Ryte
Bytes is the
monthly newsletter of the Commodore Users Group of Kansas City (CUGKC). This
newsletter will not appear on CUGKC's website before that month's scheduled CUGKC meeting. This is in deference to
actual CUGKC members. The Webmaster will strive to publish it no later than 10
days after that month's scheduled CUGKC meeting.
If you would like to join CUGKC, we would love
to have you!
by Jack Kincaid / jkinca1@cugkc.cjb.net
It’s Party Time again at the CUGKC! Sadly this may be the last Christmas party for the Club.
With Mike moved to Kansas he will no longer be able to be the President of the Club. There are only 4 or 5 members who show up for the meetings, and no one wants to take on the job of President. For over a year we have been operating outside of our Bylaws.
At the party – I suggest we take a vote. IF the vote is to disband, then I suggest that the members write down on a slip of paper their favorite charity and then have someone draw it out of the hat. I will deposit the $20.00 cash in the Club’s account and close out the account with a Cashiers Check made out to that charity.
The earliest newsletter for the Club I have found is Sept 82 -- it was called The PET USER GROUP then. That is 26 years! That is hard to believe.
The next meeting will be on December 18 at the library in the small room. All the meetings will be on the third Thursday of the month.
Financial Report
Balance Oct. 2008 ................... $355.07
Income: Nov. 2008 ................... $ 0.00
Expenses: Nov. 2008 .................-$ 0.00
Closing Balance Nov. 2008 ........... $355.07
by Lenard Roach / lroach1@cugkc.cjb.net
This is THE month, ladies and gentlemen. This is the month of the annual Commodore Users Group of Kansas City’s big wing ding! As far as I know, I have been green lighted to attend this meeting on December 18th, but I won’t know for sure until December 12th; that’s when the schedule for the week of the 18th will be posted, but from what I got from the boss, I have been cleared for all my dates I have requested for the month. I’m not quite sure about all this cooperation; I think he might be looking at my absence as a payroll saver so he can impress his boss on how well he can control budget.
Sorry there’s nothing to report new on the Commodore front from the view of the Roach Hotel. I am praying that over the holidays I will have more time to research and work on the machine other than just using it to prepare and produce newsletters. As I have said in earlier issues, I have a few Commodore ideas brewing on the back of the computer stove, and all of them most likely need to be done before Memorial Day 2009. With prayer and steadfastness, I hope to have all done before the big Cincinnati Commodore exposition.
Please look this newsletter over carefully. Notice anything different? Very good! I took some time out and re-inked the ribbon. I used to have two ribbons for the Seikosha SP-1000VC I now use, but somehow one has disappeared. More than likely it made an exit to the trash can sometime during a furious cleaning spree that has to be done once in a while to the computer room at the Roach Hotel because I am such a pig to work with. Now with the ribbon fresh again, I hope to have clearer images both for paper and the internet versions of the newsletter.
Jack mentioned in one of his articles that we should go to having me send the newsletter through the internet. If anyone who reads this paper would like to start getting the Ryte Bytes via the internet, then please send me you email address (either personal, club, or both) and I will add you to the Newsletter Recipients list in my email address book. Jack also mentioned that I should try making the newsletter in a pdf format. I did that once and just one page of the paper was bigger than the ten megabytes allowed for Yahoo to send attachments through to other users. I am pretty dumb about these things also, so if anyone knows of a better Adobe copier that takes files and makes them smaller, then please let me know about it and I will try and work with it to make the paper smaller to fit in an attachment.
Back on the subject of Commodore, I did see something interesting while making deliveries in the Interstate All Battery van (dubbed Lucy by me. I’ll tell you why some other time). While making a stop to drop off some nine volts to the Kansas City Chiefs security department, I took a wrong turn in all the construction and found myself in the engineering section of the stadium. I entered the engineering room and to my surprise, sitting on a table in a heap in the corner of the garage, were three 1541s, three Commodore 64’s, various 5.25” disks in disk trays, an old PET 2001, with its tape drive removed, and an Educator 64. I’ve never seen the Educator 64 before. It looks like the PET 2001 only it has the keyboard of a Commodore 64 embedded in it. Before I could take a serious look at the merchandise, I remembered that I had to make a delivery so I went next door to the cart shop and found someone, who in turn got hold of security, and in minutes I handed off the batteries to the approaching officer. Before he left, I inquired about the abandoned Commodore stockpile in engineering. The security officer told me I would have to talk to a Mr. Bachtel and see what he was going to do with them. I don’t know how long these units were in storage, but this would be a major find if we could get hold of this stash. Unfortunately, I have been too busy of late to call the Kansas City Chiefs and see what they did with the computers. I’m sure by now they found themselves in Goodwill or worse, the trash.
Other than that little incident, I have really no Commodore news to report. This is my big month with two newsletters to get out as I get ready for the coming holiday and coming New Year. Let’s make our December meeting the shwayest, pimpest meeting of the season, and let’s open 2009 with a new vision and direction for the Commodore Users Group Of Kansas City.
Oh, I almost forgot, the election of new officers should be held at this meeting. Also, no one has announced the coming of a 2008 Christmas disk, but if I know our membership, someone will have something ready and waiting to hand out to all members who attend the December meeting. Will we see Jon Searle there? Only God and his wife knows for sure.
If all holds well, then I will see everyone at the December 2008 meeting.
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 third Thursday of every month at the Plaza branch of the Kansas City Public Library, located at 4801 Main Street in 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://ballz.ababa.net/cugkc. Our snail-mail address is:
CUGKC
6025 Corona Avenue
Kansas City, Kansas 66102