I want to add a few words about the release of Power Logo 1.3.

My experience with the language began with Power Logo 1.1, which was
unstable but still impressive.  I wrote to Gary Teachout about it, and he
was kind enough to send me Power Logo 1.3 on a disk in November 1992.
Power Logo 1.3 is much more stable and useful than 1.1, although still not
100% bulletproof.  Some of the docs described it as a "beta" release, while
others made no mention of that.  The note in the top directory of the disk
said that everything there is freely distributable.

At the time, I was aware that Power Logo needed a bit more spit and polish
to make it really presentable, such as: WB 2.0 "new look" icons, ASL file
requester, more screen modes, a few more bugs quashed, maybe some extra
primitives for accessing the OS, etc.  I assumed these things were in the
works.  But, months and years dragged by without any further word from Gary
Teachout.  Strangely, I never saw Power Logo 1.3 reaching the Fred Fish
library or AmiNet.  Now it's 1996 and the highest version of Power Logo
most people have seen is still the flaky v1.1 release.

So, I have decided to take matters into my own hands.  I can't update Power
Logo myself without the source code, or without Gary's permission since he
does own the beast.  But, I can repackage it and tart it up a bit, and
that's exactly what I'm doing here.  I'm replacing the ugly old icons with
new 8-color and NewIcon images.  I'm adding a few freely distributable
utilities and examples to the package myself, such as the SOUND utility.

Most of all, I am trying to locate Gary Teachout.  If he is no longer
interested in developing Power Logo (as seems likely), I would like to buy
the source from him and attempt to overhaul it myself.  If anybody knows
how I can reach him, by all means let me know!  I am offering a reward of
$100 for information allowing me to contact him or find out for certain
what happened to him (i.e. dead? in prison? gone to Thailand?).

I have here the first two volumes of COMPUTER SCIENCE LOGO STYLE by Brian
Harvey, and I consider them absolutely top rate, even though they assume a
primitive dialect of Logo compared to Power Logo.  Unfortunately, these
volumes are out of print.  I do not have volume 3, "Advanced Topics",
although I have seen it via inter-library loan, so I know it exists.  I am
offering a reward of $100 for a good, readable copy of this book -- cover
intact, no missing pages, etc.

I think Logo in general, and Power Logo in particular, has huge potential.
Part of the reason Logo fell by the wayside in the early 1980s was because
the bitty boxes of the time were too underpowered to handle it properly.
That is no longer the case, since Power Logo is fairly snappy on an '040 or
a fast clocked '030 CPU.  I hope there will someday be a native PowerPC
version of Power Logo.  It would be fitting to bring Power Logo to the
Power Amiga, and it could meet the need for a hobbyist language that is
system-friendly and easily picked up by beginners.  But that is mere
speculation until I can find out about the language's disposition.

In the meantime, have fun playing with Power Logo 1.3!  That's what it's
here for.

   -- Tony Belding <tlbelding@htcomp.net>

