B O C A B I T S The Official Newsletter of the PC Users Group of Boca Raton January 1985 Page 1 MEETING NOTICES The PC Users Group of Boca Raton meets in the Lecture Hall in the Library of the College of Boca Raton, 601 N. Military Trail, Boca Raton. General membership meetings are held on the third Thursday of each month. The Board of Directors meets on the fourth Thursday of each month unless otherwise notified; all members are invited to attend. Special Interest Groups (SIGs) meet at various times and places, as determined by their members. We will print this information if it is made available to us. Membership Meeting: Thursday, January 17. Tutorial at 7:30; General Meeting at 8:00 PM. Board of Directors: Thursday, January 24, 7:30 PM. Communications SIG: Thursday, January 24, 7:30 PM (before regular meeting). OFFICERS AND PHONES Chairman:..................................... Rich Sandell (278-6959) Vice-Chairman:................................ Steve Tolces (392-4387) Secretary:.................................... Morris Haber (736-0066) Treasurer:.................................... Bob Bokelman (994-0770) Directors:..................................... Larry Clark (487-3736) ...............................................Abbott Frank (994-5844) ................................................Ken Griffin (994-1290) Boca Bits Staff: Editor:................................... Phyllis Rogers (487-7343) Publisher:................................... Larry Clark (487-3736) Librarian:................................. Dorie Woytovech (278-6864) College of Boca Raton................................ 994-0770 Ext. 51 DUES Annual dues are $10 per year per family. Renewals are now due for members who joined in or before January, 1984. Please check your membership expiration date, which appears on the mailing label. ELECTIONS, MICROSOFT HIGHLIGHT JANUARY MEETING The January meeting is the official "annual meeting" called for in the Bylaws. The most important business to be transacted will be the election of officers for 1985. In accordance with the Bylaws, the Nominating Committee has prepared a slate of candidates, who have agreed to run. The nominees are: Chairman:..................................Rich Sandell Vice-Chairman:..........................Peter Woytovech Secretary:.................................Morris Haber Treasurer:..................................Howard Dunn Board Members:.............................Duff Kampion ............................................Larry Clark ..........................................Doug Graybill Additional nominations will be accepted from the floor, after which the election will be held. The featured speaker for the evening will be Michael Labanowski, Account Representative for Microsoft. Mike operates out of Tampa, and is a frequent caller to our BBS, where he helps answer questions and solve problems. Mike's expertise covers Microsoft's Word, Multiplan, Chart, Fortran, MS-DOS, and all other Microsoft products. The regular meeting will be preceded by the sixth installment of the BASIC tutorial, beginning at 7:30 PM. The regular meeting is slated for 8:00. FOR OUT-OF-THE-AREA READERS Unless otherwise stated, all telephone numbers shown in Boca Bits are within Area Code 305, and all addresses are in the state of Florida. MAILING ADDRESS: PC Users Group of Boca Raton P. O. Box 273421 Boca Raton, FL 33427 MEMBERSHIP MEETING MINUTES DECEMBER 20, 1984 Rich Sandell, Acting Secretary The PC Users Group of Boca Raton held its regular monthly meeting on Thursday, December 20, 1984, in the Lecture Hall of the Library at the College of Boca Raton. The meeting was preceded by a BASIC tutorial session, presented by Larry Clark, which began at 7:30 PM. Chairman Rich Sandell called the meeting to order at 8:00 P.M. The following announcements were made: New Members were invited to sign up at the front desk. Copies of the December issue of Boca Bits copies were not brought to meeting, but will be mailed to new members. From information in the Group's data base, we have identified 14 Special Interest Groups. The groups (and chairpersons, where assigned) are: Business Applications (Carl Conrad, 429-3220) Word Processing Stock Management (Tony Pace, 368-9532) Languages (Jay Gerhard, 392-2279) Communications (Jan Merle, 748-9149) Data Base (Doug Graybill, 994-4987) Spreadsheets (Steve Tolces, 392-4387) Graphics Education Beginners (Karen Leeman, 496-0135) Hardware Games Home Uses (Norma Wilderman, 391-6482) Networking Anyone interested in joining a SIG should contact the SIG Chairman (or volunteer to chair a group by contacting the PCUG Chairman). The Nominating Committee, consisting of Chairman Rich Sandell, Phyllis Rogers, and Peter Woytovech, presented its slate of officers for 1985 as specified by the Bylaws. The nominees are: Chairman - Rich Sandell; Vice- Chairman - Peter Woytovech; Secretary - Morris Haber; Treasurer - Howard Dunn; Board Members - Duff Kampion, Larry Clark, and Doug Graybill. Lenny Bayer of the Future Works in Miami has offered free meeting space in their facility at 200 S. Miami Ave. Phone 376-8800. We received a letter from Daniel Rosensweig of Ziff-Davis Publishing, offering User Group discounts on PC and PC Tech Journal. One year subscriptions are offered at $20 for PC (26 issues), and $17 for the Tech Journal (12 issues). [Use the order form on page 7 of this issue of Boca Bits to take advantage of this special offer.] Lenny Samila at Radio Shack called to repeat his offer of a 10% member discount on Radio Shack equipment. Higher discounts can be arranged for volume purchases. Anthony Silva, from Computer Rentals in Miami, presented a short talk on the products and services offered by his company. Chris Axthelm, with The Software Group, presented the integrated program Enable. The meeting was adjourned to at approximately 9:45. Members then gathered in the lab for further work. BOARD MEETING: An attempt to convene a Board meeting following the general meeting failed, due to the lack of a quorum. CLASSIFIED ADS Amdek 300G green graphics monitor with warranty, $80. RF adapter allows connecting PC color card to a TV, $20. Jack Wilderman, 391-6482. Modems: Hayes SmartModem (300 baud), $125. Mura MM100 "DumbModem" (300 baud, but you do the dialing), $60. Larry Clark, 487-3736. Computers: Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 4, two drives, RS-232. Also, Model 100 lap portable, and NEC 8201 lap portable. All like new. Any reasonable offer accepted. Larry Clark, 487-3736. MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN Rich Sandell Pending the results of the January election, this may be my final message as Chairman. In any case, I thank all those who have given their time, energy, and talent to help the club grow and develop as it has, especially thru the last half of 1984. With our fast rate of growth, it should be evident to all of us that this continued effort is needed. I especially want to thank those individuals who have spontaneously helped each month to man the table out front for new memberships, etc. The names are too numerous to mention here. Just thank the ladies (and some gentlemen) the next time you come to a meeting. The Board of Directors has not been as effective as I would have hoped. Due to Bob Bokelman's unfortunate illness, work and travel demands on Abbott Frank, Morris Haber, Steve Tolces and Ken Griffin, there have been virtually no "legal" Board meetings (with five Directors present) for the entire year. For the most part, we have gotten as far as we have on the shoulders of just a few individuals. The question has been put to me many times, "What would the club do if 'so-and-so' left?" Needless to say this was a great concern as the Nominating Committee went over the list of volunteers for office for the new year. Volunteering in itself does not get a job done. In fact, many times the frivolities of a few can easily distract from the good efforts of many. I am very pleased with the effort of the Nominating Committee, and heartily endorse the proposed slate of officers. I am convinced that, if elected, they will put forth the kind of effort needed to manage the continued growth I expect the club to enjoy. As a nominee for office thru 1985, I am anticipating an explosion in activity and progress to eclipse even the phenomenal triumph of this past year. Incorporation will be just one of the pressing issues which must be addressed for the protection of all concerned. The maturity and experience that this slate represents should be, with the support of the membership at large, just what the doctor ordered to carry this group into 1986 with a membership in excess of 1000 members, and a sound basis for all the years ahead. THANK YOU. LIBRARIAN'S COLUMN Dorie Woytovech As the new librarian, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Dorie Woytovech. I hope to do as good a job as Bill Schneiderman did! I'm currently working on an up-to-date list of the programs that are in the Group's library, and plan to get that list on a diskette so that it will be available for anyone to make his own copy or to buy a copy. If you have public-domain programs, please share them with the rest of the Group by giving a copy to the Librarian after the next meeting. If you have questions about any public-domain program or have done reviews on any software, I would like to hear from you! Contact me after meetings or write to me at the Group's mailing address. New additions to the library: PIANOMAN - Turns your PC into a piano. Rating: Better than most. STATGRAPHICS - Statistical analysis demo. FANSI-CONSOLE - Fast ANSI X3.64 terminal driver for PC. Rating: Better than ANSI.SYS. WRITE FOR BOCA BITS We actively solicit articles, comments, or questions for publication in Boca Bits. Please send all submissions to: P.O. Box 273421 Boca Raton, FL 33427 Deadline for next issue: January 29 EXCHANGE DISKETTES The Exchange is a monthly publication of IBM's User Group Support Department. It contains recent announcements from IBM, along with articles of general interest from other user-group newsletters. The December 1984 Exchange is supplied on two diskettes, and requires DOS 2.00 or higher, 128K bytes of memory and two double sided disk drives. Copies of Exchange diskettes are available in the Group's program library. Software articles in the December issue include: o Assembly Language Filter Program; o Copying and Sorting PC Directories; o Delimiting BASIC Files with CONFIG.SYS; o Faster Pipes; o Hints on Using DOS SHELL and COMMAND commands; o More on the SHELL Command; o Computing Theory-Artificial Intelligence. New Product Announcements include: o Writing Private Tutor Courses, a book for those who want to create their own courses for use with Private Tutor Version 2.00; o Capitalization Skills, Punctuation Skills, Spelling Skills and Language Skills in the Private Tutor series; o Information about Turtle Power Thinker's Guide and the Turtle Power Activity Book. New users will find the articles about BASIC's COLOR and LOCATE Statements, File Handling Techniques and Batch Files to be of special interest. An in-line demo and a description of five programs from the new series of software arcade-style games for the PC is also included on the diskettes. There is a 60-question survey of IBM PC users which provides an opportunity for you to contribute information about your experiences with the PC system, hardware and software. The results of this survey will help in the development of package libraries for new IBM PC products. Take a few minutes and tell IBM directly what you have on your mind! SOFTWARE REVIEW: PRETTYPRINTER Phyllis Rogers BASIC programs which are a mass of data in the normal state become easier to read and manage after being formatted by the program PrettyPrinter and run through its companion program, CrossReference. The program helps by printing your BASIC program so that it is easier to read and to understand. PrettyPrinter: o changes BASIC keywords to lowercase, but leaves variables in uppercase so that they are easier to distinguish; o makes several statements in one line easier to read; o assists in making unstructured BASIC into a more structured form when using IF...THEN...ELSE statements and FOR...WHILE loops; o highlights whole-line remarks as well as remarks placed at the end of BASIC statements; and o separates remarks before a BASIC program. With PrettyPrinter you can choose left and right margins, print with or without paging with your choice of heading in four print sizes, two line spacings and two print intensities. A free trial version of PrettyPrinter is available in our library for you to examine. The trial version allows you to utilize only two print sizes and one intensity, and you must choose options from the menu every time you run the program for a BASIC program up to 99 lines. The trial program disk contains examples of the program which gives the prospective buyer a better understanding of the program. For those who program in BASIC, this $39 program might be just what you need to make life a bit easier. Order from: PCTools, Inc. Box 207 Centreville, MD 21617 Specify memory size, DOS version and disk drive specifications. BIT-TWIDDLING WHAT? 256K CHIPS IN MY XT??? Pete the Hacker Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. If you have ever wanted to free up that last slot on your XT or just wanted to get rid of those 256K memory boards, or if you want to upgrade your XT past 256K and did not want to purchase a board to do it, you can do it now. It's is as easy as this: Just take your XT system board out of the chassis, put one jumper on, put in one new chip, and presto, your XT can now take up to two banks of 256K chips and two banks of 64K chips to give you 640K without using an additional memory board taking those valuable slots. To get more technical, it goes like this: 1. Remove your XT's system board by taking out all of your plug-in boards. 2. Take the two screws out holding the board in, disconnect the power supply plugs while doing so. 3. After taking the board out, look for the empty socket on the board marked U58. In this socket put either a 74LS157 or a 74LS158--it doesn't matter which. 4. Along the edge of the board, you will find a jumper spot marked E4. It consists of a small rectangular area with the numbers 1 through 4 near each of the four small solder holes. 5. Solder a jumper wire between hole 1 and 2, shorting them out. 6. Now take out the memory in the first two banks of ram chips on the system board, marked row 0 and row 1, even if you are only putting in one bank of 256K chips. 7. Put one or two banks of 256K chips in the empty sockets in row 0 and row 1, making sure you get all of the chips in correctly. NOTE: Only put 256K chips in the first two banks, and only put 64K chips in the last two banks. 8. Now the system board switches that are for memory selection are changed in meaning. The four possible positions used to mean there was either 64K, 128K, 192K, or 256K installed on the system board. Now they represent 256K, 512K, 576K, or 640K. 9. Put your system back together, and rejoice as it now goes to 640K on the screen without any memory boards. That's all folks. You now have 640K on the system board. Just one new part, one jumper wire, 256K chips, and you have it all, as well as having two sets of 64K chips to sell to your neighbor for enough to help pay for those 256K chips you just bought. You can get 256K chips for about $25 each, or about $225 for a set of 9, (or $450 for a set of 18, which gives you 640K with two sets of old 64K chips). That's about what you'd pay for an add-on memory board with only 256K on it! You can have your cake and eat it, too. The wonderful place where you can get these chips is from Richard Sandell, our beloved Chairman. WARNING: Do not install this modification on your machine if it is still in warranty, as IBM will not fix it. IBM has not said whether they will fix machines with this modification after the warranty has expired, but since it was easy to put in, it is easy to take out if you have problems. If service is required, and it involves a memory problem, try removing this modification, and see if the problem persists. This mod has not damaged in any way any of the four machines I have modified, so have fun, and enjoy your 640K XT. LOCAL BULLETIN BOARDS 483-7436 PCUG-BR RBBS (Michael Higgs, SysOp), Boca Raton: 24 hrs, 300/450/1200,N,8,1. 742-6868 South Florida Computer Group (Doug Elkins, SysOp), Ft. Lauderdale: 24 hrs. 393-3891 FAU Town Crier, Boca Raton: 300,E,7,1. 994-9626 Pope John Paul II H.S., Boca Raton: 4 PM-7 AM weekdays, 24 hrs weekends, 300/1200,N,8,1. (At other times, this is a voice line.) Connection Note: Many systems require 2-3 carriage returns after connection to determine speed and parity before they will respond. BASIC PRACTICE Glenn Strickland Writing BASIC programs is like almost any other acquired ability. The human animal learns by doing. And, by making mistakes. You can mentally know all there is to riding a bicycle but you'll never be a good rider before you have fallen off at least a hundred times. Our big blue godmother, IBM, knows this and has provided us with playtoys that are almost impossible to break without using an ax. Remember, you can always turn the damn thing off and start over. Later on, much later on, you will even learn how to deliberately write errors into your programs to get special effects. Speaking of special effects, you should reserve one or more diskettes to hold illustrations of how to do things. I call these diskettes of mine my "scrapboxes." For example, I have a program called LINES.BAS that is nothing but illustrations of ways to emphasize displayed lines. It shows how you can make a line start somewhere, say at the bottom of a page, and climb into position. Other lines illustrate underlining, reverse coloring, blinking of all or part of the line, boxing in the lines, etc. It's much easier to refer to my scrapbox than to the manual to find out how to make a line stand out. Other programs hold scraps of music, illustrate the use of the random number generator--anything that I might want later for a program I want to write. The BASIC manual is a wonderful book after you have learned to write BASIC. As an instruction book for beginners, it stinks. The best way to learn BASIC is by doing. But, you need NOT start by writing programs yourself. Pick up a few of the shorter public-domain programs from the club library and you can find a lot to work on. Take some of these and rewrite them, a little at a time, and try to make them more presentable. Take the program XMAS.BAS, for example. It has eight musical parts. I did not touch the music, but I rewrote the lines that are displayed on the screen to center them and also added a way to leave the program. Then, I added a few internal lines of BASIC so I can select, not just one song at a time, but almost any number, in any sequence, like making selections on a juke box. There is the "secret" of how to get started fast with BASIC. Don't reinvent the wheel. Take short public domain programs and rewrite them to suit yourself. Personalize them. Extract any special effects and sounds you like and put them in your scrapbox. Cut the programs up and patch them together the way Phyllis edits the copy for this bulletin to make viewable material out of the mishmash she receives. And, someday, when you want some special program and can't find one, you will find yourself writing it yourself. SOFTWARE LIBRARY Members are encouraged to examine the the group's library of public- domain and user-supported diskettes. New programs are added each month, so there is something for everyone. Diskettes containing programs are on sale after each meeting in the computer lab for $2 each. A list of programs is available for inspection at each meeting. In addition, we have notebooks containing information about the following topics: Club Information; Newsletters; Membership List; Bylaws; Bulletin Board; and Club Correspondence. If you have written programs that you would like to share with other users, give Dorie a copy on a diskette and she will place it in the library. PCjr HOTLINE Call 1-800-222-PCjr for information about PCjr. Call 1-800-IBM-PCjr to locate your nearest authorized dealer. PLAYBOY: READ THE ARTICLES, TOO Along with the pictures, February's Playboy contains an extensive interview with Steve Jobs of Apple Computers. His views differ from the usual IBM party line, but provide food for thought. Sample quote: "If IBM wins, we're going to enter a computer Dark Ages for about 20 years." TREASURER'S REPORT Rich Sandell, Acting Treasurer Old Balance (corrected) ......................1235.13 Diskette/ribbon sales..........512.00 New Memberships................190.00 Renewals........................30.00 Total Receipts ................................732.00 Postage.........................60.00- Ribbons........................354.58- Total Disbursements ...........................414.58- New Balance ..................................1552.55 MAGAZINE DISCOUNTS OFFERED Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. is offering a substantial discount to members of the PC Users Group of Boca Raton on PC and PC Tech Journal. To take advantage of this offer, enclose the form below (or a copy), along with your payment. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Daniel Rosensweig Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. One Park Avenue, 4th Floor New York, NY 10016 In accordance with the offer extended through the PC Users Group of Boca Raton, please enter/extend my subscriptions as shown below. Title Regular Group ( ) PC 1 year - 26 issues $ 34.97 20.00 ( ) New ( ) Renewal ( ) PC Tech 1 year - 12 issues $ 29.97 17.00 ( ) New ( ) Renewal NAME: ___________________________________________________________ ADDRESS: ________________________________________________________ CITY: __________________________ STATE: ________ ZIP: _________ If you are renewing a current subscription, please enclose your mailing label. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - SPECIAL MEMBER PRICES Diskettes Blank............................................2.00 Blank, 10 or more................................1.50 With library programs............................2.00 Printer ribbons Epson 70/80 & IBM 5152, black....................3.00 Epson 70/80 & IBM 5152, color....................5.00 NEC PC 8023A, black..............................3.50 Epson 100, black.................................4.50 ADVERTISING RATES ISSUES SIZE 1 3 6 12 Full Page $ 40 $100 $160 $240 1/2 page $ 30 $ 75 $120 $180 1/4 page $ 20 $ 50 $ 80 $120 Business Card $ 12 $ 30 $ 48 $ 72 (All rates are for camera-ready copy.) Flyer insertions: $30 per page (8.5 x 11"). Non-commercial classified ads for computer-related merchandise are published, subject to space availability, at no charge to members.