CCP/M Meeting Notes, 05/88 Next Meetings:  ¨ CCP/M and YOU joint meeting. TUESDAY, May 17, 1988.  ¨ American Cross in Farmington, CT 6:30 PM - 10:00 ¨ PM. Topic: BASIC computer programming. Tom Veile ¨ is co-ordinating this. I will have several new ¨ disks of games written in BASIC (and Pascal) on ¨ Royal formatted disks and some of the discussion ¨ could center on how these games were written, ¨ work, need to be modified to run on Osborne and ¨ Kaypro etc. CCP/M: TUESDAY, June 21. Newington Public ¨ Library (Tentative - I still need to ask and make ¨ sure it's available) Topic: TBD. Any ideas?  ¨ Maybe we ought to bake a cake and have a summer ¨ birthday party! Note: This is the THIRD Tuesday ¨ in June. I think YOU is meeting on June 14 th at ¨ the Lutheran Church in West Hartford for the ¨ Prodigy product. The JUNE meeting of CCP/M will take place at a new ¨ location, the Newington Public Library in ¨ Newington. It will be on the THIRD Tuesday, not ¨ the usual second Tuesday. This switch (in day) ¨ was suggested by the SECOND Tuesday date the ¨ Yankee Osborne Users have chosen for their Prodigy ¨ meeting. (Prodigy is a new GEnie/Source-like ¨ electronic shopping etc. service which will be ¨ demonstrated at the YOU June xx meeting which will ¨ take place at Daryl's Lutheran Church. The ¨ Newington library has recently been ¨ renovated and will provide the group a good place ¨ to meet. The library is on Cedar Street.  ¨ Directions elsewhere in this newsletter. Topic:  ¨ TBD. Any suggestions?  ¨ The WordStar meeting was very well attended. Ray ¨ Gentle followed up on Al Bolton's Wordstar on the ¨ Royal installation problems and called MicroPro ¨ who suggested starting from the generic version ¨ instead of the Osborne version. The meeting had ¨ both experts and newcomers and once again I ¨ personally feel the needs of those there were not ¨ fully met. More planning needs to go into these ¨ gatherings. I am looking forward to the upcoming ¨ BASIC meeting at the American Red Cross in ¨ Farmington (directions elsewhere). Al Hathway, ¨ Tom Veile, Ray Gentle and I have all indicated ¨ they will conduct Tutorial Session on BASIC.  ¨ We'll have Royals, Osborne, Kaypro and other ¨ compueters on hand. Bring your questions and ¨ bring your answers. What do you know about BASIC?  ¨ What don't you know about BASIC? See you there. Echelon Inc. is going thru some changes. Joe ¨ Wright and Frank Gaude are working on some ¨ differences they have on who owns what apparently.  ¨ I called the Echelon number and found that it's ¨ not in service. I then called Joe Wright and was ¨ able to order for $69.95 his NZCOM. I didn't ¨ think he wanted to talk about what is going on ¨ with Echelon so I did not ask. He personally is ¨ shipping NZCOM (his dynamically reconfigurable ¨ auto installing ZCPR34/ZRDOS operating system for ¨ all CP/M compatibles - I can't wait to get it).  ¨ His address and number are: Alpha Systems Corp, ¨ 711 Chatsworth Place, San Jose, CA 95128  ¨ Telephone: (408) 297-5594 . Howard Goldstein ¨ (CCP/M) sent the files written by Joe which made ¨ the Echelon situation known to me. I called Jim ¨ Thompson (to get a copy of the latest Z-News, ¨ which I later discovered I had on my RCP/M) and ¨ found that Jim was not aware of these inner ¨ rumblings. I also indicated to Jim that I had ¨ indicated to Joe that I was interested in having ¨ him come to Connecticut for a second Z-Festival.  ¨ And that I would like him (Jim) to be a part of ¨ the planning effort. I feel we need to do more to ¨ make Z System known to our members and will be ¨ working in the coming months on a plan to do just ¨ this. I think NZCOM will help, because it will ¨ run on any CP/M machine without installation. I ¨ feel one of the major blocks to the spreading of ¨ ZCPR3 etc. has been the complexity and extent of ¨ the knowledge required to implement it on a given ¨ machine. Jim made a remark which interested me. ¨ The best way I can paraphrase it would be ¨ something like "The reason Z isn't taking off is ¨ that there are only a few Self Starters in the ¨ group." He may be right. I don't know. I ¨ personally am absolutely fascinated by the ¨ advances and utility of Z System. And all it took ¨ for me was a 44k .LBR file with ZCPR3 installed ¨ for the Kaypro and Tom Chesley, Jeff Moore and Jim ¨ Thompson. I was hooked forever.  ¨ Which may mean all we need to do for the Royal and ¨ the 128 and Osborne and Kaypro etc. owner for ¨ example is show them NZCOM and then it's theirs ¨ (for $69.95 this time.) There's so much to do... Royal F1/F2 drive update. We have at least 5 ¨ people that I think would pay between $150 and ¨ $199 for an F2 or F1 drive for their Royal ¨ computers. John Williams has successfully ¨ assembled and tested an F2. He is building the F1 ¨ controller now. He is very interested in learning ¨ how hot the market is for these drives. RR ¨ Salvage built 20 F2's and as far as I know there ¨ may still be some left. They honored the $138 ¨ price I bought my F2 at (but only recently got).  ¨ I believe they are asking $199 for the F2. If you ¨ want an F1 or F2, make yourself known by either ¨ contacting CCP/M or calling John himself. His ¨ number is (413) 773-8114. I attended the most recent executive meeting of ¨ the Yankee Osborne Users and want to tell you a ¨ little about what happened. It was held at Denny's ¨ Restaurant per usual. Daryl was not there. He had ¨ other committments. Bob Forsberg chaired the ¨ meeting. Much was discussed but the one thing I'd ¨ like to mention was the possibility of having a ¨ joint Picnic which not only included YOU and CCP/M ¨ but also the recently reviving BPMUG and CTHUG.  ¨ My feelings on this: the more the better. Each of ¨ our groups is evolving and I think we need to ¨ jointly pursue the future and its challenges on a ¨ frequent basis. I think the Joint Picnic is a ¨ good way to start this process. What do you think?  ¨ On another matter, a mega issue for members only ¨ was again discussed by Mort Fabricant. It would ¨ contain membership list, library index, financial ¨ report, newsletter index etc. We're still working ¨ on this. Finally, Ray Gentle and I are ¨ considering a joint usage and standard policy for ¨ th CCP/M and YOU PD Software Libraries. There's ¨ been a tremendous amount of excellent material ¨ sent to my Mouse House in the last year which ¨ needs to be incorporated into our library. And ¨ Ray's library has a great deal of material we ¨ don't have. Making this material available and ¨ known to the membership is a top priority project ¨ for both Ray and me. Stay tuned. Help out. Finally, Jim Taylor and I (who represent the ¨ Serafino Restaurant Planning Committee...) are ¨ trying to come up with a Proposed Newsletter ¨ Submission and Planning Policy. PNSPP v. 1 is on ¨ my board as a private file right now (it's called ¨ something else but...) It talks of consistent ¨ categories of news (BASICly FUN, Z News, Meeting ¨ Notes, Pres. Ponderings, For Sale, new PD software ¨ news), submission criteria (on disk if at all ¨ possible, WS 50 col. etc.), deadline, length ¨ limitation etc. Right now, the newsletter is ¨ getting a little ungainly in certain ways and we ¨ need to make it clearer how we are going to run ¨ this publication. Speaking of newsletters, I saw ¨ my first FOGHORN and have borrowed two issues from ¨ Ray Gentle and Bob Forsberg. It's truely a ¨ masterpiece. One of the points made in Daryl ¨ Gehlbach's President's Report and I quote it was: ¨ "I would like to strongly urge CCP/M members to join ¨ FOG and CCP/M to become an AMO. The benefits, ¨ especially at this time, make it well worth the ¨ investment." I agree. I will be recommending to ¨ CCP/M in June that we do become an AMO (Affiliated ¨ Member Organization I believe is what AMO stands ¨ for).  ¨ Gotta run. See you Tuesday, May 17, at the ¨ American Red Cross. Now I got to find the file ¨ REDCROSS.MAP as published in Volume 6 Number 6.  ¨ Finally, you should be getting your official ¨ membership card in this newsletter as created by ¨ Treasurer and BASIC guru Tom Veile if you are a ¨ CCP/M member. If you don't see any blue ¨ membership card, you are either ¨ 1. not a member of CCP/M (action : join!) 2. a member, but card was hand delivered 3. I screwed up and didn't send them to Bob ¨ Forsberg 4. Bob and Walt forgot to put them in the ¨ newsletter 5. It fell out of the newsletter.