CCP/M Weekly Update for the Week ending 03/18/89
by Brian Nalewajek
Secretary's note: This material was sent by President Brian
Nalewajek to our BBS. As my meeting notes are late and duplicate in
several ways the content here, and as Brian's contribution appears
much more interesting than what I'd prepared, I have simply run my
Spelling Proofreader and editorial hand over what Brian has submitted
and offer it up as the Extended Meeting Notes and Online Newsletter
for April! Brian has been very active since taking the top post in
our organization and has inspired me personally in many ways. Now if
I could only keep up with his Action Plans ... I wholeheartedly
support one of the often repeated points that he makes, which I might
paraphrase by quoting The Computer Journal's logo:
"If You Don't Contribute Anything....
.... Then Don't Expect Anything
[CCP/M] is User Supported
Yet another CCP/M project underway! This little text file could be the
start of an online weekly newsletter for CCP/M. Rather than wait for
the next edition of P.O.E., here's a quick way to get caught up on the
plans, trials and tribulations of the Connecticut CP/M Users Group; or
is it "User's Group". I notice that Lee uses an apostrophe, which says
the group belongs to the users. I've been spelling it "Users",
believing we were a group of computer users. Obviously, for CCP/M it
works both ways. Is it "Users", "User's" or should it really be
"Users'": a group owned by its members, the Users. Any one seen the
Bylaws?
(Secretary's note: It is March 28, I'm about a week overdue on my
Meeting Notes for the month and I'm more and more leaning toward
sending editor Taylor this online newsletter. I am running a Royal,
using its Spelling Proofreader and as I fix some of the marked words,
I am now intrigued by the discussion of the proper spelling of this
word "users". I have given Bob Persons the Public Domain Software
Library (Bob is our new Librarian) and the current version of our
Bylaws is in it. I don't have a copy of this version on any personal
disk. Best I can do is use an earlier version which doesn't differ
as I recall in any major way from the official and current version.
Both the hardcopy of the current version (which I do have) and the
machine readable earlier version open with
Article I - Name
The name of this organization shall be the Connecticut CP/M Users'
Group, hereinafter referred to as CCP/M.
Spelling this word "users" is always a problem. My personal feeling
is the the official spelling, "Users'" is correct. The trailing
apostrophe implies what grammarians call "plural possessive". For
those of you who enjoy such details, here's what my "English Grammar"
card says:
The Apostrophe
To indicate possession.
GENERAL RULE: Add apostrophe and s to words not ending in s or z
sound.
lady's men's John's cat's
Add only apostrophe to words ending in s or z sound.
ladies' Joneses' beaux' Steinmetz'
OPTIONAL: Apostrophe and s may be added to singular nouns ending in s
or z sound.
Jones' or Jones's Dickens' or Dickens's
To indicate missing letters in a contraction.
I don't know. It's a long trip.
To form plurals of letters, figures, signs, etc.
four 7's six &'s five m's ten *'s
Since I think the members of CCP/M own their Group and since we have
more than one member (!), "Users' Group" fits. Now that we've gotten
that critical issue resolved, shall we get on with it? ... !
End of Secretary's note.)
Speaking of the Bylaws, we are planning to bring the Bylaws up to
date. Over the past year or so we've voted a few amendment that
haven't yet appeared in a new edition. In fact, I'm not sure we even
recorded the changes we made. Not until this year did we have a group
Secretary. We are still ironing out the particulars of this office.
(BTW another amendment we should add is to bring the position of
Secretary up to the elected officer status.) I submitted a list of
proposed amendment that we will bring before the group for a vote.
If anyone has any more suggestions for needed changes please leave
them in a message on CCP/M's BBS ((203) 665-1100); we'll add them to the
list of proposals. In any event we should see a new edition of the
Bylaws in the next few months.
If you haven't noticed already, this weekly newsletter is not a
polished, professional work of literary art. I hope you find it
interesting and informative; you may even find it entertaining (try
playing "Count the Typos" and you'll see what I mean.) While I hope
our newsletter editor will find useful info' here, this is a very
different animal. Nothing here is official. The odds that some
important remark will be misquoted or misspelled are great. What is
sacrificed in precision, I hope it makes up for in timely, useful
information necessary to achieve the kind of dynamic nature CCP/M
should have.
The regular monthly meeting of CCP/M was well attended Tuesday night;
especially by CP/M computers. There were at least five computers set
up in our meeting room at the Farmington Public Library. Also on hand
was Lee Bradley's copy of the CCP/M PD Software Library. While not the
feature attraction of this meeting, it was good to see that all those
floppies were together and safe. Now's a good time to mention that we
have a new PD Software Librarian. Robert Person volunteered to step in
to a position that had been left unattended for a while. I don't know
why our former PDSWL couldn't stay with it. Perhaps it was just a
question of not having enough spare time. I believe Robert will do an
excellent job. He has a secret weapon. Owning a Commodore 128 computer
with a 1571 drive he can read/write/format several different CP/M disk
formats. Now Rob tells me that he purchased a utility that will allow
his 128 to R/W/F over 130 different formats!
Back to the meeting. There was a period of informal discussion before
the principle part of the meeting took place. I checked off a number
of the news items that had developed, largely from the executive
planning meeting last month. I also had a chance to welcome back a
friend and vital CCP/M office holder, Tom Veile, our group's
treasurer. He had been quite ill for a time and we're glad he's
feeling better. He passed on the current estimate of our treasury,
around $1400-$1500. That's quite a bit, even with the money we need
to have to operate for the rest of our year taken into account. Part
of the surplus will be spent in some planned projects and part left
for future projects. Al Hathway outdid himself in announcing the
meeting topics for several months in advance. Among the upcoming
topics are CP/M games, a tour of the CCP/M PDSWL, and a demonstration
of the FATCAT disk cataloging program.
Glen Gross did the feature presentation for the meeting. His talk on
the "Checks & Balances" software package was very well done. He
provided printed versions of typical screens generated by the program.
It was apparent that Glen spent quite a bit of time in setting up a
fictitious checking account file to demonstrate the program. Even
given that we were a little late getting started, I think everyone
there got an idea of what this program could do for the average user.
As I had to leave before the meeting ended, I don't know if there was
time to demonstrate a PD program called "Checks". This program, while
less comprehensive than "Checks & Balances", provides some of the same
features. (Editorial aside: One of the things Glen did which future
presenters are encouraged to try follows: Prepare your handouts and
talk so you avoid the "Let's all gather 'round the computer" syndrome.
Glen did have his computer and the software he was discussing there
but at no time during his main presentation did we need to see his
software running. After the main talk was over, those people that
wanted to see "Checks and Balances" in action could do so. Finally,
Glen's fictitious checking account was also both funny and at the same
time inspirational, for it provided a good working model of the chart
of accounts CCP/M could very well adapt. To order this software, you
may call (206) 937-8927. The company's name and address is C.D.E.
Software, 4017 - 39th Ave. S.W., Seattle, Washington 98116-3848.)
I was not able to attend the traditional aftermeeting meeting. I will
take a wild guess that they stopped somewhere for beer & pizza. I'll
also guess that there were some resolutions passed by unanimous
consent, along the lines of approving CCP/M funding for a charter trip
to somewhere in the South Seas.
The survey I put together this week, to help us attain needed
information on our members' computer systems, is itself part of a
larger experiment. We have several projects underway and nearly all of
them require that we find enough CCP/M members willing to pitch in
some time and effort to make them work. For example: If you've been
reading the messages posted on this BBS the last couple of weeks,
you'll know we're planning to mail out a disk-based edition of our
group's newsletter. Unless we wanted to dump a LOT of work on a few
people, we have to find a way to get the tasks of copying and mailing
disks distributed over a larger group of volunteers. I decided to try
to accomplish two tasks at once. First, we need to get info from our
members on what formats their systems can read. It makes sense to
gather other useful information at the same time, so I extended the
scope of the survey. The second task is to test the willingness of the
membership to help out with CCP/M projects. To this end I set up the
survey so that a number of members can each print out and mail a fixed
number of survey forms. We only need between 5 and 10 volunteers. I
know that if we can't get that many, not only the survey, but the DBNL
and several other planned projects will go down the tubes. Next week
should show us if the experiment is a success or not. BTW. If you
would like to volunteer to help with either the survey or the DBNL,
leave a message to me on this system or leave a note for Lee Bradley.
The other coals in the fire this week included Lee's effort to get the
AMPRO Little Board hardware ready for a new version of the CCP/M
BBS/RAS. I'm trying to show Lee that we as the group are all behind
his efforts to maintain and improve this vital communications link for
CCP/M. Lee and the rest of the group are glad that such technically
gifted people as Rick Swenton and Al Hathway are contributing their
expertise to the project. I think, as the new system becomes a
reality, there will be several new avenues for other CCP/M members to
participate. From writing news and information bulletins, to remote
SYSOPs, the possibilities are just starting to develop. On a related
note, I heard that Lee is considering applying for recognition as an
official Z-NODE. This would be a definite boon for our group and
Z-System users throughout the area.
Two other projects under way are a "Best of" selection of disk files
from the CCP/M PDSW library, and free introductory disk we'll have on
hand for potential CCP/M members. The "Best of" project is a possible
way to get some of the most useful and requested files from our
library onto a number of disk formats. I don't know yet if we will
charge a fee for these disks or how much. The free intro' disk will be
called the CCP/M sampler. On the disk there will be several utilities
and other programs and text files that will give potential CCP/M
members a taste of what we have to offer. The disk will also contain
some information on our group's purpose and application forms. We'd
like to have these ready for the next regular meeting.
Some other projects are still in the blue sky state. I hope the info'
gained from the survey will help bring these projects into focus. To
mention a few: A second CCP/M BBS/RAS located in another location,
outside of the Hartford area. I know having our current BBS a local
call is great. It would be great to see other CCP/M members enjoy the
same situation. We'll also look at holding meetings in areas closer to
some of our CCP/M members in other parts of the state. I think another
Z-FEST is likely some time this year. While it seems to be on the back
burner, the idea of setting up a tutorial meeting for new computer
users is still a possibility. This project, along with a few others,
remain good candidates for a multi-user group operation.
That's about it for now. There's lots of work to be done. I doubt if
any of us can be sure we'll have as much time to devote to the group's
activities and projects as we'd like, but we keep plugging along. I
hope you all have a good week. BRN..
