European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 17, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                A Joystick and 50 cents bring the War Home Douglas Martin new York times he f-15 Pilot stares into the electronic screen. The ground jerks from horizontal to vertical and every dizzying. Position in Between. The Speed almost exceeds human ability to respond. Lasers guide bombs to targets on the Barren Sandy deserts Cape. Enemy missiles appear on the spinning horizon. Hit them a Yahoo a a mechanical sounding voice screams after a direct hit. A congratulations a. The Pilot is immediately awarded a Bronze Star for his bravery but there is scant time to savor the achievement enemy flak is everywhere and events arc racing ahead at the Speed of sound. /. Quot a. A / a a a it a addicting is what it is a said the Man behind the Joystick Andrew Hahn a 24-Ycar-old actor. Hahn using a video machine in the Broadway Arcade in new York City is playing a game called the �?of-15 strike Eagle a one of the More prescient products to hit today a suddenly Bellicose Market. For an initial investment of 50 cents you can Fly the plane that bombed Baghdad. Our cosmic thought War and video games have merged. What fighter jocks see in their car priceless screens Isnit All that much re moved from what you can see for a Quarter or two. At a local bar. This f-15 game is a version of an actual combat flight simulator. It lets you choose a variety of flight scenarios including ones in the persian Gulf a put in by its makers Long before the War. But it is most real w Hen one sees the True de Vious Essof the game periodically the War stops for a second or two to allow the player to buy More bombs decoys fuel and what have you a everything but time. What begins As a 50-Eenl game can easily balloon to $5, this War game includes Cost overruns the f-15 strike Eagle game was developed by Micro prose software which first sold 1 million to Home computer users and then began peddling it As a Coin operated game last year. Micro prose a president was contacted at his Headquarters in a Baltimore suburb. His name is . A wild Bill Stealey. Really after graduating from the air Force Academy he served As a flying instructor dropping More bombs simulated on new Jersey than he cares to recall. But without a War he knew the route  Al was risky. So he left the air Force where he said his last Job was advising the joint chiefs of staff. A his game s goal verisimilitude. A you la make All the  a fighter Pilot makes Quot he promised. Indeed he said one enthusiast went so far As to remodel a room of his House into a cockpit. Quot what a the meaning of it All a it took an expert on games to put things in perspective. Lou pc Fidio who claims to be the the world s Best pinball player explained that while some of the imaginative Early games were designed by women most Are made by men for men. Real men. A fighting shooting driving Quot Are the themes. At the Broadway Arcade he pointed to examples. One game had a a a a Quot Button pushing it annihilates All the enemies onscreen. A game called a a narc involved killing As Many drug dealers As possible and his final example he pointed to Over to a line of people queued up at the f-15 strike Eagle game a wailing to bomb i raq it a t Ltd a the is tac fighter Wing manned this f-15 Eagle skimming the desert in saudi Arabia. Back Home anybody can Man an f-15 on a video screen for the initial Price of two quarters computers latest in tax software a. A a a. A a a a a tax software for personal computers continues to get better. Many of the new 1990 tax year programs have added streamlined controls and Fea turns that help the taxpayer understand the tax code and fill out the appropriate forms As painlessly As  to software Industry estimates a 650.b00 taxpayers will buy a personal computer tax preparation program or upgrade this year up from 450,000 last year. These new tax programs Cost about $100 for the Federal package and $69 for what slate Tux packages arc available. The programs Are quite sophisticated and Many arc capable of juggling the details on dozens of tax forms. But putting together a tax return often requires reasoned judgment and Subtle interpretation of the tax Laws which Are beyond the scope of any personal computer software package. Tux programs Are valuable however because they prompt the taxpayer to gather All the needed information and to think about strategies. For computers using the Dos operating sys Tom last years top two programs Are once again our top choices pc tax Cut and Turbo tax similarly the leading Apple macintosh pro. Gram Macinta continues to dominate the Field. And despite its curiously mismatched name Macin tax a new Cousin Macinta for windows wins the honors for computers using the increasingly popular windows operating system. Peter h. Lewis. A new York time computer on a diet in the acronym Laden computing Field cad usually stands for computer aided design. Here Are two examples of a different kind of cad program computer aided dieting. Fit by bit and the dieters Edge Are programs that Cost less than $50 and have Large databases of foods and what they do for or. To you and of activities and How Many calories they Burn up. Each of these programs like dieting itself Calls for persistence and honesty. You must enter personal data like weight and measurements exactly what you eat each Day and exactly what calorie shedding activities you engage in. Then the program analyses the data and shows in the form of graphs How Good a or bad a you. Were. A a a a a. 1 either program can be used As a source of , exercise and other health information rather than strictly As a diet program. Fit by bit seems somewhat Richer in this kind or information an optional bimonthly disk of health and life style news is planned. All the members of a family can set up individual files unless in the Case of dieters Edge the family has More than 10 members. But dieters Edge has a Nice password feature so you can sin with an ice Cream Cone once in a while without letting everyone else in the House know about it. Dieters Edge requires an it at ps-2 or compatible computer running Dos 2.0 or later. 512 kilobytes of internal memory and a hard disk. It is published by training table systems of Reivo Nia Mich h costs $49.95 plus shipping. Fit by bit requires Dos 3,0 or later 040 kilobytes As Well As a hard disk. It can he ordered for $49 plus $6 shipping from or. A 8m51 a enter drive suite 025, a Mesa Calif. 91942.  Shannon. A a new York times Toa March 17, 1991 sunday. A