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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