Atari GDOS, &c: Living with it or without it? Henry K. van Eyken Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects - Will Rogers First off: One does NOT require GDOS to produce graphic text and other graphics on screen and printer. Too bad there are experts who imply this or even state the very opposite because the ensuing confusion and frustration is not likely to make Atari friends. Even the Atari Corp. provides, presumably without any intention of doing so, misleading information. Their "A User's Guide to FontGDOS" begins, "GDOS allows the programs that you run to output text and graphics to printers and other devices besides the screen." True, but it should add, "However, it is not essential for Atari users to install GDOS if they wish to employ special fonts and do graphics." A U.K. magazine tells us that, "Without GDOS you are restricted to the boring fonts built into your printer and the ST screendump printout for pictures." In fact, it effectively says this thrice in one single, short article.(1) They are wrong thrice. Examples of programs that require the user to install GDOS explicitly for producing graphic text: Microsoft Word, Neocept's Word-Up, and Easy Draw. Examples of programs that do not require GDOS to produce graphic text or other graphics: That's Write 2, D.E.G.A.S. Perhaps it was once intended that all programs aiming to do so would require GDOS, but things have turned out rather differently. I do not work with desktop-publishing programs and shall refrain from commenting on them. Problem with erroneous statements attributed to people who are expected to know better is that they cause confusion and, hence, frustration. So let me be clear: I write as an independent amateur for amateurs. I try, within reason, to get my story straight. And if I err I should like to be told about it so that I may make a public correction. Classical GDOS in broad outline To understand GDOS, a user might do best to think of it as a trinity: a GDOS program in the AUTO folder, a text file called ASSIGN.SYS that lists the names of fonts and so-called device drivers, and a folder with fonts and drivers. More about drivers later. The GDOS program consults the ASSIGN.SYS, which it expects to find in the root directory of the boot-up floppy ot boot-up harddisk partition and nowhere else. From that listing GDOS learns where the folder with drivers and fonts is located and just what drivers and fonts from its content should be loaded into RAM if an when another program (an 'application') calls for it. The location of a file or folder is, somewhat incongruously, called a 'path'. Strictly speaking, the word 'font' or 'typefont' refers to a design, an aesthetic, common to the individual characters in a font. A printer's font normally accomodates various sizes of characters, referred to by the traditional term 'pointsizes'. It also embraces several styles such as italic and bold. With computing I observed that a font's character sets with different pointsizes are separately called fonts. Thus we read about fonts called 10-point Pica and 12-point Pica. Drivers are what permits characters to be displayed by various 'devices' like different screen resolutions and printers.(2) They are also called 'device drivers'. As to fonts and drivers, here is an overview that may be helpful: Fonts: for on-screen: standard screen font (whence the blocky characters one sees on screen when the computer starts up) for hardcopy: fonts built into the printer Drivers: for on-screen: screen drivers built into TOS, one for each resolution for a printer: a printer driver specific for that printe; it is loaded into the computer from software Source of printer drivers used: for those that use a printer's fonts: with the application software for those that use fonts loaded in with GDOS: originally in the folder containing the fonts Printing speed: for characters from printer fonts: fast, because the printer knows how they are formed for characters from the other fonts ('graphic fonts'): slow, because the printer has to be briefed by the computer how they are to be formed Nothing to it once you know it. Just be aware of, but don't worry about variations in the way application software makers design printer drivers. Also be aware that not all variations of GDOS come with identical sets of drivers. And know that this classification does not come from an authoritative source, it comes from my experience, i.e. from having wasted time before it dawned on me. As mentioned, some programs that use the GDOS trinity are Write, Word Up, and Easy Draw.(3) The first two work also with standard and printer fonts and, hence, come with their own printer drivers. There are also programs that couldn't care less about GDOS, because they employ nothing but standard and printer fonts. 1st Word Plus (up to v.3) and Word Writer come to mind here. And other, more ambitious programs couldn't care less about an explicitly installed GDOS either because they make their own arrangements for producing graphic text, e.g. That's Write 2.(4) Not having a firm grasp of these things can cause grief. And dependence on trusted literature that is defective even more so. If you consider a product that puts out text, you must know whether or not it needs GDOS (or any of its variants) for some or all of its work. In addition one must also know what variant of GDOS is best suited to what purpose and under what conditions. The latest arrival in the marketplace is not necessarily the best one to use. One significant distinction is that between two types of graphic fonts: 'bitmapped' and 'outline' (or 'vector') fonts. It is GDOS that works only with bitmapped fonts I referred to as classical GDOS. Classical GDOS at work GDOS may be viewed as a part of TOS that itself is ordinarily held in ROM, a part of the computer.(5) Alternatively, it may be viewed as an enhancement of TOS. Either view accomodates the form GDOS takes: software. GDOS must be made to run during the booting-up process. This is done by having it in the AUTO folder. The GDOS program will not do what it is supposed to if it is started after booting up the computer. If the GDOS program doesn't find the ASSIGN.SYS file, it will exit without trace. (The variant G+PLUS is an exception for a good reason.) If it finds the file, it will lay claim to extra space, something like 75 to 100 K, and remain available to assist any work with a device driver. What that space is for I can't specify because I don't know nor, at this time, care about this detail. I simply think of it as an atelier where work with fonts is done. No RAM space is taken by any fonts themselves until an application calls for them. Then all of the fonts listed by ASSIGN.SYS and found in the addressed font folder enter RAM. It is from this supply that the application can select a desired font. Thus several hundreds of kilobytes of RAM space may be taken up by fonts, a measure that can be gleaned from the font files. There is a variety of GDOS programs. Though confusing, we must be thankful to designers and distributors for continually trying to improve things. But to appreciate these improvements and avail oneself of any, one needs to know, up to a point, how GDOS and its teammates (ASSIGN.SYS and the folder with fonts and drivers) function. Being available is not sufficient. Fonts must be made fit for use by screen or printer. Each screen resolution, for example, has its own numbers of dots per inch in horizontal and vertical directions, and so do different printers. Individual, specialized drivers that represent the various screen resolutions and individual printers mediate to convert data in the font files into printed characters. We need to dwell on this a bit. Characters within the computer, on screen, and in print Ordinarily, a high resolution screen has 640 dots, black or white, horizontally and 400 vertically. It allows for 80 charcters per line, i.e. characters that each have available 640/80 = 8 dots in the horizontal direction. It also allows for 25 lines, i.e. characters that each have available 400/25 = 16 dots in the vertical direction. The characters are said to be formed on a matrix of 8 by 16. Of course, if they were to actually use the whole matrix, characters would touch one another. Therefore, there are always dots left blank. Both high-resolution and low-resolution screens employ 8-by-16 matrices for their characters. It is just that low-resolution features bigger dots. Medium resolution screens work with characters on an 8-by-8 matrix. (Font designers better create fonts such that its characters look good on either matrix!) The graininess of characters may also be expressed in dots per inch (dpi). Not a very practical expression for screens because their surface area may be made larger or smaller, in either direction, without changing the number of dots. But for printing on paper it is a common measure. Printer resolutions vary. My nine-pin Roland PR1011 prints its standard fonts at a density of 120x72 dpi in draft mode or 240x144 dpi for near-letter-quality (NLQ). It also prints from graphic fonts in one's font file. It also works in 'graphic mode' at, I presume, 240x144 dpi. (My manual is not explicit about that.) I understand that laser and HP Inkjet printers produce graphic printing at 300x300 dpi. The number of dots per inch is obviously an important, but not only factor in achieving satisfactory print quality. Here is an example of translating dpi to character matrix. Using Pica, my Roland prints 10 characters per inch, which in draft-mode comes to 12 dots per character horizontally. Some dots must be left blank to leave white space between characters. To find the vertical value of the matrix I must count the number of lines per inch because my manual hasn't done that for me. The reader may try his own hand at this. More important it is to realize that NLQ with double the dots per inch is attained by slightly offset double strikes of the printing head's pins. In other words, the same character matrix is employed for both, draft-mode and NLQ. As for graphic printing where the printer's own fonts are not used, the printer needs a representative inside the computer to tell the computer about its, the printer's, very own way of doing things, specifically what matrices it needs. If you look at the text in an ASSIGN.SYS file (an ordinary text file that may be written or edited by the user) you will find designations like ATSS12CG.FNT AT tells that Atari supplied the font, SS tells us that the font is Swiss, 12 is the 'pointsize' of the font, CG (color graphics, for medium resolution) is one of a set of codes that represents the matrix for the characters one sees, or, more precisely, the ratio between the number of points in horizontal and vertical directions. This sequence of two-character identifications is said to be an Atari way of doing things, but not everybody follows it. For example, D.E.G.A.S. comes with fonts named like COMPHS08.FNT You may peruse the D.E.G.A.S. manual for further detail. One doesn't need to remember all the codes, but I list some here to help reinforce what you now know: None or HI ~91x91 for high as well as for low resolution screens. Remember, they have the same ratio! CG ~91x41 for medium resolution screen. EP 120x144 for certain low-resolution printers, like my 9-pin Roland PR-1011. LS 300x300 for laser printers and HP Inkjets. MF for meta font. Ah, something else to worry about. Perhaps. The ASSIGN.SYS file is headed with the path of the font folder, e.g. C:\GDOS.SYS\ Also in the ASSIGN.SYS file are lines like 04p SCREEN.SYS and 21 FX80.SYS that show what driver will act as broker for a set of fonts listed following each driver's name. The notation '04p' refers to a high-resolution screen. The notation '00p', if present, identifies a default screen for application software that does not specify what resolution is to be used. The letter 'p' is a so-called load flag. This particular load flag says that the device drives is installed permanently, i.e. in TOS, as mentioned. The folder with fonts and drivers does not contain screen drivers, therefore. Clearly, a Falcon or a TT needs more screen drivers in their TOS than does TOS for an ST. An 'r' means 'resident', i.e. the driver will be loaded at boot-up and kept in RAM. If there is no load flag, as for the printer driver here, the driver will be loaded only when the application needs its services. Following the driver is the list of fonts, if any. Drivers exist that expect fonts to be listed in alphabetical order. If you like to make a little notation in the ASSIGN.SYS file just to jog your memory, you may do so as long as it is preceded by a semicolon. Look at some ASSIGN.SYS files for an example of how it is done. With classical, bitmapped, fonts, every bit in a character's final appearance on screen or on a page is described in that file. Thus large characters require instructions for lots of points. Their font files require more bytes. Example: ATSS10.FNT 3584 bytes ATSS12.FNT 4608 bytes ATSS18.FNT 9216 bytes ATSS24.FNT 14848 bytes Because character matrices have length and width, the numbers go up, very roughly, by about the square of the pointsizes. Clearly, fonts for laser printing, with so many dots per inch, take up oodles of space. A couple of fonts for laser printing can clog up a computer's RAM very readily. That's were outline font technology like SpeedoGDOS comes in. Recapitulating, if you want to make use of GDOS for creating text from bitmapped fonts for the screen or for printing, you need anyone of a number of GDOS programs in the AUTO folder, an ASSIGN.SYS file in the root directory of the boot-up disk or harddrive boot-up partition, and, natch, files with the stuff these fonts are made of and which are kept together in a special folder. To be sure, ASSIGN.SYS should know the name of that folder and where it is. Also with the fonts are drivers for printers. The names of these drivers as well as of the screen drivers should be listed in the ASSIGN.SYS text file. Graphics other than text I have not investigated the role of GDOS in producing graphics other than text. For me there was no need to, yet. Its absence has given me no problems with D.E.G.A.S. and Touch-up, nor with importing .IMG files into 1st Word Plus or That's Write 2. I use either Degasnap or Touch-up to convert .PI3 files created with D.E.G.A.S. to .IMG format. It is understood that EasyDraw makes a consitent use of a metafile system under GDOS control. An article by Douglas Wheeler, included with my G+PLUS software, provides details about metafiles.(6) The GDOS succession There are replacements for the original GDOS. The principal actors are G+PLUS from the Codeheads, FontGDOS from Atari, NVDI from Behle & Behle in Germany, and SpeedoGDOS from Atari. Atari's FSM GDOS is a minor player, but it came with some accessories that were later supplied with FastGDOS. NVDI, incidentally, stands for New VDI. It is not merely another version of GDOS, but a replacement in software for the entire VDI part of Atari's operating system, TOS. G+PLUS Something went amiss with GDOS right in the beginning. I found in my files two different versions of the GDOS.PRG. Both carry the identidication 'version 1.1'. One takes up 8064 bytes, the other 9521 bytes. I am assuming that of those two versions 1.1, the one that takes up 9521 bytes is the better one to have. Also way-back-then, people had different experiences with their GDOS, which made for pretty confusing conversation.(7) There were complaints about computers slowing down with GDOS in residence as well as about the inconvenience of having to reboot the computer after changing the ASSIGN.SYS file to install another one. One might conceivably list all the fonts one ever may call on in the ASSIGN.SYS file, but the problem comes when an application calls for graphic font; then every font listed and available from the font folder is placed in RAM (in sofar there is space). This readily clogs up the works. To avoid this, users of many fonts will use distinct ASSIGN.SYS files. G+PLUS is a system that permits booting up without an ASSIGN.SYS file in the boot-up disk's root directory. A substitute one can be brought to the attention of the G+PLUS.PRG by an application that likes it to consult its own .SYS file. This leaves untouched the ASSIGN.SYS file in the root directory.(8) And G+PLUS can consult another such substitute when prodded by another application; all without shutting down the machine. Short and sweet. None of the more recent GDOS versions I know of do that. This comfortable way of doing things, of having different sets of fonts instantly accessible by different applications that use GDOS, is prearranged with an accessory, G+PLUS.ACC, that does not need to be kept on the desktop. It is just used to create in the root directory a file named ASSIGN.INS that contains lines like these: WORDUP.PRG  D:\WORDPROC\WORDUP\WORDUP.SYS EASYDRAW.PRG  D:\DRAWING\EASYDRAW\EASYDRAW.SYS Each such file may specify the location of a font-cum-drivers folder which, presumably, are similarly named, e.g. GDOS_WU, and most conveniently kept with the particular application. All in all, G+PLUS makes for excellent, clean organization of one's GDOS-related affairs. G+PLUS also speeds up certain work done by the operating system. Hence, it is an accellerator as well.(9) This is ascribed as being due to it being written in an operationally more efficient code (Assembler) than was used for that GDOS.PRG (C-language). In considering different features of available GDOS systems it is well, it seems to me, to especially bear in mind two categories of users: 1. People who frequently switch between different types of applications some of which desiring only certain fonts. These people, many of whom may not ever need GDOS at all, are probably mostly engaged in truly personal or private computing. 2. People who run applications that employ a variety of fonts and pointsizes. Typically those applications are for desktop publishing or high-end wordprocessors and document processors, i.e. certain business/office uses.(10) The first group may well be best served by G+PLUS with its specialized .SYS files automatically used by an item of GDOS-dependent software. The other group of people, it seems to me, may be better off with an approach called 'caching'. And by the use of outline fonts, which G+PLUS (today) does not accomodate. A judgement here requires knowing what caching is and what outline fonts are. We shall turn to these concepts shortly. But first one should take a hard look at That's Write for here is a wordprocessor that produces graphic text with GDOS. And lets one imbed images as well. (It sticks somewhere in my mind that there are high-quality desktop publishing programs that do not require GDOS either, but I haven't yet worked with DTP. The reader will have to make his/her own enquiries.) What's right about That's Write As said, That's Write 2 does not require GDOS. Nor, I learned from the U.S. office of COMPO, does That's Write 3. A vague statement in ST Format caused some confusion about the latter point. "That's Write 3 is also SpeedoGDOS compatible," read a caption. But what it should have stated is that it can employ Speedo fonts. That is not the same thing. Upon enquiry, COMPO tells me that v.3 works internally, without SpeedoGDOS, just like version 2, and believes that this handling of fonts is superior to using SpeedoGDOS. "That's Write 2 uses GEM fonts, similar to the old GDOS fonts. That's Write 3 supports them, too. That's Write 3 also uses Speedo fonts, a much better format [than, I presume, the fonts used by v.2]. Speedo is a completely different format, where you can scale fonts to any size and the quality (on screen and printer) is always excellent. Speedo also allows us to make a great font selection scheme - rather than selecting fonts from the file selector with their eight character names, you load and select fonts from a menu which sorts fonts by family, style, and size. Long names are used for all fonts (ie - New Century Schoolbook roman 12 point instead of something like NCSB12RM.FNT)." No, I am not a spokesman for COMPO. It's just that this looka like a good thing to me and that updating is in order.(11) FontGDOS FontDOS is for bitmapped fonts and employs caching. It has been made available by Atari free of charge.(12) It has that user's manual with the unfortunate sentence I quoted at the beginning of this article. These are the points the points the manual lists in recommending FontGDOS: 1. A method called 'bitmap caching' to prevent excessive RAM capacity to be usurped by fonts. It lets fonts be loaded into RAM as needed instead of being there all the time. 2. Accessories or CPX modules to let the user select and install fonts from software while the computer is on. The same for GDOS drivers. 3. It weighs in with more drivers than were ever available before. These include Deskjet, Paintjet, Okidata Color, Epson Compatible 24-pin BW and Color. 4. Bezier Curve VDI routines become instantly available to GEM applications, provided they have been correctly written. I will not enter into Bezier curves because I am not conversant with what makes them especially beneficial. As to caching, I haven't tried it myself (for lack of sufficient interest at this time), but here is how it is said to work. FontGDOS asks the user how much RAM should be set aside for font storage. That RAM is called the cache. It saveguards the rest of the RAM for other uses. When an application asks for fonts, FontGDOS will not, like the GDOS programs previously discussed, place a whole load of fonts listed by ASSIGN.SYS into RAM. Instead it will hold its horses until a particular font is needed. The application program is served from the cache. When a font other than what is available in the cache is needed, it will be loaded into the cache as well. This continues until the cache is full. Then, when yet another font is needed, the earliest font cached vaporizes to free space for the latest arrival. Three accessories each help FontGDOS to manage certain of its affairs. These were originally written for another GDOS called FSM GDOS, in which FSM stands for 'font-scaling module'. It was Atari's first GDOS for outline fonts, but it was soon replaced by SpeedoGDOS. Unfortunately, one of its accessories, the principal one called 'FSM Font Manager' concerns itself with outline fonts that, in fact, are not mediated by FontGDOS. That should be no pain because one's choice lies probably be more between (a) no GDOS at all, (b) G+PLUS, and (c) SpeedoGDOS. Oh, yes, of course, I shouldn't forget about NVDI. SpeedoGDOS SpeedoGDOS uses font-scaling for its outline or vector fonts, but it lets one work with bitmapped fonts as well. Those who are fond of lots of fonts may well love SpeedoGDOS. Atari Works afficionado Michael 'Papa' Hebert certainly does. He is currently doing a series of articles on the subject in 'Current Notes'.(13) With font-scaling the placing of the dots in the character matrices is not predefined dot-by-dot as with bitmapped fonts. Instead, the code contains a basic design for each character together with rules for scaling it to various point sizes requested by the user. Thus sets of descriptions for individual pointsizes are replaced by a calculation. The algorithm (formula) used for those calculations is stored in the font file. Font scaling saves RAM space, and very much so with large pointsizes. To be sure, not only scaling is calculated, but also changing the ratio between character width and heighth ('aspect ratio') as well as for accomodating different numbers of dots per inch ('pitches'). Thus one font serves all sizes, all aspect ratios, all devices. The word 'font' recaptures its classical meaning by not regarding pointsize as an aspect of its aesthetic. SpeedoGDOS employs two .SYS files: an ASSIGN.SYS file and an EXTEND.SYS file. Suffice it to say that whereas a file named ASSIGN.SYS is used for bitmapped fonts and associated driver listings, a file called EXTEND.SYS plays a corresponding role for vector fonts. With SpeedoGDOS both filenames may appear in the boot-up disk's or partition's root directory. Thus SpeedoGDOS takes care of font-devouring desktop publishing with laser printers as well as of marginal users such as I. In fact, for my ordinary work I may not ever have use for SpeedoGDOS. But it is nice to have it on tap, just in case. Besides, it is also nice, in some spare moment, to let it appeal to one's imagination. To give it a whirl; to give it a try. No point in being too set in one's ways this day and age. Thus Atari Corp.'s latest, SpeedoGDOS, caters to convenience and has its way of conserving RAM space. Still, as mentioned earlier, one is not hard put finding ways of working without GDOS or in which G+PLUS is more convenient. Smaller can indeed be better.(14) The strange case of NVDI or: Potholes in a fast track Now here is an intriguing case. NVDI (New VDI) is a piece of software, a TSR program, that puts the VDI component of ROM out to pasture and does the job instead. It does it faster, and maybe better in other ways as well. NVDI, weighing in at about 80000 bytes, includes GDOS, though, interestingly, it may be turned off from an accessory's window. The manual states that "Switching off is necessary when a program does not run with GDOS." I presume that 'does not run' means 'interferes', but I wish the author had been more explicit here and actually name the programs he has in mind. NVDI (or rather, my version 2.5 of NVDI) comes with a special contribution: a replacement for the Atari standard screen font, Monaco. Its pretty typeface is like a melody. NVDI lists various pointsizes of Monaco and doing so with an 's' up front, e.g. s MONACO10.FNT It also came with a printer font, Big Blue 8x16: BLUE10.FNT Interesting in the specific assertion that NVDI works together with SpeedoGDOS. In other words, one can let SpeedoGDOS do any font scaling. A number of features are couched in language suited only for users technically highly conversant with computers. So I pass on without the ramifications being clear to me that NVDI supports the IBM standard GEM/3 Bezier curves (as does FastGDOS) and that the program is optomized to work with the German multitasking system Mag!X 2.0. Furthermore, the NVDI disks comes with programs and listings whose purposes can only be obscure to most amateurs. At this point the question before us is, what's the worth of NVDI? We know the price: $79 US, but is the value? Primarily it is an accellerator, but what of it? Let's for now allocate $39 to that function, the price of Warp 9. Monaco presents a beautiful sight. Let's give that 29 bucks. But when it comes to its role as GDOS it offers us little more than our original GDOS as far as I can see. So? I, therefore, have some doubts about the wisdom behind my purchase. Sad, yes. But that's how the cookie crumbles. Cost in RAM Also sad a bit is that G+PLUS is not compatible with NVDI. It's either one or the other. Here SpeedoGDOS is the winner. NVDI and SpeedoGDOS can live together, because NVDI's own GDOS bows out automatically when SpeedoGDOS is active. Nevertheless, all in all it is best to turn off at boot-up any GDOS or ASSIGN.SYS you don't need. That will save much RAM space. Here are some data: Space taken up by GDOS system after it reads ASSIGN.SYS -------------------------------------------------------- Is ASSIGN.SYS (& EXTEND.SYS) read? No Yes -------------------------------------------------------- GDOS, v.1.1 0 K ~84 K G+PLUS, v.1.5 22 K* ~91 K FontGDOS 0 K depends on cache size SpeedoGDOS, v.4.1 0 K depends on cache sizes NVDI, v.2.5 78 K** 98 K (129 K with also Monaco in RAM) -------------------------------------------------------- * installs default screen drivers ** NVDI is more than GDOS, it replaces VDI. A boot manager such as Xboot or Superboot or H.A.Z.E.L. should be helpful to avoid unnecessary loss of RAM capacity. REFERENCES & NOTES 1. "Fun with GDOS." 'ST Format', May 1994, p.26. 2. I will simply overlook here metafiles, plotters, and other output devices. 3. Microsoft's Write was an early wordprocessor, one whose creation was mediated by Atari Corp. Purchasers of Write received also three disks with GDOS, fonts, and drivers. Maybe part of the confusion about GDOS arises from writers' assumption that their readers have this set even though way-back-when (many?) ST purchasers got a wordprocessor thrown in that does not need GDOS. That was 1st Word. The term GDOS hardly could mean much, if anything, to them. 4. v.E., "That's Write 2 in Concert." 'Current Notes', June 1993, p.18. (That article had been shown to COMPO, the publishers of 'That's Write', to help ensure accuracy. Verification, but not cowtowing, is an important part of writing. 'ST Applications', Oct. 1993, p.8, comments that That's Write v.2 uses a combination of bitmap and resident printer fonts, but not the copy of TW2 I have.) 5. My first 512ST came with TOS on disk. 6. D.H. Wheeler, "Everything You Ever Wanter To Know About GDOS (And More)." On Codehead's G+PLUS disk. The author's addreass is listed as PSC 3 Box 6096, Travis AFB, CA 94535. On GEnie: D.H.WHEELER. 7. GEnie ST Lib.7846:GDOS2.ARC. 8. v.E., "Editing the Jellyfish Script." 'Current Notes', Aug./Sept. 1994 (in print). In this article a booting-up program, Greg Knauss's H.A.Z.E.L., is discussed. It likes to have other programs keep their hands off the ASSIGN.SYS file in the root directory. I haven't checked into this point with respect to other booting-up programs. 9. J. Eidsvoog and C.F. Johnson, G+plus Users' Manual, v. 1.2. 10. A tentative stab at distinguishing between business/office computing and truly personal computing in v.E., "Terradesk at Tuxedo Junction." 'Current Notes', Nov. 1993, p.20. 11. As always in such matters, enquire about the update price before just buying a new version. The difference is about $100 in this case. 12. FontGDOS, GEnie ST Lib.24310:FONTGDOS.LZH. 13. M. Hebert, "Atari Works' series, starting in 'Current Notes', Febr. 1994. 14. Atari and COMPO have since published a version of SpeedoGDOS, its version 5, with expanded capabilities. It not only handles Bitstream Speedo fonts, but also PostScript Type 1, and TrueType scalable fonts. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Lakefield, Que. July 15, 1994 This item was written after doing a story for my column 'Atari in the STicks' in 'Current Notes' for Aug./Sept. The article is about altering code in GFA BASIC. The example chosen was a boot-up program by Greg Knauss called H.A.Z.E.L. The work suddenly confronted me with my inadequate knowledge of GDOS and what goes with it. And when I consulted the experts I made some horrible discoveries of the kind that affect Atari amateurs everywhere. I would appreciate reactions, especially from users' groups. For contact: Henry K van Eyken, 11 Falcon, Lakefield, Que., J0V 1K0, Canada On GEnie: H.VANEYKEN