ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN MICROPENDIUM P.O. Box 1343 Round Rock TX 78680 Phone 512-255-1512 Internet jkoloen@io.com MICROREVIEWS for November 1994 by Charles Good ----------------- NEWSLETTER EDITOR AND FORMATTER by Bill Gaskill This software is used to create and print newsletters one page at a time. Text is printed in two columns with optional right justification, and each page is numbered at the bottom. Designated text lines can be printed double strike (or "emphasized") and thus made to stand out on the printed page, and you can have a full width enlarged centered headline printed at the top of any or all pages. Each page, with all these features, is printed with a single pass through your printer. You get good looking nicely formatted all text (no graphics) newsletter pages without cutting and pasting. NEF, as the author calls this software, has its own text editor. The software is written in extended basic, but because Brad Snyder's 40 column assembly routines are used you get a 40 column screen in which to enter your text. The actual text you enter and print is a maximum of 36 columns wide. To put your text into memory for formatting and printing you can either press "L" to load in a text file you previously saved using NEF, import (press FCTN/I) a TI Writer file, or type in your text directly into NEF's very basic text editor. Using the NEF editor you get word wrap and you can insert blank lines between or delete lines from existing text lines. You can also insert or delete characters within a line, but unlike TI writer insertions and deletions within a line do not affect text in other lines of your document. If you don't like the limitations of the NEF text editor, you also have the option of importing text created with a word processor. NEF imports word processor files, and saves text back to disk in DV80 format. The only limitation to importing word processor files into NEF is that each imported DV80 file must be no more than 36 columns wide. DV80 files greater than 114 lines must be broken down into several smaller 114 line files before the text can be loaded into NEF. It is easy to break down such large text files using TI Writer type word processors. When using NEF to print pages I prefer using the Funnelweb v5.01 word processor to create right justified newsletter articles prior to importing them into NEF for formatting and printing. The Funnelweb v5.01 word processor lets you do right justification directly from the editor without having to use a separate formatter. The main reasions I don't like using the NEF text editor are that NEF's text editor tends to lose a character at word wrap even with my moderate touch typing speed, and its full screen editor is rather slow to respond to up/down cursor movement. Whether entering an article using the NEF text editor or importing a disk or hard drive file, NEF handles a maximum of 114 lines of text at a time. This is exactly enough text to fill one double column page, with enough room left for a top of page headline and a bottom of page page number. If you have less than 114 text lines, the right column on the printed page will not be completely filled with test. You load in or type in the text for one page, print that page, then load in and print the text for the next page, etc. NEF creates newsletters one page at a time. The results are quite impressive, and you can make them better. NEF is set up to print normal (pica) text in your printer's "draft" font, sometimes using double strike to make selected lines appear darker. Since NEF is written in extended basic, you might be able to figure out how to alter the XB code so that NEF prints text in your printer's "NLQ" font instead of "draft" font for even better looking text. Once your text is typed into or loaded in from a file you get to decide which lines to right justify and which to print in double strike or "emphasized" for extra darkness on the printed page. The cursor appears to the right of each line and you move down your document one line at a time marking lines for right justification, which you see immediately on screen, and extra dark. There is no global right justification as there is in the TI Writer formatter. With NEF if you want right justification you must do this one line at a time. You probably don't want to right justify the last line of a paragraph. Blank lines, and text lines with only one word are automatically not right justified. There are two software products in the TI world similar to NEF that will print two column newsletter pages with one pass through the printer. Art Gibson has written one that allows you to mix graphics with text. I have not used his program, but I understand from others that Art's program does not have a wysiwyg display and uses control codes in a TI Writer type of file to switch printer fonts and to mix graphics and text. The results of Art's newsletter printing software that I have seen in the Knoxville and the Cleveland newsletters look really good. These days most TI user group newsletters that aren't made with cut and paste are created with Page Pro. This software gives you approximately a what you see is what you get screen display, allows you to mix text and graphics, and lets you print a nice border all around the page. My main complaint about Page Pro is that its text is printed using graphics mode. There are lots of different Page Pro fonts, but on a 9 pin dot matrix printer they all look very grainy and many are difficult to read. NEF doesn't allow "one pass through the printer" mixing of text and graphics, there is no wysiwyg display, and you don't get a fancy border. (NEF, by the way can be used create a disk file of text formatted in two columns which can be loaded into and printed with Page Pro.) Because NEF produces such good looking text hard copy I prefer NEF over Page Pro for creating columnized newsletter pages. Of course the ultimate in total control of what is on a printed page is a careful neat cut and paste job. In creating a cut and paste master you should use "magic" (frosted) tape to secure all the edges of all smaller papers you secure to the surface of your master page. Edges so taped will not be seen when the master page is copied on a xerox copier. My user group's newsletter is created this way. Send $1 to me at P.O. Box 647, Venedocia OH 45894 and I'll send NEF to you on a SSSD disk to play with. Bill Gaskill is asking a $15 fairware fee which includes a royalty payment to Brad Snyder for using his 40 column routines. ------------------------ USVBA POWER VOLLEYBALL by Program Innovators This is an "arcade action" game written in assembly which can be loaded from extended basic. It can be played one against the computer or as a two player game. USVBA, of course, stands for United States Volley Ball Association. Considering the possible complexities of emulating a fast action team game on a computer screen, Power Volleyball is really quite well done. On screen you see the net, the ball, and one player on each side of the net. This is a one on one game. These two on screen players are all you get. Using the joystick(s) you move your player toward or away from the net and you make your player into either a server or any of three ball hitting modes. A "bumper" takes the newly served ball and pops it up into the air. A "setter" moves the ball in an arc somewhat foreward so that it can be clobbered by the "spiker" who jumps way up in the air and bangs the ball over the net. You may switch your man between any or all of these modes, but the recommended method of dealing with a ball newly arrived on your side of the net is bump, set, spike. I find it is fun to try and immediately spike from near the net a newly arrived ball. There are several levels of play characterized by faster ball movement. They are all hard! Even at the slowest level it is difficult to score points against the computer in a you against the computer game. This is really my only complaint. The computer is too good at this game! The lowest skill level should let bimbo players such as myself win once and awhile, but I have yet to win a game against the computer even at the lowest level. You need practice to figure out exactly how to position your player with respect to the incoming ball. If your position isn't correctly judged you will miss hitting the ball, which will drop at your feet. Spiking is particularly difficult. The ball is coming down and your man on screen is going up. Power volleyball really is a game of skill. The on screen action, even at slow speed, is fast and quite realistic. I give it a thumbs up! It comes on a DSSD disk with both on disk and hard copy documentation. Cost is $10 including postage. Send your order to Program Innovators, 4122 Glenway, Wauwatosa WI 53222. Ask about their stock market analyst/advisor software and their other arcade action games.