The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 13

Thursday January 22 1987 13 double Lee Paddon reports on the award winners for 1986 announced in the annual computer games bash buGGBirD )(gl IN BOSTON, Lotus. Development is sueing Paperback Software over VP Planner and Mosaic Software over The Twin, charging copyright infringement, false advertising and unfair trade practices. These products, says Lotus, "recreate, with only trivial variations, the 'look and feel' and user interface of Lotus 1-2-3," the world's best-selling spreadsheet. Paperback's Adam Osborne says the suit is ludicrous. VP Planner has a multi-dimensional database and can read files from VP Info and Ashton Tate products, too.

"The heart of the matter is that Lotus is attempting to stifle competition and maintain control of the market that allows them to charge their customers high prices for upgrades and add-ons." VP Planner and The Twin are Lotus-like spreadsheets which can work with Lotus 1-2-3 files, but cost half the price of the Lotus program. Lotus itself, of course, was inspired by the original spreadsheet, VisiCalc, and the rest of the Visi series. After Lotus's success, VisiCalc's producers, Software Arts, went out of business. It's interesting, too, that Lotus has just launched an add-on product called Metro. This is a set of pop-up accessory programs which is, again, inspired by the teleporting to it and absorbing the old shell.

Energy never gets created or destroyed, it can just be changed from one form to another, by the Sentinal or the Synthoid absorbing or creating objects. This all boils down to a fascinating game which involves fast reflexes, planning and clever use of resources. Best Amstrad CPC Game of machines was Xeno from A 'n' F. This is a sort of ice hockey gone mad. Instead of running around the place on skates, the puck is propelled towards the opponent's goal with a saucer skimming across the ice.

A cursor is moved around the pitch, then when the fire button is pressed, the saucer shoots towards the cursor. Whenever two objects collide, the results follow the sort of mechanics familiar to all snooker buffs. Although not a complex game by modern standards, it is very fast and hard to master. The game benefits from involving two players at once: this really sharpens the competitive edge. The other awards were for specific types of game over all brands of computer.

Best Shoot 'Em Up was Uridium from Hewson. This is a simple concept faultlessly executed. The player pilots a small space ship which flies along anuge alien game play and slick presenta- swarm in the streets. Although a simple design, it is enlivened by good music, graphics, and a sense of humour rarely seen in computer games. Best Strategy Game went to Zoids, from Martech.

The player takes the side of the Zoids in a war between two races of idea is to move around the surface of the planet attacking various installations. The game is played using an icon screen. Whenever you want to look at the map, scan the area for useful tools, check your status, or fire a weapon, you have to move a cursor over the appropriate icon and press the fire button. This allows the designer to put a lot of things into the game without lumbering the player with a keyboard full of different keys to produce the appropriate action. Best Adventure Game: adventure fans are a rather serious bunch, so the popularity of this year's award winner, a spoof called Leather Goddesses of Phobos, was quite a surprise.

The authors, Infocom, have dominated the adventure scene in the US for some time, but if you are easily shocked, do not buy this game. While most of the rather more earthy language is fairly well hidden, if the player starts swearing at the computer, the program will reply in kind. Best Sports Simulation was awarded to World Games from Epyx, US Gold, being one of the most consistent software houses in the business. Their games always feature good graphics and sound, with really gripping Working as a temp in a large company, David Karliner discovers the job could have been easier THEY MAY not have the Eublic recognition of Oscars, ut nevertheless The Newsfield Awards provide an annual excuse for the computer games software industry to get together for a beano and. awards presentation.

Best Spectrum Game was Starglider 128 from Rainbird. This is one of the first games to try to use the full potential of the latest model Spectrum 2. It puts you at the controls of a fighter plane repelling the evil Egrons. The game features a subtle blend of ruthless blasting and careful strategy, you must keep an eye on stocks of fuel and energy. But the thing that makes the game stand out is the speech generated at various points in the game which is amongst the best ever achieved, it doesn't sound like a computer at all! Best Commodore 64 Game was Sentinal from Firebird.

Regarded as the most original "game concept" this year, it is a semi-abstract arcade game. The player controls a Synthoid which must make its way around a convoluted landscape to try to reach a hill which will overlook a hill occupied by the Sentinal. To reach the Sentinal, the Synthoid must transport itself by the long-winded process of creating a new shell, "HYPER" seems to take up where a "super" leaves off (even though the two share the same root) so "hypertext" surely the buzziest of buzzwords yet contrived by the computing community suggests something in the realms of hyperbole. The term was coined by Ted. Nelson, an American computer scientist to describe what others might call a database.

But the concept has some value because it relates to one of computing's chronic weaknesses: the computation of non-numerical information. Numbers are fine, they have a conveniently programmable calculus mathematics. But there is no calculus for sound, graphics or text. In most systems they are arbitrary concatenations of tones, Sixels and characters. Few atabases can manage even blocks of free-form text.

Hypertext attempts to address this problem. The idea was first sug- fested in 1945 by Vannevar lush, previously scientific adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he called it Memex. Although never built (at least in the form described by Bush), the Memex was a mechanical computer. Data would be stored on microfilm and particular texts would be called up and projected on screens by gressing particular keys.

But also envisaged the use of levers and buttons to create "trails" between different texts. These trails would comprise a series of addresses, each identifying the location of a specific text. Bush's key observation was that Memex users could Ben Woolley finds life in an old idea for handling difficult data Where numbers leave oifff More power to the elbow dreadnaught blasting away at the ship's superstructure and waves of defending fighters. The graphics scroll with astonishing smoothness by virture of updating the position of all objects on the screen 25 times a second. Best Platform Game went to Cobra from Ocean.

This is a rare example of a good game derived from a film licence (These have a habit of turning out to be over-promoted rubbish). It's all a process of leaping up and down platforms attempting to eradicate the muggers and rapists that and also embracing pictures and sound. Hypertext has now entered the personal computer domain in the form of Guide, from the Edinburgh-based Office Workstations Ltd. Guide runs, appropriately, on the Macintosh, though an IBM PC version is planned for later this year. Guide is a simplification of the hypertext concept.

Text and graphics are linked by a system of buttons, which come in four forms: replacement, inquiry, reference and note. All four are variations of the same general principle: a block of text or graphic is identified and linked to another block of text or graphic. The area first identified then becomes a you "press" (in fact press the button on the Mac's mouse), and the linked area is then (more or less) instantly displayed. Guide is similar to an "outline processor," in that you can use it to create a document containing a number of headings, each of which is a button that will call up appropriate subheadings. However, it is a good deal more sophisticated than programs like Thinktank and Brainstorm, because by using different types of buttons, original pop-up- accessory program.

Borland's SideKick. Metro is based on the technology of an earlier program called Spotlight, which Lotus acquired from Software Arts. Computer Guardian is delighted to note that there is an extremely good spreadsheet called Loeistix from Grafox. This is British, offers time management facilities missing from Lotus 1-2-3, reads Lotus files, provides better colour and graphics features, is not copv protect ed and costs only 99.95 for the IBM PC-compatible version. Logistix doesn't only run on old fashioned machines, however.

More expensive versions are available for the ICL Ouattro and DRS-300, RML Nimbus, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST. Call 01-922 8807. Power shift A POWERFUL microprocessor ought to be able to emu late a less powerful one. but usually such "soft clones" run slowly and have problems with programs that call for specific hardware features. In Santa Clara and Boston last week, however, Insignia Solutions demon strated a software emulation of the IBM PC running on the 12 MHz Motorola 68020 pro cessor.

It is claimed to run even badly behaved programs including Lotus 1-2-3, Side-Kick and Flisht Simulator. Performance is claimed to be in the XTAT range which isn't exactly snaonv but. from the numbers sold, must be acceptable. Soft PC currently runs DOS in a window under Unix in Sun workstations but Insignia says it can easily be ported to other machines with the same processor. Insignia is based in High Wycombe, phone 0494 26211.

Into line NINE computer companies met recently to agree on ran new stanaara lor nand-ling graphics displays, according to Ken Maize in Newsbytes on The Source database. It will be called X-window presumably by analogy with the dominant communications standard, Xmodem. The companies which include Apollo, Data uenerai, Siemens and Sony have about 75 per cent of the workstation market, in which IBM does not have a competitive product. Micro moves THE MACINTOSH was the best-selling micro in computer stores surveyed by InfoCorp, the US research firm, last October. After the Mac's 13 per cent, Apple also took second and third places with the lie (9 per cent) and He (7 per cent).

IBM took the next three places (ie fourth, fifth and sixth) with the PC, PCXT and PC AT. More recently. Apple He's have been sold in bulk bv authorised liquidator COMB, while the Boston Computer Exchange reports traders dumping 128K and 512K Macintoshes in anticipation of new products. Two new Macs are rumoured, one with a slot for an IBM PC-compatible processor, 256K ROM and 1.6M floppy, and the other with a 68020 processor and six expansion slots. In the US, Apple has just announced a new version ot tne 11, called the lies.

This has a numeric keypad and two programmable function keys. A snip at 99 NOW that everyone has a Filofax, the world needs another gadget to mark out the truly trendy. The answer could be the Snippet, a 99 personal shredder from Silver Reed. If you are still screwing up your unwanted printout before pitching it into the bin. well, your work can't be very important, can it? Computer Guardian is edited by Jack Schofield nun.

iyuiiu uaiues is no exception. It reDresents pos sibly the Dinnacle of snorts games. No frantic joystick waggling nice the early ones; instead the emphasis is on timing and dexterity. Best Graphics went to The Pawn, an adventure game ii om namoira. Best Sound went to Rob Hubbard for the soundtrack on Knucklebusters from Melbourne House.

Best Programmer was Geoff urammond tor his work on Revs and The Sentinel. been used since the system was installed in 1983. "Look at this," I said, dem onstrating that you could delete single letters without naving to delete a whole word and retype it, as she had originally shown me, provided you used the correct arrow key. Her lovely eyes upenea wiae in asionisnment. After lunch I was decided ly bored with my IBM record update work, and various parts of my anatomy were taking it in turns to fall asleep.

(Can people really do nothing but VDU work for a living? Three incredibly dull hours later it was nearly 5.30 pm, my mission was almost at an end, and all the amendments had been made in triplicate. Then, just as I was leaving the office to hand in my temp iorm at accounts reception, 1 noticed a neglected IBM manual in a corner of the room. Turning to record update, a paragraph caught T- coiJ. "Tt i. unnecessary to retype dupli cate records insertions for other departments; all that is necessary is to change the record header code." As I wearily made my way DacK to tne ground tioor, through the teak-panelled walls to the main exit, it slowly was dawning on me that two thirds of the work I had just completed had been totally useless.

the operating system. The important tactor win not oe the use ot a specific proces sor but whether a machine runs, say, Digital Research's GEM or Microsoft's Windows or whatever. From this point ot view the Atari bi is IBM- compatible: both run Gem and read data in the same format. But if so, which wimps environment win "win?" Well, the betting has to be against the Apple Macintosh and Commodore Amiga, each ot which has its own incom patible system. Between today's rivals, Windows and Gem, the odds ought to be on gem.

The problems with Windows are that it only runs on the IBM PC or compatibles, it only runs on the Intel 808X family of chips, and it really requires an suitto hibmjo (as used in the expensive IBM PC AT) to run at a decent speed. Gem runs on both the Intel and Motorola families of chips, and while it really requires a powerful Motorola 68000, it just so happens 'these are cheap enough to be used in some low-cost micros like the Atari ST range. Last week I started this peroration by observing that beneath the similarities of the Amstrad PC-1512 and Atari ST both 512K micros supplied with a mouse and DR Gem interface were important differences. Now I'm not so sure that the surface similarities aren't more important than the hidden depths. different types of links can be established.

An inquiry button, for example, makes a set of replacement buttons mutually exclusive, so if one is selected the others become unavailable. A reference button is used to cross refer to another block of text, so you can jump from one piece of text to another (and backtrack) along a trail of related topics. Guide is well-written and robustly designed, but makes only a beginning of the hypertext concept. The links it allows the user to forge are essentially arbitrary and the software does not intervene in the choice of texts to be linked. But hypertext systems have identified is a new approach to information manipulation that avoids computing's obsession with number crunching and automating clerical tasks.

There is already a hypertext machine that demonstrates the power of this approach: the BBC Domesday Project. This comprises a survey of 1980s Britain stored on two laser discs. You can explore the information contained using Ordnance Survey maps, picking out and zooming into locations, inspecting their demography, geography or whatever, to compile a different view (complete with text, maps, charts, photographs and sounds) each time the system is used. Furthermore, sessions can be logged so they can be "played back" to other users. In short, a user can create Memex-type trails.

Guide costs 135. OWL is on 031-652 2235 or Telecom Gold no point in buying a machine which doesn't run the software you want to use. For many people, these two arguments make the Amstrad PC-1512 a new implementation of an old standard the natural choice. On the software front, the Atari ST has been a remarkable success. After only 18 months there are almost 1,000 programs available (including some on alternative operating systems like BOS).

The buyer who just wants to do straightforward things word processing, database, spreadsheet, graphics, basic accounts, etc will find there is a wide choice of programs. Those with specific or more unusual requirements are less likely to find what they want but this is the case with every type of micro, including the Amstrad PC. Good software takes a long time to develop. Therefore most of the software houses who have launched new pro- rams for the ST must have ecided to do so before knowing if the machine was going to tie successful or not. They are unlikely to develop more unless these programs sell, which means Atari has to sell lots of machines.

But even a high level of current sales is no guarantee of long-term success. The Commodore Vic 20 and Dragon 32 were once big sellers on the home micro market, while the Sirius 1 and Sanyo 555 were formerly very popular small business machines. Many buyers must Jack Schofield continues his comparison off the Amstrad PC-1512 and Atari ST Wimps sent to enter the battleground create their own documents out of the reams of text stored in the machine. This would be done not by laboriously copying the contents of each screen and combining the results to form a new physical document, but simply by keeping a record of the trail, the list of addresses used to access the relevant data. Furthermore, trails could themselves be combined and manipulated to produce different documents on related subjects.

In 1962 Douglas Engelbart, of the University of California at Berkeley, adapted Bush's ideas to the computer. He developed a system called Augment which is now available on the Tymshare network in the US. It exploits computer storage and retrieval to implement Bush's pro- Sosals, allowing users to link ocuments and create "viewing filters." So, for example, a researcher can pull together a document on a particular subject and only view those portions which are relevant to their interest Meanwhile Ted Nelson was working on his own hypertext system, Xanadu, aiming to create a library of literary texts that could be manipulated to form new views of the literature it contained TT3 AT 9 SO am I set off from the temp agency, faithfully promising the charming supervisor that I would not blow up the company's machine. Resting my hand on her shoulder, I said, "Have faith in me, I won't let you down." I arrived for work at 10 am at the appointed building, only to find that the person who was scheduled to teach me how to use the software would not arrive until 11 am. Uam: I returned to the plush, teak-fitted offices.

Two receptionists wearing the latest Dallas shoulder pads guided me gently to the second floor, where I was introduced to the accounts supervisor a middle-aged Captain Birdseye figure with sea-going beard, weather-beaten red skin, and piercing blue eyes. As his eyes surveyed me, I realised I had been cast in the role of junior cabin boy. Fortunately the role of training and supervising me for the day fell to Annette, a delightful lady in her early thirties with honey-blonde hair and a voice to match. She caressed the keyboard of the IBM at her desk and it cooed in reply, the green screen responding with stock numbers and invoice references. The software was specifi cally written for the company, and my work was simply to insert and amend have thought they were safe bets, and must now be sadly disillusioned.

In 1981, when 64K micros were the standard, the IBM PC's potential complement of 640K of memory seemed absurdly generous. Now many home users have ST's with 1024K, the IBM standard looks weak, and companies are resorting to desperate measures to get round it. Today the Motorola 68000 processor can use 16 megabytes of memory, which seems generous. No one knows how this will look in Ave years time though 640K will still look a lot worse! There is another reason why some will opt for the Atari ST (or Apple Macintosh or Commodore Amiga) rather than the Amstrad PC-1512 (or other IBM PC-compatible). Most importantly, these new machines bring new ways of doing things, which are particularly helpful to people who haven't learned the old, hard ways of MS DOS, WordStar.

dBase II etc. The wimps (windowsiconsmouse pull-down menus) interface originally developed by Xerox really is better. Software that uses it is better. Many people will be loath to believe that programs with funny names they've barely heard of are better than the stuff everybody knows, but it is true. (It's also what VisiCalc users thought when Lotus 1-2-3 had just come out).

People often stick to what they know out of the relevant stock record data from paper to records displayed on the screen. Each record had to be filled out on the VDU in triplicate for three different departments. There were only about eight insertions to Be made on each record displayed on the screen, and the keyboard of the IBM terminal was relatively easy to understand. After half an hour I was happily whizzing away, updating records under the watchful eye of the lovely Annette, who was stationed at the next desk. "How you getting on lad?" called Captain Birdseye.

I mumbled an affirmative as he disappeared into the enginecomputer room of the good ship IBM. After an hour of plugging away I was getting pretty fed up, particularly with the copying in triplicate, and was making resolutions about what I would do for the user the next time I had to write a Cobol program myself. After ninety minutes I discovered that the lovely Annette knew absolutely nothing about using computers except what she had been personally taught. Therefore several keys which could have made deletions and insertions in the record updates easier for myself, and anyone else, had not ignorance, and that includes a great many computer journalists. (Some magazines only cover the IBM PC and Unfortunately the industry has got itself into a blue funk a Big Blue funk about the importance of the IBM PC standard.

Indeed that standard has been extremely valuable, though it is disinter grating. Now it includes two distinct processors (8088. 80286 with 8086, 80186 and 80386 chips in some compatibles), two different types of IBM expansion slot, three versions of the operating system, several disc formats (160K, 320K, 360K and 1.2M in 5.25in plus 3.5in options), too many display formats (monochrome, Hercules, CGA, EGA, PGA), three different IBM keyboards, several memory-upgrade bodges etc etc, the number of permutations is making the close to incomprehensible. Anyway, in the future, it is certain that Motorola 68000-based micros will flourish alongside the Intel ones, just as MOStek 6502 machines (the Apple II, Acorn, Atari and Commodore micros) flourished alongside Z-80's running the previous standard, 8-bit CPM. It is also possible that, in the future, the focus of compatibility will shift from the operating system level (IBM PC DOS, CPM etc) to the "wimps" environment level just as previously it shifted up from the raw hardware to SOFTWARE PR0DUC1SREQUIRED (INTERNATIONAL software marketing company requires I NEW products (or IBM, ATARI and AMSTRAD I I computers for BRITISH.

AMERICAN AND JAPANESE DISTRIBUTORS. Send details to: ON LINE MARKETING I 6 Shrewsbury Mews, London W2 5PN. I Tol: 01-321 3026 I cTI BATTLES in the microcomputer market are usually fought between old machines, which have an established software base, and new models, which offer superior hardware technology. This is essentially the choice which faces the prospective purchaser of a serious low-cost microcomputer. Of the two main options, the Amstrad PC-1512 offers access to the large amount of software written for the IBM PC and its compatibles; the Atari 520ST-FM offers far more computing power (Computer Guardian, January 15), but a smaller choice of software.

Why not, therefore, stick to the tried and tested? One might as well ask Why not stick to the Austin Seven or (switching modes of transport) the Douglas Dakota? The answer in microcomputing is clearly that new micros can be made smaller, faster, more powerful and cheaper. The extra power is important because the designer can devote more resources to making the system easier to use, which is essential as the lower price simultaneously makes these resources available to more people. Microcomputing is revolutionary. The old standards are regularly overthrown which means it is generally best to go for newer, though not the newest, technology. There are two catches.

First, not all new models succeed; indeed, the majority of new micros fail. Second, there is VACANCIES FOR EXPERIENCED DP 8 COMMUNICATIONS PROFESSIONALS Meet the leading employers of DP and communications professionals face to face Discuss vacancies on the spot with DP professionals and managers responsible for recruitment Vacancies in all salary ranges: 8K-12K 300 vacancies, 12K-16K 550 vacancies, 16K-20K 200 vacancies, 20K 150 vacancies The majority of vacancies are for staff with more than 2 years experience Opening hours Friday 30 January 1987: 1030-1930 Saturday 31 January 1987: 1000-1700 New Century Hall is opposite Victoria Station, 50 yards from the CIS building. Cowitfier 30-31 January 1987 New Century Hall, Manchester Sponsored by Computer Weekly.