_ _ The SLO BYTES Newsletter is a monthly publication of SLO BYTES of the Central Coast of California, an IBM personal computer user's group. Information found in this Newsletter comes from magazine articles, other PC user group newsletters, and our own members. The purpose of this publication is to inform our members of meetings, their program content, and other information related to the use of PC's and PC compatable computers. Dues to SLO BYTES is $18 per year. As a member you will receive a membership card, an updated membership list, SLO BYTES monthly newsletter, and free use of our Public Domain Library. Contributors are asked to submit articles for the next issue by the 10th of each month either in writing or on disk. Address all correspondence to SLO BYTES PC USER'S GROUP, % Bob Ward, 2100 Andre' Ave., Los Osos, Ca. 93402. Phone 8am-5pm 546-2164, after 5pm - (805)528-0121. Have a computer related item to sell? Tell the editor and we will put it in our newsletter. For further inforation call Bob Ward @ (805)528-0121 eves. ************************************************************* Meetings are held the 4th thursday of every month at 6:15 pm. They are hosted by the Biology Department and located at Cal Poly University, Biology's Science North, Room 313. ************************************************************* _ _ Victor Wood demonstrated his 21.3 Megabyte hard disk which he has installed in his IBM clone. Features that are particularly interesting to Victor include: (1) the PARK feature, allowing the hard drive to be carried around, (2) the higher access speed, and (3) the ease of installation into the computer. This month's special from I2 is the 21.3 Megabyte disk drive at $765.00 including controller board. October specials may be different, so check with him at 528- 0768 if you're interested in getting this hard disk at this price. Computers PC Compatable Computer ...........................$1,339.00 * 640K, Color/Graphics Card, Multifunction Board Apple Compatable Computer ............................$850.00 64K, Dual CPU, Fan, 2 Floppy Drives I2 Hard Drive 21.3 Megabytes/Halfheight .......................... $765.00 10.6 Megabytes/Halfheight .......................... $930.00 33.3 Megabytes/Halfheight ......................... $1,914.00 55.7 Megabytes .................................... $3,714.00 87.7 Megabytes .................................... $4,200.00 119.7 Megabytes ................................... $5,880.00 Tape Backup 10.3 Megabytes ...................................... $654.50 45.0 Megabytes .................................... $1,650.00 Floppy Disk Drive Halfheight, 5 1/4 ................................... $183.00 Fullsize, 5 1/4 DS,DD ............................... $312.00 Apple Compatable Drive, Hal ......................... $190.00 ############################################################# _ _ SOFTWARE: NEW, LATEST VERSION MICROSOFT'S FLIGHT SIMULATOR. WITH MANUAL FOR IBM PC .....$25 CALL MARK @ 541-6567 HARDWARE: KOALA TOUCH PAD FOR IBM PCjr. WITH GRAPHICS SOFTWARE & DOC. STILL NEW ....$45 / OFFER CALL MARK @ 541-6567 SAMSUNG TTL COMPATIBLE 12" (AMBER) MONO- CHROME MONITOR. NEVER USED W/WARRANTY 720 X 348 (not for PCjr)...............$100/ OFFER CALL MARK @ 541-6567 ************************************************************* _ _ During our last meeting Byron Smith gave a dazzling review of the desktop utility, Sidekick. A must to see in color, he put it through the paces, changing background and foreground colors with the touch of a key, while also displaying many of its special features such as notepad, calculator, and calendar. Being transparent to other programs, these features may be called up at any time. During the second half of the meeting, yours truly spoke about our public domain software... including how to look up the directory, access some of the files using the "type" and "print" commands and a short discussion on file extensions and what they represent. Our Directory Disk may be activated by typing the word "GO". It is suggested that everyone read their DOS manual as it contains many powerful commands which will become second nature to you after they are learned. At the next meeting Matt Whittlesey will be demonstrating the very popular spreadsheet program, Ashton-Tate's Framework. There is a very informative article in PC Magazine (May 28, 1985) called The Great Spreadsheet Face-Off which compares many spreadsheets, Framework included, on several points. Do a little homework before the meeting and come with all your questions. ============================================================= _ _ MORE CORNEY DEFINITIONS !!!! DEBUG -- What DE FIN in DE Soup DISKJOCKEY -- A very sort man on a very short horse running around in circles at 300 rpm. BAUD -- What you had in your younger years. MODEM -- What the southern gentleman told his son to do to the weeds COMPILER -- The common result of standing too long while computing >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>-<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< _ _ New and returning members this month include: Chuck Bucanan 927-5683 Welcome to all !!! As a users Keith Dills 549-8685 group, we endeavor to help each Sid Findley 543-2027 solve our common computer pro- Rick & Rona Lee 544-2591 blems. Good luck and happy com- Dick Trueman 544-4267 puting. ///////////////////////////////-\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ _ _ This month we have 4 new disks from the PC-SIG group in Sunnyvale # 103 Personal Datebook, Cashflow program, Mailing labels, File management program, & Flitepln. # 104 Sysmenu - menu driven directory program, & Findfile - a file searcher. # 105 Equator/PC TOUCH Educational programs - math, science, finance, and a touch typing tutor. (WOW!) # 106 Jim Button's PC-CALC version 1.0 In addition to the above software several Demo Disks have been addeded to our list. Darrell Bennett was kind enough to supply many of these additions. ** Leading Edge word processing Demo Disk A & B ** Nutshell Demo Disk ** GetOrganized Demo Disk A & B ** Zen Word with sample manual ** Omnifile Information Management System with manual ** Cornerstone by Infocom We have ordered several other programs in response to your wishes. They will be added to our library at a rate of 3 to 4 disks per month. ============================================================= _ _ Congratulations are in order to Kevin Dickey for solving last months puzzle. He found 49 computer related words + a few which the puzzle generated without my input. Who said computers arn't intelligent. To Kevin, who didn't make the meeting, we have 5 floppy disks. Where else could one get 1.8 megabytes of storage space for free. Better late than never, Phil Wagner also solved the puzzle, (unfortunately after Kevin) and by unanimous vote by our enthusiastic members received ONE disk. Boy, are we generous !! All is not lost though Phil, remember the secret message is located on some disk between #80 and #90. This month it's worth 12 disks. We will add 3 disks to this contest thru the 6th month, or until the message is found. Then the contest starts over again. What is the message? It is something quite obvious planted in a program on one of our public domain software disks. We hope it will encourage some of you to take a closer look at our library. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ _ _ We are now an official IBM PC User's Group registered with IBM in Boca Raton, Florida. As an affiliate member, we will receive all the latest press releases of IBM products, access to the IBM PC User's Group Bulletin Board, and their monthly publication, EXCHANGE (25 copies). We received a few back issues of their newsletter last month. There are many noteworthy articles written by both IBM employees and members of other user's groups. This will be a welcome addition to our club meetings. ************************************************************* _ _ Here's a simple program using the TIMER function found in Basic. First type the word BASIC making sure that BASIC.COM is on your disk. When OK comes up type in the following lines: 10 CLS 15 LOCATE 15,22 : INPUT "TIME IN SECONDS: ";T 20 Z=TIMER + T 30 WHILE TIMER < Z 40 WEND 50 CLS 60 LOCATE 15,27 : PRINT "TIME IS UP" 70 BEEP Then type SAVE "TIMER" (ENTER) RUN TIMER ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^***^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ _ _ October 26th Regular meeting November 20th-24th Comdex Fall Computer Show - Las Vegas November 28th Thanksgiving - meeting cancelled December 12th Regular meeting Nov-Dec combined Ward/Smith PC-WRITE December 26th Meeting cancelled ============================================================= _ _ WORDPROCESSORS Wordstar 1,3,4,5,6,7,8,10,13,14,17 PC-Write 3,8,11,17 Easywriter 2 Volkswriter 5,6,9,12 Word 5,6 Perfect Writer 11 Display Writer 12 Word Perfect 13 SPREADSHEET Multiplan 6 Perfect Calc 11 SuperCalc III 14 Eagle Calc 16 DATABASE dBASE II,III 1,3,4,6,89,13,14 PC-File III 3,15 PFS File 14 FINANCIAL Home Accountant 5,11 Managing Your $ 6,8,11,15 Dollars & Sense 10,11 Time & $ 8,15 UTILITIES Prokey 1,3,5,15 Norton Util. 4,6,11,15 Sideways 5,6,12 LANGUAGE Basic (PC,MS) 3,4,11 Pascal 9,11 OTHER Sidekick 1,11,12 Poly Windows 16 TValue 12 ************************************************************* 1 Brown, David 528-8544 2 Bennett, Darrell 546-1211 X55 3 Bowker, Rose 546-2616 4 Morgan, French 546-2701 12 Silva, Robert 544-1441 5 Fruct, Michael 595-2554 13 Thomson, Judy 927-8517 6 Hancock, John 772-9224 14 Trigueiro, Geo 466-4608 7 Meyers, Vern 543-8464 15 Wagner, Phil 544-7328 8 Miklas, Ray 541-5633 16 Whittlesy, Matt 543-7247 9 Monson, Lee 466-4987 17 Wirtz, Erin 434-1801 10 Rohde, John 546-8381 11 Smith, Byron 466-3311 .............................................................