Welcome to the first issue; the second year of Carol and I publishing UPDATE Magazine. The first year was fun, educational, and at times frustrating. We lived through it and were glad for the experience. Now we are solidly decided to give it a go for the second year. Our subscribers have at least another three issues, besides this one , to look forward to. If you have not yet renewed, or have mysteriously received this copy in your mailbox, then please take the time to send in your check or money order at this time. This is not a high profit enterprise and is solely supported by your subscriptions. This goes for dealers also and for those who advertise in UPDATE. The ads may be for free or on an exchange basis, but the magazine is not. Whew!! now that I have all that nasty reminder stuff out of the way, let us get down to the fun part of articles, programs and ads. The best part of all of this is that with what I have waiting in the wings, the next issue looks to be even better.
At this time I am going to take a look at some of the items that our readers have said they would like to appear in the pages of UPDATE Magazine. I hope this will inspire many of you to write in with articles, hints, tips and programs to answer these requests. All of these answers are out there amongst you, the readers. So far, to the best of my knowledge all such requests have been answered prior to this.
Jean-Claude Touzin writes saying that he was buying a Hewlett Packard Laser Jet III and would like to see information concerning the use of Laser Printers with the Sinclair QL. I know that Bill Cable has a laser printer, and that Text 87 has been run with a laser printer driver (Peter Hale of EMSoft is a great source for this). Perhaps one of you, or someone unknown to me can answer this one.
This is one we really need to improve on…Alvin E. Bicht asks for more printed programs for the QL. He also asks for us to discuss the exact meaning of the terms “track” and “sector” relative to disk drives. A very thorough explanation of these terms is found in the Digital Precision manual for Solution and for their program, Super Media Manager. Perhaps someone could do a synopsis of this subject for us. It would also be a good place to discuss why there are so many different disk formats and in what way some of them differ. Any takers on this one?
Here is one I would like to see an answer on myself. Anthony Trice asks that we get a section put in the magazine for the readers to ask TECHNICAL QUESTIONS. The request he had was to hear from someone who was using a colour printer with the QL. Since I have two printers capable of colour myself, I have to agree that an article on this would be most welcome. Also this would be good for the Z88 and the TS2068.
I ran across a note that was sent to me by one of our departed subscribers, Marinus W. Heuseveldt. He had said to tell Larken Ramdisk users that Chips # LH52256L-12 by Sharp of Japan also work well in the Larken Ramdisk board. He also sent a long list of items he wanted to see in print, and I wish that he had lived long enough to see this happen. He wanted to see: (1) Transferring Text and Data programs from TS2068 to the QL. (2) Transferring from TS2068 to MSDOS. (3) Networking two TS2068s, without the use of a twister board and Interface Ones. (4) Using the TS2068 as a slave computer (co-processor) to the QL. He also wanted to see a method of linking a TS1000 to a QL. Here are several challenges for our readers to come up with the answers on.
Lawrence P. Sauter asks “does anybody have a disk header reader for the Oliger Disk Drive System?” I bet this is one that Bill Pedersen will be able to answer. Bill has recently acquired an Oliger Disk Interface to accompany his Larken.
Jim Bretz wrote to say that he wanted to see more TS2068 projects. He also said he would have a payroll program coming. He also said for us not to forget the ZX81/TS1000. They make great controllers. Controller projects anyone? You send it, and if it works, we will publish it. We could put some of these hundreds of thousands of TS1000s back to work and lessen the computer unemployment line. He also says that he has a modem, but no one to call and says that we should start a BBS. I have to confess that I have thought of doing this, but wondered about the time to maintain the SYSOP side of this. I am open to suggestions.
Bob Mitchell of Ontario Canada had written saying he wanted us to provide TS2068 listings with 32 column layout and with short lines that were preferably not more than 100 characters or so, as otherwise cursor movement is slow and that pesky delete key becomes a headache. These are both points well taken and I hope our writers take heed.
Tom E. Bair wrote saying that he has Wordliner and Typeliner and was having a problem with it. He has auto linefeed on his printer OFF, loads !custom and reset the linefeed from 10 to 0 and still gets double line spacing. He is using an Aerco interface and has verified with the correct PEEK that it is in use. HELP! Someone send both Tom and us the answer. I wonder what printer he is using? He can be reached at [address omitted].
John Shepard III wants to see a tutorial series on getting graphics programs such as DTP, Tech Draw Jr. etc. to run on all printers. This would allow those who have a printer that does not have much support to be able to make use of all of our intensive graphics programs. This is a tall order, but John is correct in the need for such a series.