SPACE Newsletter

NEWSLETTER for July, 2003 President’s Corner by Michael Current July, 2003 SPACE is 21! (Have we finally reached adulthood?) Come to SPACE this month to celebrate your local Atari club's 21 years. The party arrangements are all set, to be provided mostly through club funds, and primarily taken care of by Greg. Blimpies subs is the plan, I believe. Thanks Greg!

SPACE home page counter update: as of 6/28/03, 9:30am: 85 hits since June 7, 2003. I moved the web site (a LARGE project!) so I started a new counter. Thanks, keep using that Atari, and come to your next SPACE meeting and birthday party, Friday July 11, 2003.

Treasurer's Report by Greg Leitner For June, 2003

I heard Red was at the May meeting. Welcome back once again! If you're reading, I'm hoping that you remembered your offer to return to the North Country with the rest of the back files of old SPACE newsletters. I would still dearly like to see the oldest issues, and to learn much more about the early history of the club. And to eventually scan every issue to place them all online for the web site for the whole world to search through.

This was a first for me. Only four SPACE members were present for the June meeting and I am sure the beautiful weather had a lot to do with it. I can't remember anytime since I became a SPACE member when the turnout was so poor. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come. We really need all our members’ support to make this Club effective.

At the June meeting I shared my personal news. I have been appointed to the faculty as Assistant Professor, with a working title of Government Information Public Services Librarian, in the Library Department at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. I will be moving from Northfield MN to La Crosse WI in the next few weeks. As a result, after the July meeting it is unlikely that I'll be able to make SPACE meetings very often at all because the drive would be so long.

As if this bit of news was bad enough, Mike Current has just landed a new job in LaCrosse, WI. We congratulate Mike and wish him much success, but where will the Club be without our leader? I will fulfill my elected duties and takeover the President's role when Mike can not make the meetings, but I do not have any desire to run for President when the November elections are upon us. So I am asking all the current SPACE members to come to the July birthday meeting and help us sort out the Club's future. Mike has indicated that he will be at the July meeting but after that he is not sure.

So this presents the club with some things to work through. In the short term, I'm confident your Vice President can ably handle the meetings until the next election in November. Or, if there are volunteers, perhaps the Executive Board can seek to appoint an interim club President? I am very interested in remaining a member of SPACE, in keeping the web site for the club, and in keeping the newsletter archive, but only if this is okay with the membership. I'm afraid it will no longer be practical for me to remain SPACE President.

Not much to say about the bank activity for the month of June except we did sell two dom's for a whopping total of $6.00. There were no expenses paid out for the month so our balance at the end of June is now $1,164.52. And since we have this healthy bank balance it was decided that the Club would pick up the tab for the July birthday bash. I will bring the pop, sub, potato salad, chips, plates and forks, and Glen is going to bring ice cream. Anyone who wants to bring cookies or the like would be greatly appreciated.

My new email, by the way, is hunmanik@earthlink.net. SPACE has been in existence for 21 years, outlasting virtually all Atari computer clubs anywhere in the world. Be proud, and come celebrate this month! The club can continue to have a bright future, with your support and participation.

I sure hope we have a good turnout for the Birthday meeting. I hope to see you all there, and bring your wives or a guest. There will be plenty of food. See you next month.

Secretary's Report By Brian-Angel C Little For June, 2003

Since Brian could not make the June meeting I am submitting the report on his behalf, Greg. The June 2003 SPACE meeting began at 7:40 PM. The May minutes were not available since Brian could not make the May meeting and Nolan took the minutes in his place. Since Nolan could not make the June meeting the members that were present tried the best we could to recount the activity from the May meeting. I gave the financial information for the period beginning and ending the month of May and stated that the bank balance was currently $1,158.52. I also reported that the City of Falcon Heights still had not billed the Club for the rent for the first six months of 2003. This would total $150.00 and bring our bank balance down to about $1,000.00. Glen presented his dom for the month and it contained quite a few basic game programs. We had lots of fun trying to play one that didn't have instructions and after quite a while we finally figured it out. Glen gave the membership count of seventeen, which is no change from last month. Since Nolan was not present we did not get his BBS report for the month but we understand that his web page was running successfully. No old business to discuss but there was new business. An ST user wanted to know if the Club was interested in buying a large number of her commercial games. I had e-mailed her back and said we would not buy them but if she wanted to donate them then the Club may pay the postage to get them here. I suggested that if she wanted to sell them then E-bay would be her best bet. I asked her to e-mail me her decision but she hasn't done so, and I guess the case is closed. Atari Video Club is holding and event called the Video Game Summit in Lombard, IL, and they wanted to know if the SPACE Club had any interest in attending and displaying. We thought that maybe Lance with his business would be interested so Mike was going to e-mail him the info. Mike Current, President of SPACE has announced that he will be starting a new job in August. Unfortunately for the Club he will be working in LaCrosse, WI and will have a 2-1/2 hr. drive to get to meetings and then the same time to get back home. He didn't think this was very feasible so it looks like we are going to pursue a new President when the Fall elections are held. We congratulate Mike on his new job and wish him all the best, and at the same time we would really, really miss him. I hope someone out there has the ambition to take on the job, and in the meantime I will assume the role as President when Mike cannot make the upcoming meetings. We talked about the meal for the Birthday party in July and we decided on Blimpie subs. I will pick this up along with most of the fixings. All we really need is for the members to show up and participate in the fun. Glen has volunteered to bring ice cream and if someone else brings cookies or other

dessert we should be all set. Bring a guest. That's about it for the June meeting and we ended at about 8:15 PM. ************************************************** --Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 12:43:22 -0700 --From: Kevin Savetz The folks at atariarchives.org are thrilled to announce that the full text of Atari Roots is now available on the Web. Published in 1984, Atari Roots is perhaps the best guide to Atari 8-bitassembly language ever written. The site includes the full text of the book, plus downloadable software and source code, at: http://www.atariarchives.org/roots/ This is the 16th classic computing book to be made available at atariarchives.org. -Kevin Savetz Curator of Classic Computer Magazine Archive http://www.atarimagazines.com & Atariarchives.org http://www.atariarchives.org Moderator of news:comp.sys.atari.announce - Atari computer news ************************************************** A-T-A-R-I Answers-Tips-and-Relevant Information by Paul Alhart, paulalhart@hotmail.com 1987.6 Summer is almost here. School will be out soon and many of us will be leaving on vacations. Let's not forget our Ataris though. Take some time and write that program you have always wanted or pack your modem along on your vacation and explore "Foreign Bulletin Boards". Who knows, you may make a new friend or find some GREAT software. Don't forget to tell them about the Atari Federation either. We can all benefit from sharing information with other people and groups. For all you "Hackers" I have a surprise challenge coming your way. You could win MONEY-PRIZES-FAME & FORTUNE. Be sure to be at the June meeting to get all the details.

************************************************** NEW YORK, NEW YORK -June 19, 2003 -In little more than a month on store shelves, Atari's Enter The Matrix has sold through 2.5 million units in North America, Europe and AsiaPacific (excluding Japan), making it the 14th -- and fastestselling -- title/franchise in the Atari catalogue to

cross this sales threshold.

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Enter The Matrix joins the following Atari titles/franchises which have surpassed sales of 2.5 million units: Driver, RollerCoaster Tycoon®, Civilization®, Monopoly®, Test Drive®, Unreal®, Dragon Ball Z®, V-Rally", Backyard Sports", Deer Hunter®, Tonka®, Putt Putt®, and Freddi Fish.

--From: Mark Watson --Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 20:23:58 GMT

"Having a hit title right out of the box is enormously gratifying but seeing the steady worldwide demand for Enter The Matrix is even more compelling," said Bruno Bonnell, Chairman and CEO of Atari. "We have a long history of multi-million selling games, and our experience tells us that titles with this level of sales success typically have a long shelf life. From what we have seen to date, Enter The Matrix is right on course. Enter The Matrix is a third-person action game that parallels Warner Bros. Pictures' and Village Roadshow Pictures' action blockbuster, The Matrix Reloaded, the second chapter in the Wachowski Brothers' revolutionary film trilogy. The game hit stores May 15 in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific for the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, the Xbox" video game system from Microsoft, the Nintendo GameCube and the PC. Enter The Matrix will be available in Japan on June 19.

Anyone here want to play with Atari 8-bit games on a handheld console? If so you may be interested to know I just released the first version of my port of the Atari800 emulator to the GP32. Take a look at http://www.scrameta.net for more info. Many thanks to the Atari800 authors for a fantastic emulator:-) Thanks, Mark ************************************************** --Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2003 07:10:49 -0700 --From: Kevin Savetz The team at AtariArchives.org is pleased to announce that the full text of the best-selling book _The Second Book Of Machine Language_ by Richard Mansfield is now online at http://www.atariarchives.org/2bml/

Developed by award-winning Shiny Entertainment (an Atari studio), Enter The Matrix is a revolution in interactive entertainment, a game that effectively blurs the line between Hollywood blockbuster films and next-generation video games. The game is directed by and features a script written by the Wachowski Brothers, writers/directors of The Matrix movie trilogy, creating the most intensive collaboration between a video game publisher and a movie studio to date. Enter The Matrix includes approximately one hour of neverbefore-seen footage -- shot exclusively for the game -- using the actors, sets and crew from the blockbuster film, The Matrix Reloaded. In addition, the game features an hour of cineractives, directed by the Wachowskis and rendered within the game engine to help tell the epic story of Enter The Matrix. About Atari New York-based Atari, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAR) develops interactive games for all platforms and is one of the largest third-party publishers of interactive entertainment software in the U.S. The Company's 1,000+ titles include hard-core, genre-defining games such as Driver, Enter the Matrix, Neverwinter Nights, Stuntman, Test Drive®, Unreal® Tournament 2003, and Unreal® Championship; and massmarket and children's games such as Backyard Sports, Nickelodeon's Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer, Civilization®, Dragon Ball Z® and RollerCoaster Tycoon®. Atari, Inc. is a majority-owned subsidiary of France-based Infogrames Entertainment SA (Euronext 5257), the largest interactive games publisher in Europe. For more information, visit www.atari.com.

Published in 1984 by Compute! Books, this classic book is the sequel to _Machine Language for Beginners, another of Mansfield¹s best-selling titles, which is also available on the Web site. The Second Book Of Machine Language walks readers through the creation of LADS (Label Assembler Development System,) a sophisticated assembler written in machine language. It includes examples and program code for Atari, Apple 2, PET/CBM, VIC-20, and Commodore 64 computers. This is the 17th classic computing book to be made available at AtariArchives.org. Like all books at the site, it is available with the gracious permission of the author. --Kevin Savetz -Kevin Savetz Curator of Classic Computer Magazine Archive http://www.atarimagazines.com & Atariarchives.org http://www.atariarchives.org Moderator of news:comp.sys.atari.announce - Atari computer news