September 1980 — Vol 2 No 9

Overview

John Moon's ABBS unveiled at the August meeting — available exclusively to WAP members, volunteers wanted for initial testing. Val Golding of Call-A.P.P.L.E. publishes DOS 3.3 bug warnings: 48K-only, may blow the diskette on random-access writes, wipes the Language Card on reboot (a patch is provided — change byte $CC of Track 0 Sector 9 to $10). Apple has withdrawn DOS 3.3 to fix. Dues will rise to $18 in 1981 to cover rising costs. The Executive Board is exploring "Chapter groups" — sister clubs using Pi services but operating independently, requiring Constitution amendment; negotiations underway with NOVAPPLE for proper reimbursement. Mid-Atlantic Computer Show Sept 18–21 at the DC Armory — WAP will run Booth 452. Featured technical content: Bruce F. Field's FFT subroutine for the 6502, Mark L. Crosby's review of Computer Station's enhanced Paper Tiger graphics software, Tom Lucas's "The Shell Games" review, and Howard Lefkowitz on DOS 3.3 with the Language System.

Table of contents

Articles

"DOS 3.3 BUGS" (page 1) — Val Golding (Call-A.P.P.L.E.)

Hard news. Multiple reliable sources report DOS 3.3 has been withdrawn. Issues: 1. 48K-only (won't run on smaller machines) 2. May blow the diskette when writing to random-access files under certain conditions 3. Wipes the Language Card resident on reboot — patch: edit byte $CC of Track 0 Sector 9 to $10 (credit: Dave Holle of "Harvest", Northwest Suburban Apple Group, Chicago)

Apple plans to make the correction available to early purchasers via service centers; no re-release date yet.

Editorial (page 2) — Bernard Urban

"We're back. Summer has come and gone too soon…" Thanks to Wasserstrom, Peck, Efron and team. Apologizes for meeting venue changes and poor air conditioning. Looking ahead: - Dues must rise (amount TBD, ~$18/yr proposed) - Strong talk of some sort of merger with maybe three other user groups — more frequent and better-organized sessions, more documented software - Courses being offered - SIGs taking hold - Newsletter improving — Mark L. Crosby now using computer typesetting techniques for headings and TOC - "Best of Washington Apple Pi" compilation coming soon for newcomers

Pi at the Mid-Atlantic Computer Show: Booth 452 at the DC Armory/Starplex, September 18–21. Volunteers needed; cassettes of Woz and Jobs to be shown; new memberships and orders taken.

Minutes of Executive Board 8/13/80 (page 2)

Held at Westat, Inc. in Rockville (a member's workplace?). Decisions: - $60 reimbursement to Urban for the August 16 Big Apple NYC fair - Pi will hire an instructor to teach a Beginning BASIC course, charge members a nominal fee, Club makes up any difference - Tom Jones (Membership Chair) instructed to design a Membership Card for member identification at sales and store discounts - Robert Peck resigning from group-purchase coordination; replacement being sought - Chapter groups discussion — long deliberation about creating Chapter groups that use Club services and pay dues but operate independently; requires Constitution amendment; negotiating reimbursement with NOVAPPLE (currently receiving Pi services free) - Recommendation: 1981 dues at $18/year

Minutes of General Meeting 8/23/80 (page 2)

~85 attendees. Treasurer presided. Beginning BASIC class announced; sufficient interest confirmed.

John Moon unveiled his ABBS with a usage demo. System will be WAP-members-exclusive; volunteers wanted for the initial testing period.

Members asked for more info on Club operations. Motions passed: republish the Constitution and By-Laws in the newsletter; verbal Treasurer's report at each monthly meeting. Tom Jones acknowledged the membership-list proposal coming in a future issue.

Program: Sandy Greenfarb on his recent DOS 3.3 experiences.

"Scroll Down" (page 2) — Dana Schwartz

A scroll-down subroutine in pure Integer BASIC — works almost as fast as ASM. Most scroll-down techniques require ML; Schwartz shows how to use a 1024-byte buffer and CALL -468 to do it from BASIC. Some Peripheral Slot Scratchpad RAM gets clobbered (pages 82–83 of the Reference Manual). Full listing.

"Enhanced Paper Tiger Graphics Software: A Review" (page 3) — Mark L. Crosby

Cover-highlight (sort of — by Bruce Tognazzini per the cover, but here it says Crosby). Review of an enhanced Paper Tiger graphics dump utility from Computer Station of Illinois — much more versatile than the original (which had an awkward placement just below HI-RES page 2 and complex BASIC interface).

"FFT Subroutine for the 6502" (pages 3–11+) — Bruce F. Field

Cover-highlight headliner. A Fast Fourier Transform subroutine in 6502 machine language — the kind of "infrastructure" piece that would unlock a whole range of signal-processing applications (the Software Color Organ from January was a precursor). Substantial assembly listing.

Greenapples — Andrew Rose

Andy's youth column continues.

"The Shell Games: A Review" (page 12) — Tom Lucas

Cover-highlight (per cover: "Bruce Tognazzini's THE SHELL GAMES"). Review of Bruce Tognazzini's game collection.

"DOS 3.3 and the Language System" (page 13+) — Howard Lefkowitz

Companion to Golding's DOS 3.3 bug piece — practical discussion of using DOS 3.3 with the Apple Language System (Pascal/Language Card).

SIG News (page 1)

SIGAMES meets after the monthly Pi meeting. Sheldon Kramer will talk on shape tables this month.

Club news / events / announcements

• DOS 3.3 withdrawn for bug fix
• Dues rising to $18 in 1981
• Beginning BASIC course coming
• Pi at Mid-Atlantic Computer Show Sep 18–21, Booth 452 at DC Armory
• Chapter groups under exploration
• ABBS in test
• Membership card design coming

Notable advertisements

• Computerland Tysons Corner
• Mid-Atlantic Computer Show full ad (page 5) — National Computer Shows (Chestnut Hill MA); DC Armory/Starplex Sep 18–21, $5 admission

Key quotes

• "We have heard from a couple of reliable sources that DOS 3.3 has been withdrawn to repair a couple of bugs, one of which could be major." — Val Golding (page 1)
• "Strong talk of some sort of merger with maybe three other user groups. This could lead to more frequent and better organized sessions, more and better documented software." — Bernard Urban (page 2)
• "John Moon unveiled his Apple Bulletin Board System (ABBS)… The system will be available for WAP members exclusively." — Minutes (page 2)

Entities

People: Bernard Urban, John Moon, Rich Wasserstrom, Robert Peck, Dana Schwartz, Mark L. Crosby, Sandy Greenfarb, Hersch Pilloff, Genevie Urban, David Morganstein, Dave Efron, Tom Jones, Bruce F. Field, Tom Lucas, Howard Lefkowitz, Bruce Tognazzini, Sheldon Kramer, Andrew Rose, Val Golding, Dave Holle, Scooter Conrad Topics: ABBS, DOS 3.3 Bugs, Chapter Groups, Fast Fourier Transform on Apple, Pi Beginning BASIC Course, Scroll Down in Integer BASIC References: Mid-Atlantic Computer Show, DC Armory, Westat Inc., Computer Station of Illinois, The Shell Games, Harvest

Connections to other issues

• John Moon's ABBS (announced 1980-06 — V02 N06, in test 1980-07 — V02 N07) now publicly unveiled
• DOS 3.3 (announced 1980-05 — V02 N05, group-bought 1980-07 — V02 N07) — now withdrawn for bug fix
• Chapter-group exploration follows from Urban's 1979-09 — V01 N08 merger proposal
• Sandy Greenfarb DOS 3.3 experiences will likely feed into a future deep-dive article

Open questions

• Did the "three other user groups" merger materialize? Watch coming issues.
• Did Apple actually re-release the fixed DOS 3.3 in 1980?
• ABBS phone number?