Dear Readers of PAGE 6,
I'd like to offer a very big thank you to all those readers who voted
for Grab an Apple in the recent readers' poll. I had no idea it was
even in the running until the prize arrived on my doorstep!
Les Ellingham has become quite a valued friend over the last year
and he knew that I was trying to buy the Mysterious Adventures from
Channel 8 Software. In his wisdom, he took the liberty of selecting
these as the prize and I couldn't have been more thrilled.
Once again, thanks to all.
Garry Francis
Sydney, Australia
__________
Dear Les,
One of the criticisms of Atari Basic is that it is unusually slow.
I think I may be right in saying that even the Commodore 64 is faster!
Fortunately OSS Inc has produced the excellent BASIC A+. Now they
have produced a 24K cartridge update called Basic XL. The advantage
is that it utilises bank switching, hence giving a 24K language that
occupies only 8K of memory! OSS also produce a fast compiler called
ACTION! and a cartridge version of MAC65, both using bank switching.
Is it possible to have a review of Basic XL and ACTION!
Gary Cheung
** Basic XL and ACTION! are not the sort of things that you can
plug in and knock up a quick review but there must by now be several
people who have got to grips with these. How about a review from
one of you?
__________
Dear Les,
I'm pleased to see that 1984 looks to be a good year for PAGE 6/Atari
owners, even though there are some disappointing news items around.
Hopefully U.K. Atari enthusiasts will follow PAGE 6's lead and help
keep their computers in the limelight. You are doing a great job,
I hope your readers support your aims.
With regard to the high cost of Atari software, perhaps the best
thing is for individuals to write constructive letters of criticism
to Atari and other software vendors. Individual letters will be more
noticeable than a petition from a group of people. If the letters
are clear, concise and polite, then perhaps the software producers
will realise that they can reach a greater market by adjusting their
prices to a lower reasonable level.
Would it be possible for PAGE 6 to publish a list of the 'specialised
outlets' who carry a decent range of Atari software?
Allan J. Palmer
Hants
** Support of Atari amongst retailers and software
producers is going through a very bad patch at the moment and
Atari owners will need a spirit of optimism to get through 1984.
More so than on any other computer every owner must make an effort
to ensure that Atari does not die in this country. Write to software
producers, to retailers, to magazines. Let everybody know that
you are there and that you care. You and I know that Atari produce
the best home computers but most retailers don't seem to know
this and worst of all, Atari themselves don't even realise it.
Every week I speak to software producers or retailers who say
'No, I am going over to the Commodore 64' and support of Atari
drops a little more. Make your voice heard and perhaps we can
persuade everybody that there is support for Atari among users
and that it deserves support from retailers. Surely you all share
a desire to see Atari as the best supported machine around.
On the question of 'specialised outlets', I am hoping to introduce
a Directory of retailers who support Atari in the near future. Look
out for it.
__________
Dear Sir,
Here is a simple but effective little program that will draw a 3D
sine-wave in Graphics 8.
10 GRAPHICS 8:POKE 710,0:DEG :COLOR 1
20 FOR X=0 TO 319 STEP 3
30
PLOT X,90
40
DRAWTO X/1.3,SIN(X/0.5)*60+90
50
NEXT X
To draw a 3D cosine wave, simply change SIN in line 40 to COS. To
draw both waves together, add the following two lines
34 DRAWTO X/1.3,COS(X/0.5)*60+90
37 PLOT X,90
S.Cant,
Ranton, Staffs
__________
We receive several letters each issue from people who can't get
the programs in PAGE 6 to run and many phone calls to say how good
the programs are! If you are a novice, please, please READ THE LISTING
CONVENTIONS which are published in every issue and if you are convinced
that you don't make typing mistakes, then run TYPO on the program
that does not work Even though you have checked it a dozen times,
you will find that you do have a mistake somewhere.
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