I am writing this using MICRO-TEXT, a ROM-Based
editor on the Royal. It costs $29 and is
available from RR Salvage. For those of you
without drives, this and an audio cassette tape
are an excellent minimal word processing system.
It even does color!
The joint meeting of the Yankee Osborne Users
Group and the Connecticut CP/M Users Group had its
pluses and minuses. Due to some miscommunication,
the start time and the door-unlocking time
differed by 45 minutes, leaving the people outside
in the cold for a while. Also, the meeting site
location itself was switched from the American Red
Cross in Farmington to the St. Andrews Episcopal
Church in Meriden, causing at least two people
(one of whom is a skilled user of TC.COM, the
Peach Tree Telecommunications program) to miss the
meeting. The other minus was that because yours
truly did not thoroughly research the situation,
the room reserved for a Photography Club was
chosen as the room to have our meeting, and when
the Photography people showed up, we had to move
to the room that had been reserved for us, a much
smaller room. Since about 50 people showed up, it
was a bit cramped to say the least! On the plus
side, I think and hope the people who came got a
lot out of the meeting. Several new members
joined the CCP/M ranks and I think the YOU ranks.
Daryl Gehlbach did a short introduction to CP/M, I
opened up the Royal and pointed out what ports did
what, how to change the baud rate jumper to 1200
baud and later three systems were set up and
demonstrations of Public Domain software were
done.
The next meeting of CCP/M will be on April 12th at
the Farmington Public Library. The topic will be
WordStar version 4. Al Bolton for one has been
trying to install WordStar on his Royal. He
called MicroPro and they gave his some suggestions
but so far we have not been successful. I have
managed to get the printer to print but the screen
control is still not quite right. The Royal uses
a VT52-like escape sequence to position its cursor
but something still causes WordStar to be off by a
line here and there. I am sure we can solve this
problem thru a combination of reading the manuals,
the information on the supplied disks and working
together on it. Al Hathway has been working on
function key macros for WordStar and indicates
that he may have something ready to show us at the
meeting. Daryl Gehlbach thinks we may have enough
people to place another block order to MicroPro
due to the recent increase in membership by new
Royal owners. See you in Farmington.
The May meeting will be another joint YOU CCP/M
meeting and will be on May 17th. I will try to
get the American Red Cross in Farmington.
Although not ideally located, I feel the crowded
conditions and building availability at St.
Andrews Episcopal Church make the ARC a better
choice. The topic will be Programming in BASIC.
Tom Veile will co-ordinate the effort. Please
note this is the THIRD Tuesday in May, not the
second. Tom plans on going over the fundamental
instructions in BASIC and those of you who are new
to computer programming should get a lot out his
talk.
The Royal continues to be the major topic. At
least three people are actively involved in
building drives for it. Frank Pellicano is
working on building the F2, the second drive.
John Williams is working on building the
controller for the F1. He has located an outfit
in Connecticut that sells the two key chips in the
controller and will be either wire-wrapping or
building a PC board. Both Frank and John are
engineers and are doing this work in their spare
time. Not sure what they will come up with or
what it will cost or when it will be available but
can say they are both enthusiastic and are
learning a tremendous amount in the process. The
third person working on this was hired by RR
Salvage and I don't know what progress he's made.
If experience counts, I'd put my money on Frank
and John. Both have F1 drives and technical
manuals and both care about owning drives
themselves and learning and helping out the Royal
owner. Nothing like self-interest to get a
project off the ground. The drives are only one
of the things needed. Manuals, cables, software
and assistance follow close behind. The parallel
printer cable appears to be simply a 34 pin ribbon
cable with a Centronics plug at one end (crimped
onto the cable) and a plastic 34 pin crimp-on plug
at the other. All parts are probably available
from Radio Shack. I will check and, if they are,
will price the parts. Bob DeLeonardis reports RR
Salvage wants (you ready for this?) $50 for this
cable. Many people did not get manuals with the
Royal. I have sent a copy of each of the three
manuals to one person for him to copy. If anyone
else needs them, let us know. A design for a
fully functional cassette cable has been
distributed by Erik Lindquist and appears
elsewhere in this issue. If you don't mind
pushing buttons on your cassette recorder, I
picked up five cassette cables from Radio Shack
and am selling them at cost. The cable needed to
support the modem is simply a 25 pin ribbon cable
with crimp-on DB-25 (RS-232) male plugs at both
ends. I think the serial port may be used by
serial printers as well (you need to toggle the
5th switch on the blue rocker panel inside the
Royal to change it from parallel to serial
printing.)
Echelon, Inc. P.O. Box 707001-800, South Lake
Tahoe, CA 95705 has announced the availability of
Z-Com, Version 2. Price is $69.95 and is
certainly the most important software breakthru
for Z-80 based ccmputers ever. Quoting Z-NEWS 808
page 1, "Joe Wright, San Jose, CA, has produced
(with help from Jay Sage and Bridger Mitchell) one
of the most significant developments ever to come
along in the microcomputing world. His new Z-Com
offers flexibility never seen before, or thought
possible, for Operating Systems. Z-Team comes
thru! Z-Com, Version 2.0, does what we have
wished for so long: an Operating System for all
seasons!" I will be sending away for this and
will try to bring it up on a Kaypro 4 and on a
Royal. The key claim for new Z-Com, ie. Z-Com
Version 2.0, is that it will run on virtually any
Z-80 based computer. Bob Forsberg and David
Wright and others feel there is a need for some
introductory articles on what the "Z System" can
do for you and I agree. Perhaps a second "Z-Fest"
which features ZCPR v3.4 and ZRDOS v1.9 on the
Commodore 128 and the Royal alphaTronic PC and
conducted by Joe Wright in the Fall could be
arranged...
The Mouse House PBBS/RCP/M ((203) 665-1100) has
recently been supporting an extended string on the
relative [de]merits of the Commodore 64 computer.
I've stayed out of this one but think it's worth
saying a few things at this time. No matter which
side is "Right" on this one, one thing seems very
clear to me. Both sides seem to be only slightly
interested in actually listening to the questions
and answers the other side has. I think people
tend to think their own computer is better than
anyone else's, and don't like it even if the facts
are otherwise. People want their favorite things
to be accepted by others. I think Rick Swenton
(who privately and repeatedly admits that the main
thing he's up to is just plain good fun anyway)
might learn a few things if he picked up a C-64
and actually used it instead of basing his remarks
on probably just a gut feeling, and I think Steve
Tardif might also do well if he too purchased the
kind of computer that Rick supports (surely a Z80
compatible under Z System) and tried it out. It's
only when both sides really listen that learning
takes place. As Jim Taylor points out, it's all
ASCII in the final analysis. Whether is was
created by a 6502 under whatever OS the C64 uses
(note my ignorance) or by a Z80 under ZCPR, it's
ASCII and can be interesting or dull depending on
the skill of the author.
I feel, as Rick feels, that the complexity of a
thing and the struggle involved in using it, make
something a non-Toy. This is why I like the Mouse
programming language. It's sometimes hard to get
something to work in Mouse. But when it does
work, I feel I have conquered something and
perhaps done something that most people are not
able to do. This makes me feel smart and I like
that feeling.
I enjoy playing with this language. Which makes
it a Toy... Maybe what Rick and I like are Adult
Toys. AT's for short.
Well, that's all for now. Now to collect Mort's
dBase offering, pictures from Bob Forsberg, Walt's
Clock article and something to celebrate the fact
that it is, after all, April 1. I'm sure there's
something outrageously unlikely around here
somewhere.
