V-GRAPH

I enjoyed V-Graph (Antic, November 1986), but it didn't work immediately with my AtariWriter. Tell your readers to:

1. Erase the printer controls in the "heading" line.
2. Put the last digit of your data in column 9.
3. Put a [RETURN] in column 10.
If someone modifies V-Graph to include a variable x-axis, please let me know.

Karl Wilks
Richmond, CA

SMARTEAM MOVES

The service center for the SmarTeam modem has moved to: 19205 Parthenia, suite J, Northridge, CA 91324. (818) 886-9726. Smarteam honors a two-year warranty on modems with a dated sales receipt.--ANTIC ED

THUNDER! REPLIES

I'd like to point out some misconceptions in Steven DiMeo's review of Thunder! (Antic, November 1986). He felt that only 200 words in a supplementary dictionary is a drawback because he would like to include contractions. But that's why the user can add thousands of words to the main dictionary.

Also, the concept of "memory-resident program" should be cleared up. Once the machine is booted with the Thunder! accessory, it becomes memory-resident. The original disk is no longer used, so whether or not it fits on a disk with 1st Word is irrelevant.

Thunder! is prrmarily a spell-checker-- so why complain that it can't tell the difference between "to" and "too"? Since neither is spelled wrong, how can Thunder! find an error? Proofreading isn't a part of Thunder!'s domain, nor is it intended to be. Suggesting that Thunder! is not useful because it's not a thesaurus is as meaningful as saying that a car isn't useful because it's not a boat.

The restriction of ignoring only 20 repeated words has been dropped as of version 1.3. Owners of earlier Thunder versions can upgrade to 1.31 free by sending their original disks to us.

Mark Skapinker
Author of Thunder!
Batteries Included

GARBAGE

I have an 800XL, a 1050 disk drive, a U-Print Model A interface, a Star NX-10 printer and an XM301 modem. With the modem connected, I get the occasional line of garbage printed out. If I disconnect the modem, the printer works fine. Here's a sample of the garbage: @WNe@WNe. What can I do?

Ron Feulner
North Charleston, SC

We tried using all of the above components together--except that we don't have a U-Print interface--and had no trouble. You might try borrowing another interface (Atari 850, P:R: Connection, etc.) at a users group meeting and see if that makes a difference. @WNe@WNe. --ANTIC ED

ALPHAPRODUCTS

Alpha Products Inc. assures Antic that it currently sells ST monitor connectors and cables, despite contrary information in the October 1986 I/O Board. Alpha is at 5740 Corsa Avenue, #104, Westlake Village, CA 91362. (818) 889-9304. --ANTIC ED

ARSON DB

I'm a special agent for the United States Treasury, specializing in cases of criminal bombing and arson for profit. We plan to use a customized database to compare suspects, methods of operation, victims, types of devices, etc., to help solve our investigations and identify arsonists, bombers and their potential targets and to cross-reference vehicles and telephone numbers to identify those who contract out for the "jobs."

As we know of no other law enforcement agency doing a computer program like this, we must design the database from scratch. Some big city fire departments use databases to keep track of arsons or fires in general, but they don't, to our knowledge, use them for both historical and prediction work.

David Grace
Pittsburgh, PA

WEFAX VALUES

In attempting to build the WEFAX interface (Antic, September 1986), I noticed that the values for C1 and C2 were omitted.

Robert Franke
Bristol, WI

The comma after C2 in the parts list indicates that C1 to C4 all use capacitors .1uf, #272-1069.--ANTIC ED

MIDI CABLES

The ST's MIDI-out port has MIDI-through on pin 3. Most MIDI sequencers and controllers don't. This won't be a problem unless you're using inexpensive MIDI cables that have pins 3 and 5 soldered together. Casio keyboards are unaffected by this, but Yamaha keyboards take exception to it. If you're having trouble, you can either replace your cables or remove the solder connection between pins 3 and 5 on both ends of your cables. Credit for this fix should go to Malcom Cecil of Electronic Music Publishing House.

Marcel Van Someren
Los Angeles, CA

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, 524 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107.