 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Editorial Ash Nallawalla ash@melbpc.org.au |
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Farewell to the 80s
This issue farewells the 1980s, the decade that saw the proliferation of real PCs, certainly the one that we are familiar with - the IBM PC and its many successors and imitators. This decade saw the decline of CP/M and the rise of MS-DOS/PC-DOS. Unix too came to PCs. We now have OS/2 to consider. Other families of small computers have also flourished and have given a taste of computing to many home users. What will the 1990s mean to us? I won't make rash predictions, but I think that the buzzword to watch is Connectivity. I am referring to global connections, not local area networks. You will see terms such as ISDN, MHS, X.400 and X.500 become more common. They will shrink the world even more.
Common National Magazine
On a closer front, I am hoping to be involved with a common national user group magazine that will replace PC Update.
We wrote to five PC groups in the mainland, and to date only Perth has agreed in principle. Adelaide was sympathetic, but with 100 members and a low subscription fee, they cannot afford to participate. Canberra is proposing the concept of a national user group association. We are waiting for formal replies from Sydney and Brisbane before the committee decides to do anything.
Melbourne has offered to produce the magazine, which will not have any group-specific material (except as an insert - ours would be called PC Update) and the editorial will be rotated among the groups. This approach will enable users all over Australia to share a larger (once we get more advertising) magazine without having to belong to our group. As we are copying articles from each other, we may as well eliminate this duplication.
Geelong SIG
The Geelong Regional SIG convenor sent a 'reply' to John Beck's Pres Said column in the October issue. It was probably written in a hurry, but after speaking with the President I have not printed it. Another Geelong member submitted an identical piece and that too is being rejected. I don't wish to censor people who need to right a perceived wrong, particularly if it appeared in print, but this case is different.
The Geelong SIG did not advise me of errors on the Meetings page, and if they advised someone else and nothing happened, then they should have written to me, instead of treating the incorrect entries as a standing joke. The SIG believes that the correct in-formation was indeed passed on to the group office. As it is a misunderstanding that has been cleared up by the President with the SIG, I have not wasted a page or two on the matter.
Special Once-Only Offer
Our members can now subscribe to the US PC Magazine and others at discount prices. The group gets no commission, and normally members deal direct with the company concerned. See the inside back cover for details.
As a once-only service to members, the group office will accept subscriptions to these magazines in Australian currency (credit card OK) at the fixed rate of US$0.70 = A$1.00. This protects the group against currency fluctuations and helps to offset the cost of one bank draft. It is cheaper than paying $6 to your bank for a draft.
It works like this: fill out the coupon as per the instructions. Say you are taking out a seamail subscription to PC Magazine, which will cost a total of US$55.97. This amount divided by 0.70 is A$79.96, which is the amount you pay the group by cheque or credit card (mention expiry date, card type and number). Use a separate blank sheet for this transaction.
Such orders must be received on or before 23 January 1990 at the office. Late requests will be returned to the sender, who will have to contact the company directly. David Sloan will mail the coupons and a bank draft to Ziff-Davis on the 27th.
Although the group as a body never 'recommends' anything, PC Magazine carries my personal endorsement. It is perhaps the best single source for comparative reviews. I have not read the other magazines but you can check out a copy at some large newsagencies.
Illustration Software
This issue contains the first of two reviews of illustration software. I would welcome additional comments from users of these products. I had to delete several pictures because I think the printer's 1.5 MB memory was not enough, and some pages contained several MB worth of images. I have no better explanation. Pages took over 30 minutes each to print in some cases, and that was not helped by the bug mentioned in the article. The annoying part was that the printer would blink away pretending to accept the data, but at the end of the exercise it would print nothing. One tracing absolutely refused to print from Ventura, even from an otherwise blank page, and I had to resort to cut-and-paste by printing it from Corel Draw. The article literally took over 12 hours to print, and I wasn't going to fix the typo on page 4 for anyone. I will write a follow-up after I have used the packages a bit more.
Reprinted from the December 1989 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
