Little VIC gives low-price software for farmers

Press, 11 January 1983, Page 19

Little VIC gives low-price software for farmers

Writing a farming package to fit the Commodore VIC 20 personal computer caused the programmer to "rethink an awful lot and develop a programming style for the unit.”

Mr Doug Hanna has written packages that require only 21K byt°s of memory in the VIC 20 and can be loaded into the computer from cassette tape. His company. PrimarySoftware. Ltd. has just released a beef and sheep farm pack, after the earlier release of a dairy farm pack. "It is possible to write quite a sophisticated program." says Mr Hanna, a graduate of Lincoln College. The "Primesoft" programs

use a menu-driven approach to requesting data from the farmer and make extensive use of colour to differentiate figures and indicate the current state of the computer. All the programs are written in BASIC. An entry-level configuration for a farmer, comprising the VIC 20 with 21K bytes of memory, a cassette unit and one software package, costs about $lBOO. A farmer needs only to hook this equipment up to his television set and he has a computer system that will provide an annual financial forecast, monthly cash-flow projection, animal profitability margin, calving schedule, stock buy and sell profitability, stock selection

assistance, crop-profitability margin, and long-term cropprofitability information. The farmer does not have to buy a printer. Special stationery is available, matching the screen lay-outs, so that figures can be copied quickly for later reference. “The high cost of hardware has been a major obstacle to farmers’ using microcomputers." says a statement from Primary Software. “The market for highcost computers may only be 5 per cent of the total farmers. We are convinced that by keeping the price significantly lower than currently available that the market share will increase substantially. It could be that

the VIC 20 has a potential market for something like 20 per cent of the farmers."

A larger computer would allow the farmer to introduce more details into the calculations and store more data for subsequent processing and historical analysis.

“A basic concept has been to use the VIC 20 as a gigantic calculator and only to some extent as a datastorage system,” says Primary Software. “For manyfarmers the hard part is doing the calculations, and we have attempted to overcome this problem in the program design.

“We are allowing them to use a management tool without their having to know how it works," says Mr Hanna.

Other farming software is now being developed by Primary Software. There are also plans to write financial software for the small businessman to run on the VIC 20.

• At first, with the awk-ward-looking characters and bright colours on the television monitor, the package looks more like a video game than a serious farm-manage-ment tool. But the software has been designed to make efficient use of the limited display capabilities and de- < serves a.second look. The Christchurch company. Good Times Enter- ; prises, Ltd. is one of 25 ; Commodore dealers in the

country now selling the Pri mesoft packages.

"The number of new applications being developed for the VIC 20 is amazing," says Mr Jeff Whiteside, of Good Times Enterprises. His company will provide hardware support and first-line assistance to buyers of the VIC 20 with Primesoft software.

At present Good Times Enterprises sells only the VIC 20, although Commodore makes a range of larger microcomputers. The company also intends to sell the VIC 64 when it is released in this country, and possibly will sell a new machine, the VIC 10. which is aimed at the video games market.

Meanwhile. Mr Whiteside is developing copy-protection software for other writers of Commodore software, so that it is difficult to pirate copies of programs. The company also plans to write more home-oriented software. “That is where the big boom is going to take place,” says Mr Whiteside.

This year Good Times Enterprises hopes to move into ground-level retail premises from its present site in Manchester Street. Mr Whiteside is confident of Commodore's future. “Commodore in the long run is going to win through,” he says. According to Mr Whiteside. Commodore is making 70,000 VIC 20 computers a month for sale around the world.