 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Pres Said John Beck |
During the month a letter was received advising that Murfett Regency is the owner of Scrabble® in Australia, and the game on MELB 1250 with that name was in breach of trademark and copyright. It was further required that notice in writing was to be given that all Scrabble games have been deleted from the Group's library. Failure to do so will result in legal action being taken. In view of this fact, the game has been deleted from MELB 1250, and all reference expunged from the master catalogue. As this program was obtained from a BBS, the sysop has been advised and he will pass the word to other sysops. This advice can be construed as fulfilling our obligation, as it was in this magazine that Murfett Regency saw the review on Scrabble. The Group was not aware that any infringement had taken place.
Our Administrative Officer David Sloan will be on holiday from 26th August until 30th September. However to ensure that the activities do not come to a standstill during his absence, the committee has approved for alternative staffing during this period. Another consequence of David's absence is that the auction scheduled for the September meeting has been deferred until October.
There should be a coupon elsewhere in PC Update for entering articles for auction. The coupon must be returned before 29th September for inclusion in the auction catalogue. The limit is 5 items per person, which in exceptional circumstances could be extended, if there is a shortage of lots.
The modem offer has attracted considerable interest, and 50 pocket rockets which are the best value in the range, have been ordered to ensure supplies, and a coupon will be found elsewhere. Anyone requiring a different modem should ring the office for a price, which will be very competitive.
Whilst on the subject of modems, bulletin boards spring to mind. I am hearing good reports on its operation. Cohn Macauley moved into the breach to have it up and running with all the facilities which were available before it was moved to the office, and with the assistance of Doug Brooke and Maurice Halkier have made great progress. It is still only utilising one line but soon there will be two. Actions have to be prioritised, and the current one is to have all current members upgraded from Twit to Regular. As there are over 1300 members as listed users, and each must be individually processed, it is a time-consuming task. There is a move afoot to make the membership list accessible to confirm membership as soon as a new user logs on. A program is available, but alas it will not refer to membership number. The author has been approached to revise it to suit our needs. Opus mail is on stream with many file areas, so conferences are up and running again. A tape streamer has been obtained to ensure that the system software and all ancillary files to run the BBS are always available. To this end tapes are available from Nashua, so if any members are tape users they can be obtained. Ring the office for details. As mentioned previously upload/download ratios are a thing of the past. Please check before uploading anything to see if it already exists and hence not use access time which could be utilised more effectively. If you wish to help with the maintenance of the board I am sure Colin would like to see a message from you.
A colleague was disturbed to have an error message from his PC giving an alarm of a parity error. This is the usual message with memory problems. He took it for a checkup, and it was discovered to have a memory chip the wrong way round. It is amazing that a seller should allow a machine to leave their premises in this condition. Why not an overnight soak to test if it is OK. Generally most faults (other than due to old age or misuse) are evident in the first few hours of operation.
Another aspect of service to users, and ease of using peripherals, is lack of standardisation. Take a look at printers. The range includes daisy wheel, dot matrix, and laser printers. The number of disks in software packages is always increasing to accommodate all the variations of drivers required. Some have a general purpose one for the ones which they have not had the fortune (or misfortune to trial). Version 2.0 of Ventura has seven disks to cover the dot matrix and laser printers. Even though technology is advancing at a rapid rate, all new versions of printers are not better than the ones already on the market, but often have unique driver requirements. For the convenience of the customer the manufacturers should get together and combine their know-how. After all, most computer manufacturers copied the IBM PC even though it was not on the leading edge of technology. The reason was due to the large range of software available for IBM. Maybe the software writers should limit the number of printer drivers, and some enterprising manufacturer make an emulation card or series of cards to interface printer and driver. Just a thought!
Time passes quickly, and the annual meeting in December is not far away. A suggestion for anyone who is contemplating standing for a place on committee, now is the time to attend committee meetings to see how they are conducted, and the nature of business discussed. In fact anyone interested in how the Group is administered is welcome to attend. The standing orders are not rigid, and any member who attends, and has a contribution to make is welcomed to express a point of view.
An update of the Public Domain catalogue version 2.04 is now available. Your old catalogue disk can be exchanged for the new one for a changeover fee of $2. If country members order it with other disks it is post-free, otherwise a post and packing charge of $3 applies.
Reprinted from the September 1989 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
