SPACE Newsletter - May 2002

May 2002

NEWSLETTER April, 2002 President's Corner by Michael Current May,2002 Auction this month! And do we mean it! The Club has acquired a rather huge amount of hardware and software, both 8-bit and ST, recently, and it's time to move it out. Bring your cash, and get ready for some great deals. The first SPACE Atari ST/fT/Falcon pd/freeware/shareware CD-ROM has now been completed and should be available through Video 61 & Atari Sales by the time you read this. This is a result of a tremendous amount of effort put forth for the club by several of your fellow club members, including: - Carey Christenson, for the bulk of the real work, transferring thousands of files from ST floppy disk to HD, for burning to CD-ROM, - Nolan Friedland and Steve Peck, for collaborating on the jewel case design and artwork - Lance Ringquist, for agreeing to a generous arrangement for sales and distribution of the CD-ROM; and for being, in my estimation, the.driving force behind getting the project started and completed SPACE is very, very fortunate to have so many dedicated members among us, and in 2002 no less, 20 years since the club was started! Last month's meeting discussion uncovered some uncertainty regarding intellectual property protections, so I offer here a highly-compressed summary hoping it might be helpful. There are three major types of intellectual property protection available through the legal system (some sources include trade secrets as a 4th type): 1) COPYRIGHT - protection of creative expression, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. Copyright protection does not require a copyright notice ((c)), nor is registration with the government necessary, but there are important advantages to both. Copyrights now last for a minimum of 70 years.

Software code is automatically protected by copyright, unless/until the author explicitly releases it into the public domain. "Public Domain" means anyone can do anything with it, without exception. Authors may choose to permit their copyrighted software to be distributed freely while maintaining copyright ownership. Freeware and shareware fall into this category of copyrighted works. 2) TRADEMARK - protect words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that distinguish goods and services. (TM) is used for unregistered but still asserted trademarks, while (R) is used for trademarks registered with the government. Trademarks, unlike patents, can be renewed forever as long as they are· being used in business. 3) PATENTprotection of inventions. Granted by the government upon application approval, and lasts for 20 years starting when application was filed. Last month we also began to discuss a possible two-tiered approach to club memberships. I think the primary reason to consider this is in the case of Bylaw amendment votes, where a majority vote of the current membership is required in order to pass a change. If a significant portion of the membership lives elsewhere in the country or world, this could get tricky. The other issue here was regarding mailing out of DOMs to remote members. I offered to write a bylaw amendment proposal for this issue of the Newsletter, but I will not be doing that this time. I think we need more discussion first, and I don't think we have any reason to rush into a major change along these lines. We'll continue the discussion. Finally, I should report that I've been working hard at adding the missing installments of Larry Serflaten's "Larry's ACTION! Tutorial" series of newsletter articles to the online archive at space.atari.org. All posted issues are now complete, and I now have to scan in two more issues to fill in the remaining gap. Thanks, keep using that Atari, and come to your next SPACE meeting, Friday May 10, 2002.

Treasurer's Report by Greg Leitner For March, 2002

Mother Nature tried to put the damper on our March 2002 SPACE meeting but to no avail. For the eight members who braved the storm, we had one of our most upbeat meetings that I can remember. Even though we had to meet in the conference room due to a groom's dinner in the regular meeting room, the night was very rewarding. It seems that the ST CD-ROM is almost finished. The artwork still has to be done and it looks like that should be happening by the April meeting. Lance brought in a few CD's to preview and I took one home to look at. It seems that most programs run fairly well, but if you have had any prior experience with an ST computer you will know that sometimes you have to try many different techniques to get some programs to run correctly. Sometimes folders have to be made and put in the right directory and sometimes the screen resolution has to be changed. This is not always apparent to the user and not always relayed to in the instructions. Not all programs will have instructions included so you have to play around with these options yourselves and cross your fingers in the hope that the program will eventually run. This is true with a lot of software for the ST so don' t get discouraged by this SPACE CD-ROM if you can' t figure a program out. At least we will have a few ST members who can give their knowledge and help if someone is having trouble with a particular program. Believe me when I say that there has been many times when I have been ready to give up when I try one last thing and it finally works! I will bring an ST computer next month and have it set up to go with the CD-ROM and any member can give it a go. I am sure you will all agree that this disk is well worth the $20.00 that the Club will charge. When you think that members would have paid two or three dollars per floppy, this would have been an expense to the member of about $1,900.00 for what you will get for just twenty dollars.

DOMs Total receipts for March

18.00 63.00

Expenses for March: BBS phone Total expenses for March

10.00 10.00

Ending balance for March 31, 2002

1,039.02

Once again the Club has reached the thousand mark, but it won't last long if I get the billing for the room rental. Still, we have to be very pleased with the way things are shaping up for this year. With the prospect of a very successful ST CD-ROM and our membership count increasing, the future of SPACE has never looked brighter. Please mark your calendars for the April meeting. This could be a'memorable one and I am sure the CD-ROM project will surprise you. It is very expansive and we will never have enongh time to look at everything on this CD-ROM even if we could demo it at the meetings throughout the rest of this year.

Treasurer's Report by Greg Leitner For April, 2002

It sure didn' t take long to get enough items for a SPACE auction. Thanks to two Atarians we have both 8-bit and 16-bit hardware, software, books and magazines to auction off in May. I think this may be one of our largest auctions with over 80 items, and I will throw in a CD and laserdisc player to top it off. Our SPACE auctions are still the number one source of income for the Club and the May auction will be no exception. I expect the Club will have a bank balance of over $1,000.00 by the time the May meeting is over and that is after getting caught up on our meeting room rental for the last six months. Here is the breakdown on the SPACE treasury for the month ended April 30, 2002: Beginning balance on April 1,2002 1,039.02

Once again I have not gotten the fourth quarter room rental bill for 2001 and now we have finished the first quarter for 2002. We actually owe $150.00 for this period of two quarters and I guess I will have to call the Falcon Heights office and ask again for them to bill us.

Receipts for the April meeting: MembershipsI Dorns-6 Total revenue for April 2002

15.00 18.00 33.00

Here is the breakdown for the SPACE bank activity for the month ended March 31, 2002.

Expenses for April : Room rental-six months BBS phone-one month Total expenses for April 2002

150.00 10.00 160.00

Ending balance for April 31, 2002

912.02

Beginning balance on March 1, 2002:

986.02

Receipts for March: Memberships (one renewal and two new out of state) 45.00

As you can see we should have no problem building our treasury back up with the auctions coming up next month and, I know there are membership renewals that should be taken care of next month. With our biggest expense (room rental) paid to date we have a great opportunity of looking at a very healthy bank account, and the new SPACE CD-ROM is almost ready to make it's debut. I for one will be purchasing a copy and I hope the rest of our current ST members will support his/her Club by doing the same. Well, I guess it's only good news this month and every meeting this year has been exciting. I think Mike and I left the meeting last month at around 10:00 or 10:15. Believe me it's most gratifying to come to the meetings and have the participation that we have had. I hope this trend will continue. I haven't seen this much enthusiasm for our Atari's in quite a few years. If you're a current or past member and you get to read this I hope you will make an effort to be a part of this Club. For one night a month and only $15.00 for the year you won't get a better_ deal anywhere. See you all in May.

Picture Needed

Secretary's Report By Brian Little For April, 2002

Hello everyone once again from your Secretary. I've had quite a busy time the past month between the college class I am in, work, spring cleaning, and setting up the new audio end of my home theater (a nice Panasonic receiver that is Dolby Digital, DTS, and Dolby Pro-Logic 2 ready - trust me when I say its VERY nice). Anyway, let's get to the April minutes of the meeting notes shall we .... Mike started the meeting at 7:35 PM CST. Secretary: I recapped news about the CD-ROM artwork situation of last month (Steve not being present the past few months and the decision to allow others to do their own and we'd vote on it in April). The balance is at $1,039.02.

Treasury: Greg noted about 6 DOMs and 3 memberships. Bill for room rental came in for six months, $150 total.

DOM: Side A= Last Star, Blackhawk, Submission, Alpha Shield, Desmond's Dungeon Side B = Lost Tomb, Jungle Boy, Zeta Affair, Blondelle, Karrnie Caverns

~mberships: impord up. minimto myself for the May meeting: BRING MORE PEZ , Y !!! ! Not a good thing to run out in the middle of the '! Joi)

BBS Report: BBS is still up and running. Nolan has been going through all the files that he got from another person, a lot of games he says. He reports about 60 logins this past month and a total of 31 users now. A couple new ones during the past few days came from the Usenet advertising. Old Business: A text listing of the DOM library to be on the BBS was in debate but was decided to drop it after much debate of not wanting to do it. Discussion about the out of state members issue as the amount is starting to grow on and on. One idea is that the local members have rights to vote on law changes and officers, the out of state members would still have rights to buying DOMs but don't have the rights to vote on laws or officers. Mike decided to table the issue until next month. ' CD-ROM Update: Steve and Nolan both completed artwork for the CD-ROM jewel case. After much debate it was decided that Nolan's front and back artwork would be used and Steve's back artwork would be instead the inside work and would be the categories of what is on the CD instead. Plug: As noted last month, the CD-ROM is going for $19.95 so buy one or heck buy many and support SPACE - the GREATEST ATARI CLUB IN THE WORLD!!!! Its worth it for the Space Invaders clone on the CD just by itself. Man was that version just amazing to play. :-) Next month an auction is planned because a LOT of stuff got donated. Meeting adjourned at 9 PM. See you at the May meeting so be there or be square .... Your Secretary, Brian-Angel C. Little

DISCLAIMER

CLUB OFFICIALS President: Michael Current mcurrenl@carleton.edu Vice President: Greg Leitner greglites@hotmail.com Secretary: Angel C. Little angelliltle@msn.com DOM Librarian: Glen Kirschenmann kirschg@netzero.net BBS Operator Nolan Friedland friednw@tcfreenet.org Membership Chairman: Glen Kirschenmann kirschg@netzero.net SPACE Treasurer Greg Leitner gregliles@hotmail.com SPACE Newsletter Editor: Michael Schmidt mike.schmidt@andersencorp.com

(507)663-9029 (651)455-6550

(xxx)xxx-xxxx (763)786-4790 (763)689-3771 (763)786-4790

Published by the Saint Paul Atari Computer Enthusiasts (SPACE), an independent organization with no business affiliation with ATARI Corporation. Permission is granted lo any similar organization with which SPACE exchanges newsletters to reprint material from this newsletter. We do however ask that credit be given to the authors and to SPACE. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of SPACE, the club officers, club members or ATARI Corporation.

(651)455-6550 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (763)757-4192

You can find the Club's home page at:

htJ,p://~ce.atari.org

Saint Paul Atari Computer Enthusiasts {SPACE} meets on the second Friday of each month al 7:30 PM

Articles for Publication must be received by ·the Newsletter Editor two weeks prior to the Club's meeting.

in the Falcon Heights Community Center at 2077 West Larpenteur Ave. Doors open at 7:00 PM. (I)

Gibbs

Museum a:l > D ~ u

Falcon Heights Community Center 2077 W. Larpenleur Ave.

□

SPACE BBS

(I)

tl.O

North

-s:: .5 (I)

BBS: telnet:/ /spacebbs.no-ip.com/ Sysop: Nolan Friedland

Larpenteur Avenue

Supporting: U of M St. Paul Campus

ATARI 8-Bit Computers ATARI ST Comput~rs

S.P.A.C.E. c/o Gregory Leitner

...___ __

3407 78th St E Inver Grove Heights

-----------------

55076-3037

--- _JI--

l1l I I11},I ,I I, 1111, l1l 111111II111111 .. ,111,1 .., 1111,1, l,l 1,l,I