APPLE

IAC Disks of the Month
Review by Barry D. Bayer
B
ack in the early days of Integer
BASIC, (that's the one with the '>'
prompt) there were very few commercial
programs available for the Apple
IL Pioneer programmers, after developing
a program of which they were particularly
proud, wanted to share it with
their fellow 10,000 or 20,000 Apple users.
The easiest way to do this was to send the
program to Apple, which took the best
programs and distributed them free of
charge to Apple dealers, who would let
end users copy them for a small charge,
or no charge at all. (Apple also seems to
have hired many of the authors of these
programs, but that's another story.)
As Apple Computer, Inc. got bigger,
and commercial programs began to
crowd each other off the dealers' shelves,
contributed software, as an Apple Computer,
Inc. function, fell by the wayside.
But in the IAC, contributed software still
lives.
One of the benefits enjoyed by an
Apple Users Group belonging to the
International Apple Core is the software,
usually in the public domain and therefore
legally copyable, usually distributed
as the IAC Disk of the Month. DOMs
become part of each member club's
software library, and are distributed by
most member clubs to their members at
prices approximating the price of a quality
blank disk In addition, DOMs are
available to individuals, and other nonmembers
of the IAC, direct from the IAC
at a cost of $25 per disk plus $3 per
shipment for postage and handling. But
we'd rather you join an IAC member club,
instead, and get the programs on the
DOM from your club. DOM programs
mostly originate from members of our
member clubs who are kind enough to
share their work and ideas with the IAC's
400 plus member clubs.
DOM will be a regular feature in Apple
Orchard, which will feature the most
recent DOM available and, as these
things go back a couple of years, an
occasional "oldy but goody". We should
note that DOMs do not contain, in the
main, professional quality documenta-
64 Apple Orchard
tion and menus, and tend to crash, a bit,
when presented with an unforeseen error.
(We are told by the commercial software
publishers that complete debugging of a
program of any size takes thousands of
man hours of work While all programs
are tested and are believed to be accurate,
it is obvious that thousands of man hours
have not been spent on debugging.) On
the other hand, DOM programs are
usually copyable, listable, alterable,
improvable and generally contain understandable
examples of "how to do it''.
The March, 1983, DOM is a disk prepared
by the IAC's Education Special
Interest Group (SIG), and differs a bit
from the usual. First of all, it was prepared
with the assistance of ABC Software of
Sacramento, California and Computer­
Advanced Ideas of Berkeley, CA. Second,
the disk is almost entirely in compiled
Integer BASIC (using Chris Galfo' s compiler),
and is therefore not easily listable,
alterable, etc. But it does have a number
of well conceived programs which
should find a place in any grade school
classroom. Programmers noted on the
disk include Tim Aaronson, Ted Cohn,
Dave Daughtery, Andy Herzfeld, Ted
Perry (our EdSIG chairman), Pete Rowe
(of "Game Show" fame), Linda Slovick,
Lawrence You, Geoff Zawolkow, and
Barry Cole.
Boot the disk, and you will be presented
with a distinctive high resolution
graphics display which is almost worth
the price of the disk (I'm going to keep
the topic secret, but the kids will love it)
Eventually you will get to a menu which
will permit the running of nine programs.
BOXES tests for single digit addition
and subtraction skills in a way that will
please first and second graders.
DRILL is an addition/subtraction/ multiplication/
division quiz program which
has delighted my 8 year old. The user
chooses the operation to be tested, the
level of difficulty, and the time to be
permitted for each question. The program
then relentlessly provides problem
after problem in the form
2 + 7 =
and immediately marks the player's response
as ' C' or' X'. At the end of the series,
the percentage of 'C' answers is given,
and the player is offered the chance to
exit or try another series. For children in
the process of learning their number
facts, a program like this is a necessity.
ADRILL is just like DRILL, but adds the
complication of signed numbers.
APPLE BARREL and APPLE ARRAY
use the same graphics and story requesting
the user to enter the number of apples
that are harvested and placed into a
barrel. In APPLE ARRAY, the Apples are
stacked neatly into equal length rows, so
that the program is, in reality, a clever
multiplication test
FRED FRACTION tests arithmetic
manipulations of fractions, using a very
clever animated graphics scene to draw
the user into the program. Some teacher
might not like the program's habit of
accepting 13/ 12 in addition to 1 1/ 12,
but the kids will love it
MAKING CHANGE uses Hi-Res
graphics representations of dollar bills,
quarters, dimes, nickles and pennies, and
quizzes the player with appropriate
change problems. Some cashiers I know
could use a bit of training with this.
XZONE is the last game on the disk A
19 by 19 grid is presented. Using coordinates
from 0,0 in the lower left, to 19, 19 in
the upper right, the player is invited to
inspect the grid cell by cell, and determine
where two secret (undisplayed)
lines intersect This will keep the older
kids entranced for quite a while.
The final program on the disk is not a
game, but a program which converts the
Apple into a sort of oscilloscope, displaying
the " voice print" of sound input into
the Apple through the casette input port
The instructions say it is for use in speech
therapy, but it also presents some good
clean fun.
Once again, DOM 24 is available from
the IAC direct at a high outrageous price.
But we'd rather you pick it up from your
local Apple User Group. It