                                                            22 July 1980

                   TO USERS OF THE UCSD PASCAL USERS' LIBRARY

     Here's some news from the UCSD Pascal front lines (I am reporting
according to the way I saw it, so don't be surprised if others also present
interpreted events differently):

     The UCSD System Users Society (USUS) was formed last month at San
Diego.  It is a vigorous, alive, and independent organization that right now
is oriented to those who plan to make their living using the UCSD system,
primarily the Pascal language.  It is possible that hobbiest users may play
more of a role in the future.

     SofTech Microsystems organized the meeting and was extremely careful to 
clearly give it away to the users.  The users in turn made no bones about 
their needs and gripes with SofTech, particularly the importance to them of
SofTech's releasing Version 4.0 in the NEAR future.  For months the word has
been that it's been only a few weeks away from being marketed.  The purpose of
4.0 is twofold, I gathered: 1) to clean up the "warts" and weird system
dependencies of the UCSD system and to finally remove it from the realm of a
highly advanced student project, plus 2) to restore total object-code machine
independence, where programs will run unaltered on multiple machines.  Most of
the users agreed that even more than implementing Pascal on a micro, what they
liked most about the UCSD system was its uniformity across multiple systems. 
TI and Boeing, for instance, chose the UCSD system for these reasons, though
the man from Boeing noted that alterations were required for total machine
transparency.  The delays in releasing 4.0 apparently stem from the intention
at SofTech that it be fully compatible with 2.1 (the Apple system) and 3.0
(the Microengine), despite less than optimal cooperation from the
manufacturers involved.

     The things that will be cleaned up include the UNITS system (allowing
linkage at runtime, plus a greatly expanded number of available segments),
subtle compiler bugs, and a few fixes in the editor and operating system.  The
minimal facilities for concurrancy present in the Microengine system will
apparantly be extended to all.  Despite the fact that many people would like
to expand the operating system beyond the present single-user development
system model, these features won't be changed a great deal at present. 

     The future holds a number of tantalizing possibilities and promises.  A 
major emphasis will be the extension of addressing beyond the present maximum 
of 64K, requiring (of course) more than 16-bit integer arithmetic as a
standard, something I feel is a limitation of the present system anyway.  No
one has talked about how this will be done and yet retain compatibility with
present systems.  We need improved error handling that does not all to be done
by the user program, so commercial applications programs do not bomb out to
the operating system (although there are some tricky, kludgy ways involving a
fake SYSTEM.DEBUGGER program that EXITS back to the user program; I know no
more).  We need a more flexible front end (GETCOMMAND, the main command
processor), so writers of business systems can disguise the operating system
from the user.  There was considerable interest in a UNIX-like operating
system with concurrancy, multi-user and multi-tasking capabilities, and
shells and pipes.  More than likely, this is a good way into the future;
first, we've got to get an expanded system going on the new 16-bit micros.

     Ideas like the ones above aroused considerable interest at the meeting, 
and the Advanced Planning Special Interest Group was among the best attended. 
For further information, contact the chairperson, Randy Bush, at 503/572-
5391.  It is clear that one of the most important things we users can offer
SofTech is a coherent feedback mechanism with courage and clout; this was
already very much in evidence in San Diego.  Al Irvin of SofTech made an
impassioned plea that anyone who has developed new capabilities of the UCSD
system contact him for a mutually satisfying discussion concerning SofTech's
licensing the new development.

     I am chairperson of the software library, which will announce offerings 
in the newsletter and will sell disks in much the same way that I am now, 
except that there will be: a) multiple distribution centers, b) several 
software reviewers, each concentrating on a specific area, and c) the 
requirement that purchasers of the software either be members ($20 per year) 
or pay a $20 premium per order.  Only UCSD-compatible software will be
offered, and all policy is being set by a policy board of interested users. 
Realistically, we will not be shipping USUS software before 1 September. 
Because of my announcements of software available from me without such
restrictions, the group agreed that I should continue as before, although
eventually I will continue my operations through the USUS exclusively.

     Dr. Ken Bowles will be on sabbatical leave next year, and he is making no 
secret of his next project:  to get an Ada compiler going on the UCSD system 
(P-machine compatible only, I imagine).  Because it is no more expensive to 
have the more distant members of his group work at home and communicate via 
modem, he plans to implement a full-fledged Telenet host with a hard-disk-
based microcomputer.  Enough time will be left over on the system to devote
to an innovative project: interested users will be invited to subscribe to a
users' bulletin board and software supermarket, where users' group software
can be downloaded at cost and proprietary programs purchased, all via the
phone.  The bulletin board would include any comments on the proprietary
software users cared to leave, which should (with luck) stimulate the rapid
development of reliable, quality UCSD-compatible products.  Further, and more 
important, this concept will help overcome the insane proliferation of 
incompatible floppy disk formats.

     One interesting note: the Pascal Transfer Program from Vol. 2A has turned
out to be excellent, and has been selected for the "official" modem transfer
routine by the group, a step approved by its author, Mark Gang.  Thus we can
all talk with each other. The protocol used is the PCNET "standard" (Mark
indicated that not all aspects of the protocol had been formalized), so that
we can talk with non-UCSD processors as well.  The program lets you transfer
files to another user in both directions at once, while simultaneously
conversing on your terminals. The only problem is that program overhead is
high and the data rate low; you can expect about 16 char/sec if your line is
not too noisy.  Mark promised a new version, somewhat incompatible with the
old, that involves much more system handshaking to set modem speed and select
binary vs Radix-41 (PCNET standard) transmission.  We'll probably stick to the 
old version, since it should run on ANY UCSD system, even on personal 
computers.

     I also volunteered to be chairperson of the Medical Special Interest 
Group, and we dreamed up a project to adapt to the UCSD System whatever we 
could of the expanse of public-domain clinical applications software, 
developed under grant.  Contact Porter Welbourne, M.D., of Patient Care Data 
Systems, 418 North Main St., Penn Yan, NY 14527, who volunteered to head up
this effort.  In addition, we are looking for volunteers to transcribe the 
programs to UCSD-compatible floppies from 9-track tapes.

     Other special interest groups include the Newsletter (direct all articles 
to Keith Shillington, c/o SofTech Microsystems), European, Computer Aided 
Instruction, Standards, Word Processing, Real-Time Applications, Industrial, 
and Compatibility and Communications.

     To join the UCSD System User Society, send a self-addressed envelope to
Chip Chapin, Secretary, c/o SofTech Microsystems, 9494 Black Mountain Road,
San Diego CA 92126, or use the membership form I sent out with the disks.  The 
next general meeting will be in San Francisco (same time as another, general 
computer conference) on October 16 to 18, 1980.  Tentative cost is $25.


     Keep in touch.

     Jim Gagne.
