The August meeting of the TI-Chips was opened by yours truly. Chips President, Fred Ialacci was unable to attend. I read the minutes from the July meeting as recorded by Harry Hoffman. Lin Shaw was unable to attend this month’s meeting and had asked to be excused from the September and October meetings also. Therefore, there was no Treasurer’s report. I stated that I would transport all receipts, collected at meetings, to Lin on the first Monday after the meetings. Therefore Lin will be able to keep his books straight and up-to-date.
John Parken reported that the club’s membership is holding steady at 19 members. Two members at the meeting renewed their memberships for 2000.
I reported that I had received confirmation for our meeting room reservations from the North Royalton branch of the Cuyahoga Community Library for August 1999 through July 2000. I reported that all TIMUG '99 video tapes had been mailed. I read a very nice letter from Lew King complimenting the TI-Chips on the TIMUG '99 tapes and TIMUG '99 itself. I said Lew’s e-mail letter was just a sample of the many kind letters I had received regarding the video tapes and the conference itself. John Parken brought in more VHS tapes for Jack to use as needed to fill any additional video orders. Thanks John.
I showed Gary Cox’s user group listing he had posted on the List Server. All though several user groups listed were no longer in existence, the effort and service provided by Gary was appreciated.
Harry Hoffman advised those in attendancethat the NorthCoast 99ers may discuss disbanding at their August meeting. Harry said he will let us know what the decision will be. The Chip’s offer for the members of the NorthCoast 99ers to join the TI-Chips will always be there.
We had a guest at the August meeting. A Mr. John Clark came by, as the result of our article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Tech Week column. John has a base TI-99/4A stored away in his closet and was wondering if it could be of any use to him. We collectively gave John an earful of information. John stayed for the entire meeting and talked about connecting with the Internet with the TI afterwards.
Les Kee showed the digital camera shots he took at TIMUG '99 on my Compaq notebook using the slide show routine of ACD See32 software I have installed in my system. The pictures were great! Thanks Les. Both Harry and Matt Andel asked me to e-mail the pictures to them. I said I would be glad to do it.
I showed the Chinese game More’Jongg I had installed. The object of the game is to remove matching tiles from the screen until the entire background picture is visible. It’s a tough and challenging game to say the least. I also show a pair of $1.99 multimedia speakers I bought from Marc’s drug store. The speakers plug into the earphone jack on my notebook and act like stereo ear phones. They also have an external 9 volt power supply jack which runs a pretty decent amplifier. Pretty good system for $2.
Matt Andel tried to get my Compaq to show a hidden Easter Egg game / graphics that he said comes bundled with Excell’97. No such luck this time. He handed out copies of the method used to produce this hidden game. Thanks Matt. We’ll give it a try on our respective systems.
John Parken won the August 50/50 raffle. Congratulations, John.