MEETING STARTS - 09:30 - NOV 11 th
http://astro4.ast.vill.edu/mlcug
Following the pattern of the last two meetings, we'll intersperse portions of the program/demo with Q & A round the table. The better to help pass over slow demo items!!
Last time, we were quite successful in installing Windows 98 SE - with no real hitches (see the account on p.5). That gives us a choice of two installed OSes (Windows 95B, OSR 2.1, and Windows 98 Second Edition). So, the demo will continue with the next step - namely the installation of increasingly prevalent LINUX OS. Our presenter will be member John Murphy, who has selected the "distribution" by the Corel Corp. This choice was based on the user- friendliness put into the installer by the Corel.
MAIN LINE AMIGA USERS - John's Place
At our October meeting I presented the second of the Bounce-back Videos. We also continued with the discussion of OS3.5 issues.
Yours truly will attend the PC SIG meeting in November to watch the installation of Linux on the club PC. Amiga SIG members are invited to attend this meeting to learn more about this alternative OS.
NOVEMBER MEETING LOCATION
Special Note: We will be joining the PC/128/64 SIG at Villanova (St. Augustine Center, room 110) for the installation of Linux on PC hardware!
[continued]
The above title has become somewhat of an oxymoron! It is becoming
increasingly difficult to maintain privacy or control the lack of it, if you
are a significant internet user.
An example is the free CueCat that you can get at your local Radio Shack (and
elsewhere, I understand). This little baby contains a unique identifier that
is linked to your computer and to you! It allows the CueCat folks to track
your use of the device to move around the net. The company says they don't do
this - but don't hide that they could!!
***************************
User's groups were popular among other brands of computers, but probably not to
the extent that they were popular among Commodore users. The Commodore was seen
by many as the ideal hobby computer and many of those who had lower budgets had
been attracted to the Commodore because of its price. Frequently these
individuals (who often had more time than money) developed an incredible
loyalty toward the Commodore computers. It was amazing that many of these
Commodore users often showed more commitment to the Commodore 64 than Commodore
Business Machines did. A large factor in the success of the Commodore 64 was
its amazingly versatile, futuristic, and user-friendly design. The fact that
this amazing computer had more memory, a nicer keyboard, and was easier to
interface with peripherals than most computers of that era made it so it was
and still is (in many ways) an ideal computer for educators, hobbyists, game
players, beginning programmers and musicians. For the money, it was also hard
to beat as an affordable home word processing system. Its only weakness was in
the area of larger business applications because of its 40-column video
display, limited disk storage, and slow disk access.
The powerful combination of Commodore chips allowed some amazing capabilities.
The Commodore 64 utilized the Commodore 6510 microprocessor chip which was an
advanced version of the Commodore 6502 microprocessor which had been used in
the Vic-20, Apple 2, and Atari models. The 64 had revolutionary sound via the
6581 Sound Interface Device (SID) chip and was probably the first home computer
to be able to emulate the human voice without additional hardware. This SID
chip provided for 4 different voices and many sophisticated sound forms. The C-
64 had superior 16 color graphics with sprite capabilities due to its 6567
Video Interface (VIC) Chip. The other support chips in the Commodore 64 were
equally impressive for that time period. At the same time the early IBM home
computers were non-color and non-graphic machines with sound that amounted to
little more than beeping.
The Commodore home computers were fairly reliable considering their low price
tag and sophistication. Many individuals went for years with very little
maintenance and repair work required. However, certain problems with the
hardware did manifest themselves periodically and somewhat predictably. Many of
the repairs required for these computers stemmed from static electricity
discharges blowing out the 6526 CIA chip-- usually from touching the joystick
or game port after picking up static electricity from walking across carpet or
touching the front of the television or monitor. This would result in some
keyboard or joystick control malfunctions. Power supplies would occasionally
fail or develop deceptive heat-related problems sometimes blowing out ram chips
in the process or causing strange looking colored blocks or characters to
appear on the screen. The 906114 PLA (logic array) chip (sometimes labeled with
the number 82S100N or PLS100N) would sometimes fail spontaneously causing the
computer to no longer have a picture. The 6581 SID sound chip would sometimes
go out-- usually due to a monitor being connected improperly. On rare occasions
the 6510 microprocessor, the 6567 NTSC VIC (video chip), the 901227 Kernal ROM,
the 901225 Character ROM, or the 901226 BASIC ROM would fail. The Commodore
disk drives would periodically need alignment and cleaning and an occasional
chip replacement or bridge rectifier or such. Keyboards would likewise need to
be cleaned infrequently. Because of the interdependency of each of the internal
components of the Commodore computers. It is not unusual for Commodore
computers to have similar symptoms while actually having different underlying
problems.
Even when experiencing occasional hardware problems the Commodore users rarely
felt like they were at the mercy of the service wolves, due to the many options
which they had. Often times there were simple and easy to implement solutions
for Commodore malfunctions.
[Part V - next time]
########################################
MEMBERSHIP 2001 ! - our annual renewal "campaign" is underway and we are hoping
that all of our current members will renew for the "real" first year of the
next millenium ...
As of this writing, we have 8 renewals in hand - about 25% of what we hope to
achieve. So, how about filling out that form on the last page of THIS issue
and sending it off to the treasurer? As usual, anyone joining in October thru
December gets the rest of 2000, plus all of 2001!
Oh yes, and keep your eyes and ears tuned for friends or acquaintances who
might be candidates to join MLCUG. We still think that user groups, including
ours, are a GOOD IDEA!
AND SPEAKING OF USER GROUPS - at the last meeting, Emil mentioned that he had
learned of a user group which apparently has gone opposite to the downward
trend in membership. The South West Florida PC Users Group (SWFPCUG) has grown
to some 17 chapters and over a thousand (yes, 1000+) members!! The members
are, apparently, mostly from the huge retirement community down there.
The group puts out a 44-page monthly newsletter - Emil had a sample copy for
folks to look over at the meeting. They have a fine website (www.swfpcug.org)
and quite a support organization. Their main meeting typically has a few
hundred attendees - meeting in a large auditorium. Not exactly the intimate
setting that MLCUG offers, but necessary to serve such a large group.
They have $30 annual dues, not out of line with the benefits such a group
offers. We have no illusions of growing like that, but I wonder why they are
able to do so well - while the opposite is true around our neck of the woods?
Any thoughts on this question?
LUNCH - some of us regularly adjourn after the meeting for lunch at the
Villanova diner. Attendees are invited to join the fest - for more
conversation, with food!
***************************
Article V: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you
kidnap, rape, maim or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want
to see you in prison or in the electric chair.
***************************
Prior to Re-Installing Windows
We suggest that the following be copied to your D: (for "data") drive before
tackling the re-install of Win95B [A similar process is fine for Win98 - about
that in the future]:
1) boot your PC from a floppy
2) at the A:
3) switch to Win95B directory
4) run setup.exe
and away you go!
***************************
by Emil Volcheck
I continue to be fascinated by the website operated by the "Windows Magazine"
folks. In particular, I have commented on the utilities column: "Karen's Power
Tools". You can check it out at:
www.winmag.com/columns/powertools/
The neat thing about this column is that it not only provides some good tools,
but also commentary on the world situation, snippets of computer history and
lore and source code!
The source code is in Visual Basic 6.0; so mortals have a chance to analyze
what she does and how she does it. The most helpful way to learn programming.
A recent tool of value is Karen's "Net Monitor" which will, at your chosen
interval, attempt connection to a specific website. It keeps track of the time
required to download the page and reports on (and logs) any difficulties
encountered. Can be very helpful to get insight on potential problems you may
be having with some thing or place on the net that interests you. I used it to
check on the reliability of our IDSL service over a 24 hour time span (it
checked out just fine - with a quick connection every 5 minutes!).
So, if you think you might have an interest in learning to do some useful
programming for the PC, this site (and an investment in a copy of Microsoft's
Visual Basic 6 programming kit) may be just your thing...
***************************
[tidbit from Compuserve]
It's a catch-22. A British information technology company has created an anti-
hacking division whose function will be to hack into big corporations -- with
their consent, of course -- and for an annual fee of $10,000. The best people
to do the dirty deed are hackers themselves.
But the Brit company, IXsecurity, says they need not apply. "I am not a
hacker, and we don't hire hackers. No criminals will work here. It's a matter
of trust for our clients," said IXsecurity's top anti-hacker Ian Vitek, a
former security guard. He acknowledged that some rivals even paid hackers'
court fines in order to tempt them into a job, but he condemned this as a
practice that would encourage cyber-vandalism.
The idea behind the new company is to expose corporations' high-tech weaknesses
so they can be corrected before a malicious hacker gets in. Particularly
vulnerable in recent months have been Internet banks, government and defense
agencies, Web portals, and others. "Companies are putting their business-
critical systems out on the Web through an Internet interface and opening
themselves up to hackers," said IXsecurity's general manager Christer
Stafferod.
Here's a shocker: 80% of the companies IXsecurity tested in Sweden over the
last year were successfully hacked into from the Internet!
***************************
In 1943, Thomas Watson, then Chairman of IBM - at the dawning of the computer
age - is reported to have given the following sales forecast for their first
mainframe computer (the IBM Automatic Sequence Controller Calculator):
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers"
***************************
As in September, we interspersed Q & A with the portions of the demo where the
PC was doing something uninteresting! Again, it allowed us to kill two birds
with one stone. Hopefully, it also continues to be helpful to attendees.
Maybe it will encourage renewals?? [ha!]
Last month, the demo continued on upgrading the club PC - partly to give it
more capability and partly to exemplify for attendees things they likely may
want or need to do at some time in the future.
And, we had what appears to have been another good meeting - from two
standpoints: good exchange of info and experience amongst attendees and
another successful demo.
We actually started with general announcements and pass-outs.
Then we began the two part demo: 1) install Win98 SE on an empty partition on
the club PC's hard drive, to be followed by 2) installing Boot Magic to allow
us to run either from the Win95 or Win98 partition (and eventually from the
Linux partition, we hope!).
The process went as follows:
[an aside - it is a good practice to write serial numbers or authentication
codes on the CD itself - with indelible marker - so you do not lose it and the
ability to re-install the OS or application. It is also a good practice to
keep a record, backed up, somewhere else of these critical bits of info!]
NOTE: the installation did NOT correctly install the sound card (an expected
result as sound cards are tricky beasts) - more later on this.
I brought the club machine home and fired her up to see just how much of the
hardware had been correctly detected by the Win98 installation. The results
were quite good. The following had been correctly detected:
Of course, the required mouse, hard drive and RAM were properly identified and
used.
So, the only hardware that was not detected properly was the sound card. Its
presence had been noted, but it appeared in Device Manager as a set of "Other
Devices" (three items).
I "removed" all those - as well as the "Gameport device" with Device Manager,
then restarted the computer. When 98 noted that it had found a sound card, I
directed it to the floppy that contains the proper drivers for the card. This
step went fine and we now had sound ....
To "finish" off the installation "demo", I installed the Logitech Mouseware
v8.2 that we have on the 95 partition - to enable the 3-button mice that are
used with the computer. I also installed Netscape Communicator v4.08, and
bumped it up to 128-bit encryption with "Fortify for Netscape" and tested that
we could access the internet thru the network card - we could! Since I was at
home for this, I used the ethernet that links our computers to our IDSL service
- this uses the same hardware and software as the ethernet system at
Villanova.
All in all, again a very nice demo I feel...
For next time, we'll take a few minutes to let folks see what the "typical"
install gives versus what we could select to install, if we had taken the time
to do a custom install. We may opt to do some customization, if it looks like
there is something we really would like to have - or remove.
Hopefully, then we'll be able to install the third OS - Linux. Tentatively, we
will likely choose to go with the new Corel Linux distribution - for which we
have the free install CD from Corel Corporation.
When that is in place, the computer should be ready to tackle most any demo or
program task that we would like to do - short of "AWESOME GAMES"....
***************************
Here's help in deciphering those cryptic messages:
WinErr: 009 Horrible bug encountered - Only God knows what has happened.
WinErr: 00A Promotional literature overflow - Mailbox full.
At our October meeting I presented the second of the Bounce-back
Videos. We also continued with the discussion of OS3.5 issues.
Yours truly will attend the PC SIG meeting in November to watch the
installation of Linux on the club PC. Amiga SIG members are invited
to attend this meeting to learn more about this alternative OS.
NOVEMBER MEETING LOCATION
NOTE: We will be joining the PC SIG at Villanova for the installation
of Linux on PC hardware!
TIME TO CAST YOUR VOTE
Some of you may be thinking hard about renewing your membership and
paying your dues for another year of association with MLCUG. This
may be especially true if you're an Amiga supporter and currently
participate in the Amiga SIG. I know some of you have essentially
discontinued using your Amiga in favor of your Mac or PC. The
pressures are great to follow these platforms.
This year will prove to be a pivot year for me as to whether I will
continue to run the Amiga SIG despite the promise of significant
changes to be wrought by Amiga Inc. Without the true commitment,
enthusiasm, support, and regular monthly attendance of at least a
handful of people to support the Amiga platform during this round of
membership renewal, we may be faced with the reality of disbanding
the Amiga SIG. In this case, your vote to renew your membership in
the Amiga SIG really does matter. Unlike your vote during November's
political elections, it will be plainly obvious that your vote to
renew your ASIG membership and continuance of monthly attendance
really does matter when it comes to maintaining an Amiga SIG during
the year 2001. Remember, the first step is to vote with your MLCUG
membership dues. The second step is to attend the ASIG meetings
regularly.
In order to provide space for the Amiga announcements below, I've cut
short the normal meeting review. Suffice it to say that our meeting
was small on attendance and focused on a Q&A session around OS3.5
issues.
AMIGA INC ANNOUNCEMENTS
With the recent announcement of OS3.9, there is indication that the
release of BB2 is being reconsidered. BB2 was to be the second
release of patches for OS3.5. Many of these patches have been
incorporated into OS3.9. So the release of BB2 would be superfluous.
URL : http://www.amiga.com/corporate/102100-mcewen.shtml
Oct 21, 2000 - Executive Update (extracts, ed.)
...
Shipping this Christmas 2000 an upgrade for the AmigaOS! Version 3.9
of the AmigaOS will be shipping, and ready for your holiday season.
AmigaOS 3.9 is being developed in concert with Haage and Partner
GmbH, and a new web site that will include a feature list, and other
bits of information will be available shortly. OS 3.9 will be
available for under $40.00...
AmigaONE
... It is because of the community that we are pleased to announce
the first in a series of new hardware that has been designed by
Amiga, and soon to be manufactured by Amiga OEM partners.
The first in the AmigaONE series of products are the AmigaONE PPC
1200, and AmigaONE PPC 4000 cards from Eyetech. Available to
developers in December this year, these new products are designed
specifically for the Amiga Community.
We also are announcing another partner bPlan GmbH who is also
creating a new AmigaONE PPC based desktop computer. More details will
emerge shortly about bPlan and the products that they will be
offering...
URL : http://www.amiga.com/products/one/pr.shtml
October 21, 2000, Melbourne, Australia - It is with great pleasure
that we are able to announce the first new Amiga hardware in over 6
years. The AmigaOne, our first consumer product, will be targeted at
the desktop and workstation market. Further products to follow will
cover the markets from Personal Digital Assistants and upwards. All
these products will run a single piece of software, the revolutionary
Amiga Digital Environment (DE).
We completed the AmigaOne specification three months ago, and dubbed
it the "zico". It is a specification and not a product because Amiga
is a software company, not a hardware manufacturer. The ability of
the Amiga DE to host itself on multiple hardware and operating system
platforms frees us from hardware dependency and gives our partners
and our customers the freedom to chose the hardware that best suits
their needs and tastes.
The zico specification is as follows;
- One AmigaDE friendly host processor (PPC, x86, Arm, SH4, MIPS)
... The AmigaOne process involves close co-operation between Amiga
and our partners' hardware groups, the running of the AmigaDE on the
hardware, and a thorough quality certification of the final product.
Only then can the product be called an AmigaOne.
Whilst still in detailed negotiation with several companies, we are
delighted to announce the first partner company and its initial set
of AmigaOne products.
The Eyetech Group Ltd, of Stokesley, U.K. already has an excellent
reputation in the Amiga community. They have done much to keep the
classic Amiga alive during the last five years, and we feel that in
the creation of the first new Amiga machines and the transitioning
from the classic to the next wave, that experience will prove
invaluable...
... Eyetech is focusing on an immediate need in the existing Amiga
market. Many have already invested considerable resources in their
classic Amigas, both in terms of hardware and in terms of software.
Whilst keen to move forwards with the AmigaOne, they also want to
maximize their investment in the classic platform.
The Eyetech AmigaOne PPC 1200 is a custom board which uses Eyetech
Predator technology with the "zico" specification to provide a
perfect synergy of classic and next generation. It provides all the
functionality of the standalone AmigaOne PPC, but has been extended
to mate with a classic Amiga A1200. This allows customers who have a
serious investment in the classic Amiga to continue to use their
machines whilst also having a brand new Amiga at their disposal. The
68k processor in the A1200 will be emulated at a substantially
increased level via the PPC processor on the AmigaOne, whilst the
classic operating system can take advantage of the AmigaOne's next
generation hardware resources.
The AmigaOne PPC 4000 machine is similarly designed to allow
customers who have a significant investment in their classic Amiga
A4000 to be able to move that investment forwards whilst also
benefitting from the next generation capabilities of the AmigaOne.
The Eyetech AmigaOne PPC 1200 will be available as an upgrade for
owners of towered A1200 computers, the Eyetech AmigaOne PPC 4000 as
an upgrade for Amiga 4000 desktop computers in tower conversion
cases. Options for producing AmigaOne PPC upgrade designs for other
Classic Amiga designs (such as the A3000 and Amiga International
A4000T) will be looked at (subject to demand) once the A1200 and
A4000 products are released.
In order to implement all the features of the AmigaOne specification
the, A1200 and A4000 upgrade versions will feature one AGP and six
PCI slots, a user-upgradable G3/G4 (Macintosh-type) cpu slot, up to
512MB SDRAM and a high speed IDE/ATAPI interface. The system will be
dual-bootable both into the Amiga DE and into Classic Amiga
Workbench. This latter feature will allow purchasers to have the
performance benefits of full G3/G4 cpu speeds and 512MB of SDRAM
memory whilst running Classic Amiga software. Both these boards are
scheduled to ship in 1Q01, with developer versions being available in
December 2000...
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.
PRIVACY ON THE INTERNET ???
A COMMODORE HISTORY - IV
ANNOUNCEMENTS & COMMENTS
########################################
THE BILL OF "NO RIGHTS"
WIN TIP OF THE MONTH - for Win9x
With the two files and the other directories, you can install or re-install
Windows from your D drive:
POWER TOOLS
This Is a Hacker's Dream Job
EVEN THE BEST MISS IT!
LAST MONTH'S PC/128/64 MEETING
***************************
With the above steps completed, we folded our tent and ended the meeting.
Trouble with Windows Errors?
MAIN LINE AMIGA USER HAPPENINGS
by John Deker
(YOUR VOTE REALLY MATTERS!)
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MEETING REVIEW...
BB VIDEO + MORE OS3.5
We also viewed the second edition of the Bounce-back Video.
BOING BAG 2
Title: Amiga - So the World May Know
AmigaOS 3.9
Title: Amiga Announces the AmigaOne
- 64MB+ memory
- Next Generation Matrox graphics card
- Creative EMU10K1 based audio card
- 10 GB+ HD
- CD/DVD
- USB 1.0
- Firewire
- 10/100 Mbps Ethernet
- 56k modem
- Spare PCI slots for expandability