& LIGHT-YEARS! - TRS-80 Color Computer Archive

genlock board is a must. And for the
moment, Apple's Video Overlay Card
is the only card game in town.
Apple lie and lies—$549
Apple Computer
20525 Marian! Ave.
Cupertino, CA 95104
(415)996-1010
Project Firestart
— GK
Since it's been called "a horror movie
in space," you can probably guess
which film Project Firestart took as in
spiration. Inexorable, insatiable crea
tures are loose on a space station. You
have to stop them.
You arrive at the station, aware
only that something is very wrong. Im
mediately, you encounter carnage of the
most gruesome sort: severed limbs,
blood-splashed walls, rooms carpeted
with corpses. This is not a game for the
squeamish or the very young.
The rest of us can have grim fun
exploring the large, multilevel station.
unlocking its secrets, walking its long
corridors, looking for lurking monsters.
Pay attention—your life depends on it.
While you're armed with lasers
and can find other weapons, your most
important tool is your wits. By access
ing computer records, for example, you
can uncover the creatures' tolerances
and vulnerabilities. If you're quick, you
can manipulate station systems to pro
duce deadly traps.
Cutaway scenes enhance the
game's cinematic feel. Graphics and
animation are well realized, and the
soundtrack is excellent. Documentation
is slight, but a few minutes with the
game should familiarize you with most
of its conventions.
This is an entertaining, if unspec
tacular, program that succeeds at what
it sets out to do—put you in a horror
movie in space.
— KF
Commodore 54/128—$29.95
Electronic Arts
1820 Gateway Dr.
San Mateo, CA 94404
(415)571-7171
MenuWorks
This program won't plan nutritious
meals or draw up a grocery list. But it
will customize your IBM PC or com
patible computer so that you can run
your favorite programs at the touch of a
key—without ever facing the DOS
command line.
Upon installation, MenuWorks
will search your hard disk for execut
able files (.EXE) and build menus for
those applications. For instance, if it
finds WordPerfect in your computer
(WP.EXE), it will construct a menu
called Word Processing and make
WordPerfect an item on that menu.
MenuWorks'artificial intelligence rou
tines recognize more than 1000 popular
software programs, from business ap
plications to games.
If you'd rather design the menus
yourself, Menu Works gives you that
option as well. The program works with
color and monochrome systems, offers
mouse support, allows for password
protection, and supports an almost un
limited number of menus with as many
as 81 choices in each. It also features
several useful DOS commands that are
tied to function keys—everything from
setting the date to copying files.
If you want to move away from the
DOS prompt but the thought of creat
ing batch files and arranging the syntax
in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file gives
you heartburn, this nifty little program
sets a fine table.
IBM PC. PS/2, and compatibles—S24.95
PC Dynamics
31332 Via Colinas
Suite 102
Westlake Village, CA 91362
(818)889-1741
Contributing to "Fast Looks" this month
were Heidi E. H. Aycock, Keith Ferrell,
Gregg Keizer, and Peter Scisco.
PC Tools
— PS
Deluxe, Version
5.0
PC Tools Deluxe is more than a diverse
collection of utilities—it's truly a pro
gram for everyone. Beginners seeking a
single program to help them get started,
intermediate users looking to improve
their productivity, and power users
wanting to wring out the last bit of per
formance from their PCs will find what
they need in this renaissance package.
Beginners will benefit from PC
Tools Deluxe's PC Shell, which gives
MS-DOS a friendlier face, making it
easier and faster to use. Managing files
with PC Shell's V-2-J-style menus
works well, although some of the key
assignments could benefit from a better
arrangement.
In the shell, a drive directory tree
appears on the left of the screen, a list of
files in the currently highlighted direc
tory on the right. Choose from Copy,
Move, Compare, Change, and other
commands when working with files; for
disk management, you can also select
Search, Format, Park Disk, and Get
Disk Info. Users can maintain directo-
Move quickly from task to task with the
latest version of PC Tools Deluxe.
ries, print files, use a simple text editor,
run programs, and perform other tasks
from the shell.
If desired, you can customize the
PC Shell screen colors, size of windows,
and other attributes. More importantly,
you can also add your favorite pro
grams to the Applications menu and,
from there, launch WordPerfect, 1-2-3,
or other applications with only three
keystrokes.
The Applications menu comes
packed with utilities: Compress Disk, to
improve disk performance; PCBACKUP,
with optional fast-backup and sizecompression
features; MIRROR, which
offers great insurance against acci
dentally formatting a disk; PC Format,
which replaces the standard DOS com
mand; and PC Secure, for password
protection and file encryption.
If the shell provides comfortable
shelter for beginning PC users, then PC
Tools Deluxe's Desktop furnishes pow
er with an expansive versatility. Open
as many as 15 windows at a time.
Switch between tasks at will. Besides a
notepad, a database (a nonrelational file
manager), a calculator, and a calendar,
the Desktop includes an outline editor,
a telecommunications program, a mac
ro editor, a clipboard, and miscella
neous utilities.
The notepad won't replace a fullfeatured
word processor, but it's great
for popping up over another applica
tion to create or edit a file quickly. The
notepad's autosave and spell-checking
features are also a boon to busy com
puter users, as are the macros that let
you produce special printing effects—if
you're prepared to spend time and ef
fort learning how. Until you gain that
experience, you can port important
JUNE 1989 63