[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. 1 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 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                            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                             January 15, 2004HIGH ABOVE THE ROCK RIVER---------------------------------------------[OPN]     Canned Meat Requires no Refrigeration  :)A2 FORUM AT Syndicomm Online (A2Central.com) DISTILLATIONS------------[DAS]     TextEdit Update (or) New Word Processor--------------------------[TEP]     Gopher Celebrates Birthday---------------------------------------[GCB]     NDAs to do IIgs Email?-------------------------------------------[TDE]     Spam, Spam and More Spam-----------------------------------------[SSS]     KEGS Now Compatible With SIS 1.2---------------------------------[KNC]     Main Page for The Lamp! Updated----------------------------------[MLU]     Good Year for Juiced.GS------------------------------------------[GYJ]     Panther/Bernie Slowdown------------------------------------------[PBS]ILLUMINATING THE LAMP-------------------------------------------------[ITL]     An overview of GEnieLamp A2 and The Lamp!          Wolfenstein 3DANNOUNCEMENTS FROM SYNDICOMM------------------------------------------[ANS]     To Sign up for Syndicomm Online----------------------------------[TSU]LETTERS TO THE EDITOR-------------------------------------------------[LTE]     No Letters to the Editor This Month     An InvitationKFEST COMMENTS--------------------------------------------------------[KFC]     Woz KansasFest - In Apple II History-----------------------------[WKF]     KFest Endorsed---------------------------------------------------[KFE]KFEST 2004------------------------------------------------------------[KFF]     KansasFest 2004--------------------------------------------------[KF4]     KFest 2004 Talk--------------------------------------------------[KFT]     Watch for More Information at the KFest Home Page----------------[VKF]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 thisissue into any word processor or text editor.  In the index you will findsomething 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>                 Canned Meat Requires no Refrigeration  :)                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~     From High Above The Rock River we can see that the unseasonable warmweather has melted most of the snow.  Brings to mind hot Summers some sixtyyears ago.     Now the hot weather was welcome on the farm... "good corn growingweather".  No electricity... no refrigerator.  The ice man stopped by everyother day.  He harvested ice from a nearby lake in the winter and sold icedoor to door for people's ice boxes.  A little boy could depend on a freechunk of ice to melt in his mouth... a real treat on a hot summer day.(That ice was really refreshing when you didn't stop to think that it wasfrom a lake!)     Since refrigeration was limited to an ice box, people were always onthe lookout for foods that didn't require refrigeration... canned meats forexample.  One of the products that we used was... uh... Spam.     We never had any idea that someday this product would lend its name tounwanted email.     Email has been a very useful means of communication.  But it hasbecome rather tedious to wade through all those unwanted messages and sortout those that you want.     Just think... you can send off for a device that will reduce thegasoline consumption of your automobile by 27% or more... and it is easy toinstall... just clamp it on the outside of the fuel line.  Duh.     As you can see in this issue, spam is a topic of conversation in theA2 Forum at Syndicomm Online.[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>[TEP]TextEdit UPDATE (or) NEW WORD PROCESSOR"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""If TextEdit was to be updated, the two big things I can think of that wouldbe needed are multiple rulers and tables (where anything can go in a cell).And it would also be neat if a graphic bitmap could be inserted anywhere inthe text.  All of this would easily increase the HTML rendering of SIS.But for a new word processor, I would think the easiest solution is to portOpen Office Word Processing module over to the IIgs.  This isn't a trivialtask by any stretch of the imagination, but you get the following alreadydone for you:- standard Word Processing features and tools  - all the algorithms are already coded- standard XML file format- import/export of MS WordGeoff(GEOFF, Cat 8, Top 22, Msg 18)[EOA][GCB]GOPHER CELEBRATES BIRTHDAY""""""""""""""""""""""""""Gopher celebrated its 12th birthday yesterday.It is amazing to see how quickly a technology provided a wealth ofinformation and now is mostly abandoned.Geoff(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 5, Msg 1)[EOA][TDE]NDAs TO DO IIgs EMAIL?""""""""""""""""""""""I have not yet had a chance to work on my NDA send only email client (akaEmily) which I showed at KansasFest 2003 since I got back.  All of thatsaid. . .The modern email client on other platforms is a very complex thing; itinvolves an address book, an editor, a database to store messages in,searching and sorting utilities, file encoders and decoders. . . while SAMhas much of this built in, I'm wondering what folks think of the approachof using FExts and NDAs to handle some of the separate duties.  Forinstance, having an address book NDA to serve as the address book, or useGSCii+ or StolenBase NDA for encoding and decoding.Your thoughts?Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 18)>>>>>"""""I think the idea of using separate NDAs for the various tasks modern emailprograms perform is a good idea.  It saves memory by letting people onlyinstall the DAs for the stuff they use, and allows for great customization.I've been talking to Burger about getting the ContactsGS source so supportfor sending a message to an email program to send a message could be added.He's agreed to do it but finding the code may take some time. :)Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.comOwner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com                     Building communities, bit by bit.(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 19)>>>>>"""""That's what I think too, but I can't conceptualize how to do an emailreading NDA that makes sense.  Email sending, I can see, and will get backto working on it soon.Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 20)>>>>>"""""There are a lot of different ways to implement the pieces.  As discussed,having the different pieces available to use by multiple applications wouldbe really cool.Options include:* NDAs - using any number of APIs to transfer data back and forth* Control - use the control manager to transfer data* Tool set - design your own functions* Library - design your own functionsEach have their own advantages and disadvantages which can be discussed inanother section if desired.I sort of skipped writing an address book interface for SIS so I couldhopefully leach off of something else.  And now there is some mutteringsthat there may be that "something else" :)  Having a common database ofaddress entries which can be shared across multiple mail clients would be apositive user experience.Geoff(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 22)>>>>>""""">> Having a common database of address entries which can be shared acrossmultiple mail clients would be a positive user experience. <<I think so too.I am seeing some light in the time window in March, I'm going to get backto work.Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 24)>>>>>"""""An email reading NDA, I think, could be done nicely I think.  Just set upa task that periodically (or on command, I guess) fetches the email andparses it out.  Maybe use a file format where each mailbox folder gets afile in which each message's text goes into a resource, and which maybe hasits key headers parsed into other resources.  Like...resource rText(messagenumber) contains the body of the messageresource rSubjectText(messagenumber) contains the subject of the messageresource rFrom(messagenumber)resource rTo(messagenumber)resource rCc(messagenumber)And so forth.That would make it relatively easy to manage the mailbox using ResourceManager calls.Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.comOwner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com                     Building communities, bit by bit.(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 25)>>>>>"""""I don't like the resource method you are suggesting.  It breaks anycompatibility to access email messages from command line tools.I suggest instead to store messages using the standard mdir format (eachmessage is a separate file complete with all the headers as retrieved fromthe POP/IMAP/whatever server).  But, there should be an indexed databasewhich has stored the byte locations of key header lines and the start ofthe body (and I would recommend also tracking the start of the .sig usingthe format suggested by emacs--which coincidently SIS follows :).  It evenmakes sense to duplicate some of the key headers (From, To, CC, Subject,Date, etc.) to be also stored in the indexed database for quick sorting(otherwise you will have to open a lot of mail files to do any sorting orheader searching).  As far as I know, there are no database libraries forthe GS so that would require some work to implement.  I have no idea howhard it would be to port newdb.And since each message is stored in mdir format, one can use any number ofexisting tools to access the messages to do cool stuff (i.e. spam blocking,etc.).So Ryan, I'm not sure which aspect of mail reading you have troubledeciding how to implement.  But I hope this idea helps you in some way.Geoff(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 26)>>>>>""""">> I suggest instead to store messages using the standard mdir format (eachmessage is a separate file complete with all the headers as retrieved fromthe POP/IMAP/whatever server). <<That's probably a wise idea.  mbox format would result in some huge fileseven for the average email user unless they pruned their mailboxesextensively.>> So Ryan, I'm not sure which aspect of mail reading you have troubledeciding how to implement.  But I hope this idea helps you in some way. <<For me, it's more in the interface concept.  I guess something that justthrew up a database on the screen and allowed for checking would work, thenif you chose a message to read brought up a reader would work, but thatsounds kind of big for a NDA to me.This has been a productive discussion so far, let's keep it going :)Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 27)>>>>>"""""Well, you'd know better than I about good email formats, Geoff. :)At Be, we used individual text files for the messages, with attributesattached for easy indexing based on from, to, subject, and so forth, butthat was very Be specific.  Having an index file makes sense.Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.comOwner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com                     Building communities, bit by bit.(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 28)>>>>>"""""There is no one real good email format.  What is considered is a "betteremail format" based on the application.I actually prefer the mbox format on the user side.  But this really needsa fast processor, lots of RAM, etc. to take advantage of efficiently.I completely forgot about attachments until you brought it up Sheppy.I prefer having attachments as part of the message file just to keep thingsbetter organized.  It just seems cumbersome with some email programs whereto delete an email, you have to remove the "message part" and then gothrough and remove the "attachment part".Of course, you could have message where the MIME parts are like this:textfiletextfilefiletextAll of the text segments will need to be displayed in the body of themessage.  And since the attachments can be pretty long, one would need totrack the start and length of each MIME segment for quicker display andattachment handling.  That information can be stored in the index databaseas well.Geoff(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 29)>>>>>""""">> For me, it's more in the interface concept. <<Let's look at three different styles of how email clients handle thereading of messages.  There are a few more (and variations), but this willhelp you to get started to think about where to start.3-PANE APPROACHThis is considered the modern the interface for an email client.  The emailwindow is split into three areas: folder list, message, list, and message(or message preview).  Typically, the list of folders appear in the leftwindow pane, the list of messages in that folder (inbox, outbox,to-be-deleted, user-folders) appear in the top-right window pane, and themessage content in the bottom-right pane.Advantages: easy access to all the messages--content is available all inone window.Disadvantages: lots of scrolling since everything is all in the samescreen, requires lots of screen real estate which the GS does not have.Notes: works great if you have lots of folders, cumbersome if you have lotsof messages in a specific folder.This option is not basically optimal for the GS due to 640x200 resolution.You want the width of the screen just to view a message.2-PANE APPROACHBasically, you have some sort of menu to select which folder you want toaccess (menu bar, select via a dialog box, etc).  Once the folder isselected, you then display a window with two panes--the top has the list ofmessages and the bottom has the message content.Advantages: message content fills the width of the screen, folder contentis wider so more information can be displayed (from, subject, date, size,etc.).Disadvantages: Height of panes is very short--around 10-11 lines of text isvisible in each pane.  Requires several steps to switch to a differentfolder.This provides the most information based on the GS screen real estatespace.  But how often do you need to be viewing the list of messages in thefolder at the same time as viewing the message itself?TEXT-SCREEN APPROACHDepending on which font is used, you typically have less charactersavailable on the super hires screen than you do with the Apple II textscreen.   So it may be better to start thinking how text-screen emailprograms operate since they are designed to fit in a 80x24 character space.Two feature-rich programs are pine and elm.  Between these two, I am morefamiliar with pine.It might be better to take a look at something like pine and "Gui-ify" itsoperation for the GS.Since you are looking at making an NDA instead of a regular application,you could get away without having a menu bar and just have a bunch ofbuttons to navigate among the menus/screens.Emulating the pine or elm structure would allow a UNIX Apple II to easilyadapt to a GS email client.The NDA windows will have to be the size of the GS screen anyway--there isno point to make it any smaller--you have to assume after a bit of use,there will be lots of folders, lots of messages in a folder, and largemessages to be read.If you really want a more Apple GUI look and feel, then you will have tolook at really old versions of Pegasus, Eudora, etc.When the email app starts up, you display a window with a list of folders.The user then double clicks on the folder to bring up a new window with alist of messages.  The user then double clicks on the message to bring up anew window with the message content.  At this point, there are threewindows open--all the size of the screen.  Things get messy fast once youstart moving a window so you can see the one behind it and openingadditional windows.  Forcing everything into a single window using atext-like-email interface will prevent that from happening.There are ways to GUI-ify something like pine or elm to work within asingle pane and single window interface (menu bar with menus, etc.).  ButI'll let that be an exercise for the student.Geoff(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 30)>>>>>""""">> If you really want a more Apple GUI look and feel, then you will have tolook at really old versions of Pegasus, Eudora, etc. <<I've been kind of looking at those, as well as thinking that looking atother email clients for platforms with small screens (Palm, Newton, maybeeven something like the Danger Sidekick) might give some ideas.I'm wondering if a GS interface with tabs (pioneered by Geoff Weiss on theIIgs :) might be usable in this case.Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 32)>>>>>"""""You're ignoring my personally favorite interface for email -- Themulti-window approach.  One window with a list of folders in one pane and alist of messages in another, and when you double-click a message, a newwindow opens with that message's content.I think this approach would work the best on the Apple IIgs screen.  Itoptimizes the use of the screen for each thing you're looking at.As for attachments, what about creating a structure like this:Mail/        Inbox/                Index           <-- index of messages                Message1        <-- text file                Message2        <-- text file                Message3/       <-- folder                        Body    <-- text file                        Attachment1                        Attachment2                Message4        <-- text fileAnd so forth.  This keeps messages and attachments together and you cankeep in your index whether or not the message is a text file or a folder,and that's also easy enough to determine when reindexing.This would be pretty fast, and it would be relatively efficient.Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.comOwner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com                     Building communities, bit by bit.(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 31)>>>>>""""">> I'm wondering if a GS interface with tabs (pioneered by Geoff Weiss onthe IIgs :) might be usable in this case. <<I'm not sure I see how tabs would work well for an email program.  Can youexpand on that a bit?Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.comOwner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com                     Building communities, bit by bit.(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 33)>>>>>"""""Well, if, building on Geoff's idea about GUI-izing pine or elm, we took themajor components of the main menu in pine:Compose message, message index, folder list, address book, setup, and quitthen gave each of them (but probably not quit) its own tab on the top of awindow, that might be a space efficient way to do some of the interface.Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 34)>>>>>"""""See, I think all those things should be windows that you can open and closeindependently.  Just have a "Window" menu to let you open them as desired.Plus we'd been talking about keeping some of those things as separate DAsanyway.Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.comOwner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com                     Building communities, bit by bit.(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 35)>>>>>""""">> You're ignoring my personally favorite interface for email -- The multi-window approach. <<I mentioned it briefly, concluding that there wasn't enough screen realestate for it to be truly functional.  For less savvy users, the"text-screen" approach will be less confusing to operate and hence, moreuseful.  The Apple II population is an aging crowd (with a few exceptions,there is no young blood to propagate the youth spirit) so softwaredevelopment should be targeted best to how the older crowd wants to usesoftware:* Avoid confusion.* Avoid fanciness.* Keep it simple.Even though I can navigate in a windows environment with a lot of windowsopen, I am finding that I operate better with fewer windows open.  If I'mseeing that change now (and I'm not even at middle-age), then those who areolder than I am would have feelings even more intense.If you design something which can lead to confusion, then no one will useit.I don't claim to be an expert with user interfaces...all I can do is applywhat people (those who are older) have said in my experience and guess whata good compromise would be.Geoff(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 36)>>>>>"""""I don't see a problem with a multiwindow approach; you can actively useonly one at a time, filling the entire screen if you wish.  You don't haveto be able to see both the message and the message/folder lists at the sametime.Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.comOwner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com                     Building communities, bit by bit.(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 37)>>>>>""""">> I'm wondering if a GS interface with tabs (pioneered by Geoff Weiss onthe IIgs :) might be usable in this case. <<Heh.  I was too lazy to draw all the necessary stuff to make it look likenotebook pages which is what Finder uses (and several other apps at thattime).  I'm still not happy with how it got implemented--a custom controlwould have been better.  But it was cool that I could make a passableattempt work based on what was available with Spectrum 2.1.Back to the email discussion...There really is no point to make a tabbed interface when a menu bar wouldwork better and be more familiar for a GS application.  A menu bar and atabbed interface takes the same number of lines so might as well usesomething that is already built in the IIgs toolbox.The only reason to not use a menu bar if you needed the screen real estate.That would then force a text-like interface operating much like pine orelm.I would argue that a menu bar is pretty much necessary.It should be noted how much vertical screen real estate is already used up(assuming the NDA is the size of the desktop):System Menu BarNDA Window EdgesNDA Window TitleNDA Menu BarThat gives you about 15 lines of Shaston text to work with.  If you decideto display emails using Courier, you are down to 12 lines of text.If you want more lines of text, you will have to seriously consider to makeyour email client an application instead of an NDA.  And you would only get1-2 more lines.The menu bar approach is more intuitive then a bunch of tabs.  The trickcomes down to what you use for the menus and menu items.  The approach Iwould take is look at the different versions of Eudora from 1.x to thelatest.  See what was added, removed, changed, etc.  Compare it to otheremail applications such as Netscape, Outlook Express, etc.  Make sure youlook at systems other than Macs too--looking at Palms and other PDAs isgood, but also other mainstream Operating Systems too (don't forget to lookat SAM too).  Compared to PDAs, you have a lot of horizontal space so makesure you take advantage of that (assuming 640 mode--you might not want tosupport 320 mode).But at this point, menu design is less important considering the list offeatures need to be decided on.  Modern-day email clients are much morefeature-full than older ones--all those features take time to implement.For example, right clicking on an email address may throw a pop-up menuwhere one of the options is to add that address to the address book.  Thatdoesn't have to be implemented when the user can easily copy the address,select a menu option to add an address, paste the address in a field andclick an add button.  This is much simpler development and you can consideradding user interface shortcuts in later releases.Trust me on this, you will have a difficult enough time parsing MIMEencoded messages that you don't want to get bogged down with too much userinterface implementation.Geoff(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 38)>> As for attachments, what about creating a structure like this <<Lets look at the operations needed to be written:- add message to folder- delete message to folder- move message to another folder- read message in folder- save attachmentWith my proposed solution, this is what has to be written (order ofoperations aren't necessarily correct here):- add message to folder.  - write message to disk.  - parse message for headers and MIME segments.  - add to index.  add headers and MIME segments to index.- delete message.  - delete file.  - remove item from index.- move message.  - write file to new folder.  - delete old file.  - delete old index entry.  - write new index entry (may need to parse message again if it wasn't    saved).- read message.  - read index entry.  - read file (may be multiple operations if multiple text segments exist).  - write to screen.- save attachment.  - pull start and length of attachment from index.  - read and write bytes.With your proposed suggestion:- add message.  - write message to disk (do you really want to assume there is enough    memory to download a large message.  Remember, this is a NDA and there    could be a memory-hog application running).  - parse message for headers and MIME segments.  - if multiple segments, rename file, create a directory.    - create new segments of the message and write those files.    - delete the original file.  - add to index.  add headers, MIME segments, MIME segment file names,    etc. to index.-move message  - you get the picture.- delete message.  - if a file, delete file, delete index entry.  - if a directory, delete files, delete directory, delete index entry.- read message.  - exercise left to the reader.  More steps needed.- save attachment  - read filename from index  - read and write bytes.I just see that your proposed solution is more complicated and longer towrite which results in more debugging time.I think using a standard format such as mdir would allow existingapplications to access the content of the email messages (as suggestedbefore, such as spam filtering).  There is no need to reinvent the wheel.Geoff(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 39)>>>>>"""""OK, point taken about the mdir format.  I was just kicking ideas around. :)As for user interface... here's a weird idea, but bear with me.The GS screen is roomier horizontally than vertically.  What about creatinga vertical menu bar along the left edge of the NDA window?  Use bitmaps ofsideways text for each of the menu titles, and use a custom menu, or acustom control that pops up menus, whatever, to bring up popups off them. _________________ | ||    Mail NDA +---------------- |  | |M | |e | |n | |u | |s | |  |Like that, except with the text of the menu titles rotated 90 degrees.It would be unusual, but it might be a better layout for a program thatneeds the vertical space.Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.comOwner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com                     Building communities, bit by bit.(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 40)>>>>>"""""Human interface guidelines generally say that is a Bad Thing for manyreasons (at least for English text--seehttp://www.cblt.soton.ac.uk/design/pdf/ChinoMenu.pdf as an example).There are much better user interfaces to consider, but would take muchlonger to develop.  And considering Ryan's programming depth of knowledge(I'm assuming he's still doing all the work, right?), it's probably a goodidea to keep things simple from a programming perspective too.  Based ondevelopment time alone, it is well worth taking around 5% of the screenspace and allocate it for a menu bar which we all know how to use.I know I sound pretty negative with my replies in this thread.  It shouldbe interpreted as an exercise of caution, not to discourage innovation.Geoff(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 21, Msg 41)>>>>>"""""I'll be the first to admit I'm not a programming expert, but thisdiscussion's purpose (since I was the one who started the thread) was notso much to figure out what I'm going to work on (since I know I havelimited time and even more limited ability) as much as to generate somediscussion on the topic.  While SAM is a full featured (but script based)email client, there are limited other choices (SIS can send mail, forinstance), and email is still a very basic and needed function on anyplatform.  It's pretty clear that even our "star" programmers have theirhands full with other projects, so others need to help out where they canMore choices for email and perhaps a DA based FTP client would really pushthe TCP/IP applications along on the IIgs.>> I know I sound pretty negative with my replies in this thread.  Itshould be interpreted as an exercise of caution, not to discourageinnovation. <<Largely taken as that, by me, anyway.Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 21)[EOA][SSS]SPAM, SPAM AND MORE SPAM""""""""""""""""""""""""Bush signs anti-spam billTuesday, December 16, 2003 Posted: 2:23 PM EST (1923 GMT)WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush signed legislation Tuesday meant to stemthe flood of unwanted e-mail pitches, a problem he believes is hurting theeconomy.Story continues at<http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/16/bush.bills.ap/index.html>(KGAGNE, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 93)>>>>>"""""Nice to see something's being done, but I'll be pretty surprised if we canlegislate Spam to death.Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 94)>>>>>""""">> Bush signs anti-spam bill <<I understood that this was being described as the CAN-SPAM bill, as it putsthe end recipient in an opt out position on spam, rather than an opt in.The UK press has been calling the bill an open charter for the spammers,which will actually increase dramatically the amount of spam being sent, asthe spammers can now legally send it out unless you ask them to stop.It may seem easy to respond to a message asking them to stop, but you wouldhave to respond to hundreds of messages a day to achieve anything, and itwould probably not make any difference at all to the amount of spam youreceive.I do hope I have got this wrong, but fear I have not.In the EU, we have taken a different approach, and so it is now illegal tosend SPAM at all from within the EU, whether a recipient has opted out ornot. However welcome such an approach is, it will not stop the avalanche ofspam that we now expect to emanate from the US! Not forgetting the variousother countries round the world who do not care about it.There may of course be a side effect, and we shall see more and moreservers being blacklisted. Already in the UK we are getting genuine serversbeing regularly blacklisted by others, and genuine mail not gettingthrough.I think the future is as black as it has ever been. Ewen Wannop - Speccie - Sun 21 Dec 2003 - 212 days till KFest '04 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 http://www.ewannop.btinternet.co.uk/(CONDUCTOR, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 95)>>>>>"""""The CAN-SPAM law actually establishes rules and standards for emailedcommercial mail that make it work essentially the same as physical snailmailed commercial material.The material may not be fraudulent.  It must provide valid contactinformation to let the sender know you don't want to get any more, and thatmust actually work.  No pornographic material can be sent without beingrequested.  The subject must not be misleading; it must not pretend to be apersonal message.  The headers may not be forged.In addition, it has a provision that allows the FCC to establish ado-not-spam list similar to the new do-not-call list, although this has notbeen done yet.And the penalty for violating this law involves massive fines and evenprison time.Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.comOwner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com                     Building communities, bit by bit.(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 96)>>>>>"""""Thanks for the detailed explanation, it has made the law clearer to me.However I still do not see how this is actually going to stop the flood ofspam in the long run. Certainly you should now be able to opt out of spamemanating from the US, but are the spammers going to pay any attention tothose receiving their spam who live outside of the US? The US law does notapply to us.The new EEC law only applies to spam originating in the EEC and being sentto recipients in the EEC. It does not apply to spam being sent from the EECto the US. So you may well get new spam coming from over this directionthat cannot be opted out from.Unless every country that has Internet mail servers outlaws spamcompletely, I see the situation as being exactly as it was before, exceptthat it is now legitimate to send spam from the US. Unless we laboriouslytrawl through the spam, and reply to each message that we want to opt out,I see it just the situation to be exactly the same as it was, except it isnow legal to send unsolicited mail.I would suggest that only a central opt out list being held somewhere by agovernment agency, would actually stop you getting unwanted spam in thefirst place. Local lists held by each spammer, would certainly not be crossreferenced to other spammers.Interestingly, my ISP applies spam filters at their POP3 servers, soprobably a hundred or more spam messages each day never make it to mycomputer. This is a good thing obviously, but I never then see thosemessages so I have the chance to opt out of them. These messages areprobably going to continue to increase clogging the Internet arteries, asspammers can now legally send me spam, but the spam they will be sendingwill just go into thin air. Only a total ban on spamming can stop that flowand clear the net of useless garbage... Ewen Wannop - Speccie - Mon 22 Dec 2003 - 211 days till KFest '04 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 http://www.ewannop.btinternet.co.uk/(CONDUCTOR, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 97)>>>>>"""""It seems that the amount of spam I receive has increased since the bill wassigned.>> I still do not see how this is actually going to stop the flood of spam<<I agree with Ewen. Spammers don't care about laws anyway.Cindy(CINDYADAMS, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 98)>>>>>"""""Ewen,>> Only a total ban on spamming can stop that flow and clear the net ofuseless garbage... <<Or an enhancement/replacement for SMTP, such as the ePrivacy Group'sproposed new standard for e-mail called TEOS: Trusted E-mail Open Standard,an add-on to SMTP using cryptography which will verify the sender'sidentity and categorize the type of message that is being sent.http://www.eprivacygroup.com/teos-Ken(KGAGNE, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 99)>>>>>"""""Well, CAN-SPAM only got signed six days ago, and I don't think enforcementhas begun.  I expect it will take some time to have any effect, and eventhen, we'll see how effective it is.However, if they can send a few of the worst spammers to prison, that mayscare off the rest of them.As for ISPs blocking spam, Syndicomm is one of them -- we filter spam asbest as we reasonably can.For the week ending December 13, for example, Syndicomm's servers processed146,939 email messages.  Of those, 47,267 were either rejected as spam orwere tagged with the "{Spam?}" header before being delivered.  A fewhundred more had viruses stripped off of them.  73,735 messages weredelivered to the recipient without a spam or virus warning attached.  Justover 39% of the messages received were handled as either spam or a likelyspam candidate.Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.comOwner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com                     Building communities, bit by bit.(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 100)>>>>>""""">> Or an enhancement/replacement for SMTP, such as the ePrivacy Group'sproposed new standard for e-mail called TEOS: Trusted E-mail Open Standard,an add-on to SMTP using cryptography which will verify the sender'sidentity and categorize the type of message that is being sent. <<I went through the PPT show and still don't understand it. Does it mean Ihave to buy a license to send email? Carl Knoblock - Telephone Tech - Mon  22 Dec 03  11:15:59 pm cknoblo@cox.com - Via Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR v1.0b10 KFest 2004, July 20-25, 2004 - 211 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 11, Top 26, Msg 101)>>>>>"""""That proposed standard does require that ISPs get a secure certificate toprocess secure email, but individual users I don't think would have to.I may be wrong.Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.comOwner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com                     Building communities, bit by bit.(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 102)>>>>>"""""It's January 1.  Do you know where your Spam is?So far, CAN-SPAM hasn't seemed to have made a dent.Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 104)>>>>>"""""I was offline from Christmas until yesterday. I had 319 email messages, andonly 1 of those was legit. Most were marked as spam.Cindy(CINDYADAMS, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 105)>>>>>"""""I get about half my real mail through Syndicomm, and the tagged spamsusually amount to 3 or 4 a day. My total Spam has been over 100 lately. Carl Knoblock - Telephone Tech - Fri  2 Jan 04  9:23:25 pm cknoblo@cox.com - Via Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR v1.0b10 KFest 2004, July 20-25, 2004 - 200 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 11, Top 26, Msg 106)>>>>>"""""The worst thing about spam is getting stuff that's so offensive or grossthat you wonder how any human being could be willing to send it when theyknow it could be going to a kid.My niece had her own email address for about two days before her parentshad to take it away because she was getting pornographic spam.That's just awful.Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.comOwner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com                     Building communities, bit by bit.(SYNDICOMM, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 110)>>>>>"""""Sadly, they don't care.It makes a very useful tool into something close to useless nowadays.Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 111)>>>>>""""">> It's January 1.  Do you know where your Spam is? So far, CAN-SPAM hasn'tseemed to have made a dent. <<If anything a steady increase of SPAM is arriving in my mailboxes. The flowwill not stop until it is illegal to send the stuff, in the way it is nowillegal to send it in Europe. Ewen Wannop - Speccie - Thu 8 Jan 2004 - 194 days till KFest '04 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 http://www.ewannop.btinternet.co.uk/(CONDUCTOR, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 112)>>>>>""""">> The flow will not stop until it is illegal to send the stuff, in the wayit is now illegal to send it in Europe. <<I'm unconvinced legislating it to be illegal will stop it.  It would alsotake substantial enforcement.None of the Spam I've received since CAN SPAM has come into effect has beenlegal under the new law.  The law is useless without enforcement.Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 11, Top 26, Msg 113)>>>>>""""">> If anything a steady increase of SPAM is arriving in my mailboxes. Theflow will not stop until it is illegal to send the stuff, in the way it isnow illegal to send it in Europe. <<Sadly, the new law makes Spam legal, as long as it follows certain rules.Some kinds of Spam are not allowed at all. So far, I see nothing followingthe rules, and no reduction of the illegal stuff. Only vigorous prosecutionof violators will make a change. Every day that goes by without newsreports of arrests is another day of growing Spam. Carl Knoblock - Telephone Tech - Thu  8 Jan 04  10:39:04 pm cknoblo@cox.com - Via Spectrum v2.5.3 & SOAR v1.0b10 KFest 2004, July 20-25, 2004 - 194 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 11, Top 26, Msg 114)[EOA][KNC]KEGS NOW COMPATIBLE WITH SIS 1.2""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""Move over Bernie, KEGS can now be added to the list as a compatibleemulator for SIS 1.2.  After setting my system up for a Marinetti TCP/IPconnection, I could browse the Web just like a real IIgs.  You are stilllimited by the speed of the serial port (or serial communication device),but the rest of SIS is very speedy.  I'd be interested if anything runs tooquickly in a hyper-accelerated environment that an emulator provides.Geoff(GEOFF, Cat 11, Top 36, Msg 13)[EOA][MLU]MAIN PAGE FOR The Lamp! UPDATED"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""Well, it took a heckuva lot longer than two weeks, and it's not exactlythrilling to look at, but the main page for The Lamp! over athttp://lamp.a2central.com/ has been updated.  No more broken links, Lynxfriendly, and even has a banner ad.The color needs to be changed, though. . .Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 20, Top 20, Msg 112)[EOA][GYJ]GOOD YEAR FOR Juiced.GS"""""""""""""""""""""""Well, my Christmas is finally complete.  I've subscribed to Juiced.GS 2004.It's my gift to myself.Here's to yet another year:)Dain Neater(A2.DAIN, Cat 23, Top 2, Msg 504)>>>>>"""""Should be a good year -- to those of you who haven't renewed yet, don'tforget! :)Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.comOwner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com                     Building communities, bit by bit.(SYNDICOMM, Cat 23, Top 2, Msg 505)[EOA][PBS]Panther/Bernie SLOWDOWN"""""""""""""""""""""""I think that I have discovered the Panther/Bernie slowdown--In Bernie Preferences on Bernie 2.6, I changed "Bypass Quickdraw whenPossible" so it's now -unchecked-.  It's supposed to be faster checked, butit seems now to be actually usable unchecked and not very usable checked.It then appears I have to quit Bernie and restart it for this to make adifference.Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 29, Top 21, Msg 141)>>>>>"""""Thanks for the great tip, Ryan! Bernie is now usable for me with Panther.Tony Ward(A2.TONY, Cat 29, Top 21, Msg 142)[EOA][ITL]------------------------      ILLUMINATING THE LAMP |-----------------------------An overview of GEnieLamp A2 and The Lamp!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~By Steven WeyhrichDER FUEHRER'S FACE - Wolfenstein 3D     We are going to diverge this month from our regularly scheduled reviewof The Lamp! for 1999. Instead, I want to focus on the story of Wolfenstein3D, which has been mentioned several times in this series so far. Thistime, the information I can share is gathered from sources other than theLamp publications, so I will be indeed "illuminating" the Lamp. Previouslyyou have heard bits and pieces of the tale; but you've never heard theentire story before now. Consider it a sidebar off of the last column.     The story will be presented in four major parts. The first looks atCastle Wolfenstein, the game that inspired it all; the second deals withthe PC development of Wolf 3D on the PC; the third with the Apple IIGSdevelopment; and the fourth with comments about the game itself.THE SAGA BEGINS     The games you play when you first learn how to use a computer aresometimes the ones that stay with you the longest. They may have beensimplistic, stupid, or even annoying by your standards of today, but theywere special to YOU, because you spent hours and hours playing them andlearning about your computer, sometimes by hacking them. This is especiallythe case for those who were introduced to a computer while they were inschool, and "grew up" with it. And if you started with your Apple II in theearly 1980's, you had some great games on which to spend your time.     One of the pioneering Apple II companies that provided games for theplatform was MUSE Software. Founded in 1978 by Silas Warner and Ed Zaron,they got their start by selling software on cassette tape for the IntegerBASIC-only Apple II. As the technology advanced, they moved on todisk-based and assembly language programs. Several key events occurred inthe early 1980's that had an impact on what was to come later.     In the area of sound, two significant things happened. First, MUSEreleased a program called "The Voice", which allowed the recording andplayback of sound on an Apple II. It was very low quality, since thespeaker on the Apple II could produce 1-bit sound (clicked "on" or "off"),but the results were intelligible. At about the same time, the company hadbeen able to improve the production of their software cassettes by makinguse of Flight 3, a professional recording studio. This studio had developedtechniques of enhancing the audio signal for MUSE's data cassettes byrunning it through a graphic equalizer. This improved the tapes so muchthat MUSE advertised them as "Super-Load" cassettes.     Hi-resolution graphics had been part of games produced by MUSEsoftware from the very beginning. One of their non-entertainment productswas a word processing program called "Super-Text", which as a text-basedprogram was limited to the 40-column resolution inherent to the Apple IIand II Plus. As a possible enhancement, Warner had designed a hi-rescharacter generator to allow 70 columns of upper and lowercase text to bedisplayed on the graphics screen. Unfortunately, the hi-res screen took up8K of RAM, nearly one fourth of the available RAM on a disk-based Apple II,and so this plan was abandoned.     Finally, MUSE had worked on some new techniques to access data on anApple DOS disk more rapidly than was typically possible.     In early 1981, at the time these technologies had been completed andwere available at MUSE, Silas Warner visited his local 7-Eleven oneevening. There, he saw for the first time a new Williams Electronics arcadegame, "Robotron: 2084". This color game had the player running around atwo-dimensional field, shooting in any of eight directions at robots thatwere threatening the world's last family of humans. As he looked at theRobotron game,     "...[I] realized that this would do really nicely if     I built it with the hi-res character generator. But     it was such a cliche' ... just robots and science-fiction     gadgetry and all the trappings of that era. The whole     concept of the game was just a big cliche'. And I     wondered, 'what else could you do with it?' And then     I saw 'The Guns Of Navarone' and realized what you     COULD do with it."     The 1961 World War II movie, "The Guns Of Navarone" involved the useskill and cunning for an elite force to break INTO a heavily guarded Nazifortress; Warner's game would require use of strategy to break OUT of aheavily guarded Nazi prison. The player could shoot (in eight differentdirections) at Nazi soldiers, or hold a gun on them and interrogate them,or even go though the pockets of a dead soldier to look for loot. It wasnot necessarily the point of the game to shoot at everything that moved tosuccessfully complete it.     Warner put everything into the game. The hi-res character generatorwas used to manipulate the graphics; the new disk routines helped speed updisk access; and "The Voice" was used to make guards that actually spoke to(or yelled at) the player when spotted. To create the voices used in thegame, he went to the same recording studio that recorded their "Super Load"cassettes, and spent a morning saying phrases like "Achtung!" into amicrophone. Six months later, MUSE released Castle Wolfenstein.     The resulting game was unique in several ways. Softalk magazine made abrief first comment on the game in the September 1981 issue: "CastleWolfenstein from Muse (Baltimore, MD) combines an arcade-type game with amore complex adventure/fantasy game. Scenario puts the player in the roleof an Allied soldier as World War II rages across Europe. Player iscaptured but must find the Nazi war plans and escape from the castle. Soundeffects include guns firing and Nazis shouting -- in German." Their latermore comprehensive review was enthusiastic about the game, and it soonappeared at the top of the Softalk Top 5 Strategy list at the end of eachissue, right ahead of Warner's other popular game, Robot War. Their briefdescription of the game when the top software of 1981 was listed mentionedthat it was the first game to successfully fuse strategy, home-arcade, andfantasy. That description also mentioned that the room layout would changewith each new game. It was simply a great game idea that had not yet beentried, and it resulted in a best seller that MUSE later translated toseveral other platforms, including the Atari 800, Commodore 64, and the IBMPC.     As with many hit games (or books or movies), Castle Wolfensteinspawned a sequel. In 1984, MUSE released "Beyond Castle Wolfenstein", whichWarner helped design but did not directly write. The premise of this gamewas not significantly different from the first, although this time the goalwas to infiltrate Hitler's headquarters, plant a bomb, and then escapebefore it went off. More strategy and stealth was needed than in the firstgame; it was necessary to collect security passes and bribe guards toprogress through the game. Doing TOO much shooting would draw attention andincrease the odds that you would be caught and arrested. It was alsopossible to search a guard at gunpoint, rather than killing him. (Strategyfeatures like this have unfortunately NOT survived to the present day.)FAST FORWARD     MUSE Software did not survive past 1987, mainly due to managementproblems that resulted in the loss of the company's marketing department.As time passed, players moved on from the two Wolfenstein games and on tothe next big thing. Nevertheless, a good concept is always ripe for anothersequel, and this did eventually come about. When it did appear, theprogrammers again demonstrated break-through concepts.     John Romero got his start writing Apple II software, which hesubmitted to Nibble, inCider, and A+ Magazine. He badly wanted to work witha company in the computer industry, and eventually managed to get jobsfirst at Origin (the company that produced the Ultima series of games),then Inside-Out Software, and eventually at Softdisk. Although he did havesome submissions of games for the Apple II edition of Softdisk, he told theowner that he wanted to learn how to program for the IBM PC (since theApple II platform was dying out), and so worked on their disk magazine,"Big Blue Disk", and later helped start another disk publication, the"Gamer's Edge".     Working with Romero at Softdisk was John Carmack, who had likewisepreviously written programs for the Apple II before starting at Softdisk.Both were focused primarily on game playing and design. However, the workthey did for Gamer's Edge eventually began to feel restrictive. They wantedto create games for the PC that were more complex, games that had bettergraphics and sound. Unfortunately, it was necessary in writing for Gamer'sEdge to program for the lowest common denominator computer that mostsubscribers owned, which precluded writing games that made use of thelatest video and sound cards and computer power. Doing work on their ownterms began to be an attractive option.     Apogee was a small shareware software company that created games moreadvanced than those Romero and Carmack could do at Softdisk. They used aunique concept in selling their games, one in which the game was written asthree large parts or chapters. The first part was completely unlocked, notcrippled in any way, and was freely available for download from thethousands of computer BBS systems across the country (and the world). Toplay the second and third parts and complete the game required payment of ashareware fee. This method made it possible for potential customers to geta good feel for the game play and to spur the desire to buy the rest of thegame and finish it. (Like a good multi-part story, the end of one part ofthe game often involved a crisis that required the playing the next part toresolve.) The success of this method resulted in good sales for Apogee andgood royalties for its programmers.      Romero and Carmack, under the name of "id Software" (a company thatdidn't yet officially exist), sold a successful shareware game in 1990through Apogee called "Commander Keen: Invasion Of The Vorticons". Startingin 1991, they made the company name official, and continued to write gamesthat they sold through Apogee using its shareware model. For a while, theyhad to continue to help with Softdisk, while new programmers came up tospeed on taking over the Gamer's Edge (which Romero and Carmack hadstarted). They created several side-scrolling games, including DangerousDave (first on the Apple II and then later a conversion to the PC) forSoftdisk, and the Commander Keen series for Apogee.     With the help of Tom Hall and Adrian Carmack (no relation), who alsohad worked at Softdisk, Romero and Carmack began to work on an entirely newconcept. They had previously done games that involved moving through a 3Denvironment (Hovertank and Catacombs 3D), but they wanted a more excitinggame, one that involved using the 3D environment to shoot at enemies.Viewing the screen would be like looking through the eyes of the player;turning to the left or the right, or moving forwards or backwards wouldcause things to move in perspective as it would in real life. Additionally,the ability to move would also allow aiming at an enemy. After tossingaround various ideas, they decided to reach back to their Apple II rootsand do Silas Warner's Castle Wolfenstein in 3D. They conceived a game thathad the same premise as the original game, escaping from a Nazi stronghold.During the game, it was necessary to collect weapons and kill bad guys(Nazis), while trying to stay alive by finding food and ammunition. Becausetheir new game added a weapon at the bottom of the screen pointing forwardwith the movements of the player, id created the genre of the "first personshooter". (They had also considered adding features from the originalCastle Wolfenstein, such as opening chests and capturing guards, buteliminated them as it slowed down the pace of the game.)     The programmers contacted Silas Warner, and he did give permission touse the Wolfenstein concept in a game. id Software was ready to release"Wolfenstein 3D" in 1992, after six months of game development (oddly, thesame time as it took Warner to create the original game). As with most oftheir other games, it was written to run under MS-DOS on Intel-based PCs.Following their desire to make games that pushed the frontiers ofcomputing, Wolfenstein 3D was more hardware intensive than previous gamesthey had written. For best game play it required a fairly fast PC andcapable video card; in fact, it is likely that games like Wolfenstein 3Dand its successor, DOOM, were responsible for motivating PC users toupgrade their machines in order to get best game play.     The game was a very popular download, and quite profitable for id; atone point, it was bringing in $120,000 a month in shareware fees.Additionally, people learned how to hack into the game and create their ownlevels that could be used with the original game "engine", extending thegame play further and enhancing its popularity. Building on the firstperson shooter concept, Romero and his partners pushed it further withtheir next hit game. In DOOM, it was possible for rooms be nearly any shape(Wolf 3D required all rooms to be composed of right angle corners) andallowing multiple floors in a single level (although it was not possible tocross underneath or over an area). DOOM II added new weapons and theability to play competitively or cooperatively with other players on anetwork. They then used their growing expertise to write a new, morepowerful 3D game engine for "Quake", which increased the complexity of thevirtual world and of the game play, as well as improving network play.RETURN TO THE APPLE II     As with the original Castle Wolfenstein, the popularity of Wolfenstein3D and its descendants from id Software resulted in requests forconversions to enable the games to play on other platforms. Even consolegame manufacturers were interested in having it ported to their machines.In January 1994, a company called Imagineer released (under license) aversion of the game for the Super Nintendo (SNES). However, Nintendoinsisted on removal of the Nazi references, blood (which was changed tosweat), and rabid dogs (changed to rats). The 16-bit graphics available onthe SNES also decreased the quality of the appearance of the game. InAugust, a version for the Atari Jaguar was released, in which the graphicswere much improved. By October 1994, MacPlay released a conversion for theMacintosh. As versions of the game appeared on these other platforms, andthe knowledge that the SNES ran on the same 65816 processor as did theApple IIGS, it was speculated that a IIGS port was entirely possible. Bymid-to-late 1994, rumors were surfacing that this was actually going tohappen. The production of this IIGS version of Wolfenstein 3D did not comeeasily, however.     Vitesse, an Apple II software company that had produced severalutilities for the Apple IIGS, had also begun to publish games. In August1994, Vitesse released "Ultima I GS", a conversion and enhancement of theolder Apple II DOS 3.3 classic. They had announced and promised two othergames, "Mind Shadow" and "Tracer Sanction" for the IIGS for 1995 (but neveractually released them). But the one game that they hoped would be a hugeseller for them was a IIGS port of Wolfenstein 3D. To bring this about,Vitesse contacted id Software and asked them for a license to do a port ofthe game.     This part of the story gets somewhat complicated. Interplay hadhandled some of the Wolf 3D conversions for id Software, and assigned"Burger" Bill Heineman to do the Super Nintendo version of the game.Heineman actually used an Apple IIGS to do his SNES development, and so wassimultaneously doing work that would allow a IIGS port to be done in thefuture. Unfortunately, he and Interplay disagreed with this parallel work,and he was dismissed from the company. Heineman and Steve Parsons thenfounded a new company, Logicware, to do similar work.     At this point, Heineman's Logicware, Vitesse, and id together agreedto allow Logicware to work on a IIGS port of Wolf 3D, which Vitesse wouldmarket. However, the agreement apparently did not involve a significantmonetary compensation for Logicware up front, and after he had completedabout ninety percent of the game conversion, other better paying projectsbegan to demand his attention.     By this time, a post made by Lowell Erbe of Vitesse in December 1994had generated considerable excitement. He stated that an Apple IIGSconversion of the hit Wolfenstein 3D was soon to be released. He stated,"We're just wrapping up Wolfenstein 3D and should begin shipping within thenext two weeks." (This confident statement was likely made based on aprogress report from Heineman.) A pre-release price of $39.95 was offeredif ordered before January 1, 1995, with a price increase to $49.95 afterthat date. Vitesse was also at that time struggling to get a IIGS faxprogram, Faxination, completed and shipped, but that had been fallingbehind schedule and did not appear until March 1995, and that as aless-than-full release version (v0.1.5).     Scott Everts worked at Interplay, and had previously done the artworkfor the Macintosh version of Wolf 3D. He was a big fan of the Apple IIGS,and really wanted the company to do a IIGS version of the game. AfterHeineman began the IIGS version, Everts worked during his Christmas holidayin 1994, downsampling the Mac version's artwork from 128x128 pixels to64x64 pixels and 16 colors for the IIGS. He made a number of posts on GEnieabout the coming game; he confirmed in January that Bill Heineman was theprogrammer doing the conversion, and that this port of Wolfenstein 3D wasbased on the Macintosh "Third Encounter" version of the game. Because thegame play and graphic manipulation was highly processor-intensive, anaccelerator was STRONGLY recommended. He also promised that the IIGSversion would be true to the original PC game, and would not be like theSuper Nintendo "sanitized" version that had been so disappointing to fansof the game. It was to be as much like the original as was technicallypossible.     The various previous translations of the game that had appeared hadnot necessarily included the same levels as were in the original PC game.The Super Nintendo and Jaguar versions came with thirty levels that wereMODIFICATIONS of levels in the original game. The Macintosh version of thegame used these thirty modified levels, plus the original sixty PC levels.In fact, the Macintosh release of Wolfenstein 3D came in three differentflavors: One with three levels (the shareware trial), one with thirtylevels, and one with all ninety levels. It was planned that the Apple IIGSconversion of the game would include ALL of these levels, the sixty levelsof the original PC game (divided into six missions of ten levels each), andthe thirty modified levels that appeared in the Super Nintendo, Jaguar, andMacintosh shareware versions.     Customization of the game was, as mentioned above, a popular featurefor PC gamers. These level files (which contained the maps, items, andartwork for a series of levels) would have a quite different format on theIIGS than it had on the PC, and so it was not possible to play existingcustomized PC Wolf levels. However, Everts said that Heineman was includingin the IIGS version the ability to load new levels, if a programmer createdthem (although a level editor was not planned for the final release).     Soon after Everts made his post, Lowell Erbe of Vitesse again posted apromise that the game release was imminent: "We're working out some finaldetails and a few bugs." He could not promise a specific date it would beavailable, but hoped to begin shipment of it by February 1995.DELAYS, DELAYS     In February, posts began to appear indicating that there were problemswith the conversion process. It appeared that the sixty additional levelswere causing problems. There was also mention of a dispute of some sortregarding that contract for the game, a dispute that was contributing tothe delay. This problem was still ongoing in April. Heineman himself posteda message on GEnie in May to explain part of what was going on. He saidthat there was a disagreement between he and his former employer, problemsthat required involvement of lawyers and the need for him to at leasttemporarily stop working on Wolf 3D (it was indirectly involved in thislegal matter).     No further posts about this appeared on GEnie until August; Vitessethen claimed that they were still waiting for Heineman to fix bugs, andthis was holding up the game release. By September, Everts again cameonline stating that he had heard that if Heineman didn't get the gamecompleted by the end of the month, Vitesse planned to cancel the projectand refund those who had pre-paid for it. He also expressed frustrationabout having done work on the art of the game, and then to learn that itwould not be shipped. A later post by Everts in November reiterated thatstatement that Vitesse was NOT to blame for the cancellation of theproject, and "they have been doing everything possible to get Bill tofinish it."     Then in December 1995 it was announced that Vitesse was contactingcustomers who had earlier paid in advance for Wolfenstein 3D for the IIGS,asking if they were still interested in the game. A representative of thecompany had gone to far as to (again) predict a release date (unofficial),this time for late January 1996. However, after two days of making thesephone calls, Vitesse had to stop the process and rescind the predictedJanuary date. The reason given was that a different programmer had beencontacted to complete Wolf 3D, and that id Software now insisted on a newcontract.SHEPPY TAKES OVER     Eric Shepherd had a reputation as a talented programmer for the AppleIIGS, and had released a number of utilities, under his shareware name"SheppyWare" as well as with Softdisk G-S. He began to work with Logicwarein September of 1995, when rumors were still flying about whether or notthe IIGS conversion of Wolfenstein would ever be completed. At this timeHeineman had his hands full of projects that Logicware had been contractedto do, beside the IIGS Wolf 3D project. He was completing work ontranslation of Wolf 3D for the 3DO game console, and then had to move onimmediately to create a version of DOOM II, also for the 3DO.     Vitesse's contract with id Software had expired by this time.Logicware managed to get a new contract with id, but the new contract didnot allow them to sell the game, but rather stated that Logicware had tomake it available as freeware. The reason for this odd change was likelywhat happened in August, 1995. At that time, id Software uploaded toCompuServe the source code for Wolfenstein 3D (not including the graphicsor the code for the levels). It would not have then been appropriate toallow Logicware to make the game for sale.     Sheppy volunteered to take over the project near the end of 1995. Whathad already been completed was getting the 3D game engine functional, andit was thought that all that was necessary to complete it was to make thegame save function and the sound work. Since the game could not be sold andwould therefore not generate any revenue, it was moved to a low prioritylevel, and was worked on amidst as many as four other paying projects.     At the time Shepherd took on the Wolfenstein 3D project, he stated onGEnie, "Keep in mind that the last 10% of a program requires 90% of thework. Although Wolf 3D for the IIGS is nearly finished, the part that'sleft to do is the hardest part -- making sure it works flawlessly and asfast as possible.  That's my job here." He also asked to NOT be contactedwith e-mails asking about the game or about progress on it, as respondingto them would take away from time he could be working on programming.     Much of Sheppy's development work was done on a Macintosh running anApple IIGS emulator, first Gus and later Bernie ][ The Rescue. The primaryreason for doing the work had to do with the time needed to compile thesource code. On a 10 MHz accelerated IIGS, Wolf 3D took over 90 minutes tocompile; when running on the Gus emulator on a 120 MHz PowerPC 604 Mac, itwould compile in only 15 to 20 minutes. From the start of the 1996 untilspring, he worked (intermittently) on the sound and music drivers, fixedcosmetic bugs and speed problems, and optimized the code. In June hestarted adding the music to the game, and began to quietly seed betaversions of the game to select testers.FINE TUNING     The music presented a particular problem in making this conversion.The first music that they worked with was that used in the Macintoshversion of the game, translated into synthLAB format for the IIGS. However,Interplay (not id Software) held the copyrights for this particular music;and since Logicware did not have a license from Interplay for the music, itcould not be used. A further problem was that the music slowed down thegame play too much. As a result, Sheppy removed the music that playedduring the game, and then accepted an offer by Tony Gonzales to have newmusic created for the game introduction. (Gonzales had done music for othergames Heineman had written).     At this point the game was sufficiently functional to allow ademonstration to be given at KansasFest 1996. It was announced at thatconference that open beta testing would begin on Genie "in a few weeks",and that the final version of Wolf 3D would be released as freeware, whichhad not previously been publicly announced.     Beta testing of Wolfenstein 3D for the IIGS was announced duringSeptember 1996. An FAQ posted on the Logicware web site at that time statedthat a pause mode had been added, the sound effect player was beingreplaced by a more efficient one, music had been added, and new art workhad been added. Sheppy even went so far as to predict that it would beready for release by Christmas 1996. This testing progressed to the pointthat a more general beta release was announced for November.     By this time, however, Sheppy had realized that not only the music butalso the sound effects they were using in the game were owned by Interplay.These also could not be used. Furthermore, when he examined the sounds usedin the original PC version, he did not feel that their quality was verygood. Therefore, the sounds were completely removed from the demo before itwas released.     The general beta was released on November 17, 1996. This beta/demoversion included the first three levels of the game, did not include theability to save a game in progress, and of course did not have any soundeffects. As on the PC version, the game pushed the computer to its limits,and required an Apple IIGS with a hard drive having at least 2 MB of freespace, 4 MB of available RAM, as well as the strong recommendation for anaccelerator.     The December 1996 issue of GenieLamp A2 included a review by editorDoug Cuff of this beta version of the game. He awarded the game "fivelamps", the highest rating a reviewed product could be given. He pointedout that without an accelerator, significant slowdowns would occur; thiswas especially noticeable especially during combat, when shooting would bedelayed.     To solve the problem with the sounds, Sheppy accessed the Logicwarestock sound library, found some appropriate for the game, and installedthem. With that problem taken care of, it would seem that not much was leftto complete the game. But then more contributions appeared from a Europeansource.NINJAFORCE     When the first screen shots of Wolf 3D for the IIGS appeared on theInternet during 1996, members of a German Apple IIGS programming groupnamed Ninjaforce saw how the artwork had changed from the 256 colororiginals in the PC version of the game, to the 16 color versions thatcould be used on the IIGS. One of the Ninjaforce team, known as Clue, feltthat he could do better, and so contacted Bill Heineman to ask if he couldwork on that part of the project, work that he would do for free. By thetime he got an initial approval from Heineman, Sheppy had taken over, andClue had to repeat the process with him. This would be a problem becausethe original artist, Scott Everts, would likely not be happy about havinghis work replaced. Additionally, Sheppy knew that it would be a lot of workto make the changes.     Initially, Clue sent Sheppy new artwork for the menus in the game. Thequality of the work impressed him. Clue then asked permission to re-do thatartwork throughout the game. He sent some samples to try, and althoughSheppy was not enthusiastic about it initially, he found the improvement inthe appearance of the game to be amazing. After the decision was made tomake these changes, the promised release in December 1996 had to bedelayed.     For a game that was to be available in December, every month of delayseemed interminable. Clue would respond to Sheppy's pleas for final artworkthat, "It's not perfect yet!" Part of this delay had to do with the processof needing to pixel-edit nearly every graphic in the game, after making aconversion from the original PC art. Finally, by the spring of 1997, thislarge task was complete.     Another part of the game that Ninjaforce impacted was the spokenvoices and some of the sound effects in the game. Since the Ninjaforceprogrammers were from Germany, they were eminently suited to speak theGerman phrases that appeared in the game. In fact, some of the phrases inthe original PC version of the game didn't even make sense. In one place, aguard shouts, "Haben Sie Fhrerschein?" which means "Do you have drivinglicense?" One of Ninjaforce's members, Dreamer, asked his grandfather tospeak the phrases that were wanted for the game. These were recorded inApril 1997, and appeared in the final version. As a result, the IIGSversion of Wolf 3D is the only version in which AUTHENTIC German voices andpronunciations were used in the game.MORE DELAYS     So the new artwork was done, the sounds were fixed; why didn't thesummer of 1997 see the release of Wolf 3D? According to Sheppy, he andLogicware had "an artistic dispute on another project", and he was firedfrom the company. For several months, he did not do any work on Wolfenstein3D. By fall of 1997 he arranged with Heineman to resume work on it. At thispoint, Sheppy had moved several hundred miles away, and was working for Be,Inc.     As he resumed work on it, the major concern was performance. In anonline chat on Delphi, programmer Nathan Mates suggested a differenttechnique of graphic rendering; when Sheppy tried it, the speed increasewas dramatic. He also implemented additional features, such as thepreferences screen, and the Open-Apple-number key combinations to changethe screen size (helpful for those with slower processors that needed asmaller screen to update).     Further mention of the game in The Lamp! did not appear until January1998, when the final, true release date was announced: Valentine's Day,February 14, 1998. Then even at this late date, the game almost didn't makeit out the door. At 2:30 pm on February 13th, beta tester Tony Diaz found amajor bug that would cause the game to crash. Sheppy worked throughout therest of the day to find and fix the bug. He sent a release build of thegame to his testers at 10:00 pm, asking them about whether it should orshould not be released. He finally got approval from them all, got thefinal release packaged up, and uploaded it at 11:58 pm on February 13.THE FINAL PRODUCT     The result of all of the work and the delays was a much better gamethan would have appeared if it had followed the original timeline thatVitesse had wanted back in 1994 and 1995. Rather than simply being done tomake a profit, Sheppy and his team of beta testers worked on it as a laborof love, trying to create the very best game they could.     Earlier concerns about the game not working with an AppleDesignkeyboard on a IIGS turned out to be incorrect. The game had been so greatlyanticipated that even the Apple IIGS emulator Bernie ][ The Rescue wasmodified in such a way as to make it possible to play the game. Sheppysweetened the deal further by releasing a Wolfenstein 3D ScenarioConverter, making it possible to play custom levels that had been designedfor the Macintosh version of the game.     A feature that didn't appear in the original documentation file forthe game was the ability to capture a screen shot of the current gamescreen and save it in the Wolfenstein 3D game directory.     The original game by id Software included some special codes("cheats") that made it possible to get help if you were in trouble. Thisattribute was carried through even into the translations that were done forthe Super Nintendo, 3D0, and Jaguar, and of course for the Apple IIGSversion. These codes included some "Easter eggs" as well:SARAH          Get 100 health backIDDQD          Toggle "god" mode on and offBURGER         Set max ammo to 999 instead of 99, and gives 999 ammoWOWZERS        Get all weapons and max ammoLEDOUX         Get both keys and god modeSEGER          Gives you both keysMCCALL         Immediately jump to next levelAPPLEIIGS      Make secret doors visible on automap (shows player's head)SHEPPY         Get an extra lifeGETAJOB        Replaces certain Hitler portraits with Steve JobsBARBARIAN      Replaces certain Hitler portraits with Bill GatesHARDWIRED      Replaces certain walls with Tony DiazLIBRARIAN      Replaces certain walls with Tony WardMEIJERDUDE     Replaces certain walls with Dave MillerDONHO          Replaces certain walls with Ryan Suenaga(By the way, the appearance of the player in "god" mode is more cool on theIIGS than on the other platforms. On the IIGS he is wearing sunglasses; onother platforms, he has shining red eyes.)SQUASHING BUGS     A maintenance update to version 1.0.1 appeared shortly after Wolf 3D'soriginal release. In March 1998 a patch program was available to download,which fixed a crash occurring in certain low memory situations, andchanging the startup music to continue playing while a scenario was beingselected.In April, Wolfenstein 3D players began to mention that their systems werebecoming unstable after playing Wolfenstein 3D.  Sheppy eventually trackeddown the problem to a bug in the system software that is triggered onlywhen applications attempt to patch the system software following the rulesdocumented in Apple's Technical Notes.  Wolfenstein 3D uses a Toolbox patchto work around another system software bug.  Sheppy fixed this problem bychanging his code to not follow Apple's own rules, but use a differentpatching method that is more transparent to the operating system. Theversion 1.1 update that fixed this was released on May 1, 1998, andincluded a completely rewritten sound code section (which allowed moresounds to be played at once), increased keyboard configuration options.AFTERMATH     To say that Wolfenstein 3D for the Apple IIGS was "popular" would bean understatement. It even became an event at KansasFest 1998, with a"KFest Shootout" planned as a contest. In January 1999, Ryan Suenaga listedit as one of the two best freeware products of 1998, tying with KelvinSherlock's "GShisen".     The Wolfenstein 3D Scenario Converter, a casualty of falling sharewarepayments in the Apple IIGS community, was changed from a $5 fee to freewarein September 1999.     It is safe to say that the game as it was finally released was a farbetter conversion than would have appeared if it had stayed the commercialproduct that Vitesse had originally wanted it to be. Certainly, BillHeineman is an excellent programmer, and would have come up with a greatgame if he had been able to apply the time to it. However, when Sheppy tookover the project and continued to plug away at it even after there was nolonger any chance of financial compensation for all of his work, it becamea matter of making it PERFECT. Wolfenstein 3D on the IIGS is one of themost complex and demanding games that ever appeared for that computer, anda credit to the dedication to the platform demonstrated by Sheppy and hiscontributors.THAT'S THE WAY I LIKE IT     Next month we will return to the Lamp yearly review, as I have nofurther side stories that are just itchin' to be told. Until then, pull outyour copy of Wolf 3D and blast some bad guys!References:-----. "A Funny Thing Happened...." The Lamp!: Feb through Dec 1998.Beerman, Marcel 'Doc'. "Q&A with John Romero about DOOM (III) Part I".PROJECT DOOM. http://www.projectdoom.com/romero.html (Dec 2003).-----. "Beyond Castle Wolfenstein". HOME OF THE UNDERDOGS.http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?name=Beyond+Castle+Wolfenstein (Dec2003).-----. "Castle Wolfenstein". WOLFENSTEIN.ORG.http://wolfenstein.org/fanclub/castle_wolfenstein.phtml (Dec 2003).Cuff, Douglas. PD_QUICKVIEW, "Wolfenstein 3-D IIGS (Demo)". GENIELAMP A2,Dec 1996.Kai, Satoshi. "Wolfenstein Fundamentals: The History Of The GameUnprecedented". THE WOLFENMANIA CHRONICLE.http://www1.linkclub.or.jp/~clubey/Mac%20Wolf/fundamentals.html (Dec 2003).-----. "Hey Mister Postman". GENIELAMP A2, Jan through Dec 1995, Jan, June,July, and Oct 1996.-----. "Hey Mister Postman". GENIELAMP A2, Apr 1997.-----. "Marketalk News". SOFTALK, Sept 1981:32.-----. "The History Of John Romero And John Carmack". MICRO MART.http://www.micromart.co.uk/content/features/default.asp?Category=Article&ID=1376 (Dec 2003).-----. MOBY GAMES. http://www.mobygames.com (Dec 2003).Ninjaforce. "Haben Sie Fhrerschein?", Feb 13, 2000. NINJAFORCE WEB SITE.http://www.ninjaforce.com/html/special_wolf_interview.html (Dec 2003).-----. "Interview with Daikatana Creator John Romero". PRIMA GAMES.http://www.primagames.com/news/interview/921/ (Dec 2003).Romero, John. "John Romero's Dangerous Dave Page". PLANET //ROME.RO.http://rome.ro/article_saga_dave.htm (Dec 2003).Shepherd, Eric. Email, Dec 2003.Tommervik, Margot. "Marketalk Reviews: Castle Wolfenstein". SOFTALK,October 1981: 55-58.[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 tosign up!(Logon message)[EOA][LTE]-------------------------------             LETTERS 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 theApple 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 considersunsuitable for publication in _The Lamp!_.[EOA][KFC]------------------------------                   KFest Comments |-----------------------------------[WKF]Woz KansasFest - IN Apple II HISTORY""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""So, six months or so later. . .where does the Woz KansasFest fall into Apple II history?Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 2, Top 15, Msg 30)>>>>>"""""He appears at an awful lot of events; it's not exactly historic.  But Ithink it holds a special place in our hearts.  I still hope he comes again,as a regular attendee.Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.comOwner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com                     Building communities, bit by bit.(SYNDICOMM, Cat 2, Top 15, Msg 31)>>>>>"""""He does appear at a lot of events (more now than he used to), but I thinkit's a little more significant than any other event, when more than aquarter century after its debut, he spends a few hours at the event at thecenter of the Apple II universe.While I don't think there was anything totally new in his keynote address,it was a fascinating speech.Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 2, Top 15, Msg 32)[EOA][KFE]KFest ENDORSED""""""""""""""The absolutely best place to meet Apple II enthusiasts is at KFest in July.A lot of old timers, programmers and venders are there both US andinternational.  Absolutely the greatest bunch of people you'd ever want tomeet.  New products are unveiled.For the rest of the season join A2Central.com.Sandy(Sandra Warnken, comp.sys.apple2.marketplace)[EOA][KFF]------------------------------                       KFest 2004 |-----------------------------------[KF4]KansasFest 2004"""""""""""""""KansasFest 2004 is planned for July 20-25, 2004 at Avila University inKansas City, Missouri.(Heading: Cat 5, Top 22)[EOA][KFT]KFest 2004 TALK"""""""""""""""I recently read on CNN.com about "Camp Foo", an annual camping trip forgeeks.http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/01/09/bus2.feat.geek.camp/index.htmlIt sounds remarkably like another event we all know of...(KGAGNE, Cat 5, Top 22, Msg 6)>>>>>"""""Doesn't it? :)Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd                                sheppy@syndicomm.comOwner, Syndicomm                                  http://www.syndicomm.com                     Building communities, bit by bit.(SYNDICOMM, Cat 5, Top 22, Msg 7)>>>>>"""""I'm as much an outdoors guy as just about anyone, so I bet that would be aton of fun.  OTOH, doing camping outdoors in the K.C. summer would sucksuck suck:)Ryan(A2.RYAN, Cat 5, Top 22, Msg 8)>>>>>"""""..as someone who has camped in the general area of Kfest in July, I wouldadvise against camping as your form of residence for Kfest.  First of allyou'd miss all the insanity of the dorms, second of all a low temperatureat night in the lower 80's F is about the opposite of fun...Any more words on Kfest 2004 been said officially?DainKfest...Disneyland for Apple ][ers.(A2.DAIN, Cat 5, Top 22, Msg 9)>>>>>"""""I guess I can speak officially -- today I finally received the contractfrom Avila! We will start registrations as soon as we know how muchinsurance costs have risen since last year.The Big Cheese(CINDYADAMS, Cat 5, Top 22, Msg 10)[EOA][VKF]WATCH FOR MORE INFORMATION AT THE KFest HOME PAGE"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""KFest Home Pagehttp://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 computersusing 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 notnecessarily represent the opinions of A2Central.com, Delphi OnlineServices, Syndicomm, Ryan M. Suenaga, or Lyle Syverson.  Forum messages arereprinted verbatim and are included in this publication with permissionfrom the individual authors.  A2Central.com, Delphi Online Services,Syndicomm, Ryan M. Suenaga, and Lyle Syverson do not guarantee the accuracyor suitability of any information included herein.  We reserve the right toedit all letters and copy.Material published in this edition may not be reprinted without theexpressed written consent of the  publisher.   Registered computer usergroups, not for profit publications , and other interested parties maywrite the publisher to apply for permission to reprint any or all material.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<[EOF]
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