[HEA] _____________________ ___ _ |___ ______________| | | | | | | _ | | | | | || | | | | | | || | | | | | | || | | | ____ _ _ _ _ ______ | | | || | | | / __ \ | | / \_/ \ | ___ \ | | | || |__ ____ | | / / \ | | /\ /\ \ | | \ \ | | | || _ \ | _ \ | | \ \__/ | | | |_|| | | |__/ / | | | || | | || |_|| | | \___/|_| |_| |_| | ____/ |_| | || | | || |__ | |____________________ | | _ |__||_| |_|\____/ |________________________| | | |_| | | Lighting Your Apple II Path | | |_| ----------------------------------- >>> WELCOME TO THE LAMP! <<< ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THE BEST OF THE A2 BULLETIN BOARD ON Syndicomm Online AND THE BEST OF THE DELPHI A2 AND A2PRO MESSAGE BOARDS "Teaching the Apple II user how to fish since 1998" :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Lamp! An Onipa'a Software Production Vol. 7, No. 2 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Publisher................................Ryan M. Suenaga, M.S.W., L.S.W. Editor.....................................................Lyle Syverson Internet Email, Publisher.........................thelamp@sheppyware.net Internet Email, Editor................................lyle@FoxValley.net :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: TABLE OF CONTENTS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ February 15, 2004 HIGH ABOVE THE ROCK RIVER---------------------------------------------[OPN] A Reminder of Summer Fun More Summer Fun A2 FORUM AT Syndicomm Online (A2Central.com) DISTILLATIONS------------[DAS] Syndicomm Lane - a Song Parody-----------------------------------[SLP] New in A2 Library------------------------------------------------[NAL] SIS Can Browse Gopher--------------------------------------------[SBG] Security on the Internet-----------------------------------------[SOI] Spam-------------------------------------------------------------[SPM] Eamon Adventurer's Guild Online----------------------------------[EAG] ROM 01 vs. ROM 3 Apple IIgs--------------------------------------[1V3] Upgrading a IIe to a IIgs----------------------------------------[EGS] Don Lancaster's Writings-----------------------------------------[DLW] Don't Forget to Renew Juiced.GS----------------------------------[RNJ] Amazed By Juiced.GS----------------------------------------------[ABJ] The KEGS Emulator on Solaris X86---------------------------------[KOS] The KEGS Emulator on FreeBSD-------------------------------------[KFB] Apple II Technical Notes and Apple II File Type Notes------------[TFT] ILLUMINATING THE LAMP-------------------------------------------------[ITL] An overview of GEnieLamp A2 and The Lamp! 1999 ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM SYNDICOMM------------------------------------------[ANS] To Sign up for Syndicomm Online----------------------------------[TSU] SyndiChat v1.2 is Now Available----------------------------------[SNA] LETTERS TO THE EDITOR-------------------------------------------------[LTE] Enjoying the Monthly Column, "Illuminating The Lamp" An Invitation KFEST 2004------------------------------------------------------------[KFF] KansasFest 2004--------------------------------------------------[KF4] Watch for More Information at the KFest Home Page----------------[VKF] EXTRA INNINGS About The Lamp! ------------------------------------------------ [INN] [*] [*] [*] READING THE LAMP! The index system used by The Lamp! is designed to make """"""""""""""""" your reading easier. To use this system, load this issue into any word processor or text editor. In the index you will find something like: EXTRA INNINGS About The Lamp! ------------------------------------------------ [INN] To read this article, simply use your search or find command to locate [INN]. There is a similar tag at the end of each article: [EOA]. [OPN]------------------------------- HIGH ABOVE THE ROCK RIVER | ------------------------------------ From The Editor """"""""""""""" by Lyle Syverson A Reminder of Summer Fun ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Looking off in the distance from High Above The Rock River we see a most unusual structure... the edifice of the Starlight Theater. For many years plays have been presented on summer evenings on the campus of Rock Valley College. The Starlight Theater was an outdoor theater... hence the name. After a hot, busy day, it is a delightful experience to take in a play in the cool of the evening under the stars. But every so often the weather didn't cooperate. A performance had to be cancelled. Sometimes a play was finished in the rain... members of the audience had brought their umbrellas! The man in charge of the theater had a dream... what if you had a folding roof that could be moved into place above the theater if needed. He built a model of his concept of how it would look and began promoting his idea. The idea caught on and private donations provided the funds to build it. So starting last summer you could see a play under the stars and leave your umbrella home... if it rained they closed the roof! More Summer Fun ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Some people decided during KFest 2003 that they would be attending KFest 2004. Others missed last summer but plan to make it this year. And there are those who have told themselves they would like to go sometime. They didn't have time... or the didn't have the money. Planning is what can make it happen. Talk to the boss about time off. Start saving up some money. It is just five short months until KFest. KansasFest 2004 is planned for July 20-25, 2004 at Avila University in Kansas City, Missouri. [EOA] ASCII ART BEGINS _________ _ _ _ |__ __| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |___ ____ | | _____ __ ___ _ _ _____ | | | | | ___ \ / __ \ | | /____ \ | v v | | v ___ \ | | | | | | | | | /__\ \ | | ____| | | /\ /\ | | / \ \ | | | | | | | | | _____| | | / ___ | | || || | | | | | |_| | | | | | | | |_____ | |____ | |__| | | || || | | \___/ / _ |_| |_| |_| \______| |______| \____^_| |_||_||_| | |\____/ |_| | | | | |_| ASCII ART ENDS [EOA] [DAS]---------------------------------------------- DISTILLATIONS FROM The A2 FORUM at Syndicomm.com | (A2Central.com) | --------------------------------------------------- by Lyle Syverson [SLP] Syndicomm Lane - A SONG PARODY """""""""""""""""""""""""""""" After an absence of several years, here is yet another song parody for your enjoyment... Syndicomm Lane (sung to the tune of "Penny Lane" by the Beatles, with no apologies since they are being unreasonable about the use of the name "Apple" in association with music) On Syndicomm, we find Bruce Baker posting photographs Of every KFest head found sleeping on the flo' And in the chat room those that come and go, stop and type "hello" On the Quill, we find Ken Gagne musing writing craft And then there's Gamebits, Showbits; He just never slacks Then there's Dave and Sheppy with their Macs, to update a page not so strange. Syndicomm is on the Net and on my screen There with telnet text or World Wide Web I browse, and meanwhile back On Syndicomm, they have a filter for the data flow To try and keep the spam from filling up my screen They try to keep their system server clean, It's a clean machine Syndicomm is on the Net and on my screen For the Palm and Apple II, plus Newton, meanwhile back In topic 5 I see there's talk about the "AnyCard" It should be here some year, at least that's what they say And while the Big Cheese hears her iTunes play She just knits away At Syndicomm, the online store sells stuff to customers, Suenaga's getting his "Juiced" deadline in And in an RPG match they spin, just to make a play Very strange Syndicomm is on the Net and on my screen. It's for the Apple II and Palm plus Newton, meanwhile back Syndicomm is on the Net and on my screen There with telnet text or World Wide Web ....... Syndicomm! Steven Weyhrich --< Apple II History http://apple2history.org (A2HISTORY, Cat 2, Top 13, Msg 123) >>>>> """"" Steve :) Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com Building communities, bit by bit. (SYNDICOMM, Cat 2, Top 13. Msg 124) >>>>> """"" We can expect this to be performed at KansasFest, I presume? Lyle Syverson Editor, _The Lamp!_ published monthly at: http://lamp.a2central.com/ (LYLE, Cat 2, Top 13, Msg 125) >>>>> """"" Well, what I think would be better would be to have a competition to come up with song parodies, and have them performed for a prize. (I'll judge, rather than perform, right?) Steven Weyhrich --< Apple II History http://apple2history.org (A2HISTORY, Cat 2, Top 13, Msg 126) >>>>> """"" >> ... (I'll judge, rather than perform, right?) << Either way. :) Lyle Syverson Editor, _The Lamp!_ published monthly at: http://lamp.a2central.com/ (LYLE, Cat 2, Top 13, Msg 127) >>>>> """"" >> We can expect this to be performed at KansasFest, I presume? << Sounds like a candidate for Karaoke Revolution to me. KaraokeFest? Ryan (A2.RYAN, Cat 2, Top 13, Msg 128) [EOA] [NAL] NEW IN A2 LIBRARY """"""""""""""""" There is a new upload in the games/strategy/prodos8 directory: File: MazezaM.bxy Size: 19841 Date: Feb 6 MazezaM (pronounced "may-zam") is a simple puzzle game. You enter the mazezam on the left and you have to get to the exit on the right by pushing rows of blocks left and right. If you get stuck you can retry the mazezam, but this will cost you a life. Tony Ward, A2 Librarian (A2.TONY, Cat 2, Top 37, Msg 26) [EOA] [SBG] SIS CAN BROWSE GOPHER """"""""""""""""""""" For more information, see http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/ It contains a link so Web Browsers that do not support gopher (i.e. IE 6, some versions of SIS, Mozilla, Safari, etc.) can access gopher pages. It looks like the "Lite" proxy can give SIS the ability to browse Gopher. Geoff (GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 5, Msg 5) [EOA] [SOI] SECURITY ON THE INTERNET """""""""""""""""""""""" I just received an email, supposedly from service@paypal.com, asking me to confirm my PayPal account information. I clicked on the link in the email and it sent me to a site that looked very much like PayPal, except for two items: the URL was a dotted address, not paypal.com, and was not employing SSL; and the site hadn't asked me to log in. (for security reasons, PayPal apparently never uses cookies to remember your login.) The fields on this page asked for my mailing address, credit card number, mother's maiden name, and the like. It all looked very convincing, and I can see how someone may have been duped. How sad and frustrating that such scams exist. Please keep an eye out for these emails. -Ken (KGAGNE, Cat 11, Top 24, Msg 2) >>>>> """"" I've gotten several, supposedly from eBay, Citi, and generic banks. I've taken the trouble to forward a few to the fraud addresses on the real web sites. Carl Knoblock - Telephone Tech - Tue 3 Feb 04 7:35:21 pm cknoblo@cox.com - Via Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR v1.0b10 KFest 2004, July 20-25, 2004 - 168 days till KFest On cable via LANceGS & Marinetti 2.0.1 - Thank you, Richard. A2 RTC Staff - Sunday Night House Party - carlk@syndicomm.com (CARLK, Cat 11, Top 24, Msg 3) >>>>> """"" I've gotten several of these, none of them on my actual paypal email address, which is how I tell it's a scam. OTOH, I got an email recently from eBay (apparently) which I haven't looked into which said they are changing my user ID since mine was an email address and they don't want those as user IDs any more. Anyone hear if this is a scam? Ryan (A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 24, Msg 4) >>>>> """"" This is indeed legit; I changed mine myself about a week and a half ago, just before they did it for me. Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com Building communities, bit by bit. (SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 24, Msg 7) >>>>> """"" See http://www2.ebay.com/aw/marketing.shtml Quoting the relevant section: Trust & Safety: Email Address Transition to User ID Date: 01/16/04 Time: 03:55:31 PM PST In an effort to enhance the safety of the eBay marketplace and reduce the risk to members from bspoofb emails, last August we announced that all members with an email address as a User ID must pick a non-email User ID. This initiative has been made in conjunction with a number of other steps to ensure the safety of our Community, including limiting the ability to look up email addresses and discouraging the use of email addresses in Sign In. Over the last few months, we have been regularly messaging to active members with email addresses as User IDs to encourage their voluntary selection of User IDs. We are in the last phase of this initiative. All members who still use email addresses as User IDs will be automatically assigned a non-email User ID by January 31, 2004. To learn more about this safety initiative, please read our Frequently Asked Questions. Enhancing the overall safety of the Community by reducing the risk that public email addresses pose is critical. We appreciate your support and understanding, as we work together to keep eBay a safe place to trade. Regards, eBay You might want to see what your username is now since it is past January 31. Geoff (GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 24, Msg 5) >>>>> """"" I just checked my ebay UserID and sure enough, my email address no longer works as my UserID. Now I need to figure out how to change my UserID to something less dorky than what ebay set it to... Geoff (GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 24, Msg 6) [EOA] [SPM] SPAM """" I'm not sure how or even if CAN-SPAM is being enforced. Today alone I had at least 100 pieces of non-CAN-SPAM-compliant Spam show up in my various mailboxes. Ryan (A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 118) >>>>> """"" In the last few weeks my spam count has increased dramatically. Although much of it is stopped from getting to me by filters on the mail servers of my ISP, some gets all the way through to me. I do not open the spam, so have no idea where it has come from. I would hazard a guess that the CAN-SPAM law has just made the spammers feel more secure, and so they are increasing their efforts to spread their rubbish... Ewen Wannop - Speccie - Sat 31 Jan 2004 - 171 days till KFest '04 Delivered without using a IIgs by Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR 1.0b11 Setup: IIgs running at 95Mhz thanks to Bernie ][ the Rescue 3.0 http://www.ewannop.btinternet.co.uk/ (CONDUCTOR, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 120) >>>>> """"" After not checking for 9 hours, I just had 50 spams waiting for me. I agree that my spam has also increased. Cindy (CINDYADAMS, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 121) >>>>> """"" My spam is way up - especially the offers for drugs and pharmaceuticals. I disabled spam tagging on my domain (gamebits.net) since it seemed redundant, having it all filtered through SpamCop; some legitimate emails were getting through with "#SPAM#" in the subject. I started using Apple's Mail.app only since Jan 1. I've been manually tagging and de-tagging emails as junk, and figure a month is long enough to train it. I'll turn on the program's automatic filtering tomorrow (Feb 1) to let it handle anything that SpamCop does not. -Ken (KGAGNE, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 122) >>>>> """"" My Spam is up, too. Time to let my congresscritter know what I think. Carl Knoblock - Telephone Tech - Sun 1 Feb 04 10:26:53 pm cknoblo@cox.com - Via Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR v1.0b10 KFest 2004, July 20-25, 2004 - 170 days till KFest On cable via LANceGS & Marinetti 2.0.1 - Thank you, Richard. A2 RTC Staff - Sunday Night House Party - carlk@syndicomm.com (CARLK, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 124) >>>>> """"" I've recently started using a program called SpamSieve, which integrates with several popular email programs, and it's doing an amazing job at catching the stuff Syndicomm's filters don't. After just a few days, it's got a 94% accuracy rate, and I haven't seen a spam wind up in my inbox for at least three days now. Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com Building communities, bit by bit. (SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 125) >>>>> """"" I've been using it for some time now, and find that the few errors are all false positives, meaning I need to check the junk box before dumping it. Most days there are none, but some legitimate mail from commercial sources does get caught now and then. It only happens once, however, and thereafter it is sorted properly. Carl Knoblock - Telephone Tech - Tue 3 Feb 04 12:17:11 am cknoblo@cox.com - Via Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR v1.0b10 KFest 2004, July 20-25, 2004 - 169 days till KFest On cable via LANceGS & Marinetti 2.0.1 - Thank you, Richard. A2 RTC Staff - Sunday Night House Party - carlk@syndicomm.com (CARLK, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 126) >>>>> """"" Regarding spam: I agree that the count seems to be quite a bit higher recently than it used to be. I've got my Mail.app program in OS X sending anything with "spam" in the subject directly to my Junk box (which is how Syndicomm's filter is identifying things it believes are spam). The weird thing is this: I had been using Mail for spam filtering for months, and then upgraded to Panther, and did it as a clean install, copying over settings from my old Jaguar setup. And after I did this, I would have messages appear in my Junk box marked with the spam icon that were NOT spam, and messages marked as NOT spam that WERE spam. So part of the re-training has been to point out (again) what is and what is not spam. I'm finally getting more messages in that Junk box that are correctly identified. It would be really messy if I didn't have the Syndicomm screening. Steven Weyhrich --< Apple II History http://apple2history.org (A2HISTORY, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 129) >>>>> """"" Mail's spam filter was only about 70% effective for me, and eventually seems to hit a limit where it just doesn't want to learn anymore. SpamSieve is now up to 95.6% accuracy after just under a week of training. It's a marvel. Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com Building communities, bit by bit. (SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 130) >>>>> """"" And it is now official that spam has increased since the CAN-SPAM act, at least if BrightMail are to be believed! Of course they do have a vested interest in saying so, but my experience confirms their findings. Check out . So how long before there is a CANT-SPAM act passed? Ewen Wannop - Speccie - Thu 5 Feb 2004 - 166 days till KFest '04 Delivered without using a IIgs by Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR 1.0b11 Setup: IIgs running at 95Mhz thanks to Bernie ][ the Rescue 3.0 http://www.ewannop.btinternet.co.uk/ (CONDUCTOR, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 131) >>>>> """"" Well, one of the reasons CAN-SPAM isn't doing anything yet is because the agencies tasked to enforce it are still writing the necessary regulations; CAN-SPAM authorizes agencies to regulate commercial email, but doesn't specify the details, so until those agencies finish putting their ducks in a row, there won't be any enforcement. Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com Building communities, bit by bit. (SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 136) >>>>> """"" CAN-SPAM to me is like lots of other laws that get passed and don't get enforced or don't get enforced well. This is not unlike what is taught in a parenting class--if you don't enforce the rule, it's useless. Ryan (A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 137) [EOA] [EAG] EAMON ADVENTURER'S GUILD ONLINE """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""" The Eamon Adventurer's Guild Online has a web site at this URL: http://www.eamonag.org/ (KGAGNE, Cat 14, Topic 1, Msg 101) [EOA] [1V3] ROM 01 vs. ROM 3 Apple IIgs """"""""""""""""""""""""""" Hi! I am getting a mix of ROM 01 and ROM 03 boards (and hopefully some of each will work!) Are there any times anyone can think of situations (particularly with newer mass-storage devices or with LANceGS) where ROM 01 would be preferred over ROM 03? Thanks! Fun (FFONG, Cat 17, Top 7, Msg 4) >>>>> """"" There is a small number of programs that were designed on a ROM 01, and will not work (either correctly or at all) on a ROM 03. But, as stated, that number is small. -Ken (KGAGNE, Cat 17, Top 7, Msg 5) >>>>> """"" There are also some expansion cards -- especially RAM cards -- that only work in the ROM 01. Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com Building communities, bit by bit. (SYNDICOMM, Cat 17, Top 7, Msg 6) >>>>> """"" I use a ROM 3 Exclusively and have only once ran across a limitation where the program wouldn't work. It was on the original version of Print Shop GS that I had. Dain (A2.DAIN, Cat 17, Top 7, Msg 7) >>>>> """"" At this point in time there are very few programs (at least, the latest versions) that will run on one ROM version and not on the other. There are, however, exceptions; not long ago in this forum Diversi-Cache was noted as working with a ROM_01 but not a ROM_3. Motherboards are so cheap nowadays my thought it to just get one (at least :) of each. Ryan (A2.RYAN, Cat 17, Top 7, Msg 8) [EOA] [EGS] UPGRADING A IIe TO A IIgs """"""""""""""""""""""""" This is one of the answers I was looking for in the ROM 01 vs ROM 03 topic! Another issue is finding the GS base plate these days. Is there anyone selling the //e to GS upgrade any longer? Or is there another source for a GS base plate that fits a //e? I have a few //es that could possibly be upgraded. (FFONG, Cat 17, Top 8, Msg 6) >>>>> """"" Whoo... I have no idea where you'd get one of those base plates. I bet that's going to be hard to come by. :) Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com Building communities, bit by bit. (SYNDICOMM, Cat 17, Top 8, Msg 7) >>>>> """"" The only thing I've ran across has been a IIE to IIgs upgrade manual still shrinkwrapped. I'd hoped to find the rest, but no luck. Dain (A2.DAIN, Cat 17, Top 8, Msg 8) >>>>> """"" >> Another issue is finding the GS base plate these days. << Those were originally made by Apple for the upgrade kits they sold. I doubt if anyone else made them. I suspect the only place you will find them is on already converted //e-gs machines. Carl Knoblock - Telephone Tech - Mon 12 Jan 04 12:16:12 am cknoblo@cox.com - Via Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR v1.0b10 KFest 2004, July 20-25, 2004 - 191 days till KFest On cable via LANceGS & Marinetti 2.0.1 - Thank you, Richard. A2 RTC Staff - Sunday Night House Party - carlk@syndicomm.com (CARLK, Cat 17, Top 8, Msg 9) >>>>> """"" Is it possible to use a dremil tool to modify the IIe plate? I know the rom03 gs's don't have a kbd conn that is compatible with the iie but I believe the rom 01 gs's do. (TECHNERD, Cat 17, Top 8, Msg 10) >>>>> """"" That's possible. I don't know. Anyone? Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com Building communities, bit by bit. (SYNDICOMM, Cat 17, Top 8, Msg 11) >>>>> """"" I have not done any work on trying to put a IIgs motherboard into a IIe case, but what Mark says is true--the ROM_3 IIgs motherboards lack the keyboard connector for the IIe keyboard; the ROM_01 motherboards have the connector, although it may need to be soldered on with some of the boards. Ryan (A2.RYAN, Cat 17, Top 8, Msg 12) >>>>> """"" I have a Enhanced IIe and I have a few spare Rom 01 GS Motherboards. I was looking at the motherboards and It should be possible with a drill to put in holes in the IIe base so you can use standoffs and install a generic rom 01mb. Then all I have to do is purchase a keyboard and a numeric keypad socket. Then the next step would be to CAREFULLY solder the sockets into place. Would i need a Apple IIgs power supply? or are they plug compatible? (TECHNERD, Cat 17, Top 8, Msg 13) >>>>> """"" They're not plug-compatible, so you'd either need a GS power supply, or need to do some work on a IIe one. Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com Building communities, bit by bit. (SYNDICOMM, Cat 17, Top 8, Msg 14) >>>>> """"" The MBs Apple made for conversion or replacement had both power connectors, as well as the keyboard connectors installed. If you don't have one of those MBs, you will need a GS supply or a new connector for the old //e one. Carl Knoblock - Telephone Tech - Sat 17 Jan 04 11:21:20 pm cknoblo@cox.com - Via Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR v1.0b10 KFest 2004, July 20-25, 2004 - 185 days till KFest On cable via LANceGS & Marinetti 2.0.1 - Thank you, Richard. A2 RTC Staff - Sunday Night House Party - carlk@syndicomm.com (CARLK, Cat 17, Top 8, Msg 15) >>>>> """"" Can a IIgs PS fit in a IIe case? Or would you need some creative metalworking? (TECHNERD, Cat 17, Top 8, Msg 16) >>>>> """"" I'm pretty sure it fits. I believe it even has the proper mounting holes in the bottom. Carl Knoblock - Telephone Tech - Sun 18 Jan 04 11:13:21 pm cknoblo@cox.com - Via Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR v1.0b10 KFest 2004, July 20-25, 2004 - 184 days till KFest On cable via LANceGS & Marinetti 2.0.1 - Thank you, Richard. A2 RTC Staff - Sunday Night House Party - carlk@syndicomm.com (CARLK, Cat 17, Top 8, Msg 17) >>>>> """"" The ROM_01 motherboards have a connector for the IIe power supply just as they have a connector for the IIe keyboard. Whether the actual physical connector is soldered on or not isn't known; some are, some aren't. Good luck. :) Ryan (A2.RYAN, Cat 17, Top 8, Msg 18) [EOA] [DLW] Don Lancaster's WRITINGS """""""""""""""""""""""" Back in the late 80's, I would regularly read Computer Shopper. Amongst all the ads, there was an ongoing column called Ask The Guru written by Don Lancaster. In a magazine that was targeted to sell PCs and parts, it was refreshing to see an article which usually had an Apple II tidbit or two. I found that Don's website has reprints of many of his articles. Links to Ask The Guru Volumes in PDF format can be found at: http://www.tinaja.com/glair01.asp#comshop He would often venture into areas of Apple II computing that was not available in any other Apple II publication. If you explore the website, you will even find links to Apple II books that he has written that can still be purchased. Geoff (GEOFF, Cat 20, Top 15, Msg 10) >>>>> """"" Thanks for the URL -- but where did you find books you can buy? I've been poking around for a while, and the site is very confusing. :) Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com Building communities, bit by bit. (SYNDICOMM, Cat 20, Top 15, Msg 11) >>>>> """"" The site crams a lot of information in a little bit of space--I relied on the color coding to determine how to best find information throughout the site. The direct link to Don Lancaster's books is: http://www.tinaja.com/books/bkdons.asp Geoff (GEOFF, Cat 20, Top 15, Msg 12) >>>>> """"" I see. The links appear to just be Amazon.com links by ISBN, under the hope that they have used copies for sale. They don't seem to for a number of them. Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com Building communities, bit by bit. (SYNDICOMM, Cat 20, Top 15, Msg 13) >>>>> """"" Most of the books that I checked provided a quantity available (numbers ranged in the single digits). And since some of the book links goto an email address instead of Amazon, odds are that Amazon would be able to fulfill an order. I've had good luck getting out-of-print material from online retailers. It took a couple of months for the order to be fulfilled, but the item arrived at the advertised cost. Geoff (GEOFF, Cat 20, Top 15, Msg 14) >>>>> """"" Don Lancaster also had a PostScript forum (or, I guess, in those days, RoundTable :) on Genie. Ryan (A2.RYAN, Cat 20, Top 15, Msg 15) [EOA] [RNJ] DON'T FORGET TO RENEW Juiced.GS """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Literally 50% of our subscribers have yet to renew for 2004. C'mon, guys, you're making life hard on me. :) Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com Building communities, bit by bit. (SYNDICOMM, Cat 23, Top 2, Msg 508) [EOA] [ABJ] AMAZED BY Juiced.GS """"""""""""""""""" Juiced.gs consistently amazes me. Before I subscribed, I figured I knew everything that was going on in the A2 world between csa2 and delphi. I didn't know how much I didn't know. News, rumors, interviews, obscure hardware and more, it's wonderful. Kelvin (KWS, Cat 23, Top 2, Msg 509) [EOA] [KOS] THE KEGS EMULATOR ON Solaris X86 """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I just tried running KEGS.0.85 on Solaris X86 and the F4 config screen is accessible when System 6.0.1 starts up (i.e. when the Finder is running). Geoff (GEOFF, Cat 29, Top 31, Msg 14) [EOA] [KFB] THE KEGS EMULATOR ON FreeBSD """""""""""""""""""""""""""" Anyone have a URL for a src tarball for KEGS? Or failing that, a Linux binary (not a .rpm). I want to see if I can build it on FreeBSD 4.9 and/or 5.2. I have successfully compiled XGS on FreeBSD, but it segfaults right after startup and I just can't force myself to spend any more time on it. Tim (KELLERS, Cat 29, Top 31, Msg 15) >>>>> """"" Tim, There is a KEGS listing on sourceforge.net at http://sourceforge.net/projects/kegs/ Good Luck, Dain (A2.DAIN, Cat 29, Top 31, Msg 16) >>>>> """"" If you look at kegs.sourceforge.net, you will find the recent release contains, Windows and Mac binaries as well as the source in a single gzip archive. The direct link is: http://kegs.sourceforge.net/kegs.0.85.tar.gz Make sure you follow the instructions for compiling so you can build KEGS correctly for your platform. Geoff (GEOFF, Cat 29, Top 31, Msg 17) [EOA] [TFT] Apple II Technical Notes and Apple II File Type Notes """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Syndicomm is going to publish its next update to the Apple II Technical Notes and Apple II File Type Notes in March. If you're aware of errors in the existing notes, or have suggestions for new Notes that would be of value, please let me know. In addition, if there are file types that you know of that are not covered in the File Type Notes, or if you have a file type that you feel needs to have a File Type Note, please let me know so we can work on getting one put together. Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com Building communities, bit by bit. (SYNDICOMM, Cat 59, Top 3, Msg 23) >>>>> """"" I haven't downloaded the zip file with the new Tech Notes so this may be a moot point. Is there a document that describes what has changed from the last revision? Should I also assume the last revision of the Notes (as a whole) was 1992? Was the source of the PDF's from Apple's Word version or the ported text version? Also, are the PDF's available separately or only in the zip archive? Geoff (GEOFF, Cat 59, Top 3, Msg 24) >>>>> """"" The PDFs are not at present available separately; they will be for the March revision I plan to upload. Note #0 as usual includes indications of which notes have been revised or are new. Because of how long it's been since the last reposting of the Notes, some of the ones that are "new" or "updated" were actually touched years ago. :) The newest changes are actually from as recently as 2001, and there are already some Notes that have been updated for the March 2004 revision, with more changes planned (which is part of why I'm asking for input, because I'd like to do a major update round, since it's been over 10 years since they got a good thorough overhaul). The PDFs were generated from Apple's Word files; I converted them all to Word v.X format then used Acrobat to generate PDFs. Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com Building communities, bit by bit. (SYNDICOMM, Cat 59, Top 3, Msg 25) [EOA] [ITL]------------------------ ILLUMINATING THE LAMP | ----------------------------- An overview of GEnieLamp A2 and The Lamp! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By Steven Weyhrich EVERYBODY PLAYS THE FOOL One of the little blunders that I tend to do at least once a week involves not keeping track of which exam room I am to go into next. It happens like this: I pick up the patient chart from the door, and then step over to my pull-down desk to review what is in there. Why is the patient here for this visit, what is the blood pressure today, what lab was done last time and is any lab to be done on this visit, and so on. I also make sure that the papers I need in the chart are in the right order, so I can find them at the right time. Sometimes while I am doing this quick review before I actually see the patient, I might be interrupted by a pharmaceutical company representative who wants me to sign for samples, or to tell me of some great new breakthrough. Or it might be a notice that there is a phone call from the hospital that I have to take. Or possibly it might be that precariously balanced stack of charts that have phone messages that need to be done about an hour ago. In any case, after my review and after whatever other interruption had come my way, I pick the chart up and head to the exam room. Which room? Why, that one over there with no chart on the door, of course. Except... Mr. Green with the hypertension is looking rather different today; he is only 6 years old, and is banging his sister on the head with a book. Ooops, sorry; you'll be right after the patient I am seeing now. I leave the room and head to the CORRECT room, vowing to pay better attention next time to the room NUMBER written on the front. And, of course my nurse is laughing at me, because I did it AGAIN. Makes me feel kind of foolish. Well, as we examine this last year of the century (depending on your definition of when the century truly ends), many people were caught up in the media-led hysteria of all the terrible things that were going to happen at the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2000. All of these old computers that RUN EVERYTHING were going to have the digital equivalent of a memory lapse as their primitive two-digit year counter swung around from 99 to 00, and suddenly were cast into the start of the 20th century. Banks would have locked vaults, planes would loose control and fall from the sky, cars would fail to start, and equipment from here to China would malfunction as they tried to figure out what to do with 1900 instead of 2000. And the worst part of it all was that there simply was NOT ENOUGH TIME to get out there and fix this problem before disaster struck. It would be a cascade effect of computer failures that would risk civilization-as-we-know-it. To prevent (or at least prepare for) this disaster, corporations spent BILLIONS of dollars upgrading equipment, or testing it to make sure it was Y2K-proof. At the hospital where I work, many types of equipment were tested and certified as Y2K-ready -- even the DIGITAL THERMOMETERS used to take patient's temperatures!! ("Oh, look Betty! This patient's temperature is 124 degrees! It must be the one they missed that HAS the Y2K bug! Run and hide! We're all going to die!!") However, we that were in the Apple side of the computer world could afford to be smug about the whole problem, since OUR favorite computer was impervious to the Y2K bug. Unlike our Intel-based rivals, OUR internal clocks did not keep track of time based on MM/DD/YY, but rather on seconds elapsed since the early part of the twentieth century, and so didn't really CARE about the transition from 12/31/99 23:59 to 1/1/00 00:00. Nevertheless, in the midst of this smugness, there were some cracks beginning to appear in the walls of the new Apple II home at Delphi, and the universe got a little bit smaller. Let us now move the story into this landmark year of 1999. FOOL ON THE HILL During 1999, Turkey was shaken by an earthquake of 7.4 magnitude, which killed over 15,000 people. War broke out in Kosovo, Yugoslavia, as president Slobodan Milosevic began the massacre and deportation of Albanians, which resulted in a NATO military response. Two (disgruntled) students invaded Columbine High School in Littleton, CO, and initiated a killing spree that claimed the life of twelve students and one teacher, and ultimately themselves. George Lucas released the long-awaited movie, "Star Wars Episode I--The Phantom Menace". Although the U.S. House of Representatives had impeached President Clinton of perjury and obstruction of justice, the Senate voted to acquit him. George W. Bush, governor of Texas, announced his candidacy as a Republican for the 2000 presidential election. And computers became a focus of daily news reports, as the media stirred up fears of a digital Armageddon due to the Y2K bug. The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) introduced the 802.11b protocol for wireless data transmission. Intel released the 500 MHz Pentium III. Microsoft released Windows CE 3.0 (sometimes abbreviated as "WinCE", possibly referring to the difficulties in using it) for handheld PocketPC computers. Color versions of these handheld computers begin to appear. Prodigy, one of the early text-based online services, discontinued that text service in January due to Y2K-based incompatibilities, with the company planning to focus on its Internet service. And the wild ride of the Internet explosion itself continued, with Disney getting in on the action with the creation of the Go Network. The computer viruses Melissa and Chernobyl caused more problems than Y2K ultimately did, causing several large corporations to shut down their mail servers to defend against its effects. Apple Computer released its next iteration of the wildly popular iMac. Available in five translucent colors, the iMac 266 was similarly successful. Later in the year it was replaced by the faster iMac 333. The PowerMac G3 came out in a blue and white case that was the easiest Apple to open up and get into since the original Apple II. It started at 300 MHz and was bumped to 450 MHz mid-year. Slimmer and lighter than its predecessors by two pounds, the PowerBook G3, code-named Lombard, was released. In August, the new PowerMac G4 was announced, featuring a math accelerator called the Velocity Engine. Because it could do over one billion floating point operations per second (a gigaflop), it was classified as a supercomputer. And in September, Apple's consumer laptop computer, the iBook, was released. It was the first commercial product to promote the IEEE 802.11b wireless networking protocol, which Apple marketed under the name "AirPort". THE LAMP! INFO Editor Suenaga started what became an annual event for several years. The 1998 Apple II Achievement Awards appeared in the January issue, and awarded the Best Commercial Product to GSoft BASIC; Best Shareware Product to Shifty List; Best Freeware Product(s) to Wolfenstein 3D and GShisen; Best World Wide Web Site to Tony Diaz's Apple II Information Resource, with A2-Web coming in as a close second; Best Publication to Juiced.GS, with honorable mentions to Shareware Solutions II and The Lamp!; Outstanding Apple II Related Development to Marinetti 2.0, with honorable mention to the Bernie ][ The Rescue and Sweet16 IIGS emulators; and Outstanding Individual Achievement to Ewen Wannop for his work on Spectrum, Crock O' Gold, BabelFish 1.0, Disk Access II, the TABBS CDROM, and for help in testing Nifty Spell. In February he gave his assessment of the "State Of The II, 1999", declaring that the presence of quality emulators like Bernie ][ The Rescue and Sweet16 were making it possible for the Apple II to have yet another chance to make a comeback. Whether or not it would do so was up to those who used it. In the September editorial, Suenaga announced that due to work schedule changes, he was finding it necessary to stop doing The Lamp! as of the December issue. He had missed his personal deadline of a mid-month release one time too many, and he felt that he had to let go of SOMETHING in his life to regain control of things. In October, he announced that the new editor would be Lyle Syverson, who had an article appearing in that issue. One thing that I had forgotten to mention when I was going through 1998 was a small change in the masthead for The Lamp! Whereas it had originally listed Suenaga's Internet mail address as "thelamp@delphi.com", by the December 1998 issue it had changed to "thelamp@sheppyware.net", and remained that way through 1999: ________________________________________________________________________ | | |::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::| |The Lamp! An Onipa'a Software Production Vol. 1, No. 12| |::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::| |Publisher & Editor.......................Ryan M. Suenaga, M.S.W., L.S.W.| |Internet Email....................................thelamp@sheppyware.net| |::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::| |________________________________________________________________________| In his final editorial, Suenaga discussed the balance needed in life, and how his change of work had put things OUT of balance for him, thus the need to remove something (being editor of a monthly publication) to restore that balance. He also vowed to stay very involved with articles for The Lamp! and Juiced.GS, as well as a "few other projects which you all might be interested in (and unfortunately I can't really talk about right now)." He also thanked those in the Apple II community who had been his supporters and helpers, and turned things over to his new editor, Lyle Syverson. FORUM NEWS During the entire year, Delphi was working on mirroring their text-based content to be accessible from a standard web browser. By the end of the year, their focus was almost exclusively on the Web part of their service. In the A2 Forum, the issue was raised again about the files from the Genie A2 library archive, and when would they be available in the Delphi A2 library. The same answer was given as before, that there were copyright and permission issues to overcome in some cases, but for the vast majority, it was simply a matter of the volume and the time needed to upload them all. Tony Ward was the A2 Database Manager on Delphi and was working on it as he was able. Gary Utter mentioned the possibility of the creation of a CD-ROM of software from the Genie A2 library that could legally be reproduced. In his role as librarian, Ward posted some detailed information in the March issue as to the rules for uploading files to the Delphi A2 library. These were primarily rules on naming the files, and creating ShrinkIt and Binary II archives. Also in the March issue was the announcement from February that the Apple II User Forum on CompuServe (APPUSER), the one that was still accessible with a standard Apple II, had finally been closed down. Joe Kohn was the one who first discovered this, and in the Apple II area that had been created within the Mac Forum it was also Joe who managed to post the very first welcoming message. The content of that message was, of course, "Apple II Forever!" Interestingly, the text-based forums on CompuServe had been run for years on old _36-bit_ mainframe computers, and the corporation had been in the process of changing to newer 32-bit computers to support their online service. Unfortunately, keeping ASCII access available was a cost that CompuServe had decided not to spend, and so those text-based forums disappeared. As before, when America Online discontinued access for Apple II users, it was suggested that they be encouraged to come over to Delphi A2, where the major part of the Apple II online community had moved. Daylight-savings time weekend in April saw a nuisance bug hit the Forum as a result of Delphi installing an upgrade to synchronize the text and web message posting. This bug caused a large number of messages to be duplicated in the A2 Forum (as well as most other Forums hosted by Delphi). This played havoc not only with those doing automated offline message processing, but also for editor Suenaga in his efforts to collect messages to include in the May issue. In March, Mike Westerfield began an online course "Learn To Program In GSoft BASIC". It was divided into fourteen lessons, based on his tutorial book of the same name, and followed the Advanced Placement Computer Science curriculum. Shareware Solutions II's multi-system chat became a mono-system chat in April when Genie became inaccessible (and CompuServe had already disappeared). After the Genie A2 Roundtable chat area was again functional, the multi-system chats resumed. Late in the year, Delphi became less friendly for the Apple II users accessing it via direct dial-up. Delphi announced that it was no longer going to have its own dial-up numbers via SprintNet as it had traditionally done. Instead, to get to the text side of Delphi, it was now necessary to log on using telnet. In essence, Delphi took one more step away from the traditional online service, and one step closer to being an Internet-only content provider. In the November issue, Suenaga, Howard Katz, and Lyle Syverson wrote an article detailing how to get to Delphi via text. GENIE INFO Some people on Delphi were still asking for information about how to sign up for Genie; the costs and advantages (primarily the huge file library) were mentioned in brief in February. However, Apple II users on Genie began to experience "blackouts" during 1999. The May editorial mentioned that as of late April and for the three weeks following, the A2 Roundtable on Genie had been completely inaccessible both to staff and non-staff members. Repair efforts were apparently not being made very quickly to resolve this problem, further clarifying that the focus of the company that was operating Genie did NOT have service of their current customers in mind. Dean Esmay commented that a major part of the problem was that there were no longer any programmers or staff engineers working at Genie who knew anything about the GEIS (General Electric Information Systems) network. The result was that if something stopped working, it was not possible to fix it. He pointed out that it had not even been possible to sign up for a new Genie account for the prior TWO YEARS, due to a Y2K bug that would not allow the system to accept credit card expiration dates past 1999. By early summer, the A2 Roundtable on Genie was again functioning, but its access was not reliable. By the latter part of the year, some A2 refugees were hanging out in the Mac Roundtable, since THAT was still working. The number of people using the Genie service as a whole (A2 and all of the other forums) had been steadily dropping in the years since the sale to Youvelle/IDT, and the quality of customer service provided by Genie's management was questionable. They had the habit of announcing lofty plans that never came to pass, and also of making sudden changes with very little prior warning. Near the start of December an announcement was made that not all Genie subscribers noticed: As of December 27, 1999, the text-based service that Genie had used from the beginning would be discontinued, and Genie content (what remained) would be available only from a web browser. Since Genie contracted with individuals to host and manage the Roundtables, there was also disagreement as to the ownership of the messages and content posted therein. Some sysops disagreed with the transition to the Web without Genie management even asking permission to mirror their messages. The disagreement escalated in some cases to the point that some sysops took pains to delete as much as possible from their Roundtable, before it was taken beyond their control. According to newsgroup messages (found on http://groups.google.com, in the alt.online-service.genie topic), some members of the SFRT (Science Fiction Roundtable) were planning on a wake to be held on that discontinuation date, 12/27/99. They were then likely to migrate to one or more independent web sites to continue their community. On that same newsgroup, Nic Grabien, the Managing Sysop for the Genie SFRT, posted an official "time of death": 12/30/99 14:15 PST. His message stated that the system still answered the dial-up, but it did not respond with any content. (Sort of like someone whose body is maintaining a beating heart, but who has no brainwave activity, and is declared to be clinically dead). At this point, any remaining contact with Genie was purportedly to be via the Web only, at www.genie.com. HARDWARE NEWS In the January issue, Tony Diaz gave a detailed description of the history of Apple IIe motherboard revisions, including ways to identify a specific board. Later in the year, he and Jeff Blakeney discussed the RamFAST card, focusing on its use with the larger-sized hard disks that were affordable in the late 1990's, as well as issues associated with using more than one RamFAST card at one time. Tony and solder slinger Harold Hislop also gave a short tutorial about power supply replacements for an Apple IIGS, and how to pick what type to use. It was pointed out that "underloading" the power supply (having a stronger supply than was needed by the computer) could be just as much of a problem as OVERloading it. The Hewlett-Packard DeskJet 500 series had been a favorite of Apple II users for several years. In 1999, HP was releasing some new models to replace these, and Joe Kohn discussed which ones would NOT work on the Apple II, and how to identify those that would. A nugget of information from the past was posted by Chuck Stiles about the ImageWriter II printer, regarding the special button-presses necessary to set print darkness and run a self-test on the ImageWriter II. Honeybee, Gary Utter and others, gave further information in April. Stiles also posted news about placing an order for 65816 processor chips (for the Apple IIGS) built to run at 14 MHz, at a price of only $6.18 each. However, this price was only good for orders of at least $100 sent to a single address, and so he was looking for others who also were interested in placing such an order. The lifespan of the Apple IIGS clock was brought up as a topic of discussion in August. This clock is based on a 32-bit integer that counts seconds from January 1, 1904 to the present. As a result, this number will overflow on February 6, 2040 after 6:28 am. At that time, the IIGS will have its own "Y2.04K" problem, and the clock will reset to 1/1/04, 12:00 am. And that bridge will have to be crossed when it comes... Sequential Systems was planning on making one final run of RamFAST cards, after they had received at least 200 pre-orders. This was likely to happen, as Habanero in his announcement about it said that he had placed order #199. EMULATOR NEWS Bernie ][ The Rescue 2.0 was announced in the January issue, and it had been updated to v2.5 by September. That revision introduced Bernie Total Integration, which simplified file transfer between the emulated Apple II and the Mac on which it was running. This was accomplished by fully implementing "drag and drop" and through the vehicle of targeted folders on the Mac and on the emulated IIGS. A modification to this release was soon needed, after it was found that some Delphi messages were triggering an Easter egg in the program that caused the program to "bark" when certain text strings were received through the serial port. Bernie was also quickly updated to 2.5.1 because of an error that prevented the launch of ProDOS 8 programs from the Finder. February saw the introduction of a beta version of Sweet16, a translation of Bernie designed to run under the BeOS on Intel-based computers. In May, Eric Shepherd had taken over the project from F.E. Systems (although they still maintained ownership). By early July, it was ready for release. One advantage Sweet16 (informally known as "Ernie") offered over Bernie ][ The Rescue was the ability to make use of multiple processors if present on the computer running it. A new web site was set up, www.emulate.gs (using the ".gs" country code designated for the South Sandwich Isles). Bug fixes and enhancements resulted in Sweet16 updates to v1.1 by September, and v1.2 the next month. Some discussion ensued about whether or not to allow an emulated Apple IIGS to exceed the hardware features of a true Apple IIGS. The advantages of evolving it centered around adding "hardware" features that would never appear in a real IIGS (since they were no longer being manufactured), versus leaving the hardware alone, since all of the existing software depended (to some extent) on a predictable hardware architecture. Benchmarking the various real and emulated Apple IIGS computers was also a topic of discussion. Mike Westerfield of The Byte Works used as his benchmark the time needed to do a full compile of GSoft BASIC. He used his PowerMac G3 running at 300 MHz to compare Gus (the emulator started at Apple and then abandoned), Bernie ][ The Rescue, and a true Apple IIGS running at 9 MHz. The results: PowerMac G3/300, Gus........ 66 seconds PowerMac G3/300, Bernie..... 72 seconds Apple IIGS, 9 MHz ......... 753 seconds Sheppy chimed in with his own benchmark, which he called the WolfyMark (the time required to compile Wolfenstein 3D in ORCA/C): Apple IIGS, 9 MHz .................................... 6300 seconds PowerMac 8100, Bernie ................................ 2700 seconds PowerMac G3/266, Bernie ............................... 105 seconds PowerMac G3/266, Gus ................................... 92 seconds PowerMac 8500 dual 180 MHz, Sweet16 (BeOS) ............. 82 seconds PowerMac 8500 dual 180 MHz, Bernie (SheepShaver MacOS).. 72 seconds SOFTWARE NEWS :: PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE :: The Byte Works released FREE.GSOFT, a free scaled-down version of GSoft BASIC. GSoft BASIC itself was updated to version 1.2. Patches were posted in January to make I.CALENDAR, the AppleWorks 5 calendar add-on, work for the year 1999. In October, patches were posted to make it work for the year 2000. Juiced.GS announced the release of Animasia 3D as a shareware product, although not including the manuals that had been part of it when it was a commercial product. Self-proclaimed Applesoft-aholic Gerry Wright offered a method of transferring The New Print Shop from 5.25-inch disks to 3.5-inch disks. Howard Katz and The Lost Classics Project received permission to release Q Labs software as freeware. He also was able to get Deja II (the AppleWorks 5.1 emulator for the Macintosh) and Kitchen Sink Software titles released. :: TELECOMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE :: Sheppy wrote gsAIM, an America Online-compatible instant messaging (AIM) client, based on Marinetti technology. The beta version was released as a Delphi-only product (since it was a just a beta). In February, the official 1.0 version was released. Unfortunately, gsAIM had a short life, after AOL added code to lock out other instant messaging clients (specifically MSN Messenger). He also wrote an NDA called ShepPing, to allow a user to "ping" a network web site or address. It was not completed, however, due to some difficulties with the available version of Marinetti. Don Zahniser's offline Delphi message manager for ANSITerm, OLRight, was updated to v4.0. Ewen Wannop's Spectrum-based offline manager, Crock O' Gold, was near to a 3.0 release in February, and when it did become available was well received. A bug release bumped the version to 3.1 by mid-year, and v3.2 appeared in September. Geoff Weiss released GWFTP, an FTP client for the Apple IIGS. SIS (Spectrum Internet Suite, the Apple IIGS web browser) was updated to 1.1 in April. Jeff Blakeney and others debated the merits of BinSCII vs BinHex for file compression and transmission. :: UTILITY SOFTWARE :: In February, a long discussion was reprinted that outlined differences and advantages between two competing IIGS printer drivers, Independence and Harmonie. Chuck Newby of Charlie's Appleseeds had for many years been the official sales source of Glen Bredon's ProSel and ProSel-16 Apple II utilities. On March 6, 1999, he announced that Bredon had changed both products to public domain status. Consequently, the full versions of these programs were made available in the Delphi A2 library. Charlie's Appleseeds planned to continue to provide copies on a floppy disk for a nominal cost, to cover disk costs and shipping. Bredon stated in his e-mail to Newby that he was NOT planning on supplying the source code, primarily because his IIGS hard drive had been getting "touchy" in its latter days and it would be hard to put it all together. Additionally, he was concentrating on digital photography with his new PowerMac G3, and offered a web site address to go and see his pictures. (Interestingly, even though Bredon has since passed away, this photography web site is still up -- you can view it at http://www.sierratel.com/bredon). Later in the year, Tony Diaz released a patched set of ProSel files, intended to address some Y2K issues. Ewen Wannop announced the availability of the !HELP! NDA from his web site. Previously it had been available only on disks with the software he had written. :: GAMES :: NinjaForce announced another delay in the release of KABOOM!, an Apple IIGS game they had been working on since at least 1997. Silvern Castle by Jeff Fink was released at KansasFest 1999. The game, written in Applesoft BASIC, had originally been sold in 1988 to Softdisk but was never published. Fink, who still retained rights to the program, improved upon the original game and finally made it available to the world. Written in the style of the older Apple II game "Wizardry", the game involved creating characters and going into a maze to fight monsters. The ultimate goal was to recover the lost Crystal Orb of the Wizard Drachma. It was sold as a $15 shareware game. By the end of the year, he had updated the game to v2.1. HACKING In the February issue, Scott Alfter posted info about how to patch ProDOS for the year 1999 and beyond, giving a detailed explanation on how to do it for future years in which the clock code would need to be changed. The ProDOS filing system had its own date related bug, related to the original Thunderclock driver on which it was based. Instead of having a limit of two digits for the year, as was the problem with the Y2K bug, ProDOS had NO place to keep the year for a file. Instead, a date for file stamping was determined from a look-up table that was good for only about seven years before it had to be patched. Based on the patch for ProDOS 2.0.3 that Alfter posted, the next time that it would be necessary to patch ProDOS would be after February 28, 2004. (Hmmm, that's not too far from now...) Much discussion took place in the April issue about how to create an Applesoft window in the Finder desktop on the Apple IIGS, similar to the MS-DOS window in Windows. Possible uses for this included being able to use Applesoft as a scripting language. Some also wanted to hack the ProDOS FST in order to modify it to be compatible with larger disk volumes. On further discussion, it was suggested that to have a utility to repair the HFS FST (when a volume went bad) would be more useful (and manageable). INTERNET NEWS The Apple II Web Ring expanded further in 1999, with the addition of George Wilde's web site (author of UtilityWorks and UtilityLaunch); HAAUG (a user group); Russel Nielson's software web site; and the Apple II Gaming Resource. "Ask Jeeves" was first mentioned in April as a new search engine allowing queries to be made in full sentences. (This is still available at http://www.ask.com). NETWORKING More messages appeared on how to connect an Apple IIGS into a Macintosh AppleTalk network, with the additional benefit of bridging it to that Mac's Ethernet connection. It was recommended to obtain (relatively) inexpensive Macintosh SE/30 or similar computers on the used market, install an Ethernet card, and then use these to hook up the IIGS into the Mac network. Mike Westerfield presented some of the most detailed information in the April issue. PUBLICATIONS Juiced.GS continued publication throughout 1999. The start of the year saw a listing of the contents of the final issue for 1998, and each subsequent issue's contents were posted when it was ready to ship. Shareware Solutions II mailed out Vol 4, Issue 3. The AppleWorks Gazette received its first mention in over a year. Co-editor Howard Katz posted an explanation for the absence of the publication. The person who was working with him on the project, Chris Serreau, had disappeared (literally) in 1997. In the two years since, Katz had not been successful in any fashion in making contact with him, plus job changes made it difficult to try to continue the publication on his own. To this very day, the fate of Chris Serreau is unknown to Katz or anyone else with whom he has spoken. COMPANIES Sheppy announced that the computer SheppyWare was using as an Internet server had been upgraded to have 120 MB of RAM, and an additional 500 MB of disk storage, which he felt would provide room for future expansion. As mentioned above, he released gsAIM, ShepPing, as well as IdleTime. Updates were posted to these products: Shifty List v2.0.2 and v2.0.3, WebWorks GS 1.2.1, and ImageMaker 1.0. An unfortunate turn of events was announced in the October issue, when Sheppy stated that he was putting his Apple II software development on hold, due to hassles from a few complainers that dampened his enthusiasm. Joe Kohn and Shareware Solutions II came to an agreement with Vitesse and Bill Heineman to allow him to become the new publisher of Harmonie. He also got permission from Steve Disbrow to sell EGO Systems' unsold inventory, specifically Balloon, Cool Cursors Volume 1, IPC Spy Modules Volume 1, AppleWorks GS WP translator for GraphicWriter III, and the RTF Translator for GraphicWriter III. Kohn also reminisced on May 21st that it had been 12 years ago to that day (May 21, 1987) when Applesig on The Source (which he had set up for them) went online. Seven Hills Software made a change in web server to MyESource.com, but then began to fade from the Apple II world. They announced a sale on IIGS software later in the year. NinjaForce announced a new web site in late 1999, http://www.ninjaforce.com (which is still working today). KANSASFEST The 11th KansasFest was held in 1999. The mailing list was re-opened in January, and in February, registration was opened. InTrec Software, Inc sponsored the event. At the event, Max Jones gave the keynote speech, and the guest of honor at the roast was Ewen Wannop. Ryan wrote "The KFest FAQ" to answer those, well, frequently asked questions. Doug Cuff's "Accidental Tourist at KansasFest" was updated for 1999. Pat Kern was again offering pictures of past KFest's on a CD, covering 1994 through 1998. After KFest 1999, she added the pictures for that event onto the CD. HackFest this year included fourth place awarded to Jeff Blakeney (a GSoft BASIC program), third place to Richard Bennett (an iMac mouse emulator for the IIGS), second place to Shawn Beattie (for a Y2KFest countdown program), and first place to Ken Gagne for a Spectrum database program. Also, Cindy Adams was awarded fifth place for writing a Spectrum script "because she could". Sessions included one on GSoft BASIC; how to use Print Shop GS and Print Shop Companion; Tony Diaz' new CD-ROM collection, A2-ROMulan; a demonstration of QuickTime 4 from Craig Foos of Apple Computer; and Sheppy did a presentation on BeOS. New products included Keepsakes of KFest CD (by Pat Kern), The Compleat Lamp CD, the Friends For Life CD (by Max Jones), SpeedReadPlus (by Terry Morris, demonstrated by Max Jones), the Bernie ][ The Rescue Starter Kit (by Ewen Wannop), the Marinetti MacIP Link Layer module (by Richard Bennett), and Silvern Castle 1.0 (by Jeff Fink). The planning for KansasFest for 2000 was so ready that the registration form was placed in the December 1999 issue (perhaps they were worried that there wouldn't be anywhere to post it for a while after January 1, 2000?) The event was nicknamed "Y][KFest", in honor of the famous Y2K bug that did NOT affect the Apple II or IIGS. REVIEWS Ryan Suenaga reviewed these Apple II products: o BabelFish 1.0 o FontPimp 1.0 o Castlewood Systems Orb Drive WRITERS Suenaga was pleased to add content written by Tee Cashmore in the April, June, July, and November. He contributed articles on computing devices to assist the disabled, use of the PC Transporter, accounting software for the Apple II, and the results of a survey that she had posted on Delphi about Apple II users on Delphi, and how they connected to the Net. Though not strictly an article, it could have been submitted as one of the old "Humor Online" articles from GenieLamp. Habanero had posted a story that was reproduced in the April issue, all about Bill Gates and Paul Allen and their programming practices from back in 1974. (His two previous stories appeared in the 1998 series of Lamp newsletters; check out the Lamp Index if you are interested in finding these.) Finally, editor-to-be Lyle Syverson submitted his first article in the October issue about the use of HP DeskJet printers and the Apple II. MISCELLANEOUS FEATURES Sheppy announced that he had written some new technotes for the Apple II, specifically documentation of new IPC request codes, and how to identify whether or not a program was running on an emulator (and if so, which one). Suenaga wrote an article about scripting with Marinetti in the July issue. In December he wrote "Y][K", briefly extolling the positive aspects of using a 20-year-old computer platform, and all it could do, despite the angst the rest of the computer world was experiencing in its anticipation of the unknown passage past 12/31/99. STATS Here are statistics for the first eight years of GEnieLamp and The Lamp! The numbers refer to the size of each issue in "K" (kilobytes): Year Min Max Avg ---- ---- ---- ---- 1992 116K 212K 156K 1993 80K 256K 172K 1994 124K 216K 165K 1995 92K 176K 125K 1996 80K 192K 116K 1997 44K 124K 85K 1998 68K 156K 102K 1999 59K 120K 91K WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN Did the world come to a screeching halt when that big ball dropped in Times Square on December 31st? Did a new dark age come across the planet? Did the humans, now shrouded in darkness with the loss of their electrical power, automobiles, and airplanes, fight each other for the rotting remains of groceries in vandalized Wal-Mart stores? Well, you'll have to wait until next time to get that answer. In the mean time, you might want to set the clocks in your non-Apple computers back a ways to avoid disaster... Steven Weyhrich a2history@syndicomm.com http://apple2history.org References: Computer History For 1990-2000 http://www.computerhope.com/history/19902000.htm History of Computing Industrial Era 1994-2000 http://www.thocp.net Information Please: 1999 http://infoplease.lycos.com/year/1999.html LowEndMac.com http://www.lowendmac.com/history/1999dk.shtml Timeline of the 90s, 1999 http://www.inthe90s.com/generated/time1999.shtml [EOA] [ANS]------------------------------- ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM SYNDICOMM | ------------------------------------ by Lyle Syverson [TSU] TO SIGN UP FOR SYNDICOMM ONLINE """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Please visit our web site at http://www.syndicomm.com for information or to sign up! (Logon message) [EOA] [SNA] SyndiChat v1.2 is Now Available """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""" SyndiChat v1.2 is now available. SyndiChat is a freeware chat client designed for use with Syndicomm's real time conferences and works under Windows 95/98/98SE/ME/NT/2000/XP. New features in this update are: - Auto-login. - Status bar showing connect status, user ID, connect time, scrollback buffer size and line length. - Virtually unlimited scrollback buffer. (Previous versions had a 30,000 character limit) - Saves window size and position between sessions. Available from http://www.syndicomm.com/~mark/SyndiChat/ Mark Percival - Apprentice Delivered by Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR v1.0b11 The Apple ][ Fanatic and Wednesday Night RTC Host "Midweek Madness!" from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM Pacific Time (MARK, HelpDesk BB, Cat 3, Top 4, Msg 17) [EOA] [LTE]------------------------------- LETTERS TO THE EDITOR | ------------------------------------ Enjoying the Monthly Column, "Illuminating The Lamp" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:22:40 -0500 From: Mark Percival To: Lyle Syverson Subject: Letter To The Editor I just want to let you know how much I have been enjoying Steven Weyhrich's recent monthly column, "Illuminating The Lamp". His "Der Fuehrer's Face - Wolfenstein 3D" was particularly enjoyable with lot of interesting tidbits and rarely told information. Steve has a talent for taking what could be a dull subject and turning it into a great story. I eagerly anticipate his next installment! Thank you Lyle for your efforts in editing this great Apple II publication. It is one of a kind. Mark Percival (Via email) [EOA] AN INVITATION ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Express your opinions about the comings and goings in the world of the Apple II computers. Send your comments to Lyle Syverson, Editor The Editor reserves the right to edit any material submitted. The Editor reserves the right to reject any material he considers unsuitable for publication in _The Lamp!_. [EOA] [KFF]------------------------------ KFest 2004 | ----------------------------------- [KF4] KansasFest 2004 """"""""""""""" KansasFest 2004 is planned for July 20-25, 2004 at Avila University in Kansas City, Missouri. (Heading: Cat 5, Top 22) [EOA] [VKF] WATCH FOR MORE INFORMATION AT THE KFest HOME PAGE """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" KFest Home Page http://www.kfest.org/ [EOA] [INN]------------------------------ EXTRA INNINGS | ----------------------------------- About The Lamp! The Lamp! is published on the fifteenth of every month on """"""""""""""" the WEB at: http://lamp.a2central.com/ This publication produced entirely with real or emulated Apple II computers using Appleworks 5.1 and Hermes. Apple II Forever! * The Lamp! is (c) copyright 2004 by Ryan M. Suenaga, M.S.W. All rights reserved. * To reach The Lamp! on Internet email send mail to thelamp@sheppyware.net * All issues of The Lamp! are available at The Lamp! Home Page, http://lamp.a2central.com/ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of A2Central.com, Delphi Online Services, Syndicomm, Ryan M. Suenaga, or Lyle Syverson. Forum messages are reprinted verbatim and are included in this publication with permission from the individual authors. A2Central.com, Delphi Online Services, Syndicomm, Ryan M. Suenaga, and Lyle Syverson do not guarantee the accuracy or suitability of any information included herein. We reserve the right to edit all letters and copy. Material published in this edition may not be reprinted without the expressed written consent of the publisher. Registered computer user groups, not for profit publications , and other interested parties may write the publisher to apply for permission to reprint any or all material. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< [EOF]