THE FIVE CENT REVIEW:

A Nickel's Worth of Opinion on Every Program I've Ever Used

by Dick Estel

A title like this obviously has to contain a certain percentage of hyperbole. My actual goal in writing this
article was to present a capsule review of every program I've ever used enough to form a fair opinion.
Where I feel comfortable doing so, I've provided a rating from 1 to 10, with 1 being best. In some
cases I don't use the program any more because I use a PC program; but my assessment of the
Commodore programs is still valid.

My first word processor was Word Pro. I don't recall much about it, but it left a lot to be desired. I
rented Pocket Writer from a local software rental store, and was highly impressed. It had WYSIWYG
display, sorting capabilities, and a lot of other features. I ordered it in a package along with Pocket
Planner and Pocket Filer, and used it for several months until it was displaced by The Write Stuff.

The immediate advantage of TWS over Pocket Writer was the simple word macro feature, faster input
(WYSIWYG displays are naturally slower than straight screen font displays), and much simpler
command structure. I kept Pocket Writer for years before selling it; and it's an excellent program, but I
never loaded it after I started using TWS. Write Stuff 2, Pocket 4.

I had an earlier data base, possibly File Pro, that had very tedious data input. I set up my address file
on Pocket Filer, which works great and is very flexible, but I've never updated it. In fact, this program
offers a lot more power than the average user needs unless you are setting up a business-type data
base. I finally just put my address list in TWS.

Pocket Planner is used to keep track of my bank balance, my rental property, my budget, and to do my
income tax computations. Like all the Pocket programs, it is a complex program with lots of features,
and I don't use it enough to be familiar with most of what it can do. For the few files I do maintain, it is
easy to use and has never given me any problems. A rating of 3.

I bought SuperCat to catalog my growing disk collection, but ended up using the shareware program
DCMR. SuperCat is about three times as much work to enter data, and offers fewer features. DCMR
reads the filenames from the disk, then lets you delete or modify them, type in names from the
keyboard, or eliminate a whole page of file names (useful when the disk has a lot of subordinate files
that work with the main program but don't need to be listed). DCMR has the fastest sort routine I've
seen in ANY Commodore program. There's a lot of flexibility in how you print out the lists. Rated 3.

With all those catalogued disks, a label maker is a must. I tried Label Wizard, a favorite of many users.
It's pretty simple to use, lets you save text (such as addresses), and uses Print Shop graphics.
However, I ended up using geoLabel, which offers a lot more control over what the label looks like.
GeoLabel is not nearly as easy to use as Label Wizard, but for a regular, experienced GEOS user, it
doesn't matter.

I'm not a computer artist but everyone usually ends up with a drawing program of some sort. I use
GEOS almost exclusively, although I have dabbled with the drawing feature of Print Shop. I bought the
OCP Art Studio/Advanced Art Studio package, which is very highly rated, primarily with the hope that
my daughter, a talented artist, would use it. She's more comfortable with traditional materials, however;
so I can't really report on this program. For original drawing, GEOS is fair for original creation
(something I do very little of); very difficult for color drawing, and excellent for manipulating and
modifying existing graphics. GeoPaint alone has a lot of limitations, but the various programs that have
been created to augment and support it, make it the most flexible and versatile text and graphics system
available.

GeoPaint and geoWrite can be used together as a poor man's desk top publishing program, but the real
star of this segment of the Commodore world is geoPublish. Although I created the club's newsletter
using geoPublish for several years, it is such an extensive program that there are features that I never
got into. It is not particularly intuitive, but the old fashioned technique of reading the manual and just
sitting down and trying things allowed me to become very comfortable with the program after a few
weeks of use.

Before geoPublish there was Paperclip Publisher, a program that aspired to greatness and fell short.
The basic operation of the program was fine, but it did not allow use of two drives or a RAM
expander, making it the dead turtle of Commodore desktop publishing. Rated 8.

Even before Paperclip, I tried out Outrageous Pages. On my scale of 1 to 10, I rate it a 12. Hard to
use, strange on-screen interface, and just a dog in general.

In the area of combining text and graphics, there are several programs that really don't have the features
or power to qualify as desk top publishing programs, but do have their uses. These include Newsroom,
Print Shop and PrintMaster. Although people have used Newsroom to create newsletters, it is very
time consuming and in my opinion the printed output is not acceptable (rated 8). Print Shop (5) and
PrintMaster (3.5) are very similar, with PrintMaster taking the prize because it lets you see what your
creation looks like and you can save your file, two features Print Shop lacks. For signs, greeting cards,
flyers, and the like, I always use GEOS, but Print Shop or PrintMaster come out of the box when I
need a banner.

I've used two pretty good directory organizers. My first choice is called Directory Assistance. After it
loads the directory into memory, you can sort the entire list, sort a range of file names, move file names
around, and insert divider lines. Only when everything is arranged as desired do you give the command
to re-write the directory. Davis Directory Designer accomplishes the same task, and is also easy to use;
I just happened to get a copy of Directory Assistance before I saw DDD. Though both rate a 3, neither
will recognize a second drive, or my CMD hard drive. This led me to DEdit 7.1, available in both 64
and 128 versions. Written to deal with hard drive native partitions, this program lets you select the
drive, partition and subdirectory you want to work with. It is not actually as flexible in use as the older
programs, but it accomplishes the job adequately. I give it a 4.5. (When I started using the hard drive, I
had to switch to newer programs in several categories, because many of the older disk utilities don't
recognize the HD.)

For disk copying on Commodore 15x1 drives, it's hard to beat Maverick (rated 2). Fast Hack 'Em
also works fine (rated 3), and offers the added benefit of a 128 version that will copy double-sided
1571 disks. Neither one likes the hard drive, but the drive came with disk and file copy programs that
are every bit as good as the old standbys. 

For pre-hard drive file copying, I like the copier that is included in the Super Snapshot V5 cartridge.
Although Maverick and Fast Hack'Em both have file copy capability, the SSV5 menu system just
seems to be a little more logically organized. Once I put the hard drive into my system, I need a file
copier that would work with it (SSV5 does not get along well with the HD at all). The program
included with the drive, FCopy, works fine for all file copying. It's whole disk counterpart is MCopy,
which copies to and from disks or partitions (both source and target must be the same format; i.e. a
1541 emulation partition can be copied only to a 1541 disk or similar partition).

Although it's not hard to load a program from a directory listing or by simply typing LOAD
"PROGRAM",8, people have enjoyed making custom menus as long as we've had computers. My
long-time favorite is the one we used on our club Disk of the Month, simply called Menumaker. It has a
clean, easy to use display; and lets you give a short description of each program. Some menu programs
automatically include everything on the disk, but Menumaker lets you chose the desired programs. This
is a vital feature when you have a program such as Name That State, which includes 48 Doodle files,
one for each continental U.S. state.

With the hard drive I've been using a very nice program called EZ Loader Menu. In keeping with the
way files must be organized on large storage devices, this program lets you include files from any
partition and/or subdirectory, and loads them from the menu. Another useful feature is the ability to give
the program a meaningful name on the menu display. This is important for programs that contain several
files, and may load from something called "Boot", "Loader," or some other uninformative name. I rate
this program #1.

Telecommunications is not a major activity for me, but I've used several terminal programs. One of
course was Q-Link's proprietary terminal/interface program, which is useless with anything but Q-Link,
and therefore useless for the rest of time. I've forgotten what C64 term program(s) I tried out; in the
128 mode I have tried Bob's Term Pro, DesTerm, and NesTerm. DesTerm was the best of these, with
more features than I could ever use, but it had some problems working with my equipment, so I mostly
used NesTerm, an older, simpler program. Since my BBS activity has always been very limited, the
ability to save phone numbers in a file and autodial, which all these programs can do, is about all I ask.
Another requirement is convenient upload/download capability, and most programs meet this
requirement well. Ultimately I settled on Dave's Term, a program from LOADSTAR 128. Since it was
a 1990's program, I assumed it would have all the latest capabilities. It does indeed--like all major
terminal programs, it does a lot more than I will ever ask of it. When I used it to capture a lot of
informational text from GEnie, the 60,000 kb buffer was a definite advantage. However, the program
had serious problems displaying text on the Internet. (Rated 3)

Uploading and downloading files from a BBS, including major on-line services like GEnie or Q-Link
often involves compressing and uncompressing the programs. The most commonly used program of this
type for Commodore has been ARC, including the self-dissolving version (SDA). Creating and
dissolving ARC files and creating SDA's requires the use of a complex command structure, similar to
MS-DOS. Arc Aid, a shareware program released a number of years ago by a high school age
programmer, adds a menu-driven program to the basic ARC program, making it simple to create ARC
or SDA files. Self-dissolving ARC files, as the name implies, are dissolved just by loading and running
them. ARC files can be dissolved with Arc Aid, as well as some other utility programs. Arc Aid is a bit
flaky in some of its functions, but when you know how to avoid these problems, it performs its work
very well (rated 4).

Another program that can dissolve ARC files is Omega-Q, a multi-purpose utility program distributed
on Q-Link. In addition to dissolving ARC, LYNX and LIBRARY files, Omega-Q has a file copier,
directory editor, and many other features. Omega-Q is available on many BBS's and club libraries, so
the demise of Q-Link does not end the availability of this versatile program.

Uploading and downloading GEOS files requires an additional step. To upload, they must be changed
from the proprietary GEOS USR format to PRG or SEQ files. After downloading, they must be
changed back. Several versions of a program called Convert are available to accomplish this. In the last
days of Q-Link a programmer uploaded GeoPack, which not only does the conversion to and from,
but also compresses and uncompresses the files. The convenience this version offers earns it a 2.

Now we come to a broad, indistinct category I call "fun stuff." Few of these are games as such, and
I'm not much for traditional computer games. These tend to be trivia type programs, many of them
focusing on a specialized subject, and many of them were published on LOADSTAR.

Anyone who came of age during the late 50's and fell in love with rock and roll will feel his/her pulse
quicken at the sight of a title like "Who Sang Teen Angel," which covers music from the mid '50's
through the '80's and presents you with a song title, and a multiple choice listing of artists. ("Teen
Angel" was one of the first and probably the most popular of the "dead girlfriend" songs.) If the song is
from the 50's or the 60's, I can claim 100%accuracy; later material sometimes presents a challenge.
There are similar programs covering history, U.S. presidents, authors, world cities, world capitals, and
state capitals. I'm still trying to beat the default high score on some of these, but I can get 100% on
state capitals every time.

A program I mentioned earlier, Name That State, offers a different type of challenge, requiring you to
name a state after viewing an outline map. The state is shown in context of the entire continental U.S.,
and the only place I had difficulty is with some of the small northeastern states (mostly because it's hard
to see the shape of the smallest ones). I showed this program to my 10-year old grandson and a friend,
and they got as excited playing it as they do with shoot-em-up arcade games. Needless to say, I didn't
tell them it was educational!

If you like card games, LOADSTAR is again the best source. They have published a few dozen
solitaire games over the years, but my favorite is Our Own Klondike, on issue 120. The later versions
have a great-looking, easy to use interface. And if you get frustrated because you don't win enough,
hunt up Kato's Solitaire. You're almost sure to win! (I could not locate this with the LOADSTAR
index program, but the time frame is during Kato's testimony at the O.J. Simpson trial.)

After the previous paragraph was written, LOADSTAR did it again--on issue 138 they topped
themselves with a mouse-operated version called Star Klondike. Individual cards and arrays are moved
around simply by clicking and pointing. Anti-mousers can stay with the earlier version, but if you're
addicted to rodent input, this game can be learned quickly and easily (although beating it is a different
story!)

The only other card game I play very much is Blackjack. I love to risk those big sums without really
having to open my wallet! Of course, if you walk away thousands ahead, you can't spend it, but you
don't have to wire home for bus fare when you lose! The best Blackjack game I have found is called
Blackjack Tutor (you'll find it on the May 1991 Disk of the Month). There are of course many others,
including Casino Blackjack on Loadstar 107.

Another great program in the educational but fun category is Sky Travel. This astronomy program was
published by Commodore itself, and is well worth hunting down if you have any interest in this subject.
In addition to extensive astronomical information, the main part of the program is a sky map that lets
you look at any part of the sky, at any time backward or forward for about 10,000 years. Of course,
the first thing you want to do is set it for local coordinates (36 degrees, 44 minutes, 12 seconds north
latitude; 119/47/11 west longitude for Fresno). This allows you to discover such information as the fact
that the bright object crossing the southern sky all summer was the planet Jupiter. Or you can find out
where to look for Scorpio while you're watching for Santa on Christmas Eve. The program includes a
138 page manual which contains a vast amount of information in addition to instructions on how to use
the program. This is more like 25 cents worth than a nickel, but it would take several pages to write a
review that really does justice to this great program.

A program that sounds like it might be related (but is not) is Time Traveler. In effect, TT is a data base
of news events, prices, and other information about each year of the century. When you run it, TT asks
you for your name and a date, and whether this is a birth date or wedding date. The program then
displays average salary, average cost of a new house, and prices on a number of other items, both for
the year specified and for 1989 (the year I purchased my disk). In addition you will learn who won the
major Oscars in that year, who was president, who won (and lost) the World Series, and several major
news items from the time. The information can then be printed out in a nice format. This is a fun
program (rated 3), but as time goes on, the comparisons are getting more and more out of date. A letter
to the company a year ago did not return but was not answered.

One of the favorite uses of a computer is to catalog one's family tree in a genealogy program. I tried
several of them, and found only one that I felt was worth the effort--Personal Ancestral File (PAF).
This program was produced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), and my
version works under the Commodore 128's CP/M mode. This version will actually run on just about
any CP/M computer. It allows printing of all the standard genealogical displays: Ancestral tree,
descendent chart, family groups, etc. There are quite a few commercial and public domain genealogy
programs, but this one is worth hunting down.


Anyone who uses GEOS even half-way seriously ends up using some of the literally hundreds of
programs that have been created as public domain, shareware or commercial offerings to make GEOS
easier and more fun. Dozens of these programs are worth having. I guess my number one favorite is still
geoWizard, Jim Collette's task switching utility. This lets you open any application or desk accessory
from within another one. Included in the package is MiniDesk, an excellent desk accessory that lets you
copy to and from any of three drives.

A program I can't live without is Paint Scrap by Dennis Seitz. This application allows you to clip any
size photo scrap, up to the full page, from a geoPaint document.

Another neat little goody that I use regularly is ScrapGrab. One of the limitations of the Photo Manager
is that it only operates on scraps and albums on the same disk. ScrapGrab and PhotoGrab can be used
to copy a scrap from an album on any of three drives, and save it to the drive it was launched from.
Since ScrapGrab is a desk accessory, it's useful when you're working on a geoPaint document and
realize you need a scrap from another disk. You can click on GEOS, click on ScrapGrab, and get the
needed clip without leaving geoPaint. PhotoGrab is an application that has to be run separately, but it
can capture a larger scrap.

Programmer Nate Fiedler created a program similar to, but in some ways better than, geoPaint, called
geoCanvas. Although it was a commercial program, Nate released it to public domain when he went on
to other pursuits. Its best feature is the ability to open three windows, which can be three different
geoPaint files, or three views of the same file.

As this article was being completed, Maurice Randall's Wheels came on the scene. This is a significant
revision of the whole GEOS operating system. The initial 64 release was essentially a beta version, so it
is a bit early to give this program a full assessment. I think it will prove to be essential for people using
GEOS on a hard drive or RAMLink system.

There you have it, more than you ever wanted to know about over three dozen Commodore programs.
With thousands available, this just scratches the surface--but out of this batch, you could find enough
programs to make your Commodore do probably 90% of what most people would want from this
seemingly immortal machine.

From "The Interface," newsletter of Fresno Commodore User Group, via The Commodore
Information Center web site (http://home.att.net/~rmestel/commodore.html)