The June meeting was called to order, and the minutes from the May meeting were read and briefly discussed. Lin Shaw reported our balance was in the black, and John Parken said he was in the process of rebuilding the membership database.
The meeting room was quickly getting rather crowded with eleven members plus one visitor attending. As John remarked at the end of the meeting, "It looks like we'll have to start meeting in the large meeting room pretty soon, if our membership and attendance keeps on growing like it has been."
Bob Kaspar, a former member of the Northcoast 99ers, contacted Harry Hoffman and asked if the TI-Chips was still in business. It seems that Bob pulled his TI-99/4A out of the closet, and is interested in getting acquainted with the old friend. Bob thought, "What better place than with the support of fellow TI'ers in the TI-Chips?" Bob sat in on the meeting and decided that he would become the newest member of the Chips. Welcome aboard, Bob! (I took the opportunity to take Bob's picture for our Members' Gallery.) By-the-way, Bob's E-mail address is: Bkaspar321@worldnet.att.net
I reported it was time to reserve our meeting room for the coming twelve months. I said I would get the reservation form and have everything set for our July meeting. The TI-Chips' meeting dates for the 2002 - 2003 year will be as follows:
Please mark your calendar. Also, please note all meetings will be from 10:00 AM 'till noon, in the "Storytime Room" (with the exception of the December Christmas Party), in the Children's section of the North Royalton branch of the Cuyahoga County Library system.
Craig Getty brought in an updated Zip Disk, containing a recent backup of our Web site, for Les Kee to keep in the club's library. (Webmaster's note: This is a complete backup of the entire TI-Chips Web site contents.) Craig explained how Les can update the Zip Disk files on his own by downloading E-mailed updates from Craig. Craig also gave us a detailed explanation of how our Web site was organized. He also provided a printout of the directory structure of the site. Thanks, Craig. It looks like a working system.
I made a comment that it looked like our days of "free" advertising in the Cleveland Plain Dealer had come to an end. The "Tech Week" column, appearing in the Business section of the Monday paper, no longer published user group announcements. However, Craig and Lucy Mayer informed me that the new "Agenda" column in the Business Section of the Friday and Saturday (Meeting day) editions of the Plain Dealer contained our announcements. It is a little too late to make plans to attend, but it still is excellent exposure for the TI-Chips. Harry and Craig suggested that I include our Web site address in our articles.
I passed around a pictorial essay I created on this year's CCAG. Alan Hewston, Lucy Mayer and I said it was a show well worth attending, and that we were looking forward to going to next year's event.
Lin Shaw said he ran into a problem with formatting 5-¼" floppy disk on the TI. Lin said formatting sector verification would not complete through all sectors without hesitation on several disks. There was a good discussion on the use of disk managers for the TI-99/4A. Lin brought in a stack of disks that was given to John Parken for evaluation.
I brought in several historic TI-99/4A manuals for Lucy to use. Lucy also said she was experiencing difficulty getting compositions she wrote to her Webmaster. She said the recipient was unable to view/use attachments she sent. Several suggestions were offered. Craig explained that generic ASCII text files were the most universal and easiest to view.
Alan Hewston said he was having difficulty getting his TI-99/4A to 'talk' to the disk drive in his PEB. This sparked a good discussion on correct cabling and jumpering of disk drives in the PEB. However, Alan reported that his comparative investigation of game systems is still on going, and his articles can be viewed on his Web site. (Just click on Alan's Web site in the "Favorite Links" section of this newsletter.)
Jack Koryta won the 50:50 raffle this month. Congratulations, Jack! (Note: Alan Hewston's son, Timothy, did the honors of pulling the winning ticket.)
Next month's meeting will be on Saturday, July 20, from 10:00 AM 'till noon in the Story Time Room in the North Royalton branch library.