SLO BYTES PC User's Group Newsletter April, 1989 What's New Last month our early meeting started at 1:30 p.m. with our President George Campbell (alias Dr. DOS) presenting one of his newest shareware products, Microtext. If you're near-sighted and want to conserve on paper, this is the program for you. Microtext does exactly what the title implies, it puts approximately 4 pages of text on a single sheet of paper. Drivers are present of the Epson FX series and IBM Proprinter. If you're printer doesn't have superscript then you're out of luck with this program. George finished up the early meeting by fielding questions from the audience. Concurrently, the BASIC language SIG was taking place in Fisher Hall 465. If you want to learn programming this is the place to go. After a short break, Bill Roach, owner of Elliam Associates, demonstrated DOS HELP!. This is a great inexpensive method of learning DOS. Either run it in RAM or from a disk and look up any DOS command you wish. It has a comprehensive menu and is now available for DOS 4.0. Attendance was down at our last meeting, probably due to indecisiveness of Executive Systems to demonstrate their software product, HOT. After their original commitment, they had to search high and wide for a member of their firm to demonstrate the product and never could quite find them. I wonder who does their product support? Next month is a different story. We have Scott Sedlik, Marketing Manager of Reference Software in San Francisco, demonstrating Grammatik III. Now here's a program for everyone who writes, especially me. It corrects grammar, checks your writing style, and changes punctuation where needed. And with the new additional utilities package, it will do this while in any wordprocessor. The utilities package has just been released and we should be one of the first to see it in action. Because of our location, it is difficult to get speakers from other cities. So it's up to all of us to show Reference Software we appreciate their time and effort for this presentation by filling the lecture hall with members. Additional advertising should bring many new faces to this meeting. Check out the disks we're adding to the library for the month of April: A:COPY README.* LPT1 by Pat Farley, SLO BYTES PC User's Group Lt. Col. Wilber Lawsen (USAF Ret.) tells us our nation's defense department is using computer games more and more in training the fighters and flyers of the future; "Why, today the games are so realistic," he says, "they can simulate almost any battle situation. My men use TANK COMMANDER on Mondays, FALCON on Tuesdays, F-16 on Wednesdays, and HELICOPTER PILOT on Thursdays." When we asked him about Fridays, he said, "Oh, that's LEISURE-SUIT LARRY!" Our local police department is looking into the idea of putting on-board computers into their large fleet of police cars. But station mechanic Arnie Debbler says, "Before they can install one of them though, I want to make sure they're cruiser-friendly." I understand that police chief Lowell Wingate got some bad news from his local service station: it seems that the computer in his brand-new European sports car was not mechanic-compatible. Local newspaper social editor Nancy Peabody says our lifestyles are undergoing yet another subtle change: Invitations are being sent out with a post-message to "RSBF", instead of "RSVP". She says it means, "Respond soon -- by Fax!" Yesterday I overheard three women talking about their lovers: The first said, "Mine's a poet; he's very sensitive and gentle." The second said, "Mine's a wrestler, and he's really aggressive when I want him to be." The third said, "Mine works for IBM. He sits on the edge of the bed and tells me how good it will be when I finally get it." Professional duck hunter Harvey Lumpkin says there is no truth to the rumor that a group of national gun enthusiasts is getting together with a group of university computer hackers to develop the first assault computer -- the PC-47! My neighbor, Carl Bask, just opened his real estate office in his reconverted garage. He says, "I don't think my dog, Floyd, likes it when I do my sales work on my computer...ever since he realized that "number crunching" has nothing to do with eating". News From Our Library #317 ZIPKEY - a Zip Code directory and Keyboard inhancer #318 ZIPPHONE - Cross-reference Zip Codes with phone area codes and prefixes. Requires hard disk. Use with #317 and cross-reference any phone number to any zipcode and any town name in the USA. #319 Gardners Delight - here's two programs just in time for the spring planting. TGA is the gardners assistant. Plots garden plantings, harvests, number of mouths to feed, etc. PLANTMAN is a landscape plant manager. Like having a Sunset Gardening Book on disk. #320 QMODEM Ver 4.0 - Program disk. Qmodem now includes automatic script generation, host mode, and more. Requires hard disk. #321 QMODEM Ver 4.0 - Utilities #322 QMODEM Ver 4.0 - Utilities and documentation (over 250 pages) #323 Poporui including PrintMaster graphics (Business, Fantasy), REC_TAPE & VIDEO3 for wanting to catalog records, audio and video tapes. #324 MICROTXT - you want to save printer paper? Prints 4 pages on single sheet of paper. SAYTIME & SAYDATE - together, these programs will tell you the time and date through your computer speaker. (these 3 programs written by George Campbell) And if you think you are hearing things or you can't read the fine print created with MICROTXT, try DRINKS, an electronic bartender. Bits 'n Bytes * Thank you to all those who have volunteered to type articles from other newsletters for me. * Perhaps many of you wonder how we get all the free magazines for your use in the library. These are donated by Cuesta Systems in San Luis Obispo. They design and manufacture uninterruptable power supplies for computers. Pick up their product literature at the next meeting. * June in our biannual "swap meet". Get your used computer hardware and software ready for sale. * I just read a short article of Intel's new i486 chip. In a couple years the 386 will be past tense. An 8088! What's that? * Poly Royal is this coming weekend. Drop by the computer department and check out their equipment. * Please note on your address label the membership expiration date. I try and highlight these the month your's expires. Prompt payment would be appreciated. No, we're not broke, but if I delete you from the membership list and then you reinstate two months after expiration, I have to reenter all the data. GRIPE, GRIpe, Gripe, gripe, always complaining! * As many of you modem enthusiasts know, our BBS is very busy with heaviest use occurring weekday evenings and weekends. I find 6-9 am & 4-6 pm weekdays a good time to try. Weekends???? Take your best shot. * We have 35 copies of IBM's Personal Systems Journal, issue 2 available at the meeting. They will be at the front desk starting at 2:30. I would like to make sure those members with a PS/2 get a copy. If you own a PS/2, call me before the meeting and I will hold back a copy for you to pick up that Sunday. I will not hold copies if you can not attend. Remaining copies are free on a first come basis. I will see about increasing our allotment of this journal from IBM. Calendar May 7th Scott Sedlik, Marketing Manager of Reference Software will demonstrate GRAMMATIK III & Utilities. June 4th Semi-annual swap meet. Speaker to be announced. Treasurer's Report The following accounting is given by Teri Sorgatz, SLO BYTES treasurer on April 20th, 1989: Beginning Balance: $1298.90 Deposits: $459.55 Dividend: $20.57 Expenses: $354.17 Ending Balance: $1425.25 FLOPPY DISK DATA RECOVERY TIP Capital PC Group Monitor (from February, 1989 Palm Beach User's Group Newsletter) A Co-worker of mine brought in a floppy disk the other day with a problem that some of you may have run into before. Someone had started to format the disk before realizing it was a good data disk. The guilty party aborted the format and gave the disk to my co-worker to recover a particular DBF file, if possible. (Really,this wasn't my disk, although, I've done my share of similarly stupid things, as I'm sure you have). I usually use CHKDSK or Norton Utilities for recovering data. But in this case the boot sector, FATs and root directory had been wiped out (filled with hex F6s) by the aborted format. This prevented me from using the Norton unerase feature. I was able to probe around with Norton Utilities, however, to see the F6s in the first cylinder or so, and also see that the DBF data was still intact. I discovered something that I'm sure has been found by many others before. The problem was to restore the boot sector, FATs and root directory. Even an empty directory would be OK. A deleted directory entry could be inserted and Norton unerased could then be used (manually, not automatically) to restore the data. There had to be an easier way to do this than recreate the sector data byte-by- byte with NU. I didn't have the patience that medieval monks must have had when copying manuscripts. Besides, computers are supposed to have relieved us of that sort of painstaking effort. I was a little puzzled at first, that FORMAT hadn't started off by creating the FATs, etc. It occurred to me that the formatting process must wait until the end to do this. So I thought, why not start formatting a scratch disk, then wasp it with the corrupted disk at the end (using Ctrl/NumLock to pause processing)? I dutifully tested this out with a pair of scratch disks waiting till the format was at cylinder 39 to halt processing, you need DOS 3.X for the head and cylinder count). The test worked and so did the next attempt with the corrupted disk. I created a one cluster dummy file on the disk, then deleted it (the file was well within the zone of the original aborted format), then used Norton to unerase manually to recover the DBF file. This procedure does trash out part of the last disk cylinder (unless you are very good at guessing when to press Ctrl/NumLock). But since that's the last place DOS gets around to placing data, it will usually be no problem. There must be cleaner ways out there of doing this type of recovery, but this method works and it was fun to figure out. HOW TO LEARN A NEW PROGRAM By Ralph H. Swerdlow, M.D. Sacra Blue, No. 54, Jan. 1987, Sacramento PC Users Group (reprinted from MONTEREY BAY USERS GROUP - PERSONAL COMPUTER newsletter, February 1989) There are two types of questions that are asked of me quite often. Most frequent are those concerning specific problems with specific software. These, in general, are easy to answer. The most difficult type of question to answer is the one that asks, "What is the best way to learn?" The asker of the question is not always the novice computer user, but is often an experienced person who has acquired a new program and wants to rapidly learn, with minimal effort, his new software. This does not imply laziness, but only the desire to employ the new program as soon as possible. My first response to this question is always the same, "there is no royal road to learning." After the pallor leaves the face of my questioner, I do outline a system that I believe is the most time and energy effective. Perhaps you have just obtained a new program and want to learn how to use it in the least time, as well as being comfortable with what it does. Here, then, are my suggestions and recommendations. * Leave your computer off, and carefully read the preface or introduction in the documentation that came with your software purchase. Pay particular attention to what is said about the purpose of the program. * Many of the newer programs have a fast, or easy, introduction to the program. Read this carefully and work the examples thoroughly. This will establish the ground work on which you will later build a sound understanding of the program! * Use the program to do something simple. This will give you a feel for the program. * Now the hard part. Start on page one and read each page through the end of the documentation. There will (or should) be multiple examples, and each one is important. Do them and try to learn the principle that is being made. There is absolutely no need to memorize the rules at this point. It is a waste of time and energy to try to do so. * While doing your reading, start to seriously use the program to do what it is designed to do. You will start your learning curve by making errors, solving problems as they arise. This technique gives you the knowledge of the program without the necessity (and futility) of memorizing the program. * Continue to read the documentation and use the software. * When you have finished the reading, put the documentation aside and use it for reference purposes only for several weeks. * Now read the documentation again, starting at page one! You will see many things that did not make an impression on you the first time you read the explanations. This is the most important aspect of learning the program rapidly and effectively. Each of us best learns new facts by reading, trying, and rereading. This guarantees that what you learn will be best used and most effectively remembered. Most of us will be comfortable with a new and complex package within twenty to thirty hours, or several weeks, depending on how much time is spent learning the program each day. Perhaps this is longer than some would like to spend on this project, but in the long run, the knowledge gained will make using the program more effective and precise. Some simple programs can be learned in a few hours of study and practice, especially if the menus and organization are intuitively easy to grasp. Of all the suggestions I may give, I am sure the best is to reread the documentation from cover to cover once you have learned the program. Of course, there are many additional ways to sharpen your understanding of a complex program. Joining a SIG (Special Interest Group) will give you the opportunity to discuss techniques with others who use the program regularly. There are multiple specialized books available, ranging from simple to very complete reference volumes, that may be purchased in a computer bookstore. Look through these books and find one or two that supplements your grasp of the program. There are computer magazines that specialize in specific types of software, and most general computer magazines have articles which discuss aspects of complex programs. These journals are an excellent way to increase your understanding of the program. And last but not least, ask for assistance from someone who knows the program. Most people will be glad to help. Remember: "There is no royal road to learning!" TERMINAL PROGRAMS THAT TALK BACK By Tom Randall RAM PAGES July/August 1988 Fresno PC Club, Fresno, CA) Note: Tom Randall is a blank student at Fresno State University. A junior majoring in history, he has been involved with computers since 1982, and has been telecommunicating since 1985. How can a blind person telecommunicate? Here he is to tell you himself. I would imagine that most modem users have never really considered how a person who is blind or visually impaired might participate as a member of the BBS community. Most people probably know about voice synthesizers, devices which make computers talk, but telecommunications adds a few little wrinkles of its own when trying to operate a terminal program. The best way for me to explain how a talking terminal program works is to give a little history. In the fall of 1985, I had my Apple IIe equipped with my Echo speech synthesizer, and I decided to try to get into telecommunications. I was in for a surprise. When I got my Hayes Micromodem in, I tried to start up ASCII Express, a very popular telecommunications program for the Apple. I at once discovered that it wouldn't work with my speech synthesizer due to some kind of conflict with the way the program displayed text to the screen. Fortunately, before I could despair and sell my modem, I heard of a program called TALKING TRANSEND. As the name implies, it is a talking version of the TRANSCEND communications program for the Apple. I acquired a copy and proceeded to telecommunicate. You might think that I would have been totally and permanently satisfied with the TALKING TRANSEND program. I had what had been impossible to have with the Apple, a telecommunications program that talked. However, TRANSEND had some problems. First, it was completely menu-driven. If you find menus slow to look at while they are appearing on your screen, believe me, they're a lot slower to listen to. Also, the keyboard routine was very sluggish. It would take maybe a quarter of a second for a character to be spoken when it was typed. Also, it was necessary to wait until the speech synthesizer was finished saying the character before typing the next one. This was really inconvenient for things like "apostrophe." The last thing that proved to be a problem was that TALKING TRANSCEND had no standard protocols for transmitting files. It used its own proprietary protocol. Having said all that, I have to say that TALKING TRANSEND is not a bad program. It got me started very nicely. In the late fall of 1987, rumors had it that a new talking telecommunications program was coming out, the replacement of TALKING TRANSEND; it was going to correct most, if not all, of TALKING TRANSEND's problems. The program was called TERMTALK, and for once the advertisers were not stretching the truth at all. TERMTALK has menus for those who want to use them, and command keys for those who like them. The keyboard is buffered, so a suer can type as fast as he/she can without fear of outrunning the voice. TERMTALK also includes a text editor, something that is very handy to have. In fact, this article is being typed with TERMTALK's editor. These are only the most obvious features, but since I am not writing an advertisement for the producers of TERMTALK, I will leave it at that. So much for the evolution of talking terminal programs. Now to a few things that I have found interesting and/or just plain bothersome about some BBS's that I use. One thing that might come to most people's minds would be those little bars and boxes made up of stars or dashes that BBS authors seem to like to put in there. It would be odd to hear your computer say "star star star" forty or so times every time you logged onto your favorite system. Fortunately, any talking terminal program worthy of its title has some way to avoid this. One thing which can be really a problem is material that is presented in column format. The reason this is a problem is that most voice synthesizers read from left to right on a line. Therefore, it two columns start coming up, the heading of each column will be read, the left one first. The columns are then read off line by line in the same way. These problems seem to happen quite a bit with the help screens of Fido-type systems. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to this last problem. The only one that is usually available is to use whatever screen review capability there is to manually read each column. The effectiveness of this method will vary, depending o the length of the text, and the quality of your screen reviewing capability. Of course, it is impossible to cover all topics in a short article. Any questions can be left to user #31 on the West Coast Edition BBS (432-7265).