-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- PCM Online December 1994 COLUMNS Contents: [] Back to BASIC: A BASIC quiz for non-beginners [] Business as Usual: PIMs -- Personal Information Managers [] FAQs in Focus: The Sound(ing) Board -- Frequently Asked Questions about sound boards [] Pipeline: Communicating on the Road -- cellular data communications on the open highways [] The Silicon Warrior: Life in SimCity Entire contents copyright 1994 by Falsoft, Inc. PCM -- The Premier Personal Computer Magazine -- is intended for the private use and pleasure of its subscribers, and reproduction by any means is prohibited. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Back to BASIC \|/ by Alfred J. Bruey ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Contributing Editor A BASIC QUIZ FOR NON-BEGINNERS Even if you've been writing BASIC programs for a long time, I'll bet there are some BASIC instructions you've never used. And you may not be familiar with some of the features and quirks connected with some of the commonest BASIC instructions. Sure, you know what it means when you see the statement 100 GOTO 250, but what is the output when you run the one- line program 100 PRINT (7 OR 3) AND 10? So you got that one; you know that the answer is 2. But what is the output of the one-line program 100 PRINT 7 (OR 3 AND 10)? You should get output something like Syntax error in 100, since the left parenthesis is not placed properly. What do you get if you move it to a legal location and run 100 PRINT 7 OR (3 AND 10)? Right: 7. And what about 100 PRINT 7 OR 3 AND 10? Again, 7. But does this mean that BASIC executes the ANDs and then the ORs, or does it execute from right to left? If you run the program 100 PRINT 10 AND 3 OR 7, you should get the value 7; this shows that the ANDs are executed before the ORs unless parentheses are present to indicate the order of operation. Getting a BASIC program to run correctly often depends on knowing the precedence of operations. Every BASIC manual I've ever seen lists the precedence rules. The important thing to remember is that you can set your own order of operations by inserting the parentheses wherever you want them. Are you ready to try some questions on your own? I'll give you the answers right away so that you don't lose a lot of sleep wondering how you did on this quiz. Of course you can tell how you're doing by trying the questions on the computer. If you use the computer, you should get a pretty high score. Good luck! >>[ The Quiz ]<< 1. Enter the program: 10 LIST 20 NEW What do you get if you run this program? What do you get if you list it? Answer: The output is: 10 LIST 20 NEW You get the same thing when you issue a LIST command. Thus the NEW instruction does nothing as part of the BASIC program. This is an example of a program that lists itself when you run it. 2. Does the following program give you an error message if you run it? 100 FOR I=1 TO 10 200 FOR J=1 TO 10 300 NEXT I,J Answer: Yes. To correct it, change Line 300 to 300 NEXT J,I. When you use nested loops, the indices in the NEXT statement should always be in reverse order to the indices in the FOR statements. 3. Does this run give you an error message? 100 FOR I=1 TO 10 200 FOR J=1 TO 10 300 NEXT Answer: Yes. To correct the program, you can add the line 400 NEXT or change Line 300 to 300 NEXT J,I. 4. What value is printed for Y if you run this program: 100 X=99 200 Y=NOT X 300 PRINT Y Answer: -100. To find which value will be printed, add 1 to the original value and then change the sign. For example: NOT 97 = -98 NOT 50 = -51 NOT 0 = -1 NOT -99 = 98 5. If A=3 in the line 100 X=-(A=7)-2*(A=3)-3*(A<3)-4*(A>7), what is printed for X? Answer: 2, since A=7 is false, A=3 is true, A<3 is false, and A>7 is false. This answer assumes that false values are set equal to 0 and true values to -1, as they are in most versions of BASIC. 6. After you run the program: 100 X = 64 OR 32 200 Y = 64 + 32 X equals Y. Do the + and OR operators always behave the same? Answer: No, the only time these operators give you the same answer is when both operands are sums of different powers of 2. For example, + and OR work the same on the numbers 296 and 71, since 296=256+32+8 and 71=64+4+2+1. Note that the binary representations of 296 (100101000) and 71 (001000111) have no 1 bits in common. On the other hand: 12 + 8 = 20 12 OR 8 = 12 since 8 (1000) and 12 (1100) have the high-order bit in common. 7. Is there a difference in output between lines 100 and 200 in the following program? 100 PRINT POS(0) 200 PRINT POS(41) Answer: No, both of them should print 1 in Screen Column 2. The number in parentheses in the POS function is a dummy variable whose value doesn't matter. 8. What does the following program do if you run it? (Use the CTRL-BREAK combination to stop the run.) 100 FOR I=1 TO 1000 110 PRINT I 120 A$=INKEY$:IF A$="" THEN 140 130 B$=INKEY$:IF B$="" THEN 130 140 NEXT I Answer: The program lists the integers from 1 to 1000. If you press a key, the printing stops. Pressing a key again continues the listing. 9. What is the difference in output between the two following short programs: 100 X=INT(RND(0)*6+1) 200 PRINT X 100 X=1+INT(RND(0)*6) 120 PRINT X Answer: There is no difference. You can add the value 1 either before or after you use the INT function. The RND function is often useful. Does it make any difference which number is in parentheses after the RND? Why do the parentheses have to be there at all? 10. If you run the following program using the command RUN 500, what is the output? 200 X=3 400 Y=5 600 PRINT X,Y Answer: The output should be the operating system message Undefined line number. 11. What does the output of this program look like? 100 X=1E3 200 PRINT "X = ";X Answer: X = 1000, expressed in BASIC's version of scientific notation. If you try to print a very large or very small number, BASIC automatically converts your output to this format. 12. What value of A prints when you run this program? 10 A = 5 20 REM CHANGE VALUE OF A: A = 7 30 PRINT A Answer: The value 5; statements following a REM are not executed. 13. What value is printed if you run the following program? 10 DIM A(100) 20 FOR I=1 TO 100 30 A(I)=I 40 NEXT I 50 PRINT I Answer: The value 101 -- but don't count on it. If you jump out of the middle of a FOR/NEXT loop, the index value is preserved. But if a loop goes to the end and drops through, it's not safe to count on the value of the loop index. 14. What values of X and Y are printed by this program? 10 X = 20 20 Y = X = 15 30 PRINT X,Y Answer: X will have a value of 20 and Y a value of 0, since X=15 is false. Line 20 is easier to understand if you write it as 20 Y = (X = 15). (X = 15) is a logic statement that is in this case false, so its value is 0. 15. What values do you get for X and Y in Question 14 if you change Line 20 to 20 Y = NOT X = 15? Answer: X still equals 20 but now Y is equal to -1. (NOT X = 15 is true if X = 15 is false.) 16. What is the output from this program? 10 OPTION BASE 1 20 FOR I = 0 TO 3 30 N(I)=I 40 PRINT N(I) 50 NEXT I Answer: The output is Subscript out of range in 30 because Line 10 sets the minimum subscript to 1 in all arrays in the program. You should probably use this OPTION BASE statement if you're working on problems for your math class, since math books usually start numbering with Row 1 and Column 1. 17. List two differences between the STOP and END statements. Answer: The STOP statement prints the message Break in xxx, where xxx is the line number of the STOP statement. Execution of the END statement closes all open files, but execution of the STOP statement does not. 18. What is the output when this program is run? 10 FOR I = 4 TO 2 20 PRINT I 30 NEXT I Answer: Line 20 is never executed because the initial loop value, 4, is greater than the final loop value, 2. 19. How many elements are there in the array dimensioned by 100 DIM A(5,7)? Answer: There are 48, since the first value can go from 0 to 5 and the second from 0 to 7. Thirty-five elements are defined if the statement 50 OPTION BASE 1 is included in the program, because then the 0 subscript can't be used. 20. What is the advantage of the first of the following programs over the second? 100 LINE INPUT "ENTER DATE ";D$ 200 PRINT D$ 100 INPUT "ENTER DATE ";D$ 200 PRINT D$ Answer: The LINE INPUT statement accepts commas or quotation marks as part of the string D$; the INPUT statement won't. Try running these two programs with the input 123,456 to see what happens. That's all for this quiz. You can grade yourself if you like, but please don't send your papers to me for grading -- I'm not in that business anymore. You should have done pretty well on this quiz if you have a computer on which to solve the problems. Otherwise some of the questions are tricky, and getting a 100-percent score is difficult. >>[ Your Assignment ]<< Write a BASIC program to grade this quiz. Have the user enter the number of correct answers and then have the program convert this to a letter grade. Let 90 to 100 percent be an A, 80 to 89 percent a B, etc. Then print the percentage and letter grades onscreen and a certificate of achievement on your printer for A, B or C scores. -=*=- The award-winning author of From BASIC to FORTRAN, Fred Bruey has more than 30 years' experience in the computer field as a systems and operations-research analyst, programmer and trainer. He can be reached at 201 S. Grinnell St., Jackson, MI 49203. -=------------- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -------------=- Business as Usual \|/ by Emmett Dulaney ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Contributing Editor PIMS: PERSONAL INFORMATION MANAGERS A few months ago this column discussed project-management software. This software really consists of nothing more than a database that has been modified to hold information pertinent to projects. Aimed at supervisors, managers or anyone involved in the process of maintaining close scrutiny over deadlines and time frames, these packages include such peripheral utilities as calendars, chart displays and so on. Personal information managers (PIMs) are similar in that they are modified databases including many of the same utilities; but they differ in the object of which they keep track. Rather than managing projects, they oversee contacts -- as in customers and prospects. For that reason, their intended end users are salesmen, agents or other individuals whose livelihoods are dependent upon phone conversations and "pressing the flesh." >>[ The Concept ]<< A large number of PIMs and similar programs are on the market. While each differs slightly in the features it provides, the majority of them perform the following operations: [] Multiple databases can be maintained of all the contacts you have. Each database performs as a "heart" off which all other functions perform. From a database you can search for any piece of information pertinent to your present need. Most also include a means by which the PIM database can export information to and import from other applications, such as dBASE. [] Notes can be attached to the database as reminders of things you need to do or mention the next time you contact a person. These notes can also be kept as history to refer to when you want to see how your last few contacts with Mr. Scott of General Amalgamated have gone. Almost all PIMs allow you to create a log file that keeps track of every call placed, and some allow differentiation between those placed and those received. [] A scheduler allows activities to be spooled and popped up as reminders at future dates. If during the course of a phone call, Scott tells you to call him back on Friday at 3 p.m., for example, you can tell the program to remind you at that time to make the call. [] A word processor of some type is usually (though not always) included to allow you to create documents and perform printing. While the word processor is rarely the strong point of the program, it does prevent the necessity of exiting the application and starting another for a quick letter. Coupled with this many times is a Merge feature that allows you to pull information from the database and insert it into the word processor. The best use of this is in creating a form letter (I will be on vacation for the next two weeks, but I look forward to talking to you when I return . . . .) and pulling names and addresses from the database to print one customized, individualized copy for each contact. [] Report generators allow you to create reports and lists as well as phone directories and calendars. Some also include the capability of recording your expenses and carefully monitoring them. [] Many PIMs offer the ability to use a connected internal or external modem to dial a phone number you've entered in the database. Once the number is dialed, you pick up the handset connected to the modem and begin chatting away. >>[ What's Available ]<< A large number of PIM programs from which to choose are available on the market. I set out to find what I considered to be the best for DOS and Windows users. Very quickly I settled upon Act! from Symantec as my favorite running from DOS. What was somewhat surprising, however, is that the Windows version of the product did not become my favorite. Instead it was surpassed by CogniTech's SharkWare -- for a variety of reasons, most of which are both performance- and feature-related. Other programs available include ClientWorks from IMS, Organizer 1.1 from Lotus (which I assume replaces Agenda, a PIM that was around for years), Ecco from Arabesque, and PackRat 5.0 from Polaris. >>[ Act! ]<< Act! was one of the first PIMs to come to market. Released in 1987 by Contact Software Management, it quickly became a marketplace favorite of salesmen and was the framework upon which many of the newer PIMs built themselves. A few years ago Symantec went on a buying spree of smaller software companies, and Contact Software Management was one of them. The application features the ability to create an unlimited number of databases, with each holding an unlimited number of contacts. The restraints that apply to "unlimited" are the size of your hard drive and its amount of memory -- and the amount of time you are willing to wait for searches through files. Contact information is stored in two screens. The first screen holds the name, address and other pertinent information to be seen at a glance. The second can hold a second address (such as a person's home, in case you want to drive by really late at night in a dark car) and user-defined fields. The calendar feature allows the creation of task lists that keep track of meetings, as well as calls that need to be made. An "activity timer" can be attached to events in the future, and memory-resident alarms wait to inform you that these items need your attention. This TSR portion of the alarm is extremely important with any PIM. It is all well and good to schedule a phone-call reminder for 3:00, but what happens if you exit the application to run your new Opus 'n' Bill screen saver and don't happen to be back in the application at 3:00? With the alarm running in memory, your reminder will occur regardless of what the computer is doing at the given time. Created calendars can be printed, complete with scheduled events, in daily, weekly or monthly formats. An additional feature is the ability to print them on specific paper sizes for inclusion in a Day-Timer or similar organizer. The word processor includes a spelling checker and can merge data from the database directly into documents. Standard text enhancements are available, including emboldening, underlining and subscript. The report generator is extremely easy to use for generating address lists and the like. Other features include the assignment of passwords to the database, the ability to install it on a network (where you definitely need password capabilities), and the ability to create keyboard macros. A pop-up calculator enables quick calculations, and automatic dialing is possible with a modem. Installation is very straightforward and easy to follow. Once Act! is installed, I would highly recommend running through the tutorial and placing the function-key template on the keyboard. After you run through the operations a few times, however, using the program becomes very intuitive, even for those unused to the concept of a PIM. A company I know in Colorado decided that its sales force needed to be better equipped than any of its competitors'. The management rushed out and purchased very expensive color laptop computers for all salesmen and loaded them with two software packages, one of which was Act!. Given virtually no training whatsoever, this assorted collection of salesmen (who had but one thing in common: the fact that rarely had any of them ever touched a keyboard) mastered the program in record time -- a tribute to its ease of use. >>[ SharkWare ]<< SharkWare is a PIM spawned from the mind of Harvey Mackay and the witticisms he included in several books. One of the most successful of those books was Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive -- hence the title of the program. Mackay, owner of Mackay Envelope, believes that a good salesman can outsell and outmaneuver the competition by being equipped with more information than anyone else and constantly being on top of that information. To accomplish this, he created the Mackay 66, a list of items you need to know about every person with whom you come in contact: name, address, birthday, alma mater, children's names and so on. Armed with this information, you are more able to talk one-on-one with your prospect than is anyone else. The software package includes many items normally not found in an application. These include an audio tape on the principles of achieving superior results and a pen (the text upon which reads, This pen can be the start of a great relationship) glued to the registration card. Histories are linked to contacts, and you can keep up to three separate histories for each contact: one for meetings, another for outside activities, etc. A complete report generator allows the creation and printing of coming schedules or directories. Once more a timer can be attached to anything, and a TSR program sounds the alarm at the appointed time regardless of whether or not you are still in the program. If any item in SharkWare could be improved, it is the reliance upon Windows to provide features that could be a part of the PIM. An example is that clicking on the Calculator icon brings up the standard Windows pop-up calculator. This calculator is flawed and should not be used for any computation on which you're really depending. (Jjust for fun, enter 150.00 and subtract 149.95. Rather than .05, the answer you get is .0499999). Another example of missing features is that clicking on the Word Processor icon brings up whatever processor to which you've mapped it -- no word processor is included with the package. While everyone has his own preference in word processors, it would still be nice if a crude processor were included to round out the SharkWare package. On the positive side, though, the import/export feature is excellent, allowing you to pull information in or send it out to your word processor for inclusion in documents you're writing. The feature I like most about SharkWare was the wit available at the click of a mouse button. When the program starts, a Quote of the Day or "Mackay-ism" can be popped up quickly onscreen and then made to disappear when you begin working. (Example: It isn't the people you fire who make your life miserable, it's the people you don't.) The icon bar contains a "Mackay's" option that allows you to browse through the quotes or select tips, and you can scan through essays and anecdotes relating to business and a positive outlook. >>[ The Bottom Line ]<< I highly recommend both packages for those needing to maintain databases of business contacts and follow-ups. If you are a DOS user, Act! will meet all of your needs. If you travel a great deal with a laptop computer and hate lugging around an external mouse and trying to find the icons on a small screen, I would again recommend Act!. On the other hand, if you spend most of your time before a desktop PC, find acumen as well as functionality important, and are comfortable with a Windows environment, SharkWare is a great choice. Next month we'll cover a grab-bag of multiple software applications as we go through small packages that serve large purposes but fit into no other category. -=*=- BUSINESS BITS If the numbers are to be believed, each month one million computer users do two new things: become Windows users and gain access to the Internet. I have something to say to both these groups. In the old days if you installed a software package on your hard drive and did not like the way it worked, you used DEL *.* to remove the program from its own conspicuous directory and restore your megabyte or so of free hard-drive space. Today when a program is installed with Windows, you can be assured that it will gulp as much space as possible, with 20MB not being uncommon. Not only that, but finding where that space has gone is often difficult. Subdirectories layer beneath subdirectories, modifications are made to .INI files, and portions of the program can invade Windows subdirectories as well. MicroHelp has released a product called UnInstaller 2 that is a natural for dealing with these situations. It is a software utility that retails for $69.95 (but can be found for about half that on the street), and it removes DOS and Windows applications completely -- including references to them in .INI and .DLL files. Not only does it recover all the disk space the application was occupying, it also speeds other program operations by removing the references to removed applications. As for the Internet, one of the most difficult things for a person who has never used the service is to figure out what everyone is talking about. Quite simply it is the closest thing to an "Information Superhighway" presently in existence. By getting onto the Internet, you can leave electronic mail for anyone around the world with similar access, obtain news and information on any topic, or transfer files to any other computer. Michael Fraase has written The PC Internet Tour Guide (Ventana Press, $24.95), which explains Internet access and operation in great detail. The book also comes with the software necessary to connect to the service, and the first month's connection is free. I highly recommend it for those wanting to see what all the talk is about. -=*=- Emmett Dulaney is the author of several computer books, including Voodoo NetWare and UNIX Unleashed. He can be reached at P.O. Box 353, Muncie, IN 47308; on America Online, username EDULANEY; or via the Internet as edulaney@aol.com. -=*=- INTEROFFICE MEMO Act! 2.1 for DOS: Symantec Corporation, 10201 Torre Ave., Cupertino, CA 95014-2132, (408) 253-9600; $399. REQUIRES: 640K of RAM, a 286 or faster CPU, DOS 3.1+, and a hard drive. SharkWare: CogniTech Corporation, P.O. Box 500129, Atlanta, GA 31150, (800) 997-4275; $129.95. REQUIRES: 4MB RAM, Windows 3.1, DOS 3.3 or higher, and a VGA monitor. -=------------- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -------------=- FAQs in Focus \|/ by Ed Ellers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Technical Assistant "Frequently asked questions about sound boards" THE SOUND(ING) BOARD -- AND WHAT TO DO WITH IT Sound boards may not be the fastest-growing category of PC accessories, but they're definitely near the top as far as home users are concerned. It's a truism in the computer business that last year's outrageously expensive add-on is this year's success story and next year's standard feature, and audio has been no exception. This month's "FAQs in Focus" tells some of the story of how PC sound works, how to choose a good sound upgrade, and what it can do for you. PC sound, of course, started with the PC speaker. When IBM designed its first PC back in 1980, it needed to be able to "beep" the way a terminal does when a CTRL-G is sent. The simplest (and cheapest) way to do this was to send a fast series of pulses to a little "transistor radio" speaker, so that's what IBM did. It turned out to be far more flexible than expected: a programmer can change the sound by varying the widths of the pulses sent to the speaker, so many programs over the years have used this "pulse-width modulation" system to generate much more complex sounds. Some programs -- several games from Access Software, The Norton Utilities' Diagnostics program, and Dareware's 1-2- 3 Talk and A-B-C Talk educational programs, for instance -- can even play back sampled voice. Two years later IBM wanted a better, but still economical, sound system for its PCjr home computer. The answer was a chip from Texas Instruments -- featured in the TI 99/4 in the late '70s -- that could generate three tones and one "noise" channel at the same time with very little programming. The PCjr didn't do all that well in the market, but it was the benchmark for the team that developed the original Tandy 1000. The PCjr sound standard quickly became known as the Tandy 1000 standard instead; it was widely supported for several years by many publishers. Meanwhile Yamaha was making noises from the other side of the Pacific with a technique called FM synthesis that allows one chip to generate multiple complex waveforms. The company used this at first in its own keyboards and an MSX home computer. Later Ad Lib designed a card around the Yamaha chip for PC-compatible systems; and when Sierra On-Line started selling games that used the Ad Lib card for musical accompaniment, it became the industry standard for PC music. Most sound cards today support the Ad Lib standard for either 11- voice mono or (with two Yamaha chips) 22-voice stereo music. Yamaha recently introduced a new chip with more and better voices and is promoting what it calls the Gold Sound Standard, which is supported by some newer software and by boards such as the Ad Lib Gold. There's another way to get a PC to play music -- it's called the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI for short), and it was designed to let musicians connect synthesizers and sequencers together for complex compositions. Roland, another well-known Japanese "synth" maker, brought out a board called the MPU-401 that lets any PC- compatible system control MIDI instruments (or accept notes from other MIDI devices). This was followed by a unit called the MT-32, which looked dangerously like a cable TV converter but actually contained the synthesis "guts" of a professional keyboard without the keyboard or speakers. An MPU-401 or an MT-32 can make music good enough to record and release; and when Sierra added MT-32 capability to its games (complete with some amazingly good musical scores), another standard was born. The one hitch was that a program which plays great MIDI music through an MT- 32 sounds just awful on a Casio MT-240 keyboard, because different MIDI instruments often use different codes for the sounds they can produce. Roland and other makers settled on a standard called General MIDI that settled that difference, so newer synths like the Roland SC-7 Sound Module (a little box that can hook up to your serial port or a MIDI port) can make music with a wide range of software. The improved synthesis technology of the better MIDI synths has found its way into the latest sound boards as well, with such models as Roland's RAP-10/AT and SCC-1 and the MultiSound from Turtle Beach Systems. All this is good for music and effects, but what about voices? That brings us to digital audio, the same technology that makes the compact disc work. Techies call it pulse code modulation, or PCM for short (and no, this magazine was not named for it). This system samples the audio signal tens of thousands of times a second and saves each sample in memory on disk. Then it reads the stored samples and converts them back into audio. Creative Labs' Sound Blaster was one of the first to use this technique, and it became popular partly because it also included an Ad Lib-compatible synthesizer to allow a program to use both digital and synthesized audio. Most PC sound boards these days are both Ad Lib- and Sound Blaster- compatible, though there are still a few cases (as in the Roland and Turtle Beach cards, Tandy's original Sensation system, and the first version of Microsoft's Windows Sound System) where some compatibility has been given up to concentrate on other areas. As with other types of audio, there's a difference in quality between different boards. Almost all can record and play back at a sampling rate of 22.05KHz (half that of the compact disc) with 8-bit resolution, giving audio quality comparable to a good AM radio. Some, though, can do the same thing in stereo -- and a few even allow 44.1KHz sampling and/or 12- or 16-bit resolution for better audio quality. A 44.1KHz/16-bit board's performance is almost indistinguishable from that of a CD player, because the sampling rate and resolution are identical and the actual circuitry is similar. At the lower end several companies have introduced digital audio playback devices that plug into a printer port on either a desktop or laptop PC; two of the best-known examples are the Covox Speech Thing and Disney Software's Sound Source. Some of these units, such as the Portable Sound Plus from Digispeech, even let you record digital audio as well as play it back. So what kind of sound board do you need? That depends on the software you're planning to run. If you are running DOS applications (games, for instance) that specify Sound Blaster compatibility, you'll obviously need a Sound Blaster-compatible board instead of something like the Roland cards. Some DOS programs allow a choice of several types of sound options, so look carefully at the ones you intend to use. Windows is a very different matter; if you have Windows 3.1 and a driver for your sound card, you can use it with any Windows application that uses the sort of features your card has. (You can't play MIDI files through a Disney Sound Source, for example, or digital audio through an original Ad Lib card.) Windows 3.1 comes with a set of drivers for the best-known sound options, but these days almost all PC sound devices come with their own Windows driver disks that may do a better job. If you're running Multimedia PC applications, it's best to have a sound card that carries the MPC logo. Until very recently these could be found only in MPC upgrade kits or MPC-certified PC systems, but starting in January 1995 the Multimedia PC Marketing Council will certify sound boards as MPC-compatible if they meet the MPC specs and come with the right connector to let you plug an MPC-certified CD-ROM drive into the board for audio mixing. Many MPC applications work with non-MPC (but still Windows-compatible) sound devices, especially if they use only one type of audio output (assuming your board handles that type). -=*=- Ed Ellers is a self-confessed electronics fanatic whose other interests include photography and science-fiction writing. He can be contacted on Delphi, username EDELLERS, or via the Internet at edellers@delphi.com. -=------------- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -------------=- Pipeline \|/ by Ed Juge ~~~~~~~~ "Trials and joys of cellular data communications on the open road" COMMUNICATING ON THE ROAD After a little more than a year, it is good to be back in the pages of PCM! I hope we can again explore some interesting subjects and maybe learn something new together. As some of you know, I left Radio Shack in early 1993 to join the proposed spin-off of manufacturing operations. At the proverbial eleventh hour, the spin-off was canceled when Tandy saw an opportunity to sell the computer manufacturing operations to AST Research. Having lost nothing in Irvine, California, I opted for "early semi-retirement." (Define that as still working, but at a much less intense pace.) As I suspected, there are indeed some roses in this world in need of smelling. For 25 years, my wife and I have shared a dream of seeing North America by motor home if ever we had the free time to do it. Within days of my departure from Tandy, we were motor home owners. Another week later, CompuServe approached me about doing some "evangelism" for them. I'm a long-time CompuServe user, so I accepted enthusiastically, with the caveat that there would be time for the travel we have planned. My evangelistic duties include a couple of trips each month to demonstrate and promote CompuServe's software and services to reporters and editors across the USA. I also hold seminars, showing newspaper reporters how they can use CompuServe for background and research in their work. The job is ideal, and it's lots of fun. My wife and I sometimes combine business and pleasure trips, giving us a little time to play, and saving considerably on expenses when compared to air travel, hotel rooms and rental cars. I have also done a little freelance PR work as time permits. The objective of this column, however, remains to help you understand, enjoy and benefit from using your computers. Your comments, suggestions and criticisms are welcome -- and encouraged -- as always. I am no different from many of you. I'm an individual user with a strong interest in getting my work done quickly and efficiently, and without spending a lot of time "fiddling" with the hardware and software. I'm not a game player, and I have no great interest in computers as an activity in and of itself. Yes, even though I'm no longer obligated to say it, I still believe Tandy built a great line of ultra-reliable PCs. I still own my 4833 LX/T, though I have acquired some other PCs as well. In my work with CompuServe, I use an IBM ThinkPad 750C because of its exceptionally large and bright 101/2-inch active matrix screen. It is much easier to see when four or five people are watching a demonstration. Equipped with a 340MB hard disk and 20MB of memory, it leaves little to be desired. It is the machine I travel with, and in fact the one on which I'm writing this column, sitting among beautiful, tall trees in an RV campground in Norris, Tennessee. The column will be transmitted to PCM later today, very probably by cellular telephone connection. Shortly after "retirement," I started a Recreational Vehicle forum on CompuServe (GO RV) and do a fair amount of work with graphics. That was a good excuse to upgrade to a Pentium PC with 24MB of memory and about 700MB of space on two hard drives. Readers of my previous columns will recall I was a big proponent of not purchasing more computer than needed to get your job done. I haven't abandoned that philosophy. But, today's 486 hardware offers so much more capability for so little difference in price that when it is time to upgrade, there are few reasons not to -- and many reasons to -- go for the higher-performance hardware if your budget permits. >>[ Communicating on the Road ]<< As I hinted above, one of the interesting things I've been doing is communicating with CompuServe while traveling, so let's make that this month's topic for discussion. It's a piece of cake if you're staying in hotels with plug-in phones. I find very few hotels without them, and when I do, a call to the engineer usually results in a quick installation of a plug-in box. Some hotels will gladly switch you to a modem-capable room. PC use in hotels is so common now that asking for a modem-capable room no longer produces an open-mouthed stare. They know exactly what you mean. There is no substitute for direct (wire) connection to a local phone line. If you won't be in a hotel and need to maintain connections with electronic mail or online services, by all means, look for a friendly phone owner! By the way, cellular is a near-perfect voice communications tool. We rarely find ourselves out of range of some cellular system. In almost all areas now, you can dial *18 to turn on "Follow-me Roaming" (called by other names in some areas) so that when someone dials your home cellular area code and number, your cellular phone will ring wherever you happen to be. In most cases, you must reactivate the service daily, or when moving to a new service area. Unfortunately, data communication, when there is no hard-wired phone, is a bit more difficult. It's a challenge I'll be continuing to work on in coming months. There is no "best" way. Pay phones would be ideal . . . a quarter for a local call wouldn't break anyone. There are some good (and some not-so-good) acoustic couplers available today. Unfortunately the quality, functionality and performance of pay telephones is highly inconsistent but generally horrible. The acoustic coupler manufacturers face a near-impossible task of designing a product that works under most, let alone "all," conditions. A rare acoustic connection may work as well as a wired connection. Unfortunately, very few! But the next dozen phones you try may not work at all . . . even with considerable fiddling with modem parameters and levels. Cellular connections are considerably more reliable, but still far from perfect and prohibitively expensive. Even when voice communication is near-perfect, data transmission can be difficult or impossible. For example, the San Francisco area system has a cell that serves the ocean- front Pacifica community. It worked flawlessly for me during a week-long stay in January. The cell due east, at the San Francisco airport absolutely refused to work with data at all. And in several trips, I have never been able to establish a data connection on any cellular service in the state of New Mexico. Is it something in the phone lines? The switches? Levels? Who knows! It just doesn't work. My modem is a 14,400 bps AT&T/Paradyne "Keep in Touch" PCMCIA card. It's easy to use, has never failed me on a hardwire connection and features some cellular-specific error-correction protocol. Best of all, the firmware may be easily updated by the user, so I'm not stuck with whatever the state-of-the-art was at the time of purchase. Each firmware release seems to improve the cellular data performance a bit more. The KIT modem seems to work as well as others from reports I hear. My success rate with it is probably on the order of 75 percent. In many cases, the standard transmit level of -18dBm must be reset to -24 or - 27dBm (AT&I24 for -24dBm, for example). Setting the error control mode to LAPM (AT\N4) helps considerably. Setting the baud rate to 4800 or 1200 (if the node you're talking to allows it) will provide the best connection under difficult conditions. Still, on some calls, in some locations, three or four attempts yield nothing but failure and disconnects. Yet on the third or fourth try, not only is the connection established, but it is maintained through lengthy sessions and/or file up/downloads. I hear from an engineer friend at AT&T/Paradyne that many cellular carriers are creating modem pools that will offer a tremendous improvement in cellular data throughput. These modems offer AT&T/Paradyne's ETC protocol and MNP-10, both touted to provide better cellular performance. You can, of course, improve your cellular performance if your modem and the one you're talking to both offer one of these protocols. However, more often than not, there are long telephone lines between the two modems. The advantage of the modem pools is that you connect directly to the similarly-equipped modem, which then talks to the target computer system by landline. In areas where this service is available, it is accessed by preceding your desired phone number by "star-data" or "*3282." Unfortunately, I have not been in an equipped area to try it, so can only report what I'm told about the system. My contact tells me this system should be nationwide by the end of this year. The other rumored development is the addition of interactive connect capability by RAM Mobile Data. Today, RAM Mobile Data furnishes wireless messaging service in more than 400 major metropolitan areas, nationwide. I have not used this system or its closest competitor, ARDIS. It is said to be quite reliable, and the cost is less than $100/month for virtually unlimited messaging. If interactive connections and data transfer can be made available in the same price range (I'm sure it will be somewhat higher), it could well be the data communications method of choice. Even when data connections are flawless, cellular communication is horribly expensive. Most cellular services offer their customers some number of free minutes every month. In my area it is several hundred minutes per month. Should you use all your free time (I never have), additional minutes cost from 10 to 40 cents depending on the time of day. But, once you "roam" outside of your own home area, all bets are off. Carriers seem to think they give their local users such a good deal, they must make it up on the poor roamers. I rarely see charges of less than $1.15 per minute when roaming. It is easy to spend $250 per week roaming. Easy! So, come on RAM Mobile Data or ARDIS . . . let's put some competition back into the phone companies' lives. They can either get real with their charges or lose the business altogether. I would very much appreciate hearing from any of you who can add some helpful hints to the discussion of on-the-road communication and, of course, will be very happy to pass it along to other readers. -=------------- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -------------=- The Silicon Warrior \|/ by Wayne Kawamoto ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Contributing Editor The valiant warrior takes | | on seven challengers: | Wayne's Rating System | | | Automenu for Kids | ***** Outstanding | Classic 5 | **** Excellent | Microsoft New York | *** Good | Police Quest IV | ** Fair | SimCity 2000 | * Poor | Soft Karaoke | :-( The "Last Action Hero"| Victor Vector & Yondo: | of software | the Cyberplasm Formula | | LIFE IN SIMCITY How many times have you cursed your civic officials when your car ran over a huge pothole or you sat in traffic waiting for an ill-placed signal? Since we all know that we can run a more efficient and better city than our local pols can, SimCity 2000 gives us that chance. Yes, the classic SimCity is back in a new and improved version. We'll take a look at SimCity 2000, hit the streets with Sierra's Police Quest IV: Open Season, sing out with Soft Karaoke, travel through time with Sanctuary Wood's Victor Vector & Yondo: The Cyberplasm Formula, highlight a menu for youngsters in Magee's Automenu for Kids, look at the view with a Microsoft Flight Simulator scenery disk, play with Interplay's Classic 5, and briefly look at what's new on CD. >>[ It's Your Move -- Classic 5 ]<< It's not an original plan, but featuring several computerized board games in one package always sells. Sierra has done it successfully and now Interplay offers its version in Classic 5, which offers bridge, checkers, chess, go and backgammon. I find that no matter how many sophisticated computer games I play, I always enjoy quiet board or card games on the computer. Interplay's package features a single interface for access to all the games. The graphics in each individual game are all right -- certainly not cutting-edge SVGA, but playable. The individual games against a computer opponent aren't much to get excited about. For example, the chess module won't hold a candle to the bells and whistles of Chessmaster 4000 Turbo or Kasporov's Gambit. But to have all five activities at your beck and call is certainly worth something. So don't look here for anything that's ground-breaking or outstanding. Classic 5 is nothing but solid game play in a nondescript format. But you'll enjoy it. *** (3 stars) >>[ We Built This City -- SimCity 2000 ]<< SimCity 2000 is the long-awaited, enhanced version of SimCity, a computing classic. The original was a surprise hit that ultimately sold a million copies over a variety of platforms. SimCity 2000 is the worthy successor that offers improvements but maintains the original's compelling game play. Once again you play a combination mayor and urban planner whose task is to manage a budget and build a city from scratch. You'll construct power plants to electrify your city; establish zones for industrial, commercial and residential use; lay out electrical wires; and build roads and subways to handle the traffic. To keep your city growing and your citizens happy (it is their taxes that keep things moving), you can add the finer things in life: zoos, libraries, museums, parks and more. The object is to make your city an ideal place where "Sims," imaginary citizens, want to live. If you're successful, you'll see your city booming on the map. SimCity 2000 offers enhancements over the original game that include an isometric side view that is more attractive than the old overhead one, and the graphics are a whole new generation above the earlier version. The game comes with a built-in terrain builder, a water system, and subways that you lay under the city. The new package also comes with such scenarios as the Oakland fire. In all, SimCity 2000 offers the same compelling game play as the original and is even more fun and challenging. If you're ready to try your hand at being mayor, get this game and cancel all your appointments. This is as good as being mayor gets. ***** (5 stars) >>[ Singing in the Pain -- Soft Karaoke ]<< Watch out! Close those windows and stay inside. With my three-note range and a frog in my throat, I've been "singing" again with Tune 1000's Soft Karaoke. Soft Karaoke turns your PC into a karaoke machine by playing background music and displaying the words to a song -- similar to those devices that are so popular in bars. The program runs in Windows and displays an easy-to-use interface. You simply choose a song and click on Play, and the program plays the music and flashes the words. You'll be booming away (microphone not included) and sending your neighbors packing. Unfortunately the program comes with only five songs: "New York, New York"; "The Way We Were"; "Dust in the Wind"; "Stand By Your Man"; and "Steamy Windows." But you can send in for a microphone and add-on disk (10 more songs) for a $7.50 handling fee. And of course Tune 1000 is happy to sell you additional songs as well. You may recall that I reviewed a competing product, PC Karaoke, a few months back. It's now something of a shouting match between these two very viable contenders. Although they're similar in function, they do have differences. First, Soft Karaoke uses your sound board's MIDI capability to play the music. Although Soft Karaoke's arrangements are well-done, the music sounds "electronic." On the other hand, PC Karaoke plays digital CD tracks with full orchestrations, and its background instrumentals and vocals are superior to those of Soft Karaoke. But with PC Karaoke you also need a CD-ROM player. Soft Karaoke lets you readily alter songs for tempo, instrumentation and -- most importantly -- key. If you're like me and have a range of perhaps one octave on a good day, the ability to change keys means you won't have to strain for those high notes -- an excellent feature. By far I prefer PC Karaoke's music quality, but I do like Soft Karaoke's ability to alter songs. For those of you who are up to it, Soft Karaoke lets you croon, belt and strain your vocal chords. It's certainly an excellent choice in the battle over karaoke on the PC. *** (3 stars) >>[ Not Kidding -- Automenu for Kids ]<< To avoid cryptic DOS commands, a menu system is just what the user ordered. For kids (and parents as well), Magee's Automenu for Kids is perfect. Because many consider DOS difficult to learn, PC menu programs are quite common. These programs provide selection screens so users can scroll to Word Processing or Spreadsheet and press ENTER, and the correct program loads. Familiar products such as Magee's Automenu and Direct Access fit into this category. Automenu for Kids offers menus in several forms: a street down which you "walk," a video arcade or a space ship interior. By selecting specific signs or machines in one of these venues, kids can launch their own programs. The best part is that after you set up the menu, kids work and play only in their own applications. When they exit an application, they come back to the menu; leaving the menu takes a settable code word. Thus you don't have to worry about Junior accidentally erasing some key files or your recent tax return. Although the menu graphics could be better, the program is an excellent idea and encourages kids to use the PC. It takes some effort to set up -- but if you have children who play on the PC, Automenu for Kids is definitely worth a look. *** (3 stars) >>[ Fly Me to New York -- Microsoft New York ]<< Microsoft dominates the virtual-flight market with its Flight Simulator, and the latest version (5.0) offers breakthrough scenery and landscapes. But you haven't yet seen flight-simulator landscape until you've flown with one of Microsoft's new add-on scenery disks. I fired up the New York scenery disk and was absolutely amazed at the detail. The buildings have windows, and -- viewed from the air -- the city's streets are filled with cars. Oh, yeah -- feel free to fly through the Twin Towers or buzz the Statue of Liberty. It's definitely the best flight-simulator landscape yet to hit the PC. The only down side is that you'll need heavy-duty hardware and lots of memory with EMS. If you're into flight simulators, this version and its scenery disks are outstanding. Come on up, the view is great from here. ***** (5 stars) >>[ Donuts Not Included -- Police Quest IV ]<< At one time or another, most people have wondered what it's like to be a policeman. For the last five years Sierra's Police Quest series has tried to bring street-cop experience to the PC. Police Quest is an adventure game in the vein of Sierra's King's Quest. In it you play a cop, and you have to think and act like one. To win, you can't shoot everything that moves, and you have to use your brains as well -- in other words you'll have to approach every situation as a policeman does. The game even makes you read Mirandas and fill out paperwork. Unlike earlier Police Quests, which were written by Jim Walls (now with Tsunami), Police Quest IV was written by former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates. Chief Gates has certainly had his share of controversy during and after his tour of duty in L.A., but he brings a lot of police insight to the game. It's no surprise that Police Quest IV is set in Los Angeles, with a dark story that involves a serial murderer and that includes tinges of gangs, hate groups, and a rapper who encourages violence against the police. There's also the hounding press -- undoubtedly drawn from Chief Gates' own experience. In places the game is rather grisly. The very first scene has you investigating the torture/murder of your former partner at a gruesome crime scene. There are repeated trips to the morgue, bloody shoot-outs, and very graphic graphics. The photorealism is impressive and complements the serious and dark tone of the game. Nice touches include characters who walk into and out of the scene, growing and shrinking in perspective. In the first scene the main character ducks under the crime-perimeter tape. As in all Sierra games, the interface is very well-done. The only thing that gets really repetitive after a while is going up and down the elevators in Parker Center. I could do without waiting for elevators, especially in game playing. I have to give Chief Gates credit for developing a timely and compelling storyline. If you want to get a taste of being a cop, Police Quest is the game to play. I can almost taste that donut now. It's jelly-filled with sprinkles, and . . . . **** (4 stars) >>[ Let's Do the Time Warp -- Victor Vector & Yondo: The Cyberplasm Formula ]<< This is all about a guy in the future and his trusty (and talking) St. Bernard. Vector & Yondo are a part of Sanctuary Woods' I-ventures, which offer something between a comic book and an adventure game on CD- ROM. In the game you're the Archivist of the Museum of Fantastic Phenomena. Unfortunately the curator of the museum, a robot, needs a special formula called cyberplasm to live. The only way to find this formula is to go back in time. You control the moves of Vector and Yondo as they travel into the past to find it and bring it back. In the past Vector and Yondo discover dark secrets and have to just survive. The game also includes some skill/arcade-like segments, such as when the pair cross a street (it's "Frogger"). Vector & Yondo is refreshingly different, with high-resolution graphics, speaking characters, a well-done interface, and excellent sound effects. The lighthearted story plays within a basic adventure- game format, but with bright comic book images. For all the talk of interactive comics, Vector & Yondo comes closer to it than any other product I've seen. Vector & Yondo is for younger players -- say, kids 8 years old and up -- but it appeals to everyone. Yondo, in particular, is a talking dog who pants (dog-style) as he talks, and he's fun to listen to. The best thing is that there's no violence -- unusual for a computer game. This one comes highly recommended. **** (4 stars) >>[ What's New on CD ]<< Interplay will soon offer on CD-ROM an enhanced version of Castles II: Siege and Conquest, that all-consuming medieval strategy game. Here you struggle, along with your neighboring realms, to build up your kingdom and ultimately unite and rule the country through negotiation and battles. On CD-ROM the game features cinematic sequences, spoken dialogue, and actual BBC documentary footage on castles that shows how they were constructed, sieged and attacked. Castles is a great game that's even better on CD. Serf's up. Interplay's 10 Year Anthology: Classic Collection offers 10 classic games of the past on CD-ROM. This collection includes Mindshadow, Tass Times, The Bard's Tale, Wastelands, Dragon Wars, Battle Chess, Lord of the Rings, Castles, Star Trek 25th Anniversary, and Out of This World. As you can see, there are some excellent games here, and this CD will keep you busy all year long. Although some of these have dated graphics and game play by today's standards, there are some gems. My favorites are Out of This World and of course Star Trek 25th Anniversary. I'm not sure there's a title left at Capstone that hasn't been rereleased on CD-ROM. Now Capstone releases Trump Castle III on the silver platter as well. My favorite of the series is Trump Castle II, but III offers those customized casino players, SVGA graphics, and modem and network play. But as with other Capstone CD titles, you still have to install it to your hard drive -- so the CD-ROM title offers no advantage except easy installation. Sierra's Gabriel Knight Sins of the Father is also available on CD- ROM. This mysterious and supernatural adventure game thriller is greatly enhanced for CD-ROM with voices that make the characters come alive. The voice actors include such notables as Mark Hamill, Tim Curry, Michael Dorn (Worf on Star Trek -- The Next Generation), and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. This is another excellent title that is even better on CD-ROM. When I thought of all the kids who have wasted hours playing Mario Brothers, I couldn't imagine an educational series based on Mario could be worth anything. But I was wrong: Software Toolwork's Mario's Early Years series on CD-ROM includes three titles: Fun With Letters, Preschool Fun, and Fun With Numbers. These programs are very well-done and entertaining, and kids love to play them as they learn. Mario's now OK in my book, and he plays on CD. -=*=- Wayne Kawamoto works as a market analyst in Los Angeles. When he's not writing about games, Wayne says, he's playing them. He welcomes your comments and suggestions for columns (addressed to him in care of PCM, on CompuServe as 71053,3010, or via the Internet at 71053.3010@compuserve.com), but he regrets that he cannot respond individually to letters. -=*=- TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS Automenu for Kids: Magee, P.O. Box 1587, Norcross, GA 30091, (404) 446- 6611; $29.95. REQUIRES: DOS 3.1+ and EGA/VGA or better; a mouse or joystick is recommended. The Classic 5: Interplay Productions, Inc., 17922 Fitch Ave., Irvine, CA 92714, (714) 553-6678; $49.95. REQUIRES: a 286/10MHz or faster CPU, DOS 3.1 or higher and a hard drive with 640K of memory; EGA/VGA, Microsoft mouse, and Ad Lib, Roland MT-32, Pro Audio Spectrum and Sound Blaster supported. Microsoft New York: Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399, (800) 323-3577; $39.95. REQUIRES: a 386 or higher microprocessor, Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.0, MS-DOS 3.2 or later, VGA graphics and 2MB of memory; 4MB memory, an expanded-memory manager, SVGA graphics, a Microsoft mouse or compatible pointing device, and a sound board recommended; compatible with joystick or flight yoke. Police Quest IV: Open Season: Sierra On-Line, P.O. Box 800, Coarsegold, CA 93614-0800, (800) 757-7707; $69.95. REQUIRES: a 386 or better CPU with 4MB RAM, MS-DOS 5.0 or later, a hard disk, VGA graphics and a mouse; supports Ad Lib, General MIDI, Sound Blaster, Pro Audio Spectrum, Pro Audio Spectrum 16, Roland MT-32 and Microsoft Sound System. SimCity 2000: Maxis, 2 Theatre Square, Orinda, CA 94563-3346, (510) 253- 3736; $69.95. REQUIRES: a 386 or higher CPU, MS-DOS 3.3+, 4MB of RAM, a hard disk, a mouse, and extended VGA mode (640-by-480-by-256); supports Ad Lib, Ad Lib Gold, Roland MT-32, Roland MTU, Pro Audio Spectrum and Sound Blaster. Soft Karaoke: Tune 1000 Corporation, Suite 1000A, 295 Forest Ave., Portland, ME 04101-2000, (800) 363-TUNE; $49.95. REQUIRES: Windows 3.1, 2MB of RAM and a sound board; 4MB RAM recommended. Victor Vector & Yondo: The Cyberplasm Formula: Sanctuary Woods, 1875 S. Grant St., Suite 260, San Mateo, CA 94402, (415) 578-6340; $39.95. REQUIRES: a 386 SX or faster CPU with 4MB RAM, Windows 3.1+, a CD-ROM drive, a hard drive, a mouse, 640-by-480 by 256-color SVGA, and a sound card. -=------------=- T-H-E E-N-D F-O-R N-O-W -=------------=-