===========^^^======================= ZMAGAZINE HOT ATARI NEWS AND REVIEWS ===================================== PUBLISHER/EDITOR: RON KOVACS ===================================== ASSISTANT PUBLISHER: KEN KIRCHNER ===================================== ISSUE 54 JUNE 1, 1987 _____________________________________ Xx ZMAG INDEX 54 _____________________________________ -*- CIS OFFERS NEW DAYTIME RATES -*- SAFETY TIP By:Steve Garee -*- THE ATARI CHALLENGE By:Bill Silverman -*- DATAPAC PARAMETERS -*- JACG ZMAG USER GROUP OF MAY -*- ST X-PRESS NEWS WIRE -*- ZMAG UPDATE Summer CES Reports -*- SOFTWARE REVIEW 221B Baker Street -*- ZMAG NEWSWIRE -*- SOFTWARE REVIEW Oasis Bulletin Board System _____________________________________ Xx COMPUSERVE OVERS PERMANENT RATES _____________________________________ COLUMBUS, Ohio (May 27, 1987):Daytime connect rates for the CompuServe Information Service will be reduced to the same as evening and weekend connect rates beginning today June 1. CompuServe subscribers can access the service anytime for $6 per connect hour at 110-450 baud speeds, a more than 50% reduction from the previous daytime weekday rate. Access is $12.50 per connect hour at 1200-2400 baud. Communications surcharges and individual surcharges still apply. -Convenience is a major reason subscribers use CompuServe,- said David J. Kishler, supervisor of corporate communications. -This rate reduction allows subscribers to use CompuServe at an economical rate at times best for them.- This most recent price reduction is the third within the past year. Reduced rates for 2400 baud access and free uploads (transmitting programs to CompuServe's data libraries over telephone lines) were both instituted last year. With alomst 360,000 subscribers and more than 400 services, the CompuServe Information Service is the largest general online information base in North America. CompuServe also provides electronic mail, internal corporate information and value-added telecommunications network services to more than 1,200 major U.S. corporations and government agencies. CompuServe is an H&R Block company. _____________________________________ Xx SAFETY TIP _____________________________________ Article taken from the May 1987 issue of the CDAC Electronic Newsletter. By:Steve Garee Many computer users think of their computer as if it were a toaster or a television set. Just another electric appliance to be ignored when not in use. It, as well as, any appliance can burn your world down around you. Think about fire prevention for a moment. I attended a course in computer security management several years ago. One of the topics covered was fire safety and the simple steps required to implement it. The worst computer fire disaster in the nation happened in a government installation that had a disaster preparedness plan for any contingency. The fire disaster plan contained two words, -Can't happen!-. It only took six months to get back to normal. What can you do? A few simple steps and a couple of minutes are all it will take. 1. Check the power demands of your equipment. Does your computer cause lamps to flicker or dim on the same circuit? Don't use extension cords or blocks that are not rated for at least 10 amps. Preferably, there should be an inline circuit breaker, so an electric motor doesn't fry your machine when it starts up. 2. Check the ground connection of the house and don't use the machine in a violent electric storm. I know of at least two people who own machines that have tested a lightning strike and lost. 3. Get a Halon fire extinguisher. They are available locally and are inexpensive. Halon is preferable to carbon dioxide because the Halon does not damage electronic equipment or leave a residue. It would be terrible to put out a computer fire and find the extinguisher has damaged a disk drive which wasn't involved. It is not for a paper-type fire. 4. If a fire happens, CALL FIRE DEPARTMENT! This is important, because a wiring fire may occur at any point and can reignite at an unexpected moment. You may feel like a fool when they arrive and the fire has been put out with your extinguisher, but think about how you will feel watching from the road as your life's treasures go up in smoke. A fire can get out of control in about a minute! 5. Make sure your computer is covered by your household insurance. If you use it for any business functions at all, IT IS NOT COVERED. Lastly, this is something to think about. A full computer setup with hard disk and monitor can pull several hundred watts. Would you leave an iron on and leave the house? A smaller machine will probably not even match a table lamp. Think safety first. _____________________________________ Xx THE ATARI CHALLENGE By:Bill Silverman _____________________________________ Article Ctys of:CDAC Electronic Newsletter, May 1987 Edition I admit it, I'm an Atari addict. When everybody was buying Apples in the early 80's I bought a 32K Atari 800. When everybody was buying Commodores in the mid 80's I bought an 800XL. When the 130XE was introduced I got one of them to! Then came the ST. This time, I said to myself, I'm gonna wait. Let them show me that this one is going to be great. So I waited as long as I could and I now have a 1040ST. Can it do things better than my old Atari's? Yes definately! Is it as well developed as the 130XE or 800XL? Most definately not! Well friends this is most assuredly a paradox. A bigger better machine with enough memory and speed to outrun everybody in town! Some of the software is the leading edge of the next generation of software -particularly the graphics software. The ST and Publishing Partner have opened up new doors to what can be done at home in desktop publishing at a bargain price! The product is still not available - vaporware may be standard practice in the industry but if you can advertise it please market it! The software to interface with the hardware is miserable. Do tell me to use 'any word processor that prints ASCII text files to disk' to write printer drivers or assign.sys files. Give us programs that do the work! The same thing goes for font editiors. When somebody makes a font editor the equal of INSTANT EDIT that Sheldon Leemon wrote for the Atari 800 then we'll be in business. Don't tell me how many fonts the computer needs for the screen and printer. Again, give us programs that do the work! Give us load and go software! An autorun.sys is must for the modern computer and that includes the ST. Lastly, give us all a sence of hope. We have exactly one committed Atari retail store in the Capital District. The people who own and run the store love the machine but are considering dropping the Atari line for lack of product and support. What do they want: #1, the IBM emulator. #2, the IBM Clone. #3, support for the product they do have (how do you think a dealer feels when 1040's sit unsold while customers wait for a MEGA ST which the dealer can't get?) So come on Atari, we're all out here rooting for ya, we're supporting you! DO IT NOW _____________________________________ Xx DATAPAC PARAMETERS .....Ctsy CompuServe Atari8 SIG.... _____________________________________ #: 188501 S2/Telecommunications 26-May-87 02:14:07 Fm: Ken Watson 73157,3100 To: John Oetter 73657,771 (X) Hi John, The method you describe will work if you are going through a Datapac public dialport but not if accessing Datapac through iNet 2000. iNet will _NOT_ allow the user to have a transparent profile (which is what PROF 3 is suppose to give you) so you cannot do any Xmodem U/L to CIS if you are using Datapac through iNet. For downloads I use a slightly different PAD paramater which is as follows: PROF 1 SET 6:0,126:4 - like PROF 3 you won't be able to see your last bit of typing. Unlike PROF 3 (correct me here if I am wrong about PROF 3), you will get your character echo back after you do the D/L and your profile will remain open for subsequent downloads while you remain on CIS. Anyway, until iNet installs new software that will allow 8 bit transfers you cannot U/L to CIS if you are using DATAPAC through iNet so poor schmucks like myself continue to be able to D/L from CIS but not do any 8 bit U/L. Ken * Reply: #: 188553 S2/Telecommunications 27-May-87 00:20:00 Fm: JOHN OETTER 73657,771 To: Ken Watson 73157,3100 Ken- Thanks for the info- I was not aware of the various hoops that datapac put some of us through. This one was enough! May I suggest s Regards John D/L THROUGH DATAPAC USING XMODEM From: John Oetter 73657,771 With many thanks to Ewan Edwards and the Wrecking Crane BBS in Victoria B. C. (604) 727-2757 Background Datapac essentialy invloves itself as a middleman. When you type a letter, Datapac decides who it is going to, sends it, and in this case, is echoed back by Compuserve. This involves time delays that make it next to impossible to download! The packet switching used by Datapac can be overcome. Solution The trick is to get Datapac to switch off the packet switching. So here's what you do: Type a CTRL-P <^P> This is a Datapac access code. Then type PAR followed by a . Type PROF 3 (you will not be able to see what you are typing) Type SET 2:1 Now type in the Compuserve forum commands to download. Once again the sequence should go: 1. CTRL-P 2. PAR 3. PROF 3 4. SET 2:1 (remember, you won't see this line) 5. Happy downloading and uploading! If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know!! John Oetter 73657,771 _____________________________________ Xx Zmag User Group of the Month ...Jersey Atari Computer Group... _____________________________________ By:Mark Knutsen, SysOp - JACG BBS This week, some miscellaneous information about the Jersey Atari Computer Group that wasn't mentioned in the previous three articles: -- The JACG article in Zmag 50 was written by Tom Pazel, who is currently our club's president, _not_ Membership Chairman. The name and address of the real Membership Chairman are as follows: Robert P. Mulhearn Membership Chairman, JACG 8 Crescent Road Pinebrook, NJ 07058 Please contact Bob for information on joining the JACG or receiving our newsletter. -- The JACG Disk Library contains over 115 disks for 8-bit Ataris, and over 35 disks for Atari STs. Information about ordering library disks ($5 apiece) and listings may be obtained from the Chief Librarian at this address: Sam Cory Disk Librarian, JACG P.O. Box 7 Towaco, NJ 07082 ////Part II//// As 8-Bit Vice-President of the Jersey Atari Computer Group I try to provide good representation for our membership ... especially our 8-Bit membership. My name is Doug Van Hook, and I'm just one of the members on the JACG production line. The production line produces Quality Meetings, a state of the art Bulletin Board, an Award Winning Newsletter, and a Disk Library bulging with the latest 8-Bit and 16-Bit Public Domain Software. A large part of my job is to convince members, friends, and software producers to demonstrate software or speak at our meetings. We like to give our members the chance to see or hear about software products before they buy them. This is especially true with Public Domain Software. If you've read our newsletter, you may have seen my column PDG (Public Domain Goods). Head Disk Librarian Sam Corey and I try to select the best public domain software available as our featured disk for the month. We have exchanged complete disk libraries with other clubs to provide enough EXCEPTIONAL 8-Bit and 16-bit disks. I also demonstrate the featured 8-Bit disk at our monthly meeting. The result has been a surge in disk sales, and more importantly, confidence and pride in our disk library. I don't deny that there are still some really bad disks in our library which we don't censor. BUT... we don't feature them! Oh... the disk of the month is available during the month featured for $3.00 instead of the usual $5.00. This applies to all featured disks whether they have programs on one or both sides. To order our disk of the month just write to our MAIL ORDER LIBRARIAN: Bret Calligari 306 Division St. Floor 2 Boonton, NJ 07005 For other Atari Groups interested in exchanging libraries please contact: Sam Cory P.O. Box 7 Towaco, NJ 07082 _____________________________________ Xx ST X-Press News Wire Volume 1, Number 5 May 1987 _____________________________________ THE DISKMATE GRAPEVINE ---------------------- Rumor has it that their is a special connector being made to allow the ST's to be hooked up to a multi-synch monitor. This means that we may soon have the capablility of running low, medium, and high res from ONE monitor. This should be interesting. A laser drive was shown in Germany. It seems to work on the compact disk technology. We will be able to read and write to the disks (which will have a storage capacity of 500 terabytes!) The creator estimates the price to be around $250 and they will be available by the end of 1987. In Canada, Atari was showing 520 ST's with built in power cords and single sided disk drive's (a poorman's 1040 ST). There were also 520's with a meg of ram, supposedly it is very hard to find a -regular- ST in Canada anymore; all of them are upgraded. Firebird has released their next game, GOLDEN PATH. It looks very promising with nice graphics, sound, and animation. The game itself offers a very unique playing aspect, it seems that this program is very indepth. Atari has set some new dates for their new hardware. The laser printers are supposedly being finished up and will be ready -by the end of May-. The Mega ST's won't be available until the end of June. And the Atari PC's also won't be available until either June or July. For everybody who is looking for the blitter chip in the next few weeks, don't count on it. As I have told everyone who asks me, Atari will most likely not be releasing the blitter until after the Mega ST's are released. The Mega's will contain the blitters, maybe Atari is hoping that people will get fed up waiting for the blitter and breakdown to buy the Mega ST's instead. The NEWSROOM, from the publishers of PRINTMASTER and PRINTMASTER PLUS -Unison World, is expected to be released shortly. It is another desktop publishing system, from the various photos that we have seen it doesn't look too bad. THE TRANSLATOR was a project that would allow users to run Atari 8 bit software. As you may have read in last months' Zmag series, Atari has told the author not to distribute the program. His latest version looks very promising with graphics, sound, etc. If you think that Atari should quit their -greedy- attitude and let this program be completed then write us a letter petitioning Atari to do so. Send all letters to: ST X-PRESS c/o Translator Petition P.O. Box 2383 La Habra, CA 90632 MESSAGES FROM ICD BBS --------------------- Phone: (815) 968-2229 Last Edited: 5/28/87 Title : SPARTADOS!! Author: RIC To: ? Replies: 2 I NEED HELP BAD!! MY XE MACHINE BROKE DOWN! AND I HAVE AN 800 THAT CAN TAKE PLACE OF THE XE BUT THE BIG PROBLEM IS THAT ONLY SPARTADOS 1.1 WILL WORK ON THE 800. MY PROBLEM IS I LIKE TO USE MY 800 BUT IT CAN'T READ THE SPARTADOS 3.2D, I CAN'T PLAY WITH MY PROGRAMS! NEED HELP BADLY, ANYONE KNOWS A WAY TO READ AND WRITED ON 800 TO THE SPARTADOS 3.2D DISKETTE! PLEASE LEAVE ME E-MAIL OR CALL MY BOARD 213-631-7328 40 MEG HD MIO AND ATR8000 THANKS Title : SPARTADOS!! Author: Keith Ledbetter To: RIC Replies: 0 Sorry...it can't be done. SpartaDOS 3.2 will just not work on an old 800. Title : New Express! Author: Keith Ledbetter To: HAROLD BREWER Replies: 0 Harold, Yes..1030 Express! version 3.0 should be out shortly. Things have finally slowed down a little, so I should have some time to work on it. New things? Well, I'd read the 850 v3.0 docs, since that doc file is for ALL of the 3.0 versions. It has an edit window, Vidtex translation mode, plus more. Title : Networking MIO's Author: Shadow Flax To: All Replies: 1 I just recieved a private message from Tom about the MIO's that you can hook up to your system with another MIO that will inturn hook up to the same hard disk, I hope that I said that right. It is mentioned in the MIO docs that is can be bought for a extra $50 from ICD. Tom had advised me that the project was cancled. I would like to know why, and find out if it was just money or if it was a task that was just to hard to handle. I have writen a machine language BBS program that I could have set up my BBS with 8 MIO's and 8 lines with a CB Chat mode etc. It works great... the only thing is that I want them all to run off the same hard disk so that they share the same exact message bases and download files. Any one else interested in doing this? I think it would make the multimate in 8 bit bbs's. and hey, it will not slow down the bbs at all with 8 users on... even if they are in differnt baud rates. Wm A. Carroll Atari Computer Club of Sacramento Ca. 916-962-2566 128 meg useable on line. Title : Help! Author: --Bruce To: SYSOP*Tom Replies: 1 Tom-- Can the MIO handle NINE driveS?? If I [S]witch to D9: and then do it again, whatever drive info I switched out and then in again is the way it was. I'm wondering if it is MY-DOS's D1:-D9: compatible!! If so, that allows 144Mb, not 128Mb, in the system!!! --Bruce Title : Help! Author: SYSOP*Tom To: --Bruce Replies: 0 Beats me? We will be supporting 9 drives with the SpartaDOS X but I don't use MYDOS. - TOM - _____________________________________ Xx ZMAG UPDATE .....Summer CES Reports..... _____________________________________ At the time of this edit, The Summer CES Show is going on. This being the middle of the weekend, our deadline came upon us rather quick. Issue 55 of Zmag will be devoted entirely to CES coverage. The publication date of the special edition will be on Friday June 5th, and Issue 56 will appear on Monday, June 8th. Please make a note of this on your calender. ISSUE 56-----June 5th, 1987 ISSUE 57-----June 8th, 1987 See you again in 5 days! _____________________________________ Xx SOFTWARE REVIEW ....221B Baker Street.... _____________________________________ Article taken from the May 1987 issue of the CDAC Electronic Newsletter. By:Don Szarowski -Come, Watson, come...the game is afoot!- And so, with these familiar words, our adventure through the Victorian streets of London begins. Prior to actual play, it is necessary to set up the game by selecting your character, getting your clue code and starting a case. There are 30 cases on the back of the disk, and a supplemental case disk available. Up to 4 players or teams may compete as Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, Irene Adler or Inspector Lestrade. The case book contains the vital background information for each abominable atrocity, as well as the information needed by Scotland Yard to consider the case solved. You may move about the streets of London by using either your joystick or the keyboard to roll the die and move. An overhead 3-D view of the city lets you keep track of your movements, and a full view of the city is also available for planning your movements in relation to your opponents. The game begins and ends at 221B Baker St, but in between, you must travel the streets and gather clues from the various shops and buildings. You must also get a badge from Scotland Yard before you can solve the case. Doors can be locked, secret passages used and carriages ridden in to save precious time. The real secret, of course, is to use your razor sharp mind to deduce the solution from a minimum number of clues. With the solution in hand, you return to 221B Baker St., announce the solution and inform Dr. Watson that it was elementary. Well, I was able to do that the first time. Now my kids have gotten smarter and break my coded clues too. The graphics are very well done, and each character has his/her own distinct trait during movement; for example, Sherlock puffs smoke as he walks. The speech synthesis leaves a bit to be desired, but fortunately it is used sparingly and is just window dressing. Player movement is a bit slow because of all the redrawing of the characters and map, but not terribly annoying. Disk accesses seem to have been kept to a minimum, which is nice since it reduces disk swapping. So far, the playing time seems to be 30-45 minutes per case. This is a very enjoyable game to play and both my children (age 13 & 16) and I would recommend it. 221B Baker Street Datasoft $18.95 _____________________________________ Xx ZMAG NEWSWIRE _____________________________________ The Comdex/Spring computer trade show, which has been a regular in Atlanta for years, may be moving to Chicago next year. This year's event opens next week in Atlanta. Bob Lively, vice president of Interface Group Inc., which promotes the show, told The Associated Press that some people were starting to see Comdex as a Southern regional show instead of an international one, and, -We thought by moving it to Chicago we could freshen it up a bit.- According to the Online Today/AP report. Lively said...-attendance for the spring show, which brings Atlanta from $20 million to $30 million in revenue each year, had dropped for the past two years and that some major companies are no longer coming. About 70,000 people attended the COMDEX/SPRING show last year. Online Today reported May 27th that Commodore will soon be shipping the Amiga A2000. Online Today reported last June, hardware developers were expecting the first shipments almost twelve months ago. The current US shipping date for the A2000 is June 14, two days after the European computer market receives its first A2000. This news came from the SCAN Show in California. Attendees at the SCAN show say they were told that the US will be receiving a German version of the A2000 and not the final product that will eventually be sold here. A law goes in effect Today Monday June 1, 1987 in Georgia that is expected to reduce by up to 80% the number of computerized telephone sales pitches in that state. According to The Associated Press, the law, perhaps the first of its kind in the nation, requires that: -:- Calls not be made before 8 a.m. and after 9 p.m. -:- A live operator ask permission to put the recorded pitch on the phone. -:- The sponsoring company be identified and a phone number provided. -:- The state Public Service Commission issue licenses to firms doing computerized telephone sales. -:- Firms cannot dial unlisted numbers, cannot dial randomly or sequentially and will get into trouble if they call certain emergency numbers. AP says sponsor Cathey Steinberg, D-Atlanta, first became interested in curtailing computerized calls when she learned that patients were getting them in their hospital rooms. She says the law doesn't affect calling by non-profit agencies or debt collectors. This legislature also does not affect interstate calling, but Steinberg has a resolution pending before the National Conference of State Legislators to ask Congress and the FCC to place similar restrictions. _____________________________________ Xx Software Review ...Oasis BBS... _____________________________________ Oasis BBS -The Most Complete BBS for the 8-bit ATARI today!- by:The SysOp TEKTRON BBS A/C-918-835-5198 For all you folks out there that have never called an OASIS Bulletin Board System, you have really been missing allot! Back in the -good ol' days- when you got your brand new -300- baud modem and called your local AMIS or other 8-bit system, you probably thought you were in some pretty tall cotton. At least I did. I mean really, here you were in the comfort of your own home, getting all this ATARI related information and programs that other Atari folks had written, at your leisure. The only problem was that even though the equipment was good enough, it never was fast enough to suit most of us. Hince 1200, 2400 and now 9600 baud modems. Therefore the software was always coming up with restrictions that had to be written around. Today although 1200, 2400 and 9600 baud modems are not in everyone's home, they are quickly becoming very popular with the home computer scene. As baud rates increased so did the problems with making a BBS efficient enough to keep up with them. Ralph Walden, Rich Renner and Leo Newman have come to our rescue with the OASIS BBS. The BBS is written in MAC/65, therefore once compiled the heart of OASIS is in machine language. Immediately you would think that a machine language program would be restrictive to customizing as a couple of its predecessors. WRONG! You can actually set an OASIS system up to look like an AMIS or just about any other BBS that you have seen. I am not going to -knock- any other BBS programs here but believe me, I have paid out lots of bucks for what was described to be as the -BEST- 8-bit BBS around just to end up formatting the disks that they came on. As you will one day come to the realization that you don't have to pay a ton of money to get a really excellent BBS program (OASIS is merely $15) you will be shocked to see how complete a system that OASIS is. Okay now that I have got down off my soapbox I'll get on with the review! Oasis is comprised of several files. At first one would think, -oh no, look at all this junk I have to edit!-. Actually that is one of the finest points of the BBS. You have a machine language program that can be -personalized- to your own satisfaction without knowing any machine languages! Briefly there are five type files you will be using: .RES - Memory resident, loaded by the bbs at boot time. .SUP - Disk resident (either on a diskette, hard disk or ramdisk.) used by the BBS as needed. .DAT - MESS.DAT is the -personality- file that lets you modify the appearance of the board. PASS.DAT is of course the password file like any other bbs. .DA? - Message bases.TXT - Text or documentation files that you can have users access through the DATA base portions of the BBS. The BBS will run on just about any kind of DOS, but most choose Sparta Dos for its sub-directories and usability with a hard disk. Using Sparta Dos will allow you to have a -batch- file that will set up the ramdisk and copy files to it at boot time so the BBS will run at ramdisk speed if desired. This is also a plus if you only have 1 disk drive. If you are fortunate to have Sparta Dos and one of their R-8 clocks, all you need to do once the BBS is set up is slap all the disks in the drives and turn the computer on. When you are at the WAITRING screen you can remove the disks and replace them with either a blank formatted disk (for the upload drive) or use a disk full of files for downloading. The OASIS system supports 8 message bases plus E-mail. Each message base can hold 99 messages and are automatically compacted when they max or you can set them to compact at a lower number. You can also have three data bases that can be set up with individual protocols. You can have a user press a letter or number from a data base to either have the information scrolled on the screen automatically or be prompted for type of protocol for the transfer. As a SYSOP you can set your system up in any number of ways. You can have a GUEST function that allows a person on just to VISIT the BBS and look around. You can restrict him or allow him whatever privileges you wish. Or on the other hand you can LOCK a GUEST or visitor completely out of the system and have specified times that GUESTS or new users may be allowed on. If needed, you may even restrict the board to 1200-2400 baud callers. This may sound a little harsh for some, but it seems that in most cases of abuse to a BBS that the caller was at 300 baud. The only bad part about a 300 baud lockout is that you are locking out the -decent- 300 baud callers. It all boils down to, -It is YOUR system and YOU can do with it whatever you wish!- The most important part about an OASIS BBS is -Ease of Use-. Once a user has been on and looked around, he feels -at home-. It is quick and easy to see any new messages on your return to an OASIS system. By pressing -*-, you can see any new messages in all bases since your last visit. Once read, the flags are turned off. This makes it especially nice for the long distance caller saving him time looking through old messages to find the new ones. Downloading from an OASIS is simple and you can do it in a number of ways depending upon how the BBS is set up. You can set up two separate menus if you wish to keep the confusion down. The 8-bit files can be selected from one menu and the 16-bit files selected from yet another menu. The menus can be designed from a DOS copy from screen command, or from a word processor such as TEXTPRO (if you tend to make typing errors like I do). As in the data bases, the files menus (FDIRECM for the 8-bit & SDIRECM for the 16-bit) have a support file that will tell the bbs what to look for when an option from the menu is selected. This is especially nice even if you do not use subdirectories for file storage. Simple DOS parameters are used to search for files. You as a Sysop have the option to create a more descriptive extension label for each file. You will notice on an OASIS system that when you are looking at files from one of the menues that you actually have more than just a filename to help you in identifying the type and language of the file. The Oasis as part of its bootup reads a file (EXT.RES) into memory to use to label the files depending on the first two digits of the file extension. That way when you see a file like RAMBUGII.OBJ you may actually see RAMBUGII OBJECT GAME or RAMBUGII ARC GAME to let you know you need to UNarc it and so on. The primary download area would be the [F]iles area itself. A screen of files is viewed and if you desire to download one you press [D] then the corresponding number to the left of the filename. You may also download from a DATA BASE if the Sysop desires to set it up as such. Last but not least you may download from a message base or E-mail! (When I first saw that one I had to sit back and think a minute.) There isn't any BBS in the country that ever did that! (That I know of.) If a SYSOP had done some personal type work for someone he could leave the file out there and just leave a message to the person it is intended and he would be the only one that had access to it. Also it makes it super nice for a person to check at a glance (-*-new messages) to see if there has been a program added to the system without searching for it the -old fashioned way- through say 10-20-30 meg of storage. The Sysop can also explain the program or even give a brief review of it and give UPLOAD CREDIT because it is in a message. The user simply presses -Q- if he wishes to download it and like in all the transfers you are prompted as to the type of protocol you wish to use. As of this writing you have the option to use XMODEM, XMODEM-CRC, YMODEM & TEXT. As most of you know, (providing you have a good data line) YMODEM will transfer data faster because it is sending 8 times the data in one block. As long as you don't have any retries on the data transfer you save checking the checksum 7 times. The only problem with YMODEM transfers is that there are few terminal programs for the 8-bit that support it. That brings us to yet another facet of the OASIS BBS. A built in terminal program. I know, you are all saying -That's no big deal, any decent BBS has one of those!-. Okay, maybe they do, but it is just another plus. It sure makes it handy for the guy that is running the BBS from his four floppy drives and dreads the thought of having to reboot the system. If you are still pondering running a BBS on your trusty 8-bit or if you have been running an 8-bit BBS on anything other than an OASIS I would advise you to get one right away. Besides, someday if you are going to buy an ST you wouldn't want to tie it up with running a BBS all the time, keeping you from what you like best! For your copy of the Oasis call: HELP BBS (Leo Newman) 300/1200 Wichita, Kansas 316-683-7514 A Zmagazine system! Or mail a money order for $15.00 to: Leo Newman 3900 N. Woodlawn #17 CC Wichita, Ks. 67220 ===================================== ZMAGAZINE JUNE 1, 1987 Issue 54 (c)1987 Ron Kovacs/Syndicate Services Please contribute!!! =====================================