Greetings everyone on this, the month of another SPACE birthday! Everyone who has been faithfully supporting the club for this long needs to be congratulated. We are one of the very few ATARI clubs to have continued on for so long.
Our club has experienced quite a bit of turmoil in recent months and we deserve a break! This month's birthday party will give us all a chance to let loose.
PLEASE check the sign-up sheet in this newsletter and select an appropriate place to put yourself. If you are planning on bringing EXTRA guests to the birthday meeting, be sure that you bring along extra food necessary to help us out. Attendance at the birthday meetings tends to triple and that is fine with me. I do want to be sure that we have enough food for everyone. Events for the evening will consist of a raffle, trivia, and a video game contest that absolutely, positively WILL occur, even if it is just me up at the front of the room furiously wiggling a joystick!
As our past birthday meetings have always proven, they are the most exciting of the year, don't miss this one!
That is it for this month. I hope to see everyone at the next meeting, a good time will be had by all!
Nathan Block
SPACE BIRTHDAY FOOD LIST
Appetizers Dave Scheppard Bill Cotter Jim Scheib Entrees (HELP!) Mike Wiest Salads The Fitzpatricks Greg Leitner Larry Serflaten Deserts Red Malchow Don Langford (cookies) George Barich Allen Noble (Special K bars) Silverware/Utensils/Plates Mike Schmidt
We will also need people to help with CLEAN UP afterwards..
The following message was posted on our BBS:
Message: 194 (#5551)
Titles Don't FORMAT my disks
Author: GLEN KIRSCHENMANN
To: All
Posted: Mon 28-Jun-93 at 7:07:00pm
Replies: 0
I am posting this urgent message for Phil Ethier:
At the MAY SPACE meeting, I sold some ATARI disks containing BASIC programs, etc. to a gentleman. I took the disks, still in the floppy-protecting pages, out of a white ring binder. Now I am in trouble with my kids. Two of the disks contained some POETRY they had written. Amazingly to me, no hard copy of this stuff seems to exist. If the disks have not yet been reformatted, I would like to get the TEXTS back for them. Would the buyer of the disks please call me at;
224-3105 or 298-5324
Sincerely,
Phil Ethier
Meeting opened at 7:40 p.m. by club president Nathan Block. Nathan welcomed everyone and introduced all the club officers. All officers present except Joe Danko. Nathan's first order of business was talking about the Space computer club's 11th birthday party in July at next meeting. Club will supply ham and beverage(orange drink, Nathan will get at Mcdonalds). Club will have a sign up sheet members to sign up for food item they can bring to party. If members will be bringing freinds and or family, they are encouraged to bring a extra food item for party. There will be a trivia contest at birthday party. Nathan urges members not to miss this event asks every one to come. Larry Serflaten brought up the suggestion that invitations be sent out to past Space members as well as current members. Motion made by Larry and seconded by Space club treasurer Greg Leinter.
Nathan talked about Atari Fest that will be taking place in Kansas City. Anybody interested can look over information that is available after meeting.
Larry Serflaten demostrated a filing program that is on the Disk of the Month. Greg Leinter, club treasurer, mentioned that anybody interested in a subscription to Atari Classic, can still subscribe. Cost is $25 a year. 6 issues a year. He mentioned that he has 3 issues to let people look over after meeting. Mike Fitzpatrick, B.B.S. Sysop, said he is in the process of cleaning up files on B.B.S. Thanked members for deleting F-Mail after receiving it. Also Mentioned that Bob Klass, known for K-products, would be in town towards June 29, 1993. Tentatively. Asked membership if they would be interested in a meet with Bob Klass, if he would be interested in meeting with our club members. Mike asked members to contact him if they were interested. Nathan block, club president, mentioned that the club software supplier Lance Ringquist in the back of room had some excellent software for sale.
Well, just when it looked like we got a great Friday for our monthly meeting, I looked around the room and I thought to myself, where is everybody?
Some of the members I used to see every month are now coming at best every other month and others have stayed away for months. I know it's hard sometimes to schedule the meeting in, but let's face it, we all know when the next meeting is coming. I just hope that some of us aren't losing interest in their club. Please show up arid support your club.
It looks like June was a break even month for us. We had two memberships paid and sold a few Dom's, and thanks to the Fitzpatrick's once again for the ice cream sales which really saved the month. Our bank balance at the end of June is around $740.00 which includes an unpaid bill at the time of this report for June's newsletter. With additional expenses upcoming for the July meeting due to the club's summer party I hope to see a great turnout. This riot only makes everyone feel good about the support of the club but also increases our Dom sales. Hope to see everybody there in July and let's have a fun party.
Earline and I bought the store she had managed for 4 1/2 years on October 1, 1992. We had decided in an earlier business. venture, now incorporated with the store, to use the Atari 8-bit computer. The reasons we selected the Atari were:
For the technical types we have matched set of hardware at the store and her (Earline's) home office. The hardware consists of:
A 130XE
Two 1050 diskdrives
(doubler installed)
A 820 serial printer
A 850 interface
parallel printer
(home office has 2
parallel printers)
SX212 modem
A quintopus from C.S.S.
Software used is:
SynCalc
Bank Street Writer
SynTrend
File Manager 800+
Atari Translator
BobTerm
Time Wise
What we are using the Atari in business for, is: to Catalog customer want lists; Author and Publication listings; Consignment clothing and consigner listings; Payroll; Daily receipts; Inactive customer listings for book credit. With a little imagination some of the software can be used to aid maintaining suspense dates for customer notification of product availability or retrieval of consigned goods. Payroll and daily receipt records are also rolled up into quarterly and yearly reports for the various tax organizations; Federal and State.
Future plans are to put the inventory of books (120,000) in a data base, from Newell Industries, using his 130XE software progam and the "Oscar" an 8-bit barcode reader. Also, a BBS supporting the special interest group of Romance Readers is being put together for both national and possible international use. The supporting data for international efforts with a BBS is that the book/author search/research has reached international levels with customers in Europe, Canada, New Zealand and U.S. territories such as Guam and Puerto Rico. We have amassed a whole complete set of items as, a spare, if and when a piece of hardware/software fails. So as you can see we plan on using the Atari for business purposes, for a long time into the future.
After some time, this also appeared on the BBS from Mr. Fitzpatrick
Business Atari
Well we have our second machine up and running here at the store.
The first machine will be used primarilly for search purposes and customer needs.
The second setup is a little different from the first, as we are running three (3) printers instead of two (2) and we have modem installed to communicate with one of our researchers (direct data transfer [s]) who also has an Atari 8-bit and the applications files developed for the business. I am in the process of ordering software for a business BBS to support a long established part of the business. Book search, research, author forums.
More as items and issues develop.
Editors note:
The club still needs a GRAPHICS printer. Perhaps someone who plans to attend can find a good deal on a compatable printer at the fair!
AMATEUR SHOW '93
Well, another year has gone by and guess what? It is time for the annual Amatuer Show at Aldrich Arena in Maplewood, Mn.
I always look forwards to this show. It is time to look for bargins, talk to friends and flea market people selling electronic things. Usually every year I find a few bargins. It is quite the experience to roam thur this show.
This year Space should have a booth at this show. Volunteers will be needed to mann the club's booth. I have done it for a Few years and it is fun.
This year there is a expanded parking lot that has been resurface and will have more Flea market people selling electronic items.
SO REMEMBER! JULY 16TH AND JULY 17
TIMES ARE 6PM - 10PM FRIDAY
6AM - 3:30 PM SATURDAY
Mike Weist
Published by the Saint Paul Atari Computer Enthusiasts (SPACE), an independent organization with no business affiliation with ATARI Corporation. Permission is granted to any similar organization with which SPACE exchanges newsletters to reprint material from this newsletter. We do however ask that credit be given to the authors and to SPACE. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of SPACE, the club officers, club members or ATARI Corporation.