[HEA]
    _____________________   ___                                   _
    |___   ______________| |   |                                 | |
        |  | _             |   |                                 | |
        |  || |            |   |                                 | |
        |  || |            |   |                                 | |
        |  || |            |   |   ____ _   _ _   _   ______     | |
        |  || |            |   |  / __ \ | | / \_/ \  | ___ \    | |
        |  || |__   ____   |   | / /  \  | |  /\ /\ \ | |  \ \   | |
        |  ||  _ \ |  _ \  |   | \ \__/  | | | |_|| | | |__/ /   | |
        |  || | | || |_||  |   |  \___/|_| |_|    |_| | ____/    |_|
        |  || | | || |__   |   |____________________  | |         _
        |__||_| |_|\____/  |________________________| | |        |_|
                                                      | |
         Lighting Your Apple II Path                  | |
                                                      |_|

-----------------------------------


                       >>> WELCOME TO THE LAMP! <<<
                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


             THE BEST OF THE A2 BULLETIN BOARD ON A2Central
           "Teaching the Apple II user how to fish since 1998"


 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
 The Lamp!            An Onipa'a Software Production       Vol. 10, No. 5
 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
 Publisher................................Ryan M. Suenaga, M.S.W., L.S.W.
 Editor.....................................................Lyle Syverson
 Internet Email, Publisher.........................thelamp@sheppyware.net
 Internet Email, Editor...............lutefisk at grex.cyberspace dot org
 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

                            TABLE OF CONTENTS
                            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                              May 15, 2007

HIGH ABOVE THE ROCK RIVER---------------------------------------------[OPN]
     Time Has a Way of Slipping Away
     The KansasFest Dream

A2 BULLETIN BOARD at A2Central.com DISTILLATIONS----------------------[DAA]
     New Theme Tweak--------------------------------------------------[NTT]
     Apple Bulletin Board Systems-------------------------------------[ABB]
     Minimo-----------------------------------------------------------[MNO]
     DOS 3.3 Master---------------------------------------------------[DSM]
     May Issue of Retrogaming Times Monthly---------------------------[RTM]
     Kraftwerk 8-Bit Operators----------------------------------------[KWO]
     SNAP Release-----------------------------------------------------[SPR]
     BitTorrent for the GS?-------------------------------------------[BTG]
     Ethernet Support in Sweet16--------------------------------------[ESS]

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR-------------------------------------------------[LTE]
     No Letters to the Editor This Month
     An Invitation

KFEST 2007------------------------------------------------------------[KF7]
     KansasFest 2007--------------------------------------------------[KFS]
     KFest Sessions Starting to Shape Up------------------------------[KFU]
     KFest Powerpoint Template----------------------------------------[KPT]

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  email: lutefisk at grex.cyberspace dot org

                      Time Has a Way of Slipping Away
                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     Recently received the invitation to my High School Class Reunion...
celebrating the 55th anniversary of graduation.  Wow... how time has
slipped away.  :)

     It would be interesting to know the age distribution of Apple II
enthusiasts over the years... some of us are getting closer to the top of
that chart as time goes by.

                           The KansasFest Dream
                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     So you have been dreaming about going to KFest sometime... or going to
KFest again after several years.  Remember... Time Has a Way of Slipping
Away... and as you age, travel has a way of becoming more difficult... so
stop dreaming and send in your registration for 2007.


[EOA]



ASCII ART BEGINS
_________  _                     _                                      _
|__   __| | |                   | |                                    | |
   | |    | |                   | |                                    | |
   | |    | |___     ____       | |       _____   __ ___ _   _ _____   | |
   | |    | ___ \   / __ \      | |      /____ \  | v   v | | v ___ \  | |
   | |    | |  | | | /__\ \     | |       ____| | | /\ /\ | |  /   \ \ | |
   | |    | |  | | | _____|     | |      / ___  | | || || | | |    | | |_|
   | |    | |  | | | |_____     | |____  | |__| | | || || | |  \___/ /  _
   |_|    |_|  |_| \______|     |______| \____^_| |_||_||_| | |\____/  |_|
                                                            | |
                                                            | |
                                                            |_|

ASCII ART ENDS
[EOA]



[DAA]-------------------------------------------------------
DISTILLATIONS FROM The A2 Bulletin Board at A2Central.com  |
------------------------------------------------------------

by Lyle Syverson  email: lutefisk at grex.cyberspace dot org

[NTT]
New Theme Tweak
"""""""""""""""
[From Dec 06 Lamp:]
Thanks to Geoff Weiss, there is a theme tweak available for web side users.
It's called "Modern" and it changes the grey text on black background to
black text on white background. Messages with ANSI in them still look
weird... but for people who prefer contrast, this is an awesome
improvement.

Thanks Geoff!

(sfahey, a2c.system_announcements, Tue Dec 12 2006)

>>>>>
"""""
The Modern Theme has disappeared.  Let me know if a new .css file needs to
be generated.

Geoff

(geoff, a2c.system_announcements, May 08 2007)

>>>>>
"""""
Yes, I upgraded the BBS software and the old "Modern" wasn't completely
compatible. It's on my list to fix this weekend.

I'd like to the new Nightshade theme and lighten it up also, maybe call it
Lightshade.

(sfahey, a2c.system_announcements, May 09 2007)
[EOA]


[ABB]
Apple Bulletin Board Systems
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Hi, I run the 80sBBS list on yahoogroups.

Our list is basically a nostalgia list for the 80s BBS scene.  I'm in the
process of putting together a companion web page for it right now.  While
there are a lot of BBS lists out on the net, I don't see one which covers,
specifically, BBSes either run on old 8 bit hardware of the period, or else
vintage BBS software running in some kind of emulator.

I've found a few of these boards so far - the well-known latenightbbs.com
6001, which is an actual working ddial (IMHO, the coolest retro site
around, but again, not really a BBS)...and I've found several Commodore
efforts so far.

I'd like to put a list together on my page of just these kinds of
systems...Does anyone know if such a list already exists?  I've googled but
I haven't seen much in that department.

Beyond that, can anyone point me to old Apple II / // / ][ sites (As an
ex-Commodore user, I never did get the nomenclature straight) that are
running, say, GBBS or something like that via emulation or on actual Apple
hardware?  In an odd and some would say sordid turn of events, even as a
Commodore user, the most memorable boards I was into were Apple boards.  At
least, there was something about the Apple community where I lived (Central
New Jersey) which made for good discussion.  And codes.  ;)

Any pointers would be appreciated.

   -Quag7 (www.frostwarning.com)

(Quag7, a2c.community, Jan 18 2007)
[EOA]


[MNO]
Minimo
""""""
>> geoff wrote:  I looked at WML around four or five years ago.   After
doing some testing on several different phones, I decided that any
interface made for the IIGS would be non-intuitive, at least compared to
SIS.  I don't recall there being much content to consider it very
worthwhile, also compared to what was accessible by SIS.  It was also
depressing to see cell phones having a higher color depth and a faster
processor to uncompress images--I think I recall that there was at least
one phone with a better resolution than a IIgs being available too. <<

That brings me to another web-related topic I'd like to throw out there:

What about writing an Internet-based utility that you could pass an URL to
an image to, that would then turn that image into a GS-friendly form?

For example, you could do something like:

http://www.foo.com/gsify-image?url=http://www.bar.com/blah.jpg&width=200&he
ight=120&mode=640

And the image would be loaded by the utility, converted into a 200x120
640-mode GS image, then returned to the GS.

This would likely be faster than doing the conversion locally (especially
for JPEG), and could be done to allow scaling to a percentage, or to a
given width, or to retain aspect ratio, etc.

In theory you could even specify a palette to use by MIME-encoding it and
including it in the request.

(Sheppy, a2c.a2pro_developers, Apr 16 2007)

>>>>>
"""""
Rich (I can't remember his last name) has been working on an 8 bit HTML
viewer, which he is planning on making into a full 8 bit web browser, and
has been discussing it in comp.sys.apple2.programmer.  Not too long ago
there was some discussion about this sort of utility and Blurry (don't
remember his real name) wrote a utility to do this that converts images
into standard hi-res.

I haven't seen a lot of information about this but you can see some
screenshots of Rich's and Blurry's work at:

    http://rich12345.tripod.com/htmlview/index.html

I'm sure adding a way to specify the output format wouldn't be hard and
that way you could get HGR monochrome, HGR colour, DHR monochrome, DHR
colour, SHR320 monochrome, SHR320 greyscale, SHR320 colour, SHR640
monochrome, SHR640 greyscale or SHR640 colour.  This would be in addition
to your suggestions above for scaling, aspect ratio or whatever.

By the way, instead of passing all this info in the URL why not just use
the HTTP POST method and use the body of the post to hold an XML document
or some other type of data that would tell the utility what all options you
want?  Heck, you could even pass it a chunk of binary data in the body (ie.
the actual bytes of a TYPE structure in Apple II memory).  It would be as
easy to troubleshoot but it would transfer quickly and would take less work
on the Apple II to put together the request.  Just a thought, though.

(Jeff Blakeney, a2c.a2pro_developers, Apr 16 2007)

>>>>>
"""""
There is a thread with this exact topic in comp.sys.apple2.programmer.  I
ran across it the other day.

I remember a bunch of us talked about this around nine years ago at a
KFest.  I was strongly opposed to have somebody be responsible for hosting
a server to convert graphics.  I claimed it is the responsibility of the
Web client to do this processing.

I am willing to append my original argument that a proxy server on the same
local network as the GS would also be functionally equivalent.

You do not want to get in the business of running a free-for-all proxy.

If the IIgs is too slow to decompress graphics, then somebody needs to
develop a hardware solution to decompress graphics much faster.  Or suck it
up and wait (you can't expect modern performance on a 20 year old
computer).  Or use an emulator.

Geoff

(geoff, a2c.a2pro_developers, Apr 16 2007)
[EOA]


[DSM]
DOS 3.3 Master
""""""""""""""
>> WhollyMindless wrote: Is there a chance anyone would make a DOS 3.3
Master for me so I can get something going... I need a physical master so I
can get this thing (IIgs) booted and get ADT working. I'll gladly send beer
money. <<

Hey, while I was working on whining my way into a DOS 3.3 master so I could
get ADT working, I found this link:

http://apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/Sel/dos33dmp.htm

This uses the bootstrap process of ADT to put an image of DOS 3.3 into
memory enough that you can init a disk (or two).  Then you can transfer the
apple side of ADT.

Pretty sweet.  Now I just have to wait for my cable to show up.  I don't
have any 8 pin DINs laying around.  Hope this helps someone!

(WhollyMindless, a2c.operating_systems, Apr 20 2007)
[EOA]


[RTM]
May Issue of Retrogaming Times Monthly
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Issue # 36 of the Retrogaming Times Monthly, is now online.
Highlights from our May 2006 issue include:

    * Many Faces of "Fast Eddie"
    * Nintendo TGFX Realm
    * NEScade - "Joust"
    * Apple ][ Incider -  Happy 30th Birthday!
    * Old Wine in New Bottles: Retrogaming on Modern Hardware

You can find all these and more inside the Retrogaming Times Monthly!
116 months in a row - the longest-running online free retro-gaming
newsletter ever!

http://my.stratos.net/~hewston95/RTM/RTM_Home.htm

(coach41, a2c.games_entertainment, May 10 2007)
[EOA]


[KWO]
Kraftwerk 8-Bit Operators
"""""""""""""""""""""""""
>> Luddite wrote: I looked into this and it turns out to be a tribute to
Kraftwerk performed on retro gaming devices by a group of musicians called
"8-bit operators"... so it's not actually a Kraftwerk album, but might be
interesting anyway. <<

This site has a decent sample of the work.  Very faithful to the Kraftwerk
"vibe":

http://8bitoperators.com/

(WhollyMindless, a2c.music_multimedia, Apr 20 2007
[EOA]


[SPR]
SNAP Release
""""""""""""
"Speccie" wrote:

>> SNAP v1.0.0, the news client for the IIgs, is now on my web server for
you all to enjoy.  homepage.mac.com/speccie <<

Here on SNAP now.

Very nicely done, Ewen.  Just what I'd expect from you.

Ryan M. Suenaga, M.S.W., L.C.S.W.
A2Unplugged

(rsuenaga, a2c.network_telecomm, Apr 14 2007)

>>>>>
"""""
Ryan,

I am glad you find it works! Thanks for the nice words...

I tried to make it as foolproof as possible within the limitations of the
IIgs, and providing a quick start set of files for A2Central has got quite
a few of you going...

Ewen

(Speccie, a2c.network_telecomm, Apr 16 2007)
[EOA]


[BTG]
BitTorrent for the GS?
""""""""""""""""""""""
>> Speccie wrote: (in the SNAP NNTP Client)... For practical reasons on the
IIgs, I have limited received messages to 256K, so you probably won't be
able download movies from the binary groups with SNAP, but it handles text
groups just fine on the four news servers I have access to. <<

>> Then geoff wrote:  Is the MPAA paying you?  You are forcing a limit just
so IIgs users can only download legal content?  Great, now IIgs users have
to resort to BitTorrent.  Oh wait, there is no BitTorrent for the IIgs
either.  Next thing you'll tell me that there isn't any movie player for
the IIgs so it doesn't really matter.  :) <<

Obviously the next step is BitTorrent for the GS.

Sheppy

(Sheppy, a2c.network_telecomm, Apr 16 2007)

>>>>>
"""""
With the memory and other restrictions on the IIgs, I think we should call
the client BitTrickle...

Ewen

(Speccie, a2c.network_telecomm, Apr 17 2007)

>>>>>
"""""
Isn't he (BitTrickle) a NASCAR driver?

Wholly

(WhollyMindless, a2c.network_telecomm, Apr 20 2007)
[EOA]


[ESS]
Ethernet Support in Sweet16
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""
>> a2retro wrote: I am sure *any* form of Ethernet support in Sweet16 would
be great ... <<

>> Then roughana wrote: I second this. I've yet to find a 'killer app' that
will make me move to MacOS X, but if Sweet16 has host ethernet ability then
I'd be very interested. <<

I've got some initial information and it looks like adding Uthernet
emulation support to Sweet16 would be relatively easy, so I'm beginning
work on doing so.

Sheppy

(Sheppy, a2c.network_telecomm, Apr 16 2007)

>>>>>
"""""
That is awesome Eric ...

Let me know if there is anything I can do to help ...

Glenn

(a2retro, a2c.network_telecomm, Apr 16 2007)
[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, lutefisk at grex.cyberspace dot org

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]



[KF7]------------------------------
                       KFest 2007 |
-----------------------------------

[KFU]
KansasFest 2007
"""""""""""""""
is scheduled for July 17-22, 2007.

Go to <http://www.kfest.org> for details.
[EOA]


[KFS]
KFest Sessions Starting to Shape Up
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
The session list for KFest is starting to fall into place. Here's just a
few of the great topics we already have lined up:

- GS OS 6.01 for Dummies
- Selected Apple II Games from Softdisk
- An introduction to Free BSD (Mac OS X is built on this!)

What kind of session can YOU contribute? Please give it some thought and
sign up! Even better this year: if you conduct a session, we'll pay you
$15-$25, depending on length. How cool is that?

Sessions can cover all sorts of topics. Show us your favorite Apple II
software; teach us how to use a nifty piece of Apple II hardware; give us
your plans for the next great contribution to the Apple II community.

The session submittal form is here:

http://www.kfest.org/sessions/index.php

You may also email sessions@kfest.org.

Thanks,
Andy

(Andrew Molloy, KFest Mailing List, May 1, 2007)
[EOA]


[KPT]
KFest Powerpoint Template
"""""""""""""""""""""""""
I was wondering if anybody is working on a Powerpoint Template that can be
used by presenters for KFest.  Would it be useful to have a common look and
feel across presentations?

Geoff

(geoff, a2cgeneral_chat, May 04 2007)

>>>>>
"""""
I'm more proned to an independent KeyNote Template, myself....  B-{)

Kirk

(Kirk Mitchell, a2cgeneral_chat, May 05 2007)

>>>>>
"""""
Can't Keynote import from PowerPoint?  StarOffice and OpenOffice can handle
the importing of simple PowerPoint files.  It just makes sense to rely on
PowerPoint as the standard to offer greater application compatibility.

Geoff

(geoff, a2c.general_chat, May 08 2007)
[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 2007 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:
       ftp://www.a2central.com/the.lamp!/

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors, and do not
necessarily represent the opinions of A2Central.com, 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, 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]
