MAIN LINE COMPUTER USERS - FEBRUARY 1998 - ISSUE #189 ! Web Page basics for everybody - come learn ! **** FEBRUARY 1998 ********************************* ISSUE #189 **** VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY, ST. AUGUSTINE CENTER MEETING STARTS - 09:30 - FEB 07 NOTE: Check the meeting rooms! ------------------------------------------------------------------- SPECIAL DEMO FOR THIS MEETING This month will be the first of two meetings planned around world wide web (www) pages - beginner's level! Prof. Frank Maloney will kick us off with an introduction to the net, the web and webpages. The session will be in one of the computer labs in Mendel Hall where there is internet access. NOTE: demo planned to start at 10:30. ------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS MONTH'S CONTENTS History of Computing - Part IX Announcements Product Update - SUPERCPU 128/GoDot Trading Post 64/128/PC meeting minutes SONY Mavica MVC-FD7 Image Manipulation Programs Perspective on Digital Cameras AMIGA User Happenings State of the AMIGA World! MAP/Masthead/Meeting schedule Membership Form/Dues ************************** CHRONOLOGY OF SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTING MACHINES (PART IX) BY JAY R. BAKER 1957 - Kenneth Olsen and Harlan Anderson, two IBM engineers, founded Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) with $70,000 of venture capital. Their first computer was the Programmed Data Processor (PDP-1). In 1963 they produced the first minicomputer, the PDP-8, which was the first one to use integrated circuits. By the 1970's, DEC was the second largest computer manufacturer. Eight key employees, including Robert Noyce and Jean Hoerni, left the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories in Palo Alto, California and, with backing from the Fairchild Camera and Instrument Company, formed the Fairchild Semiconductor Company. Philco Corporation introduces the Philco 2000 computer, the first commercially available transistorized computer, followed in 1958 by the UNIVAC Model 80. The transistorized computers were smaller, faster, more powerful, more reliable and more economical than the preceding vacuum tube computers. 1958 - First IBM 709, a high speed parallel scientific computer, delivered. 1959 - Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments filed a patent for the first integrated circuit. The individual components were electrically isolated from each other by shaping the components and using pn junctions as resistors. The internal components were still connected by soldered wires. These IC chips were difficult to make and were unreliable. Five months later, Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor filed a patent for a vastly superior integrated circuit. He used the planar process, developed by Jean Hoerni for making a flat transistor built up in layers without any protruding parts, to embed the components in the silicon wafer. He interconnected the IC's components by evaporating metal on top of the insulating layer so that it had horizontal wires instead of vertical contacts and he used an improved method of back to back pn junctions developed by Kurt Lehovec of Sprague Electric Company to isolate the components. Noyce's IC was reliable, readily mass produced and suitable for almost unlimited further development. 1960 - First IBM 7090, a transistorized version of the 709, delivered. 1963 - Digital Equipment Corporation introduces the PDP-8, the first minicomputer. The PDP-8 was a 12 bit transistorized computer that had only 4K of magnetic core memory but it sold for only $18,000, a fraction of the cost of a mainframe computer. 1964 - First CDC 6600 delivered. This was the first computer to use germanium (rather than silicon) transistors. Apr 1965 - First IBM System/360 delivered. The System/360 concept was to have a family of processors (initially six and later expanded to nine) and peripherals (initially forty and later expanded to seventy) which were all compatible. The System/360 used discrete solid state components printed on ceramic blocks, a compromise between the existing transistor technology and the emerging IC technology. In the early 1970s the System/360 was replaced with the System/370 composed entirely of ICs. 1968 - Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore and Andrew Grove leave Fairchild to form Intel Corporation to produce integrated circuits. Fairchild introduced the first 256 bit random access memory (RAM) chip and a few months later Intel announced a 1024 bit RAM chip. This marked the beginning of the end of magnetic core memory. ######################################## ANNOUNCEMENTS & SPECIALS ######################################## WELCOME! - we would like to welcome to the club our newest members - George McBlane of Boyertown and Marlo Steadman of Philadelphia. We hope to see them regularly at our future meetings. Again, welcome aboard. As of early January, our renewals had passed the 40 mark. Let's hope we can make it past 50; so we can sustain last year's activity level! ---------------- COMPUTER BIG LIE #7 - "You don't need to back up your data". BUT, everything made by humans breaks some day!. When your new system crashes, taking all your orders and financial data with it, you had better have a safe copy of the stuff, one that you can find - and know how to re-install. ************************** PRODUCT UPDATE SUPERCPU 128 - in the latest update to their website, CMD (Creative Micro Designs) announced that production had actually started on the first 100 units of the SCPU 128! Assuming no big glitches, the first 100 customers will likely begin getting them by the end of January. Hopefully, one or more MLCUG members will get theirs and bring it in for show and tell. If the look we had last year at the SCPU 64 is any indicator, this should be pretty enlightening! GoDot GRAPHICS - this new C-64 graphics import from Europe (being distributed by CMD) is a potent tool. In early looks, Charles Curran noted a wealth of features. GoDot can be installed in a RAMlink with a remarkable increase in speed (the program has a flock of modules it has to swap around to perform all its functions; so it is very disk intensive - just where a RAMlink comes most in handy!). Look for a demo soon at an upcoming meeting. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $ TRADING POST $ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ FOR SALE: Complete C-64 outfit (it is a virtual "room full" of stuff). If you want to check on something of interest, call Don Sauerhoefer, 610-258-0218 (H) or 908-475-7597 (W). (2) 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(3) 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 (3) 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/PC MEETING ************************** Following the pattern from last month, we'll take roughly the first meeting hour for announcements, general Q&A and problem solving (we hope). Then, at about 10:20 (when hopefully, all late arrivees are there), we'll walk on over to one of the Mendel Hall computer labs where Prof. Maloney will have direct and fast connection to the internet server that he'll be using for the world wide web introduction described in the item above. After his presentation is completed, we will return to St. Augustine Center. If time permits, we can pick up where we left off on the general discussion and problem solving. So, if you have questions, problems or concerns, please be sure to take advantage of these meetings. The January meeting was conducted in three parcels. For the first hour, we had announcements and a question and answer period (mix of PC and Commodore items). The next parcel was a joint session - with the Amiga folk coming down from room 210 - to observe the digital camera demo. The last part of the meeting resumed the question and answers - heavily weighted this time for the PC platform. As mentioned, the major topic for today's meeting was a show and tell on the SONY Mavica MVC-FD7 digital camera. This camera is being sold for around $700, you can look for sales prices! Charles Curran showed the system off for us - and everything worked! The item below summarizes the camera and the demo. We thank Charlie for showing off his latest high-tech "toy"! PC Q & A We did not have a PC Q & A as such this month, as all the festivities were piled together. Remember that if you want help, you'll need to bring your questions out in the open. And if you want to share your experiences and help others, don't be shy - chime in when it is appropriate! Everybody's experience is valuable - AND THAT MEANS YOURS, TOO! ************************** SONY Mavica MVC-FD7 The latest Mavica has a 640x480 color CCD chip (renders in 24-bit color). Has a 10:1 zoom lens, auto focus and auto exposure. It can focus from about 1 inche to infinity - incredible range! Has manually controlled flash. You use a 2x1.5" active matrix LCD screen on the back of the camera, as the viewfinder. The re-chargeable battery gives you about 1.5-2 hours operation, depending on how much flash work you do. For the demo, Charles Curran showed us the many picture taking modes the camera has - took some live shots in the meeting room - as well as a potfull of test exposures made prior to the meeting. This camera is unique in that it stores its images on a standard 3.5- inch high density floppy (holds 20-40 images depending on resolution chosen). So, you take the pix, eject the disk and plug it into your PC (or Mac) and away you go. No memory cards, no image downloading and the medium is essentially free! And it works like a charm! As with other cameras, you can preview and review your shots. You can also delete bad ones and use the storage space for a replacement image ... No software came with the camera as it stores its images as JPEG files which can be manipulated by your favorite image processing software. For the meeting, Charlie used the freeware "Kodak Picture Disk" software which is conveniently available to anyone. The images displayed on his laptop were also displayed on the large screen TV in the meeting room via a VGA-to-S-video converter - which did an acceptable job (you can not do great with a TV). NOTE: the February issue of PC World magazine gave a test report on ten digital cameras. The SONY got their best buy rating. And there is further info in the January issue of Amazing (Amiga) Computing - the author highly recommends the camera. So, if you are in the market for a digital camera, this one clearly deserves your consideration. The attendees were all quite impressed (tho I don't think anyone ran out to buy!). Image Manipulation Programs Appropos of working with the images from the SONY digital camera. On a PC, Mac or Amiga, since they are JPEG images, almost any image program will let you use with them. Here is a quick listing, from my and Charlie's PC stuff, that handle them: Before & After PhotoShop v4 Compushow PhotoStudio iPhoto Plus PhotoSuite SE Photo Deluxe v1 Picture Disk Photo Soap Picture Publisher PhotoFinish 4 Windows Imaging John (Amiga SIG leader) will have good guidance on suitable software for that system. With Windows 95, take a look at the Imaging accessory. For quick organizing with either Windows 3.1 or 95, the freeware Kodak Picture Disk software is a good choice (as Charlie showed in the January demo). When we turn to the 64/128 system, we have very sparse experience with working on JPEG images (or other formats that it can be easily converted to). Most of the 8-bit formats are proprietary and much of the software can only use their own format(s). We'll be looking at the new CMD offering, GoDot, from Europe that has a lot of capability (including PCX and GIF formats that can be obtained from the JPEG). However, the 640x480 layout of the digital images precludes seeing the whole image on screen at one time - even with the 80-column 128 view. With as little experience as we have, we would appreciate commentary on any of the above programs, or others that you find especially useful. For those who routinely manipulate images on their 64 or 128, we would especially like to hear of ways our venerable platform could make use of the rising digital camera era! Perspective on Digital Cameras As a backdrop to the demo of the SONY digital camera, I resurrected a piece that I had cut out of Modern Photography magazine back in February of 1986 (I did not realize I had been hanging onto this item for 12 years!). This half-page article compared the then emerging digital cameras with then existing film formats - and indicated how much improvement in the digital system would be needed to approach film. At that time, the SONY Mavica digital camera had a sensor with 280,000 pixels in it. The LOWEST quality film format then commercial was the "disc camera" with a very small negative size - BUT it had the equivalent of 1,500,000 pixels (and it looked lousy)! If you look at today's <$1000 digital cameras, I think the highest resolution is around 800x600 (or 480,000) pixels - still only about a third of that crude disc camera format. If you look at the high end range of computer displays - translated to a CCD chip - you're looking at 1280x1024 (or 1,310,720) pixels, just barely up to the resolution of that 1986 disc camera. (BTW, in 30-bit color this resolution requires a file size of nearly 40 megabytes per photo. So, higher resolutions send the file sizes sky-rocketing). If you want to equal the 35 mm color of 1986, then you need at least 18,000,000 pixels (with 30-bit color this gives you a file of half a gig!!!). And, remember, in the ensuing 12 years, the film format has significantly improved its quality - so the target for the digital format is still moving!!! ************************** AMIGA USER HAPPENINGS By John Deker, AMIGA SIG Leader MAIN LINE AMIGA USERS - Room 210 Well, we didn't get very far with the Amiga portion of our meeting in January as we opted to sit-in (stand-in was more like it) on Charlie Curran's presentation of his Sony digital camera. I'm sure many of us were impressed with the current state of the digital camera market and the Sony camera's capabilities. Check elsewhere in this issue for a summary of the presentation. We did have an hour to discuss a relatively new piece of Amiga software before Charlie's presentation. Namely, we got a brief look at a relatively new piece of software, Picture Manager Professional (PMPro for short), from Blittersoft. Below is a more extensive summary on this software. For February, we have planned a joint SIG presentation on the Web and Web pages. Our Villanova University sponsor, Professor Frank Maloney, will be honoring us with his presentation on this subject. If it goes anything like the last time Frank did a presentation on the Internet, we may have a full house if some of the university students sit-in too. As above, see Emil's discussion on the planned presentation. MEETING SOFTWARE OF NOTE SVIEWNG.LHA -- The Next Generation of SuperView software. This is a shareware viewing and graphics manipulation package that is quite extraordinary. PMPRO -- PictureManager Professional is commercial software for about $75 from Blittersoft which builds upon the core software package of SuperView. It is a picture database with all the capabilities of SuperView and then some. See below for more details. THE MAIN MEETING For sometime I've been looking at a way to organize and document the picture files I have. I've seen the thumbnail collections from PC's and knew I could do something similar with either ADPro and ImageFX using appropriate ARexx scripts, but I wanted something easier and more intuitive. During December, I happened to come across an ad for PMPro on Software Hut's Web page. It seemed to be what I was seeking and more. So being a short distance from where I work, I stopped by the Hut and picked up a copy for about $75. The software comes on 2 floppies which are housed in a CDROM case, and requires at least OS2.1 and 3 megabytes for installation. Installation is relatively straight forward as the software uses the Amiga's installer program. What I came to realize during installation was that the software uses the core files of the SuperView shareware software. I installed the software on both of my Amigas, an A2060HD and an A1260. Yes, both are 50MHz 68060 powered machines using Phase5 accelerators and running version 3.x of the operating system. The A2060 also has a PicassoII board running the original Picasso software, not Picasso96 software. Installation requires some configuration for a default video mode. I first installed the software on my A2060 where I selected the Picasso mode driver as the default video mode rather than ECS. I encountered an immediate problem upon trying to start the software. If I recall correctly, I couldn't use SnoopDOS to help trouble shoot the problem as the PMPro documentation noted crash problems associated with its use. My initial solution was to reconfigure back to basics, back to ECS mode which limits the PMPro video display to grayscale. Now at least the software was running, but I was not a very happy camper. I wanted at least the 256 color mode of the Picasso board. Ultimately I found the solution. It was to install the latest version of SuperView over top the one installed by PMPro. I downloaded and installed the new SuperView software, SViewNG.lha from Aminet. Apparently, the Picasso drivers in SuperView prior to the NG versions were known to have problems. Now, I'm a happy camper with sufficient color to satisfy me. When it came to running PMPro on my A1260, the problems were not as drastic, but they were still significant enough to cause the machine to have problems in slideshow mode. Again the solution to my problems was to install the latest version of SuperView, SViewNG.lha, as noted above on my A2060HD. Since the documentation that comes with PMPro does better justice in describing the capabilities of this software, I have taken the opportunity to plagiarize and copy some of it directly into this article. Below is the verbatim overview of the software plagiarized directly from the accompanying documentation. PMPRO OVERVIEW Introduction Are you sometimes unable to find the correct graphics for a specific problem ? Do you sometimes lose the details of how your graphics are named and saved ? Wouldn't it be convenient to administrate, display, print, scan, process, convert and export these graphics with only one single application ? Do you often wish to you could convert your graphics archives from one format into the other automatically ? With the PictureManager professional you have a program which makes graphics administration as easy as possible. Additionally it offers powerful functions for graphics conversion, image processing. Fields of PMPro usage PMPro is a visual database for bitmapped graphics of different kinds as well as IFF animation's. More than ever, in the age of CD-ROM and other large storage media, the user is confronted with large numbers of graphics. Also many programs supply large picture and clipart libraries which can be used for own purposes. To find the right graphic is most often nearly impossible, since the naming of the graphics usually does not tell a great deal about it! With PMPro you can comfortably manage your graphics, which are displayed as miniature pictures (thumbnails) on the screen. Using simple mouseclicks, you can display, print and even export these to programs like DPaint IV, PPaint and AdPro. An integrated image processing module and the possibility to convert graphics into other formats completes the package and makes PMPro a universal and irreplaceable graphics tool. PMPro offers many time saving features that are unique in one single package. Important Information We cannot guarantee a 100% error-free working of the program on your computer system. Often the problem is not actually caused by Picture Manager, but by errors of third party software or hardware. System Requirements For working with the Picture Manager professional your Amiga needs to fulfil the following requirements: * OS 2.1 or greater * At least 3 MB FAST RAM * Hard disk Recommended: At least 4-8 MB FAST RAM and a 68020 or faster. Product Overview PMPro includes a number of possibilities for visually administrating, processing, scanning, printing and converting graphics. Following is a list of the most important features: * Recursively scans directories, Hard Drives, Bernoulli Drives, CD- ROMs, etc. for bitmap graphics and IFF animation's. * Recognizes 40 graphics file formats (IFF, GIF, JPEG, TIFF, MAC-Pict, BMP, PCX, TARGA, PCD, IFF-DEEP, SGI, YUVN, PNG, PostScript, EPS, CDR and more) as well as IFF animation's (OPT5, OPT7 and Opt8). The VectorGraphics support requires Ghostscript V3.5 or higher. * Saves over 15 graphic file formats. Automatic conversion of graphics in any other file format with intelligent color reduction is possible. * Kodak Photo CD support. * Displays up to 120 thumbnails per screen page, depending on selected screenmode and thumbnailsize. * Additional Tools for image processing, conversion, PhotoCD access etc. are now included. * Displaying of the thumbnails is possible in three sizes, in greyscales or in colors (Color mode needs AGA-Chipset or an appropriate graphic card). * Supports resolutions up to 1280x1024 pixel with graphic cards. * Highest thumbnail-quality by dithering, high quality scaling, contrast and brightness correction. * Automatic duplication and reorganization of image collections. * Powerful catalogue printing functions with direct support of TurboPrint professional. * Scanner support via the ScanQuix 3 device. * Direct LHA-LZX support. The PMPro recognizes all pictures which are stored in LHA-LZX archives. Also all functions like convert, process, print, view etc. are directly usable with such LHA-LZX archive-files. * Pictures can be automatically stored in LHA-LZX archives. * Display-Drivers for AGA, ECS, Retina, Picasso II, EGS, OPAL, Merlin, Picasso96 and CyberGraphX. * Displaying of all graphics also possible in a window on PMPro's main screen. * The use of external image viewers is possible, individually configurable for any graphic file format. * Freely selectable screen mode via requester * Playing of IFF animation's (Opt5, Opt7 and Opt8). In low memory situations also directly from hard disk. * Images can be exported directly to another programs like DPaint, PPaint, ADPro, ImageFX via one Mouseclick (freely configurable). * Possibility to print any graphic with direct support of TurboPrint. * Integrated 24 Bit image processing functionality, containing over 40 powerful functions and filters. * Various searching and sorting functions. * System-conforming GUI and requesters, in some areas, menus and screenlayout are freely configurable. * Freely configurable toolbars (quickmenus). * Online Help and Guide File. 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! ------------------------- Headlines from the 1-16-98 issue of =========================== A M I G A U P D A T E -News and Rumors- (An Occasional Newsletter) =========================== ALPHA POWERED AMIGA? AMIGA PPC MAILING LIST THE GATEWAY COMPUTER SHOW GROWS! "DOOM" FOR THE AMIGA ... ... AND "QUAKE", TOO! AIR MAIL PRO V2.0 AWEB-II HAS JAVA! AMINET LIVES - DON'T PANIC LOTUS PACIFIC & 300,000 AMIGAS NEWS FROM VULCAN THE "AMIGA INFORMER" ANNEX! --------------------------- Sorry, these articles cannot be published here due to space limitations. Amiga Update is on the net; some issues available at: http://www.sharbor.com/amiga/news/ (in html format) Australian Mirror Site: http://www.comcen.com.au/Wpaulm /index.html All back issues available (ASCII text): http://www.globaldialog.com /AdventureCentral/AU/index.html =====================================    <>   /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ /\\ | \ / || || ||  /\\ / \\| \/ || || \/// \\ ===================================== --------------------------------------------------------------------- 64/128/Amiga Meetings 1998 Steering Committee Meetings February 07 February 11 March 07 March 11 April 04 April 14 * = second Saturday ** = third Wednesday ******************************************************** DIRECTIONS FOR ST. AUGUSTINE CENTER MEETING ROOMS For the next six+ months, we will continue with our monthly meetings in 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 NOTE: more maps are on our webpage - http://astro4.ast.vill.edu/mlcug/index.html 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 WWW: http://astro4.ast.vill.edu/mlcug/index.html VILLANOVA SPONSOR: Prof. Frank Maloney, Dept. of Astronomy