MAIN LINE COMPUTER USERS - NOVEMBER 1997 - ISSUE #186 **** NOVEMBER 1997 ******************************** ISSUE #186 **** VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY, ST. AUGUSTINE CENTER MEETING STARTS - 09:30 - NOV 01 The time to renew is NOW !! ---------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS History of Computing - Part VII 2 RENEWAL/Other announcements 3 Internet Book Order 3 Product Update 3 Trading Post 4 64/128 meeting minutes 4 PC Q & A 4 File Conversion & Transfer 5 AMIGA User Happenings 7 State of the AMIGA Market 8 MAP/Masthead/Meeting schedule 9 Membership Form/Dues 10 ---------------------------------------------------------------- MAIN LINE 64/128 USERS - Room 110 Well, after a couple of sessions, we got thru the cross platform transfer topic! (We can always entertain queries, if you run into a future problem). For this month, we want to cover two topics. The first is to explore the subject of spreadsheets. We have not dealt with them in years; so the time may be upon us - bring YOUR ideas and/or questions. The second item will be to explore subjects of interest for the upcoming year of 1998 - meeting subjects and discussion topics - your input is NEEDED! For our PC Q & A, we will have an open discussion - fueled by your desires. The emphasis is expected to be on the queries from folks who are new to the PC - especially those using C= 8-bit, too. (continued on page 3) MAIN LINE AMIGA USERS - Room 210 Only a very few number of people attended our October meeting. I hope it wasn't from lack of interest that others did not attend. Since half the group arrived nearer to ten o'clock, we had a relatively late start on the meeting. Once we got started, we spent quite a bit of time in general discussion and only spent about 45 minutes on the main presentation. Needless to say, we didn't cover the planned presentation in any level of detail. So, for next time we'll probably try to pick up where we left off. That is, we'll take a much closer look at Thor and issues related to its operation. As it was, we did cover such things as PDF (Portable Document Format) readers -- GhostScript and XPDF; ISP's (continued on page 7) ---------------------------------------------------------------- THE YEAR 1998 - COMING UP SOON! As we noted in the October issue, we are into our renewal season and coming up on the new year. Because of our current facilities limitations, we'll not have a flea market meeting. BUT, for December, we do expect to have a bunch of door prizes, raffles and, maybe a surprise or two! We look forward to seeing YOU at the upcoming meetings!!! *************************** CHRONOLOGY OF SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTING MACHINES (PART VII) BY JAY R. BAKER Dec 1947 - Walter Houser Brattain (b. 1902 in Amoy, China of American parents), a physicist and John Bardeen (b. 1908 in Madison, Wisconsin), a mathematician/ physicist, demonstrated the first germanium point- contact transistor at the AT&T Bell Telephone Laboratories. In 1951 William Bradford Schockley (b. 1910 in London of American parents), a physicist also working at Bell Labs, developed the junction transistor which made commercial transistor production possible. All three men received the 1956 Nobel Prize in physics for the invention of the transistor. Jun 1948 - Manchester Mark I, the first fully electronic stored program computer, built by a team at Manchester University headed by Max Newman, a professor of mathematics, and Tom Kilburn (b. 1921), was operational. The Mark I used cathode ray tubes (CRT) for memory which was developed by Frederick Calland Williams (b. 1911), professor of electrical engineering and the project's chief engineer. Jun 1949 - The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer (EDSAC) completed at Cambridge University under the leadership of Maurice Vincent Wilkes (b. 1913). The EDSAC design was based on the Manchester Mark I and the Mauchly and Eckert EDVAC machine still under construction. EDSAC used mercury delay lines for memory which, although slower than CRTs, were more reliable and and had greater storage capacity. Aug 1949 - The Binary Automatic Computer (BINAC), a small version of EDVAC, built by the Electronic Control Company (formed by Mauchly and Eckert) for Northrop Aircraft Company as a first step in the development of an airborne controller for the Snark missile, passed its acceptance test. BINAC had a storage capacity of 512 thirty-one bit words using mercury delay lines, had two processors (for verification) each of which had 700 vacuum tubes and could perform 3500 additions or subtractions or 1000 multiplications or divisions per second. The BINAC was the first fully binary, stored program computer in the U.S. (the EDSAC in England preceeded it by a few months) and the first to use magnetic tape input. Mauchly and Grace Hopper did the coding for the BINAC. 1949 - The Whirlwind Computer, built under the direction of Jay W. Forrester and Robert R. Everett at MIT, began operation. This project had begun in October 1944 as an effort to develop an analog computer for controlling a flight trainer and as a stability analyzer, however, in October 1945 Forrester recognized that only a digital computer could accomplish the task and the objective of the program was altered accordingly. Because the computer had to operate in real time the design used only sixteen bit words for maximum speed and could add two numbers in only two microseconds and multiply them in 20 microseconds. Whirlwind's memory initially consisted of 32 CRTs which could store 2048 sixteen bit words, but, because they were expensive and needed frequent replacement, they proved to be a weak link in the computer's performance. In order to overcome this drawback, Forrester, in 1949, conceived of the magnetic core memory, which, when finally installed in Whirlwind in 1953, doubled its operating speed, quadrupled the input data rate and most importantly reduced the maintenance time spent on the memory from four hours a day to only two hours a week. The magnetic core memory was a major advance in computer technology.A [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. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 64/128/Amiga Meetings 1997 Steering Committee Meetings November 01 November 12 December 06 December 10 January 10 * January 14 * = second Saturday ** = third Wednesday ------------------------------------------------------------------ NEWSLETTER DEADLINE is November 20th !!! ********************************************************** 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 ######################################## YEAR 1998 IS COMING UPON US! - and that means it is time to renew your membership in MLCUG/MLAUG!! We are keeping the dues at the $15 level to minimize the financial impact on your renewal tendency! Please NOTE that how well the renewals go will be a key to how well we can continue to operate and serve our members. User groups continue to dwindle and/or fall by the wayside. Let's hope that we can buck the trend and keep up our activity level for the forseeable future! Please rejoin! SPECIAL NOTE: our information about what hardware and/or key software that folks now use is pretty out of date, as most members have not updated their membership form when they renewed. Please take a few extra minutes and provide the information requested on the form - and any other info you think pertinent - before sending it in with your 1998 dues. Thanks from your friendly computer database! INTERNET BOOK! - our order for Gaelyn Gasson's book, "The Internet for Commodore 64/128 Users" arrived last month and copies are available to be picked up. We are holding copies for: Mike Byrne, Thad Harry, Ray Madison, Carlos Mason, and Tex Shannon. Please arrange to get your copy (and pay!). We'll start a new sign up list and, if we can get at least five (5) more interested folks, we can reorder at the $24 per copy price. We have only two orders for the second go round; so please let me know ASAP - if we want to get the books before Christmas! THE CART RETURNS! - we were much pleased to get back - on the day of the October meeting - our long lost equipment cart! As far as we could tell, or remember, nothing was missing from the equipment. In fact we got back a bit extra in the form of a lot more dust! It had obviously been stored somewhere not well cleaned without cover. With it back, we now have some duplication in our meeting hardware setup. For now, we plan to hold onto the extra stuff until we have arrangements to use the cart in our new meeting room. Then we'll decide whether to hold, sell, raffle - or ??? Fortunately, Prof. Maloney has a reputation for a past association with Commodore tuff; so he got the call from someone wondering about a cart of such sitting around. Wonder why it took so long for someone to notice?? STEERING MEETINGS - on the second Wednesday evening, normally we have a steering committee meeting at the home of Charles Curran. This is the meeting where we work on meeting plans or other items related to the club operation and future. Any member is welcome to come and provide input. Contact myself or Charles, if you would like to attend [Emil Volcheck]. LUNCHEON INVITATION - following the regular meetings, several of our members regularly gather at the Villanova Diner to chew on lunch and other thoughts that may have come up at the meeting. No attempt is made to solve the world's problems, but it does offer yet another forum for folks to share interests and even solve some more problems. Why not join us? *************************** PRODUCT UPDATE SUPERCPU 128 - CMD (Creative Micro Designs) has continued to make progress on this (more difficult than expected) project. But, they have reached the board fabrication stage. And, have also reached the final firmware design stage. According to the latest post on their website, as of this writing, CMD expects to make deliveries in time for Christmas. Now, that would make an interesting item under the tree!!! --------------- COMPUTER BIG LIE #4 - "You can use my copy". Don't borrow software from other people or businesses unless you want trouble with the law or problems in getting technical support at the moment you need your computer to fill a big contract. Observe those copyright warnings. It will save you a hassle later. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $ TRADING POST $ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ 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(1) WANTED!: manual (to buy or copy) for Toshiba printer #P321SL or the #P351SX Call Hines Mathews, 610-344-0443. (3) FOR SALE: computer bench 40"W x 24"D x 26.5"H, hutch 39"W x 27"H x 12"D. It has right side under shelf space of 14"H x 11.75"W x 24"D. Call Charles Curran, 610-446-5239. It is yours for $10. (3) FOR SALE: MLCUG has a lot of hardware that is available for purchase by MLCUG members at very attractive prices! 6 computer - C-64 w/PS $25 2 disk drive 1541 - clone $20 15 disk drive 1541 - various $20 1 disk drive 1541 - 8/9 sw. $25 1 disk drive 1541-II $30 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 2 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 Also, we have quite a bit of software, for bargain prices (typically $2). You can contact Charles Curran to check on any items of interest (610-446-5239). *************************** 64/128 MEETING *************************** Before the formal meeting started, we had the opportunity to test an alternate display system. Member Charles Curran acquired an LCD display panel that can be hooked up to the video output of most computers (including the 64, 128, PC, Mac or Amiga). We set this up with an overhead projector provided by Prof. Maloney. It was run with the 80-column 128 output and the VGA output from a laptop PC. The PC output was readable but dim, while the 128 output was dim and low in contrast. Neither was easy to view, tho the VGA gave a bit better result. We'll try to get the room darker and the contrast up a bit to see if we have something workable. Then we spent the bulk of the October meeting finishing the discussion and demos related to file conversion and transfer. A little later in this issue is a more detailed summary of the specific utilities covered for performing these two tasks - on the Commodore 8-bit side (our side where the work normally has to be done as the other world(s) do not have the need or desire to accommodate!). PC Q & A For this, somewhat abbreviated, session, we did a brief demo of a PC utility (programmed for DOS) that allows one to do find & change on files. Our specific interest was to use it for making the end-of-line modifications for things like UNIX -> MS-DOS (or vice versa). Handy for folks getting files off the internet that frequently need this conversion. Like ACE on the 128, this program (called FndRep) simply produces a copy of the original with the EOL changes desired. Thus, it is not limited in file size and can be done on one drive or disk, assuming the room is available for the original and a copy. Then we followed up with a shortened Q & A period. There were not many questions, and they got dealt with - satisfactorily we hope! REMEMBER - we will NOT have fruitful discussion UNLESS attendees bring queries and topics to raise to the group at the meeting. So, if you have an interest, don't wait til the meeting for inspiration. Give it some thought ahead of time - whatever interests or bothers you is likely to do the same for other attendees. *************************** FILE CONVERSION & TRANSFER [by Emil Volcheck] As mentioned above, we finished up our discussion & demo of cross platform file transfer tools. That is not to say that we covered all the available ones, but some key ones that yours truly has used for moving hundreds, if not thousands, of files back and forth between C= machines and PCs or Macs. The tools reviewed in October were: The Write Stuff, ZED077.128, ACE16, Little Red Reader and Big Blue Reader. The following summarizes what we covered about them. Firstly, the file form conversion tools: ZED for C-128, z in ACE16 for C-64 ZED (or z) is a text editor which can handle very large files, up to half a megabyte when a 512K REU is on-line. It will allow you to convert files during a Load, Save or Both. So, you can immediately interconvert C=, Amiga, UNIX, PC, or Mac file types on the fly. It is very fast both in getting text in and out, but also in any editing or manipulating you might wish to do. However, ZED has a couple of major limitations: 1) line lengths are limited to 80 characters and no word wrap is available. Because of these limitations, ZED is much less useful than it might otherwise be. THE WRITE STUFF TWS will let you read/view most any kind of file - good choice if you do not know anything about a file. But, the files must be in memory to convert; so the maximum file size is about 19K (C-64) or 60K (C-128). File or character conversions are not very speedy, but you can change most anything to most anything else - NOT JUST the end-of-line characters. While TWS can read most anything, it can not save to any old format. Many options are available - but, for example, saving to true MS-DOS format is not in the repertoire (there is a print-to-disk option that gives a true MS-DOS format, but it has a line or paragraph length limit of 255 characters, generally too limiting for most files). Having used TWS to read and modify the file, you will likely need another tool to save and tranfer it to your needed form. ACE 16 ACE is limited to file conversions, rather than general text modifications. But, since the file conversions are performed directly on disk, there is no limit to the size of file that can be handled (without needing an REU). No loading or saving of the original file is required. Otherwise the file is more-or-less unaffected. Now that I know about its capability, I'm finding that it can really fill the bill in getting a file ready to go whereever you need it to! Secondly, the file transfer tools: The two we dealt with were Little Red Reader (aka LRR) and Big Blue Reader (aka BBR). The tabulation below is intended to compare various features of the two utilities to help you judge if you can get away with the freeware LRR or need to spring for the commercial BBR. ITEM BBR LRR --------------- ----- ----- Price $39 Free Format MS-DOS Y N R/W MS-DOS HD N Y R/W BBR/MS-DOS HD Y N Single drive Y N Multiple drives Y Reqd. Transfer speed - + Convert PETSCII Y Y Convert scr. code Y N Time/date DOS auto manual DOS subdirectories Y N Delete MS-DOS files N Y Print/read files Y N From the above listing, you'll see that BBR can do most anything you need doing - except deleting files from MS-DOS disks. One other quirk is that BBR uses its own "format" for high density disks - which work just great in PCs or Macs. But it will NOT work with regular pre- formatted DOS disks. This means in practice that you can not use the same high density DOS disks for LRR and BBR - you are stuck with the disk for whichever tool you start with! LRR transfers files quicker than BBR - a plus - but it has to use two drives, you can not move files back and forth if you have only one floppy disk drive. So, if this is not a limitation for you, and the other LRR limitations are not important - use LRR the freebie until you need the features that BBR offers, then pay your $$$. The grass is always greener when you leave the sprinkler on *************************** AMIGA USER HAPPENINGS By John Deker, AMIGA SIG Leader [continued from p.1] (Internet Service Providers) -- Voicenet and Erol's; and mailers -- AEMail and AirMail. As already noted, we'll be spending a bit more time on Thor which is the Amiga's Swiss Army knife of mail/news reader/managers and an Aminet database manager to boot. If time permits, I think we can talk briefly about another Internet issue, SSL (Secure Socket Layer). THE MEETING: EDITED FROM THE BBS POSTING We spent quite a bit of time in general discussion, leaving very little time for the main presentation. Our general discussion focused on the Amiga market and migrated to a discussion on the probability of anti- trust litigation against Microsoft. As related to MS, points were made on how MS is stifling creativity and progress by buying or forcing competition out of business that poses any potential threat. Once a potential competitor has been defeated, the competition's new ideas are generally buried and left undeveloped by MS. There was some consensus that the US legal system is being generally thwarted in bringing action against MS for political reasons as MS brings big $$$'s into the USA from foreign sales. Having hashed thru the general discussion, we covered very briefly the differences between 2 ISP's -- Erol's & Voicenet. Essentially, at a base service level Voicenet is more expensive -- $16.95 versus $14.95 per month, BUT you do get extra services for that price difference. The primary differences or extras in the case of Voicenet are more Web page hard drive storage area -- 10 megabytes at Voicenet versus Erol's one megabyte, a monthly newsletter, and ISDN support. Acquiring equivalent features from Erol's will make Erol's more expensive at $19.95 or more per month than Voicenet's $16.95. We next jumped into mailers/newsreaders. For presentation (w/o INet connection) we had AEMail, AirMail, & Thor. The first 2 are mailers only. For what you get, AirMail seems over priced at $40 commercial. AEMail is still actively under development and is similar to AirMail in function. However, the 2 programs have differences. Each has features that don't exist in the other. Too bad all the features aren't available in each. There are other popular mailers for the Amiga, most notable being YAM (Yet Another Mailer). However, no one made any comments on this one. Maybe other users could comment on their mailers at the next meeting. We didn't do justice to the presentation on Thor. Thor probably has more features and capabilities than any other mail/newsreader on any platform. It is under active development. It has its own support directory on Aminet and its own Usenet conference. Most of what shows up on Usenet are the flames and complaints as you might expect. The authors actively respond to almost all the issues. The feedback from Usenet does get incorporated in upgrades and revisions. Thor is shareware at $30 and is fully functional without registration. However, without registration, your mail headers will blatantly tell the world that you're using an unregistered copy. Thor has to be the Swiss Army knife of mail/newsreaders just as DOpus is the Swiss Army knife of any file manager I've seen on ANY Platform. Both are EXTREMELY configurable with ARexx adding much to that configurability. Thor is a MAIL reader, NEWS reader, and Aminet file database interface. Once one starts working with Thor, you quickly begin to realize it is a very specialized DATABASE. It has utilities to manage the database, including organizing and sorting the information for internal use or external export/import. There's a USER list for email addresses, a CONFERENCE list for email and USENET, a MAIL LIST MANAGER, a MESSAGE LIST manager to manage the subject/header list within a Usenet conference, and a FILE LIST manager to track the Aminet file database once you set yourself up on the Aminet mailing list. The Aminet file database includes the filename and directory information and a short single line file description. Using an FTP client, you can use Thor to direct the client to download files from Aminet. The nice part about this setup is that you can browse the Aminet database offline. The bad part is that the Aminet database is almost 3.5 megabytes and occupies your hard drive! Since we really didn't do justice to the coverage of Thor, we'll continue our presentation for at least part of the next meeting's main presentation. I'd like to keep our focus on Internet issues. Oh yes, so far I've failed to mention that we also did a presentation on Ghostscript & XPDF as Voicenet also makes their newsletters available in Adobe Acrobat PDF file format. Both Ghostscript & XPDF can read most PDF formats, but both are somewhat slow. XPDF has a GUI interface which is helpful while Ghostscript is command line (CLI) driven. XPDF definitely is more friendly except that I couldn't get it to work on my GVP040 A2000 with OS2.1. XPDF worked OK on my Blizzard 1260 A1200. MEETING SOFTWARE OF NOTE AEMAIL -- Shareware/PD Internet email manager. AIRMAIL -- Shareware/Commercial Internet email manager. GHOSTSCRIPT -- PD Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format reader/creator. Runs from Shell/CLI (Command Line Interface). Slow. THOR -- Shareware/PD Internet/BBS email/news manager and Aminet database manager. XPDF -- PD Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format reader. Runs from Shell/CLI (Command Line Interface). Has relatively nice GUI. 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 MARKET ---------------------- The latest Amiga News & Rumors From Amiga News Central By Paul Morabito 8th October 1997 Amiga Forever, HiSoft, COD, CHIPS * Amiga International has announced in a surprise development that Italian developers Cloanto have been officially licensed to produce a software Amiga emulator. The package will ship with a licensed version of AmigaOS as well as "Amiga/PC networking software". More information including some "surprise features" will be announced shortly before it's release which, Cloanto report is on the 14th November. Speculation suggests it could be a "super" version of UAE incorporating some features of the Siamese system. * HiSoft Systems have released their latest entry into the C programming field with the release of HiSoft C++ Lite. The compiler is ANSI C and AT&T 3.0 C++ compliant and boasts a powerful GUI. The full press release can be found here. * Another new games developer, Desktop Corruption have announced details on their first title, Children Of Darkness, a new ground breaking RPG for the Amiga. Currently only a prologue to the games story and a few sketches of the animated into are available but this is definitely a project to keep your eyes on. * C.H.I.P.S, a New York Amiga user group are celebrating their 10th anniversary. As part of the celebrations they have announced their appearance at The Computer and Business Show while afterwards an anniversary dinner will be held. For those interested in attending, the full press release can be found at the Amiga Web Directory. 7th October 1997 Trapped 2, Ossowski, Distant Suns * Distant Suns, the Amiga's longlasting astronomy program has once again changed distributors. This time Power Solutions has picked up world wide distribution rights and will sell the program for a competitive $CAD27.75 (Floppy and CD-ROM versions). The full press release can be found at the Amiga Web Directory. * Amiga Flame reports that the long awaited sequel to Trapped, Trapped 2 from Oxyron Software is now available. The full game contains a 3D world consisting of 15 levels and various weapons and special effects that have not yet been seen on the Amiga. More information can be found at Amiga Flame. * Schatztruhe has again announced reductions to a large range of their products, this time including such gems as Wordworth Office, TurboCalc and Aminet Set 3. More information can be found here.