SPACE Newsletter

NEWSLETTER for August 2014

President’s Corner by Michael Current

No President’s Corner was submitted in time for this month’s Newsletter.

Treasurer's Report by Greg Leitner

DOMs sold (23 8-bit and 10 ST). So we took in $15.00 for the membership renewal and $63.00 for the DOMs. I am really bummed out as you can probably tell and that is due to one really busy week. But we have a new grandson and everyone in Tony's family is doing very well. So until next month bye for now!

Not much to talk about at the July SPACE Birthday Party meeting. We had six members and three guests and plenty of food to go around. A very short meeting preceded the meal and no one really wanted to delay the party so we all kept our reports to a minimum. I thought that was going to be it for this report until the following happened. We had our seventh grandchild and Tony's second son born on Sunday following the meeting. Thankfully, Dara held off long enough so we could get the July meeting in since we had the main food item, the pop, and the table fixings. Since we took their son, Rivers, while they were in the hospital and stayed at their home for the next three days Jackie and I were extremely beat by the time we got home. Anyway, after welcoming Cohen into the family we were just about to settle down for a day or two when we got home to a message on our answering machine from the Falcon Heights Community Center. My first thought was that we had done something wrong when we left the party, but I called and found out that they were going to be replacing the carpet in the conference room and closet and SPACE needed to remove all items from the closet by the end of the week. Actually, they wanted it removed that day that they had called which was Wednesday the 16th of July. This couldn't have happened at a worse time for us as were still on call for watching Tony's dog and Rivers as needed. So Jackie and I decided to go the next day, Thursday, and get all the stuff and we brought it all back to our place. Needless to say, Jackie is very upset that we have all this Atari stuff sitting in our basement. So at the next meeting you can all decide what you want to do with it. At this point, I am willing to throw most of it out since it has been sitting in the closet for years. If any member has an interest in this stuff, they can speak up at the next meeting. As far as I am concerned, they can have it, as this stuff hasn't sold in any of our previous auctions. I even have the computer and monitor for all out regular meetings and they said after the carpet is installed we can at least have room for those two things and maybe a little more. Please come to the next meeting so that we can sort this mess out and I can get this stuff out of the house. For our financial situation, we had a beginning balance of $246.48 and we added $78.00 to that total for a new balance of $324.48 for the month ended July 31, 2014. We had one membership renewal and a total of 31

Notes from the VP by Nolan Friedland

Congratulations to SPACE on celebrating its 32nd birthday last month! I heard the party was another great success with lots of food and…

There is a surprise in store for the December issue of the Newsletter. What is it, you may ask? More pictures of tacos? Quite possibly, however, you’ll have to wait and see  Have another great month and we’ll see you all in August!

Tech Report by Nolan Friedland

Nothing new with the website this month – Everything is functioning normally. Just recently, I found my old Atari BBS dialup and telnet listing webpages I created many years ago sitting quietly in the dark recesses of my machine. I thought it would be fun, as time permits, to research and resurrect these lists. Eventually, I’d like to expand the list to include web-based forums, chat rooms and such that discuss Atari. The main page itself has been hit roughly 6,000 times since last month. This count is what the website itself registers, whether it is a real person, search engine spider, bot or something else. A more accurate human count would be the SPACE website counter, which now reads at the time of this writing, up from last month.

Secretary's Report by Steve Peck

No Secretary’s Report was submitted in time for this month’s Newsletter. Until next month… 

8-Bit DOM Review On a side note, I wonder what we should have as the main course for the Christmas Party this year? Hmm… I’m sure we’ll think of something.

by Steve Peck

No 8-Bit DOM Review was submitted in time for this month’s Newsletter.

Controls

ST DOM Report by Nolan Friedland

Greetings and welcome to another edition of the SPACE ST DOM. Enjoy!

Your helicopter is controlled with the joystick; you have free movement around the screen and the fire button fires rockets straight ahead. At the beginning of the game, movement is sluggish and firing is slow. Collecting powerups will improve your gunship's handling and rate of fire, among other things. Unlike some games, you don't have separate weapons for air and ground targets, nor do you have to be a certain distance away to hit a ground target. Your rockets will automatically hit the first target whether it's an aircraft or ground target. Some of the buildings cannot be destroyed: These and certain other tall buildings, enemy aircraft and enemy missiles will all destroy you if you hit them. All other ground targets can be flown over safely.

Powerups Some of the ground targets release powerups, which can be collected to increase the capabilities of your gunship. The powerups are: Blue diamond Red arrow Yellow canister Rockets Yellow sun Yin-yang

Extra points Increase speed Refuel Increased firing rate Destroys all planes on screen Extra life

Hints The first powerup you get is usually Increase Speed; if you miss it, you'll be too slow to get most of the others!

Introduction Cobra Strike is a vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up in which you control a helicopter gunship attacking an enemy island, destroying buildings, gun emplacements and enemy vehicles while avoiding a barrage of groundto-air fire and enemy aircraft.

Refueling at the right times is essential; in the first few games, you'll probably lose a few lives running out of fuel until you figure out what to hit and when.

Quitting the Game Press SPACE on the title screen to return to the desktop.

The object is to convert the tiles to blanks by pairing the identical tiles. There are two different moves – the Take move and the Swap move. These two alternate starting with a Take. Select an identical pair on the same grid. These become blanks and the equivalently places tiles on the next grid change color. The next grid for blue pairs is the one clockwise and for red pairs the one anticlockwise. For the swap move, choose any two blue tiles or any two red tiles that are on adjacent or the same grid. These then change places. During the game, you can start a new game by pressing S or restart the current one by pressing R or exit by pressing Q. Press a mouse key when ready to play.

On the far right of the screen is the square you have to identify on the main picture. Using the mouse, click on the square in the picture. If you’re right, you gain points, another section of the picture appears and a new target square is selected. How many points you get depends on the number and color of the boxes that are filled at the bottom of the screen. Each green box is worth 10 points, each red one 20 and the blue 50. When you identify the correct square, you will fill the next box until you have filled them all when each consecutive correct answer adds 50 points. A wrong selection, however, empties all the boxes. If you fill all the green boxes the red bar (at the top right of the screen) will change to green and at the end of the stage you progress on to the next one. There are five levels – each with 4 stages. Each stage shows more of the picture, giving you more squares to choose from. You have less time and you require more consecutive right choices to get through. The stages end when the time reaches zero. Should you fail to get the correct square within a count of four, the timer speeds up, slowing down again when to correct square is selected. To exit during the game, press Q.

CLUB OFFICIALS

Michael Current

President: (608) 787-8548 michael@mcurrent.name

Vice President / Webmaster / Newsletter Editor (763) 689-3737 Nolan Friedland ilmarinen1976@hotmail.com

Steve Peck

Secretary: (651) 408-1096 artisan213574@gmail.com

DOM Librarian / Membership Chairman: (763) 786-4790 Glen Kirschenmann kirsch@netzero.net

Greg Leitner

Treasurer: (651) 455-6550 greglites@hotmail.com

Saint Paul Atari Computer Enthusiasts (SPACE) meets on the second Friday of each month at 7:30 PM in the Falcon Heights Community Center at 2077 West Larpenteur Ave. Doors open at 7:00 PM.

S.P.A.C.E. c/o Gregory Leitner 3407 78th St E Inver Grove Heights, MN 55076-3037

DISCLAIMER Published by the Saint Paul Atari Computer Enthusiasts (SPACE), an independent organization with no business affiliation with ATARI, Inc. Permission is granted to 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, Inc.

Visit our website at: http://spaceweb.us/ The SPACE BBS is currently offline. We apologize for this inconvenience and hope to have it back online in the near future.

Articles for Publication must be received by the Newsletter Editor two weeks prior to the Club’s next Scheduled meeting.