The program, which is only now available for the Amiga, has been in use on a variety of systems ranging from 16-bit PC's to multi-million dollar Cray supercomputers in both commercial and academic situations for years. Maple provides a large library of functions for solving and integrating equations for many levels of math. The Amiga version of Maple V includes interactive 3-D Postscript and IFF output graphics. Maple requires Amiga- DOS v. 2.04, 2MB of RAM, and I0MB of disk storage. (RS 106.) ? Many Amiga enthusiasts who frequent the networks probably give little thought to their Amiga sysops. That's unfortunate, because a tour of duty as the host of an Amiga forum, roundtable or SIG on the telecommunica tion networks isn't exactly a Sunday picnic. Qualifications for the job include an encyclopedic memory for companies, programs, and products; a working knowledge of the subject matter discussed at every forum; and, above all. A celestial capacity for remaining calm when exchanges heat up on line. ON-LINE SCAN By Tim Walsh Add to that job description the monumental Frustration of arousing lurkers out ofobscurity, having to continually rearrange your personal schedule to accommodate forums, and needing to establish your daily online presence, and you begin to get the picture. Incidentally, for you nontelecomnumication types, lurkers are people who jump from area to area on the nets and rarely, if ever, attend forums or conferences. As a sysop, you quickly discover that the most time-consuming aspect of your job is testing and researching freely distributable programs uploaded to the nets. European imports are the worst. Often, a well-intentioned person might upload a European import game that was originally downloaded from a local BBS. Because the file was labeled “shareware.” "public domain,” or some similar BBS nomenclature, said well-intentioned person might actually be contributing to piracy. As a network sysop, you cannot simply assume on word alone that any program of European origin is freely distributable. That's why research on the sysop’s part is vital. The process entails a call or two to other sysops, dropping e-mail to knowledgeable users, and generally spending a lot of time Dying to track down the origins of the lile. The alternative is to post the file as is and leave yourself open for some pretty ugly legal problems, not the least of which is the possible loss of your job as sysop. If acting as Amiga sysops on the nets is so time-consuming, irritating, and thankless, why is there always a waiting list to become one? Surely not for the money, which, at first appearing to be substantial, in reality translates into a fast-food pay scale when factored over a month's time. Rather, the reward comes in the form of nationwide acclaim and the personal satisfaction that comes from helping sincere com- puterists get answers to their questions not to mention also providing the masses with useful ancl entertaining files. Speaking of those files, here’s a quick run-down of my current top picks: BIX is offering a shareware font editor, wbfed093.1 .h, in its Amiga user area. While the program requires Amiga DOS 2,04., it includes drawing tools, color remap, and some other enhanced features. CompuServe’s Amiga User area is home to two handy text utilities; MUCH30.LZH and PP- MORE.LZH, which are versions 3. 0 of MuchMore and 1.8 of PowerPacker More, respectively Genie users must be sure to get the latest version of Checkbook Accountant, version 2.1. You’ll find it listed in the Amiga library 3 as file number 12355.