December 1983 — Vol 5 No 12

Overview

David Morganstein President — final issue of Vol 5. ★ Special issue theme: Computers & the Handicapped — driven by Jay Thal's DisabledSIG. The issue runs ~6 disability-tech articles back-to-back (pp. 15-28): DP-10 and the Visually Impaired (Susan M. Gowin), Voice Technology for the Handicapped (Jim Turri), Computers & Handicapped: A Bibliography (Jay Thal), Serial Code Keyboards & Handicapped (Wolfger Schneider), Multi-Handicapped Babies on Line with Apple (Mike Behrmann & Liz Lahm), Computer Importance to Disabled (Roger Petersen), A Minimum Movement Keyboard (Tom Riley), More on Serial Code Keyboard (Boris Levine). This is one of the earliest sustained user-group treatments of assistive computing in print. An IBM Compatible Apple (Bill Jacobson, 29) — Apple-II-as-IBM piece with CP/M subtext. DIF: The Visi-Connector (David Morganstein, 31) — Morganstein on the DIF (Data Interchange Format) standard that lets VisiCalc share with other apps. User Definable Programmable Function Keys (Charlie Brown, 34) — early macro-keys piece. Cumber's Corner (James F. Cumber Jr., 36). Pushed Into CP/M (Leon H. Raesly, 46) and How to Get Into CP/M (Walt Mills, 42). Word Handler (Jon Vaupel, 44). The 80-Column ScreenWriter (Bill Jacobson, 39). Winter Disk Roundup (Robert C. Platt, 52) — twice-a-year tradition continues. Ultimaker 2: A Review (Bob Oringel, 51) — Ultima dungeon-creator review. File Cabinet Goes to the Races (Robert C. Platt, 60). The Game Room (Jeff Brunner, 62). Applesoft Tokens (Richard Untied, 30). GOSUB Routines Revisited (C. Swift, 59). ",COM,MAS,..." (Richard Rowell, 45) — early DOS COMMAND.COM-style piece. File Handler Update (Tom DeMay Jr., 49).

Table of contents (selected)

Highlights

★ Computers & the Handicapped — accessibility special issue

Eight articles on assistive computing drive this issue's theme. Jay Thal's DisabledSIG is the through-line; the bibliography piece is a research-grade reading list, and the babies-online article describes work with very young multi-handicapped users — striking material for December 1983 print.

DIF: The Visi-Connector — David Morganstein

Morganstein walks through the Data Interchange Format (DIF), VisiCorp's standard for exchanging numeric data between VisiCalc and other apps. DIF becomes a de-facto interchange format until the .CSV/.SLK era takes over.

CP/M arrives at Pi

Two CP/M pieces ("Pushed Into" / "How to Get Into") suggest serious member adoption of Z-80 SoftCards by year-end 1983 — the Z-80 expansion ecosystem has matured enough that Pi treats CP/M as a real Pi platform.

Year-end / Vol 5 closes

Vol 5 wraps with Pi running ~10 SIGs, a Disk Library of dozens of volumes, two annual disk-roundups, a Book Library, the ABBS, ScreenWriter Hotline, IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) status (from earlier), and ~1,500 members.

Entities

People: David Morganstein, Bruce F. Field, Robert C. Platt, Jay Thal, Bill Jacobson, Leon H. Raesly, Bob Oringel, Charlie Brown, James F. Cumber Jr., Tom DeMay Jr., Walt Mills, Jon Vaupel, Peter Combes, Bernie Benson, Susan M. Gowin, Jim Turri, Wolfger Schneider, Mike Behrmann, Liz Lahm, Roger Petersen, Tom Riley, Boris Levine, Richard Rowell, John A. Love III, Richard Untied, Richard Langston II, Jeff Brunner, C. Swift Topics: Assistive Computing, DisabledSIG, DIF (Data Interchange Format), CP/M at Pi, Voice Recognition References: Word Handler, Ultimaker 2, Z-80 SoftCard

Connections to other issues

• DisabledSIG arc: Jay Thal has run this column for two+ years; the bibliography here gathers prior material
• Year-end disk-roundup pairs with 1983-11 — V05 N11's Fall Disk Roundup
• Closes Vol 5 (Jan-Dec 1983); next is Vol 6 starting Jan 1984 — a year that's still missing entirely from the corpus (_meta/backlog)