by Jack Kincaid / jkinca1@cugkc.cjb.net
Just think, only 8 more months of those sharp, informative, catchy political ads. I have an idea! Let's have them all year round! Wouldn't that be nice?
At the March meeting we had a pretty good turnout. It looks like the Club is going to subscribe to the last year of "Loadstar" disk magazine. Scott is checking to see how much it will cost and if the disks can be copied and passed out to the members. If we can't copy them, then we will pass around on a monthly basis. We will see what Scott finds out at the next meeting. If there is enough interest, then maybe we could set up a lending library with some of the disks that the Club has.
NEXT MONTH: April 8th, 2004 at the Waldo library. Hope to see you there.
I still have some C64s and C128s with 1541 and 1571 disk drives. I also have monitors and printers just sitting in my basement doing nothing. For a small price they can be in your home doing SOMETHING! Call me or see me at the next Commodore Club meeting. My phone number at home is 816-761-4777. I am home most days after 4:00 pm.
Financial Report
Balance Mar. 2004.................... $324.69
Income: Mar. 2004....................
$ 0.00
Expenses: Mar. 2004
Bought monitor from D. Gresham.......-$ 20.00
Newsletter copying...................-$ 3.42
Closing Balance Apr. 2004............ $301.27
by Scott Heider / sheide1@cugkc.cjb.net
The Group meeting for March was held Thursday, March 11th at the Waldo branch of the Kansas City Public Library. There were 7 members in attendance.
At the March meeting, Lenard Roach demonstrated a BASIC program that he wrote called "Money Manager Conversion Program Version 1.0". This program is basically a file renamer; its purpose is to rename pre-2000 (2-digit year) data files created for Money Manager to Y2K compatible (4-digit year) names. Lenard also showed the Group a "Read Me" file that he created for the conversion program. Great job, Lenard! In case you missed the March meeting, Lenard has offered to demonstrate another exciting topic at the April meeting: publishing the Ryte Bytes newsletter using "The Newsroom" publishing package. Don't miss it!
Also at the March meeting, the Group unanimously voted to change the snail-mail address of the CUGKC from Jon Searle's home address to Lenard Roach's home address. (On March 13th, I updated the CUGKC website to reflect the new address.) The reason behind the address change is that our newsletter publisher will now be notified ASAP of any incoming CUGKC snail-mail, especially Ryte Byte newsletters that are returned by the USPS as undeliverable. Mr. Searle, many thanks for allowing the Club to use your mailbox as its own for the past three years.
As I wrote in last month's Scribe's Scribbles, the venerable Loadstar disk magazine has entered its final year of publication. At the March meeting, the Group voted unanimously to purchase as many as all twelve of the final issues for the club. On March 23rd, on behalf of the club, I ordered 6 issues in 1541 format for $38 via the Commodore Central Market website at http://cbm.videocam.net.au/centralmarket/index.php?department=Loadstar. I decided against ordering 12 issues at this time for the following reasons:
After I receive each issue, I will bring it to the next CUGKC meeting for your viewing pleasure.
Maurice Randall is continuing to shake up the C= world. As I mentioned last month, he has begun offering GEOS 64 & 128 V2.0 for free downloading from his website at http://www.cmdrkey.com. On February 20th, Maurice announced the following via the Homestead mailing list: "1500 people downloading GEOS can mean a lot of interest might develop in GEOS once again. This is a good time for programmers to come out of the closet and get to work creating new GEOS software. This is also one of the reasons why I'll be releasing geoProgrammer for downloading soon. Work is underway to make the HUGE geoProgrammer manual in electronic form. It will also still be available for purchase with original disks and original printed manual." As I said last month, kudos to Maurice! Soon all of the closet programmers in the CUGKC will have all of the tools they need to write GEOS programs!
As I mentioned a few months ago in Ryte Bytes, Bruce Thomas from the Commodore Users of Edmonton (CUE) club has begun posting a GeoPublish tutorial on that club's website at http://edmc.net/cue/geopindex.html. Bruce's announcement: "I would like to announce that I have started posting the files for a thorough GeoPublish Tutorial. This series of articles (about 24 the way I have it planned right now) will take you through the creation of a handy reference guide for using geoPublish. The files are available in HTML format for viewing online and in CONVERTed GeoWrite format so you can download them and use them as you follow along and make your own printable manual. After 15+ years of using geoPublish I feel that I can pass on some info to help others get the most out of this complex piece of software." Indeed, from what I have read in the first few articles that have been posted, Bruce is providing a great service to those of us who have always wanted to use GeoPublish but couldn't figure out how to use it. As of March 12th, Bruce has published the first 11 parts of the tutorial, and he has been publishing a new part on the average of every 4 weeks.
Finally, a reminder about the next Group meeting. It will be held at the usual place, the Waldo Library, on the usual day, Thursday, April 8th at 7:00pm. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that Yours Truly will be able to attend the meeting… I really wanted to see Lenard's demo of The Newsroom, too!
by Lenard Roach / lroach1@cugkc.cjb.net
Well, I don't know about you, but I think that we had a very productive meeting in March. Lots of things were discussed and we had two demonstrations for the evening. Tom brought in his new LCD monitor that interfaced with his Commodore 128 perfectly. The flat panel, free standing, mini monitor (about 9.5" x 6" by my best guess) for the Commodore is here and Tom has one! Awesome, sharp images and crisp, clear sound. I tried finding something similar to it at Micro Center and the monitor salesman looked at me like I was stupid. After a few minutes of describing the display that Tom has to the clerk, he finally understood what I was after and was kind enough to tell me that such a thing no longer exists for computers. Right! Tell me another one.
Scott showed us something he printed off the Internet about a group that still offered shell accounts for those users who don't have full graphic capability like the Commodore. Scott has investigated this matter and found it to be legitimate. I should have taken down the Web address of this site so I could check it out myself. With our home being devoid of Internet, life gets hard to handle when so much business is now getting done on the World Wide Web.
Also at March's meeting we voted on two different matters. One was the changing of the club's mailing address from Grain Valley to Kansas City, Kansas; ergo, my place. This motion was unanimously accepted by all members present. The second was to order the last twelve issues of "Loadstar" before the publisher closed his doors for good. I expressed my concern on this matter, since I have ordered from "Loadstar" before, and the publisher took my money but provided no product. Jack, in his fatherly demeanor, told me to quit being such a (insert expletive) and let "Loadstar" know that they owe me a magazine. Well, Jack didn't really say it that way, but the point was that he was right. Unfortunately, the library's computers won't allow a person to respond to an email using an email link that you just click on. I will have to get a snail mail address off the Internet for "Loadstar" the next time I get an opportunity to get to a computer. Despite this isolated incident, the motion to order the magazines was unanimously approved by the members present.
Finally, I got to demonstrate my updates to "Money Manager 2K" and the companion program "MM Converter Prg" along with a "Read Me" file. All that was done to "Money Manager 2K" this time was a new title screen and an update to one of the onscreen help messages. Nothing too impressive but credit was given where credit was due for both the updates as well as the original programmer. Vance noticed that in the "MM Converter Prg" I spelled the word "presentation" wrong on the ending screen. Well, now you know why I've been so desperate to get my GEOSpell working again so that I can avoid these mistakes. Anyway, this problem was easily fixed. Jack suggested to shore up the INPUT statements on the corrections screen so that it could be more uniform with the printed text, or at least get rid of the "?" symbol that indicated to the user that an INPUT statement was awaiting data. I consulted several of my BASIC programming books and found nothing to tell me how to eradicate the INPUT "?" symbol while the line itself remained in an INPUT statement. So in the heat of frustration I took Jack's second opinion and deleted the ":" in the PRINT statement before the INPUT statement and shored up the INPUT statement to make it look more like the preceding PRINT line is asking for the data. Doing so shored up the rest of the onscreen text. Good suggestion, Jack! Looks much cooler and more uniform.
On the "Read Me" file, basically the yellow background with the light red lettering SUCKED!! The POKE 53280 (border) and the POKE 53281 (background) statements were changed to 0 (black) and the POKE 646 (letter color) was changed to 14 (light blue). Now the whole text looks much better. I don't claim to be a decorator, folks. I'm just a guy who likes tinkering on his Commodore. Vance suggested that I add a fourth command to the "Read Me" file's short boot menu, one that says to load "Money Manager 2K" from that menu. Easily typed in; just add another PRINT statement with an implied GOTO to LOAD "Money Manager 2K". This was all fine and well, but when I added the LOAD command with an IF-THEN statement in the program line like this:
730 IFA$="4"THENLOAD"MONEY MANAGER 2K",8
then when the computer executed the LOAD command, it only loaded about one fifth of "Money Manager 2K". Only when I changed the line making the LOAD command its own line number like this:
730 IFA$="4"THEN860 860 LOAD"MONEY MANAGER 2K",8
then the "Read Me" file loaded 100% of "Money Manager 2K". Weird. Any thoughts from anyone about how this could occur? Or maybe tell me exactly what I did wrong the first time.
Finally, it was suggested that I make a separate direct boot for "Money Manager 2K" on the disk. I did so by using a type in boot maker program that I found in COMPUTE! Magazine. Then, as a finishing touch, I used GEOS' ability to easily manipulate files to put the two boot programs on the disk directory first, then "MM Converter Prg", "Money Manager 2K", and finally the "Read Me" file. Wha la! A disk and its files redone. I will bring the disk back to the April meeting to show the updates and changes and hopefully get a final approval from the rest of the club before I offer this disk to other Commodore users in the Commodore arena. My thanks to everyone for their honest opinions on these programs.
With the change of address for March's issue of "Ryte Bytes" I am already getting some answers from other Commodore clubs. Al Jackson of the Clark County Commodore Computer Club (5C's) has sent us their newsletter - on disk! Each disk has articles, club info, and even a few games for their members to enjoy. Al sent us sixteen disks: the newsletter from January 2003 to February 2004 and two special disks from Halloween and Christmas. Each 5.25" disk is packed with stuff on both sides of the disk. His newsletter is well done. I will be bringing this stack of disks to our next meeting for members to read and enjoy. Al does encourage us to copy and distribute these disks to other Commodore users in our area. In return, Al will be getting copies of our newsletter from February 2003 to the present.
Another club heard from is the Cincinnati Commodore Computer Club (4C's). Roger Hoyer is the man behind this magic. This club's newsletter is done like ours: on paper and in black and white. The Cincinnati Commodore Computer Club letter is concise and to the point, speaking directly on matters that deal with the Commodore, including the upcoming Spring Commodore Expo on Memorial Day weekend in New Albany, Indiana. I read that notice and decided that the family could use a road trip, so the Roach family has tentatively decided to go to the Expo, pending accommodations and other arrangements. As of now this plan is makeshift, so changes can occur at any time. I'll keep everyone posted if anything is finalized.
I alluded in last month's "Ryte Bytes" to a demo on how the newsletter is done at the April meeting. This plan is still a "go". I will also be bringing the Clip Art disks that come separately from "The Newsroom" disk. This will be your chance to choose a different graphic from the 1200 clip arts in this collection if you presently do not like the graphic being used as a header in your column. I will also be showing the steps taken to get the newsletter from a jumble of text and pictures to a readable, and hopefully pleasing to the eye, Commodore newsletter. I also didn't get to the "Which Line Is It Anyway" game I had planned for March, or to show our members how to use the RENUMBER command. If time permits this month, I pray to get to those items as well.
So let's see, I have slated for April's meeting:
Did I forget anything? I hope not! I am looking forward to sharing again with you all. It's another great meeting, so please try to be there on Thursday, April 8th, 7:00 p.m., in Meeting Room B of the Waldo Public Library, 200 E 75th St. (SE corner of 75th and Grand), Kansas City, Missouri. If you would like to attend but need transportation to and from the event, then please contact any board member to make arrangements. See you there!
by Jon Searle / jsearl1@cugkc.cjb.net
The year is 1886. You have been elected to become the leader of the expanding American nation. Using your espionage skills and dollars on hand, you have discovered that Mexico, a neutral country, is weak. Gaining control of that territory is necessary for your future expansion southwards. To the north, Ontario and Nova Scotia are also weak. Should you invade south, north, or both?
Questions such as these are common in each of the various scenarios that are offered. The player may begin as leader of any one of many different world powers. Do you favor the Russian expansion? Their armies cost less. How about the English or Germans? Germany is a little tougher. Perhaps you want more of a challenge. Consider becoming the Japanese or French. They are very close to their opponents in this strategy game of world domination.
Whatever the civilization, you begin with enough troops to conquer at least one weak country, absorbing its wealth for developing future armies and navies. Espionage, subversion, money, and military might all play a part in this SSI game of politics and power. Wars become commonplace as the dozens of small neutral countries gear up as you come in to try and conquer them.
At the start of each scenario, you may set the game for the number of active opponents, which ones you want to face, and how tough they will be to beat. Do you want an easy game? Allow only a couple of foes at low levels of ability. If a challenge is desired, then activate them all and start them on high. Also, some scenarios are tougher than others to win with fewer available armies or with your opponents controlling otherwise neutral countries right next to yours.
Whichever way you play it, "Colonial Conquest" offers a fun challenge and a great diversion for the strategy player. The game is not for those who are only impressed by great graphics, though. But where else can you discover the answer to the question, "Could the Japanese have conquered the world during the first World War?" I found out! Can you?
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 library of over 1000 public domain and shareware disks.
Dues are $15 the first year, $10 annually thereafter. Disks of the month and library disks cost $3 each for members.
Meetings are held on the second Thursday of every month at the Waldo branch of the Kansas City Public Library, located at the corner of 75th and Oak Streets, 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
6025 Corona Avenue
Kansas City, KS 66102