It is with considerable sorrow that I heard that ZQA would put out its last issue. All of us that enjoy using the T/S computers will be a little diminished. I still remember how my ZX-81 solved a tough math problem I had worked on for years and how my kids grew up playing games on our TS-2068.
Now most of my computing is on the QL. Well, actually most of it is on QL emulators – the QXL, QLAYW, Q-emuLator, and QPC2. Yes, I have Windows and MAC and use them when they are the best tools for the job at hand. However, I find for development work the QL far exceeds anything available on the PC or MAC.
I’ll give you one example. I write games for the youth group at church. Pretty easy and fun to do, with SuperBasic. The kids can run them on the QLAYW freeware emulator.
In recent years, the New England Sinclair QL User Group has revised its operations to meet the changing times. One change is that we went to Virtual Meetings via email. This allows members who could never attend a meeting in New England to have a say in things. Some of the debates have been quite vigorous.
Actually, most members live outside New England. So we changed our name to North American Sinclair QL User Group – NASQLUG.
NASQLUG sponsors an annual QL show. Many of the European vendors and developers attend and demo the latest hardware and programs. This year the show is in West Haven, CT on 17 May. Last year it was near Washington, DC.
The NASQLUG Journal is published quarterly. It has 6 to 8 pages of technical and news articles. The Journal is a semi-ezine. That is, about half the members elect to get a paper copy but many only obtain the articles via the Internet. However, all can obtain the articles from our web page, which means no more keying in those long programs from the paper copy.
NASQLUG is a sub-group of Quanta, the large QL group centered in England. This affiliation has several advantages. The two most important are: 1. Quanta helps out financially with the annual US QL shows. 2. All the technical articles published in the NASQLUG Journal are also submitted to the Quanta editor who publishes them in the Quanta magazine if they appear to have broader interest. Nearly all of the Journal articles have been reprinted in Quanta. It is not required that a NASQLUG member belong also to Quanta although Quanta membership is encouraged.
QL development is supported by NASQLUG with seed money grants and prizes. For example, NASQLUG provided Simon Goodwin some seed money to develop a MIDI (Musical Interface) capability for the QL. He was able to devise a Keyword to send MIDI compatible signals out of the QL NET port. All of the numerous MIDI music available on the Internet can now be played from a QL hooked to a synth or MIDI keyboard.
There is a NASQLUG web site. In fact, several of them! The old site:
http://geocities.com/nesqlug1/
has last year’s Journal articles available for viewing and downloading. It has links to individual member sites such Herb Schaaf’s Math site. The link to my MIDI site doesn’t work since Juno stopped providing web space. However, our new Webmaster Phoebus Dokos is loading everything on our new site:
www.dokos-gr.net/~nesqlug/
the idea is for everyone who wants to can have a link to their own site. Others can send material to Phoebus to upload to the master site.
NASQLUG is a non-profit organization plus we have learned to produce and mail the Journal at a very low price. The basic annual dues are $12 to include a paper copy of the Journal or $5 for Internet access only. To provide an incentive to authors and officer volunteers, dues are reduced by $5 for anyone that promises to write at least one article per year or volunteers and is elected as an officer. The reduced rates are thus: $7 for paper copy and FREE for Internet access only.
All members of a household become members if one is a member. Children have played important roles even as officers. We had an article on Turtle Graphics to let elementary school age children do simple programs. Also once we found a wife that stayed in her motel room during one of the QL shows. Since then we have always provided activities for family members that are only marginally interested in computers.
Our officers currently include: Director, Treasurer, Show committee, and Webmaster. But several important jobs are empty: Secretary to those without web access, Program Librarian, and Editor (Articles are now published as is without checking for errors!). Moreover, if anyone sees a need, for example a Grant Officer to vitalize and monitor grants, then they can volunteer and be voted into office. Indeed, I have always desired that most members become an officer (A worker Bee! You only get out as much as you put in.).
If you want to join NASQLUG, contact the Treasurer,
Kevin O’Leary
Box 172
Meriden, NH 03770.
[e-mail address omitted]
For more information contact Director
Al Boehm
2501 Ermine Drive
Huntsville, AL 35810
[e-mail address omitted]