 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Pres Said John Beck |
The PC-89 is now over. What were the highlights? For the ones on the stand, and the committee thank them all for the service they gave, it was the opportunity to meet people and explain the objectives of the Group. Meeting members from outside the metropolitan area was an added pleasure. Many of them had had telephone conversation with some of us, and it is now great that we can associate a face with a voice. Also they were able to relate how Regional SIGs were operating, what activities they considered were important to them, and gave suggestions of how the Group could assist them in their future operations. One Regional SIG convenor spent time assisting on the stand and I had a long conversation with another one also. This has highlighted the advantage of face to face discussion with our Regions, and indicates the advantages to be gained by members of committee visiting Regional SIGs. In the next few months I will make up a visiting list, and with other members of committee, attend Regional SIG meetings. We will probably schedule visits later in the year when it is a little warmer and longer hours of daylight. A visitor from the Boston User Group called on us and had a chat, and he will be present at our next monthly meeting. He has been invited to tell us about User groups in the United States as he is also a member of New York User Group, the home of PC-Blue.
We thank MicroHelp for the loan of PCs and Millergonomics for the loan of furniture and several other companies who donated goods for the sample bags. This year we had a three module stand. Due to the restriction of allowing children into the show and being away from the general stream of PC stands, there was ample space to allow attendees within the confines of our stand. In previous years it has been a case of standing in the aisles to talk to people.
At the time of writing I have no statistics of our performance, but a lot of new members joined and a lot of enquiries should result in postal applications for membership, as has happened in previous years. Many expressed surprise that the facilities offered were available for $30. All joining at the show were given a disk copy of the catalogue as an incentive. The show bag contained a copy of the Members' disk which has a number of text files spelling out the aims of the Group. These include a short history, the rules, how to access the BBS, how to use the PD library, details of SIGs, the magazine, training courses, and Group finances. It was assembled as a promotional tool especially for the show. Some of the authors of the files have suggested that as the files were written to a very tight deadline they should be updated, and if required made available to existing members. The disks were copied in bulk for us but the setting must have been wrong as only one side was printed. This entailed re-copying all of them on the bit copier. Apparently a build up occurred on the heads and there could be some recently copied disks with bad sectors. If you have a recent disk purchase which gives an error message bring it to the next meeting for re-copying, or return it by mail to the box number. The copier has been serviced and is back to normal. There is only one copier working as the one with the librarian and the standby have both ceased to function, and the innards are encapsulated in black resin, hence cannot be repaired. Efforts to obtain replacements have had no success, and the manufacturers or agents on the Singapore stand could not comprehend what a bit copier was. Pity there were no Taiwanese exhibitors.
The general opinion was that the exhibits were 'more of the same'. There was very little new software and in fact not much software on display, although what was there was a little less expensive than previously. Some big name companies were missing i.e., IBM, MICROSOFT etc. Laptops have proliferated and most brands had hard disks and VGA/EGA/CGA/MCGA cards in the top of the line models. The prices in relation to desktops was approximately double. An extra floppy was in the region of $500 versus $250 and 20 MB hard disks $1000 v $500 for desktops. With a 100 MB disk expect to pay $15,000. These prices are out of relation to desktops and obviously have to come down. CD ROM disks were on exhibition and caused some interest. The ones on show were WORM (write once read many) type, and compared with other storage media are very slow.
As a result of putting a promotional memorandum on each stall before the show opened, there were four offers to give talks and demonstrations at our monthly meeting. Some offered concessional prices of their product to members. These will be discussed at committee meetings when planning next year's calendar. Also there were several enquiries for advertising in PC Update.
The BBS is only working on one line at the moment. Some of the problems due to hardware have been fixed. Not being a BBS user I have had to learn something about what makes them tick. The conclusion seems to be that within the Group we lack the skills or the volunteers to put the total package together. Feedback from the BBS SIG as far as I have heard is that they have listed a few desirable objectives, but have not organised a file maintenance roster to meet in the Office probably on a Saturday morning and do some work on the files. The software being used is OPUS, which is a single user program. To use multiple lines the program must be used twice or however many lines you have. This has to be achieved by the use of a multitasking package. Initially Double DOS was used and then a change made to DESQview. One hazard in this setup is that if two callers access the same file the system hangs, because there is no locking of files as in multiuser programmes. The members setting up the BBS have been hampered because the previous Sysop is overseas and has the documentation for the Wyse machine, DESQview and the original programme disks. One of our members has kindly lent his copy of DESQview documentation. However if the BBS is to have two lines and a third one part time for use of Sysops, committee and PC Update SIG a genuine multiuser program is desirable. I had a look at Lloyd Borrett's BBS which has such a program called Galacticomm. It was quite impressive and appears to be easy to run and service by remote control. The additional software and hardware will cost between $2000 and $3000. This is a substantial investment on top of the $15,000 already invested, however we need to consider the facilities we have now (which are not very good) versus what we need and expect to require in the future. At the present time there is no access from Galacticomm to Fido mail but someone in the US is working on it. The source code which is written in C can be purchased to enable integration of 3rd party software or develop your own. This facility could be used to access Fido mail.
Some orders have been received which request programs which are on the same volume. It is assumed that only one copy of the disk is required. In most cases another disk of similar interest is sent, but sometimes a credit note is enclosed with the disks. If the same disk is listed for different files please order the disk once.
Reprinted from the July 1989 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
