Atari Classics Magazine Reviewed - By Dean Garraghty
(c)1995 Dean Garraghty
Not too long ago, most of us had given up Atari Classics Magazine for
dead. With the original team deciding to call it a day, its future
looked bleak. However, it was "rescued" by a team of people in
California, headed by Jim Hood and Bob Woolley. Since then, they have
produced 3 issues. The most recent two arrived with us recently, and I
decided to have a good look at them, and write about what's happening
in the States and who's writing about what.
The first of the two issues is Vol.4, No.1 (Jan/Feb 1995). This is 40
pages in length, but 18 pages of this are taken up in advertising, the
front cover, and the contents page. The Editor's Page in this issue
explains what the situation is with AC. Jim Hood, who "rescued" the
magazine has developed cancer, and is not too well at all. Therefore,
Bob Woolley is currently looking after things. The A-T-A-R-I column
shows how to add sound to your monitor. It also talks about
transferring files to/from a PC, and talks about UTIL, which as some
News-Paper readers will know, often causes me much misery!! The Garret
column talks about a TV Bingo game, and waffles on for pages about
nothing at all to do with the Atari! An article named BASIC OFF! talks
about how to disable BASIC from within other programming languages. Two
educational software packages are then reviewed - "Decoding" which
teaches spelling and word pronunciation, and "Elements of Chemistry"
which teaches the periodic table. The article Keycode Getter talks
about using location 764 to get key presses. The regular 65816 column
talks about how to use and program this 16-bit processor upgrade for
the Atari. The TT Touch article talks about a simple way of improving
the feel of the XE keyboards. The Red Faced and Doghoused article talks
about a programming evening by some members of a user group.
The advertisers in this issue are: Evangelo's Software, K-Products,
Frank M. Polosky, Toad Computers, B&C ComputerVisions, More Than Games,
DGS, GFH Marketing, Richard Gore, Video 61, Bolt's Electronic Repair
Service, Palette Imaging Inc.
The Next issue is Vol.4, No.2, which is dated March/April 1995 but I am
told this is the current issue. This too has 40 pages, and 20 pages are
taken by adverts, the front cover, and the contents page.
The first article in this issue is called Percom Primer. This is a long
article which talks about the Percom disk drives which were available
for the Atari. It tells you all about them, how to fix any which don't
seem to work, how they operate, what they can and can't do, and loads
more. Even if you can't get a Percom drive, this is a very useful
article to read. The next article is about a new PAL upgrade for the
NTSC machines. The nir-PAL upgrade allows NTSC users to run PAL-happy
programs and demos on NTSC machines without them crashing or running in
black and white!
The next article is a solution to "The Count" adventure. Another
article on the 65816 upgrade talks about programming it. A list of US
and Australian Atari user groups is on the next page. The next few
pages are taken up by re-printed software reviews on European software.
It seems the Americans have only just discovered Ruff&Reddy,
Battleship, and Yogi's Great Escape!! The next article called Besting
Basic is an article all about Basic, along with programming tips.
The advertisers in this issue are much the same as in the last, but the
following didn't advertise last issue:
Mytek, produce a device called
Studio II, which is basically a genlocker for the Atari, but only for
NTSC systems.
Computer Software Services,
sell the R-Time 8 cart, Action! cart, BASIC XL cart, BASIC XE cart,
MAC/65 cart, Super E-Burner, and Multiplexer which allows up to 8
Ataris to read from the same drives, use the same printer, and talk to
one another.
So, what did I think of these two issues? Well, they're not too bad at
all! You will find that the text is quite big and well spaced out, so
you might be getting 20 pages of articles, but the amount in reality
would be less. However, the writing is top notch, and it has a far
better mix of articles than ever before. If you want to keep up to date
with what's happening in the US, then Atari Classics is the magazine to
read. A subscription form is included in this issue of the News-Paper.
Originally published in The Atari 8-bit News-Paper.
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