by Jack Kincaid / jkinca1@cugkc.cjb.net
The "black hole" of Kansas City is the downtown! Move all the business downtown. Move all the stores downtown. That would be great, but it is sucking all of the energy and resources from other parts of the city. Case in point: a bridge at 85th and Troost. Stroud's restaurant sits almost under it. For more than 10 years it has needed repair. The sides in some parts have fallen away, and you can't walk on the sidewalk because it's gone. The money "we the people" voted for to repair such things is "going Downtown". The new arena downtown - great - it should bring in lots of money; it's where Kemper should have been built! How are they going to pay for it? "They" say "not with your tax dollars" - I say don't you believe it!
A lot went on at the May meeting. Thanks to Valoris Strenge, Lenard Roach, Bethyl Bundridge, and the Lacys for the continuing support of the Club with their dues. Also Lenard brought two mail in memberships - Daniel Fisher (new member as of Jan.) and Charles Beis of Richardson, Texas (a renewal as of August 2003) - come on Lenard - Snail Mail is faster than that! Thank you all! Les also contributed $25 for the Club's part of the sale of a 1581 drive from Don Gresham.
Scott Heider received the Club's LoadStar disk and set up a list of those who want to use it for a month. Valoris, with her eye for design, arranged the display case at the library with a C-64, C-128, C +4, Vic 1541 drive, and a Commodore magazine so people coming to the library can see them and possibly join our club.
NEXT MONTH: June 10, 2004 at the Waldo library. Hope to see you there.
I still have 64s and 128s with 1541 and 1571 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 or see me at the next meeting. My phone number is 816-761-4777 and I am home most days after 4 PM.
Financial Report
Balance Apr. 2004 ................... $301.27
Income: May 2004
Renewals (5) ...................... $ 50.00
New Memberships (1) ............... $ 15.00
Club's share of equipment sales ...
$ 25.00
Total Income: May 2004 ..............
$ 90.00
Expenses: May 2004
Cost of newsletter copying ........-$ 4.10
LoadStar subscription (6 month) ...-$ 38.00
Total Expenses: May 2004 ............-$ 42.10
Closing Balance May 2004 ............ $349.17
by Scott Heider / sheide1@cugkc.cjb.net
The Group meeting for May was held Thursday, May 13th at the Waldo branch of the Kansas City Public Library. 8 members attended.
The day before the May meeting, I received our first issue (LS229) of the Loadstar disk magazine. I brought it to the meeting for everyone's viewing pleasure. After I get a chance to check it out in depth, I will pass it along to anyone who is interested in it. Valoris Strenge and Tom Moloney have first dibs. If anyone else is interested, then please let me know at the next meeting.
Lenard Roach announced that he and his family intended to take a road trip Memorial Day weekend to the Commodore Spring Expo 2004 in New Albany, Indiana. I for one will be looking forward to his report at June's CUGKC meeting. For more info about the expo, see http://www.luckyclub.net/expo.html.
The Waldo Library is allowing the club to display some C= items in their display case. Jack brought some hardware (C-128, 1541, etc.) to the May meeting, and we filled up the display case. Lenard volunteered to write up some documentation to add to the display case. We hope that some folks will see the display and be interested enough to attend a future CUGKC meeting.
Robert Bernardo, president of the Fresno Commodore User Group (FCUG), recently posted the following announcement on the Homestead mailing list: "Dick Estel, Fresno Commodore User Group treasurer, has updated his FCUG webpages, especially the Commodore Article Index. The Commodore Article Index is a virtual treasure trove of over 200 Commodore news articles, many originally published in the FCUG newsletter, The Interface. Go to http://home.att.net/~rmestel/articleindex.html. Read to your heart's content!"
Finally, a reminder about the next Group meeting. It will be held at the usual place, the Waldo Library, on the usual day, Thursday, June 10th at 7:00pm. Hope to see you there!
by Lenard Roach / lroach1@cugkc.cjb.net
All right, let's get down to the nitty gritty. Yes, the Roach family did go to the Spring Commodore Expo in New Albany, Indiana, but due to fatigue, illnesses, and all around confusion we didn't get to see much, let alone sit in on all of what was presented. We also didn't factor in the fact the New Albany was one hour ahead of us (our 8:30 am was their 9:30 am), so we lost out on some of the morning stuff. We had to leave the Expo for a good part of the day so we could check into our hotel in Corydon, get breakfast, and sleep! We drove all night just to get there on time.
The worst part of the trip going was navigating St. Louis at night, especially since we have never been to St. Louis before. Boy, you all think that navigating downtown Kansas City is bad. Downtown KC is a cake walk compared to St. Louis. However, going back was a little better. We skipped the Sunday workings and headed home. That maneuver must have been providential, for no more than two hours after we left, a tornado destroyed a town of 800 just north of the Louisville / New Albany area. Tornado warnings were blaring over every station on the radio as we sped up west I-64 toward the Indiana / Illinois border. The funny part of all that was we never hit any threatening storms until we got to Bates City / Oak Grove / Grain Valley, Missouri. Those squall lines can just POOF out of nowhere and BLAM! You're caught in it.
Notwithstanding, we did get some stills and some video on what transpired at the Expo during our short stay. Be glad that none of you "donated" to our quest. You would have gained nothing. I will try and compile a larger report for future articles after we review the footage that we did get. Please take time to thank Alana and Gabe for getting the footage for me while I was in the men's room getting sick.
One thing I will mention: these guys and gals have taken Commodore to the next level. The advancements they have made ever since the introduction of the SuperCPU by CMD have truly done what was predicted on websites like Homestead. When I sat in on my first demo, I instantly knew that these folks were talking way over my head. All I could do was sit and stare at the video projector images of what they have done, for all I could hear was "blah, blah, blah". Gabe did get to see a C64 get on to the Internet using The Wave and AOL during the 8:00 - 9:00 pm break. He thought that was interesting.
Ladies and gentlemen of the CUGKC, we have a lot of catching up to do. It's going to take time, and especially money, to get back into the league where the rest of our fellow Commodore users are playing. Only one demo I was there for was still using a stock unit; the rest have gone on. I am already investigating the idea of getting a SuperCPU and The Wave for my unit, but you all know our position. We're so broke that we can't even pay attention. We've tried passing off Monopoly money at the grocery store to get stuff, but the cashiers know General Grant from G. Ima Rich. I fear, though, that we need to make the push, or we are going to be left in the wake of what others are doing with this awesome computer. What is cool is that all of these minds, who love the Commodore as much as we do, have taken the reigns and have truly made the Commodore an even more viable machine than it already is, and have made it well capable of "barking with the big dogs". We Commodore users are few; this is true -- but hallelujah we few are making a big dent in this computing world that is dominated by IBM and Apple. From what I've seen, I think that Commodore might be mainstream again by the end of this decade.
by Jon Searle / jsearl1@cugkc.cjb.net
Gold! Horses! Coal! Wood! Who'd have thought that these simple resources would be the basis for a territory-based strategy game? It's you versus the computer in a race for world domination. From the point where you set the availability of resources, the number of territories, and choosing your territories (done alternately), the game keeps the player's mind busy figuring how best to capture the opposing territories, particularly those containing resources or coastlines. Navies are as important as armies, and the presence of a horse strengthens your force.
Ultimately, your goal is to build cities. When you or an opponent have built the target number as set at the start, the game is over. Sounds easy but it isn't. Your opponent is no beginner. When it comes to choosing the best territories, he knows to go for those with resources or those that cannot be easily attacked.
The maps are randomly generated. The player may specify whether or not to have islands, or a coastline, or little water at all. One thing's for sure: the computer will play well on any map. Also, the player can specify the colors for each player.
Resources are required for building any ship, army, or city, and the amounts vary. It takes good judgement to choose between using two of your three woods or maybe just doing the whole thing in gold. Coal is needed for many projects, and though resources do accumulate and stockpiles can grow, stockpiles can also be looted. Fortunately, horses will breed as long as there is empty territory for them, and they don't cost, either.
Ships and horses act as transports and can be captured when a territory they are in gets taken. So be watchful when strong forces are moving toward you. Gain strength from adjoining territories you control, and above all, have a great time playing one of Electronic Arts' best Commodore games.
by Dan Fisher / danfisher28@comcast.net
Much has been done with the Commodore since its heydays of the 1980s to the early parts of the 1990s with even more hardware and software developments coming out every year. However, nothing is as satisfying as getting an old IBM unit to work with Commodore software by using the 64HDD package and an XE1541 cable.
Within the confines of my computer world sits an old 486SLC given to me by well wishers. By installing the 64HDD software on to the 486SLC and hooking the PC to the Commodore with an XE1541 cable, I can now access it just as I would a standard Commodore 1541 disk drive. The hard drive is 333 MB in size, which in the Commodore world is all the storage space I'd ever need. To make this work, I run 64HDD on the PC as follows:
C:\>64HDD-xe-xyz-lfn+9 D:\+10 C:\64HDD
What this does is start 64HDD, add long file name support to the older version of DOS running on this PC, and then assign device 9 to "D:\", and device 10 to "C:\64HDD", and device 8 is left open to my actual 1541 disk drive. When I issue a LOAD"$",9 on the Commodore, it loads the "D:\" directory on the PC. This would work for any other devices I assign to it up to 15. You could set up subdirectories on "D:" for games, word processors, utilities, etc. This package also allows you to load .D64 disc images (1541 disc images that are sent around the Internet) off the hard drive just as they were 1541 discs and run them. There are some incompatibilities; it doesn't work with software that has fastloaders built in unless you purchase a custom Pwr-Load cable from the author. This particular cable also speeds loading times up greatly, so I think it's worth looking at. It also takes quite a bit of work to get multi-disk programs to work.
This has to be one of the greatest things to come along for the Commodore in a long time. In the modern world a 486SLC with a 330 MB hard drive is an antique, but in the Commodore world this is enough computing power to go a long way. You can pick up a 486 for practically nothing (a lot of people will be glad to get the closet space back) and have a wonderfully cheap and easy storage solution for your Commodore.
(EDITOR's NOTE: We at Ryte Bytes would like to thank Dan Fisher for his contribution to the newsletter. If you have something to contribute like Mr. Fisher did, then just email it to Lenard Roach at lroach1@cugkc.cjb.net.)
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