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Lighting Your Apple II Path | |
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>>> WELCOME TO THE LAMP! <<<
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE BEST OF THE A2 BULLETIN BOARD ON Syndicomm Online
AND THE BEST OF THE DELPHI A2 AND A2PRO MESSAGE BOARDS
"Teaching the Apple II user how to fish since 1998"
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The Lamp! An Onipa'a Software Production Vol. 7, No. 1
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Publisher................................Ryan M. Suenaga, M.S.W., L.S.W.
Editor.....................................................Lyle Syverson
Internet Email, Publisher.........................thelamp@sheppyware.net
Internet Email, Editor................................lyle@FoxValley.net
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January 15, 2004
HIGH ABOVE THE ROCK RIVER---------------------------------------------[OPN]
Canned Meat Requires no Refrigeration :)
A2 FORUM AT Syndicomm Online (A2Central.com) DISTILLATIONS------------[DAS]
TextEdit Update (or) New Word Processor--------------------------[TEP]
Gopher Celebrates Birthday---------------------------------------[GCB]
NDAs to do IIgs Email?-------------------------------------------[TDE]
Spam, Spam and More Spam-----------------------------------------[SSS]
KEGS Now Compatible With SIS 1.2---------------------------------[KNC]
Main Page for The Lamp! Updated----------------------------------[MLU]
Good Year for Juiced.GS------------------------------------------[GYJ]
Panther/Bernie Slowdown------------------------------------------[PBS]
ILLUMINATING THE LAMP-------------------------------------------------[ITL]
An overview of GEnieLamp A2 and The Lamp!
Wolfenstein 3D
ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM SYNDICOMM------------------------------------------[ANS]
To Sign up for Syndicomm Online----------------------------------[TSU]
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR-------------------------------------------------[LTE]
No Letters to the Editor This Month
An Invitation
KFEST COMMENTS--------------------------------------------------------[KFC]
Woz KansasFest - In Apple II History-----------------------------[WKF]
KFest Endorsed---------------------------------------------------[KFE]
KFEST 2004------------------------------------------------------------[KFF]
KansasFest 2004--------------------------------------------------[KF4]
KFest 2004 Talk--------------------------------------------------[KFT]
Watch for More Information at the KFest Home Page----------------[VKF]
EXTRA INNINGS
About The Lamp! ------------------------------------------------ [INN]
[*] [*] [*]
READING THE LAMP! The index system used by The Lamp! is designed to make
""""""""""""""""" your reading easier. To use this system, load this
issue into any word processor or text editor. In the index you will find
something like:
EXTRA INNINGS
About The Lamp! ------------------------------------------------ [INN]
To read this article, simply use your search or find command to locate
[INN]. There is a similar tag at the end of each article: [EOA].
[OPN]-------------------------------
HIGH ABOVE THE ROCK RIVER |
------------------------------------
From The Editor
"""""""""""""""
by Lyle Syverson <lyle@FoxValley.net>
Canned Meat Requires no Refrigeration :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From High Above The Rock River we can see that the unseasonable warm
weather has melted most of the snow. Brings to mind hot Summers some sixty
years ago.
Now the hot weather was welcome on the farm... "good corn growing
weather". No electricity... no refrigerator. The ice man stopped by every
other day. He harvested ice from a nearby lake in the winter and sold ice
door to door for people's ice boxes. A little boy could depend on a free
chunk of ice to melt in his mouth... a real treat on a hot summer day.
(That ice was really refreshing when you didn't stop to think that it was
from a lake!)
Since refrigeration was limited to an ice box, people were always on
the lookout for foods that didn't require refrigeration... canned meats for
example. One of the products that we used was... uh... Spam.
We never had any idea that someday this product would lend its name to
unwanted email.
Email has been a very useful means of communication. But it has
become rather tedious to wade through all those unwanted messages and sort
out those that you want.
Just think... you can send off for a device that will reduce the
gasoline consumption of your automobile by 27% or more... and it is easy to
install... just clamp it on the outside of the fuel line. Duh.
As you can see in this issue, spam is a topic of conversation in the
A2 Forum at Syndicomm Online.
[EOA]
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ASCII ART ENDS
[EOA]
[DAS]----------------------------------------------
DISTILLATIONS FROM The A2 FORUM at Syndicomm.com |
(A2Central.com) |
---------------------------------------------------
by Lyle Syverson <lyle@foxvalley.net>
[TEP]
TextEdit UPDATE (or) NEW WORD PROCESSOR
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
If TextEdit was to be updated, the two big things I can think of that would
be needed are multiple rulers and tables (where anything can go in a cell).
And it would also be neat if a graphic bitmap could be inserted anywhere in
the text. All of this would easily increase the HTML rendering of SIS.
But for a new word processor, I would think the easiest solution is to port
Open Office Word Processing module over to the IIgs. This isn't a trivial
task by any stretch of the imagination, but you get the following already
done for you:
- standard Word Processing features and tools
- all the algorithms are already coded
- standard XML file format
- import/export of MS Word
Geoff
(GEOFF, Cat 8, Top 22, Msg 18)
[EOA]
[GCB]
GOPHER CELEBRATES BIRTHDAY
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Gopher celebrated its 12th birthday yesterday.
It is amazing to see how quickly a technology provided a wealth of
information and now is mostly abandoned.
Geoff
(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 5, Msg 1)
[EOA]
[TDE]
NDAs TO DO IIgs EMAIL?
""""""""""""""""""""""
I have not yet had a chance to work on my NDA send only email client (aka
Emily) which I showed at KansasFest 2003 since I got back. All of that
said. . .
The modern email client on other platforms is a very complex thing; it
involves an address book, an editor, a database to store messages in,
searching and sorting utilities, file encoders and decoders. . . while SAM
has much of this built in, I'm wondering what folks think of the approach
of using FExts and NDAs to handle some of the separate duties. For
instance, having an address book NDA to serve as the address book, or use
GSCii+ or StolenBase NDA for encoding and decoding.
Your thoughts?
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 18)
>>>>>
"""""
I think the idea of using separate NDAs for the various tasks modern email
programs perform is a good idea. It saves memory by letting people only
install the DAs for the stuff they use, and allows for great customization.
I've been talking to Burger about getting the ContactsGS source so support
for sending a message to an email program to send a message could be added.
He's agreed to do it but finding the code may take some time. :)
Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com
Building communities, bit by bit.
(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 19)
>>>>>
"""""
That's what I think too, but I can't conceptualize how to do an email
reading NDA that makes sense. Email sending, I can see, and will get back
to working on it soon.
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 20)
>>>>>
"""""
There are a lot of different ways to implement the pieces. As discussed,
having the different pieces available to use by multiple applications would
be really cool.
Options include:
* NDAs - using any number of APIs to transfer data back and forth
* Control - use the control manager to transfer data
* Tool set - design your own functions
* Library - design your own functions
Each have their own advantages and disadvantages which can be discussed in
another section if desired.
I sort of skipped writing an address book interface for SIS so I could
hopefully leach off of something else. And now there is some mutterings
that there may be that "something else" :) Having a common database of
address entries which can be shared across multiple mail clients would be a
positive user experience.
Geoff
(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 22)
>>>>>
"""""
>> Having a common database of address entries which can be shared across
multiple mail clients would be a positive user experience. <<
I think so too.
I am seeing some light in the time window in March, I'm going to get back
to work.
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 24)
>>>>>
"""""
An email reading NDA, I think, could be done nicely I think. Just set up
a task that periodically (or on command, I guess) fetches the email and
parses it out. Maybe use a file format where each mailbox folder gets a
file in which each message's text goes into a resource, and which maybe has
its key headers parsed into other resources. Like...
resource rText(messagenumber) contains the body of the message
resource rSubjectText(messagenumber) contains the subject of the message
resource rFrom(messagenumber)
resource rTo(messagenumber)
resource rCc(messagenumber)
And so forth.
That would make it relatively easy to manage the mailbox using Resource
Manager calls.
Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com
Building communities, bit by bit.
(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 25)
>>>>>
"""""
I don't like the resource method you are suggesting. It breaks any
compatibility to access email messages from command line tools.
I suggest instead to store messages using the standard mdir format (each
message is a separate file complete with all the headers as retrieved from
the POP/IMAP/whatever server). But, there should be an indexed database
which has stored the byte locations of key header lines and the start of
the body (and I would recommend also tracking the start of the .sig using
the format suggested by emacs--which coincidently SIS follows :). It even
makes sense to duplicate some of the key headers (From, To, CC, Subject,
Date, etc.) to be also stored in the indexed database for quick sorting
(otherwise you will have to open a lot of mail files to do any sorting or
header searching). As far as I know, there are no database libraries for
the GS so that would require some work to implement. I have no idea how
hard it would be to port newdb.
And since each message is stored in mdir format, one can use any number of
existing tools to access the messages to do cool stuff (i.e. spam blocking,
etc.).
So Ryan, I'm not sure which aspect of mail reading you have trouble
deciding how to implement. But I hope this idea helps you in some way.
Geoff
(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 26)
>>>>>
"""""
>> I suggest instead to store messages using the standard mdir format (each
message is a separate file complete with all the headers as retrieved from
the POP/IMAP/whatever server). <<
That's probably a wise idea. mbox format would result in some huge files
even for the average email user unless they pruned their mailboxes
extensively.
>> So Ryan, I'm not sure which aspect of mail reading you have trouble
deciding how to implement. But I hope this idea helps you in some way. <<
For me, it's more in the interface concept. I guess something that just
threw up a database on the screen and allowed for checking would work, then
if you chose a message to read brought up a reader would work, but that
sounds kind of big for a NDA to me.
This has been a productive discussion so far, let's keep it going :)
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 27)
>>>>>
"""""
Well, you'd know better than I about good email formats, Geoff. :)
At Be, we used individual text files for the messages, with attributes
attached for easy indexing based on from, to, subject, and so forth, but
that was very Be specific. Having an index file makes sense.
Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com
Building communities, bit by bit.
(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 28)
>>>>>
"""""
There is no one real good email format. What is considered is a "better
email format" based on the application.
I actually prefer the mbox format on the user side. But this really needs
a fast processor, lots of RAM, etc. to take advantage of efficiently.
I completely forgot about attachments until you brought it up Sheppy.
I prefer having attachments as part of the message file just to keep things
better organized. It just seems cumbersome with some email programs where
to delete an email, you have to remove the "message part" and then go
through and remove the "attachment part".
Of course, you could have message where the MIME parts are like this:
text
file
text
file
file
text
All of the text segments will need to be displayed in the body of the
message. And since the attachments can be pretty long, one would need to
track the start and length of each MIME segment for quicker display and
attachment handling. That information can be stored in the index database
as well.
Geoff
(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 29)
>>>>>
"""""
>> For me, it's more in the interface concept. <<
Let's look at three different styles of how email clients handle the
reading of messages. There are a few more (and variations), but this will
help you to get started to think about where to start.
3-PANE APPROACH
This is considered the modern the interface for an email client. The email
window is split into three areas: folder list, message, list, and message
(or message preview). Typically, the list of folders appear in the left
window pane, the list of messages in that folder (inbox, outbox,
to-be-deleted, user-folders) appear in the top-right window pane, and the
message content in the bottom-right pane.
Advantages: easy access to all the messages--content is available all in
one window.
Disadvantages: lots of scrolling since everything is all in the same
screen, requires lots of screen real estate which the GS does not have.
Notes: works great if you have lots of folders, cumbersome if you have lots
of messages in a specific folder.
This option is not basically optimal for the GS due to 640x200 resolution.
You want the width of the screen just to view a message.
2-PANE APPROACH
Basically, you have some sort of menu to select which folder you want to
access (menu bar, select via a dialog box, etc). Once the folder is
selected, you then display a window with two panes--the top has the list of
messages and the bottom has the message content.
Advantages: message content fills the width of the screen, folder content
is wider so more information can be displayed (from, subject, date, size,
etc.).
Disadvantages: Height of panes is very short--around 10-11 lines of text is
visible in each pane. Requires several steps to switch to a different
folder.
This provides the most information based on the GS screen real estate
space. But how often do you need to be viewing the list of messages in the
folder at the same time as viewing the message itself?
TEXT-SCREEN APPROACH
Depending on which font is used, you typically have less characters
available on the super hires screen than you do with the Apple II text
screen. So it may be better to start thinking how text-screen email
programs operate since they are designed to fit in a 80x24 character space.
Two feature-rich programs are pine and elm. Between these two, I am more
familiar with pine.
It might be better to take a look at something like pine and "Gui-ify" its
operation for the GS.
Since you are looking at making an NDA instead of a regular application,
you could get away without having a menu bar and just have a bunch of
buttons to navigate among the menus/screens.
Emulating the pine or elm structure would allow a UNIX Apple II to easily
adapt to a GS email client.
The NDA windows will have to be the size of the GS screen anyway--there is
no point to make it any smaller--you have to assume after a bit of use,
there will be lots of folders, lots of messages in a folder, and large
messages to be read.
If you really want a more Apple GUI look and feel, then you will have to
look at really old versions of Pegasus, Eudora, etc.
When the email app starts up, you display a window with a list of folders.
The user then double clicks on the folder to bring up a new window with a
list of messages. The user then double clicks on the message to bring up a
new window with the message content. At this point, there are three
windows open--all the size of the screen. Things get messy fast once you
start moving a window so you can see the one behind it and opening
additional windows. Forcing everything into a single window using a
text-like-email interface will prevent that from happening.
There are ways to GUI-ify something like pine or elm to work within a
single pane and single window interface (menu bar with menus, etc.). But
I'll let that be an exercise for the student.
Geoff
(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 30)
>>>>>
"""""
>> If you really want a more Apple GUI look and feel, then you will have to
look at really old versions of Pegasus, Eudora, etc. <<
I've been kind of looking at those, as well as thinking that looking at
other email clients for platforms with small screens (Palm, Newton, maybe
even something like the Danger Sidekick) might give some ideas.
I'm wondering if a GS interface with tabs (pioneered by Geoff Weiss on the
IIgs :) might be usable in this case.
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 32)
>>>>>
"""""
You're ignoring my personally favorite interface for email -- The
multi-window approach. One window with a list of folders in one pane and a
list of messages in another, and when you double-click a message, a new
window opens with that message's content.
I think this approach would work the best on the Apple IIgs screen. It
optimizes the use of the screen for each thing you're looking at.
As for attachments, what about creating a structure like this:
Mail/
Inbox/
Index <-- index of messages
Message1 <-- text file
Message2 <-- text file
Message3/ <-- folder
Body <-- text file
Attachment1
Attachment2
Message4 <-- text file
And so forth. This keeps messages and attachments together and you can
keep in your index whether or not the message is a text file or a folder,
and that's also easy enough to determine when reindexing.
This would be pretty fast, and it would be relatively efficient.
Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com
Building communities, bit by bit.
(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 31)
>>>>>
"""""
>> I'm wondering if a GS interface with tabs (pioneered by Geoff Weiss on
the IIgs :) might be usable in this case. <<
I'm not sure I see how tabs would work well for an email program. Can you
expand on that a bit?
Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com
Building communities, bit by bit.
(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 33)
>>>>>
"""""
Well, if, building on Geoff's idea about GUI-izing pine or elm, we took the
major components of the main menu in pine:
Compose message, message index, folder list, address book, setup, and quit
then gave each of them (but probably not quit) its own tab on the top of a
window, that might be a space efficient way to do some of the interface.
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 34)
>>>>>
"""""
See, I think all those things should be windows that you can open and close
independently. Just have a "Window" menu to let you open them as desired.
Plus we'd been talking about keeping some of those things as separate DAs
anyway.
Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com
Building communities, bit by bit.
(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 35)
>>>>>
"""""
>> You're ignoring my personally favorite interface for email -- The multi-
window approach. <<
I mentioned it briefly, concluding that there wasn't enough screen real
estate for it to be truly functional. For less savvy users, the
"text-screen" approach will be less confusing to operate and hence, more
useful. The Apple II population is an aging crowd (with a few exceptions,
there is no young blood to propagate the youth spirit) so software
development should be targeted best to how the older crowd wants to use
software:
* Avoid confusion.
* Avoid fanciness.
* Keep it simple.
Even though I can navigate in a windows environment with a lot of windows
open, I am finding that I operate better with fewer windows open. If I'm
seeing that change now (and I'm not even at middle-age), then those who are
older than I am would have feelings even more intense.
If you design something which can lead to confusion, then no one will use
it.
I don't claim to be an expert with user interfaces...all I can do is apply
what people (those who are older) have said in my experience and guess what
a good compromise would be.
Geoff
(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 36)
>>>>>
"""""
I don't see a problem with a multiwindow approach; you can actively use
only one at a time, filling the entire screen if you wish. You don't have
to be able to see both the message and the message/folder lists at the same
time.
Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com
Building communities, bit by bit.
(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 37)
>>>>>
"""""
>> I'm wondering if a GS interface with tabs (pioneered by Geoff Weiss on
the IIgs :) might be usable in this case. <<
Heh. I was too lazy to draw all the necessary stuff to make it look like
notebook pages which is what Finder uses (and several other apps at that
time). I'm still not happy with how it got implemented--a custom control
would have been better. But it was cool that I could make a passable
attempt work based on what was available with Spectrum 2.1.
Back to the email discussion...
There really is no point to make a tabbed interface when a menu bar would
work better and be more familiar for a GS application. A menu bar and a
tabbed interface takes the same number of lines so might as well use
something that is already built in the IIgs toolbox.
The only reason to not use a menu bar if you needed the screen real estate.
That would then force a text-like interface operating much like pine or
elm.
I would argue that a menu bar is pretty much necessary.
It should be noted how much vertical screen real estate is already used up
(assuming the NDA is the size of the desktop):
System Menu Bar
NDA Window Edges
NDA Window Title
NDA Menu Bar
That gives you about 15 lines of Shaston text to work with. If you decide
to display emails using Courier, you are down to 12 lines of text.
If you want more lines of text, you will have to seriously consider to make
your email client an application instead of an NDA. And you would only get
1-2 more lines.
The menu bar approach is more intuitive then a bunch of tabs. The trick
comes down to what you use for the menus and menu items. The approach I
would take is look at the different versions of Eudora from 1.x to the
latest. See what was added, removed, changed, etc. Compare it to other
email applications such as Netscape, Outlook Express, etc. Make sure you
look at systems other than Macs too--looking at Palms and other PDAs is
good, but also other mainstream Operating Systems too (don't forget to look
at SAM too). Compared to PDAs, you have a lot of horizontal space so make
sure you take advantage of that (assuming 640 mode--you might not want to
support 320 mode).
But at this point, menu design is less important considering the list of
features need to be decided on. Modern-day email clients are much more
feature-full than older ones--all those features take time to implement.
For example, right clicking on an email address may throw a pop-up menu
where one of the options is to add that address to the address book. That
doesn't have to be implemented when the user can easily copy the address,
select a menu option to add an address, paste the address in a field and
click an add button. This is much simpler development and you can consider
adding user interface shortcuts in later releases.
Trust me on this, you will have a difficult enough time parsing MIME
encoded messages that you don't want to get bogged down with too much user
interface implementation.
Geoff
(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 38)
>> As for attachments, what about creating a structure like this <<
Lets look at the operations needed to be written:
- add message to folder
- delete message to folder
- move message to another folder
- read message in folder
- save attachment
With my proposed solution, this is what has to be written (order of
operations aren't necessarily correct here):
- add message to folder.
- write message to disk.
- parse message for headers and MIME segments.
- add to index. add headers and MIME segments to index.
- delete message.
- delete file.
- remove item from index.
- move message.
- write file to new folder.
- delete old file.
- delete old index entry.
- write new index entry (may need to parse message again if it wasn't
saved).
- read message.
- read index entry.
- read file (may be multiple operations if multiple text segments exist).
- write to screen.
- save attachment.
- pull start and length of attachment from index.
- read and write bytes.
With your proposed suggestion:
- add message.
- write message to disk (do you really want to assume there is enough
memory to download a large message. Remember, this is a NDA and there
could be a memory-hog application running).
- parse message for headers and MIME segments.
- if multiple segments, rename file, create a directory.
- create new segments of the message and write those files.
- delete the original file.
- add to index. add headers, MIME segments, MIME segment file names,
etc. to index.
-move message
- you get the picture.
- delete message.
- if a file, delete file, delete index entry.
- if a directory, delete files, delete directory, delete index entry.
- read message.
- exercise left to the reader. More steps needed.
- save attachment
- read filename from index
- read and write bytes.
I just see that your proposed solution is more complicated and longer to
write which results in more debugging time.
I think using a standard format such as mdir would allow existing
applications to access the content of the email messages (as suggested
before, such as spam filtering). There is no need to reinvent the wheel.
Geoff
(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 39)
>>>>>
"""""
OK, point taken about the mdir format. I was just kicking ideas around. :)
As for user interface... here's a weird idea, but bear with me.
The GS screen is roomier horizontally than vertically. What about creating
a vertical menu bar along the left edge of the NDA window? Use bitmaps of
sideways text for each of the menu titles, and use a custom menu, or a
custom control that pops up menus, whatever, to bring up popups off them.
_________________
| || Mail NDA
+----------------
| |
|M |
|e |
|n |
|u |
|s |
| |
Like that, except with the text of the menu titles rotated 90 degrees.
It would be unusual, but it might be a better layout for a program that
needs the vertical space.
Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com
Building communities, bit by bit.
(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 40)
>>>>>
"""""
Human interface guidelines generally say that is a Bad Thing for many
reasons (at least for English text--see
http://www.cblt.soton.ac.uk/design/pdf/ChinoMenu.pdf as an example).
There are much better user interfaces to consider, but would take much
longer to develop. And considering Ryan's programming depth of knowledge
(I'm assuming he's still doing all the work, right?), it's probably a good
idea to keep things simple from a programming perspective too. Based on
development time alone, it is well worth taking around 5% of the screen
space and allocate it for a menu bar which we all know how to use.
I know I sound pretty negative with my replies in this thread. It should
be interpreted as an exercise of caution, not to discourage innovation.
Geoff
(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 41)
>>>>>
"""""
I'll be the first to admit I'm not a programming expert, but this
discussion's purpose (since I was the one who started the thread) was not
so much to figure out what I'm going to work on (since I know I have
limited time and even more limited ability) as much as to generate some
discussion on the topic. While SAM is a full featured (but script based)
email client, there are limited other choices (SIS can send mail, for
instance), and email is still a very basic and needed function on any
platform. It's pretty clear that even our "star" programmers have their
hands full with other projects, so others need to help out where they can
More choices for email and perhaps a DA based FTP client would really push
the TCP/IP applications along on the IIgs.
>> I know I sound pretty negative with my replies in this thread. It
should be interpreted as an exercise of caution, not to discourage
innovation. <<
Largely taken as that, by me, anyway.
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 21)
[EOA]
[SSS]
SPAM, SPAM AND MORE SPAM
""""""""""""""""""""""""
Bush signs anti-spam bill
Tuesday, December 16, 2003 Posted: 2:23 PM EST (1923 GMT)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush signed legislation Tuesday meant to stem
the flood of unwanted e-mail pitches, a problem he believes is hurting the
economy.
Story continues at
<http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/16/bush.bills.ap/index.html>
(KGAGNE, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 93)
>>>>>
"""""
Nice to see something's being done, but I'll be pretty surprised if we can
legislate Spam to death.
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 94)
>>>>>
"""""
>> Bush signs anti-spam bill <<
I understood that this was being described as the CAN-SPAM bill, as it puts
the end recipient in an opt out position on spam, rather than an opt in.
The UK press has been calling the bill an open charter for the spammers,
which will actually increase dramatically the amount of spam being sent, as
the spammers can now legally send it out unless you ask them to stop.
It may seem easy to respond to a message asking them to stop, but you would
have to respond to hundreds of messages a day to achieve anything, and it
would probably not make any difference at all to the amount of spam you
receive.
I do hope I have got this wrong, but fear I have not.
In the EU, we have taken a different approach, and so it is now illegal to
send SPAM at all from within the EU, whether a recipient has opted out or
not. However welcome such an approach is, it will not stop the avalanche of
spam that we now expect to emanate from the US! Not forgetting the various
other countries round the world who do not care about it.
There may of course be a side effect, and we shall see more and more
servers being blacklisted. Already in the UK we are getting genuine servers
being regularly blacklisted by others, and genuine mail not getting
through.
I think the future is as black as it has ever been.
Ewen Wannop - Speccie - Sun 21 Dec 2003 - 212 days till KFest '04
Delivered without using a IIgs by Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR 1.0b11
Setup: IIgs running at 95Mhz thanks to Bernie ][ the Rescue 3.0
http://www.ewannop.btinternet.co.uk/
(CONDUCTOR, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 95)
>>>>>
"""""
The CAN-SPAM law actually establishes rules and standards for emailed
commercial mail that make it work essentially the same as physical snail
mailed commercial material.
The material may not be fraudulent. It must provide valid contact
information to let the sender know you don't want to get any more, and that
must actually work. No pornographic material can be sent without being
requested. The subject must not be misleading; it must not pretend to be a
personal message. The headers may not be forged.
In addition, it has a provision that allows the FCC to establish a
do-not-spam list similar to the new do-not-call list, although this has not
been done yet.
And the penalty for violating this law involves massive fines and even
prison time.
Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com
Building communities, bit by bit.
(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 96)
>>>>>
"""""
Thanks for the detailed explanation, it has made the law clearer to me.
However I still do not see how this is actually going to stop the flood of
spam in the long run. Certainly you should now be able to opt out of spam
emanating from the US, but are the spammers going to pay any attention to
those receiving their spam who live outside of the US? The US law does not
apply to us.
The new EEC law only applies to spam originating in the EEC and being sent
to recipients in the EEC. It does not apply to spam being sent from the EEC
to the US. So you may well get new spam coming from over this direction
that cannot be opted out from.
Unless every country that has Internet mail servers outlaws spam
completely, I see the situation as being exactly as it was before, except
that it is now legitimate to send spam from the US. Unless we laboriously
trawl through the spam, and reply to each message that we want to opt out,
I see it just the situation to be exactly the same as it was, except it is
now legal to send unsolicited mail.
I would suggest that only a central opt out list being held somewhere by a
government agency, would actually stop you getting unwanted spam in the
first place. Local lists held by each spammer, would certainly not be cross
referenced to other spammers.
Interestingly, my ISP applies spam filters at their POP3 servers, so
probably a hundred or more spam messages each day never make it to my
computer. This is a good thing obviously, but I never then see those
messages so I have the chance to opt out of them. These messages are
probably going to continue to increase clogging the Internet arteries, as
spammers can now legally send me spam, but the spam they will be sending
will just go into thin air. Only a total ban on spamming can stop that flow
and clear the net of useless garbage...
Ewen Wannop - Speccie - Mon 22 Dec 2003 - 211 days till KFest '04
Delivered without using a IIgs by Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR 1.0b11
Setup: IIgs running at 95Mhz thanks to Bernie ][ the Rescue 3.0
http://www.ewannop.btinternet.co.uk/
(CONDUCTOR, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 97)
>>>>>
"""""
It seems that the amount of spam I receive has increased since the bill was
signed.
>> I still do not see how this is actually going to stop the flood of spam
<<
I agree with Ewen. Spammers don't care about laws anyway.
Cindy
(CINDYADAMS, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 98)
>>>>>
"""""
Ewen,
>> Only a total ban on spamming can stop that flow and clear the net of
useless garbage... <<
Or an enhancement/replacement for SMTP, such as the ePrivacy Group's
proposed new standard for e-mail called TEOS: Trusted E-mail Open Standard,
an add-on to SMTP using cryptography which will verify the sender's
identity and categorize the type of message that is being sent.
http://www.eprivacygroup.com/teos
-Ken
(KGAGNE, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 99)
>>>>>
"""""
Well, CAN-SPAM only got signed six days ago, and I don't think enforcement
has begun. I expect it will take some time to have any effect, and even
then, we'll see how effective it is.
However, if they can send a few of the worst spammers to prison, that may
scare off the rest of them.
As for ISPs blocking spam, Syndicomm is one of them -- we filter spam as
best as we reasonably can.
For the week ending December 13, for example, Syndicomm's servers processed
146,939 email messages. Of those, 47,267 were either rejected as spam or
were tagged with the "{Spam?}" header before being delivered. A few
hundred more had viruses stripped off of them. 73,735 messages were
delivered to the recipient without a spam or virus warning attached. Just
over 39% of the messages received were handled as either spam or a likely
spam candidate.
Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com
Building communities, bit by bit.
(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 100)
>>>>>
"""""
>> Or an enhancement/replacement for SMTP, such as the ePrivacy Group's
proposed new standard for e-mail called TEOS: Trusted E-mail Open Standard,
an add-on to SMTP using cryptography which will verify the sender's
identity and categorize the type of message that is being sent. <<
I went through the PPT show and still don't understand it. Does it mean I
have to buy a license to send email?
Carl Knoblock - Telephone Tech - Mon 22 Dec 03 11:15:59 pm
cknoblo@cox.com - Via Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR v1.0b10
KFest 2004, July 20-25, 2004 - 211 days till KFest
On cable via LANceGS & Marinetti 2.0.1 - Thank you, Richard.
A2 RTC Staff - Sunday Night House Party - carlk@syndicomm.com
(CARLK, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 101)
>>>>>
"""""
That proposed standard does require that ISPs get a secure certificate to
process secure email, but individual users I don't think would have to.
I may be wrong.
Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com
Building communities, bit by bit.
(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 102)
>>>>>
"""""
It's January 1. Do you know where your Spam is?
So far, CAN-SPAM hasn't seemed to have made a dent.
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 104)
>>>>>
"""""
I was offline from Christmas until yesterday. I had 319 email messages, and
only 1 of those was legit. Most were marked as spam.
Cindy
(CINDYADAMS, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 105)
>>>>>
"""""
I get about half my real mail through Syndicomm, and the tagged spams
usually amount to 3 or 4 a day. My total Spam has been over 100 lately.
Carl Knoblock - Telephone Tech - Fri 2 Jan 04 9:23:25 pm
cknoblo@cox.com - Via Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR v1.0b10
KFest 2004, July 20-25, 2004 - 200 days till KFest
On cable via LANceGS & Marinetti 2.0.1 - Thank you, Richard.
A2 RTC Staff - Sunday Night House Party - carlk@syndicomm.com
(CARLK, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 106)
>>>>>
"""""
The worst thing about spam is getting stuff that's so offensive or gross
that you wonder how any human being could be willing to send it when they
know it could be going to a kid.
My niece had her own email address for about two days before her parents
had to take it away because she was getting pornographic spam.
That's just awful.
Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com
Building communities, bit by bit.
(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 110)
>>>>>
"""""
Sadly, they don't care.
It makes a very useful tool into something close to useless nowadays.
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 111)
>>>>>
"""""
>> It's January 1. Do you know where your Spam is? So far, CAN-SPAM hasn't
seemed to have made a dent. <<
If anything a steady increase of SPAM is arriving in my mailboxes. The flow
will not stop until it is illegal to send the stuff, in the way it is now
illegal to send it in Europe.
Ewen Wannop - Speccie - Thu 8 Jan 2004 - 194 days till KFest '04
Delivered without using a IIgs by Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR 1.0b11
Setup: IIgs running at 95Mhz thanks to Bernie ][ the Rescue 3.0
http://www.ewannop.btinternet.co.uk/
(CONDUCTOR, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 112)
>>>>>
"""""
>> The flow will not stop until it is illegal to send the stuff, in the way
it is now illegal to send it in Europe. <<
I'm unconvinced legislating it to be illegal will stop it. It would also
take substantial enforcement.
None of the Spam I've received since CAN SPAM has come into effect has been
legal under the new law. The law is useless without enforcement.
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 113)
>>>>>
"""""
>> If anything a steady increase of SPAM is arriving in my mailboxes. The
flow will not stop until it is illegal to send the stuff, in the way it is
now illegal to send it in Europe. <<
Sadly, the new law makes Spam legal, as long as it follows certain rules.
Some kinds of Spam are not allowed at all. So far, I see nothing following
the rules, and no reduction of the illegal stuff. Only vigorous prosecution
of violators will make a change. Every day that goes by without news
reports of arrests is another day of growing Spam.
Carl Knoblock - Telephone Tech - Thu 8 Jan 04 10:39:04 pm
cknoblo@cox.com - Via Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR v1.0b10
KFest 2004, July 20-25, 2004 - 194 days till KFest
On cable via LANceGS & Marinetti 2.0.1 - Thank you, Richard.
A2 RTC Staff - Sunday Night House Party - carlk@syndicomm.com
(CARLK, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 114)
[EOA]
[KNC]
KEGS NOW COMPATIBLE WITH SIS 1.2
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Move over Bernie, KEGS can now be added to the list as a compatible
emulator for SIS 1.2. After setting my system up for a Marinetti TCP/IP
connection, I could browse the Web just like a real IIgs. You are still
limited by the speed of the serial port (or serial communication device),
but the rest of SIS is very speedy. I'd be interested if anything runs too
quickly in a hyper-accelerated environment that an emulator provides.
Geoff
(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 36, Msg 13)
[EOA]
[MLU]
MAIN PAGE FOR The Lamp! UPDATED
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Well, it took a heckuva lot longer than two weeks, and it's not exactly
thrilling to look at, but the main page for The Lamp! over at
http://lamp.a2central.com/ has been updated. No more broken links, Lynx
friendly, and even has a banner ad.
The color needs to be changed, though. . .
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 20, Top 20, Msg 112)
[EOA]
[GYJ]
GOOD YEAR FOR Juiced.GS
"""""""""""""""""""""""
Well, my Christmas is finally complete. I've subscribed to Juiced.GS 2004.
It's my gift to myself.
Here's to yet another year:)
Dain Neater
(A2.DAIN, Cat 23, Top 2, Msg 504)
>>>>>
"""""
Should be a good year -- to those of you who haven't renewed yet, don't
forget! :)
Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com
Building communities, bit by bit.
(SYNDICOMM, Cat 23, Top 2, Msg 505)
[EOA]
[PBS]
Panther/Bernie SLOWDOWN
"""""""""""""""""""""""
I think that I have discovered the Panther/Bernie slowdown--
In Bernie Preferences on Bernie 2.6, I changed "Bypass Quickdraw when
Possible" so it's now -unchecked-. It's supposed to be faster checked, but
it seems now to be actually usable unchecked and not very usable checked.
It then appears I have to quit Bernie and restart it for this to make a
difference.
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 29, Top 21, Msg 141)
>>>>>
"""""
Thanks for the great tip, Ryan! Bernie is now usable for me with Panther.
Tony Ward
(A2.TONY, Cat 29, Top 21, Msg 142)
[EOA]
[ITL]------------------------
ILLUMINATING THE LAMP |
-----------------------------
An overview of GEnieLamp A2 and The Lamp!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Steven Weyhrich
DER FUEHRER'S FACE - Wolfenstein 3D
We are going to diverge this month from our regularly scheduled review
of The Lamp! for 1999. Instead, I want to focus on the story of Wolfenstein
3D, which has been mentioned several times in this series so far. This
time, the information I can share is gathered from sources other than the
Lamp publications, so I will be indeed "illuminating" the Lamp. Previously
you have heard bits and pieces of the tale; but you've never heard the
entire story before now. Consider it a sidebar off of the last column.
The story will be presented in four major parts. The first looks at
Castle Wolfenstein, the game that inspired it all; the second deals with
the PC development of Wolf 3D on the PC; the third with the Apple IIGS
development; and the fourth with comments about the game itself.
THE SAGA BEGINS
The games you play when you first learn how to use a computer are
sometimes the ones that stay with you the longest. They may have been
simplistic, stupid, or even annoying by your standards of today, but they
were special to YOU, because you spent hours and hours playing them and
learning about your computer, sometimes by hacking them. This is especially
the case for those who were introduced to a computer while they were in
school, and "grew up" with it. And if you started with your Apple II in the
early 1980's, you had some great games on which to spend your time.
One of the pioneering Apple II companies that provided games for the
platform was MUSE Software. Founded in 1978 by Silas Warner and Ed Zaron,
they got their start by selling software on cassette tape for the Integer
BASIC-only Apple II. As the technology advanced, they moved on to
disk-based and assembly language programs. Several key events occurred in
the early 1980's that had an impact on what was to come later.
In the area of sound, two significant things happened. First, MUSE
released a program called "The Voice", which allowed the recording and
playback of sound on an Apple II. It was very low quality, since the
speaker on the Apple II could produce 1-bit sound (clicked "on" or "off"),
but the results were intelligible. At about the same time, the company had
been able to improve the production of their software cassettes by making
use of Flight 3, a professional recording studio. This studio had developed
techniques of enhancing the audio signal for MUSE's data cassettes by
running it through a graphic equalizer. This improved the tapes so much
that MUSE advertised them as "Super-Load" cassettes.
Hi-resolution graphics had been part of games produced by MUSE
software from the very beginning. One of their non-entertainment products
was a word processing program called "Super-Text", which as a text-based
program was limited to the 40-column resolution inherent to the Apple II
and II Plus. As a possible enhancement, Warner had designed a hi-res
character generator to allow 70 columns of upper and lowercase text to be
displayed on the graphics screen. Unfortunately, the hi-res screen took up
8K of RAM, nearly one fourth of the available RAM on a disk-based Apple II,
and so this plan was abandoned.
Finally, MUSE had worked on some new techniques to access data on an
Apple DOS disk more rapidly than was typically possible.
In early 1981, at the time these technologies had been completed and
were available at MUSE, Silas Warner visited his local 7-Eleven one
evening. There, he saw for the first time a new Williams Electronics arcade
game, "Robotron: 2084". This color game had the player running around a
two-dimensional field, shooting in any of eight directions at robots that
were threatening the world's last family of humans. As he looked at the
Robotron game,
"...[I] realized that this would do really nicely if
I built it with the hi-res character generator. But
it was such a cliche' ... just robots and science-fiction
gadgetry and all the trappings of that era. The whole
concept of the game was just a big cliche'. And I
wondered, 'what else could you do with it?' And then
I saw 'The Guns Of Navarone' and realized what you
COULD do with it."
The 1961 World War II movie, "The Guns Of Navarone" involved the use
skill and cunning for an elite force to break INTO a heavily guarded Nazi
fortress; Warner's game would require use of strategy to break OUT of a
heavily guarded Nazi prison. The player could shoot (in eight different
directions) at Nazi soldiers, or hold a gun on them and interrogate them,
or even go though the pockets of a dead soldier to look for loot. It was
not necessarily the point of the game to shoot at everything that moved to
successfully complete it.
Warner put everything into the game. The hi-res character generator
was used to manipulate the graphics; the new disk routines helped speed up
disk access; and "The Voice" was used to make guards that actually spoke to
(or yelled at) the player when spotted. To create the voices used in the
game, he went to the same recording studio that recorded their "Super Load"
cassettes, and spent a morning saying phrases like "Achtung!" into a
microphone. Six months later, MUSE released Castle Wolfenstein.
The resulting game was unique in several ways. Softalk magazine made a
brief first comment on the game in the September 1981 issue: "Castle
Wolfenstein from Muse (Baltimore, MD) combines an arcade-type game with a
more complex adventure/fantasy game. Scenario puts the player in the role
of an Allied soldier as World War II rages across Europe. Player is
captured but must find the Nazi war plans and escape from the castle. Sound
effects include guns firing and Nazis shouting -- in German." Their later
more comprehensive review was enthusiastic about the game, and it soon
appeared at the top of the Softalk Top 5 Strategy list at the end of each
issue, right ahead of Warner's other popular game, Robot War. Their brief
description of the game when the top software of 1981 was listed mentioned
that it was the first game to successfully fuse strategy, home-arcade, and
fantasy. That description also mentioned that the room layout would change
with each new game. It was simply a great game idea that had not yet been
tried, and it resulted in a best seller that MUSE later translated to
several other platforms, including the Atari 800, Commodore 64, and the IBM
PC.
As with many hit games (or books or movies), Castle Wolfenstein
spawned a sequel. In 1984, MUSE released "Beyond Castle Wolfenstein", which
Warner helped design but did not directly write. The premise of this game
was not significantly different from the first, although this time the goal
was to infiltrate Hitler's headquarters, plant a bomb, and then escape
before it went off. More strategy and stealth was needed than in the first
game; it was necessary to collect security passes and bribe guards to
progress through the game. Doing TOO much shooting would draw attention and
increase the odds that you would be caught and arrested. It was also
possible to search a guard at gunpoint, rather than killing him. (Strategy
features like this have unfortunately NOT survived to the present day.)
FAST FORWARD
MUSE Software did not survive past 1987, mainly due to management
problems that resulted in the loss of the company's marketing department.
As time passed, players moved on from the two Wolfenstein games and on to
the next big thing. Nevertheless, a good concept is always ripe for another
sequel, and this did eventually come about. When it did appear, the
programmers again demonstrated break-through concepts.
John Romero got his start writing Apple II software, which he
submitted to Nibble, inCider, and A+ Magazine. He badly wanted to work with
a company in the computer industry, and eventually managed to get jobs
first at Origin (the company that produced the Ultima series of games),
then Inside-Out Software, and eventually at Softdisk. Although he did have
some submissions of games for the Apple II edition of Softdisk, he told the
owner that he wanted to learn how to program for the IBM PC (since the
Apple II platform was dying out), and so worked on their disk magazine,
"Big Blue Disk", and later helped start another disk publication, the
"Gamer's Edge".
Working with Romero at Softdisk was John Carmack, who had likewise
previously written programs for the Apple II before starting at Softdisk.
Both were focused primarily on game playing and design. However, the work
they did for Gamer's Edge eventually began to feel restrictive. They wanted
to create games for the PC that were more complex, games that had better
graphics and sound. Unfortunately, it was necessary in writing for Gamer's
Edge to program for the lowest common denominator computer that most
subscribers owned, which precluded writing games that made use of the
latest video and sound cards and computer power. Doing work on their own
terms began to be an attractive option.
Apogee was a small shareware software company that created games more
advanced than those Romero and Carmack could do at Softdisk. They used a
unique concept in selling their games, one in which the game was written as
three large parts or chapters. The first part was completely unlocked, not
crippled in any way, and was freely available for download from the
thousands of computer BBS systems across the country (and the world). To
play the second and third parts and complete the game required payment of a
shareware fee. This method made it possible for potential customers to get
a good feel for the game play and to spur the desire to buy the rest of the
game and finish it. (Like a good multi-part story, the end of one part of
the game often involved a crisis that required the playing the next part to
resolve.) The success of this method resulted in good sales for Apogee and
good royalties for its programmers.
Romero and Carmack, under the name of "id Software" (a company that
didn't yet officially exist), sold a successful shareware game in 1990
through Apogee called "Commander Keen: Invasion Of The Vorticons". Starting
in 1991, they made the company name official, and continued to write games
that they sold through Apogee using its shareware model. For a while, they
had to continue to help with Softdisk, while new programmers came up to
speed on taking over the Gamer's Edge (which Romero and Carmack had
started). They created several side-scrolling games, including Dangerous
Dave (first on the Apple II and then later a conversion to the PC) for
Softdisk, and the Commander Keen series for Apogee.
With the help of Tom Hall and Adrian Carmack (no relation), who also
had worked at Softdisk, Romero and Carmack began to work on an entirely new
concept. They had previously done games that involved moving through a 3D
environment (Hovertank and Catacombs 3D), but they wanted a more exciting
game, one that involved using the 3D environment to shoot at enemies.
Viewing the screen would be like looking through the eyes of the player;
turning to the left or the right, or moving forwards or backwards would
cause things to move in perspective as it would in real life. Additionally,
the ability to move would also allow aiming at an enemy. After tossing
around various ideas, they decided to reach back to their Apple II roots
and do Silas Warner's Castle Wolfenstein in 3D. They conceived a game that
had the same premise as the original game, escaping from a Nazi stronghold.
During the game, it was necessary to collect weapons and kill bad guys
(Nazis), while trying to stay alive by finding food and ammunition. Because
their new game added a weapon at the bottom of the screen pointing forward
with the movements of the player, id created the genre of the "first person
shooter". (They had also considered adding features from the original
Castle Wolfenstein, such as opening chests and capturing guards, but
eliminated them as it slowed down the pace of the game.)
The programmers contacted Silas Warner, and he did give permission to
use the Wolfenstein concept in a game. id Software was ready to release
"Wolfenstein 3D" in 1992, after six months of game development (oddly, the
same time as it took Warner to create the original game). As with most of
their other games, it was written to run under MS-DOS on Intel-based PCs.
Following their desire to make games that pushed the frontiers of
computing, Wolfenstein 3D was more hardware intensive than previous games
they had written. For best game play it required a fairly fast PC and
capable video card; in fact, it is likely that games like Wolfenstein 3D
and its successor, DOOM, were responsible for motivating PC users to
upgrade their machines in order to get best game play.
The game was a very popular download, and quite profitable for id; at
one point, it was bringing in $120,000 a month in shareware fees.
Additionally, people learned how to hack into the game and create their own
levels that could be used with the original game "engine", extending the
game play further and enhancing its popularity. Building on the first
person shooter concept, Romero and his partners pushed it further with
their next hit game. In DOOM, it was possible for rooms be nearly any shape
(Wolf 3D required all rooms to be composed of right angle corners) and
allowing multiple floors in a single level (although it was not possible to
cross underneath or over an area). DOOM II added new weapons and the
ability to play competitively or cooperatively with other players on a
network. They then used their growing expertise to write a new, more
powerful 3D game engine for "Quake", which increased the complexity of the
virtual world and of the game play, as well as improving network play.
RETURN TO THE APPLE II
As with the original Castle Wolfenstein, the popularity of Wolfenstein
3D and its descendants from id Software resulted in requests for
conversions to enable the games to play on other platforms. Even console
game manufacturers were interested in having it ported to their machines.
In January 1994, a company called Imagineer released (under license) a
version of the game for the Super Nintendo (SNES). However, Nintendo
insisted on removal of the Nazi references, blood (which was changed to
sweat), and rabid dogs (changed to rats). The 16-bit graphics available on
the SNES also decreased the quality of the appearance of the game. In
August, a version for the Atari Jaguar was released, in which the graphics
were much improved. By October 1994, MacPlay released a conversion for the
Macintosh. As versions of the game appeared on these other platforms, and
the knowledge that the SNES ran on the same 65816 processor as did the
Apple IIGS, it was speculated that a IIGS port was entirely possible. By
mid-to-late 1994, rumors were surfacing that this was actually going to
happen. The production of this IIGS version of Wolfenstein 3D did not come
easily, however.
Vitesse, an Apple II software company that had produced several
utilities for the Apple IIGS, had also begun to publish games. In August
1994, Vitesse released "Ultima I GS", a conversion and enhancement of the
older Apple II DOS 3.3 classic. They had announced and promised two other
games, "Mind Shadow" and "Tracer Sanction" for the IIGS for 1995 (but never
actually released them). But the one game that they hoped would be a huge
seller for them was a IIGS port of Wolfenstein 3D. To bring this about,
Vitesse contacted id Software and asked them for a license to do a port of
the game.
This part of the story gets somewhat complicated. Interplay had
handled some of the Wolf 3D conversions for id Software, and assigned
"Burger" Bill Heineman to do the Super Nintendo version of the game.
Heineman actually used an Apple IIGS to do his SNES development, and so was
simultaneously doing work that would allow a IIGS port to be done in the
future. Unfortunately, he and Interplay disagreed with this parallel work,
and he was dismissed from the company. Heineman and Steve Parsons then
founded a new company, Logicware, to do similar work.
At this point, Heineman's Logicware, Vitesse, and id together agreed
to allow Logicware to work on a IIGS port of Wolf 3D, which Vitesse would
market. However, the agreement apparently did not involve a significant
monetary compensation for Logicware up front, and after he had completed
about ninety percent of the game conversion, other better paying projects
began to demand his attention.
By this time, a post made by Lowell Erbe of Vitesse in December 1994
had generated considerable excitement. He stated that an Apple IIGS
conversion of the hit Wolfenstein 3D was soon to be released. He stated,
"We're just wrapping up Wolfenstein 3D and should begin shipping within the
next two weeks." (This confident statement was likely made based on a
progress report from Heineman.) A pre-release price of $39.95 was offered
if ordered before January 1, 1995, with a price increase to $49.95 after
that date. Vitesse was also at that time struggling to get a IIGS fax
program, Faxination, completed and shipped, but that had been falling
behind schedule and did not appear until March 1995, and that as a
less-than-full release version (v0.1.5).
Scott Everts worked at Interplay, and had previously done the artwork
for the Macintosh version of Wolf 3D. He was a big fan of the Apple IIGS,
and really wanted the company to do a IIGS version of the game. After
Heineman began the IIGS version, Everts worked during his Christmas holiday
in 1994, downsampling the Mac version's artwork from 128x128 pixels to
64x64 pixels and 16 colors for the IIGS. He made a number of posts on GEnie
about the coming game; he confirmed in January that Bill Heineman was the
programmer doing the conversion, and that this port of Wolfenstein 3D was
based on the Macintosh "Third Encounter" version of the game. Because the
game play and graphic manipulation was highly processor-intensive, an
accelerator was STRONGLY recommended. He also promised that the IIGS
version would be true to the original PC game, and would not be like the
Super Nintendo "sanitized" version that had been so disappointing to fans
of the game. It was to be as much like the original as was technically
possible.
The various previous translations of the game that had appeared had
not necessarily included the same levels as were in the original PC game.
The Super Nintendo and Jaguar versions came with thirty levels that were
MODIFICATIONS of levels in the original game. The Macintosh version of the
game used these thirty modified levels, plus the original sixty PC levels.
In fact, the Macintosh release of Wolfenstein 3D came in three different
flavors: One with three levels (the shareware trial), one with thirty
levels, and one with all ninety levels. It was planned that the Apple IIGS
conversion of the game would include ALL of these levels, the sixty levels
of the original PC game (divided into six missions of ten levels each), and
the thirty modified levels that appeared in the Super Nintendo, Jaguar, and
Macintosh shareware versions.
Customization of the game was, as mentioned above, a popular feature
for PC gamers. These level files (which contained the maps, items, and
artwork for a series of levels) would have a quite different format on the
IIGS than it had on the PC, and so it was not possible to play existing
customized PC Wolf levels. However, Everts said that Heineman was including
in the IIGS version the ability to load new levels, if a programmer created
them (although a level editor was not planned for the final release).
Soon after Everts made his post, Lowell Erbe of Vitesse again posted a
promise that the game release was imminent: "We're working out some final
details and a few bugs." He could not promise a specific date it would be
available, but hoped to begin shipment of it by February 1995.
DELAYS, DELAYS
In February, posts began to appear indicating that there were problems
with the conversion process. It appeared that the sixty additional levels
were causing problems. There was also mention of a dispute of some sort
regarding that contract for the game, a dispute that was contributing to
the delay. This problem was still ongoing in April. Heineman himself posted
a message on GEnie in May to explain part of what was going on. He said
that there was a disagreement between he and his former employer, problems
that required involvement of lawyers and the need for him to at least
temporarily stop working on Wolf 3D (it was indirectly involved in this
legal matter).
No further posts about this appeared on GEnie until August; Vitesse
then claimed that they were still waiting for Heineman to fix bugs, and
this was holding up the game release. By September, Everts again came
online stating that he had heard that if Heineman didn't get the game
completed by the end of the month, Vitesse planned to cancel the project
and refund those who had pre-paid for it. He also expressed frustration
about having done work on the art of the game, and then to learn that it
would not be shipped. A later post by Everts in November reiterated that
statement that Vitesse was NOT to blame for the cancellation of the
project, and "they have been doing everything possible to get Bill to
finish it."
Then in December 1995 it was announced that Vitesse was contacting
customers who had earlier paid in advance for Wolfenstein 3D for the IIGS,
asking if they were still interested in the game. A representative of the
company had gone to far as to (again) predict a release date (unofficial),
this time for late January 1996. However, after two days of making these
phone calls, Vitesse had to stop the process and rescind the predicted
January date. The reason given was that a different programmer had been
contacted to complete Wolf 3D, and that id Software now insisted on a new
contract.
SHEPPY TAKES OVER
Eric Shepherd had a reputation as a talented programmer for the Apple
IIGS, and had released a number of utilities, under his shareware name
"SheppyWare" as well as with Softdisk G-S. He began to work with Logicware
in September of 1995, when rumors were still flying about whether or not
the IIGS conversion of Wolfenstein would ever be completed. At this time
Heineman had his hands full of projects that Logicware had been contracted
to do, beside the IIGS Wolf 3D project. He was completing work on
translation of Wolf 3D for the 3DO game console, and then had to move on
immediately to create a version of DOOM II, also for the 3DO.
Vitesse's contract with id Software had expired by this time.
Logicware managed to get a new contract with id, but the new contract did
not allow them to sell the game, but rather stated that Logicware had to
make it available as freeware. The reason for this odd change was likely
what happened in August, 1995. At that time, id Software uploaded to
CompuServe the source code for Wolfenstein 3D (not including the graphics
or the code for the levels). It would not have then been appropriate to
allow Logicware to make the game for sale.
Sheppy volunteered to take over the project near the end of 1995. What
had already been completed was getting the 3D game engine functional, and
it was thought that all that was necessary to complete it was to make the
game save function and the sound work. Since the game could not be sold and
would therefore not generate any revenue, it was moved to a low priority
level, and was worked on amidst as many as four other paying projects.
At the time Shepherd took on the Wolfenstein 3D project, he stated on
GEnie, "Keep in mind that the last 10% of a program requires 90% of the
work. Although Wolf 3D for the IIGS is nearly finished, the part that's
left to do is the hardest part -- making sure it works flawlessly and as
fast as possible. That's my job here." He also asked to NOT be contacted
with e-mails asking about the game or about progress on it, as responding
to them would take away from time he could be working on programming.
Much of Sheppy's development work was done on a Macintosh running an
Apple IIGS emulator, first Gus and later Bernie ][ The Rescue. The primary
reason for doing the work had to do with the time needed to compile the
source code. On a 10 MHz accelerated IIGS, Wolf 3D took over 90 minutes to
compile; when running on the Gus emulator on a 120 MHz PowerPC 604 Mac, it
would compile in only 15 to 20 minutes. From the start of the 1996 until
spring, he worked (intermittently) on the sound and music drivers, fixed
cosmetic bugs and speed problems, and optimized the code. In June he
started adding the music to the game, and began to quietly seed beta
versions of the game to select testers.
FINE TUNING
The music presented a particular problem in making this conversion.
The first music that they worked with was that used in the Macintosh
version of the game, translated into synthLAB format for the IIGS. However,
Interplay (not id Software) held the copyrights for this particular music;
and since Logicware did not have a license from Interplay for the music, it
could not be used. A further problem was that the music slowed down the
game play too much. As a result, Sheppy removed the music that played
during the game, and then accepted an offer by Tony Gonzales to have new
music created for the game introduction. (Gonzales had done music for other
games Heineman had written).
At this point the game was sufficiently functional to allow a
demonstration to be given at KansasFest 1996. It was announced at that
conference that open beta testing would begin on Genie "in a few weeks",
and that the final version of Wolf 3D would be released as freeware, which
had not previously been publicly announced.
Beta testing of Wolfenstein 3D for the IIGS was announced during
September 1996. An FAQ posted on the Logicware web site at that time stated
that a pause mode had been added, the sound effect player was being
replaced by a more efficient one, music had been added, and new art work
had been added. Sheppy even went so far as to predict that it would be
ready for release by Christmas 1996. This testing progressed to the point
that a more general beta release was announced for November.
By this time, however, Sheppy had realized that not only the music but
also the sound effects they were using in the game were owned by Interplay.
These also could not be used. Furthermore, when he examined the sounds used
in the original PC version, he did not feel that their quality was very
good. Therefore, the sounds were completely removed from the demo before it
was released.
The general beta was released on November 17, 1996. This beta/demo
version included the first three levels of the game, did not include the
ability to save a game in progress, and of course did not have any sound
effects. As on the PC version, the game pushed the computer to its limits,
and required an Apple IIGS with a hard drive having at least 2 MB of free
space, 4 MB of available RAM, as well as the strong recommendation for an
accelerator.
The December 1996 issue of GenieLamp A2 included a review by editor
Doug Cuff of this beta version of the game. He awarded the game "five
lamps", the highest rating a reviewed product could be given. He pointed
out that without an accelerator, significant slowdowns would occur; this
was especially noticeable especially during combat, when shooting would be
delayed.
To solve the problem with the sounds, Sheppy accessed the Logicware
stock sound library, found some appropriate for the game, and installed
them. With that problem taken care of, it would seem that not much was left
to complete the game. But then more contributions appeared from a European
source.
NINJAFORCE
When the first screen shots of Wolf 3D for the IIGS appeared on the
Internet during 1996, members of a German Apple IIGS programming group
named Ninjaforce saw how the artwork had changed from the 256 color
originals in the PC version of the game, to the 16 color versions that
could be used on the IIGS. One of the Ninjaforce team, known as Clue, felt
that he could do better, and so contacted Bill Heineman to ask if he could
work on that part of the project, work that he would do for free. By the
time he got an initial approval from Heineman, Sheppy had taken over, and
Clue had to repeat the process with him. This would be a problem because
the original artist, Scott Everts, would likely not be happy about having
his work replaced. Additionally, Sheppy knew that it would be a lot of work
to make the changes.
Initially, Clue sent Sheppy new artwork for the menus in the game. The
quality of the work impressed him. Clue then asked permission to re-do that
artwork throughout the game. He sent some samples to try, and although
Sheppy was not enthusiastic about it initially, he found the improvement in
the appearance of the game to be amazing. After the decision was made to
make these changes, the promised release in December 1996 had to be
delayed.
For a game that was to be available in December, every month of delay
seemed interminable. Clue would respond to Sheppy's pleas for final artwork
that, "It's not perfect yet!" Part of this delay had to do with the process
of needing to pixel-edit nearly every graphic in the game, after making a
conversion from the original PC art. Finally, by the spring of 1997, this
large task was complete.
Another part of the game that Ninjaforce impacted was the spoken
voices and some of the sound effects in the game. Since the Ninjaforce
programmers were from Germany, they were eminently suited to speak the
German phrases that appeared in the game. In fact, some of the phrases in
the original PC version of the game didn't even make sense. In one place, a
guard shouts, "Haben Sie Fhrerschein?" which means "Do you have driving
license?" One of Ninjaforce's members, Dreamer, asked his grandfather to
speak the phrases that were wanted for the game. These were recorded in
April 1997, and appeared in the final version. As a result, the IIGS
version of Wolf 3D is the only version in which AUTHENTIC German voices and
pronunciations were used in the game.
MORE DELAYS
So the new artwork was done, the sounds were fixed; why didn't the
summer of 1997 see the release of Wolf 3D? According to Sheppy, he and
Logicware had "an artistic dispute on another project", and he was fired
from the company. For several months, he did not do any work on Wolfenstein
3D. By fall of 1997 he arranged with Heineman to resume work on it. At this
point, Sheppy had moved several hundred miles away, and was working for Be,
Inc.
As he resumed work on it, the major concern was performance. In an
online chat on Delphi, programmer Nathan Mates suggested a different
technique of graphic rendering; when Sheppy tried it, the speed increase
was dramatic. He also implemented additional features, such as the
preferences screen, and the Open-Apple-number key combinations to change
the screen size (helpful for those with slower processors that needed a
smaller screen to update).
Further mention of the game in The Lamp! did not appear until January
1998, when the final, true release date was announced: Valentine's Day,
February 14, 1998. Then even at this late date, the game almost didn't make
it out the door. At 2:30 pm on February 13th, beta tester Tony Diaz found a
major bug that would cause the game to crash. Sheppy worked throughout the
rest of the day to find and fix the bug. He sent a release build of the
game to his testers at 10:00 pm, asking them about whether it should or
should not be released. He finally got approval from them all, got the
final release packaged up, and uploaded it at 11:58 pm on February 13.
THE FINAL PRODUCT
The result of all of the work and the delays was a much better game
than would have appeared if it had followed the original timeline that
Vitesse had wanted back in 1994 and 1995. Rather than simply being done to
make a profit, Sheppy and his team of beta testers worked on it as a labor
of love, trying to create the very best game they could.
Earlier concerns about the game not working with an AppleDesign
keyboard on a IIGS turned out to be incorrect. The game had been so greatly
anticipated that even the Apple IIGS emulator Bernie ][ The Rescue was
modified in such a way as to make it possible to play the game. Sheppy
sweetened the deal further by releasing a Wolfenstein 3D Scenario
Converter, making it possible to play custom levels that had been designed
for the Macintosh version of the game.
A feature that didn't appear in the original documentation file for
the game was the ability to capture a screen shot of the current game
screen and save it in the Wolfenstein 3D game directory.
The original game by id Software included some special codes
("cheats") that made it possible to get help if you were in trouble. This
attribute was carried through even into the translations that were done for
the Super Nintendo, 3D0, and Jaguar, and of course for the Apple IIGS
version. These codes included some "Easter eggs" as well:
SARAH Get 100 health back
IDDQD Toggle "god" mode on and off
BURGER Set max ammo to 999 instead of 99, and gives 999 ammo
WOWZERS Get all weapons and max ammo
LEDOUX Get both keys and god mode
SEGER Gives you both keys
MCCALL Immediately jump to next level
APPLEIIGS Make secret doors visible on automap (shows player's head)
SHEPPY Get an extra life
GETAJOB Replaces certain Hitler portraits with Steve Jobs
BARBARIAN Replaces certain Hitler portraits with Bill Gates
HARDWIRED Replaces certain walls with Tony Diaz
LIBRARIAN Replaces certain walls with Tony Ward
MEIJERDUDE Replaces certain walls with Dave Miller
DONHO Replaces certain walls with Ryan Suenaga
(By the way, the appearance of the player in "god" mode is more cool on the
IIGS than on the other platforms. On the IIGS he is wearing sunglasses; on
other platforms, he has shining red eyes.)
SQUASHING BUGS
A maintenance update to version 1.0.1 appeared shortly after Wolf 3D's
original release. In March 1998 a patch program was available to download,
which fixed a crash occurring in certain low memory situations, and
changing the startup music to continue playing while a scenario was being
selected.
In April, Wolfenstein 3D players began to mention that their systems were
becoming unstable after playing Wolfenstein 3D. Sheppy eventually tracked
down the problem to a bug in the system software that is triggered only
when applications attempt to patch the system software following the rules
documented in Apple's Technical Notes. Wolfenstein 3D uses a Toolbox patch
to work around another system software bug. Sheppy fixed this problem by
changing his code to not follow Apple's own rules, but use a different
patching method that is more transparent to the operating system. The
version 1.1 update that fixed this was released on May 1, 1998, and
included a completely rewritten sound code section (which allowed more
sounds to be played at once), increased keyboard configuration options.
AFTERMATH
To say that Wolfenstein 3D for the Apple IIGS was "popular" would be
an understatement. It even became an event at KansasFest 1998, with a
"KFest Shootout" planned as a contest. In January 1999, Ryan Suenaga listed
it as one of the two best freeware products of 1998, tying with Kelvin
Sherlock's "GShisen".
The Wolfenstein 3D Scenario Converter, a casualty of falling shareware
payments in the Apple IIGS community, was changed from a $5 fee to freeware
in September 1999.
It is safe to say that the game as it was finally released was a far
better conversion than would have appeared if it had stayed the commercial
product that Vitesse had originally wanted it to be. Certainly, Bill
Heineman is an excellent programmer, and would have come up with a great
game if he had been able to apply the time to it. However, when Sheppy took
over the project and continued to plug away at it even after there was no
longer any chance of financial compensation for all of his work, it became
a matter of making it PERFECT. Wolfenstein 3D on the IIGS is one of the
most complex and demanding games that ever appeared for that computer, and
a credit to the dedication to the platform demonstrated by Sheppy and his
contributors.
THAT'S THE WAY I LIKE IT
Next month we will return to the Lamp yearly review, as I have no
further side stories that are just itchin' to be told. Until then, pull out
your copy of Wolf 3D and blast some bad guys!
References:
-----. "A Funny Thing Happened...." The Lamp!: Feb through Dec 1998.
Beerman, Marcel 'Doc'. "Q&A with John Romero about DOOM (III) Part I".
PROJECT DOOM. http://www.projectdoom.com/romero.html (Dec 2003).
-----. "Beyond Castle Wolfenstein". HOME OF THE UNDERDOGS.
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?name=Beyond+Castle+Wolfenstein (Dec
2003).
-----. "Castle Wolfenstein". WOLFENSTEIN.ORG.
http://wolfenstein.org/fanclub/castle_wolfenstein.phtml (Dec 2003).
Cuff, Douglas. PD_QUICKVIEW, "Wolfenstein 3-D IIGS (Demo)". GENIELAMP A2,
Dec 1996.
Kai, Satoshi. "Wolfenstein Fundamentals: The History Of The Game
Unprecedented". THE WOLFENMANIA CHRONICLE.
http://www1.linkclub.or.jp/~clubey/Mac%20Wolf/fundamentals.html (Dec 2003).
-----. "Hey Mister Postman". GENIELAMP A2, Jan through Dec 1995, Jan, June,
July, and Oct 1996.
-----. "Hey Mister Postman". GENIELAMP A2, Apr 1997.
-----. "Marketalk News". SOFTALK, Sept 1981:32.
-----. "The History Of John Romero And John Carmack". MICRO MART.
http://www.micromart.co.uk/content/features/default.asp?Category=Article&ID
=1376 (Dec 2003).
-----. MOBY GAMES. http://www.mobygames.com (Dec 2003).
Ninjaforce. "Haben Sie Fhrerschein?", Feb 13, 2000. NINJAFORCE WEB SITE.
http://www.ninjaforce.com/html/special_wolf_interview.html (Dec 2003).
-----. "Interview with Daikatana Creator John Romero". PRIMA GAMES.
http://www.primagames.com/news/interview/921/ (Dec 2003).
Romero, John. "John Romero's Dangerous Dave Page". PLANET //ROME.RO.
http://rome.ro/article_saga_dave.htm (Dec 2003).
Shepherd, Eric. Email, Dec 2003.
Tommervik, Margot. "Marketalk Reviews: Castle Wolfenstein". SOFTALK,
October 1981: 55-58.
[EOA]
[ANS]-------------------------------
ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM SYNDICOMM |
------------------------------------
by Lyle Syverson <lyle@foxvalley.net>
[TSU]
TO SIGN UP FOR SYNDICOMM ONLINE
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Please visit our web site at http://www.syndicomm.com for information or to
sign up!
(Logon message)
[EOA]
[LTE]-------------------------------
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
------------------------------------
NO LETTERS TO THE EDITOR THIS MONTH
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
The mail box for Letters to the Editor remained empty this month.
[EOA]
AN INVITATION
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Express your opinions about the comings and goings in the world of the
Apple II computers.
Send your comments to Lyle Syverson, Editor <lyle@FoxValley.net>
The Editor reserves the right to edit any material submitted.
The Editor reserves the right to reject any material he considers
unsuitable for publication in _The Lamp!_.
[EOA]
[KFC]------------------------------
KFest Comments |
-----------------------------------
[WKF]
Woz KansasFest - IN Apple II HISTORY
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
So, six months or so later. . .
where does the Woz KansasFest fall into Apple II history?
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 2, Top 15, Msg 30)
>>>>>
"""""
He appears at an awful lot of events; it's not exactly historic. But I
think it holds a special place in our hearts. I still hope he comes again,
as a regular attendee.
Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com
Building communities, bit by bit.
(SYNDICOMM, Cat 2, Top 15, Msg 31)
>>>>>
"""""
He does appear at a lot of events (more now than he used to), but I think
it's a little more significant than any other event, when more than a
quarter century after its debut, he spends a few hours at the event at the
center of the Apple II universe.
While I don't think there was anything totally new in his keynote address,
it was a fascinating speech.
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 2, Top 15, Msg 32)
[EOA]
[KFE]
KFest ENDORSED
""""""""""""""
The absolutely best place to meet Apple II enthusiasts is at KFest in July.
A lot of old timers, programmers and venders are there both US and
international. Absolutely the greatest bunch of people you'd ever want to
meet. New products are unveiled.
For the rest of the season join A2Central.com.
Sandy
(Sandra Warnken, comp.sys.apple2.marketplace)
[EOA]
[KFF]------------------------------
KFest 2004 |
-----------------------------------
[KF4]
KansasFest 2004
"""""""""""""""
KansasFest 2004 is planned for July 20-25, 2004 at Avila University in
Kansas City, Missouri.
(Heading: Cat 5, Top 22)
[EOA]
[KFT]
KFest 2004 TALK
"""""""""""""""
I recently read on CNN.com about "Camp Foo", an annual camping trip for
geeks.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/01/09/bus2.feat.geek.camp/index.html
It sounds remarkably like another event we all know of...
(KGAGNE, Cat 5, Top 22, Msg 6)
>>>>>
"""""
Doesn't it? :)
Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm http://www.syndicomm.com
Building communities, bit by bit.
(SYNDICOMM, Cat 5, Top 22, Msg 7)
>>>>>
"""""
I'm as much an outdoors guy as just about anyone, so I bet that would be a
ton of fun. OTOH, doing camping outdoors in the K.C. summer would suck
suck suck
:)
Ryan
(A2.RYAN, Cat 5, Top 22, Msg 8)
>>>>>
"""""
..as someone who has camped in the general area of Kfest in July, I would
advise against camping as your form of residence for Kfest. First of all
you'd miss all the insanity of the dorms, second of all a low temperature
at night in the lower 80's F is about the opposite of fun...
Any more words on Kfest 2004 been said officially?
Dain
Kfest...Disneyland for Apple ][ers.
(A2.DAIN, Cat 5, Top 22, Msg 9)
>>>>>
"""""
I guess I can speak officially -- today I finally received the contract
from Avila! We will start registrations as soon as we know how much
insurance costs have risen since last year.
The Big Cheese
(CINDYADAMS, Cat 5, Top 22, Msg 10)
[EOA]
[VKF]
WATCH FOR MORE INFORMATION AT THE KFest HOME PAGE
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
KFest Home Page
http://www.kfest.org/
[EOA]
[INN]------------------------------
EXTRA INNINGS |
-----------------------------------
About The Lamp! The Lamp! is published on the fifteenth of every month on
""""""""""""""" the WEB at: http://lamp.a2central.com/
This publication produced entirely with real or emulated Apple II computers
using Appleworks 5.1 and Hermes. Apple II Forever!
* The Lamp! is (c) copyright 2004 by Ryan M. Suenaga, M.S.W. All
rights reserved.
* To reach The Lamp! on Internet email send mail to
thelamp@sheppyware.net
* All issues of The Lamp! are available at The Lamp! Home Page,
http://lamp.a2central.com/
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors, and do not
necessarily represent the opinions of A2Central.com, Delphi Online
Services, Syndicomm, Ryan M. Suenaga, or Lyle Syverson. Forum messages are
reprinted verbatim and are included in this publication with permission
from the individual authors. A2Central.com, Delphi Online Services,
Syndicomm, Ryan M. Suenaga, and Lyle Syverson do not guarantee the accuracy
or suitability of any information included herein. We reserve the right to
edit all letters and copy.
Material published in this edition may not be reprinted without the
expressed written consent of the publisher. Registered computer user
groups, not for profit publications , and other interested parties may
write the publisher to apply for permission to reprint any or all material.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
[EOF]