The September meeting of the TI-Chips was opened by Fred Ialacci. Reading of the August meeting minutes was waived. Our Treasurer, Lin Shaw, was unable to attend. Therefore I gave his report.
John Parken gave the membership report and stated that there were 21 paid members in the TI-Chips. John said he was working on re-entering membership data in PR Base, and he asked for input on how to organize the data base fields. It was suggested that since John has had the most experience with the membership records, that it would be all right with us what ever way John decided to organize his files.
Les Kee reported that he was able to un-arc the 1997 Lima software files and that he will be working on hard copies of a catalog of the file titles.
Ada Markus gave an excellent report on possible locations for the TIMUG'99. The report, the result of hard and dedicated work by Ada Markus, Nina Hoffman and Matt Andel, was transcribed by Ron Markus. After listening to Ada's presentation and much discussion, the Chips decided to go with Spang Mansion (near the I-X Center and Cleveland Hopkins International Airport) on an interim basis. Since we will be unable to reserve Spang Mansion until April 1st, we also elected to place St. Peter the Apostle Hall and the Old Brick Schoolhouse as alternates. This will allow the Hall Committee to continue their search. However, as of now, TIMUG'99 will be held at Spang Mansion on Karloff Drive just south of the I-X Center on Saturday, May 15, 1999. The Friday evening set-up and get-together is still to be decided.
I brought up an old subject. I said I had found a device to allow the Chips to display demonstrations from a PC onto the library's large screen T.V. The device I found is the TView MIcro by Focus, and it sells at Staples for $99. There was a lively discussion and a motion was made and passed to authorize me to purchase the TView Micro and bring it to the next meeting. The TI-Chips will now have the ability to conduct demonstrations of both TI-99/4A and PC systems on the big screen T.V. (This will open up a whole new world of learning and sharing for the Chips. We may have just guaranteed our survival as a user group.)
Ron Markus reported that he had tried to contact John Koloen of MICROpendium, regarding subscriptions, through the old e-mail address without success. Ron said he found that John had changed ISP servers and his new address is: JKoloen@earthlink.net. Ron said he is still waiting for a reply from John.
John Parken brought in his desktop PC and gave us an impromptu demonstration on "3D Home Architect." The 3D images of rooms being designed with the software were quite impressive for a $21 program. Thanks for the demo John.