The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
Editorial
Peter Smith

A number of members have suggested that we should have an annual index, a cumulative index for the current year (published each month), a cumulative total index or various combinations of all three. I am pleased to report that it is happening, but its a huge task. Paul Francis Perry (of MIDI fame) has produced a complete card-index for 1991 and his associate Laurence Blake (of advertising fame) is converting it to disk for publication. As always, Murphy is alive and well. Laurence's computer blew up its power supply at the critical time and ifs still in the process of being replaced. The new one is coming as they say, real soon now; in the meantime the hard disk sleeps peacefully...

Cartoons 

You will have noticed the increase over the last few issues. Several new faces have joined our cartoon team - thanks to all of them, in particular to Frank Italia for his drawings and being able to produce whole strips with less than 24 hours notice.

Articles

We currently have a backlog of articles for publication - and as the months roll by it doesn't seem to diminish! As we now work anything from four to eight weeks ahead of you receiving PC Update, there will always be a significant lead time between submission of articles and their final publication. For example, I am writing this in January, for this (March) issue, and it's one of the last things to be done for this issue!

BBSs 

There seems to be some confusion among a number of members about the PC Update BBS. The most important thing to be aware of is that there are two, quite distinct, BBSs. Although they coexist at St. Kilda Road, within millimetres of each other, neither knows of the other's existence. The PC Update BBS is separate for very good reasons - the editorial team is scattered over an area of several thousand square kilometres (most of us are 30-40 km from any central location) and needs instant access to the board to communicate articles during the production period. As regular main BBS users will appreciate, one often has to wait some time to gain access to the main board and our own board solves this problem. A separate board also allows a greater degree of access than we could reasonably expect to have on the main board, which also helps our productivity.

The points that I am slowly getting to are:

  • Because the PC Update board is separate, you must "re-register", and can use a different password, if you wish.
  • Messages and articles loaded to the main board are very likely to be delayed in getting to the team. There is currently no automatic transfer, and we can't always afford the time waiting to gain access to the main board.
  • The PC Update board has no downloadable files, so there are very few long periods when it tied up by downloads. This means that you should be able to gain access rapidly when you want to upload an article or advertisement.
All in all, our plea is - please use the PC Update BBS for anything at all to do with PC Update. Making our life easier helps you, because we then have more productive time to devote to the magazine!

Reprinted from the March 1992 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
 

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