PD & Shareware

Reviews

Software: INcontrol v1.0

Category: MIDI/music
Reviewer: Carl Lofgren
Status: Freeware
System: All Ataris
Score: 58%

Ever wanted to write your own synth editor? If so, read on! INcontrol is a user definable MIDI controller. It provides the user with 20 sliders which can be programmed to control your MIDI device. It can be used to create anything from a simple MIDI mixer to a basic synth editor.

Create a basic synth editor within minutes!

To program a slider you must have some basic knowledge about System Exclusive messages. Consult your System Exclusive Implementation Guide that came with your device. If it's your first time dealing with SysEx messages, don't be afraid to experiment. However, it should be wise to make a backup of the memory contents first, in case anything unexpected happens.
INcontrol is not as comprehensive as the MixerMap feature in Cubase for example, but hey, it's freeware. INcontrol can be very useful if you want to try some SysEx control messages, or if you want to create a simple editor. It's not beautiful, but it works!


Software: CoMa v3.20

Category: Comms
Reviewer: Denesh Bhabuta
Status: Shareware
System: All Ataris
Score: 70%

CoMa, or Communication Manager is a commercial quality fax program. It is fully multitasking friendly, sports a GEM interface and can also run as an accessory. CoMa works with fax-modems which support Class 2 and 2.0 and is extremely fast at coding and decoding fax pages. You can view incoming and outgoing faxes: incoming ones are displayed line by line during transmission. Features such as auto-receive, print, fax-number directory and fax management are also implemented. You can create simple faxes using the internal editor. Header and footer images can be imported. More complicated faxes can be created using Calamus or any program which supports QFax drivers. I did miss the simple DTP features for creating faxes found in other fax programs. CoMa turns your Atari into a powerful answering machine letting you record up to seven different messages.

CoMa - A full communications suite in one small package!

You can also set up the program to act as a voice-mail box where messages are stored for people to listen to upon entering their personal pin number. Admittedly you will need a special voice-mail compatible modem to use this - these tend to be a bit on the expensive side.

Finally, CoMa lets you set up a mini BBS. You can log in to your computer from somewhere like your office. You may also create a password for friends to have access to the certain data! CoMa is impressive to say the least. It competes well against the commercial offerings. The shareware fees is a bit high at œ45 for just the fax part of the program going up to œ110 for all three parts. Compare it to similar priced commercial ones and CoMa wins hands down.


Software: 7UP v2.32

Category: Utility
Reviewer: Denesh Bhabuta
Status: Shareware
System: All Ataris
Score: 70%

Word processors are overkill for creating text files, be they short notes or pages of a story to be desk top published as you don't need any fancy fonts or typesetting options. This is where text editors come in, giving you fast text entry with some useful text utilities. 7UP is aimed at those who spend a lot of their time editing text documents however small or large. It is thus perfect for programming and word processing alike, not least because of the powerful formatting and checking facilities it offers.

7UP features independent windows and flexible block manipulation

7UP has all the features found in other text editors and more. You can set up macros easily using the 'Record' feature and up to 7 different files can be loaded in at one time. The edit and search functions also offer powerful options. Text can easily be toggled between upper and lower case. Particularly impressive is the highly flexible block manipulation where you can highlight whole lines, or just columns of text. The string search and replace facility is second to none with UNIX-like wildcard searching. You can even compare differences between two files.
7UP is wrapped in a slick GEM shell with all dialogues in windows. Keyboard shortcuts are fully configurable as are the names of the menu options. Each of the text windows is completely independent of the other and you can have different fonts in each. There is also a text preview facility where you can see how the text is laid out on the page.
Documents are in German but the program itself has been translated to English. It costs £25 to register.


Software: The Filler v1.05

Category: Utility
Reviewer: Denesh Bhabuta
Status: Shareware
System: All Ataris
Score: 75%

The Filler is a simple but extremely useful program for hard drive users. How many times have you tried to back up you hard drive onto floppy disks and found that 100Mb of files on a hard disk takes up around 130Mb on floppies? Or a file is just too large to fit on a disk even when it is compressed?

The Filler is a basic hard disk backup program which fills up floppies to their maximum at the same time as splitting files over various disks.

If you want no-frills hard disk backup try the Filler

As with most current utilities, The Filler runs from a single GEM dialogue box with further options a single click away. The program can also be run as an accessory. It is very easy to use: select a folder or file to be copied and off you go. Options include the ability to create an ASCII file which contains a list of the copied files. You can also specify the minimum size of files that you want split over different disks.
Copying back to hard disk is a simple matter of manually doing it. Split files however need a special program included in the package. Registration is well worth the £5 (FF30) removing the 2Mb limit. Looks can be deceptive!


Software: STD Codes v1.4

Category: Business
Reviewer: Joe Connor
Status: Freeware
System: All Ataris
Score: 75%

This handy CPX, programmed by Mark Baines, can find a location from an STD code or the STD code for a location. Simply enter the number or location in the appropriate field and select Find, it really couldn't be easier.
There are a few things to be aware of, some STD codes apply to several towns so get into the habit of checking whether the More button is selectable, if it is further pages become selectable as required. If both the location and number fields contain data the number field takes priority so if you're entering a location make sure the number field is clear.

The 0800 Freephone and other special services are also recognised

Installation involves copying the CPX, two index files and the data file to your CPX directory and activating the CPX. Best of all the data file is ASCII comma delimited file which means it can be edited and recompiled at any time using the included TOS utility so it should be easy to keep up to date whatever the telecom companies spring on us.


Software: ST-Guide v1.4e

Category: Utility
Reviewer: Joe Connor
Status: Fairware
System: All Ataris
Score: 80%

ST-Guide is the de-facto standard hypertext system for the Atari platform and is one of the utilities found on nearly every Atari system.
ST-Guide format hypertexts are always in HYP format and include links to related topics, indicated using bold underlined text. Hypertexts are commonly used to provide context sensitive on-line help within applications but there are hundreds of other hypertexts available.

Icons replace the earlier text buttons and offers more features

ST-Guide can pass messages between other programs via the AV protocol so it's better to installing ST-Guide permanently as a desktop accessory rather than running it occasionally from the desktop -it only occupies around 42kb of memory!
It's taken nearly a year to get the latest ST-Guide hypertexts into English but finally with this release everything is anglicised and up to date so upgrade to this release and trash any older versions you may have around.



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