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                | Meeting Notes, June/July 1989 |
                +-------------------------------+

     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.

Lee Bradley, ready for Nova Scotia! June 24, 1989

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