in someform. \X/e openly solicit releases and photos from manufac-turers and suppliers to this marketplace. The information isprinted more or less as a first-in first-out queue, sut ject to oc-casional priority modifications. While we would not knowing-ly print untrue or inaccurate data, or data from unreliable com-panies, our capacity to evaluate the products and companiesappearing in the "What's New?" feature is necessarily limited.We therefore cannot be responsible for product quality orcompany performance.

592 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

cw/\nnai

Q.

q:

OU

The Channel Connecting You And Computers

APPLE-SOFTWARE

LIST SALE

APPLIED SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY

Versa Form 389.00 259.00

Qtose 189.00 139.00

Templates PO/INV @ 49.95 39.00

ML/CRJ/EJ @ 39.95 33.00

ASHTONTATE™

dBase II 700.00 395.00

QPI Systems'"

GL/AP/AR/INV/PR @ 395.00 295.00

BR0DERB0ND~

A.E. 34.95 25.00

CENTRAL POINT SOFTWARE

Copy II Plus 39.95 32.00

CONTINENTAL SOFTWARE™

Home Accountant 74.95 49.00

FCM 99.95 08.00

00W JONES SOFTWARE'"

Market Analyzer1" 350.00 279.00

FOX 6 GELLER'"

Quick Code 295.00 195.00

dGraph 295.00 195.00

dOnl 99.00 09.00

Quick Screen 149.00 119.00

INFOCOM'"

Deadline 49.95 34.00

Zork l/ll/lll @ 39.95 27.00

MICROPRO"

Inlostar 495.00 299.00

MICROSOFT*

Multiplan'" 275.00 179.00

MUSE*

Supertext Home Office 99.00 73.00

PERFECT SOFTWARE'"

Perfect Writer 495.00 219.00

SIERRA ON-LINE SYSTEMS

Frogger 34.95 25.00

SILICON VALLEY SYSTEMS

Word Handler 59.95 39.00

List Handler 49.95 35.00

SOFTWARE PUBLISHING CORP.™

PFS: File 125.00 85.00

SPINNAKER'"

Educational Software UP TO 30% OFF

VISICORP'"VisicalcOther Products

250.00 169.00UP TO 34% OFF

APPLE-HARDWARE

LIST

SALE

CENTRAL POINT SOFTWARE

Alaska Card™

129.95

99.00

EPS

Keyboard w/Basic Pram

399.95

319.00

Basic Prom (?

32.95

29.00

GIBSON LABS

LPS Hi/Res Light Pen

349.00

279.00

HAYES MICROCOMPUTER PRODUCTS*

Miromodem II W/SC I

329.00

249.00

Smanmodem1200RS232

899.00

499.00

KENSINGTON8

System Fan Saver

89.95

69.00

KRAFT

Paddles

49.95

39.00

Joystick

64.95

49.00

KOALA™

Graphic Tablet

124.95

95.00

MICRO SCI

A2 Drive w/o controller

345.00

249.00

A2 Drive w/controller

445.00

325.00

MICROSOFT®

Soltcard

345.00

219.00

Premium Softcard

495.00

36900

NOVATION

212 Apple Cat II

725.00

599.00

Smartcat 103/212

595.00

469.00

Maxifone

1150.00

999.00

ORANGE MICRO™

Buffered Grappler + 16K

239.00

185.00

PRACTICAL PERIPHERALS

Microbulfer II + 16K

259.00

199.00

SSM

Modem Card w/source

325.00

259.00

Transmodem 1200

695.00

499.00

VIDEX

Uliraterm

379.00

279.00

Other Products

UP TO 27% OFF

IBM PC SOFTWARE

APPLIED SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY

VersaForm

389.00

259.00

Qbase

189.00

139.00

Templates PO/INV @

49.95

39.00

ML/CRJ/EJ @

39.95

33.00

ASHTON-TATE™

dBase

700.00

395.00

CENTRAL POINT SOFTWARE

Copy II PCCONTINENTAL SOFTWARE™

Home Accountant

FCMDIGITAL RESEARCH™

CP/M 86

Concurrenl CP/M 86DOW JONES SOFTWARE™

Market AnalyzerFOX Fj GELLER

Quick Code

dGraph

dUtilINFOCOM ™

Deadline

Zotk l/ll/lll @MICROSOFT"

Multiplan

Muln-Tool word w/MousePEACHTREE SOFTWARE™

Peachtext 5000PERFECT SOFTWARE™

Perfect WriterSIERRA ON-LINE SYSTEMS

FroggerSOFTWARE PUBLISHING CORP.

PFS: FileSPINNAKER™

Educational SoftwaresVISOR?"

Visicalc

Othei Products

IBM HARDWARE

HAYES MICROCOMPUTER PRODUCTS®

Smartmodem 1200B

Smartmodem 1200|RS232|KRAFT

Paddles

JoystickKOALA™

Graphic TabletMICROSOFT®

MouseNOVATION

Smartcat 103/212 |RS232|

Maxifone (RS232|

LIST

SALE

39.95

32.00

150.00

89.00

124.95

79.00

60.00

45.00

350.00

235.00

350.00

279.00

295.00

195.00

295.00

195.00

99.00

69.00

49.95

34.00

39.95

27.00

275.00

179.00

495.00

349.00

395.00

239.00

495.00

219.00

34.95

25.D0

140.00

9500

UP TO 30% OFF

250.00

169.00

UP TO 34% OFF

UCTS®

599.00

479.00

699.00

499.00

49.95

39.00

69.95

49.00

150.00

115.00

195.00

149.00

596.00

469.00

150.00

999.DO

QUADRAMQuadlinkQuadboard 64KQuadboard II 64K

MONITORS

AMDEK

Color 1 + LO/RES

Video 300

12" HI/RES Gieen

Video 300A 12" AmberNEC

12" HI/RES Green

12" LO/RES Color

12" HI/RES Color (PC)

LIST SALE

680.00 579.00

395.00 285.00

395.00 285.00

399.00

179.00199.00

285.00

399.00699.00

PRINTERS-OKI DATA

ML-82A

ML-83A

ML-84P

ML-84S

ML-92P

ML-93P

ML-92S

ML-93S

DISKETTES

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6W' SS/DD (plastic box)

5'A" DS/DD (plastic box]IBM®

5V«" SS/DD

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5V<" OS/DDTDK®

5'A" SS/DD

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ACCESSORIES-

AMARAY

5'A" Disk Bank (white)5'A" Disk Bank (smoke)5'A" Disk Bank System

INNOVATIVE CONCEPTS5'A" Flip-N-File

549.00

899.001395.001495.00

699.001249.00

799.001349.00

7.50

7.50

29.95

29.95

339.00

157.00

159.00

159.00379.00599.00

419.00719.001049.001129.00529.00939.00599.001019.00

32.0037.0043.00

29903990

28.9041.90

39.0047.00

6.50

6.5025.00

25.00

National: 1-800-821-4381

Calif: 1-800-421-3245 • Local: (805) 683-3006 / 683-1779 S

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TERMS: Add 3% lor shipping h handling. $3.00 minium. UPS next day delivery for iiems in siock. Add 6% for CA Sales Tax. Add 2% (O total lor Visa & Master Charge. All sales linal for software, accessories & diskettes

Defective Hardware, Monitors, Printers returns must be within 10 working days of purchase accompanied by RMA# for exchange only Apple is the Registered Trademark of Apple Computer Inc. IBM is the Registered Tiademark of International

Business Machines Corp.

Circle 489 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

593

BYTE's Bits

Two New Office Products from IBM

Practically every major computer com-pany has tried either to imitate the IBMPersonal Computer or to design periph-erals for it. And now even IBM hasjumped on the bandwagon. By IBM, wemean of course not the small Entry Sys-tems Group in Boca Raton, Florida,which produces the popular PC, but thelarge Information Systems Group, whichproduces those large systems that arealmost synonymous with the IBM logo.Recently, amid a flurry of rumors aboutthe new Peanut or PC Junior, the Infor-mation Systems Division announced twosignificant products based on the PC: adesktop System/370 and a new version ofthe IBM 3270 display terminal that fea-tures concurrent processing and windows.

The IBM Personal Computer XT/370

As its name implies, this new enhance-ment of the IBM PC XT is designed toemulate the legendary IBM System/370mainframe. According to IBM, it shouldrun many of the same programs that runon the large machines in the System/370VM/CMS (Virtual Machine/Conversa-tional Monitor System) family. In addi-tion, the machine has the capability tofunction as an IBM 3277 display terminalconnected to a host computer. And it isstill functional as a PC.

The cost for the complete XT/370 systemwith 10 megabytes of disk storage is$8995. (A 20-megabyte system will cost$11,690.) An upgrade kit for an XT willcost $3790. You will also need, however,a new software package (called VM/PC),which costs $1000, and a monitor andadapter board for each of these hardwareconfigurations. Thus, for about $10,700,you can have the equivalent of a smallSystem 370 on your desk.

The XT/370 (which, following a tradi-tion of hard-to-remember 4-digit names,is officially called the 5160 Model 588)consists of a standard XT plus three ad-ditional boards. One is a new terminal-emulation board that emulates the IBM3277 display terminal. The second con-tains 512K bytes of memory. The thirdcontains a set of coprocessor chips.

by Rich Malloy

The three processors on this board wereall produced by IBM in association withIntel and Motorola. The first is based onthe Intel 8087 and handles floating-pointarithmetic. The remaining two are basedon the Motorola MC 68000. One of thesecan directly execute 72 of the instructionsused by the 370. The second can emulate45 of the 370's other instructions. A fewremaining instructions that referspecifically to the 370 have not beenemulated.

The VM/PC (Virtual Machine/PersonalComputer) software runs under PC-DOSversion 2.0 and enables the XT to func-tion as a single-user virtual machine with480K bytes of real memory and up to 4megabytes of virtual memory.

As for performance, the XT/370 is hin-dered by the relatively slow speed (com-pared to mainframes) of its disk drive. Butwithin this constraint, IBM claims that forcommercial applications the XT/370 isabout half as fast as an entry-level IBM4300 system. For scientific applications,the XT/370 should be twice as fast, thanksto the 8087 chip.

The XT/370 should run several popularcompilers without any alterations. Theseinclude OS/VS COBOL, VS FORTRAN,and Pascal/VS. These programs, alongwith customer application programs, canbe downloaded from a host 370 system.Special reduced monthly charges will beassessed by IBM for 370 software used onthe XT/370.

This new system should be availableduring the second quarter of 1984. Don'tlook for it in your local Computerlandstore, however. IBM plans to offer it onlyto large customers through its NationalAccounts Division, at least for the timebeing. One wonders if, a few monthsdown the road, Amdahl and Prime willoffer similar products at reduced prices.

The IBM 3270 Personal Computer

This second product from the Informa-tion Systems Group combines a standardIBM PC with an IBM 3270 display ter-minal. The noteworthy feature of this sys-tem is its capability to access up to four

programs running concurrently on one ormore host computers, along with a PC-DOS application program and two "note-book" data areas. Also, a new high-res-olution monitor is available for this sys-tem.

The 3270-PC has 256K bytes of memory,with options available for up to 640Kbytes. A 122-key keyboard includes all ofthe keys of both a regular PC and a 3270terminal.

The color monitor (called the 5272—another four-digit name) features eightcolors with a very high resolution, equalto that of the PC's monochrome monitor.An antiglare screen is also provided, butbit-mapped graphics are not. It seems asafe bet that a graphics adapter board willsoon be available for this monitor and thatit will be the new color monitor for thePC. The price for this new display is $995.

The 3270-PC Control Program, whichruns under PC-DOS 2.0, allows you to ac-cess up to seven programs: four on a hostcomputer through the 3270 link, two"notebook" data-storage areas, and a PC-DOS application program. You can definea number of windows through which youcan monitor any of these programs. Youcan define the size, color, and position ofany of these windows.

The Notebook data-storage areas let youtransfer data from host programs to PC-DOS programs and vice versa The sizelimit for each area is about 4000 bytes, andyou can easily edit the contents of thenotebooks. For example, you can runLotus's 1-2-3, select part of the results fortransfer to a Notebook area, add somedescriptive labels, and then transfer theNotebook contents to a host computer'selectronic-mail program.

The cost for a 3270-PC system with256K bytes of RAM is $4290. Additionalrequirements include the 3270-PC Con-trol Program ($300) and a monitor plusadapter board. It should be available fromIBM's National Accounts Division in thefirst quarter of 1984. ■

Rich Malloy is BYTE's product-review editor.

594 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

ORDER WITH CONFIDENCE

from one of the nation's largestconsumer electronic parts distributors!

DISK DRIVE

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Please Note: ORA Electronics products are intended to be sold to persons with a working knowledge of electronics and computing. If you do not have suchknowledge, please visit your local dealer for products and information.

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BYTE December 1983

595

Book Reviews

ElectronicallySpeaking:Computer SpeechGeneration

John P. CaterHoward W. Sams & Co.Indianapolis, IN: 1982232 pagessbftcover, S 14.95

Reviewed byJoseph A. Scott

Most technical books tendto be written for people whoalready know the fundamen-tals of a particular field butwho need to broaden theirexpertise. Other technicalbooks offer a cursory treat-ment designed for peoplewho want a general idea of acertain field without thedetails. Both alternatives areunsatisfactory for the novicewho is genuinely interestedin developing a particularskill or expertise but who hasno previous knowledge. Elec-tronically Speaking addressesitself to just such a reader.

Cater's book is written for"the neophyte to speech syn-thesis." It assumes the readerhas some knowledge of com-puter operation, a modicumabout computer architectureand electronic circuits, andan awareness of the ways acomputer can interface withthe world. Both the neophyteand a more advanced stu-dent of speech synthesis nowhave a ready source of infor-mation about a variety ofproducts currently availableto generate computer speechas well as a baker's dozen ofcircuits for speech-synthesisapplications that you canbuild yourself.

The heart of the book liesin the sixth chapter. HereCater details three majortechnologies in artificial-speech production: wave-form encoding for speech re-construction, the analog-formant-frequency synthesis

method, and LPC and PAR-COR synthesizers. Visualand verbal analogies and ex-amples, block diagrams,flowcharts, and skeletonschematics enhance the neo-phyte's understanding.Chapter 6 also compares thetechnologies in terms ofquality and understandabil-ity of the produced speech,cost, and memory require-ments.

Chapter 7 reviews 16speech-synthesis peripheralsfor small computers rangingfrom Centigram Corpora-tion's Cindy (formerly calledLISA) to Texas Instruments'Speak & Spell. Each periph-eral is categorized by the typeof speech-generating technol-ogy it uses, and the authorcompares each in terms of itstheory of operation, vocabu-lary, storage capability, andcost. The chapter includesphotographs of a few synthe-sizers, some of the internalhardware, block diagrams ofthe operating systems, andrelatively complete or skele-tonized schematics. It in-cludes three summary chartsfor each type of synthesizerand compares the models insuch areas as size, speechcapability, computer typeused, and cost. Although theauthor points out that someincomplete descriptions aredue to the proprietary natureof some of this information,that is to be expected in anew field. This caveat doesnot detract from the chapter'svalue. This chapter is infor-mative for people who areeither contemplating addingspeech to a computer or whowant to be able to intelli-gently discuss the state of theart in speech synthesis.

While chapters 6 and 7 de-lineate the state of the art invoice synthesis in terms ofhow it is achieved and whatis available, two other chap-ters discuss the historicaldevelopment of speech-mak-

ing devices and the potentialof synthesizers today. Thechapter on history provides abrief but fascinating discus-sion of early speech-makingdevices that range from vonKempelon and Wheatstone'stalking bellows to the Vodersynthesizer displayed in 1939at the World's Fair.

The last chapter offers apotpourri of uses for voicesynthesizers for home andcommercial applications.Here those of a more prac-tical bent may be somewhatdisappointed because theuses suggested are currentlymet adequately and inexpen-sively by bells and alarms.

But several intriguing ques-tions must be answeredbefore artificial speech canbecome a part of mainstreamtechnology. Cater addressesboth the equipment end andthe less tangible aspects ofcommunication humans takefor granted. This additionaldimension is found in a cou-ple of chapters that discusshuman speech. One chapterfocuses on the physical, phys-iological, and neurologicalmechanisms of speech pro-duction. This chapter is auseful reference point tounderstanding the standardsagainst which artificialspeech will be compared. Italso provides an awarenessof the complexity of humancommunication that mustsomehow be replicated by amechanical or electronic sys-tem.

A chapter on linguisticsprovides a look at the char-acteristics of what sounds areproduced, classifies thesounds produced in speechand used in English, anddescribes how they are pro-duced. Three tables in thischapter provide handy infor-mation for the new user ofspeech synthesizers. Thetables list the most frequentlyused speech sounds andspoken words in the English

language and the relativepower of a selection ofspeech sounds. This informsthe novice who is developinga vocabulary of the words hewill need and the sounds hehas to perfect to make syn-thesized speech more under-standable.

Finally, mention must bemade of a chapter that raisesquestions and makes sugges-tions about a topic rarelymentioned in technicalbooks. Cater devotes achapter to what he calls the"etiquette of computerspeech." He raises the issueof how humans will react ina world where not only peo-ple but things talk and wherethe things are not adept atresponding to social signalsthat say "shut up." Catermakes us aware of subtleraspects of human communi-cation that presently lackparallels in talking com-puters. For instance, humansusually tell each other non-verbally when they are aboutto speak and then await rec-ognition. To do otherwisebegs being labeled somethingranging from aggressive toboorish. Unless our talkingcomputers are programmedto similar good manners, wemay find ourselves in themidst of an armada of ag-gressive, boorish appliances.

I wish the author had in-cluded a discussion of someof the considerations andproblems associated with in-stalling a speech synthesizeron a personal computer,Murphy's Law being what itis. And I could have usedsome guidance on how toimprove a synthesizer's dic-tion, elocution, or what haveyou. Perhaps these concernsare so vast that they could fillanother volume. ■

Joseph A. Scott (6 Mione Way,Chico, CA 95926) is a psychologyprofessor at California State Univer-sity in Chico.

596 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 407 on inquiry card.

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BYTE December 1983

597

Book Reviews

Mastering CP/M

Alan R. Miller

Sybex Inc., Berkeley, CA:

1983

400 pages, S25

Reviewed byBruce R. Evans

At last, someone has writ-ten a book for those of uswho hanker to get into theguts of CP/M but lack theperseverance to get throughDigital Research's obtusemanuals. Oh, there are lotsof introductory books thatstart with "This is a disk.There's a hole in the middleof it. Insert it into the driveas in the photo." However, alot of us passed that phaseyears ago. We want to modifyour disk-operating systems torun modems, printers, andeven hard disks. Until now,nobody seemed interested inus.

Sybex Inc. and Alan R.Miller have come to our res-cue. Miller starts with anoverview of the layout andlocation of the CP/M operat-ing system. He quickly goesthrough the standard acro-nyms-CCP, TPA, IOBYTE,and the like. Miller deftlyputs these rather vague con-cepts into perspective. Hethen does the same with thebuilt-in commands and tran-sient programs such as Pip,Stat, and Mac, Digital Re-search's macro assembler.Emphasis is solely on assem-bly-language utilities. Beforeyou know it, Miller hascovered what most otherauthors spend a book on andyou are doing things likewriting an assembly-lan-guage program to let you re-start a crashed program.

Chapter 2 is worth theprice of the entire book. Al-though I am proficient inassembly-language program-ming, I have never quite been

able to understand how tomodify the low-level BIOS(basic input/output system).I doubt I am alone. And un-less you already know howto do it, the CP/M manualsare hopeless at explainingthis procedure. Most otherCP/M books don't even at-tempt this. Alan Millermakes it easy; his method isingenious. As he explains theprocedure, he has you gothrough all the steps withoutactually changing your BIOS.Then you save the unmodi-fied BIOS, load it back ontothe system tracks, and try torun it. If you followed all thesteps, it will go just fine.However, if it doesn't, youknow that you messed upthe steps rather than the newdriver routines you wrote.

In chapter 3 the author ac-tually has you add new driv-ers to your BIOS. Again,Miller does the unusual. Heassumes that anyone usingthis book will be proficientenough to write his ownbare-bones routines. There-fore, Miller concentrates onadding bells and whistles toour programs. Instead of asimple printer driver, heshows you how to writeprinter-control and status-checking subroutines, how touse the IOBYTE to streamyour output, and, finally, howto create a memory cache todirect your output to a diskfile. If you're getting the ideaby now that the software inthis book is as valuable as theinstruction, you're right.

Next, Miller starts to builda macro library. These sub-routines are used repeatedlyin assembly-language pro-gramming—for 16-bit arith-metic, screen control, diskmanipulation, and more.Rather than rewrite thesewith every program, the pro-grammer saves them on diskand then instructs his assem-bler to add them during as-

sembly of his program. Un-fortunately, ASM, the assem-bler that comes with CP/M,doesn't have the capability touse these. You must be usingCP/M's Mac assembler tobenefit from this section. Ifyou're not, you'll quickly seewhy you need it to do anyserious programming.

The next four chapters leadyou through the intricacies ofthe high-level BDOS (basicdisk-operating system) forboth disk and nondisk uses.Again, you learn by writingyet more utility programsand macros. If you follow thisthrough, you'll have written24 macros and 15 completeprograms. You'll have a diskfull of utility programs andthe knowledge to use them.

Now that you are proficientwith BDOS, Miller leads youthrough the disk directory.You read not just the ab-breviated form that the DIRcommand gives, you get allthe nuts and bolts of the sys-tem including memory mapsand disk parameters. Al-though CP/M is a fairly effi-cient system, it can be im-proved upon. By this point inthe book, you're prepared totry to do just that.

Miller finishes with themandatory listing of 8080 and

Z80 mnemonics. Again, hecan't stand to be conven-tional. His listings are fol-lowed by details of both in-struction sets. Although it'sdefinitely not a course in as-sembly-language program-ming for beginners, this bookis also an excellent referencemanual for advanced pro-grammers. Again, Millershows his knowledge of 8080and Z80 programming bypointing out the similaritiesand the traps present.

Alan Miller has written abook aimed at the experi-enced programmer that willexplain the ins and outs ofthe CP/M disk-operatingsystem. By leading the readerby the hand without in-sulting him, by building upa macro library that will ex-tend the raw CP/M system,and by demonstrating an in-timate knowledge of the sub-tleties of CP/M, Miller's bookis a worthy replacement forDigital Research's documen-tation. If I sound enthusiasticabout this book, it's becauseI ami

Bruce R. Evans (26 Marwin Rd.,Pickering, Ontario L1V 2N7,Canada) is a family physician and anexperienced CP/M user.

BYTE's Bugs

Line Change

Dean Brown of AlderwoodManor, Washington, spotteda bug in James Folts's IBM PCBASIC cross-reference utility(August, pages 378-384). Theprogram will work properlywith programs having 5-digitline numbers if line 6050 ischanged from

6050LABEL$(LABEL.NUMBER)

= SPACE$(5)

to

6050

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= SPACE$(6)

Brown explains, "Thechange is necessary becausethe STR$(val) function usedin line 6060 prefixes positivenumbers with a blank, thusrequiring the field length tobe one greater than thelength of the line number tobe displayed."*

598 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 350 on inquiry card.

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BYTE December 1983

599

ATTENTION BIG BOARD USERS!WHY USE OUTDATED TECHNOLOGY?

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STATE-OF-THE-ART CP/M Z80-A

SINGLE BOARD COMPUTER

On board video • 128K of Dynamic RAM and 4K ol STATIC (video mem-ory) • DMA • SASI {hard disk Inlerloce) • Floppy disk controller (4 drivescjy combinoilon o( 5-1/4 ' or 8") • 4 serial pons • Full Cenlronlcsprinter port • Expansion bus • Wide line and thin line graphics •Extended track Duller • Printer under • Fully interrupt driven • Parallelor Seriol keyboard • Compact Size • (8x14 inches)

$750.00 ,

APPLE WARE, INC

^- The Apple Usees GroupSoftware Library BonanzaAt truly affordable prices!Far the firsi time rjri|uy yourApple to rts fullest capacity,using specially packed dtBkswith over 60 outstanding

firograms each.not available from any other source)Each packed disk includes an extensive variety ofinteresting, useful and entertaining programsindispensable to all computerists' Each mixed categorypacked disk includes

BUSINESS * EDUCATIONAL • DATA BASE • GAMESUTILITIES • SCIENCE • MUSIC • GRAPHICS • FINANCELibrary Disks I, II and III are mixed categories Dedicateddisks are

• GAMES • UTILITIES • GRAPHICS - INTEGER *SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY. Each packed disk isavailable for only S59.95 each.

WHY PAY MORE?

Order direct from this ad and Save up to 5150. Buy

Library Disks I, II and III and net a special bonus diskFREE over 260 programs for £1 79 95 + S3shipping For the best value, receive all 9 disks featuringover 600 of our besL programs foe only 65 C eachfor a package price of only S3B9 Postage Paid!NEW Business • Professional • Eiecutive Package [enablingyou to bring your business to its nighest level rjl efficiency] alsoavaJabie drde Readers Servca Card for our complete catalog

For Orders Only Call nowTOLL FREE: 1800-327 8664Florida: 1-305-987 8665

|

vrSA

Compatible if

:l Franklm Ace [For 3 3 DOS]

NEW GENERATION OF

INTELLIGENT PAL/EPROM

PROGRAMMERS-FOP THE

NEW BREED OF ENGINEERS

35 EPROM5 • ROM EMULATION

DIGITAL. MEDIA

3178 GIBRALTAR AVENUE

COSTA MESA, CA 92626

C71«*J 751-1373

Circle 229 on inquiry card.

Circle 29 on inquiry card.

Circle 146 on inquiry card.

EXCLUSIVE - FREE

MANUFACTURER'S WARRANTY

• Prices are the lowest available.

Model Qtv. 1 Qtv. 2-10

FDD10O-8 S225 $200

FDD200-8 $275 $250

'Additional quantity discounts available

With the FDD-200-8. you buy twice the storage

capacity at a nominal cost increase.

Shugart-Compatible Drives

FDD100-8FDD20O-8

#No other companycan otter the manufac-turer's 90-day warranty at noextra charge.

• All warranty work is accomplished at the manu-facturer's factory authorized service center.

• We ship from existing inventory.

Visa/Mastercharge

MftS^fVl Disk Drive Services

689 L South Slate College Blvd., Fullerton, CA 92631(714) 526-1992/Call Collect: Mail Order: Add $7Shipping, California residents add 6% sales tax

Circle 207 on inquiry card.

Now, Interconnect AnyTwo RS232 Devices

WIRINGADAPTER

$24.95

Connects any twoRS-232 devices in anypattern. Temporary or permanent. Comescomplete with ten plug-in jumper wires.Wiring Adapter just $24.95plus $1.75 for postage andhandling, (IL res. add5%sales tax); we accept MC,Visa, ana Purchase Ordersfrom rated firms. Get FREEillustrated catalog ofinterface and monitoringequipment.

Oil electronics

P.O. Box 475 B • Mendota, IL 61342

Phong: (815) 539-5827

Circle 40 on inquiry card.

FLOPPY

DISK-DRIVE

REPAIR

Command Servicesexclusively repairsTandon and Shugart

disk drives We are

affordable, fast and experienced.

For service, call toll free:

1-800-782-5500

In New York State call:

1-800-323-1800

Command Services Corporation

7143 Henry Clay Blvd.Liverpool. New York 13088315-457-1432

Circle 78 on inquiry card.

SOURCESOFTWARE

Professional-quality, CP/M compatibleZ80 assembler accepts standard Zilogmnemonics as well as 19 pseudo-ops,prints a sorted symbol table, and canread from multiple input tiles. Modularstructure allows easy revision as across-assembler

Complete souce listing with detailedtutorial on theory of assemblers is con-tained in a 200-page manual. Profes-sional techniques fully explained includeRadix 40. binary search, expressionprocessing by recursive descent, etc.Source code also available on a standardformat 8" SSSD disk.

Manual with listing S25Manual and 8" disk S50

(foreign orders add S3 surface. S10 airmail)

PO Box 208

Red Bank. N.J 07701(201) 530-7245NJ residents please add 6% stiles tax

COMPUTER

PD/Eili all features of Promqueen less mimic mode.Software enhanced to include EPR0M QC utilities, RS-232 communication, printouts. 28 pin ZIF socket.Reads, edits runs andprograms all 5 volt2500 and 2700 seriesEPR0MS plus varietyof EEPR0MS all with-out personality mod-ules. Commodore C-64 host computer.Inquire about themimic mode capabil-ity in our VIC Promqueen. $299.00ROM Packs Industrial quality circuit cards aresocketed, solder masked, fully bypassed, and in-clude a ground plane for low noise operation. In-cludes 1 EPR0M. 8K& 16K models for VIC-20 andC-64. Specify 2732 or 2764 EPR0M type. Moldedplastic case. $39.00

GLOUCESTER COMPUTER

1 Blackburn Center. Gloucester. MA 01930 617-283-7719

ANALOG** DIGITALDIGITAL** ANALOG

CONVERSION MODULES

SOFTWARECAIN CONTROL

from 1 to 1024

mi board test 5-100 :' if i'i kh;mixable high and low inputs gain

hicjh ivfurrwy programmable gain instrumentationamplifier rustom hrvvri tesi S 100 2 to 15 khzconversion time rnunl id' hirjh rmd touj inputs granFrom 1 in IQO'i 12-bit sample and hold amplifier8 channel differential 16. ■ mo. -i analog to digital

For additional details about the AD-100-4 and otherfine California Data Corporation 100°c individuallytested, high reliability products, circle the readerservice card number below or for faster responsewrite or call us.

CALIFORNIA DATACORPORATION

3475 Old Conejo Road, Suite C-10Newbury Park, CA 91320

(805) 498-3651

Circle 257 on inquiry card.

Circle 201 on inquiry card.

Circle 60 on inquiry card.

■VII

IBM PC-COMPLETE SYSTEMVERY SPECIAL PRICE

64K, Two 320KB Disk Drives, Floppy Disk ControllerVideo Card and High Res Monitor $2590

SPECIAL OF THE MONTH!!

IBM PC W/64K, 360KB Disk Drive, FDC, Color GraphicsCard, Monitor, 10MB Hard Disk W/Controller, Cable,Software, Matrix printer, Cable, all for only . . $3990

TAVA PC

Desk Top IBM PC® Compatible Computer, 128K Ram,Two 320KB Disk Drives, Floppy Disk Controller, ColorGraphics Card, One parallel Port, Two serial Ports,High Res Monitor. System runs DOS 1.1; 2.0, andCP/M86® $1995

DISK DRIVES FOR IBM PC

Tandon 100-2

Slimline DS/DD 320KB

$240$250

MONITORSAMDEK

300A

300G

310A

TV

NEC

IB 1201M..

JC 1212M .

$190.00$160.00$190.00

/, .

II .III.

$160.00$330.00

JC 1203.JB 1260

$340.00

$690.00

$390.00

$1190.00

$750.00$130.00

PRINCETON GRAPHICS SYSTEMS

Hi-Res Color

PRINTERSC-ITOH

GX-100

8510

F-10

$490

$240 1550 $690

$460 F-10 $1290

$1690

DAISYWRITER 2000 CALL

OKIDATA

82A $440 84A

83A $690 92A

93A

$975$575$970

EPSON

FX-80 CALL

SILVER REED

Printer

FX-100

CALL

$690

BROTHER

HR-1

DX-15

$750$490

SMITH CORONA

TP-1

$520

STAR MICRONICS

Gemini 10

Gemini 15

CALLCALL

NEC SPINWRITER

7710-1.

7715-1

7720-1.

7725-1.

7730-1.

$2050$2200$2500$2500$2050

3510

3515

3530 ....3550 ....PC8023A

$1450$1450$1650$1950$550

HARD DISKS FOR APPLE AND IBM

CALL

MEMORY BOARDS

MONTE CARLO CALL

TECMAR CALL

AST

10 Plus. Five function Card $199

Combo Plus. 4 function card. Fully pop. 256K . $450Mega Plus. Fully pop. 512K $990

AST SIXPAK 384K CALL

QUADRAM

Quad Card. Fully pop. 256K $450

QUADLINK CALL

BIG BLUE $470

HERCULES Graphics Card $490

MAYNARD SANDSTAR SERIES

FDC 5 1/4 & 8" $220

Multifunction Card $90

Memory Card $180

DISK DRIVE FOR APPLE

Slimline, or Standard $190

APPLE He

Computer System, Controller, Two Disk Drives,Monitor $1590

■wiiwim

■VI

631 E. First St., Tustin, CA 92680

PRICES AND AVAILABILITY SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT-NOTICE

(714)838-9100

APPLE is a trademark of Apple Computers. Inc.

IBM is a trademark of IBM Corp.

CP/M86 is a trademark of Digital Research, Inc.

Circle 294 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

601

MEMOREX

FLEXIBLE DISCS

WE WILL NOT BE UNDER-SOLD!! Call Free (800)235-4137

for prices and information. Dealerinquiries invited and CO.D.'saccepted.

PACIFICEXCHANGES

100 Foothill Blvd.San Luis Obispo. CA93401. In Cal. call(800)592-5935 or(805)543-1037

wabash

Flexible Diskettes

6 Year Warranty-100% Certified

DELIVERED PRICES

51A" $160

single side T | each

SINGLE DENSITY

5V4"

$189H

„T I each

Packed TO par Soil Pjc«

5V4"

DOUBLE SIDEDOUBLE DEN5I148 TPI W/HUB RING

each

BULKSSSD

™ I each

BULKSSDD

MI

each

BULKDSDD

100/ClBB

White EnvelopsW/HUB RING

Free shipping in continental USA Call for

quantity discounts We accept money orders,

certified checks. VISA and MasterCard Personal

checks accepted, but lake two weeks to clear

bank ND add 4%

Software Services™

1326-25th St. S„ Suite DFargo, ND 581031-800-634-2248

APPLEINSTRUMENT

INTERFACE(DATALOGGER)

• Converts your Apple into a ChartRecorder

• Analog input: 0-10mV, 0-100mV 0-IV0.024% precision

• Chromatography, spectrophotometrypH, temperature etc. measurements

• Data storage, plotting, integration

• Menu driven

• All hardware and software includedfor introductory price of $375.00

SCIENTIFIC COMPUTERINTERFACING

23585 Timothy Ct

Elkhart, IN 46514

(219) 262-1691

Circle 334 on inquiry card.

Circle 398 on Inquiry card.

Circle 501 on inquiry card.

More SpecDroids™from SPECTRON INSTRUMENT

n

ROBOT IV KIT S250

A traditional style robot arm. 3 axis with grip and wiist rota-tion. It compliments our ROBOT I by introducing motion in threedimensions with parts gripping and handling. (It doesn't havethe drawing and vision ability of our ROBOT I.) Great for stack-ing sugar cubes, or (or transferring to your coffee. With soft-ware for learn mode using VIC 20/64 and joystick. Includes2 and 4 finger grippers. Optional vision and on module.

VISION SYSTEMS See- Del. and Nov. ad in BYTE.

VISION 1 PANORAMIC SCAN VISION KIT $100

Many othar vision avalama. *ak tor catalog.

SPECTRON INSTRUMENT

1342 W Cedar Ave. Denver, CO 80223Telephone (303) 744-7083

I ■ J% af± m M ■ ■ ■ _

Si a i ih i kii_

iiuuamu

FIRST TIME BETWEEN TWO COVERS

No matter what type ot computer you own, thisbook will get you on-line TODAY!Complete information on computer bulletin boardsystems including:

•What they are (and what's happening).•Kinds of information available.• Public domain systems.•Free software (and how to get yours).•Blitz course in telecomputing.•Buyer's guide to modems.Over 400 verified listings. Periodically Updated.On-line Logbook. Electronic Mail Address Book.$14.95 P.P. Make checks payable to:Computer Food PressDiv. of Coltrane & Beach

H 31754 Foxfieid Dr.

Westlake Village, CA 91361Voice Orders-(213) 836-7716 Modem Orders—(213) 559-9033

HOOK IN NOW!!

SPECIAL OFFICEWhen ordering, refer to this AD andreceive your FIRST UPDATE FREE!

of looking for reliableSource of Supply?

1MMWM

from Looking???

aboutQUALITY??

DISKETTES +RIBBONS +

ACCESSORIES

Call Bob Kelly Now. . .Kelly Computer Supplies

1811 Carl St. • St Paul, MN 55113

Toll Free ... 800 - 447 - 2929

MN Res. Call Collect.. .612/644-9030

MAXELL - DISKETTES

Circle 400 on inquiry card.

Circle 477 on inquiry card.

Circle 250 on inquiry card.

HOF

Books • Software • Ha

f>

rdwar

Add-Ons • for your ATARI 600X

/

800 XL. Commodore-64

VIC-20. Sinclair.Timex, Apple ll.Osborne+OSI

BOOKS for ATARI 400/500 XL/BOO XL

SOFTWARE IN MACHINE LANGUAGE

1200XL

FOR ATAHI

ATARI BASIC - Learning try

ATMONA-1

Machine language monitor A MUST

ol the

mac nine language

ATARI computers ire deicn

Order-No. 7072 ICI E19.9S

tlrewmgi. special sounds, key

ATMONA-2

explore the ATARI RAM/ROM area

Order-No. 164

17.96

adXss^opco'de or opV^nd'^AIw'ye'y

Small Buimcii Soltware (or

CPU may he changed.Includes Atmona'1.

aulobook disk. No cartridge.

□ DOS. no

FORTH language requiredOrdarNo. 731?

Macro-Assembler for ATARI B00MBK

One of the mot! powerful editor

assemblers on the market. Versatile editor

Order No. 7320

E49.00

BUSIPACK-1 Iwrnten In FOF

TH|. Com

mvoicmg 10.1* onlylOrder No. 7313

S9B.O0

Order-No. 7999 cartridge £129 OQATMS APPLICATION DISK

Order No 7311 130.00

Order No. 7303

MMG

Invoicing program in BASIC

Same as ATMAS but without macrocapability I32K anO 48K RAM!

Muling Lni in BASIC

PRINTER INTERFACES

Construction articles and software No

Ordar.Na.7I13 IDI

(7.4.95

Order-No. 7291 B19.9S

Duler and Dutribuior inaul

at are Innted. lATAftt•>*ta« ina.m»i ot atahi inc I

53 Redrort UnaPomona, CA917B6

tSatSmnt* "iMnWtHM

| SEE OUR CATALOG FOR 8 DISKETTES

SAVE UP TO 50%5<A DISKETTES

SPECIFY SOFT, 10 or 16 SECTORS

• wabash

S/10

S/50

S/100

SSDD[M13A4I IX)DSDD1M14A411X)DSDD-96TPI(M16A411X)

• oontrni data

21.00

29004300

10250142.50209 00

19900279.0041000

SSDD ICDC1242-00)DSDD(CDC1244.QO)

• 3M scotch

22003050

106 00147.00

210 0029000

SSDD(3M 744D-0IDSDD [3M 745-0)DSDD-96TPI (3M-747-0}

22 OO31.0045,00

109.00150.00212,00

213 00295.0039900

SSDD(MD525-01)DSDD(MD550-01IDSDD-96TPIIMD557-01I

25,2036.5045.80

124.00180.00226.00

245 00355.0044800

SSDD(MAX-MD-1M|DSDD |MAX-toD2-DM|DSDD-96TPI (MD2-DDM,

• dvsan

26 5038004300

130 00185 00210 00

25500360.0041000

SSDDIDYS 104-ID)DSDDlDYS 104-2D)DSDD-96TPI IDVS 204-2DI

48 50

172.00 340 0020O0O 395.00240 00 475 00

CALL TOLL FREE 800-824-7888

(VISA. M C, CO 0 ORDERS ONLY OPE RATOR 906Aa-MJi,. sr I. .. J 7 DAYS A WEEK

r-teativity Unlimited

< CHECKS. M 0 . VISA. W C- ADD S200 SHIP/ORDER

> CA RESIDENTS ADDB»* SALES TAX

i SURCHARGE ON ORDERSSHIPPED OUTSIDE USA

1741 SARATOGA AVESAN JOSE, CA 95129(408) 252-4210M-F, 8:00 AM TO 5;0O PMFOR NEXT DAY RESPONSE

I DEALER INQUIRIES INVITED

Attn: IBM P.C. USERS!

PeachText5000

PeathText 5000 has arrived. A completepersonal productivity system for word pro-cessing, financial modeling and simpledata-management. All at one price.

PeachText 5000 is available for a select listof microcomputers: The IBM PersonalComputer™, the COMPAQ Portable Com-puter™, the Texas Instruments PC™, theZenith Z-100™, and the Eagle P.C™. Free 90support from Peachtree S/W.

only $275.00

•EDUWARE S/W available•Terms: Visa, M.C. or C.O.D.•Dealer Inquiries InvitedCOMPU-MEDIASOFTWARE, INC.159 Main St. S.I.N.Y. 10307

CALL TOLL FREE 1-800-248-2418Mi in NY Slate 212-967-1700

Cvl

AUTHORIZEDDISTRIBUTOR

Circle 167 on inquiry card.

Circle 126 on Inquiry card.

Circle 459 on inquiry card.

"THE ORIGINAL BIG BOARD"

OEM - INDUSTRIAL - BUSINESS - SCIENTIFIC

<T SINGLE BOARD COMPUTER KIT!

Z-80 CPU! 64K RAM!

(DO NOT CONFUSE WITH ANY OF OUR FLATTERING IMITATORS!)

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THE BIG BOARD PROJECT: With thousands sold worldwide and over two years of field experience, the BigBoard may just be one ol the most reliable single board computers available today. This is the same design thatwas licensed by Xerox Corp. as the basis for their 820 computer.

The Big Board gives you the right mix of most needed computing features all on one board. The Big Board wasdesigned from scratch to run the latest version of CP/M*. Just imagine all the off-the-shelf software that can berun on the Big Board without any modifications needed.

*279

00 (64K KITTT BASIC I/O)

FULLY SOCKETED!

FEATURES: (Remember, all this on one board!)

SIZE: 8V>x 13V. IN.SAME AS AN 8 IN. DRIVE.REQUIRES: +5V @ 3 AMPS+ - 12V @ .5 AMPS.

64K RAM

Uses Industry standard 4116 RAM's. All 64K is available to Ihe user, our VIDEOand EPROM sections do not make holes in system RAM. Also, very special carewas taken in the RAM array PC layout to eliminate potential noise and glitches.

Z-80 CPU

Running at 2.5 MHZ. Handles all 4116 RAM refresh and supports Mode 2INTERUPTS. Fully buffered and runs 8080 software.

24 x 80 CHARACTER VIDEO

With a crisp, flicker-free display that looks extremely sharp even on smallmonitors. Hardware scroll and full cursor control. Composite video or split videoand sync. Character set Is supplied on a 2716 style ROM, making customizedfonts easy. Sync pulses can be any desired length or polarity. Video may beInverted or true. 5x7 Matrix - Upper & Lower Case.

SERIAL I/O (OPTIONAL)

Full 2 channels using the Z80 SIO and the SMC 8116 Baud Rate Generator. FULLRS232! For synchronous or asynchronous communication. In synchronousmode, the clocks can be transmitted or received by a modem. Both channels canbe set up (or either data-communication or data-terminals. Supports mode 2 Int.Price tor all parts and connectors: $39.95

FLOPPY DISC CONTROLLER

Uses WD1771 controller chip with a TTL Data Separator for enhanced reliability.IBM 3740 compatible. Supports up to four 8 inch disc drives. Directly compatiblewith standard Shugart drives such as the SA800 or SA801. Drives can beconligured for remote AC otf-on. Runs CP/M* 2.2.

BASIC I/O

Consists of separate parallel port (Z80 PIO) for use with an ASCII encodedkeyboard for Input. Output would be on the 80 x 24 Video Display.

TWO PORT PARALLEL I/O (OPTIONAL)

Uses Z-80 PIO. Full 16 bits, fully buffered, bi-directional. Uses selectable handshake polarity. Set of all parts and connectors for parallel I/O: $19.95

BLANK PC BOARD — $99.95The blank Big Board PC Board comes complete with fulldocumentation (including schematics), the character ROM,the PFM 3.3 MONITOR ROM, and a diskette with the sourceof our BIOS, BOOT, and PFM 3.3 MONITOR.

REAL TIME CLOCK (OPTIONAL)

Uses Z-80 CTC. Can be configured as a Counter on Real Time Clock. Set of allparts: $9.95

CP/M* 2.2 FOR BIG BOARD

The popular CP/M" D.O.S. to run on Big Board is available for $139.00.

DOUBLE DENSITY ADAPTER BOARD — $149.95 (A&T)

Requires no cuts or MODS to an existing Big Board. Gives up to 670K storage ona single sided 8 in. diskette. With software to patch your CP/M* 2.2.

PFM 3.3 2K SYSTEM MONITOR

The real power of the Big Board lies in its PFM 3.3 on board monitor. PFM commands include: Dump Memory, Boot CP/M*, Copy, Examine, Fill Memory, Test Memory, Go To,Read and Write I/O Ports, Disc Read (Drive, Track, Sector), and Search PFM occupies one of the four 2716 EPROM locations provided. Z-80 is a Trademark of Zllog.

Digital Research Computers

(OF TEXAS)P.O. BOX 461565 • GARLAND, TEXAS 75046 • (214)271-3538

TERMS: Shipments will be made approximately 3 to 6 weeks after wereceive your order. VISA, MC, cash accepted. We will accept COD'S (for theBig Board only) with a $75 deposit. Balance UPS COD. Add $4.00 shipping.

USA AND CANADA ONLY

■TRADEMARK OF DIGITAL RESEARCH. NOT ASSOCIATED WITH DIGITAL RESEARCH OF CALIFORNIA, THE ORIGINATORS OF CPM SOFTWARE

"1 TO 4 PIECE DOMESTIC USA PRICE.

BYTE December 1983 603

FOR YOUR APPLE,RADIO SHACK,IBM PC,OSBORNE ETC.

MEMOREX$2.10 Ea./100$2.85 Ea./100

DISKETTES-5V. IN.

3MSSDD $2.10Ea./50

DSDD $2.85 Ea./50

HARD DISC SUBSYSTEMS

5MB 10MB 15MB

APPLE $1,250. $1,500. $1,700.

IBM $1,300. $1,550. $1,750.

PRINTERS

FACIT 4510 P AND S $450. Ea.

PROWRITER 8510 P $395. Ea.

PROWRITER 1550 P $695. Ea.

TRANSTAR 315 $515. Ea.

We carry Daisy Wheel Printers, Floppy Disc Drives.Monitors. Terminals, Expansion Boards, Software,Ribbons, Printwheels, Etc.

ittct-Clicm i

Met-Chem International Corporation '

2911 Dixwell Avenue, Hamden, Conn. 06518

Phone: (203) 248-3212 or 1-800-638-2436

GARDEN OF EDEN

COMPUTERS

16485 Magnolia

Westminster, CA 92683

(714) 841-4994

HAYES 1200 BD

SMTMODEM 469.95

MICROMODEM lie (NEW).269.95

OKIDATA 92 439.95

GEMINI 10X 279.95

SOURCESUBSCRIPTION...49.95

ADV. VISICALC //e 239.95

PFS: FILE, WRITE, RPT.,

GRAPH EACH 79.95

BUFFERED GRAPPLER+...169.95

RANA ELITE I 239.95

RANA ELITE II 379.95

RANA ELITE III 479.95

CALL, WRITE, OR STOP IN FOR YOUR

FREE 42 PAGE PRICE LIST

F.O. B. WESTMINSTER, ADD 2% P.O./PLASTIC

TeleCOMM "

-A Complete Versatile, User-friendly &Telecommunicating

ELECTRONIC MAIL

• Mulli-.'Singlo

user Compu

* Password Pr

tected Tran

• Broadcasting

and Forwarc

• Totally Menu

■ Versatile Rrfti

• Save and De

■ Assembler L

nguage

Listed Price:

8495

Tele Video* , C/Vftf® , MP/M . TurboDOS based Computers.TeleCOMM provides you with the most efficient and cost-effectivemeans of communicating between you and your branch office,coworkers, friends or family via a local area network or nationwidetelephone link.

• E-CQM Accessons ■ Unlimited Users

• Send Letters/Messages Programs

• Full Screen Editing

• Date: Month/Day/Yeei

• Attractive Videci Attributes (TeieVi.li'.v

Special Introductory Price: $250

Tele WORD"— WORD PROCESSOR

• CPIM Based & Modem Interlaced • Prompt for Incoming Electronic Mail

• Built-in Operating System Commands • Multi-tasking [Concurrent Printing)■ Password Protected Transactions ■ Fully Menu-driven Functions

• Page/Document Format • Horizontal and Vertical Scroll

• Document Assembly and Merge • Calculator Mode

• Unlimited Undo Commands • Mailing List & Label/Envelop Printing

• Screen Editing • Block Move and DeleteSpecial Introductory Price: 895

TuH>oI)OS™-Free Consulting & Demo. Customized Drivers.Multiuser: S495

TelellOST —Allows your terminali'computer to communicate withother computers'E-CQM via telephone links. Price: B9S

TeklJST™-Mailing Lisl Program. Prints Labels. Price: 875International Computers & Telecommunications, Inc.932 Hungerford Drive, 1 6-B, Rockville, MD 20850(301) 251-0062

Circle 279 on inquiry card.

Circle 197 on inquiry card.

Circle 230 on inquiry card.

4164 ram

64K X 1 200 NS

SET 8/$35.00SET 9/$39.00

100 $3.95 Each

1,000 $3.85 Each

5,000 $3.75 Each

10,000 $3.50 Each

Digital Deli

2632 W. Baseline

Mesa, AZ 85202

Attn: RAM DEPT.

(602)831-5064

EXPRESS YOURSELF!

With beautiful silk-screened T-shirts & hats—J- iust for COMPUTER ENTHUSIASTS

SHIRTS are hi-quality, U.S.-made & hand screenedwith your choice of: *C~y 'CT^ ""C-^

«-r>AADHTCD rOt*p(J£v HIGH-TECHCOM(?yi£,R °^>®fG Human

JOCK Va B> ^>^>0

(S2 athletic grey) (S4 navy) (S5 orange)

HATS are high-quality, mesh-back sport capsimprinted with your choice of:

PERSomf% COMPUTER -AUCTIONComputer*" JOCK POTENTIAL

|H1| (H2) |H3|

SPECIAL PRICE: $7.00 each shirt or hat! Orderafew

for you, family & friends Great gift!! Child size, too!!!

HIS'NHERS SPECIAL: Set of two burgundy shirts:one says "HARDWARE", other says "SOFTWARE"Only $12/pair! (state sizes)

TO ORDER: SHIRTS come in S.M.L.& XL, or L Child.

HATS come in Red or Blue. Send name, address, shirtsize/hat color and imprint for each item. Add $1/order($4 outside US) for P+H and mail to:

ACTION POTENTIAL

Make checks (USS) Depi. BYl

payable to: p. o. Box 069

"ACTION POTENTIAL" daymen, DE 19703

Satisfaction guaranteed or money back.Offer ends 1/31/84. Allow 3-7 weeks delivery

INFO PROBE

A Powerful Data Base

Program for Scientific

and Commercial Research

WITH GRAPHS AND STATISTICSINTERACTIVE, NO PROGRAMMING

$AARFor IBM-pc'CPM-RTn'TSX'VAX

4f J with money back guarantee

s9. Full Featured Demo on Disc

Centre Computer Consultants

Box 739, State College, PA 16801PHONE 814/237-4535

Circle 142 on inquiry card.

Circle 10 on inquiry card.

Circle 64 on inquiry card.

OTDK

The heart of your system.

Dealer Inquiries Invited

5/4 Soft Sector Box/10

M1D-S 1 slde/dbl dens $27.50

M2D-S 2 sides/dbl dens $39.50

M2D-X-S 2 side/quad 96 tpi $44.50

8"Soft Sector

F1-S 1 side/sgl or dbl dens.. $58.30F2D-S 2 side/dbl dens $44.50

Checks-viSA-MC-C.o.D./Add $2 snippingCall or write for our complete list.

LYBEN COMPUTER SYSTEMS

27204 Harper Ave., St. Clair Shores, Ml 48081Phone:13131777-7780

SAVE 50% ON TDK DISKETTES

Circle 271 on inquiry card.

PROMPT DELIVERY! and

TRY TO BEAT THESE IC PRICES: :

DYNAMIC RAM

64K

200 ns

S 5.65

64K

150 ns

5.95

64K

120 ns

6.27

16K

200 nsEPROM

1.56

27128

300 ns

$19.20

2764

250 ns

5.99

2732

450 ns

4.25

2716

450 ns

3.60

2532

450 ns

4.75

STATIC RAM

6264P-15

150 ns

$38.00

6116P-3

150 ns

5.62

6117P-3

150 ns

4.20

S MasterCard VISA or UPS CASH COD

2 Factory New, Prime Parts jjPco ■

2 MICROPROCESSORS UNLIMITED

£ 24,000 Soulh Peoria Ave /Q1 o\ ic-t /iqcif BEGGS, OK 74421 (918)267-4961

Ppcea BuhjW! to cnange Pleas

expect n.gltet pnees on

ome cans One to wono w.de ■

SuDjOCl to OV.I.IJOIC 0U

ntmes Snipping S Insutance H

I A„ ... SS99tOtaets.ece.vGtl ■

oy 5 PM CST can Do Oeliyo.eO

1 rob py uie now mwntnc

The INTELLIGENTGRAPHICS TERMINAL

All of this on a single S-100 board

• Full 512 color mapping pallette

• TTL/analog RGB color or 8 level grey

• 680x480 4 color and/or 340x480 16 color

• Transparencies, overlays, multiple pages

• 8086, EPROM, 128K RAM expandableon-card

• Full editing terminal/graphics firmware

• Text throughput is greater than 2000 cps

• 10 windows, individually scrollable

• Programmable terminal formats to 113x40

• 64K x 64K virtual screen graphics withclipping and scale

• Drawn/filled circle, pie, arc. polygon

• Complex fill patterns and line styles

Low introductory prices: Assembled andtested $895. Partial kit $295.

Availible soon: Fully integrated expansioncard adds speech, sound effects, serial andparallel ports, and time-of-day clock

Advanced Graphics Engineering

P.O. Box 3403, Reston, VA 22090

(703) 435-8110

Circle 296 on inquiry card.

Circle 14 on inquiry card.

J&ffo FORMULA INTERNATIONAL INC. «^->

^^ :^J| 12603 Crenshaw Blvd., Dept. B, Hawthorne, CA 90250 ^^^"W

"B?/,. w-^? For information (213) 973-1921 • Orders Onlv f outside Calif.) (800) 672-fi7Sfi

vv

v

pinecoin

TM

Pioneer of Low CostApple* Compatible Computer

No Copyright Infringements!Compare These Features with Our Competitors:

• Powerful Utility Program (100% Apple Compatible)

• 68-Key Upper & Lower Case Keyboard with Numeric Keypad

• 25 Pre-programmed Function Keys

• 2 Speed Auto Repeat Funtion

• 64K User Memory—expandable to 192K

• 5A Switching Power Supply (110/220VAC)

• All ICs Are Socketed for Easy Service

• Nation-wide Dealer Network for Convenient Technical Support

And best of all, the price Assembled and Tested is just

.<#?

Now

with New

Improved

Keyboard

164KRAM

00

499

TM

pinecom dp-64

Dual Processor (6502 and Z80A)

Detached Keyboard

64K RAM Expandable to 192K

25 Function Key Keyboard

Auto Repeat Keys w/Upper/lower Case

2 Slim Disk Drives (optional)

100% Apple II Compatible

40/80 Column Display (optional)

Runs Both Apple Soft and CP/M Software

Model DP-64 Fully Assembled

$

625

00

AP II COMPUTER A&T

Apple Look Alike

48K User Memory

Supports Upper & Lower Case

100% Apple II* Compatible

$

445

00

AP-II MOTHERBOARD

Apple II+ * Compatible

48K Memory Space

8 Expansion Slots

Bare Board $69.95 ea.

Assembled & Tested ... .$295.00 ea.

PRINTER by BMC

Parallel Interface (Centronics

Compatible) StandardMicroprocessor Electronics80cps Bidirectional with Logic Seeking96 Character ASCIIAdjustable Sprocket and Friction Feed

$26500

Model BX-80.

MICRO II COMPUTER

100% Apple Compatible • No Copyright Problems!

Model I 48K RAM .

Model II 64K RAM

$47500$49g00

Model III 64K RAM w/Dual CPU.. U*tU(6502 for Applesoft & Z80A for CP/M)

All above models are standard with Numeric Keypad, Function Keys, AutoRepeat Keys, Upper/lower Case Function, Fully Assembled and Tested.

PERIPHERALS

Autoterm 80-Col. w/Softswitch

80-Column Card

$99.9599.95

80-Column for Apple lie*

. 49.95

ZBO CP/M Card (no software)

16K RAM Card

99.9549.95

Parallel Printer Interface

. 85.00

Buffer for Printer Interface (16-64K)Serial Printer Interface Card w/Adj. BaudDisk Controller

85.00

.85.00

65.00

Disk Controller DOS 3.2/3.3 Auto Select.EPROM Writer Card (2716/2732/2764)..

.75.00.75.00

*SEND*

ONE DOLLAR

FOR OUR

DETAILED

CATALOG

SEND ONE DOLLAR

Shipping & Ha

idling Charges

FOR OUR DETAIL CATALOG

Under $50.00

Over S50.00

Purchase

purchase

nside California

10%

5%

Outside Calif, (incl. Mexico & Canada)

15%

10%

25%

20%

Minimum Order $10.00/Calif. Residentsadd 6.59b Sales Tax. Phone Orders Acceptedon VISA or NIC ONLY. NOC.O.D.'s, Prices sub-ject to change without notice.

STORE HOURS

MON-FRI—10-7

SAT—10-6

Circle #193 for dealer inquiries. Circle #194 for all others.

'Apple and Apple II are the trademark of APPLE COMPUTERS, INC.

ZAMCONSULTANTS

SILVER STATE LIQ.

NEW & USED CPUs APPLE 11-E WITH 80COLUMN CARD 64-K MEM 1 DISK.

NEW $1,595

2nd DISK $300

GEMINI 10 PRINTER $355

ALL NEW EQUIPMENT

We carry many used CPUs & Peripherals.Visa & Master Card OK. Allow 3 wk. forpersonal check to clear.

CALL: (702) 294-0920(7021 871-6565

Daisy Wheel Printer

• 12/14 CPS

• 10/12/15 Pitch

• Parallel Interface

$395

■DynaxDX-15 Daisy Wheel 13 cps . ..SCALL• Silver Reed EXP 550 Daisy Wheel $595

- Brother HR-1 Daisy Wheel 16 cps $645

- Daisywriter 2000 W/48K $1095

>C. Itoh F-10 40 cps $1195

> Qume Sprint 11 Daisy Wheel 40 cps.. $1395

MICRO MART

8764 Complex Dr., San Diego. CA 92123(619) 268-0169 M

PERIPHERALS FORAPPLE AND IBM(PC)

ONE YEAR WARRANTY ON ALL ITEMSALL PRODUCTS BUILT IN U.S.A.

APPLE/SHUGART DRIVE |5'/«"| SI 79

DISK CONTROLLER (DOS 3.2-3.3) 59 S 19BO COLUMN CARD 139 29

(VIDEX EQUIVALENT)80 COLUMN WITH 64K RAM 129 28

(FOR He ONLY)GRAPHER PRINTER INTERFACE 179 29

WITH 16K TO 64K BUFFER

AND GRAPHICSOUAD CARD (4 FUNCTIONS) 159 33

(PARALLEL SERIAL BSR, CLOCK)

(PRINTER GRAPHICS ROM) 29

Z80 SOFTCARD 99 29

(MICROSOFT EQUIVALENT)IBM|PC| BARE MOTHER BOARD ITS

GEMINI10X 289

SILVER REED 500 459

5'A" FLOPPY DRIVE ENCLOSURE 17

COLORADO COMPUTER PERIPHERALSTHE P.C.B. COMPANY

R.R. 6. B0X7-D GOLDEN. CO 80403

(303)278-7172

Circle 463 on inquiry card.

Circle 288 on inquiry card.

Circle 76 on inquiry card.

LOOK at these prices!

AMDEK Color I . .. $289; Video 300 Green . . $150

INTRACTIVE Pkaso Card ... $135; IDS Prism . . $155

VIDEX Ultraterm .. $289; Videoterm w/swch . $230

GRAPPLER +.... $120, bufferboard (16K).. . $125

HAYES:

MICR0M0DEM II... $255, w/Term. Prog. . $290

SMARTMODEM 300 .... $219; 1200 ... $489

SMARTMODEM 1200B w/Smartcom II.. . $455

EASTSIDE Wildcard $105

SATURN Titan Combo Card 64K $500

VISTA Floppy Drive 5H" w/Contr. Card $325

TYMAC Parallel Printer Card $ 88

RANA Elite I .. $280; II .. $444; Contr. Card . $100

We Carry Ribbons 4 Diskettes (u Super Prices!

Payment: Money Order, Cashier's Check, Bank Wire;Personal Checks—Allow 2 weeks clearance, 'COD's:Cash/Cerlilied Checks only. N.Y Res.: Add 8V!>% S.T

Add $5 shipping on all orders.Please include phone number

Call or Write lor Additional Specials.

MICRO MVSTIQU6

73-20 183rd St., Flushing, N.Y 11366(212)454-6190

BIG STEPPER

Stepping-Motor Driver Box

Control Motion With Any Computer

Robotics

HOOKUP AND GO!

Provides all required power

Drives 4 motors at up to 5 amps per winding

while sensing 8 limit switch inputs

PARALLEL -BIG STEPPER": S450

SERIAL "SMART STEPPER" (RS232): S850

STEPPING-MOTOR TIPS COOKBOOK. S8

Includes 3-D positioning program

Centre Computer Consultants (814) 237-4535

P.O. Box 739 Stale College. PA 16801

Circle 290 on inquiry card.

Circle 65 on inquiry card.

Circle 151 on inquiry card.

SUPER PRICE SAVER

Apple 2E System $1495.

IBM PC System 2595.

Oynax 449.

Gemini 10X 269.

Okidata 92/93 4497829.

NEC 8023 399.

NEC 3550 1895.

Amdex 300/310 1 35./167.

Pi 3 148.

Rana I 259.

Tandon TM 100-2 249.

Teac Slim SW lie 249.

Panasonic Slim 5'A IBM 249.

Anchor Mark XII 300-1200 289.

Hayes 1 200/1 200B 4797489.

Koala lie 79.

Wesper IPI/BPO 69./159.

Quadram 64K 269.

Software 30% OFF CALL

Computer Price Club

16783 Beach Blvd., Huntington Beach, CA 92647

714-841-6160

This thing is weird...This thing is weird...This thing is weird..

LIMIK

electronic bugs

Lim ' ik (Lim ' ik] n. 1. The generic term lor ;i harmless species of £

electronic bugs. 2. A unique litie ol educational ktls winch leach you 2-

fundamentals In Op Amp design 3. Interactive loyi; thai make great "pets" p.

lor your inquisitive children :

SA LIMIK — Sound Activated LIMIK responds to accousiical pressure =;

S22.95 waves, emitts a crickeMike sound upon activation(Kil| *"

PA LIMIK — Proximity Activated LIMIK responds to Ihe presence ol ~

S24.95 ol human beings, animals, oi air/ oltiei statically charged m

bodies that are mnvni!) Sounds emitted are similar to —■

atreetrogor aCicida Hasanelfcchverangeof 510 20 —

feel, depending on environmental factors sucrt as «

temperature and humidity |Kn) ji£

To order, call (BMJ 74O-B380 or send check or money order to L

MK Enterprises, 8911 Norwich Rtl., Richmond, Va. 23229. Please 3

include S2.25 for shipping and handling Va residents add 4% sales tax 5'

We also make a line of unusual smnity sensors (T.vilight. Infrared & —

Proximity] which can interlace lo your computer over 2 wires Ask about 5-

oui Hyer •»

••pi|3M s; Buiiti sjtji.-pti.aM S| Bujui SjlirpjlBM Sj 6UJH1 Sll|l

MEMOREX

SAVE 50%

ON DATARELIABLE DISCS

Dealer inquiries invited

C1/ 11 Specify soft

3/4 lOoM6Sector Box/10

3481 1 side/dbl dens $22.30

3491 2 sides/dbl dens $30.70

3504 1 side/quad 96 tpi $30.00

3501 2 sides/quad 96 tpi $39.30

8'

Specify Soft or 32 Sector

3062 1 side/sgl dens..3090 1 side/dbl dens..3102 2 sides/dbl dens..

$22.10..$28.90..$33.80

Checks-VISA-MC-C.O.D./Add $2 Shipping

Call or write for our discount catalog.

LYBEN COMPUTER SYSTEMS

27204 Harper Ave, St. Clair Shores, Ml 48081Phone:13131777-7780

CERTIFIED 100% ERROR-FREE

Circle 107 on inquiry card.

Circle 272 on inquiry card.

■\ r

DISPLAYED VIDEO IS DRIVING DOWNPRICES ON DISKS! FREE SHIPPING!

TEC'S NEW HALF-HIGH 40 TRACK DISK DRIVEW/CASE & POWER SUPPLY AT AN INCREDIBLE

LOW PRICE! $195.00!!!!!

NEW! TRUE HALF HEIGHT DRIVES! 1 5/8 INCH

NOT 2 INCH OR 2 7/16 INCH! DIRECT DRIVE!

NO DRIVE BELT! 3MS TRACK TO TRACK!

TEAC's New Slimline 40 Track w/case & power supply $235.00

Tandon 40 Track TM-100-1 w/case & power supply $220.00

(DOUBLE SIDED 40 TRACK DRIVES ADD $75.00)

Shugart New Slimline Double Sided 40 Track w/case & P.S $299.00

Shugart New Slimline Double Sided 80 Track w/case & P.S $379.00

Tandon Single Sided Slimline 8" Disk Drive w/dual case & P.S. . . . $545.00Tandon Double Sided Slimline 8" Disk Drive w/dual case & P.S.. .. $625.00Two Drive 5 1/4" Cable (FOR most COMPUTERS) $23.99

(WITH GOLD PLATED CONNECTORS)

DV's Color Computer 1st Drive Only $389.00

ONE YEAR WARRANTY ON TEAC & SHUGART DRIVES/180 DAYS ON TEC & TANDON

Hayes Smart Modem 300 Baud $225.00 1200 Baud $525.00

Model 1 Double Density Board $89.00

DVs Line Filter W/Surge Supression $45.00

Diskette File Box "Holds 70 Diskettes" $29.95

PRINTER PRICES

MX80 FT w/Graphtrax Plus. $459.00 Gemini 10 $349.00

MX100 w/Graphtrax Plus . $659.00 Gemini 15 $479.00

RX80 w/Graphtrax Plus. . . $389.00 Citoh Prowriter 8510 $395.00

FX80 w/Graphtrax Plus. . . $569.00 Starwriter F10 $1169.00

FX100 w/Graphtrax Plus. . $779.00 Smith Corona TP1 $595.00

Printer Cable 10' long w/gold plated connectors starting at $25.99

DV'S EXCLUSIVE "YOU CANT LOSE"SIX MONTH WARRANTY!

"NO YOU'RE NOT SEEING THINGS, THAT'S FOUR

INTERNAL DRIVES IN A MODEL 4, WITH UP TO 4 MEG,

DISK STORAGE AVAILABLE NOW!

DV IS DRIVING DOWN PRICES ON DISK!

DISPLAYED VIDEO is now offering TRS-80' MODEL 4 with TANDON/TEC/TEAC disk drives, one of the most reliable disk drive systems onthe market, for INCREDIBLY low prices.

MODEL 4 with 64K dual 40 track double density disk drives, completesystem with TRSDOS 6.0 and 1 BOX OF DISKETTES

PLUG IT IN AND GO $1599.00/128K $1679.00

MODEL 4 with 64K dual 40/40 track double density disk drives, completesystems with TRSDOS 6.0 and 1 BOX OF DISKETTES

PLUG IT IN AND GO $1899.00/128K $ 1979.00

MODEL 4 with 64K dual 80 track double density disk drives, completesystems with TRSDOS 6.0 and 1 BOX OF DISKETTES

PLUG IT IN AND GO $1899.00/128K . $1979.00

MODEL 4 with 64K dual 80/80 track double density disk drives, completesystems with TRSDOS 6.0 and 1 BOX OF DISKETTES

PLUG IT IN AND GO $2199.00/128K...$2279.00

MODEL 4 with 64K four 40 track double density internal disk drives,complete systems with TRSDOS 6.0 and 1 BOX OF DISKETTES

PLUG IT IN AND GO $2299.00/128K...$2379.00

MODEL 4 with 64K four internal drives of any configuration available to

achieve up to 4 meg of disk storage CALL

MODEL III/4 Internal Two Drive Kit: Includes controller board, dual drivemounting bracket, dual power supply, all hardware cable; and connectors

(gold plated) & TEC Drive $399.00

4 DRIVE KIT MINUS DRIVE $349.00

MODEL 100 8K $679.00 24K $839.00

DV'S MODEL I DOUBLE DENSITY BOARDS $89.00

V

Visit our retail location at:

111 Marshall StreetLitchfield, MI 49252(313) 426-5086(313) 482-4424(517) 542-3280(517) 542-3939(517) 542-3947

ISPLAYED

WE CARRY TRS-80, IBM, LNW, EPSON & FRANKLIN COMPUTERS

IMMEDIATE DELIVERY

DV'S SIX MONTH

PARTS AND LABOR WARRANTY

Authorized Dealership at; 4

111 Marshall Street, Litchfield, Michigan 49252 P142

To Order: Call (313) 426-5086; (313) 482-4424; (517) 542-3280(517) 542-3939; (517) 542-3947

OR WRITE: «!..«■■

Displayed V,deo, 111 Marshall St., Litchfield, MI 49252 Clrcle 154 on mqulry card

'TRS-80 is a trademark of the Tandy Corporation Prices subject to change without notice.

• 8K ROM

• 2K RAM

• 4 motors

• optical scanners

• speaker

• 2 eyes

• ground

• control from any

scanner

RS-232C

interface

$660.00

10% Rebate til 1/1/84

Manual only $20 prepaid

nLllfel/1*- P-O. Box 4010KnlNW 2502 S.Neil

ROBOTS ChamPai9n'IL

61820

Circle 368 on inquiry card.

GET FULLY VALIDATED

ADA* ON YOUR S-100

PERSONAL

COMPUTER

NOW!

Digicomp'sDELPHI-100dual processorsystem hosts the first validatedAda for a microcomputer. Turnyour S-l 00 system into a work-station for Ada training andsystem programming.

CALL 1-800^57-6000

(NYS: 607-273-5900)

OR WRITE TO US TODAY.

iDigicomp Research

) TerracpHill Ithaca NY 14850 607 273-5900

•ADA IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF U S DoD |AJPO|

Circle 140 on inquiry card.

6801

Test Bed

& Programmer

Virtual In-Circuil Emulator (VICE)develops single-chip microcomputerprograms for the 6801/68701 andprograms on-board EPROM. A costand time effective way to programthe 6801/68701 for $695.

w i v 'i11? ir 119ai Soulh s,'eel

11 ■ k» I ■•< '* lalayette, IN 47904

APPLE COMPATIBLE

Disk Drive $150.00 ea.

Controller Card $35.00 ea.

Computer Case $55.00 ea.

Keyboard $70.00 ea.

(Numeric and Function Keys)Switching Power Supply. .$49.50 ea.Joystick (Heavy Duty) . . . .$17.50 ea.Slim Fan $25.00 ea.

Prices for dealers in quantities of 25 or more.End Users Inquiries welcomed.

ELECTRADE CO. (408) 946-2541

780 Trimble Rd. Suite 605 San Jose, CA 95131

Circle 168 on inquiry card.

SL-MICRO

STATISTICAL LANGUAGEfor MICROCOMPUTERS

features

VALUE and VAR LABELS

DATA TRANSFORMATION

FREQUENCIES CROSSTABS

PEARSON CORR REGRESSION

CONDESCRIPTIVE

Only $250. Manual $15Available for IBM PC. CP/Mor MS-DOS. Many Formats.

QSC BOX 23056

LANSING, Ml 48909

PHONE (517) 641-4428

Circle 363 on inquiry card.

BIG SAVINGS

Apple Compatible

Closeouts

• Cooling Fan

• 16K Ram Card

• Case

• Keyboard & Cable

• Mother Board

• Power Supply

• Disk Drive

$49394569

19959

195

CAL-COM

1109 BRIARWOODANAHEIM, CA 92805

714-635-0768

Radio Shack TRS-80™Computers

At Guaranteed savings

fromPan

AmericanElectronics

jgfe. 1117 Conway Ave."* Dept. B

Mission, Texas 78572Ph. 512/581-2766

TO ORDERCALL TOLL FREE

800-531-7466

Circle 335 on inquiry card.

PASCAL

DOS 3.3

NEW HIGH PERFORMANCEUTILITY FOR APPLES®

TRANSFER TEXT, CODE AND DATA

FILES IN BOTH DIRECTIONS BETWEEN

DOS 3.3 AND UCSD® PASCAL

VIEW EITHER DIRECTORY (CATALOG)

FAST CONVERSION OF TEXT FILES

FAST TRANSFERS OF ALL FILES

d-on^nc DOMESTIC$39.95 SHIPPING INCLUDED

INCLUDES DOCUMENTATION

PASDOS

LINNTON ELECTRONIC SYSTEMSP.O. BOX 17612PORTLAND, ORE 97217503 286 0459

DecOtec'

has you

covered

DecOtec" tailored covers extend the

life of your equipment by protecting

against dust, dirt, glitches and bugs.

Our covers can be tailored to fit ALL

equipment.

Write or call for free brochures and

estimates.

Dealer/OEM volume inquiries invited

nECOm.

P.O. Box 24449 Dept. B« Day1on.Ohio45424

(513) 236-9923

Circle 458 on inquiry card.

Circle 59 on inquiry card.

Circle 137 on inquiry card.

Hewlett Packard

Write or call for prices.

ra

SPECIALS

on INTREGATED CIRCUITS

6502

7.45

10/6.95

50/6.55 100/6.15

6502A/6512A

8.4U

10/7.95

50/7.35 100/6.90

6520 PIA

5.15

10/4.90

50/4.45 100/4.15

6522 VIA

6.45

10/6.10

50/5.75 100/5.45

6532

7.90

10/7.40

50/7.00 100/6.60

2114-L200

2.45

25/2.30 100/2.15

2716EPR0M

4.45

5/4.20 10/3.95

2532 EPROM

5.90

5/5.75 10/5.45

6116 2KX8 CMOS RAM

6.45

5/6.20 10/5.95

4116 RAM

8 for 14

4164 RAM

6.50

Zero Insertion Force 24 gin

Socket ^Scanbe) 2.00

AnchorAutomation.SignalmanModems

FREE SOURCE MEMBERSHIP WITH SIGNALMAN

All Signalman Modems are Direct Connect, and include cablesto connect to your computer and to the telephone. SignalmanModems provide the best price-performance values.

Dealer and OEM inquiries invitedVolksmodem (79) 59

RS232 or Atari Cable for Volksmodem 9

Mark VI for IBM Personal Computer (279) 179Mark VII Auto Dial/Auto Answer (159) 99Mark XII Smart Model 1200/300 (399) 299

219

529

DC HAVES Smsrtmodetn

DC Hayes Smartmodem 1200/300

PHOM QUEEN for VIC 170

Apple Emulator for Commodore 64 Call

STAT Statistics Package for C64 95

Solid Oak 2 Level Stand for C64 or VIC 29

C64/VIC Switch (networking) 125

BACKUP VI.O tape copier for C64 or VIC 20

CARDBOARD/6 Motherboard - VIC 64

CARDBOARD/5 Motherboard - C64 56

CARD PRINT G Printer Int. with Graphics 72

CARD PRINT B Printer Interface— C64/VIC 40

CARDB0ARD/3S Motherboard - VIC 22

CARDCO C64/VIC Calculator Keypad 32

CARDRAM/16 RAM Expansion - VIC 44

Complete CARDCO Line in stock

CIE and VIE IEEE Interfaces in stock

MSD SuperDrive for C64 or IEEE 365

MAE Assembler for C64 50

APPII—FRANKLIN if EMS

KRAFT Apple Joystick

Kraft Apple Paddle Pair

SPINNAKER Software in stock

Broderbund Software in stock

16K RAM Card for Apple

Multiplin—Microsoft

Solid Oak 2 Level Stand for Apple

Serial Card for Apple

MCP RAM/80 column card for lie (AP/TXT)

Z80 Softcard and CP/M (Microsoft)

RANA Elite I with Controller

Parallel Printer Interface/Cable

Microtek Interfaces in stock

Apple Dumpling with 16K Buffer

Grappler + Interface

Kraft Products for Apple in stock

DC Hayes Micromodem II

PFS: File

PFS: Report

Videx 80 Column Card

Hayden Software for Apple 20% OFF

Apple Blue Book

40

30

59

185

29

99139

235

389

69

160

129

2999595

209

19

H commodore

See us for Personal, Business ,and Educationalrequirements. Educational Discounts available.

PET SCAN I $245 base price

Allows you to connect up to 30 CBM/PET Computers toshared disk drives and printers. Completely transparent to theuser. Perfect for schools or multiple word processing con-figurations. Base configuration supports 2 computers. Addi-tional computer hookups $100 each.

COMPACK/STCP

$115

Intelligent Terminal Package for PET, CBM, C64

Includes ACIA Hardware / STCP Software

VIC/C64 Switch"HNetworking 125

Allows 8 computers to share drive and printer.

SCREENMAKER 80 Column Adapter for C 64 145

Provides big screen capability for business applications.

GENESIS Computer Corp

VIController (for C64 as well) 50

combine with BSR modules for home or business control

COMSENSE Remote Sensing Adapter torC64 orVIC 35

COM VOICE Synthesizer for C64 or VIC 139

includes software for text to speech, pitch ,etc.

COM CLOCK Real Time Clock with battery backup 45

VIC 20 Products and Software in stock

Thorn EMI Software UMI Software

ABACUS Software HES Software

18X RAM for VIC 64 Vanilla Pilot

27

VICTORY Software for VIC and C 64

Street Sweepers (VIC) 12 Kongo Kong (VIC)

Night Rider (VIC)AnnihilateAdventure Pack IIEducational Pack IStrategy Pack I

11161611

16

Cosmic Debris VIC)

Adventure Pack I

Metamorphosis

Trek

Grave Robbers

161216111212

PAPER CLIP Word Processor 109

ORACLE Data Base from Batteries Included 125

Super BusCard from Batteries Included 179

Commodore 64 Programmers Reference Guide 16

MicroChess for C 64—8 levels of play 19

excellent graphics and colorSPINNAKER Software C64. Apple,IBM,Atari

Computers First Book of PET/CBM 11

C64 or VIC SWITCH 125

POWER ROM Utilities lor PET/CBM 78

WordPro 3+/64 with Spellmaster 65

WordPro 4+ - 8032,disk printer 279SPELLMASTER spelling checker for WordPro

VISICALC for PET, ATARI, or Apple 189

PET-TRAX PET to Epson Graphics Software 40

SM-KIT enhanced PET/CBM ROM Utilities 40

Programmers Toolkit - PET ROM Utilities 35

Calc Result Advanced—C 64 135

EASY CALC for C64 65

PET Spacemaker II ROM Switch 36

COPYWRITER Word Processor for C64 49

2 Meter PET to IEEE or IEEE to IEEE Cable 40

Dust Cover for PET, CBM, 4040, or 8050 8CmC Interfaces (ADA1800, ADA1450, SADI in stock)

Programming the PET/CBM (Compute!) —R West 20

Compute! First Book of VIC 11

OMNICALC (HES) 79

HES MODEM with Software 65HES Software and Hardware in stockUMI products in stock

^faiwPKJMMfm $110

Database, Report Writer with calculations, Mailing Lists.

FORTHJor PET/C64 full FIG model —Cargill/Riley $50Metacompiler for FORTH for independent object code 30

KMMM PASCAL IV.1 for PET/C64 99

EARL for PET/CBM Disk-based ASSEMBLER 65

Super Graphics — BASIC Language Extensions 45

Fast machine language graphics routines for PET/CBM

RAM/ROM for PET/CBM 4K $75 8K $90

Commodore Public Domain Software for C64 75

DISKSPECIALS

Scotch (3M) 5" ss/ddScotch (3M) 5" ds/ddScotch (3M) 8" ss/sdScotch (3M) 8" ss/dd

We stock VERBATIM DISKS

Write for Dealer and OEM prices.

Sentinal 5" ss/dd 10/1.90 50/1.85 100/1.80

Sentinal 5" ds/dd 10/2.55 50/2.50 100/2.45

We stock Dysan disks

10/2.20 50/2.00 100/1.95

10/3.05 50/2.80 100/2.75

10/2.30 50/2.10 100/2.06

10/2.85 50/2.70 100/2.65

Wabash 5" ss/sdWabash 5" ss/ddWabash 8" ss/sd

10/1.60 50/1.55 100/1.4510/1.90 50/1.85 100/1.7510/2.00 50/1.95 100/1.85

We stock MAXELL DISKS

Write for dealer and OEM prices.

Disk Storage Pages 10 for $5 Hub Rings 50 for $6Disk Library Cases 8"—3.00 5"—2.25Head Cleaning Kits 11

CASSETTE TAPES—AGFA PE-611 PREMIUM

C-10 10/61 50/.58 100/.50

C-30 10/.85 50/.82 100/.70

DATASHIELD BACKUP POWER SOURCE $265

Battery back up Uninterruptible Power Supply with surge andnoise filtering. The answer to your power problems.

MultiPlan—IBM or Apple 185

Quadboard for IBM available

Peachtext 5000 Software Package 219

PFS Software for IBM and Apple in stock

VOTRAX Personal Speech System 280

BMC 9191 Color Monitor 229

BMC 12A 12" Green Monitor 85

Dynax (Brother) DX-15 Daisy Wheel Printer 469

Itoh Prowriter Parallel Printer 379Panasonic 1090 Printer with Correspondence Mode

Daisywriter 2000 with 48K buffer 1050

Gemini) OX 299EPSON, Okidata, other printers in stock

USI CompuMOD 4 R F Modulator 29We Stock AMDEK Monitors

AmdekDXY-100 Plotter 590A P Products 15% OFFWatanabe Intelligent Plotter 990 6-pen 1290

BROOKS 6 Outlet Surge Suppressor/Noise Filter 54

Electrohome 1302-2 13" Hi-res RGB Monitor 335

Panasonic 12" Monitor (20 MHz) with audio 139

Synertek SYM-1 Microcomputer 189

ALL BOOK and SOFTWARE PRICES DISCOUNTED

USI Video Monitors—Green or AMBER 20 MHz hi-res.Dealer and OEM inquiries invited

TfMJTH

datasystems

ZVM-122A 109 ZVM-123G 99

ZVM-131 300 ZVM-135 510

HERO 1 Robot (factory assembled) 2145

Z29 Terminal (DEC and ADM compatible) 680

ZT-10 Intel. Terminal with Serial Port 340

Z100 16-bit/8-bit Systems CALLWe stock entire Zenith line.

A

ATARr

SPECIALS

WE STOCK ENTIRE LINE—write for prices.SPINNAKER and Broderbund Software in Stock.

215-822-7727

252 Bethlehem PikeColmar, PA 18915

A B Computers

WRITE FOR CATALOG. Add S1.50 per order for United Parcel.We pay balance of UPS surface shipping charges on all prepaid orders(add extra for mail. APO/FPO. air). Prices include cash discountRegular prices slightly higher Prices subject to change.

Circle 7 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983 609

SUPER-FAST!

Z80

DISASSEMBLER

$69.95

Uses Zilog Mnemonics, allows user definedlabels, strings, and data spaces. Source orlisting-type output with Xref to any device.Available tor 280 CP/M or TRS-80.

SLR Systems

200 Homewood Drive

Butler, PA 16001

(412) 282-0864

Add S2.00 shipping. Specify format required.Check, money order. VISA, Master Card. C.O.D.PA residents add 6% sales tax. Dealer InquiriesInvited. CP/M, TRS-80 TM ol Digital Research,Tandy Corp.

wabash

When it comes to

Flexible Disks, nobody

does it better than

Wabash.

MasterCard. Visa Accepted.Call Free: (800)235-4137

PACIFICEXCHANGES

100 Foothill BlvdSan Luis Obispo. CA93401 (In Cal call(805)543-1037)

SINGLE-CHIP

MICROCOMPUTER

BOARDS & KITS

* 8048/8049/8050/8748

* 8036/8039/8040/8749

* 8031/8051/8751

* 6611O/6500/11/12/13

* 6501Q/6541Q

Boards from $24.95Kits from $55.95

TECH STAR LABORATORY

Suite 504, R&B Corp. Park1701 N Greenville Ave.Richardson, TX 75081

Circle 389 on Inquiry card.

Circle 334 on inquiry card.

Circle 419 on inquiry card.

ProgrammableCommunicationsTranslator

The PCT-100 is a configurable in-liners-z32 protocol and data translator,the pct-100 can provide:

* terminal or printer emulation

* dec or ibm system compatibility

* Macro-function keys

* "Type-ahead" and data buffering

* Baud rate conversion

* Handshake protocol translation(e.g. CTS/RTS, XON/XOFF)

The PCT-100 is configured using abuilt-in Communications TranslationLanguage. Programs can be easilyentered s edited from any ascii device.

PCT-100-PCB (PCB ONLY) $ 289

PCT-100-ASM (PCB W/ CASE)..$ 339PCT-512-M00 (POWER SUPPLY).$ 59

m

<cW£0

VISA'

Method Systems Incorporated

19751 South Lakeshore Boulevard

Euclid. Ohio Vtl19

(216) 531-0WB

SMAL/80

SMAi./nn

HL=M(PTR);DE=9;HL=HL+DE;IF A-L EQUALTHEN

A=A-14ELSEA=L;M(BC)=A;

AKKpmhlpr

LHLD PTRLXI D,9

DADCMPJNZSUIJ MPLI:MOV

D

L

LI

14

L2

A,L

L2:STAX B

New! Z-80 version (runs on 8080's):$175. 8080 version only: $150. Macro-processor only: $75. Available onCP/M disks. Add $4 for shipping.Complete tutorial text: "StructuredMicroprocessor Programming"(Publ; Yourdon Press) $20 plus $2shipping. Send for your free buttonand literature or try the UltimateDemo: SMAL/80 is Guaranteed!

Chromod Associates,

1030 Park Ave., Hoboken, N. J. 07030Telephone: (201) 653-7615

Now...You Can Monitor

7 Most ImportantRS-232 Interface Lines

Circle 280 op inquiry card.

Circle 69 on inquiry card.

Made in America

RS-232-INTERFACE TESTER

connects in series with any RS-232 interface. LED's clearlydisplay status of 7 functions:.transmit data, receive data,request to send, clear to send, data set ready, carrier detect,data terminaf ready. Requires no power; may be led in per-manently. Satisfaction guaranteed. ORDER NOW! Only $39.95plus S1.75 lor postage and handling, (IL res. add 5% saleslax); we accept MC. Visa. FREE, illustrated catalog of problemdelecting equipment. Phone 815/539-5827. Make checkspayable to:

OO electronics

Box 475 B, MENDOTA, IL 61342

Circle 41 on inquiry card.

SAVE MORE

THAN EVER ON

3M Scotch

DISKETTES!

$195 $070

^ ■ — 5V." DSDD ™ W ZJZ.

| Oty. 20 (745)-* ^taQty. 20

5'/*" SSQD—96TPI (746) $2.89 ea

BW DSQD—96TPI (747) $3.95 ea.

(Specify soft. 10 or 16 sector.)

8* SSSD (740) $2.07 ea.

8" SSDD (741) $2.54 ea.

8~ DSDD (743) $3.30 ea.

(Specify soft or 32 sector.)Lifetime Warranty!

3M HEAD CLEANING KITS $23.00

Save even more on quantity orders!

Minimum Order: 20 diskettes. Add $3.00 shipping

per 200 diskettes C.O.D. charge $1.65 additional.

Visa • Mastercard • Checks

For fast service, call

DISK WORLD!

Nationwide: 1-800-621-6827In Illinois: 312-944-2788

Suile 4806 > 30 E. Huron Street. Chicago. Illinois 60611

Authorized Distributor

COMPUTER INTERFACES

ini

Convert your electronic typewriterto a letter-quality computer printer!Available for Olivetti Praxis 30,35,40, S. 41 and Adler/Royal 1005,1010, 1011/5005, 5010, 5011.

• Centronics parallel or RS-232Cserial

• Easily installs inside typewriter

• Compatible with most computers

• Cable assemblies available

• Prices start at only $149.

eiectane2B301 Industrial Blvd.d, CA 94545

CALL TOLL FREE

800-227-0376

800-421-5389 [In CA)

M^MU™ and

your

HAVE THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS-

DataStar's powerful data input, sorting,and editing, and your Fortran programsto perform sophisticated data process-ing. With DSUBS, simple'subroutinecalls are all that are needed to read,write, and update DataStar data andindex files.

SUPER DEAL: UTILITY package thatincludes numerous string processing,terminal control, CP/M BDOS and BIOScalls, character and number I/O, etc.,and the DSUBS package, along withprogramming examples and thoroughdocumentation, all for sgg

Random Access, Inc.

P.O. Box 2094Bloomington, IN 47402

(812) 339-5854

DataStar is a trademark ol MicroPro Int.CP/M is a trademark ol Digital Research.

Circle 152 on inquiry card.

Circle 384 on inquiry card.

Circle 367 on inquiry card.

IS Hand well

4962 EL CAMINO REAL. SUITE 119 • LOS ALTOS. CA 94022

(415) 962-9265 « TLX 171947 HANDWELL LTOS • 1-(800) 821-3628

corp

7400

7400

7401

7402

7403

7404

7405

7406

7407

7408

7409

7410

7411

7412

7413

7414

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74100

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74116

74121

74122

74123

1922222222232.352.35262322292939592929223529292929254523292529291979579595797965791919191925232929343438344 604995556535

1 7539574545696569

2 902 90

32371 95293959

74125741267412874132741367413974141741427414374144741457414774148741507415174152741537415474155741567415774158741597416074161741627416374164741657416674167741707417274173741747417574176741777417974180741817418274184741857418674188741907419174192741937419474195741967419774198741997422174251742737427674279748237428474285742907429874365743667436774368743907439374490

39

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75

95

79

2.95

2 95

2 95

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1 95

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67

67

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78

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1 65

2 49

87

87

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1 95

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4 75

79

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75

1 75

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9 95

3 90

1 15

1 15

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85

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1.39

1.39

1 19

95

1 05

1 89

75

1 40

390

3 90

1 25

95

74LS00

J

74S00

.68

1 451 90

1 90

DIP SWITCHES

90909095

SOUND CHIPS

AY389H)AY3-8912MC3340

2 95

8 95

9 95

12 951 49

MOS PROMS

270B

2758 ■

2716

2716-1

TMS2516

TMS27I6

TMS2532

2732

2732-260

2732-200

2764

2764-250

2764-200

TMS2564

MC68764

27128

3 95

5 95

3 955 955 50

7 955 95

4 95

8 95

11 958 95

10 9516 95

12 9539.9525.95

74LSOO

74LS01

74LS02

74LS03

74LS04

74LS05

74LS08

74LS09

74LS10

74LS11

74LS12

74LSI3

74LS14

74LSt5

74LS20

74L.S21

74LS22

74LS26

74LS27

74LS28

74LS30

74LS32

74L533

74LS37

74LS38

74LS40

74LS42

74LS47

74LS48

74LS51

74LS54

74LS55

74LS73

74LS74

74LS75

74LS76

74LS78

74LS83A

74LS85

74LS86

74LS90

74LS92

74LS93

MLS95

74LS96

74LS107

MLS 109

74LS113

74LS114

74LS122

74LS123

74LS124

74LS125

74LSI26

74LS132

74LSI36

74LS138

74LS139

74LSI45

74LSM8

74LS1S1

74LSI53

74LS154

74LS1!>!>

74LS156

74LS157

74LSI58 ■

74LS160

74LSI6I

74LS133

74LS241

74LS280

74LS299

74LS339

t 25

1 4979

65

1 69

2 902 00

74LS16274LS16374LS16474LS16574LS16674LS16874LS169/4LS17074LS17374LS17474LS1757JLS1BI74LS19074LS19174LS19274LS19374LS19474LS19574LS19674LS19774LS22174LS24074L.S24?74LS24374LS24474LS24574LS24774LS24874LS24974LS25174LS25374LS25774LS25374LS25974LS26074LS26174LS26674LS27374LS27674LS27974LS28374LS29074LS29374LS29574LS29874LS32474LS34774LS34874LS35274LS3S374LS36374LS36574LS36674LS36-74LS36874LS37374LS37J74LS37574LS37774LS38ii74LS38r>74LS39074LS39374LS39574LS39974LS42474LS66874LS67074LS37874LS37974LS38174LS64074LS64S74LS690

1 1989

2 481 151 151 99

1 691 69

1 754 40

2 29

1 95

1 95

2 95

Tel: 1-(800)-821-3628

Z80 SERIES

8000 SERIES

8200 SERIES

6800 SERIES

CALL FORPRICE

S-RAM

2101

5101

2111

2112

2114

2114-25

2114L-4

2H4L-3

2114L-2

2147

HM6116-4

HM6116-3

HM6116-2

HM61 16LP-4

HM6116LP-3

HM6116LP-2

l/l

1 95

3 95

2 49

2 99

J 9 95

8

10 95

8

12 95

8

13 45

a

13 95

4 95

4 75

4 95

8 95

5 95

6 95

10 95

74SOO

74S02

74S03

74S04

74S05

74S08

74S09

74S10

74S11

74S15

74S20

74S22

74S30

74S32

74S38

74S40

74S51

74S64

74S65

74S74

74S86

74S112

74S113

74S114

74S124

74S133

74S134

74S135

74S136

74S138

74S139

74S139

74S140

74S151

74S153

74S157

74S158

74S160

74S174

74S175

74SI88

74S194

74S195

74S196

74S240

74S241

74S242

74S243

74S244

74S251

74S253

74S257

74S258

74S260

74S280

74S287

74S288

74S373

74S374

74S387

74S471

74S472

74S473

74S474

74S475

74S570

74S571

74S572

74S573

74S940

74S941

74S132

74S161

74S163

74S181

74S189

74S225

74S283

74S289

52

52

49

49

42

42

42

42

42

42

49

1 19

49

42

46

46

69

72

72

72

72

3 69

54

66

1 15

1 69

1 29

1 29

1 29

73

1 29

1 29

1 29

1 29

2 751 49

1 49

2 691 891 89

1 89

2 752 752 992 992991 351 351 29

1 2975

2 792 99

2 55

3 103 102 757 957 95

7 959 959 955.755.75

8 958 952 902 90

2 152.95

3 152 152.957 75

4 15395

Miscellaneous

6502

68000

8748

8255-5

82S123

82S129

82S131

93422

93L422

93425

93427

D2125AL-2

D2104

AY5-3600

6810

8304

4.9549.9524.955.952.552.993998.959.953.958.953.951.9512.953.953.95

DRAM

LINEAR

LM301CN

LM304H

LM305H

LM306H

LM307CN

LM308CN

LM309K

LM310CN

LM311D/CN

LM312H

LM317T

LM318CN

LM319N/H

LM320K-XX'

LM320T-XX'

LM320H-XX'

LM323K

LM324N

LM337K

LM338K

LM339N

LM340K-XX'

LM340T-XX-

LM340H-XX'

LM344H

LM348N

LM350K

LM358CN

LM360N

LM372N

LM376N

LM377N

LM380CN/N

LM381N

LM383T

LM386N

LM387N

351.981.893.25

.29

981.491.25

891 751.701 491.251.351.391 254.95

955.956.95

951 751 251.251.951.205.60

981.491 953 752751.251.791 951 251.40

16RAMCARD

CompatiblewithDOS3.3.CP M.Visicalc.PASCAL1YR WARRANTY

$39.!

IN-LINEPRINTER BUFFER

FOR ANY COMPUTER

ANY PRINTER■64K Byte■Parallel to Parallel"Parallel to Serial"Serial to Parallel"Serial to Serial

Model BF64S '225.°° I

For single computer

single printer

Model BF64M '395.°°

For multi-computer

single printerAllow up to fourcomputers

Share one printer

MULTIFUNCTION BOARD

WITH MEMORY, I/O

CLOCK

FOR IBM P/CCALL FOR LOWEST PRICE

SPEEDY EPROM

PROGRAMMER

FOR APPLE II

PROGRAMMING

2716, 2732. 2764, 27128,

2532, 2564

IN 30 SECONDS $99.00

Applell/lle

Compatible $175.00DiskDrive

CONTROLLERCARD $44.95

SUPER COOLING

FANS FOR APPLE

WITH SURG

LOGIC PROBE

WITH MEMORY

FUNCTION

s22.95

IBM MEMORYEXPANSION KIT

IBM 64K $52.95(9Pcs64KRAM)

HighQualityDiskettes

5%" SS/SD 15/Box5V." SS/DD 17/Box5V DS/DD 27/Box

80 Column Dot MatrixPrinter

CP-80byC.T.I.80cps parallel interfacegraphics printing compatiblewith EPSON MX80FT

SALE PRICE s299.00

32 758khz1 Omhz

1 B43220

2 097152

2 4576

3 2768

3 57953540505 0688

5 1855714360

6 1446 553680100

10 73863512 0014 31818150

16 0

17 430180

18 43220 0

22 118432 0

1.753953952.952 952.952.952.952.952 952 952 952.952 952 952 952.952 952 952952.952 952 952.952.952.952 952.952 95

TMS4027

UPD411

MM5280

MK4108

MM 5298

4116-300

4116-250

4116-200

4116-150

4116-120

21 18

4164-200

4164-150

1 99

3 003001 951 85

8 11 758 11 958 12 958 14 958 29 95

4 95

5 95

6 95

TERMS: For shipping include 52 ior UPS Ground or S3for UPS Blue Label Air. Hems over 5 pounds requireadditional shipping charges. S10 minimum order.

IS Hand well

4962 EL CAMINO REAL, SUITE 119 • LOS ALTOS, CA 94022|1(415) 962-9265* TLX: 171947 HANDWELL LTOS i

1-(800) 821-3628

corp

Circle 210 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

611

5V4" DISK DRIVES

* TANDON: TM 100-1

Single Sided, 40 TRK/SideSingle or Double Density .

* TANDON: TM 100-2

Double Sided, 40 TRK/SideSingle or Double Density

• CDC: 9409

Double Sided, 40 TRK/SideSingle or Double Density ....

$17900

Free Shipping

*23900

Free Shipping

$23900

Free Shipping

*229

Free Shipping

Order Toll Free

1 -800-531 -5475 (Outside Ot Texas) HI(512) 250-1489 (In Texas) gfl

Texas Residents Add 5% Sales Tax.

• SHUGART: SA 455

Halt Height, Double Sided, 40TRK/Side Single or Double Density ,

iCompuPdd

Corp.

13010 Research Blvd., Suite 101Austin, Texas 78750

of looking for reliableSource of Supply?

IE?

1MMWM

from Looking???

aboutQUALITY??

DISKETTES +RIBBONS +ACCESSORIES

Call Bob Kelly Now. . .Kelly Computer Supplies

1811 Carl St. -St. Paul, MN 55113

Toll Free ... 800 - 447 - 2929

MN Res. Call Collect. . .612/644-9030

3M SCOTCH DISKETTES

&TDK

flexible disks

Call Free (800)235-4137

for prices and information.Dealer inquiries invited.C.O.D. and charge cardsaccepted.

v/sa-

PACIFICEXCHANGES

100 Foothill BlvdSan Luis Obispo. CA93401 (In Cal call(805)543-1037)

Circle 88 on inquiry card.

Circle 251 on inquiry card.

Circle 334 on inquiry card.

SMITH-CORONA

Memory Correct III Messenger

Printer & Typewriter

• RS232 Serial OrCentronics Parallel

• Multiple Pitch 10.12,15

Order Toll Free:Free Shipping

$579

1-800-531-5475 (Outside Of Texas) £C(512) 250-1489 (In Texas)

iCompufidd

Corp

13010 Research Blvd., Suite 101Austin, Texas 78750

Circle 89 on inquiry card.

Apple

Compatible Drives

$195

Includes:

• 40TRK, 163 K Drive

• Cabinet & Cable

• Free Shipping

• 6 Month Warranty

Order Toll Free:Free Shipping

1-800-531-5475 (Outside 01 Texas)(512) 250-1489 (hi Texas)

iCompuPldd

Corp

13010 Research Blvd., Suite 101Austin, Texas 78750

Circle 90 on inquiry card.

SftM

• ■rW^gS

lWve.

A

(fl°st^jstef°s,.Vp,6 tor

>oyy££

Circle 128 on inquiry card.

Best Prices On Quality Printers!

Epson:

RX 80 »Call

RX80FT »Call

fxbo "Call

Fxioo «Call

Star Mlcrunlcs:

Gaminl-MX «299

Gemlnl-15 M39

Order Toll Free: Free Shipping

1-800-531-5475 (Outside Ot Texas) HI(512) 250-1489 (In Texas) WW

jCompuAdd

Corp

13010 Research Blvd., Suite 101Austin, Texas 78750

Electronic

Circuit

Analysis

• AC and DC analysis

• Very fast, optimized machine language

• Worst case, sensitivity analysis

• Sweep component values

• 64 Nodes

• Compare circuits

• Log or linear sweep

• Full file handling

• Full editing, error trapping

• Frequency response, magnitude and phase

• Complete manual with examples

• Transmission lines

• Complex y parameters

• Available for CP/M, MSDOS, TRSDOS

• Price - $150.00

Tatum Labs

P.O. Box 698

Sandy Hook, CT 06482

(203) 426-2184

MEMORY FOR IBM PC-XT

64K — $159.95320K —$319.95384K — $359.95512K — $439.95

• Uses 64K Drams

• Gold Fingers — Solder Mask

• Addressing On Any 64K Block

• No Parity

Add 6% sales tax in California. Add$2.00 for shipping. Add $2.00 for C.O.D.Send check or money order to:

IN SYNC

5738 Commerce Blvd.

Rhonert Park, CA 94928

(707) 585-2793

Circle 91 on inquiry card.

Circle 415 on inquiry card.

Circle 224 on inquiry card.

MEM-

Ideal for

• COMPUTERISTS

• OEM MANUFACTURERS

• DEVELOPMENT LABS

• UNIVERSITIES

• INDUSTRIALAPPLICATIONS

THE ULTIMATE OEM/PC

COMPATIBLE SINGLE

BOARD COMPUTER

FULL IBM - PC*COMPATIBILITY!

DEALERS AND OEM MANUFACTURERSQUANTITY DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE

Standard Key-board Interface

(Full PC compatible)

Eight CompatibleI/O InterfaceConnectors

(Full PC compatible)(compatible with allIBM-PC* plug-in cards)

I

Special J1Interface

(Allows horizontal mount-ing of compatible expan-sion cards for easy busexpansion and customconfiguring) (Board has62 pin gold plated compat-ible connector)

Extended ROMCapability

(Runs all compatible PCROMS) (Jumper program-mable to accommodate allpopular 8K, 16K, 32K and64K ROM chips and NEWEE ROMS! VPP power pinavailable for EP ROMburning!) (ExternalVPP voltage required)

Board Size

10.5 inch X 13.5 inch

Full Mega-Byte Ram Capacity!On board!

(With parity)

a 256K Bytes using 64K chips

a 1 Mega Bytes using 256K chips

Hardware Reset

(Overcomes reset flawin PC)

Power Connector

(Full IBM* pinoutcompatible)

8088 Processor

(Same as PC)

8087 NumericProcessor

(Same as PC)

PeripheralSupport Circuits

(Same as PC)

ConfigurationSwitches

(Same as PC)

Speaker/AudioPort

(Same as PC)

Wire Wrap Area

To facilitate special customapplications!

ORDER NOW!!!

rrKrt-BOflRD™ Evaluation Board Kit!

(Blank board with full assemblyinstructions and parts list.)

Includes highest quality PC boardwith gold plating, silk screen,solder mask

D MEGA-BOARD™ with full assembly instructions $99.95

D USERS MANUAL with theory of operation,

schematics, block diagram, application notes $19.95

D MEGA-BIOS™fully compatible MS-DOS/PC-DOS BIOS $29.95l

ORDER NOW!!!

SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!|10-day money back guarantee if not completely satisfe

4

we

DISPLAY

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

CORPORATION

4100 SPRING VALLEY ROADSUITE 400DALLAS, TX 75234(214) 991-1644

TERMS: Shipment made 2 to 5 weeks fromreceipt of order. VISA, MC, money order,company check accepted. COD'S require$25 deposit. Balance UPS COD. Pleaseadd $2.00 shipping and handling per order.

*IBM and IBM PC are trademarks of International Business MachinesCircle 153 on inquiry card.

©1983 Display Telecommunications Corporation

BYTE December 1983 613

Smith-Coron* TP-I Daisy Wheel Printer& $39900

UNBELIEVABLE!

• fully-formed chwBcters • ierl*l or parallel Interface

• compatible wlrh moil • choice of 10 or 12 CPImicro-computers models

Also for your TP-I letter quality printer —the Smith-Corona Tractor Feed

1 Adjustable tractor widths

• For continuous forms

• Quick, easy removal

CONVERSES COMPUTER

AT LAST! A FULL IMPLEMENTATION ol Hie original ELIZA program is

now available (0 run on your microcomputer!

Created at MIT in 1966. ELIZA has become the world's most celebrated

artificial intelligence demonstration program. ELIZA is a non-directive

psychotherapist who analyzes each statement as you type it in and then

responds with her own comment or question—and her remarks are

olten amazingly appropriate!

Designed to run on a large mainframe, ELIZA has never before been

available to personal computer users except in greatly stripped down

versions lacking the sophislicalion which made the original program so

Fascinating,

Now, our new microcomputer version possessing the FULL power andrange ot expression ol the original is being oflered at the introductoryprice of only 125. And if you want to lind out how she does it (or leachher to do more), we will include the complete SOURCE PROGRAM toronly 120 additional.

Order your copy of ELIZA today and you'll never again wonder how torespond when you hear someone say, "Okay, let's see what this com-puter of yours can actually do!"

ELIZA 18 AVAILABLE IN THE FOLLOWING FORMATS:

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH GROUP

jj^^^-^arc 931 Norm La Jolla Avenue. Dopt B^^flj,^™ Los Angeles. CA G0046

<^£^m: (2131 856-73G8 (213] 654-2214l^^^a^H MC. VISA and checks accepted

ALSORS232C

Dot Matrix Printer Interfaces with Apple II

Featuring an Apple llgi-compatlble parallelInterface, Addmaster Corporation has produceda new dot matrix printer, Model 170. The Inter-face includes a Centronics-type handshake andDB-25 interface connector, Baudot, and day —and time clock. The Model 170 provides 18 or21 characters per line, 6 lines per inch printdensity, on standard 2V2" adding machine tape.Designed to use with personal computers,Model 170 will produce hard and carbonlesscopies of programs, data or results. WriteAddmaster Corporation, 416 Junipero Serra Dr.,San Gabriel, CA 91776 or call 213/285-1121.

Circle 188 on Inquiry card.

Circle 32 on Inquiry card.

Circle 11 on Inquiry card.

Dysan

^CORPORATION

Solve your daac problem, buy 100% Mfact

from »tock. wWifci 24 houra. CD. toB FHEE(800) 235-4137 far price, and hfamMtton,

VIM «nd MMter Card accepted

PACIFICEXCHANGES

100 Foothill Blvd.San Luis Obispo. CA93401. (InCal. call(805) 543-1037.)

LOOK!

SYSTEMS

Dec Rainbow 100

$3345

CompuPro 816A

3927

MD2 w/terminal

1442

LTR QLTY PRINTER

Daisywriter 2000

$1042

Nee 3550

1065

Qume Sprint 11/40 1335

Juki

-call-

DOT MATRIX PRINTERS

C. Itoh 8510 AP

$386

Epson FX.MX.RX

-call-

Okidata 92

442

Gemini 1C

, 15

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1800 HOBBIE LANE,

UJC3

COMPUTERS

Prlcas Subject To

SANTA MSA,

Change Without

L=i (7C

7)544-53

04 Jj

■■J^ VISA • MASTERCA

RD Jfk

Tektronix 40XXTerminal Emulation

EMU-TEK™ IS NOW AVAILABLE FORIBM PC, XT, AND MOST COMPATIBLES

• Access powerful mainframe graphics using:—PLOT 10 (trademark of TEKTRONIX, Inc.)—DISPLA (registered trademark of ISSC0)—DARC (available from QUESTEL, Inc.)—and most similar packages and services.

• Upgrade with complete software compatibility.

• Increase versatility with options such as:—High resolution board support

—Local pen-plotter support—Hard copy on matrix printer—Advanced communications program features—Other terminal emulations, including:—VT100 (trademark Digital Equipment Corp.)—RETRO-GRAPHICS (trademark DigitalEngineering, inc.)

• 30 DAY NO-RISK TRIAL PRIVILEGE.

lOSOt DaleSt./PO. Box 615Stanlon. CA 90680

(f) <\ FTG)

Cr^J (DATA SYSTEMS <714> 995-3900

FTG will soon become PC INNOVATIONS

Circle 334 on inquiry card.

Circle 454 on inquiry card.

Circle 165 on Inquiry card.

FAST

FactoryFloppy DiscDriveRepair

Specialists in the repair of:

ShugartTandonPerSciPerSci, Inc.

12624 Daphne AvenueHawthorne, CA 90250(213) 777-7536TWX 910-321-4448

C LANGUAGEPROGRAMMERS

c-ayatamaC COMPILER

c-window™

The complete c language source level

program testing and debugging tool.

• Single step by c source line.

• Set breakpoints at line numbers.

• Display and alter variables by symbolname, using c expression syntax.

• No more prlntf or assembler leveldebugging!

c-window™ is a support package forthe c-eyetem. C COMPILER for

8086/8088 based systems.

Contact:c-ey«t»m»P.O. Box 3253

TM c-systems

Fullerton.CA 92634714-637-5362

S-100 EPROM PROGRAMMER

EPROM-32

■ High quality S-100 Board meets or exceeds IEEE-696.

• Programs 1K through 32K (byte) EPROMs.

• Textool zero-insertion-lorce programming socket.

■ EPROM is programmed through I/O ports and can be verifiedthrough I/O ports or located in memory space For verification.

• Programming voltage generated on-board.

• Personality Modules simplify adaptation of board to differentEPROM types:

PM-1-2508,2758 PM-3-2732.2732A PM-6-68764

2516,2716 PM-4-2564PM-2-2532 PM-S-2764

■ CP/M-compatible control softwareincludes commands for programming,verification, disk I/O and editing.

PM-8-27128

$269.95 *

(AST)

MUfoDynomlci

Corporation

ORDER DESK1-800-237-8400 Bit 440

Technical Inquiries

6363 Poplar Ave • Suite 105 ,gni 1-682-4054

Memphis. TN 38119

Trice includes EPROM-32, documentation and two PersonalityModules (specify). Additional Modules—$7.95. Control softwareon 8" SSSD diskette- S9.95.UPSPround-S2.00, UPS air—J4.00, C0D-S1.50, foreign add $15.00, TN add 6% sales tax.VISA and MASTERCARD welcome.

Circle 344 on inquiry card.

Circle 57 on inquiry card.

Circle 292 on inquiry card.

TOLL-FREE

ORDERING:

800-222-8686

PPT CUSTOM COMPUTERUll I TECHNOLOGY

FOR TECHNICAL SUPPORT/ 1 CRAFTSMAN COURT - BOX 4160 - SEDONA, ARIZONA 86340

SERVICE / IN ARIZONA:602-282-6299

Purchase your Hardware and Software directly from an OEM/Systems Integrator. Take advantage of our buying power! Westock a full line of Board Level Components, Software, and Peripherals. Call for your needs. We'll give you the LowestPrices, and the Technical Support and Know-How we are quickly becoming well-known for. Satisfied Customers Nation-wide! The Nations's Custom Systems House for Business, Education and Science. Call for a system quote.

FOREMOST QUALITY • ADVANCED SUPPORT • REASONABLE COST

OF PRIME INTEREST

Our prime interest at CCT is service andsupport. We build and sell hundreds ofsystems per year to the serious computermarket. We rigidly adhere to our strictpolicy of reliable machines, and reliablepeople behind them. We feel the Com-puPro product line to be the state-of-the-art of the computer industry.

THE CCT EXCLUSIVE WARRANTY

With any system we build, we provide,in writing, an unconditional 12 monthdirect warranty on the entire system, in-cluding mainframe, boards, drives, powersupplies, cabling and peripherals! We of-fer guaranteed 24 hour in-house repairand/or replacement with just a toll-freephone call. We can offer this, since we areso sure of our level of quality and reliabili-ty. It's great to know that in the event of aproblem, you're not out of businesswaiting on service turnaround. We deliver!

Our various OEM contracts with all themanufacturers of the components we in-tegrate, allow us this unprecedented flex-ibility. No factory O.K.'s necessary — justget it running —NOWI

Wyse 100 terminal -14" Green ... $699

WS Prom Option - Installed $50

Mitsubishi 8" DSDD drives, full or halfheight. Set-up FREE OF CHARGE .. $449

0kidata82 $389/83 $619

84 .. $1029/92 .. $469/93 .. $779Ashton-TatedBASEII8'orMD ...$299Supercalc86-forCP/M86 4MP/M .$99

Visual Terminals in stock Call

LearSieglerADM20 $499

Freedom 50 $499/100-$549

Hays Modem-$259 • Diablo 620-$1029We carry a full line of software in allavailable formats at discount prices.

TECH TIP CORNER

dBASE II USERS - CUSTOM TERMINALKEYS! Implement your arrow keys;emulate Wordstar edit commands - sendan SASE with $2.00 - (ATTN: TTC). Tell usyour arrow key codes. We'll return easy,detailed instructions to change almostanything. It's beautiful —Pat...

PROFESSIONAL LEVEL BUSINESS SYSTEMS

STATE-OF-THE-ART QUALITY, PERFORMANCE, RELIABILITY

CCT ANNOUNCES:

mnuuui/ium rmn

$3,399

OUR OWN IN-HOUSE ENGINEEREDCUSTOM COMPUPRO SYSTEMS

CCT-1 - ENTRY LEVEL S*100 BUSINESS SYSTEM

• Enclosure 2-Desk-20 Slot Mainframe • • CCT 2.4 Dual 8" Mitsubishi

• CPU 8085/88 - 6Mhz 8085/8Mhz 8088 • DSDD Drive System - 2.4 Megabytes • yfOWfMJCHJSiV s iMk-.:

• Disk 1 - DMA Floppy Disk Controller • • CP/M 80 - 2.2 LD/M - CCT Modified •

• RAM 16 - 64K Static RAM -12 Mhz • • All Cabling, Complete CCT Assembly,

• Interfacer 4 - 3 Serial/2 Parallel I/O • Testing, and Minimum 20 Hour Burn-in •

RUNS ALL STANDARD 8" CP/M SOFTWARE - INCLUDES OUR EXCLUSIVE 12 MONTH DIRECT WARRANTYCP/ M MP/ M NOTE: Each copy we furnish is CCT modified for the target system. M-Drive/ H and hard disk drivers are furnished,and the BIOS optimized for the fastest disk step rate, as well as terminal and printer compatibility.

• • CCT-2-THE FASTEST MICROCOMPUTER IN THE WORLDII * *

Enclosure 2-Desk • 90K Baud Parallel Terminal Board • 78 Key Professional Ergonomic KeyboardCPU8086-10Mhz • Disk 1 • 512KM-Drive/H • High Resolution Amber Monitor. INTRODUCTORY PRICE:128K-16 Bit Memory • CP/M 86 - CCT Modified • CCT 2.4 Dual DSDD Drive Systemlnterfacer3-8 • SS1 • All Cabling, CompleteCCT Assembly, Testing, & Minimum 20 Hour Burn-in

RUNS ALL CP/M 86 SOFTWARE • ULTRA FAST - INCLUDES 12 MONTH DIRECT WARRANTY * * CCT-3- IQMIum System similar to above, with 128K RAM $6,B99 * *

We are the largest in the custom configuration of complete state-of-the-art S-100 systems, at package pricing, with integration,burn-in and programming. We custom build CompuPro systems / hard disk systems for business applications. Call for Com-puPro literature, CCT system configuration data and technical information. We can save you money!

* SUPER PRICES* COMPUPRO COMPONENTS * IN STOCK *

SYSTEM SPECIALS -ALL CCT A4T, BURNED IN: 816A-J4299 816B-W999 816C-S6499

M-Drive CP/M-Blowout-$39 • Disk1w/CP/M-$449 • M-Drive/H-512K-S1149

CPU 8085/88-5319 • CPU8086/87-$579/10Mhz-$659 • CPU68K-$519/10Mhz-$639 • CPU-Z-$249

CPU286-$1249/10Mhz-$1359 • Disk 1-5369 • Disk 2-$S99 • Disk 3-$599

RAM17(12Mhz)-$329 • RAM 16(12Mhz)-$359 • RAM 21 (128K)-$779 • RAM 22 (256K)-$1399

Interfacer 1-$229 • Interfacer 2-$249 • lnterfacer3-5-$399/3-8-$459 • Interfacer 4-$349

System Support 1-$299 • Enclosure 2-Desk-$599/Rack-$649 • 20 Slot Motherboard-$210

CP/M80-$99 • CP/M86-$150 • MP/M8-16-S699 • CP/M68K-$279 • UNIX-SOON

86 Upgrade Kit: Consists of CP/ M 86,64K Ram, System Support 1, Cable - $749 Call tor CSC Boards—New Releases—Operating System Mods/Updates

$6,799

* PRICE BREAKTHROUGH *Hard Disk Subsystems

CCT/Fujitsu 5V subsystem, includes Disk 3, customenclosure & power supply, all cabling, A&T, formated,burned-in. Ready for any CompuPro or similar S-100system: CCT-5(5.5Meg)-$1599

CCT-10(11Meg)-$1899 / CCT-20(22Meo>$2299

? ? HARD DISK DECISIONS ? ?

Hard/Floppy Combinations

An exclusive CCT innovation. CCT/Fujitsu/Mitsubishiultra-system: 5V4" hard disk next to a 1.2 Meg. DSDD8" floppy. Includes Disk 3, custom horizontal enclosureand power supply, all cabling, A&T, formatted, burned-in. Will stand alone in any CompuPro system:CCT-5/1-$2099 CCT-10/1-S2399 CCT-20/1-S2799

NEW DISK 3/5V4" HD SYSTEMS *2.4 Megabyte Floppy Systems

CCT/Mitsubishi 2.4 Megabyte Dual DSDD 8" system.Includes custom horizontal enclosure, all cabling, A&T,burned-in. This is the fastest system available: $1149With stacked half-height drives: $1175

All Systems Carry Our Exclusive 12 Month Warranty.

Prices & availability subject to change. All products new, and carry full manufacturer's warranties. Call for catalog. Free technical help to anyone. We can configure boards & soft-ware for your system. Plug-in and go. Arizona Residents add sales tax. CompuPro" Trademark —W.J. Godbout; CP/M" MP/M* Trademarks — Digital Research

Circle 130 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

615

STUFF YOUR STOCKINGSWITH 3M SCOTCHBRAND DISKETTES,

FROMMY Supplier, inc\

WE HAVE ALL YOUR COMPUTERSUPPLY NEEDS

• Diskettes Storage Equipment

• Ribbons, Printwheels & Binders

• And Now...Color Coder Plus

C.O.D.

SO EASY TO ORDERCALL TOLL FREE

800-44B-4016IN CA 800-556.6786

MY Supplier, inc.

COMPUTER & WORD PROCESSING SUPPLIES

348 N. MOORPARK ROAD

THOUSAND OAKS, CA 91360

Serial 4 ■■•'"H ■ "► Parallel

PRINTERSIPLOTTERS!PUNCHES!ROBOTS!

Convert What You HaveTo What You Want I

* RS232 Serial ' Centronics Parallel' 8 BlUd Rites ' Handshake Slflnala

* Latched Outputs ' Compact 3v; x *% x 1)f

No longer will your peripheral choices be limited by the typeof port you have avallablel Our new High Performance 700Series Converters provide the missing link. Based on thelatest In CMOS technology, these units feature full baudrate selection to 19.2K, with handshake signals to maximizetransfer efficiency. Detailed documentation allowssimplified installation. Order the Model 770 (Ser/Par) orModel 775 (Par/Ser) Today!

M

only'89.'

IBdl-BPIrMSlrM,

^0.1 Offlc Box miO.n.ri). C.lltuml.9W*

Connector Option nowCA fU.W.m. BV. t»UPS Shipping (3.00

CALL (805) 487-1665 or 487-1666For FAST Delivery

FOR USE WITH MOST MICRO COMPUTERS

APPLE ATARI COMMADORl TEXAS IHSTRUHSMTS TRS-SO...

f J PAYMENT ENCLOSED $_

• Add

$l 00 per order for postage and handling Outside USA add $2.50 per unit ordered, send USfunds only □ Visa □ MasierCard

P.O. BOX 7008ROSEVILLE. Ml 483051-800-732-0614

lr>

I VI NOUN

>■ phoomi-s

Michigan Rasidsnts Add 4%

Circle 308 on Inquiry card.

Circle 175 on inquiry card.

SUPER-FAST!

Relocating Macro

ASSEMBLER$169.95

Directly generates COM, HEX, or REL files.Flexible REL format allows external oytes andwords with complete math operations on them(Microsoft format optional). Features Zilogmnemonics with nested macros, conditionalsand include files. Unique one-pass designgenerates compact intermediate code which isthen processed to resolve forward references.yielding tremendous time savings. Completelisting, symbol table and cross-reference outputmay be sent to any device. The perfect tool forassembly language programming. Linker in-cluded. Manual only — S30. For Z80 CP/M andTRS-80.

' L R Systems-

1*33 NORTH MAIN ST. • BUTLER. PA 16001 • (412) 2S3-OS64

ShtppmgSSU s izm CP M TRS-

r. 57 PA ' 6% ClmcK. MO, VISA M COO 0Dealoi and OEM inquiries invitedMsijIZilog nigil.il R(!searr:h Tandy Corp

HeathUsers

Double Your5l/A" disk storagecapacity without adding a drive.

Get twice as much from your H88 orH89 microcomputer. Our FDC-880Hfloppy disk controller, in conjunctionwith your 5%" drives, for example,expands memory capacity from 256bytes to 512 bytes per sector.

And it handles single and double-sided, single and double-density, 8" and5'/," drives — simultaneously.

Ol

C.D.R. Syatamt Inc.

Controlled Data Recording Systems Inc.

7210 CUlrmont Mesa Blvd., San Diego, CA 92111

(619) 560-1272

Printer Cables

Parallel —

&

.00*

*J5

.00*

ALTOS

ATTACHE

ATARI

CENTRONICS

COLUMBIA

EAGLE

IBM-PC

KAYPRO

OSBORNE

SANYO

TI-99

$3*

00*

*3s

— SERIAL —

ATTACHE COM.

RS232 (DB25P)

(9 conductor 1-8, 20)

CABLES UNLIMITED

40.30 Wabaska Dr.

San Diego, CA 92107

619-222-3366

00*

Circle 390 on Inquiry card.

Circle 62 on inquiry card.

Circle 461 on Inquiry card.

\ferbatim

flexible disks

Call Free (800) 235-4137 for

prices and information. Dealerinquiries invited. C.O.D. andcharge cards accepted.

VISA'

PACIFICEXCHANGES

100 Foothill Blvd.San Luis Obispo, CA93401. In Cal. call(800) 592-5935 or(805) 543-1037.

When It cornea to quality softwarefor microsystems, DYNACOMP delivers:

STOCK MASTER (APPLE): $59.95

The Systems ... Apple Atari Canon CommodoreCompustar CP/M Franklin H/Z-100IBM PC Kaypro Morrow NEC North StarOsborne SuparSrain Timex TRS-80

The Software ...

CARD OAME6 EDUCATION

HOME FINANCE INVESTINGTAX PLANNINO UTILITIES

Name brand dlaketf.ee: S19.SS/10 {SS, SO w/huo ring),tncludea FFtEE plaillc etorege box. Add 12.00 .nipping.

CALL OR WRITE FOR A FREE CATALOG

DYNACOMP, INC.

1427 Monroe Avenue, Rocheeter, N.Y. 14618

Telephone: (716)442-8960

ADVENTURE BUSINESS

ENGINEERING GAMES

LANGUAGES SCIENCE

| The Statistician |

CPM IBM-PCTRS-DOS XENIX

" Multiple Regression " Survey ResearchStepwise * NonparametricsRidge * X-Y PlotsAll Subsets * ANOVABackward Elimination " Random Samples

* Time Series Analysis " Data Base

* Descriptive Statistics " Search & sort

* Transformations " Hypothesis tests

Please call TOLL FREE1-800-334-0854 (Ext. 814)

flj ^L for more information^t ^L or write:H Quant SystemsV W Box 628

^^j(t_ Charleston, SC 29402^■^^^ VISA-M/C Accepted

Circle 334 on inquiry card.

Circle 160 on inquiry card.

Circle 359 on inquiry card.

WE'RE GROWING

OUR SALTIEST DEAL

TRADE YOUR SV*" DRIVE

SGL SIDE/DBL DEN FOR DBL SIDE/DBL DEN DRIVE $75.00 ALLOWANCE

DBL SIDE/DBL DEN FOR 2 EA

1/2 HGT DBL SIDE/DBL DEN DRIVES

$175.00 ALLOWANCE

IBM ACCESSORIES

AST

Six Pak Plus (Serial/Par/CLK 64K Expands to 384K) .. 299.00

Meg-A-Plus (Serial/CLK/64K Expands to 256K) 299.00

Meg-A-Pak (Expands Meg-A-Plus to 512K) 299.00

I/O Plus (SP) 149.00

PC-Net (with Shared User Software) 556.00

PC-Net Starter Kit 1,192.00

AST-5251 (Allows connection of IBM PC to System

340038) 626.50

MANY OTHER OPTIONS AVAILABLE.

ASHTONTATE

D-Base II 400.00

Bottom Line Strategist 279.00

Financial Planner 499.00

Friday 189.00

DOW JONES

Dow Jones Invest/Evaluator 125.X

D.C. HAYES

Smartmodem1200B-Smartcom 2 software included . 429.00Smartcom 2-Telecomputive for 300/1200 on disk 89.00

LOTUS DEVELOPMENT

Lotus 1-2-3(ondisk) 369.00

KRAFT

Joy Slick 47.50

Paddle(pair) 37.00

KEYTRONICS

Enhance your PC-with a superior keyboard 210.00

MAYNARD

Floppy Controller 155.00

Floppy Controller (Serial) 225.00

Floppy Controller (PAR) 205.00

Sandstar MOD-FDCMODULAR (for5'/."or8"drives) ... 200.00

ADD-ONS FOR Pararrel MOD 60.00

SANDSTAR Serial-MOD 79.00

MOD-FDC Clock Calendar MOD 69.00

Qame Adapter MOD 49.00

Sandstar Multi-Function Bd (Holds up to6 modular add-ons 82.00

PLANTRONICS COLOR PLUS

Color + Color Display Card (16 colors) 495.00

PRINCETON GRAPHICS

PGS HX12Hi-Res Color, The Best 475.00

QUADRAM

Ouadlink—Allows Apple Software to be used in IBM

PC HAS 64K Ram-Game Port Display Gen-Disk

Intf. w/software 520.00

Quadboard 2—64K Ram (expands to 256K) 2 Ser Port

CLK and software 289.00

Quadboard — 64K (expands to 256K) Par and Serial Port

CLK and software 289.00

Quad 512 — 64 Ram (expands to 512K) Serial Port and

software 259.00

Quadchrome — Color Monitor 489.00

Tilt Table 40.00

Chronograph Clk/Calendar BD 79.00

SHUGART DISK DRIVES

SA455L-1/2 HGT 320 K DS/DD w/BRKTS 239.00 ea.

440.00 for 2 ea.

TANDON DISK DRIVES

TM100-2A 320K DS/DD 225.00

TM55-2 1/2 HGT 320 K DS/DD w/BRKTS 249.00 ea.

440.00 for 2

1 TOLL FREE

1-800-545-2633CONTINENTAL U.S.

Circle 204 on inquiry card.

APPLE/FRANKLIN ACCESSORIES

ALS

CPM 3.0 Card 289.00

Z-Card II 139.00

ASHTONTATE

D-Base II 400.00

ALSTAR

RF Modulator 19.00

DOW JONESDow Jones InvesUEvaluator 125.00

GENERIC

2-80 Card (Emulates Micro-Soft) 99.00

80 Col. Video (Videx Compatible) 99.00

80 Col. Video w/Soft Switch 125.00

Joy Stick 20.00

E-Prom Writer 79.00

Pararell Interface 49.00

Pararell Interface w/Graphics 65.00

16K Ram Card 40.00

RF Modulator 13.00

HAYES

Micro-Modem II 259.00

Micro-Model II w/terminal package 279.00

KENSINGTON

System Saver/Fan & Surge Pro 75.00

KOALA TECH

Koala Gr/Tablet w/Software 99.00

KRAFT

Joystick for II E 44.00

LOTUS DEVELOPMENT

Executive Briefing System 139.00

MICRO-MAX

View Max 80(80Col for II +) 139.00

View Max 80E (80 Col w/64K Memory Exp to 128K).. . 129.00

MICROTEK

Dumpling 64K/lnterface and Graphics 64K Buffer . . . 235.00

Dumpling GX-P/Par Interface Card and Cable 99.00

Parallel Interface Board (RV611C) 61.00

BAM 16 (16K Add-on Memory) 45.00

NOVATION

Apple Cat II w/software 269.00

212 Apple Cat 625.00

Handset -29.00

ORANGE MICRO

GrapplerX & Graphics INterface 121.00

Grappler + 16K Buffer (Exp. and 5 to 64K) 179.00

PRINCETON GRAPHICS

Interface Card allows use of HX12Color Monitor. ... 156.00

OUADRAM

RAM 80—80 Col 64K card 119.00

APIC—Par Intf. card 60.00

APIC/G—Par Intf. w/Graphics 65.00

CPI—8' Cable (APIC to Cen. Printer) 34.00

APIC III—Par Printer Intf. for Apple w/8' Cable 95.00

TG PRODUCTS

Joystick—For Apple II + 38.00

Paddles 29.00

Selecta Port 38.00

VIDEX

Ultraterm 289.00

Videterm 249.00

VISTA

A800 Floppy Controller for 8" Drives 300.00

A-800-1 Cable 27.00

^yv^v

The Great Salt Lake

Computer Company, Inc.

1-801-363-3314

ATARI

KRAFT

Joy Stick 15.00

PERCOMAT 88 SS/DD Disk Drive w/Printer Port 499.00

RANARana 1000—SS/DD Disk Drive 379.00

TRAKAT-D2 SS/DD Disk Drive 379.00

STAR

StarGemini Interface to VIC 20 + CMD64 65.00

DOW JONESDow Jones Invest/Evaluator 125.00

KRAFTJoy Stick 15.00

KOALAKoala GR/Tablet w/software (specify VIC20 or CMD64) 99.00

COMMODORE

KAPRO II — IV

Sprinter K (5MHZ Speed-up) 99.00

K-Clock (Batt Backup Clk/Cal) 99.50

Video Output BD-<allows use of video monitor) 125.00

Kaypro II Upgrade Disk Drives (DS/DD) 239.00

(Trade In Allowance $75 for SS/DD Drive)

TIPROFESSIONAL

Lotus 1-2-3 369.00

OUADRAM

TI-64 64K Ram Card 206.00

TI-92 192K Ram Card 319.00

IBM UP-GRADEKIT

INCLUDES 9 EA. 4164-

200NS FOR EXPANSION

ON ALL IBM

PRODUCTS WITH

PARITY

$55.00/per set

Retail Sales

123 East 200 South

Salt Lake City, Utah 84111

Retail Hours

Monday-Friday 10 AM to 6 PMSaturday 10 AM to 5 PM

OUR CUSTOMERS ARE

MINIMUM SHIPPING $3.00 - NO SURCHARGE ON VISA/MASTERCARD

TOLL FREE 1-800-545-2633 ■ Continental U.S.

DISK DRIVES

DISK DRIVE CABINETS DISK SUB ASSEMBLY

SHUGART

5Vi" SA400(35TR) 160K 150.00

5V." SA400L(40TR) 190 K 189.00

5 V." SA455L (40 TR) 320 K Vi HGT .. 235.00

8"SA801R(SS/DD)600K 359.00

8" SA851R(DS/DD) 1.2 MG 479.00

QUME

5Vi" 142(40TR)320K V4 HGT 239.00

8" DT8(842) 490.00

MITSUBISHI

5V4" M-4853 Vi size 410.00

96 TPI same as TM 10O-4

M-2894-63(SS/DD)220V 449.00

8" M-289&63 399.00

Thinllne 8" DS/DD 1.2 MG

8" M-2894-63(110V) 389.00

STD 8" DS/DD 1.2 MG

AC SURGE ELIMINATORS

Grizzly (200W) uninterruptible power

system + surge protection .. 750.00Grizzly (500W) uninterruptible power

system + surge protection . 1,802.00Hawk AC power monitor w/surge

protection 160.41

Lemon (6AC outlets-3 prong) 44.00

Lime (5'-3 prong pwr cord w/on-off

switch 89.00

Orange-AC surge + EMI filter (6

outlets) 95.00

Peach (3 outlets) 69.00

8"DSC B8-2SKT-for 2-8" drvs

w/skt. conn 20.00

5Vi"DSC55-2SKT-for 1-5'/<"

dvs w/skt. conn 20.00

RS232MM-5' (male to male) 19.00

IBM to PAR 32.00

Osborne to PAR 32.00

Kaypro to PAR 32.00

OKI-Data Serial 24.00

QUV-T8/1H (hobby) 49.95

QUV-T8/2I (Industrial version) ..... 68.95QUV-T8/2P (w/timer & satety switch) 97.50

CDC

5V«" 9409-DS/DD 259.00

TANDON

5V«"TM100-1 SS/DD 160K 150.00

5'/<" TM100-2A FOR IBM-PC ... 225.00DS/DD (320 K)

TM101-4(96TPI Quad Den) 339.00

8" TM848-2 (DS/DD) 1.2 MG 400.00

SIEMAN'S

8" FD1003 (SS/DD) 110V/801 R) \169.00

8" FD1008 (SS/DD) 220v\compatlble/l99.00

MPI

5 M " B-51 4077) SS/DD 180 K 145.00

CONNECTORS

RS232 Connectors

SOLDER TYPE

DB25P 2.50

DB25S 3.00

DB25 Hood 1.00

S-100 Connectors 10lor25.00

DE9P 2.00

8" CABINETS

8" DDC88V28 w/PS vertical

for 2-8" drives 269.00

8" DDC88T-1 w/PS vertical-for 2

or 4-8" thinline drives 269.00

8" DDC88T-2 w/PS vertical for 2

8" thinline drives 200.00

8" DDC8H w/PS horizontal for

1 ea. 8" drive 249.00

8" DDCBV w/PS vertical for 1

8" drive 249.00

8" DDC88H w/PS horizontal

for 2-8" drives 269.00

5'/." CABINETS

5V«" DDC5H w/PS horizontal-for1-5V." drive 55.00

5V<" DDC5V w/PS vertical-for1 ea. 5V«" drive 65.00

5V«" DDC55V w/PS vertical-for2-5% drives 85.00

DISKETTES

»%

OUR BEST BUY'S

8" SUB ASSEMBLY

DDS + O 2EA SS/DD Siemens FD100-8Drives w/Cabinet 595.00

DDS +2 2EA DS/DD MitsubishiM2894-63 w/cabinet 1,075.00

DDS +4 2EA DS/DD 8" Thinline

Drives w/Cabinet 1,150.00

Specify—Vertical or Horizontal Cabinet

5'/-" SUB ASSEMBLY

DDS + 5 1 EA SS/DD Disk Drive 200.00

DDS + 6 2EA SS/DD Disk Drive 369.00

*Hayes Smart 300 199.00

*Hayes Smart 1200 499.00

Multi-Tech MT 212 AD (1200/300) .... 499.00

Novation J-Cat 300 119.00

U.S. Robotics 212A Auto Dial 469.00

*U.S. Robotics (300/1200) 375.00

VIDEO DISPLAY MONITORS

5V4" Soft Sector SS/DD 18.00/10

FOR APPLE, ETC.

51/4" Soft Sector DS/DD 24.00/10

FOR IBM PC & PARTNERSFOR QTY OF 100 (15% DISCOUNT)

,A " ;

DATA CABLES

DISKETTE STORAGE

AA-5V« (Holds 82 Disks) 17.00

AA-8 (Holds 82 Disks) 26.00

Smoked Plexiglass Disk TubsLIBRARY CASESCAS-5V4" Colors Available; color burs! asst., 2.50

CAS-8" . beige, black, blue. red. gray 3,00

Color Burst (Pack of 5) 12.00

FLIP "N" RLE

Flip"N" File25-5'/."(holds25)w/lock .21.00

50-5V4 (holds 50) w/lock 27.95

Flip "N" File "Original-5" (holds 50)... 21.00

Flip "N" File "Original 8" (holds 50)... 29.95

DISKETTES

Diskettes are 3m media/processed,

Cackaged and certified by CENTECH.Ifetlmewarranty—5 colors In each pkg. (Red,Yellow, Blue, Green, Brown)

5V<" Sgl side/dbl den 22.00/10

5V<"Dbl side/dbl den 29.00/10

5V4" 10 sector 24.00/10

5V4" 16 sector 24.00/10

8" Sgl side/dbl den 30.00/10

8" Dbl side/dbl den 40.00/10

AMBER

Dynax AM121 (20 MHZ) Hi-Res/BO Col/12" 139.00

USI PI-4 (20 MHZ) Hi-Res/80 Col/9" 139.00

USI PI-3(20 MHZ) Hi-Res/80 Col/12" 149.00

■jlf Zenith ZM122 (18 MHZ) Hi-Res/80 Col/12". 119.00

COLOR

Amdek 1-12" Composite (For Apple) 260.00

Amdek ll-12"-RGB (For IBM-PC) w/audlo.. 469.00

Amdek I + Composite w/audio 289.00

BMC 9191-12" Composite(For Apple) 255.00

Princeton HX-12-RGB (For IBM-PC) 475.00

Sakata SC-100-13" Composite (For All). .. 260.00SakataSC-200-RGB(ForAII) 489.0G

GREEN

BMC 12AU (15 MHZ) 80 Col/12" 80.0C

Dynax GM 120 (20 MHZ) Hi-Res/80

Col/12" 129.0C

Sanyo DM 2112 (15 MHZ) 64 Col/12" 80.00

Sakata SC-1000 (18 MHZ) 80 Col/12" 119.00

USI PI-1 (20 MHZ) Hi-Res/9" 129JX)

USI PI-2 (20 MHZ) Hi-Res/12" 139.00

S-100 PRODUCTS

CARD CAGES/MOTHER BOARDS

'IEEE-696-No termination required

w/card bare card

Slots Bare Bd

A + T cage cage

4 15.00

40.00 60.00 20.00

6 20.00

48.00 70.00 22.00

8 25.00

69.00 100.00 31.00

12 30.00

99.00 140.00 41.00

18 45.00

150.00 200.00 50.00

22 60.00

185.00 — 75.00

All card cages

will accommodate a 4" fan

Add $20.00 for 1 fan-Add $30.00 for 2 fans

MAINFRAMES

For 2 Standard 8" Drives

MF+DD6(6slotM/B)

MF+DD8(8slotM/B)

MF + DD12(12slotM/B)

SIERRA DATA

575.00

625.00675.00

For 2 Thinllne 8" Drives

IMF+DD6F 350.00

fl>

CLOCK/CALENDAR

S-100»Time in hrs., min., sec.»AM/PM orMilitary Format«Date in Mo., Day, Yr.,Day of Week & Leap Year recognition^hard interrupts (1024 Hz, 1 Hz, 1 min, 1hr)»On board battery (will last 14 mos.w/no power on)

QTC-CCS-BB (S-100) 45.00

QTC-CCS-A (A + T) for S-100 95.00

For 2-5Vi" Disk Drives

MF+MD12(12slotM/B) 560.00

Standard Plain Front

MF+12(12slotM/B) 499.00

MF + 22(22slotM/B) 550.00

All mainframes except IMF + DD6F have EMI filter, 2 AC outlets, 15ea. DB25, 2 ea. 50 pin, 2 ea. 34 pin, 1 ea. Centronlc cutouts, powersupply for 6" MF (- 5V1 A/ + 5V6A/ + 8V16A/ ± 16V3A/ + 24V6A)

COMPUTIME/QT BARE BOARD SET

PN-2048 Best Bare Board Set Available

QTC-SBC 2/4 CPU (SBC 880)

QTC-EXP + III 256K (CT256) Memory bd./

Expandable to 1MGQTC-FDC 5/8 Floppy disk controller

CUSTOMER SERVICEJOHN PIZZELLO

1-801-363-3317

Circle 205 on inquiry card.

Bare Board Set $150.00

1) Includes manuals & assembly instructions

2) Parts available

3) Monitor & B10S available. Add $30.00.

_^V*v

SDS-SBC.100.Z80 (4mhz) master 2

serial 2 par/floppy controller/64k

ram $655.00

SDS-SBC-100S4mhs slave/2 serial 2

par/64k ram $565.00

SDS-ZSIO/4-4 serial port I/O

bd $250.00

SDS-MUX-RS232 multiplexer

bd $235.00

SDS-HDI-M-Hard disk bd for

micropolis $129.00

SDS-CPM/B105-cp/m for SBC100

w/BIOS $150.00

SDS-Turbodos-Multi-user for master &

slaves $645.00

20 Slot MB 225.00

CPU 8085/88 349.00

CPU 8086/8087 550.00

Disk I 399.00

CPM 2.2 for Disk I 150.00

Disk II 610.00

Ram 16-64K 325.00

Ram17-64K 299.00

Ram21-128K 650.00

Interfacer 1 198.00

CPU/MEM/I/O

QTC-SBC 2/4 SB (SBC880) . . . $50.00

QTC-SBC 2/4 A A + T

(SBC880) $265.00

QTC-Z + 80BB(BIGZ) $28.00

DYNAMIC (64Ky256K or 1 MEG)

QTC-EXP + III Bare Bd. (CT256) $75.00

QTC-EXP + III 64K A + T

(CT256) $375.00

QTC-I/O + BB 2 SER 2

PAflA + T $75.00

QTC-I/O + A + T $300.00

QTC-ADA ADA Converter

A + T $400.00

QTC-Dual GPIB-488 IEEE 488

Interlace bd. $795.00

Interfacer 2 249.00

Interfacer 3 515.00

Interfacer 4 314.00

System Support I 308.00

Active Terminator 65.00

Enclosure 2 (Desk) 725.00

Enclosure 2 (Rack MT) . . . . 775.00

CPU-Z 228.00

M-Drive H 1,229.00

6 Slot MB 125.00

12SlotMB 155.00

CPU68K 510.00

The Great Salt LakeComputer Company, Inc.

1-801-363-3314

Retail Sales

123 East 200 South L"~Salt Lake City, Utah 84111Retail Hours

Monday-Friday 10 AM to 6 PMSaturday 10 AM to 5 PM

OUR PRIORITY ONE

CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS SAVE 6% SALES TAX

8 YEARS(1976)EXPERIENCE IN COMPUTER MAIL ORDER BUSINESS

ALPHACOM

40 or 80 COL.

• 80CPS

• FULL CHARACTER SETS

• GRAPHICS

• LIGHT WT. 4 TO 6 LBS.

• FRICTION FEED

ALPHACOM 42 (40 col) _ 101.00

ALPHACOM 81 (80col) 149.00

INTERFACE for ATARI, COMMODORE,

anrJTI 39.00

40 COL PAPER (per roll) 2.80

80 COL. PAPER (per roll) 4.50

BMC

PB101 16CPS, 2K Buffer, Par 649.00

PB104 Silver Reed Look-Alike 599.00

BROTHER

HR-1A17CPS Daisywheel 3K Buff 575.00

HR-1A 17 CPS Daisywheel 3K Buff 589.00

CENTRONICS

351P—200CPS, Par 100CPSCORR 1,795.00

6085P-6O0CPS. Par w/cabinet 6,500.00

6085S—600CPS, Serial w/cabinet 7,000.00

6085IBM—600CPS w/cabinet 7,500.00

358 3 or 4 Automatic cut sheet feeder 695.00

COMREX

CR-2 12 CPS, 5K Buffer 499.00

DATA-SOUTH

DS 180 180CPS/Serial or Par/Tractor 1,400.00

DAISYWRITER

Daisywriter2000-48KBuffer/20T040CPSLTR/Par . . 1,050.00Daisywriter Cable 40.00

PRINTER ACCESSORIES

DIABLO

Diablo 620-Uni-Direct Tractor 110.00

Diablo 620-Sheet Feeder 720.00

Diablo 630-Bi-Direct Tractor 275.00

Diable 630-Tractor Sound Cover 29.00

Diablo 630-SGL Sheet Feeder 775.00

JUKI-6100

Serial Interface 55.00

Bi-Dir Tractor 120.00

Uni-DirTractor 90.00

MANNESMAN-TALLY

Factory Quick Tear 230.00

Auto Front Feed 1,150.00

NEC

Thimbles 15.00

Vertical Tractor 219.00

Horizontal 152.00

Bi-Dir. Tractor 330.00

Cut Sheet Feeder 1,100.00

OKI-DATA

84 Cut Sheet Feeder 515.00

82/92 Tractor 55.00

Serial Intf. w/2K Buffer (For 82A) 125.00

Serial Intf. w/2K Buffer (For 92 & 93) 110.00

Okigraph I 82A or 83A Graphics ROM 40.00

Okigraph II 82A or 83A Disk for Apple 55.00

STAR-MICRONICS

Serial Intf. Bd 70.00

Serial Intf. Bd w/2K Buffer 120.00

Commodore 64 Intf. Bd 72.00

TOSHIBA

P-1350 Cut Sheet Feeder 800.00

P-1350 Bi-Dir. Tractor 210.00

Vista Solo (35TR) 199.00

Micro-Sci A-2 (35TR) 225.00

Micro-Sci A-40 (40TR) 269.00

Micro-Sci A-70 (Quad) 329.00

Micro-Sci Controller 70.00

Rana Elite I 249.00

Rana Elite II 399.00

Rana Elite III 509.00

Rana Controller 85.00

Super 5"THINLINE" 14 Size163K40TR 209.00

PRINTERS

DIABLO

620 (25CPS/Serial) 920.00

630(40CPS/Multi-IF) 1,790.00

630 ECS/IBM 2,100.00

DYNAX

Dynax-15 Par-13CPS Daisy Wheel

2 color PTG-3K buff 475.00

Dyanx 15 Serial-13CPS Daisy Wheel 525.00

c, rroH

Pro-writer I (8510A) Par 120 CPS 350.00

Pro-writer I (8510A) Serial 120 CPS 529.00

Pro-writer II Parallel-15" 669.00

8600 (180CPS) Par or Serial 18 PIN 90 CPS LTR 1,099.00

F-10 40CPS/Diablo/Par or Serial 1,149.00

F-1055CPS/Diablo/Par or Serial 1,425.00

GENERAL ELECTRIC

Demand Document Printers3400—400CPS Serial/Tractor to 60 100 CPS CORR. 2,175.003404—400CPS Serial/Tractor 100CPSCORR 2,459.00

MANNESMAN-TALLY

Spirit 80CPS Par 10" 330.00

160L(160CPC-40CPSLTR10") 589.00

180L(160CPS-40CPS LTR 15") 829.00

MPI

MPI-Portable Sprinter/160CPS/IBM Port/4K Buff, up to

64K 100 CPS CORR. Keybd avlb 795.00

MPI-99G (9") Par 499.00

MPI 150 Bl (15") Par2K Buff w/Graphics 675.00

MP1150 Al (15") Par 4K Buff w/Graphics 799.00

MP1150 Al (15") Par 16K Buff w/Graphlcs 899.00

NEC

NEC201020CPS Serial Daisywheel 950.00

NEC2015 20CPS Diablo Comp Daisywheel 950.00

NEC2030 20CPS Par Daisywheel 950.00

NEC205020CPS for IBM Daisywheel 1,050.00

NEC3510 35CPS Par Daisywheel 1,595.00

NEC3550 35CPS IBM 1,850.00

NEC771055CPS Serial Daisywheel 1,995.00

NEC771555CPS Diablo Comp Daisywheel 1,995.00

NEC8023A 100CPS-Par-Graphics-10" 389.00

NEC8025A 100CPS Par Graphics 15" 699.00

Serial Card 139.00

OKI-DATA

2350—350CPS 2 color tractor 2,195.00

2410P350CPS 2 color tractor 2,495.00

Microline 82A (SER & PAR-120CPS10") 379.00

Microline 83A (SER &PAR-120CPS 15") 629.00

Microline 92 (PAR-160CPS-LTR-10") 489.00

Microline 93 (PAR-160CPS-LTR-15") 799.00

Microline 84P(PAR-200CPS-LTR-15") 969.00

Microline 84S(SER-200CPS-LTR-15") 1,059.00

STAR MICRONICS

Gemini 10X NEW VERSION (PAR-120CPS-10") CALL

Gemini 15X (PAR-120CPS-15") CALL

Gemini 15-<PAR-100CPS-15") 399.00

Gemini Delta 10(Par-160CPS-10"8K buffer serial) CALL

SILVER REED

EXP550P-17CPS Daisy Wheel-PAR 670.00

EXP550S-17CPS Daisy Wheel-Serial 690.00

TOSHIBAP-1350(192CPS-120CPSLTRPARorSerial) 1,499.00

TRANSTAR

120 P14CPS Par Diablo Comp 479.00

315ColorPrinter500CPSPar 489.00

SYSTEMS

APPLE/FRANKLIN

Apple II E Starter—Includes CPU 1 F.D. Monitor and

Stand 1,525.00

Franklin 1000 w/color 799.00

Franklin 1200 Starter includes CPU 2 F.D. 80 col ... 1,625.00Franklin 1200 OMS includes CPU-2 F.D. and bundled

software 1,825.00

IBM-PC TYPESCOLUMBIA (1600-1) 16 bit 128K Ram 2 ea.320K Disk Drive-2 SER, 1 PAR, Key Bd. 8 slots,

Display Cd., bundled software 2,775.00

IBM P.C. 16 bit 64K Ram 2 ea. 320 K Disk Drive,

Princeton HG12X-ColorCard 3,395.00

EAGLE PC-2 16 bit 128K Ram 2 ea. 320K Disk

Drive 12" Green (HH-Res) bundled software

EAGLE PORTABLE 16 bit 128K Ram 1 F.D./10 MG HD/Green

Screen MS-DOS 210 bundled software 4,000.00

KAYPRO

Kaypro II w/bundled software 1,475.00

Kaypro 4 w/bundled software 1,875.00

Kaypro 10 w/bundled software 2,695.00

Sprinter K (5MH2 Speed-up) 99.00

K-Clock(Batt Backup Clk/Cal) 99.50

Video Output BD (allows use of video monitor) 125.00

Kaypro II Upgrade Disk Drives (DS/DD) 239.00

(Trade-In Allowance $75 for SS/DD Drive)MOLECULAR SYSTEMSMicro 10-8 16 bit (8086) CPU 1 ea. 8" F.D.—1 ea. 10MB HD—64K Ram expands to 256K up to 8 usersw/additional application processors—

CP/M and CP/M 86 5,200.00

Micro 153 16 bit (8086) CPU 1 ea. 8" F.D.—1 ea. 15MB HD—64K Ram expands to 256K up to 8 usersw/additional application processors—

CP/M and CPM 86 6,600.00

AP8001-ASYNC/9600BPS Application Processor . 589.00AP8003—ASYNC/19.200BPS Application Processor. 839.00

APB011—SYNC/50K BPS 1,079.00

NECPC8201A-Portable 2.4 MHZ CPU 16K Ram/Expands to64K-32K RAM LCD Display—Keybd (67 key-5 function)Modem, Serial and Par Port-FD and CassetteInterface—Uses 4 AABatt—bundled software 660.00

TERMINALS

TOLL FREE

1-800-545-2633

CONTINENTAL U.S.

Circle 205 on inquiry card.

W^>

The Great Salt Lake

Computer Company, Inc.

1-801-363-3314

PC8201A-90—N1 Cad Pak .... , 16.00

PC8221A—Portable Printer 149.00

PC8271A-02—AC Adapter 15.00

S-100

Compupro 816A 4,125.00

Compupro B16B 5,495.00

Compupro 816C 6,995.00

TELEVIDEOTS-801 4 MHZ CPU-64K 2 ea. 360K F.D.—

Graphics 12" green 1,900.00

TS-1603 5 MHZ CPU-128K 2 ea. 360K F.D.—

Graphics 12" Green CP/M 2,400.00

Teletote 1 4 MHZ CPU 64K 1 ea. F.D. 9" Amber

detach KYBD Par/Ser mouse port CP/M 1,350.00

Teletote 2 4 MHZ CPU 64K 2 ea. F.D. 9" Amber

detach KYBD Par/Ser mouse port CP/M 1,695.00

ADDS

Viewpolnt-A1 (White) 509.00

Viewpoint-A2 (Green) 539.00

Viewpoint-3A + (Green) 509.00

Viewpoint 60-Same as Televideo 925 715.00

Viewpoint90-SameasTelevideo950(132Col) ... 925.00Viewpoint Color 995.00

QUME

QVT-102 80 Col. Green (910 comp) 549.00

QVT-102 80 Col. Amber 560.00

QVT-103 80/132 Col. Green 865.00

QVT-103 80/132 Col. Amber 895.00

QVT-108 80/132 Col. Amber(925 Corp.) 715.00

TELEVIDEO

TV910 529.00

TV910 + 565.00

TV925 w/2nd page memory 715.00

TV950 w/2nd, 3rd, 4th page memory 925.00

TV970 1,019.00

RG1000/TV60GraphicsUpgradefor925/950 ... 1,100.00

VVYSE

WYSE-100 725.00

WYSE-300 (Color) 1,125.00

Mail Orders r~

P.O. Box 3150— Salt Lake City, Utah 84110Mail Orders

Monday-Friday 8 AM to 6 PM(sometimes much later)Saturday 10 AM to 5 PM

"IBM PC Compatible

pcpipeuni

c—ii ii o <>

Low, direct prices • Fast, direct service

2532-450 $425

2716-450 320

2732-450 399

2764-250 615

M164-150P 510

•4164-200 489

6116-P3 460

6116-LP-3 499

Add $2 95 shipping to all orders 2.6% lor credit card orders

OEM • Quantity discounts available • P.O.s on

approval • C.O.D. OK • Credit cards • FL residents

add 5% tax • All new, no surplus, no seconds

(Prices subjec't to change)

4920 Cypress St., Suite 100,

Tampa, FL 33607

In FL, and for info., call 813-875-0299

FOR ORDERS ONLY, 800-237-8910

3 AM-5 PM EST

PRO-1

PROFESSIONAL PROTOTYPINGBOARD FOR YOUR APPLE®

ALL I.C. PINS LETTERED BY COLUMN AND NUMBERED BY ROWACCEPTS ALL STANDARD I.C. SOCKETSACCEPTS UP TO 82 (16 PIN1 SOCKETSNUMBERED INPUT C OUTPUT PINS

$29.95

• VCC & GND PinsConvenientlyAvailable

• J.12V&.5U

■ Accepts all StandarIDS Connectors[100'CTR]

• Gdd-ptated Edge

• Provisions for FilteringPower Supplies

• Premium Quality BlackFiberglass

Hollywood Hardware, Ii

B842 Uil|itn Awa.

VanNuys, CA 91408

C21318B8-18M

fmm

of looking for reliableSource of Supply?Tf3

wuxmr

from Looking???

aboutQUALITY??

DISKETTES +RIBBONS +

ACCESSORIES

Call Bob Kelly Now. . .Kelly Computer Supplies

1811 Carl St. • St. Paul, MN 55113

Toll Free ... 800 - 447 - 2929

MN Res. Call Collect.. .612/644-9030

VERBATIM - DISKETTES

Circle 184 on Inquiry card.

Circle 215 on Inquiry card.

Circle 252 on inquiry card.

Boulder Logical Testing, Inc. Is now

offering a new EPROM Programmer FOR

$245.00

W EDHJ

• Microprocessor based

•Programs 2716, 2732, 2732A and 2532 EPROMS

• Zero Insertion Force (ZIF) sockets are standard•25 or 22 volt programming voltage option•Copy from EPROM to EPROM automatically•RS 232 interface with selectable baud rates•Thorough user documentation includes example

software drivers for popular computer systems,including Apple*, IBM PC, and CP/M*•Command set can be used from host computeror terminal

• Comes complete with power supply

To order, or for more infoimation write:

Boulder Logical Testing, Inc.

PO Box 902, Boulder, CO 80306

(303) 494-8196

includes shipping &

RIBBONSCARTRIDGES AND SPOOLS

PRICE PRICE

PER PER

RIBBON DOZEN

Anadex 9500 13.50 147.00

Commodore Pet 8023 7.00 B1.00

C. Itoh Prowriter 5.95 68.40

C. Itoh Starwriter F-10 4.75 54.00

Data South DS-180 6.50 75.00

Epson MX-70/80 5.25 60.00

Epson MX-100 9.95 108.00

Epson MX-100 Reload 6.50 72.00

Gemini - 10 2.50 27.00

IDS Microprism - 480 6.00 69.00

IDS Paper Tiger 460/560 7.50 87.00

IDS Prism 8.00 93.00

Okidata - 80, 82 & 83 2.50 27.00

Okidata - 84 5.00 57.00

TO ORDER CALL (313) 569-3218 orWRITE FOR OUR CATALOG

DWIGHT COMPANY, INC.

15565 NORTHLAND DRIVE

WEST TOWER SUITE 804

S0UTHFIELD, MICHIGAN 48075

IBM PC, APPLE, etc.

SHARING AND SWITCHING PROBLEMS?GILTR0NIX HAS THE SOLUTION!

HI Any CPU

fib fib &s

Printer 1 Printer 2 Modern or

Dot Matrix Letter Quality Other Peripheral

MANUAL UNITS AUTOMATIC UNITS

2-6 Pons OR 2-7 Pons

Selecto-Switch Aulo-Switch

Serial (RS 232)/Parallel (Centronics]

LOW COST ADD-ONS FROM THE MAIN(\S) MANUFACTURER

C^Giltronix

LAJ 3780 Fabian Way. Palo Alio, CA 94303(415)493-1300

Circle 52 on inquiry card.

Circle 159 on Inquiry card.

Circle 200 on inquiry card.

DISKETTES

3M Scotch' BRAND

AT SUPER LOW PRICES

WE WILL SHIP YOUR ORDER

WITHIN 24 HOURS AND WE PAY

THE SHIPPING CHARGES

" COD ACCEPTED

DEALER INQUIRIES INVITED

CALL TOLL FREE800 922-8193

IN CALIFORNIA800 468-1068

Teyco Buiinai* FormiComputer SuppliesPost Office Bo* 605Newbury oark, CA 91320

Scotch Diskettes

Rely on Scotch* diskettes to keep your valu-able data safe. Dependable Scotch diskettesar6 tested and guaranteed error-free. The lowabrasivity saves your read/write heads.They're compatible with most diskette drives.

\osf*'

(800)235-4137

Dealer InquiriesInvited

PACIFICEXCHANGES

UN) Fi-xhill 8kriSan Lim Obitpti414111 In Cat cal(WKHM2-VMS ..,S4t-11M7

0 TeleVideo DEALERS

• Fast Dump/Restore

over 600k per disk $60

• Type Ahead with Print Screen

64 Character Type Ahead Buffer 160

• 3270 & 276013760 Bisync Communications

from Phone 1 & Batech $700 ft $300

• TurboDOS for TeleVideo Start at $226

• BIOS & Formatting for 602H

use all 20 MB $150

• 8" Disk Drive for 802 Computer

Drive & Software $1,100

• RM Cobol™ for TurboDOS

Full System $525

Run Time $175

• Standby Power System

200VA-400VA-800VA At low at $363

RM/COBOL is a registered trademark of

Ryan-McFarland Corp.

CP/M»is registered trademark ol Digital Research, Inc.

TurboDOS is a registered trademark of Software 2000, Inc.

PLUS OTHER GOOD TELEVIDEO STUFF!

COGITATE, Inc.

SPECIALISTS IN UNIQUE TELEVIDEO SOFTWARE

24000 Telegraph Road, Southfield, Ml 48034

(313) 352-2345

VISA/MASTER CARD Accepted

Circle 41/ on inquiry card.

Circle 334 on inquiry card.

Circle 75 on inquiry card.

PRINTERS

ACCESSORIESFOR APPLE

Com

J^ter Products

OKIDATA— MICROLINE 92 & 93

160 CPS. true correspondence quality printing, fullgraphics. IBM PC compatible (optional), handlessingle sheet as well as fan-fold paper, professionaldesign construction and quality

PRM-43092 Oki 92 parallel List 699.00 $439.95

PRM-43093 Oki 93 parallel Lisl 1199.00 $795.95

PRA-43181 2K serial board $115.00

PRA-43086 IBM PC ROMS lor 92 $49.95

PRA-43087 IBM PC ROMS lor 93 $49.95

PRA-43080 Extra ribbon (2) $9.95

PRA-43088 Tractor lor Oki 92 $54.95

MICROLINE 82, 83, & 84

120 CPS (82. 83) 200 CPS (84). industry standardprinters, serial and parallel interfaces, Irue lower casedescenders, handles single-sheet as well as fan fold

PRM-43082 Oki 82 Lisl Price 599.95 $379.95

PRM-43083 Oki 83 wl FREE! tractor $625.95

PRM-43084 Oki 84 parallel List $1399.00 _ $925.00

PRM-43085 Oki 84 serial List 1499.00 $995.00

PRA-43081 2K serial board $159.95

PRA-43080 Extra ribbons 82192. 83193 $9.95

PRA-43088 Tractorlor Oki 82 $54.95

PRA-43180 Ribbons 83. 84, 93 $9.95

EPSON PRINTERSSave at Least 150.00!!

CALL US FOR THE BEST DEAL ON THE WORLDSBEST SELLING LINE OF PRINTERSIEPSON RX-80 100 CPS witractor. graphicsPRM-29082 A 499.00 Value. Save 200.00 _ $299.95EPSON RX-80FT 100 CPS with FREE graphicsPRM-29084 Friction & tractor leed _ SAVE $150.00EPSON MX-80FT 80 CPS with FREE graphicsPRM-28082 Friction 8, tractor leed _ SAVE $150.00EPSON MX-100 100 CPS 15" platten

PRM-28100 Friction & tractor SAVE $150.00

EPSON FX-80 760 CPS with FREE graphicsPRM-29080 Friction & tractor leed _ SAVE $150.00EPSON FX-100 160 CPS 15" plattenPRM-29100 Friction & tractor leed _ SAVE $150.00

GEMINI 10X & 15X

Star Mtcronics—up to 120 CPS, full graphics, frictionand tractor feed, Epson FX-80 comoatible

PRM-66010 Gemini 10X SAVE $150.00

PRM-66015 Gemini 15X SAVE $150.00

PRA-66200 Serial board. G-10. G-15 $69.00

PRA-66202 Serial board. G-10X. G-15X $55.00

PRA-66206 10X, 15X 4K serial $109.00

NEW! DELTA 10

160 CPS. up to 16K buffer, serial and parallel inter-faces, graphics friction and tractor. FX-80 compatiblePRM-66120 ___ - Save $150.00

COMREX CR-II

Best buy in letter quality printers. NEW! from Comrex!full featured letter quality printer. FREE! 5K buffer,logic seeking bi-directional printing, boldfaceproportional spacing, double-strike, backspace,underline, true super script and sub script, drop indaisy wheel cartridge

PRD-11101 CR-II parallel $495.00

PRD-11102 CR-II serial $589.95

PRA-11100 Tractor option $99.95

PRA-997O0 Cut sheet feeder $189.95

$179.95

PRA-11115 Keyboard option

SILVER REED EXP-550

Economical daisy wheel printer with 200 words perminute (18 CPS), full 15-inch platen. Diablo 630protocol, 10, 12,15 pitch or proportional printing. Veryquiet, very reliable; a bargain in the under $1000, letterquality printer market

PRD-52001 Parallel. List 895.00 $669.00

PRD-52002 Serial. List 995.00 $775.00

PRA-52000 Tracfor. List 159.95 $129.00

DISK DRIVE For APPLE

Totally Apple compatible, 143,360 bytes per drive onDOS 3.3 full one year factory warranty, half-trackcapability, reads all Apple software, plugs right intoApple controller as second drive, DOS 3.3, 3.2.1Pascal, & CP/M compatible

MSM-431010 Standard Disk II size $199.00

MSM-431030 Controller only $60.00

HALF-HEIGHT DRIVE For APPLE

Totally Apple compatible. Works with all Applesoftware and controllers. Faster and quieter than mostother drives, yet only half the size!MSM-581010 Half-height $199.95

SUPER DISKETTE SPECIAL!

We bought out a major manufacturer's overstock,and we are passing the savings on to you! Single sideddouble density, package of ten FREE plastic caseMMD-5120103 Apple diskettes $18.95

CP/M 3.0 CARD For APPLE—ALS

The most powerful card available for your Applet

6 MHz, Z-80B, additional 64K RAM. CP/M 3.0plus. 100% CP/M 2.2 compatibility, C Basic. CP/Mgr aphics. 300% faster than any other CP/M for AppleCPX-62810A ALS CP/M card $299.00

Z CARD For APPLE-ALS

Two computers in one, Z-80 and 6502, more thandoubles the power and potential of your Apple,includes Z-80 CPU card. CP/M 2.2 and completemanual set. Pascal compatible, one year warrantyCPX-62800A A & T with CP/M 2.2 $139.00

80 COLUMN CARD

80 column x 24 line video card for Apple II addressable25th status line, normal/inverse or high/low video. 128ASCII characters, upper and lower case, 7x9 dotmatrix with true descenders, CP/M. Pascal andFortran compatible,40/80 Hz, 40/60 column selectionfrom keyboard. Best 80 column card!

IOV-2450A Viewmax 80 $139.95

IOV-2455A VisicalcjEasywriter Preboot $24.95

16K RAM CARD For APPLE II

Expand your Apple II 64K, use as language card, fullone year warranty. Why spend $175.00?MEX-16700A Save over 115.00 $49.95

PRINTER CARD & CABLE

For Apple. Standard Centronics parallel interface forEpson, Okidata. C, Itoh, Gemini, NEC, Comrex, etc.Includes printer cable and supports graphicsIOP-2100A Printer card & cable $49.95

FAN/POWER CENTER For APPLE

Cooling fan for your overheated Apple II, II+, or lie;also includes power switch and two switched outletswith voltage protection circutrySYA-1520A Apple fan $59.95

NEW! MICROMODEM Me HAYES

The standard in direct-connect, plug-in modem cardsfor Apple. 110-300 baud. Includes FREE Smartcom IIOM-2000A Micromodem lie $239.95

KOALA PAD—KOALA TECH.

A touch sensitive pad that functions like a joystick ormouse, allowing you to move the cursor around thescreen with the touch of a finger. Complete withsoftware

SYA-1518A Koala Pad

$99.95

PLACE ORDERS TOLL FREE!

Continental USA Inside California

(800) 421-5500 (800) 262-1710

GRAPPLER PLUS—Orange Micro

The ultimate parallel printer graphics interface cardwith many new features, now at a new low price!IOP-2300A Grappier Plus $119.95

BUFFERED GRAPPLER PLUS

Combines the flexibility of the Grappier + with theconvenience of the Bufferboard, all on a single boardIOP-2320A Buffered Grappler+ $175.00

BUFFERBOARD—Orange Micro

Add up to 20 pages of text output buffering to your

existing Grappier + board

IOP-2310A Bufferboard $135.00

ASIO—SSM/TRANSEND

RS232 serial I/O board for Apple, works with printers

or modems. 110 to 9600 baud. DOS, CP/M and Pascal

compatible

IO 1-2052A ASIO $119.95

DUAL 8-inch DISK DRIVES

Up to 2 Megabytes for your Apple, two double density8 inch slimline disk drives, cabinet, power supply,cable, controller, and software. Compatiblewith DOS.CP/M, Pascal, and IBM 3740 formats

1 MEGA8YTE SUB SYSTEM

2 MEGABYTE SUB SYSTEM

$1195.00.$1395.00

Better than USI, Better than Amdek!BEST MONITORS AVAILABLE!

Ultra-high resolution, up to 22 MHz. 1000 lines perinch, amber or green phoshpor. FREE! tilt and swivelbase, US manufacturer

VDM-881220 12" green 22 MHz $149.95

VDM-881210 12" amber 22 MHz $149.95

VDM-880920 9" green IB MHz $139.95

VDM-880910 9" amber 18 MHz $139.95

12-inch GREEN—ZENITH

15 MHz, 40 or 80 column

VDM-201201 12" green $94.95

MICROFAZER—QUADRAM

The Microfazer stand-alone printer buffers areavailable in any configuration of serial or parallelinput, with serial or parallel output. All are expandableupto64K of memory (about 30 pages of 8'/2x 11 text):the parallel-to-parallel version is expandable to 512KCopy and pause feature included

Parallel/Parallel

iop-26008 RK 11st ifio nn

$139.95$164.95$269.95

inP-JROS? 37K 1 isl 925 OO

IOP-26128 128K List 445.00

Serial/Parallel

inp-J7nnR rk i im 79Q nn

$169.95

Serial/Serial

IOP-2800R RK 1 isl 199 00

$169.95. $199.95

IOP-2B032 3PK 1 1st 220 m

Parallel/Serial

IOP-29008 RK 1 1st 199 00

$169.95

INC

MICROBUFFERPRACTICAL PERIPHERALS

Stand-alone Mlcrobutfers

IOP-2500A Parallel 3?Kinp.351 (14 , Parallel R4K

$249.95$299.95

inp.25?nA Serial, 37KIOP-2530A Serial K4K

$249.95$299.95

Mlcrobutfers for Apple II

IOP-2560A Parallel 1KKIOP-2570A Parallel, 3PK

$199.95. $249.95

ir>P-?5BnA Serial 1RKir>P-75<M)A Serial 3?K

$199.95$249.95

Mlcrobutfers for Epson Printers

IOP-2540A Parallel 1RKIOP-2550A Serial RK

$139.95. $139.95

Circle 241 on Inquiry card.

Los Angeles Area(213)973-7707

Co

filter

pro

ducts

SINGLE BOARD COMPUTER

NEW! ADC SUPER SIX

First 6 MHz S-100 single board computer to supportbanked CP/M 3.0 featuring 128K RAM. 6 MHz Z-80B.DMA cont, DART. PIO. CTC, double-density diskcontroller, up to 4K of Eprom, IEEE 696 compatible. 6MHz super slave boards also available for networks

CPC-30860A 64K super six $749.95

CPC-30862A 128K super six $799.95

SFC-52502000F CP/M 3.0 tor super six $349.95

SFC-55622000F Turbo-DOS single user _ $249.95

S-100 BOARDSON SALE!

SBC-200 SD SYSTEMS

4 MHz Z-80A CPU with serial and parallel I/O

cpn-anjnnA i*r

$298.95

THE BIG Z—JADE

2 or 4 MHz switchable Z-80 CPU board witf

serial I/O

$35.00

OBIM0211K Kir wlm?m,al

$179.95

«"JM«« 4 * T

$199.00

SBC 300 SD SYSTEMS

Self-contained S-100 Z80 microcomputer, 4/6 MHz

CPC-30304A SBC 300, 4 MHz, A&T

$619.95

CPU-30306A SBC 300. 6 MHz, A&T

$689.95

CPU-Z COMPUPRO

2 or 4 MHz Z80A CPU. 24 bit addressing

CPU-ansnoA ?/4 mhz a& t

$279.95

CPI.I-.1(150nC .1/6 MHz CSC

$347.95

8085/8088 COMPUPRO

Both 8 and 16 bit CPUs standard 8 bit S-100 bus

CPM-20510A 9 MHrA * T

$389.95

CPU-20510C 6/8 MHz CSC

$497.95

64K STATIC RAM-

-JADE

Uses new 2K

x 8 static RAMs

, fully supports IEEE 696

MEM-99152BMEM-99152KMEM-32152KMEM-56152KMEM-64152K

Bare boardKit less RAM

' 3PK kit

$49 95

$89.95

$169.00

S6K kit

$225.00

R4 K kit

$265.00

add $30.00

EXPANDORAM III

High density

memory board.

64K. 128K or

256K

MEM-65064AMEM-65128AMEM-65192AMEM-65256A

64 K

$398.95

128K192K

$464.95$524.95

'W«

$589.95

EXPANDORAM IV-

-SD SYSTEMS

Up to 1024K using 256K RAM chips, parity

MEM-66256MEM-67256

zxpandoRAM IV w/parity

ZxpandoRAM IV w/EDC

$975.95

_ $1675.95

DOUBLE D—JADE COMPUTER

High reliability, double density disk controller

IOD-1200B Bare board & hdwr man $59.95

IOD-1200K Kit w/hdwr & sttwr man $299.95

IOD-1200A A & T w/hdwr & sttwr man $325.00

SFC-59002001F CP/M 2.2 with Double D $99.95

VERSAFLOPPY II—SD SYSTEMS

Double density disk controller for 5y4" and 8"

IOD-1160A A & T with PROM $344.95

SFC-55009047F CP/M 3.0 with VF-II $80.00

VERSAFLOPPY II 696

Fully compatible with IEEE 696 standards

IOD-1170A Versalloppy II/69B A & T $349.95

SFC-55009157F 8" banked CP/M 3.0' "$75.00

SFC-55009157M 5%" banked CP/M 3.0' "$75.00

SFC-55009159F 8" unbanked CP/M 3.0' "$75.00

SFC-55009159M 5'/," unbanked CP/M 3.0- _ "$75.00"Price is $75.00 if ordered with Versafloppy IJThe price if ordered separtely is $199.95

VERSAFLOPPY III—SD SYSTEMS

Winchester and floppy controller in a single board!

IOD-1180A Versalloppy III A 8, T $759.95

SFC-55009257F 8" banked CP/M 3.0' "$129.00

SFC-55009257M 5'/," banked CP/M 3.0' _ "$129.00SFC-55009259F 8" unbanked CP/M 3.0' _ "$129.00SFC-55009259M 5'/4" unbanked CP/M 3.0' "$129.00'Configured for SBC 300

"Price is $129.00 if ordered with Versafloppy III.The price is $199.95 if ordered separtely

1/0-4 SSM MICROCOMPUTER

Two serial I/O ports plus two parallel I/O portsIOI-1010A AS, T $245.00

INTERFACER 4 COMPUPRO

Three serial, one parallel, one Centronics parallel

IOI-1840A AST $389.95

IOI-1840C CSC $495.00

I/0-8 SD SYSTEMS

Full compliance with IEEE 696 standards

IOI-1510A 8 Async ports $589.95

IOI-1520A 4 Sync/4 Async $669.95

THE BUS PROBE

Best selling inexpensive S-100 diagnostic analyzer

TSX-200B Bare board $59.95

TSX-200K Kit $179.95

TSX-200A A&T $199.95

ISO BUS—JADE COMPUTER

Silent, simple and on SALE! A better motherboard6 Slot (S'/," x B%") 19 MHz

MBS-061B Bare board $22.95

MBS-061K Kit $39.95

MBS-061A A&T $49.95

12 Slot (9%" x ay,") 10 MHz

MBS-121B Bare board .

MBS-121K Kit

MBS-121A A&T

$34.95$69.95$89.95

18 Slot I14V2" X 8%"J 8MHz

MBS-181B Bare board

MBS-181K Kit

MBS-181A A&T

_ $54.95_ $99.95_ $139.95

8 inch DISK DRIVES

SIEMENS FDD 100-8 Single sided, double density

MSF-201120 $179.00 ea 2 for $175.00 ea

SHUGART SA 801R Single sided, double density

MSF-10801R $355.00 ea 2 for $349.00 ea

SHUGART SA-851R Double sided, double density

MSF-10851R $459.00 ea 2 for $455.00 ea

QUME DT-8 Double sided, double density

MSF-750080 $479.00 ea 2 for $459.00 ea

TANDON TM 848-1 SS DD thin-line

MSF-558481 $369.00 ea 2 for $359.00 ea

TANDON TM 848-2 DS DD thin-line

MSF-558482 $439.00 ea 2 for $435.00 ea

NEC FD1165 DS DD thin-line

MSF-851165 $450.00 ea 2 for $440.00 ea

NEC FD1164 SS DD thin-line

MSF-851164 $360.00 ea 2 for $350.00 ea

DISK SUB-SYSTEMS JADE

Handsome metal cabinet with proportionallybalanced air flow system, rugged dual drive powercable kit. power switch, line cord, fuse holder, coolingfan. nevermar rubber feet, all necessary hardware tomount two 8-inch disk drives, power supply, and fan,does not include signal cableDual 8" Sub-Assembly Cabinet

END-000420 Bare cabinet $49.95

END-000421 Cabinet kit $199.95

END-000431 A&T $249.95

8" Sub-Systems—Slngal Sided, Double DensityEND-000423 Kit w/2 Siemens FDWO-BDs _ $579.00END-000424 A & T w/2 Siemens FDWO-BDs $595.00

END-000433 Kit w/2 Shugart SA-801 Rs $939.00

END-000434 A & T w/2 Shugart SA-801 Rs $969.00

8" Sub-Systems—Double Sided, Double Density

END-000426 Kit w/2 Qume DT-Ss $1229.00

END-000427 A & T w/2 Qume DT-8s $1249.00

END-000436 Kit w/2 Shugarl SA-851 Rs _ $1199.00END-000437 A & T w/2 Shugart SA-851 Rs $1219.00

DUAL SLIMLINE SUB-SYSTEMS

Dual 8-Inch Slimline Cabinet

END-000820 Bare cabinet

END-000822 A&T w/o drives .

_ $59.95. $164.95

Dual 8-Inch Slimline Sub-systems

END-000843 Kit w/2 SS DD drives $869.00

END-000844 A & T w/2 SS DD drives $879.00

END-000845 Kit w/2 DS DD drives $1060.00

END-000846 A & T w/2 DS DD drives $1099.00

DISK DRIVE POWER SUPPLY

Sufficient current to power up to three 8" drivesPSD-206A list Price 149.00 $89.95

PB-1 SSM MICROCOMPUTER

2708. 2716 EPROM board with on-board programmerMEM-99510A A& T w/manual $219.00

PROM-100 SD SYSTEMS

2708. 2716. 2732 EPROM programmer with softwareMEM-99520A A&T with software $219.95

ULTRA-VIOLET EPROM ERASERS

Inexpensive erasers for industry or home

XME-3100 Speclronics w/o timer $69.50

XME-3101 Speclronics with timer $94.95

XME-3200 Logical Devices $49.95

Satisfying Your Personal And Professional Computer Needs Since 1975

We accept cash, checks, credit cards, or purchase orders from qualified firms and institutions.Minimum prepaid order $15.00 California residents add 61/2% tax. Export customers outside the US or Canada pleaseadd 10% to all prices. Prices and availibility subject to change without notice. Shipping and handling chargesvia UPS Ground 50<t/lb. UPS Air $1,00/lb. minimum charge $3.00 Prices quoted are for pre-paid orders only

JADE Computer Products 4901 West Rosecrans Avenue, Hawthorne, California 90250

622 BYTE December 1983

Circle 242 on inquiry card.

DISK DRIVES& MODEMS

ACCESSORIESFOR IBM PC

5% inch DISK DRIVES

TANDONTM 100-1 SS DD 48 TPI

MSM-551001 $225.00 ea 2 for $195.00 ea

SHUGART SA 400L SS DD 48 TPI

MSM-104000 $209.00 ea 2 lor $199.95 ea

TANDON TM 100-2 DS DD 48 TPI

MSM-551002 $229.00 ea 2 for $225.00 ea

MPI B52 DS DD 48 TPI can be substituted for CDC

MSM-155200 $275.00 ea 2 for $270.00 ea

MPI B51 SS DD 48 TPI

MSM-155100 $209.00 ea 2 for $199.00 ea

MPI B91 Single sided. Quad Density 96 TPI

MSM-155300 $285.00 ea 2 for $275.00 ea

MPI B92 Double sided Quad density 96 TPIMSM-155400 $400.00 ea 2 for $390.00 ea

5%" CABINETS/POWER SUPPLY

$69.95$85.00

END-000216 Single cab w/power supply _END-000226 Dual cab w/power supply

SMARTMODEM—HAYES

Sophisticated direct-connect auto-answer/auto-dialmodem, touch tone or pulse dialing. RS232C interfaceprogrammable

IOM-5500A Smarlmodem 1200 $475.00

IOM-5550A 1200B lor IBM PC $399.95

IOM-5400A Smarlmodem 300 $199.00

IOK-1500A Hayes Cronograph $199.00

IOM-1100A Micromodem 100 $349.00

IOM-2000A Micromodem lie $259.00

1200 BAUD SMART CATNOVATION

103/212 Smart Cat and 103 Smart Cat, 1200 and 300baud, built-in dialer, auto re-dial if busy, auto answer/disconnect, direct connect, LED readout displaysmode analog/digital loopback self tests, usable withmulti-line phones

IOM-5241A 300 Baud 103 Smart Cal $229.95

IOM-5251A 1200 Baud 212/103 Smart Cal $549.95

J-CAT MODEM—NOVATION

1/5 the size of ordinary modems, Bell 103. manual orauto-answer, automatic answer/orginate. directconnect, built-in self-test, two LEDs and audio beepsprovide status informationIOM-5261A Novation J-Cat $119.00

SMART BUY IN MODEMSSIGNALMAN

Direct connect, low cost, high quality, and state-of-the-art features. Includes FREE! subscription to theSource

MARK I Universal 300 baud, automatic originate/answer selection, RS232CIOM-5600A 300b RS-232 $79.95

MARK VI 300 Baud for IBM PC, auto-answer,auto-dial, plug-in modem board with full com-munications software included FREE!IOM-5630A 300 Baud IBM card $159.95

MARK VII Universal 300 baud, auto-answer, auto-dial RS-232 modemIOM-5610A Deluxe RS-232 300b $149.95

NEW! MARK XII New Universal 1200 Baud auto-answer, auto-dial modem with all the popularfeaturesof the Hayes Smarlmodem 1200IOM-5620A 1200B deluxe modem $399.95

SIX PAK PLUS—AST

Up to 384K RAM, clock calendar with battery back up,serial port, parallel printer port, game port, superdriveand super spool software included FREE!

MEX-38064A 64K C.S.P $289.95

MEX-38256A 256K C.S.P $489.95

For Game Port Option Add

$39.95

MEGA PLUS—AST

Up to 512K RAM. clock calendar with battery back up,2 serial ports, parallel printer port, game port, superdrive and superspool software included FREE!

MEX-51064A 64K C. t serial $269.95

MEX-51000S Second serial port option $39.95

MEX-51000P Printer port option $39.95

MEX-51000G Game port option $39.95

For Each Additional 64K RAM Add $49.95

I/O PLUS II—AST

Up to 2 serial ports, parallel printer port, game port,clock calendar with battery back up. super drive andsuperspool software included FREE!

IOI-7500A Clock 8. 1 serial port $129.95

IOI-7500P Printer port option $39.95

IOI-7500S Second serial port option $39.95

IOI-7500G Game port option $39.95

SYSTEM CARD—MICROSOFT

From the authors of MS-DOS—up to 256K RAM. serialport, parallel printer port, clock calendar, plus RAMdrive disk emulation, print spooler, time utilities, andterminal emulation software, DOS 1.1 or 2.0compatible

MEX-16064A 64K system card _MEX-16256A 256K system card

. $279.95$429.95

QUADBOARD I— OUADRAM

Up to 256K RAM, serial port, parallel printer port,clock calendar, RAM disk and printer spooler software

MEX-41064A 64K Quadboard $279.95

MEX-41256A 256K Quadboard $399.95

QUADLINK—QUADRAM

Allows IBM PC to run Apple software. Includes inter-face card and software to allow your IBM PC to runboth Apple DOS and PC DOSCPX-50500A Quadlink $495.00

THE BEST SOFTWARE For IBM PC

We have taken the top rated programs and reducedthe price making them a super value

LOTUS 1 2 3 Best spreadsheet

SFP-24001020M Lotus 123 (1A) $329.95

dBASE II Best Data base

SFP-11210100M Ashton-Tate DBASE II $429.95

WORDSTAR Best word processor

SFP-13600100M MicroPro Wordstar $299.95

PROPACK Wordstar/Mail/Spell/Slarindex

SFP-13600900M MicroPro's best $394.95

VISIFILE Best Data base. Index

SFP-141010S0M Visicorp Visilile $199.95

CROSSTALK Best communications package

SFP-53770100M MicroStull Crosstalk $129.95

MULTIPLAN Best selling spreadsheet

SFP-162010100 Microsoft Multiplan $179.95

FLIGHT SIMULATOR Best Flight Simulator $39.95SFP-332010100 Microsoft Plight Simulator _ $39.95

NOW! BETTER THAN EPSON

Okidata's new plug-n-play ROMS for Oki printersare fully IBM PC compatible! All ASCII characters,full graphics, complete Epson emulation, plus nearletter quality printing not available with Epson

PRA-43086 Plug-n-play for 92 $49.95

PR A-43087 Plug-n-play lor 93 $49.95

WCA-2536A IBM PC to Oki or Epson cable $32.95

HI-RES COLOR MONITORS

Only the best Quadchrome or Princeton HX-12.690x480 resolution, 16 brilliant colors, special .31mm dot-pitch tube, includes FREE! cable

VDC-241301 Quadram Quadchrome $539.95

VDC-241401 Princeton Graphics HX-12 $549.95

NEC or AMDEK. popular RGB monitors for IBM

VDC-652000 NEC JC 1203 RGB $599.95

VDC-801320 Amdek Color II $439.95

HERCULES GRAPHIC CARD

Two pages of ultra-high resolution text and graphics720 x 348, compatible with Lotus 123. Visicalc.dBase II, etc. Includes parallel printer portIOV-5010A Hercules Graphic Card $359.95

PLANTRONICS COLOR PLUS

Up to 16 colors, 80 characters, biplanar technology.

includes parallel printer port

IOV-6010A Plantronics Color Plus $379.95

QUADCOLOR I & II

Quadcolor I delivers standard IBM PC color andgraphics, add Quadcolor II and hi-resolution (640 x200) color graphics are possible

IOV-4010A Quadcolor I basic board $234.95

IOV-4020A Quadcolor II add on $229.95

64K RAM UPGRADE For IBM PC

High speed RAM upgrade kit with parity {error

detection) and one year warranty

MEX-64100K 64K kit for IBM PC - $49.95

320K DISK DRIVES

Tandon TM-100-2 double-sided, double-density320K disk drive. Original equipment drive on IBM PC

MSM-551002 Full size Tandon $224.95

MSM-991004 Half-height 320K drive $199.95

DISKETTES For IBM PC

High quality 320K double-sided, double-densitydiskettes, certified to be absolutely error free. Box often, warranteed for one year

MMD-5220104 With FREE! plastic box $24.95

MMD-5220101 Verbatim Datalife $34.95

THE BEST MOUSE

From Mouse Systems. Optical mouse with no movingparts—nothing to wear out. includes software and iscompatible with all major software packages

SYX-14100A Mouse Systems mouse $249.95

MICROSOFT MOUSE

Mechanical mouse from the folks that wrote yourPC's operating system. Includes software and cablesSYX-16100A Microsoft mouse $149.95

Place Orders Toll Free!

Continental U.S.A.(800)421-5500

Circle 242 on Inquiry card.

Inside California(800)262-1710

Los Angeles Area(213)973-7707

BYTE December 1983 623

OK, so you're dreaming of a Computer

^HAVEWEGOTAD

J let us prove to you that Christmas can h

i

APPLE

ATARI

CBM-64

IBM

ALIEN MUNCHIES

15,

,95

ACTION

-

CART

69

.95

BANK STREET WRITER

DISK

57

.95

ANSWER

189.95

ASCII EXPRESS PRO

89.

.95

ARCADE MACHINE

—

DISK

44.

,95

CALC RESULT ADV.

DISK

119.

.95

CBASIC COMPILER

(CP/M86)

249.95

BILESTOAD

29

.95

ATLANTIS

-

CART

29

.95

CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN

DISK

24

.95

THE CREATOR

229.95

BOOKEEPER III

69.

,95

BAJA BUGGIES

-

DISK

27

,95

CAVE OF WORD WIZARD

DISK

19,

,95

CROSSTALK XVI

149.95

6PI GENERAL ACCOUNTING

294.

,95

BANK STREET WRITER

DISK

54

,95

CHECKERS

DISK

39

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D.B. MASTER

399.95

C BASIC (REQ. Z-80)

119.

,95

BLUEPRINT

-

CART

34.

,95

CHESS

DISK

54,

.95

DARK CRYSTAL

27.95

CONTEXT CONNECTOR

129

.95

BUG OFF!

-

DISK

24

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CHOPLIFTER

CART

34

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DATA CAPTURE

99.95

CRYPTO CUBE

29

,95

CAPTURE THE FLAG

-

DISK

44.

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COMPUTER BASEBALL

DISK

29.

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DATA DESIGN

169.95

D.B. MASTER 4.0

239

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CHOPLIFTER

-

CART

34

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CROSSFIRE

DISK

24

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DATAFAX

199.95

DATAFAX

179

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COMPUTER WAR

-

CART

29

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CYBORG

DISK

24

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DELTA DRAWING

39.95

DATASTAR (REQ. Z-80)

195

,95

DELTA MUSIC

-

CART

29

.95

DAVID'S MID. MAGIC

DISK

27

.95

dBASE II MS-DOS/CP/M86

429.95

DIAMOND MIND

29

,95

DELTA DRAWING

-

CART

29

.95

DELTA MUSIC

CART

29

,95

EASY SPELLER II

MS-DOS

169.95

dBASE II (REQ. Z-80)

449

,95

DIAMOND MINE

-

CART

34

,95

DISKEY

DISK

39

.95

EINSTEIN WRITER

209.95

EINSTEIN COMPILER

99

,95

DISKEY

-

DISK

39

.95

DIAMOND MINE

CART

29,

,95

EZ MAILER II

129.95

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY

179

,95

DISKSCAN

-

DISK

29

.95

DRAGONRIDER OF PERN

DISK

29

.95

FCM

99.95

FRIDAY

199

.95

DISK WORKSHOP

—

DISK

27.

,95

DRELBS

CART

27.

.95

FILE FAX

129.95

GRAPHIC SOLUTION

119

.95

DOMINO MAN

—

CART

34

,95

DUNZHIN

DISK

24

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FILE MANAGER +

79.95

GRAPHTRIX 1.3

54

.95

EAGLES

—

DISK

29

.95

EAGLES

DISK

29.

.95

FLIGHT SIMULATOR

39.95

GRUDS IN SPACE

27

.95

FILE FAX

—

DISK

99

.95

ELECTRONIC CHECKBK

DISK

19.

,95

FORTRAN COMPILER MS-DOS

249.95

HI-RES SECRETS

99

.95

FINANCIAL WIZARD

v

DISK

39

,95

FIREONE

DISK

27.

,95

FRIDAY (MS-DOS)

199.95

HOME ACCOUNTANT

54

.95

GRAPHICS MAGICIAN

—

DISK

44

.95

FORT APOCALYSE

DISK

27

.95

HOME ACCOUNTANT

PLUS

99.95

INFOSTAR (REQ. Z-80)

319

.95

GRUDS IN SPACE

-

DISK

29

.95

FROGGER

DISK

27

,95

INFOSTAR

349.95

JUMPMAN

34

.95

HOME ACCOUNTANT

—

DISK

64

.95

GENERAL LEDGER

DISK

79

.95

THE LEDGER

339.95

KAREL THE ROBOT

179

.95

JOURNEY TO PLANETS

CART

34

.95

GENESIS

DISK

24

.95

LETTERFORM 1000

2.0

69.95

KEN USTON'S PRO BLACKJACK 54.

.95

JUMPMAN

—

DISK

29

,95

GRUDS IN SPACE

DISK

29

.95

LOGIC CALC

139.95

MAGIC WINDOW II

99

,95

JUMPMAN JR.

—

CART

29

,95

HESMON

CART

29

.95

LOGIC QUEST III

389.95

MASTER PLANNER (REQ Z80)

229

,95

MR. COOL

-

CART

29

,95

HESWRITER 64

CART

34

.95

LOTUS 1-2-3

LOW! !

MAZE CRAZE CONSTRUCT. SET 29

,95

MADDEN FOOTBALL

-

CART

34.

,95

HOME ACCOUNTANT

DISK

59

,95

MAILMERGE

179.95

MILESTONE (REQ. Z-80)

199

,95

MEMORY TRAINER

-

DISK

64

.95

INSTA-CALC

DISK

39

.95

MILESTONE (CP/M

86)

199.95

MILLIONAIRE

44

,95

MILLIONAIRE

—

DISK

44.

.95

INSTA-MAIL

DISK

27.

,95

MINER 2049

34.95

MULTIPLAN

189

.95

MINER 2049er

—

CART

37

.95

INSTA-SPEED COMPILR

DISK

79

.95

MULTIMATE

299.95

ORCA/M

79

.95

MOUNTAIN KING

—

CART

34

,95

INSTA-WRITER

DISK

44.

.95

MULTIPLAN

189.95

PFS; REPORT

99

.95

OMEGA RACE

-

CART

34

.95

JAWBREAKER

DISK

24

.95

MULTI-TOOL WORD

W/MOUSE

339.95

PIE:SPELLER COMMUNICATION 64

.95

OZZY OZONE

-

DISK

29

,95

JOURNEY TO PLANETS

CART

29

,95

PEACHTEXT 5000 (MS/DOS)

249.95

PIE WRITER 2.2

119

,95

PINBALL

-

DISK

24

.95

JUICE

CART

29

.95

PERFECT WRITER

189.95

PINBALL CONSTRUCTION SET

29

.95

PITSTOP

—

CART

29

.95

JUMPMAN

DISK

29

.95

PERSONAL INVESTOR 1.1

139.95

POOYAN

24

.95

POGOMAN

—

DISK

29

.95

KINDERCOMP

CART

24

.95

PERSONAL PEARL

199.95

PROGRAMMING AIDS

64

.95

PREPPIE

-

DISK

24

.95

KNIGHTS OF DESERT

CASS

29

.95

PFS:REPORT

94.95

PRONTO DOS

21

.95

QUASIMODO

—

DISK

27

.95

MEMORY TRAINER

DISK

47

.95

PIE:SPELLER

64.95

Q-BASE

139

.95

RACK EM UP

—

CART

34

.95

MICRO-ADDITION

DISK

19

.95

PIE WRITER

139.95

QUEATRON

34

.95

RALLY SPEEDWAY

—

CART

39

.95

MR. COOL

CART

29

.95

PRO CALC

249.95

QUICK CODE (REQ. Z-80)

199

.95

RENDEVOUS

-

DISK

29

,95

OMNICALC

DISK

74

.95

PROFESSOR DOS

44.95

REPORTSTAR (REQ. Z-80)

239

.95

RIVER QUEST

—

DISK

27

.95

PAINT WIZARD

DISK

37

.95

Q-BASE

139.95

ROOTS/M (REQ. Z-80)

134

.95

ROM'S REVENGE

-

DIST

34

.95

PIPES

CART

29

.95

QUICK-CODE MS-DOS/CP/MB6

199.95

S.A.M.

79

.95

S.A.M.

—

DISK

44

.95

PITSTOP

CART

29

.95

REPORT STAR

249.95

SCRAPER CAPER

34

.95

SATAN'S HOLLOW

-

CART

34

.95

PKAROH'S CURSE

DISK

24

,95

SCAPER CAPER

34.95

SENSIBLE SPELLER

84

.95

SCAPER CAPER

-

CART

37

.95

POOYAN

DISK

24

.95

SELECT WORD PROCESS SYS

279.95

SPEED READ +

49

.95

SEA DRAGON

-

DISK

27

.95

QUICK BROWN FOX

CART

47

.95

SMARTCOM II

89.95

SPELLSTAR (REQ. Z-80)

164

.95

SOLAR FOX

—

CART

34

.95

RACK 'EM UP

CART

29

.95

SPELLGUARD

149.95

STAR MAZE

29

.95

STAR BOWL FOOTBALL-

DISK

24

.95

ROM'S REVENGE

DISK

34

.95

SPELLSTAR

179.95

SUPERCALC (REQ. Z-80)

189

.95

STRATOS

-

DISK

19

.95

SAVE NEW YORK

CART

29

.95

STARBURST

129.95

SUPER-TEXT PRO 40/80

69

.95

SWORD POINT

—

DISK

27

.95

SCRIPT 64

DISK

79

.95

SUPERCALC II

199.95

SYSTEM II EX TURNING PT

1099

.95

SYN-FILE+

-

DISK

74

.95

SEA DRAGON

DISK

27

.95

SUPERWRITER 1.10

199.95

TAX PREPARER

159

.95

TAX ADVANTAGE

-

DISK

44

.95

SIDEWINDER

DISK

27

.95

SUPER-TEXT PROFESSIONAL

79.95

TERRAPIN LOGO

104

.95

TELENGARD

-

DISK

24

.95

SPEED READER II

DISK

54

.95

T/MAKER III

199.95

ULTIMA I

29

.95

TELETARI

—

DISK

29

.95

SPITBALL

CART

29

.95

T.I.M. Ill

349.95

VERSAFORM

259

.95

TEXT/SPELL WIZARD

-

DISK

64

.95

STARFIRE

DISK

27

.95

TYCOON

44.95

VISICALC ENHANCED //e

179

.95

TIME RUNNER

—

DISK

21

.95

STORY MACHINE

CART

29

.95

ULTIMA II

54.95

WITNESS

29

.95

TRUST

-

DISK

27

.95

SUICIDE STRIKE

DISK

27

.95

VERSAFORM

259.95

WIZWARE MICROZINE

29

.95

TYCOON

—

DISK

44

.95

TELENGARD

CASS

17

.95

VISICALC 256K

179.95

WIZWARE SQUARE PAIRS

29

.95

WING WAR

—

CART

29

,95

TIME RUNNER

DISK

24

.95

VISIFILE

239.95

WIZWARE TURTLE TRACKS

29

.95

WINGS

-

CART

34

.95

TYPING TUTOR + WORD

DISK

19

.95

VISITREND/PLOT

239.95

WORD ATTACK!

39

.95

WIZWARE MICROZINE

-

DISK

29

.95

VANILLA PILOT

DISK

17

.95

VISIWORD/VISISPELL

279.95

WORDSTAR

249

.95

WIZWARE TURTLE TRKS

DISK

29

.95

ZAXXON

DISK

29

.95

WIZARDRY

39.95

ZENITH

29

.95

ZAXXON

-

DISK

29

.95

ZORK I

DISK

29

.95

WORDSTAR

349.95

11

Remember-Apple Country Ltd. will try to meet

For technical assistance, order status and California calls (619) 765-0239Apple Country, Ltd., P.O. Box 1099, 2602 Washington St., Julian, Calif. 92036

Terms: We accept American Express. No extra charge for Visa/MasterCard, Cashier's Check,personal check (allow 2 weeks to clear) Shipping & Handling 5% (S5 min.); APO FPO AlaskaHawaii & Monitors 5% ($10 min.) Foreign orders 15% ($15 mm.) All items are new withmanufacturer's warranty. Prices are subject to availability & change without notice. Purchase ordermust include check California residents add 6% sales tax. Send $1 (good toward first purchase) fornew fall catalog

Apple Country, Ltd. is a DISCOUNT MAIL ORDER HOUSE for the micro computer industry

and is a California corporation not affiliated with Apple Computer Inc. Apple is a trademark of Apple Computer Inc.

Circle 28 on Inquiry card.

WA

■

Christmas-

FOR YOU!

Tin and affordable

*?%&«***

«$$**»

MONITORS

PRINTERS

COMPUTERS

APPLE

AMDEK COLOR I PLUS 294.95

AMDEK COLOR II PLUS 424.95

AMDEK COLOR III 369.95

AMDEK COLOR IV 749.95

AMDEK VIDEO 300 (GREEN) 134.95

AMDEK VIDEO 300 (AMBER) 144.95

AMDEK VIDEO 310 (AMBER) 164.95

BMC 12AU 12" GREEN 39.95

BMC AU9191U 13" COLOR 299.95

BMC 140 1 13" RGB COLOR 349.95

BMC AU9191MU 13" RGB IBM 629.95

COMMODORE COLOR MONITOR 269.95

COMREX 13" COLOR W/SOUND 269.95

COMREX 12" HI-RES AMBER 134.95

COMREX 12" HI-RES GREEN 129.95

COMREX 12" HI-RES LT GRN 129.95

COMREX 13" RGB COLOR 269.95

ELECTROHOME 9" GREEN 129.95

ELECTROHOME 12" GREEN 144.95

ELECTROHOME 13" RGB IBM 379.95

ELECTROHOME 13"RGB COLOR 359.95

GORILLA 12" GREEN 89.95

NEC 12" GREEN SCREEN 154.95

NEC 12" ECONO GREEN 109.95

NEC 12" LO-RES COLOR 289.95

NEC 12" AMBER SCREEN 164.95

NEC 12" COLOR - IBM 479.95

PRINCETON GRAPHICS HX-12 489.95

SAKATA 13" COLOR 264.95

SAKATA 13" RGB COLOR 499.95

SAKATA SUPER RGB MONITOR 679.95

SAKATA 12" GREEN 104.95

TAXAN 12" GREEN 124.95

TAXAN 12" AMBER 129.95

TAXAN RGB VISION I 294.95

TAXAN RGB VISION III 439.95

ZENITH 12" AMBER 119.95

ZENITH 12" GREEN 99.95

ZENITH RGB COLOR MONITOR 389.95

USI 9" AMBER MONITOR 129.95

USI 9" GREEN MONITOR 119.95

USI 12" AMBER 149.95

USI 12" GREEN MONITOR 139.95

USI 14" LO-RES COLOR 289.95

MODEMS

ANCHOR MARK I (RS-232) 79.95

ANCHOR MARK II (ATARI) 79.95ANCHOR MARK III (TI99/4A) 99.95

ANCHOR MARK V (OSBORNE) 94.95

ANCHOR MARK VI (IBM PC) 199.95

ANCHOR MARK VII (RS-232) 109.95

ANCHOR MARK XII (RS-232) 279.95

NOVATION J-CAT 104.95

NOVATION 212 AUTO CAT 579.95

SMARTCAT 212 (1200 BAUD) 429.95

SMARTMODEM 300 BAUD 194.95

SMARTMODEM 1200 BAUD 484.95

SMARTMODEM 1200B - IBM 449.95

US ROBOTICS AUTODIAL 212 449.95

ANADEX DP-9501A 1029.95

ANADEX DP-9625A 1339.95

ANADEX DP-9620A 1129.95

ANADEX WP-6000 2199.95

ANADEX DP-6500TR 500CPS 2329.95

CENTRONICS 352DP 1999.95

C.ITOH A10 DAISY WHEEL 539.95

C.ITOH 8510SP 569.95

COMREX CR-I DAISY WHEEL 629.95COMREX CR-II DAISY WHEEL 469.95

DAISEYWRITER 2000 1129.95

DIABLO 630R155 1784.95

EPSON FX-80 W/TRACTOR LOWI!

EPSON FX-100 F/T LOWI!

EPSON MX-80 F/T LOWII

EPSON MX-100 F/T LOWII

EPSON RX-80 LOWII

EPSON RX-80 F/T LOWII

GEMINI 10X LOWII

GEMINI 15X LOW!1

GORILLA BANANA PRINTER 189.95

IDS MICROPRISM 479.95

IDS PRISM 132 1299.95

IDS PRISM 132C - COLOR 1499.95

JUKI 6100 PRINTER (P) 549.95

MANNESMANN TALLY MT160L 599.95

MANNESMANN TALLY MT180L 799.95

MANNESMANN TALLY MT1802 1499.95

NEC 3550 SPINWRITER-IBM 1754.95NEC 8025 120 CPS 136 COL 719.95

OKIDATA MICROLINE 80 299.95

OKIDATA PACEMARK 2350S 1999.95

OKIDATA PACEMARK 2350S 2199.95

OKIDATA PACEMARK 2410P 2329.95

OKIDATA PACEMARK 2410S 2499.95

OKIDATA 82A W/GRAPHICS 379.95

OKIDATA 83A W/GRAPHICS 579.95

OKIDATA 84P 1049.95

OKIDATA 84S 1129.95

OKIDATA 92P 449.95

OKIDATA 93P 729.95

OKIDATA 93S 829.95

PRINTMASTER (DAISY) 1549.95

PROWRITER I PRINTER 344.95

PROWRITER II PRINTER 619.95

C ITOH 8600BP 979.95

QUME SPRINT 11/40+ 1399.95SANYO PR5500 DAISY WHEEL 659.95

SILVER-REED 550 DAISY 699.95

STAR DELTA-10 160CPS LOW!I

STARWRITER DAISY WHEEL 1099.95

TOSHIBA P-1350 LP 1579.95

TRANSTAR 315 COLOR 449.95

TRANSTAR 120P 14CPS 464.95

TRANSTAR 13OP 18CPS 699.95

TRANSTAR 140S 40CPS 1229.95

EPSON SERIAL (RS-232) 134.95

GRAFITTI CARD 84.95

GRAPPLER + 119.95

MICROBUFFER II 16K 144.95

PKASO INTERFACE 129.95

WIZARD BPO 16K 129.95

WIZARD SOB 16K 179.95

OTHER PRINTERS AVAILABLE

COMMODORE 64COMMODORE 1541 DRIVEIBM PC

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CORVUS CONCEPT MC68000 $3199

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EAGLE PC II 128K SYSTEM 2649.95EAGLE SPIRIT XL 3649.95PORATABLE 12BK RAM EXPANDABLETO 640K RAM ON BOARD, 1 320KFLOPPY 10 MEGABYTE HARD DISK,IBM COMPATABLE KEYBOARD,MONOCHROME MONITOR, 2 SERIAL &1 PARALLEL PORT, MS DOS 2.0,GW BASIC, CP/M 86KAYPRO II 1449.95

LEADING EDGE

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CALL FOR LOW PRICE I

NEC APC-H01 $2049

NEC APC-H02 $2549

NEC APC-H03 $3049

SANYO MBC 550 SYSTEM 769.95SANYO WBC-1000 1529.95

TELEVIDEO 16-BIT DESKTOP

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INCLUDES CP/M $3499.95

TELEVIDEO 910 TERMINAL 549.95TELEVIDEO 925 TERMINAL 789.95TELEVIDEO 970 TERMINAL 1199.95

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APPLE //<; NOW AVAILABLE

PLEASE CALL FOR OUR LOW PRICE

FRANKLIN ACE 1000 W/COLOR LOW!I

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DISKETTES

ELEPHANT DISKETTES SS/SD 16.95ELEPHANT DISKETTES SS/DD 19.95ELEPHANT DISKETTES DS/DD 25.95

ALS CP/M CARDAMDEK AMDISK 3" DISK DRAPPLE-CAT IIAPPLE DUMPLING GX4TH DIMENSION DRIVE+CTRL4TH DIMENSION DRIVE-ONLYHAYES MICROMODEM HeKENSINGTON SYSTEM SAVERKOALA GR/TABLET W/SFTWRLAZER MICROSYSTEM DRIVEMICRO-SCI A2 DRIVE ONLYMICRO-SCI A2 W/CTRL-CARDMOUNTAIN MUSIC SYSTEMMOUNTAIN ROM WRITERPREMIUM SOFTCARD HeQUADRAM 64K80COL CRD HeRANA ELITE I W/CTRL-CARDRANA ELITE II W/CTRLRANA ELITE III W/CTRLSOUNDCHASER MUSIC SYSTEMSOFTCARD (Z-80 CARD)SWEET P PLOTTERTG JOYSTICK W/TOGGLE HeTRANSMODEM 1200WICO APPLE MOUSE

IBM

KOALA PAD TOUCH TABLETKRAFT JOYSTICKMICROSOFT SYSTEMCRD 256KMICROSOFT MOUSEMOUSE SYSTEMS PC MOUSEQUADLINK APPLE EMULATORQUADRAM QUADBOARD I 64KQUADRAM QUADCOLOR IQUADRAM QUADCHROME MONQUADRAM QUADSCREEN MONRANA DS/DD DISK DRIVESTB SUPER I/O MULTIFUNCTTG JOYSTICK W/TOGGLETRANSEND P.C. MODEM 1200VERSAWRITER GRAPH TABLETWIZARD SPOOLER P/S 16K

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MKRRY

CHRISTMAS

PEGGY

299.95239.95264.95119.95289.95199.95249.9564.9599.95189.95239.95299.95289.95134.95334.95124.95349.95499.95649.95619.95234.95459.9549.95499.95124.95

99.9554.95449.95134.95224.95489.95289.95229.95524.95549.95259.95169.9549.95399.95239.95239.95

54.9532.95

224.9564.9579.95

1 19.95

EAT any advertised price - Caff US today! £

■ _

1-800-222-2602

CaIIFornia Diq.TAl

Post Office Box 3097 B • Torrance, California 90503

FREE*

Plastic library case supplied with alldiskettes purchased from California Diyital

$

19?5

M.inuiaclurcd .or Calilornia D.jital by one.of ihe most n spacled pioducers ol toattneiic me&i: Each dishetic s double den-sity al 40 Hi.li ns. To msure extended medi. i'ile ah dWeites are manutni rod with ..reinlorfiijuui

Each box f.i mskelles is Sut ed with aIrea plastic bb'.'iry casefo!(6actorCAL-S0T:Tenseclo 'AL-sio.Also Available Double sided soft sec-tor diskettes for use with the IBM/PC

CAL-551 $24.95looted

■;kettes

5V4" DISKETTES

WITH LIBRARY CASE

•26L"

Your Choice

SCOTCHMEMOREXj VERBATIM

Single Side Double DensitySoil Sector 10 Sector 16 Sector

SCOTCH

MEMOREX

VERBATIM

MAXELL

DYSAN

744D-0

3481

525-01

MD1

104/1D

744D-10

3483

525-10

MH1-10

107/1D

744D-16

3485

NA

MH1-16

NA

26.50

26.50

26.50

26.50

45.00

Double Side Double

Density

SCOTCH

745-0

745-10

745-16

39.00 I

VERBATIM

550-01

550-10

NA

42.50!

MAXELL

MD2-D

MH2-10D

MH2-16D

45.00

DYSAN

104/2D

107/2D

NA

49.50

DYSAN 96

204/2D

NA

NA

59.50

EIGHT INCH DISKETTES

Single Side Single Denshy

Single side Double Density

SCOTCH

7400

29.50

SCOTCH

741-0

39.00

MEMOREX

3060

29.50

MEMOREX

3090

35.00

DYSAN

3740/1

39.50

DYSAN

3740/D

57.50

Thirty Two Sector

Double side Double Density

SCOTCH 1740-32 129.50

SCOTCH

743-0

47.50

FliOiF'luV. store.. 50 disk INC-525 1895

MEMOREX

3114

39.50

ScoitiiMaariciopPbuiK library en

nkit5<:&8 MMBSS' ,48 SPA

W-C.S23 95VL5 2 9S

DYSAN

3740/2D

65.00

23"

.COMPOSITEMONITOR

*159

Ideal monitor

for classroom

I demonstrations.

'.. around a 12'"■asonabla price,-..ipalsgeneraledby.md in second you a

cue and lor safety ''

your opportunity 1<

enclosed Wood grained

VISA

SPECIAL

Shugart 410

*129

These Shugart 410 5'.f disk drives are all factory I

fresh 19P3 production, recently purchased from the I

Four Phase Division ol the Motorola Corporalion.

TheSO disk drives are single sided 80 track i 96 TPI) I

Suitable lor use wilh the Radio Shack Model i and Model 3. Or any other

application lhat can supporl an 80 track second drive such as Ihe IBM/PC The

410 it lull heigh! and functionally Ihe same as the Tandon TM 100-3 Complete

with puwer connector and installation manual.

When those Shugart 410 s are liquidated ihe price will reverl lo our regular

pnceolS249, SHu-SA4io

MEMORY"

m DYNAMIC

2.95

4116 150ns.

64K DYNAMIC

5.95

4164 150ns

2732 EPROM

4.95

450ns.

16K STATIC

4.95

6116 200ns.

BLOWOUT

SALE

<169

DYNAMIC MEMORY

4027 4K dynamic 250(is.■HID 150ns 16K.1116200ns IGK4164 150ns 64KI28rr:lrc.11256 150ns 256KOPfl-109 dyn.imic controller _

21L02 20Ons iKsial'21L02 450ns IKst..!.2112450ns 2K sialic2114 300ns iKxJ•IO-WTMS450ii5 4K5257 300r)S JK « I61 lbP4 200ns 2Ki6116 PI I Win:; 2K i

ICM

16200

64150

256150

8409

7 2167 torn

.'/OH-150ns. tK»8:>7l6450ns 2K«B:.'7ltiTMS 450ns Tri-2732 450ns 4K x B2732 350ns 4K * H2532 450ns 4K«B2764 350ns BK K 627128350ns IGK >t:'r)17EEP.OM 2K i 0

STATIC MEMORY

■CM-21L02200ICM-2IL02450ICM-2112450ICM-2114300ICM-4044.I50ICM-52573O0ICM-61I62O0ICM-6116150ICM-ljl 67100

EPROMS

ICE-270GICE-27I6ICE-2716TMStCE-2732ICE-2732350ICE-2532ICE -2764ICE-27128ICE-2817

5 35 4 97

ailabic Mar B435 00 29.00

3 75800990565

CONMJLCTORS

DB25P

S-100Gold

<fm

GOLD S-10O EDGE CARD CONNECTORScatalog aach 10-90 lOO-r

Imsais'l 250 CNE-IMS 2.95 2.50 2 19SullinsHi/Rcl CNEHIO0 4 19 3.85 347S-IOOWiroW CNE-WIO 3 95 3 50 3 19Allan 140 S/t CNE-IO0A 4 95 i 50 4 19

156" CENTER EDGE CARD CONNECTORS22/44 Eyolol CNE-44E 2.50 2 15 19543/72 MOID S'lCNE-72S 6 60 6 15 5 7536/72 D/Gs'l CNE-72S 5.95 5 50 5 19Olhor connectors available upon mquesl

RIBBON CONNECTORS

DB25Pmale CNO-r25P 5 65 5 25 4 15

OB2SS fomala CND-r2SS 5.95 5 59 4.50

57-30360 mala CNC-r36P 7 95 6 75 5.90

57-303601 male CNC-r36S 7 95 6 75 5 90

20 pin edge CNI-DE20 4 35 3 30 2 50

20pinsockot CNI-DS20 2 75 1 B5 160

26pmodga CN1-DE26 4.95 3 50 2.70

26pm50ckel CNI-DS26 3.50 2 40 2 15

34 pin edge CNIDE34 4 95 4 50 3 50

34 pm sockel CNI-DS34 4 50 3 95 3 15

SOpmodge CNI-DES0 5 95 5 60 4 90

SOpinsockel CNIDS50 4 95 4 60 380

"BPTttf catalog

DE9P male CND-9P

DE9S female CND-9S

OE hood CND-9H

OA15Pmaie CND-15P

DAiSSIemale CNL 'SS

DA15hood CND-15H

0825P mala CND-25P

DB25S lemale CND-2SS

D625 hood CND25H

DC37Pmaie CND-37P

DC37S lemale CND-37S

DC37hood CND-37H

DD50Pmaia CND-SOP

DO50hood CND-50H

Hardware 2/sel CND-2HS

■Kh 10-99 100 +

1.60 1 40 1.30

225 2.00 1.30

1 50 1 35 1.202.35 3 10 2.90

3 25 3 10 2.901.60 1.35 1.302.50 1 95 1 653.35 2.75 1 95135 1 15 77

4 20 3 95 3 65

5 95 5 75 5.502.25 1.95 1.655 50 5 10 4 75

2 60 2 40 2 1099 69 .42

AMPHENOL/CENTRONICS TYPE

57-30360 36/P CNC-36P 7.95 6 35 4.91IEEE48B. CdorCND-24P 7 95 6 35 5.3!

DISK DRIVE POWER CONNECTORS8 6 pin DC CNP-6DC 195 129 Bi8 3 ACSgl S CNP-3SS 1 69 1 09 6!B 3 AC Dpi S CNP-3DS I 69 I 09 6!5'- 4pmDC CNP-4DC I 79 i 19 9!3pmDINrecpt CNP D3P 2 59 199 15!

IS Hi MMWil mmm i i ■' i

COD s discouraged,xtended to state supported educational inslilu-1 a'-dstreel" rating

mdale 90280.

California Digital has recently participated n

Ihe purchase of several thousand Siemensl

FDD 100-8 floppy disk drives. These uniis are electronically and physically

similiar lo lhat of the Shugart 801R. All units are new and shipped in factory

sealed boxes. Manual and power connectors supplied free upon request. Your

choice 115 Volt. 60 Hz. or 230 Volt. 50Hz.

NOTE! European cuslomers, we have a largo quantity ol 230 voll 50 Hi uniis warertousod inFrankfort Germany Arrangements can be made lo will call these drives in quantities ol 50 or

ftaflktofl roduemg import duly and freight cl

REMEX

DOUBLE £

SIDED

219

California Digilal has iusi purchased a large quanlity of Remex RFO-4000Eight inch double sided disk drives. Remex is the only double sided diskdrive lhat has an double gimbal mounted head assembly thai guaranl«s lowerhead tracking. This drive is mechanically solid Remex has always beenknown for producing premiere products lor Ihe lloppy disk market. The Remexcompany is a subsidiary of the Ex-cell-o Corporalion. a Fortune 500 Company.

Eight Inch Single Sided Drives

SHUGART 801RSHUGART 810 Half HeightSIEMENS FDD 100-8TANDON 848E-1 Half Height

One Two Ten

385 375 365

385 375 365

169 169 159

369 359 349

Eight Inch Double Sided Drives

SHUGART SA851RSHUGART 860 Half HeightQUME 842 -'QUME TRACK 8"TANDON 848E-2 Half HeightREMEX RFD-4000MITSUBISHI M2894-63

495 485 475

485 475 459

459 459 449

459 447 465

219 219 209

379 375 369

MITSUBISHI M2896-63 Half Ht. 459 449 409

Five Inch Single Sided Drives

SHUGART SA400L 235 229 225

SHUGART SA410 96TPI/80 Trk. 129 119 call

SHUGART SA200 % Height 159 149 139

TANDON TM100-1 189 179 175

Five Inch Double Sided DrivesSHUGART SA450SHUGART SA455 Half HeightSHUGART SA465 Halt Ht. 96TPITANDON TM50-2 Half HeightTANDON TM55-4 hall Ht. 96TPITANDON 100-2

TANDON 101-4 96TPI80 TrackMITSUBISHI 4851 Half HeightMITSUBISHI 4853 Vz Ht. 96TPIMITSUBISHI 4854 VzHt., 8" elec.QUME 142 Half HeightTEAC FD-55B Half Height

Five Inch Winchester Hard Disks Drives

SHUGART 612 13 M/Bytes 895 865 825

SHUGART706 6M/Byte, Half Ht 795 775 755

SHUGART712 13M/By1e, V2Ht. 895 865 825

SEAGATE 506 6 M/Byte 495 475 455

TANDON 503 19 M/Byte 895 875 855

Upon request, all drives are suppliedwith power connectors and manual

ENCLOSURES

California Digital manufactures an asorlment ol stock and custom disk driveenclosures. It the volume is justified we will custom design an enclosure loryour applicalion. The lollowing stock disk drive enclosures are available.All include power supplies Ihe 8" enclosures are supplied with exhausl fans.

319

309

299

259

249

239

289

279

269

215

209

199

329

319

309

279

269

259

369

355

350

259

249

245

339

329

319

465

449

439

239

229

219

299

389

275

Horizontal mount two 8" lullheight drives. S279.00

Vertical mounl two full height 8disk drives. S299.00

Horizontal mount one lull heightor two half height B' diskdrives. S239 00

Vertical mount Iwo lull heighi 5' idisk drives S139O0

TOLL FREE ORDER LINE

(800) 421-5041

TECHNICAL & CALIFORNIA

(213) 643-9001

CaIiFornia DiqiTAl

Post Office Box 3097 B • Torrance, California 90503

LIBERTY £

FREEDOM 50

475

Tha Liberty Freedom 50 lemiinal feature* detach-able keyboard with 93 keys including, 10 functionkeys. !5grapniesymbot5, and DIPswiicnselectablecharacter se< lot 7 foreign languages The 12 inchetched non-glare green phosphor screen displays24 rows by 60 characters in 7x9 main* with iruedescenders- Sell lesi and 25th data display row alsoincluded. Switch selectable baud rales from no-i u L'OO baud Screen attnOutes do not use display memory. a:lowing operator to display a lull 1920characters Emulates 5 popular CRT terminals lo< easy software configuration. Switch selectableI IS and 230 volt We have never seen a terminal wnh all these features lor the incredibly0 Ol Only $J75 LIB-FSO 40 lbs.

DIABLO

Word Processing Printer

'879

Now Irom lire originator ol the daisy wheel printer, the Diablo 620 Pnnl speeds Icuser selectable bi directional printing, superscripts, subscripts, graphics and more.RS-232 mierlacing Communication speeds to 1200baud witha 1500character pnnt butlerSoftware prog>»maOie absofule horizontal tabs makes report 'ormatlmg easy Over 20 ditfereniprint wheels are currently available The 620 automatically selects Ihe print spacing lor 10.12 ISchar/inchpnntwhcels On sue service available worldwide DBL-620 5010s

Your Choice

Second Drive or Monitor^

SANYO

IBM COMPATIBLE

'99$

- ."m.

■'-'"'"

Sanyo Electronics has just released the lor g awaited IBM/PC look-a-like. theMBC-550. This is a complete microcomputer that includes 128K/byte ofmemory, a 5V4" 160K/byte disk drive upgradeable to 320K/byte drives. Alsoincludes both color composite and RGB graphics interface, low profile key-board, and parallel printer port. Extensive software such as Sanyo Basic, diskutilities, Wordstar word processing software, Calcstar spread sheet & EasyWriter I. MS-DOS is supplied with the Sanyo computer. Most programswritten for the IBM/PC will operate on the MBC-550.Along with all this California Digital offers "FREE" your choice of either asecond disk drive, or a high resolution green or amber screen monitor. All atthe super low price of only $995.

We are currently experiencing an initial shortage of this computer. Pleaseplace your orders early. The MBC-550 will be shipped on a first crdered basis.

PRINTERS

*289

Star Gemini

MATRIX PRINTERS

I Slar Gemini-lOX 120chflr/sec 4Kbu1fer

StarGwmni'lfi lOOctiar/soc 15 paperI Slar Gcmmi Delta 10 160Char/sec

Star Coe> 80FT fncWI A tractor

iaP1350 192 ctinr/sec teller qualitya 62A serial 8 parallel 9'r paper

OiiJiH.'i^A parallel interface. 1G0 char/sec■ Okidaia83A 4 parallel 15 paper

Okidata84A 4 parallel 15 paper

OkirJaia 2350 (new| 350 char/sec

llfisofiF'XBO 10 160char/SCC.wilhgrar)Hira>

EpsonMXIOOwiiligraphirax IS paper

NECfl023Apa(alol9'; paper.graphics

Anadex950tAhigh speed with graphics

Afurlu- %;,()A 200 cliiii/SBC pai IA senal

Quantm 70J0 corc-spondonco quality IBOchar,

Gorilla low cost dot matnx printer

Prowriterfi510para1lel9'-- paper

Piownier II pansW 15 paper, graphics

D.ilapioUm;!;. O'liOO-:! h.inrJ printer riOOLPM

Prmironix P300 rutin speed printer 300 tmes per

Pnntronii P600i-tna high speed 600 linos per m

Mannesman Taiy tGOL serial 4parl iGOchar

NEC7710 551NEC7730 55 cNEC3550 pop

sec par I mteH desigrBM PC

20 cl

c par

Silver Reed EXPSOO

Silver Reod EXP; 50 17 Char.sec par I interface

Diablo630 40char,'sec senal

Diablo S20 proportional spacing horz Avert lab

Juki6<00 Iflcha'-sec graphemode

Brother HR t A daisy wneel parallel inteHace

Brotner HR t A senal interface

Slarwnler F10 serial 40 char/sec

StarwriterFtOparallel 4Qchar'sec

ComrexCRl word processing printer senal mtr

Comrei CR2 Sk bu'ler proportional spacing par

STR-G15

385 00

STUDIO

439 00

VST-CBOFT

229 00

T0S-13M

1469.00

OKI-flZA

37900

OKI-92A

479.00

OKI-83A

619.00

OKI-8JA

1024 00

OK1-2350

1995.00

EPS.FX80

575.00

EPS MX 100

645 00

NEC-6023A

389 00

ADX-9501A

1099 00

ADX9620A

1199.00

3C OTX-7030

1595.00

PRO-7500

189 00

PRO-6510P

343 00

PRO-2P

689.00

DPS B600

6985.00

mule PTX-P300

4250.00

ule PTX-P60O

5795 00

,ec MAN-160L

559 00

3 PRINTERS

NEC-7710

1939 00

NEC-7730

1939 00

C NEC -3550

1799.00

1 NEC-2050

995 00

SRD-EXP500

459 00

SRD-EXP550

659 00

D8L-630

1765 00

20cps DBL-620

879 00

JUK-6100

539 00

8TH-H3IP

69500

BTH-H31S

779 00

PRO-FiOS

1125.00

PRO-F10P

1125 00

CRX-CRiS

729 00

1 CRX-CR2P

495 00

MONITORS

BMC 12A groon pnosphor 15 MHz composn

BMC 12 high resolution 20MH*

ZenithZVM122 Amber Phosphor 12 40'80columnswuch

2entlhZVMi23c.reen phosphor 12 40^80column switch

NEC JB1201 green phosphor IB MHz composn video

NEC JBI260 commercial grade composn

Motorola 23 open Iramc Wk/whno composn videoMotorola 12 open irame requires horz sync and powerConrac9 Open Iramo requrros horz sync & 12v supply

COLORBMC AU9191U Color composn video with soundBMC 9191M RGB designed tor use with (he IBM computerNECJCI203DM RGB color mornlorNEC JC1201 color compositZonnh ZVMi.34 RGB color suitable lor IBM PC

Convex COlOr cemposit with sound

BMC-12A

BMC-12EN

ZTH-122

ZTH-Z123

NEC-JB1201

NEC-JB1260

USI-12A

MOT-8W23

MOT-8W12

CON-BW9

BMC-9191

BMC-9I91M

NEC-1203

NEC-JC1201

ZTH-Z134

COV1-6500

AMK-lOO

79 00134 00119001OS00169.00129.00169.00159 0069.0059 00

249.00499 00699.00339.00379 00329 00329 00

Hayes Smart Modem 1200 bi

Hayes I200B for VM With ihe IBM/PC. i200baud

Hayes Smatmodem. 300 baud only autoanswer, a

Hayes Micromodem II, 103 Apple direct connect

Hayes Micromodem lOO S 100 auto answer, auto d

Hayes Chronograph lime 4 date

US Robolics212A 3OO.'120O baud, auto dial.'answ

Pennl 300/1200 ajto dial autolog

Universal Data 103LP. line power answer a original

Universal Data 103LPJ. Auto answer

Universal Data 202. 1200 baud halt duple- only

Universal Data 212LP lull 1200 baud duplex, line pc

Novation J Cal direel conned autoanswer

ation Cat acoustic cornea. Novation SmanCil 103 autoanswer autodial

Novation SmanCat 103.-212 1200 baud auto diSignalman Mark I. dVocl connect with lermm

HVS-212AD

47495

HYS.1200B

44900

HYS-103AO

229 00

HYS-MM2

279.00

HYS-100

319.00

HYS-CHR232

199 00

USR-212A

43900

PEN-12AD

695 00

UDS-103LP

169 00

UDS-I03LPJ

21900

UDS-202LP

21900

UDS-212LP

359.00

NOV-JCAT

115 00

NOV-CAT

159 00

NOVSC103

219.00

NOVSC2I2

529 00

SGL-MK1

69 00

■V

The Wyse iOO features die castaluminum case. 102 key keyboardand non-glare 26 line green phos-phor video display Spin screenbolh honzonial an vertical makesIhe WY-100 unusally user friendlyThis unique terminal is perJec! toenhance any business system.

795

256 KILOBYTE

MEMORY BOARD

49$

im

Freedom 50 spin screen tjetaichaoio keyboardVisual 50. detatchabie. keyboard selectable settings.Visual 50 Green screenVisual 330. emulator, 14 inch green phosphorAmpex Dialogue t25 green screen, two page tunc keysAmpexDialOuge 125 amber screen (wo page, tunc keysWyse 50. 14 green phosphorWyse 100. horz 4 vert split screon, metal enclosureWyse 300. Eight color display, spin screenTeievideo 9 lO Plus, block modeTelevideo925. defatchablo keyboard 22 luncnon keysTeievideo 950. graphic char..split screen. 22 tuncTelevideo 970 14 green screen 132 column. Europeanial.VT52compatible detatchabie koyboar

Zenith 29 te

LI8-F50

VSL-SO

VSL-50G

VSL-330I4G

APX-D125G

APX-DI25A

WYS'50

WYS-100

WYS-300

TVI-910P

TVI-925

TVI9S0

TVI-970

ZTH.Z29

475 00619 00650 00925 00G75 0068500595.00795 00

1159.00575.00759 00950 00

1095 00765.00

Apple ll/e. 64K computer onlyApple ll/e starter kit. monitor, disk. 80 col. card.Advanced Busness Tech. 13 Key PadCalif. Computer 7710A Async. Senal InterfaceCalif. Computer 7710B same but for modemCalif. Computer 7114A 12K PROM moduleCalif. Computer 7720A parallel interfaceCalif. Computer 7724A Calandar/clock modualCalif. Computer 7729A Centronics interfaceCalif. Computer 7740A programmable timerCalifornia Digital 16K card for standard Apple IIHayes Micromodem 11 for Apple IIKensington Micro, System saver IanMicrosoft Softcardwilh CP/M; Z-80Mountain Computer The ClockMountain Computer AD/DA 16 input, 8bitMountain Computer ROM Plus with keybb. fitterMountain Computer ROM writer/socket socketOrange Micro "GRAPPLER" parallel interfaceSorrento Valley fl" conlroller double side D/D.TEAC 5Va" disk drive for Apple IIVista Vision 80: 80 column card for std,Apple IIVisia 8" disk conlroller double side D/D.

ASCIIKEYBOARD

APL-2EAPL-2ESK

ABT-13B

CCS-7710

CCS-7710B

CCS-7114

CCS-7720

CCS-7724

CCS-7729

CCS-7740

CAL-A16

HYS-MM2

KEN-SF1

MSF-SFTCD

MTN-TCLK

MTN-ADDA

MTN-RMF

MTN-ROMW

OMS-G2

SVA223

TEA-A2

VSA-VISBO

VSA-A800

1 '

• 256 kjlobrltl at mimgry wing 64K dynimic RAM. I

• Ow»r am HMM ol memory using. Ihi new2MK «yumTc RAM chips.

• Error detecliofl trap capability.

• individual 1BK block cm bt rtlncatad to anyboundry within i mirjibyli ol RAM.

• 24 bit iddretiinrj ind chintom modi r.ipjBiilty

The California Digital 256K RAM board represents an ou I standing value in S-100 memory technology. Priced sirghty above

earlier generation 64K dynamic ram boards il gives you these aodiiional lealurot 256K ol memory with parity. Parity error

feature can be lumperedto any of the interrupt lines, a status pen. ERROR LED. or IEEE-696 'ERROR signal. 24 or IGbil

addressing witn memory management

Proper operation wilh Iron) panel equipped systems. DMA disk controllers, and IEEE-696 Temporary Buss Masters

assured wilh an on the board M1 generator for memory relresh timing. CAS and RAS riming is conirolled with tapped digital

delay lines lor proper operation over Ihe entire operating temperature range.

The board is very tocent »t design using Ihe Natrona! Semiconductor DP-M09 RAM Conlroller chip. Spin termination

networks are used on all address linos. CAS tine, and RAS lines eliminating the last traces ol ringing. The board uses two

separate vollage regulators. One lor Ihe DRAMs and one lor the interface logic increasing the noise immunity ol the ram

array. Typical power dissipation is S watts.

Documentation includes theory ol operation, configuration guide, a schematic, and applicatron notes on the use ol the

memory management options. CAL-256K 2 Lbs.

S-100 BOARDS

STATIC MEMORY BOARDS

GorJbout(laml6.64K 16biirJalalrans GBT-R16 459 00

GorJDOulRaml7. 64K 8 bil 24 Oiladdress GBTR17 359 00

GodtX)utRam?1. 12SKbyle8/lElunslr?r GBTR21 BS900 |

Fulcrum 0mniRani8'l6trjnsler bank FCM-RS16 391

CahlorniaComputer ?11G. Don only CCS-21I6 24!

DYNAMIC MEMORY BOARDS

California Digital 256K eipand lo I Meg CAL-0256 49!CaliforniaComp 2066.64Kbankseied CCS-206E 295 00 |

INTERFACE BOARDS

Godooui bdjffmtl 2seriaipons GBT-133A

Godboullnlertactrii. t serial 3 pat I pons GBTI50AGodbool imerlaccr III. with 5 serial norts GBT135AGodboul Inlcrlacei III. wilh B serial ports GBT136AGodbul inlerlacer IV. 3 serial. 2 parallel GBT-187ACalilofniaCompulcr27i0.4sfiaiporis CCS-27IOCalilomiaCompultr2719 2serial. 2 par | CCS-2719CalilorniaCompiil,;r2720. i port pan CCS-2720California CompuiDf 2830. 6 port senal CCS-2B30Morrow Designs Multrboatd 3 S/2P MDS-MTLI

49

Cal if or ma Digital has purchased

over 3000 ol those Mirjoswrlch

keyboards Irom the General Oynamics Corporation 93 ASCII encoded Hall effect

switches includes 8 function keys and 14 key numenc cluster make Ihis keyboard an

excelled value at only S49 MIC-93GD S lbs

We also have available a matching General Dynamics sloe! mm panel S10

al contact keyboard HIK<S8S2495 Matching ISkeyBoth lor only S29 95 HIK-5815

Stiij jj-'if lit. First five pounds SJ.00. ■Foreign orders: 10°o shipping, l-xcCaltlorma residents add 6' **» salesOpen accounts extended to state s

16 BIT MICROPROCESSORS

Octagon dual CPU 8088/Z80. & conlroller OCT-B8Z80 795 00

SINGLE BOARD COMPUTERS

insigtit EO-4. 128K. 4 serial noi S-100 INS*-E04 595 00

Advanced Digital. Floppy & 54K AMD-ZBO 750 00

Teletek System master 765floppy.HK TEL-SMI 895 00

Telelek FDC-1 single board, no memory TEL-FDC1 675 00

8 BIT MICROPROCESSORS

Godboul Z80. 24 bit eitendtd add GBT-Z80 250 00

Cahloima Computer Z60 microprocessor CCS-2B10 275 00Tarbell ZBO with two R5232 ports TAR-ZSO 339 00

339 00350 0022500419 00279.00389 00

FLOPPY DISK CONTROLLERS

Godboul Disk 1. double density. GBT-DSKI

California Compuler 2422A wilh CPM CCS-2422

Morrow Disk Jockey tl wilh CPM 2.2 MDS-DJ2

Morrow Disk Jockey) with C^M.sgl Den MOS-DJI

Tarbell Electronics double density TAR-ODC

laiOell Electronics single density TAR-5DC

Fulcrum DMA OmniDisk. I/O lo hard disk FCM-DD1

CPM OPERATING SYSTEM

Digital Research CP/M 3.0. II sgl. den DRC-CpM30 249.00

tPM2 .!o(}:sk I GBT-CpM22 15900

Godboul CPMB6 for SOBS and S0B6 GBT-CpMB5 265 00

Tarbell Electronics CPM 2.2 TAR-CpM22 159 00

HARD DISK CONTROLLERS

Oclagon hard disk controller wilh E/C. OCT-HD1 475 00

Godboul Disk 2. Bi 14'ha'ddisk GBT-DSK2 569 00

Godboul Disk3. lot 5V Winchesters GBT-DSK3 Nov.

Mamm Designs controller lor 5V Win MDS-W506 495.00

Western Digital new WD-1001 |i»lS-lOO| WOI-1001 495 00

EPROM BOARDS

Inner Access EPROM Bd programs 27128 IAC-P100 465 00

Digital Research PROM boarC 32K OGR-P32 119 00

SPECIAL FUNCTION BOARDS

Hayes SiOO Mictomodcm. 300 baud HVS-M100 325

OT Compuler clock calendar, battery DTC-CC100 139

Godboul System support boarfl. 4K EPROMGBT-SYSI 350

Godboul System support board. 9511 math GBT-S9511 539 00 |

Dual Sysiems. 4 channel 12 bit D/Aconv DSC-A0MI2 619 00 I

Dual System 12 bit resolution 32 ch AID DSC-A1MI2 62900 I

MulltnsOplO'lsolalor conttolsBch MUMCBiO 17900 |

Mullms eiiendet board with logic & probe MUL-TS4 79 DO

l/D Technology wire wrap prototype I0T-W100 49 00 I

Artec Electronics wire wrap prototype ART WW 100 2500 [

An ec E tec ironies general purpose solder ARTGP100 2500 j

MAINFRAMES & MOTHER BOARDS

Eclipse Daia. slamless. 22 sloiGodboul Enclosure 2. 20 slotsCalifotniaComputer2200 l2slotCalifornia Digital ISslal mother beGodOout I2slat mother board

EDP-100

GBT-MF2D

CCS-2200

CAL-MBI8

GBT-MB12

695 0(675 00 1

CP/M SOFTWARE

AdaSoftCP/M

D-Base II

Wordstar

Mailmerge

Spellstar

Multiplan

Macro 80

ADA-44SC 395.00ASH-015C 429.00MPR-187C 309.00MPR-392C 169.00MPR-429C 169.00MSF-483C 189.00MSF-187C 139.00

SupersoftMACCP/M 3.0DespoolPascal PlusCP/M 86MP/M II

MPR-309C 149.00DGR-401C 85.00DGR-410C 249.00DGR-367C 45.00DGR-004C 429.00DGR-186C 239.00DGR-208C 379.00

tic

Additional Software available tor Apple, IBM/PC andAtari. Please telephone tor price and availability.

TOLL FREE ORDER LINE

(800) 421-5041

TECHNICAL & CALIFORNIA

(213) 643-9001

VIDEO DISPLAYS

PERIPHERALS FOR THE IBM PC

look for low cost-high quality videodisplays

VIDEO TERMINAL

BOARD. This is a com-plete stand alone VideoTerminal board. All thatis needed besides thisboard is a parallel ASCIIkeyboard, standardNTSC monitor, and apowersupply. It displays80 columns by 25 linesof UPPER and lowercase characters. Data istranstered by RS232 atrates of 110 to 9600 baud—switch selectable. Complete source listing is included in thedocumentation. Both the CRT program and the charactergenerator are in 2716 EPROMS to allow easy modification to yourneeds. This board uses a 6502 microprocessor and a 6845 crtcontroller. The serial input port is interrupt driven. Assembled andtested part number 82-018A $199.95. The bare board with thecrystal and EPROMS, part number 82-018B $89.95

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MINI VIDEO. This board can be used to add a video display toyour aim or other computer. It can also, with the addition of aparallel keyboard, 5V power supply, and video monitor, run TomPlttman's Tiny Basic. The display format is 40 columns by 24lines. This board has two parallel ports (6522), a 6502 MPU 4KRAM, 2 or 4K EPROM. The assembled video board withoutEPROMS, part number 82-140A $149.95. The Tiny Basic EPROM$39.95. The character generator EPROM $19.95. The parallel inputEPROM $19.95.

To order: Send check or money order. Add 6.5% tax in California.Add 5% shipping for orders less than $100 or 3% for orders over$100 or 10% outside U.S.A. Phone orders: We accept Visa or MC.Add $2.00 for C.O.D. Will Call Hours 9am to 4pm.

look for low cost-high quality inter-faces for the IBM PC

UNIVERSAL I/O. The Universal I/O board has 16 eightbit analog inputs with a voltage range of 0 to 5 volts. Italso has 9 eight bit parallel I/O ports. It has interrupt cir-cuitry, Timer clock 32768 Hz. to 512 sec, prototypingarea, and LED for power. Part number 83-064A $299.95

120 VAC CONTROL. This board has eight opticallyisolated triac switches. Each switch can control 200watts. It connects via a 16 pin ribbon cable to a paralleloutput port. Screw terminals are provided for 120 vacconnection. Part number 82-332. $119.95.

INPUT PROTECTOR. This board protects the inputs ofthe ANALOG input or PARALLEL input ports. There are4.7K pullups, diodes and caps for each line. It connectsvia a 16 pin ribbon cable. Screw terminals are providedfor connection. Part number 82-334. $89.95.

To order: Send check or money order. Add 6.5% tax In California.Add 5% shipping for orders less than $100 or 3% for orders over$100 or 10% outside U.S.A. Phone orders: We accept Visa or MC.Add $2.00 for C.O.D. Will Call Hours 9am to 4pm.

John Bell ■ John Bell

Engineering, Inc.

Engineering, Inc.

1014 CENTER ST.SAN CARLOS, CA. 94070(415) 592-8411

1014 CENTER ST.SAN CARLOS, CA. 94070(415) 592-8411

628 BYTE December 1983

Circle 45 on Inquiry card.

Circle 46 on inquiry card.

PERIPHERALS FOR THE APPLE II

INDUSTRIAL CONTROL PRODUCTS

look for low cost-high quality inter-faces for the APPLE II

6522 APPLE IIINTERFACE. This interfaceplugs directly into slot 1through 7 in the APPLE II orthe APPLE lie. It provides four8 bit bi-directional I/O ports,four 16 bit timer/counters, andhandshaking. Four 16 pin dipsockets provide easyconnections to peripheral devices. This board is also used to runthe JBE EPROM Programmer. Order part # 79 295A assm. $69.95 or# 79-295B bare board $29.95

EPROM PROGRAMMER.

Programs 5 volt 2716's, 2516's, and

2532's. It interfaces to the 6522

interface with 4 ribbon cables. A

Textool zero insertion force socket

is used for the EPROM. Complete

documentation for reading and

writing. Cables available

separately. Order part # 80-244A assm. $49.95 or # 80-244B bare

board 29.95 and set of 4 cables 2 ft. long $17.00

A-D CONVERTER. 16

Channel A-D plugs into yourAPPLE II or APPLE lie. The 16inputs are high impedance, 0 to5 volt range, 8 bit resolution.Conversion time is less than 100us per channel. Two 16 pin dipsockets are used for input.Order part # 81-132A assm.$89.95 or # 81-132B bare board $29.95

SPEECH SYNTHESIZER.

This board uses the VOTRAXSC-01 Phoneme Synthesizerchip. The on board audio ampconnects directly to an 8 ohmspeaker. A disk with a text tospeech program is included.Order part #81-088 $129.95

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To order: Send check or money order. Add 6.5% tax in California.Add 5% shipping for orders less than $100 or 3% for orders over$100 or 10% outside U.S.A. Phone orders: We accept Visa or MC.Add $2.00 for C.O.D. Will Call Hours 9am to 4pm.

John Bell

Engineering, Inc.

1014 CENTER ST.SAN CARLOS, CA. 94070(415) 592-8411

look for low cost-high quality indus-trial computers

SLIM MICROCOMPUTER. This

6502 based 4.5"x 6.5" computerhas the same 44 pin bus as the AIMcomputer. It has 2K RAM, 2K or 4KEPROM, and four 8 bit parallel I/Oports (two 6522's). The clock is 1MHz crystal controlled and haspower on reset. This board wasdesigned for control and is ideal for personal and OEM use. Thiscomputer can be expanded with the peripherals listed below. Orderpart # 81-260A assm. $199.95 or #81-260B bare board $39.95

SIX SLOT MOTHERBOARD. This board has 6 44pin edge connectorsconnected in parallel. The cardspacing is .750". It will mountin VECTOR card cages. Orderpart # 81-320A assm. $99.95 or# 81-320B bare board $49.95.

12 PORT PARALLEL I/O.

This board has six 6522 VIA's.This is a total of 96.I/O lines.Each of the 12 8 bit ports alsohas 2 handshake lines. Orderpart # 82-036A assm. $169.95 or# 82-036B bare board $49.95

1Hk3£$' 9$

RAM EPROM MEMORY (32K).

This board has 16 24 pin sockets

that will accept 2716 EPROM's or

6116 RAM's to total 32K bytes. The

memory is mapped from 0 to 7FFF.

The first 2K (0-7FF) can be

disabled with a jumper to allow for

the 2K of RAM on the SLIM

computer. Order part # 81-330A

assm. w/o memory $99.95 or # 81-330B bare board $49.95

ANALOG I/O INTERFACE. Thisboard has 16 analog inputs and 2analog outputs. The inputs are 8 bit(256 steps), 0-5 volt, high impedancewith a conversion time of 200us perchannel. The outputs are R-2Rladders (R = 15K) driven between 0and 5 volts and are 8 bit (256 steps)also. Order part # 81-292A assm.$199.95 or #81-292B bare board $49.95

To order: Send check or money order. Add 6.5% tax in California.Add 5% shipping for orders less than $100 or 3% for orders over$100 or 10% outside U.S.A. Phone orders: We accept Visa or MC.Add $2.00 for C.O.D. Will Call Hours 9am to 4pm.

John Bell

Engineering, Inc.

1014 CENTER ST.SAN CARLOS, CA. 94070(415) 592-8411

Circle 47 on Inquiry card.

Circle 48 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983 629

MICROPROCESSOR COMPONENTS W\ Dlgitalker

SN7400NSN740INSN74Q2NSN74D3NSN7404NSN7405NSN74Q6NSN7407NSN740SNSN7409NSN74I0NSN7411HSH7412NSN7413NSM7414NSN7416NSN7417NSN7420NSN?421NSN7422NSN7423NSN7425NSN7426NSN7427NSN7428NSH7430NSN7432NSN7437NSN7438NSN7439USN7440NSN7441NSN7442NSN7443NSN7444NSN7445NSM7446NSN7447NSN744BNSN745QNSM7451NSN7453NSN7454NSN7459NSN7460NSN747QN

74LSOQ74LS01741. SQ2741.S0374LS0474LS0574LS0B74LSQ974LS1074LSII74LS1274LS1374LS1474LS1574LS2074LS2174LS2274LS2674LS2774LS2B74LS3074LS3274LS3374LS3774LS3874LS4074LS4274LS4774LS4874LS4974LS5174LSS474LS5574LS7374LS7474LS7574LS76MLS7874LS8374LSB574LS8674LS90

74S0074S0274S0374S0474SQS74S0874S0974S1074S1174S1574S2074S2274S3074S3274S387454074S5174S6474S6574S7474S8574S8674S11274S113

CA3010HCA3039HCA3046NCA3059NCA3Q60NCA3065ECA3D80E

CD4000

C04001

CD40O2

CD4Q06

CD4O07

CD40O9

CD40IO

CD4011

C04012

CD4013

CD40I4

CO4015

C04016

CD4017

C0401B

CD40I9

CD4020

CD4021

CD4022

CD4023

CD4024

CD4025

CD4026

CD4027

C04028

CD4029

CD4030

SN7472N

SN74 73NSN7474NSU747SNSN7476NSN7479NSN7480NSH7482NSN7483NSN74B5NSN74B6NSN7469NSN7490NSN7491NSN7492NSN7493N5N7494NSN7495NSN7496NSN7497NSN74100NSN741Q4NSN74105NSN74107NSN74109NSN74I16NSM74121NSN74122NSN74123NSN74125NSN74126NSN74132NSN74I36NSN74141NSN74142NSN74143NSN74144NSN74145NSN74I47NSN74148NSN741SONSN74151NSN74152NSN74153NSN74154NSN7415SN

16 39524 3.9524 3 95

SN74156KSN74157N

SN74I60NSN74161NSN74162NSN74163NSN74164NSN74165NSN7416GN.SN74167NSN74170NSN74172NSN74I73NSN74174NSN74175NSW74176NSN74177NSN74179NSN74180NSN74181N5N74182NSN74184NSN74I85NSN74190NSN7419INSN74192NSN74193MSN74194HSN7419SNSN74I96NSN74197NSN7419BMSN74199NSN7422INSN74251NSN74276NSN74279NSN74283NSN74284NSN74285NSN74365NSN743B6NSN74367NSN7436BNSN74390NSN74393N

74LS92 14

74LS93 14

74LS95 14

74LS96 !6

74LSI07 14

74LS109 16

74LS112 16

74LS113 U

74LS114 14

74LS122 14

74LS123 16

74LS125 14

74LS126 14

74LS132 14

74LS133 16

74LS136 14

7JLSI3S 16

74LS139 16

74LS151 16

74LS153 16

74LS154 24

74LS155 16

74LS1S6 16

74LSI57 16

74LS15B 16

74LS160 16

74LS161 16

74LSI62 16

74LS163 16

74LSI64 14

74LSt65 16

74LS168 16

74LSI69 16

74LS170 16

74LS173 16

74LSI74 16

74LS175 16

74LS181 24

74LS190 16

74LS19274LSI9374LS19474LSI9574LS19774LS22174LS24074LS24174LS24274LS24374LS2-1474LS24574LS24774LS24874LS24974LS25174LS25374LS25774LS25B74LS26074LS26674LS27374LS27974LS28374LS29074LS29374LS29874LS35274LS35374LS36574LS36674LS36774LS36874LS37374LS37474LS3757JLS3B674LS39374LS39974LS67081LS9581LS97

mnhimm

74S11474S13374S13474SI3574S13674SJ3874S13974S14074S15174S16374S15774SI5874S16074S17474S17574S18B*74S19474S19574SI9674S24074S24174S242

74S24374S24474S25174S25374S25774S25874S2607452B074S287-74S2BB*74S37374S37474S387'74S47P74S47Z'74S473-74S474-74S4 75*74S570'74S57T74S572*74S573*74S94074S941

CA30B1N 16

CA3082N 16

CA3083N 16

CA30B6N 14

CA3089N 16

CA3096N 16

CA3130ECA3140ECA3160HCA3162ECA31S9ECA3401NCA3600H

C04040

16

C04041

14

CD4042

IB

CD4043

16

CD4044

16

C04046

IB

CD4047

14

CD404B

1h

CO4049

IB

CD4050

1B

CD4051

16

CD4052

16

C04053

16

C04056

16

CD4059

n

C04060

16

C04066

14

CD4068

14

CD4069

14

CD4070

14

CO4071

14

C04072

14

CD4073

14

CD4075

14

C04076

16

C04078

14

CD.1081

14

CD40B2

14

CD4093

14

CD409Q 16

CD4506 16

CD4507 14

CD4508 24

CD4510 16

CD4511 1B

C04512 16

C04514 24

C04515 24

CD4516 16

C04S18 16

CD4519 16

CD4520 16

C04526 16

CD4528 16

C04529 16

CD4543 16

CD4562 14

CD4566 16

CD45B3 16

CD4584 14

CD4723 16

CD4724 16

MC144D9 16

MC14410 16

MCM4M 24

MC14412 16

MC14419 16

MC14433 24

MC14538 16

MC14S41 14

-MICROPROCESSOR CHIPS-

C0PIB02MCS6502UCS6502BMCGB02CP

INS8O40N-6INS8070NINS8073NP8085A

40 CPU

40 MPU w7Ckxk

40 MPUw/Clockat3MHi . .

40 MPUw/ClockamfRAM

40 CPU-B bd (Inlernal Ckick) 1MHz

40 MPU-8-WI(6MHz]. . ..

40 CPU-Sol chfp8M(l2BCils Ram)

40 CPU (256 by1«s HAM) . .

40 CPU(64byIBSRAM|

40 CPU w/Baac Micro Imwp/Blet

40 CPU

Z60

Z80-CTC780DARTZ80DMA

zao-pio

ZB0S10/0

7BOS10/1

Z80-S10/2

Z80-S10/9

7.80A

ZBOA-CTC

Z80A-DAHT

Z80AHMA

ZBOA-PIO

Z80A-S10/0

ZBOA-S10/1

ZBOA-SIO/2

ZBOA>S10/9

Z80B

ZBOB-CTC

ZB001Z8O02ZB030Z8036

MC6800

MCBS02CP

MC6809E

MC6821

MC6828

MC6B30L8

MC6850

MCG852

MCB860

MC6862

MC68B0A

MC68O00LB

MC68488P

MC68652P2

MC68661PB

MCM687fi4

SV6522

CPU 16-bil 5MHi

40 CPU8/I6-WI

40 HMOS RAM I/O fort Timer40 HMOS EPROM MPU

ZBO. ZBOA. Z80R. Z8000 SEBIES-40 CPU (MK3880NH78OC) 2MH:28 Counter Timer Circuit

815C

INS82C06

OPB212

OPB214

DP8216

0P8224

DP8226

DP8228

DP8238

INS8243

INS8245

INS8246

IIJS8247

INS8248

INS8250N

DPB251

DP8253

DP6255

DP8257

DP8259

DP8275

CP8279

DP8303

DP8304

DP8307

UP8308

DP83I0

INS177M

FD179I

FDI793

PD1795

FD1797

6843P

40 Parallel I/O Irilorfacs Controller

40 Serial I/O (TxCB arvd RiCB Bonded)

40 Serial I/O (Lacks OTfiB).

40 Serial I/O (Lacks SYNCB)

40 Serial I/O

40 CPtl(MK3880N-4)(780C-1)4MH7 ..

28 Counter Timer Circuit

40 Dual Asynchronous Rec /trans.

40 Dtfect Memory Access Circuit . .

40 Parallel I/O Interface Controller

40 Serial I/O (TxCB and RiCB bonded) .

40 Serial I/O (Lacks DTRB)

40 Serial I/O (Lacks SYNCB]

40 Serial I/O . .

40 CPU(MK3B80N-6)6MHi

2B Counter Timer Circuit . .

40 DuatAsynch Receiver/Transmffler

40 Parallel I/O Interface Controller

48 CPU Segmented

40 CPU Non-Segmented , ..

40 Serial Comm Controller

40 Counter'Timet & Parallel I/O Unit

-6800/68000 SEHIES

40 MPU

40 MPU with clock and RAM

40 CPU 11 MHz) External (Locking)

40 Peripheral Inter Adapl (MC6820)

24 Priority Inleriuot Controller . .

24 I024x8-bit ROM IMC68A3Q-8)

24 Asynchronous Comm. Adapter

24 Synchronous Serial Dala Adapter

24 O-GOObps Digital MODEM

24 2400bps Modulator

16 Quad 3-slate bus Irans (MC8T26)

64 MPU 16-Bit (BMHr)

40 General Purpose Int. Adapter .. .

40 Multi Protocol Comm. Conlroller

28 Enhanced Prog Comm Int. . .

24 64K EPROM (450ns)

40 Peripheral Inter. Adapter

8080A SERIES

40 CPU . . .

40 Synchronous Data Interface (SIRC)

40 128 Byte PAM 16-Bit I/O

40 RAM with I/O Port and Timer .,..,

20 Oclal D Flip Flop Tn-Stale (74C374)

24 8billnput/0utpul(74S412)

24 Priority Interrupt Control .

16 Bl-Directional Bus Driver

16 Clock Generalor/Drrver

16 Bus Driver . .

28 System Com / Bus Dover (74S42B |

28 SystemConlrollei(74S43fl)

24 I/O Expander lot 4B Series

18 16-Key Keyboard Encoder (74C922)

20 20-Key Keyboard Encoder (74C923)

28 D.sp^y Controller (74C9I I) .

28 Display Conlroller (74C912)

40 Asyn Comm Elemenl

28 Prog Comm l/0(USART)

24 Prog interval Timer

40 Prog. Peripheral I/O |PPI)

40 Prog DMAConlrol

28 Prog Interrupt Control

40 Prog CRT Conlroller

40 Prog. Keyboard/Display mierface

20 8 ■Bn Tn-Slate Bi-Directionat Trans

20 8-bit Bi-Directional Receiver ...

20 8 bit Bi-Directional Receiver

20 8■ bit Bi-Directional Receiver

20 Octal Lalched Peripheral Dnvor

20 Octal Lalched Peripheral Driver .

40 8-bit Univ. Peripheral interface

40 !6KEPROMwi!hl/0

— DISK CONTROLLERS

40 Single Density

40 Singlo/Oual Density (Inv.l, ,. . .

40 Slngle/DoubloDcnsity(True]

40 0ualDensliy/Sidc5elec1(lw.). .

40 Dual Density/Side Select True..

40 Floppy Disk Controller (IMHi) ....

— SPECIAL FUNCTION

16.95. 29.95.29.9529 9529.95. 29.95

DS0D25CN 8 Dual MOS Clock Qnver (5MZ)

OS0026CN 8 Dual MOS Ckxk Driver (5MZ)

INS2651 28 Communication Chip . ....

MC3470P IB Floppy Disk Read Amp System

MM58167AH 24 Mcroprocessor Real Time Clock

MM5B174AN 16 Micro Compatible Time Clock

CDP402N

COP470M

10M2909AJC

MM5369EST

40 Microcontroller w/64-digil RAM

and Direct LEO Drive40 Microprocessor w/64-digil RAM

& Dirocl LED Onve w/N Buss Int20 32-seg VAC Fluor Orw (20pinpkg )28 Microprocessor SequencerB ProgOsallalor/Drvioe/llOOfli)

■■pins DYNAMIC RAMS

Pric.

11034027

4116N-2

4II6N-3

41I6N-4

4154N-I50

4164N-200

MM526I

MM5262

MM5270

MM52BU

MM5290-2

MM52903

MM5290 4

MM529H-3

18 1024x1 (300ns) 99

16 4086x1 (,250ns) 2.49

16 16.384x1 (150ns) 189-8/14 95

16 16.384x1 (2O0nsj 169-8/12 95

16 16,384x1 (250ns) 1.49-8/1095

16 65.536x1 (150ns) 6 95-8/49 95

16 66.536x1 (200ns} .5.95-8/44.95

IB 1024x1 HOQnsI 49-8/195

22 2048x1 (365ns) 49-8/1.95

IB 4096x1 (250ns) MK4096 .4.95

22 4096x1 (200ns)2107 3.95

16 16,384x1 (150ns) 189-8/14.95

16 16.384x1 (200ns) 169-8/12.95

16 16.384x1 (250ns, 149-B/10.95

16 8192x1 (200ns) 1.69

STATIC RAMS

16 256x1 (650ns) 1.49

22 256x4 (450ns)B10l 2.49

16 1024x1 (350ns) B9

16 1024x1 (45Dns)L.P . 1.49

IB 256x4 (450ns)811l 2 95

16 256x4 (450ns)MOS 1.95

18 1024x4 (450ns) ,..,

18 1024x4 (450ns) LP.

18 1024x4 (200ns)

18 1024x4 (200ns) LP

18 4096x1 |70ns)

18 1024x4 (70ns)." ■ 150ns)1024x4 (450ns)

2114L2114-22I14L-2

2147

2148

TMS4045

TMS40L47-45

5101 22 255x4 (450ns) CMOS

MM5257 18 4096x1 |450ns)4044 .

HM6116P-3 24 2048x8 |i50ns)CM0S

HM6116-4 24 2048x8 (200ns)CMDS .

HM6116LP-4 24 2048x8 (200ns) L P CMOS

HM6264P-15 23 B192xB (150ns)CM0S

.1.49-8/9.951,95-8/13.951 75-8/11.95225-B/14.95

27LS00

7489

74C920

74C921

74C929

74C930

74SI89

74S200

74S206

74S2B9

62510

82S25

16 256x1

16 16x4

22 256x4

IB 256>4

16 1024k

(80ns) LP

(50ns)3l0l(250ns)(250ns) CMOS(250ns) CMOS (6501]|250ns)CM0S(651B)

Ibx4 (35ns)93405

256x1 (80ns)93410

256x1 (60ns)9341l

15x4 (35ns)3101

1024x1 (50ns)OC (93415)

16x4 (50ns)0C (74S2B9)

1702A

270B

270B-5

TMS2516

TMS2532

IMS2564

TMS2716

2716

2716-1

27160-5

2732

2732A-3

2732A'4

27320-4

275BOA

2764-4

2764-3

MM5204Q

MCM68764

2712B

74S18B

74S2B7

74S2B8

74S387

74S471

74S472

74S473

74S474

74S475

74S476

74S478

74S570

74S571

74S572

74S573

82S23

B2S115

82S123

82S126

B2S129

82S130

82S185

82S190

82S11

24 1024xB (450ns) .. .

24 1024x8 (550ns) SM00246

24 2Q48xB (450ns)2716

24 4096x8 (450ns) NMC2532

28 8192x8 (450ns)

24 2048x8 (450ns) 3 voltage

24 2048x8 (450ns)

24 2048x8 (350ns)

24 2048x8 (550ns)

24 4096x8 (450ns)

24 4096x8 (300ns)

24 409GxB (450ns)21V

24 4096x8 |550ns)

24 1024x8 (450ns)

2B 8192x8 (450ns)

28 8192x8 (300ns) , .

24 512xB(1us) ... . .

24 8192x8 (450ns)

78 I6.3B4x8 (450ns) 128K EPROM

16 32x8 PROMO.C (6330-1).

18 256x4 PROMT S. (6301-1)

18 32x8 PROMTS (6331-1)PROMO.C (6300-1)PROMT S (6309-1)PROMT S (6349-1)PROM DC (6348)PROMT S (DM87S296N)PROMO.C (6340)

m lUiiax-i PROMTS

24 1024x8 PROMT S

PROMOC (6305)PROM T S (63061PROMO.C. (6352)

IB 1024x4 PROMT S (S2S137)

*" 32x8 PROMOC (27S18)PROMTS (27S15)PROMTS (27S19)PROMO.C. (27S20)PROMT S (27S21)PROMOC (27S12)2046x4 PROMT 5 (TBP24S81)

24 2046x8 (80ns).(80ns)

16 256x4

20 256*8

20 512x8

20 512xB

24 512x8

24 512x8

16 512x416 512x4

"" 1024x4

24 512x8

16 32x8

16 256x4

16 256x4

16 512x4

24 2048x8 .__

0MS7S180N 24 1024x8 PROMO.C 182S1B0)

OMB7S181N 24 1024x8 PROMT 5 (82S181)

DM87SI84N IS 2048x4 PROMO.C (82SI84)

OM87S185N 18 2048x4 PROM T.S. (82S185I

OMB7S190N 24 2048x4 PROM 0 C (B2S190)

DMB7S191N 24 2046x8 PROM T.S (8ZS19I)

DATA ACQUISITION

DC10 Mostok DC/DC Converl. +5V10-9V

MC3470P 18 Floppy Disk Read AMP SystemMCM08L7 16 7-bil D/A Converter (OAC0B07LCN]MC1408LB IB 8-bit D/A Converter [DACOBOBLCN]ADC08Q3LCN 2B 8-bit A/0 Converter (± 1/2LSB)

2.95

2 95

4 95

4 95

.2.95

. 9.95

..2.95

.2.95

2.95

3.95

.9.95

14.S5

14.95

9.95

9.95

9.96

. 9.95

14.95

2.25

ADCO804 20 8-bit A/0 Convener (1LSB)

DACO806 168-bi!D/AConverler(0.7B,/< Lin.) 1.95

AOCO809 28 8-bil A/0 Converter (8-Ch Multi ) 4 49

ADC0817 40 8-bitA/D Converter (16-Ch Mulli.) 9.95

OAC1000 24 10 bit D/A Conn Micro Comp (0 05%) 7 95

DAC1008 20 10-bi! D/A Conv Micro Comp. (0.20K) 6.95

DAC1020 16 10-bit 0/A Conv (0 05% Lin.) 7 95

DAC1022 16 10-bit 0/A Conv. (0 20% Lin ) 5.95

DAC1222 18 12-hit D/A Conv (0.20% Lin ) 6 95

LM3342 Constanl Current Source 1.19

LM335Z Temperature Transducer i 40

LM399H Temp Comp Prec Rel ( 5ppm/C*| 5 00

AY-5-1013A 40 30K8iudUarl(TB1602). . .. .3.85

LOW PROFILE

(TIN) SOCKETS

B pin LP14 pin LP16 pin LP18 pin LP20 pin LP22 pin LP24 pin LP2B pin LP36 pin LP40 pin LP

SOLDERTAIL (GOLD)STANDARD

1-9 1099 100-up

BplnS14 pin S18 pin SIB pin S74 pin S

nSO

1.03

wjjttf.

TTTTTTf

WW

SOLDERTAILSTANDARD (TIN)

20 pin ST

.45

.43

.41

24 pin ST

.49

.46

.43

2B pin ST

.69

.67

.63

40 pin ST

.99

.95

89

WIRE .ociii-i:

(GOLD) LEVEL #3

1-9

10-99 ioo-uii

8 pin WW

.49

.48

.42

10 pin WW

.65

.62

.SB

14 pin WW

65

62

-.59

16 pin WW

-69

.65

.61

IB pin WW

.89

.85

.78

20 pin WW

1.09

1.05

.99

22 pin WW

1.25

1.19

1.15

74 pin WW

1 29

1.23

1.18

28 pin WW

1.59

1.50

1.48

3G pin WW

1.85

1.75

1.89

40 pin WW

1 99

1 89

1.78

$10.00 Minimum Order — U.S. Funds OnlyCalifornia Residents Add 6Vi% Sales TaxShipping — Add 5% plus 51.50 InsuranceSend S.A.S.E. for Monthly Safes Flyer!

Spec Sheets — 30c eachSend S1.00 Postage for yourFREE 1984 JAMECO CATALOGPrices Subject to Change

ViSA*

DT1050 — Applications: Teaching aids,appliances, clocks, automotive, telecommunica-tions, language translations, etc.

The OT1050 Is a standard DIGITALKER kll encoded wllh 137 separateand useful words, 2 lories, and 5 different silence durations. Thewords and tones have been assigned discrete addresses, makino IIpossible lo output single words or words concatenated into phrasesor even sentences. The "voice" output ol the DT1050 is a highly in-telligible male voice. Female and children's voices can be synthesiz-ed. The vocabulary is chosen so that It Is applicable lo many pio-ducls and markets.

The DT 1050 consists ol a Speech Processor Chip, MM54104 (40-pin)and (wo (2) Speech ROMs MM52164SSR1 and MM52164SSR2 (24-pin)along with a Master Word Hat and a recommended schematicdiagram on the application sheet.

DT10S0 Digrtalker™ $34.95 ea.

MM54104 Processor Chip 114.95 ea.

DT1057- Expands the DT1050 vocabulary from 137 lo over 260

words. Includes 2 ROMs and specs.

Pan No. DTT057 $24.95 ea.

* fc'valuation

ftrtHo.

"Pini Function

7045IPI

7045EV/Ki|-

7106CPL

FE0203D

7106EV/KH-

7107CPL

7107EV7KJ1*

7116CPL

72DIIUS

7205IPG

7205EV/Kir

7206CJPE

7206CEV/KII-

7207AIPO

7207AEV/Kif

7215IPG

7215EV/Kit*

7216AIJI

721ECIJI

7216DIPI

7217UI7217AIP17224IPL7226AUL7226AEVWl3Mflf) 1QR1 IKITFR^It H

CMOS Precision Timer

Slopwaich Chip. XTL

3Vt0igrtA/D (LCD Drive)

3ft Digit LCD Display lor 7106 « 71 it

IC. Circuit Board, Display

3'A0igilA/D (LED Drive)

IC.CiicihI Board. Display

3'/iDigilA/0LCD0i5 HLO.

Low Ballery Voll Indicator

CMOS LED Siopwalch/Timer

Slopwaich Chip. XTL

Tone Generator .

Tone Generalor Chip. XTL

Osollator Conlroller

Fret). Counter Chip. XTL

4 Func. CMOS Slopwaich CKT

4Func Slopwaich Chip. XTL

8 Digit Unrv Counter C A

6 Digit Freq Counter C.A. ..

6 Digit Freq Counter C C

4 Dlgil LED Up/Down Countei C A

4 Oigil LED Up/Down Counter C C

LCD4Vi Digit Up Counter DRI

BOigilUniv Counter

SFunclunCounlerChip. XTL

29 9524 95

19.951D9511.9510 9529 95

2J" 74HC High Speed CMOS

74HC00 14

74HC02 14

74HCD3 14

74HC04 14

74HCU04 14

74HC0B 14

74HC10 14

74HC11 14

74HC14 14

74HC20 14

74HC27 14

74HC32 14

74HC42 16

74HC51 14

74HC5B 14

74HC73 14

74HC74 14

74HC75 16

74HC76 16

74HCB5 16

74HCB6 14

74HC107 14

74HC109 16

74HC112 16

74HC113 14

74HC132 14

74HC137 16

74HC136 16

74HCI39 16

74HC147 16

74HC151 16

74HC153 16

74KC154 t*

74HC157 16

74HC15B 16

74HC160 16

74HC161 16

74HC162 16

74HC163 16

74HC164 14

74HC165 16

74NC173 16

74HC174 16

74KC175 16

74HC192 16

74HC193 16

74HCI94 16

74HC195 16

74HC237 16

74HC240 20

74HC241 20

74HC242 14

74HC243 14

74HC244 20

74HC245 2074HCU04 IS

in

m

MHCZ53

in

44

74HC257

16

Iff

74HC259

in

1 41

74HC266

14

1 14

74HC273

n

'7 HI

74HC2B0

14

,195

74IIC373

70

7 31

74HC374

70

'/.«

74HC390

1ft

1 49

74HC393

1 4<l

74KC533

»

■r.vi

74HC534

M

2 31

74HC595

IS

3 95

74HC6S8

7(1

;i is

74HC400?

14

59

74HC4017

16

? 19

74HC4020

16

l.ft

74HC4024

14

1,M

74HC4040

in

t :w

74HC4060

16

i;«

74HC4075

14

M

74HC4076

14

m

74HC45I1

in

?m

74HC4514

74

:i/»

74HC453B

16

2 (4

74HC4S43

16

3 49

^Programmable Array Logic (PALS)

PALIOHB 70 Oclal 10-lnpui AND-OR Gate Array (High Output)

1355 SHOREWAY ROAD, BELMONT, CA 9400212/83 PHONE ORDERS WELCOME — (415) 592-8097 Telex: 176043

PAL12H6PALI4H4PAL10L8PAL12L6PAL14L4PAL16LBPAL16RBPAL16R6PAL16R4

Hex 12-tnpul AND-OR Gale Array (High Oulpul)Quad 14-lnpul ANDOR Gale Array (High Oulpul)Oclal ID-Input ANDORInverl Gale Array (Low Oulpul)Hex !2-lnpuiAND-0R-lnveri Gale Array (Low Oulpul)Ouad 14-lnpul AND-QR-lwert Gale Array (Low Oulpul)Oclal 16-lnpul AND-OB-lnven Gale ArrayOclal 16-lnput Register ANOOR Gate ArtayHex 16-lnpul Register ANDOR Gale ArrayQuad 16-lnpul Register ANOOR Gale Array

130012 19B2NATIONALPA^alaBookn76

TB3EEM

74C0074C0274C047-lCOB74C1074C1474C2Q74C3074C3274C4774C4674C7374C7474C8574C6674C8974C90

7-IC-m

74C9574C1D774C15174C15474C15774C16074C16174C16274C16374C16474C17374C17474C17574C19274C19374C195

74C22I

74C24074C24474C37374C37474C90174C90374C90674C91174C91274C91574C91774C92274C92374C92574C92680C9580C97

TL071CP (

TL072CP I

TL074CN V

TL061CP I

TL082CP i

TL064CN 1i

LM301CN f

LM302H

LM304H

LM305H

LM307CN :

LM308CN

LM309K

LM310CN

LM3HCN I

LM312H

LM3I7T

LM317K

LM318CN I

LM319N 1i

LM320K-5

LM320K-12

LM320K 15

LM320T-5

LM320T-12

LM320T-15

LM323K

LM324N 14

LM337T

LM338K

LM339N 14

LM34CK'5

LM340K12

LM340K-15

LM340T-5LM340TI2LM340T-15LF347N 1LM34BN 1LM350KLF355NLF356NLM370N 1LM373N 1LM377N 1LM3B0N 1LM381N 1LM3B2N 1LM384N 1LM386N-3TL494CN ITL496CPNE531VNE544N 1NE550A 1NE55SVLM556N 1HE564N tLM565N ILM566CNLM567VNE570N 1LM703CN ILM709N VLM71QN 1LM711N 1.

LM723N 14 55

I.M733N 14 1 00

LM739N 14 1 95

LM741CN 8 35

LM747N 14 69

LU74BN B 59

LMI310N 14 1.49

LM1458CN 8 59

LM1488N 14 B9

LMI489N 14 .69

IM1496N 14 1 95

LM1800N 16 2 49

LM1B71N IB 2 95

LM1B72N 18 3 25

LM1877N-9 14 2 49

LM1B89H 18 2 25

LM1896N 14 2 95

LM2002T 1 95

LM31S9N 16 1 59

LM39O0N 14 59

LM3905CN t i 19

LM3909N 8 99

LM3914N 18 2.95

LM3915N 18 2 95

LM3916N IB 2 95

RC41J6H 14 1.25

RC4151NB 6 1 95

RC4194TK 4 49

NE5532 8 2 49

NE5534 8 t 69

ICL8038R 14 3 95

UII3O80N I 1 19

1M13600N 16 t 19MDHi AVAILABLE

30003 1982 Nat. Linear Data Book H95? pgs i ^$11.95.

630 BYTE December 1983

Circle 243 on inquiry card.

VOICE SYNTHESIZERFOR APPLE AND COMMODORE

• Over 250 word vocabulary-affixes allow the formation of morethan 500 words • Built-in amplifier, speaker, volume control, andaudio |ack • Recreates a clear, natural mala voice • Plug-in userready with documentation and sample software • Case size:7V«"L x 3V«"W x 1-3/8"H

APPLICATIONS:

• Security Warning • Telecommunication

• Teaching • Handicap Aid

• Instrumentation ■ Games

Thi JE5ZD VOICE SYNTHESIZER will plug tight into your computer ind allow you toenhance ilmctl any application Utilizing Nallonal Semiconductor's DIGITALKERlmSpeech Proctisor IC (with lour custom mamory chlpi). the JE520 compressesnatural ipuch Into digital memory. Including thi original Inflections and emphases.Thi result li an eilramiiy clear, natural vocalization.Pari No. Description Price

JE520CM For Commodore 64 & VIC-20 $114.95

iEMOAP For Apple II, II+. and ffe $149.95

Micro-Logic Corp. V-1 * . V

MICRO-CHARTS " y--;'; '::W\-&

• Fully decoded data • Instant access • 2-sidea, totally comB'nensive ■ Compact8^x11 in durable credit card piastre ■ Perfect tor programmers 4 engineers

• Clear 6 concise tables lor full instruction set, disassembly. ASCII, base conver-sion, ellecl ol Hags, compare vs |ump. interrupt structure, pmout, cycle limes,diagrams. Dug notes. & much more

PART HO. REFERENCE PRICE

ML-ZSO Z80 CPU $5.95

ML-8080A 8080A/8085A $5.95

ML-6502 6502{65XX) $5.95

ML-8048 8048, Relatives $5.95

ML-7400 5400/7400 TTL Pin-Outs $5.95

BOOKS

30001 National CMOS Dnlfl Book (1961) S6.95

1640 pages) 74C, C04000, and ArO Converters

30003 National Linear Data Book (1962) ¥11.95

(1376 pages) LM, LF. ADC. DAC. LH Series

3000B National Memory Data Book (1980) SS.95

(464 panes) RAMs, ROMs. PROMs. EPROMs Series

30009 In torsi I Data Book (1903) S9.95

(1356 pages) Complete line.

30010 National Audio/Radio Handbook (19B0) S5.95

(240 pages) PreAmps, AM, FM & FM Stereo, Power Amps

30012 National PAL Data Book (1982) S5.B5

(176 pages) Application Notes, Linear Briefs, etc.

30013 ZiiogDataBook(1983) S7.95

(641 pages) Microprocessors and Support Chips

210830 lnielMemoryComponentsHandbook(19B3) $14.95

(796 pages) Contains all Application Notes, Article

Reprints, Data Sheets, and otnor design information

on Intel's RAMs. EPROMs, E'PROMs & Bubble Memories.

210B44 Intel Microprocessor & Peripheral Handbook (1983) . . .S14.95(1027 pages) Contains Data Sheets on all ofInle's Microprocessors and Peripherals.

4-Digit Fluorescent Alarm Clock Kit

• Bright 4 digit O.S" high display • 10 minute snooze alarm

■ AM/PM Indicator

Tfia JE75D Clock Kit is a vena I He 12-hour digital clock with 24-hour alarm. The clockhat a bright O.S" high hlua-graan llouraicanl display Tha 24-hour alarm allows theuiai to dfiabla tha alarm and Immediately re-enable tha alarm la rctlvale 24 hourslatir. Thi kilt includtt alt doc u ma n I alio n. componanli. caia and wall Iranslormer.Sill: B-S/B-l M 3V."H x 1*"B.

JE75Q Alarm Clock Kit $29.95

JgfffBSS Digital Thermometer KitMMM Dual sensors - switch

controls for Indoor/Outdooror dual monitoring — can beextended to 500 feet. Con-tinuous LED .8" hi. display.Range: -40"F to 199*F. -40'Cio 100'C. Accuracy +1*nominal. Calibrate forFa hrenhei 1/ Celsius.— Simulated walnut case. AC

jE3oo...:..$39.95^i.ri;-H^-rs'z°;

Universal Computer Keyboard Enclosures

"DTE" Blank Desk-Top Enclosures

are designed fir easy modiiica-

lion High strength epoxy molded

end pieces in mocha Uiown finish.

'^ Sliding rear/bottom panel lor service/

component access'Top/bott panels 060"

thick alum, alodine type l2O0linish(goldlini

color) lor best paint adhesion a'ter modification.

/onteO lop & bottom panels tor cooling eltrciency

utuj construction provides unlimited applicaiions.

I.go —-/ Assembly instructions Included.

DTEB Panel Width 7.S" S24.95

DTE-lt Panel Wldlh 10.13" S27.95

DTE-14 Panel Wldlh 13.S* S20.B5

DTE-20 Panel Wldlh 19.25" 534.96

»w DTE-22 Panel Width 21.375' $39.95

at

»

1 39

tH

1 If

en

H

7 69

7 39

709

CM

in

I9S

I SI

cao

319

3 19

719

cso

so

4 30

3 !5

3 39

CARD-EDGE CONNECTORS

t-9 IDjM 100*

FOR PERMANENT

TERMINATION TO PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARDS

Pin No

CEHNHCEN14F

CENItHC.ENJ1FCENJGMCEH36F

U UitaJ* Female

;rr,0r *^—/—™??

SOCKET CONNECTORS

MALE CONNECTOR

CDA15SCDB»PCDB2SSCDC37I>C0C3IS

28AWG FLAT GREY CABLE

CUSTOM ASSEMBLIES

Council

Connactor 1

Conductor

Wirt Typi

g

7BAWG Flat Slrandett

7MWG F us Slranrjerj

IS

IMWG Flat Sirend.A

;*fl»wi, Flat Slrandad

70

7IAWG Flat Strindad

U

7BAWG Flat Slrtnd.d

K

7BAWG Fial Slrandad

v>

7MWG Flat Slrandad

3a

IMWG Fin Slrandad

36

7BAWG Flu Sliandad

3J

7BAWG Flat Slrandad

It

7BAWG Flat Slrandad

SO

7BAWG Flat Sliandid

Ccnlroi

CENMB-75'-CEH1SF CUSTOM

SB 69|CEN3BM) » 9.75 |CEH3BF)»

65 k zS |25 leal 16 cond cable)»

7 00 Sil-upchnga on illciiilom calllts =thu 1C(H36M-;S- -CEH36F CU5T0M) Cable mou

J1B.44SIB 25S 2.00

ACCESSORIES FOR APPLE* COMPUTERS

Numeric/Auxiliary Keypadfor APPLE He*

lai *ncto»ur» »ifl ,j :oiw cocOin»i«t *iin jour APPLE "oDpUM Opcflltan 01 1M ■ (HMO s»" twflm mlriin m.nutM Horn un>mg Scroll 'unctions ineruo« Horr* Claw. Clew 10 End 0'

JE614 Assembled and Taated

Switching Power Supplyfor APPLE II, II+ antf/ie*

Pari No. KHP40O7

Extended 80 Column/64K RAMCard for APPLE He*

Board hiqi, ttpnyiy Hoard dt

JEB64 Aiaembled and Tested .

Cooling Fan for APPLE II,11+ and He*

in

POWER SUPPLY +5VDC ® 7.5 AMP. 12VDC @ 1.5 AMP SWITCHING

Input: uS'irAC. 50-60H/ ,-r 3 amp/730VAC. 5DH: ,Ti t.Bamp Fan voH./power supply illect iwlt-chea (H5/230VAC). Oulput: 5VDC a 7.6 atr.p. 12VDC & 1.6 amp. a ft. blk. pow. cord. HV»"W«13V*"D i a*"H, Wl. 6 lbs.Part No. PS94VDS S39.95 each

POWER SUPPLY 4-Channel Switching - Apple Compatible

Microprocessor, mini'Csmpuler. terminal medical equipment and process control applications. In-put; 90-l3uVAC47-4(OH;. Oulput: + 5VDC -i 5A, -5VDC Qi tA; +12VDC <7r 1A. -12VDC @ 1A.Una rtn iQ.ZV Hippie: 30mV p-p. Load rag,: ii'i. Uvciciitrnnl protection Ad|: 5V main out-puti 10M. 6-3/B"L i 1-7/8"W > 4-15/16"H. Wl. Vh lbs

Pari No. FCS-604A S69.95 each

$10.00 Minimum Order — U.S. Funds OnlyCalifornia Residents Add 6Vi% Sales TaxShipping — Add 5% plus S1.50 InsuranceSend S.A.S.E. tor Monthly Sales Flyer!

Spec Sheets — 30c eachSend $1.00 Postage for yourFREE 1984 JAMECO CATALOGPrices Subject to Change

E3

m

m...

ameco

ELECTRONICS

VISA9

1355 SHOREWAY ROAD, BELMONT, CA 9400212/83PHONE ORDERS WELCOME — (415) 5928097 Telex: 176043

JE664 EPROM PROGRAMMER

8K TO 64K EPROMS - 24 AND 28 PIN PACKAGES

• Programs, validates, and chackt lor properly erased EPROMs * EmuJalsi PflOMior EPROMs • nssr3?C Computer intirfacn lot adding/program loading * Loidi dataInlo RAM by liayboard * Changes data in RAM by keyboard • Loads RAM Irom anEPROM ■ Compare* EPROMi for cortlsnl dllterencei • Copies EPflDMi • Power In-put: 115VAC, 60H; -« 10W power consumption * Enctosura: Color-coordlnatid.light tan panels w/molded mocha drown and pieces * Size: 15-5/B"L i n1/."D i;l'-yn • Wl.: 5V< lbs.

JE664-A EPROM Programmer $995.00

Assembled & fesled [Includes JM16A Module)

JE665 — H^T32ClNTERFACE'OPTION — The JE665 HS232C interlaceOpiion implements computer access to the JE664"s RAM Sample software written inBASIC provided lor TRS-SO" Model I, Level II Computer Baud rale. 9500 WordIglh: 8 bits - odd partly Slop bits: 2 Option may he adapted looltier compulers. TheJEG65 can ho interlaced to any compiler with an RS23? port Inlormalion is also pro-vided for interlacing Io any CP/M system with an RS232 port.

JE664-AHS EPROM Programmerw/JE665 0pllon S1195.00

Assembled and Tested (Includes JM16A Module)

EPflOM JUMPER MODULES - The JE6&fs JUMPER MODULE [PersonalityModule) is a plug-in Module mat presets JE66-! lot proper programming pulses lothe EPROM S configures EPROM sockei connections lor thai particular EPROMPIU EPROM EPROM MANUFACTURER PRICE

JMOSAJM16AJM16B

JM32AJM32BJM32CJM64A

JM64BJM64C

JM64D

270S

2716.TMS2516

TMS2716

TMS2532

2732

2732A(21U)

MCM68764.

MCM68L7B4

2764

TMS2554

HN4B2764G-4

AMO.Molorola.Naltonal Intel.Tl (25V)Intel.Motorola.National.NEC.Tl. (25VIMotorola. TII + 5.-S. +12)Motorola. Tl (25V]

AMD.Fuplsu. NEC. Hiiachi. Intel (25V)Fujitsu, Intel (21V)

M0lD'0l3(21V)

Into (21V)Tl (25V)

Hilachi(2!V)

114.95514.95

S14.95S14.95514.95£14.95

S14.95114.95S14.95S14.95

UV-EPROM Eraser

| 8 Chips — 51 Minutes

1 Chip — 37 Minutes

Erases 2708, 271B. 2732, 2764, 2516, 2532, 2564. Erases up to 8 chipswithin 51 minimis (1 chip In 37 minutes). Maintains constant exposuredlBtsnce of one Inch. Special conductive loam liner eliminates staticbuild-up. Built-in safety lock to prevent UV exposure. Compact — only9.00" x 3.70* x 2.60". Complete with holding tray for 8 chips.

DE-4 UV EPROM Eraser S79.95UVS-11EL Replacement Bulb $16.95

51/4" APPLE™COMPATIBLEDISK DRIVE

• Um Shugarl SA390 mnchan.es • 143Klormatlad storage • 35 tracks — compatiblewith Apple controller * Complete wtlh connec-tor and cable — jutt plug Into your disk con-Iroller card • Size: 6"L x 3VW x8-9/16"D • Weight: 4". lbs.

PartNo.ADD-514 $195.95

8^ FLOPPY DISK DRIVE

• Shugart 801Rcompatible

• SinglB-Sided

• 77 Tracks

• 400/800K BytesCapacity

• Industry Standard

The FDD100-8 B" Floppy Disk Drive (Industry Standard) featuressingle or double density. Recording mode: FM single, MFM doubledensity. Transfer rale: 250K bits/sec. single density; 50OK bits/sec.double density. The FDD100 B Is designed (o work with the single-sided soft sectored IBM Diskette I, or eq. disk cartridge. Power:115VAC rif 50-60HZ, +24V0C® 1.7ampsmax., +5VDC ® 1.2ampsmax. Unl! as pictured abovo (does not Include case, power supply, orcables). Size: 8.55"W x 14"L x 4.5'K. Weighs 12 lbs. Ind. 96-dq.manual.

Part No.

Price

FDD100-8 . .$169.95 ea.

IBM MEMORY EXPANSION KIT

SAVE HUNDREDS OF $$$ BY UPGRADINGMEMORY BOARDS YOURSELF!

Moal of the popular memory boards allow you to add an additional84K, 128K, 192K, or 256K The IBM64K Kit will populate these boardsIn S4K byte Increments. The kll la simple lo Install — just Insert thanine 64K RAM chips In the provided aocketa and set tha two groupsof switches. Olrecllons are Included.

IBM64K (Nine 200ns 64K RAMs) S49.95

EXPAND YOUR MEMORY

TRS-80 to 16K, 32K, or 48K'Modal 1 » From 4K lo 16K Roqulres |1) Ono KitModol 3 ■ From 4K lo 48K Roqulres |3) Throo KitsColor = From 4K to 16K Requires |1| One Kll

TRS-16K3 -200ns lor Color & Model III $12.95

TRS-16K4*250ns for Model I J10.95

TRS-80 Color 32K or 64K Conversion Kit

Easy to Install kit comes complete with 8 ea. 4164-2 (200ns) 6dynamic RAMs & conversion documentation. Converts TRS-80 colorcomputers with E circuit boards, & alt new color computers to 32K.Minor modifications of 32K memory will allow the use ol all the 64Kothe dynamic RAM providing you have a FLEX DOS operating syslem.

TRS-64K2 $44.95

Circle 243 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

631

DoKa

COMPUTERPRODUCTS,

Inc.

ORDER TOLL FREE

(800)538-8800

(CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS)

MiTiT

848-8008

TERMS: For shipping include$2.00 for UPS Ground or $3.00for UPS Blue Air. $10.00 mini-mum order. Bay Area and LosAngeles Counties add 61/2%Sales Tax, other California resi-dents add 6% Sales Tax. We re-serve the right to limit quantitiesand substitute manufacturer.Prices subject to change withoutnotice.

VISIT OUR RETAIL STORE

2100 De La Cruz Blvd.

Santa Clara, CA 95050

(408) 988-0697

DoKa

STATIC RAMS

2101

256 > 4 490ni

1.90

5101

256x4 460m (cmos)

3.90

2102-1

1024x1 490ns

.88

2102L-4

1024x1 450ns

IK

.98

2102L-2

1024x1 250nt

1.45

2111

256x4 450m

2.45

2112

256x4 450m

2.95

2114

1024x4 450m

8/9.90

2114-25

1024x4 290ns

679.95

2114L-4

1024x4 450ns (LP)

8711.95

2114L-3

1024x4 300ns

H

8712.45

2114L-2

1024x4 200ns

8/12.95

2147

4096x1 55ns)

4.90

TMS4044-4

4096x1 490ns)

3.45

TMS4044-3

4096x1 300ns

3.95

TM84044-2

4096x1 200ns

4.45

MK4118

1024>8 250ns)

9.90

TMM2016-200

2048x8 200ns)

4.10

TMM2016-150

2048x8 150ns

4.90

THM2016-100

2048x6 100ns

6.10

HM6116-4

2048x8 200ns

cmos

4.70

HM6116-3

2048x8 190ns

cmos

4.90

HM6116-2

2048x8 120nsl

cmos

8.90

HM0116LP-4

2048x8

200ns

cmos (LP)

5.90

HM6116LP-3

2048x8 150ns)

cmos

LP

6.90

HM6116LP-2

2048x8 120ns

cmos (LP)

9.95

2-6132

4096x8 300ns)

(Mat)

33.95

LP - Low Power (Mat - Quasi-Static

DYNAMIC RAMS

TM 84027

4096x1

250ns)

1.95

UPD411

4096x1 300ns)

2.95

MM9280

4096x1

300ns)

2.95

MK4100

8192x1

200ns)

1.90

MM520S

8192x1 290ns)

1.80

4116-300

16384 x1300ns

8/10.75

4116-290

16304 x1250ns

6/10.95

4116-200

16384 x1200ns)

8/11.85

4116-160

16384x1

150ns)

6/13.95

4116-120

16384x1

120ns

8/28.95

2118

16384x1

150ns (5v)

4.90

4164-200

65536x1

200ns) (5v)

5.90

4164-160

65936x1

150ns) J5v)

6.90

5V • single 5 volt supply

EPROMS

1702

296x8

1M)

4.49

2708

1024x6

490ns

3.90

2766

1024x8

450ns

(5w)

9.90

2716

2040x8

450ns

fig

3.00

2716-1

2040x8

350ns

5v

9.90

TM82516

2040x8

490ns

(5v)

9.45

TM 82716

2048x6

450ns

7.90

TMS2532

4096x6

450ns

5wl

5.90

2732

4096x8

490ns

5v

4.90

2732-260

4096x8

260ns

M

8.90

2732-200

4096x8

200ns

5v

10.05

2764

6192 X 8

450ns

5v

9.90

2764-290

8192x6

250ns

5v

13.99

2764-200

6102x8

200ns

5vj

23.99

TMS2564

8102x8

450ns

5v)

16.05

MC68764

8192x8

450ns

5v (24 pin)

36.95

27128

16364x8

Sail

Call

5w = Single 5 Volt Supply

74LS00

74LS00

.23 74LS173

.60

74LS01

.24 74LS174

.54

74LS02

.24 74LS175

.54

74LS03

.24 74LS181

2.10

74LS04

.23 74LS109

8.90

74LS0S

.24 74LS190

.68

74LS06

.27 74LS191

.00

74LS09

.28 74LS192

.70

74LS10

.24 74LS193

.70

74LS11

.34 74LS194

.60

74LS12

.34 74LS195

.60

74LS13

.44 74LS196

.78

74LS14

.58 74LS197

.78

74LS15

.34 74LS221

.00

74LS20

.24 74LS240

.04

74L.S21

.28 74LS241

.98

74LS22

.24 74LS242

.90

74LS26

.20 74LS243

.98

74LS27

.20 74LS244

1.26

74LS28

.34 74LS245

1.45

74LS30

.24 74LS247

.74

74LS32

.28 74LS248

.98

74LS33

.54 74LS249

.98

74LS37

.34 74LS251

.58

74LS38

.34 74LS253

.58

74LS40

.24 74LS257

.56

74LS42

.40 74LS258

.58

74LS47

.74 74LS259

2.70

74LS48

.74 74LS200

.58

74LS49

.74 74LS266

.54

74LS51

.24 74LS273

1.45

74LS54

.20 74LS275

3.30

74LS55

.20 74LS279

.48

74LS63

1.20 74LS280

1.95

74LS73

.30 74LS283

.68

74LS74

.34 74LS290

.88

74LS76

.30 74LS293

.88

74LS76

.38 74LS295

.90

74LS78

.40 74LS290

.80

74LS83

.59 74LS289

1.70

74LS85

.60 74LS323

3.45

74LS86

.36 74LS324

1.70

74LS90

.54 74LS352

1.25

74LS91

.88 74LS353

1.25

632 BVTB December 1983

74LS92 .54 74LS363 1.30

74LS93 .54 74LS364 1.90

74LS95 .74 74LS305 .46

74LS96 .88 74LS366 .48

74LS107 .38 74LS367 .44

74LS109 .38 74LS368 .44

74LS112 .38 74LS373 1.35

74LS113 .38 74LS374 1.35

74LS114 .38 74LS377 1.35

74LS122 .44 74LS378 1.13

74LS123 .78 74LS379 1.30

74LS124 2.85 74LS385 1.85

74LS12S .48 74LS386 .44

74LS126 .48 74LS380 1.15

74LS132 .58 74LS303 1.15

74LS133 .58 74LS385 1.15

74LS136 .38 74LS309 1.45

74LS137 .98 74LS424 2.90

74LS138 .54 74LS447 .36

74LS139 .54 74LS490 1.90

74LS145 1.15 74LS624 3.95

74LS147 2.45 74LS640 2.15

74LS140 1.30 74LS645 2.15

74LS151 .54 74LS660 1.65

74LS153 .54 74LS660 1.85

74LS154 1.85 74LS670 1.45

74LS155 .68 74LS674 9.60

74LS156 .68 74LS682 3.15

74LS167 .64 74LS683 3.15

74LS158 .58 74LS684 3.15

74LS160 .68 74LS685 3.15

74LS161 .64 74LS680 2.35

74LS162 .68 74LSB09 3.15

74LS163 .64 74LS783 23.95

74LS164 .68 81LS95 1.45

74LS105 .94 81LS96 1.45

74LS166 1.90 81LS97 1.45

74LS168 1.70 01LS98 1.45

74LS169 1.70 25LS2521 2.75

74LS170 1.45 25LS2569 4.20

6500

1MHZ

6502 4.00

6504 6.00

0505 8.00

6507 0.00

6520 4.30

6522 7.90

6532 8.90

6545 21.50

6551 10.85

2 MHZ

6502A 6.90

6522A 9.90

6532A 10.95

6545A 26.05

6551A 10.95

3 MHZ

6502B 13.95

6800

68000 50.95

0800 3.90

6602 7.90

6000 12.90

6809E 18.95

6800 10.95

0010 2.90

0020 4.30

6021 3.20

0828 13.95

6840 11.95

6043 33.95

6644 24.95

6045 13.05

6047 10.95

6850 3.20

6052 15.70

6860 0.90

6002 10.95

6075 6.60

6080 2.20

6883 21.95

68047 23.95

08488 10.95

6600 1MHZ

68B00 9.95

68B02 21.25

60B00E 20.95

68B09 28.95

68B10 6.90

60B21 6.90

68B45 18.95

68B50 5.90

8000

8035 5.90

6030 6.90

INS-6060 16.95

INS-0073 23.95

8080 3.90

8085 5.90

8085A-2 10.95

8086 28.95

8087 CALL

0088 38.95

8080 88.95

0155 6.60

0155-2 7.90

0156 6.90

8185 28.95

8165-2 38.95

8741 38.95

6748 23.95

8755 23.95

Circle 167 on inquiry card.

8200

8202 23.95

8203 38.95

8205 3.45

8212 1.75

8214 3.80

8216 1.70

8224 2.20

8226 1.75

8228 3.45

8237 18.95

8237-5 20.95

8238 4.45

8243 4.40

8250 9.95

8251 4.45

8253 6.90

8253-5 7.90

8255 4.45

8255-5 5.20

8257 7.90

8257-5 8.90

8259 6.85

8259-5 7.45

8271 38.95

8272 38.95

8275 28.95

8279 8.90

8279-5 9.00

8272 6.45

8283 6.45

8284 5.45

8286 6.45

8287 6.45

8288 24.00

8289 48.95

Z-80

2.5 Mhz

Z80-CPU 3.90

Z80-CTC 4.45

Z80-DART 9.95

Z80-DMA 13.95

Z80-PIO 4.45

Z8O-SIO/0 15.95

Z80-SIO/1 15.95

Z80-SIO/2 15.95

Z80-SIO/9 15.95

4.0 Mhz

ZBOA-CPU 4.90

Z80A-CTC 4.90

Z80A-DART 10.95

Z80A-DMA 15.95

Z80A-PIO 4.90

Z80A-SIO/0 15.95

Z80A-SIO/1 15.95

Z80A-SIO/2 15.95

Z80A-SIO/9 15.95

6.0 Mhz

Z80B-CPU 12.95

Z80B-CTC 12.95

Z80B-PIO 12.95

Z80B-DART 18.95

ZILOG

Z6132 33.95

Z8671 38.95

DISC CONTROLLERS

1771 15.95

1791 23.95

1793 25.95

1795 48.95

1797 48.95

2791 53.95

2793 53.95

2795 58.95

2797 58.95

6843 33.95

8272 38.95

UPD765 38.95

MB8876 28.95

MB8877 33.95

1691 16.95

2143 17.95

UARTS

AY3-1014 6.90

AY5-1013 3.90

AY3-1015 6.90

PT-1472 9.90

TR1602 3.90

2350 9.90

2651 8.90

TMS6011 5.90

IMS402 7.90

IM6403 8.90

INS8250 9.95

INTERFACE

8T26 1.54

8T28 1.84

8T95 88

8T96 88

8T97 88

8T98 88

DM8131 2.90

□P8304 2.24

DS8835 1.94

DS8838 98

VOLTAGE REGULATORS

7805T .74 7B05T .8478M05C .34 7908T .847808T .74 7912T .847812T .74 7915T .847815T .74 7924T .847824T .74 7905K , 447805K 1.34 7912K 1.447812K 1.34 7915K 1.447815K 1.34 7924K 1.447824K 1.34 79L05 .7878L05 .68 79L12 .7878L12 .68 79L15 .7878L15 .68 LM323K 4.9078H05K 9.90 UA78S40 1.9078H12K 9.90

C,T - TO-220 K - TO-3 L - TO-92

DIP SWITCHES

4 POSITION 84

5 POSITION .

. . .89

6 POSITION .

. . .89

7 POSITION .

. . .94

8 POSITION .

.. .94

IC SOCKETS

1-99

100

8 pin ST .12 .1014 pin ST .14 .1116 pin ST .16 .1218 pin ST .19 .1720 pin ST .28 .2622 pin ST .29 .2624 pin ST .29 .2628 pin ST .39 .3140 pin ST .48 .3864 pin ST 4.20 callST = SOLDERTAIL

8 pin WW .58 .4814 pin WW .68 .5116 pin WW .68 .5718 pin WW .88 .8920 pin WW 1.04 .9722 pin WW 1.34 1.2324 pin WW 1.44 1.3028 pin WW 1.64 1.4440 pin WW 1.84 1.75

WW > WIREWRAP

16 pin ZIF 6.70 call

24 pin ZIF 9.90 call

28 pin ZIF 9.95 call

ZIF = TEXTOOL (Zaro Insertion Force)

CRYSTALS

32.768khz 1.90

. 4.90. 4.90. 3.90. 3.90. 3.90. 3.90. 3.90. 3.90

3.90

3.90. 3.90. 3.90. 3.90. 3.90.3.90. 3.90

3.90. 3.90. 3.90

3.90. 3.90. 3.90. 3.90. 3.90. 3.90. 3.90

iLUES

. 1.25. 2.0015.00

129.9542.5038.9584.9524.9529.959.95

129.9519.9524.9519.95

224.9569.95

1.8432

2.0

2.097152 . . .

2.4576

3.2768

3.579535 . .

4.0

5.0

5.0688

5.7143

6.0

6.144

6.5536

8.0

10.0

14.31818

15.0

16.0

17.430

18.0

18.432

20.0

22.1184

32.0

RESISTORS

V, WATT 5* CARBON FILM ALL STANDARD V

FROU1 OHM TO 10 MEG OHM50 PCS

100 PCS

1000 PCS

APPLE ACCESSORIES

80 Column Card

16KCard. ...

Power SupplyRFMod

Joy Stick (Apple lh

Paddles AppleZ80 Card ....

Extend-A Slot.

Controller Card

51/4" DISKETTESATHANA OR NASHUA

SSSD 18.95

SSDD 22.95

DSDD 27.95

PERISOFT

ACCESSORIES FOR APPLE II & lieALL WITH 1 YEAR WARRANTY BY

PRINTERLINK

CENTRONICS

PARALLEL INTERFACE

• Simple to use — No configuring required

• Use with any Centronics printer — EPSON,

OKIDATA, etc.

• Includes Cable & Manual

$58°°MESSENGER

SERIAL INTERFACE

• Connects to any RS-232 serial device

• 8 switch selectable drivers for printers,

terminals and modems

• Includes Cable & Manual

$98°°

TIMELINK

REAL TIME CLOCK

• Applications in file management, word

processing, communications, etc.• Exclusive Alarm Clock feature• Battery recharges automatically

$83°°

NEW BUFFERLINK

ADD-ON PRINTER BUFFER

• No more waiting for printed output

• Connects easily to any parallel interface

• Expandable from 16K to 64K

$138°° (16K)

The Flip Sort™

The new Flip Sort™ has all the fine qualities ofthe original Flip Sort™, with some added bene-fits. Along with a new design, capacity has in-creased 50%, to hold 75 diskettes and theprice is more reasonable than ever. $19.95 ea.

The Flip Sort Plus™

The Flip Sort Plus™ adds new dimensions tostorage. Designed with similar elegant lines asthe original Flip Sort™, in a transparentsmoked acrylic. The Flip Sort Plus™ has a stor-age capacity of over 100 diskettes and has allthe outstanding features you have come to ex-pect from the flip sort Family. 24.95 each

DoKo.

2100 De La Cruz Blvd.Santa Clara, CA 95050

Circle 167 on Inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983 633

^Computer Components

«%*j||E WORLDS' LARGEST

Christmas Specials

Sanyo computer

• IBM CompatibleIntroductory Offer

?

$920 J

BMC Monitor

• M0deM2AUW

• 80 COl.

• 12" Green Screen

4

Micro sci Disk Drive

• Fully Apple Compatible

$209

Apple HE80 Column Card

• Made by Apple

$49

Hard Disk for PC

5MB $1350

10MB 1550

15MB 2150

8" Disk Drive

• Siemans FDD 100-8

• Shugart Compatible

• Sgl. Side/Dbl. Density

1 for §169

2for $ ■ 59ea.

Printer Paper

• 500 Sheets• 18 Bond

$9.95

$79 I

Daisy writer Printer

• Model 2000

• 48K Buffer

I

i

$1199 *

Star MicronicsGemini 10X Printer

• 120 CPS

• 6 month warranty

we will beat allCompetitors' Prices

CDC Disk Drive

• Dbl. Side/Dbl. Density• IBM Compatible

$249

Circle 81 on inquiry card.

Microtek

• l6KCard

2 year warranty

$49

Aston Tate

• D Base llIBM Compatible

$389

Hayes Micro Modem

• Fully compatible

w/HE or II +

• w/Terminal Package

|

$259

wesper Micro

• Graphics Interface

• Apple &Crappler

Compatible

$69

i

i\

ft

i

\

I

\

&

we accept all P.o.'s from universities

CALL 800-847-1718 «

we Offer More Than a low Prices!!!

Unlimited is becomingMAIL ORDER HOUSE!

4

i

f

i

I

f

Christmas Specials

Apple he starter

• Apple ll Monitor• 1 Drive w/Controller80 column card

i

i $1495

Apple he Starter

• Same as Above except

• w/MicroSci Drive

• BMC Monitor

$1395

Franklin StarterSystem

• Ace 1000

• 1 Drive w/Controller• Green 12" Monitor

$1150

Franklin Ace 1200

Office ManagementSystem

• 2 Drives

• Ace calc. & Ace writer

$1895

514" Diskettes

• Sgl. Side/Dbl. Density

• 5 year warranty

• Reinforced hub

ifor

100 for

$18$160

Circle 81 on inquiry card.

Tandon for IBM

• TM 100-2

• Dbl. Side/Dbl. Density

$225

64K MemoryUpgrade for IBM

• Prime Parts

• 200 ns

9 for

$54

IBM PC

• 64K

• 2, Half Height Drives

• Color Card & Green Monitor

$2595

Quadram Quadlink

• Turns IBM into Apple

i^i$499

XT

IBM MonochromeMonitor

$339

Plantronics

• Color Board for PC

• Parallel Port

• Software included

• Hi-Res

$499

Plug n Play

• Eprom for Okidata• Makes it PC compatible

$99

AST Research

Six Pack +

• Par. Ser. Ports

• Real Time Clock

• 64K Exp. to 384K

$299

To: Byte Readers

All of us at Computer Components Unlimitedwould like to take the time to say "thanks" foryour continuing support of our company through-out the past year. We have some very excitingthings happening in the next few months. Watchfor us in the upcoming issues of Byte Magazine.

Have a safe and Happy Holiday.

Thank you,

Kirk E. Frantz

President, Computer Components Unlimited

*&*

*I0**

ComputerComponentsUnlimited

800-847-1718

OUTSIDE CALIFORNIA

RETAIL STORE:

11976 Aviation Blvd.inglewood, CA 90304

MAIL ORDER:

P.O. BOX 1936Hawthorne, CA 90250

This Ad Supersedes All Others(213)643-5188

aii merchandise new we accept mc. visa, wireTransfer, cod call, Certified check, P.O s fromqualified firms APO accepter] ShippingMinimum S4.50 first 5 pounds tax: California Res.Only acid 6' j u sales tax

■ices Subject to

ancjj

Mon.—Fri. 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.Sat. & Sun. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

r>-1

MORE SPECIALS FROM

OLIDAY SAVINGS 20%

PRINTERS

C. ITOH

Gorilla-Banana, 50cps S 194

Prowriter8510,120cps 349

ProwriterlH550(l5") 649

Prowriter I Serial 499

Prowriterll Serial 695

StarwriterF-10,40pu 1129

8600BP,180cps 999

PrintmasterF-10-55 1405

Epson

RX-80I120CPS) call

MX-80FT(80cps) Call

FX-8CM160CPS) Call

FX-100 (15" Carriage) Call

NEC

PC8023A(100cps) S 399

PC8025 (15" carriage) 699

Okidata

Microline92P(160cps) S 439

Microline92S(160cps) 599

Microline93P(160cps, 15") 779

Microline93SI160cps, 15") 899

Microline 82A (Par. & Serial) 379

Microline83A (15" Carriage) 599

Microline84P(200cps) 949

Microline84S(200cps) 999

Star Micronics

Cemini10X(120cps) S 294

Gemini 15 (100 cps) 339

Cemini15X 489

Delta 10 449

Letter Quality

BrotherHrl S 599

Comrexll 499

Juki 499

DvnaxDX-15 479

Daisywriter

2000w/Buffer S1199

Call For All PrintersOrange Micro

Grappler + $119

Grappler + w/i6Kexp.to64K 179

Apple Par. Card

card & cable S 49

Microtek

DumplingGX $ 99

Dumpling w/16Kexp. to64K 149

Additional 16K for 15

wesper Micro

Full Graphics Interface Card S 79

Cables

IBM to Printer S 29

Kaypro to Printer 29

Osborne to Printer 29

Okidata Options

Tractor for 82 & 92 S 59

2K Serial Buffer 119

Star Options

Serial interface S 60

Epson Options

Bufferw/Serial S 119

PRINTER ACCESSORIES

4

DISK DRIVESFOR APPLE & FRANKLIN

Super 5

Sup-5 iVi Heigno S 209

Controller 69

Rana Systems

Elite I S 250

Elitell 400

Elite III (Ouad Density) 500

Controller(controlls4drives) 90

Quentin Research

Apple Mate S 219

Controller 60

Micro Sci

A-2 S 209

Controller 70

Mountain Computer

5 meg handisk S1795

^^^i^^^

Hayes Micro computer

300 Baud Smart Modem s 209

1200 Baud smart Modem 499

Micro Modem w/software 259

l200Baudw/smartcomforPC 409

Chronograph 229

Novation

J-Cat300Baud s 109

AppleCatll 249

51/4"&8" DISK DRIVES

Shugart

SA400,Sgl/Dbl S 160

SA455, Vi Height 225

SA801RSgl/Dbl 355

SA851RDbl/Dbl 475

Tandon

TM100-1,160K S 160

TM 100-2, 320K 235

TM101-4(quad) 299

TMTM 848-1 Sgl/Dbl Den 359

TM 848-2 Dbl/Dbl Den 435

Mitsubishi

2894Dbl/Dbl8" .. S 399

Siemans

FDD100-8,Sgl/Dbl S 159

CDC

9409T, 320K S 249

Circle 82 on Inquiry card.

IBM PC ACCESSORIES

Ast Research

10+ S 119

Combo+ 259

Six Pack + 279

Mega + 279

Mega Pack 279

Quadram

Quad Link S 475

ColorGraphicsCard 245

A Quadchrome Color Monitor 475

m Tandon

VA 320KDiskDrive S 235

^ Panasonic

fl Slimline Drive, 320K S 205

y cdc

\ 320kDiskDrive S 249

li 64K upgrade

9 each64K s 59

A Paradise Systems

K MultiDisplayCard S 399

/ Plantronics

Multi DisplayCard s 399

PC Cable

PrinterCable(6ft) S 29

Advanced Logic Systems

CPM 3.0 Card (6 MHZ) $ 299

zcard 139

CPM Card + SuperCalc 499

Astar

RF Modulator $ 18

Fan 39

Hi-quality Joystick 29

Gibson

Light pen S 239

Micro Max

80 col. for II + or Franklin, Inverse Char., Soft

switch, VidexCompatible S 139

80col.fONIEw/64kexp.128K 139

Kensington

|k System Saver s 79

Microsoft

N Softcardw/cpm S 239

fij l6kCard 69

b Premium Pack 499

k Calif o nia Computer Systems

M Serial interface card s 129

Jf tc Products

A joystick S 44

P Paddles 34

■► Selectaport 39

A Kraft

y Joystick S 49

Micro Tek

Bam16Kcard S 59

I

i

\i

\\

we accept all p.o.'s from universities

CALL 800-847-1718

Low Prices!!!

MoilefCotd.]

Computer Components Unlimited

TO 40% OFF LIST PRICE

I

V

A

5

fi

PERSONAL/PORTABLE SYSTEMS

Franklin

Ace1000w/64K Call

Ace 1100 Call

Ace1200w/Drlve Call

Ace Pro Pack $1149

Franklin Ace Drive 299

Apple Computer

IIEW/64K S1090

HE Starter System 1525

Apple Drive 319

Apple HE 80 col. card 49

IBM

PC 64K, Keyboard, 1 Drive $1995

PC64K, Keyboard, 2 Drives 2245

XT Hard Disk Drive, 128K 4995

PC Monochrome Card 335

PCColorCard 275

PC Monochrome Monitor 335

Kaypro

Kayproll S1495

Kaypro4 1950

KayprolO 2595

Columbia

1600-1, 2 Dbl. Drives, Color card,

Keyboard S2795

Eagle

Call for pricing

Televideo

Teletotel S1395

Teletotell 1695

TS803 1900

TS1603 2450

Compupro

816A S4095

Call for compupro Board Pricing

Sanyo

MBC-555 S 975

MBC-1000 1395

stm Computers

PiedPiperl S 995

LOW PRICEDHi Quality DISKETTES

Computer Components5% "Disks

sglSide/Dbl Density Sl8abox

DblSide/DblDensity 27abox

8" Disks

SglSide/sgl Density Sl9abox

DblSide/DblDensity 29abox

All Disks come w/Reinforced Hub,5 yr warranty and not bulk packed.

Fliptubs

Smoked Plexiglass Diskette File Holds 70 — S 19Call for all brands of Disks.

TERMINALS

Oume

102,80 col. Green

. . . S 539

102AM

549

103,80/132

.... 749

Adds

Viewpoint 3A+

... S 570

Televideo

925

S 719

950

.... 919

DISK DRIVE CABINETS

5Yo" cabinets

SingleCab.w/powersupply S 49

DualCab.w/powersupply 85

8" Cabinets

SingleCab.w/fan&powersupply S 209

DualCab.w/fan&powersupply 259

HOT CIRCUITS

watch Computer components toexpand in this area. Call for allvolume requirements.

TTL

74L&244 S1.39

Dynamic Rams

TMS4027 S1.99

UPD411 3.00

4116-200ns 1.59

4164-200ns 5.95

4164-150ns 6.95

Static Rams

2114L-2 S1.69

6116-4200ns 4.65

Eproms

1702 S4.40

2708 3.80

2716 7.50

2732 4.80

2764 6.00

ComputerComponentsUnlimited

800-847-1718

OUTSIDE CALIFORNIA

RETAIL STORE:

11976 Aviation Blvd.inglewood, CA 90304

MAIL ORDER:

P.O. BOX 1936Hawthorne, CA 90250

I

1

|

»

i

VIDEO DISPLAY MONITORS

USI

Pi 1 (9"GreenHiRes) $ 119

pi 2 (i2"CreenHiResl 139

pi 3 d2"AmberHiRes) 149

Pi4 (9"AmberHiRes) 129

BMC

12AUW (12"0reenl S 79

9191 Color Composite 249

12EUN(20MHZHiResl 129

Zenith

ZVMl22(Creen) $ 99

ZVM123 (Amber) 129

Gorilla

HIResCreen $ 89

HiResAmber 99

Amdek

Color I Composite Color S 329

ColorllRCB 419

300A 159

310A 179

300C 149

Princton Graphics

PCSHX12 S 479

Circle 82 on inquiry card.

This Ad Supersedes All Others(213)643-5188

AH merchandise new We accept MC, visa, WireTransfer, COD Call, Certified Check. P 0 s fromqualified firms. APO accepted ShippingMinimum $4.50 first 5 pounds Tax California ResOnly add G>A% sales tax.

Prices Subject to Change

Mon.—Fri. 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.Sat. & Sun. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

^/PRODUCTS

P

HARDWARE

IBM PC COMBO CARD

MEMORY PLUS AT LOW PRICES!

Now! "Multicard" expandable

from 64-256K with

(1) PARALLEL (1) SERIAL

(1) CLOCK/CALENDAR

$22900

COEX 64 SPC with 64KCOEX 256 SPC with 256K

s39900

S-10064KcmosRAMCARD

UnbelievablePrice!

>299'

100

Assembled and Tested

ACP has sold over 1000 of these IEEE compatiblelow-priced, high-reliability 64K Static RAM Cards• Single 5-Volt operation.

SIEMEN'S SALE

You can now purchase Shugartcompatible 8" Disk Drives below your

existing factory direct pricingThese Prices are the lowest ever published

•Siemen's SSDD FDD100-8.. $169.00

Also, with purchase of Disk Drives

you can buy Ihe Vista V-1000 Dual Case

with Power Supply and Cable

for only $375.00 Regular Price $495.00

Oiler Limited! Factory Warranty 90 DaystShipped Immediately from Slock! "OEM Quantities

DOT MATRIX PRINTER

COEX 80-FT

* 9x7 Dot Matrix.80 CPS. 8i-Directional

Printing**■ 2K Buffered Memory

80. 96. 132 Columns, Graphics and

Block Printingf Selectable Char Pitch. Line Spacing

and FeedCOEX Interface Card to Apple $49.95

ACP HAS DISK DRIVES

APPLE II™ COMPATIBLE

Thin

Line jp

Drive

9 hta

TOSHIBA Half-High

PC Compatible • Double Sided

$24g00

TANDON 100-2

PC Compatible • Double Sided$23Q00

OTHER DRIVES WE STOCK

AST Megaplus " Card

P/N MG064 {64K. S, C)•Comboplus" Card

P/N MC-064SPC (64K. S. P. C) 3•PC I/O Plua II" Card

P/N I/O (C. S) 1

•"SIX PACK"

P/N SP064SPC (64K. S, P. C)COEX Extender CardPrototype CardHERCULES

Hercules Graphic CardMOUSE SYSTEMS Mouse for IBMMICROSOFT

Mouse plus Mullitoot WordMAR 6 Slot Expansion Chassis

for IBMPC/XT or Eagle etcORCHID Hi-Res Graphics Adaptor

PERSVST Spectrum (64-256K)

P/N SP64, (64K. Clk. S. P)PLANTRONICS Color plus" CardQUADRAM Quadboard (64-256K)

P/N Q64, 64K w/4 functions 3

QuadLink Apple Card 6

Quadboard 64K

Microlazer Print Buffer MP-64Ouadchrome (Hires RGB)RIXON PC212A Modem I/O 5

SSM Transmodem 1200USI Mullidisplay CardVISTA "Mutllcard-" (exp. 64-2S6K)

P/N V-064 (64K, Clk, S, P) 3

P/N V-256 (256K. Clk, S, P) 6

•"Maxlcard"" (up to 576K)

P/N V-576-64K

P/N V-576-576K•"PCMaater" (10 I/O) 4

•"PC Extender" (up to 10 I/O) 2

• "Dlikmaator" 2

•S Thinline Dual Floppy•V12O0 6.2Mb Cartridge Drive

PRINTERS

List3SS

ACP$270

COEX SOFT BOcps

$299

DYNAX Daisywheel

SILVER REED

EXP500 132 Column

STAR MfCRONICS - NEW)

Gemini 10X 120cps

398

Gemini 15 15"

599

EPSON FX80

699

FX100

895

BROTHER HR-1/BMC

1195

DAtSYWRITER

1495

1 rx uaisywneei

NEC Spifiwfiter 3550

IBM PC to Parallel Cable

60

MONITORS

AMDEK CORP

3O0 Green 12"

$199

3tO Amber 12"

210

Color 1 Composite/Hitachi

399

Color II RGB Hi-Res

899

BMC

12" Green

129

PRINCETON GRAPHICS

RGB IBM Lookalike

700

DYSAN SW SS SD

10/$55

DYSAN 5V." DS SD

10/65

IBM 5W SS SD

10/60

IBM 5W SS DD

10/65

VERBATIM 525-01 SS

10/45

VERBATIM 550-01 DS

tO/55

MAXELL MD1 SS

10/50

MAXELL MD2 DS

10/60

Flip Storage Box BW" (SO disks)

BULK SPECIAL SS

10/25

With Sleeve and Sox

100/195

MORE IBM GOODIES

COMPUCABLE

Keyboard & Drive Cavers (sel)

CURTISPC Pedestal

PGS or Ouadchrome AdaptorVertical PC System StandIBM Mono Extension CableKeyboard Ext. Cable (3-9')

EPD PROTECTION DEVICESThe Lemon (Surge Prolector)The Peach (Surge Prolector)The Orange (with EMI/RFI)The Lime

INTEL 8087 IC

KOALA PAD

KRAFT Joystick IBM

RAM EXPANSION16K Motherboard (16 IC's)64K Memory Exp. (9 IC s)

HAYESSmartmodem 300PC Modem Software 1.3 (above)

Smartmodem 1200PC Software 1.4C (above)Smartmodem 1200BSmartcom II

800-854-8230

TWX

910-595-1565

APPLE™ COMPATIBLE

DISK

CONTROLLER

fMcippkz computer

.law- Authorized Dealer

Only

$4995

Apple Printer Interface

w/Apple to Epson Cable

$4995

Apple lie Compatible

80 Column SOQ95

Card W/64K 99

APPLE COOLING FAN

with

Surge

.Suppression

$4995

APPLE COMPATIBLEPOWER SUPPLY

APPLE COMPATIBLE111 3j^ STICK

1595

only

VISTA V1200

6.2 Cartridge Drive w/ControllerApple or IBM Compatible

Please Specifywith Order

■999

95

VISTA "SOLO"

Apple ll/lleCompatibleDisk Drive

Totally compatible to Apple Drives.

Only

$•19995

Controller $49.95

Just plug in and run.

Apple II16KRAM CARD

Compatible withZ80 Sottcard' . PASCAL CP/M "

Full 1 year Warranty. Top Quality by COEX

NEW LOW S/IQ95

ACP PRICE 49

Also from COEX, NEW EPSON

Parallel Interface for Apple.

With cable $49.95

VISTA A800

8" Disk Controller

$29995

for Apple

VISTA "DISKMASTER"

IBM Compatible

$19995

3". 5". 6" andV1200 Compatible

Mail Order: P.O. Bdx 17329 Irvine. CA 92713

Retail: 13106 E. Edinger, Santa Ana. CA 92705

(7141 558-8313

542 w Trimble. San Jnse. i

(408) 9467010

Apple lie w/64KApple lie SyslemApple lie Sys w/Ext TextDisk II w/ControllerDisk II w/o ControllerMonitor III GreenSuper Serial CardParallel Interface CardBO Column Text CardExtended 80 Column TextDot Matrix Printer

UST$1395.001995 002195.00545.00395.00249.00195.00165.00125.00295.00695.00

"Apple Product! Available In-Stora C

MORE HARDWARE

MICROSOFT

ZBO Sottcard

16K RamcardSSM

AIO-11 4 Funciion Serial/ParallelEASTSIDE

Wildcard Apple IIKENSINGTON

Syslem SaverKEYBOARD COMPANY

Numeric Keypad

Apple II Joystick

Apple II Hand ControllersKRAFT

Joystick

Hand ConlrollerMPC

128K Bubble MemoryPROMETHEUS

VERSAcard Four-m-tVISTA COMPUTER CO.

A800 8" Disk Conlrol

Quartet Disk Drive 5%"

Solo Disk Drive w/Conlr

Solo Drive w/O Conlr

Vista 5%" Disk Contr

Typehead BufferVIDEX

Videolerm 80x24 Card

Keyboard Enhancer II

Soft Switch

Function Strip KeysPRACTICAL PERIPHERALS

16K MicrotjuHor

32K Microbuffer

Snapshot OptionVOTRAX

Type nTalk Speech

Personal SystemVYNET

Apple II Voico Syn.

Apple II Telephone I/OSCOTT INSTRUMENTS

Voice Recognita VET60COEX

16K RAM Card

Parallel Card w'Cable

Apple Protocard

Apple ExtBndercard

Applo lie Ext RAM CardCORVUSORANGE MICRO

The Grappler I/O (PlusJ

The Buffo rboardSATURN SYSTEMS

32K RAM Card

128K RAM CardSTREET

ECHO IILEGEND

64KC ll/lle

128KC Mile

18SRC 1BK SialicMICROPRO WordStar w CP MMOUNTAIN COMPUTER

CPS Multilunction

Music Syslem

AD plus DA

ROM PlusM4R ENTERPRISES

Sup'rterm 80x24 Card

Sup'rMod II

Sup'rMod V (IBM)ALS

The CP/M Plus Z80 Card

Smarterm 80x24 Card

The Synergizer Package

LIST$395.00195 00

ACP

$249.00

09.00

149 9549 9529 95

199.00

379.95849.00299.002490092.0049 95

34500149.0035 0079.00

259 00299 00149.00

799.00

99 0099 0029.00

29.00199.00

299.00799.00249.00199.0049.00

279.00129.0030.0069.00

220.00

253.00109.00

327.00

599 00

149 00

499

239 00395 00350 00

155.00

395.0069.0069.00

399.00349.00

699.00

269.00499.00135.00

415

169.00335.00299.00129.00

269.0049.0049.00

zsaBasmm

SAVE UP TO 40%

BUSINESSScreen WriterBD MasterVisicalc'" 3.3VisiptolPFS. File IIPFS. File IIIVisilrend/Vis'plolPFS. Graph IIPFS. Graph IIIMultiplanVersaformWordstardBASE IISupercalcPFS, Report IIPFS. Report IIIAccl Plus G/LG/L, A/P. A/RAbove + InventoryMagic WindowHOMEHome Accountant

Tranaond ITranBend IIVisiterm

ASCII Exprs. Prof

$129 HOBBY

155 Zoom Graphics

185 Utility City

159 Locksmith 4.0

115 Nibbles Away ll

155 GAMES

25 Choplillor

115 Frogger

155 Wizardy

199 Snack Attack

279 Cannonball Blitz

299 Knight Diamonds

439 Zork I

169 Zork III

95 Starcross

115 Serpentine

299 Star Blazer

59S Deadline

799 Tubeway

115 Flight SimulatorSpace Vikings

59 Sargon II

76 Spitfire Simulator

119 Apple Panic

89 Olympic Decath

Apple" Apple Trademark of Apple ComputerIBM" IBM Trademark ol international BusinessMachines

TERMS: MO Cashier's Check Bank Wire. Personal check*allow 2 weeks Iw processing Include Drivers License andcredit card *s VtM, AMEX CB add 3N mwvic* charge Add3% shipping & handling ex $2.50. whenever it greater Add10% lor foreign orders ex US Parcel Poet Include Telephonenumber. NO COOa Prices eubiect to change without notice.Some rtem* subject to pnor sato We reserve Ihe nghl toiub»liluie manufacturer Retail pries* may vary.

638 BYTE December 1983

Circle 12 on inquiry card.

ADVANCED

£OTj1£tti3£

PRODUCTS

Serving Computer Professionals Since 1976

HARDWARE

AST Megaplus " Card Ust

P/N MG064 (64K, S, C) 395

•Comboplus" Card

P/N MC-064SPC (64K, S. P. C) 395•PC I/O Plua II- Card

P/N I/O (C, S) 165

•■•SIX PACK"

P/N SP064SPC (64K. S. P, C)COEX Extender Card 40

Prototype Card 69

HERCULES

Hercules Graphic CardMOUSE SYSTEMS Mouse for IBMMICROSOFT

Mouse plus Mullitool WordORCHID

Hi-Res Graphics Adaptor 395

PERSYST Spectrum (64-256K)

P/N SP64, (64K, Clk, S, P)PLANTRONICS Color plus" CardQUADRAM Quadboard (64-256K)

P/N 064, 64K w/4 functions 395

QuadLink Apple Card 680

Ouadboard 64K

Microfazer Print Buffer MP-64Quadchrome (Hires RGB)RIXON PC212A Modem I/O 596

SSM Transmodem 1200USI Multidisplay CardVISTA "Multlcard "" (axp. 64-2S6K)

P/N V-064 (64K. Clk, S, P) 395

P/N V-256 (256K. Clk, S, P) 695

• "Maxlcard"" (up to 576K)

P/N V-S76-64K

P/N V-576-576K•"PCMaiter" (10 I/O) 495

•"PC Extender" (up to 10 I/O) 249•"Diakmaater" 299

•8" Thlnllne Dual Floppy•V1200 6.2Mb Cartridge Drive

ACP

$279

279

115

29929

35

359269

Call

339

319399

279525279190488449479299

229399

249729329199199Call999

PRINTERS

COEX 80F/T BOcps

DYNAX Daisywheel

SILVER REEDEXP500 132 Column

STAR MICRONICS - NEWIGemini tOX 120cps 399

Gemini 15 15" 599

EPSON FX80 699

FX100 895

BROTHER HR-1/BMC 1195

DAISYWRITER 1495

TTX Daisywheeli NEC Spinwriter 3550

IBM PC to Parallel Cable 60

S299 S199525

319469549749895

1295549

187539

MONITORS

AMDEK CORP

300 Green 12" $199

$155

310 Amber 12" 210

175

Color I Composite/Hitachi 399

339

Color II RGB Hi-Res 899

695

BMC

12" Green 129

89

PRINCETON GRAPHICS

RGB IBM Lookalike 700

545

DISKETTES

DYSAN 5'/." SS SDDYSAN 5'/." DS SDIBM 57/' SS SDIBM 5'/4" SS DDVERBATIM 525-01 SSVERBATIM 550-01 DSMAXELL MD1 SSMAXELL MD2 OS

, FUP S

| BULK SPECIAL SS

With Sleeve and Box

10/S55

$38

10/65

48

10/60

43

10/65

47

10/45

23

10/55

34

10/50

29

10/60

39

19

10/25

19

00/195

149

MORE IBM GOODIES

COMPILABLE

Keyboard & Drive Covers (set)CURTIS

$19

PC Pedestal

$80

64

PGS or Quadchrome Adaptor

10

Vertical PC System Siand

20

IBM Mono Extension Cable

50

44

Keyboard Ext. Cable (3-9')

34

EPD PROTECTION DEVICES

The Lemon (Surge Protector)

43

The Peach (Surge Protector)The Orange (with EMI/RFI)

68

122

The Lime

76

INTEL tJ087 IC

199

KOALA PAD

99

KRAFT Joystick IBM

70

40

RAM EXPANSION

16K Motherboard (16 IC's)

19

64K Memory Exp. (9 IC's)

50

TIME SHARE SERVICES

COMPUSERVE SubscriptsSOURCE Subscription

MODEMS

HAYES

Smarlmodem 300

$210

PC Modem Software 1.3 (above)

49

Smarlmodem 1200

525

PC Software 1.4C (above)

79

SmartmodBm 1200B

445

Smartcom II

79

Smarlmodem to IBM Cable

25

SOFTWARE

dBASE II

*39900

Condor

$38900

SuperCalc

$9900

SuperCalc 2

*17900

Multiplan

$18900

Wordstar

$29900

Lotus 1-2-3

Call!

T. K. Solver!

Call!

Flight Simulator

$4500

Context MBA

Call!

Computer

Inovations

C86C Compiler

$36900

Copy II Plus

$0000

Visiword$23900

Digital Research

Pascal MT + 86 $295.00

Concurrent CP/M 86 260.00

CBASIC86 149.00

Plus More Great

Software Values

In Our

1983 Catalog!

Send For

Your Copy NOW.

II ! I

If You're Thinking IBM PC'",

READ THIS!

COEX Combocard II

* 64K to 256K RAM

* ASYNC Serial Port

* Clock/Calendar w/Nicad Backup

* Parallel Printer Port

* RAM Disk Software

* Spooler Software

64K ,$229

00

256K o„v$39900

Zero "K" Version Available Only $199.00

PLUS! . . .with Purchase of eitherMemory card above

SUPERCALC™ only $89.00 (195.00 value)

Disk Emulator FREE

Print Spooler FREE

ACP PC "FEATURE OF THE MONTH"

1. DISKMASTER'". Disk Controller (or IBM PC or XT adds boih BW and 8"

floppy drives. Complete with Software. Same card can also handle List ACPthe Amlyn 6.2 Mb Cartridge Add-on Subsystem $299 $199

2. VISTA 1200 with DISKMASTER" $999

3. M&R "SUP'R EXTENDER'"". IBM PC & XT Expansion Chassis with (6) Slots, Power

Supply and Fan. Your price!!! only $439.00. You cannot afford to live without one.

DISK DRIVES

TANDON 100-2

PC Compatible • Double Sided

$23900

TOSHIBA % High

PC Compatible • Double Sided$24900

Circle 12 on inquiry card.

I TERMS: MO. Cashier's Check. Bank Wire. Personal checksI allow 2 weeks lor processing Include Drivers License and credit

sNpp'g%r„r^s2C»T,S™r™?.,r9Aed.r„d,^ Retail: 1310 E. Edinger, Santa Ana, CA 92705 |

foreign orders or US Parcel Post. Include Telephone number, NO

CODs. Prices subject to change without notice Some items

subject to prior sato. We reserve the right to substitute manu-I lecturer. Retail prices may vary. We are not an authorized IBM| dealer. IBM" trademark of International Business Machines.

MAILORDER: P.O. Box 17329 Irvine, CA 92713

(714) 558-8813

542 W. Trimble, San Jose, CA 95131(408) 946-7010

800-854-8230

TWX

910-595-1565

64K MEMORY P.S.C.S229.00

SixSolid Reasons

You ShouldBuy From

Priority OneElectronics

640 byte December 1983 Circle 351 on Inquiry card.

Quick Delivery. We appreciatethat speed of delivery is of primaryconcern to you. And, we share thatconcern. We are organized for andcommitted to shipping orders within24 hours. Our order pulling day beginsbefore 6:00 am, with crews workinguntil after midnight to process everyorder as quickly as possible. Not onlywill your order arrive promptly, it willalso be correct. Our triple checkquality procedures is your guaranteethat your order will be right — the firsttime.

Before sales support. Our

knowledgeable sales representativesare available to answer your questionsabout the products we sell. They havethe latest price and availabilityinformation at their fingertips from our100 user Alpha Micro ComputerSystem. Our manufacturers and in-house engineering staff hold regulartraining seminars to keep our salesstaff abreast of the latest informationin our rapidly evolving marketplace.

After sales support. It has beensaid that "a mail order distributorcannot support their customers from adistance". If this is a rule, then WE ARETHE EXCEPTION. We are often ableto offer better support than the localdealer who must thinly spread hislimited technical resources across allthe products he sells. Because of oursize and large customer base, we areable to maintain a staff of engineersand technicians who specialize inspecific areas to better serve you.

Largest and Fastest Growing.

This year Inc Magazine has named us"the 31st fastest growing, privatelyheld, company in the entire UnitedStates." Making us number one in ourfield. We thank you for making thispossible. We strive daily to earn yourcontinued patronage. Even we make amistake now and then. And when wedo, our courteous Customer ServiceDepartment is only a phone call away.Our strength has allowed us and ourcustomers to weather the storm of"PO Box Operations" that proliferatewithin this industry. These fly-by-nightcompanies, are here today with alower price, but are gone tomorrow,leaving their customers high and dry.

PRIORITY

Product and Pricing.

We are proud of theproducts we sell. Our new productevaluation procedures approve lessthan 10% of the products offered tous. We are selective, because youdeserve it. And yet, we carry thebroadest line of quality computerproducts and accessories. And westock them in depth. Our multi-milliondollar inventory is testimony to ourcommittment to rapid delivery. Ourunequalled purchasing power allowsus to continually offer the mostcompetitive prices, while maintainingthe financial strength necessary toinsure the professional support youexpect from us.

New Catalog. Our new, 104 page,full color Winter '83/Spring '84Engineering Selection Guide is hot offthe press. This publication hasbecome the Bible of Our Industrybecause of the wide variety ofproducts, and the comprehensivetechnical information included. As anadded bonus, if you act now and placeyour order before December 31,1983, you can save up to anadditional 10% off our alreadydiscounted catalog prices. If you or anassociate have not yet received yourcopy, call our toll-free number, andone will be mailed today.

ELECTRONICS

9161 Deering Ave,, Chatsworth, CA 91311(800)423-5922 (213) 709-5111

Circle 351 on Inquiry card.

RYTE December 1983 641

WIREMASTER

Whip your wire wrapand PC layoutproblems withWIREMASTER

WIREMASTER is a software tool for design,layout, and assembly of hardware. Yourschematic is fed to WIREMASTER, whichproduces network maps, cross-references,wire and parts lists, and debug checklists.CHANGEM ASTER keeps track of fixes andupdates. PLOTBOARD and PRINTBOARDgive pictures of the layout. Post-processorsfor wirewrap machines available. Runs onCP/M, MSDOS, UNIX, and VMS. $195.

AFTERTHOUGHT ENGINEERING 7266 Court-ney Dr., San Diego, CA 92111, (619)279-2868.

CONTROL YOUR WORLD"# WITH YOUR VIC-20 ,

With simple circuits using low cost parts and ourprogram supplied on cassette tape, we'll showyou how to use your COMMODORE VIC-20 for:

■ Digital Thermometers ■ Digital Clock

■ Burglar Alarm - 2 Zone, Time Controlled

■ Fire Alarm - 2 Zone, Time Controlled

■ Dusk to Dawn Lighting with Photo Cell

■ Furnace and Air Cond., Clock and Thermostat

■ Clock Controlled Appliance Switches

Simple program variations in basic can operatelights, motors, furnaces, machines, heat pumps,radios, sound systems, test equipment, swim-ming pools, garden watering, and more.

Your video screen will display simultaneously:• Two Digital Temperatures • Digital Time • TwoAnalog Inputs * Five Input Ports Status • EightOutput Ports Status.

GET A LOW COST EDUCATION IN COMPUTER CONTROL.ORDER YOUR CASSETTE AND INSTRUCTION BOOK NOWI |S39.90 PRICE INCLUDES POSTAGE.Terms: MASTER CARD/VISA

The Continental Press, Inc., Elizabethtown, PA 17022Toll tree: 800-233-0759 Colled in PA: (717) 367-1836

Protect your computerfrom high voltage power surge

NOW AVAILABLE IN 10 SOCKETS

$TQ95

79

®

□ CHECK D AMERICAN EXPRESS LI CARTE BLANCHE

□□□□□□□□□□□□□□CO

EXPIRATION DATE

NAME

ADDRESS

OTY

STATE,

.ZIP.

mail to: Computronix Corporation

BOX 1425

MELVILLE. NY 11747

Circle 506 on Inquiry card.

Circle 509 on Inquiry card.

Circle 512 on Inquiry card.

DATA SWITCH

FOR IBM PC PRINTER INTERFACE

Model 1220 Bi Directional Data Switchwith 3-3ft. data cables gives an IBM PCuser 2 Centronics Interfaces to connect edraft printer & letter quality printer to his'arallel Interface. A toggle switch on theront panel selects the desired printertans at any speed. Built in data cablessave money. Supplied assembled anc:eated. $179.00. Available from youtocal computer dealer or

Terminal Data Corp.

11878 Coaklay Circle. Rockvilla, MD

13011 BB1-76S5

12 Bit

A/D

Converter

Professional data conversion for your Apple®computer at a new low price of s29995

Compare with any compati tius product at twica tha price!

• 16 channels ol analog input

• Full 12 bit data accuracy (1 part in 4096)

• Ns programming needed — convert any channel directfrom Basic

• Complete accessory software on disk

— Including high-speed access handler

— "Demo-Scope" multichannel waveform display

— Plain English discussion and example tutorial• Applications include:

— Security

— Control

— Laboratory data acquisition

— Voice analysis

— Energy control

G842 VAUEAN AVE.VANNUVS, CA. 91406

(2131 989-1204

APPLE -PROMEPROM BURNER CARD

Circle 507 on Inquiry card.

Circle 510 on inquiry card.

All menu-driven software is provided aiongwith a complete users manual. All com-mands are self-prompting, there are no per-sonality modules required and all voltagesare on-board card.BURNS EPR0MS FEATURES

2708 2532 2732 'Auto erase verify2716 2516 2764 'Auto burn verify2732A 2564 'Partial burn capacity

«iinr>c "Low Insertion forceonly 1«9" socketnow Available apple- -prom Console unit!

Computer Technology Associates

New Products Division

1704 MOOn, N.E.

Albuquerque, N.M. 87112= = i (505) 298-0942specifications subject to change without noticeApple Is a registered trademark of Apple computer, inc.visa mc ae Accepted

Circle 513 on Inquiry card.

agiKey*

THE FULL-FEATURED KEYBOARD EXPANDER

Redefine any key to send a string ol characters.MagiKey™ does more ...

* automates application software, integratesfunction or cutsor keys

* "help" menus displayed at any time

* built-in batch processing more powerfulthan SUBMIT or XSUB

* strings can redefine keys, pause lor lill-the-blonks keyboard input, or contain nestedkey definitions

* invisible to system and software

* lor any 8080-8085-Z80-CP/M 2.2, nosystem ot software modifications

$ioo

8" SSSD. Kaypto 5V." - inquire obout other 5//' lormotscheck. VISA, MC odd 6% to« in CA

mo*

CP M rim) OoltoJ Research

microSystems

16609 Sagowood LanePowcry, California 92064(619)693-1022

LC NETWORKLINE FILTER

Model C-519-L1 EMI/RFI filter protectsagainst high energy transients. . -varistorclamps higher voltages to safelevels. . .Max Rating: 15 A, 125 VAC,1B75 Watts continuous duty. . .$97.50.

J. W. MILLERDIVISION/Bell Industries

(9070 Reyes Ave., Roncho

Dominguez, CA 90224

(213) 537-5200

SAVE

ON CONTINUOUSBLANK LETTERHEAD

WITH CLEAN-EDGE-PERF

I 500/Pkg.

9112x11

20 lb.

8.50/Pkg.

1 2600/Ctn.

9 112x11

20 lb.

34.95/Ctn.

SAVE

ON CUSTOM PRINTEDCONTINUOUS STATIONERY

WITH CLEAN-EDGE-PERF

PAPER

WT.

1M

3M

SM

White Bond

20

95.00

54.00

32.00

25% White Rag

20

105.00

60.00

39.00

Classic Laid White

24

115.00

69.00

45.00

Classic Laid Ivory

24

115.00

69.00

45.00

Size: 9 1/2 x 11- Delsched To: 6 1/2 x 11

SEND IN YOUR COPY OF LETTERHEAD. WE WILLMATCH INK AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE. TWO COLORADD 35.00IFLAT

ENCLOSE CHECK OR MONEY ORDER. NO COD'S.ALLOW 3 WEEKS. FASTER DELIVER WITH M/C,VISA PHONE ORDERS. ILLINOIS RESIDENCE ADD5 1/4% SALES TAX.

ALL PRICES ARE DELIVERED!

COMPUTER PAPER PEOPLE

P.O. BOX 381 • WINFIELD, ILL 60190

(312) 665-7601

Circle 508 on Inquiry card.

Circle 511 on Inquiry card.

Circle 514 on Inquiry card.

IBM PC 256K

2X 320 KB DS/DD DISK DRIVES

FLOPPY DISK CONTROLLER

ALL FOR $2599

+ v

&F

&*

IBM PC256K COLOR GRAPHICS BOARD FLOPPY DRIVE CONTROLLER

WITH PARALLEL PORT 360KB DS/DD DISK DRIVE, PRINTER, CABLE

DOS 2.0, lONB HARD DISK SUBSYSTEM INCLUDES CABLE,

CONTROLLER, POWER SUPPLY, CABINET, SOFTWARE

DISK DRIVES FOR IBM PC

Double Sided/Double Density 320KB $225HARD DISK FOR IBM PC5MB $1399 10MB $1599 15MB $2199MEMORY BOARDS

AST MULTIFUNCTION $299

AST I/O PLUS $199

QUADRAM 256K MULTIFUNCTION . . . $399

HERCULES CARD $499

QCS BIG BLUE CARD $479

HAYES

SMARTMODEM 300 BAUD $239

SMARTMODEM 1200 BAUD $559

MONITORS

PQS COLOR MONITOR HX-12 $499

AMDEK, NEC MONITORS AVAILABLE . CALL

APPLE He STARTER SYSTEM $1599

DISK DRIVE FOR APPLE II & He . . . $219

PRINTERS

BROTHER HR-1 $750OKIDATA 82A. $499

84A $999

GEMINI 10 . . . $359NEC 3510 . . $1499

7710

EPSON RX80 . $379

MX80 $449

HAYES SMARTMODEMHAYES SMARTMODEMVISICALC .... $199LOTUS 1-2-3. . $359SUPER CALC II $199WORD PERFECT $349

HR-15 $499

83A $699

93A $959

15 $529

3550 $1899

$2075

FX80 $599

MX100 $649

300 BAUD . .

1200 BAUD . ,MULTIPLAN . .WORDSTAR .MAILMERGE .EASY WRITER

$239$559$199$329$179$129

TAVA PC

Desk Top, IBM PC Compatible Computer, RunsDOS 1.1, 2.0, CP/M86 $1025

COMPUTER POST INC.

22102 CLARENDON ST. STE. #1WOODLAND HILLS, CA 91367(213) 9991041

CALL FOR FREE PRICE SHEET.

PRICES SUBJECT TO CHAQE WITHOUT NOTICE.SHIPPING AND HANDLING EXTRA

Circle 106 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983

643

CORONA

$2395

.2 Or. 320K ea.

• 128K RAM

• software

Your choice of DESKTOP or PORTABLE

• NEC 8201A note book computer $677

• IBM-PC 64K, 2 Drs, color graphics .. $2499

• COLUMBIA 2 Drs, Kybd, software ... $2495

• EAGLE-PC 2 Drs, Mon, 128K, software $2495

• SANYO-550 IBM Compatible, 128K ... $899

• FRANKLIN Ace 1200 OMS package . $1699

• FRANKLIN Ace 1000 Pro package .. $1199

• SIGMA DESG 10MB expsn chassis . $1799

• DATAMAC 10 MB Internal (IBM-PC) $1499

• EPSON FX-100 the best of Epson $739

• Delta 10 better than FX-80 call

• DYNAX DX-15 letter quality, 16 cps .. $429

• SILVER REED EXP-550 20 cps, 16'1 wide $599

• OKI 92 160 cps DP, 40 cps correspdn $475

• OKI 84 200 cps DP, 50 cps correspdn $948

—Call for other items not listed—

MICROLAND 5223 Beechnut

Add 3% for MC/VISA Houston, TX 77096

COD 15% deposit (713)668-4695(ship same day order)

FREE

We will meet any legitimate advertisedprice in this issue of BYTE on any com-puter, terminal or printer we stock and shipit free (46 states) via UPS. Closeouts anditems not stocked are excluded.

Call, or, you may order by including theother ad, or its page no., and your certifiedcheck or money order. Insurance, if youwish it, is 50« per $100 extra.

All items factory sealed & warranted.Sorry no credit cards, personal or companychecks. 10% deposit on CODs.

CIRCLE READER SERVICE CARD FORDISCOUNT BULLETIN

©

H. L. WHITAKER Co.7603 Firestone Bl.Downey, CA 90241(213) 566-3556

Authorized dealer: Columbia, Diablo, Eagle, ITOH,Morrow, NEC, North Star, Qume, Seiko, Silver-Reed, Televideo and other major brands.

COMPILER

for 8080/8085/Z80

the ubjcii cock- b COMPACTI iv FASTEST in turrcnl (.' inmuil

"Sirvc" plenum

for pamphlet write:P.O.Box 508 STA. CRUZCA. USA 95062

far furthei inhumation contact

LSI JAPAN CO., LTD.

2-24-9 YOYOCI SHIBUYA-KU TOKYO (151> 1APANPHONE(031379-2427

Circle 317 on Inquiry card.

Circle 92 on Inquiry card.

Circle 270 on inquiry card.

AFFORDABLE &RELIABLE

EPROM

PROGRAMMERS& UV ERASERS

See our ad on Page 14LOGICAL DEVICES, INC

ONE KEYWORD PROCESSINGon your TELEVIDEO1"with WORDSTAR'" and . . .

&

1

NuKey

" /

59995

MastercardVisa

■ Nu Key " Automates the 36 mostcommonly used word processing functions

■ Reduces learning time while increasingoperator speed

■ For beginners and Wordstar experts

■ Comes complete with 14 new matchingkeycaps

For your TELEVIDEO MO, TS-800. IS-800A. and TS 802PLEASE SEND WORDSTAR SERIAL NUMBER TO:

Business Solutions, Inc.91 W. Long Lake Rd., Suite 9Bloomfleld Hills, Ml 48013(313)540-3360

CP'M "OF DIGITAL IUSEARCH/TElEVIDEO* tElESOLUnONi "OF IELEVIOEOJ WORDSTAR * OF MCROPRO INTERNATIONAL!NuKfViKWIC-KEV "OF BUSINESS SOLUTIONS INC

ompuPro

Lowest prices on CompuPro boards

CALL FOR QUOTE

CUSTOM SOLUTIONS

are our specialty.

BUSINESS & PROFESSIONALHardware & Software Experts

• NOW AVAILABLE •

COM PUPRO-10 Multi-User 8/16 System

Mention this ad tor a 10% DISCOUNT

off any system

ONETCO

OfFlCE NUrVOnttS COHPOflANON

(703)690-3312

14057 Jeff. Davis Hwy.Woodbridge, VA 22191FULL SERVICE SYSTEM CENTER

Circle 266 on inquiry card.

Circle 54 on inquiry card.

Circle 324 on inquiry card.

CHIPS.

'&

DALE 13

THE INFLATION FIGHTERS1

4116

20Ons

8/5 12.00

4116

150ns

8/813.75

2114L

3O0ns

8/5 12.00

2114L

200ns

8/S 13.00

4164

200ns

$5.50 each

4164

150ns

$5.95 each

6116

150ns

$5.20 each

6116

200ns

$4.85 each

6116LP

150ns

$5.85 each

1791

Disk Controller

$20.00 each

1771

Disk Controller

$16.75 each

Z80A.Z80ACTC

$3.50 each

Z80AP10

54.00 each

82J1A

$4.00 each

8255

$4.25 each

2716-1 5V 350ns 8/$4.25 $5.00 each

2716 5V 450ns $3.35 each

2732 5V 450ns $3.85 each

2532 5V 450ns 8/S4.25 $5.00 each

2764 5V 300ns 28 pin $5.95 each

2564808768000

5V

CALLCALLCALL

Allow up lo 3 wks. lor personal checks to dear. Please Includephone number. Prices subject to change without notice. Shipping &Handling for Chips 53.50. FOB Bellevue. WA. for all else.Washington state residents add 7.97. Sales Tax.

CHIPS & DALE

10655 N.E. 4th St.. Suite 400

Bellevue, WA 98004

1-206-451-9770

COMPUTER SUPPLIES

FOR ALL MAKES & MODELS

DISKETTES

5%

S/S S/D

MIN. ORDER 50

RIBBONS

NEC

3500

(NON-FLIP CARTRIDGEI

EPSON

MX70/MX80

EPSON

MX 100

MIN. ORDER 6

$644

$464$^84

CONTINUOUS FORMS

CALL TOLL FREE 1-800 248-2418

IN N.Y. STATE (212) 967-1700TERMS-VISA, MC OR CODDEALER INQUIRIES INVITED

WORLDWIDE COMPUTER SUPPLIES

159 MAIN ST., S.I., N.Y. 10307

Maxell Floppy Disks

The Mini-Diskswith maximum quality.

Dealer inquiriesinvited. C.O.D'saccepted. CallFREE (800) 235-4137.

■G

PACIFIC EXCHANGES

100 Foothill Blvd.. San LuisSan Luis Obispo. CA 93401In Catcall (800) 592-5935 or(805)543-1037

Circle 67 on Inquiry card.

Circle 460 on Inquiry card.

Circle 334 on inquiry card.

KENSINGTON

MmiiMiM

SYSTEM SAVER

• Surge Suppression

• Dual Outlet

• U.L. Listed

• Fits Apple $i

Stand

65

SPmOKB*

DELT

\ DRAWING 32.99

FACEMAKEfl 2199

HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE 19 99

KINDERCOMP

999

MOST AMAZING THING 26 99

RHYMES AND RIDDLES

9.99

SNOOPER TROOPS 1

7,99

SNOOPER TROOPS 2

799

STORY MACHINE

1.99

XMAS SPECIAL

1 of each 214.99

RcaglcBroC

ALPHA PLOT

24.99

APPLE MECHANIC

19 99

BEAGLE BAG

19.99

BEAGLE BASIC

24.99

DOS BOSS

15.99

DOUBLE TAKE

2499

FLEX TEXT

19.99

FRAME-UP

16 99

PRONTO DOS

19 99

TIP DISK* 1

1499

TYPEFACES

1499

UTILITY CITY

19.99

XMAS SPECIAL 234

.99

1 0

f each

EDUWAO

ALGEBRA 1. Il.oi III

27.99

COMPUMATH

34.99

COMPUREAD

21.99

COMPUSPELL

21 99

DECIMALS 3 0

3399

FRACTIONS 3 0

33.99

PERCEPTION GAMES

19.99

PRISONER II

23.99

PSAT WORD ATTACK

33.99

RENDEZVOUS

27.99

SAT WORD ATTACK

33.99

SPELLING BEE GAMES

27.99

SPELLING/READING PRIMER

27.99

STATISTICS

2199

MONITORS

PRINCETON RGBHX-I20UADCHR0MERGBHX-12TAXAN RGB-I or IIITAXAN 12" Green 18mMUSIPI1 9"Gteen20mhUSIPI2 12" Green 20mhUSI PI 3 12" Amber 20mhUSI PI 4 9" Amber 20mhUSI I400C Color CompositeOSBORNE Monitor CableTi Monitor CableRCA 6' Male-Malelie lo Princeton caid/cable

48999499 99SCALL119.99116 99119.9914699136 99288.99SCALLSCALL3 99139.99

TAXAN 12" Amber18mh 124.99

APIC (APPLE /// PARALLEL)IPIC (IBM PARALLEL)ERAM 80 column 64K HEMICROFAZER0UADB0ARDIorll(64K)0UADC0L0RIOUADCOLOR IIQUAD 512+(64 K)OUADCHROME MONITOR

129.9989.99SCALLSCALL279.9923499209.9924999499.99

QUADLINK

479.99

APPLESOFTWARE

BPKGLAP.AR.PAY.INVI 299 99

BRODERBUND Arcade Machine 44.99

Bank Street Writer 52.99

Oavid's Midnite Magic 26.99

Loderunner 2699

CENTRAL POINT Copy 11+ 25 99

CORVUS SCALL

DATAMOST Aztec 29 99

Swashbuckler 26.99

Kids* APPLE, VIC, COMMea 14.99

DATASOFT Canyon Climber 17.99

Zaxxon 2999DLM Alien Addition Sch-37.99. H-27.99Alligalor Mix: Sch-37.99. H-27.99Demolition Division: Sch-37.99, H-27.99Dragon Mix: Sch-37.99, H-27.99Meteor Multiplication Sch-37.99, H-27 99Minus Mission: Sch-37 99, H-27 99

Spelling Wiz or Verb Viper 37 99

Word Invasion or Word Man 37,99

Word Master or Word Radar 37,99

EOUFUN Frenzy Flip Flop 23.99

EPYX Crush Crumble Chomp 22 99

GRAPH'nCALC 149.99

HAYDEN Piewnter 12999

Saigon II 2699

INCREDIBLE JACK 12999

JOR-AND Secret Agent 21.99

KENSINGTON Formal! II 26 99

LSS Crossword Magic 39.99

LEARNING CO Bumble Games 29 99

Bumble Plot 29.99

Gertrudes Puzzle 32.99

Gertrudes Secret 32.99

Juggles Rainbow 22 99

Magic Spell 26.99

Moplown Parade 26.99

Rocky5 Boots 37 99

LIGHTNING Mastertype 2999

MICROLAB Highnse 22 99

Miner 20-49er 29.99

Deatti In the Caribbean 26.99

Dala Factory 229.99

ODESTA CHESS 53.99

Checkers 37.99

Odin 37 99

PEACHTREE SCALL

PENGUIN Graphics Magician 44.99

SIERRA ON LINE Froggcr 24 99

Screenwriter II 89.99

Screenwriter PRO 149.99

Ultima II 44.99

Cannonball Blitz 26.99

General Manager 169 99

Dark Crystal 29 99SOFTWARE DIMENSIONS ACCT+II SCALL

STATE OF THE ART SCALL

SU8L0GIC Pinball 26.99

ULTRASOFT Serpents Star 29 99

Mask ol the Sun 29.99

VISICORP SCALL

CALCSTAR

DATASTAR

MAILMERGE

REPORTSTAR

SPELLSTAR

STARINDEX

SUPERSORT

WORDSTAR PRO

8999179.99139.99199.99139 99109.99139.9938999

SCALL

INFOSTAR

WORDSTAR FORSPECIALPRICING

- am

MICROSOFT

ALD.S

APPLESOFT COMPILERBASIC COMPILERCOBOL COMPILERDECATHLON(APPPLEIFLIGHT SIMULATOR (IBM!MOUSE (IBM|MULTITOOL BUDGETSOFTCARD 11 +SOFTCARD PREMIUM (lie)TYPING TUTOR II64KIBMSYSTEMCARD

75.99116.99259.99559.99

22.99

34,99129,99109 992159935999

18.99295.99

MULTIPLAN

165.99

■

R!'1 ■■£■'■

UjIlM

CP/M3.0

279.99

380 ZLETTER QUALITYDAISY WHEEL PRINTER 1

• 48K Buffer QQQ QQ 1

• 32CPS www.ww

• Graphics

• 10,12,15 Pitch

Dispatcher 99.99

SMARTTERM II, orZ-CARD II

129.99

• Proportional spacing

Sheet Feeder 599.99 1Tractors 129.99 1Cable (Please Specify) 49.99 1

APPLEHARDWARE

CDP16K RAM CARD 39.99

Printer Cards Cable 39.99

Fan w/surge, 2 Outlets 39.99DAN PAYMAR Lower Case 1 [rev 1 -6| 25.99

Lower Case.2|rev7) 19,99

DARK STAR Snapshot II 99 99

EASTSIDE Wildcard 119,99

FOURTH DIMENSION Drive 219.99

HAYES Micromodem II 254.99

HOME Repeal Key 19.99

KOALA PAD 89 99

KRAFT Joystick 44.99

KRAFT Paddles 3199

LEGEND 128K Ram 359 99

MICRO-SCI Drive 219.99

MOUNTAIN CPS Card 159.99

Ramplus+32K 159.99

NOVATION Applecat II 269 99

Applecat Upgrade 1200 Baud 309.99

ORANGE MICRO Grappler+ 119.99

Bullerboard 119.99

Buflered Grappler+ 179.99

PADDLE ADAPPLE 24.99

SATURN 128K Ram 379.99

Accelerator II 444.99

Neptune 64 K 199 99

ACCESSORIES

3 Ring Disk Sheets (10)

7.99

Printer Stand Small

24.99

Printer Stand Large

29.99

Fingerprint (FOR EPSON)

4499

64KCHIPS(9x4164-200ns)

79.99

16K CHIPS (Bx4116-200ns)

999

LIBRARY CASE

1.99

Flip'nFile(ORIGINAL)

17.99

Fhp'n File 25 Locktray

17 99

Flipn File 50 Locktray

27.99

Power Strip w/surge

17.99

HAYES 300 Baud Smarlmodem

199 99

1200 Baud Smarlmodem

474.99

NOVATION J CAT

104 99

NOVATION 103/212 AUTOCAT

42999

NOVATION 103 SMARTCAT

169.99

NOVATION INFONEMAXI

86999

NOVATION EXPANSION MOD

29.99

PAGEMATE BOOK HOLDER

17 99

RIBBONS-MXIOOorFXIOO

799

MX80. MX80I/I. FX80, FX80I/I

4.49

OKIDATA OR GEMINI

299

BROTHER. DTC

1 99

M

c

Dntinental

| APPLE SOFTWARE 1983 BOOK

9.99

1 ATARI SOFTWARE 1983 BOOK

999

APPLE GRAPHICS BOOK

14.99

1 CPA(GI_AP.AR,PAY)ea

14999

1 FCM/FL 1st CLASS MAIL (AP)

61.99

1 FCM/FL 1st CLASS MAIL (IBM)

7199

1 HOME ACCOUNTANT+ (IBM)

84.99

1 HOME ACC'T-F(KAYPRO.OSBORNE) 59 99

1 HOME ACCOUNTANT+1TI PRO)

119 99

1 PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

29999

1 TAX ADVANTAGE

39.99

1 ULTRAFILEIIBM)

SCALL

HOME ACCOUNTANT

• Apple A A QQ

• Atari tt.aa

• Commodore

'A Height OS/DD DRIVEALPHA Dala Base MAR II

Apple-IBM Connection

Executive Package

Typefaces

ARMONK Executive SuiteASHTONTATE dBase II

Encyclopedia

FridayAST BoardsBRODERBUND Apple Panic

SerpentineCENTRAL POINT Copy II PCDATAMOST Space Strike

Pig Pen

Real Estate Inv Prog

Wrile OnEDUWARE Algebra I

Prisoner IIEPYX Crush Crumble Chomp

Jabbertalky

Oil Barons

Star Warrior

Temple of Apshar

Upper Reaches or Curse of RaGRAPH N CALCHAYDEN PiewrilerHAYES I 200B ModemKENSINGTON PC SaverKRAFT PaddlesLIFETREE VolkswrilerLIGHTNING MastertypeLOTUS 1-2-3MICROLAB Highnse

Death in the Caribbean

Miner 20-49erMOUNTAIN Hard diskNORTON UtilitiesPC CRAYONPC TUTOR

PERFECT SOFTWAREPOOL 1.5

PLANTRONICSCOIorPluSSIERRA ON-LINE Frogger

&SORCIM

2299916999129.99115.9979.9927.99SCALL59.99SCALLSCALL219926.9925.9921.9921.9969 996999299929.9922.9922.9974.9922.9929.9914.99149.99129 9943999SCALL34.99119 993699SCALL22.9925.9929.99SCALL59.9949.9947.99SCALL27.99369 9926.99

SUPERCALCSUPERSPELLGUARD

119.99-

SUPERWRITERSUPERCALC2

167.99ea

APPLE. IBM &CP/M VERSIONS

*:^H

"videx

1 APPLE WRITER PRE-BOOT

1499 1

I CHARACTER ROMS

24.99 1

1 ENHANCER II

99 99 1

■ FUNCTION STRIP

34.99 1

I HARDSWITCH

16.99 1

1 MICROMODEM CHIP

24.99 1

1 PSIO

169.99 1

1 SOFTSWITCH

25.99 1

1 ULTRATERM

24999 1

1 ULTRATERM PRE-BOOTS

SCALL 1

1 VIDEOTERM WS/S+INV

219.99 1

1 VISICALC PRE-BOOT

39.99 1

I VIDEOTERM

199.99 I

Crossfire, Lunar Leep, Mouskatlakin 22.99

Goll Challenge 19.99

Ulysses & Golden Fleece 29.99

SIR-TECH Wizardry 44.99

SUBLOGIC Pinball 2999

TMAKER 169.99

TG Joystick 44 99

TITAN 64 K Board 499 99

VISICORP Visicalc or Visidex 164 99Visible, Trend/Plot. Schedule ea. 199.99

Visilink SCALL

Visi-on SCALL

Visispell 179.99

Visiword 26999

OEADLINEPLANETFALLSUSPENDEDWITNESS

32L9

STARCROSSZORKIZORK IIZORKIII

24

99

APPLE, IBM. & CP/M VERSIONSCP/M VERSIONS $5.00 MORE

DISKETTES PRINTERS

1 DYSAN5" SS/OD(10) ' 31.99

1 DYSAN5" SS/DDO00) 299.99

C-ITOH PROWRITER

SCALL I

MAXELL5"SS/DD(10) 2799

EPSON (ALL MODELS)

SCALL 1

MAXELL5"SS/DD(100) 259.99

OKIDATA 82A

38499 1

MAXELL 5" DS/0D(10) 37 99

OKIDATA 83A

62999 1

MAXELL 5" DS/OD (100) 359.99

OKIDATA 84P

96999 1

VERBATIM 5" SS/DD(10) 24 99

OKIDATA 92

489 99 1

VERBATIM5" SS/DDI100) 229 99

OKIDATA 93

85999 1

VERBATIM 5" DS/DD (10) 36.99

STAR GEMINI 10X

SCALL 1

| VERBATIM 5" DS/DD(1O0) 34999

STAR GEMINI 15XSTAR DELTASMITH CORONA TP2

SCALL 1SCALL 1499.99 1

81 Dysan

I double-sided, double density

TRANSTAR

SCALL 1

1 Box of 10 Case of 100

RIBBONS IN STOCK FOR MOST MODELS 1

I 38.99 369.99

COMPUTER DISCOUNT PRODUCTS

MAIL* PHONE ORDERS860 S. Winchester BlSan Jose, CA95128

(408) 985-0400

RETAIL SHOWROOMS

860 S. Winchester BlSan Jose. CA 951 28

1230 Market St.Francisco. CA94102

(408) 985-0401 (41 5) 626-2244

No Charge For Credit Cards

• Prices Subject To Change

• Software Sales Are Final

• Min. $4.00 Shipping Charge

• Purchase Orders Call First

HOURS: MON-FRI8AM-7PM SAT-SUN-HOL 10AM-5PM (S.F. STORE OPENS 10AM EVERY DAY)

I'i'i.t fffM

I I ( , I . •' !,' I J 1 ,|

<B W 8B* MICROI VI- ill- SALES

• MADE IN USA * BUY FACTORY DIRECT •

CaliforniaComputerSystems

^

DISK DRIVE SPECIALSWe've Lowered Our Prices

Offering A Complete Selection And...THE LOWEST PRICES IN BYTE!

8" Shugart 801R SS/DD - The Industry Standard $355.00

8" Shugart 851R Double Sided 1.2 Meg - The Ok) Reliable 457.00

8" Qume Datatrak-8 DS/0O "THE BEST" of the floppys 479.00

8" Mitsubishi Full Height Double Sided 1 Year Parts + Labor ... .445.00

8" Mitsubishi Thinline OS/DD 1 Year P+L Direct Drive 465.00

8" Tandon 848-1 Slimline SS/DD 600K BYTES D.C. Motor 355.00

8" Tandon 848-2 Slimline Double Sided 1.2 Meg. D.C. Motor 475.00

8" Siemens 100-8 SS/DD ON SALE NOW!!! But How Long? 169.00

5'/<" Mitsubishi Full height 96T.P.I DS/DD 750K M4852 295.00

5'A" Mistubishi Slimline 96T.P.I. DS/DD 750K M4853 315.00

|5'/<" Qume 142 Slimline DS/DD ' 375.00|

5V<" Tandon TM-100-21.B.M. PC Add-on! DS/DD 48 T.P.I 259.00

5'/<"TandonTM 100-4 DS/DD96T.P.1.750K 369.00

• WINCHESTER HARD DISKS • CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

5V4" Miniscribe Hard Disk*5 Meg $589 *10 Meg $749

8" Quantum 20" Megabyte Winchester - Two flatters 1895.00

8" Quantum 40* Meg Four Platter - Most Popular 2395.00

8" Quantum 85" Megabyte - Special Order on this Monster!... .2895.008" IOMEGA 10- Meg' Removeable Disk Drive with SCSI Controlled Inter-face Board. Runs up to four drives 1895.00

8" IOMEGA 10 Meg' Cartridge Drive - No Control Interface 895.00

8" 10 Meg' Removeable Cartridge Media #M-2000-51 50.00

•LAST MINUTE SPECIAL!!! Buy any Winchester hard disk drive above and get awestern Digital hard disk interlace hoard AT COST! OM 295.00!

"Total storage space altar formatting.

YEAR END CHRISTMAS SALE

SAVE $61.00New CCS2066 64K Dynamic Memory

• 65,536 bytes ot Dynamic BAM • Z-80/8080. S-100 compatible • Port bank/16 levelsot 64K • system memory ol 1024K • Independently addressed in 16K blocks • 200nsaccess and data lines • Hysteresis drivers and receivers tor high noise immunity andminimal bus loading effects. Part #8-5000-50 ONLY $299.00

YEAR END SYSTEM SALE

• 2300A Mainframe • 2422 Disk Controller

• 2066 64K Memory • CP/M Operating System

• 2810 Z-80A CPU • 2719 2-Port RS-232 Serial

• All AC/DC 8. Data Cables • 8-bit Parallel I/O

A powerful package at ONLY $1495.00CCS CALSTAR SYSTEM

Now MUM and HUH FREE SOFTWARE: • Perfect Writer • Perfecl Calc • Perfect Spellerand • Perfecl Filer.

This powerful single box system includes: • 2-80 with 128K ol RAM expandable to256K • A networking interlace • SASI hard disk interface to add-on a Winchester • CP/M3.0 operating system • One parallel and two serial poK • Reads and writes the IBM3740 format (compatible with XOR) AND • Two double-sided double-density 8" floppydrives for 2.4 Megabytes of formatted storage AND • Wil run two or more 8" or 5'/<"lloppys. Part #S-1500-05

ON SALE NOWRegular S320ST00 — Our Price Only $2695.00

FOR XMAS

ONLY

$450.00

Limit 5 pur customer

XOR-500 DAISYWHEEL PRINTER

A letter-quality daisy-wheel printer at an unheard of wholesale price. This20 cps workhorse features a daisy-wheel compatible with QUME'sproducts. Full 132 column format with 256 character buffer, serial ANDparallel interfacing (standard), 8 level automatic impression control -original and 3 copies. The $450.00 price is nota misprint. High reliabilityand quality performance sums-up the XOR-500 Daisy-wheel Printer.

XOR-500 TERMINAL

SLASHED.'

Cut another $50

Only $445.00

That's right! A 700.00 terminalfor $445.00, a special Christ-mas deal for our customers.Features: •Screen tilt • Detached keyboard *9 cursor con-trol keys *5 function keys *7 screen attributes *25th statusline *50-19.2 Kbaud •Column plus field tab *AND MORE•All these features with a full 6 month warranty makes thisterminal the best buy on the market.

f" ft

.Hpi

CHRISTMAS SAVINGS!

*395

HELD OVERON THE ORIGINAL S-100 MOD

For engineers, hobbiests, and anyone who wants to save a bundle, the S1-M0Dis the answer. Full regulated power to run up to four (loppy disks coupled witha mamoth S-100 power supply and 12 slot bus, makes the SVMQD an excep-tional computer base. Single board design means no wiring from the powersuppply to the motherboard. This eliminates all ground loop problems associatedwith other brands of mainframes who are forced to use termination. The S1-M0Dis being offered this month with a matching S-100-12 cabinet. Fan cooled, fused,with reset and keylock the cabinet is also enamel painted and silk screened.Four A,C. outlets are provided (or peripheral hookup and plenty of cutoulsavailable for RS-232, Centronics + others. Our regular $225.00 price for theS1-M0D and 250.00 price for our 12 slot cabinet is being SLASHED!SPECIFICATIONS: ygk', SAVE

Regulated Unregulated ^^^Kf^ ^i<<-n

+ 5V @ 5A +8V@30A "' -Jgk L. OVER

+24V @ 3A +16V @ 6A WW <tff\r\

-5V@1A -16V @6A ^^r 9IVUDon't settle for those cheap 6 slot immitations you've seen elsewhere in thismag. OWN THE BEST! XOR S-1 MOD and S-100-12 Cabinet $395.00!

DUAL DRIVE SUBSYSTEMS*

HORIZONTAL OR VERTICAL

Fully Assembled and Tested Units

ONE YEAR P + L WARRANTY

On Shugart and Mitsubishi Subsystems

w/two Misubishi DS/DD Assem. + Tested 2.4 Meg $1170.00

#/two Shugart 801R SS/DD Assem. + Tested 1.2 Meg 975.00

w/two Shugart 851R DS/DD Assem. + Tested 2.4 Meg 1225.00

w/two Siemans 120-8 SS/DD Assem. + Tested 1.2 Meg 675.00

w/two Qume DT-8 DS/DD Assem. + Tested 2.4 Meg 1250.00

Cabinet Assem. & Tested w/Power Supply and Arcs 235.00

Cabinet Top and Bottom with Mounting Hardware Only 69.50

All cabinets A & T and subsystems include all AC/DC wiring and 50 pin datacable except Ihe horizontal model which includes the inlernal 50 pin cable andrequires an external 50 pin cable part #C-6000-01 S 25.00

5</i" Subsystems - Cabinet - Power Supply - Drives - Cablesw/lwo 48TPI SS/DD includes all cables Assem. + Tested . . 495.00

w/two 48TPI DS/DD includes all cables Assem. + Tested 595.00

w/two 96TPI DS/DD inclodes all cables Assem. + Tested 695.00 i

CUSTOMER SERVICE HOTLINE 1 - (714) 898-5525

do you idaji r\r* *£> hit r*r\nnm iTrn to process

NEED AN

IBM-PC 16-BIT COMPUTER

YOUR DATA?

COMPLETE SYSTEM

BASIC COMPUTER

ONLY A New Model PC by XOR ONLY

$1795

Model XPC withMS/DOS features:

•64K memory *GreenCRT *2 floppy drives for atotal of 750K storage •Multi-function keyboard (this is one partof the system that's NOT like IBM's, it's better) •Fullyexpandable memory On-Board to 256K PLUS 5 expansionslots (all IBM compatible) *2 serial, one parallel port•Optional EPROM to 32K •Optional Hard Disk add-on•Optional floppy add-on ^Optional 8087 math co-processor •All available through U.S. Micro Sales andYES it's all fully IBM compatible *MS/D0S standard,CP/M-86 operating system available at only $65.00

So close to the IBM PC you'll have to look twice.Due to the thousands of requests we've beenreceiving by phone, mail and visitors, we'veresponded by getting XOR to design this fantastic16-bit IBM duplicate. We're offering a ONE YEARwarranty (vs. 90 days). Need more information?Order the manual for $5.00 (plus shipping). Thislow price includes drives, controllers, monitor,power supply, etc. About the keyboard... Ifyou've ever seen or used the IBM PC keyboard,you'll understand why we HAD to come up withsomething better — and we did! As a matter offact, for those of you who own an IBM PC — it'stime to take a hammer to that keyboard and callToll Free to pick-up one of our compatible replace-ment keyboards at only $239.00

■ Jcrr^

m

$995

The Features:

•64K RAM memory•Expandable to 256K•Full monitor PROM•IBM PC compatibility•Multi-function key-board and cable•Runs MS/DOS and CP/M-86 (not included) •PowerSupply +5V @ 10 Amp, +12V @ 6 Amp, -12V @ 1 Amp•EPROM expandable on-board to 32K *5 expansion slotswith room for 4 more

INCLUDES: *8 level interrupt *2 serial and one parallelport *3 timer channels *4 DMA channels •Reset port•Speaker port *and MORE!

646 BYTE December 1983

Circle 441 on inquiry card.

TrW® (kaxgsiGoorag ft® ©@[M® V®mORDER TOLL FREE

& EAST ft & WEST ft

800-435-9357 800-854-8174

In III. (815) 485-4002

In Calif. (714) 898-1492

TERMS: We accept V1SA/MC. prepay, check or money order. Please allow personal checks two weeks to clear before shipment.E5.Q0 handling charge nn all orders under $50.00.15% restocking lee. All orders shipped via UPS unless otherwise specified.Ml UPS C.O.D. orders over $100.00 require a Cashiers Check. Our products carry a full ONE YEAR Parts and Labor Warranty excludingjrives, printers and lerminals which cany the full OEM factory warranty. PRICES SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.

• MADE IN USA • BUY FACTORY DIRECT • j

• EAST • 11 Edison Drive, New Lenox, Illinois 60451-k WEST* 15392 Assembly Lane, Huntington Beach, CA 92649

CUSTOM COMPUTER SYSTEMS by XOR

Why do companies like I.B.M. Corp. Atari Corp., Mattel Elec, Kennedy Space Center, Edwards A.F.B., Motorola Corp., Raytheon, and Pacific Technology buy product by mail from us? Maybeit's our full 1 year parts and labor warranty on all XOR O.E.M. products. It could be our state of the art technology, or even the factory direct sales and service. We think it's our customcomputer systems with over 1000 possible configurations. If you don't see it advertised, call us today, chances are we CAN custom build the system YOU need.

• MICRO MANAGERS: POWERFUL, PORTABLE, AND AFFORDABLE •

Don't be fooled by the system'ssmall portable size. A full 64K ofmemory with an industry standardS-100 bus. Includes CP/M 2.2and many utilities on two disks.Add on a hard disk when you needmore storage. "The software andhardware that comes with each5V* "system, is ready to run a pairof 8" single or double sided flop-pies, just plug in Ihe 50 pin datacable to the system — many otherconfigurations are available."

5V4" Z-80A 64K CP/M System

* Dual Floppy 375K SS/DD 40 Track #5-1000-86 , . J1445.00

* Dual Floppy 750K DS/DD 40 Track #5-1000-87... . $1595.00

* Dual Floppy 1.5 Meg DS/DD 80 Track #S-1000-88 ... $1645.00

* System Chassis (No boards, drives. CP/M) #S-1000-84 $ 425.00

Inexpensive but powerful, small

enough for portability, these minihard disk systems have a specialXOR interface to the S-100 busthat leaves an S-100 slot open forexpandability. Choose from 5, 10,and 16 megabyte sizes (6.5. 12.+ 20 megabyte unformatted.) In-cludes CP/M operating system.One year parts and labor warranty.Includes software and controllerfor 8" lloppys.

SVa" Hard Disk with »/2 Height Floppys

* 5 Meg Hard Disk w/375 Floppy #S-1000-81 $2195.00

* 5 Meg Hard Disk w/750K Floppy #S-1000-90 $2345.00

* 10 Meg Hard Disk w/2 1.5M Floppy #S-1000-92 .... $2795.00

* 16 Meg Hard Disk w/2 1.5M Floppy #S-1000-93 . .. $2895.00

Our most popular computerfeatures a 4 slot S-100 bus and 8"

industry standard format. Readsand writes the IBM 3740 formatas well as any byte size seclor Ex-pandable? Yes, add a hard disk orcartridge subsystem when yourdata base grows. You've probablyseen some "look-a-like" S-1004-slot systems lately, but they justdon't measure up the XOR 8"Micro Manager

2.4 Meg DS/DD 8" CP/M System

* System w/Dual SS/DD 1.2 Meg #S-1000-40 $1795.00

* System w/Dual DS/DD 2.4 Meg #S-1000-39 $1995.00

* System w/NO Drives (Includes CP/M) #S-1000-71 . $1195.00

* System Chassis (No boards, drives. CP/M) #S-1000-70 $ 395.00

• THE BASIC PROFESSIONAL FLOPPY, HARD DISK AND TAPE BACKUP *

2.4 Meg DS/DD 64K Z-80A CP/M System

This "industry Standard computer features a 12 slot motherboaro. 30 amp power supply.2 serial RS-232 ports. Centronics parallel port and CP/M software. The XOR disk controllerincluded, will read and write the I B.M 3740 formal (8" CP/M standard) as well as R/Wsingle on double sided, single or double density, and any byte/size sector. One year partsjnd labor on the complete system #S-1000-36 $2345.00

20 Meg Winchester w/2.4 Meg Floppys

For the serious professional this system features the famous S-100-12 cabinet with XOR'sSt-MOD 12-sloi motherboard The Quantum hard disk has two 10 Meg platters (A: and B;).One platter can be "backed-up" on another 2/0S/D0 1.2 floppys are used lor software en-try, copies, and back-up One year pans and labor. ifS-1000-63 $5275.00

20M H.D. with 17M Tape and 1.2M Floppy

Backup your priceless data on this full 17 megabyte tape drive and be able to pp files betweenany of the three peripherals lor total versatility Boot CP/M Irom hard disk or floppy, changelapes for archival storage. Reads and writes the IBM 3740 Format (8" CPM standard).

*S-1000-69 $6390.00.

Above system 40 megabyte hard disk *S-1000-82 $7240.00

A word on Special Orders and Configuring the System you need:

We've built and shipped hundreds of Custom Computers that we have never advertised but, have been able to build to the customer specifications. Examples:A 10 port hard disk system set-up to poll micro-wave devices; a Micro Manager interfaced to an X-Ray machine; a 7-User system with six of the users atsatellite stations via phone line modem communication throughout the United States. So whatever configuration you need; 4 floppies, 4 hard disks, 10 serialports, etc., call us Toll Free and talk to our Engineering Sales Crew and let us quote a price and delivery date that will satisfy your needs.

• THE OFFICE MASTERS! REMOVABLE CARTRIDGE DISK SYSTEMS •

■:

i

10 Meg Cartridge Disk And 1.2 Meg Floe,_,

An office system at an almost unbelievable price when you consider the bundle ot applicationssoftware Ihat comes with the system Ten megabytes of formatted storage on a removablecartridge disk allows unrolled storage space with exlra 10 Meg cartridges available at $50.00each With Ihe speed and reliability of a hard disk and removability of a floppy this officemaster is the choice #5-1000-74 53695,00

TWO 10 Meg Removable and DS/DD Floppy

Destined io be our #1 seller and no one else makes anything like it. A true state-oMhe-ansysiem with .irtually no-Nmi! Io storage capacities in 10 Meg removable cartridges Backupproblems'' Gei high speed backup Irom cartndge to cartridge, ten megabytes worth, in 6 minutes1HINT We don't use "PIP " Future technology here tocay #S-100-76 54595.00

4 User Cartridge Disk System

Four users and two 10 megabyte removable cartndge disks may be just what you want toautomate your office or small business, with all the software packages you'll ever need. Amulti-user version of the system at left, these users can be up to 100 feet away from eachother. Most any terminal will work with the user ports. #S-1000-80 $5825.00

• THE BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS: HARD DISK MULTI-USER SYSTEMS •

2 User Hard Disk System

A twenty meg hard disk (2 platter) with a DS/DD 1 2 Meg (loppy disk makesthis a perfect system for a small business. Two user allows dual access tothe system files with each station up to 100 feet apart! Includes above soft-ware. Full one year parts and labor. #S-1000-61 $5495.00

40 Meg Hard Disk 4 User System

A must for a growing business! Two DS/DD Hoppys (2.4 Meg) for data backupand copy with a 4 platter 40 Meg hard disk four user capability to automate thewhole front office. You can even designate a 10 Meg platter to each user! Samewarranty as all our products — (configurable from 2 to 7 users) #S-1000-60 $7295

7 User 85 Meg w/17 Meg Backup

Now it's available, the automated business system to run even those large com-panies! 7 separate users tied into one professional host system. If 85 Meg isn'tenough, we can put together as much as three hundred and forty megabytes! Full17 Meg tape backup insures archival storage of valuable data #S-1000-98 $9595.00

Circle 441 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983 647

64K DYNAMIC200 NS

2KX8 STATIC200 NS

STATIC RAMS

EPROMS

CRYSTALS

I 2101

5101

2102-1

2102L-4

2102L-2I 2111

2112I 2114

2114-25

2114L-4

2114L-3

2114L-2

TC5514

TC5516

2147I TMS4044-4

TMS4044-3] TMS4044-2, MK4118

TMM2016-200

TMM2016-150

TMM2016-100I HM6116-4

HM6116-3

HM61I6-2

HM6116LP-4

HM6116LP-3| HM6116LP-2

Z-6132

HM6264

256x4256 X 41024 I 11024 x 11024 x 1256x4256x41024x41024 X 41024 x 41024 X 41024 x 41024 X 42048 X 84096 x 14096 X 14096 x 14096 x 11024 X 82048 X 82048 x 82048 I 82048 X 82048 x 82048 x 82048 x 82048 x 82048 I 84096 x 88192 I 8

(450ns)(450ns)(450ns)(450ns)(250ns)(450ns)(450ns)(450ns)(250ns)(450ns)(300ns)(200ns)(650ns)(250ns)(55ns)(450ns)(300ns)(200ns)(250ns)(200ns)(150ns)(100ns)(200ns)(150ns)(120ns)(200ns)(150ns)(120ns)(300ns)(150ns)

(cmos)

(LP)(LP)

(LP)

(LP)

(LP)

(cmos)

(cmos)

(cmos)

(cmos)

(cmos)

(cmos)(LP)

(cmos)(LP)

(cmos)(LP)

(Qstal)

(cmos)

1.95

3.95

.99

.99

1.49

2.49

2.99

8/9.95

8/10.95

8/12.95

8/13.45

8/13.95

2.49

9.95

4.95

3.49 |

3.S

4.49 I

9.95

4.15

4.95

6.15

4.75

4.95

8.95

5.95

6.95

10.95

34.95

49.95

1702

2708

2758

2716

2716-1

TMS2516

TMS2716

TMS2532

2732

2732-250

2732-200

2732A-4

2732A

2732A-2

2764

2764-250

2764-200

TMS2564

MC68764

27128

256 I 81024 x 81024 x 82048 X 82048 I 82048 X 82048 X 84096 X B4096 x 84096 x 84096 X 84096 X 84096 x 84096 I 88192x88192 X 88192 X 88192x88192 x 816384x8

(1us)(450ns)(450ns)(450ns)(350ns)(450ns)(450ns)(450ns)(450ns)(250ns)(200ns)(450ns)(250ns)(200ns)(450ns)(250ns)(200ns)(450ns)(450ns)(300ns)

(5v)(5v)<5v)<5v)

(5v)

(Sv)

(Sv)

(5v)

(5v)(21vPGM)

(Sv)(21vPGM)

(5v)(21vPGM)

(Sv)

<5v)

(5v)

<5v)

(5v)(24pln)

(5»)

4.50

3.95

5.95

3.95

5.95

5.50

7.95

5.95

4.95

8.95

11.95

6.95

9.95

13.95

9.95

14.95

24.95

17.95

39.95

29.95

,5V » Single 5 Volt Supply 21 vPGM ■ Program at 21 VoltsJ

TproTJmeraserT"

Capacity Intensity

LP = Low Power

Ostat = Quasi-Static

TMS4027

UP0411

MM5280

MK4108

MM529814116-30014116-250

4116-200

4116-15014116-120

2118

MK433214164-200I 4164-150

MCM6665

TMS4164-15

DYNAMIC RAMS

4096 I 14096 x 14096 I 18192 x 18192 x 116384 x116384 I 116384 x116384 x116384 x116384 I 132768 X165536 x165536 X165536 x165536 x15V ■ slngl

6800

68000

6800

6802

6803

6808

6809E

6809

6810

6820

6821

6828

6840

6843

6844

6845

6847

6850

6852

6860

6875

6880

6883

68047

68B0068B0268B09E68B09I68B1068B2168B4068B4568B50

59.95

3.95

7.95

19.95

13.90

19.95

11.95

2.95

4.35

3.25

14.95

12.95

34.95

25.95

14.95

11.95

3.25

5.75

9.95

6.95

2.25

22.95

24.95

19.95

■ 1MHZ

10.95

22.25

29.95

29.95

6.95

6.95

19.95

19.95

5.95

68B00 - 2 MHZ

(250ns)

(300ns)

(300ns)

(200ns)

(250ns)

(300ns)

(250ns)

(200ns)

(150ns)

(120ns)

(150ns) (5v)

(200ns)

(200ns) (5v)

(150ns)(5v)

(200ns)(5v)

(150ns) (5v)

e 5 volt supply

8200

1.99

3.00

3.00

1.95

1.85

8/11.75

8/11.95

8/12.95

8/14.95

8/29.95

4.95

9.95

5.95

6.95

8.95

8.95

PE-14

PE-14T

PE-24T

PL-265T

PR-125T

PR-320T

Timer Chip

912302542

(uW/Cm1)8,0008,0009,6009,60017,00017,000

83.00

119.00

175.00

255.00

349.00

595.00

ORDER TOLL FREE

800-538-5000800-662-0279

(CALIF0RMA RESIDENTS)

Z-80

82028203

24.9539.95

2.5 Mhz

8205

3.50

Z80-CPU

3.95

8212

1.80

Z80-CTC

4.49

8214

3.85

Z80-DART

10.95

8216

1.75

Z80-OMA

14.95

8224

2.25

Z80-PIO

4.49

8226

1.80

Z80-SIO/0

16.95

8228

3.49

Z80-SIO/1

16.95

8237

19.95

Z80-SIO/2

16.95

8237-58238

21.954.49

Z80-SIO/9

16.95

8243

4.45

4.0 Mhz

8250

10.95

Z80A-CPU

4.95

8251

4.49

Z80A-CTC

4.95

8253

6.95

Z80A-DART

11.95

8253-5

7.95

Z80A-OMA

16.95

82558255-5

4.495.25

Z80A-PIO

4.95

8257

7.95

Z80A-SIO/0

16.95

8257-5

8.95

Z80A-SIO/1

16.95

8259

6.90

Z80A-SIO/2

16.95

8259-5

7.50

Z80A-SIO/9

16.95

82718272

79.9539.95

6.0 Mhz

8275

29.95

Z80B-CPU

11.95

8279

8.95

Z80B-CTC

13.95

8279-5

10.00

Z80B-PIO

13.95

82828283

6.506.50

Z80B-DART

19.95

8284

5.50

Z80B-SIO/2

39.95

8286

6.50

ZILOG

82878288

6.5025.00

Z6132

34.95

.8289

49.95.

Z8671

39.95

8000

8035

8039

INS-8060

INS-8073

8080

8085

8085A-2

8086

8087

8088

8089

8155

8155-2

8156

8185

8185-2

8741

8748

8755

5.95

6.95

17.95

49.95

3.95

5.95

11.95

29.95

CALL

39.95

89.95

6.95

7.95

6.95

29.95

39.95

39.95

24.95

24.95,

CRTINTROLLERS

22.5019.9515.9511.956.9524.9529.9599.9539.9549.9539.9549.95.

6845

68B45

HD46505SP

6847

MC1372

68047

8275

7220

CRT5027

CRT5037

TMS9918A

DP8350

6500

650265046505650765206522653265456551

6502A6522A6532A6545A6551A

6502B

4.956.958.959.954.357.959.9522.5011.85

6.95

9.95

11.95

27.95

11.95

14.95J

DISC CONTRA

1771

1791

1793

1795

1797

2791

2793

2795

2797

6843

8272

UPD765

MB8876

MB8877

1691

2143

16.9524.9526.9549.9549.9554.9554.9559.9559.9534.9539.9539.9529.9534.9517.9518.95J

| 32.768 khz1.0 mhz1.84322.0

2.0971522.45763.27683.5795454.05.0

5.06885.1855.71436.06.1446.55368.0

10.0| 10.738635

14.31818

15.0

16.0

17.430

18.0

18.432

20.0

22.1184L32.0

1.954.954.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.953.95J

74LS00

UARTS

AY3-1014AY5-1013AY3-1015PT1472TR160223502651IM6402IM6403|INS8250

GENERATORSBIT-RATE

6.953.956.959.953.959.958.957.958.9510.95

MC14411

BR1941

4702

COM5016

COM8116

MM5307

11.9511.9512.9516.9510.9510.95

FUNCTION

MC4024 3.95 I

j LM566 1.49

XR2206 3.75

L.8038 3.95J

MISC.

I UPD7201

TMS99532

ULN2003

3242

3341

MC3470

MC3480

11C90

95H90

2513-001 UP12513-002 LOW

29.9529.952.497.954.954.959.0013.957.959.95 J9.95J

CLOCKCIRCUITS

MM5314MM5369MM5375MM58167MM5B174LMSM5832

4.953.954.9512.9511.953.95J

KEYBOARDCHIPS

I AYS-2376 11.95 1

AY5-3600 11.95

LaYS-3600 PRO 11.95J

74LS0O

.24

74LS173

74LS01

.25

74LS174

74LSQ2

.25

74LS175

74LS03

.25

74LS181

74LS04

.24

74LS189

74LS05

.25

74LS190

74LS0B

.28

74LS191

74LS09

.29

74LS192

74LS10

.25

74LS193

74LS11

.35

74LS194

74LS12

.35

74LS195

74LS13

.45

74LS196

74LS14

.59

74LS197

74LS15

.35

74LS221

74LS20

.25

74LS240

74LS21

.29

74LS241

74LS22

.25

74LS242

74LS26

.29

74LS243

74LS27

.29

74LS244

74LS2B

.35

74LS24S

74LS30

.25

74LS247

74LS32

.29

74LS24B

74LS33

.55

74LS249

74LS37

.35

74LS251

74LS38

.35

74LS253

74LS40

.25

74LS257

74LS42

.49

74LS258

74LS47

.75

74LS259

74LS48

.75

74LS260

74LS49

.75

74LS266

74LS51

.25

74LS273

74LS54

.29

74LS275

74LS55

.29

74LS279

74LS63

1.25

74LS2B0

74LS73

.39

74LS283

74LS74

.35

74LS290

74LS75

.39

74LS293

74LS76

.39

74LS295

74LS78

.49

74LS298

74LSB3

.60

74LS299

74LS85

.69

74LS323

74LS86

.39

74LS324

74LS90

.55

74LS352

74LS91

.89

74LS353

74LS92

.55

74LS363

74LS93

.55

74LS364

74LS95

.75

74LS365

74LS96

.89

74LS366

74LS107

.39

74LS367

74LS109

.39

74LS368

74LS112

.39

74LS373

74LS113

.39

74LS374

74LS114

.39

74LS375

74LS122

.45

74LS377

74LS123

.79

74LS378

74LS124

2.90

74LS379

74LS125

.49

74LS385

74LS126

.49

74LS386

74LS132

.59

74LS390

74LS133

.59

74LS393

74LS136

.39

74LS395

74LS137

.99

74LS399

74LS138

.55

74LS424

74LS139

.55

74LS447

74LS145

1.20

74LS490

74LS147

2.49

74LS624

74LS148

1.35

74LS640

74LS151

.55

74LS645

74LS153

.55

74LS668

74LS154

1.90

74LS669

74LS155

.69

74LS870

74LS156

.69

74LS674

74LS157

.65

74LS682

74LS158

.59

74LS6B3

74LS160

.69

74LS684

74LS161

.65

74LS685

74LS162

.69

74LS688

74LS163

.65

74LS689

74LS164

.69

81LS95

74LS165

.95

81LS96

74LS166

1.95

81LS97

74LS168

1.75

81LS9B

74LS169

1.75

25LS2521

74LS170

1.49

25LS2569

JDR Microdevices

1224 S. Bascom Ave. • San Jose, CA 95128(408) 995-5430 • Telex 171-110

© Copyright 1983 JDR Microdevice

VISIT OUR RETAIL STORE

HOURS: M-W-F, 9-5 T-Th., 9-9 Sat. 10-3

PLEASE USE YOUR CUSTOMER NUMBER WHEN ORDERING

TERMS: Minimum order $10. For shipping and handling Include$2.50 lor UPS Ground and $3.50 lor UPS Air. Orders over 1 lb. andforeign orders may require additional shipping charges — pleasecontact our sales department lor the amount. CA residents mustinclude 6% sales tax. Bay Area and LA residents include 6''.-V Pricessubject to change without notice. We are not responsible fortypographical errors. We reserve the right to limit quantities and tosubstitute manufacturer. All merchandise subject to prior sale.

648 BYTE December 1983

Circle 244 on inquiry card.

2114<soNs8/*995 211425oNs8/*1085

CMOS

4000

.29

4528

1.19

4001

.25

4531

.95

4002

.25

4532

1.95

4006

.89

4538

1.95

4007

.29

4539

1.95

4008

.95

4541

2.64

4009

.39

4543

1.19

4010

.45

4553

5.79

4011

.25

4555

.95

4012

.25

4556

.95

4013

.38

4581

1.95

4014

.78

4582

1.95

4015

.39

4584

.75

4016

.39

4585

.75

4017

.69

4702

12.95

4016

.79

74C0O

.35

4019

.39

74C02

.35

4020

.75

74C04

.35

4021

.79

74C08

.35

4022

.79

74C10

.35

4023

.29

74C14

.59

4024

.65

74C20

.35

402S

.29

74C30

.35

4026

1.65

74C32

.39

4027

.45

74C42

1.29

4028

.69

74C48

1.99

4029

.79

74C73

.65

4030

.39

74C74

.65

4034

1.95

74C76

.60

4035

.85

74C63

1.95

4040

.75

74C85

1.95

4041

.75

74C86

.39

4042

.69

74C89

4.50

4043

.95

74C90

1.19

4044

.79

74C93

1.75

4046

.85

74C95

.99

4047

.95

74C107

.89

4049

.35

74C150

5.75

4050

.35

74C151

2.25

4051

.79

74C1S4

3.25

4053

.79

74C157

1.75

4060

.89

74C160

1.19

4066

.39

74C161

1.19

4066

.39

74C162

1.19

4069

.29

74C163

1.19

4070

.35

74C164

1.39

4071

.29

74C165

2.00

4072

.29

74C173

.79

4073

.29

74C174

1.19

4075

.29

74C175

1.19

4076

.79

74C192

1.49

4078

.29

74C193

1.49

4081

.29

74C19S

1.39

4082

.29

74C200

5.75

4085

.95

74C221

1.75

4086

.95

74C244

2.25

4093

.49

74C373

2.45

4098

2.49

74C374

2.45

4099

1.95

74C901

.39

14409

12.95

74C902

.85

14410

12.95

74 C 903

.85

14411

11.95

74C905

10.95

14412

12.95

74C906

.95

14419

7.95

74C907

1.00

4502

.95

74C908

2.00

4503

.85

74C909

2.75

4508

1.95

74C910

9.95

4510

.85

74C911

8.95

4511

.85

74C912

6.95

4512

.85

74C914

1.95

4514

1.25

74C915

1.19

4515

1.79

74C918

2.75

4518

1.55

74C920

17.95

4518

.89

74C921

15.95

4519

.39

74C922

4.49

4520

.79

74C923

4.95

4522

1.25

74C925

5.95

4528

1.25

74C926

7.95

4527

1.95

74C928

7.95

74C929

19.95

Computer managed inuentorv - uirtuaiiv

no bach orders!

Verv competiliue prices!

Friendly staff!

Fast seruice - most orders shipped within

2a hours!

VOLTAGEREGULATORS

74S00

RCA

CA 3023

2.75

CA 3082

1.65

CA 3039

1.29

CA 3083

1.55

CA 3046

1.25

CA 3086

.80

CA 3059

2.90

CA 3089

2.99

CA 3060

2.90

CA 3096

3.49

CA 3085

1.75

CA 3130

1.30

CA 3080

1.10

CA3140

1.15

CA 3081

1.65

CA3146

1.85

CA3160

1.19

Tl

TL494

4.20

75365

1.95

TL496

1.65

75450

.59

TL497

3.25

75451

.39

75107

1.49

75452

.39

75110

1.95

75453

.39

75150

1.95

75454

.39

75154

1.95

75491

.79

75188

1.25

75492

.79

75189

1.25

75493

.89

75494

.89

Bl FET

TL071

.79

TL084

2.19

TL072

1.19

LF347

2.19

TL074

2.19

LF351

.60

TL081

.79

LF353

1.00

TL082

1.19

LF355

1.10

TL083

1.19

LF356

1.10

LF357

1.40

DATA ACQUISITION

7805T

78M05C

7808T

7812T

7815T

7824T

7805K7812K7815K7824 K

78L0578L1278L15

78H05K78H12K

.75.35.75.75.75.75

1.391.391.391.39

.89.69.69

9.959.95

7905T7906T7912T7915T7924T

7905K7912K7915K7924K

79L0579L1279L15

LM323KUA78S40

.85.85.85.85.85

1.491.491.491.49

.79.79.79

4.951.95

AOC0800

ADC0804

AOC0809

AOC0817

DAC0800

DAC0808

DAC102O

DAC1022

MC1408L6

MC1408L8

interface!

8T26

1.58

8T28

1.89

8T95

.89

8T96

.89

8T97

.89

8T98

.89

DM8131

2.95

DP8304

2.29

DS8833

2.25

OS8835

1.99

DS8836

.99

D88837

1.65

DS8838

1.30.

15.553.494.499.954.952.956.255.851.952.95

rCONNECTORS1

RS232 MALE 2.50 IRS232 FEMALE 3.25 IRS232HOOD 1.25lS-100 ST 3.95J

)000 SERIES^

C, T = TO-220

"INTERSIL1

ICL7106 9.95

ICL7107 12.95

ICL7660 2.95

ICL8038 3.95

ICM7207A 5.59

ICM7208 15.95 J

EXAR

XR 2206

3.75

XR 2207

3.75

XR 2208

3.75

XR 2211

5.25

.XR 2240

3.25.

7400

931693349368940196019602L96S02

LINEAR

LM301

LM301H

LM307

LM308

LM308H

LM309H

LM309K

LM310

LM311

LM311H

LM312H

LM317K

LM317T

LM318

LM318H

LM319H

LM319

LM320(W

LM322

LM323K

LM324

LM329

LM331

LM334

LM335

LM336

LM337K

LM337T

LM338K

LM339

.34

.79

.45

.69

1.15

1.95

1.25

1.75

.64

.69

1.75

3.95

1.19

1.49

1.59

1.90

1.25

7900)

1.65

4.95

.59

.65

3.95

1.19

1.40

1.75

3.95

1.95

6.95

LM340(M«

LM348

LM350K

LM350T

LM358

LM359

LM376

LM377

LM378

LM380

LM380N-8

LM381

LM382

LM383

LM384

LM386

LM387

LM389

LM390

LM392

LM393

LM394H

LM399H

NE531

NE555

NE556

NE556

NE561

NE564

LM565

7800)

.994.954.60

.691.793.751.952.50

.891.101.801.601.951.95

.891.401.351.95

.691.294.605.002.95

.34

.65

1.50

24.95

2.95

.99

LM56S

LM567

NE570

NE571

NE590

NE592

LM709

LM710

LM711

LM723

LM723H

LM733

LM741

LM741N-14

LM741H

LM747

LM748

LM1014

LM1303

LM1310

MC1330

MC1349

MC1350

MC1358

MC1372

LM1414

LM1458

LM1488

LM1489

LM1496

1.49

.89

3.95

2.95

2.50

2.75

.59

.76

.79

.49

.55

.98

.35

.35

.40

.69

.59

1.19

1.95

1.49

1.69

1.89

1.19

1.69

6.95

1.59

.59

.69

.69

.65

LM1558H

LM1800

LM1812

LM1830

LM1B71

LM1672

LM1877

LM1869

LM1896

ULN2003

LM2877

LM2878

LM2900

LM2901

LM3900

LM3905

LM3909

LM3911

LM3914

LM3915

LM3916

MC4024

MC4044

RC4136

RC4151

LM4250

LM4500

RC4558

LM13080

LM13600

LM13700

1.002.503.959.95.751.501.95J

3.102.378.253.505.495.493.251.951.752.492.052.25

.851.00

.591.25

.982.253.953.953.953.954.501.253.951.753.25

.691.291.491.49

740074017402740374047405740674077408740974107411741374147416741774207421742574277430743274377439744274457446744774487451747374747475747874827483748574867489749074927493749574977410074107741097411674121L.74122

.16.19.19.19.19.25.29.29.24.19.19.25.35.49.25.25.19.35.29.29.19.29.29.29.49.69.69.69.69.23.34.33.45.35.95.50.59.35

2.15.35.50.35.55

2.75

1.75.30.45

1.55.29.45

74123741257412674132741367414374145741477414874150741517415374154741557415774159741607416174163741647416574166741677417074173741747417574177741817418474185741917419274193741947419574197741967422174246742477425974273742767427974366743677436874383

.49

.45

.45

.45

.50

2.95

.60

1.75

1.20

1.35

.55

.55

1.25

.75

.55

1.65

.85

.69

.69

.85

.85

1.00

2.95

1.65

.75

.69

.89

.75

2.25

2.00

2.00

1.15

.79

.79

85

.85

.75

1.35

1.35

1.35

1.25

2.25

1.95

1.25

.75

.65

.85

.65

1.35

74S0074S0274S0374S0474S0574S0874S0974S1074S1174S1574S2074S2274S30

|74S3274S3774S3874S4074S5174S6474S6574S7474S8574SB674S11274S11374S11474S12474S13274S13374S13474S13574S13874S13874S14074S15174S15374S15774S158

|74S16174S16274S16374S16874S16974S17474S17574S18174S18274S18874S18974S19474S19574S19674S19774S20174S22574S24074S24174S24474S25174S25374S25774S25874S26074S27374S27474S27574S28074S28774S28874S28974S30174S37374S37474S38174S38774541274S47174S47274S47474S48274S570

L74S571

ORDER TOLL FREE800-538-5000800-662-6270

(CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS)

CALL US FOR UOLURIE QUOTES

ALL MERCHANDISE100% GUARANTEED

c Copyright 1983 JDR Microdevices

.32.35.35.35.35.35.40.35.35.35 1.351.35.35.40.88.85.35.35.40.40.501.99.50 I

.sol

.50 I.5512.75 I1 24 I.45.50 I.89.851.851.551.95.951.95 I951.95 I1.951.953.953.95.95.953.952.951.956.951.491.491.491.496.957.952.202.20 I2.20 I.95.95.951.95.792.4519.9519.951.951.901.90 I6.896.952.452.457.951.952.984.954.954.9515.252.952.95 J

Circle 244 on Inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983 649

2732

32K EPROM

2764

64K EPROM

SPECTACULAR FALL SAVINGS!

(QUANTITIES LIMITED!)

RF MODULATOR iastec umios2)

* PRESET TO CHANNEL 3 NOW

* USE TO BUILD ONLYTV-COMPUTER INTERFACE ffcCBR

* +5 VOLT OPERATION VQ««

nnillCD 'DEAL FOR HOBBYIST, BENCHWORKnlWCn AND DO-IT-YOURSELFERS!

CIIMMICC 90-DAY WARRANTY!OUmjEO NEW AND UNUSED!!

ASTEG AA11190

* QUAD OUTPUT SWITCHINGDESIGN AS USED IN APPLE III

* +5 @ 4A; -5 @ .25A

* +12 @ 2.5A; -12 @ .30A; 15.5"x4.5"x2'

SIBMA U1STRUMENTS

Model 2PC2241

* DESIGNED FOR DEC EQUIPMENT

* FUSE PROTECTED * LINEAR DESIGN

* AUXILIARY AC OUTLET

* +5 @ 4A; -15V @ 1.5A; 12.25"x4"x4.75"

NOWONLY

$5990

NOWONLY

$1995

ORDER 000-538-5000

TOLL FREE 800-862-6279

(CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS)

CAPACITORS

TANTALUM

BV 10V 15V 20V 25V 35V 50V 10pl

2225273347586882100220330

.22ul

.40

.27

.40

.33

.40

.45

.47

.35

.50

.68

.45

.50

1.0

.40

.40

.45

.45

1.5

.45

.50

.60

1.8

.75

2.2

.35

.40

.45

.65

.85

2.7

.40

.45

.90

3.3

.45

.50

.55

.60

.65

.90

3.9

.45

4.7

.45

.55

.60

.65

.85

.90

6.8

.70

.75

8.2

1.00

10

.55

.65

.80

.85

.90

1.00

12

.65

.85

.90

15

.75

.85

.90

18

1.25

22

1.00

1.35

27

2.25

39

1.50

47

1.35

56

1.75

100

3.25

270

3.75

DISC

50V .05 47050V .0550V .0505

050505.05.05.05.05.05

50V50V50V50V50V50V50V50V50V

560680820

.001 ul

.0015

.0022

.005

.01

.02

.05

.1

.1

50V50V50V50V50V50V50V50V50V50V50V12V50V

MONOLITHIC

.1 Ill-mono 50V .18 .47ul-mono50V

ELECTROLYTIC

RADIAL.47ul 50V

1

2.2

4.7

10

47

100

220

470

2200

25V

35V50V50V35V16V35V25V16V

.14.14.15.15.15.18.18.20.30.60

COMPUTERGRADE

26,000ul 30V 3.95

1u(

4.7

10

10

22

47

100

100

150

220

330

500

1000

1500

60O0

AXIAL50V16V16V50V16V50V15V35V25V25V16V16V16V16V16V

.o:.os

.05.0!

.0!

o:.0!

.0!.01

.0',

.o-,.1(

.1!

.14.14.14.16.14.20.20.25.25.30.40.42.60.70.85

OPTO-ISOLATORS

rIC SOCKETS

4N26

4N27

4N28

4N33

4N35

4N37

MCT-2

MCT-6

1N751

1N759

1N4148

1N4004

KBP02

KBP04

VM48

1.001.10.691.751.251.251.001.50

MCA-7

MCA-255

IL-1

ILA-30

lLQ-74

H11C5

TIL-111

TIL-113

DIODES

5.1 voll zener12.0 volt zener(1N914) switching400PIV rectifier200PIV 1.5amp bridge400PIV 1.5amp bridgeDip-Bridge

4.251.751.251.252.751.251.001.75

.25.2525/1.0010/1.00.45.55.35

MUFFIN FANS

NEW UN-USED

4.68" Square

14.95

3.125" Square

14.95

HEAT SINKS

TO-3 ityle

.95

TO-220 Ityle

.35

SWITCHES

SPDT mini-toggle 1.25

DPDT mini-toggle 1.50

SPST mlnl-puahbutton .39

FEDERAL EMPRESSSERVICES AVAILABLE

TRANSISTORS

2N918

MPS918

2N2102

2N221S

2N2218A

2N2219

2N2219A

2N2222

PN2222

MPS2369

2N2484

2N2905

2N2907

PN2907

2N3055

3055T

2N3393

2N3414

2N3563

2N3565

PN3565

MPS3638

MPS3640

PN3643

PN3644

MPS3704

.50.25.75.50.50.50.50.25.10.25.25.50.25.125.79.69.30.25.40.40.25.25.25.25.25.15

MPS3706

2N3772

2N3903

2N3904

2N3906

2N4122

2N4123

2N4249

2N4304

2N4401

2N4402

2N4403

2N4857

PN4916

2N5086

PN5129

PN5139

2N5209

2N6028

2N6043

2N6045

MPS-A05

MPS-A06

MPS-A55

TIP29

TIP31

TIP32

.151.85

.25

.10

.10

.25

.25

.25

.75

.25

.25

.251.00

.25

.25

.25

.25

.25

.351.751.75

.25

.25

.25

.65

.7579 .

100.11.12.13.18.27.27.27.32.39call |ST ■ SOLOERTAIL8 pin WW .59 .49 |

8 pin STI 14 pin ST16 pin ST18 pin ST20 pin ST22 pin ST24 pin ST28 pin ST40 pin ST64 pin ST

1-1.13.15.17.20.29.30.30.40.49

4.25

14 pin WW16 pin WW18 pin WW20 pin WW22 pin WW24 pin WW28 pin WW40 pin WW

.69.69.991.091.391.491.691.99

.52

.58

.90

.98

1.28

1.35

1.49

1.80

WW= WIREWRAP

I 16 pin ZIF 6.75 call I

24 pin ZIF 9.95 call

28 pin ZIF 10.95 call |

ZIF = TEXTOOL(Zero Insertion Force)

DIPSWITCHES

4 POSITION

5 POSITION

6 POSITION

7 POSITIONl 8 POSITION

.85

.90.90.95

.95 J

[LED LAMPS

1-99

100-up

Jumbo

Red

.10

.09

Jumbo

Green

.18

.15

Jumbo

I Yellow

.18

.15

BYPASS CAPS

.01 UF DISC 100/6.00

.1 UFDISC 100/8.00

.1 UF MONOLITHIC 100/15.00

LED DISPLAYS

HP 5082-7760MAN 72MAN 74FND-357 (359)FND-500 (503)FND-507 (510)

.3"

.3".375"

.5".5"

CCCACCCCCCCA

1.29.99.991.251.491.49

RESISTORS

'A WATT 5% CARBON FILM ALL

STANDARD VALUES

FROM 1 OHM TO 10 MEG OHM

50 PCS. SAME VALUE .025

100 PCS. SAME VALUE .02

1000 PCS. SAME VALUE .015

JDR Microdevices

1224 S Bascom Avenue

San Jose. CA 95128

800-538-5000 • 800-662-6279 (CA)

(408) 995-5430 • Telex 171-110

<c< Copyright 19B3 JDR Microdevices

VISIT OUR RETAIL STORE

*S: M-W-F, 9-5 T-Th., 9-9 Sa

Sat. 10-3

PLEASE USE YOUR CUSTOMER NUMBER WHEN ORDERING

TERMS: Minimum order $10. For shipping and handling Include$2.50 for UPS Ground and S3.50 lor UPS Air. Orders over 1 lb. andforeign orders may require additional shipping charges — pleasecontact our sales department for the amount. CA residents mustinclude S% sales tax. Bay Area and LA residents Include 6V/0. Pricessubject to change without notice. We are not responsible fortypographical errors. We reserve the right to limit quantities and tosubstitute manufacturer. All merchandise subject to prior sale.

650 BYTE December 1983

Circle 245 on Inquiry card.

2716

16KEPR0RIS

2732

32N EPROmS

MICROCOMPUTERHARDWARE HANDBOOK

FROM ELCOMP — $14.95Over 800 pages of manufacturers datasheets on most commonly used IC's.Includes:

* TTL - 74/74LS and 74F

* CMOS

* Voltage Regulators

* Memory — RAM, ROM, EPROM

* CPU's — 6800, 6500, Z80, 8080,8085, 8086/8

* MPU support & interface —6800, 6500, Z80, 8200, etc.

BEST SELLINGBOOKS

OSBORNE/MC GRAW-HILL

Apple II User's Guide 16.95

CRT Controller's Handbook 9.95

68000 Assembly Language

Programming 16.99

CBASIC User Guide 15.00

SYBEX

Your First Computer 8.95

The CP/M Handbook 14.95

The PASCAL Handbook 18.95

Microprocessor InterfacingTechniques 17.95 i

TRANSFORMERS

4.955.95 I7.95 |10.957.95 I

3.95

4.95 I5.95

6.95

6, 9, 12 VDC selectable with universal }adapter 8.95

NOTE: Please Include sufficient amount forshipping on above items.

FRAME STYLE

12.6VAC

2amp

12.6VAC CT

2amp

12.8VAC CT

4amp

12.8VAC CT

Samp

25.2VAC CT

2amp

PLUG CASE STYLE

12VAC

250ma

12VAC

500ma

12VAC

lamp

12VAC

2amp

DC ADAPATER

DISK DRIVES

TANDON

TM100-1 5% (FOR IBM) ss/dd 229.00 ITM100-2 5% (FOR IBM) DS/DD259 00|

SHUGART

| SA 400L 5'/." (40 TRACK) SS/DD 199.95 I| SA 400 5V«" (35 TRACK) SS/DD 189.95 I

PERTEC

I FD-200 5/. ss/dd 179.95 I

FD-250 s% ds/dd 199.95 I

MPI

MP-52 57." (FOR IBM) DS/DD 249.00|NOTE: Please include sufficient amountfor shipping on above Items.

CABINETS FORCABINET #1 '29.95

* DIMENSIONS 8% x 5^6 x 3W

• COLOR MATCHES APPLE

* FITS STANDARD 5V*" DRIVES,INCL. SHUGART

• INCLUDES MOUNTINGHARDWARE AND FEET

NOTE: Please Include sufficient amount for•hipping on above Itemi.

8" DRIVE SALEFD100-8 $189

SHUGART 801 EQUIVALENTSS/DD 10 FOR $175 EA.

FD200-8 $239

SHUGART 851 EQUIVALENTDS/DD 10 FOR $220 EA.

5V4" DISK DRIVES

CABINET #2 '79.00

• COMPLETE WITH POWERSUPPLY, SWITCH, LINECORD, FUSE & STANDARDPOWER CONNECTOR

• DIMENSIONS: 11'/2x53/4X 3^16"

• +5V @ 1 AMP, +12V @ 1.5 AMP

• FITS STANDARD 5'/<" DRIVES

• PLEASE SPECIFYGRAY OR TAN

EDGE-

CARD

CONNECTORS

S-100 ST

3.95

S-100 WW

4.95

72 pin ST

6.95

72 pin WW

7.95

50 pin ST

4.95

44 pin ST

2.95

44 pin WW

4.95

, 44 pin SE

3.95

DIP CONNECTORS

HIGH RELIABILITY

COMPONENT

RIBBON

DESCRIPTION

TOOLED ST IC

CARRIERS

CABLE

SOCKETS

(DIP HEADERS)

DIP PLUGS (IDC)

ORDER BY

AUGATxx-ST

ICCxx

IDPxx

CONTACTS 8

.99

.65

14

.99

.75

1.45

16

.99

.85

1.65

18

1.69

1.00

20

1.89

1.25

22

1.89

1.25

24

1.99

1.35

2.50

28

2 49

1.50

40

2.99

2.10

4.15

For order instructions see "IDC Connectors" below.

WE GOOFED!

Due to overwhelming de-mand, we are SOLD OUT otS A-460 disk drives. We apol-ogize and thank you for yourunderstanding.

CENTRONICS

IDCEN36 Ribbon Cable 38 Pin Male 8.95

. CEN36 Solder Cup 36 Pin Male 7.95 ,

RIBBON CABLE

CONTACTS

SINGLE COLOR

COLOR CODED

r

10'

r

10'

10

.50

4.40

.83

7.30

16

.55

4.80

1.00

8.80

20

.65

5.70

1.25

11.00

25

.75

6.60

1.32

11.60

26

.75

6.60

1.32

11.60

34

.98

8.60

1.65

14.50

40

1.32

11.60

1.92

16.80

50

1.38

12.10

2.50

22.00

D-SUBMINIATURE

DESCRIPTION

SOLDER CUP

RIGHT ANGLEPC SOLDER

IDCRIBBON CABLE

HOODS

MALE

FEMALE

MALE

FEMALE

MALE

FEMALE

BLACK

GREY

ORDER BY

DBxxP

DBxxS

DBxxPR

DBxxSR

IDBxxP

IDBxxS

HOOD-B

HOOD

CONTACTS 915253750

2.082.692.504.806.06

2.663.633.257.119.24

1.652.203.004.83

2.183.034.426.19

3.374.706.239.22

3.695.136.8410.08

1.25

1.601.601.252.953.50

For order instructions see "IDC Connectors" below.

MOUNTING HARDWARE 1.00

IDC CONNECTORS

DESCRIPTION

SOLDER HEADER

RIGHT ANGLESOLDER HEADER

WW HEADER

RIGHT ANGLEWW HEADER

RIBBONHEADER SOCKET

RIBBONHEADER

RIBBONEDGE CARD

ORDER BY

IDHxxS

IDHxxSR

IDHxxW

IDHxxWR

IDSxx

IDMxx

IDExx

CONTACTS 102026344050

.821.291.682.202.583.24

.851.351.762.312.723.39

1.862.983.844.505.286.63

2.053.284.224.454.807.30

1.151.862.433.153.734.65

5.506.257.007.508.50

2.252.362.653.253.804.74

ORDERING INSTRUCTIONS: Insert the number of contacts in the position marked "xx" of the "order by" part number listed. Example: A10 pin right angle solder styleheader would be IDH10SR.

iC' Copyright 1983 JDR Microdevice

Circle 245 on inquiry card.

BYTE December 1983 651

FOR APPLE COMPUTER USERS

JDR PRODUCTS

JDR HALF-HEIGHT DISK DRIVE

• 35 Track w/Apple Controller NEW

* 40 Track Controller and DOS &QQQ95Available (Call for Price) *fcUW

JDR 16K RAM CARD FOR APPLE II+

• 2 YEAR WARRANTY

Kit with Instructions $40.95

Bare PC Card $14.95

$4495

JDR COOLING FAN CLEARANCE SALE!

• With Surge Protection

• Quantities Are Limited!

800-538-5000800-662-6279

(CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS)

OTHER ACCESSORIES FOR APPLE II

| THUNDERCLOCK $129.95

• Real-Time Clock Calendar * Software Included* Mountain Software Compatible

• BSR Control Options Available

KRAFT JOYSTICK $49.95 |

"The Choice of Professionals"

MICR0MAX

VIEWMAX-80NOW ONLY *1599S

• 80 Column Card for Apple II+

• Video Soft Switch

• Inverse Video * 2 Year Warranty

VIEWMAX-80e NEW'12995

• 80 Column Card for Apple Me

• 64K RAM Expandable to 128K64K RAM Upgrade $47.60

GRAPHMAX *12995

• Hi Resolution Graphics

• Printer Card

• Centronics Parallel InterfaceGraphmax with Color

& Zoom Options $149.95

Z-MAX M3995

• Z-80 Card for Apple II+

• Use to Run CPM Programs

MA SYSTEMS

FD-35 DISK DRIVE $229.951

• Shugart Mechanism — Made in U.S.A.* Direct Replacement for Apple Disk 11*1 Year Warranty

CONTROLLER CARD $69.95 |

* One Year Warranty

APPLE COVTIPATIBLE POWER S0PPLV

* Use To Power Apple-Type Systems

* +5V@5A H2V@3A (lIAOR5V@.5A -12V@.5A «P/H"w

* Instructions Included

~PERIS0FT

PRINTERLINK

* Low Cost CentronicsParallel Interface with $RQflfl

VISA Cable and Manual *5TO^

MESSENGER

* Serial Interfacei Connects Virtually

Any Serial Device SQQ00

* Includes Cable VJUJ*"*

TIMELINK

* Real-Time ClockCalendar with Alarm $0410(1Feature »Q||WW

ALL WITH ONE YEAR WARRANTY

MONITORS

MONOCHROME

BMC BM 12AUW GREEN 12" NEW $89.95

NEC JB1201M-20 MHZ GREEN $1 69.00

ZENITH ZVM-121 - 15 MHZ GREEN $99.00

TAXAN ismhzamber M39.00

COLOR

BMC BM-AU9191U COMPOSITE 13" *279.00

AMDEK color i - composite $335.00

NO CO.D. ORDERS PLEASE

"^W^ISKETTE^

UERBATIM DATALIFE

SS/DD soft sector 29.95

SS/DD10 sector hard 29.95

NASHUA

SS/SD SOFT SECTOR t-l ftOS

WITH HUB RING * I 5J

Ask about our full line of Nashua diskettes BEST BUY

IYIERCHANDISE

100o/oGUARANTEED

VISIT OUR RETAIL STORE

JDR Microdevices

1224 S. Bascom Ave. • San Jose, CA 95128(408) 995-5430 • Telex 171-110

HOURS: M-W-F, 9-5

T-Th., 9-9

Sat. 10-3

PLEASE USE YOUR CUSTOMER NUMBER WHEN ORDERING

TERMS: Minimum order $10 For shipping and handling Inclu$2.50 lor UPS Ground and $3.50 for UPS Air Orders over 1 lb. andforeign orders may require additional shipping charges — pleaseconlacl our sales department tor the amount CA residents mustinclude 6% sates tax. Bay Area and LA residents include 6Vi%, Pricessubject to change without notice We are not responsible lortypographical errors. We reserve the right to limit quantities and tosubstitute manufacturer, All merchandise subject lo prior sale

Copyright 1983 JDR Microdevices

652 BYTE Etecember 1983

Circle 246 on inquiry card.

Unclassified Ads

NEEDED: Nonprofit performing-arts foundation seeks tax-deductible donations of portable computer with or withoutprinter, typewriters, and Tl-compatible printer to aid us in mail-ings, finances, and fund raising. Hugh Appet. American DanceFoundation Inc.. 2291 Broadway. New York. NY 10024. |2I2)799-5445.

WANTED: Nonprofit group of volunteer professionals devotedto rehabilitation research and community service for persons withhearing or vision impairments needs Tl 99/4A. cassette, RS-232Cinterface and modem. VIC-20s with datasettes, VICModem. twogreen monitors, and IEEE-488- or RS-232C-compatible dot-matrixprinter. Will pay shipping. Donations are fully tax exempt. J.Whitlock. New England Institute of Applied Biophysics. 59 NorthAshland St.. Worcester. MA 01609. |6I7| 798-8707.WANTED: Elwyn Institute is a nonprofit rehabilitation centerseeking a distributor for new ribbon cartridges that are assem-bled, tested, and manufactured by handicapped people. Wealso welcome tax-exempt donations of word-processing equip-ment. Alvin Sydnor. Elwyn Institute. 5001 Lancaster Ave,Philadelphia. PA 19131. (215) 477-9100,WANTED: A donation of any micro- or minicomputer for aneducational cause. Will accept computer books, computer audio/visual materials, video player/recorder plus compatible color TV.Also, will buy: Apple II or lie and Europlus 48K microcomputerwith drives, controllers [with or without), a 12-inch green screen,a I6K RAM card. Z80 CP/M card. 80-column matrix printer, andmore, lendekai Muzorewa. POB FMI56. Famona. Bulawayo, Zim-babwe, Africa, tel: 34916 Bulawayo.

WANTED: Student (micro|electronic class needs your discardedor unwanted computers, systems, printers, or parts for educationaluse. Jim Seals. 1819 North Semoran Blvd.. Orlando. FL 32807.WANTED: Two nonprofit organizations, a church-youth groupand school FTA, need a new or slightly used Tl 99/4A-compatibleprinter with cords. Donations are tax deductible. Brian Neidig.2105 Old Coupland Rd.. Taylor. TX 76574.WANTED: Christian church seeks donation of personal com-puter for church-accounting purposes. Gifts are tax deductible.Rev. Feeser or Nate Solem. Grace Lutheran Church. 2101 HarrisonSt.. Kingman. AZ 86401. |602| 753-3068.WANTED: The Solebury Student Computer Club is interestedin trading Apple-compatible sofrware. Please send your list of soft-ware. The Solebury Student Computer Club, Phillips Mill Rd„ NewHope. PA 18938.

WANTED: College student needs programs of a scientific ormathematical nature for the Apple II, II Plus, and lie. especiallyin chemistry and physics. If you send a disk. I will return it withutility programs. Eli Rotenberg. 1203 Magee Ave.. Philadelphia.PA I9III.

WANTED: High school student would appreciate a donatedcomputer for programming and experimentation purposes. KarlSmolenski. 2924 R. 54a. Penn Yan. NY 14527.WANTED: High school student needs computer or spare partsto make one. Also, any computer books. Norm Guertin. 281 Graf-ton St, Worcester. MA 01604

FOR SALE: Back issues of BYTE from January 1980 toDecember 1982, except January 1982. Good condition: all forSI00. postage paid anywhere in the continental US. Send cashier'scheck or money order, Phil Busch. 790 Northeast Wharton Dr.,Grants Pass. OR 97526. |503) 474-1354.FOR TRADE: Entire sheet of POKEs and PEEKS along withcollection of programs for exchange with TRS-80 Color Computerusers Send list of all programs to swap with mine, also any infor-mation that may be passed on, Stephen Inoue, 4194 Tambor Rd„San Diego. CA 92124. |619) 571-1412.WANTED: One copy of BYTE Vol. I. No. 5. January 1976. tomake set complete. W.A. Winshall. 3 Ferndale Rd.. Weston, MA02193. |617| 235-5360.

FOR SALE: North Star Horizon. 5 users. 352K RAM. S/<-inchdisk drive. 338K. ten I/O serial ports, Z80A CPU. 14-inch hard disk18 MB. HDOS CP/M. TSS/C. HBASIC. Cost over S12.000. sell S5750or near offer. The Armchair Sailor Bookstore. Lee's Wharf.Newport. Rl 02840. |40l) 847-4252.

FOR SALE: Winchester Tallgrass double-disk drive. 12 plus 12megabyte tape backup, almost new. considerably below marketprice. Also. Cyma Dental Receivable program to sell or trade fornew Softward. Judith D. Sutterfield. 1800 Alamo Ave., ColoradoSprings. CO 80907.

FOR SALE: Modified TRS-80 Model I Level II. I6K computer.Includes cassette, stringy floppy, wafers with programs for bothbusiness and games; TRS-80 Line Printer; and custom-builttable. Entire system to go. worth over S1100. asking S800. JoelMmchinton. 107 South 2nd St, Wahpeton. ND 58075. |70l|642-1326.

WANTED: High school student would like donated Applecomputer equipment, cards, peripherals, anything unwanted. Iwill gladly pay all postage. Chris Faigle. 3001 River Hills Terrace.Midlothian. VA 231 13. |804J 794-8903.FOR SALE: Seven Compupro 16K static memory boards;four Compupro 8K static memory boards: two MITS 4K staticmemory boards; two MITS ROM BASIC; two MITS floppy-diskcontrollers; 2 MITS 8080 CPU boards: one MITS turnkeymodule; and two MITS cassette adapters. Also, Western DigitalWD1000-85: S375 and SOROC IO 120. CRT. good condition:S350. David E. Boston. POB 518. Cedarville. OH 45314. |5I3|766-5198.

FOR SALE: Micro Term ACT-IVa: S275. Sanyo 15-inchblack-and-white video monitor; SI50. Zenith Z-19A terminal:S470, SinclairZXBI. S28. DEC MSVII-DD |64K-byte Q-bus dual-height RAM board): S250. DEC DLVIIJ |Q-bus 4-serial lineboard) with cables: S320. Vadic 3400 modem. 1200 bits per se-cond, full duplex: S395. All perfect. R. Thornton, |5I6|686-7890 or 626-3919.

FOR SALE: Apple II Plus 48K, keyboard replaced. Heftypower supply: S900 or offer. Without power supply and case:S625. Mark Carroll. 1550 Beverly Place. Berkeley. CA 94706.1415) 525-7608 or 658-6719.

FOR SALE: Four new Apple II- and lie-compatible disk drivesthat include half-tracking. CP/M. Pascal. DOS 3.3 and 3.2: S225each or S880 for all. Also. Atari cartridges: Indy 500 [S25| andSpeedway II [S9|. Peter Doty, 4813 Northwest 19th Place,Gainesville. FL 32605, |904) 376-0542,FOR SALE: North Star Horizon 32K with two QD disk drives,Wordsmith word-processing system 140-line by 85-columnscreen), detached WP keyboard, and software: S2I50. Also,Diablo 1650 printer: S2000. All in perfect condition. BobRenegar. 23 Brookside Rd, Wallingford, PA 19086. (2I5|566-4097.

FOR SALE: Motorola 6800 system with SOROC IQ-120 ter-minal. SwTPC motherboard, MP-AZ processor board, two 8Kand one 4K static memory boards, 16K static memory un-populated, cassette interface. PROM burner MP-R and soft-ware, MPT Timer, two serial and two parallel interface boards.Editor/Assembler. 4K and 8K BASIC, software on ROM andcassette, manuals: S1395. Will ship. Ray Romeu. 2530 ParkwaySt, Ft. Myers. FL 33901. |BI3| 936-5459.FOR SALE: Cardco Universal Cassette Interface for VIC-20and C-64. In excellent condition: asking S35 or best offer. Alsofor sale: VIC-20 hardware and cassettes. Will pay shipping. Iwant to form a VIC-20 users club In the Rochester area. Eduar-do Fernandez. 185 Parkside Ave, Rochester, NY 14609. |716)482-0643.

WANTED: SOL computer modifications: 80- by 24-inchscreen module. Z80 module 4 MHz. dual-personality module,and schematic diagram of the IMSAIAP-44 printer. Kjell Qwarn-strom. Lejonets Gata 352. 13660 Handen. Sweden,FOR SALE: 8080 Editor. Assembler. Monitor in 3 volumeswith.hex and octal listing and full discussion of their use: S15.101 Basic Computer Games by Ahl: S6. Basic Software Library.vol.1; S12. S30 lor all. postpaid. Also OST and Ham Radio, R.Mendelson, 27 Somerset Place, Murray Hill, NJ 07974.FOR SALE: North Star Horizon with two DD disk drives.56K. floating-point board, and Godbout Graphics board.Hazeltine 1500 VDT with 24 by 80 characters. Texas In-struments 810 dot-matrix printer, RS-232C serial interface. 150cps, 3600 bits per second, tractor feed, and stand. Excellentcondition: asking S800 for computer. S300 for terminal, andS700 for printer or make an offer for ait. Eddy Stappaerts, 6716El Rodeo Rd, Rancho Palos Verdes. CA 90272. (213)377-1682.

FOR SALE: Shugart SA 801R 8-inch SSDD disk drives. All arebrand new. still factory-sealed in original cartons. Will sell forSI99 each or two for S350. You pay shipping. Greg Olson.POB 908, Newport. WA 99156. |509| 447-5963 evenings andweekends.

FOR SALE: 64K memory board for the Atari 400/800. brandnew with guarantee, complete: S85. Ben Katz, 9062 VeronicaDr.. Huntington Beach. CA 92646, (714) 968-2780.FOR SALE: Partially disassembled Harris data terminal (IBMSelectric mechanism, correspondence code, integral modemboard, telephone cradle) with IBM and terminal manuals: S 125.XITEK SCT-100 |S-100 bus| video board with manual and RFconverter: S35 FOB, Richard J. Willis, 10325 Caminito Cuervo#168. San Diego. CA 92108.

FOR SALE: Two printers: Micro Peripherals KP-40 with 44columns, three 7/8-inch rolls of paper, dot-matrix mechanismand interface: assembled and like new: S75 or best offer. Cen-tronics 737 7 by 9 dot-matrix, six type styles, slightly used condi-tion: S250 or best offer. Thomas Kryst. Rt. 5 Box 209. Rolla. MO65401.

FOR SALE: Ohio Scientific C3D with 52K bytes main memoryAmpex D80 CRT terminal and Anadex 9501 printer. Disk storageis 'A megabyte floppy, 7 megabyte disk: S5000, Ellie Miller, PineTree Legal Assistance. 146 Middle St, Portland. ME 04101. |207|774-8211

LEGAL NOTICE

U.S. POSTAL SERVICE

STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP,

MANAGEMENT

AND CIRCULATION

(Required by 39 U.8.C. 3685)

1. Title of publication: BYTE

2. Date of filing: October 1, 1983.

3. Frequency of Issue: monthly.

3A. Number of Issues published annually: 12.3B. Annual Subscription Price: $21.00.A. Complete mailing address of known office ofpublication: 70 Main Street, Peterborough, NH 03458.

5. Complete mailing address of the headquartersor general business offices of the publishers: 1221Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

6. Full names and complete mailing address ofpublisher, editor, and managing editor: Publisher,Gene W. Simpson, 70 Main Street, Peterborough, NH03458: Editor, Lawrence J. Curran, 70 Main Street,Peterborough, NH 03458; Managing Editor, PamelaClark, 70 Main Street, Peterborough, NH 03458.

7. Owner The owner Is McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1221Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.Stockholders holding 1 percent or more of slock are:Donald C. McGraw, Jr.: Harold W. McGraw, Jr.; John L.McGraw; William H. McGraw; June M. McBroom;Elizabeth McGraw Webster; all in care of McGraw-Hill.Inc., 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY10020; Cede & Co. c/o Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A.1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036;DuPont Pension c7o Wilmington Trust Company, RodneySquare North, Wilmington, DE 19890; Ohio PublicEmployees Retirement System, 277 East Town Street,Columbus, OH 43215.

8. Known bondholders, mortgagees, and othersecurity holders owning or holding 1 percent ormore of total amount of bonds, mortgages or othersecurities: None.

9. Not applicable.

10. Extent and nature of circulation:

Actual

Average No. Copies

No. Copies of Single

Each Issue Issue

During Published

Preceding Nearest to

12 Months Filing Date

A. Total No. Copies 418,833 473,500

B. Paid Circulation

1. Sales throughdealers and carriers,street vendors and

counter sales 119,624 181,875

2. Mall Subscription 266,805 282,506

C. Total Paid Circula-tion 386,429 464,387

D. Free distribution bymail, carrier or othermeans samples,complimentary, and

other free copies 5,165 2,095

E. Total distribution 397,594 466,476

F. Copies notdistributed

1. Office use, leftover, unaccounted,

spoiled after printing 6,130 7,024

2. Return from news

agents 21,109 None to date

G. Total 418,833 473,50011.1 certify that the statements made by me

above are correct and complete.BYTEGene W. Simpson, Publisher

UNCLASSIFIED POLICY: Readers who have computer equipment to buy, sell, ortrade or who are requesting or giving advice may send a notice to BYTE for inclusionin the Unclassified Ads section. To be considered for publication, an advertisement mustbe noncommercial (individuals or bona fide computer clubs only), typed double-spacedon plain white paper, contain 75 words or fewer, and include complete name andaddress. This service is free of charge; notices are printed once only as space permits.Your confirmation of placement is appearance in an issue of BYTE as we engage in nocorrespondence. Please allow at least three months for your ad to appear. Send yournotices to Unclassified Ads, BYTE/McGraw-Hill, POB 372, Hancock, NH 03449.

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc. 653

Unclassified Ads

WANTED: High school student with PET 2001 wants work-ing or broken PETs. I wilt pay postage. Eric Ryoti. 162 RedwoodDr., Richmond, KY 40475, |606) 623-2207.FOR SALE: Heath H-l I processor with 32K-byte memory,H-27 dual floppy-disk drive, two serial interface ports, and H-l9CRT. Includes all documentation and FORTRAN/BASICoperating software: S4000 or best offer. T.A. Homan, 7741Stanley Mill Dr., Centerville, OH 45459, (513) 434-3896.FOR SALE: RCA VIP with 4K, Simple and Super soundboards, ASCII keyboard. Tiny BASIC, homemade color board. 5volt, IA power supply, 3 years, of Viper, and cassettes withover 60 games and programs. With manuals and documenta-tion; requires video monitor and cassette recorder. Over S550value, selling for S390. Nathan Gopen. 168 Pond St., Sharon,MA 02067. |6I7| 784-2771.

FOR SALE: Expansion Interface for use with the TRS-80Model I. I am also interested in 40-track disk drives for use withsame. Brad Karp, 8101 Hawthorne Lane, Elkins Park. PA19117. (215J 379-0667 evenings.

FOR SALE: Heath/Zenith Z-90 with I6K expansion RAM;Z-47 8-inch DSDD drives; H-25 high-speed printer with soft-ware: S6500 or best offer. Tim Olson, (701) 774-3684.FOR SALE: integral Data Systems Microprism Model 480,1 K-byte buffer, parallel/serial I/O, programmable, graphics, nearletter quality, draft speed modes of 5, 6, 8.4, 10, 12, and 16.8cpi plus other features. Like new with cable and paper: S450.Rich Reis, 711 Copley Lane, Silver Spring, MD 20904, (301)384-0540.

WANTED: Radio Shack or LNW expansion interface forTRS-80 Model I. Joe Dashiell. 501 Fairfax Rd. #623, Blacksburg.VA 24060, (703) 552-8408.

FOR SALE: TRS-80/S-100. Complete S-100 HUH 8100 busconverter fully loaded. DTE/DCE RS-232C serial, current loop,and parallel I/O. 16K RAM and six S-100 slots, in finished woodcase with 8-amp power supply and cooling fan; $600 value,asking S450. Also, two Godbout EconoRAM 8K S-100 at S65each. Jade Terminator/Extender: S50. Jade Double-D disk-controller kit: S225. Penny Whistle 103 acoustic modem: S50.Will accept reasonable offer. Jens Hansen, (904) 968-0126.FOR SALE: Three Digital Group machines. Two haveTVC64, four parallel and serial ports, keyboard, monitor, andcabinets. One has DG Z80A CPU. 58K. and two drives. Otherhas R. & W Z80A CPU. 64K. new motherboards, and two 8-inchDDSS disk drives. Third has DG Z80A CPU, 64K, TVC64. fourparallel and serial ports, keyboard, monitor, and two 8-inchDDSS disk drives. Send SASE for list and prices. H. Wood, 2002Rookwood Rd., Silver Spring, MD 20910. (301) 589-4171.FOR SALE: HP 82905B Printer. 80-cps impact printer withfive type options and graphics. HPIB (IEEE 488) interface, with2m HPIB cable. New in June '83; S885 retail. S440 or bestoffer; UPS COD. Also, HPIB cables in different lengths and func-tional: S30 each [S80-100 retail). Tom von Alten, 9250 Land-mark, Boise, ID 83704, |208J 322-7804.WANTED: Italian-speaking microcomputer fans to exchangeideas and programs for the Tl 99/4A home computer. RoyMoglia, 5137 Burlington Ave. N, St. Petersburg. FL 33710.

BOMB

BYTE'

s Ongoing Monitor Box

Article #

Page

Article

Author(s)

1

36

Keep Power-Line Pollution Out of Your Computer

Garcia

2

48

BYTE West Coast: Microsoft Windows

Lemmons

3

59

User's Column: Buddy, Can You Spare a Door

Latch?

Pournelle

4

103

An Introduction to Integrated Software

Chang

5

113

Presentation and Form in User-Interface Architecture

Carroll

6

127

Why Is Software So Hard to Use?

Edwards, Sam

7

143

Walt Disney and User-Oriented Software

Heckel

8

155

Making Life Easier for Professional and Novice

Programmers

Pope,Kates,Fineberg

9

161

Simplify. Simplify, Simplify

Dean

10

177

Integrating Voice in the Office World

Nicholson

II

189

The Starburst User Interface

Vandor

12

199

The Complete Information-Management System

Brown

13

210

The Allegory of Software

Houston

14

218

The New Interface Technology

Warfield,White

15

234

Trackball-Interfacing Techniques for Microprocessors

Andrews

16

247

The User Interface: Two Approaches

Herbach,

Katz,

Landau

17

263

The Future of Metaphor in Man-Computer Systems

Clanton

18

286

The Texas Instruments Professional Computer

Haas

19

329

The ATR80O0

Small.Small

20

343

The Hercules Graphics Card

Wadlow

21

360

The Wang Professional Computer

Long

22

372

In Search of the Most Amazing Thing

Holden

23

380

Color Graphics from Any Computer

Essig

24

400

Mainframe to Micro: Adapting a Financial-Modeling

Language

Dunn

25

417

POKEing Around in the IBM PC, Part 2: DevelopingSubroutines for BIOS Interface and Screen-Display

Disk Storage

Howson

26

443

The CMOS 6502

Hendrix

27

457

A Tiger Meets a Dragon

Rollins

28

481

A Computer-Algebra-Based Calculating System

Edwards. Stuart

29

519

The User Looks at Books

Pournelle

WANTED: Need to communicate with Morrow DesignsMicro Decision users about its good and bad points. HowardBurns, 1265 North Diamond Bar Blvd.. Diamond Bar. CA91765. |714| 594-9259 evenings.

FOR SALE: Serria Data Sciences Z-80 SBC with CP/M 2 2mounted in XOR 4-slot mainframe with two 8-inch Tandonthinline SSDD drives. Limited use: SI500. D. I. Lawry. POBI 157. Corrales. NM 87048, |505) 898-5245.FOR SALE: OSI C1P Model II with 8K RAM/ROM. 600 bitsper second, cassette interface, joysticks, and software.Documented. Original cost over S600, all for S275 or will tradefor Apple ll-compatible drive with DOS and controller. LorenzHuelsbergen. 1908 Alabama St.. Lawrence. KS 66044.

It May Come as No Surprise

The Circuit Cellar's creator, SteveGarcia, has won first place and the$100 bonus in September's roundupwith the first part of "Build the MicroD-Cam Solid-State Video Camera,"entitled "The IS32 Optic RAM andthe Micro D-Cam Hardware." Sec-ond place goes to our illustriouscommentator, Jerry Pournelle, for"The Next Five Years in Microcom-puters." And along with winningthe $50 prize for second place. Dr.Pournelle walks off with third placefor his User's Column about "Eagles,Text Editors, New Compilers, andMuch More." In fourth place,readers chose BYTE technical editorStanley Wszola for "How to Choosea Portable." And fifth-place winnersare the authors of the trilogy entitled"Inside CMOS Technology," MartinB. Pawloski, Tony Moroyan, and JoeAltnether. Congratulations to allthese authors.

Correspondence

Address all editorial correspondence to the editorat BYTE, POB 372. Hancock, NH 03449. Unaccept-able manuscripts will be returned if accompaniedby sufficient first-class postage. Not responsible forlost manuscripts or photos. Opinions expressed bythe authors are not necessarily those of BYTE. En-tire contents copyright © 1983 by BYTE Publica-tions Inc. All rights reserved. Where necessary, per-mission is granted by the copyright owner for librar-ies and others registered with the CopyrightClearance Center (CCC) to photocopy any articleherein for the flat fee of S1.50 per copy of the arti-cle or any part thereof. Correspondence and pay-ment should be sent directly to the CCC, 21 Con-gress St., Salem, MA 01970. Specify ISSN 0360-5280/83. S1.50. Copying done for other than per-sonal or internal reference use without the permis-sion of McGraw-Hill is prohibited. Requests forspecial permission or bulk orders should be ad-dressed to the publisher. BYTE15 is available inmicroform from University Microfilms International.300 North Zeeb Rd., Dept. PR. Ann Arbor. Ml48106 USA or 18 Bedford Row, Dept. PR. LondonWCIR 4EJ England.

654 December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Reader Service

Inquiry No. Page No.

3 1ST.PLACE SYSTEMS 4201 1 SUPERWAREHOUSE 202

4 800 SOFTWARE 454, 455

6 A.S.T. RESEARCH 279

7 AB COMPUTERS 609

8 ABC DATA PRODUCTS 406

9 ACTION COMPUTER 95ACTION POTENTIAL 604ADDMASTER CORP. 614ADV. COMP. PROD. 638, 639ADV. DIGITAL CORP. 147ADV.GRAPHIC ENGINEERING 604ADV. LOGIC SYSTEMS 307ADV. SYS. CONCEPTS 6BAFTERTHOUGHT 642ALF PRODUCTS, INC. 318ALL ELECTRONICS CORP. 538ALPHA NUMERIC 378ALPHA OMEGA COMPUTER 146AM MICRO 268AMDEK CORP. 63AMER. BUYING & EXPORT 534AMER. SQUARE COMP. 83AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. 565ANADEX 435

ANGEL'S COMPUTER 485APPARAT INC. 311APPLE COMPUTER INC. CM, 1APPLE COUNTRY LTD. 624, 625APPLEWARE INC. 600APPLIED SOFTWARE TECH. 323ARKTRONICS CORP. 79ARTIFICIAL INTL. RESEARCH 614ASHTON-TATE 145ASHTON-TATE 439ATARI SOFT 370, 371AT&T CONSUMER PROD. 309AVIS RENT-A-CAR 571AVOCET 445B&B ELECTR. 600B&B ELECTR. 610BAHR TECHNOLOGY 30BASF SYSTEMS 433BAY TECHNICAL ASSOC. 12BELL, JOHN ENGR. 628BELL, JOHN ENGR. 628BELL, JOHN ENGR. 629BELL, JOHN ENGR. 629BHRT 340, 341BMC USA, INC. 498BMC USA, INC. 498BORLAND, LTD. 456BOTTOM LINE, THE 262BOULDER LOGICAL TESTING 620BROWN DISC MANUFACTURING 176BURDICK CO 446BUSINESS SOLUTIONS 644BYTE PUBL. INC. 494BYTE BACK ISSUES 524BYTEK COMP. SYS. CORP. 466BYTEWRITER 26C WARE 430C-SYSTEMS 614C.S.D. INC. 150CABLES UNLTD. 616CAL-COM SERVICES 608CALIF. DIGITAL 626, 627CALIF. DATA CORP. 600CALIF. MICRO COMP. 316CARRYCASE 280CDR SYSTEMS 616CENTENNIAL COMP. PROD. 259CENTRE COMP.CONSTNTS. 604CENTRE COMP.CONSTNTS. 606CHANNEL SYS 593CHESSELL-ROBOCOM CORP. 94CHIPS & DALE 644CHRISLIN IND. INC. 253CHROMOD ASSOC. 610CLEO 562, 563CMC, INTL. 24COGITATE 430COGITATE 620

COLORADO COMP. PERIPH. 606COLUMBIA DATA PROD. 121COMMAND SERVICES CORP. 600COMMERCIAL BUSINESS SYS. 597COMMUNICATIONS ELECTR. 196, 197COMP. COMPNTS. UNLTD. 634, 635COMP. COMPNTS. UNLTD. 636. 637COMP.WHOLESALERS OFFREDERICK 408

COMPAQ COMPUTER CORP. 10, 11COMPETITIVE EDGE 448

101112

14

15

16

506

18

521

20

26

2122

232425272829303132343536

383940414243444546474849481482

515253

54

5556

57

58

461

59

60

51562

6465

489666768697273747576777879808182

487

Inquiry No.

Page No.

495 COMPLEXX SYSTEMS INC. 275

87 COMPONENTS EXPRESS 192459 COMPU-MEDIA SOFT. 602

88 COMPUADD 612

89 COMPUADD 612

90 COMPUADD 612

91 COMPUADD 612

93 COMPUPRO 149

• COMPUPRO 540, 541, 542

94 COMPUSERVE 385

95 COMPUSHACK 535

96 COMPUTER ACCESSORIES 291

97 COMPUTER APPARATUS 471

98 COMPUTER CHANNEL 164

99 COMPUTER DISCOUNT PROD. 645483 COMPUTER EDITYPE 86

477 COMPUTER FOOD PRESS 602

101 COMPUTER FURN. & ACCSS. 207

102 COMPUTER HUT OF N.E. 463

103 COMPUTER INNOVATIONS 106

104 COMPUTER MAIL ORDER 544, 545514 COMPUTER PAPER PEOPLE 642

' COMPUTER PLUS 73

106 COMPUTER POST INC. 643

107 COMPUTER PRICE CLUB 606

111 COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY 538513 COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY 642

• COMPUTER WAREHOUSE 509

112 COMPUTERUNE INT1-A 496, 497

113 COMPUTERLINE INT'L-B 298

114 COMPUTERS AND MORE 134

115 COMPUTERS WHOLESALE 325512 COMPUTRONIX CORP. 642

116 COMPUVIEW PROD.INC. 56, 57

117 CONCORDE PERIPHERAL SYS. 294

118 CONCORDE PERIPHERAL SYS. 294

119 CONDOR COMP. CORP. 30383 CONROY-LAPOINTE 186, 187B4 CONROY-LAPOINTE 186, 18785 CONROY-LAPOINTE 186, 187

509 CONTINENTAL PRESS 642

120 CONTROL DATA CORP. 377

121 CONTROL ELECTR.INC. 316

122 CORONA DATA SYS. 337

123 CORVUS SYS. INC. 409

124 COSMOS 165

125 CREATIVE LOGIC 78

126 CREATIVITY UNLTD. 602

127 CROMEMCO 5

128 CUESTA SYSTEMS 612

129 CUMANA 18

130 CUSTOM COMP.TECH. 615

131 DATA ACQUISITIONS SYS. 98, 99

132 DATA STORAGE SOLUTIONS 195

133 DATABASE RESEARCH 179

134 DATAPRODUCTS 515

135 DATASOURCE SYS.MRKTG. 76

504 DATASOUTH COMPUTER CORP. 266

505 DATASOUTH COMPUTER CORP. 426

136 DATEC, INC. 473

137 DECOTEC 608

• DELUXE COMP. FORMS 410

138 DENNISON KYBE CORP. 293502 DIALOG 387

139 DIAMOND SFTW.SUPPLY 228

140 DIGICOMP RESRCH CORP 608

141 DIGISOFT COMPUTERS 479

142 DIGITAL DELI 604

143 DIGITAL DIMENSIONS 434

• DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP. 109,110, 111

144 DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP. 415

145 DIGITAL MARKETING 274

146 DIGITAL MEDIA 600

147 DIGITAL RESEARCH 232, 233

148 DIGITAL RESEARCH 547

• DIGITAL RESEARCH COMP. 603

• DIRECT SOFTWARE 453

149 DISCOUNT SOFTWARE 267

150 DISCWASHER COMP. ACCESS. 301

151 DISKS 'N THINGS 606

152 DISKWORLD610

153 DISPLAY TELECOMMNCTNS. 613

154 DISPLAYED VIDEO 607

155 DMA 477

156 DMA SYSTEMS 369

157 DOKAY COMP. PROD. INC. 632, 633

158 DOW JONES SOFTWARE 9

159 DWIGHT CO., INC. 620

160 DYNACOMP 616

161 DYNAX, INC. 167

162 DYSAN CORP. 449

222 EAGLE COMPUTER 528, 529

163 EAGLE SOFTWARE 162

Inquiry No.

Page No.

164 EAST SIDE SOFTWARE 347

165 EASTERN ENTERPRISES 172

167 ELCOMP602519 ELECTRADE 280

168 ELECTRADE 608

169 ELECTRONIC PROTECTION DEV. 31

170 ELECTRONIC PROTECTION DEV. 33

171 ELECTRONIC SPECIALISTS 448

172 ELEK-TEK 388488 ELEK-TEK 452

173 ELLIS COMPUTING INC. 69

174 ELLIS COMPUTING INC. 331

• EMPIRICAL RESEARCH GROUP 122

175 ENGINEERING SPECIALTIES 616

176 ENTER COMPUTER 46, 47

• EPSON AMERICA 70, 71179 EPSON AMERICA 555

181 EXCEL 148

182 EXCEL 527

183 EXPOTEK324

184 EXXON OFFICE SYSTEMS 620

185 F.T.G.DATA SYS. 614

186 FALCO DATA PROD. 142

187 FENWAL PROTECTION SYS. 56118B FIGURE-LOGIC BUS. EQUIP. 614

189 FLAGSTAFF ENGINEERING 226

190 FLIP-IT 306

191 FLOPPY DISK SERV. INC. 157

192 FORM ASTER CORP. 411

193 FORMULA INT'L. 605

194 FORMULA INT'L. 605

195 FOX & GELLER INC. 102

196 FUJITSU PROFESS. MICROSYS. 315

197 GARDEN OF EDEN COMPUTERS 604

• GENERAL ELECTRIC R&D 480

198 GENERAL TECHNOLOGY 85

199 GIFFORD COMP.SYS. 442

200 GILTRONIX, INC. 620

201 GLOUCESTER COMP.CO.INC. 600350 GRAY MARKET, THE 599

202 GREAT LAKES COMPUTER 151

204 GREAT SALT LAKE COMP. 617

205 GREAT SALT LAKE COMP. 618, 619

206 GTEK INC. 214

" H&E COMPUTRONICS 107

207 H&M DISK DRIVE SERVICES 600493 HANDWELL CORP 431

210 HANDWELL CORP. 611

211 HAYDEN SOFTWARE 269

212 HAYES MICROCOMP.PROD. 139

213 HAYES MICROCOMP.PROD. 447

214 HOLIDAY INNS, INC. 483

215 HOLLYWOOD HARDWARE 620510 HOLLYWOOD HARDWARE 642

216 HOUSTON INSTRUMENTS 193

217 HUMAN DESIGNED SYSTEMS 23121B HUMAN SOFT 91

219 I.T.M. 342

220 IBM CORP. 28, 29

223 IMAGE COMP. PROD. 522

224 IN-SYNC 612

225 INCOMM 194

227 INFOCOM 152, 153

228 INFORMATION RESOURCES 470

229 INSIGHT ENTERPRISES 600

230 INT'L COMP.&TELECOMM.INC. 604

231 INTEGRAND 368

232 INTERACTIVE STRUCT. 407

233 INTERCONTN.MICRO SYS. 413

234 INTERDATA SYSTEMS INC. 67

479 INTERFACE INC. 240

480 INTERFACE INC. 240

236 INTERTEC DATA SYS. 13

237 |pp 533

238 IQ TECHNOLOGIES 299

240 J.C. SYSTEMS 129

241 JADE COMP.PROD. 621

242 JADE COMP.PROD. 622, 623

• JAMECO ELECTR. 105

243 JAMECO ELECTR. 630, 631

244 JDR MICRODEVICES INC. 648, 649

245 JDR MICRODEVICES INC. 650, 651

246 JDR MICRODEVICES INC. 652

247 JUKI INDUSTRY OF AMERICA 201

248 KADAK PRODUCTS 82

249 KAYPRO 548, 549

250 KELLY COMP.SUPPLIES 602

251 KELLY COMP.SUPPLIES 612

252 KELLY COMP.SUPPLIES 620

253 KENSINGTON MICROWARE 339

254 KERN PUBLICATIONS 404, 405

256 KEYTRONICS CORP. 389

257 KING SOFTWARE 600

258 LABORATORY MICROSYS. 82

To get further information on the products advertised in BYTE, fill out the reader service cardwith your name and address. Then circle the appropriate numbers for the advertisers you selectfrom the list. Add a 20-cent stamp to the card, then drop it in the mail. Not only do you gaininformation, but our advertisers are encouraged to use the marketplace provided by BYTE. Thishelps us bring you a bigger BYTE. The index is provided as an additional service by the publisher,who assumes no liability for errors or omissions. "Correspond directly with company.

Inquiry No.

Page No.

• LANGLEY ST. CLAIR 198

259 LANIER BUSN.PROD. 488, 489

260 LANIER BUSN.PROD. 495

262 LEADING EDGE PROD CIN

263 LIBERTY GROUP INC. 543

264 LIGO RESEARCH INC. 357

• LINNTON ELECTRONIC SYS. 608

265 LOGICAL DEVICES 14

266 LOGICAL DEVICES 644

267 LOGICAL MICROCOMPUTER 188

268 LOMAS DATA PRODUCTS 246

269 LOTUS DEVELOPMENT 317

270 LSI JAPAN CO. 644

271 LYBEN COMP. SYS. 604

272 LYBEN COMP. SYS. 606

273 LYCO COMPUTER 513492 MA SYSTEMS 511

274 MACROTECH INT'L. 359

275 MANX SOFTWARE SYS. 62518 MARITIME SOFTWARE 280

276 MARYMAC INDUSTRIES 522

277 MAYNARD ELECTRONICS 97

278 MC TOY COMPANY 45

• MC-P APPLICATIONS 333

• MCGRAW-HILL INC. 304, 305

• MEMOREX MEDIA PROD. 241

279 MET CHEM INT'L.CORP. 604

280 METHOD SYS.INC. 610

281 METRO COMPUTER 444

282 MFJ ENTERPRISES INC. 222284 MICRO CRAFT CORP. 383

286 MICRO FOCUS 216, 217

287 MICRO MANAGEMENT SYS. 469

288 MICRO MART 606

289 MICRO MINT 569

290 MICRO MYSTIQUE 606

291 MICRO-TAX 169

283 MICROAGE COMP.STORES INC. 531

497 MICROCOMPUTER SYSTEMS 64

292 MICRODYNAMICS 614

293 MICROHOUSE 215

317 MICROLAND 644

294 MICROMAIL601

296 MICROPROCESSORS UNLTD. 604

• MICROSOFT CORP. 88, 89

• MICROSOFT CORP. 367

• MICROSOFT CORP. 399

297 MICROTECH EXPORTS 276

298 MICROWARE 224

299 MICROXPRESS 278

300 MID-AMERICA WHOLESALERS 270511 MILLER, J. W. 642

301 MINI MICRO MART 80, 81

302 MINI MICRO MART 87

303 MINOLTA CORP. 559

' MK ENTERPRISES 606

304 MORROW 271

305 MOUNTAIN VIEW PRESS 93

306 MPI 423

• MPS DISTRIBUTORS 20B, 209

307 MTI SYSTEMS CORP. 222

• MUSYS CORP. 255

308 MY SUPPLIER, INC. 616

310 NEC HOME ELECTR.USA 326, 327

312 NEC INFORMATION SYS. 131

313 NELMA DATA 376

• NETRONICS 418

315 NETWORK CONSULTING INC. 229

316 NETWORK CONSULTING INC. 319

484 NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY 551

• NORTH HILLS CORP. 378

• NORTH HILLS CORP. 421

318 NORTH STAR COMPUTERS 265

319 NORTHWEST DIGITAL SYS. 32

320 NOVATION, INC. 174, 175

321 O'HANLON COMP.SYS. 429

322 OCCO 68

323 OCTAGON COMP SYS 140, 141

324 OFFICE NETWORKS CORP. 644239 OLDEN 44

325 OLIVETTI AND C.SPA 65

326 OLYMPIC SALES 518

328 OMNISOFT 257

• ORA ELECTRONICS 595

329 ORANGE MICRO 227

330 ORANGE MICRO 272, 273

331 ORANGE MICRO 365

332 ORYX SYSTEMS 552, 553

333 OSBORNE/MCGRAW-HILL 450

• PACIFIC COMPUTERS 336

334 PACIFIC EXCHANGES 602, 610,612, 614, 616, 620, 644

498 PACIFIC INFOTECH 108

335 PAN AMERICAN ELEC. INC. 608494 PANASONIC IND CO. 90

336 PASCOT74

503 PC NETWORK 537

337 PC WARE INC. 312, 313

339 PEACHTREE SOFTWARE 500

340 PEACHTREE SOFTWARE 501

341 PEACHTREE SOFTWARE 502

342 PEACHTREE SOFTWARE 503

343 PEACHTREE SOFTWARE 505

499 PEGASUS DATA 408

344 PER SCI INC. 614

• PERCOM DATA 19, 21

485 PHACT ASSOC. 534

345 PHONE I, INC. 86

December 1983 © BYTE Publications Inc.

655

Reader Service ■

Inquiry No.

Page No.

486 PLUM HALL 532

346 PRACTICAL PERIPH. 123, 124, 125500 PRACTICAL PERIPH. 332

• PRIMAGES INC. 467

347 PRINCETON GRAPHIC SYS. 296, 297

348 PRINTEK 295

349 PRINTER STORE, THE 116

351 PRIORITY ONE 640, 641508 PRO MICROSYSTEMS 642

352 PROF.SOFTWARE PROD. 154

353 PROGRAMMERS SOFTWARE EX. 306■ PROGRAMMING INT'L 260, 261

• PROGRAMMING INT'L 284, 285

356 PROMETHEUS PRODUCTS 397

357 PURCHASING AGENT, THE 136

358 QUADRAM CORP. 22, 23

359 QUANT SYSTEMS 616

360 QUASAR DATA PROD. INC. 171

361 QUBIE DISTRIBUTING 355

362 QUCES 493

363 QUESTIONAIRE SERVICE CO. 608475 RADIO SHACK CIV

• RANA SYSTEMS 25388 RANA SYSTEMS 27

367 RANDOM ACCESS INC. 610

368 RHINO ROBOTS INC. 608

• ROCKY MOUNTAIN MICRO INC. 283

• ROCKY MT. SOFT. SYS. 348, 349516 ROGERS LAB 280

369 RTL PROGRAMMING AIDS 522496 RUTISHAUSER 573

370 RYDEX INDUSTRIES CORP. 474

371 S C DIGITAL 508

372 S-100 DIV. 696 CORP. 92377 SAFEWARE 192

Inquiry No.

Page No.

378 SAGE COMP. TECH. 173

379 SAKATA 249

501 SCIENTIFIC COMPUTER 602

• SCOTTSDALE SYSTEMS 117

380 SEATTLE COMP.PRODS. 60

381 SEATTLE COMP. PRODS. 507

382 SEEQUA COMP.CORP. 6

383 SEKON COMPUTER 160

384 SELECTONE CORP.COMP.PROD. 610

385 SEMI DISK SYSTEM 137

386 SGL HOMALITE 120

387 SHARP ELECTRONICS 289366 SIEMENS COMM.SYS.INC. 34, 35

• SILICON SPECIALTIES 104

389 SLR SYSTEMS 610

390 SLR SYSTEMS 616

391 SOFTLINE CORP. 66

392 SOFTQUEST118

393 SOFTWARE AUTOMATION 225

394 SOFTWARE BANC 244, 245

396 SOFTWARE BANC DEALER SERV. 119

397 SOFTWARE FASHION 547

• SOFTWARE GUILD 516, 517

398 SOFTWARE SERVICES 602490 SOFTWARE SOLUTION 205

• SORCIM 16, 17

400 SPECTRON INSTRUMENTS 602

401 SPSS 277

402 STAR MICRONICS 126

403 STARBUCK DATA CO. 204

404 STM CORP 163

405 SUNDEX 393

406 SUNNY INT'L. 599

407 SUNTRONICS 597

408 SUPERSOFT 75

Inquiry No.

Page No.

409 SUPERSOFT 77

410 SWI INT'L 379

411 SYNETIX20

412 SYNETIX328

413 SYSTEM VISION CORP. 160

414 TALLGRASS TECH. 61

415 TATUM LABS 612

416 TAVA CORP. 416

417 TAYCO BUSINESS FORMS 620

427 TDI SYS. INC. 266

418 TDK ELECTRONICS 353

419 TECH STAR LABORATORY 610

• TEKTRONIX INC. 223

420 TELETEK ENTERPRISES. INC. 55

421 TELETEX COMMUNICATIONS 345507 TERMINAL DATA 642

422 TERRAPIN INC. 230

423 TEXAS COMP.SYS. 243

424 TEXAS INSTRUMENTS 184

• TEXAS INSTRUMENTS 440, 441, 465

425 THINKERS SOFT INC. 487

426 THREE M COMPANY 112

428 TIMEX COMPUTER 281

429 TINNEY, ROBERT GRAPHICS 396■ TINNEY, ROBERT GRAPHICS 550

430 TITAN TECHNOLOGY 422

431 TITAN TECHNOLOGY 438

432 TOPAZ, INC. 221

433 TOSHIBA AMERICA INC. 436

434 TOSHIBA AMERICA INC. 437

435 TRANSACTION STORAGE SYS. 135

436 TRANSTAR 185

437 TRANSTAR 523

438 TRISTAR DATA SYS. 162' TRONIX 616

Inquiry No.

Page No.

439 TSK ELECTR.CORP. 133

441 U.S. MICRO SALES 646, 647

440 U.S. ROBOTICS 130

442 UNIPRESS SOFTWARE INC. 334

443 UNIVERSAL DATA SYS 58

444 VERBATIM CORP. 183

445 VIDEX 15

446 VIMA 470

447 VISUAL TECH, INC. 351520 VLM COMPUTER 280

448 VOICE MACHINE COMMUN. 321

449 VOTRAX521

450 VR DATA 115

451 W.T.I. COMP.&PERIPH.PROD. 425

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History will record as a profound irony

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*IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.

Circle 262 on inquiry card.

J

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Circle 475 on inquiry card.