MAIN LINE COMPUTER USERS - DECEMBER 1997 - ISSUE #187 **** DECEMBER 1997 ******************************** ISSUE #187 **** VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY, ST. AUGUSTINE CENTER MEETING STARTS - 09:30 - DEC 06 !! HOLIDAY FUN MEETING !! ---------------------------------------------------------------- THIS SPECIAL SEASON'S MEETING! In the absence of our usual November or December flea market meeting, we thought it appropriate to do something else special. So, we decided to make this time round a more informal session - with some different kind of "entertainment"! See the meeting notes below for some of the possibilities. We urge everyone to come round, visit and RENEW!! ---------------------------------------------------------------- MAIN LINE 64/128 USERS - Room 110 First up - we plan to feast with goodies everyone who comes. That'll be danish and deli, with coffee and sodas. (If anyone wants to bring some seasonal cookies or whatever, we won't complain). We also plan to have door prizes each half hour. There will be a prize choice each time for BOTH Amiga and 8-bit folks. At 11:45 we will have a 50/50 drawing - our treasurer, Stew, will be selling tickets ($1 each, or 6 for $5) until then; so buy lots! In between the munching and drawing, we plan on: seasonal sounds, a Windows 95 video, demo of the 15th Anniversary picture disk, a surprise and maybe more! Attendees are invited to bring show stuff, too. Plus, opportunities for folks to talk, ask questions and get (we hope!) help. (continued on page 3) MAIN LINE AMIGA USERS - Room 210 With the coming of December, our Christmas Holiday meeting will be upon us. See the separate item re all the fancy treats, door prizes, 50/50 raffle, etc. for some good cheer. Come on out and join us for what should be a good time as this will be a quite casual meeting. We will have some discussion of monitors and screenmodes so as to keep you informed in your decision making process for the holiday season, if you decide to enhance your computer world viewing pleasure with a monitor upgrade. Depending on how far we get with our December discussion, the next items on our tentative agenda for January are SSL (Secure Socket Layer) and PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption software. (continued on page 5) ---------------------------------------------------------------- THIS MONTH'S CONTENTS History of Computing - Part VIII 2 RENEWAL/Other announcements 3 THE CLUB ON-LINE! 3 Product Update - SUPERCPU 128 4 Trading Post 4 64/128 meeting minutes 4 PC Q & A 4 Future 8-Bit Programs, etc. 5 AMIGA User Happenings 5 State of the AMIGA World! 7 MAP/Masthead/Meeting schedule 9 Membership Form/Dues 10 *************************** CHRONOLOGY OF SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTING MACHINES (PART VIII) BY JAY R. BAKER The Whirlwind computer was particularly significant as the basis of the U.S. air defense system from 1958 to 1984 which used the Semi- Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) computer designed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory (established for that purpose) and built by IBM (which thereby gained the inside track on all subsequent developments in computer technology, particularly in real time applications). Mar 1951 - The first Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC 1) was delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau by the Remington Rand Corporation which had bought out the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC) in February 1950. Eckert and Mauchly had developed the UNIVAC computer from their design for the EDVAC. UNIVAC had a clock rate of 2.25 MHz and used mercury delay lines to store 1000 twelve digit characters. Because of its serial architecture (compared to ENIAC's parallel design) it used only 5000 vacuum tubes and used magnetic tape for input and output which enabled it to read 7200 decimal digits per second. UNIVAC was programmed using a simple assembly language called Short Code. 1951 - Grace Murray Hopper (b. 9 Dec 1906 in New York), a mathematician at Remington Rand, developed the first compiler, an internal program in the computer that would convert a programmer's instructions into a machine code program, which would facilitate programming the UNIVAC. 1952 - EDVAC finally completed after much dissention among those working on the project which had led to the departure of Mauchly and Eckert from the Moore School in March 1946. Jun 1952 - Begun in 1946 under the leadership of John von Neumann, the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) computer was officially dedicated. Contrary to von Neumann's well known advocacy of serial processing for a computer because of the simpler electronic circuits required, the IAS used a parallel architecture and was possibly the first to do so. Mar 1953 - IBM delivered its first real computer, the IBM 701 (originally called the Defense Calculator), to Los Alamos Laboratory. The 701 followed the von Neumann design of the IAS and was a parallel processing binary computer with 4000 vacuum tubes, an electrostatic memory of 4096 thirty-six bit words which could multiply two numbers in 456 microseconds. Apr 1957 - John Backus and Irving Ziller of IBM, along with a small team of programmers, completed the three and a half year project to develop a compiler and higher level language for the IBM 704. The language was called Formula Translation or FORTRAN. FORTRAN was a significant advance in programming since it made the computer more widely accessible. A programmer no longer needed to be a specialist with intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the computer and its machine code. 1957 - William Norris, one of the founders of Engineering Research Associates (ERA) which produced special purpose computers after the war and was acquired by Remington Rand in 1952, left Rand with many of his UNIVAC employees (including Seymour Cray) and formed the Control Data Corporation (CDC) to specialize in producing very large scientific computers. [to be continued] DIRECTIONS FOR ST. AUGUSTINE CENTER MEETING ROOMS For the next many months, we have shifted our monthly meetings from Mendel Hall to the St. Augustine Center at Villanova University. The 8-bit meeting will be in seminar room 110 and the AMIGA meeting in seminar room 210. Please be sure to enter the campus from the ITHAN AVENUE main gate, then proceed to the 2-level parking building adjacent to the St. Augustine Center, on the Ithan Avenue side. However, you may have to enter the building via the front door, as shown in the sketch below. 18 ------------------------------------------------------------------ 64/128/Amiga Meetings 1997/98 Steering Committee Meetings December 06 December 17** January 10 * January 14 February 07 February 11 * = second Saturday ** = third Wednesday ------------------------------------------------------------------ NEWSLETTER DEADLINE is December 24th !!! ********************************************************** EDITOR: Emil J. Volcheck, Jr. 1046 General Allen Lane West Chester, PA 19382-8030 (Produced with C-128, RAMlink, HD-40/85, 1571, FD-4000, THE WRITE STUFF 128, XETEC Super Grafix, Panasonic KX-P1123, Swiftlink RS-232 and Motorola 288 modem) MLCUG BBS: 610-828-1359 (300 --> 28800 bps), 24 hr/day ######################################## ANNOUNCEMENTS & SPECIALS ######################################## PLEASE NOTE: take a look at the upcoming meetings schedule on p.9. Note that the December Steering Meeting is on the THIRD Wednesday, the 17th, instead of the usual second Wednesday. Also, note that our JANUARY meeting is planned for the SECOND Saturday, the 10th, to work around the New Year's holiday. YEAR 1998 IS UPON US! - take your opportunity at the December meeting to renew your membership in the club. The dues are still $15 to minimize the financial impact on your renewal tendency! We'll also have info forms at the meeting to let you update our records on your setup(s) and your interests for the future. Let's hope that we can buck the trend of continuously decreasing membership and keep up our activity level for the forseeable future! Please rejoin! INTERNET BOOK! - so far we have not had enough takers for a second discount order for Gaelyn Gasson's excellent Internet book. The sign up list will be at the December meeting (one more time!!!). If we do not get at least three (3) more signups, we'll forget the whole matter. Note that we can get the $24 discount (including shipping from Australia) if we get the five book minimum order. THE CLUB ONLINE! For more than a dozen years, MLCUG has had an on-line presence with our BBS (now at 610-828-1359). It started on a C-64, then graduated to a C-128 for many years. Then 2-3 years ago, we moved it to an Amiga 2000 for more speed, storage space and accessibility. It has offered and continues to offer an excellent medium for information EXCHANGE locally. As well, it provides file storage space, transfer for newsletter stuff and a convenient means for the steering committee to do some of its business. At the November meeting, Prof. Maloney suggested that a world wide web site might be a good vehicle for us to reach out to other users beyond the local range of the BBS. To that end, he has provided the computer system access and space to get a web page up and running. Our internet person, Peter Whinnery, has agreed to work with Frank on the project. By the day after the meeting, the bare bones of a web page were on line; so Peter has the real thing to work with. For those with internet access, you can take a look at the evolving product at the following URL: http:// astro4.ast.vill.edu/mlcug/index.html Part of the challenge with this project is to mount a presence for those using the text-based browser LYNX, or those using Amiga or other platforms that can run a browser like Netscape Navigator. If you do look at the page, please provide feedback to Peter on what you think the page(s) should offer - and how well they do it. NOTE: - at our February meeting, Prof. Maloney will be the presenter on the topic of making web pages. We now plan that Peter will present at the March meeting what he has been doing on the construction of our web page. These should be a couple of very interesting meetings. We'll look to see you all then! --------------- JANUARY MEETING - assuming the weather cooperates, a big assumption, our January 8-bit meeting will feature the subject of digital cameras. Charlie Curran will be showing his newest toy and some of the things he has done with it. He'll be interfacing it to a laptop computer for a real-time demonstration. More about that next time. *************************** PRODUCT UPDATE SUPERCPU 128 - CMD (Creative Micro Designs) reports continued progress on this project. We'll get an update at the December meeting and maybe some of us will get a Christmas present. That is IF ol Santa is on our side! --------------- COMPUTER BIG LIE #5 - "Don't worry about service, it's under warranty". So, what do you really do when something breaks down? Figure out in advance whom to call and, if possible, keep some spare parts and a backup system. An older computer that has been replaced by a faster model is nice to have around in emergencies! $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $ TRADING POST $ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ FOR SALE: flat C-128, 1571 disk drive, 1902A RGB monitor, Star NX-1000C printer Manuals, some software apps and games Make offer to Bill Oaks, 610-459-5410(1) FOR SALE: C-64/Vic-20 outfit, w 1525 printer, 1541 drive, 1351 mouse, keypad, Omnitronix interface, books and mags. Wish to sell as a package. Make an offer to Sara Mathews, 215-945-8375, or email to gxmf91a@prodigy.com (1) FOR SALE: 3 each C-64, 1541 drives & 1702 color monitors. Also, a Plus4 with 2 special joysticks and associated soft- ware. And, tons of software for the 64. Call Ed Cohen, 215-628-4228, after 6P(2) FOR SALE: MLCUG has a lot of hardware and software that is available for you to purchase at very attractive prices! We'll have detailed lists at the next meeting - here is some of the hardware, the software list is to long to show! 6 computer - C-64 w/PS $25 18 disk drive 1541 - various $20 1 interface - Cardco $ 5 1 interface - MSD $ 5 6 joystick $ 2 1 modem - Panasonic 1200 bps $10 1 monitor - amber - Panasonic $10 1 monitor - screen filter $ 5 1 plotter - Commodore 1520 $10 2 printer - Commodore 1525 $10 2 printer - Commodore 803 $10 2 printer - color - Okimate 10 $10 1 printer - Okimate 120 $20 1 printer - Star Gemini II $25 2 computer - VIC-20 TBD 1 64K RAM/video for VIC-20 TBD 1 computer - Plus4 $25 You can contact Charles Curran to check on any items of interest (610-446-5239). *************************** 64/128 MEETING *************************** Prior to the start of the formal November meeting, we checked out the equipment cart that re-surfaced. Everything seems to be working just fine after being in storage somewhere for those many months. We tried to interface the cart monitor with the two others that we have had set up for recent meetings. But, it looks like the C-128 can drive two, but not three, RGB monitors; so we'll have to do with two (and possibly with a big TV for 64 related stuff). The meeting got underway with a round-table discussion on ideas for the future of the 8-bit meetings - and the PC-related stuff that we have been including in the second part of our monthly get togethers. See the SUMMARY notes below for some of the items that came up before the group. The wide-ranging discussion took up all our available time; so we did not even begin to get to the spreadsheets topic. That subject will have to wait to a later meeting - or possibly get handled during Q & A discussions. PC Q & A Much of this month's session was devoted to comments about PC buying - and a bit about being careful in one's choice. There was a lot of discussion about the recent advent of the $500 PC, with three of our members having got them (from MicroCenter in St. Davids PA). These are NOT the limited function PCs that al lot of talk has raged about, primarily for business use. They are fully functional computers (but limited in upgrade capability). Most of us have memories of 15 years ago when $500 could buy you one of the new Commodore 64s with color, sound and a whole 64K of memory! It is amazing what the $500 (or maybe $250 if you account for inflation) can buy compared to the 1982 technology! We are planning to have one of them for show at the December meeting. *************************** FUTURE 8-BIT PROGRAMS, ETC. [by Emil Volcheck] Here is my capture of some of the suggestions/ideas from the 8-bit meeting on Nov. 01: * Wide range of Commodore needs, have a calling tree to interview members to determine their interests * Have experienced contacts for members * Increase PR to let people know we are still around * Lots of Commodore stuff still selling, increase PR to find those buying and let them know we are available to help * Advertise via a website, and offer to help (not limited to C=?) * Something on repairing 64s and 1541s * How to upgrade PCs * Building your own PC * How to do repair computer stuff This is not all that transpired, but perhaps it will trigger some ideas in your minds. Think it over and pass it on to the rest of us. The December meeting would be a good chance to do that. Every member's help in ideaifying future MLCUG activities will be most valued! The grass is always greener when you remember to water it *************************** AMIGA USER HAPPENINGS By John Deker, AMIGA SIG Leader [continued from p.1] And before I go any further, let me remind you that it is once again membership renewal time. So don't forget to make out a check for $15 payable to MLCUG and deliver it to Dewitt Stewart at the meeting. This money will make it possible for us to deliver 12 monthly newsletters to your house next year. THE PRELIMINARIES Before we began our main meeting, we had some time to view some of the changes I had made to my A1200's workbench. During the preceding month, I had fully converted over to the latest version of MagicWB, graphical candy for the standard workbench desktop. MagicWB is an 8- color and 16-color icon replacement for most of your dull 4-color icons. It makes the Amiga's workbench desktop more pleasing to the eye, at least my eye. As with most decisions we make in life, there is a downside for this trade-up. Most notable is the size and storage requirements for the icons. The new icons are 2 to 4 times larger byte-wise than the standard icons. This is definitely a negative. Being larger, there is also a minor, almost un-noticeable drain on performance when redrawing screens. Along with MagicWB came a program called MagicCopper. MagicCopper manipulates the Copper, the custom coprocessor that comes with the AGA chipset, to produce 512 colors on screen at once. MagicCopper programs the copper causing the screen to take on a plasma appearance resulting in a smooth transition of colors from the top of the screen to the bottom. The colors and range can be manipulated through the MagicCopper interface. Next, we took time to look at some of the new features of Directory Opus Magellan. The changes to this version are often quite subtle, but some of them do scream at you to take notice. Changes of note include improved FTP coding for increased speed, fuel gage to monitor used disk space, improved icon handling most notably in support of New Icons and icon regions, inline editing of filenames in name listers, and name- wrap for icons with long filenames. DOpus Magellan builds on version 5.5 at its core. THE MAIN MEETING For the main presentation, we finished our coverage of Thor, a unique and comprehensive off-line mailer, newsreader, and Aminet file database for the Amiga. Here are some of its features as taken from its supporting documentation. Features What is so special about THOR? Several things. First, it is as far as we know the only general offline reader for the Amiga with true 'history'. This means that all messages will be added to a database, and may be recalled later. Threads may be followed forwards and backwards. Furthermore, THOR supports more different message formats than any other offline reader on ANY platform, and new ones are easily added because THOR is a very open system. At this point THOR supports ABBS- MBBS, QWK, BlueWave, SOUP, UUCP, FIDO, TCP, Omen and Hippo (BBBS) systems. THOR also has a name database that contains data on people who have written messages on the system you are using. This makes it easy to enter a message to someone, just enter a few letters from this persons name and a window will come up containing suggestions based on the letters you wrote. THOR uses an advanced buffering system to be able to get best possible performance on disk operations. Copy-back buffering is used when messages are added to the database by the different parser programs, and write-through buffering is used elsewhere. The number and size of buffers can be set in the Global Configuration in ConfigTHOR. THOR sports a complete Style Guide compliant 2.x-look GUI with extended features if run under OS 3.0 or higher. Since gadtools.library from Commodore doesn't support color in listviews easily, we have made our own custom listview to be able to have color and ANSI in the listview. THOR is also completely font-sensitive and most windows can be rescaled and their position saved. Selection of screenmode, fonts to use, palette etc. is also supported. Since many of the gadgets are custom made by us, many of the features available previously only to OS 3.x users, are also available for OS 2.04 users. THOR uses pen sharing under OS 3.0 or higher, and a separate background picture in the windows and on the screen is supported. This feature uses the datatypes.library and the pen sharing available in OS 3.0 and higher. THOR fully supports the 24-bit picture.datatype. THOR has online help using the AmigaGuide system from Commodore, so whenever you want help, pressing the HELP key will bring up help on the window or the menu under the pointer. THOR has an advanced built-in editor called the Full Screen Editor (FSE) This editor will satisfy most users, but you can of course use an external editor if you like. THOR has a flexible system for purging conferences based on number of days and/or maximum number of messages. XPK packing of the message database is also supported directly with a high degree of flexibility. THOR has a high-speed search function which lets you search for a given key word, with several different search options. THOR has an internal file database that can be used for keeping e.g. a full list of files on Aminet or from the systems you call. THOR has an extensive Kill/Emphasize database that will let you kill or put an emphasize on messages based on any criteria in the message data, with wildcards. THOR has extensive ARexx support and includes a lot of useful arexx scripts. These includes uuencode, crosspostings, mailinglists, chess(!) etc. THOR has locale support, and supports a wide range of international character sets, like ISO, IBM, NO7, SF7, DE7, etc. If you wish to translate THOR to a language not already supported, please contact us. THOR has 13 ways of marking a message or a range of messages, e.g. mark messages to you as unread, mark all messages with a certain subject as read or mark messages from a user as read. THOR has extensive MIME support for the Internet news and mail types, including base64 file attachment and quoted-printable. Received MIME pictures can even be viewing inline in the listview! MEETING SOFTWARE OF NOTE DIRECTORY OPUS MAGELLAN -- commercial file management utility. THE BEST file management utility of ANY computer platform. MAGICCOPPER -- for AGA Amigas. PD utility to manipulate the Amiga's copper (custom chip coprocessor) for stunning color effects. MAGICWB -- Magic Workbench dressup icons and custom color palette. Requires "square" (horizontal resolution ~= vertical resolution, i.e, 640x400, 640x480, 800x600, etc., not 640x200) screen resolutions. Shareware. THOR -- see preceding section. Fully functional shareware. FUTURE MEETINGS If you have either software or hardware for your Amiga that has taken your fancy, please bring it to our attention. I'm sure your specific interests will be of interest to others. Let me know if this is the case at the next meeting, or leave me email on our BBS. Remember, a user group is only as rewarding as the sum of the efforts of its individual members. ------------------------ THE STATE OF THE AMIGA WORLD! ---------------------- From Christian Kemp's "Amiga Network News" USA Mirror at Amiga.org Playable TV, 16-Nov-97 A person calling himself "Vanilla Gorilla" posts information about a revolutionary new product with unlimited potential and use, called "Playable TV". It is based on the A4000T with toaster/flyer setups and custom software. Apparently, NASA has already ordered several machines. Phase5 support, 16-Nov-97 Michael Bastian posts a report about Phase5's support and registration of his Developer (Copper) status. At the Computer97, he was told by Phase5 that handling developer registrations is "too much work" and that it will be "automated" soon. The only benefit you will get when participating with Copper status are beta versions, you need to pay 150 DM a year to get developer informations. "CD32 could have been a success" 16-Nov-97 Dean Brown of DKB says that the CD32 could have been a much bigger success. By the time Commodore started shipping the CD32 into the states, they (CBM) were only a few months from bankruptcy. Dean says he knew of a potential OEM order for CD32's that numbered in the hundred's of thousands that died because of CBM's inability to guarantee the supply. NewTek not leaving Amiga, 13-Nov-97 According to a message by Dwight Parscale, President and CEO of NewTek, they have not left the Amiga, but are evaluating their next move. NewTek and Gateway are working on an agreement. NewTek remain committed to Amiga technology and believe the future holds the potential for more great things. We have never stopped believing in or supporting the Amiga, our users, or the creative talent that finds ways to use or improve our technology. A1200 sound card?, 13-Nov-97 Joern Plewka is currently working on a sound card for the A1200. A company called "A.C.T." will be displaying it at the show in Cologne. Phase5 working on PPC750 board? 10-Nov-97 James Carrol says that, according to rumors, Phase5 are working on a quad PPC750 board, and NewTek are quite interested in it. James adds that a PPC750 is about twice as fast than a Pentium II at some tasks... Amiga Report, 10-Nov-97 Amiga Report distribution will change. Jason announces a "notification list"for those who just want a notice if AR is released. Aminet will remain the main source for getting AR; it will therefore not include GIFs [since the Aminet administrators don't want this]. Stefan Boberg, 10-Nov-97 Stefan Boberg, programmer of LhA and now employed at Team 17 had to say this about the current Amiga games situation: The price of progress. If you want to play the new games requiring more processing power -- upgrade your hardware. If you're not bothered, just keep playing your old games and keep your machine. You can't really compare it to the Amiga, or knock the PC because of this. The Amiga situation would have been just the same if people had actually kept developing software for it. Digital Arts closed, 10-Nov-97 Digital Arts Software & Digital Arts PD Software closed their doors, but the parent company DAZTECHNIQUE PROMOTIONS will continue to trade. Thanks to funding by the new parent company, they are developing new Amiga software. Phase5 68k emulator, 06-Nov-97 According to Dr. Peter Kittel, Phase5 already had 2 running 68k emulators [for PPC] when AT still existed. One is quick&dirty but small, the other is larger and more extensive. Aminet Down, 06-Nov-97 Urban Mueller, Aminet administrator, says the Aminet main site is currently down due to a double disk failure. The site may be down for one more week until disks are replaced and restored.Mirrors continue to work but won't get updated. (The main Aminet site has been restored as of this writing. - Ed.)