NEW BUSINESS SOFTWARE FOR
XL AND XE
Precision Software Ltd. are to
convert several successful business software packages to the Atari
800XL and 130XE for marketing in September.
The titles which are currently
available for the Commodore 64 and Apple are Superscript, Superbase
STARTER and Supertype which are, respectively, a word processor,
database and typing trainer. The Database in particular, if it lives
up to the specifications of the existing versions, promises to be
what serious users in the U.K have waited many years for. There
have been few serious products for the Atari with such high specifications
and certainly none easily available in this country to the home
user.
Prices are not yet finalised but
will be affordable to any user interested in a database or word
processing applications.
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BASIC XE!
Users of O.S.S.'s BASIC XL will
be more than pleased to know that BASIC XE for the 130XE will be
available in mid-July from Software Express International in Birmingham.
BASIC XE will contain all of the commands of BASIC XL with the addition
of an EXTEND command allowing access to 62k of the top 64k of memory.
In addition the features of the TOOL KIT, previously available separately,
will be built in to the cartridge. Price in the U.K. will be £69.99.
For new owners, BASIC XE will add
several new commands to ATARI BASIC allowing greater control over
Player Missiles, string handling and many other features. It is
highly recommended to any owner seriously interested in programming.
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What's this? It's a Disk
Notcher enabling you to use the other side of single sided disks
with great ease. You can fiddle around with a hole punch or use
a scalpel (blood can damage disks!) but with this little devil you
just slip your disk in and get a neat square notch identical to
the one on the other side, first time every time and in exactly
the right position. Price is just £5.99 plus £1.50 p&p from
Wootton Computers, 116 Edleston Road, Crewe, CW2 7 HD.
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TWO MORE COMPUTERS!
ATARI AT CES
Despite several reports from the
'ATARI knockers' the Company did make an appearance at the Summer
Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago and showed two more models
of the ST. The 260ST is a 256k model and the 260STD comes with a
built in 3½" disk drive. Prices are said to be $399 and $499 respectively.
After seeming to have abandoned the 'middle' market by dropping
the 130ST, Atari may well have something up its sleeve after all.
Also strongly rumoured for many
months and finally shown at CES is a Compact Disk ROM unit for use
with the ST capable of holding 500Mb! Atari are said to have purchased
the rights to a 26 volume encyclopaedia for use with this unit.
The unit will allow searches down to word level throughout the encyclopaedia
with an access time of something like 3 seconds to find over 50
references! The encyclopaedia takes only 120Mb of the available
disk space!
_________________
Miracle Technology could
well put the final nail in the coffin of the 850 interface with
their new DATARI RS232 interface. Available as a package with MULTI-VIEWTERM
software it will enable any modem to be used with your ATARI. Whilst
access to 300 baud Bulletin Board Systems has been relatively easy
to date, DATARI will open up the full world of VIEWDATA systems
including PRESTEL, TELECOM G0LD and others. Price for the complete
software and interface package is £59.95 from your retailer or,
by adding £1.15 p&p, from Miracle Technology (U.K.) Ltd, 5t
Peters Street, Ipswich, IPl 1XB.
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DOS 2.5 AVAILABLE
DOS 2.5 is currently being widely
circulated in the States but at the time of writing availability
in this country is not known. ATARI are said to be sending copies
to User Groups in the U.S. for 'non-commercial' distribution and
it is to be hoped that it will be available here at very little
cost. This new DOS is fully compatible with both the 810 and 1050
drives and will automatically use the enhanced density of the 1050
if available. A unique feature is that the 'manual' is on the reverse
of the disk thus cutting down costs and making distribution much
easier.
DOS 2.5 will become the new standard
for all ATARI 8-bit micros and existing DOS 3.0 owners are strongly
recommended to get a copy as soon as possible.
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