by Jack Kincaid / jkinca1@cugkc.cjb.net
HOT, HOTTER, HOTTEST - JULY! Having grown up in Kansas City, it always amazes me to hear the weather people on the news go on about how hot it is. IT'S JULY weather persons and August won't be any better. The weather people on TV think that they are talking to children because they have to repeat it twice; once at the beginning of the program and then again at the weather segment. I would rather have more local news than to hear what I already know TWICE! (I guess I am getting to be a grumpy old man).
I will consider that our last meeting was after a Holiday and that was the reason for the lack of members at the meeting. Another consideration could be that our members were very careless with the fireworks. Anyway, even with the low turn out, there was a demo. Tom Maloney brought in his system and gave us a demo on the Super Snap Shot cartridge. Well Done, Tom!
For July, status quo, no renewals for the month, no new members and not even a visitor this month. Hopefully August will be better.
Two interesting things:
1) PETA has come out of the closet, so to speak, and is calling for equal rights
for chickens. I guess they thought the rats were getting too much press time.
2) Scott (the lawn company) is genetically engineering grass. Slow grow - for
those who don't like to mow (that's me), weed killer resistant and even different
color of grasses (for the artist?). What will they think of next? I am afraid
to LOOK!
Is there anyone that would like to upgrade from a 64 to 128? 1 have two or maybe three 128s if someone wants them; 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. I also have printers such as an Okimate 10 color with docs and interface.
Financial Report
Balance June 2000.................... $302.71** (see note below)
Income: .............................
$ 0.00
Expenses:............................-$
0.00
Closing Balance July 2000............ $302.71
** This is the actual Bank Balance as of July 9, 2000. The numbers in the newsletter were in error because I did not take into account some checks that were outstanding. Sorry about the confusion.
by Scott Heider / sheide1@cugkc.cjb.net
The Group meeting for June was held on Wednesday, June 7th at the Plaza Library. The attendance was 8 members.
The summer doldrums have apparently set it, because nobody had any Commodore news to share. Several members gave their new/updated email addresses to the Webmaster. To protect their privacy, these email addresses will not be published here in the newsletter, but rest assured that any email that you wish to send to a member at his cugkc.cjb.net will be automatically forwarded to his "real" email address.
There was no Disk of the Month for June. However, 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.
Finally, a reminder about the next Group meeting. See you at the Plaza Library at 7:00 on Wednesday, July 5th.
by Lenard R Roach / lroach1@cugkc.cjb.net
It's been such a long time since I wrote an article for Ryte Bytes that I almost forgot how to write anything for our illustrious newsletter, but with pencil in hand I begin again to scribble anew an article for your information and enjoyment. I say, "pencil in hand" because I usually write my articles either on the move or on the job where a Commodore is not present. Later I will transfer them to GEOWrite 128 and finally convert them using Convert 2.5. Uploading the material to the BBS makes it available to the publisher and completes the circle of events that transposes the article from my mind to final print. Not a bad system, especially for a person like me who has to write to keep himself sane. I'm thankful every month that the editor of this literary work considers and publishes my writings. You should see some of the backlogged stories I have sitting around the house either typed up nice and neat or saved on either computer tape or floppy disk. Very little of it has anything to do with the Commodore or our club, though. Some of the material dates back to 1977. Now that's old! If it wasn't for the help of Ryte Bytes, I'd have the house flooded with unpublished compositions. Talk about a fire hazard!
With Ryte Bytes I have a release valve to which I can express myself using my creative talents. Hopefully in the last six years I have offended no one with my submissions. I know at first when I started contributing to the newsletter things were a little touch and go, but as editor and writer began to come to terms submissions became a little more acceptable. This magazine has been a blessing to me and I hope I have been a blessing back.
Now down to business -- Programming-wise I have done very little. I'm having trouble finding the disks that contain a lot of my experimental programs for "Pay Schedule." I'm also expecting a little too much from my programming skills. I would like "Pay Schedule" to tell you how many payments at such and such an amount it would take to pay off a debt and at what month and year this event would happen. This would require the Commodore to recognize what month it is divided by the twelve months that are in a year. If my understanding is correct, the Commodore would have to execute a READ-DATA command which, unfortunately, I don't know how to do, at least not yet. I can understand such a command, but I can't comprehend such a function and how to write it in a way to make it work. Give me time, though. With a little prayer I'll come to knowledge eventually.
Writing-wise I've been doing a lot. The book, Run/Stop-Restore, is for the most part finished. I've sent a copy to my illustrator friend here in town and he's trying to put pictures with the words. I've seen samples of what he has done so far and he sure does bring some of the stories to a better understanding to a person, with better clarity. I still have three copies of Run/Stop-Restore in its third edition re-write for anyone who is interested in reviewing the book and giving me their opinion about it. The third revision does not have the heading corrections made of the fourth re-written edition. I've done my best to obscure many of the people mentioned in the book, but if anyone who thinks that they might not be obscured enough, or if someone thinks that I may misrepresent the club or any of its members in any way, then I need to know this concern before everything on my end gets finalized. That is why I think it's important that you get a chance to glance at this manuscript. Like I said in a post to the BBS, this book is basically a 185-page advertisement for the Commodore computer, our club, the BBS, and anything else that resembles such. I'm doing this because, for me, it's big fun. This book is unique because it was written on both a Commodore 64 and 128, using Speedscript 3.0 and GEOWrite 128 word processing packages, and printed up on a Commodore MPS 801 printer. No other book I know of can boast such an accomplishment. I think this is a great step in the growth of our machine.
With the Run/Stop-Restore project in the wind-down stages, I have started on a new venture. This work, written on a Commodore 128, encompasses a Christian theme. Basically the book is a collection of comedy skits and plays that I have written and have stored around the house. I'm passing bits and segments on to the youth pastor at my church for her final opinion. I'm hoping to have a final copy of this work done by sometime in 2001. If anyone would be interested in seeing for yourself or your church group any segment of this manuscript, let me know and I'll get some copies printed up and out to you.
Also along the writing line I found a completed movie script stored on a yellow 5.25" disk written completely in Speedscript 3.0 format. Over time I have converted this document into GEOWrite 2.0, Commodore 64 version, then into GEOWrite 2.0, Commodore 128 version by accessing the Text Grabber feature that is available in the GEOS 64 package. This was the first successful conversion I have done using Text Grabber. The last time I tried Text Grabber it was while I was writing Run/Stop-Restore. I tried using a generic word processing format found in GEOS 128's Text Grabber for changing over Speedscript files and the swap was not very fruitful. When I got GEOS 64, however, and converted the movie script over from Speedscript, it was a success. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy both word processing programs, but to structure a book for publication, GEOWrite offers more features and makes a more presentable copy for an editor to see and read.
Friends, I am happy with my Commodore. Since 1990, Commodore met all of my computing needs and in some cases, if what I want didn't exist in Commodore, I would write the program for myself. I pray that all the Commodore users out there are also being blessed with so great a machine. With that final thought in mind, I close this article for this month. I'll write some more next time.
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