***** JANUARY 1999 ********************************** ISSUE #200*****
VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY, ST. AUGUSTINE CENTER
MEETING STARTS - 09:30 - JAN 09
! NOTE: SECOND SATURDAY/NEW YEAR !
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THIS MONTH'S CONTENTS
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MAIN LINE 64/128/PC USERS - Room 110
For the opening meeting of the new year, we'll have two features: 1)
for the 8-bit session, we will be showing the newly released WHEELS
128 - GEOS-like operating system. This is not intended as a full
scale demo or tutorial, but a tantalizing glimpse of something still
new springing to life in the remainder of the Commodore product life
cycle. Come for a show!
2) for the PC session, we will take up the subject of boot or
emergency or rescue disks. The three previous issues of the
newsletter had articles on the subject. For the meeting, we'll cover
the subject in hands-on fashion. AND, there will be plenty of
opportunity for queries for YOU ALL - on this subject, as well as
general PC Q & A!
MAIN LINE AMIGA USERS - Room 210
As our last meeting 'twas the Christmas holiday season, we had a
party with sandwiches & soda and door prizes & a raffle drawing. On
the more serious side we had a general discussion and Q&A session.
In addition, I tried to cover some of the details about setting up
filesystems on the hard drive, but I'm not sure how much of that
presentation really got through to everyone between all the prize
drawings & food.
For January, weather permitting, we can review some of that
presentation if anyone has questions. Otherwise, the CatalyzerII
video will be the focus of the main presentation.
I would like to remind everyone that it
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* OUR DECEMBER 1998 MEETING *
Because our December 5th meeting can be classified as a success on
many fronts. I wanted to highlite it here - up front. Firstly,
between both sessions, we had 20+ attending (plus a couple of guests)
- so, nearly half the membership came. Great! [there's much
more on p.4]
****************************************
CROSS PLATFORM SUGGESTIONS
by: Jack Blewitt
CROSS PLATFORM HINTS:
If you and all of your friends are Commodore purists, read no
further! Then again, if you communicate with IBM PC's or have dual
platforms, you may find this of interest. NOTE: "Platforms" may
indicate either a change in computer types or change in operating
systems such as Windows 95/98, OS-2, Unix, Mac, Commodore, etc.
E-MAIL TEXT BETWEEN PLATFORMS:
When sending e-mail between PC's and the Commodore, there is often a
conflict in formats. Most Commodores use TEXT ONLY, and often a UNIX
server. On the other hand, PC's more often than not use a graphical
type of format (HTML) to pretty-up their pages. Sending in this
format makes reception difficult to read, (if not impossible), for
the Commodore computer. SOLUTION?: When posting e-mail from the PC,
request that the sender change from HTML to Plain Text. This will
prevent inclusion of LINKS and Graphic Inserts into the e-mail, but
will result in an easily readable message. Tell them; "From within
the Internet Explorer Window, select USE BASIC ON YOUR PC/CLONE
Many of us learned to program in BASIC using our beloved Commodores.
Now that a new PC Clone, (complete with monitor), can be purchased
for less than $500, many of us have dual systems. Those BASIC gems
that we labored over for so many hours are no good anymore. Or are
they? With your Windows 95/98 disk comes an expanded BASIC that can
put you back into the programming stance. It is NOT automatically
added to your installation process. Here is how you can manually add
it to your system. "Fire up your Windows OEM disk that came with your
system. Select All instructions and HELP are available on screen. Just follow the
prompts as they appear. (ie: like [the above article is one of an occasional contribution to ease the
life of newsletter editors! From Jack Blewitt - aka C.U.P.I.D - who
has given us many past articles on making the best use of Commodore
8-bit systems. Having crossed-over, Jack can still help us!]
######################################## WHEELS 128 IS HERE!
Just in time for the holidays, Maurice Randall delivered the long
awaited replacement for GEOS 128 v2.0 - dubbed WHEELS 128! It
complements the 64 version that came out a few months ago.
Come and get a glimpse at the January meeting in room 110.
OUR BEST WISHES FOR THE NEW YEAR!
And speaking of the new year, we are winding down our 17th year of
(hopefully) providing support, guidance and assists to computer
users. We began as a PET/VIC user group. With the arrival of the
C-64, it became our primary vehicle for computing - followed by the
C-128 and the whole Amiga line. It seems that many (most?) of the
old PET and VIC users migrated to the 64 or the 128 (like yours truly
who got his first PET in January of 1978).
As the technology advanced and time passed, the club grew to nearly
300 members in size and then began to slide downwards as Commodore
Business Machines continued unable to pull itself from its morass of
failures. Most of the members who left us migrated to other
computers - a small fraction to the Amiga plus a few to the
Macintosh - but most went to the PC/clone arena, as best I can
determine.
When our membership dropped below 75 a couple of years ago, we
evolved to a hard core of users who stayed with us, even tho many no
longer used Commodore or Amiga systems. It, thus, became clear that
they wanted, and we could provide, some continuing support to their
new computer allegiance.
So, over the last year+, we have devoted an increasing portion of our
so-called "8-bit" meetings to alternate computer useage - essentially
the IBM/compatible (aka PC) arena, since that is where the members
went. That activity will continue in the future - and likely grow.
We will continue to support the 8-bit users, as their needs dictate,
and as some of the still new additions (check back on the immediately
previous announcement) to the Commodore field come along. Our solid
grounding in the Amiga technology means we can keep on with top-notch
support to the avid users of that platform.
To reflect this changing support focus, we have slightly (!) changed
our club headline. This issue #200 of the MLCUG, then MLCUG/MLAUG,
newsletter becomes the first designated for the MAIN LINE COMPUTER
USERS GROUP.
And, we hope this slightly broadened title will increase the
potential audience of folks who could benefit by membership in the
club. We mean to keep our old roots - but grow some new ones! Stick
around and help us help others!!!
****************************************
UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIAL
[some food for thought from one of our most active members]
To: Emil Volcheck
Subj: Club Value
On my way home from the Steering Meeting I was thinking about our
discussion on what the Club's value is to our members. In the past
week I have gotten much more in return for my $15 dues than I would
have imagined. I received 3 things this week that remind me of why I
remain an active member:
1) A repaired, fully functioning C-128. This saved me $50 or so and
the time and effort needed to send the unit to CMD or Bear Tech. 2)
More tips on Web publishing 3) An article on computer technology
used in my field - Technical Theatre
Without the club's resources (the people in it) I would still have a
non functioning box of spare parts for my 128 and would know no more
about Web design and the basics of DMX512 than I did last week.
Thanks to my friends who are on the lookout for topics that are of
general interest to all members and for material that is of
particular interest to me. I am a firm believer that what you get
out of the club is directly related to what you put in, which for me
has been a very rewarding process.
I realize that this is of little help in trying to recuit new
members, or otherwise encourage the current membership to become more
active in the club. I hope that some of my enthusiasm rubs off and
we can continue to provide a valuable service to those interested in
Commodore and computing in general. Collectively, we offer a
plethora of experience and advice. I for one am proud to be a part
of such an organization.
My $.02 - Peter
LAST RENEWAL CHANCE! - with this January issue having come to pass,
it will be the last issue sent to non-renewing 1998 members. So,
check YOUR MAILING LABEL and if you still see 9812 in the top line,
turn to the last page of this issue, fill out the form and send it
with your $15 check to our treasurer, Stew Stewart. Begin the new
year by renewing your self-support with us.
And remember, if you know someone who has recently joined computing -
or recently converted to a PC or Amiga, please let them know about
us. We'll have plenty of extra copies of our newsletter at the
meetings to help you spread the good word!
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The Computer Age
A computer was something on TV
From a science-fiction show of note
A window was something you hated to clean
And ram was the cousin of a goat.
FOR SALE: MLCUG has a lot of hardware
and software that is available for you
to purchase at very attractive prices!
By the time you get this newsletter, the
listing should be updated and POSTED on
both our BBS and our webpage. This new
listing has ALL items priced. Check out
either of the site postings. For items,
you can contact Charles Curran to make
arrangements to purchase (610-446-5239).
**************************************** Second, we had many good discussions - before and after the formal
presentation. General chit-chat, as well as problem solving.
Third, Layton's demo of the HP Smart One scanner worked! He showed
how it can scan prints - up to 5x7" - at resolution around 300 dpi
(not too great). But, more importantly, it scans 35 mm slides - or
negatives - at 2400 dpi, producing a (large) high quality image file
that can be manipulated in typical image processing applications. He
used Photoshop (but if that is too costly for your wallet, many less
capable programs will do well also) to show some of those
manipulations. See the item a bit farther along in this issue that
discusses the file size question re this scanner.
Fourth, we gave away 5 door prizes (winners could pick from
Commodore, Amiga
Fifth, we had a nice spread of drinks and food (soda, coffee, tea, a
fine deli tray, rolls, condiments, etc.). This was well managed by
Charles Curran.
My perception is that an enjoyable and educational time was had by
all.
And we'll look for folks to come around again in January.....
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YEAR 2000 TIDBIT
In a message dated 12/17/98 10:04:41 PM, mlmuger@ccil.org wrote:
"Microsoft announced today that the release date for the new
operating system, Windows 2000, has been delayed until the 2nd
quarter of 1901"
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HP PHOTOSMART SCANNER
I looked at some of the files on the club PC hard drive that were
prepared for the December meeting demo. After loading a typical one
into PhotoShop (the photo contained two handsome guys - Charlie and
yours truly!), PhotoShop gave the following info about the file:
3000 pixels wide
2100 pixels tall
16 million colors
(true or 24-bit color)
The proportions above do not match an 8x10 - but seem to be typical
of the
files that were scanned in. Note: the above correspond to:
22 x 32 mm scan area (at 2400 dpi)
If you compute the expected file size, you have:
3000 x 2100 x 24/8 = 18,900,000 bytes
That number compares very well with the file sizes on the hard drive.
The largest .psd files ranged from about 18,100,000 to 18,900,000+
bytes.
Overall, the math and the files match up nicely and indicate the
magnitude of the task of manipulating these images.
****************************************
UPDATE ON JIM BRAIN
Many of you may be aware that the Jim Brain website has had
significant problems - induced by an undesired ISP change and a
severe auto accident to Jim and his family. After many months, Jim
has been able to post the story. it is shown below [our thanks to
Pete Whinnery who fed your editor the newsgroup posting]:
From: Jim Brain
I would like to thank all those who either have helped during my
absence or offered to help.
To CMD (and Doug Cotton): thanks for keeping tabs on me with phone
calls through the last few months. To Cameron Kaiser: thanks for
offering to pick up the slack on the FAQ. Embarrassingly, I only saw
your message a few weeks ago, since I was so out of my skull. To the
many who offered words of encouragement. A big thank you To Dick
Cunningham: thanks for the periodic email checking on me.
There's many others, but I am not through my email. I started last
week wading through 3000 messages from the last 7 months.
The jbrain.com web site will remain in its current state until the
first of
C= And Swap will be back up. However, in light of CMD's new system,
I'm not sure about CaBooM!. Doug can comment on this.
The VICUG area and the BBS will be back up and enhanced
As for the FTP site, the atrocities of the server move (not my
doings, but the sysadmin guys) has seen the demise of the entire FTP
site information. I will try to recreate from my personal backups,
but I'd like to solicit volunteers to help me get all the important
files on a US server.
In deference to Marko and the funet archive, I simply do not have the
space that Marko has at his disposal. The old FTP archive contained
a lot of old/unused stuff. What I'd like to do is create a US
presence that has the 20% or so files that 80% of the people need.
For the other 80% of files that only 20% of the folks need, Marko's
site is pretty fast anyway on most days
The FAQ will also be updated. I will put up the 3.0 FAQ on the site,
but I will have the 4.0 version ready by end of Jan or early feb. It
will be smaller and easier to fix. All the errors will hopefully be
fixed.
Please hold off for a few more weeks, while I enjoy the holidays and
let 1998 pass from my memory, Jim
--------------------
The Computer Age
Meg was the name of my girlfriend
And gig was a job for the nights
Now they all mean different things
And that really mega bytes.
****************************************
YEAR 2000 - PART I
[by Emil Volcheck]
I would like to start a bit of a multi-logue on prepping for the Year
2000 situation - hope some of you will engage.................
I am working on a summary letter that will go to my "boss" on the
situation at the Mt. Cuba Observatory, where I work part time. And
am expecting to start it out along the following line(s):
An early (first?) step in the process is to identify the potential
Y2K pitfalls as they relate to your situation. Generically, it might
look something like:
A. Computer/systems related
1. Hardware/firmware (e.g. BIOS,
embedded processors)
2. Operating system(s)
3. General applications
4. Your enterprise specific
applications
B. Non-systems related - basically infra-structure
1. Your power supplier
2. Your other utilities suppliers
(e.g. gas, water)
3. Your phone/network supplier
4. Your enterprise vendors and
suppliers
C. Your role as a supplier
1. Who is critically dependent
upon your enterprise
2. What will they expect from you
in validating your Y2K
compliance
3. What resources back you up
(e.g. insurance, business
or professional associations)
For those of you involved in real-world Y2K efforts, I would
appreciate comments on, and fleshing out, of the above.
[in future issues, I'll continue on this topic - with a fervent hope
that I can incorporate some input and thoughts from others in the
club - or who might be reading our newsletter]
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By John Deker, AMIGA SIG Leader
is again time to renew your club membership. Remember that it is
only a measly $15, just enough to pay for copies of this newsletter
to mailed to your home every month. So, take the time now to fill in
the form on the back of this newsletter. You can either remit at
this month's meeting or follow the instructions on the application
and mail your application & check to Dewitt Stewart.
MEETING OVERVIEW
The primary thrust of the December meeting between door prizes and
food was a focus on different file systems and how to set them up on
your hard drive using the Amiga's hard drive utility, HDToolBox.
The Amiga has had essentially 2 official filesystems since it first
arrived on the market. They are known as OFS (old filesystem) and
FFS (FastFileSystem). There are a few flavors of the newer FFS --
plain, international, and cached. Cached is designed to enhance
floppy drive performance and should not be used with hard drives.
Until relatively recently, 4GB was the largest hard drive that could
be used with FFS. Partitions were limited to 2GB. Unlike PC's, the
Amiga FFS has always been able to work without resorting to clusters.
It's standard block size is & has been 512 bytes. More recently
third party Amiga developers have upgraded FFS to handle sector block
addressing using 64 bits using a TrackDisk64 standard. No longer
restricted to 32 bit addressing, the latest version of FFS can handle
hard drives many times larger than 4GB. Partition handling is many
times larger as well.
There are a couple of problems with the FFS. One is that disks can
easily become invalidated when the Amiga crashes during a file write.
Re-validation of large partitions can take quite of bit of time.
The other problem is the relative slowness of the FFS.
There is one commercial solution to both of these problems, and one
BETA freeware solution. The freeware solution is Safe-FileSystem,
but be forewarned, it is BETA software. The current commercial
solution is PFS2, also called Professional FileSystem2. This is the
successor to AFS, or Ami-FileSystem. My experience with AFS & PFS2
has been very positive. However, some users have reported problems
with large databases & AFS. On some occasions, you will also find
software protection schemes that don't work with AFS or PFS2. So, I
always format my boot partition using the Amiga's FFS with the hope
that any key file will be written here.
FILES FROM AMINET
AFSDEMO159.LHA -- Ami-FileSafe demo.
FFSTD64.LHA -- 64 bit TrackDisk FFS patch OS3.x FFS.
SFSBETA.LHA -- Smart FileSystem in many ways similar to PFS & AFS.
TRACKDISK64.LHA -- TrackDisk64 specification for developers.
My Amiga is pretty smart if you ask the right questions. What
follows is a series of Q&A that I asked my Amiga recently. Not all
of these questions can be asked of every Amiga, but as you can see,
my Amiga has a lot to say when asked a few simple questions. What
secrets can your Amiga tell you? Do you know how to ask the right
questions? Can you say CLI?
New Shell process 17
17.Question:> date
Monday 21-Dec-98 20:04:20
17.Question:> cpu
System: 68040 68882 (INST: Cache Burst) (DATA: Cache CopyBack)
17.Question:> version
Kickstart 40.63, Workbench 40.42
17.Question:> avail
Type Available In-Use Maximum Largest
chip 891888 152592 1044480 877608
fast 55750200 10834376 66584576 53725488
total 56642088 10986968 67629056 53725488
17.Question:> memspeed
{ Memory Speed Test K
Copyright 1996 by Frank Wille.
Type read write copy
Chip RAM 2779 kB/s 3485 kB/s 1545 kB/s
Fast RAM 33383 kB/s 23466 kB/s 14286 kB/s
ROM 33456 kB/s - -
17.Question:> showconfig
PROCESSOR: CPU 68040/68040fpu
CUSTOM CHIPS: ECS NTSC Agnus (id=$0030), ECS Denise (id=$00FC)
VERS: Kickstart version 40.63, Exec version 40.10, Disk version
40.42
RAM: Node type $A, Attributes $405 (FAST), at $8A18F60-$BF7FFFF
(54720 K)
Node type $A, Attributes $415 (FAST), at $8000000-$8A18F5F
(10368 K)
Node type $A, Attributes $703 (CHIP), at $170F0-$FFFFF (960
K)
Node type $A, Attributes $713 (CHIP), at $1000-$170EF (64 K)
BOARDS:
Board + ROM (HD?) (unidentified): Prod=8512/24($2140/$18)
(@$EA0000 128K)
Board + ROM (HD?) (unidentified): Prod=2017/11($7E1/$B) (@$E90000
64K)
Board (unidentified): Prod=2167/11($877/$B) (@$200000 2meg)
Board (unidentified): Prod=2167/12($877/$C) (@$EC0000 64K)
Board (unidentified): Prod=2167/201($877/$C9) (@$ED0000 64K)
CBM A2386-SX Bridgeboard: Prod=513/103($201/$67) (@$400000 512K)
[Part II and beyond in upcoming issues!]
DIRECTIONS FOR ST. AUGUSTINE CENTER MEETING ROOMS
Meetings in the St. Augustine Center at Villanova University. The
8-bit and PC sessions will be in Room 110 and the AMIGA meeting in
Room 210.
Enter from the ITHAN AVENUE main gate, then proceed to the 2-level
parking building adjacent to St. Augustine, on the Ithan Avenue side.
[19 empty lines]
NOTE: maps on our webpage -
http://astro4.ast.vill.edu/mlcug/index.html
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. COPY these two files to your DESKTOP or any other folder
you desire. You now have access to MICROSOFT BASIC from your Window's
Folder."
ANNOUNCEMENTS & SPECIALS
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$ TRADING POST
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64/128/PC MEETING
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[continued from p.1]
