~Hie San Francisco APPLE CORE presents -fHt 6EST Of vB.0Ui THE DATA BASE YOUR APPLE HAS BEEN WAITING FOR! Available September 1980 48K/ROM APPLESOFT/DISK at the computer store near you. "HUMAN ENGINEERED" FOR EASE OF DATA PACKING FOR INCREASED USE BY NON PROGRAMMERS DISK CAPACITY • No complex "menu trees" Integers stored in one or 2 bytes, real numbers in 5 bytes • Easy-to-follow prompting Recurring characters and un-used portions of alphanumeric • Formats displayed on screen as you create them fields packed into 2 bytes • Easy . .. Convenient editing for all inputs Special code fields store short codes, but print full descrip­ • 10 data types, including auto-formatting for dates, phone tions on reports numbers, social security numbers • Calculator style right to left input for $ fields POWERFUL REPORT GENERATOR LARGE CAPACITY Up to 100 columns on 1 to 9 lines Up to 24 computed fields—compute with record values, • Up to 100 fields (items) per record constants or other computed fields • Record size to 1020 bytes Up to 5 horizontal subtotals (assign any field to any subtotal) • 1-4f ields in primary keys and grand total • Any number of secondary keys Up to 6 sort and control break fields—column sub totals at • 1 to 9 user formatted screen pages or "masks" per record, control breaks and page breaks and 1 - 24 fields per "mask" Control break or compute on printing and non-printing fields • Special "update masks" for rapid editing Comment lines and fields, auto page numbering and report dating, number formatting, and much more! FAST ISAM FILING SYSTEM Retrieve ANY RECORD from a FULL DISK, IN LESS • Records are sorted by primary and secondary keys AS THAN 3 SECONDS THEY ARE ENTERED Search for records by any combination of range, wild cards, • Three levels of password protection partial strings, and relational, etc. All specifications are preliminary and subject to change. Also Available: r,Aristotle'S c-Apple by Scot Kamins A computerized tutor for ANY subject, at ANY level. by Arthur Wells $34.95 48K/Disk/ Applesoft Finally . The Hi-res Baseball that's as good as the Apple! $24.95 32K/Disk Applesoft or Integer ELECTRONIC PRICE'SHEET by Scot Kamins by Bill B udge, creator of Trilogy and Penny A rcade A sales tool for retailers. $100 48K/Disk/Applesoft $29.95 32K/Disk/Applesoft or Integer by Barney Stone 6y Arthur Wells $39.95 48K/D1SK $19.95 48K/Disk Integer A powerful, easy to use appointment calendar. A 2-player knife fight—rated "R" for violence! Calif. Res. Add 6% Sales Tax. No COD'S. Add $2.00 for Shipping & Handling. Use Check, Money Order, VISA or MASTERCARD (add Exp.). APPLE 0 is a TM of Apple Computer, Inc. DEALER INQUIRIES INVITED. 1930 Fourth Street, San Rafael, CA 94901<: (415) 454-6500 BEST OF THE 'CIDER PRESS INTRODUCTION The SAN FRANCISCO A PPLE C ORE star ted in Airil of 1978 because I couldn't figure out how t o use my Apple II. While the people in the store where I bought my machine weren't ex actl y d isd ainful of my approaches for help, it became c lear fairl y quickl y that they knew very 1i ttl e more than I d id about the beast. My ba ckground is in the humanities and de cidedly not in the hard sciences. But I did seem t o have a t alent for organizing born out of my work in the various freedom and peace movements of the 60's. "Let's see", I fool ishl y though t. "If I write to a few magazines and contact a store or two, maybe I can get a few guys together once a month to rap..." Sure, kid . The Apple Core's membership is now hovering around 800. We have over 400 working programs in the library. There are around six active committees and about a dozen highly active volunteers running things. There are at least four (count them) meetings per month, including one g eneral, one political/organizational and one b eginners's and one new sletter. We had two publications - APPLE PEELING f or input and the CIDER PRESS fo r ouput. Personally, I think things have gotten somewhat out of hand. Be t hat as it may, the APPLE C ORE had its roots in the concept of mutual aid The idea was for people who did't know much t o get together and share what knowledge they had, and I supposed, that the little pieces of knowing vould mate and reproduce) . It is to our credit (pat-pat-pat) that the spirit continues. The APPLE C ORE is still a place where beginners can come and get help. But we no w have a fair contingent of heavies who share arcane know ledge i n the dark of the night, too. A bunch of us run computer stores or write contract programs or work at the source itsel f (Gaw-lee!) . Of course, aside from the above, we have our strange sorts, too. There's John Scr ibbl emonger , our somewhat competent, crude-but-effective first publications editor. At last report, he had sold his mansion high above Mil pitas and has moved to Three M ile Island. J. Alfred Glitch needs no introduction - so we'll skip him. There's the nefarious Dr. Qwan W. Min and his counterpart, Professor Schmuch the good , both of whom ca rry out a c lassic good-and-ev il struggle via modems. Aid, of course, there's the Commodore's Pet DOS, Tige. I could go on an d on, but HIMEM's being approached. This edition of the Best of the Cider Press represents our various attempts to pull our computers and our sanity together. We ho pe you enj oy reading the articles and applying the suggestions as much as we enjo yed devising and writing them. Keep on coding. SCOT KAMINS - ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF APPLE CO RE TABLE OF CONTENTS GENERAL FEATURES PQ. 4-0 HOW TO SELECT A PRINTER 11-14 APPLE DOS ARTICLES 10-17 PRODUCT REVIEWS 19-23 LANGUAGES 26-34 SOUND AND MUSIC 36-37 MODIFICATIONS 30-43 GRAPHIC INFORMATION 46-46 UTILITIES 40-62 APPLE CORE LIBRARY 64-67 CHECKBOOK-DISK V87.4 69-02 CHARTS AND TABLES 03-08 PEEKS, POKES, AND CALLS 09-71 SFj^APPLE CORE BEST OF APPLE CORE "THE CIDER PRESS" The APPLE CORE OF SAN FRANCISCO is a non-profit SECOND PRINTING 8/80 organization comprised of, and supported by, Apple II Computer owners. The Apple Core is run entirely by volunteer officers and committees. The club endeavors to aid other APPLE owners. All members are individuals STAFF (and their families), and NO shops, stores, or corporations are directly registered. (However, any shop may register an employee c/o that shop). EDITOR/PUBLISHER KEN SILVERMAN ASSISTANT TO EDITOR KATHY STARK LEROY LARSEN MEETINGS MONTHLY MEETINGS are held at Fort Mason and is ASSISTANT EDITORS PHIL BERNHEIM RANDY FIELDS located in San Francisco at Laguna and Marina Blvd. General meetings start at 10 AM. The GLEN HOAG building is C and the room number is 300. GENE WILSON Meetings are held on the first Saturday of each month. Anyone interested in the Apple Computer is ADVERTISING MARTY COHEN welcome to attend. PETER WEIGLIN CIDER PRESS POLICY CALLIGRAPHY JIM LINHART All manuscripts, photography, and other materials are GRAPHICS JIM LINHART submitted free and released for publication. They PEGGY HUGHES become the property of the Apple Core and the Cider EMILIE HANCE Press. Authors should clearly mark all material submitted for publication so that credit may be given. The publishers/editors do not necessarily agree with, nor stand responsible for, opinons expressed or implied 1979 OFFICERS by others than themselves in this publication. FRED WILKINSON All articles appearing in the CIDER PRESS not PRESIDENT copyrighted by the author may be reprinted so long as proper credit is given to both the Cider Press and the BRUCE TOGNAZZINI author. Proper credit is defined as article title, VICE PRESIDENT author, and the words "Printed from VOL x, NO y of the Cider Press. GOEFF BALDWIN TREASURER Permission to reprint an article may be gained by writing to the author c/o the APPLE CORE. BILL NEFF SECRETARY ADVERTISER'S INDEX 9 AMREX CAP 1N SOFTWARE 24 18 COMPUTERLAND OF SAN FRANCISCO COMPUTERLAND OF THE CASTRO 15 1980 OFFICERS COMPUTERLAND OF MARIN 58 INFORMATION UNLIMITED SOFTWARE, INC IBC INTERNATIONAL APPLE CORE 53 38 M & R ENTERPRISES SAN FRANCISCO APPLE CORE 53 STONEWARE IFC RANDY FIELDS 10 PRESIDENT SOUTHWESTERN DATA SYSTEMS WYMAN ASSOCIATES 44 KAREN WEISS VICE PRESIDENT PHIL BERNHEIM TREASURER BILL NEFF SECRETARY G ENERAL FEATURES ROM-Read Only Memory. Memory with Starting with the first element of an TERMINOLOGY permanent instructions that cannot be array (the sort shown here is for an erased. array of real numbers but applies to Integer and String arrays as well) the BY KEN 8ILVERMAN S0FTWARE-A11 programs including array is searched to find the smallest systems or applications programs. element (assuming we want to sort into ascending order) and that element is There are a great deal more terms used placed in position 1 of the array. Just as in any other speciality, the by computer persons today. If you Next, we start with element number 2 people involved in data processing wish to know the definition of some and find the smallest element left in equipment have developed their own term, just write to the Cider Press, the array and place it in position terminology.