This IS going to be short. My wife and I are off to Nova
Scotia on vacation! Per usual, NL deadline is past but I am
determined to at least jot down a few notes about our last
meeting and get it to the editor before leaving!
FATCAT was the feature last meeting. We got around to
talking about it too late however so the presentation was pretty
jumbled I'm afraid. For whatever it's worth, I encourage
everyone who wants to keep track of his/her files to look into
this great program. If we had stuck to the Time Plan Brian set
up some time back, we would have started the hour discussion
earlier. Oh Well. Cataloguing is important for some and not for
others. The key for me is to very carefully name the files I
create and then run FATCAT every month or so. Later, I remember
the name (only) and the name of the likely FATCAT catalogue in
which it was put. Bingo, I find the file and I'm on my way.
Gabor brought up the idea of dedicating a meeting or 2 to
modem communications. Lots of positive reaction to it. The
point was brought home to me loud and clear when much later (2
days ago in fact) Gabor himself offered to help us put out (OUR
FIRST!) DBNL. We were fixing a mailing label dBase II module
and I used the PUBLIC.COM utility to allow me to run dBase II
from one user area with the required OVL files in another. That
looked pretty useful to Gabor so he asked me to make him a copy
of PUBLIC.COM. All my Kaypros are either at Jeff Moore's
repair basement or flaky so formatting a Kaypro floppy was
going to be tricky. Then Gabor realized he could fire up his
modem and download it. A computer without a modem is like a car
without a radio, sort of. So let's put together a meeting that
talks about IMP, MEX, Hayes compatibility, BBS numbers, etc.
I'm so close to it, I forget most people aren't. In fact,
another one of our members whom I recently called to make
sure I had the most convenient format for her to read told me
she had a C-128 and a modem but had never hooked 'em up. I
encouraged her to let us help her get the thing going. It's
like not ever going to your Public Library. There's a few good
books out there, GO GET 'EM!
Speaking of books, my brother Chip has been uploading
something he calls CHIP'S WEATHER ALMANAC for almost two months
now. Think about this for a minute. TWO MONTHS. Does
anyone out there remember the days in school, college whatever
when the English teacher required a composition a day? And
they had to be interesting, grammatically right, current,
etc. I find Chip's fanciful way of looking at how
weather works absolutely fascinating. And I, too, have become
fairly creative by putting a Z-System front end on his work
which allows you to browse, search, select, update etc. any
"almanac" you want. I've learned a tremendous amount about
aliases (next meeting's topic, by the way), and the MENU.COM
program. Even got the most current version (with source of
course) of REG.COM (see REG13.LBR on our remote access system
((203) 665-110) which Howard Goldstein sent when he noticed my
WEATHER menu front end was "noisy"). The front end uses the
software registers provided by Z-System to support the user's
ability to switch between, say, Volume 2, Number 24 (June 24th's
issue) and, say, Volume 1, Number 21 (his first Almanac). With
the quiet option of REG13.COM, the background noise emitted by
the front end as it sets various things up, is now gone. As it
should be. You want to (re-)read what the weather's going to be,
not see software register displays...
Well, if the disk you got was readable, great! If you
didn't get one (I couldn't get in touch with a few members, so I
KNOW they didn't get one), let us know! Lastly, if the idea of
a DBNL turns you on, consider writing or editing or helping
distribute the next issue. We're on our way now. Goforit.
