November 2014
NEWSLETTER for November 2014
Notes from the VP by Nolan Friedland
It’s election time! Come exercise the power of the vote at SPACE’s Annual Election! We encourage all SPACE Members to put their name up for consideration for one of the many positions available. In addition, The SPACE Christmas Party is next month, which we need to plan for. Although I have a feeling what the main course might be :) Still, it’s nice to discuss tacos... What I mean is, discuss what we will be having. In other Atari news, remember all those E.T. games unearthed at a New Mexico landfill a while back? Well, apparently, now they are up for sale on eBay – And they’re not going cheap. At the time of this writing, actual bids are ranging from $53 all the way up to a whopping $850 – And there are still just over 2 days to go. I’ll keep an eye them and report again next month to let you all know what they finally ended up going for. Well, that’s it for this month… And in the words of our SPACE President: “Thanks, keep using that Atari, and come to your next SPACE meeting, Friday, November 14, 2014.”
Treasurer's Report
Secretary's Report
by Greg Leitner
by Steve Peck for October 2014
It's time for elections once again. The year flew by so quickly that it just dawned on us that November will be here by the time you are reading this. If we vote as we have in the past then nothing will probably be changed. But if anyone would like to throw their hat into the mix, we surely would encourage you to do so. We had four members present for our October SPACE meeting and it was good to see our President in attendance. We had an interesting time discussing old Atari facts that Michael was exploring and it seems that what we knew before may not be what Michael found out was the truth. I will let Michael explain these things to you in person or through his President's letter in our monthly newsletter. With our annual Christmas party around the corner, I brought up the fact that if we were going to have tacos once again we should make a little change to the menu. I suggested that we change to chicken tacos due to the fact that we tried this with our children and grandchildren at home and now every time they want tacos it has to be chicken. Those in attendance all agreed to this change and I will bring it up again at the November meeting just so we are all on the same page. The rest of the menu will also be discussed so please plan on attending the meeting in November. Now for our bank business for October: We start with a balance of $320.48 and since Nolan couldn't make the October meeting, we didn't have any expenses to report. We took in $75.00 due to three membership renewals and also had ten 8-bit DOMs sold. ($45.00 for memberships and $30.00 for the DOMs). Our ending bank balance for October is now $395.48, which is just a few dollars less than it was at this time last year. I think the ST DOMs have really helped us out. Next month is a really important month for SPACE since we need to hold our elections and plan our SPACE Christmas party. Please try to make the meeting because your input is essential in making the Club successful. See you there and Happy Halloween!!
Well, here we are with another Secretary's Report. The year is almost over and there was talk about next month's election (in which I will run again), the Christmas Party (yeah, tacos again), and Lance has a surprise to demo for everybody. I won't divulge what it is (unless he did already). Anyway, Mike Current had some photos to show about Atari history - rare ones. If I were there (and I am sorry for not being there, folks), I would have really enjoyed it. Oh, by the way, Greg, chicken tacos sound delicious. XD But, seriously, I am really interested in more ST disks for the club. I want to see more titles and buy them. I guess Nolan has been sick, for everybody's FYI, but I hope that he gets better. I would really like to see him at the club again. That concludes the Secretary's Report. In the words of the great comic book maestro… EXCELSIOR!
Tech Report by Nolan Friedland
Everything is going great with the website as of late. No spam of any kind or any other issues, except one… The SPACE Website Counter that is on the main page isn’t functioning properly. This is the counter that Michael Current had set up all those years ago. I thought it was important to keep using it as it gives a more accurate count of the hits that the website receives, not to mention the historic value. Will do some checking and see what’s up with it and will report next month. Also, the spaceweb.us domain renewal of $11.99 is coming up at the beginning of December. That’s it for this month. Have a good one and we’ll see you all at the next meeting!
ST DOM Report by Nolan Friedland
Greetings and welcome to another edition of the SPACE ST DOM. Enjoy!
GAME FEATURES
8 WAY SCROLLING LARGE ANIMATED PLAY AREAS LOAD AND SAVE OPTION CHOOSE CO-PILOT OPTION SAVE HIGH SCORE IN GAME INFO VAST AMOUNT OF LEVELS
CONTROLS
JOYSTICK: LEFT/RIGHT…..Change direction JOYSTICK: UP/DOWN…......Change Speed SPACEBAR………………….View Status screen F1/F2………………………....Search forward/back F3/F4………………………....Change Search mask F6………………...…………..Abort mission
INTRODUCTION
Full instructions are included within the program except that there is a bonus of 2500 points for clearing the screen before the timer starts. The music, which only plays during the titles and not during the game, is not by me. If you don't like the provided music you can delete the file or replace it with one you do like provided that it is less than 30000 bytes long, is in a format recognized by the missing link extension, is depacked and is called "YAGOP.MUS".
It is the early 21st Century and the world faces its deadliest challenge yet. A ruthless billionaire named D.C.GENOCE has used is fortune to purchase key areas of the world. Now he is planning to take over the world with the aid of his army who were made redundant after the cold war. Obviously, the Pentagon is not going to allow this to happen. Consequently, they've brought in their best man to deal with the situation single-handedly. Of course, that someone is YOU!
The action in Island Strike is spread across various missions, and your job is to steam in there and sort things out with your helicopter. Your aim is to rescue all hostages and blow up bridges that you have been set. When the game opens, you can zip around the island blasting 'em all. But you will need to keep a close eye on your FUEL:AMMO:ARMOR. If they run out, you’re in big trouble. Powering up your helicopter is essential in finishing the missions. You will find dotted around the island FUEL:AMMO:ARMOR, but they are very thin on the ground. Use them wisely. You simply fly over them and stop and your helicopter will pick it up. Pressing (SPACEBAR) when you’re in mission will bring up your STATUS SCREEN. As you will see, it contains all the information any self-respecting chopper pilot should know. For a start, you can use the map option to search for your MEN:AMMO:FUEL:ARMOR. And from here, you can also keep tabs on how much AMMO:FUEL:ARMOR your helicopter has on board and will indicate how many MEN rescued so far. Keep a very close eye on them. You can also quit the game from here, but you’re not going to do that!!! Pressing (SPACEBAR) again will return you to your mission. You should also choose your CO-PILOT very wisely. Here's the full list of co-pilots within the game... NAME ----
SKILL -----
INFO ----
BRAVO FLINTSTONE ILLUSION STOSSER
NAVIGATOR ENGINEER MEDIC GUNNER
MAP HELP EXTRA FUEL EXTRA ARMOR EXTRA AMMO
Have fun!
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 around 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.
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