I/O BOARD
EDUCATION SOFTWARE HERE
Back in 1977, Nolan Bushnell of Atari put Dorsett Educational Systems, Inc. under contract to produce at least 256 "half- hour" interactive audiovisual programs. We eventually produced 832 program titles. At one point, our "Talk and Teach" programs were offered through dealers and in the J.C. Penney catalog. Atari sold the rights back to Dorsett in 1981, and we have been selling them and newer titles ever since.
The programs come in series of 16, two to a cassette. These programs require the use of a cassette recorder, but we find that the Atari 410 and 1010 recorders are available through Antic mail-order advertisers. Dorsett's $25 Education System Master Cartridge is also required. Each 16- program course is $59.90.
Programs still available include 254 half-hour reading comprehension and development programs, U.S. and World History and Government, 160 math programs (including our best-selling Algebra course), Physics, Statistics, Electronics, 96 vocational programs, and even Army Skills and Philosophy. Free catalogs will be sent to the first 200 requests.
Lloyd Dorsett, President
Dorsett Educational Systems, Inc.
P.O. Box 1226
Norman, OK 73070
(800) 654-3871
BIKER DAVE BUMMER
Biker Dave Atari, the Super Disk Bonus in the September 1989 Antic under Erik Lowell's byline, actually was written by David Schwener and published in the November 1986 issue of COMPUTE! magazine. The two listings match exactly, except for authorship and magazine credits.
Perhaps Erik Lowell figured no one would remember or know where the program was originally published, since three years have elapsed since publication. Your article said that Lowell is a 14-year-old from Massachusetts "who is very interested in becoming a professional software developer." It saddens me to think that a young person would choose to obtain his first professional programming credit in such a callous way. I imagine his career will be very short if this trend continues.
Also, when Biker Dave was published in COMPUTE! it would not run on my 800. The display would jump and roll as soon as the play screen came up. The same problem occurs with the program on the Antic Monthly Disk. The fix is simple. Just make the following change:
2910 NEXT I:POKE DL+22,65
Darryl Howerton
Jonesboro, AR
Even the Display List error from the original Biker Dave is in your Super Disk Bonus. I fixed this problem for my own system back in 1986 by adding these lines:
2912 POKE DL+22,65
2913 POKE DL+23,32
2914 POKE DL+24,152
The game will run as is on some monitors or TV sets if you adjust the line frequency, but I had to correct the program for my monitor.
Doug Scott
Santa Clara, CA
Another note about the original Biker Dave is that the program will not work if you [BREAK] out of it and try to RUN it again. You should reboot your system and RUN the program again.
Mark Miller
Boulder, CO
Many alert readers wrote or called right away to let us know about the problem of Biker Dave authorship -- including longtime Antic contributor David Plotkin.
Antic sincerely apologizes to COMPUTE! Magazine and to the rightful author of Biker Dave for having mistakenly reprinted their program. We would like to locate David Schwener so we can pay him the fee that Lowell was supposed to get.
Lowell has written Antic that he programmed his own unique adaptation of _Biker_Dave_. He enclosed an unreadable disk which was supposed to contain this new version. Lowell claims he just made a 'clerical error' by mistakenly submitting a disk file of Schwener's original game. However, Lowell's submission to Antic also included a printout of Schwener's program -- with Lowell names as author.
We are grateful to all the Antic readers who spotted this unfortunate situation, including at deadline: John Andrews, Keith Brock, Fred Dormagen, Rodolfo Fong, Bruce Hathaway, Sylvia Jumaga, John Kells, John Langham, Phyllis Margaritas, Bruce Smith, and Robert von Frisch.
The screen Flipping problem mentioned by several readers doesn't
seem to happen on the monitors Antic uses, so we are passing along their
suggested fixes without being able to check them fully. -- ANTIC ED
ATARIWRITER HELP
In your July, 1989 I/O column, you told a reader to try using the Printer Driver Construction Set to solve his problems with AtariWriter subscripts on his Epson LX-80 printer. Unfortunately, the Printer Driver Construction Set was written before the LX-80 came out, and probably wouldn't solve the problem.
The best answer to this problem is to type:
[CONTROL-O]27S0o[CONTROL-O]27T
The [CONTROL-O] signifies one character made by pressing the [CONTROL] and [O] keys simultaneously. This character gives control from AtariWriter to the printer. 27 is the ESCAPE decimal code for the LX-80 printer, S0 turns on the superscript (S1 turns on subscript). The "o" was my superscript degree character -- you would put your own superscript or subscript character here. Then the [CONTROL-O] accesses the printer again, and the 27T tells the printer to return to regular line spacing.
Of course, another solution would be to buy AtariWriter Plus, which has a Custom Printer Driver, and a lot more. Combined with the Epson manual, and a bit of trial and error, this will help much more than an outdated printer driver program.
Martha Guastella
Brookline, MA
AMPLE CONFUSION
Back in your June 1989 issue, you talk about Antic Music Processor "Scott Joplin" music. Did I miss it, or didn't you put it on the disk?
Fred Portelli
Ocala, FL
On the June, 1989 disk, the AMP files are: CASCADES, AUGUST, PRE20.JSB, SPRING, RHAP4, ROUND3, DYERMAKE, FIRST2, PICTURES4, MAJORGEN, CHEERS.AMP, FELON. On subsequent disks, we made song files easier to identify by ending them all with .AMP.
Rather than use the over-familiar Entertainer, we put two lesser-known Joplin tunes on the disk, the Augustan Club Waltz (AUGUST) and The Cascades. Another Joplin tune, Easy Winners (EASY.AMP) made it onto the July, 1989 disk, along with a rag, a boogie, and two other tunes. The August 1989 disk includes a minor upgrade to AMP (version 2.1) and three contemporary songs. --ANTIC ED
Antic welcomes your feedback, but we regret that the large volume of mail makes it impossible for the Editors to reply to everyone. Although we do respond to as much reader correspondence as time permits, our highest priority must be to publish I/O answers to questions that are meaningful to a substantial number of readers.
Send letters to: Antic I/O Board, 544 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107.