The Status Register


CHAMPAIGN-URBANA COMMODORE USERS GROUP INC. ____________ April, 1995


This newsletter will never appear on Prairienet BEFORE the monthly CUCUG meeting it is intended to announce. This is in deference to actual CUCUG members. It is, after all, THEIR newsletter. For advance notification of CUCUG's meeting, look in the "Information About CUCUG" section.

April 1995


To move quickly to an article of your choice, use the search feature of your reader or the hypertext directory above. Enjoy.

April News:

The April Meeting is at the Union Hall Again

Due to a generally favorable response to the Electrician's Union Hall facility, CUCUG's next meeting will be held on our regular third Thursday of the month: April 20, at 7:00 pm, but it will be held in our new, trial location: the Electrician's Union Hall, located at 2901 Research Road in the Interstate Research Park in northwest Champaign. Just to refresh your memory: to get there, you take Mattis north over I-74 and turn right at the second stop light, onto Interstate Drive. (Lincoln Trails Library has a building there on the north side of the street.) You then take the first "real" left (not the Libraries drive way), at Research Road. The Electrician's Hall (IBEW Local 601) is the third building on your left. There's a big flag pole right out front and it's directly across the street from one of Hobbico's signs. You should park and enter the building in the back.

The April will be one of our split SIG meetings. Quentin Barnes has volunteered to show his GVP PhonePak to the Amiga SIG. The C64/128 SIG will be treated to a demonstration of the Fun Graphics Machine by Dennis Reed. Both of these CUCUG members know their stuff, so it should be a very enlightening evening. See you there.

ToC

Welcome New Members

We would like to welcome back returning members Lowella Biddle, William R. Zwicky, and Raymond St. John, and give a special welcome to our newest member Darlene Smith (C64).

ToC

The Commodore Crescendo

Just as last month's newsletter was going to print, the dam finally burst on the bankruptcy sale of Commodore. After nearly a year of agonized, legal foot-dragging, things finally started happening. As we reported, the opening salvo was the news of the sale of the Commodore trademark to Escom, a German computer company, by Commodore International's German subsidiary for $1.4 million dollars. This out-of-left-field action appeared to be about to jeopardize the resolution of the liquidation proceedings being conducted on the parent company in Bahamian and U.S. courts. But, after a flurry of legal threats and negotiations, matters seems to have resolved themselves into an orderly march to closing the book on the Irving Gould / Medhi Ali gang.

Below are several articles clarifying the events as they occurred.

ToC

The Initial Flurry

3/13/95 - It was truly a wild week in the Commodore liquidation proceedings. Early Thursday (03-09-95), word came to me from a reliable source that Escom (the German-based PC clone maker who has expressed interest in the Commodore assets) and the liquidator had reached an agreement to make their bid the contract bid. That contract would then be subjected to a public auction process, at which all interested bidders would have a chance to top each other's bids, and the highest bid would win the contract for the delivery of Commodore's assets.

But a few hours later, it was revealed that this ALMOST happened, but was aborted because of a bizarre set of circumstances. Escom had instead made a deal, two weeks earlier, with Commodore Germany's liquidator to purchase the "C=" and "Commodore" trademarks for $1.4 million, and pulled out of the C= International deal since they had what they truly wanted, the trademark.

However, the International liquidator and the U.S. courts did not feel that Commodore Germany had the right to sell the Commodore trademark. Furthermore, one of the remaining bidders threatened to pull out of the International liquidation if the trademark was not part of the package.

The U.S. judge threatened Escom and the C= Germany liquidator with legal action.

On Friday (03-10-95), Escom and the Commodore International liquidator reached a new agreement. Essentially, their contract has now been established as the contract bid. If they do not obtain the Commodore assets in the liquidation auction, they will hand the Commodore Germany trademark over to the winners.

This is the breakdown of the details, as described by Dan Stets' Philadelphia Inquirer article:

"Escom's contract bid is for 6 million dollars, not counting the $1.4 million they have already spent on Commodore Germany's trademark. Escom's offer includes $3.5 million for Commodore's core assets, an additional $1 million for its German assets, $500,000 for Dutch assets and $1 million for the manufacturing inventory remaining in the Philippines, where Commodore used to build its computers."

The consortiums lead by both David Pleasance of C= UK and Alex Amor of Creative Equipment, International are expected to bid at the auction. Other potential bidders will be notified when a date is set, which may be as early as a month away.

At last ... progress!

ToC

Escom's bid for C= Accepted. Final Auction soon.

From the Philadelphia Enquirer, 3-11-95
via zim@netaxs.com (Bill Zimmer)

Escom, Germany's 2nd largest computer company, reached an agreement yesterday, March 10th, to pay the liquidators $6 million for the assets that the Bahamian liquidators now control. This is in addition to the $1.4 million that Escom has already paid to the bankruptcy trustee of Commodore's German subsidiary.

The liquidators now plan to schedule an auction at which other bidders would have a chance to outbid Escom. No date has been set for the auction.

Escom also agreed to surrender the German trademark if it is outbid for the rest of the company.

Escom's offer includes $3.5 million for Commodore's core assets, an additional $1 million for its German assets, $500,000 for the Dutch assets and $1 million for the manufacturing inventory in the Philippines. Escom has agreed to pay $4.5 million to the Bahamian liquidators un-conditionally, but will pay the remaining $1.5 million only if the liquidators can deliver the Dutch and Philippine assets.

Also, Escom has agreed not only to surrender the German trademark to a higher bidder, but also to pay the liquidator of the parent company $1 million for the German assets if Escom comes out the winner in the auction.

CEI President Alex Amor stated the he had been willing to pay $24 million for Commodore's remains last year but had been unable to structure a deal with the Bahamian liquidators.

Escom had been willing to pay $12 million for Commodore last September.

The Bahamian court is expected to act on the agreement next week.

[This was from the Saturday edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Mr. Dan Stets is the author of the article. I only posted bits and pieces of the article. - Bill]

ToC

The Sam Report

S.Ormes@GENIE.GEIS.COM - March 25, 1995

I had a nice chat with Alex Amor of CEI today. He is aware that I report for Genie so this is cleared for release.

The auction will begin April 20th in New York and will last about a week. It now appears clear that the remaining interested parties are pursuing separate, non-conflicting, parts of the overall package (Commodore name, set-top technology, Amiga manufacture, etc.). It seems there is a pre-auction agreement (or at least an understanding) among the parties that whoever wins will gladly provide the others with the pieces they want. Only CEI plans to manufacture Amigas.

Once again, Alex mentioned the caveat that "somebody could come out of the woodwork and surprise us all" but he seemed less concerned about this than previously. He mentioned having an excellent information network that keeps an eye out for entities that might be lurking in the shadows ready to make a last-minute grab. Those sources indicate no lurkers at present.

The Gould/Ali matter is not a complication at all in the sale process. The creditors will go after them in a totally separate action that in no way affects the sale at auction.

He had no comment on the report that IBM was lined up as the contract manufacturer (said he couldn't discuss that). He referred to contracts for components that are valid and would be rescinded only if CEI doesn't prevail.

He confirmed my earlier report that talks have been held with Tandy and could develop into a distribution reality.

Again, initial production calls for A4000Ts and A1200s. The latter will be getting a larger case for more internal expansion, but that might not happen immediately.

Alex, in shorts and sneakers, went back to attending to store customers on a busy Saturday morning. As always, he appeared full of optimism. "By the 27th, it will all be over!".

This has been the Sam Report from Miami for GEnie.

ToC

Latest Liquidation Lowdown

By: Jason Compton, Amiga Report

It's confirmed. April 20th, 1995, is the day Escom's contract for the purchase of all of Commodore International's assets will be auctioned. The deal struck that day will be considered at a court hearing April 21st, 1995 ... after which, we hope and pray, this 11 month nightmare will be over.

We are just days away from the Commodore International Liquidation Failsafe date! Any objection to the Commodore asset sale process has to be filed by this Thursday (4-13-95) at 5:00 PM EST. As I write this, that's less than 72 hours away.

In theory, after that, there is nothing short of abject and total disaster that could delay the April 20th auction.

I will endeavor to put out a special edition after the US court delivers its decision. AR 3.09 will probably be delayed until after the Bahamas court decides, unless I decide that's just taking too long.

The sale of assets, legal code, and asset lists are now available to interested buyers and parties in the Commodore liquidation. There is some great stuff in there. But first, here are the essential, critical facts:

The opening bid for Commodore's assets (in fact, the one that has been signed to by all necessary parties) is $5 million dollars, submitted by Escom and accepted by Commodore. For a bid to be submitted to challenge Escom, it must be for at least $7.3 million: $1 million more than Escom's bid, plus $1.3 million to buy the German Commodore trademarks from Escom.

After that initial $7.3 million bid, bids must be in minimum increments of $50,000.

After the highest bid has been determined in this fashion (i.e. from all parties interested in buying ALL of Commodore's assets) the assets will be offered piecemeal. The combined piecemeal bids must be larger than the largest "total-package" bid. Then, the largest "total-package" bidder and the combined piecemeal bidders bid off against each other until the liquidator chooses a bid that is "highest or best".

The deal must be approved at the US Bankruptcy court on a date immediately following the auction (in this case, April 21st, 1995). The legal code agreed to by all parties calls on the Bahamas Supreme Court to rubber-stamp the decision Judge Garrity of the US Bankruptcy Court makes.

The deal must be closed (i.e. paid in full) within 11-20 days of the acceptance of the bid.

Assets are purchased "as-is, where-is" ... meaning if you live in the Philippines, you'll be able to get work for a few weeks or months moving inventory out of that warehouse.

Any objections to this bid process or legal code must be made by 5:00 PM EST, April 13th, 1995.

With luck, the Buyout Issue will come before the April 29, 1995 one-year anniversary of the liquidation. We can only hope.

And now, on the lighter side of the news...

ToC

Liquidation Fun Facts (TM)

Did You Know...

ToC

The Amiga Web Directory Logo Contest!

Sponsored by CUCUG and Intangible Asset.

Design OUR NEW LOGO and WIN A GREAT PRIZE!

4/03/95 - The Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group is looking for a few gifted Amiga 'artistes' to create a logo for our Amiga Web Directory homepage:

http://www.cucug.org/amiga.html

Since our artistically challenged web maintainer thinks that 'paint' is only something you do to a house once every few years, we are enlisting the help of the talented and creative among Amiga net community to assist with the design of a real logo for the Amiga Web Directory. And here's the best part: if your creation is chosen as our new logo, you will WIN your choice of either of these two wonderful prizes donated by Intangible Assets Manufacturing:

CONTEST GUIDELINES AND RULES

Thanks go out to Dale L. Larson at Intangible Assets Manufacturing for volunteering to donate the prize for this contest. What a guy!

Disclaimers: All residents of Earth eligible. All submissions become the property of CUCUG. The decision of CUCUG is final. CUCUG reserves the right to base its final decision on any criteria.

Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group
http://www.cucug.org/

ToC

ISDN comes to Champaign

Ameritech, CCnet Launch Partnership To Create A Model Electronic Community On The Information Superhighway

CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 16, 1995-- Champaign-Urbana is on its way to becoming a model electronic community on the information superhighway, thanks to a partnership announced today by Ameritech and the Champaign County Network (CCNet).

CCNet is a not-for-profit subsidiary of the Champaign County Chamber of Commerce with a goal of facilitating access to high-speed communications for business, education, government, agribusiness, health care and home users by working with a variety of vendors on a variety of collective solutions.

Through the CCNet partnership, Ameritech will introduce two powerful new services. One is a home and office communications system that integrates communications and computer functions over a single telephone line. This system gives home computer users and small businesses the ability to send and receive data, graphics and text up to nine times faster than with a standard computer modem.

The second service is a high-speed Internet Access Service in Champaign County.

"Ameritech views Champaign-Urbana, home of many significant advances in computers and information processing, as an ideal test town for the next generation of communications services," said Doug Schuemann, Ameritech's CCNet program manager. "CCNet has created an environment that gives us a great opportunity to learn how we can deliver the business and lifestyle benefits of the information superhighway in ways that are friendly, simple and easy to use."

"This partnership will allow everyone -- from the farmer to the student to the small business entrepreneur -- to feel the pull of the information superhighway and how it can enrich the way they live, learn and work," said Lee O'Neill, chairman of CCNet. "As Ameritech makes its new products and services available, our network of people will help our schools, businesses and hospitals to use them for their benefit."

Ameritech's participation includes the first real-world application of the Ameritech Home Professional Package and its equivalent, the Ameritech Business Professional Package. Introduced in January at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and highlighted in USA Today and Business Week, the packages connect personal computers, telephones and fax machines using standard phone cable that already exists within the home or office. Ameritech is the first communications company to design such packages around the needs of home and small business customers.

The Ameritech Home/Business Professional Packages use high-speed digital phone lines or ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network).

ISDN allows simultaneous transmission of voice, data and video communications over a single telephone line. These high-speed phone lines save customers time when downloading files from across the street or around the world, transmitting complex documents to clients or sending faxes. They will allow, for example, architects to send drawings and doctors to read X-rays and reports. The packages also allow customers to manage incoming and outgoing calls from the convenience of a personal computer.

Ameritech's investment in the CCNet partnership includes expanded access to ISDN lines for homes, businesses and schools in the Champaign-Urbana area. Ameritech also is providing a platform for Internet access via ISDN or regular telephone lines. Later this year, the partnership plans to offer other services, such as voice mail and videoconferencing, and develop other projects targeted at libraries, local government, health care, student housing and specific industries.

"Two years ago we were challenged to take advantage of the resources available in this community, especially the Mosaic(TM) Internet browsing software designed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois," O'Neill said. "Although there are other test projects going on in other communities, Champaign County is working to be the first fully-integrated community with a variety of connectivity solutions for different types of businesses, organizations and individuals."

NCSA Director Larry Smarr said, "We are proud to have been the catalyst for creating the first community whose local communications network is completely coupled to the world of the Internet. We believe Champaign County will be a model for communities throughout the United States as we build a digital America."

Ameritech, one of the world's largest communications companies, helps more than 13 million customers keep in touch. The company provides a wide array of local phone, data and video services in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. Ameritech is creating dozens of new information, entertainment and interactive services for homes, businesses and governments around the world.

One of the world's leading cellular companies, Ameritech serves 1.3 million cellular and 635,000 paging customers, and holds cellular interests in Norway and Poland. Ameritech owns interests in telephone companies in New Zealand and Hungary and in business directories in Germany and other countries. Nearly 1 million investors hold Ameritech (NYSE: AIT) shares.

BACKGROUND: The Ameritech Home/Business Professional Packages

Powerful home and office communications systems which integrate communications and computer functions over a single telephone line. A joint project between Ameritech and Motorola, the Ameritech Home/Business Professional Packages integrate the telephone and home personal computer, expanding the way they work together. After a successful introduction in January at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, these new products are being test marketed as part of Ameritech's partnership with CCNet (Champaign County Network).

The Ameritech-CCNet partnership will make Champaign-Urbana a model electronic community on the information superhighway. CCNet is a not-for-profit subsidiary of the Champaign County Chamber of Commerce with a goal of facilitating access to high-speed communications for business, education, government, agribusiness, health care, and the home user by working with a variety of vendors on a variety of collective solutions.

Using a high-speed digital phone line, a terminal adapter designed by Motorola and an easy-to-use call-management software package, the Ameritech Home/Business Professional Packages provide:

Easy, high-speed access to the Internet.

High-speed data transmission, up to nine times faster than transmissions using regular telephone lines, saving customers time when downloading files from the Internet, transmitting complex documents to clients or sending faxes.

Simultaneous call handling giving customers the ability to talk on the phones and at the same time, send or receive information via fax or modem.

Call management designed for the home professional enabling customers to do conference calling, bridge together calls received separately, see the phone number of the incoming call on their PC screen using caller ID, and listen to voice mail messages by simply "pointing and clicking" on icons.

Automatic telephone services enabling customers to store and display all incoming or outgoing calls, listing the phone number, caller, date, time and call length for accurate client billing. To return one of the calls, customers just select it and click their computer mouse to dial.

The capability for architects to send drawings, doctors to read X-rays, lawyers to track phone calls for client billing, and students to participate in distance learning programs and access the Internet -- all from the convenience of their home and office.

Home computer users can access the service for as low as half the cost of similar systems currently used by businesses. Customers in Champaign-Urbana will have the kind of system that in the past has been too complex and costly for home and small business use.

Ameritech is the first communications company to design and price packages that use digital phone lines around the needs of home computer users, including students and professionals, and small business customers.

Ameritech provides affordable and user-friendly packages

The Ameritech Home/Business Professional Packages include access to a digital phone line for as low as $35 per month in Champaign County, plus standard consumer and business usage rates. The terminal adapter designed by Motorola costs $399, or $19 per month for 24 months. Consumers and businesses presently would need to spend more than $1,000 to match the capabilities of the Motorola adapter.

Ameritech will also offer several pricing promotions, including an affiliate program through which business customers may purchase high-speed Internet access through the Champaign County Chamber of Commerce at discounted rates.

CONTACT: Ameritech or Rick Kubetz, 217/359-1791
Transmitted: 95-03-16 13:26:46 EST

ToC

Netscape

Ex-UI whiz's Internet browser passes Mosaic
by David Einstein, The San Francisco Chronicle

The success of Netscape Communications has come so fast and has so much momentum that it is difficult to find parallels anywhere. It's safe to say that seldom has a company assumed such a commanding position in so short a time.

In less than a year since its founding, Mountain View, California-based Netscape has ripped through cyberspace, taking the lead in just about every aspect of the Internet.

And judging from a spate of announcements last week, Netscape co-founders Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen and chief executive Jim Barksdale are developing a grand scheme to set a standard for all commercial on-line business.

Netscape began its assault by giving away its World Wide Web browser for free.

In the space of six months, the Netscape Navigator has blown away Mosaic to take three-quarters of the market for browsers - software that lets you point-and-click your way from computer to computer on the Web. An astounding 4 million copies of Netscape have been downloaded off the Net since last fall.

That strategy flew in the face of conventional wisdom, which dictates that you give away the razors and sell the blades.

By giving away the blades, Netscape found it easy to sell the razors - expensive software servers used to set up business on the Web. Netscape's servers quickly became the tool of choice for companies including MCI, Pacific Bell, Bank of America, MasterCard - even Penthouse and Playboy.

Now Netscape is in the process of consolidating its hold by establishing a de facto standard for electronic security transactions. Last month, 19 companies led by Microsoft, IBM and Apple said they plan to use Netscape's Secure Socket Layers technology for Internet security.

"This is the first time we've seen this level of adoption for anything like this. Nothing else comes close," says Andreessen, the 23-year-old whiz kid who developed Mosaic at the University of Illinois and founded Netscape with Clark last April.

Why would all those big names choose Netscape's security scheme? Largely because the security code also is built into the Netscape Navigator. That means there are millions of customers out there ready to do business right now.

Netscape has widely distributed the SSL security code, and is licencing it for use in other products.

"What they're looking for is to capture the standard," says Don Tydeman, publisher of NetGuide magazine. "It's an open standard, but proprietary at the same time. They knew what kind of Trojan horse to build."

To make sure the security remains leading-edge, Netscape recently hired Taher Elgamal, who used to be director of engineering for RSA Data Security, the Redwood City, California, company that supplies underlying security code for just about every commercial on-line system.

One would think that after all that, a young company like Netscape would take a breather.

But no.

Last week it unleashed a spate of new products aimed squarely at markets currently dominated by commercial services such as America Online and CompuServe.

The new products include software applications to let large merchants establish Internet malls, a way for small businesses to get on the Net at minimal cost and a "Community System" that enables organizations to create such things as on-line chat services and private discussion groups - the equivalent of bulletin boards that have made America Online and the others so popular.

Not surprising, the investment community is salivating at the prospect of Netscape going public.

"This company can get you excited about the future. Talking to these guys, you realize they're technology visionaries," said Ed Bierdeman, an analyst with Dakin Securities in San Francisco.

An initial public offering is probably going to happen at some point for Netscape, which has 130 employees and expects to become profitable this year. Clark is just now finishing up a round of corporate financing, so look for some big companies, probably media or communications giants, to announce investments.

Says Andreessen, "It's not clear that we really need this, given our current revenue rates, but it will allow us to put additional resources into new areas of development."

[Source: The Champaign-Urbana News Gazette, Sunday, April 2, 1995.]

ToC

Urbin on Video

from Tim Urbin, CUCUG

Well, it does appear the major shift away from the Amiga in the video world will accelerate at NAB next week. Newtek is posed to announce the PC Video Flyer (which is independent of the Amiga custom chips, unlike the Toaster) and shipping of Lightwave 4.0 for Windows, NT, Alpha, and MIPS. Their press release said the Amiga and SGI versions would be released later. We've moved from the front seat to the back seat and finally being kicked out of the car! The rumors are that Flyer owners will be able to use their Flyer in a PC as it only requires an adaptor. They point out that this will allow Amiga owners of Flyers to not lose their investment. You wonder how long they will update Amiga software.

To compound the problem, reviewers are blasting the "gamma" version of the Flyer as not fit for professional use. The net is indicating that the 4.0 release version of the Flyer (Amiga) is still too buggy for professional use.

So, with the video and 3D niches all but gone now, what will the new owners of the Amiga promote the machine as?

And here's another nail in the coffin- And maybe in Newtek's as well! :-(

ToC

Kiki To Show Major New Product at NAB

3 Apr 1995 05:34:2-0400
America Online, Inc.
(1-800-827-6364)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.packages.lightwave

I'm inviting you all to attend a major product announcement from Play, Inc. on the eve of NAB. The product is Trinity, and it's a revolutionary desktop video solution for Windows PCs.

If you know who Play is, then you know how this product came to exist. If you don't know: In February 1994, Vice President of NewTek Paul Montgomery (now President of Play) left with six others because of a significant difference of opinion about the future of desktop video. Those who left include Kiki Stockhammer (Toaster spokesperson), Mark Randall (former head of marketing, and responsible for all of NewTek's videotapes), Robert Blackwell (NewTek's first employee and manager of product documentation), Alcatraz members Ken Turcotte (co-author of the switcher/effects systems), Daniel Kaye (user interface designer for all of the Toaster's software, Toaster effects designer, and Hollywood Lightwave evangelist), and myself (author of ToasterCG, much of the Flyer software, and former head of software at NewTek).

After we left NewTek, we decided to band together and form a new company. We moved to California, where most of us were originally from. (For those who don't know, NewTek is based in Topeka, Kansas.) Soon after moving, we merged with two other companies, Digital Creations and Progressive Image Technologies. We decided to call the new company Play Incorporated.

Digital Creations, led by Play CEO John Botteri, was a major player in the Amiga market for ten years. They created many successful products, including DCTV, SuperGen, and the Brilliance paint system.

Progressive Image Technologies was a hardware engineering and manufacturing company led by Play Chairman and CTO Mike Moore. Progressive included ex-Grass Valley Group talent, and developed pioneering video hardware for 15 years including major products for Apple and IBM, as well as hardware for Digital Creation's Amiga products.

Since the merger, we've been joined by Stephan Bouchar (NewTek's former head of sales), Christina Knighton (former marketer and Toaster evangelist),and Laura Longfellow (NewTek's first sales manager,a.k.a. "Maxine Headroom" from NewTek's first demo reels). Just recently, Steve Kell (NewTek's first programmer and head of software development for the last year) left NewTek to join Play. With the addition of Steve, we've now re-assembled the original Video Toaster Alcatraz software team. Play's R&D department now has 21 people including 11 Windows programmers and six hardware engineers.

We began shipping our first PC product the Snappy Video Snapshot, two weeks ago. Snappy is a high-resolution video frame grabber which plugs into a parallel port and grab stills at resolutions up to 1500x1125 in 24-bit color for $199. Snappy's been getting rave reviews, and looks like it's going to be a very successful product.

However, the primary focus of R&D has been on a product which I'm excited to acknowledge here publicly for the first time, Trinity. Trinity is a next generation, fully D1 component digital, open architecture Windows-based desktop video system. The base system lists for $5995 and includes:

Play will also be announcing two optional add-ons to Trinity: a D1 dual-channel online non-linear editing system, and an advanced 3D digital warping engine (similar to Sony's System G and Quantel's Mirage). We will be inviting independent hardware and software companies to develop products for Trinity. As part of our developer program, we'll be publishing Trinity's high-speed bus specifications and video software APIs. There are exciting opportunities for users of Lightwave and 3D Studio.

Play President Paul Montgomery was quoted last year in Wired magazine as saying being from the Amiga market is like being from the future." With Window95, preemptive multitasking, photorealistic graphics, stereo sound, and cool games, PCs have caught up with the Amiga. Now with Trinity all of our experience creating desktop video products on the Amiga comes to the PC. We've been working with desktop video users for ten years and Trinity is everything people have asked us for and more.

I'm excited to invite all of you to come to our world premiere event unveiling Trinity in Las Vegas on the eve of NAB, Sunday April 9th at 7PM at Caesars Palace Coliseum VI and VII. Play will be in the main hall at NAB, booth #19926. We will be disclosing more details about Trinity and giving an in-depth product demonstration. I look forward to seeing you there.

The revolution continues...
Steve Hartford, Trinity Software Team Leader

ToC

I guess the hope is that it takes the Alcatraz team as long to get the bugs out of Trinity as it did for them to get the first Toasters out following their introduction at NAB (about two years!) I guess it will be wait and see what they actually demo. The pricing and features of this system certainly surpasses the Toaster.

Good quote though: "Being from the Amiga market is like being from the future" Paul Montgomery, President, Play Inc.

A story to tell the grandkids!

And finally, here's another tidbit.

The word is out that Avid has purchased Elastic Reality (formerly ASDG). I guess if there was any hope that development on any of their Amiga products would be restarted it's gone now! Avid produces video related products for the PC including a nonlinear editor which is a direct competitor of the Flyer. They recently offered Toaster owners a $1000 rebate on their switcher system if they would send them their Toaster (yeah, right!) I assumed they wanted to get them before owners bought Flyers.

On the plus side, Newtek was able to license ER's loaders and savers and have included them in the 4.0 software. That makes one job easier!

Follow up on the Trinity press release, I contacted Steve Hartford, who put out the Internet message, and asked about "realistic" release dates for their board. He acknowledged that it is VERY hard to know when it will be done but they are HOPING for shipping this fall. (Gosh, I guess when they rebuilt the original Toaster team, they chose to follow the original marketing approach. Announce as early as possible! Something borrowed later by Microsoft I guess! ;-)

Stay tuned! More info should be coming from NAB this weekend!

ToC

The Humor Page:

New Windows Version Set To Blow Away All Other Operating Systems

by Kevin Hisel, CUCUG

With the imminent debut of "Windows 95" I thought I would share with you all of the keen, new features that PC users will soon begin to enjoy for the first time. If you've been following the story, you probably remember that "Chicago" (the working name for MicroSoft's new personal operating system) was changed to "Windows 95" with a Spring '95 release in mind. Soon after that, the dreaded Intel Pentium Bug was discovered by the press and the Pentium became the media's favorite electronic whipping boy. The effect of this story on MicroSoft must have been significant. A few weeks later, they announced that Windows 95 wouldn't be released until August just to make sure the bugs (primarily hardware compatibility issues) are stomped out. In the meantime, over 20,000 users now (legally!) have beta copies and the Washington-state software giant sponsors "install parties" where users bring their PCs for installation compatibility testing. You've got to give Bill and the gang credit for getting serious about this program.

I'm getting off the track. I want to tell you about all the new, super-cool, state-of-the-art, absolutely blow-your-socks-off features that Windows users will be savoring when "95" finally gets the nod. Amiga users will only gaze jealously from afar at all of the slick innovations of Windows 95 that MicroSoft has sunk billions into developing.

First (and best!) is something called "Preemptive Multitasking". Now, PC users will be able to RUN MORE THAN ONE PROGRAM AT A TIME without the herky-jerky starts and stops normally associated with attempting such outrageous behavior with Windows 3.1. Another highly touted feature is some wild-eyed thing called "Multithreading". This allows an application to actually--and you're just NOT going to believe THIS--Do Two Things At Once. Quite an awesome achievement, I'd say. The only thing that takes just a little wind out of their sails is that the Amiga was doing this ten years ago. Minor detail, let's move on.

Most computer users want to know that their operating system is powerful and loaded with features. What's the best way to tell at a glance how mighty a computer program is? Easy...just see how big it is and how much RAM it requires! Windows 95 is going to be the 300-pound gorilla of personal operating systems! You'll need to set aside 20-30 megabytes of hard drive space and have a minimum of four (and probably closer to eight) megabytes of RAM just to run this beast! Now that's POWER! The tiny Amiga OS only needs about a tenth of that. I'm not sure what the Amiga lacks, but it must be missing a lot since it's so small compared to Windows 95! I have an Amiga with only 512K of RAM and a 20M (total!) hard drive space and it still runs most stuff. AmigaDos must be a bare-bones OS with no features at all compared to Windows 95!

Wait until you read about one of the coolest, newest features those geniuses at MicroSoft have discovered! Subdirectories. That's right! Now, you can actually place a program group (they're "drawers" on the Amiga) INSIDE ANOTHER PROGRAM GROUP! Wow, imagine not having to scroll the Program Manager ("Workbench" to us Amiga losers) screen up and down with 196 little icons on it. Now your Windows drawers can have a "nested" and "hierarchical" structure. It's new and heavy stuff to figure out, but if you get lost, highly paid PC consultants are available to help you.

And if that wasn't enough to give you goose flesh, I hope that you are sitting down when I tell you that, for the first time, Windows users can press the right mouse button and get a menu. Let me repeat that just so you understand it clearly: press the right mouse button to get a menu. EUREKA!!! Why didn't I think of that!?! I could be a MicroSoft Millionaire if only I were that creative.

Another exciting development will be unveiled in Windows 95: a trash icon! Now users can simply drag and drop applications into a specialized icon that seems to delete them, but surprise ... they're really still there in case you made a mistake. It doesn't matter that other platforms have had this feature for years and that nobody uses it. Right in step with the zeitgeist, Microsoft named their trash icon "Recycle Bin" so users will feel that they HAVE to use it for the sake of the environment and will feel guilt and shame otherwise.

Long file names. You read it right. Now PC users can name their files just about anything they want and aren't stuck with eight-character names like "BIZREP92.WKS" or "LT2MOM04.WRI". This is truly astonishing development that will surely set the computing community on its ear!

Add all that all up and include this remarkable, new idea: plug in a card or another peripheral, and the computer recognizes it at the hardware level! "Plug and Play" is a totally new concept where there will be a "standard" of some sort that will allow you to add components to your system without knowledge of Interrupt Request Lines, Base I/O Port Addresses, Device Contention, etc. Someone like Don Diego would be positively stunned and amazed! Peripherals that support this new philosophy will be available Real Soon Now.

Sadly, the moral of the story is that the Amiga has finally been eclipsed by a significantly advanced technology. Windows 95 will take the personal computer user to a new level of blissful computing rapture and ecstasy. While the basic PC hardware scheme is more suited to a museum display than running modern computer applications, that will be totally hidden from the user by the monster power of Windows 95.

Kevin Hisel
khisel @ cucug.org
Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group
http://www.cucug.org/

ToC

The Amiga Section:

Power XL High Density External Floppy Drive

reviewed by Eric W. Schwartz, Amiga artist

Produced in the UK and distributed in the US by DKB, the Power XL is probably the best known of the third party high density drives. There's little to review about such a device, except that it works well or not. I will report that my Power XL drive works as advertised, conditionally.

The drive plugs into the external floppy port (there is an internal version, too, presumably equal in spec) and there is a small software patch to be placed in your machine's startup-sequence to enable proper writing to the drive. AmigaDOS version 2.1 or better is recommended.

When I first hooked up the Power XL, I had several errors when formatting or writing to an HD diskette, and later found this to be related to a poor connection to the floppy port. After tightening the screws down, it appeared to work without further problems, but I have seen a rare error or two when some software writes to the XL drive. (This happened when ADPro wrote a GIF graphic to a MS-DOS formatted HD disk through CrossDOS in the 3.0 OS, so I am unsure what exactly to blame.) Other than that, the drive appears to work flawlessly for 880K Amiga DD, 720K MS-DOS DD, 1.44M MS-DOS HD, and a whopping 1.76M Amiga HD, which I find excellent for backing up nearly 2 megs of files on floppies.

By my own estimation, the drive is a bit faster than an average DD drive on reads, and somewhat slower on writes, noticeable when you dump a huge file to floppy.

For those who feel a HD drive would be a good upgrade, I would recommend the Power XL drive. Just be sure to screw it very tightly to your port, and keep an eye on it for a while until you're absolutely sure you can trust it.

DKB
29318 Lorie Lane
P.O. Box 438
Wixom, Michigan
48393

Sales: 810-348-3821
Fax: 810-348-3531

[Source: From the "AmiTech Gazette" of the AmiTech Amiga Users Group, April, 1995. AAUG's address is P.O. Box 4114, Dayton, OH, 45401-4114.]

ToC

REVIEW: Aminet Set 1

by Jason Compton, Amiga Report

Some people hold that information is power. If so, the Aminet Set 1 is a nuclear reactor that fits in a double-jewel box.

The Aminet is something that has for the most part quietly become a huge repository of Amiga information: games, hacks, utilities, music, and, of course, online magazines. There's a romantic story of its growth from a 50 meg partition on an Amiga 3000 to the international monolith it is today, but that's not the subject of this review.

Besides, you can find that story, along with roughly 900 other documents, on the Aminet Set 1.

Aminet CDs have been more or less quarterly for over a year now. Apparently, though, there was demand for more than just the newest releases-people wanted the boatload.

And a boatload they get. Broken down into 4 CD-ROMs categorized along Aminet's primary divisions, and with the newest releases tossed on Disc A along with "dev"s and "util"s, the Aminet Set gives over 2 gigs of compressed data (estimated at 4 gigs uncompressed) to its buyers.

The now-familiar AmigaGuide interface for accessing the CDs is present, allowing the whole of Aminet as of January 1995 to be accessed at will. While AmigaGuide isn't the prettiest thing on the face of the earth, the method is sound and efficient, and allows quick access to what you're looking for, through the Aminet Search utility. Of course, everything is structured along the exact same paths as Aminet, so you can browse it with the method of your choosing.

Complaints? Very few. One is that it's missing two back issues of Amiga Report (as Aminet was up until very recently), but that's nobody's fault in particular. Had I been in charge, I might have organized the discs slightly differently, particularly on Disc A, in consideration for BBSes which have only one CD-ROM drive.

The price is hard to beat-for 59DM (US$40), you're getting one serious mixed salad collection of software.

Of course, the flip side is that you'll never use all of this material. But in a pinch for an obscure file, your friends will love you.

Certainly, you can get CD-ROMs with more MODs, more pictures, more 3D-objects...but you probably won't get 4 CDs with such a sampling for less money.

Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe GmbH
D45131 Essen
Germany

ToC

The CUCUG Section:

March General Meeting

reported by Kevin Hopkins

The March 16th meeting began with President Huls explaining why we were meeting in the new location at the Electrician Union Hall. In short, we need access to a working phone line. Jim then continued with the traditional introduction of CUCUG's officers. He then opened the floor for our Question and Answer Session.

With the conclusion of the Question and Answer Session, Kevin Hisel came forward to do his presentation of the Library's new Amiga disks for this month. He began by making fun of the new meeting room, saying you could tell it is an Electricians' Hall, "Look at all the lights!" Likewise, he said, "Jim Huls needs a P.A.; we've got one here."

CUCUGAMI #141: Turning to the disks at hand, Kevin began his presentation of this disk with the request, "Take my word for it, the games are fun." The disk contains Dynamic Warrior (a Boulderdash clone), Knight's Quest (a take off of chess where you use a knight to cover the entire board - "one of those games for 'lonely' people"), MultiCX (a teeny tiny program - 6700 bytes long - with a very large feature list) and WangiPad (a program similar to Toolmanager, this is a commodity likewise small in size). Kevin said this disk had a low memory use theme.

CUCUGAMI #142: Assign Wedge (like AssignX, but updated), Dragon (yet another Mahjongg / Shanghai clone, but you can edit your own tiles with this one), Crazy, Gfx2Asc (converts a graphic file into a ASCII text rendering of that picture. Kevin showed a picture of himself that he had converted. He said you could use a simple text editor to give yourself more hair), and Super Duper (the best copier out there for the Amiga - fast and accurate).

After the disk presentation, President Jim Huls let the Amiga people interested in the Internet know about a new program called MultiLink that they should look into. And, Kevin Hisel brought up the news that Ameritech and Motorola are bringing ISDN lines to Champaign. Very hot for the net.

ToC

The Amiga SIG

recorded by Kevin Hopkins

The March Amiga SIG was given a glimpse of Jim Huls' GVP EGS-Spectrum video card. Due to your humble author's ignorance on this topic, I'm not sure I will do Jim's topic justice, but here goes...

The EGS-Spectrum is a simple VGA graphics card modified to work in the Amiga. These cards on PC machines are processor dependent. This means that the faster your main CPU is (386, 486, Pentium) the faster your video runs. This holds true on the Amiga, as well. The same card in an 040 machine will be faster than if it is running in an 030 machine. Jim has an 040 accelerator in his Amiga 3000 so the EGS-Spectrum moves along quite nicely.

Mention was made of some of the other cards available that perform the same task as the EGS-Spectrum. These are the Retina, Picasso, Merlin, CyberVision, and Piccolo. As for the EGS-Spectrum, GVP is no longer making it. Jim got his used (in the deal of the century). Mike Latinovich and Jim Lewis have Retina boards. Vic Serbe also has had extensive experience with this type of graphics card.

The benefit of having one of these cards is higher resolution on you display and much, much faster screen response.

Fundamental to the functioning of these boards is the use of Retargetable Graphics (RTG). This allows the video that would normally be displayed on your Amiga's screen through its own video circuitry to be redirected to the processing power of one of these graphics cards. The boards themselves are very inexpensive to manufacture; you are paying for the software that handles the video chores, such as emulating your Workbench screen through your chosen board.

In Jim's case, he said the hardest thing for him was configuring the software to work with his monitor, which was more of a hardship than it might otherwise have been because his monitor wasn't listed among the ones the software knew about. So, he had to modify the display database to tweak it to work with his monitor.

I asked him for a demonstration of the Spectrum's speed, so he scrolled a copy of the March newsletter in Pagestream on his machine. It was fast... but then again, he also has an 040.

Jim said he dislikes the EGS software severely. He says it's a memory hog. It's slow. There's not much available for it and it's buggy. There is one good program for it however: EGS Photo Album. Jim showed the version he had. It was shareware and still crippled, so there wasn't much to see. Jim said that Cyber Graphics is the coming thing in software for these boards. DPaint 5 is supposed to be shipping soon, too.

If you buy one of these boards, Jim warned, be prepared to buy memory for your computer. He has 20 megs of Fast memory and 2 megs of Chip RAM.

Jim did have an FLI animation from the PC platform which he showed us on his equipment. It was of a helicopter taking off. He also played an MPEG of the Starship Enterprise.

Jim said that the Picasso is the best supported board out there now. You can expect to pay $500 for the card having 2 megs of RAM on it; $450 used. Jim got his EGS-Spectrum for $175.

As a final recommendation, Jim suggested a multisync monitor for use with one of these cards.

Jim's presentation broke new ground for me. I'd heard of these cards, but never seen one in action. And, although the discussion, flew over my head several times, the animated interchange between Mike, Jim Lewis, Jim Huls and the Serbe's was interesting to watch. Thanks' Jim, for showing something that most of us wouldn't normally get to see.

ToC

The C64/128 SIG

reported by Craig Kummerow

The 64/128 SIG was packed this month! We started with 12 members present! The telecommunications theme really seems to bring the people out. After the break, Jim Swisher announced that he had a 128D, 128, 1571, 1902 monitor, and an Epson LX86 printer for sale. If interested, contact Jim at 586-2236.

Next, Rich Hall took over, and picked up where he left off at the last ill-fated, digital spooling, aborted telecommunications SIG. He once again booted NovaTerm 9.5. He once again had some initial difficulty in getting out of the building, but there the similarity to last time ended. He briefly reviewed some of the material covered in the last SIG regarding NovaTerm. He reminded people that F1 will get you back to the main menu from anywhere. He went over the set ups needed and showed how to change the phone numbers. He mentioned that the other F keys could be programmed so that you wouldn't have to type your name, password, etc. each time you logged on. Emil mentioned that you should type A7 within the terminal program to disable call forwarding. Rich also said that Radio Shack had a hardware solution to other people picking up the phone and ruining a download. This item locks out all other phones on the system while you are on-line.

We first tried to get on Prairienet, but were unable to since all the lines were busy. We switched to STARSHIP, and after several tries, we were on. Several members had not been on yet, or were very unfamiliar with the format, so we logged in as Emil (to extend our log-on time, just in case). Rich then showed how to get to the mail menu, and then how to enter mail. He showed off the full screen editor (you have to love it!), and how to read mail in a variety of ways. Rich then covered the transfer protocols, how to match them, and how to change them, either in your terminal program, or on the board. We looked at file directories, how to flag a file or files, and how to finally download files. All very informative and interesting. Hopefully we will see more 64 traffic on the board!

Next, with a little magic, and help from Kevin Hopkins, Rich was able to log on with Prairienet. He almost immediately went to P-net's home page, and started to show us how to surf the net using Lynx. It seemed pretty simple. You simply follow the link that you want by using the arrow keys to follow the link you are interested in seeing. When you want to start your own "bookmarks," so you don't have to follow the same course again, you hit A to add and L to tell it to add a link. The next time you want to go to that link, you simply get on the web, hit V to view your bookmarks (it's always just behind the main screen), and there you are. Kevin suggested that you get onto Prairienet, GO LYNX or CUCUG, and then hit A and L to start your initial bookmark, and you are off and running.

There were many other questions and comments too numerous to mention here. Suffice it to say, that if you missed this one, you missed plenty! We will, however, be doing this one again soon. Lot's of people, lots of information, and lots of fun! But isn't that what the 64 is known for? See you at the next meeting!

ToC

March Board Meeting

recorded by Kevin Hopkins

The March meeting of the CUCUG executive board was held on Wednesday, March 22nd at 7PM at Kevin Hisel's house (address and phone number, both in the book). Present at the meeting were: Jim Huls, Dave Witt, Mike Latinovich, Emil Cobb, Craig Kummerow, Kevin Hopkins, Kevin Hisel, Jon Sago, Jim Lewis, and Richard Rollins.

Jim Huls: Jim opened the meeting with a review of the new meeting place, soliciting everyone's impressions and feedback they heard. The response seemed to be generally favorable. The principle complaint was that the room was noisy when conducting two separate SIG meetings in the same room. The principle argument in the room's favor was the phone line. Others like the tables you could sit at. The overall larger size of the room was also a plus.

It was suggested that we could run a vote on the BBS concerning the issue of making the move permanent.

One Board member noted that the Park District room was more up-scale in decor, but that their parking "sucked".

Drifting afield, the discussion turned to a request for an updated membership list. Kevin Hopkins noted that he keeps track of address changes pretty closely through the use of "Address Correction Requested" markings on the newsletter every six months, but that keeping current on the machines members are using has lagged significantly. It was decided that the Door Monitors will take care of updating this information and passing the information on to Kevin.

It was the general consensus that the phone calling was successful in boosting attendance at the new meeting site. The Board is considering doing this on a somewhat regular basis just to keep in touch with the members.

Jim announced that the April meeting will be held at the Electrician's Hall once again. Quentin Barnes has volunteered to show off his GVP PhonePak to the Amiga SIG.

Mark Landman: Mark wasn't present at the meeting, but he posted his report to the BBS. Here is the pertinent portion.

"I won't be able to attend the next board meeting. I've already mentioned this to Jim and Richard, but I thought I'd better post something here as a reminder. I also have a couple pieces of business which need to be brought up.

"Our bank (Bank of America) has been gobbling up smaller banks and incorporating them under the Bank of America name. Occasionally they will end up with two or more accounts that have the same account number. That's what has happened to us. We need to close out our account and open a new one under a different account number. I already passed around a signature card for a few of you to sign. I also need to get some signatures on an account resolution statement. The club officers need to sign on the back. The club secretary also needs to sign a statement under the signatures. First of America will pay to have new checks printed and will waive any fees associated with starting the new account. If you have any questions you can call me tomorrow or you can call Dan Crispin, Vice President for Business Development, Bank of America. (Too bad this didn't happen a few months ago, we just had to get new checks for the first time in about 3 years about 1-2 months ago.)

"Our taxes are done. We didn't owe any $ to the IRS or the state of Illinois. There has been no word from the IRS yet.

"The unsold books and disks have been returned to Intangible Assets Manufacturing. I spoke with Dale Larson and told him that I had just sent the stuff out via Fed-Ex. He really didn't seem to be terribly upset. "Hey, I know how it goes with users groups. Don't sweat it!" was his response.

"Sorry I can't be there tonight. I've got an Illinois Broadcasters Association meeting that I've got to go to tonight in Springfield. I'll call Kevin sometime on Thursday so set up a time when I can pick up the account statement and the $ for the deposit."

Kevin Hisel (KH1): Kevin reported overall disk sales were, "OK ... about normal ... respectable."

BBS usage was in the 14% range. Kevin notes this low percentage of online activity is due to the increase in the number of callers using faster modems and using the QWK feature of the BBS.

Speaking as Event Chairman for the Spring Computer Fair, Kevin informed the Board that the letters for the raffle went out successfully a week and a half ago.

Reporting on our Information Provider section on Prairienet, Kevin stated that our Web page is receiving 285 accesses a day on average.

Kevin Hopkins (KH2): Kevin distributed the mail and passed around the exchange newsletters. He reported that he has made one of the newsletters we receive on disk (from the Abilene Amiga Users Group) available to the membership for downloading on the BBS.

Kevin showed an ad in Mac Warehouse where they are selling triple speed CD-ROM drives for $199. He's heard it reported that the Apple double speed CD-ROM drives actually perform the best of the available crop of drives due to the fact that they have larger caching.

Kevin reported that an updated membership list was on the board.

Craig Kummerow: Craig announced that Dennis Reed will be doing the Fun Graphics Machine for the C64/128 SIG in April.

Craig expressed his appreciation to Jim Lewis for storing the big monitor at his facility, which is right next door to the meeting hall.

Craig said the phone line is important. Rich Hall did a great job in his presentation at the March meeting. Craig thanked KH2 for his assistance on Lynx during the demo.

Craig informed the Board that he may be going back to get a couple of Masters degrees: one in Education Technology and the other in Teaching and Leadership at ISU and Saint Xaviers. If this occurs, Craig will be required to sharply curtail his club activities.

On a personal note, Craig mentioned that his wife Karen Kummerow has received the Outstanding Citizen Award in their home town of Gibson City. Congratulations, Karen, from all of us!

In closing, Craig reported that attendance at the March meeting numbered about 42 people. There were eleven in the C64 SIG.

Emil Cobb: Emil reported that there was a little grumbling from a few people about the noise factor at the March meeting.

Emil said that our flyer needs to be upgraded, as does our membership list.

Mike Latinovich: Mike said he liked the new meeting place. "Yes there are differences, but it feels good. I like it. The 64 side was nuts! It's amazing there's still so much interest. The net is a real leveler. Once your on, it really doesn't matter much which machine you are using, in some respects." Mike also gave a thumb's up to Jim Huls presentation.

Jim Huls: Jim said he officially releases Richard Rollins of any restaurant picking duties after the fiasco that took place at Perkins after the last meeting. (I guess the service was beyond bad.)

Jim then made Mark Landman's report (see above). One other point Mark made to Jim was that our taxes were prepared by a different accountant this year and it was a lot cheaper.

Turning to his own topics, Jim said that the meeting hall was indeed noisy, but that he felt it was a good place.

Jim wanted to know the details of how the Lost Souls letter has been handled and that information was provided.

Jim said the May meeting will be the raffle and Jason Compton will be coming in June.

Commenting on our public profile, Jim said that the locals still don't know that we exist. He was out at Parkland College and they hadn't heard of us.

Jim said he is still working on a deal to purchase modems from USRobotics at User Group rates. He says they are a little vague on the information they require from us.

Jim said he is tentatively scheduling July as the Amiga SIG's Internet meeting. There was a discussion of the local providers and the future here locally.

Richard Rollins: Richard said he wants to see Internet. Speaking of Jim's demo of his graphics card, Rich said it wasn't too flashy.

Jon Sago: Jon had nothing more to report.

Jim Lewis: Jim said he had voiced his opinions already too.

ToC

The Back Page

The Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group, (CUCUG), a not-for-profit corporation and Authorized Commodore User Group #00251, was organized in 1983 to support and advance the knowledge of area Commodore computer users.

Meetings are held the third Thursday of each month at 7:00 p.m. at the Bresnan Meeting Center in the Champaign Park District Headquarters (398-2591). The Center is located at 706 Kenwood, 1/2 block south of the corner of Kenwood and John Street, in west Champaign. Kenwood is the fourth south-bound street off of John as you are going west, after crossing Mattis. The Center is in the northwest corner of Centennial Park, northwest of Centennial High School.

ASCII text files of all recent Status Register newsletters are available for downloading on our BBS or our WWW site. Other user group newsletter editors may leave a comment to the BBS Sysop to request free access. To initiate a newsletter exchange, just send us your newsletter. As a matter of CUCUG policy, a newsletter exchange partner will be dropped after three months of no contact.

This newsletter was prepared with PageStream 2.22 on an Amiga 3000 25/100 and output to an HP Laserjet IIP plus. Pagestream was donated to CUCUG by Soft-Logik Publishing Corporation.

For further information, please attend the next meeting as our guest, or contact one of our officers(all at area code 217):


President:         Jim Huls         892-8730
Vice-President:    David Witt       684-2815         maddog@prairienet.org
Secretary/Editor:  Kevin Hopkins    356-5026     khopkins@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu
Treasurer:         Mark Landman     398-2910       mlandman@prairienet.org
Corporate Agent:   Jim Lewis        359-1342         NOSPAMlewis_j_e@yahoo.com
Librarian/Sysop:   Kevin Hisel      406-948-1999         khisel @ cucug.org
C64/128 SIG:       Craig Kummerow   784-5919       cwkummer@prairienet.org
Board Advisor:     Richard Rollins  469-2616             RERollins@aol.com

Call our Starship CUCUG BBS at (217) 356-8056, always online, up to 14,400 baud, supporting all CBM computers. Surf our home page at

http://www.cucug.org/.

Call Prairienet free at (217) 255-9000. Login as "visitor".

ToC