Boston Computer Society Model 100 Group Meeting, 2/28/87, Boston Globe Bill Gerber opened the meeting at 11:05 a.m.. Terry Kepner was present and talked about his magazine PICO. The first PICO contest is over; a new contest is starting with the April issue. Prize: a NEC Multi-Speed. Anyone who entered the first contest is entered in this one; also anyone who subscribed. Anyone can enter, no purchase necessary: send a postcard with name, address and what computer you own. Annual subscription: $29.97. Anyone who subscribes also gets a coupon to sign up for the Source without the $50 start-up fee. (There is a $10/month minimum on the Source.) Portable Computing International P.O. Box 481 Peterborough, NH 03458-0481. Scott Anderson (affiliated with Traveling Software) announced a new product. Inspired by LAPDOS, the system to connect a laptop disk drive to the IBM PC, he developed MACDOS, a system to connect the Tandy Portable Disk Drive to the Macintosh. You plug your disk drive into the Mac. Will ship March 17, 1987. Does not require setting the dip switches. (The drive contains enough intelligence that it can send data to any computer that knows how to talk to it. The dip-switch to load the operating system into your Model 100 sets the drive to transmit that operating system and is only needed for that purpose.) MACDOS has an editor and a menu for transmitting files; it can copy all types of files (.CO included) and can edit .DO files. (It is not integrated into the Finder.) Suggested retail: $95. John Cahill spoke about the new Tandy Portable Disk Drive 2, recently announced and soon to be available. This will hold 200K per disk ( twice as much as the old one) and will sell for $199. There is no upgrade policy; you can't trade-in your old one. Apparently both drives are made by Brother. The new one is double-sided, not single-sided. Old disks can be read by the new drive. Unlike most disk drives, the two sides work like separate banks and each file is on one side only. Our data library will be available on disks recorded on the old drive (if possible) so they will be readable by either drive. We don't yet have the disk drive Tandy promised us; we are hoping that when it arrives it will be an old-style drive. Terry Kepner lent Steve Cremer (the librarian) his Tandy Disk Drive until Steve gets the one from Tandy. A sort of roll call was taken in which each person gave his/her name and what he/she was looking for from the group. Several problems and solutions were matched up this way, many of which had to do with printers that did too many or too few line feeds. I don't know how to spell all the names so I won't try to list them all, but here are some highlights: One member reports that he has no problems because as yet he has no hardware. Still looking for the right computer. Terry Kepner mentioned the PICO Bulletin Board: 603-924-9770. 300 or 1200 baud. Open to anyone who wants to call in. Steve Cremer pointed out that the next meeting will be the Flea Market, March 28, at the Globe. Bring your old stuff for sale. The meeting after that, April 28, will be on a Tuesday evening. The main even was "Graphics." Bill Gerber presented several programs, and passed out source listings and examples of output. Big Print, by Michael J. Himowitz, can print letters of various sizes, mixing with normal-sized letters. Good for signs, etc. Banner prints banners sideways on your printer. He also presented a pie chart program, a bar chart program, and SCDUMP, a screen dump program (that doesn't work because part of it seems to be missing). Jim Franklin talked about several screen-dump programs that are available in the public domain. These are slow and written in Basic, and not generally useful because to enter the program you must exit whatever program put the stuff on the screen. They are best viewed as routines to put into your own programs to give them screen-dumping capability. Mark Lutton talked about COALA and CANVAS, two drawing programs. These are really not much more than toys, but are fun to play with in a boring meeting. COALA is fast but can't print or save drawings -- turning your machine into a sort of super Etch-a-Sketch. CANVAS can print or save drawings but is very slow and is no threat to MacPaint. Al Goldman talked about RLE Graphics -- Run Length Encoded -- as implemented on CompuServe. Weather maps are available, as well as other pictures. He passed out a handout with examples: U.S. map, halftone pictures, a circuit diagram, etc. along with programs to view or print these pictures. He printed them out on his Diconix portable printer and on an Epson LX-80. (Oddly enough, the Epson printout was exactly 1/3 larger than the Diconix printout and Al has no idea why. The Diconix only prints Elite, not Pica, but that is a ratio of 5 to 6, not 3 to 4. Running the program takes about 7 minutes on the Model 100. A typical encoded picture takes about 5 to 7Kbytes. Howard Lasnick mentioned J.D. Hildebrand's new magazine, Laptop User, and "Club 100". Many of us have received mailings about this. We are eager to see the magazine (which should start showing up next month) and wish the best for Hildebrand. We also talked about the late (at least in the chronological sense), lamented Portable 100 magazine. Terry Kepner consulted Dunn & Bradstreet and found that Portable 100 has NOT filed bankruptcy, contrary to rumors. The publisher still says that the magazine is alive and will continue to publish. John Cahill talked about the June Picnic. He is looking for suggestions & volunteers. (He would like someone else (other than him) to coordinate it this year.) Also he talked about the Kyocera Kyotronic 85 he bought from a liquidator; it was totally non-compatible with the Model 100 so he sent it back. It is OK for text-only use. Meeting adjourned at 1:20 p.m., and we went to the Globe's cafeteria and talked about various subjects (the space shuttle, British TV, political jokes, and others to humorous to mention) until the sun went down.