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Issue # 19
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a weekly journal devoted to the Apple II family of computers
Sunday, March 3, 1996 – issue 19 – II.Smthg.960303
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Contents
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- About…
- Editor’s Greeting
- Letters
- Do It In Software – Spectrum as a BBS Host – delayed!
- Webfind of the Week – Jeanne Chappell’s Home Page
- The Wire Service – Alta Vista
- The Wire Service – What’s going on?
- So High I Can’t Get Over It So Wide I Can’t Get Around It
- Too Much TV? – episode 1, sequel to the miniseries
- Updata – the readership
- Updata – Internet Email Subscriptions to II Something
- Wish List – Audio CD Track Launcher
- Coming…
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About…
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As you know, Apple Computer, Inc. owns all of the Apple II computer copyrights and trademarks, including their names.
II Something is offered as freeware – copyright by Clark Hugh Stiles. Intact distribution of the entire file is acceptable using online services, including BBSes, or via user group DOMs provided there are no commercial sales. Individual articles may be reprinted in user group publications only, provided the following paragraph (except for the opening and closing quotes) is included at the beginning or end of the reprint:
“This article originally appeared in II Something, a weekly journal devoted to the Apple II family of computers, copyright by Clark Hugh Stiles. It has been reprinted by permission. All trademarked names and phrases mentioned belong to their respective owners. Send email to CHStiles@Delphi.Com or C.Stiles3@Genie.Com via the Internet, or newsletters, disks, products for review, gifts, or bribes to Clark Hugh Stiles, Box 46, Comstock Park, MI 49321-0046.”
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Editor’s Greeting
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We’ve reached the first issue of March 1996 and I’m still using my Apple IIGS. No, I didn’t say Mac IIGS. In this issue II Something tells about a new II-oriented WebFind of the Week, tries to rationalize constant weight gain, has an unbelievably practical Wish List, and a more germane Glossary file in the archive. I do very little whining, but being the sharing kind of person that I am, include lots of detail about my life this week. Of course, I could be making all of it up, but who would make up something that boring? Before you doze off, be sure to read the important stuff.
On March 17 at 7 to 9 PM your editor is tentatively scheduled to be a guest on the Genie Real Time Conference. The subject will be Apple II publications, and I’m hoping that the real Apple II publishers are there as well as yours truly. I think I have to pay to be there, so you certainly don’t have any excuse. I’d love to see you there.
I think I found this somewhere on GS Worldview – if you’re interested in getting a 65802, send email to Andy Werner, st2975@siucvmb.siu.edu (the 65802 is pin compatible with the other 8 bit chips like the 6502 and 65C02, but has a much larger instruction set. It has been used as a replacement in TransWarp IIe accelerators).
If anyone can sell me a few extra hours a day which I can use at my convenience, you know how to get hold of me. I’ve been spending way too much time fooling with paint programs and making up desk inits. This week’s is a virtual realization of the Finder NDA idea from a Wish List published here some time ago. Next week’s is also done, but all I’ll say about it is that it coincides with next week’s Wish List. Can’t tell you what it is now, but the fact that I’ve been working ahead has to be a good sign.
So why can’t I have the Spectrum Host part 3 done, anyway?
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Letters
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[ It is surprising that no one has complained that I reprint email here in II Something. Then again, I don’t exactly send copies to everyone, which is a common and very fair practice. I may have to start doing that. Luckily for all concerned, most of my email remains private. ]
Updata: II Something subscriber and AppleByter editor Nancy Crawford had written that the Scaryland website had to do with Richard Scary, the children’s book author, but I noticed in Circuit City that his last name is really Scarry, so that site is more than likely not related to children’s books. Regardless, why can’t he have a normal name like Dr Seuss?
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Do It In Software – Spectrum as a BBS Host – delayed!
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My apologies to those who downloaded for that reason (although I did put a cautionary note in the long description). I’ll pick it up next week right where I left it. Today just didn’t work out – my dad went into the hospital with pneumonia and that took priority. The hospital is just a few blocks from here and my mom is staying here so she doesn’t have to run back and forth to Coopersville.
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Webfind of the Week – Jeanne Chappell’s Home Page
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http://www.primenet.com/~momkat/
Jeanne Chappell’s Home Page is a great place to go for Apple II links. One of them was the Washington Apple Pi site (last week’s WebFind). I think I found my way here from the GS Worldview links, but I have a permanent case of Internet blur. Here’s a quote from Jeanne’s page to tell a bit more about it:
“For Christmas, 1978, we acquired our first computer – a 16K Apple II Computer with a tape recorder for input. My son, Glenn and I were in hog-heaven. We sat down together and wrote our first major computer program using Applesoft and actually ran out of memory! We soon upgraded the computer with 16K more of memory costing us $100. We have been devoted to Apple computers through the years: Apple II upgraded to an Apple II+, Apple //e, several Apple IIGSs and Macintoshes. Glenn and I have written a complete set of business programs for our small business – first written in Applesoft with 3 – 5.25 floppy drives on an Apple //e and now written in Micol Advanced Basic using an accelerated Apple IIGS, Hard Drive and Floptical drive. I continue to upgrade the programs.
“I am the President of the Kansas City Apple II Users Group, Apple Bits Users Group (ABUG) and Sysop (System Operator) of the Apple bits Users Group BBS – phone (913) 385-0249. The ABUG BBS runs on an accelerated Apple IIGS, US Robotics Sportster 28,800 Modem and 330 Mb Hard Drive – running Future Vision 4.1b5 under Metal 1.09.07. The ABUG BBS has a variety of Message Boards, Private E-mail, Graffiti wall, Voting Booth and a growing number of Downloadable Apple II/IIGS and Macintosh Software.”
Okay, so I like conversation-like personal information. This is a nice little site for Apple II Internet surfers. Quite a number of real sites are listed, most significantly the commercial ones.
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The Wire Service – Alta Vista
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http://www.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/query/
Joe Kohn featured this site in the most recent Shareware Solutions II. It doesn’t do any good to use this site from (at least) Delphi’s Lynx text browser, but graphical web browsers are available to some of you. Digital Equipment introduced and sponsors this service. I managed to grab one thing off here that could be useful for those who have their own homepages:
“Do you use Alta Vista often and would like to access it even faster? Steal it! Simply cut the following paragraph of HTML and paste it to your home page.
"Search the Web Usenet and Display the Results in Standard Form in Compact Form in Detailed Form
The result: Search the Web Usenet and Display the Results in Standard Form in Compact Form in Detailed Form"
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The Wire Service – What’s going on?
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Dave told me that Microsoft is backing off on their online service. EWorld has already decided to become just another Internet website. This is a shakeout I guess. The weird part is that it’s not necessary.
Some people say that no one has figured out how to make money on the Internet. That is not correct. The companies (almost all of them small ones) who provide local access do make money. Because the Internet is basically all the same regardless of who provides it, there are what Econ 101 calls “good substitutes”. Ultimately the only companies who will remain are those who offer the best service. The substitution factor also means that there is no economy of scale, which is a fact that the big players seem to have missed.
To reiterate, the way for the “traditional” online services to survive is to offer access to the Internet on a couple of different levels. The first level would be to offer a free website which can access the member homepages. The homepages would be maintained by the members, who would be paying a monthly fee for their memberships, and also for the privilege of having homepages on the Internet. Naturally, they could not be charged extra for that, because maintenance on a homepage requires time, and also they’d be aware that the service uses the homepages to attract two levels of subscriber.
The second level of access would be to rent access to their full service (downloads and all) to local Internet providers, which simplifies the billing for the online service and helps the local provider attract users. Having the free access to homepages is a method of advertising to end users and to local Internet providers. It is an incentive to end users to join the online service rather than the Internet provider, because they can see that there are more things available there.
The number of online gateways available would become one of the competitive areas among local Internet providers. Online services would not be able to offer exclusive territories (at least not at first) because of the nature of the Internet. As a few large companies gobble up the local Internet providers, it may become possible to do that, but from here it looks like a form a suicide to attempt it.
A summary of the billing structure above is as follows: the online services bill their end users directly, and bill various local Internet providers for access; the local Internet providers bill their end users by the month, by the hour, or whatever they usually do; eventually independent services will lease rather than sell their unique services to both the online services and to local Internet providers (and these independents will begin as local providers and as powerful homepages).
A summary of the services above is as follows: the online services offer their end users full Internet access, plus all the normal databases, forums, and other services they’ve always provided, AND personal homepages that are open to the Internet; the local Internet providers offer full Internet access, leased access to various online services, and personal homepages; small, independent services offer unique online resources, but do so commercially (unlike the various free sites offered by institutions of governments and universities as well as corporations).
According to me, a year from now, AOL, Prodigy, Genie (now under new management), and Delphi will be around. Compuserve at least is believed to be for sale, and was not included in the previous sentence because I would not be surprised to see some acquisitions, and Compuserve is the one most likely to be sold to one of the other current players. I think it likely that Delphi’s new owner would jump at the chance to grab some market share by acquiring Compuserve if H&R; Block decides to sell it.
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So High I Can’t Get Over It So Wide I Can’t Get Around It
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My official weight (Friday, 3/1/96) was 195 pounds. My goal was 184.25 pounds. I’ve decided to adapt the goals for this new starting point, i.e., next Friday’s will be 193. I got an abdominizer a week ago and as soon as I start to use it that should make some difference. Had I weighed in after lunch I’d have been in a jam – Sue had a birthday and a group of us went to the Rhythm Kitchen Cafe for lunch and had a “Texas” sheet cake back at the office.
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Too Much TV? – episode 1, sequel to the miniseries
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The Q episode of Star Trek Voyager was the first and so far only good episode of that series. I was very impressed, and I’m not a huge fan of the Q character. The emissary episode of Deep Space Nine was pretty good (fell asleep about twenty until). The X-Files was a rerun of one of the best episodes of that series, “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”. Oddly enough, there is a no reference to Richie Valens during the Clyde character’s reference to the small plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie, and the Big Bopper.
During the past two weeks I’ve been listening to volume one of a series of CDs taken from unreleased material by the late Tommy Bolin. Right now I’m listening to “The Richie Valens Story” CD, which coincides with Richie’s postage stamp. It contains a number of demo versions of Richie’s songs and a fifteen or twenty minute narration track by Bob Keane, who was Richie’s discoverer, producer, and manager.
In a way, it’s appropriate that this budding rocker’s material is frozen in time. He didn’t get to accomplish much, but no one can say how much he would have accomplished. Perhaps he’d only have that handful of records and then dropped off into one-hit-wonderland. On the other hand, most people live and die without leaving any long lasting monument. He died just as his promise had begun to flower. To paraphase Tom Lehrer, by the time Richie Valens was my age, he’d been dead 21 years. He didn’t survive to become a guest on a “Where Are They Now?” episode of some daytime all-talk show.
Of course, he WOULD still be alive. Oh weird. I just got to the live track and during the opening patter Richie said “I’m gettin’ old.”
The really cheap new CD I got (the new local Circuit City opened yesterday) is “What’s In A Name” by Rodney Dangerfield. It’s a CD reissue of an old title, but I don’t know how old. It cost $4.95, it was old, and yet the silly bastards that run the label saw fit to include one of those ridiculous and useless hologram stickers.
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Updata – the readership
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While on Genie on 2-27-96, I noticed that the 2-25-96 issue had been downloaded 32 times already. I’d like to thank A2 Tony for doing such a great job verifying my uploads in a timely manner or (in the case of A2 DES, which by the way I obtained from the Nova Scotia site) letting me know what happened.
Genie users who would love to see what their beloved editor has done in the past might like to take a look at some horribly out of date and VERY Quick ‘n’ Dirty utilities uploaded quite some time ago.
14644 BASIC.LOVER.BXY X T.ZUCHOWSKI 910205 16380 39 40
Desc: 64 filetype tags for Basic.System
14673 PRO.LOVERS.BXY X T.ZUCHOWSKI 910207 21420 31 40
Desc: Edits filetypes of ProSel Programs
14674 OTHER.LOVER.BXY X T.ZUCHOWSKI 910207 21420 16 40
Desc: Edit BLU, CopyII, Squirt16 filetypes
Number: 14644 Name: BASIC.LOVER.BXY
Address: T.ZUCHOWSKI Date: 910205
Approximate # of bytes: 16380
Number of Accesses: 40 Library: 40
Description:
"Lover" is a filetype editor that enables you to rename any filetype. Contains docs. Originally uploaded on 11/8/88 by C.STILES1, it has been re-uploaded in BXY format. Archived with Shrinkti 3.2. Keywords: filetype editor,filetypes,file type editor
Number: 14673 Name: PRO.LOVERS.BXY
Address: T.ZUCHOWSKI Date: 910207
Approximate # of bytes: 21420
Number of Accesses: 31 Library: 40
Description:
Pro.Lovers is a collection of programs that allow you to edit the filetype tables of Glen Bredon's Cat.Doctor, Info.Desk, Find.File, and Block.Warden programs. Includes docs. Note version numbers for compatibility before using. Originally uploaded on 12/29/88 by C.STILES1, it has been re-uploaded in BXY format. Archived with Shrinkit 3.2.
Keywords: prosel,lovers,filetypes,filetype changer
Number: 14674 Name: OTHER.LOVER.BXY
Address: T.ZUCHOWSKI Date: 910207
Approximate # of bytes: 21420
Number of Accesses: 16 Library: 40
Description:
This is a collection of files that allow you to change the filetype of BLU 2.28, Copy II+ 8.3, and registered copies of Squirt 16 1.0. Test on copies of your programs! Originally uploaded on 1/6/89 by C.STILES1, it has been re-uploaded in BXY format. Archived with Shrinkit 3.2. Keywords: lovers,blu,copy II,squirt 16"
If I were to do these now (I’d love to have the time to try that) I’d make a single program that could edit all of the utilities, and include version checking to avoid any, uh, problems. It would recognize various versions of the programs and just reject out of date ones.
1988? I was online back then? Hard to believe.
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Updata – Internet Email Subscriptions to II Something
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This week’s issue went out at exactly the right time to everyone on the newly expanded list. I sent it out in Binscii format, so that it was just necessary to UnBinscii it (using publicly available utilities) to obtain the entire archive. At least one of the subscribers didn’t know what that was and thought something was wrong, so I plan to resend it. Dave wondered why I didn’t just send it as text, and in his case that would be more appropriate, since he no longer has access to Shrinkit (of course, Dave could buy the Mac version of Balloon).
Another subscriber has a Clone box, but there is a Mush-DOS utility to handle SHK archives. If there is demand for that, I’ll hunt that up. I am NOT the author, and I’m not sure I’ve tested it. Look on the PC forum of Genie.
It’s not too late to be added. I’ll accept Internet subscribers until I let you know otherwise. The only reason I’ll ever have to stop is if I end up kicked off Delphi and Genie. Hmm. Hate to consider the odds of that happening.
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Wish List – Audio CD Track Launcher
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If the Direct Marketing Association were involved in the Internet, we might be able to send email to them and the junk email would stop. Right now the traditional online services have a financial incentive (called “survival”) to rent member lists to any wormlike critters that can ooze out from under rocks along that ever changing information superhighway. This would make a pretty good Wish List item, but c’mon, we live in a real world.
My real wish is for a better CD Remote NDA, and for an Init, FExt, or FST (whichever is needed) that can recognize audio CDs as volumes. On a Mac (here he goes again) an audio CD looks like a CD-ROM icon on the desktop, and when opened reveals a window containing icons of the individual tracks, numbered, and launchable. The launching just loads the track in like an audio-only Quicktime file and plays it right from the desktop. This would be a good feature for Playful. Of course, it might require more hardware and therefore would make more sense as part of the SoundMeister package (for example).
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Coming…
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The Spectrum host script series will be an ongoing thing. I haven’t even looked at the XCMDs that may be available to help accomplish this so there may be even more to come than you or I know. When completed, I’ll start to write a caller front end that uses Spectrum scripts to automate and prettify the interaction, and that is bound to create more need for revision to the host scripts. It should be fun.
In coming weeks I plan to review various pieces of commercial, shareware, and free software that is available. WebFinds, Wish Lists, Wire Services, and who knows what else will keep coming.
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II Infinitum
