Your Commodore - Commodore Is Awesome

C64 REVIEWS
The Newsralcom
Desi91
-
newspapers with
this package fr-oia
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Writing and publishing your- own
newspaper is somethinzg that many pe_
ople i will . have tried. Thew fi rst
entry into the world of journalism
may have been a school magazine, a
paper for their club or e
-local
church magazine_ There's no
doubting it there's a little bit of the
ven 'Rupert t 'Eurdoch's' h e
in all of us_
The newsroom, one of the latest
releases from Ariolasoft, brings the
world of electronic publishinAg to
your C64 computer_
Basically the program turns your
computer into a complete printing
-
operation_ At your: disposal you have
the 'Photo Lab where you can
generate any photographs that are
required to accompany your text. The
'Banner' studio •.110T4S you to design
the headline for your paper-, at the
'Copy desk' you can write your
stories, the 'Layout' area allows you
to design your paper and at last you
can print it with. the 'Press'.
One further and extremely
interesting
Service'. -
This allows .you to use yourcomputer
together with a modem to
fswap e a stories t u with other- people, down
the phone line. Unfortunately this
option r e uses the Commodores built. in
iRS232 s inter-face so is unsuitable for:
use with the Commodore Modem sold
over t hhere
for: use with Compunete
H ot
'
,
RS232 modem you could no doubt have
•areat. W fun swapping stories with
triends..4.Infortunatel-
i
;
r
yfact,
e
that- I didn't have a modem
available_ this couldn't be tested_
- e d u e t o
Using the program
tr Newsroom h e is extremely easy to use as
, it is mainly menu driven. You can use
joystick, Koalapad or the keTrboard
ito
select, information, though
obviously
f
the keyboard. must. be used
for enterino text.
yThe
fi rst screen upon loading
oshot
- i s of the a whole 'factory'. •Seictir
u -
the option that. you require is simply
-a matter ofhigh-lighting the correct
dA9
area
and
o -
colmmene
ing
h
work_
a
When
enterin
y
?h
,
t
:
•a
r
_
e
e-
a
C
c
-
c
41
e
s
s
performs all the formatting of the
text-. This means that- you don't- have
to worry about where your text
breaks at- the ends of lines,
layout around. pictures. However, as
the text around the previous picture
shows the breaks may not be exactly
where you want them.
As previously stated all operations
-
menus_ These take the form of a
wnumber-
of icons, or- pictures, down
ithe
side of your square work area
The pencil for example will bring up
tthe
drawing functions, the camera
htakes
a photograph etc.. in fact- the
program is really easy to use. The
ionly
really anoying thing about- the
n program is the number of times that
rt. is necessar-y to swap disks just-
tabout
every operation within; the
rogr am requires -a swap of the
disks. h It- would ha
,- e a dual drive option for those people
who have two drives, this would
-,e pcertainly
b e ehave n reduced the -amount
nrof swapping
i c e
required.
I have already stated that. your
towork area o is a square upon the
sg screen.. This may seem a little strange
- e e
rw
but it. does make sense once you
understand how you lay the paper
out. ah
The newspaper is made up of a
m number of paneis, the squares, all
estuck
together:. This page is actually
an
made up of' two columns of three
ry
pantels plus -a banner across the top_
its I said once you understand how
e othe
structure of the paper works it
s
is extremely easy to follow_ You don't.
u have to make your stories etc_ fi t
over et
exactly one panel_ In fact This
line is the start of a new panel_
lh
Taking ei
a Photo
cn
Perhaps calling the pictures that are
t
included with your text 'photographs'
k is a little bit of a cheat, since -
eo
the are actually drawings. Over 600
pieces of art are included with the
d f-
program on a. double sided disk_
f
T h a n k f
' sr
uthe l l y back of
rh
the manual
o
shows you
o
every piece
mw
of art
available. As
a
can be seen
p
from the
pictures
a
p
e
r
l
o
o
k
s
t
o
YOUR COMMODORE november1986:35