Nite-Times Information ------------------------------ The Nite-Times News is the newsletter of the Chicago Area Timex Users Group. For an annual fee of $12.00 you can become a CATUG member and receive four newsletters each year. Write your check payable to: ROBERT SWOGER 613 PARKSIDE CIRCLE STREAMWOOD IL 60107-1647 The Chicago Area Timex Users Group is pleased to exchange newsletters with other Timex and Sinclair supporting user groups at no charge. Send all newsletter requests to: CATUG EDITOR BOB SWOGER 613 PARKSIDE CIRCLE STREAMWOOD IL 60107-1647 If you desire to reprint any articles that appear here, please provide credit to the author and this newsletter. We encourage your user group to copy this newsletter and distribute it at your regular meetings to your members free of any charge as we believe that this will encourage better meeting attendance. If you are a user group that feels as we do, please let us know in your newsletter so that we might do this for our members and keep our attendance up. Articles originating from our group may be downloaded from our BBS and reprinted. CLUB MEETINGS ---------------------- The Chicago Area Timex Users Group meets on the THIRD Saturday, this month at the home of our Editor, Bob Swoger, from 1:00 to 5:00 PM. Bob's home is located at 613 Parkside Circle in Streamwood, Illinois near Elgin. Bob should always be contacted evenings at 708/837-7957 to confirm the meeting schedule. CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE ----------------------------- Larry Sauter Bob Swoger, K9WVY TREA$URY NOTE$ ----------------------- The balance as of December 30th is $365.26 Our current paid membership stands at 21. Robert Swoger, Treasurer Chicago Area Timex Users Group SECRETARY'S NotePad ------------------------------ September 19, 1998 Members of the Timex, Motorola and CoCo computer clubs were present. Among those that attended were John, Karen and Adam Shepard from Boxholm Iowa, Josh and Chris Kopecke, Rich Bair, Brian Goers, Cy Herre, Gerald Jeskey and his daughter, John Donaldson, Mike Knudsen, Edward Kuns, Tony Podraza, Larry Sauter, Bob and Annette Swoger, Justin Wagner. Twenty-three members expressed an interest in attending and twenty-three came, but not all were the same twenty-three that signed up! Tony provided Barbecue Chicken, Bratwurst, Hot Dogs and thick all beef burgers to christen our new grill. The Hamburgers that would put Big Mac and Whopper to shame in size and flavor. There was ample potato salad and all the condiments you would want including FRESH tomatoes from Annette's garden. There were delicious drinks and pass- arounds and everybody ate and drank their fill. Of all the game items brought out the only items used were the Velcro ball catch set, the golfing set, and the whistling Frisbee. Again this year the electric start Bernzomatic Yellow Jacket Destroyer was high on the adult toy list. We had the usual, for this group, sort of incinerating yellow jackets that were investigating out soft drinks and some flew back home with singed wings, etc. I never knew that propane torch would melt an aluminum can like we did at the picnic. The weather was excellent and the food was extremely tasty and a good time was had by all. October 11, 1998 Present were Larry Sauter, Cy Herre and Robert Swoger. Robert Swoger gave a brief picnic report. See last months notes for details. Bob and Larry briefly looked at some software brought by J Shepard at our last meeting for the purpose of identification and cataloging. This was postponed until next meeting as Larry was unable to stay around to help. Bob GATOR Swoger brought newsletters from the TIMEX/Sinclair Northamerican User Groups, ZXir QLive Alive!, to last Thursday's Glenside Color Computer Club meeting. The newsletter is presently published by retiree Abed Kahale of Sierra Vista, Arizona. The club members noted the need for computer programs, missing in their newsletters for quite some time. GATOR promised to contribute some he had recently written to peruse the Glenside Database for various pieces of information. Noted was the need to supply the email addresses of our members in our newsletter. Many of our members have found JUNO to be a favorable way to exchange email. Tony Podraza of Glenside made a disk with JUNO software at the picnic for Bob Swoger, but the disk did not work. Seems that Tony was missing two parameters from his lap top's AUTOEXEC.BAT. VERIFY ON and BREAK ON were missing. Bob explained that VERIFY ON makes sure that the data written to disk gets on the disk correctly. This parameter was really a necessity in both Sinclair and CoCo machines that had to write to sound tapes and poor quality disks in its distant past. Seems that it is still a necessity today! Tony added those two parameters on the spot. You at home should check to see that these parameters are turned on in your machines! With a little tongue and cheek it was noted that when Y2K occurs, a renewed interest in the ZX Computers will occur. YES! The TS2068 will make a comeback since it is un- affected by the Y2K bug! Larry Sauter, Secretary Chicago Area Timex Users Group INPUT/OUTPUT ------------------------ ITEMS FOR SALE THROUGH THE CLUB ------------------------------- GATOR's TWISTED PAIR ------------------------------ To better inform the Sinclair Community as newsletters and magazines about our computers cease to exist, three 24 Hour a day BBSs are now provided to serve the Sinclair Community. You are encouraged to exchange mail and use the files sections of these boards. Bulletins and ADS are available to all. The Club BBS is sponsored by the Motorola microcomputer Club. If you know the Internet E-MAIL address of a Sinclair user, but do not have access to Internet, simply address your E-MAIL to GATOR SINCLAIR on the MMCC BBS and include the name and e-mail address of the Sinclair user you wish to reach. Then check the MMCC BBS from time to time if you expect a reply. You have to register as a first time user. This can be done by contacting the SYSop evenings at 708-837-7957 or calling the BBS. Give your user name. When you register your password should be your first name like JIM THOMAS JIM where the second JIM is your password. On later logins you should change your password. You will be able to do nothing more than register on your first call in unless you contacted the SYSop first. E-MAIL and BULLETINS are sub- divided into conferences. The first level is the MAIN section where everything is general to the MMCC. [J]oin the TIMEX or QL conference to see SINCLAIR specific E-MAIL and News Items. [B]ulletins will display topics like SINC to see the SINCLAIR sub-board for related topics. The Club BBS 847-532-5558 Arlington Heights, Illinois Q-Box BBS 810-254-9878 Utica, Michigan SOL BBS 520-882-0388 Tucson, Arizona Bob Swoger, SYSop --==GATOR==-- Chicago Area Timex Users Group ARTICLES ---------------------- ADS --------- Monkey Business A tourist walks into a pet shop in Silicon Valley, and looks at the cages on display. While he's there, another customer walks in and says to the shopkeeper, "I'll have a C monkey, please." the shopkeeper nods, goes over to a cage at the side of the shop, and takes out a monkey. He fits it with a collar and leash and hands it to the customer, saying "That'll be $5,000." The customer pays and walks out with his monkey. Startled, the tourist goes over the shopkeeper. "That was a very expensive monkey; most of them are only a few hundred dollars. Why did it cost so much?" "Ah, that monkey can program in C; very fast, tight code, no bugs, well worth the money." The tourist looks at the other monkeys. "That one's even more expensive, $10,000! What does it do?" "Oh, that one's a C++ monkey; it can manage object-oriented programming, Visual C++, even some Java, all the really useful stuff." The tourist looks around a little longer and sees a third monkey in a cage on its own. The price tag around its neck, says $50,000. He gasps. "That one costs more than all the others put together! What on earth does it do?" "Well, I don't know if it does anything, but it says it's a contractor." 2