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                      AMY REPORT ONLINE MAGAZINE                       Thursday, August 4, 1988                             Vol I  No. 4                              ===========          APEInc., P.O.  BOX 74,  Middlesex, N.J.  08846-0074 PUBLISHER                                 MANAGING EDITOR Ron Kovacs                                R.F.Mariano        =======================================================                  AMY REPORT EDITOR: Henry T. Colonna                CIS:74726,3216          GEnie:HTCOLONNA                     Headquarters Bulletin Boards                          Amiga Headquarters                                 NEXUS                             804-547-1065 ST Report North         ST Report Central      ST Report South 201-968-8148            216-784-0574           904-786-4176                    ------------------------------------                                 CONTENTS                                 ======== * Editor's Corner..................* MicroFiche Filer.............. * CIS AmigaForum Splits............* Hard Disks Facts/Figures...... * Empire - 2 reviews & Hints/Tips..* Interceptor Info.............. * Ami Exchange Magazine............* Epson LQ 800.................. * Math Coprocessor Information..................................... ================================================================  Serving you on:        CompuServe  -   GEnie ================================================================                            Editor's Corner     Well I should apologize for a late issue.  I was contacted to write some documentation for a commercial program, and that combined with the "pleasures of summer" has made number four late.  But it's here, and hopefully with as high quality as the other issues.  This one's completely subscriber-oriented as I received a number of very high quality submissions from readers and used them all in order to get this issue out the door.  But I do intrude a bit here and there, as you'll see, including this column.     Coming up real soon, is a showdown between Excellence!, the new kid on the block, and WordPerfect, the old heavyweight champion.  Each has its merits and disadvantages, and I think that a detailed exploration and evaluation of each product would be interesting.  I've used them both extensively, and I'm not even quite sure of the results yet myself. ================================================================ Product Review:     MICROFICHE FILER Product type:       Data Base Manager Company:            Softwarevisions, Inc.                     26  Forest Road                     Framingham, Ma. 01701                     Telephone: (617) 875-1238 Requirements:       minimum 512K memory Cost:               retail:  $60 to $99 range Reviewed by:        Dr. Wm. J. Kolodner                     date: Monday July 18,1988                     c/o  CIS, PIN# 75026,1074 Evaluation:         * * *     IN THE BEGINNING:  As a business owner with an AMIGA 1000  (equipped with 512K of chip ram and 1.5MB of SPIRIT BOARD fast ram memory) I found that I had a need for a Data Base Manager.  I needed a way to record customer information in a format that way fast, useful, provided speedy sort routines, and (of course) was "user friendly".  A relational DBM was not an issue.  I just wanted a program that was not too fancy, that worked without causing me the aggravation of learning an entire new system "language", or, took me months to interpret or retrieve data.  My local dealer suggested that I purchase MICROFICHE FILER (MFF for short).     WHAT IS MFF:  MFF is a DBM for either IFF picture files and/or text files.  The magic of it's format is that it is neither a straight CLI system (words only), or a full driven Icon system.  It is somewhere in between.  The program develops three windows on the screen, all ram based;  the Fiche  (or movement/scroll) window, along with what is called a Magnification (or data) window, and, a Form List or direction window.  It takes its name from the fact that the main window mimics a fiche information card.  As one "moves" the magnification "glass" with the assistance of a mouse, the main window reflects such movement to depict recorded information.  The system itself, is faster than the AMIGA can handle.  One finds himself waiting for the screen to refresh.   WHAT COMES WITH MFF:  The product contained upon one disk, comes packaged in a spiral bound manual of approximately 100 pages in length.  The manual is easy to read, if not boring to the intermediate or expert user.  It is well written, and complete.  It take nothing for granted (including the definition of just what is a DBM).  The instructions are repetitive.  There is a tutorial for the new user to learn-by-doing that is quite effective.  The program disk itself comes with many samples.  Softwarevisions provides great customer support.  When I called with a question, the receptionist transferred my call directly to the programmer.  Now I don't know about you, but when I can pick up the phone and query directly the author of a program, I'm impressed.   THE NICE ASPECTS OF MFF:  If you not into reading manuals, that's all right with MFF.  The program can be run right from the package. It can be a bit confusing, but it can be done.  Almost every control can be modified to suite your wishes.  The program ca n be launched with ease from either WORKBENCH, HARD DRIVE or CLI.  And when it comes to file handling, MFF is a breeze.  To duplicate files, data definitions, or an entire DB, one need only "drag" an Icon, and the chore is done.  The forms that can be produced are magnificent.  Fields can easily created or deleted at will.  When entering information into one of these fields, the order in which they are documented can be modified.  Editing of information is a snap as well, and is only as quick as the click of a mouse switch.   THE NOT SO NICE ASPECTS OF MFF:  There are keyboard command shortcuts.  It's a nice feature, not to always call upon the menu bar for commands.  With the punch of two keys, any function is activated.  However, two aspects are lacking in this regard.  One, it would have been nice to have these keyboard or keystroke commands displayed with the help key.  The memory in my AMIGA never fails me, it's always the cells in my cerebrum that let me down.  The function keys are non programmable from the system disk.  (But, are programmable with the likes of FUNKEY from Public Domain.)  Also, thirdly, when a request is made to search the data disk and select and identify defined material, the screen highlight these records.  These selections are captured in memory.  But here is the problem, when the screen is manipulated with the scroll gadget and same data is "rolled" off the screen, the colored coded selection evaporates if and when it is "rolled" from the screen.  It's annoying.  If the data is copious, and after selecting many records, one can not review on-screen, all color coded information.  Lastly, the print routines are directed from preferences.  This is fine until you need to produce a label with condensed print for instance.  There is no menu control allowing one to change the point size of the subject font, or for that matter, the font itself.  What you find yourself doing is altering the font pitch from an open CLI window to compensate for this oversight.   THINGS I WOULD LIKE TO SEE:  Aside from what is mentioned above, I would like to see (and this is only my opinion)  an auto- capitalization mode.  The first letter of every field entry is optionally capitalized.  Secondly, it would be nice to have a repeat last-entry key, but in all fairness, FUNKEY takes care of this annoyance.  When two fields are joined in a single line of a record, there can be created a spacing problem, do to character length in a field.  Such as when LASTNAME is appended to FIRSTNAME, they may not be joined in concert to each other.  It looks bad, and I hope in future versions of MFF this will be changed.   SUMMARY:  If you believe as I do, that any program should be simple, productive, and, at the control of the operator, rather than at the control of the computer, than MICROFICHE FILER is for you.  I neither needed a "cute" juvenile program, or a "loaded" professional one.  And, I didn't need  hype.  What I needed is what MFF gave me; a program that could grow with me, my business, and my system.   =================================================================                    COMPUSERVE'S AMIGAFORUM SPLITS                    ============================== AmigaTech - "Forum Business", "Talk to the Trade", "Hot News & Rumors", "Telecommunications", "Video Hardware", "Drives/Controllers", "Printers/Plotters", "Expansion Hardware", "C Programming", "Pascal/Modula-2", "ASM Programming", "Other Languages", "Tool Box", "System Software", and "Ramblings". AmigaArts - "Forum Business", "Talk to the Trade", "Hot News & Rumors", "Games", "Audiophile", "Videophile", "DeskTop Video", "Audio/MIDI", "Applications", "DeskTop Publishing/Word Processing", and "Ramblings". AmigaVendor - Amiga hardware and software manufacturers.  The current lineup, to be expanded, includes:     AVANT-GARDE -      a major software publisher of productivity software.  Their     current product line consists of:     Benchmark Modula-2 Software Construction Set     Simplified Amiga Library for Benchmark Modula-2     "C" Language Library for Benchmark Modula-2     IFF & Image Resource Library for Benchmark Modula-2     IMPULSE -     Terrain - This program generates both mountains and water based     terrains that can be exported to Turbo Silver and other rendering     programs.     TurboSilver - An outstanding graphics/raytracing/animation     package.     VD1 - The VD1 can capture video images from any NTSC source and     export these full color overscan images to the Amiga for further     manipulation with "Diamond".     Diamond - Diamond is a new release product from Impulse.  Similar     in scope to other Amiga paint programs, Diamond departs from the     norm by offering other capabilities like:  Digital rotoscoping,     Digital trans mat, and Image merge capabilities.  Diamond will     also operate in every resolution and color mode the Amiga can     offer including extra halfbrite and overscan.     SYNDESIS -     InterChange -- a system for exchanging 3D objects between programs     such as Sculpt 3D, VideoScape 3D, Turbo Silver and Forms In     Flight.     InterFont -- a system for turning your 3D modeling program into a     video titling system, making 3D text objects in different font     styles.     SOFTCIRCUITS -     PCLO/PCLOplus -- Printed Circuit LayOut CAD programs. They provide     a very "Amigatized" environment within which you can create PC     board designs that follow all the design rules, and are very easy     to create.     Scheme -- A "Schematic Capture" program that is optimized     specifically for generating Electrical and Electronic schematics.     Handling Busses and individual wires in the same manner, and with     library capability for single or multiple objects, it is a     complete system for schematic development on the Amiga.     LDebug -- A symbolic/source level 'c' language debugger for use in     program development. This is a joint project.     TRANSACTOR (for the Amiga) -     Transactor for the Amiga is a technically-oriented magazine for     Amiga programmers. It is the only English-language magazine     devoted specifically to understanding the Amiga from a     programmers' point of view, and is rated highly by readers for     content, polish and accuracy.     MICROILLUSIONS -     Microillusions publishes a broad range of software for the Amiga,     and will soon be releasing hardware products as well.  Product     categories include games, education, music, graphics and     professional video. =================================================================                      HARD DISK FACTS AND FIGURES                      ===========================   ST REPORT update and reprint from issue #32    To begin, 99% of all hard disks are made to conform to IBM standards. With this thought in mind we shall proceed.........   The most readily available and in my opinion, the most reliable hard disk is from Seagate......next in line is the Miniscribe.  There are others but you must make sure they conform to the IBM standard.                      IBM STANDARD: ST-506/ST-412                      ---------------------------  Most commonly found hard drives do not have controllers built in.   These are the most reliable and economical drives to use.    WHAT IS THE CONTROLLER???  =========================  This goodie is the custodian of your hard disk!  It directs all I/O functions to the hard disk and it points to and accesses each cylinder.  It "controls" everything.                              FACTS FOR REFERENCE                            -------------------  ST 412 DRIVES WITH MFM ENCODING    5.0 MEGABITS/SEC.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------  DATA            ST 125        ST138       ST225       ST251       ST251-1  -------------------------------------------------------------------------  SIZE f'm'd       21            32          21          42          42  # HEADS           4             6           4           6           6  CYL's            615           615         615         820         820  STEP RATE uS    3-200         3-200       5-200       3-200       3-200  AC'S TIME mSEC   28            28          65          40          28  WRITE PRE'C      N/A           N/A       300/614       N/A         N/A  POWER watts      10            10          14.8        11          12  -------------------------------------------------------------------------                  ST4038          ST4051        ST4053         ST4096  -------------------------------------------------------------------------  SIZE f'm'd       31              42            44             80  # HEADS           5               5             5              9  CYL'S            733             977           1024           1024  STEP RATE uS    10-70           10-70          3-70           3-70  AC'S TIME mSEC   40              40            28             28  WRITE PRE'C    300-732           N/A           N/A            N/A  POWER watts      25.5            25.5          23             25.5  -------------------------------------------------------------------------  ST 412 INTERFACE DRIVES WITH RLL ENCODING     7.5 MEGABITS/SEC  -------------------------------------------------------------------------  DATA           ST138R    ST157R    ST238R    ST251R    ST277R   ST4141R  -------------------------------------------------------------------------  SIZE f'm't       32        49        31        43        65       122  # HEADS           4         6         4         4         6        9  CYL'S           615       615       615       820       820       1024  STEP RATE uS   3-200     3-200     5-200     3-200     3-200      3-70  AC'S TIME mSEC   28        28        65        40        40        28  WRITE PRE'C     N/A       N/A       N/A       N/A       N/A       N/A  POWER watts      10        10       14.8       11        11       25.5  -------------------------------------------------------------------------  SCSI INTERFACE (EMBEDDED CONTROLLER) HARD DISKS  -------------------------------------------------------------------------  DATA            ST138N      ST157N     ST225N     ST251N      ST227N  -------------------------------------------------------------------------  SIZE f'm't        32          48         21         43          64  SECTORS         63,139      95,015     41,170     84,254      126,790  ACCESS TIME       28          28         65         40           40  POWER watts       12          12        16.8        13           13  -------------------------------------------------------------------------  Be Advised, as of 01/01/88, Seagate began using the new I'ntl light code, the front light on the drive is GREEN ONLY if it is made after Jan.01 1988.  If you purchased one and the light on the front is red, it's either old inventory, used or rebuilt.  I do not advise the use of the "N" type H/D, they're limited in their flexibility of use by the embedded controller and are more expensive. Seagate may cost more, but they are the workhorses of the industry. The Seagate Hard Disk is extremely RELIABLE.   Seagate units 40mb, and above, have auto-park.    All of the above are:FCC,TUV/UL/CSA [CERTIFIED]    The list of other types of drives is large, some are, Disctron, Lapine, Microscience, Micro-memories, Miniscribe, Priam, Rodime, Shugart, Tandon and Tulin.  The formatted size of these range anywhere from 5-???Mb.    Remember that all these drives (except for a few) come without a controller, you really want it without a controller..it's less expensive and works out much better for you in the long run.....you will see!    The actual chain of connection for a hard drive is:    1-hard disk  2-controller  3-the expansion port.    MFM- This is a format style most commonly found in use although recently, RLL has been becoming far more popular as it is a condensed compact format thus allowing more data to be stored on an equivalent size hard disk.  The major difference is the media itself in the hard disk is PLATED to insure accuracy and longevity.  Think of it like plain recording tape and Cr02 Chromium Dioxide tape.  The recording media in the "R" drives (Seagate) is of a high quality and plated.    In most cases, the Interface, ( Host Adapter ) determines what type of system the hard disk will comply with. It also (usually) has a clock/calendar built in.    The two most widely used controllers, and I might add, ARE REALLY THE BEST, are made by Adaptek they are designed with the user in mind and provide for expansion for the future.                         ADAPTEK 4000 SERIES CONTROLLERS                     -------------------------------            ACB-4000A                                  ACB-4070            ---------                                  --------  Interface SCSI dr type    ST506/412             ST506/412 [RLL-Certified]    These hard disk systems are special in one way, they have embedded  controllers.                                   IOMEGA                                  ------            ALPHA 10H                                  BETA XXX interface  SCSI dr type    Cart 10mb                                  Cart xxmb                                     RODIME                                   ------            RO650                                      RO652 interface  SCSI  dr type    10mb                                      20mb                                     SEAGATE                                  -------                  ST225N interface  SCSI dr type    20mb                   ST277N interface  SCSI dr type    63mb          *** NOTE Iomega, Rodime, and the 2 Seagates, see listing above, listed are     the embedded controller type. These are slowly fading from popularity.                               WESTERN DIGITAL                              ---------------           WD1002-SHD interface   SASI dr type     ST506/412                                    XEBEC                                   -----           1410                                          1410A interface  SASI dr type    ST506/412                                    ST506/412    * These devices are SASI and are slowly fading into the sunset......    ADAPTEK CONTROLLERS  ===================  ACB4000A / ACB4070 are highly recommended and of excellent design. These  controllers will handle most any application.                                     ---  All Information provided by:                       ABCO COMPUTER ELECTRONICS INC.                              P.O. BOX 6672                       JACKSONVILLE, FLA. 32236                              904-783-3319               20mb 569.00 30mb 649.00 40mb 769.00 60mb 949.00             all the units mentioned here are expandable    NOTE: This article and the "Hard Disk Series" are for the readers of ST REPORT MAGAZINE and AMY REPORT and may not be duplicated in any form without the written permission of the author.      ------------------------------------------------------------                     EMPIRE - A NEW STRATEGY GAME                     ============================                                Empire By ELDERSIGN of GEnie     Empire, from Interstel, through Electronic Arts, was recently chosen in a computer gaming poll as the #1 strategy game.  OK, that's great, but is it really? Having the latest version (2.03) in my hot little hands, I decided to take a look.     The first thing I checked was the disk, and copy protection.  I find, without exception, that copy protection is one indicator of possible problems in disk life. Empire is not disk protected, with the users manual providing keywords which allow the user access to the game.  In the case of Empire, the protection is limited to restricting the length of the game to 50 turns, if the correct password is unavailable.   This is neat, as it provides an extended playable demo without making the game easily pirated.      Empire also copies easily to a hard drive, and boots from there readily when asked. Since there are extensive files and maps to load, this is a real advantage for HD users, as it speeds up the normal load time tremendously.  For those users with extra RAM space, Empire also appears to multitask freely, with only moderate chip RAM requirements.  The game map scrolls smoothly, and does not appear to eat memory.     Empire uses either keyboard commands, or mouse control at the user's option, both freely interchangeable while playing.  The user's manual is full of information, though short on illustrations, and is broken up into command explanations and a brief summary.  The lack of illustrations is not a serious problem, however, because Empire has very few features that need illustration.     I played Empire for a few days, including two marathon start to finish games, and the overriding impression I got from it was, in a word, bland.   Empire is easy to play, but I never got the feeling I was on an Amiga.   The graphics are unexciting, and have little variety to them.  There are 8 different types of weapons, including armies, planes, submarines, destroyers, cruisers, battleships, carriers and transports, but none of them are especially unique.  They all attack the same way; by reaching a space adjoining an enemy unit.  They all look the same when attacking, with little red flashes superimposed over the units in  combat, and vague explosion sounds accompanying each flash.  Not exactly state of the art stuff.     It is true that strategy is important in this game, with water transport being the single biggest planning necessity, but in reality the only ships with any unique value are the transport, which can carry up to 6 armies across restricting water, and the carrier, which provides space for berthing 8 planes.       If it sounds like I dislike Empire, perhaps I do. I have C64 games which are much more entertaining, and provide better graphics.  But Empire provides a flexible base for two or three player combat, where the unnecessary ships may become important.  The computer opponents are unimaginative, and account in large part for my lack of enthusiasm for Empire. As a multiplayer game this could be MUCH more interesting, and perhaps this area, where I was not able to test it, is where Empire may shine.  You may name your ships, and form groups, and naval battles could be the savior of this game.     All in all, Empire has some potential, though principally, I suspect, as a multiplayer game. Those who love the graphics ability of the Amiga, and the delicious games which result from it, would be advised to look elsewhere, for this is a nuts and bolts, move the armies type campaign, with few of the features Amiga gamers have come to expect.  If army campaigns are your dish, however, Empire could be for you.  Just be sure and bring a friend.                         --==*==-- ------------------------------------------------------------                                EMPIRE                          (a different view) By Kent Paul Dolan "A STAR FLEET Planetary Campaign" EMPIRE "Wargame of the Century", Amiga version 2.03, published by interstel (tm), written by Walter Bright and Mark Baldwin.  The Amiga version was programmed by Bob Rakosky.  Includes game disk, quick command reference card, and 70 page manual.  "Word in manual" copy protection. First, for those who have played the Unix(tm) version, this is the same game, but considerably simpler, since only cities do production, and the only production is combat units. Second, this is a _long_ game, just like the original.  One person can take out two computer opponents in about 26 hour of play.  Human against human is much slower.  There is a "play by mail" version, which I haven't had a chance to test yet.  A "typical" game lasts around 150 to 300 moves. Empire is a game of "world" conquest, played on a rectangular map 60 cells high by 100 cells wide.  The game supports two or three players, of whom all or none may be computer players, so that possible play modes are human against computer, human against two computer players, human against human, human against human against computer, human against human against human, or computer against computer or computer against computer against computer. There is a demo mode, a two or three way computer only game, that can be got to without the copy protection check, which is a nice advertising feature.  I turned it on, and *** eight hours later *** a two player game was still underway, when I had to shut it down for a thunderstorm. The game has an excellent "Amiga feel", with requestors, gadgets, menus, lots of mousing around, graphics and sound used (neither spectacular), excellent windowing, multiple screens (two, workbench plus game), multitasks OK, and so on.  Playing this game will make you very appreciative of the Amiga software design. Besides play mode, there are lots of other nifty features, like "design your own world", that let you play with the game.  Normal play is with a subset of the world on the screen, but there is a "world map" that shows you (what you know about) the whole world that can be called up in addition. Attention to detail is very nice in terms of playability; when a turn ends, a full screen requestor is put up for the next player, the map sliders go back to zero so you don't know where the other player was working.  If you spot an enemy or neutral unit, and leave without combat, that unit is carried on your map in the position and status you last saw; this may well _not_ be the position and status when you send a unit back in that neighborhood, but it is a good reminder of "things to check up on" for later. Each player has a private map of the world, and starts with a single city somewhere.  From that small start, the player goes on to conquer first neutral territories, then, after more of the world is known, to fight enemy units.  Conflict is accomplished by trying to move a unit onto an opposing unit. Cities are the primary targets, because each city is a production entity, capable of working on just one product at a time, but can be changed with a small time penalty (and loss of any partially completed unit) to work on another item.  Landlocked cities can only produce armies and planes.  Armies are produced quickly, large ships slowly, and other units somewhere between.  Cities are named after real cities famous in the history of warfare (Marathon) or current military cities.  The larger Norfolk vicinity, where I live, is known as Hampton Roads, and represented in Empire. Combat units are armies (the only unit that can conquer a city) fighter planes, and ships: troop transports, submarines, destroyers, carriers, battleships, and aircraft carriers.  A unit either wins a battle, or is destroyed, winning (naval) units can sustain damage, and can return to a friendly port for repairs.  Since only armies can conquer cities, and since the world usually has a couple of dozen major land masses, and five or six dozen cities, troop transports are necessary to win. The game is a study in managing complexity, and provides many aids to the player.  Even in the midst of world wide conflict, an experienced player can accomplish a move in about 15 minutes, one eighth the time for the (admittedly more complex) Unix version.  Units can be set to patrol certain pathways, aircraft can be automatically routed from production areas to the battlefront, units can be put on sentry, and many other options. Enough to say that this is an excellent game for the war game enthusiast or for someone who has worn out the thrill of arcade games on the Amiga. The only design bug I've found so far is that I can't find a way to get non-army units out of a city if they have been put on sentry duty there, and that is a minor problem at best.  The sellers could have completely left out the attempt to tie the game into the Star Fleet I and II series, for my taste, but that's a quibble. Lots of fun.  Oh, yes, the game keeps a combat ranking for commanders, and can be (the manual says "do") freely copied from the original for a playing copy, or run from hard disk. Enjoy!  Really worth the $40 price. Kent, the man from xanth. (Editor's Note:  After playing Empire since September on the Atari ST, and now switching to the Amiga, where it is improved with digitized sound and multitasking, I can say it's one of the best strategy games I've ever played.  It doesn't have state of the art graphics with three dimensional flash and fancy.  The play by mail feature, mentioned in the review above, best works over the modem, and even then, taking two turns a night could take up to six months to finish a game.  This one works better in person.) ------------------------------------------------------------                              EMPIRE TIPS This message comes to us complements of Drew Lucy and CompuServe's AmigaForum. 131784 S7/Games     25-Jun-88  13:31:17 Sb: Empire tactics 1 Fm: Drew Lucy 76337,75 To: ALL There aren't many secrets to slaughtering the computer in Empire.  However, you may have overlooked one or more of the following tactics. 1) Docked cruisers and battleships make almost unbeatable city defenders.   These warships will take out 2 attacking armies per turn. Thus, it is very difficult for armies to overwhelm the city on foot. The only practical way to assault a warship defended city is with a loaded transport.  Warship defended cities are made even more secure by patrolling a single fighter from the city a short distance into the sea to watch for approaching transports.  A city defended in this way can only be captured by a combined force of 2 transports and a big warship or a warship, a transport and several land armies. 2) Damaged ships are repaired much faster than new ones can be built.  This gives a big advantage to battleships, which can absorb damage that would sink 3 destroyers or a cruiser & destroyer and still limp back to port.  The battleship will be good as new in 8 or 9 turns.  It would take 60 turns to replace the 3 destroyers and 55 turns to replace the cruiser and destroyer.  Don't let your big ships fight to the death. 3) Submarines need to stay on the attack because their defence factor is halved.  It's much better for a sub to attack a destroyer than to let the destroyer attack the sub.  Subs shouldn't flee.  Subs take a big risk moving two squares when they don't know what is in front of them because they could bump into an enemy with their movement exhausted.  The sub then gets attacked on the next turn.  Thus, sub effectiveness is increased by air reconnaissance. 4) Despite the damage advantage of big warships, smaller ships are still useful if you can select their targets.  Destroyers, for example are cheap transport killers.  The trick is to never attack a bigger ship (unless the strategic situation demands it) and never allow yourself to get attacked by a bigger ship. 5) The big secret to success in naval operations is air reconnaissance.   Recon patrols allow you to decide which of your ships engage which targets rather than just stumbling into unfavorable engagements by chance.  The most satisfying experience I've had in Empire is using carrier air patrols to locate and track a fleeing enemy carrier over several turns, while battleships and cruisers maneuver in for the kill. 6) You can operate more than 8 fighters from a carrier by keeping some of them in the air (on patrol) at all times. This is particularly useful when a carrier fleet is operating far from friendly ports and a supply of replacement fighters.  A carrier's fighters are almost too valuable to the fleet to expend them attacking enemy ships.  I usually attack with fighters only to defend the carrier from an approaching warship.                                             Drew ============================================================ INTERCEPTOR Hints, Tips, and FunStuff ------------------------------------- (Compiled from various sources including personal experiences of Mike Mantino and Kevin Stevens) KNOWN BUGS ----------   * It is possible to 'skip' your jet over land or water as long as you keep the nose fairly level and pull up right after touching the surface.  If you do not pull up, the plane will bog down as if in some sort of dense mud puddle and eventually come to a halt (although your THRUST will not change).  There seems to be no recourse other than to either bail-out or restart the mission.   * The Flight Log contains a bug in its ability to record and keep track of your Call-Sign.  Merely a nuisance, and it does not hinder gameplay/simulation at all.   * Although this is not a bug in the true sense of the word (it was obviously programmed as such), there is an artificial ceiling of 40,960 feet.  When this height is achieved your plane will simply hang there, waiting on you to move away from the barrier. * The same is true for the North/South/East/West boundaries in the terrain.   * Any Flight Simulator which does not support an analog joystick is destined to be labeled such things as 'GAME, PURE AND SIMPLE', 'UNPROFESSIONAL', 'SERIOUSLY LACKING', etc.  This is the case with Interceptor, and as such it should go into the record books as being a BUG of the highest magnitude.   * It is possible to land, refuel, and rearm your jet by landing on the enemies carrier/sub during the Shadow Sub mission.   * It is impossible to land on, taxi over, or crash into any of the bridges in the Bay Area.  Nor can you kill the downed pilot in the Search And Rescue scenario, or destroy a parachuting rescue pod.  All of these seem to be invisible as far as your plane and weapons are concerned.   * When asked to 'Press SHIFT-ESCAPE' to return to main menu, you must actually press any key before that particular key-combination.  It doesn't accept SHIFT-ESCAPE on the first take.   * As far as can be determined, all missions are indeed capable of being completed as per instructions except for the Shadow Sub mission, which must be completed in a way that is contrary to the orders given to you.     WEIRDNESS ---------   * While on the carrier, you can inch your way to the edge of the deck and hang about 7/8ths of your plane over the water without falling in.  Also, at SFO when Air Force One is sitting there you can inch your way -onto- its tail section almost up to its midsection before 'falling through' and destroying AF-1.   * There seem to be certain instances (though I cannot reliably repeat this at will) when you can bail-out of an aircraft <it crashes, naturally> and as you are parachuting down choose the Control Tower view at which time you find a replacement aircraft sitting on the runway waiting on you.  This aircraft can indeed be flown, although you will not be able to acquire a cockpit view and must fly by what you can see from your parachute view and tower view.   * In the DEMO mode, the only interaction you can achieve is firing missiles when the demo arms them.  No other keypresses are operational. I had hoped to find a way to exhaust the missiles before the MIG was within range and see if it would shoot down the F18, but as yet I don't see how this can be accomplished.     UNDOCUMENTED 'FEATURES' -----------------------   * Although the documentation states that you can use the '=' key to increase throttle by one step and the '-' key to decrease throttle by one step, it doesn't tell you that if you hold these keys down the throttle will continue to increase/decrease in one step increments.   * While on the ground (or carrier, or sub) and stopped, you can actually go in reverse by holding down the '-' key for a moment.   * You can 'bump' into buildings and other stationary objects without crashing if you do so only at low speeds.  Once thrust is increased to a certain point while up against an object, you will crash.   * The program seems to run fine on a 68010/68020 equipped Amiga.   * All of the VIEW MODE keys (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,and decimal point) work just as well when parachuting.   * The ZOOM KEYS (left and right brackets) work just as well while in MAP VIEW or in the TOWER VIEW.   * While in TOWER VIEW, your viewpoint will change dependent on the plane or parachute position.  It automatically pans around in reference to the plane/parachute, much like a camera follows its subject.   * The RANGE MARKER in the AIMING RETICLE located on the Heads-Up Display (HUD) works thusly:  It starts at the 11:00 position, which indicates that the enemy is 10 or more miles away.  As the targeted enemy approaches your plane, the range marker will rotate counter-clockwise around the reticle.  At the 12:00 position, the enemy is extremely close to you.   * A very nice feature of the radar, which many haven't caught onto yet, is that when other planes are below your altitude they will be one (1) screen pixel wide.  When they are above your altitude, they become two (2) pixels wide.     NIFTY ENHANCEMENTS ------------------   * There is a file called LACE.EXE floating around in the public domain which runs well along with Interceptor and improves its appearance by filling in every other screen line, much like interlace but keeping the same screen dimensions.  If you usually boot Interceptor from its own disk, do the following:       1) Copy LACE.EXE to the root of the Interceptor disk       2) Copy the RUN command from your WorkBench C directory to the Interceptor C directory       3) Use a text editor or word processor and alter the STARTUP-SEQUENCE located in the S directory of the Interceptor disk to include the line - RUN LACE.EXE - directly after it says BINDDRIVERS       4) Save the altered STARTUP-SEQUENCE back to its S directory.   * Interceptor can be run from your standard WorkBench screen in a number of ways (see the next tip for running it from a hard-drive).  The first way is the simplest.  Remove your WorkBench disk from DF0: and place it into another drive.  Place Interceptor into DF0:, open up the disk, click on the files icon, away you go.  Apparently, the program has a nagging need to find what it wants on DF0: and does not use standard AmigaDOS volume names as reference.  The second method is more permanent in nature, and should not be accomplished unless you know what the heck I am talking about or what the heck you are doing.  Using a COPY of your Interceptor disk, run a disk editor (or text editor that can deal with binary files and has search/replace options) on the main Interceptor file.  Search for all occurances of DF0: and replace them with DF1: or DF2:, depending on where you will run the program from in the future.   * For hard-drive booting of Interceptor, again do not attempt this if you know not of what I am talking about here...  The first method is to do basically that which is outlined above, but replace all occurances of DF0: with DH0: (or whatever your drive is designated as).  This would mean, however, that your Interceptor files would need to be on your hard-drives root directory.  Hardly what most would want to do.  The alternative is to copy Interceptor to any subdirectory you wish (lets say, GAMES), use the disk editor to change all occurances of DF0: with any logical device designation that you choose (for instance INT:), and then ASSIGN that logical device to the subdirectory of your hard-drive (or use XICON to make the assignation for you automatically every time you click the Interceptor icon).     FUN-STUFF, HINTS, TIPS ----------------------   * Use the 'TRAINING - PRACTICE MANEUVERS' scenario in order to hone your cannon-firing abilities.  Although you cannot actually fire weapons in this mode, it does a lot of good to follow your flight instructor around and try to keep him in your aiming reticle.  Click the button to make him evade you, and try to stay within gun range from him.   * Want to try and set a land speed record?  Use the 'NO ENEMY CONFRONTATION' scenario and choose to take-off from SFO or Moffett Field.  Taxi your plane onto any of the longer Bay Area highways (like 101 for instance) and kick in the afterburners.  If you don't pick up the planes nose you can really put a Ferrarri to shame!  Try to keep your plane on the highway as long as possible.  Also try driving this way while using an outside-rear view or an outside-overhead view.   * The Electronic Arts building (actually it is the northernmost of the two twin buildings) is located just west of the San Mateo bridge in a gray 'plaza' (much of which is really parking lot).  Not shown is the gorgeous fountain located between the two buildings.  <shucks>  By the way, for those wondering... the large black building in downtown San Francisco is the Bank Of America building (right next to the TransAmerica pyramid).  The island right off the coast of the city which has two towers and a low building in between them is Alcatraz.  The island which is in the center of the Bay Bridge (joining Oakland and San Francisco) is Yerba Buena (and the Coast Guard's Treasure Island).  The mountain located on the Marin County side of the Golden Gate Bridge is called Mount Tamalpais.  (Complete sightseeing tours on request)   * It is possible to acquire a good close-up look at one of the MIG's in a number of ways.  I do it the Air Force One scenario.  Follow AF-1 to SFO and land alongside it without engaging any of the MIG's which follow you in.  Taxi around the runway and keep a close eye on the enemy planes.   Usually if they shoot at you while you are on the ground, their missiles will explode next to you harmlessly (an interesting sight by the way).  Wait until you see one or both of the MIG's come so low that they get bogged down in the water next to the runway or on land nearby.  Taxi on over to them (or as close as possible if they are in the water and use your ZOOM keys) and give em a thorough inspection.   * For an interesting visual effect, take off from the aircraft carrier and head west (direction really makes no difference).   Go out about 10 miles and come to about 170 feet.  Turn around and head directly at the carriers tower, and arm your AMRAAM missiles.  Hit the SHIFT-ENTER key combination in order to get a Control Tower view.  As you see yourself approaching the tower *from* the tower, let loose a few missiles.  If you think you are going to hit the tower, pull up or to the side and watch your plane as it passes by the tower.  Your tower view will follow your flight path rather nicely.  (You may also ZOOM in/out.)   * Another interesting visual effect... take off from SFO and head straight for San Francisco at about 15 feet.  Acquire an OUTSIDE BELOW-PLANE view using the decimal key and watch as you pass (and/or crash into) the downtown buildings.  Try and circle the city using only this view.   * Something which has been occupying a lot of my Interceptor flight-time is precision parachuting drills.  I head for a target (like the Transamerica pyramid), take an OUTSIDE-ABOVE view with the ZOOM all the way out, and try to bail-out at the precise moment so as to land atop the buildings pinnacle (no easy task).  Even if you miss, you can treat yourself to some spectacular close-ups of the target using your view keys as you parachute down.  Other 'chuting targets of interest:  The E.A. building, any of the bridges, the carriers tower, the Bank Of America building, Alcatraz Island, and the downed pilot!   * Want to take a close look at the rescue pod?  Go to about 40,000 feet and eject it.  Turn around and make some close fly-bys.  Or go to a clear land mass and let it loose while at low-altitude, then turn around and land near it. =====================================================================                      Ami Exchange Disk Magazine                        a review by Kevin Rahe     Summer is traditionally a slow time of the year for computer user groups, mainly because many members have "better" things to do.  Some of us, however, are so dedicated (read: addicted) to our machines, that we find it hard to get away from them.     I'm one of those people, and one of the things that's kept me at the keyboard a few extra hours this past month is the Ami Exchange disk magazine.  For those who aren't familiar with disk magazines (and I wasn't before I got this one, so don't take this as an authoritative explanation), they're very much like paper magazines, only they're printed on your computer screen instead of paper.  They contain articles, reviews, tutorials, and graphics much like conventional magazines.  In addition, they can contain sound, animation, and programs (no, you don't have to type them in), which sets them apart from their paper counterparts.     Ami Exchange (herein referred to as A.X. magazine) comes on 3 full (really full - more on that later) disks, and is designed to work well on single-drive Amigas by allowing you to boot right from disk 1.  After double-clicking a few gadgets, the Table of Contents is displayed on the screen, and some music plays for a few seconds then dies away.  The Table of Contents is arranged in one long column that can be scrolled up and down.  Articles are arranged into sections such as Graphics and Tutorials.  Article names are displayed on the right hand side of the screen, and on the left side are section names and a picture for each section.  Also indicated is the disk number that each article appears on, and a letter that indicates if the item is a graphic, a program, or a textual article.  Clicking the mouse pointer on an item will highlight that item and display a short explanation of it at the bottom of the screen.  Double-clicking an item will bring up the article or graphic on the screen.     Articles are displayed in a simple non-proportional font using the Preferences Workbench colors.  Interlace may be toggled on and off.  Resolution is not increased when interlace is on, but text and graphics appear smoother, since there are no scan lines running through them.  Articles may be paged or scrolled up and down using the mouse.  Menu options will instantly bring you to the beginning or the end of an article.  Articles may also contain multi-color graphics and text.  For example, in the Max Toy interview in the current issue, there are two digitized pictures of Max himself.  And the article on Mandelbrots contains a striking sequence of pictures showing a specific point in the Mandelbrot set as the magnification increases.     While I was pleased with A.X. magazine overall, I was disappointed with some of its limitations.  When I first thought of trying a disk magazine, the single most valuable aspect of a magazine on disk, I thought, was the ability to electronically search whole magazines for specific words and phrases.  I've found computerized searching extremely valuable when trying to find programs on FISH disks.  In fact, I no longer print the Contents files of FISH disks on paper, simply because it's so easy to let AmigaDOS search through the README disk for what I want, and display the appropriate Contents file.  Unfortunately, A.X. magazine does not allow this.  All articles appear to be either encrypted or compressed, so that articles cannot be displayed in readable form except through the magazine program itself.  Articles can be individually printed on the printer from within the magazine, and I suppose you could use a program to redirect printer output to a file, but this would be a time-consuming kludge, and simply not worth the effort.  Assuming articles are compressed, I would like to see the publisher provide either a utility that would search the articles for a given keyword or pattern, or one that would convert all files to ASCII, which could then be copied to any disk.     Another annoyance is a by-product of their efforts to make it easy to use the magazine with a single disk drive - it misbehaves if you try to run it from an external drive.  By rule, I don't boot from any disk other than my own Workbench disk.  Not only does booting from foreign disks open your system to viral infections, it makes you give up any kind of environment that your own Workbench disk might set up, such as screen colors, printer preferences, pop-up utilities, etc.  When I tried to run A.X. magazine from an external drive, it simply would not work.  No warnings, no message telling me it couldn't be run from an external drive, just nothing.  Running it from CLI yielded no more clues as to why it wouldn't work than when it was run from Workbench.  I decided to call their customer service department (not a toll-free call) and ask how to use A.X. magazine from an external drive.  Specifically I wanted to know what might be missing from my own Workbench disk that A.X. magazine needed.  The only answer I got was that I had to warm boot from the A.X. magazine disk, and that they have procedures that assure that distributed disks are not infected with a virus.  Not about to give up, I started exploring the A.X. magazine disk for files that I might not have on my own Workbench disk.  I finally narrowed it down to a diamond font.  I added the diamond fonts (which are present on a standard Workbench disk, but were removed from mine because I never use them) back to my fonts directory, and A.X. magazine booted fine from the external drive.  I would like to see booting instructions included for running the magazine from an external disk drive in future issues.  A simple list of the standard Workbench disk files required would be enough.     Another annoying problem stems from the fact that the 3 disks are completely full, to the last block.  The problem with this is that AmigaDOS doesn't like full disks.  When you insert a full disk into a drive, AmigaDOS proceeds to validate it, which can take from several seconds to a minute or more, depending on how many files there are on the disk.  Since disk validation is a background process on the Amiga, it goes on while Workbench is trying to read the disk icon image from the disk, which in the case of the first of the 3 A.X. magazine disks, is a 14K image about 1/4 the size of the Workbench screen.  So every time you insert disk 1 into a drive, you have to wait through two minutes of disk gronking and thrashing before you can do anything else.  Leaving just a couple blocks free on each disk would eliminate this nonsense.     One feature I'd like to see is the addition of speech capability.  While a screen print on the back of the packaging claims that "A.X. magazine uses every facet that is available on the Amiga," they completely forgot about speech.  Now you might be thinking that you really don't want a magazine talking to you, but it is a standard feature of the machine, and extremely valuable to someone who is blind or has difficulty reading the screen.     Articles in general tend to be shorter than their paper counterparts.  Perhaps it is because the publishers are more concerned about the quantity of articles than the quantity (or quality) of article content.  I for one would prefer longer articles, even if it means a shorter Table of Contents listing.     Overall I found A.X. magazine enjoyable, and its content broader than I originally expected.  If you've never tried a disk magazine, A.X. isn't a bad choice.  At $11.95 an issue, at the very worst you end up with 3 slightly overpriced blank disks.  Not copy protected.                          PLEASE DON'T PIRATE Editor's Note:  I had the pleasure of reading through a recent A.X. Magazine, and I agree more or less with this review.  I would like to say, though, that I felt the game reviews to be of exceptionally poor quality.  The issue that I saw was loaded with some fascinating graphics and sound, but was not to be relied upon for informative reviews.  I hope the quality will improve. =====================================================================                         EPSON LQ-800 PRINTER                         --------------------                      REVIEW BY: MICHAEL MANTINO                      -------------------------- HISTORY IN THE MAKING --------------------- The very first dot matrix impact printer was created by the Seiko Watch Company specifically for the XVIII Olympic Games in Tokyo Japan, upon completion of which the EP-101 printer found itself part of a lucrative cash register market.  As microcomputers started to take root the daisywheel printer prices stood at well over $1000, and this is when Epson came on the scene with their line of low-cost general purpose dot matrix printers like the hugely successful MX-80.  Its speed was roughly 7 times that of the daisywheels, and at half the price.  Print quality was sacrificed due to the way a 9-pin dot matrix printer worked, but the MX-80 quickly became the obvious choice for many.  This entrenched Epson firmly in the printer business and their products became the standards by which others were judged.  As the MX-80 set the pace (along with companion MX-80F/T; combined friction and tractor feeds) in the printer world new options were introduced and adopted, like logic-seeking bidirectional printing.  The MX-100 added the ability to use 15 inch wide paper, and all but the very first models offered bit image graphics capabilities.  User definable characters and double the print speed of the MX series were part of what the new FX-80 printer introduced in 1982.  Naturally, a wide carriage version was also brought out and dubbed FX-100.  The very next year a duo of printers hit the market in a successful attempt to replace the MX series and provide low-cost alternatives to the FX series; the RX-80 and the RX-80F/T.  1984 saw the introduction of the wide carriage RX-100.  The rest of the 9-pin Epson printer line have followed similar option/speed upgrading and identification, all the way through the currently available LX and EX models.  It was apparent to many that they could not afford to have both a daisywheel printer (for quality output) and dot-matrix printer (for high-speed drafts and gener 

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