Fall 1990 Volume 3 No. 3

WHAT CRITICISMS HAVE YOU OF

THE AMATEUR COMPUTERIST NEWSLETTER?

Recently, some of the staff of the

Amateur Computerist visited the MIT

Technology Museum in Cambridge, Mass.

It was enlightening to see an exhibit

tracing the history of "The Tech", a

newspaper by MIT students.

developed in having education that

would meet the wondrous needs of the

computer.

In the exhibit of "The Tech" one

issue especially stood out. That

issue contained the request to the

readership to offer their criticism

and suggestions to help the MIT stu-

dent newspaper more adequately serve

the needs of its readers.

varying regions and walks of life

have requested sample copies or sub-

scriptions. However, despite the

interest shown in single issues, the

staff feels the great need to have

more input from the readership of the

Amateur

Table of Contents

WHAT CRITICISMS HAVE YOU. . . . 1

TIPS AND TRICKS.. . . . . . . . . 1

Computerist so as to sort out the

direction the newsletter should go

in.

In the Nov. 16, 1918, issue of

"The Tech," this letter appeared:

"How can we improve this paper and

make it meet the demands of the stu-

dent body here at the Institute? We

ask you for your co-operation in this

matter and hope that you will give us

try?"

We ask the same questions, only

about the Amateur Computerist news-

letter. We need your comments and

criticisms so that the newsletter can

better serve the educational needs of

the amateur computerist movement.

Only if we hear from you and have

some input regarding the kind of

changes you would like to see, can we

need your input if the Amateur

Computerist is to continue in a way

that will help the development of the

amateur computerist movement in the

U.S.

TIPS AND TRICKS

by Michael Hauben

Problem: Your IBM computer won't

boot from the hard drive and you

suspect something might have happened

this problem, make sure you use the

same DOS version's system files that

were on your hard drive before the

problem occurred.

Solution:

A. Clean out the boot sectors.

1. Remove all attribute (archive

doesn't matter) flags from any

files in the root directory.

(Read Only, System, and Hidden

B. PC-Tools:In File Menu,

attriBute change, and then

type the letters of the

flags: H,S,R and save it.

C. Mace Utilities has a

utility also.

D. DOS has ATTRIB to change

file attributes, BUT it

doesn't work with the

system flag.

backup directory. (COMMAND.COM

and IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS or

IBMBIOS.COM, IBMDOS.COM)

5. Delete all the files in the

root directory. (DEL \*.*)

B. Try to use DOS's SYS command to

copy the system files to the boot

sector/ root directory. (From A

drive, SYS C:)

C. If SYS doesn't work, try using the

system files on a floppy disk

with the system files.

2. Copy the hidden files from

your floppy into the root

directory of the hard drive.

(COPY FILENAME C:\)

3. Place all of the flags back on

to the system files.

files in the backup directory and

remove that directory.

(CTRL-ALT-DEL, COPY \BAKUP .,DEL

\BAKUP, RD \BAKUP) (Note: the "COPY

\BAKUP ." step copies the files from

"\BAKUP" to "." which represents the

current directory you are in, which

should be the root directory.)

F. If this procedure doesn't succeed

for you, write us describing what you

LETTER TO EDITOR

I enjoyed the Amateur Computerist

400 years of documented human efforts

to create it, but also the amateur

computerist movement in the 1970's

successfully fought the attempts by

big computer companies to keep the

computer from the masses of people. A

low cost personal computer with open

architecture was developed in the

process that has found its way into

millions of homes in the U.S. and

has suddenly been a barrage of propa-

ganda condemning that education sys-

tem and insisting that the very com-

panies that tried to hold back the

creation of a computer for the masses

be given a more direct influence in

the education system.

The fourth fact is that the com-

bining of computer education and

factory work was stymied at the Ford

state labor board over three long

years. The court has now given its

clear OK to Ford that there is no

government support for restoring the

classes and the teacher, but instead

the court has thrown the case out on

a concocted technicality, e.g. that

the teacher wouldn't say which stu-

dents typed the petition or contrib-

uted their words asking for the res-

almost 4 years. And the teacher is

not being allowed to submit her evi-

dence into that case.

Thus it is clear that the effort

of big companies like Ford to prevent

computer programming education at

their own factories has been given

active support and encouragement by

1970's from going on to encourage

that the computer be successfully

integrated into the workplace.

Where does this leave the Amateur

Computerist writer Floyd Hoke-Miller

at the memorial service held in his

honor on July 14, 1990.)

"You just don't have any constitu-

tional government in America (today).

You got laws, but nobody shows any

respect or regard." It's rare that

such honest words are spoken. They

came from a proven 91 year-old rebel

in an interview done on January 11,

So let the critics rant and let

them rave

We are all destined to some sort of

grave;

And if the rebel's maligned as

totally rotten,

He'll be remembered when the

critic's forgotten.

Whether history calls him a hero or

a heel

trodden" (what he called workers). He

wanted to "educate to emancipate

instead of dominate." Floyd was also

an active participant in the 1936/37

Flint Sitdown strike that won General

Motor's recognition of the UAW as the

chevrolet workers' bargaining repre-

sentative.

Floyd was born in Fort Mayberry,

Arkansas in 1898. He said about his

spirit."

When, in 1927, a huge flood de-

stroyed his home, Floyd traveled to

Flint, Michigan in search of work.

Upon reaching Flint, Floyd found work

as a clerk for the Canadian Pacific

Railroad. Railroad work was in the

spirit of one of his heroes, Eugene

V. Debs, who also started out a Rail-

road worker. Floyd's union spirit

March or April of 1930.

Even before World War I, Floyd

started to write poetry as a hobby

and a possible source of income.

Floyd told me he didn't start to

write labor poetry until he was 35 in

1933, when a lady interviewed him and

read some of his poetry. Floyd asked

her if he should go into a specific

field. She said definitely, you

other words, educate the man so he

can understand what is going on, to

look at and see what's happening."

Floyd said he wanted to leave a

better world than he found it. Floyd

explained why he wrote poems for the

common man in his poem, The Laborer,

Yes!.

You ask me why I praise his kind

And why I seek to rouse his mind

I'll tell you why I take this stand

To praise the one with hardened

hand;

With daily drudge and sweaty smell,

He's the greatest one in all the

land

But yet, the least one in command

Of all the goods the traders sell

And take the more and give the less

The Laborer, Yes!

up." His idea of this torch included

many things. Some of them were: the

struggle of and for the common man,

the struggle for the open press, and

the struggle for a six hour day with

no loss of pay.

Floyd often used Eugene Debs's

famous saying, "When I rise it will

be with the ranks, and not from the

ranks." Laura Miller, Floyd's wife

like Vicky Vann and Evelyn Pierce. He

had two main reasons to use them: he

wanted people to think his poems were

the ideas of many and not just one,

and he wanted people to focus on the

ideas in his poems and not that he

was the poet. He was trying to spread

the idea, not the man. Floyd also

found that it wasn't safe to publish

under one's own name during WWII. He

Obsession:

I never stoop to downright whims

of writing pure baloney.

I know that workers make the works

By brains and muscles toiling

And taken by the class that shirks

Whose object is despoiling

That's why I strive in all my

rhymes

While he was working in the

"Chevy" auto plant, he inspired oth-

ers to write labor poetry and prose.

Floyd felt he was obligated to as he

said, "I had to try to make another

poet, and so I made a few down the

line (fellow workers on the assembly

line) writers. [I] tried to get some-

body else to do it, because it's the

me his opinion that Floyd was an

example of the universal man. When

you spoke to Floyd you heard refer-

ences to current American literature,

European literature, ancient Greek

literature, and Roman literature.

His grasp of the historical and in-

tellectual content of our age was

immense. He read continuously

throughout most of his life, and

cisely the image he wanted. Writing

poetry made him into a more articu-

late and clearer thinker. He had the

ability to look at current world

problems and cut through to their

essence.

Floyd will be deeply missed as he

was a treasure and an inspiration to

us all to keep on looking for solu-

tions. In his memory we are holding

by Scott McMahan

and are instituting a procedure to

check submissions against printed

copy to try to prevent such an error

from occurring again. We are printing

Scott's column in its entirety as a

correction to the last issue.)

This month's programming exercise

is aimed at those of us who like to

stay healthy. All of us should strive

to at least be in reasonable fair

of the CoCo.

This CALORIE program came about

when my mother's doctor gave her a

book on low-cholesterol stuff, an

area that I don't even pretend to

understand. When it comes to health

fads, the only thing of which I'm

sure, is that they don't last. Cho-

lesterol, however, is staying around

for a long time. There may actually

again there is really no need for

anyone other than a computer software

designer or an engineer to learn

higher algebra, trigonometry, and

calculus (you knew I'd tie choles-

terol into computers somehow.) When

my mother stumbled over a certain

formula for determining how many

calories one needs to eat to reach

one's ideal weight, she was utterly

through the formula step by step and

programmed it into my computer, with

the following result:

0' CALORIE

1' by Scott McMahan

2' on 7-21-88

4' ******************

8' *******************

9 CLS

10 INPUT "What is your personal

weight goal or ideal weight (in

pounds) "; W

20 PRINT: INPUT"What is your age "; A

25 PRINT: INPUT" Are you (M)ale or

(F)emale "; S$

30 IF A = > 45 THEN B = 1 ELSE B = 0

40 IF B= 0 AND S$= "F" THEN W= W * 10

100 PRINT "Which of these applies to

you? 1) SEDENTARY (OFFICE WORK)

101 PRINT "2) MODERATELY SEDENTARY

(OCCASIONAL EXERCISE)

102 PRINT "3) MODERATELY ACTIVE

(REGULAR EXERCISE)

103 PRINT "4) VERY ACTIVE (INTENSIVE

EXERCISE)"

105 INPUT "Choose one ( 1-4 ) "; PA

110 IF PA = 1 THEN W = W + (W * .3)

requirements are "; W;

" calories."

180 END

190 ' ********************

The formula I used comes from page

44 of the book HEART SMART: A PLAN

FOR LOW CHOLESTEROL LIVING, by Gail

computer. I hesitate to give a very

detailed explanation of what the

self. All I know is that it works,

and the program gives me the same

answers as were given for the exam-

ples in the book. If you are really

interested in the why and how, I

suggest you get the HEART SMART book

and talk to your doctor.

On a more computer-oriented note,

the process which the computer goes

through in each step of the program

statements, the computer decides

which numbers to multiply the vari-

ables by and when to add and sub-

tract. The main difference is that

the computer is not intimidated by

confusing procedures and does not

loose track of what it is doing.

That's about all that can be said

about the CALORIE program. On to more

esoteric things. (As if calories and

tion to turn the CAPS LOCK on and off

without simultaneously pressing SHIFT

and O. If you use the command:

POKE 282,0

it will make the letters lowercase

(which show up on the screen as green

characters on a black background),

forcing you to shift to get upper-

case, black-on-green characters. To

go back to the locked position, you

situations (where word processing,

for example) it could come in handy.

It's a good one to file away for

reference.

That wraps it up for this install-

ment, and be sure to drop in again

next time when, finally, I get around

to explaining how you can put charac-

ters on the screen using POKE. Keep

in mind: COMPUTERS ARE ONLY AS GOOD

inclusion in the letters to the edi-

tor section. Just indicate whether

your letter is for publication or to

be forwarded to the writer.)

EXCERPTS FROM BBS

DISCUSSION ON TRADE UNIONS

we are printing some excerpts from a

discussion item posted on the MNET

bulletin Board in Ann Arbor. The

discussion was too long for us to be

able to print all of it, but we are

printing excerpts to give a flavor of

the discussion. The computer can

facilitate getting to the heart of

serious intellectual disputes and

clarifying the differences. The item

What does the loss by the UAW of the

vote at Nissan seem to signify?

#1(history) Sat, Sep 16, 1989

(16:32): I find it interesting that

the UAW supposedly has a reputation

as the most democratic of U.S. un-

ions. It seems that it's quite the

opposite -- and that the lack of

democracy is a great weakness it will

is no democracy in trade unions in

the U.S., where else might one expect

to find any democracy?

Also, the UAW leadership at the

last Convention explained that they

stood for "jointness" with manage-

ment. Why then should a worker pay

them dues money?

Trade unions were formed as a

protest against the exploitation a

defending workers in their fight with

management.

#2 (russ) Sat, Sep 16, 1989 (18:48):

Adversarial relations with the com-

pany led to lower productivity in the

US auto industry. When the Japanese,

with their cooperative, goal-oriented

philosophy hit our shores, they

they certainly work.

If labor and management are busy

fighting each other instead of work-

ing together to produce goods, then

they will make fewer and poorer goods

than those who spend their time bett-

er. This is a bad deal for the con-

sumer, and I expect the confronta-

tional factions in the UAW to con-

tinue to lose ground as the example

agers and workers. The economics of

factories dictate that there are

adversarial relations, regardless of

how covered up the public relations

department tries to gloss over the

reality....

#8 (russ) Mon, Sep 25, 1989 (11:33):

Re #2:.... Factories produce a prod-

uct, which the auto companies (and

most other enterprises) sell for more

ments over how the excess is divided?

I know counterexamples exist to in-

validate most blanket claims....

#9 (history) Wed, Oct 4, 1989

(22:43): ...Yes I am implying that

there is a disagreement - over sev-

eral aspects of your model. First,

where does the excess come from? You

seem to say from the sale of the

product.

time a worker works, the products he

produces belong to the employer. The

employer buys, for example, the abil-

ity of a worker to work for a day.

For example in 4 hours of the work-

er's workday he produces enough to

pay his wages. The additional 6 hours

(say he works a 10 hour day) belong

several days for free on his Lord's

land. Here the worker works gratis

for part of his workday, but the

economics is more hidden.

Second: I disagree that "the ex-

cess is available for wages, salaries

and expansion." That implies that the

more excess, the more expansion. The

opposite is the case. Companies will

make every effort to keep from in-

expand, it is no longer profitable

for a company to put in new machin-

ery. Only high wages and shorter

hours lead to expansion. Thus the

society gains by supporting higher

wages and shorter hours for workers,

not in supporting companies efforts

to gain at workers' expense....

#12 (russ) Mon, Oct 9, 1989 (09:23):

Re #9: What about robot factories

be purchased and maintained. And

*all* of this must happen before a

worker can work a single hour. How

much should the people who make this

possible be paid (note: they are

capitalists)? Remember that they put

forth their effort up front, and get

a return later if they get one at

all.

Engineers and designers have done

there, the assembly worker or the

engineer?

Labor by itself is worthless. You

can move stones from one end of a

field to the other and back all day,

taking much labor but making zero

value. The value produced by labor,

design, management, or any other

a few thousand modern Model T copies

today, no matter how much labor they

took....

#16 (history) Thu, Oct 19, 1989

(00:33): Re #12 - ...Re "How much

should people who make this possible

be paid?"

Ans. Under feudalism the lords re-

tained the surplus wealth.

Under capitalism, the capitalists

him as well as his workers. He was

able to make the same or a higher

profit with a 10 hour day than 12 or

16 hour day other factory owners had.

And he then went to Parliament and

tried to get a shorter hours bill

passed.

But just as there have been dif-

ferent ways of creating wealth

through the ages - i.e. primitive

shall's marginal utility is a de-

scription of our economic reality?

#18 (garima) Thu, Oct 19, 1989

(01:22): I don't think its up to

anyone to create laws to regulate

distribution of wealth. A free market

will create its own distribution --

which WILL be just in a TOTALLY free

market, each being rewarded for the

exact value of his/her work or labor

how the economy functions, but in-

stead just throw up ones hands and

make no effort to do anything that

will help the economy develop in a

healthy way?

COMMODORE C64 RESET SWITCH

(Editor's Note: The staff has not

been able to try out this How to

article. If you need help or have

questions, please write and we will

forward your correspondence to the

writer.)

Have you often wished that the

be a big nerve saver.

Now the RESET button will break a

basic program while erasing it, but

it will stop most if not all machine

language programs and leave them

intact. With some commercial games

that use total machine code, the

RESET button will actually cause the

game to reset and start from the

beginning! Games such as Juice!, and

Yes, you must crack open your 64

to add this feature. And yes this

will void your warranty. But since

this is my second 64, and my warranty

has been up for quite some time now,

I thought what the heck, you only

live once.

The tools that are needed to in-

stall your RESET button are very

common and can be found in anyone's,

[ ] Wire Snips

[ ] Wire Stripper

[ ] Phillips screwdriver (Medium

size)

[ ] Solder wick (Not necessary. But

Handy!)

[ ] Solder. (64/40 A MUST!)