r $3.95 April-May 1987 Software A lications Swimming In The Relational Lake . .................... 14 Designing relational databases. Expert System. ................... ............ ... .... 22 Gary designs an expert system with Prolog. Nasty Software ................................. .. .. .. 82 A plague of new programs in the public domain. Hardware Applications - Controlling The Real World ............................. 6 Build an 8-channel temperature scanner. The Bleeping PC ......................... .... ... ... 30 Stra nge noises fro m clonal counters. Who's Making Great Hard Drives ...................... 44 Read before you purchase your next hard drive. Changing the Picture ............................~ ...... 86 Super graphics from a new graphics processo r. o $3.95 April-May 1987 No. 35 p~~ :~::.J ~::.:~ UJ III <..: ):1 >:~. :::1 ill t:) i:'/ r:J :::: Software A~lications I:J ..... j'TJ ::1:) :".~~ ~ t 0.1 • : L> t~:J ~.;~: t "':1 :!:~: t:'l Swimming In The Relational Lake ...................... 14 :1.'., Designing relational databases. I . Expert System ......................................... 22 :.~ I it. l.n Gary designs an expert system with Prolog. :u Nasty Software ........................................ 82 A plague of new programs in the public domain. Hardware Applications Controlling The Real World ............................. 6 Build an 8-channel temperature scanner. The Bleeping PC ...................................... 30 Strange noises from clonal counters. -.j" Who's Making Great Hard Orives ...................... 44 0 Read before you purchase your next hard drive. 1"1 00 00 /'f) Changing the Picture ............................; ...... 86 '" Super graphics from a new graphics processor. 0 I'- -.j" -.j" I'- 0 '; '.. "oa~r~; ';the' highest' ',',"" " :~'t{i\~perf,orn,ance~Uld "integ'ratio~'bf <' :,> anY,pC/XTcompatible.With its, 'tOM Hz, ,zero wait state operation it 'walks away from AT , compatibles as well. On board is one megabyte of DRAM, a real time clock, floppy disk controller, and optional one or two serial ports, SCSI port and 8087. The PC Tech SmartBIOS provides PC compatability with ease of use. We wrote it and we support it! :HER'PRODUCTS , '. ". :", ' '.!i- ~.. ", , PRICES! "·{lVIath:Copn)cessor for X16B ,,'rheX16,B087;Math Coprocessor runs at full CPU speed. That's X16B I 1 Meg I RTC .... $600.00 i;;'F::':10Ml7zofnumber smashing power! The Math Coprocessor on the 8 MHz version ...... $540.00 ,:', ""'AT;only'runsat 2/3 of the CPU clock. SCSI option ......... $25.00 ~:,~SqSIPort Option,for'X16B Serial ports (2) . ~ ..... $38.75 :.",'" '"FuJISCSI port using the 5380. Software built into ROM BIOS for the '.oMT13100 hard disk controller achieves a 1 to 1 sector interleave. 8087-1/82188 ........ $340.00 ,:" ::"";"FOlJR,,',MEGGER 8087-2/82~88 . ....... $260.00 Runri'ing out of spreadsheet room? Need something faster than a Four Megger' ......... $850.00 ,~arq disk for those long compiles? The Four Megger ,is the answer. ,T~e Four Megger meets the Lotus/lntellMicrosoft expanded 2S 1P ................. $99.00 m'emory specifications and works in all PC andXT computers. 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(612) 345·4555 COD, VISA, MASTER CARD, CERTIFIED FUNDS APPRENTICE WIZARDS' PACKAGE PACKAGE $99 $199 • Separate Compilation wfinter-module typechecking Call for information about our VAX/VMS version, Site License, University • Native Code Generation _ APPRENTICE PACKAGE $99 Discounts, Dealer & Distributor pricing. • Large Memory Model Support Everything you need to begin producing reliable maintainable Modula-2 code. Includes the Compiler To place an order call • Most Powerful Runtime Debugger with 8087 support, integrated Editor, Linker, and toll-free: • Comprehensive Module Library BCD Module. We're also including FREE our Turbo Pascal to Modula-2 Translator! 800-231-7717 • Maintainability In California: • Translator from Turbo and ANSI Pascal _ WIZARDS'PACKAGE $199 800-552-8885 This package contains our Plus Compiler-for •••••••••••••••••••••••••• professional programmers or for those who just want ' I want the spellbinding power WIN AFREE·TRIPTO the best. 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Our MAKE Utility figures out module dependencies and automatically selects Name Return your Modula-2 Registration Card or those affected by code changes to minimize recom­ Address a reasonable facsimile~ posttriarkedbetween pilation and relinking. We also provide source code March 1, 1987 and May 31;1987tobeinc1uded of our major library modules for you to customize'­ City State in a once-only drawing! . or just play with. Grand PriZe: One week excursion for 2 in Zip Phone .Zurich, Switzerlandincluding a guided tour of WINDOW PACKAGE $49 ETH, the University where M6dula-2 was Now you can build true windowing into your created by Niklaus Wirth. European custom­ Modula-2 code. Features virtual screens, color sup­ ~LOGITECH ers may substitute a trip to Silicon Valley, . port, overlapping windows and a variety of borders. WGITECH, Inc. California. ROM PACKAGE AND CROSS 805 Veterans Blvd. Redwood City, CA 94063 Second and Third Prizes: LOGITECH C7 Tel: 415-365-9852 RUN TIME DEBUGGER $299 Mouse or WGITECH Bus MoUse with Paint In Europe: fur those who want to produce rommable code. & Draw software - a $219 value, absolutely WGITECH SA, Switzerland You can even debug code running in ROM from free! . Tel: 41-21-879656 • Telex 458 217 Tech Ch your Pc. *Write to Logitech, Inc. for a registration card In Italy: facsimile. .' " Tel: 39-2-215-5622 Turbo Pascal is a registered trademark of Borland International. ••••••••••••••••••••••••• AROUND THE BEND By David Thompson Sympathy Wanted I'm bummed, burned-out, through with the humor and high jinks. Hilarity stinks. If. you want fun, make your own. Margret and I have been working day and night trying to desktop Micro C. We've created style sheets, added commands to articles, formatted listings, and generally en­ joyed our new-found power. Everything we wanted to do (reverse video, lines, captions, illustrations ... ) we did. With Ventura Publisher. Once we had our style sheets done, articles finished, boxes drawn, all we had to do was run Ventura's PostScript output through a Linotronic RIP and we'd have a magazine. So three weeks ago I packed up Sandy, the kids, and a system and headed for the nearest Linotronic. That was 108 long distance calls (covering eight states), seven express packages (two lost), and six attempts at modem communications ago. We still haven't found anyone (including Adobe, Ven­ tura, Xerox, or Linotype) who can help us dump a small PostScript file through a Linotype RIP (Raster Image Processor or Rest In Peace, you take your pick). We've badgered, berated, beleaguered, and bullied all 6 typesetting houses in the northwest that have PostScript RIPs. They were all certain they could do it. ("Hey Mur­ phy, over here. Easy pickins.") Everyone was surprised. All but Xerox (Xerox was un­ reachable) had suggestions: "Remove the special headers we add to PostScript files when they're destined for the Apple Laserwriter," was the suggestion from both Linotype and Ventura. After deleting 194 lines of illegible hex the file still wouldn't run. "You must be using more than 3 fonts. Of course, the internal fonts don't count." We were only using three fonts, internal or otherwise. Some of the houses only had MACs. I should have skipped them altogether. "Our MAC is automatically stripping carriage returns as your file comes in off the modem, and I'm getting little boxes prepended to each line. That must be the problem." The small boxes turned out to be linefeeds. Not a problem. But the RIP still couldn't output the file. "Let's see, we take this file and output it to the RIP through the MAC's PostScript interpreter. That's always worked with Apple files." Come On! It's already a PostScript file; if you PostScript it again it's not going to work. Continued On Page 97 2 MICRO CORNUCOPIA, #35, April-May 1987 April-May 1987 Issue No. 35 CONTENTS Features Russ Eberhart 60 Learn Assembly language Bruce Eckel 8088 assembly language isn't easy. Russ looks at books 6 +5V RESISTOR that'll help you register all those segments. Controlling NETWORK The Real RN2 Bruce Eckel 72 Concise Computer Electronics World Bruce covers beginning hardware procedure for beginning Bruce builds an 8- hardware builders.