NEWSLETTER Homebrew Computer
Contents
1. amp speech recognition e Business systems using home computers e Computer driven amp computer assisted music systems e Computers amp amateur radio e Computer graphics amp video art e Hardware amp software design amp implementation e Personal computers for the physically disabled Standards for hardware interfaces amp software e Manufacturer tutorials on explicit systems Workshops for club leaders retailers NL editors etc Quick Write for more details Computer Faire Box 1579 Palo Alto CA 94302 over please2. VELOCITY WAS 135 FT SEC s L AND YOU HAD 13 UNITS OF FUEL LEFT GO TO 1300 1100 WRITE TYPEs1200 1200 FORMAT CRUNCH YOU HAVE JUST BECOME THE MOON S NEWEST CRATER s 1 s YOUR FLIGHT PAY WILL BE FORWARDED TO YOUR WIDOW GO TU 985 1300 WRITE TYPEs1400 1400 FORMAT LIKE TO TRY AGAIN READ TYPEINs 1500 ANSWER 1500 FORMAT 1A4 IF ANSWER NE NO GO TO 500 STOP 1600 CALL RAND RNUMs5sSEED L lL RNUM 5 1041 IF L 100 LE 100 GO TO 1800 WRITECTYPE 1700 L 1700 FORMAT DETERIORATION IN MAIN THRUST UNITIty YOUR MAX 1 NOW s13s FT SEC GO TO 830 1800 WRITE TYPEs1900 1900 FORMAT YGUR THRUST UNITS HAVE FAILED COMpLETELY GO TO 830 2000 STOP c Go TU 1190 Gu TO 970 YOU HAVE LANDED SAFELY s YOUR t 1313 FT SEC WITH 13 5 UNITS OF PRAY GO TO 650 Y N BURN IS END Homebrew Notes STANDARD PORT ADDRESSES Ed Hall has compiled a list of 8080 ports in use by various manufacturers Since new products are introduced every day this list is probably not complete To update the list notify Gordon French at 325 4209 between 7 and 9 pm GODBOUT ECONORAM II Econoram II 8K boards with the 4K group split switch can be made to run in machines with no front panel by cutting pin 12 of IC10 phase 01 clock When the machine in question is the Cromemco Z 2 pull unprotect S 100 pin 20 up to 5 V Those intending to wave solder the Econoram board should leave the DIP switch off and hand solder it in
3. a game that teaches something about computers as well as being fun Then try Computer Rage First of all it uses three dice but they re binary dice so you can move from 0 to 7 spaces per turn There are priority interrupts restricted use input and output channels power failures program bugs and branch points Your objective is to get your three programs shaped like miniature disk packs from the input to the output weaving through a maze of program steps check points I O queues interrupts and decision points The game comes with a large 19 by 19 colorful board 12 playing pieces 3 binary dice 38 interrupt cards rules anda booklet describing how to use the game as an educational tool Computer Rage is available for 8 95 postpaid from System compatible peripherals include a CRT terminal pa per tape reader punch serial and parallel interfaces a hard copy printer and a cassette player recorder O interfaces additional memory and supplementary software packages are also offered For more information write for the Com puter Information Package from the Heath Company Dept 360 26 Benton Harbor Michigan 49022 Creative Computing P O Box 789 M Morristown NJ 07960 ZOL Updates 8080 Systems To Z 80 CPU HUH Electronic Music Productions has announced the avail ability of several new personal computing products The first is the ZOL modification kit designed to upgrade a Processor Technology SOL 20 to a Z
4. later Uranus Has Rings Too We don t know what this has to do with personal computing but did you know that at least five rings all in a narrow belt 4400 miles wide have been observed circling the planet Uranus They were observed from the Kuiper Observatory a highly modified C 141 aircraft for astronomers The C 141 flew over the southern oceans for enough south to be well within the shadow of Uranus and far enough into the Earth s night hemisphere to be above any clouds and to see occultations of the rings on both sides of the planet posi tions not possible from any single ground based obser vatory The scientists who discovered the rings suspect that the rings are composed of material present during the formation of the solar system It is theorized that material either never coalesced into moons or is the remnant of moons that have disintegrated 00 03 PTC Cromemco IMSAI System I O 04 09 Cromemco Tuart OE OF Cromemco Dazzler 10 11 12 Cromemco Cyclops 30 3F Cromemco Floppy Disk 40 Comemco Bank Select 50 59 Cromemco Tuart 6E 6F Tarbell 7D 7E 7F Digital Research CPM AF Heuristics Speech Lab CO Ci ICOM Floppy C8 Processor Tecnology VDM 1 E0 EF Computalker FO FF Processor Technology SOL Ports PTC STC MUSIC PACKAGE Members have received the package and report that it works well Gordon French spent seven hours entering 110 bars of the Mozart Clari net Concerto He has put the s
5. nor conventions except that it is conventional for each designer to start out with tabula rasa instead of building on the work of others in the field And there is as yet no market pressure the ones clamoring for standards are not those who are about to buy a system but those who are aleady locked into something In fact to date the market pressure has been away from stan dards as everyone rushes out to buy the newest and most innovative products Yet for all the innovation standardization is not precluded Look at all the innovations that plug into the de facto stan dard S 100 bus Perhaps all we need is a little more care or caring on the part of the designers so that before making irrevocable design decisions they ask themselves Why am making this different than Have bothered to examine the other widgets out there to see if my ideas are adaptable to some existing standards If changed the design to be more compatible does it seriously hamper the value of the in novations or does it merely wound my pride Finally let me remark that standards and compatibility are serious issues not only for the hardware designers but also the software designers recently had the opportunity to look over the specifications for a new operating system for the 6800 The designer specified a6 byte monitor service call for system functions He had carefully thought out what he considered to be the optimum interface and perh
6. sugar please and at 6 45 the bath water will be running At 6 50 the stereo will come on to wake me with soft music and if I m not up within 10 minutes a blaring buzzer will remind me that I ve got to be sitting behind a desk in Silicon Gulch within the hour But the real beauty of a computer controlled system is that the computer will know when Saturday has arrived and that if get woken up at 6 50 in the morning somebody s plug is going to get pulled The S 100 controller board 149 and ac remote controller 79 kits are available now For more information contact Gary Muhonen Mountain Hardware P O Box 1133 Ben Lomond CA 95005 Phone 408 336 2495 Colossal Computer Cartoon Book Gosh Gee whiz Holy Moley Someone has finally done it and collected all the jokes jibes and cartoons about the world of computers Would you believe 15 chapters ranging from car toons about robots to computer dating to computers in everyday life Daily Data to computers in the office Key punch Lines to the inevitable malfunctions A full page movie ad for the Fortran Monster scary Four noted car toonists are highlighted each with their own section namely Dave Harbaugh very droll Paul The Robot and the Pro fessor Swan Sandy Dean and Al Johns We didn t count them but there have to be several hundred cartoons from ha ha to droll to punny to sophisticated The Colossal Computer Cartoon Book is available fo
7. 7 issue of the Newsletter David G Krauss sent a Souped Up Luner Lander program in Basic After looking over the program Tom Smith president of the hobbyists club in Omaha set out to do a Fortran version Tom checked the program on a larger commercial computer since he did not have a small system with Fortran capability FORTRAN l 3 4 2 4 7 a 9 10 ll 12 13 14 15 14 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 C 33 34 C 35 36 lv SIURCE LISTING 06 23 77 PROSKAR LUNAR LUNAn LIFEBOAT DIMENSION RNUM 5 INTEGER Ty Vals Fs Babs TYPEs TYPEINs ANSWER JAT TYPE 4 sTYPEIN 4 sNO N sSEEU 37584381 2B 0 IRITEC TYPES 190 100 FUR AT DO YUU WANT INSTRUCTIONS TYPE YsYES N NN 101 REALCTYPEIN 200 ERR 101 NDs2000 ANSWER 200 FORE AT IAG IF ANSWER EQ NU GO TO 500 WRITE CTYPE 300 WRITE TYPEs310 WRITE CTYPEs 220 WRITE TYPEs 330 WRUTE TYPEs 340 WRITE CTYPE 350 WRITE C TYPEs 300 300 FOR aT WHILE FLYING A LOW ORBIT MAPPING MISSION NEAR THE MOON ls s YOQUR CRAFT HAS HIT A FLYING WOMBAT 210 FOR ATC CAN AVIAN MAMMAL NATIVE TO THE AREA s s YOU ARE SAFE 1 INSIDE YOUK EJECTED SURVIVAL CAPSULE 320 FURMAT WHEN YOU DISCOVER THAT YOUR AUTOMATIC DESCFNT COMPUTER s 1 s IS JAMMED FULL OF WOMBAT FEATHERS AND HAS FAILED 330 FORMAT YDUR MAIN THRUST UNIT IS FALTERING BUT YOU MAY GET DOWN 1 SAFELY 340 FOR AT TO SAVE THE CAPSULE YOU MUST LAND AT LESS T
8. 80 CPU The kit allows a Cro memco ZPU board a 4 MHz CPU board to be installed into the SOL mainframe The kit is supplies parts pc board and instruction manual The price is 29 95 The other products are software supplied on CUTS Com puter User s Tape System compatible cassettes CUTS cas settes may be directly loaded into SOL ZOL or into any other computer with a CUTS cassette interface installed Current ly HUH offers the complete line of Cromemco software including ROS Control Basic and a Z 80 monitor ROS Resident Operating System is a program development tool for Z 80 machines It consists of a complete assembler Zilog compatible and text editor It also provides systems functions such as display modify verify and move memory as well as the ability to program 2708 type EPROMs using a Cromemco Bytesaver board ROS resides in 8K of memory and is supplied with a user s manual Price is 40 Strange Names roen reing Names are becoming an interesting part of the personal computing scene Naturally Apple is at the core of things Recently a computer store ad appeared for Strawberry Elec tronics in Belmont CA Computermania will take place Aug ust 25th through 27th at the Boston Commonwealth Pier Bamug is a computer club meeting in Hayward And come to Control Basic is an extended version of Dr Li Chen Wang s Palo Alto Tiny Basic see Dr Dobb s Journal Vol 1 No 5 Features include multiple commands pe
9. 978 National Computer Conference to be held June 5 8 in Anaheim CA You may partici pate in the following ways write a paper for review prepare a demonstration prepare a short talk or send us your ideas on interesting topics Detailed NCC guidlines for participation should be available from Mr Stephen Miller Conference Chairman SRI 333 Ra venswood Avenue L1109 Melo Park CA 94025 or Dr Leonard Liu Program Chairman IBM Research Lab K51 282 5600 Cottle Rd SU CA 95193 THE NEWSLETTER is made possible by your donations Please remember that we must pay for labels postage production and printing Donationscan be given to Ray Boaz at the club meetings or sent to P O Box 626 Mt View CA 94042 GET THE NEWSLETTER Anyone in terested in computers as a hobby may receive the Newsletter by sending a request to the Homebrew Computer Club Newsletter P O Box 626 Moun tain View CA 94042 The Newsletter is distributed monthly at club meetings and is also mailed to individuals whoare unable to attend the meetings FOR SALE Ten cubic yards of twoand five ply NCR teletype paper NCR paper is carbonless We have about 3300 rolls of the stuff This is avery thin paper and seems to last forever more or less Prices for two ply are 11 per carton for 1 9 carton 8 for 10 cartons forfiveply it s 8 per carton for 1 9 and 6 for 10 cartons or more For more than 10 cartons we ll deal We will accept cash naturall
10. H 45419 Don t forget Personal Computing 77 at the Shelburne Hotel Atlantic City NJ 08401 Dates are August 27th and 28th with over 150 exhibits and 60 hours of seminars The Digital Group has released a new flyer which consoli dates flyers 1 9 into a well organized 32 page product infor mation catalog A user group is also announced and called JUDGE Joint Users of Digital Group Equipment A news letter will be published for 12 pr year Write to JUDGE Editor c o DGSS Inc P O Box 1086 Arvada CO 80001 A copy of the flyer may be obtained from The Digital Group P O Box 6528 Denver CO 80206 Compact Microprinter Centronics Data Computer Corp has introduced a compact high speed low cost microprinter The microprinter pro duces copy on aluminum coated paper by discharging an electric arc to penetrate the coating which is less than one micron thick Toners ard ribbons are not required The printed characters unlike those resulting from thermal printing are impervious to light temperature and humidity In additon the finished printed page may be reproduced on most office copy machines The miroprinter has a print speed of 240 characters per second and costs 595 For more information contact Centronics Hudson NH 03051 Phone 710 228 6505 Robert Rellivigui apie kd Seales caged a a E coh Editor In Chief Cel Se oe OPT O ITEE he Tee Managing Editor PORN ENAA 35 paps GAG 3 aa oie adn aha ORR E datas al
11. HAN 2 FT SEC ly s TO SURVIVE YOU MUST LAND AT LESS THAN 5 FT SEC 350 FURMAT CAPSULE INSTRUMENTATION IS OK AND WILL TFLL YOU WHERE 1 YOU ARE 360 FORMAT REMEMBER 1 GOCD LUCK GRAVITY WILL ADD 5 FT SEC TO YOUR DESCENT s s 500 CALL RANO RNUMs 5s SEED L RNUM 1L 10425 WRITE TYPEs550 L 550 FORMAT YOUR ENGINES ARE CAPABLE OF A MAX BURN OF 13s FT SEC o U9 INITIALIZE DATA TsTIMEsHsHEIGHTsVeVELOCITYsFaFUEL LEFT Tel VeRNUM 2 75 75 H R UM 3 3004200 F 120 WRITE TYPEs600 600 FORMAT MANUAL DESCENT MODE ENGAGED s s TIME HEIGHT VELOCITY 1 FUEL BURN s s SEC FEET FT SEC LEFT 650 WRITE TYPEs700 TsHs VF 2B 700 FORMAT 14s17s3Xs 16215215 IF F EQ 0 0R L EQ 0 GO TO 820 750 READ TYPEIN 800sERR 750 END 2000 B 800 FOR AT I3 LeLIMIT OF BURN BeBURN P20 IF t GT L BaL c 1F F LE O 820 IF 100 LE 100 B 0 Fzf P TsT4L VsV 5 B H H V E PNUM 4 12 IF E LT 9 AND E GT 6 GO TO 1609 c E DETERMINES THRUST FAILURE B30 IF F LE O Gi TO 950 IF H LE O AND V 100 LE 95 IF 4 LE 0 AND V4100 LE 98 IF HeGT 0 GO TO 650 850 WRITEC TYPE 900 VoF 900 FURMAT CONGRATULATIONS L VELCGCITY AT TOUCHDOWN WAS 22 FUEL REMAINING GO TC 1300 950 WRITE TYPEs960 960 FORMAT y O0UT OF FUEL FeO IF H GT O CU TO 1100 970 WRITE TYPE 960 980 FORMAT YOU HAVE MADE A CONTROLLED CRASH YOU ARE ALIVE 1 BUT THE LANDER IS DAMAGED AND YOU ARE STRANDED 985 WRITE TYPEs990 VsF 990 FORMAT YOUR CRASH
12. NEWSLETTER Homebrew Computer Club Revolutionary Remote Controller sci muer Two Homebrew Club members Dan Sokol and Gary Muhon en have designed a revolutionary new controller system for S 100 bus computers The key feature of the system is that no new wiring need be strung between the computer and remote controller the system uses the existing 110 VAC wiring already present in the location The system essentially consists of two elements an S 100 compatible controller board that plugs into the computer motherboard and an ac remote controller that operates the intended device A 4 wire cable connects the S 100 control ler board to asmall epoxy wall receptacle box that resembles a calculator charger The wall receptable box holds a small printed circuit board that contains a transformer and a few other components The computer transmits and receives signals through the receptacle box The receptacle box is located at the 110 VAC wall receptacle to keep 110 VAC off the controller board in the computer The signal generated by the S 100 controller board goes through the wall recep tacle box and is impressed onto the 110 VAC waveform for reception anywhere within the local wiring system The second part of the system consists of the ac remote controller The ac remote controller contains the decoding circuitry two relays two 110 VAC receptacles and a line cord The ac remote is simply plugged into the wall and one or tw
13. RST West Coast Computer Faire in Byte Interface Age Kilobaud Personal Computing etc held in San Francisco last April 13 000 People 200 Exhibitors 100 Speakers over 320 pages of published Conference Proceedings Well WE RE DOIN IT AGAIN he SECOND West Coast Computer Faire will be held in The Brand New Convention Center in San Jose in the middle of Silicon Valley the south end of the San Francisco Peninsula expecting a 10 000 15 000 People 50 100 Speakers 150 190 Exhibitors MARCH lt 4 J 1978 9am 6pm 9am 6pm Noon 5pm That s right after Compcon concludes in San Francisco AND AGAIN The THIRD West Coast Computer Faire will be held in The Huge Los Angeles Convention Center expecting a 12 000 16 000 People 60 120 Speakers 180 250 Exhibitors OCTOBER ko e DO ERS 9am 6pm Yam 6pm Noon 5pm YOU Can Be A Part Of It Talk about your latest project Exhibit homebrewed system Organize amp chair Conference Section Write now for speaker s instructions Prizes for best homecooking Help gather speakers you want to hear Conference talks will be published just like an old county fair Assure the Conference has topics that interest you Talks to be included in the published Conference Proceedings must arrive by January 2 1978 in the required format Some of the Conference Sections being planned e Tutorials for computer novices e Personal computers for education Speech synthesis
14. SAI or Altair front panel can be replaced so information is displayed in the convenient hex format WANTED Singer Friden Talcott disk drives We will buy drives from you or will make yourdrive operational for you Nick Hurd 415 657 2666 Computers And The Stock Market am interested in forming a group to compare notes and gather information on the use of computers and timeshare services to follow price changes in the stock market know people are out there who are interested in this will volunteer to act as a clearing house and help plan get togethers Contact Jim Finnell 760 S Saratoga Ave Z101 San Jose CA 95129 Phone 408 249 7977 M16 NEWSLETTER planned Send materials and suggestions to Fred Holmes M16 Newsletter 101 Brook bend Court Maudin SC 29662 Send a stamped self addressed envelope if you want a copy MICROMOUSE Computer Field Ser vices Is your computer being alouse Are its parts all over the house When fairy tales are all you hear to fix the beast call Micromouse Contact John V Volkborn Microcomputer Systems House 450 San Antonio Road Suite34 Palo Alto CA 94306 FOR SALE IMSAI assembled kit as is never used 8080 1 22 MB sockets 600 PIO 4 4 with cables 150 PIC 8 100 three RAM 4 boards 100 each P T C assembler firmware ALS 8 350 Earnest Alejandro Phone961 9623 after 7 pm Call For Participation You are invited to participate in a 1
15. aps he was right But it flew in the face of the existing conventions which all used 3 bye subroutine calls Thus the new design locks out all other software and lock in the users to his company s products The customer is not informed of this incompati bility until it is too late It isnot that the job could not be done in a compatible fashion only that the designer did not care In the last HCC meeting heard that the IEEE is trying to get some standards efforts applied to problems in micropro cessors will be watching this with great interest and may even stick my thumb in if they let me In any case will try to keep you posted hope can give you a balanced view of the standards problems between my opinionated rantings If you have any comments please let me know It is only with the open exchange of a diversity of ideas that we can come up with viable standards DETEN 3 aean Heath Introduces Line Of Personal Computers The Heath Company has introduced a new product line designed around two new computers the H8 and H11 The H8 is an 8 bit computer based on the 8080A It features intelligent front panel with octal data entry and display anda resident monitor with built in bootstrap for one button pro gram loading The H11 is a 16 bit machine using the DEC LSI 11 with 4K of memory a built in backplane and regulated switching power supply s Computer Rage Tired of Monopoly Aggravation and Sorry Looking for
16. core into the Homebrew Library Artist s conception of the rings around Uranus seventh planet from sun a billion miles beyond ringed Saturn Old Chips Simplify Hex Readout n sree Most of you have seen various circuits for displaying hexa decimal readouts on 7 segment displays LEDs etc The circuits use a combination of gates the 7446 7 segment decoder ROMs PROMs and other complexities For a num ber of years Farichild has produced two 7 segment de coder drivers that display in hex without any extra circuitry Not only do they display in hex but they also contain a 4 bit latch to freeze data The pinouts are identical to the 7446 except that the Lamp Test input LT is made into an active LOW Latch Enable input EL The 9368 can be used for driving common cathode LED displays such as the FND70 FND500 501 MANS 4 etc It sources 18 mA of current at 1 7 V does not require any series resistors and has active HIGH outputs The 9370 can be used similarly except for common anode LED displays and incandescent lamps The 9370 sinks up to 25 mA and can sink up to 40 mA but is not guaranteed at this level The 9370 does require current limiting resistors for LEDs but not for incandescent lamps The hexadecimal decode format produces numeric codes 0 through 9 and alpha codes A through F using the upper and lower case fonts as shown With just six of these devices all the address and data LEDs on an IM
17. e a Graphics The Newsletter is published monthly by the Homebrew Computer Club P O Box 626 Mountain View CA 94042 Vol 2 Ilssue 19 August 17 1977 nomenon 7 ensues Standards And Conventions tom pnma In an infant industry like ours the standards dispute occu pies a peculiar role The people using the systems and particularly the people trying to use more than one system at a time are crying Let s have some standards while the people building these systems appear to want nothing to do with standards say appear because some of the diversity we see is not intended to work against standardization it only turns out that way Perhaps a parable will make the problem a little clearer When you buy a rubber stamp be it a date stamp a Paid stamp or whatever there will be a flat spot on the handle if it has around handle If you hold it with the flat spot facing you the stamp will imprint with the correct orientation if it faces away the date will be up side down Well almost always bought one with the flat spot on the wrong side Because it was a cheap model there was no way could reverse that handle so it would work in the conventional manner Since the date stamp gets used more than the others soon the dates were right side up and everything else was up side down The upshot is that now all of the rubber stamps in the house have their handles on backwards call this a parable because it makes
18. ee ann oe ene ene lt r Standards And Conventions Tom Pittman Heath Line Of Computers Nie MRN ERRNO REN on Gade idee hic tenis Apis sosocete tt tek n ena aan OMe Nee eek Seer onai ZOL Updates Systems To Z 80 UNMET avacatstacaescccchsceretsstteasere cc orerer EOE IETT T Souped Up Fortran Lunar Lander PUIViG ery Or NOIOSE Z SOSA TES TT RS SO NS Le el ete vad Mow FN eerie 55 Uranus Has Rings Too Old Chips Simplify Hex Readout cric Breeze Bulletin Board 7 Hee Lip Homebrew Computer Club Seh e e ee eee e EA Where And When cu meetings The Homebrew Computer Club meets at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center Auditor ium Dates scheduled for August are the 17th and 31st For September the dates are the 14th and 28th The dates and location are subject to change However if a change does occur every effort will be made to provide advance notice in the Newsletter 30 eg Newsletter P O Box 626 Mountain View CA 94042 E first class L M BAKER DPT OF BIO SCIENCE STANFORD UNIVERSITY STANFORD CA 94309 please post or circulate or itian Available for immediate delivery CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS of the largest convention ever held Exclusively Devoted to Home amp Hobby Computing over 300 pages of conference papers including Topte headings with approximate count of 7 x10 pages Friday amp Saturday Banquet Speec
19. g Box 626 Mountain View CA 94042 WANTED New Product Ideas If you have a new hardware software idea or prototype that can be sold to the American consumer household con tact me immediately Now starting a company for national marketing of new consumer microcomputer products My background is in finance mass marketing and organizing new ven tures Ted H Hoffman 745 Shelter Creek Lane San Bruno CA 94066 415 588 2716 FOR SALE Minifloppy drive and 10 diskettes Unused Shugart SA400 drive with 10 SA104 mini diskettes single hole and 16 long 3M dual drive signal cable with connectors paid 40 forthe cable and 436 for the Shugart drive and diskettes a total of 476 Will sell for 400 or best reasonable offer Pete Cornell Box 1290 Los Altos CA94022 phone 415 948 8269 SOL USERS GROUP If you own or have ordered Processor Technology s SOL computer please send your name address and phone number and ideas to Bill Burns 4190 Maybell Way Palo Alto CA 94306 IF YOU HAVE INPUT to the Newsletter send it in and it will be published as quickly as possible The editors cannot promise that everything sent will be published All manuscripts must be typed double spaced and carefully proofed All listings and diagrams must be as easy to read as possible In This ISSUEC contents Revolutionary Remote Controller soei miter Colossal Cartoon Book Random Data robert Reiling eS Reo CO lt i a a E nn
20. hes 16 Entrepreneurs 6 Tutorials for the Computer Novice 16 Speech Recognition amp People amp Computers 13 Speech Synthesis by Computer 14 Human Aspects of System Design 9 Tutorials on Software Systems Design 11 Computers for Physically Disabled 7 Implementation of Legal Aspects of Personal Computing 6 Software Systems and Modules 10 Heretical Proposals 11 High Level Languages for Home Computers 15 Computer Art Systems 2 Multi Tasking on Home Computers 10 Music amp Computers 43 Homebrew Hardware 8 Electronic Mail 8 Bus amp Interface Standards 17 Computer Networking for Everyone 14 Microprogrammable Microprocessors Personal Computersfor Education 38 for Hobbyists 18 Residential Energy amp Computers 2 Amateur Radio amp Computers 11 Systems for Very Small Businesses 5 Commercial Hardware 8 plus Names amp addresses of the 170 exhibitors at the Computer Faire Order now from Proceedings 12 00 11 95 plus a nickel if you prefer Computer Faire Shipping amp Handling 68 Write for shipping charges ouside U S A Box 1579 a El opi gt SSE ly Palo Alto CA 94302 ifornians es Tax 415 851 7664 Inside Califonia 13 40 Pavment must accompany the order An 872 x 11 Softbound Book 77 1 10 by Computer Faire BOX 1579 PALO ALTO CA 94302 o00 415 851 7664 over please please post or circulate EST COA UTER You read about the FI
21. o electrical devices such as lights plugged into the two receptacles on the remote box The digital word transmitted over the 110 VAC wiring is decoded by the remote and if the word is intended for that particular ac remote one of the two lights is turned on or off Both channels of the dual channel ac remote controller are capable of supplying 500 W Not only can two electrical gadgets be controlled by the ac remote controller but the entire system is bidirectional the computer polls all channels and knows what devices are on or off The entire system is immune to false triggering several circuits ensure that even if there is a transient on the line the ac remote won t actuate The system is easily pro grammed in a number of ways including Basic Future plans include a single channel ac analog remote controller a dual channel temperature indicator a controller for the Apple I system a multi channel digital indicator for burglar alarms and a real time clock board with battery back up that measures time from 100 microseconds to 10 000 days Applications for this system are obviously endless and range from simple home applications to complex industrial controls For example would love to be able to set my computer to wake me up in the morning by the following process At 5 30 am the computer would crank up the heat in the house so it would be warm when get up At 6 30 my machine will start the coffee perking Hal black one
22. r 5 95 postpaid from Creative Computing P O Box 789 M Morristown N J 07960 ee Random Data Robert Reiling Users groups develop as fast or even faster than computer systems A few months ago the SOL group started and it is now formally organized as SOLUS SOL Users Society For information write to Bill Burns 4190 Maybell Way Palo Alto CA 94306 Now a group has been formed for people interested in the Commodore PET 2001 computer Deliveries of the PET are scheduled to begin this Fall The first year membership fee is 5 and will include the User Notes publication For infor mation write Gene Beals PET User Group P O Box 371 Montgomeryville PA 18936 Ohio Scientific Inc has issued their Small Systems Journal Vol 1 No 1 which should be of interest to OSI owners and others with 6502 systems This issue is 19 pages and includes articles on using the 6502 assembler the auto load cassette system etc A one year subscription is 6 Write Ohio Scien tific 11679 Hayden St Hiram OH 44234 Another publication has just been released called Personal Computer News and is published by check this carefully DataNation Publications It is billed as Covering the entire affordable computer field Twelve pages are in the charter issue with sections devoted to product evaluations software courses etc Subscription price is 9 You may be able to get a sample compy from Personal Computer News P O Box 425 Dayton O
23. r line extensive out put formatting including hard and soft terminal widths numerical field width tabs overprinting decimal or hex output string input and output with arrays automatically dimensioned input and output commands for direct 1 0 control etc Control Basic requires only 3K of ROM or RAM and HUH has added CSAVE and CLOAD to the existing 43 commands This program is compatible with both 8080 and Z 80 systems and the cost is 40 The Z 80 monitor fits in 1K of memory and allows the user to display verify move and modify memory locations program EPROMs display and modify all registers set up to five break points etc The monitor is supplied in two versions one for ZOL I O and the other for S 100 bus machines Also included is a user s manual and a source listing Price is 25 For more information contact HUH Electronic Music Productions P O Box 259 Fairfax CA 94930 Phone 415 457 7598 think of it Homebrew always turns on the postman The Digital Deli computer store is now operating at 80 W El Camino in Mountain View Field service is available from MicroMouse 450 San Antonio Rd Suite 34 Palo Alto CA And don t forget about Parasitic Engineering More nifty names next month if you send me some unusual ones you have discovered comers Cf semmeren 0a Souped Up Lunar Lander Now In Fortran More interest is developing in the use of Fortran by users of personal computer systems For the June 8 197
24. several points First standards serve a purpose not so much of defining what is right or wrong but to provide a convention that we can get used to so that we can use things out of habit The ability to relegate activity to habit frees the mind for other activities and makes such activities relatively accessible to more people How many people would type if every keyboard were different Second note that the same factors that affect learning primacy and frequency also control the setting of stan dards The date stamp got more use so its peculiarity dom inated MITS was the first to provide personal computing on a large scale so the Altair bus developed into the standard On the other hand audio cassettes were never swamped by a single recording format so there was little motivation to adhere to any standard Actually the situation is a little more complex than that but primacy and frequency play the biggest parts Third it often turns out that one anomaly can subvert an entire standards effort While the national standard if you will has the flat spot on the rubber stmap handle facing you in my house it is the reverse All because one lousy cheap date stamp was put together backwards see this same process happening in out industry Almost two years ago a committee met in Kansas City to define a standard for audio cassette interchange Many controllers were designed to this spec but because of its low data ra
25. te and bit density most of us consider is unsuitable for local bulk storage Enter Tar bell which has a KC compatible operating mode but is also capable of a much higher data rate and bit density Unfor tuneately the higher data rate recording mode has some serious shortcomings when used for interchange But in stead of the more reasonable approach consisting of KC standards for interchange and Tarbell for local data storage we begin to see a strong movement afoot to make the Tarbell recording format the interchange standard Witness the ar ticle in August Kilobaud p 18 titled this column Standards And Conventions because the two are related more than they are dissimilar think the major difference between the two is that standards are more formal than conventions and therefore more widely respec ted think it is conventional for rubber stamps to have the flat spot face the user it would be a standard if the Govern ment or some other ruling body such as ANSI they have their thumbs in a lot of pies said this is the way to do it There is no law that says rubber stamps must be made that way unless there is some regulation affecting ther Federal pro curement channels but that does not affect most of use but the rubber stamp makers do it anyway Perhaps they have discovered that by appealing to habitual behavior their product is more widely accepted and sells more In our case there seems to be neither standards
26. y or a good check or we are willing to horse trade Bob Mullin Joe Gaunthier 1980 National Ave Hay ward CA 94545 phone 415 782 0600 People liked the circuit idea last ish so we would like to continue publishing ideas on a more or less monthly basis However we need input so pleasesend in your ideas When preparing your idea keep the following requirements in mind We are limited to a single page so keep the idea or application relatively simple Illustrations should be large clear and include all the information a person will need to build the circuit A brief explanation should accompany the circuit to describe its operation and any other pertinent details include graphs and tables where necessary Keep it short and to the point All text must be legibly written preferably typed doub le spaced Please include your name and phone number where you can be reached during the day on all pages If you have any questions call Joel Miller at 415 962 3372 FOR SALE Tom Smith amp Dave Storla have one inch paper tape in 1 000 foot rolls It s NCR green and lightly oiled 10 per 30 roll case or 2 per box of 5 rolls 1 discount to club members Shipping costs must be paid by purchaser Contact Tom Smith 2708 Calhoun St Bellvue NE 68005 OSISYSTEM Information Exchange am currently building an OSI system and would be interested in exchanging info with anyone of a similar bent Write Bob Reilin
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