September 1979 — Vol 1 No 8

Overview

A major maturation issue. Urban's editorial publicly proposes a formal merger of Pi and NOVAPPLE into one cohesive organization for the greater DC area, citing the "critical mass" needed for a self-supporting monthly newsletter (~200 individuals). Sandy Greenfarb continues his deep-internals reference series with a 6-page article on Integer BASIC internal structure (HIMEM/PP/LOMEM/PV pointers, tokens, the symbol table). Susan Eickmeyer documents the Apple Serial I/O card hardware. Three new sections appear: Classified Ads for Members, Commercial Advertising Rates, and an Event Queue. AMRAD's massive nationwide list of CBBSes is reprinted (~40 boards across 14 states). Apple announces both the Apple Education Foundation and a $195 extended warranty (effective 9/15/79). Hersch Pilloff is coordinating a club group purchase of IDS 440 printers ($995 + $199 graphics option).

Table of contents

Articles

President's Message (page 2) — John Moon

Moon is taking GWU graduate courses (Interactive Graphics, Digital Programming Systems) where the professors agreed to let him use his Apple. Plans to turn his coursework into newsletter articles — especially the Core Graphics System standard (windowing, scaling, transformations, viewports) for which he'll write an Apple implementation. Programming Systems homework: write an Assembler and Relocatable Loader. Floats Urban's idea for the club to host a Personal Computing Conference in Washington. Plans demo of The Source (contact Pete Kendrichs). Next meeting rescheduled to Saturday, September 29 due to holiday conflict.

Editorial — formal merger proposal (page 2) — Bernard Urban

A turning-point editorial. Praises Mark Crosby's work shaping the newsletter from "timid trial balloon" to high-quality product. Argues the greater Washington area can't support more than one APPLE newsletter — too few contributors. Urges Pi+NOVAPPLE merger as one not-for-profit organization (like Call-A.P.P.L.E.) for postal rate relief and bulk discounts. Each chapter would keep its own identity, geographic location, and schedule. Also calls out three items in danger of falling through the cracks: club position on copyright/proprietary software ethics, a library of written materials, and in-depth courses on Apple workings.

NIBBLES (pages 2–3)

A column of industry items: - Apple Extended Warranty: $195/year starting Sep 15, 1979 at Level I service centers, "Same-day Turnaround" carry-in. Will Houde, Apple's director of service operations. - Apple Education Foundation formed (nonprofit; funds learning research and the EPIC (Education Program Information Center)). Address: Apple Education Foundation, 20605 Lazaneo Drive, Cupertino CA 95014. (Source noted as Creative Computing Sep 1979.) - IDS 440 group buy: 5 printers on order, 12% discount for orders before Oct 15 with 2% additional for prepayment, normally 10%. Coordinator: Hersch Pilloff (292-3100). - MicroNET / CompuServe: $5/connect-hour + $9 one-time fee (refunded as one hour); 64K bytes on-line storage. Personal Computing Division, CompuServe Inc., 5000 Arlington Centre Blvd., Columbus OH. - Tri-Tek AD590J temperature transducer: $3.49 in a TO-52 can. - Jade Computer Products 1979 Software Catalog now available. - MUSE MICRO-PHONE in Baltimore: bulletin board at (301) 661-8962/3, building a directory of modem-equipped microcomputer owners.

Event Queue (page 3)

• Personal Computing Convention, Philadelphia Civic Center, Oct 5–7, $10 at the door
• Washington Apple Pi: Saturday Sep 29, GWU, 9:30 AM
• NOVAPPLE: Sep 27 (Computerland Tysons), Oct 10 (Computers Plus Franconia)

MODEMania update / nationwide CBBS list (page 3)

Reprinted from the AMRAD Newsletter Sept 1979: a long table of CBBS phone numbers by state — CA (~12 boards), CO, DC (WACS), FL, GA (4 in Atlanta), IL (Chicago, Joliet), KS, MA, MD (MUSE), MO (Kansas City), NJ, NY (Long Island), OH (Akron), OR, SC (Univ of Columbia), TX (Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio), VA (Alexandria, Falls Church, McLean, Vienna = AMRAD). The networked hobbyist landscape Pi members would dial into.

"Internal Structure of Integer BASIC" (pages 4–8) — Sandy Greenfarb

Reference-quality consolidation, six pages. Topics include: - Definitions: byte, special-purpose byte, characters (Integer BASIC = "negative ASCII", high bit set; Applesoft = "positive ASCII"; add $80 for conversion), tokens (e.g. GOSUB → $5C), absolute vs. relative addressing, words (low/high byte), pointers - Four key pointers for an Integer BASIC program in memory: - HIMEM ($4C/$4D): top of memory available; first byte beyond last program byte (or DOS-reserved area) - PP / Program Pointer ($CA/$CB): start of program; equals HIMEM after Control-B / NEW / DOS INT - LOMEM ($4A/$4B): start of variables, default $800 / 2048 - PV / Variable Pointer ($CC/$CD): end of variables; initial = LOMEM - (Continuation of the article into pages 6–8 includes more on the token table and the symbol table search algorithm — extracted text trails off here but the article is canonical for Integer BASIC reverse-engineering.)

"Calendars" (page 9) — John L. Moon

A calendar-printing program — utility for printing month/year calendars. (Brief article; specific listing in PDF.)

"Applesoft Surprise" (page 9) — Jim Kelly

A discovered Applesoft quirk worth flagging. (Brief; specific code in PDF.)

"Hard & Soft Facts on the Serial I/O" (pages 11–13) — Susan Eickmeyer

A follow-up to her Game I/O breakout article. Covers the Apple Serial I/O card hardware, firmware, and how to use it from BASIC and machine language.

Classified Ads (page 14)

First member classifieds. Format established. Specific ads visible in PDF.

Commercial Advertising Rates (page 14)

First published rate card for paid display advertisements. Establishes Pi as a recognized publication venue.

"Auto-List and Count Filemaker" (page 15) — Howie Mitchell

Utility article continuing Mitchell's contributions since the ball-bouncer.

Software Review: SubLOGIC 3-D (page 15)

Review of SubLogic's assembly-language 3-D graphics package (announced in Aug issue).

Minutes of 8/25/79 (Pi)

Resolution to host a The Source demo. Sandy Greenfarb moved Sep 29 as next meeting (passed). Greenfarb discussed his Integer BASIC Workshop (modified, added to club library). Hersch Pilloff: Paper Tiger demo awaiting machine. Membership list confidentiality policy — motion to keep mailing list confidential, amended to require individual permission to release a name. Passed as amended.

Minutes of NOVAPPLE 8/23/79

Ken Woodward begins his eight-week assembly-language course with a 20-topic syllabus (number systems, data codes, 6502 machine language, monitor usage, arithmetic, moving data, basic I/O, looping, bit operations, pseudo-opcodes, BASIC-to-ASM, SWEET 16, stack, output routines, HI/LO-RES graphics, coding for speed/efficiency, floating point, peripheral programming, Disk II assembly). Also: Dan McCreary's Apple 80 (8080 interpreter on Apple, $20+$1.50 shipping). Meeting schedule clarified: Computerland Tysons (4th Thu), Computers Plus Franconia (2nd Wed).

Club news / events / announcements

• Merger proposal aired editorially
• IDS 440 group purchase in flight
• First classifieds and ad-rate card
• Membership list now confidential by policy

Notable advertisements

• Classified ads (member-to-member) appear for the first time
• Commercial advertising rate card published (no display ads yet but the door is open)

Key quotes

• "I don't believe that the greater Washington area can support more than one high-quality newsletter devoted to APPLE owners and users." — Bernard Urban (page 2)
• "Bernie suggested a rather wild — largescale, but fascinating idea/project for the club — to set up and run a Personal Computing Conference here in Washington. I'm staggered by the thought of it; but like I said, fascinated…" — John Moon (page 2)
• "Despite this fact, pains have been taken to carefully define any terms that readers might be experiencing for the first time." — Sandy Greenfarb (page 4) [on his BASIC internals piece]

Entities

People: John Moon, Bernard Urban, Mark L. Crosby, Sandy Greenfarb, Susan Eickmeyer, Howie Mitchell, Jim Kelly, Hersch Pilloff, Ken Woodward, Dan McCreary, Gerald Eskelund, Pete Kendrichs, Will Houde Topics: Pi NOVAPPLE Merger, Integer BASIC Internals, Apple Serial I/O, Computer Bulletin Board Systems, Core Graphics System, Group Purchasing, Apple Education, Personal Computing Conference, Mailing List Confidentiality References: IDS 440 Printer, MicroNET, CompuServe, Apple Education Foundation, EPIC, Tri-Tek AD590J, Jade Computer Products, MUSE MICRO-PHONE, Apple 80, AMRAD CBBS, Paper Tiger Printer, The Source, Personal Computing Convention Philadelphia

Connections to other issues

• Merger proposal advances themes from Moon's June editorial in 1979-06 — V01 N05
• Greenfarb's Integer BASIC piece is a sequel to his DOS internals piece in 1979-06 — V01 N05
• IDS 440 demo follows from August's announcement in 1979-08 — V01 N07
• Eickmeyer's Serial I/O piece extends her Game I/O work in 1979-06 — V01 N05

Open questions

• Does the formal Pi+NOVAPPLE merger occur in 1979 or carry into 1980? Watch 1979-10 — V01 N09 onward.
• Did Moon's Core Graphics System implementation make it into the newsletter?