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

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


                       >>> 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"


 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
 The Lamp!            An Onipa'a Software Production       Vol. 7, No. 10
 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
 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
 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

                            TABLE OF CONTENTS
                            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                            October 15, 2004

HIGH ABOVE THE ROCK RIVER---------------------------------------------[OPN]
     Conservation of Natural Wildlife Habitats
     Conservation of the Apple II's

A2 FORUM AT Syndicomm Online (A2Central.com) DISTILLATIONS------------[DAS]
     Welcome, Magnus--------------------------------------------------[WMS]
     Impressed With the AMD64 Systems---------------------------------[AMD]
     Patch Written for the LANceGS Driver-----------------------------[PLD]
     New Upload to A2 Library-----------------------------------------[NAL]
     The Prizm Debugger-----------------------------------------------[TPD]
     Emulator Issue With Regard to Future Development-----------------[EFD]
     Version 1.2 of the Contiki OS------------------------------------[COS]
     Help With the Rez Resource Compiler------------------------------[HWR]
     Marinetti: Interacting With a POP3 Server------------------------[IPS]
     How to Tell From an NDA if a Toolset is Already Started up-------[TSS]
     SideClick Contextual Menu Manager--------------------------------[CMM]
     Internet Settings CDev-------------------------------------------[ISC]
     Address Book NDA-------------------------------------------------[ABN]
     URL Handler------------------------------------------------------[UHR]
     Possible Projects for Software Development-----------------------[PPD]
     Email Fetcher----------------------------------------------------[EMF]
     Email Sender-----------------------------------------------------[EMS]
     Programming Conference-------------------------------------------[PGC]
     New WEB Location For MUD History Articles------------------------[MHA]
     List of Top 25 Most Influential Games----------------------------[MIG]

ILLUMINATING THE LAMP-------------------------------------------------[ITL]
     An overview of GEnieLamp A2 and The Lamp!
          2002

ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM SYNDICOMM------------------------------------------[ANS]
     To Sign up for Syndicomm Online----------------------------------[TSU]
     September 2004 Issue of Syndicommotion Available-----------------[SSA]
     October Issue of Syndicommotion Available------------------------[OSN]

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

KFEST 2005------------------------------------------------------------[KF5]
     KansasFest 2005 to be Held July 19-24th--------------------------[TBH]
     KansasFest Website-----------------------------------------------[KFW]

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>

                 Conservation of Natural Wildlife Habitats
                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     The deep blue sky against the many colors of leaves in the early
morning scene from High Above The Rock River confirms that this will be a
great day for a drive in the country.

     The back roads to the town of Apple River in Northwestern Illinois
will let us move at a slower pace... giving us more time to savor the Fall
colors on display among the many hills... patches of multicolored woods
interspersed with irregular shaped fields of mature corn awaiting harvest.

     The Annual Fall Eagle Fest, honoring the Bald Eagle, is sponsored by
the Eagle Nature Foundation, which is headquartered in Apple River.  The
activities include a program on birds of prey... including a live Bald
Eagle and other live examples.

     Food, baked goods, garden produce, nature art, postcards, shirts,
decals, bird feeders, etc. are available for purchase.

     A talk by the Executive Director outlines the purpose of the
organization... conservation of the habitat of the Bald Eagle in the states
of Illinois and Wisconsin.

                      Conservation of the Apple II's
                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     It is suggested that you work for the conservation of Apple II
hardware.  Most of the hardware is no longer being manufactured.  Rescue it
from sources that might otherwise end up in a landfill.  Sell it or give it
to "good homes" when you no longer have a need for it or no longer have a
desire to keep it.

[EOA]



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

ASCII ART ENDS
[EOA]



[DAS]----------------------------------------------
DISTILLATIONS FROM The A2 FORUM at Syndicomm.com  |
                                  (A2Central.com) |
---------------------------------------------------

by Lyle Syverson <lyle@foxvalley.net>

[WMS]
WELCOME, MAGNUS
"""""""""""""""
hi, my name is Magnus Ericson, I'm from Sweden and I been to Kfest 1995...
long time ago, but maybe an anniversary for me next year, who knows.. :-)
I'm the current chairman of AppleUSerGroup here in Sweden, since its only
A2-users in our club we only have around 30 members here. We have also the
last years founded an real Apple II Museum, so when you are around
Gothenburg in Sweden don't, hesitate to contact me for a visit...:-)

kindly/ Magnus

ps. I know lots of people here from GEnie... but do they remember me ? :-)

(MAGNUS, Cat 2, Top 7, Msg 163)

>>>>>
"""""
I remember you Magnus!

It would be great if you made it to another KFest!

Cindy

(CINDYADAMS, Cat 2, Top 7, Msg 164)

>>>>>
"""""
Hello.  I wasn't around in the GEnie days, but it's great to see you here,
Magnus.  I've been to a few Kfests, and it would be great to see you at the
next one.

Welcome Aboard.

Dain

(A2.DAIN, Cat 2, Top 7, Msg 165)

>>>>>
"""""
It would be great to have you back. Cabella's has a big new store North of
Kansas City, just off the road from the airport, if you are still looking
at such things. :)

 Carl Knoblock - Retired - Tue  28 Sep 04  7:17:22 pm
 cknoblo@cox.com - Via Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR v1.0b10
 KFest 2005, July 19-24, 2005 - 294 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 2, Top 7, Msg 166)

>>>>>
"""""
Hi Cindy & Carl & all you others !

Very interesting about Cabela, thanks for keeping me updated :-)  I'm very
impressed that you remember such a thing....

In fact that is a very good reason to go to the Kfest. ;)

/Magnus

(MAGNUS, Cat 2, Top 7, Msg 167)

>>>>>
"""""
Hi Magnus,

I had lots of contact with Andreas Wennborg in the old days. He is still
active in the Apple // world?

Regards - Ewen

 Ewen Wannop - Speccie - Wed 6 Oct 2004 - 286 days till KFest '05
 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

(CONDUCTOR, Cat 2, Top 7, Msg 168)
[EOA]


[AMD]
IMPRESSED WITH THE AMD64 SYSTEMS
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
The AMD64 systems look pretty sweet.  And with direct support by all the
major OS's (and even some that have small market shares), it is already
proven to be a winner.  And the real bonus is that IIgs emulators will
easily exceed 100MHz (if anybody has numbers running on the top of the line
processors, I would be interested to see them).  It is so nice to get the
next generation of computational power without losing the risk of backwards
compatibility.  It reminds me a lot of the situation when the IIgs was
released as a step above its 8-bit cousins.

The price tag is already starting to drop which is making it a more
attractive option.

Geoff

(GEOFF, Cat 2, Top 10, Msg 19)

>>>>>
"""""
The AMD-64 processor looks to be a pretty nice processor.  You can get a
motherboard for about $99, a processor starting near $125 (up to like $700
if you dare).  So technically you could put together a system fairly
cheaply.  I have an AMD Athlon system here that ran like a champ for a year
or so , but while upgrading the memory the other night it seems to have
died.

It would be cool to say I have an 8 bit computer, a 16 bit computer, a 32
bit computer and now a 64 bit computer:)  Of course I could do that with an
Apple G5 though.  To run either in 64 bit mode you'd have to go Linux for
now though.

Dain

(A2.DAIN, Cat 2, Top 10, Msg 20)
[EOA]


[PLD]
PATCH WRITTEN FOR THE LANceGS Driver
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
I have written a patch for the LANceGS.Driver, the routing version.  The
archive patchlance1.shk has been uploaded to the Syndicomm library.

From the README, this is what it fixes:

* Correct behavior for Link Layer restart.  Both the TCP/IP control panel
and Spectrum support restart and without this update, a restart will cause
connections not to work.

* Support for broken LanceGS cards "fixed" by LanceHack.  The most common
failure of LanceGS cards is the EEPROM losing its data.  It will cost over
US$20 to have a card sent to Germany and back and any support charges.
Just repair with LanceHack plus use of this driver (and running the setup
software to reset the configuration) will get you up and running

* ARP requests are handled more intelligently, especially for faster
systems.

* Only IP packets are passed to Marinetti.  Non-IP packets can cause
Marinetti to hang.

* Odd-sized ethernet frames now get sent.  An extra byte was being added
before.

* No extra bytes are added to received IP frames when passed to Marinetti.

* Corrected hanging bug on busy network segments such as cable modem or
DSL.  Most LanceGS systems are connected to private networks so unless it
is physically connected to the cable/DSL side, this isn't noticed.

* Compatible with future ethernet emulation in KEGS.

Geoff

(GEOFF, Cat 20, Top 13, Msg 83)

>>>>>
"""""
I should probably add that the patch is not supported by SHH Systeme and is
to be used at your own risk.  If you find any problems with the resulting
LANceGS.Driver and can back up your claim with data from NiftyList, GSBug,
etc. I'll help you the best I can.  Be prepared that I may give you my
source and have you fix it yourself :)

Geoff

(GEOFF, Cat 20, Top 13, Msg 84)

>>>>>
"""""
Thanks, Geoff!!!!!!!!

Kelvin

(KWS, Cat 20, Top 13, Msg 85)

>>>>>
"""""
Kelvin, it really should be I thanking you.  You gave me the best beta test
report ever during the beta cycle of this driver.  Additional
acknowledgements goes to Ryan, Mark, Carl, and Dain who have different
systems than I do who verified that the software worked as expected.

I should probably add this driver still has the same problem as the
original where packets will still be sent even if ARP fails.  Unlike the
original, my driver will always send the packet to the broadcast MAC
address.  This is really a bad thing, but it almost guarantees that a
network connection will work.  The fix is to track a lack of an ARP reply
and not transmit packets to that IP address.

Additional features that would be nice include:

* ARP timeout (someone [not me] needs to create a utility to let the user
specify the ARP timeout and then the driver can read the value and use it)

* change the "timing" loops to use the event manager to track cycles
instead of a relying on the CPU speed (loops have to be given extra time to
run on an accelerated system, resulting in potentially slower response time
for slower GS's or not enough time for hyper accelerated GS'S).

(GEOFF, Cat 20, Top 13, Msg 86)

>>>>>
"""""
I would also like to thank Geoff for his work on the patch for the LANceGS
driver (as well as all of his other work recently).

Ryan
Chief Sysop and Head Geek

(A2.RYAN, Cat 20, Top 13, Msg 87)

>>>>>
"""""
No Kidding Geoff.  I've gotten lots of use from your programs over the
years, Thanks.

Dain

(A2.DAIN, Cat 20, Top 13, Msg 88)
[EOA]


[NAL]
NEW UPLOAD TO A2 LIBRARY
""""""""""""""""""""""""
There is a new upload in the telecommunications/applications/16-bit
directory:

File: patchlance1.bxy
Size: 18304
Date: Sep 16

PatchLance1 by Geoff Weiss (geoff@apple2.gs)

This is the first update available to patch the LANceGS.Driver link layer
for Marinetti.  Several bugs are fixed as well as additional enhancements
have been implemented.

This software has not been sanctioned by SHH Systeme so it is to be used at
your own risk.

See Category 13, Topic 20, Message 83 (or the included ReadME file) for
further details.

Tony Ward, A2 Librarian

(A2.TONY, Cat 2, Top 37, Msg 40)
[EOA]


[TPD]
THE Prizm DEBUGGER
""""""""""""""""""
I recently discovered the debugger that existed within Prizm and was very
impressed by it.  I thought I had found a problem with it which I later
learned was my ignorance after reading appropriate section of the manual.
I didn't like that the caret character is used for pointers in the
variables window (considering I was using C).  I was wondering what the
general consensus is if Prizm supported both the asterisk and the caret for
pointers.  This would maximize compatibility between C and Pascal
developers.

Geoff

(GEOFF, Cat 22, Top 28, Msg 18)

>>>>>
"""""
I think that would be nice, if there were an option to choose which
notation to use for pointers.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 22, Top 28, Msg 19)

>>>>>
"""""
Choice is good.

I use Prizm, although I rarely use the debugger.  I just wish the GS had
more screen real estate.

Ryan
Chief Sysop and Head Geek

(A2.RYAN, Cat 22, Top 28, Msg 20)

>>>>>
"""""
Prizm is one of the few programs where the lack of screen real estate makes
it cumbersome to use.  Or maybe I'm just used to 1600x1200 resolution
displays for the last six years.  A interesting project for someone to
tackle would be to write an X client on the GS so windows are accessible on
larger displays.  This would require patches to the Window Maner, Event
Manager, Quickdraw, etc.  Because the graphic drawing is offloaded to the
client instead of being needed to be done by the GS, it could prove to be a
workable solution.  And with X servers available on virtually all modern
OS's, there's an immediate base of compatibility for usefulness.

Geoff

(GEOFF, Cat 22, Top 28, Msg 21)
[EOA]


[EFD]
EMULATOR ISSUE WITH REGARD TO FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
I have been following Richard Bennett-Forrest's series of emulation
articles in Juiced.GS and have been enjoying the content.  As someone who
has added a feature or two into KEGS, it is refreshing to see the point of
view of another approach.  I am very curious to see where Richard is going
based on his May 2004 article about emulator identification from the IIgs
stand point.

I have found that the suggested format of using $C04F ID Byte to be
extremely limiting and poorly designed for any type of expansion.  The
version number that it presents is in the form of X.Y.  KEGS is still in
the development stages and the version number hasn't even reached 1.0 yet.
Its version number appears as .XY, or using  the $C04F notation, 0.X,
losing the second version number digit.  Also, the version number format
breaks once the major version exceeds 9 (or 15 if BCD is not assumed).  The
mouse code changed from 0.85 to 0.86 in KEGS so an application may want to
take advantage of the two different scenarios, but can't since the version
number returns $08 for both.

And how should the emulator ID be defined?  Sweet 16 is Bernie ported to Be
so it gets a different ID than Bernie.  KEGS has been ported to many
different platforms and comes in many flavors so should it get a different
ID for each? KEGSwin, xKEGS, KEGSMac, CasaGS, KEGS32, ActiveGS, and
KEGS-Xbox are several ports that have been made.  Something like xKEGS has
different functions depending on which underlying OS it was built on, not
even mentioning that there are assembly versus C cores for specific systems
too.  A single ID byte may not provide enough information.

I await anxiously to see what Richard has come up with.  Hopefully, some of
these areas of concern would be addressed.

Geoff

(GEOFF, Cat 29, Top 6, Msg 12)

>>>>>
"""""
Well, Sweet16 isn't actually Bernie ported to anything; it's based on
Bernie but has some key differences (such as the fact that on x86 it's a
totally different, C-based, emulation core).  That's why it gets its own
ID.  It might actually have made sense for it to report a different ID on
PPC versus x86 for that reason.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 29, Top 6, Msg 13)
[EOA]


[COS]
Version 1.2 of the Contiki OS
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Version 1.2 of the Contiki OS has been announced.  Some of the new features
are:

# Service layer providing dynamic loading and unloading of system services
# Multi-threading library
# Protothreads: extremely light-weight, stackless threads
# Optional socket-like network API based on protothreads
# Generic filesystem interface
# Kernel rewritten with cleaner API
# CTK terminal driver for providing text-based GUI over Telnet

It is amazing that it now has surpassed GS/OS in its capabilities.  The
last feature mentioned sounds pretty neat since that is essentially VNC
using text (resulting in fast operation for slower computers).

Has anybody looked at converting the released LanceGS 8-bit driver into a
library for Contiki to give Apple II users the ability to take advantage of
its TCP/IP capabilities?

Heck, a IIgs port would be neat to take advantage of a full color GUI.

Geoff

(GEOFF, Cat 51, Top 63, Msg 1)

>>>>>
"""""
Contiki's ETH64 ethernet driver uses the same chip as the LanceGS so most
of the work is already done to add LanceGS support for Contiki.  The
LanceGS driver could be easily based on what exists for the ETH64.
Obviously, the big difference would be EEPROM access.

Geoff

(GEOFF, Cat 51, Top 63, Msg 2)
[EOA]


[HWR]
HELP WITH THE Rez RESOURCE COMPILER
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Anyone with some Rez sample code for rectangle controls (as well as what
the resulting box looks like)?  I have not yet used this control so I could
use this direction.

Thanks

Ryan
Chief Sysop

(A2.RYAN, Cat 52, Top 48, Msg 22)

>>>>>
"""""
From the SIS source code:

#define PrefBaseRect $8014

resource rControlTemplate (PrefBaseRect) {
PrefBaseRect,
{1,1,123,538},
rectangleControl {{
0+2,
fctlProcNotPtr,
0
}};
};

This draws the black rectangle that makes up the border of the index card
of the preference window.  A portion of this rectangle gets erased where
the active tab is displayed by drawing an icon over it.

One of the grey rectangles in the General Preferences was drawn by this
(based on the coords, this should be the upper-most grey rect):

resource rControlTemplate (gPrefLRect) {
gPrefLRect,
{10,10,35,260), /* coords local to window */
rectangleControl {{
0+1,
0x1000,
0
}};
};

Geoff

(GEOFF, Cat 52, Top 48, Msg 23)

>>>>>
"""""
Thanks, Geoff.

Ryan

(A2.RYAN, Cat 52, Top 48, Msg 24)
[EOA]


[IPS]
Marinetti: INTERACTING WITH A POP3 SERVER
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
I am currently doing some more work on interacting with a POP3 server and
am seeking opinions as to what length of time to implement for a "timeout",
meaning, "If we don't receive a response from the server within x amount of
seconds, we assume this connection is toasted."  I realize that there are a
lot of variables with this (primarily the speed of the connection) and
would like some opinions as to how long this time out ought to be.  I'm
thinking 10 seconds, but would value some input.

Thanks.

Ryan
Chief Sysop

(A2.RYAN, Cat 57, Top 31, Msg 43)

>>>>>
"""""
Optimally, this should be a user preference with the default being fairly
large such as 60 seconds.

Users on a modem versus those on broadband have different speed
expectations.  Broadband has brought us closer to the "7 second maximum"
immediate response time (as specified by the HCI research of Ben
Shneiderman,  http://www.cs.umd.edu/~ben/ ).  Factors outside user control
is the speed of the mail server (is it busy processing spam) and speed of
the connection to the server (is it on the other side of the country).

So a modem user connecting to a busy server on the other side of the
country over a slow connection can easily need 60 second timeouts.

The POP protocol, especially if the server uses mail format instead of
mdir, may also take a while to generate the information before it will get
sent.  Software such Eudora and Exchange have a 30-60 second time out and I
have seen where the servers needs to process information longer than that
timeout.

I hard-coded SIS to use a 30 second time out since that is a decent median
for slower and faster access users.  Server time-outs are not a common
preference item to be found in user-level applications.  I personally would
like a quicker time-out since it can be a PITA waiting 30 seconds for a
time-out, but I kept the higher value since I wasn't the only user of SIS.

Geoff

(GEOFF, Cat 57, Top 31, Msg 44)

>>>>>
"""""
Thanks for your input, Geoff.

I wasn't thinking I was actually going to release this little program since
it was mostly to help me work out my POP3 logic, but I probably will.  I
agree that a user defined timeout is ideal, but given that it's such a
small thing I'm hard coding a 30 second timeout.

After this thing is done, I'm looking at a couple of small projects, the
first of which is a dict client suggested by Dain.  That'll take awhile. :)

Ryan
Chief Sysop

(A2.RYAN, Cat 57, Top 31, Msg 45)
[EOA]


[TSS]
How to Tell From an NDA if a Toolset is Already Started up
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
You'd think I know this by now, but I apparently don't (or I'm so sick I
can't remember it):

How do I tell if a given toolset is already started up from a NDA?  I need
to use TextEdit in my NDA and I can figure out how to use StartOneTool to
start it (since I'm not supposed to use StartUpTools from a NDA) but how do
I find the status before I figure out if I need to start it?

Thanks.

Ryan
Chief Sysop

(A2.RYAN, Cat 55, Top 21, Msg 6)

>>>>>
"""""
You have to call TEStatus.  If the returned value is 0, then you know the
toolset is not active.

Geoff

(GEOFF, Cat 55, Top 21, Msg 7)

>>>>>
"""""
Under System 6, you can use StartUpTools from an NDA, IIRC.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 55, Top 21, Msg 8)

>>>>>
"""""
Ah; okay, I did use StartUpTools and it appears to work.

I'm having some TextEdit issues, but I'll bring those up later in a more
appropriate forum :)

Ryan
Chief Sysop

(A2.RYAN, Cat 55, Top 21, Msg 9)

>>>>>
"""""
>> You have to call TEStatus.  If the returned value is 0, then you know
the toolset is not active. <<

You should also check for a toolerror -- if the tool isn't loaded in memory
at the time, the return value won't be meaningful.

Kelvin

(KWS, Cat 55, Top 21, Msg 10)
[EOA]


[CMM]
SideClick Contextual Menu Manager
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
I've got a first draft of the API for SideClick.  I'd welcome any feedback.

It's in PDF format, at this URL:

http://snipurl.com/9ohn-HHXJ5

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 24, Top 21, Msg 1)

>>>>>
"""""
Just gave you some feedback in conference :)

What I'm thinking I'm going to try first with SideClick is with MyIP.NDA;
having the menu that SideClick displays be something like, "Show my IP
address" and when it's selected, opening the NDA.

It also occurs to me that instead of having the app or NDA actually do the
requested task, it could also be a type of "handler" that passes the task
on to something appropriate; for instance, there could be an init that
installed "Send an email" in the SideClick menu, then when it was selected
broadcast an IPC message to another application that would actually send
the email.

At least, that's what I think I think. :)

Ryan
Chief Sysop

(A2.RYAN, Cat 24, Top 21, Msg 2)

>>>>>
"""""
I've just posted version 0.2 of the SideClick spec.  It's been updated a
lot, with a new IPC call added, and a section describing a possible usage
scenario.

http://homepage.mac.com/sheppy/projects/sideclick/SideClickAPISpecs.pdf

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 24, Top 21, Msg 3)

>>>>>
"""""
So I am interpreting this as meaning that, for instance, if I had MyIP.NDA
interface with SideClick, I could have the SideClick menu add two menu
items, say "Display IP address" and "Copy IP address to clipboard"?

Also another question: any (practical) limitation on the length of the
string used for the menu item?

Ryan
Chief Sysop and Head Geek

(A2.RYAN, Cat 24, Top 21, Msg 4)
[EOA]


[ISC]
Internet Settings CDev
""""""""""""""""""""""
Here's a place for us to talk about creating a CDev that users can use to
set options related to Internet settings, such as email address, server
addresses, preferred applications to handle various URL types, and so
forth.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 30, Top 26, Msg 1)

>>>>>
"""""
The idea for this would be that the user could configure everything in one
place.

Then it could have an IPC call that would let someone ask it what
application to use to handle a particular type of URL, or fetch specific
settings.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 30, Top 26, Msg 2)

>>>>>
"""""
Some thoughts about stuff this should be able to configure:

Email
   Address
   POP server
   SMTP server
   IMAP server
   Full name
   Password for authentication
   Preferred reader
   Preferred sender

Usenet
   News server
   Username
   Password
   Preferred reader application
   Preferred poster application

Web
   Proxy settings
   Preferred web browser

FTP
   Preferred FTP client

What else would make sense to have?

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 30, Top 26, Msg 3)

>>>>>
"""""
I've yet to write a CDev :)

That said, I think that looking at older versions of Internet
Config/Internet Control Panel on the Mac OS may be a place to start.
There's also a Mac OS X System Preference (third party) called "More
Internet" that has a pretty simple interface but I think just defines
applications to use with various forms of URLs, not gives people anywhere
to store their actual settings.

Ryan
Chief Sysop

(A2.RYAN, Cat 30, Top 26, Msg 4)

>>>>>
"""""
Yeah, if anyone has a machine with Internet Config on it, it would be
helpful if they could grab screenshots and post them somewhere for us to
use as reference.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 30, Top 26, Msg 5)

>>>>>
"""""
Looking at this from a low level, structures that I see needed are:

* 16-bit ints
* 32-bit ints
* GSStrings (16-bit length followed by data)

Each of these would have a 16-bit structure ID and a 16-bit location ID.
The structure ID is a value for each low level structure.  ID 1 for 16-int
could be the port number of a Web proxy server.  ID 1 for a string could be
the email address.  The location ID would be associated with something like
home, work, etc. (i.e. you can have different mail settings to access your
mail from work or home).

This would allow for expansion, without requiring the need to specify all
the preference items up front.  The CDEV could just handle a few preference
settings and let applications maintain others.

Geoff

(GEOFF, Cat 30, Top 26, Msg 6)

>>>>>
"""""
>> Yeah, if anyone has a machine with Internet Config on it, it would be
helpful if they could grab screenshots and post them somewhere for us to
use as reference. <<

Google helps to make this unnecessary :)  A quick search brings this, for
instance:

http://www.umanitoba.ca/campus/acn/remote/mac/clients8/

It's not all of the preferences, but it's certainly a start.

Ryan
Chief Sysop

(A2.RYAN, Cat 30, Top 26, Msg 7)

>>>>>
"""""
See, I think you're thinking too level.  I think the CDev should implement
a series of IPC calls:

askInternetSettingsGetSMTPServer

askInternetSettingsGetPOPServer

askInternetSettingsGetNewsServer

And so forth.  This would be much more flexible, and tons easier for the
client programmers to deal with.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 30, Top 26, Msg 8)

>>>>>
"""""
>> "See, I think you're thinking too level" <<

Hum.  That was supposed to be "See, I think you're thinking at too low a
level." :)

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 30, Top 26, Msg 9)

>>>>>
"""""
iirc, back in the days of Internet Config on the Mac, usually the Internet
applications had a checkbox in their preferences that the user checked if
they wanted to use Internet Config for the preferences or its own
preferences.  I am guessing that some kind of equivalent would be indicated
here.

Ryan
Chief Sysop and Head Geek

(A2.RYAN, Cat 30, Top 26, Msg 10)
[EOA]


[ABN]
Address Book NDA
""""""""""""""""
The goal would be to have an address book that's useful on its own but can
also be integrated with email clients and the like.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 30, Top 27, Msg 1)

>>>>>
"""""
I don't know much about using the list control (which is probably the best
control to use for an address book), so I don't think I'm much of a
candidate to write it at this point, but I think that this is a really
needed thing.

iirc Aaron has written an AddressBook NDA that was still in alpha the last
I saw.

Ryan
Chief Sysop

(A2.RYAN, Cat 30, Top 27, Msg 2)
[EOA]


[UHR]
URL Handler
"""""""""""
The URL Handler would basically take an URL string and pass it along to the
app that the internet settings CDev says wants to handle those.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 30, Top 28, Msg 1)

>>>>>
"""""
See technical note 200 at:

http://www.sheppyware.net/tech/tn/iigs/iigs200.html

This note covers the askAnyoneOpenURL IPC call, which hasn't been
implemented yet, but was designed to handle dispatching an URL.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 30, Top 28, Msg 2)

>>>>>
"""""
I've also been thinking (after reading technote 200) of a simple NDA that
had only a Lineedit control and a button to enter a URL in, that would then
broadcast an IPC message to whatever applications were listening.

Ryan
Chief Sysop

(A2.RYAN, Cat 30, Top 28, Msg 3)
[EOA]


[PPD]
Possible Projects for Software Development
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
This is a place for us to talk about possible projects, or topics we need
to create.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 30, Top 29, Msg 1)

>>>>>
"""""
I have a partially completed notification manager type of extension that
lets applications flash an icon in the menu bar, so that it alternates with
the Apple menu's logo.  That might be useful for email and other types of
software; I'll have to finish it.

gsAIM 1.5 has that ability built in, but I started pulling it out as a
separate init when I realized I might want to use it in other projects.
Never finished the work.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 30, Top 29, Msg 2)

>>>>>
"""""
I've posted version 0.1 of my Notification Manager specification.  Please
have a look and let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions!

http://homepage.mac.com/sheppy/projects/notification/NotificationAPISpec.pd
f

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 30, Top 29, Msg 3)

>>>>>
"""""
I take it this is something (well, very vaguely :) like a bouncing icon in
an OS X dock to draw the attention of a user if something 's happening in a
hidden window?

Ryan
Chief Sysop

(A2.RYAN, Cat 30, Top 29, Msg 4)
[EOA]


[EMF]
Email Fetcher
"""""""""""""
Here's a place to talk about a utility to fetch email.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 30, Top 30, Msg 1)
[EOA]


[EMS]
Email Sender
""""""""""""
Talk about writing a program that can be shared among many applications for
sending email.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 30, Top 31, Msg 1)
[EOA]


[PGC]
Programming Conference
""""""""""""""""""""""
That was a great programming conference last night.  Thanks to everyone who
stopped in (we also had a substantial international contingent with two
Australians and two from Canada--one a Canadian and one an American in
Canada).

We're going to be holding these monthly to see where we get to :)

Ryan
Chief Sysop

(A2.RYAN, Cat 50, Top 5, Msg 20)

>>>>>
"""""
Whoops!  Sorry I missed this one.  Will there be a transcript posted?
_________
  | homas

(TCOMPTER, Cat 50, Top 5, Msg 21)

>>>>>
"""""
Kirk says there will be a transcript.  We also decided to hold monthly
programming meetings; the next will be on November 12.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.com
Owner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com
                     Building communities, bit by bit.

(SYNDICOMM, Cat 50, Top 5, Msg 22)

>>>>>
"""""
Yes, the transcript is uploaded and awaiting release.

A poor second to actually being there live, but it'll give you an idea of
what happened.  B-{)

Kirk

(A2.KIRK, Cat 50, Top 5, Msg 23)
[EOA]


[MHA]
NEW WEB LOCATION FOR MUD HISTORY ARTICLES
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
The MUD history articles mentioned in message 45 in this topic are no
longer available at Happy Puppy.  Instead, try this URL:

http://www.gatecentral.com/shared_docs/Timeline1.html

The new home page of "Biting the Hand", the article written by author
Jessica Mulligan (hence the "bth" in the original filename), is

http://www.skotos.net/articles/bth.html

-Ken

(KGAGNE, Cat 2, Top 6, Msg 121)
[EOA]


[MIG]
LIST OF TOP 25 MOST INFLUENTIAL GAMES
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Issue #138 (October 2004) of Game Informer magazine presents a list of "The
Top 25 Most Influential Games of All Time".  The list is presented
chronologically, spanning from 1971 to 2001.  Only one Apple II game made
the list; at 1979, FS1 Flight Simulator is the third game listed.

Several other listed games were also made available for the Apple II, or
are known to its users: Zork (TRS-80); Pac-Man (arcade); Adventure (Atari
2600); Gauntlet (arcade); Super Mario Bros. (NES); Tetris (PC); Prince of
Persia (PC); and SimCity (PC).

(KGAGNE, Cat 14, Top 1, Msg 113)

>>>>>
"""""
We're talking 23+ years ago, but I could have sworn that Zork came out on
the Apple II before the TRS-80.

Speaking of Zork, "Zork I" was one of the first programs I ever bought for
my Apple II+. And to this day I have no regrets that it was! (I also have
great memories of the weeks while several people all worked towards solving
it. One person would solve one puzzle, another a different puzzle, with
excited phone calls to share the news! Ah, the good old days!)

Peter               peterw@syndicomm.com
Palm OS Community Bulletin Board Manager

(PETERW, Cat 14, Top 1, Msg 114)
[EOA]



[ITL]------------------------
      ILLUMINATING THE LAMP |
-----------------------------

An overview of GEnieLamp A2 and The Lamp!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By Steven Weyhrich


THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD

      These days, I am enjoying the benefits of digital photography. It is
SO convenient to be able to take a picture and immediately see the results;
to be able to take many shots, and eliminate the bad ones; to be able to
electronically transmit my photos to others via the Internet or a CD. But
back before I had a digital camera, I had a standard film-based camera. The
particular camera that gave me the best results for my photographic
endeavors was my Minolta SLR (single-lens reflex) camera. It had automatic
film advance, it would set the white balance by itself (which means I could
successfully take photos in dim light), and detachable lenses that would
let me do long distance photography.

     In order to know that the subject I was about to snap was in focus,
the lens system would show a two half-circles. The upper one and the lower
one had to be in line with each other, going from

            ____                  ____
           /    \                /    \
        __/______\              /______\
       \      /                 \      /
        \____/                   \____/

          this         to         this.

     The image goes from being disjointed to being lined up; when that
happens, the image is in focus.

     This final (for now) edition of Illuminating The Lamp brings me back
to "the present", so to speak. It was in June of 2002 that I re-connected
with the Apple II community after an eight-year hiatus, since I left GEnie
around 1994. For years, I had been bothering my Apple II author colleagues
on the IIScribe mailing list when I had questions about the Apple II for
the purposes of updating or adding to my Apple II History. I had heard (or
been told) about the benefits of a Syndicomm online membership, and decided
it was time to give it a try. I have not regretted that decision (and
probably the IIScribe people have felt the same way).

     When I started looking at the GEnieLamp and Lamp newsletters from
start to finish, my original purpose was to learn about what were, for me,
the "silent years", in which I had very little information about what I had
missed while I was away. As I read through them, I was re-acquainted with
the parts I remembered, from GenieLamp's origin in 1992 through 1995, and
then onward to the present. And the feeling I had as I approached 2002 was
like focusing the lens on my Minolta camera; the image was becoming more
clear and more "in line" with what I knew the present Apple II world to be
like. An interesting feeling, to say the least.


WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

     The response to the events of September 11, 2001 continued in 2002, as
the United States gathered a coalition and toppled the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan, and continued its search for al Queda leader Osama bin Laden,
finding evidence that he was indeed still alive. Focus now began to turn to
Iraq and Saddam Hussein, amid concerns that weapons of mass destruction
were being produced and hidden there. Within the United States, the energy
company Enron collapsed amid corporate scandal, and WorldCom, the world's
second largest long-distance telephone and data service company, filed for
bankruptcy in June.

     In May, after an eight-month battle, Hewlett-Packard bought Compaq
Computer Corp., forming the largest information technology company in the
world. David Smith, creator of the Melissa virus (which caused millions of
dollars of damage to computer networks in 1999), was sentenced to 20 months
in a federal prison and a $5,000 fine. Intel PC processors achieved speeds
of 1.8 GHz, and hard drive capacity hit 60 gigabytes.

     Apple CEO Steve Jobs continued to press for faster, more powerful, and
more stylish models of the Macintosh. The iMac transmogrified from a
candy-colored and shaped desktop appliance to something that resembled the
lamp that symbolized Steve Jobs' other company, Pixar Studios. The new
flat-panel iMac, powered by a G4 processor, had a round base and an arm to
adjust the flat screen to any desired position. The Power Mac G4 line also
got a speed bump up to 1 GHz, some models with dual processors to further
enhance speed. Mac OS X became yet another cat, with the release of
"Jaguar", also known as 10.2. It included better graphics management
("Quartz Extreme"), an e-mail client with an adaptive spam filter, the
Address Book, Rendezvous networking, iChat (an Apple rebranding of AOL's
Instant Messenger), and speed improvements throughout.


THE LAMP! INFO

      Controversy and drama was mostly absent from the Apple II world this
year, now that the exodus from Delphi to Syndicomm had settled down to a
comfortable routine. Editor Lyle Syverson began the first of his Tinkerer's
Corner series of articles on hardware projects. KansasFest promotions,
Syndicomm postings, a little Delphi scattered in the mix, all together
rounded out another fine year of reporting on the doings of the last
organized Apple II community in the online world. And I began to make my
own new contribution to the community, related to The Lamp; my own reviews
of the entire series prompted me to begin creating a comprehensive index to
the series of newsletters, with the first edition uploaded in July.


DELPHI A2 FORUM

     At the start of 2002, it was still possible to access Delphi in text
mode via telnet. (However, the address that worked at that time is no
longer effective today). The files that made up the Delphi A2 library were
made available on Syndicomm.com.


A2CENTRAL.COM / SYNDICOMM

     In January, it was announced in The Lamp! that all of Syndicomm
Online's forums had been converted to work with the new bulletin board
software. The same month, new lower prices for Syndicomm were announced.
The web side of the Syndicomm was enhanced with additional features,
including a display of the count of how many members were in chat. Further,
a web-based chat was introduced at that time. Cargotha, an online "MUD"
(multi-user dungeon) was opened.

     Ken Gagne introduced a new monthly electronic newsletter,
Syndicommotion, which had the purpose of helping promote Syndicomm's
various forums.

     The Prolific Quill forum started a plan to have a collaborative story
written online, about a person named "Douglas". A $20 gift certificate for
the Syndicomm online store was offered to those wishing to contribute to
the story. Unfortunately, to this day additional authors are still being
sought, in order to have the minimum number necessary to make it possible
for this interesting concept of a group story to get started.

     Some of the regulars in the Apple II forum revealed their true
identities (the jobs they do in the "real" world) in the March issue. Some
also made their Apple II software wish lists (things they'd like to see get
written).

     Also in March, Syndicomm hosted a special online chat with veteran
Apple II programmer Dave Lyons, with a transcript later posted in the
library. Later in the year, another special chat was held featuring Rich
Dreher, the creator of the CFFA Compact Flash reader for the Apple II.

     Syndicomm began using an anti-spam filter on mail passing through its
server in April. In July, the online store was updated to support overseas
airmail, as well as payment by check or money order. Additional products
were added for sale at the store.

     Eric Shepherd announced in October that Syndicomm would be relocating
to Maryville, Tennessee. As part of the preparations for this move, the new
Cargotha online RPG was temporarily taken offline. One enhancement that was
to be offered by the move was an upgrade to higher performance servers and
a higher bandwidth connection.


HARDWARE NEWS

     Various topics were addressed in the A2 Forum this year:

o Keyboards compatible with the Apple IIGS
o Setting the ID on a SCSI hard drive
o Refilling and/or disposing of used inkjet printer ink cartridges
o Apple IIe revision differences
o Current sources of No-Slot Clock-compatible hardware
o Keyboard cleaning after a spill
o The story of the Mark Twain Apple IIGS
o Use of an ImageWriter II on a PC
o How to network an Apple IIGS to an iMac or PowerBook

     The first mention of Rich Dreher's CFFA compact flash reader for the
Apple II appeared in the February issue.


EMULATOR NEWS

     The identity of the first Apple II emulator was debated in April. Use
of Bernie ][ The Rescue to get a IIGS (emulated) onto the Internet was
discussed in July. A new version of KEGS for Windows (KEGS32) was mentioned
in February. How to compile KEGS for Mac OS X was discussed in October.


INTERNET NEWS

     January saw discussion of how to post e-mail addresses on a web site
in such a way as to avoid making those addresses available to spammers.
Other methods of dealing with spam were discussed in later issues.


SOFTWARE NEWS

:: COLLECTIONS ::

     Howard Katz of The Lost Classics project was able to get permission
from Mike Harvey, former publisher of Nibble, to have all of Nibble's
software disks released as freeware. A specific collection was not
available, due to the need to collect working copies of the software.


:: PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE ::

     Platinum Paint was recovered as a Lost Classic release in January, as
was Beagle Bros GSFont Editor, and Quality Software's Bag Of Tricks 2.


:: TELECOMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE ::

     Delphi's A2 Forum discussed:

o connecting a PC to an Apple IIGS using Marinetti
o connecting an Apple IIe to the Internet via a Linux PC
o suggestions for potential improvements to Marinetti (specifically making
an alternative TCP/IP stack)
o turning on AppleTalk under Mac OS X
o how to make it possible to network a IIGS to a Mac under that newer OS

     The A2 Forum on Syndicomm discussed:

o various telecommunication software that they had used over the years
o methods of creation of PDF files from a word processing document (not
Apple II)

     Ewen Wannop updated SOAR, his offline message reader for Syndicomm, to
v1.0b9, and then soon after to v1.0b10.


:: UTILITY SOFTWARE ::

     Although not specifically a utility, discussion in April involved the
proper way to move a text file from a Mac to an Apple II via a 3.5 disk,
while avoiding creation of a resource fork (which 8-bit Apple II programs
cannot handle).

     A test of the MUG! (MS-DOS utilities) NDA by Ryan Suenaga found that,
running on Bernie ][ The Rescue, it was possible to read an MS-DOS volume
on a digital camera attached to a Mac via USB.

     NiftyList was made available as freeware by Dave Lyons.


:: GAMES ::

     Jeff Fink continued his updates to Silvern Castle, with 7.4 being
released early in the year. Tips on use of the game also appeared in the
March issue.

     The March issue also included a post by Ken Gagne posted an address
for an article describing the history of online gaming. Although the link
listed there is no longer correct, the article exists today at this
address:

http://www.gatecentral.com/shared_docs/Timeline1.html

     The author, Jessica Mulligan, uses another web site to write articles
giving her viewpoint on gaming:

http://www.skotos.net/articles/bth.html


PUBLICATIONS

     As mentioned above, Syndicommotion was started in January by Ken
Gagne.

     Juiced.GS got a face-lift on its web site early in 2002, and it
continued its publication under new editor Ryan Suenaga. Some of the
infamous upside-down pages began to appear, related to the company with
whom Syndicomm had contracted to do the actual printing and mailing. The
first (and possibly last) Juiced.GS swimsuit issue appeared in the summer.
A price increase was announced, to account for postage rate increases over
the previous three years.


KANSASFEST

     Registration forms became available in April's issue, a bit later than
usual. Ryan Suenaga's KFest FAQ, version 3.0, again appeared in April. A
pre-KFest 2002 chat was held on Syndicomm on June 17.

     Topics discussed at KansasFest this year included Richard
Bennet-Forrest and his announcement of Florence, a Java-based Apple IIGS
emulator, and Jeff Blakeney and IN: The Mailbox, an e-mail client for the
IIGS (which he thought would be ready by December). Howard Katz and Sandra
Warnken had a presentation about user groups, Bruce Baker gave a talk about
games published by Softdisk, Sarah Shepherd described Syndicomm's dark
secrets.

     KansasFest's keynote speaker for 2002 was Tony Diaz (in which he
showed clips of KFest past - all fourteen years that he has attended), and
the recipient of the annual roast was Ryan Suenaga.

     The GShisen contest was again held, and was won by Geoff Weiss.

     Back in June, I had made a post about my inquiries to the current
owners of Softdisk as to whether or not they would make back issues of
their disk magazine available for download in their web site's store. A
consequence of that conversation was getting Softdisk and Sheppy connected,
which resulted in an announcement at KFest of Project Barney, a CD
compilation of Softdisk G-S, with a later CD to include the older Softdisk
issues.

     At the end of event, the dates for KFest 2003 were announced.


WRITERS

     Ryan Suenaga again wrote his Apple II Achievement awards column for
2001, appearing in the January issue of The Lamp! The Best Commercial
Product was given to Juiced.GS' Friends II CD-ROM, with runner-up being
given to Ken Gagne's Esprit de Apple Corps CD-ROM collection of graphics,
MOD music files, and games. Best Shareware Product went to Kim Howe's
Telnet NDA. Best Freeware Product went to SAFE (Spectrum Automated File
Exchange) and Thomas Compter's IIGS translation of Hammurabi. Best World
Wide Web Site was given to A2Central.com, the Best Publication went to
Juiced.GS, and the Outstanding Apple II Related Development was awarded to
Syndicomm for its efforts to re-release products from EGO Systems,
Parkhurst Micro Products, The Byte Works, APDA, and the continuation of
publication for Juiced.GS magazine. The Outstanding Individual Achievement
was awarded to David Miller, the programming powerhouse behind
Syndicomm.com, and to Max Jones, for turning over Juiced.GS to new hands
rather than letting it die.


MISCELLANEOUS FEATURES

     Ken Gagne mentioned in January a web site on which MP3 sounds of an
Apple II disk drive had been stored.

     The floating-point precision limits of Applesoft were reviewed, with
differences noted between a calculator's solution to 9 to the 9th power and
Applesoft's answer to the same math calculation.

     In June, A2 Forum members described the ways in which they were
currently using their Apple II computers.


STATS

     Here are statistics for the first eleven years of GEnieLamp and The
Lamp! The numbers refer to the size of each issue in "K" (kilobytes):

Year    Min     Max     Avg
----    ----    ----    ----
1992    116K    212K    156K
1993     80K    256K    172K
1994    124K    216K    165K
1995     92K    176K    125K
1996     80K    192K    116K
1997     44K    124K     85K
1998     68K    156K    102K
1999     59K    120K     91K
2000     47K     81K     60K
2001     47K     96K     71K
2002     34K     78K     54K


HELLO, GOODBYE

      I'll say goodbye for now, but I'm not fading away as I did in 1995.
I'll return some time next year to do another couple of Illuminating The
Lamp columns for 2003 and 2004. Until then, don't forget to compliment our
editor, Lyle Syverson, for his continued diligence in producing this
newsletter each month, and don't forget to PARTICIPATE in the Apple II
online world.


Steven Weyhrich
a2history@syndicomm.com
http://apple2history.org


References:

A Brief History of Mac OS X
http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/history.html

Computer History For The Year 2000 To Today
http://www.computerhope.com/history/2000.htm

Computer History Trivia
http://www.cedarville.edu/departments/compserv/history.htm

The History Of Computing Project
http://www.thocp.net

The History Of The World Timeline
http://www.historychannel.com/timeline/index.jsp?year=2002

HP-Compaq: A fight to the finish | CNET News.com
http://news.com.com/2009-1001-852197.html

Macintosh History: 2002
http://www.lowendmac.com/history/2002.html

Wikipedia - Mac OS X
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X#Versions

[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]


[OSN]
October Issue of Syndicommotion Available
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
The October issue of Syndicommotion, our free newsletter covering the
latest events on Syndicomm Online, is now available.  If you don't
subscribe, you can read the issue at

<http://www.syndicomm.com/syndicommotion/>.

(Login Banner, Syndicomm Online)
[EOA]



[LTE]-------------------------------
             LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
------------------------------------

LETTER 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]



[KF5]------------------------------
                       KFest 2005 |
-----------------------------------

[TBH]
KansasFest 2005 to be Held JULY 19-24th
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Mark your calendar and start saving some money.


[KFW]
KansasFest Website
""""""""""""""""""
Is located here:   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]
