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newage01.txt
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2006-10-19
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.IF DSK1.C3
.CE 6
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
^W-AGE/99 * NEW-AGE/
^99 *NEW-AGE/99* N
^EW-AGE/99 * NEW-AGE
^/99 *NEW-AGE/99*
^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^*by JACK SUGHRUE, Box
459, East Douglas, MA 01516*
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^#1
Why NEW-AGE/99? Well, it's been
almost a year since my long-running
IMPACT/99 columns were rudely
interrupted by a car accident which
kept me from my beloved little
computing machine.
So why NEW-AGE/99? After my
brush with death last spring I
initially felt I had been given
another shot at Life (definitely with
a capital "L") and wanted to reflect
this New Age even with my computer.
Secondly, "impact" sounded too much
like a crash. Thirdly, I think my
view from the TI sidelines for so
long gave me the distinct perspective
of seeing a New Age arrive for us.
And, finally, the sharing and caring
that was shown to me during my repair
time by 99ers worldwide made me
realize that my commitment wasn't to
the little computer (that kept me
occupied in thousands of wee hours)
but to the people.
Even now, so long after The Event
(always capitalized in my family), I
continue to get cards and letters and
disks and TI-related thingies from
all over the world. This past week I
got cards from England, Belgium, and
Australia. And a few more from this
country and Canada. To all those
well-wishers everywhere who were so
supportive during my long recovery, I
can only say, "Thank you." You were
all very instrumental in my rapid
comeback. Even the doctors were
amazed.
Regarding my operations, the most
oft-asked question was, "Will all
those metal plates in your head set
off alarms in airports?" I have no
idea. I haven't flown since. I had
the stainless steel one and one of
the titanium ones removed in a recent
operation, but I still have seven
left. Permanently.
And I am back to work on a
slightly limited basis. And I DO
drive. A new car. My other
two-month-old new car was totally
demolished when I hit the tree. And
- YES! - I was VERY scared the first
time I got back behind the wheel once
I could see okay again. It had been
so long. I'm still cautious, but I'm
no longer frightened.
I had also been drifting toward
large blimphood, but I lost lots of
weight after the accident and have
been able to keep it off. Crash
diet. So there's another positive.
I really have athousandTI
people to thank, but I must
particularly single out Charlie Good,
John Willforth, Chris Bobbitt,
Timothy Dermody, Tony McGovern, Jim
Peterson, Jim Cox, Sister Pat Taylor,
and so many patient newsletter
editors for support above and beyond
the call of duty. Having
inadequately given such little thanks
when so much more was due, I'll now
move right into N-A #1.
Each month I plan to explore in these
two pages some TI fairware and some
commercialware and a bit of the
goings-on.
The first going-on is Bill
Gaskell's. I am sorry to learn of
his FOUR-A/TALK swan song. For the
year he wrote it, it was the most
interesting column around. The
variety and the history and the
enthusiasm and the good writing made
FOUR-A/TALK the boost we all needed.
It was a very sustaining column that
each month also introduced us to all
the new goodies available to us (and
there are many). The TI World
Community will sorely miss your
writings, Bill. Hurry up with the
skiing and golfing and get back to
your computer.
In Bill's last article he talked
about John Johnson's most recent BOOT
program as of October 1989, good for
Hard Drives, etc. For those with the
"normal" system of a drive or two but
not the techie wizardry, you can
still benefit from the BOOT. It may
not be the ONLY way to go, but it
sure is one of the very best.
Someone sent it to me during the time
I wasn't able to compute, but when I
got back to the keyboard recently I
popped it in and had my flabber
gasted. First it says, "MUG BOOT
LOADING." That's the Miami Users
Group (6755 Tamiami Canal Road,
Miami, FL 33126).
Then comes the menu: 1 SHOW
DIRECTORY; 2 DISPLAY A FILE; 3 RUN A
PROGRAM; 4-9 Options 1-6; C TI XB.
#1 shows a directory of any disk
(including RAMs) and permits marking
of files for viewing, running,
deleting. Marking auto-sets files
when you return to Main Menu. A text
file appears when #2 (DISPLAY) is
pressed. An XB or E/A file runs
automatically if #3 (RUN) is
pressed.
When you press the spacebar
another menu (with Options 7-15 and
TI XB) is displayed. Press again and
a third menu (with 16-24 and TI XB)
is shown. This means you can type in
anything on the options to VIEW or
RUN including LOAD itself, which is
handy if you have a bunch of LOAD
programs (such as FUNNELWEB) that you
want to operate offANYdrive. If
you have a DSDD and two drives, for
example, you could load onto this MUG
BOOT disk all your favorite programs
AND another whole disk of favorites
on Drive 2. (And a zillion more.)
Then you can put your top 24 on this
menu and your other top 20 onto your
FUNNELWEB menus and on and on.
With this program you could build
the perfect environment for yourself,
but that's only scratching the
surface of this February '89 version
I have.
Here are just a few of the single
keypress things this will do for your
minimum XB disk system: turn screen
off; load disk directory; print
directory; view text file; print text
file; run XB or EA program; EASILY
configure up to 24 (actually,
unending number) files for autoload;
run gram/grom modules; delete files;
cycle through and mark groms; toggle
XB color interrupt routines off and
on; do a CALL routine; change print
device; get and display ROM header at
>6000 (whatever that means);
configure BOOT tracking; display
version # and author; toggle
instantly between all options; save
all configurations; use additional
active keypresses in sub menus; and
so on.
Could you have dreamed that
something so wonderful and so simple
to operate could ever exist for our
TI? Get the latest version from your
user-group library or write to Miami.
Don't forget a decent fairware
donation.
In his final column Bill Gaskell was
surprised by the ingenious FUNNELWEB
built-in to change upper to lower
case by holding CONTROL/period and
running the cursor over the
characters (words, sentences, etc.)
to be speedily converted. I don't
think he realized that Tony McGovern
also did a reverse - lower to upper -
by holding CONTROL/semi-colon. Tony
told me he added this because he was
not a good touch typist and found
retyping from one case to the other
too time consuming. The day after I
got this version (4.0 and up), I was
typing along without looking at the
screen. When I looked up I had 20
lines or so of upper case. Zip.
With the cursor and Tony's ingenious
keypress changer I was back to typing
in seconds. Try it the next time you
use FWB (speaking of which, have you
tried the new 4.2? It's got some
great LARGE changes.) NEW-AGE/99 will
detail it all soon.
[If you use NEW-AGE/99 please put
me on your exchange list.]
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