The May meeting of the TI-Chips was opened and the Minutes from the April meeting were read and accepted. Lin Shaw had to leave the meeting very early. Therefore yours truly presented the Treasurer's report.
There wasn't any membership report this month and Les Kee reported that the disk library had accumulated an additional layer of dust. This report prompted an inquiry from Bob Kaspar regarding a posting on the OLUG that seemed to say the TI-Chips had not responded to a fellow TI'ers call for help in obtaining programs from our library for his TI-99/4A. Bob asked that, since there seems to be more and more new or former TI'ers coming into the fold of the TI community, how is the TI-Chips planning to serve them? This question led to an active discussion regarding the availability of our disk library to nonmembers and new members alike. It was brought up that any TI'er is welcome to join the TI-Chips for a $10 membership fee, and that a cost of $1 per disk copy plus a S&H charge schedule, based on the quantity of disks ordered, has been established. Les suspected that the person who posted the "Help Wanted" message on the OLUG was indeed a TI'er he had been in communication with since 2002, and that he had spent time creating a catalog for this individual to pick and choose disks that contain programs he needed. Both Les and I said we would attempt to reestablish communications with this person as soon as possible.
I announced the 2004 Jim Peterson Achievement Award recipients. They are:
TI-99/4A Community Service: Don O'Neil for providing his ftp.whtech.com site to the TI community.
TI-99/4A Software: Wolfgang Bertsch for authoring CD-COMMANDER.
TI-99/4A Hardware: Thierry Nouspikel for designing the USB board for the TI-99/4A.
Myarc "Geneve" 9640: Raphael Nabet for authoring M.E.S.S. (the Myarc "Geneve" 9640 emulator).
Please join us in congratulating these very worthy recipients.
We also made the following special announcement along with these awards. The TI-Chips have decided to reduce the Jim Peterson Achievement Award to two categories. They will be the "TI-99/4A" and the "Myarc "Geneve" 9640" for the class of 2005 and beyond. It is felt that the "TI-99/4A" recipient's achievement(s) will define the subcategory for that award. Once again, this change will be in effect with the nominations for the 2005 awards.
We are continuing to investigate the possibility of having first generation videotapes of TIMUG 1996 and 1999 available for release to be used in a DVD compilation.
With great humility and honor, James Warren Peterson, of Tigercub Software fame, was formally inducted into the TI99'ers Hall of Fame by the TI-Chips. (Located at http://www.ti99hof.org.)
Since we were unable to contact a member of the Jim Peterson family to accept this honor in his name, the TI-Chips will become the custodian of the certificate of induction until such time as a Peterson family member or representative comes forward.
I also noted that I was honored and pleasantly surprised to find my name listed in Bill Gaskill's "Timeline 99". This is a chronographic compilation of historic events for the TI-99/4A home computer. This site can be viewed at: http://99er.net/timeline/.
Lucille Mayer inquired, just before the meeting started, as to why some E-mail doesn't go through as it once did? It was suggested that ISP's have been setting up SPAM protection methods that may be screening E-mails. We suggested that she check to see how her ISP's SPAM blocking routine is set up in her system.
I reported that I will reserve our meeting room, in the North Royalton branch library for July 2004 through June 2005.
Harry Hoffman won this month's 50:50 drawing. Congratulations Harry.
It was announced that the next of the TI-Chips will be held in Storytime room of the North Royalton branch library on Saturday, June 19 from 10:00 until noon.