ANTIC ONLINE ADDS NEW FEATURES

SIG*Atari now three times bigger

You'll see many exciting new changes when you log onto CompuServe in December and type GO ANTIC. To begin with, for the first time in four years SIG*Atari is expanding.

"It's like taking SIG*Atari and making it three times as big," says chief sysop Ron Luks, Antic's Online Editor. SIG*Atari is now split into three special interest groups – plus the ANTIC ONLINE electronic magazine. There's a SIG for 8-bit Atari computer owners, a 16-bit SIG for Atari ST users and a software developers' forum. Each of these three new SIGs has as much online space as the original SIG*Atari.

Half of the developers' forum will be open to the public. The other half will be reserved for professional software developers, authors and retailers to brainstorm and exchange ideas. For the general user; the developers forum will be an up-to-the minute source of information on new products. A special section within the developers' forum will provide technical support for the professional software tools published by the Antic Catalog.

"The old SIG*Atari was getting awfully sluggish," Luks says, "Now we can handle hundreds of calls at once. Luks hopes to offer more bonus features such as last month's SIG conference with Leonard Tramiel, Atari Corp's Vice President of Advanced Technology.

SIG*Atari's famed crew of expert associate sysops will continue online, with more people added as the need arises. Luks is no longer uploading ANTIC ONLINE or SIG*Atari onto Delphi online service.

Among the new enhancements for ANTIC ONLINE is an even more streamlined and powerful command structure. For example, it will now be easy to print out a text file on paper at 80-column width while reading it on video screen at 40-column width. Also, there will be a special private online area that can be accessed only by representatives of the Worldwide Users Network (WUN).

PRO ST HELP LINE

Another exciting new addition to ANTIC ONLINE is Professional GEM Helpline, Tim Oren's invaluable twice-monthly column for Atari ST developers.

Every two weeks, Professional GEM Helpline demonstrates amazing new tricks while guiding ST developers past pitfalls and strange bugs that lurk for the unwary.

Oren is certainly a qualified ST teacher – he designed and implemented the GEM Resource Construction Set as well as other parts of the GEM Programmer's Toolkit.

He's a former member of the GEM (Graphics Environment Manager) programming team at Digital Research, Inc. (DRI) of Monterey, CA where he also designed DR LOGO, a precursor to ST Logo.

Oren left DRI to join Activenture Corp., the start-up company founded by former DRI operating systems architecture designer Tom Rolander to develop CD ROM (Compact Disk, Read Only Memory) technology for use with the Atari ST. At Activenture, Oren designs GEM-like user interfaces, such as the search-on-disk display for the CD ROM Grolier Encyclopedia. He also currently writes a highly technical column for an IBM GEM developers users group newsletter.

Oren's ANTIC ONLINE column will initially be geared to people who have both a knowledge of the C programming language and a copy of Atari's $300 ST Programmers Toolkit with documentation. "But if you currently lack either; don't panic," he says. "You can download the programs and save them for future reference."

SIGNING UP

If you're not a CompuServe subscriber yet, see your local computer dealer or phone (800) 848-8199 for information about signing up. Ohio residents phone (614) 457-0802. There is no extra charge for accessing ANTIC ONLINE or SIG*Atari.