_{Cover of the April 1985 issue of Antic}

Antic was primarily an Atari 8-bit magazine but at times it covered both the Atari 8-bit line and the 16-bit Atari ST. This was the case in April 1985 when the Atari ST had been recently released.

The April 1985 issue of Antic includes the following:

Features

• First Look at the New Super Ataris - A look at the brand new Atari 520ST which included an 8 MHz 68000 (faster than the Macintosh at the time) and 512K of RAM. At the time, a 130ST and 260ST were also planned with lesser memory (128K for the 130ST and 256K for the 260ST) but these never materialized. There were new Atari 8-bit computer as well with the 64KB Atari 65XE and the 128KB Atari 130XE. These had been redesigned to match the aesthetics of the Atari ST.


• Robot Update - Predictions of a robot meeting you at the door with the newspaper (if that's not anachronistic I don't know what is) and cooking dinner among other things in the next 5 to 10 years (still waiting). Current robots at the time include the RB5X and HERO-1. The RB5X could be programmed from many computers, including Atari 8-bit computers, with Tiny BASIC. The article does mention robots that could vacuum in the future and at least we do have those now.


• Expert Systems - A look at the state of artificial intelligence in 1985.


• The Eight Queens Problem - Solving a chess problem the brute force way with BASIC on an Atari 8-bit with at least 24K.


• '84 Tax Spreadsheet Update - An updated template for SynCalc, a spreadsheet program for the Atari 8-bit, that allows you to do your taxes.


• Secret Agent - A type in-program that allows you to encrypt/decrypt messages.

_{Table of Contents from the April 1985 issue of Antic}

Departments

• Communications: Welcome to Antic Online - A new Atari online service available via CompuServe. Some of the things included are news, index to back issues, product review library, user group directory and more.


• Starting Out: Why You Want DOS 2 - Newer disk drives shipped with DOS 3 which offered improvements but also introduced all kinds of incompatibilities so that most people stuck with DOS 2 until 2.5 came along with the Atari XEs.


• Profile: Atari's Founder Goes Robotic - Nolan Bushnell introduces an inexpensive robot (called Andy) that could be controlled with an Atari 8-bit or Commodore 64.


• Toolbox: Parallel Bus, Revealed - The final part of a four-part series that provides a guide for building and programming a high-speed parallel-bus (PBI) interface.


• Game of the Month: Maneuver - A type-in strategy game for two players.


• Bonus Game: Crazy Eights! - A type-in card game.


• I/O Board - Questions and comments from readers. Topics include Alternate Reality, Typo II, a complaint about a Superman cover and more.

_{Back cover of the April 1985 issue of Antic}

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