Microreviews for May 1996 MICROpendium by Charles Good ---------------- VIRUS ATTACK by Vern Jensen This is another really good game from an author who has a track record of good 99/4A games. Vern wrote THE CASTLE. His newest game, VIRUS ATTACK is a near clone of the DR. MARIO game cartridge for Nintendo game machines. The game vaguely resembles Tetris. There are falling rectangular blocks of one or two colors. When you get four square color blocks (either four two color blocks with the same color on one end or two one color blocks of the same color) lined up either vertically or horizontally then the four color squares disappear. At this point anything on top of the disappeared blocks falls into the newly created void and points are awarded. As the rectangular blocks slowly fall they can be maneuvered left/right and rotated in various ways with the joystick. You win if you finish the 20th level or if you earn 10000 points. There are three skill levels, with the blocks falling faster with successive levels. You select a skill level and the entire game is then played at that speed. For an action game such as VIRUS ATTACK a simple description of the game gives the reader no real indication of whether the game is enjoyable. Perhaps you really don't understand my description in the above paragraph. Seeing is believing. If you like action games then when you see VIRUS ATTACK I think you will like it. I know my 15 and 17 year sons and their friends really like it. Both my sons have spent hours and hours playing. Their friends come over to the house specifically to play VIRUS ATTACK. It is the kids' current "most favorite TI game." The game is written in assembly language and has very fast and responsive joystick action. You can also play from the keyboard. Graphics are interesting and colorful. If the action gets too fast you can pause the game. There is neat background music, which can be toggled on and off, and many sound effects. VIRUS ATTACK comes on a SSSD disk with instructions readable from within the program. It boots automatically from DSK1. with extended basic. The game is shareware, and the author asks $15 plus $2 shipping if you order it directly from him. I recommend that you order directly from the author because I know you and your kids will like VIRUS ATTACK. However, in case you want to check it out first and send the $15 later I will send you the disk for $1 including shipping. --------------- WORD SEARCH by Bruce Harrison: This is another assembly language public domain offering from Bruce. It prints word search puzzles to your printer that look very similar to those published in magazines and books. As you may know, word search puzzles hide a list of words in a matrix of printed letters. At first glance you appear to be looking at a block filled with random letters. The object of the game is to recognize real words hidden within the otherwise randomly printed letters in the box. Words can be printed left-to-right, right-to-left, up-to-down, down-to-up, or diagonally. These puzzles are hard! At least they are to me. Bruce's program uses words entered in a DV80 text file, one word per line. The words are randomly arranged in a 25x25 character matrix and extra spaces in the matrix are randomly filled with letters that are not part of the word list. A full matrix can accomodate between 50-70 words depending on average word length. You can use Bruce's predefined word lists, or make your own lists. When you run Word Search you are asked for the word list file name, which can be loaded from any path including hard disks. Once loaded the words quickly scroll down the screen for your inspection and then you are asked for your printer name. Usually you would accept the default "PIO", but you can also specify a disk file instead if you want to save your puzzle on disk. After entering a printer name the printer immediately begins printing the puzzle. Because this is an assembly language program there is no waiting for the computer to "think" about how it will arrange your words in the matrix. The matrix is printed centered in the upper 2/3 of the page. Below the matrix the sentence "Find these xx words in the puzzle above." is printed, where xx is the number of words in the puzzle. Then the words are printed in alphabetical order in 5 neat columns. Below this is the sentence "Made using the file DSKx.FILENAME" specifying the path and name of the source file. All of this printing goes on one 8.5x11 inch sheet of printer paper. Word Search comes on a DSSD disk with versions for both 9 pin and 24 pin dot matrix printers and a bunch of predefined word lists. You can also, of course, use your own word lists created with a word processor. Topics for the predefined word lists include American revolution, birds, British cities, Canadian cities, cars colleges, countries, dog breeds, english towns, fish, flowers, french revolution, foods, games, german places, italian places, irish places, islands, lakes, mountains, music, northern welsh towns, rivers, scottish towns, southern welsh towns (welsh towns have really unusual names), sports, states, teams, trees, and bodies of water. I also have a SSSD version with fewer word lists. Send me $1 and I will mail you either the DSSD or SSSD Word Search disk. ------------------------ PRINTER'S APPRENTICE AND TOOLBOX TUTORIAL by Marv Smith and the B.C. 99ers. The most full featured desktop publishing software available to 99/4A users is The Printer's Apprentice and its companion software TPA toolbox. With these two software packages you can create new graphics or use TI Artist pictures anywhere on the page. You can create your own text within the program or import TI Writer text and print that text in any combination of TI Artist or CSGD or TI Artist fonts with the text micro right justified. No other 99/4A page creation software does micro right justification. Because of the 99/4A's limited memory TPA can only load parts of itself into memory, and this is done manually by the user. Since TPA is so full featured it is also very complicated to use, and unfortunately the documentation that comes with TPA is very difficult to understand. The poor quality of the original TPA documentation has resulted in the publication of two third TPA tutorials. (Maybe it be "4th party", since TPA is "3rd party" software.) I have in the past reviewed Ken Gilliland's excellent and humerous TPA tutorial geared to users of both the Geneve and 99/4A versions of TPA. Now Marv Smith has written a second tutorial specifically for the 99/4A TPA user. MarvGs tutorial is very appropriately labeled "A B.C. 99er Tutorial" referring to his membership in the Vancouver British Columbia User Group. The tutorial walks you through the ABC's of all ten separate programs that comprise the 99/4A version of The Printer's Apprentice and the TPA Toolbox. TPA and TPA Toolbox are sold separately and the tutorial assumes you have both of them. You really do need both parts to do useful work. The tutorial comes with a disk of sample files, something not found with Ken Gilliland's tutorial. Following the step by step tutorial instructions and the sample files you will print a page of TI Base information (a TI Base tutorial within the TPA tutorial) with a picture near the center of the page surrounded by seven different combinations of fonts and type sizes. Most of the text will be microjustified the page will print in one continuous and very slow print operation. One of the things I really line about MarvGs tutorial are the sample printouts. You are shown on paper how one font can be modified 12 ways (printed darker or lighter, squeezed or stretched in various ways) by the Toolbox font converter program. You are shown each of the 20 border patterns the toolbox gives you to modify, and you are given printouts of some sample forms made with the toolbox's form maker. These printouts are all useful. If you want to completely create newsletters, flyers, or brochures without cut and paste and using only a disk based 99/4A and printer then TPA and TPA Toolbox make a serious and perhaps better alternative to Asgard's Page Pro. Check out the documentation that comes with any of Ken Gilliland's Notung software products to see what a "made completely with TPA" product looks like. If you want to use TPA than you will probably require supplementary documentation such as that reviewed here. Marv Smith's TPA tutorial with disk supplement is available for $10US plus $2 shipping from the B.C. user group. The TPA software itself for the 99/4A and TPA toolbox can be purchased for $22.50 each ($45 total) from Ramcharged Computers. Two sets of supplementary TPA font disks are also available from Ramcharged. --------------- ACCESS: Vern Jensen (Virus Attack): 910 Linda Vista Ave. Pasadena CA 91103. Bruce Harrison (Word Search): 5705 40th Place. Hyattsville MD 20781. Phone 301-277-3467 B.C. 99er User Group c/o Ron Warfield (Marv Smith's Printer's Apprentice and Toolbox Tutorial): 216 10th Ave. New Westminster, British Columbia Canada V3L-2B2. Ramcharged Computers (a dealer that sells the TPA and TPA Toolbox software): 6467 E. Vancey Dr. BrookPark OH 44142. Phone 216-243-1244. Charles Good: P.O. Box 647, Venedocia OH 45894. Phone 419-667-3131. 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