It took time, a lot of time, but finally SNUG has been put to bed with the money distributed. I know how much there was but I don’t know how much went where and I will let those that handled the money state that part. We cajoled, begged and pleaded and finally the money moved from Florida and again we worked to get the distribution finished. How much of my own effort contributed to the distribution, I do not know and I won’t even guess at. But it got done regardless of who did what! I do thank everyone that had a hand in the process.
There is action in the T/S community. Sometimes the action becomes known to me. There are still those out there that are wanting more T/S equipment, software and documentation. I write letters to try to point them in the right direction. Occasionally, I do help someone; that is I hear from someone that tells me I helped them. That makes me feel that I am not working alone or writing to a black hole.
One person asked about the A & J stringy floppy for the ZX-81. I had no knowledge of anyone with one, let alone someone that wanted to sell the system. But I did have a CAI (Computer Assisted Instruction) stringy floppy so I got it out to test to see if it still worked. I do believe that I spent more time with it than when I first got it. It works, it is faster than cassette but not anything like a disk system.
I also had a request for some software for the ZX-81, so I checked that out to be sure it would LOAD and it did. But I had to get into my Load Aid and the Transformer Load Aid to do the LOADing successfully.
Another person bought some books and asked about the Load Aid that I had made. I wanted to send him copies but the originals were run by a printer that did not have anything but draft quality and that would not reproduce. Besides, I had to rewrite and re-edit the material to reduce the wordiness and got it correct (I think), sent him copies of that with the book. Incidentally, postage is getting more expensive for packages.
I also ran into an article that I wrote back in 1989 as I worked on a battery backup for the ZX-81. A 12v 2.5 AH gel-cell powered a ZX-81 for over three hours. The battery just powered the ZX-81 not anything else. I am working to get that article retyped for later use if it is deemed worth publication.
I have found that projects are sort of like opening Pandora’s box. You never know what problems you face till you start. Sometimes the problem is not really a problem – that is – it is a matter of not understanding how to do something and you thought it should have been done a different way. Some problems are not solvable so you have to know when to quit. Or to give it to someone else to solve.
On the Timex Operating System “Zebra/Portuguese floppy disk system” the drives are FORMATted as 40-track single sided only or 80-track double sided only. I had mentioned to Jack Dohany that I thought I would use a 5.25″ 40-track single sided drive to be able to use the cheaper disks and a paper punch to make flippies out of the 5.25″ disks. Also an 80-track double sided drive to have that capabilities on 5.25″ disks. When Jack sent me a 64K controller for the TOS he included a pair of half height 5.25″ drives, one was single sided 40-track and the other was a double sided 80-track drive. I always test newly acquired drives with the Oliger disk system since I can use the disk drive test program to check spindle rpm. The drives LOADed with a little difficulty. They FORMATed and SAVEd and could read their own disks. But the 40-track drive had a spindle speed of about 286 or 287 and the 80-track had a speed of about 290. When I checked the disks on drives with the correct spindle speed the LOADs were not accepted.
At the time I was only interested in the 40-track drive, so I looked it over and there was no pot that would adjust the rpm. I called a disk drive repair service in Texas (800 # of course) and learned that 1.) If there was no speed adjust pot that the drive could not be adjusted. 2.) Atari was noted for using drives with an rpm of 288. I junked the drive. There is a pot, but it is located where a major disassembly of the drive is required before you can get at it. If I had not destroyed part of the drive before I discovered that, I might have tried to adjust the rpm. I have, however, a double sided drive to use there. The 80-track drive had a pot and adjustment was a breeze.
I had sent Joan Kealy a package of 3″ disks (some with programs that she might not have and the rest FORMATted) so that she could send me some of her programs. The disks came back, I did try one and the programs LOADed fine. When this newsletter is put to bed, the part I am working on that is, I will get back to it. One of the things that I need to do is make a case for the disk drives that I plan to use in it. I have plans to have one 3″, one 3.5″, one 5.25″ 40-track and one 5.25″ 80-track drive in the case. That means that I will have to figure out the locations of the mounting holes of the drives and the actual drive sizes so that I can mount the drives neatly. There is literature that has that all listed, so when I get that all found I will supply the dimensions for anyone else who wants to make a drive case. In my plans, the drive case is just that, the power supply will be located elsewhere. That is a to-do project when the weather stabilizes so that I can work in the garage. Today is a little on the cool side and is raining. Not a day to cut the case to size outside or to cut the grass.