April 2012
NEWSLETTER for April 2012 President’s Corner
Treasurer's Report
by Michael Current April 2012
by Greg Leitner For March 2012
Welcome to spring! Well, I guess spring sprung pretty early this year, but welcome nonetheless! Sounds like we might have a great collection of Atari stuff donated to the club this month, don't miss your chance to see what turns up! No news articles from me for the Newsletter at all this month, that's unusual. But I've still been busy. I started looking into more details of the various controllers for the VCS and 8-bit computers. For example, the CX60 Super Controller, have you heard of that one? Or, completely new to me, the CX10 joystick, which was the joystick that shipped with the VCS at the very beginning in 1977. It looked almost the same as the CX40 on the outside, but inside was quite different, including large springs under all the switches. Have you ever seen one? I've also been (again) looking into the various versions of the CX22 and CX80 trackball controllers, and also how they both work compared to the Atari STM1 Mouse. I swear no one has gotten this right yet, and I don't have a complete picture yet either. But along the way for solid information I've found the preliminary and final versions of the CX22 Field Service Manual, and the CX80 Field Service Manual. Plus, I actually bought myself a brand-new CX80. So I can finally play Missile Command the way it was intended, with a trackball in trackball mode! I've tried it with the Mouse before, that worked great too. Thanks, keep using that Atari, and come to your next SPACE meeting, Friday April 13, 2012. **********************************************
Another great meeting in March as six members were present. This will be short because as you all know it is tournament season and I can't get enough. I raced home after the March meeting to watch the High School Hockey semi-finals in 2A, and with a DVR this year I was able to watch both games in their entirety. This time of year is heaven for me if only I could set up four TV's and watch all the hockey and bsketball games telivised around the same time. I can watch one game and DVR another but inevitably I dee the score of the game I taped and that screws it up for me. The NCAA tournament starts the week of March 12th and I will be glued to the set most of this month. My only problem is that Jackie's birthday is March 22 and I have to figure out how to celebrate her birthday and still catch all the games. One of our current members who is not renewing his membership came to the March meeting, and because he is moving out of state is giving up his Atari 8-bit and 16bit colection of hardware and software. He would like to sell what he can, but he may also donate some things to SPACE. Try to be here next month as he will try to bring in his Atari collection for SPACE members to have first crack to purchase before he decides what to do with the rest of his items. Now for the financial affairs of the Club for the month ended March 31, 2012: Beginning balance
802.20
Receipts for March: DOMS
- 12.00
Expenses for March: Room Rental for 2011 Ending balance
- 300.00 514.20
As you can see we finally got the bill for the 2011 room rnet and that brought our bank balance down to a point
that we have to start debating on how to keep the Club going after 2012. I figure if we let things stand as they are we need around $500.00 to make it through each year. We will need most of our balance that we have as of today to make it through this year, but we will need another $500.00 for 2013. Just food for thought. Well that's all this month. It's ten minutes before tip-off so I just made it. See you in April. **********************************************
Secretary's Report By Brian Little For March 2012
NOTE: Brian Little, current SPACE Secretary, could not get to the Secretary's Report in time for March. So, he asked me to do it. Without further adieu, here is my Acting Secretary's Report:
Acting Secretary's Report April 2012 By Steve Peck
"Greg stated that Dara, his daughter-in-law, told him it might be a good idea to put the newsletter in e-mail format to save cost. I am all for that if we need to do that. Theoretically, we could save the newsletters, past and present, as PDF files and post them as downloads on the SPACE Website. Then, maybe, we can get more people interested in the site and, possibly, becoming members.
"One more thing, Lance is going to start selling more S-Video upgrades soon for the Atari 8-bit computers. You can contact him at www.atarisales.com for more information on that, including pricing and availability.
"This concludes the Secretary's Report. Thanks for reading! Excelsior!". ******************************************** ******************************************** ******************************************** ******************************************** ******************************************** ********************************************
"In the course of the past couple of months, we gained a new member that Greg's son Tony introduced to the club. His name is Mark and we welcome him as a full-fledged member of SPACE. He also was instrumental in figuring out the game in the November 2011 DOM. So, all I can say is way to go, Tony and Mark, for doing that! I'd like to know how you both did it myself. In fact, I might just buy the November 2011 DOM just for that. It looks like a pretty cool puzzle game.
"Also, John Mitchell, who signed up as a SPACE member then stopped coming for a while, came in March. It was good to have him. He will be moving to be with his son in California. So, Good Luck, John, on your move out to the Golden State. John also stated he may have more stuff to auction as well, so when we have an auction look out for that. Joe Danko also renewed his membership in February and brought auction stuff as well. We have eleven of fourteen members paid up as of today.
"On a lighter note, Nolan called from Florida for the SPACE Website Report. He stated that, although it isn't a serious issue, people have been logging on to spam the site with all kinds of spam ads. I am also going to implore everybody in the club (this includes me as well, so I am not exempt) to start visit the SPACE site much more often. I am going to because it supports SPACE and has a lot of interesting information about the club and its history. So, please feel free to sign into the site and gain its knowledge.
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