January 1980 — Vol 2 No 1

Overview

Volume 2 debuts. The newsletter is now produced by Urban himself using a Muse printer + EasyWriter (right-justified by space-insertion since proportional spacing isn't yet figured out). Mark L. Crosby steps back from typesetting due to the switch but stays on contributing articles. Pi membership has reached 119 paid members, "all but 9 within easy commuting distance" of the meetings. NOVAPPLE votes (December 12, 1979) to pay the $50 initiation fee and join International Apple Corps [sic]. New SIG: Chuck Reinbrecht offers to coordinate an Apple Pi SOURCE Users Directory. Strong technical content: Bruce F. Field on a software color organ (FFT-driven), Sandy Greenfarb reviewing Tiny Pascal, Lee Hausman reviewing APPLE-DOC, and Hersch Pilloff on downloading stock market data from The Source.

Table of contents

Articles

Editorial (page 3) — Bernard Urban

Urban announces he's now self-publishing the newsletter using his Muse printer with EasyWriter. Pleads for volunteers, especially someone willing to write DOS regularly or reprint useful materials, plus volunteers to "Cluster One" the SIG question (a column devoted to one fun program per month). Hands off the Librarian's Corner to David Morganstein; Greenfarb to continue his column. Looking for camera-ready submissions to streamline production.

SIG-News — Apple Pi SOURCE Users Directory (page 3)

Chuck Reinbrecht offers to create the directory and act as SOURCE Interest Group coordinator. Members send MAIL to him on The Source with how they want to be listed plus comments/suggestions; he integrates and distributes via MAIL.

Minutes of Pi 12/15/79 (page 4)

• Urban moved that meetings limit business to 30 minutes, then have an organized instructive program followed by hands-on
• Susan Eickmeyer agreed to be Program Chairman
• Treasurer Robert Peck read a letter from the GWU Medical Center seeking a part-time Apple programmer (10 hrs/wk, BASIC and ML)
• Morganstein demoed library disks; sales after the meeting "highly successful"
• 57 attendees

Minutes of NOVAPPLE 12/12/79 (page 4)

Motion passed: NOVAPPLE pays $50 initiation fee and joins International Apple Corps. President Phil Eastman asks officers to re-examine dues. Nicholas B. Cirillo proposes adopting By-Laws — chairs the new By-Laws committee comparing Apple Pi and Call-A.P.P.L.E. models.

Minutes of NOVAPPLE 1/9/80 (page 4)

Theron Fuller named NOVAPPLE Program Chairman. Coming: SWEET 16 (Jan 24), Theron Fuller's PILOT language, Mountain Hardware demos, Applesoft tutorial. Program tonight: Gerald Eskelund on Low Resolution Graphics, reviewing Nat Wadsworth's book Introduction to Low Resolution Graphics (Scelbi Publication).

APPLE-DOC Review (page 4) — Lee Hausman

Review of APPLE-DOC from Southwestern Data Systems (Santee CA). Three Applesoft utilities loaded above the program via EXEC (5.7K total): VARDOC (variable cross-reference with descriptors), LINEDOC (line-number cross-reference for GOTO/GOSUB), and REPLACE (global or selective find/replace for variables, line numbers, literals; can strip REMs). 14 pages of docs. Money-back guarantee.

"Software Color Organ" (page 5) — Bruce F. Field

Cassette-input Integer BASIC program: digitizes music waveforms via the cassette input port, runs a modified FFT to separate low/mid/high frequencies, displays as three colored crosses (green/yellow/red) on the LO-RES screen, sized by amplitude. Listing reproduced in full.

"Pascal (Tiny Pascal): A Review" (pages 5–6) — Sandy Greenfarb

Review of Tiny Pascal from Programma International ($35, 32K Disk, Apple II). A modified subset of Pascal — designed by Kin-Man Chung and Herbert Yuen per their BYTE Sept–Nov 1978 articles. "An integer only language, and in fact, the documentation cites the analogy that Tiny Pascal is to a full Pascal what Integer BASIC is to Applesoft." Self-contained: P-code monitor, editor, source compiler, and interpreter packed into $0800-$3FFF; user programs default to $4800. Greenfarb's verdict: serious users should consider it; 27 pages of (not-tutorial) reference docs; library routines for graphics, screen, I/O exist but no clean way to integrate with user source (a notable complaint). "If you are not considering the 'high price spread' (the full $500 hardware and software [Apple PASCAL]) then I strongly recommend that you consider this product."

"Errata: Graphics Driver for the IDS 440 Printer" (page 6) — Hersch Pilloff

Correction to the December 1979 listing (page 23): line 210 colon should be semicolon; all REM statements move to line 209. Bob Bolster correlated the spurious dot pattern with a stray CR+LF. Also clarifies: when PRINTER runs with CALL 768, the cpi/hds is set by the IDS DIP switch; subsequent CALL to change cpi only works if it's not the default.

"A Page from the Stack" — Librarian's Corner (page 9) — David Morganstein

First installment as featured columnist. Eight library volumes in stock; next month a math/scientific disk and an educational disk will bring it to ten. Reviews Volume 1 (utilities including IMPROVED CATALOG, DISK AIDE, DISK MAP, TONY'S SUBROUTINE PAK, LOCK DISK, PROGRAM ELIMINATOR, SUPERCATALOG, DISC SPEED, LOOP, MEM TEST, CAT TO MENU, SYMBOL TABLE XREF, LINE# XREF, STOP LIST, SPLIT CATALOG, FREE SECTORS, OKIDATA.OBJ printer driver), Volume 3 (games: Towers of Hanoi, Tennis, Roulette, Kamikaze, Color Text, Drip, Digital Clock, Poker, Memo, Hitsmash, Slot Machine, Mastermind, Poet, etc.), and Volume 4 (longer games: Pro Football, Atom 26, Civil War, LEM, Dr. Z and Eliza, KGNIK, DEEPSPACE, Adventure, Quest, Stock Market, Starship Attack).

"Stock Market Data from The Source" (pages 9–10) — Hersch Pilloff

A serious review of The Source (introduced summer 1979 at $2.75/hr off-peak) as a stock-data feed. Approach: subscribe to The Source's UPISTOX reports (139 = NYSE close, 199 = AMEX, 165 = OTC), upload a CO-script driver to fetch a chosen list, and use Craig Vaughn's APPLE II Terminal Program (Source Version) ($25 from Peripherals Unlimited) to download the file via the Apple Comm Card or D.C. Hayes Micromodem. Provides full driver script:

COMO DATA
UPISTOX
139
C B S
EAST KO
GOODYR
VIACOM-N
...
QUIT

COMO -E
TY DATA

Catches (described at length, with editor's note disclaiming Pi's position): sign-on takes 2–5 min; search algorithm "very, very slow" (compares full strings; A-names faster than M-names); partial-name match returns extra stocks (entering OCCDPet retrieves OCCDPet and OCCDPetPf even with trailing spaces); search can only be terminated by hanging up the line; and the most serious problem — entire days' transactions occasionally never appear, and arbitrary stocks vanish from results. The Source customer service has been notified repeatedly.

Other articles (pages 10+)

• Master Catalog Program — Howie Mitchell
• Catalog of Library Disks 1–6 — disk-by-disk listings
• Awareness Test — Howie Mitchell
• "A Reaction to 'In My Opinion'" — Charles H. Reinbrecht (responding to Greenfarb's Dec '79 editorial)
• "A Quick and Dirty RAM Test" — Jim Kelly

Club news / events / announcements

• 119 paid members
• 1980 dues now collecting; new application form in this issue
• Next Pi meeting: January 26, 1980, GWU 9:30 AM; topic = panel discussion of available text and word processors

Notable advertisements

• Computers Plus, Inc. (Franconia VA) — large new full-page ad covering Apple, Cromemco, Dynabyte, Micropolis, Northstar, Thinker Toys; weekday hours 10am–9pm
• Programma International — full-page game catalog (Stunt Cycle, Perpetual Calendar, Clowns & Balloons, etc.)
• Computerland Tysons Corner, D.C. Hayes, Mountain Hardware — continuing display ads

Key quotes

• "You may have noticed strange spacings in most of the text in this issue. Genevie and I have begun to use our Muse printer together with Easywriter to produce the newsletter…" — Bernard Urban (page 3)
• "Tiny Pascal is to a full Pascal what Integer BASIC is to Applesoft." — Sandy Greenfarb (page 5)
• "Once the search routine has begun it can only be terminated by breaking the phone connection to the Source." — Hersch Pilloff (page 10)

Entities

People: Bernard Urban, Genevie Urban, John Moon, Robert Peck, Mark L. Crosby, Susan Eickmeyer, Sandy Greenfarb, David Morganstein, Hersch Pilloff, Lee Hausman, Bruce F. Field, Charles H. Reinbrecht, Howie Mitchell, Jim Kelly, Chuck Reinbrecht, Phil Eastman, Nicholas B. Cirillo, Gerald Eskelund, Theron Fuller, Bob Bolster, Craig Vaughn, Nat Wadsworth Topics: Volume 2 Debut, The Source Stock Data, Apple Pi Disk Library, Tiny Pascal vs Apple PASCAL, Fast Fourier Transform, Apple Programming Utilities, NOVAPPLE Joins IAC References: APPLE-DOC, Southwestern Data Systems, Tiny Pascal, Programma International, Muse Printer, EasyWriter, Source UPISTOX, Apple II Terminal Program, Peripherals Unlimited, Computers Plus, Wadsworth Introduction to Low Resolution Graphics, Scelbi Publications

Connections to other issues

• Crosby's typesetting hand-off follows Urban's June "make the newsletter mature" goals (1979-06 — V01 N05)
• The Source stock data piece operationalizes the IAC benefit announced in 1979-11 — V01 N10
• Pilloff's IDS errata corrects 1979-12 — V01 N11
• Reinbrecht's reaction responds to 1979-12 — V01 N11's Greenfarb "In My Opinion"
• NOVAPPLE joining IAC links to 1979-11 — V01 N10

Open questions

• The Source's transactional-data omission problem — does it ever get fixed? Watch later issues.
• Does anyone volunteer to write Pilloff's "Cluster One" SIG fun-program column?