Byte Magazine Volume 09 Number 02 - Benchmarks

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Adotmatrix printer

that willimprove your

image.

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 too0% faster than othercomparably priced dot matrix ' ■printers. 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 B1AGEURITER APPLE PRESENTS THE IttACEURITER APM.I

ike 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. Aid 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 Card. 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 have 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'll 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.

Giveyour floppy disks 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™and Apple 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.

■i

Apple ComputerInc., 20525Alumni Ave.. Cupertino, CA95014. ftr the authorized Apple dealer nearest you. m//(800) 538-9696. In Canada, call (800) 268-7796 or (800) 268-7637. © 1983 AppleComputerInc.

VisiCalc is a trademark of VisiCorp, Inc. Catahst is a trademark of Quark, Inc. Apple, the Apple logo. Quick Tile and Profile are trademarks of Apple Computer Inc.

In The Queue

iVTI

Volume 9, Number 2

Page 30

Cover Story

30 The Apple Macintosh Computer by Gregg Williams / The firm that brought forththe Lisa now offers mouse-window-desktop technology in an under-S2500 system.58 An Interview: The Macintosh Design Team by Phil Lemmons / The "wizards"behind the Macintosh discuss the design goals and philosophy that influenced the develop-ment of Apple's new computer.

Columns

88 Build the Circuit Cellar Term-Mite ST Smart Terminal, Part 2: Programming

and Use by Steve Ciarcia / The supplied standard control software supports severalcharacter attributes and various configuration options.

113 User's Column: Chaos Manor Gets Its Long-Awalted IBM PC by Jerry

Poumelle / Of mice and men. Eagles, Shirley, the ol' mailbag, and much more.

147 BYTE West Coast: A Business Computer, a Business Program, and Moreon Voice Recognition by Ezra Shapiro / Recent developments on the computing sceneraise some questions about perceived industry trends.

Themes

158 Benchmarks and Performance Evaluation by Bruce Roberts / This month'sarticles discuss benchmarks, their limitations, and alternative methods of product evaluation.

160 Don't Bench Me In by Jerry Houston / Benchmarks are a popular way to com-pare both hardware and software. But how meaningful are they?

168 Beyond MIPS: Performance Is Not Quality by John M. Carroll and Mary BethRosson / Two users observe that there's more to overall system quality than speed of

operation.

175 Software Performance Evaluation by Brian Boyle / This article presents somehelpful guidelines borrowed from a successful hardware model.

193 The Art of Benchmarking Printers by Sergio Mello-Qrand / An exhaustive setof benchmarks helps you determine how fast your printer really is.

218 Benchmarking FORTRAN Compilers by Avram Tetewsky / The author offersinsights into determining which compiler creates the fastest code.

227 Benchmark Confessions by Peter Marvit and Mohandas Nair / Understandingthe background and intentions of benchmarks is the key to interpreting the results.

235 The Word-Processing Maze by Andrea Lewis / How to find your way throughall those "new" features.

243 Evaluating Word-Processing Programs by Arthur Naiman / A 100-pointchecklist simplifies the decision-making process.

Reviews

251 Reviewer's Notebook by Rich Malloy / A plotter from Hewlett-Packard, a Man-nesmann Tally printer, and two software packages for the IBM PC are featured in thismonth's notes.

252 ProDOS by Rob Moore / Apple Computer presents a powerful new operating

system for Apple II computers.

267 Knowledgeman by James W. Walker / A new, fully integrated managementsystem offers full database and spreadsheet capabilities in one package.

278 The IBM CS-9000 Lab Computer by Thomas R. Clune / A closer look at IBM's"other" microcomputer.

Page 58

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 0345B and additional mailing offices. USPS Publication No. 528890 [ISBN 0360-5280).Postage paid at Winnipeg. Manitoba. Registration number 9321. Subscriptions are S2I for one year, S38fortwoyears, and S55 for three years in the USA and its possessions. In Canada and Mexico. S23 for one year, S42

February 1984

292 The Rlxon R212A Intelligent Modem by Chuck Weger/This device can

emulate the Hayes Smartmodem and do a few other tricks besides.

303 Savvy by Peter V. Callamaras / This easy-to-use system actually learns from you.

308 The Mlcro-Scl Gameport III for the Apple III by William J. Purpura and PaulaK. Purpura / With this card in place, your Apple III can run most Apple II game software.

310 The Vldex Ultraterm by Peter V. Callamaras / Easy to install and use, theUltraterm video-display card enables the Apple II to display up to 160 columns or 48 lines.

318 Apple Disk Emulators: Axlon, Legend, Plon, and Synetlx by Michael W

Gilbert / Four RAM disk emulators for the Apple II allow faster execution times for appli-cations requiring numerous disk accesses.

Features

84 Apple Announces the Lisa 2 by Gregg Williams / Macintosh compatibility isa key feature of the new Lisa.

331 IBM/Apple Communication by Robert Jones / Sending text files between Ap-ples and IBM PCs is easy with these simple programs.

342 A Low-Cost, Low Wrlte-Voltage EEPROM by Joe D. Blagg / Seeq Technology'sS10 EEPROM can be programmed in your computer with simple and inexpensive circuitry.346 Foot Control by Dennis M. Pfister / Adding a foot-operated Control key to yourkeyboard simplifies control sequences.

349 Inside a Compiler: Notes on Optimization and Code Generation by KaareChristian / A look at Pascal/MT+86 and Pascal-86 shows you how to evaluate these andother compilers.

370 Writing Device Drivers for MS-DOS 2.0 Using Tandon TM100-4 Drives by

J. Eric Roskos / The increase in flexibility can be worth the added effort.

383 Deciphering Word Games by Mark C. Worley / Two BASIC programs can helpyou solve cryptograms and anagrams.

388 Five Original Graphics by Robert Sussman and Ted Sussman / Improving onthe Spirograph.

395 Bubbles on the S-100 Bus, Part 2: The Software by Louis Wheeler / MakingMicropolis MDOS and CP/M work on a bubble-memory board.

416 Calculating Overhead Costs by Computer by G. Truman Hunter / A simple,foolproof arithmetic procedure determines the distribution of indirect costs quickly andaccurately.

Books ReceivedClubs and NewslettersBYTE's User to UserBook ReviewWhat's New?Unclassified AdsBYTE's Ongoing MonitorBox, BOMB ResultsReader Service

Nucleus

4 Editorial: The Compatibility

466

Craze

469

7 MICROBYTES

472

12 Letters

478

428 Programming Quickie

481

436 Technical Forum

541

438 Ask BYTE

542

446 Software Received

457 Event Queue

543

Cover photo by Paul Avis

for two years, S6I for three years. S 53 for one year air delivery to Europe. 17.1 CO yen for one year surface deliveryto Japan. S37 surface delivery elsewhere. Air delivery to selected areas at additional rates upon request. Singlecopy price is S3.50 in the USA and its possessions. S3.95 in Canada and Mexico. $4.50 in Europe, and S5.00elsewhere. Foreign subscriptions and sales should be remitted in United States funds drawn on a US bank. Printedin the United States of America.

Subscription questions or problems should be addressed to:BYTE Subscriber Service, POB 328, Hancock, NH 03449

Page 88

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E1TE

the small systems journal

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

Assistants: Faith Kluntz, Beverly Jackson, Lisa JoSteiner, Peggy Dunham

Production: David R. Anderson, Assoc. Director;Virginia Reardon, Production Manager; JanMuller, Michael J. Lonsky; Sherry McCarthy, ChiefTypographer; Donna Sweeney, Valerie Horn,Len Lorette

Advertising: Deborah Porter, Supervisor; MarionCarlson, Rob Hannings, Cathy A. R. Drew, LisaWozmak, Jeanne Cilley, Jeanna Reenstierna;Patricia Akerley, Reader Service Coordinator;Wai Chiu Li, Quality Control Manager; Linda J.Sweeney, Advertising/Production Coordinator,Julie Nelson

Advertising Sales: J. Peter Huestis, SalesManager; Sandra Foster, Administrative AssistantCirculation: Gregory Spitzfaden, Director;Andrew Jackson, Subscriptions Manager; BarbaraVarnum, Asst. Manager; Agnes E. Perry, LouiseMenegus, Jennifer Price, Jane Varnum, PhilDechert, Mary Emerson; James Bingham, Single-Copy Sales Manager; Linda Turner, Asst.Manager; Carol Aho, Edson WareMarketing Communications: Horace T.Howland, Director; Vicki Reynolds, Coordinator;Stephanie Warnesky, Graphics Design Manager;Michele P. Verville, Research Manager

Business Manager: Daniel Rodrigues

Controller's Office: Kenneth A. King, Asst.

Controller, Mary E. Fluhr, Acct. & D/P Mgr.;

Karen Burgess, Linda Short, Vicki Bennett, Vern

Rockwell, Lyda Clark, Janet Pritchard, JoAnn

Walter, Julie Ferry, Patricia Burke

Traffic: N. Scott Gagnon, Manager; Brian

Higgins, Cynthia Damato

Receptionist: Linda Ryan

Personnel/Office Manager: Cheryl A. Hurd

Associate Publisher/Production Director: John

E. Hayes

Publisher: Gene W. Simpson;

Doris R. Gamble, Publisher's Assistant

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

The Compatibility Craze

American history is dotted with inventors—from Thomas Edison to theWright Brothers—who could not have succeeded without substantial innova-tion. Indeed, the Wrights had to discard most of the recorded experienceof others who had gone before them in nonpowered flight; they truly hadto pioneer in propulsion, aerodynamics, and aircraft piloting.

Drs. Shockley, Brattain, and Bardeen revolutionized the world of electronicswith their invention of the transistor 36 years ago—an invention that spawnedan era of innovative solid-state design in a range of products from radiosto computers. But the world of personal computers doesn't appear to becharacterized by innovation today. Instead, the personal computer marketseems to be shadowed under a cloud of compatibility: the drive to be com-patible with the IBM Personal Computer family has assumed near-fetishproportions.

The compatibility craze was evident everywhere at the recent Comdex showin Las Vegas. Billboards outside the convention center and booth personnelinside proclaimed how closely the company's products imitated the IBM PCfamily. That kind of imitation is inevitable in the light of the phenomenalmarket acceptance of the IBM PC.

We devoted the theme section of last November's issue to the IBM PC andits clones because a growing fraction of our readers own or use suchmachines. Unavoidably, we took some heat from some of our more vocalreaders who regret IBM's strong emergence in the PC market. Some of thosereaders sounded a concern with which we heartily agree: that IBM's burgeon-ing influence in the PC community is stifling innovation because so manyother companies are simply mimicking Big Blue.

Innovation usually prospers in companies that respect the role of researchand development and which fund R&D appropriately. Most large com-panies recognize that R&D eventually leads to innovative products that willenhance revenues and profits, but large companies also have a built-in iner-tia that militates against the risk-taking associated with unproven newproducts.

Few companies are in a stronger position to foster innovation than is IBM,which has long recognized and generously sponsored R&D. We urge thecompany, therefore, to encourage the migration downward to its personalcomputer families of innovative developments that often find their first prac-tical application in larger computers. Such developments could soon includeflat-screen displays, half-megabit RAMs, and office-by-example (OBE)software.

We also urge venture-capital organizations to include innovativeness in theirchecklist of attributes when they are approached by those with ideas whoneed financial backing. Often the people with such ideas have run into theno-risk inertia of a large corporation, become frustrated with that environ-ment, and have founded successful new companies with the help of backerswho are willing to take risks.

We believe innovation has kept U. S. industry competitive in world marketsuntil the recent emergence of keen foreign competition in such basic indus-tries as steel and autos. And we believe it will be innovation that keeps theU. S. knowledge-based industry competitive in the years to come.

—Lawrence J. Cunan, Editor in Chief

4 February 1984 © 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 97 on inquiry card.

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BUY A CHAMELEON

The Chameleon by Seequa does everythPC does. For about $2000 less than an IBM.

The Chameleon lets you run popular IBM softwarelike Lotus® 1-2-3™ and Wordstar.® It has a full 83 keykeyboard just like an IBM. Disk drives like an IBM. Anda bright 80 x 25 character screen just like an IBM.

But it's not just the Chameleon's similarities to theIBM that should interest you. Its advantages should, tooThe Chameleon also has an 8 bit microprocessor that

> you run any <thousands of CP/M-80® programs available. It comescomplete with two of the best programs around,Perfect Writer™ and Perfect Calc™ It's portable. Andyou can plug it in and start computing the momentyou unwrap it.

So if you've been interested in an IBM personalcomputer, now you know where you can get one for$1995. Wherever they sell Chameleons.

The Chameleon by

W^ISEEQUA

COMPUTER

CORPORATION

8305 Telegraph RoadOdenton.MD 21113

For the location of the Seequa dealer nearest you,call (800) 638-6066 or (301) 672-3600.

6 BYTE February 1984

Circle 329 on inquiry card.

MICROBYTE

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

COMMODORE PLANS UNIX-LIKE OPERATING SYSTEM FOR Z8000BASED COMPUTER

Commodore announced that it will include the UNIX-like Coherent operating system in a new series ofZ8000-based computers. Scheduled to be formally announced in May, Commodore's new computer willbe called the Next Generation and will include 256K bytes of RAM and one or two floppy-disk drives ata price the company says will be much lower than any comparable system.

All of Commodore's previous computers have been based on variations of the 6502 microprocessordeveloped by Commodore's MOS Technology division. Commodore has a license to manufacture Zilog'sZ8000 processor.

BOOST IN IBM PRODUCTION COULD SPELL PROBLEMS FOR CLONE MAKERS

In a December speech, IBM senior vice-president Allen Krowe told security analysts that production ofthe IBM PC will increase as much in 1984 as it did in 1983. Such a dramatic increase in production ofthe PC could create problems for smaller computer companies using the same parts.

Intel Corp., maker of the 8088 central processor used in the IBM PC and most PC-compatibles,doesn't expect any major problems with that part, although both Intel and Advanced Micro Devices arepushing back their delivery schedules for companies ordering the 8088 and 8086. Intel was lesspositive about production of the 8088-compatible 80186 processor, which runs faster than the 8088and eliminates the need for several peripheral chips. Many computer makers have chosen to use the80186 because of its speed and economy, but Intel expects to ship only about a million 80186 chipsthis year, although it predicts that demand will be between 3 and 4 million.

Advanced Micro Devices, which has a technology exchange agreement with Intel, will also producethe 80186 later this year. The company would not predict how many it will ship, though it plans todouble production of the 8088.

DIGITAL RESEARCH, ZILOG, AMI AGREE TO PUT PERSONAL CP/M ROM ON Z80 CHIP

Digital Research's ROM-based Personal CP/M operating system will be included on some versions ofZilog's Z80 microprocessor, according to an agreement between those two companies and AmericanMicrosystems Inc., which will be the first to make and sell the chip. Although no pricing has beenannounced yet, bundling Personal CP/M on a Z80 chip will probably result in less expensive homecomputers. Digital Research plans to collect a smaller royalty for CP/M on each chip than it wouldotherwise charge, in consideration of the large number it expects will be sold.

SEAGATE AND VERTEX UNVEIL 100-MEGABYTE HARD DISKS

Seagate Technology introduced its first 8-inch Winchester disk drive, with 102.1 megabytes ofstorage. Previously, Seagate made only 5%-inch Winchester drives, dominating that product market. Inlarge quantities, the company's 8-inch drives will cost less than $1500 without a controller.

Vertex Peripherals announced a 100-megabyte 5Vi-inch Winchester disk drive that will sell tomanufacturers for about $1700 in large quantities. Vertex, which also makes 30-, 50-, and70-megabyte 5'A-inch Winchesters, plans to announce higher capacity 5%-inch drives this year.

INTEL INTRODUCES 64K-BYTE CMOS RAMS

Intel is beginning full production of 64K-byte CMOS dynamic RAM chips this month. Because the chipsrequire less power than conventional memory devices, they will probably be used first in battery-powered portable computers. Intel expects to produce the chips in very large quantities at prices onlyslightly higher than conventional NMOS dynamic RAMs.

KEY TRONIC LICENSES NEW MOUSE TECHNOLOGY

Key Tronic Corp. has licensed the solid-state mouse technology developed by Display InterfaceTechnology. Key Tronic had previously been considering use of the Summagraphics optical mouse butnow says the solid-state mouse is superior. The company will sell two versions of the mouse to bothmanufacturers and end users: an RS-232C version will retail for $226, and a version to add to someKey Tronic keyboards will sell for $184, beginning in April.

i publication!

MICROBYTES

THE MARKETPLACE IS FLOODED WITH NEW PORTABLE COMPUTERS...

Several new portable and transportable computers have been introduced recently. Visual Technologiesunveiled the Commuter, which includes a single 5%-inch disk drive, 128K bytes of RAM, and MS-DOS2,1 for $1995. . . . ACT has brought its British-made Apricot computer to the U.S. The $3100computer includes 256K bytes of RAM, two 3Vj-inch disk drives, a two-line LCD on the keyboard, anda 9-inch monitor. . . . CompuSource Inc. introduced the Abacus, a $2045 portable computer that itsays can run most IBM, Apple, and CP/M software. . . . Morrow announced a portable version of itsMicro Decision computer. The Portable MD3 includes 64K, two 5V4-inch floppy-disk drives, and a builtin monitor for $1899. Morrow also introduced an 8088 coprocessor board for the Z80-based MicroDecision computers. . . . Televideo Systems introduced three new computers that it says arecompatible with the IBM PC. The TPC II, a portable, and the Tele-PC 1605, a desktop computer,include 1 28K bytes of RAM, two 5Vi-inch floppy-disk drives, and a monitor for $2995. The Tele-XT1605H replaces one floppy-disk drive with a 10-megabyte hard disk and comes with 256K for $4995.

...AND WITH NEW DESKTOP MACHINES

Televideo Systems also unveiled a Z80-based four-user system that costs $6600. With a 10-megabytehard disk and one terminal, the basic TS-804 sells for $4495. . . , Handwell Corp. introduced acomputer that it says is operationally compatible with the IBM PC. With a color display, two serial ports,one parallel port, and one floppy-disk drive, the Handwell PC will sell for $1995. . . . Logical BusinessMachines introduced the L-XT, a $5985 computer that includes a 10-megabyte hard disk, 192K bytes ofRAM, and Logical's Natural Language environment. . . . Computer Designed Systems Inc. unveiled theAdviser Micro Plus, which includes a built-in dot-matrix printer, one 5 V* -inch floppy-disk drive, and aZ80 processor for $1995. The computer is also available with 68000 and 8086 processors for$4995. . . . Kaypro brought out the Robie, a desktop version of its Kaypro 4 portable computer that usestwo Drivetec high-density 5Vi-inch disk drives. With 5.2 megabytes of floppy-disk storage, the Robiewill sell for $22*95.

NANOBYTES

Apple Computer Inc. lost a copyright suit against an Australian computer dealer that sold the Taiwanmade Wombat computer, an Apple-compatible machine reportedly selling for about one-third of theApple's price. Apple was told by an Australian federal court that computer ROM programs are not

literary works and couldn't be protected by Australia's copyright laws Digital Equipment Corp. has

unveiled its DECtalk voice synthesis module, a $4000 system that reads standard ASCII text. DECtalkattaches to an RS-232C port, generates high-quality speech, and includes heuristics that enable it toguess, for example, whether "St." stands for "Street" or "Saint". . . . Canon U.S.A. has announced aneight-page-per-minute laser-beam printer. The printer, which will be sold only to other manufacturers, isexpected to retail for about $3000. . . . Bank of America has announced HomeBanking, a serviceavailable to northern California customers using a terminal or home computer, for $8 permonth. . . . American Micro Products has introduced a $99.95 MVP FORTH compiler for the TRS-80Model 100 portable computer. . . . Gold Hill Computers Inc. introduced GCLISP, a $375 LISP interpreterfor the IBM Personal Computer. . . . Micro Software International's PractiCalc II, a $69 spreadsheetprogram with some database-management features, is available for the Apple II. . . . National Microwarehas introduced the Personal Planner, a home software package allowing users to write letters and keeptrack of appointments, names and addresses, and expense records. For MS-DOS or CP/M, the PersonalPlanner will sell for $149. . . . Atari and Activision announced a joint venture to distribute softwareelectronically to home video-game and computer systems. Following a market test, the service isscheduled to begin later this year. . . . Nelma Data Corp. introduced Black Magic, a wireless local-areanetwork that uses UHF FM "radio modems." Up to 256 computers with RS-232C ports can use thenetwork for about $250 per node. . . . Structured Systems Group Inc. is selling WindowMaster, a $295multitasking windowing environment that enables CP/M-86 and MS-DOS applications to runconcurrently. WindowPack, which bundles WindowMaster along with SSG's word processor,spreadsheet, and database manager, sells for $495. . . . Computer Associates International hasintroduced integrated windowing software linking IBM Personal Computers to mainframes. CA-Executiveincludes database-management, word-processing, spreadsheet, graphics, and other software packages,some of which correspond to CAI mainframe packages. CA-Executive will sell for $1295.

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ii ii y ii- j|-

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• Built-in 64K FIFO buffer, to speed data transmissions.

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• Optional NBS encription for data security.

• Support for simultaneous voice/data transmissions.•Operating system compatibility for MS-DOS'", CP/M",

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If you want net results ... PerComNet is the logical, eco-nomical and reliable choice. PERCOM DATA has aPerComNet OEM Evaluation Package* ready for your im-mediate use. The package includes all the hardware, andcommunications and file transfer utilities you need for con-figuring a network of three IBM PC computers. Packageprice is only $1695.

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Introducing COMPAQ PLUS,

the first high-performance portablepersonal computer.

The makers of the COMPAQ™Portable Computer, the indus-try standard, announce anotherbreakthrough-the COMPAQ PLUS™Portable Personal Computer. No otherpersonal computer can handle so muchinformation in so many places.

The new COMPAQ PLUS offers thepower of an integrated ten-megabytefixed disk drive in a portable. You getproblem-solving power that no otherpersonal computer can match.

Plus a bigger payload

How much is ten megabytes?

Enough to tackle jobs that can't beconveniently handled on most personalcomputers.

Information that wouldfill your company's ledgers canbe stored on the fixed disk drive of theCOMPAQ PLUS.

A mailing list of 100,000 names,addresses, cities, states, and Zip codes.

A full year of daily prices for everystock on the New York exchange.

Inventory records on a quarter mil-lion items.

The entire San Francisco phonebook. And room left over for Peoria.

The fixed disk drive keeps all theinformation seconds away, ready to ^be searched, sorted, retrieved, ana-lyzed or updated.

Plus better use of your time

The integrated fixed disk drive will

store programs. That means your most

used programs and data can be perma-nently kept in the COMPAQ PLUS,ready to call up and run.

With programs permanently stored,the COMPAQ PLUS becomes a well-informed traveling companion, a toolto help you apply your best thinkinganytime, anywhere.

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You could store an inventory controlprogram with your inventory recordsand a list management program withyour mailing list and a filing programwith your personnel files.

The COMPAQ PLUS is alsoequipped with a 360K byte diskettedrive for entering new programs, copy-ing data files, and making backupcopies.

Plus more programs

More programs means moreversatility. And the COMPAQPLUS is impressively versatilebecause it runs all the popularprograms written for the IBM*Personal Computer XT, avail-able in computer stores all overthe country. And they run as is, withno modification whatsoever.

And the high-capacity portable mul-tiplies the productivity of every pro-gram it runs. Your inventory and its

The COMPAQPLUS rum allthe popular pro-grams written for theIBM Personal Computer XT.

control programs can go with you tothe factory. Your books and youraccounting programs can go with youto a board meeting. Your building specsand your project management pro-grams can go with you to the construc-tion site.

You're buying a computer to solveproblems. Why not have moreproblem-solving programs to choosefrom?

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Life can be tough on the road. A trueportable has got to be tougher. TheCOMPAQ PLUS is.

Its integrated fixed disk drive is unique,designed specifically to travel. Roughroads and hard landings don't bother itbecause of a specially designed shockisolation system that protects the diskfrom jolts and vibration.

All the working components aresurrounded by a uniquely cross-membered aluminum frame. This

1;,

structure, common in race cardesign technology, strengthens itside-to-side, front-to-back, and top-to-bottom.

The outer case is made of LEXAN*,the same high-impact polycarbonateplastic used to make bulletproof win-dows and faceplates for space suithelmets.

Does a portable personal computerreally have to be this tough? Takea good look at your briefcase andthen decide.

10 BYTE February 1984

Plus ease of use

The COMPAQ PLUS is big where itcounts.

The display screen is big. Nine inchesdiagonally. Big enough to show a full25-line-by-80-character page that's easyto read even if you're leaning back inyour chair.

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Start with the COMPAQ Portablewith single or double 320K byte disk-ette drives. If you need more capacitylater, upgrade to the COMPAQ PLUS.A conversion kit is available thatturns the COMPAQ Portable into aCOMPAQ PLUS, complete in everydetail and capability.

Plus a lot more

The COMPAQ PLUS also works withoptional printers, plotters, and com-munications devices designed for IBM'spersonal computer family.

It has two IBM-compatible slots foradding optional expansion boards.With companion programs, they'll letyou share information with a networkof personal computers in your office,communicate with your headquarterscomputer files while you're away, oradd memory capacity if your needsgrow.

The COMPAQ Portable, the industry standardin portable personal computers, w

/

The problem-solving power of a high-performance desktop personal computer cannow go where you need it.

It's got high-resolution graphics andtext on the same screen. A detachedkeyboard. Programmable functionkeys. Expandable memory. Dozens ofother features that simply make it do abetter job of personal computing.

And when you see all that theCOMPAQ PLUS has to offer, you'llbe pleasantly surprised by the price.The fact is, it costs hundreds less thancomparably equipped desktop personalcomputers.

See the first high-performance porta-ble personal computer. The COMPAQPLUS—performance, programs, pro-ductivity. Plus problem-solving power.

The new COMPAQ PLUS, the first high-performance portable personal computer, w

COMPAQ PLUS

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Storage

□ One integrated 10-megabyte fixeddisk drive

□ One 360K byte diskette drive.

Software

□ Runs all the popular programswritten for the IBM XT.

Memory

□ 128K bytes RAM, expandable to640K bytes

Display

D 9-inch diagonal monochromescreen

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□ High-resolution graphics

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For the name of theAuthorized Dealer nearestyou, call 1-800-231-0900.

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COMPAQ™ and COMPAQ PLUS™ are trademarks of

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,"T-T HT,

comPAa

BYTE February 1984 11

Letters

More on the Morrow

After reading Tom Wadlow's review ofthe Morrow Micro Decision (October,page 306), I feel that a few points needadditional comment. I own an earlysingle-drive version MMD that I am notentirely satisfied with.

Mr. Wadlow states that all versions useTandon drives. This is not true. Althoughdouble-sided drives may be supplied byTandon, the single-sided %-height drivesare Shugart SA 200s.

Mr. Wadlow stated that the system usesa single-density format. This is also in-correct. The format uses 20 sectors with256 bytes per sector, giving the disk a totalof 204.8K bytes. The usable space per diskis 186K bytes or 390K bytes for double-sided drives.

The author also mentions the virtualdrive and menu-driven CP/M features.These are nice additions to the system;however, they do not function properly.The virtual drive will respond with aprompt to exchange disks, but thisprompt will remain on the screen afterthe exchange is complete. This is annoy-ing, especially when multiple disk ex-changes are required. With programssuch as Logicalc and Pearl, it makes ithard to analyze the data that is on thescreen.

The menu-driven front end for CP/Mis equally disappointing. Many of the op-tional file-manipulation commands suchas PIP and ERA are supported by thisdriver. However, these selections will notwork. This doesn't present a problem forknowledgeable users of CP/M, but for be-ginners it can present a problem. This ob-viously makes the entire program useless.The program could easily be fixed. How-ever, Morrow neglected to provide anydocumentation on its Pilot language.

Mr. Wadlow also mentions that thesystem can be used with almost anypopular terminal. Although I have triedonly two terminals, I have found that theLogicalc program will not adapt to anADM-3A. The terminal setup programprovided with the system is also disap-pointing. To achieve all the features of myTelevideo required setting up Wordstarand Logicalc with their individual setuproutines. I think Morrow has realized thisproblem because it no longer advertisesthe system without a terminal.

As for hardware design, the lack ofschematics or cooperation from Morrow

prompted me to analyze the circuits anddraw my own set (a tedious process).After analyzing the drawings I am total-ly amazed that the system even works.This isn't the worst design I have seen,but it is close.

In conclusion, I can only say that Iwouldn't recommend this machine toanybody. There are too many bugs in thesystem that should have been fixed longbefore the machine was marketed. Theproblems are obvious and I can't under-stand how Mr. Wadlow or Morrow couldhave missed them. I must also concludethat the author did a very poor job on thisreview.

Don Hair6208 Adel CoveAustin, TX 78749

Tom Wadlow responds:

You are right about the Shugart drives. In-deed, all the Micro Decision drives are manu-factured by Shugart and not by Tandon, as Imistakenly claimed in the review. The drivesused in the Morrow Decision 1 are manufac-tured by Tandon. As for the rest of yourcomments:

I believe that if you read the second pageof my review, under the paragraph titled "DiskStorage," you will see that I did not say thatall Micro Decisions use single-density drives.

The virtual drive feature of the Micro Deci-sion is implemented in the operating systemand cannot know very much about individualapplications. It would be nice to have the pop-up display you describe, but let's look at whatwould be involved in doing so on the MicroDecision. To be able to restore the screen toits previous condition when the message goesaway, you would have to save any text thatmight be ovenvritten. Perhaps your terminalmight have a way to do this, probably not.So you would probably have to cause the ter-minal to send back the contents of the affectedarea over its serial line. This means that theMicro Decision disk driver zvould require anintimate knowledge of the terminal (since thetext must be both saved and restored in theright place), which implies either yet anotherconfiguration program or a hard-wired depen-dence on only one specific terminal. Both ofthese alternatives are poor choices if you wantto make the system reasonably flexible. I seevirtual drives as an operating-system featureintended to make a bad situation (not enoughdisk drives) more tolerable. Most systems don'teven go this far in trying to help.

Your complaints about the menu system andlack of documentation in both hardware andsoftware echo what I said in the review. Mor-row's major failing, with the Micro Decisionas well as its more powerful Decision line, isits lack of adequate documentation. Unfor-tunately for us, Morrow is far from alone inthis. And as I said in the review, you reallyneed to be somewhat familiar with CP/M touse the Micro Decision. As for Pilot documen-tation, a call to Morrow Customer Serviceyields the neivs that a Pilot manual is nowavailable. Write or call Morrow for informa-tion on how to get it.

As for the problem of incompatible ter-minals, I said that the Micro Decision can beused with most popular terminals, and Isuspect that statement still holds true. But ifyou intend to replace the terminal that Mor-row has designed the system around, youshould not be surprised at installation dif-ficulties. Morrow does claim to have success-fully configured a Micro Decision to run withan ADM-3A. Incidentally, Morroio is now of-fering the Micro Decision with a Liberty ter-minal, which has a much nicer keyboard anddisplay than the ADM-20 shown in thereview.

I have absolutely no complaints about thehardware of the Micro Decision, other thanthe design omissions (such as separate printerand modem ports). The disks were fast andquiet, the system unit was rugged and neverseemed to have power-up problems. Regard-less of what the schematics (or at least yourversion of them) say, a system that performsas this one does is adequately designed. Mor-row designed this system for users who areunlikely to be concerned over the elegance ofa particular part of the disk controller or thechip count of the RS-232C circuitry. I agree,however, that such things should be obtainablefrom the manufacturer, and, indeed, they are.The Morrow Micro Decision ServiceManual ($225) provides complete schematics,test information, and diagnostic software.Once again, write or call Morrow at 600McCormick St., San Leandro, CA 94577, or(800) 521-3493 for more information.

I still stand by my recommendation. TheMicro Decision is not a good system for thecomputer hobbyist/experimenter. Nor is it agood system for the novice user. But it is ser-viceable for the minimally experienced com-puter user who wants a small, quiet, fairlyfast desktop system to run a few applications.

As for your final comments: I guess you justcan't please everybody. If my mail on thisreview is any guide, however, you are in theminority.

12 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

GetAHeadStartOnTheOtherGuys.

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Disk Storage: ROOK to 1MB (unformatted) on a 3H'

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Display: 12"(diagonal) P31 phosphor, non-glare screen,

25 lines x 80 or 132 columns.

Keyboard: Detachable with 105 total keys. Also anoptional portable version straps onto the front screenarea for easy transportability.

Disk Operating Software: *CP;M 80 for 8 hit

"MS DOS for 16 bit LAN DOS for multi-user 8 or 16bit operation.

Networking: Up to 255 HeadStart VPUs maV be con-nected via coaxial interface into one of 2 optional datastorage systems.

Interfaces: One KS449/RS232 compatible serial portOne Centronics c< impatible parallel printer post Externaldata bus. Coaxial communications interface. Externaldisk I/O interface.

Optional Data Storage Systems: 2 models available. A10MB. 5 V system is expandable to 20MB. A 50MB. 8"system (25MB fixed, 25MB removable) is expandableto 200MB.

'CP/M is a registered trademark of Digital Research."MS DOS is a rvfiistered trademark of Microsoft.

Intertec's HeadStart is thesmallest, smartest, fastest, most power-ful business computer money can buy.

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HeadStart's small but powerful3H>" disk drive offers as much storageas larger 5lA" disks. Its 8 and 16 bitprocessors make software availabilityno problem.

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So get a HeadStart on the otherguys. For more information, call (803)798-9100 or write: Intertec, 2300Broad River Road, Columbia,SC 29210.

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BYTE February 1984 13

LOOK NO FURTHER!

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Letters.

Ansl, uh, ANSI Standards

I have just spent a frustrating afternoontrying to install a piece of software intomy computer system. As usual, the prob-lem is that my terminal is not one of theones on the list of choices. What makesit particularly frustrating is that my ter-minal conforms to the ANSI "mode" forterminal.

f would like to plead with softwarecompanies to please include the "stan-dard" as one of the options, f would alsolike to plead with terminal companies toinclude the ANSI standard as at least oneof the possible emulations that your newterminals can produce.

I realize that it is an imperfect world,but surely one might expect the ANSIspecification to have some merit!

J. A. Koehler2 Sullivan St.Saskatoon, SaskatchewanCanada S7H 3G8

Software Swap

I read with great interest the letter "InPraise of Public-Domain Software" in theNovember BYTE (page 14). We have alarge program-exchange system forTimex/Sinclair computers that is similarto public-domain software. The require-ments are simple: choose the programyou want from the list of available soft-ware, then make a copy of a program thatyou or friends have written or supervisedand send it in. Your program will beadded to the list of available software. Wewill send you the programs you have re-quested. Everyone wins! For more infor-mation on this service please contact me.

Billy Casebeer

President, Timex/Sinclair Users Group

POB 372

Oologah, OK 74053

An OS for the M68000 ECB

I enjoyed reading "The M68000 Educa-tional Computer Board" by Robert Floyd(October, page 324). While I was agraduate student in computer science atthe University of South Carolina, I wasinvolved with a project that developedsoftware for the Educational ComputerBoard (ECB). The professor of the oper-ating systems course assigned severalgroups to develop operating systems for

14 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 16 on inquiry card.

INTRODUCING

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*IBM PC and a variety of work-alikes are supported. A more basic version is avail-able for tbe Apple 11+ and Apple lie. Support for a variety of plotters and 2-Dgraphics tablets available now. The most widely used high-resolution screen dis-plays will be supported by the beginning of 1984.

I15M PC © International Business Machines Corp. Apple- llr and Apple lie © Apple Computer. Inc.

Circle 237 on inquiry card.

i etters

the ECB. The major goal of each operatingsystem was to implement concurrency.The group I was involved with under-took a major task: to create an operatingsystem in a short six-week summer schoolcourse. We were successful and imple-mented an operating system that wenamed OX (for Overnite Executive). OXis approximately 8K bytes long. The oper-ating system consisted of a kernel, taskmanager, resource manager, and a mem-ory manager. A spooler and several ap-plications programs to prove concurrencywere also developed. The code was de-

veloped in 68000 assembly language,Concurrent Euclid, and C, which wascross-compiled on a Unix system. Thekernel, task manager, and various initial-ization was written in assembly languageand C, while the larger managers weredeveloped in Concurrent Euclid. The ob-ject code was then downloaded to theECB in Motorola "S" record through theECB serial I/O port.

As I have stated, the operating systemwas successful in demonstrating concur-rency. This was done by allowing residenttasks to be dispatched in round-robin

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QUV-T8'" series UV EPROM ERASERSQ.UV-T8/2T (S97.50) is an industrial quality eraserdesigned in a steel enclosure with a 5" wide tray UV in-dicator lens/antistatic pad. 60 minute rugged timer andsatety interlock switch are standard Capacity is 24EPROMS. 15-20 minutes erase time lor 15 EPROMSQ.TJV-T8 / Z (S124.95) Similar lo QUVT8/2T 'with 40%taster Erase Time)

Q.UTV-T8/2N (S68.95) Same as the QUV-T8/2T versionwithout the timer and safety interlock swilchaUV-T8/l (S49.95) Economy model in a molded twopari plastic case Erases 15 EPROMS in 15 minutes

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MCS-48' FAMILY PROGRAMMING WITH PROMPRO-7!PROMPRO-7'" is an intelligent sell-contained unit ideallysuited lor enginneering development, or lor Held ser-vice & production I! can program and verity a widevariety ol 8K to 128K EPROMS This unit has a 32K (4KBYTES), internal RAM Bullet thai could be accessed bythe user through a computer or terminal This unit canalso program Ihe micro chips such as Ihe 8478.8749,8751.8741. 8742 8755 The price includes all modules up lo 32KEPROMS 81 The 8748 & 8749H Micros Upload/download isdone by either Motorola 01 Intel Hex tormat

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This extremely versatile programmer has as much as128K (16Kx8) ot internal RAM dedicated to the EE/EPROMs This RAM butter can be accessed eitherthrough a computer terminal, or by user target system(EPROM emulation) PROMPRO-8 8 digi! alphanumericdisplay prompts user with Ihe system messages Akeypad option is available tor standalone editing Animpressive range of devices are programmed (as stan-dard feature)

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fashion at specific timer interrupts. A par-ticularly neat feature of the operating sys-tem was the memory manager in whichthe respective managers and applicationprograms allocated memory. Many hooksexist in the implementation to provide foradditional resident tasks such as terminal-message tasks, and perhaps a memory-resident disk.

The project provided a hands-on in-sight into operating systems, and I mustadmit I had a great time hacking away.I have a complete set of documentation(57 pages) and the entire source-codelisting. 1 would be happy to pass alongthis information to any hobbyist or educa-tional institution. Please mail a stamped,self-addressed envelope to me and I willmail the documentation and source codeof OX to you.

Mark Cates

8625 Windjammer Dr.

Raleigh, NC 27609

V/68 OS for All

I greatly enjoyed the October BYTEwith its Unix theme. Although I am in-volved with the Unix operating system(porting Unix System V to the MotorolaMC68000, under contract to Western Elec-tric), I had not heard of Usenet before.

I submit the following comment as areader, and not as a representative ofMotorola Inc.

Contrary to the statement in DavidFiedler's article ("The Unix Tutorial, Part3: Unix in the Microcomputer Market-place," page 132) that "[Charles River DataSystem's] own Universe 68 computer usesUNOS, as does Motorola on that firm'sVersabus-based system," Motorola offersthe System V/68 operating system. Sys-tem V/68 is derived from Unix System V,MC68000 version, a jointly developedproduct of Motorola and Western Electric.System V/68 is available in configurationsfor the Exormacs and VME/10 computers,as well as in a generic form for any68000-based system.

Prior to fully committing to the "ge-nuine Bell" Unix (over a year ago),Motorola had been seriously consideringseveral Unix look-alikes, includingUNOS. Perhaps Mr. Fiedler's informationwas obtained in that time frame.

Fred ChristiansenPOB 2953Phoenix, AZ 85062

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■1

Letters.

Supersoft Speaks Up

I am compelled to respond to yourreviews of the Supersoft C compilers forCP/M-86 and MS-DOS, which ran in theAugust BYTE ("Comparing C Compilersfor CP/M-86" by Jerry Houston, JimBrodrick, and Les Kent, and "Nine CCompilers for the IBM Personal Com-puter" by Ralph Phraner). Both reviewswere outdated, misleading, and con-tained serious inaccuracies and omis-sions. They did a disservice to your goalof giving BYTE readers timely informationabout available C compilers.

In 1982, Supersoft released the first Ccompiler for CP/M-86 and MS-DOS. Thisrelease was preliminary and temporary;its purpose was to let customers of Super-soft's CP/M-80 C compiler be the first totransport their applications to CP/M-86and MS-DOS. At that time, we wereusing the compilers in house to transportour own applications to 16-bit systems;we knew they would be useful to othersfor this purpose. We also knew theywould undergo major enhancements,both in the documentation and the pro-grams themselves, before being released

as general development compilers underCP/M-86 and MS-DOS.

In March 1983, after the initial purposehad been served, our CP/M-86 and MS-DOS C compilers were withdrawn fromthe market for further development. InAugust 1983, just as we were about torelease our new and substantiallyenhanced versions of these compilers,two reviews appeared in BYTE magazineon our preliminary releases. We were sur-prised to see these reviews in printbecause we had not been notified in ad-vance by BYTE and the products beingreviewed had not been available for fivemonths.

Though the initial versions of our com-pilers did have some weaknesses that weacknowledge, at the time of their releasethey served a valuable purpose that easilyoutweighed their shortcomings: theysped C programmers into the rapidlyemerging 16-bit world. This, our mainconsideration in releasing the products,was completely overlooked in the BYTEreviews. In addition, our new C compiler,greatly enhanced and uniformly availableunder CP/M-86, CP/M-80, and MS-DOS,has several strong points that make it the

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most attractive C available. We are pro-viding this new version to all purchasersof the preliminary CP/M-86 and MS-DOSC compilers at no charge.

Through our internal experience withSupersoft C, we consider it to have manyadvantages over other C compilers: theseadvantages include the widest array oflibrary functions (all delivered in sourceform as well as library form), highreliability due to extensive testing,uniform availability under several oper-ating systems, and close adherence to theUnix standard syntax. These advantagesand others were largely overlooked by theBYTE reviewers. In addition, technical in-accuracies and omissions that appearedin the reviews actually gave our initialreleases less credit than they were due.

We were disappointed that these un-timely and misleading reviews should ap-pear in a typically fine publication likeBYTE. We.hope that this letter and otherfollow-up editorial coverage can helprepair some of the damage that has beendone to these excellent products.

Stephen HaglerMarketing DirectorSupersoft Inc.POB 1628Champaign, IL 61820

]ernj Houston replies:

I am sorry that Supersoft considers myreview of the CP/M-86 C compiler a disserviceto BYTE readers, because considerable timeand effort went into trying to produce the op-posite result. If I failed to supply somethinguseful, 1 apologize to BYTE's readers and toSupersoft.

A feiv words in defense of my review Super-soft says that the version of the compiler 1reviewed was "preliminary and temporary"and that a greatly improved version wasreleased in August 1983.

The lead time for submitting articles toBYTE magazine is months, not weeks, in ad-vance, and the review in question was sub-mitted several months before August 1983.Lack of timeliness is the penalty for long leadtimes. The benefit is generally excellenteditorial content.

We purchased our copy of the Supersoft Ccompiler COD in 1982 in response to an adin BYTE. Nowhere did the ad or the documen-tation indicate that the product was in anyway temporary or preliminary. In fact, the adsaid of the $500 C compiler: "The optimizertypically results in 40% code reduction. Thismeans that compiled object code will run near-ly as fast as that which was written in

20 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 42 on inquiry card.

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 AID which communicates at 0-300 or1200 bps, stores and automatically dials up to five 30-digitnumbers and includes a complete prompting menu and full

Created by Dayner/Hall. Inc.. Winler Park. Florida

automatic test capabilities. Yet, withall these features, it costs only $645.At the other extreme is the $145103 LP, offering simultaneous two-waycommunications at 0-300bps without anAC power cord. This unit siphons operatingenergy directly from the telephone line!In between is a large variety of units — many of themin the LP no-power-supply design and all fully FCC certifiedfor 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.

Ui Universal Data Systems

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The new 384K Quadboardby Quadram is the mostcomprehensive board you canbuy for the IBM PC or XT. Nowwith added hardware featuresand advanced software. Butour same low price.

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Quadboard now delivers 9 ofthe most needed PC functions/features. To let you get themost out of your PersonalComputer. And help___ _ _ _ _ __ __ _. .^_ you work better and

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• I/O Bracket:Quadboard nowcomes with a specialI/O bracket. Use it toorganize your expansionport connectors. Snaps rightonto the backof the PC.

Expandable to 384K:

The new Quadboard is expandablein 64K increments for up to 384Kadditional RAM. With full paritychecking standard. With the newQuadboard and a fully populatedsystem board, you can take yourPC's memory up to the 640K limit.• QuadRAM Drive: Plus, withQuadboard you get advancedQuadMaster Software. Includingthe QuadRAM Drive program.Use it to set up multiple RAMDrives in Quadboard memory.Solid state drives that letyou store and retrieve dataquickly and easily. Or takeadvantage of QuadMaster diskcaching. To access frequently

used data whenever you need it.

• MasterSpool: QuadMasterSoftware also includesMasterSpool. Use it to set up asoftware print buffer quickly andeasily. This advanced spooler letsyou pause at any time, back up ormove forward in a file. Choosejust the amount of buffer spaceyou need and stop waiting onyour printer.

• Qswap: Another feature ofQuadMaster Software is Qswap.With Qswap change line printers1 and 2 back and forth, with justa few keystrokes, as often asyou like.

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Now more than ever Quadboardis the first and only board yourIBM PC or XT may ever need. Noother board even comes close.Because Quadboard is designedfnr nprformance. Engineeredfor dependability.

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Game Port

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TM

"=' Copyright 1983 Quadram CorporationAll rights reserved

IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines.

Letters.

assembler." The documentation listed the ver-sion we received as "Version 1.1."

None of this suggested to us that the com-piler was preliminary. In January 1983 weasked a representative of Supersoft whether anewer, more functional version of its compilerwas coming out, and we were told thatnothing was planned for about six months.Since our review was due in one month, wereviewed what existed, not what was planned.

Supersoft also states that, "We are providingthis new version to all purchasers of thepreliminary CP/M-86 and MS-DOS C com-pilers at no charge." On September 7, 1983,we phoned Supersoft, gave them our serialnumber, and asked what was involved in up-grading to the latest version of the compiler.We were informed that we should send ouroriginal disk plus $50. This is a more thanreasonable charge, but $50 is not free.

Supersoft's claim to offer "close adherenceto the Unix standard syntax" is not justifiedin the version reviewed. It fails to supportlongs, statics, or initializers. This is com-parable to a version of BASIC that has no FORstatement.

Supersoft has some excellent products. Theproduct I reviewed is not one of them. If myreview conveyed that idea, then it was not

"misleading." If my article tended to leadpotential unhappy customers away from theproduct under review, then I believe it was aservice both to Supersoft and to BYTE'sreadership.

Watch the Fine Print

Recently I decided to abandon myApple-based system and buy an IBM PCXT. It's not that I'm unhappy with my Ap-ple. On the contrary, it has been a reliabletool that has paid for itself many timesover during the last four years. However,the mining industry (for which I writesoftware) has developed a case of IBMmyopia that requires that I develop pro-grams for the PC.

My first step in making the IBM transi-tion involved obtaining information con-cerning the UCSD p-System (for whichI have developed a large library of soft-ware). Although the sales representativewas unfamiliar with the concept of anoperating system, he was kind enough tosend me IBM's "Software Fact Sheet" anda price list. This fact sheet contains somefine print concerning the p-System that

I would like to bring to the attention ofyour readers: "Neither the program norits data files can be stored on a fixed disk."Incredible! Here's a big and powerful cor-poration with a sense of humor. Imagineif GM had the guts to include some jokesof this caliber in its sales literature like"The optional MZD Turbo engine onlyworks in the neutral gear." Three cheersfor IBM! Now, I've got to rememberwhere I stored that literature on the SageIV.

James P. ReedRockware Inc.7195 West 30th Ave.Denver, CO 80215

In Defense of the Model 16

Regarding the letter from Marvin Stoneand Sam Harp (October, page 20) con-cerning the relative speeds of theMC68000 and Z80 in the Radio ShackModel 16 computer: Mr. Hurrell'sresponse is quite correct about the par-ticular benchmarks used. The XenixMBASIC is very slow for floating-point

AZTEC C — ' C ' PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT SYSTEMPORTABLE SOFTWARE APPLE CPIM IBM

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I

24 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 230 on inquiry card.

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CPUs nimble and swift — a card sharp's delight.

When CompuPro introduced the first CPU boardwith both 8- and 16-bit capabilities, it was likehanding a royal flush to systems integrators. Howcould we top that?

You gave us the answer. "Make a CPU that willaccess 16 megabytes at a swipe," you urged. So wedesigned CPU 68K. "Make one for people who needtop speed and 16-bit power," you pleaded.

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lets you rummagearound In 16 Mbytes ofmemory at a time — notlust the usual 64 Kbytes.Access huge databases,invert mammothmatrices, or turn titanictables topsy-turvy.Includes socket formemory managementunit. $695 8 MHz, $77510 MHz, $850 CSC10 MHz.

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"1983 CompuProCircle 66 on inquiry card.

CompuPro,

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For dealer locations, see page 439.

BYTE February 1984 25

PICK A PEN

HEI has a lightpen with specs tosuit your need,whether you're do-ing text editing,menu selection, ormore complex graph-ics system work. Eachpen is built with in-tegral hybrid circuitry.Each can be made withcustom sensitivity andfield-of-view tolerances.

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Letters —^___^_.

computation. The increased accuracy isa blessing or a curse, depending on yourneeds.

The screen-updating benchmark timingcited is an unfortunate side effect of thehardware. The only way in which the68000 can get to the screen RAM is viathe Z80, and this added overhead canonly slow down accesses, no matter howfast the 68000 may be.

As far as the SIN benchmark, perhapsMr. Harp or Mr. Stone may want to con-sider switching to FORTRAN. I ran thepublished SIN benchmark (TRSDOS: 43seconds; Xenix: 132 seconds) on a Model16 under Trisoft CP/M-68K and ANSIFORTRAN-77. The time was 5.2 seconds!

James M. Knox

Trisoft

4102 Avenue G

Austin, TX 78751

The interesting thing to me about theHarp & Stone Benchmark study of theTRS-Xenix MBASIC was how slow all thelisted processors were. I ran BenchmarkI on the Z8000-based Olivetti M20, usingMicrosoft BASIC, in 8.9 seconds. Goingto double precision by inserting "defdblA-B, Z" at the beginning lengthened thetime to 9.5 seconds. I believe the runningtime is this low because Olivetti MBASICperforms only trigonometry and ex-ponential functions in single precision.

Examining Z after running the programshows a value of 0.998048.

S. Richard MateosianConsultant, Computer Systems2919 Forest Ave.Berkeley, CA 94705

After reading "TRS-80 Model 16 Prob-lems" (Letters, October, page 20) and theresponse from Radio Shack, it is evidentthat a simple fact needs to be straightenedout.

Suppose one used a Z80 to handle theI/O for a CRAY. Would it output char-acters any faster than a 68000 makingsimilar requests?

This elementary consideration showsthe absurdity of the Harp/Stone "bench-mark." Their negative remarks about thecapabilities of the Model 16 and Xenix aretherefore worthless and should be re-tracted.

Joel Rice486 Route 9WNyack, NY 10960 ■

26 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 162 on inquiry card.

Rana Systems.Always A Step Ahead.

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And it's happening again with our IBM'compatible Rana 2000. This 320K double densitydrive offers a large centering cone for problem-free diskettes and our exclusive silencing mecha-nism to make it the quietest disk drive youcan buy.

At Rana we know the key to our success isproviding the highest technology, on the bestpossible products, while filling the most possibleuser needs. That is why we spend so much time onresearch and development. Our world-renownedengineers were the first to offer increased capac-ity. The first to design a write protect feature. Thefirst to use a metal band positioner and get 100%

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This is why our Elite One got the #1 ratingfrom Softalk Magazine. And our Atari" compatibleRana 1000 Slimline has turned a game computerinto a sophisticated business tool. And soon we'llhave a new Winchester drive and a new series ofvery high density minifloppies, for both IBMand Apple.'

So call or write for the nearest Rana retaileror computer store. We're Rana Systems. And weknow that to keep a step ahead, we have to putyou first.

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Circle 313 on Inquiry card.

§ -?83 Rana Systems

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Words, Numbers and Graphics

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93

83

63

82YES

105YES

YES

YES

YES

Optional Winchester

YES

YES

YES

YES

YES

Tilt and Swivel Display

YES

NO

NO

NO

NO

1—Includes CPU, 64K User Memory, Keyboard, Display, Two Disc Drives, and Operating System.

Based on manufacturers' information available August, 1983. VISUAL 1050 includes 128K User Memory standard.

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$2,695 is the total retail price for the VISUAL1050. You get the best and most popular soft-ware packages, ready to run on hardwarewhich offers the features and quality youshould demand. Two high capacity disc drives.128K memory standard, expandable to 256K.Fast, bit-mapped graphics. Full size greenscreen. Standard printer and communicationports. Rugged 93-key keyboard with specialWordStar engravings. You can't buy a morecomplete hardware and software solution atanywhere near the price.

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The AppleMacintosh Computer

Mouse-window-desktop technology arrives for under $2500

by Gregg Williams

Apple established itself as one ofthe leading innovators in personalcomputing technology a year ago byintroducing the Lisa, a synthesis andextension of human-interface tech-nology that has since been widelyimitated. Now the company has

strengthened that reputation with anew machine, the Macintosh (above).In terms of technological sophistica-tion and probable effect on the mar-ketplace, the Macintosh will outdis-tance the Lisa as much as the Lisahas outdistanced its predecessors.

The Macintosh arrives, finally, aftera history of colorful rumors. It willcost from $1995 to $2495, weighs 22.7pounds, and improves on the mouse-window-desktop technology startedby the impressive but expensive Lisacomputer. A system with printer and

30 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

second disk drive costs about $900more, but even at that price, theMacintosh is worth waiting for.

The Macintosh at Work

Before we look at the Macintosh (orMac) in more detail, let's look at howit works. When you turn the Mac on,its screen tells you to insert a 3V2-inchSony floppy disk. When you do that,the Macintosh puts a disk icon on thescreen along with the disk's name. Aswith the Lisa computer, you firstselect an object, then choose a menuitem that works on the object. Say, forexample, we choose the disk by mov-ing the cursor to the disk icon andclicking the mouse button once(figure la). The disk "opens up,"showing a window containing icons,each one of which corresponds to anitem on the disk. To start using theMac Paint program, we select theMac Paint icon and choose the menuitem "open," as shown in figure lb.(We also could have opened MacPaint by double-clicking on the icon.)

What follows is a brief example ofhow the Mac Paint program works.When we open the program, we getthe screen of figure lc. The largeblank area is a window onto thedrawing area, the boxes on the leftare tools, the boxes on the bottomrow are patterns, and the lines in the

corner are selections for the currentline width. By selecting the "openoval" tool and the thickest line width,we can draw empty ovals with thickborders (figure Id). By selecting the"paint bucket" tool and the "diagonalbricks" pattern, we can fill the ovalwith that texture (figure le). The"eraser" tool lets us erase part of theimage (figure If); for finer control, wecan give the FAT BITS command(figure lg), which allows us to eraseor paint on a pixel-by-pixel basis.When we are finished with our im-age and select the QUIT command,the program displays an alert box thatasks if we want to save our changes(figure lh).

Foundations of Macintosh Design

The Macintosh computer is built onthree cornerstone ideas: second-gen-eration Lisa technology, reliabilityand low cost through simplicity, andmaximum synergy between hard-ware and software. Each of theseideas contributes significantly to theuniqueness of the Mac's design.

Second-GenerationLisa Technology

Without question, the strongest in-fluence on the Mac is that of theApple Lisa computer, which provedthe viability of certain concepts in a

commercial product: the graphics^mouse orientation, the desktop meta-phor, the data-as-concrete-objectmetaphor, and the shared user inter-face between programs. The Mac hasinherited these concepts; for furtherdetails on them, see my article, "TheLisa Computer System" (February1983 BYTE, page 33).

Four differences between the Lisaand the Mac make the latter asecond-generation computer. First,the Mac runs at a higher clock speed,7.83 MHz (compared to the Lisa's 5MHz). Second, the Mac, which hasa smaller amount of memory to workwith than the Lisa, uses its memorymore efficiently because its programsand subroutines are coded in 68000assembly language (as opposed tothe Lisa, which uses less efficient68000 machine-language programsthat are compiled from high-levelPascal source code). Third, theMacintosh eliminates add-on periph-eral cards and uses instead a high-speed serial bus that implementswhat Apple calls "virtual slots." (I willtalk about this in greater detailbelow.)

The final difference is actually animportant limitation of the Macin-tosh: it allows only one major ap-plication program to be active at atime (the Mac BASIC and "desk ac-

Memory

Hardware Options

At a Glance

I28K bytes of RAM, 64K bytes of ROM

Second disk drive, keypad, Imagewriter

Standard Configuration

printer, security kit (for chaining com-

Name

Main unit with 128K bytes of RAM, 64K

puter to table)

Macintosh

bytes of ROM, integral Sony 31/2-inch

Software Options

disk drive, 9-inch video monitor, two

Mac Paint |drawing program), Mac Write

Manufacturer

serial ports: external mechanical mouse:

(a simple word processor), Mac BASIC,

Apple Computer

external keyboard

Mac Pascal, others (see text)

20525 Mariani Ave.

Mass Storage

Prices

Cupertino. CA 95014

One Sony 3 Vi -inch disk drive: 3'/Hnch

Standard system, S1995-$2495: Mac Paint

|408) 996-1010

disk holds 400K bytes and is encased in

and Mac Write (together), bundled at no

a rigid plastic housing

charge for the first 100 days, SI95 (for the

Dimensions

Video Display

two) thereafter: Macintosh Pascal, BASIC,

9.75 by 9.75 by 13.5 inches

9-inch monitor, noninterlaced 60.15-Hz

Logo. Terminal, and Assembler/Debugger,

Weight

image. 512- by 342-pixel resolution

S99 each: Mac Draw and Mac Project.

Main unit, keyboard and mouse—22.7

Pointing Device

$125 each: keypad, S99; second disk

lbs.

Mechanical mouse

drive, $395: Imagewriter printer, S495

Power Requirements

Keyboard

105-130 V AC, 60 Hz [U.S. model):

Detached keyboard: 58 keys [59 in inter-

85-135 V AC, 50/60 Hz (international

national version): autorepeat: two-key

model)

rollover

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 31

Macintosh System Architecture

Inside the Macintosh, hardware andsoftware work together to provide a systemcapable of supporting high-performancegraphics, built-in peripherals, and commu-nication channels to the outside world.From the beginning of the Macintosh pro-ject, the product-design goals of small size,light weight, and moderate end-user costencouraged us to create a low-power, lowcomponent-count design. The large num-ber of I/O devices that are built into eachunit, combined with our desire for highperformance, caused us to explore manyalternatives for each aspect of the hardwareimplementation. A cooperative spiritamong the people working on the in-dustrial design, analog electronics, digitalelectronics, and low-level software resultedin the synthesis of detailed implementa-tions that combined strengths from eachgroup, providing an integrated design solu-tion for all aspects of the product.

The heart of the Macintosh digital elec-tronics is the MC68000 processor and itsmemory (both RAM and ROM). In theMacintosh, the data-output lines from thesystem RAM drive a data bus separatefrom that used by the rest of the machine(see figure 2). The RAM is triple-ported;this means that the 68000, screen-display-ing hardware, and sound-output hardwarehave periodic access to the address and databuses, so that the video, the sound, andthe current 68000 task appear to executeconcurrently.

ROM memory connects directly to thesystem data bus and is used by only the68000. Much of the system's time-criticalcode, such as the low-level graphics primi-tives, operating-system routines, and user-interface routines, reside in ROM. Macin-tosh software calls this code through 68000"line 1010 unimplemented" instructions,which get one of approximately 480 ad-dresses from an address table stored in lowmemory; this effectively allows the ROMsubroutines to function as extensions of the68000 instruction set. Since the ROM dataand address buses are used exclusively bythe 68000, ROM is always accessed at thefull processor speed of 7.83 MHz; conse-quently, the ROM can perform as a read-only cache memory.

The 512- by 342-pixel video display ap-

by Burrell C. Smith

pears in memory as a linear array of 10,94416-bit words of data, with the most signifi-cant bit representing the pixel farthest left.Each 512-pixel horizontal line consists of32 words of data, with bits shifted out at15.67 MHz (322.68 p,s per 512-pixel line)followed by 12 words of horizontal blank-ing (taking 12.25 us). The last memory buscycle of each horizontal line is reserved forsound DMA, where a byte of sound datais fetched from the sound buffer and sentto the sound PWM (pulse-width modula-tor) for conversion into an analog level. Theupdate rate of the sound channel is thenequal to the video horizontal rate, or22,254.55 Hz. In the vertical direction,342 active scan lines are followed by a ver-tical retrace and enough inactive horizontal

The product-design

goals of small size,

light weight, and

moderate end-user cost

encouraged us to

create a low-power,

low component-count

design.

lines to take up the same time as 28 hori-zontal lines, providing a vertical retracetime of 1.258 ms. Although screen-memory accesses may occur at any time,a vertical retrace interrupt is generated atthe falling edge of the vertical sync pulseto allow screen animation to occur com-pletely synchronous to the video beammovement.

Access to RAM is divided into syn-chronous time slots, with the 68000 andvideo circuits sharing alternate word ac-cesses during the live portion of the hori-zontal video-display line and the sound cir-cuits using the video time slot during thelast memory bus cycle of the horizontalline. Although the access to RAM isdivided three ways, the 68000's share ismaximized by giving it access to unusedcycles during horizontal and vertical blank-ing. This way, 68000 access to RAMaverages to a speed of about 6 MHz.

For high-performance sound generation,

a tightly coded routine generates 370samples of sound data and places them intothe sound buffer just after a vertical retraceinterrupt. The 68000's 32-bit registers areused to control pitch with 24 bits of preci-sion, providing each of four possible voiceswith 16,777,216 possible frequencies. Forsimpler sounds, a timer in the system'sVIA provides a square wave of program-mable pitch. All sounds pass through asoftware-controlled volume adjustmentthat creates approximately 20 decibels oftotal amplitude variation in eight discretesteps.

The Macintosh disk controller is a singleLSI (large-scale integration) componentreferred to as the IWM ("integrated Wozmachine") chip. The device, a one-chip in-tegration of the disk controller originallydesigned by Steve Wozniak for the AppleII, handles data at 500 kilobits per second.To control the disk drive's motor speed, apulse-width modulator located on thedigital board allows the disk to move at oneof 400 possible disk motor speeds; thePWM is driven from a table in memory ina fashion similar to that of the sound sys-tem. By varying the motor speed, wecreated a more reliable disk drive that putssignificantly more data on the same disk.

The Macintosh communications chip,the Zilog 8530 SCC (serial communica-tions controller), provides synchronous andasynchronous data transmission at up to230.4K bits per second using a self-clocking data format and up to 1 megabitper second using an external clock. TheMacintosh's two serial ports are identical;each provides single-ended or differentialsignaling and multidrop (party-line)capability.

The 6522 VIA (versatile interfaceadapter) rounds out the I/O requirementsof the machine by providing system timers,support for the mouse and keyboard, andgeneral-purpose I/O lines for selectingvarious system functions such as alternatescreen and sound buffers and for com-municating with the system's real-timeclock and parameter memory.

Burrell C. Smith is a member of the AppleMacintosh design team.

32 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 33

cessory" programs are two exceptionsthat I'll cover later). This limitation islargely due to the Mac's small mem-ory space and the overall design ofthe software, which assumes that thecurrent program has access to all themachine's memory. This is not as badas it sounds; a single application canuse multiple windows, and materialcan be cut and pasted from one docu-ment to another by storing thematerial to be pasted on a "clipboard"before loading in the second docu-ment (which replaces the first). Still,the absence of hardware slots and theinability to run two applicationssimultaneously are two importantways in which the Macintosh is fun-damentally different from the Lisacomputer.

Reliability and Low Costthrough Simplicity

Although the Macintosh costs ap-proximately one-third the price of aLisa, the Mac has much more thanone-third of the Lisa's power. Theidea of reliability through simplicitynot only makes the Macintosh pos-sible at a relatively low price but alsoproduces a machine that has a reli-ability normally associated withmuch simpler computers.

One component of the Mac's sim-plicity is its low chip count—it con-tains about 50 ICs (integrated cir-cuits), which decreases its physicalsize and price and increases its relia-bility. Mac reduces its chip count bycombining the functions of manystandard chips into eight program-mable-logic arrays (PALs).

The Macintosh has only two circuitboards, one that holds all its analogcircuitry and one that holds all itsdigital circuitry (see photos 2a and2b). By partitioning its functions andreducing the number of connectors(by decreasing the number of boardsto be connected), the designers havemade the Mac both more reliable andless expensive. They carried thisphilosophy farther by eliminatinghardware slots; you add peripheralsto a Mac through its two high-speedserial ports.

The Macintosh was designed toreduce (or, in the case of the digitalboard, eliminate) the number of

(2a)

Photo 2: The Macintosh circuit boards. Photo 2a shows the analog board, while photo 2bshows the digital board. These two boards plus the video display, 3 Vi-inch disk drive, andhousing make up the main unit; only the keyboard and mouse are needed to make a completeMacintosh system.

places in which hardware must befine-tuned during assembly. In somecases, the designers eliminated theneed for adjustment through clevercircuit design, which also meansthere's one less thing to go wrongwith the computer once it is in theowner's hands. In other cases, Appleeliminated fine-tuning by requiring avendor of externally manufacturedsubassemblies to tune the part beforedelivery; for example, the video-dis-play tube and yoke are delivered pre-adjusted, and the Sony 3V2-inch diskdrive is delivered tested and withseveral Apple-specified modifica-tions.

Maximum Synergy betweenHardware and Software

The Macintosh's hardware andsoftware were optimized for maxi-mum performance. This means thatthe hardware and software evolvedover a period of time in a process of

mutual give and take. For example,the pixels displayed on the Mac'svideo display are square (not rec-tangular, as in other computers); thisgreatly simplifies the software thatdraws squares and circles, scales textand graphics, and prints screenimages.

Going for theWorld Market

Having learned from past experience,Apple designed the Macintosh so that itcould easily be modified for all markets out-side the United States. The following ex-amples shew how pervasive nation- or lan-guage-specific aspects of a computer designare and how Apple has minimized thechanges needed.

'Except for the word 'Apple" on the rearpanel, the Macintosh has no English text

34 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

(2b)

Hardware

The main unit of the Macintoshconsists of eight parts: two circuitboards, a cable to connect them, ametal chassis, a 3V2-inch disk drive,a video-display tube with yoke, anda plastic front bezel and rear housing(see photos 3a and 3b). An external

mouse and keyboard make for a totalof 10 parts. The main unit takes upan amazingly small 10-inch by 10-inch area (it is 13Vi inches high).True, the keyboard and mouse takeup more area than that, but the foot-print of the main unit is considerablysmaller than that of comparable com-

puters. The Mac is also pleasantlycompact and light; an entire Mac sys-tem in an optional padded satchelweighs 25.6 pounds (less than manytransportable computers) and can becarried onto an airplane.

Figure 2 shows a block diagram ofthe Macintosh hardware; for moredetails, see the "Macintosh SystemArchitecture" text box. For now, let'slook at the machine's major subas-semblies:

Processor: The Macintosh uses aMotorola 68000 processor running at7.83 MHz.

Video display: The Mac has a9-inch monitor that displays a non-interlaced image at 60.15 Hz. The res-olution of the video image is 80 pixelsper inch, so the overall screen is 512by 342 pixels.

ROM: The Mac uses two 256K-bitROMs configured as 64K bytes ofmemory. The ROM (read-onlymemory) contains most of the Mac'soperating system and a "toolbox" ofoptimized 68000 user interface relatedroutines (see the text box "The UserInterface Toolbox" for more detail).The ROM is always accessed at fullspeed, 7.83 MHz.

RAM: The Mac has 128K bytes ofmemory; at some point (Apple saysby the end of 1984), this will be ex-pandable to 5T2K bytes (by substi-tuting 256K-bit dynamic RAM(random-access read/write memory)chips for the 64K-bit chips currentlybeing used). The screen display uses21,888 bytes and is drawn using thismemory and DMA (direct memory

access) circuitry. Apple has an un-

Text continued on page 39

anywhere on the product or in the ROM.Each plug is labeled with a picture thatidentifies its function.•The video-display rate of'60.15 Hz is gen-erated internally instead of being derivedfrom the line current. This allows the Macto be used without modification in coun-tries that have 50-Hz line current.•Macintosh software has been designed sothat all text messages, message layouts,and icons can be stored in a resource file,separate from the program itself. A de-signer can use a resource-editor programto change text (for example, to another lan-guage), icons, message layout, and the for-

mats of time, dates, numbers, and curren-cy. With this method, the program itselfdoes not have to be changed and recompiledto make these changes.•The keys on the keyboard are defined bythe software, thus allowing Apple tochange the keyboard easily to accommodatethe special characters needed by some lan-guages. In addition, Apple has designedthe Mac so that two keyboards (differingin only one key) can be used for all ver-sions of the product; Apple customizes akeyboard for a given language by printingthe necessary legends into the plastic keys.In addition, any Mac keyboard can produce

the full Macintosh character set; the onlyadvantage to having the keyboard for a cer-tain language is that the keyboard layoutwill be more appropriate for that language.

With these innovations, the most time-consuming part of modifying the Macin-tosh for another country is translating andprinting the documentation. Apple reportsthat it will be shipping the Macintosh toseveral foreign countries "within severalmonths of the Mac's introduction." (Com-panies never seem to meet such deadlines,so expect foreign versions to be shipped be-fore the end of 1984.)

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 35

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36 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

The User-Interface Toolbox

The toolbox (which occupies two-thirdsof the high-speed 64K-byte ROM inside theMacintosh) includes optimized 68000machine-language routines that handle allaspects of the Macintosh user interface-things like windoivs, text, the mouse, pull-down menus, desk accessories, dialogueboxes, and fonts. The figure below showsthe relative relationships among the dif-ferent units (or packages of routines). Hereis o brief description of each unit, startingwith the lowest-level unit and working up:

•Resource Manager: These routinescoordinate the use of resources, which aredata structures such as text strings,menus, and icon and font definitions.These resources are kept separate from theactual code of an application, which meansthat the resources of an application can bemodified without forcing a recompilation(or modification) of the application pro-gram. The Resource Manager is usuallycalled by higher units like the menu andfont managers.

•Font Manager: This unit supports theuse of various text fonts. It calls theresource manager when it needs to use afont not already in memory, and it is usual-ly called by the Quickdraw unit.•Quickdraw: Quickdraw is a graphicspackage that is at the heart of both the Lisaand Macintosh computers. Bill Atkinson,its creator, worked for 3% years on thecode, rewriting it many times and reduc-ing it from a 160K-byte compiled Pascalprogram to a 24K-b}/te package of highlyoptimized 68000 code. Atkinson, who wasinvolved in the early design of the Lisa'suser interface, designed and optimizedQuickdraw for the Lisa computer; he laterjoined the Macintosh design team. Quick-draw is very fast—for example, it can printto the screen more than 7000 characters persecond. Two of its most interestingcapabilities are its ability to fill in any ar-bitrary shape with a pattern and its abil-ity to "clip" an image to correspond to theboundaries of an arbitrary masking shape.

The latter ability is needed to correctlydisplay window contents when one win-dow overlaps others. The source code forQuickdraw is identical in both the Lisa andthe Macintosh.

•Event Manager: All system events (e.g.,keypresses and mouse button presses) arereceived and interpreted through this unit,which mediates between the applicationprogram and the outside world.•Toolbox Utilities: These routines han-dle miscellaneous tasks that include stringoperations, fixed-point arithmetic, and bit-wise logical operations.•Window Manager: Since all action onthe Macintosh display occurs within win-dows, this is a very important unit thatis used a lot. The Windoiv Manager allowsthe application program to interact withwindows on a high level while it takes careof the low-level details automatically. Itallows you to create different kinds of boxes(document, dialogue, and alert boxes, forexample), delete them, move them, changetheir size, and make an inactive windowactive and vice versa. The WindowManager ensures that the computer auto-matically redraws the necessary screenareas when some aspect of a window ischanged.

•Control Manager: This unit controlsthe use of software buttons, check boxes,and dials, all of which can be called on toshow and alter the status of certainvariables.

•Menu Manager: Given a two-dimen-sional matrix of menu items (each columnis a menu title followed by its selections),this unit controls the display and behaviorof that matrix of pull-down menus.•Text Edit: These routines control ele-mentary text entry and editing. Text Editis designed with lots of software "hooks"so that you can modify its behavior but stilluse it. An external unit called Core Edit,which must be loaded into RAM, containsmore sophisticated entry and editingroutines; Core Edit can handle differentfonts, sizes, and text styles.

DESK MANAGER

DIALOG MANAGER

TEXT EDIT

CONTROL MANAGER

MENU MANAGER

WINDOW MANAGER

TOOLBOX UTILITIES

QUICKDRAW

EVENT MANAGER

FONT MANAGER

RESOURCE MANAGER

•Dialog Manager: Dialogue boxes aretext boxes with several check boxes; usually,clicking the mouse button near a box selectsit (and the action or condition associatedwith it) and unselects the previouslychecked box. An alert box (as in figure lh)alerts you to a potentially dangerous situa-tion and forces you to click on one of twobuttons, "Cancel" or "OK." The DialogManager handles the display of and userresponse to a dialogue or alert box.•Desk Manager: This unit allows theapplication program to use the desk ac-cessories, which are resources that arecalled in from disk if they are not current-ly in memory.

Applications can be written in MacBASIC, Mac Pascal, or 68000 assemblylanguage (usually one of the latter two).Both Mac Pascal and Mac BASIC aredesigned so that their keywords directly callmost of the toolbox routines. Most applica-tions that use the routines are essentiallyan endlessly repeating loop that waits foran event, determines what kind of eventit is, and then processes the event.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 37

Macintosh System Software Overview

by Andy Hertzfeld

The Macintosh is more than a power-ful, inexpensive 68000-based desktop com-puter. It comes with a built-in personalityprovided by 64K bytes of handcrafted sys-tem software contained in two ROM chipson its digital board. Besides performingtraditional operating-system functions suchas memory and file management, the Mac-intosh ROM includes the revolutionaryQuickdraw package and a User-InterfaceToolbox to help programmers develop ap-plications that share a consistent, advanceduser interface.

The Macintosh ROM can be thought ofas an extension to the 68000 instructionset, augmenting its 56 basic instructionswith more than 480 new instructionsdesigned for implementing fast mouse-based applications. It is implemented en-tirely in 68000 assembly-language codethat has been handcrafted and optimizedover a period of almost three years. Wechose assembly language over a higher-level language because it was very impor-tant for the system to be small and fast.The Macintosh is intended to be a veryhigh-volume product, and we could affordto lavish time and attention on every rou-

tine, making each one as efficient as pos-sible, knowing that our efforts would bemultiplied by the millions of units that wewill eventually ship.

It is someivhat risky to put 64K bytesof intricate system software in ROM on adisk-based system, but we did it becausewe wanted the machine to have a built-instandard user interface. By using ourROM-based toolbox, a programmer savesdevelopment time and precious memoryspace; this provides a positive incentive fordoing it our way. Also, the price per bitof ROM is significantly less than that ofRAM, and not having the operatingsystem load in from disk saves space onevery disk you have. Application programsnever reference the ROM directly; instead,the\/ use compact "trap" instructions thatare interpreted by the system dispatcher.This allows us to intercept any routine tofix the program bugs that will inevitablyarise.

The Mac's system software design phi-losophy emphasizes simplicity, flexibility,and high performance. We chose the single-application-at-a-time philosophy to helpkeep things relatively simple. The user-

interface software is designed to be flexiblebecause we are still learning how to makesystems easier and more fun to use.Another reason for designing the softwarethis way is that trying to live for yearswith what we thought was best at anygiven time would doom us to eventualfailure. High performance is extremely im-portant in an interactive system; peoplewon't enjoy using a system unless it is veryresponsive.

About one-third of the ROM is devotedto what we call the Macintosh OperatingSystem, which contains many componentsfound in more traditional systems. It in-cludes the low-level device drivers and in-terrupt handlers, an asynchronous I/Osystem, a memory manager, a simple, fastfile system, a segment loader, and variousutility routines. The I/O system supportsswappable, RAM-based device drivers aswell as its built-in serial, disk, and sounddrivers. Most I/O and file-system calls canbe made asynchronously, which alloivs anapplication to overlap I/O tasks with oiliertasks. The memory manager minimizes thefragmentation of available memory intosmall pieces by supporting relocatable ob-jects that are always accessed indirectly;the memory manager also provides anautomatic caching scheme by optionally

(3a)

Photo 3: Inside the Macintosh computer. From the front (photo 3a), you can see the video display and the 3Vi-inch disk drive. From therear (photo 3b), you can see the two main circuit boards (right and bottom), the rear of the video-display tube, the 3lh-u\ch disk drive, anda row of connectors at the bottom of the unit. The connections go, from left to right, to the mouse, a second disk drive, two peripherals (theseare two serial ports), and an external amplifier (for sound output).

38 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

purging objects as memory grows fuller.The file system ensures against loss of databy maintaining tags on every block; theseallow the contents of a disk to be pieced backtogether even if the directory is destroyed.

Another third of the ROM is occupiedby Bill Atkinson's Quickdraw graphicspackage. Quickdraw, which is the corner-stone of Apple's "Lisa technology," isresponsible for the Mac's extremely fastuser interaction. It draws practically every-thing you see on the screen, including text(in a variety of typefaces and styles) andboth filled and unfilled rectangles, lines,and ovals. It also is capable of representingarbitrary areas of the screen called regionsin a very compact data structure. AllQuickdraw calls are clipped to the intersec-tion of up to three regions, providing thefundamental capability necessary for over-lapping windows. Quickdraw also is cap-able of recording any sequence of procedurecalls and saving them as a picture. Pic-tures provide an easy, powerful method fortransferring graphics between applications.

The final third of the Macintosh ROMis occupied by the User-Interface Toolbox,a collection of various managers and serv-ices intended to help a programmer developapplications that conform to the Macintoshstandard user interface. Its principal com-

ponents are resources, windows, menus,controls, dialogues, and a text-editingpackage. The window, menu, and controlmanagers contain little information on howindividual windows, menus, or controlslook or behave. Instead, this informationis encapsulated in definition functions,which are kept as resources and swappedinto memory as necessary to implementmessages sent by the various managers.This provides a very flexible structurecapable of evolving as we learn how to im-prove the user interface.

Another important goal of the Macin-tosh system software is to facilitate thepassing of data between applications. Ascrap manager is provided to help ap-plications share data. It defines two datatypes that every application is requested tosupport (simple ASCII text and Quickdrawpictures) and lets applications define theirown custom types. It provides routines fortransferring data in and out of the scrap.

As stated above, Macintosh supportsonly one application running at any giventime. This restriction is mainly due tolimited available memory. By making a fewsimple calls to the desk manager, an ap-plication may allow many useful mini-applications to run concurrently withitself. These small programs are called

desk accessories and are capable of cut-ting and pasting data with each other aswell as with the major application. We cur-rently provide five desk accessories (calcu-lator, clock, notepad, control panel fordefault system parameters, and scrapbook).

By the spring of 1983, it became apparentthat we would not be able to fit all theroutines that we had hoped to into our64K-byte ROM space. We designed a facil-ity to allow some system code (in thesystem resource file) to be swapped in fromdisk to RAM when needed. We now usefive such RAM-based packages, includinga fully IEEE-standard floating-pointnumeric package, a standard file dialoguepackage, and an international stringpackage that deals with various formats fordate and time display.

In summary, the 64K bytes of ROM-based firmware provide Macintosh with aunique personality and user interface,forming the foundation for the developmentof communicating applications that sharea common user interface. The Macintoshfirmware is very fast and flexible, and itwill be exciting to see all the applicationsthat develop from it in the years to come.

Andy Hertzfeld is a member of the AppleMacintosh design team.

Text continued from page 35:disclosed proprietary technique forphase-locking the 68000 to less ex-pensive memory, which lowers theproduct cost without sacrificing thespeed of memory access.

When the Mac is drawing a hori-zontal line of the video display the68000 and the video DMA circuitryalternate (interleave) their accesses tothe RAM address and data lines.Since these two can never access RAMsimultaneously the 68000 can neverproduce hashing or other glitches inthe video display by accessing RAMat the wrong time. Because of thisinterleaving, the 68000 accesses RAMat 3.92 MHz, half of the full 7.83 MHzrate, during the display of a hori-zontal line of the screen. This is donein the following way: the DMA cir-cuitry puts a word from RAM intothe video shift register; while theregister is sending out those 16 bitsserially to the screen, the 68000 usesRAM for its own purposes; then thecycle begins again with the DMAcircuitry.

When the video display is doing ahorizontal or vertical retrace, how-ever, the 68000 gets exclusive use ofthe RAM at its full speed, 7.83 MHz.This has a significant effect on theaverage speed of RAM access. Out ofthe 45 ps (microseconds) for eachhorizontal display line, over 12 ps(about 27 percent of the time) are oc-cupied by horizontal retrace. Of these12 ps, about 0.5 ps is used to senddata to the sound and disk-speed cir-cuitry, while the rest is available tothe 68000. Furthermore, out of the16.626 ms (milliseconds) used to draweach complete screen, 1.258 ms(about 7.6 percent of the time) aredevoted to vertical retrace. Of this,about 14 ps are used for sound anddisk-speed control (representing thecontrol work done at the end of theequivalent of 28 unused horizontallines of video), leaving more than1.244 ms for the 68000 to access RAMat full speed.

To summarize, the ROM is alwaysaccessed at 7.83 MHz, regardless of

screen display. The RAM is accessedat 3.92 MHz during screen displayand at 7.83 MHz otherwise. Theaverage speed of the system isaround 6 MHz.

One memory area of interest is thesound buffer. Along with associatedhardware, this buffer enables you tocreate four channels of arbitrarysound while using no more than 50percent of the 68000's computingpower. The 68000 performs look-upoperations every 44 ps on up to four256-byte waveform tables; the resultof these lookups is placed in a370-byte sound buffer, from whichthe sound hardware fetches 1 byteevery 44 ps to deliver to an 8-bitdigital-to-analog circuit (DAC). An in-ternal VIA (versatile interfaceadapter) can also be used to generatea single square-wave tone whileusing an insignificant part of the68000's computing power.

Mass storage: The Macintosh usesa custom version of the Sony 3V2-inchdisk and drive (see photo 4). The

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 39

The Macintosh Memory Map

The Macintosh memory map containsRAM, ROM, and I/O devices that com-municate with the 68000 through specifiedmemory locations. When the Macintosh isturned on (i.e., at boot-up), the 64K-byteROM maps into the first page of memoryand is used to get the system started. Afterboot-up, the positions of RAM and ROMare changed so that the 128K-byte block ofRAM occupies the first two pages ofmemory (see figure below).

The Phase Read area of memory is usedto determine whether the computer'stiming signals are correctly in phase witheach other; this is usually done by ROMroutines at boot-up.

The VIA (versatile interface adapter)locations are used by the Macintosh's 6522VIA. This chip gives the Macintoshparallel input, output, and interrupt lines,shift registers, mouse information, andclocks.

The MM locations are used by theMacintosh's IWM (integrated Woz ma-chine), which controls all access to the in-ternal 3Vi-inch disk drive and the optionalexternal one.

The SCC Read and SCC Write locationsare used for several purposes. They allowthe SCC (serial communications controller)chip to handle two serial ports at rates be-tween 30 and 230,400 bits per second. In

addition, they allow the SCC to detectmouse motion (in conjunction with theVIA) and adjust the phase of the Macin-tosh timing signals.

Most programmers will not need in-timate knowledge of the Macintoshmemory map. The 64K-byte ROM containssophisticated routines that take care of low-level processes like I/O, memory manage-ment, video display, and similar tasks. Ap-ple encourages the use of these routines;they mean less development time, con-formity to the standard Macintosh user in-terface, faster programs (ROM always runsat full speed), and more memory space forprograms and disks.

ADDRESS (INHEXADECIMAL)

PHASE READ

VIA

IWM

SCC WRITE

SCC READ

128 K RAM

DUPLICATE ROM IMAGE

64 K ROM

FF FFFFF8 OOOO

FO 0000

PHASE READ

E8 0000

VIA

EO 0000

DO 0000

IWM

ADDF

Htx/

CO 0000

SCC WRITE

BO 0000

DISK SPEED ANDSOUND, PACE 1

AO 0000

90 0000

SCC READ

(BOTTOM)

VIDEO SCREEN, PAGE 1

62 0000

(TOP)

60 000041 0000

USER SYSTEMMEMORY (80 K)

40 0000

64 K ROM

02 0000

128 K RAM

01 000000 0000

HARDWARE EXCEPTIONVECTORS

01 FFFF01 FFE3

01 FDOO01 FC7F

01 A700

00 0100

00 0000

DURING BOOT-UP

AFTER BOOT-UP

40 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Photo 4: The Sony 3V2-inch disk is encased in a rigid plastic housing, and the oval windowthrough which the magnetic medium is accessed is protected by a metal shutter that slidesout of the way when the disk is inserted in the drive. These factors help protect the disk fromcasual use.

drive can store 400K bytes on asingle-sided 3V2-inch disk; the Mac isdesigned to be able to use double-sided drives to get 800K bytes perdisk, an option that Apple may pur-sue at a later date. The standard Sony3V2-inch disk (used to date by Hew-lett-Packard and other vendors) puts

70 tracks of data at 135 tpi (tracks perinch) onto each disk. At Apple's urg-ing, Sony now makes the drive inanother model that has 80 tracks ofdata at 135 tpi. As a comparison, theHewlett-Packard HP 150 uses the70-track version and conventionalsectoring to get 270K bytes per single-sided disk.

Sharing Data among Programs

Macintosh programs, if they are de-signed in accordance with Apple guide-lines, will he able to trade data amongthemselves without one program havingto know anything about the nature of theothers. This is done through use of ashared memory area called the clipboardand the standardization of the data that canbe stored in it.

The clipboard is a relocatable piece ofmemory that is not erased ivhen a new pro-gram replaces an older one. It is used asfollows: the first program copies data intothe clipboard, the second program replacesthe first with its own code and data, andthe data in the clipboard is added to thedata now in memory. The clipboard cancontain a variable number of data items,though every item must be of a differenttype. Each data item consists of a four-character data-type identifier, a 32-bitlength (in bytes), and a stream of bytes that

makes up the actual contents of the dataitem.

Programs are free to implement theirown data types. Apple has defined two-text and Quickdraw pictures—and en-courages every program to be able to readboth and write at least one of these datatypes. Text is a simple ASCII string ofcharacters without any information on thesize, font, or position of the text. Quick-draw pictures are defined as a sequence ofcommands that can be understood by theQuickdraw routines. A Quickdraw picturecan contain displayable text (which doesinclude information on text size, font, andposition on the screen), a sequence ofelementary graphics commands that willrecreate the image, or the image describedas a stream of bits. These two data typesprovide a guaranteed means of communica-tion among Macintosh programs.

In addition to the change to 80 tpi,Apple contracted Sony to modify thedrive in several other ways. Twochanges allow the Sony drive tomimic the behavior of the Lisa"twiggy" drives (which were original-ly chosen for use in the Mac): diskejection under software control andvariable disk-rotation speed. The firstchange allows the Mac to ensure thata disk is correctly updated before itis surrendered to the user (that is,you can't take a disk out of the driveuntil the Mac software permits it).The second change enables the Macto record onto the disk at a constantlinear density (which means you canput more data on the outermosttracks), as opposed to the constantradial density approach most com-puters use (which puts the sameamount of data on each track regard-less of position).

The Macintosh's drive rotatesunder software control between 390and 600 rpm (revolutions per minute)and transfers data at the rate of489.6K bits per second (bits as re-corded on the disk, not decoded databits). Most computers use a disk-controller chip instead of the pro-cessor to control the drive. The Mac(like the Apple II) uses its processorto directly control the drive. Becausethe Macintosh can control more disk-related parameters than the Apple II(the variable motor speed, for exam-ple), Macintosh owners will betreated to an even greater wealth ofcopy-protection schemes than AppleII owners enjoy. Also, the Macintoshdrive uses modified group code record-ing to encode data onto the disk. Thistechnique, invented by Steve Woz-niak for use with the Apple II, en-codes 6 bits of data into an eight-transition group that is recorded ontothe disk surface.

Keyboard: The keyboard has 58keys; the left Shift key is split on theinternational version of the Macin-tosh, giving it a total of 59 keys. Thekeyboard includes Return, CapsLock, and Shift keys in their usualplaces, two Option keys, and acloverleaf command key (see photo5). Combinations of the Shift, CapsLock, and Option keys give each keyup to six meanings; the command key

42 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

acts as a modifier and is often usedwith a letter key as the keyboard sub-stitute for a mouse-selected menuitem. The keyboard contains an 8021microprocessor and is connected tothe main box by a four-wire bidirec-tional serial connection. The connec-tions on both ends use the same kindof square modular plug found inmost telephones.

Mouse: The Mac's one-buttonmechanical mouse, about the size ofa pack of cigarettes, is essentially thesame as the Lisa's; it differs only inthe shape of the plastic housing. Themouse is used to position the cursoron the screen; when you slide themouse over a horizontal surface, thecursor moves in the same directionon the screen.

Serial bus: The Macintosh's serialbus is very important because it is theway that most future peripherals (ex-cept the second 3V2-inch disk driveand the keypad) will connect to thecomputer. The bus can run in twomodes: with an external clock, it cantransfer data at up to 1 megabit persecond; with internal clocking (whichembeds clock bits in the data streamitself), it can transfer data at up to230.4K bits per second. The latter

scheme will be used to connect mostperipherals, which need only a lowto medium data-transfer rate, to theMacintosh in a passive daisy-chainedline. This scheme implements whatthe Mac's designers call "virtualslots."

Virtual slots have several advan-tages over conventional hardwareperipheral slots. They reduce thepotential problems inherent in anyadded mechanical connection (aserial interface connector has fewerpins than a typical interface board).They reduce RFI (radio-frequency in-terference) by keeping the main boxleakproof and allowing easy, inex-pensive shielding of the serial line.By deciding that peripherals willsupply their own power, the Macin-tosh designers were able to stream-line the power supply of the mainbox without worrying about thepower needs of unspecified futureperipherals. Finally, virtual slotseliminate the need of peripheralcards to insert themselves some-where in the computer's memorymap; the unchanging memory mapcreates a known, unchanging systemarchitecture that all software design-ers can be assured of, regardless of

the peripherals connected.

The virtual-slot scheme is bothpractical and elegant; it offers asimple, standard way to connect un-specified future peripherals. The230.4K bit-per-second data-transferrate is high enough to meet the needsof most peripherals—printers,modems, plotters, music synthe-sizers, and so on. However, one classof add-on card will not work usingthis scheme: processor cards like theMicrosoft Softcard, which allow acomputer to run another processor'ssoftware. Such cards require full ac-cess to the data and address lines andwill not work via a serial "virtualslot." As a result, despite somerumors to the contrary, the Macin-tosh will never use IBM PC- or MS-DOS-based software.

Power supply: Apple designed twopower supplies for the Macintosh.The first one uses a 60-watt switch-ing power supply similar to one usedin the Apple II family; it can operateon 85 to 135 V AC at either 50 or 60Hz. For technical reasons, use of thispower supply would have delayedthe introduction of the machine, soApple designed and produced asimpler nonswitching power supply

1 J J M M M M>, * a, & * », ■

Photo 5: The Macintosh keyboard.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 43

(105 to 130 V AC, 60 Hz) for initial usein the first U.S. models of the Macin-tosh. The first switching power sup-ply will be used later in the year forthe international model and possiblyfor the U.S. model.

The supply was designed to drivetwo twiggy disks; when the designwas changed to include two 3V2-inchdisks instead, the supply had asizable margin of unused power.

System Software

As stated before, the Macintoshcontains 64K bytes of ROM accessed

at 7.83 MHz. The ROM contains mostof the Mac operating system and a setof optimized 68000 routines calledthe Macintosh User-Interface Tool-box. The operating-system softwareinteracts at the lowest level with thehardware; it includes such things asdevice drivers and memory- and file-management routines. The toolboxcontains various routines that let youmanipulate windows, text, themouse, pull-down menus, desk ac-cessories, dialogue boxes, fonts, andother aspects of the Mac user inter-face. These are high-level routines

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that perform the details of such com-plicated operations with minimumprogramming on the application de-signer's part. For example, thewindow-management routines takecare of correctly redrawing the dis-play when a window is moved orchanged. For more details, see thetext box "The User-Interface Toolbox."

The designers intend for you to ac-cess all ROM routines indirectly viathe 68000 "line 1010 unimplemented"instructions, which receive their ad-dresses from a table in RAM; thistable can be changed to point to otherroutines, thereby allowing future ver-sions of Mac software to patch the in-evitable bugs that will be found in theMac ROM. Because the applicationdrives the ROM routines (instead ofthe other way around), the Macin-tosh is an "open" system whosebehavior is completely determined bythe contents of the disk inserted intoit—that is, software designers can usethe ROM routines to create a "stan-dard" Macintosh application, or theycan write their own code to create anapplication that behaves the way theywant it to.

Although the designers of theMacintosh have a general philosophyof allowing only one application pro-gram to be open at a time, they haveincluded in the main menu a collec-tion of short, useful programs thatcan run without forcing you to endyour current program. Apple callsthese programs desk accessories. Manyof the accessories are simply con-veniences—the clock accessory, forexample, shows you the current dateand time—but a very powerful ac-cessory is called the scrapbook. Or-dinarily, you can cut and paste datafrom one document to another bycutting the data into the clipboard,loading in the new document, andpasting in the data; this processwould be tedious if you had severalitems of the same type to cut andpaste. The scrapbook is a sequenceof data items—text or graphics—thatcan be stored or recalled together,thus minimizing the number ofdocument changes and allowing youto recall often-used data items easily.The scrapbook is actually imple-mented as a disk file; as a result, it

44 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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tends to be rather large.

System software reacts to all pe-ripherals on an asynchronous basis-peripherals compete for the attentionof the 68000 by sending it interrupts,which the 68000 services according tothe level of the interrupt. This keepsthe 68000 from being tied exclusivelyto a peripheral—for example, to the3V2-inch disk drive waiting to get upto its full speed—when it could bedoing something more useful. TheMac's designers have managed to dothis even with high-speed periph-erals that usually require the full at-tention of a processor. For example,disk and serial-port routines havebeen dovetailed to permit the use ofboth peripherals at the same time.

Disk Reliability

Reliability was one of the mainreasons that Apple decided to usethe 3V2-inch Sony disk drive insteadof the 5 ¥4-inch twiggy drive. (A pro-jected shortage of twiggy drives wasanother reason.) Apple is expectingthe Macintosh to be the first realconsumer-oriented computer, and it

sees the magnetic medium as beingmore likely to fail than the elec-tronics. The Sony 3V2-inch disk is bet-ter suited to the consumer environ-ment. The drive can hold an accept-able amount of storage per disk, andthe small disk, with its rigid shell andnormally closed access window, isless likely to suffer from bad handlingthan a conventional 5V4-inch floppydisk. In addition, the magneticmedium is connected to a steel hubthat the drive mates with and rotates.This is an improvement over 5V4-inchfloppy-disk drives, which clamp theMylar edge of the center hole. The3V2-inch disk hub is needed to get ac-curate enough disk-head placementto make a data density of 135 tracksper inch possible.

The data on the disk is encoded ina way that enables the Macintosh torecover from some disk medium ordisk file errors. The file directory isduplicated in a normal disk file(which can be used if, for somereason, the directory is damaged).Also, each block of data on the diskincludes a 12-byte identifier that gives

the file number, sequence-within-filenumber, and date/time stamp for thedata in the rest of that block; this canbe used in many situations to recovermost or all of the data on the disk.

Applications and Languages

Neither application software nor alanguage is included in the basicMacintosh package. However, a two-program set will be available for $195;both programs require the recentlyintroduced Imagewriter printer toprint things out. The first program isMac Paint, the drawing program welooked at earlier. Created in house atApple, Mac Paint is limited to draw-ings that will fit on one 8V2- by11-inch page. Mac Paint is unlike theLisa drawing program (Lisa Draw) inthat it manipulates the drawing on abit-by-bit level (a Lisa Draw drawingis stored as a collection of elementaryobjects—circles, text, boxes, etc.). Thisrepresentation makes some things,such as arbitrary erasures, easier onthe Mac and other things, such as de-leting a single object within the draw-ing, harder.

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46 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Figure 3: The Mac Write word-processing program.

The second program in the set isMac Write (figure 3), which wascreated out of house for Apple andcan handle documents up to 10single-spaced or 20 double-spacedpages. Like Lisa Write, Mac Write canhandle multiple fonts and sizes aswell as variations achieved by addingany combination of five modifiers-underline, bold, italic, outline, andshadow.

Apple Macintosh Pascal, Assem-bler/Debugger, BASIC, and Logo willcost $99 each; the first two will beavailable during the second quarterof 1984, and the other two will followin the third quarter. The Logo is fromLCSI, which developed Apple IILogo. Both the BASIC and Pascalcompile on a line-by-line basis into anintermediate pseudocode, whichgives them the speed of compiledlanguages while retaining the interac-tive nature of interpreted languages.Both languages use separate win-dows for program source code andoutput, and both can be debugged

on a line-by-line basis. Both havegraphics and mouse commands thatcall on the toolbox routines in ROM,and both use floating-point arith-metic routines (in RAM) that meetthe IEEE-754 floating-point standard.

Mac Pascal, which was created outof house, is interesting in that it is theonly Pascal I know of that can be ex-ecuted interactively. Another nicefeature is its syntax checker, an itemthat can be called from its "Run"menu. This menu item is oftenhandy for finding those petty syntaxerrors to which Pascal code is prone.

Mac BASIC was created in houseby Donn Denman, who worked onApple III Business BASIC. An inter-active, multitasking BASIC, it can ex-ecute multiple copies of the sameprogram or multiple programs simul-taneously; each program and eachrunning task has its own window.

Other Apple programs announcedfor delivery in 1984 include Mac Ter-minal (which emulates the DECVT-52 and VT-100 and Teletype ASR33

terminals—available first quarter,$99). Also planned are Mac Draw (anobject-oriented drawing program)and Mac Project (a scheduling andproject-management program).These are both Macintosh versions oftwo Lisa application programs; eachcosts $125 and will be available in thethird quarter of 1984.

Third-Party Software

Apple has not spent all its energytrying to write all the software thatthe Macintosh needs. Instead, it hascreated two exemplary Macintoshpackages and gone to third-partysoftware developers to get them tocreate the bulk of available Macintoshsoftware. Apple estimates that by thetime you read this, the Mac will bein the hands of more than 100 soft-ware vendors.

At the time this was written, somesoftware developers had made com-mitments to market Macintosh soft-ware. Microsoft Multiplan andBASIC will be available at the Mac's

48 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Listing 1: Graphics (listing In) and text (listings lb and lc) as printed by the Macintosh and the lmagewriter printer. The text shownin listings lb and lc is representative only; some of the fonts shown may not be included with Mac Write or may have different names.Listing lb is text printed out in high-resolution mode; listing lc shows the same text printed out in medium-resolution mode. Theseprint samples are reproduced at the same size as the originals.

(la)

iSililSIHllliiuilliiliMs

(lb)

This is 9-poinl Rosemont

This is 12-patnt Dig

This is 12-point Overbrook.This is 12-point SystemThis is 12-point RosemontThis is 12-point ArdmoreThis is 12-point tierionThis is 12-point variants:

— Rosemont bold—Rosemont italic-Rosemont underline--Rosemont outline--Rosemont inndov

--QoggfiHOtutt (DtDtt-

tb©a<fl

These are size variants:

— H-point

—18-point

—24-point

-36-pt.

(lc) This ik 9-point Rosetuont

This is 12-potnt City

This is 12-point, OverbrookThis is 12-point System

This is 12-point RosemontThis is 12-point ArdmoreThis is 1 2-point HerionThis is 12-point variants:

- Rosemont bold

- -Rosemont italic

- -Rosemont underline

These are size variants:—14-point

—18-point

--24-point

-36-pt.

50 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

By the Way. .

•No, we didn't misspell the name. "Mcin-tosh" is the apple, but "Macintosh" is theApple computer. The product's originalcode name was misspelled by its first users,and Apple decided to stay with thatspelling.

•The Mac Write program was originallynamed "Macauthor," and the Mac Drawprogram was originally named "Mackel-

angelo." People at Apple decided that thenames were too cute to use; they wereright.

•Apple is one of those exceptional com-panies that gives its employees credit in-stead of commanding them to work in ano-nymity behind the corporate name. Thenames of the hundred or so employees whoworked on the Macintosh are molded into

the inside face of the plastic rear housing.Don't try to look for them, though; theMac is not supposed to be opened exceptby repair people.

•The Macintosh is not going to be strictlya "serious" computer. Some of the softwareengineers at Apple are very excited aboutthe great games that could take advantageof the Mac's computing power and high-resolution graphics. I saw an incrediblegame that has Alice (of Wonderland fame)dodging animated chess pieces in 3D.

introduction; Microsoft File, Chart,and Word will be available by mid-February. Lotus is working on con-verting its popular 1-2-3 spreadsheetprogram. Software Publishing Cor-poration will have its PFS File andPFS Report programs available some-time in April.

Optional Hardware

The Macintosh uses Apple's new$495 dot-matrix Imagewriter printer,the only printer that is supported bythe current print driver within theMacintosh. To get its level of graphicsand text quality (see listings lathrough lc), the Imagewriter usuallystays in a graphics mode that printsa single column of dots for every bytesent to it by the Mac. However, theImagewriter can print text in threemodes: a high-resolution mode(listing lb), a medium-resolutionmode (listing lc), and a draft modethat uses the printer's built-in char-acter set for quick text-only printing.(I found I prefer the medium- overthe high-resolution text.) Althoughthe Imagewriter could hardly becalled fast, it is not unacceptablyslow, and it is considerably fasterthan the Apple Dot-Matrix Printerrunning under the Lisa computer'sparallel port.

Two other pieces of hardware arean external disk drive (at $395,available during the first quarter) anda numeric keypad ($99, at introduc-tion). The external disk driver con-nects to the main unit via a dedicated"second disk" connector in back.When the keypad is connected, thekeyboard line runs from the Mac,

through the keypad, and into thekeyboard itself. Another product, an-nounced but not scheduled, is exter-nal hardware that will give the MacIBM 3270 emulation capability.

Documentation and Training

In its ads, Apple is stressing thenecessity of going to a Macintoshdealer and trying the computer out.Once you have bought it, though,you will probably be learning how touse the Mac on your own. Apple willhelp you in this process by providingyou with a cassette/disk combination.You boot up the 3V2-inch disk tutorialand listen to the interactive lessonprovided on the cassette. (Of course,you have to have a cassette player.)Although I have not seen the cas-sette/disk tutorial program, I think itwill work well; text-only tutorial pro-grams are fine, but many buyers ofthe Mac will benefit from the warmthof a human voice teaching them.

I saw final-draft copies of only twoMacintosh product documents. Ex-plore Mac Paint is a booklet (about 25pages) that teaches you about MacPaint by showing you what it does.It is very easy to read because it hasmore pictures in it than text. MacWrite is much longer and looks morelike conventional documentation. Itis sensibly divided into three sec-tions: "Learning Mac Write" (a do-by-example tutorial that shows you mostof the features of the program),"Using Mac Write" (a "cookbook"showing you how to accomplishmany common tasks), and "Refer-ence." All in all, the documentationshould be quite good.

Service

The Macintosh has no user-service-able parts. Unlike the Lisa computer,the Mac is not meant to be opened bythe user; you are expected to returnyour Mac to an authorized Apple ser-vice center for repair. The Mac comeswith Apple's standard 90-day parts-and-labor warranty. You can also buya one-year maintenance contract. Ac-cording to Apple, other service planswill be available, including optionsfor large-volume purchasers of theMacintosh.

Caveats

I wrote this article after two days ofmeetings with various members ofthe Macintosh staff, studying pre-liminary Mac documentation, mak-ing numerous phone calls to Apple,and working for several days (over aperiod of weeks) with a Macintoshcomputer. I used several final-draftversions of Mac Write and Mac Paint,though I occasionally found oper-ating-system features that "crashed"the system or weren't yet imple-mented. Apple was still makingminor changes to both software andpricing when this was written.

Commentary

There is a lot to like about theMacintosh; it is a superb example ofwhat American technology can dowhen given the chance. The simple,compact, economical design, the vir-tual slots, and the enhanced perform-ance of 128K bytes of memory be-cause of the 64K-byte ROM code areall important innovations done well.

I'm glad that Apple decided to go

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 51

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with a Sony 3V2-inch disk (as com-pared to the Lisa 1, which needs spe-cial expensive, hard-to-get twiggyfloppy disks). However, I'm disap-pointed that both Apple and Hew-lett-Packard have used nonstandardformats that are incompatible witheach other. It would have been niceto start the widespread use of theSony microfloppy with a standarddisk format, but the incentive tosacrifice standardization for perform-ance is one of the drawbacks of acompetitive industry.

I also feel strongly that the basicMacintosh package should includetwo disk drives. With a one-drive sys-tem, it will take at least eight diskswaps to back up a 3V2-inch disk.How many people (especially nov-ices) will go to this trouble, and howmany will suffer when they don't? (Iam not alone in feeling this way; thefirst thing two BYTE editors saidwhen they first saw the Macintoshwas, "Only one disk drive? You've gotto be kidding!" After numerous diskswaps when trying to load MacPaint from one disk and a drawingfrom another, I am convinced thatmost users will eventually buy thesecond disk drive.)

At the time this was written, Applewas committed to a totally unbun-dled pricing of the Macintosh—thatis, the basic Macintosh package (at$1995 to $2495) includes the mainunit, the keyboard, the mouse,necessary cables, a tutorial disk, anda disk containing the operating sys-tem. Everything else—Mac Write,Mac Print, all languages, the Image-writer printer, and the second diskdrive—is priced separately. Sincemanufacturers want to claim thelowest possible price for their prod-ucts, unbundling is common (IBM,for example, introduced the IBM PCwith a low-end model, 16K bytes ofmemory, and a cassette port for$1265). True, the low-end Macintoshis far more complete than mostmanufacturers' low-end products,but Apple has taken unbundling far-ther than any other microcomputervendor—no one has sold a computerwithout BASIC (or some other lan-guage) in years.A usable Macintosh system with

52 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 302 on inquiry card.

Mac Write, Mac Draw, a program-ming language, and the Imagewriterprinter costs from $2589 to $3189; asecond disk drive will add another$395. Apple would be wise to makethis package available at a dis-counted package price, just as it nowdoes for the Apple He. Apple con-tends that the Macintosh will be-come a home machine because officeusers will take it home a few timesand like it enough to buy themselvesone for their personal use. However,the Mac is still too expensive topenetrate the home market signi-ficantly; that will be left to lessexpensive machines, such as theCommodore 64, the IBM PCjr, theApple II family, and the ColecoAdam.

Finally, I have to point out that,although Apple's advertisements callthe Macintosh a 32-bit system, itsMC68000 processor is generally re-garded as a 16-bit processor (thelimiting factor is its inability to dealwith multiplicands greater than 16bits). This is no different from the

vendors of some other 68000-basedmicrocomputers, but I hate to seeApple hyping a machine that easilystands on its own merits.

Conclusions

Exactly a year ago, in a productdescription of the Apple Lisa com-puter, I said, "Technology, while ex-pensive to create, is much cheaper to

The Macintosh is still

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distribute. Apple knows this machineis expensive and is also not unawarethat most people would be incrediblyinterested in a similar but less expen-sive machine. We'll see what hap-pens."

Now we have seen what has hap-pened, and it is rather impressive.The Lisa computer was important

because it was the first commercialproduct to use the mouse-window-desktop environment. The Macin-tosh is equally important because itmakes that same environment veryaffordable. It is also importantbecause it is a second-generationdesign that, in several areas, im-proves on the original.

The Macintosh will have three im-portant effects. First, like the Lisa, itwill be imitated but not copied. In theyear since the Lisa was announced,dozens of hardware and softwarecompanies have announced productsthat duplicate part of the Lisa userenvironment—the mouse, the win-dows, the integrated software. Some,like Microsoft's mouse-based series ofpackages and Visicorp's Visi On, havetried to mimic that environment ona smaller, less expensive machine(the IBM PC) with only partialsuccess.

In a similar way, companies will beout to imitate the Macintosh, buttheir attempts will be less successful.Those companies that try to imitate

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the Mac on other machines will havetrouble matching its price/perform-ance combination. So far, attempts toimitate the Lisa by enhancing an ex-isting computer (usually an IBM PC)have been given the benefit of thedoubt because they are less expensivethan the Lisa; attempts to imitate theMacintosh will now have a hardertime because the Mac with software isabout as cheap as the host hardwarealone.

The only other way to match theMac would be to design an entirely

new system that would be compar-ably priced. This will probably not beattempted; only a few corporationshave the ability to duplicate Apple'sdesign and manufacturing effort, andstill fewer will make such a largefinancial commitment. (Apple is theonly American company that doesnot live under the tyranny of nextquarter's profits; if any company triesto duplicate Apple's effort, it willprobably be a Japanese one.) Thosethat try will find it hard to createsimilar technology that competes

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with the Macintosh in size and price;Apple is confident that a number ofits components and manufacturingtechniques will be difficult to copy.Even though Apple has sufferedfrom carbon-copy Apple II machines,it does not expect to have the samething happen with the Macintosh.

Second, the Macintosh will securethe place of the Sony 3V2-inch disk asthe magnetic medium of choice forthe next generation of personal com-puters. I was disappointed when Ifirst saw that the Mac used the3V2-inch disk—"Another disk formatto contend with," I thought, "and youcan't use disks from the Lisa." (Youwill be able to use Mac disks with thenew Lisa 2; see "Apple Announcesthe Lisa 2," on page 84.) Once I hadheard Apple's line of reasoning,though, I had to agree with its choice.Hewlett-Packard's HP 150 is the onlyother major computer to use theSony 3V2-inch disk to date; Apple'suse of it will tip the scales in Sony'sfavor, and other manufacturers willfollow.

Third, the Macintosh will increaseApple's reputation in the market; infact, to some people Apple will be assynonymous with the phrase "per-sonal computer" as IBM is synony-mous with "computer." The Mac willcompete with IBM's PC, not itscheaper sibling, the IBM PCjr. Manybusiness users will stay with the"safer" IBM PC. However, peoplenew to computing and those who aremaverick enough to see the value andpromise of the Mac will favor it. TheMac will delay IBM's domination ofthe personal computer market.

Overall, the Macintosh is a very im-portant machine that, in my opinion,replaces the Lisa as the most impor-tant development in computers in thelast five years. The Macintosh bringsus one step closer to the ideal of com-puter as appliance. We're not thereyet—at least, not until the next set ofimprovements (which, in this in-dustry, we may see fairly soon). Whoknows who the next innovator willbe?«

Gregg Williams is a senior editor at BYTE. Hecan be reached at FOB 372, Hancock, NH 03449.

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Left to right: Andy Hertzfeld, Chris Espinosa, Joanna Hoffman, George Crowe, Bill Atkinson, ferry Manock.

An Interview: The Macintosh

Design Team

The making of Macintosh

On October 14, 1983, the design team for Apple Computer Inc.'s new Macintosh computer met with BYTE Managing EditorPhil Lemmons at the company's Cupertino, California, headquarters. In the dialogue that followed, Bill Atkinson, Steve Jobs,Andy Hertzfeld, Larry Kenyon, Joanna Hoffman, Burrell Smith, Dave Egner, Chris Espinosa, Steve Capps, Jerry Manock,Bruce Horn, and George Crowe discussed the evolution of their brainchild.

BYTE: How did the Macintosh pro-ject begin?

Jobs: What turns on Andy andBurrell and Chris and Bill and Larryand everyone else here is buildingsomething really inexpensive so that

everyone can afford it. It's not verymany years ago that most of us in thisroom couldn't have afforded a $5000computer. We realized that we couldbuild a supercheap computer thatwould run Bill Atkinson's amazing

Quickdraw and have a mouse on it—in essence, build a really cheap im-plementation of Lisa's technologythat would use some of that softwaretechnology. That's when the Macin-tosh as we know it was started.

58 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Hertzfeld: That was around Januaryof 1981.

Smith: We fooled around with someother ideas for computer design, butwe realized that the 68000 was a chipthat had a future and had...Jobs: Some decent software!Smith: And had some horsepowerand enough growth potential so wecould build a machine that would liveand that Apple could rally around foryears to come. So we looked at whatthe Lisa group was doing and knewthat the designers were onto somereally hot ideas. They have a lot ofvery advanced things they want to dowith Lisa. Mac basically does onething at a time as opposed to doingseveral things simultaneously. Thememory-management unit that'scritical for a Lisa application, for ex-ample, becomes something we cando without very nicely. Our real goalwas to design a great system with justa bit map and based on a 68000 butalso a really cheap system. Could wewrite incredibly great software thatwouldn't chew up megabytes ofmemory? To do what used to takemegabytes in a very tiny machine?Atkinson: It's not like we didn't wanta memory manager in it or didn'twant lots of memory or didn't wanthard disks. What we wanted was forlots of people to be able to own thesethings. We saw something beautifulthat we built and we said, "How canwe get this out to a lot of people?"Espinosa: It doesn't matter how greatthe computer is if nobody buys it.Xerox proved that. The key thingyou've got to remember is that backthen, if you told anybody you couldbuild a computer using a 68000 withanything under a hundred integratedcircuits, they would have said youwere crazy.

Kenyon: Most people have twice asmany chips just for central process-ing unit support on the 68000. Sonobody had ever conceived that youcould build a cheap system. . .anApple II chip-count system with a68000.

Atkinson: We want the most com-puter that you can get for the leastdollars so that the most people canhave it. . . and then you can concen-

Bill Atkinson.

trate on making the world's best soft-ware for it.

Espinosa: And you look at thisboard, and every chip on there ispretty expensive. There's not a lot ofjellybean TTL [transistor-transistorlogic] running around, not a lot oflittle off-the-shelf chips. Everythingon there costs $4 to $9 apiece, andthat's expensive for a chip. But we'vegot so few of them; instead of takingup board space with a lot of stuff thatyou just don't need and making it un-reliable because you've got to haveconnectors and you've got all theseproblems with soldering. If you justcarefully pick what chips you want touse and you've got somebody likeBurrell who's genius enough to put

the right ones together in the rightway and make them do thingsthey've never done before, then youcan come out with something that'ssmall and inexpensive and incrediblypowerful.

Smith: What gets me is that a lot ofprogrammers will have this longlaundry list of things they must havebefore they will sit down and allowfingers to touch the keyboard. I wasreally lucky because these guys arethe best programmers I've ever seenanywhere, not just with Apple. Theywalk around between the Apple divi-sions, contributing this amazinggraphic stuff to Lisa—and then helpout on the Mac, too. Everybody hadthis common goal of making the Mac

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 59

Andy Hertzfeld.

flexible and general-purpose becausewe didn't know what we might wantto do five years from now. We knewthe kind of direction we were going,so instead of building in a graphicscontroller that takes 25 chips andthen trying to figure out some wayto soup up the architecture so that itactually would work with it, werelied a lot on the processor assem-bly-language code in ROM [read-onlymemory]. And it turns out that wecan make the whole system go fasterby eliminating a lot of the bus trafficthat normally slows the machinedown.

Jobs: We learned a lot on Lisa.Atkinson: We're still learning a lot!Jobs: If you read the Apple's firstbrochure, the headline was "Simpli-city is the Ultimate Sophistication."What we meant by that was thatwhen you first attack a problem itseems really simple because youdon't understand it. Then when youstart to really understand it, youcome up with these very complicatedsolutions because it's really hairy.Most people stop there. But a fewpeople keep burning the midnight oiland finally understand the underly-ing principles of the problem andcome up with an elegantly simplesolution for it. But very few people

go the distance to get there.

One of the things we really learnedwith Lisa and from looking at whatXerox had done at PARC [Palo AltoResearch Center] was that we couldconstruct elegant, simple systemsbased on just a bit map... no char-acter generators. . .and save tons ofchips if we had software fast enoughto paint characters on the screen,given the processor. Apple was thefirst company to figure out how to dothat with a microprocessor.. .andreally still is the only company that'sdoing it with a microprocessor. That'swhat Bill figured out how to do withQuickdraw.

The real reason that we choseoriginally to use the 68000 was so wecould pick up Quickdraw. Macintoshuses the exact same graphic structureand package, the exact same code, asLisa does. So, by paying a little morefor the microprocessor, not only werewe able to give the customer an in-finitely more powerful chip than, say,an 8-bit chip or one of Intel's babymicros, but we were able to pick upthis amazing software, and thatallowed us to throw tons of chips outof this thing. We didn't have to getspecial custom text or graphics chips.We just simplified the system downto where it's just a bit map on the

screen, just Bill's amazing softwareand Burrell's amazing hardware, thenin between that the other amazingsoftware that we have. We tried to dothat in every single way, with the diskand with the I/O.. .rather than slots.When we first started off withApple II, the variability—how youcustomize your machine—was withhardware; you plugged in a card.And because we didn't have any ideawhat these computers were going tobe used for, that variability was veryimportant. But now we have a muchgreater understanding of what peopleare using these products for. And thecustomization really is mostly soft-ware now. The way I customize mymachine to do what I want is by stick-ing in a disk more than anything else.Atkinson: We've already built in thehardware that most people want.Jobs: Right. Most of the options onother computers are in Mac. So Andyand Burrell really came up with anI/O scheme that was serial. We don'thave slots... slots cost a lot of money,they make the box much bigger, andyou need a much bigger power sup-ply because you never know who'sgoing to plug in what. Do you realizethat in an IBM PC the video board,just the black-and-white video plug-in card, has got way more chips thanthe entire Macintosh? Anyway, so theMac's got most of the stuff built in.Rather than putting in serial portsthat operate at 9600 or 92,000 bits persecond, we paid more money and weput in this super chip. We used theZilog SCC chip that Burrell pickedout, and Larry Kenyon and Andywrote the software to make this chipsing. And it goes up to, what, 230kilobits per second?Smith: It can go up to a megabit persecond with external clock.Jobs: And it does all the asyn-chronous and tons of synchronousprotocols all inside the chip. So we'vegot superhigh-horsepowered serialports.

Smith: The whole idea is that later onwe'll be able to have logical slots in-stead of physical slots. We'll be ableto have multiple devices per port;we'll use a port a lot like the way youhave slots in Apple II. But one of theother advantages that Steve didn't

60 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

mention is that you don't have tochange the memory map of the com-puter. Andy and Larry Kenyonworked on the system and the driversoftware and things like that. Theysaid, well, gee whiz, on the Apple IIyou keep having the rug sort ofchanged on you; someone plugs ina new card or, worse yet, on othermicros people are plugging in dif-ferent software and different hard-ware, and it's hard to keep track.Atkinson: You get into incompatiblecombinations; you just can't use thiscard with that card.Jobs; The other thing about the hard-ware is that when Apple II was de-signed, a microcomputer system costa lot of money to build. I mean, to geta microprocessor and RAM [random-access read/write memory] and ROMmight have cost $50, $60. You ob-viously wanted to share that amongthe peripherals, which is what theApple II did, what any slotted systemgenerally does. Now you can buy amicroprocessor and RAM and ROMin a single-chip micro for about $4.So giving each of the off-boardperipherals its own little micro-processor system is adding $5to the cost of the peripheral. And thecost for providing them with thebandwidth that's needed for most ofthe peripherals that are not on thisboard is very low. Add a $5 bill to theperipheral, put a single-chip micro init, and then talk serially, rather thanhave every single user pay an extrafew hundred dollars for the price ofthe slots that may never get used.Atkinson: One way to look at thebandwidth thing is real simple: ifthere are 128K bytes, that's an eighthof a megabyte. There's 1 megabit inthe machine, so the worst transferyou could think of, transferring theentire contents of the machine, takesone second. You transfer the entirecontents of the Mac through thatserial port in one second.BYTE: What are the serial connec-tors?

Jobs: There are two connectors,DB9s...

Atkinson: They're tricky. They canrun anything from 300 baud on up;you can use them as RS-232C orRS-422A.

lurrell Smith.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 61

Jem/ Manock.

Jobs: Are you familiar with RS-422A?BYTE: Just that it's a high-speedserial standard.

Smith: You can do point-to-pointcommunications at very high speedswith Mac without having to add, forexample, a fancy transmitter/receiverthing. We realize RS-232C is an im-portant thing. It's sort of the industrystandard, and a lot of stuff talks thatway, but we wanted to allow some-thing a little more whizzy. It turnsout that RS-232C was created beforethe concept of a bidirectional pin wasinvented, which hampers it withthings like not knowing the sex ofdevices and terminals.... It gets con-fused as to whether they're com-puters or not. We wanted Mac to talkto those devices. We wanted to pro-vide for the future so that, for exam-ple, if I ever get a spare moment, I

can go back into the lab and makevideo digitizers and hard-disk inter-faces and things like that. When wewant the bandwidth, it will be therefor the applications that we need tosupport.

Jobs: Another thing is that you canrun RS-422A twisted pairs, whichmeans I can run these things forseveral hundred meters. I can stringlines if I have a laboratory and a com-puter on my desk, do whatever Iwant to do. They aren't DB-25s. We'vebeen living with giant connectorsnow for years but using only a fewof the pins. So, again, we tried to savea little bit of space in the backbecause the connector space we haveis limited. We tried to cut down thecost to the customers again, and so,for connecting to devices like printersand modems, which we offer and

which are the most prominent, wejust supply the cables. We also wittsupply cables from one of thesethings to a variety of DB-25s... forthe modem version, the printerversion...

Atkinson: Lines 2 and 3 are switchedon a modem versus a printer, so youjust use a modem cable or a printercable.

BYTE: From a very early time youknew that you wanted to take advan-tage of Lisa's software technology,and you also had the goal of makingthat possible at low cost. When didyou have a consensus on exactlywhat this hardware would have to beto achieve that goal?Smith: In 1981 we started looking atthe Lisa. I came up with a proposalthat said it ends up costing $14 moreto use a 68000 with 64K bytes ofmemory than it does with 6809-basedmachines, if you count power supply.It turns out that it's actually easier tointerface memory to a 68000 than toa 6809. So in January we started reallylooking at the 68000 and the workthat Bill was doing.

In June of 1982 we finally decidedon what we thought was enoughvideo. It turns out that the originalmachine had 384 by 256 pixels. Wechose that because we thought wehad a shot at squeezing the machinedown into 64K bytes, and we didn'twant to throw away a quarter of thememory just for the screen.Atkinson: The thing that drove us isthe 80 columns. In a word processor,we really wanted the lines to breakon the screen at the same place theybreak on the printer. There are twokinds of word processors. There arethe ones where you just have a stringof characters and you see them how-ever they wrap on the screen. Screenwrap is a function of the screen, andhow characters wrap on the printeris the printer's doing. Then there areword processors where what you seeis what you get. You lay out a lineand you know it's going to break atthe same place on the printer as thescreen, so you can do columns andtabs and a couple of columns of num-bers. Then you have to have enoughpixels to generate a full printer lineacross. We thought we could do it

62 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

The Wizards behind the Macintosh

Bill Atkinson nearly had his Ph.D. inneurochemistry before he admitted tohimself that his real love was computers.He "got a quick E.E." and started his owncompany. He was happily minding hisown business when his friend feff Raskinasked him to come see what was happen-ing at Apple, which was then six monthsold. Bill wasn't really interested, butairplane tickets showed up in the mail, sohe took a look. What he saw was "severalyears reaching into the future" of anythinghe could do where he was. He stayed towrite Apple's Pascal and later became Mr.User Interface for Lisa before he moved overto the Mac team.

Andy Hertzfeld says, "The Apple IIchanged my life." The computer people atBerkeley were a little narrow-minded aboutletting a grad student really get into thecomputer as Andy wanted to. So he spentnearly all the money he had in the worldon an Apple II and had a computer hecould control completely. He decided theApple -was more interesting than his classesand began writing programs for magazines.When Apple bought one of Andy's pro-grams, Steve fobs offered him a job, whichhe took when he finished school. Heworked on silent-type printers and AppleIII demos until a shake-up in his part ofthe company shook him loose. He lookedaround and decided to go ivith Mac.

Larry Kenyon arrived at Apple fromAmdahl with a double degree in psychol-ogy and computer science. He was work-ing on Apple III Apple III products whenthe same shake-up that shook Andy loosefreed him, too. Andy asked Larry to jointhe Mac crew because he was one of thefew people who understood the arcane artof making the Apple II work with printerperipherals, and anybody who can do thathas to be good. No one in the company

really believed that Mac was a productwhen Larry joined the Mac team. It wasjust a research effort, and there was somerisk involved—loould you still have yourjob in a few months?

Joanna Hoffman is still on leave fromher Ph.D. program in archaeology at theUniversity of Chicago. She has a back-ground in anthropology, physics, andlinguistics. She came to Apple because ofMac. After using her computer skills in thefield of archaeology for so long, she wastired of looking at the past and turned tothe future. She was Mac's entire marketingdepartment for more'than a year. Shewants to make Mac a tool that feels naturalfor international users by making it speaktheir languages.

Burrell Carver Smith encountered theHomebrew Computer Club in 1975, gothooked on microprocessors, and moved tothe Bay Area, fust riding around in a bor-rowed truck one day, he saw Apple anddecided to drop in. The only job Apple hadavailable ivas in the service department,repairing Apple lis. He took the job andfixed at least a thousand Apple II boardsand got involved in other projects before feffRaskin and Bill Atkinson recruited him forMac. He talked the Lisa engineers out ofsome chips and stuff and got a prototyperunning over Christmas 1979. He ivas thefirst full-time Mac person after Jeff Raskin.

Chris Espinosa says, "There was nolife before Apple." At 13 years old he couldbe found cruising up and down the bus linein his home town, spending a few hoursat each Byte Shop on the line until theowner threw him out. He discovered theway to keep from getting thrown out wasto write demo programs for the machines,so he wrote for whatever was lyingaround—Alfairs, IMSAls, or this weird

new machine called Apple I. His mom wor-ried when he was offered a ride to theHomebreiv Computer Club meeting withtioo scruffy characters named Jobs and Woz-niak, but she gave in, and the rest ishistory. Chris spent a Christmas vacationdebugging Apple's BASIC in exchange fora whole row of4K-byte RAM chips, whichhe thought ivas a pretty good deal. Hezuorked part-time during college writingBASIC programs and reference manualsand signed on fidl-iime when he gradu-ated. He likes being in on the designprocess—'If the machine is designed rightin the first place, you don't have to writea lot about it."

Jerrold C. Manock was a freelanceproduct-design consultant with a Stanfordeducation who finally joined Apple whenhe saw that three-quarters of his billingwas to Apple anyway. He worked on theApple 11, the Disk II, the III, and Lisabefore designing Mac. In Macintosh, hesays, "The outside matches the inside inelegant simplicity."

Bruce Horn grew up at Xerox PARC,much the same way Chris grew up atApple, and later attended Stanford. Brucestarted working at Xerox when he was 14years old—he was one of the kids Xeroxbrought in to test Smalltalk. Turns out hewas brighter than most and became a sys-tems wizard who actually implementedSmalltalk on a variety of different pro-cessors. Bruce is all of 23 years old now,but he spent seven years at Xerox PARCand brought Apple that perspective.

George Crowe and David Egner

designed the analog board in theMacintosh.

Steve Capps assisted Andy Hertzfeld'with the systems software.

with 384, and we tried it with real livedocuments—and we couldn't do it.You could do it with 512, but youcouldn't do it with 384.Smith: The diagonal lines look better,too; the jaggies are removed some-what, and things like that. So, withthat, we said, OK, what's that going

to mean? And we ended up with128K and...

Atkinson: 22K bytes on the screen,and in a 64K-byte machine youcouldn't have afforded it. That droveus to 16 RAM chips instead of 8.Hertzfeld: By then, we knew wewere going with 128K bytes anyway,

to run the applications.Jobs: I just thought I'd show this toyou. This is the IBM video board; it'sonly video, nothing else. It's 69 inte-grated circuits, more chips than anentire Macintosh, and it basicallydoes nothing. And it doesn't even dothat very well.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 63

Espinosa: Forty percent more chipsthan the Mac.

Jobs: So that sort of gives you a feel-ing. And again, that just has thevideo on it. Macintosh, in addition tohaving video that's far higher in res-olution and far faster, has a 32-bitmicroprocessor, 128K bytes of RAM,64K bytes of ROM, two serial ports,the mouse, the serial, keyboard, andmouse interface, the incrediblesound, the clock calendar, the diskcontroller...

Smith: We rolled the whole disk con-troller into one chip.Hertzfeld: And it has Lisa's graphicsand user-interface software built in-to every board.

Jobs: Andy was sort of the softwaretechnical leader behind the project,from its inception. As Andy puts it,software sometimes stands on itshead to get rid of a chip in the hard-ware. And so, with a system aspowerful as this, we wanted to takeadvantage of all the features, for in-stance, in the serial chip and the diskand stuff. We really wanted to be ableto have the serial ports reading while

the disk is spinning, while the mouseis moving, while it's making sound.You know, all with that single board.BYTE: What were the roots of thatoperating system?Kenyon: When we started, of course,we were looking at the work Lisa wasdoing, and the Lisa group was rollingits own operating system, and it justdidn't seem appropriate. We took thegraphics software, which was perfectfor our machine.

Capps: The Lisa's operating systemtook a lot of the user interface. For thewindow manager, even the memorymanager, we started with what Lisahad.

Hertzfeld: It turns out that Quick-draw is built on top of what Lisawould call the intrasegment memorymanager. You relocate little objects.We took that because Quickdraw re-quired that support, and we sort ofturned it into our system-wide mem-ory manager. Even the Lisa groupuses it only for the intra-applicationmemory manager. Someone men-tioned a neat way to do a file system,and we thought about it and said,

"Gee, that's a good way of doing it,"and so we did. A lot of it was ex-perience on the Apple II, knowingwhat was sort of bad there—what wewanted to do great here. That at leastwas the conception of the asyn-chronous I/O. I knew from the AppleII that when you make a disk requestit waits there for a whole second, amillion microseconds, just waiting forthe disk to come up to speed. Weshould be able to do other usefulwork while that's happening. On theApple II if you want to make a beep,the whole processor, the entirety ofthe machine, is devoted to making abeep. And when you've got all thehorsepower of the 68000 there, youdon't want to waste it all on makingsounds.

Atkinson: We still make a beep withthe processor.

Hertzfeld: But we time-slice the pro-cessor such that you can be doingother things. It happens on the inter-rupt level instead of being dedicated.Macintosh uses the processor foreverything, just like the Apple IIdoes. In terms of the disk, we have

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the same disk-controller architectureas the Apple II, but we are just a littlemore sophisticated in how we use in-terrupts. We give the time back to theapplications while the I/O is goingon.

BYTE: Can you say more about thecustom disk controller?Smith: Sure. A long time ago we sortof figured that everybody who wasdoing designs at Apple with disksloved what Woz [Steve Wozniak] haddone on the Apple II. I'll never forget,the first time I looked at the Woz con-troller I said, "OK. Well, this must bethe interface disk controller. Where'sthe disk controller?" I never foundthe disk controller. And we've justbeen in love with the way that that'sdone. It's used to modify group code.One of the things we knew, though,was that disks would be going fasterin the future. So we initially designedthis chip so the whole companywould be able to have an ultra-low-cost way of using Wozniak's disktechnology for every product. But weknew that we weren't just going to begoing at 4 microseconds per bit, that

twice that would become an industrystandard ... at least an Apple inter-nal standard. So we built in a mode,a high-speed mode, so that it can gotwice as fast.

Atkinson: While you're getting inputfrom the serial port at 19,200 bps, youcan be writing to the disk and notmissing a beat. It's not the bufferthat's doing that. It's Larry Kenyon.Every 4 nibbles, you look to see ifthere's something on the port,because in one sector's time, 24 bytesgo by.

Jobs: After we reexamined every-thing, including the disk format, wesaid, "Do we want to go to MFM[modified frequency modulation]?"And the more we reexamined it,what became clear was that theoriginal idea that we had for a diskin 1978, which we are still using, isgreat.

Atkinson: We get 400K bytes on thisthing, while most people get only270.

Jobs: As an example, our scheme hastwice the margin of MFM. In otherwords, when you're shipping a mil-

lion or two million computers a year,which we intend to do, when peopleare buying media from 10 differentsources and they expect to take disksout that were recorded in Alaska inreally cold weather and stick them in-to machines in Florida in a heat waveand have them work, that margin isreally important. If you want toequate that to reliability, we aresignificantly more reliable than anyother disk system on the market,while having higher capacity. So thatwas the key decision, to stick withthe same encoding format and thesame scheme that we've used since1978. So, while everyone else is run-ning at roughly the same rates as Ap-ple II, the IBM PC, and everythingelse, we doubled it on Macintosh. Weset a new internal standard with the3V2-inch disk and this new single-chip controller. And every new 32-bitproduct at Apple will use that newstandard. The media, the sectorformat on that media, the disk con-troller, and the routines and every-thing to drive them is a new Apple32-bit standard that you'll see com-

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© Corona Data Systems 1983. 1. TM InternationalBusiness Machines. 2. TM Microsoft. 3. TMComprehensive Software Support. 4. TM SoftwordSystems. 5. TM University of California.

MORE VERSATILITY.

With all the necessary features built intothe main unit, the four expansion slots can beused for your special needs. For example, coloror our optional 10MB hard disk.

Circle 92 on inquiry card.

corona

data systems, inc.

BYTE February 1984 67

ing out in every future product thatwe do in that family.Smith: There were some voiceswithin the company that said, "Oh,you guys ought to go with standardformats and things like that." Welooked at doing that and it turns outthat it takes more chips to interfaceto a standard floppy-disk controller,and we have...

Jobs: Well, I can go get the IBMfloppy board. It looks to have about45 to 50 chips on it...Espinosa: I'll come and help youcarry it.

Jobs: ... including an LSI [large-scaleintegration] disk controller—far lessperformance, far less capacity, farhigher cost.

Atkinson: And less reliability.Jobs: Oh, far less reliability. Larry'ssoftware senses the disk speed, andBurrell's hardware can adjust to oneof four hundred speeds. So if it'swritten on something that's a littleout of whack, we can just adjust rightdown to the necessary speed andread it. Everything on the Macintoshboard—the serial timing, the disktimings, the microprocessor timings,the video timings, the sound tim-ings—comes from one crystal oscilla-tor and is synchronized from onesource. And, again, it's better, ofcourse, technically to do it that way.Everything works much better, but italso saves parts, and we can offer thisthing cheaper to customers. Andmost of this stuff customers willnever ever realize or care about any-way. I mean, who cares how manycrystal oscillators you have? But youdo care about how big your computeris. You do care about how much itcosts, and you do care about howwell it works.

Atkinson: If you ever drop your com-puter you find out quickly how manycrystal oscillators you have.BYTE: So with the variable speed inthe disk drives, I guess there's noproblem having two drives that are3 percent different in speed.Jobs: We read it and adjust it so thatthe speed is accurate relative to thatcrystal. That crystal on the board issuperaccurate. We can adjust the diskdrive relative to that superaccuracy.Atkinson: You force all the disks to

go at exactly the same speed by hav-ing the software constantly monitor-ing the speed and saying, "Ah, it'srunning a little slow; jack it up a lit-tle bit," so that each disk doesn't haveto be adjusted at all. You switch diskdrives, and the new one will run atexactly the same speed because youforce them all to.

Smith: It turns out that the speedvariations occur partly because youplug in a new cassette that loads themotor down in a different way andalso because of temperature varia-tions that cause very long-term driftsin the disk speed. Using a little bit ofthe processor to fix that doesn't costus any performance at all on the sys-tem.

BYTE: What about the display elec-tronics?

Atkinson: Where is the display con-troller?

Hertzfeld: It's hidden.Jobs: If you bite into that IBM displayboard, it'll totally flicker if you do itat the wrong time. You've seen that,right? Woz just came up with thisreally brilliant way to do the AppleII. He realized that memory wasabout twice as fast as the micropro-cessor needed it and twice as fast asthe video needed it. So he put themicroprocessor over here and he putin essence the video over here, andhe put some multiplexers in themiddle. He shared the exact samememory between the two in a waysuch that this one thought it had allthe memory all the time and this onethought it had all the memory all thetime, yet they shared the same mem-ory! All this thing had to do waswrite into certain memory locationsand, magically, it would appear onthe screen. The microprocessor nevereven had to think about the screen.All it did was look at memory loca-tions.

Atkinson: And there was no way toglitch the video because accesseswere mutually exclusive.Jobs: Right. And so it turns out that,try as we might, we have never beenable to find a better way to do it.Atkinson: At the same time that theprocessors have gotten faster, mem-ory's gotten faster; the memory is stilltwice as fast as the processor.

Jobs: And so, again, it gives yougreater performance, because youdon't have to write only at specialtimes and slow yourself down. It cutsthe chip count way down becauseyou don't need two banks of RAMs,so the customer's not paying for theseextra chips, and it just makes a moreelegant product.

BYTE: How far does the similarityextend between the Apple II videoand the Mac's video?Smith: We have a three-part mem-ory architecture on Mac. We have aDMA window for sound, video, andCPU... shared by three devices. Also,what we do that is a little moresophisticated than Apple II is returnmemory cycles to the processor dur-ing horizontal and vertical retrace.And with the analog design we'reable to lengthen the horizontalretrace interval, which gives us moreperformance for graphics by makingmore time available to the processorfrom memory and giving the analogelectronics more time to retrace thebeam. On the Apple II, Woz sort ofdesigned this logic board and thepower supply was kind of added. OnMac, we really designed the entiresystem as a complete system from theground up, so we used different con-straints. I would say there's not muchsimilarity. The great thing about Macas a product is that it really wasn'tdesigned as just this piece over thereand this piece over there and thisother piece. . .AH of it was designedin parallel, everybody knowing whateveryone else's job was.BYTE: How did you decide on theappearance of the machine?Manock: Our goal in the beginningwas portability. We actually had thiscardboard model that looked amaz-ingly like the Osborne. And that wasway before the Osborne came out. AsI said, portability was primary here,and this version had an attachedkeyboard that had a sort of rubberboot around it that would fold upand give you protection over thescreen. Steve really changed the em-phasis of the product one day whenhe said that we didn't want portabil-ity to be the primary aspect of this,but we did want it to take minimaldesk space. With that goal in mind,

68 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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THE

PURCHASINGAGENT, INC.

574 Weddell Drive, Suite 5Sunnyvale, CA 94089

(408) 744-0646

Open Monday thru Friday. 8-5 PST

Circle 306 on inquiry card.

we realized that the keyboard didn'thave to be exactly the width of thecomputer.

Jobs: To use the earlier design youhad to have some sort of arrange-ment to tilt it up. And what wenoticed was, well, fine, what if youjust lift the back up here like this?Then, because you have all this spaceunderneath, you could put thefloppy disk underneath. So youmake a unit that's more vertical, hasa smaller footprint.Atkinson: It has to be up enough soyour eyes can see it anyway; youneed the height.

Manock: Steve thought, too, Ithink—in a gut reaction sort of way—that everybody was going low profileand wide, and we never have wantedto be a "me, too." I think our verticalformat is correct when you think ofhuman factors.

Hoffman: Jerry, you might want toturn the back around. We made ittruly international. I think it's one ofthe few products aside from Lisa thatis completely usable anywhere youcare to take it.

Manock: Did you see the icons onthe back?

Hoffman: We started out with thecase and went from the outside in,trying to make it more and more in-ternational the more we thoughtabout it. And Jerry was just great assoon as he realized that we really didwant to bring it to the whole world.He had marvelous ideas on how toeliminate every word of text, takeeverything off the package so that wedon't have to be an American productanywhere that we go.Jobs: In Mac, there's no English onthe outside of the case. Everything'siconic. And there 'is absolutely noEnglish in the ROM. It is universal innature. When the thing comes on itputs a few icons on the screen. Ifsomething goes wrong, it can't bootor something, it puts a frowning Macon. If it's booting it puts a happy Macon. It loads all the languages, all thecountry-specific stuff, off the disk.So, because the keyboard is detach-able and mapped anyway, to localizeMac all you do is change the key-board, manuals, and the disks.Nothing in the box has to change.

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Circle 232 on inquiry card,

"IBM Is a trademark of the International Business Machines Corporation."COMPAQ la a trademark of the COMPAQ Computer Corporation.

And another real breakthrough is thisthing called Resources that BruceHorn invented.

Hertzfeld: The data is factored outfrom the code. You know, most pro-grams are a mixture of control logicand just raw code.Atkinson: The virtual-memory archi-tecture on the data parts of the pro-gram allows us to factor it out so that,without rewriting a program at all,without recompiling or relinking theprogram, I can take a copy of MacPaint and in 15 minutes make a Ger-man version.

Hertzfeld: Because all the text is keptin a well-known, well-defined place.Horn: Until December, people didn'treally know what the resourcemanager was, because they reallyhadn't had any contact with it,besides me. I knew what I wantedfrom it because I had to do Finderand all that other stuff. Andy justlooked at it over time and figured outwhat you could do with it. And I wastrying to say, well, this can do thisand this... It was really Andy havingthe biggest view of the system saying

that this could really be a great thingfor a lot of stuff.

Hertzfeld: Another thing to askBruce about is the Finder, which isour most important application, thefirst thing that comes up on the ma-chine. That's the program with all thelittle icons, the desktop manager, Iguess we're calling it. That's Bruce'sconception and communication.

'In Mac, there's no

English on the outside

of the case.

Everything's iconic'

Hoffman: There are numeroussubtleties with this. Picture adialogue box, for example. Adialogue box, when you put Englishtext in German, starts overflowing itslimits and starts looking very dif-ferent. You have a button that says,"Put this away." In German, thattakes a paragraph and overflows thebox.... But Resources lets us changenot only the text but also the physical

look of those dialogue boxes, or any-thing, through something calledResource Editors.

Jobs: Otherwise, you'd have to get in-to the source listing. You'd have tochange not only the languages, asJoanna said, but also the geometriesof the dialogue boxes and make thembigger. It would take you awhile; it'snot something that's impossible, butit's something that never gets done.And it's certainly something that youhave to be the originator of the pro-gram to do. What we've done by pull-ing all the language-specific stuff out,through this beautiful mechanismcalled Resources, is write these otherprograms called Resource Editors. Byrunning a Resource Editor, youcould, if you knew German, simplyrun a program on the program, getin there—literally on the screen—andjust stretch the boxes bigger. Youcould select a text and retype it inGerman and move things around ifyou wanted. You can examine everyicon, every dialogue box, every alertbox, every pull-down menu, every-thing, without being a programmer,

"PortaPac?"

PLAIN TALK.

Contrary to popular belief, PortaPac™ is notsomething you take with you camping. PortaPacis a portable data container with multiple uses.Have you ever tried taking 50 pages of notes ormanuscripts with you on the road, on businesscalls? Well, that's how much you can put in amodel P2064 PortaPac that measures 4 inches by9 inches. That's approximately the size of 2 packsof cigarettes. Except PortaPac is thinner — it'sonly 1 inch thick. And what about versatility?PortaPac uses the industry standard RS232Ccommunication protocol. No more worries or fussabout single density, double density, soft sector, 10hard sector, 16 hard sector, and other mumbojumbo disk formats. PortaPac can function asdata terminal equipment, i.e., similar to your ter-minal, or as data communication equipment, i.e.,similar to your computer or modem. Or, if youlike, it can be put inline between your terminaland your computer. Totally transparent. Mainte-nance? There is virtually none. All you do ischange the battery when the low battery lightcomes on — every 1 to 5 years depending on themodel! What's more, your PortaPac automati-cally retains its contents when power goes out.

What can PortaPac do for you, you ask? Howabout transferring information (including pro-grams) between computer systems? At 19,200 sus-tained rate! No more staying up all night just toget your data reliably thru the modem at 1200baud. How about taking it with you on sales calls?Display your information on the client's computeror terminal, turn around and enter orders intoPortaPac for later processing. And what aboutyour customer engineers? How about puttingyour diagnostic program in the PortaPac, anddownload it into the computer? The uses just goon and on...

TESTIMONY

Here's how some of our customers are using theirPortaPac...

• Transferring manuscripts prepared on Osborneto IBM and Xerox systems

• As a portable storage device for the Tandymodel 100 computer

• Demonstrate hardware with demonstrationpackage stored in PortaPac

• Transferring information between NorthStarAdvantage, Morrow Design Micro Decision,and DEC PDP 11 machines

• As a replacement for floppies on machine toolscontrol computers

• The list just goes on and on...

AND HERE'S MORE...

Our model P2064F is a dedicated version of themodel P2064. Once started, it will always retainthe last 64K characters of information passingthru it. Put it inline between your computer andterminal. No more cussing because you just lostthe last 4 hours of work doing data entry when thepower went out or the diskette went bad.

AND AN ADDED BONUS...

The PortaPac can function as a printer buffer! Sonow you can take the PortaPac to a high speedserial printer and get your reports quick! Againand again if you wish.

Want to know more? Write or call us and we'llsend you additional information. Pronto!

A\ Cryptronics, Inc.

11711 Coly River Circle, Suite 7Fountain Valley, CA 92708Phone:(714)540-1174PortaPac™ is a trademark of Cryptronics, Inc.

72 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 98 on Inquiry card.

A real fish story

by Brett Kirk

Owner

Poseidon Aquatics

:

"Our business iswholesaling tropical fish topet stores. We're not alarge-sized company, butwe have one whopper of aninventory-control problem.That's where dBASE II®comes in."

The one that didn'tget away.

"We needed a fastprogram, and dBASE II, the relationaldatabase management system fromAshton-Tate, gave us the speed weneeded to quickly log in our weeklylive-fish shipment in terms of totalnumbers received, the kind and num-bers of each different type, the cost perfish—all critical factors in determiningour pricing and being able to pass alongsavings to our customers wheneverpossible without hanging us out to dryprofitwise.

"We're sure glad we boughtdBASE II when we did. I think ourcustomers are glad, too."

Once you try dBASE II,you'll be hooked.

If you're up to your ears with data

Circle 29 on inquiry card.

that has to be managed quickly andefficiently, dBASE II can really helpyou stay afloat.

For all the particulars, contactAshton-Tate, 10150 West JeffersonBoulevard, Culver City, CA 90230.(800) 437-4329, Ext. 212. In the U.K.,call (0908) 568866.

ASHTON -WE

Suggested retail price, $700.

dBASE II is a registered trademark of Ashton-Tate.

©Ashton-Tate 1983

BYTE February 1984 73

without getting the source code, andvery quickly, too, using the user in-terface of the Macintosh.Atkinson: Anything that XYZ soft-ware company put together, eventhough the company didn't thinkabout Taiwan, will run in Taiwan.Jobs: But do we want it to run inTaiwan?

BYTE: Are you going to market it ag-gressively in Japan?Jobs: Yes.

Hertzfeld: My favorite thing aboutResources, being selfish, is that thesame facilities that allow us to trans-late English into 7, 10, 20, a milliondifferent languages are the samefacilities we use to translate technishto English in the first place.Hoffman: The other component ofthis is that it allows us to not just in-troduce products that feel to thenative user like a native machine,natural to them, but also that we canstart coming very close to makingsimultaneous product introductions.The software that is developed in theU.S. can fly over there for them, forthe fragmented markets in Europe,for example. Europe does not allowfor the same kind of development ofsoftware houses as the U.S. becausethe markets are all so fragmented youcan't amortize development of thesoftware over as large a user base. Butgiven that the Europeans now havethe capability of using a localized,globalized software, if you will, theirmarket grows because each in-dividual software developer in Francenow can view the whole world as amarket. We feel that it will give an im-petus to the development of softwaredevelopers, third parties, in Europe,and in more fragmented markets aswell.

Smith: An international power sup-ply, too, so the exact same unit basic-ally can be used anywhere in theworld.

Egner: It doesn't care whether it's50-Hz input.

Manock: Just one additional thing onthese: the icons on the back are fromthe International ElectrotechnicalCommission (IEC). We didn't inventall these ourselves.. .wherever pos-sible we used symbols that alreadyexisted—for example, AC line power

—that are world standards. Wherewe didn't have symbols that existed,we used the IEC's closest symbol asbest we could and then added whatwe thought made sense. For example,we needed a symbol for a modem, sowe started with IEC's telephone sym-bol. We tested them to make surethere was good recognition. We'llsubmit these new icons to the IEC tohave it suggest that they be the stan-dards added to its encyclopedia ofsymbols.

BYTE: What is this machine going tomake possible that other comparablypriced machines have not made pos-sible? How will it change the per-sonal computing scene?Jobs: Right now, as you know, whenyou use a word processor, it will dotwo or three things. The first thingMacintosh will do is make the exist-ing types of applications an order ofmagnitude easier and more ap-proachable for people. Therefore theavailable market for this machine isgoing to be giant compared to theavailable market for the people whoare willing to invest 40 to 100 hourslearning to use their computers.That's the first thing.

The second thing is that there aregoing to be new types of applicationsavailable that could not be availableon the current generation of personalcomputers—it is technically impos-sible to do. The perfect example isPaint. Paint is impossible to do on anApple II or an IBM PC or any of theother first-generation products. Youcan do a mockery of it, but you can'treally do it. And there are going tobe lots of applications like that.You've seen Lisa Project. That, ofcourse, will be running on Mac. Andwe don't even know the kinds of ap-plications that are going to come outin six months to a year. As an exam-ple, we'll be able to laser-print outputfrom this thing by next June, and thatis pretty exciting to us. So, if we sellthese on a university campus, you'llbe able to take your disk into the li-brary and get output off a laserprinter, which will be approachingtypeset quality. That's the kind ofstuff we're doing; you just can't dothat on a current-generation personalcomputer.

And then the third thing is whatBurrell and Larry and Andy and theother software people have done.When we shipped the Apple II, wefundamentally shipped about 2Kbytes of ROM with system code. TheIBM system's got 8K bytes, but it'sreally kind of loose as a goose; it'sabout 4K bytes by our standards ofcode. Mac has 64K bytes of the tight-est, most elegant code that this com-pany's ever written. Most of the com-puters now are basically shipping afile system and a few drives, butwhat's really interesting is that on topof that, we've layered on memorymanagement and on top of this isQuickdraw.

Jobs: Mac's a completely open ma-chine—we've got a book called InsideMacintosh that tells all the secrets ofit. But we're going to try to get a lit-tle uniformity through the carrotrather than the stick. And the carrotis that there's a finite amount of RAMin this machine, and we've done allthese things for you in ROM. Now,you can do them yourself, there'snothing that says you can't do themyourself, but if you do, you've got towrite them, which is going to taketime and means you're going to beslower to get to market; you've got tochew up precious RAM space, andthe chances are pretty good that wedid a better job than you'll do. Sowe're going to try through the carrotto get a little bit of uniformity in theuser interface in some of the ways thethings are done.

Hertzfeld: See, we're really a 192K-byte machine, and if the program-mers want to throw away 64K, thenthey're doing a dumb thing.Jobs: We're a 192K-byte machine thatdeep-freezes 64K.

Hertzfeld: Highly tuned, tested, de-bugged, highly compact, very fast,very high-quality consistent code.BYTE: What are all the factors in thisthat make it go so fast?Hertzfeld: Sweat.

Jobs: Burrell, Andy, Larry, Bill—howlong did you work on Quickdraw?Atkinson: Four years.Hertzfeld: All of us care a lot aboutperformance. Surprisingly, that'sunusual. A lot of people don't care iftheir system's...

74 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Atkinson: Like Quickdraw. I won'teven count the first runs in Pascal,but the first runs in assembly lan-guage were running 160K bytes,before I added a lot of the new fea-tures. It's now down to 24K byteswith lots more stuff in it. Character-drawing speed is one you look at fordrawing an arbitrary size character,an arbitrary starting pixel clipped toan arbitrary area. We were running,when it was being developed on Lisa,about 1000 characters per second thefirst time. Well, I got that up to 4000.Mac is running about 7000. That'sseven times 9600 baud. This is typicalof all of our software packages here.You go through, get the best algo-rithms first, get the stuff right. Thencrunch it down, make a first pass inPascal, get the algorithms right, findthe cleanest algorithms, find all thecorners, and make sure they'retested. Then I translate it into looseassembly language to get down intoassembly language and get it work-ing. Then I'll go through and get allthe bugs out again, and I'll gothrough and do fine register alloca-

tion to figure out what's the most im-portant thing. This little baby, the68000, has sixteen 32-bit registers sit-ting there, and the way you get per-formance out of that is to keep themfull. Keep the registers full of impor-tant stuff all the time. That's the wayyou make this processor sing. So yougo down and you do register alloca-

Optimization withoutmeasuring is wastedtime. Find out where

the application's reallyspending time and go

whump on that code/

tion, and then you don't stop. Thenyou feed it back, you get your peopleto use it.

Quickdraw was designed by "pull"from applications rather than "push"from the design team. You provide afacility, watch the applications grouptry to use it, understand where theymisunderstood something—maybeyou've got a bad model, you want tomake it simpler and cleaner—or

where they don't have enough per-formance. And then you go back andyou measure, measure, measure,measure. Optimization without mea-suring is wasted time. Find outwhere the application's really spend-ing time and go whump on thatcode. And any other cases they'revery seldom using, squeeze themdown in size, and stretch the otherones. There's always a trade-off be-tween size and speed. Stretch out thecommon cases, let them be biggerand much faster, and then keep thegenerality by squeezing down the in-frequent cases. So play your odds.People draw characters in OR modea whole lot, and OR mode is abouttwice as fast as the other modes, so95 percent of all characters are drawnin OR mode. Statistical measuring ofthe use of the thing allows you to getmuch more performance on youraverage throughput than you can ifyou don't go back and measure.

I think we all believe that systemsoftware should be done in assemblylanguage at this stage of the gamebecause high-level languages can't

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give you the performance and thecode density that you can get out ofassembly language.BYTE: So far, it has seemed that withall the systems that have mice, allthose that are on the market, you paya great price in terms of performanceto get ease of use.Atkinson: You make a responsivesystem; it isn't just draw some char-acters out there. It's also, rememberwhere you put them because if theguy touches on them you want tolight them up. There's a lot more gutsin that application.Jobs: It's not just systems that havemice. What's happening is there area whole bunch of things that go withthe mouse. It's not just hanging amouse on a first-generation personalcomputer and using the same old,fixed-pitch text and things like that,just replacing four cursor keys. Whatwe've done here is take a quantumleap, where, in addition to having themouse be the major pointing device,we've gone to full proportionallyspaced fonts, totally software-paintedon the screen, any size, any shape...

totally new architecture for display-ing things to the user.Atkinson: But the responsiveness iswhere the code goes.Jobs: The responsiveness and the factthat there isn't a mouse-based systemout yet that uses a 68000. We're ob-viously using the power of the 68000in addition to this code.Smith: There are some tricks weplayed in the hardware, too. For ex-ample, we knew that the ROMswould have real important things inthem. So we made the ROMs sort ofread-only cache memory, whereasthe RAM has to contend with videoand sound for access, so we cut thatdown to the bare bones, but the codethat's in ROM, like Bill's graphics andthe other stuff, can run as fast as youcan run a 68000.

Jobs: If you look at the really greatapplications, even on first-generationpersonal computers, most of themare written in assembly language—Visicalc, 1-2-3—it's like if you're goingto sell a million of something, it paysto handcraft it in assembly. If you'regoing to sell 10 of something, it prob-

ably doesn't. If we'd written this inPascal, we would have been able tofit a fourth as much code in the ROMor would have to have four times theROM, and you wouldn't have hadthe performance. Because we're go-ing to sell 10 million of these thingsin the long run, it pays to super-handcraft it; we only have to do itonce. Every time these ROMs areburned, it doesn't cost us any moreengineering. . .it's all been done upfront.

Capps: Because we cared enough todo it as well as we possibly could.Jobs: We took a 12K-byte Pascal pro-gram running on a Lisa and we saidwe want to do this in 2K and makeit faster. But we had that extra yearto do that. And we also had themotivation, of course.Atkinson: When you're writing as-sembly, you know each instruction isgoing to take 2 microseconds, it's go-ing to take 4 bytes of memory. InPascal, you're removed from that, soyou don't concentrate on perfor-mance as much. When I'm doing I/Ostuff in assembly language I look at

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78 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Natural Language Interpreter. Unique to SALVO,this allows you to enter the following type command,"List my customers and their orders." Watch asSALVO generates the application. It truly shatters theinformation barrier. In minutes you get what you want,the way you want it. Inventory, Accounting, MailingLists, Sales Reports and more.

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80 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

the theoretical maximum speed youcan run at. Why not do it as fast asyou can possibly do it? Especiallywhen you're doing disk I/O stuff.How fast can you get into an inter-rupt and out?

BYTE: Andy, let's talk about the ear-ly days, after it had becomeMacintosh.

Hertzfeld: I don't know, there'ssomething that makes a job a littlemore fun to work on when the oddsare against you. And that's sort ofhow it was in the early days. I wasmaybe the fifth or sixth person tocome work on it. Steve took me overto this little building separate fromeverywhere else, where there werethese incredibly great people work-ing on this little wire-wrap PC board.All it could do when you turned it onwas write "hello" on the screen about80 times. And everyone was in-credibly excited to see it write "hello"on the screen because it meant thatthe central processing unit was thereand all that potential was there to bemined. I spent my time mining thatpotential.

The very first time we got an earlyversion of Quickdraw running, andwe got the mouse going—that's justan incredible thrill. Or getting backthe first PC board—we all went outfor pizza on Friday night. We got theboards in about four o'clock Fridayafternoon, and Steve said, "Well, ifyou get these done before midnight,we'll take you for pizza," and westayed there...not because wewanted the pizza, but because wewanted to see that board working.And I think that none of our Mac PCboards have ever had to have a wirerun to fix something, which is prettyamazing. That's the attention to detailthat you just can't get people to dofor money. We do it for love. . . this isthe most important thing in our lives. . .to make that great computer.

It's fun for me because I like oper-ating on a systems program where Ican operate in an environment wherethere's not that much support. In theearly days when I first started here,the first thing I did was come in andwrite all kinds of crazy demos,stretching things around on thescreen and making balls bounce, and

one reason to do it was that I didn'twant to write the system code untilI was good at writing 68000 pro-grams. So I just wanted to learn byhaving fun, and the other reason isthat it gets people excited about it.Just this raw hardware sitting theredoesn't do too much, but once youstart making this fun thing happenand that fun thing happen, the ex-citement starts getting generated. Youget to attract other good people, andone by one we picked up on moreand more people. We were very, veryselective; it was very hard to findpeople to work on Mac software,because on one hand we had thevery high goals of doing this re-search, Xerox PARC-like stuff withuncommon, high technical stan-dards. On the other hand, we had avery inexpensive, limited-memorymachine. So all the Xerox PARC-typeguys who came and interviewedsaid, "Oh, you don't have 2 mega-bytes? Forget it, I don't want to workon this thing." They're all used totheir Dorados. But gradually wefound great people like Larry andBruce who were turned on by thedream, and they came and joined ourband, and I guess we reached criticalmass.

Atkinson: Most of the early peoplewere recruited from Apple... and wehave a pirate's flag that we sometimesput on the roof. The idea is we'repirates and we go around and try tosteal the best we can from anywherewe can get it, and mostly that's beenfrom Lisa. A lot of it's been from Lisa,but it's true in initially putting to-gether the team, too; we try to get thebest people we can from anywhere inthe company.

Hertzfeld: One of the slogans Stevecame up with when we had a retreatin January was "Let's be pirates," theidea being that we were mavericksout to blow people's minds and over-turn standards, create new standards,not do things like everyone else.Atkinson: There was always the thrillthat this was going to be the one proj-ect that was probably the most amaz-ing thing you were going to be do-ing in your life.

Hertzfeld: And the other slogan was"The journey is the reward."■

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The Lisa 2.

Apple Announcesthe Lisa 2

by Gregg Williams

When several of us at BYTE saw theMacintosh, we were seriously con-cerned about the fate of the Lisa inthe face of the Macintosh, a machinethat is one-third its price and clearlysuperior in some areas. Apple hasanswered these concerns by announ-cing two versions of the Lisa 2, alongwith the Macintosh, at its annualstockholders' meeting on January 24.

New Features

The Lisa 2 will use the same modi-fied Sony 3V2-inch floppy-disk drivesas the Macintosh. It will be sold witha new, faster operating system, one3V2-inch floppy disk, and 512K bytesof memory (the single drive takes theplace of the two 5%-inch drives in theLisa 1). The Lisa 2 includes a mouse,detached keyboard, built-in 12-inch

video display and can be expandedto 1 megabyte (the memory capacityof the Lisa 1); it will cost "under$4000," according to Apple (the exactprice had not been decided whenthis was written). The Lisa 2/10 willadd an internal 10-megabyte Win-chester hard disk and will sell for"under $5500." All the Lisa applica-tion programs will be availableseparately for $200 to $400 each.Apple planned to have the Lisa 2available by January 24.

Software ,

Aside from the availability of alarger hard disk, the most welcomefeature of the Lisa 2 family is that itwill be able to run all Macintosh soft-ware as supplied on 3V2-inch disks.When the Lisa 2 boots a Macintoshprogram, the system will look andbehave like a Macintosh, except thatit will automatically take advantageof all the extra memory in the Lisa 2.Since literally hundreds of compan-ies are developing Macintosh soft-ware, the Lisa 2's ability to run itgreatly increases its software baseand, therefore, its usefulness.

Both the Lisa 2 and the 2/10 comewithout an operating system. Lisa 2owners will need to buy the Macin-tosh operating system (unpriced atthe time this was written); Lisa 2/10owners can buy that operating sys-tem or the multitasking Lisa operat-ing system (for about $300). With theLisa operating system only, you willbe able to have multiple windows,each of which can contain a separateapplication.

Apple is planning two new releasesof Lisa software as well. The firstrelease, available in late January, hasoptimized various parts of the oper-ating system to make Lisa programsrun faster and use the 10-megabytehard disk. This software release willbe free for anyone who bought theLisa before September 12,1983 (whenthe price was reduced and the soft-ware was unbundled), and availableat a nominal fee for buyers of un-bundled Lisa software.

The second release of Lisa softwarewill come sometime during the sec-ond quarter of 1984. This softwarewill increase the integration among

84 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Lisa products (for the first time, youwill be able to move graphics fromLisa Draw to a text document in LisaWrite, data from Lisa Calc to LisaList, and data from Lisa Terminal toLisa Calc, for example). It will also in-clude enhancements in many of theLisa application programs. For ex-ample, Lisa Write will include a spell-ing checker and the ability to processform letters, Lisa Graph will allowdata to be graphed in new ways, allprograms will support a $5000 laserprinter and a 70-megabyte hard diskto be introduced by Apple, and LisaDraw and Lisa Graph will supportcolor printing. The second release ofLisa software will be available toowners of previous versions for anominal fee.

Upgrading

Lisa 1 owners have two upgradingpaths. Apple will let them upgradeto a Lisa 2 for free or to a Lisa 2/10for $2500 (both upgrades involve re-placing parts in the Lisa 1, not swap-ping the Lisa 1 for a new Lisa 2). Inboth cases, Lisa 1 owners will keeptheir 5-megabyte Profiles, thus allow-ing them to transfer all their informa-tion to the new system (by copyingall such data from 5V4-inch floppydisks to the Profile before convertingto the Lisa 2).

Conclusions

With the announcement of the Lisa2 and 2/10, Apple has made the Lisacomputer both more competitive andpart of an innovative, powerful, butstill affordable family of computers.The reduced price and Macintoshsoftware compatibility of the Lisa 2make it far more attractive to poten-tial buyers than the Lisa 1 was. Thefeatures added to the Lisa applicationprograms make them even more use-ful than they currently are. Finally,Apple's upgrading policy is com-mendable because it does not leavebehind the Lisa 1 owners who sup-ported the machine in its earlydays.B

Gregg Williams is a senior editor at BYTE. Hecan be reached at POB 372, Hancock, NH 03449.

PREVENT THE DISASTER

OF HEAD CRASH AND

DROPOUT.

The war against dust and dirtnever ends. So before you bootup your equipment, andeverytime you replace acassette, disk or drivefilter, be sure to use Dust-Off' II;it counteracts dust, grit and lint.Otherwise you're flirting withcostly dropouts, head crashesand downtime.

Dust-Off II is most effectivewhen used with Stat-Off II. Stat-Off II neutralizes dust-holdingstatic electricity while Dust-Off IIblasts loose dust away. There'salso the Dual Extender and Mini-Vac for vacuuming dust out ofhard-to-reach places.

Photographic professionalshave used Dust-Off brandproducts consistently ontheir delicate lenses andexpensive cameras forover ten years. Theyknow it's the safe, dry,efficient way to contaminant-free cleaning.

Cleaning not provided by liquidcleaners.

Dust-Off II's remarkablepinpoint accuracy zeros in on theprecise area being dusted. Andyou have total control—every-thing from a gentle breeze for

System II

Stat-Off II neutralizes dust-holdingstatic electricity from media andmachines.

delicate computer mechanismsto a heavy blast for grimy dirt.Don' t let contamination dis-rupt your computer operation.Stock up on Dust-Off II—the ad-vanced dry cleaning system,at your local computer oroffice supply dealer.

Or send $1.00 (forpostage and handling)for a 3 oz. trial size andliterature today.

Dust-OffH

The safe dry cleaning system

Falcon Safety Products. Inc . 106b Bristol Road, Mountainside. NJ 07092

Circle 140 on inquiry card.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 85

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,® Multiplan,® Peachtext?Spellwriter® and Datavieuf just toname a few

86 BYTE February 1984

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=

Grapl

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 tofive 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-

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.

If you 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:

GETYOUR 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.

*Excerpt reprinted by permission of Microcomputing Magazine.

All rights reserved

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

Valdocs and HASCI are trademarks of Rising Star Industries.

dBase II is a trademark of AshtonTate,

Wordstar is a trademark of Micropro.

Personal Pearl is a trademark of Pearlsoft.

Spellwriter and Supercalc are trademarks ol'Sorcim,

Microplan is a trademark of Chang Labs.

MBA General Ledger is a trademark of Micro BusinessApplications.

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

EPSON

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

BYTE February 19&4 87

Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar

Build the Circuit CellarTerm-Mite ST Smart Terminal

Part 2: Programming and Use

The supplied standard control software supports several characterattributes and various configuration options

Last month, in Part 1,1 introducedyou to the Term-Mite ST intelligentvideo-display terminal, shown inphoto 1. It is designed around thenew National Semiconductor NS455Terminal-Management Processor(TMP). This self-contained terminal-controller chip permits the essentialfeatures (see table 1) to be providedby only 21 integrated circuits.

This month I'd like to pick up thestory beginning with a discussion ofthe firmware, that is, the programlogic inscribed in ROM (read-onlymemory) inside the NS455A thatruns on the internal microprocessorto control all the terminal's functions.We'll look at the functions of the firm-ware, the configuration-switch set-tings, the Escape sequences and con-trol functions, and, finally, demon-strate putting a few characters on thescreen.

Factory-Supplied ControlProgram

The control program has fourmain sections: the initialization code,

Copyright © 1984 Steven A. Garcia.All rights reserved.

by Steve Ciarcia

the main keyboard-scanning andwait loop, the display-processingroutine, and the interrupt-processingroutines. (Since keyboard scanningmay be a new technique to some ofyou, the logic flow of this code sec-tion will be described in detail.) Theprogram is constructed in a modularfashion; a general flowchart is shownin figure 1, while a memory map isshown in figure 2.

The initialization routine is ex-ecuted when the terminal is firstturned on or when it is reset. Theroutine first checks all the displaymemory and the serial I/O (input/output) circuits; then it reads the con-figuration switches and loads theNS455A's registers with their initialvalues. Many values must be loadedinto registers before the terminal canwork: among them are the timing-chain constants that specify charac-ter-cell parameters; values for cursordefinition, horizontal, and verticaltiming; values for the character attri-butes and other display controls;values to determine character posi-tions; and values that set the datarate, parity, full- or half-duplex trans-mission mode, etc.

After everything has been initial-

ized, the program enters the charac-ter-processing loop, which is often re-ferred to as the main wait loop. If ascanned keyboard is being used,scanning occurs every 10 millisec-onds (ms) during this loop. When thehardware detects a character, abranching instruction passes controlto the display-processing routine. (Amore definitive explanation of key-board scanning follows.)

Characters typed on a parallel-encoded keyboard are handledsomewhat differently, as are charac-ters received from the host computeror another terminal. When a charac-ter arrives from one of these sources,the hardware of the Term-Mite STgenerates an interrupt, and controlautomatically passes into one of theinterrupt-handling routines. In thecase of the parallel keyboard, its data-strobe signal generates an external in-terrupt (an interrupt relying on hard-ware outside the processor); the in-terrupt handler causes the TMP toread the typed character from the I/Oport, queue it for display, transmit it(if necessary), and return to wait forthe next character.

When the hardware receives dataon the serial input line, it generates

88 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

an internal interrupt. Controlbranches to several routines thatdetermine what type of interrupt oc-curred and take appropriate action.The first test checks for received char-acters in the buffer of the UART (uni-versal asynchronous receiver/trans-mitter). If a character is found in thebuffer, it is queued for display (i.e.,placed in the holding area for data tobe shown on the screen). If no char-acter is found, the register contentsare tested for a match with the specialvalue that indicates an empty-trans-mit-buffer condition, in which casethe program tries to fill the transmitbuffer. The final test is for the inter-nal timer; timer interrupts happenevery 10 ms and are used to triggerthe keyboard scanning. If the Term-Mite ST is not set up to use a scannedkeyboard, the internal-timer interruptproduces no activity.

Because of the operating dif-ferences between scanned and en-coded keyboards, the control pro-gram contains two routines for read-ing a keyboard character. The en-coded keyboards are handled by theexternal-interrupt routine. Very fewprocessor instructions are required tofetch the character, since the datacomes in from the I/O port alreadyencoded as values in the ubiquitousASCII (American National StandardCode for Information Interchange)character set established by ANSI(the American National StandardsInstitute). In contrast, getting acharacter from the scanned keyboardtakes a fairly lengthy subprogram,which must examine the switchmatrix of the keyboard for closuresand convert that data into a meaning-ful ASCII character. The two key-board routines, however, merge atthe point where the character hasbeen identified; a common section ofcode is used to display, transmit, andqueue the character.

The display-processing subroutineis entered from the main wait loopwhen the program finds that theinput-character buffer is not empty.If the character appearing in the buf-fer is part of an Escape sequence, theprocessing routine decides whetherto wait for additional information(more characters) or to take immedi-

Photo 1: A prototype of the Term-Mite ST circuit board, measuring only 47A by 6V2 inches.The design incorporates the National Semiconductor NS455A Terminal Management Processor,

1.24 lines of 80 characters each, uppercase and lowercase

2. supports either scanned or parallel-encoded keyboards

3. selectable data rate, parity, cursor, and display options

4.attributes: reverse-video, half-intensity, double-height, double-width, underlined, blinking

and/or blanked character5. line (block) graphics6.21 Escape functions7.14 control functions

8. twenty-fifth-line reverse-video status display

9. self-test

10.separated-sync or composite-video output

Table 1: The features of the Term-Mite ST intelligent video-display terminal.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 89

ate action. ASCII control codes areprocessed immediately. If the re-ceived character is an ordinary dis-playable character, it is simply dis-played and possibly transmittedthrough the serial port.

Keyboard-Scanning Logic

The scanned keyboard is funda-mentally a set of push-buttonswitches arranged in a set of rowsand columns and wired togetherwith diodes. Every 10 milliseconds,triggered by the internal-timer inter-rupt, the Term-Mite ST looks at eachrow and column in turn to find outif any of the switches have beenclosed.

The basic scanning algorithm isshown in figure 3. The first thing theroutine does is check to see if the key-board is currently enabled (it is pos-sible to turn the keyboard off). Thescanning loop is initialized for 16 col-umns of key switches. The wire alongthe first column is driven to the volt-age that represents logic 1 while therow lines are monitored. If the logic-1voltage appears on the output of anyrow, the terminal knows that the keyat the intersection of that row and col-umn is being pressed. Whenever thescanning loop detects a hit, programcontrol momentarily leaves the loopwhile the row and column coor-dinates are used to look up the ap-propriate ASCII value in a code-conversion table. The lookup routinealso notes the current status of theControl, Shift, and Caps-Lock func-tions.

The key value is compared to thevalue found during the last scan; ifthey are the same, the routine as-sumes that the key simply has not yetbeen released from the previousstroke and ignores the key-pressedcondition. (When typing, most peo-ple hold down each key long enoughfor many scans to occur. Except whenthe Repeat key is in use, the terminalassumes that continued closure ofthe key switch should not producefurther output.) If the scanningroutine finds that the most recentlyread key value is indeed a new char-acter, it stores the value and resumesscanning. If two key switches arefound simultaneously closed in one

(la)

/power on\vor reset j

RUNSELF-TEST

RESET AND

INITIALIZATION

CODE

MAINWAIT LOOP

DISPLAYPROCESSING

SET ERRORINDICATION

STOP

-INTERRUPTQUEUES CHARACTER(SEE FIGURE lb)

YES /IS\

/ IT A \.

< CONTROL >\. CHAR^^

NO

| YES

PROCESS

PROCESS

PROCESS

ESCAPE

CONTROL

STANDARD

SEQUENCE

CHARACTER

CHARACTER

»'-

I IS CHARACTER-I TO BE

DISPLAYED

DISPLAYCHARACTER

PERFORMDISPLAYHOUSEKEEPINGAND MANAGEMENT

Figure 1: A flowchart of the control program supplied standard by National Semiconductorfor the NS455A. The main code is shown in la while the interrupt sections are in lb.

column, the two characters are pro-cessed in turn before the scan isrestarted.

After all the columns have beenscanned, the routine checks the char-acter-value storage to see if any keyswere pressed. If the number of "hits"found is greater than four, it exitswith no output. Valid characters, pro-duced by one to four key presses perscan, are queued in the keyboardbuffer for display and output. The

routine also checks the Repeat key;if it is being held down, the programinitially delays 1 second and thenbegins to queue the same characteragain at intervals of 0.1 second. If nokeys were detected during the scan,the program cleans out the key-board-buffer storage area, resets theinterrupt mask, does some house-keeping, and returns from theinterrupt.(Note: The keyboard-scanning rou-

90 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

(lb)

INTERNAL INTERRUPTS

TRANSMIT

CHARACTER

INTERRUPT

RECEIVECHARACTER

INTERRUPT

KEYBOARD

SCAN

INTERRUPT

LIGHT-PENINTERRUPT

SCAN

KEYBOARD FORKEY

SET LP REG

AND

LIGHT-PEN FLAG

^r\ no

-''

\. KEY j/~

V* p

|YES

QUEUE ITFOR DISPLAY

,'-

RETURN

FROM

INTERRUPT

EXTERNAL INTERRUPTS (ENCODED KEYBOARD ONLY)

EXTERNALINTERRUPT

GET ENCODED

KEYBOARD

CHARACTER

QUEUE IT

FOR

DISPLAY

RETURN

FROM

INTERRUPT

tine is somewhat hardware-dependent. A numeric keypad andseparate input lines for Control,Shift, Repeat, and Caps-Lock keysmay not be available or work thesame way in all keyboards. The stan-dard program is written to operatewith an Oak full-travel membrane(FTM) keyboard. Other keyboards,including the one shown in photo 2,can be made to work with the stan-dard NS455A, but the Oak keyboardcan be used with a minimum oftrouble.)

Configuring for Use

The biggest annoyance of today'sadvanced intelligent terminals is thatthey can be complicated to use.When you unpack a new unit you

can expect to spend at least an hourtrying to set the switches for all theproper optional modes and func-tions. At such times I fondly recallfirst plugging in my completed TVTypewriter in late 1973 (see references2 and 4). There were no confusingconfiguration switches or Escape se-quences. I just typed.

The Term-Mite ST, though small,was designed to be powerful, so ithas to include some options that youset before use. I have tried to keepthem as simple as is compatible withflexibility. These options are bothhardware- and software-configur-able.

In the Term-Mite ST, three eight-position DIP (dual-inline pin)switches let you set up the unit to

assume certain operating conditionsand parameters when you first turnit on. Once the terminal has beenturned on, most of the switch -presetparameters can be changed by on-line commands received either fromthe keyboard or through the RS-232Cport. In this same manner, some ad-ditional parameters that don't haveswitches can be set up. The com-mands are sequences of ASCII char-acters, either single nonprinting con-trol codes or ordinary characters pre-ceded by an Escape character (Escapesequences).

Control codes, as in most ASCII-encoded applications, are generatedat the keyboard by simultaneouslyholding down the Control key andone other alphabetic or character key.The binary value emitted is withinthe special low range of ASCII codesdesignated for the control of devices.These codes do not normally causeany symbol to be printed or dis-played, so they are referred to as non-printing. A list of the control codes asused by the Term-Mite ST (runningwith the standard firmware) is shownin table 2 on page 96. An ASCII con-trol code is often abbreviated by thecorresponding printing character pre-ceded by a caret or an up-arrow; thus"~G" stands for Control-G.

Escape sequences are more complex.These consist of characters that aremostly in the range of regular ASCIIvalues, but the normally printablecodes are transmitted following thespecial ASCII Escape character (deci-mal 27). This Escape character is sonamed because the characters thatfollow it "escape" from their normalmeanings. (In the context of anEscape sequence, almost any mean-ing is possible for any character,although some Escape sequences arewidely used, and one set hasachieved the status of an ANSI stan-dard equal to ASCII itself—seereference 1.) In the Term-Mite ST, anEscape sequence consists of at leasttwo keystrokes: the Escape key fol-lowed by an uppercase letter (in theset A through Z, with some unused).The Escape sequences activate vari-ous functions of the Term-Mite ST.Only direct cursor addressing andthe set-attribute-value function re-

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 91

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KeyboardEnclosure

Model KE1T

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> Highly styled, durable construction

• Easy to use and mc: fy

. Compatible with nil standard keyboards./>BS Tiiattrfal rt. is UL 9aV-0standards

• MoWWMhnxigl • «*»• doesn't show scratches : _Keyboard . • ; rear tfO panels can be milled, punched, drilled,or custom molded, arid screened

PACIBTEC

Systems Enclosures\

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,:..!■■ ■,'■■■■.

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Photo 2: The Term-Mite ST can be connected to the stack-pole keyboard shown here, but the NS455A can be used more easily with an Oakfull-travel membrane (FTM) keyboard from Oak Switch Systems Inc., FOB 517, Crystal Lake, IL 60014. An enclosure from Pac Tec (Enterpriseand Executive Aves., Philadelphia, PA 19153) enhances the terminal's appearance.

HEXADECIMALLOCATION

HEXADECIMALLOCATION

065

14 D181

209

32A3603EA

54C6E0

INTERRUPT VECTORS AND SELF-TEST CODE

INITIALIZATIONCODE

INTERNAL-INTERRUPT ROUTINES

SCANNED-KEYBOARD CODE

MISCELLANEOUS SUBROUTINES

EXTERNAL-INTERRUPT ROUTINE

CHARACTER AND DISPLAY PROCESSING

CONTROL-CODEPROCESSING

ESCAPE-CODEPROCESSING

STATUS-LINEHANDLING

Figure 2: Memory use by the NS455A control program.

92 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

000

100

200

300

500

quire more than one character follow-ing Escape.

When power to the Term-Mite STis first turned on, the three groups ofconfiguration switches are read andtheir values stored in appropriate reg-isters in the TMP. The switches ap-pear to the processor as memory-mapped I/O devices; logic 1 is con-sidered to be the on or closed posi-tion. (National Semiconductor's soft-ware refers to the groups as switches4, 5, and 6, so I have used the samedesignations in the Term-Mite sche-matic.) Their configurations and vari-ous settings are shown in tables 4, 5,and 6 and in figures 4, 5, and 6.

Programming the Term-Mite

Your use of the Term-Mite ST canbe simple or complex, depending onhow you write your host software: touse the control commands andEscape sequences extensively or not

WHEN YOU'RE READYOUR PC PLUS KITWILL BE WAITING

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faster access — without taxing thepower supply. It also includes aWinchester disk controller that isIBM formatted.

The DSS PC PLUS kit presentsthe storage solution you need now.What are your data storage needs? AtDSS, we do much more than sellcomponents. We create solutions.The DSS PC PLUS kit includes:

— lOmb half-height disk drive

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Circle 41° for Dealer Inquiries. Circle 411 for End-User Inquiries.

BYTE February 1984 93

What will counteract NDC74-0054-60?

Gary: The pedigrees for next week'sauction are as follows...

Sold 1000 shares at 33 for net profitof 6000. Richard.

Wouldn't it be great if you coulduse your IBM®PC to tap into vastresource libraries across the country?To transfer files to your partner,upstate? Or from your broker, downthe street?

It's possible. All you need is amodem, to connect your computerto others. Down the hall. Or thou-sands of miles away.

Hayes Smartmodem. Think of it asyour computer's telephone. HayesSmartmodem 300™ and the fasterSmartmodem 1200,™ allow you to com-municate over ordinary phone lines.

But any modem will send andreceive data. Smartmodems also

dial, answer and disconnect calls.Automatically. And without goingthrough the telephone receiver,making them far superior to acousticcoupler modems.

Choose your speed; choose yourprice. The lower-priced Smartmodem300 is ideal for local data swaps andcommunicates at 300 bps. For longerdistance and larger volumes, Smart-modem 1200 operates at baud ratesof 300 or 1200, with a built-in selectorthat automatically detects transmis-sion speeds.

Both work with rotary dials,Touch-Tone® and key-setsystems; connect to most time-snaring systems; and featurean audio speaker.Smartmodem 1200B™ is also avail-able as a plug-in board. Developedspecifically for the PC, itcomes packaged with Hayes'own communications soft-ware, Smartcom II™

Smartcom II. We spenta lot of time developing it, soyou can spend less time using itSmartcom II prompts you in the

simple steps required to create,send, receive, display, list, name andre-name files. It even receives datacompletely unattended—especiallyhelpful when you're sending workfrom home to the office, or vice versa.If you need it, there's always "help!'This feature explains prompts, mes-sages, etc. to make communicatingextra easy.

With Smartcom II, it is. Case inpoint: Before you communicate withanother system, you need to "set up"your computer to match the way theremote system transmits data. WithSmartcom II, you do this only once.After that, parameters for 25 dif-ferent remote systems are stored ina directory on Smartcom II.

Calling or answering a system listedin the directory requires just a few

quick keystrokes.

You can storelengthy log-onsequences thesame way. Pressone key, and Smartcom II automati-cally connects you to a utility or infor-mation service.

(3D Hayes

Smartmodem 300,1200 and 1200Bare FCC approved inthe U.S. and DOC approved in Canada. All require anIBM PC with minimum 96K bytes of memory; IBM DOS1.10 or 1.00: one disk drive; and 80-column display.

Smartmodem 1200B. (Includes telephone cable. Noserial card or separate power source is needed.)

Smartcom II communications software.

NOTE: Smartmodem 1200B may also be installed in theIBM Personal Computer XT or the Expansion Unit.

In those units, another board installed in the slot tothe immediate right of the Smartmodem 1200B may notclear the modem; also, the brackets may not fit properly.If this occurs, the slot to the right of the modem shouldbe left empty.

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Smartmodem 300. Smartmodem 1200. Smartmodem 1200Band Smartcom II are trademarks of Hayes MicrocomputerProducts. Inc. IBM is a registered trademark of Interna-tional Business Machines, Corp. Touch-Tone is aregistered service mark of American Telephone andTelegraph. Rainbow is a trademark of Digital EquipmentCorporation. Xerox 820-11 is a trademark of XeroxCorporation. Kaypro II is a registered trademark ofNon-Linear Systems. Inc.©1983 Hayes Microcomputer Products. Inc.

Circle 166 on inquiry card.

C KEYSCN J

'"keyboard-^ no

.ENABLED.

YES

( KEYEXIT j

YES

[^NY I

-| KEY CLOSURES I

DETECTED \

CONVERT SCANCODE TO ASCIIEQUIV FROM TABLE

FACTOR INSHIFT. CONTROL,AND CAPS-LOCK

STORE THECHARACTER

STORETHE KEYS

CLEAR KEYSTORAGEAND FLAGS

( KEYEXIT J

YES

DISPLAY

OR TRANSFORM

IF REQUIRED

Figure 3: A flowchart of the keyboard-scanning routine.

at all. If you just want to write BASICprograms, you'll probably never haveto do more than use the defaultswitch settings. If, however, you wantto use the terminal as part of ascreen-template inquiry-transactionsystem, you'll want to use all thecharacter attributes and graphicsoptions.

Some forms of the Escape se-quences cannot be generated throughthe keyboard (ones with leading-zeroattribute values, for example); thesemust be supplied by the host com-puter. One of the easiest ways to dothis is to use the CHR$ function inBASIC, giving the decimal values ofthe required characters. I used aRadio Shack TRS-80 Model 100 port-

able computer to generate the dis-plays depicted in the accompanyingphotos. With these few simple ex-amples, I'll try to give you a feel forthe use of the control functions. Thecommunication protocol is peculiar tothe Model 100, but the basic ap-proach and much of the code can beused on other machines.

The first example is shown in list-ing 1 on page 102, a demonstrationof displaying blinking characters,lines 20 and 25 in this BASIC programclear the screen with a Control-L, thenposition the cursor at the sixteenthline with a sequence of the type ESC,M, x, y. An ESC, I, 251 sequence setsthe blinking attribute for the singleword "BLINKING" (attribute bit 2 set

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 95

Control Code

Effect

Control-G

Ring the bell. The ~G code causes a strobe pulse to be sent out bit 5 of the I/O port to trigger a 100-ms one-shotmultivibrator, which can be connected to a piezoelectric transducer.

Control-H

Backspace. The destructive backspace moves the cursor to the left; the new position is blanked. Wrap-around occursfrom line to line, including a screen wrap from the home (upper left) to last position.

Control-I Horizontal tab—fixed every eight locations. The tab function is handled by the Tab key or by the "I code. Each line is

divided up into fixed eight-character tab zones. Each Tab received causes the cursor to jump from its current positionto the start of the next tab zone, proceeding to the right. Screen scrolling occurs at the bottom of the screen.

Control-J Linefeed. "J is the standard ASCII Linefeed character.

Control-K Vertical tab—fixed every eight lines. ~K moves the cursor down the screen eight rows. If the cursor is at the bottom of

the screen, the display scrolls by eight lines. Intervening lines are always blanked. The cursor column position alwaysremains the same after " K; no carriage return is performed.

Control-L Clear screen and home the cursor.

Control-M Standard ASCII Return character. "M moves the cursor to the leftmost column.

Control-N Cursor up. The cursor is moved up one line by the "N code. The movement is nondestructive, and the cursor will

wrap around the screen from top to bottom when the top line is reached.

Control-0

Table 2: The functions of ASCII control codes in the Term-Mite.

Cursor down. Similarly, the cursor moves down one line, nondestructively, when "0 is detected. Again, wrap-aroundfrom bottom to top occurs.

EscapeSequence

ESC, A

ESC, BESC, C

ESC, D

ESC, E

ESC, F

ESC, G

ESC, H

ESC, I, v

Effect

Auxiliary (printer) port on. An ESC, A sequence will turn on the auxiliary printer port, if it exists (the port hardware is notimplemented in Term-Mite). Everything displayed on the screen will go out the auxiliary port as well. Note that Returnand Linefeed characters are not sent to the display routine unless the terminal is in Control mode. (All control charactersare then put on the display graphically.) The "AUX ON" message is displayed on the status line when this Control modeis active.

Display switch-register status in status line. An ESC, B causes the UART configuration switch and data-rate code to bedisplayed on the status line.

Control mode on. An ESC, C sequence causes the unit to enter the Control mode. This mode of operation permits youto see all the normally nondisplayable ASCII characters (e.g., Return, Linefeed) on the display screen. The controlcharacters are displayed as reverse-video, half-intensity uppercase letters. "A" through "Z" plus some punctuation areused. In addition, the message "CTL MODE" is displayed on the status line.

Toggle on-line/local mode. You can set the terminal to on-line or to local mode from the keyboard using this Escape se-quence. It is a toggle function; i.e., each use causes the terminal to change from the current state to the other one. Thestatus line also displays the current state.

Toggle full-lhalf-duplex mode. This is also a toggle function (see ESC, D) except that you can go from full-duplex (FDX)to half-duplex (HDX) communication and back. The terminal's current state is displayed on the status line.

Control mode off. ESC, F turns the Control mode off. The ASCII control characters now resume their normal operationand function. The message disappears from the status line.

Set graphics mode on. The ESC, G sequence flips the status line to normal video and enables the graphics attribute forcharacters specified in the AL1 register. This is the mode to use when doing forms drawing with the supplied ter-minal software. This state remains in effect until turned off by another Escape sequence (ESC, H).

Set graphics mode off. To turn off the graphics or line-drawing mode, the ESC, H sequence is used.

Set Attribute Value. You can set attributes to any combination by using the ESC, I, v sequence. If internal attributes arebeing used, the contents of AL1 are replaced with the 8-bit binary value v. When using external attributes, the value vis loaded into the current-attribute-value register. All subsequent characters will have this value loaded into their externalattribute memory unless it is changed by another ESC, I, v. Bits are added together to obtain v for each combination ofattributes as shown below.

Attribute Bit

Attribute

bit 7

graphics

bit 6

blanked

bit 5

underlined

bit 4

double width

bit 3

double height

bit 2

blinking

bit 1

half intensity

bit 0

reverse video

Table 3: The effects of Escape sequences in the Term-Mite ST.

96 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Control Code

Effect

Control-P

Cursor left. ~P moves the cursor left one column, nondestructively. Screen wrap-around from right to left will cause the

cursor to move up a line each time the wrap-around occurs.

Control-Q

Cursor right. The fourth cursor-movement code is ~Q. The cursor moves right by one column, nondestructively, and

screen wrap-around happens as above. Wrap-around moves down a line until the end of the screen is reached, and

then the cursor moves back to the top of the screen. No scrolling is done.

Control-R

Cursor home. The ~R code moves the cursor to the home (uppermost left) position. Nothing else happens.

Control-S

Send a "break" signal on serial line. ~S generates a "break" signal (300 ms of "spacing" condition) on the RS-232Cline.

Control-T

Change and display data rate. The data rate for the RS-232C lines can be changed via the ~T code. Each time "T is

entered, the data rate is displayed (in 00 to 15 code form) after being bumped to the next higher rate. Both receive

and transmit rates are affected. They are as follows:

00 = 110 bps 08 = 3600 bps

01 = 134.5 bps 09 = 4800 bps

02 = 150 bps 10 = 7200 bps

03 = 300 bps 11= 9600 bps

04 = 600 bps 12 = 19,200 bps

05 = 1200 bps 13 = 19,200 bps

06 = 1800 bps 14 = 19,200 bps

07 = 2400 bps 15 = 4800 bps

EscapeSequence

ESC, K

ESC, L

ESC, U. x, y

ESC, OESC, PESC, QESC, R

ESC S

ESC, T

ESC, W

ESC, XESC, Y

Effect

A logic 0 in a bit position enables the corresponding attribute.

Keyboard enable (X-on). The keyboard can be selectively enabled or disabled. ESC, K performs the X-on or enablefunction.

Return light-pen value. An ESC, L sequence causes the currently latched values in the horizontal light-pen register(HPEN) and the vertical light-pen register (VPEN) to be transmitted back to the host system via the main RS-232C port.HPEN is sent (one binary character) followed by VPEN (also one binary character). Term-Mite does not support thelight-pen hardware.

Load cursor position (x,y). The cursor position is dynamically alterable by means of this Escape sequence. The twoparameters following the basic Escape code are used to set the x and y (respectively) positions of the cursor. The xvalue is the column position. Up to 79 columns are allowed. The y value specifies the row or line number, 0 through 23being valid. The origin point is the home position on the screen (upper-left corner) and all the values are calculated asoffsets from that point. The actual parameter values begin with the displayable ASCII character set, that is, blankthrough lowercase "o." To specify cursor position (5,6), for example, the parameters would be the two characters "%&"(hexadecimal 25 and 26). The 80 x values would run from blank (hexadecimal 20) through "o" (6F) and 24 y valuesfrom blank (hexadecimal 20) through "7" (37).

Keyboard disable (X-off). The ESC, O sequence disables the keyboard from further operation. This is essentially an X-offfunction. It must be reenabled by an ESC, K sent from the host system or entered from the keyboard itself.

Print screen contents. You can dump the entire displayed contents of the screen to the auxiliary or printer port by typingthe ESC, P key sequence.

Run self-test diagnostic and reset. ESC, Q causes the system to rerun the self-test and initialization routines. All currentmachine status conditions will be replaced by the power-on defaults. The current screen contents are lost.

Block send the current row. This is one of the Block Send commands. An ESC, R sequence causes the current line(from left margin to the cursor position) to be transmitted character by character to the host system. If the cursor is onthe left margin (i.e., there's nothing on the line yet), nothing is transmitted.

Block send the current screen. The other Block Send command is ESC, S. This command transmits the data on thescreen, character by character, from the home position to the current cursor location over the RS-232C link to the hostsystem.

Erase to end of line. An ESC, T erases the current line from the cursor position to the right margin. It includes the cur-sor position in the erase operation.

Wipe switch-register status from status line. The switch-register and data-rate information can be wiped from the statusline by entering ESC, W.

Auxiliary port (printer) off. This reverses the effect of ESC, A.

Erase to end of page. You can erase the entire screen from the present cursor location to the end of the screen by typ-ing ESC, Y. The present cursor location is included in the erase function.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 97

Circle 34 on inauirv card.

SERIAL PORT

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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SWITCH 4

SWITCH POSITIONS6 5 4 3

T

T

T

T

2 1

1

50/60HZ . LUPMOD , EXTTST CURSOR SELECT , REVVID EXTATT , SLFTST

J_

J L

I

j_

Figure 4: The assignments of the switch positions in configuration switch 4. (Switches 1,2, and 3 do not exist.)

switch 5

SWITCH POSITIONS6 5 4 3 2

I I I I I I

AUTLF KEYENC . LINL0C FDXHDX XMTRCV' SPLT BR WRDLEN

I • III I

J L

Figure 5: The assignments of the switch positions in configuration switch 5.

SWITCH 6

SWITCH POSITIONS6 5 4 3 2

T

T

DATA RATE

PARITY SELECT , PAR ENA . STP BIT

J I I

Figure 6: The assignments of the switch positions in configuration switch 6.

to 0). An ESC, I, 255 restores the nor-mal character display for the finalword.

Listing 2 functions in a similarmanner to show off the reverse-videoattribute. In this instance, the reverse-video attribute is activated by an ESC,I, 254 sequence (attribute bit 0 set to0). The result is shown in photo 3aon page 108.

Listing 3 on page 104 combines fourattributes. It starts by clearing thescreen, positioning the cursor at col-umn 21, row 6 (21,6), and printing"WE CAN PRINT THE REGULARWAY"; next, the cursor is reposi-tioned to (0,10) and the sequenceESC, I, 230 is sent. The value of 230(bits 0, 3, and 4 set to 0) sets thedouble-width, double-height, andreverse-video attributes. Photo 3b onpage 108 shows the appearance of thescreen.

A few peculiarities do apply to theuse of the double-width and double-height characters. The ASCII value ofany character to be displayed in

either or both of these attributes mustbe written in all the character posi-tions that the expanded character willoccupy. For example, if you wish toprint "TEST" in double width, theBASIC PRINT statement should ac-tually send the string "TTEESSTT"since the wide characters will occupytwo regular character positions. Indouble height, the duplicate charac-ters should be written one above theother. The other catch to using dou-ble height is that the second row ofcharacters must also have the blankedattribute set. In the example of listing3, with the attributes set for doubleheight, double width, reverse video,and (on the second display line)blanked, the string "OR THIS WAYFOR SPECIAL EMPHASIS" isprinted in large letters. After thepyrotechnics, another Control-I isused to reset the attributes.

One final demonstration program,shown in listing 4, shows many of thecharacteristics already mentionedwith the addition of line graphics.

98 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Switched Signal

50/60 Hz

LUPMODEXTTST

CURSOR SELECT

REVVID

EXTATT

SLFTST

Effect

Because the NS455A is designed for worldwide distribution, provision has been made for handling operation at either50 Hz or 60 Hz. A logic 1 specifies 60 Hz, while a logic 0 sets 50-Hz operation.

This bit affects the loop-back mode of the serial I/O line. When it is 0, the serial output line is logically connected to theserial input line inside the chip. A logic 1 sets the serial line to normal mode.

The external test flag is used to force a jump to external memory located at hexadecimal address 800. This test is onlymade if SLFTST is also selected. The author of the self-test code must take care of either returning to the supplied stan-dard program or handling all processing from that point on.

There are four types of cursors that can be selected on the Term-Mite: a solid underline, a blinking underline, a solidblock, or a blinking block. The binary codes are as follows:

00 = solid underline cursor

01 = blinking underline cursor10 = solid block cursor11= blinking block cursor

A logic 0 will cause the display to switch to black characters on a white field. The default value of logic 1 specifies nor-mal video, white on black.

A 0 in this position lets you use the external attribute memory, bits 8 through 15. A logic 1 sets the system up for inter-nal attributes.

A logic 1 in this bit causes the self-test routine to be skipped on reset or power up. It must be set to logic 0 in order forthe self-test to be performed. This does not affect the ESC, Q command to execute a self-test.

Table 4: The functions of the switch positions in configuration switch 4.

Switched Signal Effect

AUTLF

KEYENCLINLOC

FDXHDX

XMTRCVSPLT BR

WRDLEN

This is the Auto-Linefeed flag. When set to a logic 0, a Linefeed character is sent whenever a Return character isdetected. This operates for both the transmitted data and the displayed information. A logic 1 causes no Linefeed to besent.

The encoded keyboard is selected by a logic 0. A logic 1 indicates that the scanned keyboard is to be handled.

This is the Online/Local default. When this flag is set to logic 0, Local mode is chosen, and no data is sent to the hostmachine. A logic 1 puts the terminal into Online mode and data is then transmitted.

The full-duplex/half-duplex flag is used to set the communication protocol. When set to logic 0, the communicationthrough the serial port is half duplex; data is both transmitted to the host and sent to the CRT display. A logic 1 willselect full duplex. Data is then transmitted but not automatically sent to the display.

The split-data-rate function uses this flag to decide whether the transmitter (logic 0) or the receiver (1) is to operate at theslower data rate.

This field sets the split-data-rate divisor to one of four values. The divisor divides the affected rate by a factor of 1,or 32. More divisors are allowed, but they are not implemented in the standard program.

16,

00

01

divide by 32divide by 16

10 = divide by 4

11 = divide by 1 (default)

The word-length flag specifies the number of bits in the serial character, either 7 or 8 bits excluding parity. A default of1 selects 7 bits, and a logic 0 selects 8 bits.

Table 5: The functions of the switch positions in configuration switch 5.

When attribute bit 7 is set to a 0, theTerm-Mite displays certain controlcharacters as graphic symbols. Theseare shown in table 8 on page 108. Theprogram draws the display shown inphoto 4.

In Conclusion

Since building the Term-Mite ST,I've been finding all kinds of old andnew uses for it. For instance, it makesa perfect status and command dis-play for a Micromint Z8-BASIC Com-

puter/Controller system (see refer-ence 3). Also, I've been hesitating tospend $1000 for a regular video ter-minal that would be dedicated to aconstant display of the time of dayand my appointment schedule, but

100 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Text continued on page 108

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Circle 115 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 101

Circle 383 on Inquiry card.

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CommunicationParameter

Explanation

DATA RATE

Four bits select the data rate used by the serial-l/O section. Theavailable rates are shown below:

position 8765

0000 110 bps

0001 134.5 bps

0010 150 bps

0011 300 bps

0100 600 bps

0101 1200 bps

0110 1800 bps

0111 2400 bps

position 8765

1000 3600 bps

1001 4800 bps

1010 7200 bps

1011 9600 bps

1100 19,200 bps

1101 19,200 bps

1110 19,200 bps

1111 4800 bps

PARITY SELECT

There are four parity options:

position 43

11 = Parity is forced to a space level if enabled.10 = Parity is forced to a mark level if enabled.01 = Parity is even if enabled.00 = Parity is off if enabled.

PARENE

The parity-enable flag is used to enable or disable the parity function.If the switch is a 0, parity is disabled. A value of 1 enables parity.

STPBIT

This flag specifies the number of stop bits to be sent with eachcharacter. A logic 1 will cause one stop bit to be sent; a 0 will sendtwo stop bits.

Table 6: The functions of the switch positions in configuration switch 6.

Switch 4

11111100

Switch 5

10100111

Switch 6

00111010

Table 7: For general use, typical settings of all three switches might be as shown here(most significant bits to the left).

Listing 1: A BASIC program to produce blinking characters on the Term-Mite.

10 OPEN "C0M:38N1D" FOR OUTPUT AS 1

20 PRINT #lfCHR$(12):REM CLEAR SCREEN

25 PRINT #1,CHR$(27);"M0+"

30 PRINT #1,"THIS IS HOW WE PRINT IN ";

40 PRINT #1,CHR$(27) ;"I";CHR$(251) ;i "BLINKING

50 PRINT #1,CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(255);"CHARACTERS"

100 CLOSE #1

110 STOP

Listing 2: A program to produce reverse-video characters on the Term-Mite.

102025304050100

OPENPRINTPRINTPRINTPRINTPRINTCLOSE

C0M:3 8N1D" FOR OUTPUT AS 1#1,CHR$(12):REM CLEAR SCREEN#1,CHR$(27);"M0+"#1,"THIS IS HOW WE PRINT IN ";#1,CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(254);"REVERSE VIDEO#1,CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(255);"CHARACTERS"#1

110 STOP

102 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

■

6ts*fc*

Circle 116 on inquiry card.

brother, hr-25

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Although the HR-25 has been designed to fulfill the demands of the highvolume user, its price is affordable for even the smallest businessgroups. And the HR-25 will assure you the highest letter-quality printingat speeds of 23 cps, making it the fastest printer in its price range on themarket today.

The BROTHER HR-25 is unsurpassed in every respect, and is backed bythe DYNAX reputation for qualityand service response.Options Available: Tractor Feed,

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from the manufacturers of "OFFICIAL TYPEWRITER OF THE LOS ANGELES 1984 OLYMPIC GAMES"

Listing 3: A BASIC program to demonstrate reverse-video, double-height, double-width characters on the Term-Mite.

10

OPEN

20

PRINT

25

PRINT

30

PRINT

40

PRINT

50

PRINT

60

PRINT

70

PRINT

80

PRINT

90

CLOSE

100 STOP

'C0M:38N1D" FOR OUTPUT AS 1#1,CHR$(12):REM CLEAR SCREEN#1,CHR$(27);"M5&";

#1,"WE CAN PRINT THE REGULAR WAY"#1,CHR$(27);"M *";CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(230)#l,"OORR TTHHIISS WWAAYY#1,CHR$(27);"M +";CHR$(27)#l,"OORR TTHHIISS WWAAYY#1,CHR$(27) ;"I";CHR$(255)#1

FFOORR SSPPEECCIIAALL"I";CHR$(166);FFOORR SSPPEECCIIAALL

EEMMPPHHAASSIISS"EEMMPPHHAASSIISS"

Listing 4: A program to demonstrate all internal character attributes and the drawing of borders with line-graphics characters.

10

20

30

35

50

60

70

80

90

100

110

120

130

140

150

160

170

180

190

200

210

220

230

240

250

251

252

253

OPEN "C0M:38N1D" FOR OUTPUT AS 1

PRINT #1,CHR$(12)

PRINT #1,CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(127)

PRINT #1,CHR$(27);"M%#";

PRINT #1,STRING$(70,23)

PRINT #1,CHR$(27);"M$*";

PRINT #1,STRING$(71,23)

PRINT #1,CHR$(27);"M$-";

PRINT #1,STRING$(71,23)

PRINT #1,CHR$(27);"M$5";

PRINT #1,STRING$(71,23)

FOR 1% = 3 TO 21

PRINT #1,CHR$(27)

PRINT #1,"J"

PRINT #1,CHR$(27)

PRINT #1,"J"

NEXT 1%

FOR 1% = 10 TO 13

PRINT #1,CHR$(27)

PRINT #1,"J"

PRINT #1,CHR$(27)

PRINT #lf"J"

PRINT #1,CHR$(27)

PRINT #1,"J"

NEXT 1%

PRINT #1,CHR$(27)

PRINT #1,CHR$(27)

PRINT #lfCHR$(27)

"M$";CHR$(32+I%)"Mk";CHR$(32+I%)

"M5";CHR$(32+I%)"MG";CHR$(32+I%)"MY";CHR$(32+I%)

"M$#X";CHR$(27);"Mk#L";"M$5";CHR$(21);CHR$(27)"M$*";CHR$(28)

"Mk5";CHR$(22)

Listing 4 continued on page 106\

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104 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Our PLAN 3000™ is a bargain for IBM PCs and Apples. You can geta file server, a print server, 3270, 3770 and 3780 emulation, electronic mail, Appleand IBM PC support, 6 operating systems, multi-level file structures, multi-level pass-word protection, disk capacity as small as 10 Mbytes, high-speed digital tape back-up, andmore! Best of all, a 10 Mbyte file server costs less than $10,000.

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Maximum distance

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22,000 ft.

Minimum fileserver cost

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© Nestar 1984

Circle 266 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 105

Listing 4 continued:

254

PRINT

#1

CHR$(27);"Mk*";CHR$(29)

255

PRINT

#1

CHR$(27);"M$-";CHR$(28)

256

PRINT

#1

,CHR$(27);"Mk-";CHR$(29)

257

PRINT

#1

,CHR$(27) ;"M5*";CHR$(31);CHR$(27) ;"M5-";CHR$ (30)

258

PRINT

#1,

CHR$(27) ;"MG*";CHR$(31);CHR$(27) ;"MG-";CHR$ (30)

259

PRINT

#1.

CHR$(27) ;"MY*";CHR$(31);CHR$(27) ;"MY-";CHR$ (30)

260

PRINT

#1,

CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(255)

270

PRINT

#1,

CHR$(27);"MF%";

280

PRINT

#1,

"THE"

285

PRINT

#1,

CHR$(27) ;"I";CHR$(231);

290

PRINT

#1,

CHR$(27);"M=I";

295

PRINT

#1,

"TTEERRMM—MMIITTEE SSTT"

300

PRINT

#1,

CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(167) ;

305

PRINT

#1,

CHR$(27);"M=(";

310

PRINT

#1,

"TTEERRMM—-MMIITTEE SSTT"

315

PRINT

#1

CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(251) ;

320

PRINT

#1

,CHR$(27);"M*+";

325

PRINT

#1

, "BLINK"

330

PRINT

#1

,CHR$(27);"M(,";

335

PRINT

#1,

"ATTRIBUTE"

340

PRINT

#1.

CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(223);

345

PRINT

#1,

CHR$(27);"M:+";

350

PRINT

#1

-"UNDERLINE"

355

PRINT

#1

,CHR$(27);"M:,";

360

PRINT

#1

-"ATTRIBUTE"

365

PRINT

#1

,CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(253);

370

PRINT

#1.

CHR$(27);"MJ+";

375

PRINT

#1,

"HALF INTENSITY"

380

PRINT

#1,

CHR$('27) ;"ML,";

385

PRINT

• lj

"ATTRIBUTE"

390

PRINT

#li

CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(254) ;

395

PRINT

#1

CHR$(27);"M";CHR$(92);" + " ;

400

PRINT

#1.

"REVERSE VIDEO"

402

PRINT

#1

,CHR$(27) ;"M";CHR$(92) ; " , " ;

404

PRINT

#li

" ATTRIBUTE "

406

PRINT

#1

CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(255) ;

408

PRINT

#1,

CHR$(27);"M)/";

415

PRINT

#1

CHR$(27);"M00";

425

PRINT

#1

CHR$(27) ;"I";CHR$(239) ;

430

PRINT

tli

CHR$(27);"M'3";

435

PRINT

#1.

"DDOOUUBBLLEE WWIIDDEE,,";

440

PRINT

#1,

CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(247) ;

445

PRINT

#1

CHR$(27);"M@2";

450

PRINT

#1,

"DOUBLE HEIGHT,"

455

PRINT

#1

CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(183) ;

460

PRINT

#li

CHR$(27);"M§3" ;

465

PRINT

11,

"DOUBLE HEIGHT,"

470

PRINT

11 j

CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(255) ;

475

PRINT

#1,

CHR$(27);"M03";

480

PRINT

#1.

"and";

600

PRINT

#1

CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(231);

605

PRINT

#1

CHR$(27);"MS2";

610

PRINT

#1

"DDOOUUBBLLEE SSIIZZEE"

615

PRINT

#1

,CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(167);

620

PRINT

#1,

CHR$(27);"MS3";

625

PRINT

#1.

"DDOOUUBBLLEE SSIIZZEE"

630

PRINT

#1

CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(231);

650

PRINT

#1,

CHR$(27);"I";CHR$(191);

655

PRINT

#1,

CHR$(27);"MB";CHR$(34);"BLANK FAILURE";

660

PRINT

#1

CHR$(27) ;"MG7";CHR$(27) ;"I";CHR$(255) ;

665

CLOSE

1

670

STOP

106 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

IF YOUR DATA'S WORTH

REMEMBERING, IT'S

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This new rechargeable power system pro-vides up to 35 minutes of steady sine-wavepower, enabling even the most sensitive smallcomputers to ride through blackouts and voltagesags completely unaffected.

Why sine-wave power? Because square-wave power impairs the performance of manyprinters, viewing screens and timing circuits.A Powermaker Micro UPS produces a sinewave that exactly matches the waveshape of

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Photo 3: The Term-Mite can display several character attributes singly or in combination,such as reverse video (3a) and reverse, double width, double height (3b).

•u Lw -

^ r

1

" 1

~- T

Table 8: In the line-graphics mode, cer-tain control characters produce visibledisplays of corners, lines, and crossesuseful for forming borders on the screendisplay (*" is Control-Caret).

Photo 4: The Term-Mite can display certain control characters such as line-graphics symbolsfor screen templates and other basic uses. This display was produced by the program of listing 4.

Text continued from page 100:

I can see using the Term-Mite's

graphics and attributes for this and

other applications. (I already have

eight cathode-ray tubes staring at me

in the Circuit Cellar. What's one

more?)

Perhaps by building the Term-Miteyou can put to good use that bargainkeyboard and old monitor you've hadsitting around for years. Be warned,however, that the unit's 25-line by80-column display requires too greata bandwidth for satisfactory connec-tion to a regular TV set. A 12-MHzmonochrome monitor is the betterchoice, as shown in photo 5.

Since the Term-Mite's control soft-ware is stored in what is actually anEPROM (an erasable programmableROM), it would be possible to addcommands or modify the operationof its functions. National Semicon-ductor will eventually have completedocumentation available for theNS455A TMP, including a listing ofthe standard supplied control pro-gram and the processor's instructionset. Within the 6K yet-unused bytesof program address space, somepretty fancy terminal software couldbe written, perhaps even to emulatethe command protocols of variouscommercially sold terminals. The only

108 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Photo 5: The Term-Mite ST circuitry described in these articles is used with a separate keyboard and video monitor to form a complete func-tional terminal. Here a Jameco ]E610 keyboard works with the Term-Mite, a NEC (Nippon Electric Company) green-phosphor monitor, andthe Circuit Cellar MPX-16 computer.

modification would be a simpleEPROM change.

Next Month:

A new chip from Silicon Systems Inc.has prompted another project on speechsynthesis, m

Editor's Note: Steve often refers to previousCircuit Cellar articles as reference material foreach month's current article. Most of thesepast articles are available in reprint books fromBYTE Books, McGraw-Hill Book Company,POB 400, Hightstown, NJ 08250.

Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar, Volume I coversarticles that appeared in BYTE from September1977 through November 1978. Ciarcia's Cir-cuit Cellar, Volume II contains articles fromDecember 1978 through June 1980. Ciarcia'sCircuit Cellar, Volume III contains articlesfrom ]uly 1980 through December 1981. Ciar-cia's Circuit Cellar, Volume IV, soon to ap-pear, will contain articles from January 1982through June 1983.

Special thanks to Bob Harbrecht of National Semi-conductor Corporation for his help on this project.

Steve Ciarcia (pronounced "see-ARE-see-ah") isan electronic engineer and computer consultant withexperience in process control, digital design, nuclearinstrumentation, product development, and market-ing. In addition to writing for BYTE, he has pub-lished several books. He can be contacted at POB582, Glastonbury, CT 06033.

References

1. ANSI X3.64-1979: Additional Controls for Usewith the American National Standard Codefor Information Interchange. New York: Ameri-can National Standards Institute, 1979.

2. Ciarcia, Steve. "Build the Circuit Cellar Term-Mite ST Smart Terminal, Part 1: HardwareDescription." BYTE, January 1984, page 37

3. Ciarcia, Steve. "Build a Z8-Based ControlComputer with BASIC." Part 1, BYTE, July1981, page 38. Part 2, BYTE, August 1981,page 50.

4. Lancaster, Don. "TV Typewriter." Radio Elec-tronics. September 1973, page 43.

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

The following items are available from:

The Micromint Inc.561 Willow Ave.Cedarhurst, NY 11516(800) 645-3479 for orders(516) 374-6793 for information

1. Complete Term-Mite ST video-display ter-minal kit including NS455A, printed-circuitboard, IC sockets, DB-25S connector, andall other components but without keyboardor CRT monitor. Board size is avvroximate-ly4V2 inchesby6lA inches with a 0.156-inch44-pin edge connector.

Price $239

2. Assembled and tested Term-Mite ST video-display terminal, without keyboard or CRT

monitor.Price ...

$279

Please add $5 for shipping in the continentalUnited States, $25 elsewhere. New Yorkresidents please include 7 percent sales tax.Allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 109

■ ;-■-- •

. ¥'**■

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y&%

T*f'.

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KS*£

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User's Column

Chaos Manor Gets ItsLong-Awaited IBM PC

Of mice and men, Eagles, Shirley,the ol' mailbag, and much more

by Jerry Pournelle

Well, the big news is that our IBMPC arrived two days before Hallo-ween. We had paid for it in June, andeven after IBM notified us that it hadbeen shipped to the local Computer-land there were some, uh, interest-ing escapades suggesting shuffle andjive, but we do have it. Alas, withindays we had major problems.

First, the video monitor developeda high-pitched whine from the fly-back transformer. That soon becameintolerable. Computerland in Wood-land Hills gave us no difficulty at all;we returned the monitor, and theyloaned us a replacement and sentours off somewhere to be fixed.

We bought a bare-bones PC, onedisk drive, and 64K bytes of memory.As soon as we got it, we added mem-ory chips, bringing the PC's internalmemory up to a full 256K bytes. Thememory chips are available for about$7 each. It takes 27 of them (in blocksof nine; eight 1 by 64K bytes formemory, and one more for paritychecking), so the upgrade will costyou $189; IBM charges a lot more.

It turns out there's no trick at all toadding the chips. You have to takethe PC apart, but that's a simplematter requiring no tools but aPhillips screwdriver. (Our friendNoor Singh calls the two kinds ofscrewdrivers "plus" and "minus.")Then you have to adjust a couple of

switches. The IBM system manual—the one you get whether you want itor not—not only tells you whatswitches to throw, but shows you apicture. You'd have to be pretty densenot to understand.

Indeed, there's a good solid feel toeverything about the IBM PC. My ini-tial impression is that I still prefer theEagle 1600, but I must admit: the IBMscreen is rock steady, the character setis aesthetically pleasing, and the key-board has a pretty good feel even ifthe layout is rotten.

However, a day or so after weadded the memory chips, the PCstopped working.

The IBM PC does a memory testwhenever you turn it on. If it findsa memory error, it tells you "PARITYERROR 1" and refuses to do anythingelse. There are no programs to tellyou which memory chip is defective.Since we'd added a lot of memorychips, we figured chances were goodthat one of ours wasn't working.

It's a fair amount of work to swapout chips one at a time until the badone is located; it would be mucheasier if we could figure out whichbank the bad chip was in. The IBMmanuals carefully explain how to setthe internal switches to tell themachine how much memory it hasavailable, which suggested a simplesolution to our problem. We simply

set those switches to indicate therewas no additional memory, in otherwords, that the PC had aboard onlythe soldered-in 64K bytes that it camewith.

On power-up we got the samePARITY 1 error. Since we couldn'tpossibly swap out the soldered-inchips, out to Woodland Hills Com-puterland went our PC.

They had it fixed the next day.Seems it was one of our chips.

"How can that be?" I asked. "We setthe switches to eliminate that mem-ory." Woodland Hills Computerlandfixed the machine for us, but theyhad no answer.

Time to dig, so I called my sanefriend, the one who's an IBM engi-neering executive. I explained theproblem.

"It just could be that the newROMs don't pay much attention tothose switches," he said with achuckle. "When they changed from16K-byte to 64K-byte memory chips,they switched motherboards. Whatvou have is an XT board in a normalPC."

Which is another undocumentedfeature. I wonder how many more I'lldiscover in my long-awaited PC?

Meanwhile, the undocumentedfeature brought about another prob-lem. As- regular readers of thiscolumn must know, I have no great

February 1984 @ BYTE Publications Inc. H3

love for the IBM PC keyboard layoutwith its silly " \" key where the Shiftkey ought to be and the Return keyway over where I can't reach it. TheIBM Selectric keyboard is the world'sbest, bar none; why did they have tomuck up success? But they did.

Fortunately there's a remedy. JimBaen's Magic Keyboard program re-assigns those keys, turning the "\"into Shift, and the """ (tilde) intoReturn and such like. To get the "\"and the squiggle back, use the Altkey. The result is that I end up witha Selectric keyboard layout, which iswhat I want. Magic Keyboard isnearly invisible and can be made torun on start-up; it takes a lot of thesting out of the PC.

However, although Magic Key-board works fine on older IBM PCs,it wouldn't work with mine!

In a little-publicized move, IBMstopped putting 16K-byte chips in thePC and used 64Kers instead, whichis why we could get 256K bytes onthe motherboard. What IBM did wasuse a modified PC XT motherboard.This means that software (like MagicKeyboard) designed for just the PCwon't work; you must use XT-specificsoftware (MagicXT). I don't know ifanyone else wrote software that spe-cific; it was necessary for M.K. Thegood news is that MagicXT worksfine, and you get both when you buyMagic Keyboard from Workman.

Other First Impressions

There are things to recommend thePC and even MS-DOS. There are ma-chines that are built as well (Eagle),machines with better keyboards(both Eagle and TI PC), and ma-chines that run faster (Eagle andCompupro), but no other with thosemagic initials.

Screen: the black-and-white screenis rock steady and the character setis pleasing.

Expansion: we already have threeboards in our PC, and we haven'teven got started yet. No wonder thebreadbasket boards sell so well.Getting a 512K-byte board will bringyour memory up to its theoreticalmaximum. I don't know if the PCwon't address more, or if the 768K-byte limit is artificial.

Disk drive: we bought a PC with asingle disk drive. It's built by ControlData Corporation (CDC) and it's veryquiet and nice. Then we went toPriority One and bought a Tandondrive, which plugged in and ran withno trouble; but it's much more noisythan the one IBM supplied. I'm toldthat IBM is no longer using Tandondrives. Ours was cheap and worksfine, though.

Software: we bought both DOS 1.1and 2.0. Everything that runs on 1.1is supposed to run on 2.0; we'll seeif that's true. You also get a disk ofdiagnostic programs with DOS 2.0,but alas, ours was defective; itwouldn't copy ("Unrecoverable ReadErrors"), it wouldn't boot, and itwouldn't run. Fortunately, my IBMengineer friend was able to supplyme with a copy of his diagnosticsdisk.

When I tried to copy my defectivedisk, it reported "8 sectors/track," butwhen I copied his (known working)diagnostics disk, it reported "9sectors/track." However, it boots andruns. The first time I ran the diag-nostics, it reported a CRC error onthe main drive and some other erroron the new Tandon drive. The diag-nostic program has an option to letit run forever, stopping only forerrors; I set it up to do that, and Lo!,it ran for hours without errors, exceptfor one "Error Keyboard 301" that wasnever repeated. There were no moredrive errors.

I presume there was somethingspurious about those early errors, butit's one more thing to annoy us.

My son Alex wants to call our PCLucy Van Pelt because it's a definitefussbudget. Two major repairs in aweek! Plus a defective master disk,spurious errors, and we had to waitfor it for four months after we paid.

Alex's Notes

Alex, a senior in computer scienceat UCSD, had a few hours to playwith the IBM PC. Here are his notes.

"There is no honest-to-Kreldenreset switch. You can press three keystogether (Ctrl, Alt, and Del) andsometimes get out of situations, butnot always, as for instance with thatdefective diagnostics disk. Other-

wise, you must turn off the power,wait 10 to 20 seconds (there's a timeror something), turn it back on, waitthrough the self-check (up to 90 sec-onds), reload, etc. This can be a com-prehensive drag on large programs."Memory checks are nice, but theycan take a long time. With no Resetbutton, some way to defeat the mem-ory check, or at least a faster memorycheck, would be nice. It'll be evenworse when we have 768K."

The Logitech Mouse

We've also fired up ConcurrentCP/M, which works, and connectedthe Logitech mouse, which alsoworks; you just plug it in. Alex'scomment is,

"The Logimouse is neat. I will haveto experiment with it awhile to seeabout setting the push keys for dif-ferent things. You can rerun acommand just by moving the mouse;through experimentation I discoveredthat the arrow keys will do the samething, so it must be a MS-DOS func-tion. Anyway, the mouse currentlywrites arrow keys as if the keyboarddid them; this is real nice in Lotus1-2-3 and such. I'll want to scale themouse's movement more since it's toosensitive."

I'm quite pleased with the Logi-mouse, although, as Alex says, it'sscaled a little too fast. However,changing that is no problem at all.Moreover, the three buttons on themouse can be set to make any char-acters you want, such as carriagereturns or spaces or periods (forgames) or any of the user-definedfunctions. You can set them so thatmore than one character per key issent, too. Even better, the MS-DOSSUBMIT facility—that is, the ability toset up a chain of programs that runautomatically with a single com-mand—is pretty good, so that youcan include a Logimouse redefinitionin it.

A SUBMIT file (named AUTO-EXEC.BAT, for batch) can be run onstart-up. This means we can have themachine ask who has turned it on,and adjust the mouse commands tosuit the user! We can also includemouse redefinitions in a SUBMIT fileto invoke just about any program,

114 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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such as Lotus 1-2-3, games, or wordprocessors, making the mouse but-tons do what you'd want them to doin that particular context. Thisdeserves a bit more thought; morenext month. The bottom line is I likethe Logimouse quite a lot.

That's a bit of a surprise, becauseI didn't think I'd like mice all thatmuch. There are two generic prob-lems with mice: (1) you need aclean, flat surface near the keyboard,and (2) you have to take your handsoff the keys to use the mouse.

Number (1) is a problem in ChaosManor; there are no clean, flat sur-faces of any size, near the keyboardor away from it. It's a law of nature:a flat surface collects papers. As for(2), taking your hands off the key-board can be a nuisance, but notwhen you've written the text andmerely want to edit.

I do wonder: why hasn't someonedeveloped a keyboard with a smallthumb ball along one edge? Youcould move your hand to the thumbball to drive the cursor; and therecould be two or three buttons, of themouse kind, where your fingersnaturally rest when you've put yourhand on the thumb ball. I'd sure likea keyboard like that. . . .

Coming Attractions

At present our PC is in need of ex-pansion cards and the like, all ofwhich we intend to add, after whichcomes a full report. I've also had acall from Steve Ciarcia about his won-derful new Quicksilver card and pro-gram; he's sending me one Real SoonNow, as soon as there's one available.As I said last month, Steve's card isthe first thing one ought to add to anIBM PC, and I don't say that becauseSteve's a friend and colleague; it's abrilliant idea that makes your IBM PCinto a new—and much faster—ma-chine. More on that when I have atest model.

The Eagle Flies Again

We love our Eagle 1600. We trulydo. It's faster than the IBM PC, andthe keyboard is laid out better. It hasa nice screen. The microprocessorchip is an 8086, which gets data 16bits at a time. Compare this to the

116 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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IBM PCs 8088, which only gets 8 bitsa shot. When we all go to concurrentoperating systems—as we will—eachof the four tasks and an 8086 systemwill run faster than the same job byitself on the PCs 8088.

The Eagle has on-board sockets for512K bytes of memory and capabil-ity for multiple users. It also has eightexpansion slots, same as the IBM PCXT. There's an optional built-in10-megabyte hard disk.

It also has the lousiest documenta-tion this side of the junkyard.

Marty Massoglia is programmingthe Inferno game (by Larry Nivenand Jerry Pournelle) in Pascal MT+86on PC-DOS. There came time tobring some of his results home.

The Eagle has one Winchester harddisk and one floppy disk. As every-one knows, floppy disks come in anumber of formats and flavors. TheIBM, for example, has floppy diskswith 40 tracks per side. So does theZenith Z-100, which is what I in-tended to test Marty's game softwarewith. The Eagle's floppy has 80tracks. Now 80-track disk drives canread and write to 40-track disks; thuswe formatted a disk in the Z-100 andcopied the files from the Eagle's harddisk onto the Zenith 40-track disk.

The Zenith couldn't read the files.It read the directory, all right, and itread some of the files, but we keptgetting read errors.

Call Eagle. New discovery.

Sengle has the ability to format40-track disks in its 80-track drives.You merely use the /i option whenyou give it the FORMAT command.This is known as an undocumentedfeature. It's about the tenth undocu-mented feature we've discovered forthe Eagle. When we let the Eagle for-mat its own 40-track disks, all workedfine, and the Zenith and the PC canread them without difficulty. Sigh.

We're beginning to wonder ifthere's anything the Eagle won't do,if you can just figure out how to doit. I mean, surely it's obvious that youuse the /i option to format 40-trackdisks? Surely there's no need to docu-ment something so obvious?

Flash: I read the above to Eagle'sProduct Manager. The /i stands forIBM; he discovered it by accident one

day when the engineers were out tolunch and he wanted to format a diskto get programs off an IBM PC. Itturns out there are a number of "/"options in the Eagle. None are docu-mented.

I like the Eagle a lot, and we are col-lecting notes for the revised manual;it's a great machine, but wow! doesit have lousy documents. Fortunate-ly, Eagle is working hard to remedythat. Stuart LeVine, senior scientist inthe company's Advanced TechnologyGroup recently called to say thatEagle is completely revising its tech-nical manuals. It also has DOS 2.0,which we haven't yet tried but we'regetting to now. Its documents expfainmost of the 1600's hidden features.

Pascal Speed

Gene Allen of Newport Beach,California, offers the following PascalMT+ program:

Program WORK;VAR

N : INTEGER;BEGIN (*WORK*);FORN := 1TO 100DO WRITELN (1.0:3:1);END (*WORK*)

He says, "When compiled and runon the Compupro machine underCP/M-80 it takes about 3 secondsto run. When compiled for PC-DOSusing the new compiler from DigitalResearch it takes over 45 seconds!

"True, the IBM is a slower pro-cessor, but much of the speed dif-ference comes from the fact that DRuses double-precision reals in its PC-DOS version of MT+86.

"The effect of this is that those ofus who used MT+ now have pro-grams that run in about 5 minutesunder CP/M and about an hourunder PC-DOS."

He concludes that Pascal MT+ isportable, but it is not usable.

I sent a copy of his letter to DigitalResearch and got a reply from RickRosenbaum, engineering manager,who says, "The program does indeedrun slower when compiled underPC-DOS. However, the speed dif-ference is not due to use of double-precision reals, as Mr. Allen states,

118 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Both the VISUAL 50 andVISUAL 55 offer features youexpect only from the high pricedunits. For example, the enclosureis ergonomically designed andcan be easily swiveled and tiltedfor maximum operator comfort.A detached keyboard, smoothscroll, large 7 x 9 dot matrixcharacters and non-glare screenare only a few of the many humanengineering features.

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but is due to real I/O [input/output].In fact, if the FOR statement is re-placed by

R: = 1.0;

FORN: = lTO 100 DOR:=R+1.0;

WRITELN(R:3:1);

the program runs in less than 3seconds. Since few people need to dorepeated I/O like the example Mr.Allen gave, we believe the PC-DOSimplementation of Pascal MT + is apowerful product that allows thewriting of portable programs."

Alex, who's very interested inPascal, says they're both right—butPascal MT + 86 is notoriously slow inreal I/O, much slower than it oughtto be. Even with our Eagle, which ismuch faster than an IBM PC, we seethe poor machine slow down andstrain when an MT + program causesit to write lots of numbers to thescreen.

DR's Rosenbaum says, "We arecommitted to Pascal MT+ and willcontinue development work to pro-

duce faster and more powerful re-leases of the product."

I sure hope so. We're writing ourbig Inferno game in Pascal MT +largely for the portability betweenPC-DOS and both 8- and 16-bit CP/Msystems; despite MT + 's problems, itremains our favorite for big pro-grams. We intend to convert the pro-gram to Modula when Modula stabi-lizes a bit; of course at the momentthere's no Modula for CP/M 2.2 sys-tems.

Turbo Pascal

There's a new Pascal out that wehaven't had much time with, butwhat we have seen, we like.

Turbo Pascal, by Borland Interna-tional, comes close to what I thinkthe computer industry is headed for:well documented, standard, plentyof good features, and a reasonableprice.

Well, almost reasonable.

That is: Borland advertises TurboPascal for $49.95, and indeed willsend you the compiler and all thedocuments for it; but in the fine print

of their license agreement it turns outyou don't really own the compiler,and you cannot either sell or evengive away programs compiled with itunless you buy an additional licensefrom Borland.

My first reaction on reading thiswas to ignore the product. Whatneed have we of a compiler thatyou're not only supposed to confineto a single machine, but whose out-put programs can be run only on theoriginal machine? Both Microsoft andDigital Research tried that nonsense.Digital gave it up completely, andMicrosoft mostly did. A fine productTurbo Pascal might be, but using itwould be a solitary vice.

I called Borland's president,Phillipe Kahn. His story is that Tur-bo Pascal is the cat's whiskers, bestthing to come down the pike in years,much better than Pascal MT+, whichcosts $600. Borland is a small com-pany that needs money and wants tosell at a low cost, but shouldn't thecompany get something for its ef-forts? Anyway, you can use TurboPascal for yourself for only $49.95, but

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120 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE February 1984 121

commercial users should pay more.

"How much more?" I asked. I stillwasn't much enthused.

However, it turns out not to be a lotmore. Borland only wants another$100 for what amounts to anunlimited license. Thus the true priceof Turbo Pascal (for those who intendto sell or give away their programs orto run programs compiled with it onany machine other than the one theybought the compiler for) is $149.95.

My first impression of Turbo is thatit's probably worth $149.95. It looksto do everything MT+ with the SpeedProgramming Package does, and maybeeven do it faster and better.

It comes with a built-in editor,much like the MT+ Speed Packageor UCSD Pascal. There are lots of util-ities. It generates native code, likePascal MT+, not p-code like JRTPascal and UCSD Pascal; but unlikePascal MT +, there are trace debug-ger capabilities that let you find thesource code that produced a run-timeerror.

The document is a printed bookand is quite complete, much more

than adequate provided that you'renot trying to learn Pascal from it. Thebook is certainly no tutorial intro tothe language—although Mr. Kahnpromises a tutorial Real Soon Now.It hardly matters; at that price youdon't expect a tutorial. Get AlexPournelle's Pascal Intro and a coupleof good books, and you'll still bearound $100 for a good learning pack-age (unless you intend to sell or giveaway your programs).

Meanwhile, I find myself impaledon a real dilemma.

First: I want to encourage outfitslike Borland. I think software ispriced far too high. Heck, I'd con-sider a good Pascal compiler for $150to be a step in the right direction.Why, then, am I upset if Borland of-fers the exact same compiler for$49.95 on condition that you don't sellor give away programs developedwith it?

Because it's a tax on honesty. Sup-pose I buy Turbo Pascal for $49.95,like it a lot, and write a good utilityprogram with it. My friends like myprogram and want copies.

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I now have two choices: be a liar,or pay $100. Maybe I like Turbo Pascalso much that I'll pay the $100 out ofgratitude; I understand there arecustomers who have. On the otherhand, a lot of people are going to sayto hell with it, and how is Borlandgoing to enforce its "agreement"? Idoubt Borland can, and suspect itwon't try.

Anyway: my original intent was tosee how hard it would be for MartyMassoglia to translate our Infernogame from MT+ to Turbo Pascal, butI was scared off by the licensingagreement. Now that I know a "nostrings" agreement is only another$100, I'll reconsider. I'd think that afair test of Turbo.

Meanwhile, Phillipe Kahn of Bor-land promises that upcoming re-leases of Turbo will include sourcecode to a bunch of useful programsincluding a spreadsheet. Borland in-tends to get into the Pascal market ina big way, and I very much like thatattitude. I'd like to see the companysucceed; it's about time compilerprices came down to somethingreasonable.

There's Value for You...

I have acquired Evolving Technol-ogy Company's "Disk Doubler,"which is advertised as "a real moneysaver." For "only $19.95" this gadgetcan "reduce the cost of disk storageby 50 percent by allowing the use ofthe back sides of floppy disks for stor-ing programs and data."

What you get for $19.95 is:

1. a one-hole puncher (Wool-worth's, $0.95)

2. a grease pencil that makes whitemarks ($0.95 at most)

3. a heavy plastic template ($0.25)

4. a sheet of instructions ($0.10)

5. a "happy face" slip of cardboard($0,005)

Total value of materials, certainlyless than $2.50. However, that's notthe real problem with this "moneysaver." The real cost will come if youuse it.

So far as I know, all floppy diskshave magnetic media on both sides

122 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 206 on Inquiry card.

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of the disk. Many disk manufacturerstest both sides of every disk. If bothsides pass quality-control inspection,the disk is sold as "double-sided,"and the code holes are punched inthe jacket accordingly. If one side failsthe tests, the disk is marketed assingle-sided. If both sides fail, thedisk is either scrapped, or marketedto a discount disk outfit, which putsit through less stringent tests.

Consequently, there's no guaranteeat all that the "other" side of yourdisk is usable—or worse, that it won'tfail catastrophically. By Murphy'slaws, that disk will fail when it con-tains the only copy of something ex-tremely valuable.

Ezekial, my late friend who hap-pened to be a Z80 computer, hadonly one failure in his first couple ofyears. We eventually traced thatfailure to cheap disks: one had ac-tually let media rub off on the disk-drive head. That crashed the drive,but not when the el cheapo disk wasin it. Oh, no. It crashed when I wassaving some original text. EvenTony's bulletproof software couldn't

save that particular chapter. More-over, it kept crashing, and it tooksome severe scrubbing with alcoholto get the gubbage off and make thedrive reliable again.

Since that time, I've been prettycareful about what kind of disks gointo my machines. By staying withhigh-quality disks like Dysan, I pro-tect the disk heads from wear. Mostimportant, though, I protect my data.

All in all, using the back sides ofsingle-sided disks seems to me agood way to invite trouble. It mightwork, and save a few tens of dollars,but mark my words, there'll come atime when you regret it.

Crashing Shirley

One of the hits of the CP/M Eastshow last month (October, 1983) wasBill Godbout's (of Compupro) multi-user machine. It has some kind of of-ficial name, but I first heard of itunder the code name "Shirley," andthat's what I remember it by.

Shirley is a business machine. Itruns CP/M 8/16; that is, there are both8-bit and 16-bit processors aboard,

and you don't have to tell the systemwhether you want to run CP/M 2.2or CP/M-86; Shirley's smart enoughto figure it out once you invoke theprogram.

Til have more about Shirley after Iget mine; it's more than just possiblethat we'll set her up as the masterwriting machine here, and no, Ihaven't given up my notions aboutdistributed processing and "one user,one CPU." Shirley has a separatemicroprocessor ("brain") chip forevery user as well as a master brainto do traffic management and give allfour users access to the hard disk; butback to my story.

Godbout had Shirley set up forCP/M East. It was my first chance toplay with it. Godbout didn't haveWrite, my favorite text editor, run-ning yet, but he did have Wordstar,so that's what I called up to playwith. There was only one trouble:Wordstar does a lot of disk accesses(to get all those pesky messages andtranslate all those multiple-strokecommands), and every time therewas a disk access, Shirley crashed.

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Compupro tends to have loyal em-ployees; I never will forget how thestaff stayed with the booth in the106 + degree temperature of the out-side tents of last year's NCC. Theoverflow tent area quickly becameknown as The Inferno; a lot of ex-hibits shut down because the ma-chines couldn't take it. I got consider-able comfort from it, though, becausea duplicate of my Compupro systemcontinued to work even though Imeasured the input temperature at105 degrees. The staff was wiltingbefore the machines were.

Anyway, when I made Shirley crashfor about the third time, one of Com-pupro's young women came runningover in a state of high dudgeon, andI abandoned my fun; but it wasannoying. As it happened, I wasscheduled to have dinner with Dr.Godbout and his crew that night, andwe got to discussing what had hap-pened, and somewhere just after thesoup it came to Len Ott, Godbout'ssoftware-development manager.

"We mixed up Wordstars," he said.

After that it was easy enough to seewhat happened.

Wordstar comes in both 8-bit and16-bit versions, and Shirley can runeither. Now CP/M 2.2 (8-bit) com-mand files end with the extension.COM, while CP/M-86 (16-bit) com-mand files end with the extension.CMD, so that's no problem. How-ever, Wordstar has overlays, lots ofthem, that are called in every timeyou use one of the multiple-strokecommands—and the overlays haveexactly the same names and the ex-tension .OVR whether they're for the8-bit or the 16-bit version.

Somehow in the mixup of bringingthe exhibits (with new furniture nottried before), both .COM and .CMDversions of Wordstar had got onto thehard disk, with the wrong one first,so CP/M 8/16 loaded in the 8-bit com-mand file—which promptly calledthe 16-bit overlays.

Needless to say, they had that par-ticular problem fixed before I arrivedat the show the next morning, and,in fact, someone was watching for meto drag me over and show me theyhad it working. They'd simplyeliminated all the 8-bit Wordstar parts

126 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 285 on inquiry card.

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from the system, which took care ofthe immediate difficulty.

The long-term solution is to patch16-bit Wordstar so that it wants over-lays with a .16V extension (or somesuch). Micropro doesn't tell you howto do that, although I gather thatsome systems consultants have thesecret. Len Ott is working on theproblem for Compupro; meanwhile,fair warning to anyone using CP/M8/16. Don't mix Wordstar overlays.

Much Improved...

Another thing I collected at CP/MEast was the new manuals for Word-star 3.3.

I recall the first time I ever sawWordstar. It was at a show in LosAngeles. MacLean, my late madfriend, and I had machines withmemory-mapped video because Elec-tric Pencil wouldn't run with a ter-minal; indeed, the only full-screeneditor that would work with ter-minals was Wordmaster, and it didn'thave word-wrap and other featuresthat I wanted for creative writing.

Micropro, the company thatbrought out Wordmaster, introducedWordstar. It was selling it froma small, against-the-wall booth, andthe demonstrator/salesman toldMacLean, "The documents were writ-ten by the programmer who wrote theprogram."

Wordstar will never be

my favorite editor, but

the company has

steadily improved it,

and it's certainly more

than adequate.

Dan thumbed through the bignotebook and said, sadly, "I can verywell believe that."

We stayed with Electric Pencil, part-ly because Wordstar would work onlywith terminals; it certainly couldn'ttake advantage of our fast-scrollingmemory-mapped video displays.Even if we'd been tempted, though,

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the first Wordstar documents wouldhave turned us off.

However, most of the micro com-munity wasn't willing (or perhapsable) to put in memory-mappedvideo systems, and Wordstar was forseveral years the best text editor avail-able for systems using terminals. Theresult was that Wordstar very nearlybecame the micro world's standardtext editor. It wasn't necessarily thefavorite editor, but it was a prettygood second best. Everyone knew it,and it was available on most systems.It was smart to learn it, despite thepoor documents.

Over the years Micropro improvedWordstar and improved the docu-ments, and I'm pleased to report thatthe new documents for Wordstar 3.3are not bad. The tutorial is still tooterse and far too "busy" for my taste,but it will serve, and the referencemanual is quite complete. Wordstarwill never be my favorite editor(they'll never make changes thatdrastic!), but over the years the com-pany has steadily improved it, andit's certainly more than adequate.

Interestingly enough, the keyboardpictured in the new Wordstar tutorialmanual is very much like mine, ex-cept that it's missing most of thespecial function keys. Has Wordstardiscovered just how good Archivekeyboards are?

Love That MPI

I've become involved in publishing.That is, my friend and long-time as-sociate Jim Baen has talked me intoa line of "Jerry Pournelle Presents"books. One of the first of these willbe a revised collection of these col-umns. Others will include books byTony Bove and Cheryl Rhodes onhow to use CP/M and word proces-sors and such, an authoritative guideto the IBM PC, and a tutorial onModula-2.

I'm editor of record, so I contractfor these books, and that's greatly in-creased the paperwork here at ChaosManor. Worse, Jim Baen has his stan-dard contracts on his IBM PC, anduntil a few days ago I didn't have aPC.

I did have Zorro the Zenith Z-100,which in many ways is a better

128 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 136 on inquiry card.

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machine, and the MPI 150G dot-matrix printer, which is faster thanthe letter-quality Diablo and NECprinters, and plenty good enoughquality for contracts and businessdocuments.

We set up Zorro out in the auxiliaryoffice where the whole staff as wellas the kids can get at him, and de-mand has picked up a lot—so muchso that people were chafing to get theprinting done so they could get backto work.

MPI came to the rescue. That's onegreat little printer. The MPI ("ThePrinter People") troops sent an up-date board for the T50G. It was sim-ple to install, and it loads the printerwith 68K bytes of memory. Nowwhen we want to print a contract, wedo just as we always did, but whenZorro has sent the entire file over tothe MPI 150G, we can start editingsomething else while the printer con-tinues its work.

The time saved is quite significant.It's even more significant when we'reprinting Write files; it seems thatWordstar takes quite a long time to gothrough the text files and do all thenecessary formatting. The MPIprinter is so fast that it can nearlykeep up with Wordstar! However, forWrite, program listings, and all themyriad details that one uses a printerfor, having that memory is little shortof wonderful.

I know there are various boxes ofmemory that sit between the com-puter and the printer, and I've alwaysbeen tempted to get one, but I neverhave. I suppose one reason is thatearly on MacLean set me up with a"spooler," which is something a bitdifferent; the spooler, or at least theone I had, is a software timesharingsystem that let the computer printduring pauses when nothing elsewas happening. It almost drove memad.

The printer was in the other room,but I could hear it. Whenever I'dpause for thought, the printer wouldstart; as soon as I hit a key, it wouldstop. All pretense of creative thoughtwent out the window, and I had thatdarned spooler erased from all mydisks so I'd never be tempted to useit again.

That somehow convinced me Ididn't want printing going on whenI was working. Then, later, I got a sec-ond machine and hooked it to theprinter, and that became the primaryprintout system, and I found I couldwork while the printer was going inthe other room, so long as it workedsteadily and didn't depend on whatI was doing at the time. It's only beenrecently that I find I wish I had ac-cess to the second machine while it'sprinting; and our experience with the. Z-100 and the MPI's magic memoryhas been so pleasant that I guess I'llstart looking for a box to connect be-tween the Compupro Dual Processorand the NEC 7710 Spinwriter.

Meanwhile, if you want a good dot-matrix printer, let me recommend theMPI. We also have its little brother,the MPI 99, which is destined to beattached to the IBM PC as soon as weget either a parallel-output board forthe PC or the serial-interface adaptercable for the MPI 99.

The Ultimate Language?

Buz Overbeck of Garland, Texas,has evidently been following my lan-guage debate articles and hasdecided to solve the problem onceand for all. He sent me the specifica-tions for the new language DeSade,which he thinks should come out ofthe closet.

According to Overbeck, DeSade "isperfectly suited for brute-force appli-cations, slow and dirty program-ming, the crunching of numbers, andhacking in general." Some of the pre-viously defined functions are STRIP(X$), which removes everything;FLOG(X), which returns the floating-point logarithm; SLASH(X), whichreturns the integer portion of X;MAIM(X), which returns nothing;and SIN(X), which restores X to itsoriginal illegal value. Alas, \ cat\'\.really do justice to DeSade and itslibrary function Libertine—at leastnot in a family-type magazine likeBYTE. Perhaps that's just as well.

That Won't Work...

No one has yet deciphered mysecret message encrypted in CharlieMerrit's public-key encryption sys-tem. I know for a fact that some

130 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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pretty bright people using fairly largemachines took a stab at it; so perhapsit's reasonable to conclude that Mer-rit's program works as advertised.

For those who came in late, public-key encryption systems have twokeys. One is published, and anyonecan use it to encode a message. How-ever, once the message is encrypted,it can't be decoded except with theother, secret key. This means that youcan give your friends the means tosend you secret messages that onlyyou can read.

About a year ago, I encoded myVita (whose plain text is known) anda "secret" message I made up andpublished both messages and the en-cryption key, with the stipulation thatI'd have a reward for the first personto send me the plain text of the mes-sage. I made it available in my filesat MIT MC and advertised my offernot only in BYTE but on other largeelectronic networks. (MIT MC is oneof the larger machines at theMassachusetts Institute ofTechnology. That's where my elec-tronic mailbox is located.)

No one has it yet. There have beena couple of noble tries; one chap triedto disassemble Merrit's program inhopes of figuring out how Charliedid it. That didn't work, because theencryption algorithm is no secret: itinvolves factoring very large num-bers.

Public-key encryption

systems have two keys:

one is published and

anyone can use it, the

other is secret.

Another try is from Mr. Buttery inAustralia, who used psychology: hefigured out that I'd simply encryptedthe original offer of a reward. Alas,that's not the answer. I've actuallyforgotten the plain text of my mes-sage (I do have it written down). Itbreaks into a grammatical but mean-ingless English sentence; there's nopoint in trying psychoanalysis.

I'm beginning to believe CharlieMerrit has actually produced a near-

ly unbreakable code that we can useon our micro systems. That has someinteresting implications.

More Mail...

Alas, another 21 pounds of mail (asweighed by UPS) arrived today;that's a week's supply. It's physicallyimpossible for me to answer it all; Ido read every bit of it (so far), andmuch of it is very informative; it's asif I had my own intelligence serviceout there. Thanks.

One of my most informative corre-spondents is Paul Chisholm of NewJersey. He says, "I'm writing this withSpellbinder, a.k.a. Word/125. Boy, isthis thing modal! I'm used to inputmode and command mode, but this'edit' vs. command mode stuff is nofun at all."

Coincidentally, there is a furiousdebate going in the "Editor People"mailing list on one of the nets I fre-quent. It concerns "modal" versus"modeless" editors.

All the editors I use have "modes."Write, for example, has "insert" and"strikeover" modes; you toggle be-

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132 R*ruary 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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tween them with a single keystroke.I happen to like the strikeover modeas the normal one; text editors basedon MIT's Emacs tend to use the op-posite philosophy. The importantthing, though, is to get quickly fromone to the other, and to have a wayto tell which one you're in. (In mosttext editors there's a status line thattells you; in Write the cursor changesshape.)

Write also has a command mode,a print mode, and a find/replacemode. In every case there's adramatic on-screen change; you're inno doubt about which "mode" you'rein. On the other hand, you don'thave to leave the "text" mode formost text operations, which are ac-complished with single keystrokes.

Thus, although Write has "modes,"it tends toward the "modeless" endof the spectrum. By contrast, con-sider the simple editor built into mostBASICs. You pretty well have to go tocommand mode to accomplishanything with it. Ed, the text editorthat comes free with CP/M, isanother "mode" editor, as is theUCSD Pascal source editor; in thoseyou can't even move the cursor with-out going into command mode.

What irritates Chisholm aboutSpellbinder is that he can't kill lineswithout changing modes. With Writethat's a one keystroke command thatcan be made when you're in textmode. Obviously I prefer Write'smethod; on the other hand, I do payfor it. Many editors based on Emacskeep a big file of every bit of textyou've killed and have the ability to"yank" back (unkill) that text at will.Multimode editors tend to have thatfeature; nonmoded editors tend notto. I don't happen to miss "unkill" or"oops" myself, but then Write won'tlet me kill anything larger than a linewithout asking me whether I'mserious.

I wouldn't reject an "unkill" or"oops" feature in an editor, but I don'tthink I'd pay much for it, either.

Anyway, Chisholm says, "Chalk upa 'nay' vote for Spellbinder." On theother hand, Marty Massoglia hasbeen doing our Inferno game- inPascal using Eaglewriter, which isSpellbinder under another name,

and he's not unhappy with it. Buthe's writing programs, not text; healso has the patience of an IBM FOR-TRAN programmer.. .

More on Editors

Doug Hazen Jr. lives in Gainesville,Florida, where my mother went tocollege many years ago. He started offasking one or two questions and end-ed with a nine-page letter of queries,all sensible; but I'd have to write atleast one book to answer all of them.

One point he makes is that I may

have been unfair to The Final Word.Why, he asks, can't I simply cus-tomize its command structure to myliking? After all, he says, "You didn'tcriticize Wordstar's commands, and itdoesn't even pretend to be mnemonicor logical."

Taking the latter point first, I'vewritten so often about Wordstar'smultiple-stroke commands that Iguess I assumed everyone knows myviews on the subject. For the record:I don't care for most of Wordstar'scommand structure. The part I do

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February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

135

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like is the cursor controls, which aregrouped in a logical manner. I findit much easier to remember that " E,~S, "D, and "X move the cursor up,right, left, down, than to rememberthe Emacs "philosophy" of 3~F forforward a letter and Escape-F for for-ward a word, etc.

Obviously, there's no universalagreement on this. The Final Word isbased firmly on MIT's Emacs editor,which was written by my friendRichard M. Stallman; and a lot ofpeople are not merely fond of Emacs,they're fanatic supporters. I useEmacs when I'm connected to my ac-count at MIT, and I manage wellenough. It's true that I prefer Write,on the grounds of transparency, butrecall that I am a creative writer, andmy requirements are much differentfrom those of a programmer, or evenof a technical writer.

Second question: "One of TheFinal Word's most advertised and(seemingly) important features is theability to recover from power loss,etc., without losing text or even yourplace in the text. Can Write do this?"

No.

I don't think I want it to, either. TheFinal Word accomplishes this miraclewith a "swap file"; every now andthen it writes off what you've doneto disk without your asking it to. It'sprobably pure prejudice on my part,but I find that distracting. I don'twant my editor doing things I didn'ttell it to.

On the other hand, I've been welltrained to "save early and often,"which I do. I have fast disks, and Isave my text whenever I finish a unit.Still, I concede the point to The FinalWord.

Hazen also asks what I think of"what you see is what you get"editors.

I couldn't care less about that fea-ture. Write has a "print to screen"command that lets me see on screenprecisely what I'd see on paper, andthat's plenty enough for my pur-poses. On the other hand, the out-put of my shop is pretty much con-fined to (1) letters and (2) standardmanuscripts that are formatted as 26double-spaced lines per page, each60 characters wide, with page num-

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February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 139

bers and a very short header. I don'tneed fancy formatting.

What I do like is automatic on-screen formatting. That is: Wordstarand most of the "what you see iswhat you get" editors insert various"invisible" formatting commands intothe text stream. If later you changeanything, such as the length of aword, you must consciously reformatthe paragraph, otherwise it won'tcomgout right.

For example, if you use a goodspelling checker like The Word Plus,it will tell you that in making correc-tions it has changed the length ofwords and suggest that you REFOR-MAT your text.

Write, on the other hand, worksfrom explicit text-formatting com-mands. They're quite visible becausethey start with a dot; for example,you set the left margin to 10 by do-ing .lmlO and set the header margin(space between header and top oftext) by doing .hm3 or whatever.Having done that, Write does therest. When I edit already written text,Write automatically reformats it on

screen. When I run The Word Plus,I can immediately print my text with-out reformatting, regardless ofwhether words changed length. Andso forth.

I prefer it this way. If I did a lot ofnewsletter publishing or intricatetext layout, I'd probably have a dif-ferent view. I do know that Write isgood enough to produce importantdocuments; the report of TheCitizen's Advisory Council on Na-tional Space Policy was printed hereat Chaos Manor using Write, and itgot a letter of commendation fromthe President, so it must have lookedgood enough.

Actually, I expect much editorpreference depends on what you'reused to; as long as you have a decenttext editor, these machines are somuch better than what we had beforewe got them that we can loudly countour blessings.

Still, I am making notes about whatI want in my "ideal" editor and, whoknows, maybe 111 use parts of it as anexample when I start writing abouthow to program in Modula-2.

results:

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Upgrade? That Compupro

I'm writing this on a CompuproZ80. I want that clearly understood;maybe I can forestall some of theangry letters.

Bill Godbout's Compupro com-pany has sold one whack of a lot ofZ80 microprocessor boards. It stillsells them—but he's trying to retirethem. What Dr. Godbout really andtruly wants you to get is a dual pro-cessor, 8085/8088 central processingunit, and while you're at it, get CP/M8/16 that runs both 8-bit CP/M-80(2.2x) software and 16-bit CP/M-86programs.

To encourage this, he's making twooffers:

(1) If you have Compupro CP/M-86,return the original master (you cankeep a copy) to a Compupro SystemsCenter and the company will sell youa working CP/M 8/16 complete withBIOS for $100.

(2) If you have a Compupro Z80microprocessor, talk to your Com-pupro Systems Center, or even directto Compupro; you can arrange totrade it in and get a Dual Processor8085/8088 replacement board at halfprice.

Now I know that some peoplewon't consider this an upgrade,because the Z80 does have somepretty efficient instructions not pres-ent in the 8085. Phillipe Kahn ofBorland says the reason the com-pany's Turbo Pascal is so efficient forCP/M-80 is that it works only withZ80 systems and makes maximumuse of the Z80 instruction set.

On the other hand, the microworld is moving toward 16 bits.There's more 8-bit than 16-bit soft-ware right now, and the Z80 will runmore of it than the 8085, so perhapsthis isn't the time to make the change.Perhaps. I have both systems, andthere's very little I can't run on theDual Processor—which also has JimHudson's 8087 piggyback board, thusenabling me to do even morewonders.

Anyway, while Dr. Godbout and Iwere discussing his trade-in offer, hesaid he was contemplating callingNieman-Marcus to get into itsChristmas catalog. He could offer a$100,000 microcomputer.

140 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 137 on inquiry card.

Take one each Shirley machine.Each of the four users could have hisown CPU and memory. They couldalso have their own RAM-disk ifyou'd like. You can make the RAM-disk as large as 4 megabytes and theindividual memory area up to 16megabytes. This requires the new256K-byte memory chips, whicharen't cheap.

With two floppy disks, a hard disk,16 megabytes of main memory, 1megabyte of RAM-disk, five pro-cessors, and terminals, you could puttogether a Super-Shirley to sell for$100,000, and he was going to try toget that in the Nieman-Marcuscatalog.

Of course, Shirley doesn't normal-ly sell for anything like that; with fourterminals it's still well under $20,000for a four-user system.

I don't know whether Godbout gothis ad in that catalog, but he doeshave a point: it's going to be awhilebefore those 256K-byte chips makeany practical difference to the or-dinary microcomputer user.

Meanwhile, Godbout is developinga 1-megabyte S-100 static memoryboard that will take up only one slot.You can probably order one now; ifyou decide you want one, it will beabout $6000, no small sum. Ofcourse, that price will fall over thenext year or so; memory pricesalways come down.

As to why anyone would want suchan expensive board, it will work atfantastic speeds, far higher thanwhere the cheaper dynamic memoryboards can work reliably I alreadyhave a Compupro 8-MHz 8086/8087microprocessor board—and the com-pany is trying to increase that one'sspeed. Moreover, with a board likethat you're tooling up for the realthing, when the 16032 boards comeout.

My conversation with Godbout gotme to thinking. People are alwaysasking me, "What should I buy?"Short of giving a specific machine foran answer, what should I say? But Ihave thought of something.

Buy yourself a state-of-the-art de-velopment system—but don't get thisyear's model. Get something that be-tween one and one and a half years

ago was the latest state of the art.That will be advanced enough foralmost any nondevelopmental pur-pose. People will be writing softwarefor it. The bugs will be shaken outand its servicing quirks will beknown.

Example: I'm writing this on aCompupro Z80, which was state-of-the-art three years ago, and I'm aboutto check spelling and print it on aCompupro 8085/8088 Dual Processor,which was state-of-the-art not morethan two years ago. Both are reliable,quite sophisticated, and easy to use.

Incidentally, I told Bill Godboutabout a new company that's formingto challenge his supremacy in the de-velopment systems market.

He said, "Love competition. I'd liketo have somebody to steal somethingfrom for a change."

Fixing up Adeline

The Otrona company has changedhands, and no one in it seems everto have heard of me. The companyhas severed its connection with FredWhitney who used to be the local

manufacturer's rep, and the WestCoast sales people I knew are allgone.

Thus I hear rumors of new boardsand software for the Otrona, but I'venot seen any.

Meanwhile, Adeline, our Otrona,developed speech problems: that is,she worked fine, but the communica-tions port stopped sending, makingit well-nigh impossible to transferfiles out of Adeline and into our mainsystem. (There's a story that goeswith that, about why my 5-inch disksystems for the big Compupro DualProcessor aren't up and running, butit's for another time.)

We also had a problem with thehandle; not fatal, but annoying.

No one at Otrona returned mycalls, so it took a while to find a localdealer; but eventually we came upwith Omni Unlimited, of Pasadena.Alex took Adeline over. Within anhour, John Erdwell of Omni hadAdeline fixed and running. More-over, it didn't cost a cent; it seemsOtrona had some problems withearly machines and instructed

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February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 141

authorized repair centers to treat themachines as if under warranty. Idon't know if the company is still do-ing that as you read this, but as ofNovember it is.

We still use the Otrona as the travelmachine. There's a good version ofWrite for Adeline, and she fits in anaircraft overhead rack quite nicely. Ilast took her to Austin, Texas, and gotquite a lot of work done in eveninghours. There are said to be better por-tables, but so far I've not tried one.

Late edition: Otrona has success-fully reorganized. Ron Lingeman, theoriginal designer of the machine, hasbecome the vice-president of R&Dand is happy as a clam with hisreturn to the laboratories. The newpresident is Jim Linder, who enjoyssales and marketing. I met both atCOMDEX. Communications havebeen reestablished and we are gettinga PC-compatible update for AdelineReal Soon Now.

They also have a very nice largeamber screen add-on. With the bigscreen, PC-compatibility in additionto the original Z80, and lots of bun-dled software, the Otrona remainsmy favorite portable.

Game of the Month

We've got a ton of computer gamesaround here. My method of deter-mining which one is most popular isto watch which ones the kids areplaying when I go back to their endof the house. It's not quite a randomsampling, but it's reasonable.

This month the favorite seems to beAvalon Hill's Tactical Armor Com-mand. I'm glad of that, because Ihave a soft spot in my heart for AH;I've been playing its board games forat least 25 years, beginning with Tac-tics II.

The following review is by AlexPournelle, with assistance fromRichard (13) and Phillip (15):

Tactical Armor Command (Apple versiontested; no joystick used).

"Dad used to design board wargames. I got interested in thembecause of him, but I have had littlespare time and few opponents for along time. Because of this, I hoped tosee some good board-type games for

computers, especially from a com-pany whose games I have admired,Avalon Hill.

"They have done it. Tactical ArmorCommand, or TAC for short, isdefinitely an Avalon Hill game rightfrom its rules through its playability.It even has the old Avalon Hill rulegaps—for instance, the game says"fire suppressed," though the rulebook doesn't mention what that is.No matter; Avalon Hill gamers wouldbe suspicious of anything perfect inits first release.

"There is one perfect thing: themarriage of computer and boardgame. The last two board games Iused to play were Tobruk (AH) andAir War (SPI). Both dealt with indivi-dual units, tanks in Tobruk and jetfighters in Air War. Both were in-credibly hard to learn and play. Air Warhad 100 pages of rules, tables, ex-amples, and notes; it took a friend ofmine two weeks just to learn to flystraight and level! The computer cantake care of this detail much betterthan you or I; TAC does this for a veryTobruk-like game.

"You choose American, German,Russian, or British armor and troopsin World War II. Your opponent, whocan be the computer or another sa-pient being, chooses one of theothers. You select how many "armorpoints" (which buy tanks, artillery, ortroops and APCs) each side gets andthen purchase your instruments ofdestruction. Then you each taketurns moving on the board, attemp-ting to find each other's units, hidingin forests, laying smoke, and firingeither directly or indirectly. Thoughthe moves are entered one after theother, all moves are processedsimultaneously, making the gamemore realistic. Combat resolution, ifany, is shown after all moves areentered. All views of the playing fieldare shown in top view, just like anyother tank board game. The hexagonpaper, though, is gone: units can beanywhere.

"Good points: the game is fun andrefreshingly different. If your coor-dination isn't up to 4000 aliens aminute, try a little strategy. You cangive more units to a lesser player orplay the computer if you're alone.

The computer, by the way, is a prettygood player—the game calls him"Major AI Logarithm." There is notime limit during planning stages, soplan on. Moving units is time-dependent and you can makemistakes, but this is so much morelike reality that I am only impressed.I could wish for optional joystick unitmovement if I were in a wishingmood.

"Disadvantages: like any otherAvalon Hill game, there are someendearing foibles as well as justdumb mistakes. There are notenough examples in the instructions,especially of indirect fire, messagesgiven during combat, how to engagethe enemy, what infantry is good for(and how to use it), what artillery cando for you, and what to do withevery tank against every other.Avalon Hill provides good examplesfor its $12 to $20 box games; it certain-ly ought to for a more expensive com-puter game. You get to pick the unitsfor both sides if you play the com-puter; I would like to see it do its ownchoosing. You have to write downwhat units you're tracking and wherethey are; the computer could do a lotmore note-taking for you. If you tryto point a gun in a direction it won'tgo, the computer just asks you again;there ought to be help on this. Mostof these are minor nits, though: thegame is very playable and takes onlytwo or three test plays to pick up. Iwould like to see Avalon Hill addmore scenarios and variable terrainso Tactical Armor Command doesn'tbecome a bookshelf queen."

(Note by JEP: the biggest disap-pointment to me was that althoughthe Germans can have towed ar-tillery, the most famous antitankweapon of the war, the Flak 88, isn'tin the game! Rommel changedarmored tactics forever by bringingthe 88's forward to fight as integralunits with his tank armies; it wouldbe interesting to see how that tacticfares in this game. I wish they'd addthe 88s. . . .)

Coming Attractions

I'm never very good at predictingwhat I'll be doing, but next month isCOMDEX. Meanwhile, I've been

142 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Items Reviewed

Dedicate/32

$175

Otrona Attache

$2995

Merrit Software

.

Otrona Corporation

POB 1504

4755 Walnut St.

Fayetteville, AR 72702

Boulder, CO 80301

(501) 442-0914

(303) 940-3445

Disk Doubler

$19.95

Pascal MT + 80

$350

Evolving Technology Corporation

MT + 86

$600

3725 Talbot St., Suite F

Digital Research, Inc.

San Diego, CA 92106

POB 579

(619) 224-3788

Pacific Grove, CA 93950(800) 227-1617

Eagle 1600 Series

$4495-8995

Eagle Multiuser PC

$1995-4495

Shirley (Multipro MP-10) (hard drive 40-megabyte)

$8490

Spirit Portable

$4795

Compupro Upgrades

—

Eagle Computer Corporation

Compupro

983 University Ave., Building C

3339 Arden Rd.

Los Gatos, CA 95030

Hayward, CA 94545

(408) 395-5005

(415) 786-0909

Final Word

$300

Spellbinder (alias Word/125)

$495

Mark of the Unicorn

Lexisoft

222 Third St.

706 5th St.

Cambridge, MA 02142

Davis, CA 95616

(617) 576-2760

(916) 758-3630

IBM PCs and Other Computers

Tactical Armor Command

$40

Computerland of Woodland Hills

Avalon Hill Game Corporation

28012 Ventura Blvd.

4517 Harford Rd.

Woodland Hills, CA 91367

Baltimore, MD 21214

(818) 716-7714

(301) 254-5300

Logimouse

$203

Turbo Pascal

$49.95

Logitech Inc.

Borland International

165 University Ave., #105

4807 Scotts Valley Dr.

Palo Alto, CA 94301

Scotts Valley, CA 95066

(415) 326-3885

(800) 227-2400

Magic Keyboard

$32.50

Wordstar

$495

Write

$239

Micropro International

Dedicate/32

$175

33 San Pablo Ave.

Workman and Associates

San Rafael, CA 94903

112 Marion Ave.

(415) 499-1200

Pasadena, CA 91106

(818) 796-4401

Zenith Z-100 Computer

Zenith Data Systems

$2899

MPI 99

$599

1000 Milwaukee Ave.

MPI 150G

$995-1345

Glenview, IL 60025

Micro Peripherals Inc.

(312) 391-8865

4426 South Century Dr.

Salt Lake City, UT 84107

(801) 263-3081

1

promised the new Eagle Spirit por-table (which I'll take to COMDEX)and a number of expansion boardsfor our IBM PC, including, I hope,Ciarcia's Quicksilver.

Also on deck is Sweet Pea's plotter,Mouse Systems' Mouse compared toLogitech's, Lotus 1-2-3, concurrentCP/M with Logitech, DR Logo, and

Lord knows what else.

There are also 21 pounds of mail todeal with, and the unreviewed soft-ware pile continues to grow. I loveit.a

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

ferry 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, ferry cannotguarantee a personal reply.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 143

The Texas Instrumentsmakes the best software

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The TI Professional Computer'soutstanding monitor resolutionand 8-color graphics make best-selling programs like Lotus1-2-3 ™ sharper, easier to workwith. And the fact that you canput three times the graphic in-formation on your screen — inboth color and monochrome— means you'll be able totake even greater advan-tage of the best graphicsprograms. For best-sellingword processing packages like WordStar ™TI's comfortable,typewriter-stylekeyboard is anatural. Anyone

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One such package is Natural-Link™, TI's exclusive naturallanguage interface program.NaturalLink lets you accessinformation from subscriptiondata base inquiryservices, suchas the DowJones News/Retrieval®

service, in plain English. So youdon't have to memorize specialcodes to get the outside informa-tion your business depends on.TI's revolutionary developmentof speech recognition is another

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Leading third-party softwaresuppliers are developing newprograms to take advantage ofTI's speech technology. In early1984, with Speech Command,™you'll be able to say things like,"Inventory analysis, please," andhave a spreadsheet displayed in-stantly on your monitor. Voice-operation will make the TIProfessional Computer easierto use than ever before.

If you're ready for the best —and best-selling—programs, you'reready for the Texas InstrumentsProfessional Computer. Now atparticipating ComputerLand storesand independent dealers. For thelocation nearest you, and answersto questions about yourcomputing needs, call1-800-527-3500.

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Copyright © 1983 Texas Instalments

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Recent developments raise some questionsabout perceived industry trends

North Star Dimension

The announcement this fall, short-ly before COMDEX, of the multiuserIBM-compatible North Star Dimen-sion in many ways validates what in-dustry observers have been preach-ing as the formula for survival in aworld increasingly dominated by theIBM Personal Computer (PC) and itsimitators. The North Star Dimensionis not to be confused with theDimension 68000 from Micro CraftCorporation, a single-user systemthat claims compatibility with justabout anything via coprocessorboards. The new machine is a best-level PC work-alike (in other words,it comes as close to being fully com-patible as anything to date) that wasdesigned to appeal to a very specificsegment of the microcomputer mar-ketplace.

The Dimension is a carefullyplanned business system consistingof a central processing unit, a 13-slotPC-compatible bus, and up to 12satellite workstations.

The central processing unit is basedaround the Intel 80186 microproces-sor and 256K bytes of RAM (random-access read/write memory) expand-able to 512K bytes. In its basic con-figuration, storage is provided by one360K-byte floppy-disk drive that can

by Ezra Shapiro

read all IBM 5 V* -inch formats and a15-megabyte hard disk, although thesystem will support the floppy-diskdrive, two 30-megabyte hard-diskdrives, and a 45-megabyte tape back-up unit. Output is through a Cen-tronics parallel port, an RS-232Cserial port, and a second serial portprogrammable for a variety of proto-cols, including asynchronous and bi-synchronous communication withmainframes.

Each workstation terminal is at-tached to a card that holds an 8088-2running at 7 MHz and 128K bytes ofRAM. Expansion boards of either128K or 384K bytes of RAM areoptional. Workstation cards or,theoretically, any other PC XT expan-sion cards, slip into the PC bus withno hard-wiring. Terminals featureone serial port for a local printer (ora mouse), a detachable keyboard,and a 12-inch green-phosphor tilt-screen monitor with 640- by 200-pixelIBM-compatible graphics and a 640-by 400-pixel high-resolution graphicsmode. North Star currently has noplans to implement color, deeming itunnecessary in the business environ-ment at which the Dimension isaimed.

In short, each workstation is essen-tially an independent computer with

no permanent storage. The mainboard serves only as a memory man-ager, handling requests for programsor data from workstations on a first-in, first-out basis. The 80186 is pro-grammed to use its RAM as a mem-ory cache system, avoiding disk ac-cess whenever possible. This designis inherently both faster and saferthan linking a group pf PC XTs in alocal area network because the mainboard, the workstation boards, andall permanent storage media arelocated within the same box, anddata transfer occurs as quickly as itwould in any single-user computer ofsimilar size, with little chance ofsignal degradation.

At the time this column was writ-ten, North Star was still working outpreproduction details but was plan-ning to ship beta-test systems inDecember of 1983 and move to fullproduction early in the first quarterof 1984. Management seemed con-fident that there would be a largeenough supply of 80186s available tomeet their schedule.

However, while the Dimension iscertainly impressive in its own right,it is perhaps even more significant asan indication of the current state ofindustry thinking. North Star hasbeen around since 1976 (when it was

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 147

known as Kentucky Fried Com-puters) and is certainly no Johnny-come-lately in the microcomputer ratrace. The company was a pioneer inS-100 system design and has beennoted for the stubbornness withwhich it has clung to hard-sectored5V4-inch floppy-disk drives since itbegan using them years ago. Al-though North Star has been market-ing 16-bit coprocessor upgrades forits Advantage and Horizon com-puters for well over a year now, it hasdone so with little of the mediafanfare normally associated withmajor product introductions.

Thus, it's worth taking notice whenDr. Charles Grant, one of thefounders of the company, states flatlythat the IBM PC has become a "stan-dard" and that the company intendsto "ride the wave" of IBM popularityto a financially secure future. Whenasked why it had taken them so longto embrace this new standard whole-heartedly, Grant commented thatNorth Star had wanted "to do itright."

North Star's sales goals for theDimension seem modest enough;the company is shooting for 2 to 3percent of the IBM-compatible mar-ket and the same share of the overallmultiuser market. Unlike earlierNorth Star products, which weremoderate- to high-priced machines,the Dimension is certainly priced tocompete. The suggested list for thebasic configuration (256K-byte RAM,floppy-disk drive, 15-megabyte harddisk, and two workstations with128K bytes of RAM) is only $7000. Up-grading the hard disk to 30 mega-bytes costs an additional $1000, andextra workstations go for $1500 each.Add-on RAM boards range from $300for 128K bytes to $700 for 384K bytes.The company's advertising materialshighlight graphs that compare sys-tem costs to networked PC XTs(North Star claims a 50 percentsavings per user in a five-user sys-tem), and representatives of the firmtick off the less obvious advantages:multiuser software licenses as op-posed to multiple purchases of thesame products; no need for eithernetworking hardware or software;and so on. North Star is developing

an aggressive marketing campaign tosell the Dimension to Fortune 1000companies. Gone are the days whena computer manufacturer could sup-port itself with a product for scientistsand hackers. With the Dimension,North Star is attempting to occupy aniche in the market that, so far, hasbeen vacant.

One is forced to wonder whichcame first, the computer or thestrategy. It's becoming painfullyobvious that the key to survival as amajor manufacturer is acceptance bythe business community. The IBMPC has unquestionably opened thedoor to that market wider than anypersonal computer before it, but in sodoing has made compatibility a pri-mary factor in microcomputer de-sign, for better or for worse. Recentannouncements by North Star, Tele-video, and a host of smaller firms

Most thick manuals are

an insult to user

intelligence.

seem to indicate that the 8088/MS-DOS/IBM-compatible bandwagon isbecoming something much more likea speeding freight train.

The Integrated Microman

The requirements of the corporateworld have become a driving force insoftware design as well, and a greatdeal of effort has been devoted to de-vising software schemes that willhelp to shoehorn the computer intothe executive office. The ideal seemsto be a program that eliminatesmost—if not all—of the need forpaper, writing implements, and filingcabinets and is (of course) laughablyeasy to learn. Whether such a pro-gram is practical or even useful (therehas yet to be a reasonable analysis ofthe amount of creative thinking thatgoes on during the act of shufflingpapers, for example) is the great mootquestion, but the new products con-tinue to multiply. In the attempt toproduce a computer environmentanalogous to an executive desktopand thereby shorten the amount oftime it takes for a novice user todevelop a "feel" for computer

operations, more and more programsare appearing that make use ofmultiple windows, alternative point-ing devices such as mice, graphicmetaphors, and endless layers ofmenus.

But is all this really necessary?Much of what goes on in most officesis not particularly well organized orlogical. Computers and computerprograms are by their naturedependent on structures and priori-ties. If we assume for a moment thatit will be necessary for a new user toaccept a certain level of organizationin order to make use of a computer,why not make computer operationsa bit easier to grasp, instead of tryingto replace them with an artificialdesktop?

That's roughly the philosophy be-hind an integrated software package,code-named "Microman," fromNoumenon Corporation, which willbe introduced this spring at Softcon.It's difficult to describe—largely be-cause the most accurate phrases havealready been commandeered bycopywriters flogging all sorts ofprograms, from the truly integratedpackages all the way down to thosethat share similar commands but nocommon data structures.

Microman uses no icons, no mouse(although a pointing device could beadded as a substitute for the cursorkeys), no windows, and very fewscreens that could be consideredmenus. But it is, in fact, an extremelytightly-knit environment with word-processing, calculator, spreadsheet,database, business graphics, andtime-management capabilities. It'sone program, not a linked collectionof programs that can swap data files.Microman is designed to act as itsown operating system, although itallows for the transfer of files to andfrom the operating system suppliedwith the computer.

A large part of the program's powercomes from its strongly hierarchicalfile structure. The first thing you seeis a directory, which can either be thetitles of subdirectories or the namesof working files. You choose a file (ormove down the tree to another direc-tory) with the up and down cursorkeys. If you wish to create a new file,

148 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Users can select the infor-mation they need from the unitthey want. StationMate can

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Circle 64 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 149

you merely move the cursor to thebeginning of a line and begin typing.

Because Microman is self-con-tained, there is no need to use CP/Mor MS-DOS file-naming conventions.Microman allows you to name fileswith descriptive phrases of up to 67characters, and blanks and punctua-tion marks are perfectly acceptable.The loose equivalent of a filetypespecifies not only the nature of theinformation contained in the file butthe part of the program used tomanipulate it. For example, a filenamed "Potential Clients" with thefiletype "record" would be a mailinglist, and Microman would bring upthe list facility. A filetype of "table"would invoke the spreadsheet.

Data can be moved from one por-tion of the program to another withremarkable fluidity, and in manycases manipulated interactively. Asan example, let's take the case of themultiple business mailing. Tradition-ally, you prepare two files, a mailinglist (database) and a form-lettermatrix with variable names of somesort to indicate where the database

items should fall. These files areindependent and are brought to-gether at output when the programinserts list items into the appropriateholes and adjusts the copy according-

iy-

With Microman, the letter and thelist are prepared as separate files. Youcan tag the two files (with one key-stroke each) at the directory level andproceed to output the merged formletters as previously discussed. How-ever, if you wish, you can tag thefiles, enter the matrix file, view thelist items one at a time in position inthe letter, make changes to the items(updating the list file concurrently),and selectively print out single letters(again with one keystroke). You canalso perform search and sort opera-tions on the database from within thematrix.

Most features of Microman havebeen chosen for their applicability tothe average business office. Theauthor, Martel Firing, began workingon it as a personal project because hecouldn't find a commercial offeringthat suited his needs. Noumenon

does not claim that Microman has thebest or most powerful features. Theaim was a program that could per-form most of the tasks an executiveor secretary would require to conductday-to-day affairs.

The word processor is a two-partoperation, a text editor and a print-time formatter, but it is entirelyadequate for the generation ofmemos, correspondence, and cleanbusiness reports. A calculator strip(yes, a "window," if you must) can bebrought up for quick numerical com-putations and as quickly banishedfrom the screen.

The spreadsheet is powerful andefficient and is designed to let youenter formulas for cells, rows,columns, or areas in simple English-based syntax. Procedures for recom-putation or individual formulas canbe named, so that instead of typing"Multiply gross sales x 5 % = Ad-vertising allowance" you can enter"DO: Ad budget." Multiple proce-dures can be nested. Notes and free-form messages can be entered at anytime without having to associate text

with standard spreadsheet units(e.g., cells).

Database entries can be madethrough either user-created input oroutput forms (which are all the sameto the program), and file organizationcan be changed at will with nochance of damage to the data. Micro-man also offers the executive a time-oriented database system for thechronological entry and sorting ofdata—daily expenses, for example.All Microman databases are fullyinteractive with their report forms, asin the mailing list example just given.Databases are not in themselves com-putational (numerical data can beshifted to a spreadsheet tablesmoothly enough), but again,Noumenon sees Microman as amultipurpose office aid, not as acomplex data-retrieval system.

Great care has been taken to makethe program as simple to run asNoumenon feels is appropriate; func-tion keys perform equivalent tasks inall application areas, and on-screenHelp messages are available at alltimes. Both Firing and Noumenon

president Mike Mead regard the thickmanuals that accompany most com-puter products as an insult to theintelligence of the user and a luxuryfor which most executives simply donot have the time. Microman docu-mentation is a succinctly wordedbooklet of under 30 pages, and sig-nificant passages are either repro-duced directly or enhanced as ex-planation screens.

Both Noumenon officials note thatthe computer market has entered anew phase. In their eyes, the tech-nically sophisticated hobbyist of fiveyears ago and the adept enthusiast oflast year will make up at most 20 per-cent of the eventual market; the re-maining 80 percent will be composedof naive business users with neitherthe inclination nor the interest to usecomputers as much more than toolsand shortcuts. Microman is targetedat that group. Mead and Firing seeMicroman as a program that can re-main on line in all but the mostspecific office situations, and theyplan additional program modules (inareas like communications) to further

broaden its usefulness.

A brief product description such asthis does not do Microman justice;explanations are often more confus-ing than the actual operations. ButMicroman accomplishes what itclaims; it's "easy to use," "ready torun," and "user friendly" withoutbeing either cumbersome or overlysimplistic. Microman is obviously aneatly tailored program for the intel-ligent, but busy, adult.

Which brings us back to thequestion of the "bells and whistles"the industry is hurriedly developing.If Microman can achieve its goalsusing only a moderate amount ofvideo highlighting, a few well-placedrules, clearly defined function keys,and a few simple, largely self-explanatory screens, why are we get-ting caught up in the notion that inorder to make the user interface of aprogram simpler and less hostile wemust make the program itself evenmore complex? Perhaps the problemlies less in the nature of software thanin the nature of software design. It'sworth considering.

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February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 151

Circle 120 on inquiry card.

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152 February 1984 © BVTE Publications Inc.

Circle 323 on inquiry card.

Voice-Recognition Status Report

A recent conference in Santa Bar-bara provided both mildly encourag-ing and mildly discouraging news onthe state of the art in voice recogni-tion. The problem of translatinghuman speech into acceptable inputfor data processing is one of thestickiest the computer industry isfacing, as discussed in "SpeechRecognition: An Idea Whose Time IsComing," by George M. White, Janu-ary 1984 BYTE, page 213. The con-ference, called "Towards Robustnessin' Speech Recognition," broughttogether most of the country's topresearchers in the field. No revolu-tionary breakthroughs were an-nounced, but it was obvious thatprogress is being made, and a major-ity of the participants were enthusi-astic about the future. As with allsuch gatherings, discussions in cor-ridors and between sessions, the ex-changing of ideas and contacts, wereprobably the most productivemoments of the three-day affair.

However, brief intimations ofgloom managed to creep into the pro-ceedings every now and then. WayneLea, conference chairman, managedto cast the first stone in his openingaddress. "Speech recognizers," hecharged, "are not robust." And indeedthe cheerfulness of the mood of theconference could be phrased as"They've written off voice recognition

as a dead issue, but, see, this eventproves we're alive and well after all."

Speech recognizers of one form oranother have been under develop-ment for over twenty years. They'reof particular importance to themilitary (for obvious reasons—freeingan extra pair of hands in an emer-gency can be critically important), soresearch and development have beenrather intensive. But the vast amountof information to be processed byeven a simple speech recognizer hasput a limit on expectations. However,as the ability of computers to crunchlarger volumes of data at higherspeeds increases, there is everyreason to believe that speech-recog-nition technology will benefit.

Refinements of technique were re-ported at all levels. Advances inacoustics, microphone design, and

Circle 373 on inquiry card. »

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digital encoding have made the initialidentification of speech easier;spectral analysis of input is achievingsmaller and smaller error rates inmatching input against stored speechpatterns, or templates; and the appli-cation of probability theory for de-tecting meaningful words among therandom noise of human speech(there are over 11,000 discretesyllables in the English language tobe sorted through) is also improvingrecognizer performance.

But the steps forward have beenincremental; even the best recog-nizers available today ("trained" byone speaker repeating a small set ofinput phrases over and over) are lessaccurate than keyboard data entry,although the gap is dwindling. Theultimate goal, a speaker-independentrecognizer, capable of understandinga large vocabulary of nonstop humanspeech, is a long way off. Dick Eason,president of Voice Control Systems,one of the sponsors of the con-ference, makes the point by asking,"What do you do about 'Jeet?' [thecontraction of 'Did you eat?']?"

In his keynote speech, Dennis Klattof MIT, observing what he sees asdiminishing returns from all the re-search, wondered aloud if it might betime for the industry to begin explor-ing new directions. Unfortunately,none of the other speakers addressedthe question that was foremost in theminds of many in the audience: whatabout the correlation between speechrecognition and artificial intelligence?It may be that in order to perfect atruly robust recognizer, we may haveto recapitulate the whole process bywhich a baby learns to make, anduse, the collection of sounds we calllanguage.

The outlook? Commercial speechrecognizers, initially speaker-dependent and with limited vocab-ularies, will become better, cheaper,and more commonplace for simplevoice control and data entry. Over thelong haul, developments may nothappen as quickly as we would liketo envision.■

Ezra Shapiro is a technical editor at BYTE's WestCoast bureau. He can be reached at McGraw-Hill,425 Battery St., San Francisco, CA 94111.

154 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 293 on Inquiry card.

THE FILE CONNECTION

8" DISKETTE SYSTEM FOR THE IBM PC

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BYTE February 1984 155

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S 229

DBUMilylorll

S 99

S 69

System Plus. GLAP.4AR.3Pak

S 995

S555

Videx. Applewnler II preboot disk

S 20

S 15

Visicalc80col preboot disk

S 50

S 39

UltraPlan (specify board))

S 189

S 129

VisiCorp'Personal Software.

Visicalc 3.3

S 250

S 169

Visicalc Enhanced (lie) NEW1

S 250

S 179

VisiFile or VisiDex. each

S250

$ 179

UTILITY & SYSTEM

Beagle. Apple Mechanic

S 30

S 22

Double-Take

S 35

S 25

Typefaces (Req. Ap. Mechanic]

S 20

S 15

DOSS Boss or Utility City, each

S 30

$ 22

Tip Disk #1

S 20

$ 15

Pronto DOSS

S 30

$ 20

Alpha Plot

S 40

$ 27

Central Point. Filer. DOS 3.3 and Utility

S 20

S 15

* Copy II Plus (bi! copier)

S 40

S 30

Einstein. Compiler, for Applesoft BASIC

S 725

S 35

Epson, Graphics Dump

S 15

S 9

Hayes, Terminal Program

S 100

S 65

* Insoft, GraFORTH by Paul Lulus

S 75

S 59

Microsoft, AIDS.

S 125

S 75

Coboieo

S 750

$ 559

Fortran 80

S 195

S 149

COMPLETE LINE IN STOCK

♦ Omega, Locksmith(bi1 copier)

S 100

S 75

Penguin, Comp. Grphcs. Sys NEW!

S 70

$ 53

Graphics Magician NEW

$ 60

$ 41

Phoenix.ZoomGralix

S 40

S 34

Quality, BagofTncks NEW

S 40

$ 29

■L.L»lM*«»l"r«**iiWUi

Beagle Bros., Beagle Bag

S 30

S 22

Broderbund. Choplifter

S 35

$ 26

Arcade Machine

S 60

S 40

Lode Runner

S 35

S 25

Apple Panic

S 30

$ 21

BudgeCo. Prnbalt Constr Sel

$ 40

$ 27

♦Continental, Home Accountant

S 75

S 49

Datasoft. Azlec or Zaxxon, each

S 40

$ 27

Edu-Ware. (Large Inventory}

Call

Einstein, Memory Trainer

$ 90

S 70

Hayden, Sargon II (Chess)

$ 35

S 29

Infocom.Zoitt I, II, or III, or Slarcross.each

S 40

S 27

Koala, Full line in slock, CALL

Call

Learning Co.. (Large Inventory)

Call

Lightning, Mastertype

S 40

$ 27

Micro Lab, Miner 2049er

$ 40

$ 27

SierraiOn-Line, Ultima II

$ 60

S 40

Sir-Tech, Wizardry

$ 50

S 39

Spinnaker, Kindercomp

S 30

S 20

Sub Logic. Flight Simulator II

S 50

S 37

Terrapin. Logo

S 150

S 99

OTHER BRANDS AND PROGRAMS IN STOCK. CALL.

8" CP/M-80 SOFTWARE

MUCH MORE IN STOCK

ASHTON-TATE. dBase II

Financial Planning Lang,FridayBLUECHIP.MilltonaireDIGITAL RES.. CBASIC

CBASIC Compiler (CB80)Pascal MT-CIS COBOLPL1

C CompilerFOX > GELLER, Quick Codedull,dGraphINF0COM.Starcross.Zotkl.il or III, each

Deadlmeor Pianerfall. eachMICROCRAFT. Verdict or Billkeeper. eachMICROPRO WordStar-MailMerge"

WordStar Prol. 4 Pak (Call)MICROSOFT, Mulliplan COBOL-BOCompilerSPECIAL

LIST OURPRICE PRICE

S 700S 700S 295S 70S 150S 500S350S850S550S350S 295S 99S 295S 50S 60S 995S 495S250S 895S 275S 750

S 385$ 439$ 249S 43$ 99$ 339S 239S 575$ 375S 250$ 185S 62S 185S 34S 40S 495$ 239S 129$429S 195$350

PLOTTERS

LIST OUR

PRICE PRICE

BAUSCHiLOMB, HOUSTON

DMP-40.lpenCationdelivety $725

DMP-29,8penCallondelivery. $1695

DMP-tlCallondelivery $2250

AMDEK.DXY-100.10,x14",Para S 749 $599

Amplotll,lOx14.6color,SP S1299 S 999

rvi

HP!2C.CalcuiatorHPtlC. Calculator41CX. Calculator4lC. Calculator

S 120S 90S 325S 195

4lCVCalculator.w2.2KMem S 275Call on accessories and software.

$ 99$ 75$ 275$ 149$ 219

A

tor the ATARI

RANA10O0 Drive. 320KKOALA Padw Micio illustrator

S 449S 100

S 369S 75

LIST OURPRICE PRICE

S 45 $ 32S 60 S 45

DISKETTES

BROWN DISC10 each. Pulse). DS-DO. 48TPI

lOeach. Pulse II. DSOD.96TPI

CDC 100each. SS SD. 3ST (Apple. Atari) S 450 S 169

lOeach. SS'SD,3ST|Apple.AtariJ S 45 $ 18

100each,SS'DD,40T(Apple,IBM) S 550 $179

10each, SS DD. 40T (Apple. IBM) S 55 S 19

100each.DSDD,40T,(IBM,HP) S 750 $295

10each.DS'DO.40T(!BM,HP) S 75 $ 35

DVSAN. lOeach. SSSD (Apple, elc) S

i0ea*.DSDD48T|IBM.HPeicl S 89

MAXELL. 10 each. MD1.SSDD S 65

10each.MD2.D5DD S 75 $ 39

MEMOREX

10 each. SSDD. Type A (Apple Alan) S 45 $ 25

10each,DSDD.TypeB|IBM HP) S 60 S 35

VERBATIM 10each.MD525-01.SSSD S 49 $ 25

10each.MD34.DSDD $ B4 $ 45

* GENERIK " DISKETTES - AS LOW AS $1

t00eachSS.SD.35TiackiAppic.Atan] S 415 $130IOOOoaehSS.S0.35Tr,ick(AppieAlari) S4150 S 995tOOeagh DS. DD.-10 Track (IBM HP) S 626 $1701000eachDS.DD40TrackllBM HP1 S6260 S1400Wjackels noiabes top qua:uy 90 day limited warranty by us

GENERIK™DISKETTES

Each at 1000 quantity.

SSSD $1.00 EachDSDD $1.40 Each

CDCSSSD $1.69 Each

Minimum order quantities apply■ 1983 by s«e above money back guarantee

COMX Corporator) js |,y COMX Corporation not us.

MODEMSr

(ACCESSORIES PRICE PRICE

ANCHOR. SgnalmanMK I Modem (RS232] $ 99 $ 75

MarkXIl $ 399 $ 269

HAYES,IBM-PCSmartmodeml200B S 599 $439

IBM-PC Smartcom II Software S 119 $ 89

Slack Chronograph (RS-232) S 249 $ 189

SlarjkSmartmodem300(RS-232) S 289 $ 225

Smartmodem 1200 (RS-232) $699 $535

Micromodem100|S-100bus) S 399 $275

Miaomodemlle(forlheApplelf) S 329 $ 239

IBM-PC lo Modem Cable S 39 S 29

NOVATION

IBM-PC Access 1-2-3 Package S 595 $ 445

ApplecatllModem,300BAUD S 389 S 269

212AppleCat.1200BAUD S 725 S 559

PC-Cal with Crosstalk $ 595 $ 419

Cat S 189 $ 139

J-Cal S 149 $ 104

212AutoCat S 695 $ 579

SmartCall03212 S 595 $415

TRANSENDSSM. Transanal for Appell S 89 S 69

ModemCardlortheApplell S 299 $ 259

Transmodem1200 $695 $559

SOFTWARE. SEE APPLE OR IBM UTILITY SOFTWARE SECTIOi

MONITORS acSe?

♦ AMDEK. 12 Green, #3000 S 200 $ 135

♦ 12" Amber, #300A S 210 $149

♦ 12Amber.310AforlBM.PC S 230 $ 159

♦ 13'Color I.Composite S 379 $289

♦ 13 Color II. RGB, Hi Res S 529 $439DVM. Color H or 111 to Apple II IF S 199 $ 175

NEC. 12 Green.ModelJBI201M S 249 $159

12Color.CompositcJC1215M S 400 $299

12 Co!or.RGB.IBMModelJC1203 S 699 $569

♦ PRINCETON,RGBHiRes,HX-12 S 795 $499OUADRAM,Quadchrome12"RGBCo!or S 795 $499

Ouadrscreen 17.968x512 S1996 $1595

SANYO. 12 Green.ModelDM8t12CX S 260 $199

TTX,SmarlTerminal3000 S 599 S 499

ZENITH, 12 Green Model ZVMI23 NEW' S 200 $115

PRINTERS

ANDACCESSORIES

DOT MATRIX PRINTERS:

LIST OURPRICE PRICECall

EPSON, FX80

MXIOOFT.BOCPS.w.Grartrax • S 995 $ 639

FX100 Call

Apple II Graphics Dump Program $ 15 $ 9

LEADING EDGE,GorillaBanana S 250 $209

MANNESMAN TALLY, 160L, 80 Col. CALL

180L.132COI, CALL

Spirit, 80 CPS CALL

OKIDATA,82A,80col„120cps.Para S 349 Call

83A.132col.120cps.Para $749 Call

92.160CPS,60Col.Para. $599 Call

93,160CPS.136Col„Para. $999 Call

2350P,Pacernaik, 350 cos, Para S2695 Call

2410P,Pacemark, 350 cps. Para S2995 Call

ORANGE MICRO, Grappier f, tor Apr* $165 $119

PRACTlCAL,Mnt*ufferln4jne64K.Para. S 349 $ 259

Mtrobutlerln4jne64KSenal S 349 $ 259

♦ STARMICRO..GemmilO"X,120cps.2.3K S 499 S 289

Gemini 15"X,120cps,2.3K Call Call

IBM-PC to Epson or Star Micronics Cable $ 60 $ 35

Apple IF and Cable for Epson or Gemini S 95 $ 59

LETTER QUALITY - DAISY WHEEL PRINTERS:

JUKI,6100.17cps.80Col,Parallel S 700 $ 539

SILVERREED,EXP550P.18cps.3piich S 895 S 595

EXP550S,18cps,3pitch S 995 $650

♦TTX.1014.13crjs,ParaSSer.PinSFncljon S 649 $499

SUPPLIES: Tractor Feed Paper, Ribbons. Daisy Wheels

CORVUS

6 Meg S2095 S1695

11 Meg 52750 S2350

Drives Are Without Interlaces 20 Meg S3750 $3250

IBM-PCInlerfaceManual.SW&CableKit S 300 $ 249

*IBM-PCOmniTransporter,4PakSpecial S1895 51495

Apple Interface. Manual. SWSCableKit S 300 $249Other Interfaces, Omm-Net. Constellation. Mirror. CALL,

• MEANS A BEST BUYAD #987

— — -.——l.,— ..._--., ATI/MM AUnTCnilC All Mail: P.O. Box 23068, Portland, OR 97223, Include telephone number and double check your figures lor SI&H.

UHUhHINu INhUHMAIlUN AND I tHMo; All items usuaiiy-msiock C.istiiivs Clit-cks. Money Oitfers.Foini.i(;lO00Cliechs.in[IGi)vorMment Checks, we immediately honor Personal or olherCompany Checks allow 20 days lo clear No C O D Piices reflect a 3%cash discount so ADD 3°r,lo above prices lor VISA or MC For U S Mainland. add3°o(S5m]nimum| lor shipping, insurance and handling (SI&H) byUPS UPS ground is standard so add 3MS10 minimumi more lor UPS Blue lor SI&H Add 12°° total tS' 5 minimum] lor SI&H lor US Postal, APOot FPO For Hawaii. Alaska and Canada. UPS is in some areas only, ailothers are Postal so call, wnle, or specily Postal Foreign orders excepi Canada lor SI&H add i80(.or$25minimumlor SI&H excepl lor monitors add 30°° or $50 minimum tor SISH Pncessub]ec!tochange. lypo errors,and availability so c a II to verily All goods are new include warranty and ate guaranteed to work Due loour low pricesand our .iSsuranctMhat you willgei new unused products. ALL SALES ARE FINAL Call belore return-ing goods lor repair or replacement Orders received wrth msuHicienl SI&H charges will be refunded ORDER DESK HOURS6 AM 106P M PST. Monday Ihrough Fnday and 10 to J Saturday 6AM hereis9AM m New York

OUR RErCnENCuOi We have been in computers and electronics since 1958 a computer dealer since 1978 and in computer mail older since 1980 Banks 1st Inierstale Bank, (503)643 4678 We belong tothe Chamber ol Commerce (503) 6-14 0123 Belter Business Bureau and Direct Marketing Associaiion. or call Dunn and Bradsueetil you are a subscriber Faslrak " and Genenk " are trademarks ol ComX Corporation.

CASH & CARRY OUTLETS:

Over-the-counter sates only. Open Monday through Saturday

10.00 until 5U0.

PORTLAND, OREGON. 11507-0 S.W Pacilic Hwy, Terrace

Shopping Center. Trgard, On 99W between 217 and 1-5 Call

245-1020.

SEATTLE, WASH., 3540 128th Ave. SE, Bellevue, WA 98006,

Tele: 641-4736, in Loehmann's Plaza near Faclona Square. SE

ot Hwy. 405 S 90 and at SE 38lh S Richards

156 BYTE February 1984

Formerly

Computer Exchange

LOW PRICES TO PROFESSIONALS WHO KNOW WHA T THEY WANT AND KNOW HOW TO USE IT!

THE IBM-PC SUPPLY CENTER

IBM is a trademark of IBM Corporation

256KIBM-PC

System Includes

Two 320K Disk Drives by CDC

90 Day Warranty By Us

Call For Details And

Configurations

'or theIBM-PC or XT

DRIVES

ANDACCESSORIES

CONTRPL

DATA OR landon

320K/360K DS DD DISK DRIVES

With Detailed Installation Instructions60 Day Warranty by Factory Authorized Distributor

Same as now COOQ

installed by IBM. \>L.CV $239 For One,

$199

HALF HEIGHT

MAYNARD ™cTE %k

Floppy Drive Conlrol 8rd. for up to 4 drives S 195 S 165

samewilh Parallel Port S 275 S 205

DAM A 2 5 Meg 5'Dnve System (Jan) S1550 S1195

nMNM,25Me9HardDiskSyslem Call

QUA13HAM 6 Meg. Removable S2295 S1795

nilAniQK 6Meg,Fi»ed SI995 S1595

Mm™ IOrV'12Meg. Fixed S2250 $1750

AVAILABILITY M[**S»» S2650 S205°

AVAILADILlir 27MCg,Fi,ed S2895 S2295

72 Meg. Freed S6500 $4950

VISTA. IBM-PC XT 6MBBackup

lotHatdDlsk.V1200 S1549 S1049

LIST OUR

PRICE PRICE

MEMORY CHIP KITS !££&

motherboard tOOMested With 90 cay warranty

♦ 64KKil.200NS.9chips.4164 S50 S 45

16KKil.200NS.9ctiips.4116(forPC-lmo1hertx>ardl S 50 $ 16

AMnPlf 4-IN-1MultipleBoard. Color

«I»IL»CIV Graphics. Mono. I28K S 599 S 519

ComboPlus,64KSPC

S 395

S 279

ComboPlus.256K.SPC

S 695

S 475

MegaPlusll,64K,2-SPC

S495

S 345

MegaPlijsll,256K,2-SPC

S795

$ 495

256K MegaPius II Expander

S 395

$ 295

SixPakPlus.64K.SPC

S395

S 295

SixPakPlus.256K.SPC

S 695

S 495

SixPakPlus.3e4K.SPC

S 895

S 595

IOPIUSII.2SPDG

S 315

S 195

PCner.LANK.il

S1490

S1290

/VC Supervision, monochrome board S 850 S 680

Ul/O Z Pius 64. las! Z80B. 64K para port S 875 $695

* ConnX 256K RAM Ca,tl "*Fasl,ak'nAM *sk emula""

and spooler softwa'e.

PI IRTIQ PC Pedestal Mor DisplayIsUn I l«.3to9tootkeyboardcable

Vertical CPU'System Stand'Monochrome Ext. Cable Pair

nEnCULuS.MonochrcmeBoard

KeyTrOniC.KB5t50.Std keyboard

|<n-,|-. Koala Pad"

■ I LI CJId Programmer's Guide

UAVMADn UlilincuiltlCaiiUFC Sll $ 79

MHTIMMnU.Moduleslorabovecard Call

SandSlar.noRAMcard S 199 S 169

SandSlar.256KCard S 499 S 395

S 695 S 256

S 80 S 65

S 50 S 35

S 25 S 19

S 40 S 30

S 499 $349

S 269 S 199

S 150 S 109

S 15 S 12

MIT'WSWT RAMCard256K

MIOKUIXJr I Sy5temCaId256K

SystemCard64K

MouseMOUSE SYSTEMS, PC Mousew software

nnpwn remcsurfcrwuii

UnV^niU PC net" Circuil Board KitMonochrome Graphcs Card

PLANTRONICS

ColorPlus. 16 color brd. w Para Port

QU\DRAM

r Quadlink NEWEST VERSION S

Quadboard, no RAM. expandable to 2S6KQuadboard 64K, expandable to 256Kr Quadboard 256K, 6 function

Quadboard II. no RAM. expand to 256K

Quadboard II. 64K, expandable to 256K

Quadboard II. 256K. 6 function

Quad512 l .64K plus serial port

Quad512 ■. 256Kplus serial port

Quad5i2-.512K plus serial port

Quadcrjlor I, board. 16colors

Quadcolor II. board, use with Guadcolor 1

Quadctirome. 12'RGBMonilor

Quadscrcen, 17 .968x512Momlor

Microfazer. w Copy. P P. 8K, #MP8 w P.S.

Microfazer, w Copy. P P. 64K. #MP64 w PS

Moolazer.w Copy. P P. 128K. #MP128w P.S.

Microfazer,Snap-on,8K.PP.Epson-fMEB.wP.S. S 179

Microfazer. Snap-on, 64K, P P. Epson.

#ME64.wP.S. S 319

All Moolazers are expandable, (w copy to 512K) (Snaa-on to 64K]

T*»r*mar 'SIMATE.64KICLIIICII istMATE,256K S 589 S 439

Graphics Master

TGPRODUCTS.jo,s,,ck

WICO, IBM-PC Mouse

SOFTWARE for IBM-PC or XT

BUSINESS

ALPHA. Database ManagcrllASHTON-TATE

* dBasell.requiresPC-DOS8t28KdBase UUser's Guide ^BookjEveryman s DB Primer iBook]The Financial Planner

FndayAPPLIED SOFT. TECH. VersalormASK MICRO. GL AR, AP. INVc PR eachBPI.GLAR APorPR

♦ CONTINENTAL. Home Accountant -

FCM{Filing Caiaoging. Mailing)Property ManagementDATAMOST. Write-On IWord Processor)DOW JONES. Market AnalyzerMarkel ManagerMarket MicroscooeEAGLE SOFTWARE Monev Decisions

♦ EINSTEIN. Writer NEW1

Memory Tramei NEW1

Speier NEW'

Mailer NEW'

LetterScenes NEW'

FOX SGELLER. OuickcooelMSDOS)

dGraphiMSDOS)

dUtiliorlBMPCDOS

HAYDEN. IBM Pie Writer

Pie: SpellerHOWARDSOFT Real Estate Analyzer II

Tax Preparer 1984lUS.EasyWnterlMWPIEasySpeilerllEasyFilerlaDBMS)BusinessSystem:GL • AR ■ APGLAR.AP.PR.OEoilNV.each

* INSOFT Dala Design leasy to use DBMS)LIFETREE Votkswrilei

♦ LOTUS. 1-2-3

MICROCRAFT Verdict or Billkeeper. eachMICRO LAB. Tax ManagerMICROPRO. WordStar

MaiiMerge

SpeilStar'

* WordStar Professional. 4 PakSlarlndex'

InloStar'Report Star'StatBurst

LISTPRICES 295

S 700S 30S 15S 700S 295S389S 4955 595S 1505 125S 4955 130S 350S 300S 700S 150S 300S 80S 150S 80S 3005 295S 295S 99S 200S 1005 250S 295S 350S 225S 400S1495S 595S 225S 2855 495S 995S 250S 495S 250S 250S 695S 195S 495S 350S 195

OURPRICES 195

S385S 20$ 12S 395S 199S 265S 295S 395S 89S 89S 329S 89S 279S 239S 525S 129S 199S 55S 95S 55S 195S 179S 179S 59S 135S 69S 189S 220S259S 1493 299S995S 395S 169S 195S 329S 469S 169S 239S 129S 129S 429S 109S 259S 199S 115

BUSINESS

* MICROSOFT. MultiplanWord

Word with MouseFinancial Statement

LISTPRICE$ 275S37S$475S 100$ 150S 165$ 250

MONOGRAM, Dollars S Sense

NORTH AMERICAN BUS. The Answer

♦ OSBORNE COMX, (Book 8 Business.

Statistics 8 Math Programs on DS.-DD Disks)

Some Common Basic Prog |70each) S 100

Practical Basic Programs (40 each) S 100

PBLCORPORATtON.Personallnvestorl 1 S 145

PEACHTREE.PeachPak(GL.AR8APl S 395

PeachTexl5000 S 395

PEARLSOrT.PersonalPeartiDBMSSMIS) S 295

k PERFECT. Petted Writer"

Perfect Speller' or Pertecl Calc'", each

Wrrter ^ Speller. 2 Pak

Perfect Filer-SOFTWARE ARTS. TKiSolverSOFTWARE PUBLISHING. PFSFile

PFS Report

PFS Write

PFS:GraphSORCIM.SuperCalcllSuperCaiclllSSI'SATELLITE, WordPerfect

Personal WordPerfectSTC'SOFTEC.TrteCreatorSTONEWARE. Advanced D.B. MasterSYNAPSE, File ManagerSYNERGISTIC, Data RepoderT/MAKER.TiMaketlllVISICORP,VisiCalc4

VtsiFileorVisiSchedule

SSS

S 595S 299S 140S 125NEWI S 140NEW! S 140S295S 395S 495S 195S 300$595$ 100S 250$ 275S 250S 300S 300Visi Word with VisiSpelJ (12BK) S 375

OURPRICE$ 175$275S 339S 69$ 109$ 110$ 169

$ 69S 69$ 99S 239$239$ 195S 1495 99J 199$ 199$ 219$ 94$ 84$ 95$ 95$ 195$ 265$ 375$ 149$ 195$ 395$ 67$ 169$ 169$ 179$219$219$269

UTIL TY & SYSTEM

1983 CL SOFTWARE AWARD:

"Copy II PC by Centra! Point Soltware is still the best softwarebuy of 1983 and 1964. It will copy more copy protected softwareand faster than any other backup system. Unlike other copiersit makes an exact duplicate of your original and it does 100%venlicaion of copy. Documentation is excellent."• CENTRALPOINT.CopyllPC Backup S 40 S 35*COMX. Fastrak'. RAM Disk emulator and printerspoo er program Works on any PC DOS version or RAMCard Menu Driven. S 10O $ 59

UTILITY & SYSTEM

LIST OUR

PRICE PRICE

DIGITAL RESEARCH

ConcutrenlCP'M-86" $ 350 $ 226

CBASIC86" S 200 $ 135

CP.M-86- % 60 $ 40

Pascal'MTt (CP'M-86] S 400 $ 269

Pascal.'MT- (MSDOS) $ 600 $ 399

Pbl(MSDOS) S 750 S 499

Access Manager (MSDOS) S 400 $ 179

DisplayManager(MSDOS) S 500 $ 339

SpeedProg Pkg.(CP'M-86) S 200 $135

CISCOBOL-86 S 850 $ 525

DR LOGO-B6 S 100 $ 69

CBASICCompiler(86otMSDOS.each| S 600 $ 365

HAYES.SmartcomlHDataComm.) S 119 $ 89

MICROCOMMicroterminal(OataComm) S 100 $ 65

MICROSTUF.CrosslakXVIIDalaComm.) $ 195 $ 129

MICROSOFT. muMalrtmuSimp S 300 $ 225

Business BASIC Compiler S 600 $ 450

Pascal Compiler $ 350 5 255

C Compiler S 350 $ 225

BASIC Compiler S 395 5 285

Fortran Compiler $ 350 $ 255

COBOL Compiler S 750 $ 559

BASIC intepeter S 350 $ 255

NORTON. Norton Utilities 2.0t4orograms S 80 $ 65

ROSESOFT.Prokey $ 75 $ 49

HOME & EDUCATIONAL

$ 29

$ 75

$ 27

$ 39

$ 139

$ 19

S 40S5

EPYXAulo. Sim., Temple ofApshai s 40

OilBarons S 100

♦ ARMONK, Executive Suite $ 40BLUE CHIP, Millionaiio or Tycoon, each $ 60BPI SYSTEMS, Personal Accounting S 195

♦ BRODERBUND, Apple Panic (Color) S 30COMPREHENSIVE. PCTulor(DOS 1 I) S 60CONTINENTAL. Home Accountant • S 150DATAMOST.PigPonorSpaceSlrike.ea S 30DAVIDSON, The Speed Reader II S 75INFOCOM.DearllineorSUSPENDED.ea. S 50

ZorklorZorkllorZorklll.ea. S 40

♦ INSOFT.WordTrixorQuotnx.each NEW! S 35MICRO LAB. Miner 2049 $ 40MICROSOFT, Flight Simulator S 50MONOGRAM. Dollars 8 Sense S 165PBLCORP„Per50nallnvestor S 145SPINNAKER, Snooper Troops | tor 2) S 45

Story Machine or Face Maker S 35

STRATEGIC.IheWarpFaclor S 40

SUBLOGIC. Might Mission Pinball S 40

22

$ 49

$ 33

S 27

$ 29

$ 29

$ 33

$ 110

$ 99

$ 35

$ 24

$ 30

$ 27

* Means a BEST buy.

AD #987

c 1983 by Conroy-LaPointe, Inc. All rights reserved.Circle 86 for IBM Peripherals, Circle 87 for Apple, and Circle 88 for all others.

onoEROESk I DLL rntt

(800)547-1289

Order Desk Hours: 6AM lo 6PM PST

Oregon TOLL FREE

1800)451-5151Portland: 245-6200

Hot Line For InformationOn Your Order1503)245-1030

BYTE February 1984 157

Benchmarks andPerformance Evaluation

The art of benchmarking computer languages, programs, and systemsby timing them with a standard test is a popular, but inexact, science. Youfind only what you are looking for—speed —and nothing more. Running abenchmark program will measure the speed of the system you are testing,but how do you measure how easy an application is to learn and use, howconsistent its commands are, and how well-integrated the new integratedsoftware packages are? This month's theme articles attempt to answer someof these questions by looking at the limitations of benchmarks and con-sidering what can replace them.

The new levels of sophistication in software and hardware are difficultto evaluate. The simple benchmarks of the past, such as the Sieve ofEratosthenes popularized in BYTE, the Whetstone benchmark for FORTRAN,and millions of instructions per second (MIPS) ratings, no longer offer rele-vant information about the new generation of computers.

Speed and reliability alone are not the determining factors in the deci-sion to purchase a particular computer or application. How quickly it canbe learned and put to use effectively are vital factors in the new era of mass-market consumer computers, although these factors can be difficult to test.The quality of a system must be considered as well. Evaluating computersystems as a whole is a new alternative to the traditional practice of measur-ing a system's speed.

Jerry Houston of Gifford Computer Systems offers a humorous and in-formative look at the uses and abuses of benchmarks from a user's perspec-tive and explains why the winners of benchmark tests are not necessarilythe systems of choice. Jack Carroll and Mary Beth Rosson of IBM take an-other look at speed versus usability, arguing for quality in computer inter-faces and suggesting tests for system quality.

Performance evaluation is becoming a popular term (especially in the mini-computer/mainframe world) for analyzing or simulating the performance ofhardware and/or software. Brian Boyle of Gnostic Concepts presents thevariables necessary for an equation to evaluate software performance.

Sergio Mello-Grand offers an exhaustive set of printer benchmarks to helpyou find out how fast your printer really is. Avram Tetewsky of Draper Lab-oratories discusses some of the tests to validate that software works cor-rectly and reveals the results of some extensive benchmarks for FORTRANcompilers. Peter Marvit of Yates Ventures and Mohandas Nair of Intel comeclean in the confessions of the misuses of benchmarks.

Finally, Andrea Lewis guides you through the standard features and op-tions available on the 1984 model word processors, while Arthur Naimanprovides a 100-point checklist for evaluating word-processing programs fromhis book, Word Processing Buyer's Guide. —Bruce Roberts

160 Don't Bench Me In by Jerry Houston

168 Beyond MIPS: Performance Is MotQuality by John M. Carroll andMary Beth Rosson

175 Software Performance Evaluation

by Brian Boyle

193 The Art of Benchmarking Printers

by Sergio Mello-Grand

218 Benchmarking FORTRAN Compilers

by Avram Tetewsky

227 Benchmark Confessions by PeterMarvit and Mohandas Nair

235 The Word-Processing Maze by

Andrea Lewis

243 Evaluating Word-Processing Pro-grams by Arthur Naiman

Illustration by Robert Tinney

158 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 159

Don't Bench Me In

Benchmarks are a popular way to compare both hardware andsoftware. But how meaningful are they?

Suppose we're playing a game, andyou can select any athlete in theworld to have on your team. The bigproblem is which one to pick. Butbefore you can make a choice, youhave to know what game we're play-ing. After all, even Babe Ruth in hisprime would not have fared well inthe pole vault.

The point is, you can't find ananswer until you completely specifythe problem. Yet, people still askquestions such as "Which is the bestcompiler?" without specifying whatthey mean by "best."

Asking "Which is the best com-piler?" is as misguided as asking"Which is the best tool in the world?"A tool derives value from a specificapplication, and outside the contextof the application, the comparison ofone tool with another is meaningless.

Unfortunately, many people com-pare programs without taking intoaccount the application of the pro-grams. Instead, these people usebenchmarks—programs that test acomputer's speed—to judge theworth of the software or hardwareunder question.

The great lure of benchmarks isthat, in a world of too much choice,they promise fast, easy answers sup-ported by hard facts. Clearly, bench-

by Jerry Houston

marks contain no sales hype. Theyare impartial. They appear to reducevolumes of product literature andmanuals to tidy little tables that talkin numbers, which is very scientific.They offer to save time, eliminateerror, and take all the risk out of someof the most important decisions abusiness can make. Or do they?

It's dangerous to rely on bench-marks for help in deciding whichcomputer, which language, or whichimplementation of a language toselect. Many of the critical qualitiesthat make a product suitable for agiven application are not addressed,and may not even be addressable, byconventional benchmarks. Qualitiessuch as reliability, compatibility,maintainability, and support are im-possible to measure with a bench-mark, but they spell the differencebetween a useful tool and a boobytrap. What is the standard unit ofreliability, of compatibility, of sup-port? How do you look at a table anddetermine if a product will be a timesaver or a time vampire?

One of the most popular general-purpose benchmarks is the Sieve ofEratosthenes, probably the mostuser-unfriendly title in the business.(I'm not sure how to pronounce"Sieve," let alone "Eratosthenes.")

Eratosthenes, head of the Alexan-drian library around 200 B.C., wasthe most wide-ranging scholar of histime. He calculated the circumferenceof Earth without using an 8087 math-ematical coprocessor, and the libraryhe headed was the very embodimentof Western civilization. Somescholars argue that when the libraryburned, Western civilization burnedwith it. Meanwhile, the gods havemade the fame of Eratosthenes moreenduring than Mylar. His techniquefor finding prime numbers has beenadapted to modern computer lan-guages and is now a classic bench-mark used to rate languages andcomputers.

It seems reasonable to ask justwhat prime numbers have to do withthe workaday world where mostcomputers are used. Accountingdepartments tend to be more con-cerned with the prime rate than withprime numbers. When your chieffinancial officer learns that a softwarebug will delay the income statementthe bank had to have yesterday, hewill find little solace in the fact thatyour state-of-the-art computer canquickly generate integers with nodivisors except themselves and 1.

Ironically, the specialists of his daycalled Eratosthenes "Beta," or second

160 tebruary 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

rate, for his alleged superficiality. Inthe computer trade, "Beta" has cometo mean "not thoroughly tested," asin "a Beta copy of a new C compiler."It would be appropriate if "notthoroughly tested" were stamped onhardware and software that has beensubjected to the benchmark namedafter our Greek who lived 2200 yearsago.

A Case Study

The dubious utility of general-purpose benchmarks was broughthome to our company after we con-ducted an extensive series of bench-marks on seven C-language com-pilers compatible with CP/M-86 (see"Comparing C Compilers forCP/M-86," August 1983 BYTE, page82). After it took us almost as muchtime to measure performance as itwould have taken us to write ourown C compiler, we were struck bysome curious phenomena. The ap-parent loser in our time and efficien-cy benchmarks, Computer Innova-tions' C86, was the compiler that ourstaff programmers regularly usedboth before and six months after weconducted the tests.

I am not a programmer; I'm acivilian. My job is to whine. So whenI complained to our programmersthat they should think about hoppingon the world the next time it camearound, they all explained that theyhad each tried the other compilersand found lots of good and badpoints. But they felt that for the tasksthey were handling, Computer In-novations' compiler was best. Thereason they cited most frequentlywas something that became evidentwhile we were conducting the bench-marks but that was not reflected inthe tabular results. Computer In-novations' C86 was the only compilerwe tested that ran every benchmarkwe tried and gave the expectedresults, and we were lifting routinesfrom articles, books, Unix libraries,and anywhere else we could findthem.

Our staff had chosen to use a com-piler whose main benefits were com-patibility and reliability. It ran rou-tines taken from a variety of other im-plementations of C. And it ran them

the first time. These features, not evi-dent from the benchmark results,were revealed only by long ex-perience with the compiler itself.

My faith in general-purpose bench-marks was undermined furtherwhen I learned that the MarkDeSmet compiler, which appeared tohave done quite well in the bench-marks, was considered by our staff tobe a lightweight C compiler. A sim-ple case of being misled by a bench-mark? Not quite. It turned out thatour staff had nevertheless been tak-ing advantage of a powerful featureof the DeSmet compiler (an advan-tage which, of course, was notbrought out by the benchmarks) andhad turned a lightweight C compilerinto a novel and extremely productiveprogramming tool. I call it the anti-compiler.

Data such as "numberof times per weekdocumentation is

thrown against wall"might be useful in

evaluating a product.

Because our programmers primari-ly do system-level work, as opposedto applications programming, speedis very important. Speed to us meansassembly language. The DeSmet Ccompiler, it turns out, lets you mixassembly code with C code. Thismeans that, in the middle of a C pro-gram, you can insert #ASM and startwriting in assembly language. Thisfeature has streamlined the way wewrite assembly code.

Before we had the DeSmet com-piler, we attacked a major assemblyproject head-on. We planned a struc-ture, wrote the program, and re-signed ourselves to debugging amaze of assembly code. The DeSmetcompiler enables us to write a pro-gram initially in C. This process isfast. The program runs relativelyslowly, but we can make sure that itdoes everything we want. Once theC version of the program works, weconvert one C subroutine into in-lineassembly code, compile the new

hybrid C-and-assembly version,debug it if necessary, and proceed toconvert the next C subroutine into in-line assembly language. Eventually,the entire program is converted to as-sembly language, piece by piece, pro-ducing code that is well structured,well tested, and usually well aheadof schedule. The benchmarks give noindication of this capability of theDeSmet compiler.

We give a C compiler high pointsfor compatibility with other versionsof C, for reliability, and for ease of as-sembly-language interface. But weare relatively indifferent to its speed.In fact, the more a project calls forspeed, the less we are concernedwith the speed of the compilerbecause we know that the criticalroutines will have to be written inassembly language.

None of the qualities that we con-sider most important for our applica-tions were addressed in any of ourpublished benchmarks, and I'm notsure how to devise a benchmark thatcould quantify them. Perhaps datasuch as "number of times per weekdocumentation is thrown againstwall" or "number of support callsreturned per thousand" might beuseful in evaluating a product. In anycase, the point here is not that weignored our own benchmarks andfound the C compilers that are really"the best." We use the compilers thatare most suited for our particularjobs. For people who want programsthat they will write from scratch, thatwill execute quickly, that will requireminimal assembly code, and that willtake up minimal RAM (random-access read/write memory) space, thecompilers we have been using mayquite possibly be "the worst."

The Ascendancy of Waste

Benchmarks are best at measuringefficiency and speed. Efficiency, how-ever, is threatening to become a deadissue. Efficiency means the amountof memory required to run a pro-gram. As technology sprints along,processors are being produced thatcan address huge expanses of mem-ory. Soon, little children will have toteach their parents what "gigabyte"means. Meanwhile, the price of semi-

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 161

conductor as well as mass-storagememory continues to drop. Bothtrends drastically reduce the pressureto produce and use efficientprograms.

One of the most remarkable indi-cations of computer technology's ad-vances over the past few years is thedwindling importance attached toprogram size. Not so long ago, pro-grammers would spend months par-ing away a few kilobytes from a pieceof code; but now, the programmer'stime is valued much more highlythan those kilobytes. Apple's Lisa isa monument to the enormousamount of RAM now routinely sacri-ficed to make programs more "userfriendly." With this new attitudetoward efficiency, a strong point ofbenchmarking has been made trivial.

Speed Thrills

With all the vast changes wroughtby the stampede of technology, onerelationship has remained un-touched: time is money. This is truewhether it is a programmer's time ora user's time. Therefore, the faster aprogram runs, the more time andmoney can be saved. However, thereare limits to the extent that increasedspeed can improve a program. For in-stance, it does no good to have aword processor wait twice as fast foryou to type your next character. Formany applications, though, faster isbetter.

Speed is where benchmarks comeinto their own. Measuring overallspeed, however, can be a little tricky.A compiler may be fast when it runstasks out of main memory but slowwhen it does file handling. Even inthe unlikely event that all otherfactors—compatibility, reliability,documentation, support—are equal,you still have to know which opera-tions you are timing and which onesmust be fast when you use speedbenchmarks.

Job-Specific Benchmarks

Probably the best use of a bench-mark is to measure the time it takesa given hardware-software combina-tion to run a program that will actual-ly be run in real life and representsthe dominant use of the proposed

system. If, for example, an engineer-ing firm has an application that in-volves repeatedly inverting a bigmatrix, then the ideal benchmarkwould be a matrix inversion with rep-resentative sample data. This is, ofcourse, a far cry from finding outhow fast the same system can gener-ate prime numbers.

The ideal benchmark is not a gen-eralized exercise that can be pub-lished in a magazine and distributedto millions; it's a carefully planneddemonstration in which the specificapplication intended for the productis simulated as closely as possible.Where I work, it is not unusual toreceive test programs that we are torun and report on. The Departmentof the Army is particularly fond ofthis shopping technique. It goes tothe initial trouble of developing abenchmark that fits its application,and the rest is up to systems houses.In effect, the Army is benchmarkingus.

Upon receiving a custom bench-mark task, a systems house reallybegins to earn its living. The bench-mark is run on equipment that offersdifferent levels of speed, cost, andversatility. If the job can be done ona fast but expensive disk emulator,we offer that option. Because most ofour systems are based on theCompupro with a 16-bit, 8-MHz 8088as well as an 8-bit 8085, we cansacrifice 8-bit compatibility in orderto increase speed 40 percent by usinga 10-MHz, 16-bit-only 8086 centralprocessor. Another alternative is run-ning the benchmark on an expensivehard disk that has a fast voice-coil-head actuator rather than a less ex-pensive one with a slower steppermotor. We present all these trade-offsto the customer along with realistictiming data. The customer still has tomake a choice, and in many cases itis an extremely difficult one; how-ever, he doesn't have to choose blind-ly, guided only by a meaningless off-the-shelf benchmark.

But, you might say, setting up sucha simulation is hardly a benchmarkat all. It's a demonstration. The wholebeauty of benchmarks is that youdon't have to spend all that timedesigning tests and entering repre-

sentative data. Benchmarks are sup-posed to be fast and decisive. Theyshouldn't be a lot of work—theyshould give you something fornothing. Right?

Wrong! That idea went the way ofthe free lunch. In most cases, you getout of a benchmark just what you putinto it. The time spent designing ajob-specific benchmark that suitsyour needs is insignificant comparedto the time you will spend using thetool you eventually select.

Do generalized benchmarks have aplace? Of course they do. Bench-marking is the great pastime of thecomputer world, the great sportingevent for software hackers and hard-ware nerds. Benchmarks are theOlympics. You watch, you marvel,you enjoy. You root for your favoritesand revile the opposition. You arguethat the results were unfair and thatthe rules should be changed. Youforget the results and lose bar bets toobnoxious friends with better mem-ories. But you don't base major busi-ness decisions solely on benchmarks.

How to Make a Selection

If you can't rely on generalizedbenchmarks, and you don't have thetime or skill to design a job-specificbenchmark, then how do you selecta computer or a program? Unfortu-nately, it's not easy. You have torealize that a major software or hard-ware purchase is like a marriage. Itis a long-term commitment for betteror for worse. Marry in haste, regretat leisure.

There are three important ways toresearch a product, and you shoulduse all three:

1. Read the trade magazines forreviews. You can usually judge thevalidity of a product review thesame way you judge a moviereview. If it is in-depth and genu-inely enthusiastic, you probablyhave a good product. If it is super-ficial, full of cliches, and apologetic(the reviewer says the documenta-tion looked good but there was notenough time to open it), then ig-nore the review, not the product.Don't confuse the product withthe review.

162 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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2. Talk to friends or colleagues orfellow members of computerclubs, and talk a lot. Most peopleare reluctant to admit that theywasted money on a product; it'sstupid to waste money, and peo-ple usually want you to think thatthey're smart. The same rulesapply as when you ask aboutsomeone's vacation. The firstresponse is always, "We had thegreatest time ever. Absolutelyfabulous." Only if you start tradingtravel stories do you find that theparadise in question is a malarialswamp, the hotel is a conventioncenter for cockroaches, and theairport boasts the world's largestnetwork of sinkholes. Again, keepthem talking. Value the advice ofa user who was not involved in thedecision to buy (and so whosepride is not at stake) more than theadvice of someone who actuallyselected the product.

3. Find a reputable dealer. Gooddealers are well aware that a ma-jor purchase is a marriage betweendealer and client. In a good sale,the client returns and buys moregoods and refers friends who inturn buy and buy again. This sortof sale enhances both the self-esteem and the bank account ofthe dealer and generally makesbusiness fun. Good dealers love itif they sell you the right product,and they will often do some home-work for you to make sure youmake the right choice. They willcertainly do more than look upsome benchmark results. To agood dealer, selling you the wrongproduct is like driving off a cliff:there are a lot of exciting possibil-ities, but they're all bad.

These three rules are reliable waysof selecting software and hardware,much more reliable than the generalbenchmarks you see published sooften. Stay true to these rules, andyou'll be able to look beyond thenumbers and break away from thebench. ■

Jerry Houston is vice-president of marketingat Gifford Computer Systems (POB 1917, SanLeandro, CA 94577).

164 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE February 1984 16

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Beyond MIPS*: Performance

Is Not Quality

Two users examine the quantifiable aspects of system quality

by John M. Carroll and Mary Beth Rosson

Performance is the most commonterm of measurement used in theworld of computing. Performancerefers to the effective speed of adevice, hardware or software. It refersto reliability. It refers to so manythings that you could easily come toregard performance as a synonym forquality. But there is a danger inthis—quality must not simply beequated with performance. Perfor-mance does not take into accountusefulness or usability, which arecritical determinants of the ultimatequality of a system, particularly amicrocomputer system.

In this article, we consider threeaspects of quality. First, we discussthe meaning of quality and em-phasize the contributions of factorsother than system performance astypically measured. Within thisbroader context, we consider how thequality of a computer interface mightbe analyzed. We focus on users'needs and on how readily thoseneeds can be accomplished. Weargue that high-quality devices arethose that support the user's fluentaccomplishment of typical tasks.Finally, we describe how an analysisof quality might be incorporated intothe design process. Devices can bedesigned for high performance; we

* millions of instructions per second

urge that they be designed for highquality.

What Is Quality?

Usually, when we ask "Does adevice work?" or "How well does itwork?" we intend the industrial-engineering sense. We presupposean ideal operator. It is easy, though,to imagine examples in which thisassumption is overly generous. Abicycle with pedals positioned so farfrom the seat that a typical rider can-not reach them may be a high-performance bike for that idealoperator, but something is seriouslywrong with it for the typical operator.

Frequently, computer applicationsystems are like that high-performance bike: neither usable noruseful. Imagine a new word pro-cessor with twice the processingpower of previous systems and aminuscule probability of hardwaredefects. With respect to performance,it is rated a quality system; but if youare a novice and want to use the sys-tem to type and print a one-page let-ter, you may not agree with thisrating. Very often, there will be nosimple procedure to accomplish yourgoal; despite the "quality" of theparts, the pedals seem to be designedfor people with far longer legs. Thus,you may need to sort through icons,negotiating selection and movement,

single and double mouse clicks,copying dummy documents, and soforth. Or you may need to traverse amore rigidly structured, but equallyinscrutable, hierarchy of menus or befaced with a vacant screen that awaitscommands but gives no hints.

Consider a scene we have observedoften in studying users of commer-cial word processors. The operator ispresented with a menu of optionsimmediately prior to seeing the text-input area. Under the menu is thefollowing prompt: Type ID code toselect CHOICE; press ENTER. Theuser need not in fact select any op-tional CHOICE to move to text input,but invariably the user does. Havingdone so, the user is once againprompted: Type ID code to selectCHOICE; press ENTER. Again, theuser selects an option (often reselect-ing his prior CHOICE). Indeed, thiscycle of redundant selection andreselection can continue for manyminutes. And unfortunately it ac-complishes little or nothing. Thedefault CHOICEs are satisfactory inmost cases; CHOICE-looping onlydelays the goal of getting to the typ-ing display (see references 3, 4, 8).

The issue of quality is not limitedto inexperienced users. For ex-perienced operators, measures ofperformance, such as processingspeed, may indeed become more im-

168 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

portant determinants of quality;these users may operate in a mode inwhich variations in system capacityare more apparent (see references 6and 10 for discussions of the effectsof system response time on users'productivity). However, even forroutine users, other factors are muchmore important. Good system per-formance may make a tedious pro-cedure more acceptable, but it willnot eliminate the negative impact onquality. Nor will performancealleviate the problem of long-termskill learning—often, experiencedusers fail to acquire the most effectivemethods for accomplishing theirgoals (see reference 9). In a high-quality system, these problemswould be addressed not by improv-ing system performance but by mak-ing the more effective methods trans-parent to the user and by making rel-evant procedures easy to learn andexecute.

Even if the usability of a system ishigh, its quality might be severely im-paired by its usefulness to its intend-ed audience. For example, if a user isshy when it comes to writing aboutsensitive matters, or if a person can-not type fluently, an electronic mailsystem would not be useful. By thesame token, if someone is principallyconcerned with filling in forms, thenmost word-processing systems wouldnot be useful. Finally, if someoneworks in a highly interactive team en-vironment, a calendar applicationwithout provisions for sharing datawould be of very limited use.

The term "quality" has meaningonly when considered from the per-spective of real users performing realactivities on a system. The level ofperformance in the context of an idealuser may contribute to quality con-sidered from this perspective, butmuch more important is the extent towhich the system supports users inthe pursuit of their own goals (bothwhat they want to do and how theywant to accomplish it). How canquality, in this sense, be measured?

Measuring Quality

In order to measure the quality ofa system, we need to know (a) whothe intended users will be, (b) what

they will want to use the system for,and (c) how they will want to achievethose goals. Such a descriptionwould turn the focus on users andtheir needs, which is essential toevaluating system quality. Themeasurement itself is made throughpsychological experimentation: em-pirical studies of representative usersperforming representative tasks.

The representativeness of the usersand their tasks is key. The quality ofa system designed to be used bysecretaries cannot be assessed byhaving programmers try it out. Pro-grammers aren't secretaries. Thebackground knowledge that can beassumed for one group cannot beassumed for another. A system thatis just fine for programmers could be

If one system elicitsbetter performance ontypical tasks by typicalusers, then that is thehigher-quality system.

a disaster for secretaries. For example,it is routine for programmers to in-voke an application before using itsfunction. This is not at all obvious tononprogrammers. Secretaries withno computer experience might at-tempt to type their first word-processor document on the top-levelcontrol menu. (We have observedthis kind of error with nonprogram-mers learning to use a variety ofword-processing systems.) Converse-ly, secretaries routinely specify pitchand style of type fonts; a systemdesigned for such users couldaddress such functions more techni-cally than could a comparable systemdesigned for use by programmers.Just as background knowledgevaries among user groups, so dotheir typical goals in using the sys-tem. Secretaries seldom composetext. Far more typically, they key inand revise text that someone else hascomposed. This arrangement wouldbe reversed for typical programmers.Accordingly, testing the quality of aword-processing system for secre-tarial users would place relativelygreater emphasis on keying and revi-

sion tasks than on composition tasks.And the reverse would be true for aword-processing system designed forprogrammers.

Typical Tasks, Typical Users

Indeed, the characterization oftypical tasks and user groups can andshould be more in-depth than oursimple example. The tasks of legalsecretaries differ from those of cor-respondence secretaries in many rele-vant ways. Typical tasks can beanalyzed in greater resolution thancomposition versus transcription/revision: some secretaries may dealexclusively with one-page memosand letters; others may often tran-scribe lengthy technical reports.Assessing the quality of a system re-quires us to identify the intendedusers and their typical tasks andmeasure a representative group ofsuch users performing such taskswith the system.

For a system designed for cor-respondence secretaries who typi-cally type brief memos, a measure ofquality would be the average time re-quired to type an average memo. Twosystems, both designed for this usergroup (possibly among othergroups), could be compared on thisbasis. If one system elicits better per-formance on typical tasks by typicalusers, then that is the higher-qualitysystem.

Of course, systems often provide avariety of functions intended fordiverse groups of users. For thesesystems, different user groups mustbe demographically represented inany test and asked to perform theparticular tasks typical of their group.If the principal group is secretariesand the secondary group is mana-gers, then both must be proportion-ally represented in the tested sampleof users. The secretaries might beasked to transcribe memos and themanagers might be asked to prepareperformance plans.

Our considerations don't stopthere. Users vary not only in theirjob-related backgrounds but also intheir computer-related backgrounds.Systems optimized for cor-respondence secretaries with nocomputer experience might be less

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 169

than optimal for members of the"same" user group who are ex-perienced with word processors.When we begin to imagine the inter-actions of experience on differentsystems, this issue can become quitecomplicated. Nevertheless, we mustpay attention to distinctions insystem quality for users of differentexperience levels. Thus, one measureof quality for a word-processingsystem intended for secretaries mightbe the time required for a secretarywithout computer experience tocreate and print her first letter;another measure might be the timerequired for an experiencedsecretarial user to create a table witha complex format. In a qualitysystem, basic functions are learnedeasily, which aids the initiation ofnovices. But just as important, ad-vanced functions should be acquirednaturally when appropriate, whichsupports productivity and thedevelopment of expertise in thelonger term.Current system designs in many

cases do try to accommodate distinc-tions between different experienceand expertise levels (as well as someof the other distinctions we havediscussed). However, in no case hasthe quality of a design been serious-ly ascertained. The IBM Display-writer provides a menu interface tomake learning easier and a menu-bypass facility to support fluent andproductive skilled use. The AppleLisa system presents an interfaceorganized by the desktop metaphorfor ease of learning and Apple-keycommands for the convenience ofmore experienced users. We wouldargue that although both systems areaddressing the right issues andadopting reasonable approaches tothese issues, their success isunknown. The quality of bothsystems on these grounds (andothers) must be determined empiri-cally.

Analyzing Quality

We have argued that system quali-ty is more than mere performance.

We have tried to show how usabilityand usefulness are the final deter-minants of system quality and howthey can be assessed empirically. Butwe can do better: we can try tounderstand the components ofusability and usefulness; we can tryto understand what quality is.

Our starting point is how userswant to achieve their goals. We wantto expand the framework presentedin the preceding section to includeconsideration of the particular ap-proaches, methods, and subskillsthat are employed when users try toaddress a goal (such as typing a buckslip) with an application system.Knowing that 90 percent of cor-respondence secretaries can key inand print out a one-page memo inless than 15 minutes provides anassessment of quality. But knowinga larger number of more specific facts(e.g., 85 percent make the mistake ofmiscoordinating coded keypresscommands at least once in the courseof requesting a print job to bequeued) provides a more detailed

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assessment of quality.

Breaking down macro-level tasks,like keying in and printing out a buckslip, into subtasks, like queuing aprint job, provides an insight intoquality that is deeper than that pro-vided by simple pass/fail tests. Twosystems might be indistinguishablewith respect to how long comparablegroups of users take to perform com-parable tasks, but the systems mightdiffer substantially in where the users'time went. Queuing a print job mightpresent the user with a variety ofspecific problems in one system:awkwardly worded prompts, icon-cluttered displays, inconvenientdefaults, multiple-keystroke com-mands, etc. In another system, theproblems might pertain to the com-mand or menu protocol for selectingthe pitch and style of type fonts.From the macro-level standpoint, thequality of the two systems is equal;we have assumed that in both casesan identical proportion of represen-tative users can successfully ac-complish a representative task. But

from the more detailed level of howthe users accomplish particularsubgoals, there is a trade-off inquality between components of themacro-level task.

A trade-off is not a choice betweenequivalents. The relative usefulnessof the two systems we have imaginedmight differ considerably. The systemfor which type-font selection was dif-ficult might still be more useful thanthe system for which queuing a printjob was difficult. After all, beingforced to accept default pitch andstyle is not as great an obstacle to get-ting real throughput as is being un-able to queue a print job. The defaulttype font may not be exactly right,but it will always be better than noprintout at all. The relative difficultyof system subtasks must be collatedagainst the goals people bring to thesituation in order to assess the use-fulness of the system (see reference 2).

In the short term, it may besatisfactory to know that typical usersspend an average of 15 minutes key-ing in and printing out a buck slip.

After all, if the state of the art is 18minutes, you might realize a produc-tivity savings of about 15 percent inthe system of higher quality. But inthe longer term, we need to under-stand better where the 15 minutes (orthe 18 minutes) is going and how itaffects the usefulness of the system.Indeed, understanding those detailsis the key to improving the quality ofsystems.

Designing for Quality

It will probably come as no sur-prise when we suggest that an un-derstanding of system quality, alongthe lines indicated earlier, might beincorporated into the design of sys-tems. After all, if we are not satisfiedwith merely benchmarking macro-level user tasks, why stop withbenchmarking subtasks? If we canunderstand the detail of system qual-ity, then we ought to be able to ex-ploit this understanding by design-ing better systems. Addressing thefiner grain of user subtasks affords usa more analytic measurement of sys-

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tem quality that can contribute di-rectly to the designing of higher-quality systems. Although this dis-cussion has focused on the assess-ment of completed systems, many ofthe measurements we have discussedcould be made on mock-ups of inter-faces, on simulations of systems, andon prototypes.

We believe that making such mea-surements during the early stages ofthe system-development process isthe only way to ensure the design ofquality systems (see references 5 and7). Consider, for example, the imple-mentation of contextual dependencyin a menu-driven word-processingsystem. The notion is that only func-tions that make sense in a given con-text are available to the user. Thepayoff is obvious: it protects the userfrom the often costly errors associ-ated with inappropriate menu selec-tions (reference 3).

But the implementation of the prin-ciple is not so obvious. We could in-corporate the dependency either inthe display of options or in their selec-tion . In the first case, the physical ap-pearance of the menu would varyfrom mode to mode and the userwould be faced with possible prob-lems stemming from a failure torecognize the mode and its inherentlimitations on functions. In the se-cond case, the physical appearance ofthe menus is constant, but itsresponse to the user's action varies:sometimes certain functions are "notavailable," leading to possible userfrustration. The choice of a goodsolution to this design issue cannotbe known a priori, nor can it be indi-cated through macro-level usabilitybenchmarking. The ultimate choicewill be very much a function of thedetails of the application, the menucontent, and the instances of contex-tual dependency most likely to be en-countered by a typical user.

The computer industry will verylikely continue to focus on the goalof improving system performance.And it clearly should; performancefactors like reliability and responsetime have a variety of obvious, andnot so obvious, effects on user satis-faction and productivity. (The exactnature of these effects is still a mat-

ter of controversy; see references 1,6, 9.) But increasingly there is anawareness that mere performance isnot enough, that it is not the samething as quality. As computers be-come tools and toys for everyone,their ability to adapt to human needsand propensities becomes the prin-cipal determinant of real systemquality. We have outlined a simple,yet systematic, empirical approach tothe measurement, analysis, and de-sign of system quality. We know of noscrupulous case studies of this ap-proach, but the momentum of theentire industry is overwhelminglyheading in this direction. In the nextfew years, the study of system qual-ity should be one of the most activeareas in computer science research. ■

John M. Carroll has a Ph.D. in psychology fromColumbia University. Mary Beth Rosson has aPh.D. in psychology from the University of Texasat Austin. Both are members of the Research Staffat IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center (POB218, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598).

References

1. Boies, S. J. "User Behavior on an InteractiveSystem." IBM Systems Journal, 13, 1974,pages 1-18.

2. Bullen, C. V, and J. L. Bennett. "OfficeWorkstation Use by Administrative Managersand Professionals." IBM Research Report, RJ3809, 1983.

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. "Learning toUse a Word Processor: by Doing, by Think-ing, and by Knowing." Human Factors inComputer Systems, J. Thomas and M.Schneider, eds. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1983.

5. Carroll, J. M., and M. B. Rosson. "UsabilitySpecifications as a Tool in Iterative Develop-ment." Advances in Human-Computer In-teraction, H. R. Hartson, Norwood, NJ:Ablex, forthcoming.

6. Doherty, W. J., and R. P Kelisky. "ManagingVM/CMS Systems for User Effectiveness."IBM Systems Journal, 18, 1979, pages143-163.

7. Gould, J. D., and C. H. Lewis. "Designing forUsability—Key Principles and What De-signers Think." Manuscript in preparation.

8. Mack, R. L, C. H. Lewis, and J. M. Carroll."Learning to Use Word Processors: Problemsand Prospects." ACM Transactions on OfficeInformation Systems, 1, 1983, pages 254-271.

9. Rosson, M. B. "Patterns of Experience in TextEditing." CHI '83 Conference on Human Fac-tors in Computing Systems, Proceedings.Boston, December, 1983.

10. Shneiderman, B. "Response Time andDisplay Rate in Human Performance withComputers." To appear in Shneiderman'sDesigning Interactive Computer Systems: ASoftware Psychology Approach.

172 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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174 BYTE February 1984 Circle 63 on inquiry card.

Software PerformanceEvaluation

Some helpful guidelines borrowed from a successful hardware model

On the grand scale that measuresdifficulty, relevance, and necessaryskills, the job of software perform-ance evaluation falls somewherebetween the role of test pilot anddrama critic. While obviously subjec-tive, the criteria for evaluation mustbe rigorously and narrowly defined:it is not the reviewer's task to rank theintrinsic social or intellectual valuesof, for example, Lotus 1-2-3 versusPac-Man, but rather, to report to pro-spective consumers the quality of therendition of the subject matter.

In this article, I'll try to documentsome of the criteria used for softwareperformance evaluation. Though notan easy task, there are some straight-forward approaches. Also included isa text box that discusses a surprising-ly accurate means of evaluating a pro-cessing system's performance. Theknowledge gained in successfullyconstructing a hardware performancemeasuring tool can be used to guidereviewers in evaluating software.

The evaluation of software applica-tion packages is only one of the cate-gories of analysis performed atGnostic Concepts Inc. We regularlyexamine computer hardware, operat-ing systems, and support, training,and distribution schemes, as well asmarket data and projections. Ateither end of this spectrum are areasof interest readily amenable to quan-titative analysis. At the microcom-puter end, a system based on an In-tel 8088 processor running at 4.77MHz (megahertz) can perform a spe-

by Brian Boyle

cific number of 32-bit ADD instruc-tions in a given time. A 5V4-inch Win-chester disk with known rotationalspeed, head-movement time, andtransfer rate can access a knownnumber of fixed-length records in acertain time. At the market end,statistical analyses can accuratelydetermine and predict the number ofdentist's offices in the United Statestoday and during the next decade.It would thus be tempting toassume that a software applicationpackage lying somewhere along thispath from microcomputer to marketcan be treated objectively and numer-ically using the same tools. In a na-tion of numbers, the ultimate goal ofany evaluation is usually to obtain anumber, set of numbers, or semi-quantitative indicators.

Quantifying Hardware

Despite the obstacles, there is apossible software performance-eval-uation methodology for arriving notat a single (scalar) value but a char-acteristic set (vector) of values, basedprincipally on experience in hard-ware evaluation. The accompanyingtext box depicts the relatively"simple" methodology for arriving ata single Figure of Merit (FOM) for agiven hardware configuration. Clear-ly, a single value is an oversimplifi-cation that overlooks many specificadvantages and disadvantages of thesystem within a particular environ-ment: a system ideally suited forvideo games is different from a sys-

tem optimized for scientific arraycomputation or business databaseprocessing. Realistically, however, aCAD (computer-aided design) sys-tem for integrated circuits, for in-stance, has many of the requirementsof each, so a single scalar value hassome foundation in reality.

Obviously, quantification of some-thing as complex and personal aspersonal computer application soft-ware is far more difficult than hard-ware evaluation, but you have to startsomewhere. Lacking any other scale,potential users still want to know"what's hot and what's not," evenwhen the limitations of such an over-simplification are spelled out.

Software Evaluation

Of course, there are aspects of soft-ware performance evaluation thatlend themselves to the same kinds ofquantitative techniques that are usedin the hardware-evaluation approachdiscussed in the text box. Like test-piloting, quantitative limitations aretested, wherever feasible, both up toand beyond their stated limits: up tovalidates the claim; beyond evaluateshow user friendly, or user hostile, thesystem is when pushed over theedge. Response times under givenloading conditions can be measuredquite accurately: using a personalcomputer's RS-232C port allows it tosimulate both a terminal and a tire-less, methodical user/evaluator onanother system. Not only can muchof the process be automated, but

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 175

thousands of measurements accurateto the millisecond are possible.

Still, there remains the problem ofassigning interpretation to thesequantitative values. What is an ac-ceptable response time? To whom?When? The problem wanders out ofthe realm of measurement and intothe twilight zone of experimental orindustrial psychology, managementscience, or opinion sampling—all onthe borderline of applied guesswork.Yet, despite the obvious difficultiesand differences, the hardware per-formance-evaluation model providesuseful insights into an approach, orset of approaches, to software perfor-mance evaluation. At the very least,there is a suggestion of a divide-and-conquer approach in which the sep-arate factors and terms of the soft-ware are evaluated and weighed in-dividually before recombination.

Perhaps the most useful concepttransportable from the hardwaremodel is the suggestion of the unitsof measurement. The units in thehardware FOM are the square root ofthe product of the word width (inbits) and the (practical) memory ad-dress length (also in bits). All of thisis divided by nanoseconds and mul-tiplied by a dimensionless value pur-portedly relating the "value" of bits-out relative to bits-in.

Intellectual Leverage

The last factor, the "value," or "in-formation multiplier," characterizingthe intellectual advantage of the ma-chine, is closely analogous to themechanical advantage factor ofsimple machines like levers andpulleys, in which you trade increasedmotion for increased force. A goodcomputer system (hardware plussoftware) is expected to give us whatXerox scientist Lynn Conway called"intellectual leverage." If the bits/sec-ond were liters/second or electrons/second, then information flow, orthroughput, would be fluid flow orcurrent in amperes. When multipliedby the knowledge-enhancing "force"(pressure or voltage), the resultantvalue is work/second or power(equivalent to watts).

Any software performance mea-surements should be consistent with

176 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

this line of reasoning. Raw perfor-mance measurement applies it direct-ly. A typical data-processing programcan be rated by the product of:

1. the number of records processed ina given time

2. the size of the records in bits (moreoften bytes)

3. the complexity of the structures ma-nipulated, usually the order orbinary logarithm of the number ofbranches in the graph of the datastructure represented as a binarytree

4. the transformation factor or ratio ofthe information-theoretic complex-ity of the records output comparedto those input

The concept of the order of an al-gorithm is frequently used in theo-retical analyses that compare differ-ent sort, search, merge, and trans-form techniques. A sequential search,for example, is said to be of order(n)because its run time increases lin-early with n, the number of items inthe list. A binary search, in which thesearch domain is narrowed by one-half at each step, is said to be oforder(log(n)) because its run time in-creases by only one step for eachpower of two, or doubling, of thenumber of items.

Of course, the complexity (and runtime) of each step is typically greaterfor the binary search, so the sequen-tial search may actually be faster forshort lists, but for a sufficiently largen we know that the order will domi-nate algorithmic performance. Simi-lar theoretical performance estimatescan be made for frequently used fea-tures within an operating system:context-switching (between pro-cesses), interrupt-handling overhead,and subroutine or procedure calls areexamples that account for a majorityof the instructions executed in typicalgeneral-purpose computer systems.

Theoretical, Experimental, andObservational Evaluation

When it comes down to it, themodes of software evaluation are thesame as those of physics. Simplebehavior of small numbers of well-understood features can be theoreti-

cally modeled and predicted, such asthe reflection of light, the collision ofbilliard balls, and the surprisingly in-dicative hardware FOM. Then thereare the properties that can be mea-sured experimentally, like the speedof sound, light, or programs underspecified conditions. Finally, thereare those aspects like astronomy,cosmology, human psychology, andother observational sciences, inwhich you are unable, or not allowed,to take apart the mechanism to ex-periment, and your theories arenever really verifiable. This last aspectis the most difficult and most chal-lenging.

Another lesson to be learned fromphysics is the uncertainty principlethat says (among other things) that tosome degree the act of measuring aphenomenon affects the outcomeand changes the result. You can seethis in the case of a program-perfor-mance monitor running on the samemachine, and competing for thesame resources, as the program it isattempting to evaluate. Such internalinstrumentation of a program, inwhich checkpoint code is inserted in-to the program source and compiledwith it, can be very revealing, but youmust remember to correct for the ef-fects of the monitor itself, both in tim-ing and, even more subtly, in opera-tion.

An actual relevant side effect of theuncertainty principle is the unspokenrealization that the whole is greaterthan, or sometimes less than, thesum of its parts. At the trivial end ofthe spectrum, a dynamite set of pro-grams—word processor, spreadsheet,graphics, database, etc. —is a dud ifthe components each use mutuallyincompatible formats. A little fartherup the scale, if they communicateonly through disk files or, worse yet,files and conversion programs, theymay add up, but they certainly don'tmultiply or enhance one another. Amajor feature of the Unix operatingsystem from Bell Laboratories is notso much its multiuser as its multipro-cessing capabilities; it uses the pipemechanism to pass data among con-currently running programs withoutpassing through a vastly slower diskfile. Finally, there is semantic incom-Text continued on page 180

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BYTE February 1984 177

Quantifying Processing System Performance—the MilliYAX

The Figure of Merit

The someivhat formidable Figure ofMerit (FOM) formula in table 1 is basedon some common-sense concepts thatmeasure "work per time," just like the storyproblems of grade-school days: Tom canchop a cord of wood in three hours, ferryin four hours, and Bill in two hours. Howlong ... ?

To determine how much wood the wood-choppers could chop if they choppedtogether, our math book said to take thereciprocal of the sum of their rates incords/hour, for a combined time of 12/13hour per cord. We were also taught toassume independence and ignore the prac-tical facts that Tom and ferry can't standto work together and that "Wild Bill" isfast but too dangerous to work with.

The hardware FOM is simply a quanti-tative measure of how much data (in bits)can be fetched and stored in a given periodof time (in nanoseconds) multiplied by theamount of value-added work that can beperformed on that chunk of data to trans-form it into useful information. The FOMis a surprisingly accurate approach forpredicting processing-system performance.For evaluation purposes, the processingsystem does not include fetch and writecycles from mechanically dependent mem-ory devices such as floppy disks, hard disks,and tape. Nor does it consider input (e.g.,keyboard) or output (e.g., printer) interac-tion times. On-board memory access, in-cluding any cache memory, is included.

You could arrive at the denominator(time) using raw MIPS (millions of in-structions per second) figures, but suchnumbers offer a precise yet inaccurate mea-sure of system performance, as misleadingas Wild Bill's performance as a woodprocessor.

A more complex but accurate denomi-nator for the FOM formula takes into ac-count the several levels of memory in mostcomputer systems. The typical processorclock rate and memory cycle time can bemisleading if used blindly: the memorymay not always be as fast as the processoror synchronized (in step) with it, resultingin wait states. Conversely, on many micro-coded processors, memory fetches are muchfaster than typical instruction executiontime.

Using a technique developed in the dayswhen processors were much faster thanmemory, many sophisticated systems em-ploy a fast auxiliary cache memory betweenthe processor and main memory. The effec-

FOM*

Where:

K

nP

ncWeff

Where:Win,

Wex.Waddr

Where:

Maddr

Where:

MminMmaxWinsl

Where:

HinQt

Where:

Where:T,ra

l>reg

Where:

nreg

And:

' amr

Where:

Where:

K x np% x (1

+ ryVs x Weff x Winst x Wadd, / T

avg

= a constant to force the "value" of a VAX-11/780 to 1000.0 milliVAX= the number of main (general-purpose) processors in the system= the number of special-purpose coprocessors in the system (if any)= the effective processor word-width (in bits)

= (Winl X Wext)V2

= the internal word-width, usually the register-length

= the external word-width, usually the data-path or bus-width

= the effective processor typical maximum memory address-width (in bits)

= log2 (Maddr)

= the effective useful maximum main memory address= (Mmin x Mmax)'/2

= the useful minimum main memory configuration= the useful maximum main memory configuration= the effective processor instruction field-width (in bits)= log2 (nin8l)

= the effective number of distinct operable instructions

n„

'mod

nnul + nn

the number of separate memory reference operation codes

the number of separate memory address modes

the number of meaningless combinations of op-codes and a-modes

the number of separate nonMRI(memory reference instructions)

the average operation cycle time normally executed by the processor

' ira x ''reg "*" V' ira + ' amr)' ira x '"'reg + ' ira "*" ' amr

I ira ' I amr ™" ' amr X nron

ir) X (1 ~ Rregv

^ reg — ' a

TV

X Rr,

the inter-register ADD time (in nanoseconds)

the register access ratio (what fraction of references are to registers)

1 - Probability that an instruction references memory (not registers)

1 + 2 x Preference is to main memory) - 2 x Preference is to register)

1 + 2 x (1/log2 (Maddr)) - 2 x (1/log2 (nreg))

1 + 2/Waddr - 2/log2 (nreg)

the number of general-purpose registers of width Wjnl

the average cycle time to reference main or cache memory

the main memory cycle time (in nanoseconds)

the cache memory cycle time (in nanoseconds)

the cache "hit-ratio" (what fraction of memory references are to cache)

1 - cache "miss-ratio" (probability a reference to Main not in cache)

1 + 2 x Preference is to Main Memory) - 2 x Pfsame address in cache)

1 + 2 x (1/log2 (Maddr)) - 2 x (1/log2 (Mcam))

1 + 2/Waddr - 2/log2 (Mcam)

= the cache memory size in Kbytes

"©1983 Gnostic Concepts Inc., A McGraw-Hill CompanyTable 1: The processing-system figure of merit (FOM).

tiveness of the cache in minimizing accessesof a slower main memory depends on the"hit rate"—the average fraction of memoryreferences to data or instructions that arein the cache. The cache's overall utility isa product of its speed and probable hit rate;the latter depends on the cache size andcharacteristics of the program(s) being run.Smaller systems generally lack cache

memory but have internal registers witheven faster access times that the FOMcharacterizes by the interregister add time.In assembly-language code and good com-pilers, these registers are used as a sort of"minicache" for intermediate results, off-sets, bases, pointers, counters, and otherfrequently used values, so that the numberof such registers and their flexibility

178 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

determine their hit rate.

For simplicity's sake, our FOM does notinclude the opposite end of the speed spec-trum, mass storage—usually disk. Diskstorage is normally the rate-limiting fac-tor in most small computer systems. Thislowest level of memory is classified as level5, after registers, cache, main, and optionallevel 4 memory (typically bubble memory),CCD (charge-coupled device), or disk-cachedevices.

The greatly improved throughput of thehard disk owes less to its greater size thanto its much faster random-access speed.This is not to be confused with the transferrate, the speed of loading data once theproper track and sector are reached, whichis usually quite fast. Random-access timeis the search-plus-seek time necessary toreach the data in the first place, usuallymeasured in tens or hundreds of millisec-onds. Admittedly, the chunk of data trans-ferred is usually large, so the vast initialoverhead is spread across the hundreds orthousands of bytes accessed. Nonetheless,speed and volume of disk reading and writ-ing utterly dominate most business appli-cations.

Work Per Time Still Works Best

As you might expect from a work-per-time measure, the denominator of theFOM expression expresses a typical meandata access time, the average of the accesstimes for the various memory levelsweighted by their projected, relative fre-quencies of use. The numerator expresses"work" and is a function of word size(width of data manipulated per access) andmemory size (how much data you can stuffin memory without special addressingtricks or faulting to the next level of mem-ory). This raw volume of data is multipliedby the power of the instruction set, a valueindicating how few instruction cycles arenecessary to accomplish a single high-leveloperation.

None of these factors can reasonably beread directly from a product's specificationsheet. Word length, for example, could betaken either as the internal register lengthor the external data path width, whichmay be different. As an empirically vali-dated compromise, the FOM uses theirgeometric mean (the square root of theirproduct). This yields the expected 8 and16 for the symmetric 8085 (8 by 8) and8086 (16 by 16), respectively, but yields a"word length" of 11.3 for the 8088 becauseof its asymmetrical 8-bit external, 16-bit in-ternal architecture.

The geometric mean is similarly used as

DEC VAX

IBM

Parameter

Description

Units

11/780

PC XT

FOM :

Figure of Merit

mVAX

1000.0

79.2

np:

Number main processors

1

1

nc:

Number of coprocessors

1

1

We„:

Word width, effective

bits

32

11.3

Wint:

Word width, internal

bits

32

16

Wex.:

Word width, external

bits

32

8

Waddr :

Width, useful address

bits

21

17.7

Maddr :

Memory, useful configuration

Kbyte

2048

202.3

Mmin :

Memory, useful minimum

Kbyte

512

64

Mmax ;

Memory, useful maximum

Kbyte

8192

640

Winst :

"Width" instruction set

bits

8.8

7.7

ninst :

Number useful operations

445

210

^mri ■

Number mem-ref operation

96

64

''mod ■

Number addressing modes

16

12

nnul :

Number null combinations

1218

630

■'nmr ■

Number non MRI instructions

•

127

72

' avg •

Time, average operation

nsec

585

1928

' ira ■

Time, inter-register ADD

nsec

515*

1677

R

nreg •

Register "hit-ratio"

(%)

.57

.40

nreg ■

Number full-word GP-registers

14

7

T ■

1 amr ■

Time, average memory-ref

nsec

165

420

' mem ■

Time, memory cycle

nsec

400

420

' cam ■

Time, cache access

nsec

150

00

"cam ■

Cache "hit ratio"

(0/0)

94

00

Mcam :

Cache memory size

Kbyte

8

00

*A combination of integer and long ADD.

Table 2: A sc

mple Figure of Merit computational value for

the VAX 11/780 and the

IBM PC XT.

a normalizing and scaling function to com-pute a reasonable memory-size parameterfrom the minimum and maximum memoryconfiguration for a system. Taking thebinary logarithm of this number convertsits units back to bits, namely the wordwidth required to address such a memoryconfiguration. Experimentally, this turnsout to be a much better measure than thetheoretical maximum address range, whichmay go as high as 224 or even 232.

The final factor in the formula, thepower of a system, may seem the mosttechnically obscure, subjective, or simplyarbitrary. All other things being equal, theprocessing capability of a system obviouslyincreases with the size of its instruction set,but certainly not in direct proportion.

As important to many compiler designersas an instruction set's size is its orthogo-nality, the fraction of potential instructionsthat are actually meaningful and useful.Like words in the English language, thefrequency of instruction use follows (ap-proximately) a logarithmic distribution:the most common eight instructions (orwords) occur as frequently in commonusage as the remainder of the most com-mon 64.

This is the rationale for applying the log2

function to the total number of meaningfulcombinations of instructions, addressmodes, etc. The binary logarithm of the fullset of combinations captures the log-normalfrequency of instruction use and the advan-tages of symmetrical architectures such asthe National Semiconductor 16000. Table2 is an example shoiving the values usedin the FOM computation for two typicalprocessing systems.

MilliVAX versus the Real World

Does the hardware FOM actually cor-respond to anything we can relate to in thereal world? In scanning any recent tradejournal it is virtually impossible not tocatch at least a dozen bar charts compar-ing brand-X supermicrocomputer to theDEC VAX-11/780, particularly in a Unixenvironment. If Helen of Troy possessed"the face that launched a thousand ships,"then, to me, a reasonable unit of femininebeauty would be the milliHelen—the pre-cise amount of beauty required to launchone ship. Similarly, the FOM constant,K, can be adjusted so that the ubiquitousVAX-11/780 has a figure of merit of pre-cisely 1000 to create the semiwhimsicalunit called the milliVAX, in which allText box continued on page 180

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 179

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Text box continued from page 179:small systems can be measured.

FOM Agrees with ActualPerformance

Not surprisingly, the computed FOMsfor various microprocessor-based systemsagree with the marketing hype only as torelative performance, yet even the most ad-vanced supermicrocomputers reach only afew hundred milliVAX. A bit more sur-prisingly, the FOM value seems to predictrather accurately the number of users thatcan be supported concurrently with reason-able responsiveness. Each user seems to re-quire about 20 milliVAX as an absoluteminimum, 30 or 40 for comfort, 60 forhigh performance, and hundreds for cer-tain computationally intensive programs.

On this scale, a VAX-11/780 would sup-port 50 to 64 users minimally, 32 comfort-ably, and 16 to 20 with high performance.At the loiv end of the scale a Z80-based per-sonal microcomputer rated at 30 milliVAXis acceptable for one undemanding user; forcomparison, a DEC PDP-8 (the first com-mercially successful minicomputer, with4096 12-bit words of memory) has a valueof 30 milliVAX and supports one to threeusers. The IBM PC provides 80 milliVAX(actually sufficient for 2 to 3 users, but notconfigured as such for marketing reasons).The Altos 586 enhances this to 130 milli-VAX and five users by employing the full16-bit 8086 processor and twice the PC'stypical memory. Finally, most of theM68000-based, cache-enhanced super-microcomputers vying with VAXs hit thecharts at 200+ milliVAX, for a realistic 22to 16 users. The point is that the FOM isactually a reasonable indicator of systemcapabilities.

Text continued from page 176:patibility, in which the commands/keystrokes in one program mean dif-ferent, even conflicting, things inanother.

How do you quantify the benefitsof compatibility? Again, physics hasa model: the RMS (root-mean-square). A hundred violins soundonly 10 times as loud as one, becausethey are not "in step" and (like in-compatible programs) combine de-structively nearly as often as con-structively. Rather than adding endto end, they add "at right angles,"since any two vectors are randomlyoriented with respect to each other.

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BYTE February 1984 181

The length of the diagonal so formedis given by the Pythagorean theoremas the square root of the sum of thesquares, or RMS. The combinedvalue of cooperating programs isdirectly additive, or even multiplica-tive, when they actually support eachother. Totally random combinationsof mutually incompatible programscan be summed using the RMSvalue.

Software Evaluation Criteria

Once the errors and effects of mea-surement are taken into account andmethods for rationally combining in-dividual component values are deter-mined, the basic components of eval-uation must be specified. The follow-ing three Cs should be tested by anysoftware performance-evaluationscheme:

1. Correctness of the operation: doesthe program (or system) do all thatit is intended or is claimed to dowith no side effects?

2. Completeness of user support: arethe documentation, on-line aids,

tutorials, training, and otheraspects sufficient for operation?3. Consistency of the package: isthere a uniform conceptual modeland consistency of actions andcommands that minimizeambiguity?

For correctness, first check all thespecifications you reasonably can todetermine whether the program doesall the things it claims to. Second,check that the program doesn't doanything it is not supposed to dounder both ordinary and exceptionalcircumstances. Third, check to seethat the program always does thesame things at the same point,regardless of how that point wasreached. This so-called Markovianbehavior often is the bane of ordinarytesting procedures.

The problem with both the secondand third requirements is that pro-grams tend to be tested by program-mers. Programmers do not necessar-ily think like unskilled users, andeven they gain expertise after sometime.

Short of an endless supply of newusers or an eraser for certain sectionsof the brain, the only way to simulatethe bizarre states users may get them-selves into is by methodically testingthe progression from state to state,typically using a personal computer-based user simulator, running a pro-gram called a finite state machine(FSM.) Such a program, or checklistfor human use, assigns a state num-ber to each conceptual state the pro-gram occupies, as determined by itsprevious inputs or conditions. It thendetermines experimentally the (pos-sibly) new state reached for eachpossible input. A well-behaved sys-tem has only as many states as areconceptually distinct—when a wordprocessor is in a command mode, forexample, it should not matterwhether the last command was anADD or DELETE, unless the differ-ence is necessary (e.g., for an UNDOcommand).

Completeness of the user supportis a frequently overlooked aspect ofthe system-evaluation process.(Shame on those systems analysts

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who fail to recognize that the user ispart of the system.) Support may becategorized as external or internaland passive or active.

Manuals and other documentationare external/passive and shouldrealistically be divided into threelevels for three audiences:

• Level 1 (why) is a managerial over-view describing the purpose of theprogram/system, its capabilities, andits limitations.

• Level 2 (how) is an operationalguide to the use of the program/sys-tem, step by step, function byfunction.

• Level 3 (what) is the technical ref-erence manual for the programmer orexperienced user, detailing the in-tricacies of each function, the func-tions' idiosyncrasies and implemen-tations, as needed.

Such manuals and accompanyingmaterials (such as key caps, tem-plates, reference cards, etc.) shouldmeet reasonable standards: Is the textclear, complete, and readable in nor-mal English? Are there clear and use-ful graphics of proper size and color?Is there a table of contents, an index,and a glossary of terms?

Training (live, video, or audio) isexternal/active and may occur at mul-tiple levels, depending on user ex-perience and sophistication:

• Level 1 (novice) explains the rou-tine capabilities and the handling ofthe normally encountered exceptionsin the normal fashion (usually"manual" rather than "automatic"mode)—those in which operatorerrors are harmless or easily re-coverable.

• Level 2 (occasional) explains thetime-saving and powerful shortcutsthat bypass much of the novice-levelerror checking.

• Level 3 (expert) explains every-thing else about the system.

Menus and static Help screens areconsidered internal/passive becausethey provide support for the userfrom inside the system but are notgenerally context-sensitive—they areMarkovian in that they read the same

regardless of where the user is in theprogram's operation or how the(usually confusing) state was arrivedat.

On-line context-sensitive Helpmessages take into account where thecursor is (what field of what screenof what program) and possibly howthe user got there. Ideally, when aninput is disallowed by the system,these Help messages reference the of-fending portion of the input and ex-plain what is wrong with it. Betterstill, there is user control over the ex-planatory verboseness versus crypticterseness of the system, dependingon the user's current level of ex-perience (novice, occasional, orexpert).

Such internal/active on-line useraids (Help messages, menus, and tu-torials) should comply with certainbehavioral expectations for easy use;for instance, is the Help or menutransition-graph a hierarchical tree?Do the Help and menu structureshave escape mechanisms? Are thecontext-sensitive Help messages andmenus accurate?

Consistency, the third C in thesoftware-evaluation checklist, is thebest predictor of how well the userwill get along with the program/sys-tem. While, as Emerson said, "a fool-ish consistency is the hobgoblin ofsmall minds," a uniform conceptualmodel smooths the user's interactionwith the system. Unpredictable be-havior, whether in a human, a pro-gram, or a St. Bernard, is an impedi-ment to understanding.

A good program relates to peoplewho sometimes do make mistakesthey would like to recover from andwho do not always refer to things inthe same way. An "undo" facility,where practical, is far better thanmerely asking five times whether theuser is absolutely, positively, surethat all those files should be deleted.After a while, such redundanciesmerely irritate, and the overload oftoo many warnings actually reducesthe attention paid to them.

Aliasing, allowing the same com-mand or option to be expressed indifferent ways, is a human touchwith real value to the novice and oc-casional user. If one form is faster or

184 February 1984 (9 BYTE Publications Inc.

The truth about information management:

The Knowledge Managerbeats dBASEover250ways.

".. .the leading seller is no longer the best."

You get more from the KnowledgeManager, Relational data manage-ment, ad hoc queries (like IBM'sSQL/DS), spreadsheet, math andstatistics, printed forms manage-ment, screen I/O management, afull-scale programming language.All for less than the list price

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Time (in minutes) lo sort* a two-fieldrecord on one numeric field.

Records

dBASE II

KnowledgeMan

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All completely integrated: So you can do just aboutanything you wish. Like financial modeling,order entry, job costing o;decision support.

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no

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Dealer inquiries invited.

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m®n

KnowledgeMan is a trademark of MicroData Base Systems, Inc., dBASE II ofAshton-Tate, SQL/DS of IBM.Current release is 1.05 as of 11/1/83.

Please send me:

□ Free feature-by-featurecomparison

□ Forms painter information

□ Graphics information

□ Text processor information

□ Run-time package informationD Please accept my order for

KnowledgeMan Package $500.00D Shipping and Handling* 10.00

(Indiana residents mustadd 5% sales tax—$25.00)

Machine:

Operating Systems:

□ PCDOS □ MSDOS □ CP/ M-86

Disk Format:

□ 8" 1BM-3740 SS/SD

□ 5%" IBM PC SS

□ 5Va" Victor/Sirius

□ 51/4" DEC Rainbow (Dig. RX50)*Add $20.00 if outside U.S., Canada

or Mexico

□ Check or money order enclosed(must be drawn from U.S. bankin U.S. currency)

MasterCard No.

VISA No

American Express No

Expiration Date

Bank No. (if M.C.)

Signature

VISA and MasterCard orders may beplaced by phone (317) 463-2581.

NameTitle

Company_

Phone(

Address _

City

State

Send To:

Zip.

fl\ MDBS/Consumer ProductsflTW P.O. Box 248^r* Lafayette, IN 47902

© Phone:(317)463-2581

Or Contact Your Local Dealer.

PRICES SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE

Circle 238 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 185

Circle 235 on inquiry card.

Multi-function

RS-232

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MFJ-1240$7995

Choice of8 models

Multi-function RS-232 transfer switches let you

switch your computer among printers, modems,terminals, any RS-232 peripherals; monitor data/line failure, protect data lines from surges, anduse as null modem for less cost than a switch alone.Switches 10 lines (2,3,4,5,6,8,11,15,17,20).LED data/line indicators monitor lines 2,3,4,5,6,8,20. Metal oxide varistors protect data lines 2, 3from voltage spikes and surges. Push buttonreverses transmit-receive lines (2,3). PC boardeliminates wiring, crosstalk, line interference.Connects any one input to any one output.

Model Price

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MFJ-1245 $169.95 3 5

MFJ-1246 $199.95 5 5

IMFJ-1247 $99.95

[switches 20 lines

1

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MFJ-1108 MFJ-1108, $99.95. Add conven-$ QQ 95 ience, prevent data loss, headbounce, equipment damage. Relaylatches power off during power tran-sients. Multi-filters isolate equipment,eliminate interaction, noise, hash.MOVs suppress spikes, surges. 3isolated, switched socketpairs. One un-switched for clock, etc. Lighted power,reset switch. Pop-out fuse. 3 wire, 6 ft.cord. 15A, 125V, 1875 watts. Aluminumcase. Black. 18x23/4x2 in. MFJ-1107,$79.95. Like 1108 less relay. 8 sockets,2 unswitched. MFJ-1109, $129.95. Like1107 but intelligent. Switch on deviceplugged into control socket and every-thing else turns on. Others available.

Acoustic/DirectCoupled Modem

Use with any $ JfSjgPLphone anywhere t£!3MFJ-1233 Acoustic/Direct Coupled 300 baudmodem. Versatile. Use with virtually any phone,anywhere. Use battery or 110 VAC. Direct con-nect mode: Plug between handset and base. Usewith single or multi-line phones. Acousticcoupled mode: Use with phones without modularplugs. Quality muffs give good acoustic coupling,isolates external noise for reliable data transfer.Originate/answer. Self test. Carrier detect, ONLEDs. RS-232, TTL compatible. Reliable singlechip modem. Crystal controlled. Aluminum cabi-net. 9x11/2x4 in. Other models available.

Order from MFJ and try it. If not delighted,return within 30 days for refund (less shipping).One year unconditional guarantee.Order yours today. Call toll free 800-647-1800.

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186 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

J

more efficient than others, it doesn'thurt to have the system remind theuser once in a while of the shortcut;in fact, it's an ideal and painless wayto learn because it hands the user atool at the precise moment needed.Context dependence or independ-ence refers to commands meaningconceptually identical actions in dif-ferent program contexts. This can beas simple as having Conrrol-D alwaysmeaning delete in word-processing,database-management, and spread-sheet programs. It could mean thatControl-D deletes different thingsdepending on where the user is inthe program—referring to a directory,file, page, paragraph, sentence,word, or character. The point is thatthe concept remains consistent withthe specifier (command, option, etc.),independent of the context in whichit occurs.

The Human Factor

Evaluation criteria for programs toserve people include:

1. Routine operation: can the pro-gram accept and handle normalcases?

2. Exception handling: can the pro-gram recognize and treat rarercases?

3. Basic performance: can the pro-gram provide its users with ade-quate power?

4. Basic integrity: does the programwork coherently and predictably?

Routine operation, the way theprogram works in normal cases, canbe rated according to a checklist ofpertinent questions:

1. Does the program have appropri-ate default conditions?

2. Are commands/keys/menus con-sistent and reasonably mnemonic?

3. Is system optimization for rule-versus exception-handling appro-priate for the actual normal/abnor-mal mix?

4. Can the system adapt to userneeds and preferences and does itsupport "scripting" or execution ofstored commands?

Exception handling, the program's

treatment of various levels of less fre-quent cases, should be geared to theoverall efficiency of the system butbalanced for user comfort. If excep-tions that occur 1 percent of the timewere to require 10 times the normalprocessing in order to save 10 percentprocessing on the other 99 percent,the trade-off would be wise, because10 times .01 plus .9 times .99 is lessthan one. The following useful ques-tions can be asked to rate exceptionhandling:

1. Can the user undo errors?

2. Can the user switch between nor-mal and exception modes of pro-cessing—for example, between"command" and "data" modes?

3. Does the program allow a user toperform all "seemingly unwise,"but possibly necessary, operations(with appropriate warnings)?

Evaluation of the package's perfor-mance examines ease of interaction(especially for novice users), speed ofinteraction (especially for experi-enced users), and speed of operation(both measured and predicted). Easeof interaction may be rated by thefollowing major points:

1. Is the system command-driven,menu-driven, or otherwise?

2. Is the level of detail appropriate ortoo great for comfort?

3. Do menus have the proper num-ber of options (five to nine en-tries)?

4. Do commands have a uniformsyntax and reasonable options?

Speed of interaction is sometimesat odds with ease of interaction, soit is valuable to have multiple modesor levels for the various levels of usersophistication and experience. Speedis a phantom quality and should fallbehind ease of use in overall ranking;a system that cannot be used withouta manual has a speed approachingzero. Therefore, these questions arepertinent: Are lengthy commandsand sequences readily avoidable? IfShift and Control characters areused, are they used reasonably? Canprompts, menus, and Help messagesbe suppressed or avoided?

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^j^^*^Wg|^^^ s forward language lets beginners writeX^^jl^^^*^*^ useful programs without limiting them to&e simple programs. New Nevada BASIC'S^ interpreter has Prof. Starkweather's greatjy^<&° built-in full-screen text editor. You can defineo^'lv^-e^ single- and multi-line functions. Plus there are*C? -jSP full-matrix operations, Random Access and Sequen-6 tial files, program execution with a simple command,BCD Math-no round-off errors. With Nevada BASIC, micros canrun like minis costing thousands more.

Whether you do business computing orlearn computing for business, COBOL isthe language; more business applicationsoftware is in COBOL than in all otherlanguages combined. Based on ANSI-74standards, Nevada COBOL offers manyadvanced features: Random Access5^0< and Sequential files, debugging capa-bility, COPY statement, character string,16 bit binary and decimal data types. Colleges usethe fine documentation as class room texts. It's field-proven by 10,000+ worldwide business, governmentand education users. Join them.

COBOL Application Package-Book I.Superior user documentation that saves evenexperienced programmers many hours.

"If you want tolearn or teach some-one FORTRAN,this is the packageto buy." ACCESS,v'"<AV March!April 1983. For^jjV1 fre learning and teaching, for sci--® ■cv0 entists and engineers, Nevadai& is the perfect FORTRAN. Based on<° ANSI-66 standards (FORTRAN IV), itsadvanced features include IF..THEN...ELSEconstructs, COPY statement, CHAINing withCOMMON, TRACE style debugging, and 150 verbalerror messages. And you can intermix in-lineFORTRAN and Assembly Language statements forspecial micro needs. Requires 48K RAM. If you'reshopping for FORTRAN, look no further.

Perfect for training, testing, virtually allprogrammed instruction, and word puzzles.s It's the ideal companion language for BASIC,COBOL, and FORTRAN application packages,"n'SVno** because it so quickly solves training and^ <iir documentation problems. Nevada PILOT meets all<Sr ^° PILOT-73 standards and has many new features includ-ing a built-in full-screen text editor. Prof. Starkweather'sdocumentation is exceptional;

the manual comes with 10free programs. SeeMICROCOMPUTINGreview, January1983, and you'llbe convinced.

"A well-thought-outproduct with excel-lent documentationand an astoundinglylow price." MICRO-COMPUTING, May 1983.Now, high-quality text editing

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Please send me: Software PackagesD BASIC n COBOL I ! FORTRAN □ PILOT D EDITDisk Format

r I 8" SSSD (Standard CP/M IBM 3740)

Moneyback guaran-tee: you must becompletely satisfied,V" or return the pack-ages(s)-in good conditionG with the sealed diskette(s)unopened-within 30 days, andwe'll gladly refund your money.

CPM is a registered trademark ot Digital Research. Inc TRS-80 Is a regis-tered trademark ot Tandy Corp Apple II is a trademark ol Apple Computer.Inc Osborne is a registered trademark of Osborne Computer Corp. Xerox820 is a trademark ol Xerox Corp. Kaypro is a Irademark of Non-linear Sys.Healh Zenith is a trademark ot Healh Corp, IBM is a trademark of Interna-tional Business Machines. Corp Nevada BASIC. Nevada COBOL. NevadaFORTRAN. Nevada PILOT. Nevada EDIT, and Ellis Computing are Irade-marksot Ellis Computing. Inc c 1983 Ellis Computing. Inc.

Send my order for packages (u $39.95 each Total _

COBOL Application package (« $9.95 each Total.

Sales Tax .Shipping .

= Sales Tax

(Vector Graphic)

5W Diskette for:[ ] Access: Apple CP M

□ DEC VT 180n Epson QX-10

□ Heath Hard Sector (Z-89)Q Heath Soft Sector (Z-90)

I l IBM-PC (Baby blue or big blue card)[ I Kaypro Double Density

i I Micropolis Mod

n NEC PC 8001

D Northstar Double Density

D Northstar Single Density

□ Osborne (Single Density Disk)

□ Sanyo

n Superbrain DD, DOS 3.X (512 byte sec)

□ Televideo

n TRS-80 Model I (Relocated to 4200 hex)l"l Xerox 820 (Single Density)

California residenls add 6

Outside North America, add $6 per package for shipping,(Postage paid wilhm Norlh America.) Checks must bein U.S. dollars and drawn on a U.S. bank.

i 1 Check enclosed D Mastercard Li VISA

Card # Exp. Date.

TOTAL

Signature

Ship to: Name.Street

City/State/Zip _

The CP/M operating system, an 8080. 8085, or Z-80 microprocessor, and 32K RAMare required. Note: Double Density drives can read Single Density diskettes.

Circle 131 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 187

Speed of operation has alreadybeen discussed from the system'spoint of view, but what happens"when the ball is in the user's court"?The very fact that the system typicallywaits while the user thinks, and thenrushes to catch up, is a problem withmany interactive programs that can-not be solved except at the operating-system level. Ideally in menu andsimilar lengthy disk-fetch and screen-painting sequences, if a 2-secondwait after 10 seconds of deciding isunacceptable to the user, all (five tonine) menus possible at the nextlower level can be prefetched inpreparation for the user's choice.Thus, response can be improvedwhen the operating system allows"interrupt"type operation.

The following questions help pointup speed traps in a program:

1. Is inter-key response time accept-able in all circumstances?

2. Is the command/menu-selectionprocessor response acceptable?

3. Is the disk-fetch and process-swapresponse time acceptable?

Integrity of the package involvesnot only function but self-protection.With this in mind, use the followingchecklist:

1. Does the system incorporate rea-sonable self-protection mecha-nisms for stored data and for theprogram itself?

2. Does data integrity require perfecthardware operation? Is the pro-gram tolerant of faults in the pro-cessor, disk, telecommunicationdevices, and operating system?

3. Is "good" data reasonably pro-tected against corruption by unrea-sonable data?

4. Can questionable data be enteredbut marked as "not passing edits"or other tests?

Conclusions

One final and valuable lesson fromthe physical sciences is a recognitionof the legitimacy of an experimentthat reaches no conclusion, thatproves no cherished theory, that un-covers no fundamental truth. It maybe unfortunate that no single univer-

sal software evaluation formula, nomore complex version of the hard-ware FOM, can be found. Thenagain, perhaps that is not such a de-sirable goal after all.

In the end, software performanceevaluation comes back to humanjudgment—to the test pilot, the dramacritic, the gourmet, or any individual.The complexity and variety of soft-ware packages, the individual tastesand preferences, and the varyingmodes and environments all comeinto play to work against easy anwersto the software-evaluation problem.As in life itself, software and its usersbenefit from the rich diversity, thecomplex specialization, the adaptabil-ity, birth, growth, and death of pro-grams according to the same rulesthat have led to the existence of theprograms' creators. ■

Brian Boyle is managing analyst for the SoftwareInformation Service of Gnostic Concepts Inc. (951Mariner's Island Blvd., Suite 300, San Mateo, CA94404).

IBMPC-8087SUPPORTFROMMICROWARE

87FORTRAN/RTOS™ is a MicroWareadaptation ot the Intel Fortran-86 compiler afull ANSI-77 subset with 8087 extensions andoverlays It generates in line 8087 codeallowing use ot all 8087 data types, including80 bit reals and 64 bit integers The completesubset I/O is supported including Internal andExternal Files and List Directed I/O.87FORTRAN/RTOS uses the Intel largememory model, allowing data/code structureswhich utilize the full megabyte. The compilerprovides direct access to 8088 ports andsupports logical operations on 8 and 16 bitoperands normally treated in assemblylanguage. It is ideal for large applications whichare number intensive or control hardware.

87PASCAL/RTOS™ is Intel's ISO-Standard Pascal with 8087-8088 exceptions.These make it possible to use all the 8087 datatypes directly, while generating modules in oneof the three Intel Memory Models

87FORTRAN/RTOS and

87PASCAL/RTOS include RTOS andsupport for one year each $1350

PC TECH JOURNAL REVIEW:

"The MicroWare package is preferable... it executes the basic operationsmore rapidly and MicroWare providesa free update service."

87BASIC™ includes patches to the IBMBasic Compiler and both runtime libraries forUSER TRANSPARENT and COMPLETE 8087support Provides super fast performance for allnumeric operations including trigonometries,transcendentals, addition, subtraction,multiplication, and division $150

87MACRO™ - our complete 8087 softwaredevelopment package. It contains a "Pre-processor" which converts 8087 instructionsinto 8088 escape codes, source code for a setof 8087 macros, and an object library of 8087functions which include transcendentals,trigonometries, hyperbolics, encoding,decoding and conversions $150

PLM-86 with RTOS $1100

RTOS™ — Real Time Multi-Tasking Operating System

RTOS is a MicroWare configured version of iRMX-86, Intel's legendary operating system. It in-cludes the Intel Assembler, ASM-86, which supports the 8086, 8087, 8088 and 80186. All mod-ules produced by the compilers or ASM-86 are combined, loaded and managed with the UtilitiesLINK-86, LOC-86 and LIB-86. These products make it possible to load modules anywhere in RAM,and resolve external references between runtime modules Overlays with a single root job aresupported by the linker. RTOS/ASM-86/LINK-86/LOC-86/LIB-86 $600

iRMX-86, LINK-86, ASM-86, LOC-86 and LIB-86 are trademarks of Intel Corp. IBM PC is a trademark of IBM Corp.

MicroWare

P.O. Box 79Kingston, MA

02364

(617)746-7341

You CanTalkToUs!

MICROWARE BEST SELLERS!

8087-3 CHIP in stock with 180 HMday warranty and 8088 exchange !j> 1 y»7

FASTPAK™+8087 includes one runtimelibrary (87BASIC or87MACRO), the 8087 chipthe 87/88GUIDE, and installation

instructions $375

MATRIXPAK™ manages a MEGABYTE!Written in assembly language, our runtimepackage accurately manipulates largematrices at very fast speeds. Includes matrixinversion and the solution of simultaneouslinear equations Callable from MS Fortran3.13, MS Pascal 3.13, SSS Fortran, andMicroWare 87MACRO, 87BASIC, and RTOScompilers each $150

87/88GUIDE - an excellent tutorial onwriting 8087 code and interfacing it withcompilers Full of code that runs! $30

MICROSOFT FORTRAN 3.13

MICROSOFT PASCAL 3.13 Thesenew IEEE compatible compilers support bothdouble precision and the 8087 each $289

MICROSOFT C COMPILER

includes Lattice C and the MS Librarian. .$399

64K RAM Upgrade $59

SuperSoft Fortran 340

SSS 8087 Support 50

SuperSoft Voice Drive 895

87BASIC+ 75

TRACE86 Utility 125

Microsoft Business Basic Compiler 495

Computer Innovations C86 345

STSC APL*PLUS/PC 545

64K QUADRAM 319

Sandstar WS2 Hard Disk System 1355

Novation 212 SmartCat 495

HALO Graphics call

Energraphics call

188 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 253 on inquiry card.

Printers

Prowriter

120 cps, 4 fonts (includes pro-portional), 8 sizes, 1 60 x 144 dpi,Iriction & tractor feed. A worthyrival of Epson. The BPI is IBM-PCcompatible.

Prowriter $399.88

Prowriter BPI (IBMPC) .... 459.88

Starwriter

40 cps, 136 columns 10 4 12pitch. The Prtntmaster is the 55cps version. The A10 Starwriter(18 cps) has the same specs.

A10 Starwriter $609.88

Starwriter 1219.88

Prinlmaster 1569.88

A10/F10 Tractor Feed ...289.88A10/F10 Sheet Feed 619.88

DIABLO

620 $999.88

620 Tractor Feed 189.88

630 1979.88

630 Tractor Feed 289.88

620/630 Sheet Feed 619.88

EPSON

RX/FXEpsons CALL

IDS/DATAPRODUCTS

P-480 (MicroPrism) $429.88

P-Series 132 1239.88

w/4-color 1 669.88

INFORUNNER

Riteman $349.88

MANNESMAHN TALLY

MT-160 LSpirit

B*».

The MT-160 L (1 60 cps) features8 fonts (including a correspon-dence font), parallel & RS-232Cinterlaces, friction/tractor feed.The MT-180 L is a 136 columnversion. The Spirit (80 cps)features 4 fonts, italics, dotgraphics A friction/tractor feed.

MT-160 L $649.88

MT-180L 849.88

Spirit 329.88

MEMOTECH

DMX-80

Thm DMX-80 printer (80 cps)features 10, 12 & 17 cpi, sub/super scripts, underline, friction/tractor feed & dot graphics. It usesmost Epson code, so it's easilyinstalled on software. Servicenationally by Panasonic.DMX-80 $389.88

NEC

2010/2030 $879.88

2050 999.88

3510 1549.88

3530 1639.88

3550 1899.88

2000/3500 Tractor 239.88

2000/3500 Sheet Feed... 619.887710/7730 2159.88

Roland DG DM-121 Monitors

Superior quality & workmanshipcharacterizes the Roland DG DM-1 21series. A composite video output(NTSC) on a 12" diagonal screen, theDM-121 features 80 columns by 25lines, 18MHz bandwidth, 640 dots by200 lines video resolution. Green oramber screen.

Roland DG DM-1 21 G (12" green)

Roland DG DM-121 A (1 2" amber)

$174.88$179.88

OKIDATA

Microline Series

The 92/93 printers (160 cps) &the 84 (200 cps) are exceptional.Tough, reliable, they producesuperior draft quality, correspon-dence quality & graphics. Featuresinclude 10, 12 & 17 cpi, acorrespondence font, sub/superscripts, underlining, dot graphics(120 x 144 dpi) S friction/pin feed(adjustable tractor is optional onthe 92, standard on the 93).

The PC Plug-n-Play ROMs turnthe 92/93/84 into 100% IBM-PCcompatible printers. Our very bestselling printer line.

The 84 Step 2 (200 cps) is ahigh-speed matrix printer with 10.12,17 cpi, plus correspondencemodes in all sizes. Dot graphicsare standard (120 x 1' 4 dpi).Microline Series $CALL

QUADRAM

OuadJet SCALL

SMITH CORONA

Messenger

The Memory Correct III

M.ssenger (1;' cps) features 10,

12 & 15 cpi, variable line spacing,

backspece, auto-correction and a

dual parallel/RS-232C interlace.

True daisy wheel printing makes it

an exceptional typewriter &

printer. Ideal for the home or small

office.

Memory Correct III

Messenger 609.88

SILVER REED

EXP 550/500

The EXP-550 (18 cps) S the EXP-500 (12 cps) features 10, 1 2 & 15cpi, variable line spacing.

backspace, S Diablo 1610/20code emulation. Optional tractorfeed.

EXP-550 (Par.) $669.88

EXP-550 (Ser.) 689.88

550 Tractor 139.88

EXP500 (Par.) 439.88

EXP-500 (Ser.) 469.88

500 Tractor 129.88

STAR MICRONICS

Gemini/DeltaRadix Series

Gemini 10X $299.88

W/RS-232C 399.88

Gemini 15X 419.88

Delta 10 529.88

Delta 15 669.88

Radix 10 719.88

Radix 15 839.98

PowerType (18 cps

Letter Quality) 399.98

TOSHIBA

P 1350 $1759.88

CABLES

Parallel cables tor the ColumbiaMPC IBM-PC, Osbome-1.TRS-80(Model I/II/III/IV& 16). StandardCentronics (Male-to-Male &

Male-to-Female) $39.88

VIC-20/Commodore 64

Parallel Card/Cable 69.88

Apple ll/ll+/lle

Parallel Card/Cable 89.88

QUADRAM

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 to512K), & so manyconfigurations (Parallel/Parallel,Parallel/RS-232C, RS-232C/Par-allel & RS-232C/RS-232C) thatyou should call (800) 3430726for prices.

Monitors

JB 1205M (amber) $179.88

JB 1 201 M (green) 1 59.88

AMDEK

300A(12' amber) $164.88

300G (1 2" green) 149.88

310A (amber) CALL

QUADRAM

QuadChrome

690 x 240 resolution, 80 columnsx 24 lines, 16 colors & exceptionalperformance. Cable included.OuadChrome(RGB) $509.88

PRINCETON GRAPHICS

HX-12

Same spec's & performance asthe QuadChrome.PGS HX-12 (RGB) $499.88

Modems

US ROBOTICS

PasswordPC Modem

0-300/1 200 baud direct-connectmodem with auto-dial/answer, full/half duplex, voice/data. Uses LSItechnology. Cables & powersupply included {specify type ofcomputer). The PC Modem has allof the above, plus a parallel port,real-time clock & memory to 256K.

Password $379.88

PC Modem $CALL

'Courier 479.88

"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 a modular cable (RS-232Ccable optional). 1200B is an in-board modem for the IBM-PC &includes Smartcom IIThe MfcroModem lie is a 300baud in-board modem for theApple II series. IncludesSmartCom I

300 $219.88

1200 539.88

1200B(IBM PC) 459.88

Micromodem lie $259.88

Peripherals

Forthe IBM-PC.

We carry a variety of peripheralsfor the IBM-PC, including: Quad-ramQuadboards, Quad 512+,Quadllnk, QuadDisk, Quad I/O,QuadJet & single-function boards:AST products; Tandon's TM-100-2double-sided drives; QCS's 12, 20& 26 MB Hard Disk Subsystems;a Hard Disk/Tape subsystem;Tecmars Graphics Master; theParadise Multi-Display Card;Titan MultiFunction Cards; & theEagle PC and the Columbia1600-1 personal computersystems.

Call (603)881-9855 forinformation; call (800) 343-0726for prices & orders.

Forthe Apple II...

We also carry numerous Apple ll/ll+/lle peripherals, including: TBLProducts Cooling Fan; the PkasoPrinter Cards; Microsoft's Z80Cards, RamCards & PremiumPacks; Videx's Video-Term, UltraTerm & Enhancer II;Rana Elite Disk Drives; AMTsMicroDrive; Saturn SystemsAccelerator II & Memory Boards;Quadram's eRAM 80 ColumnCard; & the Novation Apple Cat II.We also carry the Franklin Ace1000 & Ace 1 200 OMS personalcomputer systems.

Call (603)881-9855 forinformation; call (800) 343-0726for prices & orders.

Information/Orders:(603) 881-9855

Orders Only:(800) 343-0726

No Hidden Charges:

• You get FREE shipping on allorders within the 48 states.

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• Easy payment terms: We acceptall major credit cards, certifiedchecks, money orders, companychecks or personal checks (allow21 days for personal checks).

• We have a $50 minimum order.

• Company Purchase Orders areaccepted on a limited basis &upon approval only. Sorry, no APOor foreign orders accepted.

• All our equipment is shippedwith full manufacturer's warranty.We are an authorized dealer forall products we sell to 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 January,& prices do change, so call toverify them.

• Our Computer Showroom isnow open in Amherst, NewHampshire, five miles west ofNashua (one hour from Boston).

• For a catalog, send$1 with your name,address & the type ofcomputer you own.

HIGH TECHNOLOGY AT AFFORDABLE PRICES

THE BOTTOM LINE

MILFORD, NH 03055 □ TELEPHONE (603) 881-9855?

Circle 39 on inquiry card.

IB*

0&>

u-d'fc^^ ORYX

^m^SYSTEMS

APPLE/FRANKLIN

ASHTONTATE

dBase II $ 389

ASPEN SOFTWARE

Grammalik S 60

Proofreader 42

BEAGLE BROS.

Apple Mechanic S 22

DOS Boss 17

Utility City 22

BROOERBUND

Bank Street Writer . . .$ 45

General Ledger w/AP. 305

Payroll 275

CDEX

Vtsicalc Training $ 45

CHARLES MANN

Class Scheduling $ 299

CONTINENTAL SOFTWARE

Home Accountant .... $ 49

DOW JONES

Market Analyzer $ 245

Market Manager 219

Microscope 529

HOWARD SOFTWARE

Tax Preparer 84 $ Call

LINK SYSTEMS

Datafax S Call

Datalink 79

LOGO CORNER

Krell Logo $ 75

MICROPRO

Wordstar (Special)

w/ CP/M Card.

7 col & 64KI

. $ 350

Infostor (Includes

CP/M, 70 col.. 64K) .

350

Pro Pok

(WS/MM/SS/lndex) .

399

MICROSOFT

Cobol-80

. $ 499

Fortran-80

145

TASC Compiler ....

119

A.L.D.S

79

Multiplon(DOS)... .

169

OMEGA

.J 69

PEACHTREE (CP/M)

Peachpak 40 G/L +

A/R + A/P (Special)

.$ 215

Sei.es 40

G/L, A/R, A.'P ea. .

195

Peachcalc

. 279

Telecommunications

279

Complete Graphics/Apple Tablet 86

SIERRA DESIGN

Homeword $ Call

SOFTECH

Basic Compilers'

Runtime $ 169

Softeach 94

UCSD P-system Set ... 469

SOFTWARE PUBLISHING

PFS: File $ 79

PFS: Graph 79

PFS: Report 79

SUPERSOFT

Basic Tutor $79

Fortran 299

SYSTEMS PLUS

Landlord $ 375

VISICORP

Visicalc (II or HE] $ 165

Visischedule 195

CP/MSOFTWARE

PENGUIN SOFTWARE

Complete Graphics ... 5 50Graphics Magician ... 39

COMPUVIEW

•V-Edit 8080 Z80.

IBM/PC $ 130

•V-Edit CP/M 86,

MS DOS 160

DIGITAL RESEARCH

•Pascal MT + W/SPP . . $ 389

MAC-PUG 149

ZSID (Z80) Debugger . 85

CP/M 2.2 125

C Basic 2 95

PL/180 375

C Basic Compiler

(CB-80) 299

Access or Display Mgr. 299

C Language/compiler 260

Concurrent CP/M 2.0 . 225All 8" - 86 Version

of Above $ Call

INFOCOM

•Deadline $ 49

'Starcross 39

'Suspended 39

•Zork, I. II, III (each) ... 39

Planet Fall 49

LEXISOFT

•Spellbinder $ 239

MARK OF THE UNICORN

•Final Word $ 199

MICROPRO

•WordStar $ Call

•InfoStar $ Call

■Pro-Pack

(WS/MM/SS Index) . $ Coll

All others $ Call

MICROSOFT

Basic 80 $ 239

QUALITY DISCOUNTS

d-BASE II CORNER

Ashton-Tate

d-Base II

$ Call

Bottom Line Strategist

FPL

259

410

189

Human Soft

dBase Plus

$ 95

Fox & Geller

Quick Code

$ 175

DUIil

58

Software Banc

d-Base II Users Guide:

S 15

20

Anderson-Bell

Abstat

$ 349

Tylog Systems

dBase Window

I 199

'All above available on PC-DOS

Basic Compiler 24V

Fortran 80 .

Cobol 80

Macro 80

MuMalh/MuSimp.MuLisp/MuSlar. . .'Multiplan

330449130189

155169

fy

PICKLES & TROUT

CP/M for TRS-II $ 1 80

PRO/TEM SOFTWARE

'Footnote S 105

REVASCO

Z80 Disassembler $ 85

SORCIM

•Supercalc III $ Call

Superwriter(w/Speller 8. Mailer) . S 169

PEACHTREE CORNER

► PeachPak 4 (GL, AP. AR) $ 215

► General Ledger / Accounts Payable / AccountsReceivable / Sales Invoicing / Inventory Control /PeachPay Payroll Each 389

► PeochText 160

► PeochText w/ Random House Thesaurus 195

► Spelling Proofreader 95

► PeachCalc 90

► Job Cost System 399

► Client Posting & Accounting 399

► Graphics Language 259

► Business Graphic System 199

MICROSTUF

•Crosstalk

NORTHWEST ANALYTICAL

•Statpak $ 365

OASIS

The Word Plus S 103

Punctuation and Style 99

ORGANIC SOFTWARE

•Datebook S 229

■Milestone 229

SELECT

Select Word

Processor S 329

STAR SOFTWARE SYSTEMS

•Legal Time, Billing 845

Property Mgmt 845

'Acc't Partner 299

SUPERSOFT

•Diagnostic II $ 89

Disk Doctor 74

FORAAATS AVAILABLE

All prices below are for 8" standard. Other formats areavailable. Some formats subject to "Download" fee andrequire minimum 2 weeks for delivery. Please inquire.

"Fortran 4 299

Basic-8086 225

C Cross Assembler . . . 400

■Scratchpad 187

T MAKER III 215

IBM/PC

Please see CP/Mlisting. All productswith a * in frontare also made forPC/DOS and arepriced the sameunless otherwisespecified.

ALPHA SOFTWARE

Data Base Mgr. II .... $ 179

Mailing List 72

Executive Pkg 105

Type Faces 79

Question 35

Apple-I8M Connection 189

CENTRAL POINT

Copy II PC $ 34

CONDOR III

w/Training $ 445

CONTINENTAL

Home Accountant .... $ 89

DIGITAL RESEARCH

Concurrent CP/M 86.. $ 225

CP/M-86 39

Cobol 86 499

Pascal MT + 86

(MS DOS) 375

SPP 86 130

C Basic 86 135

Pascal MT+ (PC/DOS) 385

DR Logo 109

DOW JONES

Market Analyzer S 245

Market Manager 219

ECO-SOFT

Microslat $ 230

FINANCIER

Tax Series 99

Financier II S 119

GRAPHIC SOFTWARE

Super Chartman II.... $ 299

Super Chartman IV . . . 199

Both (above) 350

LEXISOFT

SpellB.nder $ 239

LIFETREE

Volkswriter S 135

PEACHTREE

Please see listingunder CP/MPeochText 5000 $ 215

SORCIM

Supercalc III S Coll

190 BYTE February 1984

SUPERSOFT

C Compiler - 8086 ... $ 350

Star Edit 180

Disk Edit 75

Basic Compiler 225

Fortran IV PC/DOS

or 8086 299

8087 Support 40

Diagnostics II 89

Scratch Pad 187

SYSTEMS PLUS

Landlord (prop mgmt) $ 375Runtime Basic

(req d for above) .... 45

... and many more!

APPLE/

FRANKLIN

BOARDS

ALS CP/MCard $ 299

ALS Smarterm 249

ALSZ-Cardll 142

ABT Keyboard 99

Axlon Ramdisk 128K . . 299

Bit 3 Dual Comm-plus . 209

CCS 7710 Asynch Serial 119

Central Point Alaska .. 119

Eait Side WildCard .. U0

Microioft 16K Romcord 69

Microioft Soflcord. ... 219

Microsoft Softcard + .. 429Microioft Premium

Softcard (HE) 335

Microtek Printer \/f ... 75

Microtek Dumpling-16 195

Microtek Dumpling-GX 119

Mountain A-D/D-A ... 279Mountain Music

System w/Software ... 299PCP 4 MHZ Appli-

Card + 88 Card 599

PCP 88 Card 16 Bit

+ 64K 475

Prometheus Versacard 159Prometheus Graphitti

Cord 99

SSM ASIO Serial 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

Enhancer 99

Videx Display

Enhancer II 109

Videx Func. Strip 59

Videx Videolerm

VT 600 235

Videx Ullralerm 299

Wetper 16K Rom Cord 69

IBM/PCBOARDS

MONITORS

DISK DRIVES

DISKETTES

AST RESEARCH

ComboPlus 64K Clock/Calendar, 5erial 4Parallel, l/F, Expand-able to 256K $ 279

MegoPlus 64K, Clock/Calendar, Serial Port,Expandable to 5I2Kw/Megapak 269

Extra ports availablefor Megaplus and I/OPlus II includes Game,Parallel 4 Serial 40

Megapak 256K upgradefor Megaplus $ Call

I/O Plus II Clock/Calen-dar and Serial Port ... 115

LNW Products $ Call

MAYNARD ELECTRONICS

Floppy Drive

Controller $ 155

Floppy Drive Control-ler w/Parallel Port... 209

w/Serial Port 219

Sandstar Mem. Card— 3 modules cop- .. 194Sandstar MultifunctionCard - 6 modules cap. 93

Sandstar Modules S Call

QUADRAM

Quodboard 64K, Clock/

Calendar, Serial &

Parallel Ports,

Software S 279

Microfazer Stack PrinterBuffer (expandable to 512K)

► Parallel/Parallel 8K .. 132

► Parallel/Parallel 64K 188

► Serial/Parallel 8K . .. 170

► Serial/Serial 8K 170

Quodlink 64K Memory,

Game Port allowsApple Software toto on IBM/PC $ Call

TECMAR Products ....$ CollXEDEX/MICROLOGBaby Blue $ 425

TALL TREE

512K JRAMMemory Board $ 699

Amdek V.deo 300A

Amber $ 149

Amdek RGB 425

NEC 12" Hi-Res Green. 187Sanyo 12" Hi-Res

Green 199

USI Hi-Res 12" Amber . 159

NEC JB-1260 Green ... 119

PGS RGB Color $ Call

NEC JC 1216 RGB 475

Panasonic Monitors ... $ CallQuadram

Quadchrome J Call

Taxan 12" Amber 149

Taxan 12" Green 136

Taxan 12" Med. RGB . . 323

Taxan 12" High RGB .. 512Taxan RGB

Cable for PC 17

Sony Profeel

12/19/25" $ Call

Teac Half Hgl S 259

Superfive Hall Hgt

(App) 9

Panasonic Hall Hg! ... 205

Tandon TM 55 2 S 255

Tandon TM-100-2 239

Davong D5I 501 Hard S Cull

Davong DSI-512 Hard S Call

Davong DSI-519 Hard S Call

Corona 5MB Hard ... 1.395

Corona 10 MB Hard ,. 1.795

CDC 1800 270

Corvus $ Call

Tall Grass S Call

Vista Solo 143K S 259

Vista Solo S. Controller 329

TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORNER*** SPECIAL ***

Hayes Smart mod em 12000 / Hayes Smartcom IISoftware AST I/O Plus II Clock Calendarand Serial Port $ 689

Above w/Smarlmodem 300 399

Hayes Smartmodem 1200 & Smartcom II Software . . 575

MODEMS

PRINTERS

Novation

Apple-Cat II S 259

Hayes Micromodem II . 259

Anchor Mark I 79

Anchor Mark VII 119

Hayes

Smartmodem 300 .... $ 205Hayes

Smartmodem 1200 ... 495Hayes Chronograph ,. 189Novation 212 Auto-Cat 565US Robotics

Auto-Dial (lull auto

answer 300/1200) 459

US Robotics

Auto-Link (auto

answer 300/1200) 410

US Robotics Password 379

DISPLAY CARD CORNER

Hercules Graphics Board $ 359

Orchid Monochrome Graphic Adapter 360

Plontronics Colorplus 389

USI Display Card (color/monochrome) $ Call

Amdek MAI Card $ Call

Tecmar Graphic Master $ Call

C. Itoh Startwriter F10 . S 1.149

C. Itoh Prownter 8510 . 379

C. Itoh Prownter 1550 . 689

NEC 3550 S Call

NEC 8023A 475

Okidata Microlme 82A J Call

Okidata Microline 83A S Call

Okidata Microline 92 . S CallIDS Prism 80

(w/4 options) 1,399

IDS Prism 132

(w/4 options) 1,547

IDS MicroPrism 399

Silver-Reed

Daisy Wheel S Call

Star Micronics

Gemini 10X 319

Star Micronics

Gemini 15X $ Call

GE Printers $ Coll

Epson FX 80 599

Transfer T130-P 699

Transfer T-315P Color . 519

Transfer T 120P 475

Mannesman Tally

MT160I 475

MT160L 585

Spirit $ Call

... and much more.

3M 5 DS. DD, Box .BASF 5 DS, DD, BoxMaxell 5" DS, DD,

MD2, Box

Verbatim 5"

DS. DD, Box

Ultra Magnetics 5"

DS, DD, Bonus Box

(12 Diskettes)

4037

( PLOTTERS ]

Enter P100 Sweel P

Apple/Franklin,

IBM/PC

%

595

Strobe M100 Plotter

w/ l/F Apple/Fronkln

499

Strobe M100 Plotter

(RS 232)

539

Panasonic Digital

Plotter

%

Call

MISC.

Chalk Board S Call

Koala Technologies

Graphic Tablet S 95

Symtec Light Pen

IBM/PC U0

Symtec Light Pen

Apple/Franklin 200

TG Joystick IBM/PC ... 49

TG Joystick

Apple/Franklin 46

Versa VersaWnler

Tablet IBM/PC,

Apple/Franklin 235

Wico Analog Joystick. . 59

Wico Apple Adapter ., 18

Wico IBM/PC l/F Card S CallKeytronic Keyboard

IBM/PC 209

Keytronic Keyboard

Apple/Franklin 249

Curtis PC Products .,..$ CallElectronic Protection

Series S Call

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.

Please: We welcome:

► Wisconsin residents add 5% for sales tax. ► COD (Add $2.00 per shipment. Cash or certified check required.) ^^f\

► Add $3.50 for shipping per software and light ► Visa, MasterCharge & American Express. (Add 4%.) ^**^t$%9items. For multiple and other items, call. ► Checks. (Allow 1-2 weeks for clearing.) ^^"L. y3 ^

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ORYX SYSTEMS, INC. ^<^d^mmmmS^ I ^WB

CRAFTSMEN OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGY ^< KlV^^^2 !BT I

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Wausau, Wl 54401 ^^^AjV^ II II il I MM[__%3[ K0.

* For technical information and ^-'^rfl\C»\L ^■^^W I - -'■ ^L ^Bv^ ^r/t^

in Wisconsin: 715-848-1374 ^--\ CY^VT^fl 'I WM\ W\ ^B^/Bw

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Circle 279 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 191

ADDS VIEWPOINT from your point off view

■ llMr

IF YOUR COMPUTER CAN HANDLEANOTHER TERMINAL, HERE'S THETERMINAL IT SHOOLD HANDLE.

Now that many desk-top micros are multi-user,you can add an inexpensive Viewpoint® terminalto dramatically increase your micro's productivity.For more powerful computers, the ADDS Viewpointputs power on every desk at substantial savings.

Even though the ADDS Viewpoint is very inexpen-sive, it is still packed with features. The screen tiltsfor comfortable viewing. Detachable stepped andsculptured keyboard. Numeric pad, cursor controlkeys and three discrete function keys. Characterhighlighting (blinking, underlining, reverse video,half or zero intensity). Full 24 lines by 80-characterscreen with 96 displayable ASCII codes. Thereare even optional keycaps for foreign languages.

All this, with EIA RS-232-C or CCITT V.24communications interfaces.

ADDS has a complete line of Viewpoint terminals,offering color, IBM compatibility (monochrome orcolor) and exceptional intelligence. Ask yourADDS dealer for details.

Quality, features, functions, competitive price...

MILL NHS IIP.

Viewpoint is a registered trademark of Applied Digital Data Systems Inc.192 BYTE February 1984

Applied Digital Data Systems Inc.

A Subsidiary of NCR Corporation

100 Marcus Blvd.. Hauppauge, NY 11788 — (516) 231-5400.

Circle 26 on inquiry card.

The Art of Benchmarking

Printers

New tests of speed are needed for dot-matrix and daisywheel units

Developing good benchmarks forcomputer systems is not an easy task,but benchmarking computer printersis not much simpler. Even if you limitthe evaluation to units with list pricesunder $3000, which excludes themore expensive "page" and "line"printers, the task is still complexbecause of the great variety of dif-ferent functions available on today'sprinters.

Benchmarking efforts can be divid-ed into two principal areas becauseof the different natures of dot-matrixand fully formed character printers.Dot-matrix types are most popularamong personal-computer users andprovide an economical and flexibleoutput with reasonable quality. Fullyformed character printers, whichgenerally include the more costly andslower units, provide excellent letter-quality output and are popularamong companies and professionalswho require high quality in theirbusiness correspondence. The maindistinction is, however, the printingtechnologies employed; two sets ofbenchmarks are required.

In this article, I'll document thedevelopment of two sets of bench-marks, one set applicable to dot-

by Sergio Mello-Grand

matrix printers and the other to fullyformed character (daisywheel) print-ers. You'll also find a detailed discus-sion of the rationale behind each ap-proach and, finally, how several dot-matrix and daisywheel printers per-formed when subjected to these tests.The actual benchmark listings andtest texts are included so you can putyour printer through its paces andmake some comparisons of yourown.

Two sets ofbenchmarks arerequired: one for dot-matrix printers andone for daisy wheelprinters.

Dot-Matrix Printers

Dot-matrix units employ a printingtechnique in use for nearly two dec-ades. The printhead has an array ofsmall pins that are independentlypropelled against an inked ribbon,transferring dots onto the paperbehind them. Each pin is activated byan electromagnetic field controlled bythe printhead's control electronics.Depending on control codes, one or

more pins of the array can be ac-tivated at the same time, producinga single dot or a pattern of dotsaligned vertically. By moving theprinthead horizontally, it is then pos-sible to print a line of charactersformed by a controlled pattern of dots.

The basic technology of creatingcharacters through dot patterns isresponsible for both the high flexibil-ity and the limited quality of dot-matrix printers. The flexibility stemsfrom the fact that the same array ofpins can be used to print any charac-ter without waiting for the mechani-cal rotation of a specific character toa printing position. The reduction inprinting quality comes from the dis-crete nature of the dot pattern usedto approximate the shape of eachcharacter.

Flexibility and quality take on dif-ferent meanings for each dot-matrixprinter. Setting aside each printer'smechanical tolerances in the print-head positioning system (the shaft-to-bearing relation is importantbecause of potentially disturbingvibrations during the head motion),the main element that determinesprinter flexibility and quality is thepin array.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 193

Older or less expensive dot-matrixprinters use a seven-pin, one-line ar-ray to generate characters from a 5 by7 dot matrix (each character is a pat-tern of dots in a cell 5 dots wide and7 dots high). These units are not veryflexible because the combinations ofdot patterns available in such a smallmatrix is very limited. For instance,a 5 by 7 matrix doesn't provide de-scenders, forcing lowercase letterssuch as g, j, p, q, and y into unnaturalshapes. Almost all modern dot-matrix printers use a nine-pin in-linearray and form characters from aminimum 7 by 9 matrix. This pro-duces true descenders and a closerapproximation of traditional charac-ters. Print quality is improved by thedenser pattern of dots whose in-dividual boundaries are less visiblethan those from a 5 by 7 matrix.

The introduction of nine-pin in-linearrays has been a major improvementin dot-matrix printers and has result-ed in new capabilities that have great-ly expanded their flexibility. For in-stance, selecting an appropriate pat-tern, in conjunction with appropriatehorizontal stepping, it is now possi-ble to have compressed or empha-sized boldface and double-widthcharacters. In the emphasized mode,a printer moves in smaller steps,forming characters out of a horizon-tally denser matrix (e.g., 18 by 9). Inorder to achieve even better printquality and compete with the moreexpensive and slower fully formedcharacter printers, several moderndot-matrix printers also use a double-pass approach or adopt special print-heads with nine or eighteen "stag-gered" pins.

The double-pass approach prints aline in a first pass and, after a tinyvertical shift, reprints the samecharacters over the same line. Thistechnique provides a near-letter-quality output at the expense of per-formance. Double-pass printingmeans at least half-speed printing, anoften acceptable compromise whenthe basic printing speed is 100 cps(characters per second) or more, as inalmost every modern dot-matrixprinter. Some units also offer a sortof combination of emphasized anddouble-pass modes that provides a

"correspondence" quality in whichcharacters are formed from an 18 by18 or larger matrix.

To achieve both correspondencequality and high speed, some dot-matrix printers employ printheadswith staggered pins capable of print-ing overlapping dots. The final effectis similar to that achieved with a dou-ble pass but without any perfor-mance penalty.

Although 9-pin staggered headshave been adopted by some printermanufacturers, better results oftenare obtained with 18-pin staggeredheads. These include two 9-pinarrays located side by side with ahalf-dot vertical shift. With theseheads, the second array's pins hit ex-actly in the boundary position of thefirst array's pins. Besides providingcorrespondence-quality capabilitiesat full speed, 18-pin staggered headsoffer an even higher flexibility in thepatterns used for characters.

This brief discussion on the dif-ferent printheads shows that a com-parison among printers based ex-clusively on speed has limited mean-ing. To have a more accurate pictureof a particular printer's true capabil-ities, it is necessary to take into con-sideration some elements of quality.Because a low-quality seven-pinprinter has the same speed as a near-letter-quality 18-pin staggered unitdoesn't mean that the two printersare comparable from a user's point ofview. The first unit might be usedonly for rough-draft printouts andthe second might be used for busi-ness correspondence, two activitieswith very different values for theuser.

In designing these benchmarks, Ihave tried to account for this inequal-ity by including tests for correspon-dence printouts. You should putequal care into evaluating the results.Remember that any benchmark, nomatter how well designed, is only anapproximate quantitative comparisonthat does not take into account veryimportant subjective elements thatcan be of much greater importance.Furthermore, even the quantitativeresults are only an approximation,with several limits imposed by sometechnological restraints.

For instance, I had to face the prob-lem of printers' buffers. Modernprinters have an internal buffer thataccepts a certain amount of data fromthe system at high speed, enablingfunctions such as bidirectional anddouble-pass printing.

A 128-character buffer may beenough for these functions, butseveral printers offer buffers as largeas 48K bytes. Such buffers let aprinter store an entire document inits memory, leaving the system freeto start a new job while the printeroutputs the previous document fromits own memory. From the system'spoint of view, the printer has done itswork once it has acquired the wholedocument in its memory. If you writea benchmarking program using thesystem's clock, the result for a 48K-byte buffered printer might beastonishing (something in the orderof thousands of characters per sec-ond).

Without underestimating the im-portance of huge printer buffers, Ihave decided to base my measure-ments on "physical" printing timesrather than on "logical" printingtimes. Such a choice might obviouslyunderrate the real operating perform-ance of a highly buffered printer butis a necessary step in a realisticprinter benchmark. After all, severaloperating systems offer spooling cap-abilities that provide an almost zerological printing time, but this doesn'tmean that users have no interest inphysical printing time.

Another major problem I had toface in these benchmarks is the soft-ware support for each printer's con-trol codes. Activating an advancedfunctionality in a modern printer re-quires the transmission of one ormore control codes to tell the printer'scontroller that a certain operatingmode is to be used. Control codes areneeded for underlining, for italics,and for each of the printing modesselectable (emphasized, double-pass,enlarged, compressed, etc.).

Unfortunately, no standard has yetemerged in the chaotic area of dot-matrix printer controllers; eachmanufacturer uses different codes.With IBM's recent support of certaincontrol codes, a tentative de facto

194 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

CPM® JKf^lTfSnFTWARF"" •CPMW

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List Sale

ALPHA SOFTWARE

Apple-IBM Connection 250 169

Data Base Manager 145 119

Data Base Manager II 295 249

Question 45

Typeface 125

ANDERSON —BELL

ABSTATASHTONTATE

395

dBASE II

Financial Planner

Friday

ASPEN SOFTWARE

700700295

GrammatikProof Reader

A.T.I.

75

50

Training WordStarTraining dBASE IITraining Multiplan

CDEX

75

75

MYB-Lotus 1-2-3MYB-Visicalc

70

70

ACCOUNTING M.B.S.I.

Account PayableAccount ReceivablePayrollOrder Entry-

Inventory ControlGeneral LedgerSales AnalysisRM Cobol

I.General LedgerAccount ReceivableAccount PayableOrder EntryInventory Control^Payroll

List Sale

650 459

650 459

650 459

650 459

650 459

325 279

169

595 359

595 359

595 359

595 359

595 359

745 359.

DIGITAL MARKETING

249

Milestone

295

Datebook II

295

249

Footnote

129

109

Bibliography

125

109

Notebook

150

119

MICROLINK II

89

79

DIGITAL RESEARCH

249

369

94

63

175

175

58

36989

89

22917919999129

Concurrent CP/M 86CB 80 CompilerCBASICSID

FOX & GELLER

350

500

150

75

Quickcode

dGraph

dUtil

GKE

295

295

99

Condor 3CROSSDATA

HUMANSOFT

65099

DBPIusIUS

125

Easy FilerEasy PlannerEasy Writer IIEasy SpellerEasy Speller II

400250350125225

SPECIALS

/

List Sale

DBASE II + Quickcode

995 525

DBASE II + dUtil

799 429

DBASE II + DGraph

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standard appeared to be emerging,but the industry is still plagued bycontrol-code incompatibilities. Froma user's standpoint, this means thata certain software package fully sup-ports some printers and offers onlybasic functions on other printers. Aword-processing program, for exam-ple, might take advantage of the im-mediate underlining capabilities of apopular printer (such as the Epson)and might not take advantage of asimilar capability in a differentprinter because its control codes areincompatible. On the first printer, anunderlined line then might be print-ed at full speed; on the secondprinter, it might require a continuousoutput of a character and subsequentover-strike with the underlinecharacter. If benchmarked in such anenvironment, the second printermight very well show a comparative-ly poor performance even though itsintrinsic capabilities are equal to thefirst one's.

In the absence of a clear industrystandard, I didn't want to penalizeany printer manufacturer choosing aspecific set of control codes, so thesebenchmarks had to be executablewith any unit, no matter how exoticits control codes. As a direct conse-quence of this choice, I had to giveup my original idea of using apopular word processor and a pop-ular spreadsheet for some of thetests. Depending on the programchosen, some printers would havebeen directly supported and otherswould not, which is an unjust anddiscriminatory approach to bench-marking. Word-processing andspreadsheet printout simulationstherefore have been conducted direct-ly with some simple BASIC programsthat set the appropriate controlcharacters and then print a series oflines of text.

Thanks to the nature of dot-matrixprinting, there is no difference inprinting one certain sequence ofcharacters and then a different se-quence of other characters. This factlets us use strings of regular charac-ters without having to select a se-quence in which the frequency ofeach different character approximatesits frequency in typical English. This

is the main issue in benchmarkingfully formed character printers. Inthese benchmarks I have chosen thecharacter A, but any other letter willprovide similar results.

In designing the following 14benchmarks, I have tried to utilize thefundamental capabilities of today'sdot-matrix printers to evaluate theirperformance. The advertised printingspeeds are generally higher than themeasured ones. This depends on thedifferent benchmarking proceduresused. Manufacturers measure theirunits' performances at full speed,without taking into account accelera-tions and decelerations at the begin-ning and end of a line. I have viewedperformances from the user's per-spective, which means that accelera-tions, decelerations, and even car-riage returns and linefeeds have to beconsidered for a more realistic esti-mate of a printer's performance.

Bench 1

The first test, which stresses the ac-celeration/deceleration and linefeedcapabilities of a printer, is the outputof a single character at the beginningof a line and the repetition of the pro-cess on new lines 50 times. Almostall units, even if intelligent andcapable of printing in a bidirectional,optimized way, struggle pretty hardin order to minimize the delays con-nected with the repetitive starts,stops, and linefeeds of this test. Thisobviously is unfair when measuringperformance in terms of the rate ofcharacters per second. Nevertheless,this test shows immediately somesharp behavioral differences amongapparently similar printers and canbe useful as a first element of com-parison.

Bench 2

Extending the Bench 1 test, I printa string of 10 consecutive As at thebeginning of a line and repeat theprocess for 50 lines. In some printers,the time required to complete thistest is just a little longer than the timefor Bench 1. This shows clearly that,for short lines, the overhead inducedby accelerations, decelerations, andlinefeeds is much more importantthan the theoretical printing speed.

Bench 3

As a further extension of theprevious tests, I print a string of 20As at the beginning of a line andrepeat the process for 50 lines. Thistest, besides providing a logical con-tinuity with the two previous ones,is useful in estimating throughput inapplications such as label-printingwith a single-label horizontal format.BASIC-language listings with shortlines are also approximated by thistest. As the printers work at fullspeed in the middle of the string, thecps rating improves, although it isstill far from the "official" rates.

Comparing the times for Bench 2and Bench 3, it's interesting to notethat the additional 500 characters in-volved in the second test require onlya few additional seconds to beprinted. Dividing 500 by the result ofthe subtraction between Bench 3'sand Bench 2's times, you can obtaina first estimate of the "full-speed"theoretical performance of a printer.In general, this speed is at least equalto the advertised one, which meansthat the manufacturers are not"cheating." As I have already said, thecompanies are simply measuring theprinting speed in a theoretical way.

Bench 4

I print a string of 40 As and repeatthe process the usual 50 times. Thistext can be used as an approximationfor a typical listing. Again, increasingthe number of printed characters perline, the measured performanceshows a significant improvement,sometimes reaching 70 percent of theadvertised speed.

Bench 5

By printing a string of 60 As 50times on consecutive lines, I am ableto approximate a general text print-out. The measured performanceshows a further increase, with someprinters hitting 75 to 80 percent of therated speed.

Bench 6

Going to 80 characters per line, themaximum line length for the mostpopular dot-matrix printers (operat-ing at the standard 10 pitch), I print

196 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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50 lines of As. Several printers per-form at 80 to 85 percent of the officialspeed, which, after all, is not too badwhen you consider that it includes allthe necessary starts, stops, and line-feeds. Some printers, though, run ata lower performance ratio, often be-cause their paper-advance motor isnot very fast or because they do notprovide bidirectional printing.

By comparing the times for Bench6 and Bench 3 it's possible to get abetter estimate of the abstract "fullspeed" of each unit. This is obtainedby dividing 3000 (the number ofadditional characters) by the result ofthe subtraction between the times of

Bench 6 and Bench 3. As can be seenin table 1, this abstract "full speed"is in most cases even higher than theone claimed by the manufacturers.

Bench 7

After testing the straight printingspeed with different length lines, it'sinteresting to see what happenswhen a printer operates on format-ted text, such as the output of aword-processing program. To emu-late this environment, I print 50 timesa string composed of 10 blanks fol-lowed by 60 As. In this way, I can ap-proximate typical letter text with two10-character margins on both sides.

A Guide to Tables 1 and 4

The numbers in parentheses beneath the printer model numbers indicate theadvertised printing speed in characters per second (cps). The numbers in the shadedcolumns are the times (minutes-.seconds) it took the printers to complete specifictests. The numbers in the adjacent, unshaded columns are the approximate print-ing speeds in characters per second for each test.

Intelligent printers, with logic-seeking and look-ahead capabilities,can analyze a buffer's content and op-timize the printing path by skippingthe leading blanks. Less intelligentunits can't do so and will "print" 10consecutive spaces at the beginningof each line, using a significant (10 to15 percent) overhead.

As shown in table 1, some intelli-gent units print the 70-characterstrings (with 10 leading spaces) ofthis Bench 7 in the same amount oftime required to print the 60-charac-ter strings of Bench 5. This confirmsthat those units recognize leadingspaces and optimize their printingpaths accordingly.

Bench 8

Stressing even more the logic-seeking capabilities of modern dot-matrix printers, I have designed abenchmark in which a short string of

Epson MX-80 Epson RX-80 Epson FX-80 Diablo 11 Okidata 82A Okidata 92 IDS 480 Gemini 10X(80) (100) (160) (100) (120) (160) (110) (120)

Bench 1—Print 00:18 2.8 00:17 2.9 00:13 3.8 00:08 6.2 00:11 4.5 00:16 3.1 00:12 4.2 00:13 3.8

A on 50 con-secutive lines

Bench 2— 00:23 21.8 00:22 22.7 00:16 31.2 00:13 38.4 00:12 41.7 00:12 41.7 00:16 31.2 00:17 29.4

Print a string of10 As on 50lines

Bench 3— 00:30 33.3 00:27 37.0 00:21 47.6 00:18 55.6 00:16 62.5 00:15 66.7 00:20 50.0 00:22 45.5

Print a string of20 As on 50

lines

Bench 4— 00:43 46.6 00:39 51.3 00:29 69.0 00:29 69.0 00:24 83.3 00:21 95.2 00:30 66.7 00:33 60.6

Print a string of40 As on 50lines

Bench 5- 00:55 54.5 00:5158.8 00:37 81.1 00:40 75.0 00:32 93.8 00:28 107.1 00:39 76.9 00:42 71.4

Print a string of60 ,4s on 50lines

Bench 6— 01:08 58.8 00:62 64.5 00:45 88.9 00:51 78.4 00:40 100.0 00:36 111.1 00:48 83.3 00:52 76.9

Print a string of80 As on 50lines

Bench 7— 00:55 63.6 00:5168.6 00:37 94.6 00:41 85.4 00:32 109.4 00:28 125 00:39 89.7 00:43 81.4

Print a string of10 spaces and60 As on 50

lines

Table 1:

The results of running the 14 benchmarks for dot-matrix printers on eight members of the dot-matrix family.

198 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

characters (10 As) appears in differentpositions on five consecutive lines. Inthe first line, the string is printed inpositions 6-15; in the second, in posi-tions 16-25; this continues until thefifth line, in which the string isprinted in positions 46-55. In eachline, leading and trailing spaces fillthe "free" areas from positions 1-60.A loop repeats this sequence 10times.

A clever unit will print the firststring, stopping at position 15, per-form a linefeed, and continue print-ing the second string from positions16-25. The printer will then performa new linefeed and start printing thethird string from position 26. A simi-lar technique will be used for thefourth and fifth lines. A not-so-intel-ligent unit, not recognizing the op-timized "stair-step" pattern, will in-stead print some of the blanks. Aprinter without any logic-seeking

capability will print all leading andtrailing blanks, with an executiontime similar to that of Bench 5.

Bench 9

Another interesting printing exam-ple is the simulation of a typicalspreadsheet output with a regulartable of numbers evenly spaced inrows and columns. To evaluate theprinters' behavior in such a case, thebenchmark prints a string with analternate sequence of five spaces andfive 2s 50 times. This process printsa table of 50 rows and 10 columns,each column being 10 characters wideand composed of a five-digit right-aligned number (11111) preceded byfive spaces. Intelligent printers withgood look-ahead capabilities willrecognize each five-space sequenceand will skip at high speed to thenearest digit. Intelligent printerswithout this capability will optimize

their path more simply, avoiding thefirst five spaces of each row. Less in-telligent units will print each line justas if it were a regular 80-charactersequence.

Bench 10

All the benchmarks described inthe preceding pages were conceivedfor the basic operating mode of 10characters per inch (cpi) with thestandard character set. So far, nocompressed, double-width, empha-sized, or double-pass operatingmodes have been considered in thebenchmarks. Because they are rele-vant to some users, I have includedfive additional benchmarks dealingwith these advanced capabilities.Although the modes tested are fair-ly common, some printers don't sup-port them. For these units, the tableof results indicates N/A (not avail-able). In this test, after setting theText continued on page 203

Bench 8—Print 10 times 5strings of 50spaces and 10As with differentdisplacement

Bench 9—Print a string of

8 alternategroups of 5spaces and 5 7 son 50 lines

Bench 10—Same as Bench5 but with em-phasized mode,i.e., 18 by 9matrix

Bench 11 —Same as Bench5 but in double-pass mode, i.e.,

9 by 18 matrix

Bench 12—Same as Bench5 but in cor-respondencemode

Bench 13—Same as Bench5 but in com-pressed mode

Bench 14—Same as Bench4 but in double-width mode

00:32 93.8

00:32 93.7 00:31 96.8 00:21 142.8 00:26 115.4 00:18 166.7 00:32 93.7 00:36 83.3

01:05 61.5

00:60 66.7 00:43 93.0 00:53 75.5 00:39 102.6 00:35 114.3 00:46 87.0 00:51 78.4

01:36 31.2

01:30 33.3 01:01 49.2 N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A 01:09 43.5

02:33 19.6

03:53 12.9

01:04 46.9

01:07 29.9

02:04 24.2 01:47 28.0 N/A

N/A 01:13 41.1 N/A 01:44 28.£

03:28 14.4 02:36 19.2 02:35 19.4 N/A 01:52 26.8 00:52 57.7 02:36 19.2

01:01 49.2 00:44 68.2 00:41 73.2 00:32 93.8 00:29 103.4 00:39 76.9 00:48 62.5

01:02 32.3 00:41 48.8 00:50 40.0 00:41 73.2 00:37 54.1 00:49 40.8 00:57 35.1

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 199

Listing 1: Dot-matrix printer benchmarks 1 through 9 in BASIC. The text discusses benchmarks 10 through 14, which use benchmarks4 and 5 in emphasized, double-pass, correspondence-quality, compressed, and double-width modes. Results of these benchmarks on threetypical dot-matrix printers are shown in table 1.

10 FOR 1=1 TO 5020 LPRINT "A"30 NEXT I

10 FOR 1=1 TO 50

20 LPRINT "AAAAAAAAAA"

30 NEXT I

10 FOR 1=1 TO 50

20 LPRINT "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA'

30 NEXT I

10 FOR 1=1 10 50

20 LPRINT "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA'

30 NEXT I

10 FOR 1=1 TO 50

20 LPRINT "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA'

30 NEXT I

10 FOR 1=1 TO 50

20 LPRINT "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

30 NEXT I

10 FOR 1=1

TO

50

20 LPRINT

1

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAA'

1

30 NEXT I

10 FOR 1=1

TO

10

20 LPRINT"

AAAAAAAAAA

30 LPRINT"

AAAAAAAAAA

40 LPRINT"

AAAAAAAAAA

50 LPRINT"

AAAAAAAAAA

60 LPRINT"

AAAAAAAAAA

70 NEXT I

10 FOR 1=1

TO

50

20 LPRINT"

11111 11111 11111 11111 11111 11111

11111

11 111"

30 NEXT I

200 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Text continued from page 199:printer into emphasized mode, Iprinted a string of 60 As on 50 con-secutive lines, as in Bench 5.

In emphasized mode, the print-head moves in smaller steps, forminga character from a horizontallydenser matrix. This produces abetter-quality printout but at the ex-pense of speed, as is clearly indicatedby the results. This benchmark,when compared to the similarlystructured benchmarks that followfor fully formed character printers,gives you a good idea of the com-parative performance of a dot-matrixprinter operating in "quality" modeand a fully formed character printeroperating in its native high-qualitymode.

Bench 11

A popular approach used by dot-matrix printers in order to obtain abetter output quality is to print a lineand, after a very small vertical shift,reprint the same characters on top ofit. In this way, characters are printedfrom a denser matrix, which providesa better quality. In order to test theperformance penalty caused by thisoperating mode, after setting it, Ionce more printed a string of 60 Ason 50 consecutive lines. The bench-mark's results show clearly that thethroughput is, in general, a little lessthan half the standard one.

Bench 12

Some printers let the user select anoperating mode in which empha-sized and double-pass modes arecombined to obtain an even denserdot matrix and, consequently, a bet-ter correspondence quality. After thismode is set, this benchmark printsthe usual string of 60 As on 50 con-secutive lines. Suffering from a dou-ble overhead, the printers that usethis sophisticated operating modeoften perform slowly but sometimescompensate with outstanding printquality.

Bench 13

Most printers offer a compressedoperating mode that fits 132 charac-ters in an 8-inch line. This operatingmode sacrifices part of the qualityavailable in the standard printing

mode but shouldn't generate any ad-ditional overhead. Bench 13, basedon the traditional string of 60 Asprinted on 50 consecutive lines, con-firms that the printing time in com-pressed mode is often roughly equiv-alent to the printing time in standardmode.

Bench 14

In order to test the double-widthmode, I first activated it with the ap-propriate control codes and thenprinted a string of 40 As on 50 con-secutive lines, just as I did in Bench4. As standard double-width charac-ters use a horizontally expandedmatrix (double the standard one), 40characters cover the entire 8-inchwidth of the standard Europeanpaper. The benchmark's resultsdemonstrate that, as expected, theprinters' performance is almost halfthe basic one, estimated by Bench 4.

Other Considerations

Although I have examined andtested several printing possibilities, I

haven't covered the broad spectrumof possible applications and operat-ing modes of a modern printer.

Some modes (such as underlining,italics, slanted, etc.) haven't been con-sidered because, generally, they donot involve a performance degrada-tion of a printer. Their expected per-formance should be similar to theperformance measured for the stan-dard operating mode.

Some modes, obtainable through acombination of basic operatingmodes (such as double-width com-pressed) offer performances that canbe estimated by joining the bench-marks' results for their basicelements. Other modes, such ashigh-resolution graphics, have notbeen considered because only a fewof today's printers provide goodgraphics support as standard. Thosethat do show a large resolutionvariability that might have penalizedthe units with densest dot resolution.Today, quality rather than quantity isthe most relevant factor in graphicsprinting. This is probably also true

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for correspondence printing and forseveral basic printing applications.Benchmarking, then, is only a way toacquire more information, not tomake direct decisions based on quan-titative estimates.

Fully Formed Character Printers

To analyze fully formed characterprinters, I have to take into accountseveral new factors. These factors arenot relevant to benchmarking dot-matrix units but are very importantin evaluating the expected through-put of this group of printers.

Nowadays, the most popular typeof printer with fully formed charac-ters is the so-called daisywheelprinter. This technology is basedupon a printhead mechanism inwhich a small hammer hits a specificpetal of a daisywheel. Each one of atypical daisywheel's 96 petals carriesa solid font representation of a dif-ferent character. The character's im-age is transferred onto the paper afterthe petal is hit by the hammer, push-ing the character outline against theinked ribbon and onto the paper.

When a character is to be printed, thedaisywheel must be rotated so thatthe corresponding petal is positionedin front of the hammer. Only at thispoint can the hammer hit the petal.

Rotation of the daisywheel requiresa certain amount of time, correlatedwith the necessary angle of the rota-tion. When printing a sequence ofthe same character (e.g., a sequenceof zeros), after an initial setting noadditional rotational time is needed.In this case, the printer simply movesthe printhead one position horizon-tally and prints the character withouthaving to wait for any daisywheelrotation. When printing a sequenceof different characters, the printer hasto wait for the positioning of the ap-propriate petal in front of the ham-mer, an activity that is responsible forthe slower speed of daisywheelprinters.

The need to rotate a mechanicalprinting element in order to select thecharacter to be printed is common toall the fully formed character printersbased on different technologies.These include original teleprinter-

type units, the "ball" printers (IBMSelectric types), and the "artichoke"units, like the NEC Spinwriter. Giventhe existence and importance of this"rotational delay" in all the differenttypes of solid-font printers, the appli-cation of benchmark patterns origi-nally developed for matrix printersmakes very little sense. Not even anunscrupulous manufacturer of fullyformed character printers dares torate the speed of its units on the basisof repetitive, single-character bench-marks that would dramatically mis-represent their throughput.

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204 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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ence the results. To make the test alittle more realistic, you might printthe characters in a sequence createdby a random-number generator withequal probability of occurrence foreach character. Claude Shannon,called the father of informationscience, has termed this approachzero-order approximation. In TheMathematical Theory of Communication,written with Warren Weaver and firstpublished in 1949, Shannon used theproblem of approximating English asan example in his analysis of discrete,noiseless systems.

The problem of optimizing tele-graphic transmissions brought Shan-non to the more general analysis ofstatistical properties of English, withresults of great relevance to fullyformed character printers.

In telegraphy, as well as in printing,the messages to be transmitted orprinted consist of sequences of char-acters. As Shannon notes, "These se-quences are not completely random.In general they form sentences andhave the statistical structure of, say,English. The letter e occurs more fre-quently than a and the sequence thmore frequently than xp, etc." Thestatistical structure of text has beenused to optimize transmission; shortsymbols replace frequently occurringletters (the letter e is a single dot), andlonger ones replace infrequently oc-curring letters (q, x, and z arerepresented by longer sequences ofdots and dashes).

Similar knowledge of the statisticalproperties of English text has beenused with fully formed characterprinters to optimize the rotationaldelays of daisywheels and other unitswith rotating printheads. Because thecharacter e is used most frequently inEnglish (after the "space"), it hasbeen placed in a position to result in,on the average, the lowest rotationaldelay. All other characters have beenarranged according to their frequen-cy of use, with a few exceptions re-lated to some physical restraints ofthe daisy wheel. (It is sometimes dif-ficult to fit big characters in adjacentpetals without potential mechanicalinterference.)

With all this in mind, it is apparentthat a more realistic test than the

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zero-order approximation must takeinto consideration the relative fre-quency of each character in theEnglish language. In the first-orderapproximation of English, eachcharacter has its own probability ofoccurrence according to the statisticalanalysis of average English text. Therandom-text generator that createsthe benchmark sample to be printedtakes into account these different pro-babilities. With this approach, thebenchmark becomes more realisticand, if the probabilities are reallyrepresentative of average English text,the benchmark can approximate thereal performance of the fully formedcharacter printer being tested.

Not satisfied with the first-orderapproximation obtained with in-dependent characters "weighted"with frequencies of appearance inEnglish text, Shannon decided tostudy a second-order approximationthat considers the probabilities of se-quences of two letters (digrams).From statistical studies of the lan-guage, it is known that the digramsjb or jc never occur in English andthat th and ed occur very frequently;it is possible to achieve a betterstatistical approximation, along witha potentially better optimization.

In the second-order approximationof English, the random-text generatorconsiders not only the different fre-quencies of each character but alsothe probabilities of a character follow-ing the preceding one. The bench-mark text will have a digram structurethe same as in English and will be aneven better approximation of realtext. In the case of my benchmark,the second-order approximationreflects the correct character se-quences of the English language andeliminates unrealistic sequences suchas jb, jc, and the many others that canbe generated by the first-order ap-proximation random-text generator.

Of course, a similar approach to theone followed for the second-order ap-proximation can be adopted for athird-order approximation, basedupon the frequency of three-charac-ter sequences (trigrams). Fourth-order approximations can be ob-tained for four-character sequencesand so on for fifth-, sixth-, and, gen-

erally, nth-order approximations. Inpractice, highly accurate approxima-tion results are almost impossible toobtain due to the exponential growthof the frequency matrixes. A fourth-order correlation matrix for a 96-char-acter set would include 964(84,934,656) elements, each a floating-point number indicating the frequen-cy of a certain tetragram. Obviously,then, even a large number-crunchingsupercomputer could have troublewith such a huge matrix. Moreover,for the purpose of this article, the im-provement in the benchmark's ap-proximation of reality obtained by go-ing to third- and fourth-order approx-imation would be only minimal.After all, the main concern here is therotational delay from one character tothe following one while maintainingcorrect frequencies of character oc-currence and correct two-charactersequences.

Rather than face the huge complex-ities of fourth-order approximations,Shannon decided to adopt a differentapproach, leaving the character leveland passing to the word level. In-stead of approximating an Englishtext with random sequences of char-acters, he decided to make an ap-proximation with random sequencesof English words. Again, you canfollow a zero-order approximationapproach by choosing random wordsfrom a dictionary as if their fre-quencies were equal. A better ap-proach, though, is a first-order wordapproximation, in which words areweighed by the random-text genera-tor according to their frequency of oc-currence in average English. An evenbetter approach is a second-orderword approximation that takes intoaccount the word frequency and theprobability of a word to followanother word.

As an example of this second-orderapproach, Shannon supplies the fol-lowing nonsense sentence: The headand in frontal attack on an Englishwriter that the character of this pointis therefore another method for theletters that the time of whoever toldthe problem for an unexpected.

This sentence, which Shannonuses as an example of statistical ap-proximation to ordinary English text,

206 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

(la)

The head and in frontal attack on an english writer that the character of thispoint is therefore another method for the letters that the time of who ever toldthe problem for an unexpected. The head and in frontal attack on an english writerthat the character of this point is therefore another method for the letters thatthe time of who ever told the problem for an unexpected. The head and in frontalattack on an english writer that the character of this point is therefore anothermethod for the letters that the time of who ever told the problem for an unexpected.

(lb)

The head and in frontal attack on an english writer that the

character of this point is therefore another method for the

letters that the time of who ever told the problem for an unexpected. The head and in frontal attack on an english writer that the character of this point is therefore another method for the letters that the time of who ever told the problem for an unexpected. The head and in frontal attack on an english writer that the character of this point is thereforeanother method for the letters that the time of who ever told the problem for an unexpected.

Figure 1: The Shannon test (573 characters) at a width of 80 characters in la and 60 characters in lb.

has been adopted by almost all man-ufacturers of fully formed characterprinters for evaluating the perform-ance of products. Thus, the univer-sally adopted Shannon test for mea-suring the expected performance ofa fully formed character printer is nota test purposefully designed forbenchmarking. It is only an adoptedtest, derived from an example inShannon's book. When Shannonwrote his book, he had no intentionof specifying a printer benchmark for1980s fully formed character printers.

The main problems with the so-called Shannon average-English testare the incorrect statistical frequen-cies of characters with respect toaverage American-English text, andthe use of a limited subset of charac-ters. How much this distorts the eval-uation of a fully formed characterprinter's benchmark is hard to say,but it is obvious that the Shannontest is not at all the best possiblebenchmark for this type of printer.

Before trying to define a betterbenchmark, however, it's interestingto analyze in more detail the twomain limits of the Shannon test. Todo so, I considered the version of thetest used by Diablo Systems Inc. (seefigure 1). By counting the occurrenceof each alphabetical character (plus"space") in Shannon's test, I obtainedthe data shown in table 2, column 3.This frequency data then can be com-

pared with several other frequencydata computed by linguistic and be-havioral researchers.

Among the many efforts to estab-lish a "definitive" frequency count forwords and characters in English, themost comprehensive work is the re-

search done at Brown University andpublished in 1967 by H. Kucera andW. H. Francis, Computational Analysisof Present-Day American English. Ahuge amount of English text (approx-imately 1 million words) from a largevariety of authors and sources

American

First-Order

Fourth-Order

ASCII

Shannon

English

English

Shakespeare

Character

Number

Test

Average

Test

Test

space

32

18.421

17.241

16.500

18.205

a

97

6.316

6.300

5.700

7.712

b

98

0.526

1.279

1.600

2.023

c

99

2.105

2.574

1.600

1.517

d

100

2.632

3.274

4.300

3.793

e

101

12.105

10.444

9.300

9.482

f

102

3.158

1.939

2.000

2.528

g

103

0.526

1.618

1.700

1.264

h

104

7.895

4.560

5.000

3.666

i

105

3.684

6.079

6.600

4.425

i

106

0.000

0.132

0.200

0.253

k

107

0.526

0.540

0.700

0.759

1

108

2.632

3.404

3.900

3.413

m

109

1.579

2.108

1.900

4.425

n

110

5.263

5.889

5.500

5.057

0

111

6.842

6.331

7.200

6.700

P

112

1.579

1.682

1.600

1.138

q

113

0.000

0.089

0.100

0.000

r

114

6.842

5.097

4.500

4.172

s

115

2.105

5.380

5.900

6.068

1

116

12.631

7.725

8.600

6.827

u

117

0.526

2.256

1.800

3.287

V

118

0.526

0.827

0.800

0.506

w

119

1.053

1.565

0.900

1.138

X

120

0.526

0.163

0.200

0.126

y

121

0.000

1.424

1.900

1.517

z

122

0.000

0.078

0.000

0.000

Table 2: A comparison of character frequencies for the foui

daisywheel-print

ir tests discussed

in the text.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 207

131211

LEGEND:

AMERICAN ENGLISH AVERAGESHANNON TEST

12

10

m n o p qCHARACTER

Figure 2: American English average character frequency compared with the Shannon test.

(literature, newspapers, etc.) wasanalyzed and a frequency countmade for each of the approximately40,000 different words.

In 1976, R. Solo and J. King, fromthe University of Idaho and theUniversity of Chicago, respectively,published a character-oriented fre-quency analysis based on the wordlist of Kucera and Francis. Here's anexample of the procedure for count-ing total frequency of characters. Theword note has a frequency of 127 permillion. The frequency totals for theletters n, o, t, and e are incrementedby 127. This procedure was used foreach word on the Kucera and Francislist.

Unfortunately, the analysis by Soloand King on character, digram, andtrigram frequencies, developed toanalyze the structure of words,doesn't take into account the "space,"a very important element in aprinter's benchmark. This unfor-tunate omission can be corrected inthe table for character frequencies byinserting a mathematically deter-mined space frequency and by recal-culating all the other frequenciesaccordingly.

A correct space frequency for the

English language can be computedfrom the same work by Kucera andFrancis that was used by Solo andKing for their frequency counts.Dividing the 4,576,585 characters inthe sample by its 953,456 words re-sults in an average word length of 4.8characters, which can also be used asa letter-to-space ratio. Recomputingthe Solo and King frequencies andincluding spaces results in the datashown in column 4 of table 2, whichmight be considered the best basicfrequency count for the purposes ofthis article. Comparing this data withthat calculated from the Shannon test(see figure 2), it's evident that Shan-non's sample is not a particularlygood approximation of character fre-quencies in average English text.

Since 1948, when Shannon wrotehis book, computers have greatlysimplified the statistical analysis andsimulation of text, and, taking advan-tage of such resources, it is certainlypossible to define a better bench-mark. Following the pattern used byShannon, it is possible to constructfirst-, second-, and third-order char-acter approximations based on thework by Solo and King for character,digram, and trigram frequencies and

first-order word approximationsbased on the work on word frequen-cies by Kucera and Francis.

At this point, with a simple pro-gram based on a random generatorthat considers the different probabil-ities of each character, it is possibleto create a first-order character ap-proximation of English text to be usedas an alternative benchmark to Shan-non's test. The approximate1000-character text shown in figure 3is the result of such a weighted ran-dom-text generation and, although itis certainly not a piece of fine litera-ture, it can be used as a first alter-native benchmark. Analyzing itscharacter frequencies, reported in col-umn 5 of table 2 and in figure 4, it isapparent that this first-order char-acter text offers a better approxima-tion of average English character fre-quencies than Shannon's test text.

As previously discussed, second-,third- , and fourth-order characterapproximations would provide aneven better sample text. Unfortu-nately, digram and trigram counts(tetragrams are not available) fromSolo and King do not include spacesand, in this instance, there is no wayto recompute relative frequencies as

208 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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yteolhose feens omnootcsesh eu oha eb c o mfaes ennyntteyifl hhbvy hotahltllltt dtnmd vnsdutisd aegnfiotrcn a spv iyei fethtlngiorrn nept ntk aenaovmhot enilegeariontessptawoorf rairarug ome itmbadtt lhadutjhttssdltlanmaoaldiotorpernhti

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u oewgedatelytseh ithhindftex dsss luo pet hal itdhofwabluq 1 onraes dt t atlon osasa hmrytndntei gas geciooriiiakoomg fn eoicatiavyeewedry tms nedabeido

Figure 3: American English first-order random approximation (1000 characters).

I did for single-character counts.Thus, it is not possible to create asecond- or third-order character ap-proximation based on their extensivework. Other researchers, working onsmaller samples, have fortunatelyconsidered spaces in their digram,trigram, and (also) tetragram countsand have been able to create second-,third-, and fourth-order random ap-proximations of English text. Amongthese researchers is W. R. Bennet Jr.,whose work at Yale University re-sulted in the 1976 publication of Scien-tific and Engineering Problem-Solvingwith the Computer. In part of this

book, Bennet considers the popularidea that enough monkeys, givenenough time, could pound away attypewriters and eventually reproducethe great works of literature.

Instead of messing with a multi-tude of monkeys working at type-writers, Bennet developed a series ofsimulation programs to do the samejob in a much faster and neater way.An early program simulated a mon-key working on a traditional type-writer with equal probability for eachcharacter (zero-order approximation).Of course, even with the fastest com-puter, Bennet probably would still be

waiting for a barely acceptable pieceof literature resulting from thisprogram.

A second program introduced avirtual typewriter with a differentprobability for each character. For thissimulation, Bennet used frequenciesfrom Act III of Shakespeare's Hamlet,a 35,224-character text. Even with thisapproach (as you can imagine look-ing at our own first-order approxima-tion text in figure 3), Bennet had lit-tle hope of obtaining a readable pieceof literature, let alone competing withShakespeare. Using more advancedvirtual typewriters, capable of pro-ducing second-, third-, and fourth-order approximations, Bennet's"monkeys" showed significant im-provements, producing almost intel-ligible fourth-order text (90 percent ofthe words appear in an English dic-tionary).

Thanks to Bennet's research, it ispossible to use a fourth-order ran-dom (monkey) approximation ofShakespeare's Hamlet, which, inturn, is a good example (especially inliterary terms) of English prose. Sucha simulated text, as published byBennet, is shown in figure 5. Com-paring this text's frequencies withthose of Solo and King (see figure 6)reveals a closer similarity than inShannon's text or in my own first-

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LEGEND:

AMERICAN ENGLISH AVERAGE

-

FIRST-ORDER ENGLISH APPROXIMATION

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CHARACTER

Figure 4: American English average character frequency compared with first-order approximation.

210 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

order approximation. Consequently,I adopted this text as an additionalbenchmark for measuring the perfor-mance of fully formed characterprinters.

So far, I have considered onlylowercase English text with a charac-ter set limited to the 26 basic charac-ters of the alphabet plus the space.But almost any actual text includesuppercase characters, digits, andpunctuation marks. Periods, com-mas, and apostrophes generally havea higher frequency than characterssuch as q, j, and x. Moreover, inalmost all business letters andmanuals, for which fully formedcharacter printers are primarily used,digits have an appreciable frequencyof appearance.

Unfortunately, even with severalvisits to computer science, linguistics,and English departments at Stanfordand the University of California atBerkeley, I couldn't find a goodanalysis of character frequencies thatincluded capital letters, punctuationmarks, and digits. A long computer-ized search through the comprehen-sive Language and Language Be-havior Abstracts DataBank didn'tsolve the problem either. I also struckout with direct inquiries to com-panies such as Diablo, which prob-ably has this data but considers itproprietary.

a go this bare and judgement of timedious retch and not lordwhal if the easelves and do and make and base gathem i aybeatellous we play means holy fool mour work from inmostbed be confould have may judgement was it massure's tolady would hat prime that's our thrown and did wife father'stlivength sleep tith i ambition'to thin him and force and law'smay but smell so and spursely signor gent much chief mixturnecstance of the me to like crafts did too my mome fair your dohimself it perce as makes so but our heart ourself and bearmont i does unsee a sent statio hamlet the is tongs musincehyperationse and hamlet heave madamnable must as frank onhecat now by and stings he's borruptis free our els the speakit soul o broad fore you as aught of ment ape a broom modestillbe but is man effence are

Figure 5: Fourth-order approximation of Shakespeare's Hamlet (796 characters).

Because I wanted to have at leastone benchmark text with an ex-tended character set, I decided to cal-culate my own frequencies througha computerized analysis of an Englishtext. For a change, I decided not touse Shakespeare or other classicalliterature but opted for a differentkind of text: the on-line Unixmanuals. This choice means that thesample benchmark I eventually ob-tained is not an approximation ofaverage English but an approxima-tion of some technical computerliterature; frequencies are skeweddue to computer-jargon characters.Speaking of Unix, the frequencies ofslashes and backslashes are muchhigher than in an average Englishtext. Nevertheless, because a lot of

fully formed character printers areused to print computer-relatedmanuals, reports, and articles, abenchmark approximating this en-vironment might be appropriate andinteresting.

In order to build a representativefrequency table for the potential 256ASCII (American National StandardCode for Information Interchange)characters, I have analyzed (using aPDP-11/70) a sequence of over 1V2million characters from the Unix on-line manuals. The results from thisanalysis are shown in table 3, whichlists the frequencies for the 96 ASCIIcharacters (codes 32 to 127) relevantfor fully formed character printers.These frequencies have been recal-culated from the raw Unix analysis

CO

wo

ooo

cr

LU

m

3Z

11

10987654321

LEGEND

-

AMCDIP AM CKtm ICLI AWCDAAC

SHAKESPEARE TEST

1\

\

/"A7 \

\\

/ y

A

\\

\\ft

/

It//

- \t

V A

/1

\

f s

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//1l11

\

1

/

1

1

91

V*^""

I

\

1 i

11

1

1

1

1

\ r

10

J

I

m

n

0 pCHARACTER

t

w

Figure 6: American English average character frequency compared with fourth-order Shakespeare approximation.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 211

Character

ASCII Number Frequency Approximation

Character ASCII Number Frequency

Approximation

space

32 29.694 28.300

P 80

0.313

0.100

!

33 0.011 0.000

Q 81

0.007

0.000

"

34 0.104 0.100

R 82

0.151

0.200

#

35 0.016 0.000

S 83

0.448

0.300

$

36 0.019 0.000

T 84

0.397

1.000

%

37 0.032 0.000

U 85

0.156

0.100

&

38 0.007 0.000

V 86

0.022

0.000

1

39 0.243 0.400

W 87

0.041

0.000

(

40 0.441 0.800

X 88

0.092

0.000

)

41 0.445 0.100

Y 89

0.055

0.000

*

+

42 0.065 0.100

43 0.026 0.000

Z 90[ 91

0.0160.073

0.0000.000

1

44 0.554 0.800

\ 92

0.017

0.000

-

45 0.463 0.500

] 93

0.072

0.000

46 0.975 1.300

94

0.008

0.000

/

47 0.463 0.600

_ 95

2.164

2.200

0

48 0.191 0.200

96

0.126

0.100

1

49 0.490 0.400

a 97

4.350

4.500

2

50 0.211 0.300

b 98

0.916

0.900

3

51 . 0.082 0.000

c 99

2.067

2.200

45

52 0.069 0.100

53 0.092 0.100

d 100e 101

2.2387.681

1.8009.400

6

54 0.038 0.000

f 102

1.587

1.000

7

55 0.048 0.000

g 103

1.061

1.500

8

56 0.109 0.100

h 104

2.198

2.000

9

57 0.027 0.000

i 105

4.251

4.100

58 0.073 0.000

j 106

0.044

0.000

,'

59 0.110 0.100

k 107

0.290

0.200

<

60 0.025 0.000

I 108

2.589

2.800

=

61 0.033 0.000

m 109

1.817

2.000

>

?

62 0.028 0.000

63 0.014 0.100

n 110o 111

4.1533.935

4.6003.200

@

64 0.006 0.000

p 112

1.496

2.200

A

65 0.233 0.300

q 113

0.071

0.000

B

66 0.075 0.000

r 114

4.006

3.700

C

67 0.197 0.100

s 115

4.057

4.300

D

68 0.146 0.100

t 116

5.286

5.700

E

69 0.315 0.000

u 117

1.742

1.100

F

70 0.080 0.100

v 118

0.439

0.300

G

71 0.061 0.200

w 119

0.661

0.800

H

I

72 0.046 0.100

73 0.452 0.500

x 120y 121

0.2720.823

0.6000.900

J

74 0.011 0.000

z 122

0.073

0.100

K

75 0.023 0.000

{ 123

0.009

0.000

L

76 0.127 0.000

| 124

0.024

0.000

M

77 0.199 0.100

} 125

0.009

0.000

N

78 0.284 0.100

126

0.009

0.000

0

79 0.229 0.100

DEL 127

0.000

0.000

Table 3: The

frequencies and approximations of characters in on-li

ne Unix manuals. Nearly V/i

megabytes were

analyzed to compute

this extended

frequency table that includes numbers, punctuation r

narks, and other symbols.

212 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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xr_mfamr? _/_hp lghmlr rTrb Tt lb 1 i fa Hr Thiyits-yeae ca ux alt aesefess sig uip tter' Taiaektn i rnu ey_e aTscteiadlnoh i*ns gse Ti mugans 4hee_a_ nelht;rons wnlo n egota If/ esg (ss ec (tseattrr ete ig m e(elslon2fbte

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Figure 7: First-order Unix on-line manual approximation (1000 characters).

after removing all control charactersand marks below ASCII code 32.

From this new frequency table I im-plemented a random-text generatorto produce a 1000-character bench-mark text that is a first-order approx-imation of the Unix-English languagein the on-line Unix manuals (seefigure 7). The main distortion of thesample is shown by the very high fre-quency of spaces, due to the exten-sive formatting structure used in themanuals. Except for a few specialUnix characters, the relative frequen-cies of the other characters aregenerally similar to those from the

Solo and King analysis (once thehigher frequency of spaces is ac-counted for). On the whole, the ap-proximated Unix-English text, whichincludes digits, punctuation marks,and uppercase characters, is a dif-ferent and interesting benchmark,capable of testing the whole rota-tional spectrum of a fully formedcharacter printhead.

The final benchmark sample that Ifelt should be included in thisanalysis is a spreadsheet-like output.As in the benchmark used for matrixprinters, I have used a table of 20rows of eight numbers each. Each

row is divided into eight columns of10 characters each (including spaces).Each cell of the hypothetical spread-sheet output includes a randomlygenerated integer number in the0-100,000 range. This benchmarkgives us a good idea of numericaloutput performance and of a printer'sspace-skipping capabilities. A samplerun is shown in figure 8. Table 4shows the results of running thesefully formed character printer bench-marks on two daisywheel printers.

Conclusion

Printer benchmarking first must bedivided according to the printingtechnology employed. Then, appro-priate tests must be developed tosimulate the activities for which theprinter was designed. For dot-matrixtypes, printing speed, intelligence,and printing modes should be ex-amined. Character sequence has lit-tle or no effect on speed in this typeof printer. Daisywheel printers needcarefully designed benchmarks thatapproximate the occurrence frequen-cy of native (in this case, English) lan-guage characters because printwheelrotation limits performance. ■

Sergio Mello-Grand (1143 Quince Ave., Sunny-vale, CA 94087) is the U.S. editor for the Italiantechnical magazines Informatica Oggi and Bit.

65186

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Figure 8: A spreadsheet simulation featuring eight columns of five-digit random numbers with filling blanks (1600 characters).

214 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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00:44

13.0

01:24

6.8

Shannon Test (60 characterswide), 573 characters plusCR/LF

00:16

35.8

00:13

44.1

00:20

28.6

00:18

31.8

00:29

19.8

00:45

12.7

01:25

6.7

First-Order English RandomApproximation (60 characterswide), 1000 characters plusCR/LF

00:28

35.7

00:24

41.7

00:35

28.6

00:31

32.3

00:50

20.0

01:18

12.8

02:30

6-7

Fourth-Order ShakespeareRandom Approximation (60characters wide), 796characters plus CR/LF

00:23

34.6

00:19

41.9

00:29

27.4

00:25

31.8

00:41

19.4

01:03

12.6

01:58

6.7

First-Order Unix On-LineManual Random Approximation(60 characters wide), 1000 plusCR/LF

00:31

32.3

00:24

41.7

00:37

27.0

00:31

32.3

00:52

19.2

01:16

13.2

02:28

6.8

Spreadsheet Simulation (20rows of eight 10-character col-umns with five-digit randomnumbers and spaces), 1600characters plus CR/LF

00:29

55.2

00:27

59.3

00:38

42.1

00:39

41.0

01:30

17.8

01:33

17.2

03:22

7.9

Table 4: A comparison of seven d"carriage return and linefeed."

aisywheel print

ers using the I

enchmark test

; discussed in the text. CR/LF, in the first column, means

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BenchmarkingFORTRAN Compilers

Insights into comparing FORTRAN compilers

FORTRAN, or FORmula TRANsla-tion, is a high-level programming lan-guage. This means it is "easy to use"or "designed for people," in contrastwith low-level machine language,which is difficult to use. Unfortunate-ly, computers don't understand FOR-TRAN—they understand only ma-chine language. To convert FOR-TRAN to machine language, we usea FORTRAN compiler.

FORTRAN was designed to beeasier to use than machine language,but it was also designed to makescientific formulas easy to program.However, because scientific formulascan be long, FORTRAN programsalso need to be fast. Otherwise, aweather-forecasting program mighttake 20 hours to come up with a fore-cast you need in 10 hours.

This is where benchmark testing ofFORTRAN compilers can be useful,because a benchmark can tell youwhich compiler creates the fastest

by Avram Tetewsky

code. In a compiler benchmark test,you present the same FORTRANprogram—the benchmark—to severalcompilers, compile the program, andrun the resulting machine code fromeach compiler. The compiler thatgenerates the fastest-running ma-chine-code version of the benchmarkis the winner. Some classic bench-mark programs are the Sieve ofEratosthenes (a method of findingprime numbers) and Whetstone (amix of different arithmetic computa-tions originally done in the ALGOLcomputer language).

However, these benchmarks havea shortcoming in that they use onlylocal data, that is, small amounts ofdata located in one area of memoryI believe that, to be fair, a benchmarkshould also test how efficiently acompiled program deals with largeamounts of data located in all areasof memory. After all, compilers mayhave different ways of managing

Compiler

Microsoft FORTRAN and LINK-80Supersoft FORTRAN-66 and LINK-V2Microsoft FORTRAN-77 and LINK-V2DEC FORTRAN-77 for VAX 11/780IBM VS FORTRAN-77 for MVS 370operating system and LINKEDIT

"Not including operating-system space; V indicates virtual

Disk

Space

(bytes)

Library Spaceon Disk(bytes)

RAM

Space*

(bytes)

40K89K240K208K

30K117K124K1460K

48K128K128KV500K

818K

924K

V 2048K

Table 1: Disk and RAM requirements for FORTRAN compilers. For the mainframe systems,specifying RAM size is difficult because of the virtual-memory capabilities of the main-frame. (Virtual-memory capability allows a computer to run programs larger than its physicalmemory can hold.)

large amounts of memory; someways may be more efficient thanothers. Finding out which way isbetter can be very important if youintend to use your FORTRAN com-piler on programs that use a lot ofdata.

Another shortcoming of the classicbenchmarks is that they do not testthe compile and link times of a com-piler. In other words, while theclassic benchmarks do tell you howfast the compiled program runs, theydo not tell you how long it took thecompiler to generate the compiledprogram. Without this information,you may discover that your superfastcode takes a superlong time tocompile.

Finally, the classic benchmarks donot measure how well compilershandle I/O (input/output) and array-subscript operations. If they per-formed this measurement, youwould know how well a compilerhandles programs that have manyI/O statements and matrix opera-tions.

To test how well a FORTRAN com-piler manages large amounts of datafrom all over memory (called globaldata), how fast it compiles, and howfast the compiled code runs, I de-cided to write my own benchmarks,the results of which are presented inthis article. I would have included thelistings of the benchmark programs,too, but they are longer than this ar-ticle and there is no room for them.Also, I could not benchmark com-plete I/O and matrix operations

218 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Comments and

Compiler

Setting

Setting Definitions

Microsoft FORTRAN

None

INTEGER*2 defaults

Microsoft FORTRAN-77

Always optimizes

$STORAGE:4

INTEGERM by default

SNODEBUG

No subscript checking

SNOFLOATCALLS

This gives fastest 8087 support

CALL MBPRQQ

Treat R*4 and R*8 as declared

Supersoft FORTRAN-66

Defaults to INTEGER*2There is no INTEGERM

CALL SUBOF°/o

No subscript checking

DEC VAX FORTRAN-77

FORTRAN/nodebug/optimize/no check

IBM VS FORTRAN-77

Optimization = 2

Choose this setting for reliability

Table 2: Compiler option

settings.

because of a lack of time.

You'll notice that I benchmarkedmainframe as well as microcomputercompilers. I did this to give you anidea of how closely microcomputer-compiler systems are approachingmainframe-compiler systems interms of execution speed.

Besides benchmarking, anotherway to compare compilers is by theamount of disk and RAM (random-access read/write memory) space thatthey need. For your convenience,table 1 lists the amount of disk andRAM storage space that each com-piler needs. This is essential informa-tion to have when you read thebenchmarks because you may findthat the compiler that did so well inthe benchmarks won't fit in yourcomputer.

All the benchmarks in the worldwon't mean a thing if your compilerdoes not compile standard FOR-TRAN. The two standard versionsare FORTRAN-66 and FORTRAN-77.The numbers stand for 1966 and 1977,the years in which FORTRAN wasstandardized by ANSI (AmericanNational Standards Institute). For asizable fee, the National Bureau ofStandards Software Test Center (5203Leesburg Pike, Suite 1100, FallsChurch, VA 22041) will test a com-piler to ensure that it meets ANSIspecifications. Among microcom-puter software companies, onlyDigital Research has decided to bravethis test; most mainframe compilersare already certified. If Digital Re-search's compiler (which is not yetavailable) passes the test, it will be avirtual guarantee that its compiler

will run most existing standard FOR-TRAN code. None of the microcom-puter compilers I benchmarked havebeen tested by the National Bureauof Standards, but they have beentested by the marketplace, so you canbe reasonably sure that they are allpretty much standard FORTRAN.

To Be Fair ...

So many variables are in the typicalhardware-compiler system that it'sdifficult to make a fair comparison.For instance, when you compare acompiler that runs on the IBM Per-sonal Computer with one that runson an Otrona Attache, you are com-paring more than the compilers—youare comparing the computers, too. Tobe as fair as possible in my bench-

mark comparisons and be sure thatI'm comparing oranges to oranges,I've tried to set as many variables aspossible the same way from compilerto compiler. For instance, each com-piler has a variety of switch settingsthat disable or enable options such asoptimization, subscript checking,and default storage. I used the set-tings shown in table 2.

When I measured execution times,I was careful to separate operating-system and I/O-dependent overheadfrom the results. For example, mostmainframe systems are multitasking,so that the computer sandwiches inyour program with several others. Ifyou used a stopwatch to measure thetime it took the mainframe computerto run your program, you would ac-tually be measuring the time thecomputer took to run your program,several other programs, and theoperating-system program that keepsthe whole mess straight.

To accurately measure the execu-tion time of my mainframe bench-marks, I used job-step time, whichincludes only a small amount ofoperating-system time. In addition, Iperformed the tests at 6:00 a.m. to in-crease the likelihood that no othertasks would be running on the com-puter. I also set up the measurementsso that I/O to the terminal was ex-cluded. For example, it took my DEC

Computation Time in

Microseconds

Type

Type

Microsoft FORTRAN

of

of

4.77 MHz

8.0 MHz

DEC VAX

IBM 3081D

Data

Computation

8088 & 8087

8086 & 8087

FORTRAN

FORTRAN

local

addition

28.5

17.0

0.3

0.18

global

addition

44.5

26.5

1.3

0.57

local

subtraction

30.2

18.0

0.8

0.26

global

subtraction

45.3

27.0

1.8

0.58

local

multiplication

31.9

19.0

0.5

0.36

global

multiplication

46.1

27.5

2.8

0.66

local

division

53.7

32.0

5.1

0.84

global

division

68.0

40.5

5.9

1.04

local

cosine

721

430.0

96.31

6.51

global

cosine

758

452.0

103.8

6.83

local

arc cosine

551

329.0

94.6

11.01

global

arc cosine

588

351.0

98.31

11.40

local

arc tangent

278

166.5

31.4

4.99

global

arc tangent

317

189.0

33.5

5.48

local

exponential

499

298.0

48.9

8.98

global

exponential

536

320.0

52.9

9.31

local

natural log.

467

279.0

45.7

7.77

global

natural log.

506

302.5

49.4

8.36

local

square root

138

82.5

36.7

6.34

global

square root

176

105.5

49.6

7.09

Table 3:

Single-precision computation speed with local and global data (global

data is labeled

COMMON in FORTRAN).

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 219

Listing 1: The Timer routine for Microsoft FORTRAN version 3.1.

EXTERNAL TICKERS

INTEGER*4 ITIME1, ITIME2, CENTI

CALL TICKER(ITIME1)

CALL TICKER(ITIME2)CENTI = ITIME2 - ITIME1

TICKER BY W. CLAFF FOR MICROSOFT FORTRAN V3

CONTACT THE BOSTON COMPUTER SOCIETY

ONE CENTER PLAZA BOSTON MASS 02108

IBM-SCIENCE SUBGROUP FOR MORE INFORMATION

EXTRACT TIME FROM DOS

CONVERT BCD TIME FROM DOS TO CENTISECONDS

TICKERS

SEGMENT

'CODE'

PUBLIC

TICKER

TICKER

PROC

FAR

PUSH

BP

MOV

BP,

SP

PUSH

AX

PUSH

BX

PUSH

cx

PUSH

DX

MOV

AH,

0 2CH

INT

021H

XCHG

CX,

DX

MOV

AL,

CH

MOV

BL,

100

MUL

BL

MOV

CH,

0

ADD

CX,

AX

MOV

AL,

DH

MOV

BL,

60

MUL

BL

MOV

DH,

0

ADD

AX,

DX

MOV

DX,

0

MOV

BX,

6000

MUL

BX

ADD

CX,

AX

ADC

DX,

0

LES

BX,

DWORD PTR 6[BP]

MOV

ES:

[BX],CX

MOV

ES:

[BX+2],DX

POP

DX

POP

CX

POP

BX

POP

AX

POP

BP

RET

4

TICKER

ENDP

TICKERS

ENDSEND

(Digital Equipment Corporation) VAXcomputer 3 seconds to perform abenchmark and an additional 3 sec-onds to update the terminal with theresults. If I hadn't taken steps toseparate the terminal I/O time fromthe true results, I would have comeup with a misleading benchmarktime of 6 seconds.

With microcomputer benchmarks,most of the results can be obtainedwith a stopwatch. You can also checkthe time automatically with theSupersoft compiler's timer call if youare using the Supersoft compiler orwith the Timer routine in listing 1 ifyou are using the Microsoft compiler.(W. Claff, the author of Timer, notesthat some systems are more accuratethan others. For example, an IBM PCwith or without a Quadboard is ac-curate to only 0.05 second, while aSeattle Gazelle is accurate to 0.01 sec-ond.) The only benchmark that isbest timed with a software timer isthe global- versus local-data bench-mark. This is because of the shorttimes involved.

I usually did not include the timeto load information from the micro-computer's disks when I measuredcompiling and linking time. Evenwhen I did include the loading time,it made little difference becausemicrocomputer compile and linktimes are relatively long compared todisk-load times. I attempted to havescratch files on one drive and thesource on the other to minimize disk-drive head-movement times.

You may notice in the benchmarkresults that I mention an 8-MHz 8087arithmetic processor chip. Althoughthis item is not yet available, it soonwill be. To calculate the effect of anarithmetic coprocessor, I took the fac-tual increase in compiler speeds thatsuch a coprocessor affords at 4- and6-MHz clock speeds and extrapolatedthe increase to 8 MHz.

Benchmark Results

Tables 3 and 4 show the differencesin computation speed when data islocal or global. To get a good feel forthe difference, I used many differenttypes of algebraic and trigonometriccomputations with both single- anddouble-precision numbers.

220 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE February 1984 221

r

Computation Time in

Microseconds

Type

Type

Microsoft FORTRAN

of

of

4.77 MHz

8.0 MHz

DEC VAX

IBM 3081D

Data

Computation

8088 & 8087

8086 & 8087

FORTRAN

FORTRAN

local

addition

31.0

18.5

2.4

0.16

global

addition

46.2

27.5

4.7

0.47

local

subtraction

31.9

19.0

2.5

0.28

global

subtraction

46.1

27.5

5.0

0.34

local

multiplication

33.5

20.0

5.5

0.53

global

multiplication

47.8

28.5

6.6

0.70

local

division

55.3

33.0

8.9

1.20

global

division

69.6

41.5

11.3

1.49

local

cosine

736

439

231

9.26

global

cosine

766

457

234

9.90

local

arc cosine

581

347

148

16.90

global

arc cosine

612

365

150

17.37

local

arc tangent

303

181

52.7

5.91

global

arc tangent

332

198

55.7

6.32

local

exponential

525

313

90.9

10.63

global

exponential

555

331

94.1

11.26

local

natural log.

494

295

86.4

11.45

global

natural log.

523

312

98.3

11.90

local

square root

152

91

49.0

8.70

global

square root

183

109

54.0

9.23

average

ncrease

in time due to

use of global data

22.6

13.5

3.7

0.38

Table 4

Double-precision

computation speed

with local anc

global data

Notice that the microcomputercompiler is much slower than themainframe compilers. Also, on allmachines global data does indeedtake longer to process. But the mostimportant point of this table is howmuch longer one compiler takes toprocess global data than anothercompiler. The average increase incomputing time due to global data isshown at the bottom of the table.There, you see that the IBM 3081Dcomputer and its FORTRAN com-piler take the least additional time tohandle global data.

Table 5 shows the results of thecompile- and link-timing tests. I alsolisted the sizes of the compiled codefor the smallest FORTRAN bench-mark program that I could write. Thebenchmark program I used just addstwo floating-point numbers togetherand uses a formatted WRITE state-ment to send the output to thescreen.

What Your Benchmark Will Never Tell You

You can't depend on benchmarks to makeyour mind up for you because some thingscan't be benchmarked, such as ease of useand suitability. During my testing of FOR-TRAN compilers, I formed some opinionsand made some observations.

Microsoft FORTRAN, Version3.44 for CP/M-80 Systems

Despite an error in format-repetition fac-tors, lack of complex variables, and no back-spacing on sequential data files, this is asolid product. While it does have INTE-GERS variables, it does not allow forINTEGERS do-loop control. In addition,you must follow a rigid ordering of state-ments, the worst being that all declarationsmust appear before the COMMON state-ments. Finally, you are limited to 64K bytesminus the CP/M operating-system dataplus code. Unfortunately, LINK-80 steals13K bytes of this space.

On the plus side, it has a fast compileand link time, requires only a smallamount of disk space, and, with the addi-tion of Phoenix's PLINK-I1, an overlaylinker, you can build some extremely so-phisticated programs. Alas, Microsoft nolonger updates FORTRAN.

Microsoft FORTRAN-77 ANSISubset, Version 3.1 for MS-DOS

This compiler, after several miserable

releases, works well. The manual is of highquality, the code it produces is very fast,and the price is right at $350.

The major shortcoming is that this two-pass compiler produces scratch files thatare about two to three times larger thanthe input source file. Besides taking a longtime to compile, dual 350K-byte floppy-diskdrives are inadequate for large programs.High-performance machines such as theIBM PC XT, Seattle Gazelle (hard-disk or8-inch drives), or an Otrona 8:16 with96-TPI drives might be a better choice. ForPC owners, a 3Z0K-byte drive C: (RAM)disk would also work (power supplypermitting).

Finally, the restriction that no array canbe larger than 64K bytes, and that multi-ple large arrays must be in separate labeledCOMMON blocks, still prevents one fromrunning some mainframe programs.Microsoft is working on new versions thatwill ease this restriction and also supportthe COMPLEX variable type.

Supersoft FORTRAN-66, Version1.07 for MS-DOS

The main virtue of this compiler is thatit can be used on a dual 350K-byte floppy-disk system. While it has many nice ex-tensions to the FORTRAN-66 language,too many of them are nonstandard. Super-soft has fixed many of the problems in ver-

sion 2.1, now in beta test. In addition, IBMPC graphics will be supported, and arewrite of the manual is promised.

Supersoft FORTRAN limits programs to64K bytes of data and 64K bytes of code.Although this compiler has COMPLEXvariables, it lacks INTEGERS variables.In an attempt to ensure that only the sub-routines used by a program would be in-cluded in the executable file, Supersoftmade the poor design decision to automat-ically break up object modules into separatefiles for each subroutine. This creates amess at link time.

Digital Research FORTRAN-77,for CP/M-86 and MS-DOS

This will be available early in 1984.While I have received the manuals (theyare excellent), I can only relay the companyanswers to my questions at this time.

This is a full ANSI-77 FORTRAN with8087 support. Large memory models areincluded. The total number of elements inany one array can't exceed 64K bytes. Inaddition, DR1 claims that the scratch filesare % to Vi of the input source file size,so a dual 350K-byte system should be ade-quate. DRI FORTRAN programs can alsocall routines written in DRI C or 8086assembly language.

222 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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3M

Source

Pass 1 Rel Pass 2 Object COM/EXE

File

Compile File Compile File Link File

Size

Time Size Time Size Time Size

Compiler (K bytes) (seconds) (K bytes) (seconds) (K bytes) (seconds) (K bytes)

Microsoft FORTRAN

and

Microsoft Linker

for CP/M-80

(with floppy disk) 2*

7 2 - — 13 8

Microsoft FORTRAN-77

and

Microsoft Linker

for MS-DOS

(with hard disk) 0.25

8 1.38 13 0.84" 40 31

Supersoft FORTRAN-66

and

Microsoft Linker

for MS-DOS

(with hard disk) 0.25

5 0.5 5 0.75 43 20

"This size is due to the operating system rather than the compiler

**A 15K-byte scratch file was also used

Table 5: The compile and link times for three compilers, as well as the size of the output

files for the smallest program I could write.

Compiler

Hardware

Execution Time

Microsoft

4-MHz Z80A'

40 min

FORTRAN

4-MHz Z80A with 9511

and 9512 coprocessors

8 min, 38.0 sec

Microsoft

4.7-MHz 8088 without 8087

10 min

FORTRAN-77

4.7-MHz 8086 without 8087

6 min, 44.0 sec

4.7-MHz 8088 with 8087

57.0 sec

4.7-MHz 8086 with 8087

40.7 sec

4.7-MHz 8088 with in-line 8087

33.0 sec

4.7-MHz 8086 with in-line 8087

26.7 sec

8-MHz 8086 without 8087

4 min, 1.3 sec

8-MHz 8086 with 8087

24.3 sec

8-MHz 8086 with in-line 8087

15.7 sec

Supersoft

4.7-MHz 8088 without 8087

7 min, 40.0 sec

FORTRAN-66

4.7-MHz 8086 without 8087

6 min, 50.0 sec

4.7-MHz 8088 with 8087

2 min, 1.0 sec

4.7-MHz 8086 with 8087

1 min, 32.0 sec

8-MHz 8086 without 8087

3 min, 29.0 sec

8-MHz 8086 with 8087

55.1 sec

Unix FORTRAN-77

10-MHz 68000 software

2 min, 14.0 sec

DEC VAX FORTRAN-77

DEC VAX 11/780 with floating point

3.0 sec

IBM FORTRAN-66

IBM 4341 Model I with floating point

2.3 sec

IBM FORTRAN-77

IBM 3081D with floating point

0.3 sec

Table 6: Compiled IEEE

program execution times. "In-line 8087"

means that the com-

piler has been set to assume that an 8087 coprocessor is available.

The clear winner in compile andlink time is Microsoft's FORTRANcompiler for CP/M-80 computers. Itis also a single-pass compiler, whichmeans it takes less total time to com-pile code.

Table 6 shows the results of atraditional execution-speed test. Iused the IEEE (Institute of Electricaland Electronics Engineers) digital-signal-processing Remez exchangeprogram as a representative number-

crunching program rather than oneof the classic benchmark programs.Because the IEEE program can be runin 64K bytes, I was able to use theprogram on all the computers.

No clear software winner emergesbecause the hardware makes somuch of a difference. But, in termsof FORTRAN execution speed, thebest microcomputer software-and-hardware combination is Microsoft'sFORTRAN-77 for MS-DOS and the

Otrona Attache or Seattle Gazellecomputers. This combination com-pleted the IEEE program in 15.66seconds.

In a final benchmark, I testedvideo-screen I/O. The test consistedof writing 100 lines to the screen.CP/M-80 version 2.2 scored 5 secondson the Otrona Attache 8:16; MS-DOSversion 2.0 scored 17 seconds on theIBM PC. Both computers used I/O-mapped video via the operating-system console calls.

It's important to remember that thebenchmark results are not the onlything to consider. You also have toconsider price versus performance,price versus product support, priceversus legacy, and what your applica-tion of the compiler will be. Perhapsin your application of the compiler,fast compile times mean nothing butprice means everything. Rememberto give benchmark results theirproper rank in the hierarchy of com-piler features that are important toyou.H

Acknowledgments

While I have read a few books on the theory anddesign of compilers and operating systems, I couldnot write a compiler or operating system. Eventhough I feel that I am fully qualified to benchmarkcompilers and to contribute suggestions for en-hancing them, I would like to acknowledge the pro-gramming effort, R&D funds, marketing expense,and product support that go into each and everycompiler. Hats off to all.

I would also like to thank J. Pearson of the BostonComputer Society IBM Science EngineeringSubgroup; B. Roberts and R. Krajewski of BYTE;W. Clafffor his comments about MS-DOS and theSeattle Gazelle and for his general expertise; E.Sabine of the CSDL Computation Support Staff; andL. Wittwer for his Heath H-89 Z80 measurementsand his general expertise.

The following people and organizations con-tributed to this article: Bridge Computer, Otrona,S. Freid, L. Heyl, D. Deno, C Sacco, C. Ogren,C. Fraiser, R. Russel, P. Matthews Jr., J. Mori, V.Ivanovic, K. Hvatum, P. Vernam, S. Deutsch, R.Butler, R. Williams, F. Grant, ]. Veale, and DraperLaboratories Division 15L management.

All the opinions expressed in this article are minealone and not those of Draper Labs.

Avram Tetewsky is an employee of C. S. DraperLaboratory (555 Technology Square, MS 92, Cam-bridge, MA 02139). He received the Master ofScience degree in Electrical Engineering from theMassachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978. Hishobbies are computers, cats, jogging, and music.

224 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Benchmark Confessions

A close look at sometimes subjective tests

by Peter Marvit and Mohandas Nair

Everyone has opinions on threesubjects—sex, religion, and bench-marks. While the first two are in-fluenced by cultural and personaltastes, benchmark results often mas-querade as objective fact cloaked inscientific methodology and absolutenumbers. Figures don't lie, but liarsfigure, as the saying goes, and bench-marks are prime targets for selectiveinterpretation and general confusion.

In presenting our philosophy ofbenchmarks in this article, we willfocus on complete computer systems,but the principles involved are gen-eral and can be adapted to coverspecific peripherals. We have nottried to encompass the entire field ofbenchmark methodology, but rather,provide guidelines and considera-tions for all who read and performbenchmarks—computer users, sales-men, and designers. Benchmarkingis, at best, problematic, and at worst,a gross distortion of reality, but youcan make the best of an impossiblesituation if you enter this fray armedwith specific directions.

When we look at the role of bench-marks we need to ask questions,such as: What are they? Who usesthem? How are they used? Under-standing the background and inten-tions of benchmarks is the key to in-

terpreting the results. How thoseresults are reported is also crucial.Complete information must be givenif the results are to be meaningful. Werecommend a point-to-point list ofwhat may be included in a goodbenchmark write-up. The delicateissue of benchmark design andvalidity requires a great deal ofthought. This article skims overmany parts of the problem andpoints toward several avenues ofinvestigation.

The Role of Benchmarks

A benchmark is an objective,reproducible measure of perform-ance (e.g., execution-speed compari-sons, object size, or device interruptlatency measures). It assists us inplacing system performance within acontinuum, be it a list of times mea-suring I/O (input/output) perform-ance, or the like. Thus, from an in-dividual standpoint, benchmarks area means of comparing one system toothers. Benchmarks form a strongfeedback mechanism to manufac-turers and software designers so thatthey can gauge how their creationswill rate in the marketplace. How-ever, the inherent attractiveness ofusing benchmark reports in adver-tisements demands of the buyer the

skill of differentiating the sales pitchfrom the benchmark information.But even if we have this skill, what'sso important about benchmarks?

A computer purchase is roughlyanalogous to buying a car. Obvious-ly, the decision-making processvaries but very few people only thinkabout performance and nothing else.Clearly, many other factors may bebrought into the decision-makingprocess. Benchmarks are but a partof the selection, decision, or evalua-tion process. Some individuals takebenchmarks very seriously whileothers are unaffected or not highlyinfluenced by them. All in all, bench-marks have a place in the compari-son/evaluation process.

The Audience

We classify the audiences forbenchmarks into engineers (makers),marketers (sellers), and users(buyers). Each has its own needs andmethods of evaluating benchmarks.The engineer wants to optimize thesystem's design. The benchmark is atest that analyzes parts of a computersystem and displays bottleneck areasor poorly performing componentsthat can be improved. By varyinga single element in the system, anengineer can improve the system per-

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 227

formance, using a benchmark pro-gram as the measuring instrumentto compare one system configurationagainst another.

Marketing people want to sell aproduct. They would love nothingbetter than a single number thatconclusively shows that their com-puter outperforms the competition.Benchmarks also provide some in-dication about who the competitionreally is and what market niche thecomputer should target. Unfortu-nately benchmark results serve as lit-tle more than advertisements.

Finally the user wants objectivecomparisons between the differentcomputer systems he might pur-chase. Benchmarks appeal to hisneed for (theoretically) unbiased re-porting of a system's performance.

However, each user's needs varydepending on experience. Of course,the ideal solution to benchmarking isto take the final applications that theusers perform and run them on thevarious computers. This usuallyproves impossible, especially forcomplex applications. To further theproblem, future needs can rarely beanticipated and so any testing will bespeculative. Again, this leaves uslooking at existing benchmarks,armed with the ability to discern factfrom advertising hype. Hence, let'sconsider how benchmarks are mis-used, in our attempt to isolate asolution.

Misuses of Benchmarks

In benchmark reporting, we havediscovered a very narrow but distinctpath between truths and lies. Devel-oping the skill of telling not-really-the-truth and not-downright-lies isimportant for successful benchmark-ing. Many people look upon bench-marks as marketing hogwash, onlycoincidental with facts.

Ironically, incomplete informationis as dangerous as lying in the bench-mark world. Consider an article pub-lished in EDN magazine highlightinga Unix-based benchmark with perfor-mance numbers for various com-petitive systems (see reference 1).Under the subheading "Test ResultsTell the Story" we read, "Systemcapabilities are subject to interpreta-

tion, but the results of a simplebenchmark provided by the manu-facturer tend to support claims of fastprocessing."

But results don't tell the story. Thestory requires much more informa-tion such as details of configurationsused, the methodology used in tests,etc. A comment on performanceserves no purpose to the true bench-marker, but feeds incomplete infor-mation to readers who enjoy sweep-ing, unsupported ideas, even if true.

Ironically, we received a copy of abenchmark report, generated by TeusHagen and Andrew Tenenbaum fromAmsterdam, entitled "Two Programs,Many Unix Systems" (see reference4) that highlighted the same pro-

Benchmarks indicate

who the competition

really is and what

market niche a

computer should

target.

cessor-bound benchmark program.They ran this program on a multitudeof competitive systems. With amaz-ing coincidence, the results theyderived on the systems were identicalto those published in the EDN arti-cle. However, Hagen and Tenenbaumdrew the following conclusion:"None. You should take these mea-surements with a grain of salt, or bet-ter yet, an imperial gallon of salt." Intwo reports with the same results, weencounter two different messages.Such situations are common but thisdoes not negate their contradictingeffect on a fast-reading, often over-looking audience. Possibly, furtherdetailed information could clear upany confusion about how these con-clusions were derived.

But the lack of detailed informationis not the only stumbling block inbenchmark reporting. For example,consider person M who endeavors tobuy a used car. M visits a reputabledealership, isolates a few choices,and finally decides on a beautiful carthat has been kept indoors, underbeautiful lighting. The car is dry,clean, and reasonably priced. M pur-

chases the car, drives it off the lot,and discovers, on a rainy day, that thecar leaks. Benchmarks can provide ashowroom atmosphere to flawedproducts in a similar manner. Byhighlighting the good and over-shadowing flaws, a benchmark re-port can deceive an audience untilthat terrible rainy day.

Picking Valid Benchmark Reports

As we discussed before, bench-mark reports can deceive more thaninform by giving incomplete data.However, the effect that benchmarkshave on us can be approached ration-ally—as rationally as one approachesany form of advertising without dis-counting everything. The followingconsiderations may assist in develop-ing this rational approach towardreading and writing benchmarks bybeing less caught up in the resultsand more involved with how the in-formation is presented. Look at anybenchmark report and consider thefollowing:

• Who originated/authored thereport? Obviously a report on theXYZ computer done by the companythat created the product will showthe XYZ to be successful. Unbiasedreports are hard to obtain but onetechnique would be to get bench-marks from other companies that in-clude the XYZ computer in theirreports as a competitive measure.Thus, if you want to benchmark XYZ,don't obtain benchmark reports fromthem, ask other companies for theirreports that involve XYZ. Chancesare they would report on the XYZrationally.

• Determine the objective of thereport. Here emerges the need forabstracts, detailed introductions, andsummaries. Readers usually tend toread the introduction, the graph, andrun to the conclusions of a bench-mark report; thus, the need to iden-tify and establish the message in anyreport. If you don't get the messageclearly, drop the report—it will domore harm than good. Examples ofclearly directed reports/articles arereferences 5 and 13.

• Descriptions are needed of themethodology used. Without a suc-

228 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

cinct description of how the bench-marks were performed, there is nouse describing the results. The readerwants to reproduce these results tocompletely trust them, and com-ments on the technique used wouldbe helpful. Descriptions of the pro-grams or benchmarks used and fur-ther descriptions of the environmentswhere testing took place are crucialto a successful benchmark report.

• Are source listings provided?Documented source code or listingsof the actual benchmark program willgive the readers a clearer under-standing of what was performed.From this, we can reproduce thebenchmark and criticize or applaudthe technique. There's somethingabout actual code that makes it allseem so technical and accurate.

• Detail the systems used in thebenchmark. The report should giveexact detail about the systems onwhich the benchmark was run. Thiswould guard against readers whoassume too much about the resultsobtained or the use of systems thatare unmarketed, souped-up versionsused only for the benchmark. Stillsticking to our concern for reproduc-ibility, we need details of the systemconfiguration. The system configur-ation should be included in anybenchmark report.

•Results are never forgotten. Bench-mark reports always display results,results, and results. "We beat them by5X (times) performance difference" isall we hear. The public seems to cravea single, definite X value that, tothem, describes complete systemperformance in comparison to othercompetitive systems. We realize thatan average number like 1.5X or 2X isnothing but an average estimation ofcomparative system performance.Comparative X values are uselessunless the results are linked withwhat is being compared; e.g., 2X(times) better than system Y in I/Ocapability.

Benchmark results are usually rep-resented graphically as well as in rawnumber form. We suggest that resultsbe displayed in absolute raw num-bers in combination with either arelative graph or an absolute graph.

The main aim of benchmark re-ports is to inform, display results, anddiscuss findings. As in any scientificexperiment, raw numbers or graphsare irrelevant scribblings withoutcareful analysis and interpretation. Inother words, when you hold a bench-mark report in your hand next, lookfor a position or conclusions taken bythe author. If the author has notmade one, don't make one yourself.

Benchmark Design

Questions about benchmark pro-grams and their design still remain.A look at benchmark programs todayis a study in dichotomies: simplesingle-task processes vs. complexmultitask global programs. Currenttaste favors the former.

If the author of a

benchmark report has

not made a conclusion,

don't make one

yourself.

First and foremost, small single-task programs are easier to use andunderstand. People can usually com-prehend their purpose and methodwithout difficulty. They seem to testa single element in a computer sys-tem (e.g., processor speed, disk ac-cess, etc.). Like minimalist art,streamlined programs have an ele-gant aesthetic. Because they are (pre-sumably) easy to run, reproducingresults presents few problems. Thesesmall programs often suffer fromtheir simplicity, however. As men-tioned before, the well-placed spot-light of a single benchmark focusesattention on one aspect of systemperformance, ignoring the rest. Thequestion of exactly what the one pro-gram actually measures rears its for-midable head again.

The gargantuan global benchmarksprovide a stark contrast. Usuallytransported via many reels of mag-netic tape and the child of laboriousyears of effort, these complex tasksrequire considerable expertise andtime to set up and run. They producevoluminous statistics on many as-pects of a system's performance.

Since their design supposedly re-flects the requirements of typicalcomputer loads, the results shouldpredict real-life situations. Unfor-tunately, the global benchmark de-sign is frequently not independentlyverified and the results are oftencryptic—hardly the stuff for man-agerial decisions. Completeness canalso be a problem. One missing soft-ware utility used at the beginning ofthe benchmark stymies the rest of therun since subsequent tests rely onprevious results. To compound theproblem, standardization from sys-tem to system is difficult due to dif-ferences in language and operatingsystem versions, enhancements, andomissions.

One approach to system bench-marks is to use the followingparadigm. To admittedly oversim-plify the matter, a system benchmarkcould consist of an I/O loop and acentral processing unit loop. You in-troduce parameters that determinehow many times the individual loopsare iterated. That way, you can havea program that is as I/O-bound orprocessor-bound as desired. To testdifferent application conditions, youmerely vary those parameters andthe number of programs runningconcurrently. This conceptual modeloffers four advantages: (1) basicmodules can be easily coded; (2) eachmodule can test a discrete function;(3) individual modules are easily runand understood; (4) programs can becombined to produce complex tasksthat simulate real-world appli-cations.

Many problems and considerationsare inherent in benchmark imple-mentation. The actual coding is non-trivial. For example, each languagehas certain strengths and weak-nesses, but a programmer must becareful that the benchmark measuressystem performance and not his orher own cleverness. Certain languages(and hardware, for that matter) temptthe programmer to use tricks thatbias the test. For example, a micro-processor might decrement fasterthan add and so appear faster withan addition-only program. Codetransportability must be considered.Benchmark programs should be doc-

Februaiy 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 229

editing

/'listing/other\

/ USER \

/L^functions\

users \program a

/ system^-\^management

/ LOGICAL/ RECS

'^\"~-\^COMPILING

\ physical

\ file

\ management

\, SORTING

OTHER \ /UTILITIES \ /

Figure 1: Estimates of the job functions per-formed by a typical microcomputer system.

umented and conform to commonlyaccepted language standards.

Compiler efficiency also has a tre-mendous impact on system speed.Assembly-code can circumvent thisproblem but introduces computer-specific dependencies. How a higher-level language is implemented mightprovide hidden optimizations; twodifferent compilers operating on thesame source code can producedramatic differences. In this light,and considering language structures,benchmarking using two different lan-guages is ludicrous.

Determining the importance ofeach portion of a benchmark requiresa good understanding of a computersystem's actual use. Many operatingsystems can provide empirical dataabout what tasks are performed howoften using what resources. Figure 1shows one possible job mix on amedium-sized computer.

To design even an individualbenchmark module, you must clear-ly define its purpose. An ill-con-ceived program can measure manyaspects of a system—none of themproperly. A well-constructed and tar-geted program can effectively focuson a single performance element andform a valid building block for abenchmark. For example, an I/O loopmight exercise moving data withinpages in memory, from disk to disk,from memory to disk, etc. You mustisolate individual performance fac-tors, without getting caught up inlittle details, until you form an ade-quate model on a computer system.

Benchmark designers and discern-ing readers must remember that dif-ferent types of users need differentbenchmarks. Special consideration isnecessary to fulfill the needs of officeautomation, word processing, scien-tific, multiuser, or database applica-tions. Indeed, system performance ineach area depends on the propermatch of hardware and software aswell as basic computing speed. Forexample, the public is acutely in-terested in benchmarking multiuserenvironments, although they areespecially difficult to measure ac-curately. The entire topic of bench-marking requirements covers a wideand barely touched area. Given theconfusing variety of factors involvedin benchmarking, it's a wonder thatanyone even attempts such an oner-ous task.

Conclusion

In this article, we have attemptedto explain a formalism that creates aframework for credibility in the de-velopment and reporting of bench-marks.

There is still much more to in-vestigate and discuss. We hope thatareas such as detailed benchmark de-sign for specific applications, actualmechanics of benchmark execution,benchmark evaluation, and the pos-sibility of standardized benchmarkswill be attacked and covered in thefuture. Unfortunately, in the bench-mark world, it's not who knows butwho shows that counts. We have nolemon laws for benchmarking thatguard against misrepresentation. Butwe do have methodologies and gen-eral techniques that assist us in ourunderstanding or development ofbenchmarks.

The role of reader is seldom con-fronted but demands mention. Theaudience, if polite, will permit mis-representation in benchmarking andif aggressively critical, will nurtureclear and honest benchmark report-ing.

In short, this article is not athorough treatment of the deep sub-ject of benchmarking. Consider thisas a starting point for discussion andammunition against credible reports.We encourage you to read the refer-

ences for more insight. We are alsoanxious for your opinions and in-volvement in this controversial sub-ject.!

References

1. Legg, G. "Virtual Memory WorkstationAchieves High Graphics Resolution." EDN,April 14, 1983, pages 67-78.

2. Intel Corp. "The Intel SBC 286/10 SingleBoard Computer as a Xenix Engine." Num-ber 8. May 1983 (order #230676-002).

3. Intel Corp. "Eratosthenes Sieve PrimeNumber Benchmark on the SBC 286/10Board." Number 7. March 1983 (order#21094-002).

4. Hagen, T. and A. Tenenbaum. "Two Pro-grams, Many Unix Systems." Unpublished.

5. Grappel, R. Q, J. E. Hemeway. "A Tale of FourMicroprocessors: Benchmarks Quantity Per-formance." EDN, April 1, 1981, pages179-185.

6. Gilbreath, J. "A High-Level Language Bench-mark." BYTE, September 1981, pages180-198.

7. Curnow, H. J. and B. A. Wichman. "A Syn-thetic Benchmark." Computer Journal.Volume 19, number 1. February 1976.

8. Benwell, N. 1975. Benchmarking. Toronto: J.Wiley & Sons.

9. Spooner, C. R. "Benchmarking InteractiveSystems: Modeling the Application." Proceed-ings of the 15th meeting of the Computer Per-formance Evaluation Users Group (CPEUG),pages 53-63.

10. Davies, D. J. M. "Benchmarking in Selectionof Timesharing Systems." Proceedings of the14th meeting of the CPEUG, November 1981,pages 276-36.

11. Cabrera, L. F. "Benchmarking Unix: A Com-parative Study." In Experimental ComputerPerformance Evaluation, eds. D. Ferrari andM. Spadoni, North-Holland, Amsterdam.

12. Cabrera, L. F. and J. F. Paris. "ComparingUser Response Times on Paged andSwapped Unix by the Terminal ProbeMethod." Proceedings of the 14th meeting ofthe CPEUG, November 1981, pages157-168.

13. Gilbreath, J. and G. Gilbreath. "EratosthenesRevisited," BYTE, January 1983, pages283-326.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Gene Dronakof AIM Technology, David Billstrom of OregonSoftware, and Madeline for her inspiration and help.

Peter Marvit (4962 El Camino Real, Suite 111,Los Altos, CA 94022) is a senior analyst at YatesVentures. His interests include backpacking, anima-tion, singing, cooking, and eating.

Mohandas Nair (5200 NE Elam Young Pkwy.,Hillsboro, OR 97123) is a technical marketingengineer at Intel Corp. He has aB.S. and an M.S.in computer and information science. Nair, who isinterested in art and fencing, is also a guitarist andvocalist.

230 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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The Word-Processing Maze

How to find your way through all those "new" features

If you're in the market for a wordprocessor, you might feel safer buy-ing some land in Florida. Wild claimsseem more prevalent than usual asmore and more companies square offon the already-scarred word-process-ing battlefield. Only certain speciesof rabbit are known to produce more"generations" than the word-process-ing industry.

If you trust the comparison charts,you buy the program with the mostred dots next to it. But is it thatsimple? What's really going on? Whatis a "style sheet"? Do you need hori-zontal scrolling? Do you need the fea-tures of a "dedicated" word proces-sor? What if you're "dedicated" toyour old word processor?

It's true, word-processing softwareis getting better all the time. With16-bit computers and more sophisti-cated screens to run on, word-pro-cessing programs are adding fea-tures, dropping prices, and tryingevery gimmick to get attention. Thisarticle describes some new featuresyou'll be hearing about and will helpyou create a mental checklist of whatyou want in your next word proces-sor. (Also see "Evaluating Word-Pro-cessing Programs" on page 243.)

by Andrea Lewis

If you're in a store where you cantest one of the new dazzlers, start bytyping in some text. This is a little likekicking tires, but it does tell you somethings. Watch for wordwrap at theright margin of the line you're typing.If a word won't fit on the line, itshould automatically move down tothe next one. (Reverse wordwrap-good buzzword—occurs when youdelete something and words frombelow move up.) Not only is thisquick and handy while you're typing,but it indicates the much broaderdesign concept of automatic refor-matting.

Most of your text entry is in insertmode, but make sure you can switchto overtype mode—replacing existingcharacters as you type. It should beavailable as a simple toggle andcomes in handy for some editingoperations.

Be Selective about Selecting

Next, most people try out one ofthe Big Three: Delete, Copy, or Move.To perform one of these operations,you must first choose the exact textyou want to work on. Stop for aminute, take your attention awayfrom the commands themselves, and

consider the process of selecting text.This single process will, in time,cause you immeasurable grief if it isthe tiniest bit awkward, slow, or dif-ficult.

The system should provide manyoptions for selecting the text youwant. Imagine the agony of selectingevery word character by character orevery sentence one word at a time.Look for fast, flexible text selection:by character, word, sentence, andparagraph—with options to extend tomultiples of each item. The use of amouse makes text selection mucheasier.

Before you can select text, you mustposition the cursor in the right vicin-ity, involving some combination ofscrolling and cursor movements. Amouse is handy because you canscroll by variable amounts using thescroll bars. If you are going to scrollwith the keyboard, the systemshould implement Page-up and Page-down keys to move you up or downby one screen. To scroll longer dis-tances, look for Home and End keys,a jump to page n command, and theability to mark text and jump tomarker x.

Horizontal scrolling is a necessity

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 235

now that most word processors per-mit very wide documents. Find outwhich keys move the document leftand right and in what increments.

No Big Deal

You were about to carry out a com-mand before text selection, cursormovement, and scrolling sidetrackedyou, so now turn your attention backto the command interface. Youshould be able to see the main com-mand menu on the screen while youare entering text. Find out how easyit is to choose a command, by point-ing at it (using keys or a mouse) orby typing its first letter. Look for easein moving back and forth between in-sert mode and the commands; itshouldn't be a big deal. Try somesimple editing commands like Deleteand Copy to see how easy or difficultit is to choose commands.

Reserve judgment on the com-mand interface as a whole until youlook at the more intricate commands,those with a submenu or more thanone field to fill in. The importantthing here is that, as much as pos-sible, the commands be task-ori-ented, so that all the information youneed is in one place. For example, theReplace command should promptyou for all the information it needs:the search text, the replace text, thedirection of the search (forward orbackward), and if it is case-sensitiveand whole-word-sensitive. (Whole-word-sensitive means don't find oc-currences of the search word withinother words. Case-sensitive meanssearch only for text in which the up-percase and lowercase letters matchthe search string. Some new systemsdo case-sensitive replacements auto-matically, that is, if the replacementword begins a sentence, its first let-ter is automatically capitalized.) Youshould also be able to specify con-firming or nonconfirming, that is,whether you want to individually ap-prove each replacement or globallyreplace all occurrences at once.

It is important to notice howlogically and efficiently the commandinterface is organized. Check to seeif the command fields are filled inautomatically with defaults or likelyresponses. It is desirable to have com-

mands with lots of options, but youdon't want them to obstruct what youdo 99 percent of the time.

The Formatting Jungle

The term "formatting" covers a lotof ground in word processing. Howdo you get from screens full of free-form text to the printed page withrunning headers, page numbers, cen-tered titles, paragraphs, sections,tables, footnotes, and bold or italiccharacters? And how much of thiscan you see on your screen duringediting? Functionally and visually,formatting features on microcom-puters are finally meeting—or sur-passing—those on dedicated wordprocessors.

You'll keep hearing the phrase"what you see is what you get." Itmeans that the word processor auto-matically reformats all the text whileyou are working, so you always seea reasonable facsimile of the for-matted document on the screen. Ifthere really is a next generation onthe way, automatic reformatting is itssingle most distinguishing feature.The screen looks just as it's supposedto, without gaps after a deletion,without unjustified margins whenthey should be justified, and withoutReformat keys or commands. Insteadof control codes indicating bold orunderlined letters, the letters appearbold or underlined. Centered textstays centered, even if you change itslength. You get the idea.

In short, the formatting actions arenot only automatic, but, once as-signed, they become implied in thetext. Special formatting commandsassign the formatting properties thatare not visible within the text itself.It's a subtle concept, but one thatjudges the effectiveness and eleganceof a system's formatting repertoire.

A few formatting techniques re-quire special mention:

Formatting tabs: tabular material wasa problem in the past because wordprocessors simply expanded tabs in-to spaces. If you changed the numberof characters between tabs, you threwthe alignment off. Today, real tabstops exist, which are a lifesaver foranyone working with columns. Look

for a specific tab-setting commandand the ability to see tabs on a ruleron the screen. Also look for align-ment selection—left, right, center, ordecimal—for the text at any tab stop.And, if you're really serious abouttables, look for column operations,such as deleting an entire column oradding the figures in a column.Formatting running headers: usually,word processors keep text for run-ning headers in one place and thenprint it on each page. Look for thefollowing options for formatting run-ning headers: positioning at the topor bottom, different text for even andodd page numbers, expanding pagenumbers within the headers, andchanging or eliminating the headeron the first page. The package shouldallow any number of lines in the run-ning header.

Formatting footnotes: at last, somemicrocomputer word-processing sys-tems include specific commands forfootnote management. If your workincludes any documents requiringfootnotes, don't settle for a systemthat doesn't handle them. Your wordprocessor should number the foot-notes and automatically put foot-notes and their references on thesame page during printing. Thereshould also be an option to print allthe footnotes at the end, if you prefer.Since the footnotes are usually storedat the end of the document duringediting, some systems provide a foot-note window that you can open toedit the footnotes without losingsight of the main text.Format definitions: the ability to createformat definitions rather than the for-matting macros of yesteryear is in theworks. Format definitions (or stylesheets) are powerful tools, especial-ly if you want a standard format fora certain type of document. The for-mat definition is an entity, separatefrom the text, that the user creates todescribe certain format properties. Itincludes such formatting informationas indents, justification, runningheaders, font names, double-spacing,and tabs. If you store the formatsseparately and apply them to thedocuments later, you can establishstandards for company documents orfor your own use.

236 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Introducing

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Getting What You Saw

Be sure the word processor youbuy works with your printer andtakes full advantage of it, that is, besure it has the correct printer descrip-tion file. If your printer has propor-tional fonts, make sure your systemsupports them. The word processormust know the width of every char-acter in the proportional fonts youuse to calculate line breaks and justifythe text. Find out if the printerdescription file has all the informa-tion you need. To justify with propor-tional fonts, most systems microspacebetween words, making the space be-tween words on a line equal. Youroutput looks even better if the systemmicrospaces between the letters ofthe words.

Other print options to look for in-clude choice of continuous or sheet-fed paper, background printing, andprompts for font (print wheel)changes during printing. Most newsystems also offer direct print (or hotprint), which lets you type directlyfrom the keyboard to the printer-handy for addressing a quickenvelope.

Currently, no microcomputer wordprocessors display text in two ormore columns on the screen and re-format them as you type. [Editor'sNote: There is now at least one: Jack IIfor the IBM PC from Business Solutions. ]A few let you enter text as usual (ina single column) and then specifymore than one column for printing.The system wraps and justifies thecolumns before printing, and you getmulticolumn output. This is a goodfeature, especially if you print anewsletter or brochure with yourword processor.

I Take It All Back

For the "what have I done" and the"oh no," an Undo command is amust, and most word processors to-day implement one. The Undo com-mand takes back your last action, asif you never did it. The Undo com-mand responds in two possible waysif you execute several in a row. It mayundo only the most recent action(even if that action was an undo), orit may work successively backwardthrough your actions, undoing each

one in turn. Both are useful. You canexperiment with formatting by undo-ing your most recent action. Changesome formatting, look at it, undo itto compare it to the original, and soforth. How much text can the Undocommand handle? The worst errorsare usually the ones involving themost text, so it defeats the purposeof this command if there is much ofa limit.

Chunky

All good word processors have away to expand user-assigned abbre-viations into their longer definitions.A glossary (or boilerplate) is a realtime-saver for anyone doing businessor legal documents. First, you assignabbreviations to chunks of text, suchas the paragraph that describes yourwarranty or a phrase like "the partyof the first part." When it's time to in-sert the text into the document, yousimply type the abbreviation and ex-pand it. The important questions arehow many abbreviations can youhave, how long can the chunks be,and how easy is it to do the expan-sion? It's supposed to be a time-saver,so a single keystroke should expandthe abbreviation.

Mouse Pointers

The initial reaction to using amouse with a word processor isusually: "I don't want to keep mov-ing my hands on and off the key-board." Well, that's true, you don't.Depending on how well the programdifferentiates between text entry andediting and formatting, the mousecan really shine at selecting text andcommands. It allows easy scrollingand text selection. To carry out a com-mand on the selected text, point themouse at it and push a button. If thesystem is designed for this device,lots of operations can be performedonly with the mouse. Of course, anysystem that works with a mouseshould also have a keyboard equiva-lent for every function.

Window Shopping

A good system allows two, maybemore, windows open at once. Lookfor a Window command with the op-tion of opening it vertically or hori-

zontally. You want the ability to seedifferent parts of a document, or dif-ferent documents, through the win-dows. It should be easy to cross win-dow borders and to copy or move textfrom one window to another—some-times called cut and paste. Multiplewindows allow you to see what ishappening when you merge docu-ments. Make sure you can merge atany location in a document, not justat the end.

Spelling and Hyphenation

To cut down on overhead, mostsystems don't build in spelling orhyphenation utilities but rather pro-vide them as separate utilities.Hyphenation can exist with varyingdegrees of accuracy. Some programshyphenate according to a set of rulesabout where it is safe to insert ahyphen (before "ing" or betweendouble consonants, etc.). If an on-linedictionary already exists for spelling,the hyphenator should use it to lookup proper hyphenation. This isslower but more accurate. Somespelling checkers also provide minorsyntax checking, such as alerting youwhen you type the same word twicein a row.

Still Waiting

So far, generating an index or atable of contents automatically is stillthe exclusive property of dedicatedword processors or mainframe pro-grams. Look for these features onmicrocomputers 12 to 18 monthsfrom now.

Summary

I hope this list of new word-pro-cessing features helps you weaveyour way through the ads, brochures,and demonstrations. Plan ahead forthe features you want and need soyour word processor will be viable foryears to come. In addition, don't losesight of such design qualities as auto-matic reformatting, easy text selec-tion, and a logical command inter-face. They make a real difference inefficiency and ease of use in the longrun.B

Andrea Lewis (1034 N.E. 90th St., Seattle, VJA98115) is a freelance writer.

238 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Evaluating Word-Processing

Programs

A 100-point checklist simplifies the decision-making process

How to Keep Score

In the case of all yes/no questions,yes is the answer that earns thepoints.

When keystrokes are beingcounted, control characters count asa stroke and a half. So do shiftedcharacters. Shifted control charac-ters—or any other combination ofthree keys you have to hold down atonce—count as two keystrokes. If aprogram can't do the function at all,it gets a five-keystroke penalty.

Count cursor arrows with auto-repeat for a minimum of 3 (it takesa while to get started) and a max-imum of 10 (to move from the top tothe bottom of the page or from oneend of a line to the other).

If a question asks, "Is there a one-stroke command to . . .," count con-trol characters (but not shifted con-trol characters or other three-keycommands) as one stroke.

TTiis article is reprinted by permission of McGraw-Hill Book Company from Word Processing Buyer'sGuide by Arthur Naiman (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983).

by Arthur Naiman

Since some microcomputer key-boards have special function keys likethose on dedicated word processors,and since certain word-processingprograms have been designed towork with them, such programs mayget different scores, depending onthe system they're used on. But fordedicated word processors (whichalways use the same hardware), andfor word-processing programs thatcan't take advantage of special func-tion keys, the score won't vary.

If a file name is required, assumeit consists of eight characters. Be sureto include every keystroke—Return,Enter, etc. Remember that you cangive partial points (for partial perfor-mance) on any item.

Since the checklist is so long, I'veboldfaced certain key words through-out, to help you find particular itemsmore quickly and easily.

Safety and error handling—10 points

How hard is it to lose text? (4)Are there hard-to-avoid fatal error(s)that are likely to occur:

about 1% of the time? (-25)about 2% of the time? (-50)about 3% of the time? (-75)How well are errors documented? (2)How clear are the error messages? (1)Is verification of saves automatic? (1)Are backup copies automatic? (1)Can you save to either disk, or switchdisks without exiting the program? (1)

Subtotal for safety and error handling:

Documentation—18 pointsIs the training manual:

well-organized? (3)

readable? (3)

complete? (1)Is the reference manual:

complete? (3)

well-organized? (2)

understandable? (2)Is there a good, complete index? (1)Are the manuals typeset? (1)

If not, is the text proportionally

spaced? (V2)Is the layout intelligent and thedesign graceful? (1)Are there special kinds of documen-tation, other than manuals (like a

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 243

reference card, on-screen tutorial,training tape, etc.), that you finduseful? (1)

Subtotal for documentation:

Ease of use and human engineer-ing—18 points

Is the workfile held in memory oron-and-off disk?

(no score, but an important

consideration)How many keystrokes does it take togo through the following sequence of

23 commands?

1) open a new text file (don't countthe characters in the file name itself);2-4) center, boldface, and underlinea title;

5) skip a line;

6) indent the next line of text 5spaces;

7) indicate the end of that paragraph;

8) skip a line;

9) indent the next paragraph 5spaces;

10) put a page break at the bottom ofthat paragraph;

11-14) reset the top, bottom, left, andright margins (just count the com-mands, not the numerical values);

15) order the file to be double-spaced(if single-spaced is the default), orvice versa (again, not counting thenumerical values);

16) save the file;17*) print it out;

18*) stop in the middle of printingout;

19) return to the text;

20) delete a word (5 characters anda space);

21) delete a line (60 characters ormore);

22) save this new version of the file,keeping the old version for backup;and

23) begin printing out again at thetop of the page.

[*Systems with virtual representa-tion can skip these two steps (17-18), since it's just as likely that amistake will get caught on thescreen as in a printout.]Fewer than 55 strokes—5 points56-60 strokes—4 Vi points61-65 strokes—4 points66-70 strokes—3V2 points71-75 strokes—3 points

76-80 strokes—2V2 points81-85 strokes—2 points86-90 strokes—IV2 points91-95 strokes—1 point96-100 strokes—V2 pointmore than 100 strokes—no pointsHow easy is it to remember com-mands (thanks to mnemonics, cursordiamond, and other logical key place-ment, menus, logical commandstructure, reference card, key tops,dedicated keys, reconfigurable com-mands, etc.)? (3)

Is the main editing menu suppress-ible, or not normally on the screenwith the text? (V2)Is there a way to know:what page of the printout you'reon? (%)

your location with respect to the

entire file (what percentage of it is

behind you, for example)? (%)

Can you find out the total size of the

file you're editing without exiting the

program? (V2)

Can you do that and return to whereyou were in the file in less than 3 key-strokes (or two control characters)?(V4 additional)

Can you copy the program as oftenas you need to? (2)Total program size:

Less than 25K? (1) 25-35K? (%)Or—on dedicated word processors,and other systems where the soft-ware and hardware are integrated—Workspace more than 30K? (1)Workspace more than 20K? (V2)Are the editor and formatter loadedtogether? (1)If not, can you keep the workfile inRAM while switching from theeditor to the formatter? (V2)How often does the program have togo to the disk to access overlays?(never, because whole programresides in memory—1; only goes tooverlays occasionally, for specialjobs—V2; overlays are essential part ofprogram—0)Can you:rename the file you're working onwithout abandoning the edit? (V4)rename a file other than the oneyou're working on without leavingthe program? (%)delete a file other than the oneyou're working on without leavingthe program? (%)

Can you get a directory of files on thedisk without exiting the word-processing program? (—1 if not)Does this directory also give youthe size of each file? (V2)Can you ask for just part of thedirectory? (%)

Is there a type-ahead buffer (key-stroke storage)? (1)Will this program run memory-mapped? (V2)

Subtotal for ease of use:

Editing power—25 pointsWhat is the total number of com-mands this program offers you (forediting, formatting—everything)?[Count every possible option.]

more than 170—4 points150-170-3V2 points130-149-3 points110-129—2% points90-109—2 points70-89—IV2 points50-69-1 point30-49—V2 pointfewer than 30—no pointsIs there wordwrap? (1)Ease and power of basic cursor move-ment, insertion and deletion com-mands (6)[The next 16 questions will give youa reasonable score for this item forprograms that use conventionaltechniques. For other programs,you have to make this judgmentsubjectively]Is there a one-stroke (or one-control-character) command to move thecursor:right one character? (—1 if not)left one character? (—1 if not)up one line? (—1 if not)down one line? (—1 if not)(two-stroke or two-control-charac-ter commands count half for thenext 11 questions)forward one word? (V2)backward one word? (V2)to the end of the line? (V2)to the beginning of the line? (V2)to the top of the screen? (V2)to the bottom of the screen? (V2)to the beginning of the file? (¥2)to the end of the file? (V2)Is there a one-stroke (or one-control-character) command to:

244 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

m

>

r-r-

CO

OID

co

Version(s)

(of

software)

Operatingsystem(s)and/ormachine(s)

Price

Overallscore

Safetyand errorhandling

Documentation

Easeof use

Workfile inmemory or onand off of diskEditingpower

Formattingpower

Responsiveness

and

support

CPT 8100

G-2

ded. word proc.

$15,000

94%

9

16%

143/4

M

24

26V4

4

DICTAPHONE DUAL DISP.

D

ded. word proc.

13,500

85V4

7

16%

12

D

183/4

263/4

4

PIE WRITER(W/ PRO/FORMAT

2.1 (2.2)

Apple II, Flex,IBM PC, TRS-80Color Computer

200

84V4

91/2

15

13

M

201/2

221/4

4

A. B. DICK MAGNA SL

7

ded. word proc.

14,500

83

8

I6V2

93/4

D

193/4

25

4

WRITE

1.4

CP/M

400

821/t

10

151/2

163/4

M

19

171/2

31/2

MICOM 2001

5.1 R

ded. word proc.

12,000

821/t

73/4

153/4

103/4

M

201/2

231/2

4

WORD STAR

3.0

CP/M, Apple II,IBM PC

500

80

71/2

11%

13

D

213/4

22

4

NEW SCRIPT

7.0

TRS-80Models I & III

125

79V4

8V2

151/2

123/4

M

183/4

193/4

4

WANGWRITER 5503A

3.1

ded. word proc.

6,400

74

8

16

131/2

D

183/4

141/2

31/4

WANG SYSTEM 5, MODEL 3

3.2

ded. word proc.

11,500

70

6

143/4

103/4

D

18

17V4

31/4

MINCE & SCRIBBLE

2.6 + 1.3

CP/M, UNIX,PDP-11

275

671/4

7

121/4

8

D

181/4

173/4

4

SCRIPSIT

2.0

TRS-80 Model II*

400

611/2

2

14V4

73/4

D

181/4

16V4

3

MAGIC WAND

1.11

CP/M

400

611/4

3V4

123/4

8

M

171/4

20

0

EASYWRITER

1.0

IBM PC"

175

35

—24

14V4

111/4

M

121/2

163/4

4

'Similar Scripsit program also available for Models I & III

"Very similar program called Easywriter Professional available for the Apple II

Table 1: Composite scores of some word processors.

delete a whole word? (V2)

delete a whole line? (V2)

switch between insert and write-over mode? (1)

either mode missing (—5)Is there continuous and unlimited:

forward scrolling? (V2)

backward scrolling? (V2)Can the scrolling speed be altered?(%)

Can you call up any page in the textby number? (IV4)

Can you move the cursor where thereis no text? (V2)Can you:

copy blocks of text? (%)

move blocks of text? (Vt)

delete blocks of text? (1)

make a new file out of a block of

text without having to stop editing

the file you're working on? (.%)insert another file into the oneyou're editing (V2)Can you:find a string anywhere in a file? (1)replace a string anywhere in a file?

(1)

search backward as well as for-ward? (Vi)

do many substitutions all at once,without having to approve eachone? (1)Can you see each change for ap-proval if you want? (—2 if not)In doing finds or substitutions, canyou tell this program to ignorecaps/lowercase? (¥2)Look for whole words only? (V2)Can you:make substitutions that affect more

than one file at a time? (V2)store stock phrases in memory andinsert them with a coded com-mand while typing? (%)Are there other special global capa-bilities? (%)

Is there a command that moves thecursor to where it was before the lastcommand was executed? (Vt)Is there a split-screen feature? (1)Can you edit one file while printingout another? (1)

Are there other special editing fea-tures that appeal to you? (IV2)

Subtotal for editing power:

Formatting power—25* points

[*With virtual representation, pos-sible total of 30]

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 245

Can you vary:

the top and bottom margins? (—1

if you can't)

the side margins? (—1 if you can't)

character spacing? (1)

line spacing? (1)

the tabs? (%)

each tab setting individually? (V2)Are there decimal tabs? (V2)Are there automatic indents? (V2)outdents? (V4)

Automatic page numbering? (1)Can you choose:

where on the page the page num-bers go? (V2)

what text (if any) accompanies

them? (%)Can you get headers and footersprinted automatically on each page?

(1)

Are there special features like hori-zontal scrolling to help with format-ting extra-wide text or tables? (V2)Will the program allow you to bold-face on printers that are capable of it?(%)

Is there overstriking? (1)Are there subscripts? (%) super-scripts? (V4)

Can you underline continuously, i.e.,under spaces and punctuation aswell as letters and numbers? (V2) (—1if program can't underline at all)Can you automatically center lines?

(%)

Is there automatic two-column print-out? (V2)Do you have a choice of single-page

or continuous printout? (1)

Can you link files during printout,

either by embedding a line at the end

of each file or by specifying the files

to be linked when you give the print

command?

Either (1) Both (IV2)Can you have multiple copies of thesame file printed out with one com-mand? (V2)

Can you embed a command thatmakes the printout stop and wait foryour instructions? (V4)Can you stop printout from the key-board? (—2 if you can't)Can you print from the middle of afile? (1)

Can you justify the right margin? (1)Is there true proportional spacing onprinters that allow for it? (2)Is there on-screen formatting? (2)

(line breaks—¥2; page breaks—¥2;

centering—V2; other formatting in-formation displayed—V2)[An extra 5 points is given for virtualrepresentation (which is machinedependent). To qualify, the screenmust display all of the following (par-tial points as indicated):

full page (at least 54 lines) of text (1)

underlining (V2)

double underlining (V2)

boldface (1)

justified right margins (1)

proportional spacing (1)]Is there automatic hyphenation? (1)

If not, are there conditional

hyphens? (V2)

Is there a conditional page break fea-ture? (1)Can you ask for a no-break space?

(V4) J

Is there an instant print feature? (¥2)Are there other special formattingfeatures that appeal to you? (IV2)

Subtotal for formatting power:

Responsiveness and support—4 points

(Based on reputation, users' com-ments, what the vendor says, etc.)

Program Name: Version #:

Operating system(s) it runs under

and/or machine(s) it runs on:

Price: $

Publisher:

Vendor(s):

Overall score:

Scores in specific areas:

Safety and error handling (10):

Documentation (18):

Ease of use (18):

Editing power (25):

Formatting power (25*):(*With virtual representation, atotal of 30 is possible)

Publisher support (4):Special notes: ■

Arthur Naiman is the author of several books oncomputers and is currently loorking on more. Theyinclude Introduction to WordStar and ComputerDictionary for Beginners.

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OTHERCOMPLETE SYSTEMS

S15R (remote) $695

S15P(4key) $795

S15B (bipolar) $895

S15G(gang) $1095

246 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 41 on inquiry card.

Taxan monitowhen precisioi

%

coun

Dedicated i

jAXAN offers a col jilete limRtf

monitors including peen and amber,

onochrome, plusmedium and high resolution RGB monitors.

•& «*>i

TAXAIM

TSK Electronics Corporation

18005 Cortney Court

City of Industry. CA 91748

(213) 810-1291

Circle 364 on inquiry card.

POPCOM Is a trademark ol PRENTICE Corporation.

MHHMM

Automatic or manual dialing and answering for all voice and data calls.Voice and data transmission during the same call — ends the 3 separatecalls ("I'm going to send," "I'm sending," "Did you get what I sent?")Smart modem compatible — works with widely available communicationssoftware.

Flexibility — compatible with 103,113, and 212A dial-up modems; connectsto all standard single and multi-line equipment.

Fast, easy setup — 'tune' tells when the three cables are properly connected.Adjustment-free operation — no manual switches to contend with. TheX100 automatically takes its instructions from your PC or terminal.Automatic computer briefing — reports to your PC all call-progress tones ...dial tone, busy signal, remote ringing, talk, even line disconnect — so yourcomputer can do more.

"In-Use" light on multi-line phones — protects against inadvertent interrup-tion.

Smart Interface — automatically adapts itself to various RS232 cables.Versatile Installation — fits conveniently on wall, desk or floor.Circle 295 on inquiry card.

See your dealer or write for more information. Make the connectionbetween yourself and the challenging world of information.

Q Please send me literature on POPCOM products.□ Please call me immediately.

NAME

TITLE

COMPANY

TEL:

ADDRESS

STATE

ZIP

PRENTICE CORPORATION, 266 Caspian Dr., P.O. Box 3544,

Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3544, (408) 734-9855

0102

With the p-System from

For: IBM PC & XT CORONA COLUMBIA EAGLE COMPAQ COLBY DOT HYPERION

Do you feel stifled by your operating computer to perform other tasks while

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The p-System from NCI gives you floating point calculations and the

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When you buy the p-System from NCI youget technical support and completedocumentation.

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Reviewer's Notebook

Last month I mentioned a few ofthe new printers we had received.This month I'll mention one more,plus another type of output device—aplotter. And we'll even cover somesoftware for a change.

The HP 7475A

The arrival of the Hewlett-PackardHP 7475A plotter ties in nicely withall the attention that is being placedon the graphics capabilities of per-sonal computers, especially in televi-sion commercials. In these commer-cials, all you have to do is press twokeys and your complete financial pic-ture appears in four or more colors.Nice, even if the number of key-strokes is vastly underestimated. Butif you want to take your financial por-trait around to your associates, you'regoing to need either a very goodcamera or a plotter. And you can'tbeat a plotter for resolution andspeed.

The HP 7475A is the enhanced ver-sion of the popular HP 7470A plotter.The earlier version had only twopens and could handle only 8V2- by11-inch paper. But it was fast, ac-curate, and sold for the moderatelyinexpensive price of $1795. The newplotter sells for about the same priceas the older one, but it has severalsuperior features—six pens instead oftwo, the ability to handle larger paper(11 by 17 inches), a better characterfont (the letter "O" is actually curvedrather than octagonal), and evenautomatic pen capping, which keepspens from drying out.

Of course, these features would beuseless if there weren't any softwareto take advantage of them. Fortunate-ly, the people at Hewlett-Packardhave been very successul at gettingthe major graphics software housesto write driver programs for the HP7475A. At last count we had receivedmore than 10 packages, including

by Rich Malloy

Lotus's 1-2-3, Supercalc3, and Graph-talk.

In typical HP tradition, the HP7475A has more control keys than youcould ever hope to become evenvaguely familiar with, but it is an im-pressive little graphics machinenonetheless. We'll have a more de-tailed article on it in the future.

The MT-160 Printer

Getting back to printers, we shouldmention another of the printers be-ing offered by Mannesmann Tally.The MT-160 is a real workhorse,though it may be one of the smallestoffice printers around. Priced at $795($695 without a near-letter-qualitymode), the MT-160 is a fairly reason-able value considering its capabilities.It can print at 160 cps (characters persecond) in draft mode and 80 cps innear-letter-quality mode. As forpitch, it can print at 10, 12, and 16.5cpi (characters per inch), and it is theonly printer I have seen lately thatcan also print at 20 cpi. For graphicsit is compatible with the Epson. Andit has both a serial and parallel port.To top things off, the MT-160 offers aunique and simple way to set its vari-ous parameters: you merely press a"yes" or "no" button in response toa series of questions it prints out.And it remembers this configurationeven after you turn the machine off.

Friday! and Peachtext 5000

After all this talk about hardware,I should mention two software pack-ages we've received for the IBM PC-one a database manager, the other acollection of practically everything.

The database manager, called sim-ply Friday!, was announced last Aprilby Ashton-Tate amidst tremendoushoopla. This easy-to-use applicationprogram written in dBase II was sup-posed to revolutionize offices. Practi-cally anyone could use it to do prac-

tically any office task.

Now that Friday! has been out fora while, we must agree with some ofthe hype. Friday! is a good product.And while it is true that practicallyanyone can use it, there is a definitelimit to what you can do with it. Twothings are particularly objectionable.First, each field of data is limited to32 characters. And although 98 per-cent of your data will fit in 32 char-acters, the 2 percent that doesn't willsure keep you from saying T.G.I.F.Second, although our IBM PC has500K bytes of memory, Friday! acts asif it still has only 64. In order to useall of its 200K bytes of code, Friday!must constantly load small programmodules from the disk drive andoverlay them onto a 64K-byte mem-ory space. Practically every othertime we hit a key, Friday! goes out tothe disk and pulls in another overlay.A nice product, but I'll wait forSaturday!

Another event that happened lastApril was that the folks at PeachtreeSoftware decided to knock Wordstaroff the Softsel software Hot List by of-fering Peachtext 5000, available for theIBM PC, the Compaq, the Texas In-struments Professional Computer,and the Zenith Z-100. It didn't knockWordstar out of the Top Ten, but it'sa real contender. It combines a goodword processor with a thesaurus, ano-frills spelling checker, a no-frillsspreadsheet, and a no-frills databasemanager, all for $395. Only the wordprocessor and the thesaurus are realleaders in their field, and I haveminor complaints about all of theseprograms. Also, these packages arenot exactly "integrated" with eachother. But you can't beat the price.

If you can afford to buy only fivesoftware packages for your MS-DOSmachine, try just this one. If it doesn'tmeet all your needs, it will give youa good idea of what will.B

Circle 267 on inquiry card.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 251

Software Review

ProDOS

by Rob

Although Apple Computer's DOS 3.3 operating sys-tem has more software available for it than any other per-sonal computer operating system, it does have someminor problems. Originally designed as an operatingsystem for small floppy disks, DOS 3.3 doesn't easilysupport 8-inch floppy disks or the increasingly popularWinchester-technology hard-disk drives. Typically,vendors of larger disk drives have resorted to supply-ing DOS patches or special modified versions of DOS3.3. Due to its heritage, DOS 3.3 also doesn't support verylarge files, or interrupts, which are necessary for localnetworking and other more advanced applications.

To remove these limitations, Apple is releasing Pro-DOS, a totally new operating system for Apple II andlie computers. According to Bill Schjelderup, productmarketing manager at Apple Computer Inc., ProDOSis "designed to overcome the limitations inherent in DOS

/MYDISK/

PRODOS

BASIC. SYSTEM

STARTUP

LETTERS

GAMES

UTILITIES

SYSSYS

BASDIRDIRDIR

/MYDISK/LETTERS/

LETTERS/

TOM. J TXTMARY. S TXTMOM TXT

/MYDISK/UTILITIES/

/MYDISr

(/GAMES/

UTILITIES/

GAMES/

~~

SUPERZAPDEBUGGERAPAHEXDEC

BINBINBINBAS

ARCADE DIRADVENTURES DIR

DISK/GAMES/ADVEN

rURES

/Ml

ADVENTURES/

ZURK BASCAVE BINQUEST BAS

/

VIYDISK/GAMES/ARC

*DE

ARCADE/

*

VIDEOBALL BINAPPLE. WARS BINGERBIL.WARS BAS

Figure 1: A typical ProDOS directory structure. The pathname,shown above each directory listing, describes the path followed to reacha particular directory from the volume name on down. If the volumespecified is mounted anywhere in the system, ProDOS will find itregardless of which drive it's in.

Moore

3.3 and provide a significantly improved base for applica-tions software development." Although ProDOS doesn'tmake DOS 3.3 obsolete, Apple expects that most newapplications will be written under ProDOS because ofthe numerous advantages it offers.

New Features

ProDOS provides a variety of new features and greatlyenhanced performance over DOS 3.3. Some of the newProDOS features include

• support for Apple's Profile 5-megabyte Winchesterhard-disk drive on an Apple II or lie

• automatic time and date stamping through built-indrivers for the Thunderclock clock/calendar card (avail-able from Thunderware Inc., 44 Hermosa Ave., Oakland,CA 94618, (415) 652-1737) or through user-installed driversfor other clock/calendar cards

•Unix-like nested directory structures and file types thatare compatible with the Apple III SOS operating systemso that disks can be interchanged between the twomachines

• file sizes that can range from 1 byte to 16 megabytes,and the ability to randomly access any type of file

• up to 256 different types of files, including a numberof reserved user-defined types

• support for up to four interrupting devices throughuser-installed interrupt handlers

• a uniform machine-language interface that letsassembly-language programs easily access and use allthe ProDOS features

• use of Apple's 64K-byte extended 80-column text cardas a high-speed pseudodisk for ultrafast file accesses

For the average user who programs primarily inBASIC, ProDOS adds a number of new commands andincreases the flexibility of many existing DOS 3.3-typecommands. In fact, the DOS command structure isextensible—ProDOS includes provisions for additionaluser-added commands to provide special features orallow customization for a particular application.

ProDOS is also much friendlier to outside peripheralvendors than DOS 3.3. ProDOS will automaticallyrecognize and use other disk devices of all sizes, pro-viding they are designed to follow the interface-protocolguidelines described in the ProDOS Technical ReferenceManual.

For software developers, it will now be possible to

252 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

create one disk that will load on either the Apple II orApple III. The boot loader, common to both ProDOS andSOS, recognizes the type of machine it boots on and at-tempts to load SOS into an Apple III or ProDOS intoan Apple II or He. All you have to do is include bothoperating systems and the necessary files on the samedisk.

Volumes, Directories, and Pathnames

A number of differences are found between ProDOSand existing operating systems like Apple's DOS 3.3 orDigital Research's CP/M. Where DOS 3.3 or CP/M specifydisks by their physical drive location (e.g., S6,D1 for DOS3.3 or B: for CP/M), ProDOS uses volume names tospecify disks rather than the drive locations. Under DOS3.3 or CP/M it's easy, for example, to delete the wrongfile or initialize the wrong disk by inadvertently insert-ing the disk in the wrong drive. With ProDOS, errorslike these don't occur. If ProDOS can't find the specifiedvolume in a particular drive, it searches through all thedrives attached to the system until the volume is foundor the last drive is searched.

To help keep disk storage organized, ProDOS uses aUnix-like system of nested directories known as a hierar-chical directory structure. In addition to having a maindirectory on each disk (or volume), ProDOS also allowssubdirectory files within the main directory. Each sub-directory can hold files of any type, including furthersubdirectories. This nested directory structure makes iteasy to keep large amounts of disk storage organized.(Figure 1 shows an example of a typical ProDOS user'sdisk directory structure.)

To specify which directory is accessed at any giventime, ProDOS uses pathnames. A pathname describesthe path to follow through the various levels of direc-tories until you reach the directory where your programresides. For example, if you wanted to run a programcalled Videowars in a subdirectory called Games, whichwas in the main directory of a volume called Mydisk,you could type

RUN /Mydisk/Games/Videowars

To avoid having to retype the entire pathname everytime you access a particular directory, ProDOS lets youset up a pathname prefix, which specifies a default direc-tory. If you enter a pathname without a leading slash,it is automatically appended to the path stored in thepathname prefix, and the result is used as the actualpathname. Using the previous example, we could set thepathname prefix to /Mydisk/Games/ and then simplytype RUN Videowars.

ProDOS's nested directories and pathname facility addsome unique capabilities to your software. Programs cannow keep their own directories and file types, avoidingsome of the confusion encountered when all the pro-grams on a disk are lumped into a single large directory.On a large hard disk, you can easily partition the diskinto logical areas for various types of programs and data

At a Glance

Name

ProDOS

Type

Disk operating system software

Manufacturer

Apple Computer Inc.20525 Mariani Ave.Cupertino, CA 95014|408) 996-1010

Hardware Required

Apple II or He computer with a minimum of 64K bytes ofmemory for operation with Applesoft BASIC; supports l28K-bytememory configuration with Apple's extended 80-column textcard

Description

Single-user, single-task operating system with significant per-formance improvements over Apple's DOS 3.3; includes hierarch-ical directory structures, numerous predefined and user-definablefile types, directory time and date stamping, support for up tofour interrupts, file sizes up to 16 megabytes, and block-orienteddisk I/O; ProDOS disks are compatible with Apple III SOS disksto allow easy file sharing between the two machines

Special Features

A 64K-byte column adapter card in the Apple lie auxiliary slotcan be used as a pseudodisk to provide significantly faster fileaccesses; ProDOS provides support for Apple's Profile 5-mega-byte hard disk with the Apple He interface card

Software

Software utilities available for ProDOS include Filer, a program toinitialize and copy whole disks or individual files; Convert, usedto transfer files to or from DOS 3.3 disks; Exerciser, to accessProDOS machine-language calls and functions; BASIC.SYSTEM,a DOS command interpreter and user interface for ApplesoftBASIC; and Help, which adds a series of help screens to theBASIC user interface; a BASIC Programming Examples disk canbe used along with the ProDOS tutorial material in thedocumentation

Documentation

ProDOS User's Manual provides a tutorial on the Filer andConvert programs; ProDOS Technical Reference Manualdescribes internal organization, machine-language calls, organiza-tion of BASICSYSTEM. and how to interface additional devicedrivers and interrupt routines to the ProDOS system; BASICProgramming with ProDOS provides tutorial material anddescribes how to use ProDOS features and files from programswritten in Applesoft BASIC

ProDOS Packages

ProDOS User's Manual with /Utilities disk including Filer andConvert

BASIC Programming with ProDOS with BASIC/Examples diskProDOS Technical Reference Manual with the Exerciser pro-gram on disk

ProDOS Tool Kit package includes 6502 macro assembler, texteditor, and debugger with 6502 Assembler/ProDOS ToolsManual

(The above packages were tentative at the time this article waswritten.)

Price and Availability

The price was not available at the time of writing; it is due tobe released in early 1984 and shipped with new Disk II systemsafter that

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 253

'SEEDLING file"

"SAPLING" FILE

0 TO 512 BYTES

MAIN-SYSTEM MEMORY

LANGUAGE-CARD AREA RAM

1

DATABLOCK

DIRECTORYENTRY

"KEY"BLOCK

513 TO 128K BYTES

INDEXBLOCK

DIRECTORYENTRY

"KEY"BLOCK

UP TO 256

512 BYTE DATA BLOCKS

$FFFF

$D0O0$C000

$BE00$9800

$0800$0400

$0000

APPLESOFT

IN

ROM

PERIPHERAL ROM'sSYSTEM I/O

SYSTEM GLOBALS($BF00-$BFFF)

BASIC GLOBALSl$BE00-$BEFF]

BASIC. SYSTEM PROG+ 1K FILE BUFFER

BASIC "HIMEM"

$9000(36K)OF

BASIC

WORKSPACE

BASIC "LOMEM"

TEXT SCREEN 1

ZERO PAGE.STACK PAGE.INPUT BUFFER

$FFFF

$F00O$E000$D000

DISK DEVICE DRIVERSPftODOS MLl

RESERVED FORFUTURE USE

ALTERNATE *KRAM BANK

PRODOS MLl(1)

USER AREAHOLDS PROGRAM.VARIABLES, HI-RESGRAPHICS SCREEN AREA

"TREE" FILE 12BK + TO 1GM BYTES

UP TO 128INDEX BLOCKS

UP TO 327S8512 BYTEDATA BLOCKS

Figure 2: ProDOS file-storage methods. ProDOS uses a growing"tree" structure to provide efficient storage of files that can range from1 byte to 16 megabytes. Files smaller than 513 bytes are stored in asingle data block and are referred to as "seedling" files. "Sapling"files have an index block that holds block numbers of up to 256 datablocks, thus providing storage for up to 64K bytes. The largest files,stored as "tree" files, use a master index block to designate up to 128index blocks, each of which can point to 256 data blocks.

As files grow or shrink during system operation, the file-storagemethod is automatically changed as the file size crosses the boundariesbetween "seedling," "sapling," and "tree" sizes.

files without having to resort to such tricks as makingthe hard disk look like a number of separate, fixed-sizefloppy disks.

Blocks and Files

Rather than dealing with physical disk tracks andsectors like DOS 3.3 does, ProDOS reads and writes512-byte blocks. The conversion from disk sectors toblocks is handled by each disk's driver routines. For ex-ample, if ProDOS were reading a block from a disk thatstored data in 128-byte sectors, the disk driver wouldread four sectors and supply the data to ProDOS as asingle 512-byte block. Since ProDOS simply supplies ablock number to the disk driver, it is completely indepen-dent of the physical disk-sector sizes or the number ofsectors per disk track.

Figure 3: A memory map of a 64K-byte Apple II or lie with Pro-DOS and SYSTEM.BASIC installed. ProDOS is stored primarily inthe language-card area of memory, and BASIC.SYSTEM resides inthe area formerly occupied by DOS 3.3. Coincidentally, a ProDOSsystem provides about the same amount of free BASIC user space asa DOS 3.3 system.

To efficiently accommodate files that can range from1 byte to 16 megabytes, ProDOS stores files in three dif-ferent ways (shown in figure 2). Depending on a file'ssize, it will be stored as either a "seedling" file, a "sap-ling" file, or a "tree" file. Files with sizes between 1 byteand 512 bytes are stored as seedling files—the data isstored in a single disk block. A sapling file can rangein size from 513 bytes to 64K bytes. ProDOS creates anindex block that holds the block numbers of up to 256data blocks, each of which can store 512 bytes of data.Files larger than 64K bytes are stored as tree files thatcan consist of up to 32,768 data blocks or 16 megabytesof data. To store a tree file, ProDOS uses a master indexblock that holds the block numbers of up to 128 indexblocks, each of which can specify 256 data blocks. Asfiles grow or shrink during disk operations, ProDOSchanges the storage method automatically—the entireprocess is completely transparent to the user.

Inside ProDOS

From the BASIC user's point of view, many ProDOScommands are virtually identical to existing DOS 3.3commands. However, ProDOS is a completely newdesign internally. It is normally located in the language-card area of memory and prevents the use of Apple's In-teger BASIC that is loaded there, under DOS 3.3. (Figure3 shows a memory map of a 64K-byte Apple II or He withProDOS installed.) When used with assembly-languageprograms, ProDOS uses only the memory above hexa-decimal BFOO, leaving 45.75K bytes of free memory spacein a 64K-byte machine.

Also unlike DOS 3.3, ProDOS doesn't include any userinterface. All commands are passed to ProDOS througha set of 24 machine-language calls to the ProDOS MLl(machine-language interface), which are similar to the

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Figure 4: A detailed block diagram of an Apple II or He with Pro-DOS and BASIC.SYSTEM installed. Arrows indicate the flow ofcontrol through the system. ProDOS includes device-driver routinesfor Apple's Disk II floppy-disk and Profile hard-disk drives. Also in-cluded are drivers to handle the /RAM pseudodisk and a Thunderclockclock/calendar card. Any other disk or clock/calendar devices requireadditional routines installed. Other interface cards with on-boardROM drivers will be recognized and operate properly, providing thatthey follow Apple's various interface guidelines.

set of calls used by the Apple Ill's SOS operating system.No provision for user-entered commands exists withinProDOS itself. Instead, ProDOS is designed to workwith various .SYSTEM programs, which translate user-entered commands into the appropriate ProDOS calls.(Figure 4 shows a block diagram of a typical BASIC user'sProDOS system.)

To maintain a consistent DOS interface while allow-ing Apple to alter the internal code in the future, Pro-DOS uses a 256-byte page of memory as a ProDOSglobals page. The globals page is used to hold the ad-dresses of all disk-driver routines, interrupt handlers, theclock-calendar routine (if installed), and the call addressof ProDOS itself. It also holds a memory bit map thatis used to indicate which pages of memory are currentlyused so ProDOS won't overwrite them during a load.The globals page is the only part of ProDOS that Appleguarantees will be consistent when future versions arereleased. No matter where ProDOS itself is loaded(depending on memory size), the globals page willalways be in the same place and contain the same data.To allow programs to deal with future versions of Pro-DOS, the globals page also includes data to indicate theversion of ProDOS currently installed in the machineand data to indicate the type of machine it's installed on.

Currently, the system recognizes the Apple II series ofcomputers or Apple Ills running in Apple II emulationmode. However, room is available for future expansion.Curiously, ProDOS won't work on most of the AppleII work-alikes. On a Franklin, for example, it hangs upduring the boot process and coincidentally leaves Ap-ple's copyright message on the screen. This is unfor-tunate for the owners of these machines, but you can'treally expect the people at Apple to spend much timegetting new software to work on unauthorized copiesof its hardware.

BASIC.SYSTEM

Most users will talk to ProDOS through the .SYSTEMprogram called BASIC.SYSTEM, which provides an ex-tended set of DOS 3.3-like commands to ApplesoftBASIC. When BASIC.SYSTEM is loaded, it resides justbeneath ProDOS in memory. Coincidentally, it leavesabout the same amount of free memory as DOS 3.3.

Most BASIC.SYSTEM commands are compatible withthe equivalent DOS 3.3 commands to allow existingBASIC programs to run with minimum alterations. Afew seldom-used commands have been removed, how-ever, and a number of new commands have been addedand existing commands extended. You can now, for ex-ample, use OPEN, READ, WRITE, and CLOSE to accessany type of file (including directories), and you can useBLOAD or BSAVE on any part of any type of file.

One of the most interesting new commands is simplya dash, a "run anything if possible" command. By typing" - filename", you can run a BASIC program, run abinary program, execute a text file of commands, or loadand run a new .SYSTEM program.

To help you deal with ProDOS's nested directories,BASIC.SYSTEM provides a PREFIX command. You canuse it to either set the pathname prefix to specify adefault directory or to read back the current pathnameprefix onto the screen or into a program variable.

BASIC.SYSTEM also provides I/O (input/output) com-mands that are much more flexible than those found inDOS 3.3. Instead of just using PR# or IN# to specify anI/O slot for input or output, BASIC.SYSTEM providesextensions to these commands that allow you to specifya particular address in memory to call for input or out-put or even to assign new addresses to given I/O slots.For instance, if your printer-interface card is in slot 1 andyou have a special printer-driver routine loaded intohexadecimal address 300, you could type PR#1,A$300.From then on, any output normally sent to slot 1 wouldbe sent to your routine at hexadecimal 300 instead. An-other way to accomplish the same result would be totype PR# A$300 when you want to turn the printer onand PR#0 when you want to turn it off.

Adding Commands to BASIC.SYSTEM

In addition to providing a variety of flexible DOScommands, the BASIC.SYSTEM command structure isalso extensible—you can add your own commands forspecial applications. By changing a pointer location in

256 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Listing 1: A listing of the two benchmark programs used to performthe disk access-time tests for the 500-record file. The programs usedfor the Apple III and the IBM PC were similar. A 500-record file iscreated by the program in listing la and is read by the program inlisting lb (see "The Apple III and Its New Profile," September 1982BYTE, page 92).

REM CNTRL-D

(la)

20 DS r CHRS (4)

6 0 NR . 500

100 PRINT DS;"OPEN TEST"

110 PRINT DS;"READ TEST"

140 FOR I = 1 TO NR

160 INPUT BS

180 NEXT I

200 PRINT DS;"CLOSE TEST'

220 PRINT "DONE"

(lb)

2 0 DS

40 AS60 BS

3 0 NR100110140160180200220

CHRS (4): REN CNTRL-D"123456781234567812345G78112345678'AS + AS + AS + AS500

OPEN TEST"

WRITE TEST"

TO NR

DSDS

PRINTPRINTFOR I =--PRINT BSNEXT IPRINT DS

"CLOSE TEST'

PRINT "DONE1

Apple lie Apple lie Apple III IBM PCProDOS DOS 3.3 SOS PC-DOS

Write 500 recordsRead 500 recordsWrite 32K-byte fileRead 32K-byte file

3635195.5

175221

4431

37

33

3223

Table 1: A comparison of the relative floppy-disk access times ofProDOS and DOS 3.3 with times indicated in seconds. Times forthe IBM PC and the Apple III are included for reference purposes.The 500-record file consisted of sequential 128-character recordsterminated with carriage returns, giving a total file size of justless than 64K bytes. (Benchmark programs used are shown inlisting 1.) ProDOS appears to operate effectively six or seven timesfaster than DOS 3.3.

the BASIC.SYSTEM globals page, you can specify theaddress of an external command routine, which will becalled if BASIC.SYSTEM gets an unrecognizedcommand.

Apple's Help and APA (Applesoft Programmer's Assis-tant) programs are two interesting examples of addedBASIC.SYSTEM commands. Running the Help programon the /Examples disk adds a special HELP commandto the system. You can then type HELP followed by anyDOS command, and a screen of information describingthat particular command will be quickly loaded from theHelpscreens file on the disk and displayed.

When you run APA, it adds a series of program editing

and debugging commands. Some of the commandsadded by APA let you renumber your program lines,merge two BASIC programs, use automatic line number-ing, hold a program in a special memory area, compressa program to remove all REM statements, and obtain anXREF (cross-reference) listing of variables versus linenumbers.

Performance

According to Apple, DOS 3.3 transfers data to or froman Apple Disk II at about IK bytes/sec while ProDOStransfers data at 8K bytes/sec. These figures are the rawtransfer rates and do not include overhead time to ac-cess directories, open file buffers, or pass the data to Ap-plesoft BASIC.

To evaluate the actual effective speed improvement, Iused the same disk-access speed benchmarks used toevaluate the Apple III (see "The Apple III and Its NewProfile," September 1982 BYTE, page 92). The evaluationincluded additional tests to write and read a 32K-bytefile of binary data, simulating a large program store orload. (The benchmark programs used are shown inlisting 1, and the test results are summarized in table 1.)

The performance increase with ProDOS was im-pressive. ProDOS ran five to six times as fast as DOS3.3 when accessing text-file records or reading the 32K-byte binary file and about twice as fast when first storingthe binary file. In fact, the times for ProDOS were almostthe same as the times recorded for the Apple III run-ning SOS, the progenitor of ProDOS.

It wasn't possible to use the same benchmarkprograms to measure the access times to the /RAMpseudodisk because /RAM provides 62K bytes of spacewhile the benchmark program writes a 63.75K-byte file.However, the times to save and load the 32K-byte binaryfile were roughly 1.2 and 0.4 seconds respectively.

BYTE did not receive an Apple He Profile hard-diskdrive for evaluation. However, based on the test resultswith the Apple III Profile, you should expect an addi-tional improvement in overall disk speed of a factor ofthree to four.

Utility Software

Along with ProDOS itself and BASIC.SYSTEM, Appleprovides three utility programs: Filer, to manipulate diskfiles and volumes; Convert, to transfer files between Pro-DOS and DOS 3.3 format disks; and Exerciser, to accessthe ProDOS MLI commands.

Filer is used primarily to copy files or whole disks orto initialize new ProDOS disks, but it also providesoptions that let you delete or rename files, renamevolumes, alter file write-protection, and list ProDOSdirectories. To help the novice user, Filer provides a seriesof built-in tutor screens that explain the various Filercommands and options. Filer is also useful when you'removing files from one directory to another on the samedisk. You could, for example, create a new subdirectorycalled Games and then use Filer to copy all your gameprograms from the main directory to Games. If the name

258 tebruary 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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of each game program ended with the same suffix, theFiler wild-card character (=) could be used to accomplishthe copy with a single Filer command.

Convert can be used to copy files in either directionbetween ProDOS and DOS 3.3. Since ProDOS uses dif-ferent filenaming conventions than DOS 3.3 (filenamescan be 15 characters long and cannot contain spaces),Convert modifies DOS 3.3 filenames by truncating themto 15 characters and changing any spaces to periods.

Both Filer and Convert appear to be well written anduser-friendly. The prompting is clear and unambigu-ous—it will be difficult to make an error using eitherprogram.

Exerciser is primarily a tool for system programdevelopers. It can be used to manually execute each ofthe ProDOS MLI calls and to modify areas of memory.Exerciser should be used with caution. It will be veryeasy for an unwary user to damage the data on a diskbecause Exerciser lets you read or write data onto anydisk block. However, it should be invaluable for debug-ging systems or for patching a damaged disk.

Documentation

Although the manuals I received for review were earlydraft copies, the ProDOS documentation looks excellent.All three manuals are well written, containing numerousexamples and special cautionary messages when de-scribing areas where problems might occur.

The ProDOS User's Manual explains how to use theFiler and Convert utilities. Written at a level suitable forrank beginners, it takes you step by step through eachFiler and Convert function, explaining any new term en-countered along the way. I found the ProDOS User'sManual to be the least needed of the manuals suppliedbecause both Filer and Convert are menu-driven and vir-tually bulletproof. You simply progress from menu tomenu, selecting the options you want—it's almost im-possible to make any serious mistakes.

BASIC Programming with ProDOS will probably be themost read of the ProDOS manuals. Even though muchof the material included will already be familiar to DOS3.3 users, it explains all the new ProDOS commands andoptions and includes descriptions of ProDOS directories,pathnames, and file types. For the beginner, BASIC Pro-gramming with ProDOS includes all the informationnecessary to learn to use ProDOS effectively. A large per-centage of the manual is spent explaining text files. Itincludes chapters that describe how text files are createdand accessed, how to use random-access files, and howto create files of commands as Exec files. The appendixesinclude descriptions of the differences between DOS 3.3and ProDOS when using Applesoft BASIC, a summaryof ProDOS commands and features, descriptions of allerror messages, and a complete glossary of all termsused.

The ProDOS Technical Reference Manual provides a com-plete description of ProDOS's inner workings. It will beinvaluable to anyone who wants to write a system pro-gram, install his or her own device drivers, or deal with

260 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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ProDOS from assembly language. It includes chaptersthat describe files and pathnames, calls to the ProDOSMLI, writing system programs, and adding routines toProDOS. Appendixes provide descriptions of the file-storage methods and directory formats, disk organiza-tion, the relationship between ProDOS and SOS, andhow to use the Exerciser program.

ProDOS Packages

At the time this was written, Apple had tentative plansto market four different ProDOS packages. For assembly-language programmers, there will be a ProDOS Tool Kitwith a new version of Apple's EDASM editor/assembler,a debugger program, and the 6502 Assembler/ProDOSTools Manual. The new version of EDASM includesmacros and supports the various ProDOS file types andpathnames. Apple will also market a package that con-sists of the ProDOS Technical Reference Manual and theExerciser program—useful if you want to write additionaldevice drivers or .SYSTEM programs that interfacedirectly to the ProDOS MLI. A BASIC users package willinclude BASIC Programming with ProDOS along with theBASIC /Examples disk. A utilities package will combinethe ProDOS User's Manual with a /Utilities disk holdingFiler and Convert.

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Conclusions

ProDOS provides a significantly improved operatingsystem for Apple II and He computers. With disk ac-cesses about six times faster than DOS 3.3, files up to16 megabytes long, and support for Apple's Profile5-megabyte hard-disk drive, ProDOS provides an en-vironment that will make it easier for applicationsdevelopers to write the increasingly sophisticated soft-ware required by the business community. Using diskand file formats that are compatible with the Apple Ill'sSOS operating system, ProDOS allows development ofsoftware that will boot up and run properly on eithermachine—loading ProDOS on Apple lis or lies andloading SOS on Apple Ills.

For the more casual user, ProDOS may initially seemmore complex to learn than DOS 3.3 due to its nesteddirectory structure and increased command options.However, it will be easier to keep your programs orga-nized under ProDOS, and the volume names and path-names will prevent errors that could occur under DOS3.3 if the wrong slot # or drive were specified. You shouldnote that ProDOS does not make DOS 3.3 obsolete.There is no need to convert existing software to ProDOSunless you need the increased performance or newfeatures.

For hardware developers, ProDOS provides a uniformprotocol that lets you interface virtually any type of disk-like storage device without resorting to the now commonDOS patches. If Apple's interface guidelines are fol-lowed, foreign disks will be recognized and used prop-erly without requiring any alterations to the operatingsystem. (This will also make life a little easier for users.)

On the minus side, neither Apple's UCSD Pascal norApple CP/M is compatible with ProDOS, and this mayprolong some existing problems. Current suppliers ofhard disks for the Apple II generally provide softwarethat lets you partition your disk into areas for DOS 3.3,Pascal, and CP/M, because the three operating systemsare not compatible. On the Apple III, Pascal resides onthe SOS operating system and shares the nested direc-tory/pathname facilities to manage disk storage. I hopeto see a new Pascal for the Apple II with the same fea-tures. In the interim, Apple will supply software thatwill let you partition your Apple He Profile hard disk intoseparate areas for ProDOS and Apple's Pascal 1.1 oper-ating system.

To summarize, Apple's new ProDOS represents asignificant improvement over the existing DOS 3.3 oper-ating system and includes features that are unavailablewith most other personal computer operating systems.Although it may not be worth the effort to convert yourexisting DOS 3.3-based software to ProDOS, its capabil-ities give it some strong advantages for development ofnew programs. ■

Rob Moore (Warner Hill Rd., RFD #5, Derry, NH 03038) is a design engi-neering manager with an interest in FORTH, graphics, and computer music.

262 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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• 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 Katz, 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.'

Jerry Pournelle, Byte - September, '83

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

8080,Z80orIBMPC.$150CP/M-86orMSDOS .$195

Manual only $18

On-LineTutorial . . .$15Mail Merge $15

yeprr

• ftUBTOMI/ABLE

CFv'M Is i revalued trademark of HiRiial Research Inc. MSDOS fa t trademark of Mtaaofi IBM b a trademark ofInternational Business Machines. Quote, from I rifoVTiirlJ review Cuyi'ri.ijii 1983 byPopubu Computing, lit asuhsidiaiyofCw Communications. Inc., FraminnJam, MA- RepdfflfidfnrolnfoWwH Quotes from Byte rttfcw Copyright 1983 by BytePubBoWms, inc. Quotes [mm SeMrai rertw Copyright 1983 by Sextant Ptibllshipg Co. Quote Imm re Magazine reviewCopyright 1983 by PC Marine.

CompuView

Circle 84 on inquiry card.

PRODUCTS, INC.

1955 Pauline Blvd., Suite 200 Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103 (313) 996-1299 Telex - 701821

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

BYTE February 1984 263

We've always said

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" intonext column

Calendar/Datecalculations

Dictionary sortorder (not ASCII)

Two keysort

User-set decimalplaces

Data managementcapability

Floating$ signs

Negatives shownin( )

Individually

variable column

widths

rot»i ifB

*4S &Y I

amce- TOTAC

1*91 , l£>2 J4ol

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j 74 99

*9,440 I I

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Bt*ff CompJj/rurnt it Avqrmgm Rmtmmt

flmnmgmr- J *84.667

Smniar- J fSi.OOO

St*-ft 2 *42. POO

JO

Nowyoucandraw your own conclusions.

SuperCalc?

Now we're introducing our new-est version, SuperCalc3, whichcomes complete with the kind ofgraphics you'd expectto 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 SuperCalc3100% 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-current CP/M-86, MP/M, MS-DOSand PC-DOS operating systems.Right now, SuperCalc3 is availablefor the IBM PC, PCXTand IBM PCcompatibles. It's only $395. Andsoon it'll be available for a lot morepersonal 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,and MP/M*aretrademarks otDigital Research. MS ■ -nos is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.IBM* is atrademark of International Business Machines Corporation.VisiCalc* is a trademark of Visicorp. '© 1983 Sorcim Corporation

Supercede^

" & SORCIM*

2310 Lundy Avenue San Jose, CA 95131(408)942-1727

Integratedpresentation-quality graphics

Prints all

available plotter

colors

Prints up to four

charts on the

same page

Eight fonttypes

Components of

graph resize to

match size of text

Full color

graphics Exp|oding

pie charts

Accounting For TheSerious Business User

The IBM PC and XT, the AppleLISA and Apple III, the DECRainbow, the Victor 9000, theWang Personal, the Tl Pro-fessional, the Zenith Z-100...What do these top-sellingbusiness computers have incommon ? All of these popularproducts plus over 30 other micro-computers run the Software FitnessProgram1" accounting applicationsplus the Team Manager™ reportwriter.

You can choose Open Systems'accounting applications in COBOL orBASIC on single- or multi-user com-puters running on every popular oper-ating system including CP/M, CP/M-86, MP/M, MP/M-86, MS-DOS, PC-DOS, OASIS, RM/COS or XENIX. Over

200,000 of our applications havealready been installed in over 200different types of businesses.

Powerful Yet

Simple To Use

We've got the most advanced andcomprehensive accounting softwareyou can buy-yet our products withtraining disks and owner's manualswill put the computer novice at ease.

And with our newest prod-uct, the Team Manager re-port writer, a user can selectfrom over 800 predefined datadictionary elements to createan unlimited number ofsimple or complex reports.

If you're looking for on-track accounting solutions toincrease your profits ... lookto the Software Fitness Pro-gram Accounts Receivable,Accounts Payable, General Ledger,Payroll, Job Cost, Inventory, SalesOrder Processing, PLUS the TeamManager report writer. Our com-petition can't even come close.

If your bottom line is your toppriority, today and tomorrow, we'vegot solutions. Ask for a demon-stration from your local computerdealer.

OPENSYSTEMS

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*%>J^ *»

266 BYTE February 1984

Circle 276 on inquiry card.

Software Review

Knowledgeman

A close look at a new, fully integrated management system withcomplete database and spreadsheet capabilities all in one

by James W. Walker

Multifunction integrated programs are a recent populartrend in personal computer software. These programsinclude such functions as database management, spread-sheet analysis, graphics generation, and word process-ing. Knowledgeman: The Knowledge Manager is a re-cent entry into this market.

This new information-management system from MicroData Base Systems combines in one package a superiorrelational database-management system (DBMS), an ad-vanced third-generation spreadsheet, a forms generator,the means for full statistical analysis, extensive operatingfunctions, and a complete structured-programming lan-guage for writing command procedures. Both color andmonochrome displays are supported. The program listsfor $500 and requires a minimum of 192K bytes of RAM(random-access read/write memory). Recommendedmass storage is 500K bytes. Knowledgeman takes full ad-vantage of the new generation of 16-bit microcomputerswith releases for the IBM PC, Victor/Sirius, and Altosmicrocomputers. Unlike most other relational databasemanagement systems, such as dBASE II or Condor,Knowledgeman has few design limitations. For example,with Knowledgeman you may have up to 255 fields perrecord and an unlimited number of tables open at once(assuming enough RAM and disk space are available),thus allowing multiple table processing with a singlecommand.

My work involves determining the evolutionary rela-

tionships between groups of flowering plants. I useKnowledgeman to analyze the distribution of character-istics among flowering-plant groups. For example, if thepollen of certain flowering plants indicates that twogroups of plants may be related, Knowledgeman looksfor other traits, such as flower, fruit, and seed type, thatthese groups may have in common. In this short reviewI can scarcely do justice to this comprehensive program,but I will attempt to outline its major features.

Database Management

As a database manager, Knowledgeman allows you toset up a file, define the various fields of each record,enter data, modify data, and access data in a numberof different ways.

Table Formation

Knowledgeman creates each database as a table, con-sisting of rows, or records, and columns, or fields. TheDEFINE command forms the table. You enter DEFINEand a table name, and the system prompts you for a file-name and then for the fields. Each field must have aname and a type (string, numeric, or logical) and, if it'sa string field, a maximum length.

You can have up to 65,535 records per table and upto 255 fields per record as long as you have enough diskspace and RAM to handle it. Essentially, the softwareplaces no limit on record or field length since each may

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 267

At a Glance

Name

Knowledgeman

Type

Integrated relational database-management system andspreadsheet

Manufacturer

Micro Data Base Systems Inc.POB 248

Lafayette, IN 47902|317) 463-2581

Price

S500

Language

Assembly language and C

Format

Floppy disk

Software Required

PC-DOS 1.1 and 2.0. MS-DOS 1.x, or CP/M-86

Computer System

192K bytes of RAM, 500K bytes of mass storage

Documentation

One reference manual, beginner tutorial guide, fold-outcommand guide

Audience

"Second-time" users, BASIC programmers

be up to 65,535 characters long. You can define "pictures"to provide field-integrity checking (e.g., use placeholdersto restrict data input to alphabetic, alphanumeric, ornumeric characters) or specific kinds of editing (e.g., useplaceholders to automatically convert alphabetic char-acters to uppercase or lowercase). Fields can also havefixed characters, e.g., the dashes in social security num-bers can automatically occupy the proper positions oninput. You can create virtual fields (defined by a formula)that occupy no storage in the table. The system updatesvirtual-field values as data changes occur in the fieldsor expressions that define them.

You can check table definitions with the SHOW com-mand. SHOW with a specific table name gives you a dis-play of the following: field names, field types, field "pic-tures," virtual-field definitions, index-key expressions,date of last modification, and current number of records.When SHOW is entered by itself, Knowledgeman givesyou all tables in use and their complete filenames, aswell as the default table.

The USE and FINISH commands respectively openand close the tables. If the RAM and disk space are avail-able, there is no limit to the number of tables that canbe used simultaneously. FINISH followed by a specifictable name closes that table, while FINISH ALL closesall tables in use. A new default table can be declaredusing the DEFAULT command followed by the tablename.

Data Input

After defining a table, you begin data entry with theCREATE command. Knowledgeman responds with"Record Number xxx" and provides field prompts. Fixedcharacters declared in field "pictures" appear automati-cally, and each field's length is indicated by dashes. Thesystem supports full use of the IBM PC's arrow and spe-cial-function keys for editing data items (field variables).Field values of the previous record can be repeated. Fur-thermore, you can insert, delete, or overwrite a previousfield-value display.

Knowledgeman doesn't provide virtual-field promptsbecause those values are automatically computed. If youcreate subsequent records after a table's initial recordcreation, you can place them in the file anywhere youchoose.

Table Modification

You can easily modify tables with the REDEFINE com-mand, adding new fields, deleting existing fields, orchanging the type, size, or name of a field. You canredefine or add field "pictures" and virtual fields andrename or erase tables with the RENAME and DESTROYcommands, respectively. Data items (field variables)themselves may be updated in one of two ways. Usingthe BROWSE command you can look at one record ata time and edit the data items in it or you can set thebrowsing scope to look only at records 134-256, for ex-ample. You can rapidly browse forward or backwardthrough the records with the function keys. You can alsoset conditions, such as certain field values, for therecords to be browsed. Knowledgeman has the addedfeature of selective field browsing so you can BROWSE(or CREATE) only some of a table's fields if you wish.

The CHANGE command changes data items global-ly. For example, the command CHANGE NAME TO"AUDREY" would change all field values for the field"Name" to "Audrey." However, if you want you can limitthe scope of data item changes to certain record numbersor to certain conditions, e.g., you can CHANGE FNAMETO "AUDREY" FOR LNAME = "WALKER" to changeonly those records whose lname (last name) is "Walker."

Knowledgeman deletes records using a logical switch.When the system creates a record, it automatically setsup the first field as #MARK. You cannot delete or renamethis field, and it has an initial logical value of "false."If you want to delete records, change the #MARK fieldof the selected records to "true" (with the MARK com-mand). An UNMARK command is available to changerecords marked "true" back to "false." If you want todelete the records permanently, the COMPRESS com-mand destroys all records marked "true." You can createnew tables from existing tables using the IMPRESS,CONVERT, and ATTACH commands. The IMPRESScommand allows you to "impress" an existing tabledefinition onto a empty new table. Field names, types,sizes, and "pictures" are all carried over to the new table.The CONVERT command changes the field values frompacked binary to a special file format—ASCII, BASIC-

268 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

compatible, and DIF (Data Interchange Format). If youonly want the values from certain fields, Knowledgemansupports selective attaching. Although you can use theCONVERT and ATTACH commands in several ways,they are especially useful when you want to constructa new table out of existing tables.

Table Sorting and Indexing

The SORT and INDEX commands appropriately sortand index records. You can sort records in ascending (A-Z) or descending (Z-A) order or in some combinationthereof. Sorting is based on the contents of a field or onrelationships between fields (e.g., records could besorted A-Z on three times the salary). You can also createindexes in ascending or descending order or in somecombination of sequences using the INDEX command.

Data Retrieval

You can retrieve data a record at a time or generate anentire output table. There are two ways to get an in-dividual record, OBTAIN and PLUCK. Use OBTAIN toget a particular record number, first, last, prior, or next

Perform files can keep the systembusy for hours with just one entry.

record, as well as record number xxx, and to get a recordconditionally, for example:

OBTAIN FOR FNAME = "AUDREY"

Use the PLUCK command for rapid retrieval ofindexed records. This is the fastest way to retrieve arecord conditionally, but before you can use the PLUCKcommand, you must create one or more index files forthe table.

Knowledgeman uses B + tree indexing for rapid recordretrieval. You can use an unlimited number of index keysper table. Each index can have as many as 65,535 fieldsand be up to 65,535 characters long. If you want to con-ditionally retrieve records often, use index files; thePLUCK commands are much faster than the conditionalOBTAIN commands.

The system can automatically update indexes as youmake changes with the BROWSE and CHANGE com-mands. However, this slows down the CHANGE com-mand significantly, so you may decide to override thisfeature and create new indexes after major table changes.You must recreate index files after using REDEFINE,COMPRESS, or SORT commands.

The SELECT (LIST) command creates a new outputtable from one or more existing tables. It is one of themost powerful Knowledgeman commands. You can pickany number of fields for data generation, and the orderin which you list the fields determines the arrangementof the output table. You can SELECT to include, for ex-ample, all records, the next 100 records, or records in a

How afireman

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-ending 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 yet

smarter.

Hotline: 1-800-641-0814

California Hotline: (213) 991-8200

firefighter.

simpler, smarter software.

SBpractical^peripherals

31245 La Baya Drive, Westlake Village, CA 91362

Circle 297 on inquiry card.

February 1984 @ BYTE Publications Inc. 269

EXPOTEK

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\BORDER

turn the spreadsheet's borders on

or off

leave spreadsheet mode while

\BYE

maintaining all spreadsheet defini-

tions and variables

\COLUMN,\ROW

add or delete columns or rows

\COMBINE

combine portions of different

spreadsheets

\COMPUTE

compute up-to-date values for all of

a spreadsheet's cells

\CONCEAL, \REVEAL

conceal cell's definitions from view

(or reveal to view)

\COPY

copy cell definitions

\DISPLAY

print desired cell values

\DUMP

print formulas serving as basis for

cell values

\EDIT

edit the active cell's definition

\PROTECT \UNPROTECT

protect or unprotect cell definitions

from alterations

\SAVE, \LOAD

save or load a file

\STOP

leave spreadsheet mode without

maintaining spreadsheet cell values

\STYLE, \ACTIVATE,

declare and conditionally

\DEACTIVATE

activate-deactivate reverse video,

blinking, etc.

\UNDEFINE

undefine a cell or block of cells

\USING

assign a "picture" to a cell for in-

tegrity checking and editing

\WIDTH

specify the column width

\ =

reposition the spreadsheet display

Table 1: The Knowledgeman spreadsheet commands.

certain range. You can specify "pictures" for output datavalues to edit the data or set up any number of condi-tions for data retrieval. A full set of logical operators isavailable, including =, <>, >, <, >=, and <=.

Knowledgeman allows an unlimited number of tablesto be open at once (dependent only on available RAMand disk space), so you can use the SELECT commandto query multiple tables. The system supports wild-cardstring, character-match symbols, and a "unique" qualifierto suppress the display of an item's next value if it equalsthe preceding one. You can SELECT dynamic, multifield,multisequence sorting of the output table with thequalifier

"ORDER BY direction fieldname..."

This enables you to obtain sorted data from only therecords retrieved without having to physically sort all thetable's records. Finally, you can have an unlimited num-ber of changes in an output field's value triggering con-trol breaks by using the qualifier

"GROUP BY fieldname..."

This computes full statistics for all the fields in each con-trol break and displays them if you wish.

Spreadsheet

To use the Knowledgeman spreadsheet within thedatabase program, enter the CALC command. Spread-sheets can have up to 255 rows or columns. Special ef-fects include up to eight foreground or background col-

270 February 1984 8 BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 138 on inquiry card.

It Meets Your Needs

WhateverThey Are v—

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Large Multi-user Capability \

A truly professional, reliable solution—the NETlwork8816 has been specifically designed for installationin demanding multi-user applications. The low startingprice allows you to start with two users and growler"to many thousands without the expense-efTeplacingexisting equipment or softvyai»-flS"you grow. Weoffer three typesoJU-oeaTArea Networking, includingEthernetjjwrth-frjlTshared multi-system resources.AND IT WORKS. Gone are the bottlenecks that makeshared-processor multi-user systems too sluggishfor real time applications. What's more, we offer anunbeatable combination in a video terminal with ourNET/worker. You get styling, operating comfort, valueand reliability.

All MuSYS systems utilize TurboDOS, the IndustryStandard Multi-user Operating System. Mainfrgin.capability at microcomputer prices^nd-eotfipatiblewith virtually all CP/M Sotoy^r-NET/work systemsgive you advancgdJeatOris such as 8MHZ processors,highsjje©€HTaTddisk drives with storage capacitiestrp^o280MB, and 16 bit future upgrade path.

This system meets your needs...WHATEVER THEYARE. Call or write, MuSYS Corporation, 1752-B Langley,Irvine, California 92714. (714) 662-7387 toll free out-side California 1-800-852-5362. TWX 910-595-1967Cable MUSYSIRIN.

Dealer and OEM inquiries welcome.

We design the future.

NET/work is a trademark of MuSYS Corporation. TurboDOS is atrademark of Software 2000, Inc. CP/M is a trademark of DigitalResearch, Inc. Ethernet is a trademark of Xerox Corporation.

4^r

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ors, reverse video, blinking, half-intensity, and soundingthe bell (provided your hardware can handle it). Thespreadsheet has entry, edit, and message lines andvariable column widths, and you can execute regulardatabase commands within it. Some of the spreadsheetcommands are listed in table 1. Notice that \BYE data-base commands can be executed within the spreadsheetmode. Equally important, spreadsheet cells can extractdata from independent tables and can also be definedas programs.

Forms Generation

You can design forms for data entry or output withthe FORM command, declaring any number ofelements. Use an AT command to position labels or datavalues at the desired row-column. Display forms withthe PUTFORM command and print or write them to disk(with or without data) with the PRINT command. TheTALLY command uses a screen form for "what if"analyses comparable to spreadsheet analyses. Screenforms may have up to eight foreground or backgroundcolors, reverse video, blinking, half-intensity, and bellsounds. The CLEAR command followed by a form nameclears the form from the screen; when used alone, itclears the entire screen.

Statistical Analysis

You can generate a full statistical analysis of the out-put table with the SELECT command or you can obtainthe desired statistics without displaying field valuesusing the STAT command. The following statistics areavailable for numeric fields: count, sum, mean, mini-mum, maximum, variance, and standard deviation. Nu-merical accuracy depends on the operating system andthe central processor. Count and minimum-maximumstatistics are available for string fields as well.

Operating Functions

Knowledgeman supports many operating functions,numeric, string, and logical. Numeric operating func-tions include absolute value, arcsine, current recordnumber, exponentiation, string length, natural and base10 logarithms, position of matching string values, maxi-mum and minimum comparisons, random number gen-eration, root computation, sine, and square root. Stringoperating functions include uppercase and lowercaseconversion, substring extraction, trailing blanks elimina-tion, and type determination. You can use logical func-tions to determine if you have reached the end of a table,if a file is on line, or if a string's first character is alpha-betic or numeric. These operating functions are par-ticularly useful in command procedures.

Command Procedures

When the same list of commands must be performedtwo or more times, Knowledgeman allows creation ofcommand procedures (one or more commands in a per-form file). A perform file is basically a batch file that youcan evoke within the Knowledgeman program. You can

272 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 339 on inquiry card.

create perform files with a word-processing program orby using the COPY CON: command at the PC-DOS sys-tem level. Perform files can contain an unlimited numberof commands. This way, you can initiate enough com-mands to keep the computer busy for several hourswhile only having to enter one of them.

You can call a perform file from within Knowledgemanwith the PERFORM command or by including the per-form filename with the KMAN command at the systemlevel. The lengths of Knowledgeman commands andcommand procedures are unlimited.

You can include comments within commands andcommand procedures, using " \* " before and " * \" afterthe comment. A single command procedure can containup to 26 different parameters and an unlimited numberof working variables that are entirely unrelated to tablefields or spreadsheet cells. Working variables, macros,and forms can all be declared local to a given procedure.There is also a complete structured-programming lan-guage to construct command procedures.

Program Design

Knowledgeman comes with a memory-resident 56K-byte main program and 16 overlay files that are calledas needed. The overlay files run from about 8K bytesto nearly 17K bytes each (most are between 12K and 15Kbytes). All 16 overlays together total slightly more than210K bytes. For those with tight disk space it is possibleto load the 56K-byte KMAN. EXE file that stays in mem-ory and then use one drive for overlays and the otherfor data files. In addition, those with limited disk spacecan use several disks with different overlay programs onthem. For example, if you are not using the spreadsheetmode you can leave out two overlays devoted exclusive-ly to the spreadsheet, saving more than 30K bytes. Sincethe SORT, INDEX, CONVERT, and SELECT With Dy-namic Sort commands generate temporary files on thedefault drive, it is useful to have one disk containing onlythe overlay files for default work space.

To enter Knowledgeman from the system level, key inKMAN. You can enter a perform filename to implementa particular set of environment variable definitions,macro and/or form declarations, and/or commands. Forexample, I call a perform file on entering Knowledgemanto set environment variables E.DMIN and E.DMAX tofalse (so the minimum and maximum statistics don't dis-play with the SELECT command) and E.PAUS to true(so the system pauses after each screenful of dataoutput).

Knowledgeman doesn't provide any menus, but youcan easily create them with a word-processing program.Using Knowledgeman's structured-programming lan-guage and command perform files or a program like Pro-key, it is not difficult to develop a menu-driven system.I started to do this but soon discovered that Knowledge-man's command structure is so easy that a menu-drivensystem is hardly necessary. I did use Prokey to define40 special-function keys (F1-F10 unshifted, shifted, plusControl key, and plus Alternate key). I also used com-

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February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 273

Function

Nonconditional single-record retrievalIndexed single-record retrievalConditional middle-record (No. 672) retrievalConditional last-record (No. 1345) retrieval

Table 2: The OBTAIN and PLUCK command performance testresults. Times are shown in minutes:seconds.

Command

Time

OBTAIN

<:02

PLUCK

<:02

OBTAIN

1:24

OBTAIN

2:48

ments embedded in commands. This kind of command-driven system is much faster than a menu-driven oneand still has many of its advantages.

Knowledgeman allows unlimited macro nesting andmacros can be of any length. It also has a series of user-definable variables—environment variables and utilityvariables. Environment variables all begin with "E."followed by up to four letters; they have string, numeric,or logical (true or false) values. All environment variableshave default values and are easily changed in Knowl-edgeman or a command-procedure file.

The environment variables do such things as controlwhether the bell sounds on input of invalid data, definewhich statistics are displayed with SELECT or STAT com-mands, and suppress error messages.

Utility variables are preceded by a "#" and can alsobe modified. They contain such things as the average,count, maximum, minimum, and standard deviation.

The SAVE command stores environment and utilityvariables, global working variables, global macro andform definitions, and current spreadsheet definitions.You can leave Knowledgeman, do something else, andthen resume work where you left off. The LOAD com-mand, which reloads this information, can operate inwhole (loading everything) or in part (loading onlymacros, working variables, or forms, for example).

Knowledgeman provides extensive data security to beused or not at your discretion. A file namedUSRMAN.EXE creates a global user file calledKPASS.IGU containing passwords and security levels.You can use USRMAN.EXE (62K bytes long) to authorizenew users, delete users, alter a password, or change asecurity level. You can specify read/write authorizationdown to the individual field or cell level. There are 65,535possible security-code combinations, data files are en-crypted, and a 49K-byte scramble utility is provided to

List data values for five fields

Time

Nonconditional SELECT

<:03

Conditional SELECT (single condition)

3:13

Including dynamic sorting:

Nonconditional SELECT

Sorted on one field

4:03

Sorted on five fields

7:41

Conditional SELECT (single

condition)

Sorted on one field

3:01

Sorted on five fields

3:19

Table 3: The first SELECT (LIST) command

performance test

results. Times are shown in

minutes: seconds.

encrypt perform files so they cannot be read at thesystem level.

Performance

Written in assembly language and C with data filesin condensed binary code (convertible to ASCII), Knowl-edgeman's performance is very pleasing. Limitations onthe program's speed appear to be more the result ofhardware restrictions than software restrictions. I rancommand tests using two different data tables with thefollowing results (both on an IBM PC with 320K bytesof RAM and two 320K-byte double-sided, double-densityfloppy-disk drives, using PC-DOS 1.10 and Knowledge-man 1.00).

The first series of commands were tested on a 154K-byte data table with 19 fields and 1345 100-characterrecords (see table 2). The results suggest that you shouldprepare indexes for fields you intend to retrieve oftenwhile you use the conditional OBTAIN command onlywhen you want a field seldom used as a key.

I also performed various tests of the SELECT (LIST)command for this first data table. The results are shownin table 3.

A second data table, 152K bytes long, with 47 fields,and consisting of 592 208-character records, was alsotested. Results are shown in table 4.

The small difference between the time for a conditionalSELECT on four conditions with a dynamic sort (3:36)and the time for the same command without thedynamic sort (3:32) proves how fast the sorting processis and suggests that the response time is largely diskdependent.

I am pleased with Knowledgeman's speed, especiallythe SELECT command. Hardware seems to be the great-est limiting factor in this program's performance. Thefollowing suggestions may help overcome some of theselimitations. First, try a hard disk rather than a floppydisk. Knowledgeman is not copy-protected, so you canput it on a hard disk or a RAM disk. Getting enoughRAM to hold frequently accessed files should also im-prove performance because the system spends so muchtime searching the current database table.

Documentation

The 300-page reference manual (including appendixes)contains 12 chapters, 7 appendixes, a glossary, an index

List data values for seven fields

Time

Nonconditional SELECT

<:03

Conditional SELECT (single condition)

2:50

Conditional SELECT (four conditions)

3:32

Including dynamic sorting:

Nonconditional SELECT

Sorted on one field

3:07

Sorted on five fields

4:32

Conditional SELECT (four conditions)

Sorted on five fields

3:36

Table 4: The second SELECT (LIST) command performance test

results. Times are shown in minutes:seconds.

274 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE February 1984 275

of commands, and a general index. The manual is writ-ten for three levels of comprehension: introductory, in-termediate, and advanced, and sections are marked ac-cordingly so you can reference it at the appropriate levelof knowledge.

User Support

Micro Data Base Systems provides a customer-supportnumber for end users. The people I spoke to wereknowledgeable and courteous, returned my phone callspromptly, and answered all questions to my satisfaction.They will send one free update of Knowledgeman toeveryone who sends in the program registration card, ifa new update exists at the time the registration card issent. A complete copy of the revised reference manualcomes with the update.

Defects and Suggested Improvements

I found only one major problem in version 1.00 ofKnowledgeman after using the database part of the pro-gram extensively. Micro Data Base Systems promised tofix the bug in the next release, and, sure enough, whenI received it, the problem was gone. Considering the sizeand complexity of the programs involved and that thiswas version 1.00, I find Knowledgeman remarkably er-ror free.

Although the list of Knowledgeman's features is im-pressive, there is always a "wish list" of useful additions:for instance, it would be nice if you could display or print

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using field names (i.e., labels could be longer than thelength of their field variables), if the SHOW commandwere separate from the ATTACH-IMPRESS overlay file(why should you need a 17K-byte overlay file to call thetable directory command?), and if you could use wild-card characters in any expression (even if that limits theiruse), instead of having to use the IN operator.

Conclusion

Knowledgeman is an integrated information-manage-ment system combining a superb relational databasewith a fine spreadsheet for the price of one. You get aprinted forms generator, screen-form management,statistical analysis, many operating functions, and astructured-programming language for building com-mand procedures. More Knowledgeman modules arecoming, including a graphics generator, an integratedfull-screen text editor, and a forms "painting" feature.Knowledgeman activities and materials, including train-ing seminars, videocassettes, a pocket-sized commandguide, and a beginners' tutorial manual, are beingdeveloped rapidly. QUE is publishing an applicationsbook, Using Knowledgeman, in the near future.

It is my opinion that Knowledgeman may be the mostpowerful relational DBMS currently available for micro-computers. For example, dBASE II allows only 32 fieldsper record, a maximum of two tables open at once, andno dynamic output sorting. Knowledgeman, on theother hand, allows up to 255 fields per record, an un-limited number of tables open at once, and dynamic out-put sorting. In addition, Knowledgeman is an integratedprogram, combining spreadsheet capabilities with data-base management.

Unlike Lotus 1-2-3, basically a spreadsheet-graphicsgenerator with limited database capabilities, Knowledge-man is a full-fledged, powerful DBMS fully integratedwith a full-fledged spreadsheet (with graphics coming).Lotus 1-2-3's limited "spreadsheet-used-as-a-database"has a maximum of 2048 records per table with only onetable open at a time (hence no multiple table query).Knowledgeman allows 65,535 records per table and anunlimited number of tables open simultaneously. More-over, Lotus 1-2-3's spreadsheet doesn't let cells access in-dependent database tables or contain entire programsas Knowledgeman does. After several months use, I havelearned to appreciate a statement made in the referencemanual introduction: Knowledgeman has been "careful-ly designed to dominate all of the leading file handlers,'application generators' and 'relational' systems existingin the micro world." Micro Data Base Systems can beproud of this package, its creation, and its continuingdevelopment. ■

James W. Walker (Department of Botany, University of Massachusetts,Amherst, MA 01003) is a professor of botany researching pollen ultrastruc-ture and the evolutionary relationships of flowering plants. He considers hiscomputer an indispensable tool in his research. (Work supported by NSF grantsDEB 80-10893 and BSR 82-09195.)

276 February 1984 & BYTE Publications Inc.

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Hardware Review

The IBM CS-9000 LabComputer

A closer look at IBM's "other" microcomputer

by Thomas

At the Brandeis University Chemistry Department, wehave been trying to use the IBM Personal Computer (PC)for all our microcomputer applications. Most of the time/we have been able to meet our needs with the PC. Butnot always.

Here's a case in point. One of our researchers wantedto have a microcomputer pulse a laser, trigger data col-lection on a Biomation 8100 waveform digitizer, thendownload the 2K bytes of data from the Biomation intothe computer. This process would be repeated up to 1000times at a rate of 30 times per second. The result of eachrun would be summed with the results of the previousruns. Next, a stepper motor controlling a mono-chrometer would be incremented, and all of the abovewould be repeated again for up to 200 monochrometersettings.

There was one more requirement—the computershould cost no more than $10,000. That's a lot to ask. Sur-prisingly, though, it can be done, and done well, withthe IBM CS-9000.

At the time I encountered this problem, the IBM In-struments Division in Danbury Connecticut, had justannounced its 68000-based laboratory computer, theCS-9000 (see photo 1). Usually, I prefer to wait until aproduct has been on the market for a year or so beforeusing it. This gives time for the new-product hoopla tosubside, the groundswell of early-user complaints tocrest, and the manufacturer to show its level of good faithin correcting bugs. But we were faced with a Hobson'schoice: either the CS-9000 would be adequate for ourneeds or nothing in our price range was. So, after a tripto Danbury to see the operation of a prototype, we tookthe plunge. For those who can't wait for an ending, wefound two things: (1) being the first on your block iseven more painful than we had expected, and (2) theCS-9000 is an incredibly powerful computer.

R. Clune

A System Description

The IBM CS-9000 is so versatile that it would take yearsfor one person to test all of its features (see the January1983 BYTE, page 100, for a product description). I ammost familiar with a subset of the system's capabilities.In this review, then, I will describe the CS-9000's majorfeatures in broad strokes and give in-depth coverage ofthose aspects with which I have personal experience.

If you want additional information on the rest of thesystem, talk to IBM. In my experience, the people thereare very helpful and scrupulously accurate in their dis-cussion of the CS-9000. Indeed, the single strongestpoint of this generally excellent system is the unbeliev-able level of customer support. In particular, Dr. JohnTesch of the customer-service department has providedus with expert technical assistance, the cash value ofwhich has probably exceeded the purchase price of thesystem.

Now, for the computer itself. The basic processor unitfeatures include

• an 8-MHz Motorola MC68000 16/32-bit microprocessor

• three cascadable, 16-bit timers for up to 2-MHz clock-ing

• 128K bytes of on-board RAM (random-access read/write memory)

• 128K bytes of ROM (read-only memory), for a real-timeoperating system

• SYSBUS (a superset of Versabus) bus structure

• five expansion slots

• four DMA (direct memory access) channels with 1-MHz maximum throughput

• seven levels of interrupt

• one IEEE-488 parallel bus (see photo 2)

• three RS-232C serial ports (see photo 2)

• one bidirectional, 8-bit parallel port (see photo 2),

278 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Photo 1: At left (la) is a front viae of a typically configured IBM CS-9000 with the built-in dot-matrix printer. The rectangular plate coversa mount for a single 5Vt-inch floppy disk. Notice the paper tray under the keyboard. The handle below the video display connects to themounting yoke (see text). Photo lb shows a front view of the business configuration of the CS-9000. Note that the built-in printer and softkeyshave been removed.

which is not a true Centronics-type port because it lackssome lines (e.g., BUSY and DONE); however, any devicesupporting a Centronics-compatible interface can be con-nected to it

• 57 pressure-sensitive keys for dedicated systems con-trol (see photo 3)

The monochrome display (see photo 4) shows 80 char-acters by 30 lines of text and has fairly good graphicsresolution (768 by 480 pixels). This seems a bit thin forcomputer-aided design (CAD), but IBM has sold a num-ber of the CS-9000s for preliminary design work-ups.The display has its own separate memory and 10 pro-grammable softkeys. It also includes space for a single5V4-inch floppy-disk drive.

The minimal configuration just described is used withthe ROM-based operating system. Disk-based softwareis available for data acquisition and process control ofthe IBM Instruments Division's line of chemical instru-ments. These include FTIR (Fourier transform infraredspectrophotometry), NMR (nuclear magnetic reson-ance), and HPLC (high-performance liquid chromatog-raphy) analyzers. In connection with the HPLC, IBM of-fers a four-channel, 13-bit, 30-Hz ADC (analog-to-digitalconverter) card called the sensor board. The card pro-vides autoranging with a dynamic range of 106. Also in-cluded on the sensor board are four more RS-232C ports,32 bits of parallel I/O (input/output), eight LED (light-emitting diode) drivers with eight debounced-switch in-

puts, and two 16-bit counters. IBM does not currentlyoffer a high-speed ADC; however, the company tells methat it considers this a requirement for the near future.

To make the unit a usable computer, you will need toadd a system bus card with five expansion slots and atleast another 256K bytes of RAM on the expansion card.Each memory-expansion card can hold up to 1 megabyteof RAM, for an on-board system maximum of 5 mega-bytes. You will also need floppy-disk drives; the systemsupports up to four 8-inch and 5V4-inch drives in anycombination. A hard disk, requiring a separate controllercard, is also available. Next, you will need a keyboard;the keyboard offered with the system is the same oneas on the IBM PC.

Additionally, you will need an extended, disk-basedoperating system. Two are available: Xenix and OS 1.1,a multitasking operating system with a full-screen editorthat is similar to PC-DOS 2.0. The available languagesinclude a BASIC interpreter, an assembler (included withOS 1.1), a FORTRAN compiler, and a Pascal compiler.A C compiler and a COBOL compiler (Xenix only) arereportedly in the works.

IBM also offers a dot-matrix printer that sits in the mainprocessor housing and features

• software-selectable character density of 10 charactersper inch (cpi), 80 characters per line (cpl); 12 cpi, 96 cpl;or 16.8 cpi, 132 cpl

• 24- by 9-dots/character matrix

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 279

At a Glance

Name

The IBM CS-9000 Lab Computer

Manufacturer

International Business MachinesIBM Instruments DivisionOrchard ParkPOB 332

Danbury CT 06810(203) 796-2500

Dimensions

Processor

Processor BoardInterfaces

Memory

DisplayKeyboard

Mass Storage

ExpansionOperating SystemLanguages

System unit: 22 by 17 by 6.6 inches. 27.3pounds; with CRT, printer, and keyboard,68.2 pounds

16/32-bit Motorola MC68000 with an8-MHz clock speed and four 1-MHz DMAchannels

One IEEE-488; one general-purpose,bidirectional 8-bit parallel; three RS-232C

128K bytes RAM minimum, expandable to5 megabytes

80 characters by 30 rows; green phosphor

Optional 83 keys with number pad and10 programmable function keys (the IBMPC keyboard); additional keypad has 57user-programmable keys

Optional, 51/4-inch floppy-disk drives (327Kstorage); 8-inch drives (985K storage);51/4-inch Winchester hard disks (5 to 10megabytes of storage)

Optional, five slots with a system bus card

OS version 1.1; Xenix available soon

BASIC interpreter, 68000 assembler, FOR-TRAN compiler, Pascal compiler, and Ccompiler available (COBOL available withXenix)

Software Options

Chromatography application program, math/stat library, IBM3101 (and 3270 soon) emulator programs

Other Hardware Options

Analog/sensor card with four-channel, differential input;autoranging ADCs giving 12-bit plus sign resolution at 30 Hz;sensor board also has eight debounced switch inputs; eightoutput drivers to 5-V supply; 32 bits of parallel I/O assignablein 8-bit groups as input or output or as two 8-bit bidirectionalports; two cascadable 2-MHz clock counters providing twopulse trigger output points and pulse-counting input points;four asynchronous terminal or modem RS-232C ports withmaximum speed of 19.2 bps; an adaptor to Multibus is avail-able from Hal-Versa Engineering Inc., 18597 Paseo Tierra,Saratoga. CA 95070. |408) 374-2953

Documentation

8V2- by 11-inch loose-leaf binder format; Operator's Manual.108 pages; OS 1.1, 400 pages; Problem Isolation Manual, 114pages; BASIC Manual, 500 pages

Price

Base system, S5695; printer, S2095; keyboard. S270; 256K-byteRAM expansion, S1095; 1-megabyte RAM expansion, S4080;dual 5'/4-inch floppy disks. $1445; dual 8-inch floppy disks,S2470; hard-disk controller, S1295; single 5-megabyte hard disk,S2495; single /0-megabyte hard disk, $2695; expansion featurewith five slots, S95; analog sensor board. $850; BASIC inter-preter, S195; OS 1.1 extensions, $155; Pascal compiler, $595;FORTRAN compiler, $595; chromatography application pro-gram, $495

Photo 2: A rear view of the CS-9000, showing the IEEE-488 inter-face with the extender in place (far right), the disk-drive connector(next to the IEEE-488), the Centronics port (middle), and the threeRS-232C ports. The connector on the top goes to the video display.

• graphics resolution of 200 horizontal dots/inch by 336dots/inch

• four-color printing

• graphics and text screen dumps with the familiar shift-PrtSc keystrokes of the PC

The compact packaging of the CS-9000 is designed tosave valuable laboratory bench space. We have set theunit on a four-wheel cart to roll it into position whenit is being used and wheel it out of the way when it isnot. The compact design is a mixed blessing, though.Because it is mounted on top of the computer and hasto have adequate clearance for the printer beneath it, thescreen is above normal eye level. Although the tilt of thescreen is adjustable, the height is not. As a result, theoperator tends to sit slumped in a chair with the key-board on his lap and his feet on a desk, staring up atthe screen. In short, the ergonomics of the packagedesign are not state of the art. In a laboratory, however,you do not usually spend a lot of time at the keyboard.The working conditions of a researcher are not those ofa secretary. For our applications, there have been no com-plaints regarding the display's human engineering.

If your applications are more keyboard-intensive, reliefis at hand. The National Accounts Division and NationalMarketing Division of IBM have developed an interestin the CS-9000 for business applications. The system isbeing repackaged for them, sans integral printer, andgiven a quieter fan. The current fan sounds like ahousehold vacuum cleaner. The business package isshown in photo lb. The ergonomics, as you can see, aremuch improved. Because of the newfound business in-terest and the resultant expanded user base, a greatervariety of canned programs should become available forthis system. Indeed, the decision to offer Xenix andCOBOL appears to be the first fruit of that interest.

Documentation

The documentation for the system is hardly a master-piece. In fairness, it has been improved tremendously

280 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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9 SIS ■■■ 99 S ■■■■»<■ |9113115|

EfflgiSBgKIl ISPf..' BIS

a a 11 si 9 ■ a a a a a i a a a a » a ■ a ■

s r |i' i a a a a a a a a a a a m * a a a

Photo 3: The CS-9000 keyboards. At the top, on the front of the mainprocessor box, are the 57 programmable, pressure-sensitive keys.

Photo 4: A sample screen display that shows text and graphics, takenfrom an IBM demonstration program.

since its earlier incarnations, but it is still less than ideal.The writing style is the usual turgid documentationprose. If you are a systems programmer it should pre-sent no great problems, but for a scientist-hacker it isformidable.

The manual lacks tutorials and, except for the high-level language sections, lacks indexes. Most surprising,the documentation does not contain schematics or amemory map. IBM has answered all questions prompt-ly, but better documentation would lessen the numberof questions users would have to ask.

The Voice of Experience

My experience with the CS-9000 began with settingit up. The bridge over the main processor housing, usedto support the video display, is a pain to install. Butit needs to be done only once, so what the heck. Thevideo display mounts on a plastic yoke with a ball jointthat enables the screen to be positioned for user com-fort. Unfortunately, the yoke is made of very cheap plas-tic. When I went to tighten the yoke, I broke it, eventhough I followed the instructions to tighten gently. Thatyoke is cheap. I would have written this off to mysuperior strength, but another research group atBrandeis has a CS-9000 and the same thing happenedto them. I have been informed that the yoke has beenredesigned to eliminate this problem.

Once the system was assembled, I started to plug adigital multimeter (DMM) into the IEEE-488 port. Itwouldn't plug in. Amazingly, the IEEE-488 port is posi-tioned too close to the plug for the disk drive. There isno room for the IEEE-488 cord, which exits the plug fromthe side of the plug head. In order to use the IEEE-488while the disk drive was attached to the system, I hadto install an extender to the IEEE-488 interface (see photo2). IBM now supplies the extender with the computer

and will soon flip the IEEE-488 port upside down so thatthe cord does not interfere with the other plugs. You maynot have to contend with this problem, but I was begin-ning to think I had made a very serious mistake.

It got worse. When the extension to the IEEE-488 plugwas installed, I tried to write a BASIC program to transferdata from the DMM. Nothing. A call to IBM identifiedthe problem: the software driver for the IEEE-488 wasnot yet written. After the driver arrived, I appended itto the BASIC program and tried again. Nothing. Anothercall to IBM. Dr. Tesch made the first of three trips toBrandeis. The problem was that we had a prerelease ver-sion of the operating system, but the software driver wasfor version 1 of it. He took the computer back to Dan-bury with him, had the new ROM BIOS (basic I/O sys-tem) installed, and sent the system back with the new1.0 DOS (disk operating system) extensions disk.Nothing. More telephone calls. It turned out that we hadthe prerelease version of BASIC. After we got the rightBASIC, the interface worked perfectly. By the way, theresistor in question was 56K ohms.

Next, all we had to do was get the Biomation, witha two-line handshake, to transfer data over the IEEE-488,which has a three-line handshake. I had an idea on howto achieve this and it looked fairly simple on paper. Afew months later, it worked.

The next problem was writing an assembly-languageprogram to do the data-acquisition routine. I am a com-plete patzer when it comes to assembly language. I usual-ly write the program in BASIC, compile it, and then op-timize the program by keeping intermediate values inregisters instead of shuffling them back and forth instorage. But there is no BASIC compiler for the CS-9000.So Tesch (God love him!) agreed to write an assembly-language routine from my BASIC program. These peo-ple take "customer support" literally.

282 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Tesch wrote the program. Nothing. He didn't have aBiomation in Danbury to test the program, so he cameback up to Brandeis to see what the problem was (thiswas the third time; I've shortened the story a bit). Hemanaged to identify the errant line of code, and we werefinally squared away. While he was at Brandeis, he pro-vided us with three different versions of the data-acquisition routine for three different modes of opera-tion. I'm not sure whether he did this out of generosityor in hopes that he would not have to deal with us again,but either way it was appreciated. Finally, we were upand running with our application.

Or, rather, we are up and running most of the time.IBM is feverishly trying to track down an odd little glitchin OS 1.1. Once every few hundred times we try to writea file to disk, the computer tries to write the file intosystem space and an error results. We must then rebootthe system with a consequent loss of data. The error hap-pens so rarely and (apparently) randomly that IBM hasbeen having a hard time tracking it down. Because wewrite data to disk every few seconds, the amount of in-formation lost in rebooting is not substantial. And themissing data is easily reproduced in our application. Ifyour application is not so fault-tolerant, however, youshould make sure this problem has been overcomebefore buying the CS-9000. The problem has occurredat other installations, so it isn't our hardware that's caus-ing it. In any case, be sure to back up your work on diskfrequently.

I have only one continuing source of irritation with thesystem: the printer. It is awkward to load with paper,frequently jams when operating, and either holds verylittle paper (if you use the paper holder under the key-board) or lets the paper drape in front of the operator'sfeet (if you set a box of paper under the desk and feedthe printer from there). I understand that IBM has re-designed the paper bailer to minimize the jamming prob-lem, but the other problems seem endemic to the built-in printer.

Back to BASICs

As I mentioned earlier, I have used the CS-9000primarily with the BASIC interpreter. The rest of myremarks will center on using this very substantial BASIC.Those readers accustomed to one of the many incarna-tions of Microsoft BASIC are in for a treat. Unlike mostBASICs, you are not limited to 64K bytes of program-ming space. The interpreter can address as much mem-ory as you have on your system. It also includes the MAT(matrix) functions. Further, it features a broad range ofstatement modifiers, such as FOR J = 1 to 11 (see listing1, line 80). You can use 8-bit, 16-bit, or 32-bit words. Therange of floating-point numbers is approximately 1.0E+ / -308 with approximately 15-digit precision. Becausethe MC68000 uses memory-mapped I/O, all devices (in-cluding the printer, screen, IEEE-488 port, etc.) use theOPEN statement (like files), which makes programmingI/O routines quite painless.

There are, of course, a couple of usual features of in-

284 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Circle 372 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 285

Listing 1: The program listing for the data-acquisition and analysis routine using the Biomation 8100. Because the bus-management linesof the IEEE-488 are not used by the Biomation, the REN line is used to trigger the laser and the Biomation, and the IFC line is used totrigger the monochrometer stepper-motor (lines 240-250 and line 370, respectively).

1

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1 10

120

130

140

1 50

160

1 70

180

1 90200

2 1 0220

2 30240250260270280290300

3 1 032033034035036 0370380390400

4 1 042 04 30

REM PROGRAM FOR COLLECTING DATA FROM BIOMATION 8100REM INITIALIZE CALL LOCATIONSB=$E000 :SREAD=B+$2 94 8 : SYSFUNC = B+$ 2 CBSREM DIMENSION ARRAYS.DIM A%(2000),B%(1025),F%(11)LENG=2048

REM INITIALIZE IEEE488 ROUTINESDATA 286,10,290,10,0,17,0,12,0,10,0READ F%(J) FOR J=1 TO 11RESTOREREM SET EXPERIMENT PARAMETERS

INPUT "BIOMATION SAMPLE INTERVAL SETTING

INPUT "NUMBER OF SCANS PER MONOCHROMETER

INPUT "NUMBER OF MONOCHROMETER SETTINGS '

INPUT "DURATION OF PAUSE BEFORE TRANSFER

INPUT "NOISE LEVEL OF SIGNAL ";NOISE

INPUT "NAME OF FILE TO SAVE RUN DATA IN '

OPEN FILES AS FILE #1

PRINT #1,BIOM

PRINT #1,NOSTEP

OPEN "#BUSD?" AS FILE #6

REM DATA ACQUISITION ROUTINE

FOR. MON=l TO NOSTEP

FOR SCAN=1 TO REP

CALL SYSFUNC(6,F%(6))

SYSFUNC < 6 , F%(8) )

(ZZZ)

SYSFUNC (6,F%(1))

SREAD(6.,B%(1),LENG,$0D.1 TO 10 00

(MICROSEC) ";BIOMSETTING ";REP;NOSTEP" ; ZZZ

;FILES

CALLWAITCALLCALLFOR

! SET REN TO!RESET REN

TRIGGER LASER, BIOMATION

I :

(COLLECT DATASOD,0)

(UNPACK DATA, ADD COUNT TO MEMORY A%

C%=SWAP%(B%<I>) AND 2 55

IF C%>NOISE THEN A%(2 * I-

C%=B%(I) AND 2 55

IF C%>NOISE THEN A%(2 * I )

1 )= A%(2 * I - 1 > + 1

: A% ( 2 * I ) + 1NEXT INEXT SCAN

REM TRIGGER MONOCHROMETER MOVET=TIME:CALL SYSFUNC(6,F%(10))FOR 1=1 TO 2000:PRINT #1,A%(I)IF TIME-TO THEN 390NEXT MONCLOSE #1CLOSE #6END

AND WAIT FOR IT!IFC TRIGGERSA%(I)=0:NEXT I

TO STOPMONOCHROMETER

terpreted BASIC that I miss. Arrays cannot be dynamical-ly dimensioned because the interpreter translates eachline of BASIC code into a tokenized pseudocode as itis entered, not as it is executed. This feature makes theBASIC run rather fast for an interpreter. For example,lines 230-340 of listing 1 trigger a laser and the Bioma-tion, collect 2K bytes of data from the Biomation, com-pare each byte to a noise level, and, if appropriate, add1 to an element of a 2K data array. Interpreted BASICdoes all of this in one second! For that level of speed,I'm willing to live without dynamically-dimensioned ar-

rays. By the way a compiled FORTRAN version of thisprogram did the same process 12 times in one second.

Another consequence of translating each statement asit is entered is that the BASIC comes with a line editorrather than a full-screen editor. And the editor is a littletricky to use. For example, if you have a variable typeerror in a program line and edit the line, you may stillget a type error prompt. I've found it's best to delete theoffending line and retype it correctly.

Line 300 of listing 1 illustrates a couple of interestingpoints about the BASIC. First, 2 bytes may be stored in

286 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Text continued on page 290

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You can count on BASF FlexyDisks because the Qualimetricstandard reflects a continuing BASF commitment toperfection in magnetic media. One example is theunique two-piece liner in our FlexyDisk jacket. ThisBASF feature traps damaging debris away fromthe disk's surface and creates extra space in thehead access area for optimum media-headalignment. The result is a guaranteedlifetime of outstanding performance.

For information security thatbridges the gap between todayand tomorrow, look for thedistinctive BASF package withthe Qualimetric seal. Call800-343-4600 for the nameof your nearest supplier.

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ENTER TOMORROW ON BASF TODAY

i 1983 BASF Systems Corp., Bedford, MA

Listing 2: The program listing for plotting the data from listing 1 on the screen, one monochrometer setting at a time.

1 REM PROGRAM TO PLOT DATA COLLECTED FROM PROGRAM 1

10 CLS

20 INPUT "FILE NAME ";FILE$

30 OPEN FILES AS FILE #1

4 0 INPUT #1,BIOM

50 INPUT #1,NOSTEP

60 DIM DAT(10,2000)

70 FOR 1=1 TO NOSTEP

80 FOR J=l TO 2000

9 0 INPUT #1 ,DAT( I , J)

100 NEXT J

110 NEXT I

120 CLOSE #1

130 FOR K=l TO NOSTEP

140 MAX=-128:MIN=127

150 CLS

160 LOCATE 10,0

Listing 2 continued on page 289

/

ytftf^f

+#**"*"

FIRST CHANNEL TO PLOT? 25LAST CHANNEL TO PLOT? 176BSCREEN INCREMENTS? .5

.1 MICROSEC/SAMPLEANOTHER PLOT WITH THE SAME FILE?

MONOCHROMETER SETTING 3

Figure 1: A screen dump of a plot of a single scan of the Biomation, showing the luminescence decay curve of Benzil excited by a pulsednitrogen laser. Data was collected from a modified version of listing 1 and plotted using listing 2.

288 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Listing 2 continued:

170 INPUT "FIRST CHANNEL TO PLOT",A

180 INPUT "LAST CHANNEL TO PLOT",B

190 INPUT "SCREEN INCREMENTS",C

200 FOR I=A TO B

210 IF DATCK,I><MIN THEN MIN=DAT(K,I)

220 IF DAT(K,I)>MAX THEN MAX=DAT<K,I)

230 NEXT I

240 FACTOR=450MMAX-MIN)

250 LINE ( 1 , 47 0-( <DAT(K,A)-MIN+1 )* FACTOR) , 1 ,470- ( (DAT<K,A)-MIN+1 )* FACTOR) )

260 FOR I=A+1 TO B

270 LINE <-1,-1,<I-A)*C,470-<<DAT<K,I>-MIN+1)*FACTOR>>

280 NEXT I

290 LOCATE 24,0:PRINT BIOM;" MICROSEC/SAMPLE","MONOCHROMETER SETTING ";K

300 INPUT "ANOTHER PLOT WITH THE SAME FILE",Q$

310 IF Q$="Y" THEN 140

320 NEXT K

33 0 END

FIRST CHAHN^^OTvf'tOT? 25BLAST XMMHplTfQ PLOT? 6B0^©BEEN INCREMENTS? 2

/\_..V- -»'

A.J "■* * '

.1 MICROSEC/SAMPLEANOTHER PLOT WITH THE SAME FILE?

MONOCHROMETER SETTING 3

!(

Figure 2: A screen dump that demonstrates the fine structure of the plot.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 289

Text continued from page 286:

one 16-bit memory location to save space. The SWAP%function lets you reverse the high and low bytes in amemory location. Of course, performing an AND 255with the value masks out the high byte. The secondpoint has to do with why line 300 is there at all. It seemsthat the interpreter cannot perform B%(I) AND 255 andcompare it with noise all in one line; apparently, thereis a bug in the interpreter. If you do the operationsseparately, there is no problem. This is the only bug Ihave encountered in the interpreter.

Lines 80 and 240 in listing 1 illustrate the use of theIEEE-488 port. The operating parameters of the port areentered into a data array and passed to the interfacedriver by calling SYSFUNC:. Line 70 lists the parametersthis program uses. The parameter 286 sets the maximumtimeout for a transfer to the succeeding argument (whichis 10) times 50 milliseconds; the parameter 290 sets themaximum transfer size without using DMA to whateverfollows (10 again); the 0 ends a sequence of instructions,so F%(6) begins a new sequence; the 17 sets the RENline high and the 0 ends that sequence; the 12 resets theREN line, and again 0 ends the sequence; then, 10 setsthe IFC line, with the 0 ending the sequence. Thus, theF% array actually contains four different sets ofparameters, each invoked by CALL SYSFUNC(dev #,F%(N)), which reads F%(N) to F%(N + I), whereF%(N + I) = 0.

Let's look at line 20 in listing 1. This line initializes thesystem calls used in the program. In the new version

of BASIC, version 1.1, you do not need to add the calllocations.

Listing 1 collects data from the Biomation. Listing 2displays that data, one monochrometer setting at a time.Lines 250 and 270 of listing 2 do the actual screen plot.Line 250 draws a line from the first data point (scaledfor the screen) to itself. That is, it sets the first point ofthe line. Line 270 draws a line from each subsequentpoint to the preceding point. The -1,-1 argument says,"Connect this point to the last point." Figures 1 and 2show screen dumps of sample outputs from listing 2,using data collected from a modified version of listing2 in which the raw voltages from a single scan of theBiomation were collected.

Summary

The CS-9000 is a very fast and powerful laboratorycomputer. It has enough I/O ports to please the mostjaded palate. The options let you configure the systemfor most conceivable laboratory applications. The rangeof numbers it can work with makes it unnecessary toconstantly use log values to avoid overflows. TheCS-9000 is very affordable. And, above all, the level ofcustomer support sets new standards of excellence forthe microcomputer industry. ■

Thomas R. Clune (55 Central St., Ashburnham, MA 01430) is physicalchemistry laboratory coordinator for the Chemistry Department of BrandeisUniversity in Waltham, Massachusetts.

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290 ftbraary 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Circle 148 on inquiry card. byte February 1984 291

Hardware Review

The Rixon R212A Intelligent

Modem

A modem that can emulate the Hayes Smartmodemand do a few other tricks besides

by Chuck

Remember when you could tell the difference betweena computer and a peripheral? In the old days, computershad front panels full of lights and switches, printers werelarge, clattering beasts, and modems were big, ugly boxesthat connected to special, and expensive, phone circuits.In those times a modem knew its place. But now, herecomes a modem with a full-blown Z80 microprocessorin it—the same chip that's in lots of home computers.All of a sudden, the distinction between computers andtheir peripherals is getting hazy. What do you call amodem that has memory like a computer? In this case,you call it a Rixon R212A Intelligent Modem.

The folks at Rixon have been in the modem businessa long time, but they have manufactured primarily in-dustrial products. The R212A and its IBM PC-compati-ble cousin, the PC-212, are among the company's fewventures into the consumer world. If Rixon keeps pro-ducing products like this, the company might have todiscontinue some of its industrial business to keep upwith the demand of consumer and commercial markets.Not only is the R212A the most sophisticated modemin its class I have seen, it is also easy to use. I'll describesome of the R212A's features in this review.

Setting Up

Photo 1 shows the R212A as it comes packaged withan AC (alternating current) adapter and a modulartelephone cable; an instruction manual (not pictured) isalso included. It does not come with the RS-232C cableyou'll need to connect it to your computer or terminal,but this is a stock item in most computer stores. Themodem is packaged in a beige molded case with a blackfront panel.

Weger

The first thing that I noticed about this modem wasits front panel, which really wasn't a front panel—or notwhat I would call one. There is a piece of black anodizedaluminum with the Rixon logo, but there are no LEDs(light-emitting diodes), lights, or switches on the panel.In fact, there are no controls or indicators anywhere onthe case. And if you're the kind of person who opensthe case to see the insides, you'll see that there are noDIP (dual-inline package) switches on the circuit board,either. All the options—and there are plenty in thismodem—are set by software commands.

The back panel contains two RJ-11 modular telephonejacks as well as a connector for the power supply. It alsocontains a standard 25-pin female RS-232C connectorlabeled DTE (data terminal equipment) for connectionto the terminal or computer. Once again, there are noswitches or indicators.

Installing the R212A is extremely simple. Run a cablefrom a serial I/O (input/output) port on your computeror terminal to the DTE connector. The phone line goesin one of the modular jacks with the cable supplied.Finally, plug in the AC adapter. The other modular jackis a real convenience; if you want a telephone connectedto the same line, it can be plugged into this jack, savingthe cost of a phone-line Y adapter. Note that the wholetelephone—not just the handset, as on some othermodems—plugs into this jack. Of course, you don't needto plug a phone into this jack. The modem will workfine without one.

To communicate with the R212A, you will need a com-munications program that allows your computer to sendand receive ASCII (American National Standard Codefor Information Interchange) characters over its serial I/O

292 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

*;• -: .■■.--*. . ■

t&Xi ' KAMmmAINTELLIGENT MODEM

Mt-numbGr Aui-

I <«(vli> H£U> mmu Inmtanl accvwtorn ,out (InjMllpt

.«th» ODD Mtwack

• JOOIJOCbp.

Photo 1: The Ri'xon R212A package includes the modem, a modular telephone cable, an AC line adapter, and a manual (not pictured).

port. This could be a program that makes your computerinto a dumb terminal, or it could be a more sophisticatedmodem program. Both kinds will work with the R212A.Of course, if you are using a terminal instead of a com-puter, you don't need a program.

As the lack of switches implies, the R212A is controlledentirely from your computer or terminal. Once themodem is connected to the computer, you can type twocarriage returns to wake it up. It responds with a sign-on message, shown in the first four lines of photo 2. Italso determines automatically the transmission speed ofyour system, either 300 or 1200 bps (bits per second),and the type of parity, based on the carriage returns yousend it. From then on, it accepts ASCII commands.These commands can be entered manually from thekeyboard, or you can use a program to send them. Inmy experience, a fancy modem control program is notneeded, since the R2T2A can do just about everythingby itself. The commands are all one or two letters long,so it takes little effort to type them. Table 1 briefly sum-marizes the R212A's command set.

Features

One of the nicest features of the R212A is its help dis-play. Most user-friendly software packages now havesome sort of help facility. It's rare, though, to find a piece

of peripheral equipment with one. The R212A's help dis-play, shown in photo 2 as it appears on the screen ofmy Zenith Z-89 computer, gives a brief description ofeach command. While the help goes no deeper than this(e.g., you can't ask the R212A to further explain thekeyboard dial command), it is sufficient to jog yourmemory after you've read the instruction manual.

Any intelligent modem should be able to automaticallydial a phone number. The R212A can do that easily withthe K (keyboard dial) command. Merely type a K, andthe modem prompts for the phone number. Entering thenumber followed by a carriage return causes the R212Ato dial the number. The R212A ignores spaces andhyphens, so the number can be entered in the usualmanner. Don't try to use parentheses to enclose an areacode, though; these have special meanings to the R212A.

In addition to plain old auto-dialing, the R212A hasthe S (store) command for built-in number storage. Themodem can store up to 10 phone numbers; each can beup to 60 characters long. When you want to dial a storednumber, you need to enter only its index number (a digitfrom zero to nine). The numbers are saved in themodem's internal RAM (random-access read/write mem-ory), which has a battery backup in case there's no ACpower. Rixon says the battery will last at least two years.In addition to the S command, the R212A has the D (dis-

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 293

tlXON R212A INTELLIGENT MODEM REV 4

1211 BPS

H FOR HELP

I KEYBOARD DIAL

SI STORE I1-9 DIAL I

R REDIAL

HII HULTI-REDML

» DISPLAY IS

SC LOGON CHAR

T TEST

C CLEAR IS

( CO ON-LINE

0 OPTIONSX HANS UP

1 ANSWER

I ORIGINATE

NU HAYES

I SUIT

Photo 2: The help display generated by the RZ12A. Note the sign-on message at the top of the screen. The dollar sign is the modem'sprompt character. Each of the commands shown is accessed by its one-or two-character mnemonic.

At a Glance

Name

Rixon R2I2A Intelligent Modem

Use

Communication over voice-grade telephone lines at 300 or 1200bits per second (bps)

Manufacturer

Rixon Inc.

2120 Industrial ParkwaySilver Spring, MD 20904(301) 622-2121

Size

1.5 by 6.25 by 97 inches

Weight

2.5 pounds

Features

Direct-connect, 0 to 300 bps plus 1200 bps; accepts ASCIIcommands from computer or terminal; holds 10 phone numbersplus identifying information in battery backed-up memory

Hardware Needed

Computer or terminal with RS-232C port, along with RS-232Cinterconnecting cable

Software Needed

Any communications program capable of sending and receivingover the computer's RS-232C port

Documentation

78-page manual in a SW- by 8!/2-inch format

Options

None

List Price

S499

Command Definition

K

Keyboard dial; any telephone number may

be entered directly from the computer or

terminal keyboard, rather than using a

number stored in the modem's memory.

S#

Store a telephone number in location #,

where # is a number from zero to nine. The

number may be up to 60 characters long,

including comments.

0-9

Dial a number stored in the modem's

memory (memory locations are numbered

zero through nine).

R

Redial the last number dialed,

M

Multiple redial; redials the last number dialed

up to 10 times before giving up.

D

Display the phone number directory.

SC

Set the "log-on" control characters; once set,

the characters can be used within a log-on

sequence to send stored text to the remote

system and wait for a response.

T

Test mode. The R212A goes into a local

loopback self-test, or a remote self-test if on

C

line.

Clear all stored numbers. The R212A

prompts to be sure this is really what is

wanted.

G

Go back on line if previously disconnected

with special "programmed disconnect"

character.

0

Option select (see table 3).

X

Hang up the phone line.

A

Forces the modem into "answer" mode when

dialing a call (i.e., high-frequency modem

tones).

1

Forces the modem into "originate" mode

when dialing a call (i.e., low-frequency

modem tones).

NU

Select Hayes mode. The R212A will

recognize Hayes Smartmodem commands.

Q

Quit; causes the modem to "sign off" and

return to noninteractive state. (Calls will still be

auto-answered, though.)

PARITY

Typing the word PARITY in uppercase

causes the R212A to detect the parity your

system is using.

Table 1:

R212A command summary.

play) command for displaying the directory. A sampledirectory is shown in photo 3.

You'll notice in this picture that the phone numbershave text associated with them. This is a handy feature;I use it to save the name and/or description of the systemassociated with each phone number. You have to use aslash (/) following the phone number to indicate text.Everything after the slash is interpreted by the R212Aas text.

Also shown in photo 3 is an example of the S com-mand. At the bottom of the screen I typed S7, whichmeans store a number in slot 7. The modem respondedwith the existing contents of slot 7, and with a messagequestioning whether I really wanted to change what wasin that slot. I did, so the modem then prompted me forthe new phone number—a simple, logical procedure.

The R212A is well matched to modern telephone sys-tems. For example, it can detect the presence or absenceof dial tones, and it will inform you if it can't get a dial

294 February 1984 © 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

4^*0

*

&

computertime?

Witha garden-varietybuffer, thecomputer 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)^tthar-- ShuffleBuffer,

thar>

there <

Y°W love i

!1<?ve jt

my w

computer timeis 60secondsflat.

Just giveShuffleBuffer 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

Circle 184 on Inquiry card.

Nw°fe

►jo, B» i"1

.,.„ iwao

i ■■

iTSJ'iJ I*

■ :'■ ■■.■■ "

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 spreadsheets. And by theway, ShuffleBufferdoes store up to128K of informationand gives you aBy-Pass mode, too.

And Who Spilled TheBeans 239 Times?

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 Cat<

There isn't any.Sleutharound.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.

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, and

v>

<3P

a.e"

we'll clue you in-onall the facts directly.

\j>

sja<

0*F

.^

* Basedon an average4000 character letter& 128K buffer.

,„■««> «***

•ffi"*u,B-

■■■■■' ■ ■ -.■;. . ■ *

f^ShuffleBuffer

Th

The Buffer with a Brain

Interactive Structures Inc.146 Montgomery AvenueBala Cynwyd, PA 19004

BYTE February 1964 295

Photo 3: The R212A's directory display. The notations next to thephone numbers are stored as ASCII text by the modem. "BATCH"is a way to run a set of commands. The bottom of this display con-tains an example of storing a new phone number.

tone by telling you "dead line." It can also interpret mostbusy signals and will inform you if the line is busy orif there is no answer. If you wish, you can use the R(redial) command to automatically redial the mostrecently dialed number. If you're really desperate to getthrough, you can use the M (multiple redial) command.This automatically redials the last number up to 10 times,with a brief pause between each attempt.

In case redialing the same number isn't impressiveenough, the R212A has something called linking. Anystored number can be linked to any other number. Then,if the first number is busy or does not answer, themodem automatically tries the linked number. So if yourfavorite bulletin-board system is busy, you canautomatically try another one. It's possible to linknumbers to each other, so the modem goes back andforth between them until it finally gets one to answer.You can also link several numbers, causing the R212Ato try them all. If you link the last to the first, you getthe modem's equivalent of an endless loop. Your phoneline will be busy forever unless one of the numbers onthe linked list answers or you manually abort the dial-ing operation.

The R212A is capable of both tone and pulse dialing.If you don't instruct it otherwise, it tries to dial the firstdigit with a tone. If sending a tone fails to interrupt thedial tone, it assumes that the phone line works only withpulse dialing, and it dials the whole number with pulses.If the dial tone goes away after tone dialing the first digit,the modem dials the rest of the number with tones. Youcan, of course, put the modem into a tone-only or pulse-only mode, so it doesn't have to go through this detec-tive work each time it dials. Finally, the letters T and Pcan be embedded in phone numbers to manually switch

Command Definition

&

Wait for intermediate dial tone; generally used

with PBX (private branch exchange) systems

where an access number must be used to

get an outside line,

°/o

Pause 5 seconds; can be used to wait for

access tone on long-distance services such

as Sprint and MCI.

P

Forces pulse-dial mode for subsequent digits.

T

Forces tone-dial mode for subsequent digits.

L

Link to another stored number if this number

is busy.

/

Comments. Everything following a slash

character is treated as a comment. Comment

characters are displayed in the directory but

not dialed.

Space

Ignored. A space can be used within

telephone numbers to improve readability.

Table 2:

Special characters in telephone numbers.

between tone and pulse dialing. This is useful if you'reon a PBX (private branch exchange) that understandsonly pulses, but you dial an access code to get an out-side line, which can use tones. The R212A can handlethe whole dialing operation, including waiting for secon-dary dial tones. You can also use the percent (%) char-acter to cause a 5-second pause anywhere in a dialingsequence. Table 2 summarizes the special charactersallowed within telephone numbers.

Advanced Features

In addition to storing phone numbers, text, and linkcodes, the R212A can store log-on sequences. A log-onsequence is a series of ASCII characters that the R212Asends down the phone line once it has detected amodem on the other end. This can be an accountnumber, a password, or whatever. In effect, the log-onsequence lets you automatically log on to a remote sys-tem without lifting a finger. The log-on sequence isstored by enclosing it in square brackets ([ ]) when youstore the phone number.

The log-on sequence feature is very versatile. It can,for example, contain any ASCII control characters, notjust printable ones. It can contain a special character thatcauses the R212A to wait for a specific response fromthe remote system before proceeding with the rest of thesequence. It can also contain secure characters, whichare never displayed in the R212A's phone number direc-tory. Secure characters are enclosed in parentheses whenyou first store the log-on sequence. This is a useful fea-ture if you set up your modem to be used by others whoshould not know things like remote system passwords.

Another advanced feature is the batch facility. Se-quences of commands can be enclosed in angle brackets(< >). The R212A buffers everything received after anopen bracket and executes it (without echoing orprompting) after it sees the closed bracket. Therefore youcan write a program that sends a series of commandsto the modem all in one batch, without cluttering upyour screen display. The contents of the batch buffer

296 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Photo 4: 77ie options menu displayed by the R212A in response tothe 0 command. Option 9 (dialing mode) has been selected.

always appear on the directory display (photo 3), so youcan see what your computer has been sending.

In case you aren't satisfied with the way the R212Aworks, the designers give you a chance to change it withthe O (options) command. This command calls up themenu shown in photo 4. There are 10 user-selectable op-tions shown in the menu. Some of these deal with suchdetails as how the modem controls certain RS-232C lines,while some deal with more mundane issues, such aswhether the modem sends the message ONLINE to youwhen it detects a carrier. Table 3 gives a brief summaryof the options. Most people, however, should find thatthe default options are sufficient; I didn't even look atthe other options until I had thoroughly played with theauto-dialing and other features.

If your telephone system is old and uses dial toneswith unusual sounds, which the modem might not beable to detect, you'll find that you need the O commandand option number 7. Option 7, BLIND, causes theR212A to begin dialing a number after five seconds haveelapsed, even if it doesn't detect a dial tone.

Other Nice Touches

The R212A has some other nice features, too. For ex-ample, the C (clear) command clears out all the storedphone numbers. Fortunately, the R212A gives you an"are you sure?" prompt before doing this. There is alsoa built-in self-test mode that loops back (connects themodem to itself) to make sure signals are being transmit-ted and received correctly.

The R212A can also emulate a Hayes Smartmodem.This means that the Rixon modem can operate like aHayes Smartmodem so that people who have investedin software that understands the Hayes modem can usethe R212A with their old software. The Hayes modemis much more limited than the Rixon modem, however;it doesn't have number storage, linking, or log-on se-quences, and it doesn't detect dial tones. Also, it doesn'tprovide a help menu. I like all the Rixon features, so Ihaven't really used the Hayes-emulation mode except totest it.

Number

Name

Definition

1

DISC

Stores a special disconnectcharacter. The character selectedwith this option, if typed 3 times inquick succession, will cause themodem to return to keyboardmode without disconnecting thetelephone line.

2

AUTOQ

Determines whether or not modemautomatically exits keyboard mode2 minutes after last keyboard entry.

3

ECHO

Determines whether or not modemechoes back characters when inkeyboard mode.

4

DSR ON

Causes the Data Set Ready (DSR)lead to be either permanently onor on only in data mode.

5

CTSON

Causes the Clear To Send (CTS)lead to be either permanently onor on only when the modem isready to transmit.

6

LNGTH

Selects 9- or 10-bit character lengthin 1200 bps mode.

7

BLIND

Determines whether modem triesto detect dial tone automatically ormerely dials blind after a 5-secondwait.

8

ENQ

Determines whether modem sendsthe ASCII character ENQ to aremote modem for handshakingpurposes.

9

DIAL

Selects tone, pulse, or automaticdialing,

A

ONLINE

Determines whether or not the

MSG

modem issues an ONLINEmessage when it detects a remotemodem's carrier.

Table 3:

R212A options

(set by the 0 command).

Finally, in keeping with its industrial origins, Rixon hasa version of this modem available without the case, foruse in a card cage. If you have many modems at one site,this would be a good way to keep your modemsorganized.

Documentation

The R212A comes with a very comprehensive 87-pagemanual. The manual is well designed, full of figures andexamples, but was obviously written with the industrialmarket in mind. It's a bit dry, and the organization isoccasionally puzzling. For example, on page 4, it tellsyou how to disassemble the modem. I think I wouldrather see some setup information first. An index wouldalso be useful. There is, however, a nice foldout sum-mary of all Rixon and Hayes commands and options.

Complaints

The lack of external adjustments makes the modemextremely simple to use; it cannot accidentally be set forthe wrong speed, parity, or operating mode. The absenceof controls also means that the modem can be locatedanywhere that's convenient; it doesn't have to be withineasy reach of the operator. The absence of indicator lightsor LEDs is another matter. Some people find it comfort-

298 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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ing to watch the "transmit data" light on a modem winkat you as the bits are swallowed by the telephone net-work. You don't get that with the R212A. People whoare accustomed to the Hayes Smartmodem may noticethat the Rixon lacks the Hayes's monitor speaker. Per-sonally, I don't care to eavesdrop on modem conversa-tions, so I don't mind the lack of a speaker.

These features aren't missed if everything is working,but if you're trying to track down a problem, like abroken wire in your RS-232C cable, you begin to see theneed for them. For example, my one-year-old daughtergot her hands onto the computer keyboard when I wasexperimenting with the modem. I returned to find thatthe modem would not respond to the computer; nothingI could type or do would make it respond. Finally Idiscovered that she had somehow entered the commandto put it into Hayes mode, so none of the Rixon com-mands I was trying had any effect. I suppose this is anargument in favor of child-proof computers.

Since the R212A is a new product, Rixon is bound tohave its share of shakedown problems with it. I have ex-perienced two such problems. One was an undocu-mented "feature," while the other was actually a hard-ware failure.

The feature problem arose because Rixon designed thismodem to be compatible with a wide variety of terminalsand computers. Some of these terminals apparentlydon't understand that normal modem handshaking re-quires one RS-232C signal (called DTR, or data terminalready) to be active when talking to the modem. To getaround this, Rixon installed a pull-up resistor on this lineso that DTR is always active. That's fine most of the time,but it means that, unless the modem is turned off, itanswers the phone—even when the computer is turnedoff. Not a very useful situation. The people at Rixon werevery helpful when I complained about this and they toldme how to disable it. The solution required cutting thatpull-up resistor on the DTR line (R79 on the circuit

board). This is no big deal, but people with no hard-ware experience might feel better asking a friend to doit. It's easier just to unplug the modem when it's not inuse.

The second problem was a fluke. During a thunder-storm, the phone line apparently took a lightning-induced jolt. It was not enough to knock out the phones,but it did cause the modem to behave peculiarly. For ex-ample, the modem kept the phone line off the hookwhen it was not supposed to. It turned out the light-ning had zapped a protective device. (Better than zap-ping the whole modem, I thought.) Since my modemwas only a few weeks old at the time, the people at Rix-on replaced it with a new one, no questions asked. Wehave had more storms, but the replacement modem hasnot had any problems.

Conclusions

The Rixon R212A is an extremely intelligent modemthat has auto-dialing features more powerful than manymodem programs. It supports stored numbers, identi-fication text, log-on sequences, and several forms of auto-redial. It communicates with the user through a seriesof ASCII character commands that are documented ina self-contained help facility. The R212A is extremely easyto set up and use, yet offers many powerful options forsophisticated users.

Some people may find the total lack of switches andindicators difficult to accept; in normal operation,however, they are not missed.

Anyone who is in the market for a 300/1200 bpsmodem would do well to consider the R212A. At $499,it is definitely an "intelligent" choice. ■

Chuck Weger (do Oldenberg, 331 6th St. NE, Washington, DC 20003) isan independent consultant specializing in computer graphics. He was formerlyon the technical staff of Computer Sciences Corporation.

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291380

Software Review

SAVVY

This easy-to-use system actually learns from you

by Peter V. Callamaras

Imagine finding one package that combines the ele-ments of hardware, software, and firmware with somegeneral-purpose business applications and doesn't re-quire a master's degree in computer science to under-stand or to use. In addition, the package understandsplain ordinary English. What would you call it? Incredi-ble? A lifesaver? Well, Excalibur Technologies Corpora-tion calls it Savvy.

Savvy is a system that runs on an Apple or an IBMPC (Personal Computer) and is unique in the personalcomputer arena. The Apple hardware consists of a plug-in card for slot 7 of the motherboard. Much like the CP/Mcards available for the Apple, the Savvy card containsa Z80 processor and support chips plus the necessarySavvy ROM chips. The Apple's 6502 processor becomesa subordinate controller for the microprocessor. The IBMPC, on the other hand, requires no unique hardware ad-ditions. The Savvy software consists of four disks con-taining a set of business-type applications, a set of dem-onstration programs, and a robot programmer.

Ease of Use

The intent of Savvy is to make it easy for the noncom-puter-oriented Apple or IBM PC owner to perform busi-ness and professional tasks. Actually, easy is an under-statement. Savvy usually knows what you want to do,even if you misspell the command. The operating systemis oriented toward human or natural language.

Usually, if you want to perform a particular set of oper-ations, you must follow a very precise, unforgiving setof instructions. For instance, if you want to scan a data-

base for any BYTE articles on AI (artificial intelligence),you would follow this scenario:

1. Call the search-retrieve module.

2. Input the correct information in the key search fields.

Example: first search field = BYTEsecond search field = Articlethird search field = Artificial Intelligence

3. Initiate the database manager that retrieves therecords matching your search criteria.

To perform the same operation with Savvy, all you needto enter is: "get me all the BYTE atricles on artificial in-telligence." The system then retrieves the articles. Notethe misspelling of the word articles. Normally, if a mis-spelling occurs, you get an error message and mustreenter the data. This system can usually figure out whatyou mean. The process Savvy uses is called adaptive pat-tern recognition, or learning.

The learning comes from you. The more you use thesystem, the more it learns. The Savvy system builds uppatterns to compare with your input. If it finds one ormore exact match, Savvy returns those items. If thereis no match, however, Savvy makes a guess by findinga pattern that comes close to your input. For example,if you ask people to identify a city from a skyline pic-ture, they mentally match the picture to skylines theyhave seen before. Most people can easily tell the dif-ference between New York and Paris, for instance. If youshow them pictures of 10 different skylines, they shouldbe able to identify them easily. This is what Savvy does.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 303

At a Glance

Name

Savvy

Manufacturer

Excalibur Technologies Corp.800 Rio Grande Blvd. NW21 Mercado PlazaAlbuquerque, NM 87104(505) 242-3333

Hardware

Z80-based plug-in card on Apple; four applications disks

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Features

Integrated operating system, pattern recognition, virtual memory,natural-language programming, 63-place decimal arithmetic

Compatibility

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Documentation

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Limited one-year

Price

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Audience

Nontechnical computer users; business and professional computerusers desiring an easy-to-use set of programs; those interested in apattern-recognition system

It gives you the best answer based on. patterns it hasobserved previously.

To continue the skyline analogy, if you ask people toidentify a city and then show them an evening pictureof the skyline from a slightly different angle, they canprobably connect the two. Savvy does this also; in fact,the more you use the system, the better it discriminatesbetween patterns. Excalibur Technologies claims to havea proprietary method of ensuring the integrity of Sav-vy's pattern-recognition system so you can't overload itwith too many patterns.

There is no need for the user of Savvy to have any par-ticular computer skills or background. The system doeseverything possible to make it easy for the noncomputer-oriented user. For example, if you want to temporarilylock the value of an item or a variable, you tell Savvyto "freeze" the item. When you want to change the value,you simply "thaw" the item. The developers of Savvyhave gone out of their way to eliminate as much com-puter jargon as possible.

This leads us to a strong point in the Savvy system:the ability to program without any programming back-ground. You use your own words to describe what Sav-vy is supposed to do. It is very close to programmingin your natural language. As an example, instead of com-ing up with some algorithm to add two numbers, mul-tiply the sum by a third number, and print the result,you simply tell Savvy to "take number one, add it to

number two, then multiply the sum by a third numberand display the result," using almost those exact words.

The robot programmer that comes with the Savvy sys-tem, one of the more highly touted parts of the system,is designed to help you establish your own databases.You can use it only to write databases. For instance, ifyou want to create a database for birthdays, you can usethe robot programmer to write it. You follow the manualand prompts to configure the input formats, relations,search criteria, and output. Then the robot programmerwrites the code while you watch.

When the robot finishes, you can input the names,dates, addresses, and whatever else you want in yourdatabase. Once it is established, you can search for, up-date, and output information from it. Typically, youmight ask it to list all family members who have birth-days in March or all the members of the local church whowere born on the 15th of any month. The relationshipscan be as simple or as complex as you wish, and youask for the information in plain English.

Applications

The Savvy applications programs include a text pro-cessor with a mailing-list feature and a set of standardbusiness accounting applications, with accounts receiv-able, accounts payable, inventory management, payroll,and general ledger.

The text processor is not designed for heavy word-processing applications but works fine for writing shortletters. The mailing-list feature enables Savvy to generateyour printed letters. File size is not the problem here;the software just isn't available yet.

In the payroll module, you set up a payroll file, sub-tract any individual deductions and taxes, record timedata, and print out both checks and a payroll summaryreport.

The accounts-payable/receivable packages trackreceipts and expenditures by client or supplier as wellas service charges, past-due accounts, payment duedates, and all the other standard AP/AR data.

The general ledger tracks your accounts, prints checksfor expenditures, runs trial balances and prints incomestatements.

Finally, the inventory-management program estab-lishes your inventory and tracks changes in stock levels.You can set up the inventory to include parts numbers,descriptions, stock levels, costs and prices, reorderpoints, and storage-location information.

As you can see, Savvy is primarily designed for smallbusiness or professional use, and in that context it doesan adequate job. If you find that the applications don'tmeet your needs as written, you can enhance or modifythem as you wish. The package includes the source code,and you can use the programming facilities of the Savvysystem to make any changes.

Documentation

The accompanying documentation is an importantpart of the Savvy system. I received a large loose-leaf

304 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Or give us a call toll-free at1-800/328-6207 (in Minnesotacall 612/853-8065) andwe'll tell you where to findStorageMaster diskettes.

CONTRpLDATA

BYTE February 1984 305

jNt arebetter

than

one

Is your Apple's 6502 processor chip a littleoverworked lately? Have you been eyeingone of those new, 16-bit systems? But youdon't want to give up all your Apple pro-grams ...

Add the powerful 16-bit 8088 processor toyour Apple with ALF's Processor Card. Letthe 6502 and 8088 work together to tackleyour toughest problems—like speeding upyour Applesoft and Apple Pascal programs.With the Processor Card, you can use theCP/M™ 86 or MS-DOS™ operating systemto run the latest 16-bit software, includingmany IBM PC programs.

64K or 128K of high-speed memory isavailable for ALF's Processor Card. Use theProcessor Card with 128K as a fast diskemulator or to view sixteen hi-res images inunder a second. Or run Basic, C, COBOL,or Pascal with 16-bit performance!

The ALF Processor Card is just $395 (Ap-plesoft speed-up software included). Seeyour Apple dealer today, or contact ALF formore information.

Trademarks: "Apple": Apple Computer, "CP/M": DigitalResearch, "MS-DOS": Microsoft.

ALF

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binder and a separate Savvy programming manual. Themanual is fairly straightforward, and you are led throughthe various Savvy functions with extensive use of thetutorial approach and actual screen images of the dialogbetween the user and Savvy. Almost no technical jargonis included. My only complaint is that Excalibur Tech-nologies used a rather small typeface and packed everypage full of information. Consequently, it takes a longtime to go through the documentation.

Conclusion

Savvy is a combination of hardware, software, firm-ware, and applications programs designed for smallbusiness or professional use. The actual system consistsof a plug-in board (for Apple users) and four disks. Thepackage also includes two sets of support documenta-tion.

Communicating with the Savvy system throughEnglish-like conversations makes it very quick and easyfor the noncomputer-oriented user to get up to speed.The more you use the Savvy system, the more it recog-nizes your commands. You can use the system's robot-programming capabilities to write all sorts of databasesusing English-like instructions. Savvy requires nospecific programming skills and after using it for a while,you can become quite adept at writing your own Savvyprograms.

The applications are pretty much no-frills businessprograms, consisting of a document- or letter-writingmodule with mailing-label capabilities, payroll, accounts-payable/receivable modules, general ledger and inven-tory management. You can modify or enhance any ofthese modules.

The documentation is voluminous, but complete, anddoes a good job of leading the user through the variousfunctions and capabilities of the Savvy system.

Savvy costs $950; a fairly large investment. You alsoneed at least a 48K-byte Apple system (Apple II, II Plus,or He) or a 64K-byte (currently it won't use more) IBMPC, two disk drives, a monitor with an 80-column dis-play, and finally a printer. To make a choice, you mustbalance the unique operating and programming capa-bilities Savvy offers against a set of specific applicationprograms for your word processing and business needs.

Overall, Savvy is a very easy-to-use, friendly systemthat requires almost no background in computers. I en-joyed using the Savvy system, but reviewing it was noteasy, as I could have spent many pages on any one ofits capabilities. I look forward to seeing how Savvy'sunique abilities affect the way people interact with com-puters in the future. ■

Peter V. Callamams (HQ AFCC/EPPB, Scott AFB, IL 62225) is an officerin the Air Force. He has degrees in computer technology and biological sciences,and a master's degree in systems management. He has been interested in com-puters since 1966 and was formerly the service department manager of a com-puter store.

306 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 310 on inquiry card.

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Software Review

The Micro-Sci Gameport III for the

Apple III

How to upgrade your Apple III to an Apple II and recapture the

fun of computing

by William J. Purpura and Paula K. Purpura

The Apple III is a high-powered, sophisticated com-puter, but you can't use it to play Space Raiders, Chop-lifter, or any Apple II games that require a joystick orpaddles.

The Apple III was designed to utilize more than 64Kbytes of RAM, and this design did away with the per-manent memory locations used by the Apple II paddles.The new joystick input designed for the Apple III,although it has a much better A/D (analog to digital) con-verter than the Apple II's, is not much help. Most AppleII games were written to use the Apple II paddles or joy-sticks, and we couldn't find any game software designedspecifically for the Apple III. Until now, Apple III ownershave had to sit back and let the fun slip by.

Now, Micro-Sci (2150 South Hathaway St., Santa Ana,CA 92705, (714) 662-2801) has come to the rescue with

Photo 1: The Gameport III board.

the Gameport III. Gameport III is an inexpensive ($74.95)card that plugs into an Apple III slot to emulate theApple II's normal game I/O (input/output) port. Withthis slick little board in place, most Apple II game soft-ware will run on the Apple III.

Micro-Sci has assured us that it has found only oneApple II game, Frogger, that does not work with theGameport III. Frogger uses a unique joystick readingroutine, which is sensitive to the individual joystick usedand causes problems on both the Apple II and the AppleIII.

Installation of the Gameport III is extremely easy (justinsert it in a slot), and the instructions provided byMicro-Sci are simple. One caution: the 16-pin connec-tor from the joystick or paddle must be aligned prop-erly in the socket on Gameport Ill's board. If, for ex-ample, the game won't recognize the joystick button orthe position of the joystick, the cable is probably notplugged in correctly, so double-check the installationbefore powering up your computer.

Once the hardware is installed, the Apple II emula-tion disk supplied with the Apple III must be modifiedto handle the Gameport III. Micro-Sci provides a diskthat will simplify this chore. You boot Micro-Sci's disk,which will then ask for the Apple II emulation disk andwill modify it without further action on your part. Thewhole process takes a few minutes.

A few older versions of this board may require a minorhardware modification to run correctly. This is due toa problem discovered after the first units had been inthe field awhile. When the Gameport III is activated insomething other than Apple II emulation mode, it causesproblems with the normal Apple III SOS (super oper-

308 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

ating system) operation. For this reason, the GameportIII is disabled automatically on power-up or CONTROL-RESET.

To make the Gameport III operational, the user mustpress button one on the joystick or paddles. (Rememberto do this while the game is loading, or you might endup with certain incorrectly initialized inputs.)

It seems that a significant amount of EMI (electromag-netic interference) noise is generated inside the AppleIII card-slot area. This high level of noise, particularlyduring disk operation, occasionally caused the Game-port III to turn on, leading to all sorts of system failures.This happened to us during a disk-copy operation,which failed with a "Stack Overflow" message.

The solution to the problem turned out to be simple.

In Apple II emulation mode, theApple III can only output thehigh-resolution color signal on theNTSC pin. "

A 0.1 micro-farad capacitor (ceramic type, nonpolarized)must be soldered between pins 2 and 8 of the 16-pingame connector on the trace side of the old version ofthe Gameport board. Micro-Sci assures us that all newboards have this modification, and anyone who has ex-perienced such system failures with their board shouldcontact the Micro-Sci Customer Service Group at (714)662-2801.

Anyone who is using an RGB (red, green, blue)monitor with the Apple III should be aware that in AppleII emulation mode, the Apple III can only output thehigh-resolution color signal on the NTSC (National Tele-vision System Committee) pin. This means that suchmonitors can only display color games in black andwhite. The problem is in the design of the Apple III andis not a fault of Gameport III. The exception is the Elec-

At a Glance

Name

Gameport III

Use

Permits the use of Apple II paddle/joystick game software onthe Apple III

Manufacturer

Micro-Sci Corporation2150 South Hathaway St.Santa Ana. CA 92705(7I4| 662-2801

Price

S 74.95

Components

Card, disk

Name

Manufacturer

A2FS.1

Sublogic

ABM

Muse

Alien Rain

Broderbund

Alien Typhoon

Broderbund

Bug Attack

Cavalier

Cannon Ball Blitz

Sierra On-Line

Castle Wolfenstein

Muse

Choplifter

Broderbund

David's Midnight Magic

Broderbund

Dog Fight

Microlabs

Falcons

Picadilly

Fire Organ

Vagabond

Jaw Breaker

Sierra On-Line

Lunar Leeper

Sierra On-Line

Olympic Decathlon

Microsoft

Pest Patrol

Sierra On-Line

Planetoids

Adventure International

Pool 1.5

IDSI

Raiders of the Lost Ring

Cavalier

Raster Blaster

Budgeco

Snack Attack

Data Most

Sneakers

Sirius

Space Invaders

Apple

Space Raiders

United Software of America

Space War

Apple

Star Blazer

Broderbund

Star Cruiser

Sirius

Suicide

Picadilly

Super Invader

California Pacific

Thunderbirds-GX

Urban Soft

Zenith

Gebelli

The above list is by no means comprehensive.

Table 1: The following are games we tested with the

Gameport III that require

either paddles or joysticks.

trohome RGB monitor, since Electrohome has an adapterboard to convert the NTSC signal back to RGB. Unfor-tunately, this board will work only with Electrohomemonitors.

An annoying aspect of using the Gameport III is thateach time the user wants to run a new game or use thecomputer in normal Apple II emulation mode, the sys-tem must be rebooted. One of the game manufacturers'piracy-prevention strategies is to set up disks so that theuser cannot exit to the operating system while runninga game. The rebooting procedure can be frustrating (par-ticularly when you're reviewing lots of games), but itdoes not detract much from the joy of turning the seriousand dull Apple III into a fun-loving Apple II.

Summary

The Gameport III is a must for anyone with an AppleIII who would like to run Apple II game software. Theprice is not out of line for the fun provided. Check tobe sure that the unit you buy already has the capacitormodification for reliability. ■

William ]. Purpura holds master's degrees in mechanical engineering andbusiness administration and works as a project engineer for RockwellInternational.

Paula K. Purpura is a senior systems engineer at Thermco Products Corp-oration and has a B.S. in computer science and an M.B.A.

The authors can be reached at 5810 Paseo Ferrelo, Anaheim, CA 92807.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 309

Software Review

The Videx Ultraterm

A video-display card that enables theApple to display up to 160 columns or 48 lines

by Peter V. Callamaras

The Videx Ultraterm is a new video-display card de-signed to plug into any Apple II (II, II Plus, or He) toenable the Apple to display more than its standard 40columns.

Before the introduction of this display card, Appleowners had only two choices concerning the number ofcolumns they could display: they could accept the stan-dard 40 columns or add a peripheral card to give theApple 80 columns. In either case the number of rows, orlines displayed, was limited to 24. The Ultraterm offersApple owners a greater choice of displays (see table 1).

In addition to adding to the amount of information youcan display on the screen (see photo 1), the Ultratermactually enhances the visual display with these features:

•a standard high-resolution character set (7- by 9-dotfont)

•a high-quality character set (9- by 16-dot font)•the ability to choose between normal or inverse-videodisplay

•the ability to display the characters in either a high-light, normal, or lowlight mode (this refers to the relativebrightness of the characters on the screen)•a 15-character line-drawing set as part of the standardcharacter set

• seven block graphics characters as part of the standardcharacter set

•96 ASCII (American National Standard Code for In-formation Interchange) characters with true descenders

The Ultraterm also gives you the ability to "program"

your video display using any or all of the available modes(highlight, lowlight, inverse, etc.), a built-in soft switchthat will automatically give you the 80-column modewhen you boot either Pascal or CP/M, and a well-writtenusers manual.

The features are impressive, yet the Ultraterm is alsoeasy to install and use. After you open the top of theApple and ground yourself to the power supply (bytouching the large gold unit in the left-rear corner of thecomputer), simply plug the Ultraterm board into one ofthe Apple's expansion slots and plug a two-wire molex

Photo 1: An example of one of the text formats possible with the VidexUltraterm card for the Apple II. In this mode, the Apple can displayan incredible 48 lines of 80-column text.

310 Rbruary 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

At A Glance

Name

Ultraterm Video-Display Card

Manufacturer

Videx Inc.

897 NW Grant Ave.Corvallis, OR 97330(S03J 758-0521

Price

S379

Software

Demonstration disk

Hardware Required

Apple II, II Plus, or He

Capabilities

40-160 columns, 24-48 lines, two character sets, four intensitylevels, added graphics and line-drawing character sets

Documentation

Well-written 78-page manual

Warranty

90 days, workmanship and material

Audience

Any Apple owner desiring more than 40-column display; allbusiness or professional Apple users

The Preboots

Name

Ultraterm Applewriter ll/lle Preboot

Price

S29

Audience

Apple users who want Applewriter II in more than 40 columnsand 24 lines

Name

Ultraterm Visicalc Preboot

Price

S69

Audience

Anyone who uses Visicalc

connector into the Ultraterm board (one end of the con-nector into the normal Apple video-output port and theother to your monitor). Put the top back on your Apple,turn it on, and begin.

With the Ultraterm, you must use a monitor for avideo-display terminal because a standard television setcannot handle an 80-column display. The monitor musthave at least a 15-MHz bandwidth to handle up to the132-column mode or a 20-MHz bandwidth for the 160-column mode (extended bandwidth is required becauseof the Ultraterm's 28-MHz clock). It must also have ahigh-persistence phosphor because the Ultraterm usesan interlaced display mode to give more than 24 linesin the 32-/48-line modes. Potential Ultraterm owners

Columns

Rows

Display type

40

24

Normal Apple display

80

24

Standard 80-column display

80

24

High-quality 80-column

80

32

Extended 80-column

80

48

Extended 80-column

96

24

Extended-column display

128

32

Extended/Visicalc display

132

24

Super-extended display

160

24

Ultra-extended display

Table 1:

The Videx Ultraterm

offers Apple owners a choice of

displays.

should examine their current monitors or any potentialmonitor purchase to insure that they meet these criteria.Tests conducted by Videx have shown that the follow-ing monitors can be used successfully with the Ultra-term:

•The Apple Monitor III is suitable for all displays ex-cept 160-column. It is the Videx monitor of choice foruse with the Ultraterm.

•A NEC JB-902M will display all video modes, in-cluding 160-column, but the short-persistence phosphorcauses the display to flicker. The 9-inch screen makesanything over 80 columns hard to read.•The NEC JB-1201M will perform the same as the NECJB-902M, but the 12-inch screen makes it easier to see80+ columns.

•The Ledex/Amdek 100 was the monitor I first usedwith the Ultraterm. It worked well in 80 columns, butis unsuitable if you wish to take advantage of theextended-column modes.

•Amdek 300A is the monitor I now use. It is superb;not only does it have an amber screen (easier on theeyes), but it can take advantage of all the Ultraterm fea-tures. It has both the necessary bandwidth and phos-phor persistence needed to go to 160 columns and 48rows.

If you are not now using or contemplating buying oneof these monitors, I would encourage you to check withyour local computer dealer about the compatibility ofother specific monitors. If your dealer is unable to helpyou, check with the Videx technical services departmenr.The folks at Videx are happy to answer consumerquestions.

The only problem I had while using the Ultraterm waswith some of the popular Pascal programs that normal-ly display in the Apple 40-column mode. Specifically,PFS, Wizardry, and Visischedule will "fool" the Ultra-term into thinking it is supposed to be in the 80-columnmode, and you end up with no display! The solutionis to plug your monitor directly into the Apple's video-output port. Or, if you use any of these software pack-ages often, you can install a Videx switch plate for asimpler switchover.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 311

Besides the obvious advantages of the expanded-dis-play area, there are some other handy features availablewith the Ultraterm. Using the programmable "alternativeattributes," you can display either standard or high-quality character sets in inverse or normal video withhighlight or lowlight brightness. You can also get othercharacter sets from Videx on EPROMs (erasable program-mable read-only memories) featuring some commonforeign characters.

Special Features

The high-quality character set uses a 9- by 16-dotmatrix instead of the standard 7- by 9-dot matrix. It iseasier to read, although I found the standard set satisfac-tory. The relative brightness of the display can be con-trolled with the highlight/lowlight feature. This meansthat you can have a screen display with some charactersbrighter (or dimmer) than others. (This can be useful foremphasis.) You can also combine the highlight/lowlightfeature with the normal/inverse screen capability to ex-tend the emphasis capabilities of the screen display. Forinstance, you could show an important caution or warn-ing message in an inverse highlight, while the normaltext would be in a lowlight, normal-video mode. Theuses are limited only by your imagination.

Again, both Pascal and CP/M will come up automati-cally in 80-column mode; there is no need to buy addi-tional hardware or make any modifications. I found thisfeature handy because I often switch back and forth be-tween programs. With the standard Videx Videoterm Isometimes forgot to throw the switch to the right out-put. The built-in soft switch makes the Ultraterm easierto use.

The Ultraterm's capabilities are also programmable, soyou can customize your screen displays if you wish. Achapter in the manual addresses the various methodsand techniques for programming your screen displaysto take advantage of the Ultraterm's wide capabilities.

BASIC, Pascal, and assembly-language information is in-cluded. One note: there are changes in how some videodisplays work with the Ultraterm installed, such as theloss of the FLASH command capability, but this is alldocumented in the manual.

The Videx Preboots

Videx sells a set of preboot disks that allow you toenhance some of the more popular software in conjunc-tion with the Ultraterm.

The preboots are separate disk-based programs thatyou have to load into the Apple before you load an ap-plication program. The preboot then configures theApple and Ultraterm to give you some special features.The preboot will first ask you to select one of several op-tions and it sets up the Ultraterm accordingly. You thenload the application program as you would normally.The preboots do not make changes to the applicationprogram, so there is no need to worry about voiding war-ranties or writing things to your application disks. Let'stake a look at two currently available preboots.

Applewriter II/IIe Preboot

The Applewriter preboot program gives you the abil-ity to display more than 40 columns and 24 lines. Yourchoices are: 80 columns by 24 lines, 80 columns by 32lines, or 80 columns by 48 lines.

As mentioned before, you need a good monitor to usethe 80-column feature. The extended displays make a bigdifference in how you process words. I found that the80 by 48 display gives me a better "feel" for how my finaldocuments will look because it is so close to the actualsize of a physical page (80 by 55). Most first-time userswill probably prefer the 24-line mode until they get usedto the slightly smaller characters that are used with the32- and 48-line modes.

This preboot works with either Applewriter II or He.Just follow the instructions on the instruction sheet.

HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR MICRO

Introducing Scott. Foresmarfs new line of microcomputer books.

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dBASE II FOR THE PRO-GRAMMER: A HOW-TO-DO-IT BOOK

by Nelson T. Dinerstein. This book helpsprofessional programmers developquality application systems in dBase II.Includes numerous programs, sub-routines, and advice on overcomingcommon programming problems.

A LIBRARY OF SUBROUTINESFOR THE IBM PERSONALCOMPUTER by David S. Walonick.Packed with tested subroutines for awide range of personal and businessapplications, including subroutines ontime, math, sorting, printing, andkeyboarding This book can help youcut your programming time in half!

To order, contact your localbookstore or computer store, orwrite to

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312 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 326 on Inquiry card.

PGS introducesthe no-compromise monitorto meet yourno-compromise needs.

High resolution

Once you've invested in afirst-rate computer, you don'twant to compromise with asecond-rate monitor. That'swhy PGS introduced the firstno-compromise monitor, thePrinceton HX-12. It set the price/performance standard for highresolution RGB color monitors.

Super resolution

Now we're introducing thefirst no-compromise monitor inthe super resolution class. It'sour new SR-12: an RGB monitorthat meets the most demandingexpectations at a price that willsurprise you.

Monochrome

And, for price/performance ina monochrome monitor, we'reintroducing the MAX-12: ournew amber monitor that's aseasy on the eyes as it is onyour budget.

The monitor to meetyour needs

All three PGS monitors areengineered for no-compromiseperformance to provide youwith a cleaner, sharper imagethan any other monitor in thesame price class. The HX-12and the SR-12 both featureuncompromising color conver-gence for crisp whites withoutcolor bleed. The MAX-12 offersimpressive clarity in a mono-chrome monitor with easy-on-the-eyes amber phosphor.

And all three monitors comewith a non-glare screen and ashielded cable that plugsdirectly into the IBM PC or XT.

The HX-12 has the highestresolution (690x240) and thefinest dot pitch (31mm) in itsclass. And yet its suggestedretail price is comparable tomany medium resolution• monitors. The HX-12 bringsno-compromise color to the PCand now, with the PGS RGB-80board, to the Apple He as well.Suggested retail price: S695.

The new SR-12 , in conjunctionwith the PGS high performancecolor graphics card, also featuresa .31 mm dot pitch supporting690 horizontal resolution.However, by increasing thehorizontal scan rate to 27.5 KHz,the SR-! 2 can support 400vertical resolution in non-interlaced mode. This results ina very high quality, flickerlessimage with the ability to gener-ate graphics and text that istruly of monochrome quality.Suggested retail price: S799.

The new MAX-12 offers youeasy-on-the-eyes amber with720x350 resolution at a sug-gested retail price (S249) that isactually lower than the leadinggreen-on-black competitor. Andthe MAX-12 runs off the IBM PCmonochrome card—no specialcard is required.

Clarity of the Max 12 is en-hanced by dynamic focusingcircuitry which ensures sharp-ness not only in the center butalso in the edges and corners.Suggested retail price: S249.

Whatever your needs, fromword processing to super reso-lution graphics, there's now ano-compromise PGS monitorthat sets the standard. Ask yourdealer for a demonstration andlet your eyes decide. Or call formore information and the nameof your nearest dealer.

You can look to PGS for theImage your eyes deserve.

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Here's just a tasteof our great prices.

TRS-80

DOS PLUS 3.5 S89.00

HOME ACCOUNTANT mod III 59.50

LNW EXPANSION W/32K 345.00

PICKELS & TROUT CP/M mod 2,16 195.00

SUPPLIES

FLIP-SORT holds 50 $ 19.95

FLIP-SORT PLUS holds 100 24.50

BIB 5'/." DISK CLEANER 8.95

PLASTIC LIBRARY CASE 2.50

IBM TO PARALLEL CABLE 30.00

ISO II SIX SOCKET ISOLATOR 49.95

3M

S.S.D.DEN 40 TRACK 22.00

D.S.D.DEN 40 TRACK 34.50

VERBATIM DATALIFE

S.S.D.DEN 525-01 24,50

DSD.DEN 550-01 42.50

RIBBONS

DIABLO HY TYPE II FILM 5.95

NEC or C.ITOH DOT MATRIX 8.50

EPSON MX-80—RX-80 8,95

PRINTERS

EPSON GRAFTRAX PLUS $60,00

EPSON RX-80 299.00

EPSON FX-80 CALL

FINGER PRINT for EPSON 54,95

GEMINI 10 X 318,00

GRAPHICARD PRINTER INTERFACE 99.00

JUKI 6100 LETTER DUALITY 509.00

MICROBUFFER II 32K 209.00

OKIDATA 92A PARALLEL 450.00

PRINTEHFACE lor APPLE 75.00

TTX LETTER QUALITY w/Traolor 529.00

APPLE

128K ALPHA BYTE RAM BOARD $ 299.00

EPS KEYBOARD Programmable 299.00

HAYES MACH III JOYSTICK 37.50

INDUS DISK DRIVE 287.00

MICROSOFT 2-80 SOFTCARD 229.00

QUENTIN APPLEMATE 230.00

RANA ELITE 1 259.00

SUPERFAN II w/Zener Protection 79.00

SUPER 5 </! HEIGHT TEAC 249.00

VIDEX 80clm w/Sott Switch 229.00

ASCII EXPRESS PRO 94.50

BANK STREET WRITER 48.00

DISKQUICK CALL

LEGACY OF LLYGAMYN 29.50

LODE RUNNER 17.35

MERLIN 49.50

NEW FLIGHT SIMULATOR 34.16

PFS.WRITE APPLE lie 105.00

QUENTIN APPLEMATE 230.00

SILICON SALAD CALL

STICKY BEAR in stock CALL

MONITORS

AMDEK COLOR I PLUS $325.00

AMDEK 310A 179.00

BMC 9191 Color w/Sound 235.00

GORILLA GREEN 99.00

PANASONIC DUAL-MODE COLOR 325.00

QUADCOLOR II 246.00

TAXAN AMBER 125.00

USl PI3 12" 155.00

ZENITH AMBER 119.00

MODEMS

HAYES Micromodem ll/e Apple 2/2e....$ 256.00HAYES SMART MODEM (300 Baud)... 208.50HAYES SMART MODEM (1200 Baud)...528.50

HAYES 1200B IBM Internal 459.00

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MICROSOFT LATTICE C Compiler 369.00

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There is one thing you need to about this preboot:Applewriter normally rewrites the entire screen eachtime you type something in. This works fine with a 40-column display but with the Ultraterm there are manymore characters, and the program really can't keep up.To resolve this, the preboot program shows the charactersas they are typed. The rest of the screen is updatedwhenever you pause.

The Visicalc Preboot

This preboot will probably be the answer to the prayersof Visicalc users everywhere! As with the other prebootprograms, you load the Visicalc preboot first, but the firsttime you use it, it will automatically configure itself tomatch your version of Visicalc (version 193, 202, 208, or218). If you change versions the preboot can be recon-figured. This program has the following display size op-tions: 80 columns by 24 lines, 80 columns by 48 lines,128 columns by 32 lines, or 160 columns by 24 lines. Withthe 160-column option, however, you have to have amonitor that can handle the full 160 columns.

The first time I went from 40 to 80 columns and trieddifferent line lengths I was amazed at the difference thispreboot made in using Visicalc. When I went to the 128-and 160-column modes I was astounded. The addedwindow width and height gives you a realistic idea ofhow your spreadsheet will look when done; it also"feels" better.

It's worth adding the Ultraterm display card to yourApple just to have access to this preboot-expanded Visi-calc. It was difficult to go back to normal Visicalc afterusing the preboot.

Documentation

The Ultraterm manual deserves mention as one of thebest I have seen. It includes a table of contents, glossary,index, overview, and installation guide, as well as sepa-rate chapters on each relevant subject area. It containsthe Ultraterm's theory of operation, schematics, andfirmware listings. There is even a section that lets Word-star users configure their disks to come up automatical-ly in the 80-column by 48-line format. I wish all manualswere as complete as this one.

Conclusion

Overall, the Ultraterm display card is one of the bestperipheral devices I have seen to enhance the displaycapabilities of the Apple. It can be used in any AppleII, including the lie with extended memory. This displaycard will without a doubt make the Apple II display thenew standard against which all microcomputer videodisplays will be measured. ■

Peter V. Callamaras, an officer in the Air Force, can be reached at AFCC/EPPB, Scott AFB, IL 62225. The recipient of degrees in computer technologyand biological sciences, he recently received his master's degree in systems man-agement. He has been interested in computers since 1966 and used to be theservice department manager of a computer store.

314 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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The INVESTMENT EVALUATOR gives youthe capabilities you need without making youpay for a lot of complex functions you maynever use. Menu screens lead you to what youwant with one-touch commands. The programis completely reliable, comes with an easy-to-follow manual and is fully supported by theDow Jones Customer Service hotline.

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Circle 116 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 315

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Hardware Review

Apple Disk Emulators:Axlon, Legend, Pion, and Synetix

Four RAM disk emulators for the Apple II allowfaster execution times for certain applications

by Michael W. Gilbert

Applications that require a lot of file manipulation anddisk access are often slowed considerably by the relative-ly slow disk-access speeds afforded by the Apple's5 Vi -inch disk system. These applications, of course,would be greatly enhanced if the disk information trans-fer rate were brought up to the transfer rate of data inRAM (random-access read/write memory). Some usersystems could also benefit from the addition of storagespace in the form of more disk drives.

For most applications, a RAM disk emulator (DE) per-forms exactly like a mechanical drive, but considerablyfaster. This speed advantage can be put to good use inmany applications, including compilations, assemblies,database manipulations, sorting, word processing, dataacquisition, and graphics. The current basic buildingblock of the DE is the 64K-bit RAM chip. As RAM tech-nology is developed, we will see RAM chips with greaterstorage capacity and lower prices, and DE units willbecome even more competitive with mechanical storagemethods.

I compared four RAM DE devices for the Apple II/IIPlus/He family: the Axlon Ramdisk 320, the Legend 128KDE Softdisk, the Pion Interstellar Drive, and the SynetixFlashcard (formerly the Synetix 2202 Solid-State DiskEmulator) (see photo 1). All four DE devices support thethree most popular operating systems for the Apple:Apple DOS 3.3, Pascal, and CP/M. Prices range from$529 for the Synetix Flashcard to $1095 for the Pion In-terstellar Drive. Each system includes a manual, softwareto interface it with the operating systems, variousutilities, and a diagnostic program for the RAM chips.

318 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Disk Emulators and DOS

Each of the four units I reviewed has a program thatalters Apple DOS 3.3 to allow it to use RAM as anemulated disk drive. Unlike CP/M, Pascal, and the Ap-ple Ill's SOS, Apple's DOS 3.3 was not designed to allowfor alternate drivers. Unfortunately, RAM DEs will notwork with most copy-protected or modified software thatdoes not use all the standard DOS conventions, com-mands, or entry points, or with software that must bebooted to run. The Synetix and Legend emulation soft-ware places the DOS patches right under DOS andmoves the file buffers down to protect them. The Axlonand Pion interface cards both have their own RAMspace; the patches are located on the interface card andnot in the Apple II main memory.

The Axlon DOS patch has an excellent feature: it cantoggle (by means of a $300 routine) between Axlon DOSand normal unpatched DOS. This routine also preservesall DOS data in the lower pages (0-3) of memory. Thefour systems patch a routine called the RWTS (read/writetrack/sector) to route calls through their own access rou-tines. (Note: a DE could be set up to look exactly likea standard disk controller to the bus, but without theDOS modifications—involving timing loops—it wouldbe no faster than a disk.)

In a sense, the Axlon and Pion DEs will be compati-ble with a few more programs than the others (forexample, Magic Window II), but because they all changeDOS by at least 2 bytes (a Jump~JMP~operand), any pro-gram that overwrites DOS with its own operating systemwill obliterate the patch no matter how small it is. The

Photo Is RAM disk emulators for the Apple. Theunits shown are, top to bottom, the Axlon Ram-disk 320, the Synetix 2202 Solid State DiskEmulator, and the Pion Interstellar Drive. Notshown is the Legend 128K DE Softdisk, whichsomewhat resembles the Synetix card.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 319

RAM Disk EmulatorTask (seconds)

Disk(seconds)

BLOAD (34 sectors)with Fastload

2.50.4

103

BSAVE (34 sectors)

3

15

LOAD (84 sectors)with Fastload

6

0.7

217

SAVE (84 sectors)

7

34

Table 1: A comparison showing how quickly a RAM disk emulatorcan access data compared with a normal floppy disk under AppleDOS 3.3. Performance was also tested with a DOS speed-up pro-gram called Fastload/DOS.

Axlon DOS can, however, be reconnected easily (usingthe toggle) once you are back in normal DOS. Thismethod may lend itself well to future interface develop-ments.

In all cases, the systems are less than ideal for thecanned-software user. They are more suited to specificuser-written or user-modified applications or for use indevelopment systems.

How Much Faster?

The access speed increases offered by all four units arealmost exactly the same. All but the Legend are com-patible with Microseeds' Fastload/DOS, a commerciallyavailable utility that speeds up DOS 3.3. The Legend hasa feature that is functionally equivalent to Fastload/DOSbuilt into its software. The units all work approximatelythe same way; the RAM is paged and accessed througha peripheral "window" address(es). The factors that limitspeed are the operating system's file-handling overheadsand the clock speed of the microprocessor. The file-han-dling overheads can be reduced by using a DOS speed-up program (such as Fastload/DOS) or by bypassing thefile handler entirely. The 34-sector BLOAD routine takes0.4 second and can be executed directly, using RWTSin a machine-language program, in under 0.2 second.The use of a speed-up card such as the Number NineBooster card (a 6502C processor with a 3.6-MHz clock)can further increase the speed of data transfer. Table 1shows a sample of the speed-ups under DOS 3.3. Speed-ups under all three operating systems range from 200percent to over 5000 percent, depending on the applica-tion and on how you choose to compare things. Mostoperations, other than those involving DOS 3.3 text files,will be considerably (approximately 1000 percent) faster.

For DOS 3.3 text files, none of the four units offers aspectacular speed advantage over 5V4-inch disk drives.This is because of the DOS overheads used when han-dling text files. The Axlon software enhances text-filespeed by loading groups of records into memory andaccessing them there. However, this nongeneral solutionto the problem requires rewriting user programs, andit will not work in many cases.

Pascal access times increased similarly with all fourunits. Synetix and Axlon configure the emulators as theroot volume, allowing faster system access (filer, etc.) andcompilations. Neither the Pion nor the Legend card canact as the root volume—a limitation. Pascal more readi-ly allows for the attachment of nonstandard devicedrivers: all the systems will probably be more compati-ble with software and hardware under Pascal than withDOS 3.3. The Synetix Pascal software comes with an ex-cellent utility (U.code) to transfer files to and from theFlashcard.

CP/M access times are also virtually identical. Noneof the units can use the emulator as the A: drive, soSUBMIT files cannot be tested for speed-up. In addition,the ATTACH programs associated with the systems can-not be used in SUBMIT files. When SUBMIT.COM is ineffect, it changes vector table locations needed by theattach routines. The emulated drives cannot be formattedwith FORMAT.COM, but they usually don't need explicitformatting (if they do, a quick utility is supplied). Youshould PIP your files to the DEs rather than usingCOPY.COM.

Despite these minor limitations, the CP/M user prob-ably stands to gain the most from the DEs; they can beused with most commercial CP/M software with littleor no incompatibility. For example, if you run a spell-ing-checker program on a large text file first with the5V4-inch disk and then with a DE, the DE's usefulnessis apparent. The ease with which CP/M can be recon-figured to accept I/O (input/output) code changes andnew drivers to support custom I/O devices serves tohighlight a weak point of the Apple DOS.

All four DEs can be accessed directly with the RWTSroutine under DOS 3.3 in assembly/machine languagefor high-speed applications. This makes them especial-ly useful and extremely fast for applications programmeddirectly in 6502 assembly code.

System Configurations

The Synetix system can emulate up to 12 drives (usingsix cards) under DOS 3.3, two large (560-block) drives(two cards) under Pascal, and four drives (two cards)under CP/M, with a suggested maximum of three to fourcards with the Apple II Plus standard power supply.New CP/M software allows two cards to be configuredas one large 576K-byte drive. In addition, utilities are in-cluded to segment and reconstruct large files for backupon the Apple 126K-byte floppy disks. The Synetix systemalso includes a routine to use its 294K-byte card underDOS 3.3 as one large 32-sector drive. This is the onlysystem offering a large drive option under DOS 3.3.

The Axlon system can emulate up to 12 drives (sixunits) under DOS 3.3, six drives (three units) underPascal, and one drive (one unit) under CP/M, with nolimit to how many systems can be used. Each Axlon unithas its own power supply. The Axlon allows for usingits extra (within the 320K-byte) RAM as an expansionfrom 35-track to 40-track emulation, with appropriatesoftware patches.

320 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

CLEOmakes the mainframe connection.

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The communications featuresof the CLEO-3270 Softwarepackage allow your microprocessorto emulate a cluster of IBM terminaldevices.

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If your IBM mainframe doesn't supportremote 3270 clusters, you need remotebatch communications. CLEO-3780Software is your answer.

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• Up to eight line cluster activity

• Selectable control unit address

• User install program for various CRTs

• 3278 emulation for ASCII CRTs

• Available for CP/M™, MP/M™. MsDOS™, TurboDOS™, Unix™,and Xenix™

• 3276-12 protocol, coming soon

Standard Features-CLEO 3780

• Point-to-point and multipoint communications

• Available for CP/M™. MP/M™. MsDOS™, TurboDOS™. UnixT'and Xenix™.

• Supports transparent mode

• Coded in C language

CP/M is a Trademark of Digital Research, Inc.MP/M is a Trademark of Digital Research. Inc.MsDOS is a Trademark of Microsoft. Inc.Circle 294 on inquiry card.

TurboDOS is a Trademark of Software 2000.1Unix is a Trademark of Bell LabsXenix is a Trademark of Microsoft. Inc.

CLEO

At a Glance

Name

Axlon Ramdisk 320

Type

External RAM disk emulator

Manufacturer

Axlon Inc.

1287 Lawrence Station Rd.Sunnyvale, CA 94089(408) 747-1900

Size

B'h by 6/8 by 3% inches

Features

320K bytes of memory, own power supply and battery backup,comes with two database-manager programs

Hardware Needed

Apple II or III

Documentation

75-page manual

Options

UCSD Pascal driver: S15

Price

S999

The Legend unit can emulate four drives (four cards)under DOS 3.3, four drives (four cards) under CP/M, andsix drives (six cards) under Pascal. Legend Industries Ltd.is currently working on emulations of larger drives underPascal and CP/M.

The Pion system can emulate two drives (one unit)under DOS 3.3, two drives (one unit) under Pascal, andone drive (one unit) under CP/M. The Pion system, how-ever, can be physically expanded up to 1 megabyte ofRAM (extra available in 256K-byte increments) enablingemulation of up to eight drives (one unit) under DOS3.3 (using optional mapping software) and very largedrives under Pascal (up to 1768 blocks) and CP/M.

The four units include software for initializing theemulator system (installing the patches). The Pion sys-tem requires the DE to be formatted for each operatingsystem; this is usually done only once, after the unit hasbeen powered down, or for a change of operating sys-tem. The Axlon system uses a configuration utility thatcreates a boot program to carry out particular copy opera-tions. The Synetix system has an installation utility thatis user friendly, including a prompted copy routine. TheLegend system has an installation utility that assigns anemulated drive number that can be other than the slot/drive numbers, to be used by DOS enhancement copycommands. The Legend DOS enhancements add twonew commands directly to DOS 3.3: MOUNT and UP-DATE. The command .M1,S6,D1 copies the contents ofS6,D1 5V4-inch disks onto emulated drive 1; U1,S6,D1copies the contents of emulated drive 1 onto a disk inS6,D1. Under CPJM, all the systems use similar AT-TACH.COM files. Note that, because of SUBMIT's use

of the vector table under CP/M, some of the AT-TACH.COM files cannot be used in SUBMIT files forturnkey use. Under Pascal, all systems use similar drivesthat are appropriately configured and attached by thePascal system after booting from the disk.

All of the units include software for configuring turn-key systems for initial loading and start-up.

Installation

The Axlon DE is an attractive, freestanding unit, thesize, shape, and color of an Apple II Disk Drive, witha power cord and cable/interface card that installs in anyApple slot (1 through 7).

The Pion unit is also well packaged in a slightly largermetal case (to allow for RAM expansion), with an inter-face card that must be installed in slot 4.1 have one criti-cism of the Pion: the power supply is a calculator type,on the plug end of the power cord, and it cannot beswitched on and off. Because both the Axlon and thePion RAM are external to the Apple, heat is not aproblem.

The Legend is a compact card that installs inside theApple in any slot. My Legend card required the removalof an Apple motherboard RAM chip and the installa-tion of a refresh strap from card to motherboard, whichmay make the current version of this card incompatiblewith the He. Legend Industries Ltd. has now updatedthe product: the new version has its own refresh (nostrap) and will work with both the He and the III in IIemulation mode.

The Synetix is a large, tightly packed, cleanly laid outcard that also installs in any Apple slot. Despite the factthat the RAM is inside the Apple, the low power con-

At a Glance

Name

Legend 128K DE Softdisk

Type

Memory card with disk-emulation software

Manufacturer

Legend Industries Ltd.2220 Scott Lake Rd.Pontiac, Ml 48054(313) 674-0953

Size

7/,-inch Apple expansion card

Features

128K bytes of memory, comes with several utility programs

Hardware Needed

Apple II or III

Documentation

98-page operating manual

Options

64K-byte version (S327)

Price

S599

322 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

s#r

If yourpersonal computer

doesn't tie intooffice automationmaybe it doesn'tbelong in your

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The Wang Professional Computeroffersyou excellentcommunications.lt is so com-patible it can work with the entire family ofWang office computers, as well as mostmainframes.

There are other advantages, of course.Like the best selling word processing in theworld. And the fastest data processing of a nypersonal computer we've tested.

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BY4© 1983 Wang Laboratories, Inc.

BYTE February 1984 323

At a Glance

Name

Pion Interstellar Drive

Type

External RAM disk emulator

Manufacturer

Pion Inc.I01R Walnut St.Watertown. MA 02172(617) 923-8009

Size

9 by 8]4 by 4 inches

Features

256K bytes of memory, own power supply and battery backup

Hardware Needed

Interfaces available for several computers, including Apple II,S-100-based systems, TRS-80 Models II, III, and 4, Morrow, andIBM PC

Documentation

15-page manual

Options

Extra 256K-byte memory cards ($595), up to I megabyte

Price

SI095

sumption (approximately 150 mA) ensures that very lit-tle heat is generated.

All four DEs are compatible with a wide range of pe-ripherals including language cards, printer cards, serialI/O cards, Z80 cards, 80-column cards, etc. Problems willarise with alternative storage devices that use the sameparts of DOS for patching and with a peripheral cardthat has a routine in ROM (read-only memory) thatmakes an absolute reference to a DOS point that hasbeen patched or changed.

The Axlon and Pion units are self-powered; each hasits own power supply and battery backup. Without thisbackup system, any loss of power will mean loss ofstored information. The drives can be left on all the timeand will retain data. In addition, in case of power failureor brownout, the drives are battery backed-up for ap-proximately three hours (Axlon) and one-half hour(Pion), with the battery under continual trickle chargewhen the power is on. I tested the feature and theclaimed backup times are accurate.

The self-power feature accounts, in part, for price dif-ferences between the units. The potential DE user mustassess his needs with regard to the importance of dataretention after power down. The feature is not neededfor every DE application; the devices can be reloadedeasily with data on power-up. An ideal situation wouldbe to have the entire computer system backed up; cur-rently, if a power outage lasts longer than the batteries,the data is lost because it can't be backed up onto a disk.

The Axlon is the only unit to store the DOS image:it can be warm booted with the command PR#x, where

x is the slot number of the Axlon's interface. Because itis always powered independently from the Apple II, itcan also be used as a cold-boot drive if placed in a slotnumbered higher than the disk controller's slot. The abil-ity to warm and cold boot from the Axlon gives it anadvantage for certain uses. Most designers opt not todesignate tracks on the emulated disks as system, tracksfor saving space or using it for data; in almost every case,the operating system tracks are already on the disk inthe system.

Documentation and Software

The Synetix and Pion software are sparsely docu-mented; a listing for direct access of the RAM in assem-bly code is included but is only briefly commented on.The package could be improved with source-code list-ings for the DOS patches.

The Axlon unit has well-annotated assembly-code list-ings of its programs, and its manual is well presentedand relatively clear.

The Legend software is well documented and the soft-ware can be modified fairly easily (by a skilled assem-bly-language programmer).

In all cases, however, the manuals are not always clearenough, and they fail to cover aspects of use as well asproblems due to software interactions with existing sys-tem conventions. All of the units come with hardwarediagnostic routines that were tested by substitutingknown-defective RAM chips for good ones. The Synetixprogram is the easiest to use, but the card must be ina particular slot, an inconvenience in multicard systems.

At a Glance

Name

Flashcard (formerly Synetix 2202 SSD)

Type

RAM disk-emulator card for Apple II

Manufacturer

Synetix Micro Products15050 N.E. 95th St.Redmond, WA 98052(800) 426-7412

Size

II /2-inch Apple expansion card

Features

294K bytes of memory

Hardware Needed

Apple II

Documentation

30-page user's manual

Options

147K-byte card (Synetix 2201), Softech Microsystems' p-Systemoperating system, Magicalc spreadsheet program from Artsci ($70)

Price

With 294K bytes: $529With 147K bytes: $349

324 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE Eebruary 1984 325

As for applications software, both the Synetix and Pionsystems come without any. The Axlon unit, however,comes with two database systems, both documented,listed, and modifiable; a utility to enable the extra 40Kbytes of memory the unit has; and a utility to manipulatecertain text files faster. The Legend unit is a general-purpose RAM card; as such, the disk emulation itselfis, in a sense, a utility. The Legend unit comes with acomplete documented set of additional utilities: Amper-card—software that enables the user to easily use the cardto store and access 128K bytes of strings, arrays, and vari-ables under BASIC; Memory Master—software thatrelocates DOS onto the card and out of Apple II mem-ory and simultaneously makes available 3.2 and 3.3;Slide Select—software for rapid access of image files;Firmware Selector—software allowing the user to move afirmware Integer or Applesoft card out of slot 0; andVisicalc-Expand—to enable Visicalc users to manipulatelarger (up to 176K-byte) models.

A Balance Sheet

Axlon pluses: the unit is always powered and backedup by battery, and it does not need reloading. The oper-ating-system image is stored for cold and warm booting.It has the least amount of in-Apple memory patchingdue to RAM space on interface. It can toggle betweenAxlon DOS and normal DOS. It has good documenta-tion (currently being revised and expanded) and a com-plete software package (also being expanded to includemore CP/M and Pascal utilities). Minuses: it takes upphysical space outside of the Apple and is expensive.

Legend pluses: the Legend is a general-purpose RAMcard that can be used in many applications other thandisk emulation, including use with Visicalc. It has DOSenhancements with new commands, MOUNT andUPDATE. It has excellent commented listings of softwareto allow for modifications and an excellent package ofmemory-management utilities. Minuses: it has the small-est disk-emulation capacity per card and total drives, andit has one technical problem—if a system Reset occursduring disk (emulator) access, the system will hang up,requiring a cold boot (and causing the loss of RAM-carddata). [Editor's Note: Legend Industries has recently releasedanother version of its memory card, called S-Card. This cardcan hold from 64K bytes to 256K bytes of memory. And, when256K-bit chips become available, the upper limit will be 1 mega-byte. The price for the 64K-byte version is $399; 128K-byte,$524; and 256K-byte, $724. ... R. M.]

Pion pluses: the unit is always powered and batterybacked-up, and it does not need reloading. It has theleast amount of in-Apple memory patching due to RAMspace on its interface. Its RAM is expandable to 1 mega-byte. It has good documentation, and hardware errordetection is provided to prevent faulty data. The Piondrive is the only system I evaluated that is not designedexclusively for the Apple; it can run (using different hostinterfaces) on Apple, S100/IEEE 696, TRS-80II/III, IBM,SS50, Motorola, and with a universal Z80-interfaceOsborne, Intertec, Superbrain, Morrow, etc. It will soon

be expanded to cover North Star, Victor 9000, and DecQ bus as well. Operating systems supported include Ap-ple (DOS 3.3, CP/M, and Pascal), CPIM 2.2 (S100),TRSDOS, LDOS, FLEX, OS-9, RT-11, and North StarDOS, soon to include CP/M 3.X, CP/M-86, concurrentCP/M, MS-DOS, TURBODOS, MP/M, and CDOS.Because of its extensive range and its capacity to expandto 1 megabyte, this device will be of interest to manyusers outside the Apple market. Minuses: it takes upphysical space outside of Apple, its power supply is un-wieldy, and it is expensive.

Synetix pluses: the Flashcard performs functionally aswell as any system on the market, but at a much lowercost. It is well developed in all operating system en-vironments. It has well-developed CP/M software and32-sector operation in DOS 3.3. It takes up the leastamount of space and is the easiest unit to install or movearound. Minuses: it has inadequate documentation andnot enough utility and applications software.

Conclusions

All these units perform well and are reliable. Not onceduring many weeks of moderate-to-heavy use did anyof the units (once debugged) fail to operate correctly.They all offer about the same speed advantages and thesame software incompatibility disadvantages. Axlon andPion have a power/backup hardware advantage, but ata price. Synetix offers equivalent performance with fewerfeatures at a lower price. Legend offers a general-purposeRAM board whose features and uses extend well beyonddisk emulation.

The RAM disk emulators that I reviewed will giveusers a definite speed advantage over mechanical drives.Another advantage is the possibility of using DEs in en-vironments hostile to the moving parts of mechanicaldrives. (One manufacturer cited systems used at a grainelevator as an example. The grain dust in the air wouldhopelessly jam up a disk drive after prolonged use.) Ihave found the DEs useful; in fact, I wrote this articlewith the help of one. My programs can be edited andcompiled faster than they were without the DEs, mydatabase runs and sorts much faster, and I have devel-oped full-frame graphics animation programs that runat about seven full frames per second—no easy task onan Apple.

I use CP/M on my Apple almost exclusively these days.It is under CP/M that all the DEs are most compatibleand, therefore, most useful.

There is no one "best" DE: each has features that makeit suitable for different applications. There are differencesin software, documentation, and ease of use that willbe important when you evaluate a potential purchase. ■

Michael W. Gilbert (73 Spaulding St., Amherst, MA 01002) is an indepen-dent microcomputer consultant, electronic music composer, and technical writer.His first contact with RAM disk emulation was as a consultant to SynetixMicro Products writing graphics demo software. His current area of comput-ing interest is graphic art.

326 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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IBM/Apple Communication

Sending text files between Apples and IBM PCs is easy with these

simple programs

Perhaps there are some BASIC pro-grams or files on an Apple II Plus orHe computer that you would like touse on an IBM PC or XT without hav-ing to type them in all over again. Ormaybe there is an IBM file that youwould like to massage with someApple software. The IBM PC and Ap-ple versions of BASIC are similarenough that, with only minor modi-fication, many programs written forthe Apple II will run on the IBM PCand vice versa. In this article I willoutline a method and list programsthat will allow you to transfer BASICprograms or data files between IBMsand Apples quickly and easily.

These programs assume that eachmachine has a serial I/O (input/out-put) board and that a "cross-overcable" (sometimes called a "modemeliminator") links the serial boardstogether. A cross-over cable has con-nectors on each end that join pin #2of one serial connector with pin #3 ofthe other machine's serial connector.This crossover of the data linesenables the data output from onemachine to become the input to theother. Cross-over cables are availablefrom computer dealers at a nomimalprice.

These programs also assume thatdisk drives (as opposed to cassetterecorders) are used on each machineand that a reasonably standard DOS(disk operating system) is being usedon each system. The programs runon the IBM PC and Apple II Plus and

by Robert Jones

will probably run on the IBM XT andApple He as well, because no uniquefeatures of these models are used.

A Brief Overview of the Method

The user controls the operation ofthis data transfer from the keyboardof the receiving machine. This con-trol is assumed once the sending ma-chine's program begins to run. Theuser runs the receiving program,supplying, when asked, the name ofthe file to be sent from the sending

Their versions of BASIC

are similar enough

that, with minor

modifications, many

programs written for

the Apple II will run on

the IBM PC and vice versa.

machine and the name of the fileunder which to save it on the receiv-ing machine. The requested file isloaded into a string array on thesending machine, sent line by line tothe receiving machine's comparablestring array, then the string array issaved to a file on the receiving ma-chine's disk drive. These programsuse a 4800-bps (bits per second) rateand a format of 7 data bits, 1 stop bit,and even parity. Set the parameterson the Apple serial card and use theIBM program's OPEN statement to fix

them for the PC's communicationsbuffer.

Apple-to-IBM Example

Suppose that you have a text file onyour Apple but your IBM PC hassome software that plots data for you.The following instructions will sendyour text file from the Apple II to theIBM PC. Listing 1 is the APTOIBMsending program. Listing 2 is theAPTOIBM receiving program. Be-fore running these programs, be surethat the serial-card slot number forthe Apple is correctly noted in theApple II program (that is, set SLOTequal to the slot number if it is otherthan slot #5). Check that your IBMPC serial board is configured asCOM1: as specified in the OPENstatement. COM2: can be used in theprogram by modifying the OPENstatement. Make sure that there issufficient disk space in the receivingmachine.

Run the program on the (sender)Apple II first. The message "Waitingfor instructions from the IBM..."should appear. Be sure that the fileto be transmitted is on the disk in oneof the Apple drives. Now run theIBM (receiver) program. When askedfor the Apple filename, enter thename as it appears in the catalog ofthat disk, including the drive specifi-cation, if needed (e.g., "MYFILE,D2").You will also be asked for the file-name under which to save this file onthe IBM PC. Be sure to give it a valid

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 331

filename specification (e.g.,"B:MYFILE.DAT"). After pressing theReturn key, you should see theApple's drive light go on as itsearches for the requested file. As thefile is being transferred, it will belisted on the Apple's screen. Whentransmission is completed, thelengths of the string arrays (contain-ing the "lines" of the files) in bothmachines will be compared. If thelengths match, then the IBM will savethe file. If the lengths do not match,then you will be asked to either savethe file or abort it. Over 90 percentof the time, the lengths will match.If they do not, there may have beena leading or trailing blank space inone or more of the lines or controlcharacters within the text. I wouldsuggest saving the transferred fileanyway, then later searching for thecause of the problem. I have not yethad a discrepancy with a Visicalc filenor with a text file containing onlyalphanumeric characters (such asthose written with an ApplesoftWRITE statement). The files createdby word-processing programs areanother story, however. These arebest saved (despite any length dis-crepancies) and edited later.

If the file to be transferred is notfound on the sending machine, thenthe user is informed and asked toenter the correct filename. The pro-gram may be halted by pressing theReturn key instead of specifying afilename. If the requested file can't befound, check the drive specificationand the spelling of the filename andrun both programs again.

If the file contains more than the2000 lines for which X$() is dimen-sioned in all programs, then dimen-sion the X$() arrays in both programsto a larger size. A dimensioned sizeof 2000 "lines" is probably more thanadequate for a file that fits into 25 to35K bytes of available memory. If thefile is too large to fit into the memoryavailable, you will receive an OUT OFMEMORY message on the sendingmachine, and some major modifica-tion of both programs may beneeded. Alternatively, you couldbreak the file into smaller segments,transmit the segments separately,then rejoin them.

332 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Listing 1: The Apple to IBM sender program.

100

no

120

130140150

1601701B0190200210

2302402502602702S02903003103203303403503603703803904004104204304404504604704804905005105205305405505605705S0590600610620630640650660670680690700710720730740750760770780790800810820830840850860870

REMREM

APTDIBM SENDING PROGRAM FOR APPLEBY ROBERT JONES AUGUST 3, 1983

LISTING #1

HOME

REM SOME DEFINITIONS

DIM X*(2000>SLOT = 5: REM SERIAL PORT SLOTD* = CHRt (4)EF* = "XX"OE = 1

LI = 768: REM LINE INPUT ROUTINEFOR I = 768 TO 812: READ X: POKE I,X: NEXT I

REM GET NAME FROM IBMGOSUB 800

print d*;"in#";slot: input fa*: print d*;"in#0"

PRINT

IF FA* = "" THEN 760

REM READ APPLE FILE FROM DISK

PRINT D*;"OPEN "JFA*

PRINT D*;"READ ")FA*

ONERR GOTO 3801=0I = I + OE: CALL LI,X*<I>: GOTO 370

PRINT D*;"CLOSE": POKE 216,0:ER = PEEK (222)

IF PEEK (222)

5 THEN 490: REM END OF FILE FOUND

REM ERROR REPORT

PRINT D*;"PR#";SLDT: PRINT "ERROR": PRINT D*j"PR#0"

IF ER = 107 THEN PRINT "X*(> IS TOO SMALL FOR FILE."

IF ER = 77 THEN PRINT "FILE TOO LARGE FOR AVAILABLE MEMORY."

IF ERR = 176 THEN ONERR GOTO 380: GOTO 370: REM LINE TOD LONG

GOTO 770

N = I

1

REM N<1 MEANS FILE NOT FOUND.

IF N > 0 THEN 540

PRINT D*;"PRtt":SLOT: PRINT "NF":

PRINT D*S"PR#0": GOTO 270: REM NF

REM SEND FILE TO IBM

PRINT D*;"PR#";SLOT

PRINT "FOUND"AC = O

FOR I = 1 TO N

PRINT X*(I)AC = AC + LEN <X*(I)): REM APPLE CHECKSUM

NEXT I

REM SEND END OF FILE FLAG TO IBMPRINT EF*

REM SEND CHECKSUM FROM APPLE

PRINT AC

PRINT Dt;"PR#0"

PRINT : PRINT "WAITING FOR ANSWER FROM IBM. . ."PRINT D*;"IN#";SLOT: INPUT ANS*: PRINT D*i"IN#0"IF ANS* = "MORE" THEN 270

REM FINISH UP

PRINT : PRINT "NORMAL COMPLETION."

END

REM SUBROUTINE FOR HEADING

HOME : HTAB 10: PRINT "APPLE TO IBM SENDING PROGRAM": PRINT

PRINT "WAITING FOR FILE NAME FROM IBM . . .": PRINT

RETURN

REM LINE INPUT AT 768 - 812 <CALL 768, ANY*)

DATA 32,190,222,32,227,223,162,0,32,117,253,134,253,32,57,213,165DATA 253,32,82,228,162,0,160,2,32,226,229,160,0,165,253,145DATA 131,200,165,111,145,131,200,165,112,145,131,96

The FILE NOT FOUND, SUB-SCRIPT OUT OF RANGE, and OUTOF MEMORY errors are the onlymajor problems I have encounteredin the six months I have been usingthese programs. However, I am surethat other errors could be en-countered—there is always at leastone more bug.

IBM-to-Apple Example

To send a file from an IBM PC toan Apple, see listings 3 and 4. Listing3 is the IBMTOAP sending program.Listing 4 is the IBMTOAP receivingprogram. Run (first) the sending pro-gram on the IBM PC; then run thereceiving program on the Apple. Theoperation is analogous to that ofText continued on page 338

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IEEE-488

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standard - system controller ordevice, transfer commands and data,perform serial and parallel polling.

1 A resident firmware interpreter

accepts Tektronix Standard Codesand Formats, IEEE-488 commandmnemonics, and any ASCII string orcode. The interpreter routines maybe called from assembly language,BASIC, Pascal, and other languages.

1 Supports the PrtSc (print screen)key, and all BASIC print statementsfor IEEE-488 printers.

Small size - see BYTE 11/83 p.314

• Uses only 16 bytes of RANI - leav-ing the entire 640K memory addressspace open.

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provides a tutorial and programmingexamples for digitizing, interactivebus control, bus diagnostics, andmany other applications.

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Listing 2: The Apple to IBM receiver program.

toono

1201301401501601701801902002102202302402502602702B02903003103203303403503603703S03904004104204304404504604704B0490500510520530540550560570580590600610620630640650660670680690700710720730740

LISTING #2

REM APTOIBM RECEIVING PROGRAM FOR IBMREM BY ROBERT JONES AUGUST 3, 1983

REM SDME DEFINITIONS

DIM X*(2000)

EF* = "XX": REM END-OF-FILE FLAG

ONE = 1

WIDTH 40

ON ERROR GOTO 710

OPEN "C0M1:4800,E,7,1" AS #1 : REM SERIAL PORT

CLS: LOCATE 1,7: PRINT "APPLE TO IBM TRANSFER PROGRAM": PRINT: PRINT

PRINT "BE SURE THAT THE APPLE PROGRAM"

PRINT "IS RUNNING BEFORE YOU CONTINUE!": PRINT

INPUT "APPLE FILE NAME ";FA«

IF FA* = "" THEN PRINT *1,FA* : GOTO 660

INPUT "IBM FILE NAME ";FI*

PRINT

IF FI* » "" THEN FI* = FA*

PRINT #1,FA»: REM TELL APPLE THE FILE TO FIND

FOR J = 1 TO 750:NEXT J

INPUT #1, NF*: REM SEE IF APPLE HAS FOUND IT

IF NF*= "NF" THEN PRINT "FILE NOT FOUND...REENTER NAME": GOTO 250

IF NF* = "FOUND" THEN GOTO 390

GOTO 660: REM ANY OTHER RESPONSE FROM APPLE

REM READ FILE FROM APPLE

PRINT: PRINT "READING FILE FROM APPLE . . .":PRINT

I = 0: REM INITIALIZE COUNTER

1=1+ ONE: LINE INPUT #ONE, X*(I) : IF X*(I> <> EF* THEN 410

INPUT # ONE, AC: REM APPLE'S CHECKSUM

N = I - 1: REM DROP THE END-OF-FILE SIGNAL FROM THE LIST

REM COMPUTE LENGTH FOR CHECKSUM COMPARISON

PRINT "NUMBER OF LINES: "!N

PRINT

PRINT "APPLE LENGTH:",AC

PRINT "IBM LENGTH :",

IC = O: FOR I = 1 TO N: IC = IC + LEN(X*(I>): NEXT I

PRINT IC

IF IC= AC THEN 560: REM IF CHECKSUMS MATCH

INPUT "CHECKSUM ERROR, CONTINUE? "!CN*:IF CN* <"Y" THEN 650

REM SAVE FILE TO I.B.M. DISK

OPEN FI* FOR OUTPUT AS #2

FOR I = 1 TO N: PRINT #2, X*<I): NEXT IS CLOSE #2

REM ANOTHER FILE?

PRINT: PRINT "DO YOU WANT ANOTHER FILE ";: INPUT ANS*

IF ANS* < "Y" THEN GOTO 650

PRINT #1, "MORE": GOTO 220

REM FINISH UP

PRINT #1, "NO"

CLOSE #1

PRINT: PRINT "NORMAL COMPLETION"

END

REM ERROR HANDLER

IF ERR = 24 THEN RESUME: REM AVOID TIMEOUT

PRINT "STOPPED BY ERROR NUMBER":ERR;" IN LINE "JERL

CLOSE #1

STOP

Listing 3: The IBM to Apple sender program.

100

no

120130140150160170180190200210220230240250260270280290300310

REM IBMTOAP SENDING PROGRAM FOR IBMREM BY Robert Jones AUGUST 3,19B3

LISTING #3

REM SOME DEFINITIONS

DIM X*<2000)

EF* = "XX": REM END OF FILE FLAG

DLY = 500: SHDLY = 50 : REM DELAY BETWEEN LINES AND AFTER 40 CHARS.

ONE = 1

WIDTH 40: GOSUB 760

ON ERROR GOTO 800

OPEN "COMl:4800,E,7,1" AS #1: REM SERIAL PORT

REM GET FILE NAME FROM APPLEINPUT #1,FI*

IF FI* = "" THEN GOTO 680OPEN FI* FOR INPUT AS #2

REM SEND FILE TO APPLEPRINT #1, "FOUND"

REM READ FILE FROM I.B.M. DISK

Listing 3 continued on page 336

334 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE February 1984 335

Circle 3 on Inquiry card.

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Listing 3 continued:

3203303403503603703803904004104204304404504604704B04905005105205305405505605705B05906006106206306406506606706B0690700710720730740750760770780790800810820830840850860870

I = O

IF EOF(2) THEN 350

I = I +ONE: LINE INPUT #2,

CLOSE #2

N = I

X*(I): GOTO 330

REM SEND FILE TO APPLE

PRINT

PRINT "SENDING"jNi"LINES TO APPLE ..."

CL = CSRLIN

IC = 0

FOR I = 1 TO N

LDCATE CL + 1,1: PRINT "LINE BEING SENT:"; I: REM LINE COUNT TO SCREEN

L = LEN(X*(I>>: IC = IC + L : REM SUM NO. OF CHARACTERS

FOR J = 1 TO DLY : NEXT J: REM DELAY BETWEEN LINES

FOR K = 1 TO L STEP 40: REM 40 CHARACTERS AT A BURST MAXIMUM

FOR J = 1 TO SHDLY: NEXT J: REM DELAY BEFORE EVERY 40 CHAR. BURSTPRINT HI, MID*(X*<I>,K,40>;NEXT KPRINT #1,: REM CARRIAGE RETURN TO END LINE

NEXT I

REM SEND END OF FILE FLAGFOR J = 1 TO DLY: NEXT JPRINT #1, "XX"

REM SEND CHECKSUM TO APPLEFOR J = 1 TO DLY:NEXT JPRINT #1,IC

REM ANOTHER FILE

INPUT HI, MORE*

IF MORE* < "Y" THEN GOTO 680

GOSUB 760 : GOTO 240 : REM GET NEXT FILE NAME

PRINT : PRINT "NORMAL COMPLETION"

PRINT

REM FINISH UP

CLOSE #1

ON ERROR GOTO 0: REM TURN THE ERROR TRAPPING OFF

END

REM SUBROUTINE FDR HEADING

CLS:LOCATE 1,13: PRINT "IBM TO APPLE" : PRINT

PRINT "WAITING FOR FILE NAME FROM APPLE ..."

RETURN

PRINT

REM ERROR HANDLER

IF ERR = 24 THEN RESUME : REM TIME-OUT ON C0M1:

IF ERR = 53 THEN PRINT H1,"NF" : RESUME 240 : REM FILE NOT FOUND

REM OTHER ERRORS

PRINT "ERROR ";ERR;" IN LINE ";ERL

PRINT HI, "ERROR ":ERR : REM LET APPLE KNOW

GOTD 710

Listing 4: The IBM to Apple receiver program.

100

no

120130140150160170180190200210220230240250260270280290300310320330340350360370380390400410420

REM IBMTOAP APPLE RECEIVING PROGRAM — LISTING H4REM BY ROBERT JONES AUGUST 3, 1983

REM SOME DEFINITIONS

DIM X*(2000)SLOT = 5: REM SERIAL PORT SLOTD* = CHR* (4)

EF* = "XX": REM END-FILE FLAGOE = 1

LI = 768: REM LINE INPUT ROUTINEFOR I = 768 TO 812: READ X: POKE I,X: NEXT I

HOME : PRINT "IBM TO APPLE RECEIVING PROGRAM": PRINT

REM SEND FtLE NAME TO I.B.M.

PRINT "NAME OF I.B.M. FILE >"i

CALL LI,FI*

IF FI* = "" THEN 330

PRINT "APPLE FILE NAME "i

CALL LI.FA*

IF FA* = "" THEN FA* = FI*

PRINT

PRINT D*;"PRH";SLOT: PRINT FI*

IF FI* = "" THEN PRINT FI*: PRINT D*;"PRHO": GOTO 780

PRINT D*;"PRHO"

REM GET RESPONSE FROM IBM

PRINT D*;"INH";SLOT

INPUT ER*: IF ER* = "FOUND" THEN 470

PRINT D*;"INHO"

PRINT

IF ER* = "NF" THEN PRINT "FILE NOT FOUND.

GOTO 260

336 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Listing 4 continued on page 338

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BYTE February 1984 337

Listing 4 continued:

430

440

450

460

470

4S0

490

500

510

520

530

540

550

560

570

5S0

590

600

610

620

630

640

650

660

670

6B0

690

700

710

720

730

740

750

760

770

780

790

BOO

810

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830

B40

PRINTSTOP

"CHECK IBM FOR ERROR MESSAGE.'

REM READ FILE INTO X*<> UNTIL END FLAG

PRINT1=0I = I *■ OE: CALL LI,X*(I): IF X*(I) < > EF* THEN 490

INPUT IC: REM CHECKSUM FROM IBM

PRINT D»;"IN#0"N = I - l: REM ELIMINATE END OF FILE FLAG

PRINT

AC = 0REM COMPUTE NUMBER OF CHARACTERS RECEIVEDFOR I = 1 TO N:AC = AC + LEN <X*(I>>: NEXT IPRINT "IBM CHECKSUM = "SICPRINT "APPLE CHECKSUM = "; ACPRINTIF IC = AC THEN 680

PRINT "CHECKSUMS DO NOT MATCH."

INPUT "CONTINUE ANYWAY ?"5CA*

IF CA* = > "Y" THEN 670

PRINT : GOTO 720

REM SAVE FILE TO APPLE DISK

PRINT D*5"OPEN "!FA*

PRINT D*;"WRITE ";FA*

FOR I = 1 TO N: PRINT X*(I): NEXT I

PRINT D*i"CLOSE"

PRINT "ANOTHER FILE ";

INPUT ANS*

PRINT d«;"pr#";slot: print ans»: PRINT D*;"PR#0"

IF ANS* = > "Y" THEN 230

PRINTPRINTEND

'NORMAL COMPLETION"

REM LINE INPUT AT 768 - 812 (CALL 768, ANY*)

DATA 32,190,222,32,227,223,162,0,32,117,253,134,253,32,57,213,165

DATA 253,32,82,228,162,0,160,2,32,226,229,160,0,165,253,145

DATA 131,200,165,111,145,131,200,165,112,145,131,96

Text continued from page 332:sending files in the opposite direction(outlined previously) except that thetransmission time is about one-thirdas fast because of the delays Apple-soft needs to process each stringbefore receiving the next one. In fact,if a line contains more than 40 char-acters, a slight delay is needed whilethe Apple's cursor returns to the leftside of its 40-column screen. Delayloops (e.g., FOR J = 1 TO DLY: NEXTJ) are inserted in the appropriateplaces in the IBM sending program.I have tried to keep these programsshort and straightforward so that youcan easily tailor them to your ownneeds. Presumably, similar programscould be written to transmit files be-tween different microcomputers withsimilar serial connections.

Notes on Using the Programs

1. Sending an Applesoft programto the IBM PC requires that the pro-gram first be converted into a text file.The following is a one-line routine,entered as line number 0 (zero), tosave the Applesoft program in mem-ory as a text file suitable for trans-mitting to the IBM PC. Type it in,then type RUN. You will be asked to

name the text file for your Applesoftprogram.

0 D$ = CHR$(4): INPUT"TEXTFILE NAME ]";F$:POKE 33,33: PRINT D$;"OPEN";F$:PRINT D$; "WRITE'^FS:LIST 1 - :PRINT D$;"CLOSE":POKE 33,40: END

Similarly, an IBM PC BASIC pro-gram can be saved with the "A" op-tion so that it is stored in ASCII for-mat instead of the tokenized form,e.g., use SAVE "MYFILE",A.

2. If you are transmitting the Visi-calc file from the Apple to the IBMPC, the direction indicator needed forthe Apple II Plus version of Visicalcwill cause a problem (i.e., horizontalor vertical movement on the arrowkeys). This information is stored nearthe end of the Visicalc file as either"IX\" or "IX-". It must be deletedbefore you attempt to load it into theIBM version of Visicalc. Failure todelete this command could cause aloss of data in the cell in which thecursor is positioned when the file isloaded by IBM PC Visicalc.

3. To transfer a random-access file,

I suggest first converting the data inthe random-access file to a sequen-tial file, transmitting the sequentialfile, then converting the data back in-to random-access form.

4. The monitor routine used by theApple II Plus converts lowercase let-ters to uppercase letters. This conver-sion presents a problem if maintain-ing lowercase is desired. One wayaround this is to write your own in-put routine in machine language. Asimpler way, if you have a languagecard, is to move the monitor (andApplesoft) to the RAM (random-access read/write memory) card,eliminate the conversion switching,then run the program. On an Apple

II Plus with a 16K-byte RAM card inslot 0, these changes are accom-plished as follows:

CALL -151

to enter the

monitor

C081 C081

read ROM (read-

only memory) and

write to RAM

D000[D000.

FFFFM

copy Applesoft

and monitor to

RAM card

C083 C083

select the RAM

card

FD82: EA

EA

delete the lower-

case conversion

3DOG

warmstart DOS

Users who are familiar with EXECfiles may want to create one withthese commands in it. If you pressReset on the Apple, then ROM Ap-plesoft (with the lowercase to upper-case conversion reinstalled) againtakes over. To return to the modifiedRAM monitor, just type PRINT PEEK(-16256).

5. Interested persons may want toadd routines to handle other errorsor long files. A large file, for example,could be read and transmitted inblocks of 1000 lines, with appropriatedelays for loading and saving to diskbetween blocks.

6. More memory for holding a filecan be obtained on the Apple byusing one of the DOS moving pro-grams to relocate DOS to the RAMcard (as long as you are not using the

338 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Circle 4 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 339

age 65

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RAM card for the monitor modifica-tion mentioned in #4). A file as longas 35K bytes may be transmitted inthis manner. Ordinarily, 50K bytes ofmemory are available to IBM PCBASIC with this program in memoryif 96K bytes or more are installed inthe IBM. So the Apple's memory sizeis the limiting factor on the maximumfile (or segment) size that can betransmitted. Remember that a 35K-byte Apple file shows up as a 142-sector file on a catalog of an Appledisk.

7. Although a bps rate of 4800 isused in the programs listed here, theApple-to-IBM transfer could run at9600. The 4800 limit is imposed bythe rate at which the Apple II canreceive data using these programs. Ifthe few minutes of speed gain fromthe Apple to the IBM is worth thetime spent setting up the Apple serialcard for the faster bps rate, then theIBM receiving program could use a9600 (instead of a 4800) bps rate in theOPEN statement. However, youwould have to reset the Apple serialcard to 4800 again if you were goingto pass programs from the IBM to theApple. The constant switching of bpsrates is probably not worth the effortunless it can be done within the Ap-ple programs themselves. Themanual for the serial card that I usedoes not explain how to do this onthe Apple.

8. Because Applesoft does not havea LINE INPUT statement (whichallows commas and semicolons to beincluded in a string being read), bothApplesoft programs use a short ma-chine-language routine (located at768 decimal) to simulate LINE IN-PUT. The routine used here is slight-ly modified from "The PenultimateInput Anything Routine" by PeterMeyer, published in Call—A.P.P.L.E.In Depth 1: All About Applesoft, apublication of Apple PugetsoundLibrary Exchange, 21246 68th Ave. S.,Kent, WA 98032.■

Robert Jones (7 Lexington Rd., Saratoga Springs,NY) has been using an Apple II Plus since 1979 andan IBM PC since early 1983 for statistical analysis,financial modeling, and development of simulationmodels of economic and social systems in BASIC andFORTRAN.

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ORDER-LINE ONLY

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All products usually In stock for immediate shipment and carry full manufacturers' warranty. Price subject to change — this ad prepared two months in advance. Youget the lowest price. We honor personal checks — allow 10'days to clear. COD up to $200 add 3%. Visa, MasterCard add 3%. For shipping & insurance add 3% or$5.00 min. for small items and $8 min for monitors, printers, etc. APO & FPO orders add 12%. Include phone number. Call (603) 889-0666 for a return authorizationnumber prior to returning any material.

Apple is a trademark of Apple Computers Inc. IBM is a trademark of IBM Corp.

Circle 74 on Inquiry card.

284

■ M

i ■

I

SOFTCON

►'■ :"

TUESDAY-THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21-23, 1984, SUPERDOME, NEW ORLEANS

If you buy or specify a lot of software for your company,government agency, or educational institution, attendingSoftcon—the international tradefair and conference for thesoftware industry in New Orleans—will be the most productiveand profitable trip you'll make this year.

Nearly 600 different software companies using 1000 displayshave filled the massive (400,000 square foot) LouisianaSuperdome in New Orleans to showcase over 12,000 softwareproducts. These companies will use Softcon to unveil some ofthe most revolutionary new software products in the industry'sshort history. More than 70 seminars, panel discussions,forums and workshops, presented by the world's mostrenowned computer authorities will update you on the newestproducts and industry trends.

You can learn more in one or two days from the experts atSoftcon than you could in months by reading trade journals orlistening to salesmen. You'll see, try out, and compare brandnew software which expands and increases the user-bility andproductivity of your existing hardware, and you'll meet newvendors.

Registration is $30 for exhibits only and $195 for admission toexhibits and the conference program. For completeinformation about attending or exhibiting, call or writeNortheast Expositions, 822 Boylston Street, Chestnut Hill,Mass. 02167. Tel: 617-739-2000 or 800-841-7000. Because it'scarnival season, hotels are filling fast, so call today.

SOFTCON EXHIBITORS

AS OF DECEMBER 1, 1983, MORE ARE BEING CONFIRMED DAILY.

A J & f.1 Associates Ads Sutlware AHA Aardvark/McGraw Accon! Software Access Technology Accountants Microsystems Adapt Addison 1" '.nnrjlogy Adventure International Agdata Agri-Data Allenljach Industries Appha Software Alpine Datnsystems Amaray Americre Apple Cumputei Applied Data Communications Applied Data Research Articulate Publications Artificial Intelligence Artsci ASAP AshtBASF Baker hill 6 Company B '

B

s Bristol Inforr

Institute ol America Ac

iess Systems American Sy8t«..«.™.wi.iii.«n-ww.1™.

"■-re Autodesk Avant Garde Axel Johnsan/Siemi

Corp Data Management Assoc Datamost Dalamension Datapro Data Sources Data Systeiration r?WDP Soliware Eastman Publishing Elt'Ctr~":" ' ': iltw.iro fishi-r BuMfifiiiiSv-'leiTis Flex ware Flint rack Lenminn

! IBM Corporation I.B fvlaga^

BBHiaffl

Company lnsolt IntelliJones Colad Kangaroo Soltware KPD Industries Kent Marsh Lid Key

,v.ire Lightning Software Lisl Living Viputer Application) M&T MacMillan Publishing Managi

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IWSWW^HHMm

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For Registration and Hotel Information call todayProduced by Northeast Expositions. 822 Boylston Street, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167 Telephone: 617-739-2000 or 800-841-7000

A Low-Cost, Low Write-Voltage EEPROM

Seeq Technology's $10 EEPROM can be programmed in yourcomputer with simple and inexpensive circuitry

If you need nonvolatile memory, aPROM (programmable read-onlymemory) gives you what you need atlow cost. Unfortunately, you can pro-gram a PROM chip only once. It ispossible to reprogram EPROMs (eras-able PROMs), but first they need tobe erased with expensive ultraviolet-light devices. EEPROMs (electricallyerasable PROMs) do not need ultra-violet light. Instead, they are erasedand reprogrammed with high volt-ages (usually between 20 and 30volts). But another problem ariseshere—if you want to reprogram theEEPROM, you have to remove it fromyour circuit and put it in a specialEEPROM "burner" that has theproper voltages. This happensbecause most personal computersdon't have power supplies with 20-to 30-volt (V) ranges. You can, ofcourse, build a burner into your com-puter, as Louis Wheeler did in "ThePractical EEPROM" (July 1983 BYTE,page 460).

But what a chore. It would bemuch easier if you could program theEEPROM without such high write-voltages and without taking theEEPROM out of your computer. Withthat capability, you could easily storeprograms or data in your computerindefinitely.

Fortunately, Seeq Technology ofSan Jose, California, has created suchan EEPROM—the 52B13, part of the52BXX family of EEPROMs (orE2ROMs, as Seeq calls them). The52B13 is programmed with a TTL-level voltage and, on top of that, costsonly about $10. I paid $6 for apreproduction sample chip, which is

by Joe D. Blagg

a tenth of the cost of the Intel 2817EEPROM.

Simple Interfacing

The 52B13 is a 2K by 8-bit EEPROMthat is pin for pin compatible with thepopular 2716 EPROM as well as the6116 static RAM (random-access read/write memory).

Since my Z80-based personal com-puter uses 6116 static memory, I wasable to plug the 52B13 into one of the24-pin memory sockets. I needed tomake only one small circuit changeto create a 10-millisecond (ms) write-enable (WE) input to the 52B13. Tocreate the WE signal, I "stretchedout" the write signal from the pro-cessor with a mono stable multivibra-tor or "one-shot," as it is commonlycalled.

The read cycle of the 52B13 doesnot require any special circuitry. Evenwith a 4-MHz clock rate, the 52B13needs no wait states, because itboasts a 250-nanosecond (ns) maxi-mum read access time (some ver-sions are rated for 350 ns). Thenumber of read cycles is unlimited,but the number of write cycles islimited to 10,000 per byte. As youmight expect, a write cycle is muchslower than a read cycle. The limita-tions for writing to the 52B13 are asmall price to pay, though, for the ad-vantage of nonvolatile memory.

The Circuit

The 52B13 needs proper addressdecoding, as any memory chip does.My computer decodes addresseswith a 74LS138 decoder/demulti-plexer, as figure 1 shows. Each of the

eight output lines of the decoder goesto the different chip-enable inputs ofthe separate 2K memory devices.

The 74LS123 one-shot stretches outthe WR signal from the Z80 micro-processor to 10 ms because the WEinput of the 52B13 must remain lowduring the 10-ms write cycle. (By theway, the 10-ms time is a nominalperiod that may actually be anywherefrom 9 ms to as long as 70 ms. If youneed a faster write time, Seeq has ahigher-performance version, the52B13H, that can be programmed in1 ms.) The resistor-capacitor com-bination causes the one-shot to stayon for 10 ms. The entire chip couldbe cleared in a single step, but withthe 52B13 this requires a +15- to+ 22-V pulse. I did not experimentwith this feature of the device.

Switch SW1 lets you protect theEEPROM from accidental writing.The switch should be closed whenyou're programming the device andopen after you have finished writingto it.

Programming the 52B13

Programming the 52B13 is simple.After constructing the circuit shownin figure 1,1 used BASIC commandsto put data into the 52B13 and thenchecked to see if I was successful. Itwas a pleasure to see the EEPROMand its support circuitry work thefirst time. But why not, since the in-terface is so simple? Turning thepower on and off did not change thecontents of the EEPROM. All seemedto be well.

Then I tried to change one of thememory locations that I had previ-

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 343

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Figure 1: A schematic of the 52B13 EEPROM circuit. The EEPROM is decoded the same as the other 2K by 8-bit memory blocks. A one-shotprovides the 10-ms write-enable pulse needed for the EEPROM to be programmed.

Listing 1: This BASIC routine moves datafrom RAM to the EEPROM.

100

REM

** E2R0M PROGRAMMER **

110

REM

120

REM

D = STARTING ADDRESS OF

130

REM

DATA TO PROGRAM.

140

REM

N = NUMBER OF BYTES - 1.

150

REM

P = E2R0M STARTING ADDRS.

160

REM

170

LET

D = 0

180

LET

N = 2047

190

LET

P = 14336

200

REM

210

FOR

I = D TO D+N

220

IF PEEK (P) = 255 THEN GO TO 260

230

POKE

P, 255

2A0

FOR

) -- 1 TO 2

250

NEXT

J

260

POKE

P, PEEK (I)

270

NEXT

I

280

REM

290

PRINT "DONE"

300

STOP

ously put data in using POKE. To mydismay, the memory-byte contentsdid not change. That is when Ilearned that, unlike with the 2817EEPROM, you cannot write to a

memory address in the 52B13 until itis first erased, which you do bywriting all logical highs to the ad-dress. When you first get the 52B13,you'll notice that all bits have alreadybeen set to a logical high state.

I wanted to try programming thefull 2K bytes, so I wrote the programin listing 1. The routine first checksto see if the byte is cleared before at-tempting to write the data. TheFOR.. .NEXT loop at lines 240 and250 provides a time delay before thenext POKE statement is executed;this delay permits the WE signal totime out before another byte is writ-ten. The entire 2K-byte transfer takesabout 150 seconds to execute.

Conclusion

My original reason for using the52B13 was to store a text-editing rou-tine in my personal computer as aresident program. Now that I havesome experience with the 52B13,1 am

looking forward to adding a host ofresident utility programs to mysystem.

The age of the EEPROM seems tobe upon us. Major advances in thelast year have made them a cost-effective alternative to EPROMs inmany areas. We can expect to seemore and more of them in thefuture. ■

References

1. Wheeler, Louis. 'The Practical EEPROM."BYTE, July 1983, page 460.

2. 52B13-Electrically Erasable ROM (pre-liminary data sheet). San Jose, CA: SeeqTechnology Inc., March 1983.

Joe Blagg has been an instrument engineer atUnion Carbide for six years. Before that, he wasan electronics field engineer for the Federal Avia-tion Administration. He is a 1974 graduate of theUniversity of Kentucky, where he earned hisB.S.E.E. degree. His special interest is personal com-puter hardware and software. You can contact himat RR 13, Box 556, Paducah, KY 42001.

344 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Peopl

e are going ror

Friday! like there's no

tomorrow

Friday! is the new electronicfile handling system that has becomean instant best-seller because it'sso revolutionary.

Within two weeks, it broke intothe Top 20 on the sales chart of Softsel,one of the country's leading computersoftware distributors.

And it's now well on its way tothe top.

The Friday! phenomenonis simple.

Friday! uses simple menus and talksto you in plain English, so almost anybodycan use it.

It's great for sales and commissions,clients and portfolios, mailing lists andlabels, invoices, inventories, paychecks,reports and more. And it works with othermicrocomputer software like 1-2-3™ anddBASE II® (our own advanced databasemanagement system).

It comes with a complete, step-by-steptutorial, but you can set up an "electronicfile" without even looking at the manual,then use it at the touch of a few keys.

Friday! finds any filed information inseconds. Computes totals, subtotals, com-missions, etc. Prints form letters andmailing labels. Gives you quick reportsfrom all or part of a file with a few key-strokes. Or if you need a special report for

^^k . 'V

'i&Bfaft M

J0^' ^M^l^^^^^l

'.___jjiiiu? asft^. .i,

your bank or board of directors, just "paint"the format on your screen, then haveFriday! do all the work.

And while Friday! does more than filehandling systems selling for as much as$495, it's yours for just $295 (suggestedretail price)!

For more information, contactAshton-Tate, 10150 West Jefferson Boule-vard, Culver City, CA 90230. (800) 437-4329ext. 202. In Colorado, (303) 799-4900. In theU.K., call (0908) 568866.

Or for the name of your nearestdealer, just call 1-800-4-FRIDAY, ext. 202.

/SHTON -TAIE

cAshton-Tate 1983. Friday! is a trademark and dBASE II is a registeredtrademark of Ashton-Tate. 1-2-3 is a trademark of Lotus Development Corp.

Circle 30 on Inquiry card.

BYTE Rjbruary 1984 345

Foot Control

Adding a foot-operated Control keyto your keyboard simplifies control sequences

Wordstar is a nice piece of software,but its nifty editing features are ham-pered because you must use toomany simultaneous key strokes orcontrol characters to implement thefeatures. You generate them either bysimultaneously pressing the Controlkey and a particular alphabeticcharacter, by selecting from a groupof additional keys with dedicatedediting functions, or by using amouse.

by Dennis M. Pfister

These methods work, but they allhave one serious deficiency: they re-quire you to move your hands fromthe standard typing position. This isinefficient and provides you withmore opportunity for error.

I thought that there must be abetter way. I had done a considerableamount of commercial sewing, wherea foot switch is used to free theoperator's hands, so I decided thatthis approach might be just the

KEYBOARD MATRIX

LLLL

CONTROL.KEY

FOOT SWITCHCONTROL KEY

Figure 1: A schematic of a typical keyboard matrix showing a foot switch Control key addition.

thing. This idea developed into whatI have termed Foot" Control, whichis an inexpensive (less than $40) solu-tion for relief from all those controlcharacters.

What Does It Do?

Foot "Control gives you an addi-tional Control key that is located onthe floor and operated by foot. Thisallows your hands to remain in thestandard typing position. You gener-ate a control character by pressing thefoot switch and then typing thedesired character key. It can also beused as a duplicate ESCape key forsoftware requiring large numbers ofESC sequences.

What You Need

The only parts required are a rea-sonable quality foot switch with a setof normally open contacts, a phonejack and plug, and a length of two-conductor wire. The length of wire isdetermined by where you intend tolocate the foot switch. The plug andjack are necessary only if you wantto be able to remove the foot switch.

I have used many types of footswitches and found that the heaviercommercial-grade units tend to stayin place on the floor better than thecheaper ones. Second-hand switchesfrom old office equipment workespecially well. They also provide abetter feel and will allow you to restyour foot on them without accidental

346 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

ATTACH FOOT SWITCH HERE(TEST FOR SWITCH SUITABILITYAT THESE POINTS)

Figure 2: A diagram of a foot switch Control key.

closure. I think that the ability to restyour foot on the switch is a must foranyone engaged in long word-pro-cessing sessions.

Wire can be anywhere between 18and 24 gauge and should be strandedto ensure flexibility when routing thecable underneath your workstation.Stranded wire also provides greaterresistance to breakage due to flexing.

If you decide that you want to havethe capability of plugging and un-plugging your foot switch from thekeyboard, choosing the right plugand jack is almost purely a matter ofaesthetics. Voltage and current levelsassociated with keyboards generallyare so low that they can be dis-counted in the selection criteria. Justchoose the plug and jack combina-tion that provides the easiest mech-anical installation.

The Installation

Keyboards are usually nothingmore than switches grouped inmatrix fashion (see figure 1). Your in-stallation goal is to provide yourselfwith a duplicate Control-key switchwired in parallel with the existingkeyboard Control-key switch. This

allows you to use either the normalkeyboard Control key or the footswitch as the Control key. Adding"pedal power" to your system re-quires only that your keyboard be ofthe mechanical-contact type and not,for instance, the capacitance type.There are ways to add the foot-control feature to capacitance-typekeyboards, but the solutions are sys-tem-dependent. You will find thatmost systems are of the mechanicaltype. Write me if you have a capaci-tance or other type; I'll try to help.

The easiest way to check whetheryour system or terminal is suitable forconversion is to turn off the power,open the keyboard enclosure, andfind where the Control-key terminalsare soldered into the keyboardprinted-circuit board (see figure 2).Using an ohmmeter, connect theprobes across the two contacts asso-ciated with the Control-key switch,press the Control key, and see if thereis a meter deflection with each press-ing of the key. If so, your keyboardis suitable.

The only thing that remains to bedone is the soldering of a wire fromeach contact of the Control key to the

jack contacts. If you decide not to usea plug and jack, wire directly fromthe keyboard Control-key switch con-tacts to the foot switch. Be careful notto apply too much heat to your key-board because it is easy to damagethe keyboard printed-circuit board.Mount the jack on the keyboard caseand reassemble the keyboard en-closure if required. Wire up the footswitch to the plug and insert the plugin the jack.

Plug in your foot switch, invokeWordstar or whatever word pro-cessor you are using, and get readyfor a new adventure in word process-ing. Now, whenever you need aControl key, just press the foot switchand the appropriate key. If you arelike me, you will never go back tohunting for that keyboard Controlkey again. I also can guarantee thatthe addition of this foot switch willgenerate considerable comment andspeculation from the uninitiated.■

Dennis M. Pfister (POB 1248, San Luis Obispo,CA 93406) is MIS manager at TRW Inc. He holdsa B.S. degree in mathematics/computer science andis interested in motion control, electronics, com-puters, and music.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 347

jS ^

The most comprehensivestatistics and graphicsever developed for

and sophisticateddatabase workstationthe personal computer.

Years of research, development, andfield testing have resulted in themost extensive statistics and graph-ics database'program specificallydesigned for thepersonal computingenvironment. STATPRO ™ providesthe data analysis capabilities andflexibility previously available onlyon a large computer. Researchers,business professionals, and otherdata analysts will welcome thebreadth yet simplicity of this pro-gram! STATPRO requires no pre-vious computer experience, nospecial command language. Singlekeystrokes access all of the data man-ipulation, statistics, and graphicspower of STATPRO.

STATPRO allows easy access to itsextensive numerical datacapabilities.

The strength of STATPRO is foundin the functions of its user friendly,menu-driven database. You caneasily learn to enter and edit,manipulate, transform, and printout data. STATPRO's searchingcapabilities allow these functions tobe performed on all your data or auser defined subset of your data.

Statistics Modules Menu

A) DESCRIPTION

B) REGRESSION

C) ANOVA

D) TIME SERIES

E) MULTIVAR

(ESC)) Exit to Master MenuChoice-)[ ]

Transformations and over 400conversions are available. You canplace the results of these transfor-mations into the same field or anyother field in STATPRO's database.

STATPRO offers a comprehensivecollection of statistical procedures.

The statistics component ofSTATPRO contains a multitude ofprocedures, grouped into the fol-lowing modules:

Descriptive: Contingency analysis,cross tabulation, normality tests;descriptive, comparative, range andnon-parametric statistics.Regression: Linear, non-linear,stepwise, and multiple regressions;residual analysis and statisticalmatrices.

Analysis of Variance: Single andnested classifications, two and threeway equal and unequal sample sizeand non-parametric ANOVA.

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.

STATPRO provides graphicrepresentation of your data inminutes.

STATPRO graphics plot all theresults of your STATPRO statisticalanalyses including scatter, triangleregression, and box plots; pie-

charts, histograms, and dendo-grams. Further, with STATPRO youcan custom edit with any of fourcharacter sets from the keyboard.You can also edit using paddles,joystick or special graphics com-mands. Mix text with data fields.Place multiple plots on each screen.Define your axis limits.

You can save your graphics on adisk for a multiple color "slideshow" presentation, or print themout through a variety of compatibleprinters.

STATPRO documentation wrapsup the package.

Although STATPRO software isessentially self-documenting, com-plete print documentation is pro-vided. This includes a walk-throughIntroductory Tutorial, a MenuChart, and a comprehensiveUser's Guide for each STATPROcomponent.

STATPRO currently runs on allversions of the Apple® II, Apple / / /,and IBM® Personal Computers.

To find out more about Statpro:The Statistics and Graphics Data-base Workstation, contact yourlocal dealer, or

Call us toll-free at

800-322-2208

In Massachusetts call (617) 423-0420.

You can also call us toll-free forinformation on corporate purchasethrough our National AccountProgram.

Wadsworth ElectronicPublishing Company

Statler Office Building

20 Park Plaza, Boston, MA 02116

STATPRO is a trademark of Wadsworth Electronic Publishing Company. Apple is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. IBM is a registered trademark

ot International Business Machines, Corp.

348 BYTE February 1984

Circle 381 on inquiry card.

Inside a Compiler

Notes on Optimization and Code Generation

A look at Pascal/MT+86 and Pascal-86 shows youhow to evaluate these and other compilers

As compilers for microcomputersproliferate, an understanding of howthose programs work can prove valu-able to high-level-language program-mers. Examining compiled code, forexample, can help you pinpoint sub-tle programming errors, and it opensthe door to speed improvements intime-critical program sections. An ex-amination of two compilers—DigitalResearch's Pascal/MT + 86 and Intel'sPascal-86—illustrates how compileroptimization and code-generationschemes affect compiler perfor-mance, but first let's consider com-pilers in general.

Compilers are relatively new tomicrocomputers. Early microproces-sors, such as the 6502, were pro-grammed mostly in assembly lan-guage or BASIC. The advantage of as-sembly language is performance—as-sembly-language mavens havemanaged to make even rudimentaryprocessors such as the 6502 performimpressive tasks. Of course, the dis-advantage is that it is very difficult towrite new assembly-language pro-grams, and it's even more difficult to

by Kaare Christian

rewrite or reuse existing programs.Prograrnming in BASIC is the otherextreme. BASIC is easy to learn andeasy to use for simple tasks becauseit is interactive. However, interactivelanguages are very slow because eachstatement in the language must beevaluated and interpreted on the flyas the program runs.

Programs written incompiled languages are

easier to understand

and modify than those

in assembly language.

More and more people are usingcompiled languages for program-ming microcomputers because suchlanguages avoid the difficulties of as-sembly and interpretive languages.Numerous compilers are available formicrocomputers. There are compiledversions of BASIC and Pascal formicrocomputers as well as compilersfor languages such as C, FORTRAN,

COBOL, and PL/I, which originatedon larger computers.

Compilers

First, let's note some of thestrengths of compiled languages.Compiled languages are easier tolearn and more universal than are as-sembly languages. These features areimportant because there are too fewprogrammers today. Programmersshould learn generally useful tools,such as compiled languages, ratherthan special-case tools, such asmachine-dependent assembly lan-guages. In addition, programs writ-ten in the better compiled languagesare easier to understand and modifythan are programs written in assem-bly language. These factors are im-portant because many programs aremaintained by a number of peopleover a long period of time.

Another compiler advantage is thatprograms written in compiled lan-guages execute much faster than dothose written in interpretive lan-guages, and speed is one of the majorfactors that determine what problems

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 349

a computer can solve. Numerousproblems cannot be solved effective-ly in interpretive BASIC because it ishundreds of times slower than arethe better compiled languages(reference 2).

If compilers offer so many advan-tages over assemblers and inter-preters, then why aren't compiledlanguages more common in themicrocomputer world? Unfortunate-ly, many of the early microproces-sors, such as the 6502, are unsuitablefor use with compiled languages. Inparticular, the limited stack and lackof 16-bit arithmetic on the 6502 makeit hard to write a good compiler forthat machine. Just five distinct high-level languages for the Apple II—Pascal, FORTH, BASIC, Sweet 16,and FORTRAN—are available, ac-cording to a BYTE article by JimGilbreath and Gary Gilbreath (ref-erence 2). It is not known how manyof these languages are compiled, butfrom the fact that these languages arebetween 10 and 200 times slower than6502 assembly language, it is ap-parent that the 6502 is not themachine of choice for high-level lan-guages.

On machines such as the Z80, it ispossible but difficult to write com-pilers. A dozen high-level languagesfor the Z80 were cataloged in theGilbreath article: Coral, FORTRAN,PL/I, C, BASIC, ZSPL, Pascal, PLMX,Ada, FORTH, APL, and COBOL.The fastest of these are just twice asslow as Z80 assembly language, andan astonishing 35 high-level-languageimplementations on the Z80 are with-in a factor of 10 of Z80 assem-bly-language speed. The newermicroprocessors are much morepromising. The 8086, the 68000, andthe NSC16032 all offer features thatmake compilers relatively easy towrite.

Compilers on the 8080 producecode that is, at best, about twice asslow as code written in assembly lan-guage. In articles by Jim and GaryGilbreath, BYTE recently bench-marked a wide variety of systems andlanguages by comparing their perfor-mances in the Sieve of Eratosthenes,a method for finding prime numbers(see references 1 and 2). The advan-

tage of the Sieve of Eratosthenesmethod over more obvious ap-proaches is that the Sieve can findprime numbers without using multi-plication or division. The results ofthe Gilbreath benchmarks indicatedthat the assembly-language versionof the Sieve running on the Z80 wastwice as fast as the fastest compiledlanguage and about four to eighttimes as fast as the more typical com-pilers. The bottom line for compiledlanguages on the rudimentary micro-processors is that they are mucheasier to use than assembly language,but they produce code that issignificantly slower than hand-written assembly code.

On machines that more efficientlysupport compiled languages, there isa much smaller performance penal-ty for using a compiled language in-stead of assembly language. But justhow much of a penalty? Severalmethods exist for discovering justhow much performance is sacrificed

Compilers avoid the

difficulties of assembly

and interpretive

languages.

when you use a compiler rather thanan assembler. One technique is thebenchmark.

Benchmarks

The Gilbreath benchmark mea-sured the speed of a large assortmentof high-level programming languagesrunning on a variety of machines,from microcomputers to mainframes.The results of this and other bench-marks provide useful information forpeople who are evaluating compilers.Many of the more popular languages,such as Pascal, are available fromseveral different companies, and theGilbreath benchmark results providea direct comparison of competingproducts.

Most benchmark authors are verycareful to point out that the results ofa single benchmark, or of bench-marks in general, should not be over-stated. Numerous factors should be

considered when choosing a pro-gramming language and implemen-tation. Among them ate the featuresof the language, the documentationfor the language, and the availabilityof programmers already skilled in thelanguage. Add to that the availabletools for the language, the availabili-ty of the language for the target com-puter system, and any extensions tothe language that might be useful inyour application.

In the Gilbreath benchmarkresults, the enormous range of per-formance of the various languagesand computers is striking. One mightexpect that a version of the Sievewritten in assembly language for theIBM 3033 would be 400,000 timesfaster than a version written in BASICfor the PET. But why is an assembly-language version on the Z80 twice asfast as a CB80 version on the Z80,which in turn is twice as fast as anAztec C version on the Z80, which inturn is twice as fast as Whitesmiths'Pascal on the Z80?

Benchmarks tell us which lan-guages are fast and which are slowat performing the benchmark task.From a pragmatic point of view, auser cares only about performance,not about how that performance is at-tained. But from an inquisitive pointof view, it's interesting to see whatcompilers do to achieve their level ofperformance.

Examining Code

Most compilers provide a featurethat enables programmers to examinethe code they are producing. Typical-ly, these compilers enable you tocreate a listing file that contains theoriginal source code interspersedwith the assembly-language codethat the compiler produced. Onsystems that lack an explicit code-examination feature, you can examinethe code by using a program debug-ger or a separate disassembler pro-gram, but in that case even moresleuthing is necessary. If you plan torely upon a compiler, it is certainlybest to use one that shows you itscode so that you can tune perfor-mance when necessary, verify correctoperation, etc. Convenient access togenerated code is one of the most im-

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portant features of any compiler.

Compilation usually consists oftwo separate parts: analysis (oftencalled syntax analysis) and code gen-eration. The analysis sectiondeciphers (understands) your orig-inal program; the code-generationsection actually creates the machine-language output. Syntax analysis isone of the better-understood tech-niques in computer science, whereascode generation remains a black art.Because each computer has a uniqueinstruction set, it is necessary torework (and rethink) the code-gen-eration part of a compiler each timethe compiler is transported from onemachine to another. Why does onecompiler produce faster code thananother? Although there are nosimple answers, two basic reasonsemerge: (1) compilers use differentschemata for code generation, and (2)compilers perform varying amountsof optimization on their code.

A compiler's schema is its basicphilosophy of code generation. Theschema dictates what code is gen-erated for each feature in the high-level languages.

Assembly-language programs areusually faster than high-level-lan-guage programs because the assem-bly-language programmer can adjustthe code to fit the circumstancesmore flexibly than can a compiler.Human coders can understand pro-grams, whereas compilers merelytranslate programs. Experienced pro-grammers usually can tell what's im-portant in a program, which oftenenables them to apply shortcuts thatimprove performance at the expenseof generality.

To improve their code, compilersusually perform optimizations. Byoptimizing, compilers can producecode that approaches the speed ofcode produced by an assembly-lan-guage programmer.

In order to actually examine thesetwo aspects of code generation(schemas and optimization), I wrotethe Sieve of Eratosthenes algorithmin "pure" Pascal. I chose Pascalbecause several Pascal compilers areavailable in the Rockefeller Universitylaboratory, where I work, andbecause it is one of the most popular

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Listing 1: The Sieve of Eratosthenes in Pascal, microcomputer languages.

program sieve (input.output);(* the sieve in pascal *)

const size = 8190;

var flags : array[0..size] of boolean;i.prime.k : integer;count: integer;

begin

count : = 0;

(* init flags array *)

for i : = 0 to size do

flags[i] : = true;(* look for primes *)for i : = 0 to size doif flags[i] then begin(* found one! *)prime : = i + i + 3;k : = i + prime;while k < = size do begin(* rule out multiples *)flags[k] : = false;k : = k + primeend;count : = count + 1end;end.

A Tale of Two Compilers

Listing 1 shows my version of theSieve in Pascal. It is an almost directcopy from the Gilbreath benchmark.I compiled my version on two com-pilers for the Intel 8086 microproces-sor. The first compiler is DigitalResearch's Pascal/MT + 86 version 3.1running under the CP/M-86 operat-ing system, also from Digital Re-search. The second compiler is Intel'sPascal-86 version 2.0 running underthe Intel iRMX/86 operating system.Both compilers accepted the listing 1version of the Sieve without com-plaint, and both compilers producedworking programs. I have used bothcompilers in the past and I havefound that both are trustworthyproducts.

All of the measurements were per-formed on an Intel SBC 86/14 single-board computer running the iRMXoperating system. The board is con-figured to run at 8 MHz. Where nec-essary, assembly-language code pro-duced by Pascal/MT + 86 was trans-

ported to the 86/14 and assembledusing Intel's ASM86. Reference datafor the 8086 microprocessor wastaken from The 8086 Family User'sManual (reference 6).

All of the timings presented in thisarticle were produced by running thecode and measuring the time for acertain number of iterations. Thetimes are slightly slower than "book"times for two reasons: (1) the 8086 Iused was suffering wait states due toslow memory-access times, and (2)the repetition loop introduced someoverhead. (Executing the code a largenumber of times made it possible tomeasure the time with a stopwatchrather than with a logic analyzer orscope.)

It would be impossible to detail thecode for all the features of Pascal ina single article. Instead, I have chosento focus on two examples of codegeneration: one that illustates the ef-fect of optimizations and one thatshows the different FOR loopschemata used by the two compilers.You should perform your own in-vestigation if you are interested in

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some other feature of code genera-tion.

An Example of Optimizing

The primary responsibility of acompiler is to produce correct code.This doesn't mean that the programis correct, merely that the operationswritten in the high-level version ofthe program are correctly performedin the machine-language version pro-duced by the compiler. The programmay be wrong, but it isn't the com-piler's fault.

Most compilers strive for morethan correct codes; they want to pro-duce fast code. Fast code usually re-quires optimizations. I envision op-timizations as modifications to a com-piler's basic code-generation schema-ta. For instance, the following 8086assembly code would initialize thevariable named TFLAG to the value0:

MOV TFLAG,0

On the 8086 this instruction is 6bytes long and takes 16 basic clockcycles to execute. This code couldserve as a compiler's schema for ini-tializing variables. How could we im-prove upon this schema? Supposethat the operation occurring justbefore the MOV TFLAG,0 operationleft the value 0 in the accumulator.Given that the AX (accumulator) reg-ister already contains a 0, the follow-ing 8086 assembly-language instruc-tion can initialize the variable namedTFLAG:

MOV TFLAG,AX

Although this instruction doesn'tlook very different from MOVTFLAG,0, the improvement isdramatic. The 8086 MOV TFLAG,AXinstruction is just 3 bytes long andtakes only 10 basic clock cycles to ex-ecute, yielding nearly a 50 percentimprovement. This second versioncould not serve as a basic schema forinitializing variables because it reliesupon the previous contents of the ac-cumulator. However, if a compilerrecognized those cases where the ac-cumulator contained the requiredvalue, then it could perform thisoptimization.

356 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Listing 2: The 8086 assembly-language code generated by the Pascal/MT+86 and Pascal-86compilers for the following two statements from the listing 1 program:

prime :=i + i + 3;k := i + prime

Pascal/MT+86 Code

; PRIME

I + I + 3

1 MOV

AX,I

2 ADD

AX,I

3 ADD

AX,3

4 MOV

PRIME, AX

;K : =

I + PRIME

5 MOV

AX,I

6 ADD

AX.PRIME

7 MOV

K,AX

Pascal-86 Code

;PRIME : = I + I

8 ADD

AX.AX

9 ADD

AX, 3

10 MOV

PRIME.AX

;K : =

I + PRIME

11 ADD

AX,SI

12 MOV

K,AX

Place the value of I into AX registerAdd the value of I to AX registerAdd 3 to the AX registerStore the AX register in PRIME

; Place the value of I into AX register;Add the value of Prime to AX register; Store the AX register in K

+ 3

Add AX register to itself yieldingAdd 3 to the AX registerStore the AX register in PRIME

I + I

;Add AX register to SI register yielding I + PRIME; Store the AX register in K

Pascal/MT+86

Pascal-86

StatementNumber

AXRegister

StatementNumber

AX

Register

SIRegister

1234567

I

I + I

PRIME

PRIME

I

K

8

9

10

1112

I

I + IPRIME

PRIMEK

II

I

II

Table 1: Register contents duringdicated in this table exists in the

execution of the listingregister at the start of

2 code. Note that the value in-the instruction cycle.

I examined the assembly-languagecode produced by the Pascal/MT + 86and Pascal-86 compilers for the Sieveprogram in order to find a good ex-ample of optimizations. I chose thefollowing example because it is rela-tively simple and because it clearly il-lustrates how optimization can im-prove performance.

Whenever a new prime is located,the listing 1 Sieve program computestwo values, PRIME and K. TwoPascal statements compute PRIMEandK:

prime : = i + i + 3;k : = i + prime;

The Pascal/MT + 86 code and thePascal-86 code produced by thesetwo statements are shown in listing2. The assembly-language code in allthe figures in this article uses themnemonics and assembly-languagedirectives supported by the ASM86assembly language. Note that listing2 is an excerpt from listing 3, whichshows the complete code generatedby both compilers for the Sieve.

The Pascal/MT + 86 code can beunderstood simply by readingthrough it and noting the sequenceof operations. The Pascal-86 code ismuch harder to understand becauseit is heavily optimized. In order toText continued on page 360

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BYTE February 1984

357

Listing 3: The complete code produced by two compilers for the listing 1 program.

Pascal

Pascal/MT+86

Pascal-86

count : = 0;

MOV

COUNT, 0

MOV

COUNT.O

for i : = 0 to

MOV

I.OFFFFH

MOV

CX.O

size do

M4:

MOV

INC

DEC

JGE

JMP

DS:WORD PTR 202CH;1FFFH

I

DS:WORD PTR 202CH

M2

M3

P5:

MOV

I.CX

flags[i] : = true;

M2:

NOP

MOV

SI.CX

MOV

AX.OFFSET FLAGS

MOV

FLAGS[SI],1

ADD

AX,I

INC

CX

XCHG

AX.DI

CMP

CX.1FFEH

MOV

BYTE PTR [DI],01

JLE

P5

JMP

M4

for i : = 0 to

M3:

MOV

LQFFFFH

MOV

AX.O

size do

M12:

MOV

INC

DEC

JGE

JMP

DS:WORD PTR 202EH.1FFFH

I

DS:WORD PTR 202EH

M5

M6

P6:

MOV

I.AX

if flags[ i] then

M5:

NOP

MOV

SI, AX

begin

MOV

AX.OFFSET FLAGS

TEST

FLAGS[SI],1H

ADD

AX,I

JE

P7

XCHG

AX.DI

TEST

BYTE PTR [DI],01

JNZ

M7

JMP

M8

prime : =

M7:

MOV

AX,I

ADD

AX.AX

i + i + 3;

ADD

AX,I

ADD

AX,3

ADD

AX,3

MOV

PRIME.AX

MOV

PRIME.AX

k : = i + prime;

MOV

AX,I

ADD

AX, SI

ADD

AX, PRIME

MOV

K,AX

MOV

K,AX

while k < = size

Mil:

CMP

K.1FFEH

P8:

CMP

K,1FFEH

do begin

JLEJMP

M9M10

JNLE

P9

flagsfk] : =

M9:

NOP

MOV

SI.K

false;

MOVADDXCHGMOV

AX.OFFSET FLAGS

AX.K

AX.DI

BYTE PTR [DI],0

MOV

FLAGS[SI],0

k : = k + prime

MOV

AX.K

MOV

AX.PRIME

ADD

AX.PRIME

ADD

AX, SI

MOV

K.AX

MOV

K,AX

end;

JMP

Mil

JMP

P8

count : =

M10:

MOV

AX.COUNT

P9:

INC

COUNT

count + 1

INCMOV

AXCOUNT.AX

end;

M8:

JMP

M12

P7:

MOVINCCMPJLE

AX.I

I

AX.1FFEH

P6

358 February 1984 © BYTE Publications tac

Circle 305 on inquiry card.

■

*Ste&

■ "

** i i I r|JLi J

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1 '(Tr155^

i y

\ ' .' ifm

Compiler

Time(microseconds)

Pascal/MT + 86 31

Pascal-86 18

Size(bytes)

23

13

Table 2: Summary of results of the listing2 code.

Text continued from page 356:understand the Pascal-86 code, ex-amine table 1, which details theregister usage. I deduced the first linein table 1 by backtracking through thecode. Given that the accumulatorcontains the value of I, it makesperfect sense to compute I +1 by add-ing the accumulator to itself. Thisstep is an optimization because dou-bling the accumulator won't normal-ly double I; this particular optimiza-tion can therefore take place onlywhen the accumulator contains I.This optimization gives the Pascal-86code a one-instruction advantageover Pascal/MT + 86 code.

Similarly, the code for computingK was optimized in Pascal-86 by tak-

ing advantage of the fact that registershappened to contain all of the nec-essary values. As the Pascal-86 in-struction 11 in listing 2 starts to ex-ecute, the SI register contains thevalue of PRIME. Pascal-86 simplyadds the two registers together toform K and then stores the result inK, saving one instruction over themore obvious approach taken byPascal/MT + 86. The total code sizeand execution times for Pascal/MT + 86 and Pascal-86 are shown intable 2.

Could these examples be improvedby an assembly-language program-mer? A programmer might be able toproduce a Sieve program that wasfaster overall than the Pascal-86 code,but it would certainly be impossibleto improve on the code that Pascal-86generated for the computations of Kand PRIME. The Pascal/MT+86 com-putation of K could easily be im-proved. As Pascal/MT + 86 starts tocompute K, the value of PRIME is al-ready in the AX register. All that is re-quired is to add in the value of I andstore the result in K as shown below:

;k := i + prime

ADD AX,I ;AX already

; contains;PRIME, just;add in I

MOV K,AX ;Store result in;K

This code saves one instruction andwould make the Pascal/MT + 86 codemore competitive with the Pascal-86code.

The Pascal-86 code for computingK and PRIME is devious. It uses anapproach that is not recommendedfor human programmers because thecode is hard to understand and hardto modify. Pascal-86 uses results ofmany previous steps as a startingpoint for computing K and PRIME.However, I believe that devious (butcorrect) code generated by anautomaton (the Pascal-86 compiler) isacceptable. Programmers strive tocreate readable programs becauseprograms that can be easily read canbe used and maintained by others. Inthis case, the goal is to create readable

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360 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 129 on inquiry card.

Circle 249 on inquiry card.

SAGE™ TECHNICAL BRIEFING

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IDRIS

P-SY!

CP/M

Circle 324 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 361

Listing 4: The 8086 assembly code generated by the Pascal/MT+86 and Pascal-86 compilersfor the following listing 1 FOR loop:

for i := 0 to size doflagsli] := true;

The code has been reformatted to make it more legible, and it has been slightly revised to con-form to Intel op-code standards. Both routines have been assembled and tested.

Pascal/MT+86

1 MOV I,0FFFFH

2 MOV DS:WORD PTR 202CH,

1FFFH

3 M4: INC I

4 DEC DS:WORD PTR 202CH

5 JGE M2

6 JMP M3

7 M2: NOP

8 MOV AX.OFFSET FLAGS

9 ADD AX,I

10 XCHG AX,DI

11 MOV BYTE PTR [DI],01H

12 JMP M4M3:

Pascal-86

13 MOV CX,0H

14 P5: MOV DS:I,CX

15 MOV SI,CX

16 MOV DS:FLAGS[SI],1H

17 INC CX

18 CMP CX.1FFEH

19 JLE P5

.■Initialize I to - 1.•Initialize anonymous

loop counter to 8191Increment I

Decrement anonymous loop counterJump to M2 if loop should continueJump out of loopDo nothingPlace base address of FLAGS

array into AX registerAdd I to the base address

in AX registerPut address of an element of

FLAGS array into DI registerPut a 1 (true) into element

of FLAGS arrayJump back to loop increment

section

Put a zero into CX registerPlace value in CX register into ICopy CX register into

SI index registerPut a 1 (true) into an

element of FLAGS arrayIncrement CX registerCompare value in CX register

with Terminal ValueJump back to P5 if loop should continue

CodingMethod

Pascal/MT + 86

Pascal-86

Author's Assembly Loop

Author's Assembly String

Time(milliseconds)

265155120

17

Size(bytes)

39211513

Table 3: Summary of the performance of four routines used to initialize the FLAGS array.

and maintainable Pascal source code.The object code generated by thecompiler doesn't need to bereadable—it should be correct andefficient.

The FOR Loop Schemata

The Sieve benchmark program in-cludes two FOR loops: one loop to

initialize the array of flags that formthe basis of the Eratosthenes methodand one loop to actually search forprimes. The FOR loop is obviously avery important part of Pascal and italso happens to be one of the areaswhere the two compilers in thisstudy use very different strategies.We will examine the initialization

FOR loop because it is the simplestFOR loop in the Sieve. Anotherreason for studying the initializationFOR loop is more subtle—this par-ticular loop can be dramatically op-timized. Listing 4 shows the code forthe initialization FOR loop producedby the two compilers.

The coding schema for a FOR loopcan be separated into three logicalsections: the initialization of the loop,the test-and-increment section, andthe body of the loop. A glance atlisting 4 reveals that Pascal/MT + 86and Pascal-86 use different FOR loopstructures.

In Pascal/MT+86 the initializationsection is at the top of the code (lines1 and 2), the test-and-increment sec-tion is in the middle (lines 3 through6), and the body of the loop is at theend of the code. The Pascal/MT + 86FOR loop is completely coded intwelve 8086 assembly-language state-ments containing 39 bytes of code.The execution time of the initializa-tion FOR loop (8191 iterations) is 265milliseconds (see table 3).

The Pascal/MT + 86 FOR loopschema uses two loop counters, thevisible loop counter named I and ananonymous loop counter created bythe compiler. In the listing 4 code theanonymous loop counter is stored atlocation 202C hexadecimal and isreferenced only twice, once in line 2and once in line 4. The visible loopcounter is incremented once eachpass through the loop, whereas theanonymous loop counter is decre-mented each time through. The vis-ible loop counter is initialized (in line1) to be 1 less than the starting value,while the anonymous loop counter isinitialized (in line 2) to be the numberof passes through the loop plus 1.During each execution of the loop theanonymous loop counter actuallydetermines whether the loop shouldcontinue. The visible loop counter (I)is just along for the ride and for usein the body of the loop.

Dual loop counters are the moststriking feature of the Pascal/MT + 86FOR loop schema. What is to begained from dual loop counters? Ac-tually there is an advantage. Pascal isintended to be a very "safe" lan-guage. Pascal uses strong type check-

362 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE February 1984 361

ing, strict syntax, explicit declara-tions, etc., to safeguard against pro-grammers' mistakes or laziness. Oneof the safeguards built into Pascal isthe inviolability of the FOR loop. Itis supposed to be impossible to pre-maturely exit from a FOR loop inPascal. The initial conditions of theloop are evaluated once (when youenter the loop), and the loop counteritself should not be modified duringthe course of the loop. The dual loopcounters of Pascal/MT+ 86 make itimpossible for a programmer to pre-maturely exit the loop since the ac-tual loop counter is inaccessible to aPascal programmer. We will comeback to this point shortly.

The next striking feature of thePascal/MT+ 86 FOR loop schema isthe presence of a pair of Jump state-ments on lines 5 and 6 of listing 4.One statement clearly would havebeen adequate. The conditional jumpon line 5 is a "jump if result is greaterthan or equal" around the secondjump. It would have been simplerand shorter to simply insert a "jumpif result is less than" to M3. Another

interesting feature is line 7, the "no-operation" line. Occasionally a com-piler is forced to insert NOP codes ina program in order to fill reservedspace. However, why should a NOPbe the target of a Jump instruction?With miniscule effort the jump online 5 could have used line 8 as thetarget instead of line 7.

One final comment must be maderegarding the Pascal/MT + 86 listing 4code. The 8086 microprocessor hasaddressing modes specificallydesigned for accessing arrays of bytesor words. These addressing modesare ignored in the Pascal/MT + 86code shown in listing 4, and the ad-dress calculations are done explicitlyin statements 8 through 11.

The FOR loop schema used byPascal-86 is much leaner than thePascal/MT + 86 schema. The basicorganization of the Pascal-86 FORloop is different. In Pascal-86 the loopinitialization is at the top (line 13), thebody of the loop is in the middle(lines 14 through 16), and thetest-and-increment portion is at theend. The Pascal-86 version doesn't

use dual loop counters; it effectivelyuses the array addressing mode ofthe 8086 microprocessor, and itavoids back-to-back Jump statements.

The advantage of the Pascal-86 loopschema over the Pascal/MT+ 86schema is obvious. The Pascal-86code is 18 bytes shorter and executes110 milliseconds faster. (The resultsare summarized in table 3.)

Could an assembly-language pro-grammer produce a better initializa-tion FOR loop than Pascal-86? Al-though I'm not a veteran 8086 assem-bly-language coder, I decided toattempt to improve on the Pascal-86code. The easiest way to program inassembly language is to use a high-level language (Pascal, perhaps) as acrutch. Write the problem initially inthe high-level language. Once thehigh-level language version is work-ing, it is relatively easy to examine thecompiler's code and then write anoptimized version.

I was able to improve the Pascal-86initialization loop very slightly (seelisting 5). Pascal-86 used the CXregister as the loop counter and the

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Listing 5: Two routines written by the author in 8086 assembly language. The first versionis essentially an optimization of the Pascal-86 FOR loop; the second version uses 8086 stringoperations to achieve an enormous speed advantage. (Compilers cannot easily detect loops thatcould be recoded using string operations; programmers have a definite advantage in such situa-tions.) Both routines were coded and tested using an Intel development system.

8086 Assembly-Language Loop

.'Initialize FLAGS array so that each element = 1

;Use SI to index FLAGS array and also as a loop counter

1

MOV

SI.OH

Put a zero into SI index register

2 LI:

MOV

FLAGS[SI],1H

Put a 1 (true) into an elementof FLAGS array

3

INC

SI

Increment SI register

4

CMP

SI.1FFEH

Compare SI register with final value

5

JLE

LI

lump back to LI to continue

8086 Assembly-Language String Operation

initialize FLAGS array using string operations

6

PUSH

DS

7

POP

ES

8

CLD

9

MOV

CX,1FFFH

10

MOV

DIOFFSET FLAGS

11

MOV

AL,01

12

REP

STOSB

Move contents of DS segment register

into ES segment registerClear the direction flagPlace iteration count into CX registerPlace address of FLAGS array

into DI index registerPlace a 1 in the AX byte registerRepeat the string operation

SI register as the array index. I com-bined these two functions in the SIregister and saved one instruction. Ialso saved an instruction by keepingthe loop count in the SI register; thePascal-86 version copied the value tomemory once per iteration. (I couldhave saved one more instruction bylooping from 8190 down to 0 insteadof looping from 0 up to 8190.)

This first assembly-languagetweaking produced a modest im-provement—the code shrank from 21to 15 bytes and the time shrank from155 to 120 milliseconds. The 35-milli-second improvement represented ap-proximately a 20 percent increase inspeed.

Can the initialization FOR loop betuned even more? The 8086 micro-processor includes string instructionsfor performing operations on arraysor bytes or words. My second assem-bly-language coding effort produceda much faster version by using the8086 string instructions. Notice thatthe string version in listing 5 doesn'teven use an explicit loop; the actualiterations occur in statement 12

where the "store byte string" opera-tion is repeated 8191 times. Theassembly-language string version is2 bytes shorter than the assembly-language loop version, and it is oversix times faster.

Many observers have cautionedthat tweaking code produces onlymodest improvements; dramatic im-provements require changing thewhole approach. In this example,tweaking produced a 20 percent im-provement, whereas changing thewhole approach by using the stringinstructions produced a sixfold im-provement.

You should also note that the ini-tialization code using the 8086 stringinstructions shown in listing 5 is nota general substitute for a FOR loopschema. The particularly simple FORloop studied in this article happensto be expressible as a string opera-tion—most FOR loops cannot.

Ramifications of theFOR Loop Schemata

The biggest difference between theFOR loop schema of Pascal/MT + 86

Listing 6: A program that investigatespremature exits from a FOR loop.

program premature(input,output);var i,count : integer;

begin

count : = 0;

for i : = 1 to 10 do begin

count : = count + 1;

i : = 10;

end;writeln(count,' iterations')end.

Listing 7: Pascal code containing a subroutine(named "shortcircuit") designed to circumventPascal-86 compilation safeguards.

program premature(input,output);var i,count : integer;

procedure shortcircuit;

begin

i := 10

end;

begin

count : = 0;

for i : = 1 to 10 do begin

count : = count + 1;

shortcircuit

end;writeln(count,' iterations')end.

and of Pascal-86 is MT+86's anony-mous loop counter. We saw previous-ly that the Pascal/MT + 86 approachwas used to make it impossible to exita FOR loop prematurely by modify-ing the control variable. I decided toinvestigate how the Pascal-86 com-piler protected the FOR loop becausesafe programming is so important toPascal.

I coded the test shown in listing 6in order to investigate the safety ofthe two Pascal compilers' FOR loops.The program attempts to short-circuitthe loop by setting the loop countervariable I to 10 each time through theloop. The variable COUNT actuaWykeeps track of how many times theloop operates. When I compiled theprogram in listing 6 using Pascal/MT + 86, it compiled without com-plaint; when I executed the programI saw the message "10 iterations."When I compiled the program usingPascal-86,1 received an error messageinforming me that it was not accept-

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 365

able to change the value of I in mid-loop. Pascal-86 protects FOR loopsduring compilation by detecting as-signments to the control variable,while Pascal/MT + 86 protects FORloops during execution by using dualloop counters.

Could either technique be fooled?After several false starts, I producedthe program shown in listing 7. Thecoding techniques shown in the list-ing are definitely not recommended,although they appear to be legal inPascal. Since I couldn't explicitly alterthe loop index variable (I), I decidedto use a subroutine to do the dirtywork. The subroutine named Short-circuit is designed to circumvent thecompilation safeguards of Pascal-86.The program in listing 7 compiledwithout complaint using Pascal/MT + 86 and Pascal-86. The loop ex-ecuted 10 times in the MT + 86 ver-sion and only once in the Pascal-86version.

The Pascal-86 compiler does its bestto protect the FOR loop at compiletime, but the compiler can be fooled.The Pascal/MT+86 compiler protectsits FOR loop during execution byusing an inaccessible loop counter. Iwasn't able to short-circuit theMT + 86 method, but I was dismayedby the lack of warnings when I com-piled the program in listing 6. It's upto you to decide which compiler'soperation you prefer.

Conclusions

I hope that you don't decide toforgo the FOR loop in Pascal becauseof its overhead. In the great majorityof FOR loops, calculations in the

body of the loop dominate the execu-tion time. Fine-tuning your programsfor today's language implementationsmay allow marginal improvements,but your program wil be harder tounderstand and possibly harder totransport.

Similarly, I hope that all of youavoid the FOR loop short-circuit tech-nique shown above. Clever program-ming can occasionally add a newfeature to a language, such as theability to prematurely exit a FORloop. However, such programming isnonportable and hard to understand,and it may not even work when thenext version of your compiler is re-leased. Code generation enables usto understand why the Pascal/MT + 86 loop is inviolable while thePascal-86 loop is not, but if you pro-gram in Pascal, you should use FORloops only when you really know inadvance how many times you wantto iterate.

For the most part you should strivefor correct, clear programs. Speed isa secondary concern. People whowrite programs with a compiler'squirks in mind are trying to serve twomasters. Programming is hardenough when you are serving asingle master—correctness.

When is it appropriate to examineyour compiler's code? Sometimes aprogram that appears to be correct isnot working as you think it should.Examining the relevant code mightreveal a bug in the compiler, althoughit is more likely to reveal a subtle errorin your programming. Simply ex-amining the code in a differentform—assembly language—often re-

veals errors in your high-level-lan-guage programming.

Another reason to examine code isto speed up the time-critical sectionof a program. We've all heard that 10percent of the code executes 90 per-cent of the time. If a small section ofcode must be rewritten by hand in as-sembly language, it is easiest if thecode is programmed first in the high-level language and then optimizedbased upon the generated code. Anadded benefit of this technique is thatthe high-level version can serve asdocumentation, a much better formof explanation than the usual assem-bly-language documentation.

A final excuse for examining codeis curiosity. Compilers perform a vitalservice, but we don't normally get tosee the results. Poking around in thecompiler's attic can be good cleanfun.H

References

1. Gilbreath, Jim. "A High-Level LanguageBenchmark." BYTE, September 1981, page180.

2. Gilbreath, Jim and Gary Gilbreath. "Eratos-thenes Revisited: Once More through theSieve." BYTE, January 1983, page 283.

3. Pascal/MT+86 Language Reference Manual.Pacific Grove, CA: Digital Research, 1982.

4. Pascal-86 User's Guide. Santa Clara, CA: IntelCorporation, 1981.

5. ASM86 Language Reference Manual. San-ta Clara, CA: Intel Corporation, 1981.

6. The 8086 Family User's Manual. Santa Clara,CA: Intel Corporation, 1979.

Kaare Christian (5517 Fieldston Rd., Bronx, NY10471) is a research associate with RockefellerUniversity and holds a B.S. in applied physics fromCornell University.

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Writing Device Drivers for

MS-DOS 2.0

Using Tandon TM100-4 Drives

The increase in flexibility can be worth the added effort

by J. Eric Roskos

One of the many new features ofMS-DOS 2.0 is its ability to allow youto write your own device drivers tobe included in the operating systemat start-up time. This feature lets youadd new peripherals, such as diskdrives, that are not supported by thestandard software.

The IBM PC will support, withouthardware modification, the TandonTM100-4 disk drive. This drive looksexactly like a standard IBM double-sided drive except for the IBM in-signia on the newer drive. In fact,Tandon is one of two IBM suppliers.The TM100-4, however, will holdtwice as much data as the standardIBM double-sided disk. Unfortunate-ly, MS-DOS 2.0, as configured for theIBM PC, cannot recognize this drivewithout some modification. Thus,MS-DOS 2.0 is a natural candidatefor a user-written device driver.Though it is possible to patch DOSto make it work with this drive usingexisting device drivers, writing a newroutine allows you to make optimaluse of the TM100-4's features, such asthe faster head-stepping rate that ispossible with this drive.

In this article, I will describe the de-velopment of a device driver for theTM100-4, explain device drivers ingeneral, and look in some detail atproblems I encountered in develop-ing this particular driver. These prob-lems reflect some pitfalls that arecharacteristic of the IBM PC and DOS

2.0, so they are useful when writingother kinds of drivers as well.

Device Drivers

An MS-DOS 2.0 device driver con-sists of two separate procedures,called at separate times by DOS.These procedures are patternedclosely after the device drivers in theUnix operating system produced byBell Laboratories, although the DOSdrivers' structure reflects an orienta-tion toward assembly-language pro-gramming, whereas this part of Unixis written entirely in the C language.

The first of the two procedures thatmake up a device driver is the"strategy" procedure. It is called byDOS to request an operation fromthe device, such as a read or a write.The procedure stores the request andthen returns to the caller.

The strategy procedure does notperform the requested operation;that is done by the second procedure,the "interrupt" procedure. It is im-portant to understand the reason forthis. In a well-designed operatingsystem, I/O (input/output) operationsshould occur asynchronously. It maybe possible to make the peripheralfunction more efficiently if you areallowed to make requests to it and itis then allowed to process them,without an unreasonably tight con-nection between the two events. Forinstance, it may help to let the devicehandler sort a set of requests in some

strategic order that minimizes theamount of movement required by thedisk heads. Likewise, it may help toallow the device driver to anticipatea future I/O request based on pastones and to prepare for it before theuser requests it. Such advanced rea-sons are usually found only in multi-user (or multiprocess) operatingsystems and, in fact, DOS 2.0 doesnot make much use of them; but wecan design better device drivers if werealize this underlying principle.

The interrupt procedure, the sec-ond of the two making up the devicedriver, is responsible for performingthe operation requested by thestrategy procedure. The interruptprocedure is called when the deviceis ready to handle another request.It looks for a request stored by thestrategy procedure, and if it findsone, it executes the requested opera-tion and signals DOS that it has doneso by turning on a "DONE" indicatorassociated with the request.

In large operating systems, the in-terrupt procedure is called by the pe-ripheral, which sends a hardwaresignal, or interrupt, to the micropro-cessor when it has finished a previ-ously requested operation. Thissignal causes the processor to issuea subroutine call to the interrupt pro-cedure, which starts the peripheralworking on another request. In DOS2.0, the interrupt procedure is insteadalways called by DOS immediately

370 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

after the strategy procedure is called,probably because this is an early ver-sion of the operating system thatdoes not seem to use the fully asyn-chronous structure just described. Infact, the sample driver given in theDOS manual assumes that DOS willalways call the interrupt procedureimmediately after the strategy pro-cedure, which would be incorrect ina truly asynchronous system. Buteven when asynchronous interruptsare used, the first time a device isused after it has been sitting idle,DOS will have to call the interruptprocedure to get things going,because an interrupt is generatedonly when a device first finishes anoperation.

This means we don't have to worryabout setting up the processor to pro-duce interrupts (or about asking DOSto do it for us), but we can still pro-gram a device handler that has astructure much like those used insophisticated operating systems.Thus, we can learn a lot about howdevice drivers work by constructingthis relatively simple driver.

Disk Drivers

The kinds of requests that can begiven to a device driver by DOS arelisted in Chapter 14 of the DOS 2.0manual. For a disk driver, the pos-sible requests are as follows:

INIT—Initialize the disk hardwarewhen the system is first started up.This procedure is always called exact-ly once, when DOS is started atpower on or by pressing Ctrl/Alt/Del.MEDIA CHECK-Check whether theuser has changed disks since the lasttime the disk drive was used. For mydevice driver, I always tell DOS I"don't know" whether it was changedbecause for a floppy disk this is prob-ably more efficient than reading thedisk to see if it has been changed. Aninteresting alternative to this ap-proach might be to tell DOS the diskhasn't changed if the disk motor isstill on and tell it it has changed if themotor is off. The motor is turned offby the clock-handling routine in theROM BIOS (the portion of the basicinput/output system that is per-manently stored in read-only mem-

ory) if the disk is not used for a fewseconds; this provides a good guessas to whether the user might havechanged the disk. If the user haschanged the disk, the motor will beoff (unless he is incredibly fast).Thus, if the motor is on, you canassume the user hasn't changeddisks; in such a case, DOS would notreread the disk if the block being ac-cessed was in memory, speeding upmultiple accesses to the same block.The DOS manual doesn't tell exactlywhat the three alternatives (haschanged, hasn't changed, don'tknow) do, so you are probably saferwith the "don't know" alternative.BUILD BPB-Tell DOS where inmemory you have stored a table,called the BPB, describing the size ofthe directory and the number ofblocks on the disk.INPUT—Read from the disk intomemory. DOS gives you the startingblock number on the disk, the start-ing address in memory where youare to put the data, and how manyblocks you are supposed to read in.OUTPUT—Write from memory todisk. DOS gives you the same infor-mation as for the INPUT function.OUTPUT WITH VERIFY-Write frommemory to disk, then verify that thedata was written correctly. For ourdisk driver, we treat this request thesame as a plain OUTPUT, althoughit would be fairly easy to add a func-tion to check that the data was writ-ten correctly, since the ROM BIOSprovides a VERIFY function.

The exact form in which a requestis given to the driver is explained inChapter 14 of the DOS manual. Thisdata is called a "request header" andtells exactly what DOS wants thedevice driver to do. It always containsa "command code," a number iden-tifying the functions to be performed;a "status word," in which we store in-formation telling DOS whether wesuccessfully performed the operationit asked for; and some other informa-tion that I won't go into here, tellingthe size of the request area in mem-ory and the unit number when morethan one device is to be handled bythe same driver. The request headerusually has other information follow-

ing it in memory, such as the addressand block numbers to be used for anINPUT or OUTPUT operation.

The two main things that a devicedriver for a disk must accomplish arethe INPUT and OUTPUT operations.The other functions are fairly simpleand may be based, with appropriatemodifications, on the listing suppliedin the DOS manual. I'll concentrateon the INPUT and OUTPUT opera-tions in the remainder of this article.

Accessing the Disk

When DOS asks the driver to per-form either an INPUT or OUTPUTfunction, it supplies three numbersthat tell exactly what is to be done.The first is the "transfer address,"consisting of two words. These wordsare the address in memory where thedisk transfer is to take place. For anINPUT, this is where the data fromthe disk is to be stored as it is readfrom the disk. For an OUTPUT, thisis where the data to be written ontothe disk is found in memory.

To understand this, let's considerhow a user's program would accessthe disk; for simplicity, let's say youwant to read an integer from the diskin a BASIC program. You can't readjust an integer, which is 2 bytes long,from the disk; the disk is read inblocks of 512-bytes. One of the func-tions of DOS (and the BASIC inter-preter) is to figure out where on thedisk the integer is stored; it will bein some 512-byte block of the disk,and this whole block has to be readinto memory all at once, becausethat's how the disk works. So DOSsets aside an area in memory, calleda buffer, into which the block is to beread. This area is entirely separatefrom your basic program and is in-visible to you. It then asks the driverto read the block into the buffer, andafter the driver has done so, it ex-tracts the integer from the block andputs it into your BASIC variable.

It is the address of this buffer inmemory that is the first of the num-bers given to the driver with an IN-PUT or OUTPUT request. The driverdoes not have to set up the buffer ordetermine where data is on the disk;that is done by the higher-level partsof DOS. It only has to read one or

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 371

more 512-byte blocks from the diskinto memory when requested. Thesecond number given to the driver isthe number of these 512-byte blocksthat are to be read in. Often, only oneblock will be read at a time; but whena lot of data is to be transferred atonce, such as when copying a file orsaving the text from a word pro-cessor, many blocks may be read orwritten at the same time. The thirdnumber given to the driver is the"starting-block number" tellingwhere on the disk this data is to beread or written. Because disks alwayswork in terms of 512-byte blocks, thedisk is divided up into a series ofthese consecutively numberedblocks; the block number is a "diskaddress" analogous to the memoryaddress of a variable in memory, butthe size of the object being addressedis much greater (512 bytes versus 1byte).

Operating the Hardware

I've just explained that when DOSasks the driver to perform an INPUTor OUTPUT, you'll be given informa-tion on where in memory and ondisk the data is to be found or put.But you have to make the disk driveactually read or write the data. For-tunately, the program in the IBM PC'sROM (read-only memory), called theROM BIOS, makes this easier. Thisprogram has subroutines for almostevery hardware device available forthe machine, including, fortunately,the TM100-4 disk, which is justanother floppy-disk drive to the IBMPC. To use this subroutine, move in-formation concerning what you wantdone into the 8088's registers andthen call the subroutine via the 8088'sINT instruction. However, there aretwo problems. First, the ROM BIOSdoesn't know about DOS's blocknumbers; second, in any one call tothe ROM BIOS subroutine, you can'ttransfer more than nine sectors at atime. (Depending on where the start-ing sector is on the disk, you mayonly be able to transfer less thannine.) The information you have togive DOS is listed in table 1.

Of the available functions, a DOSdisk drive needs to use only func-tions 0, 2, and 3; these are the RESET,

AH = Function to be performed:

0 = RESET the disk drive

1 = get status information

2 = READ from disk into memory

3 = WRITE from memory to disk

4 = VERIFY a write operation

5 = FORMAT a track of the disk

AL = Number of sectors to transferCH = Track on disk to be usedCL = Sector within track to useDH = Head on disk drive to useDL = Disk drive to use

ES:BX = Address of buffer in memory

Table 1: Before calling the ROM BIOSsubroutine, you must load the appropriateinformation (shown above) into the BIOSregisters.

READ, and WRITE functions. Noticethat locations on the disk are givenin terms of the track, head, and sec-tor. The track number identifieswhich of the concentric rings of dataon the disk is to be used; the TM100-4can store twice as much data as astandard double-sided drive becauseit has 80 tracks instead of 40. Thehead number on a double-sided diskdrive such as the TM100-4 identifiesthe side of the disk you should use.And finally, the sector number tellswhich of the nine available sectors ona given track and side is to be used.(This sector number can be anythingbetween 0 and 255; although Micro-soft and I use numbers 1 through9, any numbers can be used. Thisis how most copy-protection schemeswork.)

To compute the track, head, andsector number from the DOS blocknumber, we use the followingformulas:

track = block / 18

TS = block mod 18

head = TS / 9

sector = TS - (head x 9) + 1

Because each track holds 18 blocks(9 blocks per side, 2 sides), the tracknumber is the block number dividedby 18 (using integer division). Thevalue TS is the sector number withinthe track, a number between 0 and17. If this number is less than 9, usehead 0 and sector TS +1 (because sec-tor numbers start at 1, not 0). If it's9 or greater, subtract 9 from TS + 1

and use head 1. In other words, thefirst 9 sectors are on head 0; the sec-ond 9 are on head 1. This is also howhead, sector, and track numbers arecalculated by the DOS disk drivers.For an introductory description of theideas of head, sector, and track, seepages 1-10 of the DOS 2.0 manual;it provides more information on thebasic concepts involved.

After you've translated the blocknumber to the numbers required bythe ROM BIOS, you have to break uprequests for transfers bigger than canbe handled at one time into con-secutive requests to the ROM BIOS.The reason you have to do this is thatthe ROM BIOS doesn't know howDOS numbers sectors. It doesn'tassume after it has transferred thelast sector on track n that it can go tosome other track and sector, say trackn+1 sector 1. You have to tell it ex-plicitly. So whenever the track or side(head) numbers change, you have togive the ROM BIOS another request.

Although this is somewhat compli-cated, if you sit down with pencil andpaper you can probably write out asimple procedure, in the program-ming language of your choice, tosolve the problems just described.This is not too difficult and is a goodpractice whenever you are program-ming a complicated procedure in as-sembly language. Unfortunately,there are some interesting andfrustrating aspects of this problemthat aren't documented in anymanual—and this made my projectmuch harder.

Unexpected Problems

When I wrote the original devicedriver, I used the example in the DOSmanual as a guide. Within a reason-able amount of time, I had whatshould have been a working driver.But it wasn't that simple.

First, I had put some calls to DOSinto my driver to display informationso I could trace the activity of thedriver for debugging. But the driverdidn't work at all. It hung the system.

I tried using the debugger suppliedwith DOS. I traced the execution ofthe driver, using breakpoints at ap-propriate places. Strangely, the re-quests to the driver seemed to be get-

372 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

ting destroyed; and more strangely,no matter where I put the break-point, this would always happensometime after the first breakpointwas hit. Finally, by more tracing, Idiscovered the first difficulty withwriting device drivers for DOS 2.0:you can't use the debugger becausethe debugger uses DOS's I/O rou-tines rather than having its own, asis desirable in a good debugger (adebugger should generally be as in-dependent of anything else in thesystem as possible); and DOS's I/Oroutines are not "reentrant," meaningyou can't call them from within aprevious call on the I/O routines, orthe former's data will be destroyed.

This was a disappointing setback.You can't use the debugger to debugthe operating system because thedebugger tampers with the datayou're trying to examine. It's hard tounderstand why Microsoft designedit this way. It would be helpful ifsomeone would develop a debuggerindependent of anything (exceptperhaps the ROM BIOS) to plug in-to the extra socket on the 5150 cen-tral processor (there's not a freesocket on the 5160, so it wouldn'twork there).

The second problem I had con-cerned the DOS I/O routines. Theyaren't reentrant. This is mostlybecause DOS seems to have beenwritten in assembly language. Manyof the idiosyncrasies of DOS couldhave been avoided if, when makinga Unix-like single-user operating sys-tem, they had also followed the leadof Unix and written it in C, whichuses a stack for local variables, thustending to minimize problems suchas those that occurred with thedebugger and I/O routines.

After filling out one of the com-plaint forms in the back of the DOSmanual to send to Microsoft, I pro-ceeded to write my own routines touse the ROM BIOS to display debug-ging information on the screen. Theyare illustrated in listing 1. Afterreplacing the original calls to DOSwith calls on my new routines, Itested it again. A third problememerged. No matter what I did, DOSwould give the message Sector size toolarge in file Tm4.com. This message

Listing 1: The ROM BIOS debugging routines.

debugging macros

; prtreg - print contents o-f register rg in hex, -followed by message; string in msg, e.g., prtreg ax,"=ax register"

prtreg

macro

rg,msg

push

ax

mov

ax ,rg

cal 1

prtax

wto

msg

pop

ax

endm

! wto - write mesg to display. E.g.,

wto "I/O Error"

wto

macro

mesg

1 ocal

msgstr,around

ifdef

debug

push

ax

push

bx

push

si

mov

si,offset msgstr

cal 1

putc

pop

si

pop

bx

pop

ax

jmp

around

msgstr:

db

mesg

db

0DH.0AH,'*'

around:

endi-fendm

; Local Procedures -for debugging macros

putc - equivalent o-f DOS -function ?

putc

pr-oc

near

mov

bl ,7

mov

bh,0

pu t c 1:

mov

al,[si]

cmp

al,'*'

je

putc2

mov

ah, 14

int

10H

inc

si

jmp

putc 1

putc2:

ret

putc

en dp

i prtnum

- print 1ow-or

der 4 bits o-f al

pr tnum

proc

near

push

ds

push

cs

pop

ds

push

bx

mov

bx.o-f-fset xltab

xlatb

mov

ah, 14

mov

bh,0

int

lOh

pop

bx

Listing 1 continued on page 374

February 1984 © BYTE Publicalions Inc. 373

Listing 1

continued:

.pop

ret

xltab

db

prtnum

endp

ds

-0123456789ABCDEF'

; prtax - print ax register's contents in hex

prtax

proc

near

push

ex

push

ax

mov

al ,ah

mov

cl,4

shr

al ,cl

cal 1

prtnum

pop

ax

push

ax

mov

al ,ah

and

al,0Fh

cal 1

prtnum

pop

ax

push

ax

mov

cl,4

shr

al ,cl

cal 1

prtnum

pop

ax

push

ax

and

al ,0Fh

cal 1

prtnum

pop

ax

pop

ex

ret

endp

prtax

Listing 2: The device driver local stack routine.

Code used to set up a private stack for the device driver

; *'XS The -following is in the code segment tor the driver: becausei i'i% the code, stack, and data segments are set up to all start at; S** the same address.

Private stack - because DOS doesn't provide enoughroom for us to do our debugging I/O

stkbot

db

equ

dw

dw

102 dup ("TM4 Stack "') ; 1020 byte's stack area

$

? ; a little extra space just to be sate

Stack pointer save area

spsavsssav

dwdw

j DOS'S stack pointer is saved here: DOSs stack segment is saved here

entry to / exit from device strategy: example of stack switching

devstraiegy:

; switch to private stack

mov spsav,sp ; save DOS's stack pointermov sssav,ss ; and its stack segmentmov ax,cs : stack is in the code segment, so we

mov ss,ax ; set stack segment = code segment

mov sp,offset stkbot ; and point stack pointer to bottom; of the stack

'*.£$ Code for strategy routine goes here

switch back to DOS's stack

mov ss, sssavmov sp,spsav

ret

restore DOS's stack seg we saved

likewise its stack pointer

and return to DOS, who called us.

meant that my driver was tellingDOS that the disk's sector size wassomething other than the intended512 bytes. After careful examination,I found that this was false—the sec-tor size was correct. At this point,only guessing and intuition led to asolution. I guessed that what washappening was that the system stack,a small stack local to DOS that is usedin place of the user's stack whenevera DOS function is called, was over-flowing and destroying some ofDOS's data. This seemed possiblebecause my debugging I/O routinessaved all the system's registers, usinga lot of space on the stack, and calledROM BIOS procedures, using evenmore. So I resorted to the unortho-dox method of having the devicedriver set up and use its own localstack (this method remains in thefinished driver). This eliminated theerror message, although I have noconcrete evidence that this was thecause of the error. This is not asatisfactory solution, because itmeans the driver takes up morespace than it should and the methodused to switch stacks is complicated,much like a context-switching opera-tion used in a multitasking operatingsystem to switch between several pro-grams running at the same time. Butthis solution does assure that thedriver will have a known amount ofstack space, and it eliminates the er-ror message. The method used toswitch to a local stack is illustrated inlisting 2.

Hardware Limitations

Following this improvement andthe addition of some macros to printthe contents of the registers on thescreen, debugging proceeded aboutas expected for a while. The driverseemed to be working at last. Butthen, while copying a large file, anI/O error occurred. The error codereturned by the BIOS was code "09";according to the ROM BIOS listing inthe Technical Reference manual, thismeans "attempt to DMA across 64Kboundary." This was the first refer-ence I had seen to what turned outto be a difficult, and largely undocu-mented, hardware restriction on theIBM PC. When doing I/O to the disk

374 ftbruary 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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using the conventional hardware ap-proaches (those used by the ROMBIOS), you can't read or write a blockthat lies across a 64K-byte boundary.This has nothing to do with the seg-mentation registers, which are theusual cause of 64K-byte restrictions.Instead, it has to do with the way thecircuit is built (as seen on sheet 4 ofthe 64/256K-byte System Board dia-grams). Although it isn't documentedclearly, memory on the IBM PC ispartitioned into 64K-byte blocks forpurposes of DMA (direct-memory ac-cess) I/O. Chip U19 on the centralprocessor board is a "DMA pageregister" that must be given the up-per 4 bits of the address of the bufferto be read or written before the I/Ooperation starts. This will determinethe upper 4 bits of the address inmemory at which the I/O will occur.Since this can't be changed while theI/O is going on, you can't do I/O toa buffer lying on a 64K-byte boun-dary. For instance, you can't have abuffer that starts at hexadecimal ad-dress 0FF00 and goes through ad-dress 10100, because that lies on a

page boundary; note that the upper4 bits of the starting and ending ad-dress differ.

This wouldn't be so bad except thatDOS regularly tries to do I/O opera-tions using buffers that lie on pageboundaries. This happens, for in-stance, when the COPY command isused to copy a large file if yourmachine has more than 64K bytes ofRAM (random-access read/writememory).

Again, it's hard to understand whythis was done. Certainly the new I/Ofunctions provided in DOS 2.0 thatuse a pool of buffers maintained bythe operating system shouldn't haveto do this, and probably don't; thebuffer pool almost certainly can beallocated to avoid these 64K-byteboundaries. It would also haveseemed reasonable for functions suchas COPY to check and not attemptsuch I/O. It's true that user programswould have to be restricted not to at-tempt such I/O either, if they wereusing the "raw" I/O functions pro-vided by DOS. Perhaps this was anattempt to allow DOS to smooth over

irregularities in the hardware, as agood operating system should. Assuch, it was not a bad design deci-sion, but it does make writing devicedrivers more difficult, especiallysince documentation of this restric-tion is so sparse. The only case inwhich such a restriction is necessary,raw I/O by the user, is not desirablein any operating system because itminimizes protection by the systemagainst the user accidentally destroy-ing valuable data in memory.

I solved this problem in my driverby checking whether a requested I/Ooperation crossed a 64K-byte boun-dary. If it did, I transferred up to theblock that crosses the boundary.Then, I copied the offending block toa local buffer within the driver andtransferred it; then I transferred allthe data following the boundary-violating block. This requires threetransfers where one would have suf-ficed, but it solves the problem. Thismay not be the best method—theremay be some hardware trick to solvethe problem, but if there is, it's notdocumented. The method I used

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complicates the code (and, in fact, mysolution does an unnecessary copy inthe case of an INPUT operationbecause of the way the program isstructured), but it works, and thereis no visible degradation in perfor-mance.

The Finished Program

The finished device driver is a fullyfunctioning driver for a TM100-4 diskconfigured as device 1 (the drive nor-mally called B: by DOS). It assumesthat the device 0 (or A:) drive is astandard IBM disk drive compatiblewith either the TM100-1 (single-sided)or TM100-2 (double-sided) disk drive.This is probably the best approach touse, unless you have an expansionchassis supporting more than twodisk drives, because IBM and theother software suppliers all distributetheir programs on the standard40-track disks, and these do not ap-pear to be readable on the TM100-4with IBM's disk controller.

A major feature of this disk driveris that it changes the head-steppingrates for both the standard TM100-2drive and the TM100-4 to rates thatseem to work much better. Specifical-ly, the TM100-2 is operated at 4 ms(milliseconds) per step and theTM100-4 is operated at 2 ms per step.This is slightly faster than thespecified optimal stepping rate forthe drives (the optimal rates are notpossible because the fast clock rate onthe IBM PC causes the controller'sstepping rate to be settable only in in-crements of 2 ms, and the optimalrates are 5 and 3 ms, respectively).Using these rates causes the heads tomove smoothly and quietly, eliminat-ing the loud and irritating buzzingnoise usually produced by the drives.If you find that your drives will notwork at these rates, you can changethem to slower values, but it is im-portant not to operate the TM100-4 ata 4-ms step rate, because it is claimedby at least one vendor (Network Con-sulting, Inc.; see the warning on page3 of chapter CONFIG.IBM(Utl) inthe UCSD p-System programmer'sguide dated 16 March 1983) that a"serious vibration problem" existsthat can damage the drive if a 4-msstepping rate is used. I have used my

disk drives at the rates set by thisdriver for the past eight months withno adverse effects or increased I/O er-ror rate; in fact, it would seem thatthe reduced vibration levels pro-duced by operating the heads closeto their specified optimal rates wouldreduce wear on the head supportsand other parts in the drive.

Future Enhancements

One advantage of having your owndisk driver is that you can deviseways to further increase the storagecapacity of your drives. One of theeasiest ways to do this is to go to 10sectors/track instead of 9. This featureis currently available under some im-plementations of the UCSD p-Sys-tem, where it appears successful.However, it requires changing vari-ous timing parameters provided tothe disk controller, and thus it is notas easy as going from 8 to 9 sectorsper track.

Retrospective

In looking back on this project,several things are apparent. The firstand most important is that, if I werewriting the driver over, I would do itin C. I used assembly languageprimarily because I did not have a Ccompiler. I have subsequently pur-chased a C compiler that would bewell suited for this application; I haveused it to write several stand-alonedevice-handling programs. I wouldguess that it would have taken me athird of the time it took me to imple-ment the program in assembly lan-guage if I had used C, because themajority of bugs, other than the prob-lems described in this article, wererelated to register and addressingcomplications and structural flaws inthe code that would have beenavoided or easily detected if a block-structured language had been used.

I favor C for this project because itis not strongly typed but has power-ful control structures, unlike eitherPascal, which is strongly typed andhas weaker control structures, or sys-tems-programming languages suchas BLISS, which essentially has notyping at all and relatively weak con-trol structures.

It is also apparent that DOS 2.0

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would have benefited from the use ofC. This version of DOS is obviouslypatterned after Unix; even the namesof the system calls are the same as inUnix (more exactly it is a subset ofXenix, which was patterned afterUnix). Unix began as an assembly-language system but was quicklyrevised to be written in C. Some ofthe benefits of this approach wouldhave been a more uniform calling se-quence for the DOS system calls(presently they tend to be irregular)and a much greater likelihood thatthe operating system's routineswould be reentrant, because C andsimilar programming languages storemost variables on the stack. If all"static" variables are properly used,implementation of multitasking ismuch simpler and does not involvethe previously described problems.Finally, debugging this devicedriver was enormously difficultbecause of the absence of adequatedebugging facilities. A large softwarehouse probably would have an IntelDevelopment System or a similar

facility to provide hardware tracingfor debugging, but the average userdoes not have such equipment. Any-one attempting to implement adevice driver for this system woulddo well to first obtain or write a goodstand-alone debugger. Unless youhave considerable patience, ex-perience, and intuition, locating bugsin such a program is difficult.

Conclusions

It is feasible to write device driversfor MS-DOS 2.0, although debuggingcan be difficult. This is a good featureof the operating system, as is itsstructure. Some problems, as ex-plained previously, exist; with luckthese can be ironed out.

A project such as this can give youa better feel for what goes on withina given operating system than doesuser-level programming. At present,MS-DOS is rather complicated. Theoriginal system, developed outsideMicrosoft, was written quickly andlacked many necessary features.Considerably more expertise (as well

as an understanding of Unix) was in-volved in developing version 2.

Yet MS-DOS still seems to be sub-ject to two opposing forces. Onesteers it toward a fairly good struc-ture, perhaps because of the upward-compatibility with Xenix that it issupposed to have. The opposingforce, fostered largely by the con-tinued use of assembly-languagecoding, is steering it towards the old-fashioned disarray and patchworkfamiliar to anyone who has done sys-tems programming for one of theolder operating systems on main-frame machines. Hopefully, withnew features such as the onesdiscussed in this article, the formerwill prevail in the end.B

/. EricRoskos (Box 220562, Nashville, TN 37212)is a graduate student at Vanderbilt University whosedissertation is on a new architecture for multipro-cessor shared-memory systems and related theoriesof communication and synchronization.

For more information on the source code usedto construct this device driver, please contact theauthor.

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Deciphering Word Games

Two BASIC programs that will help yousolve cryptograms and anagrams

Puzzles fascinate me. As a young-ster, I loved encrypted codes, secretlanguages, decoder rings, and similarpuzzles. I still enjoy decoding wordpuzzles; all the more so when they'reas close at hand as cryptograms oranagrams in the local newspaper.

The cryptograms in newspapersare short messages, often only a fewsentences long, in which each letterof the original text has been replacedby some other letter of the alphabet.Usually the substitutions are randomchoices without a pattern. For exam-ple, the latter a may replace all the ts,while b replaces all the os. One par-ticular letter is never used for morethan one coded letter. Sometimes afew letters will not be encoded at all;they remain the same in the encod-ed message as in the decoded plaintext.

Anagrams are words whose lettershave been rearranged into a mean-ingless jumble. The trick is to putthem back into their proper order tospell a word. For example, SIBAC isan anagram for BASIC. The longer aword, the more possible combina-tions it has. For instance, a three-letter word has six possible combina-tions: 1x2x3 = 6. A four-letterword has 24 possible combinations:1x2x3x4 = 24. A five-letterword has 120 combinations, six lettershave 720 combinations, and so on.You can spend a lot of time trying tofind the hidden word in a six-letter

by Mark C. Worley

anagram unless, of course, you areinherently intuitive or prone tological analysis. (Some people just goon to the comics page.)

Cryptograms are a particular chal-lenge to decode because of the con-tinuing search for the correct lettersubstitutions, or keys, to the crypto-gram. Prior to computers, this searchwould consume a lot of paper, pen-cil lead, erasers, and patience as eachnew key was tried out in the text.With computers, the monitor pro-vides a constantly fresh worksheetand the keyboard becomes a pencilthat never dulls with an eraser thatalways wipes cleanly. Perhaps youwill be interested by the followingprograms written in Microsoft Ex-tended BASIC that can help you en-joy solving word games.

To Solve a Cryptogram

Crypto, bas is a program ideallysuited for solving the short- tomedium-length crytograms frequent-ly found in the corners of newspaperpages. Using a 24-line by 80-characterdisplay monitor, Crypto, bas displaysalmost 400 workspace characters.This means that five lines of code andworkspace, 79 characters long, can bedisplayed. Those of you with smallerscreens will have less available work-space, but the program can be modi-fied for your screen size by changingthe 79 in line 50 to 1 less than yourscreen width. For instance, if your

screen is limited to 40 characters,then change the 79 to a 39.

To decode a cryptogram, load andrun Crypto, bas (see listing 1). Thescreen will clear and the command

TYPE THE CRYPTOGRAM:

will appear on the screen, along withan on-screen ruler showing 79dashes. The input command LINEINPUT allows punctuation to be in-cluded in the string. The ruler isprinted to help eliminate entering an80-character line, which usuallyresults in an automatic carriagereturn and line feed (CR LF) on thescreen. These unexpected CR LFs useup extra space in the display andgenerally make the display unman-ageable. If the cryptogram occupiesmore than one displayable line, typewhat you can, then enter new linesby hitting the Enter or Return keys.When you have finished entering theentire cryptogram, hit Enter or Re-turn on a blank line.

Line 80 in listing 1 checks for a0-length line. When a 0-length line isencountered, variable A is set toequal the number of lines entered,then a subroutine counts the fre-quency of each character. The MID$and ASC commands count the char-acters quickly.

The next subroutine, beginning online 480, starts with ASCII character65 (capital a) and continues through

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 383

ASCII character 90 (capital z), search-ing for the largest value of AMT(X).AMT(X) is the variable that containsthe frequency of occurrence of the let-ter whose decimal ASCII value is theX in AMT(X). Line 500 searches andcompares each value of AMT(X) tofind the highest value (or last-foundhighest value) if more than one char-acter has an equal number of occur-rences in the text. To ease decodingand the character-frequency count,you should enter the anagram incapital letters. The program can bemodified to include in the character-frequency count coded messages thatuse numbers and other printablecharacters for letter substitutions.

After the five most frequent char-acters are found, the subroutinereturns to line 110 where the crypto-gram and workspace lines areprinted. A line of the encoded text isprinted, then a workspace line belowthat, followed by a blank line. Thiscontinues until the entire message isdisplayed. Below the text, the fivemost frequently used letters in theEnglish language—e, t, o, a, n—areshown. Immediately below those let-ters the five most commonly used let-ters in the message are displayed.This provides as easy way for you tochoose the first few letters for pos-sible substitution into the encodedtext. Also shown is a count of thetotal number of characters in the text,which is helpful to know. (There issome argument about what the mostcommonly used letters really are. Ac-cording to various sources, they in-clude the following combinations:etlan, ethsi, etaoi, or etona. The mostcommonly used character is actuallynot e, but the space between words.The frequency of spaces is importantto recognize in many encoded textsand in text-compression storagemethods.)

After the code is entered and dis-played, you are prompted to beginsubstituting letters. Choose a letter inthe coded text to be changed andenter it. Then choose a letter thatshould substitute for that letter andenter that. The program will nowsearch for every occurrence of thefirst letter in the coded text and sub-stitute the corresponding letter in the

Listing 1: Crypto.bas is a program in BASIC used to solve and create your own cryptograms.

10 REM CRYPTO.BAS PGM TO EASILY WORK CRYPTOGRAMS 12/31/82

'CLEAR THE SCREEN (CLS)

Terminate with a blank line <CR>

'LINE INPUT ALLOWS PUCTUATIONS

'LL<A)=LINE LENGTH

'BLANK LINE TERMINATES INPUT

'A=# OF LINES IN CRYPTOGRAM

'COUNT LETTER FREQUENCY

'MAKES CRYPTO & WORKSPACE EQUAL

'CLEAR SCREEN (CLS)

'A=# OF LINES IN CRYPTOGRAM

'PRINT CRYPTO S< WORKSPACE

20 PRINT CHR*<12>

30 DIM GN<95>,AMT(95>

40 PRINT"TYPE THE CRYPTOGRAMi

50 PRINT STRING*<79,95>

60 LINE INPUT Z*(A>

70 LET LL(A)=LEN(Z*(A))

80 IF LL(A)<>0 THEN A=A+l:GOTO 50

90 A=A-1

100 GOSUB 390

110 FOR X=0 TO AlX*(X)=Z*(X> I NEXT X

120 PRINT CHR*(12)

130 FOR Y=0 TO A

140 PRINT Z*(Y>:PRINT X*(Y)

150 IF PF=1 THEN LPRINT Z*(Y)iLPRINT X*(Y)

160 PRINTlIF PF=1 THEN LPRINT 'AND A SPACE BEFORE NEXT LINES

170 NEXT Y 'PRINT NEXT CRYPTO/WORKSPACE LINES

180 PF=0 'CLEAR PRINT FLAG

190 ' *** PRINT THE FIVE MOST FREQUENTLY USED CHARACTERS ***

200 PRINT "CRYPTOGRAM: "(

210 FOR Y=l TO 5

220 IF G(Y)<>0 THEN PRINT CHR*<GN<Y>>;" "]

230 NEXT Y

240 PRINT " TEXT LENGTH:"(TEXT

250 PRINT "PLAIN TEXTl ETLAN"

260 PRINT:INPUT"ENTER THE LETTER TO BE CHANGED (or QUIT or PRINT) "(A*

270 IF A*="PRINT" THEN PF=llGOTO 120 'PF=PRINT FLAG

280 IF A*="QUIT" THEN END

290 INPUT"ENTER THE LETTER IT IS TO BE CHANGED TO"|B«

300 ' *** SEARCH FOR A* IN Z*, THEN REPLACE IT IN X* WITH B* ***

310' *** Z* IS THE CRYPTOGRAM, X* IS THE WORKSPACE **»

320 FOR Y=0 TO A 'A=# OF LINES OF TEXT

330 FOR 1=1 TO LL(Y) 'LL(Y)=LENGTH OF THAT LINE

340 IF MID*<Z*(Y),I,1)=A* THEN MID*<X*<Y>,I,1)=B*

350 NEXT I

360 NEXT Y

370 GOTO 120 'PRINT CRYPTO S, WORKSPACE W/CHANGES

380 ' *** SUB-ROUTINE TO COUNT FREQUENCY OF EACH LETTER ***

390 PRINT CHR*(12)STRING*(12,10) TAB(25)"COUNTING LETTERS"

400 FOR Y=0 TO A ' A=*t OF LINES OF TEXT

410 FOR X=l TO LL(Y> 'LL(Y)=LENGTH OF THAT LINE

420 Q*=MID*(Z*(Y),X,1)|Q=ASC(Q$)iAMT(Q)=AMT<Q)+1

430 NEXT X

440 NEXT Y

450 FOR X=0 TO AlTEXT=TEXT+LEN(Z*(X)):NEXT X 'TOTAL-UP TEXT LENGTH,

460 TEXT=TEXT-AMT<32) ' it SUBTRACT SPACES FROM COUNT

470 ' *** SELECT THE FIVE MOST FREQUENT LETTERS ***

480 FOR Y=l TO 5

490 FOR X=65 TO 90

500 IF AMT(X)>=G(Y) THEN G<Y)=AMT<X):GN(Y)=X 'FIND HIGHEST COUNT,

510 NEXT X •>... STORE IT AS GN(Y)

520 AMT(GN(Y))=0 'IGNORE THIS ONE NEXT TIME AROUND !,

530 NEXT Y 'LOOK FOR NEXT MOST FREQUENT LETTER.

540 RETURN

workspace with the second letter. Thealternating lines of coded text andworkspace will be reprinted on thescreen with the coded text remainingunchanged and the workspace show-ing the substitutions. Now, a readycomparison can be made betweenthe two versions to see if the substitu-tion choice was a good one, and tosee which is the best letter to try next.If the choice was a bad one, you canchange the letters in the workspaceback to the original or to some otherletter. The top line of each pair oflines (the original cryptogram) alwaysremains unchanged. Only the bot-tom line of the pair (the workspace)changes.

The program won't save the cryp-togram on disk. However, if you'vedecoded it or are interrupted andwant to save your work, enter PRINT

in answer to the prompt from pro-gram line 260. PRINT will save thecryptogram and workspace on papervia your printer, then it will return tothe program and reprompt you for aninput. When you enter QUIT as ananswer to the prompt, the programwill exit.

Crypto.bas is not intended forrigorous code-breaking other thansimple letter substitution, but it canbe used to create cryptograms. By fol-lowing the instructions on decodinga cryptogram, you enter the plain textin place of the coded text, then usethe letter-substitution capabilities ofthis program to generate the desiredcryptogram. (Use the program to de-code your cryptogram and check thatyou haven't assigned the same letterfor two letters or made some othererror.)

384 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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To Solve an Anagram

Anagram.bas (listing 2) will accepta word that is three- to six-letterslong, display all the possible com-binations on the screen, or printthem at your command. A two-letterword has two combinations that areeasily visualized without the aid ofa computer. But a seven-letter wordhas 5040 possible combinations, fartoo many to scan on paper or on yourmonitor. Thus, the SWAP commandis used extensively to simplify theprogram and increase its speed.Without SWAP, the process of swap-ping A$ and B$ requires these threesteps:

1. T$ = A$

2. A$=B$

3. B$=T$

SWAP requires only one command

SWAP A$,B$

to accomplish the same thing.

It works like this: when a word isentered, its length is checked andeach letter is assigned to the stringvariables A through F. If the enteredword is less than three characters ormore than six, you're reprompted tomake another input.

A three-letter input will generatesix combinations. A three-countFOR . . . NEXT loop with two inter-nal swaps provides the six possible"words."

A four-letter input has 24 possiblecombinations. By running throughthe three-letter swap four times, youproduce 24 combinations. This is ac-complished by the routine beginningon line 300. It runs through the three-letter routine once, swaps A$ and D$,runs through again, does anotherswap, and repeats the process untilwe have all the combinations printedon the screen.

A five-letter combination producesfive times the combinations that afour-letter combination does, so werun through the four-letter swap fivetimes. A repeated swap of B$ and E$each time produces the proper cir-cular shifting of each letter in thegroup.

As you might have guessed, a six-letter combination can be accom-

Listing 2

Anagram.bas is a BASIC program to decipher and create anagrams.

10 ' ANAGRAMS. BAB *** ACCEPTS 3,4,5,?< 6 CHARACTER GROUPS2d ' *** !< PRINTS ALL POSSIBLE COMBINATIONS.

'PF=PRINT FLAG(X to eXit program) ")W«

30 PRINTlPRINT[PF=0

40 INPUT"ENTER A WORD

50 IF W*="X" THEN END

60 INPUT"PRINTED COPY (Y/N)i"iP*

70 IF P*="Y" THEN PF=llLPRINT W*

80 IF LEN(W«)<3 THEN 30

90 IF LEN(W»>>6 THEN 30

100 ' *** ASSIGN A*-F* FOR THE UP-TO-SIX CHARACTERS OF W* »»»

110 A*=MID*<W»,1,1)iB*=MID*(W*,2,1)iC»=MID«<W«,3,1)

120 D»=MID»<W*,4,1)iE»=MID»(W*,5,1)IF«=MID*<W»,6,1)

'X' EXITS FROM PROGRAM

ANYTHING BUT 'Y'=NOLESS THAN 3 IS TOO FEWMORE THAN 6 IS TOO MANY

130 IF LEN<W*)=3 THEN GOSUB 4001 GOTO 30

140 IF LEN(W«)"=4 THEN GOSUB 3001 GOTO 30

150 IF LEN<W«>=5 THEN GOSUB 2001 GOTO 30

160 GOSUB 5001 GOTO 30

200 FOR J=l TO 5

210 SWAP B*,E*lGOSUB 300

220 NEXT J

230 RETURN

300 GOSUB 400

310 SWAP A*, D*■ GOSUB 400

320 SWAP B*,D*iGOBUB 400

330 SWAP C*,D*lGOSUB 400

340 RETURN

400 FOR X»l TO 3

410 SWAP B*,C*|PRINT A*|B»|C*|D*|E*|F*|" "I

420 IF PF-1 THEN LPRINT A*»B«|C«|D*|E*jF«l"

430 SWAP A*,C*iPRINT A*|B*|C*|D*|E*|P»|" "|

440 IF PF=1 THEN LPRINT A*pB*iC*|D*|E*|F*<"

450 NEXT X

460 IF PF=1 THEN LPRINT

470 PRINTlRETURN

500 GOSUB 2001GOSUB 620

510 SWAP A*,F*iGOSUB 2001GOSUB 620

520 SWAP B*,F*lGOSUB 2001GOSUB 620

530 SWAP C*,F«iGOSUB 2001GOSUB 620

540 SWAP D*,F*iGOSUB 2001GOSUB 620

550 SWAP E*,F«iGOSUB 2001GOSUB 620

560 RETURN

600 ' *** FREEZE DISPLAY FOR 6-LETTER COMBINATION. ***

610 ' *** DISPLAYS 120 COMBINATIONS AT A TIME. **»

620 PRINTlPRINT"PRESS <BP> TO CONTINUE."

630 IN*=INKEY*

640 IF IN*=CHR*<32) THEN PRINT CHR*(12)lRETURN

650 GOTO 630

FIGURE LENGTH OF W*,'THEN GOSUB AND SWAP.

'LEN(W*)=6'5-VARIABLE SWAP

4-VARIBALE SWAP

3-VARIABLE SWAP

I

1

6-VARIABLE SWAP

<SP>=SPACE BAR.LOOKS FOR A PRESSEDSPACE BAR BEFORECLS AND RETURN.

plished by going through the five-letter swap six times, with the nec-essary swap between each run-through of the subroutines. Since 720six-letter words cannot be displayedsimultaneously, they are printed insix groups of 120 words each. Aftereach group of 120 words is printed,the subroutine starting on line 620freezes the display. This gives you thetime to scan the screen for the de-sired word(s), and only by pressingthe space bar can you go on to thenext 120 combinations. The programlets you print the letter combinationson your printer by answering theprompt

PRINTED COPY (Y/N):

with a Y. Any other response is ac-cepted as a no. And as with Cryp-to.bas, Anagram.bas can also be usedto create encoded words.

With these two programs, Ana-gram.bas and Crypto.bas, I hopeyou'll find that your decoding tasks

are easier. Understandably, there willbe a few purists who dislike using acomputer to decipher anagrams, andI won't argue with them. It dependson your purposes for attempting tosolve puzzles. Using a computer tosolve a cryptogram, however, doesn'tprevent the human intellect from par-ticipating in the process; it onlyremoves the drudgery.

As a final word, I'll leave you witha cryptogram to test both the pro-gram and your decoding skills.

YJMQ CJDYANQR AS ZJJEAYW SJHJRK SWQYQ TIOOEQY, HWAEQJSWQRY TRQZQR BDBGRBMYBDN CRJYYHJRNY. A EAKQ SWQMBEE BDN WJTQ SWBS PJI WBNYJMQ ZID HASW SWAY QBYP JDQ.(Answer on page 468).■

Mark C. Worley (POB 7225, Dallas, TX 75209)is an electronics-design engineer of meteorologicalequipment and its interfaces at Texas Electronics Inc.in Dallas, Texas. He has published several articleson a variety of analog and digital projects.

386 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Five OriginalGraphics

Improving on the Spirograph

by Robert Sussman and Ted Sussman

Aesthetically pleasing graphic de-signs can be produced using mathe-matical curves—specifically, thosecalled hypocycloid and epicycloid.One way to construct them is to use(by hand) physical templates to formcombinations of these curves. Thisapproach formed the basis for thepopular toy Spirograph. A secondmethod is to plot them, point bypoint, and, using a ruler, connect ad-jacent points to approach the truemathematical shape. We used a thirdmethod—computer graphics. This ar-

388 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

tide outlines the computer-graphicsmethod and illustrates some of itsresults.

The epicycloid is a curve describedby a point on the circumference of acircle as the circle rolls, without slip-ping, on the outside of a fixed circle.The hypocycloid is a curve describedby a point on the circumference of acircle as the circle rolls, without slip-ping, on the inside of a fixed circle.Their equations are given in para-metric form in the text box on page390. They are abstracted from Mur-

ray R. Spiegel's Mathematical Hand-book of Formulas and Tables, McGraw-Hill Schaum's Outline Series, 1968,page 42.

To best appreciate and understandthe computer method, it is instruc-tive to simulate it by hand using thesecond method. The independentparameter—6—is assigned success-ively larger values, at a fixed step size,and the x and y coordinates of thecycloid are calculated and plotted.The adjacent points are then con-nected by straight lines, thereby ob-

taining an approximation to the truemathematical curve.

As an example, figure 1 shows theconstruction of a hypocycloid usingcircles in the ratio of 5 to 14. Becausethis figure was drawn by hand, alarge parametric step size of 10degrees was used in the construction.The points on this figure are num-bered to show the development ofthe curve.

Notice that if 6 is allowed to in-crease past a certain value, denotedby 0max/ tne cusps will coincide. For

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 389

Parametric Equations

Epicycloid

x = (a+b)cos(8) - b cos(gd)■■ (a+b)sin(6) - b sin(g6)

Hypocycloid

-- (a-b)cos(d) + bcos(hd)y = (a-b)sin(O) - b sin(hd)

g = (a + b)/bh = (a-b)/b6 = parameter= angle between the x axis and the

line connecting the two circles'

centersa = radius of fixed circleb = radius of rolling circle

390 February 1984 © BYTE PublicaHons Inc.

Figure 1: An example of a handmade hypocycloid using the point-to-point technique describedin the text.

figure 1, 6max equals 1,800 degrees. Ingeneral, 0max is easily calculatedgiven the radii of the circles; this per-mits you to predict the total numberof points needed to draw the hypo-cycloid.

Additional properties of thesecurves can be developed to aid thedesigner in the choice of the valuesof the radii.

The computer permits the use ofextremely small parametric step sizesresulting in points on the cycloidsthat are very close together. The com-puter connects these points bystraight lines, but the illusion of a ful-ly developed mathematical curve iscreated. In addition, many curves canbe drawn quickly, giving the usermany options for new designs.

But the most interesting aspects ofusing a computer to create thesecurves are those that extend the con-cept beyond what is possible with thefirst two methods. These extensionsof the concept can be realized onlyusing a computer. In general, thesedesigns are sets of overlapping pat-terns. An example of this is shown inthe first illustration on page 388. Theprogram creates an initial patternwith and from initial parameters andlinearly changes these parameters forsuccessive patterns:

1. The location of the point on therolling circle moves toward the cir-cle's center as a function of the pat-tern number.

2. Each successive pattern is rotateda fixed number of degrees fromthe preceding one.

3. Each successive pattern is scaledto produce a zoom effect.

The five designs shown here are asmall subset of all those possibleusing this technique. It requires yourcreative ability and artistic insight touse the computer to reveal them.M

Robert Sussman is a fourth-year student in theschool of engineering and applied science at theUniversity of Virginia. Ted Sussman is a graduatestudent at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.They can be reached at 11022 Saffold Way, Reston,VA 22090.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 391

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394 BYTE February 1984

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Bubbles on the S-100 Bus

Part 2: The Software

Making Micropolis MDOS and CP/M workwith last month's project

Author's Note: Since this article wascompleted, Intel has revised the BPK 72Bubble Memory Prototype Kit discussedin the Editor's Note at the end of part 1of this article (BYTE, January 1984, page380). As mentioned there, Intel is nowoffering the revised for for $199 as a pro-motional item. The new kit is completelyassembled and tested at the factory andincorporates the latest version of the 7110bubble-memory chip, which has been re-packaged. The new chip is thinner,leaded, soldered directly to the printed-circuit board (permitting standard boardspacing), requires a smaller board area,and is more reliable. Because the BPK 71is already assembled and tested, thoseportions of part 1 relating to its testingcan be skipped unless problems occur. Thenew kit is also equipped with an on-boardclock oscillator that eliminates the needfor the clock circuit, IC1, IC3, the 8-MHzcrystal, and associated components,shown in the schematic diagram (figure2). The BPK 72 Bubble MemoryPrototype Kit User's Manual also hasbeen revised to incorporate the in-formation previously found in applicationnote AP-119. A new application note,AP-150, containing a set of subroutineswritten in 8085 assembly language thatdemonstrates the basics of bubble-memorysoftware design, is supplied with the kit.Although no longer needed, the muchrevised user's manual has eight pages ofassembly instructions similar to thosethat come with a Heathkit. The newmanual is a great improvement over theearlier documentation.

by Louis Wheeler

Last month, we built and com-pleted preliminary testing on thebubble-memory board. In this con-cluding part, we'll dive into the soft-ware and discuss the details of mak-ing the magnetic bubbles act like afloppy-disk drive or cache memory.

Before you proceed with the up-coming software, be sure all previoustests have been successful. Then dis-card the BASIC test routines.

Bubble-Memory-Driver Package

The application note supplied withthe kit contains a set of subroutinesto drive the BPK 72 bubble memory.These subroutines demonstrate thebasics of bubble-memdry softwaredesign. The bubble-memory-driverpackage (see listing 1) is based on theprinciples derived from this set ofsubroutines and the user's manual.I have been using it for some timenow without any problems.

Before I get into the details of thedriver package, I will give a briefdescription of the environment forwhich it was written. My system con-sists of an DMSAI (S-100 type) com-puter with a Z80 microprocessor, 56Kbytes of RAM (random-access read/write memory), 2K bytes of EEPROM(electrically erasable programmableread-only memory), a MicropolisMod II dual-disk-drive system (77tracks, 16 sectors per track, 256 bytesper sector), a Z-19 terminal, and aprinter. I have two operating systems:the Micropolis disk operating system

(MDOS), which came with thefloppy-disk system, and a recently ac-quired CP/M system.

Most of my applications software iswritten in Micropolis BASIC, whichuses the MDOS resident I/O (input/output) package called Res. Res issomething like CP/M BDOS (basicdisk operating system) and BIOS(basic input/output system) com-bined. MDOS is a more sophisticatedoperating system than CP/M, but itcannot be modified as easily as theCP/M system with its BIOS module.The bubble-memory-driver packageI am about to discuss functions witheither of these operating systems.Given the proper linkage routine, itcan probably be used with any oper-ating system running an 8080, 8085,or Z80. Linkage routines and instal-lation procedures for both MDOSand CP/M will be covered later.

The bubble-memory-driver pack-age in listing 1 can be located any-where in memory. Since it is only 220bytes long, I placed it in EEPROMalong with my system monitor ancfother peripheral drivers. The packageprovides six bubble-memory func-tions: (1) initialization, (2) generalcontrol operations, (3) reading ofdata, (4) writing of data, (5) readingthe FIFO (first-in/first-out) buffer, and(6) writing 42 bytes to the FIFO buf-fer. Functions 2, 5, and 6 are normal-ly not required and can be deleted ifyou are short of space. (They were in-cluded for use in an as yet unwritten

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 395

diagnostic program; they might alsoprove useful for special applications.)

All functions (except number 2) usethe same calling sequence. The con-trol function requires the additionalstep of loading the C register with a7220 Bubble-Memory-Controller(BMC) command code (see table 1).Normally, you just have to load theHL-register pair with the address ofthe parameter block (discussedbelow) and then call the desiredfunction. On return, if an error hasoccurred, the Carry flag will be set.If needed, the BMC status code canalways be found in the Status byte ofthe parameter block. I have yet to en-counter an error during normal oper-ation. For testing purposes, errorscan easily be forced by first writingdata without the automatic error-detection/correction bit being set andthen reading the same data back withthe bit set. The error-detection/cor-rection option is selected with bit 6in the Enable byte.

The parameter block includes thedata necessary to set up the paramet-ric registers in the 7220 BMC, the ad-dress of a user buffer long enough tostore the data to be transferredto/from the bubble memory, and 1byte to store the BMC status. This isa total of 10 bytes. The parameterblock can be located anywhere inRAM. Also, because its address isprovided with every call to thebubble-memory-driver package, itcan be moved about. You can evenhave more than one block if circum-stances dictate. For example, if twoseparate files are being accessed atthe same time, it might be desirableto set up two parameter blocks, onefor each file. In any case, once aparameter block has been initialized,only two of the parameters are nor-mally updated: the starting pagenumber, BEGADR, and the user buf-fer address, BUFADR.

The number of FSA (formatter/sense amplifier) channels, CANALS,will always be 1 (indicating two FSAchannels); 0 specifies one FSA chan-nel and is used only for testing. Thebank-select parameter, MBMSEL,should always be 0 (anything elsewould indicate a multibank system).BLKLEN specifies the number of 64-Text continued on page 402

396 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Listing 1: The bubble-memory-driver package contains 8080/8085 assembly-language'sub-routines that can be set in ROM and linked with a disk operating system to enable the bubblememory to function as a disk-emulator or cache-memory system. The package requires 220bytes of storage and can be located anywhere in memory.

ADDR Bl B2 B3 E LIHE LABEL

QPCD OPERAND

mmeeee

000000080000000008000808000000080800

0088

0000

00080088

0008

088808888088808808680600608606080688066808660008

0088

006606880086008880660668

00060080

0088060608860666006600088686

0000

08060800

0008

06680066

0060

0086F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623Ffc.23F623F623F623F623F623F623F623F623

0811381288138019681DB61E

88818040

8806B6FD883C

68E188E166E0

106618181628183616461060187818381898118611281136114811581168117811381196126612161228123612461258126812761238129013061318132813361348135613661378133613961488141614201436144814561466147814381498

1500

151015201530154815581566157815881598168816101620163016481650166816781688169017881710172617361740175017681778173817961300131013281336134013501366137813381398

* INTEL BPK72 BUBBLE MEMORV DRIUER PACKAGE *

* *

* Copyright <C) 1983 Louis E. Wheeler *

* The subroutines contained in this Package provide the user- with

* the basic functions needed to communicate with the INTEL BPK-72

* bubble memory system. Before calling any of these functions

* the user must establish a PARAMETER BLOCK with the following

* parameters stored in the order shown:

* Name (Bytes) Function*

* BLKLEN (6-1) = Block length. The number of 64 or 68 byte pastes

* to be transfered. 0 implies a 2048 page transfer.

* CANALS (2) = The number of FSfl channels. 8 or 1. Normally

* 1.. indicating 2 FSfl channels.

* ENABLE (33 - Defines various modes of operation for- the

* 7228 controller.

* BEGflDR (4-5) = Starting paSe number (address) for a transfer

* block.

* MBMSEL (63 = Bank number of multibank systems. Always 0

* for sindie bank systems.

* BUFADR (7-83 = Address of user defined buffer. Minimum size

* 64 bytes (depends on BLKLEN and ENABLE).

* STATUS '.'9) = Status byte returned after all calls.

At

* The first five parameters are defined in the INTEL documentation.

* BUFADR points to a user supplied buffer with a mini nun size of 64

* bytes. The actual size depends on the block lenath in pages and

* whether or not automatic error correction has been selected in the

* ENABLE byte. On return., the STATUS byte will contain the last

* BM status input from the BMC. If an error condition existed..

* the C-flaa will be set.

* FUNCTIONS PROVIDED:

BHINIT - Initializes the bubble memory system

BMCNTL - Performs non-data transfer control operations

BMREAD - Reads one block (record) from bubble memory

BHURIT - Writes one block (record) to bubble memory

RDFIFO - Reads content of FIFO buffer

URFIFO - Writes 42-bytes of data into FIFO buffer

CALLING SEQUENCE:

MUI C. [command]

Oil H..PARAMBLKCALL [function]JC ERROR

Required for non-data transfer-control operations only.HL = FWA of the above PARAMETER BLOCKAny of the above functionsTransfer to user defined error routine

t. ■+*+++-+-++*.++*+-++++:***++++++^^

ORG

0F623H

A place to put it.

COMMAND CODES

CIZCRDCURCABCFRCPURG

EQUEQUEQUEQUEQUEQU

* STATUS WORD BITS

FIFOBTOPDGMEBUSVBT

EQUEQUEQU

OTHER EQUATES

REGB

PTVMSK

STATER

EQUEQUEQU

11H12H13H19H1DH1EH

61H40H88H

6BH

8FDH

3CH

INITIALIZE

READ

URITE

ABORT

FIFO RESET

MBM PURGE COMMAND

FIFO STATUSOPERATION COMPLETEBUSY BIT

* I/O PORT ADDRESS ASSIGNMENTS

BMSTATBMCOHDBMDATA

EQUEQUEQU

6E1H8E1H0E8H

FIRST BMC REG TO SET (BLKLEN)

MASK FOR PHRITV BIT

STATUS URD ERR MSK IGNORE PTV

STATUS PORTCOMMAND PORTDATA PORT

*

* BMINIT - Initializes the HEM system for operation as specified

* in the PARAMETER BLOCK supplied by the user.

Listing 1 continued on page 398

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BYTE February 1984 397

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J (In Minnesota, call 1-800-742-5685 Dept. #86.) |7309

398 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

2D F611El58 F6

Listing 1 continued

F623

F623

F623

F623

Ft.23 CD

F626 3E

F628 D3

F62A C3

F62D

F62D

F62D

F62D

F62D

F62D

F62D

F620

F62D

F62D

F62F

F631

F631

F631

F631

F63:

F634 23

F635 46

CULLS

0BEl

7E

D3

B3

F636F637F638F639F63flF63BF63CF63DF63FF63FF63FF63FF640F641F643F643F643F643F644F645F647F648F649F64RF64BF64CF64DF64EF64FF651F652F652F653F654F655F656F657F657F658F658F658F658F658F658F653F658F658F658Fb58F658F658F6S8Ffc.58F65BF65BF65DF65FF66B

23

7E17171717B0D3 E0

237ED3 E0

23

7E

D3 E0

23

46

23

7E

17

17

17

B0

D3

23

E0

5E235623EB

C9

01 FF FF

DB El

tb FD

12

F2 6C F6

F663 0B

F664 78

F665 Bl

F666 C2 5B F6

F669 C3 73 F6

F66C

F66C E6 3C

F66E C2 73 F6

F671 flF

F672 C9

F673

F673 3E 19

F675 D3 El

LOAD BMC REGISTERSGET IHITIHLZIE COMMANDSEND IT.WAIT FOR COMPLETION

* + + :t,++. + + **+++:f.++++++*+:t<:t,+^:t<:1,:i,++++++*++-.t<++i,+++* + + ++*+**++++.+++*++

19001910

1920 *1930 *1940 BMINIT1950196019701930 *1996

2000

2010

2020

2030 +

2040 * CULLS'. None

2050 *

2060 *

2070

2080

2090

2100

21102120213021402156

SEHDREG. BMEXIT

CULL

SNDREG

MM I

A.CIZ

OUT

BHC0MD

JMP

BMEXIT

SNDREG

SHDREG:

Formate and sends internal control registers to the BMC.Note: HL must point ot the user supplied PARAMETER BLOCK.

MUIOUT

R..REGBBMC0MD

GET 1ST REG ADDRESSAND SEND IT.

CONSTRUCT AND SEND BLOCK LENGTH. [BLR]

21602170218021902200221022202230224022502260227022802290230023102320233023402350236023702380239024002410242024302440245024602470248024902500251025202530254025502560257025802590260026102620263026402650266026702680269027002710272027302740275027602770273027902300231028202830284028502360

M0IJGUTINKMOMINKMOORflLRflLRflLRflLORflOUT

*

* ENABLE BVTE. CER]

*

INXM0UOUT

A,M

BMDRTfl

H

B,M

H

fl,M

BBMDflTA

H

fl,M

BMDflTA

GET BLKLEH CLSB)SEND IT. '.BMC B-REG)BUMP HDDR6=BLKLEN u-ise.)

A=NUM OF FSfl CHANNELS

SHIFT LEFT 4-PLflCES

MELD WITH BLKLEH (MSB)SEND IT. (BMC C-REG)

BUMP ADDR

GET ENABLE BVTE

SEND IT. (BMC D-REG)

* CONSTRUCT AND SEND ADDRESS REGISTER. [AR]

SUAPREG:

INXMOOOUTINXM0UINXM0URflLRfiLRflLORflOUTINX

M0U

INXM0UINXXCHG

RET

H

fl..M

BMDflTfl

H

B,M

H

fl,M

BMDflTAH

E,MH

D,MH

BUMP ADDRA=ADDR REG (LSB)SEND IT. (BMC E-REG)

B=ADDR REG (MSB)

fl=BUBBLE NUMBER

SHIFT IT 3-PLACES

MELD WITH PAGE NUMBER (MSB)SEND IT. (BMC F-REG)BUMP ADDR

GET USER BUFFER ADDR

TO DE-REG

FOR LATER USE.

BUMP PHTR TO STATUS ADDR.

HL=POINTER TO USER BUFFER.

DE=POIHTER TO RETURN STATUS

*

* BMEXIT - Waits for completion of the current BMC operation and

* then checks for any error conditions. If art error is

* indicated, the C-flaa is set prior to exitins. This

* routine serves as a common exit for all functions.

* Note: A busy condition that persists too lonS is considered

* an error. This midht occur if the parameter block

* is improperly constructed.

* CALLS: None

BMEXIT:

BHEXli

BMEX2:

BMERRX:

LXI

B..0FFFFH

IN

BMSTHT

AN I

PTVMSK

STAX

D

JP

BMEX2

DCX

B

MOO

fl,B

ORA

C

JNZ

BMEX1

JMP

BMERRX

ftNI

STATER

JNZ

BMERRX

XRfl

A

RET

MUI

A, CAB

OUT

BMCOMD

SET UP TIMER.

GET STATUS

MASK OUT PTV ERR

SflUE IT.

NO, GO CK FOR ERRORS.

ELSE, FOR JUST

SO MftHV

TIMES

LOOP AND TRY AGAIN.

TOOK TOO LONG IF BC=0

WAS THERE AN 'ERROR?YES, TAKE ERROR EXIT.NO, CLEAR FLAGAND EXIT.

CLEAR THE RECKAGEBY ABORTING

Listing 1 continued on page 400

Gifford

has a lock on

multiuser OT 8-16

It's 11:00 P.M. Do youknow where your files are?

It's great when multiple local and offsite users can run any 8- or 16-bit CP/Mor MP/M™ program. It's even better whenthey can share expensive resources likeprinters, hard disks, and tape drives. Bestof all is when they can share your mostprecious resource—data. Gifford has beendelivering systems with all these featuresfor over two years.

But sometimes data is sensitive. Howdo you keep people from taking morethan their fair share?

Gifford adds a new dimensionto CP/M security.

With our new security features, youcan control what resources and dataare shared.

Gifford's proprietary securityenhancements include user login withencrypted passwords, control overaccess rights of modem users, secureelectronic mail, and the ability to restrictusers to specified terminals, programs,and directory areas. Plus, an audit logutility that keeps a permanent record ofsystem activity. And you also get all thestandard security features of DigitalResearch's MP/M-86™

You select the level of securityneeded to get the best balance betweenfile sharing and file safety.

Unleash productivity withGifford's Virtual Terminals.

With our Virtual Terminals, eachterminal on your system can monitor upto four different programs running concur-rently. And at the touch of a key you canswitch screens instantly from oneprogram to another.

You could look up an address indBASE II,™ jump over to SuperCalc™ tomake some projections, then switchinstantly to WordStar® to use this infor-mation to update a letter. If you forgetwhat's on a screen, just touch a key torefresh your memory. You won't need togo through the distracting process ofloading and unloading programs.

And since your Virtual Terminal canrun any 8- or 16-bit CP/M or MP/M pro-gram, you can choose the best programsfor your job from the biggest softwarelibrary in the world. It's easier than 1,2,3!

The Gifford Security Blanket:Total Solutions.

Gifford delivers solutions. Thismeans professional pre-sale consultation,expert system integration with 200 hoursystem burn-in, complete training, and fullafter sale support.

For example, our three userCompuPro® based system with a 21-megabyte hard disk costs just $9,990, andcan be easily expanded for $500 per

user. This includes MP/M 8-16, SuperCalc,and dBASE II.

Other Gifford solutions includesystems with hard disks that range from5 to 300 megabytes, 4 and 9 track tapebackup, printers, plotters, and modems.Single- and multiuser 8086,68000, andZ-80 based systems are available forimmediate delivery, with 80286 and 16032systems on the way.

Two year warranty protection.

In the unlikely event that you encoun-ter a hardware related problem, we'llreplace any defective S-100 part within24 hours FREE for two full years. Butchances are, it can be solved on the Giffordservice hotline or diagnosed via modem.All at no cost to you.

Lock in on Gifford Securitytoday.

If total support, training, on siteservice, obsolescence-proof upgradeableS-100 bus architecture, and completesystem security sound appealing, cut thecoupon or give us a call. We'll send youa free brochure that tells the whole story.Once you get it you'll see why Giffordhas a lock on multiuser CP/M 8-16.

Gifford Computer Systems is a FullService CompuPro® Systems Center.

The powerful Gifford System 321 shownwith optional GCS-80 Virtual Terminals.

2446 Verna Court, San Leandro, CA 94577

(415) 895-0798 A division of G&G Engineering

I'D LIKE THE WHOLE STORY.

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Name Title

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Address

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Phone.

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□ Please have a representative call me.

BY-S

GIFFORD COMPUTER SYSTEMS □ San Leandro, CA (415) 895-0798 D Los Angeles, CA (213) 477-3921 □ Houston, TX (713) 680-1944

Amherst, NY (716) 833-4758 □ Telex: 704521

Circle 151 on inquiry card. BYTE February 1984

399

Circle 1 on inquiry card.

Super Savings

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OFF LIST

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All equipment is in factory cartons with manufacturers' warranty. Prices subject to change withounotice. Most items in stock or shipped as receivec

1

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MONDAY-FRIDAY

PHONE ORDERS FREE

(ONE DOLLAR CREDIT FOR PHONE ORDERS)400 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Listing 1 continued:

:D F6

re

F677 3E IE

F679 03 El

F676 37

F67C C9

F67D

F67D

F67D

F67D

F67D

F67D

F67D

F67D

F67D

F67D CD

F680 79

Fb31 D3 El

F633

F686

F686

F636

F636

F636

F686

F636

F686

F686

F686

F686 3E ID

F688 D3 El

F68A CD 2D F6

F68D 3E 12

F68F D3 El

F691

F691 DB El

F693 B7

F694 F2 91 F6

F697

F697 DB El

F699 B7

Ffc.9fl F2 58 F6

F69D E6 81

F69F Cfl 97 F6

FbA2 DB E0

F6fM 77

FbfiS 23

F6A6F6A9F6A9P6A9F6A9F6A9F6FV3F6fl9F6FI9F6H9F6A9F6A9F6A9F6BBF6ADF6B0F6B2F6B4F664F6B6F6B8F6BAF6BDF6BDF6BFF6C1F6C2F6C5F6C7F6CflFbCBF6CDF6CEF6D1F6D1F6D2F 604F6D7F60AF6DMFbDHP6DAFbDHFbDHFbDHFbDHFbBHFbbDF6DEFbElFbElF6E3

C3 97 Fb

3E IDD3 ElCD 2D3E 13D3 El

F6

DB ElE6 81FE 31C2 B4 F6

DB ElE6 FD

12

F2 01 F6

E6 31

Cfl BD F6

7E

D3 E0

C3 BD Fb

lfl

FE 41Cfl 58 F6C3 73 F6

30

11 37

19

CD 52 Fb

DB ElEb 01

* *+**+*■+++++-+************+■+++■*■+****++++***+++****+*+***+*++•++++*

BMCHTL

* CHLLb:

BMCHTL:

Facilitates direct user control of the MBM system throughcoiniftand operations. No data is transferred. The routineexpects to find the COMMAND CODE in the C register.

LOAD BMC REGISTERSGET COMMANDINITIATE IT.WAIT TILL DONE

* BMREHD - Reads one record as specified ir, the PARAMETER BLOCK.

* Note'. Failure to provide sufficient buffer area canprows disastrous.

CALLS

BMREHD:

BMRDli

bmrd;

2370

2880

2890

2900

2910

2920

2930

2940

2950

2960

2970

2930

2990

3008

3010

3020

3030

3048

3050

3060

3070

3030

3898

3100

3110

3120

3130

3140

3150

3168

3170

3130

3190

3280

3210

3220

3230

3240

3250

3260

3270

3238

3290

3380

3310

3320

3330

3340

3358

3360

3370

3330

3390

3400

3410

3420

3430

3448 BMWRIT:

3450

3460

3470

3430

3490 *

3500 BMWRl:

3510

3520

3538

3540 *

3550

3560

3570

3588

3596

3608

3610

3620

3630

3640

3650

3660

3670

3688

3698

3708

3710

3720

3738

3740

3758

3768

3778

3738

3798

3380

3318

3820

3330

MO I

fl.CPURG .

i AND PURGING

OUT

BMCOMD

J EUERYTHING.

STC

1 SET CARRY FLAG

RET

; AND EXIT.

SNDREG,

BMEXIT

CALL

SNDREG

MOU

A,C

OUT

BMCOMD

JMP

BMEXIT

SNDREG,

3MEXIT

MUI

A..CFR

OUT

BMCOMD

CALL

SNDREG

MUI

A, CRD

OUT

BMCOMD

IN

BMSTAT

ORR

A

JP

BMRD1

IN

BMSTAT

ORA

A

JP

BMEXIT

SHI

FIFOBT

JZ

BMRD2

IN

BMDHTH

MOU

H,A

IHX

H

JMP

BMRD2

RESET FIFO

SEND REGS TO BMCINITIATE READOPERATION.

GET STATUSWAIT FOR BUSYLOOP UNTIL SET.

GET STATUS: BUSY ?■ NOPE.. ALL DONE.

FIFO EMPTY'?'• YEP, GO CK BUSY

HOPE, GET THE DATA. STORE IT

BUMP STORE ADDR

AND LOOP FOR MORE.

BMWRIT - Writes one record to the BM. Note! records shorterthan the block size specified in the PARAMETER BLOCKshould be padded with a suitable character, else therecord will be filled out with what euer is auailbable.

* CALLS: SHDREG, BMEXIT, BMERRX

BMUR2:

BHWR3:

MUI

OUT

CALL

MUI

OUT

INRNICPIJNZ

IN

AH I

STAX

JP

AN I

JZ

MOU

OUT

IHX

JMP

LDAXCPIJZJMP

A,CFRBMCOMDSHDREGA, CURBMCOMD

BMSTAT

BUSYBT+FIFOBTBUSYBT+FIFUBTBMWRl

BMSTAT

PTYMSK

D

6MUR3

FIFOBT

BHWR2

fl,M

BMDATA

H

BMWR2

D

OPDOHE+FIFOBTBMEXITBMERRX

GET FIFO RESET

SEHD IT.

SEND REG'S

GET WRITE COMMAND

SEND IT.

GET STATUSWAIT FOR BUSYAHD FIFU BITb.LOOP UHT1L...

GET STATUb

MASK OUT PTV ERR

SAME IN E-REu

OP COMPLETE/FHILEO?

FIFO READY?

HOPE, LOOP TRY AGH.

YES LOAD SOME DATA

GIUE IT TO BMC

BUMP ADDR

AND LOOP FUR MORE.

GET STATUSALL DONE AND GOOD?NORMAL EXIT.ERROR EXIT

* RDF1F0 - Reads the contents of the FIFO buffer.

* CALLS: SWAPREG, BMEXIT

RDFlFu:

RDFIF02:

LXIDADCALL

INAN I

D,0887H

D

SWHPREb

BMSTATFIFOBT

POSITION PARAMBLK PNTRTO USER BUFFER ADDR.SET UP HL/DE POINTERS.

GET STATUSANY DATH THERE:'

Listing 1 continued on page 402

PIECE

OFMIND

CompuPro's System 816.The fastest, most cooperative computer you can buy.

OEMs and systems integrators are busypeople. Too busy to waste time with anuncooperative computer system.That's why every System 816 fromCompuPro is built to work longand hard without a whine ora whimper.

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 workstations 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.

More Versatile.

All family members share a commonmodular architecture. So it's asimple matter to upgrade orreconfigure any of them to keepup with your needs. All the whilemaintaining complete softwarecompatibility up and down the line.

And the S-100 bus allows youthe flexibility to plug in anycompatible board to add graphicscapabilities or boards for yourown unique applications.

You also get your choice ofoperating environments, includingCP/M® CP/M-86® ConcurrentCP/M-86™, MP/M-86™ andCP/M-68K™, and our ownCP/M®8-16™ and MP/M™8-16™.At the programming level, the

System 816 family supports Pascal, C, FORTH, BASIC, ■

COBOL, PL/1, FORTRAN 77™ and more.

More Information.

Your customer's satisfaction is important to both of us,so don't get stuck with a system that's more of ahindrance than a help. Send in the coupon and find outwhat peace of mind is all about.

For business, scientific and industrial computingsolutions, call (415) 786-0909 ext. 506 for the location ofour dealers worldwide, or the Full Service CompuProSystem Center nearest you.

CH Send me your free System 816 brochure.

(omp

uPro,

AGODBOUTCOMPANY3506 Breakwater Court, Hayward, CA 94545

CP/M and CP/M-86 are registered trademarks and CP/M-68K. MP/M-86. ConcurrentCP/M-86 and FORTRAN 77 are trademarks of Digital Research Inc. CP/M 8-16 andMP/M 8-16 are compound trademarks of Digital Research Inc. and CompuPro.

For dealer locations, see page 439.

□

NAME

Send me the nameCompuPro System

of myCenter

nearest Full Serviceor dealer:

TITLE

ADDRESS

CITY

STATE

ZIP

Mail to: CompuPro, Attn: Sales Dept.

3506 Breakwater Court. Hayward, CA 94545

Prices and specifications subject to change without notice.

System 816 front panel design shown is available from Full Service CompuPro

System Centers only. ig 1983 COMPUPRO

Circle 67 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 401

Text continued from page 396:byte blocks to be transferred in oneoperation. For the 128-byte recordsused by CP/M, BLKLEN is set to 2.For MDOS, which uses 256-byterecords, BLKLEN is set to 4. ABLKLEN of 0 implies a block lengthof 2048. The Status byte need not beinitialized.

Using the driver package with anassembly-language program is notdifficult. Just set up the parameterblock, load the address of the param-eter block into the HL-register pair,and call the desired function. Al-though linking the bubble-memory-driver package with an operating sys-tem is also fairly straightforward, itdoes require some knowledge of theinterworkings of the operating sys-tem involved.

MDOS Linkage

Linking the driver package to theMicropolis operating system wassomewhat simpler than it was withCP/M. This is partly true because theMDOS linkage (see listing 2) is not acomplete disk emulation; it functionsmore like a cache memory than adisk. Although it lets you access thebubble memory with BASIC diskcommands (OPEN, CLOSE, GET,PUT, etc.), it has no directory, and,if more than one file is to be main-tained, it is your responsibility tokeep track of where the files arelocated. I chose this approach for tworeasons: (1) MDOS does not readilylend itself to this type of modifica-tion, and (2) it is more in keepingwith my intended application—toprovide my text editor with a large,fast, yet nonvolatile storage medium.The editor uses the bubble memoryas though it were disk 3 with a capac-ity of more than 30 typewrittenpages. It treats the bubble memorylike a temporary working file, usinga floppy-disk file for permanent stor-age. I intend to use it for other largefiles where rapid access is a factor,such as a checkbook file.

The preceding approach simplifiesthe modification of MDOS and stillproduces the desired results. Thereis room in the Res module to accom-modate the added code. The onlypatch necessary is at the point whereRes determines if the disk number isText continued on page 406

402 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Listing 1 continued:

F6E5 Cfl

58

F6

3346

JZ BMEXIT

J NO, EXIT.

F6E8 DB

Eg

335U

IN BMDHTH

; YES, GET OATH

F6EH 77

3368

MOM N,H

; STORE IT

F6EB 23

337W

I NX H

: BUMP STURE HODR

rbEC C3

El

F6

3880

JMP RDFIFG2

; LOOP FOR MORE.

F6EF

3890

*

F6EF

3900

*

********

************************

**************************

F6EF

3910

*

F6EF

3920

*

URFIFG

- Sends 42 bytes to the

FIFO buffer.

F6EF

3930

*

F6EF

3948

*

CRLLS:

SNDREG, BMEXIT

F6EF

3950

*

F6EF

3960

*

F6EF-CD

2D

F6

3970

WRFIFO:

CALL SNDREG

; SEND REG'S

F6F2 8E

2fl

3980

MUI C,42

; SET CNT FOR 42 BVTEb

F6F4 7E

3990

URFIF;: .

MOU R,M

; GET SOME DHTH

F6F5 D3

E0

4000

OUT BMDATA

i SEND IT

F6F7 23

4010

INX H

1 BUMP LOAD ADDR

F6F8 0D

4020

DCR C

; COUNT IT AND

F6F9 C2

F4

F6

4830

JNZ URF1F02

; LOOP IF NOT DONE.

F6FC C3 58

F6

4040

JMP BMEXIT

; EXIT.

F6FF

4058

*

ERRORS THIS ASSEMBLY 0000

Command Code(hexadecimal)

10

Command/Explanation

WRITE BOOT LOOP REGISTER MASKED. Can be used in place ofthe WRITE BOOT LOOP REGISTER command. Masks out any trailing1s.

INITIALIZE. Reads and decodes the boot loop from the MBM and storesthe result in the FSA's boot-loop register. Does not alter any data storedin the MBM.

READ BUBBLE DATA. Causes data to be read from the MBM into theBMC FIFO buffer. All parametric registers must be set up prior to issu-ing this command.

WRITE BUBBLE DATA. Causes data to be transferred from the BMCFIFO buffer to the MBM. All parametric registers must be set up priorto issuing this command.

READ SEEK. Rotates the MBM to an address designated in theparametric register, Can be used to reduce access time. After this com-mand, the parametric registers must be reset.READ BOOT LOOP REGISTER. Causes the BMC to read the boot-loopregister of the selected FSA channels into the BMC FIFO buffer.WRITE BOOT LOOP REGISTER. Causes the BMC to write the contentsof the BMC FIFO buffer into the selected FSA channels. The data musthave been previously written into the FIFO buffer.WRITE BOOT LOOP. Causes the existing contents of the MBM's bootloop to be replaced with 40 bytes taken from the BMC FIFO buffer.Caution—execution of this command destroys the boot loop written in-to the MBM at the factory. This command cannot be executed until theWrite Boot Loop Enable bit has been set in the Enable register.READ FSA STATUS. Causes the BMC to read the 8-bit status registerof all FSAs and stores it in the BMC FIFO buffer.ABORT. Terminates any command currently being executed. If the BMCis busy when executed, this command must be followed by an IN-ITIALIZE or MBM PURGE command.

WRITE SEEK. Rotates the MBM to a designated address location. Aftera WRITE SEEK command is executed, the parametric registers mustbe reset. Can be used to reduce access time.READ BOOT LOOP. Causes the BMC to read the boot loop from theMBM into the BMC FIFO buffer. Must be preceded by a FIFO RESETcommand.

READ CORRECTED DATA. Causes the BMC to read into the FIFO buf-fer a 64-byte block of data after the FSA has attempted to correct thedata. The FSA informs the BMC whether the error was correctable ornot. The command is used only when the system is in the error-correctionmode enabled in the Enable register.

RESET FIFO. Clears the BMC FIFO buffer and all I/O latches.MBM PURGE. Clears all BMC registers, counters, and the MBM ad-dress. Does not clear the block-length register, FSA counter, or the 4high-level bits of the address register.

SOFTWARE RESET. Clears the BMC FIFO and all registers exceptparameters. No INITIALIZATION command is required after thiscommand.

Table 1: A list of 7220 Bubble-Memory-Controller command codes. Each code is furtherexplained in the BPK 72 Bubble Memory Prototype Kit User's Manual supplied with

the kit.

11

12

13

14

1516

17

1819

1A

1B

1C

1D1E

1F

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404 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Listing 2: The MDOS bubble-memory-driver linkage modifies the MDOS Res module toallow Micropolis BASIC to access the bubble memory as a cache memory. The modificationcan be installed using the MDOS LOAD command.

flDDR Bl B2 B3 E LINE LABEL

0PCD OPERAND

0000mmmmmmmmmm

2B88

2Bei

2B0189688968896A896D096D86FE06FF8700070807008700

0700

070007880700870087080788

0700

8700870887000708070807000703

0704

07070709878C070E0711071407148716071'307 IE87 IE072087230726072b0729872C072F87320732873587380738073987398739073C073F07420743074687498749074C874F875287538756875987598759875C075E87610762076587688769876A87600770077307768777

MOOS RES - BUBBLE DRIVER LINKAGE

00

FE 0202 00 07

F818F01BF81E

000408018020

0800

0080

3A 21 12B7

CA 14 07FE 84CA 26 07FE 08CA 32 07C3 F4 8F

IE 833fl 22 12FE 86CA 49 87FE 89CA 39 87C3 F4 0F

CO 7E 86CO 18 F8C3 PC 09

32 38 07C3 FC 09

CD 59 07

CD IB F0

D2 FC 09

10

C2 3C 07

C3 Ffl 0F

CD 59 07

CD IE F0

D2 FC 09

ID

C2 4C 07

C3 FA 0F

3A 38 07

FE 04

CA 65 07

El

C3 00 10

2fl 27 12

29

29

22 A0 06

2A 23 12

22 A3 06

21 9C 06

C9

1088

1018

1020 * *

1030 * Copyright <C) 1983 Louii E. Wheeler *

10701030109011001110

1120113011401150116011701130119012001210122812301240125012601270123012901300131013201330134013501360137013801390

1400

141014201430144814581460147814381490158015101520153815481550156015781580159016001610162816301640165016601670168016901700171017201730174817501760177017801790180018101820183018481858186018701880189019001910

ORGNOP

ORG

CPIJNC

ORGXRARET

2B00H

0%8H

02H

BUBRES

06FEHA

J DUMMY ORG FOR LOADER

UNIT NUMBER CK PATCH

; CHECK LEGAL DRIUEJ HO, ITS A BUBBLE.

FIX FOR PRINTER INIT.

* RESIDENT INTERFACE FOR BUBBLE MEMORY DRIUERS

* SYSTEM EQUATES: <BM function addr's equate to EEPR0M Jump table)

4BMINIT

'8BMREAD

'8BMWRIT

*

SBLKLEH

SCANALS

SENABLE

SBEGBDR

SMEMSEL

BUBREb

BIHOUT:

B0PEH:

BCL0SE:

OCFLAG:

BGET:BRDRPT:

BPUT:BURRPTJ

BSETUP:

SETREC:

EQUEQUEQU

EQUEQUEQUEQUEQU

L0A

0RA

JZ

CPI

JZ

CPI

JZ

JMP

MUI

LDA

CPI

JZ

CPI

JZ

JMP

STACALLCALLJMP

STAJMP

DB

0F018H0F81BH0F01EH

0884H81H20H8808H

00H

1221H

A

BINOUT

84H

B0PEN

88H

BCL0SE

8FF4H

E,3

1222H

86H

BPUT

89H

BGET

0FF4H

OCFLAGIIU TPBeBMINIT89FCH

OCFLAG89FCH

08H

INITIALIZE BUBBLE MEMORYREAD BUBBLE MEMORY RECORDURITE BUBBLE MEMORY RECORD

BLOCK LENGTH=4 PAGESNUMBER OF FSH CHNLS=2ENABLE BYTE=RCD & HI-SPDBEGIN HDDR=PAGE 0BUBBLE NUM SELECT=FIRST

; GET 1ST CODE

J IF CODE =

; 08 - GO CK 2ND CODE

; 04 - IT'S AN OPEN

i 08 - IT'S A CLOSE

J "PARM ERROR" EXIT.

J ERR RETRY CNT

J GET 2ND CODE

; 86 - IT'S A PUT

1 89 - IT'S A GET

1 "PARM ERROR" EXIT.

J SET OPEN FLAG

; INITIALIZE PARAM BLOCK.

: GO INITIALIZE BUB MEM

i EXIT

: SET CLOSE FLAG

I EXIT

; OPEN/CLOSE FLAG

; 84 = OPEN 08 = CLOSED

CALL

BSETUP

; GO SET UP CNTL BLK

CALL

•36MREHD

; GO READ REC

JNC

89FCH

; GOOD READ, EXIT.

DCR

E

; BUMP RETRY CNT

JNZ

BRDRPT

; TRY ONCE AGAIN.

JMP

8FFAH

; "PERM ERROR" EXIT.

CALL

BSETUP

; GO SET UP CNTL BLK

CALL

SBMWRIT

J GO URITE REC

JNC

89FCH

i GOOD PUT, EXIT.

DCR

E

J BUMP RETRY CNT

JNZ

BURRPT

; TRY ONCE AGAIN.

JMP

8FFHH

; "PERM ERROR" EXIT.

LDA

OCFLflG

5 CK FILE OPEN

CPI

84H

JZ

SETREC

; VES, GO ON.

POP

H

J CLEAR STACK

JMP

1000H

; "FILE NOT OPEN" EXIT.

LHLD

1227H

; SET UP REC I

DAD

H

J MULTIPLY BY 4

DAD

H

; <64 X 4 = 256 BYTES)

SHLD

BEGflDR

; PLACE IN PARAM BLOCK

LHLD

1223H

; GET BUF ADDR

SHLD

BUFHDR

; PLACE IN PARAM BLOCK

LXI

H,PHRAMBLK

; HL=PARAMETER BLOCK FUH

RET

Listing 2 continued on page 406

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BYTE February 1984 405

Text continued from page 402:legal. The jump-to-error routine waschanged to jump to the bubble-link-age code. Thus, the Res module nowassumes that a disk number greaterthan 2 is not an error but a bubble-memory request.

The linkage itself is straightfor-ward. Similar to BDOS calls in CP/M,MDOS uses a code to determine theintended disk function. However, itis a 2-byte code stored in hexadecimallocations 1221 and 1222. Only thecodes for OPEN, CLOSE, PUT, andGET have been decoded. Any othercode is interpreted as a Parm Error,and the appropriate error exit istaken. OPEN causes the parameterblock to be initialized, then calls theBMINIT driver routine to initializethe bubble memory. GET and PUTcall the appropriate driver routines.If the Carry flag is set on return fromeither the BMREAD or BMWRITEroutines, indicating that an error didoccur, three attempts are made toperform the I/O function correctlybefore taking a Perm-Error exit.

Actual installation of the linkage isquite simple. With the bubble-mem-ory-driver package already in PROM(programmable read-only memory)or elsewhere in memory, it isnecessary only to assemble the link-age and then use the system's LOADcommand to overlay the Res module.The bubble-memory exerciser pro-gram in listing 3 can then be used totest the installation and the bubblememory. Written in MicropolisBASIC, it reads and writes singlerecords or blocks of records. It alsoincorporates a test routine that writesa predefined record, then reads itback and compares it with the datathat was written. It also checks thebubble-memory status. Testing thewhole bubble memory of 511 recordstakes about 114 seconds (using a Z80with a 4-MHz clock). For com-parison, I ran the same program(slightly modified) using the floppy-disk memory; it took 368 seconds, orroughly three times as long.

One other note. Because there is nodirectory, it is not necessary to formator initialize the bubble memory be-fore writing to it. The BMINIT sub-routine does not change any datastored in the bubble memory. ItText continued on page 412

406 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Listing 2 continued:

0777

1920 *

0777

1938

ORG

067EH

; AN EMPTV flREH . . .

867E

1948 +

067E

1958 *

067E 21 84 00

1960 IHITPB:

UtI

H..SBLKLEN

; SET BLOCK LENliTH

0681 22 9C 06

1978

SHLD

BLKLEH

0684

1930 *

0684 3E 01

1990

MM I

R..SCANRLS

J SET NUMBER FSR CHANNEL:

0686 32 9E 06

2000

STB

CRNALS

0689

2010 *

0689 3E 20

2020

HUI

A..SENABLE

; SET ENHBLE BVTE

0688 32 9F 06

2038

STfi

EHRBLE

868E

2848 *

868E 21 00 00

2058

LXI

H,SBEGRDR

J SET BEGINNING PAGE NO.

0691 22 A8 06

2060

SHLD

BEGADfi

0694

2070 *

0694 RF

2080

XRR

fl

; SET BM BANK SELECT

0695 32 H2 06

2890

STfi

MBMSEL

0698

2100 *

0698 21 9C 06

2U0

LXI

H..PARAMBLK

i SET HL=FUH PARAMETER E

8698 C9

2120

RET

869C

2138 *

069C

2148 * PARAMETER

BLOCK

069C

2158 *

069C 069C

2168 PHRRMBUCi

EQU

*

;

06.9C

2170 *

069C 80 00

2130 BLKLEH

DU

0000H

; BLOCK LENGTH (PAGES.)

069E 00

2198 CANALS

DB

00H

; NUMBER OF FSR CHANNEL?

869F 80

2208 ENABLE

DB

88H

J ENABLE/CNTRL BVTE

86A8 80 08

2210 BEGADR

DU

8000H

i BEGINNING PAGE NUMBER

06A2 00

2228 MBMSEL

DB

00H

; BUBBLE BANK

06H3

2238 *

06H3 00 00

2248 BUFHDR

DU

0000H

; USER BUFFER ADDRESS

06R5 08

2258 STATUS

DB

00H

; RETURN STATUS

86R6

2268 ■*

66H6

2270

END

ERRORS THIS ASSEMBLY 0000

Listing 3: A BASIC program to exercise/test the BPK 72 bubble-memory kit, software drivers,and operating system linkage. The program, written for Micropolis BASIC, must be modifiedfor use with other BASIC interpreters.

1BQ8

10101020

163Q1S4Q1050106010701080

1090

11001110112011301140115011601170118011901208121012201230124012501260127012301290130613101320133013401350136013781330139014801410142014301440145814601478148014981588

BUBBLE MEMORY EXERCISER ==

REN =============:

REM

REM RE'J. H 830413

REM

DIM R*>:258X. B*<250:>, D*<258:>

Q*=CHHR*':34> -.REM 34 = Quote Mark

P=225 :REM Status. Port address.

OPEN 1 "3-.BLIBTST" ERROR 1790

REM

PRINT:PRINT: GOSUB 1710: PRINTC*="": PRINT "Read/ Write.' Read File--'INPUT C*IF C.*="R" GOTO 1190

Write File/ Test file/ Quit

IF C*=IF C*=IF C*=IF C*=

■LI"

'RF1

W

GOTO 1248GOTO 1380GOTO 1390

•T" GOTO 1480

THEN CLOSE 1

READ H RECORD

WRITE fl RECORD

IF C*="Q"GOTO 1090

REM

INPUT "RECORD * "JRGET 1 RECORD R fl*PRINT Fl*GOTO 1090

REM

INPUT "RECORD # ";R

INPUT "ENTER DRTfi TO URITE

D*=LEFT*<D*,248:>

PUT 1 RECORD R D*

GOTO 1090

REM READ fl

INPUT "BEGINNING RECORD #INPUT "ENDING RECORD *FOR R=R TO R9GET 1 RECORD R fl*PRINT fl*

PRINT " ";R

NEXT RGOTO 1090

REM WRITE fl

INPUT "BEGINNING RECORD # "INPUT "ENDING RECORD #INPUT "ENTER TEST DflTFT.D*

d*=q*+left*':d*, 24s:>+a*

FOR R=R TO R9PUT 1 RECORD R D*NEXT RGOTO 10y8

REM TEST

INPUT "BEGINNING RECORDINPUT "ENDING RECORD #

STOP

END

,D*

BLOCK OF RECORDS

";R

"JR9

block of records;r

JR9

BLOCK OF RECORDS

";R

";R9

Listing 3 continued on page 408

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Listing 3 continued:

1510 D*="RBCC)EFGHIJKLr'1H0PQR£TUUUXVZl2345678'5iQab<:'defslhiJt<.lmriOFqrstukJu:>;yz"

152Q D*=D*+D*+D*+Df

1530 R*=Qf+D$+Q*

1540 for r=r to r91550 put 1 record rs=ih<p> find 25

get 1 record rs=in<p:> and 25

15601570158015981660

THEM GOSUB 164S

564 THEN GOSUB 1640

fl$

IFB$IFIF BfOD* THEN GOSUB 164©

if r.-10 = intcr/ib) then print "record *" jrj" completed.1610 ne;-:t r1620 print: print "number of errors = ";e

16.30 GOTO 1090

1640 REM

1650 PRINT "ERROR ENCOUNTERED IN RECORD *t " JR

1660 E=E+1

1670 GOSUB 1730: GOSUB 1710

1630 PRINT B*

1690 PRINT

1700 RETURN

1710 REM

DISPLFrV

IN HEX

1720 S=IN'.PJ AND 253

1730 S1 = I NT ■: S/16 > +48

1740 IF Sl>57 THEN Sl=Sl+7

1750 S2=';S AND 15!)+48

1760 IF S2,57 THEN S2=S2+7

1770 PRINT "STATUS = " ;CHAR$'';S1 J jCHftR*<S2)

1780 RETURN

1790 REM ERROR PROCESSOR —

18O0 PRINT!PRINT ERR*;" "}1810 GOSUB 17101820 GOTO 1S901830 END

Listing 4: The CP/M bubble-memory-driver linkage. This program illustrates how the CP/MBIOS can be altered to use the bubble-memory-driver package. Modification specifics are depen-dent on the CP/M implementation in question.

BDC* Bl B2 B3 E LINE LABEL

OPCD OPERAND

0000

mm

00888088

0008

00880880

0000

08888008

00000008

0008

000800080008

800000080000000000088008

7580

0008

000008080800

8888

000800080008

8088

0008000800600000

7518

7518 C3 2B 80

751B

7516

7524

7524 C3 34 38

7527 C3 5F 88

752H C3 71 80

752D

752D

7538

7538 C3 3D 80

7533

75337533

r32,"7381735273FD77E9

18001010102010301848105818681070108010901100111811201130114011501160117011801190120812181220123812481258126812781238129013801310132013301340135013601370138013901400141014201430144014561460147014801490150015101520153015401550

CP/M BIOS - BUBBLE DP.IUER LINKAGE *

Copyright to 1933 Louis E. Wheeler *

The Modifications presented here are intended as an example only.They demonstrate how a typical CP/M BIOS can be modified to usethe BUBBLE MEMORV DRIUEP. PACKAGE (separate listing).

To incorporate these changes, the BIOS Jump table must belocated., along with free space to store the added code. Then.,the modified BIOS should be installed in tFie system followingthe instructions given in the appropriate CP/M manual.

This listing is divided into tuo sections: '.1> Patches.

<2) Added Code. All patch addresses shown are for a 32K CP/M

configured by Centa for a Micropolis disk system.

* PATCHES *

*

* This section revises the existing BIOS jump table to go to

* the added code routines listed below. The actual location of

* the Jump table and address of the patches is dependent on

* the existing BIOS. Each system is different. The ORG s

* shown in this assembly are for a CP/M configured by Centa Systems

* for Micropolis disk systems.

BIOS

+*

EQU

ORG

JMP

ORG

JMPJMPJMP

ORG

JMP

7500H

BIOS+24

BHOME

BIOS+36

BSETDMR

BREAD

BWRITE

BIOS+48

BSECTRHN

J CP/M BIOS Base Address

i Location of Jump Table + 24

J Patch for HOME

; Jump table + 36

; Patch for SETDMA

; Patch for READ

j Patch for write

i Jump table + 48

; Patch for SECTRRH

408 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

* The following equates taken from existing BIOS jump table.

HOME EQU BI.OS+327H ; *** Depends on existing BIOS ***

SETDMA EQU BIOS+301H ; +** Depends on existing BIOS ***

REfiD EQU BI0S+352H ; *** Depends on existing BIOS ***

WRITE EQU BIOS+3FDH ; •** Depends on existing BIOS ***

SECTRRH EQU BIOS+2E9H J *** Depends on existing BIOS ***

Listing 4 continued on page 410

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The Naval UnderwaterSystems Center is the Navy'sprincipal research, develop-ment, test and evaluation centerfor submarine warfare and sub-marine weapon systems. Weprovide high technology vital tothe Navy's tactical and strategicedge in combat systems (sonar,combat control, electromagnet-ics, underwater weapons andtargets, weapon launch andhandling), surface ship sonarand undersea ranges.

Working at major laborato-ries in Newport, Rhode Islandand New London, Connecticut,our engineers and scientistsdesign, develop and evaluateprototypes of these systems andinterface with private industryfor production of the final product.

To maintain our lead insubmarine warfare and weaponsystems, we must continue todevelop new technological sys-tems for the future, and at ourcenter, the future depends onour work today.

We are looking for elec-tronic engineers and computerscientists to join our highlytalented team of professionals.Assignments will be as diverse astaking you on board submarines,to field detachments and otherNavy activities. And your workmay vary from desk to deck,software design to hardware test.

We seek graduating and ex-perienced electronic and comput-er engineers, with degrees fromaccredited colleges and univer-sities. We also need computer

scientists with degrees fromcolleges and universities affili-ated with a school of engineeringand specializing in scientificor technical applications.

We offer you challenge,freedom to be innovative andcreative, and the opportunity tocontribute your skills to our na-tional defense.

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We believe we have boththe challenge and the opportu-nity for you. For further infor-mation, contact NavalUnderwater Systems Center,Personnel Staffing Division, BNewport, Rhode Island 02840or call (401) 841-3585.

An Equal Opportunity EmployerU.S. Citizenship Required

Circle 263 on inquiry card.

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Listing 4 continued:

7533 1560

7533 77l4

06030020

7B49

7A4R7A4D

00020001

002000000000

7533

7533

7714

7714 C3 00 80

7717

7717

7717

7717

7717

7538

7538 02

7539 03753H753fl753H753A753H753A753fl75D875D8 3C75D975D9750975D975D975D975D975D975D9750975D975D975D975D975D9750975D9750975W750975D975D975D97509750975D9750975D975D9750975D975097509750975D975097509750975E275E275E2

75E2 00 0075E4 0075E5 0875E6 00 0075E8 0075E9 00 0075EB 0075EC75EC75EC75EC75EC75EC75EC75EC75EC75EC75EL75EC75EC75EC75EC75EC75EC75EC8000

F018F01BF01E

75E2

0800

00000000

80038006

21 02 00

22 E2 755E 01

3008 32 E4 75308B 3E 208000 32 E5 758010 21 00 00

15701588159816001610162016301640165016601670168016901780171017281730174017501760177017301790180018101820133018401350I860187013801390190019101920193019401956I960197019801990

2000

2010202020302040205020602070208020902100211021202138214021502168217821382198228022102228223022482250226822782280229823882318232823302340235023602370238023902400241024202430244024502460247824802498258025102520

+GOCPM

EQU

BI0S+214H

ORG GOCPMJMP BGOCPM

*** Depends on existing BIOS ***

J GO INIT BUBBLE MEMORY

The following changes the number of eastern disks from 2 to 4.Exactly how this patch is made is dependent on the specific system.

ORG

DBDB

BI0S+3SH

02H83H

*** Oepends on existing BIOS ***

i Increase DISK'S to 3.J Increase DISK'S to 4.

The following changes the disk size parameter in DPBLK2.Note: This change may only be applicable to Micropolis disk systems.The Centa Systems version of the BIOS has tuo DPBLK's. one each forthe tuo models of Micropolis disk drives <Mod I and Mod ID.

ORG BIOS+0D8HDB 3CH

*** Depends on existing BIOS ***

Chanae <DMS) disk size <DPBLK2)to reflect bubble memory capacity.

HOOED CODE *

HDISKS

SECTRK

SECSZE

*

DISKNO

TRACK

DMflflD

SBLKLEHSCANALSSEHABLESBEGflDRSMEHSEL*

EQU 3

EQU 32

EQU 128

EQU BI0S+549H

EQU BI0S+54AH

EQU BI0S+54DH

EQU 8002H

EQU 81H

EQU 20H

EQU 0000H

EQU 00H

NUMBER OF DISKS (0.1..2 & BUBBLE)CP/M 128-BYTE SECTORS/TRACKCP/M SECTOR SIZE

*** Depends on existing BIOS ****** Depends on existing BIOS ****** Depends on existing BIOS ***

BLOCK LEHGHT = 2 PAGEb = 128 BYTESNUMBER OF FSA CHHNLS = 2ENRBLE BYTE = RCD & HI-SPDBEGIN flDDR = PAGE 0BUBBLE NUM SELECT = FIRST

* The following equates link these modifications to the BUBBLE

* MEMORY DRIVER routines. The addresses shown equate to a Jump

* table in an EEPROM pointing to the drivers, also located in

* EEPROM. The actual location will depend on the system,it

BMIN1T ECU 0F018H S BUBBLE MEMORY INITMLIZEBMREAD EQU 8F01BH ; BUBBLE MEMORY REHDBMWRIT EQU 0FU1EH 1 BUBBLE MEMORY URITE

The following PARAMETER BLOCK can be ORG'd to any convenientarea in read/write memory. If the BIOS are not in PROM, thePARAMETER BLOCK can be located within the BIOS.

ORG BI0S+8E2H ; *** Depends on existing BIOS +*+

EQU * i BUBBLE MEMORY PARAMETER BLOCK

DU 0000H ; BLOCK LENGTH <PAGES)

DB 88H i NUMBER OF FSA CHANNELS

DB 80H i ENHBLE/CNTRL BYTE

DU 0880H 1 BEGINNING PAGE NUMBER

DB 00H 1 BUBBLE BANK

DU 0000H 1 USER BUFFER ADDRESS

DB 88H J RETURN STHTUS

PARAMBLK

BLKLEN:CANALS".ENABLE'.BEuADR:MBMSEL:BUFADR:STATUS:

* The following equates determine where the below patches are

* to be stored in the BIOS area of CP/M. The actual locations

* are dependent on the specific BIOS.

AREA1AREA2AREH3AREH4AREH5AREH6

EQU

BIOS+0B00H

EQU

0

EQU

0

EQU

0

EQU

6

EQU

0

Uhere to put GOCPM patch.Uhere to put HOME patch.Uhere to put SETDMA patch.Uhere to put SEcTRAN patch.Uhere to put REHD patch.Uhere to put URITE patch.

* GOCPM - System hardware initialization.

BGOCPM:

ORG

HREH1

j *+* Depends on existing BIOS *+*

LXI

H,SBLKLEH

J SET BLOCK LENGTH

SHLD

BLKLEN

MUI

A,SCflNALS

; SET NUMBER FSA CHANNELS

STH

CANALS

MUI

A..SEHABLE

; SET ENHBLE BYTE

STH

ENABLE

LXI

H,SBEGADR

i SET BEuINNING PAGE NO.

Listing 4 continued on page 412

410 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

THIS IS

BO€ING

TOO!

Boeing Military Airplane Company offers astimulating career in the pleasantenvironment of four-season recreation, goodschools, fine cultural activities and moderateMidwest living costs. You can become a vitalpart in developing the most advancedavionics systems for military airplanes if youqualify in one of the following disciplines:

PRODUCT SYSTEMS ENGINEER - Systemsanalysis and development of systemrequirements; hardware and softwarefunctional requirements and system integrationtasks; interface requirements life cycle costanalysis.

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Conduct linear analysis using root locus,frequency response, and power spectraldensity methods. Develop hardware andsoftware requirements for sensors, actuators,digital filtering, and computations formicroprocessor based digital autopilots.Develop real time and non-real time, flightsimulations using structured fortranprogramming.

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"Where you design the future."

An Equal Opportunity Employer M/F

Circle 38 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 411

Text continued from page 406:simply loads the boot-loop registersand readies the BMC for operation.When everything checks out, allthat remains is to save the modifiedRes module.

CP/M Linkage

The modifications required forCP/M are more extensive and compli-cated than those for MDOS, and theinstallation isn't as simple. However,the CP/M modification provides com-plete disk emulation (see listing 4).Programs, including transient com-mands, as well as data can be storedin bubble memory. It is a realpleasure to enter Stat and get an im-mediate response without the usual"clank, whirrr" of the floppy disk.The assembler and other programsthat require disk access also runmuch faster and quieter. However,since no changes to the "warm-boot"sequence have been made, a Control-C still boots the CCP (console com-mand processor) and BDOS fromfloppy disk. There is, of course, noreason why a warm boot or, for thatmatter, a cold start cannot be madedirectly from bubble memory if thenecessary revisions are made to theboot loader. I have not done so yet,but it appears to be a simple task forthe experienced assembly-languageprogrammer.

Explaining the modification toCP/M would be much easier if theCCP or BDOS portions of the operat-ing system were being altered. Thesetwo CP/M modules are standard forall CP/M systems. But the BIOS orCBIOS (customized BIOS) module ishardware dependent, and we mustmodify this module to enable CP/Mto communicate with the bubble-memory-driver package.

Altering the CP/M operating sys-tem for bubble memory is quitesimilar to the modification describedin "Building a Hard-Disk Interface foran S-100 System, Part 3: Software" inthe May 1983 BYTE (page 368). Theapproach I have taken is slightly dif-ferent. Instead of creating a newBIOS, listing 4 shows how an existingBIOS can be patched to accomplishthe same end. I chose to patch ratherthan revise because I didn't have acomplete source listing for the disk

412 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Listing 4 continued:

8013 22 E6 75

8016 RF

8017 32 E8 75801A 21 E2 75801D CD 13 F08026 Dfl 20 308023

8023 3E C3

8025 32 00 06

8023 C3 17 77

802B

802B

803

802B

802B

B02B

8.02B

B02B

802B 3fl 49 7R

802E FE 03

803U C8

8031803480348034803480348034803480348034803480348034803480348034803480348034803480348034803480348834803480348035803c.803S803C803C803C803C863C803D80308030803D803D803D803D804880428845804580468049804C894D804E80508851805288538056805780588059805H805D305E805F805F805F805F305F805F305F80623064806780678068886B306E

C3 27 78

6960

22 4D22 Ey

C9

3fl 49 7ftFE 03C2 E9 77

C5

11 00 00

2A 4ft 7H

62

EB

3E 20

87

19

3D

C2

79

87

4F

09

22

El

C9

il 80

E6 75

3fl 49 7rtFE 03C2 52 78

F3

21 E2 75

CD IB F0

C3 30 80

HOME

BSETDHA:

2530

2540

2550

2560

2570

25B0 ERROR:

2590 *

2600

2610

2620

263« +

2640

2650

2660

2670

2680

2690

2700 *

2710 BHOME

2720

2730

2740

2750 *

2760 +

2770 *

2780

2790

2300

2310

2820

2830

2840

2350

2860

2870

2380

2890

2900

2910

2920

2930

2940

2950

2960

2976

2930

2990

3000

3010

3020

3036

3040

3056

3066

3670

3030

3696

3166

3116

3120

3130

3146

3156

3160

3176

3180

3190

3200

3216

3226

3230

3240

3256

3266

3276

3286

3296

3360

3316

3320

3336

3340

3350

3360

3376

3386

3390

3400

3410

3428

3430

3440

3450

3460

3470

3430

3490

SHLD

XRA

STA

LXI

CALL

JC

MUISTHJMP

BEGADR

ft

MBMSEL

H.PARfiMBLK

BMINIT

ERROR

H.0C3H

0000

GOCPM+3

J SET BM BANK SELECT

; FUM PRRAM6LK TO HL

1 GO INITIALIZE BM

i HANG OR DO SOMETHING IF ERR

; +** Restore existing BIOS code ***

; *** replaced by JMP instruction

; RETURN TU EXISTING BIOS+3

-> Continue with existing BIOS code.

Howe to track 60 position of current drive

ORG f i AREH2 ***

LDA DISKNO J GET DISK NUMBER

CPI NDISKS J CHECK FOR BUBBLE MEMURV

R2 ; RETURN IF BUBBLE <N0 ACTION)

-IMP HOME*

* -> Continue with existing BIOS code.

*

* t + :^-+* + +-* + + + + + ^+ + + + ++^ + :k* + :t.^:t<i.^i<** + ;+; + + + + + + + + i' + + + + + ** + + * + '+illf^:t(;+:^-+

* SELDSK - Select disk given by register C

* -> No modification required.

* SETTRK - Set track given by register C*

* -> No modification required unless your BIOS actually

* -> positions the disk head to the selected track. If this

* -> is the case, perform the test shown for HOME.*

* SETSEC - Set sector given by register C■+

* -> No modification required.*

* SETDMA - Set DMA address given by registers B and C

ORG

$

MOU L,C

MOU H..B

SHLD DMAAD

SHLD BUFHDR

i AREH3 ***

I LOW ORDER RDDREbS

; HIGH ORDER ADDREbS

: SAUE THE ADDRESS

; FUR BUBBLE TOO.

-.> Include any additional code your system may require,-> probably none.

RET

i No add'l code re*v d for- Micropolis.

4 *-+ ++++*****+**+**+*+++**+++:+H<*****+*+**+**+***********+**+****:*

* SEtTRAN - Translate the sector number given by B arid C

BSECTRAH:

ORG J j AREH4 *+*

LDA DISKNO ; GET DISK NUMBER

CPI NDISKS ; CHECK FUR BUBBLE MEMuRV

JNZ SECTRHN J IF NOT, GO DO DISK.

PUSH B ; SAUE SECTUR

LXI D..&106H ; CLEHR DE

LHLD TRACK ; TRACK « TO HL

MOU H,D J CLEAR H, L=TRACK

XCHG

MUI H..SECTRK ; GET SECTORS PER TRACK

ADD A ; MULT I PL V BY 2

DAD D ; BEG TRK ADR =

DCR A j TRK * SECTRK * 2

JNZ BMP',' ; LOOP Tu MULTIPLY.

MOU A,C ; GET SECTOR NUMBER

ADD A j MPV BY 2

MOU Cfl ; PUT IT BACK

DAD B J HDD IT Tu BEG TRK ADR

SHLD BEGADR i SAUE IN BEGADR.

POP H ; PUT SECTUR IN HL

RET ; BUBBLE EXIT.

* REHD - REHD SELECTED CP/M SECTUR

BMPV:

BREHD:

ORG

$

; HREH5 ***

LDA

DISKNU

; GET DISK NUMBER

CPI

NDISKS

J CHECK FUR BUBBLE

JNZ

REHD

i NO, GO REHD DISK

DI

I KILL INTERRUPTS.

LXI

H..PARAHBLK

; FUH PARANBLK TU HL

CALL

BMREHD

; GO REHD BUBBLE DATA

JMP

BRIJEX

; GO TAKE COMMON EXIT.

Listing 4 continued on page 414

Who's sold more printersto American business?

Epson.

Actually, we've not only sold more printers to American busi-ness, we've sold more printers to America.

Which brings up some very important reasons why Epsonis the printer for your business.Standard equipment.

Virtually every microcomputer made is Epson-compatible.Which means manufacturers make their computers to workwith our printers, because Epson printers are not only theworld leaders, they're the world standard.The reason why.

We sell more printers, because we make better printers. Ourfeatures are consistently one step ahead of the competition.Our quality and value have never been equalled. And ourreliability rates are second to none.Another reason.Epson printers are stocked by more computer stores in more

places than any other brand. Which means if you ever have aproblem —and you probably won't —we'll be there.Your next printer.

It can be very confusing buying a printer nowadays. But itneedn't be. If you want the features, the reliability, the qual-ity, the value, just remember one thing.Epson.

Number one.And built like it.

EPSON

EPSON AMERICA, INC.3415 Kashiwa StreetTorrance, California 90505

The Epson FX-100™ can print spreadsheets in correspondence-quality type at 160 characters per second. To see it and the entire line ofEpson high-performance printers, call (800) 421-5426 for the dealer in your area. In California, call (213) 539-9140.

Epson is a registered trademark and FX-100 is a trademark of Epson America. Inc.

Circle 135 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 413

Listing 4 continued:

8871

3500

*

8071

3518

*

8071

3520

*

***************************************************************

8071

3530

*

WRITE -

- WRITE SELECTED CP/M SECTOR

8071

3540

*

3071

3558

ORG

$

J

HREH6 ***

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portion of my BIOS, which was writ-ten by Centa Systems for Micropolis.

If you are fortunate enough to havea complete listing of your BIOS, oryou are using a Micropolis disk sys-tem and CP/M with BIOS written byCenta Systems, the modificationshould not be too difficult. If not, youwill probably have to unleash yourdisassembler to uncover a few hid-den locations. You need to know thelocation of the current selected disknumber, the selected track, and theDMA (direct memory access) address(user buffer address). You must alsofind out where and how your BIOSdetermines whether a selected disknumber is legal or not and fix it sothat the number that you select forthe bubble memory is acceptable.

Another thing you will need is anunused area large enough to hold theadded code. About 130 locations willbe required, but they need not becontiguous. The source code shownin listing 4 is designed to be seg-mented and scattered around mem-ory wherever space is available. Theversion of CP/M that I am using isquite tight on space. Therefore, as atemporary measure for testing, I as-sembled the added code to start athexadecimal location 8000, which isabove my 32K-byte CP/M. This letsme use the DDT (dynamic debuggingtool) to load the added code andmake the rest of the patches by hand.In the future, I plan to revise the"stream I/O handler" so that the pe-ripheral drivers I have stored inEEPROM are used instead of the I/Oroutines located within the BIOS

module. This will free up sufficientstorage for the bubble-memory-driverlinkage. The listing is intended pri-marily as an example. Exactly howyou incorporate the added code andchanges depends on the specifics ofyour system BIOS.

Installing a new operating systemis covered in the CP/M manual andalso in the May 1983 BYTE article (seefigure 6 on page 378). The method Iused differs only in that I used DDTto make the patches to the BIOSjump table and the jump instructionpatched at the beginning of GOCPM.

After completing the installation, aBASIC program like the one shownin listing 3 can be used for testing.Some modifications to the disk in-structions (OPEN, CLOSE, GET,PUT) and the INP instruction prob-ably will be required; otherwise, theprogram should function as written.

Since the CP/M alteration is a truedisk emulation complete with direc-tory, initialization of the bubblememory is required before it can beused. My CP/M system came with aprogram called VOLPREP.COM; how-ever, it did not work with the bubblememory. Fortunately, an assem-bly-language fUe (VOLPREP.ASM)was provided, and I quickly dis-covered that the program directly ac-cessed the disk drivers rather thanthe BIOS jump table. Consequently,it was not getting to the bubble-memory drivers. A simple change inthe address table in the beginning ofthe VOLPREP program plus a fewother minor changes were all thatwas required to make it work.

I am very pleased with the perfor-mance of the bubble-memory proj-ect; with it, I no longer fear the flick-ering lights. I used it to write this ar-ticle, which was much too long to fitin my system's RAM. Yet with thebubble-memory addition, my texteditor performed as though it hadadequate space.

With even larger-capacity bubble-memory chips on the way (Intel re-cently announced a 4-megabit ver-sion), I would not be surprised to seebubble memories beginning to re-place hard disks in small or portablecomputer systems. Using the newerchips, it should be relatively easy toput 4 megabytes of reliable bubblestorage inside the cabinet of an S-100computer. I believe that bubble mem-ories will replace floppy disks insome . systems, particularly in theportables. ■

References

1. A Primer on Magnetic Bubble Memory.Santa Clara, CA: Intel Corporation, 1982.

2. BPK 72 Bubble Memory Prototype KitUser's Manual. Santa Clara, CA: Intel Cor-poration, 1981.

3. Cruce, Andrew C, and Scott A. Alexander."Building a Hard-Disk Interface for an S-100System, Part 3: Software." BYTE, May 1983,page 368.

4. CP/M Operating System Manual. PacificGrove, CA: Digital Research, July 1982.

5. Halsema, A. I. "Bubble Memories: A ShortTutorial." BYTE, June 1979, page 166.

6. Helmers, Carl. "This Elephant NeverForgets." BYTE, July 1977, page 6.

7. Magnetic Bubble Storage Data Catalog.Santa Clara, CA: Intel Corporation. February1981.

8. Thorp, Art. "New bubble-memory packag-ing cuts board space and manufacturingcosts." Electronics, March 24, 1983, page128.

9. Wells, Paul. Microprocessor Interface for theBPK 72. Santa Clara, CA: Intel Corporation,June 1981.

10. 7110 1-Megabit Bubble Memory (datasheet). Santa Clara, CA: Intel Corporation,1982.

11. 7220-1 Bubble Memory Controller (datasheet). Santa Clara, CA: Intel Corporation,1981.

Louis Wheeler is a retired federal governmentemployee. He spent 14 years as a programmer,teacher, and manager of minicomputer systems. Hisspecial interest is data processing, in which he hasan associate degree. He can be contacted at 1323Tamera Dr., Oceano, CA 93445.

414 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Calculating Overhead Costs

by Computer

A simple, foolproof arithmetic procedure determines the distribution

of indirect costs quickly and accurately

by G. Truman Hunter

This article demonstrates how anaccounting application that can beused by all types of businesses easesthe distribution of indirect, or over-head, costs. Specifically, it showshow to calculate those costs using anarithmetic procedure that providesinformation that is more accuratethan that obtainable using approxi-mation procedures. In addition, themethod described here does not re-quire the long, tedious work the ap-proximation approach demands. Theaccounting procedure can be used ona large computer as well as a smallone, and it can also provide resultson a hand-held calculator.

An Accounting Problem

The procedure solves a commonaccounting problem by permitting acomputer user to calculate costs thatare transferred among departmentsof a company. Determining suchcosts is known as indirect cost ac-counting, overhead cost distribution,burden distribution, or burden costaccounting. Cost accountants havebeen calculating these transfer costsfor decades, relying on estimates andapproximation procedures to mini-mize the cost of the calculations intime, money, and effort.

In fact, it's well known that solvingthe problem of calculating the cost ofreciprocal transfers among depart-ments requires the solution of a setof simultaneous equations. Beforecomputers were widely available,these results took many hours to cal-culate by hand. And because thestarting point for the procedure wasoften a set of estimates of dubious ac-

curacy, many people believed thatprecise solutions were unobtainableand therefore unimportant. Conse-quently, emphasis was on speedy ap-proximations rather than exactanswers.

Cost-accounting textbooks took thesame approach, telling their readersthat if more than four or five depart-ments were involved, solving simul-taneous equations would not be prac-tical. Instead, they proposed usingsuch methods as the Christmas Treeor the Waterfall approach. Theirnames come from the geometry ofthe solution, where a decreasingnumber of departments provides atriangular picture of data as costsflow from one level to the next. Thefirst department examined has itscosts distributed to all other depart-ments, and no costs are returned toit. That department is then no longerinvolved in the calculations. The nextdepartment then has its costs distri-buted, with none returned to it, andthe procedure thus continues. Dataon the less important departments iscollected first, and the final productdepartments are done last; the prod-uct departments cannot distributecharges among themselves.

This process did not tell the userwhere the indirect costs, or burdens,originated. Since the source was notknown, there was no way to attackthe problem of reducing specific dis-tribution costs. Moreover, no trailshowed the actual transfer of dollarsfrom each department to every otherdepartment under this old scheme.

With the simultaneous-equationsolution, on the other hand, an ex-

act number of dollars for every dis-tribution factor is known. Thismethod easily leads to reductions inoverhead costs.

History of a Faster Solution

I was first introduced to the prob-lem of indirect cost accounting in1951, when a steel company askedIBM to tackle such a problem. It wastaking the firm about 300 man-hoursto calculate those costs by hand.

After I studied the problem andread an accounting handbook, Ifound a practical solution: the Gauss-Seidel iterative procedure. This pro-cedure provides easy error detectionand is simple, foolproof, and fairlyfast. The nature of its equations andvalues guarantees a solution.

The steel-company case required aset of 51 equations for 51 departmentsand a possible 51 x 50 transfers.Only about 600 of 2550 possibletransfers actually occurred, however.This ratio—about 1:4—of the numberof actual to theoretical transfer rela-tions has held for several similar busi-ness applications.

Once the procedure was workedout, the calculations took only 35minutes on an IBM card-pro-grammed calculator. The calculationprocedure is iterative: each inter-mediate set of answers gets closerto the final set. When no furtherchanges take place, the solution hasbeen reached.

This procedure actually convergedat a rate of almost one decimal col-umn for each iteration, so that figuresinvolving values to $999,999 can con-verge to the final answer in about six

416 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE February 1984 417

F(B,A)xT(B) + F(C,A)xT(C) + F(D,A)xT(D) + DC(A) = T(A)

F(A,B)xT(A) + F(C,B)xT(C) + F(D,B)xT(D) + DC(B) = T(B)

F(A,C)xT(A)+F(B,C)xT(B)+ +F(D,C)xT(D) + DC(C) = T(C)

F(A,D)xT(A) + F(B,D)xT(B) + F(C,D)xT(C)+ + DC(D) = T(D)

Figure 1: Equation layout for 4-department indirect cost calculations.

or seven iterations. In other words,the accuracy of the estimates of thefinal answers increases about onedecimal place per iteration.

When I originally tried to convinceseveral accountants to try this pro-cedure, I heard many excuses as towhy they thought it had no value.After one accountant had told me re-peatedly that his starting data wasapproximate and that he thereforedidn't need the precision I could pro-vide, I told him that this procedurecould give him any level of inac-curacy he desired. Needless to say,he didn't appreciate sarcasm anymore than the truth.

In 1953, this procedure was usedon an IBM 701 computer to solve anindirect-cost-accounting problem for156 departments of a large New YorkCity bank. Calculating and printingthe answers took about 10 minutes,considerably less than the 1000 man-hours required for hand-calculationprocedures. When the procedure wasfollowed for a 91-department bank,an IBM 650 calculator did the job in7.5 minutes, replacing a 300 man-hour hand calculation. Similar sav-ings were realized for a pharmaceu-tical company's 45-department dis-tribution. A state hospital then usedthe procedure to reduce a several-month task to a 4-day job onpunched-card machines. A lot of cardhandling was required because theinstitution had no computer.

A Sample Problem

The current availability of micro-computer-spreadsheet programsmakes the solution even easier.Here's a sample procedure for ana-lyzing costs for four departments. Itis not a real case and takes more itera-tions to solve than an actual problemwould, but it uses the procedure thatactual cases follow.

First, this simple four-departmentdistribution demonstrates how to setup the necessary equations and usethe procedure to obtain a solution.Then the sample is worked out usingthe usual spreadsheet notation ofrows and columns.

The total cost of each departmentis made up of the charges transferredto it from all other departments, plusits own direct charges. The total costfor department A is best stated withthis equation:

Cost (B to A) + Cost (C to A)

+ Cost (D to A) + Direct cost (A)

= Total cost (A)

To simplify subsequent calculations,the equation can be expressed as:

F(B,A)xT(B) + F(C,A)xT(C)+ F(D,A)xT(D) + DC(A) = T(A)

where T represents the total cost ofa department named by the letter inthe parentheses following it, F rep-resents the distribution factor be-tween two departments (the first de-partment mentioned is the source ofthe costs and the second is thereceiver), and DC represents thedirect charges of a specific department.The equations in figure 1 are usedto calculate indirect costs for a four-department distribution. Because nodepartment distributes costs to itself,a gap is left in each line. Note thesymmetry to the equations; they areset up to fit nicely into a spreadsheetarrangement of rows and columns,organized by departments. The cal-culations along a row correspond tothe costs absorbed by a particulardepartment, and those down a col-umn correspond to transfer of costsfrom one department to others.

After the equations are set up, thefactors for making distributions be-tween departments are needed. Cal-culation of the distribution factors isdone separately and is not part of thedistribution-calculation procedure.The information for developing thefactors for a company should be avail-able from the firm's accountingdepartment and, indeed, the factorsthemselves may already be available.

One way a department might mea-sure its distribution of the costs forservices, for example, is based on thenumber of persons in each depart-ment. If a department has one per-cent of the company's personnel, forinstance, and it is assumed that allpersonnel share the use of thecafeteria, then one percent ofcafeteria expenses would be dis-tributed to that department. Figuresthen would be calculated in a similarmanner for other departments.Telephone expenses, however, mightbest be distributed based on thenumber of phones rather than peo-ple in each department, althoughlong-distance costs can be chargeddirectly to the department that madethem. The distribution factors canalso be based on relative amounts offloor space or on any items that can(and must) be quantified. Each fac-tor is a number between zero and oneinclusive.

Once all the factors are known,they can be substituted in the equa-tions. For this example, a set of factorsand initial expense values is used.Note that the gaps have been filledwith a zero factor, which can easesome computer procedures.

.00xT(A) + .10xT(B) + .15xT(C)+ .15xT(D) + 8000 = T(A)

.15xT(A) + .00xT(B) + .20xT(C)+ .10xT(D) + 7000 = T(B)

.00xT(A) + .10xT(B) + .00xT(C)+ .30xT(D) + 9000 = T(C)

.15xT(A) + .15xT(B) + .10xT(C)+ D0xT(D) + 12000 = T(D)

Now the only unknown quantitiesin these equations are the depart-

418 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE February 1984 419

ment's total expenses. The paradox,however, is that you can't calculatethe total expenses unless you alreadyknow them. Here the powerful itera-tive procedure is useful.

For the first equation, assume thatthe total expenses are the direct ex-penses. Then the first equationbecomes:

0 + .10x7000 + .15x9000 +.15x12000 + 8000 = T(A)

0 + 700 + 1350 + 1800 + 8000 =T(A) = 11850

The estimate for total expenses ofdepartment A gets more accurate, go-ing from a value of 8000 to 11,850.

Using that new value in the secondequation and other values assumedto represent total expenses providesa new figure for T(B) of 11,775, whichis considerably better than the firstestimate of 7000. Similar substitutionsand calculations that cycle throughthe four departments lead to the finalanswers. When no further changesoccur, the final totals are

T(A) = 14,455T(B) = 14,108T(C) = 15,769T(D) = 17,861

Now that the total costs for eachdepartment are known, we can cal-culate the net, or true, final cost bysubtracting the amounts distributedfrom each department to others.They can be found with the samegeneral equations, because theamount going to a department has tocome from some other department.In this example, department A dis-tributes $2168 to department B and$2168 to department D, leaving a netcost of $10,118. The net costs for theother departments are calculatedsimilarly.

When the distributions both to andfrom all departments are calculated,the sum of the costs must equal theinitial costs of the four departments,because we can neither gain nor loseany dollars. Because the original sumwas $36,000, the sum of the net costsmust also be $36,000. (Verifying thatthese sums match is a way to check

420 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

the accuracy of the calculations andthe procedures.)

Spreadsheet Procedures

The setup for this sample datausing a typical electronic spreadsheetprocedure is shown in table 1. Row3 has spaces for the total expenses ofeach department and the sum of alldepartments. Rows 6 through 9 aredesigned to hold the calculations forthe distributed amounts to each de-partment as well as each depart-ment's direct (initial) charges andtotal costs.

Row 11 will hold the net expensesfor each department and the sum forall the departments. Net amounts arecalculated by subtracting the dis-tributed amounts in each columnfrom the total in row 3.

Because no department can distrib-ute more than 100 percent of its totalexpense, net expense can never benegative. The net expense can be afew cents or a dollar under, however,as a result of accumulated rounded-off values in the calculation pro-cedures. Rows 14 through 17 containthe factors for calculating the costs tobe transferred between each pair ofdepartments.

The usual spreadsheet program isset up to detect the type of circularrelationships that exist between thedepartment totals. It prevents the useof an analysis that incorporates suchrelationships by substituting thevalues comprising them with theword "error," thus indicating errors.Therefore, to avoid the problem ofhaving the screen filled with errorsigns, the row of totals—B3 throughE3—has the total for each departmentset to zero. Once this precaution hasbeen taken, you can manipulate thefigures on the terminal screen, butyou must be sure that no circular rela-tionships are stated when you storeyour data, or you will get errorsignals when you reload the sheet.

Before you can begin solving a par-ticular problem, the row of totalsmust be copied from the column oftotals at the right (G6 through G9) torow 3 (B3 through E3). Table 2 showsthe resulting data at this point. Thesum of the net expenses does notequal the total of the initial expenses

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BYTE February 1984 421

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BYTE

P.O. Box 900, NY 10020

BCDINDIRECT COST DISTRIBUTION

E F

-ACCOUNTING PROCEDURE

3

O

O

O

O

0

4

TOTAL EXPENSES ARE

ABDVE THIS LINE

5T0///FRDM

DEPT—A

DEPT-

-B

DEPT-

—C

DEPT-

—D

INITIAL

TOTAL

6DEPT—A

0

O

0

O

BOOO

8000

7DEPT—B

0

O

O

O

7000

7000

8DEPT—C

0

0

0

0

9000

9000

9DEPT—D

0

O

0

O

12000

12000

10

NET EXPENSES

ARE BELOW

THIS

LINE

36000

36000

11

O

0

O

O

O

13

DISTRIBUTION

FACTORS

14

O

. 1

15

15

15

. IS

0

2

. 1

16

O

. 1

0

■ 3

17

1 R

. 15

-

15

. 1

O

19T0 MAKE THIS EXAMPLE WORK, ENTER THE FOLLOWING:

20AT B3, +G6 AT C3, +G7 AT D3, +GB AT E3, +G9

21THEN FORCE RECALCULATIONS UNTIL TOTALS AT F3 AND G10 ARE EQUAL.

Table 1: The data for analysis for a hypothetical four-department company is set up hereas it would be for use with an electronic spreadsheet program. Row 3 provides spaces forthe total expenses of each department, and row 11 will display their net expenses.

INDIRECT COST

C D

DISTRIBUTION-

E F

-ACCOUNTING PROCEDURE

10293 102B7 9820TOTAL EXPENSES ARE ABOVE THIS LINE

1553

—AO

544O

544

NET EXPENSES ARE BELOW THIS LINE

7205

o

5TO///FR0M

6DEPT—A

7DEPT—B

BDEPT—C

9DEPT—D10111

1314151617

19T0 MAKE THIS EXAMPLE WORK20AT B3, +G6 AT C3, +G7

DEPT—B

1029

O

1029

1543

DEPT—C

1473

1964

O

9B2

6687

5401

DISTRIBUTION FACTORSO .1 .15

.15 O .2

O .1 O

.15 .15 .1

DEPT—D233015544661

O

6991

. 15

. 1

.3

O

45935

NITIAL

8000

7000

9000

12000

36000

26283

TOTAL12B3212061146891606955652

ENTER THE FOLLOWING:AT D3, +G8 AT E3, +G921THEN FORCE RECALCULATIONS UNTIL TOTALS AT F3 AND G10 ARE EQUAL.

Table 2: This data appeared during the calculation procedure. Note that the calculationsfor determining F3 are always one cycle behind those used to find G10. When the valuesfor the two spaces are equal and cease changing, the solution has been reached.

14455 1410B 15769 17861TOTAL EXPENSES ARE ABOVE THIS LINE

5TO///FR0M6DEPT—A7DEPT—BBDEPT—C9DEPT—D

lO

11

O216B

O2168

DEPT B

1411

O

1411

2116

DEPT—C

2365

3154

O

1577

DEPT—D267917865358

NET EXPENSES ARE BELOW THIS LINE

10119

9170

62194

INITIAL

BOOO

7000

9000

12000

36000

36000

TOTAL144551410B157691786162194

0. 15

0. 15

DISTRIBUTION FACTORS

.1 .15

0 .2

. 1 0

.15 .1

. 15. 1

O

1314151617

19T0 MAKE THIS EXAMPLE WORK, ENTER THE FOLLOWING:

20AT B3, +G6 AT C3, +G7 AT D3, +G8 AT E3, +G9

21THEN FORCE RECALCULATIONS UNTIL TOTALS AT F3 AND G10 ARE EQUAL.

Table 3: The final results of the four-department analysis. The totals in G6 through G10correspond respectively to those in B3 through F3.

422 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circie 9 on inquiry card.

at this time because of the lag in thecomputation procedure. At the endof the several iterations, however, thetotal net expenses and total initial ex-penses will be the same.

The total of all departments in F3is always one cycle behind the totalin G10. Both totals increase as eachcycle is performed. Eventually whenthe two totals agree and stop increas-ing, the solution is reached. This ex-ample takes 11 iterations to obtain asolution. To carry results to thenearest penny takes 21 iterations; theresults, however, are not worth theextra effort.

The problem is now ready for theiteration procedure, which is signaledvia the Recalculate key of the systemthat will perform the calculations.Each time the key is touched, onecomplete iteration takes place.

Remember that all totals must in-crease with each calculation. Anydecrease indicates an error in values,calculations, or formulas. Table 3presents the final result. It containsall the factors, all the initial expenses,all the dollars related to each factor,and all the dollars transferred in andout of every department. Now thetotal expenses of each departmentcan be analyzed to determine whatcan be done to reduce expenses.

Modifying the Data

After reviewing the results of a setof calculations, you might want tochange one or several factors. It ispossible to make such changes andthen use the Recalculate key to obtainnew results. In this case, someamounts will decrease to the newvalues (contrary to what was saidabove). However, changes must keepgoing in the same direction and notoscillate up and down. And becausethe calculations are easy to make, youcan also go back to the beginningwith a new set of figures and com-plete the whole procedure again.

Using BASIC or APL

A similar program can be writtento do the same calculations, loopback, and repeat them until the totalsdo not change. I have written suchprograms in BASIC and APL.

Listing 1 contains a BASIC program

for the sample problem. It will printall intermediate values to the screenand then give final answers in aformat similar to that of table 3.

To bypass the printing of inter-mediate totals, you can delete thePRINT statements in lines 390 and480. You can also expand withremarks to make it more understand-able. Or you can shorten it by puttingmultiple statements on a line; how-ever, this makes it less understand-able.

To include more departments,more data statements must be addedand the dimension statements (lines10-110) must be enlarged to cover themaximum number of departments.The output printing statements mustalso be changed to accommodatesuch an increase.

If 100 departments were used, forinstance, 10,000 spaces would have tobe allocated for the factors and 10,000for the distributed amounts. At a rateof 2 bytes per space, this analysiswould require at least 40,000 bytes ofstorage. Again, this requirementcould be reduced significantly bylimiting storage to only the actualfactors needed and giving up thesymmetry of the tables. Note, how-ever, that large values could requiredouble-precision calculations and acorresponding increase in storagerequirements.

In APL, the procedure is evensimpler, since the final result to theequations can be found in just onestep. You get the inverse of the factortable using the quad-divide functionand then multiply the inverse by theinitial expense vector. Then you printout the appropriate items of initial,final, net costs, and transferredamounts using appropriate arrayfunctions. Mathematicians andAPLers will love this trivialprocedure.

Hand or Desk CalculatorProcedure

With a hand or desk calculator anda large piece of paper, you simplysimulate the procedure done by acomputer by starting with table 1.Use a soft pencil to write down thedistribution amounts and the depart-ment total (column G), then replace

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February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 423

Circle 314 on inquiry card.

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Listing 1: A BASIC program for determining how indirect costs are distributed among thefour departments of a hypothetical company.

10 REM program for reciprocal cost distribution among -four departments.

20 N=4

30 'DATA 0, . i, . 15. . 15

40 DATA . 15,0, .2,'. 1'

50 DATA 0,.1,0,.3

60 DATA . 15, . 15, . 1,0

70 DATA 8000,7000,9000,12000

BO DIM 1(4)

90 DIM M(4)

100 DIM T(4)

110 DIM P(4,4)

120 REM set up factor table from data

130 FOR R=l TO N

140 FOR C=l TO N

150 READ V

160 LET P(R,C)=V

170 NEXT C

ISO NEXT R

190 REM set up initial expense table from data

200 FDR Z=l TO N

210 READ r<2)

220 NEXT Z

230 REM set up temporary total expense table

240 FOR Z=l TO N

250 LET M'(Z)=I <Z>

260 NEXT Z

270 REM set up total expense table

2B0 FOR Z=l TO N

290 LET Ti2)=I(Z)

300 NEXT Z

310 REM begin calculation iteration

320 FOR R=l TO N

330 LET G=0

340 FOR C=l TO N

350 LET D=M'.Cj *P(R,C)

360 LET G=6»D

370 NEXT C

3B0 LET M(R)-B+ICR)

390 PRINT R,I1(RJ

400 NEXT R

410 REM calculate old and new total expenses

420 LET E=0

430 LET F=0

440 FOR Z=l TO N

450 LET E=Ei-M'.Z)

460 LET F=F+T«Z)

470 NEXT I

4B0 PRINT E,F,E-F

490 REIi save "new" totals as "old" totals for next iteration

500 FOR Z—1 TO N

510 LET TiZi=HiZ)

S20 NEXT I

530 REM test for completion of iteration cycles

540 IF <E-F)J=1 THEM 320

550 FOR 0=1 TO N

560 LET N(C)=T<C>

570 FOR R=l TO N

580 LET N(Ci=N(C)-T(C)*P(R,C)

590 NEXT R

600 NEXT C

610 FOR Z=l TO N

620 PRINT INTU <Z) ) „ INT(T(Z> > , INT(N<Z> >

630 NEXT Z

640 PRINT "FINISHED"

650 REM print results

660 PRINT "TOTAL EXPENSES ARE;"

670 FOR Z=l TO N

6B0 PRINT INT(T(Z)),

690 NEXT Z

700 PRINT " "

710 PRINT

720 PR I NT"DISTRIBUTION AMOUNTS ARE: INITIAL

TOTAL"730 FOR R=l TO N740 FOR C=l TO N750 PRINT IN1 CP<R,C)*T<C>>,760 NEXT C

770 PRINT INTd (R> ) , INT <T<R> >780 NEXT R

790 PRINT "NET EXPENSES ARE:"800 LET Q=0810 FOR C= 1 TO N820 LET Q=fl+N(C>- ■ ■ .830 PRINT INT(N<C)S,840 NEXT 0 '■ .

850 PRINT IhlTiQ)860 END

424 Rbruary 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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them when better figures are cal-culated. The totals are also copied tothe top of each column (in row 3) tomake it easier to find the pair ofnumbers involved in each calculationof distribution amount.

Computer Capacity Required

From a practical standpoint, thesize of the problem that can be solvedusing the procedure outlined heredepends on the maximum number ofcolumns the spreadsheet programcan handle and/or the computer'stotal storage capacity. For example, ifyou use an electronic spreadsheetprogram or a program that stores thefull table of distributed amounts andthe full table of factors, you will needmuch more storage than if you useonly the required nonzero elements.

Because in actual cases about 75percent of the factors equal zero, youcan rearrange and condense the datalayout if you're willing to give up theconvenience of having all the itemsline up neatly in their own rows andcolumns by department. For ex-ample, in the 91-department bank

case, only 620 factors of the possible8281 (91 x 91) existed. Thus only 7.5percent of the possible number oftransfers occurred.

The bank's problem was analyzedusing DOS 2.0 and Lotus's 1-2-3 in a327,680-byte IBM Personal Computer(PC). Initially 211,340 bytes were free.Data on the 91 departments wouldnot fit in this space, however, and Iestimate that the task would havetaken an additional 64K bytes, or atotal of 280K bytes, of problem space.

Compare these requirements tothose for completing the same job inBASIC, coding only the nonzerofactors. That approach required only11,500 bytes of space for data,program, and stored initial, final, andnet expenses. And even with fulltable space stored, the problem mightstill have fit into the available 61Kbytes of free space in an IBM PC. Ittook only eight iterations to arrive atthe solution—a total-expense figureof over $20 million. That figure is ac-curate to the nearest dollar. In otherwords, accuracy improved at a rate ofjust one iteration per column. And

coding for only the nonzero factorsspeeded program execution.

Conclusion

The data for determining indirect-cost distribution throughout a com-pany can be found in the firm's ac-counting records. The arithmeticalprocedure is simple, and the reportforms can be custom formatted to suitvarious user needs. Current account-ing books still ignore the use of smallcomputers for business calculations.The availability of small computersand spreadsheet software eases thisstandard accounting task and pro-vides far more information than hasbeen available under previous ap-proximation methods. ■

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Circle 344 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 427

Programming Quickie

Bullet-Proof Pascal Input

This valid-number program holds data-input errors at bay

by David F. Hinnant and Michael B. Smith

One of the major problems with Pascal as imple-mented on microcomputers and some large mainframesis that data-input errors in running programs can oftenhave catastrophic results. Not only can the program ter-minate abnormally, but on many microcomputers the en-tire operating system is often forced to reinitialize; datacan be lost or corrupted when disk files are not prop-erly closed or buffers are not flushed before programtermination.

When reading in character input there is no problem;a character variable can hold practically any key com-bination available on the terminal keyboard. The data-input error problem surfaces when data of an unexpectedtype is entered. This is most likely to happen when therunning program is expecting a number but finds analphabetic character in its input stream. On most UCSDPascal systems, a message of the form

IO error: bad input format

S# 1, P# 1, I# 10

Type < space > to continue

informs the user of such an error, and the operating sys-tem must then be reinitialized.

Reasonably, then, you would like to input numbersas character strings because the possibility of input er-rors is remote—but you cannot do arithmetic with

strings. Fortunately, Pascal provides a relatively simpleway of circumventing this dilemma by providing: (1) acapability to input data as an alphanumeric characterstring, and (2) the ORD( ) function, which lets the in-put character string be used to construct a valid number.The ORD( ) function returns the integer decimalASCII (American National Standard Code for Informa-tion Interchange) code of the character argument passedto it. Because the ASCII values of the numeric charac-ters are in continuous ascending order (see table 1), eachcharacter of the input string can be easily tested to seeif its ordinal value minus the ordinal value of the firstordered numeric character (0) is a valid counting number(0 through 9). If it is, then the input character is a validdigit. The central algorithm of listing 1 is really quitesimple.

str.len : = Length(buffer);

position : = 1;

number : = 0.0;

WHILE (buffer[position] IN ['0'. .'9'] AND (position

< = str.len)DO BEGIN

number : = number * 10 + ORD(buffer[position])

- ORD('O');position : = position + 1;END;

Character

ORD(character)

ORD(character)—ORD('O')

(decimal)

(decimal ASCII integer

code)

(integer value)

0

48

0

1

49

1

2

50

2

3

51

3

4

52

4

5

53

5

6

54

6

7

55

7

8

56

8

9

57

9

Table 1: The ascending values of the decimal ASCII integer codes correspond

to the

ascending decimal character integers. By subtracting

ORD ('0'), which is decimal 48, from

the decimal ASCII integer of

the input

character,

the

result must fall in the 0-9 range if the input

character is to be considered valid.

428 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE February 1984 429

Listing Is The numbertest program verifies that input characters are valid numbers.

(*$r-*) (* Turn range checking off since we Know what we're doing. *)PROGRAM numbertest(INPUT, OUTPUT);

(*

David F. HinnantMichael B. Smith5--Jan-83*>

TYPE

typechoices * (realnumber, intnumber, nonumber)$

(* We either have a real, an integer, or garbage *)VAR

result : real;

inputkind I typechoicesJ

buff : string;

PROCEDURE numberize(vAR number 5 REAL} VAR numtype : typechoices}

buffer : STRING)}

(*

This procedure accepts an input string, and parses it to produce anumber. The number can be either a real or an integer. The returnedboolean variable 'input' contains the type of the number. If the inputstring contains doesn't contain a decimal point, it is assumed to be aninteger. The variable 'buffer' contains the input string. The variable'number' contains the valid parsed number, if any,

*)

CONST

radix » 10} (* Ue are working with base 10 numbers hopefully *)

dec imal"'.'J

VAR

sign, power, position, len, scale 5 INTEGER;

negpower t BOOLEAN;

expset, opset } SET OF CHAR;

BEGIN

expset *= L'e','E'Ii; (# valid identifiers for scientific notation #)opset := C ' + ','--' 1; (* valid sign operators *)

numtype ♦ = nonumber; (# initially assume input is invalid #)

number 5= 0.0}power t= 0}scale t- 0}

position I- 1} (# Start with the first character *)

sign 5 = 1} (* Initially assume that the number is positive *)

negpower J= false} (# Initially assume power (if any) is positive *)

len J- length(buffer)} (# Get the length of the input string *)

if len > 0 then (* If we have something, then parse it *)BEGIN

IF.buff exposition] IN opset THEN

BEGIN (* First character is a sign operator XO

IF bufferCpositionD - '-' THEN sign 5- -1} (* Number may be negative *)

position J- position +1} (* Go to the next position in the input *)

end;

IF bufferCpositionJ IN [l'O'..'9'D THEN

BEGIN (* First character is a valid digit *)

Listing 1 continued on page 432

430 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE February 1984 431

Listing 1 continued:

nullitype ',--■ intnumber} (* Number could be an integer *)

REPEAT

number ♦= radix * number + Orel (buff erCposition]) - Ord('O')}

(* Translate the character into a number using /Ord()/ *)position J -■■■ position + 1}UNTIL (position > len) OR (NOT(bufferCposition] IN ['0'..'9']))|(* Keep translating until we run out of characters or input is invalid *)

end;

IF position <~ len THEN

BEGIN <* We have something left to work with #)

IF bufferCposition ] -- decimal THEN

BE1GIN (# We have encountered a decimal point *)

numtype 1-- realnumber; (* Number isn't an integer, but may be real *)position ♦- position + 1}

WHILE (position <« len) AND (bufferCposition 1 IN ['0'.,'9':i) DOBEGIN

number ♦ = radix * number + ord(bufferCposition]) - ord('O')}

position '= position + 1}

scale »» scale+1} (* Count digits past the decimal point *)

end;end;

IF bufferCpositionII IN expset THEN

EtEGIN (* We have encountered a scientific notation marker *)

position J■ position + i;

numtype t= realnumber; (* All scientific notation is real #)

IF bufferCposition] -- ' + ' THEN position 5= position + i;IF bufferCpositionJ ■ '-' THEN

BEGIN (* Scientific: notation has a negative power of 10 *)

position X- position + :L;negpower \~ true,END;'

WHILE (position <» len) AND (bufferCposition3 IN ['0',,'9']) DOBEGIN

power \~ radix * power + ord (bufferCposition]) -- ord('O')}position I- position + i;END;end;end;

WHILE scale > 0 DO

BEGIN (# Move the decimal point to the correct position *)

number t~- number / radix?

scale \~ scale ••- 1?

end;

IF negpower THEN

WHILE power > 0 DO

BEGIN (* Divide by radix to compute the correct power *)

number l~ number / radix;power 5 = power -1}ENDELSE WHILE power > 0 DO

BEGIN (* Multiply by radix to compute the correct power *)

number I- number * radix}power t» power -1}END}END}

number t~- number * sign? (* Now give the number the correct sign *)

IF (position <- len) OR (len := 0) THEN numtype t = nonumberjEND} (* numberize *)

BEGIN

WHILE TRUE DOBEGIN

Write('input? > ' ) } Listing 1 continued on page 434

432 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Listing 1 continued:

Read In(buff);

numberize<result, inputkind* buff);CASE inputKind OFrealnumber X Writeln('The number isintnumber ? Uriteln('The number isnonumber : Writeln('* ', buff, ' 'ENDEND',END .

r result, ' and is real.')I't trunc(result),' and is an integer,is not a number.')}

The length of the string is obtained, and the indexpointer to individual characters within the string is setto point to the first character. The WHILE-DO loop doesthe work and operates as follows. First, the character istested to see if it is a counting number. Then the valueof the index is tested to see if it is less than the lengthof the character string. If both tests are passed, the firstdigit is computed by subtracting the ordinal value of '0'from the ordinal value of the first character. The indexis incremented and the tests are performed again; theprocess repeats until either an invalid character is foundor the entire string has been processed.

This parsing algorithm can be extended to accept adecimal point, optional plus and minus signs, and datainput in the form of scientific notation as shown by thenumberize procedure in the numbertest program of list-ing 1. Listing 2 shows sample input and output from theprogram.

We have found only one problem with this program:in any operating system, underflow and overflow con-ditions are possible, and we have not guarded againstthem here. You should either take care not to exceed thelimits of your implementation, or modify this algorithmto protect against overflow and underflow. We have suc-cessfully used variations of this program for several yearsin places where error-free data input is critical.■

Listing 2: Trial input characters and the numbertest programresponses.

input? > 4 . 5

The number is 4.50000 and is real.

input? >4567

The number is 4567 and is an integer.

input? >3.4

Tne number is 3.40000 and is real.

input? >3.4000

The number is 3.40000 and is real.

input? >hi there

" ni there " is not a number.

input? >3.4e-10

The number is 3.40000E-10 and is real.

input? >1.2345L+12

Tne number is 1.23450E12 and is real.

input? >34.34e-03

The number is 3.43400E-2 and is real.

input? >+45

The number is 45 and is an integer.

input? >-3 4e-01

The number is -3.40000 and is real.

input? >

David F Hinnant (2300 Avent Ferry Rd., Apt. G5, Raleigh, NC 27606)holds a B. S. degree in physics and is a Unix systems analyst with ITT Telecom-munications. Michael B. Smith (2504-A East 3rd St., Greenville, NC 27834),a systems programmer at East Carolina University Computing and Informa-tion Systems, is a senior in applied physics at ECU.

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BYTE February 1984 435

Technical Forum

Favorite Benchmarks

Discrete Fourier transforms test your computer's number-crunching

ability

by Jeffrey L. Star

One of my favorite benchmarks is based on the calcula-tions loop from a DFT (discrete Fourier transform)program.

The DFT algorithm is one of many in the arsenal oftime-series analysis techniques. In my work, I sometimesneed the DFT, and I have versions of this algorithm run-ning on everything from S-100 bus machines to a DEC(Digital Equipment Corporation) VAX 11-780.

The code in listing 1 is a good test of the mathematicsfunctions of a computer, particularly transcendentalfunctions. The routine is basically two nested loops, witha final calculation of the square root of the sum ofsquares of trigonometric functions. Depending on thenature of the data you might feed to this calculation, theprocessing time can be decreased dramatically. Ofcourse, for the purposes of a benchmark, this misses thepoint entirely.

Table 1 shows timings for this routine on two ma-chines: an IMS International IMS5000 (a 4-MHz Z80AS-100 machine, running CP/M 2.2) and a Hewlett-Packard HP 9845A desktop computer. The code on theIMS5000 was written in CBASIC, CB-80, and in single-precision Microsoft FORTRAN-80. It's amusing to notethat the $30,000 HP desktop computer (which ismarvelous for a variety of tasks, but not suited for plainnumber-crunching because of its BASIC-in-ROM inter-preter) is faster than the $5000 IMS5000's pseudointer-pretive CBASIC (version 2) but slower when comparedwith compiler Microsoft FORTRAN-80. (A word of cau-tion: both CBASIC and CB-80 use double-precision real-arithmetic, which explains their slow speeds.)

As table 1 illustrates, the time the routine takes in-creases roughly at the same rate as the square of thenumber of points. For some of the tasks I have to doaround the lab, I need to calculate a 400-point DFT,which would take more than 12 hours using CBASIC! ■

Number of

Data Points HP 9845A

IMS5000CBASIC FORTRAN-80

CB-80

102040

< 4

1574

24100443

< 3

1144

15

67

285

Table 1: Timing measurements taken when running the bench-mark shown in listing 1. Times are in seconds.

Listing 1: The benchmark algorithm expressed in CBASIC 2. Thealgorithm for this benchmark is actually the calculation loop froma DFT program and is especially useful when you're testing themathematical functions employed by a system.

REM » PROGRAM DFT - CBasic 2

REM ♦ TIMING BENCHMARK FOR DISCRETE FOURIER TRANSFORM

REM * J.L. STAR

REM « APRIL 1981

INPUT "What is the ORDER of the TEST" "?NJ

DIM D(NX >,F(NX >

XI ■ 0. : X2 " 1.,1 ■ 1, S N » FLOAT(NX)3D « (X2-X1>/(N-1,0> : Wl = 0. : W2 r 3.1415926/(0*1)

W3 = W2/(N-1.0) ! B - 0. : T = O.

PRINT ■■*# CREATING DATA VECTOR **"FOR IX ■ 1 TO NX

D(IX) = SIN(IX) + RND/3.

NEXT IX

INPUT "HIT (RETURN) TO BEGIN CALCULATIONS ";LINE DUMMY*

PRINT CHRt(7)FOR IX = 1 TO NX

W = W3*FL0AT(IX-1) : CI = 0. : SI ■ O.

FOR MX = 1 TO NX

G = W»<X1 + FLOAT(MX-1)»D)CI = CI + D(MX)*COS(G)SI = SI + D(MX)*SIN(G)NEXT MX

F(IX) ■ SQR(S1»S1 + C1*C1)*D

NEXT IXPRINT CHR»(7) : PRINT "•*» CALCULATIONS FINISHED **"PRINT " TRANSFORM" : PRINTFOR I* - 1 TO NX

PRINT USING " **« *««n,»«»««««";I*,F<IX)

NEXT IXEND

A)

Dr. Jeffrey L. Star is a development engineer in remote-sensing research atthe University of California (Santa Barbara, CA 93106).

436 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE February 1984 437

Ask BYTE

Conducted by Steve Ciarcia

Apple Robotics

Dear Steve,

I am a 16-year-oldNorwegian computer en-thusiast who wishes to ex-press his gratitude for yourcontinuous inspiration. Liv-ing on the outskirts of com-puterdom, it often takesmonths for the latest news toget here.

I am presently planning arobot language and simula-tion on, and for, the Apple IIPlus as a study project. Myambitious goal is to incor-porate the MotorolaMC68000.1 also hope to havea dual operating system—voice/keyboard—as a part ofthe program.

I would like to have a fewquestions answered. Howcan the 68000 be incor-porated in the Apple, andwhich high-level languagesare available or can be ap-plied? (I hope to write part ofthe program in Pascal.) Withthe chips now available,which is the best speech-recognition and speech-output setup for the Apple?

Thank you for any infor-mation you might have onthese topics and for keepingthe rest of the world in touch.Erik Edward SyringSandvika, Norway

Digital Acoustics has a seriesof products and boards that in-terface the Motorola MC68000to the Apple II. Various utilityprograms are available to inter-face some high-level languages.For further information, writethe company at 1415 EastMcFadden, Ste. F, Santa Ana,CA 92705, (714) 835-4884.

There is no "best" speech-output system for the Apple. Itdepends on the intended applica-tion. If a large vocabulary isdesired and speech quality is ofsecondary importance, a

phoneme-type speech synthesizeris best. If extreme clarity of alimited number of words isdesired, LPC (linear predictivecoding) is the choice. If accentsand music are required, an adap-tive differential pulse codemodulation system is worth con-sidering. . . . Steve

New Zealand TVStandards

Dear Steve,

I have a homebrew com-puter with hexadecimal key-pad entry and LED output.I want to convert it into a sim-ple and inexpensive terminalby connecting it to a TVreceiver. It would be easy toget a TV display using a 6847display generator chip andan RF modulator except thatthe 6847 uses NTSC timing,and I don't want to modifythe timing on my PAL-systemTV set.

I am sure that a solution tothis problem is availablebecause the Radio Shack Col-or Computer, which uses the6847, has a New Zealand ver-sion. I would appreciate yourhelp.

Michael StubbsAuckland, New Zealand

The NTSC timing in the 6847display generator chip can bemodified for use with the PALTV system. An article in theNovember 20, 1980 issue ofEDN magazine shoivs what isrequired. "Display GeneratorChips Implement Smart Ter-minals" by Bissmire, Farrell,and Fletcher (pages 161-173)describes a complete smart ter-minal built around the MotorolaMC6808 microprocessor and a6847 display generator. Modifi-cations for the PAL system arealso presented. . . . Steve

Dvorak Terminals?

Dear Steve,

As you are probably aware,many people are interested inthe Dvorak keyboard layoutbecause it is more efficientthan the Qwerty design.Many people are convertingto typewriters with the newlayout, and some peoplewant it on their computersystems. I have heard thatsome terminal manufacturersoffer it as an option. Do youknow of any such manufac-turers? Thank you for yourassistance.Norman S. FryeGrants Pass, OR

The Spring 1983 PeripheralsDigest issue of Mini-MicroSystems featured a productguide on alphanumeric ter-minals, listing some of their per-tinent specifications. A columnentitled "Special Features" waspatently lacking in any referenceto a Dvorak simplified keyboard(DSK) option. Manufacturersthat boast an "ergonomic" designapparently do not consider DSKas ergonomic. Hoioever, this lay-out is gaining in popularity, andmany typewriter manufacturers,such as Remington, Smith-Corona, Royal, and IBM, offersuch an option. It will not belong before the major terminalmanufacturers join the crozod.

Write to some of the terminalmanufacturers, requesting thisoption. They may offer it uponrequest but do not want to ap-pear "revolutionary" by adver-tising it. . . . Steve

Apple Chips

Dear Steve,

I have an Apple II and anAmdek Video 300 monitor.The top five lines of the dis-

play don't line up with theother lines to form a straightcolumn. By using the hori-zontal hold, I can get them tocome close, the top line be-ing Vh characters off and thefifth line off only a little.

I tried a friend's AmdekVideo 300, and the displaywas the same. I then tried mymonitor on his Apple II Plusand the display was perfect.Also, when I hook up thecolor TV I formerly used, Ihave a hard time getting thecolor to come in satisfactori-ly. The color TV works okayon a normal TV station.

Do you have any sugges-tions on chips I can tryreplacing before I take myApple in to be fixed?Dave PartykaLorain, OH

The video problem with yourApple II is caused by a problemin the horizontal-synchronizingcircuitn/. The Apple uses a14.318-MHz crystal oscillator asits master clock and divides theoutput down to generate, amongothers, the color subcarrier (3.58MHz) and the horizontal linerate (15.734 kHz). This is ac-complished by four 74LS161counters labeled Dll throughD14 on the motherboard. Referto page 89 of the Apple II Ref-erence Manual for chip loca-tions using this index. In addi-tion, the output signals from thecounters are processed throughchips B14, B13, A12 (74LS02),and many others.

First, check the 74LS161counters by substitution andnote any difference. Swappingwith other chips of the same typeon the board is a convenientway. Note any changes, and thedefective chip perhaps can beisolated. Without the use of anoscilloscope, additional sugges-tions are not practical. If thesetests are not fruitful, the bestrecourse is an authorized Apple

438 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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MARYLAND

Bethesda

JR Systems(301) 657-3598

MASSACHUSETTS

Boston

New EnglandElectronic Exchange(617)491-3000Chestnut HillKey Micro Systems(617) 738-7306

MISSISSIPPI

Pascagoula

Automated Accountants(601) 769-2937

NEW YORK

Amherst

Gifford Computer

Systems

(716) 833-4758

Deer Park

Datapro Systems, Inc.

(516)595-1311

New York

Park Plaza ComputerCenter, Inc.(212) 759-5820Park Plaza ComputerCenter, Inc.(212) 505-8200Park Plaza ComputerCenter, Inc.(212) 344-5151Park Plaza ComputerCenter, Inc.(212)595-5353Staten IslandJohn D. Owens Assoc.(212)448-6283

NORTH CAROLINA

Greensboro

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OREGON

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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

Informa. Inc.

(512)459-4216

Dallas

Dator Systems

(214) 521-0915

Ft. Worth

Dataworth Computer

Systems

(817)877-4041

CompuPro.

A G0DS0U7COMPANY

3506 Breakwater Court, Hayward, CA 94545

Houston

Gifford Computer

Systems

(713) 680-1944

Informa, Inc.

(713)861-7612

Seguin

CPA Systems, Inc.

(512)379-0660

VIRGINIA

Woodbridge

Office Networks Corp.(703) 690-3312

WASHINGTON

BellcviewNorth RidgeComputer Systems(206) 453-0596Seattle

American Computers& Engineers(206) 583-0130

WISCONSIN

Greenfield

Byte Shopof Milwaukee(414) 281-7004Madison

Beam International(608) 255-2325

AUSTRALIA

Bankstown

Automation StathamPly., Ltd.(02) 709-4144

CANADA

Coquitlam, B.C.

CSC System Center Ltd.(604) 941-0622Vancouver, B.C.Dynacomp BusinessComputers Ltd.(604) 872-7737

THE PHILIPPINES

Quezon City

Corona International Inc.78-34-71

UNITED KINGDOMSwansea

Comcen Technology Ltd.(0792)796000

©1983 CompuPro

Ask BYTE.

dealer. Sync problems can benasty!. . . Steve

S-100 Advice

Dear Steve,

I want to gradually up-grade my present ExidySorcerer system. The firstthing I need is an S-100enclosure. I've looked at a lotof them, but I'm not surewhich is best. Can you offersome advice? Thanks.Walter JeffriesHanover, NH

S-100 mainframes consist of amotherboard, power supply, andcabinet. The better mainframespay careful attention to each ofthese components. The mother-board should be made from high-quality fiberglass-epoxy materialand have heavy-gauge coppertraces. The trace areas for thepower conductors should be wideenough for the anticipated cur-rent requirements. Shieldedboards are preferred because theyreduce RF radiation and crosstalk. There should be either anactive or passive termination ofthe bus lines to minimize noiseand sufficient sockets for all an-ticipated additions. Extra socketsallow increased spacing of thosecards that generate excessiveheat or interact ivith adjacentboards.

The pcaver supply should havesufficient capacity (usually 20amps or greater) and be wellfiltered to reduce ripple. Itshould be properly fused and in-coryomte a line filter to eliminatetransients and RFI. Premiummainframes include constantvoltage transformers to improveregulation.

The cabinet itself should be ofsturdy construction, include afan to remove heat, and have asufficient number of cutouts onthe rear panel to accommodateserial and parallel connectors.AC convenience outlets are anadded feature.

In general, you get xuhat youpay for. . . . Steve

Secondhand ArcadeGear

Dear Steve,

At the local video arcades,I've noticed that some oldermachines are for sale. Wouldit be worthwhile to purchaseone of these with the intentof improving or modifyingthe existing game? Is thispossible for someone who isnot an electrical engineer?Also, are these machinesgenerally too dedicated togaming for easy modificationto serve a more generalpurpose?David YoungSpringfield, MO

Picking up used electronicequipment at bargain prices andinvestigating the mysteries of themachine can be a rewarding ora frustrating experience, depend-ing on your purpose.

It can be rewarding from thestandpoint that a lot can belearned by studying the designsof these pieces of equipment andwhat makes them work. It canalso be frustrating because sche-matic diagrams are usually notavailable and any software builtinto the system cannot easily bedecoded.

It may not be an impossibletask to perform some simplemodifications to a particularvideo game, but it will certainlybe time-consuming, and youmay wind up being a self-taughtelectrical engineer before youfinish.

With the recent drop in pricesof computers and home videogames, it may cost more tomodify an older video game thanto purchase one new, dependingon the type of game. . . .Steve

Apple + Heath

Dear Steve,

I recently completed aHeath H-89 and want to runApple software on it. Is therea commercially available 6502board that will work in my

H-89? If not, is there an easyway of modifying the com-monly available 6502 boards?Aris EspejoFt. McMurray,Alberta, Canada

/ am not aware of a commer-cial product that will enable Ap-ple II programs to run on yourHeath H-89 computer. Addinga 6502 microprocessor board tothe H-89 may allow program-ming in 6502 language, but thememory map would not be cor-rect for Apple programs. TheApple makes extensive use of itsmonitor ROM programs and bit-mapped graphics. Your H-89 isconfigured as a terminal withcharacter-mapped rather thanbit-mapped graphics, so theywould not be compatible.

Because much of the Appleoperation is software controlled,it is easy to convert the Apple torun other processors by pluggingin cards. The Apple functions,in effect, as a bit-mappedgraphics terminal for the plug-in card. Going the other way ismuch more difficult. . . .Steve

Power SupplyConsiderations

Dear Steve,

I am trying to put togethera system based on the S-100bus. I have a commercialpower supply that puts out+ 8 Vat 25 A, +16 Vat 3 A,and -16Vat3A.The powersupply has no overvoltage orovercurrent protection. Howimportant are these protec-tive circuits? Is there a com-pany that supplies them?Can you give me a simpledesign? Thanks.Don CarltonHanahan, SC

Ovewoltage and overcurrentprotection in any system arcalways trade-offs between theprice you want to pay for protec-tion devices and the price youwill pay if a failure occurs.

In an unregulated supply likethe one you describe, the risk of

an overvoltage situation is loivif the input voltage remainswithin nominal tolerances. Acommercial surge suppressor onthe input to your supply shouldadd sufficient protection fromvoltage surges in the AC line. Aheavy-current supply like thisone should also be properly fusedon the primary side of the supplyand on each DC supply.

Surge suppressors are sold byseveral advertisers in BYTE,such as Advanced ComputerProducts and Priority OneElectronics.

In an S-100 bus system, someprotection is also offered by thedistributed voltage regulators oneach card. The three-terminalregulators usually used for thisapplication have built-in currentlimiting and can operate over alarge input-voltage range. If youare concerned about a particularboard, you could add an over-voltage sensor on board for ex-tra protection. These devicesmonitor the supply voltage andfire a crowbar SCR (silicon-controlled rectifier) in the eventof an overvoltage situation. Youcan find an overvoltage sensor atRadio Shack stores. . .. Steve

A GermanCommodore

Dear Steve,

I would like to buy a Com-modore 64 with a disk drive.Next summer, however, I willbe returning to Germanywhere electrical and TV stan-dards are different. I knowCommodore sells an appro-priate version of this com-puter in Germany, but I don'twant to wait that long.

Is there any way to modifythe computer or get anadapter so that the Americanversion will run in Germany?It should be no problem tomake 110 volts out of 220, butwhat about 50 Hz out of 60?And is it possible to adaptthe TV signal? Thank youvery much for your help.Bernhard DickPhiladelphia, PA

440 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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BYTE

February 1984 441

Circle 341 on inquiry card.

Ask BYTE.

A unique solution to thisproblem was described in theJanuary 1983 Ask BYTE column("Uninterruptible Power Sup-plies Problem Solved," page 481).The author of the solution,Richard T Nicholls, used aTripp Lite power inverter manu-factured by Tripp ManufacturingCompany to convert a 12-V bat-tery voltage to 110 V, 60 Hz.Using this method, he was ableto operate a TRS-80 Model Iwith no problems. The methodalso ensures uninterruptedpower since it is batterypowered.... Steve

Centronics StandardRevisited

Dear Steve,

Would you please tell mewhat the specifications for aCentronics parallel interfaceare? There seem to be an in-

finite number of devices andcomputers that use it. Mycomputer doesn't have one,and I would like to put onetogether. Thank you.John G. LussmyerLowell, MI

The Centronics parallel inter-face is a de facto standard for aparallel printer port. In itssimplest configuration, it con-sists of eight DATA lines, aSTROBE line, an ACK (foracknowledge) line, andGROUND. There are severalother signals, such as BUSY,PAPER EMPTY, and SELECT,but they are normally notrequired.

For the purposes of drivingmany of the parallel inputprinters on the market, it isnecessary only to wire the linesas indicated below:

Pin Signal

1 STROBE

MICRO BEE

SOFTWARE

Manufacturing licences for the popularAustralian designed Micro Bee computerhave recently been granted to many com-panies throughout the world.

MYTEK Computing is the largest andmost respected producer of software forthe Micro Bee Computer.

MYTEK Computing invites dealers tosample its large and extensive range ofMicro Bee Software.

Micro Bee users are also invited to re-quest to be included on MYTEK Com-puting's free mailing list. Catalogues areair-mailed regularly to all parts of theworld.

1HB COMPUTING

1 Kent Street, Bicton, 6157, Perth, Western AustraliaTelephone: (09) 330 7336

2

DATA 0

3

DATA 1

4

DATA 2

5

DATA 3

6

DATA 4

7

DATA 5

8

DATA 6

9

DATA 7

10

ACK

16

GROUND

The STROBE and ACK lines areusually active low, but either orboth can be active high, in whichcase an inverter circuit is neces-san/. . . . Steve

AffordableTape Backup

Dear Steve,

We converted our officemicrocomputer (an Altos8000-15) from floppy-disk tohard-disk storage about ninemonths ago. We have beenusing floppy disks for back-up, but this has becomerather cumbersome. Altosmarkets a stand-alone tapebackup unit, but the price is$3500.

Does anybody manufac-ture a reliable after-markettape backup system for $1000or less? Thank you.C. D. WalkerGermantown, TN

Pegasus makes a 25-megabytetape backup system for harddisks that is advertised for $695.You can contact the company atPegasus, 2200 West HigginsRd., Ste. 245, Hoffman Estates,IL 60195, (312) 843-1090.. . . Steve

High-ResolutionS-100 Graphics

Dear Steve,

A large number of colormonitors are available for the

IBM PC and its clones butfew for S-100 lovers, savesome expensive units nor-mally used for basic CAD/CAM applications. Numer-ous S-100 boards are offeredfor composite video, but Ihave been unable to find asuitable S-100 board that willdrive an RGB monitor. Andinasmuch as I want to con-figure an S-100 bus machinewith an RGB monitor andIBM or Keytronic keyboard,I have a few questions.

First, do you know of anS-100 RGB board that pro-vides, say, 680- by 480-pixelresolution with 16 full-attri-bute colors? Second, I haveconsidered buying an IBMPC color board with theproper characteristics andkludging it to the S-100 bus,in view of the fact that theyboth are 8088-based. Do youthink that I would face insur-mountable problems in do-ing this, or would a carefulmapping of the IBM system-board lines to the S-100 linessuffice?

Justin FarnsworthNeuilly, France

Cambridge Development Lab-oratory (100 Fifth Ave.,Waltham, MA 02154, (617)890-8076) markets a board andsoftware that will create high-resolution graphics on an S-100system. An article describingthis system appeared in theNovember 1982 BYTE. "Cam-bridge Development Lab's High-Resolution Video Graphics Sys-tem" by James R. DeKock (pages148-160) describes the system indetail.

If the rather high price of thatsystem concerns you, you mightconsider the Microangelo boardtnj Scion. It features 512-by 480-pixel graphics as well as 40-lineby 85-character text. It sells for$795 in single quantities. Forfurther information, writeScion, 12310 Pinecrest Rd.,Reston, VA 22091, (703)476-6100.. . . Steve

P.S. / don't recommend kludges.

442 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 261 on inquiry card.

WHY DEC AND INTEL

CHOSE THE MARK WILLIAMS

C-COMPILER.

DEC and INTEL wanted the best C technology avail-able, with excellent code density, supporting the full Clanguage and their specific operating environments—all at a competitive price.

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Call us for the distributor nearest you. OEM's shouldcontact us directly about their specific requirements.

Mark Williams Company,

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Mark

Williams

Company

Circle 387 on inquiry card. byte February 1984 443

Ask BYTE.

European ModemFrequencies

Dear Steve,

I have built your ECM-103modem (March 1983 BYTE,page 26), and it works fine.The only problem is that itoperates only on U.S. fre-quencies. Is it possible tochange it so that it can workon European frequencies?Bj0rn HaalandTomter, Norway

Texas Instruments has amodem chip designed to work onthe European frequencies. Thechip number is TMS99534, andit can be obtained from Texas In-struments or its distributors. Ituses the same frequency crystal.Write to the company at TexasInstruments, SemiconductorGroup, POB 202129, Dallas,TX 75220. . .. Steve

Floppy Disk Use SansComputer

Dear Steve,

Is there any way to write aTeletype (TTY) signal (110-bps, 20-mA current loop) oran RS-232C signal (300 bps)to a 5'A-inch floppy diskwithout going through acomputer? We have severalgamma and liquid scintilla-tion counters that currentlyoutput information to TTYswith punch-paper tape. Inaddition, one gammacounter is a microprocessor-based system that must com-municate with the outputdevice.

Because paper tape is anobsolete medium and apaper-tape reader is almostas expensive as the main-frame of our new microcom-puter system, we wouldprefer to use floppy disks totransfer information. Oneoption would be to interfacethe counters directly into thecomputer (go on line). How-

ever, we have six such in-struments and would have tobuy six micros or a minicom-puter system with a multi-user operating system.

If we must go through acomputer to write a disk,what is the least expensivecomputer one could use towrite in a common disk for-mat (Apple DOS 3.3,CP/M-80, etc.)? This mayseem like a trivial question.However, a simple way towrite a 5V4-inch floppy diskwithout going through acomputer would have broadapplication in science andindustry.

H. Edward Grotjan Jr.Houston, TX

It is not necessary to interfaceyour equipment through a com-puter system to store data on5lA-inch floppy disks, althoughthis certainly can be accom-plished with most microcom-puters available.

A system called the FDS-100Minifile can be interfaced to anRS-232C serial port and willstore data directly to 5Vi-inchfloppy disks. The FDS-WO is anintelligent minifloppy-disk sys-tem with built-in power suppliesand can store up to I79K bytesper disk. The address of themanufacturer of the FDS-100 isAtek NC Corporation, 887 MainSt., POB E, Monroe, CT06468,(203) 268-1839.

Information on the type of diskformat used in the FDS-100should be available from themanufacturer.. .. Steve

RS-232C/RS-422AInterface

Dear Steve,

I have a used IBM 3101video display that includesonly an RS-422A interface.Could you please direct meto a source that shows howI can build an RS-422A-to-RS-232C converter so that I

fOOO

C^

RS-422AINTERFACE

RS-232CINTERFACE

Figure 1: A method for interfacing between the RS-422A andRS-232C standards.

can use the 3101 with my OSIequipment? I also have someIBM boards that output eightRS-422A lines that I wouldlike to use with my RS-232Cdevices. Any help you canprovide will be appreciated.Keith BrigodeHolland, OH

Your problem of communicat-ing between pieces of equipmentthat contain different interfacesis not uncommon because of thenumerous communication stan-dards in use today.

The Electronic IndustriesAssociation (EIA) standardRS-422A is an upgraded versionof the electrical specifications forthe RS-232C interface. The maindifference to note for your ap-plication is that the RS-422Auses balanced transmissionwhile the RS-232C uses un-balanced transmission.

One method for interfacingbetween the two standards isshown in figure 1. The balancedtransmission output from theRS-422A interface is convertedto a TTL signal by a NationalSemiconductor DS8820 linereceiver and then converted to anRS-232C-compatible signal bythe MC1488 line driver. In thereverse direction, the RS-232Csignals are converted to TTLlevels by an MC1489 line driverand then converted to balanced-transmission signals by theDS8830 differential line driver.Proper signal polarity can be ob-tained by reversing leads at theRS-422A interface.

An excellent description of thedifferences between the RS-232Cand RS-422A interfaces can befound in the article "Welcome tothe Standards fungle" (February1983 BYTE, page 146).. . . SteveB

In "Ask BYTE," Steve Ciarcia answers questions on any area ofmicrocomputing. The most representative questions receivedeach month will be answered and published. Do you have anagging problem? Send your inquiiy to:

Ask BYTE

c/o Steve Ciarcia

POB 582

Glastonbury, CT 06033Due to the high volume of inquiries, personal replies cannotbe given. All letters and photographs become the property ofSteve Ciarcia and cannot be returned. Be sure to include "AskBYTE" in the address.

444 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

-N-^

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Circle 32 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 445

Software Received

Apple

Algebra Arcade, an arcade-type educational game.Design graphs to outwit theGraph Gobbler and Alge-broids and simultaneouslylearn basic and advancedalgebra. Choose your ownlevel of play with equationsranging from straight lines toquadratic formulas. For II, IIPlus, and He; floppy disk,$49.95. Wadsworth ElectronicPublishing Co., 8 Davis Dr.,Belmont, CA 94002.

Argos, an arcade-type game.To save Earth, you mustdestroy Argonians both inspace and on land. Fight offwaves of their missiles,spaceships, and parachutists.Requires a joystick. For II andII Plus; floppy disk, $34.95.Datamost Inc., 8943 Full-bright Ave., Chatsworth, CA91311-2750.

Amphel's Simple TenantBilling System, a tenant-billing procedure. Up to 500accounts can be handledenabling rental-propertyowners and managers tokeep track of rents, past-duepayments, late charges, util-ity fees, and miscellaneouscharges. For II and He; flop-py disk, $99.95. Amphel In-dustries Inc., Suite 353, 2888Bluff St., Boulder, CO 80301.

Bats in the Belfry, a strategicextermination game. Your jobis to catch and dispose of batsthat have infested an oldschoolhouse before theyreach its belfry. Avoid thefuzzballs and trapdoors thatslow you down. If your scoreis high enough, you canbecome a Bat Master. For II,II Plus, and lie; floppy disk,$29.95. Phoenix SoftwareInc., 64 Lake Zurich Dr., LakeZurich, IL 60047.

The Exchange, a stock-mar-ket game with high-resolu-

tion graphics. Buy and sellstocks to make as muchmoney as you can. Businesstips from the computer'snews service help you ana-lyze market trends. Be pre-pared for capital-gains tax,splits, rises and declines instocks. For II, II Plus, and He;floppy disk, $59.95. KelcomManagement Ltd., 30 South-ampton Dr. SW, Calgary,Alberta T2W 0T5, Canada.

Enchanter, an interactive-prose fantasy game. Learnthe wisdom of the medievalguilds from cartographers,orators, scriveners, physi-cians, and fletchers. Thesemagical powers enable you todestroy the evil warlock,restore peace to the king-dom, and become an en-chanter. For the II; floppydisk, $49.95. Infocom Inc., 55Wheeler St., Cambridge, MA02138.

Gnosis VII, a role-playing,educational adventure game.Mental horizons expand asyou try to discover sevensecret names in a mythicalland called Gnosis. You mustperform hierarchical, seculartasks that enhance culturalvalues. No two scenarios arethe same. For II Plus and He;floppy disk, $19.95. MagneticHarvest, POB 255, Hopkins,SC 29061.

Hypertyper, an educationaltyping program. Learn or im-prove typing skills at a paceand level that you select.Words per minute and accu-racy percentage are displayedwhen you complete each ex-ercise. For the II; floppy disk,$29.95. Summit SoftwareCorp., Suite 2, 880 SecondSt., Santa Rosa, CA 95404.

Masquerade, a high-resolu-tion graphics adventuregame. You are a detective try-ing to break a tough case. Allbut one clue is a dead end.

Use your expertise to deci-pher this game of logic. For H,II Plus, and lie; floppy disk,$34.95. Phoenix Software Inc.(see address above).

Matrix II, a machine-lan-guage matrix package thatspeeds up Applesoft. Solvemathematical problems inscientific, engineering, sta-tistical, and computer-graph-ics applications efficiently. A36-page tutorial assists begin-ning and advanced users inmatrix manipulations. For IIPlus and lie; floppy disk,$19.95. LRS Systems, 810North Seventh, St. Charles,MO 63301.

The Money Manager: A Per-sonal Finance Simulation.

Teachers of high schoolpersonal-finance and con-sumer-education classes canuse this program that simu-lates budgeting, banking, useof credit, insurance planning,consumer purchases, and in-come tax preparation. Thisteacher's guide includes astudent workbook. For II, IIPlus, and He; floppy disks,$74.95. Sterling Swift Publish-ing Co., 7901 South IH-35,Austin, TX 78744.

Personal Tax Planner 1983/84,a personal federal income taxplanning program. Reduceyour tax based on informeddecisions about second jobs,investments, and the advan-tages or disadvantages oflong- or short-term capitalgains and losses. For the He;floppy disk, $99. Aardvark/McGraw-Hill, 1020 NorthBroadway, Milwaukee, WI53202.

Plato's Cave, an educationalprogram that comparesevidence with inference.Players must confront theproblem of trying to under-stand reality by seeking andanalyzing information. Thisprogram requires active data

probing within limited infor-mation-gathering abiVrties.For the II Plus; floppy disk,$49.95. Krell Software Corp.,1320 Stony Brook Rd., StonyBrook, NY 11790.

Portfolio Minder, a stock andbond portfolio-tracking pro-gram for brokers and house-hold uses. Up to 50 portfolioswith 200 transactions per ac-count can be manipulatedusing cross-referencing andan editor. Printouts includerealized and unrealized gainsand losses, portfolio income,status, and other transac-tions. For II Plus and lie;floppy disk, $125. Softcell, 13Webster Ave., Hanover, NH03755.

Round About, an arcade-type game. As the captain ofthe starship Roundabout, youmust shoot down alien in-vaders to make outer spaceas safe as possible. Theenemy travels in large packsand can assume variousthreatening shapes. For the IIPlus; floppy disk, $29.95.Datamost Inc. (see addressabove).

Short Cuts, an applications-writing program. Add extracommands to ApplesoftBASIC programming to sortdata such as strings, realnumbers, or integer arrays.Other features include errorchecking during input, printformatting, help screens, anduser-defined error messages.For the II, II Plus, He, and III;floppy disk, $39.95. PenguinSoftware, 830 Fourth Ave.,POB 311, Geneva, IL 60134.

Spare Change, a humorousarcade-type game in whichyou are the owner of a busyarcade. Unfortunately, yourtwo best customers are tryingto pilfer enough tokens toretire. Try to distract them byplaying their favorite tunes,ringing pay phones, and

446 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Software Received <

popping popcorn. You'reoften treated to slapstick car-toons. For II, II Plus, and lie;floppy disk, $34.95. Broder-bund Software Inc., 1938Fourth St., San Rafael, CA94901.

Spell Perfect, a spelling-cor-rection program that detectsmisspelled words. Reduceproofreading to a one-stepprocess with easy prompts, aword count, a dictionary youcreate, and displays of wordsthat are spelled similarly. ForII, II Plus, and He; floppydisk, $89.95. LJK EnterprisesInc., 7852 Big Bend Blvd., St.Louis, MO 63119.

Unit Professional, a libraryunit to be used with pro-gramming in Pascal. You cansolve some of the simplerproblems of formatting anderror checking on input andoutput before you code it.Screens and their fields are

user-defined. For II Plus andlie; floppy disk, $39. D & LProfessional Micro-comput-ing, 1201 Lincoln Ave., NewCastle, IN 47362.

Wizardry—Legacy of Llylga-myn, a three-dimensionalfantasy and adventure game.This is the third scenario inthe Wizardry series in whichyou are one of the descen-dants of the heroes of theKnight of Diamonds. Assuch, you are to seek thedragon L'kbreth and regainthe mystical orb to balancenature's upheavals. For II, IIPlus, lie, and III; floppy disk,$39.95. Sir-Tech Software Inc.,6 Main St., Ogdensburg, NY13669.

Wordworx, two educationalword games for all ages.Myspellery is a vocabularybuilder in which you decodemystery words using as fewclues as you can. Sentence

Maker challenges your abil-ity to invent grammaticallycorrect sentences given astring of five letters. You canadd your own myspelleries tochallenge other players. For IIPlus and He; floppy disk,$34.95. Reston PublishingCo., 11480 Sunset Hills Rd.,Reston, VA 22090.

Atari

Capture The Flag, a two-player game for all ages. In asplit-screen display, the in-vader must exit the three-di-mensional labyrinth throughone of two doors to reach theflag. If the defender touchesyou it will prevent you fromcapturing the flag. Adjustedtempo in music reflects ac-tion. For 800/1200; floppydisk, $39.95. Sirius Software

Inc., 10364 Rockingham Dr.,Sacramento, CA 95827.

Moviemaker, an interactivesequential-animation pack-age in which you are a moviedirector. You devise the ac-tion, set the scene, and createactors, and the program playsback the completed com-puter-generated movie. For800/1200; floppy disk, $60.Reston Publishing Co., 11480Sunset Hills Rd., Reston, VA22090.

Nightraiders, a space-wargame. You have joined theNightraiders corps to rescueEarth from tyranny. Destroythe enemy's military strengthand cross the battlefield toattack the base. As you flyover enemy territory you en-counter targets such as atank, bridge, radar tower,missile, train cars, and more.For 800/1200; floppy disk,$29.95. Datamost Inc., 8943

The best career move you can make is to

It's free. It's confidential.

Today's technical career market changes fast.

But now there's a way to keep up with it. Thisnew key to career opportunity is your personalcomputer. And the cost is nothing but a phone call.

Just call CLEO. That stands for Computer Listings

448 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

of Employment Opportunities.

CLEO responds to your commands. You specifywhat job categories, companies, or geographic loca-tions interest you. CLEO calls up the appropriate adsright on your screen. At every step, you're guided byexplicit online instructions.

Daily updates keep CLEO job listings current.

Fullbright Ave., Chatsworth,CA 91311-2750.

Popeye, an arcade-typegame. As Popeye, you mustcatch all of Olive's hearts,notes, and cries for helpbefore they hit the water andsink. Eat spinach for strengthbut beware of Brutus, the SeaHag, and vultures. Levels ofdifficulty increase. For 400/800/1200; cartridge, $40.Parker Brothers, 50 DunhamRd., Beverly, MA 01915.

The Return of Heracles, a

Greek mythology adventuregame. When you become aGreek hero or heroine, Zeuswill assign 12 tasks but willnot offer any clues as to howto do them. The Oracle ofDelphi has the advice youseek, but it's not free. For800/1200; floppy disk, $32.95.Quality Software, Suite 105,6660 Reseda Blvd., Reseda,CA 91335.

CP/M

Co-Sort, a sort-and-mergeutility program. With thisprogram you can sort smalldata sets using a fast algo-rithm without transferringfiles. It allows for fixed- orvariable-length records, alldata types, and providesmany keys in any direction.Floppy disk, $200. Informa-tion Resources, Box W, Man-hasset, NY 11030.

List-master, an information-management utility programfor CP/M 2.2-based systems.You can keep track of lists in-cluding 30,000 data items,each with 252 characters. Itincludes a full-screen editorfor data entry, sort andcriteria-select procedures,and integrates with BASICprograms. Floppy disk,$149.95. Palace Software, RD#1, Box 331, Moundsville,WV 26041.

Magikey, a keyboard-en-hancement program for ver-sion 2.2-based systems. Thisprogram lets you define andassign a string of charactersto any key. Features includebuilt-in batch-processingcapabilities, console andprinter I/O redirection, andextensive string-editing op-tions. Floppy disk, $100. ProMicrosystems, 16609 Sage-wood Lane, Poway, CA92064.

Plotpro, a set of three Micro-soft BASIC programs thatmake scientific applicationsgraphs on any 80- or 132-coI-umn printer. Protemp createstemplates of the physical ap-pearance of any graph. Pro-quick controls plotting andprinting of infinite-lengthgraphs. Plotpro creates linearand logarithmic plots andcan plot multiple functionson the same graph. Floppydisk, $49.95. BV Engineering,

POB 3351, Riverside, CA92519.

Commodore

Music Tutor, a set of six pro-grams that teach beginningmusic students the basicelements of music. Programsinclude bass- and treble-clefnotes, rhythms, symbols,music terms, and a reviewgame. For the 64; cassette,$30. MKI Software, 15295Oceana, Allen Park, MI48101.

Portfolio Manager, a stock-market analysis program toassist in personal invest-ments and financial manage-ment. Files let you create andupdate as many as 70 stocksbased on current marketquotes. You can thus spot

the keyboard of your personal computer.

You can even apply for positions right from yourown terminal. For a detailed job search, or just anidea of what's available, CLEO is waiting for yourcall today. With today's opportunities.

CLEO access: (415) 482-1550 (408) 294-2000(213) 618-8800 (714) 476-8800 (619) 224-8800

Circle 55 on inquiry card.

300 BAUD, full duplex, standard ASCII code.Access assistance: (213) 618-1525

^^^% Recruitment advertisers —I call (213) 618-0200 collect■^^^ to find out how you can

Computer Listings of Employment Opportunities place VOUf ad Ofl CLEO.

An electronic publishing activity of The Copley Press, Inc.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 449

Software Received

trends for buying and selling.For 64 and VIC-20; floppydisk and cassette, $29.95.Basic Byte Inc., POB 924,Southfield, MI 48037-0924.

Spectrum-64, a fast Fouriertransform-analysis programfor use in college junior tograduate-level calculusclasses. This program findsthe frequency spectrum orinverse for waveform or dataanalysis when you enter asignal or data sample. Ap-plications include signal-spectral content, filter designand response, antenna-radia-tion patterns, convolution in-tegrals, and a variety of othertechnical uses. For the 64;floppy disk and cassette,$79.95; $59.95 with proof ofstudent or teacher status.Red-Shift Software, POB45488, Seattle, WA 98145-0488.

Zeppelin Rescue, an arcade-type game. Your mission asthe pilot of a blimp is torescue hundreds of peoplestranded in a hazardous en-vironment while keepingwatch on your gas gauge andavoiding obstacles. Choosefrom five cityscapes and fourlevels of difficulty. Requires ajoystick. For the 64; floppydisk, $24.95. Computer Soft-ware Associates Inc., TheSilk Mill, 44 Oak St., NewtonUpper Falls, MA 02164.

Heath/Zenith

Disarm.Com, an artificial-in-telligence puzzle program.Using extensive graphics, arobot that learns additionalcommand words throughanalysis is told how to disarma bomb by remote control.For the H/Z-89; floppy disk,$35. Friendliware, POB 21206,Lansing, MI 48909.

Slabs.Com, a graphic adap-tation of Towers of Hanoi. Tryto rearrange the slabs in aminimum number of moves.

For the H/Z-89; floppy disk,$15. Friendliware (see ad-dress above).

FLJ Soft, a graphics andprinting program that helpsyou modify Zenith's interac-tive business graphics pack-age to provide printing ofgraphs and pie charts. It'swritten in assembly languagewith a source code for cus-tomized modification. For theH/Z-100; floppy disk, $19.95.FLJ Software Co., POB 3293,Hialeah, FL 33013.

IBM

Personal Computer

Acme Linear Optimization,

a mathematical-formulationprogram that allocateslimited amounts of resourcesto different projects to mini-mize costs and maximizeprofits. Only a basic knowl-edge of algebra is needed tooperate for planning in busi-ness, marketing, engineer-ing, and the environment.Floppy disk, $150. AcmeComputer Co., 532 Northeast83rd St., Seattle, WA 98115.

Enchanter, an interactive-prose fantasy game (see de-scription under Apple). Flop-py disk, $49.95. Infocom Inc.,55 Wheeler St., Cambridge,MA 02138.

The Exterminator, a BASIC-programming tool. This pro-gram uses labels instead ofline numbers and lets youwrite a type of control state-ment. You can write pro-grams in several differentfiles and combine them inany order you select. Floppydisk, $49. Micromedia, POB33071, Northglenn, CO80233.

dB/RA, a dBASE II utilitypackage. This array programpermits the creation of agroup of related data with asimilar format, provides stor-age of over 65,000 memory

variables, and allows accessto data from up to 12 filessimultaneously. Floppy disk,$200. Gryphon Microprod-ucts, POB 6543, SilverSpring, MD 20906.

Harvard Project Manager, a

project-planning and man-agement program. This pro-gram aids in analysis, plan-ning, and scheduling proj-ects by determining whichparts of the project are criticalto the total project time. Italso helps to efficientlyschedule tasks at minimumcost while still meeting dead-lines. Floppy disk, $395. Har-vard Software Inc., SoftwarePark, Harvard, MA 01451.

Investment Tax Analyst, a

user-friendly series of Visi-calc templates for accoun-tants, stockbrokers, financialplanners, and individual in-vestors to analyze the tax im-plications of different invest-ment strategies. This pro-gram can determine the totaltax cost and effects of invest-ments up to six years, bothbefore and after investmentshave been made. Floppydisk, $150. John Wiley &Sons, 605 Third Ave., NewYork, NY 10158.

Least Squares Curve Fitter(LSF), a curve-fitting methodpackage. This program isused to derive a relationshipbetween sets of variables bycollecting, storing, and re-trieving large amounts ofdata for applications that in-clude such fields as politics,mathematics, engineering,and finance. The three typesof curves generated arelinear, quadratic, and cubic.Hoppy disk, $39.95. Prentice-Hall Inc., Rt. 9W, EnglewoodCliffs, NJ 07632.

PC Life, a game centered ona simulation of a cell's life-cycle. Create a world with alife pattern for all single-cellbeings to follow on the gridof your screen. Cells produce

colorful kaleidoscopic-typepatterns as they grow anddie. Floppy disk, $24.95. PC-Ware, Department BMS1,POB 3174, Gaithersburg, MD20878.

Planfin, an accounting pro-gram designed to forecast,budget, and figure dis-counted cash-flow for yourbusiness needs. It is menudriven and allows you tochange values in areas suchas production and sales, pric-ing, financing, inflation,foreign-exchange move-ments, and more. Floppydisk, $195. Business SoftwarePty. Ltd., 10 Help St., Chats-wood, New South Wales2067, Australia.

Plotpro, a set of three Micro-soft BASIC programs (see de-scription under CP/M). Flop-py disk, $49.95. BV Engineer-ing, POB 3351, Riverside, CA92519.

Professional Tax Plan, a tax-planning program for suchprofessionals as accountants,attorneys, trust officers, andinsurance agents. This pro-gram lets you index tax yearsfor 1985 and after. It offersten-year averaging, capital-gain deduction, self-employ-ment tax, taxable unemploy-ment compensation, medicalexpenses, credit limitations,and other features. Floppydisks, $350. Aardvark/McGraw-Hill, 1020 NorthBroadway, Milwaukee, WI53202.

Profin, a financial-analysisprogram. You can financiallyevaluate your investments in-cluding irreversible capital-gain projects. This menu-driven program lets you ask"What if..." questions. Youcan produce business-oriented forecasts, budgets,discounted cash flows, andreturns on investments. Hop-py disk, $295. Business Soft-ware Pty. Ltd. (see addressabove).

450 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

The

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Remarkably, the new $599 Transtar 120 is"plug and go" compatible with the best-sel-ling word processing programs, just plug the120 into your personal computer and watchthis precision printer purr along at 14 cpsShannon text speed producing superscript,subscript, underlining and a true boldface.Even using letterhead is now a breeze withthe 120's automatic single sheet loading!

Don't worry about durability: it's a toughlittle machine; It joins the highly reliable fam-ily of Transtar printers wrth a failure ratethat's the envy of the industry: less than 1%,Should your 120 ever need repair, a nation-wide network of authorized service centersstands ready for speedy repair on your six-month end-user warranty.

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Circle 362 on inquiry card.

Software Received

Mr. Quartermaster, a menu-driven inventory-control sys-tem for businesses and in-stitutions. This program letsyou print reports for inven-tory, reordering, and usagelistings. You can update stockand inventory items plusmaintain comprehensive fileswith add, change, or delete.Floppy disk, $120. RJL Sys-tems, 106 New Haven Ave.,Milford, CT 06460.

1983 Tax Preparer, a programfor professional, computer-automated preparation andfiling of 1983 tax returns. Italso keeps individual taxrecords throughout the year.Features include preprinted1040 forms, instant access, adisk library, client-billing let-ter for professionals, andfoolproof error recovery.Floppy disk, $250. HowardSoftware Services, Suite 310,8008 Girard Ave., La Jolla,CA 92037.

Real Analyzer, a real estateprogram. You can analyzeboth income and home prop-erty over 5 years. This pro-gram will help you decidewhen it's best to buy sell, ex-change, or refinance anyproperty by projecting cashflow and profitability beforeand after taxes. Floppy disk,$195. Real-Comp Inc., POB1263, Cupertino, CA 95015.

RIP, a real estate investmentpackage. This set of 12Visicalc templates helps intime-consuming calcula-tions. The analysis templatewill perform a detailed 8-yearanalysis on property by com-parison of investment alter-natives. Floppy disk, $29.95.Tom Ciulik, 3011 Bunker HillCircle, Marietta, GA 30062.

Sailing, a sailing-adventuresimulation game. You mustsail your boat through theCaribbean Sea in a race

against time to rescue swim-mers trapped in the BermudaTriangle. Beware of the creep-ing mist, gravitational vor-tices, storms, and other ob-stacles. Floppy disk, $34.95.Accupipe Corp., 222 WestLancaster Ave., Paoli, PA19301.

Supercalc 3, an electronicspreadsheet with integratedgraphics and data- and text-management capabilities. Itis geared toward professionalmanagers who need to solvefinancial and numerical anal-yses. You can create line andbar graphs and pie andexploded-pie charts. Floppydisk, $395. Sorcim Corp.,2310 Lundy Ave., San Jose,CA 95131.

Triple Brain Trust, a ques-tion-and-answer game for allages. After a question is cor-rectly answered, the playerplaces an X or an O on a tic-

tac-toe grid. Categories in-clude word recognition, basicreading, geography, movies,and general sports trivia.Floppy disk, $39.95. RestonPublishing Co., 11480 SunsetHills Rd., Reston, VA 22090.

TRS-80

The BASIC Answer, a text-processing utility program.BASIC programmers canconstruct code in a structuredmanner. It uses labels insteadof line numbers and supportsvariable names of up to 14significant alphanumericcharacters. For the Model 4;floppy disk, $69. Logical Sys-tems Inc., 8970 North 55thSt., POB 23956, Milwaukee,WI 53223.

Games for the II (vol. 2),three arcade-type games. InPalestine, you pilot yourfighter to destroy the enemy.

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Institution/Company

Department

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University Microfilms International

Article Reprint Service300 North Zeeb RoadAnn Arbor, Michigan 48106

452 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

An Analog and Digital I/O board for your IBM PC "at just $295!"

Who does Molinari think he is?

Ho ho ho.

Don't laugh. We're not kidding. Data Transla-tion is practically giving away a new single boardplug-in that brings complete analog and digital I/Ocapabilities to your IBM Personal Computer.

Ordered in lots of 500 or more, you can enjoyfull data acquisition capability for as little as $295.And smaller unit orders also qualify for considerablesavings... one unit is only $495.

But what would you expect from an innovatorlike Data Translation? Whether you're working inlaboratory research or industrial process control,our latest board can give you measurement and con-trol capabilities at tremendous savings.

The DT2808 includes 16-channel 10-bit A/D,2-channel 8-bit D/A, 16 lines of digital I/O, a program-mable clock and direct memory access capability.And all of these functions are supported by PCLAB,'"our BASIC callable subroutine library running underPC DOS."

A comprehensive user manual with manyprogramming examples will get your application upand running fast.

Ext.\C*ocW/Trie.

The DT2808 is the lowest cost data acquisition boardfor the IBM PC. It includes A/D, D/A, digital I/O, clockand DMA on a single board for $295 in OEM quantity.

This easy to use, easy to program board is highly reliable,and of course, fully backed by Data Translation's service andsupport team.

The new DT2808. The lowest costdata acquisition for your IBM PC. Andjust one in a long line of softwarecompatible analog I/O boards offeredby the industry leader.Data Translation. **

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa J%?Claus. He's president of DataTranslation.

For more information,call one of our elves.

(617)481-3700.

*500 pes., $495: quantity one

Data Translation provides a fullfamily of analog and digital I/Oboards with software supportfor the IBM PC.

DATATRANSLATION

World Headquarters: Data Translation, Inc., 100 Locke Dr., Marlboro, MA 01752 (617) 481-3700 Tlx 951 646.

European Headquarters: Data Translation, Ltd., 430 Bath Rd., Slough, Berkshire SLI 6BB England (06286) 3412 Tlx849 862.

In Canada: (416) 625-1907.

IBM PC, IBM Personal Computer and PC DOS are registered trademarks of IBM. PCLAB is a trademark of Data Translation, Inc.

Circle 105 on inquiry card.

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Software Received.

In Ape Escape, you climbthrough the jungle to saveAlvin Ape. And in Saucers,you help Andorians exter-minate eight types of pests.For Models II, 12, and 16;floppy disk, $29.95. Mary-land Model II Games, 3304Carlton Ave., Temple Hills,MD 20748.

Kaleidophone, a program-mable color-organ/video-music system. Create an un-limited variety of color dis-plays that change in timewith the music. You can playthis like a video instrumentor operate it from built-in dis-plays. For the Color Com-puter; cassette, $20. NewSalem Research, West MainSt., New Salem, MA 01355.

LS-FED II (File Editor), an

all-purpose file and diskeditor. This utility programdisplays a 256-byte sector ofa file in both ASCII and hexa-decimal notation. Any byte ofa displayed sector can bemodified and you haveseveral options for movementthrough the sectors. For theModel 4: floppy disk, $49.Logical Systems Inc. (seeaddress above).

LS-FM (File Manager), a util-ity program for file manage-ment. It lets you display, kill,move, remove, and copyfiles. Wildcard characters canbe used to purge a disk, andfiles can be copied to morethan one disk drive simulta-neously. For the Model 4:floppy disk, $49. Logical Sys-tems Inc. (see addressabove).

LS-Help Generator, a utilityprogram for use with LDOSHelp that lets you create yourown help files for use withLDOS. The Help Generatortakes a text file and changesit into a data file that can beaccessed with LDOS Help.For the Model 4: floppy disk,$49. Logical Systems Inc. (seeaddress above).

LS-LDOS Help, a screen-oriented utility program thatdisplays information aboutLDOS. Simply type HELPand a keyword to obtain in-formation on LDOS orLBASIC commands. ForModels I, III, and 4: floppydisk, $29. Logical SystemsInc. (see address above).

LS-Help Text Source, ASCIItext files covering LDOS andLBASIC commands. The filesmay be incorporated into theLDOS Help utility or ap-pended to create your ownhelp files. For Models I, III,and 4; floppy disk, $29. Logi-cal Systems Inc. (see addressabove).

LS-Technical Help, ASCIItext files covering assembly-language programming withLDOS. The four files containa description of the Z80 mne-monic functions, flag set/reset information, and opcodes. For use with two diskdrives and LDOS Help. Forthe Model 4; floppy disk,$39. Logical Systems Inc. (seeaddress above).

Plotpro, a set of three Micro-soft BASIC programs (see de-scription under CP/M). ForModels I, III, and 4; floppydisk, $49.95. BV Engineering,POB 3351, Riverside, CA92519.

Pro-Cess, a menu-driven,machine-language programthat provides maintenancefor CMD- or CIM-type load-module files. It allows file ap-pending, mapping, sorting,packing, offsetting, and par-titioned data-set member ex-traction. You can reorganizelarge, inefficiently generatedload modules. For the Model4; floppy disk, $40. Misosys,POB 4848, Alexandria, VA22303.

Smal-LDOS 5.1.3, a diskoperating system based on asubset of LDOS. It featuresmany of the filters and utili-

454 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 240 on inquiry card.

The MicromintCollection

Micromint. Supporting the varied projects that appear in Steve Ciarcia'smonthly article in BYTE Magazine, "Garcia's Circuit Cellar." Offering a widerange of computers and peripherals designed to meet the exacting demands ofthe hobbyist as well as worldwide corporate clients.

TERM-MITE ST

SMART TERMINAL BOARD

As featured in Ciarcia's Circuit CellarBYTE Magazine, January & February 19S4

All you need to build a Smart Video Terminal equiva-lent to the types advertised tor 51,000.00 or more is aTerm-Mite ST circuit board, scanned or parallel key-board, video monitor and power supply.

• Uses brand new Natl Semi NS455A TerminalProcessor.

• 24 lines by 80 characters. 25th reverse-videostatus.

• Upper & lowercase. Line (block) graphics.

• Selectable data rate, parity & display options.

• Reverse video, halt intensity, double height 8width, underlined, blinking and'or blank character.

• Separate sync or composite video output. Sell Test.Term-Mile ST Video Display Terminal Board

BCC22 Assembled & Tested $284.

BCC23 Complete Kil 244.

MPX-16 MICROCOMPUTERIBM PC COMPATIBLE

As featured on the cover otBYTE Magazine. Alsofeatured in Ciartia s Circuit Cellar November,December 1982 & January 1983

The Computer With A Split Personality.—Use it as an IBM PC look alike that directly bootsPC DOS 1.1 and accepts all expansion boardsdesigned lor the IBM PC—Use it as a powerful 8088 single board computerfor all your OEM applications. Just add serial ter-minal, disk drive and power supply. Directly bootsCP/M-86.Buy the MPX-16 in the lorm that best meets yourneeds or budget As a bare board, as a wave solderedboard that contains all components less ICs, as anassembled and tested circuit board or as a complete'system.

• Directly boots PC DOS 1.1 and CP/M-86.

• Most IBM PC software executes with nomodifications

• 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

• 2 RS-232C Serial & 3 Parallel I/O ports.

• Disk controller for 5Vi" or 8" drives.

• Sixteen levels of vectored interrupts.MPX-16 Circuit Board Assembled

W/64KRAM $1,200.

OEM 100 quantity price 900.

MPX-16 Circuit Board Asembled

W/256KRAM 1,400.

MPX-16 Semi-Kit (wave soldered circuit

board wall components) Less ICs 695.

Complete Kit of ICs W256K RAM 595.

MPX-16 Unpopulated (bare) PC Board .... 300.CP/M-86 Operating System + Manuals... 80.

MPX-16 Switching Power Supply 300.

MPX-16 Technical Reference Manual 50.

MPX-16 Metal Enclosure with Fan 300.

Tandon TM100-2 Double Sided/Density

Drive 300.

IBM PC Keyboard Interface Adapter 100.

Shipping & handling additional on all

MPX-16 orders.

IBM PC is a trademark o< International Business Machines Inc.CPM-86 is a trademark of Digital Research Inc.Z8 is a trademark ol Zilog Inc

Circle 242 on inquiry card.

Z8 BASIC SYSTEMCONTROLLER NEW!!!

As featured in Ciartia s Circuit Cellar.BYTC Magazine, July « August 1981

The Z8 Basic System Controller is an updated versionof our popular BCC01. The price has been reducedand features added. The entire computer is 4" by 4V?"and includes a tiny BASIC interpreter, up to 6K bytesof RAM and EPROM, one RS-232C serial port withswitchable baud rates and two parallel ports. BASICor machine language programming is accomplishedsimply by connecting a CRT terminal Programs canbe transferred to 2732 EPROMs with an optionalEPROM programmer for auto start applications. Addi-tional Z8 peripheral boards include memory expan-sion, serial and parallel I/O. real time clock, an A/DConverter and an EPROM programmer.

• Uses Zilog Z8 single chip microprocessor

• Data and address buses available for 124K memory,

• Can be battery operated.

• Cross assemblers for various computers

BCCH Assembled & Tested $149.

New Low Price

Z8 MEMORY. I/O EXPANSION.CASSETTE INTERFACE

• 8K bytes of additional RAM or EPROM

• Three additional 8 bit parallel ports.

• Cassette interface—300 baud K.C. Standard.

• Software real time clock.

BCC03 w/4K RAM Assembled & Tested $150.

BCC04 w/8K RAM Assembled & Tested 18

Z8 EPROM PROGRAMMER

• Transfer BASIC or Assembly Language applicationprograms from RAM to 2716 or 2732 EPROM

• Comes with programming & utility routines onEPROM.

• Requires BCC03 Z8 Expansion Board for operationBCC07 Assembled & Tested $145.

Z8 ANALOG TO DIGITALCONVERTER

• Uses Analog Devices 7581 IC, 8-channel 8-bit.

• Adds process control capability to the Z8 system

• Over 1,000 conversions per channel per second.

• Monitors 8 analog signals in one of two 10v ranges.BCC13 Assembled & Tested $140.

Z8 SERIAL EXPANSION BOARD

• Adds additional RS-232C and opto-isolated 20 ma.current loop serial port to the IB System.

• Runs at 75 to 19,200 baud in all protocols.

• Comes with listings of sample serial I'O routines.BCC06 Assembled & Tested $160.

Z816K MEMORY EXPANSIONBOARD

• Add up to 16K o) additional memory. RAM orEPROM, to your Z8 System Controller in anymultiple.

• Accepts 2016, 6116. 2716, or 2732 memory types.

• Four 16K cards may be installed on the Z8 Systembringing the total memory to 64K.

BCC14 Assembled & Tested w/8K RAM $120.

BCC16 Assembled & Tested w 16K RAM 155.

COMING SOON! MICRO D-CAM

FORTH LANGUAGE VERSION DIGITAL TV CAMERA0FTHEZ8

With the new Z8 with on board 4K FORTH you can

program high speed control functions in a few simple

high level language commands. Perfect for data

reduction, process control and high speed control

applications.

BCC20 Z8F FORTH Microprocessor chip .... $150.

BCC21 Z8F FORTH System Controller

(This board is a BCC11 with a BCC20

installed)

Assembled & Tested 280.

Z8 CROSS ASSEMBLERS

From Micm Resources

IBM PC, APPLE. 6502 Systems 5W",

CP/M2.28" $ 75.

From Allen Ashley

TRS-80 Model I, III, Northstar5V4' 75.

CP/M2.28" 150.

Z8 FIVE SLOT MOTHER BOARD

• Expand your Z8 BASIC System with minimumeffort.

• Contains five slots complete w/44 pin connectors.MB02 Assembled & Tested $69.

TRIPLE VOLTAGEPOWER SUPPLIES

+5V f§ 300 ma. +/-12V @ 25ma.

UPS01 Assembled & Tested $35.

UPS02 Complete Kit 27.

+5V@1Amp. +12V@.5Amp. -12V @ 50 ma.

UPS03 Assembled & Tested 60.

UPS04 Complete Kit 50.

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-laced to any computer, modern, RS-232C serialor parallel output device and provides speech olunbelievable clarity

• Unlimited vocabulary.

• 64 programmable inflection levels

• 6K lext-to-speech algorithm.

• Full ASCII character set recognition and echo.

• RS232C and parallel output.

• 1000 character buffer, 3000 optional.

• Adjustable baud rales (75-9600).

• Spelling output mode.

• 7 octave music and sound effects

• On board audio amplifier & power supply.

• X-On/X-Ofl handshaking.

MV0I Assembled with 1K buffer $299.

MV02 Complete Kil with 1K buffer 219.

Add $15.00 for 3K buffer oplion.

VOTRAX SC-01A PHONETICSPEECH SYNTHESIZER IC

The SC-01A Speech Synthesizer is a completely self-contained solid state device that phonetically syn-thesizes continuous speech of unlimited vocabulary.Used in our Microvox and Sweet-Talker.SC01A Quantity 1-99 S44. ea.

100+ 32. ea.

1000 i 24. ea.

I

As featured in Ciarcia s Circuit CellarBYTE Magazine, September & October 1983

GIVE YOUR COMPUTER THE DIMENSION OF SIGHT

• Interprets, enhances and stores images.

• 256 x 128 digital image sensor.

• Plug-in boards for the IBM-PC. APPLE II -» or e.

• Software includes utilities for auto exposure,multi-level greyscale. screen dump and imageenhancement.

• Includes interface card, 4 foot extension cable,camera assembly, manual, and software ondiskette.

DC01 IBM PC Assembled & Tested $299.

DC02 IBM PC Complete Kit 264.

DC03 APPLE II Assembled & Tested 299.

DC04 APPLE II Complete Kit 264.

300 BAUD ANSWER/ORIGINATE MODEM KIT

As featured in Ciarcia s Circuit CellarBYTE Magazine, March 1983

Micromint's latest 300 Baud Modem Kit is crystalcontrolled, uses the Tl TMS99532 IC. contains just25 parts and requires no calibration or adjustments.Use with acoustic coupler or in direct connect mode,

MD04 Complete Kit as shown $60.

i5 Transformer for Direct Connect Mode .. 9,Acoustic Coupler Kit 20.

E-Z COLOR GRAPHICINTERFACE WITH SPRITES

APPLE II E-Z Color plug-in board with GraphicsEditor on 3.3 disk

EZ01 Assembled & Tested $150.

EZ02 Complete Kit 125.

APPLE II E-Z Color Plus

• Allows the use of a single monitor or TV set

E211 Assembled & Tested w Graphics Editor $200.KRELL LOGO tor E-Z Color and E-Z Color PlusSupports Sprite Graphics.

E221 Krell LOGO w lull documentation S89.

Animation Software lor E-Z Color Plus

• Draw with Sprites using Joystick or Koala Pad.

• Animate Sprites from your own BASIC programEZ21 Animation Software S49.

S100 E-Z Color Graphics Board

• With sound generator & joystick interlace.

• MBASIC Graphics Editor on 8" diskette.

EZ04 Assembled & Tested $289.

MICROMINT INC. 561 Willow Avenue.Cedarhurst. NY 11516To Order: Call Toll Free 1-800-645-3479For Information Call: 1-516-374-6793Call: Monday-Friday, 9-5 PM

Software Received

ties of the original system.For Models I and III; floppydisk, $59. Logical SystemsInc. (see address above).

Student Grade System, a stu-dent-average teacher's aidprogram. Teachers can keeptrack of students using num-bers or letter grades, easilyadd or delete names, andprint a student's progressduring a term. For the ModelIII; floppy disk, $75. TinkerTechniques, 435 GreenwayAve., Trenton, NJ 08618.

Z Graph, a graphics-editorpackage in machine-lan-guage. Construct screenimages using the computer'sblock-graphics capabilities.You can automatically gener-ate lines, circles, and rec-tangles, or save any imagegenerated from other pro-grams. For Models I and III;floppy disk, $50. Misosys(see address above).

Timex/Sinclair 1000

AC and DC Circuit Analysis,two electronic-analysis pro-grams. You can computegeneral numerical solutionsto electrical circuits contain-ing 12 nodes and 25 branches

of resistors or controlledsources. The program alsodisplays node and branchvoltages, currents, andpowers. Cassette, $15.95.Computer Heroes, 1961Dunn Rd., East Liverpool,OH 43920.

1983 Tax Return Helper, a

1983 income tax calculationprogram. A set of five pro-grams automatically cor-relates, updates lines, andchecks errors when you enterinformation for Form 1040and Schedules A, B, C, D,and E. Cassette, $14. K Soft,845 Wellner Rd., Naperville,IL 60540.

RPNZL Programming Sys-tem, a set of four programsthat provides the speed andcontrol needed in BASIC pro-gramming. It includes a 3000-bit-per-second tape system, afull-screen text editor, com-piler, sampler, linker, andother features. Cassettes,$29.95. The Golden Stair,141A Dore St., San Francisco,CA 94103.

Other Computers

Cape Cod Golf, a graphics-simulation game. You control

the swing and make shotswith a joystick on a 9-holegolf course. Try to par thecourse while avoiding trees,sand traps, and waterhazards. Ideal for both avidgolfers and nongolfers. Forthe Texas Instruments 99/4A;cassette, $14.95. Harry P.Richard, 18 Fruitwood Dr.,Burnt Hills, NY 12027.

Plotpro, a set of three Micro-soft BASIC programs (see de-scription under CP/M). ForVictor computers using MS-DOS; floppy disk, $49.95. BVEngineering, POB 3351,Riverside, CA 92519.

Supercomp-Twenty, an elec-tronic spreadsheet for finan-cial modeling and decision-support applications. Thisprogram is designed to beused in a distributed networkso that models can be movedbetween different computers.You can also import data toa graphics or word-process-ing package. For the DigitalEquipment Corporation(DEC) Professional 350; flop-py disk, $395. Access Tech-nology Inc., 6 Pleasant St.,South Natick, MA 01760. ■

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. We 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.

NOT ONLY ANOTHER TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGH

BUT ALSO EASY TO USE AND TO INSTALL

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

link two high speed devices togetherwith having absolutely NO knowledgeof computers or communications ingeneral. Anybody can install andoperate the STARCOM Family in a fewminutes.

STARCOM is a 300/1200 bps Auto Dial/Auto Log On/Auto Answer Modem.

OSCOM is a 300/1200 bps Auto Dial/Auto Log On/Auto Answer with Osborne

{TM) Computer Software (included) modem.

COMSOFT is a communication software package.

OEM MODEM BOARD is also available for custom installation.

THESTARCOM

,$399.

« ' • • • •»

FREE $150.00 value subscrip-tion to Official Airlines Guidewith purchase of each Starcomor Oscom. Get immediate electronicaccess to airline fare and scheduleinfo. 0AG Electronic Edition can saveyou at "least 30% on most businesstrips and could save you thousandsof dollars annually!

DEALER INQUIRIES

INVITED

(312) 459-8881

or 1-800-323-2666

INCOMM

115 N. WOLF RD. WHEELING, IL 60090

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THEOSCOM

.$450.

SO COMPACT!

Only 1V4" x 6V2" x 7V2'. 1.5 lbs.Fits in your coat pocket!

456 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 181 on inquiry card.

Event Queue

February 1984

February-April

Courses from IntegratedComputer Systems, varioussites throughout the U.S."Implementing Local AreaNetworks" and "ComputerNetwork Design and Proto-cols" are two of the coursesto be presented. For courseinformation, contact RuthDordick, Integrated Com-puter Systems, 6305 ArizonaPlace, POB 45405, LosAngeles, CA 90045, (213)417-8888.

February-April

Courses in C Language andUnix, various sites through-out the U.S. Three five-daycourses are offered: "C Pro-gramming Workshop," "Ad-vanced C Topics Seminar,"and "Unix Workshop." Forcomplete details, contact JoanHall, Plum Hall Inc., 1Spruce Ave., Cardiff, NJ08232, (609) 927-3770.

February-July

Reliability and Maintain-ability Engineering Insti-tvles and Short Courses,

various sites throughout theU.S. A few of the programsto be offered are "ReliabilityEngineering, Testing, andMaintainability Engineering"and "The Tenth Annual Re-liability Testing Institute." Fora complete schedule, contactDr. Dimitri Kececioglu, Col-lege of Engineering, Aero-space and Mechanical Engi-neering Department, Univer-sity of Arizona, Tucson, AZ85721, (602) 621-2495.

February-August

Conferences and Expositionsfrom the Society of Manu-facturing Engineers, varioussites throughout the U.S. andaround the world. More than25 conferences and exposi-tions are scheduled. For acalendar, contact the Public

Relations Department, Soci-ety of Manufacturing Engi-neers, One SME Dr., POB930, Dearborn, MI 48121,(313) 271-0777.

February 13-36

Kuwait Info '84, Internation-al Exhibition Center, KuwaitCity, Kuwait. Exhibits in thisthird annual event will en-compass a broad range of in-formation businesses, includ-ing data and word process-ing, communications, officeautomation, micrographics,security systems, and en-vironmental control systems.Information is available fromCarol Purdey, IntermarketNetwork Corp., Suite 203,1110 Vermont Ave. NW,Washington, DC 20005, (202)822-9127.

February 14-15

The First Annual AutomatedManufacturing SystemsConference: A Market As-sessment, Inn of Westchester,White Plains, NY. For infor-mation, contact Carol Sap-chin, Frost & Sullivan Inc.,106 Fulton St., New York, NY10038, (212) 233-1080.

February 14-16

The Twelfth Annual ACMComputer Science Confer-ence, Franklin Plaza Hotel,Philadelphia, PA. Papers,panel sessions, and abstractswill address the centralthemes of "Factory of theFuture," "Coping with SmallComputers," and "Social andEthical Implications of Com-puters." Exhibits will featureover 50 computer and in-structional materials. Par-ticulars are available from theAssociation for ComputingMachinery, 1133 Avenue ofthe Americas, New York, NY10036, (212) 265-6300.

February 15-16

Intermountain Telecommu-nications Show, Expomart,Salt Lake City, UT This

show, cosponsored by JonTaylor & Company and theUtah TelecommunicationsManagement Association,will focus on the latest devel-opments in voice- and data-communications equipmentand services. For informa-tion, contact Jon Taylor &Co., POB 356, Salt Lake City,UT 84110, (801) 298-3100.

February 17

Computer-aided Manufac-ture for Semiconductor Fab-rication Applications, PaloAlto, CA. This intensiveshort course, sponsored byContinuing Education inEngineering and the Collegeof Engineering of the Univer-sity of California in Berkeley,will survey CAM trends. Ad-vanced registration is re-quired due to limited enroll-ment. The fee is $215. For in-formation, contact Continu-ing Education in Engineer-ing, University of CaliforniaExtension, 2223 Fulton St.,Berkeley, CA 94720, (415)642-4151.

February 17-19

Computer Expo '84, ExpoCentre, Orlando, FL. Thisshow will feature more than100 demonstrations of micro-computer hardware and soft-ware. Attendees can partici-pate in a wide range of semi-nars and hands-on work-shops. For details, contactLaurel Netzer, POB 3435,Longwood, FL 32750, (305)862-6917.

February 18-22

Euroshop 84, Fairgrounds,Dusseldorf, West Germany.This international trade fairwill feature more than 600 ex-hibitors from 20 countriesand will be supplemented byworkshops exploring variousfacets of the merchandisingbusiness. For show details,contact Dusseldorf TradeShows, 500 Fifth Ave., NewYork, NY 10110, (212) 840-7744.

For information on travel andarrangements, contact theHousing Division at (800)221-3302; in New York, (212)974-1934.

February 20-22

The 1984 Office AutomationConference (OAC '84), Con-vention Center, Dos Angeles,CA. The theme of this con-ference is "Office Automa-tion and You." For the firsttime, an executive-only pro-gram will be offered. Furtherinformation is available fromthe American Federation ofInformation Processing Soci-eties Inc., 1899 Preston WhiteDr., Reston, VA 22091, (703)620-8926. For details on theExecutive Program, contactJohn J. Connell, Office Tech-nology Research Group, POB65, Pasadena, CA 91102.

February 20-23

Arabian Productivity Ad-vancement Using Comput-ers/Graphics, APAC '84,Inter-Continental Hotel,Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This isthe first international con-ference and exposition oncomputer graphics to be heldin Saudi Arabia. Industryand government representa-tives from Middle Easternand Western nations will at-tend. For information, con-tact APAC '84 ConferenceDirector, World ComputerGraphics Association Inc.,Suite 399, 2033 M St. NW,Washington, DC 20036, (202)775-9556.

February 21

High-resolution Litho-graphy, Palo Alto, CA. Thisintensive short course, spon-sored by Continuing Educa-tion in Engineering and theCollege of Engineering of theUniversity of California inBerkeley, will focus on ad-vances in electron-beamlithography, optical litho-graphy tools, and more. Ad-vanced registration is re-

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 457

Event Queue.

quired due to limited enroll-ment. The fee is $215. For in-formation, contact Continu-ing Education in Engineer-ing, University of CaliforniaExtension, 2223 Fulton St.,Berkeley, CA 94720, (415)642-4151.

February 21-23

Softcon, Superdome, NewOrleans, LA. This interna-tional software conferenceand trade fair is designed forretailers, independent salesorganizations, consultants,government agencies, educa-tional institutions, and pro-fessional software develop-ers. Registration is $15. For in-formation, contact NortheastExpositions, 822 Boylston St.,Chestnut Hill, MA 02167,(800) 841-7000; in Massachu-setts, (617) 739-2000.

Februan/ 22-24

Fundamentals of Financeand Accounting Using a Mi-crocomputer, New York City.This three-day seminar issponsored by the Data Pro-cessing Institute of the NewYork University School ofContinuing 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 details,contact the NYU School ofContinuing Education Semi-nar Center, 575 MadisonAve., New York, NY 10022,(212) 748-5094.

Februan/ 22-24

Pick Spectrum '84, MGMGrand Hotel, Reno, NV. Thisbusiness-computer forum,designed for people in com-puter education and the tech-nical or manufacturing paths,will feature a wide array ofdemonstrations and exhibits.Seminars will be available onPick implementations, net-working, magnetic tapemedia, and voice responseand recognition. The fee is

$350. To register, contact In-ternational Database Man-agement Association Inc.,Suite 210, 9740 AppaloosaRd., San Diego, CA 92131,(619) 578-3152.

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, NY10110, (212) 840-7744.

Februan/ 23-24

Computers in Construction,

Orlando, FL. This seminar isdesigned to assist construc-tion contractors and con-struction management firmsin acquiring computer sys-tems. The fee is $425 perregistrant. More details areavailable from CIP Informa-tion Services Inc., 1105-FSpring St., Silver Spring,MD 20910, (301) 589-7933.

February 23-26

Technology, Entertainment,Design CommunicationsConference, Conference Cen-ter, Monterey, CA. Audio andvisual presentations docu-menting technological ad-vances and their usage incommunications processeswill be presented at this con-ference. Registration fees are$475. Contact Judi Skalsky,T E. D. CommunicationsConference, 635 WestbourneDr., Los Angeles, CA 90069,(213) 854-6307.

February 25-26

Computers & Reading/Learn-ing Difficulties, Hilton, SanFrancisco, CA. This secondannual conference is de-signed for those people whouse computers in the readingand language arts, and forovercoming learning disabil-ities. Interested persons mayrequest brochures from Edu-cational Computer Confer-

ences, Department N, 1070Crows Nest Way, Richmond,CA 94803.

Februan/ 25-26

The Computer SupermarketPersonal Computer Show,

County Fairgrounds, SanMateo, CA. Retailers, manu-facturers, and distributorswill offer savings on a widevariety of personal com-puters, software, and acces-sories for hobby, business,and home uses. For exhibitorand show information, con-tact Microshows, POB 4323,Foster City, CA 94404, (415)571-8041.

February 27-28

Software Tools for Distrib-uted Support Systems,

Westin Hotel at Copley Place,Boston, MA. This confer-ence, targeted at managersand professionals, will fea-ture in-depth demonstrationsand discussions by leadingsoftware vendors. For details,contact Dr. Warren Briggs,The Software Tools Confer-ence, Suffolk University,Beacon Hill, Boston, MA02114, (617) 723-4700.

February 27-29

Fundamentals of Financeand Accounting Using aMicrocomputer, Chicago, IL.For details, see February22-24.

February 27-29

Micro Technology & Audit-ing, Westin Peachtree Plaza,Atlanta, GA. This intensiveconference provides an up-date on state-of-the-art tech-nology, controls, security,and auditability of microcom-puter systems. Topics to bepresented include a Unix sys-tem tutorial, recovery man-agement for microcomputers,encryption, the Pick operat-ing system, and the portableaudit office. For details, con-tact MIS Training InstituteInc., 4 Brewster Rd, Framing-ham, MA 01701, (617)879-7999.

February 27-March 2

MICAD '84, Paris, France.An exhibition associated withthe MICAD biennial confer-ence will be held for the firsttime. This event also marksthe tenth anniversary ofMICADO, the French Com-puter Graphics Association.MICAD will provide an op-portunity for manufacturersof computer graphics hard-ware and software to makecontact with the rapidlygrowing French computer-graphics market. For infor-mation, contact Caby Smith,World Computer GraphicsAssociation Inc., Suite 399,2033 M St. NW, Washington,DC 20036, (202) 775-9556. InEurope, contact MICADO,ZIRST, Chemin de Pre Carre,38240 Meylan, France; tel:(76) 90-31-90; Telex: 980 882 F.

Februan/ 27-March 2Welcome to the World of Per-sonal Computing, Fort Lau-derdale, FL. This workshopserves as a comprehensiveintroduction to the uses ofmicrocomputer technologyin business, industry, andgovernment. Six modules,ranging from user productiv-ity to software reliability, areon the agenda. For further in-formation, contact KestonAssociates, 11317 Old ClubRd., Rockville, MD 20852,(301) 881-7666.

February 28-29

The Twelfth Annual Mid-west Digital Equipment Ex-hibit and Seminar, Thunder-bird Motel, Minneapolis,MN. More than 100 manufac-turers of computer terminals,data-communications equip-ment, peripherals, data-ac-quisition systems, and digitaltest instruments will displaytheir products. Admission toboth the exhibits and semi-nars is free of charge. Formore details, contact Coun-tryman Associates Co., 1821University Ave., St. Paul,MN 55104, (612) 645-9151.

458 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

February 28-March 1

The Annual Computer Fairof the Computer Society ofBermuda, Princess Hotel,Southampton, Bermuda.The theme for this event is"Bermuda—The InternationalOffshore Software Mart."Seminars, demonstrations,presentations, and vendorexhibits will highlight thisshow. For full details, contactJames H. Young Jr., Com-puter Society of Bermuda,POB 1479, Hamilton 5, Ber-muda, (809) 295-7111.

February 28-March 1

COMPCON Spring '84, SanFrancisco, CA. For details,contact the IEEE ComputerSociety, POB 639, SilverSpring, MD 20901, (301)589-8142.

February 28-March 2

The Air Force Conference onTechnology in Training andEducation, School of Health

Care Sciences, Sheppard AirForce Base, TX. This confer-ence will explore technologyin aerospace applications,technical training, and edu-cation, with emphasis oncurrent developments in theDepartment of Defense. Top-ics of discussion includecomputer-generated simula-tions and training aids andinnovative uses of interactivevideodiscs. For information,contact Captain Jim Camp-bell, SHCS/USAF/MSSA,SAFB Wichita Falls, TX 76311,(817) 851-6461.

March 1984

March 1-2

The Microcomputer Jungle:Impact on Health Care, Kan-sas City, KS. This course isdesigned to broaden theknowledge base for novice,intermediate, and advanced

small system users who workin health-care fields. The feeis $90 for physicians, nurses,therapists, and administra-tors; $45 for student/resi-dents. For details, contact JanJohnston, Office of Continu-ing Education, University ofKansas Medical Center, 39thand Rainbow, Kansas City,KS 66103, (913) 588-4480.

March 6-8

Professional DevelopmentWeek '84 (P.D.W. '84), Holi-day Inn, Ottawa, Ontario,Canada. The theme of thisevent sponsored by the DataProcessing Institute is "Tech-nology—Solution or Prob-lem." Held in conjunctionwith Interchange '84, bothevents will cover variousgovernment electronic dataprocessing applications andsystems. For information,contact the Data ProcessingInstitute, Box 2458, Station D,Ottawa, Ontario KIP 5W6,

Canada, or call Carol Halikasat (613) 992-3333.

March 8-9

Computers in Construction,

San Diego, CA. For details,see February 23-24.

March 8-10

The Role of the Microcom-puter in Education IV, Ar-lington Park Hilton, Arling-ton Heights, IL. In-depthseminars and sessions cover-ing a wide range of educa-tional topics make up thisconference. Further informa-tion is available from RickNelson, Micro-Ideas, 1335North Waukegan Rd., Glen-view, IL 60025, (312) 998-5065.

March 12-14

Auditing and ControllingMicrocomputers, Houston,TX. This seminar reviews thetechnology behind micro-computers and shows howthey can be used by an audi-

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Event Queue.

tor for practice managementor as a tool in an audit en-gagement. For a course out-line, contact Miriam Hoyt,MIS Training Institute Inc., 4Brewster Rd., Framingham,MA 01701, (617) 879-7999.

March 12-15

Interface '84, ConventionCenter, Las Vegas, NV. Fordetails on this twelfth annualdata communications/infor-mation-processing confer-ence and exposition, contactthe Interface Group Inc., 300First Ave., Needham, MA02194, (800) 325-3330; in Mas-sachusetts, (617) 449-6600.

March 13

NorWesCon-84, Red Lion InnConvention Center, Bellevue,WA. The theme of this ninthannual Pacific Northwest in-dustrial electronics tradeshow is "Discover Solutionsin Technology." Almost 50manufacturers will presentexhibits, demonstrations,and seminars of originalequipment manufacturingand end-user products forthe industrial electronicsmarketplace. Admission isfree for all members of the in-dustry. For information, callthe sponsor, Almac Elec-tronics Corp., 14360 South-east Eastgate Way, Bellevue,WA 98007, (206) 643-9992.

March 13-15

CIMCOM, Convention Cen-ter, Washington, DC. TheComputer-integrated Manu-facturing and Communica-tions (CIMCOM) conferenceand exposition is sponsoredby the Computer and Auto-mated Systems Associationof the Society of Manufactur-ing Engineers (CASA/SME).It will focus on software de-velopment and applications,beginning with manufactur-ing planning and continuingthrough the manufacturing-control processes. For infor-maiton, contact CASA/SME,One SME Dr., POB 930,

Dearborn, MI 48121, (313)271-1500, ext. 521.

March 13-15

Micro/SET 84: Microcom-puter Expo for Scientific,Engineering, and Technol-ogy, Engineering Society ofDetroit, MI. Papers empha-sizing microcomputer appli-cations in research, design,engineering, and manufac-turing will be presented.Complementing the confer-ence program will be dis-plays of scientific, engineer-ing, and technical microcom-puter hardware and soft-ware. For more information,write to the Conference Man-ager, Engineering Society ofDetroit, 100 Farnsworth,Detroit, MI 48202.

March 13-15

Optical Storage of Docu-ments and Images, BiltmoreHotel, Los Angeles, CA. Top-ics to be covered are read-write and read-only storageof analog and digital informa-tion including office docu-ments, engineering draw-ings, and parts catalogs. Thefee is $695 for the first personfrom an organization and$595 for each additional at-tendee. For more informa-tion, contact Technology Op-portunity Conference, POB14817, San Francisco, CA94114-0817, (415) 626-1133.

March 15-16

Technology Outlook, the

Wisconsin Center, Madison,WI. This seminar, conductedby the University of Wiscon-sin—Extension Engineeringand Applied Science Pro-gram, is for industrial ex-ecutives seeking an under-standing of telecommunica-tions, automation, computeradvances, and genetics. Thefee is $475. For information,contact the University of Wis-consin—Extension, Depart-ment of Engineering and Ap-plied Science, 432 NorthLake St., Madison, WI 53706,(608) 262-3748.

Circle 10 on inquiry card.

March 18-22

Saudicomputer '84—TheBusiness Computer Show,

al-Dhiafa Exhibition Centre,Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. For in-formation, contact Philip Jen-kinson, Saudicomputer '84,Overseas Exhibition ServicesLtd., 11 Manchester Square,London W1M 5AB, England;tel: 01-486 1951; Telex: 24591Montex G.

March 19-21

Material CharacterizationTechniques for IntegratedCircuit Processing, San

Mateo, CA. This three-daycourse is designed to ac-quaint participants with cur-rent techniques for inte-grated-circuit development,process monitoring, andfailure analysis. The coursefee is $450 for lectures only or$695 for the third-day lab ses-sion. For information, contactContinuing Education inEngineering, University ofCalifornia Extension, 2223Fulton St., Berkeley, CA94720, (415) 642-4151.

March 19-22

Automated Manufacturing

Conference and Exhibition

(AM84), Textile Hall, Green-ville, SC. The latest auto-mated manufacturing tech-nologies will be the focus ofthis combination exhibitionand seminar. Representativesfrom more than 200 firms areexpected. Complete detailsabout the conference can beobtained from the AM84Registration Control Center,POB 5616, Station B, Green-ville, SC 29606, (803) 242-3170,ext. 260. Details about the ex-hibition are available fromAM84, POB 5823, Greenville,SC 29606, (803) 233-2562.

March 19-22

The Eighth Annual FederalOffice Systems Expo (FOSE

'84), Convention Center,Washington, DC. The themefor this year's expo is "Reali-ties of Integration: Technolo-gies, Applications, Human

Resources." More than 60conference sessions and 1200exhibits are planned. Ad-dress inquiries to JacquelineVoigt, National Trade Pro-ductions, 9418 AnnapolisRd., Lanham, MD 20706,(800) 638-8510; in Maryland,(301) 459-8383.

March 22-23

Computers in Construction,

New York, NY. For details,see February 23-24.

March 22-25

The Ninth West Coast Com-puter Faire, Civic Auditoriumand Brooks Hall, San Fran-cisco, CA. This is one of theyear's largest computershows. For information, con-tact the Computer Faire Inc.,Suite 201, 181 Wells Ave.,Newton, MA 02159, (617)965-8350.

March 23

The 1984 Computer Law In-stitute, Cleveland, OH. Thisevent, sponsored by the BarAssociation of Greater Cleve-land, will cover current legaland tax issues that affect thecomputer industry. For de-tails, contact Carole Falcone,Mall Building, Cleveland,OH 44114, (216) 696-3525.

March 26-28

The Seventh InternationalConference on Software En-gineering, Orlando, FL. Thisconference seeks to evaluatewhat has been learned fromthe past and to provide direc-tions for future investigationsin software engineering. Itstheme is "Fifteen Years ofSoftware Engineering: Re-sults and Futures." A soft-ware tools fair will be heldconcurrently. Contact theIEEE Computer Society, POB639, Silver Spring, MD 20901,(301) 589-3386.

March 26-29

Personal Computer Interfac-ing and Scientific Instru-ment Automation, Blacks-burg, VA. These hands-on

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February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 461

Event Queue,

workshops, sponsored bythe Virginia Polytechnic Insti-tute and State University,provide participants with ex-perience in wiring and test-ing interfaces on popularpersonal computers. For in-formation, contact Dr. LindaLeffel, C.E.C., Virginia Tech,Blacksburg, VA 24061, (703)961-4848.

March 26-30

The Sixth NC IndustrialAutomation and Robot Con-ference and Exhibition,

Milan Fair, Milan, Italy. Con-trols for automated materialhandling, variable missionmanufacturing systems, andquality control will be fea-tured. A concurrent confer-ence consisting of 20 sessionswill be presented. For moreinformation, contact the So-ciety of Manufacturing Engi-neers, One SME Dr., POB930, Dearborn, MI 48121,(313) 271-0023.

March 27-29

Southwest Computer Con-ference (SWCC), MyriadConvention Center, Oklaho-ma City, OK. This seventhannual business and indus-try conference is aimed atmanagement and technicalpersonnel. It will feature morethan 50 seminar presenta-tions and 250 exhibits. Fordetails, contact E. Z. Million,SWCC, POB 950, Norman,OK 73070, (405) 329-3660.

March 28-30

The Sixth Annual ComputerGraphics Conference, DoralHotel On-the-Ocean, MiamiBeach, FL. The theme for thisconference is "Forecasts andAssessments." Further detailsare available from Carol Sap-chin, Frost & Sullivan Inc.,106 Fulton St., New York, NY10038, (212) 233-1080.

March 30-31

Third Annual Conference on

Communication Technol-ogy, Joseph Stokes Auditori-um, Children's Hospital ofPhiladelphia, PA. This pro-gram presents advances intechnology and treatment al-ternatives for physically han-dicapped and speech-im-paired persons. Speakers,equipment demonstrations,and workshops are planned.The two-day registration feeis $95, which includes allcourse materials. If your reg-istration request is post-marked before March 10, thefee is $85. Group rates are of-fered. For full particulars,contact Joan Bruno, Child-ren's Seashore House, 4100Atlantic Ave., POB 4111,Atlantic City, NJ 08404, (609)345-5191, ext. 278.

March 30-April I

The NY Personal ComputerShow, Exposition Rotunda,Madison Square Garden,New York City. Formerly

called the Eighty/Apple/PCComputer Show, this eventwill feature products and ser-vices for all small computersystems. Complete show de-tails can be obtained from theKengore Corp., POB 13,Franklin Park, NJ 08823, (201)297-2526.

April 1984

April 1-4

The 1984 EFT Expo, HyattRegency, Grand Cypress Re-sort, Orlando, FL. This an-nual convention and exposi-tion, sponsored by the Elec-tronic Funds Transfer (EFT)Association, provides the op-portunity to meet withleaders and experts in thefield of automated paymentssystems and services. The feeis $495 for EFT members and$625 for nonmembers. Fordetails, contact the EFTAssociation, Convention

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462 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

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Circle 322 on inquiry card.

Coordinator, Suite 800, 1029Vermont Ave. NW, Washing-ton, DC 20005.

April 2-4

Speech Tech—84, St. MoritzHotel, New York City. Thisvoice-synthesis and recogni-tion applications show coversvoice input/output as appliedto computers, telecommuni-cations, defense electronics,robotics, education, and aidsfor the handicapped. For in-formation, contact StanleyGoldstein, Media Dimen-sions Inc., 525 East 82nd St.,New York, NY 10028, (212)680-6451.

April 2-5

The 1984 Test & Measure-ment World Expo, BrooksHall, San Francisco, CA. Thisis the third annual exposponsored by Text and Mea-surement World, a magazinefrom Interfield Publishing.For details, contact MegBowen, Test & MeasurementWorld Expo, 215 BrightonAve., Boston, MA 02134, (617)254-1445.

April 3-5

Cincinnati Business Show,

Convention-Exposition Cen-ter, Cincinnati, OH. Exhibitsinclude automated office

equipment, computers, com-munications, telephone sys-tems and equipment, wordprocessors, business systemsand forms, and software andcomputer peripherals. For in-formation, contact Weber andAssociates Inc., 10608 Mill-ington Court, Cincinnati,OH 45242, (513) 791-6303.

April 3-6

DEXPO East 84, Bayside Ex-position Center, Boston, MA.This conference, dedicated toprofessionals who use DigitalEquipment Corporation(DEC) equipment, is spon-sored by the national in-dependent DEC user groupof Warwick, Rhode Island.Topics to be covered are officeautomation, personal com-puters, communications, sec-urity and disaster planning,education, graphics, technol-ogy trends, and other areasof interest. For information,contact Expoconsul Interna-tional Inc., 55 Princeton-Hightstown Rd., PrincetonJunction, NJ 08550, (609)799-1661.

April 4-11

CeBIT, Hannover, West Ger-many. This office-equipmentand data-processing technol-ogy exhibition will bring to-

gether exhibitors from morethan 25 countries. For infor-mation, contact HannoverFairs Information Center,POB 338, Route 22 E, White-house, NJ 08888, (800)526-5978; in New Jersey, (201)534-9044.

April 5-7

COMDEX/Winter, Conven-tion Center, Los Angeles,CA. This conference and ex-hibition will feature separatehardware and software sec-tions on the same exhibitfloor. For information, con-tact The Interface Group Inc.,300 First Ave., Needham,MA 02194, (800) 325-3330; inMassachusetts, (617) 449-6600.

April 8-11

World Retailers Business &Equipment Exposition,

Palais des Congres, Paris,France. This exposition issponsored by the NationalRetail Merchants Association(NRMA) and runs concur-rently with NRMA's NinthWorld Conference of Re-tailers. The exposition is de-signed to introduce storemerchants to new develop-ments, equipment, and pro-cedures. Admission is free,although retail store mer-

chants must show ticket. Forcomplimentary tickets anddetails, write to Dan Soskin,NRMA Enterprises, 100 West31st St., New York, NY 10001.

April 9-12

Intergraphics '84, SasakawaMemorial Hall, Tokyo, Japan.This conference and exposi-tion is cosponsored by theSociety of ManufacturingEngineers (SME) and theWorld Computer GraphicsAssociation (WCGA). It willfocus on the growing impor-tance of computer graphicsin business and manufactur-ing industries. For infor-mation, contact JamesMcLaughlin, Society ofManufacturing Engineers,One SME Dr., POB 930,Dearborn, MI 48121, (313)271-0023.

April 13-14

The Fourteenth Annual Vir-ginia Computer User's Con-ference, Sheraton Hotel,Blacksburg, VA. This con-ference is sponsored by theVirginia Tech Student Chap-ter of the ACM (Associationfor Computing Machinery)and the computer sciencedepartment of Virginia Tech.Topics include modeling andsimulation, STARS and

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 reguest to the following address.

BYTE Publications Inc

Attn: Circulation Department

70 Main St

Peterborough NH

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February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 463

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64K SD* (96TPI) $2689

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DYNABYTE 8/16 BIT Call

CALLAN 16/32 BIT Call

EnEnna

NEC

7710 Ser $1899

7715 $1949

7730 Par $1899

7720 $2449

7725 $2496

Std. Tractor 77xx $ 199

3510 $1364

3515 $1394

3530 $1390

3550 (IBM) $1709

DATASOUTH DS180 Call

DATASOUTH DS220 Call

DIABLO

620-SPI $ 849

630-R-102/147 $1949

630ECS $2389

630-R155* $1694

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630K104(KSR) $2265

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Interface $ 76

Sprint 11/55 Call

Sprint 9/45 FP $1794

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351 $1673

BarCode $ 98

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PHAZE (3270 Ex. Mem) $1589BEEHIVE (SMART DISPLAY)

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DM83 (Burroughs) Call

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745 Standard $1172

745 Std. (Reconditioned) . . Call

765BblM'my Call

785/787 Call

810 Basic $1249

810 Package $1439

820 Package RO $1610

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703 Std $ 459

707 KSR $ 549

850 Tractor Feed $ 549

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WordStar $ 279

DataStar $ 218

Mail Merge $ 144

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Plan 80 $ 249

d Base II $ 489

CalcStar $ 119

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InfoStar $ 279

lnfoStar(8") .... Special $ 249

CISCobol $ 689

Forms II $ 159

MACRO 80 $ 183

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ReportStar $ 199

Starlndex $ 129

PlanStar Call

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We also make EIA RS 232 or RS 449 cables to your order, can supply you withribbons, printer stands, print wheels, thimbles for all printers listed. Plusmany, many more items. Most items in stock. CALL NOW.

All items shipped freight collect either motor freight or UPS unless otherwise speci-fied. All prices already include 3% cash discount. Purchase with credit card does notinclude discount. Virginia residents, add 4% Sates Tax. For fastest delivery sendcertified check, money order or bank-wire transfer. Sorry, no C.O.D. orders. Allequipment is in factory cartons with manufacturers .^^^^warranty (honored at our depot). Prices subject to y5*

change without notice. i^^—

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Event Queue

J

Terminals Terrific, Inc., P.O. Box 216, Merrifield, VA 22116Phone: 800-368-3404 (In VA, Call Collect 703-237-8695)

464 february 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Japanese fifth-generationcomputers, and microcom-puters. For information, con-tact Suzanne Nagy or RogerGoff, VCUC-14, 562 McBrydeHall, Virginia Tech, Blacks-burg, VA 24061.

April 13-15

The International PersonalRobotics Congress and Ex-position, Convention Center,Albuquerque, NM. Interna-tional corporations andhigh-technology executivescan view the latest in robotsdesigned to serve personalneeds. For details, contact Al-buquerque Convention andVisitors Bureau Inc., POB26866, Albuquerque, NM87125-6866, (505) 243-3696.

April 16-18

Videotex '84, Chicago, IL.The focus of this interna-tional conference and exhibi-tion is commercial applica-tions and activities of video-tex. For details, contact SallySummers, London OnlineInc., Suite 1190, 2 Penn Plaza,New York, NY 10121, (212)279-8890.

April 17-19

IPAD II, Marriott Hotel,Denver, CO. This is the sec-ond national symposium topromote a wider awarenessof the technology surround-ing the Integrated Programfor Aerospace-vehicle Design(IPAD). The focus will be onadvances in distributed data-base management tech-nology to support integratedCAD/CAM requirements. Itis sponsored by the NationalAeronautics and Space Ad-ministration, the Departmentof the Navy, and the Indus-try Technical Advisory Boardfor IPAD. Information isavailable from the IPAD Proj-ect Office, Mail Stop 246,NASA Langley ResearchCenter, Hampton, VA 23665,(804) 865-2888.

April 18-20

The 1984 Rocky Mountain

Data Processing Expo &

Conference, Denver, CO.This is the seventh annualexpo sponsored by the MileHigh Chapter of the DataProcessing Management As-sociation. Displays will in-clude mini- and microcom-puters, word processors,software, educational ser-vices, and network systems.It is being held in conjunc-tion with the DPMAs Region4 conference. For informa-tion, contact Industrial Pre-sentations West Inc., Suite304, 3090 South JamaicaCourt, Aurora, CO 80014,(303) 696-6100.

April 24-25

Workspace 84, MosconeCenter, San Francisco, CA.This second annual con-ference and exposition,sponsored by National FairsInc., will be devoted to theconcerns of the automatedoffice. For details, contactCharley Yourd, National FairsInc., 1902 Van Ness Ave., SanFrancisco, CA 94109.

April 26-28

Science Park '84, NewHaven, CT. This microcom-puter conference and exposi-tion is designed for small-business executives. Fordetails, contact Science Park'84, Five Science Park, NewHaven, CT 06511, (203)436-3089. ■

In order to gain optimalcoverage of your organi-zation's computer confer-ences, seminars, work-shops, courses, etc., noticeshould reach our office atleast three months in ad-vance of the date of theevent. Entries should besent to: Event Queue,BYTE Publications, POB372, Hancock, IMH 03449.Each month we publishthe current contents ofthe queue for the monthof the cover date and thetwo following calendarmonths. Thus a givenevent may appear as manyas three times in this sec-tion if it is sent to us farenough in advance.

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4. Convenience! 14-16 times a year (about once every3-4 weeks) you receive the Club Bulletin FREE. It fullydescribes the Main Selection and alternate selections.A dated Reply Card is included. If you want the MainSelection, you simply do nothing — it will be shippedautomatically. If you want an alternate selection - or nobook at all - you simply indicate it on the Reply Card andreturn it by the date specified. You will have at least 10days to decide. If, because of late delivery of the Bulletinyou receive a Main Selection you do not want, you mayreturn it for credit at the Club's expense.

As a Club member you agree only to the purchase ofthree additional books during your first year of member-ship. Membership may be discontinued by either you orthe Club at any time after you have purchased the threeadditional books.

Whether you're a micro owner or a data processingprofessional, whether you use a computer foryour business or in your home, here is the ideal single-volume reference.

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BYTE february 1984 465

Books Received

The Academic Apple, RichardMowe. Reston, VA: RestonPublishing, 1983; 176 pages,15.3 by 23 cm, softcover, ISBN0-8359-0033-9, $10.95.

Advanced Database MachineArchitecture, David K. Hsiao,ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall, 1983; 416pages, 18.5 by 24.3 cm, hard-cover, ISBN 0-13-011262-3,$35.

Apple II DiskGuide, ZeldaGifford. Berkeley, CA:Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1983;46 pages, 13.5 by 13.5 cm,spiral-bound, ISBN 0-931988-96-9, $7.95.

Atari 400/800 DiskGuide,John Taylor. Berkeley, CA:Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1983;64 pages, 13.5 by 13.5 cm,spiral-bound, ISBN 0-931988-95-0, $7.95.

Automating Your FinancialPortfolio, Donald Woodwell.Homewood, IL: Dow Jones-Irwin, 1983; 272 pages, 15.5by 23.5 cm, hardcover, ISBN0-87094-399-5, $19.95.

Automation, John Diebold.New York: American Man-agement Associations BookDivision, 1983; 224 pages,14.5 by 21.3 cm, hardcover,ISBN 0-8144-5756-8, $14.95.

BASIC Subroutines for Com-modore Computers, EddieAdamis. New York: JohnWiley & Sons, 1983; 320pages, 17 by 25.3 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-471-86541-9,$12.95.

C-Bims: Cassette-Based Infor-mation Management System forthe PET, Gary Greenberg.Blue Ridge Summit, PA: TabBooks, 1983; 224 pages, 13 by21 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-8306-1489-3, $10.95.

The COBOL Programmer'sBook of Rules, G. Ledinjr., M.Kudlick, and V. Ledin. Bel-mont, CA: Lifetime LearningPublications, 1983; 240 pages,15 by 23 cm, softcover, ISBN0-534-97923-8, $14.95.

CP/M DiskGuide, Curtis A.Ingraham. Berkeley, CA:Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1983;

40 pages, 13.5 by 13.5 cm,spiral-bound, ISBN 0-931988-97-7, $8.95.

CP/M for the IBM UsingCP/M-86, Judi N. Fernandezand Ruth Ashley. New York:John Wiley & Sons, 1983; 272pages, 17 by 25 cm, softcover,ISBN 0-471-89719-1, $14.95.

Commodore 64 User's Hand-book, the WSI staff. Cleve-land, OH: Weber SystemsInc., 1983; 312 pages, 13.5 by21.5 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-938862-50-2, $14.95.

Computer Graphics for theIBM Personal Computer,Donald Hearn and M.Pauline Baker. EnglewoodCliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,1983; 352 pages, 18 by 24.5cm, hardcover, ISBN 0-13-164335-5, $24.95.

Computers for Profit, DavidC. Dykstra. Reston, VA: Res-ton Publishing Co., 1983; 272pages, 17.5 by 23.5 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-8359-0867-4,$14.95.

CONLAN Report, R. Piloty,M. Barbacci, D. Borrione, D.Dietmeyer, F. Hill, and P.Skelly. Lecture Notes inComputer Science, #151.New York: Springer-Verlag,1983; 192 pages, 16.5 by 24.5cm, softcover, ISBN 0-387-12275-3, $10.

Controlling Financial Perfor-mance, An APPLE BusinessUser's Guide, D. P. Curtin,J. R. Alves, and A. K. Briggs.Somerville, MA: Curtin &London, 1983; 176 pages, 21.5by 28 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-930764-58-7, $15.50.

Controlling Financial Perfor-mance, An IBM PC BusinessUser's Guide, D. P. Curtin,J. R. Alves, and A. K. Briggs.Somerville, MA: Curtin &London, 1983; 176 pages, 21.5by 28 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-930764-57-9, $15.50.

Cryptograph]/, ThomasBeth, ed. Lecture Notes inComputer Science, #149.New York: Springer-Verlag,1983; 416 pages, 16.5 by 24cm, softcover, ISBN 0-387-

11993-0, $18.50.

DBMS For Distributed Com-puters and Networks, DimitrisN. Chorafas. Princeton, NJ:Petrocelli Books, 1983; 272pages, 16 by 24 cm, hard-cover, ISBN 0-89433-184-1,$24.95.

The Design of Dynamic DataStructures, Mark H. Over-mars. Lecture Notes in Com-puter Science, #156. NewYork: Springer-Verlag, 1983;192 pages, 16.5 by 24 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-387-12330-X,$10.

The Design of Well-Structuredand Correct Programs, SuadAlagic and Michael A. Arbib.New York: Springer-Verlag,1978; 304 pages, 16.5 by 24cm, hardcover, ISBN 0-387-90299-6, $17.

Direct Methods for SparseMatrices, Ole Osterby andZahari Zlatev. Lecture Notesin Computer Science, #157.New York: Springer-Verlag,1983; 136 pages, 16.5 by 24.3cm, softcover, ISBN 0-387-12676-7, $8.50.

Easy Add-On Projects forSpectrum, ZX81 & ACE,Owen Bishop. London, Eng-land: Bernard Babani Ltd.,1983; 192 pages, 11 by 17.8 cm,softcover, ISBN 0-85934-099-6, £2.75.

Effective Structured Program-ming, Lem O. Ejiogu. NewYork: Petrocelli Books, 1983;192 pages, 16 by 24 cm, hard-cover, ISBN 089433-205-8,$24.95.

Electro-Optical Communica-tions Dictionary, Dennis Bod-son and Dan Botez, eds.Rochelle Park, NJ: HaydenBook Co., 1983; 176 pages,15.5 by 23.5 cm, hardcover,ISBN 0-8104-0961-5, $16.95.

Electronics Handbook, Mat-thew Mandl. Reston, VA:Reston Publishing Co., 1983;376 pages, 16 by 24 cm, hard-cover, ISBN 0-8359-1603-0,$29.95.

40 Easy Steps to Program-ming in BASIC & Logo,James L. Poirot and R. Clark

Adams. Austin, TX: SterlingSwift Publishing Co., 1983;64 pages, 21.5 by 28 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-88408-275-X,$3.95.

44 Dynamic ZX-81 Gamesand Recreations, Ian Davies.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pren-tice-Hall, 1983; 174 pages, 15.3by 22.8 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-13-329144-8, $19.95.

Foundations of ComputationTheory, Marek Karpinski, ed.Lecture Notes in ComputerScience, #158. New York:Springer-Verlag, 1983; 532pages, 16.5 by 24.3 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-387-12689-9,$22.

Getting Started on the Sharp1500 & Radio Shack PC-2,H. C. Pennington, GaryCamp, and Ralph Burns. Up-land, CA: IJG Inc., 1983; 280pages, 21 by 27.5 cm, ISBN 0-936200-11-1, $16.95.

Getting the Most Out of YourWord Processor, Arnold Rosen.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pren-tice-Hall, 1983; 222 pages,17.3 by 23.5 cm, softcover,ISBN 0-13-354548-2, $9.95.

Graph-Grammars and TheirApplication to Computer Sci-ence, Hartmut Ehrig, Man-fred Nagl, and GrzegorzRozenberg, eds. LectureNotes in Computer Science,#153. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1983; 464 pages, 16.6by 24.3 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-387-12310-5, $20.50.

Guide to the IBM PersonalComputer, Walter Sikonowiz.New York: BYTE Books/McGraw-Hill, 1983; 312pages, 15.3 by 22.9 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-07-057484-7,$19.95.

Hardware Interfacing with theApple II Plus, John E. Uffen-beck. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall, 1983; 256pages, 18 by 24 cm, hard-cover, ISBN 0-13-383851-X,$19.95.

How to Win at Video Games,the editors of ConsumerGuide. New York: CrownPublishers, 1983; 64 pages, 21

466 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Books Received.

by 27.5 cm, spiral-bound,ISBN 0-517-42470-3, $3.98.

I Speak BASIC to My VIC,(Teacher's Manual), AubreyB. Jones Jr. Rochelle Park, NJ:Hayden Book Co., 1983; 272pages, 21 by 28 cm, softcover,ISBN 0-8104-6169-2, $18.75.

IBM and the U.S. Data Pro-cessing Industry: An EconomicHistory, Franklin M. Fisher,James W. McKie, and RichardB. Mancke. New York:Praeger Publishers, 1983; 544pages, 16 by 24.3 cm, hard-cover, ISBN 0-03-063059-2,$37.95.

IBM Data Files, DavidMiller. Reston, VA: RestonPublishing Co., 1983; 272pages, 15.3 by 22.8 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-8359-3026-2,$15.

IBM PC DiskGuide, DavidA. Wilson. Berkeley, CA:Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1983;48 pages, 13.5 by 13.5 cm,spiral-bound, ISBN 0-931988-94-2, $8.95.

The IBM/PC & Business Soft-ware, James E. Kelley Jr.Wayne, PA: Banbury Books,1983; 354 pages, 18 by 23.5cm, spiral-bound, ISBN 0-88693-000-6, $39.95. Includestwo 5V4-inch floppy disks.

The IBM Personal Computer,Robert J. Traister. Blue RidgeSummit, PA: Tab Books,1983; 202 pages, 19.5 by 23.5cm, softcover, ISBN 0-8306-1496-6, $10.95.

IC Timer Cookbook, 2nd ed.Walter G. Jung. Indianapolis,IN: Howard W. Sams & Co.,1983; 384 pages, 13 by 21 cm,softcover, ISBN 0-672-21932-8,$17.95.

Kaypro User's Handbook, theWSI staff. Cleveland, OH:Weber Systems Inc., 1983;312 pages, 13.5 by 21.5 cm,softcover, ISBN 0-938862-12-X, $14.95.

The Master Memory Map forthe Commodore 64, PaulPavelko and Tim Kelly. Res-ton, VA: Reston Publishing

Co., 1983; 192 pages, 15.3 by22.5 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-8359-4243-6, $14.95.

Mastering Micros, HannahI. Blank. New York: PerrocelliBooks, 1983; 368 pages, 16 by24 cm, hardcover, ISBN 0-89433-207-4, $24.95.

Microcomputer Graphics andProgramming Techniques,Harry Katzan Jr. New York:Van Nostrand Reinhold,1982; 244 pages, 16 by 23.3cm, hardcover, ISBN 0-442-28419-5, $22.50.

Minute Manual for AppleWriter II, Jim Pirisino. Colum-bia, MD: Minuteware, 1983;85 pages, 13.5 by 21.5 cm,softcover, ISBN 0-913131-00-8,$7.95.

Office Automation and WordProcessing Fundamentals,Shirley A. Waterhouse. NewYork: Harper & Row, 1983;368 pages, 18.7 by 23.4 cm,softcover, ISBN 0-06-046954-4, $14.50.

PC DOS Using the IBM PC

Operating System, RuthAshley and Judi N. Fer-nandez. New York: JohnWiley and Sons, 1983; 240pages, 17 by 25 cm, softcover,ISBN 0-471-89718-3, $14.95.

Personal Computers &Games, the editors of Con-sumer Guide. New York:Crown Publishers, 1983; 64pages, 21 by 27.5 cm, spiral-bound, ISBN 0-517-41595-X,$3.98.

Pictorial Data Analysis,R. M. Haralick, ed. NewYork: Springer-Verlag, 1983;480 pages, 17 by 25 cm, hard-cover, ISBN 0-387-12288-5,$49.70.

Planning and Budgeting, AnAPPLE Business User's Guide,J. R. Alves, D. P. Curtin, andA. K. Briggs. Somerville,MA: Curtin & London, 1983;144 pages, 21.5 by 28 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-930764-62-5,$15.50.

Planning and Budgeting, AnIBM PC Business User's Guide,

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PERSONAL CHECKS ACCEPTABLE FROM CLUB MEMBERS. ** £"*]^Compatible •••-••■• •'•■ ■

5 V. (SSDD) Floppy Discs (Box ot 10).Cooling Fans for Apple

$239.9589.9589.95249.95109.95109.95249.95CALLCALL16.9544.95

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ORDER DESK 8:00 A.M. TO 5:00 P.M.

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J°ciuT Dana's Computer Discount

And Save! P.O. Box 15485, Santa Ana, California

Orders: 1-800-262-D AN A In California: (714) 953-9105

Product shipped in factorycartons with manufacturer'swarranty. Prices & availabilitysubject to change withoutnotice.

International orders accepted with a $5.00 surcharge for handling, plus shipping charges • We accept Visa, MasterCard, Money Orders.

and Certified checks • Checks require bank clearance • California residents add 6% sales tax ■ All subject to availability, acceptance, and

verification • All sales are final • Satisfaction guaranteed or full refund.

'Eagle, IBM, Apple, Apple ME, and Commodore are all registered trade marks of Eagle. IBM, Apple and Commodore corporal ions.

Circle 208 on inquiry card.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 467

Books Received,

J. R. Alves, D. P. Curtin, andA. K. Briggs. Somerville,MA: Curtin & London, 1983;144 pages, 21.5 by 28 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-930764-61-7,$15.50.

Polishing Your Apple, vol. 2,Herbert M. Honig. Indiana-polis, IN: Howard W. Sams& Co., 1983; 112 pages, 14 by21.5 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-672-22160-8, $4.95.

Problem Solving and Struc-tured Programming with For-tran 77, Martin O. Holoienand Ali Behforooz. Monterey,CA: Brooks/Cole PublishingCo., 1983; 528 pages, 18.5 by23.5 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-534-01275-2, $21.95.

The Programmer's CP/MHandbook, Andy Johnson-Laird. Berkeley, CA: Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1983; 512pages, 18.5 by 23.5 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-88134-103-7,$21.95.

The Programmer's Craft,Richard J. Weiland. Reston,VA: Reston Publishing Co.,1983; 176 pages, 18 by 24 cm,hardcover, ISBN 0-8359-5645-8, $18.95.

Programmer Productivity,Myths, Methods, and Murph-ology, Lowell Jay Arthur. NewYork: John Wiley & Sons,1983; 314 pages, 16 by 24 cm,hardcover, ISBN 0-471-86434-X, $22.95.

Programming a PersonalComputer, PerBrinch Hansen.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pren-tice-Hall, 1983; 440 pages, 18by 24.5 cm, hardcover, ISBN0-13-730267-3, $25.

The Programming Languages,C. H. Smedema, P. Medema,and M. Boasson. EnglewoodCliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inter-national, 1983; 160 pages, 15by 23 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-13-729756-4, $16.95.

The Programming LanguageAda Reference Manual, ANSI/MIL-STD-1815-1983. LectureNotes in Computer Science,#155. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1983; 344 pages, 16.5by 24 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-387-12328-8, $14.50.

Programming Languages, De-

sign and Implementation, 2nded. Terrence W. Pratt. Engle-wood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984; 624 pages, 18.5 by24 cm, hardcover, ISBN 0-13-730580-X, $24.95.

Programming the Apple II inBASIC, Paul Tebbe. Engle-wood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983; 192 pages, 15.3 by22.8 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-13-729749-1, $16.95.

Quadpack, A Subroutine Pack-age for Automatic Integration, R.Piessens, E. de Doncker-Kapenga, C. W. Uberhuber,and D. K. Kahaner. NewYork: Springer-Verlag, 1983;312 pages, 15.5 by 23 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-387-12553-1,$22.

Semiconductor Device Tech-nology, Malcolm E. Goodge.Indianapolis, IN: Howard W.Sams & Co., 1983; 512 pages,16.3 by 24.3 cm, hardcover,ISBN 0-672-22074-1, $34.95.

Simulation of Computer Com-munication Systems, CharlesH. Sauer and Edward A.MacNair. Englewood Cliffs,NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983; 174pages, 18.3 by 24.3 cm, hard-cover, ISBN 0-13-811125-1, $25.

Software Design and Develop-ment, Philip Gilbert. Chicago,IL: Science Research Associ-ates, 1983; 704 pages, 19 by24.5 cm, hardcover, ISBN 0-574-21430-5, $32.

Software Directory, 7th ed.Fairfax, VA: PC Clearing-house, 1983; 840 pages, 21.5by 27.5 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-88674-000-2, $29.95.

The Structured Alternative:Program Design, Style, and De-bugging, Don Cassel. Reston,VA: Reston Publishing Co.,1983; 256 pages, 16 by 23.5cm, hardcover, ISBN 0-8359-7084-1, $24.95.

Structured Cobol ReportWriter, David Schechter andGeorge Yvkoff. Reston, VA:Reston Publishing Co., 1982;320 pages, 18.3 by 24.3 cm,hardcover, ISBN 0-8359-7097-3, $24.95.

25 Advanced Games for thePET/CBM, Larry Hatch.Reston, VA: Reston Publish-

ing Co., 1983; 224 pages, 15by 23 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-8359-7894-X, $12.95.

The User's Guide to Commo-dore 64 & VIC 20 Computers,Software & Peripherals, theeditors of Consumer Guide.New York: Crown Publishers,1983; 80 pages, 21 by 27.5 cm,spiral-bound, ISBN 0-517-41447-3, $4.98.

User's Handbook to the Atari400/800 Computers, Jeffrey R.Weber and Stephen J.Szczecinski. Cleveland, OH:Weber Systems Inc., 1983;322 pages, 13 by 21.5 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-938862-15-4,$13.95.

User's Handbook to the IBMPersonal Computer, Jeffrey R.Weber. Cleveland, OH:Weber Systems Inc., 1982;300 pages, 21.5 by 13.8 cm,softcover, ISBN 0-938862-13-8,$13.95.

User's Handbook to theTRS-80 Model II Computer, Jef-frey R. Weber. Cleveland,OH: Weber Systems Inc.,1983; 304 pages, 13 by 21.5cm, softcover, ISBN 0-938862-01-4, $13.95.

User's Handbook to theVIC-20 Computer, Jeffrey R.Weber and Stephen J.Szczecinski. Cleveland, OH:Weber Systems Inc., 1983;280 pages, 13.3 by 21.5 cm,softcover, ISBN 0-938862-48-0, $13.95.

Using VisiCalc, Carol Klitz-ner and Matthew J. Plociak Jr.New York: John Wiley &Sons, 1983; 277 pages, 17 by25 cm, softcover, ISBN 0-471-89852-X, $16.95.

VIC BASIC, A User-FriendlyGuide, Ramon Zamora, DonInman, Bob Albrecht, andDymax. Reston, VA: RestonPublishing Co., 1983; 360pages, 15 by 23 cm, softcover,ISBN 0-8359-8377-3, $14.95.

Visicalc DiskGuide, DavidA. Wilson, Berkeley, CA:Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1983;16 pages, 13.5 by 13.5 cm,spiral-bound, ISBN 0-931988-98-5, $6.95.

A Z80 Workshop Manual,E. A. Parr. London, England:

Bernard Babani Ltd., 1983;192 pages, 11 by 18 cm, soft-cover, ISBN 0-85934-087-2,£2.75. ■

This is a list of booksreceived at BYTE Publica-tions during this pastmonth. Although the listis not meant to be exhaus-tive, its purpose is to ac-quaint BYTE readers withrecently published titles incomputer science and re-lated fields. We regretthat we cannot review orcomment on all the bookswe receive; instead, thislist is meant to be amonthly acknowledgmentof these books and thepublishers who sent them.

The answer to the cnjpto-gram on page 386 reads:

SOME CONSIDER ITFOOLISH TO WORKTHESE PUZZLES,

WHILE OTHERS PREFERANAGRAMS ANDCROSSWORDS. I LIKETHEM ALL AND HOPETHAT YOU HAD SOMEFUN WITH THIS EASYONE.

BYTE's Bugs

Gremlins Tiptoed Here

Author Raymond A.Diedrichs wrote in to saythat Gremlins had tiptoedthrough the version of hisFont program ("A CharacterEditor for the IBM PC,"November, page 467). Thefollowing patches should bemade in the indicated pro-gram lines:

line 2090 "1 + 1" instead of "I"line 2175 "CROW + 1" instead of

"CROW"line 2280 "1 TO 8" instead of

"0 TO 7"line 2325 "1 TO 8" instead of

"0 TO T'm

468 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Clubs and Newsletters

Scope for Scholars

Scope (Scholarly Communica-tions: Online Publishing andEducation) is a newsletter thatis produced bimonthly atQueens College in Flushing,New York, and contains in-formation on networks, pub-lishing opportunities, callsfor papers, a calendar, andannotated bibliographies. Anannual subscription is $47.For details, write to Scope,Queens College, City Univer-sity of New York, Flushing,NY 11367-0904.

A Word forIBM PC Users

The Washtenaw IBM Per-sonal Computer User Society(WIPCUS) meets on the thirdThursday of every month inAnn Arbor, Michigan. Themonthly publication, WIP-CUS Word, contains minutesof meetings, information ofsources for the IBM PersonalComputer, and a list of recentacquisitions in the WIPCUSdisk library. The club alsomaintains a hotline and anelectronic bulletin board sys-tem, the WIPCUS Wire, thatoperates 24 hours a day onthe three commonly usedmodem protocols. Member-ship is $18 a year; $12 forstudents and senior citizens.Address all correspondenceto Sue Wooley, WIPCUS,2647 Yost, Ann Arbor, MI48104.

Innovations InEducation

Hands On is a quarterlynewsletter produced by Tech-nical Education ResearchCenters (TERC), a nonprofit,public service corporationdedicated to improving edu-cation by encouraging the ap-propriate use of microcom-puters in labs and class-

rooms. Each issue includesarticles, book and softwarereviews, a bulletin board,news, and an idea exchange.A $10 contribution is re-quested to receive thequarterly newsletter. For in-formation, contact TechnicalEducation Research CentersInc., 8 Eliot St., Cambridge,MA 02138.

Computer Assistancefor the Disabled

The Center for ComputerAssistance to the Disabled(C-CAD) is a nonprofit cor-poration that meets regularlyto discuss how the discoveryof computers has contributedto the quadriplegic business-person. Meetings also in-clude demonstrations ofLogo, adaptive software,voice recognition, and more.For details, write to C-CAD,POB 314, Hurst, TX 76053.

A Students' Scroll

Scroll, a newsletter pre-pared by students in thetechnical-writing program atMiddlesex Community Col-lege in Massachusetts, con-tains information aboutcareer objectives and skillsthat potential technicalwriters will need to develop.For further details, write tothe Technical Writing Pro-gram, Middlesex Commu-nity College, Springs Rd.,Bedford, MA 01730, or callCaryl Dundorf at (617)275-8910, ext. 278.

Guide to Periodicals

The Computer Nezvsletter, aguide to microcomputer in-formation, is produced tentimes a year in six editionsfor various brands of com-puters available today. Each

issue contains a directory ofrecent articles from morethan 50 periodical publica-tions. References are an-notated to include relevantsource information. One sub-scription is $17.50 for all tenissues; when subscribing, in-clude the name and model ofyour computer. ContactMHN Services Inc., Depart-ment M3, POB 952, Cleve-land, OH 44120.

CompuproAcross the Board

A national nonprofit usersgroup for owners of God-bout's Compupro provides aforum in which to share tech-nical information, solutions,and special-purpose applica-tions. A monthly newsletter,a bulletin board system, anda member-list publication areplanned. An optional chartermembership is available for$10. To inquire or join, sendyour name, address, andequipment information toCPro Users Group, POB 1474,Woodbridge, VA 22193.

Newsletter forProductive Lawyers

The Automated Law OfficeConsultant is a newsletter thatprovides lawyers with infor-mation and analyses aboutautomated-office productsand how to select equipmentthat will improve productivi-ty in the law office. A sub-scription is $65 a year fromRoadrunner PublicationsInc., POB 13548, Austin, TX78711.

IBM Users InBluegrass Country

The Bluegrass IBM PCUsers Group meets on thefourth Saturday of every

month at 1 p.m. in the Univ-ersity of Kentucky Comput-ing Center's Micro Lab(Room 107, McVey Hall).Membership is $5 a year andincludes a monthly newslet-ter and access to a softwarelibrary. For further informa-tion, write to Diane Skoll,Room 72, McVey Hall, Univ-ersity of Kentucky, Lexing-ton, KY 40506-0045.

For GenealogicalResearchers

The Quinsept User Groupproduces a newsletter thatcovers such topics as genea-logical-book reviews, prob-lem solutions, and articles ofinterest to genealogical re-searchers. The newsletter willbegin as a quarterly and pro-gress into a bimonthly pub-lication. Membership is $15annually and includes a sub-scription to the newsletter. Toapply for membership, writeto Quinsept User Group,5855 Santa Teresa Blvd., SanJose, CA 95123.

OregonlanCommodorians

The Southern OregonUsers Group meets twice amonth to discuss the bestuses for the Commodore 64and VIC-20 computers. Anewsletter is planned andanyone with ideas or sugges-tions is encouraged to sendthem to Jim Powell, 3600Madrona Lane, Medford, OR97501, (503) 779-7631.

A Capital Idea

The Capital Osborne UsersGroup (CAPOUG) meetsonce a month at the library inBethesda, Maryland, to serveusers from Maryland, north-ern Virginia, and the District

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 469

Clubs and Newsletters

of Columbia. A $12 member-ship fee includes access tothe software library main-tained by the club and asubscription to the newslet-ter that contains articles,tutorials, and advertise-ments. For details, write toMerrill Hessel, 6200 Winne-bago Rd., Bethesda, MD20816.

Math and ScienceEducation Journal

The Association of Com-puters in Mathematics andScience Teaching (ACMST), anonprofit organization, pro-duces a substantive quarterlypublication called The Journalof Computers in Mathematicsand Science Teaching (JCMST).It is applicable to elementary,secondary, and college edu-cators who would benefitfrom extensive features, re-

views, resources, and acalendar. Members can bene-fit from the group's Com-puter Book Center, in whichmore than a dozen participat-ing publishers of computerbooks provide reduced rates.Membership in ACMST is$15 a year and includes a sub-scription to the quarterlyJCMST. Author's guidelinesand advertising rates areavailable upon request. Forfurther details, write to TheJournal of Computers in Mathe-matics and Science, POB 4455,Austin, TX 78765.

Ataris areOK in Duncan

The Duncan Area AtariComputer Users Group(DAACUG) welcomes every-one interested in computingwith Ataris to attend theirmonthly meetings in south-

ATTENTIONLA36 USERS

The DS120 Terminal Controller makes your LA36 performlike a DECwriter® III.

The Datasouth DS120 gives your DECwriter® II the high speedprinting and versatile performance features of the DECwriter®III at only a fraction of the cost. The DS120 is a plug compatiblereplacement for your LA36 logic board which can be installedin minutes. Standard features include:

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• Optional APL character setOver 9,000 DS120 units are now being used by customersranging from the Fortune 500 to personal computing enthusi-asts. In numerous installations, entire networks of terminalshave been upgraded to take advantage of today's higher speeddata communications services. LSI microprocessor electronicsand strict quality control ensure dependable performance foryears to come. When service is required, we will respondpromptly and effectively. Best of all, we can deliver immediatelythrough our nationwide network of distributors. Just give us acall for all the details.

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western Oklahoma. Separatesessions for novice and ex-perienced users are held aftereach general meeting. An-nual membership dues are$10 and include access to theclub's disk library and dis-counts on hardware and soft-ware purchases. For furtherdetails, contact John Bor-chardt, DAACUG, 911 Prim-rose St., Duncan, OK 73533.

A Band of Colors

The Vancouver Color Com-puter Club meets at 7:30 p.m.on the third Tuesday of everymonth in Burnaby, BritishColumbia. To develop asbroad a base as possible,everyone interested in theTRS-80 Color Computer iswelcome to join. The $15 an-nual membership entitlesyou to participate in grouppurchases, the software li-brary, hardware lending, andvoting in the club. For details,contact the Vancouver ColorComputer Club, 333 BoyneSt., New Westminster, BritishColumbia V3M 5J9, Canada.

ABACOSBy the Bunch

A Bunch of Atari Com-puter Owners (ABACOS)has formed in the Saugertiesarea of New York state toserve the users who live be-tween Albany and New YorkCity. A newsletter, Refresh, isproduced every two monthsand contains software re-

views, an editorial, and aprogram of the month. A $4annual membership includesa subscription to the news-letter. For details, contactABACOS, 90-A Partition St.,Saugerties, NY 12477, (914)246-7193.

News for EpsonUsers

QHX, an independentnewsletter for users of theEpson QX-10 and HX-20 com-puters, is produced everymonth by the Epson Com-puting Group. Readers arewelcome to submit ques-tions, hints, or articles aboutnew products to QHX forpublication. The number ofthe free, club-maintained, ac-tive electronic bulletin boardis (618) 997-3220. A one-yearsubscription to the newslet-ter is $25. For further details,contact the Epson Comput-ing Group, 400-2 EastDeYoung, Marion, IL 62959,(618) 993-3600.

Forum for Data

The Data Forum is a user-oriented and -operated infor-mation exchange free to userswho apply via the communi-cations line. The databasehas plans to expand withuser input. For information,contact Stephan Anderson,Suite 718, 20993 FoothillBlvd., Hay ward, CA 94541,or call (415) 276-6322.■

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, f\IH 03449. Overseas groups are encouraged toparticipate. Please allow at least three months for yourannouncement to appear.

470 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Circle 107 on inquiry card.

ANNOUNCING

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gold plated pins

Take a look at the pictureabove. The shielding underthe RS232 connector hoodof DATA SPEC" cables isdifferent from anythingyou've seen before. Noflimsy foil. Or painted hood.Instead, DATA SPEC™ givesyou an extra heavy gaugeshield underthe normalhood which ensures that thecables exceeds the FCCrequirements on emissionstandards.

And, if you look furtherinside, underthe shield,you'll see the advent of PDT™*Technology. DATA SPEC™cables are the first to employthis technique outside ofaerospace applications.PDT Technology ensuresthat you will never have tosolder a broken joint or evenopen the hood.

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*PDT(Poly-vinyl doping technique) involves theinjection of poly-vinyl underthe shield to fuse theconductors and pins together, thus ensuring reliabilityunder the most adverse conditions. PDT is a regis-tered trademark of Advanced Tool Technology Inc.

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BYTE's User to User

Conducted by Jerry Pournelle

Tried and True

Dear Jerry,

You stated in "Epson QX-10, ZenithZ-29, CP/M-68K, and More" (August,page 434) that you are interested in theUCSD p-System, especially under theCP/M operating system. A number ofyears ago, North Star had such a packageavailable. It was purchased with theNorth Star Horizon I am using (1979 vin-tage) and runs fairly smoothly. I am quiteintrigued by the concepts it presents inprogram development; however, I havehad so much difficulty in getting its texteditors to work properly that I abandonedthe project.

On another subject, I don't believe I canwrite you without including my fair shareof cracks at your User's Column, whichI read faithfully. I still use the North Star1979-vintage Horizon with CP/M. Thismachine, and several workhorsemachines that friends of mine own, serveus well year after year. I think you don'tmention enough the path of the tried andtrue. Certainly I don't recommend thesame hardware that I have to newcomersin the computer field. However, I alsowould not recommend the Sage, Com-pupro 68000 processor, or a host of otherproducts you speak of quite fondly. Forthose of us who are not hardware/soft-ware experts and cannot afford the fre-quent services of an expert (I am not say-ing that you can, by the way), asomewhat less exotic, but time-tested,machine is the better buy.

Lastly, I will make these off-the-cuffcomments. You don't seem to give ade-quate press to North Star, Qume, and ahost of other equipment. Also, the S-100bus seems to have fallen out of favor withyou. Need I cite the Epson, Otrona, Sage,and possibly more? I don't know aboutyou, but as I look for a computer to sup-plement the services of my North Star, Iam glad that I have a bus ready to plugnew boards into. Any computer that Ipurchase in the next few years will cer-tainly be an S-100 machine.Paul KileAppleton, WI

My late mad friend also gave up on theUCSD Pascal editors, which caused him toscrap public-domain UCSD Pascal. I gatherthat Softech has made considerable im-

provements, but I haven't seen its UCSDPascal for S-100 machines.

I don't know where you get the impressionthat S-100 systems have fallen out of my favor.I'm writing this on a Compupro Z80, ourivorkhorse machine is a Compupro 8085/8088Dual Processor, and our major experimentalmachine is a Compupro that we use to test8086 and 68000 boards. I remain very muchan S-100 bus enthusiast.

The only problem with S-100 systems is thatthey do take a bit of knowledge to get themset up and running. I'd never advise a casualuser to order an S-100 system by mail froma discount house. On the other hand, Com-pupro Systems Centers sell working systemsproperly configured for anyone's needs atadvertised prices. I have no hesitation inrecommending a Compupro from a SystemsCenter to any user, no matter how naive.

I can also recommend Sage machines tothose willing to learn UCSD Pascal orCP/M-68K.

The Otrona is my favorite portable, largelybecause Workman has got Write running onit; I use the Otrona when I travel.

If I seem to ignore Qume and North Star,it's only because I don't have any of theirequipment, and efforts to make contact withthose companies haven't been successful. I'mnot a theorist: I must write about machinesI know and use. I try to look at a lot of them,but there's no way I can keep up witheverything! . . . Jerry

Fawning Sci-Fi Writers

Dear Jerry,

I enclose an article whose headlinereads: Osborne Ceases Production:Furloughs Most Workers. It makes yourpro-Osborne article ("The Next Five Yearsin Microcomputers," September, page233) a bit less fawning.

Having read your gushing article, Ihave only one observation. Where isTexas Instruments? When Apple and IBMfinish their latest round of court casesagainst Franklin, its copycat-clone ACE,and the Taiwan /Japanese stolen-tech-nology copycats, all the unlucky ownersof those clones of Apple and IBM will beorphans without any company support!A corollary is that very little will be leftin the professional market except TI PC(Pegasus)—very carefully ignored byBYTE-IBM PC, Apple, TI-99/4A, TI-99/8,

and Commodore 64. Certainly Mattel willfold, then Apple and Commodore willfounder. What we are watching is thesinking of the first wave of innovators andthe survival of the fittest, regardless offawning by science-fiction writers whoshould know better. Who sold the firstmass-market 16-bit microprocessor withspeech? Who has more complete systems(i.e., disk drives and peripheral-expan-sion boxes) in homes, and who has cor-nered the market on assembly-languageROMs to plug in for those who don't wishto program or who wish to greatly expandthe rather unexciting (to Jerry PourneJJe)TI-99/4A? I run mine with the PE Box, anEpson printer, a 128K-byte 4-bank RAMcard, a 64K-byte CP/M card, and twodouble-sided Tandon drives—all sold forthe 99/4A. When everyone on themedium and low end of the market final-ly goes under, will BYTE finally have anyrecognition of the 99/4A, TI PC, and theimproved 99/4A called the TI-99/8?

I doubt it. We TI owners call it "Appleon the Brain Syndrome," with submaniasabout IBM and assorted high-priceddinosaurs that only a lucky few will everpurchase, unless they own an oil well ortwo.

Balance your BYTE articles! I know mypersonal subscription will not surviveunless I perceive reality as opposed topersonal fantasy and Quasi-ReligiousFawning over ISOLATED low-retail-flowcomputer events/products!R. CastletonRichardson, TX

Gee, I never knew what my problem was.

Castleton reads different versions of bothBYTE and the daily papers than I do; Ithought we'd done a fair job of talking aboutTI equipment; also that there was some prob-lem with the TI-99/4As profitability.

No one more eagerly awaited the TI-99 thanI did, and no one was more disappointed whenwe discovered that TI wasn't interested inpublishing anything about its internal details.When you deliberately cut yourself off from thehobbyist world, you forfeit very little poten-tial market—but you do forfeit an importantsource of software.

I think Adam Osborne did a lot for this field,and his low-cost all-up machine complete withsoftware and documents was one of the crucialevents in micro history. If that be fawning,make the most of it. . . . Jerry

472 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

BYTE's User to User.

Magazines andAdvertisements

Dear Jerry,

Screenwriter II can be copied. I usedLocksmith 4.0 on my copy and can usual-ly load the copy. Sometimes the programload fails, but the failure is not totallycatastrophic, that is, it returns to themenu after considerable disk grinding.Then it loads the program on the secondtry. Slightly less than totally satisfactory,but it does preserve the original disk forfuture use. These days, with Wordstar onanother machine, the 40-column Applescreen usually drives me away.

In October's User to User (page 540),Mr. Henkin may be having trouble withan added feature of Screenwriter. Aftertrying it on several Apples at my localdealer, I have come to the conclusion thattrying to use the joystick option causesthe total failure to boot. I don't know whatthe problem is, but I have never been ableto boot the optioned Screenwriter withthe joystick option enabled. Leave outthat one option, and it does work.

The function of character search withina displayed line was deleted betweenSuperscribe and Screenwriter. I missedthat feature when I made the change.And Screenwriter uses the disks in anodd manner that is not quite convenientand I think would be bothersome foranyone not fully oriented to makingobstinate hardware work like your "latemad friend" and me.

I was attracted to Calcstar by its similari-ty in command structure to Wordstar. Lastweek I placed an order with a BYTEadvertiser; last evening the brown truckdelivered the box (not COD as ordered).I went through the instruction manual,installing a copy of Calcstar, doing theexercises, and then tried to set up a timecard for my work.

While I found that I could set up somesort of a time card to take in hours' andminutes' beginning and ending times andto compute total elapsed time, I havebeen unable to accomplish anything thatresembles proper numerical computa-tion. Like IBM FORTRAN, Calcstar usesbinary floating point that even with 14significant digits shows some approxima-tion errors. Then Calcstar column formatsonly truncate the display, not the storeddata. So I took a column of start and endtimes, computed elapsed times, totaledelapsed times, and then tried to round tothe nearest 0.1 hour (a fetish of mine on

customers' bills), and multiplied theresult by my hourly rate. The result? Thecharge shown in the next cell did notmatch the calculator multiplication of thedisplayed data. That's not a good way togive the clients confidence in yourarithmetic prowess when dealing inengineering services! Conclusion:Calcstar is inherently too badly con-structed to be called a spreadsheet.

So, the next step is to send it back tothe store and hope that some otherspreadsheet functions better (as some ofthe reviews and books on spreadsheetprograms do declare), right? Nope,wrong. The advertiser said, "It does likethe book says, then it is not defective andwe won't take it back. You should havespent full retail if you wanted to try theproduct first." And, "Since we failed tosend it COD, it hasn't been paid for; wewill be sending you an invoice."

I use CP/M partly not to have to worryabout protection schemes that promise toprevent using programs for gainful pur-poses, and to have access to good pro-grams. Now I have wasted a half day ormore and have spent money withoutgaining a useful program, and the sellerof the product refuses to take it backunder any conditions. Is this the wayBYTE magazine wishes to treat itsreaders?

Gerald N. Johnson, P.E.Ames, Iowa

Few copy-protection schemes work for long;what one can do, another can undo. The realtrouble is that the copy-protection attemptmakes the software fragile. After all, the ideaof copy protection is to make it difficult for themachine to read the disk—which may be agood idea for the vendor, but it's hardly whatthe user wants!

Many spreadsheet programs have limitedprecision; it's a feature one must check verycarefully.

I'd like it if every mail-order house had amoney-back guarantee, but some of the dis-count outfits operate at such a low markupthat they simply can't do it. In general: theloiuer the price, the less support you can ex-pect from the dealer.

Alas, you have the wrong idea aboutmagazines and advertisements. The advertis-ing department doesn't tell me what to write,and I don't tell them what ads to accept. In-deed, as long as advertisers pay their bills, it'slegally very difficult to reject an ad, even ifthe magazine doesn't want to take it. We hadone item that generated lots of angry letters,

but legal advisors said we couldn't reject theoutfit's ad! Fortunately, they got in a snit aboutone of my reviews and cancelled, causing joyamong those who had to open and file all thehate mail. . . . Jerry

Assembly-LanguageNo-Man's Land

Dear Jerry,

I greatly enjoy your User's Column inBYTE. Keep up the struggle for betterdocumentation! It is partly in that regardthat I am writing to you. Perhaps you canrecommend some books or articles thatdeal with an area that is not oftenaddressed.

Texts on assembly-language program-ming invariably assume either that thereader knows all about it and only wantsthe details of some new processor (in-cluding hardware considerations that theprogrammer doesn't necessarily need) orthat the reader knows nothing and mustbe told about number bases, etc. Theythen lead into the writing of whole pro-grams, systems, monitors, etc. Texts onhigh-level languages work in much thesame way. Two sorts are available:references that define syntax with railroaddiagrams and introductory texts that haveto explain about the meaning ofarithmetic assignment statements andsuch.

A no-man's land exists between thesetwo extremes that interests me. Specifical-ly, how do I use assembly language towrite the critical subroutine that deter-mines program efficiency and link it intothe main program that is written inFORTRAN-80, compiled MBASIC, orwhatever? I have purchased MicrosoftF-80 (subset FORTRAN-IV), L-80 (Linker),M-80 (Macro-assembler), and MBASICcompiler in order to do such things. A re-cent article in BYTE ("Chisel Your Codewith a Profiler," August, page 286)described ways to conduct activityanalysis to identify the 10 percent of thecode that does 90 percent of the work. Butit (as with most books and documenta-tion) says only to use assembly code tooptimize that 10 percent.

I know how to identify the criticalsubroutine. In a recent research project(a new numerical neutron-transportscheme), most of the code is input of theproblem parameters, initialization of ar-rays, analysis of results, and printout.This all executes once per run. But one

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 473

BYTE's User to User.

subroutine is called 294,912 times in atypical run. The program runs four hourson a 5-MHz 8088/8087 system.

The documentation (and the advertis-ing) indicates that F-80, L-80, Lib-80, M-80,and MBASIC compiler constitute a "soft-ware development system" and that FOR-TRAN and assembly-language routinescan be called from BASIC programs, etc.However, all the manuals point to eachother as containing the details, and I havenot successfully managed to use this soft-ware for its intended purpose. (When Icalled Microsoft Tech Support for details,the response was "Just try it. It all works."I found this less than helpful, but I triedit. The result: error messages. In par-ticular, it seems that the FORTRANsubroutine requires that the Forlib librarybe linked to define various global sym-bols. The main program similarly requiresthat Obslib be linked or the run-timesystem used. I prefer stand-alone code.However, linking both libraries results in"multiply defined global symbol" errors,and the programs don't run. If you fail tolink either library, you get "undefinedglobal symbol" errors.

These tools were expensive, and itburns me not to be able to use them. Somy question is: where do I find a text thatwill walk through some examples of ac-tually using assembly code to optimize aroutine for a program written in a high-level language?Kirk MathewsSpringboro, OH

Good question. I wish I had such a bookmyself. There are Z80-code cookbooks andplenty of books on how to write the assembly-language programs, but darned little showingyou precisely how to link in assembly pro-grams to previously written stuff.

I've found the same kind of problem withCB-80 and Digital Research's RMACassembler; it ought to be easy to do that kindof thing, but there are insufficient examplesto let me puzzle it out.

Maybe one or another of the readers canhelp? . . . Jerry

Benchmark Marks

Dear Jerry,

Below are listed three variations of your20 by 20 array benchmark, adapted to runin BASIC09 under the OS9 operatingsystem on a 6809 card in an Apple II.BASIC09 compiles to an intermediate

code that is then interpreted and is thusdirectly comparable to CBASIC in thatrespect.

Benchmark

Time

Variation

(min:sec)

Integer Arrays,Integer Loop Indexes

00:31

Real Arrays,Real Loop Indexes

01:11

Real Arrays,

Integer Loop Indexes

00:45

In comparison with your publishedfigures (October 1982 BYTE, page 262) forother processor/language combinationsthe times would seem to be extremelygood, especially when you consider thatthe 6809 is running at the Apple'snominal clock speed of 1.023 MHz. I don'tthink you've published figures for thisparticular combination. Please notice thata 68000 processor runs p-code almost asfast as an 8086 runs its machine language.If it weren't so popular, the 8086 and its8088 cousin would be good jokes. I'venever been able to understand whyanybody would transplant 8-bit architec-ture to a 16-bit processor.Frank C. KuechmannVancouver, WA

You and my son agree on the 68000 as a bet-ter way to go, but a number of people I respectprefer the 8086 (followed by the 286, etc.). Asfor me, I'm not so interested in chip architec-ture or in assembly languages. As themachines get fast enough and memory fallsin price, most real programming will be donein higher-level languages.

We at Chaos Manor are doing most of ourwork in Pascal just now, with the intentionof switching to Modula-2 as soon as we havestable Modula compilers. Our programs areportable between the Sage and the Godbout8086, and we expect to be able to recompilethem and run on more advanced systems asthey come out. . . . Jerry

Transmitting Pages

Dear Jerry,

As a fellow H/Z-19 terminal owner, canyou tell me who knows the specialroutine to make the "Transmit Page" (ESC#) function work? See enclosure. Two let-ters to Heath have drawn blanks.Peter EnghLa Jolla, CA

As your enclosure shows, the Heathdocumentation (page 23) discusses "TransmitPage" but refers to the possibility of specialroutines in the host computer. In bigmachines, you can edit material on the ter-minal and, when the screen is set up the wayyou want, send the whole page at once. Thisis useful for time-sharing systems becauseyou're not using central-computer time whileediting.

I know of few microcomputers that operatein the transmit-page mode. If you want to savestuff from the Z-19 screen, youll have to writea special routine. The Z-19 manual describeswhat the terminal pitches; you have to writethe catcher. . . . Jerry

Copyrighting andPersonalizing

Dear Jerry,

In the August 1983 issue of PC Magazine(page 58) under the Letters banner "LegalMatter," the secretary of Cincinnati's IBMPC User's group requests clarification ofthe legality of distribution of softwarecopied from the pages of PC Magazine. Ican't believe PC's response, which I quote:"The contents of each issue of PCMagazine are copyrighted by thepublisher, and all rights of reproductionin all forms and media are strictly re-served. The original purchaser/subscriberonly is authorized to make copies solelyfor his/her own use. Distribution,transmission, or transfer of copies to anyother person is an infringement of thecopyright. —Ed." To your knowledge, isthis an industry standard?

On to other things. Seems to me thata partial solution of the software-piracyconflict is to personalize each product.That is, include in each screen the nameof the purchaser. Pirates would be easierto spot and would have to suffer at leastsome embarrassment to be blatantlyusing a product that was licensed tosomeone else. Sure it complicates manu-facture and it could be defeated on a case-by-case basis by clever counter-programming, but it is a thought. (If theretail vendor had to run a purchaser-specific customization procedure at thestore, then at least it would guarantee themachine readability of the disks you pur-chase.) It would be irritating to be con-stantly reminded that a program youwere using often was illicitly copied fromanother user whose name you are fre-quently reminded of.

474 ftbruary 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

BYTE's User to User.

I use Compuview's Vedit on anOsborne 1 and am pleased with it. (Thismachine can perform string searches somuch faster than any larger machine I'veever used that I'm continually amazed.)I'm glad to hear that the customizationprocess will be simplified. I like Com-puview's software-update subscriptionoption ($50 per year for Vedit).Larry WeissGarland, TX

Actually, PC's statement is just an explana-tion of the copyright laws. Only the copyrightholder has the right to sell or distribute copiesof copyrighted matter. There is no restrictionon resale of the original material; it's legal forme to sell or lend used books. However, I maynot make copies of them (except as providedunder the "fair use" provisions of theCopyright Act). Specifically, I can't make acopy, then sell the original.

Magazines traditionally buy variouspackages of rights (the right to publish inmagazines, the exclusive or nonexclusive rightto include the article in anthologies, and soon); what's bought varies from magazine tomagazine and often from author to authorwithin the magazine.

Personalizing software is costly; imaginewhat it would cost to imprint the purchaser'sname on each book sold by B. Dalton!

We're also pleased with Vedit for program-ming, although the number of commands canbe overwhelming when you first tryit. . . . Jerry

Wordstar Spelling Checker

Dear Jerry,

I recently discovered a useful way ofusing The Word Plus spelling checkerwith Wordstar. Instead of having TheWord Plus mark the words you choosewith asterisks or similar characters, I usea null character, CTRL @, as the markingcharacter. There are several advantages tothis.

First, if you forget to remove a markbefore printing, at least you don't call at-tention to the mistake—useful if you on-ly have time to print one copy of whateveryou are working on.

Second, you can use some of theSpellstar options of Wordstar, e.g., youcan find the marks that you have placedby typing CTRL-QL. This has the advan-tage that it doesn't destroy any othersearches you have previously set up byusing CTRL-QA or CTRL-QF, and it

remembers changes that you have alreadymade. So if you tell it to ignore a markyou placed, when it "sees" the same wordagain, it removes the mark from that andcontinues automatically.

Third, any words you tell Wordstar toput in dictionaries or ignore are record-ed in a file called filename.ADD, whichyou can later edit and turn into a specialdictionary for The Word. (You must editthe file first—Wordstar adds I, D, or S tothe front of the word.)

By the way, I just read the book youwrote with Larry Niven, Oath of Fealty. Iparticularly chuckled over the part wherethe police have asked MILLIE for all thefiles in Rand's directory and MILLIE istold to print them at 300 baud. I trust thatthis was your idea.Miles ThomasFranklin Lakes, NJ

Thanks for the kind words, and also for thetip. We tried it on the Z-100 Wordstar and itworked fine.

Larry and I usually won't answer questionsabout who wrote what in our books, but givenhis public disclaimer on computer knowledge,1 suppose I can admit that MILLIE was mostlymy idea. . . . Jerry

Z-DOS and MS-DOS

Dear Jerry,

Your brief note in "Eagles, Text Editors,New Compilers, and Much More"(September, page 307) about the incom-patibility problem between IBM PC pro-grams and the Zenith Z-100 wasmoderately helpful. It could have beenmore so if Victor Wright's address inLouisville, Kentucky, had been included.

Your mention earlier in the column ofyour own Z-100 prompts me to ask youfor any assistance and/or advice you cangive in regard to "standard" programavailability for the Z-DOS implementa-tion of MS-DOS.Gerald ErskineNew Brunswick, Canada

It's been my general policy not to includepeople's private addresses. Alas, I don't keepanswered mail (much to the relief of my wife,housekeeper, and assistants; where would theyput it?), so I can't look it up for you.

BUSS ("The Independent Newsletter ofHeath Co. Computers," 716 E St. SE,Washington, DC 20003, (202) 544-0900) isusually the first to list new Z-DOS software

and is well worth the $20 annual subscrip-tion fee. (Single issues are $2.) I generallydon't comment on anything I haven't used,and lately I haven't received much Z-DOSstuff. Of course, as soon as I write this, it willflood in. I hope so; the Z-100 is amachine. . . . Jerry

No Problems with Valdocs

Dear Jerry,

As an almost first-time computer userI feel compelled to defend the EpsonQX-10 computer and its Valdocs system.You were too harsh in your judgment ofit and missed the point of who the systemwas really designed for. I purchased oneof the first systems released and have hadnext to no difficulties with it.

As a way of introduction, I'm a physi-cian with only a peripheral interest incomputers up to now. I am a chartersubscriber to BYTE and bought a RadioShack TRS-80 Model I computer whenit first came out. I learned a lot aboutcomputers from the Model I and how toprogram in BASIC, but I could never getthe damn thing to save programs oncassette tapes and I didn't want to add theexpense of a disk drive to a diabolicalmachine that drove me crazy.

So I went back to reading computermagazines and waiting. Then I saw anarticle in BYTE ("An Introduction to theHuman Applications and Standard Com-puter Interface," Parts 1 and 2, Octoberand November 1982, pages 291 and 379,respectively) by Chris Rutkowski about anew computer system that he was work-ing on; it looked too good to be true. Ithen found out that a computer store inmy town would be carrying it, and Ibecame a permanent fixture in that store.Rumors were rampant—it will be out nextmonth, next week, any day now, byChristmas. I was such a persistentcustomer (pest?) that when the store re-ceived the first QX-101 took it home evenwithout instructions.

I can honestly say that I have nevertaken a complex piece of machinery outof the box, plugged it in, and had it workas I thought it should with fewer prob-lems. It has changed my life. I have aproblem with poor handwriting (typicalphysician?) and spelling. To use atypewriter involves a high frustrationlevel, much time, and reams of paper. Myuse of a computer involves letters, shortpapers, and minutes of meetings. The Ep-

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 475

BYTE's User to User.

son QX-10 has done this with no prob-lems whatsoever.

My three daughters watched over myshoulders and wanted to use it for schoolwork and letters to their friends. I letthem try and, again, no problems. In fact,I had to give them each their own datadisk so I could find my own material.

The clincher happened when I triedanother word processor. I wanted to trya spreadsheet and a dictionary; I got adeal on a package of four programs fromPeachtree Software. As this package in-cluded Peachtext, I decided to try it. It in-cludes some features not found on theValdocs program. I spent most of oneweekend on the self-instruction bookand got about halfway through it. A weeklater when I got back to it I had to startat the beginning. I'm sure that I couldlearn it, but unless I used it every day Iwould have the same problem each timeI went back to it. I just returned from atwo-week vacation, and using my QX-10with the Valdocs program was like findingan old friend.

I haven't had any problems with lostdata. I use Control-M to change data disksand periodically press Menu and thenUndo to save material as I write it. Thistakes about 10 seconds of my time. I guessif I got used to a faster program thanValdocs, I might enjoy it, but as it is, I canlive with it!

I will say that computers seem to be likea virulent virus. I now am making a pestof myself at the computer store again,waiting for the TPM primer and theValdocs technical manual. I'm anxious tofind out more about what goes^on in mycomputer and how to make it do all sortsof wonderful things. I have bought bookson BASIC, assembly-language program-ming, CP/M, Supercalc, etc. In a year or

two, I might agree with your criticism.Who knows? But for now, don't take myQX-10 and Valdocs away from me.

By the way, I agree with you about theEpson FX-80 printer. It is quiet and seemsto print well but is not at all easy to load.It does work fine with form-feed paperbut not with individual sheets. My hauntof the computer store paid off yesterday,however. I now have a Comrex CR-IIprinter ($600), and it seems to correct allof the above-mentioned problems.Herbert ThompsonDecatur, IL

I'm glad you like your machine. Heavenknows, the QX-10 has got to be a lot better thanno computer at all, and it certainly is easyenough to get running. (The only one I knowof that's easier to get going right out of thebox is the Eagle 1600). Moreover, if you in-tend to print only on continuous paper,without using stationery or letterhead, Valdocsisn't so bad (except that it takes too long toaddress the envelope).

One question: why was your letter to medone on a Selectric typewriter instead of onyour machine? . . . Jerry

And the Next Five Years

Dear Jerry,

The next time you unlock your crystalball to look into the future, you mightwant to have it checked out first. Whenyou used it to write "The Next Five Yearsin Microcomputers" (September, page233), it seems to have been looking intomy window rather than the future.

I am using a multiuser, multiprocessorsystem with a custom-designed serialboard that enables me to appear to be five"virtual terminals." I can run up to five

separate programs and jump back andforth between them by pressing functionkeys. The programs continue to run andupdate their own virtual-terminal screeneven if they are not currently beingdisplayed on the "real" terminal. WhenI jump back to a program, its currentscreen (including all character attributes)is displayed from memory in the custom-serial board. The board can also be usedto allow two terminals to appear as twovirtual terminals each. The multipro-cessor consists of a main Z80 with 64K,three satellite Z80s with 64K, an 8088 with256K, and a 68B09E with 128K. All rununder Micromation's M/NET, a derivativeof Digital Research's MP/M.Frank KorzeniewskiBerkeley, CA

It sounds like a wonderful system. Not longafter I wrote "The Next Five Years. . ."I foundout some other outfits, including Compupro,had some pretty neat tricks up their sleeves.

In my defense, two things: "The Next FiveYears. . . " was written as a speech to bedelivered in early spring, and I only said thesethings would happen in the next half decade,not what part of it! Some of what I predictedhasn't happened yet. . . . JerryB

ferry Pournelle welcomes readers' com-ments and opinions. Send a self-addressed,stamped envelope to ferry Pournelle, doBYTE Publications, FOB 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.

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Book Reviews

Legal Care forYour Software

Daniel RemerNolo PressBerkeley, CA: 1982232 pages, softcover,S19.95

Reviewed byEd Bernstein

Legal Care for Your Softwareby Daniel Remer is a step-by-step, simply written, andthorough guide for anyonewho writes or publishescommercial computer soft-ware or who wonders if itwould be worth the troubleto do so. The book is full ofexamples, explanations, andeven do-it-yourself legalforms that are basic to any-one trying to untangle theweb of software law. Remer'spoint is that you may be themost talented programmeralive—and may deserve to bethe richest—but if you aren'tjust as smart when it comesto the law, you could be introuble.

Remer, an attorney whoserves as legal counsel toseveral software companies,never forgets what many pro-grammers learn the hardway: although the law maytry to keep pace with tech-nology, the fact is that it isoften left "from months to

centuries behind." Softwarecan, of course, be legally pro-tected, but the programmer'schallenge is figuring outwhich legal methods applyand how to go about puttingthem in place.

Because no one law appliesto every situation, Remer ex-plains carefully, and withhumor, the relative merits oftrade secrets, copyright andpatent protection, trade-marks, contracts, licensingagreements, and so on.Plenty of specific examplesserve to illustrate each case.

But his book isn't designedto replace lawyers, Remersays. In many complex cases,or in cases where mistakeshave already been made, alawyer may indeed beneeded. But a knowledge-able author or publisher cansave time and money by un-derstanding that "If you wantfull legal protection for yoursoftware, you are going tohave to do much of the workyourself."

Protecting code is a case inpoint. The ways to protectsource code (the actual lan-guage the programmer uses,frequently in a high-level lan-guage such as BASIC, FOR-TRAN, or FORTH) may befar different from those usedto protect object code (thelow-level instruction to the

computer created by thesource code).

Trade-secret law applies toboth source and object code,Remer explains, and it is theindustry's favorite way toprotect software. But, asRemer notes, there are weak-nesses inherent in trying toprotect code—the program-mer's ability, for example, to"keep a zipped lip." He alsooutlines a variety of otherprocedures that ensure thattrade-secret status remains inplace, including severalnondisclosure agreements.

Copyright protection isamong the easiest to obtain;your software is, in fact,"born" with a copyright thatmakes it illegal for anyoneelse to copy it. But you haveno protection against a fellowprogrammer who independ-ently produces a programthat just happens to operateexactly like yours. A copy-right offers protection of anexpression of an idea, not anidea itself. Two programs canproduce identical results, butboth can be copyrighted ifthey accomplish that task inunique ways.

Patent protection soundslike the perfect solution be-cause it protects not only theexpression of the idea but theidea itself. Unfortunately,software is almost never

patentable, Remer says, andeven if it were, the time andlegal trouble involved in ob-taining a patent could easilyexceed the lifespan and valueof the program itself.

Trademarks serve only onepurpose: protecting thename of a program.

Remer warns, at somelength, about protectingyourself as well as your soft-ware. He discusses a varietyof ways to limit personalliability in the event of un-happy customers, an in-evitability in the real world.

Finally, the book providescopies of various contracts,agreements, and disclaimersthat you can customize foryour own applications. Thesample forms and contracts—nearly 100 pages of them—may be the most useful partof the book. A careful read-ing of these forms can be aseducational as the chaptersthat explain them.

Remer writes clearly andwith plenty of commonsense. It's hard to imagine amore useful or less intimidat-ing guide to the legal com-plexities of protecting soft-wares

Ed Bernstein (30 Belle Ave., Fair-fax, CA 94930) is director of editorialdevelopment for Broderbund Soft-ware Inc. of San Rafael, California.

Through the Trap Door

March 1979—$35

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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.

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478 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

« » »■*««.

He's facing an uphill battle unless you help.

This year, the U.S. Ski Team has givenAmericans a great deal to be proud of.

Phil Mahre posted his second consecutiveoverall World Cup title while Bill Koch pre-sented the U.S. with its first ever NordicWorld Cup crown. The U.S. Women's teamfinished the season number one in the world

It's hard to believe that these magnificentathletes should need anyone's help, but they

do.

They need yours. Our Alpine and Nordic teamsare not subsidized by the government. Mem-bers of the team dedicate years of their livesr/n training to win. And they depend on you

for support.

Please send your tax-deductible donations tothe U.S. Ski Educational Foundation, Box100M, Park City, Utah 84060. Thanks.

M77EAM

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Grappler + $125

Prometheus 16K RAM Card $60

Sekon 16K RAM Card $55

Sekon 80 Column Card $95

Sekon Hunter (Like Wildcard) $100

Sekon Z-80 Card $115

Video Cable For TI 99/4 $15

Call The EXPERT(213) 344-6063 (800) 528-9537

New Arrivals

Sanyo MBC550 - 1 Drive, 3 Softwares $995

Sanyo MBC555 - 2 Drives, 6 Softwares $1395

* * * * February Special - Orders For Sanyo

Earn $100 Discount On A Video Monitor

Or Printer****We've Signed Up 4 More Brands Of IBM Compatible

Computers $CALL

Indus GT Drive For Apple w/ 3 Softwares $250

Kraft Joystick $39

Dow Jones Connector $45

Pearl Soft (Data Base) - 6 Formats $200

Call The EXPERT(213) 344-6063 (800) 528-9537

Diskettes

Verbatim Vehex SSDD $17

DATALIFE SSDD $25

DATALIFE DSDD $33

Head Cleaner Kit $9

FliPit (Use Back Side Of Disks) $17

Diskette Hamper $24

Library Case - Holds 10 Disks $2.25

"When you know enough to buy mail order, you're wise enough to buy from an expert."

480 BYTE February 1984

Circle 78 on inquiry card.

What's New?

TAXINGSOFTWARE

Tax Package HandlesMore Than 30 Forms

The Micro-Tax tax-preparation system cancompute and print morethan 30 IRS schedules andforms for multiple clients,partnerships, and corporatereturns. Depreciation iscomputed by individualitems or groups of items.Other tax-computationabilities include underpay-ment penalties, self-employ-ment taxes, minimum andalternative minimum tax,and income averaging.Micro-Tax is said to be easyto use because it calls forsimple prompts andorganizes data entry in a se-quence that's similar to thatof manual tax preparation.

Micro-Tax is available forthe DEC Rainbow 100 andMS-DOS- and CP/M 8080-,Z80-, 8085-, and 8086-based systems. Threeversions are offered: per-sonal commercial accoun-tant, and partnership andcorporate. The home com-puter Micro-Tax costs S195.The other versions are$1000 each. Annual up-dates and state tax-preparation programs areavailable. For more informa-tion, contact Microcom-puter Taxsystems Inc., SuiteA, 6203 Variel Ave.,woodland Hills, CA 91367,(818) 704-7800.Circle 550 on inquiry card.

Individual Tax Planner

The Individual Tax Plan-ner calculates alternativetaxes for individuals andfiduciaries for 1983 and

beyond. Projections formultiple years and cases aredisplayed on screen, and in-stant recalculations in aworksheet format allowrapid examination of theconsequences of alter-native tax plans. Computa-tions include incomeaveraging tax, alternativeminimum tax, and auto-matic indexing of post-1984years. Client informationcan be saved to disk forprinting out comprehensivereports. Full help screens areprovided.The Individual Tax Plan-

ner for 1983 is available fora first-year subscriptionprice of $595, which in-cludes documentation andtoll-free assistance. An IBMor IBM-compatible com-puter with 128K bytes ofmemory, two disk drives, amonitor, and a printer arerequired. For further infor-mation, contact TaxManagement Inc., 123125th St. NW, Washington,DC 20037, (800)372-1033;in Maryland, (800) 352-1400; the District of Colum-bia, 258-9401.Circle 557 on inquiry card.

Professional and Personal Tax Programs

Aardvark/McGraw-Hillmarkets tax-preparationprograms for professionaland personal use. In addi-tion to standard tax calcula-tions, Professional Tax PlanVersion 3.0 can computeself-employment taxesunder the regular method,taxable unemploymentcompensation, taxableSocial Security benefits for

1984 and after, and limita-tions for most credits. It cangenerate an investmentreport that summarizes theafter-tax effect of invest-ment assumptions; addi-tional reports, such as in-come averaging, are possi-ble. Other features includeincome inputs, helpscreens, a file-informationscreen, and a calculator

function. It runs on Apple,Hewlett-Packard, IBM, andCP/M systems. The sug-gested retail price is $350.For home use, Aard-vark/McGraw-Hill offers thePersonal Tax Planner. This$99 program, which runson Apple and IBM PersonalComputers, can handlereturns for homeownersand renters and one- ortwo-income households.Personal Tax Planner willcipher short- and long-termcapital gains and losses, thepurchase or sale of realestate, and business. It'savailable at bookstores andcomputer retailers nation-wide. For more information,contact Aardvark/McGraw-Hill, 783 North Water St.,Milwaukee, Wl 53202,(414) 289-9988.Circle 552 on inquiry card.

Accountant's 1040Preparation System

G & G 1040 is designedfor accountants usingCP/M-80 and CP/M-86computers. This profession-al-level program features in-put screens that match IRSforms and the ability to pro-vide choices for the least taxconsequences, such aswhether Schedule A is pre-ferable to the standardschedule. Additional cal-culations include optionalstate sales tax, excess FICA,earned-income credit, in-come averaging, and mini-mum tax. The program pro-cesses 39 IRS schedules andcomes with a batch com-pute/print mode and adepreciation module. It'sclaimed that the programcalculates an entire return in10 to 15 seconds.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 481

What's New?

The suggested list pricefor the G & G 1040 Profes-sional Series is $750. An-nual updates are available.A Starter Series that pro-cesses 15 forms but doesnot include batch opera-

tions or a depreciationmodule costs $195. ContactG & G Software Inc., 610Park Blvd., Austin, TX78751, (512) 458-5760.Circle 553 on inquiry card.

Lettered Schedules, 20

The Series 1040 tax-preparation program con-tains all lettered tax sched-ules and 20 numberedforms. With Series 1040,you have to enter informa-tion only once, whichsaves time and minimizeserrors. All figures and newentries are "automaticallycarried over to applicableforms and schedules. Taxresults are calculated anddisplayed instantly. Thedisplay screens replicate1040 forms. Further

Forms in One Package

highlights are that it asksquestions, traps mistakes,and prompts you from itemto item. Series 1040 workson such machines as theIBM Personal Computer.

Series 1040 costs $1150.Selected state modules areavailable. Complete infor-mation can be obtainedfrom Calcu-Tax ComputerSoftware Inc., 19-21 WestMount Pleasant Ave., Liv-ingston, NJ 07039, (201)992-2274.Circle 556 on inquiry card.

Personal Tax Systemfor Multiplan

EZ Ware's Tax-Prep per-sonal tax system workswith Microsoft's Multiplanelectronic spreadsheet. Pro-vided with 19 tax forms andschedules, Tax-Prep usesdisplay screens thatsimulate IRS forms as work-ing templates. A data-entryprocedure interrelates tem-plates for a complete seriesof federal tax forms andautomatically appliesentered data to appropriateforms and schedules. Tax-Prep will print directly on IRS1040 forms and schedules,continuous 1040 forms,and computer paper usedwith an overlay. In addition,it can be used withMultiplan's advancedfeatures to perform taxplanning, budgeting, andanalysis.

Tax-Prep works with theApple, Compaq, Tl Profes-sional, IBM PC, and ZenithZ-I00. Complete with amanual and tutorial, it costs$89.95. Annual updating isavailable. Tax-Prep isavailable factory-direct fromEZ Ware Inc., 17 Bryn MawrAve., Bala Cynwyd, PA19004, (215) 667-4833.Circle 551 on inquiry card.

Tax Relief for IBM PC

Tax Relief I and II for theIBM PC have been an-nounced by Micro Vision.Tax Relief II, a professionalpackage, has such featuresas income averaging, alter-nate minimum andminimum tax, data andcalculation carryover to rele-vant places, client sum-maries, and a client direc-tory. Entries can be

changed and deleted atany time, and on-line helpsaid data entry. Several printoptions and 25 federalschedules and forms aresupported. An IBM PC orPC XT with a minimum of128K bytes of memory,DOS 2.0, two disk drives,monochrome or color dis-play, and a parallel printerare required. Tax Relief IIcosts $299. Annual up-dates are available.

Tax Relief I is designed forindividual use. It supports15 forms and has most ofthe features of Relief II. Thesuggested price is $149. Formore details, contact MicroVision, 145 Wicks Rd„Commack, NY 11725, (516)499-4010.Circle 554 on inquiry card.

Commodore TaxProgram

Northland Accounting'sTaxaid was developed byexperienced tax accoun-tants for use on Com-modore 64 and VIC-20computers. It computes aline-by-line readout of Form1040 and related schedules.A manual with step-by-stepinstructions for data entry issupplied.

Three versions of the pro-gram are available: Taxaid I,II, and III. Taxaid I, $19.95tape or $24.95 floppy disk,is designed for the basicVIC-20. It outputs informa-tion to your monitor only.Taxaid II is tailored for 16K-byte VIC-20S. Output is tothe monitor or a printer. Anexpanded version for theCommodore 64, Taxaid IIIwill also output to eitherthe monitor or printer. Tax-aid II and III are available onfloppy disk or cassette for

482 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

What's New?

$29.95 or $24.95. ContactNorthland Accounting Inc.,Software Department, 606Second Ave., Two Harbors,MN 55616, (218) 834-5012.Circle 555 on inquiry card.

SOFTWARE

Templates Extend1-2-3

Professional SoftwareTechnology has introducedtwo templates that expandthe versatility of LotusDevelopment Corporation's1-2-3: Personal Tax Preparerand Time and Billing.

The Personal Tax Preparercondenses 1-2-3 to sevensingle-letter commands.Save, Print, and Destroy arethe only fundamentals youneed to prepare Form 1040and a variety of letteredschedules. Once entered,numbers are automaticallycarried to the appropriatelocations on supportingforms and schedules. Stan-dard features include inter-na/ tax tables, screen dis-plays of all forms in use, andthe ability to print directlyon federal forms.

For its single-letter com-mands, Time and Billinguses simple associations,such as Z for zapping an ac-count. It accommodatesmore than 20 people perdisk. A total of 10.000clients can be maintained,each with up to 2000 bill-ing entries. It shows num-bers as they are entered,calculations as they aremade, and the interrelation-ships between entries orthe bottom line. Any sys-tem of keeping time slipscan be used. Time and Bill-ing lets you customize up

to 30 abbreviated servicecodes, which minimizes bill-ing-entry descriptions. Re-ceivables are monitored,and the aging of accountsis displayed.

Both programs workwith 1-2-3 Release 1A andany computer with 256Kbytes of memory and ahard-disk or two floppy-diskdrives. Previous knowledgeof 1-2-3 is not necessary.Each program retails for$175. For full details, contactProfessional Software Tech-nology POB 269, Rockport,MA 01966, (617) 546-3494.Circle 567 on inquiry card.

Fast Word Processor

The Qwerty word pro-cessor from HFK Softwarecan keep pace with youeven if you can type 140words per minute. Qwertyprovides variable marginsettings ranging from 1 to150 columns, tab stops,paragraph indentations, upand down scrolling, for-ward/backward search andsearch and replace opera-tions, and block moves.Dynamic insertion andtypeover with automaticword and back wrap issupported. Text can bedynamically centered, andsuch character attributes asunderscore, boldface,subscript, superscript, dou-ble underscore, and strike-through can be appliedduring or after text entry.Left, right, and deleteoperations can be per-formed by character, word,or line. On-line helps aidoperation.

Qwerty supports a widerange of printers. Print op-tions include a number ofpitch and line-spacing set-

tings, variable form andcharacter sizes, automaticpagination with widowline elimination, andautomatic user-selectablepage numbering. Sixteencolor sets are availablewhen you use Qwertywith an RGB color graphicsmonitor.

This program is designedto run on the IBM PC, PCXT, Chameleon, Compaq,

and other computers usingPC-DOS. With DOS 2.0,96K bytes of memory arerequired. Complete with atutorial workbook, Qwertycosts $325. For $25, youcan try a full-functionQwerty. Qwerty isavailable factory-direct fromHFK Software Inc., OldDanbury Rd., Danbury, NH03230, (617) 259-0059.Circle 559 on inquiry card.

Printer-Control Program

Set-FX, a machine-lan-guage printer-control pro-gram for Epson FX-80/100printers and the IBM PC orthe Compaq portable, hasbeen introduced by Soft-style Inc. With Set-FX, Ep-son printers can producethe full IBM PC characterset, line graphics, foreignlanguage characters, andmath and science symbolsexactly as they appear onscreen. Menus are provid-ed for setting condensed,emphasized, proportional,and italic characters. Set-FXincludes a custom fontgenerator. According tothe manufacturer, specialfonts can be printed at 160

cps.

Set-FX requires one diskdrive and a monitor.Memory requirements are64K bytes when runningunder PC-DOS 1.1 or 96Kbytes with DOS 2.0. It'scompatible with any harddisk operated under PC-DOS and with all Epsonprint modes. Completewith a manual, quickreference card, and ademonstration program,Set-FX costs $59.95, plus$2 handling. Contact Soft-style Inc., Suite 200, 7192Kalanianaole Highway,Honolulu, HI 96825, (808)396-6368.Circle 558 on inquiry card.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 483

What's New?

Communications

Software and

Controller Emulator

for Lisa

Apple Computer has in-troduced a pair of data-communications products,Lisaterminal and the AppleCluster Controller, thatenable Lisa to interact withmainframe systems. Avail-able at authorized Lisadealers and through Ap-ple's national account ex-ecutives, Lisaterminal costsS295. and the Cluster Con-troller ranges from $4500to $7000.

Lisaterminal provides Lisawith TTY and DECVT100/52 terminal emula-tion and the ability to ex-change information via amodem with computerssupporting asynchronousprotocols. It permits accessto remote mainframes andinformation services suchas CompuServe and DowJones. Also provided areicons, cut and paste in-tegration between applica-tion programs, and multiplewindows.

A protocol converter, theCluster Controller workslike an IBM 3270-typecluster controller. Whenused with Lisaterminal, Lisacan communicate with IBMmainframe networks bymimicking IBM 3278 Model2 terminal functions. It con-verts SNA/SDLC or BSCprotocols to asynchronousprotocols and monitors theflow of information in bothdirections, ensuring ac-curate transmissions. Boththe Lisa and an attachedprinter communicatethrough a single Clusterport. The Cluster Controllercan be accessed via amodem, making remote

communications with amainframe possible. TheCluster Controller comeswith three or seven serialRS-232C ports for mixingand matching Lisas andprinters.

Apple has also an-nounced that Ryan-McFarland Corporation's

RM/COBOL and RM/FOR-TRAN language compilersare available for the Lisa. Formore information, contactApple Computer Inc.,20525 Mariani Ave., Cuper-tino, CA 95014, (800)538-9696; in California,(408) 996-1010.Circle 560 on inquiry card.

Music Synthesizer

Musicalc converts theCommodore 64's Sound In-terface chip into a three-voice music synthesizer.Musicalc lets you play alongwith preprogrammed mel-odies, create and storemelodies for later playback,and compose music in avariety of styles. Standardfeatures include real-time se-quencing, slide controls,modulators, and trans-

Mouse Commands

Jane is an integratedsoftware package con-sisting of a word processor,spreadsheet, and a file/listmanager. A mouse-drivensystem employing easilyunderstood pictures andsymbols rather than pro-gramming instructions is atthe heart of Jane's user in-

for Commodore 64

posers. Musical creationscan be played back throughtelevision sets, stereosystems, or professionalamplifiers by means of stan-dard RCA patch cords.

The suggested retail priceis $74.95. For details, con-tact Waveform Inc., 1912Bonita Way Berkeley, CA94704, (415) 841-9866.Circle 563 on inquiry card.

Integrated Software

terface. Access to variousapplications and the enter-ing of data is performed bypointing the mouse to theappropriate symbol onscreen. Each application in-teracts with the others, andyou can work with any orall of the applicationsthrough up to four on-

screen windows. Windowdimensions can be expand-ed or contracted.

Jane runs on most 8- or16-bit personal computers,such as the Apple, Atari,Commodore 64, and IBMPC, with 64K bytes of RAM.It comes with the mouse,mouse controller card, andusers guide. The suggestedretail price is S295. Graphicsand communications pro-grams will be available. Forcomplete details, contactArktronics Corp., 113 SouthFourth Ave., Ann Arbor, Ml48104, (800) 225-5275; inMichigan, (313) 769-7253.Circle 561 on inquiry card.

Software Targetedat Business

Superex InternationalMarketing recently released15 programs targeted atbusinesses. Applicationsfocus on wholesalers,retailers, importer/exporters,financial analysts, mail-order houses, and phar-macists. An integrated ac-counting package with ac-counts receivable/payable,general ledger, and payrollmodules is also available.

Most Superex programsare designed for use onfloppy- or hard-disksystems, and many areoffered in a special networkconfiguration. A few pro-grams, such as the Phar-macist Assistant, requirehard disks. Superex pro-grams support Apple, Col-umbia, Compaq, Corona,DEC Rainbow, Eagle,Franklin, IBM PC, Texas In-struments Professional, andToshiba computers. BASICAor GW BASIC is necessary.Under MS-DOS, theminimum memory require-

484 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

What's New?

ment is 128K bytes. Ver-sions for Apple and Franklinneed 64K bytes of RAM.Prices range from $300 toS2000. For full particulars,contact Superex Interna-tional Marketing, 151Ludlow St., POB 248,Yonkers, NY 10705, (800)862-8800; in New York,(914) 964-5200.Circle 562 on inquiry card.

Ovation for In-tegrated Software

Ovation software letsyou create, access, move,extract, and manipulatedata in various formswithout reentering data,preparing different files, orswapping applicationsmodes. This program pro-vides built-in formats for let-ters, spreadsheets, andnotes, customizing capa-bilities, single-keystrokemacro instructions, and ad-vanced macros via text files.Five applications capabilitiesare provided: spreadsheet,graphics, information man-agement, word processing,and data communications.Different applications canbe entered at any time, anddata that is entered into aspreadsheet can be turnedinto a graph or inserted intoa report on the samescreen. A linking processautomatically reflects anychanges in associatedforms.

Thirty English-languagecommands, entirely sum-marized on a single card,are all that you have tolearn to run Ovation. Thecommands are commonacross applications. Otherfeatures include context-sensitive helps, automaticbackup and disk number-

I at pleased to learn that soar sales perfoHtajwe in Region1 has proceeded at m unparalleled'pate, Usur continuingefforts on hehalf of our conpang are new «ich appreciated,stow belo* are the sales figures for all regions over thepast guarter, Keep up the good writ!

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ing, and continuousprompts. Ovation runson the Tandy 2000 andIBM PC and PC-compatible8086/8088-based systemsusing MS-DOS. It reguires256K bytes of memory. APC XT with a hard disk isrecommended, but Ova-tion will run with two flop-

py disks. Color and mostprinters are supported. Thesuggested retail price isS795. For additional infor-mation, contact OvationTechnologies Inc., 770Dedham St., Canton, MA02021, (617) 821-1420.Circle 564 on inquiry card.

Multifunction Package OffersSix Modules

lntegrated-6, a multifunc-tion software package forthe IBM Personal Com-puter, is manufactured byMosaic Software. Its basicingredients are a relationaldatabase, presentation-guality business graphics, aword processor, a spread-sheet, IBM PC-to-PC com-munications capabilities,and DEC VT100/52 or IBM3101 terminal emulation.Standard operating featuresinclude menu-driven com-mands, fill-in-the-blank in-put formats, and built-inhelp screens, lntegrated-6lets you create, store,analyze, graphically displaycombine, and condense in-formation and transfer itbetween modules and

computers. The same infor-mation can be output in avariety of formats forpresentations.

The database modulefeatures disk access with acapacity of up to ]00,000records per file. Thegraphics module, based onthe Superchartman II pro-gram, offers nearly 20graphic styles, ranging frompie and text charts topie/bar chart combinations.Able to handle as many as256 columns and 2000rows, lntegrated-6's spread-sheet can use informationcreated and stored in thedatabase for graphicdisplays or merge it withtext to produce reports.

lntegrated-6 is written in

the C language. It reguiresa minimum memory of256K bytes. The companyintends to transport it toother computers andenhance its emulationcapabilities. The suggestedretail price for lntegrated-6is $495. Contact MosaicSoftware, 1972 Massachu-setts Ave., Cambridge, MA02140, (617) 491-2434.Circle 566 on inquiry card.

TERMINALS

Hi-Res Terminal

Comes with DIM

Keyboard

Liberty Electronics'Freedom 200 is a high-resolution, nonglare 12-inchvideo-display terminal witha 106-key DIN-standardkeyboard. This tilt-and-swivel unit features eightforeign character sets, 7 by9 character cells in a 9 by 12matrix, a 24-line by 80-character display format,and a user-accessible 25thstatus line. A software set-up mode and 10 program-mable function keys offeroperator convenience.

The Freedom 200 hasnonvolatile memory forstoring function keys andset-up modes during power-down. Nonembedded char-acter attributes for boththe visual display and data

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 485

W^VB^tftt £ ^MfiW

entry as well as double-height and double-widthcharacters and 86 graphicscharacters are provided.Miscellaneous highlights in-clude programmable hand-shaking protocol, a bidirec-tional buffered auxiliary portwith expandable buffers,programmable answerback, smooth scrolling, ad-justable screen time-out,split-screen capabilities with

definable scroll regions, andTelevideo 950 and Lear-Seigler ADM 31 emulation.The single-unit price forthe Freedom 200 is $745.Quantity discounts areavailable. For more informa-tion, contact Liberty Elec-tronics, 625 Third St., SanFrancisco, CA 94107, (415)543-7000.Circle 569 on inquiry card.

CAD/CAM Graphics Monitor

Colorgraphic Com-munications Corporationbelieves that its XL-13monitor is a cost-effectivesolution for CAD/CAMgraphics reguirements.Plug-compatible with theIBM Personal Computer,the XL-13 consists of a bit-mapped graphics board,graphics primitives, a high-performance 13-inch colorvideo display, and a powersupply. Its standard screenformat is 80 columns by 24or 48 lines, and charactersizes can be 7 by 9 dots inan 8- by 10-dot grid or bit-map programmable. Bothtext and graphic cursortypes are supported, withvisible, invisible, blinking, or

nonblinking attributes.Graphics features includean escape seguence inter-preter for such graphicfunctions as vectors, arcs,circles, polygons, andparallelograms; draw overand behind; independentdraw and erase betweengraphics and text; geo-metric and complex fills;128 fill patterns; zoom, pan,scroll, and scaling; andprefill or post-bounded fillwith solid color or pattern.The graphics board pro-vides a 1024 by 512 by 4resolution. The 40-MHzbandwidth monitor isswept at 32 kHz horizontal-ly and 60 Hz noninterlacevertically. This combination

provides a flicker-free view-ing window of 640 by 480pixels. The IBM PC's highl-and medium-resolution andalphanumeric modes aresupported.

The XL-13 lists for S3495.A 19-inch monitor version,the XL-I9, costs $3995.Volume discounts areoffered. For additional infor-mation, contact Col-orgraphic CommunicationsCorp., 2379 John GlennDr., POB 80448, Atlanta,GA 30366, (404)455-3921.Circle 570 on inquiry card.

Touch-SensitiveMonitor for IBM

Microtouch Systems hasunveiled the Point 1 touch-sensitive monitor for theIBM Personal Computer.Point 1 lets you position thecursor, select from menus,and manipulate graphicswith the touch of a fingeron the video display. Anon-board 8-bit 65F11microprocessor controlsdata formats and calibra-tions and comes with aFORTH interpreter, 2K bytesof RAM for user programs,and 4K bytes of ROM forMTS firmware. Switch set-tings include 110 to 9600bps data rates; none, even,odd parity; 1 or 2 stop bits;and software-adjustableparameters. The monitor isavailable with TTL or com-posite outputs and amberor green- phosphor screens.Resolution is 1024 by 1024points at 75 points per sec-ond; the data rate is 200points per second. Outputis asynchronous RS-232C.Five commands are used toconfigure the screen, setparameters, and performself-tests. Additional pro-

gramming can be doneusing a proprietary TouchCommands Set and user-defined commands.

Versions of the Point 1are available for bothmonochrome and colorgraphics cards. A 4K-byteEEPROM is available as anoption. In small guantities,Point 1 costs less than$850. An OEM kit of thetouch screen can be ob-tained. For complete details,contact Microtouch Sys-tems Inc., Suite 5050, 400West Cummings Park,Woburn, MA 01801.Circle 568 on inquiry card.

PERIPHERALS

IBM Data Acquisitionand Control

Metrabyte Corporationhas announced an A/Ddata-acguisition and controlboard for the IBM PersonalComputer. The Dascon-1features 12 bits of digital I/O,12-bit resolution of analogI/O, four analog input chan-nels with overvoltage pro-tection, switch-selectableinput filters, two adjustablevoltage references, two1-mA constant currentsources, external interruptcapabilities, and a battery-backed real-time clock.Resolution is 500 microvoltsper bit. Optional switchselections can extend the

486 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

What's New?

resolution to 0.5 microvoltper bit on two channels.Two channels contain RTDinterfaces for built-intemperature measurementsfrom -200 to 650 degreesCentigrade.

Supplied software in-cludes I/O driver sub-routines and such util-ities as graphics andcalibration/set-up pro-cedures. Options includetwo channels of 12-bit D/Aoutput with switch-selectable ranges, a screwterminal connector, a solid-state I/O module board,and an electromechanicalrelay output board.Dascon-1 costs $485, in-cluding manual, 37-pin Dconnector, calibration

resistors, and card guide.Options range from S12 to$128.

Also available fromMetrabyte is a parallel digitalI/O card that provides 24TTL/DTL-compatible digitalI/O lines. It has interrupt in-put and enable lines as wellas external connections tothe IBM PC's bus powersupplies. The two dozenI/O lines are providedthrough an 8255-5 pro-grammable peripheral inter-face. It costs $89. For moreinformation on these prod-ucts, contact MetrabyteCorp., 254 Tosca Dr.,Stoughton, MA 02072,(617) 344-1990.Circle 571 on inquiry card.

Interface Grapples with Printer

The Grappler CD in-telligent printer interface forthe Commodore 64 ismarketed by Orange Micro.The Grappler's C-1525printer-emulation modeprovides the means forsuch dot-matrix printers asEpson, Star, Okidata, Pro-writer, and NEC to producegraphics and specialcharacters. Standard printfeatures include high-

resolution graphics screendumps, text screen dumps,a transparent operationmode, and block graphicsscreen dump. Double-size,inverted, rotated, and em-phasized graphics are ac-cessible through simplecommands. Margin and tabsettings, page length, andskip-over perforation areamong the Grappler's text-formatting features. More

than 22 commands provideprinting flexibility.

The Grappler comeswith all necessary cablesand its own serial ports.Power is drawn from theCommodore's expansionport. The suggested retailprice is $139. For the nameof your nearest dealer, con-tact Orange Micro Inc.,1400 Lakeview Ave.,Anaheim, CA 92807, (714)779-2772.Circle 575 on inquiry card.

Comprehensive DataEncryptor

Transcryptor blocksunauthorized access tocomputers and terminals,generates its own encryp-tion keys, and automatical-ly encrypts messages upontransmission and decryptsthem upon receipt. Trans-cryptor operates asyn-

rJSgggJS^R

chronously, and it automat-ically adjusts to data ratesranging from 150 to 9600bps. It has an error-correction feature thatcauses automatic resyn-chronization when line-noise errors occur. Systemhardware includes a Z80central processor and dualRS-232C ports.

Transcryptor can be easi-ly installed between a com-puter and modem or adirect line. The suggestedretail price is $945. ContactCryptext Corp., POB 425,Northgate Station, Seattle,WA 98125, (206)364-8585.Circle 573 on inquiry card.

SYSTEMS

16-bit Desktop

Sperry's 16-bit PersonalComputer has built-in com-munications capabilities.The basic unit contains an8088 microprocessor,floppy- or hard-disk drives,an asynchronous adapterfor mainframe communica-tions, and expansion slots.Standard hardware in-cludes switch-selectable4.77- or 7.16-MHz clockrates. 128K bytes of RAM,and seven expansion slots.

Two color display moni-tors are offered for theSperry Personal Computer:medium and high resolu-tion. The 15-inch medium-resolution display has an 80

from Sperry

or 40 by 25 format, 16K-byte buffer, 320 by 200 or640 by 200 resolution, andup to 16 colors. Charactersize is 5 by 7 in an 8- by8-dot block. The 12-inchcolor monitor has four res-olutions, ranging from 320by 200 to 640 by 400, a192K-byte buffer, and theability to display up to 256characters. Its character sizeis 7 by 14 dots in an 8- by16-dot block. A mono-chrome display is also avail-able.

Mass storage is providedby 320K- or 360K-bytefloppy-disk drives or by a10-megabyte hard-disk

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 487

What's New?

drive. MS-DOS level 1.25 orlevel 2.0 is standard, de-pending on disk storage.Some of the applicationsprograms currently offeredare Multiplan, Wordstar,dBase II, and Mail Merge.The Sperry PersonalComputer is available inseven models, differing in

regard to monitor and stor-age selections. A dot-matrixprinter is optional. Pricesrange from $2643 toS5753. For more informa-tion, contact Sperry Corp.,Computer Systems Divi-sion, POB 500, Blue Bell,PA 19424, (215) 542-4213.Circle 590 on inquiry card.

M68000Runs

Perkin-Elmer's 7350 Pro-fessional Computer is adesktop computer foundedon the M68000 micropro-cessor. The 7350 is amodular machine consist-ing of a display unit, de-tached keyboard, a 15-megabyte Winchesterhard-disk drive, and twodouble-density double-sided floppy-disk drives. Thefurnished DOS is Uniplus, aBell Labs Unix System IIIderivative. The 7350 is of-fered in single-user, colorgraphics, and multifunctioncluster console configura-tions.

The single-user worksta-tion comes with 320K bytes

ComputerUniplus

of user memory. The colorgraphics version has 448Kbytes of memory and apalette of 27 colors, 16 ofwhich can be displayedsimultaneously. The1-megabyte multifunctioncluster console can accom-modate three terminals. Itssatellites have complete ac-cess to all host program-ming facilities and most ap-plications. A number of ap-plications packages areavailable for all versions ofthe 7350.

The single-user worksta-tion begins at S8400. Thecluster console starts atS 11,750. For more informa-tion, contact Perkin-Elmer,

Data Systems Group, 2Crescent Place. Oceanport,NJ 07757, (201)870-4768.Circle 587 on inquiry card.

Royal Introduces Per-sonal Computer

Royal Business Machineshas introduced the Alpha-tronic Personal Computer.This Z80A-based machinecomes with 64K bytes ofRAM and 32K bytes ofROM. It has a BASIC inter-preter in ROM and inter-faces for a cassette recorder,two disk drives, and a paral-lel printer. It can be usedwith a home television oran RGB monitor; the dis-play format is 80 or 40 by24. Character resolution isformed in an 8- by 12-dotmatrix. A 79-character key-board with six program-mable-function keys andseparate cursor controlsand numeric keypad is pro-vided. For game and tuto-rial software, the Alpha-tronic has a built-in car-tridge slot.

Slimline 5'/4-inch floppy-disk drives and softwarecartridges are options. Thesuggested price is S695. Fordetails, contact Royal Busi-ness Machines Inc., 500Day Hill R<±, Windsor, CT06095, (203) 683-2222.Circle 586 on inquiry card.

Tandy 2000 IsPowered by 80186

The 16-bit Tandy TRS-80Model 2000, an MS-DOS-based system, is poweredby Intel's 8-MHz 80186microprocessor. Under MS-DOS, the 2000 can runsuch software as MS-Win-dows, Ovation, and Multi-

plan. The 2000 has a 90-key keyboard with 12 func-tion keys and is offered intwo configurations, both ofwhich can accommodateup to 768K bytes of RAM.The basic 128K-byte 2000has twin 5'A-inch floppy-disk drives, totaling 1.4megabytes of storage. It listsfor $2750. The 256K-byte2000 HD system has a 10-megabyte hard-disk driveaugmented with a singlefloppy-disk drive. It costs$4250.

A 12-inch monochromeand a 14-inch eight-colormonitor are offered. The dis-play format is 80 by 25.High-resolution 640 by 400graphics are optional. Otheroptions include a mouseand a monitor stand.

The Tandy TRS-80 Model2000 is available at morethan 1100 Radio ShackComputer Centers. ContactTandy Corp./Radio Shack,1800 One Tandy Center,Fort Worth, TX 76102.Circle 585 on inquiry card.

MISCELLANEOUS

Tool IdentifiesDead Components

Metrifast's Thermoprobelets you quickly identifydead components withoutcoming into direct contact

488 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

What's New?

with the PCB. A solid-statedevice consisting of a ther-mistor probe connected toa modified Wheatstonebridge circuit, Thermoprobemeasures minute tempera-ture changes of 1/25 degreeFahrenheit (1/45 degreeCentigrade). Because deadICs, resistors, transformers,and diodes do not emitheat, they can be readilyidentified on the unit's built-in S-meter, which indicatesnull to warm as the deviceis passed above the com-ponents.

Thermoprobe is smallenough to fit inside a shirtpocket. It's powered by a9-volt battery. Thermoprobeis available for S 21.95, post-age paid, from Metrifast, 51South Denton Ave., NewHyde Park,-NY 11040.Circle 593 on inquiry card.

Money Talks

The American Founda-tion for the Blind is market-ing a device that identifiesand vocalizes the value ofU.S. paper currency. Themachine, known as thePMI (paper money identi-fier), uses an optical scan-ning device to identify SI,S2, S5, $10, and S20 billsand a voice synthesizer toannounce the value. If a billis fed into the machine facedown, the voice says"over." PMI will also say"please try again" if a bill istattered or otherwise un-recognizable.

The rectangular PMImeasures 3/2 by 6 by 15%inches and weighs 6pounds, 2 ounces. Twocontrols, an on/off switchand a volume selector, arelocated on the front panel.PMI plugs into any standard

three-prong, 120-volt outletand can be used with atalking cash register devel-oped by the Foundation.

PMI costs $600. Purchas-ing details are outlined in afree catalog, Products forPeople with Vision Prob-lems, which is available inprint or braille from theAmerican Foundation forthe Blind, Consumer Prod-ucts, 15 West 16th St., NewYork, NY 10011.Circle 591 on inquiry card.

Rewrite Labels

When used with theircomplementary markingpen, Holman Data Prod-ucts' Rewrite Labels can beerased with a damp clothand reused. These 4- by4 V2 -inch labels have sevenlines for information. Apackage of 100 RewriteLabels with one markingpen costs S9.95. Quantitydiscounts are available.Contact Holman DataProducts, 2059 West Lin-coln, Oroville, CA 95965,(916) 533-5992.Circle 595 on inquiry card.

Workshelves Adjustto Your Taste

The Stack*Rack line ofcomputer workshelvescomprises nine models thatcan be adapted to anymicrocomputer on the mar-ket. Produced by CaliforniaDesign Works, Stack*Racksfeature adjustable shelvesthat can be set level, sloped,or vertically to suit personaltastes. They are made ofsolid red oak with an oilfinish.

Stack*Racks are availablewith 14-, 18-, or 22-inch

shelves in single- or dou-ble-shelf configurations.Prices range from $38 to$ 1 18. For complete details.

contact California DesignWorks, POB 3052, Mon-terey, CA 93940.Circle 596 on inquiry card.

Micro Charts Aid

Micro Logic Corpora-tion's Micro Chart #7 is adouble-sided, full-page ref-erence card for 8086 and8088 programmers. MicroChart represents the recon-struction of the bits, codes,and special conditionsfound in data manuals. Thedata are presented in a fullydecoded format, which fa-cilitates programming, de-bugging, and patching.Areas covered are conver-sion of instructions to andfrom hexadecimal, instruc-

Programmers

tion descriptions, cycle time,addressing modes, flagcodes, register map, mem-ory map, pinouts, and ASCIIcodes. Diagrams and cau-tionary notes are providedas well.

Micro Chart #1 is madeof the same type of plasticas a credit card. In lots ofone to nine, it costs $5.95,plus $1 postage. OrderMicro Chart directly fromMicro Logic Corp., 100 2ndSt., POB 174, Hackensack,NJ 07602, (201) 342-6518.

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 trie personal computing experi-menters and homebrewers who read BYTE, we print it in someform. We 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, sutject 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.

February 1984 @ BYTE Publications Inc. 489

RIBBON RE-INKERS

Introducing the Pika-Ink , an incredible new devicewhich extends the life of your fabric printer ribbonsby a factor of TEN! Works with any fabric ribbonth Vi-inch or narrower width. Automatically re-inksyour ribbons either on or off the printer for consis-tent dark black print. Pays for itself on the first rib-bon!

The Pika-Ink is a kit which includes # Stainlesssteel ink reservoir • ball bearing assembly •transfer felts • 115v 60Hz electric motor * powercord • special computer ribbon ink (extra ink

available). Comes with complete instructions. Re-quires assembly and fabrication with hand tools.

Pika-Ink kit

each$89

3+

10+

"$84 $78"

TERMINALS & PRINTERS

Micro-Term E301 $875Visual 55 $850

Visual 102 $1050

QumeQVT-102 $675

plka

QumeQVT-108 $850

Qume Sprint 11/40 $1495Sprint Interface $90

Sprint Tractor $235

RS-232BREAKOUT BOX

The Pika-Hox RS-232 I/O tester is the most advancedbreakout box on the market today. An absolutenecessity for anyone who uses or works with RS-232peripherals, interfaces, or data lines. Saves hours ofaggravation. Available in standard or deluxe tri-statemodels. Lifetime warranty!

• 25-pin male DCEand female DTEconnectors.

• Individual LED'smonitor pins, 2,3,4,5.6,8, 15,17,20, 21,22,25,plus MARK andSPACE.

• 24 DIP switchesallow signal lines tobe individuallyinterrupted.

• 25 test pins formonitoring or crosspatching with in-cluded jumpers.

• Tri-State model displays signals as high, low, orinvalid.

• Fits in shirt pocket. 2.9"x5.5"x1.5", wt. 8 oz,with batteries (included).

• Fully assembled, ready to use.

listPika-Box $199

Tri-State Pika-Box S249

each

T179$219

3+$174$211

RS-232 SWITCHESSAVE 40% TO 80%!

Allows several devices to share a single RS-232 dataline. Enhances flexibility of your system and puts anend to juggling cables. You've heard them called ABswitches or T-switches, and they have outrageousprices!

The Pika-Switch" is an economical alternative in kitform. You assemble it yourself and save 40% to 80%!Available in two models: 2-device (AB + common)with 3 female connectors, and 5-device (ABCDE +common) with 6 female connectors. Switches any 8lines. Silver plated switch contacts, gold plated con-nector contacts. Complete, nothing else to buy.

Common

Pika-Switch # 2 (AB)Pika-Switch # 5 (ABCDE)Male Connector Option

each

_3±_

$79 $75

$145 $135

No Charge

TERMS: All Sales exclusively by mail/phone order.Cash, check, money order, MC, Visa. No COD. Add$4.50 shipping, NM residents add 4% tax. (Foreigncustomers: payment must be in U.S. funds drawnon a U.S. bank, add 10% for air shipment).

ORDERS ONLY

Ask for Dept. 501

Pika-Box

1-800-547-4000

P""H In Oregon, and outside the U.S. call (503) 620-1602 r™"^

Div. of Applied ComputingDept. 501

1808 Pomona Dr.

Las Cruces, N M 88001

IITE

"back issues for sale

1976

1977

1978

1979

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984

Jan.

$2.75

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Feb.

$2.75

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Oct.

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Nov.

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Dec.

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Circle and send requests with payments to:BYTE Back IssuesP.O. Box 328I Hancock, NH 03449

Prices include postage in the US. Please add $.50 per copy forCanada and Mexico; and S2.00 per copy to foreign countries.

□ Check enclosed

Payments from foreign countries must be made in US fundspayable at a US bank.

□ VISACard # _

□ Master Card_ Exp

Signature

Please allow 4 weeks for domestic delivery and 8 weeks forforeign delivery.

name

address

city

state _

zip

490 BYTE February 1984

Apple Country Ltd. has your Number for

ROCK BOTTOM PRICES

**!i

1-800-222-2602

AMDEK COLOR I PLUSAMDEK COLOR II PLUSAMDEK COLOR IIIAMDEK COLOR IVAMDEK VIDEO 300 (GREEN)AMDEK VIDEO 300 (AMBER)AMDEK VIDEO 310 (AMBER)BMC 12AU 12" GREENBMC AU9191U 13" COLORBMC 1401 13" RGB COLORBMC AU9191MU 13" RGB IBMCOMMODORE COLOR MONITORCOMREX 13" COLOR W/SOUN3COMREX 12" HI-RES AMBERCOMREX 12" HI-RES GREENCOMREX 12" HI-RES LT GRNCOMREX 13" RGB COLORELECTROHOME 9" GREENELECTROHOME 12" GREENELECTROHOME 13" RGB IBMELECTROHOME 13"RGB COLORGORILLA 12" GREENNEC 12" GREEN SCREENECONO GREENLO-RES COLORAMBER SCREENCOLOR - IBMPRINCETON GRAPHICS HX-12SAKATA 13" COLORSAKATA 13" RGB COLORSAKATA SUPER RGB MONITORSAKATA 12" GREENTAXAN 12" GREENTAXAN 12" AMBERTAXAN RGB VISION ITAXAN RGB VISION IIIZENITH 12" AMBERZENITH 12" GREENZENITH RGB COLOR MONITORUSI 9" AMBER MONITORUSI 9" GREEN MONITORUSI 12" AMBERUSI 12" GREEN MONITORUSI 14" LO-RES COLOR

ANCHOR MARK I (RS-232)ANCHOR MARK II (ATARI)ANCHOR MARK III (TI99/4A)ANCHOR MARK V (OSBORNE)ANCHOR MARK VI (IBM PC)ANCHOR MARK VII (RS-232)ANCHOR MARK XII (RS-232)NOVATION J-CATNOVATION 212 AUTO CATSMARTCAT 212 (1200 BAUD)SMARTMODEM 3 00 BAUDSMARTMODEM 1200 BAUDSMARTMODEM 1200B - IBMUS ROBOTICS AUTODIAL 2 12

294.95

424.95369.95749.95134.95144.95164.95

89.95299.95349.95629.95269.95269.95134.95129.95129.95269.95129.95144.95379.95359.95

89.95154.95109.95289.95164.95479.95489.95264.95499.95679.95104.95124.95129.95294.95439.95119.95

99.95389.95129.95119.95149-95139.95289.95

79.95

79.95

99.95

94.95

199.95

109.95

279.95

104.95

579.95

429.95

194.95

484.95

449.95

449.95

ANADEX DP-9725B COLOR/SCRIBEANADEX DP-9625A 1339.95

ANADEX DP-9620A 1129.95

ANADEX WP-6000 2199.95

ANADEX DP-6500TR 500CPS 2329.95C.ITOH 85 10SCP COLOR NEW!!CITOH A10 DAISY WHEEL 539.95C.ITOH 8510SP 569.95

COMREX CR-I DAISY WHEEL 629.95COMREX CR-II DAISY WHEEL 469.95DAISEYWRITER 2000 1129.95DIABLO 630R155 1784.95

EPSON FX-80 W/TRACTOR LOW!!EPSON FX-100 F/T LOW!I

EPSON LQ-1500 LETTER QUALITY

EPSON MX-100 F/T

EPSON RX-80

EPSON RX-80 F/T

GEMINI 10X

GEMINI 15X

GORILLA BANANA PRINTER

IDS MICROPRISM

IDS PRISM 132

IDS PRISM 132C - COLOR

JUKI 6100 PRINTER (P)

MANNESMANN TALLY MT160L

MANNESMANN TALLY MT180L

MANNESMANN TALLY MT440L

NEC 3550 SPINWRITER-IBM 1754.95

NEC 8025 120 CPS 136 COL 719.95

OKIDATA MICROLINE 80 299.95

OKIDATA PACEMARK 2350S 1999.95

OKIDATA PACEMARK 2350S

OKIDATA PACEMARK 2410P

OKIDATA PACEMARK 24 1 OS

OKIDATA 82A K/GRAPHICS

OKIDATA 83A W/GRAPHICS

OKIDATA 84P

OKIDATA 84S

OKIDATA 92P

OKIDATA 93P

OKIDATA 9 3S

PRINTMASTER (DAISY)

PROWRITER I PRINTER

PROWRITER II PRINTER

QUADJET COLOR INK JET PRINTER

QUME SPRINT 11/40+ 1399.95

SANYO 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 130P 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

LOW! !

LOW! !

LOW! !

LOW! !

LOW! !189.95479.951299.951499.95549.95599.95799.95

NEW! !

2199.95

2329.95

2499.95

379.95

579.951049.951129.95449.95729.95829.951549.95■ 344.95619.95

COMMODORE 64 LOW!!

COMMODORE 1541 DRIVE LOW!!IBM PC LOW! I

COLUMBIA VP PORTABLE 2349.95COLUMBIA COMPLETE SYS. 2649.95

IBM-PC COMPATIBLE SYSTEM128K, 2-DS/DD DRIVES, KEYBOARDAND COMPLETE SOFTWARE PACKAGE

CORVUS CONCEPT MC68000 $3199256K, 8" FLOPPY DRIVE

COMPLETE SOFTWARE PACKAGEBI-DIRECTIONAL 8-1/2X11 SCREENCORVUS CONCEPT 512K $3599

EAGLE PC II 128K SYSTEM 2649.95EAGLE SPIRIT XL 3649.95

PORATABLE 128K RAM EXPANDABLETO 640K RAM ON BOARD, 1 320KFLOPPY 10 MEGABYTE HARD DISK,IBM COMPATABLE KEYBOARD,MONOCHROME MONITOR, 2 SERIAL t»1 PARALLEL PORT, MS DOS 2-0,GW BASIC, CP/M 86KAYPRO II 1449.95

LEADING EDGE

IBM COMPATABLE COMPUTER

8088 MPC 7.16 MHz

7 EXPANSION SLOTS, BUILT IN

CLOCK, PARALLEL AND SERIAL

PORTS, 128K RAM, MONITOR,

WORD PROCESSING SOFTWARE.

CALL FOR LOW PRICE!

NEC APC-H01 $2049

NEC APC-H02 $2549

NEC APC-H03 $3049

SANYO MBC 550 SYSTEM 769.95

SANYO WBC-1000 1529.95

TELEVIDEO 16-BIT DESKTOP

128K 8088 5MHZ DUAL 360K DRIVES

INCLUDES CP/M $3499.95

TELEVIDEO 910 TERMINAL 549.95TELEVIDEO 925 TERMINAL 789.95TELEVIDEO 970 TERMINAL 1199.95

ZENITH Z-120 ALL-IN-ONE

BUILT-IN GREEN SCREEN

DUAL DRIVES SPECIAL $2999.95

APPLE //e NOW AVAILABLE

WILDCAT STARTER SYSTEM 64K 2DR.6502 i. Z80 APPLE-CLONE 1499.95

SS/SD ELEPHANT 16.95 OPUS 15.95SS/DD ELEPHANT 19.95 OPUS 17.95DS/DD ELEPHANT 25.95 OPUS 24.95

APPLE HARDWARE

ALS CP/M CARD 299.95

AMDEK AMDISK 3" DISK DR 239.95

APPLE-CAT II 264.95

APPLE DUMPLING GX 119.95

4TH DIMENSION DRIVE+CTRL 289.95

4TH DIMENSION DRIVE-ONLY 199.95

HAYES MICROMODEM lie 249.95

KENSINGTON SYSTEM SAVER 64.95

KOALA GR/TABLET W/SFTWR 99.95

LAZER MICROSYSTEM DRIVE 189.95

MICRO-SCI A2 DRIVE ONLY 239.95

MICRO-SCI A2 W/CTRL-CARD 299.95

MOUNTAIN MUSIC SYSTEM 289.95

ORANGE MICRO SMART CARD NEW!!

PREMIUM SOFTCARD lie 334.95

QUADRAM 64K80COL CRD He 124.95

RANA ELITE I W/CTRL-CARD 349.95

RANA ELITE II W/CTRL 499.95

RANA ELITE III W/CTRL 649.95

SOUNDCHASER MUSIC SYSTEM 619.95

SOFTCARD (Z-80 CARD) 234.95

SWEET P PLOTTER 459.y5

TG JOYSTICK W/TOGGLE He 49.95

TRANSMODEM 1200 499.95

WICO APPLE MOUSE 124.95

KOALA PAD TOUCH TABLET 99.95

KRAFT JOYSTICK 54.95

MICROSOFT SYSTEMCRD 256K 449.95

MICROSOFT MOUSE 134.95

MOUSE SYSTEMS PC MOUSE 224.95

QUADLINK APPLE EMULATOR 489.95

QUADRAM QUADBOARD I 64K 289.95

QUADRAM QUADCOLOR I 229.95

QUADRAM QUADCHROME MON 524.95QUADRAM QUADSCREEN MON 1549.95

RANA DS/DD DISK DRIVE 259.95

STB SUPER I/O MULTIFUNCT 169.95

TG JOYSTICK W/TOGGLE 49.95

TRANSEND P.C. MODEM 1200 399.95

VERSAWRITER GRAPH TABLET 239.95

WIZARD SPOOLER P/S 16K 239.95

CBM64 HARDWARE

CARDBOARD/5 5 SLOT EXPAN. 54.95

CARD? GRAPHICS INTERFACE 64.95

DATA20 Z80 VIDEOPAK 224.95GRAPPLER CD NEW PRINT INTERFACE

KOALA GRAPH TABLET W/SFT 79.95

MSD-SD1 DISK DRIVE 339.95

VOICE BOX 99.95

Circle 24 on inquiry card.

We will try to meet or beat any advertised price!CALL US... WE CAN HELP! 1-800-222-2602

For technical assistance, order status and California calls (619) 765-0239

Apple 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% ($5 ijiin.); APO FPO Alaska W/.''''*'}''

Hawaii & Monitors 5% ($10 min.) Foreign orders 15% ($15 min.) All items are new with /. /'.*.>'.'

manufacturer's warranty. Prices are subject to availability & change without notice. Purchase order 1 si^*>*must include check. California residents add 6% sales tax. Send $1 (good toward first purchase) for ^h . ~*new fall catalog. x. ..

Apple Country, Ltd. is a DISCOUNT MAIL ORDER HOUSE for the micro computer industry ^5and is a California corporation not affiliated with Apple Computer Inc. Apple is a trademark of Apple Computer Inc.

Circle 346 on inquiry card.

CHECK SUNTRONICS NEW LOW PRICES

IBM Compatible Products Apple Compatible Products General Products- cont.

loinsaLv, 1-800-421-5775

Calif, orders and all Info Call 213-644-1149

S-1QQ Products

COLUMBIA PC 1600-1

Includes: Drives, Video Card, Perfect Soft-ware Package, MS-DOS, CP/M,Fast Graphics, BASIC, CP/M-86,Home Accountant and Com-munications Program.PC 1600-1 only $2850.00

COLUMBIA VP (Portable)... only $2750.00

AST SIXPACK CARDSix-function card with 64K-348K RAMMemory, Parallel Port, Serial Port, ClockCalendar, Super Drive and Super Spool.AST Sixpack Card only 291.00

MSI DUAL I/O2 Serial/2 Parallel Ports, Clock 175.00

MSI 256K RAM Board

256K RAM Board with 64K 199.00

256K RAM Board with 256K Call

MSI 256K w/Parallel or Serial Port

256K w/Parallel Port and 64K 259.00

256K w/Parallel Port and 256K Call

256K w/Serial Port and 64K 259.00

256K w/Serial Port and 256K Call

VISTA DISKMASTERDiskmaster Floppy and HardDisk Controller 225.00

APPRATE IBM PROM Blaster 129.00

CABLE for IBM Parallel Printer 29.95

CABLE for Columbia MPCParallel Printer 29.95

MODEM Novation 103 Smart-Cat . .$210.00

AFDC-1 Floppy Disk Drive $CQ95

Controller 0«7

Runs DOS 3.3 with any standard Shugart com-patible 5Va" disk drive. (2 drives each card).Does not read Vl track.

Apprate PROM Blaster 119.00

"ALS" 80 Column Card 159.00

"ALS" 2-CARD (Z80 CPU) 149.00

API Apple Parallel Printer Interface card.Centronics Compatible $45.00

WORD PROCESSOR (Benchmark)

For IBM or MS-DOS $299.00

MAILING LIST (Benchmark)

For Apple II 140.00

For IBM or MS-DOS 140.00

SPELLING CHECKER (Benchmark!

For IBM or MS-DOS 105.00

TELECOM (Benchmark)

For IBM or MS-DOS 85.00

CDEX

IBM Training 52.00

TALLGRASS

(J format) 50.00

Mitsubishi Disk Drives, 5V4" and 8 Slim

5%" Thin DSDD 40 Track : 310.00

8" Thin DSDD 80 Track 450.00

General Products

DSKETTESALE

5 W Diskettes

SS/DD (100% certified)

DS/DD (100% certified)

10 up 100 up1.75 1.55

2.50 2.30

SAM WOO 18MHzVideo Monitors

AMBER 9" 119.00

GREEN 12" 124.00

AMBER 12" 127.00

Composite video I/O. 750

lines resolution. 75'10K ohm impedance.

BMC 13 COLOR

monilar (or yourhome computervideo game dis-play- Olfers 350 x350 resolutionwith 400 dots atthe center.9191U ...249.00

BMC PRINTER

BX-80 dol matrix printerh 80 cps, 9x7 primhead. Quiet, reliable andpriced for

entry level $OCQ00end-user t«iClNote: Please add S10.00 shipping and hand-ling for the video monitors or printer.

EPROM & RAM SUPER SALE

P/N

Description 8-24 25up

2716

(450nSI 3.95 3.95

2732

!450nSI 4.40 4.40

2764

(28 pin) 8.95 5.95

4164

(in stock) Call Call

6116P-3

(150nSI 6.10 Call

Mother Boards & Card Cages

SLOTS Bare Bd KIT A & T w/CAGE

6 $1900 $44.00 S59.00 $84.008 24.00 56.00 81.00 116.00

12 29.00 75.00 110.00 150.00

10MHz, No termination. Includes power indicator andwiring for muffin fan. Uses OK connector for solderlessinstallation and removal of power & reset lines.

S1RC00

64KSM A&T without RAM ... I *J*J

64KSM A&T w 64k RAM (32-6116's). 339.00S-100 Board Uses 6MHz 6116's. V? Ampmax. power. Bank Select plus ExtendedAddressing allows for multi-memory

board set-up. 4 independant 16K Blocksmake easy use with multi-user sys-tems. Any 2K RAM may be replaced bya 2716 EPROM.

SBC-880 Z80A CPU, A&T $169.00

SBC-880 Z80A CPU, Kit 149.00

4MHz Z80A CPU boardswith SeriaVParaUel Paris.

UFDC-1 Floppy Controller, A&T 245.00

UFDC-1 Floppy Controller, Kit 225.00

The UFDC-1 Floppy Controller uses the

WD1795 chip which runs either

and/or 8"'5W Disk Drives.

CLOCK CALENDAR A&T 115.00

CLOCK CALENDAR Kit 95.00

This S-100 Clock Calendar Board has

4 interrupts, Time, Day of Week

and Battery Backup.

Special Sale Items

Apple Keyboard Assm & Tested . . $49.95

SUN-721 S-100 Prototype Board 9.95

SUN-722 Apple Prototype Board 5.95

See our January 1984 BYTE Ad for above item

descriptions. Quantities are limited.

m SUNTRONICS CO., inc.

STORE HOURS: MON.-FRI. 9:00am to 6:00pm SATURDAY 10:00am to 5:00pm

*'*'* " ■ ' ' * 77 . '/. "■*'■ Mail Order—Min. Order $10. Visa or MasterCard (please include expiration date). Add $2.00 (shipping and handling) for

12621 Crenshaw Blvd., Hawthorne, CA 90250 first 3 pounds plus .50 for each additional pound to your order. CA residents add Calif, sales tax.

MEGA BYTES FOR MICRO BUDGETS

Why pay more for top quality peripherals and accessories when our prices are consistently among the lowest anywhere? Expand your system and

shrink your cost. We invite you to compare prices, then call us.

MICROSOFT,

SALE PRICE

MULTIPLAN

$176.00

MULTIWORD WITH MOUSE

339.63

MULTITOOL FINANCIAL STATEMENT

70.49

MULTITOOL BUDGET

104.96

SOFTCARD SYSTEM CARDS

CALL

MISC. ITEMS

SALE PRICE

92P. . . OKIDATA . . . PRINTER

485.10

93P. . . OKIDATA . . . PRINTER

812.70

NEC JB1260 MONITOR

112.50

NEC JB1205 MONITOR

177.50

AMDEK COLOR II. . .MONITOR

466.50

PEGASUS DISK DRIVES

CALL

CORVUS DISK DRIVES

CALL

DYSAN DISKETTES (Boxes of 10 each)

SALE PRICE

104/1 5.25" .SS.SD

$32.83

104/1D 5.25" .SS.SD

34.72

104/2D 5.25" .DS.DD

41.04

3740/1 8" .SS.SD

34.09

3740/1D 8" .SS.DD

42.29

3740/2 8" .DS.SD

42.29

3740/2D 8" .DS.DD

49.24

VIDEX

SALE PRICE

UL-00

. . . ULTRATERM $282.39

VT-600

. . . VIDEOTERM 60.Hz 207.87

VT-601

. . . VIDEOTERM 60.Hz SOFTSWITCH 230.22

VT-602

. . . VIDEOTERM 60.Hz SOFTSWITCH INVER . . .237.68

PS-000

. . . PSIO 170.61

ENH-000

. . . ENHANCER II 111.04

ENH-FS-000. . .

. . . FUNCTION STRIP 29.06

ENH-FS-001 . . .

. . . ENHANCER II, FUNCTION STRIP. . . . 133.37

MODEMS

01 HAYES

02 HAYES

03 HAYES

04 HAYES

05 NOVATION . .

06 NOVATION . .

07 NOVATION . .

08 NOVATION . .

09 NOVATION . .

10 U.S. ROBOTICS

11 U.S. ROBOTICS

. .CHRONOGRAPH

SALE PRICE $200.79

. .SMARTMODEM 300

..SMARTMODEM 1200....

232.37

568.29

..MICROMODEM II

. DCAT

. AUTOCAT

313.60

180.58

657.95

.JCAT

. SMARTCAT 103/212

. SMARTCAT 103

122.30

488.35

204.43

. . PASSWORD

. .AUTO DIAL

395.75

525.00

ORDERS ONLY 800-858-4810IN CAL. 800-821-6662

— COMMERCIAL BUSINESS SYSTEMS

2858 S. ROBERTSON BLVD. LOS ANGELES, CA 90034

INFORMA TION(213) 559-0596

Phone orders accepted on Visa and Mastercard only. California residents add 6.5% sales tax. No C.O.D. Actual shipping and handling charge added to all orders. Prepaidorders as follows: Money orders or cashier's check —merchandise shipped upon receipt. Personal checks must clear before shipping. 20% restocking fee. Prices andavailability subject to change. SI00 minimum order.

492 BYTE February 1984

Circle 60 on inquiry card.

CNAnneLaxinecnons

'■ The Channel Connecting You And Computers

APPLE SOFTWARE.

*AST Versa Form

$245.00

Qbase

139.00

Templates PO/INV @

39.00

ML/CRJ/EJ @

33.00

ARTSCI Magic Window

99.00

Magic Mailer

49.00

Magic Words

49.00

Magic Calc

99.00

•ASHTONE-TATE'" dBase II

■ 385.00

Bottomline Strategist

279.00

Financial Planner

419.00

Friday!

198.00

BEAGLE BROTHERS

Alpha Plot

28.00

Apple Mechanic

22.00

Beagle Bag

22.00

Doss Boss

17.00

Double Take

27.00

Pronto Dos

22.00

Utility City

22.00

BLUE CHIP Millionaire

39.00

BPI GL/AP/AR/INV/PR®

295.00

BRODERBUNO" A.E.

25.00

Choplitter

25.00

Bank St. Writer

45.00

Lode Runner

26.00

G. W/AP

305.00

AR/PR @

275.00

CENTRAL POINT Copy II Plus

32.00

Filer

15.00

CONTINENTAL™GL/AR/AP/PR@

158.00

Home Accountant

49.00

FCM

68.00

CRANE Menu Generator

29.00

DATA SOFT (Zaxxon)

27.00

Micropainter

25.00

DIGITAL RESEARCH™

CALL

DOW JONES'-Market Analyzer™

275.00

Market Manage/ ,

235.00

Market Microscope

525.00

lnves'tment™Eva(uator

129.00

Connector • ,

85.00

EDUWARE

CALL

FOX & GELLER"Quick Code

195.00

dGraph

195.00

dUtil

69.00

Quick Screen i

119.00

HAYDEN Pie Writer

99.00

HAYES® Smartcom 1

89.00

INFOCOHTDeadline

34.00

Zork l/ll/lll @

27.00

INSOFT Electric Duet

22.00

GraphForth

56.00

KENSINGTON- Format II

113.00

LOTUS™ Executive Briefing

System

149.00

MICROCOM Micro Terminal

59.00

MICRO PRO™ Infostar

259.00

•MICROSOFT Multiplan™

169.00

Budget System

109.00

Financial Statement

69.00

Other products

CALL

MONOGRAM Dollars & Sense

79.00

MUSE* Supertext Home Office

73.00

Supertext Pro. (lie)

73.00

Castle Wolfenstein

22.00

PENGUIN

Complete Graphics System II

49.00

Graphics Magician

39.00

Special Effects

29.00

PERFECT SOFTWARE™

Perfect Writer

149.00

Perfect Speller

99.00

Perfect Writer/Speller

199.00

Perfect Filer

199.00

Perfect Calc

99.00

Writer/Speller/Filer/Calc

489.00

PHOENIX Zoom Grafix

34.00

QUALITY Bag of Tricks

29.00

SENSIBLE Speller

83.00

SIERRA ON LINE

Screen Writer II

85.00

Dictionary

69.00

Screen Writer/Dictionary

135.00

Frogger

25.00

Ultima II

39.00

SILICON VALLEY

Word Handler

39.00

List Handler

35.00

SIRIUS Type Attack

28.00

Pascal Graphics Editor

75.00

SOFTWARE PUBLISHING ™

(Specify II+ or He)

pfs: File

84.00

pfs: Report

79.00

pfs: Graph

84.00

pfs: Write (lie only)

84.00

SPINNAKER™ up to 30% off

SSM Transcend I

69.00

Also SEE MODEMS

STONEWARE D.B. Master

1 145.00

D.B. Master Ver. 4

229.00

SUBLOGIC Flight Simulator

25.00

TERRAPIN Logo

119.00

VISICORP Visicale

(II/II+) (lie)

169.00

Other Products

CALL

APPLE HARDWARE.

CENTRAL POINT Alaska Card™ 99.00

DANA » Fan 59.00

EPS Keyboard 319.00

Prom @ 29.00

GIBSON LABS LPS Light Pen 279.00

HAYES Micromodem II W/SC I 249.00

KOALA™ Graphic Tablet 85.00

KRAFT Joystick 49.00

Paddle 39.00

MICRO SCI A2 w/o Controller 219.00

A2 Controller 79.00

A40 w/o Controller 299.00

A70 w/o Controller 399.00

A40/A70 Controller 79.00

MICROSOFT® 16K Ramcard 69.00

Softcard 219.00

Softcard Plus 449.00

Softcard Premium 479.00

Premium Softcard lie 369.00

NOVATION See MODEMS

ORANGE MICRO™

Buffered Grappler 16K 179.00

PRACTICAL PERIPHERALS

Microbuffer II plus 16K PAR 199.00

Other Products CALL

SSM See MODEMS

TG Paddles

Joy Stick

Select a Port

Track Ball

Joy Stick (lie)TENCAL Cool & TimeVIOEX Videoterm w/ss

UltratermWICO Joy Stick

29.0045.0045.0049.0049.0075.00239.00279.0059.00

IBM SOFTWARE

•AST Versa Form 245.00

Qbase 139.00

Templates PO/INV @ 39.00

ML/CRJ/EJ @ 33.00

'ASHTONE-TATE™ dBase II 385.00

Bottomline Strategist 279.00

Financial Planner 419.00

Friday! 198.00

BLUE CHIP Millionaire 39.00

BPI™ GL/AP/AR/PR @ 459.00

CENTRAL POINT Copy II PC 32.00

COMPREHENSIVE

PC Tutor 1.1 45.00

PC Tutor 2.0 45.00

CONTINENTAL™ FCM 79.00

Home Accountant Plus 89.00

Property Management 329.00

DATAMOST Write On 89.00

DIGITAL RESEARCH™ CP/M 86 45.00

Concurrent CP/M 86 235.00

Dr. Logo 79.00

Other Products CALL

DOW JONES™ Market Analyzer™ 275.00

Market Manager™ 235.00

Market Microscope 525.00

Investment Evaluator™ 129.00

Connector 85.00

FOX & GELLER Quick Code 195.00

dGraph '195.00

dUtil 69.00

HAYDEN Pie Writer 135.00

HAYES Smart Com II 89.00

INFOCOM™ Deadline 34.00

Zork l/ll/lll®. 27.00

INSOFT Data Desjgn 169.00

MICROCOM Micro Terminal 69.00

•MICROSOFT™ Multiplan 169.00

Budget System 109.00

Financial Statement 69.00

Word 275.00

Word w/Mouse 339.00

Other Products CALL

MONOGRAM Dollars & Sense 119.00

MUSE™ Supertext Pro 73.00

•PEACHTREE Peachtext 50Q0 235.00

•PERFECT SOFTWARE™ CALL

PETER NORTON Utilities 59.00

SIRIUS Type Attack 29.00

Gorgon II 29.00

SOFTWARE ARTS TK Solver 219.00

SOFTWARE PUBLISHING

pfs: File 94.00

pfs: Report 84.00

pfs: Graph 94.00

pfs: Write 94.00

SPINNAKER™ up to 30% off

STONEWARE

D.B. Master Advanced 449.00SUPERSOFT Personal Database 90.00

VISICORP CALL

IBM HARDWARE

AMDEK MAI Board 519.00

AST Call

HAYES Smartmodem 1200B /SCII 439.00

KOALA™ Graphic Tablet 109.00

KRAFT Joystick 49.00

Paddle 39.00

MICROSOFT-' Mouse 149.00

System Card 64K 295.00

System Card 256K 465.00

QUADRAM QuadlinkQuadboard 64KOuadboard II 64KQuad 512 plus 64KQuad 512 plus 256KQuad 512 plus 512K64K Ram ChipsQuadchromeQuadscreen

TG PaddlesJoy StickTrack Ball

WICO Joy Stick

MODEMS

485.00

285.00

285.00

265.00

420.00

675.00

79.00

519.00

1,595.00

39.00

4900

49.00

59.00

HAYES® Micromodem II

w/SC I (II) 249.00

SMartcom I (II) 89.00

Smartmodem 1200B

w/SCII (PC) 439.00

Smartcom II (PC) 89.00

Smartmodem 1200

(RS232) 499.00

Smartmodem 300

(RS232) 205.00

Chronograph (RS232) 189.00

NOVATION Apple Cat II

(300B) (II) 269.00

212 Apple Cat II (300/1200B)

(II) 559.00

212 Apple Cat II

Upgrade Kit 319.00

Cat (300B) (RS232) 139.00

D-Cat (300B) (RS232) 159.00

J-Cat (300B) (RS232) 109.00

Smart Cat 103

(300B) (RS232) 199.00

Smart Cat 103/212

(RS232) 409.00

212 Auto Cat(RS232) 569.00

SSM Modemcard w/SOURCE II

259.00Transmodem 1200 (II) 499.00

AIO-2 Ser/Par Interface 169.00

MONITORS

AMDEK Video 300

Video 300A

Color I

Color I plus

Color II

Color III

Color IV

DVM Interface (II)

DVM Interface (lie)NEC 12" Green JB1201

12" Color JC1215

12" RGB JC1203 (PC)

JC1203 to PC Cable

PGS HX-12QUADRAM Quadchrome

QuadscreenTAXAN 13" Color

12" Green

12" Amber

RGB Vision 1 12" Lo

RGB Vision 3 12" HiPRINTERS

135.00149.00289.00319.00439.00389.00895.00169.00169.00159.00299.00559.0024.00539.00519.001,595.00319.00145.00149.00319.00559.00

EPSON FX 80/100OKIDATA Complete Line

DISKETTES

DYSAN» 5'A" SS/SD5V<" SS/DD

5V<" DS/DDPlastic Box Add

CALLCALL

32.0037.0043.00

1.50

TERMS'. Add 3% for shipping & handling. $3.00 minimum. Allow 2 weeks for checks to clear. Add 6% for Calif. Sales Tax. Add 2% to total for Visa &Master/Charge. All sales final for software, accessories & diskettes. Defective Hardware, Monitors, Printers returns must be within 10 working days ofpurchase accompanied by RMA # for exchange only. Apple is the Registered Trademark of Apple Computer Inc. IBM is the Registered Trademark ofInternational Business Machines Corp.

ORDER DESK: National: 1-800-821-4381 Calif: 1-800-421-3245Product Support: (805) 683-1779 Local Orders: (805) 683-3006STORE HOURS: M-F 9-6pm, Sat. 9-5pm ORDER HOURS: Mon.-Sat. 8-6:30pm circle so on inquiry card.

Circle 345 on inquiry card.

SUNNY LOW LOW COST

POWER SUPPLIES

(LINEAR & SWITCHING)FOR S-100, DISK DRIVES

NO. 806 & NO. 516 Mainframes Kit 1, 2 & 3 for S-100 R2,R3for 2 Drives(Floppy&Hard)

S-100 & DISK POWER SUPPLIES: open frame, assy. & tested, 6 outputs, adju. & fuses protect.

ITEM -I-5V OVP ~5V (°r - l2v> I 24V(OR + 12V) + 8V ±16V SIZE W x D x H PRICE

5A

1A

5-7A PEAK

13A

3A

10" x 6" x 5"

105.95

3A

8%" x 5" x 4%"

95.95

^ST 12 SLOT & 2 FLOPPY

(1 Floppy & 1 Hard Disk)S4 6 SLOT & 2 FLOPPY 4A 1A 4-5A PEAK 8A

DISK POWER SUPPLIES: open frame, assy. & tested, regulated, adjustable & fuses protect.

ITEM IDEAL FOR +5V OVP -5V(or-12V) + 24V (or + 12V) +8VUnreg. +12V SIZE W x D x H PRICE S^brS-IOt^Onves

2.5A

2.5A - 5A Peak

4A

1A

3A - 5A Peak

6A

1A

6A - 8A Peak

6A

1A

6A - 8A Peak

2A

1A

R0 2 x 8" SLIMLINE

R, 2 x 8" or 2 x 5V4" DISK

R2 [3x8" (or 5V4") FLOPPY]

R3 [or 1x Floppy & 1x Hard]

AC & DC POWER CABLES WITH CONNECTOR FOR 2 DRIVES 8.00

S-100 POWER SUPPLY KITS (open frame with base plate, 3 hrs. assy, time)

ITEM (IDEAL FOR) +8V -8V t-16V 16V +28V SIZE: WxDxH PRICE

5" x 4" x 4"

8" x 4" x 3%"

10" x 47/e" x 3%'

9" x 6V4" x 4%"

51.9556.9571.9598.95

KIT 1KIT 2KIT 3

15 CARDS

20 CARDS

DISK SYSTEM

15A25A15A

2.5A3A3A

2.5A3A3A

5A

12"x5"x4%"12"x5"x47/a"13'/2" x 5" x 4'/a"

54.9561.9569.95

6 SLOT MAINFRAME assy & tested only $399^95 $299.95 + shipping $ia oo

EACH MAINFRAME (ITEM NO. 806 OR 516) CONTAINS: EMI FILTER • FUSE HOLDER • AC POWER CORD • POWER SWITCH & INDICATOR •RESET SWITCH • 4V4" COOLING FAN • S-100 BUS 6 SLOT CARD CAGE • (110/220 VAC. 50/60 HZ.) POWER SUPPLY FOR DISK DRIVES & S-100SLOTS • 2 EA DC POWER CABLES WITH CONNECTOR AND MOUNTING HARDWARE FOR DISK DRIVES • 9 EA. CUT-OUTS; 7 FOR DB25CONNECTOR 1 FOR 50 PIN CONNECTOR S 1 FOR CENTRONICS • CUSTOM FINISH & LOGO-LESS • COMPACT SIZE • LIGHTWEIGHT. 28 LBS.ITEM #806 FOR 2 EA 8THINLINE FLOPPY (TANDON TM848-1 & 848-2 OR EQUIV). OR ONE HARD DISK, POWER SUPPLY:+8V/8A. +16V/3A.. 5V/5A OVP. 5V/1A & 24V/5A SIZE: 12' (W) X 19 5 (D) X 9.8'(H).

SHIPPING FOR EA. PWR SUPPLY: $5.50 IN CALIF.;$8.00 IN OTHER STATES;$18.00 IN CANADA.FOR EA. TRANSFORMER: $5.00 IN ALL STATES;$12.00 IN CANADA. CALIF. RESIDENTS ADD6.5% SALES TAX.

DEALER gINQUIRIES HINVITED

No. 806

Mainframe

>?P

MAILING ADDRESS:pgjPI P.O. BOX 4296

TORRANCE, CA 90510

TELEX: 182558

SUNNY INTERNATIONAL

(TRANSFORMERS MANUFACTURER)(213) 328-2425 MON-SAT 9-6

SHIPPING ADDRESS:22129Vz S. VERMONT AVETORRANCE, CA 90502

* * *

The

GRAY MARKET

We don't play games

Lowest Prices Anwhere! Here is why:

1. Low Advertising Budget

2. Large Volume Buying

3. No Support

4. No Repair Service

Our advertising budget is kept low, wesell in large volume and you benefit bygetting the best prices anywhere. Youmay use Visa, MasterCard, AmericanExpress or prepay (cashier's check ormoney order).

We carry so many products that we areunable to list them all. However, call usfor your specific needs. We have listedexamples of some of our products andprices. Believe it or not, all our prod-ucts are priced the same.

ALL PRODUCTS ARE NEWIN SEALED CONTAINERS

IF YOU WANT THE LOWESTAND BEST PRICES CALL US

(714) 557-3934

* ■¥■

COMPUTERS

ALTOS $C»LL

VIC 20 SCALL

COLOMBIA JCALL

CORONA SCALL

NORTH STAR SCALL

FRANKLIN SCALL

DEC RAINBOW SCALL

TELEVIDEO SCALL

SANYO SCALL

TEXAS INSTRUMENT SCALL

ZENITH SCALL

PIED PIPER SCALL

Z0RBA SCALL

PRINTERS - DOT MATRIXES

EPSON FX-80 S5I9.00

0KIDATA92A $429.00

STAR MICRONICS SCALL

C ITH0 SCALL

PROWRITER SCALL

IDS SCALL

DATASOUTH SCALL

ANADEX SCALL

NEC SCALL

TOSHIBA SCALL

RITEMAN SCALL

MANNSMAN TALLY SCALL

OLIVETTE SCALL

RIK0 SCALL

LETTEA QUALITY

BROTHER HR-1 559.00

DYNAX DX-15 $449.00

C0MREX SCALL

NEC SCALL

DIABLO SCALL

QUME SCALL

C ITH0 SCALL

STARWRITER SCALL

SILVER REED SCALL

JUKI $CALL

MONITORS

AMDEK COLOR I .... SCALL

NEC SCALL

ZENITH SCALL

SANYO SCALL

TAXAN SCALL

USI SCALL

C0MREX SCALL

GORILLA SCALL

MODEMS

HAYES 300 BAUD ... SCALL

NOVATIONS SCALL

SIGNALMAN SCALL

TERMINALS

TELEVIDEO 925 SCALL

QUME SCALL

ZENITH SCALL

AMPEX DIALOG SCALL

TERMIFLEX SCALL

DISC DRIVES

SHUGART $CALL

TANDON SCALL

SIEMANS SCALL

REMEX SCALL

RANA $CALL

C0MMAD0R 64 DRI.. SCALLAPPLE PERIPHERALSGRAPPLER PLUS... S115.00

MICROTEK JCALL

OTHER PARALLEL

INTERFACES

SERIAL INTERFAC... SCALL

80 COLUMN CARDS.. SCALL

CPM CARDS SCALL

16K RAM CARDS SCALL

LANGUAGE CARDS ... SCALLAPPLE DISK DRIV . . . SCALL

BUFFERS SCALL

COMPLETE STOCK OFCABLES SCALL

IBM PERIPHERALS

RAM CARDS SCALL

QUADRAM SCALL

RAYTRONICS SCALL

AST SCALL

COLOR MONITORS SCALL

10 MEGA BYTE HA .... SCALL

GRAPHICS CARDS SCALL

DISC DRIVES SCALL

MODEMS SCALL

COMMADOR 64 - VIC 20PERIPHERALS

DIS DRIVES SCALL

MONITORS SCALL

INTERFACES SCALL

CARDCO SCALL

THE CONNECTION .. .. SCALL

SOFTWARE SCALL

PAPERCLIP SCALL

DATA 20 SCALL

WORD PLUS SCALL

EXPANSION BOARD . .. SCALL

PLOTTERS

HEWLETT PACKARD . .. SCALL

BAUSCH & LOMB SCALL

AMDEX SCALL

BMC SCALL

STROBE SCALL

HARD DISC DRIVESSWITCH BOXESACCESSORIES

DUST COVERS S7.95

PRINT WHEELS SCALL

RIBBONS SCALL

DISKETTE CASES SCALL

SURGE PROTECTOR SCALL

DISKETTES DS/DD -10 ea IZ8'95

494 BYTE February 1984

Circle 156 on inquiry card.

TOLL FR : 1-800-545-2 .33 - Continental U.S.

77

TRADE YOUR 5V*" DRIVE

SGL SIDBDBL DEN FOR DBL SIDE/DBL DEN DRIVE $75.00 ALLOWANCE

DBL SIDE/DBL DEN FOR 2 EA

(TM100-2) FOR 1/2 HGT DBL SIDE/DBL

DEN DRIVES $175.00 ALLOWANCE

• IBM ACCESSORIES

AST

Combo Plus (Serial/Par/CLK 64 to 256K) 249.00

Six Pak Plus (Serial/Par/CLK 64K Expands to 384K). 289.00

Meg-A-Plus(Serlal/CLK/64K Expands to 256K) 269.00

Meg-A-Pak (Expands Meg-A-Plus to 512K) 269.00

I/O Plus (SP) 129.00

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) 700.00

MANY OTHER OPTIONS AVAILABLE.ASHTONTATE

D-Base II 400.00

Bottom Line Strategist 279.00

Financial Planner 499.00

Friday 189.00

D.C. HAYES

Smartmodem 1200B-Smartcom 2 software included 429.00

Smartcom 2-Telecomputive for 300/1200 on disk.. . . 89.00

LOTUS DEVELOPMENT

Lotus 1-2-3(on disk) 369.00

KRAFT

Joy Stick 47.50

Paddle (pair) 37.00

KEYTRONICS

Enhance your PC-with a superior keyboard 210.00

M P I

B-52 (DS/DD) 320K 210.00

MAYNARD

Floppy Controller 155.00

Floppy Controller (Serial) 225.00

Floppy Controller (PAR) 205.00

Sandstar MOD-FDCMODULAR (for 5 V," or 8" drives) .. 200.00

ADDONS FOR Pararrel MOD 60.00

SANDSTAR Serial-MOD 79.00

MOD-FDC Clock Calendar MOD .... 69.00

Game Adapter MOD 49.00

Sandstar Multi-Function Bd (Holds up to

6 modular add-ons 82.00

PLANTRONICS COLOR PLUS

Color + Color Display Card (16 colors) 395.00

PRINCETON GRAPHICS

PGS HX12-Hi-Res Color, The Best 469.00

OUADRAMQuadlink—Allows Apple Software to be used in IBMPC HAS 64K Ram-Game Port Display Gen-Disk

Intf. w/software 489.00

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 229.00

SHUGART DISK DRIVESSA455L-1/2 HGT 320 K DS/DD w/BRACKETS ... 225.00 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/BRACKETS . . . 249.00 ea.

440.00 for 2

* APPLE/FRANKLIN ACCESSORIES

ALS

CPM 3.0 Card 289.00

Z-Card II 139.00

ASHTONTATED-Base II 400.00

ASTAR

RF Modulator 19.00

COOL TIMEFan, Clock, Surge Protector 80.00

GENERIC

Z-80 Card (Emulates Micro-Soft) 99.00

80 Col. Video (Videx Compatible) 99.00

80 Col. Video w/Soft Switch 125.00

Joystick 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

Joy Sticks 29.00

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 89.00

KRAFT

Joystick for II E 44.00

LOTUS DEVELOPMENTExecutive Briefing System 139.00

MICRO-MAX

View Max 80 (80 Col for II +) 139.00

View Max 80E (80 Col W/64K Memory Exp to 128K) . 129.00

MICROTEKDumpling 64K7lnterface 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

Grappler + (Graphics Interface) 119.00

Grappler + 16K (Buffer and 5 to64K) 175.00

Buffer Board 135.00

PRINCETON GRAPHICSInterface Card allows use of HX12Color Monitor .. 156.00

QUADRAM

RAM 80—80 Col 64K card 119.00

APIC—Par Intf. card 60.00

APIC/G—Par Intf. w/Graphlcs 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 279.00

Videterm 189.00

VISTA

A800 Floppy Controller for 8" Drives 300.00

A-800-1 Cable 27.00

* APPLE DISK DRIVES

ALL DRIVES 1 YR. WARRANTY

Vista Solo (35TR) 189.00

Micro-Sci A-2 (35TR) 209.00

Mlcro-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"/size 163K40TR Green 189.00

Super 5 "THINLINE" Vi size 163K 40TR

(TEAC DIRECT DRIVE) Red 225.00

•ATARI

KRAFT Joy Stick 15.00

PERCOM AT 88 SS/DD Disk Drive w/Prlnter Port ... 499.00

RANA Rana 1000—SS/DD Disk Drive 379.00

TRAK AT-D2 SS/DD Disk Drive 379.00

•COMMODORE

STAR Star Gemini Interface to VIC 20 + CMD64 ... 65.00

DOW JONES Dow Jones Invest/Evaluator 125.00

KRAFT Joystick 15.00

KOALA Koala GR/Tablet w/software

(specify VIC20 or CMD64) 99.00

*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 S75 for SS/DD Drive)

•TI-PROFESSIONAL

LOTUS 1-2-3 369.00

QUADRAM TI-64 64K Ram Card 206.00

QUADRAM TI-92 192K Ram Card 339.00

•WESPER

WIZARD BPO (Same as Grappler + 16K

Specify Printer) 149.00

WIZARD IPI (Same as Grappler + Specify Printer) .. 89.00

WIZARD EBO (Internal Buffer for Epson) 109.00

WIZARD 80 COI/64K For II E 139.00

WIZARD 80 Col/For II + .^ 139.00

* TOLL FREE

1-800-545-2633CONTINENTAL U.S.

Circle 158 on inquiry card.

TheL

Computer Company, Inc.

Retail Sales ^V

123 East 200 South

Salt Lake City, Utah 84111

RetallHour*

Monday-Friday 10 AM to8 PM

Saturday 10 AM to 5 PM

Retail Phone-3844057

tiitamm

SUPERMARKET DEALS

■

TOLL FREE 1-800-545-2633 - Continental U.S.

MINIMUM SHIPPING $3.00 • NO SURCHARGE ON VISA/MASTERCHARGE

SHUGART

5V<" SA400(35TR) 160K 169.00

5'/i"SA400L(40TR)190K 189.00

5'/<"SA455L(40TR)320K1/! HGT 225.00

8" SA801R(SS/DD) 600 K 355.00

QUME

5V<" 142 (40TR) 320 K Vi HGT 225.00

8" DT8 (842) 490.00

MITSUBISHI

5 '/<" M-4853 Vi size 96 TPI same as TM 100-4 410.00

M289&63 (DS/DD) 220V 449.00

8"M-289fr63 Thinline 8" DS/DD 1.2 MG 419.00

8" M-2894-63 (110V) STD 8" DS/DD 1.2 MG . . . 399.00CDC

5V<" 9409-DS/DD 225.00

TANDON

5VTM100-1 SS/DD 160K 150.00

5%"TM100-2AOS/DDf320/<; FOR IBM-PC 225.00

TM101-4(96TPI Quad Den) 339.00

8" TM848-2 (DS/DD) 1.2 MG 425.00

SIEMAN'S

8"FD100-8(SS/DD)110V801 R 169.00

8" FD100-8 (SS/DD) 220V Compatible 199.00

MP)5V<'- B-51 40TR SS/DD 180 K 145.00

• AC SURGE ELIMINATORS

Grizzly (200W) uninterruptible power

system + surge protection 750.00

Grizzly (500W) uninterruptible power

system + surge protection 1,802.00

Hawk 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 69.00

Orange-AC surge + EMI (liter(6 outlets) 95.00

Peach (3 outlets) AC surge/EMI filter 69.00

• DATA CABLES

B"DSC 88-2SKT-1or 2-8" drvs w/skt. conn 20.00

5V<"DSC55-2SKT-for1-51/<"dvsw/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

• CONNECTORS

RS232 ConnectorsSOLDER TYPE

DB25P 2.50 S-100 Connectors . 10/25.00

DB25S 3.00 DE9P 2.00

DB25 Hood 1.00 DE9 Hood 1.00

* DISK DRIVE CABINETS

8" CABINETS

8" DDC88V28 w/PS vertical tor 2-8" drives 269.00

8" DDC88T-1 w/PS vertical-tor 2 or 4-8" thinline

drives 269.00

8" DDC88T-2 w/PS vertical for 2 8" thinline drives 200.00

8" DDC8V w/PS vertical for 1 8" drive 249.00

8" DDC88H w/PS horizontal for 2-8" drives 269.00

5V." CABINETS

5V«"DDC5H w/PShorizontal-for 1-5'/."drive 55.00

5'/i"DDC5Vw/PSvertical-for1 ea.5'/4"drive 65.00

5V4"DDC55Vw/PSvertlcalfor2-5'/4 drives(NEW) 85.00 ■

• DISKETTES

FOR APPLE, ETC.

5 'A" Soft Sector SS/DD 17.00/10

For IBM PC & PARTNERS lor Oty of 100 (15% Discount)

5% "Soft Sector DS/DD 24.00/10

CENTECHColor code your files: 5 colors In each pkg. (Red,Yellow, Blue, Green, Brown)

5'/<"Sglslde/dblden 23.00/10

BV4" Dblside/dblden 30.00/10

5V«" 10 sector 24.00/10

5V«" 16 sector 24.00/10

8" Sgl side/dbl den 30.00/10

8" Dbl side/dbl den 40.00/10

• MAXELL

Sgl.slde/dbl.den5V4" 24.00

Dbl. side/dbl.den5V." 36.00

Dbl. side/quad den S'/T 45.00

MEMOREX, TDK, VERBATIM CALL

• DISKETTE STORAGE

AA-5 'A (Holds 82 Disks) 17.00

AA-8 (Holds 82 Disks) 26.00

Smoked Plexiglass Disk Tubs

LIBRARY CASES

CAS-5V4" 2.50

CAS-8" 3.00

Color Burst (Pack of 5) 12.00

FLIP "N" FILE

Flip "N" File 25-5V4" (holds 25) w/lock 21.00

Flip "N" File 50-5'A (holds 50) w/lock 27.95

Flip "N" File "Original-5" (holds 50) 21.00

Flip "N" File "Original 8" (holds 50) 29.95

Colors Available; color burst assl., beige, black, blue, red, gray

• E-PROM ERASERS

QUV-T8/1H (hobby) 49.95

QUV-T8/2I (Industrial version) 68.95

QUV-T8/2P (w/timer & safety switch) 97.50

• DISK SUB ASSEMBLY

OUR BEST BUY'S8" SUB ASSEMBLY

DDS + O 2EA SS/DD Siemens FD100-8 Drives

w/cabinet 595.00

DDS + 2 2EA DS/DD Mitsubishi M2894-63

w/cablnet 1,075.00

DDS + 4 3EA DS/DD 8" Thinline Drives w/cablnet 1,150.00

Specify—Vertical or Horizontal Cabinet

5'/4" SUB ASSEMBLY

DDS + 51EA SS/DD Disk Drive (SA400L) 239.00

DDS + 6 2EA SS/DD Disk Drive (SA400L) 489.00

• MODEMS

Hayes Smart 300 219.00

Hayes Smart 1200 499.00

Multi-Tech MT 212 AD (1200/300) 475.00

Novation J-Cat 300 119.00

U.S. Robotics 212A Auto Dial 469.00

U.S. Robotics (300/1200) Password 375.00

• VIDEO DISPLAY MONITORS

GREEN

BMC12AU(15MHZ)80Col/12" 80.00

Dynax GM 120 (20 MHZ) HI-Res/80 Col/12" 129.00

SakataSC-1000 (18 MHZ) 80 Col/12" 119.00

USI PI-1 (20 MHZ) Hi-Res/9" 119.00

USI PI-2(20 MHZ) Hi-Res/12" 129.00

AMBER

Dynax AM121 (20 MHZ) HI-Res/80 Col/12" 139.00

USI PI-4 (20 MHZ) HI-Res/80 Col/9" 125.00

USI PI-3I20 MHZ) Hi-Res/80 Col/12" 129.00

COLOR

Amdek 1-12" Composite (For Apple) 259.00

Amdekll-12"-RGB(ForlBM-PC)w/audlo 429.00

Amdek I + Composite w/audio 275.00

Princeton HX-12-RGB(ForlBM-PC) 469.00

SakataSC-100-13" Composite (For All) 260.00

SakataSC-200-RGB(ForAII) 489.00

• CARD CAGES/MOTHER BOARDS • MAINFRAMES

'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

• SIERRA DATA

SDS-SBC-100-Z80 (4mhz) master 2 serial

2 par/floppy controller/64k ram .... $655.00SDS-SBC-100S4mhs slave/2 serial 2

par/64kram $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

For 2 Standard 8" Drives

MF + DD6 (6 slot M/B) 575.00

MF+ DD8(8slot M/B) 625.00

MF+DD12(12slotM/B) 675.00

For 2 Thinline 8" Drives

IMF + DD6F 300.00

For 2-5V4" Disk Drives

MF+MD12(12 slot M/B) 560.00

Standard Plain Front

MF+ 12(12 slot M/B) 499.00

MF + 22(22slot M/B) 550.00

All mainframes except IMF + DD6F have EMIfilter, 2 AC outlets, 15 ea. DB25, 2 ea. 50 pin,2 ea. 34 pin, 1 ea. Centronic cutouts, powersupply for 8" MF(-5V1A/ + 5V6A/ + 8V16A/±16V3A/ + 24V6A)

• CLOCK/CALENDAR

S-100»Time in hrs, min, sec.«AM/PM or MilitaryFormat'Date in Mo., Day, Yr, Day of Week &Leap Year recognition^ hard interrupts (1024Hz, 1 Hz, 1 min, 1 hr) • On board battery (willlast 14 mos. w/no power on)

QTC-CCS-BB (S-100) $45.00

QTC-CCS-A(A +T) for S-100 $100.00

S-100 PRODUCTS

• CQMPUTIMBQT BARE BD. SET * COMPUPRO

PN-2048 Best Bare Board Set Available

QTC-SBC 2/4 CPU (SBC 880)

QTC-EXP + III 256K (CT256) Memory

bd./Expandable to 1MG

QTC-FDC 5/8 Floppy disk controller

Bare Board Set $150.00

1) Includes manuals & assembly instructions

2) Parts available

3) Monitor S B10S available. Add $30.00.

• CPU/MEM/I/O

QTC-SBC 2/4 BB (SBC880)

QTC-SBC 2/4 A A + T (SBC880)

QTC-Z + 80BB(BIGZ)

DYNAMIC (64K/256K or 1 MEG)

QTC-EXP + III Bare Bd. (CT256)

QTC-EXP + III64KA + T(CT256)

QTC-I/O + BB 2 SEP, 2 PAP, A + T

QTC-I/O + A + T

QTC-ADAAOAConverlerA + T

QTC-Dual GPIB-488 IEEE 488 Intfc. bd.

$50.00

$265.00

$28.00

$75.00$375.00. $75.00$300.00$400.00$795.00

20 Slot MB CALL

CPU 8085/88 CALL

CPU 8086/8087 CALL

Disk I CALL

CPM 2.2 for Disk I CALL

Disk II CALL

Ram 16-64K CALL

Ram 17-64K CALL

Ram 21-128K CALL

Interfacer 1 CALL

Interfacer 2 CALL

Interfacer 3 CALL

Interfacer 4 CALL

System Support I CALL

Active Terminator CALL

Enclosure 2 (Desk) CALL

Enclosure 2 (Rack MT) CALL

CPU-Z CALL

M-Drive H CALL

6 Slot MB CALL

12 Slot MB CALL

CPU 68K CALL

Circle 159 ort inquiry card.

S CUSTOMER SERVICE

J? DAVID

"w"n" 1-801 -972*2739

The Great Salt Lake

—j. Computer Company, Inc.

^801^972^717"

Retail Sales

123 £ast 200 South

Salt Lake City, Utah 84111

Retail Hours

Monday-Friday 10 AM to 0 PM

Saturday 10 AM to 5 PM

Retail Phone-384-0057

^ffl ^ft

MB

Ni 1 -£!■

I

SUPERMARKET SERVICE

BE

SEP

8 YEARS (1976) EXPERIENCE INCOMPUTER MAIL ORDER BUSINESS

CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS SAVE 6% SALES TAX

• ALPHACOM

• FOR ATARI, COMMODOREorTI.

• 40 or 80 COL.

• 80CPS

• FULL CHARACTER SETS • LIGHT WT. 4 TO 6 LBS.

• GRAPHICS • FRICTION FEED

ALPHACOM 42 (40 col) w/lntorface 89.00

ALPHACOM 81 (80 col) w/lnteriace 149.00

40 COL PAPER (per roll) 2.80

80 COL PAPER (per roll) 4.50

• BROTHER

HR-1A17CPS Daisywheel 3K Buff 550.00

HR-1A 17 CPS Daisywheel 3K Buff 589.00

• CENTRONICS

351P—200CPS, Par 100 CPS CORR 1,795.00

60B5P—6O0CPS, Par w/cabinet 6,500.00

6085S—6O0CPS, Serial w/cabinet 7,000.00

6085IBM—6O0CPS w/cabinet 7,500.00

358 3 or 4 Automatic cut sheet feeder 695.00

• DATA-SOUTH

DS180 180CPS/Serial or Par/Tractor 1,400.00

• DAISYWRITER

Daisywriter2000-48K Buffer/20T040CPS LTR/Par. 1,095.00

Daisywriter Cable 40.00

Daisywrlter Tractor 140.00

• DIABLO

620 (25CPS/Serial) 920.00

630 (40CPS/Multi-IF) 1,790.00

630 ECS/IBM 2,100.00

DYNAXDynax-15 Par-13CPS Daisywheel

2 color PTG-3K buff 475.00

Dyanx 15 Serial-13CPS Daisywheel 525.00

+ EPSON

FX80 (160 CPS-Par 10") CALL

FX100(160CPS-Par15") CALL

• C. ITOH

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

86O0(180CPS)ParorSerial18PIN90CPSLTR... 1,099.00

F-1040CPS/Diablo/Par or Serial 1,125.00

F-1055CPS/Diablo/Par or Serial 1,425.00

• APPLE/FRANKLIN

APPLE II E Starter—Includes CPU 1 F.D. Monitorand Stand 1,395.00

FRANKLIN 1000 w/color 799.00

FRANKLIN 1200 Starter includes CPU 1 F.D.80 col 1,625.00

FRANKLIN 1200 OMS includes CPU-2 F.D. andbundled software 1,825.00

• IBM'PC TYPES

COLUMBIA (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 ... 2,650.00EAGLE PORTABLE 16 bit 128K Ram 1 F.D./10 MG HD/

Green Screen MS-DOS 210 bundled software . . 4,000.00

• KAYPRO

KAYPROII w/bundled software 1,475.00

KAYPRO 4 w/bundled software 1,795.00

KAYPR010 w/bundled software 2,695.00

• MOLECULAR SYSTEMS

MICRO 10-8 CPU 1 ea. 8" F.D.—1 ea. 10 MB HD-64KRam expands to 256K up to 8 users w/additional

application processors— CP/M and CP/M 86 CALL

MICRO 15-8 CPU 1 ea. 8" F.D.—1 ea. 15

PRINTERS

• GENERAL ELECTRIC

Demand Document Printers3400—400CPS Serial/Tractor to 60 100 CPS Corr. 2,175.003404—400CPS Serial/Tractor 100CPSCorr 2,459.00

• JUKI

6100-18 CPS/Diablo Compatible Par/Daisywheel... 569.00

• MANNESMAN-TALLY

Spirit 80CPS Par 10" 330.00

160L(160CPC-40CPS LTR 10") 589.00

180L(160CPS-40CPS LTR 15") 829.00

• MPI

MPI-Portable Sprinter/160CPS/IBM Port/4K Buff, up to

64K 100 CPS CORR. Keyed avlb CALL

MPI-99G (9") Par CALL

MPM50BI(15")Par2KBuffw/Graphics CALL

MPI150AI(15")Par4KBuffw/Graphics CALL

MPM50AI(15")Par16KBuffw/Graphics CALL

• NEC

NEC2010 20CPS Serial Daisywheel 950.00

NEC2015 20CPS Diablo Comp Daisywheel 950.00

NEC2030 20CPS Par Daisywheel 950.00

NEC2050 20CPS for IBM Daisywheel 1,050.00

NEC3510 35CPS Par Daisywheel 1,595.00

NEC3550 35CPS IBM 1,850.00

NEC7710 55CPS Serial Daisywheel 1,995.00

NEC7715 55CPS Diablo Comp Daisywheel 1,995.00

NEC8023A 100CPS-Par-Graphics-10" 389.00

NEC8025A 100CPS Par Graphics 15" 699.00

Serial Card 139.00

• OLYMPIA

Typewriter/Printer Daisywheel 14 CPS 649.00

• OKI-DATA

2350—350CPS 2 color tractor CALL

2410P 350CPS 2 color tractor CALL

Microline62A(SER & PAR-120CPS 10") CALL

Microline83A(SER&PAR-120CPS15") CALL

Microline92(PAR-160CPS-LTR-10") CALL

Microline93(PAR-160CPS-LTR-15") CALL

Microline84P(PAR-200QPS-LTR-15") CALL

Microline84S(SER-200CPS-LTR-15") CALL

• STAR MICRONICS

Gemini 10X NEWVERSION (PAR-120CPS-10") CALL

Gemini 15X(PAR-120CPS-15") CALL

Gemini Delta 10 (Par-160CPS-10"8K buffer serial) . . CALL

• SILVER REED

EXP550P-17CPSDaisywheel-PAR 669.00

EXP550S-17CPS Daisywheel-Serial 699.00

• TOSHIBA

P-1350(192CPS-120CPSLTR PAR or Serial) CALL

• TRANSTAR

120 P14CPS Par Diablo Comp 479.00

315 Color Printer 500CPS Par 489.00

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

Diablo 630-DBL Sheet Feeder 1,395.00

• JUKI-6100

Serial Interface 55.00

Bi-Dir Tractor 120.00

Unl-DirTractor 90.00

• MANNESMAN-TALLY

Factory Quick Tear 230.00

Auto Front Feed 1,150.00

• NEC

Thimbles 20.00

Vertical Tractor 219.00

Horizontal 152.00

Bl-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 (For92& 93) 110.00

Oklgraph I 82A or 83A Graphics ROM 45.00

Oklgraph 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

SYSTEMS

MB HD—64K Ram expands to 256K up to 8 usersw/additional application processors—

CP/M and CPM 86 CALL

AP 8001—ASYNC/9600 BPS Application Processor 589.00AP 8003—ASYNC/19.200BPS Application

Processor 839.00

AP8011—SYNC/50K BPS 1,079.00

• NEC

PC8201A-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 Cassette

Interface—Uses 4 AA Batt—bundled software 660.00

PC8201A-90—N1 Cad Pak 16.00

PC8221A—Portable Printer 149.00

PC8271A-02—AC Adapter 15.00

• S-100

COMPUPRO 816A 4,250.00

COMPUPRO 816B 5,595.00

COMPUPRO 816C 7,150.00

• TELEVIDEO

TS-803 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

* ADDS

Viewpolnt-A1 (White) 509.00

Viewpoint-A2 (Green) 539.00

Viewpoint-3A + (Green) 509.00

Viewpoint 60-Same as Televideo 925 715.00

• 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/TV60 Graphics Upgrade for 925/950 ... 1,100.00

* WYSE

WYSE-100 725.00

WYSE-300 (Color) 1,125.00

TOLL FR!1-800-545-2633CONTH

Mail Orders

P.O. Sox 3150Salt Lake City, Utan 64110

Monday Friday 8 AM to 6 PMSaturday 10 AM to 5 PM

• ■ m ■

Lyco Computer Marketing & Consultants

toll free 800-233-8760

TO ORDER

CALL US

In PA 1 717-327-1824

PRINTER PRINTER PAPER

INTERFACING AVAILABLE

lAvallabla for IBM PC, Apple, Atari, Vic 20 & Vic 64

SAVE- PRINTERS

EPSON

OKI DATA

LETTER QUALITY

SMITH CORON ATP2... $449.00

DIABLO 630 ..$1719.00

ALPAHCOM 42 $89.00

ALPHACOM 81 $129.00

NEC 8023 $389.00

NEC 8025 $699.00

NEC PC-8200COMPUTER $CALL

RX-80 $SAVE$

RX-80FT ON

FX-80 In-Stock

FX-100 EPSON

MX-80FT PRINTERS

MX-100 $$CALL$$

MANNESMANNTALLY

SPIRIT 80 $CALL

MT160L $CALL

80 JSAVES

82A CALL for

83A LOWEST

84 PRICES

92 on these

93 In-Stock

PACEMARK 2350... PRINTERS

ATARI 850

REPLACEMENTS

IN-STOCK

CITOH

GORILLA GX100 $179.00

PROWRITER 8510 ...$339.00

PROWRITER II $659.00

8600 $1025.00

STARWRITER $1099.00

PRINTMASTER $1499.00

STAR MICRONTICS

GEMINI 10X $269.00

GEMINI 15X $CALL

DELTA 10 $479.00

MODEMS

ANCHOR MARK IANCHOR MARK IHAYES SMART ..HAYES MICRO IIMicro Bit

APP-1OO0

NOVATION

I CAT

D-CAT

J-CAT

APPLE CAT II ....212 APPLE CAT .

S79.00

I. S79.00

S-239.00

S309.00

$129.75

S144.00$155 00S1 15.00$279.005589.00

MONITORS

Sakata Color $229.00

Amdek Color I $275.00

Alndek 300 Green $149.00

Amdek 300 Amber $149.00

Gorilla Green $99.00

CARDCO

Cardprinter / L01 $499.00

Cardprint DM1 $109 00

5 Slot Expansion 64 $54.00

64 Write NOW $39.00

64 Mail NOW $29.00

2 j Write NOW $29^00

64 Keypad $29.00

Universal Cass. Int $29.75

Printer Utility $19.75

6 Slot Expansion $79.95

3 Slot Expansion $24 95

PRINTER INTERFACE $39.75

PRINTER INTERFACE with

full graphics s65 75

LIGHT PEN ,2975

HES64

Sound Box $9.95

64Forth $55.75

Hesmon $25.75

Turtle Graphics $37.75

Heswrlter $28.75

Gridrunner .$19.75

SPINNAKER 64

Kindercomp $21.75

Story Machine $23.75

Face Maker $23.75

Snooper Trooper $29.7 5

Delta Drawing $34.75

Shamus II c/d $24.95

Pinhead c/d $22.95

DUST COVERS

BOO $3.99

4O0 $3.99

1200 $3.99

410 $3.99

810 $3.99

1050 $5.99

PROWRITER $5.99

GEMINI 10X $5.99

PERCOM DISK $5.99

tipple

SSI

Battle of Shilo $26.75

Tigers in the Snow.... $26.75Cosmic Balance $26.75

APPLE DUMPI INT. GX S99 75

APPLE LXJMPUNG 64 II6 Buf1ef)s1 79 75

INFOCOM

Zork I. II. or III $26.75

Deadline $33.75

SYNAPSE 64 C O fTl IT"! O Cl O He

ZEPPELIN C/D $24.75

BLUE MAX C/D $24.75

DIMENSION X C/D ....$24.75

EPYX 64

ASPHIR $28.75

JUMPMAN JRR $28 75

jPITSTOPR $28.75

ATARI

Computers for people."O *

Voice Box 2 . $99.75

600XL ...$CALL

800XL for

1400XL... Lowest1450 Prices

1050 DISK DRIVE .1010 RECORDER.

. SSAVES.$74.75

PARKER BROTHERS

Tutankham R $33.75

Super Cobra R $33.75

Astro Chase R $33.75

Frogger R $33.75

0B«rt R $33.75

Popeye R $33.75

BRODERBUND 64BANK STREET

WRITER $49.75

CHOPLIFTER $24.75

LODE RUNNER $24.75

DROL $24.75

KOA LA TOUCH-TABLET... $69 75

Monkey Wrench 2 $52.75|

SPINNAKERStory Machine R ..$26.75 I

Face Maker R $24.75

Kinderomp R $20.75

Fraction Fever R . .$24.75Delta Drawing R. . $26.75 ]

BLANK DISKETTESELEPHANT

Single Side SO (10) $17.75

Single Side DD (10) $21.75

Double Side DO (10) $28.75

MAXELL

MDM10) $28.75

MDII(10) «3S.75

CERTRON CASSETTES

CC-10 12 for $15.00

CC-20 12 for $17.00

INNOVATIVE CONCEPTS

Olsk Storage (holds 1 0).... M.05Dlak Storage (holds 1 5).... $0.05Disk Storage (holds 50).... $26.05

TRAK DISK DRIVES

AT-D1 $379.00

AT-D2 $399.00

PRINTER CABLE $22.95

Software for ATD-2 ....$22.95

RAN ADISK DRIVE

COMPUTER CARE

BIB

5V. DISK DRIVE

CLEANER $12.75

COMPUTER CARE

KIT $19.75

HARD DISKDRIVES for

APPLE IBM-PC

5MEG $1349.00

10MEG ...$1599.0015MEG ...$1999.0020MEG ...$2359.00

•Add S Id nil In. TRS HO I), „.••,

TEXASINSTRUMENT

Disk Drive...$245.00

FOR ATARICOMPUTERS

AT88S1 ..AT88S2 ..AT**S1 PDRFD40S1.RFD40S2.RFD44S1.

..$299.00..$535.00..$439.00..$399.00..$675.00..$449.00

AT88 doubler

CS TO ORDER

CALL TOLL FREE or send order to

800-233-8760 tt°£ZT

■Customer Service 1-717-327-1825 Jersey Shore. PA 1 774C

POLICY

In-stock items shipped within 24 hours of order. Personalchecks require four weeks clearance before shipping. Nodeposit on CO.D. orders. Free shippingonprepaidcash orderswithin the continental U.S. PA residents add sales tax. Allproducts subject to availability and price change. Advertisedprices show 4% discount offered for cash, add 4% for MasterCard or Visa. DEAl rn INQUIRIES INVITED.

Circle 224 on inquiry card.

DISPLAYED VIDEO IS DRIVING DOWNPRICES ON DISKS! FREE SHIPPING!

TEC'S NEW HALF-HIGH 40 TRACK DISK DRIVEA//CASE & POWER SUPPLY AT AN INCREDIBLE

LOW PRICE! $195.00!!!!!

*JEW! 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!

FEAC's New Slimline 40 Track w/case & power supply $235.00

randon 40 Track TM-100-1 w/case & power supply $220.00

(DOUBLE SIDED 40 TRACK DRIVES ADD $75.00)

ihugart New Slimline Double Sided 40 Track w/case & P.S $299.00

ihugart New Slimline Double Sided 80 Track w/case & P.S $379.00

7andon Single Sided Slimline 8" Disk Drive w/dual case & P.S. . .. $545.00randon Double Sided Slimline 8" Disk Drive w/dual case & P.S.. . . $625.00rwo Drive 5 1/4" Cable (for most computers) $23.99

(WITH GOLD PLATED CONNECTORS)

)V's Color Computer 1st Drive Only $389.00

ONE YEAR WARRANTY ON TEAC & SHUGART DRIVES/180 DAYS ON TEC & TANDON

layes Smart Modem 300 Baud $225.00 1200 Baud $525.00

fodel I Double Density Board $89.00

)Vs Line Filter W/Surge Supression $45.00

diskette File Box "Holds 70 Diskettes" $29.95

PRINTER PRICES

1X80 FT w/Graphtrax Plus. $459.00 Gemini 10 $349.00

1X100 w/Graphtrax Plus . $659.00 Gemini 15 $479.00

X80 w/Graphtrax Plus. . . $389.00 Citoh Prowriter 8510 $395.00

X80 w/Graphtrax Plus. . . $569.00 Starwriter F10 $1169.00

X100 w/Graphtrax Plus. . $779.00 Smith Corona TP1 $595.00

'rinter Cable 10' long w/gold plated connectors starting at $25.99

1

DV'S EXCLUSIVE "YOU CANT LOSE"SIX MONTH WARRANTY!

"NO YOU'RE NOT SEEING THINGS, TH'ATS 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 111/4 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

<

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

WE CARRY TRS-80. IBM, LNW, EPSON & FRANKLIN COMPUTERS

IMMEDIATE DELIVERY

DV'S SIX MONTH

PARTS AND LABOR WARRANTY

Authorized Dealership at: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 Video, 111 Marshall St., Litchfield, MI 49252

'TRS 80 is a trademark of the Tandy Corporation Prices subject to change without notice.

Circle 112 on inquiry card.

^^^

SPECIALS on INTEGRATED CIRCUITS

6502 @ 4.90 6520 @ 4.00 6522 @ 5.00 4116 @ 1.852532 @ 5.90 2716 ®> 4.45 6116 @ 6.45 4164 ® 6.90

AnchorAutomationSignalmanMODEMS

FREE SOURCE MEMBERSHIP WITH SIGNALMAN

All Signalman Modems are Direct Connect, and provide thebest price-performance values. Dealer/OEM inquiries invitedVolksmodem with computer cable 68

Mark VII Auto Dial/Auto Answer 99

Mark XII Smart Model 1200/300 299

DC HAYES Smartmodem

DC Hayes Smartmodem 1200/300

219

519

PflOM OUEEN for VIC 170

Apple Emulator lor Commodore 64 Call

STAT Statistics Package for C64 95

Solid Oak 2 Level Stand lor C64 or VIC 29

C64/VIC Switch (networking) 129

BACKUP VI.0 tape copier for C64 or VIC 20

CARDBOARD/6 Motherboard - VIC 64

CARDBOARD/5 Motherboard r 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 44Complete CARDCO Line in stockCIE and VIE IEEE Interfaces in stock

MSD SuperDrive for C64 or IEEE 365

MAE Assembler for C64 50

Koala Pad Touch Tablet—C64 or VIC 79

CBC 4/12 Analog to Digital 4 chan/12 bit 199

MULTIPUN for CG4 79

Dust Cover for C64 or VIC 6

Grand Master Chess for C64 24

COMAL Language for C64 17

with sprites, color graphics, sound, turtle graphics.

Super BusCard by Batteries Included 159

ULTRA BASIC - 64 with Turtle Graphics 37

Super Disk Utility - C64 - includes backup 19

MicroChess - C64 - 8 levels of play 17

HES MODEM with software 55

Commodore 64 Programmers Reference Guide 16

WordPro 3+/64 with Spellright 85

VIController (also C64) - BSR Controller 50

COM VOICE Synthesizer for C64 or VIC 139VIC products in stock - call for extra discounts.Victory Software for VIC and C64 In stock.

APPLE—FRANKLIN ITEMS

FRANKLIN—complete line in stock

QUENTIN Drives for Apple/Franklin 219

Swapper Stopper 26

automatic switch between paddles and joystick

KRAFT Apple Joystick 40

Kraft Apple Paddle Pair 30

Koala Pad Touch Tablet-Apple/Franklin 90SPINNAKER Software in stockBroderbund Software in stock

16K RAM Card for Apple 59

Multiplan—Microsoft 185

Solid Oak 2 Level Stand for Apple 29

Serial Card for Apple 89

MCP RAM/80 column card for lie (AP/TXT) 139

Z80 Softcard and CP/M (Microsoft) 235

RANA Elite I with Controller 389

Parallel Printer Interface/Cable 69Microtek and MCP Interfaces in stock

Grappler + Interface 129

DC Hayes Micromodem II 299

PFS: File or PFS: Report or PFS: Graph 95

Videx 80 Column Card 209

Apple Blue Book 19

Q commodore

See us for Personal, Business, and Educationalrequirements. Educational Discounts available.

PETSCAN 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

SCREEN MAKE R 80 Column Adapter lor C64 139

Provide big screen capability lor business applications.

Copy-Writer Word Processor for C64 49

Full-featured package with 800 lines of text in memory.Includes double column printing, graphic capability, full prin-ter support.

Special Screenmaker/Copy-Writer Combo 179VICTOBY Software for VIC and C64

MetamorphosisLabyrinth of CreatorKongo KongChomper ManBounty Hunter

16 Creator's Revenge 16

16 Galactic Conquest 16

16 Annihilate 16

16 Grave Robbers 13

16 Adventure Pack I or II 16

PAPER CLIP Word Processor- CBM/C64 75

ORACLE Data Base from Batteries Included 109SPINNAKER Software C64, Apple, IBM, Atari

Computers First Book of PET/CBM 11

POWER ROM Utilities for PET/CBM 78

WordPro 4+ - 8032, disk, printer 295

VISICALC for PET, ATARI, or Apple 189

Compute's First Book of 64 Sound & Graphics 10.40

SM-KIT enhanced PET/CBM ROM Utilities 40

PET Spacemaker II ROM Switch 36

Compute's First Book of Games 10.40

Dust Cover for PET, CBM, 4040, or 8050 8CmC Interlaces (ADA1800, ADA1450, SADI in stock)

Compute's Reference Guide to 64 Graphics 10.40

Computers Machine Language for Beginners 11HES Software and Hardware in stockUMI products in stock

FlexFile for PET/CBM/C64

$49

DataBase, Report Writer with calculations, Mailing Lists.Easy to use, and can be modified.

FORTH lor PET/C64 full FIG model - Cargile/Riley 50includes all FORTH 79 Standard extensions, structured 6502assembler with nested decision macros, standard 16x64screens, agility to read/write BASIC sequential files, sampleprograms, introductory + reference manual.Metacompiler for FORTH for independent object code 30Floating Point for FORTH 20

KMMM PASCAL IV for PET/CBM/C64 99

Virtually full Jensen-Wirth implementation is now suitable lor

advanced placement courses.

EARL lor PET/CBM Disk-based ASSEMBLER 65

SuperGraphics - BASIC Language Extensions 45

Fast graphics, sound, turtle graphics routines for PET/CBM.

BAM/ROM for PET/CBM 4K $75 8K $90

CBM PflHlcOomirinSt^m-^4/PETZ7_clfsks 75

STAT for PET/CBM/C64 and Apple 95

Comprehensive Statisticai Analysis Routines

Includes complete file handling capabilities, summary statis-tics, confidence intervals, hypothesis tests, exponential meantests, multiple and power series regression, analysis of vari-ance, histograms, and non-parametric tests.

Page Mate GO Command Word Processor 40

Full-featured package for all Commodore computers (incl. VICwith 16K). Full screen editing, and supports disk, tape, and, all printers.

DISKSPECIALS

Scotch (3M) 5" ss/ddScotch(3M)5"ds/ddScotch (3M) 8" ss/sdScotch (3M) 8" ss/dd

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

We stock VERBATIM DISKS

Write for Dealer and OEM prices.

Sentinal 5" ss/dd 10/1.90 50/1.85 100/1.75

Sentinal 5" ds/dd 10/2.55 50/2.50 100/2.35

We stock Dysan disks

Wabash 5" ss/sdWabash 5" ss/ddWabash 5" ds/dd

10/1.50 50/1.45 100/1.4010/1.90 50/1.85 100/1.7510/2.60 50/2.50 100/2.40

We stock MAXELL DISKS

Write for dealer and OEM prices.

Disk Storage Pages 10 for $4 Hub Rings 50 tor $6Disk Library Cases 8"—3.00 5"—2.25Head Disk Cleaning Kits 12AMARAY Disk Storage Systems in stock.Innovative Concepts FLIP 'N' FILES in stock.

CASSETTE TAPES-

C-10C-30

-AGFA PE-611 PREMIUM

10/.61 50/58 100/5010/.85 50/82 100/70

tVl

Hewlett Packard

Write or call for prices.

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 availableKOALA PAD Touch Tablets—Apple, Atari, IBM, CBM

Peachtext 5000 Software Package 209PFS Software for IBM and Apple in stockSPINNAKER Software C64/VIC, Apple, IBM, Atari

VOTRAX Personal Speech System 280

BMC 9191 Color Monitor 229

BMC 12A 12" Green Monitor 79

Dynax (Brother! DX-15 Daisy Wheel Printer 469

Brother HR-25 Daisy Wheel Printer (25 cps| 769

Itoh Prowriter Parallel Printer 379

Panasonic 1090 Printer with Correspondence Mode 279

Daisywriter 2000 with 48K buffer 1020

Gemini 10X 299EPSON, Okidata, Star Micronics printers in stock

USI CompuMOD 4 R F Modulator 29We Stock AMDEK Monitors

AmdekDXY-100 Plotter 590A P Products 15% OFFCOMPUTER COVERUPS IN STOCK

BROOKS 6 Outlet Surge Suppressor/Noise Filter 54

Surge Suppressor-6 outlet 29

Electrohome 1302-2 13" Hi-res RGB Monitor 335

Panasonic 12" Monitor (20 MHz) with audio 135

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

Ymnith I data

I systems

ZVM-122A 109 ZVM-123G 95

ZVM-131 300 ZVM-135 490

Z29 Terminal (DEC and ADM compatible) 680

ZT-10 Intel. Terminal with Serial Port 340

Z100 16-bit/8-bit System CALLWe stock entire Zenith line.

ATARI-WE STOCK ENTIRE LINE

SPINNAKER and Broderbund Software in Stock.

215-822-7727

252 Bethlehem PikeColmar, PA 18915

A B Computers

WRITE FOR CATALOG. Add $1.50 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 discount.Regular prices slightly higher. Prices subject to change.

500 BYTE February 1984

Circle 7 on inquiry card.

ORDER WITH CONFIDENCE

from one of the nation's largestconsumer electronic parts distributors!

DISK DRIVE l

PRICE EVER!

Slim disk drive forApple II® com-puter. Newin a box

?

w

A sturdy

cabinet and 3' cable are included.

Runs on Apple controller or our

optional controller.

ORDER NO. r~~~. _-

83-APL-DD-1 $229.95

CONTROLLERCARD

For two disk drivesORDER NO

83-WL-CTL-1

s49.95

IBM COMPATIBLEJOYSTICK ^

Heavy duty

all metal.

Featuring

ultra linear

pots, self

centering, dual fine center

adjustments. The finest industrial/

commercial joystick available.

ORDER NO. ... __

83-IB-XY-23 s44.95

APPLE' COMPATIBLE

JOYSTICK With doubletrigger feature. (Four total)light weight, linear pots.

ORDER NO.

83-APL-XY-9

$24.95

SELF CENTERINGAPPLE'COMPATIBLEJOYSTICK

With double triggerfeature. (Four total)

light weight,

linear pots.

ORDER NO83-APL-XY-18

5'/4" DISK DRIVE

SPECIAL

MPI

MODEL

B-51

single side,double densityBRAND NEWNever used, no cabinet

ORDER NO.

83-MPI-B51

149.00

REPLACEMENTKEYBOARD FORAPPLE II

Heavy duty — error free switches.

Switchable N key rollover, last

key repeat. Upper/lower case

capability. Alpha lock, cable

included.

ORDER NO. ,__ __

83-APL-KB-7 s79.95

APPLE COMPATIBLEJOYSTICK

Cord

terminatedwith 16 Pinplug. Our mostpopular joystick.ORDER NO.

83-APL-XY-10

'16.50

RF MODULATORS

Use your TV as a monitor. Con-verts video signals into RF. Hooksup to Apple with no modifications.FCC listed. Two versions: Withsound and without sound.ORDER NO. without s1Cm

83-VM-42 sound S16.0U

HS0EM°. „™ Wilh SOI OK

83-CRM-320 sound s21.95

5A APPLE II

COMPATIBLE

REPLACEMENT

POWER

SUPPLY

^C*

Full 2A more than the originalpower supply. Heavy duty. 110/220V operation. Mounts directlyinto Apple II case. AC cordincluded.

ORDER NO.83-APL-PS-51

$79.95

5A POWER SUPPLYWith BUILT-INCOOLING FAN

^ g

Newly patented Apple II® com-patible 5A power supply. Fitscompletely into Apple II case.Eliminates the need for externalcooling fan.

ORDER NO. ,__ __

83-APL-PS-53 S89.95

DATA SPEC™ SUPER CABLES

Fully shielded — shock proof — low loss.25 Conductor RS232 cable assemblywith 100% alluminex shield. Specialunderhood molding

cables fW .^rfl,

currently

made!

ORDER NO. 1

83-MRS232MM-3

83-MRS232MM-5

83-MRS232MM-10

83-MRS232MM-25

83-MRS232MF-3

83-MRS232MF-5

83-MRS232MF-10

83-MRS232MF-25

LENGTH

3'

5'10'25',

3'

5'10'25'

PLUG/JACK

Male/Male

Male/Male

Male/Male

Male/Male

Male/Female

Male/Female

Male/Female

Male/Female

PRICE

$24.9527.9529.9537.9525.9528.9530.9538.95

SOLDER TYPE 25 PIN"D" (RS232)CONNECTOR

RF CABLES

RCA to RCA. Connectscomputer to monitor, etc.

ORDER NO.

83-BRR-383-BRR-683-BRR-12

3'

6'

12'

PRICE

$1.952.504.50

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.

MINIMUM ORDER $25.00. VISA. MASTER CARD accepted. No surcharges. Exact UPS charges will be added. PREPAID. Certified checksand money orders, send exact amount. No shipping, handling or insurance charges in the continental USA. PERSONAL CHECKS: add 5% shipping charges,allow 3 weeks to clear. INTERNATIONAL BUYERS: US currency and 20%extra for shipping. CA Residents, add sales tax.OEM / DEALERS: send forspecial prices on your company letterhead.NO PURCHASE ORDERS OR OPEN ACCOUNTS—NO EXCEPTIONS.

ELECTRONICS

"OUR SERVICE MAKES THE DIFFERENCE"

To order, call TOLL FREE: (800)423-5336

Calif. TOLL FREE: (800)382-3663

Local: (213)701-5848

Telex 181011 ORA PARTS NTGE

18215 PARTHENIA STREET, NORTHRIDGE, CA 91325

BYTE February 1984 501

HALF-HEIGHT SHUGART DRIVESYSTEM FOR IBM-PCChoose 2 or 4 320K byte half heightsor 2 half-heights plus a hard disk.

• Powered by energy efficient direct driveDC motor

• Mounting kits available for most popularsystems

• Clear and simple instructions

• Full one year warranty

IBM-PC 10 Megabyte Half-Height Hard Disk

Up grade your PC to an XT' Call

609-799-4440 1 0 Megabyte Halt-Height Hard Disk

also available for your COMPAQ.

SA-712Half-Hgt 10 Meg Hard Disk Call'

SHUGART

HALF-HEIGHT

DRIVES

ShugartSA465DS/DD

Half-Height 96TPI

New' Allows reading

and writing in single

or double density 5.25

diskettes Plug compatible with TANDON TM 100-4.

SIEMENS FDD-221-5 and similar drives.

1 YEAR WARRANTY S350each 2 @ $295 each

Formatted single density 700K bytes

SHUGART SA860 DS/DDHalf-HeightS"

A double sided half m t$

height 8" high speed"—

disk drive. DC

only operation.

Same as used on Zenith Z-100.

1 YEAR WARRANTY $495 each 2 &$475 each

Formatted 1.25 megabyte

Track to track 3ms

SHUGART SA455 DS/DDHalf-Height 48TPI

A double headed minifloppy disc drive with up to320K

on-line storage capacity. Plug compatible with any

standard 5'V drive. Electrically the same as TM-100-2

andFDD-211-5

1 YEAR WARRANTY $245 each

Formatted 320K bytps, extended 360K bytes

Track to tra^k Rmc

HEATH ZENITH H88, 89 or90TWOET SYSTEMSDual internal half-height disk drives

Now you can replace your built-in drive with twodouble-sided, double or single density, internal half-height drives in either48 or 96tpi format, with all hard-ware, cables, power connector adaptors, and docu-mentation included. Our double-sided 48tpi worksperfectly as a single sided right out of the box You caneven use this system with your H-17 controller. And wehave the software drivers (at additional cost) so youcan run out 48 or 96tpi double-sided, single densitydrives on it!

TWOET455 TWOET465

2 SHUGART SA-455 2 SHUGART SA-465

half-height half-height

48tpi double-sided 96tpi double-sided

$595 $695

Both models are shipped complete with all hardware,shielded metal mounting plates, data cable with chas-sis connectors, and complete documentation.WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR INTERNAL DRIVE:Foronly $60 extra plus shipping, we'll send you a single 5'4case with power supply and data cable — ready to re-ceive your SIEMENS internal drive! A regular $80value. The external chassis disk I/O connector comeswith your TWDFT system

W.S.T. DISK DRIVES (formerly Siemens)W.S.T. FDD-100-5B4 Same model used in Heathcomputers. Added "Flippy" operation feature.Works with almost any SA-400 compatible system:RS Model 1, North Star. S-100 and more. S235 eachC3-$195 each (with Shugart type Bezel)W.S.T. FDD-211-5

Dual headed 5V.r. Records data in single or doubledensity, using hard or soft sector techniques. An exactTM-100-2 replacement Use in Northstar and IBM, orany system using dual head 48 tpi drives. Same asCOMPAQ. $265 each.

NUMBER OF HEADS 2

FORMATTED DATA CAPACITY 320K bytes

extended 360K bytesW.S.T. FDD-221-5

A double headed. 5 V, 96 tpi (80 track) disk driveCapable of hard or soft sector, single or double den-sity, it's an exact replacement for the TANDON100-4. $335 each2 & $295 each

Increase your on-line storage capacity by 2.5 mega-bytes with Our new 8" double sided half height diskdrive. Styling matches IBM-PC Utilizes Shugart half-height 8" double sided disk drives. Allows readingCP-M data files with optional patch.

FD-PC8 System $1270

Maynard Controller $245

(Allows use of two internal 5'A" and the two outboard8" system Add $70 for parallel)

JFormat $50

JFormat-2 $50

We have half-height mounting kits for IBM andCOMPAQ computers.

APPLE HALF-HEIGHT DISK DRIVES Call for price

ENCLOSURES

IALSO

MODEL

CONFIGUARTION

STACKING

DIMENSIONS

AVAILABLE

PRICE

DH5A&T

2 standard 5'<

horizontal

17' Lx 12"Wx5"H

external chassis '

connector/blank plates

SI 25 00

SV5AST

1 slandard5'v

vertical

UV Lx3VWx6"H

vertical 5'v case

lor 2 half-height

drives

S55 00

Of

S7500

lor 'i height

DV5A&T

2 standard 5Vi

vertical

11 V'Lx6"Wx7'H

-

S8500

D5HHHA&T

2 hall-height+space For singleboard computer

horizontal

17"Lx 12"Wx3W"H

blank platesext. chassis conn.

$125.00

5SHA&T

1 standard 5'V or2 half-height drives

horizontal

12"Lx8,,Wx4"H

blank plateext. chassis conn.

$95.00

5SHHDA&T

1 standard or

2 halt-heighthard disks

horizontal

12"LxB"Wx4 H

blank plate

S165 00

8' ENCLOSURES

AMI 00% ourdesign, these 8" enclosuresfeature a Iron t panel power switch desi£

nedwith 1" clearance

overthedriveto

accomodate a

jig board computer or a

lard disk controller. All 16 gauge metal construction with DB 25 cutouts on the

rear panel. CP-206 supply mounting holes, which are standard tor the 8" drive

ndustry.

DHBA&T

2 standards"

(such as

SHUGART 800-R

series or SIEMENSFDD-100 series)

horizontal

21,,Lx17,'V'Wx6Vj"H

ext. chassis conn.

S29500

SH8A&T

1 standards' or2 half-height drives+ space for single

board computer

horizontal

16"Lx 12V/'WxG]« H

blank platesext. chassis conn

S285 00

DHHH8A&T

for SHUGART

TANDON 848

or similar 8

halt-height designs

horizontal

205 Lx 17 Wx4H

blank platesext chassis conn

S320 00

FDPC8

for SHUGART810-860 matches

IBM-PC orZenith systems

horizontal

blank plates

S320 00

1

MULTIDISPLAY

For IBM-PC. contains both mono and color display

plus printer port, all on one card S575

PGS MONITOR

The best RGB monitor going . S475

SANDSTAR MODULES FROM MAYNARDSandstar Serial Port Module .^^^__ u

Totally compatible with ■HBi ! If U

software written foi WPr2"-T _. —t.S-1

IBM Asynchronous '

Adaptor. Connecls lo MODEM, serial printer, or anystandard RS232-C interlace device Port may be con-figured as Serial Pert #1 or a 2. Can use IBM diagnos-tics. MSE1301 . $105.00SandStar Clock Calendar ModuleFeatures clock and calendar with battery backup, whichruns when PC power is turned off or plug is disconnected.Correct time and date loaded each time system ispowered up. Software included. MCL1303 $85.00SandStar Parallel Port ModuleA Centronics compatible I/O port. Use as general pur-pose I/O port or connect to printer Utilizes same typeconnector and pins as IBM Parallel Printer Adaptor, andis 100°o compatible with its software. Configure as Port»1 or #2. Can use IBM diagnostics MPA1302 $75.00SandStar Memory Module

Use with SandStar Memory Card. Expands memory by320K bytes for640K bytes total system memory Usesonly one IBM expansion card. No configuration requiredbefore plug in.

Module maybe purchased with any 64 K incremenl andeasily expanded lo 320K. Electronic disc and printspooling software are also available.

MMODOOO OK $11500

MMOD064 64K $205 00

MMOD128 128K $300.00

MMOD192 192K $390.00

MMOD256 256K $485.00

MMOD320 320K $580 00

SandStar Game Adaptor ModuleAttach up lo 4 paddles and 2 loysticks to your IBM PCCan be used for general purpose input, with4 diyitaland4 analog inputs. 100°o compatible with IBM PC soft-ware Uses same type 15 pin "D" subminiature I/O con-ncctor as the IBM Game Control Adaptor

Maynard Electronics Multi-FunctionMemory Expansion Board

Adds form 64K bytes to 256K bytes to your IBM-PC.Expandable with either 1 or 2 optional asynchronousserial (RS232-C) ports Engineered for total compat-iblilily with IBM I/O specs Parity generation and de-tection included. Ready to plug into 64 K byte systems.Optionally available with 1 or 2 RS232-C ports with20mA current loop 100°o compatible with IBM hard-ware and software, and may be used to connect yourcomputer to a modem serial printer or other devices withcomputer interface. Board ports may be enabled or dis-abled and assigned as COM1 and/or COM2.

MMF 1000 OK $21000

MMF1064 64K $305.00

MMF1128 128K $410.00

MMF1192 192K $510.00

MMF 1256 256K $61 5.00

MMF1SER $100.00

(with one serial port added)MMF2SER $160.00

(with two serial ports added) (No parallel available).

Maynard Disk Controllers RET

Description

MODFDC (Controller w/mod ports) $265

FDC8 (8" Controller) $245

FDC5'«(5V Controller) $195

FDCPARALLELlContr. and para portsi $275

FDCSERIALlConlr. and serial portsi $285

FDC8PARA |8" Contr. and para ports) $315

HDM (hard disk module) $495

CONTROLLERS Magnolia Micro-systemsfor the H-89 S Z-90 Double Density Disccontroller including CP/M 2.2Complete hardware & sottware support for:

-Four 5'4 and Four 8' single or double sided drives

-48 TPI 140 track; drives

-9G TPI (80 track) drives

-3-5VV drives supported by Heath Zenith controllerH-1 7This package includes:

-double density controller card

-CP/M 2.2 on either 5'4' or8 media

-new I/O decoder and monitor PROMsShipping weight 7 lbs.

DATACONNECTORS

50 pin edge card 609-5015 50 pin inline end connector

34 pinedgecard 609-3415 609-5001M

50 pin inline chassis 34 pin mime end connector

609-5016 609-3401M

34 pin inline chassis

609-3416

POWER

CONNECTORS fc>e«j ;

stacking bracket lor AC socket 8 . single sided

5Vor8 half-height drives C1120

SB5orSB8 5'. DCconnector CI 116

SA 810/860 DC power 5', DC socket C1119

CI 115 PCB-8 DC CI 122SA 850/85 I FDD-200-8-AC free-slandmg 8

8 double sided CI 114 DC connector socket C1121

8 ACconnectoistandaid. 8 DC standard C1112single sided C1113

We sell many other disk drive models toonumerous to list here. We encourage you to call torour latest pricing and catalog. Due to production dead-lines, prices are 60 days old. Please call! Dealerinquiries invited. In our 5th yearlPrices and specifications subject to change

without notice

MasterCard, VISA accepted. NJ residents.

add 6% sates tax.

Shipping charges: $3.00 first 4 lbs.. $.40 each

additional lb.

COD charge $5.00.

TOLL FREE ORDER LINE: 800-223-0306

In NJ, Call: 609-799-4440 9:00 am-5:30 pm est.

'FLOPPYIDISKSERVICES

IINC.1HHHB

FLOPPY DISKSERVICES. INC741 Alexander RoadPrinceton. NJ 08540

502 BYTE February 1984

Circle 145 on inquiry card.

Freedom-Freed the Prices!

We have met or have beaten most advertised prices.

Buy Direct!

32CPS DTC380Z

48K BufferSerial and ParallelI Year Warranty

380 Z S Unbeatable

38 K STAR WRITER .. S Unbeatable

Mannesman)! 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

Spirit Call Best Seller

IDS

• Proportional Spacing

• 8 Character Styles

• 200 CPS Bi Directional

• Color Optional

• Sheet Feed • Graphics

• 3.4K BufferPrism 80

Prism 132 and Micro PrismAuto Cassette Sheet Feed

s Call$ CallS Call

EAGLE

m

OMSih

OUR PC FLYS

IBM Compatible

Simply a better PC All models

available;for immediate delivery

Call Lowest S

ALTOS

ZENITHTELEV1DEO

SANYO

USI

TRANSTAR

PIED PIPER

RANA

STB

QUADRAM

DAISYWRITERFRANKLIN

HAYES

NOVATION

ANADEX

AXIOM

DATASOUTH

MICROTEK

SWEET-P

EAGLE

RITEMAN I

Juki 6100

18 CPS IBM RibbonsDiablo Compatible 2K BufferBest Value Yet SCall

U.S. ROBOTICS

It's a Piece of Cake I

High Quality Softwarefor Personal Computers

J-CAT

■■

Red HotSpecial I

NovationJ-CAT

i \Xford Processori Mail Listi Spelling Checkeri Telecom

NEW,

• Graphics Package

• Financial Planner

• Data ManagerCall for Prices!

• 300 BPS Modem

• Originate/Auto AnswerSizzling $89.50

PRINCETON GRAPHICS

VENTELAMDEK

BMCTAXANDIABLO

NEC

EPSON

PRINTEK

MOLECULAR

UDSSILVER-REED

OKIDATA

COMREX

JUKI

STAR

NORTHSTAR

ADDS

KIMTRON

INTERCOLOR

COLUMBIA

CORONA

C. ITOH

DEC

AMPEX

TOSHIBA

VEW

RIXON

HAZELTINE

SEIKOSHA

TTX

\X/YSE

SANYO PC.

OTRONA

BLUE CHIP

PRINTACOLOR

OUME

KEYTRONICS

ANCHOR

BROTHER

VISUAL

DAISY

Everything in

computer related products:

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS

• Computers

• Modems

• Printers

• Software

• Monitors

• Terminals

• Accessories

• Paper

• Ribbons

• Diskettes

• Office Furniture

• In-Store Training

For Price Quotes and Ordering, Call:

1-800-821-4128

For Technical Information andOrder Status, Call:

602-952-1057 or 602-954-6127

*********

FREEDOM

COMPUTER MART

INC.

3370 North Hayden Road • Suite 123-314Scottsdale, Arizona 85251

Prices listed reflect a cash discount and are subject to change without notice CO D.s are shipped with a minimum C.O.D. charge Allow 3-7 days for personal checks to clear. Product is subject toavailability Equipment is in factory sealed boxes with manufacturer's warranty There will be a re-stocking charge for returned merchandise. Call first for an RMA number. Software not warranteed forsuitability No return of Software which has been opened. Add 2% for shipping S handling charges (minimum S2 50) All equipment shipped F.O.B Scottsdale. AZ 85251 Circle 212 On inquiry Card.

BROAD LINE OF

A/D PRODUCTSFOR APPLE II®

TIMER/CLOCK ■ 4-YEAR CALENDAR,

TIMES INTERVALS TO THE

MILLISECOND, INTERRUPTS . . $17512-BIT A/D ■ 40.000 SAMPLES/SEC.

0.1 % ACCURACY, 8 INPUTS. .. $3758-BIT A/D ■ 60,000 SAMPLES/SEC.

0.4% ACCURACY, 8 INPUTS. . . $165FULLY DIFFERENTIAL A/D -

1 MILLIVOLT RESOLUTION

12 SAMPLES/SEC, 4 INPUTS ... $195THERMOCOUPLE THERMOMETER ■

2 OR 6 CHANNELS.... $135 or $155ALSO: INPUT MULTIPLEXERS,

OUTPUT CONTROLLERS,AND CUSTOM SYSTEMS

LAWSON LABS, INC.

5700 RAIBE ROAD

COLUMBIA FALLS, MONTANA 59912406-387-5355

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 (InCal. cal(805)543-1037)

VisaCalcPFS: FileWizardryZaxxon .

$99.00

...$50.00*.. $25.00*

$9.99*

....$8.00*

Circle 209 on Inquiry card.

Circle 284 on inquiry card.

Over 1200 ProgramsTo Choose From

KHFiTRENTl

•two week member rental

Free Catalog:

619-481-0559 Swd^p

1-800-221-1031 California1-800-221-4568 All Others

Circle 333 on inquiry card.

We're bringing in the New Year withspecials on quality 3M informationprocessing products, including:

• DISKETTES • MAC L TAPE• DATA CARTRIDGESPLUS! Specials on many other pro-ducts in our full-range discountcatalog of computer supplies. Call,write, or utilize reader service toobtain your free catalog of 1984 3MSpecials.

LYBEN COMPUTER SYSTEMS

1250-E Rankin Dr., Troy, Ml 48083Phone: (313) 589-3440

Simply #1 in service & Reliability

OM Authorized DistributorWlVI Information Processin

recessing Products

5V4" DISK DRIVES

• QUME 142A

Half Height, DoubleSided, 40 TRK/Side .

• TANDON: TM 100-2

Double Sided,

40 TRK/Side

• CDC: 9409

Double Sided,40 TRK/Side ..

»229

Free Shipping

•235

Free Shipping

»235

Free Shipping

»229

Free Shipping

Order Toll Free:

1-800-531-5475 (Outside Ot Texas) HI(512) 250-1489 (In Texas) WH

Texas Residents Add 5H Salsa Tax.

• SHUGART: SA 455

Half Height, Double Sided,40TRK/Side

1C0mpuP.de)

Corp.

13010 Research Blvd., Suite 101Austin, Texas 78750

Apple ll/lle®

Industrial ControlPlug-In Boards

(SOFTWARE INCLUDED)

Opto-lsolated A32 I/O Board

$295

• Individually Configurable

• Compatible with SSR Modules

• Opto-lsolated Interrupt Inputs

2 Axis Stepper Motor Interface

• Positioning Control OlOET

• Pulse Counting/Timing \ I HJl

• Frequency Measurements ™ ww

ROGERS LABS (714)751-0442

2710 S. Croddy Way, Santa Ana. CA 92704

Circle 223 on Inquiry card.

Circle 65 on Inquiry card.

Circle 316 on Inquiry card.

IBM PC =

1. DEC VT100?

2. DEC VT125?

3. DASHER D400?

SMARTERM™ DOES IT!

• full emulation

• powerful file transfer

• full printer support

• multiple setups

• "smart" softkeys

• 132 column support available

• online help screens

• 30-day return policy

Available through your local software dealeror directly from:

=====R

erSOft 2740 Ski Lane

1 Madison, Wl 53713

IlC. (608) 273-6000

Software lor Professionals. . . by Prolesslonals.

300BAUD

1200BAUD

MODEMS

SIGNALMAN. .Free hour on 'SOURCE'

300/1200 AUTO DIAL/ANS $319

'Hayes Compatible'300 BAUD AUTO DIAL/ANS $119

300 BAUD direct connect $ 69

US ROBOTICS...300/1200...MODEMS'Hayes Compatible''Password' with cables, spkr $339

'S100' card $339

'Auto 212' dlxe $419

DOT noiMTrnc LETTER

matrix rKJJN 1 LKb quality

GEMINI 10 x 120 cps graphics $CALLPROWRITER 120 cps hi density $359JUKI daisys wheel 18 cps $529

ibm HARD DISKS cpm

10 Mbyte $1295 40 Mbyte. .. .$2495

23 Mbyte $1995 65 Mbyte. . .$CALL

IMAGE COMPUTERS

P.O. Box 1164, Cardiff, CA 92007CALL TO ORDER:

(619)942-7373 W M V1SA/MC

(619) 436-7669 ■» *PW ADD 3%

(619) 270-3600 'Dealer Inquiries Invited

LABELS • CONTINUOUS FORMS

PeachText 5000 reg 395- 27500complete line ofEDUWARE SOFTWARE

plus other major brands

'Terms: Visa, M.C. or C.O.D.

'Dealer Inquiries Invited

COMPU-MEDIA

SOFTWARE, INC.

159 Main St. S.I.N.Y. 10307

AUTHORIZEDDISTRIBUTOR

CALL TOLL FREE 1-800-248-2418" in N.Y. State 212-967-1700

Circle 292 on Inquiry card.

Circle 178 on Inquiry card.

Circle 390 on Inquiry card.

ITEM-

«»:i

/cfea/ for

• COMPUTERISTS

• OEM MANUFACTURERS

• DEVELOPMENT LABS

• UNIVERSITIES

• INDUSTRIALAPPLICATIONS

THE ULTIMATE OEM/PC

COMPATIBLE SINGLE

BOARD COMPUTER

FULL /BM - 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)

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 inchX 13.5 inch

Full Mega-Byte Ram Capacity!On board!

(With parity)

□ 256K Bytes using 64K chips

P1 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!!!

Evaluation Board Kit!

(Blank board with full assemblyinstructions and parts list.)

Includes highest quality PC boardwith gold plating, silk screen,solder mask

□ 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 compatibleTmS-DOS/PC-DOS BIOS $29.951 |10-day money back guarantee if not completely satisfiedj

ORDER NOW!!!

SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!

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 111 on inquiry card.

©1983 Display Telecommunications Corporation

BYTE February 1984 505

Analog and Power

Control I/O

in a Single BoardComputer

6801 Micro Conlro! System designedfor DISTRIBUTED CONTROL or STAND-ALONE use: 6801 or 68701 MPU with 2KROM or EPROM, 128 RAM, timer. Eight12-bit analog inputs, 8-bit analogoutput, 8 AC or DC inputs or outputs,serial I/O, digital I/O, power supply.

WINTKK

Circle 388 on Inquiry card.

IWintek Corp.1801 South StreetLafayette, IN 47904317-742-6428

USED PERSONAL

COMPUTER

BROKERAGE

• A nationwide database service matchingbuyers and sellers of used P.C.'s and peripherals.

• UPCB acts as middleman, providingsecurity for both the buyer and the seller.

• All equipment tested and warranlied by UPCB

• All makes and models accepted (or listing

• Bonded and insured

• Reasonable listing rates and commissionsFor more information mail today!I am interested in Buying D Selling LU

Name

Address

City, State,

Z

P

Telephone ( )

Mail to: UPCB Fulfillment Dept.Suite 21 • 1116 A 8th StreetManhattan Beach, CA 90266

ADD/NET'"

INDUSTRIAL/LABORATORYLOCAL AREA NETWORK

ADD/NET provides a modular, low cost, easy to useapproach to factory and laboratory networking.ADD/NET modules may be used stand-alone orlinked together in an extended network. Featuresinclude:

• Up to eight ports per module; interfaces includeRS232C, RS422. RS449, IEEE^88, and industrial I/O

• Transparent communication from any port to anyother port within the network

• User friendly menu permits easy interactive setupfrom a terminal

• Command mode permits computer controlledsetup for dynamic linking of ports

• Multiple baud rates supported, with automaticbaud rate lock-in and baud rate conversion

• Up to 2000 feet between network modules

• Error checking and correction for reliability

• Ideal for linking your factory and lab equipmentwith your mainframe, P,C. and peripherals

CALL TODAY (3051 293-2002

Adroit Electronics, Inc.

Dept. A, 3790 Silver Star Rd.

Orlando. FL 32808

Circle 370 on inquiry card.

Circle 12 on inquiry card.

Stop Gambling-

Use your personal computer (or experthandicapping like the experts do - - -

nR • Predicts game scoresSEND r0 • Situation analysis program

nATA * trend analysis programFREE "^ • unique handicapping guides

m HSFL • Simple operating manualON u • Use with Radio Shack, Apple

cysTEM Commodore 64 and others• Order today-Win tomorrow

START^INNING WITH

Send S225. for USFL System includes freemoney mgl. program (worth $50.) Enclosecheck, money order or VIsa/MC card No

Computer

Handicapping

Systems

P.O. Box 33034Cleveland Ohio44133-0034

USFI Winners Non-Baseball Next

O Dyson

^/corporation

Solve yourdbc problem, buy 100% mtrimxtoted Dywn JhlnttM AD order* aMppcdfrom Hock, wtthln 24 hour*. QUI tofl FREE(800) 235-4137 for prices and Inhumation.Vfca and Maetar Card accepted.

PACIFICEXCHANGES

100 Foothill Blvd.San Luis Obispo. CA93401. (In Cat call(805)543-1037.)

Circle 113 on Inquiry card.

Circle 284 on inquiry card

HARD DISK DRIVESURPLUS SALE!

9 *#>

High reliability 8" Shugart SA 1002 5.33Mbyte drives for $380. ea.. unused intheir original factory packed cartons.1000's of pleased customers. Alsoavailable: new Western Digital controllercard ($350.); interfaces for IBM, Apple,S-100, STD, Heath/Zenith. SS-50, SS-30.Shipping for drive. $12. Call beforethey're gone —

LIQUIDATORS, 803-877-9828, or sendcheck or money order to 105 S. Main St.,Greer, S.C. 29651.

A Spooler thatwill Spoil You

Addmaster Paper Tape Handlerwith Big New 7W Reels

I

Optional serial interfaces for RS232C or TTYor parallel interface/TTL. X-on/X-offcapability, bi-directional reading and slew,reads 150 CPS, rewinds 300 CPS. Stops oncharacter, contains power supply andAddmaster Model 601 paper tape reader.Sensibly priced. Addmaster Corporation,416 Junipero Serra Drive, San Gabriel, CA91776.(213)285-1121.

DISK DRIVES

(For PC, Mod I, III & IV)

Tandon TM55-2 $229

Tandon TM100-1 $175

Tandon TM100-2 $229

Tandon TM101-4 $315

CDC 9409 $239

Case and PS $ 45

PC EXPANSIONS

MAYNARD

Disk Controller $162

Sandstar Series call

Internal 10MB Drive Systems, from $969

QUADRAM

Quad board (64K) $269

AST

Six Pak Plus: 64K SPC S269

Mega Plus: 64K & SC S269

I/O Plus(SC) $114

2nd S or P or Game $ 35

64K CHIPS

Set of nine $ 55

HAYES

Smartmodem 1200B . . $435

VLM Computer Electronics

10 Park Place • Mornslown, NJ 07960(201) 267-3268 Visa. MC. Check or COD.

Smith-Corona TP-I Daisy Wheel Printer

0^369°°

UNBELIEVABLE!

* fully-formed characters • serial or parallel Interlace

• compatible with most • choice of 10 or 12 CPImlao-compuiers models

Also for your TP-1 letter quality printer-the Smith-Corona Tractor Feed

1 Act|ustable tractor wldtl

OO • For continuous forn

• Quick, easy remov

'129

Call Collect

(214)826-6521

FIGURE LOGIC BUSINESS EQUIPMENT, INC.

6408 Gaston Avenue / Dallas, Texas 75214

Circle 11 on Inquiry card.

Circle 142 on Inquiry card.

L*l Hanclivcll

4962 EL CAMINO REAL. SUITE 119 • LOS ALTOS CA 94022

[415) 962-9265 » TLX 171947 HAhDWELL LTOS»1-(800) 821-3628

7400

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SOUND CHIPS

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,'6489 8 95

AV3 89H1 9 95

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MOS PROMS

2708

2758

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2716-1

TMS2516

TMS2716

TMS2532

2732

2732-250

2732-200

2764

2764-250

2764-200

TMS2564

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74LS11

39

74LS174

39

74LS12

33

74LS175

89

74LS13

47

74LS13I

2 20

74LS14

95

74LSl*j

1 15

74LS15

33

74LS191

1 15

74LS20

26

74LS192

98

74LS21

33

74LS193

98

74LS22

33

74LS194

i 15

74LS26

33

74LS195

95

74LS27

33

74LS196

89

74LS28

33

74LS197

89

74LS30

26

74LS221

1 15

74LS32

33

74 LS 2-10

1 69

74LS33

55

74LS242

1 69

74LS37

45

74LS243

1 69

74LS38

39

74LS244

1 49

74LS40

26

74LS245

2 20

74LS42

79

74LS247

1 10

74LS47

79

74LS248

1 10

74LS48

95

74LS249

1 19

74LS5I

26

74US251

1 40

74LSS4

29

74LS253

1 40

74L.S55

29

74LS257

85

74LS73

45

74LS258

98

74LS74

142

74LS259

2 95

74LS75

59

74L.S260

65

74LS76

45

74LS261

2 49

74LS78

45

74LS266

59

74LS83A

79

74LS273

I 75

74LS85

l '9

74LS275

4 4U

74LS86

45

74LS279

59

74LS90

57

74LS283

99

74LS92

75

74LS290

99

74LS93

75

74LS293

99

74LS95

88

74LS295

1 10

74LS96

98

74LS298

1 19

74LS107

45

74LS324

t 75

74LS109

45

74LS347

1 95

74LS113

43

74LS348

1 95

74LSM4

43

74LS352

1 19

74L.5122

55

74LS353

1 19

74LS123

I 19

74LS363

1 49

74LS124

1 35

74LS365

69

74LSI25

89

74LS366

69

74LS'26

52

74LS367

69

74LS132

79

74LS368

69

74LS136

49

74LS373

1 89

74LSI38

65

74LS374

l 89

74LSI39

85

741S37^

69

74LSM5

1 25

74LS377

1 95

74LS148

1 49

74LS385

1 95

74LS151

79

74LS385

65

74LS153

79

74LS390

l 95

74LS154

t 70

74LS393

1 95

MLSISS

i t9

MLS39i

1 70

74LS15G

99

74LS399

2 35

74LS1:.7

85

74LS42I

2 95

74LS158

75

74LS663

1 75

74LS160

1 05

7JLS67I)

2 29

741^161

I 15

74LS378

1 95

74LS133

65

74LS379

1 95

74LS241

1 69

74LS36I

2 95

74LS28G

2 90

74LS640

2 95

74LS299

2 00

74LS645

2 95

74LS339

1 95

74LS690

1 50

Tel: 1-(800)-821-3628

Z80 SERIES

8000 SERIES

8200 SERIES

6800 SERIES

CALL FORPRICE

S-RAM

2101

5101

21 11

2112

2114

2114-25

2114L-4

2114L-3

2114L-2

2147

HM6116-4

HM6116-3

HM6116-2

HM6116LP-4

HM61 16LP-3

HM6116LP-2

1 95

3 95

2 492 99

8 9 958 10 958 12 958 13 458 13 95

4 954 75

4 958 95

5 95

6 9510 95

Miscel

74S00

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

74S188

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

39

43

45

52

52

49

49

42

42

42

42

42

42

49

1 19

49

42

46

45

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

2 791 49

1 49

2 691 891 89

1 89

2 752 752 992 992 991 351 351 29

1 2975

2 79299

2 55

3 103 1(12 757 957 95

7 959 959.955 755.75

8 958 952 902 9C

2 15295

3 152.152.957 75

4 153 95

aneous

6502

68000

8748

8255-5

82S123

82S129

82S131

93422

93L422

93425

93427

D2125AL-2

D2104

AY5-3600

6810

8304

4.9549.9524.955.952.552.993.998.959.953.958.953.951.9512.953.953.95

LINEAR

DRAM

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

981.491 953.752.751.251 791 951.251 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 s225.°°

For single computer

single printer

Model BF64M '395.°°

For multi-computer

single printerAllow up to four

computersShare 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/lleCompatible $175.°DiskDrive

CONTROLLERCARD $44.95

SUPER COOLING

FANS FOR APPLE

WITH SURG

IBMMEMORYEXPANSION KIT

IBM 64K $52.95

(9Pcs64KRAM)

LOGIC PROBE

WITH MEMORY

FUNCTION

s22.95

32 758klv1 0mHz

1 843220

2 097152

2 4576

3 2768

3 57953540505 0688

5 1855714360

6 1446 553680100

10 73863512 00

14 31818

15 0

16 0

17 430

18 018 43220 0

22 118432 0

1 753 953 95

2 952 952 952.952.952 952.952.952 952.952 952 952.952 952 952 952952 952.952 952.952 952 952 952 952 95

TMS4027

UPD411

MM5280

MK4108

MM5298

4116-300

4116-250

4116-200

4116-150

4116-120

2118

4164-200

4164-150

1 99 1

3 00 I

3 00 I

1 95 I

1 85 I

8

I

8

11 95 1

8

12 95 I

8

14 95 ■

8 29 95 |

4 95 I

5 95 I

6 95 |

HighQualityDiskettes

51A" SS/SD 15/Box5V«" SS/DD 17/Box5'/V' DS/DD 27/Box

80 Column Dot MatrixPrinter

CP-80byC.T.I.80cpsparallel interfacegraphics printing compatibfewith EPSON MX80FT

SALE PRICE s299.00

TERMS For shipping include S2 for UPS Ground or S3for UPS Blue Label Air, Items over 5 pounds requireadditional shipping charges $10 minimum order.

1-(800) 821-3628

IS Hand well

4962 EL CAMINO REAL, SUITE 119 • LOS ALTOS, C,a 9-U.)??|(415) 962-9265 • TLX: 171947 HANDWELL LTOS |

corp

Circle 164 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 507

AFFORDABLE

M 68000

COMPUTER SYSTEM

M68KCPU 6 10 MHz CPU, 20K static RAW,

: ' I6i< KPROW on board monlt< r,

two RS-232 serial ports, 16-bit

parallel port, 5 timet/counters

Bare board » 99.95

t..,.. ..S615.00

: IttSI !K I2S-312K static RAM.floppytSisk■ on llei '. .

Bareboard 9 99.99

Complete Kit <128K)..,«*85.0OM68KE Enclosure with power supply,fan, filter, 4 slot card cage

9249.00

M60KASM M680oi

foi CP/M80, IBM PC, rftS-80md hmnt: U computers

4149.00

OPS si ttlng * 4

COD orders add

Foreign orders add 020.00

California iesiden&adti 6.5% tax

CMCE<

Microcomputer (714)553.0133

aytems

P.O. Box 16115* Irvine, CA 927! 3

S-100 EPROM PROGRAMMER

EPROM-32

■ High quality S-100 board meets Of 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 (or verification.

• Programming voltage generated on-board.

■ Personality Modules simplify adaptation of board to differentEPROM types:

PM-1 -2508.2758 PM-3-2732, 2732A PM-6-687642516.2716 PM-4-2564 PM-8-27128

PM-2-2532 PM-5-2764

• CP/M-compatible control software

includes commands for programming, $269.95 *verification, disk I/O and editing. .. ' T

MlcroPynomUi 0R0ER DESK

1-800-237 840D exl 440

Technical Inquiries19011-682-4054

Corporation

6363 Poplai Ave • Suite 10SMemphis TN 38119

"Price includes EPROM-32. documenialinn and two PersonalityModules (specify). Additional Modules-S7.95. Conlrol softwareon 8" SSSD diskette- $9.95.UPS ground—$2.00. UPS air —£4.00. COD—51.50, foreign add $15.00, TN add 6% sales taxVISA and MASTERCARD welcome.

ANALOG** DIGITALDIGITAL** ANALOG

CONVERSION MODULES

SOFTWARECAIN CONTROL

amplifier - custom board test S-100 2 ta ^ Wvconversion rt/ne mixablc high ond low inputs gain1from 1 to 1024 ■ 19 bit --nrnpfe and hold amplifierft rhonnpi differential 16-channel - onotacj io doitdhiqh rxfurncy progrommoble gain instrumentationamplifier r a«rom bocvrJ test 5 100 2 to 15 khzconversion time - maatilfi hiqh and lorn inputs nnm'ram 1 ro IQP4 12-bit sample and hold amplifier8-chonnel differential - |6rhomel analog to digitalhigh accuracy - progrqrrtmnble gam instrumentationomoiifiei - custom board I.",r S-100 - 2 in IS krv

For adcfltlonal details about the ad-ioo-4 and otherfine California Data Corporation 100°o 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

1805) 498-3651

Circle 125 on inquiry card.

Circle 245 on inquiry card.

Circle 45 on inquiry card.

PRINTER RIBBONS

PRICE PER PER

RIBBON DOZEN

Anadex 9500 13.50 147.00

Apple DMP 5.95 68.40

Centronics 150/152 7.00 81.00

C. ItOh Prowriter 5.95 68.40

Commodore Pet 8023P 7.00 81.00

Epson MX-FX 70/80 5.25 60.00

Epson MX-FX 100 9.95 108.00

Gemini - 10 2.50 27.00

NEC 3500 M/S Single Sided .... 6.95 80.40

NEC 3500 Nylon 9.75 114.00

NEC PC 8023A 5.95 68.40

Okidata 80/82/83/92 2.50 27.00

Okidata ■ 84 5.00 57.00

Radio Shack D.W. II M/S 5.00 57.00

Radio Shack D.W. II Nylon 6.75 78.00

Radio Shack DMP - 2103 7.50 87.00

Radio Shack LP I II III IV & V 6.00 69.00

Silver Reed EX55 Single Strike 5.00 57.00

Toshiba - 1350 7.50 87.00

Wang Bearclaw 9.00 105.00

Xerox 610/620 M/S 7.75 84.00

Add $2.00 Shipping

To Order Call (313) 569-3218 or

Write for our Catalog

DWIGHT COMPANY, INC.

15565 Northland Drive - West TowerSouthfield, Michigan 48075-6496

Radio Shack TRS-80™Computers

At Guaranteed Savings

fromPan

AmericanElectronics

1117 Conway Ave.

Dept, B

Mission, Texas 78572

Ph. 512/581-2766

Telex 767339

TO ORDER

CALL TOLL FREE

800-531-7466

HOFA

Books • Software • Hardware A

tm J r

i*

■

Id-Ons • fo

t YDin ATAR

600XL/

800 XL. Cornmoffore-64. VICZO.S

nclair.Timex, Apple ll.Osb

orne+OSI

HOOKS far ATARI 4QOC600XL/800XL

SOFTWARE IN MACHINE LANGUAGE

FOR ATARI

ATARI BASIC - Learning by Uiing

ATMONA1

MUST

Order No. 7022 (CI

E19.95

rlrawmgs. special sounds, keys, paddles,

ATMONA2

explore the ATARI RAM/ft

)M iru

Order-No. 164 67.95

You can slop at previously

selected

Small Busmen Software lot all ATARI

'S^MSSfm^StSL

computers

rs of trie

SUPERMAIL (500 addresses on 1 rink)

CPU may be clianged Includes ,

autotiook rlrsk No cartridge, nil DOS. no

Order No. 7O50 dilk

£54,00

Order-No. 731! S49.00

ATMAS

Macro Assembler lor ATARI

10O4BK

SUPERINVENTORY MOOO Kim, p.diskl

One ol the most poweil

above. (Disk only)

Order-No. 7320 £49.00

Very fast. Translates 5k souri

BUSIPACKl Iwrmen in FORTH) Com

about 5 seconds Source cod

can be

invoicing (Disk only)

Order No. 7313 £98.00

Order No. 7099 disk

Order No. 7999 cartridge

£128 DO

ATCASH

Convert your ATARI BOO inlo a powerful

routines from book no. 169 on

Order No. 7303 S49.9S

ATAS

Same as ATMAS but *Hho

capability |32Kind48K RAM

Mailing Lilt in BASIC

PRINTER INTERFACES

850 needed 1

Order.ND.7213 (01 £24.95

Order No. 7291

£19.95

DMHrindOntributor mquirieeere mined. MTA**!atria iitlnifl of a:

ELCOMP PUBLISHING, INC.

53 Rtdiock Lint

Pomone.CA 91766

Circle 117 on inquiry card.

Circle 286 on Inquiry card.

Circle 126 on inquiry card.

maxell

Floppy Discs

CALL NOW-TOLL FREE

1-800-328-DISC

Dealer inquiries invited. C.O.D.'s andcharge cards accepted.All orders shipped from stock,within 24 hours. Call toll FREE.

M

North Hills Corporation

3564 Rolling View Dr.

While Bear Lake. MN 55110

1-800-328-DISC

MNCall Collect 1-6 12-770-048S

ProgrammableCommunicationsTranslator

The PCT-100 is a configurable in-liners-232 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, X0N/X0FF)

the pct-100 is configured using abuilt-in communications translationLanguage. Programs can be easilyentered t edited from any ascii device.

PCT-100-PCB (PCB ONLY) $ 289

PCT-100-ASM (PCB w/ CASE)..$ 339PCT-512-M00 (POWER SUPPLY).$ 59

.68

y\A£fJ

method systems incorporated

19751 South Lakeshore Boulevard

Euclid, Ohio WIS

C216) 531-0Wt

\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.

Circle 233 on Inquiry card.

Circle 284 on inquiry card.

* «^ MICROSALES

■k MADE IN USA • BUY FACTORY DIRECT • j

DISK DRIVE SPECIALS *We've Lowered Our Prices

Offering A Complete Selection And. . .THE LOWEST PRICES IN BYTE!

8" Shugad 801R SS/DD - The Industry Standard $355.00

8" Shugart 851R Double Sided U Meg - The Old Reliable 457.00

8" flume Datatrak-8 DS/DO "THE BEST" of the floppys 479.00

8" Mitsubishi Full Height Double Sided 1 Year Parts + Labor ... .445.00

8" Mitsubishi Thinline DS/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/D0 ON SALE NOW!!! But How Long? 169.00

5V Mitsubishi Full height 96T.P.I DS/DD 750K M4852 295.00

5'/<"Mistubishi Slimline 96T.P.I. DS/DD 750K M4853 315.00

CaliforniaComputerSystems

YEAR END SALE

SAVE $61.00New CCS2066 64K Dynamic Memory

• 65.536 bytes ol Dynamic BAM • Z-BO/8080. S-100 compatible • Port bank/16 levelsof 64K = system memory ol 1024K • Independently addressed in 16K blocks • 200nsaccess and data lines • Hysteresis drivers and receivers lor high noise immunity andminimal bus loading effects. Part ffl-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 FtS-232 Serial

• All AC/DC & Data Cables • 8-bit Parallel I/O

A powerful package at ONLY $1495.00

CCS CALSTAR SYSTEM

Now available and with FREE SOFTWARE: • Perfect Writer • Perfect Calc • Perfect Spellerand • Perfect Filer.

This powerful single box system includes: • Z-BO with 128K of RAM expandable to256K • A networking interlace • SASI hard disk interface loadd-on a Winchester • CP/M3.0 operating system • One parallel and two serial ports • Reads and writes the IBM3740 format (compatible with X0R) ANO • Two double-sided double-density 8" floppydrives for 2.4 Megabytes ol formatted storage AND • Wil run two or more 8" or 5» "floppys. Part #S-15O0-05

ON SALE NOWRegu.larHHa06.00— Our Price Only $2695.00

FANTASTIC SAVINGS!

\S39S

' HELD OVER

ON 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 lour floppy disks coupled witha mamoth S-100 power supply and 12 slot bus, makes the S1-M0D 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 ol 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 for peripheral hookup and plenty of cutoutsavailable 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: tjtfhfr> SAVERegulated Unregulated ^^HSS «. _+ 5V@5A +8V @ 30A Wmm%B OVER+ 24V @ 3A +16V@6A Hff *-,/•,«-5V@1A -16V @6A ^*^ *7UUOon'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.""'

|5VQume 142 Slimline DS/DD.

~37fT00|

5'/i" Tandon TM-100-2 IBM. PC Add-on! DS/DO 48 T.P.I 259.00

5Vi" Tandon TM 100-4 DS/DD96T.P.1.750K 369.00

• WINCHESTER HARD DISKS •

SPECIALS

5Va" Miniscribe Hard Disk

*5 Meg $589 *10 Meg $749

6"'fluantum 20' Megacyle 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. Runsuo 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 bard disk interlace board AT COST! DULY 295.00!

'Total storage space after lormalling.

SPECIAL

ONLY

$450.00

Limit 5 per 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 interlacing (standard), 8 level automatic impression control -original and 3 copies. The $450.00 price is not a misprint. High reliabilityand quality performance sums-up the XOR-500 Daisy-wheel Printer.

XOR-500 TERMINAL

SLASHED?

SALE

Cut another $50Only $445.00

That's right! A 700.00 terminalfor $445.00, a specialdeal 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.

DUAL DRIVE SUBSYSTEMS

HORIZONTAL OR VERTICAL

Fully Assembled and Tested Units

ONE YEAR P + L WARRANTY

On Shugart and Mitsubishi Subsystems

*/two Misubishi OS/DD Assem. + "ested 2.4 Meg $1170.00

*/iwo Shugart 801R SS/OD Assem. + Tested 1.2 Meg 975.00

#/1wo 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 Oume DT-8 DS/DD Assem. + Tested 2.4 Meg 1250.00

Cabinet Assem. & Tested w/Power Supply and Aces 235.00

Cabinet Top and Bottom with Mountirg Hardware Only 69.50

All cabinets A & T and subsystems include all AC/DC wiring and 50 pin datacable except the horizontal model whicn includes the internal 50 pin cable andrequires an external 50 pin cable pan #06000-01 S 25.00

5Vi" Subsystems - Cabinet - Power Supply - Drives - Cables

w/two 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 includes all cables Assem. + Tested ... .695.00

ORDER TOLL FREE * EAST * 800-435-9357 ^r WEST $ 800-854-8174

do you innji r^f* Aiy hit AARJini iT^n to process

NEED AN

IBM-PC 16-BIT COMPUTER

YOUR DATA?

$1895

COMPLETE SYSTEM

Model XPC with ^MS/DOS features: rSj^'•MS/DOS standard, V3

CP/M-86 operating system

available at only $65.00

• 64K memory•Green CRT

•2 serial, one parallel port•2 floppy drives for a

total of 750K storage•Optional EPR0M to 32K•Optional Hard Disk add-on•Optional floppy add-on•Optional 8087 math co-processor•Multi-function keyboard (this is one part

ot the system that's NOT like IBM's, it's better)

• Fully expandable memory On-Board to 256KPLUS 5 expansion slots (all IBM compatible)

•All available through U.S. Micro Sales and YES it's all fully IBM compatible

THE XPC

A New Model PC by XOR

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

BASIC COMPUTER

ONLY

$895

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@6Amp, -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!

Circle 366 on inquiry card.

BYTE Rbruary 1984 509

nuufMiiu iiv lent

FIRST TIME BETWEEN TWO COVERS

No matter what type of 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 o( 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 & Beach31754 Foxfield Dr.Westlake Village, CA 91361Voice Orders-(213) 838-7716 Modem Orders-{213) 559-9033

HOOK IN NOW!!

SPECIAL OFFICEWhen ordering, refer to this AD andreceive your FIRST UPDATE FREE!

ScreenWiz

FULL SCREEN CONTROL

An assembler subprogram you call from yourprograms to handle screen input/output asIBM mainframes do.Define full screen format specificationsoutside your program, and call ScreenWiz toretrieve Ihe formats, and do all the I/O for you.

• One command input/displays a full screen

• Use all of your CRT video attributes

• Define up to 24 function keys

• Define templates for display and input.

• Validate input while keying. Insert anddelete characters to correct fields

• Tab fields forward and backward

• Draw figures using vertical field displays

• Save memory as only one format needs tobe in memory at one time. Make theconstants to display virtual, and they don'tuse any memory at all.

• Build help screens. Call them with onefunction key then return to where you were.

Available now for most popular —

BASIC \ IBM PC $99

COBOL I CP/M-80 $99

FORTRAN [ Shipping $ 6

PASCAL ) Source code included

IflTERDRTR

15 Toronto St. Suits 700Toronto, Ont. Canada M5C 2E7(416| 366-2136 (call collect to order!

SYSTEMS INC.

Visa, M/CAm. Express

IBM PC COMPATIBLE

Slimline Disk Drive $215.00 ea.

(Shugart SA 455. DS.DD 320KB)Slimline Hard Disk $495.00 ea.

(Shugart SA 706 5MB)

Computer Case Call

Keyboard Call

Power Supply Call

Disk Controller Card Call

Color Graphic/Monochrome/Printer

Interface Card Call

Compatible Bare PCB Call

3M Diskette SS/DD $20/box

3M Diskette DS/DD $28/box

Dealer Inquiries Welcome

ELECTRADE CO. (408) 946-2541

780 Trimble Rd., Suite 605

San Jose, CA 95131

Circle 73 on inquiry card.

Circle 185 on inquiry card.

Circle 127 on inquiry card.

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 §ync

5738 Commerce Blvd.

Rohnert Park, CA 94928

(707) 585-2793

Circle 180 on inquiry card.

Scotch Diskettes

Rely on Scotch* diskettes to keep your valu-able data safe. Dependable Scotch diskettesare tested and guaranteed error-free. The lowabrasivity saves your read/write heads.They're compatible with most diskette drives.

(800)235-4137

Dealer InquiriesInvited

Printer Cables

&

.oo*

S35.00*

— Parallel —

ALTOS

ATTACHE

ATARI

CENTRONICS

COLUMBIA

EAGLE

IBM-PC

KAYPRO

OSBORNE

SANYO

TI-99

$3S

Oo*

$35

SERIAL —

00*

ATTACHE COM.

RS232 (DB25P)

(9 conductor 1-8, 20)

CABLES UNLIMITED

4030 Wabaska Dr.

San Diego, CA 92107

619-222-3366

Circle 391 on inquiry card.

| The Statistician |

CPM IBM-PC

TRS-DOS XENIX

* Multiple Regression * Survey Research

Stepwise * Nonparametrics

Ridge * X-Y Plots

All Subsets " ANOVA

Backward Elimination * Random Samples

* Time Series Analysis " Data Base

* Descriptive Statistics * Search & sort

" Transformations * Hypothesis tests

Please call TOLL FREE

1-800-334-0854 (Ext. 814)

^K ■ Hk for more information

^k ^L or

H Quant Systems

V W Box 628

^Hgl Charleston. SC 29402

^^^^ VISA-M/C Accepted

IBM PC, APPLE, etc.

SHARING AND SWITCHING PROBLEMS?GILTR0NIX HAS THE SOLUTION!

HI Any CPU

Modem orOther Peripheral

MANUAL UNITS AUTOMATIC UNITS

2-6 Porls OR 2-7 Porls

Selecto-Swilcti Auto-Switch

Serial (RS 232)/Parallel (Centronics)LOW COST ADD-ONS FROM THE MAIN

MANUFACTURER

(VICOGiltronix

L^J 3780 Fabian Way Palo Alio, CA 94303(■115) 4931300

Circle 152 on inquiry card.

Best Prices OnTRS-80 Computers

Our 6th year of discounts

Ed or Joe McManus

Fgt. Prepaid. Save Tax.

Toll Free 800-231-3680

Marymac Industries, Inc.

22511 Katy Fwy., Katy

(Houston) Tx 77450

I-713-392-0747

Telex 774132

See us in the Wall Streetjournal every Tues., Wed., Thurs.

Circle 284 on Inquiry card.

Circle 308 on inquiry card.

Circle 231 on inquiry card.

IVII

THE PC SYSTEM SPECIALIST

PRICES AND AVAILABILITY SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE

COMPLETE SYSTEMVERY SPECIAL PRICE

64K, Two Disk Drives, Floppy DiskController, Video Card and High ResMonitor

2S6K RAM, 360KB Disk Drive,

FDC, Video Monitor & Adaptor 10MB

Hard Disk Sub-System.

PERSONALCOMPUTER

Specialof theMonth!

$2590

IBM PC COMPLETE LINE

$3990

APPRICOT An IBM PC Compatible Computer W/Two Drives & Monitor W/$1250 worth of Software-Complete System, $2999

TAVA PC

WE WOULD LIKE TO START THE NEW YEAR BY INTRODUCING THE TAVA PC!A Superior quality IBM PC Com-patible Personal Computer. RunsDOS 1.1, 2.0, 2.1, CP/M86® UCSDp-System® Runs Lotus 1-2-3? Multi-plan® Word Staff PFS® dBASEII® and ALL FOR £1995many more! Hardware includes 128K -^^^ **MiMj K\MW\ *fX^CPU, Floppy Controller, Two DS/DD

Disk Drives, Video Monitor. Video \^^0^"^ ^"' SllCICf ested LlSt

Adaptor, Parallel & Serial Ports.

$2395

SLIMLINE DISK DRIVE FOR IBM PC

DS/DD 320KB By tava corp $190

ADD-ON Disk Drive for IBM PCjr® .... CALL

HARD DISKS FOR IBM PC® ffl*

10 MB Hard Disk Sub-System by TAVA CORP.includes Software, Cables, etc. Internal. $1295

MEMORY BOARDS

CONOGRAPHIC

High Res. Color Graphics Card $995

OUADRAM

Quad Card. Fully pop. 256K $450

QUADLINK CALL

AST SIXPAK 384K CALL

HERCULES Graphics Card $490

APPLE He

Computer System, Controller, Two Disk Drives,

Monitor $1590

DISK DRIVE FOR APPLE

Slimline, or Standard $190

PRINTERS

DAISYWRITER 2000 CALL

OKIDATA

82,4

83A

93A

$440$690

84A92A

$975$575$970

BROTHER

HR-1

DX-15

$750$450

MONITORSAMDEK

300A

300G

310A

IV

$190.00$160.00$190.00

/, .

II .III.

PRINCETON GRAPHICS SYSTEMS

Hi-Res Color

$340.00

$690.00

$390.00

$1190.00

$490

ROMAR II Apple Compatible Computer W/Z-CardController, Two Disk Drives and a Monitor for $1195

NEC TANDON TAVA IBM APPLE QCS MAYNARDLNW ROMAR PRODUCTS AVAILABLE

■viiwim^ivi

631 E. First St., Tustin, CA 92680

(714) 838-9100

*1BM PC is a registered trademark of IBM Corp.

*dBASE II is a registered trademark of ASHTONTATE, Inc.

LOTUS 1-2-3 is a registered trademark of Lotus Development

Wordstar. Spcllstar. Mailmerge are registered trademarks of Micropro Internationa!

Visicalc is a registered trademark of Visicorp

Multiplan :s a registered trademark of Microsoft CorpPFS is a registered trademark of Software Publishing Co.CP/M86 is a registered trademark of Digital Research. Inc.MS-DOS ss a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp-UCSDp is a registered trademark of Softech Microsystems

Circle 248 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 511

Vis*/****

%h&J!&

DISKETTES

3M Scotch' BRAND

AT SUPER LOW PRICES

WE WILL SHIP YOUR ORDER

WITHIN 24 HOURS AND WE PAY

THE SHIPPING CHARGES

COD ACCEPTEDDEALER INQUIRIES INVITED

=TJ CALL TOLL FREE800 922-8193

IN CALIFORNIA800 468-1068

T»yco Buiiniu FormsComputer SuppliesPosl Office Box 605Newbury Park, CA 91 320

ZH"™ HeathUsers

Double Your5%" disk storagecapacity without adding a drive.

Get twice as much from your H88 orH89 microcomputer. Our FDC-880Hfloppy disk controller, in conjunctionwith your 51/," 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" and51/!" drives — simultaneously.

Ol

C.D.R. Systems Inc.Controlled Data Recording Systems Inc.7210 Clairmont Mesa Blvd., San Diego, CA 92111(619) 560-1272

Circle 450 on inquiry card.

Circle 349 on inquiry card.

Circle 47 on inquiry card.

MagiKey-

THE FULL-FEATURED KEYBOARD EXPANDER

Redefine any key to send a string ol characters.MagiKey'" does more ...

* automates application software, integratesfunction or cursor keys

* "help" menus displayed al any time

* built-in batch processing more powerfulthan SUBMIT or XSUB

* strings can redefine keys, pause (or lill-the-blanks keyboard input, or contain nestedkey definitions

* invisible to system and software

* lor any 8080-8085-Z80-CP/M 2.2, nosystem or software modifications

$ioo

6" SSSD. Kaypro 5V - inquire about other 615" formatscheck. VISA, MC add 6% lax in CA

PfvO,; mkroSystems

CP M (im) Oorta1 Research

16609 Sage wood LanePoway, California 92064(619) 693-1022

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, Retton, VA 22090

(703) 435-8110

OTDK

flexible disks

Call Free (800)235-4137

for prices and information.Dealer inquiries invited.C.O.D. and charge cardsaccepted.

visa-

PACIFICEXCHANGES

100 Foothill BlvdSan Luis Obispo. CA93401 (InCal call(805) 543-1037)

Circle 304 on inquiry card.

Circle 14 on inquiry card.

Circle 284 on inquiry card.

CONVERSES COMPUTER

AT LAST! A FULL IMPLEMENTATION of the original ELIZA program is

now available lo run on your microcomputer!

Crcaled al MIT in 1966. ELIZA has become Ihe world's most celebrated

artificial inlelligence demonstration program ELIZA is a non-diceclivc

psycho!heraoist who analyzes each siatemeni as you type tt m and then

responds with her own comment or question—and her remarks are

often amazingly appropriate'

Designed to run on a large mainframe. ELIZA has never before been

available lo personal computer users excepi in greatly stripped down

versions lacking Ihe sophislication which made Ihe original program so

fascinating

Now. our new microcomputer version possessing the FULL power andrange of expression of the original is being offered al the introductoryprice of only S25 And if you want to lind out how she does it for leachher to do more), we will include the complete SOURCE PROGRAM foronly S20 additional.

Order your copy of ELIZA loday 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 IS AVAILABLE IN THE FOLLOWING FORMATS:

ARTIFICMJL INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH GROUP

■_««««««_. 921 North La Jolla Avenue. Dept B^^7^1 Los Angeles. CA 90046

^jjl^-w (213)656-7368 (2131654-2214(^^^^^■i mc VISA and checks accepted

u

APR

V. IheAr

APPLE WARE, RMC

Apple Users Group

Software Library Bonanza

At truly affordable prices!

For the? Iirsi Lime enjoy your

Apple to us fullest rapacity,

using specially packed disks

with over 60 outstanding

programs Bach.

[not, available (rum any other source]

Each packed disk includes an extensive variety ol

interesting, uselul and entertaining programs .

indispensable Lo all compuiensis1 Each mined category

packed disk includes

BUSINESS • EDUCATIONAL • DATA BASE • GAMES

UTILITIES • SCIENCE • MUSIC • GRAPHICS • FINANCE

Library Disks I, II and lil are mned categories Dedicated

disks are

• GAMES • UTILITIES ■ GRAPHICS ■ INTEGER ■

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY. Each packed disk is

available for only S59.95 each.

WHY PAY MORE?

Drder direct from this ad and Sawe up to S150. BuyLibrary Disks I, II and III and get a special bonus diskFREE over ?60 programs "for SI 79 95 * S3shipping For [.he best value, receive all 9 disks featuringover B0Q of our best programs for only 65C eachfor a package price of only 5389 Postage Paid1NEW BusnesS • Prolessonal • Executive Package (enablingvim Lu bring voui busness tu its lugnest level ol efficiency] alsoBvateble. dree Readers Sarvce Card fur mr complete caiatog

For Orders Only Call nowTOLL FREE: 1-800-327-8664Florida: 1-305-987-8665

lie, HI Eniul . ana Franklin Ace [For 3 3 DOS}

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 ISSCO)—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.

. 10801 Dale Sl./PO. Box 615

F_T_C3J Stanton, CA 90680

( DATA SYSTEMS <7,4> 995-3900

FTG will soon become PC INNOVATIONS

Circle 28 on inquiry card.

Circle 25 on inquiry card.

Circle 139 on inquiry card.

^FV FORMULA INTERNATIONAL INC. fe^i>

^^ -^^ 12603 Crenshaw Blvd., Dept. B, Hawthorne, CA 90250 ^^^^/

^^>. v^* For information (2131 973-1921 • Orders Onlw (nutsirip C.aMI \ fftOm fi79-R7";«

'/Y

V

pinecom

TM

Pioneer of Low CostApple* Compatible Computer

No Copyright Problems!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

and 64K RAM

00

499

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

i m #§. m i

mMmMM m

._ J

Model DP-64 Fully Assembled

$

650

00

AP-II COMPUTER A&T

Apple Look Alike

48K User Memory

Supports Upper & Lower Case

100% Apple II* Compatible

MICRON COMPUTER

100% Apple Compatible >

$

455

00

AP-II MOTHERROARD

Apple II+ * Compatible

48K Memory Space

8 Expansion Slots

Bare Board $69.95 ea.

Assembled & Tested ... .$295.00 ea.

No Copyright Problems!Model I 48K RAM .

Model II 64K RAM ..

PRINTER by Super-5

Parallel Interface (Centronics

Compatible) StandardMicroprocessor Electronics80cps Bidirectional with Logic Seeking96 Character ASCIIAdjustable Sprocket and Friction Feed

$26500

SEND ONE DOLLARFOR OUR DETAIL CATALOG

Model CP-80.

Shipping & Handling ChargesUnder $50.00 Over S50.00

$47500$51500

$55500

Model III 64K RAM w/Dual CPU..

(6502 for Applesoft & Z80A for CP/M)

Case and Keyboard Only $159.95

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 $99.95

80-Column Card 99.95

80-Column for Apple lie* 49.95

Z80 CP/M Card (no software) 99.95

16K RAM Card w/Cable 47.50

Parallel Printer Interface 85.00

Buffer for Printer Interface (16-64K)

Serial Printer Interface Card w/Adj. Baud

Disk Controller

Disk Controller DOS 3.2/3.3 Auto Select.EPROM Writer Card (2716/2732/2764)..

85.0085.0065.0075.0075.00

3M

DISKETTES

SALE

Single Sided / Double DensitySoft Sector

10 for

$

24

50

Inside California 10% 5%

Outside Calif. (Incl. Mexico & Canada) 15% 10%

Overseas 25% 20%

Circle 146 for Dealer Inquiries. Circle 147 for End-User inquiries.

Purchase

5%10%20%

Minimum Order $10.00/Calif. Residentsadd 6.5% Sales Tax. Phone Orders Acceptedon VISA or MC ONLY. NOC.O.D.'s. Prices sub-ject to change without notice.

STORE HOURS

MON-FRI—10-7

SAT—10-6

■Apple and Apple II are the trademark of APPLE COMPUTERS, INC.

C LANGUAGEPROGRAMMERS

c-systsmsC COMPILERc-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 printf or assembler leveldebugging!

c-window™ is a support package torthe c-ayatams C COMPILER for

8O86/8O88 based systems.

Contact.c-eyetem*

P.O. Box 3253

TM c-systems

Fullerton.CA 92634714-637-5362

ft

APPLE COMPATIBLE

Disk Drive $150.00 ea.

Controller Card $35.00 ea.

Computer Case $55.00 ea.

Keyboard $70.oo 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 lose. CA 95131

SUPER PRICE SAVER

Apple Hardware CALL

IBM PC System 2550.

Dynax 449.

Gemini 10X 279.

Okidata 92/93 439/799.

NEC 8023 399.

NEC 3550 1850.

Amdex 300/3100 129/167.

Lotus 123 319.

Rana Elites 239.

Tandon TM100-2 239.

Slim Dr. 5!/4" Apple/IBM 199.

Password 329.

Anchor Mark XII 300-1200 289.

Hayes 1200/1200B 469/429.

Koala Apple/IBM 78/98.

Micromodem He 259.

Quadram 64K 269.

Software 30% OFF CALL

Computer Price Club

16783 Beach Blvd., Huntington Beach, CA 92647

714-841-6160 _

NO CLUB FEE :•■

Circle 128 on inquiry card.

Circle 77 on inquiry card.

"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 NOW!$39.90 PRICE INCLUDES POSTAGE.Terms: MASTEH CAHD/VISA

The Continental Press, Inc., Elizabethtown, PA 17022Toll free: 800-233-0759 Collect in PA: (717) 367-1836

APPLE®-PROMEPROM BURNER CARD

All menu-driven software is provided alongwltn a complete user's manual. All com-mands are self-prompting, there are no per-sonality modules required and all voltagesare on-board card.BURNS EPROMS FEATURES

2708 2532 2732 "Auto erase verify

2716 2516 2764 "Auto burn verify

2732A 2564 * Partial burn capacity

mMnfz 'Low Insertion force

only 14995 socket

Now Available APPLE' -prom console unit!

Computer Technology AssociatesNew Products Division

1704 MOOn, N.E.

= = = (505) 298-0942specifications subject to change without notice.Apple is a registered trademark of Apple computer. Inc.visa/mc/ae Accepted

COMPILERfor 8080/8085/Z80

New version oi the compiler

The object code is COMPACTand is FASTEST iii current (' compiliOur "Sieve" program runs in

8.0 seconds (standard)and 6.2 seconds (optimized)

(See lanuary 1983 BYTE, pp 283-326)

for pamphlet write:P.O.Box 508 STA. CRUZCA. USA 95062

LSI JAPAN CO., LTD.

2-24-9 YOYOCI SHIBUYA-KU TOKYO (151J WRAMf'IIONL((Jl)!79-2427

Circle 89 on inquiry card.

Circle 79 on inquiry card.

Circle 221 on inquiry card.

CORONA

$2395

• 2 Dr. 320Kea.

• 128KRAM

• software

• RAM Disk

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

• EPSON FX 80 $535

• DYNAX DX-15 letter quality, 16 cps .. $429

• SILVER REED EXP-550 20 cps, 16'' wide $599

• OKI 92 160 cps DP, 40 cps correspdn . .$445

• OKI 84 200 cps DP, 50 cps correspdn $948

—Call for other items not listed—We meet or beat any price

MICROLAND 5223 Beechnut

Add 3% for MCA/ISA Houston, TX 77096COD 15% deposit (713) 668-4695

(ship same day order)

$2 credit tor long distance phone order

0 TeleVideo DEALERS

• Fasl Dump/Restore

over 600k per disk $60

• Type Ahead with Print Screen

64 Character Type Ahead Buffer $60

• 3270 8 2780/3730 Bisync Communications

from Phone 1 & Baleen $700 4 $300

• TurboDOS for TeleVideo Start at $225

• LYNC* Communications

Package $155

• 8" Disk Drive for 802 Computer

Drive & Software $1,100

• RM Cobol'" lor TurboDOS

Full System $525

Run Time $175

• Standby Power System

200VA-400VA-800VA As low as $363

RM/COL Is a registered trademark of

Ryan-McFarland Corp.

CP/M* is registered trademark of 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, Soulhfield, Ml 48034

(313)352-2345

VISA/MASTER CARD Accepted

Scotch'

DISKETTES

Call Toll-Free1-800-328-DISC for prices and infor-mation. Dealer inquiries invited.C.O.D. and charge cards accepted.All orders shipped from stock, within 24hours. Call toll FREE

AK

North Hills Corporation

3564 Rolling View Dr.

White Bear Lake, MN 55110

1-800-328-DISC

MNCall Collect 1-612-770-0485

Circle 247 on inquiry card.

Circle 57 on inquiry card.

COMPUTER DISCOUNT PRODUCTS

CDP guarantees the lowest available price!

You pay our discounted price or

the lowest advertised price in this issue.

Proof of price rests with customer Excludes typographical errors, items out ofstock & products sold through authorized outlets unless we are also authorized.

MICROSOFT SP/HMUtm inFOCOIR QUADRAMt

A.LD.S.

APPLESOFT COMPILER

BASIC COMPILER

COBOL COMPILER

FLIGHT SIMULATOR (IBM)

MOUSE (IBM)1 MULTI-TOOL BUOGETI MULTI-TOOL FIN. STMT.1 SOFTCARDII1 SOFTCARD PREMIUM (lie)1 64KIBMSYSTEMCARD1 WORD

MULTI-PLAN

75.99116.99239.99559.99

34.99129.99109.99

69.99215.99359.99295.99SCALL

165.99

'• APPLESOFTWARE

1 BPI (GL AP, AR. PAY. INV)

299.99

■ BR00ERBUND Arcade Machine

44.99

Bank Slreel Writer

44.99

Drol

27.99

Loderunner

26.99

■ CENTRAL POINT Copy 11+

25.99

1 OATAMOST Aztec

26.99

Kids & Apple. VIC. COMM. ea.

14.99

1 DATASOFT Canyon Climber

17.99

Zaxxon

29.99

1 DLM Alien Addition Sch-37.99. H-27,99

Alligaloi Mix Sch-37.99, H-27.99

Demolition Division Sch-37.99. H-27.99

Dragon Mix Sch-37 99.H-27.99

Meteor Multiplication Sch-37.99

H-27.99

Minus Mission Sch-37.99.H-; ■

Verb Viper/Word Invasion

37.99

Woid Man/Word Maslei

37.99

Woid Radar/Spelling Wiz

37.99

1 EPYX Crush Crumble Chomp

22.99

I HAYDEN Piewnler

94.99

Saigon II

26.99

1 LSS Crossword Magic

39 99

1 LEARNING CO Bumble Games

29.99

Bumble Plol

26.99

Gertrudes Puzzle

29.99

Juggles Rainbow

19.99

Magic Spell

26.99

Moplown Parade

26.99

Rocky's Boots

33.99

LIGHTNING Maslerlype

29.99

MICROLAB Oala Factory

229.99

Miner 20-49er

27.99

ODESTA CHESS

53.99

Odin

37.99

PENGUIN Graphics Magician

38.99

SIERRA ON LINE Froggei

24.99

Screenwriter II

89.99

Ultima It

4499

1 General Manager

169.99

1 ULTRASOFT Serpents Slar

29.99

Mask o! the Sun

29.99

1 VISICORP

Scall

1 MICROPRO

1 Infostar/Wordstar

259.99

| Wordstar Pro

389.99

ALPHABET ZOO (new)DELTA DRAWING

19 99

32.99

FACEMAKER

21.99

FRACTION FEVER (new)

21.99

KINDERCOMP

19.99

MOST AMAZING THING

26.99

SNOOPER TROOPS

2799

STORY MACHINE

21.99

APPLEHARDWARE

1 CDP 16K RAM CARD

39.99

Printer Card & Cable

39.99

Fan w/surge, 2 outlets

39.99

DAN PAYMAR Lower Case 1 (rev

1-6)25.99

Lower Case 2 (rev 7)

19.99

DARK STAR Snapshot II

89.99

FOURTH DIMENSION Drive

219.99

HAYES Micromodem lie

SCALL

HOME Repeal Key

19.99

KOALA PAD

89.99

KRAFT Joystick

44.99

KRAFT Paddles

31.99

LEGEND !28KRam

359.99

MICRO-SCI Drive

219.99

MOUNTAIN CPS Card

159.99

NOVATION Applecal II

25999

Applecal Upgrade 1200 Baud

309.99

ORANGE MICRO Grappler +

119.99

1 Bufterboard

119.99

1 Bufferd Grappler +

179.99

PADDLE ADAPPLE

24.99

SATURN 128K Ram

379.99

1 Accelerator II

444.99

1 Neptune 64 K

199.99

Neplune128K

29999

ALSCP/M3.0

279.99

..„ KENSINGTON?I MICROWARE

SYSTEM SAVER

• Surge Suppression

• Fits Apple Stand

• Dual Outlet

• U.L. Listed $£C

• GreatGift! DO

DEADLINE

ENCHANTER

PLANETFALL

SUSPENDED

WITNESS

STARCROSSZORKI, II, II

32.9932.9932.9932.9932.99

ea. 24.99

ACCESSORIES

1 3 Ring Disk Sheets (1D)

7.99 1

1 Flip 'n File (original)

17.99 1

1 Flip n File w/Lockliay (25)

17.99 1

1 Flip'n File w/Locklray (50)

27.99 1

1 HAYES300BaudSmailmodem

199.99 1

1 1200 Baud Smarlmodem

474.99 1

1 Library Case1 NOVATION J Cal

1.99 1

104.99 1

1 NOVATION 103/212 Aulo Cal

429.99 1

1 NOVATION 103 Smarl Cal

169.99 1

1 NOVATION Expansion Mod.

29.99 1

1 Power Strip w/surge

17.99 1

1 Printer Stand Small (plxgls)

24.99 1

1 Printer Stand Large (plxgls)

29.99 ■

1 RIBBONS-Brother

SCALL 1

1 MX&FX80

4.99 1

1 MX4FX100

7.99 1

1 OKI 82. 83. 92. 93 & Gem

2.99 1

1 USI Compumod RF MOD

34.99 1

1 Fingerprint

1 (Epson Enhancer) 44.99 1

380Z Letter-

Quality Printer 999.99 1

MONITORS

*MDEK SCALL 1'RINCETON RGB HZ-12 489.99 11UADCHR0ME RGBHX-12 499.99 1AXAN 12" Amber 18 mh 139.99 1AXAN 12" Gieen 18 mh 134.99 1JSI Pi 1 9" Green 20 mh 116.99 1JSI Pi 2 12" Gieen 20 mh 119.99 1JSI Pi 3 12" Amber 20 mh 146.99 1JSI Pi 4 9" Amber 20 mh 136.99 1JSI I400C Color Composite 288.99 1JSBORNE Monitor Cable SCALL 1le lo Princeton 139.99 1

TAXAN 420 RGB

(AP, IBM) 499.99

APIC (APPLE///PARALLEL)ERAM 80 column 64K HEMICROFAZEROUADBOARD I or II (64 K)OUADC0LORI0UADC0L0R II0UAD512+(64K)0UADCHR0ME MONITOR

129.99SCALLSCALL269.99234.9920999219.99499.99

QUADLINK479.99

1 <A Height DS/DD Drive

239.99 |

1 ALPHA Dala Base MGR II

169.99 1

1 Apple-IBM Connection

129.99 1

1 Executive Package

115.99 1

1 Typefaces

79.99 1

1 ASHTON TATE dBase II

SCALL 1

I Encyclopedia

59.99 1

1 Friday

SCALL 1

AST Boards

SCALL 1

BR0OERBUND Serpentine

26.99 1

1 CENTRAL POINT Copy II PC

25.99 1

E0UWARE Algebra 1

29.99 1

EPYX Ciush Crumble Chomp

22.99 1

1 Curse of Ra

14.99 1

1 Oil Barons

74.99 1

1 Temple ol Apshai

22.99 1

1 Upper Reaches of Apshai

14.99 1

HAYDEN Piewritei

129.99 1

HAYES 1200B Modem

439.99 1

KENSINGTON PC Saver

SCALL 1

KRAFT Joystick

44.99 1

LIFETREE Volkswriler

119.99 1

LIGHTNING Maslerlype

36.99 1

LOTUS 1-2-3

SCALL 1

MICROLAB Highrise

22.99 1

Miner 20-49er

27.99 1

NORTON Utilities

59.99 1

PC CRAYON

49.99 1

PC TUTOR

47.99 1

POOL 1.5

27.99 1

PLANTRONICS ColoiPlus

409.00 1

SIERRA ON-LINE Froggei

26.99 1

1 Ulysses & Golden Fleece

29.99 1

SIR-TECH Wizardry

44.99 1

SUBLOGIC Pintail

29.99 1

1 TG Joystick

44.99 1

TITAN 64K BOARD

499.99 1

VISICORP, Visicalc oi Visidex

164.99 1

1 Visilile, Trend/Plot. Schedule ea

199.99 1

Visilink

SCALL 1

1 Visi-on

SCALL 1

1 Visispell

179.99 1

1 visiword

269.99 1

EAGLE PC SCALL 1

B^^SS

ALPHA PLOTAPPLE MECHANICBEAGLE BASICDOS BOSSDOUBLE TAKEFLEX TEXTFRAME-UPPRONTO DOSTIP DISK #1TYPEFACESUTILITY CITY

24.9919.9924.9915.9924.9919.9916.9919.9914.9914.9919.99

ridex

ALL OF ABOVE 234.99

1 APPLE WRITER PRE-B0OT

14.99

1 CHARACTER ROMS

24.99

1 ENHANCER II

99.99

1 FUNCTION STRIP

34.99

HARDSWITCH

16.99

MICROMODEM CHIP

24.99

PS10

169.99

SOFTSWITCH

25.99

ULTRATERM

249.99

ULTRATERM PRE-BOOTS

SCALL

VIDEOTERM

19999

VIDEOTERM W S/S + INV

219.99

VISICALC PRE-BOOT

39.99

^^

ontinental

APPLE SOFTWARE 1983 BOOK

9.99

ATARI SOFTWARE 1983 BOOK

9.99

APPLE GRAPHICS BOOK

14.99

CPA (GL, AP, AR, PAY) ea

149.99

FCM/FL 1st CLASS MAIL (AP)

61.99

FCM/FL1stCLASSMAIL(IBM)

71.99

HOME ACCOUNTANT+(IBM)

84.99

HOMEACCNT.+IKAYPRO.OSB)

59.99

HOME ACCNT.+ (TI PRO)

119.99

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

299.99

TAX ADVANTAGE

39.99

HOME ACCOUNTANT

(Ap)

44.99

DISKETTES

DYSAN5"SS/DD(10)

31.99

DYSAN5"SS/DD(100)

299.99

MAXELL5"SS/DD(10)

27.99

MAXELL 5" SS/OD (100)

259.99

MAXELL 5" DS/DD (10)

37.99 i

MAXELL 5" OS/DO (100)

359.99

VERBATIM 5" SS/DD (10)

24.99

VERBATIM 5" SS/DD (100)

229.99

VERBATIM 5" DS/DD (10)

36.99

VERBATIM 5" DS/DD (100)

34999

ODyw) ds/dd

| 38.99/box 369.99/case

MAIL or PHONEYOUR ORDER:

860 S. Winchester Bl.

San Jose, CA95128

(408) 985-0400

SAN JOSE

860 S. Winchester Bl., San Jose, CA 951 28(408)985-0401 Daily 8AM-7PM Sat-Sun-Hol 1 0AM-5PM

SAN FRANCISCO: SAN MATEO:

1230 Market St..(415)626-2244 | 4228OlympicAve.,(41 5)571-1658Daily 10AM-7PM Sat-Sun-Hol 10AM-5PM

No Charge For Credit CardsPrices Subject To ChangeSoftware Sales Are FinalMin. $4.00 Shipping ChargePurchase Orders Cad First

INTERFACE

ns-a i/a BOARD

AUTOmOTIVt INDUSTRIAL R080TIC APPLICATIONS

• 16 CHANNEL CAPACITY

■ OPTICALLY ISOLATED I/O'i

• LATCHED OUTPUTS

■ COflPATABLE WITH fnQST NICR0PRXC5SORS

• USED IN SYSTEMS WITH R6502, Z6671 ANDTC6800 CPU'i

• CAPABLE OF DRIVING SOLID STATE RELAYSWHEN LARGER A.C. LDAD IS REQUIRED

■ HICH SPEED MACHINE CONTROL

• ALLOWS INTERFACING OF INDUSTRIAL SENSORSOPERATING AT VOLTAGES UP TO 30 VDC TOTHE 5 VDC MCRO BUS.

SPECIAL ORDERS FOR I/O BOARDS TO MEET YOURSYSTEMS NEEDS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST.

ONLY 1175.00 (O.E.ir. DISCOUNTS)

REGISTERED PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS ON STAFF

josko enterprises, inc.

290 NEW CHURCHRANS ROADNEW CASTLE, DELAWARE 1 97?0307-322-7666

PER IPHAPPLE

E RALSII AND

FORHe

ONE YEAR WARRANTY ON ALL ITEMSALL PRODUCTS BUILT IN U.S.A.

APPLE/SHUGART DRIVE (5'/<"|

S159

DISK CONTROLLER (DOS 3.2-3.3)

49

$ 9

80 COLUMN CARD

129

19

(VIDEX EQUIVALENT)

BO COLUMN WITH 64K RAM

129

28

(FOR He ONLV)

GRAPHER PRINTER INTERFACE

179

19

WITH16KT0 64K BUFFER

AND GRAPHICS

QUAD CARD (4 FUNCTIONS)

159

19

(PARALLEL, SERIAL BSR. CLOCK)

(PRINTER GRAPHICS ROM)

29

Z80 SOFTCARD

89

19

(MICROSOFT EQUIVALENT)

5'A" FLOPPY DRIVE ENCLOSURE

9

COLORADO COMPUTER PERIPHERALSTHE P.C.B. COMPANY

RR.6, B0X7-D GOLDEN, CO 80403

(303)278-7172

NOW!

Shugart Disk Drives.

Guaranteed to Work,Used 8 Inch Drives.

SA-800 S/S, D/D $190°° *

SA-850 D/S, D/D $290°° *

Call or write for Information on

our Low cost data acquisition,

for Industry or Home.

•Add S1000 shipping charge Inside

continental US.

While Supplies Last.

Call or Write: (513) 435-S440

See Data Corporation,

P.O. Box 773,

Dayton, Ohio 45459

We accept Via A Mastercard.Ohio residents add 6% sales tax.

Circle 196 on inquiry card.

Circle 58 on inquiry card.

Circle 328 on inquiry card.

Stepping-Motor Driver Boxwith on board BASIC in ROM

Controls Motion from any CRT or Computer

HOOKUP AND GO!Provides all required power

Drives 4 motors at up to 5 amps per windingwhile sensing 8 limit switches

STEPPING-MOTOR TIPS COOKBOOK: $8

with 3-0 software & schematicBIG STEPPER:

Parallel Version $495/card only $195

Smart Version (RS232) $850/with BASIC $985Centre Computer Consultants. (814) 237-4535

P.O. Box 739. State College, PA 16804

DATA ACQUISITION

and control for ANY computer

The Model 8232 communicates viaRS-232, and has 8 analog Inputs (0-5 VDC;8 bits), 8 digital inputs and outputs, and a2000 point buffer. Suitable for field datalogging or lab use, the 8232 costs only$540. Direct bus-connect unit for TRS-80/111 & 4 is $295. Detailed manual, $6.Phone our applications engineer or write:

+ + STARBUCKS +

* W DATA COMPANY W M

PO Box 24, Newton, MA 02162 (617) 237-7695

Is now offering their OEM quality highperformance Z80 based single boardmicrocompulers at a substantial savings

495

qq Includes:

- CP/M 2 2

i Daviclge UWiliesI Completely assembledburned m andleslea

These Boards Feature:

u 4 or 6 MHz' ■ 2 or 4 serial parts'

■ 5W and 8" floppy disk controller

■ 2K Boot ROM with monitor

■ 64K RAM ■ Centronics parallel port

■ High speed bidirectional parallel port

■ DMA Controller ■ SASI Interlace'

' Opiions

Send Check or Money Order to:Davidge Corporation1951 Colony Street, SuileXMountain View, California 94043or Call (415) 964-9497

Circle 48 on inquiry card.

Circle 343 on inquiry card.

Circle 108 on Inquiry card.

DEALER INQUIRIES INVITED

K1/i" sP90l,y soft

5* /I 10 or 16 Sectors prlces/10

MD525 1 aide/dbl dens $24.90

MD550 2 sldes/dbl dens 35.00

M0577 1 side/quad 96tpl 33.76

MD557 2 sides/quad 96tpi 44.50

8»»Specify Soft or 32 Sector

FD34-9000 1 side/sgl dens 28.00

FD34-8000 1 side/dbl dens 30.00

DD34-4001 2 sides/dbl dens 35.00

Checks-VISA-MC-C.O.D./Add $2 ShippingCall or write for our discount catalog.

LYBEN COMPUTER SYSTEMS

1250-E Rankin Dr., Troy, Ml 48083Phone: 13131 589-3440

DATALIFE • THE NAME IS THE PROMISETHE WARRANTY IS THE PROOF

PROMPT DELIVERY!!! |

S SAME DAY SHIPPING (USUALLY)

IC

DYNAMIC RAM

256K

150 ns

$85.00

64K

200 ns

5.97

64K

150 ns

6.09

64K

120 ns

6.97

16K

200 nsEPROM

1.56

27128

300 ns

$19.20

2764

250 ns

6.30

2732

450 ns

4.25

2716

450 ns

3.60

2532

450 ns

4.75

STATIC RAM

6264 P-15

150 ns

$35.97

6264LP-15

150 ns

40.00

6116P-3

150 ns

5.75

MasterCard VISA or UPS CASH COD

Factory New, Prime Parts -uPoo

MICROPROCESSORS UNLIMITED2-1,000 Souin Peoria Ave /01fl\ OfR7_ilQR1BEGGS. OK 74421 I'IB) ^Df-4»b1

PERSONAL SERVICE/FRIENDLY ADVICEDISCOUNT PRICES

MODEMS Retail

CUIC

Hayes Smartmodem 1200 B $599

$439

Smartmodem 1200 $699

$484

New: Hayes Mlcromodem 11 e

with Smartcom for Apple 11 e $329

$239

PRINTERS

Diablo 630 $2350

$1720

Dalsywrlter 48K with Buffer $1495

$999

Panasonic 1090 & 1160

cm

TERMINALS

Televldeo 925 $995

$695

950 $1195

$699

970 $1495

$985

MONITORS

Panasonic (New) D1300

25V.

composite color; compatible

Off

with IBM-PC.

Inquire about other Panasonic Monitors.

Please.. .call tor our surprising low prices. We carry anextensive line of all computer related products and

brands not mentioned above.

Circuit! World Electronic!, Corn. p*x"

156 Depot Rd. Huntington Station, N.Y. 11746 fy*^

CALL COLLECT(516)4239100

MasterCharge, Visa, Personal Checks Accepted.PrlceBaublect to change without notion.

Circle 222 on inquiry card.

Circle 250 on inquiry card.

Circle 52 on inquiry card.

DIGITAL RESEARCH COMPUTERS

(214) 271-3538

32K S-100 EPROM CARDPRICE CUT!

USES 2716sBlank PC Board - $34

ASSEMBLED & TESTEDADD $30

SPECIAL: 2716 EPROM's (450 NS) Are S4.95 Ea. With Above Kit.

KIT FEATURES1 Uses +5V only 2716 <2Kx8) EPROM's2. Allows up to 32K of software on line'3 IEEE S-100 Compatible.4. Addressable as two independent 16K

blocks5 Oomemco extended or Northstar bank

select6. On board wait state circuitry it needed

7- Any or all EPROM locations can be

disabled8. Double sided PC board, solder-masked.

silk-screened9 Gold plated contact fingers

10 Unselected EPROM's automaticallypowered down for low power

11 Fully buffemd and bypassed

12 Easy and quick to assemble

256K S-100 SOLID STATE DISK SIMULATOR!

WE CALL THIS BOARD THE "LIGHT-SPEED-100" BECAUSE IT OFFERSAN ASTOUNDING INCREASE IN YOUR COMPUTER'S PERFORMANCEWHEN COMPARED TO A MECHANICAL FLOPPY DISK DRIVE.

FEATURES:

* 256K on board, using + 5V 64KDRAMS.

Uses new Intel 6203-1 LSI MemoryController.

Requires only 4 Dip Switch SelectableI/O Ports.

Runs on 8080 or Z80 S100 machines.Up to 8 LS-100 boards can be runtogether tor 2 Meg. of On Line SolidState Disk Storage.Provisions for Battery back-up.Software to mate the LS-100 to yourCP/M* 2.2 DOS Is supplied.The LS-100 provides an increase Inspeed of up to 7 to 10 times on DiskIntensive Software.Compare our price! You could payup to 3 times as much for simitarboards.

BLANK PCB

(WITH CP/M' 2.2

PATCHES AND INSTALL

PROGRAM ON DISKETTE)

*69

95

# LS-100

*399

00

(FULL 256K KIT)

THE NEW ZRT-80

CRT TERMINAL BOARD!

A LOW COST Z-80 BASED SINGLE BOARD THAT ONLY NEEDS ANASCII KEYBOARD, POWER SUPPLY, AND VIDEO MONITOR TO MAKE ACOMPLETE CRT TERMINAL. USE AS A COMPUTER CONSOLE, ORWITH A MODEM FOR USE WITH ANY OFTHE PHONE-LINE COMPUTERSERVICES.FEATURES:

* Uses a Z80A and 6845 CRTController for powerful videocapabilities.

* RS232 at 16 BAUD Rates from 75to 19,200.

* 24 x 80 standard format (60 Hz).

* Optional formats from 24 x 80(50 Hz) to 64 lines x 96 characters(60 Hz).

* Higher density formats require up to3 additional 2K x 8 6116 RAMS.

* Use* N.S. INS 8250 BAUD Rate Gen.and USART combo IC.

* 3 Terminal Emulation Modes whichare Dip Switch selectable. TheseInclude the LSI-ADM3A, the HeathH-19, and the Beehive.

* Composite or Spilt Video.

* Any polarity of video or sync.

* Inverse Video Capability.

* Small Size: 6.5 x 9 Inches.

* Upper & lower case with descenders.

* 7 x 9 Character Matrix.

* Requires Par. ASCII keyboard.

WITH 8 IN.

SOURCE DISK!

(CP/M COMPATIBLE)

64K S100 STATIC RAM

$199°?

NEW!

LOW POWER!RAM OR EPROM!

BLANK PC BOARDWITH DOCUMENTATION $55

SUPPORT ICs + CAPS$17.50

FULL SOCKET SET$14.50

FULLY SUPPORTS THE

NEW IEEE 696 S100

STANDARD

(AS PROPOSED)

FOR 56K KIT $185

ASSEMBLED ANDTESTED ADD $50

FEATURES:

* Uses new 2K x 8 (TMM 2016 or HM 6116) RAMs.

* Fully supports IEEE 696 24 BIT ExtendedAddressing.

* 64K draws only approximately 500 MA.

* 200 NS RAMs are standard. (TOSHIBA makesTMM 2016s as fast as 100 NS. FOR YOUR HIGHSPEED APPLICATIONS.)

* SUPPORTS PHANTOM (BOTH LOWER 32KAND ENTIRE BOARD).

* 2716 EPROMs may be installed In any ol top 48K.

* Any of the top 8K (E000 H AND ABOVE) maybe disabled to provide windows to eliminateany possible conflicts with your system monitor,disk controller, etc.

* Perfect for small systems since BOTH RAM andEPROM may co-exist on the same board.

* BOARD may be partially populated as 56K.

64K SS-50 STATIC RAM

$179°

(48K KIT)

NEW!

LOW POWER!RAM OR EPROM!

BLANK PC BOARD

WITH

DOCUMENTATION

$52

SUPPORT ICs + CAPS$18.00

FULL SOCKET SET$15.00

56K Kit $21964K Kit $249

ASSEMBLED ANDTESTED ADD $50

FEATURES:

* Uses new 2K x 8 (TMM 2016 or HM 6116) RAMs.

* Fully supports Extended Addressing.

* 64K draws only approximately 500 MA.

* 200 NS RAMs are standard. (TOSHIBA makesTMM 2016s as fast as 100 NS. FOR YOUR HIGHSPEED APPLICATIONS.)

* Board is configured as 3-16K blocks and 8-2Kblocks (within any 64K block) for maximumflexibility.

* 2716 EPROMs may be installed anywhere onBoard.

* Top 16K may be disabled in 2K blocks to avoidany I/O conflicts.

* One Board supports both RAM and EPROM.

* RAM supports 2MHZ operation at no extracharge!

* Board may be partially populated in 16Kincrements.

32K S100 EPROM/STATIC RAM

BLANK PCB WITH 2716CHAR. ROM, 2732 MON. ROM

«59

95

SOURCE DISKETTE - ADD $10

SET OF 2 CRYSTALS - ADD $7.50

$129

95

NEW!

FOUR FUNCTION BOARD!

FULL

EPROM KIT

$50.00

A&T = PROMADD S35.00

I NEW!!

BLANKPC BOARDWITH DATA

$39.95

We took our vary popular 32K S100 EPROM Card and addedadditional logic to create a more versatile EPROM/RAM Board.FEATURES:

SUPPORT

ICS

PLUS CAPS

$23.00

FULL

SOCKET SET

$18

# ZRT-80

(COMPLETE KIT,2K VIDEO RAM)

Digital Research Computers

P.O. BOX 461565 • GARLAND, TEXAS 75046 • (214) 271-3538

* Thli on* board can be used In any one of (our wayt:

A. As a 32K 2716 EPROM Board

B. As a 32K 2732 EPROM Board (Using Every Other Socket)

C. At a mixed 32K 2716 EPROM/2K x 8 RAM Board

D. Ai a 32K Static RAM Board

* Uses New 2K x 8 (TMM2016 or HM8116) RAM'i

* Fully Supports IEEE 696 Bun Standard (At Proposed)

* Supporti 24 Bit Extended Adrettlng

* 200 NS (FASTI) RAM'S are standard on the RAM Kit

* Support! both Cromemco and North Star Bank Select

* Supporti Phantom

* On Board wait State Generator

* Every 2K Block may be disabled

* Addressed as two separate 16K Blocks on any 64K Boundary

* Perfect for MP/M* Systems

* RAM Kit It very low power (300 MA typical)

32K STATIC RAM KIT —$129.95

For RAM Kit A&T - Add S40

TERMS: Add $3.00 postage. We pay balance. Orders under $15 add 75«handling. No C.O.D. We accept Visa and MasterCharge. Tex Res. add 5%Tax. Foreign orders (except Canada) add 20% P & H. Orders over $50, add85C for insurance.

*TM OF DIGITAL RESEARCH INC. (CALIF.)

WE ABE NOT ASSOCIATED WITH DIGITAL RESEARCH INC. (CALIF.) THE SUPPLIERS OF CPM SOFTWARE

BYTE February 1984 517

of looking for reliableSource of Supply?

c3

from Looking???

aboutQUALITY??

RIBBONS +

ALL PRINTERS

SUPER SALEDISCOUNTS

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/MAXELL DISKS

Circle 200 on inquiry card.

WHOLESALE

tsssm

U. S. Robotics 1200/300 Baud

Password 359.00

IBM PC Modem Card 359.00

wrth 64K Ram 559.°°

with 256K Ram 925.Uil

S100 Modem Card 359.°°

Auto Dial 469 M

„,li;iH.l-'

Silver Reed

EXP 500P (16 CPS Daisy Wheel 10" PAH) . . 489."

EXP500S (16 CPS Daisy Wheel 10" SEP.) .. 539."

Daisy Writer

2000-46K Buller (20-40 CPS/PAR) ... 1099."

OKI-DATAMicroline 82A (Ser/Par 120 CPS 10") . 349. °°

Microline 92 (Par 160 CPS 10") 489."°

(Free shipping & handling in Continental USA)

Order Toll Free 1-(800) 821-5339

3C or Call 1-(801) 298-0872 3$

or Rush Check or Money Order To:

G. R. E. Wholesale Products

P. O. Box 361 N.S.L., Ut. 84054

Circle 94 on inquiry card.

WHOLESALE

3B3BJS

5V«" Soil Sector Bulk/10

Bulk/100

SS/SD 17.50 15.95/10

SS/DD 18.50 16.95/10

DS/DD 23.95 19.95/10

7 Year Gaurantee!S3.00 Shipping & Handling in Continental USA

Ribbon Type 3 6 12

Apple DMP 5." ea. 5.*!

C Itoh Prownter (all models) 5-*1 ea. 5."

C lloh F10 40/55 Mulli-Slnke 5.^ ea. 4*

Diablo Hytype II Multi-Strike 5.9i ea. 4."

Epson/IBM FX/RX/MX-80 ... 5.91 ea. 4*

Epson/IBM FX/RX/MX-10O . . 9." ea 8.''

Gemini 10/1OX/15/15X 2." ea. 2.':

NEC 3500 Multi-Strike 7.,s ea. 6.69 ea. 5.b-p ea

Okidata 80/82/B3/92/93 2." ea. 2." ea. 2." ea.

Olher Ribbons — — CALL

Ship * Hand in Cont. USA , 3." Free Free

Order Toll Free 1-(800) 821-5339

2£ or Call 1-(801) 298-0872 39

or Rush Check or Money Order To:

C. R. E. Wholesale Products

P. O. Box 361 N.S.L., Ut. 84054

CONTROL THE WORLD!

The SYS-3A is a low cost, powerful microcontrollercard with a Tiny BASIC language. Used in robotics,energy management, process control, science andeducation. Contains everything needed to write,debug, and permanently store programs that autorun on powerup. The 46 input/output lines includeA/D, D/A, TTL I/O, and high current drivers. Multi-ple input ranges and drive capabilities. 4K RAM,4K EPROM space, 2K software, & Tiny Basic in-cluded. I/O and memory expandable. Programsboth EPROM's and EEPROM's. RS-232C portconnects to CRT terminals, printers, or personalcomputers. Software, hardware, peripheral cardsavailable. 4.5" x 6.5". 5V operation.

OCTAGON SYSTEMS CORPORATION

6501 W. 91st Ave., Westminster, CO 80030

(303) 426-8540

Circle 273 on inquiry card.

afm SAVE MORE

\/m THAN EVER ON

T~ / 3M Scotch' / DISKETTES

1 $-195 "W$O70 M-

1 ^^~ 5V„- DSDD ^T """""■ Qty. 20 (745)— ^— Qty 20

SPECIALISave even morelOrder 50 or more 3M diskette! before March 15,1984 and save an extra ten cents per diskette.

5V*~ DSQD—96TPI (747) . . .

$3.95 ea.$2.07 ea.$2.54 ea$3.30 ea.

.20 per 10ling + .30"ERCARD,is custom-

lois 60611

8' SSSD (740)

8 SSDD (741). .. .

8 DSDD (743)

Shipping: 5'/«" Diskettes Only: 51.75 Handling +diskettes ordered. S" Diskettes Only: $2.00 Hancper 10 diskettes ordered. Payment: VISA, MASC.O.D. ($3.00 extra charge) or check. Taxes: lllincersonlyadd8%.

For fast service call

Nationwide: 1-800-621-6827

In Illinois: 312-944-2788

DISK WORLD!

Suite 4806 • 30 East Huron Street • Chicago. Illi

Authorized DistributorInformation Processing Products

3M

CUIE

PERSONAL SERVICE/FRIENDLY ADVICEDISCOUNT PRICES

Retail CUIE

SuperCalclll $395 $259

SuperCalcl&ll Call

Lotus 1-2-3 $495 $325PFS: File

IBM $140 $105

Apple.. $125 $95

We sell a complete line of software and games;specializing in Educational and Business Pro-grams.

Circuits Work! Electronic!, Corp.

156 Depot Rd. Huntington Station, N.Y. 11746

CALL COLLECT(516) 423-9100

MaslerCharge, Visa, Personal Checks Accepted.Prices subject to ctiange without notice.

O Dysan

*/ DISKETTES

5*

U»

£=3£L.*IO$50 ^00

tOMD

104-ID104-20Z04-1D204-2D

SSSDSSDDDSDDSSQDDSQD

33.0035.0041.0041.0048.50

160.00 310.00

172.00 340.00

200.00 395.00

200.00 395.00

240.00 475.00

8

55

Unformatted3740-1 SSSD

3740-10 SSDD3740-2D DSDD

$10 $"50 $100

34.0042.5050.00

167.50 330.00210.00 415.00247.50 490,00

CALLTOLL FREE800-824-7888

OPERATOR 906

(VISA M.C., COD.

ORDERS ONLY)

7D..V5 e Week, 24Hours a Day

(408) 252-4210

M-F, 8:00 AM-5:00 PM

FOR NEXT DAY

SHIPMENT

Inquiries Also

"fteatLvlti

•Add $2.00 Shipping

uni

itecl

Per Order 1741 Saratoga Avenue, Suite «201

. CA Residents Add SalesTax ■"■ io". £»»«*» •*■

Send forOur Free Catalogue* Dealer Inquiries Invited

Circle 96 on inquiry card.

EPROMPROGRAMMERS+ UV ERASERS

from $49.95

LOGICAL DEVICES INC.

Mete Rekalulihf, and

Gu£tom&i> Supp&it

U, off Qtitmoit 9mpxrttance,

SEE OUR AD ON PAGE 18

QS0OQQQ

305-974-0967

Circle 217 on inquiry card.

APPLE USERS:

REGAIN CONTROL!

APPLE STOP CARD

•FREEZES THE ACTION OF ANY PROGRAM OR

GAME WITH THE FLIP OF A SWITCH•HANDLE INTERRUPTIONS WITHOUT ABORTING

YOUR PROGRAM•GREAT FOR GETTING HIGHER GAME SCORES

ANOFOROEBUGGING•INSTALLS THROUGH SIDE VENT SLOTS•NO TOOLS REQUIRED•USEABLE IN APPLE II AND COMPATIBLE

COMPUTERS

•90 DAY LIMITED WARRANTY•$29.95 PLUS J2 SHIPPING. CHECK, M.O..MASTERCARD OR VISA

ANTELOPE COMMUNICATIONS

P.O. Box 4116

Madison, Wl 53711

Apple Is a trademark of Apple Computers, Inc.WISC residents add 5% sales tax.

A

Circle 95 on inquiry card.

Circle 53 on inquiry card.

Circle 23 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 100terminal-14"Green ... $699

WS Prom Option - Installed $50

Mitsubishi 8" DSDD drives, full or halfheight. Set-up FREE OF CHARGE .. $449

Okidata 82 $389/83 $619

84 .. $1029/92 .. $469/93 .. $779AshtonTatedBASEII8" or MD ... $299Supercalc86-forCP/M86SMP/M .$99

Visual Terminals in stock Call

LearSieglerADM 20 $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:

INTRODUCTORY PRICE:

$3,399

OUR OWN IN-HOUSE ENGINEEREDCUSTOM COMPUPRO SYSTEMS

CCT-1 - ENTRY LEVEL S*-10*0 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 •

• 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 WORLD!! * *

Enclosure 2-Desk • 90K Baud Parallel Terminal Board • 78 Key Professional Ergonomic KeyboardCPU 8086-10Mhz • Disk 1 • 512K M-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, Complete CCT Assembly, Testing, & Minimum 20 HourBurn-in

RUNS ALL CP/M 86 SOFTWARE - ULTRA FAST - INCLUDES 12 MONTH DIRECT WARRANTY* * CCT-3 - WMhz 68K System similar to above, with 128KRAM $6,699 * *

imuuuuiunT rmot

$6,799

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 A&T, BURNED IN: 816AS4299 816B-$4999 816C-$6499

M-Drive CP/M-Blowout-$39 • Disk1w/CP/M-$449 • M-Drive/H-512K-$1149

CPU 8085/88-S319 • CPU8086/87-$579/10Mhz-$659 • CPU68K-$519/10Mhz-$639 • CPU-Z-$249

CPU286-$1249/10Mhz-$1359 • Disk 1-$369 • Disk 2-$599 • Disk 3-$599

RAM17(12Mhz)-$329 • RAM 16(12Mhz)-$359 • RAM 21 (128K)-$779 • RAM 22(256K)-$1399

Interfacer 1-$229 • Interfacer 2-$249 • Interfacer 3-5-$399/3-8-$459 • Interfacer 4-$349

System Support 1-$299 • Enclosure 2-Desk-$599/Rack-$649 • 20 Slot Motherboard-$210

CP/M80-S99 • CP/M86-$150 • MP/M8-16-$699 • 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

* 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(22Megj-$2299

?? HARD DISK DECISIONS ? ?

Hard/Floppy Combinations

An exclusive CCT innovation. CCT/Fujitsu/Mitsubishiultra-system: 5V<" 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. Freeware for your system. Plug-in and go. Arizona Residents add sales tax. CompuPro* Trademark — W.J. Godbout

technical help to anyone. We can configure boards & sott-; CP/M* MP/M* Trademarks - Digital Research

Circle 101 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 519

WE LOVE TO PASSTHE BUCK!

W? v.iJJ do uurbest to Ik'hi anycompetitor's price.

WE WANT YOUR BUSINESS!

DNMMIC MM

Z80 FAMILY

41644104411841 IB

B118P3

61I6LP36264P 15

58725

27B4

2784273!2732271827181

2801

200nt 15.30

15»!i 5.50

200ni 1.80

150™ 1.75

150ni 15.10

150nt 5.80

ISOni 35.00

ISOni 5.00

300n>

250ni450ni350ni450ni

351ii

15.805.804.104.853.504.70

CPU. CTC. P10 13.00

0*flT 9.00

Ml*. SIOJ0I2 13.00

Z80B CPU. CTC. PIO 11.00

NORTHWEST MICROCHIPS DISTRIBUTORS1730 Vim Ofivi S £. Part OrEjunt, Wit II3IB

12011 17112»1 lull nttotl

TERMS STOOD Minimum Order. Money Order. Cashiers Check, UPSCOO, Washington Residents add 7.8% lax. Shipping and insuranceeitra. Quantity discounts available. Ask tor our catalog.PRICES SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

(6502 & Z-80 dual processor) 64K COMPUTERS(Apple compatible) in super modern styles. USS420

US5425 IBM pc look alike case

•(Above prices exclude drives, monitor) & keyboard

•Add 5% as shipping charge US$450

(Detail brochure forwarded on request)•We also sell cases, keyboards, power supplies,

motherboards, components separately and interfaces.• Full repair & guarantee available•Assembled in Canada with CS.A. (Shipment from WA., U.S.A.)ABC COMPUTERS LTD. (6 stores In B.C. Canada)643 E. HASTING ST., VANCOUVER, B.C. CANADA VSA 2ZSPH: (604) 254-2634 & 254-1062 Dealer Inquiries welcome

Apple Is a registered trademark ol Apple Computer Inc.

LIFETIME WARRANTY

GENERIC SERIALCOMMUNICATION CARD

For Apple II +' and Apple He

The Generic Serial Communication Card(GSCC) Is an asynchronous device that sup-ports all protocol needed for tull handshakecommunication (Hardware DTR, CTS, RTS andSoftware XON, XOFF). The board features 3 se-lectable options: Baud Rate from 110 to 9600,Full or Half Duplex and Auto Linefeed On or Offthat are software selectable. And the 3 optionscan be controlled without burning a new EPROM.

Special Introductory

0„P095

■ iai iniroauc

79!

plus shipping

and handling.

Dealer Pricing Available.

Computer Technology Associates

_.. jgjji === ^= New Products Division

I ■ I 1704 Moon, N.E.

= ■ ^^ Albuquerque, N.M. 87112

58 SHI (505) 298-0942

Specifications subject to change without notice.Apple is a registered trademark of AppleComputer, Inc. VISA/MC/AE Accepted

Circle 271 on Inquiry card.

Circle 8 on inquiry card.

Circle 80 on inquiry card.

T L

Relocatable

Threaded

Language

$150

RTL is a new language which retains thespeed and extensibility of Forth but adds manyadditional advantages as a result of its morestructured dictionary. Names, code, and vari-ables are all stored in separate areas for easygeneration of headerless, romable code. Allcode is relocatable. RTL supports local vari-ables, multitasking, redirected I/O, and evenallows definitions to be changed retroactively.All source code is included. Versions are cur-rently available or under development for68000. 6809, 8080, 280, 8086, 8088, and6502.

RTL Programming Aids

10844 Deerwood SELowell, Ml 49331(616)897-5672

INDUSTRIAL CONTROLMICROCOMPUTERS

We have six single board computers, twovideo boards and 20 other control products.You can use our products for securitysystems, heat control, light control, auto-mated slide show, traffic lights, irrigationsystems, home computer systems, auto-mated process control, and robot control justto name a few. OEM prices available. Forcatalog call or write to:

JOHN BELL ENGINEERING,

1014 CENTER STREET

SAN CARLOS, CA. 94070

(415)592-8411

INC.

Serial 4 ■ ' ■''''' ■ ► Parallel

PRINTERS!PLOTTERS!PUNCHES!ROBOTS!

Convert What You HaveTo What You Want!

* RS232 Serial * Centronics Parallel' 8 Baud Rates * Handshake Signals

* Latched Outputs * Compact 3'., x <S x r.

No longer will your peripheral choices be limited by the Jypeol port you have available! Our new High Performance 700Series Converters provide the missing link. Baaed on thelatest In CMOS technology these units feature tull baudrate selection to 1Q.2K, with handshake signals to maximizetransfer efficiency. Detailed documentation allowssimplified Installation. Order the Model 770 (Sar/Par) orModel 775 (Par/Ser) Todayl

only'BS."

Connector Option S10.00CA Rssldsnii flv, laxUPS Shipping t3.00

1501-BPlnaStraetPoit Office Bon 2J33Oxnird, C.iiform. 93O30

CALL (805) 487-1665 or 487-1666For FAST Delivery

Circle 318 on inquiry card.

Circle 35 on inquiry card.

Circle 132 on inquiry card.

Maxell Floppy Disks

The Mini-Diskswith maximum quality.

Dealer inquiriesinvited. C.O.D'saccepted. CallFREE (800) 235-4137.

PACIFIC EXCHANGES

100 Foothill Blvd.. San LuisSan Luis Obispo. CA 93401.In Cal. call (800) 592-5935 or(805)543-1037.

CHIPS* p,

THE INFLATION F1GHTERSI

4116

200ns

8/$ 12.00

4116

150ns

B/S13.75

21141.

300ns

8/8 12.00

2114L

200ns

8/$ 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

zboa.zboactc

$3.50 each

ZBOAP10

$4.00 each

8251A

$4.00 each

8255

$4.25 each

2716-1

5V 350ns

8/S4.25 $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

2564

5V

CALL

SOB 7

CALL

68000

CALL

Allow up to 3 wks. for personal checks lo clear. Please includephone number. Prices subject to change without notice. Shipping CHandling tor Chips S3.50. FOB Bellevue. WA. for all else.Washington state residents add 7.9% Sales Tax.

CHIPS 6 DALE

10655 N.E. 4th St., Suite 400

Bellevue, WA 98004

1-206-451-9770

SMITH-CORONA

Memory Correct III Messenger

PRINTER & TYPEWRITER

• RS232 SerialCentronics Parallel

• Multiple Pitch 10,12,15

UNBELIEVABLE!

$539.00

CALL COLLECT: 214/826-6521

FIGURE LOGIC

BUSINESS EQUIPMENT, INC.

6408 Gaston Ave. ■ Dallas, Texas 75214

Circle 284 on inquiry card.

Circle 51 on inquiry card.

Circle 143 on inquiry card.

A

CCESSORIESfor your

IBM PC

Computer Products

SIX PAK PLUS—AST

Up to 384K RAM. Clock calendar with battery back-upSenal port. Parallel printer port, optional game port.Super drive and super spool software included FREE!

64K, C,S,P (Lis! Price 39500) S269.95

256K, C.S.P (List Price 665.00) S489.95

For Game Port Option Add (list Price 50.00) - S39.95

MEGA PLUS—AST

Up to 512K RAM, clock calendar with battery back-up,2 serial ports, parallel printer port, game port. Superdrive and supetspool software included FREE1

64K, C,S (List Price 395.00) $269.95

256K, C, 1 serial (List Price 665.00) S429.95

512K, C, 1 serial (List Price 1059.00) S795.00

Second serial port option (List Price 50.00) _ S39.95

Printer port option (List Price 50.00) $39.95

Game port option fUsf Price 50.00) $39.95

Each additional 64K, Add (List Price B9.95) _ S44.95

COMBO PLUS—AST

Up to 256K RAM. Clock with battery back-up. Serialport. Parallel port, superspool software included FREE!

64K, C.S.P (List Price 395.00) $269.95

256K, C.S.P (List Price 695.00) $419.95

I/O PLUS—AST

Up to 2 serial ports, parallel printer port, clockcalendar with battery back-up, Superdrive and super-spool software included FREE!

Clock & 1 serial port (List Price 165.001 $129.95

Printer port option (List Price 50.00) $39.95

Second serial port option (List Price 50.00) ._ $39.95Game port option (List Price 50.00) ___ $39.95

QUADBOARD I—QUADRAM

Up lo 256K RAM. serial port, parallel port, clockcalendar. RAM disk, and printer spooler software

. $214.95. $275.00. $399.95

Quadboard w/o RAM (List Price 295.00)64K Quadboard (List Price 395.00) .256K Quadboard (List Price 595.00)

QUADBOARD II—QUADRAM

Two serial ports, clock/calendar, memory expansion,and Quadmaster software

Quadboard II. 64K (LIU Price 395.00) $275.00

Quadboard. 256K (List Price 595.00) 5399.00

QUADLINK—QUADRAM

Allows IBM PC to run Apple software, includes interfacecard and software to allow your IBM PC lo run bothApple DOS and PC DOSQuadlink (List Price 680.00) $485.00

SYSTEM CARD—MICROSOFT

From the authors ol PC-DOS—up to 256K RAM, serialport, parallel printer port, clock calendar, plus RAMdrive disk emulation software, print spooler, timeutilities, and terminal emulation software. DOS 1.1 or2 0 compalibte

64K system card (List Price 395.00) $279.95

256K system card (List Price 625.00) $429.95

HI-RES COLOR MONITORS

Only the best: Quadchrome or Princeton HX-12. 690 x480 resolution. 16 brilliant colors, special .31mm dotpitch tube, includes FREE! cable

Quadram Quadchrome (List Price 795.00) $549.95

Princeton Graphics HX-12 (List Price 695.00) $529.95

AMDEK MONITORS

Full line of high quality monochrome and color video

monitors

Video 310 Amber (IBM) (List Price 230.00) _ $159.95

Color II (RGB) (List Price 529.00) $429.95

Color III (RGB) (List Price 449.00) $399.95

Color IV (Analog RGB) (LiSt Price 995.00) _ $775.00

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 portHercules graphic card (List Price 499.00) $359.95

PLANTRONICS COLOR PLUS

Up to 16 colors, 80 characters, bi-planar technology,

includes parallel printer port

Plantronics Color Plus (List Price 559.00) $429.95

QUADCOLOR I & QUADCOLOR II

Quadcolor I delivers standard IBM PC color andgraphics, add Quadcolor II and hi-resolution (640 x 200)color graphics are possible

Quadcolor I basic board (Lis! Price 295.00) _ $234.95Quadcolor II add on (List Price 275.00) $229.95

64K RAM UPGRADE For IBM PC

with parity (error_ $49.95

High speed RAM upgrade kitdetection) and one year warranty64K kit for IBM PC (List Price 89.95)

THE BEST SOFTWARE For IBM PC

We have taken the top rated programs and reducedthe price for a super value!LOTUS 12 3 Best spreadsheet

Lotus 1 2 3 (1A) (List Price 495.00) $329.95

dBASE II Best Data base

Ashton-Tate dBASE II (List Price 700.00) $429.95

CROSSTALK Best communications packageMicroStulf Crosstalk (List Price 195.00) $129.95

DISKETTES For IBM PC

High quality double-sided, double-density diskettes,certified to be absolutely error free. Box of ten.warranteed for one year

Box ot10 w/FREE! plastic case (List Price39.95) $24.95Verbatim Datalife (List Price 49.95) - $34.95

PLACE ORDERS TOLL FREE!

Continental USA(800)421-5500

Inside California(800)262-1710

JADE IS AN AUTHORIZED DEALERFOR EPSON, OKIDATA, TOSHIBA,MANNESMAN-TALLY, C.ITOH, etc.CALL FOR BEST PRICE!

NEC 3550 LETTER QUALITY

Only fully IBM PC compatible letter quality printer

available—why settle lor less? (35 CPS)

NEC 3550 printer (List Price 2350.00) 51799.95

HARD DISK For IBM PC

Hard disk with controller, software, and P/S

5MB system (List Price 1995.00) $1395.00

10MB system (List Price 2495.00) $1699.00

15MB system (List Price 2995.00) $2199.00

KEYTRONICS KEYBOARD

Similar to the IBM PC keyboard, but with all the keys in

the right places'

Keylronics/IBM (List Price 299.95) $199.95

320K DISK DRIVES

Tandon TM-100-2 doubie-sided. double-density 320Kdisk drive. Original equipment drive on IBM PC

Full size Tandon (List Price 395.00) $224.95

Half-height 320K drive (List Price 395.00) $199.95

Teac Half-height (List Price 395.00) $239.95

BEST MONITORS AVAILABLE!

Ultra-high resolution, up to 22 MHz. 1000 lines perinch, amber or green phosphor. FREE! tilt and swivelbase US manufacturer

12 inch green, 22 MHz List Price 249.00 $149.95

12 inch amber, 22 MHz List Price 249.00 $149.95

9 inch green, 18 MHz List Price 239.00 $139.95

9 Inch amber, 18 MHz Lis! Price 239.00 $139.95

12-inch GREEN MONITOR—Zenith

15 MHz. 40 or 80 column

12 inch Green List Price 149.00 $94.95

AMDEK MONITORS

Full line of high quality monochrome and color videomonitors

Video 310 Amber (IBM) List Price 230.00 $159.00

Video 300 Green List Price 179.00 $135.95

Video 300 Amber List Price 199.00 $149.95

Color-I (composite) List Price 379.00 $289.95

Color-ll (RGB) List Price 529.00 $429.95

Color-ll plus (analog RGB) List Price 559.00 S439.95

Color-Ill (RGB) List Price 449.00 $399.95

Color-IV (analog RGB) List Price 995.00 $775.95

DVM-2 (Apple ll/ll I) List Price 179.00 $129.95

DVM-80E (Apple lie) List Price 195.00 $139.95

Los Angeles Area(213)973-7707

Circle 190 on inquiry card.

We accept cash, checks, credit cards, or purchase orders from qualified firms and institutions.

Prices quoted are for prepaid orders only and are subject to change without notice.

Minimum prepaid order $15.00 California residents add 61/2% tax. Export customers outside 4907 West HOSeCraPS Ave.

the U.S. or Canada please add 10% to all prices. Shipping and handling charges via Hawthnrnt* California QHP^f)

UPS Ground 50C/lb UPS Air $1.00/lb minimum charge $3.00 HdWinume, ^dllivmid VVtOU

EPSON PRINTER *29995OKIDATA PRINTER *34995

EPSON PRINTERSSAVE At Least $150.00!

CALL US FOR THE BEST DEAL ON THE WORLDSBEST SELLING LINE OF PRINTERS!

EPSON RX-60 100 CPS w/lraclor. graphicsPRM-29082 A 499.00 Value. Save 20000 _ $299.95EPSON RX-80FT 100 CPS with FREE graphicsPRM-29084 Friction & Iraclor leed _ SAVE $150.00EPSON MX-80FT 80 CPS with FREE graphicsPRM-28082 Friction & tractor leed _ SAVE $150.00EPSON MX-100 100 CPS 15" platten

PRM-28100 Friction & tractor SAVE $150.00

EPSON FX-80 160 CPS with FREE graphicsPRM-29080 Friction & Iraclor leed . SAVE $150.00EPSON FX-100 160 CPS 15" plattenPRM-29100 Friction & tractor leed . SAVE $150.00

OKIDATA—Microline 92 & 93

160 CPS. true corerpondence quality printing, fullgraphics. IBM PC compatible (optional), handlessingle sheet as well as fan-told paper, professionaldesign construction and quality

Okl 92 parallel List Price 599.00 $479.95

Oki 93 parallel List Price 999.00 $795.00

2K serial board List Price 120.00 $99.95

IBM PC ROMs tor 92 List Price 59.95 $49.95

IBM PC ROMs for 93 List Price 69.95 $49.95

Extra Ribbon (2) List Price 19.95 $9.95

Tractor lor Okl 92 List Price 89.95 $54.95

MICROLINE 82, 83, & 84

120 CPS (82. 83) 200 CPS (84). industry standardprinters, serial and parallel interfaces, true lower casedescenders, handles single-sheet as well as fan fold

Oki 82 List Price 499.00 $349.95

Oki 83 w/FREE tractor List Price 749.00 $629.95

Oki 84 parallel List Price 1399.00 $925.00

Oki 84 serial List Price 1499.00 $995.00

2K serial board List Price 190.00 $159.95

Extra ribbons 82/92. 83/93 List Price 19.95 $9.95

Tractor lor Oki 82 List Price 89.95 $54.95

Ribbons lor 84 List Price 19.95 $9.95

GEMINI 10X& 15X

Star Micronics—up to 120 CPS. full graphics, frictionand tractor leed. Epson FX-80 compatible

Gemini 10X SAVE $150.00

Gemini 15X SAVE S150.00

Serial board, G-10, G-15 List Price 129.00 $69.00

Serial board, G-10X, G-15X List Price 59.95 _ $55.0010X, 15X 4K serial List Price 119.00 $99.95

LETTER QUALITY PRINTER $289.95

True letter quality printing at 12 CPS, Wordstarcompatible, handles 8 V' x 11 paper, friction/singlesheet leed, compact and portable, standard Centronicsparallel interfaceSAVE! Hundreds ot Dollars!! $289.95

NEW! DELTA 10

160 CPS, up to 16K bufter. serial and parallel inter-faces, graphics friction and tractor. FX-80 compatibleDelta 10 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

CR-II parallel Lisl Price 599.00 $495.00

CR-II serial List Price 644.00 . $589.95

Tractor option List Price 120.00 ___ S99.95

Cut sheet feeder List Price 259.00 $199.95

Keyboard option List Price 199.00 $179.95

STARWRITER F10

High speed letter quality printer, 40 or 55 CPS daisy-wheel. Extensive built-in word processing functions, upto 15 inch paper width Uses standard Diablo style printwheels

40 CPS, F10/parallel List Price 1895.00 S1125.00

55 CPS, F10/parallel List Price 1995.00 $1599.00

MANNESMAN-TALLY

Spiril, 80 CPS 10 inch parallel List Price 399.00 5329.00

160L, 160 CPS 10 inch List Price 798.00 5588.00

180L, 160 CPS 15 inch List Price 1098.00 $828.00

MICROFAZER—Quadram

The microfazer stand-alone printer buffers areavailable in any configuration of serial or parallelinput, with serial or parallel output All are expandableup lo 64K of memory (about 30 pages of 8% x 11 text),the parallel-to-parallel version is expandable to 512Kcopy and pause feature includedParallel/Parallel

$139.95

$164.95

128K List Price 445.00 $269.95

MICROBUFFERPractical Peripherals, Inc

Stand-alone Mlcrobufters

Parallel, 32K List Price 299.00

Parallel, 64K List Price 349.00

Serial. 32K List Price 299 00

Serial. 64K Lis; Price 349.00

8K List Price 169.0032K List Price 225.00

Serial/Parallel

8K List Price 199.00 _32K List Price 260.00

Parallel/Serial

8K List Price 199.00 _

32K List Price 260.00

Serial/Serial

8K List Price 199 00 .

32K List Price 260 00

$169.95$199.95

64K add-on board List Price 179.00

Microbulters for Apple IIParallel. 16K List Price 259,95Parallel, 32K List Price 299.95Serial, 16K List Price 259.95 _Serial, 32K List Price 29995

. 5229.95. $269.955229.95. 5269.95, 5149.00

$169.955199.95

Microbulters lor Epson PrintersParallel, 16K List Price 159.95 _Serial, 8K List Price 159.95

$189.95$229.95$189.95$229.95

. $129.95, $129.95

574 inch DISK DRIVES

TANDONTM 100-1 SS DD 48 TPI

List 349.00 $225 ea 2 for $195.00 ea

SHUGART SA 400L SS DD 48 TPI

List 299.00 5209.00 ea 2 for $199.95 ea

TANDON TM 100-2 DS DD 48 TPI

List 399.00 $229.00 ea 2 for $225.00 ea

5%" CABINETS/POWER SUPPLY

Single cab w/power supply Lisl Price 99.00 _ S69.95Dual Cab w/power supply List Price 129.00 _ $85.00

8 inch DISK DRIVES

SIEMENS FDD 100-8 Single sided, double density'

Lisl 399.00 $179.00 ea 2 tor $175.00 ea

SHUGART SA 801R Single sided, double density

List 502.00 5355.00 ea 2 for $349.00 ea

SHUGART SA-851R Double sided, double density

List 605.00 $459.00 ea 2 toi $455.00 ea

QUME DT-8 Double sided, double density

List 599.00 $479.00 ea 2 for $459.00 ea

TANDON TM 848-1 SS DD thin-line

List 499.00 $369.00 ea 2 for $359.00 ea

TANDON TM 848-2 DS DD thin-line

List 599.00 $439.00 ea 2 loi S435.00 ea

NEC FD1165 DS DD thin-line

List 599.00 5450.0 ea 2 foi 5440.00 ea

NECFD1164 SS DD thin-line

$360.00 ea 2 foi $350.00 ea

DISK SUB-SYSTEMS—Jade

Handsome metal cabinet with proportionallybalanced air flow system, rugged dual drive powersupply, cable kit, power switch, line cord, fuse holder,cooling fan, nevermar rubber feet, all necessaryhardware to mount two 8 inch disk drives, power supply,and fan. Does not include signal cableDual 8" Sub-Assembly Cabinet

Bare cabinet List Price 75.00 $49.95

Cabinet kit List Price 299.00 $199.95

A & T List Price 349.00 $249.95

8" Sub-System—Single sided, Double DensityKit w/2 Siemens FD100-8DS List Price 950.00 $579.00A& T w/2 Siemens FD100-8DS List Price 995.00 $595.00Kit w/2 ShugartSA-801 Rs Lisl Price 1195.00 $939.00A & T w/2 Shugart SA-801RS List Price 1295.00 $969.00

8" Sub-Syslems—Double Sided, Double Density

Kll w/2 Qume DT-8s List Price 1495.00 $1229.00

A & T w/2 Qume DT-8s Lisl Price 1595.00 . $1249.00Kil w/2 Shugarl SA-851 Rs Lisl Price 1495.00 $1199.00A & T w/2 Shugart SA-851 Rs List 1595.00 $1219.00

DUAL SLIMLINE SUB-SYSTEMS

Dual 8" Slimline Cabinet

Bare cabinet List Price 75.00

A & T w/o drives Lisr Price 249.00 .

_ $59.955164.95

Dual 8" Slimline Sub-Systems

Kil w/2 SS DD drives List Price 1195.00 $869.00

A S T w/2 SS DD drives Lisl Price 1295.00 $879.00Kit w/2 DS DD drives Lisl Price 1395.00 . $1060.00A & T w/2 DS DD drives Lisl Price 1495.00 $1099.00

DISK DRIVE POWER SUPPLY

Sufficient current to power up to three 8 inch drivesPower supply List Price 149.00 $89.95

$16995 PLACE ORDERS TOLL FREE!319995 Continental USA Inside California(800) 421-5500 (800) 262-1710

Los Angeles Area(213)973-7707

We accept cash, checks, credit cards, or purchase orders from qualified firms and institutions.Prices quoted are for prepaid orders only and are subject to change without notice.Minimum prepaid order $15.00 California residents add 6'/2% tax. Export customers outsidethe U.S. or Canada please add 10% to all prices. Shipping and handling charges viaUPS Ground 50<E/lb UPS Air $1.00/lb minimum charge $3.00

for your APPLE

J SUPER DISKETTE SPECIAL!

We bought out a mapr manufacturer's overstock,and we are passing the savings on to you! Single sideddouble density, package of ten with FREE plastic caseBox of 10 w/FREE plastic box List Price 34.95 $18.95

DISK DRIVE For APPLE

Totally Apple compatible. 143.360 bytes per drive onDOS 3.3 full one year warranty, half-trackcapability, reads all Apple software, plugs right intoApple controller as second drive. DOS 3.3, 3.2.1Pascal. & CP/M compatible

Standard Disk II size List Price 299.00 S199.95

Controller only List Price 99.00 $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!Half-height drive List Price 249.00 $199.95

DUAL 8-inch DISK DRIVE SYSTEM

Up to 2 Megabytes lor your Apple, two double density8 inch slimline disk drives, cabinet, power supply,cable, controller, and software Compatible with DOS.CP/M, Pascal and IBM 3740 formats

1 Megabyte Sub-system List Price 1995.00 . $1195.00

2 Megabyte Sub-system List Price 2495.00 _ S1395.00

PRINTER CARD AND CABLE

For Apple, standard Centronics parallel interface forEpson. Okidata. C Itoh. Gemini, NEC. Comrex, etc.Includes printer cable and support graphicsPrinter card & cable List Price 119.95 $49.95

CP/M 3.0 CARD For APPLE—ALS

The most powerful card available lor your Apple!

6 MHz. Z-80B. additional 64K RAM. CP/M 3.0plus. 100% CP/M 2,2 compatibhty. C Basic, CP/Mgraphics. 300% faster than any other CP/M for AppleALS CP/M 3.0 card List Price 399.00 $299.00

BUFFERED GRAPPLER PLUS

Combines the flexibility of the Grapplen with theconvenience of the Bufferboard, all on a single boardBuffered Grappler- w/64K List Price 245.00 $175.00

FAN/POWER CENTER For APPLE

Cooling fan for your overheated Apple II, lit. or lie;also includes power switch and two switched outletswith voltage protection circutryApple fan List Price 99.95 $59.95

NEW! MICROMODEM lie—Hayes

The standard in direct-connect. plug-in-modem cardslor Apple. 110-300 baud Includes FREE Smartcom IMicromodem lie List Price 299.95 $239.95

KOALA PAD—Koala Tech.

A touch sensilive pad that functions like a joystick or

mouse, allowing you to move Ihe cursor around the

screen with the touch of a finger. Complete with

software

Koala Pad List Price 124.95 $99.95

16K RAM CARD For APPLE II

Expand your Apple II to 64K. use as language card.

full one year warranty Why spend $175.00?

16K RAM Card List Price 99.00 $49.95

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 warrantyZ Card with CP/M 2.2 List Price 169.00 $139.95

GRAPPLER PLUS—Orange Micro

The ultimate parallel printer graphics interface cardwith many new features, now at a new low price!Grappler Plus List Price 175.00 $119.95

60 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 column selection fromkeyboard. 2 year warranty. Best 80 column card!

Viewmax 80 List Price 219.00 $139.95

Visicalc/Easywriter Preboot List Price 30.00 _ $24.95

64K STATIC RAM—Jade

Uses new 2K x 8 static RAMs. fully supports IEEE 696Bare board 1 i*< Pnrp fit) nn $4Q 95

$89.95

15K bit / ,tl Prire ??Q f)0

S169.95

56K kit List Price 299.00

S225.95

64K kit List Price 399.00

S265.95

Assembled & Tested List Price 50.00

EXPANDORAM III

High density memory board, 64K. 128K. a

RJK ; forf Price 475 00

_ add $30.00

r 256 K

$39« 95

128K Lis! Price 595.00

$464 95

192K List Price 709.00

$554 95

ICfM 1 (J) Priro H95 nn

S5B9 95

1/0-4 SSM MICROCOMPUTER

Two serial I/O ports plus two parallel I/O ports

1/0-4 AST 1 1st Price ?onnn SJ45 95

ISO BUS—Jade Computer

Silent, simple and on SALE! A better motherboard

6 Slot (&/," x 8%") 19 MHzfi KIM Bare hnarH 1 fsf Prire 40 nn S?? 95

6 SIM Kit 1 ill Prire fif) nn

$.19 95

K RIM A A T / i.ftf Prim 75 nn

$49 95

12 Slot (9'/," x 8%") 10 MHz12 Slot Bare board List Price 54.00

$.14 95

19 Slot kii / M Prim unnn

$69 95

10 RIM 4 «, T I faf Prlr-c IM m

$09 85

18 Slot ff4Vi" x 8%") SMHz

$54 95

$99 95

$139.95

SBC-200 SD Systems

4 MHz 2-80A CPU with serial and parallelA & T List Price 350.00

I/O

$299.95

ISOBAR

The ISOBAR looks like a standard multi-oultet powerstrip, but contains surge suppression circuitry andbuilt-in noise filters, plus 15amp circuit breaker

$69.95

DOUBLE D—Jade Computer

High reliability, double density disk controller

Bare board * hdwr man List Price 75.00 $59.95

Kit w/hdwr & sltwr man List Price 399.00 $299.95

A & T w/hdwr & sttwr man List Price 449.00 $325.95CP/M 2.2 with Double D List Price 200.00 $99.95

THE BUS PROBE

Best selling inexpensive S-100 diagnostic analyzer

Bare board List Price 89.00 $59.95

Kit List Price 249.00 $179.95

A&T List Price 299.00 $199.95

VERSAFLOPPY II—SD Systems

Double density disk controller for 5V and 8"Versalloppy II with PROM List Price 400.00 _ $344.95Versatloppy II/696 A & T List Price 400.00 _ $349.95CP/M 3.0 with VF-II List Price 200.00 $80.00

THE BIG Z—Jade

2 or 4 MHz switchable Z-80 CPU board with serial I/O

Bare board w/manual Lis! Price 50.00 $35.00

Kit w/manual List Price 249.00 $179.95

AST List Price 299.00 $199.00

ULTRA-VIOLET EPROM ERASERS

Inexpensive erasers for industry or home

Spectronics w/o timer List Price 99.00 $69.95

Spectronics with timer List Price 139.00 $94.95

Logical Devices List Price 89.00 $49.95

uto/dialnterlace

$475.00$399.95

$199.00S199.95$299.95$239.95

d)Haye<

SMARTMODEM—Hayes

Sophisticated direct-connect auto-answer/amodem, touch tone or pulse dialing. RS232Cprogrammable

Smartmodem 1200 List Price 699.00 -

1200B lor IBM PC List Price 599.00

Smartmodem 300 List Price 289.00 !

Hayes Cronograph List Price 249.00

Micromodem 100 List Price 399.00

Micromodem Me List Price 299.00

1200 BAUD SMART CATNovation

103/212 Smart Cat and 103 Smart Cat. 1.200' 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

300 Baud 103 Smart Cat List Price 249.00 $199.95

1200 Baud 212/103 Smart Cat List Price 595.00 $449.95

J-CAT MODEM—Novation

1/5 the size of ordinary modems. Bell 103. manual or,auto-answer, automatic answer/orginate. directconnect, built-in self-test, two LEDs and audio beepsprovide status informationNovation J-Cat List Price 149.00 $114.95

4901 West Rosecrans Avenue.

Computer Products

KsVlllh'* Rhcto 191 on inquiry card

Hawthorne, California 90250

538-8800

(CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS)

TsTiTiT

848-8008

pggg

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

STATU

DRAMS

2101

256x4 450ns

1.90

5101

250x4

460ns

(cmos)

3.90

2102-1

1024x1

450ns

.88

2102L-4

1024x1 450ns

(LP)

.98

2102L-2

1024x1 250ns

(LP)

1.45

2111

256x4 450ns

2.45

2112

256x4 450ns

2.95

2114

1024x4 450ns

6/9.90

2114-25

1024x4

250ns

8/9.95

2114L-4

1024x4 450ns

(LP)

8/11.96

21141-3

1024x4

300ns

n

6/12.45

2114L-2

1024x4

200ns

8/12.95

2147

4006x1

55ns)450ns

4.90

TMS4044-4

4096x1

3.45

TMS4044-3

4096x1 300ns

3.95

TMS4044-2

4096x1

200ns

4.45

MK4113

1024x8 250ns

9.90

TMM2016-200

2048x6 200ns

4.10

TMM2016-150

2048x8 150ns

4.90

TMM201S-100

2048x8 100ns

6.10

HM6116-4

204818 200ns) (cmoi)

4.70

HM6116-3

2046x8 150ns

(cmos)

4.90

HM6110-2

2046x8

120ns

cmos)

8.90

HM6116LP-4

204»x8

200ns

(cmos)(LP)

5.90

HM611GLP-3

2048x8

150ns

(cmos)(LP)

6.90

HM6116LP-2

2046x8

120ns

(cmos)JLP)

9.95

Z-6132

4096x8

300ns

(Qttal)

33.95

LP » Low Power Qstat = Quasi-Static

DYNAMIC RAMS

TMS4027

4096x1 (250ns

1.95

UP0411

4096 x 1 1300ns

2.95

MM5280

4096x1 (300ns

2.95

MK4100

6192x1 (200ns

1.90

MM5208

8192x1 (250ns

1.80

4110-300

16384 x1300ns

8/10.75

4110-250

16384 x1250ns

8/10.95

4116-200

16364 x1200ns

8/11.95

4116-150

16384 x 1(150nt

8/13.95

4116-120

16364 x1120ns

6/28.95

2110

16384 x1150ns

(5v)

4.90

4164-200

66536 x1200ns

5v

CALL

4164-150

65536x1 (150ns

(5v)

CALL

5V ■ single 5 volt supply

EPROMS

1702

256x8

lus)

4.45

2700

1024x8

450ns

3.90

2758

1024x8

450ns

(5v)

5.90

2710

2048x8

450ns

5v

3.90

2710-1

2048x8

350ns

5v

5.90

TMS2516

2048x8

450ns

M

5.45

TMS2716

2048x8

450ns

7.90

TMS2532

4096x8

450ns

(5v

5.90

2732

4096x8

450ns

(5v

4.90

2732-250

4096x8

250ns

fev

8.90

2732-200

4096x6

200ns

St

10.95

2764

8192x8

450ns

tot

9.90

2764-250

8192 x 8

250ns

St

13.95

2764-200

8192x8

200ns

fit

23.95

TMS2564

8192 x 8

450ns

Bt

16.95

MC68764

8192 x 8

450ns

(5v

(24 pin)

38.95

27126

16384x8

;all

Call

5v = Single 5 Vo

I Supply

74LSO0

74LS00

.23

74LS92

.54

74LS01

.24

74LS93

.54

74LS02

.24

74LS95

.74

74LS03

.24

74LS96

.88

74LS04

.23

74LS107

.38

74LS05

.24

74LS109

.38

74LS08

.27

74LS112

.38

74LS09

.28

74LS113

.38

74LS10

.24

74LS114

.38

74LS11

.34

74LS122

.44

74LS12

.34

74LS123

.78

74LS13

.44

74LS124

2.85

74LS14

.58

74LS125

.48

74LS1S

.34

74LS126

.48

74LS20

.24

74LS132

.58

74LS21

.28

74LS133

.58

74LS22

.24

74LS136

.38

74LS26

.28

74LS137

.98

74LS27

.28

74LS138

.54

74LS20

.34

74LS139

.54

74LS30

.24

74LS14S

1.15

74LS32

.28

74LS147

2.45

74LS33

.54

74LS148

1.30

74LS37

.34

74LS151

.54

74LS30

.34

74LS153

.54

74LS40

.24

74LS154

1.85

74LS42

.48

74LS155

.68

74LS47

.74

74LS156

.68

74LS48

.74

74LS157

.64

74LS49

.74

74LS158

.58

74LS51

.24

74LS160

.68

74LSS4

.28

74LS161

.64

74LSS5

.28

74LS162

.68

74LS63

1.20

74LS163

.64

74LS73

.38

74LS164

.68

74LS74

.34

74LS165

.94

74LS75

.38

74LS166

1.90

74LS76

.38

74LS168

1.70

74LS70

.48

74LS169

1.70

74LS03

.59

74LS170

1.45

74LS8S

.68

74LS173

.68

74LS86

.38

74LS174

.54

74LS90

.54

74LS175

.54

74LS91

.88

74L

S181

2.10

74LS189 8.90 74LS383 1.30

74LS190 .88 74LS364 1.90

74LS191 .88 74LS365 .48

74LS192 .78 74LS366 .48

74LS193 .78 74LS367 .44

74LS194 .68 74LS36S .44

74LS195 .68 74LS373 1.35

74LS196 .78 74LS374 1.35

74LS197 .78 74LS377 1.35

74LS221 .88 74LS378 1.13

74LS240 .94 74LS379 1.30

74LS241 .98 74LS385 1.85

74LS242 .98 74LS386 .44

74LS243 .98 74LS390 1.15

74LS244 1.25 74LS393 1.15

74LS245 1.45 74LS395 1.15

74LS247 .74 74LS399 1.45

74LS248 .98 74LS424 2.90

74LS249 .98 74LS447 .36

74LS251 .58 74LS490 1.90

74LS253 .58 74LS624 3.95

74LS257 .58 74LS640 2.15

74LS258 .58 74LS645 2.15

74LS259 2.70 74LS668 1.65

74LS260 .58 74LS669 1.85

74LS266 .54 74LS670 1.45

74LS273 1.45 74LS674 9.60

74LS275 3.30 74LS682 3.15

74LS279 .48 74LS683 3.15

74LS280 1.95 74LS684 3.15

74LS283 .68 74LS685 3.15

74LS290 .88 74LS688 2.35

74LS293 .88 74LS689 3.15

74LS295 .98 74LS783 23.95

74LS298 .88 81LS95 1.45

74LS299 1.70 81LS96 1.45

74LS323 3.45 81LS97 1.45

74LS324 1.70 81LS98 1.45

74LS352 1.25 25LS2521 2.75

74LS353 1.25 25LS2569 4.20

6500

1MHZ

6502 4.90

6504 6.90

6505 8.90

6507 9.90

6520 4.30

6522 7.90

6532 9.90

6545 21.50

6551 10.85

2 MHZ

6502A 6.90

6522A 9.90

6532A 10.95

6545A 26.95

6551A 10.95

3 MHZ

6502B 13.95

6800

66000 58.85

6800 3.90

6802 7.90

6808 12.90

6809E 18.95

6809 10.95

6810 2.90

6820 4.30

6821 3.20

6828 13.gs

6840 11.95

6843 33.95

6844 24.95

6845 13.95

6847 10.95

6850 3.20

6852 15.70

6860 9.90

6662 10.95

6875 6.90

6880 2.20

6883 21.95

68047 23.95

68488 18.95

6800 1MHZ

68B00 9.95

68B02 21.25

68B09E 28.95

68B09 28.95

68B10 6.90

68B21 6.90

68B45 18.95

68B50 5.90

8000

8035 5.90

8039 6.90

INS-8060 16.95

INS-8073 49.95

8080 3.90

8085 5.90

6085A-2 10.95

8086 28.95

8087 CALL

8088 38.95

8089 88.95

8155 6.90

0155-2 7.90

8156 6.90

8165 28.95

8185-2 38.95

8741 38.95

8748 49.95

8755 23.95

524 BYTE February 1984

Circle 114 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 14.95

8255-5 18.95

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

8283 6.45

8284 14.95

8286 6.45

8287 6.45

8288 24.00

8289 48.95

Z-802.5 Mhz

Z80-CPU 3.90

Z80-CTC 4.45

Z80-DART 9.95

Z80-DMA 13.95

Z80-PIO 4.45

Z80-SIO/0 15.95

Z80-SIO/1 15.95

Z80-SIO/2 15.95

Z80-SIO/9 15.95

4.0 Mhz

Z80A-CPU 4.90

Z80A-CTC 4.90

Z80A-OART 10.95

ZSOA-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

IM6402 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

DP8304 2.24

DS8835 1.94

DS8836 98

VOLTAGE REGULATORS

7805T

.74

7905T

.84

78M05C

.34

7908T

.84

7808T

.74

7912T

.84

7812T

.74

7915T

.84

7815T

.74

7924T

.84

7824T

.74

7905K

1.44

7805K

1,34

7912K

1.44

7812K

1.34

7915K

1.44

7815K

1.34

7924K

1.44

7824K

1.34

79L05

.78

78L05

.68

79L12

.78

78L12

.68

79L15

.78

78L15

.68

LM323K

4.90

78H05K

9.90

UA78S40

1.90

78H12K

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 .10

14 pin ST .14 .11

16 pin ST .16 .12

18 pin ST .19 .17

20 pin ST .28 .26

22 pin ST .29 .26

24 pin ST .29 .26

28 pin ST .39 .31

40 pin ST .48 .38

64 pin ST 4.20 callST = SOLDERTAIL

8 pin WW .58 .48

14 pin WW .68 .51

16 pin WW .68 .57

18 pin WW .98 .89

20 pin WW 1.04 .97

22 pin WW 1.34 1.23

24 pin WW 1.44 1.30

28 pin WW 1.64 1.44

40 pin WW 1.94 1.75

WW • WIREWRAP

16 pin ZIP 6.70 call

24 pin ZIF 9.90 call

28plnZIF 9.95 call

ZIF ■ TEXTOOL (Zero Insertion Force)

CRYSTALS

32.76Bkhz 1.90

1.0 mhz 4.90

1.6432 4.90

2.0 3.90

2.097152 3.90

2.4576 3.90

3.2768 3.90

3.579535 3.90

4.0 3.90

5.0 3.90

5.0688 3.90

5.185 3.90

5.7143 3.90

6.0 3.90

6.144 3.90

6.5536 3.90

8.0 3.90

10.0 3.90

10.738635 3.90

14.31818 3.90

15.0 3.90

16.0 3.90

17.430 3.90

18.0 3.90

18.432 3.90

20.0 3.90

22.1184 3.90

32.0 3.90

RESISTORS

</, WATTS' CARBON FILM ALL STANDARD VALUESFROM 1 OHM TO 10 MEG OHM

50 PCS 1.25

100 PCS 2.00

1000 PCS 15.00

BULK DISKETTES

5V4" DISKETTESATHANA OR NASHUA

SSSD 18.95

SSDD 22.95

DSOD 27.95

5V4" DISKETTESNO LABEL

SINGLE SIDED DOUBLE DENSITY(WITH JACKETS AND HUB RING)

Pack of Ten $ 16.95

Pack of 100 $149.00

APPLE ACCESSORIES

80 Column Card 129.95

16 K Card 42.50

Fan 38.95

Power Supply 84.95

RF Mod 24.95

Joy Stick (Apple II) 29.95

Paddles Apple 9.95

ZBOCard 129.95

SCRG Switch-A-Slot 19.95

Paddle Adapple 24.95

Extend-A Slot 195.95

Disk Drive 224.95

Controller Card 69.95

Disk Drive

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

DoKa

Circle 114 on inquiry card.

2100 De La Cruz Blvd.Santa Clara, CA 95050

BYTE february 1984 525

«*&£&«

fJZ&K

«*gZ&*x

CALL TOLL FREE

*•*£««

*«*»

FOR LOWEST POSSIBLE

Specials from your Largest Computer Dealer

Quadram

• Color Card for PC• Fully PC Compatible

$219

BMC Printer

• BX-80- Epson MX80FT Compatible

• Friction & Tractor Feed

• centronic Par. interface

$239

Franklin 1200 OMS

• 2 Disk Drives

• Wordstar & Ace Calc &

Mail merge

• CPM & Apple Compatible

$1699

COMPUTER SYSTEMS

Sanyo

MBC-550, PC Compatible . , !

MBC-555,2 Drives, More Software

IBM

PC64K.1 Drive !

PC64K,2Drives

XT Hard Disk Drive, 128K

Tava

we Will Beat All competitorson this PC Compatible

Apple

he starter SystemCPU Only ....

Franklin

Sanyo PC (MBC 550)

• IBM Compatible

• 16 Bits, 8088 cpu

• 128KRam, Hi-Res.

Capabilities

• Centronic Printer Port

• Detachable Keyboard

• Free SoftwareMuch, Much More

$849

Apple HE

• Starter System

$1326

usi

• 12" Amber20 MHz Monitor

$119

Kaypro

KayprollKaypro4 ,Kaypro10

Compaq

Portable(PCCompatible) ..

DISKETTES HI-QUALITY

5Va"SglSide/Dbl DensityDbiside/Dbl Density

SglSide/Sgl DensityDbl Side/Dbl Density

S19

39/box of 10

ACe1000,64K.Ace 1200 OMS

All Diskettes come with 5 year warranty &Reinforced Hub, 100% error free.

Head Cleaning Kits' S 9

5V« Flip tubs (holds 70) ... 19

ALS

• Cpm 3.0

• 6 MHz — Z80B

• 64K Ram

$269

fc NEC 8023A

Better than c.itoh

• Top Quality

• Better Than a 8510AP

• Full Graphics, Friction &

Tractor Feed

$339

Diskettes for IBM PC

• 5 year Guarantee

• Dbl. Side/Dbl. Density

• Reinforced Hub

$22

100 for $210

VIDEO MONITORS

Amdek

colon +

Color II + .3000,12" creen

300A, 12' Amber

310A, Monochrome Amber

BMC

BMC12AUW .

BMC 12 EUN Hi-Res . . .

BMC 12-Amber

BMC9191 Color Composite

Princton Graphics

PCSHXl2,Hi-ResColor

PCSSR-12, Hi-ResColor

PCS MAX-12, Monochrome

USI

PI 3,12' Amber

Zenith

ZVM122, Hi-ResCreen .

ZVM123, Hi-Res Amber

we accept all P.o.'s from universities

CALL 800-847-1718 a

**

we OFfer More Than \ Low Prices!!!

[Ma. I >< Cor a J

800-847-1718

PRICES IN THIS MAGAZINE

**

PRINTERS

Dot Matrix & Letter Quality

BMC

BX80(EpsonCompatible) S 239

Daisywriter

2000 W/48K Buffer S1099

Dynax

DX15, LetterOualitv S 469

DX25 call

NEC

8023A(100cps) S 339

8025(15" Carriage) 699

Okidata

82AI80CPS) S 329

83A (15" Carriage) 569

84P(lnStOCk) 999

New Series Okidata

92PI160CPS) S 429

93P(15"Carriage) 739

c. itoh

See NEC for Better Products

Epson

RX-80(120cps) Call

MX-80FTI80CPS) Call

FX-80(160CPS) Call

FX-100 (15" Carriage) Call

Star Micronics

Gemini lOXd20cps) S 299

Gemini 15X 399

Power typed 8 cps) 479

PRINTER INTERFACES

Orange Micro

Grappler + S 119

Crappler + w/16K 179

Microtek

Dumpling GX(GrapplerCompatible) S 99Dumplingw/16K 159

wesper Micro

wizard Full Graphics interface S 79

Apple Par Card & Cable

Card&Cable S 49

Cables

IBM to Printer S ?R

Kaypro to Printer :

RS232Cables 19

Okidata Options

Tractor for 82 & 92 S 5

Serial Interface 9

Star or Epson

Serial interface S 119

APPLE ADD ON'S

Micro Tek

Bam 16,16K Memory

Serial Interface

Micro Soft

i6KCard

PremiumSoftCardllE

MultiPlan

SoftCard(Z80)

Micro Max

Viewmax80(80col)

Viewmax80E(ForllE)64K ...

zcard

CPM 3.0 Card

Joystick

GraphicsTablet

RF Modulator . .Fanw/Surge . . .

Disk II

Monitoril

KraftKoala

Astar

Apple

IBM ADD ON'S

Ast Research

Six Pack +

Mega +

Call for All AST Accessories

Ouadram

QuadCoiorCard

Quad Link

Quad Chrome Monitor

Monochrome Adaptor

Monochrome Monitor

Colorcard

Plantronics

URI Display

Paradise Systems

Multi Display Card

64K upgrade

64K Memory

Centronics cable

pccable

Tandon

TM100-2

Panasonic

1/2 Height, 320K

Circle 61 on inquiry card.

ComputerComponentsUnlimited

RETAIL STORE &MAIL ORDER:

11976 Aviation Blvd.inglewood, CA 90304

All merchandise new We accept MCVisa Wire Transfer, COD Call, CertifiedCheck, POs from qualified firms, apoaccepted Shipping: Minimum S4 50 first5 pounds. Tax California Res Only add6' ? sales tax

Prices Subiect to Change

APPLE DRIVES

Micro Sci

A-2

Controller

Quentin Research

Applemate

Controller

Rana Systems

Elitei

Elite ii

Elite in (Quad Density)Controller....

Slimline .Controller

Super 5

5 V4 & 8 DISK DRIVES

5V«"Tandon

TM100-1.160KTM100-2, 320KTM101-4(Quad.)

Shugart

801RSgl/Dbl851RDbl/Dbl

Mitsubishi

2894Dbl/Dbl

Qume

Panasonic

1/2 Height, 320K

Tandon

848-1 Slimline sgi/DW

848-2SlimlineDbl/Dbl

Siemans

FDD 100-8, Sgl/Dbl

DISK DRIVE CABINETS

5%" Cabinets

single cab. w/powersupply

Duaicab. w/powersupply . 85

8" Cabinets

Single Cab. w/fan& powersupply S 209Dual Cab. w / fan & power supply 259

Sales Desk

(800)847-1718 (213)643-5188

Outside California inside California

Customer service & Technical(213)643-5188

Mon.—Fri. 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Sat. & Sun. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

This Ad Supersedes All Others

no Surcharge for Credit Cards

CaIiFornia DiqiTAl

Post Off ice Box 3097 B • Torrance, California 90503

FREE

Plastic library

case supplied

with all diskettes

purchased from

. California Digital.

DISKETTES ■■ '16.50

FIVE INCH SINGLE SIDED DOUBLE DENSITY

tS!IS Each Sox 10 Boxes 100 Boxes

SCOTCH

VERBATIM

MEMOREX

MAXELL

DYSAN

LCAL-S01CAL-510CAL-516

MMH.744/0MMM-T44/"MMM-744/

19.95)8 26.50

VRB-52S<01 __ __VHB-S25M0 26.50

VRB-S25J16 ■"*•■'»•»

MRX-34G1 __ __

MRX-34B3 26.50MRX-3485 —**■*"»

MXL-MD1 0_ _rt

MXL MHW10 20,50MXL-MH1M6 w«w»

18.5024.5025.25

16.50 I21.75 I23.50

22.25! 18.7524.50 23.2533.00! 30.50

FIVE INCH DOUBLE SIDED DOUBLE DENSITY

SCOTCH

VERBATIM

MEMOREX

MAXELL

MAXELL/96

DYSAN

DYSAN/96

24.95

MMM 7-45.0 __ __MMM-745M0 39.95MMM-74SM6 "»*™«**»

vno-550'01

VRB-550'10

VRB-550/16

MRX-3491

MRX-3493

MRX-3495

MXL-MD2

39.9535.0039.9545.00

DYS-104I2D

DYS-107/2D -« EADYS-105/2D 4£.3UDY5-204I2D

49.95

22.7537.9537.9531.2537.9543.0040.5047.95

20.5031.2532.7526.2534.7541.2535.5045.75

EIGHT INCH SINGLE SIDED SINGLE DENSITY

SCOTCH mmm-740/o 29.50

MEMOREX mrx3062 27.75

VERBATIM vRB.34/9000 31.50 :

I DYSAN Dvs.3740/1 35.75 I

EIGHT INCH SINGLE SIDED DOUBLE DENSITY

SCOTCH MMM-741/0

MEMOREX MRX-3090VERBATIM VRB-34/8000DYSAN DVS-3740/1D

MAXELL' MXL-FDi

37.7535.5035.2540.7545.50

SPECIAL

Shugart410

'129

These Sliugarl 4)0 5'j disk drives are all lactoryfresh 1983 production, (ecenlly purchased from theFour Phase Division ot the Motorola Corporation.Those disk drives are single sided 80 track(96TPI)

suitable lor use wilh the Radio Shack Model 1 and Model 3 Or any otherapplication thai can support an 80 track second drive such as the IBM/PC. TheA10 is lull height and (unclionatly Ihe same as the Tandon TM 100-3 Completewith power connector and installation manual

When these Shugarl -tlOs are liquidated the price will revert to our regularprice o! S249 SHU-SA410 ___====

MEMORY

BLOWOUT

SAlE II

California Digital has recently participated ir

the purchase ol several Ihousand Siemens^

FDD 100-8 lloppy disk drives. These units are electronically and physically

stmiiiar to lhal of the Shugan 801R. All units are new and shipped in lactory

sealed boxes. Manual and power connectors supplied free upon request. Your

choice 115 Volt. 60 Hz. or 230 Voll 50Hz

aige Quantity ol 230 votl 50 Hz units wa'cnousoO nnade to will call these drives m quantities ol 50 di more

16K DYNAMIC

1.95

4116 150ns.

64K DYNAMIC

5.95

4164 150ns

4.95^

2732 EPROM

L9

450ns

16K STATIC

4.95

6116 200ns.

2764 EPROM

SALE '5.95

DYNAMIC MEMORY

EIGHT INCH DOUBLE SIDED DOUBLE DENSITYSCOTCH MMM-743/0

MEMOREX MRX3102V E R BAT IM VRB-34/4001DYSAN DYS-3740/2D

MAXELL MXLFD2

23"

COMPOSITEMONITOR

*159

35 1 15 7730 3 95 3 6595 5 75 5 50

crin \=A

CUD i Ml

i-.nd ;T.,rrun :;■.■■!--■.

run .i T'CND-37S

CND-37H 2 25 I 95 1

CND-50P 5 50 5 10 -i

CND-50H 2 60 2 40 2

CND.2HS 09 69AMPHGN0L / CENTRONICS TYPE

57O03U0 36 P CNC-3CP 7 05 6 35 3

IEEE48B C dar CND-2JP 7 95 6 35 5DISK DRIVE POWER CONNECTORS

8 6 pin DC CNP-6DC t 95 1 29

8 3ACSgl-S CNP-3SS 169 109

S 3ACnGl'S CNP-3DS 169 109

5'* iti-iiDC CNP-4DC I 79 I 19

) pin DIN tocpt CNP-D3P 259 t 99 t

Shipping: First five pounds S3.00, each additional pound S.50.Foreign orders: 10% shipping, excess will be refunded.California residents add 6Vz% sales tax. • COD s discouraged.Open accounts extended to state supported educational institu-tions and companies with a strong "Dun & Bradstreet" rating.Retail location: 15608 Inglewood Avenue, Lawndale 90260.

Atari n

■eight cfwges

REMEX D£E '219

California Digital has iusi purchased a large quanlily of Reme* RFD-4000Eight inch double sided disk drives Remex is Ihe only double sided diskdrive lhat has an double gimbal mounted head assembly lhal guaranties lowerhead tracking. This drive is mechanically solid Remex has always beenknown for producing premiere products for Ihe floppy disk market The Remexcompany is a subsidiary ol Ihe Ex-cell-o Corporation, a Fortune 500 Company

Eight Inch Single Sided Drives

One Two Ten

385 375 365

385 375 365

169 169 159

369 359 349

SHUGART801RSHUGART810 Half HeightSIEMENS FDD 100-8TANDON 848E-1 Hall Height

Eight Inch Double Sided Drives

SHUGARTSA851RSHUGART 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 HI. 459 449 409

Five Inch Single Sided Drives

SHUGART SA400L 235 229 225

SHUGART SA410 96TPI/80Trk. 129 119 call

SHUGART SA200% Height 159 149 139

TANDON TM100-1 189 179 175

Five Inch Double Sided DrivesREMEX RFD480 IBM compatibleSHUGART SA450SHUGART SA455 Half HeightSHUGART SA465 Half Ht. 96TPITANDON TM50-2 Half HeightTANDON TM55-4 half HI.96TPITANDON 100-2

TANDON 101-4 96TPI 80 TrackMITSUBISHI 4851 Half HeightMITSUBISHI 4853 Vi Ht. 96TPIMITSUBISHI 4854 VzHt., 8" elec.QUME 142 Half HeightTEAC FD-55B Half Height

Three Inch Disk DrivesSHUGART SA300 with diskette 229 219 209

Five Inch Winchester Hard Disk Drives

SHUGART 612 13M/Bytes 895 865 825

SHUGART 706 6 M/Byte, Half Ht 795 775 755

SHUGART712 13 M/Byte, 1/2Ht. 895 865 825

SEAGATE 506 6 M/Byte 465 445 425

TANDON 503 19 M/Byte 895 875 855

Upon request, all drives are suppliedwith power connectors and manual

ENCLOSURES

California Dicjilal manufactures an asortment ol stock and custom disk driveenclosures It Ihe volume is justified we will custom design an enclosure loryour application. The following stock disk drive enclosures are availableAll include power supplies the 8 enclosures are supplied with exhaust fans

199

189

175

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 ftheight drives. S279 00

Vertical mount two full height Edisk drives. S299 0Q

Horizontal mount one lull heightor two half height B diskdrives S239 0X1

Vortical mount two lull height 5disk drives S139 00

TOLL FREE ORDER LINE

(800) 421-5041

TECHNICAL & CALIFORNIA

(213) 643-9001

CaMFornja Diq'iTAl

Post Office Box 3097 B • Torrance. California 90503

&

WESTERN UNION

EasyLink

Calilornia Digital has recently contracted with the West-ern Union Telegraph Company for the privledge of offer-ing subscriptions to Western Union's new EasyLink datacommunications network.

Subscribers are able to transmit and receive domesticand international communications from a network of over1.5 millon Worldwide Telex subscribers. EasyLink alsoallows access to other Western Union services that tillrecently have been available only to dedicated Telexinstallations.

Send telegrams, Mailagrams and computer letters aseasy as telephoning Western Union's toll free accessline. Your personal computer and modem become yourlink to the World.

One time S35.00 Installation fee includes EasyLink selfteaching user manual. Telex directory and your EasyLinkaccess password.

Your Choice

Second Drive or Monitor

SANYO

IBM COMPATIBLE

'995

-- »55.t4*J

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 o<memory, a 5 V 160K/byte disk drive upgradeable to320K/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 aithe super low price of only S995.

We are currently experiencing an initial shortage of this computer. Pleaseplace your orders early. The MBC-550 will be shipped on a first c rdered basis.

PRINTERS

'289

Sfar Gemini

MATRIX PRINTERS

SlarGamitii-lOX I30d

Sta'Gem.n. 15X lOOdi.i' sec 15 mdi."Slar Gemini DoUj -0 160 CMi secSlat Cop* HOF T trrclion S (raOOfTo'iiii|jnPi:j5(J I92',har soc li.'1'er qualityGk.dala 02A senal S pa'aM IV,- caper

:..av.i;,

160 cl

Data U3A & parallel 15 paperGk dasaWAt paiiiici '0 papeiOkmaia 2350 mow, 350 enar/sccLp'.onFXliO 10 150 char-'sec wilii graijiiii.'nl:;]',L''iMXiniiwilh(;r1ij|tilr.-|» 15 paper

NECSO&MptraNeig'i paper graphicsAfiadei 9601A riign speed *iingrapniciAnadei9630A2O0cha'sec pari & senalOuantei 7030 corosporxienco quality '80char-:GonHa low cosi dot main* punierPtnurttet Bf. 10 parallel 9'. paper

I'rowntcrll p.lMNpltS pBpff graphicsD.lt.ipfOQu;.!-, B-600-3 band punier 600 LPMPr:n|rpn.« P3011 hrg<- spued punier 300 lines per IPftnironn PtiOO ultra iugn Speed 600 lines per rru.islar l30Pp,irl ISM PC com pal i Cl e

STH-GlOX

STR-G15X

STR-D10

VSLCOOFT

TOS 13=0

OKI-82A

OKI-9ZA

OKia3A

OKI-8-1A

OKI 3350

FfPS-FXEO

EPS-MXIOO

NEC-B023A

ADX9501A

ADX.962DA

OTX- 7033

PRO-7500

PRO-SSI 3P

PHO-2P

DPSBSOO

PTX-P300

PTXP600

TNS-130P

WORD PROCESSING PRINTERS

MEC7T10 fi'jcliar'secondstr.al mierlacoNE.CJ730 Kchai'sec part interfaceNEC3S50 r-apuiaiu'iinerae!.i(jned'or'.tieiBM FNEC205P dBttmedta ©M PC 20 char, sec parSilverReMEXP5G0 Uetiawsec parnnlertnceSilver Reed EXPiBO 1 7 Char sec pat I mle'lace0iaDlo630J0char.sec serial0'Mto620 prtjporrionai spacing. *ior> & -cert fat)Juhi6lOO_t8elw 'sec graphic " '

Brolh.

HRU

rl parail

BttMACM HH1A s.vi.-tt interlacerjvMeiF 10 senal-JOcnai secmuter F10 parallel 40ctiarsec

Camre» CRi worrtprocetioingprmier s

NEC-7710

NEC 7730

C NEC-3550

l NEC-2050

SRD EXPOOOSRD-EXP550DBL-G3020cps D0L-62OJUK-6100BTH HR1PBTHHRlSPRO-FlOSPROF 10PCRXCRlSCHXCR2P

1-195 00379 00J79 00619 001019 001995 00529 0058900389 001099 001199 001595 00189 00

689 006935 00■1250 005 795 00

629 00

I 799 00995 DO459 00659 00

1765 00879 00539 00695 00779 00

1125 00

9 00

MONITORS

i;*.'C i;'ii;i«'!i cnoij:ri;;r i-.MH» compos.BMC 12 high resou-iion 20MH-ZeniitiZW.I22AmOcr Phosphor 12 40.60 column switchJunilh A'MI.?.) ijinon priu>.rjl'i.ir 12 40/BO column swilth

NECJB1301 greenptnsptei I8MH* eomposil videoNEC JOi;>ji)iummfrr:ialijr.ii].;ccimposi1USI Amber screen 12 composit monilorUoKvpia 23 QfMfl frame Wk. imhitecomposil v«JeoMotorola 12 open irame ruquires no'z sync andpowe'Contact open trama requires lion sync & 12v supply

COLORBMC AlStfllUCcJOi composit video with soundr.'.'C C-! .'.Mf-r,[ dos.(;ro;'l*n-"jie*ilri!r;el8McompulC(NECJC1203DM RGBcoWmonitorNECJC1201 co'jr composit2emth 2VM13-1 HGBcdIO- SUriabW 'o: IBM PC

BMC-12A

BMC-12EN

ZTH-122

ZTH-Z123

NECJ3U01

NEC-J31260

USl-tBA

MOT-EW23

MOT-BWI2

CON-BW9

BMC-9191

BMC-9131M

NEC-1203

NEC-JC1201

ZTH-Z134

COM-tjjOO

AMK-100

79 00134 00119 00105 UG169 00

129 00169 00159 00

499 00699 00

— MODEMS

DIRECT CONNECTS69

httyttg Smart Modem I200baud egtoantimti aoioaiaiK8T«S 1200B bM uie IWOI Ihc IBM PC t200 DaurJHayes Smailrnodeni 300 baud only autoanswer auiofliHayes Micronwaem II 103 Apple direct connectHayes Uoomodeni too B-100 auto answer autodialHayesChro'iociMph itme 8 daleUS RoDot>cs2'2A 300. 1200 Baud auto dial'answerPenrsi 300 1200auto<3iai.au!olo<jUniversal Data 103LP ime power ansiverfi originateUniversal Dalu 103LPJ Autoanswe/■ Universal Data .I0:1 iSOOtjaiirt nail duple*onlyUniversal Da1a212LP tu« t.''G0bnud duplei line ponverNovation J Cai direct connect autoanswerCaf acousiic coinednSmadCat !03.auHanswst autorjialIiOnSmanCai 103 213 U'OOoaudautoOuiiSignalman Mark 1 d'rect connect wiihiermmalcat:

HVS-212AD

-174 95

HYS-1200B

449 00

HYS-103AD

229 OO

HVSMM2

27" 00

HYS-100

319 00

HYS-CHR232

199 00

USR-212A

439 00

PEN-12AD

695 OL-

UDS-103LP

IOS 00

UDS-103LPJ

219 00

UDS-202LP

219 00

UDS-21ZLP

359 00

NOV-JCAT

11500

NOV-CAT

159 00

NOV-SC103

219 00

NOVSC212

529 00

SGL-MK1

69 00

VISA

TERMINALS

The Wyse :00 features die cast 'aluminum case. 102 Key keyboardand non-glare 26 line green phos-phor video display. Splil screenbolh horizontal an vertical makesthe WY-100 unusally user friendlyThis unique lermmal ts perfect 10enhance any business sysiem

*795

Freedom 50 SpMBoeen deiatcnapie kuytjoars

ViSuOi50 ae:a:cr-.,n, «uyt-,«dras.:"ociaDfcseit-rKjs

V.sua: 50 Green screen

Visual330.emulator Urfichgroenpnosphef

Air.pc» D.ologue I25c;*een scee'i i*opjqe tuf-c kqys

Ampo» D'a<Out}e 125ameer screen tv-opage 'unc keys

i ■■ ■

n phOSphOJ

o;cnc-osuiu

LIU-P50

-175 00

VSL-50

r-i"uo

050 tl'J

■.:■;. .!..■.;(.

925 00

675 00

APX-Di:5A

695 00

WYS-00

595 OO

795 Oil

1159 00

TV 1-31 OP

575 00

TVI-925

759 00

TVI-y50

-.■::- ■

TVI370

1095 t)i)

ZTH-Z29

;gsoo

APPLE

'929

Apple ll/e. 64K compuler onlyApple ll/e starter kil, monitor, disk. 80 col cardAdvanced Busness Tech. 13 Key PadCalil Computer 771OA Async Serial InterlaceCalil Computer 77lOBsame bul lor modemCalif. Computer 7114A 12K PROM moduleCalif Computer 7720A parallel interfaceCalif Compuler 772-:A Calandar/clock modualCalif Computer 7729A Centronics interfaceCalil Computer 77-10A programmable timerCalifornia Digital 16K card for standard Apple IIHayes Micromodern it for Apple IIKensington Micro. System saver tanMicrosoft Softcard wfttl CP/M. Z-80Mountain Computer The ClockMountain Computer AD/DA 16 input, 8bilMountain Computer ROM Plus with keybd tillerMountain Computer ROM writer.'socket socketOrange Micro GRAFPLER parallel interfaceSorrento Valley 8 controller double side D/DTEAC 5' .i" disk drive lor Apple IIVista Vision 80, 80 co umn card for std Apple IIVista 8 disk controlle- double side D/D

ASCIIKEYBOARD

APL-2E

APL-2ESK

ABT-13B

CCS-7713

CCS-771 OB

CCS-7H4

CCS-7720

CCS-772-1

CCS-7729

CCS-7740

CAL-A16

HYS-MM2

KEN-SFl

MSF-SFTCD

MTN-TCLK

MTN-ADDA

MTN-RMF

MTN-ROMW

OMS-G2

SVA223

TEA-A2

VSA-VIS80

VSA-A800

49

Calilornia Digiover 3000 ol th

■ eyDoardf. Irom It

sivilchus includes it 'ut.hcii Keys ar-.n 14 *e, nuiwm ciusier malic ituskey

excelled value al only $49 MIC-93GO 5 IPs

We also have available ntraretMng General Dynanncs steel Dim panel sio

256 KILOBYTE

MEMORY BOARD

*495

• 256 kiloby1esolmeinorYismg64K<lyn3m!£RAM I

• Duel one meoabylc ol memory using, I lie new256K dynamic RAM chips.

• Error deleclian-lrap capability.

• Individual tSK block can be relocated to anyboundry within a megabyte ol RAM.

• 24 bil addressing and phantom mode capability.

B.i;;;.GiaaaaDaiB'~:|^i

run.

in oulslantling value m ',. I 0(1 memory iQciinoiogy PnciKl Slinlil)

MitionallcMI.JH.-s 255K ol memos-; ninu'Mniy Parilyerrrjr1 ERRORLED or IEEE ti95 •ERROR signal 2ior 160.1

TtleCalilnrriiaDiiiil.'ilJ'liC.KnAMDoarilropri;

earlier generation (i-1K dynr^nn: r.irn lio.inl:, ii rim-i, yr:

lealure can be jumpered It- any ol trie interrupt lines, a

addressing Aiin memory m,)nn(]etnent

Proper opcalian wilH tnmt pariifl l-i)jii)[^H -.yilems DMA <l'5i COrirrr),;L-r;, ,ir.rj IEEt;-(i:H'i Tempomry BliSS Masler^

aSSurefl Willi anon llii.'hu.i-tl Ml (|i-n.:'r,ii:ii lo' mcnioiy rL-':i'-.ii lim.nn CAS.imi HAS inninij n. i unlroiied wiilniipiH.'iloifjiljl

cum,iv Iirii?i. lor pmprr upi'Mlion nviT Hit; vnlir.- iiiJi.'i.ilmr] lemiii'i.iiure rangt!

The tjoaril is very reci'ril m il.r-.niii irvrvj lln> National -Si'micnrni^rioi Ul' tl-10'.t HAM Cunnoller chip Split termmalion

ne1WOrksareust!,-IiM! .ill i:ldrf:<-. Iim.v. CASi.n,- .in.-l RASim.-, I'liminnlin.-j itn> ia',1 Iracrsiii nriifUKj Tun txusci uses two

separate voltage regulators One lor Itte DRAUs and one (or trie Menace iticjic. increasing the noise immunity ol the ram

ariiiy Typical power dissipation is 8 walls

Documentation includes Ifeory ol Operation COrfigufahOn guide a scften.iiic ana application noles on Hie use ol trie

memory management oiiNons CAL-256K ? Lbs

S-100 BOARDS

16 BIT MICROPROCESSORS

Octagon mm nru tiOBB ;ho ScttUtollet QV.-mim 735 uttGodooul siHifi B067 mtctacemp ie im GBt-flear «5 00

Godboul da.il t»nu 51018085 B3BB fl.16 GBT-B588 359 00

SINGLE BOARD COMPUTERSInsoWKH IZK.4hh4 nulS-lOO INS-EQ4 59b 00

hUvj:--: .;',: i ;■;,--. 0-1K AMI! YHtl /SO 00

i !■!,;!(:, Si.t.-ii i .-■■■- .■filloi'.ijy lytri Hi :,M I r.V, (lO

telete* f DC-1 snqlB board TO mmtiun/ TELFDCI G75 00

8 BIT MICROPROCESSORS

Gadtiout^SO 24 oil wtL'rtilKl idd GBT-iBO 250 00

CalilDiniaCompuie: l&0nnciotiiweyini fXS ..till 275 00latticll IBO Willi two RS232 parts TAH-ZflO 330 00

FLOPPY DISK CONTROLLERS

GoUUDal Pish I doable density GBt DSK1 305 00

Calilornu Compuler 2J22A wan CPM CCS-242? 339 00

Mar tow Disk Jockey II With CPM 2 2 MTJS I)J? 350 00

MatFOwlJisii Jockey I *itnCI'M M|l ln-n M1JS tlJl 225 00

l.irlifllili'MmmcMluiililiMlensily 1AH-00C 419 00

l.irntll I Iim iminr:-. -,.i'i)Hr (leiisily TAR-SDC 279 00

Fulcrum DMA Oitiriitjisk I'OtuhlttJflS* fCM-ODI 389 00

CPM OPERATING SYSTEMDiaiUr>ResnrctiCP/U3 0 s sal dan DMC-cpM3o 24a oo

(iiiillnml CPM? 2 lor Disk 1 GBI-C|iM:>;' 159 no

ii,„l!:i,i.il ri'M^ijli.-.'-.diJi.riD.'llilii, liBI-CjiMI!'. .'65 ()(;

TailWB ElecIron.es CPM 2 2 fAR-CpM^2 159 00

HARD DISK CONTROLLERS

Ocisgoii ii^/d uisk cqrUfctflei w«nE C oct-hOi

ti(itlliuiit[')n;h;! a & 1.

fludti-djl Di'it .1 Iuj'j'i W.rlclii.-slcr-.

i.'uiiM Di.-: ;j:i-i ai'iuuliet lor 5'i Vi

cm i)SK;' 509 00tliil i)SK:l Nov

MOS-V.500 495 00

EPROM BOARDS

STATIC MEMORY BOARDS

Gtidboul K im :c d;k 16ti<ldtu luii', GBT Hlb'.■ .:r-j.. ■ ■ ■■ r: ■ ■ l--iCCi > GBr-Hir

■ii'j n"

.!3'J I'D

H53 OU.'J9U0

DYNAMIC MEMORY BOARDS

Caiitnm. i Dif t.: 756K enaano lo 1 Metj CAL-D;'5tJ 495 BOCariloiiiuCui-iQ ?f)66 04K bJin. seire: CCS-2f<.6 295 00

INTERFACE BOARDS

teifaccri PwrrjIoorH GB1-UJA

leilau'ii tifsuUpj, ipuns GBT-tbOAiwticeti.i «nii5 wpr.ni (1BI t.ltiA

GodOtWtWerticerI pwraioom GBT-133A 23900

Gouoo-jiinitiijdri. i w:yf3wr ipuns GBT-ibOA 26900

GrjfJtWi ISllaEVM winbscnaipons GBI I35A 495 00 |

Godboul imeiUcei m

. . i. - GBI-1H7A 3:

Cniotr- iCar-.0j:cr.;iO Jsro psitis CC5-2710 21

Ciiil0in:jC3nBJinr?.'l& ?ifrj. 2 par i CCS-2ri9 2!

CaMarnia Computet 2'?0 4 pen pji I CCS-2720 2'

r.i.iinriM Cofflmlai ?83D 6 pen serial CCS-ZBM 4i

Morrow DesignsMulnmurd 3 S 7P tf'>5-Mll' 3-

SPECIAL FUNCTION BOARDS

HayesS-lJOM<ionvwrti JOOWuC HVSMIOO i,

OlCo'nouVMiAitjw-Cii Mteiy OlC-CCiM t;

;,.-.;ra.--. ■. ■•; - ML"= ! ■■''

i'.'j^bOjl! . ..: " - nMGUl :■'!' It :■.

DuatSjStams I. ■■■■:■■■ ■.■::•/. r. DSC-/.0M12 G

CuaiSyl!em"5.iJfsoi-Kn J2SI A J DSC AIM!? 6:

MuiiinsOptu^4jtor comroBBcn MU. O'O 17000 |

Mulur.s Cklencai CCJrC a.1*1 ijg.; t, probe Mill tSJ 79 00

1-0 Ucnicvor;. *.re Blip protulyoc I0I-W11W 49 00

Alec f'i-chobo Aire wrap proioirpc ARMVW100 25 00

A-IC-i ;-.i.r ..i:-i;i-.i-.i yjM^t-i.n::lf AHIGPIOO 25 00

MAINFRAMES & MOTHER BOARDS

CP/M SOFTWARE

AdaSoli CP/M

D-Base II

Wordslar

Mailmerge

Spellstar

Mulliplan

Macro 80

ADA-445C 395.00

ASH-015C 429.00

MPR-187C 309.00

MPR-392C 169.00

MPR-429C 169.00

MSF-483C 189.00

MSF-187C 139.00

SupersollMACCP/M 3.0DespoolPascal PlusCP/M 86MP/MII

MPR-309C 149.00

DGR-401C 85.00

DGR-410C 249.00

DGR-367C 45.00

DGR-004C 429.00

DGR-186C 239.00

DGR-208C 379.00

Shipping: First live pounds S3.00, each additional pound S.50.Foreign orders: 10% shipping, excess will be refunded.California residents add 6Vz% sales tax. • COD's discouraged.Open accounts extended to state supported educational institu-tions and companies with a strong "Dun & Bradstreet" rating.Retail location: 15608 Inglewood Avenue, Lawndale 90260.

Additional Software available for Apple, IBM/PC andAtari. Please telephone for price and availability.

TOLL FREE ORDER LINE

(800) 421-5041

TECHNICAL & CALIFORNIA

(213) 643-9001

UNBEATABLE SANYO COMPUTER

12" 80 x 24 16MHz MONITORS

Part Humbec Description

Usl Price SALE PRICE

$240.00 $149

$260 00 $165

$240.00 $149

$260.00 $165

$240.00 $140

$260.00 $165

10" RGD COLOR MONITORS w/AUDIO

BBSY0DMS500 Medium Res 350 x 350 lines $495.00 $349BBSyODM75N High Res. H480 x U240 dots $725.00 $499BBSY0DW8500 Ultra High H690 x V240 dots$1085.00 $ 799Shipping weights on above monitors 12" 24 lbs ea.. 13" color 30 lbs ea

BBSY0DHI8012CX Black & White DisplayBBSTBDMHI2CX B & W w/audioBBST0DM1I2CX Green P31 DisplayBBSY0DM9112CX Green P3I w/audioBBSY00M8212CX Amber DisplayBBSYBDMB212CX Amber w/audio

GEMINM0X&15X

120 CPS DOT MATRIX PRINTER

$289$419$ 59$119

CPS

WITH

BBSTRGEMIOX 80 column (20 lbs.) $399.00

bBSTRSEMlSX 132 column (26 lbs.) $649.00

BBSTRSERINTX Serial Interlace tor 10X and 15XBBSTRSERINTX4K w/4K print buffer for I0X and 15X

DELTA 10 & 15 160DOT MATRIX PRINTERS6K PRINT DUFFER

BBSTROEI.TA10 80 column (20 lbs.) $649.00 $469

BBSTRDELTA15 132 column (20 lbs.) $799 00 $699

PRINTER CABLES

BBP6C36CP72CP Centronics Male to Male 6' 524.95

BBPGC25BP72CP IBM PC" to Cem.onics Parallel 6' 534.95BBPBC2S1P6P 6' 9 conductor shielded RS-232 $19.95

MANNESMANNTALLY

Letter Quality Dot Matrix Printer

For Complete Specifications, see page 41 of ournew 83/34 Engineering Selection Guide

BBTAIMTIBOL 80 column/!60 cps (21 lbs) $589

8BTALMT1B0L 132 column/160 cps (28 lbs I $829

BBTALMTHIB160 Replacement Ribbon for MT160L 815.75

BBTALMTRIB1B0 Replacement Ribbon Inr MT180 L $17.80

Order Interlace Cables at Left

PIXY 3 PLOTTER

High Quality, economical 3 color plotter. See page 37 of our '83/84Engineering Selection tor details.

$699$769

BBTALPIX3P w/parallel interface (sh. wl 16 lbs.)BBTALPIX3S w/serial interface (sh. lift 16 lbs)

(ompuPro The World's Largest Supplier

of S-100 Boards!

IIBB0T5I0B8BBBBTS1588BBGBT51066BBBBT51S86

BBBBT5I0B7BBGBT51SB7BBBBTSI080BBBBT5I580BBBBTS1060B6GBT5156D

CPU DOARDS

CPU 68K AST 8MHzCPU 68K CSC 10MHzCo-Processor w/8086 onlyCr> Processor w/8086 onlyCPU 8086/80B7 ASTCPU 8086/8087 CSCCPU 8085/88 ASTCPU 8085/88 CSC3/6MH2 CPU-Z AST3/6 MHz CPU-Z CSC

SDSystems

Usl Price SALE Price

Z60 SINGLEBOARD COMPUTERS

$ 695.00 $ 595.00

$ 850.0b i mm

ASTS 750 00$ 675.0B

CSC$ 850 00 S 765.00

$1050.00$ 039.00

SI 150 JOS 1065.00

$ 495 00$ 380.00

$ 595.00 $ 407.87

$ 325.00 $ 270.00

$ 425.00 $ 347.87

DISK CONTROLLER DOARDS

DDSDS38005BBSDS3BBB2BBSDS380070OSDS3B0B8BDSDS38BB9

BBSDS38097BBS0S3B076BBSDS38062BBSDS38B8IBBSDS38096BBSBS3809B

SBC-300 4MHz ZB0A CPU A&TS 74100$ 619.SBC-300 6MHz Z80B CPU AST$ 825 00$ 689.

Z80 Starter System ASTExpandoRAM IV 256K ASTExpandoRAM IV 256Kw/EDC AST

ExpandoRAM 111/696 256KPR0M;100 w/software ASTRAM Disk 256K ASTROM Disc 128KA&T1/0-8 4-Port Async Ser. AST1/0-8 8-Port Async Ser. AST

$ 450.00 $ 399.$114500$ 975.$1990 00 81675

$ 825 00 $ 749$ 285 00$ 210$ 875 00$ 775$ 35000$ 310$ 600.00 $ 540S 695 00$ 589

Part Number

Description

-'■ ADVANCEDDIGITAL

CORPOHAJXM

Usl Price SALE Price

i

0BADCS0P6128 Super Six 6MHz 128K Mastc $995 00$B49.00

w/1 AOC PS1 RS232 Serial AdapterBBADCSPRSLV612B Super Slave 6MHz 128K $695.00 $595.00BBABCSBC15 Ruper Quad for S V<" drives S750.00 $695.00

BBABCSBC18 Super Quad for 8" drives $750 00 $695.00

SOFTWARE & I/O PORT ADAPTERS

0B000000

Port S 79500 $ 699.00

BAP08171ACPM DISK 1 (AST) w/CP/M' 22 $670.00When purchased with two 8" disk drives:

BB6BT54018BBBBT41BBB

DISK 1 Floppy controller (AST) $49500

CP/M'' 2 2 lor Z80/8085

w/manuals8BI0S.8"S/DDisk

CP/M-86' lor CPU 8085/88

S CPU 8086/87 CPUs

w/manuals BIOS 8" S/D Disk

DISK 2 8" hard disk controller $795 00

w/CP/M- 2 2 lASTl

DISK 3 ST-506 type 5 V hard $795 00

disk controller w/CP/M-80" &

CP/M-86' (AM)

S 489.00$450.00$425.00$148.95

$249.00

$725.00$725.00

I/O BOARDS

1/0-8 4 Sync. 4 Async,Serial I/O A&T

Versafloppy III Floppy S ST-506 S 895 00$ 759.Hard Disk ControllerDBPDBVF339I45* w/5 Si" unbanked CP/ M" 3 0 $ 1083 00 $ 888.w/8" unbanked CP/M*' 30 $108300 $ BBS.w/5%" banked CP/M' 3 0 $1083 00$ B88.w/8" banked CP/M' 30 $1083 00 $ B88.

Versafloppy It/696 (AST) $ 400 00$ 344.

w/5V«" unbanked CP/M" 30 $ 588 00$ 424.w/8" unbanked CP/M' 3 0 $ 588 00 $ 424.w/5V banked CP/M' 3 0 $ 588 00 $ 424.w/8" banked CP/M' 30 $ 58800$ 424.

•CP/M-Plus'" (3 0I configured lor the SBC-300See Complete Specifications on Pages 12-25Of Our '83/'84 Engineering Selection Guide

BBSDS38B9S

BBPDBVF33914B

BBPD0VF339147

BBPDBVF33914B

BBSDS38093

BBP0BVF239141

BBPD0VF239142

BBPDBVF239143

BBPDBVF239I44

BBABCPS1

BBADCCPSP

BBADCCPM22*t

BBADCCPMSO't

BBABCTDOS40*t

PS/Netl RS232 Serial Adapter $ 35.00

Centronics Parallel Port Adapter $ 35.00

Advanced Digital CP/M' 22 $150.00

Advanced Digital CP/M Plus" 13 0) $350.00

TurboDos' 1 2. or 4 Multi-user $550.00

'Replace * with Q to specify Super Quad: $ for Super Six

t Replace t wilhB lor 8" IBM'3740 formal. 48 lor 514" 48 TPI format or

96 lor 5W" 96 TPI format.

ST506/SA1000HARD DISK CONTROLLER

BBADCHDC100I5BBADCH0CI00IB

BBADCHDCINSTl

BB6BT56010

System Support 1 Multifunction $450 00 $375.00

1/0 (A&T)

BBGBT5B0I0/56531 SSf w/8231 Math Chip A&J S645 00 $570.00

DBGBT56010/56320 SSI w/8232 Math Chip A&T $645 00 $570.00

BBGBT53030 Intertacer 3 - 8 port serial (A&T) $699 00 $599.00

BB6BT53040 Interfaced 3 Serial. 1 Cenlron- $450 00 S389.I

ICS Parallel. 1 Parallel (AST)

8/16 BIT MEMORY DOARDS

BBGBT52016 RAM 16 12MHz32KStaticA&T$ 55000$ 495.00

BBBBT52021 HAM 21 12 MHz 128K Static AS.TS 995.00$ 895.00

BB6BT52022 RAM 22 12MHz 256K Static A&TS1750 00 $1549.00

BB6BT52012 M-Dnve/H 512K RAM Disk A&TS1475 00 $1195.00

#&*" {^octagon

BOARD LEVEL PRODUCT

BBBCTCP0816 8/16 Bil SBC (AST) $ 895 00 $ 795.00

BB0CT80B7N0P 8087 tor CPJ 8/16 $300.00

BBBCTCPM86 CP/M 86' $ 150.00

BB0CTC0NCPMB6Concurrent CP/M-86' $ 195.00

BB0CTMPMB6 MP/M-86' $ 495.00

ST-506 Hard Disc Controller $ 595 00$ 525.00

MAINFRAMES

BBBCTH0CBBDCTHDS0BI9BB0CTS256TBDBBBCTD5I2K

BB6BT51200 20 Slot Desk Top (A&T) $925.00 S79S.C

BBG8T5I250 20 Slot Rack Mount (AST) $975.00 SB50.C

For more CompuPro Specificationssee Ml" 2-33 ot our New Catalog

Manufactured by Vector Electronic Co. under license from CompuPro

BBVCTB8006FB Intertacer 1 2-Senal (AST) $295 00 8219.00

BBVCTB80BGF2B Intertacer2.3-Par.1-Ser (AST) $325 00 $239.09

BBVCT8800GRI7B RAM 17 64 K 10MHz $450 00 $369.00Static RAM (A&T)

192Mb Hard Disc Subsyslem $229500 $1995.00256K Static RAM (A&T) $185000 $1719.00

512K Dynamic RAM (A&T) S145000 $1345.00See Specifications on Pages 12-27Ot Our '83/'84 Engineering Selection Guide

COMPLETE OCTAGON 8/16 " SYSTEMS

BB0CT8I6SMPMW/256K Sialic RAM S MP/M-86'" $7350.00

BB0CT816SCCPH W/256K Static RAM 8 Concurrent CP/M-86 $7350.00BBBCT8160MPMW/512K Dynamic RAM S MP/M-86 $7350.00

BB0CTIIB0CCPMW/512K Dynamic RAM S Concurrent $7350.00

CP/M-86See Complete Specifications on Page 5 Of OurNew '83/'84 Engineering Selection Guide

ST506 514" Winchester Conl $500 00 $450.008" Winchester Com $500 00 $450.00

Install program (or use with non-ADC $ 10.00CPU board (Supplied on 8" CP/M"compatible disk)See Complete Specifications on Pages 14 - 27of our 'B3/'84 Engineering Selection Guide

MACKO'i'KCH International Corp.

MAX: 1 S-100 SLOT1 MEGABYTE

The MACR0TECH MAX is a 256K lo 1 Megabyte S-100 IEEE/696dynamic memory board Thai's right up to 1 Megabyte on a singlestandard size S-100 board The first 384 K is on the Host card thai plugsinto your motherboard. The remaining 640K ts located on a unique "piggy-back" card that attaches to the host The MAX family is ideally suited toapplicalions where density, speed, and software flexibility are essential

See Page 16 Of Our New '83/04 Engineering SelectionGuide for Complete Specifications

Ordering Information: The 256K and 384K versions include the fullysocketed Host card. The 512K and larger versions also include the fullysocketed "piggy-back" card. List Price SALE Price

BBMACMAX256 256K Dynamic RAM (AST) S112500 $1165.00

BBMACMAX384 384 Dynamic RAM (A&T) S1467 00 $1395.00

BBMACMAX512 512K Dynamic RAM (A&T) S186000 $1795.00

BBMACMAXM 1 MEG Dynamic RAM (A&T) $2449 00 $2325.00

BBMACMAXTM MAX Technical Manual $ 15.00

BBMACMAXVDSK MAX Virtual Disk Software supplies $ 25.00

on 8" S/D Disk

BBMACM3 Memory Mapping Option $ 91.00

Attention CompuPro CPU 8085/68 liters: You must order the CPUmodification hardware to insure complete compatibility

BBMACGBTMOD Hardware modification luiCompuPro CPU 6085/88

10.00

= ORDER TOLL FREE (800) 420-5922 - CA, AK, HI CALL (818) 709-5111 circle 303 §

DEAL PAGES 092 & 393

DISK DRIVES & CABINETS ON SALE!!

5V»" FLOPPY DISK DRIVES

BBMPI5I* MPI Full Height SS 48TPI {5 lbs.) $200.00

B8MPI52* MPI Full Height DS 48TPI (5 lbs.) $270.00

BBMPI9I- MPI Full Height SS 96TPI (5 lbs.) $275.00

BBMPI92* MPI Full Height DS 96TPI (5 lbs.) $400.00

BBMPI50I MPI Vi-Height SS 48TPI (4 lbs.) $260.00

BBWPI502 MPI Vi-Height DS 48TPI (4 lbs.) $300.00

BBTNDTM1001 Tandon Full Height SS 48TPI $199.00

BBTNDTM10O2 Tandon Full Height DS 48TPI $249.00

BBTHDTMID14 Tandon Full Height DS 96TPI $339.00

■Replace with M lor MPt Door, oi S for Shugart SA400 Type Door

Dual 8" Disk Enclosures

All ol these rugged enclosures feature forced, filtered air cooling, heftypower supply, with the heat producing elements mounted to outside forcool, reliable operation. The rear panels are punched for the appropriatedata cables.

FDE002. Economical design for two standard size 8" floppies. Hinged lidfor easy drive access. Power supply: 5V(B4A, -5V@i.8A. +24(°>3ADT1002. Cabinet for two 'A-heigtit 8" drives or 1 full height 8" floppy orWinchester. Includes Shugart type AC power cable

Lit Price SALE Price

Part Number Description

51/." Disk Drive Cabinets

BBJMMC5

BBJMR2C5BBJMR2C5C

Single Drive Cabinet (5 lbs)

Dual Drive Cabinet (9 lbs.)

Dual w/lnternal Data Cable (9 lbs.)

$ 79.00$ 99.00$115.00

BBIIIF0E002 FDE002 Dual Enc. (35 lbs.) $359.95 $325.00BBIIIDTL002SHU DTL0C2 Dual Thin Line(12 lbs.) $225.00 $175.00BBIItDTLMPIKiT MPI Vi-Heighl DTL adapter kit $ 24.95

BBIIICBLSPH3D4FM Shugart to Qume AC Cable $ 4.95

BUY CABINETS WITH DRIVES AND SAVE!

Combinations with FDE002

s3Bwir*^5j(Kf

5V«." Hard D sk

BBMCPI302

Micropolis 20.4/25.9 Mb (12 lbs.)

$1465.00

BBMCP1303

Micropolis 33.9/43.2 Mb (12 lbs.)

$1675.00

BBMCP1304

Micropolis 40.8/51.9 Mb (12 lbs.)

$2195.00

BBTNDTM501

Tandon 6 Mb (9 lbs.)

$ 699.00

BBTNDTM502

Tandon 12 Mb (9 lbs.)

$ 849.00

BBTNDTM503

Tandon 19 Mb (9 lbs.)

$ 995.00

BBSHU8Q1R Shugart Full Height SS (IB lbs.) $349.00

BBSHU8S1R Shugart Full Height DS (18 lbs.) $479.00

BBSIEFDD1006 Siemens Full Height SS (18 lbs.) $169.00

BB0METRAK842 Oume Full Heighl DS (18 lbs.) $459.00

BBMITM2B94S3B Mitsubishi Full Height DS (18 lbs.) $375.00

BBIUPMIS MPI Full Height SS (11 lbs.) $300.00

BBMPM2S MPI Full Height DS (11 lbs.) $460.00

BBMPI41D MPI Dual'«-Height SS (22 lbs.) $760.00

BBMPI42D MPI Dual '.-Height DS (22 lbs.) $630.00

BBMPW1M MPI VHeight SS (9 lbs.) $380.00

BBMPI42M MPI Vi-Heighl DS (9 lbs.) $460.00

BBTNDTM8481 Tandon v...Height SS (9 lbs.) $359.00

BBTN0TMM62 Tandon V Height DS (9 lbs.) $435.00

BBPDBIIIFDE2S2 w/2 SHU801R DrivesBBPDBIIIFBE2M2 w/2 MFM289463BS DrivesBBPBBIIIFBE2Q2 w/2 QMETRAK842 DrivesBBPBBIIIFBE2B51 w/2 SHU85IR DrivesBBPDBIIISIE W/2FDDI008 Drives

Combinations with DTID02

$ 969.00

$1049.00$1199.00$1239.00$ 595.00

BBPDBIIITND1 w/2 TNDTM8481 Drives $ 879.00

BBPDBIIITNB2 w/2 TNDTM8482 Dlives $1039.90

BBPDBIIIMPI1 w/2 MPI41M Drives $879.60

BBPDBIIIMPI2 w/2 MPI42M Drives $1039.00

Due lo UPS Regulations, drives end ceblneti will be shipped separately.Please Include shipping lor each disk drive and cabinet.

All of the necessary power for two TANDON TM500 series or equivalenthard disk drives Just imagine, you can have 10OMbytes of storage usingtwo of the Micropolis 5 Vi" Winchester disk drives and this cabinet! Powersupply: +5V(fC 6A and +12V@ 6A The rear panel is punched for two 20.two 34, and one 50 pin header connector. Fan cooled.BBIIIHD5002 Dual Hard Disk Enclosure $369.00

DUY CABINET WITH DRIVES AND SAVE!

BBPDB50IHD5

BBP0B502HD5

BBPDB503HD5

BBPDB1302HD5

BBPDB1303HD5

BBPDBI304NB5

w/2 TM501 Drivesw/2 TM502 Drivesw/2 TM503 Drivesw/2 MCP1302 Drivesw/2 MCP1303 Drivesw/2 MCP1304 Drives

$1599.00$1899.00$2149.00$2999.00$3799.00$4399.00

Due lo OPS Regulations, disk drives will be shipped separately from cab-inets. Don't lorget to include shipping lor each disk drive cabinet

maxell

irS WORTH IT!

1200 BAUD MODEM SALE

(5?1-?—- «UT» DIAL/

U.S.

ROBOTICS -.

AUTO ANSWER

FREE SOFTWARE!

Part number BMgjjtjM Uil Price SALE

BBPDBPASSTEU3 Password Modem w/Com- $528.00 $379.00

munication Software 8" CP/M'"BBFDBPASSTEL5 Password Modem w/Com- $528 00 $379.00

munication Software 5V AppleBBPDBADIALTELB Auto Dial 212A Modem $67800 $$495.00

w/Communication Soltware 8" CP/M1BBPDBADIALTELS Auto Dial 212A Modem $678 00 8495.00

w/Commumcation software 5W AppleBBPOBSIOOTEU S-100 Mortem Card w/operating S528 00 $379.00

software on 8" CP/M' diskette

D.C HAYES

For more details on

Modems, toe pages

36 S 39 ol our

New Catalog

Part Number Description

Ust Price Oor Price

BBDCH0400P 1200 Baud Smartmodem $695.00 $514.95

BBDCN0200P 300 Baud Smartmodem $279.00 $229.00

BBDCH0300P Chronograph $249.00 $199.00

BBDCNB100P MicroModem 100 $399.00 $349.00

BBDCHOOOOP MicroModem II $379.00 $299.00

BBDCNI200B IBM-PC" Modem card $599.00 $499.00

PJXON

1200 Baud Direct Connect w/10 Number Memory

5%" DOUBLE DENSITY DISKETTES

BBRIXR212A 1200 Baud Stand Alone unit $495.00 $449.00

BBRIXPC2I2A 1200 IBM PC" modem(2 lbs.) $495.00 $449.00

BBRIXPCC0MI IBM PC" Modem Software (1 lb.) $ 69.00

BBPOBBIXIBM IBM Modem i Soltware Together (3 lbs.) $539.00

Part Number Sectors

Tracks

Sides/Heads

Price Per Box ol 101 2 or more

BBMXLMDIM SoftBBMXLMHI10M 10 hard6BMXLMHII6M 16 Hard

404040

11

1

$28.00$28.00$28.00

$25.00$25.00$25.00

BBMXLMD2DM SoftBBMXLMK210BM 10 HardBBMXIMH2I6DM 16 Hard

404040

222

$42.00$42.00$42.00

$30.00$38.00$38.00

BBMXLMDI DDM Soft 80 1 $36.00 $33.00

BBMXIM02DDM Solt 80 2 $44.00 $40.00

BBMXLMH2I6D0M 16 Hard 80 2 $44.00 $40.00

All mini disks with exception of MD1 DOM MD2HD & MD2DDM are with hub ring

8" DOUBLE DENSITY DISKETTES

8BMXLF01I26M1200 SoftBBMXLFHI32MI200 Hard

$36.00 $33.00$36.00 $33.00

BBMXLFB2XDM1200 Sofl 2 $45.00 $40.00

BBMXLFH232BMI200 Hard 2 $45.00 $40.00

Go on The Gold Standard!

A GOOD COLOR TERMINALNEEDN'TCOST A LOTOF MONEY

yffcy HITACHI IMJ Al

\&J Hitachi Denshl.Ltd. UVHL

TRACE SCOPES

NOW WITH A5 YEAR WARRANTY!!

NEW LOWER PRICES!

FOR COMPLETE SPECIFICATIONS ON HITACHI OSCILLOSCOPES, SEE PAGES B2 « 83IN OUR 03/'84 ENGINEERING SELECTION GUIDE

40MHz withDelay Line

BBHITV422 List Price $895.00

SALE PRICE:

60MHz withTrigger View

BBHITV65I

'List Price: $1195.00

SALE PRICE:

100MHz Delayed Sweep/Quad Trace

BBHITV105BF List Price: $1595.00

SALE PRICE:

$ 749.00 $995.00 $1395.00

(Shipping Weight 17 lbs I

(Shipping Weigh! 31 lbs)

(Shipping Weigh! 31 lbs)

■UK.

ADDS

Phone Today and Get On OurPriority Interrupt Mailing List!

PRIORITY

Circle 303 on inquiry card.

ELECTRONICS

9161 Deenng Ave., Chatsworth, CA 91311-5887

^ffl ^S

BBAODCOIOK Viewpoint/Color Terminal (40 lbs.) List: $129500ON SALE NOW FOR ONLY: $1129.00

ORDER TOLL FREE (800) 420-5922 - CA, AK, HI CALL (818) 709-5111 s

Terms US VISA. MC BAG Check. Money Order U S founds Only Ca residents add6'/?% Sales Tax, MINIMUM PREPAID ORDERS1S0O. Include MINIMUM SHIP- =

PING S HANDLING oJS3 00 for Ihe first 3 lbs plus 404 tor each additional pound Orders over 50 lbs. sent freight collect Just in case include your phone number Prices ^^=

subiect to change without notice We will do our best to maintain prices through February. 1984 Many quantities are limited. Son - io ramchecks. no refunds or ex- —

changes on sale merchandise Credit card orders will be charged approriate freight Sate prices lor prepaid orders only We are not responsible tor lypographical errors ^=|

2 RETAIL STORE PHONE NUMBERS: (Cholsworth:) (618) 709-5464 - (Irvine:) (714) 660-1411 |g

Digitalker

rmsoa

74LS0274LS0374LSC474LS0!.74LS08741S0974LS107415)174LS1274LS1374LSI474LS1574LS2074L52174LSZ274LS2674LS2774LS2874LS3074LS3274LS3374LS3774LS3874LS4074LS4274LS4774LS4B74LS4974LS5174LS5474LS5574LS7374LS7474LS7574LS7674LS7874LSB374LS8S74LS8674LS90

74LS9274LS9374L59574LS96

74LS107 14

74LS109 16

74LS112 16

74LS113 14

74LS1I4 14

74LS122 14

74LS123 16

74LS125 14

74LS176 14

74LS132 14

74LS133 16

74LS136 14

74LS138 16

74LS139 16

74LS151 16

74LS153 IE

74LSI54 24

74LS155 16

74LS1S6 16

74LS157 16

74LS158 16

74LS160 16

74LS161 16

74LS162 16

74LS163 16

74LST64 14

74LS165 16

74LS16B 16

74LS169 16

74LS170 16

74LS173 IB

74LSI74 16

74LS175 16

74LSI81 24

74LS190 16

74LS191 IB

74LS19274LS19374LSI94

74LS19574LS19774LS22174LS24074LS24174LS24274LS24374LS24474LS24574LS24774LS24874LS24974LS25174LS25374LS25774LS25B74LS26074LS26674LS27374LS27974LS2B374LS29074LS29374LS29874LS35274LS35374LS365741.536674LS3B774LS36874LS37374LS37474LS37574LS3B674LS39374LS39974LS67081LE9581LSQ7

74SO074S027450374S0474S057450874S0974S1074S1174S1574S2Q74S2274S3074S3274S3874S4074S5174S6474S6574S7474SB574S8674S11274SII3

MrJJ.I'IM

14

74S1I474S13374S13474S13574S13674S13874S13974S14074S15I74SI5374SIS774S15B74S16074S17474S17574S188-74S19474S19574S19674S24074S241745242

74S24374S24474S25174S25374S25774525874S26074S28074S287-74S2BB*74S37374537474S387*74S471"74S472*745473'74S474'74S475*74SS70"74S571"74S572'74S573*74S94074S941

CA3010HCA3039H

CA3Q46N 14

CA3059N 14

CA30EON 16

CA3065E 14

CA3080E 8

C040QOCD4001CQ4002CD400GCD4007CD400?CD4010CD401ICD4017CD40I3CD4014CD4015CO4016C04017C0401BC04019CD4020C04021CD4022CD4023CD4024CD4025CD4026CD4027CD4028CD4029CU4Q3DC04034CD4Q35l [Moo ir

CA30B1N

CA3082N IS 1.19

CA3083N 16 1.49

CA3086N 14 .69

CA3089N 16 l 69

CA3Q96N 16 1.49

I

C04040CD4041CD4Q42CD40J3CD4044CD4Q46CD4047CD404SCD4049C040SOCD4Q51CD4052CD4D53CD4056CD4059CD406QCD4Q66CD4068CD4069CD4Q70C04071CD4072

mm

C04075CD4076CD4078GD4081CD4082C04093

CA3130ECA3140ECA3I60HCA3161E

CA3162ECA3189ECA3401N

CD4098CD4506CD4507CD4508CD45I0C04511CD4512CD4514C04515C04516CD4518C04519CD452DC04526CD4528C04529CD4543CD4S62CD4566CD4583CD4S84CD4723CD4724MC14409

MCJ4412 16

MC14419 16

MC14433 24

MC14S38 16

MC14S41 14

13.9513 9511.95

40 CPU

40 MPUw/Clcck

40 MPUw/Clcckal3MHz .. .

40 CPU-8-M (InternalClock) iMHi

40 CPU-8-M lEilemal Clock) lMHr .

40 MPU—B-bil (6MHz)

40 CPU-Sgl.chipfHiill12Bbts.Ram) . .

40 CPU (256 bytes RAM] ...

40 CPU (64 bytes RAM)

40 CPU w/Basic Micro Interpreter

40 CPU ..

40 CPU 16-bH 5MHz

4D CPU 8/16-blL

40 HM05 RAM I/O Port-Timer.

40 HMOSEPROMMPU-280, 280A, 280B, Z8000 SERIES-

40 CPU (MK3880N)(7flOC) 2MH7

28 Counter Time; Circuit

40 Dual Asynchronous Rec. /Trans.

40 Direct Memory Access Circuit .

40 Parallel I/O Interlace Controller

40 Serial I/O (TiCB and RxCB Bondcdl

40 Serial I/O (Lacks 01RB). ..

40 Serial I/O (Lacks SVNCB).

40 Serial I/O

40 CPU (MK3B80N-4)(7B0C-1) 4MH*

28 Counter Timer Circuit

40 Dual Asynchronous Rnc. /Trans

40 Direct Memory Access Circuit

40 Parallel I/O Interlace Controller

40 Serial I/O (TtCB and RxCB bonded)

40 Serial I/O (Lacks DTRB) .

40 Serial I/O (Lacks SVNCB)

40 Serial I/O . ..

40 CPU(MK3880N-6(6MHz.

2B Counter Timer Circuit

40 Dual Asynch. floceiver/Transmiller

40 Parallel I/O Interlace Controller

48 CPU Segmented

40 CPU Won-Segmented

40 Serial Comm Controller

40 Counter/Timer i. Parallel I/O Unit

12.9544 9534.9544 9529.95

-6500/6800/68000 SERIES —

40 MPU wilt) clock and RAM [2MHz)

40 Peripheral inter Adapter

40 MPU

40 MPU wnri clock and RAM

40 CPU (IMHi] Eternal (Locking)

40 Peripheral Inter Adapl (MC6820)

24 Priority Interrupt Controller

24 1024x8-bi(ROM(MC68A3O-8)

24 Asynchronous Comm. Adaptor

24 Synchronous Semi Data Adapter

24 O-GOObps Digital MODEM

64 MPU 16-Bit (8MHzj

40 General Purpose Int. Adapter

40 Multi. Protocol Camm Controller

2B Enhanced Prog Comm. Inl.

24 64K EPROM 1450ns). .

40 Peripheral Inter Adapter

INS8080A

TM555Q1

INS8154

8156

INS82C06

DP8212

DP8214

DP8216

DP8224

DP8226

DPB22B

DPB23B

INS8243

INS8245

INS8246

INS8247

INS82J8

INSB250N

DP8251

DP8253

DP8255

DP8257

-60B0A SER1ES-

INS177M

FD1791FD'793FD1795FD17976643P

40 CPU

40 Synchronous Data interlace (SIRC)

40 128 Byte RAM 16-Bil I/O .

40 RAM with I/O Port and Timer

20 Octal D Flip Flop Trl-State (74C374)

24 B-bitlnput/Ou1pul|74S412)

24 Pnonty Interrupt Control

16 B>* Directional Bus Driver

16 Clock Generator/Driver

16 Bus Driver ..

28 System Com./Bus Driver (74S428)

28 System Controller (7-5S438)

24 I/O Expander lor 48 Series

1B 16'Key Keyboaifl Encoder [74C922I

20 20'Key Keytxard Encoder (74C923)

23 Di5playController(74C91l)28 Display Controller (74C912)40 Asyn. Comm Elemwl . .

25 Prog Comm. I/O (USART)

24 Prog Interval Timor

40 Prog. Peripheral 1/Ol.PPl)

40 Prog DMA Control

28 Prog Interrupt Control

40 Prog CRT Controller

40 Prog. Key Dear n7 Display Imerlace

20 8-BTl Tri-Siaie Bi fractional Trans

20 B-bil Bl-Dtrocllonal Rsceiver ..

20 8bitBiDirectionalReceivef .

20 8-cHtBi-DrectionalRecerver

20 Octal Laiched Peripheral Dnver

4D 8'bit Urav Peripheral Interface

4D 16K EPROM with I/O

— DISK CONTROLLERS

40 Single Don si ly ...

40 Single/Dual Density |lrw.)

40 Si ngle / Double Den si ly (T rue)

id :".-.. j [>;-.:.:■, ;■:::-■ :-:'::i .

40 Dual Density/Side Select True

40 Fioppy Disk Coniroiter (1MHz)

— SPECIAL FUNCTION

299529 9529 9529 952995

OS0025CN

DS0026CN

INS2651

MC3470P

MM58167AH

MM58174AN

C0P402N

C0P402MN

CDP470NW.t535'i-\A IIMM536GESI

B Dual MOS Clock Driver (5MZ) .

8 Dual MOS Clock Onver (5MZ)

28 Communication Chip .

IB Floppy Disk Read Amp System

24 M icroprocessor Real Ti me C lock

16 Micro. Compatible Time Clock

40 Microcontroller w/64-Oigit RAM

and Direct LED Drive

40 Microprocessor w/64-digit RAM

& Direct LED Dnve w/N Buss Inl.

20 32-segVACFluOr Drvr (20-pinpkg )

S Prog OSDltatorrDivider (60Hi|

8 Prog Osciltator/Drvider(100Hz)

■■\>m DYNAMIC RAMS

4027

4116N-2

4116N-3

4116N-4

4164NI50

4164N-200

MM526I

MM5262

MM5270

MM52S0

MM5290-2

MM'ii-.in-i

i.mw/'M 1

MM!,;"!)! .1

18 102411 1300ns) 99

16 4096x1 (2S0ns) 2.49

16 1t>.384xl (150ns) 1 89-8/14 95

16 16.384x1 (200ns) 1 69-8/12.95

16 16,384x1 (250ns) 1.49-8/10.95

16 65.536x1 1150ns) 6.95 - 8/49.95

16 65.536x1 (200ns) 5 95-8/44.95

IB 1024>1 (300ns) 49-B/195

22 2048x1 (365ns) 40-811.95

IB 4096*1 1250ns) MK4096 4.9522 4096x1 (200ns) 210716 16.384x1 (150ns)16 16.384x1 (200ns)16 16.384x1 (250ns)16 8192x1 (200ns). STATIC RAMS-

(650ns)

89-B/14 9569-8/12 9519-8/10.95

22 256x4

16 1024x1

16 t024x1

IB 256x4

16 256x4

4S0IKI8101

(350ns)(450ns)L.P(450ns)8lll .(450ns) MOS

16

1024x4 (450ns) .1024x4 (450ns) LP1024x4 (200ns)1024x4 (200ns) LP4096x1 (70ns)(70ns)

2102

21L02

2111

2112

2114

2114L

2114-2

2I14L-2

2147

2I4B

TMS4045

TMS40L47-45 20 !D24x4

5101 22 256x4 (450ns} CMOS

MM5257 IB 4096.1 (450ns) 4044

HMG116P-3 24 2048x8 (150ns) CMOS

HM6115-4 24 204Bx8 (200ns) CMOS

HM611BLP-4 24 2048x8 (200ns) L P CMOS

HM6264P-15 28 8192x8 (ISOns)CMOS

27LSO0 16 256x1 [BOnsJLP

16 16x4

22 256X4

I 49-8/9.951 95-8/1395

1 75-8/11.95

2 25-8/14.95

7489

74C920

74C921

74C929

74C930

74S1B9

74S200

74S206

74S2B9

82S10

82S25

(50ns)3101

(250ns) -(250ns) CMOS(250ns)CMDS(6501)l250nS)CMOS(O5!B)|35ns) 93405

.i!l.l;l,.,'):).|IO .

^tioxi (60nsl9341t16x4 (35ns)3l011024x1 (50ns)O.C (93415)16x4 (50ns)O.C.(74S289)..PROMS/EPROMS

256.1

1702A

74

256x8

4.95

2708

?4

1024x8

(450ns)

3.95

2708-5

?4

1024x8

(550ns) SM00246

.2.95

TMS251D

?4

2048x8

(450ns)2716

5.95

1MS2532

?4

4096x8

1450ns) NMC2532 ...

.6.95

TMS2564

IX

8192x6

|450ns)

14.95

TMS2716

74

2048.8

|450ns) 3 voltage

9.95

2716

74

2048.B

(450ns)

4.95

2716-1

74

2048x8

(350ns)

S,95

2716Q-5

74

2048x8

(550ns)

.4.49

2732

74

4096x8

(450ns)

6 95

2?32A-3

74

4096x8

(300ns)

7.95

2732A-4

74

4096x8

(450ns)21V

6.95

27320-4

74

4096x8

(55Dns]

595

27580-A

74

1024x8

(450ns)

2.95

2764-4

7fl

8192x8

|450ns)

9.S5

2764-3

78

8192x8

(300ns)

14.95

MM52D40

74

512x8 |1us)

4.95

MCl.llitl/ii.t

74

8192x8

(450ns) ....

24,95

27128

78

16.384x8 1450ns) 128K EPROM

59.95

74S188

1B

32x8

PROMO.C 16330-1).

1.49

74S287

IR

256.4

PROMTS (6301-1)

1.95

74S288

IB

32x8

PROMTS (6331-1)

1 95

74S387

1ft

256x4

PROMO.C (6300-1)..

1.95

74S471

70

256x8

PROMT.S (6309-1). .

.5.95

74S472

711

512xB

PROMTS (6349-1) .

.4.95

74S473

?n

512x8

PROMOC (63481 ...

4 95

74S474

74

512x8

PROMTS (0M87S296N

.4.95

74S475

74

512x8

PROMO.C (8340)

4.95

74S476

18

1024x4

PROM T S

6.95

74S4 7B74S57074S571

7i<;-.,n8252382S11582S12382SI26b;':>i;,('82S13082SI85B2S19082S191

16 32x824 512x616 32x816 256x416 256x4512x4

1024x8 PROMTS16 512x4 PROMO.C (6305) 2.9516 512x4 PROMTS (6306) 2.9518 1024x4 PROMO.C (635?) .... 4.95IB 1024x4 PROMT.S. (82S137) . ,4,95PROMOC (27S18) . 2 95PROMTS (27S15) 9.95PROMTS I27S19) . 2 95PROMO.C. (27S20) . . 2.95PROMT S (27S21) . ., .2,95PROMOC (27S12) .. 3,95IB 2048x4 PROMT.S (TBP24S81) 9.9524 2048.8 (80ns) . . 14.9524 2048.8 180ns) .. 14.95DM87S180N 24 1024x8 PROM 0 C I82S1B0) 9,95DMB7S181N 24 1024x8 PROMTS (82S1B1) 9.950M87S1B4N IB 2048x4 PROM D C (82S184) 9.95DM87S1S5N IB 2048x4 PROM T S (82S185) . .9.95DM07S19ON 24 2048.4 PROM 0 C (82S190) ,14.950M875131N 24 ?04Bx8 PROM T.S (82S191) , ,.14,95 DATA ACQUISITION

DC 10 Mostek DC/DC Convert +5VIO-9V 2.95

MC3470P IB Floppy Disk Read AMP System 4 95

MC14U8L7 16 7-tiil D/A Convener (DAC0807LCN) 1 49

MCI408L8 ia 8 hii D/A Convener (DAC0808LCN) 2,25

ADCOB03LCII 20 8-bit A/D Convenor (±1/21 SB) 4 95

ADC0804 20 8-bit A/0 Converter (USB) 3 49

DAC0806 16 B-liil O/A Convener (0 78% Lm ).. . I 95

ADC0809 28 8 Oil A/D Converter (8-Ch Multi.) 4 49

ADC0817 40 B-hil A/D Convener (16-Ch Mulli.) 9 95

OAC1000 24 10-Bit D/AConv Micro Comp |0 05j/j) 7 95

OAC100B 70 10-bit D/A Conv Micro Comp. (0.20V,) 6 95

DACI020 16 10-bilO/AConv (0 05% Lm ) .. 7.95

DACI022 16 10-hil D/AConv (0.20% (.In.). . . . 5,95

DAC1222 1812-mi D/AConv (0.20%Lin.) . . .6.95

LM334Z Constanl Currenl Source ' 119

LM335Z Temperature Transducer 1 40

LM399H Temp Comp Prec Ret ) 5ppm/C°) 5 00

AT-5-1013A 40 30K Baud Uar1 (TR16Q2I

.3.95

LOW PROFILE(TIN) SOCKETS

8 pin L

14 pin L

16 pin L

1B pin Li

20 pin Li

22 pin LI

24 pin LI

28 pin LI

SOLDERTAIL(GOLD)STANDARD

14 pinIB pin

IB pin

nSQ

1.03

ST

s

WW

SOLDERTAILSTANDARD (TIN)

14 pin S16 pin SIB pin S20 pin S24 pin S20 pin S40 pin S

WIRE WRAP SOCKETS(GOLD) LEVEL #3

Spin WW10 pin WW14 pin WW16 pin WWISpin WW20 pin WW22 pin WW24 pin WW2B pin WW36 pin WW40 pin WW

1.75

1-79

$10.00 Minimum Order — U.S. Funds OnlyCalifornia Residents Add 6'/:% Sales TaxShipping — Add 5% plus $1.50 InsuranceSend S.A.S.E. for Monthly Sales Flyer!

Spec Sheets — 30c eachSend $1.00 Postage for yourFREE 1984 JAMECO CATALOGPrices Subject to Change

■3

ameco

EEBEEIIIEa

1355 SHOREWAY ROAD, BELMONT, CA 940022/64 PHONE ORDERS WELCOME — (415)592-8097 Telex: 176043

DT1050 — Applications: Teaching aids,appliances, clocks, automotive, telecommunica-tions, language translations, etc.

The DT1050 is a standard DIGITALKER kit encoded with 137 separateand useful words, 2 (ones, and 5 different silence durations. Thewords and (ones have been assigned dlscrele addresses, making itpossible to 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 synihealz-ed. The vocabulary is chosen so that It is applicable to many pro-ducts and markets.

The DT1050 consists of a Speech Processor Chip, MM54104 (40-pln)and two (2) Spoech ROMs MM52164S5R1 nnd UM52164SSR2 (24-pln)along with a Master Word list and a recommended schematicdiagram on the application sheet.

DT1050 Digitalker™ $34.95 ea.

MM841D4 Processor Chip $14.95 ea.

DT1057 - Expands the DT1050 vocabulary from 137 to ovor 2GD

words. Includes 2 ROMs and specs.

Pari No. DT1057 $24.95ea.

Pan Ho. "Pins Function Ptto

70451PI 2B CMOS Precision Timer 14 95

7045EV/KH" 2B SlOpwalcti Cflip, XTL 19 95

710ECPL 40 3Vi Digit A/0 iLCDOnve) 9 95

FE02O3D 3Vi Dtgil LCD Display for 7106& ?115 19-95

7IOBEV/KH* 40 IC. Circuit Board, Display 34.95

7107CPL 40 3'ftDlgii A/D (LED Drive) . 11.95

7lQ7EV/KiP 40 IC, Circuit Board. Display ,. ,29.95

7116CPL 40 3ftD<gi1A/DLCDDi5.HLD 16.95

7201IUS LowBattery VoltIndicalor 2.25

7205IPG 24 CMOSLEDStopwalcfi/Timer r2.95

7205EV/Kil* 24 Stopwatch Chip. XTL 14 95

720BCJPE 16 Tone Genuralor ... 4.95

7206CEV7KII* 16 Tone Generator Chip, XTL. 7 05

7207AIPD 14 Oscillator Conlrolloi 5 95

7207AEV/KH" 14 Freq Counier Chin. XTL 7 95

72151PG 24 4Fonc CMOSSlopwatchCKT 13,95

7215EV/KH- 24 4 Func Stopwaicn Chip. XTL 14 95

7216AUI 28 3 Digit Uiw Counter C A. 29.95

72I6CIJI 28 8 Digil Freq Counter CA. .24.95

7216DIPI 2B BDigilFreq CounlerC.C... , 10 95

7217UI 28 4 Digit LED Uu/Down Counter C A . 10,95

72I7AIPI 2B 4 Digit LED Up/Down Counter C C 11 95

7224IPL 40 LC04V)DtQilUpCounterDRI 10 95

7226AUL 40 8 Digit Urw Counter ..... 29 95

7226AEV/KH' 40 5 Function Counter Chip. XTL 74,95

130009 1983 INTERSIL Data Book (i356p.) S9l5s1

TOoucn 74HC High Speed CMOS

74HC00

14

.59

74HC139

IK

99

7JHC251

IB

IN

74HC02

14

.59

74HC147

Ifi

1 19

74HC253

IB

m

74HC03

14

.75

74HCI51

IB

89

74HC257

Iff

89

74HC04

14

.59

74HC153

IR

.99

74HC259

IB

1 49

7JHCU04

14

65

74HC154

24

2.49

74HC2C6

14

1 19

74HC08

59

74HC157

IK

89

74HC273

n

7 89

74HC10

14

.59

74HC158

IB

89

74HC2B0

14

3 9ft

74HC11

14

.59

74HC160

IK

1 29

74HC373

70

?3<l

74HC14

14

.85

74HC161

lb

1 29

74HC374

70

V 34

74HC20

14

.59

74HC162

IK

1 29

74HC390

IB

1 49

74HC27

14

.59

74HC163

IB

1.29

74HC393

14

1.49

74HC32

14

.75

74HC164

14

1.29

74HC533

70

739

74HC42

IK

.99

74HC165

IK

2.79

74HC534

70

74KC51

14-

.75

74HC173

IK

169

74HC595

IB

3Bfi

74HC58

14

75

74HC174

IK

99

74HC68B

70

a 19

74HC73

14

79

74HC175

IB

99

74HC4002

14

54

74HC74

14

.79

74HC192

IB

1 39

74HC4017

IB

7 11

74HC75

IB

.89

74HC193

IB

1 39

74HC4020

1K

1 19

74HC76

IB

.79

74HC194

Ifi

1 09

74HC4024

14

74HCB5

IR

1.59

74HC195

1fi

1.09

74HC4040

Iff

74HC86

14

.69

74HC237

IB

2.95

74HC4D60

IB

1 39

74HC107

14

.79

74HC240

70

1 95

74HC4075

14

fil

74HC109

111

79

74HC241

n

1 95

74HC4078

(W

74HC112

111

.79

74HC242

14

195

74HC4511

16

7fi9

71HC113

14

.79

74HC243

14

1 95

74HC4514

74HC132

14

.99

74HC244

20

1 95

74HC453B

Iff

74HC137

in

1.95

74HC245

ill

2 49

74HC4543

16

3 49

74HC13B

m

1.09

74HCU04 is

^Programmable Array Logic (PALS)

Pin No.

PAL10H8 20 Octal tO-lnput AND-OR Gate Array (High Output} S3 95

PALI2H6 20 Hen 12-lnnul AND-OR Gale Array [High Outpul) 3,95

PAL14H4 20 Quad 14-lnputANO-OR Gale Array (High Oulput] 3.95

PAL10L8 20 Octal 10-inpul AtiO-OfMnverl Gate Array (Low Output) 3 95

PAL12L6 20 He» 12-mput AND-OBtnverl Gate Array (Low Oulput) 3 95

PALI4L4 20 Quad 14-lnout AND-OR-lnver! Gale Array | Low Output) 3.95

PAL1BL8 20 Octal lfHnpul AKD-Ofl-mvert Gale Array 9.95

PAL16RB 20 Octal lb-Input Register AND-OR Gate Array 7 95

PAL16R6 20 Hex 16-lnpui Register AND-OR Gate Array 7 95

PAL16R4 20 Quad 16-lnput Register AND-OR Gale Array 7 95

130012 1982NATIONAL PAL Data Book|i76pj . . $5.951

74C0074C0274C0474C0874C1074C1474C2074C3074C3274C4274C4874C737JC7474CB574CB574C6974C9074C93

14

TL071CP 8

TL072CP 8

TL074CN 14

TL081CP 8

TL082CP B

TL0B4CN 14

LM301CN B

LM302H

LM304H

LM305H

LM307CN B

LM30BCN 8

LM309K

LM310CN 8

LM311CN 8

LM312H

LM317T

LM317K

LM318CN 6

LM319N 14

LM320K-5

LM320K-12

LM320K-15

LM320T-5

LM320T-I2

LM320T-15

LM323K

LM324N 14

LM337T

LM338K

LM339N 14

LM340K-5

LM340K-12

LM340K-15

Frr

71

th

16

1 95

74C95

14

1.39

74C244

70

1 95

74C107

14

89

74C373

711

249

74C151

IB

2 49

74C374

70

2 49

74C154

74

3 49

74C901

14

59

74057

74C903

14

59

1ft

1 19

74C906

14

59

74C161

IB

1 19

74C911

78

8 95

74C162

IK

1 19

74C912

78

8 95

74C163

IB

1 19

74C915

IB

1.19

74C164

14

74C917

78

895

74C173

Ifi

1 19

74C922

18

4 49

74C174

Ifi

I 19

74C923

70

■195

74C175

1 19

74C925

IB

5 95

74C192

IB

149

74C926

18

5.95

74C193

1B

1.69

B0C95

IB

69

74C195

lb

1 39

60C97

It

.69

¥T

LM723N

14

59

mzh

In

IaM

LM733N

14

1 00

LM340T-5

79

LM739N

14

1 95

LM340T-

?

79

LM741CH

8

35

LM340T-15

79

LM74 7N

14

69

LF347N

14

1 49

LM748N

8

59

LM348N

14

-99

LM1310N

14

1 49

LU350K

4 95

LM1458CI

B

59

LF355N

8

1 10

LM14S8N

14

89

LF356N

fl

1 10

LM14B9N

14

89

LM370N

14

4 49

LMI496N

14

1 95

LM373N

14

3 95

LM16O0N

IB

2 49

LM377N

14

1,95

LM1B71N

18

2.95

LU3BDN

14

89

LM1872N

18

3 25

LM381N

14

1 79

LM1877IJ-9 14

2 49

LM382II

14

1 39

LM1SB9N

18

2 25

LM384N

14

t 79

LM1896N

14

2 95

LM386N-;

fl

89

LM20O3T

1.99

IL494CN

IB

3 95

LM3189N

Ifi

1.59

TL496CP

fl

1 19

LM3900N

14

59

NE53IV

B

2 95

LM3905CN

8

1 19

NE544N

14

2.95

LM3909N

8

99

NE550A

14

1 95

LM3914N

18

295

NE555V

8

35

LM3915N

18

2 95

LM556N

14

69

LM39I6N

IS

2 95

NE564N

IB

2.95

RC4136N

14

1.25

LM565N

14

t 19

RC4151NB

A

1 95

LM5G6CN

8

1 49

RC4194TK

4 49

LM567V

B

99

NES5J2

8

2 49

NE570N

IB

395

KSS34

9

1 69

LM703CN

8

1 19

ICLB036B

14

3 95

LM709N

14

49

LM130B0I

8

t 19

LM71DN

14

69

LM13600I

in

l 19

LU71IN

14

79

MORE AVAILABLE i

30003 1982Nal.LlnearDalaBook

I952pgs I

532 BYTE February 1984

Circle 192 on inquiry card.

home computer accessories KEYBOARDS — POWER SUPPLIES

VOICE SYNTHESIZERFOR APPLE AND COMMODORE

M& JE520AP

JE520CM

• Over 250 word vocabulary-allines allow the formation ot morathan 50,0 wwita * o\i\¥i-\t\ ampVitiet, speaker, volume control, anrjaudio jack • Recreates a clear, natural male voice * Plug-in userready with documentation and sample software • Case size:7VL x 3VW x 1-3/8"H

APPLICATIONS: • Security Warning • Telecommunication

• Teaching • Handicap Aid

• Instrumentation • Games

Thi JE5;0 VOICE SYNTHESIZER will plug tight Into your campultt and allow you toenhanco almoil any application Utilizing National Semiconductor'! DIGITALKERlmSpssch Prot'.:-.■;: IC lwlth lout cuilam memory Chips). Ititj JE520 campraass'natural tpoach into digital memory. Including iho original Inflections and amphiiet.Tho fin nil li an gitramary clear, natural vocalization,ci-o, sa»: VOCABULARY EXPANSION MODULE

• Expands to over 1000 bisic words

* Allows sanction ot up la 6 additional word sets

Pari No. Description Price

JE520CM For Commodore 64 & VIC-20 $114.95

JE520AP Fnr Apple II. IU ■,and//e $149.95

* VMM

JE664 EPROM PROGRAMMER

8K to 64K EPROMS - 24 & 28 Pin Packages

Complete!! Self-Contained - Requires No Additional Systems tor Operation

■ Programs and validates EPROMs ■ Chocks (or properly erased EPROMs- Emulates PROMs or EPROMs ■ RS232C Computer Interlace lor editing andprogram loading • Loads data into RAM by keyboard ■ Changes data in RAMby keyboard • Loads RAM from an EPROM • Compares EPROMs lor contentditferencos ■ Copies EPROMs ■ Power Input: 115VAC, 60Hz, less than 10Wpower consumption ■ Enclosure: Color-coordlnBted. light tan panels withmolded ana pieces in mocha brown • Sue: 15VL x8VDx3VH ■ Weight:

51. lbs.

I.'..? JEO-l EFMM hogtrirsmi: i.-i>: .lies .-'nil nnxjums various 8-Bit Word EPflOMs Irom 8K to6-tK-Bn mc-mcy capacity Data can be entered into the JE664's internal 8K16-Bil MM m threeways. (11 Irom a ROM cr EPROM. 12) Irom an external computer via the cptiona! JE665 RS232CBUS. c3j Irom its panel keyboard i"ne jE664's RAM* may be accessed tor emulation purposesfrom tne panel's lest socket to an external microprocessor. In oroorammnrj and emulation, theJE664 allows tar examination, change and validation ol program conieu The JE664's RAMsCM bo piorjraniffKiO qntcMy loali " l"s (or any value), allowing unused addresses in Ihe EPflOM|g ix- Drwiumined la'.ei without necessity ot "LTV" erasing. The JEG6-1 displays DATA andADDRESS in convenient heiadeomal (alphanumeric) format. A "DISPLAY EPROM DATA"button changes the DAIA readout hem RAM word to EPROM word and 15 displayed in both

haartaclnwl *~a binary code The ticnt panel features a convenient operating guide The JE664

Programmer ircludos one JM16A Jumper Module las listed below).

JE664-A EPROM Programmer $995.00

Assembled S Tested (includes JM16A Modjie)

JE665 - RS232C INTERFACE OPTION - The RS232C Interface Option implementscomputer access lo Ihe J£6G4's RAM. This allows the compute' to manipulate, store andtr.ins'er EPROM data loand Irom the JE664. A sample program listing is supplied in MQASICfcCP M computers Documentation is promied to adapt the software to Direr computers with anRS232 twt 9600 Baud, fl-b-t word, odd parity and 2 slop tuts

FOR A LIMITED TIME A SAMPLE OF SOFTWARE WRITTEN IN BASIC FORTHE TRS-BO- MODEL I. LEVEL II COMPUTER WILL ALSO BE PROVIDED.

JE664-ARS EPROM Prog. w/JEBH Option $1195.00

Assembled S Tested (Includes JM16A Module)

EPROM JUMPER MODULES - The JE6M's JUMPER MODULE (Personality Module) is aplug-in Module 'hat presets Ihe JE564 lor the proper programming pulses lo Ihe EPflOM andconfigures the EPflOM socket connections tor that particular EPfluM.

jaw meat

mm

'

[MOM MWurUIHO)

nWf

JUOBA

zros

!SV

aho, Mcwtto tot. mid ti

114 55

JHTH

?716 T«S!SI6fTl|

!SV

IfiKt. Mane*!, Na. NEC 71,AMO. Hmcm. Male-.

. 514 95

JMIrjfl

!"■-.'■ = ■'.■■:

W.+5V.-1N

MoinroU. 71

*U'hS

JM32*

TMS2532

2SV

Mourda, Tk Hiiactn, OKi

SM'Ji

•"338

?r»

25V

AMO. FwBu. NEC. Hrtadt. Intel.

Sites

J432C

mix

21V

FijpM, kM

tU 35

JMEU

tA-.iMirt-:

21V

MotuoH.. .

S14.95

jum

2764

21V

intiH, Far Hind. OKJ

S14 95

4-Digit Fluorescent Alarm Clock Kit

ely iI incly tram

Vs

The JE750 Clock Kit is a versatile 12-hour digital clockwith 24-hour alarm. The clock has a bright 0.5" highblue-green fluorescent display. The display will automat-ically dim with changing light conditions. The 24-houralarm allows the user to disable the alarm and immediat-ely re-enable the alarm to activate 24 hours later. The kitincludes all documentation, components, case and walltransformer. Size: 6 VL x 3^ "W x 1VD.

JE750 Alarm Clock Kit $29.95

Lx9.8"Wx3,s"H

Lx7'b"Wx 1'.2"H

3 BDDIIllOOOMi

a maaaaaaaamm_. aaooaaocioaai

ifii

19»4"l_x6VWx 1»"H

u

:'.

#n

106-Key 8-Bit Serial ASCII Keyboard

■ Numeric and cursor keypad • 10 user defina-ble keys • 7 LEO function displays • Securitylock ■ N-key rollover • Color: white with blackpanel • Documentation included ■ Weight: 6'6lbs.KB139 $59.95

Micro-Switch 106-Key Keyboard8-Bit Serial ASCII

• Numeric and cursor keypad • 8 user defina-ble keys -Japanese/English characters -8LED function displays • Documentationincl. • Fits DTE-22 enclosure • Wt: 3'/2 lbs.KB106SD29-4 $29.95

SMK103-Key Unencoded Keyboard

Numeric and cursor keypad • SPST mechan-ical keyswitches ■ 40-pin header connection• Fits DTE-22 enclosure • Weight: 314 lbs.

KB9000 $19.95

Power/Mate CorporationREGULATED POWER SUPPLY

■Inpul: 105-125/210-250VAC at 47-63 Hz -Output: 5VDC 8 3.0Amps/6VDC S 2.5 Amps ■ Size: 4!i>"L x 4"W x 2VH • Weight: 2 lbs.

EMA5/6B $29.95

Power/Mate CorporationREGULATED POWER SUPPLY

■ Input: 105-125/210-250VAC at 47-63 Hz • Output: 5V <8 6 amps/6V8 5 amps • Size: 5VL x 4?s"W x 2VH • Weight: 4 lbs.

EMA5/6C $39.95

Power-One's

REGULATED POWER SUPPLY

• Input: 105-125VAC, 47-440 Hz ■ Output: +5V S 12 amp; +12V @1.7 amp; -12Vtj 1.7amp • Size: 14.25'Lx4.87"Wx2.75"H ■ Weight:11 lbs.

DBB-105W $59.95

POWER SUPPLY +5V0C ® 7.5 AMP, 12VDC @ 1.5 AMP SWITCHING

Input' ItSVAC. 50-60H; '<, 3 HW/230VAC, 50Hi ffi 1 6 amp. Fin volt, /pnwir (iipply ssl.ct awlt-

cl!.!nlS/_230VAC| Output: 5V0C B 7 Samp, l2VDCf, 1 6 amp, UN. blk. pow. MM. Hft'TKl

POWER SUPPLY 4-Channel Switching - Apple Compatible

Mlcroprocenar. mini-computer, tormlnal mudlcal aqulpmonl and procatt control appllcalltmii. in-put: 90-13QVAC 47-440HZ. Output: +BVDC®8A, -SV0C (?c 1A; +12V0C t-c I A, -12VUC <n I A.Line raa.: *0.2V.. Ripple: 30mV p-p Load reg.: ;Hi Over current protoclion. Ad|: 5 V main nut-pul±10%. 6-3/B-Li l-7/B"Wi 4-15/t6"H. Wt. IV. Ibl.

Part No. FCS-604A S69.95 each

DISKETTES AND ACCESSORIES

■ MINIFIES! [DM

5%" and 8" Diskettes

ULTRA MAGNETICS — 5%" DISKETTES

UMS240I

-.' SSDO San S*-ir- nn'ln Hub Rir>g iBulM

BbmwI URICE10 »4 05

ice inn

-. ' DSDD Soil Stclot mlK Hub n.n0 una En.glopg. ■ DSDD Sou Soclor Blltl HuO Ring IBulM]

tO 31.19

100 13B.8S

. - SSOD Soli Sdcroi »im Envoiop<i (MTPII

10 34.S5

UMOttir "

.' SSCD Sail Secror seiBNaui.l

loo !5i as

, - dsoO Sell Sudor wnn En.aiac* 1MTP11

10 41.M

100 ISS.SS

SMESKEI, - 5% •DISKETTES

SttDSKIDS

. ' S5DD Soli S«10r *ir" Hut. R.ng ir>a En,«l0D«

10 M.as

■.- SSDD So'1 Skioi *iss Hun «,n0 iBuiM

100 \A»M

sm;o

; ■ DSDD Soti Spcip- -mn Hub H^no unrj En.Biooo

10 !fl.95

100 199.95

ULTRA MAGNETICS — 8" DISKETTES

■juiinz

■ ■' '":• . - -. \ "««"»__

100 219.15

• DSDD So'I Soclor lUnldrrluimii Bulk _^

nitova tie soil jecrovca aii nan Hub R.ngt *.rn mt fceet.on <ii i

100 aSB.SK

DISKETTE ACCESSORIES

Disk Minder

#%

• Attractive, lunctiona disk storage system • 501.8", or 7515 Vt') disk storage capacity • Easy tiling and removing

• Protects disk tram dust contamination ■ Moldod fromdurable smoked plastic witti Iront car/ying handle • Sue7"Wx6'/i-H x 9V.-0 •Weight: 2 ttts.

It 9.3:

•Stores 10 |5'i

s 10(5'.-.

MP5201 tOWhite5"."Envelopos .. .10lorS1.49

MP5201-100 100 While 5% - Envelopes 100 lor S10.95

MPB201 10 WhitoS'Envelopes 10lorS 1.95

MPB2D1-10O 100 While B" Envelopes 100lorSt7.95

Vinyl Pages

For 3-Hiiiii Binders

PC001

2 Pocket 5

. "Vinyl Page..

10lorJ7.95

PCOD1-2

A Pocket 5

. "Vinyl Pago.

10lorSB.95

PC014

1 Pocket B

Vinyl Page.

10 (or 17.95

PC014-2

2 Pocket a

V,nyl Pago

. 101orlB.95

Mail Pak™

$10.00 Minimum Order — U.S. Funds OnlyCalifornia Residents Add 6'/?% Sales TaxShipping — Add 5% plus S1.50 InsuranceSend S.A.S.E. lot Monthly Sales Flyer!

Spec Sheets — 30c eachSend $1.00 Postage for yourFREE 1984 JAMECO CATALOGPrices Subject to Change

VISA*

1355 SHOREWAY ROAD, BELMONT, CA 940022/84 PHONE ORDERS WELCOME — (415) 5928097 Telex: 176043

DISK DRIVES AND CABLE

PANASONIC JA551 -2

Double-Sided Half-Height 5 V DRIVE

Shugart SA455 Equivalent- Single or double density ■ 4U TP1 ■ 40 Imcks • 6ms trac* Id back • 327KByteaformatted storage • One year warranty parts and laborThe JA551 is perfect lor word processors, personal and portable computers,small business computers and terminal add-ons. Includes operating manualRequires:-*-5VDC<§.9A and H2VDC® 1 A Siie:5 3B"Wx 1 63"H*8D. Wt3.3 lbs.

JA551-2 $239.95

TEAC FD55A

Single-Sided Half-Height 5V«" Drive

• Single or double density - 4S TP1 ■ 40 tracks ■ 6ms track lo track - 5Wpower consumption • Brusfiless DC direct-drlvo motor • 160KBytes for-matted storage • One yeor warranty parts and labor

Double your work space with the TEAC 5'* FLOPPY DISK DRIVE. Becausethe TEAC FD55A Drive is half Ihe height ol conventional drives, you can lit upto four TEAC drives in the same space where Iwo conventional drives lit Or,have room for two (loppy disk drives and a hard disk drive. Includes operat-ing manual. Requires. t5VDC @ .55A and +12VDC « 3A Sue. 5VW x!VH x 8"D .Wt: 3 lbsFD55A $249.95

SHUGART SA455

Double-Sided Half-Height 5W Drive

• Single or double density • 48 TPI -40 tracks • 40SKBytes formattedstorage ■ Gms track lo track • Brushless DC direct-drive motor - One yeerwarranty parts and labor - Media and interlace compatible with the SA450Backed by Ihe Industry's largest and most experienced engineering salesand service organizalion, Ihe SA455 is the smart solution for a wide range oldosklop applicalions. Includes operating manual Requires: I 5VDC 0 7Aand -M2VOC A 75A. Size: S.e8"W x l.E3"H x 8"D. Wt: 3.3 lbs.SA455 $259.95

UV-EPROM Eraser

8 Chips — 51 Minutes |

11 Chip — 37 Minutes

Erases 2708, 2716, 2732. 2764, 2516. 2532. 2564. Erases Up to 8 chips

wllhln 51 minutes (1 chip In 37 minutes). Maintains constant exposuredistance ol one Inch. Special conductive foam liner eliminates sialicbuild-up. Built-in salely lock to prevent UV exposure. Compacl — only9.00" x 3.70* x 2.60". Complete with holding tray for 8 chips.

DE-4 UV-EPROM Eraser ..UVS-11 EL Replacement Bulb

s79.95

,...$16.95

|

5V4" APPLE™COMPATIBLEDISK DRIVE

• Uiei Shurjad SA330 machinlci • 143Klormttted itorigs • 35 tracks — compatiblewith Apple controller • Complete with connec-tor and cable — |uit plug into your dlik con-troller card • Size 6"L x 3V,~W x8-9/16"D ■ Weigh): 4V* lot.

PartNo.ADD-514 $195.95

8; FLOPPY DISK DRIVE

■FA

■ Single-Sided

• 77 Tracks

• 400/800K BytesCapacity

• Industry Standard

density. Transfer rate: 250K bits/sec. single density; 5O0K bits/sec.double density. The FDD100-8 is designed to work with Ihe single-sided soft sectored IBM Diskette I, or eq. disk cartridge. Power:115VAC @50-60Hz, + 24VDC Q 1.7 amps max.. + SVDC St 1.2 ampsmax. Unit as pictured above (d:es not include case, power supply, orcables). Size: 8.55"W x 14"L x 4.5"H. Weighs 12 lbs. Incl. 96-pg.manual,

FDD100-8 . $169.95 ea.

SIGNAL CABLES

5Va " DRIVES USE 34-PIN ASSEMBLIES8" DRIVES USE 50-PIN ASSEMBLIES•S = SOCKET CONNECTOR*C = CARD-EDGE CONNECTORSINGLE DRIVE CABLE

Slyl. M , Sl>l» N

Drive

Stylo

Part No.

1-4

s +

5 V. "

M

S34-36-C

7.95

7.25

5'/."

N

S34-60-C

8.95

8.39

8"

M

S50-36-C

10.95

9.95

8"

N

S50-60-C

12.49

10.95

DUAL DRIVE CABLES

Drive Styl. Pari No.

M

5%" O S34-36C-18C 12.59 11.19

5'/a" P S34-60C-24C 14.29 12.69

8" O S50-36C-18C 16.49 14.49

8" P S50-60C-24C 18.95 16.95

Power Cable Kits

Kits include: Connector shells, connector

pins, and power cables.

Power Cable Kit for 5V«" Drive Price

PartNo.PCK-5 $2.95

Power Cable Kit for Full-Sized 8" Drive

Part No. PCK-8 $3.95

Power Cable Kit for Oume Full-Sized 8" DrivePartNo.PCK-Q $4.95

Circle 192 on Inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 533

^-/UemvncedI

X Z>-COWPUTERl

^/raoDucrs

*>.

APPLE

IBM PC COMBO CARD

MEMORY PLUS AT LOW PRICES!

Now! "Multicard" expandable

from 64-256K with

(1) PARALLEL (1) SERIAL

(1) CLOCK/CALENDAR

$22900

$39900

COEX 64 SPC with 64KCOEX 256 SPC with 256K

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 pricing IThese Prices are the lowest ever published

"Siemen's SSDD FDD100-8.. $169.00

Also, with purchase of Disk Drivesyou can buy the Vista V-1000 Dual Case

with Power Supply and Cablefor only $375.00 — Regular Price $495,00

Otter Limited! Factory Warranty 90 Days!Shipped Immediately from Stock! 'OEM Quantities

DOT MATRIX PRINTER

COEX 80-FT

y 9x7 Dot Matrix,80 CPS. Bi-Directional

Printingv 2K Buffered Memoryv 80, 96. 132 Columns. Graphics and

Block Printingv Selectable Char Pitch. Line Spacing

and FeedCOEX Interface Card to Apple $49.95

ACP HAS DISK DRIVES

APPLE II

ThinLineDrive

COMPATIBLE

^

TOSHIBA Half High

PC Compatible • Double Sided

$24g00

TANDON 100-2

PC Compatible • Double Sided$23900

HARDWARE

AST Megaplua" Card L

P'N MG064 (64K, S. C) 3

•Comboplus " Card

P/N MC-064SPC (64K. S. P. C) 3

•PC I/O Plus II™ CardP.-N I/O (C. S) 1

• 'SIX PACK'*

PAN SP064SPC (64K. S, P, C)COEX Extender CardPrototype CardHERCULES

Hercules Graphic CardMOUSE SYSTEMS Mouse for IBMMICROSOFT

Mouse plus Multiiool WordM&R 6 Slot Expansion Chassis

for IBMPC/XT or Eagle etcORCHID Hi-Res Graphics Adaptor

PERSYST Spectrum (64-256K)

P/N SP64, (64K. Clk, S. P)PLANTRONICS Color plus'- CardOUADRAM Quadboard (64-258K)

P'N Q64. 64K w.'4 functions 3

OuadLink Apple Card 6

Quadboard 64K

Microfazer Print Buftor MP-64Ouadchrome (Hires RGB)RIXON PC212A Modem I'O 5

SSM Transmodem 1200USI Multidisplay CardVISTA "Multicard"' (exp. 64-256K)

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•"PC Master" (10 I/O) 4

•'•PC Extender" (up to 10 I/O) 2

•"Dlakmaater" 2

•8' Thlnllne Dual Floppy

• V I2O0 6.2Mb Cartridge Drive

449

479299

PRNTERS

COEX 80F'T BOcps

$299

DYNAX Daisywheel

SILVER REED

EXP500 132 Column

STAR MICRONICS - NEW!

Gemini 10X 120cps

39!

Gemini 15 15"

59<

EPSON FX80

69E

FX10O

695

BROTHER HR'IBMC

1195

DAISYWRITER

1495

TTX Daisywheel

•JFC Splnwnler 3550

BM PC lo Parallel Cable

60

MONITORS

AMDEK CORP

300 GrBen 12"

$19J

310 Amber 12"

21C

Color 1 Composite.Hilachi

39S

Color II RGB Hi-Res

89E

3MC

12" Green

12E

PRINCETON GRAPHICS

RGB IBM Lookalike

700

DISKETTES

DYSAN 5V." SS SD

10'$55

3YSAN 5%" DS SD

in65

BM 5W" SS SD

10.-6C

BM BWSS DD

10/65

VERBATIM 525-01 SS

10/45

VERBATIM 550 01 DS

10/55

MAXELL MD1 SS

10/5C

MAXELL MD2 DS

I0/6C

-lip Storage Box 5"." (80 disks)

3ULK SPECIAL SS

10/25

With Sleeve and Box

100/195

MORE BM GOOD ES

C0MPUCA8LE

Keyboard & Drive Covers (set)

CURTISPC Pedeslal

PGS or Ouadchrome AdaptorVertical PC System SlandIBM Mono Extension CableKeyboard Ext. Cable (3-9')

EPD PROTECTION DEVICESThe Lemon (Surge Protector)The Peach (Surge Prolector)ThB Orange (with EMI'RFl)The Lime

INTEL 8087 IC

KOALA PAD

KRAFT Joystick IBM

RAM EXPANSION

I6K Motherboard (16 IC's)64K Memory Exp (9 IC's)

OTHER DR VES WE STOCK

TANDON 848-2 Tlilnline $479.00 SHUGART 8Q1R

TEAC FD55B 299.00 SHUGART 860 Thlnllne 479.C

PANASONIC C155 (PC Compj .. 259.00 SHUGART SA400 2 Ill.uol

MP1 B52 279.00 SEAGATE ST506 (6MB Win.) ... 599.001

HAYES

Smart mod em 300

PC Modem Software 1.3 (above)

Smartmodem 1200

PC Software 1 4C (above)

Smartmodem 1200B

Smartcom II

800-854-8230

TWX

910-595-1565

COMPATIBLE

DISKCONTROLLER

Only

$4995

Apple Printer Interface$AQ95

w/Apple lo Epson Cable T1 *M

Apple Me Compatible$9995

80 ColumnCard W/64K

49

APPLE COMPATIBLEPOWER SUPPLY

APPLE COMPATIBLEIff* J°Y

s999

s49

95

NEW LOWACP PRICE

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". 8" andV1200 Compatible

Mappkz computer

WW' Authorized Dealer

APPLE COOLING FAN

with

Surge

^Suppression

95

STICKonly $1595

^^^^ Computer Company

VISTA V1200

6.2 Cartridge Drive w/ControllerApple or IBM CompatiblePlease Specify S00095

with Order

VISTA "SOLO"

iW^^^— Apple It/lie

I Compatible

^1 I Disk Drive

Totally compatible to Apple Drives.

.n„'19995

Controller $49.95

Just plug in and run.

Apple II16KRAM CARD

Compatible withZ80 Softcard ' . PASCAL CP/M

Full 1 year Warranty. Top Quality by COEX

Apple lie w 6-iKApple lie SystemApple lie Sys w/Exl TexlDisk II w/ConlrollerDisk II w.o ControllerMonitor III GreenSuper Serial CardParallel Interface CardBO Column Text CardExtended 80 Column TexlDoi Matrix Printer

249.00529.00Apple Products Available In-Store Only"

UST$1395 00

1995.002195.00545.00395.00249.00195 00165 00\25.00295.00695.00

ACP

$1195.001695.001B95.00449.00359.00199.00169.00139.00

MORE HARDWARE

MICROSOFT

Z60 Softcard

16K RamcardSSM

AIO-II 4 Function SerialParallelEASTSIDE

Wildcard Apple IIKENSINGTON

System SaverKEYBOARD COMPANY

Numeric Keypad

Apple II Joystick

Apple II Hand ControllersKRAFT

Joystick

Hand ControllerMPC

126K Bubble MemoryPROMETHEUS

VERSAcard Four-in-1VISTA COMPUTER CO.

AB00 6" Disk Control

Quartet Disk Drive 5W

Solo Disk Drive w/Conir

Solo Drive w/o Contr

Vista 5W Disk Contr

Type head BuffetVIDEX

Videoterm 80x24 Card

Keyboard Enhancer II

Soft Switch

Function Strip KeysPRACTICAL PERIPHERALS

16K MicrobuHer

32K Microbuffer

Snapshot OptionVOTRAX

Type n'Talk Speech

Personal SystemVYNET

Apple II Voice Syn.

Apple II Telephone I/OSCOTT INSTRUMENTS

Voice Recognit'n VETB0COEX

16K RAM Card

Parallel Card w/Cable

Apple Protocard

Apple Extendercard

Apple lie Ext RAM CardCORVUSORANGE MICRO

The Grapplnr I/O (Plus)

The BufferboardSATURN SYSTEMS

32K RAM Card

128K RAM CardSTREET

ECHO IILEGEND

64KC ll He

128KC II lie

18SRC 18K StaticMICROPRO Wordstar w CIJ MMOUNTAIN COMPUTER

CPS Multifunction

Music System

AD plus DA

ROM PlusMAR ENTERPRISES

Sup'rtsrm 80x24 Card

SuprMod II

SuprMod V (IBM)ALS

TheCP.M Plus ZBO Card

Smarterm 60x24 Card

The Synergizor Package

UST$395.00

195.00

149.9549.9529.95

199.00

379.95849.00299.002490092.0049.95

345.00

259.00

299.00149.00

799.00

99.0099.0029.0029 00199 00

ACP

$249.0089.00

179.00

115.00

89.00

124.9544.5025.95

49.0040.00

699.00

166.00

299.00799.00249.00199 0049.0035.00

279.00129.00

30.00

69.00 '

220.00253.00109.00

49.9549.9519.95

327.00599 00

149 00499

239.00395.00350.00155.00

399.00349.00699.00

269.00 I

499.00

135.00

415

169.00 |335.00299.00129.00 |

269.0049.0049.00

329.00 |

279.00

549.00

■J.I.I!J*M.J.M.MI=M.ii«JSAVE UP TO 40%

BUSINESS

Screen WriterBD MasterVisicalc " 3 3VisiplOlPFS. File IIPFS, File IIIVisiUenrJVis'plolPFS. Graph IIPFS, Graph IIIMulliplanVersa formWordstardBASE IISupercalcPFS. Report IIPFS, Report IIIAccl Plus G/LG/L, A/P, A/RAbove + InventoryMagic WindowHOME

Home AccountantTrans end ITransend IIVisiterm

ASCII Expts. Prol

$129 HOBBY

155 Zoom Graphics

185 Utility City

159 Locksmith 4 0

115 Nibbles Away II

155 GAMES

25 Choplifter

115 Ftogget

155 Wizardy

199 Snack Attack

279 Cannonball Blitz

299 Knight Diamonds

439 Zotk I

169 Zork III

95 Starcross

115 Serpentine

299 Star Blazer

599 Deadline

799 Tubeway

115 Flight SimulaiorSpace Vikings

59 Sargon II

76 Spitfire Simulator

119 Apple Panic

89 Olympic Decatri

Apple" Apple Trademark of Apple ComputerIBM" IBM Trademark of International BusinessMachines

Mail OnlEt P.O. Bin 17329 Irvine. CA 92713

Retail: 131 (IB E. Edinyer, Santa Ana. CA 92705

(714) 558-8813

542 w Trimble. San Jose. CA 95131

(408) 946-7010

TERMS: MO Cashier's Check Bank W«e Personal checksallow 2 weeks lor processing Include Drivers License acredit card *s Visa, AMEX CB add 3% service charge Add3% shipping & handling or $2.50°. whichever is greater. .10% lor loteign orders or US Parcel Post Include Telephonenumber NO CODS. Prices subject to change without noticeSome items subject 10 phot sate. Wo reserve Ihe right 10Substitute manufacturer Retail prices may vary

534 BYTE February 1984

Circle 13 on inquiry card.

ADVANCED

AtYilSMiar.

PRODUCTS

Serving Computer Professionals Since 1976

HARDWARE

AST Megaplus" Card List

P/N MG064 (64K, S. C) 395

•Comboplus" Card

P/N MC-064SPC (64K, S. P, C) 395•PC I/O Plus 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 lor IBMMICROSOFT

Mouse plus Multitool WordORCHID

Hi-Res Graphics Adaptor 395

PERSYST Spectrum (64-256K)

P/N SP64, (64K. Clk, S, P)PLANTHONICS Color plus'- CardQUADRAM Quadboard (64-256K)

P/N 064, 64K w/4 (unctions 395

QuadUnk Apple Card 680

Quadboard 64K

Microfazer Print Buffer MP-64Quadchrome (Hires RGB)RIXON PC212A Modem I/O 596

SSM Transmodem 1200USI Multidisplay CardVISTA "Multlcard"" (exp. 64-256K)

P/N V-064 (64K. Clk, S, P)

P/N V-256 (256K, Clk, S, P)►"Moxlcard""' (up to 576K)

P/N V-576-64K

P/N V-576-576K•"PC Master" (10 I/O)•"PC Extender" (up to 10 I/O)• "Dlskmaster"•8" Thinline Dual Floppy•V12O0 6.2Mb Cartridge Drive

395695

495249299

ACP

$279

2992935

359269

Call

339

319399

2795252791904S8449479299

249729329199199Call999

PRINTERS

COEX 60F/T SOcpsDYNAX DaisywheelSILVER REED

EXP500 132 ColumnSTAR MICRONICS ■ NEW!

Gemini 10X 120cps

Gemini 15 15"EPSON FX80

FX100BROTHER HR-VBMCDAISYWRITERTTX DaisywheelNEC Spinwriler 3550IBM PC to Parallel Cable

S299

$199

525

649

399

319

599

469

699

549

895

749

1195

895

14«h

1295

549

1875

60

39

MONITORS

AMDEK CORP

300 Green 12" $199

$155

310 Amber 12" 210

175

Color I Composite/Hilachi 399

339

Color II RGB Hi-Res 899

695

BMC

12" Green 129

89

PRINCETON GRAPHICS

RGB IBM Lookalike 700

545

DISKETTES

DYSAN 5V SS SD 10/$55

S38

DYSAN 5Vi" DS SD 10/65

48

IBM 5V«" SS SD 10/60

43

IBM5WSSDD 10/65

47

VERBATIM 525-01 SS 10/45

23

VERBATIM 550-01 DS 10/55

34

MAXELL MD1 SS 10/50

29

MAXELL MD2 DS 10/60

39

Flip Storage Box 5W (80 disks)BULK SPECIAL SS 10/25

19

19

With Sleeve and Box 100/195

149

MORE IBM GOODIES

COMPUCABLE

Keyboard & Drive Covers (set)

S19

CURTIS

PC Pedestal

$80

64

PGS or Quadchrome Adaptor

10

Vertical PC System Stand

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 8087 IC

199

KOALA PAD

99

KRAFT Joystick IBM

70

40

RAM EXPANSION

16K Motherboard (16 ICs)

19

64K Memory Exp. (9 ICs)

50

TIME SHARE SERVICES

COMPUSERVE SubscriptionSOURCE Subscription

MODEMS

HAYES

Smartrnodem 300

$210

PC Modem Software 1.3 (above)

49

Smartrnodem 1200

525

PC Software 1.4C (above)

79

Smartrnodem 1200B

445

Smartcom II

79

Smartrnodem to IBM Cable

25

SOFTWARE

dBASE II

$39900

Condor

$38900

SuperCalc

$9900SuperCalc 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

s^rn-ww^

If You're Thinking IBM PC"

READ THIS!

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.

MULTI CARD II Plus

(The optimum PC Expansion Card)

* OK to 384K RAM

* ASYNC Serial Port

* Clock/Calendar w/Nicad Backup

* Parallel Printer Port

* Joy Stick/Game Port

* RAMDisk Software

* Spooler Software

64K „, $22900384K O„$49900 '"

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" IvJ

1. DISKMASTER™. Disk Controller for IBM PC or XT adds both 5'/T 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""1. IBM PC & XT Expansion Chassis with (6) Slots, PowerSupply 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 V; High

PC Compatible • Double Sided$24900

Circle 13 on inquiry card.

TERMS: MO. Cashier's Check. Bank Wire. Personal checksallow 2 weeks for processing. Include Drivers License and creditcard #s Visa. AMEX. CB add 3"'° service charge. Add 3%shipping & handling or $2.50, whichever is greater. Add 10% torforeign ordBrs or US Parcel Post Include Telephone number. NOCODs. Prices subject to change without notice. Some itemssubject to prior sate. We reserve the right to substitute manu-facturer. Retail prices may vary. Wo are not an authorized IBMdealer. IBM" trademark of International Business Machines.

MAIL ORDER: P.O. Box 17329 Irvine, CA 92713

Retail: 1310 E. Edinger, Santa Ana, CA 92705(714) 558-8813

542 W. Trimble, San Jose, CA 95131(408) 946-7010

800-854-8230

TWX

910-595-1565

64K MEMORY + P.S.CS229.00

64K DYNAMIC200 NS

$595 TIYIIYI2016

2KX8 STATIC200 NS

Wi

STATIC RAMS

2101

256x4

(450ns)

1.95

5101

256x4

(450ns) (cmos)

3.95

2102-1

1024 x 1

(450ns)

.89

2102L-4

1024 x 1

(450ns) (LP)

.99

2102L-2

1024 x 1

(250ns) (LP)

1.49

2111

256x4

(450ns)

2.49

2112

256x4

(450ns)

2.99

2114

1024x4

(450ns)

8/9.95

2114-25

1024 x4

(250ns)

8/10.95

2114L-4

1024 x4

(450ns) (LP)

8/12.95

2114L-3

1024 x 4

(300ns) (LP)

8/13.45

2114L-2

1024x4

(200ns)(LP)

8/13.95

TC5514

1024 >4

(650ns) (cmos)

2.49

TC5516

2048 x 8

(250ns) (cmos)

9.95

2147

4096 x 1

(55ns)

4.95

TMS4044-4

4096 x 1

(450ns)

3.49

TMS4044-3

4096 x 1

(300ns)

3.99

TMS4044-2

4096 x 1

(200ns)

4.49

MK4118

1024 x8

(250ns)

9.95

TMM2016-200

2048 x 8

(200ns)

4.15

TMM2016-150

2048 x 8

(150ns)

4.95

TMM2016-100

2048 x 8

(100ns)

6.15

HM6116-4

2048 x 8

(200ns) (cmos)

4.75

HM6116-3

2048 x 8

(150ns) (cmos)

4.95

HME116-2

2048 x 8

(120ns) (cmos)

8.95

HM6116LP-4

2048 x 8

(200ns) (cmos)(LP)

5.95

HM6116LP-3

2048 x 8

(150ns) (cmos)(LP)

6.95

HM61 16LP-2

2048 x 8

(120ns) (cmos)(LP)

10.95

Z-6132

4096 x 8

(300ns) (Ostat)

34.95

HM6264

8192 x 8

(150ns) (cmos)

49.95

L LP ■ Low Power

Qstat = Quasi-Static

EPROMS

1702

256x8

(1us)

4.50

2708

1024 x 8

(450ns

3.95

2758

1024 x8

(450ns

(5v)

5.95

2716

2048 x 8

(450ns

(5v)

3.95

2716-1

2048 x 8

(350ns;

(5v)

5.95

TMS2516

2048 x 8

(450ns

(5v)

5.50

TMS2716

2048 x 8

(450ns

7.95

TMS2532

4096 x 8

(450ns

(0V)

5.95

2732

4096x8

(450ns

CSv)

4.95

2732-250

4096 x 8

(250ns

(5v)

8.95

2732-200

4096 x 8

(200ns

(5v)

11.95

2732A-4

4096 x 8

(450ns

(5v)(21vPGM)

6.95

2732A

4096 x 8

(250ns

(5v)(21vPGM)

9.95

2732A-2

4096 x 8

(200ns

(5v)(21vPGM)

13.95

2764

8192 x 8

(450ns

(5v)

6.95

2764-250

8192x8

(250ns

(5v)

7.95

2764-200

8192x8

(200ns

(5v)

19.95

TMS2564

8192x8

(450ns

(5v)

14.95

MCM68764 8192 x 8

(450ns

(5v)(24pin)

39.95

MCM68766 8192 x8

(350ns

(5v) (24 pin)(pwr dn.)

42.95

27128

16384 x 8

(300ns

(5v)

29.95

5v - Single 5 Volt Supply 21vPGM - Program at 21 Volts

DYNAMIC RAMS

EPROM ERASERS

QSPECTROIMICSCORPORATION

TMS4027

UPD411

MM5280

MK4108

MM5298

4116-300

4116-250

4116-200

4116-150

4116-120

2118

MK4332

4164-200

4164-150

MCM6665

TMS4164-15

4096 x 1

4096 x 1

4096 x 1

8192 x 1

8192 x 116384x116384x 116384x 116384x116384 x116384x13276B x 165536 x165536 x 165536 x165536 X1

5V = single 5 volt supply

(250ns)

1.99

(300ns)

3.00

(300ns)

3.00

(200ns)

1.95

(250ns)

1.85

(300ns)

8/11.75

(250ns)

8/7.95

(200ns)

8/12.95

(150ns)

8/14.95

(120ns)

8/29.95

(150ns) <5v)

4.95

(200ns)

9.95

(200ns)(Sv)

5.95

(150ns) (5v)

6.95

(200ns) (5v)

8.95

(150ns) (5v)

8.95

Capacity

Intensity

Timer

Chip

(uW/Cm')

PE-14

9

8,000

83.00

PE-14T

X

9

8,000

119.00

PE-24T

X

12

9,600

175.00

PL-265T

X

30

9,600

255.00

PR-125T

X

25

17,000

349.00

PR-320T

X

42

17,000

595.00,

• computer managed inuentoru— ulrtually no bach orders!

• ueru competltlue prices!

• Friendly staff!

• Fast seruice - most ordersshipped within 24 hours!

6800

I 68000 49.95 I

6800 2.95

6802 7.95 1

6803 19.95 I

6808 13.9016809E 14.95 I

6809 11.95 I

6810 2.95 I

6820 4.35

6821 2.956828 14.95 I6840 12.95

6843 34.95

6844 25.95 I

6845 14.9516847 11.951

I 6850 3.25 I

6852 5.751

6860 7.95 I

6875 6.95

6880 2.25

6883 22.951

68047 24.95

| 68468 19.95 |6800 = 1MHZ

I 68B00 10.95 I

68B02 22.25

68B09E 29.95

68B09 29.95

68B10 6.951

68B21 6.95

68B40 19.95

I68B45 19.95 I

| 68B50 5.95 |

68B00 - 2 MHZ

6500

8000

8200

6502

4.95

6504

6.95

6505

8.95

6507

9.95

6520

4.35

6522

6.95

6532

9.95

6545

22.50

6551

11.85

6502A6522A6532A6545A6551A

6.95

9.95

11.95 I

27.95

11.95

DISCCONTROLLERS I

1771 16.951

1791 24.95 1

1793 26.95 I

1795 29.95 I

1797 49.95 1

I 2791 54.95 I

2793 54.951

2795 59.95 I

2797 59.95 I

6843 34.951

8272 39.951

| UPD765 39.95 1

MB6876 29.95

MB8877 34.95

1691 17.95 I

L.2143 1B.95J

8035

8039

INS-8060

INS-8073

8080

8085

8085A-2

8086

8087I 8088I 808918155I 8155-21815618185

8185-218741I 8748L.8755

5.955.9517.9549.953.954.9511.95 I24.95CALL29.9589.95 I6.95 I7.95 I6.95 I29.95 I39.95 I29.95 I24.95 I24.95J

CRT

CONTROLLERS

6845

14.95

68B45

19.95

HD46505SP

15.95

6847

11.95

MC1372

6.95

68047

24.95

8275

29.95

7220

99.95

CRT5027

19.95

CRT5037

24.95

TMS9918A

39.95

.DP8350

49.95.

8202

24.95

8203

39.95

8205

3.50

8212

1.80

8214

3.85

8216

1.75

8224

2.25

8226

1.80

8228

3.49

8237

19.95

8237-5

21.95

8238

4.49

8243

4.45

8250

10.95

8251

4.49

8253

6.95

B253-5

7.95

8255

4.49

8255-5

5.25

8257

7.95

8257-5

8.95

8259

6.90

B259-5

7.50

8271

79.95

8272

39.95

8275

29.95

8279

8.95

8279-5

10.00

8282

6.50

8283

6.50

8284

5.50

B286

6.50

8287

6.50

8288

25.00

.8289

49.95.,

Z-80

2.5 Mhz

zBo-cpu

zeo-CTc

z8o-dart

z8o-dma

zBo-pio

zso-sio/o

zeo-sto/1

zso-sto/2

Z80-S10/9

4.0 Mhz

zsoa-cpu

Z80A-CTC

Z80A-DART

Z80A-DMA

Z80A-PIO

Z80A-SIO/0

Z80A-SIO/1

Z80A-SIO/2

Z80A-SIO/9

6.0 Mhz

3-95 I

3.95 I10.95 I14.95 I

3.95 I

11.95 I11.95 I11.95 I11.95 I

4.49 14 959.95 112.954.4912.9512.9512.9512.95 I

Z80B-CPU

Z80B-CTC

Z80B-PIO

Z80B-DART

Z80B-SIO/2

ZILOG

Z6132 34.95

Z8671 39.95

9.9512.9512.9519.95 I39.95 I

CRYSTALS^

32.768 khz

1.95

1.0 mhz

3.95

1.8432

3.95

2.0

2.95

2.097152

2.95

2.4576

2.95

3.2768

2.95

3.579545

2.95

4.0

2.95

5.0

2.95

5.0688

2.95

5.185

2.95

5.7143

2.95

6.0

2.95

6.144

2.95

6.5536

2.95

8.0

2.95

10.0

2.95

10.738635

2.95

14.31818

2.95

15.0

2.95

16.0

2.95

17.430

2.95

18.0

2.95

18.432

2.95

20.0

2.95

22.1184

2.95

^32.0

2.95

CMOS

UARTS

AY3-1014

6.95

AY5-1013

3.95

AY3-1015

6.95

PT1472

9.95

TR1602

3.95

2350

9.95

2651

8.95

IM6402

7.95

IM6403

8.95

INS8250

10.95

GENERATORSBIT-RATE

MC14411

BR1941

4702

COM5016

COM8116

MM5307

11.9511.9512.9516.9510.9510.95

FUNCTION

I MC4024 3.95

LM566 1.49

XR2206 3.75

L.8038 3.95

MISC.

UPD7201

29.95

TMS99532

29.95

ULN2003

2.49

3242

7.95

3341

4.95

MC3470

4.95

MC3480

9.00

11C90

13.95

95H90

7.95

2513-001 UP

9.95

,2513-002 LOW

9.95.

r CLOCK ^

CIRCUITS

MM5314

4.95

MM5369

3.95

MM5375

4.95

MM58167

12.95

MM58174

11.95

■MSM5B32

3.95.

^EYBOARD^

CHIPS

AY5-2376

11.95

AY5-3600

11.95

AY5-3600 PRO

11.95.

4000

4001

4002

4006

4007

4008

4009

4010

4011

4012

4013

4014

4015

4016

4017

4018

4019

4020

4021

4022

4023

4024

4025

4026

4027

4028

4029

4030

4034

4035

4040

4041

4042

4043

4044

4046

4047

4049

4050

4051

4053

4060

4066

4068

4069

4070

4071

4072

4073

4075

4076

4078

4081

4082

4085

4086

4093

4098

4099

14409

14410

14411

14412

14419

14433

4502

4503

4508

4510

4511

4512

4514

4515

4516

4518

4519

4520

4522

4526

4527

.29

.25

.25

.89

.29

.95

.39

.45

.25

.25

.38

.79

.39

.39

.69

.79

.39

.75

.79

.79

.29

.65

.29

1.65

.45

.69

.79

.39

1.95

.85

.75

.75

.69

.85

.79

.85

.95

.35

.35

.79

.79

.89

.39

.39

.29

.35

.29

.29

.29

.29

.79

.29

.29

.29

.95

.95

.49

2.49

1.95

12.95

12.95

11.95

12.95

7.95

14.95

.95

.65

1.95

.85

.85

.65

1.25

1.79

1.55

.89

.39

.79

1.25

1.25

1.95

4528

4531

4532

4536

4539

4541

4543

4553

4555

4556

4581

4582

4584

4585

4702

74C00

74C02

74C04

74C08

74C10

74C14

74C20

74C30

74C32

74C42

74C48

74C73

74C1*

74C76

74C63

74CB5

74C86

74C89

74C90

74C93

74C95

74C107

74C150

74C151

74C154

74C157

74C160

74C161

74C162

74C163

74C164

74C165

74C173

74C174

74C175

74C192

74C193

74C195

74C200

74C221

74C244

74C373

74C374

74C901

74C902

74C903

74C905

74C906

74C907

74C908

74C909

74C910

74C911

74C912

74C914

74C915

74C918

74C920

74C921

74C922

74C923

74C925

74C926

74C928

74C929

1.19 I

.95 I

1.95 I

1.95 I1.95 I2.6411.1915.79 I.95 1.95 I1.95 I1.95 I.75 I.75 I12.95.35 I.351.35 I.35 I.35.59 I.35 I.35 I.39 I1.29 I1.99 I.65 I.65 I.80 I1.95 I1.95 I.39 I4.50 I1.19 I1.75 I.99.895.752.25 I3.25 I1.751.191.191.191.191.392.00 1.79 I1.191.1911.49 I1.491.39 I5.751.752.252.452.45.39.85.8510.95.951.002.002.759.958.958.951.951.192.7517.9515.954.494.955.957.957.9519.95J

*JDR Microdevices1224 S. Bascom Avenue, San Jose, CA 95128

800-538-5000 • 800-662-6279 (CA)(408) 995-5430 • Telex 171-110

© Copyright 1984 JDR Microdevices

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°/o sales tax. Bay Area and LA residents include 6' i%. Pricessubject to change without notice. We are not responsible lortypographical errors. We reserve the right to limit quantities and losubstitute manulacturer. All merchandise subject to prior sale.

536 BYTE February 1984

Circle 193 on inquiry card.

21ia<soNS8/$9" 2114

250 NS

74LS00

74LS0074LS0174LS0274LS0374LS0474LS0574LS0874LS0974LS1074LS1174LS1274LS1374LS1474LS1574LS2074LS2174LS2274LS2674LS2774LS2874LS3074LS3274LS3374LS3774LS3874LS4074LS4274US4774LS4874LS4974LS5174LS5474LS5574LS6374LS7374LS7474LS7574LS7674LS7874LSB374LS8574LS8674LS9074LS9174LS9274LS9374LS9574LS9674LS10774LS10974LS11274LS11374LS11474LS12274LS12374LS12474LS12574LS12674LS13274LS13374LS13674LS13774LS13874LS13974LS14574LS14774LS14874LS15174LS15374LS15474LS15574LS15674LS15774LS15874LS16074LS16174LS16274LS16374LS16474LS16574LS16674LS16874LS169.74LS170

.24.25.25.25.24.25.28.29.25.35.35.45.59.35.25.29.25.29.29.35.25.29.55.35.35.25.49.75.75.75.25.29.291.25.39.35.39.39.49.60.69.39.55.89.55.55.75.89.39.39.39.39.39.45.792.90.49.49.59.59.39.99.55.551.202.491.35.55.551.90.69.69.65.59.69.65.69.65.69.951.951.751.751.49

74LS173

74LS174

74LS175

74LS181

74LS189

74LS190

74LS191

74LS192

74LS193

74LS194

74LS19S

74LS196

74LS197

74LS221

74LS240

74LS241

74LS242

74LS243

74LS244

74LS245

74LS247

74LS248

74LS249

74LS251

74LS253

74LS257

74LS258

74LS259

74LS260

74LS266

74LS273

74LS275

74LS279

74LS280

74LS283

74LS290

74LS293

74LS295

74LS298

74LS299

74LS323

74LS324

74LS352

74LS353

74LS363

74LS364

74LS365

74LS366

74LS367

74LS368

74LS373

74LS374

74LS375

74LS377

74LS378

74LS379

74LS385

74LS386

74LS390

74LS393

74LS395

74LS399

74LS424

74LS447

74LS490

74LS624

74LS640

74LS645

74LS668

74LS669

74LS670

74LS674

74LS682

74LS683

74LS684

74LS685

74LS688

74LS689

81LS95

81LS96

81LS97

81LS98

25LS2521

25LS2569

.69

.55

.55

2.15

8.95

.89

.69

.79

.79

.69

.69

.79

.79

.89

.95

.99

.99

.99

1.29

1.49

.75

.99

.99

.59

.59

.59

.59

2.75

.59

.55

1.49

3.35

.49

1.98

.69

.89

.89

.99

.89

1.75

3.50

1.75

1.29

1.29

1.35

1.95

.49

.49

.45

.45

1.39

1.39

.95

1.39

1.18

1.35

3.90

.45

1.19

1.19

1.19

1.49

2.95

.95

1.95

3.99

2.20

2.20

1.69

1.89

1.49

14.95

3.20

3.20

3.20

3.20

2.40

3.20

1.49

1.49

1.49

1.49

2.80

4.25

74S00

74S00

.32

74S02

.35

74S03

.35

74S04

.35

74S05

.35

74S08

.35

74S09

.40

74S10

.35

74S11

.35

74S15

.35

74S20

.35

74S22

.35

74S30

.35

74S32

.40

74S37

.88

74S38

.85

74S40

.35

74S51

.35

74S64

.40

74S65

.40

74S74

.50

74S85

1.99

74S86

.50

74S112

.50

74S113

.50

74S114

.55

74S124

2.75

INTERFACE'

8T26

1.59

8T28

1.89

8T95

.89

8T96

.89

8T97

.89

8T98

.89

DM8131

2.95

DP8304

2.29

DS8833

2.25

DS8835

1.99

DS8836

.99

DS8837OS8838

1.651.30,

74S13274S13374S13474S13574S13874S13974S14074S15174S15374S15774S15874S16174S16274S16374S16874S16974S17474S17574S18174S18274S18874S18974S19474S19574S19674S19774S201

1.24

.45

.50

.89

.85

.85

.55

.95

.95

.95

.95

1.95

1.95

1.95

3.95

3.95

.95

.95

3.95

2.95

1.95

6.95

1.49

1.49

1.49

1.49

6.95

74S22574S24074S24174S24474S2S174S25374S25774S25874S26074S27374S27474S27574S28074S28774S28874S28974S30174S37374S37474S38174S38774S41274S47174S47274S47474S48274S57074S571

7.95

2.20

2.20

2.20

95

.95

.95

.95

.79

2.45

19.95

19.95

1.95

1.90

1.90

6.89

6.95

2.45

2.45

7.95

1.95

2.98

4.95

4.95

4.95

15.25

2.95

2.95 j

VOLTAGEREGULATORS

7400

7805T

.75

7905T

.85

78M05C

.35

7908T

.85

7808T

.75

7912T

.85

7812T

.75

7915T

.85

7815T

.75

7924T

.85

7824T

.75

7905K

1.49

7805K

1.39

7912K

1.49

7812K

1.39

7915K

1.49

7815K

1.39

7924K

1.49

7824K

1.39

79L05

.79

78L05

.69

79L12

.79

78L12

.69

79L15

.79

78L15

.69

LM323K

4.95

78H05K

9.95

UA78S40

1.95

78H12K

9.95

C, T

= TO-220

K = TO-3

L = TO-92

SOUND CHIPS

I 76477 3.95 AY3-8910 12.95 1

76488 5.95 AY3-8912 12.95 1

L.76489 8.95 MC3340 1.49 J

ORDER TOLL FREE800-538-5000

wnwEmi

(CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS)

DATA ACQUISITION

ADC0800ADC0804ADC0809ADC0817

IpACoeoo

15.55 DAC0808

3.49 DAC1020

4.49 DAC1022

9.95 MC1408L6

4.95 MC1408L8

2.958.255.951.952.95J

CONNECTORS'

RS232 Male

2.50

RS232 Femalt

3.25

RS232 Hood

1.25

S-100ST'

3.95,

r EXAR

XR 2206

3.75

XR 2207

3.75

XR 2208

3.75

XR 2211

5.25

^XR 2240

3.25,

r INTERSIL^1

ICL7106

9.95

ICL7107

12.95

ICL7660

2.95

ICL8038

3.95

ICM7207A

5.59

LICM7208

15.95^

^9000

9316

1.00

9334

2.50

9368

3.95

9401

9.95

9601

.75

9602

1.50

.96S02

1.95,

LINEAR

LM301

LM301H

LM307

LM30B

LM308H

LM309H

LM309K

LM310

LM311

LM311H

LM312H

LM317K

LM317T

LM318

LM318H

LM319H

LM319

LM320(see

LM322

1.M323K

LM324

LM329

LM331

LM334

LM335

LM336

LM337K

LM337T

LM338K

LM339

.34

.79

.45

.69

1.15

1.95

1.25

1.75

.64

.89

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

.99

LM340(see

LM348

LM350K

LM350T

LM358

LM359

LM376

LM377

LM378

LM379

LM380

LM380N-8

LM381

LM382

LM383

LM384

LM386

LM387

LM389

LM390

LM392

LM393

LM394H

LM399H

NE531

NE555

NE5S6

NE558

NE561

NE564

7800)

.994.954.60

.691.793.751.952.504.50

.891.101.601.601.951.95

.891.401.351.95

.691.294.605.002.95

.34

.65

1.50

24.95

2.95

LM565LM566LM567NE570NE571NE590NE592LM709LM710LM711LM723LM723HLM733LM741LM741N-LM741HLM747LM748LM1014LM1303LM1310MC1330MC1349MC1350MC1358MC1372LM1414LM1458LM1488LM1489LM1496T = TO-220

.99

1.49

.89

3.95

2.95

2.50

2.75

.59

.75

.79

.49

.55

.98

.35

I .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

.85

LM1558HLM1800LM1812LM1830LM1871LM1872LM1877LM1889LM1896ULN2003LM2877LM2878LM2900LM2901LM3900LM3905LM3909LM3911LM3914LM3915LM3916MC4024MC4044RC4136RC4151LM4250LM4500RC4558LM13080LM13600LM13700; = TO-3

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

740074017402740374047405740674077408740974107411741374147416741774207421742574277430743274377438744274457446744774487451747374747475747674827483748574867489749074927493749574977410074107741097411674121L74122

.19.19.19.19.19.25.29.29.24.19.19.25.35.49.25.25.19.35.29.29.19.29.29.29.49.69.69.69.69.23.34.33.45.35.95.50.59.35

2.15.35.50.35.55

2.75

1.75.30.45

1.55.29.45

74123741257412674132741367414374145741477414874150741517415374154741557415774159741607416174163741647416574166741677417074173741747417574177741817418474185741917419274193741947419574197741987422174246742477425974273742767427974366743677436874393

RCA

CA 3023CA 3039CA 3046CA 3059CA 3060CA 3065CA 3080 1.10CA3081 1.65CA3160

2.751.291.252.902.901.75

CA3082CA 3083CA 3086CA 3089CA 3096CA3130CA3140CA31461.19

Tl

TL494TL496TL497751077511075150751547518675189

TL071TL072TL074TL081TL082TL083

4.201.653.251.491.951.951.951.251.2575494

753657545075451754527545375454754917549275493.89

Bl FET

.79

1.192.19.791.191.19LF357

TL084LF347LF351LF353LF355LF3561.40

.491.45 I.45 I.45 I

.50 I

4.95 I

.60 I

1.75 I

1.20 I

1.35 I

.55 I

.55

1.25 1

.75 I

.551

1.65 I

.85 I

.69 1

.691

.85 1

.85 1

1.00 I

2.95 I

1.65 I

.75 I

.89 I

.89 I

.75 I

2.25 I

2.001

2.00 I

1.15 I

.79

.79

.85 I

.85 I

.75

1.35 I

1.35

1.35

1.25 I

2.25

1.95

1.25 I

.75 I

.65 I

.651

.65

1.35 I

1.651.55.802.993.491.301.151.85

1.95.59.39.39.39.39 I.79 f.79 I.89

2.192.19.601.001.10 I1.101

lYIIGRODEUIGES AT IYIIGR0PRIGES

■ mm] lif ■

ALL MERCHANDISE 100% GUARANTEED

Copyright 1984 JDR Microdevtces

Circle 193 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 537

16KEPR0MS

ai1625oNS8/$795

RF MODULATOR

(ASTEC UM10B2) QUANTITIES LIMITED

* PRESET TO CHANNEL 3 NOW

* USE TO BUILD ONLYTV-COMPUTER INTERFACE

* +5 VOLT OPERATION

POWER SUPPLIES

IDEAL FOR HOBBYIST. BENCHWORK & DO-IT-YOUR-SELFERS! 90-DAY WARRANTY! NEW & UNUSED!QUANTITIES LIMITED!

$695

ASTEC AA11190

* QUAD OUTPUT SWITCHINGDESIGN AS USED IN APPLE III

* +5 @ 4A; -5 @ .25A

* +12 @ 2.5A; -12 @ .30A; 15.5"x4.5"x2"

SIGMA INSTRUMENTS

Model 2PC2241

I * 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

OUR BUVER BLEW IT...I& BOUGHT TOO iYIANV OF THESE! I

4116 250ns 8/7.95

CAPACITORS

TANTALUM

6V

10V

15V

20V

25V

35V

.22uf

.40

.27

.40

.33

.40

.47

.35

.50

.68

.45

1.0

.40

.40

.45

.45

1.5

.45

.50

1.8

.75

2.2

.35

.40

.45

.65

2.7

.40

.45

.90

3.3

.45

.50

.55

.60

.65

3.9

.45

4.7

.45

.55

.60

.65

.85

6.6

.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

10pf

22

25

27

33

47

56

68

82

100

220

330

50V50V50V50V50V50V50V50V50V50V50V50V

.05

.05.05.05.05.05.OS.05.05.05.05.05

470560680620

.001 ul

.0015

.0022

.005

.01

.02

.05

.1

.1

50V50V50V50V50V50V50V50V50V50V

MONOLITHIC

.1ul-mono 50V .18.047ul-mono50V .15

ELECTROLYTIC

.47ul

1

2.2

4.7

10

47

100

220

470

2200

RADIAL50V25V35V50V50V35V16V35V25V16V

.14.14.15.15.15.16.18.20.30.60

COMPUTERGRADE

26,000uf 30V 3.95

1ul

4.7

10

10

22

47

100

100

150

220

330

500

1000

1500

6000

AXIAL50V16V16V50V16V50V15V35V25V25V16V16V16V16V16V

.05.05.05.05.05.05.05.05.07.07

50V .0712V .10

.47uf-mono 50V .25.01uf-mono 50V .14

.14.14.14.16.14.20.20.25.25.30.40.42.60.70.85

OPTO-ISOLATORS

4N264N274N284N334N354N37MCT-2LlWCT-6

1.001.10.691.751.251.251.001.50

MCA-7

MCA-255

IL-1

ILA-30

ILQ-74

H11C5

TIL-111

TIL-113

4.251.751.251.252.751.251.001.75 J

1N7511N7591N41481N4004KBP02KBP04L.VM48

DIODES

5.1 volt zener12.0 volt zener(1N914) switching400PIV rectilier200PIV 1.5amp bridge400PIV 1.5amp bridgeDip-Bridge

.25.25

25/1.00

10/1.00

.45

.55

.35.

NEW UN-USEDMUFFIN FANS

4.68" Square| 3.125" Square

HEAT SINKS

I TO-3 style| TO-220 style

SWITCHES

I SPDT mini-toggleI DPDT mini-toggleLSPST mlnl-pushbutton

14.9514.95

.95.35

1.25 11.50 |

.39J

IYIIGRODEUICES

Mil

IYIIGROPRIGES

TRANSISTORS

2N918MPS9182N21022N22182N2218A2N22192N2219A2N2222PN2222MPS23692N24642N29052N2907PN29072N30553055T2N33932N34142N3S632N3565PN3565MPS3638| MPS3640PN3643PN3644MPS3704

.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

2NE043

2N6045

MPS-A05

MPS-A06

MPS-A55

TIP29

TIP31

TIP32

.151.65

.25

.10

.10

.25

.25

.25

.75

.25

.25

.251.00

.25

.25

.25

.25

.25

.351.751.75

.25

.25

.25

.65

.75

.79 j

BYPASS CAPS

.01 UF DISC.01 UF MONOLITHIC.1 UF DISCk.1 UF MONOLITHIC

100/6.00 I100/12.00 I

100/8.001100/15.00J

LED LAMPS

JUMBO RED

JUMBO GREENI JUMBO YELLOWiLED MOUNTING HARDWARE

1-99.10.18.18.10

100. up.09.15.15.09

LED DISPLAYS

HP 5082-7760MAN 72MAN 74FND-357 (359)FND-500 (503)FND-507 (510)ItIL-311 4x7

.43".3".3".375"

.5".5"

CCCACCCCCCCA

1.29

.99 I

.991.25 I1.49 I1.49 I

.270" HEX W/LOGIC 9.951

RESISTORS

V. WATT 5% CARBON FILM ALL

STANDARD VALUES

FROM 1 OHM TO 10 MEG OHM

50 PCS. SAME VALUE .025 |

100 PCS. SAME VALUE .02

L1000PCS. SAME VALUE .015 J

IC SOCKETS

1-99 1008 pin ST .13 .1114 pin ST .15 .12

16 pin ST .17 .13

18 pin ST .20 .18

20 pin ST .29 .2722 pin ST .30 .2724 pin ST .30 .2726 pin ST .40 .3240 pin ST .49 .3964 pin ST 4.25 callST = SOLDERTAIL6 pin WW .59 .4914 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

.981.281.351.491.80

WW = WIREWRAP16 pin ZIF 5.95 call24 pin ZIF 7.95 call28 pin ZIF 8.95 call

ZIF = TEXTOOL(Zero Insertion Force)

DIPSWITCHES

.85.90.90.95

.95 .

4 POSITION

5 POSITION

6 POSITION

7 POSITIONL8 POSITION

1224 S. Bascom Avenue, San Jose, CA 95128

800-538-5000 • 800-662-6279 (CA)

(408) 995-5430 • Telex 171-110

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. andloreign orders may require additional shipping charges — pleasecontact our sales department for the amount. CA residents mustinclude 6% sales tax. Bay Area and LA residents include 6V=%. 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.

© Copyright 1984 JDR Mlcrodevlces

538 BYTE February 1984

Circle 194 on inquiry card.

2732

32K EPROM

276a

64K EPROM

MICROCOMPUTERHARDWARE HANDBOOK

FROM ELCOMP — $14.95Over 800 pages of manufacturers datasheets on most commonly used IC's.Includes:

* TTL - 74774LS 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 Controllers 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 17.95I

TRANSFORMERSFRAME STYLE

12.6VAC

2amp

4.95

12.6VAC CT

2amp

5.95

12.6VAC CT

4amp

7.95

12.6VAC CT

8amp

10.95

25.2VAC CT

2amp

7.95

PLUG CASE STYLE

112VAC 250ma 3.951

12V AC 500ma 4.95

12VAC lamp 5.95

M2VAC 2amp 6.951

DC ADAPATER

16,9,12 VDC selectable with universal Iadapter 8.95

I NOTE: Please include sufficient amount tor |[shipping on above Items.

DISK DRIVES

TANDON

ITM100-1 5'/." (FOR IBM) SS/DD 229.00 I

|TM100-2 5 V (FOR IBM) DS/DD 259.00 |

SHUGART

I SA 400L 5V." (40 TRACK) SS/DD 199.951

| SA 400 5'/." (35 TRACK) SS/DD 1 89.95 |

PERTEC

IFD-200 5v. ss/dd 179.951

IFD-250 s% ds/dd 199.951

MPI

| MP-52 514" (FOR IBM) DS/DD 249.001NOTE: Please include sufficient amount torshipping on above items.

z&^es^

^""^r—-

SEW

]

*^^^g

1

FD 100-8

SHUGART 801 EQUIV.SS/DD — 10/$175 EA.

8-INCH

DISK DRIVESALE

FD 200-8

SHUGART 851 EQUIV.DS/DD — 10/$220EA.

$189oo $23900

EDGE-CARD

CONNECTORS

S-100 ST

3.95

S-100WW

4.95

72 pin ST

6.95

72 pin WW

7.95

50 pin ST

4.95

44 pin ST

2.95

AA pin WW

4.95.

MasterCard

CABINETS FORCABINET #1 *29.95

[• DIMENSIONS 8% x5'5/iex 3W

* COLOR MATCHES APPLE

I* FITS STANDARD 5%" DRIVES,INCL. SHUGART

• INCLUDES MOUNTINGHARDWARE AND FEET

I NOTE: Please include sufficient amount forI shipping on above items.

51A" DISK DRIVES

CABINET #2 $79.00

• COMPLETE WITH POWERSUPPLY, SWITCH, LINECORD, FUSE & STANDARDPOWER CONNECTOR

• DIMENSIONS: 11V2X53/4X 3^16"

• +5V @ 1 AMP, +12V @ 1.5 AMP I

• FITS STANDARD 51/4" DRIVES |

• PLEASE SPECIFYGRAY OR TAN

UISIT DURING

II;l3 i/'li i ai

RETAIL STORE HOURSSATURDAV 10 to 3

CENTRONICS

I IDCEN36 Ribbon Cable 36 Pin Male 6.95

IDCEN36/F Ribbon Cable 36 Pin Female 6.95

[CEN36 Solder Cup 36 Pin Male 7.95

DIP CONNECTORS ^

DESCRIPTION

HIGH RELIABILITY

TOOLED ST IC

SOCKETS

COMPONENT

CARRIERS

(DIP HEADERS)

RIBBON

CABLE

DIP PLUGS (IDC)

ORDER BY

AUGATxx-ST

ICCxx

IDPxx

CONTACTS 81416182022242840

For order

.99

.99

.991.691.891.891.992.492.99

instructions see

.66

.75

.851.001.251.251.351.502.10

"IDC Connecto

1.451.65

2.50

4.15s" below.

RIBBON CABLE

SINGLE COLOR

COLOR CODED

CONTACTS

r

10'

V

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 9

2.08

2.66

1.65

2.18

3.37

3.69

—

1.60

15

2.69

3.63

2.20

3.03

4.70

5.13

—

1.60 i

25

2.50

3.25

3.00

4.42

6.23

6.84

1.25

1.25 I

37

4.80

7.11

4.83

6.19

9.22

10.08

—

2.95

50

6.06

9.24

—

—

—

—

—

3.50 1

For order instructions see "IDC Connectors" below.

M

OUNTI

NGHA

RDWA

RE 1.C

10

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.

Copyright 1964 JOR Mlcrodevlcea

Circle 194 on inquiry card.

BYTE February 1984 539

FOR APPLE COMPUTER USERS

#

JDR Microdevices

NOUSAnOSSQUH

JDR 16K RAM CARD FOR APPLE II+

I • Expand your 48K Apple to 64K

I * Fully compatible with Apple Language System — Use I

in place of Apple Language card ]

I* Highest quality card features: gold edge connector, |

sockets for all IC's.• 2 YEAR WARRANTY

Kit with Instructions $40.95 i

Bare PC Card $14.95

$4495

GET SLIM IN 1980!

JDR HALF-HEIGHT DISK DRIVE

I * 35 Track if used with

Apple ControllerI * 40 Track Controller and DOS

Available (Call for Price)

$20995

v_

-\

1

e t—

ZT GE3 1

Ml) SVSTCMS

IFD-35 DISK DRIVE

$199

95

* Shugart Mechanism —Made in U.S.A.

| * Direct Replacement for

Apple Disk II| * Compatible with Apple

Controller or other Apple |

compatible controllers| * Specially designed

electronics with low power ]

consumptionI * DOS 3.3 and 3.2 compatible |

* One Year Warranty

I CONTROLLER CARD$69.95

MasterCard

APPLE COIYIPATIBLEPOWER SUPPLY

I* Use To Power Apple-Type Systems

• +5V@5A +12V@3A-5V@.5A -12V@.5A

|* Instructions Included

$79^

BMCBMK-80 PRINTER

I • 80 CPS Dot Matrix PrinterI • Prints Bi-Directional in 40, 80,71 or 142 Columns in Normal,Double Width or Compressed IText.

Print Superscript As Well AsSuperb Graphics in Character Jor Bit Image

fs'ailg

VIEWMAX-80NOW ONLY $15995|

I* 80ColumnCardforApplell+|

• Video Soft Switch

* Inverse VideoI* 2 Year Warranty

VIEWMAX-80eA/ElrV*12995

I* 80 Column Card for Apple Mel

* 64K RAM Expandableto 128K164K RAM Upgrade $4760

GRAPHMAX *12995|

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• Printer CardI* Centronics Parallel Interface|

|Graphmax with Color

& Zoom Options ... $149951

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5V<" WITH HUB RING

I MD1 SOFT SECTOR, SS/SD 19.95 I

MD1D SOFT SECTOR. SS/DD 26.25

MD2D SOFT SECTOR. DS/DD 30.75

MD2F SOFT SECTOR, DS/QUAD DENSITY 45.00

MD110 10 SECTOR HARD, SS/SD 19.95

| MD210D 10 SECTOR HARD, DS/DD 30.75 |

8" WITHOUT HUB RING

I FD1 SOFT SECTOR, SS/SD 24.75 I

FD1D SOFT SECTOR, SS/DD 30.00

L.FD2D SOFT SECTOR, DS/DD 36.75J

VERBATIM

DATALIFEDISKETTES

SS/DD SOFT SECTOR

$29.95

SS/DD 10 HARD SECTOR

$29.95

\SV*" DISKETTE!FILE

| * ATTRACTIVE, FUNCTIONAL |DISK STORAGE SYSTEM

| * 75 DISK STORAGECAPACITY

I * MOLDED FROM' DURABLE |SMOKED PLASTIC WITHFRONT CARRY-ING HANDLE

$16"J

OTHER ACCESSORIESFOR APPLE II

ITHUNDERCLOCK $129.95|

• Real-Time Clock Calendar

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[KRAFT JOYSTICK $39.95l

MONITORS

BMC MONITOR STANDMODEL PA-900Your Display WillTilt & Swivel '29.95

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BMC BM12AUW GREEN 12" $89.95 I

BMC BM12EUY 18 MHZ AMBER $1 39.95 I

BMC BM 12EUN 18 MHZ HIGH RES GREEN $11 5.00

NEC JB1201M- 20 MHZ GREEN S169.00

| ZENITH ZVM-121 -15 MHZ GREEN $99.00 |

COLOR

| BMC BM-AU9191U COMPOSITE 13" $279.00|

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JDR Microdevices

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VISIT OUR RETAIL STORE

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PLEASE USE YOUR CUSTOMER NUMBER WHEN ORDERING

TERMS: Minimum order $10. For shipping and handling include$2.50 for UPS Ground and $3.50 (or UPS Air. Orders over 1 lb. andforeign orders may require additional shipping charges — pleasecontact our sales department for the amount. CA residents mustinclude 6°/o sales tax, Bay Area and LA residents include 6Vj°/o. 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.

IB) Copyright 1984 JDR Microdevices

540 BYTE February 1984

Circle 195 on inquiry card.

Unclassified Ads

WANTED: IBM 5100-5120 with APL 64K, RS-232C serial I/Ooption. I am developing an adaptive pharmacokinetic system formedical applications. Also, looking for prospective associates andprogrammers versed m C, APL, or Z80/8086 assembly languagePeter A. Orner, MD, PhD, Suite A-204, 3737 Moraga Ave.,.SanDiego. CA 92117, |6I9) 272-6781.

WANTED: Tax-exempt, not-for-profit organization seeks com-puter donation for compilation of reference information on AiDS.Will be used in a network to provide up-to-date information tolocal AIDS groups. Certified receipts. Paul Paroski Jr., MD, NationalGay Health Education Foundation Inc., 1)4 Willoughby Ave..Brooklyn, NY 11205, (212) 622-3000.WANTED: Tax-deductible donation of Apple computer, disk-drive, monitor, and/or printer to be used for financial records,membership drives, state and federal yearly reports, updatinganimal-care sheets, etc. References and IRS information on request.We pay shipping and give receipt. Carol Odell, Wildlife RescueTeam Inc., Route 2, Lincoln. NE 68505.FOR SALE: Lot I: BITE: July November, December, 1977; 1978to 1981. complete; 1982 and 1983, less two issues. Lot 2: KilobaudMicrocomputing: June. September to December, 1977; 1978 to1980, complete; 198!. less December; 12 issues scattered thru1982-1983. Lor 3; Creative Computing numbers 2, 4, 5, and 6of 1978; 1979 to 1981, complete; numbers 2, 3, 4. and 12 of 1982;1983. complete. Will accept best offer FOB for each lot. DuncanBailey. 609 Echo Glen, River Vale, NJ 07675. (201) 666-3992.NEEDED: Physically disabled Vietnam Veteran needs Smart-modem for access to college computer from home. Used OKIrvmq J. Goldfarb. 116 Court St., Pittsburgh, NY 12901.FOR SALE: Multiuser CP/M computer, one 60-megabyte Win-chester disk drive, one tape backup, expandable to 32 users, flop-py and tape backup, demo unit with new guarantee; lists forS32.0O0, sell for SI6,000. Allen Cohen, American Bar CodeSystems, Suite 376, 5757 West Century Blvd., Los Angeles, CA(2I3| 642-1101.

FOR SALE: Morrow Designs MD-3 microcomputer with CP/M,64K RAM, and two double-sided disk drives. Includes standardsoftware plus lots of extra programs. Used only 4 months: S1300or best offer, Heath H-29 terminal: S695 firm. Richard Haendel,POB 22152. Oklahoma City, OK 73123, (405) 721-9215.FOR SALE: ELF computer, not completed with regulatedpower supply and heavy-duty transformer, enclosure cabinet forcomputer boards, ASCII keyboard, and monitor, Giant board andI/O board have been tested. Documentation included. Tom Acuff,3109 15th St.. Moline, II 61265. (309) 764-5977.FOR SALE: ELF II computer with 4K RAM, giant board, ex-pansion power supply UHF and VHF video modulators, light pen,various programs, and complete manuals: S250. John Choriton,2316 View Ridge Dr., Bellingham, WA 98226, (206) 733-5122.FOR SALE: DEC computer system. Includes a MINC-II pro-cessor, an RX02 dual 8-inch DSDD floppy-disk drive, a DECwriterIII 180-cps printing terminal, and a VT105 video terminal withgraphics capability. System comes complete with the MINC BASICand RT-ll operating systems and includes both FORTRAN andassembly language compilers. May be willing to sell terminalsseparately. Excellent condition; price negotiable. Herbert Wendell,405 Northfield Ave. West Orange. NJ 07052, (201) 736-8259.WANTED: Atari 800 games and other programs on disk. Sendname, address, and disk; I'll return a disk with different programs.Sen Can. 3717 Diamondhead Dr., St. Louis. MO 63125.FOR SALE: OSI-C3-A, 56K with dual 8-incn SSSD drives, CP/Mpackage, printer interface, and cable, Lifeboat XBASIC, COBOL,FORTRAN. OS-65D 3.0. OS-65U 1.1, OS-DMSA nucleus, OS-65Dextended ediror, and Wordstar 3.0. All disks and documentation:SI800. FOB Wilton. Wm. E. Ritchie.- RD 2, Wilton, NH 03086,(603) 654-6157.

FOR SALE: Memorex 651 hard-sector 8-inch floppy-disk drive.Used but in good condition. Make offer or will trade for S-100boards, etc. Kevin Cardon, 1500 North 1220 East. Lehi, UT 84043,(801) 768-9567.

FOR SALE: Four Shugart SA800 8-inch floppy-disk drives inexcellent shape: S150each. Two Memorex 552 8-inch floppy-diskdrives, double-sided: SI75 each. Roger Wilson, 922 DunbartonDr.. Richardson, TX 75081, [214) 690-1895 after 6 p.m.FOR SALE: OSI system consisting of Superboard (mounted incast-aluminum cover) and Leedex 12-inch monitor, cassette, andASf? 33 teletype. In very good condition with good system docu-mentation, Will sell for best offer or trade for dot-matrix printer,Edward Crovella. (716) 839-3468 after 6 p.m.

FOR SALE: Wbrking S-100 boards, 16K static RAMs; $65 each.8K static RAMs: S30 each. Bytesaver II with 10 2708s: S75. Pro-cessor Tech 1200 bps cassette interface: S35. OP-80 optical paper-tape reader: S20. Two partial SOL-20s: S15 each. Mostly ProcessorTechnology software. Martin Eberhard, 307 East Healey #10,Champaign, IL 61820, (217) 398-0077 evenings.FOR SALE: Vector Graphics MZ with S-100, 280, 4MHz, 56K,dual 300K disks. Centronics and RS-232C ports, SOROC 120 ter-minal, Selectric printer/typewriter, CP/M. Pascal-Z, and othergoodies: $2500 or offer. Also. PDP-SM CPU, 8K core, autostart,and HO interface: $500 as is. TI-59 Calculator with printer-base,all accessories and software, like new: S250, PROM-Blaster Ap-parat for Apple II: S75 Mike Hughes, POB 393, Rapid City, SD57709. (605) 341-6755.

FOR SALE: Microtek MT80P printer S250. Microterm ACT-Iterminal- S100 SwTPC 6800 computer with 44K. Two serial andone parallel I/O boards: S425. SwTPC AC30 cassette interface:$50. Send for complete list. Jim Hall. 2063 108th Ave., Otsego,Ml 49078. (616) 694-9760.

WANTED: Information on the IBM printer Model 3284-2: serial-interface location on the logic control unit, it's pin definition andlocation. Would like to interface it to a Z80 microprocessor. Also,would welcome and answer all correspondence related to com-puters, programming, etc. Tony-A'damse Veerk, 41F The Hague,Holland.

FOR SALE: H-14 printer with RS-232C serial cable; excellentcondition, checked by factory. Extra ribbons and all manuals in-cluded: SI25. Will pay shipping. Tom Dorsert. E 2726 GoldenRd„ Spokane. WA 99208, (509) 466-0585.WANTED: Apple software to swap. Will trade for games,utilities, or whatever. Send typed list of programs and I'll sendmine. Wade Tsai, 1309 South Port Blvd., New Iberia, LA 70560,(318) 367-8860.

FOR SALE: Epson MX-100 printer. Epson interface board forApple, and Graphicwriter: all S600 or best offer, Apple Disk IIDrive: S299. Rana Disk Elite One: $250. Versawriter: $199. DOSToolkit: S40. Gorgon: $27. ABM: SI5, Swashbuckler: S20. Othersoftware at varying prices. Peter Su. 14 Devonshire Dr., Barrington,Rl 02806.

WANTED: Computer and electronics enthusiasts who wantto correspond with a 22-year-oid male electronics engineer. I aminterested in the exchange of ideas, programs, and circuit designs.

I use an S-100. Z80-based system, Also, anybody who wants tocommunicate about the electronics and computing scene in India.Kim Agrawal, Sri Aurobmdo Ashram, Pondicherry 605 002. India.FOR SALE: Heavy-duty power-supply system. Metal case (12by 6 by 30). two Lambda power supplies: (LGS-EE-5-OV-R; 5 V@ 110 amps) and (LND-X-152; ±12 V @ 2.5 amps) with AC-powerfail-detection board. Package price; $1400; asking $700. JimKitchen, (713) 644-2841 days. 251-0723 nights.

FOR SALE: 48K Atari 400 with BASIC cartridge, manual, dustcover, and various cassettes: all for $250. Also, an Atari 16K mem-ory board that I will swap for back issues of BYTE, Creative Com-puting, or Compute Best offer, send your list. Jim W. Prickett. 2142Cross" Rd., El Centra, CA 92243.

FOR SALE: Base II dot-matrix printer in top condition withRS-232C serial, Centronics parallel. 20-mA-current loop, andIEEE-488 interfaces. Also, has tractor feed, graphics, and extendedbuffer options. Asking $450. Will consider trading for 1200-bpscomputer, external modem, or item of equal value. Walter VoseJeffries, HB1630 Dartmouth, Hanover, NH 03755.FOR SALE: LNW 80 computer board with gold connectors,most capacitators. resistors, and sockets. All manuals and the BYTEconstruction article: S125 or offer. Also, three S-100 Vector Graphicsboards |I977 Rev. I & 2) including the hi-res board. 8K RAM board,and the Flash-writer board: all three for S 200 or best offer. JamesE. Shephard, 15634 Northeast 107th Court. Redmond, WA 98052.(206) 883-6052.

WANTED: Schematics and operational information on the SealsElectronics 32KSC, a 32K-byte S-100 static RAM board. Also, forsale: five new, unused boards needing some logic parts and new,prime RAM chips: Tl TMS 4044, 4116. 21L02; and 80IR-compatibledisk drive. Prices negotiable. Steve Fritts, POB 13057, St. Paul, MN55113, (612) 771-8264.WANTED: Student would appreciate the donation of an Apple

II with disk drive and 64K to be used in the development of edu-cational programs for schools and to further my knowledge ofcomputer languages. Mark Zwich, 1821 Wbodsfield Dr„ Richfield,Wi 53076,

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 piain 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.

FOR SALE: North Star Horizon II, S-100 bus. 32K, dual 5 K-inchdrives. RTC. two serial and one paraliel ports, oak cabinet,manuals, etc. Lots of software Offers? Also, two IBM 7441/1980Selectric ball-communicating printers, financial keyboards, andRS-232C interface. Will include 280 and/or 6502 software drivers,and documentation: S230 each or S420 for both. FOB Also,TTY model 43 KSR with modem: S475. Rich Adamson. 7310Adams, Lincoln, NE 68507, |402) 464-0718.FOR SALE: Apple II 48K computer (has full uppercase andlowercase keyboard), I6K language card, disk drive with controllerand green monitor: s 1000 or best offer. Also, MX-80 friction-feedkit: S70. Lester Barrel, 1907 Bamam, Dodge City, KS 67801. (316)227-7536.

WANTED: I am interested in corresponding with otherCromemco C-10 owners, users, and groups to share and swapprograms and information. Steven E. Martin. 7751 Gamid Dr,Springfield, VA 22153. (703| 664-4251 days and 451-2992evenings.

FOR SALE: Okidata Microline 80: SI95. IDS 440G: S345.Okidata Slimline 160: S1195. Decis Data 6540: S995. MountainApple Clock: SI45, Apple Parallel Card: S70. Apple CommunicateCard: S115. visual V200 CRT: S545. Microfinesse Fin Model |new|:S290. Panasonic NV8200 VCR: S550. All clean, in working con-dition, manuals included. Dave Drucker, 5 Norbert, HawthornWoods, IL 60047. |3I2) 541-2122.

FOR SALE: Tekrronix 60-MHz dual trace, delayed-alternatetime-base oscilloscope. Model 2215 with accessory pouch: likenew: SIOO0 or best offer. Stephen Rao. 9001 Watertown PlankRd., Milwaukee, WI 53226, (414) 257-8567.FOR SALE: OSI C4R MF 48K RAM. two 5-inch disk drives,battery backup clock/calendar, four joysticks, programmable tonegenerator, DAC, 32 by 64 redefinable character or graphic In 16colors. OS-65D with Microsoft BASIC, assembler and debuggerwith all manuals and lots of software. Over S3500; asking S25O0in Canadian funds. Daniel Filteau, 1471 Bourgeoys, Longueuil.Ouebec J4M 1Z5. Canada, (514) 468-3820.FOR SALE: Tektronix 4054 graphics terminal. 300 hours totaltime used. Less than 50 hours on CRT tube. Options: #01—DataCommunication Interface; #24—64K-bytes total memory: #30—Dynamic Graphics. Also, Trans-Era A/D converter unit and Trans-Era BCD-Binary I/O unit. Walt Hedges. 4635 West Euclid. Laveen,AZ 85339, (602) 237-4080.

WANTED: S-100 boards. Three Compupro RAM 20 32K static:SI25 each. Two Tarbell DD controllers with CP/M 2.2: S200 eachCompupro I/O: SI00 Compupro CPU-2: S200. All boards perfectwith manuals. Jim Blair, (318) 367-8455.WANTED: Student would appreciate an unwanted, new, orused copy of Beneath Apple DOS |Worth & Lechner, for AppleDOS 3.3) and/or Bag of Tricks. Willing to pay, or trade softwareor a copy of 6502 Assembly Language Programming (L. Leven-thal) in new condition. Darryl Dueck. 59 Pinecrest Bay Winnipeg.Manitoba R2G IW2. Canada. (204| 668-5176.WANTED: Used Olivetti Praxis 30 electronic typewriter. LongKha. 7322 Mesa College Dr.. Apt. 18. San Diego. CA 92111. |619|277-4277.

WANTED: TRS-80 software to swap. Also, need help in repair-ing a TRS-80 logic board Model IG version; need two ROMs set.I have some TRS-80 upgrade plans for trade. Looking for 80-column TRS-80 Model I upgrade plans. Send SASE for replies. TimCochrane, POB 176. Industry, PA 15052.FOR SALE: Apple software: Wizard and the Princess for S18or best offer and Ultima for S25 or best offer. Both in original pack-ing. Also, will buy or borrow used adventures and games. DarrinRothe, 310 North Main. Deer Park, WI 54007, (715) 269-5313 after5 p.m. and weekends.

WANTED: Percom Doubler A [the one discarded when youupgraded to Doubler ll| for TRS-80 Model I: Level II ROM chipsfor newer Alps keyboard (the set that mounts directly on mainboard), and aircraft navigation software on disk. H. Sherwin, 609South Main St.. Clearfield. UT 84015. |80l| 773-8005.FOR SALE: Persci 270 dual 8-inch SS/SD floppy-disk drive andpower supply. Very fast and factory maintained: S395. AlanWesthagen, 68l4-20th NE, Seattle, WA 98115, (206) 524-7335.WANTED: Anyone who wants to exchange programs & soft-ware for a Processor Tech S0L-20 T. and N. Eliasson, Gosgatan15 S-72348 Vasteras. Sweden.

WANTED: VIC-20 books, tapes, cartridges, or other new orused equipment. Please send list when corresponding. BartKreuser, 1695 Biemeret, Green Bay, WI 54304.FOR SALE: Two Calcomp #142 SSDD 8-inch drives, oneCalcomp #I42M SSDD 8-inch drive; both need repair Also, TarbelSD FDC, Calcompjumpered, Shugart adaptor; IA Z80 2-MHz CPUwith CP/M boot PROM; Cromemco Z80 monitor PROM; 16kGodbout Econoram IV static RAM; I6K WMC MEM-2 static RAM;and four 8K Godbout Econoram i] static RAM. Completedocumentation on each item. Make an offer. Dave Raibert. (201)444-4600 and 529-3595.

WANTED: Young robotics A.I experimenter would like con-tact with others with same interests. Peter J Skelley. 16121 59thAve. SE. Snohomish. WA 98290.

FOR SALE: Altos 16-bit multiuser computer with hard diskThe system has Horizon WP Accounting, and Mulciplan runningunder the Xenix operating system New: SI6.700. asking S720O.Mike Hughes, 1245 West Huntington Dr. #207, Arcadia. CA91006. (213) 287-7385.

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 541

Unclassified Ads

FOR SALE: Fortune 32:16 computer with hard disk, Unix oper-ating system, WP, Multiplan. and accounting software. Askinghalf of what the system costs. Russ Sharer. POB 3535, Arcadia.CA 91006. (213] 445-8720.

WANTED: To trade a one-month-old Radio Shack TRS-SO(MCIOJ with some money, for a used Jupiter Ace with some soft-ware and documentation. William V. Petro Jr.. 30047 Regent,Wickliffe. OH 44092. (216) 944-5903.FOR SALE: Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I with Level II BASIC.Comes with functioning keyboard, monitor, cassette recorder,several games, and complete documentation. Will trade for IBMPC software/hardware or best offer. Michael Beauchamp, 313 OldPost Rd.. Waterloo. Ontario N2L 5P3. Canada. (519) 885-0891.WANTED: People who are interested in or use the Logo lan-guage. I would like to exchange programs, ideas, and informa-tion. Keith Robison. 113 Morris Rd., Exton, RA 19341.WANTED: TDL Assembler, Chess, and Statistics software insource listing and on 5 V* -inch disk for Osborne 1 in single den-sity Will give you other software in exchange. Hermann Locarek,Fuggerstr. 4, 8901 Stadtbergen. West Germany.FOR SALE: Xerox 820 computer with two 5%-inch DS/DDdrives or two 8-inch SS/DD drives. Also. Xerox/Diablo 630 letter-quality printer. James Long, Rt. 3 No. 6 Autumnwood, Holts Sum-mit. MO 65043, (314) 896-5989 after 7 p.m.FOR SALE: Back issues of BYTE. vol. I, no. I [1975] through1982, complete except for vol. 1. no, 2, 3, 5, and 9. Mint condi-tion, S250 includes U.S shipment. Bill Schweber. POB 543. Sharon.MA 02067.

FOR SALE: Netronics Explorer-85 system. Complete with key-board. 64K memory, two 8-inch disk drives, and CP/M. All inperfect working order; will sell for best offer, Larry Katz. 854 NorthKrome Ave.. Homestead. FL 33030. (305) 248-7561 days.FOR SALE: TRS-80 Model 148K. RS-232C. modem. DEC printer,software, manuals: S975. CCTV Security System with twocameras, monitor, more: $500. 3M 257 desk copier: S175. Also,TRS-80 Model 16 256K. two drives, real-time clock, Xenix/Unixsoftware, modem, printer, terminal, hard disk, more: S7950. JimThomas, POB R, Pine Lake. GA 30072. (404) 498-1401.FOR SALE: BYTE January 1981 through December 1982 (24issues) and Microcomputing January 1977 through October 1982(70 issues): S170, prepaid. Will consider VIC-20, Tl 99. etc. as par-tial trade. Paul Schmidtke. 4308 East Little Creek Rd., Tucson. AZ85712, (602) 326-0442.

FOR SALE: BYTE, 7/76 thru 10/76 and 1/77 thru 12/82. miss-ing one issue: S200. Interface Age, 1/77 thru 12/82, missing 7/78:SI50. Kilobaud, 10/77 thru 12/82, missing 3 issues: S125. CreativeComputing, 3/77 thru 6/81. missing two issues: S100. PersonalComputing, 7/78 thru 12/81, missing 1 issue: S75. All plus ship-ping. Also dr dobbs. etc. George Lang. 306 East 96th St., NY.NY 10128. (212) 348-3610.

WANTED: Texas Instruments Model I computer. D. Jones, POB778. Daly City. CA 94017. (415) 877-8676.FOR SALE: Hardware maintenance and service library packagefor IBM Personal Computer XT: #6936809, never opened, sealed:USS80.1 pay shipping. Luis Baez. 7922 East Drive, North Bay Vil-lage, FL 33141, (305) 756-5687 evenings.

BOMB

>rBox

BYTE'

s Ongoing A/lonitc

Article it

Page

Article

Author(s)

1

30

The Apple Macintosh Computer

Williams

2

58

An Interview: The Macintosh Design Team

Lemmons

3

84

Apple Announces the Lisa 2

Williams

4

88

Build the Circuit Cellar Term-Mite ST Smart Terminal,

Part 2: Programming and Use

Ciarcia

5

113

User's Column: Chaos Manor Gets Its Long-Awaited

IBM PC

Pournelle

6

147

BYTE West Coast: A Business Computer, A Business

Program, and More on Voice Recognition

Shapiro

7

160

Don't Bench Me In

Houston

8

168

Beyond MIPS: Performance Is Not Quality

Carroll,Rosson

9

175

Software Performance Evaluation

Boyle

10

193

The Art of Benchmarking Printers

Mello-Grand

11

218

Benchmarking FORTRAN Compilers

Tetewsky

12

227

Benchmark Confessions

Marvit,

Nair

Lewis

13

235

The Word-Processing Maze

14

243

Evaluating Word-Processing Programs

Naiman

(5

252

ProDOS

Moore

16

267

Knowledgeman

Walker

17

278

The IBM CS-9000 Lab Computer

Clune

18

292

The Rixon R212A Intelligent Modem

Weger

19

303

Savvy

Callamaras

20

308

The Micro-Sci Gameport III for the Apple III

Purpura,Purpura

21

310

The Videx Ultraterm

Callamaras

22

318

Apple Disk Emulators: Axlon, Legend, Pion, and

Synetix

Gilbert

23

331

IBM/Apple Communication

Jones

24

342

A Low-Cost, Low Write-Voltage EEPROM

Blagg

25

346

Foot "Control

Pfister

26

349

Inside a Compiler: Notes on Optimization and

Code Generation

Christian

27

370

Writing Device Drivers for MS-DOS 2.0 Using

Tandon TM100-4 Drives

Roskos

28

383

Deciphering Word Games

Worley

29

388

Five Original Graphics

Sussman.Sussman

30

395

Bubbles on the S-100 Bus. Part 2: The Software

Wheeler

31

416

Calculating Overhead Costs by Computer

Hunter

WANTED: Byte Nyoole document #112 |"An M6800 LISP In-terpreter" I979|; MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab "HakMem" Memo#239 (on Collatz' problem. I972|: and a textbook, "ComputerApproaches to Mathematical Problems" by J. Nievergelt [Prentice-Hall. 1974). Will pay copy costs and postage or will buy youroriginal at your price. Barry Knapp. 4695 Osage Dr.. Boulder, CO80303. (303J 494-8390.

FOR SALE: 2708 EPROMs. 200 EPROMs were removed wheneguipment was upgraded to 2716. All were working when re-moved: perfect for the hobbyist. I to 25: SI.25 each; 25 or moreat SI each. Rich Matthews. POB 80685. Baton Rouge, LA 70898.|504J 291-0832 evenings and weekendsFOR SALE: Codata CTW 300/20/f8 8-user Unix computer.20-megabyte fixed disk. 386K floppy. 256K RAM. C. Pascal. FOR-TRAN 77. excellent condition: Sll.95'0. Tom Cole. 1207 Ceder-wood Dr.. Joliet, IL 60435, |8I5| 729-0300,WANTED: Atari 810 disk drives, used but in good workingorder. Also, 1200-bps modem with software for Atari 800.80-column board. 48K RAM plug-in board, and business-orientedsoftware. Offers of game programs given consideration StephenA. Risik. 10224 Windsor View Dr.. Potomac. MD 20854.WANTED: Technical and service information for a G.E. TN-1200impact (chain) printer. Also, nonworking printer for parts. RusselHill, c/o Industrial Counseling Services, POB 278. Ashland. OR97520. (503) 488-0220.

BOMB Cites Chaos Manor

Jerry Pournelle's User's Column,"The Latest from Chaos Manor,"won top spot in the NovemberBOMB. Dr. Pournelle wins $100. Thefive authors of "Technical Aspects ofIBM PC Compatibility," Charlie Mon-tague, Dave Howse, Bob Mikkelsen,Don Rein, and Dick Mathews, willdivvy up the $50 prize for secondplace. "Concurrent CP/M" by JoeGuzaitis grabbed third place.Lawrence J. Curran and Richard S.Shuford's interview with "IBM'sEstridge" was a close fourth. AndBobbi Bullard's "Comparing the IBMPC and the Tl PC" placed fifth.Heartiest congratulations to theseauthors.

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. BYTE® is available inmicroform from University Microfilms International,300 North Zeeb Rd.. Dept. PR, Ann Arbor, Ml48106 USA or 18 Bedford Row. Dept. PR. LondonWC1R4EJ England.

542 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

Reader Service

Inquiry No.

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1 1 SUPER WAREHOUSE 400

3 1ST PLACE SYSTEMS 336

5 800 SOFTWARE 134

6 A.S.T. RESEARCH 239

7 AB COMPUTERS 500

8 ABC COMPUTER LTD 520

9 ABC DATA PRODUCTS 423

10 ACL INC. 460

11 ADDMASTER CORP. 506

12 ADROIT ELECTRONICS, INC. 506

13 ADV. COMP. PROD. 534, 535

14 ADV.GRAPHIC ENGINEERING 512

• ALF PRODUCTS, INC 306298 ALPHA BYTE 314

15 ALPHA NUMERIC INTL. 273

16 ALPHA OMEGA COMPUTER 14

19 AMDEK CORP. 55

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22 ANADEX 429

23 ANTELOPE COMMUNICATIONS 518244 ANTEX DATA SYS. 116

• APPLE COMPUTER INC. CM, 1

24 APPLE COUNTRY LTD. 491

25 APPLEWARE, INC. 512

26 APPLIED DIGITAL DATA SYS. 192

27 APPLIED SOFTWARE TECH. 437

28 ARTIFICIAL INT'L. RESEARCH 512

29 ASHTON-TATE 73

30 ASHTON-TATE 345

31 ATARISOFT115

4 AVATAR 339

32 AVOCET445

459 BASF SYSTEMS 287

34 BAY TECHNICAL ASSOC. 98

• BECK MFG 78

35 BELL, JOHN ENGR. 520

36 BHRT283

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57 COGITATE 514

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59 COLUMBIA DATA PROD. 385404 COMMAND SERVICES CORP. 378

60 COMMERCIAL BUSINESS SYS. 492

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62 COMP. WHLSLRS. OF FREDERICK 364406 COMPANION COMP. 300

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Inquiry No.

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79 COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY 514

80 COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY 520

• COMPUTER WAREHOUSE 333

81 COMPUTERS AND MORE 180

82 COMPUTERS AND MORE 120

83 COMPUTERS WHOLESALE 379

84 COMPUVIEW PROD.INC. 263390 COMPU-MEDIA, INC. 504

85 CONCURRENT CORP. 126

86 CONROY-LAPOINTE 156, 157

87 CONROY-LAPOINTE 156, 157

88 CONROY-LAPOINTE 156, 157

89 CONTINENTAL PRESS INC, THE 514

90 CONTROL DATA CORP. 305

92 CORONA DATA SYS. 67

93 COSMOS 75

94 CRE WHOLESALE PROD. 518

95 CRE WHOLESALE PROD. 518

96 CREATIVITY UNLTD. 518

97 CROMEMCO 5

98 CRYPTRONICS INC. 72450 CUESTA SYSTEMS 512

101 CUSTOM COMP.TECH. 519208 DANA COMPUTER DISCOUNT 467

102 DATA MANAGEMENT ASSOC. 261

410 DATA STORAGE SOLUTIONS 93

411 DATA STORAGE SOLUTIONS 93

104 DATA TECH INDUSTRIES 163

105 DATA TRANSLATION INC. 453

106 DATASOUTH COMP.CORP. 335

107 DATASOUTH COMP.CORP. 470

395 DATA SPEC 471

396 DATA SPEC 471

108 DAVIDGE CORP. 516

• DELUXE COMP. FORMS 398

109 DIAMOND SFTW.SUPPLY 205454 DIGITAL RESEARCH 216, 217

• DIGITAL RESEARCH COMP. 517

• DIRECT SOFTWARE 195

110 DISCOUNT SOFTWARE 352

• DISKWORLD 290

• DISKWORLD 518

111 DISPLAY TELECOMMNCTNS. 505

112 DISPLAYED VIDEO 499

114 DOKAY COMP. PROD. INC. 524, 525

115 DOW JONES SOFTWARE 101

116 DOW JONES SOFTWARE 315

117 DWIGHTCO., INC. 508

118 DYNAX, INC. 103403 DYSAN CORP. 47

119 DYSAN CORP. 231

120 EAGLE SOFTWARE 152

121 EASTERN ENTERPRISES 213

122 EASTMAN KODAK CO. 170

123 EASTMAN KODAK CO. 171

124 ECOSOFT 404

125 EDUCATIONAL MICROCOMP. 508

126 ELCOMP 508

127 ELECTRADE CO. 510

128 ELECTRADE CO. 514

129 ELECTRONIC SPECIALISTS 360

130 ELEK-TEK 184

131 ELLIS COMPUTING INC. 187

• EMPIRICAL RESEARCH GROUP 130

132 ENGINEERING SPECIALTIES 520405 ENGLISH I COMP. TUTORIALS 378

• EPSON AMERICA 86, 87

135 EPSON AMERICA 413

136 EXCEL 128

137 EXCEL 140, 141

412 EXECUTIVE MGMNT. SYS. 12778 EXPERT COMPUTERS 480

138 EXPOTEK 270

139 F.T.G. DATA SYS. 512

140 FALCON SAFETY PROD. 85

142 FIGURE-LOGIC BUS. EQUIP. 506

143 FIGURE-LOGIC BUS. EQUIP. 520458 FLAGSTAFF ENGINEERING 155

145 FLOPPY DISK SERV. INC. 502

146 FORMULA INT'L. 513

147 FORMULA INT'L. 513

212 FREEDOM COMP. MART 503

148 FUJITSU PROFESS.MICROSYS. 291

149 FUTECH INT'L. CORP. 104

150 GENERAL TECHNOLOGY 355

151 GIFFORD COMP.SYS. 399

152 GILTRONIX, INC. 510

154 GMS SYSTEMS 387

155 GOULD, INC. 181

156 GRAY MARKET 494

158 GREAT SALT LAKE COMP. 495

159 GREAT SALT LAKE COMP. 496. 497

Inquiry No.

Page No.

160 GTEK INC. 53

• H&E COMPUTRONICS 138

161 H&M DISK DRIVE SERVICES 376

162 H.E.I. INC. 26

163 HANDWELL CORP. 394

164 HANDWELL CORP. 507

• HAYES MICROCOMP.PROD. 94

166 HAYES MICROCOMP.PROD. 95

167 HAYES MICROCOMP.PROD. 397

168 HEATH COMPANY 129

169 HITACHI 69

414 HUMAN DESIGNED SYS. 375

157 HYPERGRAPHICS 225

170 I.B.C. 19

172 I.T.M. 226

173 I/O TECHNOLOGIES 351

174 IBM CORP. 232, 233

176 IBM SYSTEMS SUPPLY DIV. 435

177 IDEA WARE 259

178 IMAGE COMP.PROD. 504

180 IN SYNC 510

181 INCOMM 456

182 INFOCOM 240, 241457 INMAC 426

183 INTEGRAND 66

184 INTERACTIVE STRUCT. 295

185 INTERDATA SYSTEMS, INC. 510

452 INTERFACE, INC. 135

453 INTERFACE, INC. 135187 INTERTEC DATA SYS. 13455 INTEX MICRO SYS. 462460 IQ TECHNOLOGY 202400 J.M.I. SOFTW. CONS 182

190 JADE COMP.PROD. 521

191 JADE COMP.PROD. 522, 523

192 JAMECO ELECTR. 532, 533

• JANUS 136, 137

193 JDR MICRODEVICES, INC. 536, 537

194 JDR MICRODEVICES, INC. 538, 539

195 JDR MICRODEVICES, INC. 540

196 JOSKO ENTERPRISES 516

197 JUKI INDUSTRY OF AMERICA 209

198 KADAK PRODUCTS 154

199 KAYPRO SOFTWARE DIR. 431

200 KELLY COMP.SUPPLIES 518203 KEYTRONICS CORP. 299

205 KNOWLEDGE SYS. 45

206 LABORATORY MICROSYS. 122

215 LANGLEY-ST.CLAIR 405

207 LASER MICRO 380

209 LAWSON LABS 504

210 LEADING EDGE PROD. CHI

211 LIBERTY GROUP INC. 382

■ LIQUIDATORS COMPANY 506389 LOGIC PROGRAMMING 340

216 LOGICAL DEVICES 18

217 LOGICAL DEVICES 518

218 LOGITECH, INC. 132

219 LOMAS DATA PRODUCTS 165

220 LOTUS DEVELOPMENT 242

221 LSI JAPAN CO. 514

222 LYBEN COMP. SYS. 516

223 LYBEN COMP. SYS. 504

224 LYCO COMPUTER 498

226 MA SYSTEMS 301

227 MACROTECH INT'L. 173

229 MANNESMANN TALLY 177

230 MANX SOFTWARE SYS. 24402 MARK OF THE UNICORN 433

231 MARYMAC INDUSTRIES 510

232 MAYNARD ELECTRONICS 71

• MC-P APPLICATIONS 381

• MCGRAW-HILL BOOK CO. 465

■ MCGRAW-HILL BOOK STORE 407

• MCGRAW-HILL RECRUITMENT 422

233 METHOD SYS. INC. 508

234 METRO SOFTWARE, INC. 203

235 MFJ ENTERPRISES, INC. 186

236 MICRO AGE COMP.STORES 425

237 MICRO CONTROL SYS. 16, 17398 MICRO CRAFT CORP 81

238 MICRO DATA BASE SYS. 185

240 MICRO MANAGEMENT SYS. 454

241 MICRO MART 340

242 MICRO MINT 455

243 MICRO-TAX 183

245 MICRODYNAMICS 508

246 MICROHOUSE 337

247 MICROLAND 514

248 MICROMAIL 511

249 MICROMATION 360

250 MICROPROCESSORS UNLTD. 516

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.

251 MICROSTUF, INC. 281

252 MICROTECH EXPORTS 366

253 MICROWARE 188

254 MID-AMERICA WHOLESALERS 410

255 MILLER, J.W. 340

256 MINI MICRO MART 403

257 MOORE BUSN. CENTERS 56, 57

258 MOUNTAIN VIEW PRESS 275

259 MPI 297

260 MTI SYSTEMS CORP. 164

• MUSYS CORP. 271

261 MYTEK 442

262 NATIONAL COMPUTER LTD. 124

263 NAVAL UNDERWATER SYS.CTR. 409

264 NEBS COMPUTER FORMS 364

265 NEC INFORMATION SYS. 353

266 NESTAR SYSTEMS INC. 105

267 NETWORK CONSULTING, INC. 250

268 NETWORK CONSULTING, INC. 461

269 NEVADA COMPUTER 434

• NORTH HILLS CORP. 508

• NORTH HILLS CORP. 514

270 NORTHWEST DIGITAL SYS. 64

271 NORTHWEST MICROCHIPS DIST. 520

• NRI SCHOOLS ELECTR.DIV. 417144 NWS 434

272 O'HANLON COMP.SYS. 197

273 OCTAGON SYSTEMS CORP 518

274 OMNISOFT 82

275 OMNISOFT 83

276 OPEN SYSTEMS, INC. 266

• ORA ELECTRONICS 501279 ORYX SYSTEMS 190, 191

281 OSBORNBMCGRAW-HILL 327, 328, 329

283 P.C. NETWORK 325

284 PACIFIC EXCHANGES 340, 378,434, 504, 506, 508, 510, 512, 520

285 PACIFIC INFOTECH CORP. 126

286 PAN AMERICAN ELEC. INC. 508408 PC PIPELINE 300

337 PC WARE, INC. 316, 317

413 PEGASUS DATA SYS. 459

290 PEOPLE & TECHNOLOGY 172' PERCOM DATA 9

291 PERSOFT118

292 PERSOFT 504

293 PERSONALIZED COMP.PAPER 154

294 PHONE I, INC. 321

• PIKA-BOX, DIV.APPLIED COMP. 490

295 P0PC0M/PRENTICE CORP. 248, 249

296 PRACTICAL PERIPH. 260

297 PRACTICAL PERIPH. 269

319 PRACTICAL PERIPH. 363

300 PRIMAGES, INC. 419

301 PRINCETON GRAPHIC SYS. 313

302 PRINTER STORE, THE 52175 PRIORITY ONE 392, 393

303 PRIORITY ONE 530, 531

304 PRO MICROSYSTEMS 512

305 PROMETHEUS PRODUCTS 359

306 PURCHASING AGENT, THE 70

307 QUADRAM CORP. 22, 23

308 QUANT SYSTEMS 510

309 QUARK INCORPORATED 41

310 QUBIE DISTRIBUTING 307

311 QUELO 215

312 RADIO SHACK CIV

313 RAN A SYSTEMS 27

314 RELMS 424

315 RHINO ROBOTS, INC. 237401 RIXON 277

• ROCKY MTN. SOFTWARE 133, 139

316 ROGERS LABS 504

318 RTL PROGRAMMING AIDS 520

320 S C DIGITAL 276

321 S-100 DIV. 696 CORP. 477

322 S.E.I. INC. 462

323 SAFEWARE 152

324 SAGE COMP. TECH. 361

325 SAKATA 125

326 SCOTT FORESMAN 312

• SCOTTSDALE SYSTEMS 131461 SD SYSTEMS 65

327 SEATTLE COMP.PRODS. 44

328 SEE-DATA CORP. 516

329 SEEQUA COMP.CORP. 6331 SEMI DISK SYSTEM 77

• SILICON SPECIALTIES 76

• SOFTCON 342

333 SOFTRENT 504

334 SOFTWARE AUTOMATION 79

335 SOFTWARE BANC 221

336 SOFTWARE SERVICES 340288 SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS, INC. 117

339 SOFTWARE TOOLWORKS 272

340 SONY VIDEO PRODUCTS 46

• SORCIM 264, 265

341 SOURCE EDP 441

342 STAR MICRONICS 415

343 STARBUCK DATA CO. 516

344 SUN SOFTWARE 427

345 SUNNY INT'L. 494

346 SUNTRONICS 492

• SYSTEMS STRATEGIES 272

348 TAVA CORP. 255

349 TAYCO BUSINESS FORMS 512

February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc. 543

Reader Service.

Inquiry No.

Page No.

351 TDK ELECTRONICS 150, 151

* TEKTRONIX, INC. 112

352 TELETEK ENTERPRISES, INC. 49399 TERMINALS TERRIFIC 464

353 TEXAS COMPUTER SYS. 408

• TEXAS INSTRUMENTS 144, 145, 302299 THIRDWARE COMP.PROD. 201

354 THREE M COMPANY 223

355 T1NNEY, ROBERT GRAPHICS 54

356 TITAN TECHNOLOGIES 206

357 TOPAZ, INC. 107

358 TOSHIBA AMERICA, INC. 420

359 TOSHIBA AMERICA, INC. 421

Inquiry No.

Page No.

360 TRANSACTION STORAGE SYS. 257

361 TRANSTAR 121

362 TRANSTAR 451

363 TRISTAR DATA SYS. 164

364 TSK ELECTR.CORP. 247

365 U.S. ROBOTICS 377

366 U.S. MICRO SALES 509

368 UNIPRESS SOFTWARE, INC. 284

369 UNIVERSAL DATA SYS 21

370 USED PERSONAL COMP.BRKRGE 506407 VANTEC 300

372 VAULT CORP. 285

373 VERBATIM CORP. 153

Inquiry No.

Page No.

374 VIDEX 15

375 VISUAL TECH, INC. 28, 29

376 VISUAL TECH, INC. 119

• VLM COMPUTER ELECTR. 506

381 WADSWORTH ELECTR.PUB.CO. 348

382 WANG ELECTR.PUB.INC. 80

• WANG LABS, INC. 323

383 WAREHOUSE SOFTWARE 102

384 WASHINGTON COMP.SYS. 215456 WESTERN AUTOMATION 376

385 WESTERN TELEMATIC 352

386 WHITESMITHS LTD 146

387 WILLIAMS, MARK CO. 443

Inquiry No.

Page No.

388 WINTEK CORP. 506

392 WRITING CONSULTANTS 354

393 WYSE TECHNOLOGY 367

394 XOR CORP. 123

*Correspond directly with company.

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501 ABTEX COMP. SYS. LTD. 320 B500 ULTRA SPECIALTY, INC. 320ANO DOMESTIC INQUIRIES, PLEASE

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544 February 1984 © BYTE Publications Inc.

a THE MY THE IBM® PERSONAL COMPUTER BECAME OBSOLETE.

■

»'«

*J

IBt

-. ■■ .■—■•■: ■

It was a monday In the autumnof'83,

The day they announced the

And unlike IBM's, ours comes com-plete with a high-resolution monitor,controller, seven expansion slots,serial port, parallel port, a tlme-of-

r^^-'^rxv.^i'm^a^iiVi'.r^i'Wv^iiriit'.yr.i

IBM® PC, at just about hatf the price. of dollars worth of software to get

/, more powerful.

(for example, our disk drives have a"mean time between failures" of20,000 hours, versus an 8,000-hour MTBF for theirs), it's compatiblewith Just about all the software andperipherals that the IBM is.

It run (an extra $40)... and $170Just for the time of day (a calendar/clock that's standard with LeadingEdge). In short, the basic packagecomes to you as a very expensive

It's this simple, The Leading Edge

P*

. *l • •

1

■

cessing (the most powerful w.p.program ever created to run on anIBM-type personal computer). Inshort, the basic package comes toyou complete and ready to work.

With IBM, on the other hand, youget charged extra for everything.Even for the PC DOS disk that makes

Edge PC...

Get serious.

In the age of the personal com-puter. Leading Edge, means whatit says.

LEADING EDGE PRODUCTS, INC, 225 TURNPIKE STREET. CANTON, MA 02021.1-800-343-6833. IN MASSACHUSETTS, (617) 828-8150

IBM Is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.

Circle 210 on inquiry card.

The dawn of a new era in microcomputer technology

NEW TANDY TRS-80 MODEL 2000

High Performance MS-DOS Computer ThatOperates at Twice the Speed of the IBM PC

Our Tandy® 2000 delivers much more than other 16-bitMS-DOS based computers. More speed. More disk storage.More expansion. Higher resolution graphics. And a modulardesign that advances the science of ergonomics.

Use the Hottest Names In Software

Like dBase II, a powerful relational data base managementprogram. Microsoft-Multiplan, the "second-generation" elec-tronic worksheet. PFS:File, a simple way to organize informa-tion. MultiMate, the highly-acclaimed word processingprogram. And many more already acclaimed by the entiremicrocomputer industry. Still more programs are coming, in-cluding Microsoft's state-of-the-art MS-Windows operatingenvironment. You can view several "windows" atonce—files, letters, graphs and more—and exchangeinformation between them.

More Speed, Storage and Expansion

A "next-generation" 16-bit CPU makes the Tandy 2000dramatically faster than the IBM PC and other MS-DOSsystems. The vast storage capacity lets you set upmassive data bases. You can add more memory, high-resolution color and monochrome graphics, our newDigi™-Mouse and much more. And you can installmost of these options yourself.

Complete Service and Support

The Tandy 2000 is backed with the quality and sup-port that have kept Tandy Corporation in the fore-front of the microcomputer industry. See theTandy 2000 today at over 1000 Radio ShackComputer Centers and participating RadioShack stores and dealers nationwide.

!;N\hi fhhii-rip

I I I I I I 1 I f' J / i r

' ' ' i i r ' i / ■ i ■ i , : i '""

f J ' r , it i i i , ~j;

Compare the Tandy 2000

to the IBM Personal Computer

'^SBMHBsHBBHi

m

Price Comparison1

Tandy 2000

IBM Personal Computer

Base Unit

$2750

$2104

2nd Drive

Included (720K)

$529 (320K)

Monochrome Monitor

$249

$345

Display/Printer Adapter

Included

$335

128K RAM (Total)

Included

$165

RS-232

Included

$120

MS-DOS 2.0

Included

$60

Total Cost*

$2999

$3658

Feature Description

Tandy 2000

IBM Personal Computer

Internal Memory

128K Standard

64K Standard

Disk CapacityPer Drive

720K

160K or320K (optional)

MicroprocessorClock Speed

8 MHz

4.7 MHz

True 16-BitMicroprocessor

Yes (80186)16-bit/16-bit data path

No (8088)16-bit/8-bit data path

User-AvailableExpansion Slots*

4

2

Graphics Options

Color Resolution

640 X 400

320x200

Number of Colors

8

4

Monochrome Resolution

640 X 400

640x200

Tandy 2000 WithTwo Disk Drives

Tandy 2000 HD WithBuilt-in 10-Megabyte Hard Disk

2750

OO

26-5103

4250

OO

Commercial Lease Available

For Only $95 Per Month

(Plus Applicable Use/Sales Tax)

Commercial Lease Available

For Only £150 Per Monlh

(Plus Applicable Use/Sales Tax)

"Comparable IBM configuration with monochrome adapler and display, commumcalions adapier, {wo 320K disk drives and 128K RAMtManulacturer's pricing as ol 9/1/83

Non-interlaced monitor, graphics and Digi-Mouse not included

Now Available! See theTandy 2000 Today!

Radio /hack

The biggest name in little computers®

A DIVISION OF TANDY CORPORATIONCircle 312 on inquiry card.

Prices apply at participating Radio Shack slores and dealers IBM is a registered Irade-mark ol International Business Machines Corp PFS is a registered trademark ol SoftwarePublishing MS and Mulliplan are trademarks ol Microsolt Corp MulliMate is a trademarkof Sotlword Systems Inc dBase II is a trademark of Ashton-Tate.