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The Milwaukee Area T.I. User Group Newsletter
********* January 1999 ********** (bear with us, this is our first attempt) ============================================================= Club Officers ------------------ President - Ted Zychowicz - tedzychowicz@juno.com - 414-453-1034 Vice President - Jonathon Johnson - johnsonn@milwaukee.tec.wi.us Treasurer - Denis Dann - denisd@execpc.com - 414-545-5933 Newsletter - Gene Hitz - genehitz@juno.com - 414-535-0133 Geneve - Tim Tesch - ttesch@execpc.com MAUG Web page https://members.tripod.com/~genehitz/maug.html Mailing address - c/o Gene Hitz, 4122 N. Glenway, Wauwatosa, WI 53222-1116 Main MAUG meeting 3rd Saturdays - noon til 4PM Mayfair Community Room, Mayfair Shopping Center, North Avenue & Hwy 100 PC Hocus meeting (PC SIG) 3rd Thursday - 7PM til 10PM Franklin State Bank, 7000 South 76st Street Annual dues now only $5.00 ============================================================== Index: 01) Reading 720K floppies with MSDOS 3.3 02) GPL DEVELOPMENT PACKAGE AVAILABLE 03) IT TAKES ALL KINDS 04) Funny Classified Ads 05) Genuine Excerpts from Letters Sent to Landlords... 06) For all those born before 1945 07) Actual Business Signs 08) Twas the week after Christmas 09) Computer Terms 10) Computer Game Playing 11) BUGGED? You don’t know the half of it. (The Y2K problem solved) 12) 1999 JIM PETERSON ACHIEVEMENT AWARD NOMINATIONS ===================================================== 1) Reading 720K floppies with MSDOS 3.3 Since we're on the subject of PC transfer and the Geneve, How about a program for the wish-list. Since the Geneve supports 1.44m floppies with the HFDC,how about a version of PC transfer that runs in mdos and supports 1.44m PC floppies so we don't have to try to hook up a 360k floppy to our brand new PC's that probably don't even have a bay for a 5.25" drive. ---- Bruce Harrison has an old PC that can format double density (720k) 3.5 inch disks as 360k. These disks can then be recognized by a double density floppy drive on a Geneve or 99/4A running a DSDD controller and PC Transfer. These same disks can then be written to or read from in any double density or high density 3.5 inch drive of any modern PC. I sent Bruce a bunch of these double density 3.5 inch disks to format and he will have some available at the Cleveland MUG conference next May. Charles Good ---- You are right about the old format. When Microsoft added support for the 1.44 meg disks, they changed the earlier format for 3.5" 720k disks. The result is that later versions of MSDOS will recognize the old 720k format, but may not recognize a 360k format on a 720k disk. I discovered this when my office switched over to P/S2's, and suddenly the new bios (set for a 3.5" drive) now rejected my oddly formatted 3.5" disks (formatted to 360k) with a "bad media descriptor" error message. My solution was to attach an outboard 360k drive. [Which gives me an idea -- what if you went into the CMOS setup and temporarily declared the 3.5" drive to be a 360k -- wonder if that would work? Plug-and-play might kill it so it would have to be in DOS.] ------------ Other commentors -- Each version of PC Transfer takes direct control of the Floppy controller chip on a TI or the MDOS bios on a Geneve to send low-level commands directly. The MDOS bios is that for a floppy-only system -- it preceded the special bios required to support the HFDC. --------------- Actually, in MSDOS 3.3 I used to read 720K floppy disks in a 1.4 meg drive by adding a line to my config.sys file. According to the MSDOS 6.2 "help" menu, its equivalent is: device=drivparm.sys /d:nn /c /h:hh /s:ss /t:tt where nn = physical drive number (0 for A:, 1 for B:) hh = number of heads (1 for single-side, 2 for double-side) ss = number of sectors (9 for 360K or 720K, 15 for 1.2M, 18 for 1.44M) tt = Number of tracks (40 for 360K, 80 for anything else) Some examples: 720K disk in a 1.44M drive: device=drivparm.sys /d:0 /c /h:2 /s:80 /t:9 360K disk in a 1.2M or 1.44M drive: device=drivparm.sys /d:0 /c /h:2 /s:40 /t:9 This way it would show-up as an extra drive, after all my other hard disk drives, i.e. "D:". I will repeat the warning someone issued earlier that the individual tracks in a 1.44M or 1.2M floppy disk drive are narrower than in a 360K or 720K drive so any formatting should be done with a bulk-erased disk, or in a lower-density drive if the disk in question is to be read with a lower-density drive. Too bad the bytes-per-sector cannot be changed. =================================================================== Return to Index 2) GPL DEVELOPMENT PACKAGE AVAILABLE Rich Gilbertson, best known as the author of Rich Extended Basic (RXB), has made available a GPL software development package, complete with source code to two demonstration GPL programs. This package consists of three disks. The first disk contains the two demo disks in archive format. Disk two contains the complete assembler with documentation and the first half of the GPL programmer's guide. Disk three contains the second half of the GPL programmer's guide. The handout shows how to compile the demonstration programs and link them into a stand alone Editor Assembler, Option 5, program image. Yes, no GRAM needed! The handout also contains other useful information for the novice GPL programmer. If you would like a copy, send seven dollars ( shipping to a US address) to: Dan H. Eicher (Email: Eicher@delphi.com) 4509 Northeastern Avenue Indianapolis, IN 46239 ========================================= Return to Index 3) IT TAKES ALL KINDS Copyright 1996, Greg Bulmash, All Rights Reserved Sometimes, in a strange mood, I'll explore the seamy underbelly of the web and I'll tell you the thing that has shocked me most. It's not the racists, or the satanists, or the militant bomb makers. The thing that has shocked me most is the number of ugly people posting naked pictures of themselves. We can cut out all the touchy-feely, new-age, politically-correct, everyone is beautiful in their own way horse-hockey right now. Ugly exists. You may not agree with me as to what constitutes ugly, but we all have an aesthetic opinion. We have all seen someone at one time or another whose mere physical appearance made us wonder why they were let out of the basement to consort with decent god-fearing people. Yet it's not really a surprise that a porn industry has grown up around ugly people. Ever since that first high school biology class when we were introduced to the concept of genetics, we realized that ugly people have sex. If they didn't we would have bred ugly out of the gene pool by now. Ugly reproduces in every generation, and contrary to what you've seen on "The X-Files," there's no ugly people pod farm where they're being grown. The plain and simple fact is that someone is bedding these ugly people. Now there has always been that sort of fringe of legitimate porn, the people who you would never really consider attractive if they were clothed, but being naked has suddenly made them more interesting. I can understand this. But the ugly-porn goes beyond that. These are people who have to give their doctors hazard pay for looking at them naked, who'd never be in a beer commercial unless they were stunt-doubling for one of the Bud frogs. Hell, Victoria won't sell them lingerie unless they agree to keep it a secret... and they have fan clubs. Perhaps it goes to show that there's something for everyone on the internet. Perhaps it shows that no matter how physically unattractive you or I find a person, they are the Route 66 on which someone is gonna get their kicks. All I know is that it shows more than I ever wanted to see of some people I didn't want to see much of in the first place. And as much as I'd like to be happy for them in their finding of sexual fulfillment, I could live without the visuals. ============================================================= Return to Index 4) Funny Classified Ads Lost: small apricot poodle. Reward. Neutered. Like one of the family. Dinner Special -- Turkey $2.35; Chicken or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00. For sale: antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs and large drawers. Now is your chance to have your ears pierced and get an extra pair to take home, too. Wanted: Unmarried girls to pick fresh fruit and produce at night. For Sale -- Eight puppies from a German Shepherd and an Alaskan Hussy. Great Dames for sale. Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children. Sheer stockings. Designed for fancy dress, but so serviceable that lots of women wear nothing else. Stock up and save. Limit: one. Save regularly in our bank. You'll never regret it. Man, honest. Will take anything. Used Cars: Why go elsewhere to be cheated? Come here first! Modular Sofas only $299. For rest or fore play. Our experienced Mom will care for your child. Fenced yard, meals, and smacks included. Our bikinis are exciting. They are simply the tops. Auto Repair Service. Free pick-up and delivery. Try us once, you'll never go anywhere else again. Mixing bowl set designed to please a cook with round bottom for efficient beating. Semi-Annual after-Christmas Sale. And now, the Superstore -unequaled in size, unmatched in variety, unrivaled inconvenience. =========================================================== Return to Index 5) Genuine Excerpts from Letters Sent to Landlords... The toilet is blocked and we cannot bathe the children until it's cleared. I want some repairs done to my stove as it has backfired and burnt my knob off. This is to let you know that there is a smell coming from the man next door. The toilet seat is cracked: where do I stand? I am writing on behalf of my sink, which is running away from the wall. I request your permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen. Our lavatory seat is broken in half and is now in three pieces. Will you please send someone to mend our cracked sidewalk. Yesterday my wife tripped on it and is now pregnant. Our kitchen floor is very damp, we have two children and would like a third, so will you please send someone to do something about it. Will you please send a man to look at my water, it is a funny color and not fit to drink. Would you please send a man to repair my downspout. I am an old page pensioner and need it straight away. Could you please send someone to fix our bath tap. My wife got her toe stuck in it and it is very uncomfortable for us. When the workmen were here they put their tools in my wife's new drawers and made a mess. Please send men with clean tools to finish the job and keep my wife happy. ============================================================== Return to Index 6) For all those born before 1945 WE ARE SURVIVORS!!! Consider the changes we have witnessed: - We were born before television, before penicillin, before polio shots, frozen foods, Xerox, plastic, contact lenses, Frisbees and 'The Pill.' - We were before radar, credit cards, split atoms, laser beams, and ballpoint pens; before pantyhose, dishwashers, clothes dryers, electric blankets, air conditioners, drip-dry clothes-- and before man walked on the moon. - We got married first and then lived together. How quaint can you be? - In our time, closets were for clothes, not for "coming out of." Bunnies were small rabbits and were not Volkswagons. Designer Jeans were scheming girls named Jean or Jeanne, and having a meaningful relationship meant getting along well with our cousins. - We thought fast food was what you ate during Lent, and Outer Space was the back of the Riviera Theatre. - We were before house-husbands, gay rights, computer dating, dual careers and commuter marriages. We were before day-care centers, group therapy and nursing homes. We never heard of FM radio, tape decks, electric typewriters, artificial hearts, word processors, yogurt, and guys wearing earrings. For us, time-sharing meant togetherness--not computers or condominiums; a "chip" meant a piece of wood; hardware meant hardware; and software wasn't even a word! - In 1940, "made in Japan" meant JUNK and the term "making out" referred to how you did on your exam. "MacDonalds" and instant coffee were unheard of. - We hit the scene when there were 5 & 10? stores, where you bought things for five and ten cents. Sanders or Wilsons sold ice cream cones for a nickel or a dime. For one nickel you could ride a street car, make a phone call, buy a Pepsi or enough stamps to mail one letter AND two postcards. You could buy a new Chevy Coupe for $600, but who could afford one; a pity, too, because gas was 11 cents a gallon! - In our day cigarette smoking was fashionable, GRASS was mowed, COKE was a cold drink and POT was something you cooked in. ROCK MUSIC was a Grandma's lullaby and AIDS were helpers in the Principal's office. - We were certainly not before the difference between the sexes was discovered, but we were surely before the sex change; we made do with what we had. And we were the last generation that was so dumb as to think you needed a husband to have a baby! - No wonder we are so confused and there is such a generation gap today! BUT WE SURVIVED!! What better reason to celebrate? ================================================================= Return to Index 7) Actual Business Signs On an Electrician's truck: "Let us remove your shorts." Outside a Radiator Repair Shop: "Best place in town to take a leak." In a Non-smoking area: "If we see you smoking we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action." On Maternity Room door: "Push, Push, Push." On a Front Door: "Everyone on the premises is a vegetarian except the dog." At an Optometrist's Office: "If you don't see what you're looking for, you've come to the right place." On a Scientist's door: "Gone Fission" On a Taxidermist's window: "We really know our stuff." In a Podiatrist's window: "Time wounds all heels." On a Butcher's window: "Let me meat your needs." On another Butcher's window: "Pleased to meat you." At a Used Car Lot: "Second Hand cars in first crash condition." On a fence: "Salesmen welcome. Dog food is expensive." At a Car Dealership: "The best way to get back on your feet - miss a car payment." Outside a Muffler Shop: "No appointment necessary. We'll hear you coming." Outside a Hotel: "Help! We need inn-experienced people." At an Auto Body Shop: "May we have the next dents?" In a Dry Cleaner's Emporium: "Drop your pants here." On a desk in a Reception Room: "We shoot every 3rd salesman, and the 2nd one just left." In a Veterinarian's waiting room: "Be back in 5 minutes. Sit! Stay!" On a Music Teacher's door: "Out Chopin." At the Electric Company: "We would be delighted if you send in your bill. However, if you don't, you will be." In a Beauty Shop: "Dye now!" On the side of a Garbage Truck: "We've got what it takes to take what you've got." (Burglars please copy.) On the door of a Computer Store: "Out for a quick byte." In a Restaurant window: "Don't stand there and be hungry, come in and get fed up." Inside a Bowling Alley: "Please be quiet. We need to hear a pin drop." In a Cafeteria: "Shoes are required to eat in the cafeteria. Socks can eat any place they want." On the door of a Music Library: "Bach in a minuet." In the front yard of a Funeral Home: "Drive carefully, we'll wait." In a Counselor's office: "Growing old is mandatory. Growing wise is optional." ===================================================================== Return to Index 8) Twas the week after Christmas Twas the week after Christmas, and all through the house Nothing would fit me, not even a blouse. The cookies I'd nibbled, the eggnog I'd taste At the holiday parties had gone to my waist. When I got on the scales there arose such a number! When I walked to the store (less a walk than a lumber). I'd remember the marvelous meals I'd prepared; The gravies and sauces and beef nicely rared, The wine and the rum balls, the bread and the cheese And the way I'd never said, "No thank you, please." As I dressed myself in my husband's old shirt And prepared once again to do battle with dirt--- I said to myself, as I only can "You can't spend a winter disguised as a man!" So--away with the last of the sour cream dip, Get rid of the fruit cake, every cracker and chip Every last bit of food that I like must be banished "Till all the additional ounces have vanished. I won't have a cookie--not even a lick. I'll want only to chew on a long celery stick. I won't have hot biscuits, or corn bread, or pie, I'll munch on a carrot and quietly cry. I'm hungry, I'm lonesome, and life is a bore--- But isn't that what January is for? Unable to giggle, no longer a riot. Happy New Year to all and to all a good diet! ============================================= Return to Index 9) Computer Terms 486 - The average IQ needed to understand a P.C. State-of-the-art - Any computer you can't afford. Obsolete - Any computer you own. Microsecond - The time it takes for your State - of - the - art computer to become obsolete. GUI (pronounced "gooey") - What your computer becomes after spilling your coffee on it. Keyboard - The standard way to generate computer errors. Mouse - An advanced input device to make computer errors easier to generate. Floppy - The state of your wallet after purchasing a computer. Hard Drive - The sales technique employed by most computer salesmen. Portable Computer - A device invented to force business men to work at home, on vacation and on business trips. Disk Crash - A typical computer response to any critical deadline. Power User - Anyone who can format a disk from DOS. System Update - A quick method of trashing ALL of your current software. =========================================================== Return to Index 10) Computer Game Playing Gaming against widely scattered players along the Web is nothing new, of course. But like everything else online the number of opportunities and the number of participants continues to grow like wildfire. We discovered recently that our virtual golf software, Links LS, has a site where you can join a foursome on a famous course and play computer golf competitively against other point-and-click shot makers you've never met. Soon you could be talking virtual handicaps at holiday cocktail parties. At Case's Ladder (www. casesladder.com), more than 840,000 members are signed up to compete againd each other in more than 120-different games from checkers to Monopoly to Panzer General 2, Yahool was the gaming home choice of my daughter, who jumped into an 'advanced lounge" of Hearts on Christmas Eve and attempted to stick some unsuspecing opponent with the Queen of Spades, perhaps to vent an unspoken holiday frustration. Not feeling particularly ambitious in the column-writing department due to the party atmosphere, I quietly jotted this idea down as a suitable dodge, er topic for some hands-on research and reporting to appease a demanding editor If you can connect to the Internet, you can be playing a hand of sheepshead or mahjongg in a matter of minutes. At Yahoo!, I’ts just a matter of yielding some of your privacy - e-mail address, occupation, etc (Disclosing your real name is optional) Yahool uses self-installing Java applets as the game-playing battlefield on your browser. To play on other sites, such as Iplay.Net (lobbysrv.iplay.net) and IGames (www.igames.com), you need to download special soft-ware. Hearts can be played offline on almost any computer with a Windows operating system against artificial opponents, since it is one of the games that often comes prepackaged with Windows Accessories. (Aside: My personal weakness among these games is FreeCell, a challenging and utterly addictive form of solitaire that can be played for escape or, if you become truly obsessed, to run up the biggest winning percentage you can.) Playing Hearts online is more exciting than playing Hearts against the computer. Real people play idiosyncratically. The game has a different pace, style and temperament. In addition, on Yahoo! players are free to comment to the other players in a chat box on screen with the cards. The table talk is a mixture of polite formality, wisecracks, little digs and advice. ("Do not play with Flash231. He is a bad loser.) You don't have to jump into a game immediately. You can watch others play and wait for an opening. At some tables, robots sit in when there aren't enough willing players. And a robot jumps in if someone exits a game in the middle of a hand. (At one table where I was playing someone deserted the game in a big huff in the middle of play after getting whacked with the Queen of Spades. And it wasn't that ill-tempered Flash231, either) Allowing outsiders to "kibitz" is a choice left up to the player who is "host." (You become host either by starting a new table or by outlasting other players at the one you join.) The host can also convert a public table to a private one. Players are free to join and leave public games at will, which means you can inherit a chair abandoned by someone with an undesirable score. If everyone else around the table agrees, however, you can clear all scores and start fresh. This traffic in and out is one of the disadvantages of online games. It’s hard to sustain your intensity with so many flighty people hopping around. You seldom get to know the style of those you play against, let alone find the opportunity to avenge some nasty trick that one may play on you. The isolation and anonymity of playing online encourages some-.folks to indulge in relatively rude behavior. It goes with the territory. Like freeways. On the other hand you occasionally lock into a game with convivial opponents where the level of play and the deal of the cards results In bracing competition that feels like a real card game. Yahoo! assigns players ratings that fluctuate with their success at cards. You can scout the tables looking for a player with a high rating and go gunning for him, if you like. Hey I’m beginning to sound rather competitive. Maybe pooh-poohing the seriousness of game playing around the holidays was a miscalculation. ============================================================= Return to Index 11) BUGGED? You don’t know the half of it. (The Y2K problem solved) "My computer thinks it’s 1982" "Doom!", cry the doomsayers. (That’s why they’re doomsayers.) "Disaster ahead!", they shout from every rooftop that will have them. "Relax!", I replay. "There’s absolutely nothng to worry about." Nothing for me to worry about, that is. Let the rest of the semi-civilized world fret over the arrival of the dreaded Y2K, that moment when 1999 becomes 2000 and computers everywhere rise up on their little putty legs and say, "Huh?" Planes won't fly. Power won't flow. Banks will lose interest. Life will lose meaning. Those are the predictions, and all because those high-powered little boxes - twitchy backbones of society, pixelated networks of now won’t be able to tell the difference between Jan. 1, 2000 and Jan. 1, 1900. Except, of course, for my computer. My computer thinks it’s 1982. This is how old my computer is: The hip chip right this minute is the Pentium II. Before the Pentium II there was the Pentium MMX and before that, the original Pentium. Before the original Pentium, there was the 486 chip, the 386, and back at the dawn of time PC-wise, there was the 286. My chip is older than that. This has its advantages. My computer has been thinking it’s 1982 since sometime in the mid-1990’s -- it just decided one day that the current decade was too much for it, that it preferred an earlier, simpler time. It decided, and it reset its internal clock to make it happen. Truth be told, it had even toyed briefly with 1980 and 1981 but that didn’t last. For my machine, 1982 was the place to be. Was it looking ahead? Was it buying me time to beat back the millennium bug? It’s only a laptop but it’s always been loyal. True, this little quirk has its downside. I can’t, for instance, ask my computer to copy all the letters I've written since, say, 1997. It doesn't realize that November's cheery note isn't ancient, that it was actually writen a year after 1997. For that matter, it doesn’t have a clue there ever was a l997. ============================================================ Return to Index 12) 1999 JIM PETERSON ACHIEVEMENT AWARD NOMINATIONS (Vote for only ONE from each award category.) Please note that this is an updated list of nominees. The nomination of the SW99UG for Community Service was accidentally left out of the original list. If you have already cast your vote, based on an earlier nomination list, feel free to re-cast your vote. Re-cast voting will be authorized for each updated JIM PETERSON ACHIEVEMENT award nomination list. However, to avoid an endless string of updated nominee lists, a cut-off date for list changes has been set for midnight, January 31, 1999. Award Category Nominee Achievement ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Community Service: Rich Polivka TI Web Page MICROpendium TI Magazine SW99ers FW98 - Lubbock, Texas ------------------------------------------------------------------------- TI-99/4A Software: Bruce Harrison Midi for the Super AMS John Bull Contract Bridge ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - TI-99/4A Hardware: System 99 user-group SCSI board modifications Michael Becker High Speed GPL card Don O’Neil Ongoing SCSI work ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Myarc, Geneve 9640: Tim Tesch Enhanced 9640 OS Don Walden SCSI for the Geneve ========================================================== Note: Elections will conclude at midnight, April 15, 1999. Votes received after the deadline will not be counted. Jim Peterson Achievement Awards will be presented at TIMUG’99 (May 15, 1999) Submit votes to: Glenn Bernasek 13246 Harper Road Strongsville, OH 44136 U.S.A. E-mail: GBBasics@aol.com / dd314@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu Return to Index |
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