Wednesday, December 19, 1984, SINCUS meet at the Chase/Lincoln Branch on the Vestal Parkway corner Murray Hill Road, Vestal, NY at 7pm. 23 members attending.
A proposed change in dues and number of newsletters for corresponding members was passed. The dues go from $6/10 issues to $8/12 issues. Postage increases plus we are producing a monthly letter instead of 10 a year necessitates the increase.
Bulk tape sales continues to go well, as well as advertising for the newsletter.
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
We started a consumer hot line for our members this past spring and have dealt with one problem, and settled it agreeably to all concerned. Lately we have been getting reports on one business -Phoenix- of Dover, Del. and while no one has lost money, the complaints are of slow delivery and rude and poor [illegible]vice. We don’t wish problems on any one, but as the number of [illegible]laints grow so does our concern.
AGAIN OUR SNOW EMERGENCY PROCEDURE
If the Broome County Sheriff declares “Emergency Travel Only” our meet will be cancelled that night…however with the number of meetings planned over the next three and 1/2 months, I doubt anybody will miss much.
CARL TERRY SERVICE AWARD
The first ANNUAL CARL TERRY SERVICE AWARD was voted by the society’s officers to be given to that member, not an officer, who makes exceptional contributions throughout the year. This first award, a plaque and a year’s membership, was given to Wes Brzozowski. Wes, from almost day one of SINCUS, has given talks, written articles and conducted classes. Much thanks Wes, this is long over due.
SINCUS BUYS STUFF and DOES STUFF
A proposal to purchase the Buyers Guide for $20 from D. Lipinski Software,2737 Susquehanna Rd., Roslyn, PA 19001 by the society was made and passed. This catalog of current retail outlets in the US is supposed to be updated and will be at meetings for your information.
A proposal to purchase a Spectrum ROM for the society was made and passed. The ROM will be used by Wes Brzozowski to test feasiblity of a design for an upcoming society project.
We will hold classes in basic soldering and assembly of PC [illegible]rds in January. See schedule on cover for HARDWARE/1000. [illegible]is Dale who has given such instruction at his employment has offered to lead the group.
The member users of 81s, 1000s, 1500s have not been forgotten The meetings set up at the Vestal Library for HARDWARE/1000 will be used to get the 1000 users working on their own projects and classes and hopefully articles for the newsletter. There are a lot of resources within the society for 1000 users.
For those interested in Machine Code, write
ZILOG,INC.
ATTN: TECH PUBLICATION Z80 CPU
1315 Dell Avenue
Campbell, CA 95008
Ask for “Programmer’s Reference Guide,Z80 CPU” publication # 03-0012-02
Wes demoed “THE HOBBIT”, an adventure game by which all other British adventure games are measured. I only saw a little and it is worth getting a ROM to see this one! Wes talked a little on the LOAD procedure, “most headers on commercial programs have the normal 1500 or so cycles of which your 2068 needs only 256, right after the 256 cycles comes a little spike with the info which tells what follows, a program or bytes. The British in an attempt to foil copying have left off the header. The info for the computer comes at the end of the tape loading.”…to use British programs you’ll need a Spectrum ROM-about $20 or a Spectrum Emulator ($60) or the ROM Switch ($55). Each has it’s advantage as previously covered in earlier SINCUS NEWS.”
Dave Schoenwetter gave an update on the local BBS situation, another clown is erasing all messages on the local BBS, apparently another jerk is mad because the clown is using his handle. This has gotta be a real selling point on modems!
If you’re buried up to your cursor in snow over the next couple months, come on down to the classes, and the hardware projects, learn a little, meet some good folks and have a good time. See you there.
Also I’ve been looking for a good short and sweet input routine to filter out the wrong inputs,so far I like this:
100 PRINT "Enter 1 or 2"
110 LET a$=INKEY$: LET a= CODE a$
120 IF a <>49 AND a <> 50 THEN GO TO 110
130 PRINT a$I like it for menu handling and short of hitting the BREAK key you don’t stop the program, with wrong inputs.