Lots of items to cover this issue. By the time you get this I know it will be a bit later than I wish it were. My main job with the federal government has taken a lot of time away from me the last couple of months, what with training others and longer hours (I have even found myself going in to check on things on Saturdays, not at all to my liking). Most of this is now starting to settle down and I am getting back on a regular schedule.
Paul Holmgren (QUANTA Librarian, frequent contributor to UPDATE, etc.) lost his house in a fire shortly after Christmas. Luckily no one was inside of the house at the time of the fire. From what I heard from him, the only known working computer he had survive the fire was his Z88 from Cambridge. Not his IBM compatible, and seemingly not his QL. He is soon to be in the process of rebuilding the house at the same spot. Mail sent to his old address should still reach him, but he is living in an apartment till his house is rebuilt.
The ads in this issue from Mechanical Affinity are the last you will see. Effective now the name of the company has been changed to FWD COMPUTING. You may ask, why change what has been a long and successful name in the Sinclair community? Paul Holmgren and myself (Frank Davis) had been running Mechanical Affinity pretty much as a hobby activity, mostly to keep ourselves up on the Sinclair world and as a favor to all of you. This took a lot of hours out of our personal lives, and away from family ( Paul still has children at home, not to mention we both work regular jobs). He also wanted to get back into fixing up his old race car (yes, Paul was once a race car driver, mostly NASCAR I think). So, my wife Carol and I took over what was left of Mechanical Affinity and combined it with my Amiga computer business. That is now FWD Computing. Paul, when he gets set back up from his house fire will go back to being the QUANTA librarian, a QL user and still show up at computer shows once in awhile.
Speaking about computer shows, FWD Computing will be at the one day show in Indianapolis at the State Fair Grounds on March 10, 1996. Paul will be there for that. Any who can make it are welcome to drop by our booths. This is a one day show.
I am once again going to give the Dayton Computerfest a chance. This year they are having two shows. One is the last weekend of August, and the other is the 16th and 17th of March, 1996. Paul has told me he will also be there at this show. I know I will be there and this time I already have the booths. Need something for your QL, Z88, Amiga, etc? See me at the show. Perhaps we can all get together and go out for dinner or breakfast. There is a small ad concerning this show elsewhere in this issue of UPDATE. Carol and I hope to see as many of you there as is possible. How well we do at this show will determine whether we are at the show in August. I just know that Gary Ganger and Tim Swenson will be there with their classic computer museum setup (a lot of it is Sinclair), and I got an email from Don Walterman, who told me that he and John Impellizzeri (both of QBOX USA fame) will probably be there.
For those who get on the Internet, check out the homepage of Di-Ren, (Robin Barker) one of our foremost QL hardware developers and software writers. His address on the Internet is ‘http://www.forthrt.com/~di-ren/amadeus.html’. This has links (places you can go to and hit ENTER (or your right arrow key) and be electronically transported to someone elses site on the Internet.)
Another one of our own who has put up a site on the Internet is Tim Swenson, editor of the QL HACKERS JOURNAL. He has also started up a service for those looking for the latest freeware, shareware, and public domain software for the QL and Z88. On his web page you will find lists that have the email addresses of ZX81 users, TS2068 users, QL users, Z88 users, Sinclair users on the Fidonet, Mausenet users, and people who receive the QL HACKERS JOURNAL. You will be surprised at how many people who use Sinclair computers are also on the Internet (more on this in the next paragraph). His address on the World Wide Web is ‘http://www.serve.com/swensont/’.
Some of you are probably wondering just why we have taken such an interest in the Internet in the last few issues. That is a fair question. As I mentioned above there are many Sinclair users involved in using a modem. In fact I have been finding out many more than I found on Tim’s lists. I need to get together with him as I could easily double the size of some of his lists. I was one of the first non-business people back in 1981 to get on Compuserve, way back when I was doing so with my TS1000 and VIC-20 computers. But when you live in a small town that to access BBSes and large information providers such as Compuserve require you to pay long distance phone charges as well as the hourly rates of these companies, I laid my modems aside in 1987. I did not use one again until I found myself laid up for several months from surgery in early 1995. I had heard about the Internet (who has not by now), and found a company was providing local phone call access in my small town. For $20 a month I got 220 hours of use a month, several different ways to get on the Internet and my own home page. That was the type of incentive I needed to get back to telecommunicating. The learning curve was a little frustrating but well worth the effort. I have far more access to information of all sorts than would be available if all the libraries of my state were placed in my living room. I find it has been of great help to me in doing business as a magazine editor and as a mail order computer dealer. It is certainly faster to get mail to other people. If I need to know a recipe or the uses of an herb, or get an answer to a medical question, the information is not too far away. And you will find that there are far more pictures and graphics on the Internet of beauty than of pornography. There is some junk, but far more good. It is just like the various qualities of life we find everywhere else.
Here is a tip for those who use Magnavox monitors with their computers, from John Pegram. “I received the Magnavox monitor safely and it worked until it got warmed up then the display quit. When things cooled off, it would work again, etc. Fortunately this was the same problem with my older monitor when it was on its last legs…..Well I discovered that the heaters for the CRTs went out when things quit. That meant the horizontal sweep quit. I carefully disassembled the monitors and unsoldered the metal shield covering the underside of the main circuit board. Upon careful inspection with a magnifying glass I found that there were several solder joints from the flyback transformer to the main circuit board that had a faint black circular line around the filleted solder joint to the fairly heavy #14 or #16 wire terminal to the flyback transformer. I resoldered these joints and now everything is fine on both monitors. I thought you might be interested in passing this on.” Thanks, John!
If you have noticed that your keyboard is not acting right on your old ZX81 or TS1000, send me $6 and I will send you a brand new replacement membrane to replace the old one. These are the only ones left that I know of, so get them while you can.
For users of the TS2068, we at UPDATE are offering the professional version of LOGICALL V6 for the Larken disk system. It comes in three versions: regular Larken, Larken system used with the Oliger disk interface, and for use with the Aerco-Larken combination. All of this for $15, courtesy of Bob Swoger and available from both UPDATE and RMG. The new operating system for Larken gives it much of the ease of use of theOliger system, while preserving all the added facilities of the Larken. With Logicall you may have the best that has ever been for the Z80 based computers and disk drives.