![[Del's Atari in the USA 2002 banner]](images/del_ban.gif)
Del McCool and
George Iken go clubbing
This month I'd
like to remind many of us what really helped
us through our first few months of owning
and using an Atari computer... a local users
group.
Today a person
can just go into the local department store
and pick up a computer, like you would a new
TV set. All you need to know is how to plug
all the cables in and your up and running. Modern
mainstream operating systems allow anyone, even
my two year old, to access software and use
a computer.
In the USA back
in the 1980s and early 1990s, every city and
town had an Atari users group of some size.
Each monthly meeting the more experienced users
would wow the group with the latest hardware
“hacks” or newest game software for that month.
Afterward many would go into their own little
groups to exchange software, a practice that
helped kill the Atari and other systems over
time. When the ST hit the market many groups
fractured into two separate groups, bringing
a whole new crowd into the Atari world.
Today in Europe
there are still large Atari gatherings covering
all makes and models. However, in the USA, only
a few hardcore “Atari Troopers” tow the line
with scattered swap meets, Jagfests and a few
user group meetings.
I was an official
member of three Atari user groups over the course
of my early Atari days. In 1982 and 1983 I attended
Atari meetings at the Southern Computer Center
in Clarksville, TN. I was in the US Army and
stationed there at the time. Each month I could
hardly wait to go to the meeting and learn more
about my Atari computer.
In 1985-86, while
in Germany, I joined the Fuerth Atari Users
Group and was elected the first President
of the group. In 1986 I returned to the USA
and joined the Pasadena Atari Computer Club.
In 1987, I was elected Vice President and also
attended the Houston Atari Computer Enthusiasts
(H.A.C.E.) meetings. H.A.C.E. was one
of the largest Atari monthly meetings in the
southern central part of the USA at that time.
My good friend John Hauser was a member of both
Atari groups as well as a Sysop of his own Atari
BBS.
![[Image: John Hauser and Del (Jerry) McCool from the March 1987 PAC newsletter]](images/pac1.gif) John
Hauser and Del (Jerry) McCool from the March
1987 PAC newsletter
In recent
months I have been looking into the Atari user
groups in my area (Texas) and have found that
only H.A.C.E. still holds monthly meetings.
I had the opportunity to talk with both John
Hauser and George Iken recently so I asked George
for some updated information on H.A.C.E.
George wrote
and sent me the following article and photos...
![[Photo: June 2002 H.A.C.E. meeting]](images/pac2.jpg) June
2002 H.A.C.E. meeting - Hal Gailey, Harold
Gailey, another of Harolds sons, Ti Ngo and
Bruce Fudge (from left to right)
Out of Memory A
personal history of the Houston Atari Computer
Enthusiasts (H.A.C.E.)
by George Iken
H.A.C.E. was
the original Atari club in Houston, forming
soon after the introduction of the Atari 400.
Other Atari clubs formed and disappeared, but
H.A.C.E. continues in Houston today as a small
club of 15 members with monthly meetings, a
monthly newsletter and web site.
H.A.C.E. is a
group of users for all models of Atari computers,
from the palm-size Portfolio, the classic 8-bit
line (400, 800, XL and XE), the ST to the TT
and Falcon030 as well as the Atari Jaguar and
Lynx consoles. But as the influence of Atari
has declined in the computing world, it has
declined in H.A.C.E. as well. The computing
activities discussed in H.A.C.E. newsletters
and on H.A.C.E. disks can and often do include
other computing platforms. What has remained
constant is that H.A.C.E. members can relate
these current computing activities to their
current and/or prior use of Atari computers.
I found H.A.C.E.
in 1983 after I got a modem (300 baud) for my
Atari 400 and called the H.A.C.E. BBS. The
H.A.C.E. BBS equipment was operated by various
club members until 1988 when John Hauser's Atari
Answering BBS became the official H.A.C.E.
BBS. John continued to operate the H.A.C.E.
BBS until 2001, when H.A.C.E. shut it down for
lack of use (an internet side effect).
I became a H.A.C.E.
member and began attending meetings in 1984.
H.A.C.E. was at its peak at that time with around
400 members, but my involvement was mostly hoping
I'd win a door prize at the monthly meeting.
When Atari introduced the ST, H.A.C.E. was temporarily
polarized between 8-bit users and ST users.
In June 1986, most of the clubs directors wanted
to make H.A.C.E. an ST only club, while most
of the members were still 8-bit users. The club
split with about 2/3 of the members staying
in H.A.C.E. as an 8-bit and ST club while the
remainder formed a separate ST only club called
H.A.S.T.E.
After the H.A.C.E.
/ H.A.S.T.E. polarization, the club began a
downward drift to about 120 members a year later.
The newsletter size also dropped commensurately
so that some months it was little more than
a couple of pages announcing the meeting.
In 1987, Tracy
Weber almost single handedly re-invigorated
the club by bulking up both the newsletter content
and the monthly meeting content. I began writing
regularly for the H.A.C.E. newsletter at that
time (and still do). As a result of Tracy's
efforts, H.A.C.E. membership stabilized at around
fifty through to the end of the 1980s. Tracy
was the newsletter editor until 1992. In that
time he personally upgraded from an Atari 800
to an ST and started to publish the newsletter
using the PageStream desktop publishing program.
In 1990, Tracy
changed the newsletter name to Update Atari
and developed an attractive and functional newsletter
template which is still used by H.A.C.E. today.
From 1993 to 1995, Jim Alder was newsletter
editor. I have been the newsletter editor since
1996 (it just seems longer).
In 1989, ST World
magazine promoted several large Atari shows
in the USA and half a dozen US user groups were
holding large annual Atari shows. In 1990, Tracy
Weber and Bill Kithas suggested H.A.C.E. sponsor
a local Atari computer show as a means of bringing
in new members. At this time, H.A.C.E. was struggling
to maintain a membership of fifty, while H.A.S.T.E.
had gained another twenty members. The first
show co-sponsored by H.A.C.E. and H.A.S.T.E.
was the 1990 Houston Atari Safari. Future
Houston Atari Safari shows were sponsored
solely by H.A.C.E.
Much of the software
sold at that first show was liquidation product
from Atari's ill fated attempt at retail marketing.
Although only two software developers were at
the show (Double Click and Maxwell CPU), the
first show was very successful with H.A.C.E.
gaining new members as well as a little
bit of money. Subsequent Houston Atari
Safari shows (there was seven in total) always
had a good number of the larger software developers
as well as nationally known Atari retailers.
In 1994, Atari
ceased computer manufacturing to concentrate
solely on the Atari Jaguar and Lynx game consoles.
As a result, the Houston Atari Safari shows
peaked in 1995 and ended when H.A.C.E. didn't
recover costs on the seventh show in 1997.
In May of 1993,
H.A.C.E. was considering a takeover of Atari
Corporation. Atari stock had dropped to 62.5
cents, and if it dropped to zero, the H.A.C.E.
treasury would have been adequately funded to
buy all of the outstanding stock. It was a little
joke we put in the June 1993 newsletter, but
that pretty much describes the status of Atari
at that time. The H.A.C.E. treasury in 1993
was at its healthiest point in years as a result
of four previous Houston Atari Safari shows,
along with an increase in membership to one
hundred members.
When the Atari
Jaguar game console came out in 1994, Atari
Corporation decided to cease all manufacturing
of its computers. While there was still some
TOS and 8-bit news in the Atari community, the
bulk of it tended to be about the new console. As
a result, we had extensive Jaguar coverage in
the H.A.C.E. newsletter from 1993 to 1997. The
first H.A.C.E. web page was put up in 1997 by
Bill Roberts who had joined the club on the
strength of the clubs Jaguar content.
1997 signaled
more than the change from on-line BBS'ing to
World Wide Web surfing. It signaled a change
from primarily Atari related content to mixed
content of a general nature including other
computer platforms in the H.A.C.E. newsletter
and in meeting content. Atari had begun its
final incarnation as a hard drive manufacturer
as the JTS Corporation, and had abandoned the
unique Atari computing and game console ventures
that had previously been what H.A.C.E. was all
about. So as Atari moved into the mainstream
of computing, so did H.A.C.E.
In the newsletter,
cross platform topics such as SCSI and web page
creation that had high application to Atari
systems were eventually changing to topics such
as accessing the internet, tax program software
and building your own computer - using examples
for PC systems (occasionally referencing similar
opportunities on Atari systems). This was partly
because it was becoming more difficult to dig
up new Atari information, and partly because
it was what much of the H.A.C.E. membership
was now involved with. We still loved Atari,
we still had interest in Atari, but more and
more of our members' actual computing was non-Atari.
![[Photo: H.A.C.E. meeting Sept 2000]](images/pac3.jpg) H.A.C.E.
meeting Sept 2000 - Bill Kithas, Bruce Fudge,
Harold Gailey, Bill Guegel, and Harold's son
Hal (from left to right)
Houston Skyline
disks (named after the club logo which shows
a city skyline above a block lettered H.A.C.E.)
began as give-away disks of public domain software
to attendees of the Houston Atari Safari
Shows. In 1993, semi-annual disks were sent
to H.A.C.E. members along with the newsletter.
This soon became a monthly disk of the month
to H.A.C.E. members. In 1999, a Houston Skyline
CDR which contained the club's ST library was
sent to H.A.C.E. members. Monthly floppy disks
continued to be sent until late 2000 when H.A.C.E.
began to send quarterly CDs to H.A.C.E. members. These
disks provided free to H.A.C.E. members reflect
the changing nature of the club as the software
content includes Atari, PC, Mac and Linux software
as well as archived H.A.C.E. newsletter files.
One column in
the H.A.C.E. newsletter has remained essentially
true to Atari. H.A.C.E. member David Acklam
writes about his continued use of his MegaSTe,
Falcon030 and TT060 in "David's Corner"
with only an occasional reference to other computing
platforms. As a long time club member
in Dallas Texas, David was a regular attendee
at the Houston Atari Safari shows. After moving
to Arizona, David became a H.A.C.E. member as
well as a regular contributor to the newsletter.
Among the small
group of H.A.C.E. members, it is mostly the
members outside of Houston that remain inveterate
users of Atari computers. Joe Hlifka (New Mexico)
continues to use his several TT030 computers.
Frank Kweder (Florida) sends an annual letter
and CDR to H.A.C.E., which he compiles on Atari
equipment. Rick Detlefsen (Austin, Texas) always
comes down for the annual H.A.C.E. Christmas
party to show off his latest 8-bit creations.
Gary Matteson (Nebraska) is a regular on Atari
chat sessions.
![[Photo: George Iken at a H.A.C.E. meeting]](images/pac4.jpg) George
Iken at a H.A.C.E. meeting
Locally, I am
the only H.A.C.E. member who still uses original
Atari equipment in any consistent manner which
I primarily use to produce the club newsletter
and print club mailing labels. The remaining
members primarily use PCs and do any Atari related
work via the various emulators. In times
past, H.A.C.E. was often viewed as a last resort
for individuals wanting to sell their Atari
equipment. As club members have moved away
from routine use of Atari equipment, we can
no longer fill that function. However, we meet
monthly to discuss computer issues just as we
did when we used Atari equipment more extensively.
Except now, instead of adding a format switch
to an Atari disk drive, or installing ST memory,
our topics include building PCs from scratch,
connecting PCs to routers and reviewing internet
security.
With occasional
reminiscence about the way those things were
done on an Atari. That 100 GB hard drive I purchased
this week for $100 reminds me of my first ST
hard drive, an 80 MB drive that cost $290 ($3,600
per GB). That's not a bad memory, it's one I
was pleased and excited about then, and was
pleased and excited about this past week. H.A.C.E.
members make those kinds of associations to
today's activities. And we never forget our
old Atari machines.
![[Photo: H.A.C.E. Christmas party]](images/pac5.jpg) H.A.C.E.
Christmas party - From left to right, Harold,
Hal, Rick, Bruce, and Bill Guegel
Upcoming topics
include installing Linux on a PC and on my TT,
programming languages (everything from GFA Basic
to Visual Basic with Delphi and Kylix in between)
and web site creation (including updating the
H.A.C.E. web site). It looks like the current
fifteen members will be taking the club to its
ultimate end. We've pretty much stopped collecting
dues (or new members). Our only expenses are
newsletter production and mailing to members,
so we figure we've got a couple years of financial
life (we no longer exchange newsletters but
make them available on the H.A.C.E. web site).
In the meantime, we're all getting older, but
we're not out of memory.
H.A.C.E. Officers
for 2002
- Bruce Fudge,
President
- Harold Gailey,
Vice President
- Bob Leeper,
Secretary
- Bill Kithas
(Bill K), Treasurer
- Ti Ngo,
At Large Board Member
- George Iken,
Newsletter Editor
Next month I
will be tackling a topic many of us have dealt
with... after buying an old Atari, you find
all kinds of add-on switches sticking out and
you want to know what they do. It’s time to
open the computer and see what we find inside.
del@myatari.co.uk
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