President's CornerI hope you all had a happy Easter. In my family, this year marked one of the last times we will easily be able to get together. This made Easter special for me.
I owe SPACE an apology for not submitting an article until now. I promise my evil ways will change.
April's meeting was short with mostly a discussion on the new owners of Atari. Atari was once more sold cheap, probably for the software and not the machines.
The auction began after the meeting, and once more many treasures of the past changed hands. Good joysticks, cables, and Zaxxon came home with me that night, two well worn joysticks and one shaky cable were in the garbage by Saturday afternoon. I still don't know how I got them away from George that night . ........
We have a good little club going. Auctions.. DOM's. and dues will keep it going. Let's keep it going strong. It comes easy to say Atari is dead, but through a handful of clubs (like SPACE), a very few stores (like Lance's Video 61), and public domain, software Atari is alive.
For SPACE, Atari lives the second Friday of each month. See you next month.
Treasurer's
ReportThanks to the die-hard SPACE members who attended the April 1998 Club meeting. I had not realized that the April meeting would be Good Friday last month when we decided to have the Club Auction. I was getting worried about the time it came to start the Club meeting that we wouldn't have enough members present to make the Auction worthwhile. Then walked in an old Club member from days gone by and with him were a good selection of Auction items that really saved the day.
By the time we started the Auction we had a good number of members bidding and I thought we had another success on our hands when the final item was finally gone. My feelings were reassured when the total take from the Auction came in at $224.00. We paid out $143.00 from the Auction so our profit ended up at $81.00.
Other receipts for the April meeting were the sale of DOM's ($48,00) and two memberships ($40.00). Our total receipts for the month came to $242.00 and our expenses were only the payouts for the Auction Items and $10.00 for the monthly BBS phone bill. Our net deposit for the April meeting was $159.00, bringing our bank balance flirting with the Thousand mark at $973.75.
Once again the members really came through and all I can say is that your support is very much appreciated. Our second quarter room rental won't be coming until after the May meeting so if we have a good month we definitely will make the $1000.00 mark. I know we should have at least a couple of members whose memberships need renewing and with a good DOM we are looking really good going into the summer months.
Thanks again to all of you for your support and please
take the time out of your busy schedules to make it to the May meeting. We need to get some lively discussions going as the April meeting was a little down on the news end of ATARI. The more members we have the better the meetings seem to go. So please come to the May meeting. See you all there.
Secretary's
Report Still not receiving any Minutes from our Secretary!
Being somewhat tied down while my son was recuperating from a serious auto accident,, I was spending more time around the house, not necessarily needed but there in case I was. Finding my Atari well within sight, and a good diversion, January and February of this year were spent at my computer table. I was really behind on giving our DOM's and software I had bought at the auctions a second look. Digging in I found some new favorites.
The disk box with my most used software holds Atartris. Desmond, Livewire. and Naval Battle to name a few. Now Block puzzles, Spikey, Gemdrop, and Puzzlemania join them. With the quality of these public domain programs, they seem to be taking over the box.
Recently Lance got me a copy of AutoDuel and I bought a copy of Zaxxop at one of our auctions. These were two programs I'd crashed, never to be found again. It pays to keep your eyes open to replace what has been lost and to expand your collection with new favorites.
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A few weeks ago a friend, Kurt, stopped over to return my wife's sewing machine. Following me downstairs, he soon spotted my Atari, and the B.S. started again. Kurt, at one time also had an 8 bit system, which was passed onto me when he bought his IBM. He asked me if I still used any of it and I had to tell him his disk drive sits on my desk today. Kurt had a hardy chuckle that I was still using an Atari system, telling me his system didn't hold up well. I remember the day he brought over his system, beat to death and soaked in Kool Aid. A set of handcuffs on those kids would have helped. he tells me he plays card games and Leisure Suit Larry on his IBM. I was impressed.
Greg. an apprentice at work, three years ago perked up when hearing about my membership in a computer club. He, of course, assumed it was an IBM club. After hearing the word Atari, he asked if we just sat around playing Pong. Greg recently asked me to look at his free IBM. A friend of his built it from bits and pieces. I'm sure I'll be amazed by its graphics and speed if he ever can get past the DOS screen.
Happy Computing Guys, I'll stick to my Atari.
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My wife and I once more find ourselves preparing for the next great move. To simplify life, we are now sorting and throwing the excess in preparation for the BIG MOVE. The nice folks at the Salvation Army and I are now on a first name basis. I was quite pleased with myself to consolidate my Atari equipment down to one jammed computer table, tour large boxes, two milk crates, two spare monitors, and several books in a book case. In cleaning out a closet, under some old work clothes not worn for several years, there it sat ... the first Atari we owned, a 400.
Yes, I said we, and the kids played that machine as much as I did. We bought it at K-Mart along with two joysticks, Pacman, Demon Attack, Centipede, and Galaxian right before Christmas when the kids were six and four. I caught hell from Ann on December 20 for trying it out while the kids were sleeping ("You can wait too", she said).
All four of us were big fans of that little machine. It created an activity for the whole family. Soon after a better keyboard, tape drive, Zaxxon, and typing programs were added. Frogger came next and more than once our sleeping was disturbed by that silly music. By late fall of the next year, overtime at the print shop allowed me to buy an 800 and a disk drive. Software in those years came quickly, each bigger and brighter than the last.
The 400 sat on top of a bookcase for months gathering dust, then found its way to the closet. There it sat for many years forgotten with the boxes, a poor retirement for a family friend. When I found the 400, the power supply, manuals, carts, and joystick were still with it,
waiting for a flick of its switch. A SPACE auction or the Salvation Army quickly came to mind, after all,, I must be organized. I labeled the box Atari 400, carts, and power supply". I picked it up, and started to think, "One more box won't take up that much room."
What the hell, the wife wants a bigger house anyway.
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Subj: Atari news: PC XFORMER 98 (for Windows 95) now shipping
Date: 98-04-20 17:27:03 EDT
From: mcurrent@carleton.edu (Michael Current)
To: kirscheg@juno.com, mschm65612@aol.com
From: brasoft@halcyon.com (Darek Mihocka)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Date: 5 Apr 1998 23:58:46 -0700
Emulators Inc., makers of the PC Xformer Atari 8-bit emulator for MS-DOS are now shipping the latest XFORMER 98 Atari 8-bit emulator for Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT.
Xformer 98 has full support for all Windows compatible joysticks, emulates true 4-channel POKEY sound, and runs even more Atari programs than PC Xformer. Xformer 98 can run either windowed or full screen, and is 32-bit optimized for Windows to run better than PC Xformer in the multitasking environment of Windows.
Xformer 98 now also supports German, French, and Dutch keyboards.
Download your FREE DEMO version of Xformer 98 immediately from:
http://www.emulators.com
and also find out about our Apple Macintosh and Atari ST emulators for Windows.
- Darek
========================================
Emulators, Inc.
14150 NE 20th St. Suite 302
Bellevue, WA 98007
Darek Mihocka, President.
Distributors of Gemulator and Xformer.
phone:206-236-0540 fax:206-236-0257
http://www.emulators.com
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.