 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group PC Editorial David Jitts |
To use the word maiden in any connection with a crusty old codger like me is almost an obscenity. However, this is the first time that I have used Microsoft Word (and I am impressed), have written an Editorial or produced a Newsletter. So with fear and trepidation I present my very first, my maiden, edition of PC Update. Here's hoping that it achieves something approaching the high standard set by my predecessors.
Even as I am typing this, I have no idea what the finished product will look like. I have not yet succeeded in getting my Columbia to talk to the Group's Applelaser and the deadline given to me by the printing company is looming up. If you are reading dot matrix printed characters, you will know that I didn't get it going in time.
During my stint as Editor, I propose to guide PC Update in a more people orientated direction. Hopefully, this will create a greater personal inter-action between our Members both at meetings and outside of them. As the first step towards this objective, you will notice the appearance of two new regular columns, BYTE BOX and TRADING COLUMN. If we hear enough shouts of agreement, we may consider running some sort of Employment Opportunities Column. Articles having a human interest angle on the application of computers will get priority over purely technical articles, for a while at any rate. Any other ideas along these lines will be gratefully received.
A related goal is to increase the involvement of the Members in the administration of the Group. Being a devout believer in open government, your Editor will never, knowingly, give the membership the mushroom treatment. (i.e. kept in the dark and fed with b-s.)
Of course, the technical side will not be neglected. We aim to continue to bring you a well balanced mixture of feature articles and reviews which will be selected to have something for all users, ranging from the novice to the professional programmer. "DOS CORNER" has been introduced as a regular column but needs a sub-editor to guarantee its long term viability. Any takers ?
All this is a pretty ambitious programme considering that PC Update editorial people are all contributing their time on a voluntary basis. It will only succeed if it is well supported by those who have an interest in the production of a Newsletter. So I have been asked by the President, Ron Lyth, to continue the initiative taken by my predecessor, David Watson, with respect to the establishment of a Desk Top Publishing SIG. Please contact me after the February Meeting, or any other time, if you would like to participate in this SIG. It will offer the neophyte some "hands-on" experience by helping to produce PC Update and to the professionals, the opportunity to teach others how it is done. Those people who have already given their names to David Watson will be contacted even if they are not at the February Meeting.
To my favourite people, the members who contribute to PC Update, greetings and salutations. Please keep those masterpieces of literary genius rolling in. If something you have already contributed has not been published, do not loose heart, sometimes we will not be able to fit everything into our spatial and time constraints. If two articles cover the same ground without offering divergent points of view, then brilliant that they both may be, one will have to miss out. Likewise, if there is a preponderance of contributions relating to a particular application or language, it would give PC Update an undesirable bias, unless, of course, we were deliberately featuring that subject.
Let me conclude with the Apologia Section. Firstly, apologies from PC Update and Melbourne PC for failing to produce a November issue; we were a little pre-occupied at that time. We hope to make this up to you by turning out a bumper edition in our next issue which will be in January.
Secondly, my personal apologies for the many spelling errors and production bleepers that will lay bare my amateur status in this news-letter business.
Remember that we are relying on your brick-bats and bouquets to ensure that PC Update remains what it is, the leading News-letter published by an Australian PC User organisation.
Reprinted from the Nov/Dec 1986 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
