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Minutes of Meetings
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December 21, 1998 |
President Dale Roethig called the meeting to order at 7:13 pm. Attendance: 9. Secretary Gary Köhler read the minutes of the November meeting. SIG Reports
Game SIG: Dale Roethig contrasted Jane's Flight Simulator with Microsoft Flight Simulator He noted that Microsoft has a very blocky terrain, while Jane's renders better.
Discussion
Phil Fritz discussed CPU accelerators for the Commodore 64 and a software package called Wheels. A presentation has been tentatively scheduled for the February meeting.PresentationGary Köhler presented the next two sections of the Web Syllabus after briefly backing up to discuss special characters. The discussion turned to images, the available graphics file types, and how to include them on a web page, with attention being paid to time to download and to helping viewers that are unable or unwilling to download graphics.The next section concerned tables. We then played around with several of the tables used in the MACE web site. |
November 16, 1998 |
President Dale Roethig called the meeting to order at 7:04 pm. Attendance: 8. Secretary Gary Köhler read the minutes of the October meeting. SIG Reports
Game SIG: Dale Roethig restored one of the network cards. Tried installing Microsoft's European Air War, but it requires DirectX 6 and would not install.
Web SIG: Gary Köhler has expanded the syllabus into a Lotus Freelance Graphics presentation, the first part of which will be given that evening.
Discussion
There was a brief discussion of the upcoming Leonid meteor shower.PresentationGary Köhler presented the first two sections of the Web Syllabus. In the first or "zero-th" section he defined the web, paying special attention to the parts of an URL (Uniform Resource Locator). He also discussed some of the types of software used for editing Web pages and posting them to the Internet.Gary then launched into the basics of HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and created a simple page showing a few examples of the use of various tags. In the course of the demonstration, Parsifal II's other operating system, Linux, and some of its software such as X-Windows and the hilarious game XBill was briefly shown. |
October 19, 1998 |
President Dale Roethig called the meeting to order at 7:14 pm. Attendance: 8. Secretary Gary Köhler read the minutes of the September meeting. SIG Reports
Game SIG: Dale reported problems with the network cards -- both of them died.
Web SIG: Gary Köhler presented a proposed syllabus. It was decided by all present that the first few SIG meetings would be carried on as the demonstration for the next few meetings to see how it all goes.
Discussion
Dale Roethig described several Civil War web sites and described a project that is currently putting the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships on the web.
There was a brief discussion of search engines.
The CIA's web site was described.
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PresentationPhil Moughmer showed an early version of a video he put together for Bucyrus. Titling and special effects were done with an Amiga program called Scala, which he then demonstrated.The meeting was adjourned at 9:05 pm. |
September 21, 1998 |
President Dale Roethig called the meeting to order at 7:04 pm. Attendance: 7, 9 later on. Secretary Gary Köhler read the minutes of the August meeting. SIG Reports
Dale reported lots of fun. They installed a CD-ROM for Don Bedroske but unfortunately now nothing works.
Discussion
Dale briefly discussed Babylon 5 and some of the programs such as LightWave used in creating the special effects.
A proposal was put forward to create a Web SIG. Gary Köhler, as the one most experienced in creating Web pages, will prepare a syllabus for the first few meetings.
There was a discussion of RAM.
The topic then turned to LCD monitors and how as their prices drop towards affordability it is bringing down the cost of 17" monitors.
Gary Köhler described Linux, a UNIX clone that he has installed on one of his machines. The install went smoothly but it appears that the command for mounting the floppy drive may have damaged the drive. Stay tuned for further developments!
Phil Fritz mentioned the Ham Radio and Computer Swapfest at Grayslake later in the month.
PresentationDale demonstrated a program called Acid pH1 from Sonic Foundry which is a tool for creating (and customizing) background music in a bewildering array of annoying styles. Obvious uses include as background music for presentation software (although it might have to be toned down a little in a business environment!) and for home-made cartoons made with your favorite animation package.The meeting was adjourned at 9:05 pm. |
August 10, 1998 |
President Dale Roethig called the meeting to order at 7:01 pm. Attendance: 4, 7 later on. He announced that the group netted $1322.25 from GenCon, probably our second best showing ever. Furthermore, we were paid on the spot, in contrast to the years where we had to wait endless months for the check to arrive. Secretary Gary Köhler read the minutes of the July meeting. Treasurer Phil Moughmer reported that with the deposit of the GenCon proceeds our balance is now $1585.95. Out of this several payments were made. SIG Reports
Game SIG -- Everybody worked their tails off at GenCon. Games and other prizes for volunteers will be distributed at the next Game SIG.
Discussion
Discussion of GenCon continued. Several suggestions were made, among them more secure handling of the money, preprinting forms, and using a server for our games.
Dale moved and all approved authorizing Phil to negotiate with the Todd Post for our return to the Wimmer Room for our main meeting. The Game SIG will continue to meet at Adventure Games Plus.
Dale announced the availability of an improved AREXX .
Dale explained the differences between LightWave and Inspire.
Two stories from The Monitor Newsletter, concerning the QuikPak lawsuit and RAM prices were discussed.
Gary Köhler described his continuing work on the web site and asked whether anyone would be interested in a Web SIG.The meeting was adjourned at 8:21 pm. |
July 13, 1998 |
President Dale Roethig called the meeting to order at 7:12 pm. Attendance: 6. He briefly discussed GenCon, and the need for more people to work our tables as it will be running around the clock this time. Secretary Gary Köhler read the minutes of the June meeting. Discussion
Dale continued discussion of GenCon.
Gary Köhler read a number of toaster jokes from the web, and added one concerning the kind of toasters Congress would make.
Don Bedroske reported that RAM and ROM were highly critical of Windows 98 on their show recently.
Gary Köhler then read an excerpt from a letter from Ralph Nader to Wall Street Journal in which he suggested IBM stands for "Intimidated By Microsoft". Gary then went on to describe the Partition Magic program from PowerQuest and the Win32-OS/2 Project, which seeks to "commandeer" Windows 95 executables and convert them to OS/2 executables running in Presentation Manager.The meeting was adjourned at 9:14 pm. |