Newz From The Prez
July 1992

Happy 10th Anniversary everyone!

Can you believe it? A very short time ago, we were celebrating our 9th year and now we have reached a landmark year. I am not aware of many computer clubs that have survived for a period of time this long. This is only possible because of the support of you, the members. For those of you who are actively supporting this club by attending the meetings and purchasing DOMs, I would like to say thank you very much!

The June meeting turnout was a little small, but I would like to say I was very impressed with the number of raffle tickets signed out. I would like to encourage everyone who signed out tickets to make it a goal to sell every single one that you signed out. For every person that sells raffle tickets, you are guaranteed free admission to the Bob Puff fair. For the person who sells the most raffle tickets, a special surprise is in store for you!

Coming up is the BIRTHDAY MEETING! Please be sure to check the menu breakdown by last names to see what you are to bring. I hope that everyone will do their part in purchasing unique and tasty food items to share with the club this July. There will be no hot dog sale at the next meeting so that everyone's food will be eaten. SPACE will be purchasing the pop and the cake. The officers are busy planning fun and exciting things for the meeting. And the main attraction at the next meeting will be me demonstrating how to fix the pot speed on a 1050 disk drive. You won't want to miss that one!

I would like to encourage every single person reading this newsletter to attend the next three meetings: July, August, and September. I know I have said statements along this line before, but I would like to re-emphasize the exciting things that are happening to our club right now. We still need lots of help with the raffle tickets, so please come to the meeting and sign out some to sell. I sincerely hope that every member can make the birthday meeting for good food and good times! See you there!

Your president,
Nathan Block

Next SPACE Meeting Is
July 10th, 1992

JUNE 12 1992 SPACE Meeting Minutes

Hot Dogs and Ice Cream were made available through the efforts of the Fitzpatrick's and Vice President Sherm Erickson. Social conversation and treats were enjoyed until the meeting started.

Discussions included the topics of Raffle Tickets and Birthday Party preparation. Several motions were made and some accepted. President, Nathan Block re-affirms the fact that Bob Puff WILL BE HERE in September.

The meeting then closed with a question and answer section and was adjourned.

We spent $53.00 to buy 650+ raffle tickets. At $2 each, we could reach a maximum profit of $1300-$1400. The drawing for the 13" Color TV and Portable Stereo Cassette will be held at the August 14th meeting.

Members attending signed out books of ten. Two members paid in advance for the books they planned to sell.

Nathan and Sherm were to hold the remaining tickets to distribute to members at a later date.

Our Treasury is committed to spending the outlay of cash needed, we must all assist to raise funds to keep a nice respectable treasury for the future. Contact Nathan or Sherm to obtain additional books of ten!!!

The Birthday Party is THIS MONTH!

By popular vote, the club will supply the cake and the pop. We have had fantastic success with Pot Luck meetings in the past. Games, drawings and prizes have made these dinners-away-from-home a truly exciting experience. Members may volunteer anything else, however a motion was made to divide members alphabetically by sections, each section supporting a different part of the Pot Luck Dinner. Individual support is needed in these areas:

    APPETIZERS       DESSERTS
    ENTRE'S/MEATS    SALADS
    UTENSILS

Club member Ray Wafer expressed his desire to be included in the section volunteering to bring APPETIZERS, and was so accepted.

Nathan and Sherm assigned themselves the task of coordinating the party support volunteers. They planned to telephone each member to enlist support for the Birthday Party and Raffle Fund raiser.

Club member Michael Weist announced he was having trouble operating his disk drive. Nathan offered probable causes and recommended he take his drive to be professionally inspected. Nathan also offered to demonstrate the speed adjustment of the ATARI 1050 Disk Drive. There was no DOM available at the June meeting.

Submitted by: L. Serflaten

For those of you planning to attend the Birthday meeting, you are being asked to bring some food item for the Birthday Bash!

The following is a list of people that have posted on the BBS what they will be bringing. As it looks so far, you would be safe to bring something from any of the following categories:

Appetizers

  Ray Wafer

Desserts

  E. Fitzpatrick

Salads

  Macaroni Salad - M. Weist

Entree's / Meats

  Lasagna - R. Thompson

Utensil's

  Forks, Knives, and Spoons - Mike Schmidt
  Plates and Napkins        - Mike Weist

1050 DRIVE TRANSPORT INTO AN INDUS GT
by Rich Mier

My Indus Disk Drive has a lot of miles on it and, alas, was coming up with some Strange Errors. After swapping all the socketed chips on the main board, I determined that it must have a bad Read/Write head.

By now I had been using it with the case removed, the Deck resting on the top of the front panel and a wooden pencil across the rear beneath the deck. The TANDON Part No. is 211014-001 and checking around town, I could find no replacement deck, anywhere. Everyone I talked to said I'd have to send it back to Future Systems, or at least go to them for a new deck.

I can't afford to lose my disk. I only have one as I have a 320K XE and a 256K MIO. All I need is one when I have 2-192K RAMDISKS available.

American Techna-Vision advertises a direct replacement Mechanism for a 1050 Drive so I called them to see if it would work in the Indus. They didn't know and couldn't even give me a Tandon Part Number. They did say that they have gotten orders from small companies that repair Indus drives. Taking a chance, I ordered one on the condition that I could return it if it wouldn't work. $47.50 plus shipping and UPS 2nd day Air. Total, $56.00. Cheaper than what it was going to cost me if I had to take it to a Dealer or send it out to be fixed.

Monday evening I ordered it and Thursday afternoon it showed up. I checked the Part Number first. Different! Part No. 216024-019. Digging out the wires, I found a couple markings that were the same. Mechanically, it was the same, but on closer examination there were several differences.

1. There was no Timing hole sensors.
2. The plug coming from the Stepper motor had 6 wires versus 5 on the old deck (both have a 6 wire connector). Also, the colors were completely different.
3. The wires coming from the drive motor where the same color, but about 3 inches shorter. (The Drive motors where identical.)
4. The micro switch against the rod used to twist and engage the floppy had 3 wires on it and the old one, 2.
5. There was 1 less connector plugs. Cutting some plastic tie-wraps on both decks, I traced out the wires.

Here's what I found:

The missing connector is J12 (4 pins) on the old deck. It is the timing hole sensor. Well, Atari doesn't use the timing hole. Ignoring it, I went on.

The three wire connector marked '14' on the new drive is the Micro switch marked '5' on the old one and isn't used.

The two wire connector marked 'J12' on the new drive is also 'J12' on the new one. It is the front LED and isn't used on the Indus.

'J11' on both decks is the Write Protect Sensor.

'J10' on the new deck is the same as 'J09' on the old one. The head 'Track 00' sensor.

The wire from the R/W head is a 5 pin connector, same as the old drive, and is long enough to work. There is a difference in colors of the wires to which pins, but the Ground is right. I assumed the difference in wire colors is because of a different manufacture of the head itself and that the plug was wired correctly to work.

The last one was the Stepper Motor plug, J3 on the old one and '15' on the new deck. A six wire connector. The stepper motors were made by two different companies so maybe it would work as is. Also, on the Indus motor control board, pin 6 was not used. No foil connected to it.

Here is what must be done to make it work:

1. Remove the Motor Control board from the top of the old drive. Note that all the plugs are marked on their top side.
2. The two screws on the top right of the new drive must have the lock washers removed so the motor control board will fit.
3. Arrange and tape the wires coming from the R/W head the same as the old drive.
4. Now the only tricky part of this. The wires coming from the motor are too short. On the Motor Control Board, remove the 4 wire connector (marked J4 on the board) for the motor plug, J1. Use a small soldering iron and a solder 'Sucker'. Turn it around so the pins are pointing to the left and re-solder it in place.
5. Install the Motor Control Board and cardboard insulators on the new deck, taking care to position the R/W connector and that the board and insulators clear the top floppy idler hub.
6. Connect the R/W, 5 pin connector with the '0' up, the same as it was on the original.
7. You will have to cut some plastic tie-wraps to free the drive motor wires. Turn the connector UPSIDE-DOWN, so the 'J1' marking is down and the 4 pin retaining slots are up and plug it into the connector pins that you turned around. Be sure they won't interfere with the head movement.
8. Run the Stepper Motor connector up through the frame as was done on the old deck and plug into the 6 pin connector, the marking '15' up. On mine, the 2 red wires were towards the front of the drive, pin 5 and 6.
9. Locate and clean the two mount holes on the left side of the drive where the label is.
10. On the left side of the old drive, mark on the frame above the 3 plugs, the 'J' number found on each of the 3, 4 pin connectors as you remove them.
11. Loose the two screws holding the front panel to the Indus frame. On older drives, you might have to remove it as the panel connectors on the bottom board where too high for the deck to clear them.
12. Remove the old drive, 2 screws on each side of the frame, and lift it out. Now is the time to fix that front door if you've had problems with it.
13. With a screwdriver, pry off the front lever on Both drives and swap them. The lever on the new one is too long to fit through the front panel and work.
14. Keeping the wires clear, install the new deck, adjust it's position and snug the two screws holding the front panel to the frame. Plug the rear Flat Cable into the Control board.
15. There should be four connectors at the left, rear. The two wire (J12) and the three wire (14) won't be used. Tuck these away at the rear so the are out of the way and won't short to anything.
16. Find the connector marked J10 and plug this into the front most pins where J09 was on the old deck.
17. Find the connector marked J11 and plug this into the rear most pins where the old J11 was.

There, that's it. The now unused pins, J12, won't be used and isn't needed. They were for the Timing Hole sensor. If you REALLY want to, you Could maybe pry out the LED and sensor from your old drive and reinstall them, but WHY? They aren't needed.

One thing I did learn from trouble shooting my problem. The Floppy Controller Chip used is capable of controlling a Double Sided drive. It's a Western Digital, 2797 type. Anyone need a challenge? How about a kit for a 5 1/4 inch Double Sided, Double Density drive or how about a 3 1/2 inch drive? 80 tracks, double sided is 720K.

Richard Mier

Here is a short article submitted by Mike Weist. I want to encourage more of our members to submit articles for publication in our newsletter.

Well this July meeting is the SPACE birthday party and also will make the club 10 years old. I am sure that this party will be better than last birthday party. It seems with people like sherm erickson and the other officers, they always come through and put on a good party for the nite.

I remember when I started coming to the club meetings about 3 years ago, with Palmer Iverson, another space member. I used a computer at work, but never thought I would have one at home and make it a hobby and have fun. Well it is 3 years later and I have fun at the meetings and learn something new about computers everyday.

Well any way I hope everybody shows up at the next meeting and has a exciting and enjoyable time. While you are at the birthday party come up to the officers of the club and pat them on the back and say "great job, keep it up" and then pat your selves on the back for also helping keep space a strong atari club.

Before ending this article I would also like to remind the members to turn out force for the amateur show at Aldrich arena, in Maplewood, on July 10th and 11th for one hell of and show and flea market. There should be lots of bargains to be had. And be sure to stop by the space booth and say hi to the people manning the booth.

Mike weist

Here's the answer to the June Word Search:
Title: PARROTS

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - S - - -
 A - - - - - - - - - - - - - E - - -
 E - - - - - - - - - - - - - I - - -
 P - - A D - - - - - - - - - R - - -
 - - - - M E - - - - - - - - O - - -
 - - - - - A L - - - - O - - L - - -
 G - D - - - Z L - - W - - - - - - -
 S N - R - - - O I L - - - - - - - -
 T - I - I - L - N B B - - Y M G Y P
 E - - G - B - O - - K U - - - - - G
 E - - - N - E - R - - C D - - - - R
 K - K - - A - V - I - - I G - - - O
 A - - A - - H - O - K - - H I - - U
 R - - - K - - - - L - E - - T E - N
 A - - - - A - - - - - - E - - - - D
 P - - - - - - - - - - - - T - - - -
 - C O C K A T O O S - - - - - - - -
 - - - - - - - - M A C A W - - - - -

Words in puzzle:

 THICKBILLED  COCKATOOS  PARAKEETS  KAKA
 LOVEBIRD     LORIKEET   HANGING    OWL
 LORIES       AMAZON     BUDGIE     PEA
 GROUND       MACAW      PYGMY

Here is this months installment of word
search. This month it is STATE CAPITALS.


  O P Q R W L J M Y Z Q F F N D G Z P
  D O V E R B Y N Q Q Z P I E R R E H
  B M U M U B X Z J E E O H E J C V O
  C L I F H A I B W R F L Z E Z A R E
  P X P G K P O S L M A A M S X J O N
  W U S A D A G K A F G E T F C U B I
  Y B H L U N W H N N L U Z N K H L X
  A H E S I Q L R M A E T P D A R S V
  A K T S A K L B S I U L T H I S N A
  G I N F T Y G O J E V K E C E N H B
  N A P M I P I T O O L D U H Y B G G
  L E I M S Y A X O S R A E H M O I N
  M B D M Y S M U Y K E H N N H I I O
  L I Z J L L F U L N N T W V V S W T
  G M A D I S O N U V H F Q Z H E T S
  B O H Q W K P J F N B B S M R V R O
  K O W O H U Y V L Z B O F S N E O B
  G E U A C H V N J O B Y D T H Q W Z

Words in puzzle:

OLYMPIA   LANSING  MADISON  PHOENIX  DOVER
SANTA FE  JUNEAU   AUSTIN   PIERRE   SALEM
BOSTON    DENVER   HELENA   ST.PAUL  BOISE