ftp.whtech.com/ftp.whtech.com.tar/ftp.whtech.com/articles/Sughrue/oldtime2.txt

Text File | 2006-10-19 | 12KB | 349 lines

 .IF DSK1.C3
 .CE 2
 *IMPACT/99*
 by Jack Sughrue

     GOOD OLD DAYS

     PART II: MIDDLE AGES
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     Last time we IMPACTed I took you
 on a personal tour of my early
 experiences with the 4/A, which were
 more typical than not.
     After I had amassed my 100-plus
 programs on tape (mostly typed in
 from "99er" Magazine and some early
 books), I, like so many others,
 wanted to expand my computer
 "mastery." My TI appetite was
 voracious.
     I bought every TI book available,
 which, in 1983, was a considerable
 number. These included such
 masterpieces as Loreto's THE TI-99/4A
 IN BITS && BITES, Datamost's
 ELEMENTARY TI-99/4A, Addison-Wesley's
 TERRIFIC GAMES FOR THE TI99/4A, Que's
 TI-99/4A FAVORITE PROGRAMS EXPLAINED,
 Davis's PROGRAMS FOR THE TI HOME
 COMPUTER, and the books being
 published by SAMS and COMPUTE! Of the
 latter, PROGRAMMER'S REFERENCE GUIDE
 TO THE TI-99/4A was always at my
 side.  This was written by Regina
 (Cheryl Whitelaw) who wrote the best
 programs "99er" magazine published:
 HOMEWORK HELPER, NAME THAT BONE,
 TYPING FOR ACCURACY, CIVIL
 ENGINEERING FUNDAMENTALS, HARRIED
 HOUSEWIFE, DODGE 'EM, MAZE RACE, SAN
 FRANCISCO TOURIST and so many others.
 These were already classics.  What
 astounded most of us Regena groupies
 was the depth of her knowledge.  She
 seemed to know an incredible amount
 about computers, obviously (and a lot
 of different KINDS of computers), but
 she also knew so much about music and
 children and electrical engineering
 and geography and art and just about
 any topic a staff of college
 professors would know.
     That was in 1983.  Regena was
 already in her third year of TI
 publishing when she moved to COMPUTE!
 under some mysterious circumstances.
 So I began a COMPUTE! subscription to
 continue getting her monthly column.
 I got lots more out of that magazine,
 too.  Tutorials of all kinds.
 Programs galore.  It was TI's Cloud
 Nine.  In that same year, Regena
 began writing for ENTHUSIAST 99, too.
     Boy, what a year!  Mark Leyton
 began his wonderful UNOFFICIAL
 99/4[A] magazine.  K-POWER and FAMILY
 COMPUTING (early supporters of the
 4A) had also made their debut.  I
 subscribed to them all: 6 TI
 magazines a month (7 if one includes
 the non-monthly SMART PROGRAMMER)!
 [SUPER 99 MONTHLY and MINIMAG 99
 wouldn't be out for another year.]
 I find it hard to believe in 1988
 that the final 4A classic book - -
 THE LAST WHOLE TI99/4A BOOK by Paul
 Garrison - was published within a
 year of this creative time.
 Published by Wiley Press in 1984,
 this still stands as one of the best
 books ever written for 4A owners. [Do
 not confuse it with Linda and Allen
 Schreiber's THE LAST WORD ON THE
 TI-99/4A, also published in 1984,
 which is one of the worst books in my
 TI library.
 It's even harder to believe that the
 magazines mentioned above no longer
 exist (or no longer carry any TI
 stuff).
     As magazines like COMPUTE! and
 FAMILY COMPUTING dropped TI (which
 still had the largest home computer
 ownership of all; more than the
 Apple, Commodore, and IBM Jr.
 combined) many of us wrote letters of
 protest.  After all, we were still
 buying disks and drives and monitors
 and printers and lots of other
 advertised things.  No good.  Even
 though the ADAM and the PEANUT (Do
 you remember?) were still curried.  I
 dropped all magazines that dropped
 the 4A.  The only ones left are
 MICROpendium, the last monthly
 devoted solely to the TI, which began
 its life in February of 1984.  In
 that issue (originally called HOME
 COMPUTER COMPENDIUM) Editor/Publisher
 John Koloen said this of his new
 magazine, "It is a conduit, a source
 of information and a vehicle for the
 dissemination of information." It has
 certainly lived up to those criteria.
 I would find it difficult to be a 4A
 owner without MICROpendium and user
 groups.  The only other magazines
 still supporting our community with a
 very informative monthly column is
 COMPUTER SHOPPER and a new one I just
 received this morning called TId
 BITS and looks pretty good.
 But it's sad to look through that
 first COMPENDIUM.  All the
 advertisers except one are gone:
 Gadget Software (Megaworld), TJ
 Software (Kandy Kong), THinc
 (Colors), C.A.Root (On Gaming), Maple
 Leaf (Sky Diver), Silicon Valley
 Software (S.A.T.  Verbal Section),
 Machine Shoppe Software (Cassette
 Indexer), Larry Vision (Quackers),
 Programs Software (Personal
 Enrichment), Microworld (Snac Man),
 Soft Relations (Super Speller), DCH
 Software (Home Budget), CALLCAR
 (Emotional Health), Software Programs
 (Starship Concord), TI Books and
 Software.
 The one advertiser in that issue who
 is still with us is TIGERCUB
 SOFTWARE, owned and operated as a
 completly one-man venture by Jim
 Peterson (Mr.^T.I.).
     And that brings me back to 1983
 (before the orphaning) when we were
 still high on TI and user-group
 business was booming.  For all the
 other things that were going on for
 us (and they were numerous: every big
 department store and book store and
 software store carried 4A items on
 their front shelves, for example) -
 for all those other things, the year
 will still be known to me as the year
 of the TIGERCUB.
     User-group newsletters articles,
 for the most part, were not as
 sophisticated as they are today.  The
 big exception was the "TIPS from the
 TIGERCUB" monthly columns by Jim.
 Nobody did what he did.  His articles
 (many old ones as well as new ones
 are still being published worldwide
 today) initiated me into the grown-up
 world of the TI.  One was either a
 techie or a dummy, it seemed.  But
 Jim made us all feel intelligent.  He
 pulled us up. He treated us with
 dignity.  His explanations and his
 "experiments" and his enthusiasm came
 out in every article.  He always
 stayed far enough ahead of us to
 challenge us completely, yet he never
 talked down to us slow learners.
     From his very first article: "Are
 you tired of that blankety blinking
 black cursor?  This won't work in
 BASIC but if you're in XB try 1 CALL
 COLOR(0,ll,1)."
     I did it.  Then I tried it in
 BASIC (just in case mine worked,
 which it didn't).  Then I fiddled
 with the numbers until I finally
 understood what happened.
     This is the way Jim taught, for
 teaching is what he certainly did
 (and does).  His classroom, though,
 included thousands and thousands of
 pupils.
     He taught me to use Line # and
 FCTN/X [or E] instead of EDIT and how
 to use REDO for expanding program
 lines and how to slash my zero and
 how to highlight operators.  He
 let me in on lots of secrets: You can
 type RUN"DSK1.FILE" without any
 spaces and it'll work; that typing
 the double colons in XB lines without
 spaces before or after won't matter,
 either.  Do these sound mundane?  Not
 if you didn't know any of that stuff,
 and none of us did.
     His teachings were so natural, so
 filled with personal experience, that
 you couldn't wait to try the thing
 Jim had just found out.  Here's
 another from that first TIPS: "Have
 you ever been typing in a program,
 and the computer suddenly jumped back
 to the title screen, and you were
 sure that you didn't have a finger
 anywhere near that infernal QUIT key?
  But maybe you were drinking coffee
 with one hand and trying to press
 FCTN and 1 simultaneously with the
 other?  So, if you don't have
 anything valuable in the computer
 right now, try pressing FCTN, Space
 Bar, H and N all at the same time.
 Oops!  Another useless bit of info -
 try FCTN, 5, 6 and 7 all together.
 Break!"
 My vision of him was a young kid
 (maybe as old as a college student)
 doing improvisational computing, the
 way Art Tatum played the piano;
 somebody with great knowledge and
 understanding exploring human/machine
 potential.
     I didn't find out until a very
 long time after that Jim is a
 grandfather and that he bought the 4A
 because helikedthe keyboard!
     It didn't matter.  Genius is
 genius no matter what age.
     He used to close off those early
 columns with Happy Hackin' until
 hackers got a bad reputation by a few
 pirates and vandals, then he closed
 it with Memory Almost Full.  Too bad,
 in a way.  I think of Jim as the
 Ultimte Hacker, in the real,
 "discovery" sense of that word.  I
 don't know anyone who knows more
 about BASIC (and XB) than Jim.
     Way back in 1983 he did a lot
 more than give us little "useless"
 tips.  Most of the tips are the most
 "useful" things I ever learned for
 any computer.  (There is no Jim
 Peterson for Apple, Commodore, Tandy,
 or IBM.)
     Each article contained at least
 one original type-in program.
     While other programmers and
 writers were making bundles selling
 their stuff to commercial magazines
 and software houses, Jim GAVE his
 monthly column away in exchange for
 the user-group newsletters.  (He
 probably has the largest library of
 TI written material in existence.)
 Whenever any item in his column,
 large or small, came from any other
 source, Jim always credited the
 originator.
     His generosity is known
 throughout the entire TI World.
     His programs for which he
 charged $3 apiece (along with a
 discount for future purchases) was
 during a time when programmers were
 charging $20 and $30 for programs
 nowhere nearly as professional. Jim
 never sold hoopla.  He just sold
 quality.  Now his programs are $2 or
 much less in disked batches.
     The first batch of four programs
 I ordered came back with seven
 programs in the package.  Jim always
 puts "a little extra" in each order.
 He still does.  He has over 3000
 Public Domain (not Fairware) programs
 which he shares by putting them as
 bonuses on any disk orders.  These
 programs, too, are well done and
 credited and worth owning.
     I was surprised by the bonus, as
 no clue was given by him that I was
 going to get more than my money's
 worth.  There was not a single
 program that I ever got from Tigercub
 (and that is many) that did not
 exceed my expectations.  Many I
 ordered for my 5th-grade class and
 are still popular (like BAZOO and
 MECHANICAL APTITUDE TEST).  It would
 be hard for me to pick a favorite
 because there are so many varieties
 of programs: educational, music,
 utilities, games, and so on.
     About three hours ago I saved
 this textfile and loaded up some of
 Jim's disks. I played the fiendish
 SQUINCH and the diabolical SCRUM and
 went through his HANDY DANDYS and
 SPEEDER READER and - and I noticed it
 somehow got to be 2:10 AM.  I have to
 go teach tomorrow and Jim Peterson,
 the fiend, did it to me again!

     Next day!
     When I reread the above, I got to
 thinking about all the other TIGERCUB
 programs I didn't mention.  The most
 important, for me, are the three
 "NUTS && BOLTS" disks containing over
 300 files.  When these started coming
 out a few years ago, it was a "TIPS"
 maniac's delight.  Here was a
 discovery collection that every TI
 learner dreams of.  These files can
 be merged into any XB program
 (including a file that converts BASIC
 to XB) to produce remarkable results.
 Because of incremental line
 numeration, multiple subs can be
 called into single programs. They are
 efficient, neat, incredibly easy, and
 remarkably creative.  And lots more.
 Send Jim $1 for catalog (worth every
 penny; refundable with first order):
 TIGERCUB Software, 156 Collingwood
 Ave., Columbus, OH, 43213.
     [This is the 2nd of 3 articles in
 which the author travels down 4A's
 Memory Lane.]
     [Jack Sughrue, Box 459, E.Douglas
 MA 01516]


     If any newsletter editors print
 these textfiles, please put me on
 your mailing list.  Thanks. JS
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