| [ANNOUNCE] PET User Group ACT Inc.'s Newsletter On-line [message #137614] |
Wed, 18 May 2005 09:06  |
Peter Williams
Messages: 119
Registered: February 2005
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Hi All,
I have been quite busy today ;-))). And finally the Commodore PET User
Group of the ACT Inc.'s (that used to exist in Canberra, A.C.T.,
Australia, and is long since defunct) Newsletter has been scanned in
from an original copy of the document, circa 1981.
The newsletter is the only issue produced by the Group, and is A4 size
and 22 pages in length. Not a bad effort for a small User Group in the
small city of Canberra, ACT. It was photocopied (IIRC) and every member
got a copy at the time. I think there was around 100 members then --
give or take some.
This page:
http://members.fortunecity.com/pew/pet_users_nl.html
.... contains the links to view/download 5 PDF documents, and also lists
the contents of each PDF file. The PDF docs range in size from 371K to
729K and can be viewed with Adobe PDF viewers. The PDF docs are A4 size
and very good resolution, however, all pages are images, so you won't
be able to search for text ;-(. Sorry about that.
The newsletter contains several program listings:
* Converting Floating Point Numbers to Fixed (ASM)
* Peeks & Pokes (partial memory map for PETs)
* Programs to Compress PET BASIC programs (ASM & PET BASIC)
* A game called CANNON - PET BASIC
* Random Number Function - PET BASIC
* Dungeons & Dragons Room Generator - PET BASIC
.... and more
Note: all listings are clear to read (IMO) and it should not be
difficult to simply print the page(s) of interest to you, with your PDF
viewer, and then type the listing(s) in. (I have not attempted any kind
of OCR on the pages -- not sure how much success you'd have. I'd say
probably not very likely for the BASIC programs as these contain
'special' C= PETSCII characters).
NB -- I left-in the adverts: on page 2 for '3M discs', and 'Yarralumla
Soft' on page 16. These were included simply for posterity...
Yarralumla Soft went out of business long ago (IIRC).
I hope that ppl will enjoy this newsletter (finally!). It represents a
small and almost forgot part of Commodore history in Canberra,
Australia. :-)))
Enjoy!!! And I would appreciate any feedback!
Regards,
Peter W. :-)))
Sandy Bay, Hobart, Tas, AU.
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| Re: [ANNOUNCE] PET User Group ACT Inc.'s Newsletter On-line [message #137618 is a reply to message #137614] |
Wed, 18 May 2005 15:08  |
Peter Williams
Messages: 119
Registered: February 2005
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Peter Williams wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I have been quite busy today ;-))). And finally the Commodore PET
> User Group of the ACT Inc.'s (that used to exist in Canberra, A.C.T.,
> Australia, and is long since defunct) Newsletter has been scanned in
> from an original copy of the document, circa 1981.
>
> The newsletter is the only issue produced by the Group, and is A4
> size and 22 pages in length. Not a bad effort for a small User Group
> in the small city of Canberra, ACT. It was photocopied (IIRC) and
> every member got a copy at the time. I think there was around 100
> members then -- give or take some.
>
Oh, well, I may as well reply to my own message.
I was going to do a little wandering down memory lane.
The guy who basically started the "PET Users Group ACT" -- as it was
first known, was a guy called John Gyffyn. I'm pretty sure that John
lived either in my suburb or not too far from it. His house was a few
km's from mine IIRC. I think that he formed the group by placing an
advert in The Canberra Times (the local newspaper) -- probably
"Commodore PET Users Group. Meet at <address> on <date/time> (his
house)" or something like that... and I think that he was quite
surprised when around a dozen or more ppl turned up. He then became the
president of the group and sort of led the group, etc. There were quite
a lot of meetings (fortnightly ??) -- all at John's house. I think he
may have collected a few $$ from each person for attending the meetings
(not sure). That's probably how he collected enough $$ to print the
newsletter (but I don't know). I remember that he was quite a whiz at
coding, especially machine language/asm. He used to work for the
government as a programmer (he told me).
There were some other notable stand out members: a young guy called
Peter Fletcher (who writes an article in the n/l (Converting Floating
Point Numbers to Fixed (ASM)) was quite gifted as a programmer IIRC.
Paul Blair was also a very active member, and I'm pretty sure that he
arranged to do the artwork for the cover of the magazine -- it's just a
large 'p' with a 'C=' symbol inside, and the words 'PET USER GROUP/ACT'
under it. We even had t-shirts printed up with this hugh 'PET USER
GROUP/ACT' logo on it. I think we also had stickers made too.
At the time of the printing of the newsletter, we were not
incorporated... we were just "PET USER GROUP/ACT" (as reflected by the
cover of the nl).
It wasn't too long after that that J. Gyffyn quite mysterously (to
most) let town with his family. I think he said that he and mate of his
who owned a WANG computer were moving down to Lakes Entrance, Victoria
to set up a computer services type of business of some kind. Last I saw
of John, he was around at our house, and picked up an old Lounge Suite
(which Dad gave to him) to take with him on his trailer.
I remember one day when me and Peter Fletcher were around at John
Gyffyn's house visiting, and John's wife had gone out and left some
clothes on the line. There was a small note from John's wife on his PET
-- words to the effect "Don't forget to bring in the washing or I'll
bite off your balls." :-))) John didn't forget to bring in the washing!
:-)
I learned a little later that J. Gyffyn used to be quite involved with
the Church of Scientology in Canberra (see the reference in the first
para of the nl to L. Ron Hubbard, founder of CoS, and that the CoS had
conned/persuaded him into giving them a lot of his $$$ and even giving
them some of his furniture... in the name of raising $$$ for the CoS).
Anyway, when J. Gyffyn left town, so did the money that he'd collected
in the name of the PET USER GROUP/ACT... around $40 AUD I think.
Anyway, the group survived John's loss and we decided to become an
incorporated body. "So that it wouldn't happen again."
We ended up (mostly) meeting at the Canberra Workers' Club in Dickson
and they had regular meetings in an old tram (and attached room) which
the club had set up at the front of the club, as a kind of general
purpose meeting room. Ppl would bring along their PETs and we'd have
them all plugged in and running, etc. (You could even go to the bar and
grab a beer. Apparently, some ppl didn't like this venue because it was
close to the bar and alchol.) I eventually became the Treasurer of the
Group, and it was my main job to collect the meeting attendance fee
(which went mainly towards paying the small fee for use of the room).
And collecting membership dues and maintaining a membership list. And
of course, trying to balance the Groups' credit union account.
In the end the group became incorporated, but with later models of
Commodore computer after the PET, the PET User Group got less and less
members. The last president was Owen Davies (or Davis ??). I remember
that the credit union account needed both of our signatures to withdraw
$$, however, he had once confided in me that he knew how to forge my
signature. Anyway, Owen didn't want to go through all of the official
procedure of dis-banding the Group -- even when it was obviously that
the Group really didn't exist in practice anymore. The reason -- he
thought that it would have been too hard to divide up the remaining
$$/resources amoung the remaining members (which according to our
consistution we were meant to do when the group breaks up). The credit
union that we were in at the time only required that the account have
one transaction per year (???) for the account not to be closed due to
not being used. So, Owen's plan, he told me was that he was going to
simply periodically withdraw the re-deposit some of the $$ in the
Group's account so that the account would not be shut down. I think
that there may have been around $70 or so in the account (maybe less,
but probably no more). I still don't know what ever happened to Owen.
He seems to have done a vanishing trick a few years after that.
We never DID print another newsletter for the PET User Group (ACT)
Inc. after issue #1.
Ahhh... memories of the ol' C= PET days. ;-)
[snip]
>
> I hope that ppl will enjoy this newsletter (finally!). It represents
> a small and almost forgot part of Commodore history in Canberra,
> Australia. :-)))
>
> Enjoy!!! And I would appreciate any feedback!
>
Regards,
Peter W. :-)))
Sandy Bay, Hobart, Tas, AU.
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| Re: [ANNOUNCE] PET User Group ACT Inc.'s Newsletter On-line [message #137619 is a reply to message #137618] |
Wed, 18 May 2005 17:13 |
Peter Williams
Messages: 119
Registered: February 2005
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Peter Williams wrote:
> Peter Williams wrote:
>
[snip]
> I remember one day when me and Peter Fletcher were around at John
> Gyffyn's house visiting, and John's wife had gone out and left some
> clothes on the line. There was a small note from John's wife on his
> PET -- words to the effect "Don't forget to bring in the washing or
> I'll bite off your balls." :-))) John didn't forget to bring in the
> washing! :-)
>
[snip]
Also, IIRC, the wife had also drawn, on the post-it note, a small pair
of severed balls! (I think she meant it!) ;-)))
Regards,
Peter W. :-)))
Sandy Bay, Hobart, Tas, AU.
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| Re: PET User Group ACT Inc.'s Newsletter On-line [message #137654 is a reply to message #137653] |
Wed, 18 May 2005 22:38 |
Peter Williams
Messages: 119
Registered: February 2005
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Hi Ernie,
Amigoat wrote:
> Peter - great lookiing back at 'the good old days'!
>
> I can access your web page but cannot download or view the pdf files -
> IE puts up an error message.
>
> Anyone else havong a problem?
>
I just looked into it. The files WERE all on my website late last
night and early this morning, but sometime between the small hours of
this morning (when I checked and they were all present and working
fine) and now they have been deleted from the website. All other files
appear to be okay. It's only the PDF files which have been affected. I
had not tried putting PDF files on my website before, but I would have
thought that they'd be treated like any other binary file. I know that
I have had .zip files on my site and I haven't had this problem.
I will upload the PDF files to the site again and wait 24 hours to see
if they stay or are deleted. If they get deleted then I will have to
zip them up and make them available as .zip archives. I don't really
want to zip them as I tested zipping a PDF and got 0% compression so I
don't save any space by zipping them -- plus as PDF files they can be
viewed on-line.
I will upload the files and check what happens. (please stay tuned!)
> Ernie
Regards,
Peter W. :-)))
Sandy Bay, Hobart, Tas, AU.
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| Re: PET User Group ACT Inc.'s Newsletter On-line [message #137656 is a reply to message #137654] |
Wed, 18 May 2005 23:34 |
Sam Gillett
Messages: 2422
Registered: June 2003
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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"Peter Williams" wrote ...
>
> I just looked into it. The files WERE all on my website late last
> night and early this morning, but sometime between the small hours of
> this morning (when I checked and they were all present and working
> fine) and now they have been deleted from the website. All other files
> appear to be okay. It's only the PDF files which have been affected. I
> had not tried putting PDF files on my website before, but I would have
> thought that they'd be treated like any other binary file. I know that
> I have had .zip files on my site and I haven't had this problem.
I have a website that is not related to Commodore. If files on my site go
over the alloted storage capacity, some will disappear. However, which files
disappear from my site seems to be more random than what you have
experienced.
Another possibility is that your ISP/WSP had to restore a failed drive from a
backup, and the backup was made before the files were added.
--
Best regards,
Sam Gillett
Change is inevitable,
except from vending machines!
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| Re: PET User Group ACT Inc.'s Newsletter On-line [message #137657 is a reply to message #137656] |
Thu, 19 May 2005 00:52 |
Peter Williams
Messages: 119
Registered: February 2005
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Hi Sam,
Sam Gillett wrote:
>
> "Peter Williams" wrote ...
>>
>> I just looked into it. The files WERE all on my website late last
>> night and early this morning, but sometime between the small hours
>> of this morning (when I checked and they were all present and
>> working fine) and now they have been deleted from the website. All
>> other files appear to be okay. It's only the PDF files which have
>> been affected. I had not tried putting PDF files on my website
>> before, but I would have thought that they'd be treated like any
>> other binary file. I know that I have had .zip files on my site and
>> I haven't had this problem.
>
> I have a website that is not related to Commodore. If files on my
> site go over the alloted storage capacity, some will disappear.
> However, which files disappear from my site seems to be more random
> than what you have experienced.
>
My website *IS* a free site which has adverts (not of my choosing),
but it also has a capacity of 100MB for files. So, what you are
proposing is is not the case as it is nowhere near this limit. (only
around under 32MB)
> Another possibility is that your ISP/WSP had to restore a failed
> drive from a backup, and the backup was made before the files were
> added. --
I spoke to a friend of mine about this, and he suggested this. I am
beginning to think that this may have been what happened. It's just a
bit annoying that I was not notified.
Anyway, FYI to anyone wanting to view/download the PDF files, they are
now back up on my website on the URL that I originally posted. Sorry,
but I'm not really in a position to convert the pages to text or
PETSCII versions of the info. :-(. So, you'll need some kind of PDF
viewer (e.g. from www.adobe.com ) to view the newsletter documents.
> Best regards,
>
> Sam Gillett
>
> Change is inevitable,
> except from vending machines!
Regards,
Peter W. :-)))
Sandy Bay, Hobart, Tas, AU.
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| Re: PET User Group ACT Inc.'s Newsletter On-line [message #137662 is a reply to message #137658] |
Thu, 19 May 2005 14:09 |
Sam Gillett
Messages: 2422
Registered: June 2003
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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"Lance Lyon" wrote ...
>
>> I can access your web page but cannot download or view the pdf files -
>> IE puts up an error message.
>>
>> Anyone else havong a problem?
>
> Works perfectly with Firefox.
..pdf files also work fine with IE _if_ Acrobat Reader is installed properly
on the machine in question.
--
Best regards,
Sam Gillett
Change is inevitable,
except from vending machines!
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| Re: PET User Group ACT Inc.'s Newsletter On-line [message #137675 is a reply to message #137654] |
Fri, 20 May 2005 02:57 |
Peter Williams
Messages: 119
Registered: February 2005
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Peter Williams wrote:
[snip]
> I just looked into it. The files WERE all on my website late last
> night and early this morning, but sometime between the small hours of
> this morning (when I checked and they were all present and working
> fine) and now they have been deleted from the website. All other files
> appear to be okay. It's only the PDF files which have been affected. I
> had not tried putting PDF files on my website before, but I would have
> thought that they'd be treated like any other binary file. I know that
> I have had .zip files on my site and I haven't had this problem.
[snip]
Just a quick note to say that I uploaded the files again yesterday and
they were there after I uploaded them and all was fine, however,
sometime between yesterday when I uploaded them and today the files
were again delete from my website. I'm thinking that maybe my website
host regards these as unknown/unsupported file types (they are PDFs)
and then deletes them. I have zipped them up and changed the links on
the page to point to the zip files and uploaded the zips. Hopefully,
that will be the end of this small saga -- I already have zip files on
my website in a different directory and they don't get deleted.
The URL is the same (as the original message). Just that the files are
..zip files not .pdf's -- although there are .pdf files inside the .zip
files. I know that it's a pain to have to download a zip and unzip it
just to view a pdf but I can't really do anything about that
considering how the pdf file keep getting mysterously deleted from my
website host. (apart from changing my website host, which would seem a
bit of a drastic solution).
Regards,
Peter W. :-)))
Sandy Bay, Hobart, Tas, AU.
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| Re: [ANNOUNCE] PET User Group ACT Inc.'s Newsletter On-line [message #137732 is a reply to message #137614] |
Fri, 20 May 2005 23:10 |
Peter Williams
Messages: 119
Registered: February 2005
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Hi All,
Peter Williams wrote:
> I have been quite busy today ;-))). And finally the Commodore PET
> User Group of the ACT Inc.'s (that used to exist in Canberra, A.C.T.,
> Australia, and is long since defunct) Newsletter has been scanned in
> from an original copy of the document, circa 1981.
>
> The newsletter is the only issue produced by the Group, and is A4
> size and 22 pages in length. Not a bad effort for a small User Group
> in the small city of Canberra, ACT. It was photocopied (IIRC) and
> every member got a copy at the time. I think there was around 100
> members then -- give or take some.
>
> This page:
>
> http://members.fortunecity.com/pew/pet_users_nl.html
>
[snip]
> The newsletter contains several program listings:
>
> * Converting Floating Point Numbers to Fixed (ASM)
> * Peeks & Pokes (partial memory map for PETs)
> * Programs to Compress PET BASIC programs (ASM & PET BASIC)
> * A game called CANNON - PET BASIC
> * Random Number Function - PET BASIC
> * Dungeons & Dragons Room Generator - PET BASIC
> ... and more
>
[snip]
For those that are interested, over the last several days I have been
converting text and entering a listing from this newsletter. Basically,
on pages 13-16 there was an article and listing of a game called
CANNON. Pages 13-14 are a line-by-line description of the program over
2 pages, and page 15-16 are the program listing.
Description from newsletter article:
" The game itself is a program called "CANNON" [...] and requires
two players. The object is to score five hits on your opponent by
firing your cannon over a hill. The hill is randomly generated and
wind and gravity are taken into account. You specify the angle of
trajectory and the amount of powder you want to use in your shot. If
you happen to hit the hill, you may notice that the hill can also be
blown up (sometimes!)."
(It's a pretty fun game. I think there have been versions of it since,
probably called something like "artillery")
I have now converted pages 13-14 to a plain text file, and I have
entered the listing in xpet and now have a fully working C= .prg file
of the program. It works fine on the PET emu (xpet) -- with a couple of
exceptions. The was a statement "poke 59467,16" at the beginning of the
program which I have deleted ... actually it was "hidden" in the
program by having a rem followed by delete characters which had the
effect of blanking out the line so that it appeared as a blank line
when listed to the screen.
The other exception was that there was this line:
25 if peek(f)=102 then poke f,42:for i=0to100:next:poke f,102
I tested that before the line is executed f=0 and in xpet the 'if'
test is false... so it effectively does nothing. So I simply deleted
the line.
Maybe this line has something to do with the fact that if the game
ends and the user selects to play again, the program simply 'run's
itself. Don't know -- but it doesn't seem to matter if I delete it.
So now I have a fully working version of CANNON for the PET series of
computers.
I have also attempted to save a version of it for the C64. I have made
all of the obvious changes to make it work under the C64. PET video RAM
(32768-33767) changed to C64 video RAM (1024-2023) ... as this was used
to poke characters to the screen. Also, the PET location 167 was used
(this is 0 = flash cursor), which was changed to location 204 on the
C64.
The result is that the C64 version of the game works ALMOST perfectly,
but there seems to be one bug left in it!!! It draws the screen okay
and plays... then under some conditions it crashes -- sometimes even
causes the xpet to reset. I think that somewhere I have missed a
reference to video RAM (which it pokes) and it is the wrong value,
causing the crash.
I have both versions: PET & C64 available. Would anyone like to
volunteer to look at the C64 version and try to find this last bug???
Hopefully, it should not be too difficult as the comments from the
newsletter pages 13-14 are pretty comprehensive and comment on what
most of the program does.
If you would like the C64 (or PET) version to try to debug and the
other files then drop me an email and I send them to you.
Regards,
Peter W. :-)))
Sandy Bay, Hobart, Tas, AU.
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| Re: [ANNOUNCE] PET User Group ACT Inc.'s Newsletter On-line [message #138166 is a reply to message #137614] |
Sat, 21 May 2005 20:57 |
Peter Williams
Messages: 119
Registered: February 2005
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Hi All,
Peter Williams wrote:
> I have been quite busy today ;-))). And finally the Commodore PET
> User Group of the ACT Inc.'s (that used to exist in Canberra, A.C.T.,
> Australia, and is long since defunct) Newsletter has been scanned in
> from an original copy of the document, circa 1981.
>
> The newsletter is the only issue produced by the Group, and is A4
> size and 22 pages in length. Not a bad effort for a small User Group
> in the small city of Canberra, ACT. It was photocopied (IIRC) and
> every member got a copy at the time. I think there was around 100
> members then -- give or take some.
>
> This page:
>
> http://members.fortunecity.com/pew/pet_users_nl.html
>
[snip]
> The newsletter contains several program listings:
>
> * Converting Floating Point Numbers to Fixed (ASM)
> * Peeks & Pokes (partial memory map for PETs)
> * Programs to Compress PET BASIC programs (ASM & PET BASIC)
> * A game called CANNON - PET BASIC
> * Random Number Function - PET BASIC
> * Dungeons & Dragons Room Generator - PET BASIC
> ... and more
>
[snip]
Just a quick note to say that there are now some additional (and very
small) files from the newsletter, at the above site, ready for
downloading.
I have converted the PET BASIC rem remover program into 3 different
versions: PET, C64 & C128. All 3 seem to work okay in their respective
emulators (xpet, x64 & x128 respectively).
The CANNON game is also available for downloading, for PETs ONLY. I
could NOT get the C64 version of it to work. If anyone would like a
copy of the buggy C64 version, to try to debug, then contact me by
email. Also the 2 page article and description of the CANNON game is
available for downloading as plain ASCII text.
The program files are in zipped format. Inside the .zip files they are
..prg files. (e.g. you will need a .zip archiver, such as WinZip for
Windows. I'm sure that there must be unzippers available for
Commodores?!?)
Enjoy!!!
Regards,
Peter W. :-)))
Sandy Bay, Hobart, Tas, AU.
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| Re: [ANNOUNCE] PET User Group ACT Inc.'s Newsletter On-line [message #138171 is a reply to message #138170] |
Sun, 22 May 2005 02:06 |
Peter Williams
Messages: 119
Registered: February 2005
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Hi Lance,
Lance Lyon wrote:
>
> "Peter Williams" <pew@bigpond.net.au> wrote in message
> news:CNQje.10809$E7.2184@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
>> Regards,
>> Peter W. :-)))
>> Sandy Bay, Hobart, Tas, AU.
>
> I really shoulda caught up with you when I was living in Hobart -
> there were a few Commie users there that i had semi-regular contact
> with.... Oh well, maybe when I (eventually) move back :-)
>
I have actually only been living in Hobart for about the last 10
months, previous that I was living in Canberra, ACT, for about 30 years
or so (since mid-Primary school). I have owned a real Commodore for
ages. I use a Pentium 4, 2GHz processor, now -- bit of a difference in
grunt! ;-)
> cheers,
>
> Lance
Regards,
Peter W. :-)))
Sandy Bay, Hobart, Tas, AU.
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| Re: [ANNOUNCE] PET User Group ACT Inc.'s Newsletter On-line [message #138172 is a reply to message #138168] |
Sun, 22 May 2005 02:31 |
Peter Williams
Messages: 119
Registered: February 2005
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Hi Sam,
Sam Gillett wrote:
>
> "Peter Williams" wrote ...
>>
>> The program files are in zipped format. Inside the .zip files they
>> are .prg files. (e.g. you will need a .zip archiver, such as WinZip
>> for Windows. I'm sure that there must be unzippers available for
>> Commodores?!?)
>
> You can grab a C64/C128 program to do your unzipping on a Commodore
> here:
>
> http://www.ros.com.au/~errol/64.html
Thanks for the link. I have placed the URL on the same page as the
download page, so that if Commodore ppl are not aware where the find an
unzip program, then they can follow the link from my page.
Regards,
Peter W. :-)))
Sandy Bay, Hobart, Tas, AU.
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| Re: [ANNOUNCE] PET User Group ACT Inc.'s Newsletter On-line [message #138184 is a reply to message #137614] |
Thu, 26 May 2005 22:33 |
Peter Williams
Messages: 119
Registered: February 2005
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Hi All,
Peter Williams wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I have been quite busy today ;-))). And finally the Commodore PET
> User Group of the ACT Inc.'s (that used to exist in Canberra, A.C.T.,
> Australia, and is long since defunct) Newsletter has been scanned in
> from an original copy of the document, circa 1981.
>
[snip]
>
> http://members.fortunecity.com/pew/pet_users_nl.html
>
> ... contains the links to view/download 5 PDF documents, and also
> lists the contents of each PDF file. The PDF docs range in size from
> 371K to 729K and can be viewed with Adobe PDF viewers. The PDF docs
> are A4 size and very good resolution, however, all pages are images,
> so you won't be able to search for text ;-(. Sorry about that.
>
> The newsletter contains several program listings:
>
> * Converting Floating Point Numbers to Fixed (ASM)
> * Peeks & Pokes (partial memory map for PETs)
> * Programs to Compress PET BASIC programs (ASM & PET BASIC)
> * A game called CANNON - PET BASIC
> * Random Number Function - PET BASIC
> * Dungeons & Dragons Room Generator - PET BASIC
> ... and more
>
[snip]
I have finally gotten my OCR software for my scanner installed, and so
I have scanned some of the pages in and converted them to plain ASCII
text (note that these are very small files... only a few K, in contrast
to the .PDF files). These pages are now available at the above site in
ASCII text format (as well as .PDF format):
* Editorial (2 pages)
* Converting Floating Point Numbers to Fixed (ASM)
* Peeks & Pokes (2 pages)
* Article on CANNON game (2 pages)
Note that the CANNON game itself is available as .prg file for the
PETs (zipped up).
Also, the REM-REMOVER BASIC program is available as .prg file in 3
different versions: PET, C64 & C128, and also and improved version
which only works on the C128 (all .prg's are zipped).
Enjoy!!!
Regards,
Peter W. :-)))
Sandy Bay, Hobart, Tas, AU.
(delete silly boy to reply via email).
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| Re: [ANNOUNCE] PET User Group ACT Inc.'s Newsletter On-line [message #139230 is a reply to message #138184] |
Fri, 27 May 2005 17:03 |
Peter Williams
Messages: 119
Registered: February 2005
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Hi All,
Peter Williams wrote:
> Peter Williams wrote:
>> I have been quite busy today ;-))). And finally the Commodore PET
>> User Group of the ACT Inc.'s (that used to exist in Canberra,
>> A.C.T., Australia, and is long since defunct) Newsletter has been
>> scanned in from an original copy of the document, circa 1981.
>>
> [snip]
>>
>> http://members.fortunecity.com/pew/pet_users_nl.html
>>
>> ... contains the links to view/download 5 PDF documents, and also
>> lists the contents of each PDF file. The PDF docs range in size from
>> 371K to 729K and can be viewed with Adobe PDF viewers. The PDF docs
>> are A4 size and very good resolution, however, all pages are images,
>> so you won't be able to search for text ;-(. Sorry about that.
>>
>> The newsletter contains several program listings:
>>
>> * Converting Floating Point Numbers to Fixed (ASM)
>> * Peeks & Pokes (partial memory map for PETs)
>> * Programs to Compress PET BASIC programs (ASM & PET BASIC)
>> * A game called CANNON - PET BASIC
>> * Random Number Function - PET BASIC
>> * Dungeons & Dragons Room Generator - PET BASIC
>> ... and more
>>
> [snip]
>
> I have finally gotten my OCR software for my scanner installed, and
> so I have scanned some of the pages in and converted them to plain
> ASCII text (note that these are very small files... only a few K, in
> contrast to the .PDF files). These pages are now available at the
> above site in ASCII text format (as well as .PDF format):
>
> * Editorial (2 pages)
> * Converting Floating Point Numbers to Fixed (ASM)
> * Peeks & Pokes (2 pages)
> * Article on CANNON game (2 pages)
>
> Note that the CANNON game itself is available as .prg file for the
> PETs (zipped up).
>
> Also, the REM-REMOVER BASIC program is available as .prg file in 3
> different versions: PET, C64 & C128, and also and improved version
> which only works on the C128 (all .prg's are zipped).
I have now also scanned and OCR'd the following pages of the
newsletter (into plain ASCII text):
* COMPRESS BASIC PROGRAMS (Article only)
* DO YOU NEED A NEW DUNGEON ? (Article only)
unfortunately, the listing for the Compress Basic Programs article is
in multiple columns and my scanner does a poor job of converting it to
text (in the same format). Also, the listing for the "dungeon" article
uses Commodore characters, so I don't expect that it would scan well --
so I won't attempt it.
Note that ALL pages of the Newsletter are available as PDF files.
That's probably about all possible pages of the newsletter scanned and
OCR'd, with the exception of the Random Number Function (article and
listing) [actually written by Yours Truly], however, the article and
listing seems to me to be so trivial as to not being worth OCR'ing. The
page is available in the last PDF doc anyway.
Regards,
Peter W. :-)))
Sandy Bay, Hobart, Tas, AU.
(delete silly boy to reply via email).
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