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Date:         Thu, 13 Aug 1992 00:34:00 EDT
From:         Jim Loomis <LOOMIS@ITHACA.BITNET>
Subject: WARNING!!! Long Post - 700+ lines. GEnie StarShip ViewPort -
              August.

            *                 .                   .                     *
                                                                     .
            .                   *StarShip*
                      .                                       .
        .    ____________________________________________________
            /____________________________________________________\ *
           //                                                    \\
          //  _       _  _                  _____              _  \\
         //  ( \     / )(_)                / _   )          __/ )  \\  .
        ||    \ \   / /_  ____  _  __  _  / /_) /_____  ___(_  __)  ||
    .   ||     \ \_/ // )/ __ )( \/  \/ )/ ____// _   )/ __)/ /     ||
         \\     \   // // ___/  \      // /    / /_) // /  / /     //
          \\     \_/(_/(____)    \_/\_/(_/    (_____/(_/  (_/ tm  //     *
           \\                                                    //
        *   \\__________________________________________________//
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    ______________________________________________________________________

    August 1992                                  Editor: Jim Meyer
    Volume 1 Number Five (V1.5)                Publisher: Peggy Herrington
                                               Producer: deb Christensen
    ______________________________________________________________________



   Film at Eleven ........................................ Jim Meyer    1
   I Will Remember You ............................ deb! Christensen    2
   Get a Max: AMax! ............................Chris Papademetrious    3
   excellence! 3.0 .................................. Gerald R. Grey    4
   Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge .................. Zach Meston    5
   Computer Third Reich ............................. Michael Tooher    6
   A New Startup-Sequence Methodology .............. Kevin-Neil Klop    7
   Amiga Programming: Linked Lists .............Chris Papademetrious    9
   Library Picks .................................. *StarShip* Staff   11







    ______________________________________________________________________

    ViewPort is a  *StarShip*(tm) Production available  on  GEnie(R).  For
    details and information about contributing, send GE Mail to JIM.MEYER.
    Copyright (C) 1992 *StarShip*.  Freely distributable when kept intact.

    To join GEnie, dial 1-800-638-8369  with your modem.  Upon CONNECTion,
    enter hhh.  At the U#= prompt enter SIGNUP.   Have a major credit card
    or your checking account number handy.
    ______________________________________________________________________










ViewPort August, 1992 -------------------------------------------- Page 1

                                 Film At Eleven

                                   by Jim Meyer

   ______
  (__  __)his page intentionally left blank.  You know the phrase.
    / /   Legend has it that it was invented at IBM, where aspiring
   / /  Tech Writers are urged to memorize that mantra, chanting it
  (_/  over and over until it becomes burned into their consciousness.
      Recent evidence, however, indicates that the phrase is almost as
old as the written word. The ancient Egyptians, or perhaps the
Israelites, who were doing a bit of work for the Pharaoh, are believed to
have coined the phrase.  In an excavation near Cheops, archeologists were
stunned to discover instructions for building the pyramids.  As they
unearthed a series of stone slabs, they were nearly incredulous when the
hieroglyphics on one great piece of limestone were translated to the
phrase "This tablet left intentionally blank."

But I digress.  The point of this exercise is to marvel over the sheer
ingenuity of the first writer to discover this novel way to point out
that there was no information to be had on this page.  I suppose that
this phrase was originally intended for the printer, who was turning
single-sided manuscript into a double-sided, bound manual.  It could be
translated as "Hey, dummy!  Don't throw this page away!  It's the back of
the previous page!"  Or, perhaps, it was intended to warn the reader that
catastrophe had not struck. No page was missing; this nearly blank page
served a purpose.

In my line of work - I write manuals - I've seen that phrase often.  I'll
admit to having toyed with it a bit; I've sent out preliminary manuals
with phrases like "This page left blank of intentions" or "This page
intentionally left blank, with the exception of this sentence, which is
meant to assure you that we didn't leave this page blank on purpose" or
even "This page, unlike previous pages, was unintentionally left blank."
None of these made it into the final manuals, though.  The Boss would not
have been pleased.

So what does all of this have to do with the Amiga?  Not much, except to
say "Hats off to Maxis!"  The manual for SimEarth, which is a delight to
read, contains "A BLANK PAGE," "ANOTHER BLANK PAGE," "UNBLANK PAGE,"
(which has some Neat Stuff) and "YET ANOTHER BLANK PAGE."  It's nice to
see a company that lets its tech writers have fun!

I can't let this month go by without a word about Phil "The Amiga Is
Dead" Robinson.  More than a few folks have commented that Robinson said
nothing that hasn't been said in the message areas of every commercial
and private bulletin board.  That's true, but it's not the point.
Robinson's comments came at the one time that they shouldn't, just when
Commodore - after many, many years of false starts - had started to do
things right. Phil should have done his homework; he's a professional,
after all.

Interestingly, one of Robinson's complaints - that the Commodore had
allowed other companies to "leapfrog" the Amiga in processor technology -
was answered with the announcement of the 68040 Amiga 3000T.  This puppy
sports 32-bit architecture - something Apple doesn't have yet - as well
as a 25 MHz 68040 processor, 200 Mb hard drive, and 5 Mb of ram.  And
that's just the beginning.  We'll have more - a LOT more - to say about
Commodore, and about some long-awaited developments, in the coming
months.  Stay tuned!




ViewPort August 1992 --------------------------------------------- Page 2



                             I Will Remember You


              Paul Wayne Pace                        1950-1992

      ____
     (_  _)t was the mid-80's.  The Commodore 64 had already taken the
      / / consumer market with a sweeping force, and the unheard-of low
     / / prices of Commodore modems were bringing consumers online in
   _/ / unprecedented numbers. The original Commodore Information Network
  (____) was the very center of the Commodore World, headquarters to the
        new frontier of electronic exchanges between the folks who had
the answers and the ones who asked the questions.

Into the midst of this swelling success, two new music composition
programs came out that made music lovers all over Commodore-dom ecstatic.
And with these two new programs, the heroes of the times changed.  The
new heroes were not always the ones who knew how to manipulate relative
files, disassemble the DOS Roms or answer esoteric questions about memory
locations.  Some of the new heroes made music, charming renditions of
favorite tunes, pop songs and classics.  From the same speakers where
only sound effects and beeps had come, suddenly we had music.

Wayne Pace was one of these new heroes, and I "met" him on that original
Commodore Information Network.  When the Amiga came to us, he moved to
this magic new machine, most likely entranced by its promise of better
music as much as I had been.  And on the Amiga, he practiced his own kind
of magic, the gentle magic of music.

His musical arrangements have delighted Commodore and Amiga owners for
years and will continue to.  My family sat around one Christmas and
played Christmas Carols he had uploaded - my little girls thrilled that
this box of technology knew Frosty the Snowman and Silent Night.

Wayne died on July 12th 1992, another victim of cancer.

Cliches come to mind, but I do not have the heart to type them.  I will
grieve for a while every time I see the name WAYNEPACE on a music file,
grieve for the gentle man who loved music and who shared his music and
his love with us. I will remember the friend I made, and came to cherish
these last 7 years, with only a modem as our common meeting grounds.


    - deb



















ViewPort August 1992 --------------------------------------------- Page 3


                      Need A Mac? Get A Max: AMax!

                        by Chris Papademetrious
     ____
    (_  _)t was the news I least wanted to hear; when I left for college
     / /  this fall, I was going to need a Macintosh computer system.
    / / What was to become of my beloved Amiga 3000 system, which I had
  _/ / so painstakingly built up over the years? Surely I could not
 (____) afford to have both platforms at the same time! Was my Amiga
       doomed to be forgotten? Thanks to Readysoft and the AMax II+, the
Macintosh emulation card, the answer was a resounding "No!"

 Amazingly enough, this solution was much better than buying a Macintosh!
I already had a computer with ten megabytes of memory, 172 megabytes of
hard drive storage, a multisync monitor, and a 24-pin printer. AMax is
flexible enough to let me use all of it on the Macintosh side, adding its
own MIDI/serial port and AppleTalk ports! With a minimal (compared to a
new Mac) investment, AMax can turn a great Amiga setup into a terrific
Macintosh setup.

 Installation and setup was a snap. The AMax II+ card allows use of the
Amiga internal floppy drive as an 800K Mac drive (or 1.4MB Mac drive for
those lucky owners of the rare high-density drives). To set up a hard
drive for my "Max" I simply ran HDToolbox, made a partition named "AMAX0"
and selected the "Custom File System" option. This hides the partition
from AmigaDOS so that no annoying AMAX0:BAD icons appeared, but makes it
fully available to the AMax software. After doing this, I clicked on the
icon to start AMax and booted from a standard bootable Mac disk. The
system found my hard drive, and asked if I wanted to format it. I told it
to proceed, and proceeded to install System 7.0 on the hard drive. It
couldn't have gone smoother.

 One of the neater features is the ability of AMax to emulate a 9-pin or
24-pin Imagewriter. I had an Epson-compatible Citizen GSX-130, a 24-pin
printer, hooked up to my parallel port. Through the AMax Preferences
software, I was able to set it up as if I had a 24-pin Imagewriter on the
serial port! This is really slick stuff.

 Although I have little software yet for my Max, I hear that
compatibility with AMax is very good. Keep in mind that AMax only
supports the 128K Mac ROMS, which have black and white graphics only.
AMax II+ promises to be a complete and solid Macintosh solution for
A2000/A3000 owners.

 NOTE: AMax II is available for all Amiga, but requires an external Macintosh
floppy drive and does not include MIDI/serial or AppleTalk ports.

















ViewPort August 1992 --------------------------------------------- Page 4


                             excellence! 3.0

                            by  Gerald R. Gray
     _  _
    / \/ \icro-Systems Software (MSS) has recently released the latest
   /      \ version of it's word processor: excellence! 3.0.  It requires
  / /\  /\ \ AmigaDOS 1.2 or better and at least 1 meg of memory.  A hard
 (_/  \/  \_) drive is strongly recommended. With 3.0, MSS provides a
             hard drive installation program that is easier to understand
           and use than previous versions.

The point-and-click interface and pull-down menus make excellence! easy
to use, yet this ease belies the power behind the product.  To add to the
power of excellence! a thesaurus, grammar checker, and spelling checker
are provided.  French and German dictionaries can also be added.
excellence! 3.0 also provides ARexx support.

One of the first changes you'll notice is the animated stopwatch pointer.
Now, instead of thinking, "boy this is taking a long time," you can see
that it IS taking a long time.  excellence! 3.0 also has the look and
feel of DOS 2.0 even if you are running it under 1.3.  Gadgets have been
added to the title bar to select bold, italic, and underline, and the
font.  Clicking on the font gadget brings up a requester so the font and
point size can be selected.  The requester has a button that lets you see
a sample of your chosen font before you return to the word processor.

Printer support has been improved.  The printer requester not only allows
the font, file, orientation, or density to be selected but also shows the
selected printer driver.  HP DeskJet owners will be heartened to learn
that a DeskJet driver has been added.  Color printing has been improved;
text output is clear and sharp, even on a 24 pin printer.  Continuous
spell checking has also been improved.  No longer do you have to wait for
the program to catch up to you as you type, even when the system is
running at 7Mhz.

Some other new features worth mentioning include "vocalize", the
capability to do 8 columns, and the implementation of virtual memory.
The vocalize feature allows the document to be read using the Amiga's
speech synthesizer.  Virtual memory is a powerful addition.  It allows a
portion of the hard drive to be used in lieu of RAM; the program swaps
out sections as it needs, preventing nasty out-of-memory crashes.

MSS provides a large, easy to understand manual that covers all aspects
of the word processor, as well as technical and bulletin board support.
MSS has been around 14 years, a long time in the PC world, and have put
together a strong product that I don't hesitate to recommend.

One major disappointment is the lack of support for color graphics.  I
called MSS and asked if this was something they were working on and was
told "We don't discuss things that are in R & D."  I'd also like to see
the ability to switch screen modes on the fly without having to exit from
the program, and the availability of a Spanish dictionary.

excellence! 3.0 $199.95 Update $29.95 + $6.00 shipping.
French and German dictionaries: $39.95 for both or $24.95 for one

Micro-Systems Software
12798 Forest Hill Blvd. Suite 202
West Palm Beach, Florida 33414

Tel:  (407)790-0770 Fax:  (407)790-1341


ViewPort August 1992 --------------------------------------------- Page 5


                  Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge

                            By Zach Meston
        _
       / )im Meyer, the editor of ViewPort, is a great guy (and I'm not
  _   / / just saying that), but I wish he could have given me extra
 ( (_/ / space in this issue. (Editor's Note:  Oh sure, blame it on ME!)
  \___/ That way, I could have written another pageful of superlatives to
       describe Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, which is simply the
best adventure of the year. (I know, I said that about Elvira II, but
this one's better. Trust me.)

In the first game, The Secret of Monkey Island, a young man with the
unlikely name of Guybrush Threepwood sails to Melee Island with the hopes
of becoming a pirate. He ends up destroying the ghost of the evil LeChuck
and winning the heart of the babe-a-lonian governor of the island, Elaine
Marley.

Monkey 2 picks up the storyline well after the end of Monkey 1. Guybrush
is older and wiser, has a decent amount of facial hair, and is searching
for the legendary treasure of Big Whoop. A ridiculous number of plot
twists ensue, but none of them are as bizarre as the ending sequence,
where Guybrush and LeChuck fight it out for the second (and presumably
the last) time.

Like all Lucasfilm games, Monkey 2 is teeming with humor, and I don't
mean stupid puns; I mean truly funny one-liners. Monkey 1 was one of the
few games I've ever played where I laughed out loud at the on-screen
jokes; Monkey 2 had me laughing even louder. (It also had my family
worrying about my sanity, what with all the cackling coming from my room.)

Monkey 2 also features Lucasfilm's no-death philosophy. It's impossible
for Guybrush to die in Monkey 2, which allows you to concentrate on the
puzzles instead of worrying about when you last saved the game. (I much
prefer Lucasfilm adventures over Sierra adventures for this very reason.)

There are two difficulty levels to choose from: "Monkey 2," the full
game, or "Monkey 2 Lite," an easier version with different puzzles and a
bit of new dialogue. The puzzles in the full game are teeth-gnashingly
difficult, and a few of them are very tricky indeed, but none of them are
so non-sensical that you'll groan in disbelief at the solution.

Monkey 2 only has one major problem, the much-touted iMUSE music system.
It's simply awful. The background music is sparse, and there are
practically no sound effects, meaning that you play through the vast
majority of the game in total silence. Perhaps Lucasfilm meant to name
the new system iMUTE?

And then we need to discuss the eleven (!) disks that Monkey 2 comes on.
While you can play Monkey 2 with floppy disk drives, you really, REALLY
wouldn't want to. Unless, of course, torturous amounts of disk swapping
and drive access are what you look for in a computer game.

The verdict: Monkey 2 has gorgeous graphics, bazillions of
brain-throbbing puzzles, and hysterical humor from start to finish. What
more could you possibly want from an adventure game? Buy it now!







ViewPort August, 1992 -------------------------------------------- Page 6


                   COMPUTER THIRD REICH by Avalon Hill

                            by Michael Tooher
     ____
    (_  _)t was a classic no-win scenerio. My German armies had made a
     / / deep push into Russia along the Eastern Front, driving the Red
    / / Army back toward Moscow. However my reinforcements had been sparse
  _/ / and on the next turn my opponent saw his chance and took it.
 (____) Fortified by huge reinforcements he closed the trap, leaving my
      armies helpless and at the mercy of the cruel Russian winter.

Avalon Hill's COMPUTER THIRD REICH, based on their very popular board
game, covers the entire European theatre of war from 1939 to 1945,
including North Africa and the Far East. While CTR is very much in the
tradition of the classic "hex" wargame, Avalon Hill has taken advantage
of the Amiga's unique abilities to make playing easy and fun. All
interaction is done by point and click and the computer will not permit
illegal moves. A novel addition to the program is that it will TELL you
why the move or action was illegal, a great help for the novice wargamer.

But CTR is more then a wargame. Historical and economic factors come into
play, mirroring the reality of the Second World War. The economic factor
is represented by the Basic Resource Points, which are expended for every
action you take from declaring war to deploying reinforcements. On the
historical side, CTR closely parallels reality, forcing the player(s) to
confront the same political problems the Allies and Axis dealt with. In
all, CTR is more of a wargame/simulation that is challanging to the
veteran yet simple and elegant enough to attract and hold the newcomer.

While the game's design and scope is satisfying, there are a few
problems. Movement of troops by sea is only permitted during the combat
phase, and then only for invasion. The documentation is sketchy and
presumes a knowledge of the boardgame's rules. The enclosed maps are too
small and this reviewer had to have them enlarged at the copy shop to
make them usable.

By far the biggest problem is the lackluster artifical intellegence of
the computer opponent. The experienced player will have no difficulty in
beating the computer. In one instance, with the computer playing the
Axis, it rushed reinforcements to Libya while the Red Army was one hex
from Berlin. Avalon Hill plans to correct these problems in future
releases.

On the technical end, the program requires 1 meg and is not hard drive
installable. However, once the program is loaded it is entirely memory
resident and requires no disk access except for saves. The copy
protection is of the manual-based "look up" variety.

Regardless of the small problems, if you are the type of general who
enjoys engrossing gameplay at the tactical level, especially against a
human opponent, then COMPUTER THIRD REICH is an excellent choice.


COMPUTER THIRD REICH for the Amiga by Avalon Hill. 4517 Harford Road.
Baltimore, MD 21214. 1-800-999-3222

Requires 1 meg and a color monitor. 1 or 2 players. "Look-up" copy
protection. List price $39.95





ViewPort August 1992 --------------------------------------------- Page 7


                    A New Startup-Sequence Methodology

                            by Kevin-Neil Klop

How many times have you gotten a new program, read the installation
guidelines, seen those dreaded words, "Edit your startup-sequence..." and
started to shake with fear. The startup-sequence? Every time you even
LOOK at the file you know that you're in for either another trip to the
local Amiga expert or hours (or days) of tracking down why your computer
doesn't work correctly anymore?

I hate editing that file. I recall one when I had just gotten in my
latest software toy (WShell 2.0 from Bill Hawes). I was fiddling with
this file and that file and got to the point where I said, "There HAS to
be a better way!". The question was, what would be involved in a better
way?

I sat down and wrote a list of the things I wanted. Note that I'll be
talking about User-Startup since I am running under 2.0. If you're
running 1.3, then just pronounce "User-Startup" as if it said
"Startup-Sequence".

        o I wanted to NEVER have to edit the User-Startup file again.
        o I wanted an easy way to remove changes from the User-Startup
          file and to know that I got them all.
        o I wanted a way to know what changes were made for each program.

Eventually I came up with a system that works for me. The first thing I
did was create a directory called "S:Startups". Then I copied my
User-Startup file into S:Startups/Original-User-Startup. Lastly, I put
the following file in as S:User-Startup

        .BRA {
        .KET }

        relabel RAM: RAM
        list    >ram:executestartups S:startups/#? LFORMAT "execute %s%s"
        sort    ram:executestartups TO ram:executestartups2
        execute ram:executestartups2
        delete  ram:executestartups#?

Let's say that you get the brand new program GeeWhizWow, and you have
to install it.  Deep in the heart of the directions are the following
instructions:

        Insert the following lines into your startup-sequence, replacing
        the word "directory" with the directory to which you installed
        GeeWhizWow:

                ASSIGN GeeWhizWow: directory
                GeeWhizWow:GeeWhizWow
                ECHO "GeeWhizWow is ready and waiting"











ViewPort August 1992 --------------------------------------------- Page 8


Instead of editing your Startup-Sequence, you just create a file in
S:Startups and put those lines into it.  I would probably call that file
GeeWhizWow.  Before installing GeeWhizWow, your directory would look
something like:

        SYS:
          ^
          |
          +-- S
              ^
              |
              +-- User-Startup
              |
              +-- Startups
                     ^
                     |
                     +-- Original-User-Startup

Now your directory would look like:

        SYS:
          ^
          |
          +-- S
              ^
              |
              +-- User-Startup
              |
              +-- Startups
                     ^
                     |
                     +-- Original-User-Startup
                     |
                     +-- GeeWhizWow-Startup

Quick Quiz: 2 years after installing GeeWhizWow, you want to see what
            lines were added to your startup-sequence for it.  Where
            are those lines?

Answer:     They're in the GeeWhizWow-Startup file.

Quick Quiz Question 2:
            If you want to de-install GeeWhizWow, what do you have to do
            to remove those lines from your startup-sequence?

Answer:     Delete the GeeWhizWow-Startup file.


Sometimes the ORDER of things is important.  Maybe you have to start
GeeWhizWow before you start GeeWhizWowWhizBangUtility.  The files in
Startups are run in ALPHABETICAL order.  So, GeeWowWhiz-Startup will be
run before GeeWhizWowWhizBangUtility, and both of them will be run before
Original-User-Startup.

If you have any questions, you can contact me via GEnie at K.KLOP,
Compu-Serv at 71151,354, or via US Mail at:

        Kevin-Neil Klop
        c/o Syntactics
        3188 E. Mercer St.
        Philadelphia, PA, 19134


ViewPort August 1992 --------------------------------------------- Page 9


                       Amiga Programming: Linked Lists

                            by Chris Papademetrious

Welcome back, programming scholars! It's time to roll up our sleeves and
get down and dirty with one of Exec's most useful concepts, linked lists.
This month we'll look at how lists and nodes are actually used and
manipulated.

To create a linked list, you need to do two things: allocate memory for
the List structure (this can be optional in C), and initialize the list
to ready it for use. Last month's article covered the process of
initializing a list, so we won't go over it here. Destroying a linked
list is as simple as freeing the memory for the structure, although keep
in mind that it's not usually a good idea to free a list structure that
still has nodes attached! To illustrate, AllocList() and FreeList() are
provided at the end of the article for these functions.

Once your list is ready for use, you're able to add and remove nodes. The
exec.library provides us with handy routines in ROM to perform functions
such as AddHead(), AddTail(), AddNode(), Remove(), and Enqueue().
Enqueue() will actually insert the node at the correct place in the list,
based on the ln_Pri priority field of the node! As common sense would
dictate, the higher priority nodes take precedence.

Although somebody out there might be thrilled with the idea of attaching
ordinary Node structures to a List, there isn't much use to it. Node
structures are actually designed to be a subset of any larger data
structure you choose. Here's an example:

struct Person
{
 struct MinNode PersonNode; /* since no priority or type info is needed */
 char Name[80];
 int Age;
};

Now that the Person structure has a Node structure in it (a MinNode in
this case), we are free to attach as many of these to a List structure as
we wish. We are even free to have multiple List structures, to remove and
add nodes as we see fit! But the power of the linked list comes in the
ability to traverse the list from beginning to end, and there are some
important things to remember.

Remember how the List structure works? Then you will remember that the
Head node's mln_Succ pointer and the Tail node's mln_Pred pointer are
both NULL, due to the fact that they're the first and last nodes in the
list, respectively. As you step through the list, you must also keep in
mind that the last data node in the list is not the one with the NULL
mln_Succ (the Tail node), but the one before it! Here are two identical
sample loops:

 CurNode = SomeList.mlh_Head; /* now points to node after Head node */
 while (NextNode = CurNode->mln_Succ) /* while there IS a next node... */
 {
   /* your code here */
   CurNode = NextNode;
 };


                                                 (Continued on next page)


ViewPort August 1992 -------------------------------------------- Page 10


 for (CurNode = SomeList.mlh_Head;  /* initialize */
      NextNode = CurNode->mln_Succ; /* loop condition (must be nonzero) */
      CurNode = NextNode)           /* increment command */
 {
   /* your code here */
 };

The code within the loop is only executed if the node does indeed contain
data (in other words, isn't the Tail node). We don't need to worry about
the Head node being used mistakenly, since we automatically skip it in
the first place.

Freeing all the nodes in a list is a special case, since we can't very
well reference the mln_Succ pointer once we've freed the node! In this
case, ensure that you don't reference CurNode after it's been freed; that
would be bad.

Here's some sample utility routines to use in your programs:

#define SuccNode(x) (((struct MinNode *) x)->mln_Succ)
#define PredNode(x) (((struct MinNode *) x)->mln_Pred)

struct MinList AllocMinList() /* can be adapted to a List, too */
{
 struct MinList NewMinList;

 if (NewMinList = AllocMem(sizeof(struct MinList), MEMF_PUBLIC))
  NewList((struct List *) NewMinList);

 return NewMinList;
};

void FreeMinList(struct MinList *ThisMinList)
{
 if (ThisMinList)
  FreeMem((APTR) ThisMinList, sizeof(struct MinList));
};

struct MinNode *NextNode(struct MinNode *ThisNode)
{
 struct MinNode *NextNode;

 if (NextNode = ThisNode->mln_Succ) /* if this is a data node */
  if (NextNode->mln_Succ) /* and the next is as well */
   return NextNode;
 return NULL;
};

struct MinNode *PredNode(struct MinNode *ThisNode)
{
 struct MinNode *PredNode;

 if (PredNode = ThisNode->mln_Pred) /* if this is a data node */
  if (PredNode->mln_Pred) /* and the previous is as well */
   return PredNode;
 return NULL;
};

As always, if you're still lost or a bit confused, the Pro/Am gang would
be more than happy to help! The meetings are at 10:00PM EST at the
conference on page 670 (m670;2); we look forward to seeing you!


ViewPort August 1992 -------------------------------------------- Page 11


                              Library Picks

                          by the *StarShip* Staff

     ____
    (_  _) forget who it was, but someone once mentioned that "You can
     / / never have too many icons."  This is probably true, and Release
    / / 2 - with its 16-color Workbench capability - has created a demand
  _/ / for more, prettier icons.  Enter Roger McVey, and his collection
 (____) of 16-color, hi-res icons. There are over 200 icons here, folks,
       as well as a tool - SWAPICON - that lets you exchange a new icon
for an old. McVey has also included his own palette.  This collection is
not only vast, it's sensational!

RMDICONS3.LZH  File # 16571  194,304 Bytes


Icons aren't the only thing we have a lot of this month.  Can you use a
few more PostScript fonts?  How about a LOT more?  Check out the font
sets being uploaded by C.TYRELL1.  These fonts are set up for
Professional Page and come from various sources.  Most, if not all, are
Shareware.  There are 20 sets as of this writing.

FONTSET1.LZH - FONTSET20.LZH  Sizes range from 100,000 bytes to
                              259,000 bytes.

To find all these files, use the GEnie Library Search function (Option 3)
and use FONTSET as the search string.


It must take patience to transcribe song after song in DMCS, let alone to
do so both in MIDI and Amiga-internal formats.  Patience Eiker (P.EIKER),
that is. She has uploaded a veritable bundle of rags, mostly Scott
Joplin, in both formats.  While Patience has been taking care of DMCS
rags, Syl Lutnes (S.LUTNES) has been keeping MED fans happy.  Space
doesn't permit us to list all of the files; you might want to head
straight for *StarShip* Library 7 and browse through the listings.  You
won't be disappointed!

    MIDI Files                           Non-MIDI Files

PALMLEAFMIDI.LHA  File # 16444       PALMLEAF.LHA  File # 16443
FAVORITEMIDI.LHA  File # 16465       FAVORITE.LHA  File # 16464
ORIGRAGSMIDI.LHA   File # 16463      ORIGRAGS.LHA  File # 16462
REFLECTRAGMIDI.LHA File # 16468      REFLECTRAG.LHA File # 16467

SENSATION.MED.LHA (For MED and EDPlayer) File # 16379


If you liked FracBlanker, you'll love FracBlanker22.  This must-have
screen blanker has been updated to include "cosmic flame" fractals.
These amazing bits of visible math almost obliterate the distinction
between computer-generated images and abstract art.  Two versions are
included in the archive.  One is optimized for systems without math
co-processors, and the other is optimized for the 68881/82 chips.  This
program, by the way, is one of the best arguments I've seen for an
accelerated system. If only there was a way to SAVE the incredible images
FracBlanker generates...

FRACBLANKER22.LHA  File # 16503  47,104 bytes.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU