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The Winterfest

Economists are always being quoted as saying that the best time to buy anything is last year. This year, they were wrong. The prices for QL’s, 2068’s, and a lot of peripherals, software, and literature were lower than I have ever seen them.

The weather of Sunny Florida was a bit of a disappointment, but then I guess that they need a little rain now and then to make the oranges, (Actually, the Florida residents were happy that it was raining–that part of Florida has suffered badly for lack of moisture.)

The show opened with 17 exhibitors, including SyncWare News. As of this writing, I don’t have final attendance figures, but 167 visitors were clocked during the first day. As Legislator Murphy (the one who wrote Murphy’s Law) would have predicted, the visitors always seemed to come in bunches, much like a platoon of traffic on the highway. But the bunching didn’t keep them from buying.

The Marriott Hotel is not one of the world’s lowest in price–but then, it’s not one of the lowest in quality of service, either. And Disney World and EPCOT provided an interesting break for those who had time (and will power) to tear themselves away from the computer exhibits.

The customary series of lecture/seminars rounded out the event.

1500 Monitor?

Gerard Tripptree of Little Ferry, NJ wants to know:

“Does anyone have any suggestions on how to modify the TS1500 so that it will produce a composite video output to drive a Zenith monochrome monitor with a 75-ohm input impedance?” He goes on to report “great results” from his ZX81 and an AERCO composite video circuit, but finds that similar techniques will not work with the 1500.

He also would like to get a “good, clear copy” of the TS1500 schematic.

Can anyone out there help? If any of you could give us a good quality TS1500 schematic, SWN would be glad to publish it, provided that there will be no copyright complications.

A Further Word To Authors

As part of our cost-shaving program, we are going to have to reduce the payment we make to authors.

You have probably noticed that this issue carries a lot of material written by in-house people. We believe that the material is stil of high quality, and will be interesting to you, the readers,

However, we don’t want to be guilty of denying prospective writers the forum that we have provided for getting their works before the public. We welcome submissions as much as we ever did, but I’m afraid that we will have to pay our authors largely in terms of immortality.

A word of encouragement to you authors: we are not going to discontinue all payment. We will continue to pay you on the basis of $10 per page, pro-rated for segments less than a full page. And discounted, as our payments always have been, for articles that require extensive editorial work.

We hope that you budding (or fully florescent) authors will not be discouraged by our new policy. We hope that the fact that we offer a first-class medium for your manuscripts will be more important than the reduction in tangible reward.

More on the PC

You are still commenting on the PC question, and your comments are still as diverse as ever. Several of you, however, have managed to make constructive suggestions that had never occurred to us, We’re grateful for them, and we’ll do what we can to carry them out. Please keep your comments coming–on this subject or on any other.