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

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Science Fact, Science Fiction. I Love Both, I Hate Both. It Just Depends on Whether There's a Computer in the Room. COMPUTE! • GREGG KEIZER Science fact, science fiction. That's what this issue is about. One I love deeply, the other I could do without. I was the kid in science class who turned on the Bunsen burner and pointed the flame across the lab table. Charred note book pages and some singed hair were the usual results. I refused to take biology in high school—not because of some open- mouthed respect for the rights of frogs, but because I thought lectures about the lym phatic system would be boring. Instead, I took chemistry my last year; a handful of seniors lorded it over a class composed of juniors who were science geeks from the get- go. Sometime in there we stuck an unfortu nate junior under the emergency fire- dousing shower and pulled the chain: 30 gallons of water spilled over him and the classroom floor. In college I made the mistake of taking an Honors class in something called Practi cal Biology. I should have read the course description a bit more carefully. I ended up in a class full of pre-med majors, people who were born with knives in their hands. And the class! We operated on dogs at an animalresearch facility—simple operations at first. then more involved procedures. Everyone had to take turns playing head surgeon, or assistant surgeon, or nurse. There I was with a scalpel poised above a slowly breathing mongrel when I should have been in front of a typewriter in the journalism department. I was cured of science for good. Science fiction, on the other hand, was something I took to like dark to the night. I went through every SF novel in my home town library, then convinced my mother to let me use her card so that I could check out books from the adult section upstairs. Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein. Robert Silverberg, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and hun dreds of other writers filled my head with tales of strange worlds, strange ships, and even stranger beings. It was everything sci ence wasn't—fresh, inviting, imaginative, creative, and most of all, lots and lots of fun. So when I decided I wanted to write fic tion, I knew it had to be science fiction. I wrote bad stuff, not-so-bad stuff, and, final ly, good stuff that someone wanted to pub lish. Now I write strange stories about people who can't die. prisoners in an alien war, Hitler coming back from the dead. Stuff my mother takes a rain check on. (You must be doing something right when your mom can't fathom your stories.) But there's no science in mv science fic tion. A dash here, a splash there—just enough to get me by. Not the nuts-and-bolts kind of science fiction that writers like Greg ory Benford or Larry Niven put out. Yet when I look at the computer soft ware for science and science fiction, I get the strangest feeling. I may have made a mis take somewhere. Science on a computer is cool. Cooler by far than science fiction. As David Stanton points out in this is sue's "Science!," science software lets you manipulate the universe. Pretend to experi ment with chemicals too dangerous for any teenager to handle. Track a grizzly bear through the wilds. Peer into the body of a human or a frog. All these windows on the world are only possible because of the per sonal computer. The future of scienceoriented simulations alone is staggering. Imagine splitting the atom, splicing genes. delving into the guts of a tornado—all from the safe side of a computer screen. Science software makes science come alive in ways I never dreamed of when I was mixing strange concoctions in an empty drawer during Chem class. If there had been personal com puters and science software when I was growing up, I might be sitting in a lab now instead of pounding keys like this. Science-fiction computer games, on the other hand, can't match the real thing. Orson Scott Card, in "Light-Years and Lasers," takes a look at 11 topnotch games and draws the same conclusion: SF games are often not good science fiction. There's no contest be tween a well-written, contemporary SF nov el (Great Sky River, for instance, by Greg Benford) and a science-fiction computer game when it comes to plot, characteriza tion, even originality. Rather, SF computer games work because, as Card says, they "do an excellent job of what only computer games can do." That means letting you par ticipate in the science fiction, letting you in on the adventure to new worlds, new times. Yet for all its charm, science-fiction com puter entertainment dulls me; the anticipa tion of the game is almost always better than the game itself. It's like the feeling I get watching reruns of "Mister Ed"—the show isn't nearly as funny as I remembered it from my eight-years-old days. If there had been personal computers and science-fiction software when I was a kid, I might be writ ing stories that my mother, heaven forbid, would actually read. Science fiction. Science fact. I love both, I hate both. It just depends on whether there's a computer in the room. B
Fabulous Ad Lib synthe sized sound is now available with your favorite entertain ment software! If your ears perk up at th idea of adding even more excitement to your com- j puter, listen to this. Synthesizer Card that set the home computer music world on its ear just a year ago is now stepping out with some of the hottest entertainment software on PCs anywhere. So you get to experience a whole new dimension of thrills and excitement. Ail it takes is the Ad Lib Music Synthesizer Card and any one of the growing number of IBM PC pack ages that include an Ad Lib enhanced sound track. You'll find it in new games from Acti- vision. Electronic Arts, Lucas Films, Origin, Paragon, Sierra, and Taito. And in more titles, from more pub lishers, all the time. And remember, with the Ad Lib card, you've got one serious sound synthe sizer. In fact, it uses the same digital sound technology as the best electronic keyboards, so you hear rich, rumbling base, crystal clear highs, and true up-front mid-range. It also has up to 11 discreet channels for up to 11 different instruments and game sounds playing at once. And the built-in amplifier and output jack let you listen with head phones, bookshelf speakers, or even your home stereo. So don't just sit there looking at your computer. Get the Ad Lib card for the kind of sensa tional sound that makes the PC worth listening to, as well. wmmn Ad Lib Music Synthesizer Card — $195.00 You can also use the Ad Lib card with these exciting Ad Lib packages: Juke Box — FREE with the Ad Lib card. The original music playback program. Visual Composer — $89.95 Powerful spreadsheet-like music editor. Includes entry level composition guide. Visual Composer/MIDI Supplement — $39.95 MIDI sequencing option for Visual Composer. Instrument Maker — $49.95 Create thou sands of new instrument sounds. Music Championship #1, Basic Concepts — $39.95 Challenging music training jnd Space Quest III tram Sierra (bottoml. j*^ competition, Pop-Tunes Memory music playback program. Programmer's anual — Complete technical guide with examples formats. Ad Lib Personal Computer Music System — $245.00 Includes the Ad Lib card, Visual Composer, and Juke Box at a great low price. System Requirements: IBM" PC, XT, AT or compatible, 256K RAM (384K for MIDI Supple ment}, DOS 2.0 or higher, CGA, EGA or MGA. For the name of your nearest dealer, for a phone demonstra tion, or to place your order, call us toll-free from the US or Canada today. (International: 1-418-529-9676) Ad Lib Inc. 50 Staniford Street,Suite 800 Boston, MA 02114 AdLib 1-800463-2686
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Page 9 and 10: Mean Mister Mustard vs. Macintosh T
Page 11 and 12: 1 5 sure steps to a fast start as a
Page 13 and 14: SUMMER, IT WON'T BE THE WEATHER THA
Page 15 and 16: HOT NEW SELECTIONS! OFFICIAL I BOOK
Page 17 and 18: Apple vs. Amiga Recently, while loo
Page 19: GREAT NEWS FOR IBM, TANDY, & PC COM
Page 22 and 23: •m- Hundreds of science programs
Page 24 and 25: SCIENCE! to remember, however, that
Page 26 and 27: SCIENCE! many inches of snow fall d
Page 28 and 29: FROM PRICE TO PERFORMANCE, THERE'S
Page 30 and 31: 28 COMPUTE!
Page 32 and 33: Games Aren't Books But are these ga
Page 34 and 35: etween the desire to put a lot of i
Page 36 and 37: Balance of Power: 1990 Edition This
Page 38 and 39: Heidi Aycock, Steven Anzovin, Gregg
Page 40 and 41: upgrade options, depending on your
Page 42 and 43: Amiga The recent explosive growth i
Page 44 and 45: Battlefront Strategic Studies Group
Page 46 and 47: MAGNAVOX CM8762 • 17% Larger Scre
Page 48 and 49: Lyco Computer Marketing & Consultan
Page 50 and 51: The Oregon Trail MECC Apple II, IBM
Page 52 and 53: COMPUTER DIRECT Since 1979 WE WON'T
Page 54 and 55: PC's Newest Norton; Latest 128 Deli
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arcade game, Powerplay com bines so
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stegosaurs, brontosaurs, and tyrann
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their immense software base. The co
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REVIEWS pers before the music stops
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H REVIEWS dents spend requesting ca
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m reviews hyped-up fanfare that ope
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P REVIEWS weasel. They giggle uncon
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n reviews As a parent or other adul
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n reviews mapped formats. You can u
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n reviews Right Side (3) Rear (2) L
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the Hercules graphics card. Display
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Cocaine can make you blind. Cocaine
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Turn On Your Computer and Throw Ope
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