NEWSLETTER Computer x ' ' - 4 i■ Volume 3 — Issue 5 August-September 1978 Users GroupBob Reiling Additional Meetings ■ W F -' Scheduled This js a short list of user groups that meet in the Bay Area. No doubt many more exist but I do not Additional meetings of the Homebrew have any inform ation about them. Send me inform a­ Computer Club have just been scheduled. tion about your group and it will be reported in the The dates are listed in the table in addition N ewsl fetter. "** to previously scheduled dates. You are encouraged to bring your equipment and SOL USERS' SOCIETY (SOLUS) - S.F. Peninsula software for display at the meetings. Chapter meets third Sunday of each month beginning Manufacturers and computer stores are at 1 p.m. at" Stanford Physics Building. Other chapters included in this invitation. Fairchild - throughout USA and Canada. Auditorium has a large lobby area which TRS 80 USERS GROUP - Meets at Radio Shack is well suited for display. One caution, Wednesdays 7:30 p.m. Payne Ave. Radio Shack, however: commercial transactions may not Campbell, (408) 247-5300: Call early in week to con­ be completed on Stanford premises. firm schedule. 1978 Meeting Schedule AM I PROTO USERS & SW TPC USERS - Meets in 7:00 pm -10:30 pm. Room 210t Brànnon Hall; University of Santa Clara, first Tuesday of month at 7:30 p.m. Date Location September 27 Fairchild Auditorium PET USERS GROUP — President Marvin VanDerKoor October 11 SLAC Auditorium will coordinate group. Request additional meeting November 8 SLAC Auditorium at the next HCC meeting. November 29 Fairchild Auditorium ~ THE 5-100 BUS USERS' SOCIETY (S100BUS) - December 20 Fairchild Auditorium Meets pnonthly on the third Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Additional meetings at other locations may be the Community Room of Bell Savings, 1099 Lincoln held. Watch the NEWSLETTER for announce­ at W illow, in San Jose. ments. All dates are subject to change or cancel­ , , Membership in the Society is open to individuals lation. If a change does occur, advance notice who hav&. operating S-100 bus based computer will be published in the NEWSLETTER if time systems. Our meetings serve as a place where infor- permits. • mation about both hardware and software can be exchanged. Current software projects of interest include par­ ticipation in a Club buy of the University of California CROMEMCO USERS GROUP - This group is being at San Diego Portable Pascal for the 8080 and the started for anyone using Cromemco computers or Z80, as well as the software on diskettes from the products. Anyone interested or having ideas or sug­ » CP/M Users' Group. gestions fo r this group, please send your name, Recent hardware demonstrations have included a address, phone number and any comments to Dave * - PET interfaced to an S-100 bus and a demonstration Dameron, 402 E. O'Keefe Street, Apt. 27, E. Palo o f basic concepts of analog-to-digital and digital-to- A lto, CA 94303, or call (415) 321-5998, evenings. analog conversion. FORTH INTEREST GROUP — Holding occasional NORTH STAR USERS GROUP - Contact Byte meetings in the Bay Area. The group is developing a Shop of Palo A lto for meeting schedule, telephone major technical and implementation manual, to be 'if (415)327 8080. published in a journal form as four installments, available by subscription. The group cannot answerwith any 110 or 300 baud Bell 103A type modem all mail at this time but would appreciate suggestionsequipped terminal or computer. As soon as the con­ and information about FORTH. Contact FORTH nection is made, send several carriage returns; after INTEREST GROUP, 787 Old County Road, San this the system is self teaching. Carlos, CA 94070. If you write it would be a good NORTHERN CALIFORNIA COMPUTER EDU­ idea to include a stamped and self-addressed envelopeCATORS — This group is sharing ideas about so that when time permits the group can easily sendcurriculum, textbooks, instructional material, funding, a reply. hardware, software, non-math/science applications, OSI OWNERS — No local group for this equipmentand other thinks of interest. Contact Don McKell, yet; however, several systems are running in theIndependence Bay High School, 1776 Education Park Area. If people with OSI systems will send me theirDrive, San Jose, CA 95133. Telephone (408) names, I w ill make a list and send it to each of the926-1776. other people. Include a brief description of your hardware and software. Mail to Robert Reiling,More information about each group is usually avail­ Attention OSI, P.O. Box 626, Mountain View, CA able at Homebrew Computer Club meetings. Group 94042. members are regular attendees at Homebrew Com­ puter Club meetings. Most if not all of the above PCNET — Not exactly a users group but the Baygroups formed through contacts developed at Home­ Area Community Bulletin Board System (DBBS).To brew Computer Club meetings. It is another reason use the Bay Area CBBS, telephone (408) 246-2805to support the Homebrew Computer Club. □ Letters To The Editor Dear HCC, Dear HCC, A message fo r 8080-8085 users about assemblers — if I'm currently in the final stages of constructing my own you have none, mine is better than that! It's a One-Pass8080A based system from an article in the March 78 ussie Macro Assembler and fits into 1K of RAM or ROM (and it of Kilobaud. seems to shrink every time I make additions). The latest I'm curious about the benefits of belonging to your club version and all updates cost $5 (towards the care and feeding but my real interest is in locating someone who has already of my 8080 Homebrew). Feel free to BS a little when writing b u ilt the same system as the one I'm working on. — I'm more into computers than selling. If you have the answer to either or both of my questions Steve Kelley please let me know. 9506 Peach St. Oakland, CA 94603 Thank you very much. Robert A. Bobbio Dear HCC, 716 N. Geneva St. Bob, myself (WA6TMF) and Dale Mortensen (K6IMX) are Glendale, Calif. 91206 in the process o f setting up a VHF (2M) repeater fo r RTTY Can anyone help w ith the 8080A system? —Editor and Computer use. The repeater location will be on Sugarloaf Peak, a few miles East of Napa (about 1600 ft. elevation). This will be an "Open" repeater, access will be by standard Dear HCC, RTTY tones (2125 Hz, 2295 Hz). I will send you full details I was interested to read, in the March 1978 issue of BYTE, on the machine when we get it on the air. I think we will have of the activities of Homebrew Computer Club. coverage over most of the Bay Area and also into Sacramento. At the National Computing Centre we are conscious of Thanks and 73. the inform ation and training needs relating to m icrocom puter Richard Slavens systems and we are currently expanding our traditional com- 1540 I St. pting activities into these new areas. In addition, though, since Napa, CA 94558 we fu lfill a central role in computing in the UK, it is necessary Robert Reiling Eclitor-in-Chief The NEWSLETTER is published regularly by the Brent S ack..............................................................................................Graphics Homebrew Computer Club. P.O. Box 626, Mountain View, CA 94042 2 to be able to comment and give advice relating to all aspects of interest to them: we are at work here on getting BCPL and computing and this includes "personal computing." PASCAL up and running for the 9900. As you may gather, my purpose in writing is to learn Thank you for your good offices as intermediary. We further of your activities. In particular, I should appreciate a hope that we may soon have a reply from you, or from your copy of your newsletter since it would appear to have two members. relevance far outside of Silicone Valley. W ith our best wishes. Yours sincerely, One activity here, which may be of interest to your mem­ B.W. Powers bers, relates to the educational user o f microcomputers. The P.O. Box 177 British Computer Society has formed a National Working Petersham NSW 2049 Australia Party which is to examine emerging technology and its impact Here is an interesting opportunity for 9900 system users. on education. In part this relates to implications on computing -E d ito r curricula, but much is to do with the effective use of micro­ computers in schools. I am chairman of this working party and members are from all over the UK (one advantage of being Dear HCC, geographically small). We can thus say that we are in touch We are a remote but aggressive com m unity in northern with the variety of opinion throughout this country. AmongNew Hampshire. Several o f us here w ould like to form a our activities we are looking at the implications for teacher microcomputer club for the people in the community. Rather training — and guidelines are being prepared. than re-invent the wheel, would it be ok if we were to become Possibly some exchange of ideas o f experiences could be a chapter of your Club? o f interest to your readers. At the present time we are eight micro-computer enthusi­ Yours sincerely, asts. We have just completed the firs t class in BASIC and J. J. Turnbull micro-computer operation at the local Vocational Technical The National Computing Centre Limited College; ages ranged from the 20’s to the 50's for the members Oxford Road of this class.