August 2012
NEWSLETTER for August 2012 President’s Corner by Michael Current August 2012 Thanks to everyone for attending and participating in the party and auction last month, it sounds like it was a great time. Sorry I couldn't make it. (I hope to see you this month though!) Thanks also to Steve Peck for stepping in as SPACE Secretary, way to go! Quick SPACE Newsletter digitizing project update: Going back in time, month by month, I've made it back through March 1987 as of this writing. Visit space.atari.org to bring back old memories! Thanks, keep using that Atari, and come to your next SPACE meeting, Friday August 10, 2012. **********************************************
Treasurer's Report by Greg Leitner For July 2012
Well the July Birthday Party didn't happen as I hoped it would, but we got through it with most members attending. I packed the auction items in my van as the sirens were blaring and severe weather was heading my way. Luckily we were just south of the storms and all I had to fight with was the heavy rain. I managed to get the monitors in the van before the heaviest of the rains and the rest of the auction items were covered so I just made it. I got to the meeting on time only because I left abot fifteen minutes early. The traffic wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, but I suppose that was because most people held off driving until the storms passed. Other members had problems with the traffic and didn't arrive until around 8:00 PM so we had to hold the party off for about an hour. We had a very short meeting during the dessert course of the party.
One major announcement at the meeting was that Brian Little was stepping down as Secretary due to personal reasons. We all suggested that Steve Peck take on the position and he readily agreed and was voted in by all members present which represented a majority of our total membership. Thanks Steve ! I was hoping for a better result from our auction but it seems that our members already have everything that they need, and most members have the items I had at the auction. I am glad that our newest member, Marcus, was able to pick up some nice 8-bit and 16-bit items at unbelievable prices. The highest bid was $5.00 on the 1040ST which Marcus won and everything else went mostly for $1.00. Even two brand new 1702 Commodore monitors went each for $1.00, and as everyone knows they were the best monitors ever made for the 8-bit. All in all we took in $32.00 on the auction and I am hoping we can have another by the time our Xmas party rolls around. Here is how our bank account is looking: Beginning balance as of July 1, 2012:
413.05
Receipts for the July SPACE meeting: Memberships Doms Auction
15.00 12.00 32.00
Total receipts for July
+ 59.00
Expenses for the July SPACE meeting: Web-site for July
- 10.00
Ending balance of month ended July 31, 2012:
462.05
Here we are over half way through 2012 and we are still running about $200.00 behind the 2011 balance at this time of the year. Now more than ever it is so important to keep up those memberships. It would also help if you would purchase a Dom every month. Now that we have paid for the newsletter expense for the year we only need to cover the $10.00 monthly web-site expense until we get the $300.00 bill for the yearly room rental fee. But as you can see that will eat up a large chunk of our SPACE bank account as it looks right now. Let's hope through our membership renewals and our
Dom sales we can start out 2013 a decent balance. An auction before the end of the year will also help. I don't have much left but I think with what we have in the closet at the meeting place and some misc. items I can find at home we can at least have some things to offer. Well until August I am out of here so enjoy the Olympics! **********************************************
Secretary's Report By Steve Peck For May/June/July 2012
Hello, fellow Atarians! Well, I guess it is time for a paradigm shift. So, without further adieu… I'M BACK!! It's me, your Friendly Neighborhood Steve as Secretary again after about two years! Unfortunately, Brian had to resign as the Secretary. I was unanimously voted to take his place. Thanks, Brian, for the effort you put in as Secretary. I also hope things go well for you. As for my position as Secretary, I will try to live up to everyone's expectations as the new and returning Secretary of the Saint Paul Atari Computer Enthusiasts. It is good to be back and it is an honor as well. Thanks, everybody, for the incredible opportunity. :) Now, for the Report. I will recap for the past three months, since that is the amount of notes Brian gave me to cover. OK! Off we go! May, 2012 We discussed, as usual, tacos for the SPACE party in July and Auction. We had fun playing yet another version of Pac-Man for the Atari 8-bit computer line. Astonishingly, it was extremely close in graphics to the original arcade version. I decided to try and play it myself. I made it to Act 3 of the game before losing all my Pac-Men to those nasty, dastardly Ghost Monsters. But, it was fun nonetheless. I thoroughly enjoyed it and bought the DOM. There were also two other programs called "Psychotron" and "Revwars". Again, pretty cool. Nolan announced the SPACE website's forums have been updated with better spam protection. Before the site was inundated with lots of spam messages (Nolan
showed it to me as well). It was pretty bad. Let's hope this new, updated security will keep most if not all spammers out of the forums. The website has a wiki on it about SPACE, newsletters in PDF format, and updated history about the evolution of the SPACE over the last thirty years. Nolan has done a really spiffy job of sprucing it up. Kudos to our Veep for keeping it up! :) The S-Video demo for the ST has been delayed until further notice. Lance will keep me posted with more information concerning developments on the S-Video upgrade. Until then, he will work out the kinks in the project and it will come about soon. Of course, we have the composite/S-Video cable for the 8-bit. It works quite splendidly. For more information, you can talk to Lance about it and he will respond in kind. There is a new browser for the Falcon and up called NetSurf. It will only work with the Falcon and up (maybe the TTs also, but I will have to research that one; so don't quote me), so you will be out of luck if you have an ST. So, that's a bummer if you just have an ST computer… :( There was more talk about over-the-air digital television in the May meeting, which I myself advocate. I am not trying to proselytize anyone into digital antenna TV, but if you ever get a chance, you might at least want to check out a friend who might have it. There's a lot of cool stuff on the new channels and it's indeed worth looking at. But, if you like CATV or satellite, cool! By all means! It was just mentioned in Brian's notes, so I capitalized in reporting it. Anyway, let's move it on… June, 2012 There was more talk about the upcoming Auction in July. A whole plethora of items for the 8-bit and ST were donated and some of it previewed for the members to see. A lot of neat stuff was available (some more will be discussed about the July 2012 Birthday Party and Auction later). The DOM was another European demo from the group Grzyboniada 2012 that had some cool games on it. Definitely worth purchasing! Nolan's May efforts to curb spam on the website are paying off. Spam has been exponentially reduced since the new security was instilled into the site. Michael did not make it to the June meeting, but he did say he might make it to the August, 2012 meeting. He said could not make it to the Party either. He is working with Curt Vendel from the Atari Historical Museum website on a project using the online creative funding platform Kickstarter. A three-book project, the project concerns the history of Atari from Pong to the 21st Century.
Our President brought up the idea to SPACE to help out with this project using a PayPal account, set up for the purpose of funding some of the project's finances, whatever the club could muster. There was also talk of SPACE utilizing Kickstarter to fund a project to revive the club's finances a bit. In old business, more about digital TV was discussed by Lance to the group and in new business the Party in July was discussed and planned. People were assigned different foods to bring to the Party.
From: Michael Current [michael@mcurrent.name] Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2012 9:22 AM Subject: FAIL 1.3.0 (2012-07-23) FAIL is a viewer of pictures in native formats of Atari 8bit, Atari ST and Atari Portfolio computers.
July, 2012
Currently the project includes: a.. fail2png - portable command-line converter to PNG files b.. FAILWin - viewer for Windows c.. thumbnail providers for Windows Explorer (Windows Vista and newer) and GNOME (Linux) d.. plugin for XnView e.. (de)coder for ImageMagick
HAPPY THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY, SPACE!!! :D
FAIL 1.3.0 (2012-07-23)
It's hard to believe in 1982, the club that would evolve into SPACE was formed. Thirty years later, we are still banded together as one of the oldest Atari clubs in the United States. Amazing!
Added Atari ST formats: DEGAS (PI1, PI2, PI3), DEGAS Elite (PC1, PC2, PC3), NEOchrome (NEO), Spectrum 512 (SPU, SPC), Tiny Stuff (TNY, TN1, TN2, TN3), STAD (PAC), CrackArt (CA1, CA2, CA3), Doodle (DOO), Art Director (ART). Added Atari Portfolio formats (PGF, PGC). More Atari 8-bit formats: Atari Player Editor (APL), Artist (ART), Ascii-Art Editor (ART), Atari CAD (DRG), AtariTools-800 (AGP, PLA, MIS, 4PL, 4MI, 4PM), ING 15 (ING), Lepix dialect of CIN, raw images (GR7, G10, G11). Fixed non-interlaced RIP modes. FAILWin extended with "First/Last file in directory", "Skip files on error". Narrow pictures were cropped in FAILWin.
Now, on to the final part of the Report…
Of course, there was the taco meal at EVERY Party we have now. But, it was still a good party with great food. We had a fabulous Auction. I think we brought in $57.00 for the Auction. I bought $6.00 worth of Atari stuff, but the real winner was Mark, with two STs and an Atari 800 computer. If more people outside of SPACE had Mark's enthusiasm and joined, we'd be an even stronger club than now! So, congratulations on your Atari stuff, Mark. You really made the grade! :D
http://fail.sourceforge.net/ Still, no spam bots have tried signing up at the SPACE website, which is extremely good news. So, I come with a special request and I am guilty of this myself. We as a group should try to set up accounts on the SPACE website and visit it often. I will try to visit the site more often myself. I implore others to do the same. I will keep you posted on my surfing on the SPACE website, telling you of my adventures on there. I have been on there and it is an extremely well put together site. Our Veep really worked hard putting it together. We should see his work. Anyway, that concludes this Secretary's Report. Please feel free to visit the SPACE site, buy your DOMs, and I will see you all in August. EXCELSIOR! ********************************************
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From: Michael Current [michael@mcurrent.name] Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2012 9:28 AM Subject: Mr.Coke releases new ST 4k intro Mr.Coke releases new ST 4k intro
July 25th, 2012
Mr.Coke / Abscence (and later, Avena) released his first ST 4k intro called "Dasda" at the Nordlicht demo party in Bremen, Germany. It scored fourth place in the compo. » Download 'Dasda" ST 4k intro http://files.dhs.nu/files_demo/dasda.zip ********************************************
From: Michael Current [michael@mcurrent.name] Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2012 9:07 AM Subject: Rainbow 2.0.2 Rainbow 2.0 Atari 400/800XL/130XE/5200 Emulator released from: chris_rainbow Posted Tue Jul 17, 2012 9:30 AM Hi all, Rainbow 2.0 is now available. This is a major rewrite of the old version 1.x. It features better emulation, real joystick support and full screen display. Trace tools are also included. http://www.chrislam.co.uk/rainbow-atari-8bitemulator.htm
From: Michael Current [michael@mcurrent.name] Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2012 5:50 PM Subject: Rave Network Overscan back with new ST release Rave Network Overscan back with new ST release August 4th, 2012 Rave Network Overscan released a new Atari ST demo called 'Protein' at the Assembly 2012 party. It scored third place in the oldskool competition and features code by Britelite, music by Excellence in Art and graphics by Bracket. » Download 'Protein' (party version) http://files.dhs.nu/files_demo/protein.zip ********************************************
Thanks, Chris. Rainbow 2.0.1 Atari 400/800XL/130XE/5200 Emulator released Posted Thu Jul 19, 2012 3:42 AM Hi all,
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Bug fix so Rainbow can read ATR images ok. Thanks,
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Chris. Rainbow 2.0.2 Atari 400/800XL/130XE/5200 Emulator released Posted Fri Jul 20, 2012 3:16 AM Hi all, Bug fix so Rainbow can cope with different keyboard layouts around the world. http://www.chrislam.co.uk/rainbow-atari-8bitemulator.htm Any further keyboard issues please let me know. Thanks, Chris. ********************************************
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