.IF DSK1.C3 .CE 2 *IMPACT/99* by Jack Sughrue ^^^^^^^^DRACULA'S BYTES (Every so often we devote a column to a collection of tasty little nibbles and call it by this vampirical title.) .IF DSK1.C2  Sometimes it's the little things in life that really matter. Like when you find a quicker way to load a file, as Dan Rogers of M.U.N.C.H. did for me on one of my Infocom [very slow loading] games. Once I got Dan's loader I went back to playing the games much more often than I did before. Just waiting those endless 4 or 5 minutes prevented me from enjoying these excellent games regularly. Another of those happy moments in life happened last Thanksgiving Day. I was up early and on my computer, trying to debug a very lengthy program I had typed in from a magazine. The program was printed 40 columns wide. My screen view was 28 columns and my printed out version was 80. I OLDed up the program and ENTERed this one liner (shades of that one-liner master Tony Falco of M.U.N.C.H.) with my trusty Gemini turned on: OPEN #1:"PIO" :: PRINT #1:CHR$(27);CHR$(81);CHR$(40). Then I ENTERed LIST "PIO" and Voila! my printout was exactly the same as the printout in the magazine. I could quickly check all the line endings to see if they matched. I had the program debugged within a half hour. It is even easier [for me] than using the number system some magazines use. People I've shared this with have felt the same way. It was basically a matter of looking through my printer manual and noticing the right margin code: 81. The rest is self explanatory. I've also used this for printing 28-column program LISTings for use in newsletters and articles. Whatever the width use you need, this will print it out perfectly for you. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ MORE FROM DRACULA Anne Dhein (outside Massachusetts she istheexpert on TI WRITER) has done it again! In an article in the Chicago UG TIMES she continues to write about TI Writer Graphics. She has written an XB program that convertsTI ARTISTinstances into TIW files. Thus, you will be able to print graphics through your FUNNELWEBor whatever TIW version you use. If it's as readily convertible as it sounds (from a second-hand report) and comes out in DV80 format, this just might be the ultimate graphics/text program for the 99. Can't wait to see it and play with it. [AUTHOR'S NOTE: Since this article was written I received those articles from Ohio's Deanna Sheridan, along with some wonderful TL holiday graphics she and other members of her group did. Extraordinary stuff. If interested, write Deanna Sheridan, 20311 Lake Road, Rockey River, OH, 4416. It'll be more than worth your effort.] Speaking of graphics, there are literally hundreds (maybe thousands) of RLE pics (which also may be easily converted to DV80 files for message sending or storage) now converted toTI ARTISTinstances for screen viewing and printing on our wonder of a machine or for all of the above and a slideshow by converting to GRAPHX. And speaking of our wonder of a machine, according to questions I've been asking this past year of some user groups to gather stats about the TI, some people paid as low as $24.95 for the newer, white model during the orphaning. I thought that was a record at the time. The lowest I paid was $39.95 for an unboxed "old black and silver model," as the salesman explained in a "Who'd want thatat any price?" tone of voice. Now I've heard of some instances where storesgavethem away as promotions for other things orgavethem away if you bought six reduced-price modules (a lathe speech synthesizer)! Next, I'm sure, someone will write to tell me that some promoterspaidthem to cart the 99s away. And speaking of carts, a group of us MUNCHers were talking about the cartridges and found amazing that more of them contine to come out so long after the orphaning: extended Extended BASICs, supercarts, games galore, word processors, utilities of all kinds. Though we hoped the disk programs would continue (and they have beyond our wildest dreams), we didn't imagine the module productions would continue in any way. Look at the latest Triple T catalogs (Tenex, Texcomp, Triton) and just see what's available today in addition to moduleware: complete expansion systems - 9900 Expansion Box with Power Supply, 32K Memory, Double Sided/Double Density Disk Controller, RS232 interface for modems and printers, disk drive with case and power supply, lastest Disk Manager with Improved Utilites, all cables and manuals - for $379.95 (from Texcomp) is an example of the kinds of reasonably inexpensive upgrading that can be done on our TI. Or the cost of upgrading to 512K ("impossible on the TI" not too long ago) now [in a single card] costs less than half a dozen modules cost just a couple years ago. There are 80 column cards and IBM (and the even better - TI professional) keyboards and RAMdisks and hard drives and double and quad controllers and... How far does your imagination extend? That's the limit of our computer. And speaking of controllers, to fix a DM1000 incompatibility between the CorComp and Myarc Doubledouble disk controllers, change byte 216 of the MGR1 (version 3.5, anyway) from (in HEX) 10 00 02 D0 00 5A. The first pair change to read 12. Rewrite the sector and you're fixed. (Please be certain you have a working backup first.) Better still, get the latest (5.0?) version from Ottawa or Tony McGovern's marvelous modification of it as part of his 4.12 (WHOLLY REMARKABLE) Funnelweb. If you don't own the latest Funnelweb, you are missing out on the masterpiece of 99ing. Contact your user group to get your update. Getting back to graphics for a moment, how do Deanna Sheridan of Ohio and Rodger Merritt of California and Anne Dhein of Iowa KNOW so much about graphics for the TI? Rodger created the fairware programs PRINT IT and PICTURE IT. They give you wonderful graphicswithTIW. Deanna should write a book. I'll be first in line. Besides being a good writer, she is an excellent tutor. Each month I learn something new from her. Those Ohio users are really potent TI force. Must be something in the Ohio air. Besides Deanna, there are some really active 99ers who pop to mind: Jean Hall, Charles Good, Jim Peterson, Irwin Hott, Martin Smoley. And speaking of graphics, theFRACTAL EXPLORERdisk may be obtained by sending $10 and a postpaid mailer with an SSSD disk to Steve Langguth, 2956 South Barnes, Springfield MO 65804. This program lets the user create "mathematical coastlines" - multicolor fractal images on a color monitor or TV. Disk drive, E/A, and 32K required. The user can create and observe these images, then zoom in and repeatedly magnify areas almost infinitely. Besides the aesthetic beauty and the ability to save and/or print out these images (computer-generated art), the computing and mathematical pleasures and creative problem-solving techniques employed make this one of the most unusual programs ever adapted for the TI. Other computers (such as the Amiga) have similar "real world" geometric fractals. CATALOGS- These are the addresses to order the catalogs from the largest three distributors of TI items in America. TRITON Products Company, P.O. Box 8123, San Francisco, CA 94128. TENEX Computer Express, P.O. Box 6578, South Bend, IN 46660. TEXCOMP, P.O. Box 33064, Granada Hills, CA 91344. (I would have also included PILGRIM'S PRIDE, but I never received a catalog after I paid my $3 last year, though I received a notice or two that I would get one. No hope. Never even got an answer to my inquiry about the money or catalog. Last notice of coming catalog now 10 months ago.) MICROpendiumis still the best buy that a TI owner can get. It is the only magazine devoted entirely to the 99. It is worth ten times the $20 annual subscription rate. That's how you find out about the new commercial, fairware, and public domain software, firmware, textware, and hardware. It is the main source of whatever is going on today in the TI world. I personally can't imagine being a TI owner and not having this helpful and fascinting friend coming into my home each month. That would be like owning a superb pair of skis and trying them on each day for fit and fancy but never going outside after the snow has fallen. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [Jack Sughrue, Box 459, E.Douglas MA 01516] If any newsletter editor prints these IMPACT/99 articles, please put me on your mailing list. THANKS - JS Հ