The June 15th meeting will be one of our split SIG meetings. The C64/128 SIG and the Amiga SIG will be doing a kind of tag team highlights of the Internet. We will be showing what's available and how to use some of the basic applications on the net. For the Mac SIG, Richard Rollins will reveal the secret key combinations on the Mac keyboard that do wild and wonderful things. So, come and be entertained and learn something at the same time - the goal of the Age of Enlightn Soft-Logik's TypeSmith! Imagine was telling me that the "vector" information was missing.
I posted a note on the NAG BBS, hoping Geoff Gass or someone could convert the font for me. Don Malm came over the next morning with Type Smith V2.5 and 'fixed" the font for me (actually all we had to do was save it in true Adobe Format instead of TypeSmith's format). Problem Solved!
Mean time, Geoff Gass found a whole family of "Fusion" Adobe PostScript Type 1 fonts, ran them through TypeSmith and uploaded them on the BBS. Down load them and check them out! Appropriate copyright notices are attached to the fonts.
Thanks guys! White knight's you are riding to the rescue! Aren't computer's fun?
The bottom line is if you use fonts in any project, you'll discover that a program like Soft-Logik's TypeSmith is indispensable. Get it! My order is in! You can call Soft-Logik at 1 - 800 - 829 - 8609 TypeSmith may some day save your skin! Ouch!
"The more the change the more it is the same thing." -- Alphonse Karr
It's Magic
How do you animate full overscan 24 bit IFF's? Easily if you have Terra Nova Developement's, Magic Lantern!
Magic Lantern is designed to work with OpalVision (that's what I have), but it'll work with any Amiga ECS/AGA, and other graphic cards like EGS Win, Spectrum, Retina, Z3 Retina, Picasso, DCTV, and GDA formats.
Magic Lantern uses a compression technique called .diff and there are variations...that allow playback from memory or directly off the harddrive. What is amazing is the playback speeds are better that the old anim opt 5, 7 and 8 standards that are used by DPaint, Brillance and DCTV.
So with out single framing you can get amazing playback speeds that are acceptable for video use. Not only that the .diff files are neat way of archiving a huge project of hundreds of 24 bit frames. But, be careful here as some of the compression techniques in Magic Lantern are lossy (you'll loose information).
Typically the .diff animation file will be 50% less in size than the single 24 bit frames. Magic Lantern has a function that will let you uncompress the anim as single IFF's...So you can recover your IFF if you need it! Oh yes, you can also add sound effects to play along with the anim...
Call Terra Nova Developement at 805 - 652 - 0531 for Magic Lantern V2.0.
"Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything changed." -- Irene Peter
Backing it up...
A month or so ago in a Mac oriented catalogue, I noticed a little harddrive that featured removeable media from Iomega called the Zip Drive. At the time I thought that's nice, but paid no attention to it.
Later, a friend mentioned this neat little device, stating that it sounded interesting, but he had no info about it. I immediately whipped out the catalogue and there it was.
Iomega Zip Drive, available with either (you get to choose one only), SCSI (must be ID # 5 or 6 with a 25 pin SCSI connector), or parallel port connectors, 1.25 MB/Sec Data Transfer, 29ms access time, comes with 25 megabyte or 100 megabyte 3.5 inch removeable disks. Cost per disk as low as $14.95 each when you order 10 or more. Drive costs $199.99
Okay for $450.00 you get 1 gig of storage at $.20 per megabyte!!!
Advertised as 4 drives in one, you can use it as a normal Harddrive, for archiving backups, or as a portable drive (measures 1.5 x 7.26 x 5.35 inches) and weighs just 1 pound! I want one!
Available at MacWarehouse 1 -800 - 255 - 6227 or Creative Computer's Mac Mall 1 - 800 - 222 - 2808 Both advertisers feature a 30 day money back guarantee and next day delivery for $3.00
"Things do change. The only question is that since things are deteriorating so quickly, will society and man's habits change quickly enough?" -- Isaac Asimov
Presenting...
NAG Treasurer, Joan Cairns suggested a bonus "demo" disk for members that renewed their membership before December 31...I volunteered to author the disk.
I would have liked to use an up-to-date program, but Scala MM300 needs a dongle to run...The only alternative program that would do what I wanted was Electronic Arts, Deluxe Video III.
DV III shows its age. If you haven't seen the NAGDemo come to the next general meeting on April 25th. You'll see it compared to what Oxxi's VideoStagePro can do...you see, Oxxi, donated to NAG VideoStagePro. So if you come to the general meeting, I'll show you the new version of the NAG Demo produced using VideoStagePro and you'll get a chance to own VideoStagePro as it will be NAG's raffle item.
ViseoStagePro MSRP is $179.95 You'll like what you see. VSP does things that Scala and the others can't...you'll really like what you see. Am I repeating myself? Come to the general meeting, April 25, 7:00 PM, all are welcome.
VideoStagePro is a Scala killer, and Oxxi is fully supporting it!
"Mater artium necessitas - Necessity is the mother of invention." -- Anonymous Saying
...keep on WYSIWYGing...
The May 18th meeting began a little late after some free ticket distribution difficulties and then wholesale ticket buying for the Spring Computer Fest. President Huls opened the meeting at 7:26 pm with CUCUG's traditional introduction of officers. He then opened the floor for our Question and Answer Session.
Mark pointed out some of the similarities between the Amiga and Mac - both are powered by Motorola processors. He noted even the 6502 family of processors of the C64/128 are derivations of early Motorola designs. He said the kinship goes very deep and the Macintosh could coexist quite well within CUCUG.
Richard Rollins pointed out that several CUCUG members have been running Macintosh emulators for years. Amax and Emplant and now ShapeShifter running on the Amiga make a Mac SIG a natural extension of what members have already been doing.
Harold Ravlin opened the discussion by asking the question, "Isn't there already a Macintosh group on campus? And another in town?" Mark explained that it is because of the ineffectiveness of these groups that this proposal is being made. The UI group only meets 3 or 4 times a year and are hostile to anyone not directly associated with the University. They are supposed to meet once a month. And the local Mac group is all but dead. Neither one is servicing the community. It is CUCUG's strong organization and desire to serve the community that make it ideal to serve the needs of the Macintosh users here.
Mark said what he and Richard offer is Richard as SIG Chairman and himself as Librarian. Both would be willing to demonstrate software and hardware at the meetings. Mark says he has many megs worth of Public Domain software for Library disks, enough for the next year. This would provide significant revenue for the club. They also have 15 to 20 people who have expressed an interest in joining.
What they would desire from CUCUG is a place to meet along with us, some space in the newsletter, and a video adapter to be able to display the Library disks on the big monitor.
Someone notes that the C64 could be emulated on the PowerMac.
Another member asked what was the lowest end machine that the proposed Mac SIG would be willing to support. Mark said whatever walks through the door. There is no interest in supporting Apple IIs, but any Macintosh would be welcomed.
Harold Ravlin voiced the principle undercurrent of concern, "Will the Amiga become a SIG?" The answer is, technically, it already is. Granted it is the majority of the club, as now constituted, and there may come a day when the Macintosh membership numbers might surpass the Amiga members (then, again, maybe not), but the Amiga will never be cast off. The C64/128 people are still avidly supported by CUCUG.
In a similar vein, Joe Palmer suggested if they Mac numbers got too large, perhaps they could meet on another night. Both Mark and Richard didn't like this idea as it would promote separatism, which is the one thing we as a group have always striven to avoid. There is also a more mundane argument against it since it would increase club cost for room rent.
Kevin Hopkins spoke to the point that the men making this request are both former President's of CUCUG and would never do anything to harm the organization they both have served (in Richard's case, for many years). He also spoke to the point of Mark being a very valuable resource, both informationally and technically, through his connection with Motorola. (He got us the ZIP drive.)
Bill Baxter made the points that opening the club up would expand our resources and bring in people interested in computers.
When the possibility of bringing in clones was raised, Richard made the comment that DOS people are different. They are not really like Commodore people.
Someone made the point that it was a good idea to be looking toward the University. It could only expand our ranks.
Vic Serbe brought the discussion around again to the topic of the club loosing its identity if the Macintosh SIG got too large. This concern was examined closely. The suggestion of separate meetings was again raised. But as no one can predict how things will go, it was pretty much decided that good faith would have to guide the decision making process when and if that problem ever arises.
Kevin Hisel made note of the fact that the by-laws do not preclude other platforms from CUCUG. They do however state that the decision is in the hands of the President alone. Kevin moved that we vote, in order to make the membership's feelings known. Jim Lewis seconded the motion. There being no further discussion, a vote by show of hands was taken. The proposal to form a Macintosh SIG with CUCUG passed overwhelmingly. Only one member voted "No" (just so it wouldn't be unanimous).
Winding down before the break, Kevin Hisel pointedly reminded everyone to remember Nova Design, the company now distributing GVP items. They were a big help in supporting our Computer Fest. Kevin also showed some of the computer related T-shirts available in the raffle. He thanked Jon Sago for his generosity in providing eight $25 Gift Certificate from his ECI Computer Exchange. And finally, he showed the Grand Prize, the ZIP drive, and encouraged everyone to buy tickets.
Richard Rollins pointed out the coffee and doughnuts.
After the break the merriment commenced.
The May meeting of the CUCUG executive board was held on Wednesday, May 24th at 7PM at Kevin Hisel's house (address and phone number, both in the book). Present at the meeting were Jim Huls, Dave Witt, Mark Landman, Mike Latinovich, Craig Kummerow, Kevin Hopkins, Anderson Yau, Richard Rollins Jon Sago, Emil Cobb, Kevin Hisel and Jim Lewis.
Jim Huls: Speaking of the May meeting, Jim said he thought it went pretty good. He wished to thank everyone who helped with the raffle. "You were great."
Jim informed the Board members that we would have to change the Board meeting back to Tuesday. He was have trouble working it into his schedule, as were a couple of other members. The change was agreed to.
Now for the bad news: the Union Hall has changed their phones over to a digital system (as Bresnan had done). Jim Lewis said its not a problem. We can run a phone line over from his place next door. Disaster averted.
There was a discussion of how to build noise barriers for the meetings. Kevin Hopkins suggested waiting to see if it really becomes a problem before we go to the expense and logistical problems involved in constructing something.
Jim announced that Jason Compton will not be able to make it to the June meeting. He is having his wisdom teeth removed the day before our scheduled meeting, so he wouldn't function very well as a speaker. He said he would come in July. We had tentatively scheduled a discussion of the Internet for July, so that will be switched to June. A discussion followed concerning the Internet meeting, what to do, and who would do it.
Mike Latinovich: Mike said the May meeting was an "interesting meeting." He said he wanted to walk in, put down $4, and walk out with a ZIP drive, but it didn't happen. He said the ticket line was confusing. Walking up to have your ticket checked, choosing your prize and having it noted as you walked out worked well. And... "The food was good."
Mark Landman: Mark gave his usual, flawless Treasurer's Report, although he reported a loss for the month of April. There was some talk about the room rent at the Bresnan Center and the Union Hall. On the IRS, Mark said he hopes to hear something in 4 to 6 weeks.
Craig Kummerow: Craig made note of some mail from Parsec that he had received.
He informed everyone he would not be at the next meeting, nor the Board meeting. He would be on vacation in Yellowstone. Mike Latinovich will take the Amiga 200 to prepare for the Internet meeting. Craig gave Emil the C64 Beginner's Packs and disks.
Craig turned in some more income from the sale of the Gast/Stevenson donations.
Emil requested that the winners of C64 stuff at the raffle show something at the next meeting. Bring things to show.
Speaking of the C64/128 SIG, Craig and Emil said they thought their people would like to sit in on the Internet discussion. They wanted the newsletter to specifically point out that the C64/128 people "can do this stuff too."
Emil Cobb: Emil said he didn't have that much to say. "Good turn out" at the May meeting. There appeared to be good interest in the Mac SIG.
Kevin Hopkins: Kevin presented the exchange newsletters and handed out the mail. Kevin pointed out that Kevin Hisel's article on Windows95 had been picked up by the "MCCC News" newsletter of the Metroplex Commodore Computer Club in Fort Worth / Dallas, May issue.
Kevin made note of the fact that the Lost-Souls letter went out last month.
He asked other Board members if they were getting a newsletter from the User Group Connection (http://www.ugconnection.org/). A couple were.
Kevin presented a completed "Winners' List" from the Computer Fest. Don Schaffer, Jim Lewis, and Jerry Feltner came away the big winners overall. Of course, Joe Palmer won the ZIP drive, so he has to be pretty happy, too.
Kevin also provided the names of a few new members.
Anderson Yau: Anderson said that at the next raffle we need to control the crowd better. Having to clear the hall and then let people back in again was not good. Everyone agreed.
Richard Rollins: Richard thanked everyone for the support of the Mac SIG. He noted that Mark Bellon had already turned over the first library sales generated by the Mac.
Richard said that for the June meeting he would be doing the "secret keys" on the Mac: 30 or so keyboard combinations that perform interesting things.
Richard said the Mac SIG needs a video adapter for their machine to be able to display output on the big monitor. He requested the Board spend the required $185. In light of the negative cash flow for April and only three members in the SIG at present, the Board wanted to take a little slower approach to this expenditure. Subscribing to the traditional club adage of "paying for itself", the Board wants to see the Mac SIG grow a little before we spend that kind of money. This sparked some rather pointed debate, but in the end, it was agreed that this was probably only going to be about a month's delay anyway. For the next meeting, the Mac people will view their library disks in their SIG. Mark will have 10 disks available, but will be officially releasing 4 of them.
Richard then talked about some of the magazines available for the Macintosh.
Kevin Hisel (KH1): Kevin reported that BBS usage is WAY up, from 8% to 18%. However, BBS functionality is way down. The new hard drive's software driver is still giving us trouble. Jon Sago will be taking the BBS machine to fix it (which he did).
Kevin said with the current situation with the net, he is able to fill the club's Library needs without using pay services, so he is relinquishing are funds previously used to support that activity. It now costs the club nothing to gather the software for our club disks.
Kevin's characterization of disk sales in May was "medium." He reported the first $25 received from the sale of Macintosh disks.
Kevin stated that our revenue from the raffle was quite respectable.
Finally, Kevin reported that we are receiving about 675 hits a day on our Amiga Web Page on Prairienet.
Jim Lewis: Jim referred to the hustling the people out of the meeting hall and then having them come back in again as "the free ticket" fiasco. He said the next time we do this we should print out a current membership list and check people in as the come in. Despite all that, though, he was pretty pleased with his own outcome in the raffle. Jim personally bought 1/10 of all the tickets sold it was determined.
Jim said we should be looking into hardware acquisition now, for next year.
He reiterated that the phone system will be OK.
He volunteered to work on the noise barriers, if needs be.
As Corporate Agent, he has nothing new to report.
Jon Sago: Jon said he would work on the BBS machine and have it up soon.
Dave Witt: Dave pronounced the May meeting "A good meeting." He agreed with Jim's idea of a check list, to avoid a recurrence of the problem we had at the door this time.
Meetings are held the third Thursday of each month at 7 p.m. at the IBEW Local 601 Union Hall (352-1741), located at 2901 Research Road in the Interstate Research Park in northwest Champaign. To get there, go north on Mattis over I-74 and turn right at the second stop light, onto Interstate Drive. Then take the first "real" left at Research Road. The Electrician's Hall is the third building on your left. There's a big flag pole right out front and it's directly across the street from one of Hobbico's signs. You should park and enter the building in the back.
ASCII text files of all recent Status Register newsletters are available for downloading on our BBS or our WWW site. Other user group newsletter editors may leave a comment to the BBS Sysop to request free access. To initiate a newsletter exchange, just send us your newsletter. As a matter of CUCUG policy, a newsletter exchange partner will be dropped after three months of no contact.
This newsletter was prepared with PageStream 2.22 on an Amiga 3000 25/100 and output to an HP Laserjet IIP plus. Pagestream was donated to CUCUG by Soft-Logik Publishing Corporation.
For further information, please attend the next meeting as our guest, or contact one of our officers(all at area code 217):
President: Jim Huls 892-8730 jhuls@cucug.org Vice-President: David Witt 684-2815 maddog@prairienet.org Secretary/Editor: Kevin Hopkins 356-5026 kh2@uiuc.edu Treasurer: Mark Landman 398-2910 mlandman@prairienet.org Corporate Agent: Jim Lewis 359-1342 jlewis@cucug.org Librarian/Sysop: Kevin Hisel 352-1002 khisel@cucug.org C64/128 SIG: Craig Kummerow 784-5919 cwkummer@prairienet.org Macintosh SIG: Richard Rollins 469-2616 RERollins@aol.com
Call our Starship CUCUG BBS at (217) 356-8056, always online, up to 14,400 baud, supporting all CBM computers. Email us at
cucug@cucug.orgor surf our home page at
Call Prairienet free at (217) 255-9000. Login as "visitor".