French Atari Show; Alibi; Panther

DEREK JOHNSON reports on a successful French Atari show, whets your appetite for the current issues of the Atari mags, and rounds up more software news and tips.

As an Atari user myself, I probably shouldn't be surprised at the platform's refusal to die, but it never ceases to amaze me that the ST and all its offshoots still manage to support magazines, web sites and, amazingly, shows. The shows run last year in the UK by Goodman's PDL are likely to be followed by more this year, and Germany is also a hotbed of this kind of thing. Early in December of last year, a large two-day show was run at the Bervy-Expo in Paris; the 2500 visitors to the second Forum des Applications Atari were treated to first-hand experience of Hades, the super-charged Falcon clone from Swiss Precision mentioned in last month's Atari Notes, plus the start of a new range from French company Centek: a pair of accelerator boards (the 25MHz CENTurbo I and the 75MHz CENTurbo II) and a stand-alone computer, the Phenix, available with 66MHz 040 or 120MHz 060 CPUs. There's no news yet on whether they will be available in the UK, but on the show front there are already plans to run a third Forum next December. Thanks to French magazine Keyboards for the information.

The second issue of the sole remaining UK print magazine dedicated to the Atari in all its incarnations is out now. The 64-page Atari Computing magazine -- a disk full of software is available as an option -- offers loads of features and reviews of commercial and shareware software. Issue 2 includes reviews of Alexander Clauss's CAB GEM-based web browser and Michael Guse's MG-Ftp ftp client -- just what the Atari user with a modem and an Internet account needs. On a musical level there are reviews of a couple of chip music packages and Ben Hall's Dump-It System Exclusive utility. There's also a review of a new version of Gem-Rec96, a 2-track direct-to-disk recorder for the Falcon 030. A subscription to Atari Computing costs from £9 (£11.50 Europe, £12 North America, £13 other) for three issues without reader disk to £30 (£35, £36, £38) for six issues, including disk. A sample copy costs £3. For more info, contact the magazine at Rois Bheinn, Overton Crescent, Johnstone, PA5 8JB (or email ataricomputing@cix.co.uk.com).

We've also mentioned AtariPhile before in these pages; this is the on-line magazine for Atari users, whose fourth issue was posted around Christmas -- which accounts for the festive lighting on the main page! The 'magazine' manages to maintain some of the cohesive feel of something that's been printed, and is once again packed with information. This issue sees an increase in music coverage, with an article on scoring with Steinberg's Cubase, the start of a regular MIDI column and the first part of a music and MIDI series. The best place to check out AtariPhile issue 4 is at the web site (http://walusoft.co/fff, or ftp at ftp.metkonect/pub/atari/atariphile/), but those without Internet access can obtain a disk version of the mag from Colin Fisher-McAlum, at 11 Pound Meadow, Whitchurch, Hants RG28 7LG. Send a pair of formatted double-density disks, plus an SAE and two first-class stamps per issue; non-UK residents should send International Reply Coupons. PD libraries are also handling the mag (try Goodman's on 01782 335650; Floppyshop ST on 01224 312756; or the FaST Club on 0115 945 5250).

As promised after last month's mention of the Dump-It SysEx management and conversion utility, we now have details of the software's availability: it can be ftp'd from ftp.cnam.fr, nic.funet.fi, and Hensa (ftp://micros.hensa.ac.uk/micros/atari/atari.html. Note that because Hensa is an educational site with a heavy load during the daytime, access is only available between 8pm and 8am, UK time. For those without an Internet account, check Goodmans PDL, who should be able to help. And just to remind you, you can still browse Dump-It author Ben Hall's personal home page at http://www.city.ac.uk/~cb170/home.html.

Ben also told us about a new sample utility for the ST that should be available shortly. SampleC, by Richard Evans, will offer librarian, conversion and MIDI Sample Dump Standard facilities, with a similar interface to Dump-It. It's looking good, and we'll let you know where you can get it as soon as we know more.

When working with Steinberg's Cubase it can sometimes be difficult to determine whereabouts in a song you are, particularly when many of the tracks consist of a single part. I get around this by firstly creating an 'arrangement part' in an unused track that runs for the whole length of the song. Once I have this part, I then chop it up at specific reference points and name the new parts 'verse 1', 'chorus', 'middle 8', and so on. This track can then be placed at the top of the Arrange window and used to set locate points. I usually mute the track, but unmute it when performing global cuts or inserts, to keep the references in their correct positions. Paul Ward

In a recent scan of the goodies available over the Internet from ftp.mcc.ac.uk, I came across a couple of utilities that I think are worthy of particular note for hard disk users. The first is called Alibi, and it's a small utility that creates 'aliases' of other program files. The aliases are, in fact, very small programs which do nothing more than run the 'real' program. This effectively allows you to keep all your applications in one folder while, in reality, they are all held separately in their own folders -- even on a completely different disk drive or partition. No more clicking through multiple windows and folders to find a specific application -- just create an Alibi file and run everything from a single folder. At the time of writing I had run Alibi for a few days and tried it with all my regular music software, with 100% success. The documentation is all in German, unfortunately, but operation is simplicity itself and the dialogue can be switched to English.

Next up is PAnTHer. This is a memory-resident program that interrupts the normal load and save routines to force particular files or generic file types to be associated with specific locations on your hard drive. It's an easy task to hide all of those system files (XXXXXXXX.SYS) and program/desktop information files (XXXXXXXX.INF) in their own folders to keep your root folder clean. All Accessories (probably the single biggest cause of clutter in root folders) can be placed in their own folder too. There is a document detailing the installation and usage of PAnTHer, although I found some of it unclear, leading to a few bombs until we'd come to a mutual understanding. The only files that remain in my root folder now are my hard disk driver and PANTHER.INF. The single drawback I've come across is that file saves are also redirected to the associated folder. This means that if you try to save files to a floppy drive, they're actually trying to save back to where they have been read from! This means that making backups is impossible until you boot from an alternative drive to prevent PAnTHer loading! The documentation details a 'load only' command option, but I can't seem to get it to work. On balance, this seems a small price to pay, but if anyone out there knows how to get around the problem I'd like to hear about it. Paul Ward

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