 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Editorial Ash Nallawalla ash@melbpc.org.au |
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Apology
Time for more apologies - this time because the editorial team had
insufficient time to sub-edit or proof this issue. If you spot any errors don't tell anyone!
Membership
We now have just under 3500 members!
Content
Our Secretary was concerned that the last issue might have tipped the postal
scales to the next rate, so I am pleased to report that we need to exceed the 250g mark to do so. The last
issue (64 pages) weighed about 180g on our kitchen scales, and John Swale tells me that an issue would have
to be very thin to fall below the other end of tile band (<100g), so at present I shall not be worrying
about the page count.
I have had two letters asking for 'more beginner level' material, so I repeat my previous appeal for such
contributions. The 'more technical material' letter count is over the dozen, but thankfully I don't plan to
steer the magazine in either direction, consciously. If I were a beginner today I would rather buy a book on
MS-DOS and learn the basics in the proper sequence than expect to learn from occasional articles in
magazines. Even I don't understand or claim prior knowledge of everything I print, or else this task would
become boring. I even publish articles which don't interest me in the least, so one of these days when we
come up with our promised questionnaire, please bother to complete it. The problem of finding someone to
write the desired type of material will still exist. Some of you have bought bargain basement clones and have
not received legal copies of DOS (and sometimes some software) and consequently you did not receive any
manuals. It is no wonder that some people are having problems which can be solved by reference to the
manuals. Some of these people's machines have a battery-backed clock but they do not know how to access it.
Bruce Hooley wrote to point out that I had accidentally reprinted his article that originally appeared last
year. Did anyone else notice?
User Groups
I wrote to about 10 overseas user group editors hoping to set up a 'chain'
to swap disks containing our published material, but to date only the UK IBM PC User Group Editor has
replied. I know that most other Australian user groups get our magazine on a reciprocal basis, so could their
editors please write to me if they wish to join a proposed circle of editors? Our last issue consumed two 1.2
MB disks and I wouldn't like to send a set to each editor in the circle, so I suggest that only one set
travels along a chain. Any comments from fellow editors?
Speaking of other clubs, I feel quite safe in saying that Melb PC membership represents excellent value for
money. The Sydney group charges $35 per annum for ordinary membership, and their members get a 12 page
typeset monthly newsletter. The Canberra group charges $15 (soon to be $20) per annum and provides an
excellent 40 page laser-set monthly magazine. Other Australian clubs have smaller, dot matrix produced
newsletters but some of them don't advertise their membership rates. These clubs also provide services
similar to ours, sometimes at a lower price. Whilst it is commendable to provide, say, public domain disks
for only $5 each, I feel that some clubs may be under-financing themselves.
The Boston Computer Society has a membership of over 60,000 but it represents many families of PCs and
operating systems. Members pay US$35 per annum if they live in Massachusetts, slightly less outside New
England, and US$70 for overseas membership. Members receive one common, glossy monthly magazine and their
choice of two (out of 39) computer- or topic-specific newsletters. I saw an interesting editorial in the BCS'
'common' magazine Computer Update. Only 11 % of their members live in Boston, and 30% live in
Massachusetts. The BCS is the largest user group in California! Their renewal rates are 70% in Eastern
Massachusetts, 51% for the rest of the United States and 44% for overseas. The BCS has been through the
exercise of debating whether or not to change its name to reflect a national membership, but it does not
believe that it has provided the same level of service to interstate members to warrant this move. It has
also considered asking smaller clubs to merge with them, but has chosen not to adopt a competitive posture,
preferring to keep the interests of local members paramount. Melb PC has members in all Australian states and
at 3300 members is probably the largest in the southern hemisphere. Perhaps other clubs may wish to become
affiliates whilst retaining full independence and autonomy - these are my views, not necessarily those of the
committee. When I belonged to Australia's largest Microbee club, its committee suggested to other clubs that
they would provide a national magazine and the clubs could provide a local insert. The idea was rejected by
the other clubs, probably because their committees resented the perceived loss of power. The real losers were
their members. A danger in merging with interstate clubs is that resources will have to be spread pro rata,
possibly resulting in lesser benefits to Victorians. Catch 22!
Many professional organisations supply their members with a thick, glossy
'common' national magazine and a thin, low cost state newsletter. Food for thought. Or since we already have
the facility of using material published by other clubs there's no need to change. Any comments? Writing Only
in PC Update can you criticise the Editor's grammar and get away with it. I have been advised that in
my last editorial I really meant to say "It would seem that writing skills have not been inculcated into our
youngsters during at least the last decade. I don't know enough about education in this country to criticise
it, but I have seen the products of some of the less exclusive schools and I believe that there is
considerable room for improvement." I don't retract the use of the word 'typos' instead of 'typographical'
[errors], and I would prefer to steer away from talking about writing from the next issue onwards, as it must
be boring to many. I have submitted my resignation (actually a transfer to the General Reserve) to the RAAF
and I have been presented with a major dilemma - my new job at a large multi-national company will require me
to write in American English! Will this magazine suffer the same fate? I have never regarded American English
as 'inferior' to the other one - I just don't like the half-hearted attempts made by our news media in that
direction - why 'color' but not 'aluminum'; why not 'tire' as in a car tyre... Go all the way or don't
bother.
Letters
Please do not feel offended if I do not publish your hand-written letter or write back to you. I donate an
average of some two hours a day to this magazine and I cannot spend any more time. One reader says that he
cannot figure out my postal address amongst all the abbreviations before, after and below my name, so he
wrote to the GPO Box address. Permit me some sarcasm - I am very proud of those abbreviations so I will
explain them - My rank is correctly abbreviated to FLTLT (don't worry about how it used to be abbreviated,
this is how we do it in the RAAF). ZL4LM and VK3CIT are my amateur radio callsigns, and advertising this fact
has allowed other hams to contact me over the air. 'P.O. Box-Size Mail' is followed by my postal address. I
cannot get to it during working hours and if I receive an item that cannot be squeezed into it, the post
office leaves me a card. Much of my PC Update-related mail (e.g. disks and ad copy) falls into this category
and I might not get to collect it for one or two weeks. To avoid this I have recommended that large items
should go to my work address (until 14 January 1989). If you write to the GPO Box then our Administrative
Officer has to redirect it to me, leading to further delays. One reader continues to write to me using his
initials. I do not have access to our mailing list and I will not waste my time and that of the
Administrative Officer to find out who you are.
ACSnet
Deakin University is clamping down on student use of ACSnet (as it costs them money). Whilst I am still a
student there I will not comment on that, but can some kindly soul (preferably in Melbourne) provide me with
an account on their machine which will allow me to receive and send email and files for use in PC
Update. In return, your company will be given a mention in every issue.
Scanner
After I leave the RAAF in January I may not have access to a scanner. We would like to have our own scanner
one day, but would someone like to volunteer to scan pictures for us. What do you think of the scanned
images? I know that traditional screening is better but we have a limited budget, so we must accept second
best. An additional problem is with Ventura's tendency to cause those criss-cross patterns in scanned
halftones, which will be fixed in Release 2.0. (I am not referring to the patterns caused by incorrect frame
sizing.)
Upgrades
Ventura Publisher 1.2 - I have just received the five patch disks for Release 1.2. Registered owners
should send their registration cards with $39.95 to Rank Xerox, P.O. Box 400, Pymble NSW 2073. 1 have not
tested it ex-haustively, but not all bugs have disappeared.
Wordstar 2000 3.0 - Some months ago I registered my copy with MicroPro Intl (USA). I received a free
replacement Filelocator/List/Index disk recently, as the original disk contains bugs which may lead to loss
of data if used with DOS 2.x. Some enhancements have also been provided on the new disk. The new disk bears
the numbers 0414B 8098 (in case you have a recently packaged copy you may already have the new disk). If you
have a PostScript printer you may wish to ask Wordstar Australia for a free copy of the Adobe Font Metrics
disk. A while ago they used to charge a small fee for disks that were supplied free in the USA, so this is a
good trend.
Reprinted from the October 1988 issue of PC Update, the
magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
