by Jack Kincaid / jkinca1@cugkc.cjb.net
Well, it seems like one of the concerns
I posted last month has been taken care of; i.e., the newsletter. I would like
to thank Leslie Lacy for taking a stab at publishing the newsletter. I know
it will take a little time to get up that learning curve but with all the GEOS
experts in the club it shouldn't take long.
My understanding is that John Heaton is retiring and will be working at home.
We wish the best for John; he was a good publisher until the health problems
reared their ugly heads.
I was a bit concerned at the last meeting. At 7:15 I was the only one there.
I thought that maybe the club had folded and no one had told me! But about 7:25
a couple more showed up to put my fears to rest. We only had eight people there;
my guess was either a late Y2K bug or the outbreak of the flu that was going
around.
Even with the light turnout we had two renewals: Scott Heider and Lenard Roach. Thanks guys for your continued support!
Is there anyone out there that would like to upgrade from a 64 to a 128? I have two or maybe three 128s; if someone wants one, call or see me at the meeting. Also available are monitors and disk drives, so if you want a spare or a second or third drive now is a good time, I need to get rid of some of this stuff to keep peace in the household. Need an extra monitor? Another drive? A printer? Give me a call, we have them all!
Financial
Report
Balance Jan. 2000....................
$310.32
Income:
Jan. Renewal (2).....................
$ 50.00
Expenses:
BBS Phone Bill (3 months)............-$ 71.56
Closing Balance...................... $288.76
by Scott Heider / sheide1@cugkc.cjb.net
The Group meeting for January was held on Wednesday, January 5th at the Plaza Library. The attendance was approximately 7 members.
It was announced that Delphi and Genie ended their dial-up Internet access as of 12/31/1999. This leaves us Commie owners with very few ways to surf the Internet (at least until the Wave is released in the next couple months -- see below). In the Kansas City area, Skynet still offers Internet access via a shell account. Does anyone know of any others?
As mentioned above, Maurice Randall is hard at work writing a graphical Web browser for the 64/128 called the Wave. This browser will not only enable us to finally see all the fancy graphics on the Internet, but we'll also be able to use a regular PPP dial-up Internet provider rather than a shell account. Even better, the browser will be free! As soon as it's released, I will post it on to the BBS so that you can try it out. Be warned, though, that it requires both Wheels and a SuperCPU to run.
There was no Disk of the Month at January's meeting because our software librarian Vance was unable to attend. Look for a new disk (or perhaps 2) at February's meeting. If you would like to purchase any previous Disk of the Month, they will be available at the next Group meeting for the low price of $3 each.
John Heaton mentioned in January's newsletter that he will be turning over publication of the newsletter as soon as possible. Leslie Lacy volunteered to give it a try, so with John's good teaching, hopefully we'll have a seamless transition. Before we let John leave though, I want to express my thanks to John for his many years of tireless effort in publishing the newsletter.
At January's meeting, elections were
held for 2000's slate of officers. Except for Leslie Lacy's election to publisher,
all the current officers were re-elected by acclamation. Here are your officers
for 2000:
President -- Richard Wagner
Vice-President -- Vance Kellinger
Treasurer -- Jack Kincaid
Secretary -- Scott Heider
Officer-at-Large -- Jon Searle
Librarian -- Vance Kellinger
Publisher -- Leslie Lacy
Finally, a reminder about the next
Group meeting. See you at the Plaza Library at 7:00 on Wednesday, February 2nd.
by Lenard R Roach / lroach1@cugkc.cjb.net
Everybody by now has heard Rich Wagner speak and write time and time again about GEOS, the Windows-like program for both the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 computers. He's spoken about how handy and versatile a program GEOS is. I would like add my own two bits about GEOS.
I've been using GEOS 128 v2.0 for only a few months now and I must admit to everyone that this program is phenomenal!! I just have the basic package which includes GEOWrite 2.1, GEOPaint, GEODictionary, GEOSpell, GEOMerge, Text Grabber, -- oh geez, it seems like the variety of material goes on forever. I've only been using GEOWrite and GEOPaint so far. I was apprehensive at first to use GEOS so it sat on my shelf for about two years (I acquired my copy from a BBS buyout at around that time). I didn't have a mouse either so that also held me up, but once I got one there were no longer any excuses. In fact, that excuse was lame since GEOS works with joystick also. I booted GEOS 128 up, which I found to be rather fast, even on a 1541; then I was off -- to the users manual. I read as much data as I could before I started messing around but even with all the text at hand, I still had problems. Rich came to my rescue.
While I was working in GEOWrite, I would have to insert a disk containing Desktop 128 after I would CLOSE a file. I posted a message in the CBM-GEOS echo of the Commodore Central BBS telling of my dilemma and Rich called me on the phone straightway. He educated me on what I had to do to keep that from happening. He told me to put a copy of Desktop 128 on all of my workdisks (a workdisk is a disk you format through GEOS to save your personal work, like writings or artwork) and I'll always enter into my working menu without the use of the master disk that contained the original copy of Desktop 128.
GEOS is also a great tutorial for the children. Since school computers are going IBM and IBM is going Microsoft Windows, then GEOS will fit right into this genre quite nicely. With slight variations, any child working on GEOS at home should gain an acquisition to using Windows at school. I personally have found both my sons more adept in the last quarter of the '98-'99 school session than the first quarter because of their using GEOS at home. My six year old loves working on GEOPaint with all the designs he can call up as well as what he can draw on his own. He's so proud of his creations that he has GEOPaint artwork magnetically adhered to the refrigerator on display for all visitors to his "gallery" to admire. My oldest son likes the idea of having a Windows-like program to work from so he can practice better control of Windows at school (he also is a GEOPaint nut!)
So what do I do with GEOS? As a novice to this program I must confess that I don't do much, but I am looking forward to doing plenty more as I get more GEOS programs. I am also looking forward to attending one of Rich's GEOS Special Interest Group meetings and learn how to maximize this program to its fullest potential. My latest plans are that I am going to convert some of my Speedscript and Brainpower 128 writing files to GEOWrite files. Right now I do all my writing on GEOWrite for the simple reason that GEOWrite offers more printing, fonts, and formatting options than any word processor I own.
I would like to encourage anyone who
hasn't tried GEOS with their Commodore to at least test it out. I know that
GEOS isn't for everyone, but at the same time there might be something that
GEOS has that you as a Commodore user might need or have been looking for and
cannot find it as a stand alone program. GEOS isn't harmful to your health and
does not produce CFC's that can damage the ozone layer. I'm hoping to collect
and use all the GEOS programs that I find that will assist me in my personal
as well as business endeavors. I know, for example, that Rich has shown a video
demo on GEOS games that includes a solitare program. I'm putting that on my
gift list for the wife. She loves solitare -- sometimes more than she loves
me...
The Commodore Users Group of Kansas City is a not-for-profit educational support group for persons using Commodore computers.
Membership benefits include a monthly newsletter as well as access to CUGKC's Bulletin Board System (BBS) open 23.5 hours every day, with upload and download privileges, plus electronic mail, and access to over 500 doors of the FidoNet (part of a world-wide network). Also, members receive access to a library of over 1000 public domain and shareware disks.
Dues are $30 the first year, $25 annually thereafter. Disks of the month and library disks cost $3 each for members.
Meetings are held on the first Wednesday of every month in the Lower Level Meeting Room of the Plaza branch of the Kansas City Public Library, 4801 Main Street, Kansas City, Missouri. Visitors are welcome to attend any meeting. For more information, contact any officer:
Email us at cugkc@cugkc.cjb.net
or visit our web site at http://cugkc.cjb.net.
Our snail-mail address is:
CUGKC
PO Box 36034
Kansas City, Missouri 64111