Timex Xx: Sinclair

Newsletter Dedicated To All Personal Computers

“the HACKER” is an official publication of the Timex/Sinclair User Group of Las Vegas-a non profit, educational organization. Subscription to the “HACKER” is $15.00 per year (12 issues) and includes membership to TSUG of LV. Please remit to:

Ralph Hammer(treasurer) 2105 Oakwood Ave. Las Vegas, NV 89030

Meeting Date

LET'S GET TOGETHER Mar. 18,1990------ 1-3 pm.

SPE 1G SE 3-4 pm.

Meetings are held on the 3rd. Sunday of each month. Bring

BOARD of DIRECTORS:

CHRIS FENN------------- 641-4082 RALPH HAMMER-------- 649-4127 STEVE SAWCHUK-------- 451-6676

CONTRIBUTING STAFF: STEVE SAWCHUK----- EDITOR IN CHIEF

RALPH HAMMER------- CO-EDITOR CHRIS FENN--------- AMY DICKINSON----- CIRCULATION MGR.

ART DIRECTOR

NEW YORK LAPTOP SHOW '90 RE-TITTLES SHOW THEME.

Being the start of a new year, the major trade shows are gearing up once more to show off the latest in lap-top computing. This time one of the shows that are held in the big Apple (New York), has changed names to Keep up with the market.

Three years ago when the first laptop show was ran, many wondered if this specialized arena would really flourish.

Well, flourished it has, and now reports have the laptop segment of the market at over 20 5 of all micro-computers being sold-with reported annual figures exceeding one billion dollars and a million units.

This year because of the changing times, the New York show has made up its own word to cover this niche-market. It's now called

LAP & PALMTOP '90. The Third Annual Trade Show will be held this year at the N.Y. Penta Hotel on May 21 & 22 lE a ARE

Z88 USER PRODUCES * It's important to have

JUST THE FAX ????? E publications dedicated to

Xp specific computers. One of the hotest ideas to hit the * I wanted to explore the

phone lines have come about in this naibiiiides of a n

new decade. The appearence of a rare cm d Pa da ee newsletter for the Z88 by way of If you duis explore thin how Pax Woe ee IQQ PAY, D AET idea and get the 266 news faxed to

That's right, a faxed newsletter for you fast, you can contact Curtis at the the 288. address below. The subscription rate This idea is the brainstorm of is :$1.00 per taine or $8.0 he c-n Curtis Claar of Casper, Wyoming. i ata ox el aah 2 ; GE EN i for 12 issues. All prices are U.S. funds His premiere issue, Jan. 1990 is ; and payments must be made prior to three pages long and includes a list of . Nes o bc E AR bs m i transmissions. For more information companies that support the 288. Paran Curtis was asked why he wanted | to venture into the world of E ge 288 FAX NEWS ae 2342 GLENDALE AVE. m. CASPER, WY 62601 USA + There are a lot of rumors going around that need to be

dispelled or confirmed please include your FAX number.

Check tutae ere. L uscon

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Tour includes pickup/dropoff at your hotel. Air tour of Grand Canyon aboard our aircraft, land at the Grand Canyon Airport for a 5 1/2 hour land tour along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, including a stop at one of the beautiful lodges for lunch. This 6 hour tour normally departs at 10:50 am returning to Las Vegas at 4:30 pm. Call us anytime 24 hours per day to

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First off, I want to say that the — article that appeared in my BBS BEAT column in the Janruary and February issue was not written by me. For those of you that use CSHOW V7.0 to view your GIF files, I sent for Bob Berry's enhanced version. It's priced ata mere $20.00 and is well worth it. It has many more features that the other version doesn't have. I highly recommend it.

Now for this months column. I thought that a list of some out of town, out of state BBS'es might be in order. We all know who the GOOD local boards are, but most of us have to rely on the local users that use out of town boards, to tell us which ones are the best. A while back, I puta message up on 6 different local boards asking for. some input on out of town boards. I got a pretty good . response and also Dale Harter gave me some good information. He probably does more out of state BBS ‘ing than anyone I know, except for maybe Doug Crowe.

The opinions of the boards are not mine, so if you don't like a particuliar board that is listed, don t blame me. You are on your own. If, during your wanderings, you run across any other

good boards, let me know as I probably have enough information for another insertion.

Some of the boards that are listed are "free" boards and some are subscription boards. If you do not subscribe to the board, you will probably run across the ratio system, where your access level will be determined on your Upload and Download ratio. Share the files you get with others as that is what makes the BBS community successful. Also if you know the answer to a particular question on one of the message bases, don't be afraid to answer it. Your answer may be of utter — importance to the sender. Don t be shy.

So now for the list. Hope it helps you decide if you want to call out of state. It could be hazardous to your pocketbook and when the wife sees the phone bill, it might be hazardous to your health!

NEV. NATIONAL GUARD BBS...Carson City, NV... 364-9504..Brion Lienhart Give your name at the prompt. Then type “GUEST"-at password. You will have access to D/L files on your first call. Satelite linked.

THE FORBIN PROJECT

...3 19-233-6157..QMODEM Support BBS... Registered users can D/L U/L programs. Has Q-Mail and Relay Net. Running PCBOARD with 6 nodes and 9600 Hayes modem. Full access to the board will cost you 30.00 per year.

PUBLIC BRAND SOFTWARE BBS...317-856-2087... Supports 4 nodes, 3/12/2400 baud using COER HST modem and PCBOARD. Leading distributor of Shareware. PBS catalog serves as a software guide. Everything is tested and rated. Author forums. Cost is 50.00 per year for Ihr per day access and no per min charge. Call 1-800-426-DISK to subscribe. You will be sent a user guide, a directory of software on a disk and your password.

EXEC-PC... Milwaukee,WI...414-964-5160.. Bob Mahoney... Running PCBOARD with 50 nodes. Has over 1.2 gigs of software. Probably the biggest board in the country. Is directly accessable off TELENET. Has over 2000 callers per day so real busy. Has over 25 conferences on line with some of the biggest names in the PC world. The cost at last response was 50.00 but may be 60.00 now. No ZMODEM.

VBBS.. Daly City, CA.. .415-994-2944.. Vern Berg... Running modified RBBS-CPC 11.2. 1200/2400 baud. The busiest board in town. Run by the author of LIST. Everyone gets 45 min. on line. Uploads are not required. Has many files. D/L “ALLFILES" to get the listing. Very nice board.

PC MAGAZINE IRS...New York,NY...212-696-05360. Chris Barr... Running TBBS running at 2400 bps. This board is the Interactive Reader Service (IRS) run by ZIFF

DAVIS Pub. Co. This is the place to download all thoes nifty utilities found in each issue. Of course, you can also get them from local boards as well. This is a very well run board.

MONEY CRUNCHER...Portiand OR.. .503-261-3549..Ray Barrett.. Running OPUS at 2400 bps. This board is business orientated, but is big enough that I think most everyone will find something of interest here. With 200 megs on line, it has a lot of Fidonet message areas, as well as plenty of other files to download. Very good.

TOOL SHOP... Phoenix,AZ. ..602-279-2673..Samual Smith... Running PCBoard at 2400 bps. This board is the home of "ProDOOR". This is not just a distribution board for Sam Smith's software. There are lots of great files other than ProDOOR, ProKIT, etc. It is also a. node in the PCBnet echo, so you will find quite a few very active conferences going on all the time. Check it out.

CC RBBS.. Petaluma CA.. .767-792-0953..Den Watkins... Running modified RBBS-CPC 11.2 w/ZMODEM at 1200/2400 bps. This is one of thoes relaxing boards where the SYSOP believes that registration is as bad as copy protection. The board is his hobby, and is generally frequented by some of the best shareware authors in the country. The message base time does not count against your daily 50 minute allotment. Uploads are not required

and you get full user acess the first time you log on. All the files are up to date and clean. The DIR.ARC all-

files list has the full file description.

Give it a try. Not too far away from Vegas.

TELEGODZILLA...Portland OR. ..503-62 1- 3746. Chuck Forsburg... Running PRO-YAM w/ZMODEM at 1200/2400 bps. if you are into tele- communinations, this is the place for you. You should all recognize the

SYSOP. He is the author of XY,andZ ` :

Modem transfer protocols. This is the place to log on for the latest version of ZMODEM. There isn't much else here, but if you like communications, this is the place.

MICROMART...Dallas,TX..

.2 14-22 1-7814.. Rick Greer... Running PCBoard at 2400 bps. If you like door games, this is the board to log on to. This is the home of the PCB versions of Trade Wars and Power Struggle. It is also a beta site for all Kinds of games that are on-line. You can play most of them here first before they reach the local boards. Play to your hearts delight. A must ` for you game hounds.

PROGRAMMER'S WORKSHOP.. -Houston,TX...713-772-2090.. Paul Meiners Running GT POWER at 2400 bps. If you are a GT fan, this is the place for you. This is the authors own board. It is the host of the GT Netmail echos as well as the place to get the latest version of GT and see future versions in action as he uses

his board to beta test. You can also find all the accompanying utilities on line. The use of the board is free but the use of GT is not.

Well fellow BBS'ers, I have given you enough to spend your money, on so give them a try. I have more on my list if we continue in another issue. If you log on to any other GOOD out of town boards, be sure and let me know. Leave me all the info on RAIDERS, COMPULEX or DESERT DREAMS. I will be glad to include them in another issue. Keep ihe lines busy and happy BBSing.

RMG ENTERPQTSES

$1233 H J Di Renz

IET FX IS HERE!

FINALLY! A 2068 program that wil HANIPULATE-HODIFY- CREATE- “SAVE SCREENS

You will find the pull-down menus, extensive online help and ease of customization some of the best features. The program uses a special COMPRESSION” SAVE to save time and space when

SAVEing SCREENS. Many other features! Price: $19. " l

Available only on cassette but easy " put on 4$

disk P. microdrive. m catalog, se E

E-— 1419 1/2 7th Street GEM

Oregon City, OR 97045

-€503)655-7484 NDON-10PH PT TUE-SAT LEEETTTILETLLLLLLELELLLLEEETTETTETETEE EEEE EEE]

| allow you to

^. Eq CHRIS SEEN

There's a new file uploaded to Phil Wheeler's Z66 support BBS in CA.. This is a re-work by DR Armstrong of his “Z86COM.BAS™ that will enable you to leave your 288 at home and access it remotely from another terminal. It allows uploading and downloading of files but does not currently allow a message base. It does allow the viewing of text files and it maintains an activity log It looks to be a very handy tool when you must leave the Zed behind.

...Editors note..... As of this writing. the program is experencing a few bugs and am unable to comment futher as to its use......

AMSTRAD SHOWS SURPRISING STRENGTH, RAISES PRICES BRENT WOOD, ENGLAND, 1990 FEB 17 (NB) -- In an unexpected move, Amstrad has hiked several of its PCs by URP 50 ($75), and has reported better than expected sales and profits figures for the half year to 3i December, i389.

In parallel with the PC price rises, Amstrad has upped the price of its 280-based PCW séries of machines by UKP 30 ($45), anc unveiled plans for a UKP 9 million media campaign, designed to boost sales out of the doldrums. During the half year to 31 December, 1989, Amstrad generated profits of UKP 30.1 million ($45 million) on sales of UKP 373.4 million. Although not sparkling, with the profits down 60 per cent and

sales up 7 per cent on the same period last year, the profit figures were higher than the UKP 20 to 25 million that industry analysts had expected.

According to Alan Sugar, chairman and founder of Amstrad, the improved profits were due to the company taking a conservative approach to sales in the pre-Christmas run-up, resulting in higher than expected sales and therefore, profits.

Amsirad's spring promotion spiits neatly into two sections. The first is a predictable UKP 7 million spread of ads across TV, radio and press media, hopefully to boost brand awareness amongst consumers. The remaining UKP 2 million is being spent on what Amstrad calls its merit initiative scheme.

The merit initiative scheme works in two ways. From the consumer's point of view, Amstrad's business computers will - from 2 April, 1990 - come with a free 12-month on-site maintenance scheme. From the dealer's point of view, the scheme allows him/her to sign up toa national repair scheme operated by Dictaphone, or assume warranty repairs themselves. If they choose to do this, a number of dealer benefits begin to accrue, making self -warranty a very attractive option. Newsbytes notes that the user benefits as well, since local warranty repairs are usually expedited faster. attractive option. Newsbytes notes that the user benefits as well, since local warranty repairs are usually expedited faster.

U.N. L V BUYS LAPTOP COMPUTERS FOR CLASSROOMS

The UNLV Division of Continuing Education has recently purchased 20 Zenith laptop computers for $60,000.

"In the past we were always tied to the fixed personal computer laboratories on campus” said Ann Tate, Continuing Education computer training cooridinator. “Now we can offer hands-on computer training in any classroom on or off campus."

The division plans to use the laptops for a word processing class which started Feb. 20th., a computer

literacy class which started Feb. 2 Ist,

and other ciasses.

ed. note..... Why didn't someone tell -

them about the 288? They could have gotten a lot more than 20 for $60,000 and would have been much lighter to haul around.......

ADVERTISER'S SPECIAL

The “HACKER” will run for its commerical readers, a 1/2 page ad, for cix months, for $30. That's

only $5. per issue. Send your ad's to the: “HACKER” c/o of this N/L.

OS x.

FOR SALE

Almost new CAMBRIDGE

Z88 plus accessories.

Call for price and details 603-357- -8632

LOCAL MEMBER IN SEARCH OF PC8300'S

Remember those cute little PC6300's? You know, the ones that looked like the T$1500, but only spoke Chinese.

Well, we have a local member, Grant Hudlow, who is in search of anyone who has or knows if they are still available. If you have any info on these cheap wonders from China, please let Grant know. You can write him at the address below if you have any information.. Or maybe we can get Leonard Nemoy to do a TV show on their whereabouts. Remember, IN SEARCH OF......

Grant Hudlow HCR 65 Box72606

Pahrump, NV 69041 If you do have any info., help outa Timex user and pass it on.

ZIGGY

1 USTCOU WLESSNGS 0 AND "7 E THEPREALTAXAp 0

2068 FIX STAR NX-1000/AERCO -

CENTRONICS I/F FIX

Richard Hurd reports in the latest issue of SINC-LINE newsletter that he has found a way to use a Star NX-1000 printer with a 2068 and a AERCO Centronics printer interface. Richard reports the following.......

" I purchased a new Star NX 1000 Multi-Font printer about a month ago only to find that it would not work with the AERCO Centronics printer interface and the 2068. |

I started writing requests for help to everyone I could think of and today I received word back from John Oliger with a suggestion for a fix. Invert the STROBE line. It worked!

If you want more info about this project, you can get the diagram from the Jan-Feb issue of SINC-LINK' 90 S

The editor of SINC-LINK writes that "since a large portion of SINC-LINK is published on a Star NX-1000 driven by a 2068 and I have no problems, I must assume that my Peter Hacsell AERCO-style printer interface solves the problem described above. Hackell boards are still avallable in the Toronto area via our club. For more info drop them a line. they will be more than happy to help out.

RENEWAL NOTICE

This notice is to remind the

following people that their

subscription/membership is due on April 1, 1990

Mr. Robert Borgens

Without your support, We can't function. Please renew today.

l'D RATHER FIGHT THAN SWITCH ??

In a very recent issue of the CATS newsletter (Washington, D.C.), there was an item of interest. In fact this ruffled my feathers. It seems that someone named David Hartman, went to great lenghts to receive a refund and/or back issues of TDM. REALLY NOW Hil

So I whipped out my thesaurus

Contumact.

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