by Jack Kincaid / jkinca1@cugkc.cjb.net
Finally October has arrived! With it hopefully some cooler weather and even some rain, which we need badly. Days are shorter and cooler mornings. I am even seeing some leaves falling which means that pretty soon it will be leaf raking time again. Another year will be upon us and then what?
The September meeting was somewhat better. Jon and Vance were there along with our Prez and a few others. Leslie Lacy and I (Jack Kincaid) renewed our membership for another year. That is a grand total of six renewals for the year 2000. And it should have been a good year!
I spent some time over at Lacy's home trying to download stuff from the BBS. We used Novaterm 9.6 and we did not have much success at it. We could d/l small files but larger ones just kept going over and over again. Even Scott Heider got in from the BBS side and watched as we tried different things. Has anyone had success in d/l with batch files?
Frank Scott and his wife Rena stopped by after the Chiefs home game. He said to say "hi" to everyone and that there is life after CUGKC. He is working a lot of hours and with wife and their three dogs has little time to play. He did give me his email address, which is gemaster@msn.com. So drop him a line when you get a chance.
I see in the paper that the KC library is going to buy the old American Bank building for its new library at a price of $32.5 million. Only $10 to $15 million will come from the taxpayers! Why do we need a large library downtown? Why don't they fix up the Plaza library? (Inquiring minds don't need to know!)
I still have 64s, 128s, 1541, 1571 drives, monitors and printers just sitting in my basement doing nothing. For a small fee they can be in your home doing something! Call or see me at the next meeting.
Is there anyone out there 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.
Need an extra monitor? Another drive? A printer? Give me a call, we have them all! I have an Okimate 10 color printer with docs and interface.
Financial Report
Balance Aug. 2000.................... $302.71
Income: Sep. 2000
Renewal (2) .........................
$ 50.00
Expenses:
BBS Phone Bill (4 months)............-$ 91.74
Closing Balance Sep. 2000............ $260.97
by Scott Heider / sheide1@cugkc.cjb.net
The Group meeting for September was held on Wednesday, September 6th at the Plaza Library. The attendance was 8 members.
Lenard Roach played a video demo of 2 of his original programs: Check It Out v1.5 and Check File Maker v1.0. (See Lenard's article below for a peek behind the scenes of the software development process.)
The latest Wave web browser news was discussed: the final beta (B2.7) version was released to the international corps of beta testers on 9/6. Also, Maurice anticipates the release of the production v1.0 very soon, perhaps within a month. As soon as it is released, look for a link to it on the CUGKC website as well as the actual program on the CUGKC BBS. An informal query of the members in attendance seemed to indicate that only our Prez currently owns all of the hardware and software required to run the Wave, so we'll be counting on him to demo it to the rest of the group.
Vance Kellinger was able to attend the meeting, and he brought a Disk of the Month with him. It is a games disk containing Minipin, Monster Panic, Qubic, Blackjack Fred, Slide, New Trek, and Red Baron. If you would like to purchase this or 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, October 4th.
by Lenard R Roach / lroach1@cugkc.cjb.net
Before I begin let me first apologize. I should have been working on programming long before now, but I let the burden of everyday life get in the way of my passions, and a man without passions is, more or less, a dead man; and that's what I've been for the last six months or so, a dead man. I thought that money alone would buy me happiness, so I worked my tail off but the harder I worked, the less money I made, and the more depressed I became. Being a person that suffers from bi-polarism I need to avoid getting depressed at all costs, but I was heading into a tailspin. I tried more doctor/patient time, but that didn't seem to work.
To make a long story as short as possible, I finally took the advice of my wife, grabbed a pen and a pad of paper, and began to write. I wrote everywhere; on the job, at home, while waiting at the school to pick up the kids; everywhere, and I haven't had any depression problems since. The doctor called this method of treatment "journalism therapy." I call it "relief." I never knew how much writing was penned up inside of me until I began to release it. Now I take the advice also of a book I read about writing novels: "Three pages a day, everyday, irregardless." That is the formula I try to follow. I have been better and more productive both in the Commodore world as well as the working world. Everybody benefits from this practice of mine: you, the reader; me, the writer; and the Commodore computer, the object of our affections.
Which brings me back to the point at hand -- programming. Programming, in its basest form, is writing, but it is writing to tell the computer what to do, and not to inform a reader of any information. Let's face it, reading computer text is, for a great many persons, a really boring story. I personally like the chase scenes where FOR follows NEXT, but not everybody can say that. Most people enjoy the end results of programming, which is the functioning program. But please remember the painstaking process that includes all the SYNTAX ERRORs that it takes for a programmer to reach his or her zenith. So when someone within your circles comes to you with a completed program, give them a pat on the back and buy them a happy meal. Trust me, they deserve at least that much.
Programming "Pay Schedule" into a working, viable piece of text was not as easy as I first thought it would be. With my former programs I sat down at the keyboard and started with line 10, but when I tried that method with "Pay Schedule," I ran into a mental brick wall. I couldn't get too much to come out of me. I wrote the main menu all right, but going into the body of the program was a tough problem. For the first time in my career, I had to get a piece of paper and write out exactly what I wanted to do; each step, line for line. I put all of that information into a flow chart so I could tell exactly where each subroutine fell in the programming process. This step was all new to me, but I can see now why professional programmers make flow charts; it gives them an idea as to where they are when they go about to assemble each subroutine.
Since I wrote this five page flow chart, I have been keeping "Pay Schedule" on track without the worry of what I was going to do next. The program as a whole will eventually be written in modules with each function on the main menu loading a different module every time a selection is entered. This also makes programming a lot easier since I haven't broken each major subroutine off with a simple GOTO or GOSUB from the main menu like I have done with "Obligator Coordinator." I'm currently working on the setup module where building the first time account takes place. I've still got to work on the view module, print module, and update module according to the flow chart and will problably get to work on them after I finish the setup module. I started with the setup module because it's the hardest to do. I will problably do the update module next since it will be the next hardest to do, and so on.
Getting "Pay Schedule" to work with "Obligator Coordinator" data files so far has been a breeze. Right now "Pay Schedule" is just reading "Obligator Coordinator" data and not doing any manipulation of files from it. The real challenge will be when I try to get "Pay Schedule" to rearrange "Obligator Coordinator" files and still keep track of its own files and try to manipulate "Pay Schedule" files as well, then making each reorganized file go back to its original parent program with the newly reformed information intact. I'm looking forward to this challenge. The best way I see of handling the data thus far is to send and receive each set of information on different channels through the disk drive and into the computer's memory then, when done, send them out the same channel they came through. I'll be looking forward to this little test of my programming mettle when the time finally arrives.
All in all, working on "Pay Schedule" has been fun, just like it has been working on other programs in the past. With help from the Commodore Users Group of Kansas City, I should be able to have caught any bugs that might creep up in beta testing when that time comes. This group did a great job when "Obligator Coordinator" was done and offered so much positive input and constructive, helpful criticism that an almost completely new version of the program was made. The changes were great, and "Obligator Coordinator" works even better than I first hoped when it was originally written. I am confident that they will treat "Pay Schedule" with the same zeal and enthusiasm.
Well, this is my update on programming for this installment. Thank you all for letting me use the newsletter as a programming journal to help me keep track of my progress. When things get further along, I'll write again about what is happening in the development of "Pay Schedule."
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