This is the monthly newsletter of the Eagle Computer Users Group, P.O. Box 3381, Saratoga CA 95070. Deadline for submission of material for the newsletter is two weeks before the following meeting. The remaining 1989deadlines are Nov. 24 and Dec. 29 (for the Jan. 1990 newsletter).
The material in this newsletter is copyright ~=105~q~=083~ 1989 by the authors. Unless otherwise noted, the author is the editor of the newsletter. Permission is hereby given to reproduce material belonging to the editor, aslong as the notice ~=109~Q~=083~Copyright ~=105~q~=083~ 1989 David A.J.McGlone~=109~q~=083~ is included in the reproduction. For permission toreprint other material, contact its author or authors.
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~=008~MEETING PLACE~=083~
Meetings are held at Tandem Computers Incorporated, 10435 North Tantau Avenue,Cupertino. To get there, take 280 to Wolfe Rd. exit, left at Vallco Parkway,left at Tantau, over the bridge and turn in where it says ~=109~Q~=083~TandemComputers~=109~q~=083~ on the ~=094~left~=083~. Sign in with the guard at thelobby. He will know what room the meeting is in.
Meetings are the second Saturday of every month, from 9 A.M. to Noon. Theremaining 1989 meeting is Dec. 9.
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~=008~DECEMBER 9 MEETING~=083~
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|9:00| Meeting begins.
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|9:30| Discussion (see ~=094~News~=083~ below). No presentation has beenscheduled for this meeting.
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~=008~RENEWALS DUE~=083~
This is the last issue non-member |George Archer| will receive unless he sendsin $10 to become a member. Annual dues need to be renewed effective November1989 for members |Mary Alexander, Lloyd Briggs, Jerry Davis, Warren Dorn, JanetFairchild, Frank Ruiz Avionics, Joanne Peckham, Lutz Ruhe, Robert Tullman,| and|Ed Uber|.
Most of the Newsletter Members have failed to renew, reducing the mailing listby about 50 people. We can only hope that some will miss the newsletter whenit doesn't show up in their mail box, and renew then.
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~=008~NEWS~=083~
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|Apologies
My personal apologies to all our members for the lateness of this issue, andfor how short it is. Most of my time for the last couple of months has beenspent either being sick, or working on issue 5 of ~=094~The Z-Letter.~=083~ The latter has now been finished, and Alpha will prepare the mailing labelsnext Monday (November 27th). I will also bring some copies to our Decembermeeting, for those who can't wait three weeks or more for Bulk Rate mail to getit to them. Wait till you see it! It has a real cover, an article about theOtrona Attache computer, an article on type 3 and type 4 utilities by JoeWright, an article on upgrading the hard disk on a Micromint SB180FX, a list ofZ-Nodes (bulletin boards serving the Z-System community), and an index toissues 1-5. Please forgive my bragging, but I'm ~=094~proud~=083~ of thisissue!
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|December meeting
No presentation has been scheduled for the December meeting. For one thing,it's usually pretty low in attendance. This meeting will be devoted to (1) thereport from Hal Perry on progress towards our non-profit status, (2) planningthe program and setting the meeting dates for next year, (3) discussion of whatshould go into the orientation newsletter for new members, and (4) the usualanswering people's questions and helping people with problems. That's prettymuch the order it will be discussed in, too.
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|Roster corrections
|George Haylor|, 2304 Del Curto Road, Austin TX 78704, (512) 441-6808, says~=109~Q~=083~Keep up the good work on the newsletter.~=109~q~=083~ Thanks! George has three Eagles II; an Okidata Microline 192, Okidata Microline 93, andSmith-Corona TP-I printers; and a SmartLink 1200 modem.
|Bill Josephson| says he has an Epson FX-100 printer, in addition to what'slisted in our roster.
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~=008~NEW MEMBERS~=083~
Please join me in welcoming 8 new members this month.
Ben Barnett of Novato CA, phone (415) 883-7258 HW, has Eagle PC-E, Leading EdgeModel D, and Epson LT computers, Brother M1409 and Epson RX printers, a LeadingEdge modem, and a special interest in financial and insurance programs.
Matthew Brooks, Chicago Illinois, (312) 881-0863 W, has an Eagle II and amodem, which he uses mostly for word processing and communications.
Tom Clewe, Palo Alto CA, (415) 328-1918 H, has an Eagle PC-2, an Epson FX-80printer, and a 1200-bps Hayes-compatible modem. Tom favors WordStar 2000(distinctly unusual among Eagle owners, but maybe Spellbinder wasn't bundledwith his Eagle), dBase III, and FoxBase.
Peter N. Gold, San Jose CA, (408) 978-0569 H, has an Eagle Spirit, a C. Itoh8510A Prowriter printer, and a Practical Peripherals 2400 SA modem. Pete usesdBase II, III+, and IV, Framework II and III, Turbo Tax, SuperCalc III, andWordStar 3.3.
J.J. Lamb of Novato CA, (415) 883-3046 HW, has an Eagle II, a Daisywriter and aBrother HR20 printer, on which he mostly does word processing.
D. and B.L. Mockler of Oxnard CA, (805) 985-6801 H, have an Eagle IIE, an EpsonMX-100 and a Daisywriter printer, do word processing and program development. They have a special interest in networks.
Dr. G.E. Oppel, San Luis Obispo CA, has an Eagle IV and a Star printer. Dr.Oppel uses applications for math, physics, ML (?), and compilers.
Casimir A. Wilson, Hercules CA, (415) 799-6754 H, (415) 982-7311 W, has anEagle (he didn't say what kind), an HP-II printer (a LaserJet II, perhaps?),and an Anchor 1200/2400 modem. He's particularly interested in monochromegraphics for the Eagle, so it's probably a PC of some kind.
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~=008~CONSULTANTS~=083~
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|Jerry Davis| Eagle software, hardware & service; modem software and hardwareservice. Call (408) 972-1965 for rates.
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|David McGlone| SELECTOR V, Nevada COBOL, Turbo Pascal, Turbo Modula-2, CBasic,Spellbinder macros, disk copying and translation. Rates vary with services. Call (408) 293-5176.
~=094~Ads or fliers for the following were received at our P.O. box. We cannot recommend them, for the advertising constitutes all our information aboutthem. Nevertheless, since they were addressed to the club, minimal informationis presented here so that anyone interested can follow up on it. We will notdo more without charging an ad rate.~=083~
287Turbo, 20MHz math coprocessor for ATs, MicroWay, P.O. Box 79, Kingston MA02364, (508) 746-7341. $450.
Blankity BLANK version 3.0, forms and office management software, SoftstreamTechnologies, Inc., 2740 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood FL 33020-4826, phone (305)920-9292 or (800) 888-9292. $99.50. Requires PC with 640K and a hard disk.
Client Management & Docket Control (CMDC), legal information management,LegalBYTES, Incorporated, 9700 Richmond Avenue, #230, Houston TX 77042, (713)789-3236. $299. PC with 512K and 600K free hard disk space.
NDP Fortran-486, C-486, Pascal-486, compilers for 80486 systems, MicroWay, P.O.Box 79, Kingston MA 02364, (508) 746-7341. Available for MS-DOS, UNIX, andXENIX for $1195 each. C++ preprocessor is $495.
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~=008~PC SOFTWARE LIBRARY~=083~
New software in our 16-bit library includes the following. Call Jack Morse at(408) 252-6103 if you want copies.
1. Virus detection/prevention (sorry, no details).
3. A two-disk shareware set from Harry P. Calevas, P.O. Box 830, Trenton GA30752, phone (404) 657-5484. No details about contents. Require CGA to run.
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~=008~FOR SALE~=083~
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~=094~(These ads are posted for the third time)~=083~
Eagle Spirit XL for sale, upgraded 6 months ago with new 30 MB hard disk,Wilkinson BIOS version 2.8, new floppy drive, 640K memory. Contact PatrickJackson during the day at Allstate Insurance, (408) 270-7811
For sale: (1) Panasonic answering phone with day and time recorded (2) Toshibafax machine model 30100 (3) Autoswitch TF500, so the above work on a singlephone line. Call Dick Dethlefsen, (408) 246-5378
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~=094~(These ads are posted for the second time)~=083~
For sale, 1 copy of WordStar, version 5.5. Make offer to Dorothy Wolfe, (415)591-8664.
For sale: Eagle IIE, with Daisy Writer printer model 1500-2000. Used very verylittle, make offer to Fred K. Petersen, (408) 739-0083.
For sale, Eagle II computer, two drives, in good shape. Includes printer, nearletter quality, cables, Spellbinder software and manual, and a box of diskscontaining assorted other programs and games. Asking $400 for it all. Pleasecall Eva at (415) 641-4557.
For sale: my Eagle Computer keyboard, virtually unused. 105 keys, including 24function keys and an [<ENHANCE[> key. Steel construction, strong enough to beused as armor plate. Seems to work OK on my XT clone. Send offer to JimHolloway, 5334 Emerson, Dallas TX 75209.
For sale: Eagle Turbo PC, 640K, 20Mb hard disk, monochrome monitor, key board,MS-DOS, latest Wilkinson ROM, shareware programs. $695. Call Jerry Davis,(408) 972-1965.
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~=094~(This ad is posted for the first time)~=083~
For sale: Eagle PC Plus with two disk drives and a Canon PW-1088 printer, alsosoftware including Perfect Writer. $550. Call Claire Friedman, Palo Alto,(415) 329-1244, or (415) 961-4605.
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~=008~REMINDER~=083~
If you have something for sale, or wish to be listed as a consultant, contactDavid McGlone. For membership matters, contact Shirley Welch.
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~=008~LETTERS~=083~
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November 10th, 1989
David,
I don't know whether this will be useful to you, but after the meeting Istopped in at Halted, Inc. (close to Lawrence and Central Expressways), where Isaw four Otrona Attache portable computers (just like yours) at $99 each, plusone tech manual for same at $15, just in case you'd like to stash one as aspare or as a parts car.
Before I forget, Halted also has huge bundles of software for the IBM-XT, maybe15 or 16 items and taking up almost two feet of shelf space in a plastic bag,everything for $19.95. There were at least 6 bagsfull available when I wasthere, consisting of VisiCalc, VisiWriter, VisiSpeller, etc. No tech support,but you can't beat the price.
I also stopped in at Computer Surplus (719 Sycamore, off McCarthy in Milpitas),where I noticed that they had 20 copies of ~=094~The CP/M Handbook withMP/M~=083~ by Rodney Zaks at $2 each. Alfred Grossbrinner recommends ithighly, and it's been very useful to me. Perhaps this is worth mentioning inthe newsletter.
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All the best,
Ken Thomson
71 Rosenkranz St.
San Francisco CA 94110
(415) 648-7550
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~=094~Thanks, Ken. Here's hoping that some of that loot is still there whenpeople get this newsletter; if not, my fault. That $99 for an Attache shouldbe compared with the $450 I paid for mine, or the $1600 ISI charges for one. It's a great price, if they work.~=083~
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8 October 1989
Sirs:
~=094~The Z-Letter~=083~ of August '89 contained a short note of mine, and aneditorial rejoinder to same suggested you guys were a ~=094~de facto~=083~Spellbinder user's group. Herewith is $15.00 for a 1-year membership. Can Iassume I also get the three free issues mentioned?
Also, can anyone help? I've several versions of Spellbinder, including boththe last (?) published 8-bit version (in 8080 code) ~=094~and~=083~ a recentIBM-coded version. ~=094~All of them~=083~ have a problem with the so-called~=109~Q~=083~ASCII transmitter~=109~q~=083~. You can use it to send charactersfrom the ASCII range, or the upper range (128-255), but not both. I have aversion I've patched to allow transmitting the upper range, but no fix thatallows both. Does anyone else have a fix?
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William D. Loughman
393 Gravatt Drive
Berkeley CA 94705
(415) 841-7428
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~=094~Enclosed you will find the last four issues of our newsletter, Bill. Normally we send four free issues to someone who hasn't already joined, butwhat the heck. For $7 you can also get all the issues I've done throughDecember 1988. An index is being prepared, and I'll publish the price for backissues through December 1989 (next issue) after that issue's been published andI can see what the postage is.
On your Spellbinder problem, it's news to me. Perhaps this is a consequence ofSpellbinder's use of the upper range of 8-bit characters as~=109~Q~=094~enhanced~=109~q~=094~ characters. An enhanced a, for instance, isnot decimal 97 (ASCII a), but 97 + 128, or decimal 225 (undefined in ASCII). Spellbinder doesn't send 225 to the printer; instead it subtracts 128 from itto get 97, or ~=109~Q~=094~a~=109~q~=094~, and then treats the a according tothe value in the SPECIAL CHARACTER position of the current Y Table. Forinstance, if the SPECIAL CHARACTER setting is 1, an enhanced a will be printedas _a_. In any case, perhaps you would provide more details on the problem,and how you patched your copy of Spellbinder to partially fix it. I lookforward to seeing that.~=083~
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18 November 1989
Good morning Dave:
I have an Eagle IIE CP/M machine. For some reason unbeknownst to me I love it! I've got C-64s, 128s, and an Apple IIe, but that Eagle fascinates me. I'vegot about a million questions I'd like to ask such as, can I replace eitherdrive with a 40-track drive? Where can I get a schematic? Service manual? Can I transfer files from the Eagle to my 128, Apple IIe, IBM? How do Isubscribe to your newsletter?
I do my own hardware hacking, so a little info goes a long way. At the age of57 I'm still awed by how little I know after all these years of learning. Themore I learn the more I realise how little I know. I'm enclosing a SASE foryour reply and a buck for a copy of a newsletter no matter how old. Any infoon the Eagle would help so I'd be glad to get any issue.
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Thanks sincerely,
Fred A. Gingher
P.O. Box 10132
Wilmington DE 19850
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~=094~Quite a collection of computers, Fred! I assume you know already thatyour Commodore 64 and your Apple IIe, with the addition of cards that contain aZ80 chip, can run CP/M programs like your Eagle. The Commodore 128 comes witha second Z80 CPU and runs CP/M Plus right out of the box.
You can replace either drive on your Eagle with a 48tpi drive, but it wouldn'tdo you any good. The Eagle BIOS (the part of the CP/M operating system thatknows about the Eagle hardware) knows no 48tpi formats. At the very least,you'd have to change that part of the BIOS, reassemble it into a new system,and copy the system to the floppy you boot from. If you succeeded, you wouldhave cut the capacity of the disk drive in half. And you won't have succeededin telling the Eagle how to read Commodore or Apple disks, because they are sodifferent from most CP/M formats that they need special hardware.
ECHO in southern California sold a product called SetDisk that allowed an EagleII or III to read and write (but not format) a handful of formats, but I doubtCommodore was among them. ECHO seems to have gone out of business, but DavidBanoff bought a bunch of copies of SetDisk and still has one for sale; give hima call at (408) 244-5194 in the evening (Pacific Time, 3 hours earlier than inDelaware). You might also want to contact the Washington Area Eagle User Groupin the D.C. area, c/o Chet Pryor, 2022-L44 Baltimore Road, Rockville MD 20851.
Another product that might help is Jugg'ler 128, a $20 product that lets yourCommodore 128 in CP/M mode read over 130 CP/M formats, from Herne Data Systems,Ltd., PO Box 714, Station C, Toronto, Ontario M6J 3S1, Canada. If you have aPC, all the PC format translators I know of, including UniForm, Media Master,XenoCopy, and 22DISK, read and write Eagle format. 22DISK is shareware, wellworth a great deal more than the $15 it costs to get it from Sydex, 153 NorthMurphy Ave., Sunnyvale CA 94086.
You can also transfer files directly between computers if you hook up theirmodem ports, run a modem program on one and set it to receive the file, and runa modem program on another and set it to send the file. However, this can bevery difficult to set up the first time, and moving a disk from one computer tothe other (provided they have a format in common, or a program that allows oneto read the other's format) is MUCH faster.
As for our newsletter, see my reply to the letter above. I will send you thelast four issues of our newsletter, and you can subscribe by filling out theform and sending it in to our P.O. Box. Hope this all helps.~=083~
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October 30, 1989
TO: Titus and McGlone
Miscount with !H/overstrike is not a bug. !H is intended for backspace withoutoverstrike. For the life of me, I can't see why it's there, but it is.
The documented way to overstrike without miscount uses three tables that set uptwo-key sequences. &12 sets up the keyboard to put out one of 13 ASCIIs thatSpellbinder reserves for the purpose. &8 translates that ASCII to an arbitrarysymbol on screen. &9 translates it to a string for the printer.
I use the system to send 13 non-keyboard characters to the printer. Thesequence below is a special temporary that prints 0</ by sending the printer~=109~Q~=083~0~=109~q~=083~, 008, and ~=109~Q~=083~/~=109~q~=083~ in sequence. For this printout, the Y table is set to right justify at the number ofcharacters in the line, so that miscount sends it to the next line. Notecorrect count for both 0 and 0</.
The problem is that you are limited to 13 characters and cannot sendbackspace/character alone without miscount.
User Table &3 uses inline text commands !q to !z, inclusive, to sendbackspace/overstrike as a string, overstriking any character, without miscount. The command will show during editing, but disappears in View. If you aren'tusing &3 for something else, that will take care of 10 overstrike charactersand you can use the other system for inverted exclamation points, invertedquestion marks, and other stand-alone characters.
Spellbinder is one hell of a program IF you got the TECH/MACRO manual. Eatyour hearts out, I got one!
McGlone, I got this on disk. Soon as I get some of the stuff about expandingvariables done, I'll send it.
12345 67890</ 12345 67890</ 12345 67890</ 12345
12345 67890 12345 67890 12345 67890 12345
12345 67890</ 12345 67890</ 12345 67890</ 12345
12345 67890 12345 67890 12345 67890 12345
12345 67890</ 12345 67890</ 12345 67890</ 12345
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Sincerely,
Eugene Austin
P.O. Box 115
Tilden NE 68781
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P.S. This is what my 3-table system normally puts out:
~=109~S R + o @ $ C 2 3 P y c ~=083~[|
~=094~Thanks, Gene. I, too, have a Technical/Macro manual, but assumed thatR.M. had tried that. That will teach me to shoot from the hip! David Banofftold me the same thing at the November meeting, but you wrote it up, so I'veprinted yours here.
I think that this application in particular, and the use of these tables toredefine characters for the terminal and printer in general, need to bepresented in a little more detail. Since you're working on the macro series,and David Banoff has promised to write up his talk on MS-DOS batch files, Iguess that leaves it up to me. That means it won't be soon. If anyone has thetime and the knowledge of Spellbinder to do it in the next couple of months,please write and let me know.
