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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
Tuesday, January 30, 1990 10:00 pm eastern time
Topic: Ariel Publishing's "8/16" Apple II Technical Journal
AFA Gary J Ok, let's get started.
AFA Gary J Welcome to the Apple II Development Forum. I'm Gary Jacobson,
filling
AFA Gary J in for Dave Sugar (AFL Dyfet) who's out of town this evening.
Tonight's
AFA Gary J topic and special guest(s) is Ariel Publishing, and their new
Apple II
AFA Gary J technical journal called "8/16".
AFA Gary J Our guests this evening (please correct me if I get this wrong :)
are
AFA Gary J Eric Mueller, the 16 bit editor for 8/16, and oops..
AFA Gary J it looks like Jerry just dropped off :)
Eric 816 :)
AFA Gary J :)
AFA Gary J Well, anyway, Jerry Kindall was here, the 8 bit editor for 8/16.
:)
Eric 816 Is Ross here yet?
AFL FrankD You're going to see a LOT of that tonight. Completely destroyed
my conference the last hour.
AFA Gary J I haven't seen him, but don't know his screen name (Ross's, that
is)
Eric 816 Ross should be along any moment now... it's "Ariel Pub" (I
think)
AFA Gary J Eric, before we open up the floor to questions, could you tell us
a little
AFA Gary J about yourself and the new magazine?
Eric 816 Suuure...
Eric 816 Let me start with me <grin>...
Eric 816 I've been programming Apple IIs professionally for about 3 years
now...
Eric 816 And I knew Ross back when we both lived in the wilds of Alaska.
Between my...
Eric 816 freelance work and Ross' newsletters, I ended up submitting a lot
of stuff...
Eric 816 to the (now-incorporated-in-8/16) "Sourceror's Apprentice", an
assembly...
Eric 816 language programming newsletter...
Eric 816 I'm pleased to be the IIgs editor of 8/16 because I absoutely love
to check...
Eric 816 out new source code and programming tips. :) ...
Eric 816 Enough about me. Ariel Publishing has been around for about four
years (and...
Eric 816 perhaps more; you'll have to ask Ross). We started publishing
three Apple...
Eric 816 newsletters: "Reboot", an Applesoft-BASIC programming newsletter,
"ZNews", a...
Eric 816 ZBASIC programming newsletter, and the above-mentioned
"Sourceror's...
Eric 816 Apprentice". When Call-APPLE ceased publication a few months ago
(rest in...
Eric 816 peace), we decided to incorporate the three newsletters into one:
the new...
Eric 816 magazine, 8/16. We're shooting for 40-50 pages of material each
month, ...
Eric 816 with every article including source code.
Eric 816 I think that's about it. (ga)
AFA Gary J Thank you. I might mention here that I just released in the
Article's and
AFA Gary J Transcripts section of our software library a file outlining
"Writer's
AFA Gary J Guidelines" for submission of articles to 8/16. I'm impressed by
what you
AFA Gary J are looking for in the way of articles, and it sounds like 8/16
is going to
AFA Gary J do a good job of filling the void left by Call A.P.P.L.E.
Eric 816 Thanks Gary (and thanks for releasing the file).
AFA Gary J Ok, I'd like to open the floor up to questions now. Let's use
PROTOCOL,
AFA Gary J which means if you have a question, type a "?" on a line by
itself, or if
AFA Gary J you have a comment on the current topic, type a "!" on a line by
itself.
AFA Gary J Questions, anyone?
AFA Gary J I have one, while everyone is thinking. I understand that the
first
AFA Gary J issue is due out in March. Are you still on schedule to premier
then?
Eric 816 Gary - you bet! :) We're going to mail the first issue out
around...
Eric 816 the end of February.
AFA Gary J Great! I guess I'd better get on the ball and get my order in
:)
AFA Gary J Ok, Frank. GA with your question.
BostnFrank How much to subscribe, & where do we send the cash?
Eric 816 Hi, Frank. Good questions. Subscription rates are as follows...
Eric 816 $29.95 for one year of the magazine. $69.95 is for one year of the
disk...
Eric 816 and $99.90 is for one year of both. Send check/money order to Ross
Lambert,...
Eric 816 PO Box 398, Pateros, WA, 98846, or we can take email orders with a
credit...
Eric 816 card (send them to R.W.LAMBERT on GEnie or "Eric 816" here on
AO)...
Eric 816 Let me cover what the disk contains quickly...
Eric 816 It will have all of the contents of that month's magazine, PLUS an
addtional...
Eric 816 300k or so of IIgs source code, and 300k or so of 8 bit source
code...
Eric 816 The magazine is a subset of the disk and many people have ordered
just a disk
Eric 816 subscription. (done)
BostnFrank Disk are 5.25" or 3.5".
Eric 816 3.5" disks. (Only way we can fit everything on! <grin>)
BostnFrank Thanks. ga
Eric 816 You bet. Thanks for asking.
AFA Gary J Thank you Eric. It looks like our next question is from Coach.
GA Coach.
Coach101 How has the repsonse to 816 been (subscribers)?
Eric 816 Coach - so far, from what I understand, pretty good. We
automatically...
Eric 816 converted all of the SApp, Reboot, and Znews subscribers over to
8/16...
Eric 816 You'll probably want to talk to Ross when he gets here, though; he
handles...
Eric 816 the subscriber base and can give you a more accurate answer.
(done)
Coach101 thanks, ga
AFA Gary J I've been told that Ross is TRYING to be here. He's having
AFA Gary J trouble getting online. :)
Eric 816 Okay... :)
AFA Gary J Ok, our next question is from Art. GA, Art.
ArtR1 what do you mean by "gs source codes"?
Eric 816 Art - in addition to the contents of the magazine being on the
disk, we're...
Eric 816 going to have other Apple IIgs-specific source code in a variety
of languages
Eric 816 (ORCA/Pascal, APW C, TML Basic, to name a few). (ga)
AFA Gary J Did you have anything else to add, Art?
AFA Gary J If not, we'll move on to Frank's question. GA, Frank.
BostnFrank How about for Merlin fans?
AFA Gary J Ooops. Eric's been bumped now :)
AFL Marty sigh
BostnFrank So, Gary, what else have you heard about 8/16?
BostnFrank :)
AFA Gary J Frank, from what I understand from the "Writer's Guideline"
AFA Gary J information that Eric uploaded, Merlin 8, 16, and 16+ code is all
being
AFA Gary J requested.
Eric 816 Sorry about that... the software just flaked out :(
AFA Gary J Ah...here's Eric now :)
BostnFrank neat!
BostnFrank ga
AFA Gary J Did you get that question, Eric?
AFA Gary J (I think I answered it :)
AFL Marty You mean your modem disconnected. :)
Eric 816 Afraid not... could you repeat it? :)
BostnFrank Asked about Merlin material.
AFA Gary J Frank asked "How about Merlin fans?"
Eric 816 HOW ABOUT THOSE MERLIN FANS, HUH? :) I love Merlin - and use it
all the time...
Eric 816 And 8/16 loves to publish Merlin source code.
Eric 816 (ga)
AFA Gary J Eric, perhaps you could take a moment to detail some of what you
are looking
AFA Gary J for in articles, and I think that'll give a pretty good picture
of what
AFA Gary J the magazine will be like.
AFA Gary J GA
Eric 816 Sure, Gary...
Eric 816 We're looking for articles on 'tricky stuff'. Tricky stuff is a
nice generic...
Eric 816 title for several things: tricky stuff = new things with the
latest system disk
Eric 816 (for example, how to use the Resource Manager). Tricky stuff =
things that
Eric 816 just aren't explained very well in the current reference
materials. Tricky
Eric 816 stuff = something you spent a while figuring out and you think
others could...
Eric 816 learn from your experiences. Does that help? (ga)
AFA Gary J Yes :)
Eric 816 Let me mention one other thing... while Ross' old newsletters
were...
Eric 816 seperated by the types of languages they used, 8/16 likes all kind
of stuff...
Eric 816 in (as the title implies) in both 8 bit and 16 bit. We'll take
articles for...
Eric 816 the IIgs half in almost any of the popular IIgs
languages/assemblers (the only
Eric 816 exception is AC BASIC)... and for the 8 bit half, I believe we're
accepting...
Eric 816 things in ZBASIC, Micol Advanced Basic (8-bit) and (of course!)
AppleSloth.
AFA Gary J :)
Eric 816 If you have an idea for an article...
Eric 816 PLEASE don't hesitate to drop me or Jerry a line (depending on the
number of...
Eric 816 bits, 16 or 8) and let us know about it. (ga)
AFA Gary J Thanks, Eric. I see Frank has another question. GA, Frank
BostnFrank Do you cover the range from expert to unlearnt?
Eric 816 Frank - we like for people to write their articles assuming that
the...
Eric 816 reader has a working knowlege of the language at hand (for
example, if the...
Eric 816 article was about Pascal, it would be assumed the read knew about
WriteLn)...
Eric 816 the one exception to this rule is C: since it's such a new languag
for most...
Eric 816 Apple II programmers, we welcome beginning articles covering the
language...
Eric 816 and would like to see them! :) ga
BostnFrank Sounds rather well thought out. ga
AFA Gary J Ok, Jeff has the next question. GA, Jeff
AE Jeff Perhaps you could mention who some of the contributors are? And
the subjects?
AE Jeff ga
AFA Gary J Good question :)
Eric 816 Hi Jeff! (Have we met?) Sure, I'll talk a bit about
contributors...
Eric 816 Since we're just starting 8/16, we haven't got any "big names"
writing for
Eric 816 the _magazine_ yet. In The Sourceror's Apprentice, we had lots of
great...
Eric 816 folks writing neat articles for us, such as Steve Lepisto and
Steve Stephenson
Eric 816 (among others) and I expect they'll be writing for 8/16 as well.
Even Glen...
Eric 816 Bredon said he'd write something for us. We do have some...
Eric 816 interesting deals 'in the works' but I can't really talk about
them yet. ...
Eric 816 But I can say that I expect we'll have exciting, cutting-edge
articles in...
Eric 816 future issues. (done)
AFA Gary J Sounds good, Eric. Anything else, Jeff?
AE Jeff What kind of subjects are coming up in the next issue? Or can you
say? GA
Eric 816 In the first issue, we're going to have a little bit about
animation...and...
Eric 816 probably a marvelous article about writing CDEVs (with a great
example!)...
Eric 816 I'm in the process right now of deciding what will be the IIgs
half for the...
Eric 816 first issue, so nothing is set in stone. Let me also mention that
I am...
Eric 816 talking about the IIgs half - I'm not sure what Jerry has planned
for the...
Eric 816 8 bit half. He usually has some neat surprises on hand, though. :)
(ga)
AE Jeff I'm done.
AFA Gary J Ok, Marty's up next. GA, Marty
AFL Marty On what information systems do you maintain an account? What are
your...
AFL Marty screen names in case someone wants to contact you via EMail?
Eric 816 :P
Eric 816 I'm on AO as "A2Pro Eric" and on GEnie as "A2PRO.ERIC". (It's
usually...
Eric 816 faster to send me a note on GEnie, but I do check AO about once a
week)....
Eric 816 Jerry Kindall, the 8 bit editor, asks that you get in touch with
him on...
Eric 816 GEnie as "A2.JERRY". Ross doesn't have an AO account (yet?) but
his GEnie...
Eric 816 address is "R.W.LAMBERT". We also have a support area on GEnie in
A2. (done)
AFL Marty One more question...
AFL Marty Have you considered doing a sort of sampler disk containing
excerpts from...
AFL Marty your magazine? It might be nice to have one available online.
AFL Marty (A teaser or sorts)
AFL Marty or = of
Eric 816 Good idea, Marty! I don't know if Ross has considered it or not,
but it...
Eric 816 sounds like a great idea to me. I'll pass the suggestion along to
him and...
Eric 816 will be sure to upload it to ADV when we do it. (ga)
AFL Marty (I'd love to see one done with HyperStudio :)
AFL Marty done
AFA Gary J Ok, Frank's question is up next. GA, Frank
BostnFrank What's your policy on advertising in 8/16?
Eric 816 Well...
Eric 816 Our rates are considerably less than Nibble, if you're looking to
reach...
Eric 816 a market of programmers :)...
Eric 816 We've got some specials going on right now, in addition, for the
first...
Eric 816 issue, which I'll go into if anyone is interested in details.
There is one...
Eric 816 important thing that I did want to mention about advertising
(thanks for...
Eric 816 reminding me)... if your company is looking for a programmer, we
can...
Eric 816 give you a free half-page "Programmer Wanted" ad. And we HIGHLY
urge you...
Eric 816 to take us up on the offer. The flip side of this coin is, if
you're a...
Eric 816 programmer, we have free "situation wanted" ads. I started a new
folder in...
Eric 816 the message area here on ADV (under "Miscellaneous Development
Topics")...
Eric 816 with more details. GA
AFL FrankD Look who's back! :)
BostnFrank Are you Ads on disk as well as in the hard copy? ga
AFA Gary J Jerry made it back :) Hi Jerry.
Eric 816 Frank - ads only in the magazine right now. I don't know if this
is going to...
Eric 816 change in the future. ga
Eric 816 Hi Jerry!
BostnFrank Hi, Jerry!
AFL Marty Jerry who?
A2 Jerry Hi yall...
Tamira Hi Jerry
AFL FrankD 8-bit Jerry. :)
A2 Jerry Telenet is a wonderful animal.
Eric 816 Hehe
BostnFrank animal is the operative word.
AFL Marty It's not the word I used :)
BostnFrank :)
AFA Gary J Jerry, could you give us some idea of what we might expect in the
March
AFA Gary J issue from the 8 bit side of 8/16?
AFA Gary J (Eric's already told all his secrets :)
A2 Jerry Well, we've got an interesting do-it-yourself hardware project
involving...
A2 Jerry biofeedback...
Eric 816 (see what I meant about exciting surprises? <grin>)
A2 Jerry An article from Ross on ZBasic programming...
A2 Jerry A couple of articles by yours truly detailing a super-compact
BASIC line
A2 Jerry editor that fits into page 3 of RAM, ...
A2 Jerry and a nifty way to write relocatable assembly code using BRK...
A2 Jerry and probably a few other things.
A2 Jerry GA
AFA Gary J Thanks, Jerry. Did you want to comment, Frank?
BostnFrank Apple II Biofeedback... brings new meaning to "user friendly!"
BostnFrank ga
AFA Gary J Ok, well our hour is up this evening, which brings the "official"
side of this
AFA Gary J meeting to a close, but everyone is certainly welcome to stay
around and chat
AFA Gary J as long as they'd like afterward. I'd like to thank our guests
for attending,
AFA Gary J and I'm looking forward to seeing the fruits of their labors here
in a month
AFA Gary J or so! Thank you.
Eric 816 Thanks a lot Gary!
A2 Jerry Ouch! Is it only a month? Oh no.... B)
Eric 816 And thanks everyone else for attending!
AFA Gary J (PROTOCOL off)
AFA Gary J :)
AFA Gary J Yes, thank you for attending.
AFL FrankD The magazine sounds like a real winner!
Eric 816 Soooooo....... who's going to write articles for us? :)
BostnFrank Jerry, Eric: Let's see, that'll be your April 1st issue, right?
A2 Jerry Hmmm. I can think of several people in this room who could write
articles...
A2 Jerry for us...
A2 Jerry Especially on the 8-bit side. I'm a real advocate of 8-bit Apples
and I'm
A2 Jerry really looking forward to a GOOD exchange of NEW 8-bit info.
Eric 816 I can see a few potential IIgs authors too... I urge _everyone_ to
download...
Eric 816 the Writer's Guidelines from the library.
A2 Jerry Tom, yeah, that means I can actually get something out of the 16
half!
A2 Jerry In fact, I'm getting a IIgs in order to be able to use the 16-bit
stuff...
AFA Gary J Eric, are you (Ariel) offering any kind of trial subscription?
Like buy the
AFA Gary J first issue with the option of picking up the year's
subscription?
Eric 816 Gary - I believe we are but I'm afraid I don't have the details
here. You...
Eric 816 might want to give Ross a ring at (509) 923-2249.
Eric 816 Jerry - :)
AFA Gary J Ok, thanks.
