THE FOLLOWING WAS DOWNLOADED FROM THE AWAUG BBS, 24 HRS. 202-561-2475 and appeared and is going to appear in the excellent AWAUG newsletter.  We thank AWAUG for sharing this information with us.
 



         NEW KID ON THE BLOCK
                  by
             Gene Manning
 
 When Jack asked me to write an arti-
 cle for the Club Newsletter, my first 
 question was, "Who me?" I know 
 nothing about writing, let alone 
 usiNg some of the great programs at 
 my disposal, i.e., WORDSTAR and VDE, 
 neither of which I`ve learned to 
 fully use.
 
 Since joining AWAUG about two years 
 ago, I`ve learned a lot of things 
 and amassed a lot of good informa-
 tion.  I learned from people like 
 yourselves and a great deal from our 
 President and Vice-President whom 
 I`ll give a lot of credit to.
 
 Some of the things I`ve have learned 
 on my own; others, I learned by 
 asking questions.  I was always told 
 when I was in the Navy that the only 
 dumb question was the one you didn`t 
 ask so I started to ask them.  I had 
 a lot of them!  I remember my first 
 AWAUG meeting:  my first question to 
 Peter was, "How do you draw a 
 circle?" You know, two years later I 
 haven`t the foggiest idea what he was 
 talking about (you talked over my 
 head, Pete, when you said the word 
 Math).  If you`re like me, directions 
 are insufficient; pictures are neces-
 sary before I`ll understand.
 
 Most of this article will be directed 
 at those who are at my level of 
 learning; to others it will be old 
 hat.  One of the things I have 
 learned is how to run a program that 
 is on a $ifferent drive then your 
 current drive.  For instance, if you 
 are on M drive and you have an RLE on 
 M drive that you want to convert to a 
 text file so that you can print it 
 out, it would go like this:  
 M>B:RLETXT fn<CR>.  This will do all 
 the conversion of the RLE file on 
 your RAM drive which is much faster.  
 Now this may look like it doesn`t 
 work but I can assure you it worked 
 for me.  I have four picture files 
 hanging on my wall 4hat I 
 converted and printed.  You are on M 






 drive, your RLETXT.COM file is on B 
 drive and the converted RLE file will 
 go to your RAM drive after it has 
 been converted to a text file.  This 
 really works.  For some things I have 
 learned that the only way to learn 
 about it was to try it; just wade 
 right in up to your waist.  Let me 
 tell you that that statement is true, 
 as I once downloaded a program named 
 Basic.Com.  Not knowing what the 
 program was, I decided to try it on 
 for size and before I realized what I 
 was doing, I had effectively redone 
 into SmartBASIC about three of my 
 best tapes. Here I might add, do not 
 forget to make backups of your most 
 important tapes. Fortunately, I had 
 made backups of these tapes so there 
 wasn`t a loss.
 
 Then there was the time that I decid-
 ed to try out my new Power Supply.  
 I set the Power Supply up right on 
 top of my TAPE box and gue3s what 
 tapes I had in the box?  You guessed 
 it, four or five computer tapes, 
 three game tapes, one utility tape 
 and my CP/M tape along with my backup 
 of the aforementioned CP/M tape.  So 
 I learned a lesson that day after 
 having to replace the lost tapes.
 
 If you want to see something ter-
 rific, just logon to the BBS and go 
 into one of the file sections.  Any 
 one will do.  Type DK C*.* and sit 
 back and watch Adam and our BBS do 
 their thIng.  They will effectively 
 Batch copy all files starting with 
 the letter "C" (seems to me that 
 another command such as RB or some-
 thing has to be entered into your 
 modem program to enable the batch 
 receive mode..Ed). Just insert the 
 letter of the alphabet that you want 
 and Adam will copy all files starting 
 with that letter.  So far I`ve man-
 aged to copy approximately 25 or 30 
 files off the BBS in about a total of 
 15 to 20 minutes. That's about 2/3 of 
 the CPM1 files and about 1/2 the CPM2 
 files and I am going to go for the 
 rest of them. 
 
 The next thing I want to learn is 
 Machine Language.  I still have a 






 ways to go before I can think about 
 learning something that is as deep as 
 I know it can be but I`m determined 
 to learn it.  It may take me awhile 
 but I`ll get there eventually.  You 
 should try some of the things I`ve 
 talked about, I think that you`ll 
 enjoy them as muchAas I did.  I have 
 also learned to make my own tapes 
 self-booting.  All I had to do was 
 follow directions!
 
 I`ll leave you with this one thought, 
 you never stop learning and you 
 never get to old to learn.  There are 
 a l/t of swell guys in our club.  
 Some of them aren`t physically 
 present like our BBS benefactors BJ 
 and Tony Morehan.  Guys like our 
 club President (a great guy) Bob 
 Blair, Peter Hartzler and of course 
 who can fo2get people like Jack 
 MacKenn (lots of people can, particu-
 larly when he's hunting for news-
 letter articles..Ed) and Les Wilsey 
 and all of the rest I`ve left out 
 (unintentional of course) are good 
 sources of knowled'e.  You can learn 
 from these guys if only you just 
 ask.  They are more that happy to 
 help you. 
 
 Editor's note:  In my opinion, Gene 
 Manning typifies what our club is all 
 about; try, fail, get help & try 
 again, finally get it right, and then 
 pas your experience on to others so 
 that they might learn.  You've writ-
 ten a fine article, Gene, that will 
 be a big help to us when we get 
 discouraged!  In the words of that 
 famous country phil/sopher, R. 
 Miller, "Knuckle down, buckle down, 
 DO IT, DO IT, DO IT!" JM

 

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