Meet the movers and shakers. (COMPUTE/NET) (Column)
by Richard C. Leinecker
November 11-17, 1991, will go down in history as a special week. That's because it was Sierra week on COMPUTE/NET on GEnie. Trivia quizzes with prizes, the latest Sierra demo software for downloading, and realtime conferences with the Sierra folks provided exciting events each and every day.
If you think you're an expert on Sierra software, you can still take the Sierra trivia quiz. It's in the COMPUTE Game section. We're not giving prizes anymore, but you'll still have a good time trying to match wits with the other Sierra trivia mavens. You can, however, win prizes by playing the COMPUTE scavenger hunt. It has questions about the latest issue of COMPUTE magazine. Prizes include magazine subscriptions, disk products, books, and connect time.
During Sierra week we had three realtime conferences: one with Corey and Lori Cole, authors of Quest for Glory; another with Al Lowe, author of Leisure Suit Larry; and the third with Ken and Roberta Williams, founders of Sierra. The discussions were lively, entertaining, and informative. You can get the transcripts and find out what went on by getting on COMPUTE/NET on GEnie, finding COMPUTE's PC Magazine software library, and downloading THECOLES.TXT (the transcript of Corey and Lori Cole's RTC), ALLOWE.TXT (the transcript of Al Lowe's RTC), and KENROB.TXT (the transcript of Ken and Roberta Williams's RTC).
In January we're sponsoring another event. It's going to feature Broderbund's PlayMaker Football software. You'll be able to download the demo software, play the PlayMaker Trivia quiz and try for fabulous prizes, and participate in several realtime conferences. It's the perfect time for this to happen, too, right before the 1992 Super Bowl. Hope to see you there.
We've had lots of requests online for our previously published BASIC programs. It seems that the advent of Visual Basic and the preponderance of QuickBASIC have awakened a sleeping giant. BASIC is back, and plenty of hobbyists want BASIC programs to tinker with and learn from. Since you asked for them, we're more than happy to comply. Just log on to COMPUTE/NET on GEnie or America Online, go to COMPUTE's PC Magazine software library, and you'll find tons of BASIC programs.
We uploaded several of our BASIC collections with source code only (those are the BAS files). After getting some feedback, though, we've started to include both the source code and the compiled, executable program so that nonprogrammers can have ready-to-run software without having to fool with BASIC. We're going back now and adding the compiled programs to the source code files we uploaded earlier. When you look through the files, note whether they're EXE files.
As always, COMPUTE/NET has software in its libraries that you'll want to download. To find the files, just log on to COMPUTE/NET and go to the software library section. Here are my recommendations.
This month's featured GIF picture is MOONFOOT.GIF. It's a hi-res, 256-color picture of an astronaut's foot on the moon. It was taken by the astronaut himself, looking down at his foot on the lunar surface. It's not only attractive but also thought provoking.
If you need a utility that gives you keypress shortcuts, try SuperMAC (filename SUPERMAC.ZIP). It's a keyboard macro utility that was published on COMPUTE's PC Disk. For those of you new to PCs, a keyboard macro program lets you store a sequence of keypresses that can be called with one hot key. For repetitive tasks, a utility of this kind saves you endless time and energy by easily repeating sequences of keypresses. This program isn't shareware, so you won't get requests for a registration fee. You won't have much trouble using it. For a program of this type, it's easy to use and has most of the features of commercial macro utilities.
If you like playing cards, you'll love Card Shark (filename CARDSHRK.ZIP). It has all of the casino favorites: poker, blackjack, baccarat, and solitaire. For poker, blackjack, and baccarat you can play up to five hands and sit in any position. That's great for those of you who're practicing for the next junket to Atlantic City or Las Vegas. The program even gives you advice if you don't know what you should do next. The colorful graphics run in CGA, EGA, Tandy 16-color, and VGA graphics modes.
What do you think of COMPUTE magazine? If you have suggestions or comments, there's an easy way to talk to us and get a swift response. Get onto COMPUTE/NET and leave messages to the editors and staff in our message section. It's probably the least formal way to communicate with the COMPUTE staff, and because of that, you'll get friendly and speedy answers to your questions and comments.
If you have any questions or comments about COMPUTE/NET, you can write to me here at COMPUTE in Greensboro or send E-mail to RLEINECKER on GEnie, Rick CL on America Online, or 75300,2104 on CompuServe.