Right on 10.30, Alf's heavy hand of authority fell on the desk bell to
announce the start of yet another interesting Coffee and Chat session,
30 people, a big turn up, and thanks Wolf for making those extra
tables, it gave us a bit more room.
There were two letters, one from Neville Anderson who is having a
major operation today, and will probably be in hospital for a few
weeks, and you can write to him at
Floor 6, Section C
Room 23
Canberra Hospital
(Sorry I don't know the postcode.)
and the other from Gloria Robbins who gave us an up date of her
activities as well as some observations on life in the Pacific.
New members were welcomed and the treasurers report was tabled. Then
it was down to business.
Can I mix 70ns memory with 60ns chips? Yes, but the 60ns ones will
only work at 70ns.
What is EDO memory? It's memory that can run 20% faster, but beware,
you need the one chip set in a pentium to get the advantage from the
EDO memory. The word Triton was mentioned, apparently the pentium must
have a "triton" also to take advantage of the EDO.
How do I connect three printers to my computer? You can install extra
parallel ports, or you can us a mechanical switch which is sold by
computer stores. Each method has its pros and cons.
Then Mike Dinn handed around about ten or so prints of a PDF page that
had been printed on various grades of paper with different
resolutions. The PDF image was from;
http://sunsite.unc.edu/nppa/epw7home.html
and asked if others doing the evaluation of colour printers and paper
could use the same image. There was a timely reminder about the
presentation by Adobe after the AGM next Monday night, it should be
very interesting.
Ross Stephens wanted a DOS driver, PRD, for his Canon BJ230 so that he
could use Word 5 still. A number of suggestions were made;
Read the manual and see if the printer DIP switches could be set so
that it emulated a printer for which Word 5 had drivers.
Alternatively, ring Canon and see what the driver was needed, if at
all written, and someone would try and get it off the Internet., or
alternatively, try locally (like Weston) at PC Connections, who may
have a driver.
One member related his most pleasant experience at the Cartridge
Factory in Kingston when he went to get the cartridge of his HP4L
replaced. He got his 15% discount, but not only that was given
demonstration of how it worked, very instructional. He was also shown
the damage that can be wrought by sunlight on the cartridge, the
message being, if you are taking your cartridge to be refilled, DO NOT
let the sunlight get on it, otherwise it is kaput.
This led to an almost free for all discussion on ink jets etc, the
only point I managed to glean was that if you try filling your ink jet
with Quink, then you can kiss it goodbye, someone has tried it !
Another member had a query about graphics, and was immediately
referred to the excellent article in Sixteen Bits by Wayne Corbin.
Then we drifted onto some PCUG thingys, the Library, so see this
months issue of Sixteen Bits, page 5 and let the collector of opinions
know your thoughts one way or the other. The argument is simply;
Burn bash and bury the library as it is ancient history, or
Preserve in the nobler cause of retaining information, so have your
say to rodf@pcug.org.au or phone 286 1597.
Next Darrell Burkey gave a run down on the $3000 odd printer that the
PCUG has bought, mainly to upgrade the production of Sixteen Bits, but
it will be networked at the new PCUG centre and probably available to
members. He also noted that the committee were thinking considering
the new centre as a resource centre (uh uh, better not throw the
library away) and it could be more accessible that just on the
weekends.
And that sort of wrapped up the meeting for another fortnight, Emil
advised that Virtual C&C (VCC)would be on next Tuesday, and Jim Hume
is going to try and increase the numbers at the VCC by bringing along
members of the Southpaw Stroke Group, a collection of handicapped
people with a C&C type interest in computing. See
http;//www.pcug.org.au/~ejoseph/ for details.
Quote of the day goes to Derrick Boyd, "An economist is one who
marries for money, a good economist is one who marries Ella
Fitzgerald."
Thanks to Alf for opening and shutting the place, you do a great job.
Owen
And for you who like the odd poem
==========================================
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
Subject: Computer Jokes
From: Computer Jokes, JOKES@why-not.com
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 02:16:07 +0300
T'was the Night Before Implementation
=====================================
T'was the night before implementation and all through the house,
Not a program was working, not even a browse.
The programmers hung by their tubes in dispair,
With hopes that a miracle soon would be there.
The users were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of inquiries danced in their heads.
When out in the machine room there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter.
And what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a super programmer (with a six-pack of beer).
Her resume glowed with experience so rare,
She turned out great codes with a bit-pusher's flair.
More rapid than eagles, her programs they came,
And she cursed and she muttered and called them by name.
On Update! On Add! On Inquiry! On Delete!
On Batch Jobs! On Closings! On Functions Complete!
Her eyes were glazed over, fingers nimble and lean,
From weekends and nites in front of a screen.
A wink of her eye and a twitch of her head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
She spoke not a word, but went straight to her work,
Turning specs into code; then turned with a jerk.
And laying her finger upon the "ENTER" key,
The system came up and worked perfectly.
The updates updated; the deletes, they deleted;
The inquiries inquired, and closings completed.
She tested each whistle, and tested each bell,
With nary a bomb, and all had gone well.
The system was finished, the tests were concluded,
The users' last changes were even included.
And the user exclaimed with a snarl and a taunt,
"It's just what I asked for, but not what I want!"
--
* There are two ways to write error-free programs.
Only the third one works.
================================================================
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