January 2008
NEWSLETTER for January 2008 President’s Corner by Michael Current January 2008 It was cold outside, but it was a warm night at the Falcon Heights Community Center as the members of the local Atari computer club held our December monthly meeting, our Christmas potluck feast, and one of the most exciting club auctions held in years. Thanks to one and all for collecting and donating Atari things for the auction, for bidding for items up for auction, and for contributing to the party set-up, the great food and beverages, and the clean-up. A nice time was had by all! With plenty more currently in the club's possession, another auction will be held soon. As 2007 flips over to 2008, SPACE is poised for another fine year. Let's keep it up! Thanks, keep using that Atari, and come to your next SPACE meeting, Friday January 11, 2008. **********************************************
Treasurer's Report by Greg Leitner For December 2007
On a very cold Friday evening, seven members and three guests braved the night and shared a great meal for our SPACE Xmas party. We all had a great time, and the auction was a lot of fun and sometimes very competitive. The big prize went to Lance landing the Mega STE and the big surprise was the Sony Mega Bass Walkman that Michael, our president, donated to the Club for the auction. That item went to Brian after quite a battle with Beverly. The Club took in a whopping $107.00 on this auction, and I thank all of you who bid on those items.
I think we could hold another auction by February. I have a ton of ST software and even some 8-bit software to bring to the next auction. Come to the meeting and let me know when you want the auction to be held. Who, knows, you could walk away with an 800XL and 1050 disk drive for a few bucks just like Al did at this auction. I got a few pieces of ST software that will fit in nicely with my ST collection. You never know what will show up. Now for the SPACE treasury for the year ended December 31, 2007: Beginning balance for December 1, 2007: 903.56 Receipts for the December meeting: Membership renewals 15.00 Doms 18.00 Auction sales 107.00 Total Receipts for the Dec meeting
+140.00
Expenses for the December meeting: Room rental for all of 2007
-300.00
Ending SPACE balance for year ended Dec 2007
743.56
Well, we lost ground in our checking account but as you can see we are paid up for the room rent to January 2008. I talked to the bookkeeper at the Falcon Heights center and she said they would be billing us on an annual basis now. We shouldn't get a bill until the end of 2008. This means we have the whole year to build our treasury back up. I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and a special thank you for all your support. You have all made this Club a financial success in not the best of times for our economy. I marvel at the staying power this Club has shown year after year. There is no quit in SPACE. See you next year. **********************************************
Secretary's Report By Steven Peck For December 2007
Well, another day, another SPACE Christmas Party. Everyone had fun, there was plenty to eat, and the auction was largely successful. The coveted Atari Mega STe that was being auctioned off sold for a whopping $51. Special thanks to everyone that came and had a good time. Since this will my last report as secretary for the year until 2008, I will say this. I hope that everyone in the club has had a successful 2007, and best wishes for 2008. Being secretary has been enjoyable and I will continue to cherish the position. Thanks for the opportunity, and Happy Holidays to everyone in the club.
******************************************** BBS Corner By Nolan Friedland For Janyary 2007
If anyone has any comments, suggestions, ideas, or submissions for the BBS Corner column or the SPACE BBS web site, you may email them to me, Nolan Friedland, at the address shown on the back of this newsletter under the "CLUB OFFICIALS" section.
******************************************** From: Michael Current [michael@mcurrent.name] Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 8:43 PM Subject: As Commodore 64 Turns 25, Founders Reminisce As Commodore 64 Turns 25, Founders Reminisce Natali Del Conte - PC Magazine Tue Dec 11, 7:56 AM ET The founding fathers of the personal computer met on Monday night to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Commodore 64. The event was markedly different than most Silicon Valley parties these days. Business cards weren't passed, no one (except this reporter) textor instant-messaged during the presentation, and no one said "Hey, Facebook me later." Instead, the event was for the old boys who pioneered the personal computer, a testament to the old days when geeks were really geeks and eggheads. Speakers on the panel included Jack Tramiel, founder and chief executive officer of Commodore, Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, William Lowe, father of the IBM PC, and Adam Chowaniec, developer
of the Amiga PC and chairman of the board for Liquid Computing. The culture and attitude in the early days of the PC was not as touchy-feely as it is today. Tramiel would most likely not have taken kindly to the idea of hiring his employees a chef or letting them bring their dogs to work. He discussed the "business is war" philosophy that he is known for, which is the antithesis of the Valley culture today. He said that his cutthroat attitude is why he was able to succeed in selling over 22 million units of the Commodore 64. "I think I produced more millionaires in that company than anybody else," Tramiel said. "My job was to tell them what they were doing wrong, not tell them how good they are." "Well, what about a company like Google whose culture is the exact opposite of that?" asked John Markoff, a writer for The New York Times and moderator of the panel. "Google is not making a product that is strictly innovation. They need to tell people how good they are," Tramiel replied. Tramiel survived the Holocaust during World War II. After he immigrated to the United States, he said he felt the need to give back to the government that had helped save him. His way of giving back was to join the U.S. Army, where his job was repairing typewriters and writing machines. He took that skill with him after he left the army and his expertise in typewriters evolved into the Commodore 64. And why that moniker? "Well I was in the army and I wanted to call my company 'General,' but there are so many Generals in the United States – General Electric, General Motors, etc." he said. "Then I went to 'Admiral' and that was taken. So I wound up in Berlin and we were in a cab and the cab made a short stop and in front of it was an Opal Commodore. And that was it." Tramiel admitted that he was overly focused on hardware back then and underestimated the importance of software. He recalls his decision to use the Microsoft BASIC operating system rather than his own proprietary software. "Bill Gates came to see me trying to sell BASIC," Tramiel said. "He told me I didn't have to give him any money, I only had to give him $3 per unit. I told him I was already married," he joked. "I told him that the highest price I would give him was $2,500. So he took that $2,500 and after that he didn't want to speak to me." Other panelists discussed the unknown and the uncertainty they felt in the early days when computing was seen as more of a hobby than a business tool. "We tried to sell to Commodore and we got turned down," Wozniak said. "Steve [Jobs] offered the system for a couple hundred thousand dollars and I was shaking in my boots thinking, 'How can we be talking about this much work?' I was scared to death and it was Steve who had the guts back then."
Lowe reminisced about early visions of computing that seemed so far out in the 1970s. "When I was trying to convince IBM that we should do a micro-based machine, I was introduced to Ted Nelson," Lowe said. "I brought him to a meeting at IBM and he made a presentation with an overhead projector. The presentation was pictures of him retrieving data from around the world, in the Amazon, on a beach. His message was that anyone would be able to get any information on any date, anywhere in the world, at any given time. And I'll tell you, that is natural today but back in 1978, that was revolutionary. And he said that was the way that we should design our computing world. So we did." The event was sold-out and panelists received a standing ovation before they cut the anniversary cake. "We've suffered through almost a whole year of hype around the iPhone but it didn't even touch the kind of hype and enthusiasm we had for the Commodore 64 back then," Markoff said. "It was infectious and palpable." One could argue that it still is. ********************************************** ********************************************** ********************************************** ********************************************** ********************************************** ********************************************** ********************************************** **********************************************
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