The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Prez Said Ron Lyth

Welcome to all our new members who joined at PC87, all 300 of you! This group is dedicated to assisting you, the users of these time-consuming gadgets, in coming to terms with both the hardware and its driving software, so that you derive benefit from your PC. This is at least a two-way process and requires the experienced users amongst our ranks to assist the new chums, and that the new members put aside any embarrassment they might have and ask those "silly" questions. All of us have at some stage been new chums and we know what you are going through as you attempt to master the beast. 

The Bulletin Board is going from strength to strength and we will soon be connecting a second line so that you can get onto it easier. I know that I usually have to try several times before I can log on, and that is good in that it indicates that we have many keen users, but bad because we might turn people away. Please remember that this is also a two-way deal and that we want you to contribute your thoughts and opinions to the message areas, and to upload anything you find useful which is not on the board. The Sysops are watching you. 

This month's meeting is a special in which we will attempt to bring together all we know about IBM's Series 2 PCs, and their operating systems. We will be concentrating on trying to nut out the likely future directions of the industry and will be looking at how IBM's action stacks up against what others in the market are doing. We hope you will be there and find out what is happening. 

Thanks to the learned panel who spoke at our last meeting, and especially to Lloyd Borrett who got them together. It is a measure of the standing which this club has that we can get so many important people from the industry to come along to address our meetings. Also it is heartening to note that the B***S*** content was quite low; we were getting good hard information from industry leaders. 

Thanks to all who attended the Special General Meeting and voted so convincingly in favour of adopting the new Rules. This Committee will almost certainly be the last to be elected under the old rules because our new Rules were lodged at Corporate Affairs on June 4, the day after the meeting. The only possible hitch might be that Corporate Affairs refuse to accept them, but in the opinion of the legal experts who prepared the final draft, that is extremely unlikely. The second proposal was also adopted, although not unanimously as with the Rules. Thanks for allowing the meeting to proceed so smoothly and quickly. 

A third motion was passed by acclamation at the Special General Meeting, and that was to thank Cordon Castle, Tom Coleman and their able crew for the superb job of organising and running our stand at PC87. The efforts that all concerned made were substantial, but all have said that the success of the show was sufficient reward for that effort. I hope that some of our less than active members take note: you will always get most out of a group if you are prepared to put a lot into it. Something along the same lines as a rich man, on being told that he was lucky, replying that he had noticed that the harder he worked the luckier he got. There's a message there I think. 

At our August Meeting we will be concentrating on Graphics and Tony Rogers will be demonstrating his latest product which is, I understand, something of a tour de force of EGA programming. Anyone wishing to speak about any aspect of this subject, whether screen-based or printer graphics, please let me know. 

Reprinted from the July 1987 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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