Atari
Eight-Bits In The Classroom
Barton M. Bresnik
Barton M. Bresnik
I'm a teacher who uses computers in the classroom in an integrated curriculum. Computers are used in all subjects. For a report on malaria written in AtariWriter Plus and illustrated using Atari Paint, a student may receive grades in social studies, science and communications (we called that English). Atari eight-bit computers are used because I can buy 'em in flea markets or from GEnie ads, or they're donated to our class; they perform reliably; they're easy to use and they can do almost anything needed. It's appropriate technology. Sure, we could use a PC, Mac, Falcon 030 or even a Sun workstation or two, but for the price of one MacIntosh, we've got a dozen 800XL's and their kindred.
In the past months, I've received requests for a list of generalpurpose educational software for eight-bit Atari computers. Offered here is a somewhat limited, idiosyncratic list of the educational software my students and I prefer to use.
1) The software mentioned has been tested mostly in the middle school.
2) There are many excellent programs not mentioned because of my limited experience.
3) Though the address of a software publisher has been listed here when known, it is primarily of historical significance, as most of these publishers no longer support classic Ataris or have closed. However, if you look through the ads from companies such as American Techna-Vision or B&C Computervisions, watch the classified ads in Atari Classics, shop at computer flea markets, or attend Atari user group meetings, much software may be found.
Communications:
Among the most-used programs are word processors. AtariWriter (cartridge) and AtariWriter Plus (AW+)(disk) from Atari are not WYSIWYG and are limited to 40 columns across the screen (though AW+ may show a "window" into a much larger virtual display) but they are my favorites. They are robust, easy to learn and keep pace with rapid typing even in "insert" mode (better than many PC programs). The screen is much more legible than 80-column NTSC displays, especially on color monitors. Other word processors I've used are Speed, Script v. 3.0 from COMPUTE! magazine and T:Edit from the May, 1987 issue of A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing. Both are capable of fine output and are useful when compiling `C' programs, but are not as versatile as AW+. These programs have been released from copyright and may be accessed from the GEnie eight-bit libraries.
Minimalist desk-top publishing is available using The Newsroom (disk) from Springboard. AwardWare, Print Power and Sesame Street Print Kit (disks), produced by Hi Tech Expressions, allow the production of banners, posters, awards and cards. Two drives are recommended for DTP to avoid continually swapping disks. All these programs produce quite good, if somewhat "dotty", results from my XMM801 printer, but are much slower to use and to print than are word processors, because of all the personal decisions to be made and computer rendering time in producing graphic details. Print Shop from Broderbund also has a fine reputation for DTP, though I've not used it.
Other programs for "keyboarding" use are Lazer-Type (disk) by Matt Rattcliff and Master-Type (cart.) from Scarborough Systems, Inc. Both are timed typing drills, but Master-Type also allows the inclusion of your own vocabulary list (in any language, of course) saved to disk, so that spelling as well as keyboarding are learned. WordSearch Maker (disk), by the author, generates puzzles which may be copied and distributed to other students, who define the words as well as find them.
While on the subject of language, Skywriter (cart.) by Atari teaches the building of compound words, such as underground through an animated game. It's fairly popular with my students. Spell Diver (disk) by Scholastic, Inc. is one of those captivating games that surreptitiously has the student practicing spelling while "diving for pearls". Elementary grade students love it.
Music:
An immense variety of music programs are available. AtariMusic I & II (disks) from Atari help one learn, respectively, musical notation and the major scales and keys. The four-voice ability of the Atari sound chip is used well, as are graphics. A few learning games make it fairly enjoyable. Music Composer (cart.) from Atari aids in the production of an actual musical composition as well as learning and understanding an existing tune. A nice feature is the use of repeats to allow extended compositions. My students have used Music Composer to make a simple background sound-track for a video they produced. The Music Studio (disk) from Activision, Bank Street Music Writer (disk) by Glen Clancy of Mindscape, and Will Harvey's Musical Construction Set (disk) from Electronic Arts bring the convenience of cut-and-paste word processing to musical compostion. These elegant programs allow you to print the score if you have one of the compatible printers. This is pretty impressive, as until quite recently, musical scores were true manuscripts, photoreproduced. The Music Studio is also available in an Atari ST version, with MIDI capabilities.
Movie Musical Madness (cart.), Halftime Battlin' Bands (cart.) and Coconotes (cart.) from CBS Software are "interactive musical activities" which aid children in sequencing as well as in recognizing music. Users piece together musical segments in Battlin' Bands; in Coconotes they place individual notes in a score; and in Movie Musical Madness set the stage, direct the action and select a score to produce a brief "movie". All three are captivating; it is particularly difficult to interrupt a student production of Movie Musical Madness.
Visual Arts
Art programs abound and are among the most popular programs in school. MicroIllustrator (disk or cart.) from Island Graphics Corp. and AtariArtist (cart.) from Atari are almost identical; pictures made by one can be loaded by the other. Both may be used with touch tablets, but the Atari Touch Tablet from Atari is purposely designed to be incompatible with the Koala Pad from Koala Technology Corp. (motion on one axis is inverted). It should be possible to re-wire one tablet to emulate the other. Atari Artist allows the use of keyboard access to commands, which I find somewhat more convenient, but both produce excellent results. GEnie and other BBS's have free or shareware programs to print screens in MI format to color or black-andwhite printers and to allow MI pictures to be loaded as part of a BASIC program.
Epyx produced Fun With Art (cart.), which allows more than five colors on-screen by means of display-list interrupts. It also features cut-and-paste and copying of blocks of art: draw one tree, copy it to make a forest, then "touch up" to individualize a few trees. I prefer FWA for detailed drawings which will later be loaded into a BASIC program, such as Ecologian. Please note that the routine they've given for loading these pictures has an error, which will eventually cause a program crash. To fix this, change all three lines that read:
A=USR(ADR(CIO$),16)
to read instead:
A=USR(ADR(CIO$))
to prevent eventual stack overflow.
Atari Paint (disk) from Atari (apparently there are different programs with that title; the one I've used is DX-5048) allows even very young children with poor motor control to make nice low-resolution pictures using the joystick. Like FWA, Paint has adjustable response speed to stick input.
Computer Crayons (disk) from Futurehouse is aimed at the early elementary grades. It allows students to color-fill line drawings and to then observe various animations and tunes. Each drawing is associated with a letter of the alphabet. This still captivates my eighth-graders (though hopefully, they already know the Roman alphabet).
There are too many other fine art programs to list all, but I will mention a few. Magic Paint (disk) from GEnie is a tour de force demonstration of TurboBASIC. As such, it may be modified by an experienced user. Hi-Res Designer (disk) from Antic is for Graphics Mode 8 drawing using memory banks in the 130XE. Rambrandt (disk) allows you to select the graphic mode. The last two programs are good for the higher-level user with an interest in graphic arts.
Mathematics:
Computer-aided instruction in mathematics is popular. My favorite is one of the versions of the Function Machine (disk), available from Bellcom on disk #90. (Bellcom also had many more educational disks.) The user tries to predict the output of a "machine" after inserting a number. The "black box" or machine may add, subtract, multiply, divide or even exponentiate the input, or combine these operations. Levels of difficulty may be selected to be suitable for late elementary grades through algebra students. Animation and sound effects help make Function Machine entertaining, and it exercises logical reasoning more than rote memorization.
Visicalc (disk) from Visicorp is a spread-sheet which, among other things, makes a superb rankbook. Cells may hold students' names, areas of evaluation, numerical grades and the formulae to calculate averages. Output, printed to disk, may be transferred to a word processor.
Look through the software libraries on the various BBS's and information services for more public domain, freeware and shareware. My offering is AREATUTR.BAS (disk, via modem), file #5851 on the GEnie 8-bit board. It's a tutorial on multiplication and area, showing graphically how to find the area of rectangles and triangles. It also can "quiz" a user on areas of circles and/or ellipses. As Area Tutor is written in TurboBASIC, download this programming language if you don't yet have it.
Commercial products include SAT Math (disk) from Hayden Software which involves mostly drill, and Graphing (disk) from Atari which explores Cartesian and polar-coordinate graphs. Graphing has a variety of learning games, of somewhat uneven value, but overall very much worthwhile. Volume 1 of the Sesame Street Learning Library (disk), from Hi Tech Expressions, has three math games for pre-school age or early elementary grade students: Astro-Grover helps teach counting, Ernie's Magic Shapes begins recognition of polygons and Big Bird's Special Delivery aids in building skill in classifying and understanding sets.
Social Studies:
One of the most popular programs among my students is Agent U.S.A. (disk) from Scholastic Inc. This game has the children exploring the U.S. to find a "fuzz machine" that is taking over the country. Without being obviously didactic, it soon has the user applying map skills and time-telling skills as well as learning the names of major cities, capitals and states. It is interesting and challenging enough to occupy a team for an hour at a time (at which point I must pry them from the keyboard).
The Seven Cities of Gold (disk) from Electronic Arts is a simulation in the tradition of Hamurabi. Outfit an expedition, set sail from Spain and explore the New World. Maps are based on areas of the Americas, though decisions are somewhat simplified: conquer or evade the natives or barter with them.
Science:
In science, the Atari eight-bits offer incredible value for the price! The AtariLab Starter Set (cart. and hardware) and the AtariLab Light Module (cart. and hardware, to be used with the patchbox from the Starter Set), both from Atari Learning Systems, offer the opportunity to make measurements in the "real world" and to control processes using the I/O ports built into the Atari. The two (or four in the 400 and 800) joystick/paddle ports contain four (or eight!) eight-bit analog-to-digital converters which may be used to measure temperature or light (or anything else which may be represented as an electrical resistance). The ports may also be set by software for output to switch loads of a few milliamperes.
Both AtariLabs are available for less than $20 from B&C Computervisions. Though the resolution of data is at best .5%, it is ample for student use or even some serious research. It would be trivial to graph the temperature and insolation at four heights simultaneously during the course of a week, using an Atari 400 or 800, four thermistors and four CdS photocells (one thermistor or one photocell are included in each kit). A comparable chart recorder would cost hundreds of dollars; furthermore, your computer can analyze, graphically display and print the data, as well as record it. The excellent user manuals describe the function of the hardware and its interaction with the computer, set experiments to perform and suggest further avenues of experimentation. In my first use of the Starter Set, I was fascinated to watch a beatiful exponential curve plotted as the thermistor was removed from a block of ice and left to warm in the air.
To follow our seventh and eighth grade science curricula I've written my own software. Optical Illusions and Audiovisualizer (disk) contains two programs; the first presenting ten illusions utilizing the computer's ability to alter colors and luminances, while the second produces pure or mixed tones and graphs amplitude against time. Ecologian (disk) simulates the growth of organisms and their effect on a barren planet. Elements of Chemistry (disk or GEnie file #5805) contains a learning game for the Periodic Chart, displays the ground-state electron configuration of the elements and calculates the molecular mass of a compound. Kinetic Theory (GEnie file #5729) demonstrates molecular motion due to heat. Disks are available from Bresnik Software.
Atari Planetarium (disk) from Atari provides an incredible representation of the sky, showing hundreds of stars and far-sky objects, the positions of the moon, sun and planets - it can even simulate an eclipse. Planetarium is captivating for the students, it provides a useful tool for finding astronomical objects, whether on-screen or from a printout to bring outdoors, and it's informative. Recalculation of the planets' and moon's positions makes the program slightly "jerky", but it is arguably one of the best programs for an eight-bit Atari.
And some other software...
Miscellaneous educational favorites include Chess (cart.) from Parker Brothers, Computer Chess (cart.) from Atari and Sargon III (disk) from Hayden Software. All allow playing at various response times or ability levels and stepping forward or backward through a game. Sargon also provides a fine library of openings and complete games and allows saving games to disk. I've found all three play better games than some dedicated chess computers [no, they won't beat Berliner or his creations, though].
The Pond (disk) and The Factory (disk) from Human Engineered Software provide excellent, entertaining exercises in reasoning or logical ability for "ages 7 and up". In Pond, you help a frog navigate from lily-pad to pad. Using Factory you copy a part by a sequence of steps, requiring pre-visualization of the final state after painting, punching and rotating the piece.
Programming languages, such as Delta Drawing (cart.), from Spinnaker, and Atari Logo (cart.), and Pilot (cart.) from Atari are justified not only through an end-product but through their use in developing logical thought-processes. To draw a shape or write a quiz calls for modelling, predicting, planning ahead and other higher-level abilities. More advanced students might learn Pascal, C, or even 6502 Assembly Code using the Atari Assembler-Editor (cart.) from Atari.
A modem allows contact with students and teachers outside the classroom. By calling a local number for the School Forum, we can reach Fido-Net and correspond directly with students in places as diverse as Massachusetts, Tennessee, British Columbia, France, New Zealand or Japan. A $30 SX212 modem works well directly with my Atari 800XL, and we use Bob Term (disk), version 1.21, from Robert Puff, "a shareware terminal program". Bob Term offers a capture buffer, automatic dialing, x- and y-modem file transfer protocol, and virtually every other amenity available in a communications program. Another fine terminal program is SX212 Express (disk) by Keith Ledbetter.
Summing It Up
All right, I give up. There are dozens of other fine educational programs, but this survey should give you some idea of the variety of software available. Why not submit an article to Atari Classics? Review your own favorites, or discuss in greater depth some of the software mentioned so briefly here. Desribe how you've used the software and how it worked.
Please mail your manuscript, preferably in 5.25" ATASCI disc format (DOS 2.0 or 2.5 or MyDOS) or 3.5" IBM/Atari ST format (as ASCII text), to me.
[We need a new word for manuscript: few articles are now hand-written; many are electronic.]
Oh, have I mentioned Mapware? ...and then there's Turtle Tracks and the Fraction Factory and M.U.L.E and...
Sources
of Software:
In many cases, sources listed no longer support Atari eight-bit computers. Those marked with an asterisk (*) are most likely to have software mentioned or other educational titles.
Activision, Inc.
PO. Box 7287
Mountain View, CA 94039
*American Techna-Vision
(800) 551-9995
15338 Inverness Street
San Leandro, CA 94579
Atari Corp., Sunnyvale, CA 94086
*B&C Computervisions
(408) 986-9960
2730 Scott Boulevard
Santa Clara, CA 95050
*Bellcom
P.O. Box 1043
Peterborough, Ontario
Canada K9J7A5
(recently left eight-bit market but may have remainders)
*Bensley Consulting
P.O. Box 301
Westfield, IL 62474-0301
*Best Electronics
(408) 243-6950, Suite 290
2021 The Alameda
San Jose, CA 95125
*Bresnik Software
555 Ware Street
Mansfield, MA 02048-2925
Broderbund Software
17 Paul Drive
San Rafael, CA 9403-2101
CBS Software
Greenwich, CT 06836
Compute! Publications
(919) 275-9809, Inc.
P.O. Box 5406
Greensboro, NC 27403
Electronic Arts
2755 Campus Drive
San Mateo, CA 94403
Epyx, Inc.
1043 Kiel Court
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Futurehouse
310 West Franklin Street
P.O. Box 3470
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
*GEnie, GE Information Services
(800) 638-9636 (voice)
P.O. Box 6403
Rockville, MD 20850-1785
Hayden Software Co.
600 Suffolk Street
Lowell, MA 01854
Hi Tech Expressions, Inc.
584 Broadway
New York, N.Y 10012
Human Engineered Software
150 North Hill Drive
Brisbane, CA 94005
*Ledbetter, Keith
5834 Dafred Drive
Rockford, IL 61107
Mindscape, Inc.
3444 Dundee Road
Northbrook, IL 60062
Parker Brothers
P.O. Box 1012
Beverly, MA 01915
*Puff, Robert
Suite 222, 2117 Buffalo Roac
Rochester, NY 14624
San Jose Computer
(408)995-5080
1278 Alma Court
San Jose, CA 95112
Scholastic Inc.
1290 Wall Street West
P.O. Box 641
Lyndhurst, NJ 07071
Spinnaker Software Corp.
215 First Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
Springboard Software
7808 Creekridge Circle
Minneapolis, MN 55435
*Toad Computers
(410)544-6943
570 Ritchie Hwy.
Severna Park, MD 21146
Visicorp
2895 Zanker Road
San Jose, CA 95134