MAIN LINE COMPUTER USERS - MAY 1998 - ISSUE #192 **** MAY 1998 ********************************* ISSUE #192 **** VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY, ST. AUGUSTINE CENTER MEETING STARTS - 09:30 - MAY 02 MEETING MUST END BY 11:15 SHARP! ---------------------------------------------------------------- THIS MONTH'S CONTENTS CUPID: Graphic Perspectives - IIIA 2 Announcements 3 BBS Upgrade 4 Trading Post 4 64/128/PC meeting minutes 5 New MLCUG Club PC 5 Year 2000 Ready - I 5 eAMIGAf User Happenings 7 MAP/Masthead/Meeting schedule 9 Membership Form/Dues 10 ---------------------------------------------------------------- MAIN LINE 64/128/PC USERS - Room 110 Well, last month, we had our very first meeting where we had the chance to see Emil's SuperCPU 128 in action! Since that time three more members have received their units from CMD (they are Charles Curran, John Murphy and Peter Whinnery). As of this writing, all the units have performed properly right out of the box (hope CMD is batting this high for all their shipments!). For this meeting, we will share results to date from all the owners (see p.ZZ for first go-round results). This will offer an excellent opportunity for other 8-bitters (meaning YOU!) to get information that will allow them to decide whether to get on the bandwagon for another round of upgrading!!! (continued on page 3) MAIN LINE AMIGA USERS - Room 210 At our April meeting we covered a fairly wide range of subjects. Despite our propensity to do some Microsoft bashing during the early phase of the meeting, we were able to move on to more productive topics. These topics included brief discussions of the SyQuest EZ230, a look at the tool type "SCSIDEVICENAME=" for the HDToolBox, the problem with the new version MOUNT command that comes with CrossDOS v7.02, a mention of the graphics display problem associated with IBrowse v1.2 related to the PicassoII native display, and the main presentation of the Catalyzer instructional video tape for ImageFX. Somewhat forgotten by me was a desire to follow up on our previous presentations related to HTML WEB design and editing. I've made every attempt to ---------------------------------------------------------------- TOPICS FOR THE PC SESSION Since we have the new PC for demo uses at the meeting (see info item on p.ZZ of this issue), we have a lot of potential questions and topics to consider. For this month, we thought it appropriate to deal with questions of "what do you do with your new computer?". So, attendees are urged to bring their startup and setup concerns for us to answer . HAVE TO CLOSE UP BY ABOUT 11:15! FIRST RESULTS ON APPLICATIONS RUN WITH SCPU 128 Application Name Load Run Comments --------------------- ------ ------ --------------- (Ton = Turbo On Toff = Turbo Off) BBR 128 Ton Ton very satisfying, BCOPY+ Ton Toff FCOPY+ Ton Ton MCOPY Ton Ton Dialogue 128 Ton Ton much improved Flex File 128 Ton Ton fast cursor blink Flex File 64 Ton Ton almost like 128 Fun Graphics Machine Ton Ton need RAMlink Gateway 128 Ton Ton OK GEOS 64 (patched) Ton Ton flies! uses SuperRAMcard Klondike Jones Ton Ton delays gone Mah-Jongg Toff Toff messed up! Mandelbrot Microscope 64 Ton Ton >15X Multiplan 128 Toff Ton speedy Quicksmith 64 Ton Ton music timing OK Swiftcalc 128 Ton Ton up to 20X faster TWS 128 Ton Ton much, much more useful except directory loads DIRECTIONS FOR ST. AUGUSTINE CENTER MEETING ROOMS NOTE: see our webpage maps - http://astro4.ast.vill.edu/mlcug/index.html ------------------------------------------------------------------ 64/128/PC/Amiga Meetings 1998 Steering Committee Meetings May 02 May 13 June 13 * June 17 ** July 11 * July 15 ** * = second Saturday ** = third Wednesday ********************************************************************** 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 --> 33600 bps), 24 hr/day ######################################## ANNOUNCEMENTS & SPECIALS ######################################## CONGRATULATIONS! - our newest member, Fred Ameel, came to his first meeting last month - and promptly became the 50/50 RAFFLE WINNER! Treasurer, Stew Stewart, will sponsor another 50/50 in May for all attendees. GRAPHICS PERSPECTIVE - reminder that librarian, Charles Curran, has the diskette of files related to this series of columns from CUPID (see #3 on p.2). It has the articles (as plain text and TWS format), plus the utility programs and graphics files. Ask Charlie for disk C214 - $2, or $3 by mail. THANKS - to member Dennis Krall. At the April meeting, Dennis brought in a stack of free copies of the "RAW RECRUIT" game for the C-64. He got them as freebies from Centsible Software. Come to the next meeting and get your copy! SUPER CPU 128! - at long last the wait is really over! As mentioned above, four MLCUG members have got theirs. We ask any member who gets one to let us know: 1) when it arrived, 2) its serial number, 3) how it performed out of the box and 4) experiences with the software and/or hardware you use (as you get the experience). We want to add to our "database" of experience to share thru the club! This database should include as complete a summary of what works and doesn't work. It would be good to also spell out any workarounds for problems. Examples of quirky behavior involve the RAMlink. With Dialogue 128, neither Emil nor Peter can load and run it from the RAMlink - tho it loads and runs beautifully from the hard drive or a floppy. In addition, some programs that exit with a soft re-boot (such as Dialogue and EZ Loader) that normally call on the autofile capability of RAMlink, do not do so - you have to perform a hard reset. Hopefully, there will be a workaround for these quirks! GOOD NEWS FROM LOADSTAR! - a few issues ago, we reported on the expected demise of LOADSTAR 128 - but now there is good news. He it is from the mouth of the Grand Mojo: DISKOVERY (by Fender Tucker) How about that LOADSTAR 128? In the last issue (LS 128 #36) I announced, in a fit of depression, that we wouldn't be accepting any more pre-paid subscription for the magazine past #40. I was out in New Mexico and getting farther behind with LS #164, thinking that if I didn't have to put together LS 128 every three months, I could maybe do a better job with LS 64. Everybody seemed to consider my apocalyptic words as the death knell of LOADSTAR 128. But then I started thinking that just because [I] can't do a good job with LS 128, that doesn't mean someone else couldn't. So I asked Bob Markland if he would consider taking over the editorship of LS 128 starting with LS 128 #37. He readily agreed and #37 is practically done, with a minimum of brain damage to me. LOADSTAR 128 is going to be better than ever. The C-128 is a wonderful machine and deserves a good disk magazine and now LS 128 is going to have an editor who will spend all three months looking for programs, editing them and making the disk into a real magazine. I'm ashamed to admit that I was only able to devote a week or two every three months to LS 128. So if you've got a C-128 and planned to drop LS 128, or have never seen it, now is the time to get bullish on the 128. We are. It's just $25 for four quarterly issues. ******************************** BBS UPGRADE by SYSOP John Deker Just prior to last month's meeting, I attempted to upgrade our BBS hard drive from 220 megs to 2.1 gigabytes. Our BBS is an old A2000HD work horse with an A2630 accelerator, GVP I/O extender, and A2091 SCSI interface. The backup of the files was made to a SyQuest EZ230 using DOpus to perform a straight copy of all the files from the A2000. A single EZ230 disk cartridge held all the BBS files and was made bootable. This later eased the restoration of files as the A2000 was booted from the EZ230 using the Amiga's built-in boot control (2 finger salute on the left and right mouse buttons at startup gets you there). Since the EZ230 was new to me, I noted the following items of potential interest at the meeting and some I failed to note. The EZ230 is the next generation EZ135, but unlike SyQuest's of old, the EZ230 is more like an IOmega Zip drive. The EZ230 is about the same size and configuration as the Zip, but still uses the standard SyQuest type cartridge of old. In fact, the EZ230 will use the EZ135 cartridges as well as EZ230 cartridges. The EZ230 uses an electronic interface for disk protection just like the Zip drive, but this is ignored when formatting and prepping with the HDToolBox. The eject mechanism, like the Zip drive, functions like a floppy disk drive. Unit number is set using a combination of the power switch and eject button. SCSI termination is automatically sensed and applied by the EZ230 drive. Referencing back to the BBS 2.1 gig upgrade, I ran into the notorious big drive problem of the A2091 SCSI interface. The week after the meeting I remedied that by replacing the Western Digital SCSI controller 04 chip with an 08 chip and replacing the 6.6 ROMs with 7.0 ROMs. This enabled the A2091 interface to work correctly with the new 2.1 gig hard drive. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $ TRADING POST $ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ FOR SALE: C-128 outfit, with flat 128 plus JiffyDos, 1571 and 1581 disk drives 1902A RGB monitor, Supergrafix printer interface, Mach 128 cartridge, Epyx Fast Load (for 64), modem and much software! Any reasonable offer will be considered, call Tom Johnson, 610-525-3440. (1) FOR SALE: selling off large inventory of 64 stuff: 12 C-64s, 10 1541s, 6 C= printers, power supplies, Datasettes, cables, manuals, joy sticks, etc., etc. Also has 10 non-working 64s ($10 each + shipping) - for spare parts useage. If interested, contact Edward Arrasmith, 1-919-753-4876. (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 NOTE: you can read or download a more complete listing from MLCUG/MLAUG's BBS. You can contact Charles Curran to order any items of interest (610-446-5239). ******************************** 64/128/PC MEETING ******************************** The April meeting was pretty exciting. Following our usual announcements and Q&A period, we fired up Emil's new SuperCPU 128! Fortunately, it worked like a charm. Because the 128 has to be modified with an internal card for the MMU chip, he had to bring both his own 128, as well as the SCPU. They were hooked to the hard drive where essentially all the demo stuff was loaded. Absent a RAMlink, many of the apps do not perform as fast as they could because of the slower data access to the hard drive. In the short time available, we got just quick looks at Dialogue, The Write Stuff, Klondike Jones, Mah- Jongg, Big Blue Reader, Swiftcalc and Quicksmith 64. Even after having the SCPU for only a couple of weeks, Emil said he was converted!!! On p.9, we have started a listing that (briefly) summarizes apps that have been looked at by any of the members (now 4) who have their SCPUs. In future issues, we'll publish additions (or corrections). And, most probably, keep the full list as a text file on the BBS, where anyone can check it out. PC SESSION - setting aside the exciting SCPU 128, we then took the rest of the meeting for a equally quick look at the club's new PC clone. Like the SCPU, it worked! Attendees got a chance to see the sytem, get an overview of its features (see the following article for a bit more detail) and have a Q & A about it. We will have opportunity in future sessions to delve in more detail into these features AND to devote more time to the software side of the house. From the questions that poured out, there should be plenty to deal with!! ******************************** NEW MLCUG CLUB PC As we noted last month, the club acquired a new PC clone - after a couple of months of looking over the field (a moving target) and deciding what would hold us for the near future. The actual purchase gave us a system that should have more than enough capability for most any conceivable meeting demo. Below, for the information of the members, is a description of the unit we got. At the upcoming and any future meetings, we can review these features and the reason(s) for the choice. Such discussions should help any members, who are considering such a purchase, make a better choice. The computer was bought from MicroCenter in St. David's PA, one of their "house" models - a PowerSpec Model 4332: CPU: AMD K6 233 MHz L2 cache: 512 KB Pipelined Burst RAM: 32 MB (EDO/SDRAM) HD size: 5.1 GB VIDEO: S3 VIRGE 3D w. 2 MB VRAM MODEM: 56K FAX/Modem/speakerphone CD-ROM: 24X (max.) SOUND: 32 voice wavetable Stereo speakers 1.44 MB Floppy PS/2 Win 95 keyboard PS/2 mouse (2-button) Mini Tower case Win 95 (OSR2.1/FAT32) OS lots of bundled stuff 15" 0.28 mm dp monitor Final price was $1018, tax incl. Having this brand of computer should be especially useful, since at least 4-5 club members have already bought the brand. So, members are urged to bring their questions on PC purchase to the upcoming meeting(s). ******************************** YEAR 2000 READY? Is your Amiga (or other powerful computer) ready for the year 2000? by: John Deker, AMIGA SIG leader CAUTION: Before performing Y2K compliance testing consider the following: Can you return the system from a future date to a past date? Some date sensitive demo software & security systems can present problems. Backing up the system & understanding full restoration procedures helps avoid potential problems. In most circumstances, working with only a PC's system date stamp will not pose a problem if application software is not running. The system's date must be returned to normal before running date sensitive application software. Y2K (Year 2000) technology issues ================================= CRITICAL DATE VALUES The following dates should be tested: 1998-12-31 Rollover, Reboot 1999-01-01 Special Value 1999-09-09 Special Value 1999-12-31 Special Value, Rollover, Reboot 2000-01-01 Day of Week, Day of Year 2000-02-28 Rollover, Reboot 2000-02-29 Rollover, Reboot, Day of Week 2000-03-01 Day of Week 2001-01-01 Day of Week, Day of Year Consider testing these dates also: 1999-08-22 Global Position Satellite Rollover Date 2000-12-31 Rollover, Reboot 2001-02-28 Rollover, Reboot 2004-02-28 Rollover, Reboot 2004-02-29 Rollover, Reboot, Day of Week 2004-03-01 Day of Week 2004-12-31 Day of Week, Day of Year 2027-12-31 Day of Week, Day of Year TEST PROCEDURES Rollover Example Case 1: 1. Set the date to 31 Dec 1999 2. Set the time to 23:59 3. Observe the system date after 00:02 AM Expected Result: The system clock advances into the year 2000 & continues normally. Reboot Example Case 2: 1. Set the date to 1 Jan 2000 2. Power down the system 3. Power up the system 4. Observe the system date Expected Result: The system clock still displays the year 2000 & operates normally. Combo Rollover & Reboot Case 3: 1. Set the date to 31 Dec 1999 2. Set the time to 23:50 3. Power down system before year rollover 4. Wait until after midnite with power off 5. Power up the system 6. Observe the system date Expected Result: The system clock advances into the year 2000 & operates normally. NOTE: Many personal computers fail either both or the first of these tests. They reset themselves to some past date if the RTC (Real Time Clock) says the year is "00" when they reboot. In some cases the PC will pass the Case 2 test, and this will become the work-around solution for Case 3. That is, forcing a set of the RTC to the year 2000 as in Case 2 makes the PC usable in the year 2000. Day of Week Case 4: 1. Set the clock to 1 Jan 2000 2. Observe the system day of the week display Expected Result: The system displays the day of the week as Saturday. Similar tests should be conducted for all critical dates. In some tests concerning leap year it has been found that 29 Feb 2000 is not recognized by the system in various ways. In some cases rollovers work, but the system date cannot be set to 29 Feb 2000 with the date setting function, but other leap years may be OK. [Next month, John will tell us all the results of some Y2K testing he has done; so stay tuned!!!] =====================================    <>   /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ /\\ | \ / || || ||  /\\ / \\| \/ || || \/// \\ ===================================== By John Deker, AMIGA SIG Leader [continued from p.1] cover these topics in more detail in the paragraphs that follow. For our May meeting we will continue from where our presentation ended previously. That is, we will continue our review of ImageFX through the use of the Catalyzer video tape. Like last month we will watch a section of the tape and then replicate the presentation on the Amiga 1200. Unlike last month, we will be using the latest version of ImageFX, version 3.0 instead of version 2.6. CROSSDOS V7.02 WARNING I'm sure not many of you have upgraded to the latest version of CrossDOS, version 7.02. Well if you have, you may find yourself in a problem if you use either a mountlist or mountfile to mount your hard drives on a Phase 5 SCSI. For me, the problem occurred while using a mountfile to mount my Zip drive on my 2030scsi.device or 2060scsi.device interface. Apparently the included new version MOUNT file that gets installed by CrossDOS doesn't like SCSI interfaces that are not obviously "string" names. Since the Phase 5 device names begin with numbers rather than alpha characters, the new MOUNT command installed in your C: directory fails to mount units which use a mountlist or mountfile. There are two solutions. First is to place the device name within quotes as in DEVICE="2060scsi.device". The alternative is to revert back to the MOUNT command that comes with your Operating System disks. IBROWSE V1.2 WARNING WARNING: If you're upgrading from IBrowse 1.12 to 1.20, be aware that you may not be able to display graphics if you're using a PicassoII board and native PicassoII software. Why, I don't know. I just know the combination doesn't work on my A2000HD with Phase 5 Blizzard 2060 and PicassoII. WEBDESIGN V1.9 & FTPMOUNT V1.0 An easy to use HTML editor & virtual directory to ease creating & editing WEB pages. From our BBS (slightly modified): "Last night, as a result of the club's recent presentation on Web page setup, I created the very beginning of a personal Web page on Voicenet, my ISP. Since I use a PPP connection with Voicenet, and rarely if ever use their Shell environment, the Web page setup process included Telneting into Voicenet at: omni2.voicenet.com using my login ID and my Password. I suspect that one can also login to: omni1.voicenet.com as my experience indicates that both addresses point to the same system, or at least a mirror image. Once logged into your account (accessed by having provided your ID & PW), you issue the following command to create your Web page directory & a default HTML document: /usr/local/etc/homepage This command creates a subdirectory called PUBLICHTML and a document within the subdirectory called INDEX.HTML where INDEX.HTML is your home page document. Using a GUI FTP client makes it an easy process to download INDEX.HTML to my Amiga for further development of my Web page. It also makes it easy to send it back after any updates along with any other supporting files. The GUI FTP also makes it easy to create subdirectories if desired. The only thing I'm still somewhat confused about is setting permissions for my files on the ISP server. What I've found is that the Unix command CHMOD enables these to be set. I need to Telnet in to use this command. The software I'm finding useful for all this includes: 1. Miami (AmiTCP/IP or Termite TCP should also work fine) 2. AmTelnet from www.vapor.com. This software is much more capable & user friendly than other Telnet clients I've seen on the Amiga, but it is shareware & requires registration to obtain a keyfile ($). 3. FTPMount or DOpus5.5 FTP. Both of these FTP clients allow you to use an FTP site as just another virtual drive. 4. AWeb-II v3.1. AWeb & IBrowse are both good browsers, but AWeb is currently the only Amiga browser to support JavaScript. 5. WebDesign, an HTML editor with buttons to make coding in HTML & JavaScript easier. Its freeware & asks only for a postcard. I tried using Final Writer to create/edit Web pages, but it was cumbersome & inserted too much code, more code than I wanted. WebDesign made life easy with appropriate prompts along the way. WebDesign has a preview button that sends your Web page to your favorite Amiga browser - AWeb, IBrowse, or Voyager. If you use DOpus5.5 FTP or FTPMount for your FTP client, your Web page directory is just another directory on your Amiga & you can save your final Web design to your ISP right from WebDesign itself." CATALYZER An instructional video to get you up to speed quick on IMAGEFX. At last month's meeting we started quite late in the meeting with the main presentation of the Catalyzer video on ImageFX. The Catalyzer video is an instructional video. Apparently the first Catalyzer video was successful enough to spawn a second video which I recently ordered. Depending on the group's interest, it looks like we have several months ahead of us to use the Catalyzer tape to learn the workings of ImageFX. If last month's expressed interest in this tape is a true indication, then there is no doubt that this is exactly what we'll be doing over the next several months. 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. =====================================    <>   /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ /\\ | \ / || || ||  /\\ / \\| \/ || || \/// \\ =====================================