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2022-08-26
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140 lines
u
DISKOVERY
by Dave Moorman
Life among the Techno-Amish just
got a bit more difficult. Our 3.5 inch
DD Disk provider is sold out. They
don't even have a minimum order of 25
to sell. We use eight times that
number every month. So I trundled onto
the Web and found a few other outlets
-- which charge twice as much per
disk.
Oy veh! We discovered with LS#200
that quite a number of you cannot use
HD disks in your 1581 drives. FD2000's
have no problem, but the [real] 1581's
balk at the different media.
Myron Daniels, of the Hawaii
Commodore User Group, tells me that
when you get down to amps and volts --
that technical level beneath our
familiar bits and bytes -- different
drives use different voltages to
record data. And different magnetic
media -- that iron-oxide coated mylar
disk inside the plastic case --
receives and returns different
voltages.
We will keep shopping for DD
disks. If we hit The End, we will
figure out something.
Now for the good news for us
Hassidim of Hex! Maurice Randall has
bought up Creative Micro Design's
technical wonders -- lock, stock, and
intellectual rights. He is working
like crazy to catch up on back orders
right now. Maurice runs an auto repair
service (in his former "real" life)
and is skilled at metal fabrication.
With newly ordered benders, folders,
and mutilators, he won't have to farm
out case construction as CMD did.
For those who have been out of the
loop, Maurice Randall took GEOS and
created a powerful upgrade called
[Wheels]. Folks who use their
C-64/128's for productivity now have a
powerful Graphic User Interface
operating system -- especially when
running with a SuperCPU and 16 Meg of
memory.
But the Randall genius doesn't
stop there. His "PostPrint" utility
allows the C-64/128 to drive
PostScript printers, producing the
kind of output we expect in the 21st
Century. He also is the driving force
behind [The Wave], a full featured
C-64/128 text browser for the Web.
These and other wonders from
Maurice's [Click Here Software] firm
are not for your plain brown 64 with
an unmodified 1541. A SuperCPU is
required if you intend to use your
Commodore at this level.
So why beef up a C-64 or (better)
a C-128 to do what a Pentium Computer
will do? One excellent reason is that
Maurice and others pushing the
envelope are [not] rich! They do their
own coding. And if you can get to the
Chicago Expo or other C= gathering,
you can talk with them in person.
Two other exciting tidbits of news
have been zigging around the
information byways:
Jeri Ellsworth -- a clever 28 year
old electron pusher from Oregon -- is
working on a [new] [Commodore box]!
Imagine -- a C-64 with a VGA Monitor,
SCSI and IDE drives, off-the-shelf
PS/2 keyboard and mouse -- plus oodles
of memory and megahertz!
Jeri has demoed her Commodore One
at several Expos and Shows, and is
doing the work herself -- on her own
dime. The possibilities are exciting,
and when the project comes to
fruition, it will fly in the face of
every rule of commercial consumerism!
On the other side of the world, an
Asian start-up company is seeking the
intellectual rights to the C-64
technology. They plan to create and
market a TV/Game machine combination.
The Asian market has not been touched,
let alone exploited, by the computer
powers-that-be -- and this all-in-one
device might be just the ticket!
For our part, I let them know
where they can get a [lot] of quality
software!
Enough news. I told you Gamesters
to watch for LS#206 -- and the
interactive entertainment here is mind
boggling: New games and Classics and
some [Serious Helpware]:
LOADSTAR Library V7.3 is DONE! You
will have to check it out. And finally
Mr. Edstar is up and running and ready
for your text editing needs. In fact,
this issue was edited with Mr. Edstar,
so I know it is solid!
DMM