NEWSLETTER January, 2001

President's Corner
by Michael Current
January, 2001

Happy New Year!

The December SPACE Christmas party was most enjoyable, as always. Thanks to all for contributing to the food, the setup, the cleanup, and the fun!

The other day I finally had a chance to try out Tempest 2000 for my PC, which I obtained at a SPACE auction some time ago. I was never able to get it running before, but it turns out there's also a DOS version on the CD-ROM, and that does work on my "home-built" PC. Anyway, even though it's keyboard controlled rather than the proper paddle controller, it's actually quite a fun and engaging game. Of course I mostly wanted it for nostalgia, as I believe it was the last product Atari released before the "reverse merger" with JTS.

Which reminds me, I don't know if I'll get the wire reports in to Mike in time for this issue of the newsletter, but have you heard that Atari has changed hands again? Hasbro sold Atari, along with Microprose and Hasbro Interactive properties to something called Infogrames. I hope I spelled that right. Even though their software was selling pretty well, apparently Hasbro was losing tons of money on the whole on-line gaming thing, and decided to cut their losses. I believe Mattel recently did about the same thing. And just the other day, I read that board games have been making a big comeback recently, as people have been wanting more personal socializing than they get from video games. Interesting... I'm not sure what if anything Infogrames plans on doing with the Atari properties, but I have a backlog of on-line news to catch up on at the moment.

This month, it's auction time again. Among others items, many issues of Current Notes and other uncommon but high-quality magazines will be available, along with another assortment of 8-bit software.

Thanks, keep using that Atari, and come to your next SPACE meeting, Friday, January 12, 2001.

Treasurer's Report
by Greg Leitner
For December, 2000

By the time you are reading this, Christmas and New Year will have passed, and I would have served two weeks jury duty between our last meeting and Christmas. On top of that our company of 53 employees will have taken a vacation between Christmas and New Year and I will be one of two employees who will hold down the fort. As you can see I have been up to my eyeballs and I am writing this report one day after the December meeting.

I was delighted at the response for the SPACE Christmas party and especially surprised to see a couple of new faces. Welcome to our Club. It was nice to have a relaxing evening without our customary monthly Club auction, but next month in January we will start off the new year with another auction.

Here is the how the Club's treasury stands as of the end of 2000:

Beginning balance as of December 1, 2000  1,075.37

Memberships                                  45.00
DOM sales                                    45.00
                                           _______
Total receipts for the December meeting      90.00

Less:
BBS phone bill for Nov. & DEC 2000           20.00
Christmas party subs from Cub Foods          30.12
                                          ________
Total expenditures for the DEC meeting       50.12

Ending balance for year , DEC 31, 2000    1,115.25

I need to add a comment about the outstanding expenses that do not show up in our ending cash balance. We still owe $195.00 for the last quarter 2000 room rental and also we owe Mr. Schmidt for the newsletter expenses since August (about $40.00). After these expenses are taken into consideration we still have a healthy cash balance of over $800.00.

At this time I would like to say to all of you that I hope you have had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I am looking forward to another great year in 2001. Please come to the January meeting and start the new year off on the right foot by supporting your Club and giving us all your needed input to our meetings. Good-bye for now and see you in January.

Secretary's Report
by Mike Weist
For December, 2000

Space meeting opened at 7:30 PM. Space club president, Michael Current, welcomed members to the meeting.

Michael Current asked for a secretary report from Mike Weist, club secretary. Mike recapped minutes printed in December Space newsletter.

Michael Current asked for treasurer report. Greg Leitner, club treasurer, gave a report. Greg stated for the month of November the club paid out $260 for room rent (June-Sept). Greg is waiting for next room rent bill($195). Greg waiting for a bill for the newsletter cost from Newsletter editor, Mike Schmidt. Auction in November took in $61. There were 6 DOM sales ($18). There were no membership renewals in November. The treasury balance stands at $1075.37.

Glen Kirschenmann, DOM chair, gave a report. Glen reported the disk of the month had two games from German directory on CD. A Christmas disk was also available at meeting.

Glen Kirschenmann, club membership chair, gave a report. Glen stated the club had a new member, Jim Kline. The club now stands at 15 paid up members.

Nolan Friedland, SYSOP, gave a report. Things are going better with BBS. Nolan still says he is in contact with person in Netherlands. Nolan is thinking about putting BBS on Telenet connection.

OLD BUSINESS :

NONE

NEW BUSINESS :

Lance Ringquist suggested making Space newsletter more interesting. Lance said that putting interesting past articles in future would interest people. Michael Current noted that old Space newsletters are on his Web site. Lance Ringquist stated some people prefer a physical copy instead of something on the Internet. George Viita, club member, stated that Glen Kirschenmann could submit some interesting articles.

Meeting adjourned at 8:00 PM. Space Christmas party followed.

Michael Weist
Club secretary

E-mail from Club President:

From: Robbie
To: mcurrent@carleton.edu
Subject: Looking for an Atari VM
Date-Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 10:58 PM -0600

Hey. I recently encountered the SPACE website, saw your e-mail address, and was wondering if you might be able to help me out...

I'm looking for an Atari Video Music system. You know, the old box that hooks up to your TV and stereo and does the whole trippy music thing.

I have been looking on-line and locally for a while. (I first saw the AVM about 5 years ago, and just recently figured out what it was). I figured SPACE would be a good place to ask, since many of you are involved with the local Atari scene (even if it is more the computer scene you are involved with).

If you have a bulletin board or otherwise that you could mention this on, I would be very thankful. Also, if you know of anyone who has one of these and they are looking to sell it, please let me know. I can be reached at
[write to mcurrent@carleton.edu for contact info]

Thanks!

-Rob

DISCLAIMER

Published by the Saint Paul Atari Computer Enthusiasts (SPACE), an independent organization with no business affiliation with ATARI Corporation. Permission is granted to any similar organization with which SPACE exchanges newsletters to reprint material from this newsletter. We do however ask that credit be given to the authors and to SPACE. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of SPACE, the club officers, club members or ATARI Corporation.