10:57:53 AM EDT Sunday, June 15, 1986 (Sysop .^Dave^.) Let us see if we can get this show on the road and commence to commence ...... (LARRY R.) and begine the beguine? (Sysop .^Dave^.) Topic this morning would seem to be "Tandy Net" and our special guest this morning is President of Golden Triangle Corporation ... Wayne Day and Golden operates the TAndy Net with other interests likewise such as OS9 SIG and such stuff. Even changes diapers as needed .... So, Welcome to Daddy Day on Daddy's Day .... Opening comments Wayne?? (LARRY R.) <<<>>> (PhilW) [brother!] (\/\/ayne) Thanks, Dave.. (and I agree, Larry and Phil (Sysop .^Dave^.) Interesting "Opening statement" (Mike A.) Wayne, welcome! I'd like to ask you to explain a bit about Golden triangle if you would. (\/\/ayne) Thanks, Mike... well, Golden Triangle was created specifically to provide the organizational and legal entity that would hold the contracts with CompuServe. That is, the contracts to manage the Tandy Sig's that were being managed by Tana. Right now, our major product is, of course, the forums, but in the near future, we're hoping to get TandyNet Magazine up and running and we'll have some other ventures that we'll be going into as well, some of which may be here on CIS, and some not online. It's a small company right now. I'm the only full time employee. We have one part-time young lady that helps out with some of the paperwork and research work on the weekends and there are five folks doing sub-contract work for us. (Mike A.) Thanks, Wayne... So I take it the more people who use the CIS Tandy Net, the more $ you get ? (\/\/ayne) OH, obviously... just like any other forum sponsor! (Mike A.) the magazine sounds like a good idea! (\/\/ayne) Well, Mike.. we think it's probably overdue, as a matter of fact. Look at the situation we've got. In the "Tandy Family", there are no less than 7 distinct and different computer types. And we're all running around with some very common interests but yet, we seem to specialize in only our particular machine. For example, I'm sure that everyone that's on the forums would be interested to know how many millions of dollars that Tandy made over the last quarter, but if the note gets posted only on one forum the chances are that folks on the other three might not find it. So, the TandyNet magazine will give us a great opportunity to put up information that'll be instantly accessible to all of the Tandy family everyone will know where to go... and hopefully, it'll be of interest to all of the group. (Mike A.) Many thanks, Wayne and best of luck ! (Larry R) What changes do you expect to happen especially to THIS Sig, under its new management, and could you hold 4th a little more on the magazine and its advantages over Portable 100? (\/\/ayne) Well, Larry... right now, you've seen one of the immediate changes the removal of "sysop" from the nameplates. Plus, we're going to be holding a contest to see if we can come up with a new name for the forum, one that gives a bit better "flavor" of the forum than does "Model 100." Those are the only immediate changes you SHOULD notice. Now, realize that there are some software enhancements that are currently being worked on in Columbus, and some of those will give us some new opportunities to better manage the Sig (i.e. more data libraries, so we can spread things out a little bit better)... but those will be in the "Real Soon Now" era and will be available to all of the Sigs/forums at the same time. A little more on the magazine -vs- Portable 100? Well, we're NOT going to be in competition with Portable 100 in the sense that we're trying to take subscribers away from them. We'll be an online magazine with all of the "immediacy" that offers. We'll be able to tell you about new products and releases from Tandy within hours instead of months, like the print magazines. Ditto on news about Tandy. There'll be columns that cover the general spread of interests, as well as very hardware-specific / operating system specific information and everything but advertising (we hope!) . (Larry R) As an owner operator of a model 100 call me what you will, but I am more interested in better ideas etc. to help me with the use of this computer in my ministry and related areas than in how much $$$ tandy earned last 1/4. In what ways will this sig and the magazine enhance that capability? AND a suggestion: will there be a way to BRO all DL's at once as you can QS or R all message topics at once? It would save time. (\/\/ayne) Lemme take the last part first, Larry. there are currently two possibilities being studied by the CompuServe programmers relating to the data libraries, based on a planning session that I was fortunate enough to attend this February, with programmers, staff, managers and 10 Wiz sysops of some of the larger forums on the system. One of the ways that the Data Libraries could be implemented would be as one gigantic DL, with a tree-structured menu system. You'd enter the DL, and begin filtering down your search criteria. If you were using the menu mode, for example, you might be given a series of eight or nine major subtopics of files, and asked to select one of those then at the next level... you'd again be presented with several choices and so on until you got down to the set or group of files you were interested in. A system such as this would indeed allow you to browse completely over the DL, since it would be in fact one large, gigantic, library. The other way is similar to what we have now, where each DL is in fact a separate file structure and there's no easy way to set multiple sections of these structures to be open (outputing information to you) at the same time. So, right now, I don't know which way it will be - time will tell, but if it's any consolation, that suggestion HAS been made, and has been heard! Now on your first point Larry, the ONLY way we can help you here is to provide you with information. It's up to YOU to use the information for whatever purposes you see fit and it's also up to you if you don't want the information we're presenting. (Larry R) I understand that (\/\/ayne) The new magazine / forum structure only provides us with a little better defined structure that we can bring the information together under. IF I, for example, run across an article that we can use, that shows how a student minister at the Southwest Babptist Seminary here in Fort Worth is using a Model 200 to help him through his training, it could go up in the magazine and be available for all. The milk delivery man with a Model 600 might not find it to be directly of interest, but it might give him some ideas. Ditto on your situation. As far as the financial/management news/etc goes, it's hoped that some of the folks will find it interesting and if so, great! Did that answer your concerns? (Larry R) and I'm sure they will. Will m100 still have it's own bailiwick in the Sig structure? (\/\/ayne) Do you mean the "Model 100" by itself.. or "model 100 and other portables?" (Larry R) m100 itself. (\/\/ayne) Probably not by itself, since there's now a Model 102 that is functionally compatible with the Model 100. I don't really see any sense of sub-dividing things so that you've segregated one particular model of computer that is compatible with other models in such a way that to serve everyone, you'd have to duplicate effort, do you? (Larry R) I'll write you, wayne, to continue. (PhilW) OK -- first a comment then two q's.... Comment is that you just described the DL's as the Chipmunk of our dreams! Question one is Whence the name "Golden Triangle". Connotations are few. And the second is what do the subcontractors you have do for you at this time? (\/\/ayne) Phil, before I answer that, I've got a question for ya... I know your wife is out of town. Did you manage to get some breakfast in ya? We worry about you . (PhilW) Sure -- I'm pretty good at that -- since she usually isn't up til 10 am on Sunday's -- in fact I don't have the coffee delivery service to do this Sunday! (\/\/ayne) heh heh.. all right! Well, I guess I could give you a long story about how we searched just for the right name, one that had the "ring" to it, one that told a story... but to be truthful, Golden Triangle Corporation came purely out of a measure of desperation. You see, under most state laws, no two corps. can have the same name and I was forced with coming up with a name for this in a relatively short time due to some time constraints put on the changeover. Most of the ones I initially thought of were taken, already, so I began thinking about geographic-type names, and there's an area of Fort Worth on the north side known as the Golden Triangle. I checked with Austin, and the name was available. It was only after the name was decided on that all of the various connotations became evident. My wife, who is Chinese, mentioned that a "golden triangle" was not only a sign of good luck in that civilization, but one that was reserved for dynasty's use; someone else pointed out that this indeed is a three way partnership between CIS, us, and Tandy... etc etc. So, truth be known... it was a lucky choice! As far as the subcontractors - all 3 of the sysops here fall into that category. Dave, Tony and Eiji. I've also got two folks working on the Tandy Professional Sig, as well as two folks on the OS9 Sig. (PhilW) Ok, Wayne...I just wondered if you had some other technical type stuff going on with subcontractors. And on the name -- that did work out well. I had assumed that there was some special thing it denoted. And it turned out too (I like the Cis/Tandy idea). Thanks. (:Lan Y:) RE: the name, I thought we had SHAN opium-growers from northern Burma finally on the Network. I have two Q/Cs... First, only you and Tandy know the atmospherics of the change but, can we expect to see some real-time TANDY presence on the SIG (a la Tanya?) (\/\/ayne) Well, Lan.. you'll never know how much truth there might be to the idea of Burmese travellers (my wife's family is surnamed Aw and was predominantly found in Burma, before World War II ) Regarding the circumstances of the switch - believe it or not, the story that Ed Juge reported in the Tandy User Group newsletter (GO TRS-1) and Tana's message on the Sig is the truth. The "changing of the minds" came about when they realized that they had gotten themselves into something that they couldn't, as a corporation, provide. That being technical assistance on the Sig. As far as their continued presence, I've been assured that, yes, Tana will continue to check on the Sig daily, answer any of the questions (NON-technical) that she can, and will be able to assist us in any way that they can. They're not going away - on the contrary it may actually work out that they're able to devote more time to helping us find out the things we need to know. (:Lan Y:) Great! Second question: I have had to sadly say ADIOS to two print magazines which had given me a lot of help with my 100. First 80-Micro and lately PCM. Both lost sight of why people needed them. In 80-M's case they needed to change the name to "I-III-4" magazine; with PCM, its "MS-DOS Tandy." I want the 100-102 to continue to get the emphasis it deserves based on its installed base and continued popularity. Whew! What a sermon... (\/\/ayne) Well, Lan... remember that in Life, only three things are certain: Death.... Taxes... and change. Unfortunately it seems that the computer publishing field is changing so rapidly that folks are hard pressed just to stay afloat, much less remembering "from whence they came". The magazines are being forced to consolidate themselves for pure economic survival reasons. Look at the Tandy field; specifically at the Color Computer. Once, we had four distinct and separate magazines devoted to the machine. Last year and the year before, two folded, simply because the market wasn't big enough. This year, we find that CW Communication's mag, Hot CoCo, isn't making enough money to stay afloat by itself, and is being merged into 80-Micro. Now, two years later, we find only one magazine that is still all CoCo. It's the same in the portable arena. And there's no easy solution to it, if you're going to continue publishing a magazine the traditional way, by printing it. You've simply got to cover as many different aspects as possible, hoping to strike a balance that doesn't alienate some group of readers, while achieving the desired goal. What's the alternative? Electronic publishing might be an answer. There's some other distribution methods out there that are possible, too. Who knows what the final outcome of the changes taking place in the publishing industry will be; the only thing you can positively say is that Change will definitely be taking place. (:Lan Y:) Thanks for the reply. Best of luck and remember the -100s. (Mark L) I just tuned in. Got the tail end of something that looks good. Any way I can scroll back and see what I missed, or do I have to wait until it comes out in DL8? (Sysop .^Dave^.) Sorry Mark; tune in about 7 this evein for the transcript. (Sysop .^Dave^.) Tony? (Sysop Tony) Yes? (Sysop .^Dave^.) Not asleep? Want to stir things up ... with a witty wile for Wayne?? (Sysop Tony) Well.... (\/\/ayne) (Sysop Tony) playing the devil's advocate.... How come we can't have more than one COnference a week??? (Sysop .^Dave^.) Er, who said we couldn't?? (\/\/ayne) No reason at all, Tony! If the folks WANT one, and will support it then we can have as many as they want! (Sysop Tony) Well 'twould seem that they will support it if it's available, but have nothing to support if it doesn't already exist. I mean nobody's gonna ask for it, cause they don't know we're perfectly willing. And another thing.... What are the chances of getting more of the third party support vendors to frequent, or have a representative on the forum?? (\/\/ayne) On the conference; do I detect a volunteering to host a Mid-Week conference? (Sysop Tony) I think we ought to have more than one, mid week was discussed once before and some of the old timers were in favor of it. (\/\/ayne) But, you didn't answer my question, Tony.. was that you volunteering to host one, if we set it up? (Sysop Tony) (Sound of deafening silence)... I'll go along with the program... whatever it turns out to be. What are the members's interests??? we need to conform to that. (\/\/ayne) Well, how about we do this. Why don't you look at your schedule and see what night you think you could conveniently set aside for a regular conference. We'll post it and try it for a while, and see what the reaction is. If it works, great! If not, then we haven't lost anything, but a little bit of effort. ok? (Sysop Tony) Gad! I've just been volunteered! We could try Wednesday night. (\/\/ayne) OK, how about Wednesday night at 10 pm Eastern (7 pm Pacific)? (Sysop Tony) OK by me, but is there any interest from those here??? (Mark L) I hardly ever get into the CO as it is because of the money involved. $13 for 2 hours at 300 baud, $25 at 1200; maybe once in 6 months but not twice a week. (\/\/ayne) Well, that's one good thing about the transcripts, you can get the jist of the conference without actually attending, and if something comes up that you need the real-time help, you can plan on dropping by the next time! (Sysop Tony) Money is always a problem. Best thing for you would probably be to use the message board for help, and come back later just to get the answers. CO IS expensive and those hours can add up. We'd rather have you around for a long time than burn out on credit charges. (Sysop .^Dave^.) Mark is more of a provider of help than an asker. Methinks that some folks will prefer the Sunday CO and come to it, whilst others will attend a week-night CO. No Problem. (Mark L) [thanks for the testimonial, Dave] Yeah, that's what I do. I read the transcripts & I read through the messages but VERY selectively, just pulling out messages about "SUPER" or whatever interests me. (Sysop Tony) (Oh, the "L" stands for Lutton... I didn't realize!) (\/\/ayne) Thanks, and Mark.. I DO know where you're coming from on the $$$ aspect so we are NOT un-sympathetic about that. Now Tony, about getting more vendors on-line and supporting their products on the forum. Yes, absolutely that's one of the projects that's near the top of the list. For example, I've held preliminary discussions with Travelling Software about a quid-pro-quid exchange of putting an electronic version of their newsletter up in return for a non-revenue access account for them. If the vendor is able to help us out in something like that, and it appears that the effort will be worthwhile, then we'll definitely go out of our way to make it convenient for them to access us, and their customers, as long as everything stays on a strictly non-commercial basis. That means they won't be able to take orders on the Sig, obviously, but just about everything else is fair. I really believe that having a strong vendor presence is a good thing, and we'll bend over backwards to help them help their customers. That is, after all, why we're here, yes? (Sysop Tony) Good, the more vendors we can get to support their products here the greater will be our value to the membership as a whole. (Mike A.) Wayne, would the same offer apply to PCSG ? (\/\/ayne) Mike - absolutely.... Mike.. yes, it would - we're not trying to play "favorites" among anyone so if you'd like to give me a call, either after the CO or Monday, (Mike A.) Okay, great ! Phone#? (\/\/ayne) at (817) 847-0704, I can tell you what our ideas are. (Mike A.) Fine, thanks. I'll message Wayne. (DaveW.) The weeknight CO mentioned earlier - is this to be a formal CO with guests or more the same as these Sunday versions. Also it could be tried out on a every other week or once a month basis. (\/\/ayne) Well, I was thinking more of a "Late Night with David.. err Tony" style. (Sysop Tony) (That's about my style...) (\/\/ayne) of CO, Dave.. finding CO guests can sometimes get to be a bit hard, but if there's something coming up that's appropriate, and the weekday conference would be more convenient for the guest, there's no reason why it couldn't be super-formal. Actually, from my experience with CompuServe, it's best to remain as flexible as possible, so we can adjust to the particular needs, at a particular time. In other words, y'all will have to tune in to see what's happening on this particular night (obviously, we'll do as much promo as possible, though). On the scheduling, what we'll probably try is weekly, first, and if there's an indication that bi-weekly would be more productive, then we might move it to that schedule. (DaveW.) As Tony and Dave can attest to I also tend to hang around the COs mainly as a technical help to M100 users interested in peripherals and machine language aid. (Sysop .^Dave^.) We have one regular here that hasn't been heard from as yet. John Raina?? Does Doctor Stannage have anything to say today?? (John R) Good Morning, and \/\/elcome, \/\/ayne! (Sysop .^Dave^.) Go ahead Wayne, for closing comments. (\/\/ayne) Well, about the only thing I can say in closing is that we (meaning, CompuServe, Tandy and I) all agree on one thing.. a forum that's independent of a manufacturer has the best opportunity to serve the interests of the member, when viewed in corporate realities. We can provide information that Tandy could not, we can make suggestions that a manufacturer couldn't; in short, with Tandy's continued prescence on the forum, there's a whole lot of reasons why the TandyNet structure should work and not too many reasons why it shouldn't. Hopefully, we'll live up to that potential in the future! Thanks for having me, Dave.. and I've enjoyed it! (Sysop .^Dave^.) Thank you, and thank you all for coming today. The conference is ended ... All go to Yak-yak mode to stay and enjoy. 1:00:25 PM EDT Sunday, June 15, 1986 User ID Nod Handle ----------- --- ------------ 70007,1176 ATJ Thom 70250,211 LTR PETER 71266,125 TOR PhilW 71326,34 HVT SAM M 72217,2025 SYR Karl Newton 72245,66 QLA James M. Irsik 72256,2551 TOC Gary D. 72467,331 DCI :Lan Y: 72516,475 CSG LARRY R. 72517,2127 SBR Mike L. 72527,1246 LEX >>Joe B.<< 72737,625 QEI CURTIS MOHOMMED 72746,1014 OKC John R 72757,3055 STK PaulS 73076,126 FWY GREG STODDARD 73106,1627 BOO Mark L 73127,3255 AKR JAMES GISBRECHT 73765,605 NYJ larry l 74106,3005 QAI Randy Schornack 75046,2325 DEQ Jon O 75515,1757 FWY Rob D 75765,1124 DCQ Mike A. 75775,202 CAN DaveW. 76257,3243 QAI DERBIN H. 76257,3243 QAI GLADYS BENTON 76703,376 FTW \/\/ayne 76703,4062 SIE Sysop Tony 76703,4311 QAI Eiji 76703,446 BMD Sysop .^Dave^.