Issue 21: Jul 2002
Features
- | Foreword
- | Tip of the day
- | Something for Nothing
- | Platariada 2002
- | Atari in the USA 2002
- | Digital Photography Revisited
- | Defender to Chopper Command
- | CAMUS: Cellular Automata MUSic generator
- | Atari 8-bit hard drive interface
- | Mac 'n' Back
| Del McCool and George Iken go clubbing This month I'd like to remind many of us what really helped us through our first few months of owning and using an Atari computer... a local users group. Today a person can just go into the local department store and pick up a computer, like you would a new TV set. All you need to know is how to plug all the cables in and your up and running. Modern mainstream operating systems allow anyone, even my two year old, to access software and use a computer. In the USA back in the 1980s and early 1990s, every city and town had an Atari users group of some size. Each monthly meeting the more experienced users would wow the group with the latest hardware “hacks” or newest game software for that month. Afterward many would go into their own little groups to exchange software, a practice that helped kill the Atari and other systems over time. When the ST hit the market many groups fractured into two separate groups, bringing a whole new crowd into the Atari world. Today in Europe there are still large Atari gatherings covering all makes and models. However, in the USA, only a few hardcore “Atari Troopers” tow the line with scattered swap meets, Jagfests and a few user group meetings. I was an official member of three Atari user groups over the course of my early Atari days. In 1982 and 1983 I attended Atari meetings at the Southern Computer Center in Clarksville, TN. I was in the US Army and stationed there at the time. Each month I could hardly wait to go to the meeting and learn more about my Atari computer. In 1985-86, while in Germany, I joined the Fuerth Atari Users Group and was elected the first President of the group. In 1986 I returned to the USA and joined the Pasadena Atari Computer Club. In 1987, I was elected Vice President and also attended the Houston Atari Computer Enthusiasts (H.A.C.E.) meetings. H.A.C.E. was one of the largest Atari monthly meetings in the southern central part of the USA at that time. My good friend John Hauser was a member of both Atari groups as well as a Sysop of his own Atari BBS. John Hauser and Del (Jerry) McCool from the March 1987 PAC newsletter In recent months I have been looking into the Atari user groups in my area (Texas) and have found that only H.A.C.E. still holds monthly meetings. I had the opportunity to talk with both John Hauser and George Iken recently so I asked George for some updated information on H.A.C.E. George wrote and sent me the following article and photos... June 2002 H.A.C.E. meeting - Hal Gailey, Harold Gailey, another of Harolds sons, Ti Ngo and Bruce Fudge (from left to right) Out of Memory A personal history of the Houston Atari Computer Enthusiasts (H.A.C.E.) by George Iken H.A.C.E. was the original Atari club in Houston, forming soon after the introduction of the Atari 400. Other Atari clubs formed and disappeared, but H.A.C.E. continues in Houston today as a small club of 15 members with monthly meetings, a monthly newsletter and web site. H.A.C.E. is a group of users for all models of Atari computers, from the palm-size Portfolio, the classic 8-bit line (400, 800, XL and XE), the ST to the TT and Falcon030 as well as the Atari Jaguar and Lynx consoles. But as the influence of Atari has declined in the computing world, it has declined in H.A.C.E. as well. The computing activities discussed in H.A.C.E. newsletters and on H.A.C.E. disks can and often do include other computing platforms. What has remained constant is that H.A.C.E. members can relate these current computing activities to their current and/or prior use of Atari computers. I found H.A.C.E. in 1983 after I got a modem (300 baud) for my Atari 400 and called the H.A.C.E. BBS. The H.A.C.E. BBS equipment was operated by various club members until 1988 when John Hauser's Atari Answering BBS became the official H.A.C.E. BBS. John continued to operate the H.A.C.E. BBS until 2001, when H.A.C.E. shut it down for lack of use (an internet side effect). I became a H.A.C.E. member and began attending meetings in 1984. H.A.C.E. was at its peak at that time with around 400 members, but my involvement was mostly hoping I'd win a door prize at the monthly meeting. When Atari introduced the ST, H.A.C.E. was temporarily polarized between 8-bit users and ST users. In June 1986, most of the clubs directors wanted to make H.A.C.E. an ST only club, while most of the members were still 8-bit users. The club split with about 2/3 of the members staying in H.A.C.E. as an 8-bit and ST club while the remainder formed a separate ST only club called H.A.S.T.E. After the H.A.C.E. / H.A.S.T.E. polarization, the club began a downward drift to about 120 members a year later. The newsletter size also dropped commensurately so that some months it was little more than a couple of pages announcing the meeting. In 1987, Tracy Weber almost single handedly re-invigorated the club by bulking up both the newsletter content and the monthly meeting content. I began writing regularly for the H.A.C.E. newsletter at that time (and still do). As a result of Tracy's efforts, H.A.C.E. membership stabilized at around fifty through to the end of the 1980s. Tracy was the newsletter editor until 1992. In that time he personally upgraded from an Atari 800 to an ST and started to publish the newsletter using the PageStream desktop publishing program. In 1990, Tracy changed the newsletter name to Update Atari and developed an attractive and functional newsletter template which is still used by H.A.C.E. today. From 1993 to 1995, Jim Alder was newsletter editor. I have been the newsletter editor since 1996 (it just seems longer). In 1989, ST World magazine promoted several large Atari shows in the USA and half a dozen US user groups were holding large annual Atari shows. In 1990, Tracy Weber and Bill Kithas suggested H.A.C.E. sponsor a local Atari computer show as a means of bringing in new members. At this time, H.A.C.E. was struggling to maintain a membership of fifty, while H.A.S.T.E. had gained another twenty members. The first show co-sponsored by H.A.C.E. and H.A.S.T.E. was the 1990 Houston Atari Safari. Future Houston Atari Safari shows were sponsored solely by H.A.C.E. Much of the software sold at that first show was liquidation product from Atari's ill fated attempt at retail marketing. Although only two software developers were at the show (Double Click and Maxwell CPU), the first show was very successful with H.A.C.E. gaining new members as well as a little bit of money. Subsequent Houston Atari Safari shows (there was seven in total) always had a good number of the larger software developers as well as nationally known Atari retailers. In 1994, Atari ceased computer manufacturing to concentrate solely on the Atari Jaguar and Lynx game consoles. As a result, the Houston Atari Safari shows peaked in 1995 and ended when H.A.C.E. didn't recover costs on the seventh show in 1997. In May of 1993, H.A.C.E. was considering a takeover of Atari Corporation. Atari stock had dropped to 62.5 cents, and if it dropped to zero, the H.A.C.E. treasury would have been adequately funded to buy all of the outstanding stock. It was a little joke we put in the June 1993 newsletter, but that pretty much describes the status of Atari at that time. The H.A.C.E. treasury in 1993 was at its healthiest point in years as a result of four previous Houston Atari Safari shows, along with an increase in membership to one hundred members. When the Atari Jaguar game console came out in 1994, Atari Corporation decided to cease all manufacturing of its computers. While there was still some TOS and 8-bit news in the Atari community, the bulk of it tended to be about the new console. As a result, we had extensive Jaguar coverage in the H.A.C.E. newsletter from 1993 to 1997. The first H.A.C.E. web page was put up in 1997 by Bill Roberts who had joined the club on the strength of the clubs Jaguar content. 1997 signaled more than the change from on-line BBS'ing to World Wide Web surfing. It signaled a change from primarily Atari related content to mixed content of a general nature including other computer platforms in the H.A.C.E. newsletter and in meeting content. Atari had begun its final incarnation as a hard drive manufacturer as the JTS Corporation, and had abandoned the unique Atari computing and game console ventures that had previously been what H.A.C.E. was all about. So as Atari moved into the mainstream of computing, so did H.A.C.E. In the newsletter, cross platform topics such as SCSI and web page creation that had high application to Atari systems were eventually changing to topics such as accessing the internet, tax program software and building your own computer - using examples for PC systems (occasionally referencing similar opportunities on Atari systems). This was partly because it was becoming more difficult to dig up new Atari information, and partly because it was what much of the H.A.C.E. membership was now involved with. We still loved Atari, we still had interest in Atari, but more and more of our members' actual computing was non-Atari. H.A.C.E. meeting Sept 2000 - Bill Kithas, Bruce Fudge, Harold Gailey, Bill Guegel, and Harold's son Hal (from left to right) Houston Skyline disks (named after the club logo which shows a city skyline above a block lettered H.A.C.E.) began as give-away disks of public domain software to attendees of the Houston Atari Safari Shows. In 1993, semi-annual disks were sent to H.A.C.E. members along with the newsletter. This soon became a monthly disk of the month to H.A.C.E. members. In 1999, a Houston Skyline CDR which contained the club's ST library was sent to H.A.C.E. members. Monthly floppy disks continued to be sent until late 2000 when H.A.C.E. began to send quarterly CDs to H.A.C.E. members. These disks provided free to H.A.C.E. members reflect the changing nature of the club as the software content includes Atari, PC, Mac and Linux software as well as archived H.A.C.E. newsletter files. One column in the H.A.C.E. newsletter has remained essentially true to Atari. H.A.C.E. member David Acklam writes about his continued use of his MegaSTe, Falcon030 and TT060 in "David's Corner" with only an occasional reference to other computing platforms. As a long time club member in Dallas Texas, David was a regular attendee at the Houston Atari Safari shows. After moving to Arizona, David became a H.A.C.E. member as well as a regular contributor to the newsletter. Among the small group of H.A.C.E. members, it is mostly the members outside of Houston that remain inveterate users of Atari computers. Joe Hlifka (New Mexico) continues to use his several TT030 computers. Frank Kweder (Florida) sends an annual letter and CDR to H.A.C.E., which he compiles on Atari equipment. Rick Detlefsen (Austin, Texas) always comes down for the annual H.A.C.E. Christmas party to show off his latest 8-bit creations. Gary Matteson (Nebraska) is a regular on Atari chat sessions. George Iken at a H.A.C.E. meeting Locally, I am the only H.A.C.E. member who still uses original Atari equipment in any consistent manner which I primarily use to produce the club newsletter and print club mailing labels. The remaining members primarily use PCs and do any Atari related work via the various emulators. In times past, H.A.C.E. was often viewed as a last resort for individuals wanting to sell their Atari equipment. As club members have moved away from routine use of Atari equipment, we can no longer fill that function. However, we meet monthly to discuss computer issues just as we did when we used Atari equipment more extensively. Except now, instead of adding a format switch to an Atari disk drive, or installing ST memory, our topics include building PCs from scratch, connecting PCs to routers and reviewing internet security. With occasional reminiscence about the way those things were done on an Atari. That 100 GB hard drive I purchased this week for $100 reminds me of my first ST hard drive, an 80 MB drive that cost $290 ($3,600 per GB). That's not a bad memory, it's one I was pleased and excited about then, and was pleased and excited about this past week. H.A.C.E. members make those kinds of associations to today's activities. And we never forget our old Atari machines. H.A.C.E. Christmas party - From left to right, Harold, Hal, Rick, Bruce, and Bill Guegel Upcoming topics include installing Linux on a PC and on my TT, programming languages (everything from GFA Basic to Visual Basic with Delphi and Kylix in between) and web site creation (including updating the H.A.C.E. web site). It looks like the current fifteen members will be taking the club to its ultimate end. We've pretty much stopped collecting dues (or new members). Our only expenses are newsletter production and mailing to members, so we figure we've got a couple years of financial life (we no longer exchange newsletters but make them available on the H.A.C.E. web site). In the meantime, we're all getting older, but we're not out of memory. H.A.C.E. Officers for 2002 Bruce Fudge, President Harold Gailey, Vice President Bob Leeper, Secretary Bill Kithas (Bill K), Treasurer Ti Ngo, At Large Board Member George Iken, Newsletter Editor Next month I will be tackling a topic many of us have dealt with... after buying an old Atari, you find all kinds of add-on switches sticking out and you want to know what they do. It’s time to open the computer and see what we find inside. del@myatari.co.uk
Useful link
H.A.C.E. http://users2.ev1.net/~atari/
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