From: djg0@aber.ac.uk (Dean John Garraghty)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Magazine review
Date: 4 Oct 92 13:23:07 GMT
Organization: University of Wales, Aberystwyth

Some rumblings about an old magazine I bought
---------------------------------------------

By Dean Garraghty.

I recently bought some old issues of Page 6 to help complete my collection. 
Along with them came an issue of an American magazine I'd never heard of 
called "Hi-Res". The issue I had was issue 3, dated March 1984.

Reading through it was like entering a great time-warp! It was published at a 
time when Atari 8-bits were still very much alive. The articles were very 
good, and the adverts were interesting! Here's what I found:

The issue had reviews on Preppie! II, Chess 7.0, Flip Flop, Bandits, B.C's 
quest for tyres, The Dark Crystal, and Rally Speedway. The thing that struck 
me the most was the prices. $34.95 for Preppie on tape! $69.95 for Chess, 
which looked awful from the screen shot given. I've never heard of "Bandits" 
from Sirius Software at $34.95. One thing I noticed about them all, is that 
the reviewers were very favourable to them. They tended to just point out the 
good points. This was often the case back then. The advertisers took out big 
ads for each game, so the last thing the magazine would want to do is tell you 
not to buy them!

That brings me on to the adverts. As I've just mentioned, publishers took 
whole colour pages for just one game. This is something we're not used to in 
the UK. Either ads are cheaper in the US, or the publishers had big ad 
budgets! Atari had several game ads of their own but for 2600 games. Joust, 
Moon Patrol, and Battlezone featured in separate ads. First Star was 
advertising two games in its ad: Astro Chase, and Flip Flop. Sierra on line 
had a full page for B.C.'s quest for tyres. Adventure International had a page 
for Rally Speedway. Datasoft had a page for Zaxxon. A company called PMI was 
advertising 3 games which I've never heard of: Sword Point, Karmic Caverns, 
and Wampyr's Tomb. No idea what happened to the games or the company. Datamost 
had a double full colour page headed "Hear at last. Games with real music for 
your Atari". They were telling you how wonderful the music was in The Tail of 
Beta Lyrae, Cosmic Tunnels, Mr. Robot and his Factory, Monster Smash, and 
Cohen's Tower. OSS had a page for Action! headed "Craftsmen need precision 
tools... Programmers! Demand Precision Software!". This was under a photo of a 
man making a violin. $99 was the asking price. One other double page spread
was from Atari advertising the then new 600XL and 800XL. The ad featured a 
photo of Alan Alda, under which said "Computer enthusiast Alan Alda uses the 
Atari 800XL computer system. Alda reports: 'It's going all the time!'". I must 
say that the pictures of the computers didn't look too convincing. They looked 
very much like drawings rather than photos. That's got all the "big boys" out 
of the way. The really interesting stuff was in the smaller ads.

An ad which caught my eye was from Compu-Tech. They were advertising a device 
called Spider Pac. This was a power pack for the Atari with 4 outlets on the 
front. These could then be connected to 4 devices without the need for 
separate power packs. It wasn't cheap at $135 but a good idea.

A company called Tel-Link had the "PiggyProm" board. This held 7 EPROMS. 
Basically it allowed you to keep 7 programs permanently in the computer so you 
didn't have to keep putting carts in. Another good idea, but it was only for 
the 800.

Radical Systems had an EPROM burner and some software as well.

Computer Palace had a page ad advertising various products. Monkey Wrench 2 
was there at $45. Flight Sim II was available at $44.90. A Koala pad could be 
bought for $87. Some interesting sounding disk drives were available. The 
Astra 1620 at $529, Micromainframe at $499, Rana 1000 at $349, and Trak A2-D2 
at $398. Also the ATR-8000 expansion unit was listed. This could run CP/M, had 
a parallel printer port, printer spooler, serial port and disk drive 
controller. It wasn't cheap! The 16K model was $299, the 64K model (for CP/M) 
was $499, and 2 drives for it were $695.

Computer Software Services had some interesting sounding products. The "Pill" 
at $70 would copy carts to disk. The "protector" at $50 would create bad 
sectors to protect your disks. The "Silencer" promised to quiten your disk 
drive down. The "XL fix" was just a translator for the then new XL series. The
"Remote" was a device which allowed you to turn your computer on and off from 
the front rather than the back of the computer. $20 for some wire and a 
switch, bit expensive!

Computer Creations had most Atari equipment listed along with others and 
software. What interested me is that they list the 1400XL and 1450XLD. We all 
know they didn't make it to the shops, but this company seemed to think they 
did! They also list the "Atari CP/M module". No idea what this was. They too 
listed those interesting sounding disk drives. What made me laugh about this 
ad was the prices of blank disks. $21 for 10! You can get 100 for that now!

Superware was advertising their XBASIC. For $30 this program would add 30 new 
functions to Basic.

Starbound software had two shuttle simulators.

Convologic had the Bytewriter. This looked like a flashy EPROM burner fo $189. 
They also had the Examiner. This converted carts to disk. They also had the 
1850 expansion unit. This had one parallel and one serial interface.

Looking on the back cover of the magazine I find another ad from Sierra on 
line. This is advertising their "Homeword" word processor. This had a visual 
menu and a split screen with a full layout view of the page at the bottom. 
The ad said it was coming for the Atari soon. I've never heard of it. Did it 
ever make it on the Atari? (I've since found out it did!)

So, what were the articles like? Well, quite interesting really.

The Family Place talked about educational programs.

The cover story was about club med. Club Med the holiday village teamed up 
with Atari and put some booths with Atari 800s and drives and monitors in all 
around the camp. People could then use them freely. In typical American style 
the article turned out to be one big ad for club med, with just a hint of the 
original purpose of the article in there!

Music theory drills was an interesting article and program to help you to read 
sheet music.

The Atari drawing board was a type-in drawing program.

There was an article on character sets, an article on The Witness by Infocom, 
a full explanation of Atari error messages, Part 1 of a story concering PIA, 
POKEY, and other chips!, Tick Tack type-in program, an assembly language 
article, advanced user forum by Russ Wetmore (of Preppie fame), an article on 
Forth, and Kids section for beginners. There was also a letters page and some 
previews.

The magazine mentioned that from the next issue it would also cover commodore 
as well. That probably finished it off! I have no idea what happened to 
Hi-Res, but I certainly enjoyed reading the copy I have!