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BOOK REVIEW: GRAFIK-ANWENDUNGEN ZUM ATARI ST
by Richard Karsmakers

Another  book  from   Data  Becker   (Merowingerstr.   30,   4000 
Düsseldorf,  West Germany) that I review this time: Dirk Schaun's 
"Atari  ST  Grafik Anwendungen".  The book  (ISBN  3-89011-162-9) 
counts  193  pages  and  is sold at  DM  29,-  in  West  Germany. 
Undoubtedly, a Dutch translation will appear sooner or later from 
Data  Becker Nederlands.  The book covers working with GEM  Draw, 
Degas  and Neochrome.  Hereby I wish to extend my thanks to  Eerk 
Hofmeester and Robert Heessels from the Strike-a-Light group  who 
borrowed  me the book (since they are a very graphics  orientated 
programming group,  it tells you something of the quality of this 
book if you hear that I borrowed it for three or four months).

In  principle,  this book is set-up just as a user manual of  the 
three aforementioned drawing programs. I feel this cannot be said 
to  be a terrific achievement,  since it isn't that difficult  to 
translate a few manuals,  add a personal note to it, and maybe to 
add a few of your own tips & tricks. The only chapter of interest 
might  be  the GEM Draw chapter,  since the  author  succeeds  in 
explaining quite easily how to work with that program,  which  is 
not one of the easiest programs around to work with  (personally, 
I  loather  working with it - give me Degas Elite  -  but  that's 
another story).
The book is an absolute downer,  especially if you belong to  the 
group  that bought originals of the mentioned programs  (together 
with manuals,  I mean).  It is not worth to pay about DM 30,- for 
about  ten  pages  (at  the most!) of things  you  did  not  know 
already,  so you'd better leave this book lying to gather dust on 
the bookshelf of some computer-store.

I  wish  the writer (who seems to be quite an  artist)  had  kept 
himself to being artistic.  Not that he cannot write properly  or 
that he writes under strange conventions,  but because he  simply 
seems to have selected a very unoriginal subject to write  about. 
I think Data Becker is currently entering the wrong direction, by 
publishing as many books (and other things) as possible on the ST 
(quantity  seems to be much more important than  quality).  Where 
are the times of "ST Intern"?

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The text of the articles is identical to the originals like they appeared in old ST NEWS issues. Please take into consideration that the author(s) was (were) a lot younger and less responsible back then. So bad jokes, bad English, youthful arrogance, insults, bravura, over-crediting and tastelessness should be taken with at least a grain of salt. Any contact and/or payment information, as well as deadlines/release dates of any kind should be regarded as outdated. Due to the fact that these pages are not actually contained in an Atari executable here, references to scroll texts, featured demo screens and hidden articles may also be irrelevant.