Loadstar 1/001.d81/roving report 2

Text File | 1984-01-01 | 4.3 KB | 247 lines

The Roving Reporter at SOFTCON: Part 2
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   Other companies were doing the 64

thing as well.  Sight & Sound Inter-

national Inc., one of the world's lar-

gest sheet-music publishers, and Ryo

Kawasaki, "a gifted Japanese guitarist

and visionary electronics wizard",

have joined together to bring 64 own-

ers the Kawasaki Synthesizer, one of

the most advanced SID-chip synthesizer

programs for the 64 I have ever seen.


   Batteries Included has several home

and business products such as the Home

Organizer series of specialized Data

Base Management programs, including

specialized programs for keeping track

of stamp collections, photographs &

slides & home movies, mailing lists,

home inventory, recipes, checkbook,

audio/video equipment, and even a pro-

gram called "Electronic Address Book".

They also make the BusCard II IEEE-488

and Centronics Parallel Interface unit

with BASIC V4.0, which claims to be

totally invisible to all other hard-

ware & software; the B.I.-80 80 column

adapter which claims to have no flick-

ering, hashing or interference pro-

blems that characterize competetive

units (Oh yeah! It also has BASIC V4);

The Consultant (formerly Delphi's Or-

acle), a general Data Base Management

program; PaperClip, a word processor;

and SpellPack, a spelling checker.


   Abacus Software makes many products

for the 64 including Synthy-64, a mus-

ic language; UltraBASIC-64, an exten-

sion package to BASIC that adds 50 ex-

tra commands for graphics, music, Tur-

tle graphics, sprites, etc.; Super

Disk Utility-64, a versatile disk copy

and zap utility package; Pool-64/20,

a hires Pool simulation ("8-ball off 2

racks into the corner pocket") for the

64 and VIC-20; Chartpak-64, a menu-

driven business-graphics program;

Chartplot-64, as above but with exter-

nal plotter support; Mercure-64, a

file-management program; Graphics De-

signer-64, a menu-driven program for

floor-plans, illustrations, etc.;

Screen Graphics-64, an extension to

BASIC that adds 24 hires, multicolor,

and sprite commands; Tiny BASIC and

Pascal COMPILERS and a Tiny Forth in-

terpreter; Checkbook Manager-64; and

Master-64, a professional software

development system with BASIC V4.0,

screen editing, report management,

ISAM file management and a machine-

language monitor.  Master-64 and

Chartplot-64 are Abacus Software's

most expensive packages at $84.95,

which should give you an idea of how

competetivly priced they are.


   Quicksilva, the Game Lords, has a

program called UltiSynth, which is a

rhythm and melody type music synthe-

sizer program; plus the games Aqua-

plane, Purple Turtles, Ring of Power,

Quintic Warrior and Sting.


   PSYCOMP Self-Help Software address-

es subjects like Coping with Stress,

Handling Depressed Feelings, Handling

Relationship Problems, and Treating

Sexual Problems.  The president of the

company is a licensed psychotherapist.


   Computer Software Associates, ma-

kers of PractiCalc, introduced PS: The

Programmable Spreadsheet, which allows

the user to expand the program's capa-

bilities with BASIC; PractiFile, a

data-base program; Inventory 64, an

inventory-tracking program, 64 Pak, a

collection of 10 educational programs

for children; Tiny Tutor, a math tutor

with sound and graphics; 64 Doctor,

a complete set of diagnostics for the

64, 1541, etc.; Total Health, a nutri-

tional computation aid; and Zeppelin

Rescue, an arcade-style game.


   Koala Technologies demonstrated

several new packages for their Koala

Pad, including Logo Design Master,

Paint-A-Rhyme, Spider Eater, Dancing

Bear, and others.


   InfoDesigns showed their Management

Accounting Software Solutions series,

including AR, AP, Payroll, Inventory,

and of course, General Ledger.


   Tymac, maker of The Connection par-

allel printer interface, announced

their "Tymac Talkies", a series of

games with speech that requires no

speech synthesizers.  These are very

good arcade games, with excellent gra-

phics.  There are four at present:

First Strike, Gandalf the Sorcerer,

Pegasus and the Trials of Perseus, and

Flyer Fox.


   Systems Management Associates demo-

ed CodePro-64, a system of program-

ming tutorials and aids.


   All in all, it was a really big

show, and not even this Roving Repor-

ter could cover all the exhibits in

only three days!

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