I would like to apologize for the mix up on time of the Meet scheduled on January 26-the newsletter said 10 am ,it was supposed to be 1 pm-I did not notice it until about 1:45 pm at the library, when Dave Schoenwetter pointed out to Gary Ennis that several people had showed up at 10 am. I am sorry to those who had gone out in this weather for zip-I talked with Dennis Dale who was to lead the instruction amd he hopes that those interested will come to the next instruction in February, and he has a lot of items to show and will go beyond soldering into the world of wire-wrap. Again, sorry about the mix-up in meeting time. In the future, should a time or date be in question call me ([phone number omitted]) or Gary ([phone number omitted]) –Paul Hill
SINCUS met at 7pm on Tuesday, January 15 at the Vestal Public Library for programming class, and at 7pm, Wednesday January 16 at the Chase-1st City Bank, Vestal Parkway at Murray Hill Road, Vestal, for the regular monthly meeting, 18 attended. Please note it was 3 degrees out when the meeting ended at 10pm.
The D. Lipinski “Software Buyers Guide to Sinclair Timex Products and Services” arrived in the mail just before the meet. A list at the meets will be posted-if you want to use the Guide-sign up-keep it 5 days and pass it on to next on the list. Your name and phone number and its up to you to call the next one on the list, last one brings it to the next meeting.
Glenn Wilson, Treasurer, made the annual report for 1984. His efforts in the visual aids made clear where all the money comes from and goes to. The books are always available to any member for inspection. Thank you, Glenn.
Gary Ennis, President, needed shoppers for prices on printer paper and mailing labels. Format for the newsletter is now 64 columns. We are going with a new printer- a couple bucks more, but hopefully easier to read-and closer to Gary’s home. Gary was driving 120 miles a month just on the newsletter production.
Dennis Dale will be giving classes in basic soldering and wire wrap. We have a lot of scrap parts to practice with over the next couple months, so if you’re interested, come on down. That will be at the Vestal Public Library , 1pm, Sunday, Feb.24, TV room.
SPECIAL OFFER
COMPUTER SHOPPER is offering a 6 month rate of $5 thru user groups. We have the special subscription cards and will ha[illegible] them at the next three meetings. All members will find the basi[illegible] information in this issue, offer expires 7-31-85 make your check out to COMPUTER SHOPPER for $5.00 and either turn it in at the meeting or (so corresponding members CAN participate) mail it to SINCUS, P.O. Box 36, Johnson City, New York 13790. Act now as the COMPUTER SHOPPER is trying hard to support Sinclair products
Charlie Keoth demoed as promised his 2068 with clock. With his set up, 2068, modem, Gorilla Banana, and interfaces, Charlie included a clock chip. The idea came from an article in Computer & Electonics,”Fail-Safe,Real-Time Clock for the TRS-80 by John V C. Mein. Due to the differences in hardware between the TRS-80 and the 2068, several changes had to be made. Using Dave Schoenwetter’s(SINCUS)design for a centronics interface, Charlie built the interface with a MSM5832 clock/calendar. He also rewrote programming for updating and reading the clock for the 2068. With a flip chart of the project showing the planning that you should put into any worthwhile project, he may keep one or two of us from stubbing our toes on similiar problems.
Clyde Tackley brought in his Byte-Back modem and some tapes of messages off Compuserve. He demoed how to down load programs from Compuserve. Uploading is also possible. In addition to the the modem you also get a RS232 interface.
From “Computers & Electronics” (2/85) , Rumors & Gossi[illegible] …Sinclair seems to be developing a new microprocessor chip with parallel processing and RAM on board…don’t look for it before 1989.
Gary Ennis posted a bulletin on Compuserve about Dave’s Phone patch in SINCUS NEWS- we got several new members as a result! Dave’s revising the code-it was supposed to be read across the page, but some read down. It creates a small problem with auto-dial and Dave is working on that plus rewriting the code to a data statement.
Last month I wrote my favorite filtering statement for menus and keeping the program from crashing-I got some input from Gary and Dave on this one-Dave had this
10 PRINT " MENU SELECT 1 or 2 "
20 IF INKEY$ = "1" THEN GOTO (or GOSUB) Line number
30 If INKEY$ = "2" THEN GOTO " " " "
40 GOTO 10Gary this:
10 PRINT "MENU SELECT 1 or 2"
20 LET Z$=INKEY$
30 IF Z$<"1"OR Z$ > "2" THEN GOTO 10My final choice:
10 PRINT "MENU SELECT 1 or 2 "
20 IF INKEY$ <> "1" AND INKEY$ <> "2" THEN GOTO 10From this I learned:
1. If you use letters-with the 2068 you gotta set up for caps or lower case or poke 23658,8 and then a 0 when done. So use #’s.
2. The number of bytes saved is half-my old choice last month [illegible]r this month’s.
3. Any body who has done this has a better way…
I’d like to hear of any others. Also found out via Gary that the Invalid color is a default error. Thanks Gary.
Default? (Gary’s note-what it says when it has no other answer?)
From SINCUS member, Art Mortensen,NYC- Art dropped a note with some ideas and some questions…he tapped the 2068’s speaker via a mini-jack he put next to the momitor port-also put a 10K 1 watt resistor at the jack as out put is on the high side. He would like to know about the Timex Tech Manual’s listing for 64 columns-would any one care to write an article how how to read the Tech-Manual? I’d suggest Jeff Mazur’s Intermediate-Advanced Guide as warm up material. Any one know of disc interfaces under $300 with drive?Any better keyboard for the 2068 ? Channel your answers to the newsletter so all can learn. Art has several books on the 1000, 16K RAM, 1000 software he would like to trade for Vu-File and Vu-Calc cartridges. Contact me for details.
Welcome to new members-John Mattimore and Ted Scarinzi (local) and Jack Roberts of Cincinnati, ,Ohio; Art Mortensen of NY,NY; Richard Martin of San Antonio, Texas; and Ed Lanctot of Norwood ,NY; (corresponding).
[illegible] view from here is-GREAT-our membership locally and nationally is growing-the number of businesses supporting our computers is GROWING or we are becoming more aware of the numbers as our newsletter reaches out and the swap/newsletters come in. A year ago all was very dim with a watch company pulling the plug on our support system-but our light ain’t out yet! The best is yet to come, if we don’t screw up meeting dates or shoot ourselves in the cursor-we’ll be around !
Paul Hill,Rec Secty
SINCUS