This issue is another one that took some time to come together. I have spent part of the last two months beating my head against a single program. I have been working on a C version of my Cellular Automata program. After I finally found a decent random number generator, I made some changes to the generator that caused it to die. Looking in the documentation about the Small C floating point library, I could not find an answer.
After a few dents in the old forehead, I mailed a copy of the program to Herb Schaaf. He found the problem in an instant. It seems that the documentation of the Small C library is WRONG. The details about the fmove() function are reversed. The two arguements should be switched to get the desired effects. After the change, the program worked (at least until I took out a few more bugs).
Last issue I wrote about Software Patenting and an article in Dr. Doob’s Journal. After I read the article, I wrote a letter to the editor (along with numberous others). In the June issue, I noticed that a letter to the editor sounded sort of familiar. Then it dawned on me, “Hey, I wrote that.” It’s sort of neat to have your name in a national publication.
I’m not the only QL’er that has had the same experience. Herb Schaaf had a letter to the editor printed up in the C User’s Journal. If you know of any other’s (yourself included), please let me know.
I’m sure most of you are members of some Sinclair group, but just in case you are not, you might be interested to know that there is a new publication/group in SinclairLand. Don Lambert and Bob Swoger have broken off from the lethargic SNUG group and formed a new TSNUG group. Don was bothered that the newsletter he put together for SNUG was not being distributed. He decided to grab the bull by the horns and start off on his own, with help from Bob.
I suggest we (being QLer’s) support the new group and it’s energetic “motivator.” The group should help to bring the various Sinclair groups together into a tighter community. As time goes on, our community is shrinking and we need to support each other into the coming years.
That’s about all I have to say for now. Hope you enjoy the issue.